International Encyclopedia of Civil Society
Helmut K. Anheier, Stefan Toepler, Regina List (Eds).
International Encyclopedia of Civil Society
With 40 Figures and 44 Tables
HELMUT K. ANHEIER University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany Hertie School of Governance Berlin Germany STEFAN TOEPLER George Mason University Arlington, VA USA
Library of Congress Control Number: 2009937022
ISBN: 978-0-387-93994-0 This publication is available also as: Electronic publication under ISBN: 978-0-387-93996-4 and Print and electronic bundle under ISBN: 978-0-387-93997-1 ß Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010 (USA) All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC., 233 Spring Street, New York, NY 10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to proprietary rights. springer.com Printed on acid free paper
SPIN: 12609567 2109SPi– 5 4 3 2 1 0
Preface The purpose of the International Encyclopedia of Civil Society is twofold. First, it is to take intellectual stock and offer an authoritative assessment of knowledge of and for a field of study that has expanded greatly in recent decades. This field, however, does not present itself as a settled or unified body of theories and facts; nor is it easily accessible to experts, students and practitioners. Instead, the field consists of several overlapping substantive areas such as civil society, social capital, philanthropy, voluntarism, civic engagement, etc., and cuts across a range of social science disciplines that include economics, sociology, political science, history, the law, and psychology. The second purpose of the Encyclopedia is to introduce greater conceptual clarity to an increasingly perplexing terminology that has been developing in the field of civil society, philanthropy, nonprofit or nongovernmental organizations, voluntarism, etc. over time. Confusion about the meaning of volunteering, association, civil society, nonprofit organizations, foundations, and charity has handicapped communication and understanding, particularly in inter-disciplinary and international contexts. In the past, the terminological tangles so characteristic of this field may well have mattered less, yet as this set of institutions has achieved greater social, economic and policy relevance, greater clarity now seems more urgent. Indeed, the lack of a multi-disciplinary and international Encyclopedia dedicated to civil society and related topics has long been a major complaint among teachers, students, and researchers in the field, as well as among practitioners and policymakers around the world. The present Encyclopedia was developed with these multiple audiences and uses in mind. Though an unsettled, evolving body of knowledge with a complex, even confusing terminology could be seen as a chronic weakness of a research agenda, curriculum or policy field, we believe that in the case of civil society it is rather a sign of intellectual fertility. In the context of this evolving intellectual field, we have sought to offer an inventory of the conceptual landscape rather than set some standards —however defined— or privilege one definition over another. Nonetheless this meant that we had to come to terms with the diversity and richness of institutions, organizations and behaviors located between the ‘market’ and the ‘state’ — a task complicated by the great profusion of terms. Selecting the entries for this Encyclopedia was a complex process that involved many difficult choices. A basic premise was that given the relative newness of the field, the Encyclopedia should not only cover terms and concepts but also include entries on internationally relevant organizations and personalities in the field of civil society. Another premise was that the Encyclopedia should genuinely be internationally-oriented and provide coverage of concepts, traditions, and institutions from different parts of the world, thereby acknowledging the diversity of the field from a cross-national perspective. The field of civil society studies is a conglomerate of separate intellectual approaches and traditions that are reflected in this Encyclopedia and include: ● the resurgent interest in civil society across the social science and policy fields, particularly since the 1990s; ● the older traditions of civil society from Antiquity through the early 20th century, with several distinct intellectual, national and regional traditions; ● a tradition of philanthropic studies, largely US-based and focused on the role of foundations and philanthropy in American society; ● an emphasis on nonprofit organizations in economics since the 1980s; ● the rich intellectual approaches to voluntary associations, voluntarism and civic engagement in sociology; ● the anthropology and ethnology of voluntary associations and voluntarism; ● the different approaches to social capital in sociology and political science; ● work on altruism and helping behavior in psychology and economics; ● the study of advocacy, new social movements, interest associations and political associations in political science; ● the welfare state literature in political science, sociology and economics; ● the bourgeoning literature on nongovernmental organizations in developmental studies and international relations; ● the study of the social economy and its institutions in Europe and other parts of the world; and, of course, ● the impact of different legal systems (common law and civil law) and traditions.
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Preface
Table 1 Encyclopedia concept with entry samples NONPROFIT AND NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS
SOCIAL CAPITAL
CIVIL SOCIETY
PHILANTHROPY
Substantive entries
Associations, definitions and history Civil society history Civil society theory Civility Civic culture
Foundations, definitions and history Charity Gift, Giving Wakfs Venture Philanthropy
Theories of nonprofit organizations Partnerships Third party government Social investment Social entrepreneurship
Civic participation Reciprocity Social capital, definition Social cohesion Social trust
Organizational profiles
Charta 77 Civicus Transparency International
European Foundation Centre Ford Foundation Tata Trusts
Ashoka BRAC Caritas
Free Masons Boy/Girl Scouts Rochdale Society
Bibliographic entries
De Toqueville, Alexis Ferguson, Adam Dahrendorf, Ralf
Carnegie, Andrew Rowntree, Joseph Soros, George
Dunant, Jean-Henri Yunus, Muhammad
Bourdieu, Pierre Coleman, James Putnam, Robert
In trying to address these different approaches and traditions, we used an approach whereby we developed an initial list of concepts, organizations and personalities to be covered. We did so by specifying four major ‘streams’ that roughly correspond to the intellectual and policy divisions in the field, although much overlap exists among them: civil society, philanthropy, nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, and social capital. In each of these four ‘streams’, policy fields, traditions, and literatures, we identified key concepts, institutions/organizations and personalities. Table 1 offers an illustration of our approach. We submitted an initial list to the International Advisory Committee for comments and, in particular, encouraged each member to suggest additions and modifications. After incorporating further suggestions from entry authors and the field at large and several iterations, we arrived at a list that forms the basis of the Encyclopedia. This Encyclopedia includes 628 entries: 267 conceptual terms, 222 organizations and institutions; and 139 biographies – available both in hard print copy and in electronic format accessible via the Internet. Entries of similar type, e.g., regionally focused entries, civil society history essays, biographical or organizational entries, follow a standardized structure. All entries are arranged in alphabetical order from A to Z, are cross-referenced, and provide suggestions for further readings. They represent original contributions by the corresponding authors; editorial input was for the most part reserved for structural aspects. Of course, in a first edition, any encyclopedia will suffer from omissions and unevenness in the treatment and the quality of entries. We hope that future editions will remedy such shortcomings and build on knowledge we have managed to assemble in the course of this initial intellectual stock-taking. Helmut K. Anheier Stefan Toepler Regina List
Acknowledgements Many people have been involved in the development of the Encyclopedia. Cooperation is in the very nature of the encyclopedia ‘genre’, and it requires the cooperation and goodwill of many. First, we owe deep gratitude to our collaborators at Springer, especially Teresa Krauss, who in the best of editorial traditions approached us to take on this task in the first place. We are also grateful to Michaela Bilic and Jennifer Carlson, as well as their assistants Katherine Chabalko, Susan Bednarczyk and Saskia Ellis, who all kept us going throughout this process and were always there to give a helping hand. Their patience in guiding us through numerous international conference calls made the difference between feelings of progress rather than frustration. We are also grateful to the members of the International Advisory Committee, listed on a separate page, who lent their expertise and not only advised us on the content of the Encyclopedia, but also recommended suitable authors and, in many cases, contributed entries. In particular, Myles McGregor-Lowndes, Ju¨rgen Kocka, Craig Calhoun, Marlies Glasius, Dave Brown, Susan Pharr, Alnoor Ebrahim, Hagai Katz, and Eva Kuti stand out, and their contributions are well beyond what we could have reasonably expected. They are outstanding exemplars of the kind of scholars one hopes to have involved in projects like this one. Special thanks are also due to Ebenezer Obadare (University of Kansas) and Samiul Hasan (United Arab Emirates University), who offered advice regarding their areas of regional expertise, and to David Horton Smith for his wise advice. At the University of Heidelberg and George Mason University, we thank our research assistants, Anael Labigne, Martin Ho¨lz, Francisco Martinez, Filip Zielinski, and Jan Sacharko, who conducted background research, especially for many of the biographical and organizational entries. Of course, we could not have done this without the contributions of nearly 400 authors, among them scholars and practitioners – both renowned and up-and-coming – from every major world region, who prepared their entries – in many cases more than one – on a voluntary basis. We are especially grateful to those who came in at the last minute to fill in on those occasions where the originally assigned authors had to drop out.
About the Editors-in-Chief
Helmut K. Anheier (Ph.D. Yale University, 1986) is Professor of Sociology, Heidelberg University, and Academic Director of the Center for Social Investment and Professor of Sociology. From 2001 to 2009 he was Professor of Public Policy and Social Welfare at UCLA, and Centennial Professor at the London School of Economics. He founded and directed the Centre for Civil Society at LSE (1998–2002), the Center for Civil Society at UCLA (2001–2009), and the Center for Globalization and Policy Research (2004–2009), also at UCLA. Prior to this he was a Senior Research Associate and Project Co-director at the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies, and Associate Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University. Before embarking on an academic career, Dr. Anheier served as Social Affairs Officer to the United Nations. Dr. Anheier’s work has focused on civil society, the nonprofit sector, philanthropy, organizational studies, policy analysis and comparative methodology. He is author of over 300 publications, including over thirty authored and edited books. He has won several national and international awards, including the 2006 PNP Best Book Award of the American Academy of Management. He is currently researching the role of philanthropy internationally, and interested in methodological questions at the intersection of globalization, civil society, and culture. Dr. Anheier serves on the board of several scholarly and philanthropic organizations.
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About the Editors-in-Chief
Stefan Toepler (Dr. rer.pol., Free University of Berlin, 1995) is Associate Professor of Nonprofit Studies in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University in Virginia, USA. Prior to joining George Mason in 2002, he was on the faculty of the Institute of Policy Studies at Johns Hopkins University, where he coordinated, inter alia, the legal, Central European and Middle Eastern components of the Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. Dr. Toepler was a doctoral fellow of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft at the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies at the Free University of Berlin from 1992 to 1995, a Philanthropy Fellow at Johns Hopkins in 1993/94; and a Fellow in Museum Practice at the Smithsonian Institution in 2004. Dr. Toepler’s research interests range from the study of philanthropic foundations and nonprofit management and policy more generally to arts policy and cultural economics. With over 70 publications in both English and German, his work has appeared in such journals as Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Nonprofit Management & Leadership, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, Administration & Society, the International Journal of Public Sector Management, the International Journal of Public Administration, the Journal of Cultural Economics, and VoluntasInternational Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations. He is the contributing co-editor of Private Funds, Public Purpose: Philanthropic Foundations in International Perspective (New York: Kluwer/Plenum, 1999); Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, 1999)—winner of Independent Sector’s 2001 Virginia Hodgkinson Research Prize; and The Legitimacy of Philanthropic Foundations: US and European Perspectives (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2006).
About the Editors-in-Chief
About the Managing Editor
Regina A. List is an independent editor, researcher and writer living in Hamburg, Germany. She is also Managing Editor of the Journal of Civil Society. Previously, she served as Research Projects Manager at the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies and Co-Ordinator for Developing Countries for the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, as well as overall Project Manager. She is co-editor with Helmut K. Anheier of A Dictionary of Civil Society, Philanthropy and the Non-Profit Sector, and co-author of Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector, Volume One, and Cross-border Philanthropy, among other works. After completing an M.A. in International Development at the American University (Washington, DC), she served as Program Co-ordinator and Executive Director of the Esquel Group Foundation.
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International Advisory Committee Martin Albrow London School of Economics and Political Science London UK
Joseph Chan University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China
Daniele Archibugi Italian National Research Council Rome Italy University of London Birkbeck UK
Neera Chandhoke University of Delhi Delhi India
Avner Ben-Ner University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN USA Gabriel Berger Universidad de San Andres Buenos Aires Argentina Patrick Bond University of KwaZulu-Natal Durban South Africa Elizabeth Boris Urban Institute Washington, D.C. USA L. David Brown Harvard University Cambridge, MA USA Craig Calhoun New York University New York, NY USA
Ramesh C. Datta Tata Institute of Social Sciences Mumbai India Paul Dekker Tilburg University Tilburg The Netherlands Alnoor Ebrahim Harvard Business School Boston, MA USA Heba Raouf Ezzat Cairo University Cairo Egypt Mamadou Gaye Groupe Institut Africain de Management Senegal Africa Giuliana Gemelli Universita di Bologna Bologna Italy
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International Advisory Committee
Marlies Glasius University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands Xavier Greffe University of Paris Paris France Steven Heydemann United States Institute of Peace Washington, DC USA Mary Kaldor London School of Economics and Political Science London UK Hagai Katz Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Be’er Sheva Israel Ju¨rgen Kocka Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Berlin Germany Eva Kuti Budapest College of Management Budapest Hungary
Francis Nyamnjoh Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Dakar Senegal Tae-Kyu Park Yonsei University Seoul South Korea Vı´ctor Pe´rez-Dı´az Analistas Socio-Politicos (ASP) Madrid Spain Susan Pharr Harvard University Cambridge, MA USA Jan Aart Scholte University of Warwick Coventry UK London School of Economics London UK Hakan Seckinelgin London School of Economics and Political Science London UK
Myles McGregor-Lowndes Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, QLD Australia
Steven Rathgeb Smith University of Washington Seattle, WA USA
Henrietta Moore London School of Economics and Political Science London UK
Volker Then University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
Alejandro Natal El Colegio Mexiquense Toluca Mexico
Michel Wieviorka Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales Paris France
International Advisory Committee
Filip Wijkstro¨m Stockholm School of Economics Stockholm Sweden
Dennis R. Young Georgia State University Atlanta, GA USA
Naoto Yamauchi Osaka University Osaka Japan
Annette Zimmer University of Mu¨nster Mu¨nster Germany
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List of Contributors FRANK ADLOFF Free University of Berlin Berlin Germany
MORRIS ALTMAN Victoria University of Wellington Wellington New Zealand
DIETER AHLERT Westphalian Wilhelms-University Mu¨nster Germany
GABRIEL AMITSIS Institute of Social Innovation Athens Greece
MAHTAB AHMAD Asian Institute of Technology Pathumthani Thailand MOKBUL MORSHED AHMAD Asian Institute of Technology Pathumthani Thailand SALVATORE ALAIMO School of Public and Environmental Affairs Decatur, GA USA MICHAEL ALBERG-SEBERICH Forum for Active Philanthropy Berlin Germany OLGA ALEXEEVA Charities Aid Foundation London UK
CHARLOTTE ANHEIER Pitzer College Sherman Oaks, CA USA HELMUT K. ANHEIER University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany Hertie School of Governance Berlin Germany EDITH ARCHAMBAULT University of Paris Paris France ZEYNEP ATALAY University of Maryland College Park, MD USA
SAIF ABD AL-FATTAH Cairo University Giza Egypt
JAMES E. AUSTIN Harvard Business School Boston, MA USA
ANNE ALSTOTT Harvard Law School Cambridge, MA USA
GERALD AUTEN US Department of the Treasury Washington, DC USA
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List of Contributors
HOLGER BACKHAUS-MAUL The Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg Halle (Saale) Germany
MICHAEL BISESI Seattle University Seattle, WA USA
HARRY BAUER International Relations London UK
FLORIAN BLAESS Centre for Social Investment Heidelberg Germany
ARND BAUERKA¨MPER Free University of Berlin Berlin Germany
HANS BLOMKVIST Uppsala University Uppsala Sweden
LEHN M. BENJAMIN George Mason University Fairfax, VA USA
INGO BODE Universitaet Wuppertal Wuppertal Germany
GABRIEL BERGER Universidad de San Andres Buenos Aires Argentina
CLAUDIA BODE-HARLASS Woergl Austria
P. ISHWARA BHAT University of Mysore Mysore India SHAHJAHAN BHUIYAN Kazakhstan Institute of Management, Economics and Strategic Research (KIMEP) Almaty Kazakhstan ERIC BIDET University of Maine LeMans France
THOMAS P. BOJE Roskilde University Roskilde Denmark JESSE O. BOLLINGER Regis University Independence, MO USA PATRICK BOND Kwa-Zulu Natal School of Development Studies Durban South Africa
CHRISTOPHER S. BIGGERS Asheboro, NC USA
ELIZABETH T. BORIS The Urban Institute Washington, DC USA
ANAEL BIGNE University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
THOMASINA BORKMAN George Mason University Fairfax, VA USA
List of Contributors
A. JOSEPH BORRELL Shippensburg University Shippensburg, PA USA
JENNIFER M. BRINKERHOFF George Washington University Washington, DC USA
ODILE BOUR Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches Internationales Berlin Berlin Germany
ASPEN BRINTON Northwestern University Evanston, IL USA
MATT BOWDEN Dublin Institute of Technology Dublin Ireland
EVELYN BRODY Illinois Institute of Technology Chicago, IL USA
WOODS BOWMAN DePaul University Chicago, IL USA
L. DAVID BROWN Harvard University Cambridge, MA USA
LORI A. BRAINARD George Washington University Washington, DC USA TACO BRANDSEN Radboud University Nijmegen Nijmegen The Netherlands KAI BRAUER Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Berlin Germany BETH BREEZE University of Kent at Canterbury Kent UK
JEFFREY L. BRUDNEY Cleveland State University Cleveland, OH USA FREYA BRUNE University of Mu¨nster Mu¨nster Germany JANA BRUNKE University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany RONELLE BURGER Stellenbosch University Stellenbosch South Africa
ELEANOR BRILLIANT Rutgers University Scarsdale, NY USA
JAN R. BUSSE Eschede Germany
DERICK BRINKERHOFF George Washington University Washington, DC USA
JORGE CADENA-ROA Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico Mexico City Mexico
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SABINE CAMPE Free University of Berlin Berlin Germany
CARLOS CORDOURIER REAL Centro Mexicano para la Filantropia Mexico City Mexico
RAQUEL CAMPOS FRANCO Universidade Catolica Portuguesa Porto Portugal
SUE CRAWFORD Creighton University Omaha, NE USA
ELAINE CHAN The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China
MARIANO CROCE Sapienza - Universita di Roma Rome Italy
JOSEPH CHAN The University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China
RUTH CROCKER Auburn University Auburn, AL USA
KIN-MAN CHAN The Chinese University of Hong Kong Hong Kong China
HANS-CHRISTIAN CRUEGER Universitaet Bonn Bonn Germany
OLIVIER CHAVAREN George Mason University Paris France
LAWRENCE S. CUMMING International Development and Civil Society Ottawa, ON Canada
MARTHA CHEN Harvard University Cambridge, MA USA
KLA´RA CZIKE National Volunteer Centre of Hungary Budapest Hungary
JOHN D. CLARK World Bank (retired) Washington, DC USA
ROD DACOMBE King’s College London London UK
RAM CNAAN University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, PA USA
TIMOTHY R. DAHLSTROM Arizona State University Litchfield Park, AZ USA
STEPHEN COMMINS UCLA Los Angeles, CA USA
ROBERT DALZIEL University of Birmingham Birmingham UK
List of Contributors
ASHOK DAS San Francisco State University San Francisco, CA USA
MA OLIVA Z. DOMINGO University of the Philippines Quezon City Philippines
THOMAS DAVIES City University London London UK
YASHAVANTHA DONGRE University of Mysore Mysore India
ANDREA DE JONGE Van Andel Institute Grand Rapids, MI USA
FREDA DONOGHUE Trinity College Dublin Ireland
CAROL J. DE VITA The Urban Institute Washington, DC USA
HEATHER DOUGLAS Kenmore, QLD Australia
PAUL DEKKER The Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) The Hague The Netherlands GLORIA S. H. DENOON New York University Manhattan, NY USA
GEORGETTE DUMONT Northern Illinois University South Bend, IN USA HAI VAN DUONG DINH Westphalian Wilhelms-University Mu¨nster Germany
REBECCA DIBB Centre for Development Services Cairo Egypt
ALEXIA DUTEN University of Mu¨nster Mu¨nster Germany
EVA DIDION Universitaet Bamberg Bamberg Germany
BERNHARD EBBINGHAUS Fakultat fur Sozialwissenschaften Mannheim Germany
DIANA DIGOL Centre for OSCE Research (CORE) Hamburg Germany
ALNOOR EBRAHIM Harvard University Cambridge, MA USA
ROUMEN DIMITROV University of Western Sydney Penrith South DC, NSW Australia
STEVE VAN ECK Meyer Memorial Trust Portland, OR USA
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MARC EDELMAN City University of New York New York, NY USA
ANTHONY J. FILIPOVITCH Minnesota State University Mankato, MN USA
ANGELA M. EIKENBERRY University of Nebraska at Omaha Omaha, NE USA
ALAN FOWLER University of KwaZulu Natal Herbetsdale South Africa
JENNY ELMACO University of Mu¨nster Mu¨nster Germany
JONATHAN FOX University of California Santa Cruz, CA USA
JED EMERSON Uhuru Capital Management New York, NY USA
MARIA RAQUEL FREIRE University of Coimbra Coimbra Portugal
ANJA ERBEL London UK
MATTHEW FREISE University of Mu¨nster Mu¨nster Germany
AMITAI ETZIONI George Washington University Washington, DC USA
BRYAN T. FROEHLE School of Theology and Ministry Miami Gardens, FL USA
MARTIN FARRELL get2thepoint Kingston UK
BRENDA GAINER York University Toronto, ON Canada
LEWIS FAULK Georgia State University Atlanta, GA USA
ANJULA GARG European Commission ISPRA (VA) Italy
CARINNE FAVEERE Boston College Bradenton, FL USA
GIULIANA GEMELLI Universita di Bologna Bologna Italy
SUSAN K. FEIGENBAUM University of Missouri-St. Louis St. Louis, MO USA
BENJAMIN GIDRON Ben Gurion University Beer Sheva Israel
List of Contributors
LEAH GILBERT Georgetown University Washington, DC USA
SUZANNE GRANT University of Waikato Hamilton New Zealand
GUNNAR GLAENZEL University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
CHRISTOPHER L. GRIFFIN Yale Law School New Haven, CT USA
MARLIES GLASIUS London School of Economics & Political Science London UK University of Amsterdam Amsterdam The Netherlands TED G. GOERTZEL Rutgers University Camden, NJ USA CHRISTOPH GOLBECK University of Mu¨nster Mu¨nster Germany SHANTHI GOPALAN University of Mysore Mysore India DIETER GOSEWINKEL Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Germany
ANTJE GRONEBERG University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany DIRK GROWE LandsAid e.V. Kaufering Germany NORBERT GO¨TZ University of Helsinki Helsinki Finland MARY KAY GUGERTY University of Washington Seattle, WA USA MARK A. HAGER Arizona State University Phoenix, AZ USA SHARILYN HALE YWCA Toronto Toronto, ON Canada
MICHAEL GOUSMETT University of Canterbury Christchurch New Zealand
MICHAEL HALL Imagine Canada Toronto, ON Canada
CHRIS GOVEKAR First Cause Beaverton, OR USA
PETER DOBKIN HALL Harvard University Cambridge, MA USA
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LOEK HALMAN Tilburg University LE Tilburg The Netherlands
BERND HELMIG University of Mannheim Mannheim Germany
MARK HAMILTON Ellicot City, MD USA
LEIGH HERSEY Arizona State University Scottsdale, AZ USA
TULLIA HAMILTON Washington University Missouri St. Louis, MO USA DAVID C. HAMMACK Case Western Reserve University Cleveland, OH USA SARAH HARDS York UK JENNY HARROW City University London London UK SAMIUL HASAN United Arab Emirates University Al Ain United Arab Emirates
LISA HILL University of Adelaide Adelaide, SA Australia RICHARD HOLLOWAY Aga Khan Foundation Geneva Switzerland MARTIN HO¨LZ University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany MARTIN HOLZBERG Westphalian Wilhelms-University Mu¨nster Germany
THORSTEN HASCHE Goettingen Graduate School of Social Sciences Goettingen Germany
DAVID B. HOWARD UCLA Center for Civil Society Los Angeles, CA USA University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
MUHAMMAD EEQBAL FAROUQUE HASSIM University of Melbourne Melbourne, VIC Australia
MARC MORJE HOWARD Georgetown University Washington, DC USA
VOLKHART F. HEINRICH Transparency International Melville South Africa
JANE HUDSON University of the West of England Bristol UK
List of Contributors
CHANG-SOON HWANG Soonchunhyang University Asan Korea
DAVID JOULFAIAN US Department of the Treasury Washington, DC USA
BARBARA LETHEM IBRAHIM American University in Cairo Cairo Egypt
MARK JUERGENSMEYER University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA USA
LEON E. IRISH International Center for Civil Society Law Crownsville, MD USA
RU¨DIGER H. JUNG University of Applied Sciences Remagen Germany
RENE´E A. IRVIN University of Oregon Eugene, OR USA
CHRISTOPHER KAAN Free University of Berlin Berlin Germany
YUDHISHTHIR RAJ ISAR The American University of Paris Paris France
PAULA KABALO Ben Gurion University Sede Boker Israel
ARMINE ISHKANIAN London School of Economics London UK
PANU KALMI Helsinki School of Economics Helsinki Finland
SARAH JASTRAM University of Hamburg Hamburg Germany
CHRISTOPHER KANN Free University of Berlin Berlin Germany
JANE JENSON Universite´ de Montreal Montreal, QB Canada
KARUTI KANYINGA University of Nairobi Nairobi Kenya
DEREK C. JONES Hamilton College Clinton, NY USA
HAGAI KATZ Ben Gurion University Beer Sheva Israel
NICOLA JONES Overseas Development Institute London UK
JOHN KEANE The University of Westminster London UK
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KONSTANTIN KEHL University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
SEBASTIAN KOOS Fakultat fur Sozialwissenschaften Mannheim Germany
ANDRAS KELEN Budapest College of Management Budapest Hungary
DENISA KOSTOVICOVA London School of Economics and Political Science London UK
JANELLE A. KERLIN Georgia State University Atlanta, GA USA
PATSY KRAEGER Arizona State University Phoenix, AZ USA
ANSGAR KLEIN Bundesnetzwerk Buergerschaftliches Engagement Berlin Germany
KRISTIAN KRIEGER King’s College London London UK
THOMAS KLIE Zentrum fuer zivilgesellschaftliche Entwicklung Freiburg Germany
BENEDIKT KROLLPFEIFER Braunschweig Neustadtring Germany
DAVID KNOKE University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN USA
JAN KUENZL Caucasian Review of International Affairs Berlin Germany
JU¨RGEN KOCKA Social Science Research Center Berlin Germany
BERTHOLD KUHN Free University of Berlin Bonn Germany
BEATE KOHLER-KOCH Mannheimer Zentrum fur Europaische Sozialforschung Mannheim Germany
STEIN KUHNLE Hertie School of Governance Berlin Germany
ANDREAS KOLLER Social Science Research Council New York, NY USA
PRADEEP KUMAR Jawaharlal Nehru University New Delhi India
AAFKE KOMTER University College Utrecht Utrecht The Netherlands
SARABAJAYA KUMAR University of Oxford Oxford UK
List of Contributors
SUNIL KUMAR London School of Economics and Political Science London UK
JEFFREY LEITER North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC USA
SHYAMA KURUVILLA Boston University School of Public Health Boston, MA USA
ELIZABETH LEVI The New School Montclair, NJ USA
E´VA KUTI Budapest School of Management Budapest Hungary
DAVID L LEWIS London School of Economics and Political Science London UK
ANAEL LABIGNE University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
ANTONIUS LIEDHEGENER University of Lucerne Lucerne Switzerland
DIRK LANGE University of Oldenburg Oldenburg Germany
GABRIELE LINGELBACH Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg Freiburg Germany
KEVIN LASKOWSKI National Center for Family Philanthropy Washington, DC USA
REGINA LIST University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
JEAN-LOUIS LAVILLE Cnam University Paris France
ANDREA LIVERANI London School of Economics London UK
MICHAEL D. LAYTON Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico Mexico City Mexico
ROGER A. LOHMANN West Virginia University Morgantown, WV USA
DIANA LEAT The City University London UK
PAULA DUARTE LOPES University of Coimbra Coimbra Portugal
SANG-EUN LEE Arizona University Phoenix, AZ USA
SUSAN LORD University of New Hampshire Durham, NH USA
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JIM LOTZ Halifax, NS Canada MARK LYONS University of Technology Sydney, NSW Australia CHARLES MACLEAN PhilanthropyNow Portland, OR USA IAN MACPHERSON University of Victoria Victoria, BC Canada KYM MADDEN Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, QLD Australia CARMEN MALENA CIVICUS Participatory Governance Program Stoneham, QC Canada
KERSTIN MARTENS University of Bremen Bremen Germany FRANCISCO MARTINEZ University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany JOHANNES MARX Universitaet Mainz Mainz Germany THORNTON MATHESON US Department of the Treasury Chevy Chase, MD USA MYLES MCGREGOR-LOWNDES Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, QLD Australia PAUL-BRIAN MCINERNEY University of Illinois at Chicago Chicago, IL USA
SINISˇA MALESˇEVIC´ National University of Ireland Galway Ireland
MICHAEL MCQUARRIE University of California-Davis Davis, CA USA
VESNA MALESˇEVIC´ National University of Ireland Galway Ireland
HERIBERT MEFFERT Westphalian Wilhelms-University Mu¨nster Germany
MIKLOS MARSCHALL Transparency International Berlin Germany
LUCAS MEIJS Erasmus University Rotterdam The Netherlands
HANNAH MARSDEN Overseas Development Institute London UK
ROSE MELVILLE University of Queensland Brisbane, QLD Australia
List of Contributors
BARBARA A. METELSKY Cary, NC USA MEGAN MEYER University of Maryland Baltimore, MD USA MICHAEL MEYER Vienna University of Economics and Business Vienna Austria TIMO MEYNHARDT University of St. Gallen St. Gallen Switzerland SILKE MICHALSKI University of Mannheim Mannheim Germany MARCO ANTONIO FIGUEIREDO MILANI FILHO Mackenzie Presbyterian University Sao Paulo Brazil CARL MILOFSKY Bucknell University Lewisburg, PA USA RANJITA MOHANTY Society for Participatory Research in Asia New Delhi India GA´BOR MOLNA´R University of Kaposvar Kaposvar Hungary COR VAN MONTFORT The Netherlands and Court of Audit Public-Private Sector The Hague The Netherlands
LAURIE MOOK OISE/University of Toronto Toronto, ON Canada JESSICA MOORE North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC USA EVA MORE-HOLLERWEGER Vienna University of Economics and Business Vienna Austria GARETH G. MORGAN Sheffield Hallam University Sheffield UK GIOVANNI MORO FONDACA Rome Italy BHEKINKOSI MOYO TrustAfrica Dakar-Fann Senegal CAMILLO VON MUELLER University of St. Gallen Hamburg Germany MAITRAYEE MUKERJI Institute of Rural Management Gujarat India DHRUBODHI MUKHERJEE Southern Illinois University Carbondale Carbondale, IL USA ALEX MURDOCK London South Bank University London UK
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MARTTI MUUKKONEN University of Eastern Finland Joensuu Finland
TAMAKI ONISHI Indiana University Indianapolis, IN USA
STEFAN NA¨HRLICH Aktive Burgerschaft Berlin Germany
CLAUDIA OPITZ-BELAKHAL University of Basel Basel Switzerland
ALEJANDRO NATAL El Colegio Mexiquense Toluca Mexico CAMERON NEWTON Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, QLD Australia DOROTHY NORRIS-TIRRELL University of Memphis Memphis, TN USA GARTH NOWLAND-FOREMAN Unitec New Zealand Auckland New Zealand MICHAŁ NOWOSIELSKI Institute for Western Affairs Poznan Poland EBENEZER OBADARE University of Kansas Lawrence, KS USA
WIM VAN OPSTAL HIVA – Catholic University of Leuven Leuven Belgium PAURIC O’ROURKE Limerick Institute of Technology Limerick Ireland ANDREAS ORTMANN University of New South Wales Sydney, NSW Australia CERGE-EI Prague Czech Republic SUSAN A. OSTRANDER Tufts University Medford, MA USA MIRJAN OUDE VRIELINK Tilburg School of Politics and Public Administration Tilburg The Netherlands
KERRY O’HALLORAN Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, QLD Australia
TRUDY OWENS School of Economics Nottingham UK
JULIUS OMONA Makerere University Kampala Uganda
RAUL PACHECO-VEGA University of British Columbia Vancouver, BC Canada
List of Contributors
SANG PEEL PARK Sungkonghoe University Seoul Korea
JENNIFER PREECE University of Maryland College Park, MD USA
TAE-KYU PARK Yonsei University College of Business and Economics Seoul Korea
CRISTINA PUGA National Autonomous University of Mexico Mexico City Mexico
ANNE BIRGITTA PESSI University of Helsinki Helsinki Finland
JACK QUARTER OISE/University of Toronto Toronto, ON Canada
BRHLIKOVA PETRA University of Edinburgh Edinburgh Scotland
ARVIND RAJAGOPAL New York University New York, NY USA
STEVE PFAFF University of Washington Seattle, WA USA
SUSHMA RAMAN Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights Los Angeles, CA USA
CATHERINA PHAROAH Cass Business School London UK
SARA GORDON RAPPOPORT Circuito Mario de la Cueva s/n Ciudad Universitaria Mexico City Mexico
EMMA PLAYFAIR Ford Foundation London UK
ALLYSON REAVES ArC International Consultants Hilton Head Island, SC USA
TYMEN VAN DER PLOEG VU-University Amsterdam The Netherlands
RAQUEL REGO SOCIUS-ISEG Lisbon Portugal
MIROSLAV POSPI´SˇIL Center for Nonprofit Research Brno Czech Republic
FLORIAN REHLI University of St. Gallen Holzweid Switzerland
FRED POWELL National University of Ireland-Cork Cork Ireland
CHRISTOPH REICHARD Universitaet Potsdam Potsdam Germany
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DAVID O. RENZ University of Missouri-Kansas City Kansas City, MO USA TRAVIS REYNOLDS University of Washington Seattle, WA USA ANDREW RICH City College of New York New York, NY USA JONATHAN ROBERTS London School of Economics and Political Science London UK ROBBIE WATERS ROBICHAU Arizona State University Phoenix, AZ USA JEANETTE ROHR University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany MARIO ROITTER Center for the Study of State and Society Buenos Aires Argentina LISIUNIA ROMANIENKO Wroclaw University Wroclaw Poland
SAM ROYSTON York UK DIETER RUCHT Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Berlin Germany KATE RUFF Gloucester, MA USA ALAA SABER Near East Foundation Cairo Egypt JOHN SACCO George Mason University Fairfax, VA USA JAN SACHARKO George Mason University Arlington, VA USA ELEANOR W. SACKS Indiana University Cambridge UK REBECCA SAGER Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts Los Angeles, CA USA
DAMIEN ROUSSELIERE Universite Pierre Mendes France Grenoble II Grenoble France
LESTER M. SALAMON The John Hopkins University Baltimore, MD USA
SAMIRA ROUSSELIERE ENITIAA Nantes France
ANNE SANDER Hertie School of Governance Berlin Germany
List of Contributors
ANNA VAN SANTEN Hertie School of Governance Berlin Germany
ANDREAS SCHRO¨ER Portland State University Portland, OR USA
CURTIS SARLES New York University New York, NY USA
ANDREA SCHUESSLER Berlin Germany
WENDY SCAIFE Queensland University of Technology Brisbane, QLD Australia
CHRISTINA SCHWABENLAND London Metropolitan University London UK
JANINE SCHALL-EMDEN Beyond Development Consulting and Research Bolonga Italy
HAKAN SECKINELGIN London School of Economics London UK
EVELYNE SCHMID Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies Geneva Switzerland
KLODJAN SEFERAJ Albarian Socio Economic Think-Tank (ASET) Tirana Albania
JU¨RGEN SCHMIDT Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Berlin Germany SABINA SCHNELL The George Washington University Washington, DC USA GEORG VON SCHNURBEIN Universitaet Basel Basel Switzerland
SABINE SELCHOW London School of Economics London UK PER SELLE University of Bergen Bergen Norway ANIL SETHI European Commission ISPRA (VA) Italy
DOMINIK SCHOLZ Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin Berlin Germany
GORDON SHOCKLEY Arizona State University Phoenix, AZ USA
ALICIA SCHORTGEN University of Texas at Dallas Richardson, TX USA
FEDERICO SILVA CIVICUS Johannesburg South Africa
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KARLA SIMON Catholic University of America Washington, DC USA
NORMAN SPENGLER University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
DEBORAH SIMPSON University of New Brunswick Saint John, NB Canada
KATHARINA SPRAUL University of Mannheim Mannheim Germany
KARUN K. SINGH City University of New York New York, NY USA
HARI SRINIVAS Global Development Research Center Kobe Japan
KARL HENRIK SIVESIND Institute for Social Research Oslo Norway
SIMON STACEY University of Maryland Baltimore, MD USA
SIMONA SˇKARABELOVA´ Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic MARGARET F. SLOAN University of Kentucky Olive Hill, KY USA DAVID HORTON SMITH Boston College Bradenton, FL USA STEVEN RATHGEB SMITH The University of Washington Seattle, WA USA
DARWIN STAPLETON Rockefeller Archive Center Ossining, NY USA MAX STEPHENSON School of Public and International Affairs Blacksburg, VA USA RUPERT GRAF STRACHWITZ Humboldt University Berlin Germany MARTY SULEK Indiana University Center on Philanthropy Farmland, IN USA
ROGER SPEAR The Open University Walton Hall UK
BALAZS SZABO Budapest Hungary
BASTIAN SPECHT University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany
RAJESH TANDON ORI New Delhi India
List of Contributors
MARILYN TAYLOR University of the West of England Bristol UK
MATTHEW TURNOUR Neumann & Turnour Lawyers Brisbane, QLD Australia
NUNO S. THEMUDO University of Pittsburgh Pittsburgh, PA USA
KATRIN UBA Uppsala University Sweden
VOLKER THEN University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany EKKEHARD THUEMLER University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany HELEN STONE TICE Johns Hopkins University Baltimore, MD USA STEFAN TOEPLER George Mason University Arlington, VA USA
SARAH VALDEZ University of Washington Seattle, WA USA MARTA VARANDA SOCIUS-ISEG Lisbon Portugal SUSAN VERDUCCI San Jose State University San Jose, CA USA ALFRED VERNIS Ramon Llull University Barcelona Spain
ANA TOLEDO CHAVARRI Madrid Spain
BRAM VERSCHUERE University College Ghent and Ghent University Ghent Belgium
KIMAIRIS TOOGOOD-LUEHRS George Mason University Arlington, VA USA
MARCIA SERRA RIBEIRO VIANA Mackenzie Presbyterian University Cotia, Sao Paolo Brazil
YUTAKA TSUJINAKA University of Tsukuba Ibaraki Japan
PETER WALKENHORST Bertelsmann Stiftung Guterslon Germany
HOWARD P. TUCKMAN Fordham University New York, NY USA
LILI WANG School of Community Resources and Development Phoenix, AZ USA
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MARGARETHA WARNICKE Arizona State University Phoenix, AZ USA
TAKAYUKI YOSHIOKA Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Indianpolis, IN USA
RICHARD D. WATERS North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC USA
DENNIS R. YOUNG Georgia State University Atlanta, GA USA
MEREDITH WEISS University at Albany Albany, NY USA LEVI A. WHITE George Mason University Fairfax, VA USA SHANNON ADAIR WILLIAMS University of California-Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, CA USA SEIBEL WOLFGANG University of Konstanz Konstanz Germany SCHIRIN YACHKASCHI Cape Town South Africa NAOTO YAMAUCHI Osaka University Osaka Japan YAEL YISHAI University of Haifa Haifa Israel
FEISAL A. YUNIS Cairo University Giza Egypt DALIA YUSUF Media International Giza Egypt XI ZHU University of Minnesota Minneapolis, MN USA FILIP ZIELINSKI University of Heidelberg Heidelberg Germany ANNETTE ZIMMER Westphalian Wilhelms-University Mu¨nster Germany MELANI E. ZIMMER Peace Research Institute Frankfurt Germany
A AARP ANDREA DEJONGE
Address of Organization 601 E Street NW Washington, DC 20049 USA www.aarp.org
Introduction Originally known as the American Association of Retired Persons, AARP is an enormous association dedicated to enhancing the quality of life of the aging population. The motto of its constituents is ‘‘To Serve, and Not Be Served.’’ Membership is restricted to persons over fifty, and at the time of this writing AARP claims to have over 40 million US members. AARP and its related organizations provide services, advocacy, and education for its members. It actively lobbies for health-related issues such as Medicare and prescription drug coverage, as well as Social Security.
Brief History In 1947, Dr. Ethel Percy Andrus, a retired high school principle, founded the National Retired Teachers Association (NRTA) when she discovered that private health insurance was not available to retired educators. Ten years later, after success in finding health resources and programs for the NRTA, Dr. Andrus expanded her mission to all aging Americans and founded the American Association of Retired Persons (in 1999 this name was shortened to only ‘‘AARP’’), subsuming NRTA within the structure of the AARP. With public policy changes over the years such as Medicare for the elderly (1965), AARP has expanded its programs to actively promote the wellbeing of older Americans through a variety of measures, including advocacy, education, and service.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Although the original focus of AARP was providing to health care to older Americans, with a lesser focus on
other aspects of aging, successes in elderly access to health care have expanded AARP’s mission to include other issues, including enhancing the quality of life by increasing independence and encouraging community service by older Americans, and advocacy/lobbying efforts on local, state, and federal levels regarding public policy. Currently, AARP ‘‘is dedicated to enhancing quality of life for all as we age. We lead positive social change and deliver value to members through information, advocacy and service.’’
Activities AARP runs the gamut for services and membership benefits. Members (who no longer must be retired) are entitled to various benefits including travel discounts and home insurance discounts. AARP’s for-profit subsidiary, AARP Financial, Inc., provides services such as life insurance, and AARP’s web site, AARP.org, provides a wealth of information in every field, including leisure, money, and health. Besides AARP’s various member benefits and services (too numerous to list in this article), AARP also leads a powerful lobbying group in Washington, D.C., actively lobbying on issues relating to public policy as it affects the aging population of the US.
Structure and Governance AARP is a nonprofit 501(c) (4) membership organization with for-profit subsidiaries, including AARP Services, Inc., (offers benefits and services to AARP’s members) and AARP Financial Inc., (manages AARP-endorsed financial products). The AARP Foundation is AARP’s affiliated charity. AARP has a national office in Washington, D.C., as well as offices in all 50 states. There are also offices in the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. AARP is governed by a Board of Directors (23 members) to oversee all policies and programs, and an Executive Team, which has members dedicated to specific leadership roles within AARP.
Funding Major funding sources for AARP (as reported in its 2007 financial report) include (from highest revenue to lowest), royalties (AARP makes insurance programs available to its
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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members through various insurance agencies and retains a portion of those premiums collected, which are reported as royalties on its intellectual property), membership dues, publications and advertising, investment income, grants (both federal agencies and private organizations), contributions, program income, and other income.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions With revenues of over $1 billion per year, AARP is one of the most powerful nonprofit lobbying organizations in the United States. Its lobbying efforts have most impacted the health care public policy debates, and it was instrumental in lobbying Congress to pass the law creating Medicare Part D in 2003, which is a federal insurance program to subsidize prescription drug costs for Medicare recipients. AARP also conducts a wide variety of research, including polling and surveys, on various topics of elderly care issues relating to the over-50 population.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Civil Society and the Elderly ▶ Lobbying ▶ Membership and Membership Associations
References/Further Readings Morris, C. R. (1996). The AARP: America’s most powerful lobby and the clash of generations. New York, Time Books. Litwak, E., & Butler, R. N. (1985). Helping the elderly: The complementary roles of informal networks and formal systems. New York: Guilford. Peterson, P. G. (1996). Will America grow up before it grows old? How the coming social security crisis threatens you, your family, and your country. New York: Random House.
Abbe, Ernst CHRISTOPH GOLBECK
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1840 in Eisenach, Thuringia (Germany) to a rather poor working-class family, Ernst Abbe went on to become an award-winning physicist, professor at the University of Jena, successful businessman, and a generous philanthropist to his employees and his adopted home town of Jena. Abbe owed his superb educational biography to his
outstanding intellect but also to a couple of benefactors who repeatedly helped him financing his studies. After he received his habilitation from Jena University, he joined the company of Carl Zeiss, an optician, and became an associate of the Carl Zeiss stock corporation in 1875, which by then was one of Germany’s most important companies. The same year Abbe started the company’s health insurance scheme, what would over the upcoming decades become one of the most generous corporate benefit schemes of its time. In 1889 he established the Carl Zeiss Foundation in order to ensure the sustainability of his social inventions. He died in 1905 in Jena.
Major Contributions Already a professor at the University of Jena, Abbe was engaged by Carl Zeiss to improve the manufacturing process of optical instruments. He designed the first refractometer, invented the today so-called ‘‘Abbe condenser’’ and described important details of the mathematical foundation of microscope design. But even if he was a great scientist, Abbe is probably best known for his innovations in the field of social and labor rights. He not only introduced exceptional social rights such as the 8-hour work day, an employer-based health insurance as well as a pension scheme, but also pioneered with a system of profit sharing for the employees of the Carl Zeiss AG particularly with regard to preventing their participation in potential losses. After the death of his associate Carl Zeiss, Abbe founded on May 19, 1889 the so-called ‘‘CarlZeiss-Stiftung’’ (Carl Zeiss Foundation). Its statute, issued by Abbe after long case studies of English and Australian labor law in 1896, has to be acknowledged as one of the early and pioneering documents of the German welfare state. Up until today the foundation encourages the promotion of science, for example with the Carl Zeiss Research Award. But Abbe also was a great philanthropist who dedicated much of his money to local people as well as to the University of Jena, including financing a children’s hospital and a civic auditorium for the purpose of political gatherings.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Independent
References/Further Readings Gerth, K., & Wimmer, W. (2005). Ernst Abbe – Wissenschaftler, Unternehmer, Sozialreformer. Jena: Bussert & Stadeler. Linck, G. (1930). Ernst Abbe – Rede zum Geda¨chtnis seines 25. Todestages. Jena: Fischer.
Accountability
Abed, Fazle SHAHJAHAN BHUIYAN
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1936 in Sylhet in erstwhile East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to a wealthy landowner family, Fazle Hasan Abed went to the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the University of Glasgow, Scotland, to study accountancy. After graduation, then in his thirties, Abed joined Shell Oil and was holding a senior executive position in its outlet in Chittagong. The Bangladesh liberation war, which took place in 1971, played a significant role on the direction of his life and career. In the wake of the severity and brutality of the war, Abed felt moral responsibility to support his countrymen who were engaged in war for what he considered a just cause. As a result, he quit his job in 1971, and traveled to London to raise awareness in the international community about the genocide and generated funds for the independence war through a campaign called Help Bangladesh. After the liberation war was ended, he returned home to the newly independent Bangladesh in 1972 with the hope of contributing to the reconstruction of his war-ravaged motherland.
Major Contributions Millions of displaced people, who took refuge in India during the war, started returning home, which warranted immediate efforts for their relief and rehabilitation. Abed decided to contribute to this venture and set up BRAC (formerly, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) in 1972, of which he is now the Chairperson. The relief work was soon finished, but poverty and vulnerability still existed. He then expanded that organization to provide services to people affected by abject poverty, discrimination, and exploitation. BRAC, now one of the largest non-government organizations in the globe, is recognized internationally for programs such as micro-credit, health care, education, social development, capacity building, human rights and legal services. With a view to empower poor, BRAC has so far reached 110 million people covering all 64 districts of the country and thus has contributed to the reduction of human suffering. Abed has also established many development organizations in the fields of higher education (BRAC University), information and communication technology (bracNet), banking (BRAC Bank), and house building financing (Delta BRAC Housing Finance).
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On the social responsibility front, Abed is actively working to improve the human condition of poor of developing countries. To meet the vision, BRAC has expanded its programs in Asian and African countries (Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Tanzania, Uganda, Sudan, Liberia, and Sierra Leone) and is successfully working to alleviating poverty and empowerment of the poor in these regions. In recognition of his services to society, Abed has received awards and recognition both at home and abroad. Some of them include: The Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1980), the UNESCO Noma Prize for Literacy (1985), the UNICEF’s Maurice Pate Award (1992), the Gates Award for Global Health (2004), the UNDP Mahbub ul Haq Award for Outstanding Contribution in Human Development (2004), the Henry K. Kravis Prize in Leadership (2007), the PKSP Lifetime Achievement in Social Development and Poverty Alleviation (2007), an Honorary Doctor of Law by Columbia University (2008), and an Asiatic Society Fellowship (2008).
Cross-References ▶ BRAC ▶ Grameen Bank
References/Further Readings Alliance Magazine (2005). Interview- Fazle Hasan Abed, from http://www. alliancemagazine.org/node/1344, accessed February 4, 2009. BRAC Homepage (2008). Founder and Chairperson: Fazle Hasan Abed, from http://www.brac.net/index.php?nid = 104, accessed February 5, 2009. Lovell, C. H. (1992). Breaking the cycle of poverty: The BRAC strategy. Dhaka: University Press.
Accountability ALNOOR EBRAHIM Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Introduction Calls for greater accountability in all sectors of society – public, private, and nonprofit – have become increasingly common over the last two decades. For the first time in 2007, a public relations survey known as the Edelman Trust Barometer recorded a decline in trust in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), after six years of consistent increases (Edelman, 2007). NGOs are no doubt still widely trusted, but not in all places. The divide between the wealthy nations of the North and the poorer countries of the South is especially stark: While NGOs are most
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trusted in many Northern countries such as the United States, France, and Germany, businesses are more trusted in many rapidly growing economies such as Brazil, India, and Russia. While these findings are limited, they capture a wedge of public unease and uncertainty about NGOs, and about civil society organizations (CSOs) more broadly. Over the past decade, regulators, funders, and civil society actors themselves have moved to increase accountability in CSOs, particularly in terms of financial disclosure, transparency in governance, and measurement of performance. Accountability even emerged as the key theme of the 2007 World Assembly organized by CIVICUS, the World Alliance for Citizen Participation.
Definition The term ‘‘accountability’’ is not easily translated across languages or cultures, sometimes being interchanged with terms that are not quite synonymous such as ‘‘responsibility’’ or ‘‘answerability’’ (e.g., the Spanish and Portuguese Responsabilidad(e), the Hindi Jawaabdaari, or the German Verantwortlichkeit). Mel Dubnick attributes Anglican roots to the concept, tracing it back to a census ordered by King William 1 of England, published as the Domesday Books in 1086. That census, for the first time, not only required property holders ‘‘to ‘render a count’ of what they possessed’’ but they were ‘‘to do so in terms set by the king’s agents,’’ thus effectively establishing the notion of accountability as a foundation for governance (Dubnick, 1998: 71). In contemporary English usage, various definitions of accountability have been offered by scholars and practitioners including, for example, ‘‘the process of holding actors responsible for actions’’ (Fox & Brown, 1998: 12), or ‘‘the means by which individuals and organizations report to a recognized authority (or authorities) and are held responsible for their actions’’ (Edwards & Hulme, 1996: 967), or ‘‘the capacity to demand someone engage in reason-giving to justify his/her behavior, and/or the capacity to impose a penalty for poor performance’’ (Goetz & Jenkins, 2002: 5). What many definitions share is a ‘‘core sense’’ of accountability that Mulgan (2000: 555) identifies as having a set of three key features: the account is given to an external authority; there is social interaction and exchange, with one side seeking answers, while the other responds and accepts sanctions; and, it implies rights of authority, where those calling for an account assert rights of superiority over those who are accountable. This is essentially a principal–agent view of accountability, in which the lead actor or principal sets goals and employs agents to accomplish them.
This view of accountability is also widely shared among scholars of global governance and international politics. Definitions here likewise refer to the authority of some actors over others, for example, ‘‘that some actors have the right to hold other actors to a set of standards, to judge whether they have fulfilled their responsibilities in light of those standards, and to impose sanctions if they determine that those responsibilities have not been met’’ (Grant & Keohane, 2004: 3). The literature further identifies four core components of accountability in global governance (Ebrahim & Weisband, 2007): (1) Transparency, which involves collecting information and making it available and accessible for public scrutiny; (2) Answerability or Justification, which requires providing clear reasoning for actions and decisions, including those not adopted, so that they may reasonably be questioned; (3) Compliance, through the monitoring and evaluation of procedures and outcomes, combined with transparency in reporting those findings; and (4) Enforcement or Sanctions for shortfalls in compliance, justification, or transparency. For numerous observers, this enforceability is what underlies the power of accountability mechanisms. Other scholars, particularly in the nonprofit and social sectors have suggested that this is a limiting view of accountability, and have argued that the concept is not only about being held accountable by others but also about ‘‘taking responsibility’’ for oneself (Cornwall et al., 2000). As such, it is not only a reactive response to overseers, but also a proactive one linked to ensuring that the public trust is served. This internal dimension of accountability is motivated by a ‘‘felt responsibility’’ as expressed through individual action and organizational mission (Fry, 1995). Reflecting a balancing of these external and internal components, the UK-based One World Trust defines accountability as ‘‘the processes through which an organization makes a commitment to respond to and balance the needs of stakeholders in its decision making processes and activities, and delivers against this commitment’’ (Lloyd et al., 2007:11).
Key Issues At the very least, what all of the above definitions share is an understanding that accountability involves relationships among various actors. Most discussions about the concept also pose two further questions: Accountability to whom? And accountability for what? Accountability to Whom?
Accountability relationships are complicated by the fact that CSOs are expected to be accountable to multiple actors: upward to patrons, downward to clients, and
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internally to themselves and their missions (Edwards & Hulme, 1996; Kearns, 1996; Lindenberg & Bryant, 2001; Najam, 1996). CSO-patron accountability or ‘‘upward’’ accountability usually refers to relationships with donors, foundations, and governments and is often focused on the use of funds. CSO accountability to clients refers primarily to ‘‘downward’’ relationships with groups receiving services although it may also include communities or regions indirectly impacted by CSO programs. The third category of accountability concerns CSOs themselves. This internal accountability centers on an organization’s responsibility to its mission and staff, which includes decision makers as well as field-level implementers. Some scholars have even suggested that there are as many types of accountability as there are distinct relationships among people and organizations (Lerner & Tetlock, 1999: 256). Civil society actors engaged in policy advocacy face an additional accountability challenge increasingly leveled by their critics: ‘‘Whom do you represent? Who elected you?’’ The problem of representation is especially thorny when CSOs seek entry to policy arenas (as compared to their involvement in service delivery projects), ostensibly the domain of elected representatives in democratic societies. This challenge is less of a problem for CSOs that are membership based, and who can thus claim to be accountable to their members for their lobbying and advocacy activities. Nonmembership CSOs, on the other hand, tend to claim authorization on the grounds of what, rather than whom, they represent – such as a set of values, a social purpose or mission, expertise and experience in an issue area such as health or humanitarian relief, or a particular set of interests such as those of marginalized or unorganized groups (Peruzzotti, 2006: 52–53). In short, the demands of accountability ‘‘to whom’’ are multifold and can seldom be reduced to simple principal–agent terms. Accountability is a relational concept; its mechanisms do not stand alone as technical fixes to organizational problems, but are embedded in a social and institutional environment. This suggests that asymmetric relationships among stakeholders are likely to result in a skewing toward accountability mechanisms that satisfy the interests of dominant actors. In other words, accountability is also about power, in that asymmetries in resources become important in influencing who is able to hold whom accountable. Accountability for What?
Given that civil society actors face demands for accountability from multiple actors, it follows that they are expected to be accountable for different things by different people. These expectations may be broken down
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into four broad, but far from comprehensive, categories: accountability for finances, governance, performance, and mission (Behn, 2001; Ebrahim, 2009). Questions about finances have received considerable attention in the wake of various accounting scandals and crises not only in civil society but also in the private sector (e.g., Enron, WorldCom, and more recently the mortgage investments industry). Public policy responses to such crises typically call for greater disclosure of financial transactions, transparency in the use and oversight of funds by executives and trustees, as well as protections for whistleblowers who reveal information about mismanagement. Accountability, in this context, is constituted as coercive or punitive, with an emphasis on disclosure, a reliance on legislative or regulatory oversight, and backed up by threats of sanctions for noncompliance, such as fines, imprisonment, or loss of tax-exempt status. The second type of expectation focuses on organizational governance which, especially in the United States and the United Kingdom, has often centered on the role of the board of directors. The basic premise is that boards are responsible not only for policy direction, but also for oversight of internal controls, and that failures within an organization are reflective of failures of guidance and oversight at the board level. The board is the nexus of standards of care, loyalty, and obedience: board members are responsible for seeking and considering adequate information on which to base decisions (care), for disclosing conflicts of interest and placing the organization’s interests over personal ones (loyalty), and for acting within the organization’s mission while also adhering to internal organizational protocols for decision making (obedience). The past decade has witnessed the emergence of an array of voluntary codes of conduct and third-party certification standards that detail what constitutes appropriate board composition, responsibility, and conflict of interest. While these self-regulatory codes and certifications are less coercive than governmental regulatory requirements, their powers of coercion lie in their symbolic and legitimating value – the signals of good housekeeping they send to the outside world, regardless of whether they actually lead to better housekeeping. The third stream of accountability demands centers on performance, built on the premise that organizations should be held to account for what they deliver. The purpose of such accountability is to demonstrate ‘‘results.’’ Within an international development context, performance-based accountability often uses logical framework analysis tools, in which a project’s objectives and expected results are identified in a matrix with a list of indicators used in measuring and verifying progress. This kind of accountability
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relies on a range of technical and professional skills related to performance measurement, indicator development, evaluation, and rational assessment, all of which converge toward metrics that link goals to outcomes. This accountability regime is supported by funder-reporting requirements that reward clear outputs and outcomes, and pressures on bilateral and multilateral aid agencies to show that the activities supported by taxpayers are having an impact. Some critical observers have cautioned, however, that ‘‘[d]emanding ‘results’ can mean either pushing for quick fixes, or insisting upon digging up the seedling to examine its roots before it can bear fruit. Domestic poverty work often is abandoned when narrowly measured results are demanded – and not found’’ (Lindenberg & Bryant, 2001: 214). They stress a need to examine long-term effectiveness and less easily measurable goals of political and social change. This leads to a fourth and more emergent type of accountability that focuses on the very core of civil society activity: organizational mission. If CSOs exist for purposes of public good, why not ask them to demonstrate progress toward achieving that mission? One might describe this as a mission-centered variant of performance-based accountability. Yet, it is different in two respects. First, it embraces a long-term view of performance measurement by emphasizing iteration and learning – CSO managers are unlikely to know how best to achieve their goals and what to measure along the way, but repeated trials and critical scrutiny can lead to new insights and convergence. This suggests there are no panaceas to social problems, but instead that social problem solving requires an ability to cope with uncertainty and changing circumstances. And second, organizational goals and strategies are themselves subject to adaptation, as managers learn more about the social problems that they are trying to understand and solve. A central managerial challenge becomes putting in place processes that can engender systematic critical reflection and remain focused on solving social problems (Ebrahim, 2005). This type of strategic or adaptive accountability is not as well-established as the others above, but its nascent mechanisms – such as theories of change and organizational learning systems –are attracting attention among civil society actors. This is what some observers have called accountability as strategic choice (Brown et al., 2004; Jordan, 2007) or intelligent accountability (O’Neill, 2002). These four ‘‘whats’’ of accountability are not mutually exclusive. Boards are responsible for serving the mission and for overseeing performance. Donors consider mission in selecting which organizations to fund, and many
provide considerable flexibility with respect to performance assessment. Moreover, performance measurement can be both technocratic and adaptive. Accountability in Different Types of CSOs
The discussion has thus far only briefly touched upon the diversity among civil society organizations. Three basic categories are discussed here – membership organizations, welfare or service-oriented organizations, and advocacy and network organizations – although there are many others such as faith-based organizations, social movements, and labor unions. Membership organizations are largely oriented toward serving the interests of their members, and can include organizations as diverse as agricultural cooperatives, savings groups, and interest-based associations such as academic research societies and associations of retired persons. These organizations are often run by and for their members, and might also be called self-interest or self-help groups. The mechanisms of accountability available to members include franchise (voting for the organization’s leaders), revoking membership and dues (and joining another cooperative, for example), and attempting to reform the organization either by influencing leaders or by running for a leadership position. All of these options involve exit, voice, or loyalty (Hirschman, 1970). Because the members/clients are internal to the organization, membership organizations combine internal accountability (to members of the organizations) with downward accountability (to clients, who are members). In short, there is a structural equality between principals and agents, and thus a significant potential for the use of exit, voice, and loyalty options. The orientation of service organizations is often charitable in the sense that there is no profit motive, and that the clients and beneficiaries are generally external to the organization. These organizations provide a wide range of services, ranging from health and education to housing and rural development. The clients of service organizations are usually not involved in creating the CSO in the way that members are; they are external actors to the organization and therefore have less voice in shaping its activities and direction. As already discussed, they often face multiple competing demands for accountability – from funders, regulators, and clients. For many, the demands of funders or patrons (i.e., upward accountability) tend to be the most formalized, for example, through grant contracts, reporting requirements, and summative evaluations. They have relatively weak options for voice or exit in these relations, unless they are willing to risk losing
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grants. This imbalance is reproduced in CSO relations with clients, where the clients have only weak forms of voice or exit, unless they are willing to risk losing CSO services (except in highly competitive contexts where clients have multiple service-providers from which to choose). Some scholars have noted that the clients or beneficiaries of a service-delivery organization ‘‘are in a ‘take it or leave it’ relationship, quite similar to that of customers and employees of private firms’’ (Uphoff, 1996: 25) because ‘‘[u]nlike donors, [communities] cannot withdraw their funding; unlike governments, they cannot impose conditionalities’’ (Najam, 1996: 346–347). A third type of CSO includes those that operate through networks which may be regional, national, or transnational in scale. Many such organizations are involved in issue-based policy advocacy work. They display characteristics that are common to membership as well as service organizations, and also characteristics that are unique. For example, organizations like the Sierra Club and Amnesty International both have individual members who pay dues and thus have the option of taking their dues elsewhere should the organization fail to satisfy their interests. But they are not self-help organizations in the way that cooperatives are, and most members do not have direct access to organizational decision making or even to other members (nor do they necessarily desire such access), despite the fact that they elect board members. They are more like clients of service organizations. In other words, while their options for exit (e.g., franchise, and revoking membership dues) are potentially powerful, their actions are likely to be remote and isolated. On the other hand, some network organizations attract members by virtue of their policy advocacy work – thereby seeking to hold policy makers and public officials accountable to the views and values of their members. The mechanisms of accountability available to them are advocacy-oriented (voice), including lobbying, litigation, protest, negotiation, fact-finding, and demanding transparency in the reporting of information and events. These actions may be considered legitimate in a pluralistic society to the extent that they represent the collective voice of a group of people. Networks in which the members are organizations rather than individuals, involve an additional layer of accountability that depends on negotiation and coordination among member organizations. Accountability is collective in the sense that it depends on reliable coordination and pooling of resources among key players. In summary, the diversity among civil society organizations suggests that accountability relationships and mechanisms necessarily vary with CSO type. Mechanisms
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of accountability to clients, for example, are quite different in membership organizations (where clients or members are internal to the organization) than they are in service delivery NGOs (where clients are external). Accountability in membership organizations may be characterized as being largely member-centered, whereas it is multiple and contingent in service organizations. Advocacy networks represent still another type of organization, with accountability being negotiated and collective in nature.
Future Directions Public concern about accountability in civil society continues to grow globally, especially as CSOs become increasingly visible public actors. Many governments, funders, and citizens are responding with calls for increased oversight and regulation. A growth in compliance-driven or regulatory forms of accountability, however, raises an additional set of concerns – that funders and oversight agencies might abuse their powers of oversight, especially where regulators are themselves unregulated, and that efforts to control inappropriate behavior in a relatively small number of organizations might inadvertently stifle experimentation and innovation in civil society more broadly. The first of these concerns is quite real, particularly in cases where donors or regulators have the ability to punish CSOs by threatening to revoke their legal status, cut funds, impose conditions, or tarnish reputations. The past decade has witnessed a host of restrictive regulations enacted in over 30 countries around the world, ranging from limitations on the rights of individuals to form CSOs and raise funds, to excessive government discretion in shutting down or controlling what CSOs do (ICNL, 2006). Even CSOs in prosperous democratic societies, where the threat of abuse may not be as obvious, face the risks of co-optation, goal deflection, and censorship by their funders and regulators. These problems have become more pronounced in a post-9/11 context where CSO policy activities are subject to greater scrutiny by their governments, where funders are being asked to prove that their moneys are not being channeled to violent activities, and where some subsectors, such as Muslim CSOs, suffer ‘‘from a loss of the presumption of innocence’’ (Jordan & Van Tuijl, 2006: 8). A second, and related, apprehension about accountability is that a ‘‘strong unified accountability will be at the expense of diversity and innovation’’ in the social sector (Cnaan, 1996: 223–224). This is of particular relevance when considering external regulatory approaches to accountability. In examining the legal framework of accountability of nonprofit organizations in the
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United States, Chisolm (1995: 149) has cautioned that ‘‘there is a delicate balance between enough regulation to protect legitimate social interests in preventing diversion of charitable assets to private pockets . . . and enough regulation to squelch the qualities our society has most valued in the charitable sector,’’ such as creativity and independence of thought and action. Both of these concerns – about co-optation and abuse of power by donors and regulators, and about the loss of innovation and diversity as a result of more oversight and regulation – emphasize the potential fallouts of a rather narrow culture of accountability built on punitive notions of oversight and compliance. In the end, it is inescapable that CSOs will continue to face accountability demands from numerous actors. New innovations in CSO accountability are unlikely to lie in oversight and punishment alone, but in a more complex balancing of multiple kinds of accountabilities within a broader system of social relations. Arguably, there is a need for greater attention to mechanisms of accountability that can help align organizational missions with performance, and which might enable, rather than constrain, long-term systemic change.
Cross-References
▶ Amnesty International ▶ Civicus ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Codes of Ethics and Codes of Practice ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Evaluation and Civil Society ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Sierra Club ▶ Social Audits ▶ Social Trust ▶ Transparency
References/Further Readings Behn, R. D. (2001). Rethinking democratic accountability. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Brown, L. D., Moore, M. H., & Honan, J. (2004). Building strategic accountability systems for international NGOs. Accountability Forum, 2 (Summer), 31–43. Chisolm, L. B. (1995). Accountability of nonprofit organizations and those who control them: The legal framework. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 6(2), 141–156. Cnaan, R. (1996). Commentary. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 7(2), 221–225. Cornwall, A., Lucas, H., & Pasteur, K. (2000). Introduction: Accountability through participation: Developing workable partnership models in the health sector. IDS Bulletin, 31(1), 1–13.
Dubnick, M. J. (1998). Clarifying accountability: An ethical theory framework. In N. P. C. Sampford & C. -A. Bois (Eds.) Public sector ethics: Finding and implementing values (pp. 68–81). Leichhardt, NSW, Australia: The Federation Press/Routledge. Ebrahim, A. (2005). Accountability myopia: Losing sight of organizational learning. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 34(1), 56–87. Ebrahim, A. (2009). Placing the normative logics of accountability in ‘thick’ perspective. American Behavioral Scientist, 52(6), 885–904. Ebrahim, A., & Weisband, E. (Eds.) (2007). Global accountabilities: Participation, pluralism, and public ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edelman (2007). Edelman Trust Barometer 2007. Available at: www. edelman.com/trust/2007/trust_final_1_31.pdf Edwards, M., & Hulme, D. (1996). Too close for comfort? The impact of official aid on nongovernmental organizations. World Development, 24(6), 961–73. Fox, J. A., & Brown, L. D. (Eds.) (1998). The struggle for accountability: The World Bank, NGOs, and grassroots movements. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Freeman, R. E. (1984). Strategic management: A stakeholder approach. Boston, MA: Pitman. Fry, R. E. (1995). Accountability in organizational life: Problem or opportunity for nonprofits? Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 6(2), 181–195. Goetz, A. M., & Jenkins, R. (2002). Voice, accountability and human development: The emergence of a new agenda. Background paper for the Human Development Report 2002. New York: United Nations Development Programme. Grant, R. W., & Keohane, R. O. (2004). Accountability and abuses of power, in world politics: International Law and Justice Working Paper. Institute for International Law and Justice, New York University School of Law. Hirschman, A. O. (1970). Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL). (2006). Recent laws and legislative proposals to restrict civil society and civil society organizations. International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, 8(4), 76–85. Jordan, L. (2007). A rights-based approach to accountability. In A. Ebrahim & E. Weisband (Eds.) Global accountabilities: Participation, pluralism, and public ethics (pp. 151–167). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jordan, L., & Van Tuijl, P. (Eds.) (2006). NGO accountability: Politics, principles and innovations. London/Sterling, VA: Earthscan. Kearns, K. P. (1996). Managing for accountability: Preserving the public trust in nonprofit organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kovach, H., Neligan, C., & Burall, S. (2003). The Global Accountability Report 1: Power without accountability? London: Global Accountability Project, The One World Trust. Lerner, J. S., & Tetlock, P. E. (1999) Accounting for the effects of accountability. Psychological Bulletin, 125(2), 255–275. Lindenberg, M., & Bryant, C. (2001). Going global: Transforming relief and development NGOs. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Lloyd, R., Oatham, J., & Hammer, M. (2007). 2007 Global Accountability Report. London: One World Trust. Mulgan, R. (2000). ‘Accountability’: An ever-expanding concept? Public Administration, 78(3), 555–573. Najam, A. (1996). NGO accountability: A conceptual framework. Development Policy Review, 14, 339–353. O’Neill, O. (2002). A question of trust: The BBC Reith lectures 2002. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
AccountAbility Peruzzotti, E. (2006). Civil society, representation and accountability. In L. Jordan & P. Van Tuijl (Eds.), NGO accountability: Politics, principles and innovations (pp. 43–58). London/Sterling, VA: Earthscan. Uphoff, N. (1996). Why NGOs are not a third sector: A sectoral analysis with some thoughts on accountability, sustainability, and evaluation. In M. Edwards & D. Hulme (Eds.), Beyond the magic bullet: NGO performance and accountability in the post-cold war (pp. 23–39). West Hartford, CT: Kumarian.
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and ethical reporting. AccountAbility provides advisory and training services on the implementation of the standards, responsible competitiveness, stakeholder engagement and collaborative governance. In partnership with CSR network, AccountAbility publishes an annual accountability rating of the world’s 50 largest companies.
Structure and Governance
AccountAbility KATE RUFF
AccountAbility is a global not-for-profit self-managed partnership with locations in Beijing, Geneva, London, Sao Paolo and Washington D. C. AccoutAbility is governed by a multistakeholder network acting in accordance with the AccountAbility Charter. A governing council, with 13 members, stewards effective application of the charter.
Address of Organization
Funding
250-252 Goswell Road Clerkenwell London EC1V 7EB UK www.accountability21.net
AccountAbility’s revenue in the fiscal year ending March 2008, was £2.2 M with 88% from project income, 10% from membership subscriptions, 1% from training fees, and the remaining from sale of publications and other sundry. Of total revenue, 26% is attributable to the UK market, 36% is attributable to the US market and 38% is attributable to the rest of the world.
Introduction AccountAbility works to promote accountability innovations that advance sustainable development. It develops and promotes the AA1000 Series of standards for social and ethical accounting, auditing and reporting.
Brief History AccountAbility, formerly The Institute for Social and Ethical AccountAbility, was launched in 1995 to professionalize the practice of social auditing and reporting and address the trust deficit between corporations and their stakeholders. Founding members included The Body Shop, The European Institute for Business Ethics, KPMG, Oxfam, and Shell. In 1999 AccountAbility launched the AA1000 Framework and subsequently additional standards and tools based on this foundation.
Mission/Objectives AccountAbility’s mission ‘‘is to promote accountability for sustainable development.’’ AccountAbility enables people to hold to account those individuals and institutions whose decisions and actions affect their lives.
Activities AccountAbility develops and promotes the AA1000 Series of standards, including principles for effective social and ethical reporting, and standards for the assurance of social
Major Accomplishments The AA1000 Series is a leading standard for sustainability auditing and assurance. It has been used by hundreds of organizations in over 30 countries. AccountAbility has contributed to the ongoing development of global standards through collaboration with the Global Reporting Initiative, Transparency International and the ISO Social Responsibility Working Group.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Global Reporting Initiative ▶ International Organization for Standardization (ISO) ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Social Audits ▶ Transparency International
References/Further Readings Burgis, T., & Zadek, S. (2006). A21: Reinventing accountability for the 21st century. London: AccountAbility. Zadek, S.(2005). Responsible competitiveness: Reshaping markets through responsible business practices. London: Fundac¸a˘o Dom Cabral (FDC) & UN Global Compact. Zadek, S., Raynard, P., & Forstater, M. (2006). What assures? London: AccountAbility with PricewaterhouseCoopers. www.accountability21.net www.accountabilityrating.org
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ActionAid
ActionAid CLAUDIA BODE-HARLASS
Address of Organization PostNet Suite #248 Private Bag Y31 Saxonwold 2132 Johannesburg South Africa www.actionaid.org
Introduction ActionAid describes itself as an ‘‘international antipoverty agency’’ working with the ‘‘world’s poorest and most disadvantaged people’’ through cooperation with local partners all around the world.
Brief History ActionAid was founded in 1972 by the British businessman Cecil Jackson Cole as a British Charity called ‘‘Action in Distress’’ when Cole and 87 other concerned British citizens came together to sponsor 88 poor children in India and Kenya to enable them access to education. In the following years the organization expanded not only the geographical but also the thematic areas it was working in. This resulted in a mission shift from solely giving charity to empowering poor people, which led to the renaming of the organization to ActionAid in 1985. In 2003 ActionAid International was founded as a foundation registered in the Netherlands with its headquarters based in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Mission The original mission of providing poor children with education was extended to include five more priority areas, namely HIV/Aids, food rights, emergencies, women and girls, and governance. In its work, the organization uses a rights-based approach, which means that it makes poor people aware of their own rights and conducts capacity building so that these people themselves can influence decisions that are affecting their lives. Besides, ActionAid has committed itself to an ‘‘Open Information Policy’’ meaning that it is following the principle of transparency and of providing information to all its stakeholders including donors as well as poor and marginalized people.
Activities In order to achieve its aims, ActionAid is working very closely with its local partners who have an equal say on the
ongoing operations. These can include the provisions of food and medicine in emergency situations, working with southern African governments to help them in establishing national AIDS commissions or the strengthening of women’s organizations and women’s leadership. ActionAid is also still offering the possibility to sponsor a child in a poor country. The organization is publishing a number of thematic reports and high quality research as well as an annual report on its activities, successes, and challenges. Furthermore, it is conducting analysis on international, national, and local systems and rules that disadvantage the poor and marginalized and prepare policy recommendations based on its findings. These are then used to lobby actors such as the World Bank, the European Union or the World Trade Organization for a policy sensitive to the needs of the poorest.
Structure and Governance Besides the International Secretariat in Johannesburg, the organization is also running four regional offices and a number of national level branches in each country a program is being conducted in. The regional office for Africa is based in Kenya, the one for Asia in Thailand, the European one in Belgium, and the office for the Americas in Brazil. ActionAid is headed by a Board of Trustees consisting of 11 members drawn from all over the world who are meeting three to four times a year. Furthermore, a Chief Executive is functioning as the organization’s official Secretary. All in all, ActionAid is employing more than 1,780 people and has around 484,000 supporters.
Funding The bulk of the organization’s budget, namely 70%, is provided by individual supporters, while 25% comes through partnerships with government agencies. The most important of these agencies is the British Department for International Development (DFID) which agreed in a Partnership Programme Arrangement for the years 2008 until 2011 to fund ActionAid with £13 million. The remaining 5% of ActionAid’s budget is provided by private trusts and foundations or companies. The total income of the organization for the year 2007 was €185.9 million.
Accomplishments In 2007 alone, ActionAid was reaching more than 13 million people in 42 countries all around the world. In the same year the organization was rewarded with the annual UN Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction
ADDES
recognizing not only the research being conducted by the organization but also its innovative ideas and inclusion of the grassroots. Besides, ActionAid is a cofounder of the Global Campaign for Education and was awarded with the United Nations International Literacy Prize in 2003 and 2005 for its approach to adult learning.
Cross-References
▶ INGOs ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Comparative Perspectives ▶ Transparency
Addams, Jane KARUN K. SINGH
Basic Biographical Information Jane Addams was born in 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois (USA). Although her parents were attentive and wealthy, her early childhood was marked by family tragedy with the deaths of three of her siblings and the death of her mother when she was only two. Additionally, she had a congenital spinal defect, which compromised her health for the rest of her life. Addams was educated in the United States and Europe. She graduated in 1881 from the Rockford Female Seminary. During a tour of England, she visited Toynbee Hall, a settlement house for underprivileged and neglected boys in London’s East End. Taking inspiration from this model, she and her close friend Ellen Starr cofounded Hull House in 1889 in Chicago, Illinois. After the establishment of the first settlement house in the United States, she continued to achieve numerous socially beneficial outcomes until her death by cancer in 1935.
Major Contributions Today, Addams would rightly be considered a social worker, a community organizer, a social scientist, a peace advocate, a feminist, and a philanthropist. The agency she cofounded, Hull House, was a residence for women, a school for lifelong education, and a safe meeting space for neighborhood immigrants. Also, it functioned as a social laboratory and a training site for educating young people in social service theory and practice. Moreover, Addams strongly influenced the research practices of the Chicago School of Sociology, including its thematic emphases on ethnic group interaction, community conflict, stakeholder succession in community institutions, and social reform.
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Over time, Addams assumed many leadership positions. For example, in 1908 she assisted with the founding of the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, in 1909 she was selected as the first woman president of the National Conference of Charities and Corrections, and in 1911 she joined the board of the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In 1915 Addams was instrumental in creating the Women’s Peace Party and became its first president. As an ardent advocate for resolving world conflicts peacefully, she even publicly opposed the American intervention in World War I, which led to her being publicly chastised as unpatriotic and naı¨ve. True to form, Addams defended her pacifist ideals, and worked collaboratively with President Herbert Hoover to provide relief and food to women and children in war-torn enemy countries. Her humanitarian contributions to fostering peace on a global scale were eventually recognized when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.
Cross-References
▶ Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations ▶ Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
References/Further Readings Farrell, J. C. (1967). Beloved lady: A history of Jane Addams’ ideas on reform and peace. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Knight, L. W. (2005). Citizen: Jane Addams and the struggle for democracy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Linn, J. W. (1935). Jane Addams: A biography. New York: AppletonCentury. Polacheck, H. S. (1991). I came a stranger: The story of a Hull-House girl. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Stiehm, J. H. (2006). Champions for peace: Women winners of the Nobel Peace Prize. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
ADDES EDITH ARCHAMBAULT
Address of Organization 33 rue des Trois-Fontanot 92002 Nanterre Cedex France www.addes.asso.fr
Introduction ADDES was created with a double objective: to improve and disseminate the knowledge of social economy
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organizations, especially by giving them a greater visibility in the official statistics and to promote this set of organizations in the public sphere and the public at large.
Adenauer, Konrad ▶ Konrad Adenauer Stifung
Brief History ADDES was founded in 1982 by an informal group of statisticians and academics, rapidly joined by employees of cooperatives, mutual societies and associations eager to give more acknowledgement to the economic and social role of these organizations. In 1983 a first conference was organized, followed by more than 20. Since 1986 two young researchers are annually awarded prizes by ADDES.
Mission, Objectives, Activities The first mission of ADDES was to draw the main lines of a satellite account of social economy and to lobby the government and the French statistical office to implement it. Facing political difficulties in this lobbying, ADDES turned toward a larger objective, the accumulation and dissemination of multidisciplinary research done in isolation. One of the vehicles for achieving this objective is the Revue des Etudes Cooperatives, mutualistes et associatives (RECMA), the only French journal on the social economy and related topics.
Structure, Governance and Funding ADDES is a declared association, with few members whose general assembly is the governing body. A larger scientific council composed of statisticians, academics, and representatives of social economy organizations prepares the annual conference and awards. ADDES’s annual budget is €30,000 and funding comes since the very beginning from Credit Cooperatif, a cooperative bank, and later from its corporate foundation.
Advocacy JOHN D. CLARK World Bank, Washington, DC, USA (retired)
Introduction Civil society advocacy embraces influential decision makers, media promotion, citizen education, and various forms of civic engagement, and has emerged strongly in recent decades. This is because of the increasingly multifaceted nature of politics in today’s cosmopolitan world, which makes it difficult for a small number of political parties to adequately represent the diverse concerns of citizens. There is a clear shift from representative to participatory democracy – with a profusion of pressure groups and the relative decline of political parties in most democracies. The CSOs and networks that result have a variety of forms, largely reflecting the degree of formality of their alliances. Given that the policy issues of popular concern may be global in nature, the rise of transnational civil society – uniting people who share common concerns everywhere – is one of the most important developments. This, however, presents CSOs considerable challenges concerning their organizational and governance arrangements. There is also a considerable establishment backlash challenging the legitimacy of such advocacy and which civil society must address robustly. In doing so, CSOs must recognize that their advocacy is a complement to, not substitute for, traditional party-based democracy.
Major Contributions By its awards and the publication of the papers delivered in its annual conference on line and through the RECMA journal, ADDES is now the main French reference on this topic. An academic community was created step by step.
Cross-References ▶ Associations ▶ Cooperatives ▶ Mutual Societies ▶ Social Economy
Definition The word ‘‘advocacy’’ derives from the Latin ad vocare – ‘‘to speak to,’’ in other words to argue for a particular position. Initially coined for legal professionals (advocates) who argue for one side or the other in a legal dispute, in recent decades the term has become increasingly associated with groups of citizens who argue for a particular position, or set of positions, on a given issue. While individuals and lawyers can conduct advocacy to advance their points of view, it is generally the nongovernmental organizations who seek to influence the policies
Advocacy
and programs of governments, corporations, and other institutions. These organizations may primarily exist for other purposes, with their advocacy being ancillary to these purposes. For example, professional associations and consumer associations primarily exist to provide services, support, and advice to their members but may also advocate policies and actions that would benefit those members. And many operational charities (e.g., in the service of development, humanitarian relief, disability, or conservation) undertake advocacy to seek policy shifts that would advance the causes they serve. Some organizations exist primarily or solely to conduct advocacy. Again, these can be divided into those which primarily serve the mutual interests of their members (these are typically political lobbying organizations, such as those that exist in profusion around Capitol Hill in Washington DC) and those that focus on public interest issues (such as pro- or anti-abortion, environmental activists, and women’s rights campaigners). The former are often referred to as lobbies or lobbyists, while the latter are often referred to as pressure groups.
Historical Background The growth of civil society advocacy relates closely to the evolution of democracy. In its earliest manifestation, in ancient Greece, citizens were directly involved in decision making. All free men could go to the forum and vote on issues they cared about. From this derives the term ‘‘democracy, from demos kratein or ‘‘people’s rule.’’ Such direct democracy is impractical, of course, in larger societies, and hence indirect or representative democracy evolved and took root – first in seventeenth-century Britain, through the civil wars and the ‘‘Glorious Revolution’’ that established supremacy of the parliament over the monarch. The system’s most evident deficiency was that there was no ready quality control over those early Members of Parliament; they could be ‘‘bought’’ by vested interests, or could be delinquent in their duties. Political parties emerged as the response. A party was defined by Edmund Burke in 1770 as ‘‘an organized assembly of men, united for working together for the national interest, according to the particular principle they agreed upon.’’ Hence, through its collectivity of members, parties provided something of a guarantee that its elected representatives would stay true to that ‘‘particular principle.’’ They therefore offered a wholesaling of representative democracy. This institution has been the cornerstone of politics for centuries. There have long been traditions of seeking to influence individual legislators outside the context of their party, however. In the eighteenth and nineteenth
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centuries, those seeking to influence a debate in either chamber of the Houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom would congregate in the Central Lobby (an area to which the public have access in the Palace of Westminster), waiting for the chance to beard the MP in question and press them to support their point of view. This custom has given the world the term ‘‘lobbyist.’’ Civil society advocacy is not a new phenomenon. The Anti-Corn Law League was an early example of successful campaigning, ironically in support of free trade. It was founded in 1839 to protest the extortionate price of staple foods, due to high import duties and market restrictions designed to protect British landowners. After 6 years of struggle and bread riots the government gave way and repealed the Corn Law. Most party-based democratic systems evolved with just two or a few political parties. This is to be expected in societies where there are just one or two defining political concerns, each of which can be addressed in just two or three ways. This was broadly the case in Western Europe during most of the nineteenth century, where the defining issue was between industrialization, trade, and the urban sector on the one hand and landed interests and the rural sector on the other. In the United States the defining issue at the same time was more a geographic one, between North and South. By the late nineteenth century, reflecting the progress toward universal enfranchisement, the fault line in politics became the issue of equity and class, particularly the massive inequalities of wealth, income, and working hours. This was the case on both sides of the Atlantic, but particularly in Europe. The various manifestations of socialism that evolved, all gave central importance to the issue of the ownership of the means of production. Since World War II, progressive taxation, universal education, national health systems, unemployment benefits, public housing, and other policies have gradually reduced the class divide. At the same time, and partly because sheer survival can be increasingly taken for granted for most in the wealthier countries, citizens have increasingly become concerned about a host of political issues beyond class and equity. Citizens have become increasingly disenchanted with party politics. While political apathy is a major factor, this also reflects a variety of newer ways in which citizens exercise their political voice: joining advocacy CSOs, taking part in demonstrations, confronting local officials or employers, writing to newspapers, mounting petitions, etc. The growth of civil society advocacy can be seen as a response to the deficiencies of electoral democracy. Indeed, election of delegates is only a small part of
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today’s democracy. A transformation is underway, particularly in rich countries, from Representative to Participatory Democracy. Held argues (2002) that this new dynamic of ‘‘cosmopolitan democracy’’ is because people now live in a world of overlapping communities of interests and fate, and hence a political system in which one is represented just according to physical locality is anachronistic. Modern communications and the growth of civil society make possible more direct engagement between citizens and decision makers.
Key Issues Advocacy and the Evolution of Cause-Based CSOs
The plethora of political fault lines today does not fit well with a party-based democracy. The latter generally aggregates people according to ‘‘the particular principle they agree upon’’ and to their physical community. But when there are myriad principles at stake, citizens agree with one set of people on one issue, and a different set on a second topic. It is unlikely that a single political party will have a platform that matches one’s particular palette of interests. A ‘‘pick-and-mix’’ political system fits better with cosmopolitan societies than the limited choice offered by political parties. Advocacy groups permit this customizing of politics to one’s individual persuasions. CSOs permit people to associate outside their families or communities in pursuit of their particular interests or wishes. Scholte (2001) points out that in modern times such identification can be an affinity group (such as an ethnic Diaspora, sexuality, occupation, class, or even gender) as well as a group of people within a nation. In today’s more mobile and interconnected world, citizens increasingly identify with those who share their concerns wherever they live, not just with their immediate neighbors. So as constituents of democracies, people increasingly prefer to be represented according to the issues they care about rather than the place where they live. Moreover, these issues do not necessarily reflect ‘‘national interests’’ but global interests (Matherws, 1997). As a consequence, most countries (especially Western democracies) have seen the ascendancy of a host of advocacy groups that define positions on the most popular political issues of the times (Carothers, 1999). While some represent classic divides (such as those for and against abortion, immigration, gun-control, and free trade) others seek to elevate concerns that have no polar opposite constituency, but which languish because of political neglect (such as gender equity, conservation, and opportunities for disabled people).
The Rise of Advocacy Groups and the Decline of Political Parties
While pressure groups have a much longer history (e.g., the Anti-Slavery Society dates back to the eighteenth century), it was not until the 1960s and the 1970s that they mushroomed, with the profusion of issues of citizen concern that political parties largely eschewed – such as civil rights, feminism, the environment, nuclear power, nuclear disarmament, the Vietnam war, and racism. Pressure groups on such issues grew rapidly, and formed a new political culture of the ‘‘baby-boomers’’ that differed radically from the previous generation’s prewar political contours. And from this period the decline of party membership can be traced. For example, in the United Kingdom in 1971 Greenpeace was formed – then, an obscure organization concerned primarily with the protection of the marine environment. At that time the British Labour Party had 700,000 members – close to its peak. By 1990, Greenpeace had grown to about 320,000 members and had overtaken Labour. Today, Labour has declined further to just 180,000 members and hundreds of other environmental concerns compete with Greenpeace for public support (Clark, 2003). The decline of the UK Conservative Party’s membership has been even more dramatic – from over two million in the mid-1960s to less than 350,000 in 2000. Similarly elsewhere; about 25% of the New Zealand electorate were party members in the 1950s, as were 15% of Italians and 10% of the French; by the 1990s this had declined to below 5% for all of them (The Economist, July 24, 1999). There is other evidence for dwindling public confidence in the party-based democratic processes. Opinion polls in a range of countries reveal that public respect for politicians has declined rapidly. One survey of 14 OECD countries by Robert Putnam (2000) showed that public confidence in legislatures has declined from the 1970s to the 1990s in 11 of them. Public trust and confidence in politicians declined in 13 countries (all except the Netherlands). A 40-country survey, commissioned by the World Economic Forum in 2002, showed that of 17 leading institutions of influence in these countries, those least trusted were parliaments, large corporations, and the IMF; and those most trusted were NGOs and the military. Politicians are widely seen as making false promises, dishonest, just interested in getting votes, out of touch, and not caring. There are many reasons for such trends – scandals, broken promises, apparent impotence on issues of public concern, etc. – but a major factor is the proliferation of causes with which societies are concerned. The dominant
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political concern has shifted from a contest over the ownership of the means of production to more diverse debates about what is produced, how, and for what sort of society. Advocacy groups have a growing role, said the former Director of Friends of the Earth, UK, only because the public is ‘‘dissatisfied with traditional political institutions and processes that drive public debate and decision-making’’ (Secrett, 1996). If the parliamentary process, the media, industry, etc. ‘‘adequately represented the particular interests of citizens, ensured their direct participation in community affairs, and dealt with their concerns, there would be no pressure groups.’’
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Advocacy Tactics
Advocacy groups use a wide range of tactics including high-level lobbying, media work, public education campaigns, protests and other forms of direct action, boycotts, presenting testimony to parliaments, defending court actions, mounting court actions, shaming campaigns, street theatre, etc. This array embraces three broad goals:
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● Seeking to win the argument: showing that something being done at present is wrong, or that there is a better approach that could be taken ● Seeking to demonstrate that there are large numbers of people who demand and expect change (and that at least some of them are well-informed). ● Insinuating or inflicting costs: this can mean generating a ‘‘nuisance factor’’ in terms of the costs incurred by a target institution of not giving way to the campaign (the time its officers spend defending the institution’s position; reputational damage due to negative publicity, etc.) and it can mean incurring real costs such as through consumer boycotts and even inflicting physical damage to property (as with animal rights groups campaigns targeting laboratories that use live animal testing). ● Organizational Forms of Civil Society Advocacy
Civil society advocacy mechanisms, whether national or global, generally fall into one of six organizational forms representing a trade-off between campaign coherence and breadth of support (see Clark, 2003b; Lindenberg & Dobel, 1999). They comprise: ● Centralized organizations: Unitary organizations with a clear HQs and branches at local or national levels, albeit these may enjoy some degree of autonomy. Examples would include Greenpeace, Social Watch, and Jubilee 2000. Some are in effect national organizations in terms of their governance (i.e., their
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secretariats and boards) but have members and supporters elsewhere (such as the US-based Human Rights Watch or the US-based International Forum on Globalization). Federations: Networks comprising member CSOs with a common name and charter, single governing body, but also local self-determination. Examples would include Amnesty International and the Global Union Federations (such as Public Service International or Education International). Confederations: Looser structures in which the members are autonomous but agree on a set of common ground rules and work together on specific activities where there is mutual advantage. For example, Friends of the Earth International has 68 national chapters which decide by majority vote what campaigns to adopt globally, but allow each chapter to choose which of these it will actually promote. Informal networks: Fluid networks on a self-selecting basis; any group having broadly similar aims can join, but membership bestows few advantages (other than information and ‘‘belonging’’) and demands few responsibilities. While they bring together CSOs in different countries for the specific cause, these CSOs may have widely differing objectives and concerns otherwise. Arguably the first single issue transnational advocacy network was the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) – formed in 1979 by the NGOs attending the first ever multi-stakeholder meeting, organized by the World Health Organization and Unicef, on the threats posed by the marketing excesses of artificial baby milk manufacturers. Within months, hundreds of NGOs from North and South had joined IBFAN, which became pivotal in persuading governments to adopt, at the 1981 World Health Assembly, an international code to regulate the marketing of breast-milk substitutes. Social movements: These are not true organizations, but loose networks or affinities of people, lacking formal decision-making processes and leadership. Though not CSOs as such, they are an increasingly powerful form of civil society on the global stage. Examples include the feminist movement and the anti-globalization protest movement; Dot-causes: These are the Internet-based campaigns that have little or no presence outside the World Wide Web, but which can have considerable impact due to their ability to respond swiftly to changing situations (not having an elaborate governance structure) and to reach large numbers of like-minded people. Examples include the Nobel prize-winning
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International Campaign to Ban Landmines, ATTAC (the campaign to stem inequality through introduction of a Tobin Tax) and a smorgasbord of protest groups. Some, such as IndyMedia and Globalize Resistance, are multipurpose cause promoters, offering a ‘‘one-stop shop’’ for like-minded radical activists (Clark & Themudo, 2006).
International Perspectives International campaigns to shape international policy are not entirely new (notably the Anti-Slavery Society – which started in the United Kingdom in the eighteenth century – drew support from various countries and made a pivotal contribution to its cause). However, it has only been in recent decades that transnational advocacy has become prominent and a new cast of civil society actors have emerged as a result. Transnational action on environmental issues has been the longest and strongest – dating back to 1972 and the first parallel NGO forum to a UN event (the Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm). The membership of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) grew from 572,000 in 1985 to five million in 2001. It now employs 3,300 staff and has an annual budget of $350 million. Greenpeace grew similarly to reach over four million members globally in 1994 with an annual budget peak of $179 million. By 1986 it had linked its network of 30 national offices via an international computer network – well before most TNCs did so. By 2000, Friends of the Earth comprised 68 autonomous national groups with, collectively, over one million members, 5,000 local groups, and a budget of over $200 million. Similar growth has been seen on other sectors. In human rights, Amnesty International has over one million members in 160 countries, and employs 400 staff. Jubilee 2000, the NGO promoting Third World debt relief, orchestrated the world’s largest petition (with 24 million signatures). And many NGOs that were previously considered to be humanitarian or service-delivery charities, such as Oxfam and World Wide Fund for Nature, have given increasing attention and resources to advocacy on issues that affect their programs or their partners. Other civil society actors, such as trade unions, professional associations, and consumer groups, have also evolved strong advocacy programs. For example, Education International – a federation of teachers’ unions representing over 35 million teachers worldwide – has come to exert significant impact on education policy internationally (Clark, 2003b). NGO lobbying is widely credited for securing debt relief for poor countries, the Rio Earth Summit agreement on controlling greenhouse gases, the creation of the
International Criminal Court, Antarctica being declared a world park – protected from mining, major reforms at the World Bank, and the international landmine treaty (Florini, 2000). The transnational advocacy phenomenon reflects an important paradox in traditional democracy: while much of the substance of politics has been globalized (climate change, trade, economics, HIV/AIDS, the SARS pandemic, terrorism, etc.), the process of politics has not. Its main institutions – elections, political parties, and parliaments – remain rooted at the national level. An increasing number of people argue that meaningful democracy today requires processes that enable citizens to help shape a framework of global values, policies, instruments, and governance; they argue that it cannot be achieved by powerful democratic nations imposing their will on the rest of the world. One indicator of the growth of transnational advocacy is the number of NGOs seeking consultative status at the UN’s Economic and Social Council. In the 1970s and 1980s there were 20–30 new applications per year; in 1998–1999 there were 200; in 2000–2001 400 and in 2002 there were over 800 applications. NGO participation in global conferences grew similarly. For example, with the women’s conferences: 114 NGOs attended the Mexico event in 1975, 163 went to Nairobi in 1985, but 2600 went to Beijing in 1995. Even more attended the parallel NGO forums at these UN conferences. Hence 6000 took part in the parallel NGO event at Mexico City, 13,500 went to the equivalent event in Nairobi and 300,000 to the NGO forum in Beijing (Cardoso Panel, 2004). Transnational advocacy has helped change the geography of democracy. It allows individuals to aggregate differently – with others who share burning concerns wherever they live. In other words community of neighborhood is being supplemented by community of interest – and, thanks to information technology, such communities can be global as easily as local.
Future Perspectives Backlash Against Civil Society Advocacy
As pressure groups have become increasingly influential, so too have the efforts of their targets to discredit them and the consequences of mistakes. While the media relish sensation, and therefore willingly publish the extravagant claims of advocates whatever their accuracy, errors diminish their credibility in the eyes of policy makers. Hence, when Greenpeace pressed Shell not to dump the Brent Spar oilrig at sea, but to dispose of it on-shore to avoid polluting the North Sea (a much more expensive option),
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the media gave full coverage and Shell finally gave way. Later, Greenpeace admitted it had got its calculations wildly wrong, and this seriously damaged its reputation (Clark, 2003a). Such mistakes, though perhaps rare, provide ammunition to their political adversaries. That pressure groups erode democracy is a charge increasingly leveled by those most comfortable with the status quo. After the street protests at the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle, 1999, there was a chorus of such attack. The Economist (September 23, 1999), for example, said: ‘‘The increasing clout of NGOs, respectable and not so respectable, raises an important question: who elected Oxfam, or, for that matter, the League for a Revolutionary Communist International? Bodies such as these are, to varying degrees, extorting admissions of fault from law-abiding companies and changes in policy from democratically elected governments. They may claim to be acting in the interests of the people – but then so do the objects of their criticisms, governments and the despised international institutions. In the West, governments and their agencies are, in the end, accountable to voters. Who holds the activists accountable?’’ Such reprisals harp on three issues: that pressure groups are not elected; that they are not accountable; and that they have no right to influence changes in their target institutions. The defense is easy at one level. Universal freedoms of speech and association would be rendered meaningless if citizens did not have the right to form associations to promote causes they believe in. Associations need not be of a minimum size and need only be accountable to their members, not to the broader society. If they damage property, intimidate or defame people, or cause a public nuisance, there are laws that can be used against them. However, the charges of irresponsibility are not so easy to shrug off at a broader level. Responsible CSO leaders are increasingly concerned that unscrupulous or over-zealous campaigns are discrediting their trade and could undermine democracy, not least because newer entries into the field may display a more lax attitude to accuracy and a greedier thirst for publicity. They care increasingly about the opinion of the media, parliamentarians, and the public at large – not just their supporters – and hence increasingly urge their peers to join with them in defining codes of conduct for their advocacy. For example, a group of leading international campaigning organizations concerned variously with the environment, human rights and development have formed the International Advocacy NGO Network to agree common high standards of advocacy. Civil society advocacy – though a powerful force in policy making – is a complement to, not a substitute for, traditional politics. It allows governance by representation
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to be complemented by more direct participatory governance. Misgivings about advocacy stem from an assumption – sometimes grounded – that pressure groups do not just seek to influence decisions through argument, but to replace legislatures and political parties. An excessive influence of advocacy can lead to the atomizing of politics as government strategy loses coherence and logic to a scatter of ad hoc responses to myriad interest groups. This can result in a drift toward elitism, since pressure groups are often middle class and capital-citybased. It is also likely to leave important gaps. There are no pressure groups for things one takes for granted – until those things, like sewerage and postal services, disappear. Hence, civil society advocacy is most effective where democracy is working well. It achieves influence by persuading people to use the democracy at their fingertips – not just through their voting choices, but as consumers, shareholders, lobbyists, demonstrators, educators of their children, workers, employers, and investors. ‘‘Pressure groups demonstrate that individuals do matter and can meaningfully help shape society’’ (Secrett, 1996).
Cross-References
▶ Amnesty International ▶ Anti-Slavery Movement ▶ Attac ▶ Charity Law ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Dotcauses ▶ Friends of the Earth ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Greenpeace ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ International Advocacy NGOs and Networks (IANGO) ▶ International Baby Food Action Network ▶ International Campaign to Ban Landmines ▶ Jubilee 2000 ▶ Lobbying ▶ NGOs and international relations, UN ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Social Watch ▶ Theories of the Nonprofit Sector, Political ▶ World-wide Fund for Nature
References/Further Readings Cardoso Panel (2004). Report of the panel of eminent persons on UN–civil society relations, and ‘‘UN System and Civil Society: an Inventory and Analysis of Practice’’, Background Paper for the Panel, prepared by its secretariat. United Nations, from www.un.org/reform/panel.htm
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Carothers, T. (1999). Civil society: Think again. Foreign Policy. Winter. Castells, M. (2004). The crisis of democracy, global governance, and the rise of the global civil society (Mimeo), Paper Prepared for the Inaugural Seminar of the Instituto Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Sao Paulo. Clark, J. (2003a). Worlds apart: Civil society and the battle for ethical globalization. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press; London: Earthscan. Clark, J. (Ed.) (2003b). Globalizing civic engagement: Civil society and trans-national action. London: Earthscan. Clark, J., & Themudo, N. (2006). Linking the web and the street: Internetbased ‘‘dot-causes’’ and the ‘‘anti-globalization’’ movement. World Development, 34(1). Edwards, M., & Gaventa, J. (Eds.) (2001). Global citizen action. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Florini, A. (Ed.) (2000). The third Force: The rise of transnational civil society. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Held, D. (2002). Cosmopolitanism and globalization. Logos, 1(3), 1–17. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders: Advocacy networks in international politics. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press. Lindenberg, M., & Dobel, P. (1999). ‘‘Globalization and Northern NGOs: The Challenge of Relief and Development in a Changing Context’’, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Supplement, 29–4. Matherws, J. (1997). Power shift. Foreign Affairs, 76(1), January/February, 50–66. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Scholte, J. (2001). New citizens action and global finance. Notes for seminar ‘‘Translator-national civil society: Issues of governance and organisation’’, London: School of Economics, 1–2 June. Secrett, C. (1996). Why do pressure groups matter? Paper for the Social Market Foundation (June). Friends of the Earth, London.
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outreach in 16 countries. The organization with more than 3,000 staff is now busy doing profitable and nonprofit activities from North to South.
Brief History The AKF was founded in 1967 in Geneva by the Prince Karim ‘‘Aga Khan’’ to work for the development of marginalized areas in the developing world. As part of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), AKF is a ‘‘private, not-for-profit, non-denominational, development agency’’ (AKF, 2008), and due to the visionary chairpersonship, the Foundation is now widely accepted as a development and philanthropic organization.
Mission/Objectives AKF was established to turn various international development agencies to the poorest parts of the world (Ebrahim, 2002). With the objectives of global poverty reduction, gender equality and advancement of pluralistic values, the Foundation is committed to uplift rural communities of coastal and mountainous areas regardless of any specific faith or origin (AKF, 2008). AKF firmly believes in civil society’s role in development, and recognizes civil society organizations (CSOs) as the best facilitators. The policy of AKF encourages rapid growth of CSOs in various sectors. The Foundation is keen to promote tolerance, pluralism, and equity, and seeks the implementation of the ‘‘corporate social responsibility’’ idea through partnerships between CSOs, the business sector and governments.
▶ Association Franc¸aise contre les Myopathies
Focus Areas
Aga Khan Foundation MAHTAB AHMAD, MOKBUL MORSHED AHMAD
Address of Organization 1-3 avenue de la Paix 1202 Geneva Case Postale 2369 1211 Geneva 2 Switzerland www.akdn.org
Introduction The Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) is one of the largest international nongovernmental organizations with
AKF focuses on five major areas: rural development, health, education, civil society, and environment, with cross-cutting issues of participation, gender development, and binding state-society relations (see Kaiser, 1995 for its relevance in Tanzania).
Activities The activities include operating more than 300 schools (Machiwala, 2008) and two universities executing transcultural quality education programs in Asia, Africa, MiddleEast, and the United Kingdom (AKF, 2008; Smith, 1997); providing primary and curative health care in over 200 health outlets; assisting local communities with village planning, sanitation, and water supply systems; and giving humanitarian assistance to victims. The service delivery of the Foundation is undoubtedly exemplary, however, the access to its costly higher education programs specifically by the poor communities is deemed debatable.
Aga Khan, Prince Karim
Structure and Governance The AKF is a branch of social development, one of three facets under AKDN. AKDN administratively controls the economic development, social development, and culture facets, serves under the Chairmanship (the Imamat) at Geneva, and strictly adheres to the International Nongovernmental Organizations’ Accountability Charter. AKF both mobilizes funding and implements the relevant projects (social development).
Funding Sources Income from the endowment and capital investments in the business sector, donations from individuals Ismailis, and grants from partners, e.g., host governments and joint-ventures are the AKF’s major funding sources. The Aga Khan, founder and chairman of the AKF, contributes funds himself toward administrative costs, new program initiatives, and the endowment. The Foundation is estimated to control assets of more than $1.5 billion (AKDN, 2002).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions UNESCO’s Asia-Pacific Heritage Award of Excellence for Work in Herat, Afghanistan; World Habitat Award; Global Development Award for Innovative Development Project; Green Oscar for Aga Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP); and the CGAP Financial Transparency Award signify AKF’s diverse contributions in development.
Cross-References
▶ Aga Khan, Prince Karim ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development
References/Further Readings Aga Khan Development Network (2002). Geneva Briefing Book. Geneva, Switzerland: AKF. Aga Khan Foundation (2008). Annual report. Geneva, Switzerland: AKF. Ebrahim, A. (2002). Information struggles: The role of information in the reproduction of NGO-funder relationships. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 31(1), 84–114. Kaiser, P. (1995). State-society relations in an international context: The case of Aga Khan health-care initiatives in Tanzania. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 36(3–4), 184–197. Machiwala, I. (2008). Aga Khan Education Services (akes), from http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/aga-khan-educationservices-akes-366652.html Shamatov, D. A. et al. (2005). Reconceptualization of teacher education: Experiences from the context of a multicultural developing country. Journal of Transformative Education, 3(3), 271–288. Smith, S. E. (1997). Increasing transcultural awareness: The McMasterAga Khan-CIDA Project workshop model. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 8(2), 23–31.
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Aga Khan, Prince Karim SHAHJAHAN BHUIYAN
Basic Biographical Information Born in Geneva on December 13, 1936, Prince Karim Aga Khan, the Aga Khan IV, is the eldest son of Prince Aly Salman (Salomone) Khan. During WWII, his father joined the Allies and Karim, along with his other family members, moved to Nairobi in 1941. By the age of seven, Karim became well-versed in his religion (‘‘Sevener Shi’a Islam’’) under the private tutorship of a Muslim missionary, and showed the agility for his future religious leadership. Right at the end of the War, Karim entered the Institute le Rosey in Switzerland followed by the Harvard University (earning a bachelor degree in Islamic history in 1959). Karim, at the age of 20 in 1957, being appointed by his grandfather the Aga Khan III as the ‘‘Imam’’ (49th) and ‘‘Pir’’ (spiritual leader) of Shi’a Ismaili followers, became the Aga Khan IV. In 2007, the Ismaili community embarked on a one-year celebration of the golden jubilee of his Imamate (religious leadership).
Major Contributions Upon becoming the Imam, His Highness Prince Karim Aga Khan, determined to materialize his grandfather’s (the Aga Khan III) vision of improved quality of life of the global community, and the Ismailis in particular, founded the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), one of the largest international NGOs, in 1967. In addition, Karim Aga Khan has been instrumental in the establishment of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) with agencies like the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance, Aga Khan Health Services, Aga Khan Planning and Building Services, Aga Khan Education Services, Aga Khan Trust for Culture, and Aga Khan University. The combined involvement of community services by these organizations extends as much as 300 schools, two universities (offering transcultural quality education in Asia, Africa, Middle East and the United Kingdom), 200 health care outlets, and the offering of humanitarian services to victims of war and famine. Under his patronage, since 1977, the Aga Khan Award of Architecture, deemed to be the largest in the field, has become a prestigious award and a source of data on thousands of innovations on ‘‘green architecture.’’ Karim Aga Khan chairs the Institute of Ismaili Studies, which he established in 1977 in the United Kingdom to promote scholarship and learning of Muslim cultures and societies, and understanding and harmony among religions.
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The Aga Khan IV has received many prestigious awards like the Hadrian Award (World Monuments Fund, 1996) for his contribution to preserve and revitalize historic cities in the Muslim world, the Knight Commander in the Order of the British Empire (2003) for his services to international development, and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Philanthropy (2005). He has received honorary degrees from universities in Pakistan, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Cross-References
▶ Aga Khan Foundation ▶ Sadaqa ▶ Wakfs ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Moosa, M. (2007). Prince Karim Aga Khan – A true leader of Islam, from http://ezinarticles.com/?Prince-kARIM-Aga-Khan—A-True-Leaderof-Islam&id = 1401609. Tajddin, M. A. (2007). Prince Karim Aga Khan IV, from http://www. ismaili.net/heritage/node/10524.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Rafael Alegrı´a was one of the promoters of the Belgium conference in which a group of farm leaders formally constituted Via Campesina in 1993. This social movement took the form of an organization that coordinates small and medium peasants and indigenous communities from America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Rafael Alegrı´a was then elected to hold the operational secretariat of the organization, a post he retained until 2004. With his work he has contributed to criticizing the liberalization of agriculture and food, showing the consequences of deregulation policies on rural livelihoods in the context of the World Trade Organization international market rules. He also played a role in finding progressive alternatives to this neoliberal alimentary model. He worked to promote people’s food sovereignty and land reforms to recover natural resources on behalf of the communities. At present, he is still a peasant leader and an active member of the International Coordinating Committee of Via Campesina.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives and Employee-owned Enterprises ▶ Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations ▶ Social Movements
AKF ▶ Aga Khan Foundation
Alegrı´a, Rafael
References/Further Readings Bello, W. F. (2004). Deglobalization: Ideas for a new world economy. London: Zed Books. Bove´, J., Dufour, F., Luneau, G., & De Casparis, A. (2000). The world is not for sale: Farmers against junk food. London: Verso. Cummings, C. H. (2008). Uncertain peril: Genetic engineering and the future of seeds. Boston, MA: Beacon.
ANA TOLEDO CHAVARRI
Alliance for Justice Basic Biographical Information Born in the village of San Marquitos Morolica in Honduras in a peasant family, Rafael Alegrı´a has become an agrarian leader and one of the founders of the international organization Via Campesina. He was raised and educated in Potrerillos, in the Honduran department of Olancho. In this village, he started working with agricultural cooperatives and organizing producers that demanded land rights. After some episodes of repression he was exiled from his native region. He kept working with cooperative enterprises and also got involved in ‘‘Glass of Milk’’ programs, not just in rural areas but also in popular neighborhoods of Honduran cities.
PATSY KRAEGER
Address of Organization 11 Dupont Circle NW 2nd Floor Washington, DC 20036 USA www.afj.org
Introduction Alliance for Justice (AFJ) describes itself as ‘‘a national association of environmental, civil rights, mental health,
Altruism
women’s, children’s, and consumer advocacy organizations. Since its inception in 1979, AFJ has worked to advance the cause of justice for all Americans, strengthen the public interest community’s ability to influence public policy, and foster the next generation of advocates.’’ AFJ has a diverse group of approximately 80 member organizations who join in on policy debates regarding access to justice. AFJ has two offices, in Washington D.C. and a West Coast office in California.
Brief History Alliance for Justice was founded in 1979 by Nan Aron, a former Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawyer who litigated cases against companies accused of racial and sexual discrimination. She brought 20 advocacy organizations together to form AFJ, which became prominent though its judicial selection project during the confirmation hearings for Judge Robert Bork’s seat on the Unites States Supreme Court: Aron and AFJ helped to defeat that nomination. AFJ was a significant voice when the Supreme Court nominations of Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Harriet Myers and Samuel Alito were before the Congress.
Mission AFJ’s original mission was to address issues that affected the survival of public interest law. Today, the mission has been broadened to lead ‘‘progressive advocacy and strengthening the progressive movement to ensure robust and equal access to levers of government power.’’ AFJ leadership has been committed to the broader goal of policy advocacy and the formation of advocacy coalition networks for nonprofits in areas separate from judicial selection. To support its mission expansion, AFJ opened a West Coast Office in 2004.
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Structure and Governance AFJ is an incorporated entity which also has been designated by the I.R.S. as a 501(c)(3) public charity. AFJ is led by its founder and President and a 16-member Board of Directors.
Funding Alliance for Justice’s work is financed primarily through donations from foundations and individuals. AFJ does not receive government contributions for its work. In 2005, AFJ reported revenues of slightly more than $5 million.
Major Accomplishments AFJ claims its major accomplishment was the defeat of the Bork nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987, which propelled the organization as a policy leader in judicial selection and advocacy.
Cross-References ▶ Advocacy ▶ Human Rights ▶ Networks ▶ Social Justice
References/Further Readings Aron, N. (1989). Liberty and justice for all: Public interest law in the 1980s and beyond. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Payne, E. (2008). The practical progressive: How to build a twenty-first century political movement. New York: Public Affairs. Pickering, C. W. (2005). Supreme chaos: The politics of judicial confirmation & the culture war. Macon, GA: Stroud and Hall.
Altruism Activities To pursue it mission, AFJ combines advocacy campaigns at the grassroots level with research and publications relating to advocacy and judicial nominations to train others to advocate. AFJ has expanded its capacity through technology and is able to reach more than 53,000 total activists and supporters, including 1,640 law professors and 2,654 students. The organization’s Nonprofit Action Network grew to more than 8,100 members, and in 2005 they launched an Access to Justice update with more than 6,000 subscribers. Its main programs are the judicial selection project; access to justice project; the nonprofit advocacy project/foundation advocacy initiative; and the student action campaign.
ANNE BIRGITTA PESSI University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Introduction Altruism as a form of helping behavior forms the cornerstone of societal cohesion, the everyday well-being of individuals and the central manifestation of human values. Still, much research views humans and humanity in a way best described in David Hume’s words as ‘‘homo homini lupus.’’ Altruism is thus often neglected as a secondary ad hoc explanation, as its explanatory power compared to selfishness is considered to be less. This,
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however, need not nor should it be the case with altruism. Appreciation of various forms of altruism can bring considerable benefit for the understanding of the interaction between people both in theoretical considerations and empirical studies. Altruism, an essential and pivotal part of humanity, can be regarded as a universal phenomenon, since it is found in all known societies. However, the forms of altruism vary greatly between and within societies and probably between different eras in the same societies. Today’s societal context creates an especially interesting framework for altruism: While individuals are less dependent on traditional social ties and traditions, they are increasingly tied to other types of networks, including global ones. Individuals live in the midst of multiple novel networks in several senses of the word; people may, for instance, not be interested in helping their neighbors but have godchildren on the other side of the world. As the networks of individuals are changing, so too is altruism. The changes in the forms of altruism and helping behavior might even be playing a role in the transformation of social networks.
Definition Altruism, in general, refers to actions that take other human beings into consideration: action concerned with the well-being of others. The concept was brought into the social sciences by Auguste Comte (1798–1857) in the mid-nineteenth century as the antonym of selfishness. The term derives from the Latin words ‘‘alter’’ and ‘‘other.’’ In Comte’s often restated view, individuals have two distinct motives: egoism and altruism; the latter for him is ‘‘the most important sociological question.’’ Similar views were later put by E´mile Durkheim (1858–1917) in his early work ‘‘The Division of Labour in Society.’’ Durkheim argues that wherever there are communities, there is altruism since communities exhibit solidarity. Durkheim linked egoism and altruism to the deepening of the societal division of labor, the transformation from mechanical to organic solidarity. Likewise, he linked egoism and altruism to the maintenance of moral communality demanded by and included in the transformed solidarity. According to Durkheim, both egoism and altruism have been a part of each human consciousness from the very beginning: consciousness that does not reflect these elements cannot exist. For Durkheim, unselfishness is expected to come from the deepest foundation of our social life; people cannot live together without mutual understanding, and thus without mutual sacrifice, and without being bonded together in a strong, durable manner.
During the twentieth century, an increasing part of the literature on altruism-related themes has been encompassed specifically by the concept of altruism. Research can indeed be found on various fields: philosophy, religious studies, developmental psychology studies, social psychology, organisational studies, political science, economics, evolutionary studies both in psychology and biology, etc. However, today, there is a remarkable lack of agreement over what is meant by the term. Macaulay and Berkowitz’s classic definition of altruism is ‘‘behaviour carried out to benefit another without anticipation of rewards from external sources’’ (1970: 3). This definition includes internal rewards, such as alleviation of guilt, increase in self-esteem, and feeling good about oneself. Such a definition offers the advantage of avoiding both the philosophical dilemma of true unselfishness and unobservable variables. Another classic study by Monroe (1996) has defined altruism as ‘‘behaviour intended to benefit another, even when this risks possible sacrifice to the welfare of the actor.’’ Monroe has further outlined six critical points in the definition: 1. Altruism entails action. 2. The action must be goal-directed, either consciously or reflexively. 3. The goal must concern the welfare of another. 4. Intentions count more than consequences. 5. The act must carry some possibility of decrease in the actor’s own welfare. 6. There must be no conditions or anticipation of reward. Some of these points, however, divide scholarly views. The sixth criterion, ‘‘no conditions or anticipation of reward,’’ is particularly tricky. In other words, the question of whether the actor is allowed to gain joy from altruism or expected to gain it prior to the action is a divisive issue between scholars. For instance, one can look at the definition by Montada and Bierhof (1991: 18) that differs from the one by Monroe: altruism is voluntary ‘‘behaviour that aims at a termination or reduction of an emergency, a neediness, or disadvantage of others and that primarily does not aim at the fulfilment of one’s own interests.’’ A further age-old debated issue concerns whether altruism really exists; what is the relation between selfishness and non-selfishness in helping-behavior. It is actually logically rather difficult to demonstrate altruism to those thinking that helping is always inherently selfish; for instance, those who do personally value altruism most likely do derive positive feelings from altruistic behavior. Thus, a cynic can always claim that there is always a selfish gain. She/he could respond that it may be true that
Altruism
helping others brings one pleasure, yet this is by no means the same as showing that one has helped in order to primarily please oneself. Similarly, as noted by Felscher and Worthen (2007), pleasure, as such, is never an end motive in itself but something causes one pleasure; the fact that altruism brings joy particularly indicates true altruistic motives that have been provided by biological and cultural evolution (both nature and nurture). Additionally, a continuum perspective from pure egoism to pure altruism can be utilized as a key to this dilemma: the problem with theories of motivation based on self-interest is not that they are false but that they are only partly true. In other words, neither egoism nor altruism is adequate explanation on its own. Considering the pure form of thinking and acting (either egoism or altruism) as extremely rare, and taking most human thinking and behavior as including elements of both these poles, leads to an understanding that helping others and gaining joy from it (or the increased social respect and status) are two sides of the same coin. There are overall considerable fundamental differences in the criteria for altruism in the literature; in other words, what is considered ‘‘pure altruism’’ or even just ‘‘altruism’’ and ‘‘helping behaviour,’’ looking at these phenomena in the continuum perspective. Some scholars consider that altruism resembles self-sacrifice and heroism, while others link it more loosely to pro-social behavior, taking it as a synonym for helping-behavior. How then does one resolve this puzzle of the criteria for altruism? One solution is to return to the original concept in Latin — altruism is ‘‘other-ism,’’ behavior that primarily takes the other into account, as a starting point. The essence of altruism then is in putting someone else’s welfare and well-being above one’s own benefit. Seeing altruism as ‘‘other-ism’’ does not prevent one from being able to separate something that could be labelled as ‘‘more extreme altruism’’ from ‘‘milder altruism’’; different forms of altruism indeed can be seen as a continuum not only forming a continuum from egoism, but a continuum of their own. Many researchers have indeed rejected the dichotomy between egoism and altruism in various frames of reference, e.g., in educational studies and psychology (Krebs & Van Hesteren, 1992).
Key Issues The mainstream of the altruism discussion in various disciplines can be seen as roughly constituting three eras. At the first stage, up to the 1970s, the discussions concerning altruism in different disciplines went on in their own spheres and contexts, and there was little interaction between disciplines. Furthermore, much social
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science research focused on more negative aspects of human action, such as crime. All in all, the altruism research of the time – at least in hindsight – was not all that productive, considering the amount of further research and the number of significant publications. In the second era of altruism research, from the middle of the 1970s to the early 1990s, work in various disciplines and applications was marked by disputing and questioning unselfish altruism. Researchers aimed to show that phenomena appearing to be altruistic ultimately serve the altruist’s own interest and own good. Even actions that in the short term can be interpreted as altruistic were discovered to work to the advantage of the altruist in the long term. This view was reflected most clearly in sociobiology and economics research in which altruism was interpreted mainly as nepotism or efficient solutions to recurring problems. During the third era of altruism research, the last 15 years, the questions have changed again and common themes for research have increased. More importantly, in social psychology, sociology, economics and political science, a clear paradigm shift away from the position that behavior must reveal egoistic motivation has taken place, recent theory and data being more compatible with the view that ‘‘true altruism’’ does exist. The starting point of research is to a greater extent ‘‘pro-social’’ behavior, the human being considered capable of unselfish altruism which cannot be reduced to favoring of relatives. The various disciplines focus on different elements in their explanations of altruism. Sociocultural explanations focus on the demographic correlations of altruism (religion, age, gender, wealth, education, political views, etc.). Economic explanations, on the other hand, consider altruism a good, and stress the role of the rewards of altruism (material or psychological). Evolutionary biology and psychology base their explanations on very similar grounds to economic explanations. Biologists stress kin and/or group selection and emphasise elements such as birth order and community size. Psychologists prefer to emphasise developmental matters (socialisation, level of cognitive development, etc.) in their altruism explanations, as well as more contextual elements such as norms and culture (e.g., habits of reciprocity, moral judgements). One of the most heated debates on altruism has recently taken place in evolutionary studies in biology and psychology. The early version of kin-selection theory has been traced to the father of the evolution theory, Charles Darwin (1809–1882), who explained the altruistic behavior of ants by natural selection, the survival of the fittest, which applies at the level of the family. A central source of tension in evolutionary studies has then
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been the question of the extent to which social and cultural behavior ultimately supports biological and genetic objectives. The core debate concerns the question of whether altruism is developed and to what extent by individual-selection, kin-selection, or group-selection, or is it rather a question of co-evolution in which the evolution of genes and cultures is quite closely linked. The game theories of evolution biology, as well as those in economics, have identified the altruistic and cooperative inclinations of humans. Altruism has been tested using these classic games (e.g., Prisoner’s Dilemma, Ultimatum) in which short- and long-term advantages of an individual’s are set in contrast to each other, and the solutions of the second players determine the usefulness of one’s own strategy. Game theory experiments have repeatedly shown that individuals cooperate more than the rational choice theory predicts. Furthermore, in repeated games patterns of reciprocity between the players soon appear. Also findings in neurobiology indicate that in situations in which one player would have cooperated but the co-player would not, there is a negative response in the dopamine system in the more cooperative player’s brain. In more empirically oriented studies of altruism there are two strong currents of research. First, several researchers have analysed heroes and their choices. Subjects of such hero research have included people who saved Jews during the Second World War, and people who have led an exceptionally altruistic life such as Gandhi or Mother Teresa. In these cases individuals have made choices that underscore the common good and require sacrifices, choices that have deviated from the dominant cultural models. Organ and blood donation research forms the second study area, most of which has sought the donors’ motivation. Much of altruism research in various fields has concerned the question of what separates an altruist from a non-altruist, or a more altruistic individual from a less altruistic one. One example is Monroe’s theory of altruism (1996); she concludes based on empirical exploration that altruism is constituted most fundamentally by perspective, a different way of seeing oneself and one’s world. This perspective might easily be activated by different factors, such as religious teachings. The basic explanation of altruism, however, consists of the individuals’ perceived identity (not identity as such) and their perspective of themselves in relation to others. Five concepts are crucial: ● Cognition; cognitive framework and processing, including intentionality, agency as well as both biological and cultural self; in other words, the processes by which people come to make sense of the world
● World view; group membership and connection with others playing a crucial role ● Canonical expectations concerning what is normal, or what is ordinary; expectations ● Empathy and/or sympathy including both cognitive and affective elements; resulting from socialisation and developmental processes ● Views of self; identity and perception of who one is, including in relation to others Similarly, in their classic study on individuals who had rescued Jews during the Nazi era, the Oliners (1988) indicated that the rescuers where marked by ‘‘extensivity,’’ being more attached and committed to people in their social relationships and having empathy as well as an inclusive sense of obligation towards various groups. In other words, both the propensity to attach oneself to others and the propensity towards inclusiveness in respect of individuals and groups are critical to altruism. Various scholars have provided evidence supporting the theory that altruism is learned and can be further developed by teaching and learning. Hunt (1990) has summed up three elements that are characteristic of altruists, particularly altruistic children: being (1) happy, welladjusted and socially popular, (2) being sensitive and emotionally expressive and (3) having high self-esteem. Thus, teaching by parents, schools, civil society agents, among others that support these elements will also support the development of altruism.
Future Directions In the forthcoming studies, the best basis for altruism research is not to strictly separate the core phenomenon from closely related pro-social acts such as giving, sharing and co-operating. Rather, innovative research exploring individual-level experiences and views concerning networks of altruism is needed: for instance, what constitutes altruism, and particularly networks of altruism, for latemodern individuals? Such research would both benefit the interdisciplinary links and the links between theory and praxis. Thus some re-direction of research must be accounted for. Five such ways will be outlined next. First, in order to understand altruism in the context of the novel forms of social ties and networks, peoples’ attitudes, trust and expectations – not only deeds – should be accounted for. Researchers should not divide people beforehand into altruists and non-altruists or offer presumptions about where to find the altruists, but explore the present-day experiences and views of altruism with more open eyes. What is the nature and substance of altruism networks now?
Altruism
Second, previous research has largely restricted itself one-sidedly to the acts of altruism by individuals as givers, not receivers. However, in order to understand altruism as a societal and social phenomenon, both directions should be explored. The present-day support and altruism is highly likely to include sporadic and hybrid stories of altruism, as well as series of such stories, and should be studied as such. Third, our understanding of altruism will remain limited if focus is placed simply on individuals, neglecting the role of social groups and institutions in the construction, well-being and maintenance of altruistic values. Even though public institutions such as welfare agencies, schools, associations and churches do not assist or teach altruistic norms primarily because they experience altruistic wishes (but have, for example, statutory responsibilities and regulations), individuals’ expectations and trust in institutional support should be explored. It would also be valuable to explore the way the individuals view the role institutions have in promoting societal values and common faith in compassion and altruism. Fourth, in order to understand experiences and views of altruism more thoroughly, one should include not only the life-cycle viewpoint (past–present–future), but also a wide range of cognitive, rational, emotional and societal elements. Traditionally, explanations of altruism (sociocultural, economic, biological and psychological) have all focused primarily on the explanations found in their own niches. Furthermore, most studies have primarily emphasised cognitive factors. Additionally, both values and, for instance, religion-related elements affect views, acts and attitudes of altruism, as well as individual faith and trust in the networks of altruism supporting them. Fifth, altruism is methodologically most often studied through extreme cases (e.g., people rescuing Jews during the Second World War) and instances quite distinct from individual everyday lives (e.g., blood and organ donation). One next step in altruism research should involve exploration of everyday experiences and views of altruism through combining survey and qualitative data. Research taking these notions into consideration will enable better understanding of the nature of altruism in the intricate present-day interconnections between individualism and collectivism. The relationship between altruism and civil society is a dual process; different forms of altruism promote civil society and participating in civil society activities promotes altruism and altruistic values. In other words, civil society socializes us into further altruism. Altruism is usually thought to decrease when the group-size increases. Moreover, the further the group is from an individual, the less
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altruism. Civil society may transform perspective, even to global spheres. Involvement in civil society may ‘‘mess up’’ the circles; a group not so close to an individual might start to feel closer; it may come to represent one of the meaningful others to an individual, also in altruistic sense.
Cross-References
▶ Community Philanthropy ▶ Compassion ▶ Comte, Auguste ▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Durkheim, E´mile ▶ Gift, Giving ▶ Philanthropy ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Solidarity
References/Further Readings Fehr, E., & Fischbacher, U. (2003). The nature of human altruism. Nature, 425, 785–791. Felscher, A. E., & Worthen, D. L. (2007). The altruistic species: Scientific, philosophical, and religious perspectives of human benevolence. New York: Templeton Foundation Press. Field, A. J. (2004). Altruistically inclined? The behavioral sciences, evolutionary theory and the origins of reciprocity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Gintis, H. (2003). Solving the puzzle of prosociality. Rationality and Society, 15(2), 155–187. Hardin, G. (1993). Discriminating altruism. In G. Hardin, (Ed.), Living within the limits (pp. 225–237). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hunt, M. (1990). The compassionate beast. What science is discovering about the humane side of humankind. New York: William Morrow. Kohn, A. (1990). The brighter side of human nature. Altruism & empathy in everyday life. New York: Basic Books. Krebs, D. L., & Van Hesteren, F. (1992). The development of altruistic personality. In P. M. Oliner, et al., (Eds), Embracing the other. Philosophical, psychological, and historical perspectives on altruism (pp. 142–169). New York: New York University Press. Macaulay, J. R., & Berkowitz, L., (Eds.) (1970). Altruism and helping behavior: Social psychological studies of some antecedents and consequences. New York: Academic Press. Monroe, K. R. (1996). The heart of altruism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Montada, L., & Bierhof, H. W. (1991). Studying prosocial behavior in social systems. In L. Montada, & H. Bierhof, (Eds.), Altruism and social systems (pp. 1–26). New York: Hogrefe & Huber. Oliner, S. P., & Oliner, P. M. (1988). The altruistic personality: Rescuers of Jews in Nazi Europe. New York: Free Press. Piliavin, J. A., & Charng, H. W. (1990). Altruism: A review of recent theory and research. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 27–65. Rushton, J. P., & Sorrentino, R. M. (Eds.), Altruism and helping behavior: Social, personality and developmental perspectives. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum. Seidler, V. J. (1992). Rescue, righteousness, and morality. In P. M. Oliner, et al. (Eds.), Embracing the other. Philosophical, psychological, and
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historical perspectives on altruism (pp. 48–65). New York: New York University Press. Sober, E., & Wilson, D. S. (1998). Unto others. The evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
AEI in 1954, Baroody led the organization for over 26 years coining its prominent slogan: ‘‘Competition of ideas is fundamental to a free society.’’ Many of AEI’s scholars and fellows were recruited by the Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush administrations.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas
American Association of Retired Persons ▶ AARP
American Enterprise Institute ROBBIE WATERS ROBICHAU
AEI’s founding mission statement was to promote ‘‘greater public knowledge and understanding of the social and economic advantages accruing to the American people through the maintenance of the system of free, competitive enterprise.’’ The institute later changed its purpose statement to ‘‘defend the principles and improve the institutes of American freedom and democratic capitalism – limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and responsibility, vigilant and effective defense and foreign policies, political accountability, and open debate.’’
Activities Address of Organization 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W. Washington, DC 20036 USA www.aei.org
Introduction The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) describes itself as one of America’s ‘‘oldest and most respected think tanks.’’ AEI is primarily dedicated to education and research on governmental issues such as politics, social welfare, and economics. It promotes fact-finding, empirical research on public policy topics that are distributed to various government officials, business executives, academics, and journalist across the United States.
Brief History Founded in 1943 during World War II, the American Enterprise Association (AEA) started out as a partnership between prominent policy experts (e.g., Roscoe Pound, Henry Hazlitt, Raymond Moley) and executives from the business and financial communities (e.g., Bristol-Myers, General Mills, Chemical Bank). From the beginning, the Washington, DC-based association was libertarian and conservative, but had a commitment to being nonpartisan, apolitical, and objective in their research. AEA wanted to ensure that Congress understood the economic consequences of their actions. Later changed to the American Enterprise Institute, the organization was highly influenced by William J. Baroody’s leadership. Joining
In its research and publication endeavors, AEI maintains an unbiased and nonpartisan approach. Through its employees, fellows, and scholars, the Institute publishes several books, monographs, e-newsletters, and periodicals as well as sponsors conferences, seminars, and lectures. One of their major publications, The American magazine, is distributed six times a year. A few of AEI’s projects include the National Research Initiative, Future of American Education Project, Global Governance Watch, and Reg-Market Center.
Structure and Governance AEI is designated as an education, nonprofit institute under the Internal Revenue Code 501(c)(3). It employs approximately 190 individuals at their Washington, DC office and around 100 additional fellows and scholars located around the United States. Research is performed by three main research branches: Economic Policy Studies, Social and Political Studies, and Defense and Foreign Policy Studies. Additionally, AEI works with several other specialized programs such as the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies or the Brady Program on Culture and Freedom to perform its mission. A Board of Trustees governs AEI and selects the institution’s president. The Board and president are advised by the Council of Academic Advisers.
Funding In addition to receiving funding from their internal endowment, AEI primarily obtains funding from individuals, foundations, corporations, and its conferences, book sales, and other revenues. The organization rarely receives
Amnesty International
governmental grants and avoids engaging in contract research. AEI’s revenues were $31.3 million and its expenses were around $27.4 million in 2007. According to their website, over 80% of AEI’s resources go to supporting its research, publications, and conferences.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions AEI has contributed to government, business, and society’s awareness of public policy issues facing the United States through its many publications and conferences. Many of its scholars and fellows have received positions in presidential cabinets, testified before Congress, appeared on televised public affairs programs, and lectured on various topics. According to their website, AEI scholars have published more op-ed pieces in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Washington Post than all other DC-based think tanks combined.
Cross-References ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Abelson, D. E. (2002). Do think tanks matter?: Assessing the impact of public policy institutes. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Rich, A. (2005). Think tanks, public policy, and the politics of expertise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Weaver, R. K. (1989). The changing world of think tanks. Political Science and Politics, 22(3), 563–578.
Amnesty International REGINA LIST
Address of Organization International Secretariat 1 Easton Street London WC1X 0DW UK www.amnesty.org
Introduction Amnesty International (AI) describes itself as a ‘‘worldwide movement of people who campaign for internationally recognized human rights.’’ AI has grown into one of the largest international NGOs with more than 2.2 million members, supporters, and subscribers in over 150 countries and territories.
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Brief History Amnesty International’s work began in 1961 when British lawyer, Peter Benenson, launched the ‘‘Appeal for Amnesty’’ with the publication of a widely reprinted article that brought attention to those imprisoned, tortured or executed because their opinions were unacceptable to government. Several months after the article’s publication, delegates from six European countries and the United States agreed to establish a permanent international movement to defend freedom of opinion and religion, and in 1962, delegates from 14 national groups decided to set up the organization known as Amnesty International.
Mission From its original mission to draw attention to prisoners of conscience, AI’s mandate has expanded in response to new needs and its own capacities. AI’s Statute states that its mission is ‘‘to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of the rights to physical and mental integrity, freedom of conscience and expression, and freedom from discrimination, within the context of its work to promote all human rights.’’ At its 2007 International Council Meeting, AI’s leadership committed to the broader goal of ‘‘tackling poverty and disparity as the gravest global threats to universal human rights.’’
Activities To pursue its mission, AI combines research and publications, including reports, news releases, and urgent action alerts, with campaigns at the grassroots, national, international and inter-governmental levels. Recent global campaigns focus on torture and the ‘‘war on terror,’’ arms control, abolition of the death penalty, support for human rights defenders, refugees and migrants, among others. Members of AI’s Urgent Action network in some 70 countries respond to its alerts by sending correspondence to responsible parties to hinder specific cases of human rights abuse. AI’s annual reports on ‘‘The State of the World’s Human Rights’’ highlight its work and current concerns.
Structure and Governance AI is an unincorporated global movement, which includes formally organized ‘‘sections’’ in more than 50 countries, ‘‘structures,’’ i.e., aspiring sections, and international members. Its International Secretariat, led by a Secretary General appointed by AI’s International Council, is incorporated in the UK. In 2005–6, AI participated in the drafting of and adheres to the International Nongovernmental Organizations’ Accountability Charter.
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Funding Amnesty International’s work is financed primarily through individual contributions, special events, and donations from foundations and corporations. Although AI receives no governmental contributions for its campaigning, it does accept restricted funds for human rights education projects. The International Secretariat alone reported total expenditures of more than £28.8 million for the year ending March 31, 2006.
Accomplishments Among its other achievements, AI was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1977 for its contributions to ‘‘securing the ground for freedom, for justice, and thereby also for peace in the world’’. In addition, for its innovative use of email, AI won ‘‘The Revolution Awards’’ for its ‘‘Stop Torture’’ website.
Cross-References ▶ Human Rights ▶ INGOs
References/Further Readings Clark, A. M. (2001). Diplomacy of conscience: Amnesty International and changing human rights norms. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hopgood, S. (2006). Keepers of the flame: Understanding Amnesty International. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Power, J. (2001). Like water on stone: The story of Amnesty International. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Annenberg, Walter Hubert DAVID B. HOWARD
television. President Richard Nixon appointed Annenberg as Ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, Great Britain, for which he served from 1969 to 1974. Annenberg sold Triangle Publications to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation for $3 billion in 1988, enabling him to become one of the country’s most active philanthropists. He died in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania in 2002 at the age of 94.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Even in Annenberg’s early publishing and media career, he showed a desire to improve educational opportunities by way of television. One of the first to air educational programming on television, he was awarded the Alfred I. Dupont award in 1951 and the Marshall Field Award in 1958. He extended his interest in education by founding two separate Annenberg Schools of Communication – one at the University of Pennsylvania in 1958 and one at the University of Southern California in 1971. In 1981, Annenberg pledged $90 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to put college courses on the air – the largest pledge in the history of public broadcasting. In 1991, Annenberg and wife Leonore donated their $1 billion Impressionist and Post- Impressionist art collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The Annenberg Foundation was established in 1989 to advance the public well-being through improved communication. In 1993, the foundation created the Annenberg Challenge, a $500 million, 5-year reform effort and the largest single gift ever made to American public education. This historic gift generated more than $600 million in matching funds. In 2006, the Annenberg Foundation was the 19th largest in the US with assets nearing $2.7 billion. Annenberg supported a variety of institutions over time, including presidential libraries, universities, hospitals, orchestras, children’s museums, and science centers. Throughout his lifetime, it is estimated that Annenberg donated over $2 billion.
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1908 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin (USA) to a Jewish family, Walter H. Annenberg would become a pioneer in media and publishing, diplomat, and philanthropist. After taking over the family publishing business – Triangle Publications – in the early 1940s, Annenberg sought ways to expand the company just as television was becoming the next major communication medium. He created Seventeen Magazine for teenage girls in 1944 before establishing TV Guide, a weekly magazine about television programming, which became the most read and circulated magazine in the country by the 1960s. Over the years, Annenberg’s company delved into radio and television broadcasting, and he became an early pioneer in and supporter of public
Cross-References
▶ Grantmaking Foundations ▶ Philanthropy and the media
References/Further Readings Cervone, B. T. (1996). Walter H. Annenberg’s challenge to the nation: A progress report. Providence, RI: Annenberg Institute for School Reform. Cooney, J. (1982). The Annenbergs. New York: Simon & Schuster. Fonzi, G. (1970). Annenberg: A biography of power. New York: Weybright and Talley. The Annenberg Foundation (2005). Creating opportunities: Fifteen years of advancing the public good, from http://www.annenbergfoundation. org/usr_doc/Retrospective.pdf; 1/6/2009.
Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International PATSY KRAEGER
Address of Organization Thomas Clarkson House The Stableyard Broomgrove Road London SW9 9TL UK www.antislavery.org
Introduction Anti-Slavery International (ASI) describes itself as ‘‘the world’s oldest international human rights organization’’ claiming roots back to 1787 with the establishment of the first abolitionist society in England.
Brief History Anti-Slavery International is origins date back to 1787 with the establishment of the first abolitionist society in England. The organization’s early leaders included Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Thomas Clarkson, and other notable British Quakers, Baptists, and Methodists. In 1839, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was formed and in 1990 the society changed its name to AntiSlavery International.
Mission The original mission of the organization was a commitment to abolish slavery throughout the world. In the 1890s, the mission was expanded to abolish the ill treatment of indigenous peoples, merging with the Aborigines’ Protection Society in 1909. Today, the organization seeks to work against slavery and its related abuses throughout the world.
Activities Anti-Slavery International has two teams, a program and a communications team. The Program Team works with partner organizations around the world to collect information on: debt bondage, forced labor, forced marriage, the worst forms of child labor, human trafficking, and traditional slavery. Anti-Slavery International publishes information and works through international bodies in order to promote laws to protect those exploited by these practices. The Communications Team is comprised of campaign, education, and press officers who produce action briefings, educational materials, and a quarterly magazine
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called the Reporter, to inform both the public and policy makers about slavery issues around the world. AntiSlavery International also lobbies national governments, the United Nations and the European Union to adopt policies which will help to bring about the end of all forms of slavery.
Structure and Governance Anti-Slavery International is a British charitable and advocacy organization. It works with partner agencies throughout the world to abolish slavery and related abuses. The organization has a director, a staff of less than 25 and a Board of Trustees as well as affiliated worldwide partners.
Funding Anti-Slavery International’s work is financed primarily through public and private charitable trusts, foundations, individuals, governments, the European Union and other institutions. The organization reported £1,700,725 in funds received in 2006 and expenditures of £1,541,318 for that same year. Eighty percent of received funding goes directly into projects and campaigns.
Major Accomplishments In 2003, following ASI’s first national survey of slavery in Niger, the Niger Government introduced a new law against slavery with sentences of 30 years in prison for offenders. Within 6 months of this measure over 200 slaves were freed. In 2002, after years of pressure from Anti-Slavery International, the Nepalese Government passed a law declaring bonded labor illegal. In 2000, Anti-Slavery International initiated a new program with local partners in six West African countries to end the cross-border trafficking of children, leading to the first anti-trafficking network of its kind in the region.
Cross-References ▶ Advocacy ▶ Human Rights ▶ INGOs
References/Further Readings Keck, M. E., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders. Ithaca, NY/ London, England: Cornell University Press. McDonagh, P. (2002). Communicative campaigns to effect anti-slavery and fair trade: The cases of Rugmark and Cafedirect. European Journal of Marketing, 36(5/6), 642–666. Sharman, A.-M. (Ed.) (1993). Anti-Slavery Reporter (Vol. 13, No. 8). London: Anti-Slavery International.
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ANZTSR ▶ Australia New Zealand Third Sector Research (ANZTSR) Inc.
APPC ▶ Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium (APPC)
Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) EVA DIDION
Address of Organization Heinrich-Albertz-Haus Blu¨cherstraße 62/63 10961 Berlin Germany www.awo.org
AWO was reconstituted in 1946 in the western sectors, this time independent from the Social Democratic Party, but nonetheless committed to the social democratic movement. AWO joined the ‘‘Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Freien Wohlfahrtspflege,’’ an umbrella organization created in 1956, lobbying for the six large welfare organizations in Germany: Deutscher Caritasverband, Diakonisches Werk der EKD, AWO, German Red Cross, Parita¨tischer Wohlfahrtsverband – Parity and Zentralwohlfahrtsstelle der Juden in Deutschland. After the German reunification, AWO reestablished the organization in former East Germany.
Mission AWO is driven by the values solidarity, tolerance, freedom, equality, and justice, based on its history as part of the workers’ movement. AWO substantially differs from other voluntary welfare associations by proclaiming priority to public over private welfare organizations.
Activities
Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) is one of six central voluntary welfare associations in Germany. It describes itself as a ‘‘member association fighting for a socially just society and taking political influence.’’ This is achieved by voluntary action and professional services. 430,000 members, 100,000 volunteers and 146,000 professionals support the association and perform services in more than 14,000 facilities including about 2,100 residential homes with approximately 330,000 beds.
The activities of AWO comprise the whole sector of social work including stimulation of self-help, encouragement of voluntary work, offering and maintaining institutions and services in fields of healthcare, prevention and aid as well as support for women, children and adolescents. AWO is also engaged in education and foreign aid. Another important field is to comment on questions of public and private welfare and assist the planning of social services and institutions. AWO also addresses delegates of the democratic parties and thereby tries to participate in legislation on a local, federal, national, and European level. Finally, AWO collaborates with other associations and self-help groups. AWO’s bimonthly journal ‘‘Theorie und Praxis’’ informs about various aspects of social work.
Brief History
Structure and Governance
In 1919, the German Social Democratic Party founded the ‘‘Hauptausschuss fu¨r Arbeiterwohlfahrt’’ (Main Committee for Workers’ Welfare) as a social support organization aiming at more independence for workers from bourgeois poor relief and strengthening their self-help. The organization grew rapidly: in the mid-1920s the organization comprised more than 1,000 residential homes. The main initiator of the organization was Marie Juchacz (1897– 1956) who also became the first chairwoman. In 1933, the National Socialists banned the AWO. As a consequence, all institutions were either dissolved or taken over by the national socialist welfare organization. Marie Juchacz and other leaders left the country.
Members of the Federal Association are the 29 state or regional associations. Those are composed of 480 district and 3,800 local associations. The federal conference, consisting of 440 elected delegates, is the main decision-making body of the organization. The delegates meet every 4 years, elect the 19 board members, decide about membership fees, proposals and focus areas.
Introduction
Funding The federal association’s main sources of income are private grants and governmental subsidies. In 2006, those two sources together constituted €27.9 million. Other
ARNOVA
important financial sources are revenues from the association’s activities which added up to €9.7 million in 2006.
Cross-References
▶ Diakonisches Werk der EKD ▶ Umbrella Organizations
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ARNOVA in 1990; (e) the establishment of an awards program in 1993; (f) the hiring of the first paid executive director in 1994, and (g) the establishment of ARNOVA’s first sections in 1999. Today, ARNOVA has almost 1,300 members from 24 countries and is widely recognized for its leadership in the advancement of nonprofit and voluntary action scholarship.
References/Further Readings
Mission
Boessenecker, K.-H. (1995). Spitzenverba¨nde der freien Wohlfahrtspflege in der BRD: eine Einfu¨hrung in Organisationsstrukturen und Handlungsfelder. Mu¨nster, Germany: Votum-Verlag. Eifert, C. (1993). Frauenpolitik und Wohlfahrtspflege: zur Geschichte der sozialdemokratischen ‘‘Arbeiterwohlfahrt’’. Frankfurt/Main, Germany: Campus Verlag.
ARNOVA is a leading interdisciplinary community of people dedicated to fostering through research and education, the creation, application, and dissemination of knowledge on nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, civil society and voluntary action.
Activities
ARNOVA BARBARA A. METELSKY
Address of Organization 340 W. Michigan St., Canal Level, Suite A Indianapolis, IN 46202 USA www.arnova.org
Introduction The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) is a nonprofit professional membership organization dedicated to advancing scholarship on nonprofit organizations and voluntary action. ARNOVA members include scholars and practitioners from the United States and abroad who conduct research on issues affecting the nonprofit sector. This research often informs nonprofit policy and practice.
Brief History In 1971, ARNOVA was founded as the Association for Voluntary Action Scholars (AVAS) by David Horton Smith. Funding for AVAS was provided by the Center for a Voluntary Society. Major historical milestones include: (a) the publication of the first issue of the Journal of Voluntary Action Research in 1972; (b) the convening of the first annual conference in 1974; (c) the journal’s name change to Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ) in 1989; (d) the organization’s name change to
ARNOVA’s mission is advanced by three primary means: publications, an annual research conference, and dialog groups. ARNOVA publishes NVSQ and ARNOVA News. ARNOVA’s conference provides scholars with opportunities for dissemination and feedback on their research, and includes an awards program that honors and highlights outstanding achievement in nonprofit scholarship. Members are afforded ongoing opportunities for dialog through participation in ARNOVA-L (a listserve) and ARNOVA’s sections (subgroups focused on: Teaching; Community and Grassroots; Pracademics; Social Entrepreneurship/Enterprise; Theories, Issues, and Boundaries; and Values, Religion, and Deviance).
Structure and Governance ARNOVA is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which is governed by a 15-member board of directors. The organization’s executive director and the coeditors of NVSQ serve as ex-officio directors. ARNOVA offers two membership types; individual and institutional. An annual membership meeting is held in conjunction with its conference.
Funding ARNOVA’s largest revenue sources are conference revenue and membership dues. Philanthropic support has come from individuals and foundations that include the Ford Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.
Accomplishments ARNOVA has undertaken several strategic initiatives that have focused on strengthening the community of nonprofit and voluntary action scholars by increasing membership growth, disciplinary diversity, and practitioner participation. As a result membership has grown from
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Article 19
an estimated 150 in 1976, to 464 in 1994, to 1,049 in 2000 to 1,287 in 2008. ARNOVA’s Occasional Paper Series has made a significant contribution by inviting leading scholars to examine pertinent issues in the field. Most recently, in partnership with the Council on Foundations and the Foundation Center, ARNOVA has established a ‘‘Research & Practice Think Tank.’’
Cross-References
▶ Council on Foundations ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Foundation Center ▶ Lilly Endowment ▶ Mott Foundation, Charles Stewart ▶ Smith, David Horton
References/Further Readings Association for Research on Nonprofits and Voluntary Action. 2007 annual report: A year of change and progress, from http://www. arnova.org/pdf/07AnnualReport.pdf; 12/10/2008 Johnson, T. E. (2004). Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). In D. Burlingame (Ed.), Philanthropy in America: A comprehensive historical encyclopedia (Vol. 1, pp. 35–37). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Smith, D. H. (2003). A history of ARNOVA. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32(3), 458–472. Van Til, J. (1993). ARNOVA and its journal: Some reflections. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 22(3), 201–205.
expression’’ which includes the rights to ‘‘receive and impart information and ideas through any media.’’
Brief History The founding of the organization is based on the idea of the Chicago businessman Roderick MacArthur who worked towards the establishment of an organization focusing solely on the human right to freedom of expression and information on an international scope. After his early death, it was his son Greg who fulfilled his father’s vision and founded Article 19 in 1987.
Mission The basic idea of being an organization that supports defenders of freedom of expression and provides expertise for them was soon expanded to include advocacy and campaigning for freedom of expression and information worldwide. Article 19 is emphasizing the anchorage of freedom of expression and information in the human rights framework and regards these freedoms as central for the protection of other rights, be it basic ones like the right to food, medical care and housing or an accountable and transparent government. Article 19 is working with 80 partner organizations all around the world and is following a rights-based approach which means that it is focusing on the improvement of citizen participation in its decision-making processes at all levels.
Activities
Article 19 CLAUDIA BODE-HARLASS
Address of Organization 6-8 Amwell Street London EC1R 1UQ UK www.article19.org
Introduction According to the organization itself, Article 19 is a ‘‘global campaign for free expression’’ that ‘‘defends and promotes freedom of expression and freedom of information all over the world.’’ Its name is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states in its 19th Article that ‘‘everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and
Article 19 conducts a variety of different activities in order to fulfil its aim. Their monitoring and research on the situation of freedom of expression and information all around the world is accompanied by legal standard setting, the drafting of model laws to protect these freedoms and the promotion, campaigning and lobbying for legal change. Besides, the organization is conducting legal and professional trainings for relevant actors including NGOs, journalists, lawyers, and so on. Furthermore, the organization is supporting individuals whose rights have been violated, which can even include their litigation in national as well as international courts. A recent campaign is, for example, focusing on the freedom of the Burmese Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi. The organization’s work and findings are presented not only in their annual report but also in special reports, handbooks, and research papers on special issues as well as on certain countries.
Structure and Governance Besides its headquarters in London, Article 19 is also running field offices in Kenya, Senegal, Lebanon, Mexico,
Ashoka
and Brazil. The organization is headed by an international board consisting of lawyers, human rights activists and journalists from all over the world.
Funding The organization is funded by donations which it receives from individuals, foundations and governments. Regular supporters are, for example, the Norwegian Fritt Ord Foundation and the Open Society Institute. More recently, also the Ford Foundation became one of Article 19’s donors. Total revenues in 2007 amounted to just over ₤2 million.
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Environment, Health, Human Rights, and Learning/ Education. Globally, Ashoka has been electing Fellows for almost 30 years, and the Ashoka-US program is in its eighth year. A network of social entrepreneurs, Ashoka rewards fellows for their leading work in innovative social change.
Brief History
In 1989 Article 19 set up and coordinated the International Rushdie Defence Committee following the issuing of a fatwa against the author. Besides, the organization was one of the founding members of International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) established in 1992. Furthermore, it is the coordinator of the Global Transparency Initiative working against corruption.
Founded by Bill Drayton in 1980, Ashoka elected its first fellows in India one year later. During its first decade in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Central Europe, Ashoka focused exclusively on launching leading social entrepreneurs and helping them succeed. As the citizen sector evolved and grew in the 1990s, Ashoka responded with a wider range of programs and initiatives to deal with the sector’s growing needs. Ashoka grew as well, tripling in size from 1988 to 1990, and again from 1999 to 2002. Today Ashoka is in its third period of rapid growth, electing record numbers of Fellows recently and expanding its programs in Western Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East.
Cross-References
Mission/Objective/Focus Area
Accomplishments
▶ Human Rights ▶ INGOs ▶ Transparency
References/Further Readings Boyle, K. (Ed.) (1988). Article 19 information, freedom and censorship. Cambridge: Keesing’s Reference Publications. MacDonogh, S. (Ed.) (1993). The Rushdie letters: Freedom to speak, freedom to write. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
Ashoka ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization Ashoka Global Headquarters 1700 North Moore Street, Suite 2000 (20th Floor) Arlington, VA 22209 USA www.ashoka.org
Introduction Registered as a not-for-profit organization in the United States, Ashoka has established programs in over 60 countries and supports the work of over 2,200 Fellows in Civic Engagement, Economic Development,
Ashoka supports fellows that are leading social entrepreneurs whose work presents innovative solutions to social problems and the potential to change patterns across society.
Activities Ashoka’s supportive programming for elected fellows is represented through three areas of activities: Supporting Social Entrepreneurs, Promoting Group Entrepreneurs, and Building Social Infrastructure. In its work to support entrepreneurs, Ashoka awards fellows with a living stipend for an average of 3 years, allowing them to focus full-time on building their institutions and spreading their ideas. Through the initiative to promote group entrepreneurship, Ashoka facilitates collaboration among the fellows globally. Ashoka also assists the work of the fellows by building a social infrastructure, which includes seed financing and capital, bridges to the business and academic sectors, and strategic partnerships that deliver social and financial value. Other activities include Youth Venture, Ashoka’s organization on youth programming. Youth Venture invests in teams of young people to start and lead their own social ventures, and it is currently operating in the United States, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, India, South Africa, Thailand, France, Germany, and Spain. Ashoka’s Changemakers is another well known program that ‘‘open sources’’ innovative solutions to social problems worldwide. Changemakers has sourced over 500 high-impact action blueprints for solving social problems.
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Established as a separate organization in 1999, Changemakers granted over $2 million to community-based social change philanthropies. Due to economic and fundraising challenges, Changemakers discontinued its programming in October 2008.
Elkington, J. (2008). The power of unreasonable people: How social entrepreneurs create markets that change the world. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Yunus, M. (2008). Creating a world without poverty: Social business and the future of capitalism. New York: PublicAffairs.
Structure and Governance Ashoka’s 8-member Board of Directors serves the specific needs of both Ashoka and the social entrepreneurship movement. Bill Drayton serves as the Chair and CEO of Ashoka. As one of three members of the Leadership Team, his special responsibilities are leadership of the new group entrepreneurship and social financial services programs as well as staff search and marketing functions. Diana Wells serves as the organization’s President.
Funding At first funded with an annual budget of $50,000 from founder Bill Drayton’s own resources, the organization is now financed by individuals, foundations, and business entrepreneurs from around the world. Ashoka does not accept funding from government entities. Individual and institutional endowment funds provide for Ashoka’s long-term stability. As of the end of its 2007 fiscal year (8/31/2007), Ashoka reported total assets of $74,681,835 and total giving of $10,270,07.
Accomplishments Bill Drayton, the founder of Ashoka, has won numerous awards and honors throughout his career. In 2005, he was selected one of America’s Best Leaders by US News & World Report and Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership. Other awards include the Yale Law School’s highest alumni honor, the National Wildlife Federation’s Conservation Achievement Award International, and the National Academy of Public Administration National Public Service Award. Notable fellows include Muhammad Yunus (Founder, Grameen Bank). Yunus was elected as a founding member of Ashoka’s Global Academy in 2001, and 2006, Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Cross-References
▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Venture Philanthropy ▶ Yunus, Muhammad
References/Further Readings Bornstein, D. (2007). How to change the world: Social entrepreneurs and the power of new ideas. New York: Oxford University Press.
Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium (APPC) CHRISTOPHER S. BIGGERS
Address of Organization 2nd Floor, Lexington Condominium 65 Xavierville Avenue Loyola Heights, 1108 Quezon City Philippines www.asiapacificphilanthropy.org
Introduction The APPC is an independent nonprofit association of organizations and philanthropic institutions, encouraging the growth and further development of philanthropy in the Asia-Pacific region. Through its extensive multinational network, the APPC contributes to the creation of international standards in the nonprofit sector by developing critical studies and making recommendations with partner organizations.
Brief History The APPC is the final culmination of three high level research conferences that took place in Bangkok (1989), Seoul (1993), and Osaka (1994). By the end of 1994, the APPC officially emerged as a nonmembership based informal network of grantmaking philanthropy institutions with its home established out of Manila in the Philippines. Since then, the APPC has worked diligently with governments, corporations, and individuals to further public awareness and fund-raising capacity establishing internationally recognized priorities and mechanisms to improve cooperation among regional players.
Mission The mission and objective of the APPC focus on the qualitative and quantitative aspects of philanthropy by helping build the ‘‘institutional infrastructures’’ as well as the proper ‘‘operating environment’’ for organizations in the region. In order to fulfill its mission, the Consortium acts as a vehicle to bring like minded individuals and
Asociacio´n Espan˜ola de Fundaciones
organizations together by addressing issues that affect the nonprofit sector and through disseminating operational knowledge at conferences and in policy papers.
Activities The APPC carries out projects focused on four major areas: policy advocacy, raising awareness, resource mobilization, and capacity building. In support of these areas, the Consortium maintains an active exchange program for grantmakers, legal experts, and NGO leaders in order to create a responsible and capable nonprofit community. In addition, the APPC hosts biannual conferences where leaders in the nonprofit sector gather to present ‘‘background’’ briefs and policy papers advocating new practices while raising awareness. Like most philanthropic organizations, the Consortium host fundraising events spearheading programs for corporate giving often coupled with corporate social responsibility campaigns.
Structure and Governance The structure and governance of the APPC is led by a 17 member Board of Directors made up of senior members from various philanthropic organizations, NGOs, and academic institutions. The Board includes a Chair, Deputy Chair, and Treasury positions as well as various honorary posts and subcommittees. Additionally, there is a Secretariat which functions as the primary administrative apparatus for the organization’s finances and research programs operating throughout the region.
Funding Since the APPC is not a membership-based organization, funding comes entirely from generous contributions of private and corporate foundations. Due to the success of the APPC and its sponsored events, funding has grown to include resources not only from the public and private sectors of the Asia-Pacific region but also from Europe and the Americas.
Accomplishments Among the Consortium’s most notable accomplishments include various corporate social responsibility campaigns launched throughout the Asia-Pacific area. Much of this effort grew out of the annual Asian Forum on Corporate Social Responsibility which the APPC has co-organized with the Asian Institute of Management’s RVR Center since 2002. Above all, the Consortium’s continued growth attests to the vitality of the organization despite the financial crisis and recent natural disasters that have plagued the region.
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Cross-References
▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Fundraising ▶ Philanthropy in Southeast Asia ▶ Social Capital
References/Further Readings Silk, T. (1999). Philanthropy and law in Asia: A comparative study of the nonprofit legal system in ten Asia Pacific societies. New York: Jossey-Bass.
Asociacio´n Espan˜ola de Fundaciones MARTIN HO¨LZ, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization
C/ General Castan˜os, 4 – 4a Planta 28004 Madrid Spain www.fundaciones.org
Introduction The Asociacio´n Espan˜ola de Fundaciones (AEF – Spanish Association of Foundations) is an umbrella organization, headquartered in Madrid, Spain, providing support to Spanish foundations and promoting the strength of the foundation sector.
Brief History AEF was created in January 2003 through the merger of the Centro de Fundaciones (Foundation Centre) and the Confederacio´n Espan˜ola de Fundaciones (Spanish Confederation of Foundations).
Mission/Objectives AEF’s obectives are threefold: to promote the foundation sector in Spain and to serve as its representative to the public at large; to provide information and services to its members and serve as a platform for exchange; and to strengthen the foundation sector by providing opportunities for networking and collaboration.
Activities AEF pursues these objectives through a variety of activities. As a representative of the foundation sector, AEF
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works with policy makers and participates in the formulation of reform measures. It also provides its more than 1,000 members advice in legal matters and offers courses and seminars on management and other topics. Through its publications, including Cuadernos de la Asociacio´n Espan˜ola de Fundaciones (Magazine of the Spanish Association of Foundations) and a weekly newsletter, AEF presents information about its members’ activities and analysis of pressing issues affecting the Spanish foundation sector. It also publishes a directory of Spanish foundations, the latest edition covering more than 8,600 foundations. Like many other umbrella organizations, AEF hosts affinity groups organized by topics, such as culture, employment, and environment, and by region (Consejos Autonomicos – Autonomous Advisory Groups). As part of its networking function, AEF cooperates with the European Foundation Centre and WINGS.
Structure and Governance As a membership organization, the highest governing body is its General Assembly of all members. A Board of Directors with a maximum of 33 members provides general direction. In 2009, the Board’s President was Carlos A´lvarez Jimenez and its honorary President was His Royal Highness Carlos de Borbo´n. An Executive Committee oversees the day-to-day operations. Rounding out the governance structure are an Advisory Board and a Patrons Board.
Funding Membership dues constituted the majority of AEF’s annual revenue of some €1.2 million.
Major Accomplishments Through a survey of its membership in 2007, AEF found that the majority of its members were satisfied in particular with its information-provision activities, including its publications and website, and its training and consulting services.
Cross-References
▶ European Foundation Centre ▶ WINGS
References/Further Readings Asociacio´n Espan˜ola de Fundaciones. (2007). Directorio de Fundaciones Espan˜olas. Madrid: Asociacio´n Espan˜ola de Fundaciones.
Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) ▶ ARNOVA
Association Franc¸aise contre les Myopathies ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization 1, rue de l’Internationale BP 59 91 002 Evry Cedex France www.afm-france.org
Introduction The Association Franc¸aise contre les Myopathies (AFM) was established in 1958 and is one of the most active of many organizations focused on supporting medical research to cure genetic diseases and on bettering the living conditions of people afflicted by diseases. AFM is a nonprofit association regulated by the French law of 1901.
Brief History After having been founded in 1958 by a group of patients and their families, AFM was recognized as being of public utility by decree of March 26, 1976. In December 1987, AFM launched the first French telethon fundraising campaign. The idea of the telethon was ‘‘imported’’ from the United States in 1986 by Pierre Birambeau, a French entrepreneur whose child was affected by myopathy. He was looking for sponsoring and resources and went therefore to New York to learn about the telethon mechanism. He and AFM adopted a French version and introduced it successfully. AFM chose a major French television channel to host their first telethon show and the French Lions Club, whose members are volunteers, to answer the pledge calls. This campaign has since had growing success and involves temporary volunteers throughout France.
Association of Charitable Foundations
Mission The organization’s declared objective is to defeat neuromuscular diseases which are devastating muscle-wasting diseases.
Activities AFM has three major fields of activities. It promotes research that leads to a direct or indirect understanding of neuromuscular diseases. The research focuses on genetics, the treatment of diseases and the prevention of disabilities. Second, the organization is involved in the opinion-making process on a national and international level and provides financial and technical as well as moral assistance to patients. Third, AFM advocates for the social integration of patients.
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its privately-raised funds thereby breaking the quasimonopoly held by public agencies in France over the direction of basic research.
Cross-References
▶ Fund-raising ▶ Membership and Membership Associations
References/Further Readings Leat, D. (1989). Fund-raising and grant making: A case study of ITV Telethon’88. Kent: Charities Aid Foundation.
Association of Charitable Foundations Structure and Governance AFM is governed by a Board of Directors made up of patients and their families and elected by the General Assembly of members. This Board defines AFM’s policy and actions and makes decisions relating to its financial commitments. Within the Board, the Executive Committee makes decisions passed on to it by the Board, prepares the Board’s deliberations, implements them, and assists the general management in the day-to-day running of the Association. Every year, the Board appoints a new President. It also makes sure AFM’s general management implements the policy and actions that have been defined.
Funding AFM finances itself mainly through proceeds from its annual telethon, which have amounted to more than €100 million in 2006 and 2007. More than 80% of the proceeds are devoted to AFM’s research and advocacy activities, with less than 20% used for publicity, planning, and administration.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions One of AFM’s major contributions was the introduction to France of the telethon fundraising concept. The telethon is a unique fund-raising event combining a 20- to 30-hour televised show along with tens of thousands of local events, organized by volunteers. It has become almost the only means of collecting funds used by AFM. The second important contribution to civil society, besides of the exemplary telethon fundraising campaign was the establishment of the research center, Ge´ne´thon. It supports government-employed research teams with
DIANA LEAT
Address of Organization Central House 14 Upper Woburn Place London WC1H 0AE UK www.acf.org.uk
Introduction The Association of Charitable Foundations is the leading membership organization for foundations and grantmaking charities in the UK. It is based in London but holds various meetings and conferences in other parts of the UK.
Brief History ACF held its inaugural meeting in 1989 attracting representatives of 80 foundations. The creation of ACF was led by a group of eight foundations, despite opposition and apathy by some others. Those opposed to ACF’s creation were concerned that an association would detract from the autonomy and individuality of foundations, that it would encourage bureaucracy – and that it was unnecessary. After a feasibility study the eight supporting foundations decided to create an experimental organization (with a review after three or four years) designed to bring together trustees and administrators ‘‘which could where necessary carry the weight of the foundations themselves into discussions with government; which would bring a professional staff to develop notions of good practice in grantmaking (much aired orally) into practical guidance
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for those running trusts; and which would improve public understanding of foundations and of philanthropy, assist prospective settlers, and develop international links’’ (ACF, 1992: 3).
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas On the back cover of its news magazine, Trust and Foundation News, ACF today describes its role today as providing ‘‘help and support for the distinctive role of foundations, while respecting –and protecting – their independence. Through its services ACF provides a framework in which members can learn from each other’s experience, explore matters of common concern and achieve good practice in grantmaking.’’ ACF also has a strong track record on representing the common interests of foundations to government, regulators, and the media.
Activities ACF engages in a wide range of activities including a Professional Development Programme of ‘‘training’’ and development for grant-makers, as well as a series of special seminars on topics of current interest and concern to foundations; it runs conferences and special events and publishes studies and reports as well as a quarterly magazine – Trust and Foundation News – and a regular briefing paper on recent developments in the foundation world and in government. In addition ACF provides individual support to members and runs a series of Issue Based Networks (IBNs) on a variety of topics determined by members; the Woburn Place Collaborative – a group of funders committed to issues of social justice and environmental sustainability – is also administered by ACF. Philanthropy UK is a project of ACF to promote giving and is a leading resource for free and impartial advice to aspiring philanthropists. Philanthropy UK also publishes a quarterly free online newsletter. In recent years ACF has been increasingly involved in representing foundations in discussions with government and has been influential in gaining recognition of the special needs and interests of grantmaking foundations (previously treated as no different from operating charities). ACF maintains close links with other associations of foundations in Europe and throughout the world.
Structure and Governance ACF currently has over 300 members. ACF is governed by 15 trustees elected by the membership at the Annual General Meeting, and 8.4 FTE staff including 2 working for Philanthropy UK.
Funding ACF’s annual revenues of approximately £600,000 are secured predominantly from membership subscriptions and supporting grants from members, approximately £70,000 from sponsorships, and earned income.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In 20 years ACF has moved from being a ‘‘minority’’ organization to an established part of the UK philanthropic landscape. It has been instrumental in changing the way in which foundations are perceived and perceive themselves, raised the profile and level of understanding of foundations within government and legislation, and contributed to the transparency and development of foundation thinking and practices. In these ways ACF has contributed to public benefit, to grant seekers and to grantmakers.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings ACF. (1992). The first three years 1989–1992. London: Association of Charitable Foundations.
Association of Fundraising Professionals LEIGH HERSEY
Address of Organization 4300 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 300 Arlington, VA 22203 USA www.afpnet.com
Introduction The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) is a membership-based organization that advances philanthropy. With more than 30,000 members, it is the largest organization in the world that represents the charitable fundraiser. The organization sets high standards for fundraising and emphasizes continuous growth of the fundraising professional.
Association of Fundraising Professionals
Brief History The Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) was founded as the National Society of Fund Raisers (NSFR) in 1960, as the first association that represented the needs of the professional charitable fundraiser. The organization was formed by three fundraisers – William R. Simms of the National Urban League, Benjamin Sklar of Brandeis University and Harry Rosen of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies. Dr. Abel Hanson served as the first president. The organization served as the first to meet the needs of the charitable fundraiser by aiding in professional performance, promoting high standards for fundraisers, interpreting the objectives of fundraising to those in the profession and to the public, and encouraging research and grantmaking. In 2001, the name was changed to the Association of Fundraising Professionals to better reflect a broader scope of fundraising-related professions, including marketing, communications, advocacy, and public relations.
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fundraising issues and by hosting an annual international conference.
Structure and Governance AFP has 200 chapters worldwide, each with its own local level board of directors. While, most chapters are located in the United States, the areas of recent growth have been with the international and collegiate chapters. At the international level, the board consists of nine officers, 12 district representatives, and 11 at-large members. There is also an AFP – Canada which has its own governance structure.
Funding AFP is funded predominantly through its membership base. Approximately three-quarters of the $12.4 million received in FY 2007, came from membership dues, the annual conference, and registration fees. Another $1 million was received through contributions and grants. The organization spent approximately $13.3 million in the same FY.
Mission According to AFP documents, its mission is to ‘‘advance philanthropy by enabling people and organizations to practice ethical and effective fundraising. The core activities through which AFP fulfills this mission include education, training, mentoring, research, credentialing and advocacy’’. This mission evolved from the 2004–2006 Strategic Plan and was updated to reflect the changing role of the professional fundraiser.
Activities The Association participates in a variety of programming to support its mission statement. AFP was part of a group of four organizations that created the Donor Bill of Rights to help maintain donors’ confidence in philanthropic causes. The cocreators are the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP), the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), and the Giving Institute: Leading Consultants to Non-Profits. In the mid-1980s, AFP established the Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) program for fundraising professionals committed to high standards. In 1997, the certification program merged with a similar program offered by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy to establish an independent certification program known as CFRE International. An advanced certification program (ACFRE) is also available. The Association continues to educate fundraisers by conducting and disseminating research on current
Major Accomplishments/Contributions AFP has played an important role in enhancing the fundraising profession. In the 1990s, the organization testified before the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Financial Accounting Standards Board to discuss impacts of proposed legislation on fundraising and the philanthropic community. The organization has also served as a forerunner in emphasizing ethical standards in fundraising, adding credibility to the profession. In 2008, AFP president and CEO Paulette Maehara was named to The Nonprofit Times’ annual ‘‘Power and Influence Top 50’’ list for the tenth consecutive year. The list recognizes leaders that impact and shape the nonprofit sector.
Cross-References
▶ Fundraising ▶ Professional Associations
References/Further Readings Association of Fundraising Professionals, from www.afpnet.org CFRE International, from www.cfre.org Chobot, R. B. (2004). Fundraising credentialing. New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, 43, 31–49. The Non-profit Times. (2000). NSFRE to officially become AFP. The Non-profit Times, 14(21), 5. The Non-profit Times. (2008). The 2008 NPT Power & Influence Top 50. The Non-profit Times, 22(15), 17–22.
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Association pour le De´veloppement de la Documentation sur l’Economie Sociale
Association pour le De´veloppement de la Documentation sur l’Economie Sociale ▶ ADDES
Associations, Definitions and History ANNETTE ZIMMER Westfa¨lische Wilhelms-Universita¨t Mu¨nster, Mu¨nster, Germany
Introduction According to Talcott Parsons modern societal communities foster the proliferation of three distinct forms of social organization: markets, bureaucracies, and associations. As such associations constitute a central feature of modernity. Today’s universe of associations in democratic societies differs widely form premodern associational life. There is a clear distinction between traditional involuntary associations such as kin groups, castes, or communities and modern voluntary associations. Historically, the shift from involuntary groupings to the modern association has been made possible by the evolution of the concept of freedom of association. The coming into being of the concept was closely linked to modernity in terms of both the development of modern statehood and societal differentiation. Today, the concept constitutes an integral part of the majority of the constitutions of modern democracies, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights stipulating that (1) everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association; (2) no one may be compelled to belong to an association (Art. 20). But associational life is by no means restricted to the world of politics. Looking back upon a long history that goes back to ancient times, in modern societies associations are ubiquitous: Associations are to be found all over the world, taking up very different tasks and duties. Besides associations being active in politics, there are those working on behalf of the business interest of their members, and others facilitating the private life of their membership by providing an institutional setting for a wide range of leisure activities. Against this background, associations constitute an interesting topic of research for various disciplines of the social sciences, amongst those at least history, sociology, political science, and third sector research. But, each discipline highlights different features and functions of associations. While historians, political
scientists and sociologists stress the importance of associations for processes of modernization and societal stratification as well as for interest politics and the formation of social capital, third sector research draws the attention to the economic dimension of associations, and thus to their service providing functions. Therefore, what makes associations such a fascinating topic for the social sciences is closely connected with their multitasking and indeed multifunctional character (Fig 1). As lobbyists and interest organizations associations are supporting as well as criticizing government; as service providers they are working on par with for-profit business enterprises; and as membership organizations they are embedded in social milieus, providing avenues for civic engagement and societal integration. In sum, associations are not an easy topic to address. What makes it even more complicated is the fact that associations do not restrict their scope of activities to just one level of operation. Instead, many of them are complex organizations with local, regional, federal, and even international chapters and departments. Moreover, there are many associations based on individual membership; however, there are also many umbrella organizations or consortia which do not allow for individual membership but are exclusively based on organizations and thus on corporate actors. In order to understand the complex universe of associations it is necessary to both differentiate between the various levels of analysis of associational research and take the respective environment of the associations in terms of their political, legal, and social, and thus historical and regional embeddedness into account. Due to the legacy of history there are culturally and thus regionally bound differences. Associational life in the USA differs from the situation with which associations are faced in the
Associations, Definitions and History. Fig. 1 Multifunctional character of associations
Associations, Definitions and History
developing world or in West Europe or in the countries of the former so-called Eastern bloc. According to the level of analysis, research questions and topics that are addressed with respect to associations as well as the theoretical perspectives and methodologies applied in associational research differ significantly: At the micro- or individual/personal level which traditionally has been linked to the investigation of political culture, associations are looked upon as vehicles for civic engagement and participating. Hence, at the micro-level of analysis associations are currently investigated by applying the social capital approach. The meso- or organizational level constitutes the prime arena of third sector research. This level of analysis has traditionally been addressed by organizational theory. Currently with respect to associations, the central topics of research focusing on the meso-level are issues of associational leadership, management, and governance. Finally, research topics addressed at the macro level have always aimed at investigating impact and importance of associations for the society at large as well as for the political system. Democratic theory and civil society research are the most important approaches of associational research at this level of analysis. Since there is no chance of covering all the topics and research questions linked to the study of associations, in the following selected issues will be highlighted, particularly the topics of how to define and how to develop a typology of associations, as well as the historical background of the differentiation of associational research.
Definition According to David Sill’s classical definition an association is an organized group of persons (1) that is formed in order to further some common interest of its members; (2) in which membership is voluntary in the sense that is neither mandatory nor acquired through birth; and (3) that exists independent from the state (Sills, 1968: 363). Hence associations are membership-based organizations that – guided by interests – are independent from the state apparatus, although they might cooperate intensively with government, and of which membership is not compulsory. Definitions based in an Anglo-Saxon context typically focus on the voluntary dimension of associations. Providing prime avenues for social participation, volunteering, and discourse, associations constitute an important part of the infrastructure of civil society that in the words of Habermas, Walzer, Dahrendorf, and other civil society scholars is characterized as an intermediary organizational field functioning as a public sphere between state, economy, and private life. In contrast to stressing the embeddedness of associations in civil society,
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Max Weber took a different approach by defining association as a domain of sovereign rule. This definition focuses on the steering and ruling capacities of associations. It is particularly referred to in Continental Europe, where the term association is primarily used for large, encompassing organizations that often are integrated into corporatist governance arrangements, and as such are working on par or at least in close cooperation with government. Associations that are small and membershipbased organizations operating first and foremost at the local level are generally referred to as voluntary organizations and more specifically as clubs in Europe, and in many countries that once belonged to one of the European Empires such as the British Commonwealth. Clubs are supposed to generate high degrees of reciprocity among their members, and they are generally associated with notions of sociability that is facilitated by an active club life. Despite these differentiations in Europe and elsewhere the term association is used in the sense that excludes primary groups and commercial companies but admits an exceptionally wide area of institutions and organizations that – pervading every functional sector of society – ranges from business related activities, trade, and labor unions, clubs, churches, and congregations, civic service associations, third sector organizations, social welfare councils, self-help groups, secret societies, professional societies, and other ‘‘collectivist organizations’’ (Knoke, 1985: 212). Against this background, a variety of typologies has been developed, each of those, depending on the respective discipline, focuses on certain features and functions of associations. Typologies developed in political science structure the universe of associations according to policy fields or area of pressure politics; those referred to in sociology highlight the societal dimension of associations; and finally typologies and models based in organizational theory take a look at associations from a public choice perspective. Many typologies categorize associations with respect to their area of activity. These classifications are outward-bound highlighting the functions of associations for their members and the society or polity at large. They broadly distinguish between associations that foster the self-interest of their members and those working either on behalf of a third party (i.e., children, the elderly) or for the advancement of a public purpose and/or common good (i.e., human rights or clear water). This specific type of typology, which is closely linked to policy fields, is commonly referred to in political science (Table 1). Gordon and Babchuk (1959) added a further dimension to those typologies differentiating between associations either working on behalf of their members
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(expressive association) or fostering the common interest (instrumental association). By introducing the variables ‘‘accessibility-’’ and ‘‘status-conferring capacity of the association,’’ Gordon and Babchuk drew the attention to the prestige factor of associational membership. Their typology highlights that associations significantly Associations, Definitions and History. Table 1 Typology of associations according to fields of activity 1. Business and labor relations Business, employers and professional associations Labor unions Consumer organizations 2. Social services and health Service organizations, e.g., the German Welfare Associations Interest associations, e.g., Association for the Blind Self-help groups, e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous 3. Leisure and sports Leisure clubs, e.g., Sports clubs, gardening societies Hobby associations, e.g., Carnival societies Service clubs, e.g., Zonta, Rotary 4. Religion, science, the arts and humanities Churches, sects, and religious congregations Scientific associations, e.g., International Political Science Association (IPSA) Arts societies, e.g., Friends of the Boston Symphony Orchestra 5. Promotion of public goods Ecological associations, e.g., Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth Human rights, e.g., Amnesty International, Society for Threatened People Source: von Alemann (1989: 71)
contribute to the stratification of modern societies. This specific type of typology is helpful for studies that aim at providing a sociological portrait of a community or society (Table 2). Finally, there are typologies that take a closer look at the structural dimension of associations. They are helpful for analyzing governance problems of organizational structure and control. In a very broad sense these typologies distinguish between centralized and federalized organizations. The ‘‘centralized type’’ of association is modeled in accordance with a ‘‘corporate or hierarchical governance structure’’ (Anheier and Themudo, 2002: 316ff.). A characteristic feature of this model is a topdown approach of decision making that leaves little room to maneuver for departments or chapters and for associated membership organizations. The Catholic Church or Greenpeace are organized according to the ‘‘corporate model.’’ Associations modeled according to the ‘‘federation type’’ constitute loosely coupled systems, which give way to a larger degree of membership participation (individual or corporate) and hence democratic decision making within the organization. The Red Cross, the Diakonie and the Protestant Church are federalized associations. Charles Handy (1988) developed a typology categorizing associations in accordance with their organizational culture. He differentiated between a club, a role, a task and a person culture of associations as voluntary organizations. Associations with a club culture are ruled by a very strong leader, in the words of Handy by ‘‘Zeus, the king of gods in Ancient Greece. . . a very personal ruler with the habit of direct interventions’’ (Handy, 1988: 86). Associations based on a role culture are highly structured and formalized organizations, where everybody knows what he or she has to do. Associations developing a task culture are governed in accordance with the managerial approach of ‘‘management by objectives.’’ The ‘‘person culture’’ is a highly individualistic approach of running an association.
Associations, Definitions and History. Table 2 A typology of voluntary associations High accessibility High status
Low status
Low accessibility High status
Low status
Instrumental
Young Republican Club
Klu Klux Klan
League of Women
Instrumental–expressive
Kiwanis
American Legion
American Sociological Society
Alcoholics Anonymous
Expressive
Boy Scouts of America
YMCA
Daughters of the American Revolution
Omega
Source: Gordon and Babchuk (1959: 28)
Associations, Definitions and History
According to Handy ‘‘stars, loosely grouped in a cluster or constellation, are the image of a person culture’’ (Handy, 1988: 92). Referring to Handy’s typology, the reader might like to identify the culture of the association of which he or she is a member.
Historical Background The work of historians clearly shows: Associations have constituted the most important societal force since the beginning of modernity. There have been forerunners of the modern associations in earlier times. A case in point were burial funds in Ancient Greece and Rome as well as traditional guilds and brotherhoods in the Middle Ages. However, membership in these social entities was obtained by birth or marriage, and therefore not based on the premises of the ‘‘freedom of association.’’ The diversification of the associational universe constitutes in itself a historical development. At the beginning of modernity, in terms of terminology there was no differentiation between various groups, organizations, and institutions. Association was used as a catchall term for describing any groupbased activity, either business or public purpose oriented. "
‘‘In truth’’ wrote William Ellery Channing as early as 1829, ‘‘one of the remarkable circumstances or features of our age is the energy with which the principle of combination, or of action by joint forces, by associated numbers, is manifesting itself. . . Those who have one great object find one another out through a vast extent of county, join forces, settle their mode of operation, and act together with the uniformity of a disciplined army.’’ (Schlesinger, 1944: 9)
Today, there is a remarkable variety of terms and expressions related to the realm of associational life, ranging from formal and sometimes highly institutionalized organizations (NGOs and NPOs) to loosely coupled groups and networks which came into being and still are operating in the context of social movements. The diversification of associational life including the development of specific legal forms constitutes the outcome of societal differentiation that – having started in the late Middle Ages – came to full swing in the course of the nineteenth century. One of these differentiations is related to the purpose of the association and distinguishes between (1) associations whose goal is linked to business activities or making a living for its members, and (2) those that are serving the common weal. Among those organizational forms and legal stipulations that serve the business interests of the association’s membership, cooperatives, and mutual associations/societies count most prominently. Although in many countries in the second half of the
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nineteenth century, legal stipulations for business related activities of associations were developed, this was rarely the case with respect to activities of associations advancing the common weal. Instead of enjoying a special legal form, in many countries associations serving a public purpose are still exclusively acknowledged by the tax laws. The German legal stipulation Verein represents a case in point. A Verein is a legal entity that thoroughly fulfills the criteria of David Sill’s definition. However, in order to be filed as an instrumental association serving the common weal, the organization has to be checked by the respective fiscal authority that is entitled to both granting tax privileges and withdrawing the legal status of a public benefit association. The Verein, codified as a legal entity under the rule of the German Empire, served at that time as a textbook example and blueprint for the development of legal stipulations in many other European countries, particularly in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. A differentiation of the associational universe that was closely linked to the development of the modern state is related to the scope of associational activity. All over the world, in Europe and in the US associations started as small locally based organizations. In the course of the nineteenth century, alongside with a significant growth in membership, many of these organizations extended their scope of operation significantly by setting up regional, federal, and even international chapters. The associational universe developed from a local club culture into a multilevel setting of highly structured, federalized organizations which, like trade unions, parties, and other traditional associations, always were and still are based on individual membership, but nevertheless express a high degree of bureaucracy. The various layers of the organizational setting of the multilevel associations were set up in accordance with the administrative layers of government. Today with respect to organization-building history repeats itself. With globalization and Europeanization, associations are becoming more and more active at the European and at the global level of governance, while the national level as a prime area for lobbying activities of associations is increasingly losing importance, particularly in the European setting. Modernity in the sense of economic proliferation via the breakthrough of the capitalistic market economy and the softening of the three estates of the Middle Ages were the driving forces of the ‘‘associational revolution’’ in the nineteenth century. Avenues for new societal alignments and hence for a blossoming of associational life were opened up in Europe, the USA, and in any region and country where the trends of modernity took roots. Comparing different regions and cultures, there are many
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similarities with respect to the distinctive periods of associational life, which were identified by associational research. However, depending particularly on the political environment of associations, there are also striking differences between regions and countries. If a distinction is made in accordance with the work of Ulrich Beck between ‘‘early modernity,’’ ‘‘classical modernity,’’ and ‘‘postmodernity,’’ there are specific types of associations that were embedded in social movements and put forward by representatives of a particular social class and are typical for each period. However, in addition to these commonalities, there are also, depending on the political and economic environment of the respective association, distinctive differences that set the associational movement in the USA apart from the development in other countries, and particularly in Europe at that time (Table 3). Typical for the eighteenth and early nineteenth century were associations that were founded by members of the growing bourgeoisie and took up issues of political life and self-governing. These associations constituted the building units of a public sphere and self-governed communities. ‘‘Salons,’’ ‘‘reading and secret societies,’’ ‘‘fraternities and brotherhoods’’ as well as ‘‘patriotic societies,’’ which were associations taking up local welfare related issues, were founded all over Europe, and in the USA. Associations facilitating various kinds of leisure activities ranging from sports to singing or gardening became popular all over the western hemisphere from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards. Indeed, the industrial revolution along with urbanization significantly furthered the growth of associations. The world of business, labor relations and party politics was increasingly organized via associations. In close alliance with trade unions, associations were also founded in order to buffer the risks of industrial life. Besides friendly societies, which were the forerunners of health and accident insurance, housing and consumer cooperatives facilitated the daily life of workers in the industrial centers and of farmers in the
deprived rural areas. The second half of the nineteenth century also stands out for the proliferation of business and labor associations in the sense of large and federalized organizations whose daily operations were and still are managed by professional bureaucrats. Doubtlessly, the emergence of the federalized countrywide operating association, organized in regional chapters and local departments, was in accordance with the organizational culture of the time. The world of country and even worldwide operating associations resembled the business world that at that time was dominated by huge agglomerates of corporations that combined under one ownership many companies operating in numerous locations. Moreover, this era also witnessed the foundation of many associations lobbying for humanitarian purposes such as the International Red Cross or the American Conference of Social Work (Schlesinger, 1944: 17). In order to round up the picture of the associational universe of ‘‘classic modernity’’ the foundation boom of those associations has to be mentioned which still today operate for the promotion of professional and particularly research interest such as the Association for Social Policy in Germany or the American Political Science Association. The period of ‘‘classical modernity’’ doubtlessly constituted the heyday of associational growth and proliferation. Nevertheless, ‘‘postmodernity’’ again paved the way for new forms of associations and societal groups. The international area became a prime field of associational operation. Alongside the internationalization of ecological, social, and political problems began the development of nongovernmental organizations that are associations, which primarily operate internationally. Associations of the postmodernity period again have much in common with the modern business enterprise. They are loosely coupled ‘‘network organizations,’’ managed by a highly professionalized central unit. In contrast to the federalized associations of the former period, the modern association is no longer primarily financed by membership dues.
Associations, Definitions and History. Table 3 Associational life over time Era
Early modernity
Classical modernity
Postmodernity
State
Liberal state
National welfare state
Postmodern state
Economy
Farming
Heavy industry
Service industry
Society
Development of the bourgeoisie
Societal differentiation, development of societal milieus
Individualization, privatization of milieus
Associations
Salons, reading societies, charity associations
Trade unions, professional ass., business, and employers ass., service clubs, leisure clubs, parties, cooperatives, mutual societies
Self-help groups, NGOs, clubs
Source: Zimmer (2007: 48)
Associations, Definitions and History
Instead it relies on income of fundraising drives and sponsoring as well as on the income of merchandizing. A further significant feature of associational life in the postmodern period translates into the division of labor between the professional center and the supporting periphery of the modern associations. The professionals of the associations are responsible for both campaigning and effective lobbying, primarily conducted in the capitals of the world. Although the periphery of the supporting membership and affiliated organizations have no say in associational politics, they are nevertheless supposed to guarantee the regional and local embeddedness of the respective association. This particular division of labor where the members no longer enjoy the right of democratic participation within the organization gave way to a sharp critique of well-known scholars such as Theda Skocpol (1999) and Robert Putnam (1995).
International Perspectives Despite common features and similarities, associational life has always been country-bound and thus reflecting the political, social, and economic embeddedness of the respective organization. In the USA, from the very beginning, associational life has been influenced by ‘‘American Exceptionalism’’ (Lipset, 1996), which ever since has set it apart from the development in European countries. Two cultural features were distinctive for the early associational movement in the USA: First, unlike in Europe, in the post-feudal society of the US associations were not necessary for bridging class distinctions between the nobility and the new classes of entrepreneurs and professionals. In Europe, associations provided an important tool for the democratization of both state and society. Secondly, ‘‘the United States is the first country in which religious groups became voluntary organizations’’ (Lipset, 1996: 61). Indeed, it was religion as one central domain of societal life where associational life firstly took roots the USA. In European societies, churches have traditionally been linked to the state. Although secularization constituted one important step of modernization, in many European countries, there has never been a clear-cut division between the two powers of the state and the churches. The reason associational life in America proliferated to such an extent in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century that it attracted the admiration of Alexis de Tocqueville and many others, Max Weber and Antonio Gramsci included, has to be judged against the very different societal and political backgrounds of Europe and the USA at that time. While Europeans slowly embarqued on their way to democratize state and society with the
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help of associations, Americans – with the exception of blacks and women – already lived in a modern democratic society, in which associations were legitimate tools for selforganization and democratic governance. Against this background, associations in the USA developed into an expression of ‘‘liberal democracy’’ in the sense that associations safeguard the rights of the citizenry vis a vis the state. Compared to the USA, in many European countries, government – association relationships took a very different road. That is why from a comparative perspective civil society differs significantly in the various regions of the world. Particularly in Continental Europe, in Germany and partially also in Austria, the authoritarian state – by recognizing the power of associations at a very early stage of modernity – incorporated these organizations into its modernizing strategies. A textbook example is provided by Germany, where in the course of the nineteenth century traditional guilds as well as modern associations active in the area of social services and health were acknowledged as private legal entities operating in close cooperation with the local, regional, and federal authorities. The ‘‘German Free Welfare Associations’’ (Caritas, Diakonie) were integrated into a particular public-private partnership that backed by the principle of subsidiarity developed into a very specific arrangement of corporatism after the Second World War (Zimmer, 1999). Again, in Eastern Europe associational life took a very different path. In the nineteenth century, these countries by and large did not enjoy sovereign rule but were governed either by Austria, Prussia, or Russia. In all these countries, associations active in the area of the arts and culture blossomed and enjoyed widespread public support because these associations worked on behalf of and for the advancement of a national identity. Consisting of numerous singing clubs, salons, and theater associations and societies this was a civil society against the state that developed in Eastern Europe, particularly in the second half of the nineteenth century. Interestingly enough, after the breakdown of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the associational revolution that took place in the majority of the Eastern European countries took up the tradition of antietatism: Civil society was conceptualized as an institutional alternative against the state. Compared to Central and also Eastern Europe the Scandinavian countries look back upon a very different story with respect to government – associational relationships. Since the period of ‘‘classic modernity’’ associations are acknowledged by the state enjoying a high degree of legitimacy, particularly in Sweden. But, in contrast to Germany, associations are not incorporated into the social service production of the welfare state.
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They are primarily perceived as either pressure groups acting on behalf of the interests of their members or as self-governing entities, and thus clubs primarily organizing leisure activities for their membership. This is the case because according to the political scientists Scandinavia stands out for a developmental or social democratic model of democracy, in which the state guarantees and facilitates civic participation via associations without incorporating the organizations into policy implementation strategies. In sum, while in the US associational life has always been an expression of self-governing that is distinct from the state, associational life, particularly in Continental Europe has developed either in the shadow of or even against the state, whereas in Scandinavia associational life has been organized in accordance with the so-called arms-length principle: The state facilitates associational activities including lobbying and hence distances itself from putting the organizations under its control.
Key Issues/Future Directions Depending on the level of analysis as well as on the discipline very different topics are addressed as key issues of both the further development of associational life and research. For political scientists addressing a macro level topic, a key concern definitely constitutes the question of the relationship between democracy and associations. The questions are whether, to what extent and how associations as the infrastructure of civil society contribute to the functioning, strength, and advancement of democracy both in countries which look back upon a long and enduring tradition of democratic rule and also in countries that have just recently moved into the direction of democratization. Indeed, since the work of de Tocqueville the topic of the associational underpinning of democracy has been a key issue of associational research that in the post-socialist countries and in many other regions of the world is enjoying a high priority. Key issues addressed at the meso-level and thus focusing on the organizational dimension of associational life are also connected to the topic of democracy. However, with respect to the organizational setting, particularly researchers of organizational theory have since the seminal work of Max Weber and Robert Michels always asked for innovative ways to overcome problems of bureaucratization and oligarchization in the sense of the establishment of an informal leadership of the very few that are increasingly deprived of democratic legitimacy but nevertheless continue to act on behalf of the membership. A new issue of the meso-level of associational research is the topic of competition among associations and between
associations and business entities. Along with the shift from the welfare state to a welfare society all over the world, associations are increasingly referred to as service providers. Documented by the results of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, service provision of associations constitutes a growing segment of modern economies. However, since service provision of associations is no longer generously subsidized by the state, the organizations have to turn to the market in order to safeguard their organizational survival. This puts them in direct competition with service providers of the business sector. But, competition and increasing engagement in business activities has a significant impact on the culture and governance of associations. Due to the growth of the association in size and particularly employed workforce, the organizations become more and more businesslike. Accordingly, commercialization and professionalization are key buzzwords of the current debate related to associations, particularly in Europe. Moreover, these trends are not restricted to large supraregional associations. Many locally active clubs, specifically in sports, are increasingly faced with competition from for-profit providers, and hence tending to shift their governance structure and organizational culture towards the business sector. For these associations what will the future look like? Will they be able to safeguard the uniqueness of associational life that still relies on reciprocity among the members of the association; or will they end up as professionally run small business entities? In recent decades the micro-level and thus the capacity of associations to provide avenues for civic participation and engagement have been key concerns of research. Bewildered by the results of quantitative surveys, social researchers all over the world were afraid of facing a significant downturn in civic engagement that might translate into a loss of overall trust and social capital. Particularly Robert Putnam (1995) but also others feared that due to the widespread tendency of ‘‘bowling alone’’ among citizens, also the ‘‘old democracies’’ have to face a transformation and deterioration of their political culture. Although the results of recent surveys did not confirm the hypothesis of a citizenry that increasingly turns its back to civic engagement and volunteering, citizens, nevertheless, do not trust the democratic institutions such as the parliament, the political parties or the politicians leading the country. In other words: This topic continues to be on the agenda. The same holds true for another key issue of associational research investigated at the micro-level. Does associational membership foster bridging or bonding capital? The topic whether associations facilitate the integration of their members into the
Associative Democracy
community and the society at large or, to the contrary, whether they have an impact just in the opposite direction by preventing particularly members of ethnic minorities and migrants from getting access to the old-established members of local communities still constitutes an open question that is of high relevance particularly against the background of the increased multiethnicity of local communities worldwide.
Cross-References
▶ Caritas Internationalis ▶ Churches and Denominations ▶ Civil Society Theory: Dahrendorf ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci, Antonio ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Walzer ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Corporatism ▶ Diakonisches Werk der EKD ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Mutual Organizations, Mutual Societies ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Definition and History of ▶ Professional Associations ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Secret Societies ▶ Self-help Groups ▶ Skocpol, Theda ▶ Sociability ▶ Social Capital ▶ Social Movements ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ Weber, Max
References/Further Readings von Alemann, U. (1989). Organisierte Interessen in der Bundesrepublik. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Anheier, H., & Themudo, N. (2002). Fu¨hrung und management in internationalen Mitgliederorganisationen. In C. Frantz & A. Zimmer (Eds.), Zivilgesellschaft international: Alte und neue NGOs (pp. 304– 325). Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Gordon, W. C., & Babchuk, N. (1959). A typologo of voluntary associations. American Sociological Review, 24, 22–29. Handy, C. (1988). Understanding voluntary organizations. London: Penguin Books. Knoke, D. (1985). The political economies of associations. Research in Political Sociology, 1, 211–242. Lipset, S. M. (1996). American exceptionalism. A double-edged sword. New York/London: Norton.
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Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–77. Schlesinger, A. (1944). Biography of a nation of joiners. The American Historical Review, L(1), 1–25. Sills, D. L. (1968). Voluntary Associations II: Sociological aspects. In D. L. Sills (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social sciences (pp. 362–379). New York: Macmillan. Skocpol, T. (1999). Advocates without members: The recent transformation of American civic life. In T. Skocpol & M. Fiorina (Eds.), Civic engagement in American democracy (pp. 461–509). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Zimmer, A. (1999). Corporatism revisited – The legacy of history and the German nonprofit-sector. Voluntas, 10(1), 37–49. Zimmer, A. (2007). Vereine – Zivilgesellschaft konkret. Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag.
Associative Democracy NICOLA JONES, HANNAH MARSDEN Overseas Development Institute, London, UK
Introduction Given growing concern about the state of democracy and governance more broadly in the developed as well as developing worlds, revisiting different schools of thought on democratic models is of critical contemporary importance. Associative democracy – referring to a model of democracy where power is highly decentralized and responsibility for civic well-being resides with like-minded civic associations – is one such model. On the one hand, the model has specific sociocultural roots in early twentieth century Britain (Cole, 1930, in Hirst, 1989), and again in efforts under the New Labour Government (1997–) to recraft the relationship between citizens and the state in the management of new welfare architecture (Lister, 2005). On the other hand, however, associative democracy, with its focus on combating growing individualism and fears about the unbridled power of the state, clearly has wider relevance for thinking about the role of civil society in an international context. It raises important questions about state-civil society relations, as well as about the characteristics, composition, and role of civil society itself, at the subnational, national, and international levels.
Definition/Historical Background The concept of associative democracy emerged in the context of fears of growing centralized state power and authority in the 1920s and 1930s. Political pluralists such
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as Cole, Figgis, and Laski promoted an associative democracy model, in which groups sharing a ‘‘common purpose,’’ such as churches and trade unions, contribute to social wellbeing. To allow ordinary citizens regular participation in the structures of society, the approach called for power to be decentralized and dispersed among associations (Hirst, 1989: 188). "
A well-organised society is one in which not merely is the administration good, but the wills of the members of the community active, and find expression through the various associations and institutions of which society is made up. (Cole, 1930, in Hirst, 1989: 89)
Since the 1980s, Hirst (2001, in Hirst and Bader, 2001) has pointed to the increased hierarchal control of governments, arguing that associative democracy represents the ‘‘real third way’’ between free-market individualism and centralized state control. Associative democracy offers a means to establish organization amongst increased societal plurality and complexity. ‘‘Associationalism is defined by its combining of pluralism with a cooperative mutualism.’’ It is the ‘‘collection of the diverse’’ (Martell, 1992: 168, 170). Within this model, voluntary organizations, based on cooperation and self governance, would play a greater role in providing public services. Although resourced and protected by the state, such organizations should also act as a counterbalance to state power. ‘‘Associative democracy aims at a manageable and accountable state’’ writes Hirst (1994: 20). In a globalized context, Edwards suggests the role of civil society to be in negotiating the ‘‘social contracts between governments and citizens that development requires’’ (2004: 13). Group cooperation in political life is a critical component of Cohen and Rogers’ model of associative democracy (1995: 34). There is however the risk of emerging factions within associations. Thus, the state’s role is seen to be in ‘‘curbing’’ such instances and encouraging associations to be more ‘‘other-regarding’’ (Perczynski, 1999: 8). "
The way to do this is to stand by the idea of autonomous and diverse individuals and interests in society but to integrate them into systems of association and pluralist social negotiation within which they must pursue their own identities and interests in negotiation with others and with regard for others’ priorities. Associational democracy describes a political structure and system of relations intended to facilitate the pluralist social negotiation of social priorities. (Martell, 1992: 169)
More recent discussions are heavily influenced by the work of Tocqueville (1840, in Goldhammer and Zinz,
2004) and his concern with the decline in associations based on reciprocal and common activity in the context of industrialization and commercialism. Associative democracy proponents call for a ‘‘lively public sphere,’’ in which citizens discuss and criticize public issues, as an antidote to the rise in individualism and a more powerful state in America (McLaverty, 1998). This call for renewed associational life has gone hand in hand with a revival of communitarian approaches, including Etzioni’s (1993) work which held that community institutions should rebuild America’s ‘‘social base.’’ Associative democracy approaches are primarily concerned with citizens’ involvement in formalized groups. Associations are to function within institutionalized politics, through managing resources and channeling voices in an organized fashion in order to achieve ‘‘a radical, but nonauthoritarian redistribution of economic and political power’’ (Hirst, 2001 in Hirst and Bader, 2001: 15). This emphasis is distinct from the concept of participatory democracy which is based on dialog and deliberation at the grassroots level, but does not necessarily involve associations given that not all citizens can or wish to be mobilized into formal organizations (see Brock and McGee, 2002). A distinction is also apparent between associative thought and that of social movement theory which places more emphasis on contentious collective action (Tarrow, 1998), defiance (Eckstein et al., 2001), and the expression of grievances against powers.
Key Issues Channeling Voice and Agency
Fundamental to associative democracy are the principles of cooperation and voluntarism, and that organizations function as a mechanism for citizens’ agency and voice (Moyser and Parry, 1997). In the context of authoritarian rule in Latin America and East Asia, for instance, when political parties were largely banned or driven underground, urban poor, labor, religious (informed by liberation theology) and women’s associations played a critical role in channeling citizens’ voice against military rule (see Waylen, 1993; Smith, 1991; Weyland, 1995; Kim, 2000). Collectively they succeeded in overcoming repressive state practices and demanding citizenship rights for all in the private and public spheres, irrespective of class, ethnicity, or gender. Other examples in the literature include more microlevel grassroots efforts to foster democratic community participation through cooperative organization. For instance, the antiviolent Basista movement in Argentina, based on solidarity and community, focuses on poverty reduction in the shanty towns of Buenos Aires (Schapira,
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1999), while the Indigenas de la Sierra de Motozintla (ISMAM), a successful worldwide producer of organic coffee in Mexico, builds on a traditional cooperative model to support the democratic participation of its members (Nigh, 1997: 431, 428). However, because such associations are often resourced by the state (Hirst, 1994: 10), the practice of associative democracy may tend to be closer to corporative democracy where an explicit agreement to share power is reached between state and non-state groups. Baccaro (2002) highlights that many real-world experiments with associative democracy are built on a corporatist core, such as the experience of Ireland. In the 1990s strong corporatiststyle social partnerships developed, involving religious organizations, farmers’ associations, youth councils and community workers cooperatives. These were seen as playing a pivotal role in democratic life and in ensuring continued economic and social progress. Autonomy Versus Cooptation
Associative democratic thought places importance on the self-governance of associations. In both Hirst’s (1994) and Cohen and Rogers’ (1995) models, associations are both connected to yet autonomous from the state. Critics, however, have questioned whether the state’s role in monitoring associations damages their spontaneity (Perczynski, 1999: 8). To Tripp (2001), for example, the influence of the Ugandan women’s movement on policy making is directly tied to it having remained a degree of associational autonomy from the dominant political party. It is however increasingly questioned whether NGOs are facilitating participation and empowerment. Fisher (1997: 445) cautions that NGOs risk losing their autonomy, to become ‘‘technical solutions’’ to ‘‘development problems.’’ It has similarly been debated whether popular associations are able to serve as an adequate counterweight in postauthoritarian states as associations often become carefully regulated by the state and/or marginalized from mainstream politics following democratic transitions (Molyneux, 1998; Jones and Tembo, 2008). However, to Bader (2001 in Hirst and Bader, 2001: 59) what is needed is the ‘‘skilful combination of the state approach and the societal approach towards associations’’ (Perczynski, 1999: 14). Practicing Citizenship and Social Responsibility
A major concern within the associative democracy school is that associations must be democratic themselves. To Percynski (1999: 13–14), associative democracy offers a model of participatory democracy in which individuals participate through membership in associations which in turn serve as ‘‘schools of democracy and citizenship.’’
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Through active involvement in decision-making and implementation, members develop personal and social responsibility, and have opportunities to ‘‘learn and practice their civic skills.’’ This is in keeping with Putnam’s thinking on the links between associational life, active citizenship and democratic performance. Putnam’s (1993) seminal work on ‘‘making democracy work’’ in Italy focuses on the social capital derived from participation in associations, of which he identifies two main types: bonding (horizontal ties which create shared identities) and bridging (ties which transcend social divides) social capital. The latter is particularly needed in pluralist societies for ‘‘healthy social life’’ (Putnam and Feldstein, 2003: 72). Blind Spots and Challenges Anomie/Fragmentation
The concept of associative democracy emerged in response to increased individualism and commercialism. More recent advocates have similarly stressed the important role of associations in light of the challenges of globalization and the failure of political systems to provide adequate social welfare. It is arguable, however, that the level of anomie and complexity in current societies may be too difficult to overcome. Streek (1995 in Cohen and Rogers, 1995), for instance, is pessimistic about the prospect of moving towards an associative democracy, given the level of fragmentation, differentiation of identities, and the refusal of some groups to participate in organized democratic politics. Associative democracy models arguably struggle to deal with diversity in contexts of, for example, increased migration and unstable borders. Power
Associative democracy is premised on the redistribution of power to citizens through associations. However, the extent to which this can be achieved through a associative democracy is an open question. In particular, Gramsci (1971) maintained a more contested notion of civil society, pointing to embedded power relations, while Lewis emphasizes that civil society organizations span the spectrum of those that uphold the existing social order to those engaged in conflict with the same order (2004: 303). It is also difficult to assume that citizens’ involvement in associations equates with power sharing. For example, while new global social movements, such as the environmental and women’s movements, involve large numbers of organizations, these face a huge task in pursuing ‘‘all available paths to power and influence,’’ suggests Tinker (1999: 33; 2004). As well as highlighting the boundaries to political
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participation and decision-making in global governance structures, this exposes the limitations of the associative democratic model which works only within institutional politics. Arguably, what is needed is a change in existing power relations between activists and power holders. The associative democracy model also appears to overlook various hidden costs of participation, for example, unpaid labor and its constraints on membership and participation. Molyneux (2002) argues in particular that social capital approaches, and programs which attempt to ‘‘create’’ it, frequently maintain a conservative bias and neglect social and gendered inequalities. Similar criticisms have been leveled at the burgeoning women’s ‘‘self-help’’ micro-credit groups heavily promoted by donor agencies in South Asia, which have had a limited impact on transforming broader power imbalances within households and broader economic markets (see Goetz and Gupta, 1996; Kabeer, 2001). In addition, participation in associations can be costly and time consuming, as Delap (2001) concluded in an analysis of citizen juries’ in Scotland, which have been integral to New Labour thinking on decentralization. Evaluation findings with participants suggested that the 2½ days commitment to participate was too lengthy, especially given that the issues under deliberation were not deemed to be sufficiently concrete in nature in order to be able to influence local policy making. The focus of associative democracy on individuals also tends to be at the expense of an understanding of the interplay of structural power relations. Morgan (1996: 6), for instance, criticizes Hirst for casting citizens as ‘‘institutional consumers.’’ The model neglects material constraints on participation, including class, gender, occupation, and geographical location, and the fact that a certain level of material and time resources are required in order to afford to volunteer or be involved in associations. Agrawal and Gupta (2005), for instance, explore efforts in Nepal to decentralize common pool resources, and find that the socially and economically better-off held an advantage in community participation. Similarly, Waylen (1993) discusses how middle-class women’s groups in Chile remained active throughout the democratic consolidation years inside and outside institutional politics, but in contrast, working-class and poor women’s groups experienced more fracturing and marginalization. In these circumstances, women often face a ‘‘triple burden’’ of productive, reproductive, and community labor (Moser, 1993). In the same vein, the rationale for states and markets in Hirst’s model is uncertain (Morgan, 1996). Potential difficulties in decentralizing power to voluntary associations are largely overlooked. Not only do existing voluntary agencies lack the financial and organizational capacity to deliver welfare services on a large scale, but it is
also unclear how the state would retain power over fiscal policy and taxation to overcome this. Representation and Efficiency Concerns
There are a number of concerns regarding the quality of representation and efficiency offered by associative democracy models. Immergut (1995) emphasizes the dilemma of whose interests to include and exclude in decision making processes, and argues that ‘‘arrival at consensus on the public good means that some interests may not be accommodated’’ (205). Successful corporatist democratic systems owe part of their success to the exclusion of some interests. Sweden is an example. In the post-World War II period, various small businesses, craft unions and professionals were underrepresented, while the three main producer organizations (LO, TCO, and SAF) were represented and influential in policy-making. Immergut also points out that reaching a consensus on issues of social inequality can be challenging. Baccaro (2002: 11) highlights that associative democracy models can only accommodate associations which are membership based. Yet in practice this is not always possible. In contexts such as Bangladesh, for example, where hundreds of NGOs claim to speak for the same groups of people, this principle becomes more problematic. Accounts of decentralization and participatory user-committees recall problems with leadership, where national or local elites have failed to hand over power fully (see Pradnja Resosudarmo, 2004; Agrawal and Gupta, 2005). It seems that associations should not be overromanticized. There is a tendency to equate state with inefficiency and civil society with efficiency (Baccaro, 2002: 6). White (1999) highlights that organizations themselves can be hierarchal, and argues that a more critical and local-specific analytical framework is needed.
International Perspectives Relevance in Context of Globalization
Discussions of democracy now go beyond the nation state (Pieterse, 2001), and within this there is a recognition that the role of civil society is certain to grow as global governance becomes more pluralistic and less confined to statebased systems. As Edwards et al. (1999) argue, new forms of solidarity and cooperation are emerging in response to this complexity between citizens and authorities at different levels internationally. In this, NGOs are expected to act as a countervailing force to the expanding influence of markets and declining authority of states. ‘‘Transnational advocacy networks’’ and ‘‘multiple channels of access to the international system’’ are opening up and uncovering information which sustain multiple abuses of power (Keck and
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Sikkink, 1998: 1). Such networks are arguably reframing international and domestic debates, changing their terms, their sites and the configuration of participants (ibid). Indeed, many ostensibly consolidated democracies now find themselves being challenged by movements rallying against the failure of states to universalize democratic practices and secure political autonomy. Social movements championing the rights of ethnic minorities, in contexts such as Guatemala, Mexico, Bolivia, and Ecuador, for instance, have come increasingly to contest the foundations and contours of contemporary democratic and liberal institutions. These emergent movements have sparked political debates about territorial autonomy, legal pluralism, citizenship, representation, and multiculturalism. However, some analysts such as Cooley and Ron (2002: 6) caution that there is a high degree of competition between organizations for funding and public profile, and as such this makes it difficult to equate the proliferation of INGOs with a ‘‘robust global civil society.’’ Fowler (2000) goes so far as to argue that: "
It would appear that NGDOs are about to succumb to the homogenising forces of economic globalisation in favour of a market-inspired model of NGO identity and behaviour (644).
In other words, there is growing concern with the qualitative dimensions of INGOs rather than their numbers alone. In this regard there is a call for greater decentralization of INGOs to the South, the creation of more genuine North-South partnerships (Malhotra, 2000), and greater efforts to promote more truly mass movements based on a broad change of values and a commitment to: ‘‘A new social order requires those who gain power to make room for those with less’’ (Edwards and Sen, 2000: 608). Another critical variable concerns the historical evolution of civil society in different regional contexts. While associational life typically enjoys positive connotations in a North American, European, or Latin American context, in former Soviet Bloc countries and other socialist states (e.g., Vietnam, Ethiopia), membership in associations (e.g., youth associations, women’s associations) is often linked with top-down state mobilization of citizens and ‘‘compulsory’’ participation in civic life. As such following the democratic transition in Eastern Europe in the early 1990s, analysts for instance, in the early 1990s, analysts observed a marked retreat away from associational life because of its historic roots. For instance, due to a lack of independently organized women’s organizations in the region, there were no established women’s movements to advocate for gender equality in the new democracies and instead there was a greater tendency to reject the affirmative action measures and gender quotas of the Communist era.
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In other contexts, with historically weak civil societies, such as many parts of Africa, more pressing questions have focused around how to create an associational life. The democratic transitions of the 1990s in the region have sparked considerable interest in the potential role of civil society in promoting good governance and better development outcomes. However, civil society organizations are still fledgling in many countries and face significant resource and capacity challenges (e.g., Longwe, 2002; Fatton, 1999). As a result, some analysts see a positive potential role for international organizations to play in fostering more active civil society associations. Gawaya (2008) for example argues that INGOs could play a valuable role in supporting the mobilization of the rural poor so that they can more effectively participate in policy processes which too often seem remote from their lived experiences. However, others such as Manor (2004) and Jones et al. (2007) are more circumspect, and in the context of the now widespread user committees in South Asia, call attention to concerns about the artificiality of created volunteer associations to monitor basic service delivery, which may practice limited transparency in decision-making, fail to overcome structural barriers (especially caste and genderbased) to exercising voice and agency, and risk being little more than a cheap source of labor for understaffed social and agricultural policy programs. Indeed, more cynical interpretations of this trend are that such associations serve as a useful way for governments to secure international funds but that such initiatives are then rolled out in such a way as to manipulate, control, and contain committees and civil society (Manor, 2004).
Future Directions Associative democracy’s focus on the role of organized civil society as a counterbalance to individualism on the one hand, and the power of the state on the other, is an important one. In order to enhance the resonance of the associative democracy model in debates about global civil society, however, there are a number of possible research questions and themes that could fruitfully be explored. First, associative democracy as conceptualized by Hirst underemphasizes the importance of difference and the contestation of different identities which can be played out in associational life. However, the emergence of new civil society networks and social movements focusing on identity politics suggests that it is important to incorporate a wider understanding of ‘‘sociopolitical citizenship’’ that is achieved through ‘‘struggles for social recognition of their existence and for political spaces of expression’’ (Escobar and Alvarez, 1992: 4). Second, associative democracy has largely paid attention to group membership, but in the context of an
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increasingly complex globalized world, focusing on a diversity of approaches to associational life could be fruitful. In order to promote greater representativity, Font (2002), for instance, highlights the need to consider models of civic participation that involve individuals rather than groups in policy deliberations, such as consultative councils, citizens’ juries, participatory budget processes, children’s/youth councils, and so forth. Finally, given a growing recognition of the important intersection between knowledge and power, it is important that proponents of associative democracy inform their analysis with an understanding of the role that associations play in generating and reinforcing hierarchies of knowledge that may exclude the poorest and most marginalized. More attention could be paid to the ways that civil society organizations and networks could help to address power imbalances and promote the generation and uptake of new forms of (citizen-led) knowledge.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci, Antonio ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Corporatism ▶ Etzioni, Amitai ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Government Nonprofit Sector Relationships ▶ INGOs ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Third Way
References/Further Readings Agrawal, A., & Gupta, K. (2005). Decentralization and participation: The governance of common pool resources in Nepal’s Terai. World Development, 33(7), 1101–1114. Baccaro, L. (2002). Civil society meets the state: A model of associational democracy. ILO Discussion Paper, 138, 1–23. Bader, V. (2001). Problems and prospects of associative democracy: Cohen and Rogers revisited. In P. Hirst & V. Bader (Eds.), Associative democracy: The real third way (pp. 31–70). London: Frank Cass. Brock, K., & McGee, R. (2002). Knowing poverty: Critical reflections on participatory research and policy. London: Earthscan. Cohen, J., & Rogers, J. (1995). Secondary associations and democratic governance. In J. Cohen & J. Rogers (Eds.), Associations and democracy (pp. 7–98). London/New York: Verso. Cole, G. D. H. (1930). The Social Theory by G. D. H. Cole In P. Hirst (Ed.) (1989). The Phralist Theory of the state: Selected writings of G. D. H. Cole, J. N. Figgis and H. J. Laski. (pp. 51–108). London: Routledge. Cole, G. D. H., Figgis, J. N., Laski, H. J., & Hirst, P. (Eds.) (1989). The pluralist theory of the State. Selected writings of Cole, Figgis and Laski. London/New York: Routledge.
Cooley, A., & Ron, J. (2002). The NGO scramble: Organizational insecurity and the political economy of transnational action. International Insecurity, 27(1), 5–39. Delap, C. (2001). Citizens’ juries: Reflections on the UK experience. In Deliberative democracy and citizen empowerment (pp. 39–42), from http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdfs/G01929.pdf Eckstein, S. et al. (2001). Power and popular protest. Latin American social movements. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Edwards, M. (2004). Civil society. Oxford: Blackwell. Edwards, M., & Sen, G. (2000). NGOs, social change and the transformation of human relationships: A 21st century civic agenda. Third World Quarterly, 21(4), 605–616. Edwards, M., Hulme, D., & Wallace, T. (1999). NGOs in a global future: Marrying local diversity to worldwide leverage. Public Administration and Development, 19(2), 117–136. Escobar, A., & Alvarez, S. (1992). The making of social movements in Latin America. Identity, strategy and democracy. Oxford: Westview. Etzioni, A. (1993). The spirit of community. Rights, responsibilities, and the communitarian agenda. New York: Crown Publishers. Fatton, R. J. (1999). Civil society revisited: Africa in the new millennium. West Africa Review, 1(1), from http://westafricareview.org Fisher, W. (1997). Doing good? The politics and antipolitics of NGO practices. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26(1), 439–464. Font, J. (2002). Local Participation in Spain: Beyond Associative Democracy. WP 210, Institute de Ciencies Politiques I Socials, Barcelona, 1–27. Fowler, A. (2000). NGDOs as a moment in history: Beyond aid to social entrepreneurship or civic innovation? Third World Quarterly, 21(4), 637–654. Gawaya, R. (2008). Investing in women farmers to eliminate food insecurity in Southern Africa: Policy-related research from Mozambique. Gender and Development, 16(1), 147–159. Goetz, A. M., & Gupta, R. S. (1996). Who takes the credit? Gender, power and control over loan use in rural credit programmes in Bangladesh. World Development, 24(1), 45–64. Gramsci, A. (1971). Americanism and Fordism. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Hirst, P. (1989) (ed): The Pluralist Theory of the State. Selected Writings of G. D. H. Cole, J. N. Figgis and H. J. Laski. London: Routledge. Hirst, P. (1994). Associative democracy. New forms of economic and social governance. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hirst, P. (2001). Can Associationalism Come Back? In P. Hirst & V. M. Bader (eds.), Associative Democracy: The Real Third Way (pp. 15–30) London: Frank Cass. Immergut, E. (1995). An institutional critique of associative democracy. In J. Cohen & J. Rogers (Eds.), Associations and democracy (pp. 201–206). London/New York: Verso. Jones, N., & Tembo, F. (2008). Deepening democracy through civil society-legislator linkages: Opportunities and challenges for policy engagement in developing country contexts. Global Civil Society and Democratic Cultures ISTR Conference, Barcelona, July 2008. Jones, N., Lyytikainen, M., & Reddy, G. (2007). Decentralization and participatory service delivery: Implications for tackling childhood poverty in Andhra Pradesh, India. Journal of Children and Poverty, 13(2), 1–23. Kabeer, N. (2001). Conflicts over credit: Re-evaluating the empowerment potential of loans to women in rural Bangladesh. World Development, 29(1), 63–84. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders. Advocacy networks in international politics. New York: Cornell University Press.
ATD Quart-Monde Kim, S. (2000). The politics of democratization in Korea: The role of civil society. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Lewis, D. (2004). On the difficulty of studying ‘‘civil society’’: Reflections on NGOs, state and democracy in Bangladesh. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 38(3), 299–322. Lister, R. (2005). Investing in the citizen-workers of the future: Transformations in citizenship and the State under new labour. In H. Hendrick (Eds.), Child welfare and social policy: An essential reader (pp. 449–469). London: Policy Press. Longwe, S. H. (2002). How can civil society influence the work of international organizations in developing countries? The World Civil Society Forum official report: The role of civil society organizations in Africa, from http://www.worldcivilsocietyorg/documents/ 16.17_longwe_sara.doc Malhotra, K. (2000). NGOs without aid: Beyond the global soup kitchen. Third World Quarterly, 21(4), 655–668. Manor, J. (2004). User committees: A potentially damaging second wave of decentralisation. The European Journal of Development Research, 16(1), 192–213. Martell, L. (1992). New ideas of socialism. Economy and Society, 21(2), 152–172. McLaverty, P. (1998). The public sphere and local democracy. Democratization, 5(3), 224–239. Molyneux, M. (1998). Analysing women’s movements. Development and Change, 29(2), 219–245. Molyneux, M. (2002). Gender and the silences of social capital: Lessons from Latin America. Development and Change, 33(2), 167–188. Morgan, D. (1996). Associative democracy: Decentralisation of societal and industrial governance? A critical discussion. Journal of Sociology, 32(1), 1–19. Moser, C. (1993). Adjustment from below: Low-income women, time and the triple burden in Guayaquil, Ecuador. In S. Radcliffe & S. Westwood (Eds.), ‘‘Viva’’: Women and popular protest in Latin America (pp. 173–196). London : Routledge. Moyser, G., & Parry, G. (1997). Voluntary associations and democratic participation in Britain. In D. Jan & V. Deth (Eds.), Private groups and public life: Voluntary associations and political involvement in representative democracies (pp. 24–44). London: Routledge. Nigh, R. (1997). Organic agriculture and globalization: A Maya Associative Corporation in Chiapas, Mexico. Human Organization, 56(4), 427–436. Perczynski, P. (1999). Citizenship and associative democracy. European consortium of political research (pp. 1–22), from http://www.essex.ac.uk/ ecpr/events/jointsessions/paperarchive/mannheim/w20/perczynski.pdf Pieterse, J. N. (2001). Participatory democracy reconceived. Futures, 33(5), 407–422. Pradnja Resosudarmo, I. A. (2004). Closer to the people and trees: Will decentralisation work for the people and forests of Indonesia? The European Journal of Development Research, 16(2), 110–132. Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work. Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ/Chichester: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R., & Feldstein, L. (2003). Better together. Restoring the American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Schapira, M. F. (1999). From Utopia to pragmatism: The heritage of Basismo in local government in the greater Buenos Aires region. Bulletin of Latin American Research, 18(2), 227–239. Smith, C. (1991). The emergence of liberation theology: Radical religion and social movement theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Streek, W. (1995). Inclusion and secession: Questions and the boundaries of associative democracy. In J. Cohen & J. Rogers (Eds.), Associations and democracy (pp. 184–192). London/New York: Verso.
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Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in movement. Social movements and contentious places. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tinker, I. (1999). NGOs: An alternative power base for women? In M. Meyer & E. Prugl (Eds.), Gender politics in global governance (pp. 1–39). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, from http://www. onlinewomeninpolitics.org/beijing12/ProleadNGOE.pdf Tinker, I. (2004). Quotas for women in elected legislatures: Do they really empower women? Women’s Studies International Forum, 27(5–6), 531–546. Tocqueville. (1840). On the use that Americans make of association in civil life. In Goldhammer, A (trans) & Zunz, O (eds) (2004) Democracy in America (pp. 595–599). New York: Penguin Putnam Inc. Tripp, A. (2001). The politics of autonomy and cooptation in Africa: The case of the Ugandan Women’s Movement. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 39(1), 101–128. Waylen, G. (1993). Women’s movements and democratization in Latin America. Third World Quarterly, 14(3), 573–587. Weyland, K. (1995). Latin America’s four political models. Journal of Democracy, 6(4), 125–135. White, S. (1999). NGOs, civil society, and the State in Bangladesh. Development and Change, 30(2), 307–326.
ATD Quart-Monde ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization 114 avenue du Ge´ne´ral Leclerc 95480 Pierrelaye France www.atd-fourthworld.org
Introduction The international NGO Aide a` Toute De´tresse QuartMonde (ATD Quart-Monde or ATD Fourth World, in English) mobilizes poor families and communities in housing estates, slums, and isolated towns, researches issues of poverty with the participation of those affected, and informs public opinion. It does this with help from the members of its international Volunteer Corps.
Brief History In 1956, Father Joseph Wresinski (1917–1988), the son of a poor immigrant family, was assigned by his bishop to be a chaplain to 250 families placed in an emergency housing camp in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, France. In 1957, Wresinski and the families of the camp founded an association, which was later to become ATD Quart-Monde. Wresinski chose the term ‘‘Quart-Monde,’’ or ‘‘Fourth
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World,’’ to represent all people needing help, not only those in the so-called Third World, but also in places such as France. From its modest roots, ATD QuartMonde has grown into an international movement with associations in more than 30 countries (in Europe, Africa, North & Central America, and Asia) and with consultative status to the UN’s ECOSOC and other UN agencies.
Funding ATD Quart-Monde France receives most of its income from receipts from private donations. Worldwide organizational members of the International Movement depend mostly on donations and other private funding, with some income from governments and other public sector funding sources.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The mission of ATD Quart-Monde is to fight poverty and to obtain official representation for the poorest people in society. The International Movement ATD Fourth World that grew out of the French group describes itself as a nongovernmental organization with no religious or political affiliation that engages with individuals and institutions to find solutions to extreme poverty. Working in partnership with people in poverty, ATD Fourth World’s human rights-based approach focuses on supporting families and individuals through its grassroots presence.
Activities On the ground in France and other countries where there are members, ATD Quart-Monde provides direct assistance to needy communities, helping families find housing, providing clothing and health services, and obtaining entrance to the local social security system. ATD Quart-Monde also undertakes research and other knowledge-building efforts relating to all areas affecting the lives of the poorest. These activities are conducted predominantly through the Research and Training Institute, also based in Paris, which was created in 1960 at the request of Joseph Wresinski. ATD Quart-Monde in France was commissioned by the Economic and Social Council of France to prepare a report, ‘‘Chronic Poverty and Lack of Basic Security,’’ published in 1987 and better known as the Wresinski Report. One of the report’s key concepts is partnership, stressing that the best informed experts on poverty are the poor, and that they must be involved in the planning and management of any effort undertaken on their behalf.
Structure and Governance ATD Quart-Monde in France is, like other French associations, governed by a board. The International Movement ATD Fourth World is governed by a board of international members and led by an International Leadership Team selected every 4 years by a Discernment Group, consisting of Volunteer Corps members and other members of the organization. The International Movement’s membership consists of activists, Volunteer Corps members (more than 350 worldwide), and approximately 100,000 friends and allies.
Within France, ATD Quart-Monde gained notoriety because of its charismatic founder and leader Joseph Wresinski, as well as its focus on creating public awareness of and eradicating extreme poverty within its own borders. Internationally, the International Movement ATD Fourth World has contributed to the understanding of extreme poverty in both wealthy and poor countries by bringing the voices of the poor and the people who work with them into its research.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ INGOs ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Comparative Perspectives
References/Further Readings Fourth World University Research Group (2007). The merging of knowledge. People in poverty and academics thinking together. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Godinot, X., & Wodon, Q. (2006). Participatory approaches to attacking extreme poverty: case studies led by the International Movement ATD Fourth World. Washington, DC: World Bank. Wresinski, J. (1994). Chronic poverty and lack of basic security. A report of the economic and social council of France. 1. ed. Landover, MD: Fourth World Publications.
Attac (Association for Transaction Taxes to Aid Citizens) ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization 66-72 rue Marceau 93 100 Montreuil-sous-bois France www.attac.org
Introduction The Association for Transaction Taxes to Aid Citizens, better known as Attac, is a French-based international NGO that has become emblematic of the
Attac (Association for Transaction Taxes to Aid Citizens)
antiestablishment organizations that mushroomed with the deepening of the economic recession of the late 1990s. Attac claims to act as advocates for the rights of those ‘‘without rights’’ and has many links to the wider antiglobalization movement.
Brief History In 1972, James Tobin (1918–2002), an American economist and Nobel Prize winner, proposed a worldwide standardized tax on currency speculations, the so-called Tobin tax. His idea was to make short-term currency speculation less attractive, since he considered it detrimental to the economy. In December 1997, Ignacio Ramonet, editor of the French journal Le Monde diplomatique wrote an article titled ‘‘De´sarmer les marche´s’’ (‘‘Disarm the Markets’’), in which he advocated the establishment of the Tobin tax and the creation of an organization to promote the introduction of the tax around the world, with the proceeds devoted to fighting poverty and injustice. Together with Bernard Cassen, General Director of the journal, and others including Pierre Bourdieu, Ramonet followed up on his call and helped organize the first constitutive assembly of Attac in June 1998. As time went on, national groups in other European countries were also established and became active on a wide range of issues, including international financial institutions, debt, tax havens, public services, water, and free trade zones. Attac’s renown grew following the July 2001 meeting of the G7/G8 nations in Genoa, Italy. On this occasion, Attac and other groups organized one of the largest demonstrations of its history (some 100,000 demonstrators) against what they called ‘‘neoliberal globalization.’’ Segments of the demonstrators and the Italian government’s military police clashed, leading to riots and violence, with one dead, hundreds wounded, and significant destruction of shops and autos.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Attac’s first concrete proposal was to introduce the Tobin tax on international financial transactions in order to create a general fund (thus, Attac’s name: the Association for the Transaction Taxes to Aid Citizens), but the range of target issues has expanded over time. Joint actions of Attac have the following goals: to hamper international speculation; to tax income on capital; to penalize tax havens; to prevent the generalization of pension funds; to promote transparency in investments in developing countries; to establish a legal framework for banking and financial operations in order not to penalize consumers and citizens; and to support the general annulment of the public debt of developing countries, and
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the use of the freed-up resources on behalf of populations and for sustainable development, which many call paying off the ‘‘social and ecological debt.’’
Activities Attac seeks to enable political processes of learning and experiencing, to build a platform that enables political communication, and to consolidate various political views in discussions and common actions, which, in turn, lead to the possibility of acting jointly in commonly defined political fields. Attac offers seminars and open discussion rounds, publishes through its local groups in small newspapers, and distributes flyers highlighting its goals. Attac has also frequently supported specific political parties during elections. Its informal organization leads to various activities like free concerts for the people, demonstrations, declarations, discussion rounds, often in a small and unprofessional context and often depending on the local people involved. Attac France does not support violence, but even it admits that some among its members take to violence.
Structure and Governance Attac functions on a principle of decentralisation: local associations organise meetings and conferences, and compose documents (another reason why there are different voices speaking for Attac). Currently, there are about 90,000 members in 50 national subgroups, which each control themselves and are not ruled by a higher council. The topics which have international importance are coordinated internationally among the groups. For example when there is a meeting of the World Economic Forum, the Attac national groups decide jointly what to do. But generally, most of the decisions rely on the national groups. However, there are coordinating bodies including the General Assembly, an Administrative Council, ‘‘le Bureau’’ (headquarters), Founders’ College and Scientific Council.
Funding The resources of Attac comprise mainly fees and other contributions by the members. The exact amount of those fees is fixed by the General Assembly on recommendation of the Administrative Council. Attac’s organizational documents indicate that it is open to accepting every allocation it is able to get legally, even regularly or exceptionally with the agreement of the responsible authority. This allows for flexibility in receiving other funds, but corporate and governmental grants and contracts are – not surprisingly – rare, if any.
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Australia New Zealand Third Sector Research (ANZTSR) Inc.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Originally founded in France, Attac now exists in some 50 countries around the world. It has attracted the involvement of many well-known political figures and intellectuals, including, for example, many left-oriented politicians in France. Through Attac’s efforts, the Tobin tax and similar ideas to develop solidarity-based alternatives to neoliberal orthodoxy became known to a broader spectrum of activists. Despite negative press as a result of violence occurring at some Attac-organized or led demonstrations, Attac has still managed to bring concrete proposals to the table.
community, or voluntary organizations and the activities of volunteering, philanthropy and social enterprise.
Brief History The third sector is an important, but frequently undervalued, misunderstood, and under researched sector of society. ANZTSR was launched in 1993 as a response to the growing awareness of the importance of third sector activities in Australia and New Zealand societies, and the paucity of reliable information about the sector and its activities which existed at that time. In doing so, the isolation and difficulties many third sector researchers experienced began to be addressed.
Cross-References
▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ Dotcauses ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ INGOs ▶ World Economic Forum
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas "
‘‘ANZTSR aims to develop a better understanding and recognition of the Third Sector and its role in the development of a strong civil society by:
● encouraging interest and support for research in the Third Sector;
References/Further Readings Attac. (2007). Manifeste altermondialiste. Construire un monde solidaire, e´cologique et de´mocratique. Paris: E´dition Mille et Une Nuits. Fro¨hlich, R., & Wimmer, J. (2007). The determination of the success of organizational relationship management through network structure: The Attac case. In S. Duhe´ (Ed.), New media and public relations. New York: Lang.
● promoting research and scholarship in matters relating to the Third Sector;
● building networks of individuals and organisations interested in better understanding the Third Sector;
● serving as a centre for information on all aspects of the Third Sector;
● developing and maintaining relations with other organisations concerned with the Third Sector;
● convening seminars and conferences for participants
Australia New Zealand Third Sector Research (ANZTSR) Inc. SUZANNE GRANT
Address of Organization ANZTSR Secretariat c/- Social Justice & Social Change Research Centre University of Western Sydney Locked Bag 1797 Penrith South DC NSW 179 Australia www.anztsr.org.au
Introduction The Australia New Zealand Third Sector Research (ANZTSR) Inc is a network of people interested in pursuing and encouraging research into not-for-profit,
in, researchers of, and all those interested in the issues and activities of the Third Sector.’’ (www.anztsr.org.au)
Activities ANZTSR produces a quarterly newsletter to keep members informed of news, published research and conferences from around the region as well as international third sector developments. An annual membership directory is compiled to facilitate contact between researchers and practitioners in New Zealand and Australia. Academic papers, relevant research findings and theoretical developments are published in ANZTSR’s refereed journal – Third Sector Review (TSR). Two issues of TSR are published each year. ANZTSR conferences are biennial, bringing together third sector researchers and practitioners from both sides of the Tasman Sea, as well as the wider Pacific region. The 9th Biennial ANZTSR conference was held in Auckland, New Zealand, November 2008. Formal links are maintained with similar organizations/networks around the world, including ISTR
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(International Society for Third Sector Research), and the ISTR Asia Pacific Regional network.
sector researchers and practitioners around Australia and New Zealand. Research dissemination, awareness of and advocacy for the third sector is thus facilitated.
Structure and Governance ANZTSR is an incorporated association, with membership open to any individual and/or organization who shares the organization’s objectives. Governance is undertaken by an elected executive committee comprising a Chairperson, Deputy Chairperson, Treasurer, and six non-office bearing committee members. Office Bearers are elected annually at the Annual General Meeting.
Funding
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Australia and New Zealand ▶ ISTR ▶ Philanthropy in Australia ▶ Third Sector
References/Further Readings Third Sector Review (ISSN 1323 9163) (ISBN 1 86365 805 X).
Membership fees and TSR journal subscriptions are the main sources of ANZTSR income. Revenue from TSR copyright royalties is becoming increasingly significant.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Through newsletters, conferences, and the TSR journal ANZTSR provides a network of support, linking third
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AWO ▶ Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO)
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Barnett, Samuel Augustus JENNY HARROW
Basic Biographical Information Born in Bristol, England, in 1844, Samuel Barnett’s invention of and advocacy for the university settlement underpins his achievements as a social entrepreneur and change advocate. As an institutional structure and social relations concept, the settlement became and remains significant in the development of subsequent Anglo-American community-based social action. A member of a prosperous merchant family (although its first to go to university), Barnett was ordained in the Church of England in 1867, after education at Wadham College, Oxford. In his first fashionable London parish he learnt from Octavia Hill, the social housing reformer. Marriage to Henrietta Rowland, one of Hill’s young workers, matched Barnett with an intending and subsequently successful social reformer in her own right. In 1873, their move to St Jude’s parish, Whitechapel (‘‘the worst’’ in the Diocese of London), began a period of immense combined parochial and social action led by Barnett, in areas including housing, education, arts and children’s needs. In 1884, after Barnett’s advocacy for ‘‘university settlements,’’ Toynbee Hall, the first university settlement with Barnett as its first Warden, was founded. Its Whitechapel location and Oxford-collegial style accommodation for volunteer settlers made it an institutional innovation for community activities and a practical base for social projects. The founding of a string of university settlements in London and elsewhere in the United Kingdom followed, gaining strength from other reformers’ support and visits. (These visits included Jane Addams
in 1887 and 1889, prior to her founding of Hull House; visited in turn by the Barnetts in 1891.) Barnett’s ‘‘practicable socialism,’’ voice and action for reform, gained a critical platform in his Wardenship; as did his focus on the Christian imperatives for neighborly and friendly social interaction; though Toynbee Hall was not denominationally or church-linked. Latterly appointed Canon of Bristol Cathedral in 1893, and of Westminster Abbey in 1906, Barnett’s thoughtful, pragmatic, generous churchmanship was integral to his social action.
Major Contributions Barnett was not the first advocate of the responsibilities of the university-educated to live with and work for and among the poor. However his skills of social entrepreneurship ensured that the first university settlement was emulated, firstly in London, then in the United Kingdom and notably in the United States. It proved capable of replication without damage, but rather with improvement, interpretation and growth. Moreover, his wardenship model looked for and gained leadership from others. Toynbee Hall and its fellow settlements became – and continue to be – incubators for new and flourishing organizations, offering organizational independence and further innovation. Elements in Barnett’s creation remained uncertain, with social interactions leaving patterns of political leadership intact, the resulting interclass harmony fragile and prime beneficiaries (neighbors or settlers themselves) often unclear. The model never lacked critics. Critically, in England, an integrating closeness (educational or financial) between universities and ‘‘their’’ settlements remained absent. Yet Barnett’s gifts for social organization, institution-building and social convenorship created and inspired a vital community movement and an enduring social action model.
Cross-References
▶ Addams, Jane ▶ Hill, Octavia ▶ Social Entrepreneurship
References/Further Readings Barnett, H. O. (1919). Canon Barnett his life, work and friends by his wife. (2nd ed., 2 Vols.). London: John Murray.
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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Barnett, S. A. (1895). Practicable socialism. London: Longman, Green and Co. Briggs, A., & Macartney, A. (1984). Toynbee Hall. The first hundred years. London: Routledge. Carson, M. (1990). Prologue; the English background. In M. Carson (Eds.), Settlement folk and the American Settlement Movement 1885–1930 (pp. 2–9). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. O’Day, R. (2004). Caring or controlling? The east end of London in the 1880s and 1890s. In C. Emsley, E. Johnson & P. Spierenburg (Eds.), Social control in Europe, 1800–2000 (Vol. 2, pp. 149–166). Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.
Berger, Peter Ludwig SUSAN LORD
Basic Biographical Information Sociologist Peter L. Berger was born in 1929 in Vienna, Austria. He immigrated to the United States in 1946 at the age of 17, and became a US citizen in 1952. He received a BA from Wagner College in New York City in 1949 and an MA (1950) and Ph.D. (1954) from the New School for Social Research in New York City. He has been on the faculty of University of Georgia, Evangelical Academy (Bad Boll, West Germany), University of North Carolina, Hartford Seminary Foundation, New School for Social Research, Rutgers University, and Boston College. Currently Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Theology at Boston University where he has been on the faculty since 1981, he is also, since 1985, the Director of Boston University’s Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs, a center for research, publication, and education on how culture affects economic and political developments worldwide. He holds honorary doctorates from Loyola University, Wagner College, and the University of Notre Dame, and in 1992 he was awarded the Manes Sperber Prize, presented by the Austrian government for significant contributions to culture.
Major Contributions Berger is known for his writings on sociological theory, the sociology of religion, and the interface between issues of global economic development and sociocultural change. His scholarly work is noted for its accessibility, and for the breadth and depth of his analyses, as he grapples with issues of modernity as they pertain to human beings and to sociocultural institutions. He purports that
institutions that affect everyday life, such as schools and churches, make up the foundation of democracy, and claims that capitalism is the economic system that cultivates the highest levels of civic virtue and liberty. Essentially, he says that a market economy is necessary to democracy, and that capitalism introduces institutional forces that have a certain independence and balance out governmental controls. He is interested in the human yearning for transcendental experience and how this yearning affects everyday life. Over his long career, he has changed his claim that modernization leads to increasing secularization, and now claims that most of the world is not secular; it is very religious. His phenomenological approach offers a certain balance to the positivism of other sociological endeavors, as he attempts to apply a scientific approach to such studies as the role of religion in the public realm. His mixing of a scientific approach with religious beliefs has met with both positive and negative critiques; while many applaud his application of the scientific method to religion, some view it as a betrayal of the method. A selfproclaimed orthodox Weberian, he believes in value-free science, and that social scientists should base their theories on the weight of empirical evidence. In her 11/22/92 New York Times Book Review of Berger’s A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity (1992), Eleanor Munro characterized Berger’s The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (with Thomas Luckmann, 1966), The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion (1967), and The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Affirmation (1979), as ‘‘milestones in the study of the life of ideas in contemporary society.’’ Among his more recent books are: Questions of Faith: A Skeptical Affirmation of Christianity (2003), and Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience (1997).
Cross-References
▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Religious Organizations
References/Further Readings Hunter, J. D., & Ainley, S. C. (Eds.) (1986). Making sense of modern times. In L. Peter (Ed.), Berger and the vision of interpretive sociology. New York: Routledge. Woodhead, L., Heelas, P., & Martin, D. (Eds.) (2001). Peter Berger and the study of religion. New York: Routledge. Wuthnow, R., Hunter, J. D., Bergesen, A., & Kurzweil, E. (1984). Cultural analysis: The work of Peter L. Berger, Mary Douglas, Michel Foucault, and Jurgen Habermas. New York: Routledge.
Bernard van Leer Foundation
Bernard van Leer Foundation JAN SACHARKO
Address of Organization P.O. Box 82334 2508 EH, The Hague The Netherlands www.bernardvanleer.org
Introduction The Bernard van Leer Foundation operates globally, funding organizations and sharing gained knowledge about childhood development. Its vision is a world where all children can reach their full potential despite any social or economic disadvantages. From its origin in Switzerland with the equivalent of a few €100,000, today it operates over 150 major programs in more than 40 countries with an annual budget over €25 million.
Brief History Bernard van Leer (1883–1958) of the Netherlands began the original foundation in 1949 in Switzerland. He had made his fortune running his own container production company, Royal Packaging Industries, which specialized in barrels and barrel closures. Though his companies were sold under duress to German operators during WWII, he returned to business after the war and would soon set up his foundation with broad humanitarian interests that operated often anonymously. After his death, his son Oscar van Leer (1914–1996) would be inspired by the developmental psychologist, Martin Deutsch, and narrow the focus of the foundation to child development issues. He legally established the foundation in 1971 in The Hague.
Mission Its mission since the 1960s has been ‘‘to develop and support programs that create significant positive change for children up to the age of eight who are growing up in circumstances of social and economic disadvantage.’’
Activities To accomplish its mission, it operates a grant-making program that funds innovative programs in over 40 countries (most of which are countries where van Leer’s company operated) and work to disseminate information about early childhood development to better inform public policy decisions. One of its main publications, Early
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Childhood Matters, is published at least once a year and details new theories on childhood development and reports on its work in the field. Its three main areas of interest within this arena are strengthening vulnerable families and communities; improving childcare and preschool programs as well the way children transition from home to these programs; and promoting diverse and inclusive environments in which children may develop.
Structure and Governance At the same time that the foundation was legally established in The Hague, the Van Leer Group Foundation was also established with the same nine members of the board of trustees. The Governors of the Van Leer Group Foundation continue to be the trustees of the Bernard van Leer Foundation and decide questions of governance, board composition, tenure, etc.
Funding The Bernard van Leer Foundation derives all of its income from the Van Leer Group Foundation. Originally the Group Foundation received its income from its shares of Royal Packaging Industries, which it fully owned. However, the Group sold the company in the 1990s and now receives all income from its investment portfolio and a venture capital company.
Major Accomplishments FM Weekly, a professional journal on philanthropic organizations in The Netherlands, named Bernard van Leer the ‘‘greatest philanthropist in Dutch history’’ in 2004. The foundation has moved in the direction of being a convener and facilitator for other organizations in the past few years. One of its successes in that matter has been to publish ‘‘A Guide to General Comment 7 ‘Implementing Child Rights in Early Childhood’’’ with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2006. Prior to this, most rights programs under the United Nations Conventions for children under 18 focused on older children, leaving the earliest years unprotected.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Functions of
References/Further Readings An English language pre´cis, from http://www.bernardvanleer.org/about/ bernard_van_leer_biography. Micheels, P. (2002). De vatenman Bernard van Leer (1883–1958). Amsterdam.
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Bertelsmann Foundation
Bertelsmann Foundation ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization Carl-Bertelsmann-Straße 256 33311 Gu¨tersloh Germany www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de
Introduction The foundation Bertelsmann Stiftung functions as a private operating foundation and supports its own research, projects, and initiatives. Headquartered in Gu¨tersloh, Germany, the foundation has offices in Barcelona, Brussels, and Washington, DC. Employing about 330 staff members, it is one of the largest foundations in Germany and has provided approximately €728 million in support since its inception.
Brief History After the international growth and success of Bertelsmann AG, initially a regional, small publishing company founded by Carl Bertelsmann in 1835, the eponymous foundation was created in 1977 by Reinhard Mohn, who was also the major stakeholder in Bertelsmann AG. Ensuring the permanence of the foundation, Mohn, then chairman of the company board and majority shareholder, transferred his shares in Bertelsmann AG to the foundation. The shares are without voting rights.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area The foundation is committed to developing programmatic initiatives, research, and think-tank forums on international social concerns. With 18 focus areas in education, integration of immigrant and minority students, globalization and its impact (especially on Germany as a business location), and healthcare, the foundation launches programming and research practices around the most current pressing issues.
Activities The activities of the Bertelsmann Stiftung fall into four categories: programming, convening, research, and competitions. The foundation is engaged in more than 60 specific projects that are all designed, launched, and implemented by the foundation and frequently involve other foundations, government entities, businesses, and nonprofit partners. By hosting events such as the Democratic Change Forum, the Kronberger Middle East Talks, the International
Bertelsmann Forum and the Brussels Forum, the foundation is active in network- and coalition-building. With more than 50 publications released each year, the foundation promotes research and information dissemination. The foundation also hosts two major international competitions each year. While the ‘‘Neue Stimmen’’ International Singing Competition focuses on young opera talents (awarded biannually), the Carl Bertelsmann Prize, at €150,000, is awarded annually to organizations, companies, individuals, teams, and civic bodies (countries, towns, and regions) that have demonstrated exceptional progress in a thematic area. Previous awards have been given in the areas of Civic Engagement, Higher Education, Integration, and Employment Policy.
Structure and Governance As of January 1, 2005, the 14-member Board of Trustees, appointed by founder Reinhard Mohn, serves as a supervisory board for consultation and controlling activities, while the 5-member Executive Board functions as a management board. Reflecting a corporate governance practice, the roles of the Executive Board and the Board of Trustees are separated, and their functions and powers are clearly defined.
Funding The foundation is the majority shareholder (76.9%) in Bertelsmann AG, and it is funded predominantly by income earned from its shares in the company, which in 2007 yielded €72 million. Additional funding comes from the foundation’s project partners and financial management of assets. In fiscal year 2007, the foundation’s total resources were €84 million, of which €48 million was dedicated to project work. The largest programming expenditures were made in international relations.
Major Accomplishments Among organizational achievements, the foundation’s leadership has also been recognized for the foundation’s progress. Liz Mohn, vice-chair of the Bertelsmann Foundation Executive Board, has received the Atlantik Bru¨cke organization’s Vernon A. Walters Award, Spain’s Grand Cross of the Order for Civil Merit (La Gran Cruz de la Orden del Me´rito Civil), and an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Tel Aviv. Founder Reinhard Mohn has been awarded the 2007 German Founders Prize, an honorary doctoral degree from the University of Mu¨nster, and the Spanish royal family’s Prince of Asturias Award. This internationally recognized honor is Spain’s most prestigious award.
Bhatt, Ela R.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Philanthropy in Europe
References/Further Readings Mohn, R. (1997). A sense of community – bridging the gap between the individual and society. Gu¨tersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers. Mohn, R. (2000). Humanity wins a strategy for progress and leadership in times of change. New York: Crown Publications. Mohn, R. (2005). An age of new possibilities: How humane values and an entrepreneurial spirit will lead us into the future. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Beveridge, Lord William Henry ANNE SANDER
Basic Biographical Information William Henry Beveridge – economist and one of Britain’s most famous social reformers – was born in March 1879 in Rangpur (British India) as the eldest son of Henry Beveridge, an Indian civil service officer. Originally trained as a lawyer, his early interest in social services and social justice brought him to the Morning Post as a leading writer in 1905 where he wrote about social problems until he entered the Board of Trade and became a civil servant in 1908. During his years as the Director of labor exchanges (1909–1916) he already proved to be one of the leading experts on unemployment in Britain. His ideas influenced and led to the passing of the National Insurance Act which for the first time introduced an unemployment insurance for heavy industry workers. In 1919 he joined academia as the Director of the renowned London School of Economics where he stayed until 1937. During World War II he set up the Academic Assistance Council to shelter refugee scholars and help them escape the Nazi oppression. Beveridge today is most well-known however for his 1942 Beveridge Report which eventually led to the foundation of the modern welfare state in Britain, as described below. He died in March 1963 still working on his ‘‘History of Prices.’’ His last words were: ‘‘I have a thousand things to do.’’
Major Contributions Even though Lord Beveridge worked as an analyst of social injustice and welfare for most of his life and published numerous works on this, his name is still most
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famous for his 1942 ‘‘Social Insurance and Allied Services Report’’ to the British government. More well-known as the ‘‘Beveridge Report’’ his recommendations eventually led to the set up of the modern welfare state in Britain, including the National Health Service and have since then served also to categorize a specific type of welfare state. Beveridge, who had been highly influenced by the Fabian Society British intellectual socialist movement, had joined the government in 1940. In his report which then served as the basis for the postwar Labour government’s legislation program for social reform, Beveridge stressed that full employment should be the main pivot and target of any social welfare program, including Keynesian-style fiscal regulation, state control of the means of production and more direct control of manpower. The report reflected his strong belief in social justice and in the creation of an ideal postwar society and urged the government to fight the five ‘‘Giant Evils: Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.’’ For Beveridge the discovery of objective socioeconomic laws would lead to solving injustice and the problems of society. It is also remarkable that Beveridge managed to also convince the Conservatives that his proposed welfare institutions would be both socially and economically profitable.
Cross-References
▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Jose, H. (1997). William Beveridge: A biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bhatt, Ela R. MARTHA CHEN
Basic Biographical Information Ela R. Bhatt, the founder of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India, is recognized around the world for her visionary ideals, her pioneering work, and her quiet centered humility. Known as the ‘‘gentle revolutionary,’’ she has dedicated her life to improving the lives of working poor women in India and beyond. Born in 1933 in Ahmedabad, India into a prominent family.
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Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Her father was a lawyer, and her maternal grandfather was a freedom fighter who took part in the Salt March led by Mahatma Gandhi. Ela Bhatt trained as a lawyer. After completing her legal studies, she joined the legal department of the Textile Labour Association which was founded in 1920 by Mahatma Gandhi and Anasuyaben Sarabhai (the daughter of a prosperous industrial family). Some years later, Ela Bhatt had the opportunity to work in a desert kibbutz in Israel where she learned about the joint action of labor unions and cooperatives. When she returned to India, she was determined to form a union of working poor women who did not have formal jobs but who, she felt, should enjoy the same benefits that organized labor received. Established in 1972, SEWA is today the largest union in India and the largest union of informal workers in the world. Ela Bhatt and her late husband Ramesh, who shared her commitment to the working poor, had two children: a daughter Ami who lives in the USA with her husband and their two children; and a son Mihir who, with his wife and their two sons, lives next door to his mother in India.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Founded and led for two decades by Ela Bhatt, the SelfEmployed Women’s Association (SEWA) is world-renowned for its unique and effective blend of trade union activism and development interventions with, as its core function, the building of membership-based organizations of working poor women, including a union with over one million women members from multiple trades, a cooperative bank, an insurance cooperative, and over 100 producer and service cooperatives. Ela Bhatt was a member of the Indian Parliament and subsequently the Indian Planning Commission. She cofounded and served as chair of Women’s World Banking and of the global network Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). She also served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation for a decade. She continues to serve as a pioneering leader and abiding inspiration to three international movements: the labor movement, the women’s movement, and the micro-finance movement. She has received many awards, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award and the Right Livelihoods Award, as well as honorary degrees from Harvard University, the University of KwaZulu Natal, Yale University, and other academic institutions.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Gandhi, Mahatma ▶ Informal Sector
▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Self Employed Women’s Organization
References/Further Readings Bhatt, E. R. (2006). We are poor but so many. London/New York: Oxford University Press. Chen, M. A. (2006). Self-employed women: A profile of SEWA’s membership. Ahmedabad: SEWA Academy. Rose, K. (1992). Where women are leaders: The SEWA movement in India. New Delhi: Vistaar Publications. Sreenivasan, J. (2000). Ela Bhatt: Uniting women in India. New York: The Feminist Press.
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation MICHAEL BISESI
Address of Organization P.O. Box 23350 Seattle, WA 98102 USA www.gatesfoundation.org
Introduction The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is currently the largest philanthropic foundation in the world. In addition to its grant-making impact, the Foundation plays an important leadership role by identifying emerging issues and focusing its funding in a relatively small number of program areas where significant change is possible.
Brief History Bill Gates, the cofounder of Microsoft, and his wife, Microsoft executive Melinda French Gates, decided in 1994 to focus their charitable giving on global health and on community issues in the Pacific Northwest. Bill Gates Sr. took on the key leadership role with the creation of the William H. Gates Foundation. In 1997, Bill and Melinda Gates started the Gates Library Initiative to provide computer and Internet access for US and Canadian low-income communities. The William H. Gates Foundation continued operating as a separate foundation. In 1999, the Gates Library Initiative was renamed the Gates Learning Foundation, and the William H. Gates Foundation became The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Bismarck, Otto von
By the year 2000, the Gates Learning Foundation and The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation merged. As a result, grant-making was targeted at four key program areas: Global Health, Education, Libraries, and the Pacific Northwest. These program areas were further consolidated in 2006 into three grant-making divisions: Global Development, Global Health, and United States programs. Warren Buffett’s 2006 gift to the existing endowment made the Foundation the world’s largest philanthropy, with assets projected eventually to be worth some $60 billion. At the end of 2008, the Foundation employed nearly 700 people and had an asset trust endowment of some $35 billion.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The mission of The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is to increase opportunity and equity for those most in need. Among the Foundation’s 15 Guiding Principles, the family has made it clear that the Foundation may fund and shape philanthropic initiatives but that action and implementation will be the responsibility of others. Grant-making is limited to three areas of interest: Global Development, Global Health, and United States programs, including the Pacific Northwest region that is the home base for the Gates family.
Activities, Major Accomplishments, and Contributions Since its inception, the Foundation has made grant commitments totaling over $17 billion, including some $2 billion in 2007. Grants have been made to an array of organizations for a variety of purposes, ranging from the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative ($287 million) and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa ($264 million) to the Opportunity Online Program ($8.3 million) and the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor ($24 million).
Cross-References
▶ Buffett, Warren ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Foundations, Grant-making ▶ Gates, William H.
References/Further Readings The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation website: www.gatesfoundation.org Collinson, S. (June 26, 2006). Buffett-Gates merger creates 60 billion dollar charity giant. Agence France-Presse, from http://www.aegis. com/NEWS/AFP/2006/AF060645.html
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Bismarck, Otto von JAN R. BUSSE
Basic Biographical Information Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was born in 1815 in Scho¨nhausen (Prussia) as a son of a Prussian Junker. Between 1862 and 1890 he was Prime Minister of Prussia. He was chiefly responsible for the formation of the German Empire which resulted from the war of German particular states – led by Prussia – against France in 1870/1871. In this sense, Germany was not unified by a revolution from below, but from above by ‘‘blood and iron.’’ As the first Chancellor of the German Empire (1871–1890) he had important influence on European ‘‘great power’’ relations. In order not to engender the mistrust of the other European powers Bismarck declared that the German Empire does not pursue any territorially expansive ambitions. In 1888, the Year of the Three Emperors, Wilhelm I – under whom Bismarck had served since being Prussian Prime Minister – died. He was succeeded by his son Frederick William who died already after 99 days of rule. Only 2 years after, in 1890, Bismarck resigned from office as Imperial Chancellor due to continuous conflicts about German domestic and foreign politics with Wilhelm II who had been Emperor since 1888. Bismarck died in 1898 in Friedrichsruh near Hamburg.
Major Contributions Bismarck’s social legislation represents a seminal achievement for social justice and can be considered as the foundation of the welfare state as such. In detail, the following bills were part of Bismarck’s social legislation: Health Insurance (1883), Accident Insurance (1884), Old Age and Disability Insurance (1889). These social policy measures need to be seen in context with the consequences of industrialization to German society. As Bismarck feared revolutionary aspirations within the working class he tried to contain and combat Social Democrats by Anti-Socialist Laws in 1878. In this sense, Bismarck’s social insurance program can be seen as Realpolitik by which he tried to increase workers’ identification with the state. Despite these obvious tactical considerations, Bismarck’s reforms were also motivated by a belief in ‘‘applied Christianity.’’
Cross-References ▶ Welfare State
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References/Further Readings Gall, L. (1986). Bismarck: The white revolutionary. Vol. 2, 1871–1898. London: Allen & Unwin. Pflanze, O. (1990). Bismarck and the development of Germany. Vol. 3, The period of fortification, 1880–1898 (2nd ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Blended Value JED EMERSON Uhuru Capital Management, New York, NY, USA
Definition First introduced in 2000 (Harvard Social Enterprise Series, 2000), Blended Value is a theory of both capital and organizational value creation which posits that value itself is whole and nondivisible. Within a Blended Value framework, all value is understood as being generated (by organizations and the application of capital) through the interaction over time of three primary value components: social, economic, and environmental, which together comprise organizational value creation and capital returns.
Historical Background Traditionally, philanthropy and NGO/nonprofit corporations have been understood as the domain responsible for the creation of social value and impacts, with for-profit corporations and investors charged with the creation of economic value. While it was understood that (primarily through job creation and tax payments) there was an inherent element of social value to mainstream business, the fundamental value proposition of business was viewed as one of economics and returns to shareholders, whereas the value proposition of nonprofits was viewed as social and creating broader public good. By the late 1990s, social entrepreneurship, corporate social responsibility, social investing, mission-related investing, sustainable and/or development finance, microfinance, venture philanthropy, strategic philanthropy, and a host of related activities had evolved. While each of these has its individual adherents and specific concepts/ terms, when viewed as part of a larger movement it becomes clear that what these activities share is an understanding of value creation as the product of more than the traditional ‘‘nonprofit versus for-profit’’ dynamic. Actors in each of these related silos of activity all understand value as not ‘‘either/or’’ (for-profit versus nonprofit; economic versus
social/environmental), but rather ‘‘both/and’’ – a blend of economic, social, and environmental performance. In terms of organizations, these initiatives demonstrated that for-profit corporations could manage for social and environmental impacts/value creation, while nonprofit organizations could seek to maximize various aspects of economic value and returns. In terms of capital, it is increasingly understood that investment funds could be structured to create not only economic value and return, but also social and environmental value – and that mainstream financial investors should take social and environmental factors into account as they seek to maximize the performance/returns of their investment portfolio. When viewed in total, what these various initiatives demonstrate is that rather than focusing first upon whether a corporation is nonprofit or for-profit, or whether an investment is generating social or financial returns, asset owners and entrepreneurs should seek to maximize the total Blended Value of both organizations and capital. Furthermore, by operating within a Blended Value conceptual and practice framework, one may more effectively understand the various types of value and multiple returns one seeks to create. With this framework in mind, one may then structure the most appropriate type of legal entity or investment strategy to best maximize the elements of the total Blended Value one seeks to generate through the application of capital and management of organizations.
Key Issues Core implications of a Blended Value framework: Unified Investment Strategies and Integrated Wealth Management
Asset owners have traditionally viewed the creation of economic value and financial returns as being completely separate from the allocation of charitable dollars and creation of social value. While this has been true of traditional asset management strategies used by pension funds, educational endowments, and other owners of significant assets, one clear example is that of private, endowed foundations. Private foundations most often manage financial assets to maximize economic returns with no reference to whether those assets are being managed in alignment with the institutional, philanthropic mission. These financial assets usually amount to 95% of the total capital of a private, endowed foundation, while 5% of the annual payout is used for both grantmaking and to cover the administrative costs of operating the foundation. Within a Blended Value framework, foundation trustees and fund managers design a unified investment strategy (UIS) which seeks to align various types of grant
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investments (program, general operating, research and development, etc.) with how the balance of the investment portfolio is managed (cash/cash equivalents, equities (private and public), and alternative investments). Such an investment approach might draw upon tools from program-related investing, mission-related investing, social investing, sustainable investing, and so forth to complement mainstream investment products. However, the key point is that just as in traditional investing, the correct mix of both strategy and investment instruments will differ from investor to investor based upon the risk profile and investment goals of the investing institution. There is no single, correct way to invest – rather, there is simply the commitment to seek to maximize the total Blended Value of the portfolio in a manner most consistent with the institutional mission of the foundation, pension fund, or other investor. These same principles hold true for individual investors seeking to maximize Blended Value. Accordingly, individuals seek to engage in an integrated wealth management strategy which integrates the life goals of the individual with the investment strategy of capital assets under management. The intent is not to maximize financial returns of the investment portfolio first and then secondarily seek to ‘‘do good’’ with some remaining portion allocated to personal philanthropy. Rather, the intent is to understand the total value trajectory of an individual’s life – all the components of value which are joined together as one – and create an investment approach which reflects the values and value creation elements of each individual investor’s life. New Metrics and Blended/Multiple Returns
Over recent years, CSR reporting, Social Return on Investment analysis, and Triple Bottom Line accounting have each advanced a family of new metrics by which investors and managers have sought to assess extra-financial performance of capital and organizations. A Blended Value framework does not replace these various approaches to metrics and performance measurement, but rather, builds upon and seeks to integrate a set of indices in order to better reflect the full Blended Value generated by organizations through their allocation of capital investments. For example, Triple Bottom Line accounting tracks a variety of individual metrics assessing economic, social, and environmental performance of organizations – yet if that analysis remains at the level of the Triple Bottom Line the value created remains bifurcated and disaggregated. Accordingly, many CSR and Triple Bottom Line reports include separate sections addressing economic, social, and environmental performance. While extremely
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helpful in assessing the three individual components of value, such approaches foster an understanding of value creation as a set of trade-offs among limited value components and resources as opposed to a set of strategic decisions made with the intent of maximizing total performance at each level in the form of multiple returns and Blended Value. With individual metrics in place, what remains is to reintegrate these metrics and multiple returns into a holistic framework of performance assessment – a blended metric or return. In the same way banking institutions often ‘‘tier’’ interest rates (combining a federal funds rate with a risk rate and an institutional capital costs rate to create a single blended interest rate which is then charged to the borrower), the multiple returns of capital investment and three aspects of organizational performance must ultimately be viewed as a single blended return in order for analysts to truly assess the total value creation of any given investment or organization. Leadership and Organizational Development
In previous decades nonprofit managers were trained as social work administrators, and business managers received their MBAs. Today, corporate CEOs are being held accountable for social and environmental impacts and performance, and executives of NGOs need to be versed in capital structure finance. In response to these evolving shifts in required skills, business schools are offering courses in social entrepreneurship and national conferences bringing together civic sector leaders include sessions on finance and capital markets. The reality is that increasingly managers in all types of organizations must develop a blend of skills which apply equally to the nonprofit and for-profit corporate environment. By building an integrated skill set and vision of leadership, these ‘‘mutant managers’’ are leading organizations that seek to capture their full Blended Value through acting as disruptive agents in global, regional, and local markets.
International Perspectives Blended Value is a conceptual framework applicable in a variety of nations and international contexts. Whether one considers Bovespa’s Social Stock Exchange, Kiva’s lending platform, or any number of for-profit corporations, social enterprises and microfinance institutions operating around the world, each of these and other initiatives reflect a movement away from an understanding of the world as being divided along the lines of traditional, bifurcated value propositions and organizations.
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This movement across a host of for-profit and NGO entities, being supported with a range of capital investments seeking blended returns, reflects the reality that the value pursued by today’s managers and investors is increasingly blended and moving across global markets. Blended Value is a linking framework that allows one to place each of these enterprise and capital investment practices across a continuum of market activity which together maximizes the performance of actors seeking to create more than simply social or economic impact. Since there is no single, culturally determined manner in which Blended Value is created, the framework translates equally well to both developed and developing market contexts.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Social Accounting ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Strategic Philanthropy ▶ Venture Philanthropy
References/Further Readings A Capital Idea: Total Foundation Asset Management and The Unified Investment Strategy, Stanford Business School, Research Paper Number 1786, January 2002. Blended Value: Papers may be found at www.blendedvalue.org Emerson, J. (2003). The blended value proposition: Integrating social and financial returns. California Management Review, Summer, 45(4). Emerson, J. (2003). Unified investment strategy. Where money meets mission: Breaking down the firewall between foundation investments and programming. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer. Emerson, J., & Bonini, S. (2003). The blended value map: Tracking the intersects and opportunities of economic, environmental and social value creation. Hewlett Foundation, October. Emerson, J., Spitzer, J., & Mulhair, G. (2006). Blended value investing: Capital investment opportunities for social and environmental impact. World Economic Forum, Ref. Paper No. 270306, March. Social Enterprise Series No. 17 (2000). The nature of returns: A social capital markets inquiry into the elements of investment and the blended value proposition. Harvard Business School Working Paper. Spitzer, J., Emerson, J., & Harold, J. (2007). Blended value investing: Innovations in real estate. Oxford University, Said Business School, ISBN: 978–1–905551–56–9, Fall.
Bloch-Laine´, Franc¸ois ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1912 in Paris into a middle-class Catholic family, Franc¸ois Bloch-Laine´ was a French civil servant who
played a decisive role in the evolution of French nonprofit organizations during the 1970s. In his youth he was active in social movements inspired by the social Catholic French movement and, at the age of 17, participated in the creation of a group called Come´diens routiers, a scouting group that traveled throughout the country. The problems he observed as he came into contact with young working class adolescents through Catholic associative structures became the topic of his Ph.D. thesis: Le proble`me de l’e´ducation populaire (translated: The problem of working class education). After studying law and politics, he began his civil service career as a finance inspector in 1936 and held numerous important positions in various government departments. At one time, he was responsible for the national budget and later became the director of the Caisse des De´poˆts, the state investment bank. Bloch-Laine´ died in Paris in 2002.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions His enduring fight for a place for associations in the French relation between the state and the nonprofit sector made Bloch-Laine´ one of the most important civil society actors in France. While in office, he implemented public sector financial incentives and favorable regulations towards nonprofit organizations. Especially toward the end of his career, he brought his extensive knowledge and experience as a state official to bear in the development of the French third sector. In 1975, he led the creation of the Association pour le de´veloppement des associations de progre`s (DAP), which translates to the Association for the Development of Associations for Progress. The DAP organized three colloquiums in 1977, 1979, and 1981 and published Pour le progre`s des associations (‘‘For the Progress of Associations’’). In 1988 Bloch-Laine´ became the president of the Comite´ de la Charte, a French certification committee for ethical fundraising and today a branch of ICFO (International Committee on Fundraising Organizations). Furthermore, when he retired he chaired the Union of Health and Welfare Non-Profit Organizations (UNIOPSS), which became an example of partnership between the state and social-service organizations. In his 1999 book on French civil society organizations, he poses questions on modernizing the legal framework for the French associative sector, measuring the third sector’s impact, and building donor trust. To this effect he brought together economists, sociologists, and jurists. In recognition of his accomplishments, Bloch-Laine´ received several awards including the Me´daille de la Re´sistance and the Grand-Croix de la Le´gion d’honneur.
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Cross-References
▶ International Committee on Fundraising Organizations ▶ UNIOPSS
References/Further Readings Bloch-Laine´, F. (1999). Faire socie´te´. Les associations au coeur du social. Paris: Syros (Alternatives sociales). Margairaz, M. (2005). Franc¸ois Bloch-Laine´, fonctionnaire, financier, citoyen. Paris: Comite´ pour l’histoire e´conomique et financie`re de la France.
Boards GABRIEL BERGER Universidad de San Andres, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Introduction Governance design, leadership, and management represent some of the critical organizational issues faced by civil society organizations. Several authors suggest that governance boards play a crucial role in successful civil society organizations, for they provide strategic direction, a counterbalance to the power of executive and management staff, and a vision that inspires and guides individuals directly involved in and supporters of these organizations (Knauft et al., 1991). However, boards come in several forms and shapes, and empirical studies have shown a more complex view of their role and function in civil society organizations (Middleton, 1987; SEKN, 2006).
Definitions Good governance is widely viewed as a crucial factor for organizational performance. Therefore the notion of governance calls for some clarification, since it is often unclear and undifferentiated from other aspects of strategic leadership, especially in civil society organizations where governance is frequently confused with administration or management in regulatory frameworks of several countries. An organization’s governance is expressed in the formal authority and actual influence distribution among its members as regards its core decisions (Knoke, 1990). Thus, the term ‘‘governance’’ is associated with two different meanings: one that relates to the definition of who has final responsibility and is legally authorized to make core decisions and to clarify rights
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and duties, and another that focuses on the distribution of actual power to make the organization’s fundamental decisions. Boards are the bodies which have final legal authority over civil society organizations and are legally authorized to make decisions that affect directions, activities, and resource allocation. Authority over some decisions is delegated to other actors, even though final responsibility remains within these boards. These governance structures or bodies, which are called differently depending on organizations’ legal status and home countries – Board of Directors, Administrative Council, Governance Committees, are usually made up by individuals who participate in these organizations on a volunteer basis. In civil society organizations, the role of governance bodies involves making fundamental decisions that determine organizations’ purposes, strategies, and goals, enabling the allocation of their collective resources to those ends (Knoke, 1990). Governance bodies are supposed to focus on general, broad and core policies, rather than on operating decisions of lesser significance to the entire organization. The design of organizations’ governance structures is intertwined with the definition of implementation and operating structures and processes, which reflects in the differentiation between governance and management spheres. Management structures refer to the distribution of authority and responsibility in the execution of tasks and activities intended to implement the policies, strategies, and decisions made by governance structures, as well as to the organization of core and support functions and activities derived from civil society organizations’ mission. Although the set of issues related to organizational governance mainly depends on the context, mission, and development phase of the organization, primary governance responsibilities include the organization’s mission, strategy, performance monitoring and control, and accountability. Thus, governance functions engulf the decisions and actions involving the authority to determine or revise organizational vision, mission, values, and core strategies, assess organizational results in the pursuit of its mission and in achieving its main objectives, establish fundamental institutional policies, allocate major organizational resources, and finally set mechanisms used to delegate authority within organizational structure and among its actors. Altogether, these functions can be summarized by two key concepts that capture the focus of governance and boards as the bodies in which governance is performed in civil society organizations: fiduciary responsibility and trusteeship.
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Key Issues Key issues in the analysis of civil society organizations’ boards are their role and responsibilities, their structure and organization, their composition and contribution of their members, and the relationship with the staff leadership of civil society organizations. In the field of civil society organizations, normative literature suggests that, although governance structures and processes may vary according to the organization’s type, size, and evolution stage, governance responsibilities are not dependent on specific organizational features. A vast bibliography refers to a civil society organization’s board responsibilities, which may be summarized as follows: 1. Setting and revising organization’s mission, objectives, and major strategies, and analyzing its accomplishments and results 2. Establishing key institutional policies 3. Ensuring the formulation of a suitable strategic plan 4. Approving and monitoring major programs and services provided by the organization 5. Allocating adequate resources and ensuring economic sustainability 6. Monitoring financial performance and protecting organization’s net worth 7. Assuring compliance with legal requirements 8. Recruiting, supporting and evaluating the individual that will have overall managerial responsibilities 9. Promoting organization’s public image, acting as a link between society and the organization, and being accountable for the actions of the organization 10. Strengthening and assessing governance body performance This list of responsibilities details and specifies the governance definition advanced earlier, and according to normative approaches, effective performance of civil society organizations is affected to a large extent by the degree in which boards ensure themselves that they are adequately covered. Meeting these responsibilities prompts board members to go beyond traditional governance duties to perform several roles in addition to that of trustees, such as organizational ambassadors, fund-raisers, and donors. How these responsibilities are met and assigned is one of the key challenges in designing board structures and processes. Beyond the definition of responsibilities and how delegation is done, normative literature on civil society organizations show consensus that effective governance is based on a collective effort geared to establishing adequate processes to enable actions that ensure advancement towards shared goals consistent with the organization’s mission. This means that, according to this literature,
governance should be exercised by a collective body that has been assigned authority and not by individual members acting independently (Andringa & Engstrom, 1997; Carver et al., 1997). However, there are several alternatives to design and operate these governance structures, such as the creation of executive, standing, and ad hoc committee bodies, the involvement of advisory boards, etc. Different proposals and recommendations have surfaced to reformulate governance structure operations. In the corporate arena, some authors state that responsibilities are often inadequately fulfilled due to several reasons, such as limited dedication or insufficient information available to board members. Governance body members are demanded greater accountability for their performance, and companies are now challenged to design suitable mechanisms and processes to enhance their work. Topics such as board independence from management, board member appointments, term limitations or internal stakeholder group engagement are widely accepted as subjects requiring greater research in order to determine their contributions to corporate performance. In order to address these problems, different solutions have been proposed, such as changes in governance meeting processes, the incorporation of outside members with no interest in the company, a limited number of company executives serving at boards, the separation of the roles of company CEO and board chair, greater regulation on board auditing committees, more involvement of stockholders and investors in boards, governance member selection and appointment process redesign, or greater authority of stockholders over boards (Carter & Lorsch, 2004). Along these critical lines, civil society governance performance analysts point out that these bodies often restrict their responsibilities to a passive or traditional role, focusing on report analysis and approval, management supervision, and pursuing specific activities of interest to each member (Chait et al., 2005; Taylor et al., 1996). However, for these analysts, the increasingly important role played by these entities in society demands that, in order to deliver effective governance, board members should focus their work on strategic tasks, which require new commitment rules to ensure responsibility fulfillment. These strategic tasks refer to crucial issues for the organization’s future. Actions can be planned with specific deadlines and clearly-defined success measures, and their implementation requires the engagement of internal and external actors. Adopting this strategic approach implies the recognition of governance bodies as one of the major leadership sources in civil society organizations, working jointly with management teams. Unlike the focus of corporate discussions, that are keyed on strengthening governance bodies’ overseeing functions
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to ensure their performance as a counterbalance for executive management, the nonprofit world has stressed the role of governance body members as managers’ partners in organizational leadership and as a source of leadership for organizations (Drucker, 1990; Chait et al., 2005). The topic of boards and governance in civil society organizations has received greater attention in countries with Anglo-Saxon origins, and the vast majority of writing and empirical research on this topic has been conducted in these countries with few exceptions. Recent research conducted in Latin America and Spain suggests some significant aspects in civil society governance models that are to be considered and that open up questions about normative perspectives (SEKN, 2006). First, in spite of the fact that most analysts would recommend term limits and renewal in board membership, there seems to be a significant continuity in board composition – members hold their positions for many years, and membership turnover in governance structures is low. What seems to be critical is that governance body members tend to add value to their social ventures by contributing or enabling access to the legitimacy, credibility, capabilities, and economic resources required for their development. Finally, research findings showed that governance body members may be involved in executive tasks, while organization executives may be involved as well in governance tasks, indicating a certain degree of role overlapping between governance members and management teams. Given the complexity and creativity involved in the issues addressed by civil society organizations, continued governance members’ permanence may become an asset, since it allows for experience and knowledge acquisition on issues addressed, taking advantage of learning. Governance body composition continuity may take various forms, but, whatever the format chosen, it helps to endow civil society organizations with a long-term perspective. For example, in civil society organizations, it is usual for the founding group or initial social entrepreneurs that launched the initiative to remain in the governance body for a long time, thus providing a stable framework for major policies and strategies in some cases. When there is turnover in governance body composition, other institutional mechanisms are found to be in place to ensure continuity in organizations’ core decisions: when there is a higher controlling body or hierarchy that launched a specific initiative or that oversees a social venture’s governance body, immediate, or direct governance body members may be subject to turnover. Setting time constraints for governance body members is an institutionally designed mechanism that has been
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viewed as protecting organizations from self-perpetuating leadership roles. However, observations from successful civil society organizations in some regions of the world seem to contradict Anglo-Saxon normative bibliography on nonprofit governance (Andringa & Engstrom, 1997; Axelrod, 1994; Grummon, 1995). In this literature, setting standards for governance body members’ permanence – either limiting the number of periods to be served at the board, the number of terms to serve at the same position, the specific duration of terms, or any such rule – are viewed as essential to promote internal democracy, encourage community involvement, facilitate organizations’ adjustments to environmental changes through outlook renewal, and avoid the risk of organizational ‘‘appropriation’’ by governance body members. However, a governance body member’s prolonged stay may contribute to a deeper and specific knowledge of the organization’s focal issues. Second, member continuity provides a sense of stability and long-term outlook for social ventures. Third, stable governance body composition may effectively enhance economic resource mobilization towards social ventures by boosting donors’ trust. Governance body members enhance their performance by providing legitimacy, credibility, critical yet scarce capabilities, and network access to raise required economic resources or political support for venture success. Social venture governance body composition and member profiles significantly shape initiatives’ performance by providing them with any of the following elements that are crucial to their sustainability. In some cases, the primary resource for a social venture is an intangible attribute, such as legitimacy among critical stakeholder groups, ‘‘permission’’ or validation of decisions made regarding mission, strategies, and actions that render them acceptable. This leads to a discussion on how legitimacy is built. A starting point for this analysis involves an understanding of the relationship between governance bodies and organizations’ members and stakeholders. In civil society organizations, the relationship between governance bodies and organization members is usually characterized as ‘‘fiduciary’’ or as trusteeship. Basically, in a fiduciary relationship, some individuals are considered trustworthy and are designated to look after the resources or net worth transferred to or produced by an entity. Thus, governance body members agree to act on behalf of others, to whom they are legally and morally bound. Fiduciary obligations entail loyalty, honesty, and a bona fide effort to act in the organization’s best interest. These relationships are based on the recognition that governance bodies represent a larger group of people, who legally and morally ‘‘own’’ organizations and to
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whom these bodies are to be held accountable (Carver, 1997). Since civil society organizations lack shareholders governance bodies of civil society organizations must explore and answer the following questions: How does the organization legitimize its decisions for its critical stakeholders? Who grants its authority to an organization’s governance body? Who should governance bodies and their members be accountable to? The stakeholder involvement achieved through governance body engagement effectively validates the policies and strategies adopted by organizations. In this way, legitimacy can be understood as key third-party recognition of organizations’ decisions, positions, and beliefs as valid. Considering stakeholders’ concerns and needs and reaching consensus through governance body involvement for all sectors involved provide legitimacy to the policies and strategies adopted by organizations. In turn, this legitimacy ensures the support of those who must collaborate in implementation. When the public interest pursued by an organization needs to be especially safeguarded and there are circumstances that may jeopardize the organization’s trustworthiness or the belief that the organization seeks to protect a collective interest (stated in its mission) to the expense of its employees’ or governance body members’ interests, incorporating renowned business, social, political, and academic leaders to governance bodies may enhance organizational credibility. Another alternative to enhance organizational credibility involves incorporating people who ‘‘reflect’’ or share the characteristics of specific stakeholder groups. Governance bodies may include members with fundamental characteristics for organizations’ effective performance, because they contribute specific technical and professional expertise and cannot be ‘‘acquired’’ or afforded by these organizations. Engaging people with these capabilities in governance bodies effectively enhances institutional decisions and actions. In some cases incorporating business-oriented people to civil society organizations’ governance bodies is often viewed as a success factor, for their experience may be helpful to bring to these organizations an orientation towards efficient management. In the same line of reasoning, board membership profiles can be critical to provide access to or networks of economic resources and political support rather than direct economic contributions through personal, professional, and business connections. Often, more than direct resource contributions, social ventures seem to primarily need their governance bodies to provide them with access to other individuals or organizations that may contribute the resources required. Through their personal, professional, or business connections, governance body members help organizations to raise the
necessary resources and materials. It seems, therefore, that the Anglo-Saxon motto that describes civil society organizations’ expectations for their governance body members – Give, Get, or Get Off – should be adjusted slightly to read, instead, ‘‘Get, Help to Get, or Get Lost.’’ Civil society organizations often turn to Advisory Councils or Consultation Committees to attain key capabilities for their organizations or to expand their access to resource providing networks, expanding with these bodies their governance structures. Advisory or Consultation Committees enable governance structures to engage – with no decision-making responsibilities – people who supply their experience, connections, and networks, professional and academic credentials, sound image or credibility to organizations, thus broadening their resource portfolio to enhance their governance quality. An Advisory Council may also improve the bond between organizations and communities by incorporating other stakeholders’ perspectives, as well as reaching other organizations that operate in the same communities or that may collaborate through networks and alliances (Axelrod, 1991; Saidel & D’Aquanni, 1999). From a traditional standpoint, governance and execution roles should be clearly differentiated, since this separation contributes to the establishment of control systems and balanced management models for effective organizational performance. In this light, governance body members must remain detached from organizational management (Carver & Carver, 1997). However, contrary to these views, often civil society organizations show a wide range of board member involvement in several implementation aspects, with three major schemes for high governance involvement in social venture operative management: presidents (board chairpersons) who lead organizations and are involved in management, chairpersons who also serve as executive directors or general managers, and governance body members who are responsible for several operating areas or functions. In civil society organizations in which leadership is exercised by their chairpersons, their involvement in organizational performance is perceived as natural, especially when they have been the founders of the organizations and/or they are simultaneously in charge of management. In other civil society organizations, leaders-founders have differentiated the chairpersons and executive director positions, but they have left their mark on management as well. Finally, at the very extreme of board member involvement in organizational management, board members also headed several operating areas and devoted many weekdays to their organizational duties. In this case, there is a functional overlapping between board members and the
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organization’s management structure. Other civil society organizations prefer a low involvement model for governance body members. Some organizations view rare board involvement in daily operations as a practice contributing to good organizational performance, since it allows board members to focus on strategic courses, global performance monitoring and support network construction. Thus, they have given ample leeway to their executive directors for strategic management. In these cases, governance body members are rarely or never involved in implementation or operational issues. Regardless of board member involvement in organizational management or operations, in general terms, civil society organizations’ executive employees are involved in some way in governance tasks, engaging in the formulation of strategic priorities, primary policies and core decisions and contributing to enhance institutional decision-making quality, with the top executive as a member of the organization’s Executive Committee, or with the management team attending board meetings, actively participating in strategy formulation and planning. When civil society organization governance bodies meet on rare occasions and have an oversight function, or when they are almost exclusively devoted to contributing in a specific and critical area such as fund-raising, organizations’ management teams tend to be actively involved in governance tasks and formulate strategies, policies, and core decisions, which are then submitted for governance body approval, as it is mandatory according to their bylaws. This scheme is often used when civil society organization founders choose to hold executive positions but not to formally join governance bodies, although they significantly influence organizational governance. At the same time, some of them lay the groundwork and encourage other governance body members to actively engage in strategic tasks, such as institutional relations, partnership building or project oversight. A good working relationship between an organization’s executive, in charge of management structures, and the board chair seems to be a key factor for the development and enhancement of executive contributions to organizational governance. This good working relationship may be based on complementary functions, capabilities, and personal traits. This specific relationship between an organization’s top executive who is an employee in charge of management and its volunteer leader formally in charge of governance has been identified as one of the most salient features of civil society organizations’ leadership (O’Connell, 1985; Drucker, 1992). All in all, the engagement of at least some governance body members in executive and management tasks helps
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to articulate polices, strategies, operating plans and activities, granting greater internal consistency and more effective institutional performance. In addition, the involvement of individuals holding executive positions in governance body meetings usually enriches decisionmaking processes relating to social venture policies and strategies (SEKN, 2006). This approach often implies that these bodies become ‘‘working’’ governance bodies or assume an active role in organizational leadership, along with top management, developing a ‘‘generative governance’’ model (Chait et al., 2005).
Future Directions Understanding how civil society organizations’ governance schemes, processes, and structures must be designed to respond to sustainability requirements remains a key issue for further development. While boards need stability, persistence, and continuity there are risks associated with these features, such as the potential lack of new ideas, limited options considered in strategic decision making, or public perception that organizations are controlled by a self-perpetuating group. At the same time, often governance body member continuity is unfeasible or politically unacceptable, thus the challenge seems to be how to devise more complex governance structures that preserve a medium or long-term perspective on some critical issues while ensuring periodic changes in board membership. A second issue for further attention relates to how to integrate the need to have boards with the appropriate profiles to contribute value to civil society organizations while at the same time considering some form of stakeholder representation. Recruiting for governance bodies must on the one hand consider mechanisms and processes to screen for suitable profiles, and clarify candidates’ expected contributions. At the same time, appropriate stakeholder representation becomes a growing demand for civil society organizations, in the quest for greater legitimacy and public expectations of democratic participation within them. How to balance these two aspects of recruiting and board composition, or how to design models that respond to these challenges is an area that calls for greater theoretical analysis and empirical research. Board accountability and evaluation in the context of civil society organizations constitute a third issue that future research must address (Herman et al., 1997; Holland & Jackson, 1998; Jackson & Holland, 1998). Greater calls for accountability in civil society organizations have become commonplace. Fulfilling this expectation is one of the central challenges for boards, not only with regards to overall performance and impact of their organizations, but also on the boards’ own contribution. In the same
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vein, evaluation of board performance remains an area in which best practices have to be developed and studied. To the extent that individual and group performance evaluation be introduced as a tool for board management, the process for greater board accountability will probably be paved. Finally, governance body members’ involvement in activities or tasks that exceed the traditional oversight, control, and policy or priority setting functions and lead them to participate in strategic or operational issue management seems to lead to improved performance as it enhances commitment and motivation, encouraging them to continue their engagement and to reinforce their personal contributions to civil society organizations. However, this approach entails risking interference in management tasks. How to build board member involvement in strategic and operational issues, how to manage this engagement and how to adjust it periodically as needed constitute an area in which much needs to be learnt.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Social Enterprise Knowledge Network ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Trusteeship
Holland, T., & Jackson, D. (1998). Strengthening board performance: Findings and lessons from demonstration projects. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 9(2). Jackson, D., & Holland, T. (1998). Measuring the effectiveness of nonprofit boards. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quaterly, 27(2), 159–182. Knauft, E. B., Berger, R. A., & Gray, S. (1991). Profiles of excellence: Achieving success in the nonprofit sector. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Knoke, D. (1990). Organizing for collective action. New York: Aldyne de Gruyter. Middleton, M. (1987). Nonprofit boards of directors: Beyond the governance function. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 141–153). New Haven, CA: Yale University Press. Nelson, J. G. (1995). Six keys to recruiting, orienting, and involving nonprofit Board members. Washington, DC: National Center for Nonprofit Boards. O’Connell, B. (1985). The board member’s book. New York: The Foundation Center. Saidel, Judith & D’Aquanni, Alissandra. (1999). Expanding the Governance Construct: Functions and Contributions of Nonprofit Advisory Groups. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute. SEKN. (2006). Effective management of social enterprises: Lessons form businesses and civil society organizations in Iberoame´rica. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Taylor, B., Chait, R., & Holland, T. (1996). The new work of the nonprofit board. Harvard Business Review, September–October, 36–46.
Bodelschwingh, Friedrich von ALEXIA DUTEN
References/Further Readings
Basic Bibliographical Information
Andringa, R., & Engstrom, T. (1997). Nonprofit board answer book: Practical guidelines for board members and chief executives. Washington, DC: National Center for Nonprofit Boards. Axelrod, N. (1991). Creating and renewing advisory boards: Strategies for success. Washington, DC: National Center for Nonprofit Boards. Axelrod, N. (1994). Board Leadership and Board Development. In R. D. Herman & Associates (Eds.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management (pp. 119–136). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Carter, C. B., & Lorsch, J. W. (2004). Back to the drawing board: Designing corporate boards for a complex world. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publising. Carver, J., & Carver, M. (1997). Reinventing your board. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Chait, R., Ryan, W. P., & Taylor, B. (2005). Governance as leadership: Reframing the work of nonprofit boards. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Drucker, P. F. (1990). Managing the non-profit organization. New York: Harper Collins. Grummon N. J. (1995) Six keys to Recruiting, Orienting, and Involving Nonprofit Board Members. Washington, DC: National Center for Nonprofit Boards. Herman, R., Renz, D., & Heimovics, R. (1997). Board practices and board effectiveness in local nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 7(4), 373–385.
Born in 1831 in Tecklenburg, Germany, Friedrich von Bodelschwingh is known to contemporaries as Friedrich von Bodelschwingh Senior, in contrast to his son, born in 1877, named after him. Bodelschwingh was a pastor and theologian from a politically ultraconservative background. His family was one of the oldest in Westphalia; he personally was very close to the emperor-to-be, Friedrich III. Although reportedly authoritarian and a maverick, he was said to be a charismatic and warmhearted individual. After a botany course at Berlin University, Bodelschwingh encountered poverty in the field. Young Bodelschwingh felt he had to help and started studying theology. His first post was located at the Protestant Mission for Germans in Paris where he worked from 1858 to 1864 with immigrant workers. Back in Germany, Bodelschwingh became pastor in the rural town Dellwig where he stayed with his family from 1864 to 1871. After having lost all of his four children to diphtheria, he moved to Bielefeld in 1872 to manage an institution for epileptic
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and mentally disabled children, which he named Bethel, literally ‘‘the House of God.’’ Although most of the credit for the ‘‘v. Bodelschwinghschen Anstalten Bethel’’ (v. Bodelschwingh’s Bethel Foundation) goes to Friedrich von Bodelschwingh, the premises had existed since 1867 thanks to an initiative of the Inner Mission and donations of local merchants. Bethel soon received support for its activities from the mother house ‘‘Sarepta’’ and its friar equivalent, the ‘‘Nazareth.’’ In order to finance the rapid growth of the Bethel institutions, Bodelschwingh practiced highly successful fundraising. The pastor received funds from the Emperor as well as from workers, the latter he particularly focused on in his letters of thanks for which he employed several people. He also instituted ‘‘penny clubs.’’ His fundraising activities led him to the nickname ‘‘the most brilliant beggar that Germany has ever seen’’ (Heuss, 1951). The Bethel Foundation started with 27 deaconesses working in eight stations. Within a decade, 263 deaconesses were operative at Bethel. No other mother house knew such an expansion. Even though Bodelschwingh did not really believe in the necessity of a welfare state, he initiated two welfare services before his death. First, the ‘‘Lex Bodelschwingh’’ was meant to protect wayfarers and migrant workers who were often arrested by the police. Bodelschwingh created colonies where migrants could work and rest temporarily in line with his motto ‘‘Work, not charity.’’ Second, the pastor sent Bethel-trained sisters to the Protestant Mission for German-East Africa. In 1903, he created a hospital including a station for the mentally ill in East Africa as well as facilities for the education of liberated slave children.
Major Contributions The Bethel Foundations that von Bodelschwing founded soon became a reference for treatment of the mentally deficient, an example for nonprofit management and a historical milestone for social and health welfare. Their administration has also been a mirror of structural change within the German foundation landscape: from its origins as a private institution belonging to the Inner Mission in the 1870s, it became a Christian establishment under public regulation in 1895 before turning into a deaconal corporation affiliated to the Diakonisches Werk (since the mid-1980s).
Cross-References
▶ Diakonisches Werk der EKD ▶ Fundraising ▶ Missionary Societies
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References/Further Readings Bradfield, M. (Ed.) (1961). The good samaritan: The life and work of Friedrich von Bodelschwingh. London: Marshall Morgan & Scott. Heuss, T. (1951). Friedrich von Bodelschwingh. Verl.-Handl. d. Anstalt Bethel: Verlag. Schmuhl, H.-W. (2005). Friedrich von Bodelschwingh. Reinbeck bei Hamburg Rowohlt Taschenbuch: Verlag.
Bo¨ll, Heinrich ▶ Heinrich Bo¨ll Stiftung
Bosch, Robert ODILE BOUR
Basic Biographical Information Born in Albeck (South Germany) in 1861 as last son of a wealthy Swabian farmer of democratic liberal convictions, Robert Bosch went on to found one of Germany’s most important automobile equipment manufacturing firms, introducing in his plant a progressive social and welfare policy and displaying a consistent philanthropic activity. Following school graduation he went in precisioninstrument maker apprenticeship in Ulm, and after his military service studied electrical engineering for one semester in Stuttgart before he left for New York where he worked with Thomas Edison. In 1886 he opened his own craft workshop in Stuttgart which grew into a huge firm, developing the spark plug and the magneto, assisting thus the birth of Germany’s auto industry. He died in 1942 in Stuttgart.
Major Contributions The strong influence socialist thinking had had on Robert Bosch during his journeyman year in America was evident in his concern about political and economic aspects of the workers movement. His plant soon stood for pioneer social policy and social welfare: all employees enjoyed high wages, an 8-hour day (1906), retirement security, Saturday afternoons off, and graduated vacation time (1910). Bosch used to say: ‘‘I don’t pay good wages because I am rich; I am rich because I pay good wages.’’ Robert Bosch considered himself a successful entrepreneur whose responsibility it was to care for public welfare
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inside and outside his firm by bettering the social condition of his own employees and establishing foundations for the common good: he supported among others education on the job, popular education, research and teaching, homeopathy, French-German and American-German understanding, and the Paneuropean movement. Simultaneously he regarded philanthropy as a mean of pursuing his objectives of society improvement and progress and thus counterbalancing the state where he thought it was necessary. This strong social commitment turned into an undeniably political one, as he became the walk-in center for political resistance against Hitler’s regime from the end of the 1930s with the so-called ‘‘Bosch circle of resistance.’’ Settling his inheritance and his former donations, the Robert Bosch Foundation was created 1964 following his last will and testament. By 2008, it was one of the largest foundations in Germany.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH
References/Further Readings Heuss, T., Gillepsie, S., & Kapczynski, J. (1994). Robert Bosch – His life and achievements. New York: Henry Holt (German ed. 1946). Lessing, H.-E. (2007). Robert Bosch. Hamburg: Rohwolt. Scholtyseck, J. (1999). Robert Bosch und der liberale Widerstand gegen Hitler (1933–1945). Munich: Beck.
Boulding, Kenneth Ewart DAVID HORTON SMITH
Basic Biographical Information Kenneth Boulding was born January 18, 1910, in Liverpool, England. He graduated in 1931 from Oxford University with first class honors in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (B. Litt.). Although he did some post-graduate work elsewhere, he never earned a higher degree. In 1936, Boulding emigrated permanently to the United States, becoming a US citizen in 1948. Boulding spent most of his career as a Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan (1949–1967) and then at the University of Colorado at Boulder (1967– 1980; subsequently a Distinguished Professor Emeritus).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Although principally an economist (J. B. Clark Medal, 1949; President of the American Economics Association,
1968), Boulding’s greatest contributions to civil society/ nonprofit sector studies came from his broad, interdisciplinary interests and work. He attempted to broaden the narrow, highly mathematical, and profit/‘‘utility’’-oriented approach of economics. He argued forcefully for economists to include less precise and more interdisciplinary approaches to understanding human behavior and groups. Boulding was convinced, unlike most economists, that human behavior can only be understood by studying people in their totality. Boulding was the first major economist to give careful attention to the nonprofit sector. He concluded that in studying only the ‘‘exchange’’ economy, economists were missing a great deal of important economic activity. In a 1966 article, he wrote that economists needed to grapple with the ‘‘grants economy,’’ which was his term for what non-economists see as the financial part of the nonprofit sector. Elaborating on this theme with others, Boulding co-founded (1968) the Association for the Study of the Grants Economy/ASGE, which still exists. He was President of ASGE from 1970 to 1989. The exchange economy usually studied by economists involves two parties each giving something to the other (usually money for goods or services) so that the net worth of each party is unchanged. But in the grants economy, transfers between two parties/entities result in the reduction of the net worth of one party (the grantor) and increase in the net worth of the other party (the grantee). Both charitable giving by individuals and by organizations (e.g., foundations, corporations) meet this criterion, because Boulding interprets the term ‘‘grants’’ quite broadly. In nonprofit studies, the focus is usually on (voluntary) grants made out of altruism or ‘‘love’’ in Boulding’s terms. But there is also the ‘‘threat’’ (coercive) grants economy, as when a robber steals from us or when some government taxes us. Boulding’s classic discussion of the grants economy was published first in his book The Economy of Love and Fear (1973). Boulding also hinted at the (historically recent) revolutionary growth of associations in his book The Organizational Revolution (1953). In a later journal article, D. H. Smith (1972) first expanded on this idea for the nonprofit sector and volunteer/grassroots associations specifically.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Gift, Giving ▶ Smith, David Horton
Boy Scouts
References/Further Readings Boulding, K. E. (1953). The organizational revolution. New York: Harper. Boulding, K. E. (1973). The economy of love and fear: A preface to grants economics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Smith, D. H. (1972). Modernization and the emergence of volunteer organizations. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 13, 113–134.
Bourdieu, Pierre ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Basic Biographical Information Pierre Bourdieu, a French sociologist, was born in 1930 in Denguin, France. After receiving his agre´gation from the E´cole Normale Supe´rieure, he worked as a teacher in France until taking a post as a lecturer in Algiers. His first book, The Algerians (1962), resulted from ethnographic research on selected groups during the Algerian War. Upon his return to France, Bourdieu taught and held research positions at the University of Paris (1960–1964), the E´cole Pratique des Hautes E´tudes (1964–1981), and the Colle`ge de France (from 1981). From 1968 until his death, he also directed the Centre de Sociologie Europe´enne. In 1996, together with other social scientists seeking to focus on social issues, Bourdieu founded the publishing company Raisons d’agir (Reason to Act). The company publishes critical books and papers concerning social problems linked to state responsibility, the media, intellectuals in France and global economy developments. Bourdieu died of cancer in 2002 in Paris.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Bourdieu’s contributions to the field of study of civil society and social capital are numerous. In his piece, ‘‘Forms of Capital’’ (1986), he introduced and expanded upon terms relating to different types of capital which act as a social relation within a system of exchange. The forms of capital include economic, cultural, symbolic, and also social capital. In Bourdieu’s terminology, social capital refers to the resources provided by personal networks such as families, communities, and other associations within a society. In his 1984 work, Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste, Bourdieu focuses on the reproduction of social patterns of power and on the structural analysis of society and systems of distinction. Here he developed the concepts of habitus and different fields with different rules
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of power. Habitus describes a set of ‘‘durable dispositions’’ that condense traditions, knowledge, and practices, and which guide choices. A field is a setting, which has its own logic and in which agents and their social positions – depending on their capital and their habitus – are located. For Bourdieu, social science and political action were strongly linked. In the 1990s he became more and more present in public debates on globalization and in international intellectual networks. He wrote several articles encouraging the creation of a European social movement to promote a European Union that is more than just a strong market held together by the economic interests of nation states. He called on European citizens, especially intellectuals, to create the European Union the way they want it. In addition to his academic work, Bourdieu himself was an important actor of civil society as a cofounder and strong supporter of the Attac movement.
Cross-References
▶ Attac ▶ Gift, Giving ▶ Social Capital, Definition of
References/Further Readings Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction. A social critique of the judgment of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood Press. Bourdieu, P. (2001). Contre-feux 2. Pour un mouvement social europe´en. Paris: Raisons d’agir. Bourdieu, P. (2008). Political interventions: Social science and political action. London: Verso Books. Poupeau, F., & Discepolo, T. (2005). Scholarship with commitment: On the political engagements of Pierre Bourdieu. In L. Wacquant (Ed.), Pierre Bourdieu and democratic politics. The mystery of ministry (pp. 55–63). Cambridge: Polity.
Boy Scouts A. JOSEPH BORRELL
Address of Organization Rue du Pre´-Jeroˆme 5 PO Box 91 CH-1211 Geneva 4 Plainpalais Switzerland www.scout.org
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Introduction The Boys Scouts are organized as a worldwide federation of non-governmental organizations whose purpose is to offer leadership and character-development skills to boys as they make the transition to adulthood. Religious involvement and a programmatic emphasis on physical activities are hallmarks of the Boy Scout approach to youth development.
Brief History The Boy Scout movement was started by Sir (later Lord) Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941), a former British soldier who had served in India and South Africa. Disheartened by seeing youth inactivity and unemployment when returning to the United Kingdom, Baden-Powell drew upon his military experience to design the early Scouting program. Baden-Powell held the first camp for Scouts in 1907 where he and other volunteer adults supervised a group of boys as they camped, cooked, and played games. BadenPowell used this experience to refine his conception of Scouting as a youth activity and the next year published Scouting for Boys, which became the first handbook of the movement.
that includes ‘‘duty to God.’’ Scouting is open to members of all recognized religions, but a belief in God is held as a central tenet and atheists have been denied membership and leadership roles in the organization. Modern Scouting has its critics. A common criticism of Scouting worldwide is that too much attention is paid to preparation for military service and development of patriotic fervor. In addition, the ban on gay leaders has provoked much controversy, particularly in the United States, where other civic and nonprofit organizations, including grant makers, have been unable to work with the Boy Scouts of America due to its policy on gay men.
Achievements The Scout motto of ‘‘be prepared’’ has become known worldwide. Over the last century, the scouting movement has spread to over 150 countries and is known for its effective, informal educational methods. Prominent alumni of the Boy Scout movement include musician Paul McCartney and former US President Gerald Ford.
Cross-References
▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Girl Scouts
Mission and Activities Scouting has three primary development objectives for its members: character, citizenship, and fitness. Across the world, the organization appeals to adolescents since it provides friendship and outside the home activities that are often physically challenging. The acquisition of skills, as measured by earning merit badges, and the completion of community service projects are required to advance to the higher levels of scouting. While the uniform of the Boy Scout is easily recognized, this vestment is also a symbol of the Scouting’s egalitarian premise. Shared activities, such as overnight camping, also help to deemphasize the class, culture, and racial differences among its members.
BRAC MARTIN HO¨LZ, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization BRAC Centre 75 Mohakhali Dhaka Bangladesh www.brac.net
Introduction Structure Scouting is organized at the local level into small groups of Scouts, sometimes called a patrol or den. The Scoutmaster, a volunteer adult, provides leadership and mentoring to the group and is responsible for the safety of the youth involved. In addition to regular group meetings, Scouts have the opportunity to participate in a camp experience, known as a jamboree, with other Scouts outside their group. Churches are often sponsors of scouting groups, and religion is viewed by the organization as an important element of Scouting. Scouts take an oath or promise
The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, now known by its acronym BRAC, is one of the largest development NGOs in the world, headquartered in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Founded in 1972, it employs more than 100,000 workers, most of them women, and reaches more than 100 million people in Asia and Africa.
Brief History BRAC has its roots in the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971. After the country won its independence from Pakistan, the economy and its people were devastated.
BRAC
In 1972, Fazle Hasan Abed, who had left his position as an executive with Shell Oil, founded BRAC to provide relief to refugees returning from India. During its first year, BRAC focused on emergency rebuilding, constructing homes, boats, and medical centers, but then turned to longer term strategies to fight poverty, predominantly by concentrating on women. BRAC’s first lending program was launched in 1974 and its support for woman handicraft workers in 1975. As its successful approach gained renown, BRAC established programs in other parts of Asia, including Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, and in several African countries. In addition, BRAC now has affiliated organizations in the United Kingdom and the United States, which mobilize support for its efforts.
Mission/Objectives BRAC’s primary goals are to alleviate poverty, with all its ramifications and causes, and to strengthen the poor to participate fully in society. According to its materials, BRAC is led by a vision of ‘‘a just, enlightened, healthy and democratic world free from hunger, poverty, environmental degradation and all forms of exploitation.’’
Activities Reflecting its holistic approach to poverty alleviation and empowerment of the poor, BRAC is active in economic development, health, education, social development, and human rights/legal services. Village organizations (VOs), each with 30–40 women members, are the hubs for service delivery to both members and nonmembers, but also for awareness-raising and participation. BRAC’s economic development programs include group-based micro-lending and skills training and technical assistance to engage in small-scale income-generating activities such as livestock, fisheries, and social forestry. Basic health care services, in particular maternal and child health services, are provided by trained volunteers as well as through clinics. BRAC has also entered into partnerships to undertake diagnosis and treatment of and raise awareness of diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS. With education considered a key element of empowerment and higher living standards for the poor, BRAC runs primary schools, preschools, schools for children with special needs, teacher training programs, community libraries, and, since 2001, BRAC University, based in Dhaka. In 2008, BRAC inaugurated the BRAC Development Institute based at BRAC University. In addition to its development and disaster relief programs, BRAC also operates a number of incomegenerating social enterprises. In addition to enterprises generating seeds and chicks to support its agricultural
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and livestock projects, BRAC also controls a dairy, which markets the produce of milk producers. Another prominent example is Aarong, which began as a small fair-trade organization marketing the wares of rural craftswomen and now has expanded to become a chain of shops selling fashion and home de´cor – still made by rural artisans. BRAC Bank, established in 2001, was a natural extension of BRAC’s economic development-related activities.
Structure and Governance BRAC’s Governing Body consists of 16 members, with Fazle Hasan Abed serving as Chair. An Executive Director manages the various development programs, while a separate Managing Director oversees BRAC’s enterprises. Additionally there is an Executive Director for BRAC’s International Programmes. An ombudsman was also installed.
Funding In 2007, BRAC’s revenues amounted to more than US $300 million. BRAC reports that it has brought the proportion of donor coverage of its expenditures from 100% in 1980 to some 20% in 2007. The bulk of its income derives primarily from service charges on loans to VO members, income-generating projects, and revenue generated by support enterprises.
Major Contributions/Accomplishments In the early 1970s following the Liberation War, BRAC helped rebuild war-ravaged Bangladesh. Since then, it has grown to become one of the largest povertyoriented NGOs in the world, affecting millions of people, and a pioneer in poverty reduction and development approaches. BRAC has also blazed trails in South-South cooperation by transferring its approach to other Asian and African countries. In 2008, BRAC received the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize for its work to alleviate human suffering and has consistently (twice) won the CGAP Financial Transparency Award for its annual reports and financial statements.
Cross-References
▶ Abed, Fazle Hasan ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ Nonproft Sector and Poverty Reduction ▶ Transparency
References/Further Readings Ahmed, M. (1977). BRAC. Building human infrastructure to serve the rural poor. Essex, CT: International Council for Educational Development. Economics and Governance of Nongovernmental Organizations in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Development Series Paper No 11. Edited
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2006 by the World Bank Office Dhaka, from http://siteresources. worldbank.org/BANGLADESHEXTN/Resources/NGOreport_Dev_ Series.pdf Rhode, J. E. (Ed.) (2005). Learning to reach health for all. Thirty years of instructive experience at BRAC. Dhaka, Bangladesh: The University Press Limited. Smillie, I. (2009). Freedom from want: The remarkable success story of BRAC, the global grassroots organization that’s winning the fight against poverty. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press.
been concerned with the maintenance of a consistent style and tone of voice and ensuring that a consistent personality is projected (Tapp, 1996). Furthermore, Grounds (2005) argues that such practices are the very essence of brand management, irrespective of whether an organization’s management chooses to call them as such.
Definition
Brands and Branding JANE HUDSON University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
Introduction The twenty-first century has seen companies recognize the power of a strong brand. At the time when the global economy is subject to changing market dynamics and heightened competition, the role of brands in the commercial domain has never been greater. Furthermore, with the war in the Middle East causing political and economic unease, investors, customers, and employees are questioning whom they can trust; the ability of a familiar brand to deliver proven value is undeniable (Khermouch, 2002). Brands and brand management have been key focal areas for academics and practitioners alike. The ability of a strong brand to differentiate itself from similar competitors is not in question. Nonprofit branding appears to have come of age. The Habitat for Humanity brand, for example, was recently valued at $1.8 billion (Quelch et al., 2004) reinforcing the significance of the practice of branding to nonprofit organizations. It is argued that such recognition is well overdue. Historically, nonprofits have been relatively slow to adopt branding practices because of difficulties in committing internal stakeholders to the process (Grounds & Harkness, 1996) and a perception on the part of some nonprofit managers that branding is too ‘‘commercial’’ or even immoral (Ritchie et al., 1998). Furthermore, there has been concern that formally recognizing a charity as a brand may have a negative impact on donations as potential donors may believe those to be unjustifiable expenses and inappropriate use of donors’ money involved in branding (Grounds, 2005). Despite this underlying reticence to use ‘‘commercial’’ terminology, nonprofit organizations have increasingly
There are various definitions presented in the branding literature largely because as brands have evolved in the last century, they have become a complex means of, sometimes unspoken, communication between the brand owner and the consumer. Each definition tends to emphasize rather different dimensions of brands or the way that they may enhance or detract from consumer relationships. Historically, these definitions have been largely based around the physical product and explain how any combination of the name, term, sign, or design can be used to differentiate the brand from its competition. The notion of brands as differentiating devices has perhaps received the most attention in the literature. Brands can be differentiated on the basis of their tangible performance attributes and symbolic representational functions (Bhat & Reddy, 1998). The latter says something about the buyer – a statement of who they are and who they aspire to be. It is, therefore, perceived that brands reassure and enhance consumer self-perception and enable consumers to differentiate on that basis (de Chernatony & Dall’Olmo Riley, 1997, 1998). In addition, they can also satisfy experiential needs, in that they can provide sensory pleasure, variety, and stimulation (Whan Park et al., 1986). These too can provide the basis for differentiation. However, it has been argued that such productbased definitions are dated as they are too preoccupied with the physical product, too mechanical, and too input-orientated (Crainer, 1995). Furthermore, in the context of nonprofit brands, it fails to take into account the intangible, service orientated nature of nonprofit organizations. Gardener and Levy’s (1955: 7) definition focuses on a brand as a more complex symbol, which is representative of a variety of ideas, attributes, and bodies of association that are communicated to consumers over a period of time. In this vein, authors such as de Chernatony and Dall’Olmo Riley (1998) have posited brands in a more holistic manner and have considered various themes such as brands as a legal instrument, as a differentiating devise, as a company, as an identity system, as an image in consumers’ minds, as a personality, as a relationship, as adding value, and as an evolving entity. In the nonprofit
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context, these definitions are particularly helpful as they identify the need to consider not only all that is associated with the brand name but also all the brand activities. More contemporary is the holistic definition offered by the United Kingdom’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children brand, which encompasses who they are, what they say, and what they do and the set of relationships built on that.
Historical Background It is thought that the roots of brands lie in Greek and Roman times, where signs or route descriptions to shops were carved in stone and there were markings (thought to be brands) applied to pieces of silver (Riezebos, 2003). Given the widespread illiteracy in this era, the signs used by traders were pictures or maps of where the products were sold and were the only way to effectively communicate with the consumer. In Europe, the English word ‘‘brand’’ was probably conceived in the Middle Ages as a degenerate of the old Norse word brandr, which refers to the branding of cattle to denote ownership. At this time, three types of signs were used on products: craftsman, guild, and city signs. The craftsman signs were a method of identification and normally applied to the bottom of a product, as such they had little effect on stimulating purchase unlike today’s brands (Riezebos, 2003). The guild marks were used to guarantee the quality of a product and may be comparable to the contemporary quality certificates such as those used in the precious metal and gem industries. A city sign was used to state where the product was made as is like the contemporary ‘‘made in’’ assurance. After the Middle Ages, the use of branding developed as trade increased and tradesmen wished to be recognized for their products. This development is particularly noticeable in the alcoholic drinks sector (e.g., Drambuie, 1745), probably due to the nonperishable nature of the product. Such brands could survive long journeys and, as such, were marketed over a wider geographical area. The demand for branded goods notably increased with the advent of the Industrial Revolution (1830–1870), and many brands that are still available today, such as Levi’s (1850) and Heinz (1869), were developed. Riezebos (2003) argues that three factors contributed to the development of branded goods: 1. The migration of the population into industrial areas leading to urbanization and inability to produce their own goods led to an increase in demand for prepackaged goods.
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2. Mass production and improved infrastructure improved the transport of goods, making them more widely available. 3. An increase in the number of shops and grocers increased the availability of goods. Despite these improved market conditions, branding at this time is not comparable to branding in the twenty-first century. There was little or no brand advertising conducted throughout the Industrial Revolution and the distribution power lay with the wholesale trader (de Chernatony & McDonald, 1992). The wholesaler controlled the producer and the availability of goods in the grocers. This changed toward the end of the nineteenth century, when the manufacturer-owned brand became more prevalent (Riezebos, 2003). The manufacturer-owned label became more dominant in the twentieth century when the power in the distribution chain shifted toward the manufacturer. The demand for prepackaged goods grew as consumers demanded a constant price and quality product. As products developed, the manufacturer’s trademark became more important to the consumer, and manufacturers starting using advertising in the early twentieth century to stimulate greater demand (de Chernatony & McDonald, 1992). As the market became more competitive, manufacturers realized that they needed to expand their product range to gain competitive advantage. This led to the introduction of brand and category managers that considered the company’s portfolio of brands. With the advent of more effective transport and communication links, international trade increased and the global brand developed. Within the nonprofit sector, Roberts Wray (1994) was one of the first to acknowledge and debate the relevance of branding. He argued that charities could brand in the same way as commercial organizations. Managing a nonprofit as a brand should enhance it by emphasizing its strengths and projecting its distinct beliefs and values to its stakeholders (Saxton, 1995). Clearly, these views are controversial, and there are heated debates surrounding such commercial practices in the nonprofit arena.
Key Issues The Importance of Branding in Nonprofits
Branding is of critical importance to nonprofits because it can impact dramatically on income generation (Dixon, 1996; Grounds & Harkness, 1998) and has consistently been shown to assist fund-raising. Furthermore, a strong brand can convey the values and beliefs of a nonprofit to potential donors and suggest very persuasive
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reasons as to why it might be worthy of support (Dixon, 1996). This is significant as it has been argued that, where donors lack knowledge of the charities’ image, they may either ignore or distort a communications message to excuse themselves from making a donation (Bendapudi & Singh, 1996). There are, however, four key ways in which branding is of benefit to nonprofit organizations. First, brands are considered an aid to learning and can be used as a tool to educate members of the public. A nonprofit is not working from a ‘‘zero base’’ if members of the public are already familiar with a charity’s brand, their name, and the values associated with that name. Through branding, there will already be a fundamental understanding of the work the organization undertakes and its values in the minds of potential supporters. Second, it is argued that branding reduces risk for a donor. Using ‘‘Agency theory’’ donors are effectively using nonprofits to act as their agents in disbursing funds. Donors may see evidence of an individual charity’s performance in their brand image. Where fund-raising relies on impersonal communications such as direct mail, press, or radio advertising, the brand’s image will be particularly important as the donor may be completely reliant on their perception of the organization in deciding whether to offer a donation. Third, brands can serve to enhance trust between a nonprofit and its donors/potential donors (Tapp, 1996). Brands provide assurance that an organization is worthy of trust and that funds donated will be used in a manner consistent with standards that have been established over time (Ritchie et al., 1998). Finally, branding can also offer a form of reputation insurance to a nonprofit. Having built up a consistent image over time that becomes trusted and increasingly well-understood, short-term crises can be survived. The Aramony scandal, for example, rocked the United Way in the United States. The chief executive was accused of wasting donated funds on unnecessary flights on the Concord. In the short term, this had a dramatic impact on donations. However, the reputation of the organization is very strong, and it quickly regained donations and its relative position in the market (Sargeant & Jay, 2004). Brand Constituents
There are many elements of brands that can be actively managed over time. Broadly speaking, such elements are largely categorized by whether they are rational or emotional (de Chernatony & Dall’Olmo, 1998). The rational elements of brands include the physical benefits and functional attributes. The emotional elements include brand image, brand personality, brand essence, and the added value that it offers.
The rational elements of the brand are perhaps easier to understand and within the nonprofit context would refer to the functional physical benefits provided by an organization. For example, Cancer Research UK may use their brand to convey information about the research undertaken and the practical benefits (such as improving survival rates) of the work undertaken. The emotional elements are less tangible and are concerned with how the brand makes the donor feel and what the brand says about that donor. The brand can be seen as representative of the donor. Arguably, the most critical of these emotional elements is that of brand personality which has been accepted by practitioners and academics alike in the commercial sector. Furthermore, the notion of brand personality is being explored in the nonprofit sector (Hudson, 2008). Research suggests that brand personality helps to differentiate brands, develops the emotional aspects of the brand, and augments the personal meaning of a brand to the consumer (Aaker, 1997; Crask & Laskey, 1990). In its most simplistic form, brand personality can be described as the human characteristics associated with a brand (Aaker, 1997). Expanding on this definition, brand personality is operationalized by literally personifying a brand. The brand performs ‘‘intentional behaviours’’ and consumers make attributions about the brand’s personality such as its character and values (Aaker, 1995: 392). The management of brand personality is rather complex as it considers how a brand can be imbued with particular human and emotional characteristics (Hudson, 2008). Furthermore, it has been argued that the emotional elements of branding have dominated consumer brand management. McEnally and de Chernatony (1999) posit that individuals form a self-concept based on their perception of the response of others to their brand choice. As such, they choose symbolic brands with common values and ascribe attributes or status to others by their ability to purchase these specific brands. Brands, thus, become a means of self-representation and communicating values to others. Additionally, when consumers make brand choices, they assess the projected personality of the brand and how it might represent them, thus choosing brands with the personality that they wish to project. Brand personality is built and communicated to consumers through the use of advertising and other elements of the marketing mix (Aaker, 1997). Where consumers accept a brand personality they know what the brand stands for, develop opinions of the brand, and have an ‘‘‘active awareness.’’ The brand transcends being just another product, and it is argued that the consumer can develop a relationship with the brand (Fournier, 1991).
Brands and Branding
Within the nonprofit context there has been little empirical work conducted into brand personality, despite the acceptance that branding, and brand personality as a key element of brand, is critical especially to fund-raising. In choosing to purchase brands with particular personalities, consumers can seek to convey representation of themselves and reinforce their self-image (Fournier, 1991). This may be equally important in the nonprofit sector, as research has shown that the act of offering a donation can bestow an identity on the donor (Schwartz, 1967). This identity is likely to vary; however, Yavas et al., (1980) suggest that a generous, loving self-image has more importance for donors than non-donors. Sargeant et al. (forthcoming) explored how charity personalities may be structured and whether there are some personality traits that may be considered generic to the sector. Their research highlighted that donors appear to ‘‘imbue’’ an organization with specific characteristics by virtue of its charitable status. The analysis also suggests that these common/shared characteristics reflect the voluntary, benevolent nature of nonprofits and the role that they play in instigating change. Consequently, they recommend that charity marketers consider the nature of the emotional stimulant used and the voice projected by the charity, the character of their service provision, and the extent to which the organization can be perceived as traditional when seeking to differentiate their brand. This work suggests that charity brands may not be as distinct as previously thought. However, further research is warranted to explore this interesting notion.
Future Directions Branding literature within the nonprofit domain is still growing as research attempts to explore this complex notion outside of the commercial sector from which it originated. It is important to recognize that despite branding’s obvious advantages some parties, including donors and internal stakeholders, may be hostile toward the organization spending money on building and maintaining a brand. Spruill (2001) has argued that branding creates barriers to collaborative partnerships with each other for service delivery or fund-raising. Brand managers are unwilling to confuse or dilute their brand by being involved in partnerships. Furthermore, Spruill argues that branding increases competition between charities for greater visibility which will not directly benefit the intended beneficiaries of the charity. However, the reality is that nonprofits have brands whether they wish to call them so or not. The critical issue is finding the most appropriate means to manage these nonprofit brands and as such brand management is necessary and warrants serious management attention.
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Greater clarity is required with regard to the lessons that may be legitimately applied from the commercial sector in respect of nonprofit brand management. Nonprofit branding should be a subject of study in its own right. The issue of brand personality is crucial and the management of this component of nonprofit brands is particularly complex. As discussed by Sargeant, Hudson et al. (forthcoming) some aspects of personality are outside of direct control of any specific organization. Brand personality in the nonprofit context most certainly warrants further investigation. Furthermore, the donor and brand relationship has not been explored in the nonprofit sector.
Cross-References
▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Fundraising ▶ Habitat for Humanity ▶ National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Social Marketing ▶ Stakeholders ▶ United Way International
References/Further Readings Aaker, D. A. (1995). Building strong brands, New York: Free Press. Aaker, J. (1997). Dimensions of brand personality. Journal of Marketing Research, 34 August, 347–356. Bendapudi, N., & Singh, S. N. (1996). Enhancing helping behavior: An integrative framework for promotion planning. Journal of Marketing, 60(3), 33–54. Bhat, S., & Reddy, S. (1998). Symbolic and functional positioning of brands. Journal of Consumer Marketing, 15(1), 32–43. Crainer, S. (1995). The real power of brands. Making brands work for competitive advantage. London: Pitman. Crask, M. R., & Laskey, H. A. (1990). A positioning-based decision model for selecting advertising messages. Journal of Advertising Research, 30(S), 32–38. de Chernatony, L., & McDonald, M. (1992). Creating powerful brands: The strategic route to success in consumer, industrial and service markets. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann. de Chernatony, L., & Dall’Olmo Riley, F. (1997). The chasm between managers’ and consumers’ views of brands. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 5, 89–104. de Chernatony, L., & Dall’Olmo Riley, F. (1998). Defining a ‘‘brand’’: Beyond the literature with experts’ interpretations. Journal of Marketing Management, 14, 417–443. Dixon, M. (1996). Small and medium sized charities need a strong brand too: Crisis’ experience. Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing, 2(1), 52–57. Fournier, S. (1991). A meaning-based framework for the study of the consumer-object relations. In R. Holman & M. Soloman (Eds.), Advances in consumer research (Vol. 18, pp. 736–742). Duluth, MN: Association for Consumer Research. Gardener, B., & Levy, S. (1955). The product and the brand. Harvard Business Review, 33 (March–April), 33–39.
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Grounds, J. (2005). Editorial special issue on charity branding. International Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing, 10, 65–67. Grounds, J., & Harkness, J. (1996). Developing a brand from within: Involving employees and volunteers when developing a new brand position. Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing, 3(2), 179–184. Hankinson, P. (2001). Brand orientation in the charity sector: A framework for discussion and research. Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing, 6(3), 1465–4520. Hudson, J. (2008). The branding of charities. In A. Sargeant & W. Wymer (Eds.), The Routledge companion to nonprofit marketing (pp. 65–74). Oxon: Routledge. Khermouch, G. (2002). The best global brands. Business Week (3794), 92–95. McEnally, D. C., & de Chernatony, L. (1999). The evolving nature of branding: consumer and managerial considerations. Journal of Consumer and Market Research, 99(2). Murphy, J. M. (1990). Brand strategy. Cambridge: Director Books. Quelch, J. A., Austin, J. E., & Laidler-Kylander, N. (2004). Mining gold in the not-for-profit brands. Harvard Business Review, 82(4), 24. Riezebos, R. (2003). Brand management: A theoretical and practical approach. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. Ritchie, R. J. B., Swami, S., & Weinberg, C. (1998). A brand new world. International Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing, 4, 26–42. Roberts Wray, B. (1994) Branding, product development and positioning the charity. Journal of Brand Management, 1(6), 350–370. Sargeant, A., & Jay, E. (2004). Fundraising management. London: Routledge. Sargeant, A., Hudson, J., & West, D. (forthcoming). Conceptualising brand values in the charity sector: The relationship between sector, cause and organisation. Service Industry Journal. Saxton, J. A. (1995). Strong charity brand comes from strong beliefs and values. Journal of Brand Management, 2(4), 211–220. Schwartz, B. (1967). The social psychology of the gift. American Journal of Sociology, 73, 1–11. Spruill, V. (2001). Build brand identity for causes, not groups. Chronicle of Philanthropy, 13 (June), 45. Tapp, A. (1996). Charity brands: A qualitative study of current practice. Journal of Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Marketing, 1, 327–336. Whan Park, C., Jaworski, B., & MacInnis, D. (1986). Strategic brand concept-image management. Journal of Marketing, 50 (October), 135–145. Yavas, U., Riecken, G., & Parameswaran, R. (1980). Using psychographics to profile potential donors. Business Atlanta, 30(5), 41–45.
Bread for the World TIMOTHY R. DAHLSTROM
Introduction Bread for the World is an ecumenical Christian advocacy group dedicated to ending hunger. Its members advocate with United States policy makers to change policies, programs, and conditions that allow hunger and poverty to persist. It is a 501(c)(4) organization. The associated Bread for the World Institute provides policy analysis on hunger and strategies to end it. The Institute educates its advocacy network, opinion leaders, policy makers and the public about hunger in the United States and abroad. It is a 501(c)(3) organization.
Brief History In October 1972, a small group of Catholics and Protestants met to consider how people of faith could be mobilized to influence United States government policies on hunger. In the spring of 1974, the group began to implement its ideas under the leadership of the Reverend Arthur Simon. By year’s end, more than 500 people had joined as citizen advocates for hungry people. Since then, Bread for the World has grown into a nationwide advocacy network.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging decision makers in the United States to end hunger at home and abroad. Its stated focus and motivation is: ‘‘God’s grace in Jesus Christ moves our members to help our neighbors, whether they live in the next house, the next state, or the next continent. Food is a basic need and it is unjust that so many people go without enough to eat.’’ Bread for the World describes itself as, ‘‘A Christian Voice for ending hunger.’’
Activities Working through churches, campuses, and other organizations, Bread for the World engages people in advocacy to end hunger. Members write personal letters and emails to, and meet with their representatives in the United States Congress. In its advocacy activities, Bread for the World works in a bipartisan manner. It also collaborates with other organizations to build the political commitment needed to overcome hunger and poverty.
Address of Organization
Structure and Governance
50 F Street, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20001 USA www.bread.org
Bread for the World is governed by a Board of Directors under the leadership of a President. Members are individuals, and coalition partners include religious and nonreligious organizations dedicated to the eradication of
Bremner, Robert Hamlett
hunger. The Bread for the World Institute is a member of the Alliance to End Hunger.
Funding The major funding for Bread for the World comes from public contributions and membership, with a smaller portion coming from church and denominational support. For 2007, Bread for the World reported $5,256,750, in revenue, with net assets of $2,507,763.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Bread for the World led the US legislative coalition of the Jubilee movement to reduce the debts of low-income countries. Since 2000, the organization has helped to double US funding for poverty-focused development assistance. Since the late 1990s, Bread for the World has also helped to win increases in nutrition assistance for foodinsecure people in the United States – to a total that now exceeds $50 billion a year.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Jubilee 2000
References/Further Readings Beckmann, D., & Simon, A. (1999). Grace at the table: Ending hunger in God’s world. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Simon, A. (1985). Bread for the world. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing.
Bremner, Robert Hamlett TULLIA B. HAMILTON
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continued to write and mentor students. He was the recipient of a number of honors throughout his lifetime including the Distinguished Teaching Award from The Ohio State University and the Lifetime Achievement Award from ARNOVA.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Bremner is recognized as a pioneer in the development of three areas of historical inquiry: poverty, philanthropy, and childhood. Bremner’s 1956 book From the Depths: The Discovery of Poverty in the United States examines shifts in thinking about poverty in the United States from the late nineteenth century through the New Deal. According to Alice O’Connor, this work took a subject absent from the public agenda and ‘‘made it part of the historical canon.’’ In 1960, he published American Philanthropy, an historical overview of benevolent activity in America. Historians such as David Hammack have pointed out the importance of the book as defining a new topic for historical study. In many respects the book is dated by today’s standards. It has little to say about the role of women or racial and ethnic groups. Writing prior to the Filer Commission and the conception of the ‘‘Third Sector,’’ Bremner’s characterization of philanthropy lacks definition. In addition, he has little to say about the sometimes complex motives behind American benevolence. Despite these limitations, the book remains an important starting point for many interested in the evolution of American philanthropy. Along with Philippe Aries and Erik Erikson, Bremner is recognized for his role in stimulating historical research on childhood. In 1966, Bremner was named lead editor for Children and Youth in America, a three-volume documentary history of children in the United States spanning the years 1600–1970. Like most of Bremner’s work, Children and Youth is useful to both scholars and practitioners.
Cross-References Basic Biographical Information Robert Bremner was an American social historian whose work focuses on benevolence and social welfare. Born in Brunswick, Ohio, Bremner received his B.A. from BaldwinWallace College (1935) and the MA (1939) and Ph.D. (1943) from The Ohio State University. During WWII he worked in Washington, D.C. as a civilian employee of the War Department and the Red Cross. From 1946 to 1980 he was a member of the history department of The Ohio State University during which time he advised over 40 Ph.D. students. After his retirement in 1980, Bremner
▶ ARNOVA ▶ Philanthropy in North America
References/Further Readings Bremner, R. H. (1956). From the depths: The discovery of poverty in America. New York: New York University Press. Bremner, R. H. (1960, 1988). American philanthropy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bremner, R. H. (1970). Children and youth in America (Vols. I–III). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Hammack, D. (2003). Robert Bremner and the study of philanthropy in the US: Four appraisals. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32, 439.
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Brookings Institution
Brookings Institution ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization 1775 Massachusetts Ave, NW Washington, DC 20036 USA www.brookings.edu
Introduction The Brookings Institution is a nonprofit public policy organization conducting high-quality, independent research to strengthen democracy and secure a cooperative international social system. Through its conferences, publications, and other activities, Brookings operates as an analyst and a critic that is committed to providing research, policy recommendations, and analysis on a full range of public policy issues. Brookings scholars regularly provide reporters with commentary, analysis, and background information; appear on television and radio programs; testify before US Congress; and brief policymakers and their staff on important current issues.
Brief History The Brookings Institution traces its beginnings to 1916, just before the US entry into WWI, when Robert S. Brookings joined a group of government reformers in creating the Institute for Government Research (IGR), the first private organization devoted to analyzing public policy issues at the national level. Brookings also created two sister organizations: the Institute of Economics in 1922 and a graduate school in 1924. In 1927, the institutes and the school merged to form the present-day Brookings Institution, with the mission to promote, conduct, and foster research ‘‘in the broad fields of economics, government administration, and the political and social sciences.’’ During the war, the institution fell under the management of the National Defense Council. Once the council ended, the Brookings Institution analyzed issues of national concern such as the budgetary consolidation of the country. During World War II, the research organization worked on investigating prices control and war economy. Later, in 1946, it focused on rebuilding Europe and assisted with the development of the Marshall Plan.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area The Brookings’ mission is to conduct high-quality, independent research and, based on that research, to
provide innovative, practical recommendations that advance three broad goals: strengthen American democracy; foster the economic and social welfare, security and opportunity of all Americans; and secure a more open, safe, prosperous, and cooperative international system.
Activities The core work of the Brookings Institution addresses existing and emerging policy issues while offering practical approaches to solving them to policy-makers as well as the general public. It is devoted to improving the performance of American institutions and the quality of the policies they make. Brookings’s work is conducted in five program research areas (Economic Studies, Foreign Policy, Global Economy and Development, Governance Studies, and Metropolitan Policy), and under these program areas falls the management of ten specialized policy centers (which focus on specific subjects ranging from Asian Policy Studies to Social and Economic Dynamics), and the research is classified into 24 major projects.
Structure and Governance The 50 Trustees and 58 Honorary Trustees serve 3-year terms and meet three times a year. The Board’s role is to provide governance of the business and affairs of the Institution, approve the fields of scholarly research, and preserve the independence of the Institution’s work.
Funding The Brookings Institution is supported largely by an endowment and through contributions from philanthropic foundations, corporations, and private individuals. Though it is not directly supported by the government, Brookings undertakes government contract studies. By reserving the right to publish its findings from them, it maintains its independence from governmental control.
Accomplishments In the 1990s, the federal government devolved many of its social programs back to cities and states, and Brookings shaped a new generation of urban policies to help build strong neighborhoods, cities, and metropolitan regions. As President Bill Clinton prepared to sign historic welfare reform legislation, experts at Brookings teamed up to study the nation’s policies on children and families. In 2001, a Brookings proposal for a child tax credit became part of major tax legislation.
Buffett, Warren Edward
Cross-References ▶ Lobbying ▶ Think Tanks
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▶ Civil Society Theory: Smith, Adam ▶ Public Choice
References/Further Readings
References/Further Readings
Brainerd, W., & Perry, G. (Eds.) (2003). Brookings papers on economic activity. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Brennan, G., & Buchanan, J. M. (1985). The reason of rules: Constitutional political economy (Vol. 10). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Buchanan, J. M. (1975). The limits of liberty: Between anarchy and leviathan. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock, G. (1962). The calculus of consent: Logical foundations of constitutional democracy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Collected Works of James M. Buchanan by Liberty Fund, Inc. Reisman, D. (1990). The political economy of James Buchanan. College Station, TX: Texas A&M University Press.
Buchanan, James McGill GORDON SHOCKLEY
Basic Biographical Information Born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee (USA) in 1919, James McGill Buchanan, Jr. is an American economist. He received the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986 ‘‘for his development of the contractual and constitutional bases for the theory of economic and political decisionmaking,’’ which is known as public choice theory. Professor Buchanan earned a B.A. from Middle Tennessee State College in 1940, a M.S. from the University of Tennessee in 1941, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1948. Before joining the economics faculty at George Mason University (GMU) in the 1980s, he taught and conducted research at the University of Virginia, UCLA, and the Virginia Polytechnic Institute. At GMU he presently serves as the advisory general director of the James Buchanan Center for Political Economy.
Major Contributions Public choice theory is James Buchanan’s major contribution. In its essence the application of microeconomic principles to politics, public choice theory is premised on the insight that individuals act in their own self-interest not only in market settings such as commerce but also in nonmarket settings such as politics and civil society. (In the term public choice, ‘‘public’’ refers to people and ‘‘choice’’ to selecting among alternatives.) Buchanan’s public choice ideas have been applied widely in constitutional political economy. Buchanan once wrote, ‘‘The American constitutional structure is in disarray.’’ According to Reisman (1990), Buchanan is influenced by Adam Smith’s ideas of the minimal state and liberal economics and Knut Wicksell’s insight that ‘‘a rule of unanimity for reaching collective decisions provides the institutional analogue to two-person trade in strictly private or partitionable goods’’ (p. 4).
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Buffett, Warren Edward DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Warren E. Buffett was born in 1930 – less than a year after the stock market crash – in Omaha, Nebraska, and would become one of the world’s most successful investors, the world’s richest person, and one of the most prominent philanthropists in history. Filing his first tax return at the age of 13, Buffett showed early signs of business acumen and would eventually earn the nickname ‘‘The Oracle of Omaha.’’ After studying business at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and economics at the University of Nebraska and Columbia University, Buffett began an immensely successful career as a businessman. When he was 26 years old, Buffett created Buffett Partnership, Ltd., an investment partnership. Over the next few years, Buffett would create several more partnerships, finding myriad lucrative investment opportunities. In 1965, he took over the textile firm Berkshire Hathaway, which became a holding company for his highly profitable investments over the years. In 2008, Forbes Magazine named Buffett the richest man in the world, surpassing Bill Gates, with a net worth of approximately $62 billion. Buffett still resides in the same Omaha home that he purchased in 1958 for $31,500.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In 2006, Buffett made the largest charitable donation in history when he pledged to gradually give 85% of his Berkshire stock to five foundations (valued at $37 billion in 2006). The largest portion – 10 million shares of
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Berkshire Hathaway stock – was pledged to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (valued at approximately $30.7 billion at the time the gift was made). According to Gates, Buffett’s contribution – amounting to about $1.7 billion a year – will be used to seek cures for the world’s worst diseases and improve the US education system. Along with the historic gift to Gates, Buffett made the request that all the money be distributed in the year it is donated and not added to the foundation’s assets for future giving. Buffett’s gift to the Gates Foundation represented a significant piece of his plan to give away the bulk of his fortune to charity. The other foundation gifts that Buffett is making will go to foundations headed by Buffett’s three children, Susan, Howard, and Peter, and to the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation. The latter was for 40 years known simply as the Buffett Foundation and was recently renamed in honor of Buffett’s late wife, Susie, who died in 2004. The foundation has mainly focused on reproductive health, family planning, and pro-choice causes, and on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Buffets’ gifts made the Foundation one of the largest in 2007, with assets nearing $4 billion.
Cross-References
▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Grantmaking Foundations
References/Further Readings Buffet, W., & Cunningham, L. (2008). The essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for corporate America (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: The Cunningham Group. Kilpatrick, A. (1998). Of permanent value: The story of Warren Buffett. New York: McGraw-Hill. Lowenstein, R. (1995). Buffett: The making of an American capitalist. New York: Random House. Schroeder, A. (2008). Snowball: Warren Buffett and the business of life. New York: Bantam Books.
Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen FREYA BRUNE
Address of Organization Haus Deutscher Stiftungen Mauerstr. 93 10117 Berlin Germany www.stiftungen.org
Introduction The Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen (BVDS) represents the consortium of foundations in Germany. Its constitution describes its purpose as supporting ‘‘the charitable foundation sector in Germany.’’ As an umbrella organization, the BVDS represents an overall number of approx. 6,000 foundations.
Brief History In 1948, the representatives of the larger foundations in Germany joined into the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Wohlta¨tigkeits-, Erziehungs- und Kultus-Stiftungen (Working Group of German Charitable, Educational, and Cultural Foundations), which later developed into the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Deutscher Stiftungen (Working Group of German Foundations). It became the agency of the German foundations, and its work added to the strengthening and acknowledgment of the German foundation system. Since 1986 it carries its current name: Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen to underline its national importance. In 1990, the members determined the official statute and thus defined it as a registered association (Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen e.V.). In 2008, the BVDS was awarded ‘‘Association of the Year’’ by the 11th German Association Congress.
Mission The formal mission of the BVDS is the support of the public welfare oriented foundation landscape. The association is attending to the interests of foundations that follow charitable, church related or benevolent goals. Furthermore, the BVDS seeks to foster foundation cooperation and networks. Through the creation and improvement of a foundation-friendly climate and the enhancement of the foundations’ effectiveness, as well as the advancement of the legal and fiscal framework for foundations requirements, the BVDS aims at creating a more stable, active, and free democratic civil society.
Activities In order to fulfill its mission, the BVDS is carrying out different activities, such as the support of research projects, the arrangement of events and publications, public relations, data collection and documentation, education, and further training, international exchange, awards to institutions and individuals who have rendered outstanding services to the foundation landscape, as well as consultancy for foundations and sponsors.
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Furthermore, the BVDS organizes the German Foundation Day, bestows the KOMPASS Award for good public relations work of foundations, and edits a variety of publications, such as the magazine ‘‘Stiftungswelt,’’ the foundation yearbook, and the annual ‘‘Stiftungs Report.’’ On the European level, the BVDS works closely together with the European Foundation Center (EFC).
Structure and Governance The BVDS is a nonprofit organization, divided into five departments, with one head each. All heads build together the association board, led by a secretary general. In 2008 the secretary general was Dr. Hans Fleisch, who also holds the position of the federal commissioner for civic engagement, which leads to a rare close attachment between the BVDS and the German government. Outside the organizational structure, but connected, stands the Deutsche Stiftungs Akademie (DSA – German Foundation Academy), which is a joint project of the BVDS and the Stifterverband der Deutschen Wissenschaft. Overall, the BVDS has 30 employees. In 2008, the BVDS had 3,200 listed members, the largest part being foundations (approx. 2,500), the other being foundations’ administrators (individuals and legal entities). Due to the latter, the BVDS itself claims to represent approx. 6,000 members in total, which are 40% of approx. 15,000 foundations in (2008) all over Germany.
Funding The revenues of the association come from member fees and donations. In its statute the BVDS bounds itself to the exclusive disposition of funds for charitable and statutory purposes.
Accomplishments The BVDS supports third sector research via informing about the activities of the sector, the awarding of good practices, and producing a variety of publications about the foundation system in Germany.
Cross-References
▶ European Foundation Centre ▶ Stifterverband der Deutschen Wissenschaft ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings BVDS. (2001). Zahlen, Daten, Fakten zum deutschen Stiftungswesen. Darmstadt, Germany: Darmstadt Hoppenstedt. BVDS. (2007). Stiftungsjahr 2006. Berlin, Germany: Trigger.Medien. GmbH.
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Business and Employers’ Associations BERNHARD EBBINGHAUS, SEBASTIAN KOOS Universita¨t Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
Introduction According to Friedrich Engels, business is always organized and therefore does not need a formal association. Nevertheless traditional guilds and craftsmen associations existed before the first trade unions were founded. With the industrial and democratic revolutions the organization of business interests changed substantially, first challenging and later becoming an important partner for organized labor. Research on business and employers’ associations is less advanced and more recent than research on labor unions. Comparatively, business interest organizations are often more powerful and more specialized than labor interest organizations.
Definition A business association (BA) is a voluntary organization of enterprises (or entrepreneurs) that represents the interests of (for-profit) business in the political arena and provides services to its members. As trade associations, these organizations promote the economic interests of a particular sector, be it in relation to international trade (fostering export, limiting import), favorable economic conditions (tax concessions and subsidies), or sector-specific issues (industrial norms, joint research and development, advertisement). Peak associations unify these BAs under one umbrella and represent their interests on a national or even international level. Some of these organizations include besides the economic interests of companies also the function of employer associations. In some cases, instead of formal associations of companies, ‘‘clubs’’ of entrepreneurs or networks of managers (CEOs) play an influential role in coordinating business interests. In addition, chambers organize business interests, particularly of small and medium sized companies and artisanal trades. These chambers promote the interests of local business and provide common services, e.g., coordinating vocational training. In some countries, membership in the respective local or national chamber is mandatory, while some international chambers are set up to promote multilateral trade and business relations. An employer association (EA) represents the interests of employers (entrepreneurs or companies) in the industrial relations and political arena. These voluntary organizations engage in collective bargaining with labor unions
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on wage and working conditions, they also engage in lobbying of political decision-makers on matters of labor law and social policy. In contrast to trade unions that organize workers, EAs organize companies from small shop owners with few employees to large multinational companies with a separation between managers and owners (shareholders). In several countries and many sectors, companies may engage in bargaining with local unions by themselves and larger companies can afford to lobby political decision-makers separately thereby circumventing EAs. Some EAs organize only private companies, while others are constituted by or include public administration, state owned companies and not-for-profit organizations, including churches and NGOs.
Historical Background Historically three factors have been crucial for the development of business (and employers’) associations, all of which foster specific interests: labor relations, competition, and public policy. At the end of the nineteenth century, employers ‘‘colluded’’ in reaction to the collective organization of their workers in strike action and increasingly in trade unions (Crouch, 1993), first by opposing, later by recognizing them. While larger companies were capable to react single handedly, small-, and medium-sized firms were often the first to form a ‘‘cartel’’ on the labor market and coordinate lock outs-against strike action. With the increased recognition of collective bargaining, particularly after its breakthrough during and after World War I, the formation of EAs boomed and peak associations were formed in many industrializing countries. Following the integration of national labor markets and the rise of national welfare states, EAs engaged not only in multiemployer collective bargaining, but they also sought to lobby lawmakers in respect to the increased regulation of employment and expansion of social rights. Antiunion activities such as yellow unions or black lists against unionized workers were outlawed in some countries after 1918 and internationally after 1948. Another reason to form BAs was to ensure political voice in emerging democratic systems. With the introduction of universal suffrage, the majority of voters were dependent employees, thus entrepreneurs faced the risk of state intervention into business and employer prerogatives. BAs promote the idea of a liberal market economy, with private ownership, free trade and a non-interventionist state. Hence in countries with state-owned sectors they push for privatization. In many instances, BAs seek to fight redistributive policies, direct state intervention, and codetermination since these policies are seen as a threat to business autonomy and private property. To meet their
objectives organized business relies on the one hand on public communication geared towards a wider public audience and on the other hand on informal channels of lobbying public bureaucracies and political actors. By means of public relations, BAs try to promote and gain public support for their policy recommendations; they often operate special bureaus, close to lawmakers’ offices, for instance, the US policy-makers in Washington or EU Commission in Brussels, thereby getting easier access. A third reason for business to form ‘‘cartels’’ was to prevent foreign competition and to limit the dependence on providers of raw materials. For keeping foreign business at bay and controlling suppliers, tariff unions were established. While generally pushing for free trade, cutthroat competition or a monopoly can threaten the functioning of the whole economic system. Therefore in some countries BAs came to agree on coordination. Especially in neo-corporatist systems a tripartite mode of concerted action between employers’ associations, labor unions and the state came into existence to prevent wage competition. On the international level, the International Organization of Employers (IOE) was founded in 1920 in response to the formation of the ‘‘tripartite’’ International Labor Organization (ILO) in 1918 with representatives of national governments, employers, and trade unions. Initially an organization of industrialized countries, the IOE today organizes over 140 national peak employers’ associations in the member-states of ILO, a special division of the United Nations since 1945. With increased European economic and political integration after World War II, UNICE coordinated business and employers’ interests at a European level following the Common Market in 1957. Today, BUSINESSEUROPE (renamed in 2007) organizes 40 national peak associations from 34 countries, including all member states of the European Union plus several other countries.
Key Issues Power Asymmetry Between Organized Capital and Labor
Pluralist theory postulates that in liberal democracies interest groups compete equally for influence, while neo-Marxist and corporatist approaches assume that capital has more structural power than labor in influencing public policy and determining employment relations. Offe and Wiesenthal (1980), building upon Marxist class theory, postulated ‘‘two logics of collective action’’ to the advantage of organized capital and to the detriment of labor. Capitalists are a smaller group with more narrow
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instrumental interests and plentiful (financial) resources; they can also use their structural power by going separately, while workers are a much larger and heterogeneous group with diffuse political and economic interests that have to rely on collective action for lack of individual bargaining power. Comparative studies on business and employers’ associations in OECD countries (Traxler, 1995) have challenged this thesis. Although employer associations are more concentrated and better organized than trade unions, ‘‘producer coalitions’’ are more fragmented and narrower, given the competitive pressures within each sector and the anti-cartel policies in market economies. Corporatist analyses studied the self-regulative function of business interests, in particular in respect to standard setting, vocational training, and labor relations (Streeck and Schmitter, 1985), indicating substantial crossnational variations in the degree of corporatist interest intermediation. The increased global competition and the political turn toward neo-liberal policies has been seen as a factor limiting the potential for corporatism, although in some European countries a renaissance of ‘‘social pacts’’ between government, employers, and organized labor occurred following the European Monetary Union. Internationalization of Business Interests
The promotion of international trade, free market institutions and foreign direct investments need not much coordination at global level as multinational companies often can do this on their own and international competition has been hampering supranational cooperation. The organization of employers’ interests has been particularly problematic, even though EAs are represented on the international governmental organizations (e.g., ILO, OECD). Within the European Union (EU), EAs were reluctant to give up competencies, in particular to allow negotiations at supranational level, thereby limiting the possibilities to reregulate at EU-level what was deregulated with the ‘‘Internal Market’’ since 1992. After longer efforts to foster European ‘‘social dialogue’’ between capital and labor since the 1970s, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 introduced the possibility to negotiate EU-level agreements between employers and trade unions on social issues that would otherwise be legislated by the European Union; this led to a reallocation of resources and competencies at the EU-level and some joint agreements (Sadowski and Jacobi, 1991). Role of Business in Policy Making
In one perspective business associations are perceived as ‘‘cartels in disguise,’’ that are more or less undermining antitrust laws and democratic institutions. In a different
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view, they are said to enhance democracy in at least three distinct ways by checking power, by representing interests, and by direct governance (Fung, 2003). Firstly, business associations contribute to democratic governance by checking power and resisting illegitimate authority. There is empirical evidence that especially in young democracies business associations help overcoming corruption, by monitoring public officials and signaling resistance to law violations (Duvanova, 2007). BAs thereby become agents of development, assisting in establishing core economic and democratic institutions. Secondly, their core feature is the representation of business interests, channelling and transmitting the needs and preferences of the business community to governments. As an intermediary between state and companies, BAs assume the role of pressure groups, seeking to influence legislative decision-makers and governmental agencies through legal actions, law expertise, party support and lobbyism. This raises also the issue of asymmetric power, if not illegitimate influence. Business associations are accused of using ‘‘money for politics’’ and thereby threatening the functioning of democracies. A third way of enhancing democracy is by direct self-governance. In some – mostly neo-corporatist – countries business (and employers’) associations assume the role of ‘‘private interest governments’’ (Streeck and Schmitter, 1985) by self-regulating and implementing policies for the common good. Through collaboration in advisory councils and boards (especially regarding social security, vocational training, and labor administration) they perform a self-regulatory function. This can often be found in compulsory chambers that have the power to control, tax, and even sanction their members in order to produce public goods.
International Perspectives Business (and employer) interests are better organized in OECD economies than elsewhere, though research has largely focused on few (western) European and North American countries, less on Japan and other non-European OECD countries. Given the different historical development during industrialization, there are considerable differences in the organization of business and employer interests across OECD countries. Corporatist theories (Crouch, 1993) as well as the ‘‘Varieties of Capitalism’’ approach (Hall and Soskice, 2001) point at major differences between liberal (or uncoordinated) and corporatist (or coordinated) market economies: the capacity of business and employer interests to overcome collective action problems and coordinate joint activities for the common good is lower in liberal market economies and higher in corporatist countries.
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In liberal market economies (Britain and the USA, but also other Anglophone OECD countries) business and employers’ associations are more fragmented (lacking often a peak association), direct lobbying and collective bargaining by large (multinational) companies coexists, and corporatist social dialogue is rare (an exception is Ireland since the late 1980s). Not only labor unions tend to be less organized with low union density and high fragmentation, but also employer associations have less encompassing membership (in both number of firms and employees employed) and bargaining coverage is considerably lower than in the other countries. Thus a large majority of employees are not covered by collective bargaining and have to negotiate employment conditions individually. Responding to the criticism of a narrow shareholder value orientation, ‘‘corporate social responsibility’’ has been advanced by some business communities in liberal countries as a strategic goal, reaching out to civil society organizations and the local communities. In coordinated market economies a ‘‘stakeholder’’ orientation and corporatist coordination have a long tradition, dating back to the premodern guilds (Crouch, 1993). Business associations, chambers of commerce and artisans, and employer associations tend to be more centralized, better organized in terms of firm membership (and size of workforce covered), and more functionally differentiated (Traxler et al., 2001). These organizations coordinate and join resources to produce common goods for the business community, ranging from lobbying for subsidies to engaging in self-regulation and negotiating nation- or sector-wide collective wage agreements. Enforcing compliance by all members, employers associations have played an important role in taking wages out of competition and providing minimum standards of employment. Interbusiness coordination through chambers facilitates also the organization of dual vocational training (most prominently in Germany) as smaller companies train young people to acquire skills for later employment in larger companies. Outside the OECD countries there is only scattered research on business and employers’ associations, reflecting the more varied organizational landscape. In the postcommunist countries of Eastern and Central Europe and Asia employers are generally perceived to be rather weak or even disorganized. Nevertheless, for instance, in Russia or Slovenia somewhat powerful BAs emerged after communist collapse. In Hungary a compulsory membership in chambers of commerce was introduced, and like in the Czech Republic, tripartite institutions emerged, while in Poland only weak BAs came into existence. BAs in postcommunist countries often assume the role of promoters
for small businesses. Contrary to fears of BAs’ power to exploit governments for business short term interests, they often play a role in establishing economic institutions and helping to overcome problems of bribery and lacking state support for businesses. Many African countries have adopted corporatist elements for example in Senegal, Nigeria, or Madagascar, albeit with less success than in Europe. In some countries BAs have been founded already by the 1960s in line with independence (for instance the Uganda Manufacturing Association). After an era of decline and stagnation due to political and social turmoil many associations have been (re-)established or revitalized by the 1990s. With processes of political democratization BAs increase their access to state bureaucracy and political decision-makers. Today, African BAs seem to fill a gap of governmental services to businesses, like the information on policy environment and granting of access to policy makers. African BAs are perceived as foundations for future progress in democratizing governance (Lucas, 1997). Therefore foreign aid sponsors promote these as agencies not only of business interests, but also of ‘‘social capital,’’ fostering trusted social relations in the wider civil society. In Latin America BAs have been largely shaped by the state following the independence in the nineteenth century (Schneider, 2004). Either the state helped in founding BAs to gain support for its policies or to channel business preferences, or BAs were founded to oppose specific state policies, but even then they gradually shifted and became dependent on the state for resources and access. Countries like Mexico, Colombia, and Chile have strong encompassing business associations, unlike for instance, Brazil and Argentina. Interest representations in the former advance economic performance, and evidence leans toward a positive influence on democracy, even if there are some negative examples. In China BAs have been seen as instruments of the state to retain control during economic decentralization. Nevertheless these associations seem to have gained some autonomy to voice the interests of its members and open up some space for societal initiative.
Future Directions Research in the field of business and employers’ associations is still underdeveloped in many areas; hence many issues still need to be further investigated to get a more systematic understanding of the many facets of business interest organization. The differences in the functioning and organization of BAs in developing and developed countries seem to be a crucial starting point for comparative research. In regard to civil society there seem
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to be quite different roles that BAs play in both groups. In developing countries, BAs might be important agencies in building market institutions, but also fostering democratic development, while in the OECD world BAs seem to challenge democratic institutions and developed welfare states, pushing towards liberal market reforms. The question of negative or positive impacts on democratic governance is still a matter of debate in need of more empirical research. Processes of internationalization have especially been studied for the European Union; given its unique institutional set up, these efforts cannot be projected on other international activities. The global economic players such as the USA, the EU and Japan, but also nonOECD economies all face the processes of fast economic globalization and slow political internationalization. Whether this will strengthen or weaken business interests at home and worldwide remains an open question.
Cross-References
▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Collective Action ▶ Corporatism ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ Interest Politics ▶ Labor Movements/ Labor Unions ▶ Lobbying ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ OECD
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References/Further Readings Crouch, C. (1993). Industrial Relations and European State Traditions. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Duvanova, D. (2007). Bureaucratic corruption and collective action Business associations in the postcommunist transition. Comparative Politics, 39(4), 441–461. Fung, A. (2003). Associations and democracy: Between theories, hopes, and realities. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, 515–539. Greenwood, J. (Eds.). (2002). The effectiveness of EU business associations. Houndsmills: Palgrave. Hall, P. A., & Soskice, D. (Eds.). (2001). Varieties of capitalism: The institutional foundations of comparative advantage. New York: Oxford University Press. Lucas, J. (1997). The politics of business associations in the developing world. Journal of the Developing Areas, 32(1), 71–96. Maxfield, S., & Schneider, B. R. (Eds.). (1997). Business and the state in developing countries. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Offe, C., & Wiesenthal, H. (1980). Two logics of collective action: Theoretical notes on social class and organisational form. Political Power and Social Theory, 1, 67–115. Sadowski, D., & Jacobi, O. (Eds.). (1991). Employers’ associations in Europe: Policy and organisation. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Schneider, B. R. (2004). Business politics and the state in twentieth-century latin America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Streeck, W., et al. (Eds.). (2006). Governing interests. Business associations facing internationalization. London: Routledge. Streeck, W., & Schmitter, P. C. (Eds.). (1985). Private interest government. Beyond market and state. London: Sage. Traxler, F. (1995). Two logics of collective action in industrial relations? In C. Crouch & F. Traxler (Eds.), Organized industrial relations in Europe: What future? (pp. 23–44). Aldershot: Avebury. Traxler, F., Blaschke, S., & Kittel, B. (2001). National labour relations in internationalized markets: A comparative study of institutions, change, and performance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation RAQUEL CAMPOS FRANCO
inaugurated in 1969 in a park of 7 ha which include the Museum that houses Calouste Gulbenkian’s art collection, a large auditorium with 1,200 places, spaces for temporary exhibitions, a congress area, an Art Library, and a Modern Art Center (opened in 1983). The Instituto Gulbenkian de Cieˆncia, a scientific research institute currently focused on biomedicine, is situated in Oeiras. The Foundation has a delegation in the United Kingdom (UK branch), a cultural centre in Paris (the Calouste Gulbenkian Cultural Centre) and activities in more that 60 countries.
Mission Address of Organization Av. de Berna, 45A 1067-001 Lisboa Portugal www.gulbenkian.pt
Introduction The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is a Portuguese private institution of public benefit whose statutory aims are in the fields of charity, arts, education, and science. It is one of the largest European foundations, with assets of approximately €3 billion.
Brief History The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation was created as a perpetual institution by a clause in the will of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian, and its statutes were approved in 1956. Born in 1869 in Istanbul, Calouste would prove to be a visionary investor, having played a crucial role in the shaping of the early oil industry in the Middle East. Having followed a family practice of patronage of the arts and welfare work, he also managed to create a vast collection of pieces of art comprising 5,000 years of art history. During the Second World War he decided to emigrate to the United States, but the journey included a stop in Lisbon, a city he fell in love with and where he would live the 13 final years of his life. By his will Calouste Gulbenkian created an international foundation that would bear his name. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation started operations immediately in 1956 and its headquarters were
According to its statutes the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation must accomplish four aims – ‘‘charitable, artistic, educational and scientific.’’ With no mission defined, to these purposes is also added that ‘‘the action will be developed, not only in Portugal, but also in any other country that its managers will judge as convenient.’’ Currently, the Foundation operates in Portugal, Europe, Portuguesespeaking countries, worldwide Armenian communities, and internationally.
Activities The Foundation pursues its statutory aims in Portugal and abroad through direct activities and grants supporting projects and programs. It has an orchestra and a choir with performances throughout the year; organizes solo and collective exhibitions of Portuguese and foreign artists; organizes conferences, meetings, and courses; and is actively involved in publishing. The Foundation awards subsidies and scholarships for special studies in Portugal and abroad, and gives support to programs and projects in the fields established in the statutes. It also promotes the Portuguese culture abroad and supports the Armenian Diaspora worldwide in order to preserve its culture and language. The Foundation attempts to be a centre of rationality and excellence for the dissemination of knowledge with new areas of intervention emerging, from the environment to social inclusion.
Structure and Governance The Foundation is managed by a Board of Trustees that can include between three to nine directors. The
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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members’ mandates are for renewable 5-year periods and vacancies are filled by appointments approved by vote of all members. There is no limit in the number of mandates, but the age limit for appointment is currently 70. Any direct descendant of the founder holds a lifelong position as member of the Board. The Foundation published in 2007 its Code of Conduct, with the purpose of establishing the general rules and principles of professional ethics and conduct of its workers, and a specific set of principles for the members of the Board of Trustees.
Funding The funding derives mostly from the investment portfolio, from the stocks held in oil and gas interests and, in the late years, also in renewable energy projects. In 2007 the Foundation’s total assets reached €3,142 million and the total net costs €106 million (annual report, 2007). In the last years, the distribution of costs by the statutory purposes privileged the arts, followed by education, science, and charitable purposes. Considering the activity in Portugal and abroad, the division of costs was, in 2006 and 2007, 82% and 18% respectively.
Major Accomplishments The accomplishments of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation throughout its 50 years history are such as to deserve the following statement: ‘‘It is not even possible to imagine the country without Gulbenkian’’ (Barreto, 2007). From the research and projects that would not otherwise have been developed, to the scholarships given in a time where no other institution in Portugal could have given them, to the books that were and are too expensive for others to produce, the itinerant and fixed libraries that served 50 million readers when such services did not exist, to the debate generated in the conferences with the most knowledgeable persons in the world, to the financing of equipment in hospitals, to projects as the recognition of the qualifications of immigrant doctors, to the programs recently created to face pressing issues in the world in the present, as the Gulbenkian Program for the Environment, and so on, the contribution of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation to the Portuguese society and the world is undeniable. The Foundation is also investing growingly in its participation in international networks, being present in shared projects in several domains (global health, migrations, intercultural dialogue).
Cross-References
▶ European Foundation Centre ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Operating
▶ Gulbenkian, Calouste Sarkis ▶ Philanthropy in Europe
References/Further Readings Barreto, A. (cood.) (2007). Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian – cinquenta anos, 1956.2006 (Vols. I e II). Lisbon: Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian. Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian. (2008). Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian 1956–2006 Factos e Nu´meros. Lisbon: Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian. MacDonald, N., & Tayart de Borms, L. (Eds.) (2008). Philanthropy in Europe – A rich past, a promising future. London: Alliance Publishing Trust. Tosto˜es, A. (2008). Gulbenkian, arquitecture and landscape. Portugal: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Vilar, E. R. (2006). Speech given by the president of the board of trustees. The solemn commemorative session of the fifty years of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Lisbon: Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian.
CARE LILI WANG
Address of Organization International Secretariat Chemin de Balexert 7-9 1219 Chatelaine Geneva Switzerland www.care-international.org/ CARE USA 151 Ellis Street, NE Atlanta, GA 30303 USA www.care.org/
Introduction CARE is one of the world’s largest international humanitarian organizations fighting global poverty. It not only feeds the hungry, but also tackles underlying causes of poverty to help people become self-sufficient. Recognizing that women and children suffer disproportionately from poverty, CARE places special emphasis on working with poor women and empowering them to create permanent social change. CARE also provides emergency aid to survivors of natural disasters and war, and helps people rebuild their lives.
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Brief History CARE was founded in 1945, when 22 American organizations came together to distribute lifesaving food packages to survivors of World War II in Europe. In May 1946, the first 20,000 ‘‘CARE packages’’ reached the port of Le Havre, France. Over the following 2 decades, some 100 million more packages reached people in need, first in Europe and later in Asian and other parts of the developing world. In the 1950s, CARE expanded into emerging nations and used US surplus food to feed the hungry. In the 1960s, CARE started primary heath care programs. In the 1970s, CARE responded to massive famines in Africa with both emergency relief and longterm agroforestry projects. The first CARE package distributed were US Army surplus ‘‘10-in-1’’ food parcels intended to supply ten soldiers with one meal. Later CARE Packages included food for different culture diet and nonfood items, such as tools, blankets, and medicines. Although the CARE Package program had been phased out decades ago, it remained a powerful symbol for the organization. The organization has always been known by the acronym ‘‘CARE,’’ but the meaning behind the letters has evolved with the organization. Originally, CARE stood for ‘‘Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe.’’ Today, CARE stands for ‘‘Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc.’’
Mission CARE has expanded the scope of its mission considerably since it was founded in 1945. Today, CARE’s mission is ‘‘to serve individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world.’’ Drawing strength from its ‘‘global diversity, resources and experience,’’ CARE promotes ‘‘innovative solutions’’ and advocates for global responsibilities. It facilitates lasting social change by ‘‘strengthening capacity for self-help, providing economic opportunity, delivering relief in emergencies, influencing policy decisions at all levels, and addressing discrimination in all its forms.’’
Activities CARE tackles underlying causes of poverty so that people can become self-sufficient. Its programmatic strategy for the 5 years beginning fiscal year 2002 was to focus on three key factors affecting poor communities: education, HIV/AIDS, and emergency relief and preparedness. By helping children gain the knowledge and skills to succeed, CARE lays foundations for healthier, more productive families, communities, and society. By providing information and tools of protection to people in poverty, CARE helps promote grassroots efforts to mitigate the effects of HIV/AIDS in poor
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communities. Women are at the center of CARE’s community-based effort to improve basic education, prevent the spread of HIV, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources.
Structure and Governance CARE International (CI) is a global confederation of 12 national member organizations in Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Germany, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Thailand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Each member is registered as a nonprofit charitable organization according to the laws of its own country and is an autonomous organization in its own right that carries out a range of project-related, advocacy, fundraising, and communications activities in support of CARE’s relief and development programs worldwide. The CARE Country Director leads the projects and programs in the country it operates. The CI Secretariat is an international foundation, registered under Swiss law. CI’s governance rests with the General Assembly (GS) and its executive board. The GS consists of two representatives from each of the 12 national members. It meets once a year and appoints the Chairperson, the two viceChairpersons and the Treasure. The CI Board of Directors consists of one representative of each national member and the Chairperson of CI. The different parts of CARE coordinate regularly through a series of staff working groups, whose primary role is to inform the Secretary General on the progress of the CARE Strategic Plan.
Funding CARE obtains funding and commodities from the United States governmental agencies, the European Union and the United Nations. In addition, CARE receives donations and grants from hundreds of thousands of individuals and dozens of US corporations, foundations, and other organizations. More than 90% of its expenditure goes to poverty-fighting projects worldwide and less than 10% goes towards administrative and fundraising costs. Among the national member organizations, CARE USA’s income and expenditure represents the largest share of CI. In fiscal year 2007, CARE USA received more than $591 million contributions, 57% of which comes from government contribution, and its program expenses exceeded $545 million.
Accomplishments CARE implemented more than 1,000 projects in over 70 countries and improved the lives of more than 65 million people in 2007. In 2001, CARE operated agriculture and natural resources projects in 42 countries and worked
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with more than 2.6 million farmers to increase their crop and livestock yields through activities such as planting new seed varieties, animal husbandry, home gardening and irrigation. In the same year, CARE’s emergency projects directly assisted more than 7 million people in 26 countries. Currently, CARE has 131 small economic activity development projects in 39 countries assisting about 800,000 people, 90% of them women.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN
References/Further Readings Lindenberg, M., & Bryant, C. (2001). Going global: Transforming relief and development NGOs. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Quelch, J. A., & Laidler-Kylander, N. (2006). Communicating brand meaning: CARE USA. In J. A. Quelch & N. Laidler-Kylander, The new global brands: Managing non-government organizations in the 21st century. Mason, WI: South-West.
Caritas Internationalis PAURIC O’ROURKE
Address of Organization Palazzo San Calisto 00120 Vatican City Rome Italy www.caritas.org
Introduction Within the spectrum of civil society organizations Caritas stands out as being unique and distinctive in its origin and history as well as in the breadth of its goals and activities. The name stems from the Latin word for charity or virtue, it represents 162 Catholic organizations in the field of international relief aid and social and human development and remains a pioneer in the promotion of humanitarian and equalitarian causes.
History Caritas was founded by a German priest Lorenz Werthmann in Freiburg, in 1897 and quickly spread to other countries
with establishment in Switzerland in 1901 and the United States in 1910. Central to its global spread was Giovanni Battista Montini, the future Pope Paul VI. Elevating it to international status in 1954, Montini enabled Caritas to form an international platform and it became officially known as Caritas Internationalis in 1957. Today it has national member organizations from 137 countries divided into seven regions: Europe, Africa, Middle East and North Africa, Asia, North America, Latin America and Oceania and so has achieved a highly visible global presence.
Mission Its prime mission is to tackle all sources of world poverty, social inequality and exclusion and to make the world a better place. Since its foundation, Caritas has provided developmental support, relief and social services for the poor in over 200 countries worldwide. Caritas interprets its mission broadly and has always sought to remain current and relevant and is now vocal on the issue of climate change, especially its impact on the developing world. Since 1987, it has also worked tirelessly to impede the spread of HIV through its efforts in some 107 countries. It has become a truly global movement, working towards international solidarity, equality and social and economic justice. It highlights the plight of the world’s neediest people and uniquely acts within the ethos of the Christian faith and Catholic social teaching.
Activities Caritas addresses a wide diversity of activities by acting as an umbrella agency for over 160 Catholic groups who share similar humanitarian goals. It effectively co-coordinates their resources and optimizes their efforts for maximum effect on the ground. As an international and well recognized nonprofit organization, Caritas plays numerous roles within the voluntary sector focusing on three main areas: emergencies, sustainable development and peace and reconciliation building. This includes campaigning for global human and economic rights, promotion of universal access to education, care for the elderly and more recently, protection of the environment and HIV prevention. It is also among the first to respond to natural disasters and humanitarian crises throughout the world and has become synonymous with such timely and first on the scene response. Caritas volunteers work at the grassroots level in order to promote peace and reconciliation and address local social and cultural issues such as sexual inequality and discrimination.
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Structure and Governance The organizational structure and governance of Caritas has strong ecclesiastical overtones and Vatican connections, being granted canonical legal status by the Pope in 2004. Headed by a Secretary General, currently, Lesley-Anne Knight, it is supported by an Executive Committee, Bureau and Secretariat. Every 4 years its holds a General Assembly in the Vatican City attended by representatives from each of its 162 members and its seven geographical regions at which its elects the Executive Committee, the President, the Secretary General, the Treasurer and seven Regional Presidents. All of the latter plus observers forms the Bureau which serves as an oversight committee on governance while the Executive Committee manage the agency’s operational activities. It agreed a new 5-year strategic plain in 2005 and has a global operational plan covering 2007–2011.
Funding The finances of Caritas are managed by a Finance Director and overseen by a Finance Commission which is chaired by the elected Treasurer. According to Caritas’s 2003–2007 Activities Report, annual statutory fees from the 162 members account for 65% of Caritas’s budget with the remaining 35% coming from external funding such a voluntary contributions from existing members and others. Administrative costs account for 28% of the annual budget. In 2007, Caritas organizations had a combined turnover of over US$5.5 billion and a workforce of 40,000 paid staff and 125,000 volunteers.
Major Accomplishments In 2007, Caritas responded to 40 humanitarian crises across the globe. Twenty-four million people a year in 200 different countries and territories benefit from the work of Caritas. Caritas is a major contributor and supporter of the Millennium Development Goals in bringing an end to Third World poverty.
Cross-References
▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Social Justice
References/Further Readings Caritas Annual Report and other Caritas Publications, from http://www. caritas.org/resources/publications/index.html. Jedin, H., Adria´nyi, G., Dolan, J., & Repgen, K. (1981). History of the church (Vol. 10, Chap. 14). London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Murphy, C. M. (2007, June). Charity, not justice, as constitutive of the church’s mission. Theological Studies, 68(2), 274–286. Schmidhalt, M. (2005). The history of Caritas Internationalis. Rome: Caritas.
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Carnegie, Andrew BETH BREEZE
C Basic Biographical Information Born in 1835 in Dunfermline, Scotland, Andrew Carnegie rose from inauspicious origins, as the son of a poor weaver, to become an industrial tycoon, the richest man in the world, and arguably the most famous philanthropist of all time. At the age of 13, Carnegie’s destitute family immigrated to the United States to join relatives settled in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Although he began work as a humble bobbin boy, Carnegie educated himself at Colonel Anderson’s free library, and soon impressed his employers and gained patrons. He rose quickly within the telegraph industry, then on the railroads before making his fortune in iron and steel production and through associated investments. He realized his fortune in 1901 by selling his businesses for $480 million to his main rival John Pierpoint Morgan. Although his philanthropy began in 1873 with a gift of $25,000 to build public baths in his native home town, Carnegie became a full-time philanthropist after retirement, aiming (albeit unsuccessfully) to give away all his wealth before his death, which occurred at Lenox, Massachusetts in 1919, an aim consistent with his oft-quoted philosophy that ‘‘he who dies rich, dies disgraced.’’
Major Contributions Carnegie is known as a founding father of modern philanthropy whose writing and actions continue to influence contemporary philanthropists, including Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Sir Tom Hunter. Whilst still immersed in wealth creation, he argued that the rich have a duty to give away their surplus through properly administered philanthropy. These views were set out in two articles published in the North American Review in 1889: ‘‘The Best Fields for Philanthropy’’ and ‘‘Wealth,’’ later republished as ‘‘The Gospel of Wealth.’’ Carnegie proposed seven causes, ranked in order of merit, as suitable recipients of philanthropic funding: universities, free libraries, health care and research, public parks, music halls, public baths, and churches. In keeping with these published opinions, Carnegie gave away almost all his wealth, largely to those seven causes. In line with another expressed view, that naming rights are an appropriate tribute to donors, his ubiquitous presence lives on in libraries, museums, music halls, universities, and other facilities across the United States, the United Kingdom
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and many other countries. The most widely recognized aspect of his legacy, the 2,509 Carnegie libraries built across the English-speaking world, derive from the recognition of his own lack of formal education and appreciation of free access to books during his formative years. Carnegie’s institutional legacy lives on in a variety of organizations that he founded, including The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs.
Cross-References
▶ Buffett, Warren Edward ▶ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Foundations, Grant-making ▶ Gates, William H.
References/Further Readings Carnegie, A. (1920). Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Krass, P. (2002). Carnegie. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Nasaw, D. (2007). Andrew Carnegie. New York: Penguin.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Brief History On November 25, 1910, Andrew Carnegie, an US industrialist and philanthropist of Scottish origin, founded the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace. The internationalist Carnegie was convinced, that peace could be reached through the strengthening of international law and organizations. Influenced by the philosopher and later Nobel Prize laureate Nicholas Murray Butler, he wanted to make a contribution to international peace by funding the endowment. During its almost 100 years of existence, the Endowment was an inherent part of the US foreign policy establishment.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas CEIP’s focus is the broader area of international relations, with an emphasis on conflict research and prevention. Since the launch of the Moscow center in 1993, ‘‘Carnegie aims to transform itself from a think tank on international issues to the first truly multinational – ultimately global – think tank.’’
Activities The Endowment currently runs programs focusing on the following topics and geographic areas: China, Russia, and Eurasia; Democracy and Rule of Law; South Asia; Energy and Climate; Trade, Equity, and Development; Middle East; Non Proliferation; as well as the US Role in the World. These programs include research, various publications and conferences. The Endowment also publishes the bimonthly ‘‘Foreign Policy,’’ one of the leading publications concerned with International Relations issues.
JAN KU¨NZL
Structure and Governance Address of Organization 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW Washington, DC 20036-2103 USA www.carnegieendowment.org
Introduction The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), one of the oldest foreign policy think tanks of the USA, describes itself as: ‘‘a private, nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States.’’ Besides its headquarters in Washington DC, the Endowment has offices in Moscow, Beijing, Beirut, and Brussels.
The Endowment is subdivided in four regional offices, which are relatively independent from the headquarters in Washington DC. The Staff of the regional offices is mainly recruited in the region. The current president of CEIP is Jessica T. Mathews.
Funding CEIP draws financial support of various public and private donors, like Shell International, The Open Society Institute and various Ministries.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions CEIP was a pioneer among foreign policy think tanks and has served as a role model for other such organizations. In the late 1990s, the Endowment established itself as one of
Catholic Charities USA
the world’s leading research institutions on globalization through the creation of the interdisciplinary Global Policy Program. With the expansion of its activities on an international level CEIP is again at the cutting edge of the evolution of foreign policy think tanks.
Cross-References ▶ Carnegie, Andrew ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Abelson, D. E. (2006). A capitol idea: think tanks and US foreign policy. Montreal, QC: McGill-Queens University Press. Parmar, I. (2000). Engineering consent: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the mobilization of American public opinion 1939–1945. Review of International Studies, 26, 35–48.
Catholic Charities USA CHRIS GOVEKAR
Address of Organization 66 Canal Center Place Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 USA www.catholiccharitiesusa.org
Introduction Catholic Charities USA is a network of local and national relief groups united around a common mission.
Brief History Catholic Charities was founded in 1910 on the campus of Catholic University in Washington DC as the National Conference of Catholic Charities. It was designed to promote and encourage the creation of individual diocesan Catholic Charities offices to encourage professional social work practice. Today, it serves as the national voice for the Catholic Charities network and the people it helps.
Mission Catholic Charities exists as a network of affiliated charitable organizations in order to accomplish the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ mission of relieving suffering and encouraging advocacy on behalf of the nation’s
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poorest people. In addition, the national organization exists to assist member organizations in their mission of service and advocacy at the local level.
Activities As a national organization, Catholic Charities USA assists its member and affiliate organizations with fundraising, program organization and volunteer training in order to increase their efficacy in carrying out their individual missions. In addition, it pursues programs designed to educate individuals on key social justice issues as well as lobbying legislators on issues of importance to its membership and the mission of the Catholic Church as a whole. The national organization also acts as the primary coordinating agency for the Roman Catholic Church’s response to natural or man made disasters and assists in directing the efforts of local Catholic charitable organizations in response to those disasters. Training programs are offered for its member and affiliate organizations so that they are better able to use their limited resources to relieve suffering.
Structure and Governance While the individual member organizations are responsible to their local parish and diocesan councils, they do not report to the national organization in any formal manner. The national organization reports to the US Conference of Catholic Bishops through a board of directors appointed by the USCCB.
Funding Catholic Charities’ work is financed both by the church as a whole and by individual donations to either member organizations or through mass appeals to congregants. In addition, the individual organizations also accept corporate donations from groups in accord with their mission and objectives. The organization reports that approximately 89% of all donations goes directly to charitable work, with the remaining 11% is reserved for administration costs and legislative activities.
Major Accomplishments In 2007, Catholic Charities: 1. Provided assistance to more than 7.5 million individuals 2. Provided food service to more than 6.5 million people 3. Provided family assistance to more than 1.1 million people 4. Worked with nearly 3.5 million individuals in programs to build communities
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Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Social Justice ▶ Umbrella Organizations
Catholic Relief Services CHRIS GOVEKAR
Address of Organization 228 West Lexington Street Baltimore, MD 21201-3413 USA www.crs.org
Introduction Catholic Relief Services is the official international humanitarian agency of the US Catholic community. It exists to alleviate suffering and provide assistance to people in need without regard to race, religion, or nationality.
Brief History In 1943, during World War II, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) first began its work focused on the resettlement of war refugees in Europe. The Roman Catholic Bishops of the United States established CRS to help war-torn Europe and its refugees recover from this great conflict. Even today, more than 60 years later, its mission continues to focus on the poor overseas, using the gospel of Jesus Christ as its mandate. CRS seeks to help those most in need, providing assistance on the basis of need, without regard to race, creed, or nationality. In the 1950s, CRS reacted to the increasing stability in Europe by looking to other parts of the world for people who could benefit from the support of US Catholics. This led to the opening of CRS offices in Africa, Asia and Latin America. During this time, the organization also began to work on finding ways for people in the developing world to break the cycle of poverty through ‘‘community-based, sustainable development initiatives.’’ Their work continues throughout more than 100 countries today with more than 5,000 full-time employees and relief workers.
Mission Catholic Relief Services assists the Bishops of the United States in fulfilling their commitment to assist the poor and vulnerable overseas through programs that:
1. Promote human development by responding to major emergencies, fighting disease and poverty, and nurturing peaceful and just societies and 2. Serve Catholics in the United States as they live their faith in solidarity with their brothers and sisters around the world
Activities All programming for the agency is evaluated using an established set of criteria called the ‘‘Justice Lens’’ to ensure it is compatible with Catholic Social Justice Teaching. This focus on social justice came about as a result of the organization’s reflection following the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and remains the standard today. Overseas work is done in partnership with local church agencies, other faith-based partners, nongovernmental organizations and local governments. CRS emphasizes the empowerment of partners and beneficiaries in programming decisions. The agency has also made engaging the US Catholic population a priority. CRS is seeking to help Catholics more actively live their faith and build global solidarity. One example of this commitment is ‘‘Operation Rice Bowl,’’ in which more than 12 million individual Catholics participate during the season of lent. The program emphasizes prayer, fasting, learning, and giving, with activities designed to encourage prayer for and learning about the developing world. The rice bowl itself is used to collect funds for those in need. Of those funds, 75% goes to projects in the developing world, while the remaining 25% supports local programs aimed at ending poverty and hunger.
Structure and Governance CRS reports directly to the board of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The board, made up of 22 individuals (13 bishops, 1 monsignor, and 8 lay persons), is appointed by the USCCB and monitors the activities of the executive leadership team.
Funding CRS’ work is funded both by donations from Catholic churches throughout the United States as well as from individual and corporate donations. Ninety-four cents of every dollar donated goes directly to programs and services, according to the organization.
Major Accomplishments In 2007, CRS earned a Gold Award from the Independent Film and Video Competition for the ‘‘Water for Life’’
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documentary video, which explores why more than one billion people do not have adequate access to clean water. Other awards include the Pakistan Star of Sacrifice, awarded by the government of Pakistan for efforts following the 2005 earthquake and the 2005 Caritas ‘‘Flame of Hope’’ award, given in recognition of CRS’ work to bring ‘‘the very core of Christianity’’ to those suffering around the world.
Cross-References
▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ Social Justice
References/Further Readings Egan, E. (1988). Catholic Relief Services: The beginning years. New York: Catholic Relief Services. Egan, E. (1995). For whom there is no room: Scenes from the refugee world. New York: Paulist Press. USAID. (1994). Initial environmental examination for the Catholic Relief Service Food Transition Strategy Project in the Philippines. Washington, DC: USAID.
CDRA ▶ Community Development Resource Association (CDRA)
CEDAG ANAEL LABIGNE
Address of Organization Square Ambiorix 32, bte 47 B-1000 Bruxelles Belgium www.cedag-eu.org
Introduction CEDAG is a Brussels-based network-structuring organization that speaks for national and regional umbrella bodies. In doing so, CEDAG provides the voice for
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the nonprofit sector at European level, especially when it comes to issues that all nonprofit organizations and associations have in common.
Brief History Formally incorporated in 1996, the network was formed in 1989 in order to provide a voice for the nonprofit sector at European level. CEDAG is one of the founding members of Social Economy Europe (SEE), the European standing conference for cooperatives, mutual societies, associations, and foundations (www.socialeconomy.eu. org), and a member of the Social Platform (www.socialplatform.org).
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas According to its charter, CEDAG should strengthen the representation and defend the interests of associations that manage economic activities without profit and for the social welfare, and provide services to its members and users in order to create a better social and cultural environment. CEDAG’s aims are to create a strong European platform to represent the association’s views before the European Union; to bring together the most important national platforms working for the general interest in the countries of the European Union; to use the intersectoral competences of those platforms to elaborate joint statements; to build a pool of resources for the representative national platforms; to underline the good practice in relation to the civil dialogue; and to promote a European Charter as a framework for the relations between nongovernmental organizations and European institutions.
Activities CEDAG pursues these aims by sponsoring research, workshops and conferences on topics of interest to its membership, including, among others, fostering civil dialogue in Europe and valuing the economic value of nonprofit activities. It lobbies for the adoption of a European legal framework for nonprofit organizations that will facilitate transnational cooperation between associations. Furthermore, CEDAG has contributed to the enlargement process by developing links between associations from candidate countries to the European Union, and by encouraging the exchange of information and good practice. Through its newsletters, website, and publications, CEDAG keeps members informed about issues of interest at EU level and the current EU policy developments.
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Structure and Governance CEDAG’s members are regional and national umbrella bodies for the nonprofit sector. In 2009 its membership included 33 national umbrellas in 20 countries of the EU, which together represent over 50,000 nonprofit organizations with over nine million individual members. Members include the French UNIOPSS (Union Nationale Interfe´de´rale des Organismes Prive´s Sanitaires et Sociaux) and the British NCVO (National Council for Voluntary Organizations). CEDAG has an office in Brussels and is governed by an international board consisting of a President, two Vice Presidents, a treasurer and several board members from all over Europe.
Funding CEDAG’s income consists of annual dues paid by members, income from CEDAG’s own activities, grants and contracts, including from the EU and government agencies, and income from invested capital.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions
Center for American Progress CHRISTOPHER S. BIGGERS
Address of Organization 1333 H Street NW 10th Floor Washington, DC 20005 USA www.americanprogress.org
Introduction The CAP is a think tank which seeks to promote the US progressive movement in the national discourse by challenging conservative political philosophy. With members whose subject matter expertise spans across disciplines, the CAP has published books and policy papers on diverse subjects such as biofuels and poverty to trade policy and war.
Brief History
By respecting the specific aptitudes of the different European networks in the social context, CEDAG works for more coordination and compliance between those. As the challenges are so big, all associations need to speak with one voice and that is where CEDAG is coming in. As a network of associations active at European level, CEDAG has consistently called for a dialogue with civil society organizations within the EU decision-making process – at the earliest possible stage of the process – and tried to influence the European legislation by doing so.
CAP is a recent addition to the Washington scene whose arrival in 2003 has been viewed as a counterweight to more conservative think tanks like the CATO institute and the Heritage Foundation. The political climate of 2002 created the impetus for the Center’s development as the Republican Party had a President at the helm and total control of both houses in the US congress. This was the first time since 1953 that the Republicans had monopolized both houses which led John Podesta, former Whitehouse Chief of Staff to Bill Clinton and Georgetown Law Professor, to found the CAP.
Cross-References
Mission
▶ Civil Society and the European Union ▶ National Council of Voluntary Organisations ▶ Umbrella Organizations ▶ UNIOPSS
References/Further Readings Weisbein, J. (2002). Le lobbying associatif a` Bruxelles: entre mobilisations unitaires et sectorielles. Revue Internationale de Politique Compare´e, 9(1), 79–98.
CEMEFI ▶ Centro Mexicano para la Filantropia, AC (CEMEFI)
CAP’s mission and objectives revolves around developing a vision for a progressive America by providing a forum to generate new ideas and policy proposals in order to respond effectively to conservative policy with clear alternatives. As a result, CAP has united with other think tanks to advocate for the progressive agenda inviting larger groups of Americans to participate in order to address issues requiring collective action. For the 44th presidency of the United States, CAP advocates five policy priorities: inclusive economic growth, universal healthcare, restructuring the US educational system, improving US leadership, and the development of a sustainable environment.
Activities CAP maintains several active projects promoting the progressive agenda in which citizens are invited to participate
Center for Women’s Global Leadership
in developing new ideas in further support of the progressive movement. Some of these projects include the thinkprogress.org blog, highlighting the pitfalls of conservative philosophy in the media, Campus Progress, seeking to open opportunities for young people to advocate issues of importance, as well as Reel Progress, a yearly film series connecting the arts with campaigns for social change. Additionally, CAP sustains a large group of research fellows who periodically publish policy ideas and analysis in order to influence the public debate.
Structure and Governance The governing structure of CAP includes a seven member executive committee headed by John Podesta as President and Chief Executive Officer. There are 15 subsidiary departments that deal with inner workings of the organization including four that only deal with policy specific areas of research. When questioned on the decision making process and the overall governance of the organization, CAP declined to answer.
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Center for Women’s Global Leadership PATSY KRAEGER
C Address of Organization Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey 160 Ryders Lane New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8555 USA www.cwgl.rutgers.edu/globalcenter
Introduction The Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) describes itself as an organization which develops women leaders who advocates for women’s rights and social justice. CWGL engages in policy making and social justice activism throughout the globe. CWGL is not an NGO rather it is a program of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
Funding The CAP is supported through financial contributions from the private sector and through the resources of its members. With an initial budget of $10 million in 2003, the CAP has more than doubled its contributions to $24 million in 5 short years. The more notable philanthropic contributors include, but are not limited to, those such as Herb and Marion Sandler, George Soros, Peter B. Lewis, and Hillary R. Clinton. The CAP receives no direct government funding.
Accomplishments
Brief History The Center for Women’s Global Leadership was founded as a project of Douglass College in 1989 and is a unit of the Institute for Women’s Leadership (IWL) – a consortium of seven women’s programs at Rutgers University created to study and promote how and why women lead, and to develop programs that prepare women of all ages to lead effectively.
Within less than one year of opening, the experts from CAP had already made more than 300 television appearances making them a formidable opponent in the think tank arena. CAP has been successful in campaigning for the Obama presidency by providing talking points as well as strong critiques of his opponents.
Mission
Cross-References
CWGL’s programs promote the leadership of women and advance feminist perspectives in policy-making processes in local, national, and international arenas. Since 1990, CWGL has fostered women’s leadership in the area of human rights through women’s global leadership institutes, strategic planning activities, international mobilization campaigns, UN monitoring, global education endeavors, publications, and a resource center. CWGL works from a human rights perspective with an emphasis on violence against women, sexual, and reproductive health and socioeconomic well-being. CWGL’s programs are in two broad areas of policy & advocacy and leadership development & women’s
▶ Advocacy ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the US ▶ Heritage Foundation ▶ Political Organizations ▶ Soros, George ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Gizzi, J. (2007). Center for American progress: Think-tank on steroids. Organizational Ttrends. Washington DC: Capital Research Center. http://www.capitalresearch.org/pubs/pdf/v1185996377.pdf
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The Center for Women’s Global Leadership mission is to ‘‘develop and facilitate women’s leadership for women’s human rights and social justice worldwide.’’
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human rights education. CWGL’s signature program is ‘‘The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence’’ is an international campaign originating from the first Women’s Global Leadership Institute sponsored by the Center for Women’s Global Leadership in 1991.
Structure and Governance CWGL’s Founder and Executive Director, Charlotte Bunch is a Rutgers University tenured faculty member in the Department of Women and Gender studies. CWGL has a full-time staff of six members, three consultants, and three student staff members. The administrative/reporting relationship within Rutgers is to the Area Dean for International Programs and ultimately to the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.
Funding CWGL’s work is financed primarily through donations from Rutgers University, foundations such as the Asia Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the MS Foundation and others as well as individuals. CWGL does receive government contributions for its work including The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Government of the Netherlands and CIDA (Canadian International Development Agency).
Major Accomplishments In 2008, CWGL sponsored events on violence against women, UN gender architecture, and women human rights defenders and participated in sessions on sexual rights, multigenerational leadership, violence, and conflict, among others in Cape Town, South Africa. Also in 2008, CWGL sponsored an International AIDS conference in Mexico City attended by 25,000 people.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Human Rights ▶ Social Justice
References/Further Readings Clark, A. M., Friedman, E. J., & Hochstetler, K. (1998). The sovereign limits of global civil society: A comparison of NGO participation in UN World Conferences on the Environment, Human Rights, and Women. World Politics, 51(1), 1–35. Dekoven, M. (2001). Feminist locations: Global and local, theory and practice. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Prygl, M., & Meyer, E. (Eds.) (1999). Gender politics in global governance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Centre Franc¸ais des Fondations ODILE BOUR
Address of Organization 40 avenue Hoche F-75008 Paris France www.centre-francais-fondations.org
Introduction The Centre Franc¸ais des Fondations (CFF – French Center for Foundations) is the umbrella organization of French foundations and acts as a platform for the exchange of experience and knowledge about foundations, advice on the creation and development of foundations, and representation to public bodies.
Brief History CFF was founded in 2002 under the legal form of an association (Law of 1901) on the initiative of seven French foundations: Fondation de France, Fondation Caisse d0 Epargne pour la Solidarite´, Fondation Hippocre`ne, Fondation Institut Pasteur, Fondation des Orphelins d0 Auteuil, Fondation Macif and Fondation pour la Recherche Me´dicale.
Mission With the primary goal to promote foundations and their development in France, the CFF represents French foundations’ interests vis-a`-vis public authorities and national, European, and international institutions and to enhance their international representation by improving the knowledge of their status and action, and by supporting their developing projects. It also provides information and services on foundations, advises individuals and corporations intending to create a foundation and engages in advocacy on matters relating to taxation and financial concerns.
Activities To pursue its mission, the CFF organizes workshops, seminars, and conferences on current issues relevant to foundations, facilitating connections among foundations, sharing, and exchange of ideas; assisting foundations in becoming more effective and innovative in their activities; cooperates with other European foundations and other associations of foundations. It also serves as an information pool in providing database, research results, studies, and directories on foundations.
Centro Mexicano para la Filantropia, AC (CEMEFI)
Structure and Governance As of February 2009, CCF is composed of 151 foundation members. Its board of directors counts 12 members, all trustees of French foundations active in different fields. It is a member of the European Foundation Center.
Funding CFF’s work is financed primarily through the membership fees of its members which contribute proportionally according to their annual operating expenditures.
Cross-References
▶ European Foundation Center ▶ Fondation de France ▶ Lobbying ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings Broca, B. (2009). La Fondation de France 1994–2008. Une aventure tre`s humaine. Paris: Perrin.
Centro Mexicano para la Filantropia, AC (CEMEFI) MARTIN HO¨LZ, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization Cda. de Salvador Alvarado 7 Col. Escando´n Del. Miguel Hidalgo 11800, Mexico City Mexico www.cemefi.org
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said to be ‘‘a visionary philanthropist’’ (Winder, 2007: 39). It emerged following the disastrous earthquake in Mexico City in 1985 and in the midst of a number of private initiatives that emerged to rebuild where the government failed to. Since then, CEMEFI has played a decisive role in highlighting the importance of civil society activities within Mexico.
Mission/Objectives Based on its 2007 strategic planning process, CEMEFI’s mission is to promote the philanthropic, committed, and socially responsible participation of citizens and their organizations in order to achieve a more equitable, solidaristic, and prosperous society. These aims are to be realized by way of a flourishing philanthropic sector and sustained corporate social responsibility.
Activities CEMEFI’s diverse activities go beyond that of a typical member-serving association. One of its focal points is promoting corporate social responsibility (CSR). In addition to organizing workshops and publishing guides relating to CSR, CEMEFI together with AliaRSE awards the Distintivo ESR (Socially Responsible Enterprise Distinction) every year to companies that meet the majority of 120 indicators relating to ethics, working conditions, community relations, and environmental impact. Through its ‘‘Hacesfalta’’ (‘‘you are missed’’) program, CEMEFI provides information and guides on volunteer management and an Internet-based platform for recruiting volunteers. CEMEFI also offers support for a number of affinity groups, including an expanding group of community foundations. In its support for the civil society sector more broadly, CEMEFI organizes an annual congress on third sector research in Mexico.
Structure/Governance
The Centro Mexicano para la Filantropı´a (CEMEFI) is a private, nonprofit membership association based in Mexico City that seeks to promote a culture of philanthropy and social responsibility in Mexico.
CEMEFI is governed by several bodies, including the general assembly of members, the board of directors, led by Jacqueline Butcher de Rivas, and the executive committee, led by Jorge Villalobos Grzybowicz as executive president. As of December 2008, CEMEFI’s membership included 210 active members (associations, foundations, companies, and individuals) and 480 affiliated institutions and individuals.
Brief History
Funding
CEMEFI was founded in December 1988 by Manuel Arango, previously part owner of a large general retailing business and now chair of a real estate company, who is
In 2007, CEMEFI’s expenditures amounted to approximately 30 million pesos. The majority of its expenditures are covered by donations as well as member dues. In fact,
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CEMEFI claims to be the only organization in Latin America with its financial sustainability ensured mainly by member contributions, which represent more than 50% of its income.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Over its 20 years of existence, CEMEFI has developed and adapted approaches that have been critical to promoting philanthropy, corporate social responsibility, and volunteerism in Mexico. As a key actor, it has helped to clarify and deepen understanding of these areas of civil society development. In addition, CEMEFI has played a ‘‘critical role in convening dialogues around an enabling legal and tax environment for nonprofit organizations including foundations’’ (Winder, 2007: 39).
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Philanthropy in Latin America
References/Further Readings Arango, M. (2002). Philanthropy in Mexico. ReVista Harvard review of Latin America, Spring 2002 (Ed. Giving and volunteering in the Americas: From charity to solidarity), from http://www.drclas. harvard.edu/revista/articles/view/12. CEMEFI. (2008). Informe Anual 2007. Mexico City: CEMEFI. Winder, D. (2007). Mexico. In H. K. Anheier, A. Simmons, & D. Winder (Eds.), Innovation in strategic philanthropy. Local and global perspectives (pp. 37–55). New York: Springer.
NCVO) to encourage effective giving to the charitable sector in the United Kingdom. CAF’s key role is to support the sustainability of the nonprofit and voluntary sector by encouraging social investment and philanthropic donations. CAF provides financial services to the charitable sector such as low-cost banking and investment management, as well as it assists corporate and individual donors in tax-effective giving. Likewise, CAF runs a company advisory service that helps businesses in designing and implementing programs of strategic grantmaking.
Brief History CAF origins trace back to a Charities Department set up by the NCVO aimed at increasing donations and stimulating new donors in the United Kingdom. Due to its success, indicated by the fact that it started to administer Deeds of Covenant (the first way available to charities to receive untaxed donations), the Charities Department became independent from the NCVO. CAF, as an autonomous organization, was formally constituted by a Declaration of Trust dated on October 2, 1974. The Charities Aid Foundation has specialized in creating financial and fundraising strategies suitable for the not-for profit sector and lobbying for a legal and fiscal regulation that may encourage philanthropic giving. Currently, CAF operates through an international network of offices in the following countries to strengthen social investment worldwide: Australia, Brazil (in partnership with the Institute for the Development of Social Investment, IDIS), Bulgaria, India, Russia, Southern Africa and the United States.
Mission
Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) CARLOS CORDOURIER REAL
Address of Organization 25 Kings Hill Avenue Kings Hill West Malling Kent ME19 4TA UK www.cafonline.org
Introduction The Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) is a British registered charity founded by the National Council of Social Service (afterwards National Council for Voluntary Organizations,
CAF’s mission is to be ‘‘[a]n integrated customer-focused organisation for donors and charities that stimulates giving, social investment and the effective use of funds.’’ In order to carry out its stated mission, CAF works with individuals, companies, and nonprofit organizations, through the provision of financial services and counseling to increase the impact of charitable giving and social investment.
Activities For individual donors, CAF provides information about the charitable sector and offers schemes of tax-effective donations; for corporate donors, CAF advises to implement successful community investment programs; and for charities, CAF offers low-costing banking as well as investment and fundraising strategies. CAF also develops research and up-to-date analysis on the characteristics of charitable giving. The survey UK Giving carried out
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annually jointly with the NCVO is an important source of information about the trends of donations amongst the British public. Moreover, CAF has fostered international surveys to identify the features of charitable donations in the fast growing developing economies of BRIC (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, and China).
KERRY O’HALLORAN Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Structure and Governance
Introduction
CAF is governed by the Declaration of Trust that constituted it as a registered charity in 1974. Its Board of Trustees, which directs the Executive Management Group, includes the Chairman of the NCVO, two trustees elected by the Executive committee of the NCVO, and at least six other members appointed by the existing trustees. The structure of governance also comprises the following bodies: Advisory Council; Audit, Risk, and Compliance Committee, Investment Advisory Committee; and the Nominations and Remuneration Committee.
Funding CAF finances its activities through the provision of a wide range of services. According to its Annual Report for the fiscal year ended 30 April 2008, the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) administered a total of £2.5 billion of funds of charities and donors. CAF’s income for that year amounted £409 million, whilst expenditure was £316 (mainly donations to charities).
Major Contributions The Charities Aid Foundation has contributed to the sustainability of the charitable sector through the development of specialized services and relevant know-how on effective financial strategies for the social sector. CAF has also played an important role in promoting a legal environment that promotes philanthropic giving of both individual and corporate donors.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Fundraising ▶ National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) ▶ Planned Giving
Charity and Religion
Religion and charity have been inextricably entangled throughout their long history. The foundations of the three main religions – Christianity, Islam, and Judaism – are each bedded down on doctrines that require their members to do good for others mainly by caring for the ill or destitute and giving to those otherwise in need. The earliest manifestations of civil society grew from that context in the form of associations or guilds (confraternities in the Catholic Church) dedicated to the pursuit of religious aims through various forms of community activity. Perhaps the earliest threats to civil society, as manifested in the Crusades, were similarly generated. Arguably, religion and charity continue to simultaneously sustain and erode the basis for civil society. ‘‘Charity,’’ as it is known to those nations belonging to the common-law tradition, is defined by law rather than religion. In that respect, it is quite different from its counterpart zakat and sadaqa in Islamic culture and from tzedakah in Judaism. It differs also from its equivalent in other Christian but civil law jurisdictions, where the law has accreted in codified form rather than been shaped by principles formulated in the Court of Equity as has occurred in the common-law nations. Charity, in a common-law context, has its origin in the ‘‘pious use’’ employed to facilitate gifts made by landowners to religious bodies in return for masses being said for the salvation of their souls. In the developing nations, charity and religion, particularly in an Islamic context, continue to be very much bound together and in theocratic Muslim states that symbiotic relationship has a prominent political salience. Indeed, the growing difference in perception between Islam and Christianity, regarding the role to be played by religion/charity on a domestic and international basis, is not without global political implications. Consideration of such matters, however, lies outside the scope of this entry.
References/Further Readings Clegg, S. (2008). UK giving 2008: An overview of charitable giving in the UK in 2007/08. London: Charities Aid Foundation/NCVO. Russell, L., & Scott, D. (2007). Social enterprise in practice: Developmental stories from the voluntary and community sectors. London: Charities Aid Foundation.
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Definition ‘‘Charity,’’ as a legal concept, is confined to and defined by the common law. It is usually considered to date from the Statute of Charitable Uses 1601 in England & Wales,
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which laid the legislative foundations for the development of modern charity law. The preamble to that statute defined charity in terms of the following charitable purposes: "
Releife of aged impotent and poore people, some for Maintenance of sicke and maymed Souldiers and Marriners, Schooles of Learninge, Free Schooles and Schollers in Universities, some for Repaire of Bridges Portes Havens Causwaies Churches Seabankes and Highwaies, some for Educacion and prefermente of Orphans, some for or towardes Reliefe Stocke or Maintenance of Howses of Correccion, some for Mariages of poore Maides, some for Supportacion Ayde and Helpe of younge tradesmen Handicraftesmen and persons decayed, and others for reliefe or redemption of Prisoners or Captives, and for aide or ease of any poore Inhabitantes concerninge paymente of Fifteenes, setting out of Souldiers and other Taxes.
Therefore, neither government nor court would regard a purpose as charitable unless it appeared on that list or could be defined as coming within ‘‘the spirit and intendment’’ of the preamble which required proof that the new purpose approximated an established charitable purpose and could be viewed as an extension of it or as analogous to it; a rule that has underpinned the development of charity law, giving the judiciary some discretion to adjust the law to fit contemporary social circumstances. Religion was defined in Keren Kayemeth Le Jisroel v. Inland Revenue Commissioners (1931) 48 TLR 459 as ‘‘the promotion of spiritual teaching in a wide sense, and the maintenance of the doctrines on which it rests, and the observances that serve to promote and manifest it.’’ It was not mentioned as a charitable purpose in the 1601 Act, probably for reasons to do with the equivocal role of the Church in English society in the years following the Reformation, but there was never any doubt as to the legal inseparableness of charity and religion. This was confirmed in the landmark decision The Commissioners for Special Purposes of the Income Tax v. Pemsel [1879] AC 531 when Macnaghten LJ ruled that ‘‘the advancement of religion’’ was a charitable purpose. Subsequently, the judiciary added that for it to do so two conditions must be met: the gift must contribute to the advancement of ‘‘religion,’’ as interpreted by the courts and it must promote the religious instruction or education of the public. A body of case law precedents and related principles largely shared among the 60 or so nations that subscribe to the common-law tradition, now determines when religion, religious organizations and their activities meet the legal definition of ‘‘charity.’’ In some nations, such as
Ireland, they attract preferential treatment through statutory endorsement of the rule that gifts to and the activities of religious organizations are for the public benefit and are therefore de facto charitable. In others, such as Canada and the United States, this rule applies despite not being embodied in statutory form. Only in England & Wales has this rule been statutorily repealed, by Sect. 3 of the Charities Act 2006, to require religious organizations to be as subject to the public benefit test as any other organization. For the purposes of charity law in all the common-law nations, ‘‘religion’’ has for the most part been tied to a belief in god which, until relatively recently, was most usually interpreted to mean a Christian deity; although, in the United States, the IRS took an early and clear view that charitable trusts could not be restricted to those that declared their belief in one ‘‘Supreme Being.’’ Any suggestion that the legal definition of religion could be satisfied by a system of belief not involving faith in a god was explicitly rejected by Dillon J in Re South Place Ethical Society, Barralet v. Attorney General [1980] 1 WLR 1565 where it was stressed that the ‘‘two essential attributes of religion are faith and worship: faith in a god and worship of that god.’’ Further, the law holds that all religions are to be treated equally. As explained in Thornton v. Howe (1862) 31 Beav 14, the law will not inquire into the inherent validity of any particular religion nor will it examine the relative merits of different religions. Although judicial interpretation of ‘‘religion’’ has not differed greatly, there has been considerable jurisdictional variation in relation to the range of activities held to merit charitable status. For example, the lead taken in England & Wales with the decision in Gilmour v. Coats [1949] AC 426 which denied charitable status to closed contemplative religious orders, as opposed to those actively engaged in good works in the community, has been followed in Canada and Northern Ireland but not in Ireland where the opposite view of the Court of Appeal in O’Hanlon v. Logue [1906] IR 247 has since prevailed. It is now no longer followed in Australia, where section 5 of the Extension of Charitable Purposes Act 2004 declares such activities to be charitable. Another exception has been in regard to the charitable status of activities dedicated to the dead. In Ireland, gifts for the saying of masses for the dead and for the upkeep of graves have always been regarded as charitable but this is not necessarily the case elsewhere (masses for the dead being viewed for centuries as ‘‘superstitious uses’’ in England & Wales and are currently so regarded in Singapore). Controversy over what constitutes a religion is illustrated by the varying judicial approaches to the Church of Scientology, which was refused charitable
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status in England & Wales because its core practices of training and auditing (counseling) did not constitute worship of a ‘‘Supreme Being,’’ even though it had been deemed charitable in Australia and the United States. In the latter jurisdiction, where the principle of preventing opportunities for Church/State entanglement is well established, the IRS exercises extreme caution with regard to the definition of ‘‘church’’ as is evident in the 14-part test for determining whether or not an organization qualifies as such (‘‘Tax Guide for Churches and Religious Organizations’’). This approach has been sharpened since the introduction of the USA Patriot Act 2001 (as reauthorized in 2005) with its focus on tracking funds including those of religious and other charitable entities.
Historical Background ‘‘Charity,’’ as a social construct, predates its legal definition and has its origins in the doctrine common to all religions that only by doing good works in this life can eternal salvation be assured in the next. Indeed, to subscribe to the Christian faith entails obeying the duty to love one’s neighbor, an inescapable requirement for salvation of the soul. Christianity is not, of course, unique in this respect: Buddhism teaches the love of mankind as the highest form of righteousness; Islam requires a tithe of one-tenth of income to be given to those in need; and the Jewish religion urges its followers to assist the poor and practice charity. In its initial religious context, charity was thus ‘‘more a means to the salvation of the soul of the benefactor than an endeavor to diagnose and alleviate the needs of the beneficiary’’ as succinctly explained in the Report of the Committee on the Law and Practice relating to Charitable Trusts (Charitable Trusts Committee, 1952, at para 36). Collective organizations, in the form of guilds or confraternities dedicated to such purposes, were in existence centuries before the 1601 statute. In The Parish Gilds of Mediaeval England (Westlake, 1919), for example, mention is made of ‘‘the gild of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the parish church of St. Botolph at Boston, founded in 1260, which gave a yearly distribution of bread and herrings to the poor in alms for the souls of its benefactors.’’ Confraternities, as Flack explains, ‘‘were established for a variety of purposes but fundamentally they were about laymen and women joining a voluntary association to receive mutual encouragement to live pious lives’’ (Flack, 2008). He adds that they may have existed in both the Eastern and Holy Roman Empires even before the sack of Rome in AD 410. Some had charitable purposes such as one with a special devotion to the sick and deceased, which flourished in Constantinople in 336 and others in the West which looked after abandoned children as early as AD 400. The
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earliest Catholic lay confraternities were probably formed in Italy as early as the third century, but were certainly well established by the mid-twentieth century. In medieval England, many schools and hospitals were founded by religious organizations and they in turn received powerful support from the State. King Edward’s code promulgated at Andover in 963, for example, proclaimed that ‘‘God’s churches are entitled to their rights,’’ required taxes to be paid to the Church and imposed severe penalties for nonpayment. The instilling of Christian beliefs, accompanied by charitable provision for the disadvantaged, was of common interest to Church and State and provided an early conceptual test bed for establishing civil society. Historically and currently, the contribution of religious organizations to total charitable activity, to the work of the wider voluntary sector and to statutory services provision in all common-law jurisdictions is inestimable. They have been most obviously prominent in activities which serve to advance religion, sometimes with contentious outcomes, but have also often been engaged in putting in place social infrastructure both in common-law countries and in developing nations. Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, are much indebted to the religious organizations which laid the foundations for their present health and education systems and often provided the staff and resources for their functioning and maintenance. Faith-based educational facilities and hospitals continue to play a role in these countries, though are now largely redirected towards developmental projects in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific region. However, the contribution of religious organizations has been at a price. In the developed nations at the dawn of the twenty-first century, resonances of social upheaval, generated by earlier failings of religion and charity, are now triggering an acute political awareness of their strategic role in civil society. The post-9/11 era and the ongoing turmoil in Iraq and the Middle East brings a salutary reminder, a lesson that stretches back to the Crusades, of the dangers of cultural polarization and of religion’s capacity for accentuating divisiveness. In societies characterized by religious division, as in India, Malaysia, and Singapore, the tendency for religious charities to be both very active and very partisan has served to emphasize differences, increase social polarization, and raise tensions. In such societies, it is seldom acceptable for a charity of one religious denomination to use its resources for the benefit of members of another, or to do so for the purpose of building conciliatory bridges of communication between rival religious groups. Throughout the centuries, religion has demonstrated its latent capacity to cause social divisions and provoke violent confrontations. Most recently, this
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occurred in Northern Ireland resulting in several thousand deaths from clashes between Protestant and Catholic communities and damage to civil society that may take generations to repair. Poverty, and the mass migration of economic refugees into the northern hemisphere, has awakened folk memories of the social dislocation that followed industrialization within the nations of that hemisphere. The impact of so many disparate ethnic groups on the social infrastructure and cultural cohesion of the receiving nations is considerable. The challenge of accommodating their needs and responding sensitively to their cultural affiliations is depleting resources and imposing real pressures on the multicultural policies of those nations. The root causes of poverty and disease, currently affecting countries in Africa and parts of Asia, are connected to the inequitable aid and trade policies pursued by the developed nations and are reminiscent of domestic exploitive practices during the industrialization era. In both eras, charity has proved equally ineffectual in addressing the causes of poverty. As the developed nations move closer to economic recession, the threat of a more general social destabilization, as a consequence of failure to adequately meet this particular challenge, is a pressing cause for concern. Again, in the recent spread of faith-based schools in the United States and the United Kingdom, there are uncomfortable echoes of an earlier role of Churchcontrolled residential educational facilities in Canada, Australia, and Ireland. Religious organizations were then guilty of colonizing the educational system for purposes of proselytism, being used as agents of the State to advance policies that separated out and accentuated the marginalization of minority groups and of setting standards of care that allowed the victimization of some children. Now, governments are again facilitating the rise of faith-based organizations as providers of publicly funded services. In the United States, for example, through the Charitable Choice clause in the Welfare Reform Act 1996 (known as the PWRORA), the federal government has reached out to such organizations so that they may assist in the welfare reform effort. If these bodies are to avoid similar charges in the future then an appropriate regulatory system will need to be put in place.
Key Issues The role of religion and charity in modern society has given rise to considerable controversy, usually centered on their capacity, separately and jointly, to promote pluralism rather than simply defend sectional interests.
Religious or faith-based organizations tend to be politically conservative. On the one hand, because of their institutional nature and longevity, such charitable entities can reinforce and sustain established social norms and may exercise a reactionary influence when faced with the prospect of political change, as occurred in some South American countries in the last half of the twentieth century. On the other hand, their pastoral concerns, established over generations of close engagement with vulnerable communities can, as in Poland, prompt them to be at the forefront of such change when religion itself is being politically suppressed. Religion, charity, and charitable religious organizations share an approach of acceptance toward the challenge of circumstances which can be problematic in some social contexts, such as the use of contraceptives to combat the spread of AIDS in Africa and to lift communities out of poverty by controlling population growth. The political value of religion and the charitable activities of religious organizations lie in their undoubted capacity to generate social capital (Putnam, 2000). However, there are those who take the view that this is essentially of a member-benefit nature which, while cementing relationships between those of the same religion, preferences and sharply differentiates that religion from all others: the ‘‘bonding’’ form of social capital provided by religion is at the price of the ‘‘bridging’’ form; as illustrated by the experience of jurisdictions such as Northern Ireland. The latter, with its population divided on religious grounds, is a society where most charitable activity has always been associated with religious bodies but where the net charitable impact has arguably been divisive: polarizing communities and hindering the consolidation of a pluralist civil society. The ‘‘gift relationship’’ (Titmus, R., 1970) held to underpin charity, is for some a questionable means of addressing social need. It is suggested that charity’s contribution to the alleviation of the effects of poverty is achieved at the cost of ignoring its causes, conceding compliant deference to the benefactor and instilling in individuals, institutions, and society, an acceptance of things as they are. Instead, it is argued, a more effective strategy would be to equip the individual, community, or nation with the means to achieve self-sufficiency by investing in the aid/trade/skill development programs necessary to ensure their independence and ability to compete in the ‘‘open market.’’ There is also the fact that increased secularization of the social infrastructure in contemporary developed nations has allowed, if not stimulated, mounting skepticism as to the benefits inherent in the role of religion,
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while an ever-expanding raft of national and international legislation underpinning entitlements to human rights, equity, equality, and nondiscrimination has cast doubt on the relative usefulness of charity. The belief or acceptance that religion and charity were destined to complement each other in perpetuity, saving lives in this world in order to save souls in the next, is for most, in the more developed nations, succumbing to a contemporary attitude of quiet disinterest in both.
International Perspectives The common-law jurisdictions largely share the same pool of judicial precedents, adhere to much the same body of domestic legislation dealing with equity, equality, and nondiscriminatory practice and subscribe to the same international Conventions, treaties, and instruments (or their domestic equivalents) governing matters such as human rights. Some have also recently completed, or are in the process of completing, charity law reform processes. While this facilitates a congruity of approach toward charity and religion, it also permits identification of some areas of jurisdictional difference. The right of an individual to choose and practice a religion is firmly established by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms 1950 and has been endorsed in the domestic legislation of common-law countries. The Convention requires that any interpretation of ‘‘religion’’ be applied objectively, have reasonable justification and be nondiscriminatory; any differential treatment must comply with strict standards. This legal benchmark for nondiscrimination in matters of religion is underpinned by Article 14 and supported by Article 9 (the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion). It has the effect of requiring governments and other public bodies to give parity of recognition to Christian and non-Christian religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism. Two important decisions of the European Court of Human Rights have recently raised the profile of Article 9: Kokkinakis v. Greece (A/260-A) (1994) 17 EHRR 397 and Manoussakis v. Greece (18748/91) (1996) 21 EHRR CD3. In the Kokkinakis case, the court recognized the right to proselytize when it is exercised with respect for freedom of the religion of others, and held the right to be protected by Article 9. Moreover, as Justice Pettiti then stated: ‘‘[R]eligion is one of the foundations of a democratic society within the meaning of the Convention and the pluralism that cannot be disassociated from a democratic society depends on religious freedom.’’ In the Manoussakis case, the court found that ‘‘the right to freedom of religion . . . excludes any discretion on the part of the State to
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determine whether religious beliefs or the means used to express such beliefs are legitimate.’’ These cases affirm the significance of freedom of religion for modern democratic states. In the United States, the Constitution, its Bill of Rights, together with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, may be considered to provide a body of provisions equivalent to the European Convention on Human Rights with nationwide application. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause draws a line between Church and State by prohibiting undue government involvement with religion; reflecting, perhaps, the deep distrust of the ‘‘founding fathers’’ with the collusive nature of that relationship and its propensity in ‘‘old’’ Europe to trigger social disruption. Case law in that jurisdiction (e.g., Walz v. Tax Commission of the City of New York, 397 US 664 [1970]) illustrates the vigilance with which the IRS and the courts carefully police any possible entanglement of Church and State interests. In Australia, the recent decision in Commissioner of Taxation v. Word Investments Limited [2007] FCAFC 171 is likely to have implications for religious organizations elsewhere in the common-law world. The charitable status of Word Investments Ltd. was challenged because it raised its funds through various activities such as investing money borrowed at noncommercial rates from supporters, offering financial planning for a fee, and a funeral business. The court noted that with the decline of the welfare state, charitable organizations are expected to do more with the same resources and reliance on donations in many cases will be insufficient. They further noted that many charitable organizations have established business ventures to generate the income necessary to support their activities. The purpose of the organization was deemed to be charitable. The charity law reviews in England & Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Ireland have concluded (or are concluding) with – and in New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore have concluded without – a change to the legal definition of ‘‘charity.’’ Other nations, including the United States and Canada, are still engaged in that process. The definitional changes expand the meaning of ‘‘charity’’ into the areas of health and social care service provision, civil society consolidation, and the promotion of human rights, which will undoubtedly generate case law with international implications.
Future Directions For the common-law nations, the future role of charitable religious organizations is likely to be shaped by domestic opportunities resulting from the contraction of
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government services and, on an international basis, by the growth in entrepreneurial philanthropy and the constraints imposed by the war against terrorism. In both domestic and international contexts, the essentially Christian ethos of religion and charity in those nations will have to adjust to meet the challenges presented by a sustained influx of migrants, the necessity to engage with and accommodate the needs of those from other cultures, and the mounting pressure to address the grievances of a resurgent Islam. The contraction of government service provision, resulting from inexorable demographic trends that include falling fertility rates and an age imbalance, is now well advanced in all modern, developed nations and is likely to gather momentum in future decades. As government retreats, it is negotiating the terms on which charities will assume increased responsibility for service provision. In England & Wales, the Charity Commission decision in Applications for registration of (i) Trafford Community Leisure Trust and (ii) Wigan Leisure and Culture Trust [2004] granted charitable status to entities established by government to provide what until then had been local authority public services, with almost total government funding. This was a significant indicator of government intent to increase the transfer of responsibility to its partner. In Australia, the same was true of the decision in Central Bayside Division of General Practice Ltd v. Commissioner of State Revenue [2005] VSCA 168/. Then, an independent association of general medical practitioners, almost wholly funded by a federal government department, established to deliver a government health care scheme within a small geographic area in accordance with the government’s national plan, was found to be charitable. The Charities Act 2006, and similar legislation in other UK jurisdictions and in Ireland, has laid the foundations for further charity encroachment into the heartland of government public service provision. By identifying as charitable purposes a range of what would otherwise be assumed to be government responsibilities, the new legislation, emerging from a range of national charity law review processes, has opened wide the doors for future and more extensive government/ charity partnership arrangements. The growth prospects for charity have to be set against the constraints emanating from the new international security imperative. The current ‘‘global war against terrorism’’ and the accompanying raft of antiterrorism laws, in conjunction with the minefield of international trade, will undoubtedly combine to restrict the overseas activity of many charities. Government pursuit of terrorists, and maintenance of subsidies for domestic produce, can result
in charities being regarded with some suspicion. This is particularly the case in relation to those charities associated with countries and religions that fall within the scrutiny of government foreign policy. As governments increase their regulatory powers of surveillance, and improve the capacity to track international flows of finance, charities now run the risk of being viewed as the weak link in the war against terrorism. Philanthropy, anchored to a new and decidedly more secular entrepreneurial spirit – dedicated to vanquishing AIDS, malaria, and to ‘‘making poverty history’’ – is, arguably, gradually moving into the space traditionally occupied by religion and charity to address issues of poverty, disease, and social inclusion. New and independent hybrid legal structures, combined with the financial resources and business expertise of entities such as the Bill Gates Foundation, are positioning themselves to make a greater impact upon these perennial problems than ever before achieved by government, charity, or religion.
Cross-References
▶ Charity, Defined ▶ Charity Law ▶ Charity, History of ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Common Law and Civil Society ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Religious Organization ▶ Social Capital, definition of ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Bothwell, J. (1997). Indicators of a healthy civil society. In Burbridge (Ed.), Beyond prince and merchant: Citizen participation and the rise of civil society. Brussels: Institute of Cultural Affairs International. Brady, J. (1975). Religion and the law of charities in Ireland. Belfast: Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly. Bromley, K. (2001). The definition of religion in charity law in the age of fundamental human rights. London: Charity Law & Practice Review, 7(1), 39–91. Charitable Trusts Committee, ‘Report of the Committee on the Law and Practice relating to Charitable Trusts’ (the ‘‘Nathan Report’’), Cmd 8710 (1952-53), HMSO, London. Flack, T. (2008). Insights into the origins of organised charity from the Catholic tradition of confraternities. Brisbane: Occasional paper for Australian Centre of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology. Luxton, P. (2001). The law of charities. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Charity Bank Mitchell, C., & Moody, S. (2000). Foundations of charity. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Picarda, H. (1999). The law and practice relating to charities (3rd ed.). London: Butterworths. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone. New York: Simon & Schuster. Titmus, R. (1970). The gift relationship: From human blood to social policy. London: Allen & Unwin. Westlake, H. F. (1919). The parish gilds of mediaeval England. London: Macmillan.
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ever Charity ISA, the only tax free savings account where 100% of the proceeds go for charitable purposes.
Mission Charity Bank’s mission is ‘‘to tackle marginalisation, social injustice and exclusion, and facilitate social change through investment.’’ Charity Bank seeks to change the perceptions of how personal and corporate wealth can provide finance for the benefit of society.’’
Activities
Charity Bank PATSY KRAEGER
Address of Organization 194 High Street Tonbridge Kent TN9 1BE UK www.charitybank.org
Introduction Charity Bank describes itself as similar to a development bank financing projects and organizations that the bank believes are viable even when the project may not be typically commercial bankable. Charity Bank suggests that at least 3 million people in the United Kingdom have been affected by the organizations that they support. Charity Bank, based outside of London has opened a second regional office in North England to foster its programs in sustaining the charitable sector.
Brief History In 1992, Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), a registered British charity, commissioned research into a bank for charity and in 1993 a loans services unit was established. In 1995, Investors in Society set up a pilot loan with in CAF and a guaranteed fund of £500,000. In 1996, the first loan was made and in 1997 regulatory discussions developed to lead toward the establishment of a charity bank. In 2002, Charity Bank registered as charity became authorized as a bank from the Financial Services Authority and received approval from Inland Revenue with an opening balance of £6.4 million. In 2003, the bank became a member of the Community Development Finance Association and was the fist bank to deliver the community investment tax credit. In 2006, loan inquiries exceeded £100 million. In 2008, the bank issued the first
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Charity Bank is the only regulated bank in the United Kingdom that is also a charity. The bank uses depositor’s savings to support charities and social profit organizations that address societal needs. Depositors who bank with Charity Bank receive a modest interest to protect their capitol. Significantly, depositors earn a social return by depositing in the bank by allowing their savings to be used as a pool of funds which are in turn lent to organizations serving social needs. Charity Bank provided financial guidance as well as loan assistance and each organization are assessed to see if they are a match for Charity Bank’s loans. Funds are solely dispersed within the United Kingdom. Charity Bank has supported many organizations and the following are reflective of the types of organizations that this social venture bank supports. In social care, Charity Bank supported Salterhill, a nonprofit who provided homes to adults with learning disabilities. The City of Oxford charities, support for almshouses in Oxford to help with immediate needs. In their faith based initiatives, Charity Bank loaned money to the Tom Roberts Adventure Center to provide a faith based program activity center initially for youth from Christian churches. The Kadampa Buddhist Meditation Center which provides mediation sessions, retreats, study, and classes also was funded. In community services, Charity Bank supported the Colchester and Tendering Women’s refuge to provide services to women who are victims of domestic violence. Internationally, Charity Bank loaned money to Valid Nutrition in Malawi who makes and markets highly-fortified nutritional pastes, called ‘‘ready-to-use foods’’ or RUF, to treat and prevent malnutrition.
Structure and Governance Charity Bank is unique in that it is registered as a charitable organization and subject to banking regulations. ‘‘As a bank, we are regulated by the Financial Services Authority (FSA) and are, like other financial service providers, required to undertake regular training, reporting, and selfor external assessment processes. We are also a registered
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charity, which means that we are required to comply with the Charity Commission’s guidance.’’ Daily bank management is invested in an executive management team led by a chair, who was previously the Director of Community Finance at Charities Aid Foundation. The bank also has a Board of Trustees.
Funding Charity Bank is able to issue share capitol and the shares are held by Charities Aid Foundation, the National Council for Voluntary Organizations, 15 charitable trusts and foundations, and Barclays Bank, but in trust for charity. There are three classes of shareholders, ordinary, and two preferred shareholder categories. Charity bank as a registered charity also accepts donations from government, foundations, and individuals.
Major Accomplishments Charity Bank has committed £72,748,831 to charities and other socially driven organizations since its launch in 2002.
Cross-References
▶ Charities Aid Foundation ▶ National Council of Voluntary Organisations ▶ Social Investment
References/Further Readings Kingston, J., & Bolton, M. (2004). Opinion piece: New approaches to funding not-for-profit organizations. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 9(2), 112–121. Mulgan, G., & Landry, C. (1995). The other invisible hand: Remaking charity for the 21st century. London: Demos.
Charity, History of GABRIELE LINGELBACH Albert-Ludwigs Universita¨t Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
Introduction Today’s research on charity is heavily focused on the present: sociologists, political scientists, economists, and researchers representing other disciplines are occupied with the causes, forms, and consequences of charitable giving in the present. In contrast, the history of charity is less discussed in research and is mostly rather concerned with selected individual aspects. The history of charity or philanthropy does not yet constitute its own research area
with its own networks, historical peer-reviewed journal, academic society with its own conferences, or established reference works. Though there are some monographs presenting surveys (Bremner, 1994), of which the majority remain within national frameworks (Friedman, 2003; Marais, 1999; Owen, 1964), historical analysis is still in its beginning stages for many areas. Furthermore, the concepts with which historians of charity analyze their object are still in flux, and, in international comparison, the problem exists that many of the key categories of analysis are difficult to translate: The terms philanthropy, foundation, donation, alms, gift, third sector, etc. have very different meanings in the various languages. In addition, the very different developments of philanthropic traditions and landscapes in cross-national comparison hinders historians specializing in charity from coming to an international agreement since historical research too often takes as its point of departure the researcher’s own contemporary, national experience.
Definition In the following, charity should be understood as an act on the part of a giver, a ‘‘benefactor’’: It is not the recipient of charitable gifts, but the one who gives the gift that is the focus of analysis. A rather broadly applied definition of charity encompasses thus a broad spectrum of activity, which can be differentiated at various levels. For one, such activities can be differentiated according to the purpose of the gift: Benefactors can be active in religious matters through the financing of church building or of Masses, an area that has had a fundamental significance for centuries. Other purposes include support for the arts, culture, education, or research, for example, the establishment of a chair at a university, the donation of a work of art from one’s private collection to a museum, or membership in a supporting organization for an orchestra. This form of private, civic engagement for public purposes has grown in importance primarily since the nineteenth century. A third area is the support of social purposes, that is, support for socially disadvantaged individuals or groups of people – be they the poor, the sick, the invalid, the disabled, widows, or orphans – with which the donor has no personal relationship. This type of purpose was also of great importance inasmuch as donations ‘‘for the poor’’ in Europe played a significant role already in the Middle Ages, later then in the private financing of urban poor relief in early modern history, or in civic foundations in support of hospitals or orphanages during the ‘‘long’’ nineteenth century. More recently, by contrast, the protection of nature, animals, and the environment has become a major target. A narrower
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concept of charity, like that used in this article, refers primarily to the third type, the social purpose, whereas the term philanthropy is also often applied to a broader definition of charity that includes the other targets mentioned. Regarding the purpose of gifts, a distinction must also be made between those that were given directly to the needy, e.g., alms to beggars in the European Middle Age cities, and those given to some type of intermediary institution, which then allocated the resources. Notably, since the early modern age, donations to intermediaries have increasingly displaced direct donations in the form of alms. These intermediaries have evolved and diversified over time: In ancient Egypt, for example, temples were the primary intermediaries, whereas in the Middle Ages religious institutions, such as cloisters and church parishes as well as religious orders such as the mendicant, hospital, and knightly orders dominated. Later, the distribution of charitable donations became increasingly secular: Since the ‘‘high’’ Middle Ages, charitable gifts were also given to city poor funds; in the late eighteenth civic associations emerged to take on this task; in the twentieth century welfare federations were established; and over the last few decades internationally active organizations such as UNICEF or Oxfam have arisen to distribute charitable donations to groups in need of assistance. A second level at which one can differentiate types of charity is the nature of the gift given: A particularly frequent form was the giving of money, but goods such as food or clothing also were made available for charitable purposes. Furthermore, and third, people also gave of their time, often providing their expertise, i.e., volunteering. Historical research has primarily focused on monetary charity and has distinguished four forms: endowments or trusts, donations, membership fees paid to a philanthropic association, and, more seldom, purchases of stocks of charitable enterprises. Endowments generally were composed of large sums of money or real estate, which income (interest or earned income) would finance the charitable purpose. For example, if a patron in the nineteenth century created a scholarship fund to benefit a university, it meant that the money would be invested, and the scholarships would be financed out of the interest income. Since in many cases large sums were made available in the creation of an endowment, the gift was usually well thought through and legally safeguarded. Donors generally came from the wealthier classes of the population. In contrast to endowment gifts, donations were not invested, but rather were applied directly to the donation’s purpose, for example, when one gave money as part of a collection for the victims of an earthquake
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catastrophe. For the most part, such donations were rather modest sums; often they ranged below a certain threshold such that a donation could also be part of the everyday activities of the less wealthy social strata and frequently occurred without a long period of consideration. An example would be collections during religious services that had taken place since the second and third centuries AD. A third form of giving was the payment of membership fees to a charitable association: In this case, regular contributions would be made available so that the association could finance charitable purposes as set out in its bylaws. This involved a collective act, in contrast to the creation of an endowment, which was carried out mostly on an individual basis. Finally, one can distinguish between those forms of charity for which one receives no explicit material or immaterial service in return and a gift that implies some sort of quid pro quo or service in return. Thus, for example, already in the fifteenth century there existed charitable lotteries, through which one received a chance of winning in exchange for a donation, or later also charity galas, during which one expected to be entertained in return for the money given. However, with such types of activity, the money donated had to be of significantly higher value than that of the service received in return so that the gift could still be considered charitable. In light of this definition, it also becomes clear which topics are not dealt with in the history of charity: For example, it does not involve help in the context of friendship networks, nor the lending of an interest-free loan to a business colleague, nor the giving of a sum of money to a family member in case of an emergency. Furthermore, this concept of charity excludes sponsoring, since there exists the hope that the donation will ‘‘pay off ’’ through the accompanying advertising effect. In consequence, the investigation of the history of charity covers all those activities in the past, which from the benefactor’s perspective should serve to help those individuals or social groups who find themselves in a significantly worse situation and to remedy or alleviate this distress – be it physical, spiritual, psychological, or economic.
Key Issues A key question for historical research is certainly how the motivations for social engagement have changed over time (Cavallo, 1991). Somewhat oversimplified, two traditions regarding the motivations for charitable activities can be differentiated, presented here as ideal types: euergetism and alms giving. They differ in the aims pursued and the motives behind the giving. The
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phenomenon of euergetism is connected to the GrecoRoman cultural sphere and was intensively studied by the French historian Paul Veyne (Veyne, 1976), who analyzed how wealthy citizens of the Greek and Roman cities donated large sums of money for a variety of public purposes, for example, alleviation of a famine or improvement of the city infrastructure in the form of roads and public baths, as well as for the amusement of the citizens by financing circuses or theaters or to nurture patriotic sentiment by creating monuments, and so forth. The motives that drove euergetists to contribute intensively to the public good did not include help for others per se; the aim was rather to promote the donor’s political career, to build his reputation, public esteem, and admiration, to build up social capital and networks in form of clientele, or, in the case of a donation in the form of a bequest, a legacy the donor hoped would be remembered by the citizens. The second tradition of giving money or goods for the public good goes back to the Oriental and Jewish traditions and was adopted in the Christian cultural sphere (Bolkestein, 1939). In this connection, alms played a crucial role. The motives for alms giving differed very much from those for euergetism: since they were rooted in religious beliefs, it was a much more internalized, value-driven behavioral pattern. Giving alms to the poor and starving was thought to be pleasing in the eyes of God. The donor hoped to be rewarded by God with a happy life before death, and that her or his soul would be saved in the afterlife (Geremek, 1994; Schubert, 1992). This was assured by the fact that the receiver had to pray for the soul of the donor. Through secularization, the spectrum of previously internalized motives for charitable activities expanded to the humanitarian and ideological (e.g., in the form of international socialist assistance or in the form of ‘‘patriotic’’ donations for the families of soldiers killed in action, etc.). For most charitable activities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, both types of motivation can be detected, but generally in varying proportions. The charitable activities of those of higher class status tended most often to take on euergetic characteristics: frequently the creation of an endowment for hospitals or orphanages had as much to do with seeking recognition within one’s own class, social advancement, or social boundary setting (inclusion within or exclusion from the local elite) as with helping the needy and serving society (Schulz, 1998). Charitable acts could serve the purpose of accumulating social and symbolic capital, which in turn would be converted also into economic capital or could legitimate demands for political participation or dominance. For
example, Thomas Adam examined selected American, Canadian, and European cities to determine to what extent newer groups within the bourgeoisie (i.e., families that became wealthy through industrialization) sought – with the help of social and cultural foundations – to build social capital and enter the circles of the already established elite during the second half of the nineteenth century (Adam, 2009). At the same time, social networks could also be sealed off against newcomers through philanthropic organizations such as charitable associations, in order to protect the social exclusivity of the elite. Philanthropy could also be used to underpin a political claim to leadership alongside a social or cultural claim (Adam & Retallack, 2001). Here the question also arises whether social discipline objectives were also being pursued through charitable engagement, for example, to bring middle and upper-class models of behavior closer to the lower classes during times of rising social conflicts accompanying the industrial age (Schulz, 1998). Charitable engagement can be interpreted as an attempt to accommodate relatively deprived social groups in order to relieve social tensions and stave off threatening social-revolutionary developments. Thus the in early modern times frequently made distinction between the worthy poor (which should be supported) and the unworthy poor can be interpreted as a call to control the behavior of the deprived popular classes. At the same time, the social agency of the poor can also be pointed to: The recipients of help often used the gifts received in thoroughly stubborn ways and not always according to the directives of the givers. When one examines charity via the categories of social and political power, the question generally arises to what extent it also implies a hierarchical relationship between giver and recipient and thereby leads to the confirmation and perpetuation of social structures and/or political inequality. In other acts of charitable activities, euergetic motivations and those related to social relationships either within one’s own social class or toward those of other classes were not as important; instead, convictions – religious or secular – came to the fore. Unfortunately the analysis of these motives for charitable activities in earlier times will often have its limits: While founders and large donors have in many cases left documents behind in which they discuss the reasons they made money available for social purposes, the everyday giving of smaller sums on the part of the average person produced fewer written sources. Historians exploring the motivations for charitable activities are regularly confronted with the generally lacking empirical basis. Another question pursued by historians is the influence of state activities on the charitable engagement of
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citizens. Two opposing hypotheses exist: Some historians assume that the expansion of the state’s sphere of activity has led to a retreat of private engagement (crowding out), while others argue to the contrary that crowding out has not occurred at all (McCarthy, 2003: 3). For example, the development of university financing in the United States, in comparison with France or Germany, speaks for the thesis of crowding out. In the United States during the nineteenth century, public agencies contributed to the financing of higher education only to a limited extent and left room for private support in the areas of, for example, scholarships, professorial chairs, buildings, and even athletics. In Europe, by contrast, the state took on the financing of higher education to a much greater extent; private grants or endowments for universities were much less frequent. This difference gives evidence for a crowding out effect. Against the assumption that state activities always crowd out private engagement another example can be put forward: citizen engagement for social concerns in Germany reached its first peak at the same time as the Bismarckian social welfare state was introduced and then extended (Sachße & Tennstedt, 1980; Hein, 1997). Furthermore, it must be considered that many projects and institutions in the social assistance area were established in the form of a public/private partnership in which private and public funds flowed together. From the perspective of historians, some doubts can be raised against the general assumption that the expansion of the social welfare state always and everywhere led to a crowding out of private engagement for social purposes. State intervention also plays a role for historians of charity in another sense, for example, whether tax policy favored charitable giving to a greater or lesser extent. Public entities also affect the field of private charity through lawmaking as well, insofar as, especially in the twentieth century, they enacted the legal framework for social engagement, for example, laws related to foundations, associations, and fundraising, which had clear impact on charitable activities (Liermann, 1963). This is clearly seen in the example of West Germany after World War II: In the FRG a ban on public fundraising by private individuals and most organizations stemming from a 1934 law was in effect until the early 1960s. With only few exceptions, charitable initiatives did not receive governmental approval to approach citizens to seek donations. Since only a handful of organizations received this permission, public agencies regulated charitable contributions according to their own agenda. As soon as that law was replaced in the early 1960s with a broadly liberal one, the donations ‘‘market’’ in Germany ‘‘exploded’’, and
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a multitude of organizations were established that competed for citizens’ donations and offered a significantly broader spectrum of purposes to be supported than previously. The change took place once the state reduced its regulatory measures (Lingelbach, 2007). The role of the state regarding charitable activities leads to the question of how the framework for charity took shape under dictatorships. Historians have analyzed how the National Socialist regime exploited the charitable activities of the population for its own purposes and introduced collection activities for propaganda purposes (Vorla¨nder, 1986). For East Germany (the former GDR), a case study on donation collections for third world countries determined that the population continued to make significant donations, but at the same time, the government intensively monitored and influenced the campaigns. The regime also exploited the fundraising campaigns, on the one hand, domestically insofar as it sought to strengthen the population’s identification with the socialist system, and, on the other hand, for its foreign policy goals since the fundraising campaigns were used to achieve diplomatic recognition of the second German state on the part of newly established states in the process of decolonization (Witkowski, 2009). Another substantial research area for the history of charity relates to the development of intermediaries. As already mentioned, donations in particular were most often not given directly to the needy in the form of alms, but rather to institutions that redistributed these gifts. So, for example, the donations of the American population for the suffering people in Europe after World War II were given to intermediaries such as the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe (CARE), which then handed out food packages to the beneficiaries. The growing significance and differentiation of the intermediary institutions over time resulted in a clear influence of their interests and motivations over the charitable process. This can be retraced using the example of the medieval church-related institutions as well as by way of the communal poor funds in early modernity or the big welfare federations of the twentieth century. The intermediaries followed their own ideals (one thinks of the missionary institutions that were financed through donations) or also tangible (social-) political goals at the same time as they had an interest in their own institutional survival. They were in the position to direct the currents of giving in specific directions, to allow the money to flow to the purposes or target groups of their choosing, thereby taking on a society-shaping function. Historians of charity also investigate which social groups were most intensively engaged. As an example,
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the charitable activities of women are more closely examined. In the age of foundations and charitable associations of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it can be asked, to what extent women became involved in charitable activities to achieve social influence and to play a more decisive role in public life, or to build ‘‘parallel power structures’’ (McCarthy, 1990; Quataert, 2001). Since charitable engagement remained within the framework of gender-defined stereotypes of women as caring and sacrificing, middle- and upper-class women were able to seize and define a sphere of influence outside of the home long before the introduction of female suffrage, without in the process endangering the gender roles assigned to them. Since women as a marginalized group sought to achieve social impact through charity, the engagement of ethnic minorities can also be considered from this vantage point. The above average engagement of Jewish citizens in the German Empire can be interpreted in this direction; charity offered the possibility to free oneself from one’s marginal status at least partially; at the same time, Jewish philanthropic activity could also serve to create Jewish identity or to prevent and defend against anti-Semitic prejudices or treatment (Liedtke, 1999; Penslar, 1993). Similarly, African-Americans became involved in charitable organizations in order to improve the social situation of blacks in the United States, for example, during the civil rights era (Clegg III, 2003).
Future Directions From this brief presentation of research conducted to date, it becomes clear which topics and questions could be of interest for future research. Included here surely is international comparison: with few exceptions, most studies on the history of charity are of local, regional, or national nature, whereas a comparative approach could help to draw out the specifics of the developments and the causes for the differences between the paths charitable giving took. Various traditions of charitable activities have developed in a path-dependent way so that, in the different regions of the world, charity is practiced differently even today and has taken on a variety of meanings. Differing practices of social distinction have similarly led to diverse forms of philanthropic expression; different religious orientations and different legal frameworks have led up to now to variations in the ways people become engaged with the help of foundations or donations for others, etc. In this case, comparative analyses offer an as yet unexploited potential for enhanced knowledge. Historical research related to charity can also achieve greater significance in the framework of transnational
history. In the age of globalization, assistance provided to people in need beyond one’s own local, regional, or national frame of reference gains ever more importance. In a media-dominated world in which pictures of starving people or victims of natural catastrophes reach every affluent household, giving on behalf of distant ‘‘others’’ gains more weight. Even if well into the twentieth century charity focused on the local needy (Hein, 1997), and later also one the needy of one’s own nation, still there were also earlier signs of an international solidarity that are worth examining. In doing so, the development of media must be incorporated into the discussion and, in particular, one must consider that charity often conformed to the functional logic of the media: International aid organizations increasingly needed the attention of the media in order to bring their concerns to the potential donors, which also meant that they had to adapt their range of actions and their approaches to the interests of newspapers, magazines, and television in order to be heard (Benthall, 1993). Furthermore, charity research offers a prominent field for interdisciplinary research, for example, in the area of motivation research. Anthropologists, psychologists, social scientists, and specialists in religious studies could work together with historians to examine the changing motivations for charitable activities over time. However, the closing of these and other research gaps calls for an historically based determination of the key analytical categories and concepts to lead international and interdisciplinary research activities to fruitful results.
Cross-References
▶ CARE ▶ Charity and religion ▶ Charity Law ▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Definition and History of ▶ Philanthropy, Definitions ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Judaism
References/Further Readings Adam, T. (2009, forthcoming). Buying respectability: Philanthropy and urban society in transnational perspective, 1840s to 1930s. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Adam, T., & Retallack. J. (2001). Philanthropy und politische Macht in deutschen Kommunen. In T. Adam & J. Retallack (Eds.), Zwischen Markt und Staat: Stifter und Stiftungen im internationalen Vergleich (pp. 106–138). Leipzig: Leipziger Universita¨ts-Verlag. Benthall, J. (1993). Disasters, relief and the media. London: Tauris.
Charity Law Bolkestein, H. (1939). Wohlta¨tigkeit und Armenpflege im vorchristlichen Altertum. Ein Beitrag zum Problem, Moral und Gesellschaft. Utrecht: Oosthoek. Bremner, R. H. (1996). Giving: Charity and philanthropy in history. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Cavallo, S. (1991). The motivation of benefactors. An overview of approaches to the study of charity. In J. Barry (Ed.), Medicine and charity before the welfare state (pp. 46–62). London: Routledge. Clegg, C. A. (2003). Philanthropy, the civil rights movement, and the politics of racial reform. In L. J. Friedman & M. D. McGarvie (Eds.), Charity, philanthropy, and civility in American history (pp. 341–361). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, S. (1996). Philanthropy as a virtue in late antiquity and the middle ages. In J. B. Schneewind (Ed.), Giving: Western ideas of philanthropy (pp. 1–23). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Friedman, L. J., & McGarvie, M. D. (Eds.) (2003). Charity, philanthropy, and civility in American history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Geremek, B. (1994). Poverty: A history. Oxford: Blackwell. Hands, A. R. (1968). Charities and social aid in Greece and Rome. London: Thames & Hudson. Hein, D. (1997). Das Stiftungswesen als Instrument bu¨rgerlichen Handelns im 19. Jahrhundert. In B. Kirchga¨ssner & H.-P. Becht (Eds.), Stadt und Ma¨zenatentum (pp. 75–92). Sigmaringen: Thorbecke. Liedtke, R. (1999). Integration and separation: Jewish welfare in Hamburg and Manchester in the nineteenth century. In M. Brenner, R. Liedtke, & D. Rechter (Eds.), Two nations. British and German Jews in comparative perspective (pp. 247–271). Tu¨bingen: Mohr Siebeck. Liermann, H. (1963). Handbuch des Stiftungsrechts, Band 1: Geschichte des Stiftungsrechts. Tu¨bingen: Mohr. Lingelbach, G. (2007). Die Entwicklung des Spendenmarktes in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland von der staatlichen Regulierung zur medialen Lenkung. Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 33, 127–157. Marais, J. -L. (1999). Histoire du don en France de 1800 a` 1939. Dons et legs charitables, pieux et philanthropiques. Rennes: Presse Universitaire de Rennes. McCarthy, K. (2003). American creed. Philanthropy and the rise of civil society 1700–1865. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. McCarthy, K. D. (1990). Parallel power structures: Women and the voluntary sphere. In K. D. McCarthy (Ed.), Lady bountiful revisited: Women, philanthropy, and power (pp. 1–31). New York: Rutgers University Press. Owen, D. (1964). English philanthropy, 1660–1960. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Penslar, D. J. (1993). Philanthropy, the ‘‘Social Question’’ and Jewish identity in imperial Germany. Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, 38, 51–73. Quataert, J. H. (2001). Staging philanthropy: Patriotic women and the national imagination in dynastic Germany 1813–1916. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Roberts, S. (1996). Contexts of charity in the middle ages. In J. B. Schneewind (Ed.), Giving: Western ideas of philanthropy (pp. 24–53). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Sachße, C., & Tennstedt, F. (1980). Geschichte der Armenfu¨rsorge in Deutschland. Bd.1: Vom Spa¨tmittelalter bis zum 1. Weltkrieg. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Schubert, E. (1992). Gestalt und Gestaltwandel des Almosens im Mittelalter. Jahrbuch fu¨r fra¨nkische Landesforschung, 52, 241–262. Schulz, A. (1998). Ma¨zenatentum und Wohlta¨tigkeit – Ausdrucksformen bu¨rgerlichen Gemeinsinns in der Neuzeit. In J. Kocka & M. Frey
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(Eds.), Bu¨rgerkultur und Ma¨zenatentum im 19. Jahrhundert (pp. 240–262). Berlin: Bostelmann & Siebenhaar Edition Fannei & Walz. Veyne, P. (1976). Le pain et le cirque. Sociologie historique d’un pluralisme politique. Paris: Editions du Seuil. Vorla¨nder, H. (1986). NS-Volkswohlfahrt und Winterhilfswerk des Deutschen Volkes. Vierteljahrshefte fu¨r Zeitgeschichte, 34, 341–380. Witkowski, G. R. (2009, forthcoming). ‘‘Unser Tisch ist besser gedeckt’’: Ostdeutsche Philanthropie und Wohlta¨tigkeit von 1959 bis 1989. In T. Adam, S. La¨ssig, & G. Lingelbach (Eds.), Stifter, Spender und Ma¨zene: USA und Deutschland im historischen Vergleich. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.
Charity Law MYLES MCGREGOR-LOWNDES, KERRY O’HALLORAN Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Introduction Charity law is traditionally regarded as having emerged from the English law of equity. Equitable principles permitted a charitable trust to be established which departed from the usual trust principles of requiring identifiable beneficiaries and having a duration falling within a set period of time. Charitable trusts are able to exist in perpetuity and be for purposes, rather than for specific persons. However, the legal definition of charity restricts such trusts to certain purposes and requires them to be for the public benefit. Charity law’s modern roots lie in seventeenth century England. Thereafter it was imposed by default in most of the British colonies including Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, India, and Hong Kong. The law has developed through judicial precedent with most of the 60 or so common law jurisdictions having varying degrees of reference back to developing English precedents. Only since the turn of this century has there been significant proposed and actual statutory intervention in the United Kingdom and some former colonies apart from the United States (USA). On independence the United States quickly broke from traditional ties to English charity law developing a preference for corporations rather than trusts and a statutory definition of charity for taxation purposes. Since the quincentennial in 2001 of the modern English origins of the definition of charitable purposes there have been significant legal reform proposals to largely transfer the determination of core common law concepts from a judicial
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to a statutory basis by legislating for a new definition of what constitutes charitable purposes and public benefit in the United Kingdom and some of its former colonies. This has been accompanied by reforms to the regulatory framework governing those organizations (now wider than the equitable trust form) which have adopted charitable purposes (refer charitable organizations).
Definition The word charity in a legal context differs from popular usage in its widest sense which can range from ‘‘the good affections between persons’’ to its restricted sense of ‘‘relief of the poor’’ – often the deserving poor. It is also distinguished legally from ‘‘benevolent’’ and ‘‘philanthropic’’ purposes which are regarded as having meanings which are narrower or broader than that permitted in law by charitable purposes. At the root of the legal definition of charity is the Preamble to the English Charitable Uses Act 1601 (also referred to as the Statute of Elizabeth I) which listed activities which permitted charitable activities and judicial interpretations of such items as classified in Pemsel’s case (Income Tax Special Purposes Commrs. v Pemsel [1981] AC 531). The Pemsel classification includes trusts for the relief of poverty; the advancement of religion; the advancement of education; and for any other purposes beneficial to the community falling under any of the preceding heads. Any purpose must also be for the ‘‘public benefit’’ and be available to sufficient members of the public. Subsequent judicial decisions, administrative rulings, and statutory instruments have modified the Pemsel classification across jurisdictions with an English legal heritage. Such modifications have included requirements that for an organization to be charitable its purposes must be confined exclusively to charitable purposes, without profit or gain accruing to its members, and such purposes must not be primarily devoted to advocating or opposing changes in law or public policy. For the United States, the tax code definition of ‘‘charitable organization’’ is found in Section 501(c)(3) of The Internal Revenue Code of 1968, being organizations ‘‘organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes’’ and is broader than the English legal conception.
Historical Background As stated above, the usual starting point for the history of English charity law is the seventeenth century Charitable Uses Act 1601 known commonly as ‘‘the Statute of Elizabeth I’’ (the Preamble). Others have traced the origin
of the laws of charity back to Judaeo-Christian traditions molded by the arrangements of the Catholic Church and its fraternities and reconfigured by Protestant theology as exemplified by a fourteenth century poem The Vision of Piers Plowman which closely resembles the Statute of Elizabeth I. There are intriguing similarities to the Hindu math and instances of returning crusaders establishing institutions which were later regarded as charitable that incorporated notions from the Islamic waqf, but in the common law jurisdictions it is the Preamble that is the lawyer’s compass. The Preamble contained a list of charitable purposes: "
Releife of aged impotent and poore people, some for Maintenance of sicke and maymed Souldiers and Marriners, Schooles of Learninge, Free Schooles and Schollers in Universities, some for Repaire of Bridges Portes Havens Causwaies Churches Seabankes and Highwaies, some for Educacion and prefermente of Orphans, some for or towardes Reliefe Stocke or Maintenance of Howses of Correccion, some for Mariages of poore Maides, some for Supportacion Ayde and Helpe of younge tradesmen Handicraftesmen and persons decayed, and others for reliefe or redemption of Prisoners or Captives, and for aide or ease of any poore Inhabitantes concerninge paymente of Fifteenes, setting out of Souldiers and other Taxes.
An English court would not regard a purpose as charitable unless it appeared on that list or could be defined as coming within ‘‘the spirit and intendment’’ of the Preamble and disclosed an element of ‘‘public benefit.’’ In 1891 Lord MacNaghten classified charitable purposes for legal purposes into four principal heads being: the relief of poverty, the advancement of education, the advancement of religion, and other purposes beneficial to the community falling under any of the preceding heads. All such purposes must also be directed to the public benefit with the exception of purposes to relieve poverty among a limited class of beneficiaries (often referred to as the ‘‘poor relatives’’ exception). Within this framework the English courts have created case precedents refining and sometimes confusing the charity definition. Over the last century, as the traditional roles of judiciary and Attorney General have faded, the Charity Commission for England and Wales has been given increasing administrative and quasi-judicial powers over charitable bodies which has also influenced the definition of charity. After years of various inquiries rejecting a statutory definitional reform of the definition of charity, in 2002 a UK Cabinet Office Strategy Unit Report known as Private Action, Public Benefit. A Review of charities and the
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wider not-for-profit sector recommended wide ranging definitional and regulatory reform for the law of charities. These recommendations included a modernization and restatement of charitable purposes, reform of the Charity Commission and the establishment of a Charity Tribunal. The Charities Act 2006 was passed by Parliament in November 2006, came into force partially on 7 November 2007 but mostly took effect in early 2008. Under Section 2 of the Charities Act 2006, the four common law heads of charitable purposes are increased to thirteen statutory heads. Thus a ‘‘charitable purpose’’ is one that is for either "
‘‘(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h)
(i) (j)
(k) (l)
(m)
the prevention or relief of poverty; the advancement of education; the advancement of religion; the advancement of health or the saving of lives; the advancement of citizenship or community development; the advancement of the arts, culture, heritage or science; the advancement of amateur sport; the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation or the promotion of religious or racial harmony or equality and diversity; the advancement of environmental protection or improvement; the relief of those in need by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage; the advancement of animal welfare; the promotion of the efficiency of the armed forces of the Crown, or of the efficiency of the police, fire and rescue services or ambulance services; and other purposes that are currently recognized as charitable or are in the spirit of any purposes currently recognized as charitable.’’
The law had previously presumed that charities with the purposes of relief of poverty, or the advancement of education or of religion, were for the public benefit. The Charities Act 2006 removed this presumption, so for the first time the law requires every charity to explicitly demonstrate that their purposes are for the public benefit. The Act declares that ‘‘charity means an institution established for charitable purposes only’’ but it does not contain any new definition of public benefit or suggest how charities should meet that requirement. It does give the Charity Commission the new objective of promoting awareness and understanding of the operation of the public benefit requirement, and requires the Commission to consult on any guidance on public benefit it produces,
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to which charity trustees are required to have regard when running their charity.
Key Issues The boundaries of what is regarded as charitable in law and its fit with the social environment is the fundamental issue which is wrestled with by lawyers, regulators, policy makers and civil society participants. The expansion and contraction of the boundaries is a contested space and the means by which the movement takes place and the rate of change is always productive of controversy. England and her colonies until recently have relied upon judicial precedent to set these boundaries in the main, although the Charity Commission of England and Wales has, over the last 2 decades, played a more activist role in attempting to move the definitional boundaries by administrative fiat and quasi-judicial mechanisms. The lack of judicial opportunity through contested cases combined with increasing reluctance of courts to be adventurous where there are significant taxation concessions at stake have slowed the progress of judicial advancement in Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The growing pressure for statutory intervention since 2001 in all closely aligned English jurisdictions is working its way through each of the jurisdictions at different rates of progress. The final practical outcomes of the new legislative interventions will only be discerned in the coming years. However, replacing common law concepts with statutory definitions does inevitably signify a break with tradition. In future the legal definition of what constitutes ‘‘charity’’ will be much less amenable to judicial influence and more vulnerable to direct political control through government use of statutory amendment. Moreover, as each jurisdiction in turn legislates for a slightly different definition of charitable purpose, charity law is being nationalised and prised away from the pool of common law precedents that has allowed a shared jurisprudence to shape the development of philanthropy across many of the world’s most developed countries. As judicial involvement in the setting and maintaining of the charity law boundaries wanes and administrative and quasi-judicial measures are used more frequently, it is probable that charity law will become subject to a greater and more frequent level of political intervention as legislation is used by government to effect and manage change in the third sector. Finally, whether the legal boundary of charity will remain legally significant in the future is under threat from the adoption by lawyers, regulators, policy makers, politicians, and the public, of broader ideas of a third sector and civil society organizations, and the growth of
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hybrid organizations which span business and government sectors.
whereas in England and Wales, the issue is whether a particular charitable purpose is for the public benefit.
International Perspectives
Ireland
Scotland
Revenue law is applied uniformly across the United Kingdom so for taxation purposes Scotland shared the legal definition of ‘‘charity.’’ However, in the general law of Scotland the term ‘‘charity’’ and ‘‘charitable’’ did not acquire a technical meaning and so in this respect diverged from the situation in England and Wales. Recent reforms have largely brought this divergence to an end. In May 2001 the Scottish Charity Law Review Commission published its report (the McFadden Report) making 114 recommendations for the reform of charity law and regulation in Scotland. As a result the Charities and Trustee Investment (Scotland) Act 2005 (the CTI(S) Act 2005) was introduced. The new legislation transfers responsibility for charitable status in Scotland from HM Revenue and Customs to the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). OSCR has further regulatory responsibilities which include maintaining the Scottish Charity Register. Section 7(2) of the CTI(S) Act 2005 sets out 15 different charitable purposes and a sixteenth category, being any other purpose that may reasonably be regarded as analogous to any of those 15 purposes. These are: the advancement of health (including the prevention or relief of sickness, disease, or human suffering); the saving of lives; the advancement of citizenship or community development (including rural or urban regeneration and the promotion of civic responsibility, volunteering, the voluntary sector or the effectiveness or efficiency of charities); the advancement of the arts, heritage, culture, or science; the advancement of public participation in sport (‘‘sport’’ means sport which involves physical skill and exertion) and the provision of certain types of recreational facilities, or the organization of recreational activities, with the object of improving the conditions of life for the persons for whom the facilities or activities are primarily intended; the advancement of human rights, conflict resolution or reconciliation; the promotion of religious or racial harmony; the promotion of equality and diversity; the advancement of environmental protection or improvement; the relief of those in need by reason of age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantage (including relief given by the provision of accommodation or care); and the advancement of animal welfare. The listed charitable purposes are similar to the English reforms but are not identical. In Scotland, public benefit is assessed on the basis of how a body exercises its functions;
Charity law in Ireland is rooted in the common law and based on the Statute of Pious Uses 1634 which is not dissimilar to the English Statute of Charitable Uses 1601 noted above. The English classification of charitable purposes was accepted in Ireland and their judicial interpretation has developed along much the same lines. The legislative framework consisting of the Charities Acts of 1961 and 1973 as amended by the Social Welfare (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2002 are closely modeled on the provisions of the English Charities Act 1960. The lead regulatory agency was the Revenue Commissioners and was most influential in charity registration approval, with the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests (an antiquated forerunner to the present English Charity Commission) in a monitoring and support role. Although the Irish reform process was first mooted in 1996, it was not launched until 2002. By 2007, the Irish Charities Bill 2007 had been introduced to modernise the law and definition of charities and the Charities Act (NI) 2008 is expected shortly. The Charities Regulatory Authority, replacing the Commissioners for Charitable Donations and Bequests, will be responsible for the establishment and maintenance of a register of charities and will oversee the reporting regimes applicable to registered charities. A Charity Appeals Tribunal is to be established to provide an alternative to the courts system for the review of regulatory decisions. ‘‘Charitable purposes,’’ under the new legislation, will retain but extend the common law definition interpreted by the judiciary over many years. In addition to enlarging the first head to allow for the ‘‘prevention’’ as well as the relief of poverty, the statute will restate the fourth head ‘‘other purposes beneficial to the community,’’ but add that this is to ‘‘include’’ a further eleven specific new charitable purposes. This will expressly recognize the charitable nature of: advancing the community welfare of young, old, and disabled people; supporting community development; protecting the natural environment; promoting health; advancing art, science, culture, and heritage; and integrating disadvantaged individuals more fully into society. It will also recognize as ‘‘charitable’’ a body lending assistance to other charities in fulfilling their charitable purpose in an efficient or effective manner. The legislation will omit any reference to amateur sport or to human rights in its definition of ‘‘charitable purpose.’’ Irish legislation will require proof of public benefit before a purpose can be declared charitable. The new
Charity Law
statutory test for public benefit, applicable to all nonreligious purposes, will require proof of three facts: (a) that the purpose in question is intended to benefit the public or a section thereof; (b) that any private benefit flowing from the purpose is ancillary and necessary for the achievement of the primary charitable purpose; and (c) that any donor-imposed limitations on the class entitled to benefit or any charges imposed in the provision of the charitable purpose are justified and reasonable and will not limit unduly the number of persons or classes of person who will benefit. Canada
Despite the English-speaking parts of Canada not adopting English statutory law at the time of colonization, much of the charity law in Canada reflects the English common law of charitable trusts. Various provinces, including Quebec, have their own definitions of what constitutes a charitable purpose. Whilst under the federated constitution the responsibility for the supervision of charities rests with the provinces, under the Income Tax Act 1985 the Canadian Revenue Authority (CRA) has effectively become the gatekeeper to charitable status. Charity law reform has been underway in Canada for over a decade with the Ontario Law Reform Commission issuing a report in 1996 and from 2002 a series of roundtables and joint government/sector working groups. However, little substantive reform has resulted from the various recommendations. Expansive interpretations by the Canadian courts have occurred from time to time. In Re Vancouver Regional Free Net Association and Minister of National Revenue [1996] 137 DLR (4th) 206 (Federal Court of Appeal, 8 July 1996), an organization established to provide free community access to the Internet was regarded as charitable as the service could be viewed as a contemporary equivalent to the ‘‘highways’’ declared charitable in the English Preamble. In Everywoman’s Health Centre Society (1988) v. Minister of National Revenue [1992] 2 FC 52 (Federal Court of Appeal, 26 November 1991), the court also awarded charitable status to a society established to provide ‘‘necessary medical services for women for the benefit of the community as a whole’’ and carrying on ‘‘educational activities incidental to the above.’’ The society ran a free-standing abortion clinic. In 2007, the ultimate Canadian appeal court in A.Y.S.A. Amateur Youth Soccer Association v. Canada (Revenue Agency) 2007 SCC 42; [2008] 287 DLR (4th) 4 (Supreme Court of Canada, 5 October 2007), decided that the court should only vary the definition of charity at the margins, leaving any other developments to the legislature.
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Singapore
Charity law in this jurisdiction is derived primarily from English law, but since attaining independence in 1965, Singapore has begun actively to develop its own body of law. Section 2(1) of the Charities Act 1994 defines ‘‘charity’’ as any institution, corporate or not, that is established for charitable purposes and is under the jurisdiction of the High Court with respect to charities while ‘‘charitable purposes’’ is defined as purposes that are exclusively charitable according to the law of Singapore. To interpret the meaning of these terms the courts rely on the common law, as established largely through English precedents. One of the departures from English law in Singapore was the establishment a subset of charities known as Institutions of a Public Character (IPCs) which have authorization to receive tax-deductible donations from the public. IPCs bear a similarity to Australia’s Public Benevolent Institutions. In October 2005, following the considerable media exposure given to scandals involving the National Kidney Foundation and other organizations which highlighted problems of governance in the sector, the Inter-Ministry Committee on the Regulation of Charities and Institutions of Public Character was established with a remit to examine the regulation of charitable organizations and IPCs. The result was a series of administrative and procedural reforms, but no alteration to the definition of charity. The separation of the office of Charity Commissioner from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore may result in the Commissioner having a greater degree of autonomy in determining charitable status. Australia
Australia was stamped at its colonial birth with the imprimatur of English laws and followed the English common law of charities. In the 1920s case of Chesterman v. Federal Commissioner of Taxation the Australian High Court decided that the meaning of ‘‘charity’’ in a federal taxing statute was the popular narrow meaning of the word, rather than the wider English legal meaning. The decision was overturned on appeal to the English Privy Council which replaced it with the orthodox English formula. The federal government responded with the new legislative concept of ‘‘public benevolent institution’’ (PBI), a restricted subset of charity which is still the main gateway to donation deductibility, rather than charity status. As in other common law nations, such as Canada, the primary regulatory authority in Australia is by default at federal level in the government revenue agency, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) which applies the provisions of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to regulate the
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fiscal environment including charities. It follows established English precedents on definitional matters, deploys a generally conservative and defensive interpretation of Pemsel and the ‘‘spirit and intendment’’ rule. Unlike the English Charity Commission, the ATO has neither the remit nor the resources to undertake a strategic program for the development of charitable purposes. States have the responsibility for the definition and regulation of charities outside the federal taxing statutes, but generally follow federal definitions, and state Attorneys–General who have regulatory oversight of charities are largely inactive. The Inquiry into the Definition of Charities and Related Organisations was launched by the Federal Government and in 2001 provided recommendations for new heads of charity and other reforms including a charity commission type body, all of which were remarkably similar to later charity reforms in England and Wales. However, the translation of such recommendations to a draft bill was regarded by many as flawed and subsequent legislative reform was contained to three relatively minor matters. The Tax Laws Amendment (2005 Measures No. 3) Act 2005, provided that ‘‘the provision of child care services on a nonprofit basis’’ is a charitable purpose; provision was made for self-help groups to acquire charitable status provided that they are ‘‘open and non-discriminatory’’; and closed or contemplative religious orders were also determined to be charitable. New Zealand
New Zealand also took the hallmarks of English charity law until the introduction of the Charities Act 2005. Prior to that legislation a definition of ‘‘charity’’ and ‘‘charitable purpose’’ required a referral to s 2 of the Charitable Trusts Act 1957 which provided that charitable purpose meant ‘‘every purpose which in accordance with the law of New Zealand is charitable.’’ Subject to some minor adjustments, the common law will continue under the 2005 Act. There has been an obvious and longstanding fundamental difficulty in fitting the charity law framework to Maori needs due to the fact that Maori communities are organised around blood relationships. Section 5 (2)(a) of the Charities Act 2005 says that the purpose of an organization may still be charitable and may satisfy the public benefit requirement, even if the beneficiaries or members are related by blood. The Inland Revenue Department has transferred to the newly established Charities Commission the power to grant an organization ‘‘charitable status’’ for income tax purposes only if that organization satisfies four requirements:
● It must be carried on exclusively for charitable purposes. ● It must not be carried on for the private pecuniary profit of any individual. ● It must have a provision in its rules requiring the assets of the organization to be transferred to another entity with charitable purposes if the organization ceases to exist. ● It must not have the power to amend its rules in such a way as to alter the exclusively charitable nature of the organization. United States of America
The American constitution leaves the definition and regulation of charity to the states, but it is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that is the dominant influence in what is regarded as ‘‘charitable.’’ The repeal of English legislation at the time of the Revolution was thought to extend to the Statute of Charitable Uses, thereby rendering all charities established in the newly founded states null and void. The Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in Section 501 lists two major sets of nonprofit organizations that are tax preferenced. There are what are commonly called ‘‘charitable’’ organizations being organizations ‘‘organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes’’ (Section 501(c)(3)) and a residuary group of ‘‘non-charities’’ such as social clubs, veterans’ organizations, unions, chambers of commerce and other private member organizations. While all Section 501(c) organizations are exempt from income tax, Section 501(c)(3) organization donors may be eligible for income tax deductions as a result of the gift. Within 501(c)(3) the law divides organizations into private foundations and public charities. The intent of the law is to separate donor-controlled or closely held organizations from operating charities with broad based donor or beneficiary constituencies so that stricter controls could be placed upon private foundations. State courts tend to look at broader definitions of ‘‘notfor-profit purposes’’ for determination of whether a corporation is an organization that deserves to be recognized as a charity or other beneficial non-business organization. State courts also must decide whether provisions of charitable trusts will be enforced. In recent years the Senate Finance Committee has been holding hearings about reforms of the tax rules for the nonprofit sector generally. In the June 2004 hearings the Committee requested the Independent Sector (IS) to convene what became known as the Panel on the Nonprofit Sector. The focus of the Senate Committee was on
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
issues related to accountability and transparency and ultimately governance rather than on definitional issues.
Future Directions The impending raft of reforms to the law and regulation of charity led by England and Wales and spreading through former British colonies is too recent to confidently predict the further development of charity law. The expansion of the heads of charitable purpose by legislation coupled with revamped, quasi-judicial mechanisms for the interpretation of charitable purposes through tribunals or administrative fiat will relieve some of the worst artificial confinement of the legal definition of charity. The stripping away of the public benefit presumptions from the law of charity and its replacement with various assessments and metrics will cause ongoing confrontation between organisations and regulators and governments as a new balance is struck. It is yet to be seen in our fast changing social context whether the additions to Pemsel will continue to adapt at a satisfactory pace with societal needs and beliefs, or whether government, emboldened by its legislative engineering of the definition of charitable purposes will further politicise charitable purposes to its own ends. If charitable purpose is to serve as the threshold to legal dispensations and fiscal concessions to the exclusion of other civil society organisations, then this contest will increasingly be prosecuted. However, those countries which are part of Europe will be under pressure to integrate into the European notions of nonprofit and foundation law in cross border taxation exemptions and gift deductions as well as common corporate forms, fundraising regulation and accountability measures. The European civil law traditions are quite different from the underlying jurisprudence of English charity law. The United States largely has left behind the Pemsel list and developed its own jurisprudential understanding of charitable purposes through its revenue laws. All jurisdictions with charity law will be challenged by hybrid organisations which span the traditional sector boundaries either with business or government. The principles of public benefit do not fit with personal gain so critical to business motivations. Independence of control inherent in trust law is an issue when the government boundary is overlapped, with governments demanding some element of control for public accountability assurance. These issues point to the need for the development of a jurisprudence that can serve as a touchstone of legal principles for civil society organisations, not merely charities.
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Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Common Law and Civil Society ▶ Charity, History of ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good
References/Further Readings Hopkins, Bruce, R. (2007). The law of tax-exempt organizations, 9th ed. New York: Wiley and Sons. Charles, M., & Susan, M. (Eds.) (2000). Foundations of charity, Oxford: Hart Publishing, p. 111. Dal Pont, G. (2000). Charity Law in Australia and New Zealand. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Great Britain, Home Office. (2003). Charities and not-for-profits: A modern legal framework – The government’s response to ‘‘private action, public benefit’’ London: Home Office. Jim, P., Bruce, C., & David, S. (Eds.) (2001). Between state and market: Essays on charity law and policy in Canada. Montreal: McGillQueen’s University Press, p. 457. Jones, G. (1969). History of the Law of Charity, 1532–1827, Holmes Beach, Fla: WW Gaunt. Luxton, P. (2001). The Law of Charities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ontario Law Reform Commission (1996). Report on the law of charities, Government of Ontario. O’Halloran, K., McGregor-Lowndes, M., & Simon, K. (2008). Charity law and social policy. Enschede, The Netherlands: Springer. Picarda, H. (1999). The law and practice relating to charities (3rd ed.). London: Butterworths. Warburton, J., Morris, D., & Riddle, N. F. (2003). Tudor on Charities. London: Sweet & Maxwell.
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization Mott Foundation Building 503 S. Saginaw Street, Suite 1200 Flint, MI 48502-1851 USA www.mott.org
Introduction Located in southeastern Michigan, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation is a private foundation providing grant support for programs throughout the United States and internationally. With approximately 85 staff members in its offices in Flint and Detroit (Michigan, USA),
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Johannesburg (South Africa), and London (United Kingdom), the Foundation awarded 558 grants totaling more than $110.4 million is 2008.
Brief History Former mayor of Flint, Michigan and pioneer of General Motors, Charles Stewart Mott established the C.S. Mott Foundation in 1926 by endowing it with 2,000 shares of General Motors stock valued at $320,000. Partnering with the Flint Community Schools in its early years, the Foundation became a major benefactor in the life of the city through school-based educational and recreational activities. This partnership ultimately developed into a nationwide community education movement.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area Through its programs of Civil Society, Environment, Flint Area, and Pathways Out of Poverty, and the more specific focus areas of these programs, the Foundation seeks to fulfill its mission of supporting efforts that promote a just, equitable and sustainable society.
Activities Through the foundation’s Civil Society program, nongovernmental organizations are funded in three major geographic areas: The United States, Central/Eastern Europe and Russia, and South Africa. In addition to its four program areas, the foundation also funds Exploratory and Special Projects (XSP). XSP grants support unusual or unique opportunities to address significant national and international problems. Under this program, the foundation makes a limited number of small grants for projects falling outside its regular grantmaking programs, including a longtime emphasis on supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Proposals for XSP grants are by invitation only; unsolicited proposals are discouraged. The Mott Foundation maintains an extensive Web site, www.mott.org, which is designed to share insights into the Foundation’s grantmaking and the work of its grantees. The Web site includes general information and addresses topics related to any of the Foundation’s 14 issue areas, which include: Afterschool, Citizen Participation, Community Foundations, Community Organizing, Flint Area, Freshwater Ecosystems, Income Security, Michigan, Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector, Race and Reconciliation, Sustainable Development, Transitional Justice, Vulnerable Youth, and Workforce Development. The Foundation also
produces a limited number of publications that are available free of charge by request.
Structure and Governance The 13 members of the Board of Trustees comprise its Audit, Executive, and Investment Committees. Of the 13 trustees, five are Mott family members. The Mott Foundation is unusual when compared with other large, international foundations that have been in existence for more than 75 years because of its continuity of leadership through the years. Also, its top leadership position is still held by a family member. The current president, William S. White, is only the third person to serve in that role. He follows in the footsteps of Harding Mott, who was the founder’s son and also Mr. White’s father-in-law. Adhering to principles of transparency and accountability are two of several standards listed in the Foundation’s Code of Ethics. In 1970, Mott was one of the nation’s first large foundations to print an annual report that detailed the type and amount of each grant made that year. The Foundation has continued to do so every year since then. Mott’s grantmaking is also guided by a stated set of values. Among others, they include: ‘‘Building strong communities through collaboration to provide a basis for positive change; Promoting the social, economic and political empowerment of all individuals and communities to preserve fundamental democratic principles and rights; and Respecting the diversity of life to maintain a sustainable human and physical environment.’’
Funding The Foundation, with year-end assets of approximately $1.96 billion, made 558 grants totaling almost $110.4 million in 2008. As a private foundation, Mott does not receive government funds. The Foundation’s grantmaking is supported by investment returns generated on the endowment left by Mott’s founder.
Accomplishments Mott’s afterschool grantmaking, funded through the Pathways Out of Poverty (POP) Program has been the model for afterschool programs throughout the United States and around the world. Additionally, the Foundation has been recognized as a leader in its support of microenterprise programs and workforce investment through the POP program.
Charta 77 Foundation
Through its Civil Society program, Mott has been a longtime supporter and promoter of the community foundation concept in the United States and globally. Additionally, Mott’s Environment grantmaking has been nationally recognized for its support of efforts to preserve and restore the Great Lakes water resources as the world’s largest freshwater ecosystem. The Foundation also supports nonprofit groups working nationally and internationally to change policies and practices of international trade and financial institutions so the environment is protected and people’s standard of living is not adversely affected by projects supported by these institutions.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Mott, C.S. ▶ Philanthropy in North America
References/Further Readings Gordon, T., & Morgan-Witts, M. (1979). The day the bubble burst: A social history of the Wall Street crash of 1929. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Young, C., & Quinn, W. (1963). Foundation for living: The story of Charles Stewart Mott & Flint. New York: McGraw-Hill.
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Brief History Charta 77 Foundation was established in 1978 in Stockholm by a group of young activists around the Folket i Bild magazine (represented by Peter Larsson a Peter Gavelin) and by Charta 77 signatory Jirˇı´ Pallas. Its mission was to support the aims of Charta 77 and to provide help for people persecuted by the Communist regime in Czechoslovakia. It was established with the money from the Monismanien Prize for freedom of speech, which Charta 77 was awarded for its brave defense of human rights. With the approval of the spokespersons of Charta 77 in Czechoslovakia, the foundation then went on to receive the other prizes that Charta 77 was awarded in the following years as well as numerous gifts from individuals and organizations around the world. In 1981 the foundation won generous support from George Soros that enabled it not only to intensify its help for Czechoslovak dissidents but also to support unofficial culture and science in Czechoslovakia. By the end of the 1980s it worked from four offices in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and New York. As soon as the Czechoslovak communist regime collapsed in November 1989, the foundation moved to Prague and opened regional offices in Brno and Bratislava. After the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993, the foundation split into the Czech Nadace Charty 77 and the Slovak Nada´cia Charty 77. Both continue their work to this day, but independently of each other and with differing missions.
Mission
Charta 77 Foundation MIROSLAV POSPI´SˇIL
Address of Organization Nadace Charty 77 Melantrichova 5 110 00 Praha 1 Czech Republic www.bariery.cz/nadace/
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From its original mission to draw attention to the fate of the opponents of the communist regime, to support the persecuted and imprisoned activists and their families and to support the development of free culture and thought, the mission of the post-1989 foundation had to be adapted to the new situation of transition to democracy and market economy. While continuing to work in the area of support for culture and science to this day, the Czech Ch77 Foundation has gradually expanded its mandate into the area of human services, the rights of minorities and the integration of minorities. The Slovak Ch77 Foundation, on the other hand, has narrowed its mission down to legal advisory services in the field of human rights.
Introduction
Activities
Charta 77 Foundation in the Czech Republic is one of two successor organizations to the original Charta 77 Foundation founded in Sweden in 1978. Since 1990, it has grown into one of the most important Czech supporters and funders of human rights causes.
To pursue its mission in the area of support for culture and science Charta 77 Foundation Czech Republic awards three annual prizes for outstanding achievement in humanities/social sciences, literature, and ecology and has a program of support for cultural projects. It also awards a
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prize for outstanding achievement if the fight for human rights and freedom. The best known and the largest program today, however, is the so-called Barriers Account, which supports projects that aim ‘‘to bring down barriers’’ between the majority and disadvantaged minorities of all descriptions. The ‘‘Barriers’’ program provides both direct support for disadvantaged individuals and groups as well as funding for nonprofit organizations that work for the integration of minorities.
References/Further Readings
Structure and Governance
CHRISTOPHER L. GRIFFIN, JR.
Charta 77 Foundation Czech Republic is a foundation in Czech law, registered with the regional court in Prague. It is governed by a Board of Trustees (eight members in 2006) and its activities and finances are monitored by a separate Supervisory Board (three members). The foundation is a member of the Czech Association of Foundations and adheres to its charter.
Funding Charta 77 Foundation has always been a grant-seeking foundation, both when it worked in Sweden and in the Czech Republic since 1989. It is financed primarily through individual contributions, special events and donations from corporations. It has also gradually built a small endowment of its own (CZK 76.6 million/$3.8 million in 2006), mainly with funding provided by the Czech state from the proceeds from the privatization of state-owned enterprises in the 1990s. In 2006 it reported total expenditures of CZK 47.2 million/$2.1 million, out of which CZK 34 million/$1.7 million were distributed as grants.
Hosˇt’a´lek, A., Jechova´, K., & Kantu˚rkova´, E. (1998). Nadace Charty 77: Dvacet let. [Charta 77 Foundation: Twenty Years]. Brno: Atlantis.
Child Trust Fund
Address of Organization Waterview Park Mandarin Way Washington NE38 8QG UK www.childtrustfund.gov.uk/
Introduction The Child Trust Fund (CTF) is an entitlement as well as a savings and investment account made available to all qualified children born in the United Kingdom on or after 2002. In practice, CTFs may take the form of: (1) traditional savings accounts; (2) stock market investments; or (3) ‘‘stakeholder accounts’’ with diversified portfolios regulated by the government to diminish risks from market fluctuations. Accounts may be opened either by the child’s parent(s) or the government if a parent fails to complete the stated requirements.
Brief History Accomplishments In November 1989, Charta 77 Foundation was one of only two foundations that were ready to start work in liberated Czechoslovakia without interruption and delay (the other being the Jan Hus Educational Foundation). It therefore holds a number of ‘‘firsts’’ that contributed significantly to the rapid renewal of the Czech foundation sector in the 1990s: it was the first foundation to launch a large-scale national appeal, the first to organize a charity concert or a charity auction, or the first to introduce regular payroll deduction as a way of donating to charity.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grant-seeking ▶ Human Rights ▶ Soros, George
Gavin Kelly and Rachel Lissauer of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) published ‘‘Ownership for All’’ in 2000, the document which first recommended establishing CTFs. Kelly and Lissauer suggested creating a universal ‘‘Opportunity Fund’’ that would provide an endowment of £1,000 to each UK citizen, payable at birth or at age eighteen. After the report’s release, the IPPR coordinated a seminar in September 2000 at the Prime Minister’s office bringing together government officials and experts on asset-based welfare schemes. This meeting launched the political campaign to introduce CTFs. After soliciting consultation through two April 2001 reports, ‘‘Saving and Assets for All’’ and ‘‘Delivering Saving and Assets,’’ Parliament enacted legislation in May 2004 establishing the CTF as a birthright for all children born on or after September 1, 2002 and residing in the
Child Trust Fund
United Kingdom. Even though the first accounts were activated in April 2005, children born between 2002 and 2005 still had access to CTFs. Then Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown amended the scheme in March 2006 so that all children who qualify for the CTF would receive an additional payment of £250 at age seven, whereas that children from households with incomes less than a fixed threshold (£15,575 in 2008) would receive £500 at the same time.
Mission As stated in the Explanatory Notes accompanying the Child Trust Funds Act, the policy objectives of the CTF are ‘‘[to] help people understand the benefits of saving and investing; [to] encourage parents and children to develop the saving habit and engage with financial institutions; [to] ensure that in [the] future all children have a financial asset at the start of adult life; [to] and build on financial education to help people make better financial choices throughout their lives.’’
Activities Between September 2002 and April 2007, almost 3.2 million CTF accounts were opened. In the 2006–2007 fiscal year, the average contribution to parent-opened accounts was about £260; the average level rose to £280 for the 2007– 2008 fiscal year. About one third of these parent-opened accounts received an additional nongovernment contribution. Regional government offices have made almost identical average donations to CTFs, although the average share of accounts with such investments was about 25%. The government remains involved in refining CTF design and coverage. For example, a consultation period initiated in 2007 sought to determine whether dropping the requirement that parents physically transfer payment vouchers to account providers (e.g., commercial banks, building societies, and investment managers) would increase efficiency and coverage. When parents fail to remit the initial voucher after twelve months, the government still establishes a Revenue Allocated Account (RAA) on the child’s behalf. Empirical evidence suggests that RAAs receive lower average parental contributions; thus, waiving the remittal requirement might increase parental participation and overall saving. Suggestions that the government make additional payments upon enrollment in secondary school have been raised but not enacted.
Structure and Governance Unlike many other forms of social security in the industrialized world, the CTF involves minimal government
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oversight and participation. The UK government sends the initial £250 voucher to a child’s ‘‘benefit claimant,’’ most often a parent. The claimant then activates a CTF account on the child’s behalf through a chosen financial services provider. Anyone may make payments to the child’s account as long as total contributions do not exceed £1,200 per year. The CTF account holder may not manage his or her funds until age 16, and only upon turning 18 may the child withdraw assets (although exceptions exist for terminally ill or deceased persons). CTF balances, for which all income and gains are taxexempt, may be used at the discretion of the account holder upon withdrawal.
Funding As noted in the history and structure of the CTF, initial funding for the fund comes from the government, and subsequent investments may come from the government or the child’s family and friends. The Exchequer projects that government costs associated with maintaining staff, information technology infrastructure, and legal expenses will reach £360 million in 2010 and £510 million by 2012.
Major Accomplishments In addition to the rising parental contribution statistics cited above, the CTF’s marketing campaign has achieved significant strides in educating the British public. As of April 2008, 97% of eligible parents surveyed were aware of the CTF, and 88% knew that interest earned on the accounts would be tax-free. The government also has strengthened efforts to ensure that ‘‘looked after children’’ (those in the custody of local authorities and foster families) have accounts opened and managed while separated from their parents.
Cross-References ▶ Stakeholder Society
References/Further Readings Ackerman, B., & Alstott, A. (1999). The stakeholder society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Finlayson, A. (2007). Characterizing new labour: The case of the Child Trust Fund. Public Administration, 86(1), 95–110. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (2007). Encouraging savings through tax-preferred accounts. Paris: OECD Publishing. Sherraden, M. (2003). Individual accounts in social security: Can they be progressive? International Journal of Social Welfare, 12(2), 97–107.
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Child Welfare League of America
Child Welfare League of America ROBBIE WATERS ROBICHAU
Address of Organization 2345 Crystal Drive, Suite 250 Arlington, VA 22202 USA www.cwla.org/
Introduction The Child Welfare League of America’s (CWLA) primary objective is ‘‘making children a national priority.’’ In order to achieve this goal, the organization desires to have all Americans and their communities involved in promoting and protecting children’s welfare. The League has championed for children for over 80 years, making it one of America’s ‘‘oldest and largest membership-based child welfare organizations’’ with over 800 public and private child-serving agencies that reach approximately nine million children every year.
Brief History In 1915, a voluntary union of 37 agencies came together as the Bureau for Exchange of Information. As the number of organizations grew within the Bureau, CWLA became officially incorporated in 1920 with a total of 65 charter members. The purpose of the voluntary federation of agencies was to set the nation’s first standard of practice for child welfare services. The League’s first executive, C.C. Carstens, believed that CWLA had an important role to serve by helping agencies engage in their work more effectively and determining proper standards for higher quality child services. This began one of the League’s primary objectives: to develop, review, and improve standards in service provision to children.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The CWLA’s vision is that all children can ‘‘grow up in a safe, loving, and stable family’’; therefore, the organization focuses on children and youth who may not live in this type of environment as well as the individuals that provide for and support these youth. CWLA states that its mission is to ‘‘lead the nation in building public will to ensure safety, permanence, and well-being of children, youth, and their families by advancing public policy, defining and promoting practice excellence and delivering superior membership services.’’
Activities Believing that collaboration and partnership is paramount, the CWLA provides direct support to its member agencies who are involved in service provisions to children and families. The League also engages in various advocacy, research, publications, training programs, consultations, and conferences; moreover, CWLA works in many child welfare practice areas such as adoption, child care and development, domestic violence, parenting, youth services and positive youth development. CWLA produces a National Data Analysis System, Children’s Voice Magazine, Child Welfare Journal, and reports on its numerous practice areas. Some of the League’s most recent initiatives have been Creating Parenting-Rich Communities, Children’s Memorial Flag project, Child Welfare Standards of Excellence, and Youth Ambassador Program.
Structure and Governance The League contains a diverse group of public and private agencies that provide social services to children in some form. With over 800 different organizations in the League, these affiliates have a common interest in supporting and protecting children. The CWLA unites these agencies through its various programs, educational resources, and advocacy on child policy issues. CWLA’s influence is nationwide with offices across the country in Washington, DC (headquarters), Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles.
Funding The CWLA receives funding from state and federal grants and contracts, membership and consulting fees, publication sales, corporation and foundation grants, and individual donations. The League has earned an A + from the Best in America Seal of Excellence from Independent Charities of America for demonstrating and documenting public accountability and program and cost effectiveness. Their annual report in 2006 stated that the League received over $12 million in total support and revenue. According to their 990 form in 2007, CWLA’s total assets were worth over $7 million.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The CWLA has made tremendous contributions to child welfare services across the nation. One of the primary ways they have impacted society has been through setting, evaluating, and revising CWLA Standards for child welfare services in both public and private organizations. CWLA has united, supported,
Churches and Denominations
and advocated on the behalf of children, their families, and memberships agencies. Their advocacy has also influenced the adoption of national legislation and programs such as the Fostering Connections and Increasing Adoptions Act, Family Preservation and Support Act, and Independent Living, Postlegal Adoption, and Section 8 Family Unification Programs. According to the CWLA, they are the ‘‘world’s largest publisher of child welfare materials.’’
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Federations, Nonprofit
References/Further Readings CWLA. (2006). 2006 Annual report. Arlington, VA: CWLA. Accessed from http://www.cwla.org/whowhat/2006annual.pdf; 1/12/2008 CWLA. (2000). Making children a national priority: CWLA strategic plan for 2000–2010. Washington, DC: CWLA. Morgan, L. J., & Martin, T. K. (2004). Making children a national priority: A framework for community action: Community implementation guide. Washington, DC: CWLA.
Churches and Denominations ANTONIUS LIEDHEGENER Friedrich-Schiller-Universita¨t Jena, Jena, Germany
Introduction The universe of organized religion in modern society is abound. This article is related to the Christian tradition of organized religion and its role within civil society as indicated by the two key words ‘‘churches’’ and ‘‘denominations.’’ Sociologically, churches and denominations, the multitude of their more or less integrated Christian congregations, and related Christian organizations form an integral and important part of civil society in many countries. As larger organizational bodies, churches, and denominations are also apt to act as collective actors in emerging transnational contexts of civic engagement. Churches and denominations spur religious as well as civic engagement by virtue of their values and their teaching and by providing various structures of opportunity to get involved with a congregation, other religious organizations, and the larger community. Being an active member of a church or congregation is frequently related with a wide array of attitudes and behaviors commonly attributed to a healthy civil society.
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Definitions and Historical Background Historically, the church (Latin: ‘‘ecclesia’’) became the essential self descriptive term of the followers of Jesus Christ in the ancient world. Early Christianity depicted itself theologically as a unified body of believers united by a common creed and the succession of local bishops including the bishop of Rome, the pope. During the course of history and especially during the Reformation period, the unity of the church dissolved, creating a complex situation of various Christian traditions and numerous churches in Europe, then in the Americas, and later with considerable variations in other parts of the world. Today, the Roman Catholic Church, (national) Protestant churches of Lutheran or Calvinist tradition, and various orthodox churches dominate the religious landscape in most European countries from an institutional point of view. However, industrialization, urbanization, migration, and to a lesser extent missionary activities led to the dominant modern pluralistic situation of civil societies in Western societies, including some nonreligious parts among its populations. Although secularization is a controversial concept in social science today, the emergence of the modern civil society as an independent sphere between state and market corresponds with a (nonlinear) process of secularization on an institutional level at the least. The human right of religious freedom and the idea of separating state and religion are at the center of this process of fundamental institutional change. In the course of modern history, churches had to, and did adjust to this process of modernization. Thus, Christianity and religion in general have ‘‘shown a surprising capacity (from the perspective of the Enlightenment critique of religion and secularization theory) to adapt to changing social conditions.’’ (Herbert, 2003: 291) In fact, churches have become an important segment of civil society. Compared with the notion ‘‘church,’’ ‘‘denomination’’ is a much younger term. Denomination is mainly used and in everyday language understood only in the English speaking world. Especially in the United States, denomination is a term pregnant with meaning. It is related to the self-understanding of America as a pluralistic civil society and to the positioning of religious entities within the larger societal context: Religion is free but separated from the sphere of democratic government. Religious truth is thus not a matter of political decisions of majorities. And religion exists legitimately in a variety of religious bodies related to the general Judeo-Christian tradition. As distinct organizations these bodies are called denomination. They constitute the dominant translocal aspect of organized religion (Ammerman, 2005: 362).
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However, as Tocqueville emphasized in his famous book Democracy in America, this does not mean that religion is not part of the larger political community as such. On the contrary, Tocqueville named denominational religious institutions – explicitly including the Roman Catholic Church in the United States – as one of the most basic democratic institutions in the United States. During the nineteenth century the US situation contrasted sharply with the role of churches in European polities. Confronted with the many disastrous events and outcomes of the French Revolution, churches in Europe opposed democratic ideas for about another 100 years for political and theological reasons. Yet, at the same time they became involved in the various trends of modernization themselves. Especially after World War II, European churches became more and more supportive of the democratic rule of government. This is true for the Protestant as well the as the Catholic tradition. For several reasons, the various orthodox churches in eastern Europe started this process of accommodating to democracy only recently, but while they reflected their role in ending Communist rule they started to develop new versions of Christian social teaching, too. Although churches and denominations see themselves as having a religious mission extending far beyond the sphere of inner worldly civil society (Bane et al., 2005), from a social science perspective ‘‘denominationalism’’ can be taken and observed as the dominant mode of organized religion in contemporary (Western) societies. Thus, from a social science point of view a clear terminological line between church and denomination can hardly be drawn today. How do churches and denominations then contribute to civil society?
Christiantiy and Civic Engagement: General Trends and National Variations In the US religion is a key aspect of the latest debates on civil society and social capital as well as their decline or resurgence in contemporary America (Putnam, 2000; Wuthnow, 1999). In his widely absorbed writings, Robert Putnam highlighted the importance of religion within the sphere of associational life in America. ‘‘Religious affiliation is by far the most common associational membership among Americans’’ (Putnam, 1995: 68–69). Putnam’s work helped to raise new interest in the role of religion in social science. Much of the recent research on religion in the United States shows that the local congregation is at the heart of American religion today (Ammerman, 2005: 357). This bears important consequences for volunteering and civic engagement. According to recent polls, about 38% of all Americans claim to volunteer within the framework of a religious organization. This is by far the largest
proportion among the various forms of volunteering. Especially local congregations provide ample opportunities to get involved in the religious community and larger society. Americans invest significant portions of their time, talent, and money in religious contexts. Members of religious communities serve in their congregation as ushers, choir singers and musicians, volunteers in religious education and religious youth meetings and members of church boards. They also direct their energies at the wider community by working with soup kitchens, home shelters, programs for children, civil rights and social justice activities, housing and repair, day care, elderly housing, political training, and other activities sponsored by their congregation. Many surveys do not show much variation in the level of engagement among different Christian traditions on the individual level. Some surveys see mainline Protestants as more civically engaged than their Evangelical counterparts with Catholics falling somewhere in between. But the most significant differences are usually observed between those who are involved in their congregation’s life and those who are nonattenders or nonreligious. In addition, it is important to look not only at individual behavior. Recent research has shown that the institutional or organizational level adds important information in illustrating the role of churches and denominations in American civil society. Social services are a vital segment of congregations’ civic activities. According to the National Congregations Study, 57% of American congregations report at least one kind of activity in this area. The most typical forms are food programs (32%), shelters (18%), children and youth programs (16%), and clothing (11%). Forty-two percent of congregations report political activities like informing its members about public policy, delivering voter guides, or organizing grass root activities. Taken by the numbers, it is worth noting that social services are less prominent on the list of civic activities than music and arts. There are also significant differences in the extent, scope, and sort of civic activities between congregations of the various Christian traditions. Although Catholics, for example, are no more civically involved than members of other denominations, Catholic parishes as institutions show a very strong commitment particularly to social and political activities and programs. Compared to other denominations they are clearly overrepresented in these segments. This higher level of institutional activity corresponds with the on average larger size of Catholic parishes and indicates some effects of economy of scale on the institutional level (Davis & Liedhegener, 2007: 146–154).
Churches and Denominations
Compared to the wealth of American research on denominations and civic engagement, research on religion and civic engagement in European countries is still scarce. However, from existing studies on civic engagement it is clear that Christianity is far from being insignificant for civil society in Europe today (Anheier & Toepler, 2000; Ruiter & de Graaf, 2006). In Germany, the Freiwilligensurvey 2004 allows for some instructive observations. It reports that 36% of the German population are involved in some form of nonpaid voluntary work involving some sort of responsible activities beyond an active membership in an organization. In contrast to the United States, sports and not religion is the most prominent field of civic engagement (Gensicke et al., 2006: 60). Among all questioned 11% do some type of voluntary work in the context of sporting activities. In the field of religion 6% are involved as volunteers. Interestingly, among general active membership religion ranks sixth, but among volunteer work it ranks third. Since most Germans either belong to a Protestant church or the Roman Catholic Church, this means that these churches bring about volunteers in higher rates than other segments of civil society in Germany. Currently, it is not clear whether there is a significant difference between Catholics, Protestants, and other believers and nonbelievers with respect to civic engagement. In Switzerland the Freiwilligen-Monitor Schweiz 2007 reports a total of about 26% in civic engagement. Here Protestants (30%) are more active than Catholics and persons without a religious belonging (25% each) (Stadelmann-Steffen et al., 2007: 72). In Australia the National Church Life Survey reports a different pattern. ‘‘Attenders most influenced by Anglo-Catholic or liberal Protestant traditions are more likely to be involved’’ (Kaldor et al., 1999: 71).
Beyond the Religious Context: Churches and Denominations as a Resource of Civil Society The activities of church members within and through their congregations, the forms and structures of these activities, and the (quantitative) significance of this kind of engagement have been reported so far. The following section concentrates on major topics and debates that examine civic engagement by religious people and institutions in societal context. The interest is thus in correlations and explanations between churches and denominations and civil society. Civic Engagement
Civic engagement of religious people is not confined to their own flocks. It clearly extends into the larger civil
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society. Data from the World Value Survey (WVS) for 80 countries around the world show that religiously involved persons are more likely to be civically engaged in general. Controlling for other variables the WVS data confirm ‘‘that the social networks and personal communications derived from regular churchgoing play an important role, not just in promoting activism within religious-related organizations, but also in strengthening community associations more generally’’ (Norris & Inglehart, 2004: 1991). This general pattern of a positive correlation seems true for individual countries as well (Ruiter & de Graaf, 2006). Civic Skills
Churches and denominations generate civic skills like organizing events, directing group meetings, and making one’s own views vocal. Evidence from the US context shows that congregations as promoters of civic skills are especially important for those who are not well integrated in the working force (Verba et al., 1995). This is of high political relevance: ‘‘[C]ivic skills learned in one place do leak out into the political process, especially to activities beyond voting. And because people of all economic and educational levels belong nearly equally to congregations (whereas other voluntary organizations are disproportionately middle and upper class), congregations are the single most widespread and egalitarian providers of civic opportunity’’ (Ammerman, 2005: 360). Again, we do not have this kind of dense evidence for most other countries. ‘‘Social Capital’’
The notion of social capital became very prominent among scholars of social science recently, although no consensus has been reached on its definition. One reason for its salience is the implied promise to move from correlations to explanations. Social capital, understood as the norms and networks of voluntary cooperation and social trust and their distribution in society, is seen as making civil society and democracy work (Putnam, 2002). A high level of social capital prevents modern societies from apathy, social misbehavior and deteriorating political conditions. Apparently, what has been reported on churches and denominations so far is relevant for social capital as well (Smidt, 1999). Denominations and local religious communities promote norms of civic behavior, provide many opportunities for voluntary engagement and allow for experiences to develop mutual trust in face to face relations which in turn can lead to generalized social trust. One of the valuable distinctions arising from this concept is the distinction between bonding and bridging social capital. The former describes
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networks of cooperation among group members such as church members which exclude nongroup members. The latter bridges differences between various groups horizontally (identity bridging) or vertically (status bridging) and is seen as especially important for generating generalized trust (Wuthnow, 2002). In the United States much of religion’s social capital seems to be bonding social capital. Congregations and their activists tend to experience problems with overcoming social differences (Lichterman, 2006). On the other hand, active church members are more likely to get into contact with persons in key positions such as entrepreneurs or elected officials (Wuthnow, 2002). Yet, beyond a metaphoric use, the implied causal model of social capital producing a healthy society and stable political institutions is still to be elaborated and tested. Welfare Provisions and Education
Charity has been an integral part of Christianity since its early days. Across Europe charitable institutions were first developed in connection with churches and monasteries. The same is true for education. Although the emerging territorial nation states took over some of these activities and gradually developed into a form of modern welfare state, the role of churches remained strong in many European states (Fix & Fix, 2005). Many forms of social services and educational institutions remained organized along religious lines, especially in countries with a religiously diverse population and/or a dominant cleavage between a secular labor movement and Catholic subculture such as Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, or Switzerland. This frequently led to a system of state–church separation which is characterized by religious freedom combined with a high level of institutionalized cooperation between religious service providers and state authorities. Interestingly enough, the recent trend of deregulating the welfare state led to the growing importance of religious providers, most notably seen in the new United States policy to support faith-based initiatives with federal money. Empirical research across various nations indicates that churches and denominations do not provide social services independently. They run their programs mostly in collaboration with para church organizations, secular social service providers, and governmental authorities. One of the major resources churches provide to the larger public is the channeling of large numbers of volunteers to the social service sector. Democracy and Democratization
Contrary to the traditional secularization thesis, religion in general and Christianity in particular have proved to be
a major force in public debates and politics (Casanova, 1994). Churches and denominations are vocal politically and thus play a prominent role in providing democratic political systems with means of political articulation and support. In general, comparative international research indicates that the measurable correlation between the civicness of individuals and the performance and stability of democracy is low (Gabriel et al., 2002). But with respect to religion there seems to be a correlation between church attendance and important institutional features like trust in democratic institutions (Gabriel, 1999). Finally, the fact that churches and denominations are resources of politics can clearly be seen in the case of the transition from a dictatorial regime to democracy. Many of the countries which became democracies in the so called third and fourth wave of democratization saw church activists working for (re-)establishing a civil society to overcome communist regimes or conservative dictatorships. The post-Vatican II Catholic church took the lead in many of these countries with large portions of Catholics (Huntington, 1991: 75). This is most evident in the case of Poland where the Polish born Pope John Paul II. contributed to the success of the free worker movement Solidarnosc. The new civic engagement in the context of churches and denominations in Eastern Europe laid the foundation to end communist rule and to overcome the block confrontation. This history is generally seen as one of the major roots of the new interest in civil society in general. Although churches contributed to liberalization and democratization, for many churches and denominations the period of consolidation proved to be a peculiar one. Many had difficulties in adjusting to their new role as public religions in a democratic system and a pluralistic society (Spieker, 2003). A growing new field of research follows these kind of questions with respect to non-European countries (Lienemann-Perrin & Lienemann, 2006). In a globalizing world the possibilities and chances of churches and denominations as actors in emerging transnational networks of civic engagement certainly deserve closer attention. From a civil society perspective Christian organizations are means for channeling ideas, personnel, skills, and material resources across the globe. The international web of religious cooperation and development aid is a pillar of the twenty-first century civil society.
Perspectives Current research shows churches and denominations mainly in a positive light with respect to their role in and contribution to civil society. This is mainly due to the fact that most Christian denominations have taken a
Churches and Denominations
constructive view on modern society and its democratic institutions. Looking back especially to the dark sides of Christian history in Europe and taking the continuous temptation of a fundamentalist retreat from democratic politics seriously, finally we have to point to the importance of the question of what makes Christianity civil (Wuthnow, 1996: 41 ff.). Of course, there are important traditions within the Christian tradition that give support and credibility to constitutional democracies. The dignity of each human person as an image of God, the Golden Rule as a means to impartial judgment on the interests of all concerned, the norm of compassion to friends and foes, the idea of the inner worldly time as an unrepeatable test to improve one’s faith as well as the conditions of this world – all of this was a cultural precondition for developing an ethos of human rights and democratic institutions. Yet to make Christianity a supportive force of civil society, churches, and denominations themselves had to undergo considerable change. Churches and denominations – as well as other religions – had (and continuously have) to ‘‘integrate ideas of human freedom, representative government, human rights, and human flourishing’’ into their message (Farina, 2007: 24). This leads to a task still to be undertaken by humanities and social science. The connection between civic engagement by churches and denominations and regime change in favor of democracy is far from being understood. It seems to be helpful to ask under which circumstances and under which internal religious and intellectual conditions churches and denominations are capable of developing and nurturing role models of citizenship and political participation. Finally, taking the fact into account that churches and denominations are important resources of today’s civil society, more comparative empirical research is needed to better understand their crucial role in contemporary societies. This will pose multilevel and multiarena problems of analyses, and it involves serious measurement problems in order to correctly chart the cultural variations within the reality of civil society (Andolina & Jenkins, 2005: 76–78; Liedhegener, 2007). Comparative empirical research also implies a move from simple correlations between organized Christian religion and civic engagement to explicit explanations and model building. A better understanding of the complexity of mutual interactions, inherent connections, and more or less causal relationships is crucial for the success and societal relevance of this research. Studying churches and denominations will thus contribute much to the ongoing and growing public interest in better understanding the social and cultural foundations of modern democracies and civil society.
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Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Christianity ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Religious Orders ▶ Religious Organization ▶ Social Capital, Definition ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Ammerman, N. T. (2005). Denominationalism/congregationalism. In H. R. Ebaugh, (Ed.), Handbook of religion and social institutions (pp. 353–371). New York: Springer. Andolina, M. W., & Jenkins, C. (2005). Citizen engagement measurement. In S. J. Best, & B. Radcliff, (Ed.), Polling America. An encyclopedia of public opinion (Vol. 1, pp. 74–81). Westport, CT/London: Greenwood Press. Anheier, H. K., & Toepler, S. (2002). Bu¨rgerschaftliches Engagement in ¨ berblick und gesellschaftspolitische Einordnung. Aus Europa. U Poliltik und Zeitgeschichte, B(9), 31–38. Bane, M. J., Coffin, B., & Higgins, R. (2005). Introduction: Taking faith seriously. In M. J. Bane, B. Coffin, & R. Higgins (Eds.), Taking faith seriously (pp. 1–17). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Casanova, J. (1994). Public religions in the modern world. Chicago, IL/London: University of Chicago Press. Chaves, M. (2004). Congregations in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Davis, M., & Liedhegener, A. (2007). Catholic civic engagement at the local level. The parish and beyond. In A. Liedhegener & W. Kremp (Eds.), Civil society, civic engagement and catholicism in the US (pp. 241–255). Trier: WVT. Fix, B., & Fix, E. (2005). Kirche und Wohlfahrtsstaat. Soziale Arbeit kirchlicher Wohlfahrtsorganisationen im westeuropa¨ischen Vergleich. Freiburg i.Br.: Lambertus. Gabriel, O. W. (1999). Sozialkapital und Institutionenvertrauen in ¨ sterreich und Deutschland. In F. Plasser (Hgg.), Wahlen und politische O ¨ sterreich (pp. 147–189). Frankfurt Einstellungen in Deutschland und O a.M.: Lang. Gabriel, O. W. et al. (2002). Sozialkapital und Demokratie. Zivilgesellschaftliche Ressourcen im Vergleich. Wien: WUV. Gensicke, T., Picot, S., & Geiss, S. (2006). Freiwilliges Engagement in Deutschland 1999–2004. Ergebnisse der repra¨sentativen Trenderhebung zu Ehrenamt, Freiwilligenarbeit und bu¨rgerschaftlichem Engagement, in Auftrag gegeben und ed. vom Bundesministerium fu¨r Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, vorgelegt von TNS Infratest Sozialforschung, Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Herbert, D. (2003). Religion and civil society. Rethinking public religion in the contemporary world. Aldershot: Ashgate. Huntington, S. P. (1991). The third wave. Democratization in the late twentieth century. Norman/London: University of Oklahoma Press. Kaldor, P., Dixon, R., & Powell, R. (1999). Taking stock. A profile of Australian church attenders. Adelaide: Openbook Publishers. Lichterman, P. (2006). Elusive togetherness: Church groups trying to bridge America’s divisions. Princeton, NJ/Oxford: Princeton University Press.
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Liedhegener, A. (2007). Civic engagement by religion. American civil society and the catholic case in prespective. An introduction. In A. Liedhegener & W. Kremp (Eds.), Civil society, civic engagement and catholicism in the US (pp. 3–15), Trier: WVT. ¨ ffenLienemann-Perrin, C., & Lienemann, W. (Eds.) (2006). Kirche und O tlichkeit in Transformationsgesellschaften. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Norris, P., & Inglehart, R. (2004). Sacred and secular. Religion and politics worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 64–78. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone. The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Putnam, R. D. (Ed.) (2002). Democracies in flux. The evolution of social capital in contemporary society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ruiter, S., & de Graaf, N. D. (2006). National context, religiotiy, and volunteering: Results from 53 countries. American Sociological Review, 71, 191–210. Smidt, C. (Ed.) (2003). Religion as social capital. Producing the common good. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Stadelmann-Steffen, I., Freitag, M., & Bu¨hlmann, M. (2007). FreiwilligenMonitor Schweiz 2007. Zu¨rich: Seismo Verlag. Spieker, M. (Ed.) (2003). Katholische Kirche und Zivilgesellschaft in Osteuropa. Postkommunistische Transformationsprozesse in Polen, Tschechien, der Slowakei und Litauen. Paderborn: Scho¨ningh. Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Henry, E. B. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wuthnow, R. (1999). Mobilizing civic engagement: The changing impact of religious involvement. In T. Skocpol & M. P. Fiorina (Eds.), Civic engagement in American democracy (pp. 331–363). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Wuthnow, R. (2002). Religious involvement and status-bridging social capital. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 41, 669–684.
CIRIEC FRANCISCO MARTINEZ
Address of Organization Baˆtiment B33 – boıˆte 6 BE-4000 Lie`ge Belgium www.ciriec.ulg.ac.be
Introduction The Centre International de Recherches et d’Information sur l’Economie Publique, Sociale et Coope´rative (CIRIEC – International Center of Research and Information on the Public, Social, and Cooperative Economy) is an international, nongovernmental scientific organization focused on the social economy and the public sector. CIRIEC develops its own research and publications and organizes
several events to strengthen the international community of researchers, managers, and interested people.
Brief History In 1908 Edgard Milhaud, a french economics Professor at the University of Geneva, founded the journal Annals of Collective Economy. In order to ensure the continuity of the journal, the ‘‘International Centre of Research and Information on the Collective Economy’’ was founded by Milhaud in 1947. After 10 years of activity, financially endorsed by Swiss benefactors, the headquarters of the association was transferred to the University of Lı`ege in Belgium, where it has operated until present time. During the last decades the international presence of CIRIEC was strengthened through the foundation of national sections in 12 countries (Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and Turkey). A membership system was designed for organizations and institutions from countries where no official section exists.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The main objective of the organization is to collect and publish information and scientific research on the topics of ‘‘economic sectors and activities oriented towards the service of the general and collective interest.’’ Although not exclusively, mainly three sectors fall into the scope of investigation: the State and the regional public authorities in regards to their economic policy and regulations capacity; the public and mixed enterprises across the national, regional, and municipal levels; and the social economy sector. Through its activities, CIRIEC seeks to provide useful information and opportunities not only for researchers, but for managers as well.
Activities CIRIEC still edits the Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, which is published since 1995 by Blackwell Publishing at Oxford, United Kingdom. The journal is published on a quarterly basis and features ‘‘high quality theoretical and empirical articles providing information of interest to both academics and practitioners, in the following fields: enterprises with public participation, new economy of regulation, networks economics, public utilities worker participation, nonprofit organizations, cooperatives, social economy, and related topics.’’ The complete journal in a printed format can be accessed at CIRIEC main offices and an online version is available from 1925 onwards at the Blackwell Publishing website. In addition, a large amount of working papers and reports
Citizens Coalition for Economic Justice
are available for public access on the institution website and a new series of publications called the ‘‘Social Economy & Public Economy Series’’ was announced in 2008. CIRIEC also organizes events periodically to gather the research and managerial community. An international research conference is held every 2 years (odd years) and a biennial international congress (even years) is organized to gather a broader audience which includes both researchers, managers, and participants related to the social economy sector.
Structure and Governance The general administration body is structured in several instances: an executive committee called the Praesidium; the Board of Directors, composed by delegates of the national sections of the organization; the biennial General Assembly which meets on occasion of the international Congresses; and the International Secretariat who provides the daily management. The research activities are coordinated by the International Scientific Council.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Social Economy
References/Further Readings Fecher, F., & Le´vesque, B. (2008). The public sector and the social economsy in reply to: The annals (1975, 2007): Towards a new paradigm. Annals of Public & Cooperative Economics, 79(3/4), 679–727. Geerkens, E. (2008). From the annales de la re´gie directe. Annals of Public & Cooperative Economics, 79(3/4), 417–460.
Citizens Coalition for Economic Justice SANG PEEL PARK
Address of Organization 50-2 Dongsoong-dong, Jongro-gu 110-809 Seoul South Korea www.ccej.or.kr
Introduction/Brief History Citizens’ Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ) was founded in 1989 by 500 persons representing various walks of life, such as economics professors, lawyers, housewives, students, business people, etc., in response
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to the extremely unjust structure of Korean economic life. The main founder of CCEJ was Kyungsuk Suh, who was a conservative minister. In Korea, rapid economic development over the last 30 years has brought wealth to the giant ‘‘chaebol’’ business groups singled out by the government, and has raised the per capita GNP to more than $10,000. In this process, however, equitable distribution has been forgotten, environment gravely damaged, and democratic development postponed. The priority on industrialization and urbanization has alienated large groups and areas and created wide structural gaps, even risking collapse of the economic system. Before CCEJ came into being, there were few organizations to point out the structural problems of Korean economy and to engage citizens in the economic reform movement. Therefore, the appearance of CCEJ significantly drew the attention of the Korean people to economic justice.
Mission/Objectives CCEJ’s mission is to achieve economic justice through citizens’ power with the belief that the deep-rooted economic injustice cannot be cured by government alone, but ultimately must be solved by the organized power of citizens; the fruits of economic development should be shared by all the common people, not just the small group of ‘‘haves.’’
Activities Its major activities are in the areas of economic policy research, economic justice campaign, urban reform, anticorruption vigilance, local self-government, and reunification of Korea, international solidarity, etc. It publishes the monthly magazine Civil Society, written in English.
Structure and Governance CCEJ is structured in the general assembly as the highest legislative organ, co-representative, steering committee, executive committee, and secretary general. Under the secretary general, there are six departments, which are composed of executive committee members. CCEJ has also around 30 branches across the nation. It pursues civil action led by ordinary citizens, using legal and nonviolent methods, seeking workable alternatives, speaking for the interests of all people, regardless of economic standing, and overcoming greed and egoism in order to build a sharing society.
Funding As of 2008, CCEJ has approximately 20,000 members and 60 full-time paid staff members. Membership dues cover around 50% of the total budget. Other funds are
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filled up by donations, various projects, bazaar, and so forth. The annual budget of the year 2008 is US$1.2 million.
Major Accomplishments From the beginning of 1989, CCEJ has campaigned for solving the housing problem of the urban poor. By initiating campaigns to prohibit speculative real estate business, to expand the quantity of leased houses, and to secure the right of renters, CCEJ urged the government to make practicable plans and stable housing policies. As a result, a housing lessee protection law was revised. With this, it accomplished many economic reforms, such as independence of the Korean Bank, introduction of a real-name system for all financial transactions, fair taxation, and activation of local self-government.
Cross-References ▶ Social Justice
References/Further Readings Park, S. (2005). The introduction to NGO studies. Seoul: Arche (Korean).
Citizenship DIETER GOSEWINKEL Wissenschaftszentrum, Berlin, Germany
Introduction Citizenship has become one of the most influential concepts of social science as well as political debate after World War II. It is used by sociologists and anthropologists, legal experts, as well as historians. The topic of citizenship is linked to a broad variety of issues. Citizenship and citizenship rights are a major theme in debates over the development of the welfare state. They also serve as political concepts for the mobilization and participation of citizens. Citizenship is a central legal institution to ascribe voting rights and the duty of conscription. In political as well as scientific debates on migration, national identity, and its limits all over the world, the idea of citizenship has come to play an increasingly important role. In attempts for transnational and supranational community building the institution of citizenship, in particular European citizenship, is an increasingly important issue both in politics and scientific literature. In general, the fundamental theoretical categories for the analysis of
any society or community, inclusion and exclusion are perfectly well exemplified by the institutional structure and practical working of citizenship. The political and practical relevance of citizenship thus goes far beyond the scientific context. It is deeply rooted in the history of the concept. Like many political concepts citizenship has developed from a political claim to a concept of legitimation. From its very beginning it has been closely linked to individual claims for autonomy, for the recognition of individual rights, as well as for equality against status differences. The use of the concept of citizenship ranges from the particular national level to a universal global meaning. As a principle of political order, citizenship always refers both to the state as well as to society. It thus represents a fundamental precondition for the existence of civil society and shapes its practice.
Definition In political theory, one can broadly differentiate between three conceptualizations of citizenship. According to Giesen and Eder (2001) an individualist, a political, and a collective identity paradigm can be distinguished. While the individualist paradigm based on individual liberties and welfare entitlements is realized in petitions of rights, the political paradigm interprets citizenship as a pattern of civic duties and obligations which are mainly practiced in a strong public sphere. Finally, the collective identity paradigm leaves the individual level and starts from the assumption of a predominantly cultural set of common values and traditions converging in a common sense of belonging. These conceptualizations, based on a wide range of historical variations of citizenship, can be reduced to two core meanings which apply to all of the historical phases that the formation of citizenship as subject and concept has undergone. Citizenship means membership in a political community as well as a form of active behavior toward the community which constitutes the good and responsible citizen. These two meanings constitute the general definition of citizenship. Like membership, citizenship can – but does not need to – be based on a common set and belief of belonging which gives a common ground and internal stability to the community. It always confers, however, the status of equality among all citizens with respect to the rights and duties that the status implies. The form of membership varies between merely cultural and political types of belonging, especially in ancient societies, and legal forms of membership which have increasingly developed in the modern state. Citizenship as modern legal membership
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in a state or community has to be differentiated according to two meanings. First, as a mere formal, legal status of membership, citizenship is equivalent to nationality as a legal institution. It designates the status of being the national of a state or member of a local community. Citizenship in a material sense means a set of individual rights which in general are attached to the formal status of membership in a political community. This type of material legal citizenship has found its classical formulation in the work of Thomas H. Marshall, who analyzed citizenship as a set of rights according to three main categories: civil, political, and social rights (Marshall, 1950/1992: 8). Marshall’s evolutionary interpretation of citizenship as a sequential development of these three types of rights became the point of departure for the theory and definition of citizenship after World War II. The second meaning of citizenship as good civic behavior completes the membership status. It derives from the model of the ancient Greek city-state citizenship that was ideally and practically linked to democracy by the civic virtues of an active ‘‘citizen,’’ which permitted him to ‘‘share in the polis,’’ a politically active and autonomous community. Citizenship in the meaning of good civic behavior is linked to both the political and the collective identity paradigm of citizenship. The obligation of active engagement in the polity and the more passive commitment to commonly shared values and convictions are interpreted as an essential prerequisite both of citizenship and of civil society (Giesen & Eder, 2001: 6).
History The historical origin of citizenship is European. While every human group has developed institutions by which to define its members and procedures for making new members, the Greeks were the first society to combine the legal provisions of membership with a political theory of membership virtues and institutions in order to perpetuate their idea of citizenship. The legal status of citizenship established equality among Athenian citizens in terms of their rights and obligations. The status of equal membership marked privilege vis-a`-vis nonmembers. Apart from the legal framework, the concept of Athenian citizenship included a set of citizen values, behaviors, and communal attitudes. Roman citizenship – more complex, expansive, and legalistic than its Greek counterpart – revealed the development of citizenship from an instrument for defining the city-state community to one for the legal integration of an extensive world empire. With the loss of a central, universal legal structure at the end of the Roman Empire, citizenship became obsolete as a political concept.
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Christianity rejected the model of political order to which ancient philosophy, especially Aristotle and Cicero, had contributed. It developed a complete and alternative system of social and moral values that helped establish a new institutional political order. A system of multifaceted loyalty replaced the citizen’s concentrated loyalty to the state. The lack of a centralizing and nationalizing state power in parts of medieval Europe left room for the growth of a strong, urban citizenship, particularly in the city-states of northern and central Italy (Heater, 1990: 23). The theory and political order of state sovereignty in European absolutism, with its concentration of central state power and its unambiguous claim to loyalty, prepared the ground for a national rather than local concept of modern citizenship. The personal and territorial delimitation of sovereign states and the ordering of their international relations increased the necessity to define membership in and allegiance to the state. The call for individual rights of religious freedom and selfgovernment, strengthened by religious opponents of the state, and revolutionary efforts to found governments upon popular sovereignty, for example in England, were the predecessors to active citizenship. The eighteenth century brought a breakthrough in the defining of citizenship, with political theory and institutions at its core. In the American and French Revolutions the word ‘‘citizen’’ – and its French equivalent, citoyen – became a key concept in the legitimation of the political struggle against the feudal ancien re´gime, as well as in the struggle for equality before the law, freedom from religious discrimination and arbitrary arrest, the extension of political rights, and popular democracy. From this point onward, citizen, citizenship, and citoyennete´ became core terms of a state order based on democracy and constitutionalism. The key concept of citizenship (citoyennete´) in the French Revolution combined four traits that were to become essential for the development of citizenship throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: an egalitarian, anti-feudal impetus; confirmation as a key concept of the legal constitution; an association with extensive individual rights; and finally, nationalization. The modern concept of citizenship arose together with the concept of the nation-state and became one of its central legal institutions. The age of revolution and constitutionalism in the Western world was also an age of an increasing delimitation of national citizenries. Extended citizenship law came to define membership in the nation-state as well as the rules of naturalization policies. Citizenship and citizenship law (in the sense of nationality
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law to define formal membership in a nation-state) became key instruments for defining national identity (Gosewinkel, 2003) and controlling migration in a modern world characterized by increasing transnational mobility (Brubaker, 1992). The central function of citizenship in defining membership in the sense of nationality was supplemented by a second main function, i.e., conferring upon the citizen individual rights vis-a`-vis the state. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, Western constitutional states extended the range of civil, political, and, increasingly, social rights that were reserved mainly for their own citizens. The nationalization of citizenship as a membership status corresponded to a nationalization of citizens’ rights. Citizenship became an institution for distributing ‘‘life opportunities’’ in a world of nation-states. As the importance of citizenship as a legal entitlement increased, its extension to new members became more and more contested within the national citizenry. The struggle for inclusion, in European as well as in American constitutional law, dominates the history of citizenship to this day. The gradual extension of equal civil rights to groups resident on the nation-state’s soil who had been denied citizenship rights and were subjected to discrimination on the basis of ethnic or national origin, religious beliefs, social status, or gender, determined the direction that citizenship was to take. The claims of discriminated groups to equality became the motor for full inclusion in the community defined by citizenship. With the decline of liberal democracy, the rise of radical nationalism, racism, and totalitarian dictatorship in the constitutional states of Europe and Asia, the period between the two world wars represented an interruption in the development of modern citizenship. The dominance of ascriptive national, ethnic, or racial criteria in admission to citizenship, the splintering of the citizenry through hierarchical classes of rights, the withdrawal of civil rights and massive expatriation of millions destroyed the core of equality within the concept of citizenship. The rise of an army of stateless people deprived of rights and protection revealed how dependent citizenship was on the liberal legal structures of the nation-state. To summarize, the historical development of citizenship from its beginning in the Greek city-states has been characterized by a multiple process of expansion. Citizenship as a historical concept developed in Europe. It expanded from a membership status in a local community to a central membership in the territorial nation-state. Citizenship as entitlement to individual rights was transferred from the level of the nation-state to that of supranational communities. From its inception in the
Greek city-communities, the concept and ideal of citizenship has spread beyond Europe all over the world to states based on the principle of constitutional democracy. The substantive program of citizenship as a set of individual rights has expanded from political and civil to encompass social and economic rights, and ultimately, cultural and environmental rights as well.
Key Issues While the relevance of citizenship as an institution of modern society as well as an instrument of social analysis is commonly recognized, its conceptualization is under debate. This is mainly due to the increasing practical importance of citizenship as a membership status, as a set of rights and obligations as well as a standard of legitimizing – particular – feelings of identity and modes of civic action. To the degree that citizenship became an institution of inclusion into the (welfare) state or national citizenry and an instrument of struggles for recognition (Fraser & Honneth, 2003), the academic debate over its function, reach, and limits assumed an increasingly political impact. Conceptualization Under Debate
Thomas Marshall’s concept of citizenship, which had been developed in the immediate post-World War II period and in the heyday of the Western welfare state, was thus subject to criticism from various perspectives. The most important lines of criticism particularly focus on historical, social, and territorial ‘‘frontiers’’ (Vogel & Moran, 1991: xii). Marshall’s analysis of the development of citizenship as a sequence of civil, political, and social rights is deeply rooted in the social and economic history of England as the starting point and pattern of worldwide industrialization. Its Anglocentric orientation differs sharply from the generalized, sometimes even universalistic language of the analysis not only in Marshall’s account but even more in its wide reception by social science. Marshall’s abstract language of ‘‘the universal status of citizenship’’ in its connection with ‘‘basic human inequality’’ (Marshall, 1950/1992: 6, 44) invites generalization despite the temporal and geographical contingency of its context. There is a wide range of critique. First, predominantly agricultural or culturally different societies – in Europe or beyond – which were not marked by centralized industrial modernization like England did not offer the same structural opportunities for the development of the idea and practice of individualism, equality, and rights. Second, Marshall’s analysis, with its inherent idea of expanding rights, is linked to the Western welfare state in the heyday
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of its development after World War II. It loses explanatory force in times of decline of public welfare institutions and state power in general due to processes of liberalization and deregulation in Western industrial societies since the 1970s. Third, the Marshallian model of a sequential development of civil, political, and social rights does not fit into every Western, or even Western European state. In Germany, for example, the development of a system of social insurance rights at the end of the nineteenth century became a widely accepted model in the industrial world. It preceded, however, the implementation of equal political rights which could not be established durably before the end of World War II. In France, moreover, civil and social rights for women were recognized far earlier in the course of the first half of the twentieth century than political rights which were implemented only after World War II. Fourth, the focus on social, particularly on class struggles, to explain the inherent force of citizenship development faces objections of two kinds. On the one hand, the concept of ‘‘social’’ in Marshall’s analysis is criticized as being far too narrow. Gender, for example, as a social category and an argument for hierarchical discrimination and withholding rights, was not only a contingent aspect but a fundamental structure of modern citizenship from its very beginning (Vogel, 1991a: 58–85; Siim, 2000: 13). On the other hand, the particular focus on social struggles to explain the upsurge and persisting relevance of citizenship is criticized and enlarged by a broader conception of struggles for recognition which end up with the codification of rights. The recognition of cultural difference (Fraser & Honneth, 2003) as an argument for the implementation of rights paves the way for a new category of cultural rights which are based on claims for cultural identity. These claims may be oriented toward the recognition of individual rights, e.g., sexual rights, as well as collective rights, e.g. ethnic group rights (Isin & Wood, 1999). What these lines of critique have in common is that they do not want to give up the Marshallian model, but they want to modify and adapt it to new contexts in order to enlarge it and to include even more types of rights. Nationalization – Internationalization
Citizenship as a membership status refers to a personal relationship between an individual (or a group) and an institution. From its origin, however, this relationship always included a territorial aspect. Citizenship as a status of full membership could only be realized within the territorial frame of a state, nation-state, city, etc. In the age of the nation-state the interrelation between the territorial reach of (nation-)state power and the status of
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membership became particularly close. The nationalization of citizenship meant that the right to hold and exercise most of the rights of a citizen was derived from birth or stay in the territory of a nation-state. Increasingly, systematic controls of the territorial boundaries of nationstates regulated the right to residence as a precondition for naturalization and citizenship. Citizenship as a status of nationality became the precondition for most of the elementary rights conferred or protected by the state. The line between inclusion and exclusion was sharply drawn by the status of citizenship within a territory. This model of inclusion and exclusion underlies the Marshallian model of citizenship without being mentioned explicitly. This is criticized by recent literature which demonstrates another – territorial – ‘‘frontier of citizenship’’ (Vogel & Moran, 1991: xiii). Its point of departure is the change and partial decline of the territorial bindings of citizenship. One basic reason is the eminent upsurge of cross-national migration after World War II due to fundamental political and economic changes: the postwar economic boom, decolonization, the opening of the communist systems in Europe and Asia, as well as an unprecedented phase of globalization in world economy. This new quality of mobilizing citizens all over the world to move and work abroad has changed the basic assumptions of national citizenship regimes (Castles & Davidson, 2000). The discrepancy between the place of birth and the place of permanent residence, increasing intermarriage and a growing need for the social integration of longterm residents with foreign citizenship led to changes in the legal regulation of membership. The national regulation of citizenship and nationality, encouraged by new developments in international law, is now gradually admitting multiple nationalities. Citizenship regulations are negotiated between nation-states in bilateral or multilateral agreements. Territorial residence and personhood – instead of ethnic descent – more and more legitimize the exercise of individual rights which had hitherto been reserved to members of the nation-state (Soysal, 1994). The denationalization of citizenship can also lead to alternative forms of territorialization. This becomes evident in supranational institutions like the European Union (EU). EU law is developing a particular kind of supranational membership status, European citizenship, which is designed to confer specific ‘‘European’’ rights upon citizens from EU countries. Apart from this still rudimentary form of supranational citizenship there is a wide range of specific rights and entitlements particularly in the social and economic domain recognized by EU jurisdiction. These rights are detached from national
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citizenship and the territory of the nation-state (Weiler, 1999). They are, however, connected to a new territoriality: the European Union. Citizenship and Civil Society
Citizenship and civil society can be interpreted as interdependent. The degree of interrelatedness depends on the concept of civil society: Civil society can either be conceptualized as a specific quality of ‘‘civil’’ interaction (Gosewinkel & Rucht, 2003: 49) or as an intermediary sphere of action between the state, the economy, and the private sphere where associations organize and act publicly and in self-determination. If one follows an ‘‘associational’’ concept of civil society (Walzer, 1995: 153), a common ground of civil society and citizenship consists in a specific legal framework. Both the exercise of citizenship rights and the activities of civil society actors are based on the codification and judicial enforcement of individual rights, particularly civil and political rights, e.g., the freedom of speech and association and the right to vote. Historically, this junction goes back to the Age of Enlightenment. The renaissance of civil society theory during the second half of the eighteenth century was closely linked to the idea of natural law and often resulted in the claim for individual, constitutional rights. Theoretically, the link between citizenship and civil society can be conceptualized in the following ways: First, citizenship as a political institution serves as an ‘‘interface’’ between the organization and the individual relating state and civil society, government, and the people (Giesen & Eder, 2001: 4; Janoski, 1999: 12). Second, citizenship rights are an instrument of participation in the public sphere as the genuine sphere of civil society (Cohen & Arato, 1992). Thus, changes in the concept and practice of citizenship rights, e.g., the shift from national to transnational rights, contribute to the redefinition of the sphere of civil society (Soysal, 2001: 160, 172). Third, according to a communitarian perspective, civil society as an associational network serves as a school for the values and virtues of a good (democratic) citizen. While this perspective is disputed by liberal theory (Kymlicka & Norman, 1995: 294, 296) there is consensus about the interrelation of the two concepts: Civil society has come to need citizenship as the codification and practice of rights and values; in turn, citizenship presupposes civil society as a space for organizing and practicing individual and diverse concepts of freedom.
Future Directions Developments after World War II, in Europe and beyond, were characterized by a dual tendency. On the one
hand, the restoration of liberal democracy, particularly in Western Europe, saw a reconstruction of citizenship. This was reinforced and extended to the global arena after 1989 with the end of ideological-block confrontations and the adoption of democratic and constitutional patterns by most of the formerly communist states. On the other hand, there is also evidence of a tendency toward some ‘‘devaluation’’ and weakening of citizenship. (Fahrmeir, 2007) The weakening of nation-state structures, the trend toward transnational political unions, global standards, and guarantees of civil rights as human rights have all diminished the importance of (national) citizenship for the conferral of individual rights. While formal citizenship is still crucial on the level of the right to full participation in the political arena, this no longer applies to economic and social rights. Citizenship as national membership status is of decreasing importance for the exercise of these increasingly relevant rights (Soysal, 1994: 136). This trend for the devaluation of citizenship is joined by the expansion and possibly overstretching of the concept. Historically, citizenship’s efficacy as a claim for rights was always based on political sovereignty – be it monarchical or popular. This was a prerequisite both for addressing individual claims and enforcing the corresponding civil duties. With the pluralist expansion of citizenship rights to new kinds of conflict-ridden, often controversial claims for identity in a situation of declining nation-state sovereignty the answer to the question ‘‘Who guarantees and enforces claims for citizenship?’’ becomes less clear.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society, Definitions of and Approaches ▶ Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Walzer ▶ Civility ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Human Rights ▶ Identity ▶ Marshall, Thomas H. ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Brubaker, R. (1992). Citizenship and nationhood in France and Germany. Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press. Castles, S., & Davidson, A. (2000). Citizenship and migration. Globalization and the politics of belonging. London: Macmillan Press. Cohen, J., & Arato, A. (1992). Civil society and political theory. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Civic Action Fahrmeir, A. (2007). Citizenship. The rise and fall of a modern concept. New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press. Fraser, N., & Honneth, A. (2003). Redistribution or recognition: A politicalphilosophical exchange. London: Verso. Giesen, B., & Eder, K. (2001). European citizenship: An avenue for the social integration of Europe. In K. Eder & B. Giesen (Eds.), European citizenship between national legacies and postnational projects. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gosewinkel, D. (2003). Einbu¨rgern und ausschließen. Die Nationalisierung der Staatsangeho¨rigkeit vom Deutschen Bund bis zur Bundesrepublik Deutschland (2nd ed.). Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Gosewinkel, D., & Rucht, D. (2003). History meets sociology. Zivilgesellschaft als Prozess. In D. Gosewinkel (Eds.), Zivilgesellschaft – national und transnational (pp. 29–60). Berlin: Edition Sigma. Heater, D. (1990). Citizenship. The civic ideal in world history. Politics and education. London: Longman. Isin, E., & Wood, P. (1999). Citizenship and identity. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage. Janoski, T. (1999). Citizenship and civil society. A framework of rights and obligations in liberal, traditional, and social democratic regimes. Cambridge: University Press. Kymlicka, W., & Norman, W. (1995). Return of the citizen: A survey of recent work on citizenship theory. In R. Beiner (Ed.), Theorizing citizenship. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Marshall, T. (1950/1992). Citizenship and social class. London: Pluto (Reprint 1992). Siim, B. (2000). Gender and citizenship. Politics and agency in France, Britain and Denmark. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Soysal, Y. (1994). Limits of citizenship. migrants and postnational membership in Europe. Chicago, IL: Chicago Press. Soysal, Y. (2001). Changing boundaries of participation in European public spheres: Reflections on citizenship and civil society. In K. Eder & B. Giesen (Eds.), European citizenship between national legacies and postnational projects (pp. 159–179). Oxford: University Press. Vogel, U., & Moran, M. (Eds.) (1991). The frontiers of citizenship. London: Macmillan. Vogel, U. (1991a). Is citizenship gender-specific? In U. Vogel & M. Moran (Eds.), The frontiers of citizenship (pp. 58–85). London: Macmillan. Walzer, M. (Ed.) (1995). Toward a global civil society. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books. Weiler, J. (1999). The constitution of Europe. Do the new clothes have an emperor? And other essays on European integration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Civic Action GIOVANNI MORO FONDACA, Active Citizenship Foundation, Rome, Italy
Introduction Though widely diffused the concept of civic action is not clearly defined, nor has it a well-established meaning. For example, civic action is referred to enabling people to
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make sure legislators hear their voices; to building knowledge on important issues and take action through campaigns to change the behavior of public and private institutions; to citizens becoming more active members in their community; up to a military force operating in favor of civilians including dental, engineering, medical, veterinarian activities. Civic action neither has a precise placing in scientific community. References to this concept can indeed be found in the literature on collective action and social movements, on participatory democracy, on advocacy, on political participation, on community organizing, on social networks, on social capital, on direct democracy, on volunteerism, on stakeholder theory, etc. (cf. Andriof, 2002; Della Porta & Diani, 2006; Rubin & Rubin, 1992). In this situation, therefore, what has to be done is not to choose the most updated, comprehensive, and precise definition of the concept, but rather to identify the kind of reality the concept would refer to. Starting from this concern, it can be noticed that, in the civil society discourse, what distinguishes this concept from close others is the focus on the practices that the citizenry carry out in order to fulfill general or common interest goals, rather than on forms, motivations, kind of actors, etc. Starting from this essential element a definition and a more precise content of the concept can be fixed.
Definition Civic action can be defined as a form of citizenship practice consisting in mainly collective initiatives aimed at implementing rights, taking care of common goods or empowering citizens. It can be addressed both to governmental or private interlocutors as well as to the general public. It implies the exercise of powers and the use of specific tools on the citizens’ side. The general distinguishing elements of this definition of civic action can be summarized as follows: ● It is related to the participatory component of citizenship, but going beyond the exercise of the right to vote. ● Also in case it addresses the political establishment, it is an autonomous practice of the citizenry, well distinguished by the traditional political participation through parties. ● It is about the fact that citizens engage themselves in common or general interest activities, rather than about issues like the fields of engagement, the organizational structures or the operational patterns (e.g., advocacy or service delivery); in other words, it is about the way citizens act rather than the way they get together.
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● It requires some degree of organization to be really effective and is therefore based on the ability of citizens engaged in common problems to gather and collectively act. ● It implies the exercise of citizens’ powers in the public realm, such as the powers to produce information and knowledge, to change the common awareness, to give the ‘‘social license to operate’’, to constrain public institutions to effectively work, to change material conditions, etc. ● Despite civic action being a widespread phenomenon, which does not depend on the political regimes, it is related to a constitutional role that citizens’ activities acquire in the evolution of democracies, often defined in terms of horizontal subsidiarity.
Historical Background It can be stated that civic action came into the fore together with a double process affecting contemporary societies, and especially democracies, starting from the 1960s. On one side, a weakening of the effectiveness of State structures and operations, due to a number of factors (localism, increased power of private companies, financial crisis of welfare systems, etc.), while on the other side a growing autonomous political subjectivity and an enriched and more concrete meaning of citizenship emerged in civil societies. In relation to this process, citizens’ initiatives from the local to the global levels expanded and increased their impact in the public realm, influencing a number of relevant policies and the public policy making styles and habits themselves. In particular, the public significance of non-state actors’ practices devoted to the general interest definitely spread. The growing diffusion and importance of civic action can be accounted as a part of this broad phenomenon (cf. Pierre & Guy Peters, 2000).
Key Issues Enabling Factors
A number of factors can favor the implementation of civic action. Four of them can be distinguished. There are, first of all, material conditions, in this case of the utmost importance since civic action requires an amount of energy definitely bigger than voting. Verba et al. (1993) identify three of them. A first category of material conditions is the availability of resources such as time; money and other goods to be mobilized; and civic skills, i.e., organizational and communicational abilities like the one of speaking in public or organizing a meeting.
Another kind of condition regards motivations, that is, a good cause to be involved in. A last kind of condition is the existence of recruiting structures, that meaning that the presence of a preexistent organization can make easier to take civic action. Secondly, social capital can be considered as an enabling condition for civic action. Social capital can be defined as the links of reciprocity, cooperation, and trust that connect individuals in society (Putnam, 1993). More the social capital, more civic action is likely to take place. A third enabling condition for civic action is the civic culture, intended as the set of norms and habits, visions, symbols, behavioral models characterizing individuals as members of a democratic society (Donolo, 1992). For example, if among the patterns of the civic culture there is the responsibility of citizens to take care of their neighborhood, civic action is favored. A last condition enabling civic action can be defined as civic dimension, meaning the attitude of a society as a whole to consider the engagement of citizens in public affairs as a worthy resource or as an ordinary habit. If a strong civic dimension exists, the taking place of civic action is facilitated (Moro, 2005). Summarizing, it can be stated that, when a texture of social capital, a strong civic dimension, a rich individual civic culture and some material conditions (time, resources, and civic skills; strong motivations and recruiting structures) do exist, civic action is more likely to take place. Repertoires of Civic Action ‘‘Technologies’’
What are the main tools of civic action? Taking what worked out by Charles Tilly on social movements (cf. Traugott, 1995), there can be identified repertoires of civic action tools, intended as sets of routines that are learned, shared, and acted out according to specific situations, needs, and goals. These tools can be considered as technologies, meaning with this term systems of operational rules based on a specific knowledge. Starting from these assumptions, there can be identified four repertoires of civic action technologies, that can be illustrated using some examples coming mainly from European experience (Table 1). Technologies of Direct Action
In this category tools that citizens can activate by themselves, without the consent or the involvement of other actors, are included. The Charters of rights are documents that specify how rights established in laws and regulations in a general way and therefore often not implemented, should be
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Civic Action. Table 1 Repertoires of civic action technologies Repertoires
Examples of technologies ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Charters of rights Advice and counseling structures Monitoring and production of data and information Symbolic actions Information and awakening actions Proximity information Conflict management Establishment of services
Mobilization of resources
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Recruiting Fund raising Mobilization of technical resources Gathering of signatures and support Boycott Gathering and diffusion of good practices Education and training Use of information technologies Use of media
Interlocution
● ● ● ●
Roundtables Agreements Participatory planning, budgeting, etc. Partnerships
Public institutions’ activation
● ● ● ●
Claims and complaints Implementation of bodies and procedures provided by laws Lobbying Legal (civil) actions
Direct action
Source: Adapted from Moro (2005)
protected (with regard, for example, to patients, children, immigrants, etc.). They are used also at the end of favoring the recognition and promotion of new rights. Advice and counseling structures are services enabling citizens to get information, expert knowledge and support in case their rights or common goods are at risk. The technology of monitoring and production of data and information refers to the, usually but not necessarily recurring, gathering of data and information regarding a concerning situation or functioning of a service. Its outputs are often reports. Symbolic actions are initiatives with a high degree of visibility aimed at stimulating a reaction of interlocutors and involving the public in an unsolved or unrecognized question, creating a strong pressure and catalyzing public attention. Information and awakening actions are devoted to increase the citizens’ awareness of a problem or an opportunity related to a public interest through meetings, advertisements, publications, etc. Proximity information consists in the activation of people trusted by the citizens affected by a problem and able to give them direct and reliable
information and answers on relevant questions. Conflict management includes those activities aimed at prevent or minimize damages coming from tensions and clashing interests between individuals or groups in a number of issues, from service delivery to interethnic relations. Establishment of services refers to the creation and delivery of services that answer to needs or rights not proteted adequately or not protected at all by public institutions. Technologies of Mobilization of Resources
This category includes those technologies of civic action that are aimed at raising people, means, and money needed for the achievement of the planned goals. Recruiting consists in the involvement of people in a project, a campaign or a long-term or permanent initiative, on the base of their link with a problem, commitment with the mission of the organization, abilities related to the goal of the action, and so on. Fund raising is the collection of financial resources for the fulfillment of the goal of the action. Mobilization of technical resources regards the gathering of those means that are needed for
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the civic action, usually through donations or on loan. Gathering of signatures and support can go from complex initiatives as a referendum proposals to more simple ones such as petitions. Boycott is a tool aimed at damaging the reputation of public or private bodies, whose behavior is against citizens’ rights or common goods, making the continuing of this behavior counterproductive. Gathering and diffusion of good practices refers to the share – through catalogs or databases, for example – of good practices in the management of public issues, e.g., practices aimed at improving the efficiency or the quality of utilities or the attitude to listen to the citizenry. The aim of this tool is to trigger an emulation chain. Education and training refers to all the actions aimed at facilitating the increase of knowledge and abilities of citizens in protecting rights and taking care of common goods, thus empowering them. The use of information technologies refers to the internet tools available for campaigning, informing, protesting, promoting petitions, etc. The use of the media refers to those activities – press releases, press conferences, dossiers, and reports, letters to the editor, newsletters – able to activate the media in support of a citizens’ cause. Technologies of Interlocution
In this cluster are grouped tools of civic action that favor and make as much effective as possible citizens’ relation with public institutions and with private actors – whatever of dialogue, confrontation, or conflict. Roundtables consist in convening representatives of bodies engaged in a relevant issue in order to discuss the situation and how to address it, often in the presence of the whole concerned citizenry. With the agreements, that can have various forms, actors engaged in a issue of citizens’ concern publicly undertake to develop programs, activities, and behaviors to face the problem and put them in a common agenda. Participatory planning, budgeting, etc. is the involvement of the affected citizens in planning and taking binding decisions on relevant issues such as urban planning or welfare spending. Though usually coming from public administrations, in case it is promoted and lead by the citizenry it can be considered a tool of civic action. Partnership refers to projects and programs promoted and implemented by a group of citizens together with one or more public or private actor, sharing objectives, resources, and risks, and in which the results have an added value. Technologies of Public Institutions’ Activation
This category refers to those civic actions that are aimed at pushing or forcing public institutions to implement laws
and regulations that contain principles, bodies, and procedures related to the protection of citizens’ rights or the care for common goods. The common starting point of these tools is that citizens’ engagement is necessary to make those institutions and procedures effectively work. Claims and complaints are reports, requests, or call for intervention that citizens (also as individuals) can address to public institutions in relation to a problem or a need, that activate a check, an answer and consequent actions on the institutions’ side. Implementation of bodies and procedures provided by laws refers to law instruments that can be effectively implemented thanks to citizens’ intervention. Varying on the base of national (or EU) legislation, they can regard for example the access to information, the quality standards of services, the ombudsman, etc. Lobbying is a well known tool consisting in pressing political and administrative authorities to change laws, regulations, and public budgets in favor of a right or a common cause, with reference to a specific decision-making process. Legal action is the use of jurisdictional resources by citizens as individuals and/or as organizations. According to the various national judicial systems, opportunities to use criminal, civil, or administrative action to protect a citizens’ right, to constrain the judicial system to fill gaps and clarify ambiguities in laws and regulations, to shed light to concerning but not known situations, to force powerful actors to change their behaviors are available. Challenges
Due to its growing relevance in contemporary societies, civic action is challenged by some questions of the utmost importance. Three of them can be mentioned and summarized as follows. Civic Competence
People engaged in civic actions require a growing amount of knowledge and expertise in order to effectively face the problems they are dealing with. But this competence is not taken for granted. On one side, in general there are several information asymmetries that affect all the actors of the public realm, including citizens. On the other side, the ability of citizens to have an adequate expertise is often questioned. This lack of ability is supposed concerning three different elements (Dahl, 1998): the moral competence (the knowledge of what is good and what is bad for public interest); the virtue (the agency needed to pursue the common good); the technical competence (the knowhow needed to make effective that virtue). On the contrary, it can be argued that citizens engaged in public problems that directly affect them are able both to develop a specific knowledge of situations on their
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own, and to use the advice of experts to get into the ‘‘black box.’’ Moreover, the task of protecting rights and caring for common goods is related to a moral competence, i.e., a perception of the general interest related to specific situations, and a commitment, or an agency, to the general interest as well (Caddy, 2004; Moro, 2004). In addition, according to Aaron Wildavsky (1993), when citizens’ participation is intended not as a general, holistic (and therefore unworkable) attitude, but as a policy-centered one, it is possible to satisfy the basic conditions for citizens’ participation: understanding what is at stake, distinguishing between big and small changes (so that perceiving the utility of participation), and being continually involved, thus learning from experience. In public policies, citizens – acting as ‘‘analysts’’ – are indeed able to choose an issue, to collect and accumulate information and to use it acting together with other citizens, influencing the course of them. Representation and Representativeness
In spite of the idea that direct citizens’ action is the opposite of representation, it is a matter of fact that citizens engaged in civic actions, especially as organized entities, do exercise representative functions. These functions involve both the meanings of the concept of representation: ‘‘to speak for’’ and ‘‘to act for’’ someone or something else. Among the ‘‘speak for’’ phenomena, there can be mentioned several civic actions that are carried on with the aim to give voice to weak or marginal people (e.g., illegal immigrants or prisoners), or even to the whole society (for instance, in consumer issues) when not to subjects not yet living (the future generations in environmental actions). Among the ‘‘act for’’ phenomena there can be mentioned agreements and memoranda of understanding signed by citizens’ groups with public or private actors, implying that measures are effective for the whole concerned people. A number of problems, though, raise: overrepresentation of the stronger and wealthier parts of population, living room to the ‘‘extreme voices’’ rather than to the average citizen, lack of accountability of those that take action, priority given to the leaders to the detriment of the targets, and so on (Skocpol & Fiorina, 1999). These problems would be addressed clarifying the standards and requirements that make a civic action representative of the affected people. On the other side, focusing on the actions rather than on the subjects carrying them out, it could be noticed that what is really important is not the representativeness, but rather the relevance of the action undertaken to face a specific problem or situation.
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Definition of Civic Action Standards
In the last years civic action has become more and more diffused, recurrent, and influential in public life at local, national, regional, and global levels. As a consequence, it has affected governments’ core operations much more directly and continuously than in the past. This circumstance has given place to negative or suspicious attitudes towards civic action, often considered as a threat or an obstacle for the functioning of public institutions and the activity of the representative democracy actors. On this regard, the need for the definition of a set of standards of civic action especially when it interacts or interferes with public institutions, has emerged. For example, the European Charter of Active Citizenship, promoted in 2006 by Active Citizenship Network (ACN, FONDACA, 2006), establishes a set of rights to civic action vis-a`-vis public institutions. The most relevant is the right to intervention: ‘‘Whenever citizens’ rights and general interests are at stake, autonomous citizens’ organizations (ACOs) have the right to intervene with opinions and actions, as well as publicly disclosing the actions and/or omissions which may have an effect on such rights and general interests.’’ Other relevant rights included in the Charter are: the right to carry out prevention activities, to consultation, to access, to evaluate, to a qualified interlocution, to respect of time, to trust and equal dignity, to facilitation and support measures. These rights, or others set up in similar documents, can be considered as starting points for defining standards for civic action in the public realm.
International Perspectives The major difference in civic action, as it results from the international debate and consolidated knowledge, is the one between American and European perspectives (cf. Tocqueville, 1969; Putnam, 1993, 2000). It can be summarized as follows: while civic action is a constitutive element of American democracy as relevant part of the attitude of citizens to get together and set up associations, in Europe it is a more recent phenomenon, coming from the weakening of traditional political and social forces, such as political parties and trade unions. The main differential factor is the role of the State in facing public problems and in legitimizing non-state actors, which is much more relevant in Europe rather in the United States. As a consequence, in Europe civic action still tends to be considered at the same time as a resource and a threat for the sake of public institutions (Active Citizenship Network, 2004).
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Future Directions Future directions in research on civic action involve mainly a reinforcement of the concept and a more in-depth analysis of the phenomenon. This development can be expected, because of the growing attention towards the role of autonomous citizens’ initiatives in the public sphere, with emphasis given to practices rather than to forms. In this framework, various topics could be dealt with. One is the meaning of civic action, going from the constitutional (horizontal subsidiarity) to the operational one (participatory governance). Another concerns the relationships with interlocutors of civic action, focusing on the conflict-cooperation continuum. A last one regards impacts and knock-on effects of civic action.
Pierre, J., & Guy Peters, B. (2000). Governance, politics and the state. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work. Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone. The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rubin, H. J., & Rubin, I. S. (1992). Community organizing and development. New York: Macmillan. Skocpol, T., & Fiorina, M. P. (Eds.) (1999). Civic engagement in American democracy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Traugott, M. (Ed.) (1995). Repertoires and cycles of collective action. Durham/London: Duke University Press. Tocqueville, A. (1969). Democracy in America. New York: Anchor Books. Verba, S., Lehman Schlozmann, K., & Brady, H. E. (1993). Voice and equality. Civic voluntarism in American politics. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Wildavsky, A. (1993). Speaking truth to power. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Collective Action ▶ Lobbying ▶ Participation ▶ Social Audits ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Subsidiarity
References/Further Readings Active Citizenship Network (ACN). (2004). Public institutions interacting with citizens’ organizations. A survey on public policies on civic activism in Europe, from http://www.fondaca.org/misc/Download/ Rapporti%20di%20ricerca/%20organisations%20-%20A%20survey %20on%20public%20policies%20regarding%20civic%20activism %20in%20Europe.pdf; 11/25/2008. ACN, FONDACA. (2006). European charter of active citizenship, from http://www.fondaca.org/misc/Download/Documenti/EuropeanCharter ofActiveCitizenship%20FINAL.pdf; 11/25/2008 Andriof, J. et al. (Eds.)(2002). Unfolding stakeholder thinking: Theory, responsibility and engagement. Sheffield: Greenleaf. Caddy, J. (Ed.) (2004). Evaluating public participation in policy making. Paris: OECD. Dahl, R. (1988). Democracy and its critics. Yale: Yale University Press. Della Porta, D., & Diani, M. (2006). Social movements. An introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Donolo, C. (1992). Il sogno del buon governo. Apologia del regime democratico. Milano: Anabasi [The Dream of Good Governance. Apology of Democratic Regime]. Moro, G. (2004). Citizens’ evaluation of public participation. In J. Caddy (Ed.), Evaluating public participation in policy making (pp. 109–126). Paris: OCED Moro, G. (2005). Azione civica. Conoscere e gestire le organizzazioni di cittadinanza attiva. Roma: Carocci [Civic Action. Knowing and Managing Active Citizenship Organizations].
Civic Agency ALAN FOWLER University of KwaZulu Natal, Western Cape, South Africa
Introduction The term ‘‘civic agency’’ enjoins two concepts with lineages stemming, respectively, from ancient Mediterranean politics of governing an (urbanizing) community and from modern sociology. Their coupled history is associated with the emergence in the seventeenth century of nationstates and their subsequent conflicted (internal) consolidation and colonial imposition as sovereign geopolitical units on the world stage. This process set in play an association of ‘‘civic’’ with an uneven, and as yet incomplete, evolution in identity of the world’s polity as citizens. However, the advent and content of citizenship as a distinctive feature of a polity is itself problematic. Difficulties in definition and interpretation stem largely from modernization of societies driven by the private accumulation of capital and (collectivized) reactions to it at different times and places. These processes emerge as systemic ‘‘political projects’’ that contend for recognition and supremacy in terms of beliefs about what society should be and what is at stake for whom in attaining this future condition (Dagnino, 2008: 27). In so doing, political projects ‘‘frame’’ identities of actors – such as citizens – and label problems to be solved in ways that are codetermined by power divisions and relations within and between societies. Against this backdrop, contemporary understandings of citizenship place civic agency as a value-based mode of
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sociopolitical expression which is increasingly allied to rights-based perspectives on the relationship between polity and state. In other words, today, civic agency is located within normative debates about a desired form and quality of governance, with democratization as a pivotal feature of discussion. One consequence is that civic agency cannot be properly understood outside of contested meanings. Nor can it ignore different scales of the historical geographies in which meanings play out. In other words, ascription of civic agency is mediated by power over signification or labeling (Moncrieffe & Eyben, 2007). This phenomenon occurs within ever-changing contextual conditions that connect from individual to global order. These observations signal that definition and comprehension of civic agency are not straightforward. The approach to doing so is therefore iterative. It begins with a working definition. Thereafter, a sequential discussion of ‘‘agency’’ and ‘‘civic’’ provides the grounding for examining interpretations about their linkage.
Definition Civic agency connects political theory with purposeful sociopolitical action by persons who enjoy a minimal condition of meaningful citizenship, i.e., there is at least respect for the ‘‘right to have rights’’ (Dagnino, 2005: 5). Environments with a minimum respect for the right of all to have their say and be socially engaged are a precondition for civic agency. Where this precondition is not fulfilled, notions of a public realm and civic agency remain a theoretical potential but cannot operate in a practical sense. Civic agency is a predisposition toward, and a capability for, leading life together with others in a society and being concerned for the whole. Agency which is considered civic incorporates a basic principle of an equitable, democratic society. Agency
In a comprehensive treatment of the topic, Emirbayer and Mische (1998: 963) argue that agency has not been adequately addressed as an analytic category in its own right. This shortcoming is attributed to theorists’ preoccupation to demonstrate and explain the interpenetration of structure and agency. Their analysis to redress this lacuna posits an iterative, temporal process of reflection through which people gain and apply a responsive capacity to (problematic) situations as they arise (ibid: 970). In this view, agency is an interplay between (1) past routine, experience, and learning, energized by (2) images of a desired future situation, which is then (3)
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situationally judged for achievability and risk, from which action may or may not be taken. In this reflexive sense, inaction is also an action. Results of (in)action feed into capabilities and future decision processes leading to a constantly self-developing and updated condition of capability, appraisal, and decision choice. At a given moment, any one of the three elements determining agency dominate, but all are present in agentic processes. For these authors, therefore, agency is defined as "
the temporally constructed engagement by actors of different structural environments – the temporal-relational contexts of action – which, through the interplay of habit, imagination, and judgment both reproduces and transforms these structures in interactive response to the problems posed by changing historical situations. (Ibid: 970)
Thus, agency is one category in a total repertoire of human behavior. It is co-defined by orientation of personal or group action toward the stabilizing, enabling, and constraining forces of social norms and values embedded in institutions (Walker & Ostrom, 2007). Agency can thus be interpreted as an investment in a future that people care about. It is precisely the nature, breadth, and depth of caring that ‘‘civicness’’ is concerned about. Agency is a pathway for a continual updating of self as a conscious identity. This condition is part-attained through relationships with others from which reputation and social capital are built and maintained. The reflexive experience of agency is an important factor codetermining what is perceived (not) to be in one’s interest. More critically, agency is a mechanism through which meanings are communicated, preferences are expressed, and correspondence or divergence with others is found. The latter are typically labeled in a normative way, for example, as antagonistic or irrelevant or indeterminant. Agentic action can therefore be understood as a ‘‘project’’ to be undertaken alone or in collaboration or in conflict with others. Human agency is ‘‘projected’’ toward a preferred future whose image is to be realized through practical action. One critique of this analytic lens is that there is inadequate attention to layering of scales of agency and evolution in terms of human processes of becoming, learning, and associating. Agency of early childhood is, initially, more conditioned by affinities of family, community, and physical proximity. Wider sources of influence are filtered and transmitted through these intermediaries until selfawareness and self-reflection gain an upper hand. The range or circle of a persons’ agency expands over time toward identification of self in a structural context. This evolution produces values and attitudes toward others as well as identification of affinities, such as citizenship, and of
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life experience, for example a shared livelihood, role, or profession. In this sense, formative worldviews generated by early socialization are insufficiently delineated as axiomatic self-referents influencing agency in later life. For purposes here, it is sufficient to note that temporal trajectories are intergenerational. Limits to a distance in the past or imaginings of future along which agency plays out are indeterminate. Moreover, human values are malleable. Consequently, identities associated with intergenerational processes and the forces that give meaning to life experiences are critical for addressing a normative approach to agency. The authors do not attempt this task. Values – such as good or bad agency – cannot be derived from their definition. The concepts of civic, civicness, civility, and citizenship introduce such a normative directionality. Civic
In Heater’s account (2004) the earliest references to ‘‘civic’’ are allied to the concept of citizenship associated with a sociopolitical status accorded within Spartan communities and the governance of Athens as a citystate. The corresponding tasks, authority, and accountability of citizenship were accorded to selected individuals – propertied elites exhibiting valor, virtue, and commanding influence. Women, slaves, laborers, and craftsmen were excluded from this rank. Exclusion was the norm. Citizens were recognized as political beings with rights to wield the power required to protect and ‘‘justly’’ oversee and govern the affairs of rural communities and of urban city-states. There was stringent attention to citizens properly discharging their mutual duties which called for particular ‘‘civil’’ behavior in terms of constrained self-interest for the overall good. That which emerged as ‘‘civic’’ – a normative property of citizenship – included responsibility for the proper servicing and management of public areas and of investments and resources derived from the functioning of the whole populace. Historical analysis shows citizenship transforming from exclusive power with normative prescriptions of virtue and probity toward a legal status for those ruled under the Roman Empire. The granting of citizenship to those within the Roman realm was seen as a prudent measure – a sort of compelled quid pro quo – to ameliorate resistance to taxation. In return for state protection a citizen’s required behavior was loyalty, allegiance, and obedience toward Rome and its edicts. Citizenship thus evolved into a judicial status allocated by the state as a single political authority. These ancient principles underpinning citizenship – as a morally virtuous, public caring, or as a deferential and
compliant behavior – continue to resonate in contemporary perspectives on civic agency within the context of statehood. Sovereign statehood as the unit of geopolitical organization established a precondition from which arose a formalized link between citizenship and rights (codified by the United Nations in 1948). "
And so we come to citizenship. This defines the relationship between an individual not to another individual (as is the case with feudal, monarchical and tyrannical systems) or a group (as with nationhood), but essentially to the idea of the state. The civic identity is enshrined in the rights conveyed by the state and the duties performed by individual citizens, who are all autonomous persons, equal in status. Good citizens are those who feel allegiance to the state and have a sense of responsibility in discharging their duties. As a consequence they need the skills appropriate for this civic participation. (Heater, 2004: 1)
The works of T. H. Marshall (1950, 1964) are oft-cited landmarks in defining three key elements of citizenship in the modern era. Drawing on a somewhat narrow history of Britain, he argues for a historical sequence in the content of citizenship, beginning with attaining rights associated with individual liberties of speech, thought, faith, and equality before the law. Thereafter arose a political element expressed in the franchise to both define (as an elected member) and take part (as a voter) in the political system. Though not mutually exclusive, Marshall’s third, social, element has been variously interpreted. One approach relies on attaining social or socioeconomic rights in terms of access to public welfare. Another perspective gives primacy to the psychosocial dimensions of rights. This perspective hinges on a self-realization of a civic identity within complex mosaics or layers of identity, meaning, attitudes, and driving energies toward social issues and choices of preferred futures. The latter interpretation is more attuned to the concept of agency as previously described. Civic Agency
Agency is the decision process and capability to pursue individual or collective action – that is, practical investments to bring about a desired future society. Associated with the rights of citizenship, civicness introduces normative behaviors for applying agency as a right and a duty. A first condition is that agentic action is directed at change which consciously takes into account concerns of the whole rather than of a narrow self. Second, an imperative for moral virtues would rely on the selfwilled responsibility of people to act in ways that are
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civil. Volunteering would be viewed as such behavior. A loyalty imperative would treat civility as compliance and conformity – behaving as a state requires and expects. In either case, what would civility entail? One line of argument links civility to political culture: that is, citizens’ perceptions of political engagement, legitimacy, and traditions. Here, a positive interplay is conceived between a ‘‘natural’’ emergence and dominance of civic values leading to democratic forms of governance, a form of politics which is more cost-effective for society than (authoritarian) coercion (Almond & Verba, 1963). More recent arguments concentrate on the content of civicness itself, through the lens of civility. There are "
three elements that together constitute civility. The first element is respect for others, ‘‘Civility is basically respect for the dignity and the desire for dignity of other persons.’’ The second element is civility in public behaviour towards strangers, ‘‘[C]ivility equips us for everyday life with strangers . . . we need neither to love them nor to hate them in order to be civil towards them’’. . . . The third element is self-regulation in the sense that civility requires empathy, putting one’s own immediate self-interest in the context of the larger common good and acting accordingly. (Anheier, 2007: 46)
The first element, dignity, is implicit to equality in human interaction and a basic principle of human rights informing citizenship in theory if not in consistent national practices. Stemming from recognition of common humanity, the second element calls for a worldview and relational stance that is inclusive and tolerant of difference. Such a principle is manifest, for example, in the African concept of ubuntu, a moral philosophy of identity as a collective self (Louw, 1999) and in the premodern roots of philanthropy. The third element embodies a ‘‘social duty of assistance’’ that is argued to be intrinsic to human nature (Burchell, Gordon, & Miller, 1991: 23). It also defines a prescriptive rule for agency as ‘‘projection into the future.’’ Akin to the second element, in psychological terms it equates to adequate ‘‘projection of self ’’ into the life world of others, leading to willing self-restraint. The associated principle is found in the enjoinder ‘‘only do unto others as you would have done to yourself.’’ Incivility would exhibit the opposite characteristics: behaviors are disrespectful, exclude, and denigrate ‘‘the other,’’ and pursue selfish exploitation. Marshall’s three elements of citizenship and the above normative specificity give theoretical and practical substance to the definition of civic agency. But they obscure issues stemming from theoretical biases and contemporary political contentions about language and social futures that are themselves embedded in a global
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hegemonic discourse. A concluding critical framing of civic agency is therefore still required.
Key Issues and International Perspectives Contemporary debates impacting on civic agency revolve around two issues. Both have international dimensions. These are the problem of theoretical disjuncture and mislocation of civic agency, a process allied to the elision of language and meaning in ways that systemically distort citizenship discourse. Second is to critically review the link between civic agency and the politics of democracy and (re)democratization. Mislocating Civic Agency
Much enquiry into civic agency exhibits a logical inconsistency. It does so by ‘‘locating’’ civic agency primarily within, and as a distinctive attribute of civil society. This location is often understood as a Habermasian public space for communication, information, debate, and exchange bounded by state, market, and family. However, as sociopolitical categories, citizenship and civic agency are not amenable to reframing in terms of location within a particular institutional ‘‘sector’’ or ‘‘space.’’ Such analytic simplification can be useful for some purposes, but not in this case. Sectoral differentiation within a society distorts the essence of what citizenship and civicness are about. It does so in ways that recast their ontology toward a particular political project associated with liberal capitalism. Disembodied from the enduring rights and duties of citizenship and fixated on civil society organizations, placing civic agency in institutional category introduces a potentially narrowed and apolitical separation from roots of politics and rights. Aside from a Western bias and common lack of attention to asymmetries in power, one reason for questioning a sectoral analysis is the potential to understate or ignore the degree of market and state penetration into the Third Sector – as civil society is also (mis)labeled. An increasing infiltration of market principles and state oversight of civil society is influencing ‘‘civic’’ in terms of its selfunderstanding and its projects. Though highly variable across the world, the resource base and functions of civil society – as a (nonprofit) sector – are heavily influenced by commodification and reliant on surpluses derived from market transactions directly or via redistribution through taxation. And, increasingly, access to taxation is premised on the provision of services where citizens as claimants become needy beneficiaries and the victims of poverty requiring charity. Citizenship is recast from a legitimate claiming of rights toward integration in society as compliant consumer or producer of public goods.
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In the process, poverty, inequality, and exclusion are transformed from issues of justice and equality attendant to rights-based citizenship to technical problems of public management, charity, and philanthropy to ensure minimum survival. As Dagnino demonstrates, unless such processes are properly labeled and markets are ‘‘civilized,’’ the substance and meaning of citizenship, and hence civic agency, will be subordinated to logic of unbounded personal wealth. A further argument against sectoralization of civic agency stems from the deeper ‘‘securitization’’ of territory as a signal feature of statehood. Reflecting Foucault, modern governing has an imperative toward controlling a future filled with unknown events. State responses to recent events of terrorism highlight uncivil potentials and practices as well as ambivalence toward civil society as a location for (un)civil agency. As identified by Sidel (2004), states regard civil society both as a source of uncertainty and insecurity as well as a remedy for instability through promotion of inclusion and outreach to the marginalized. Civil society is coming under scrutiny and state influence to a pressing degree. An alternative consistent with the definition and arguments provided so far is to recognize and name the necessity for agency that is civic in all walks of life. Put another way, citizens functioning within states, markets, families, and civil society can all act in civil or uncivil ways as they define and act to create an imagined future. It is precisely the fact that agency is within ‘‘everyone, everywhere,’’ so to speak, that applying ‘‘civic’’ norms to business can lead to the notion of ethical markets and corporate citizenship (Zadek, 2001). It can produce unlikely champions of ‘‘civilized’’ capitalism such as George Soros. Similarly, civic norms often underpin reforms of public management such that agency of government employees is really ‘‘civil’’ by volition and commitment, as opposed to deploying a ‘‘govern-mentality’’ toward citizens and change. And, as feminist analysis strongly shows, family and patriarchy are also systems and sources of (un)civil behavior that can affect the whole today as well as carry into the future by shaping the experiential worldviews, imaginations, civility, and agency of subsequent generations. The challenge, therefore, is not to permit a discourse on civic agency which allows responsibility for the whole to be passed off, sectoralized, or located into a civic arena such that the rest of a society’s institutions at any sociopolitical level are able to go about uncivic business as usual. What then of civic agency and civil society? Does an allocational error mean that civil society is simply on a par with other locations within society in terms of civic agency? One view is that (transnational) civil society actors have a greater potential and necessary obligation to deploy their
‘‘pre-emptive’’ civility in service of conflict prevention and resolution (Ezzat & Kaldor, cited in Anheier, 2007: 48). The mechanism involved is one of fostering mutual respect and providing pathways for communication and dialogue. This aptitude was ‘‘naturally selected’’ because it helped reduce transaction costs and attenuate instabilities arising from conflicts of interest as capitalism evolved. A different, contemporary analysis spans a wider geography. In this view, civil society continues to generate and harbor factional identities and their public actions. Contestation between faiths is but one example. With enhanced communication and network effects, civil society actors are more ready and capable for disruptive assertion as much around fine-grained local issues and disputes as around incidents commanding international attention. Positive cases of civil society promoting civicness are notable, but over-cited because they are relatively rare and gain media hype. They cannot gather the power to successfully tackle deep structural dysfunctions of international governance and markets. Moreover, reflecting Anheier’s contemporary concern and as a historical trait or not, civility within civil society is being undermined by identity politics, insidious marketing, branded memberships, alienation, and unbounded inequality. These processes are allied to political manipulations that stress differences over commonalities, feeding anxieties that reinforce a state’s right to shrink civic space and citizen’s freedoms. In sum, there are contradictory interpretations that do not allow an uncontested conclusion about the ‘‘civilizing’’ potential for civil society on society as a whole. Civic Agency and Democratization as a Political Project
Accompanying the issue of understanding or defining civic agency from a sector perspective is a critical area of politics with local to global dimensions. This terrain can be understood in terms of a polity defining a state project toward an imagined better society. Civic agency presumes and requires the right of all citizens to influence the commanding image and ways of getting there. However, it need not and does not necessarily follow that this can only to be achieved via a party-based, electoral-process mandating representative. Indeed, there is accumulating evidence – such as decline in voting – to suggest that relying on this method may have reached its historical limits (Marquand, 2004). An analysis stemming from, but not limited to, the United States identifies factors that conspire to work against civic agency as a force in politics. "
We live in a hyper-regulated world that constrains agency on every side, a world of hidden manipulations, standardized programs, mass mobilizations, and bureaucratic
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interventions. In a memorable turn of phrase, the South African writer Xolela Mangcu has termed the invisible virus spreading through modern societies that erodes agency ‘‘technocratic creep.’’ (Boyte, 2008)
It is argued that solutions are not to be found by improving mass mobilization through political parties (Michels et al., 1999). These processes are oft-proven to be sites of manipulation and control by elites over future image and shared identity. Nor is it likely to be found by enhancing ‘‘participation.’’ Too seldom are the associated rules of the game and the nature of participants subject to unconditioned co-definition and symmetry in power over outcomes. An alternative future perspective is called for.
Future Directions A remedy to mislocation of civic agency and apolitical labeling can be sought in enhancing capacity for civic agency as a self-reflective source of energy. Such a capability entails insightful readings of power and discerning of ‘‘truth.’’ The latter involves understanding the contending uses of language, recognizing ways in which reality is (re)constructed by mass media and by other sources of information that co-define the discourses in play. Such a capability is necessary for pursuing the politics of small things (Goldfarb, 2006). This means attention to the politics of everyday life by applying the values and principles of civic agency to situations and problems as and when they arise wherever one may be – in family, in business, in civic association, in government. The application of civic agency to a multiplicity of micro-settings, relations, and transactions gives generative power for directing how societies change. It is beyond the scope of this entry to elaborate on practical methods. The forwardlooking point is to employ the notion of civic agency to reinvigorate political engagement in a deep sense of active citizenship.
Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civility ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Identity ▶ Interest Politics ▶ Political Society ▶ Uncivil Society
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References/Further Readings Almond, G., & Verba, S. (1963). The civic culture. Boston, MA: Little Brown. Anheier, H. (2007). Bringing civility back in – Reflections on global civil society. Development Dialogue, October. Burchell, G., Gordon, C., & Miller, P. (Eds.) (1991). The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester-Wheatsheaf. Dagnino, E. (2005). Meanings of citizenship in Latin America. Working Paper 258, Institute of Development Studies, Brighton: University of Sussex. Dagnino, E. (2008). Civic driven change and political projects. In A. Fowler & K. Biekart (Eds.), Civic driven change: Citizen’s imagination in action (pp. 27–49). The Hague: Institute of Social Studies. Emirbayer, M., & Mische, A. (1998). What is agency?. The American Journal of Sociology, 103(4): 962–1023, from http://www.jstor.org/ stable/2782934 Goldfarb, J. (2006). The politics of small things: The power of the powerless in dark times, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Heater, D. (2004). A brief history of citizenship. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Klein, N. (2000). No logo. London: Flamingo. Louw, D. (1999). Ubuntu: An African assessment of the religious other, from http:/www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Afri/AfriLouw.htm Marshall, T. (1950). Citizenship, social class and other essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marshall, T. (1964). Class, citizenship and social development. New York: Doubleday. Michels, R., Lipset, S., & Paul, E. (1999). Political parties: A sociological study of the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press. Moncrieffe, J., & Eyben, R. (2007). The power of labelling: How people are categorized and why it matters. London: Earthscan. Sidel, M. (2004). More secure, less free. Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Walker, J., & Ostrom, E. (2007). Trust and reciprocity as foundations for cooperation: Individuals, institutions, and context. Paper presented at the Capstone Meeting of the RSF Trust Initiative at the Russell Sage Foundation, May.
Civic Culture LOEK HALMAN Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands
Introduction The issue of civic culture has become popular again recently. Robert Putnam’s (1993) study on why democracy works, the idea that culture is an important determinant in contemporary society, the rise of political apathy among voters in advanced industrial democracies, the widespread decline of political trust among mass publics,
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the difficulties of (re)establishing civic society in Eastern European countries, the assumed growing levels of intolerance, the assumed weakening of norms of civility, and the supposed decline of good citizenship have all fueled the debates about the good society, good governance, and the future of democracy. It is generally accepted that the latter cannot exist if citizens are indifferent, uncommitted, not engaged, and not involved, and are lacking the attitudes and behaviors that are supportive to democracy and democratic processes. The civic culture was a hot and much discussed topic in the 1960s, not in the last place because of Almond and Verba’s (1965) groundbreaking study on political involvement in democratic states. Their study originated in the postwar period when democracy was challenged severely. The authors were ‘‘concerned with the question of why some democracies survive while others collapse’’ (Verba, 1980: 407), not only because social and political scientists at that time were still looking for explanations of why democratic regimes were replaced by totalitarian ones, but also because of the insecurity of the recently established democracies in Germany and Italy, and because it was doubted whether the French Fifth Republic would be democratic at all. Further, the developments in Asia and Africa demonstrated that the requirements for stable democracies were apparently not fulfilled. One of the requirements is that all ‘‘citizens be involved and active in politics, and that their participation be informed, analytic, and rational’’ (Almond, 1980: 16). The current renewed interest in civic culture arises from strong concerns about the survival of democracy and democratic institutions. Although it seems that the principle of democracy as an ideal form of government is overwhelmingly supported all over the world, citizens, particularly in the more advanced industrialized societies, appear to have become much more critical toward their governments and political institutions. There seems to be a ‘‘growing tension between ideals and reality’’ which ‘‘may have produced the emergence of more ‘‘critical citizens’’ or perhaps ‘disenchanted democrats’’’ (Norris, 1999: 27). The current interest also stems from the idea that publics appear to become less and less engaged and involved in society. Leading scholars like Putnam, Fukuyama, and Etzioni warn of the disastrous consequences of these declining levels of civic engagement for society, the social order, and the democratic process. Their worries have been labeled as, for example, the ‘‘shift from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft’’ or the ‘‘waning of social capital,’’ and have been concisely denoted as the ‘‘decline-of-community thesis’’ (Paxton, 1999: 88). There is a strong belief that engagement and active participation are indispensable in
a democratic polity and essential for the well-functioning of any decent society (Bellah et al., 1992: 6). Etzioni (2001) argues that we need to be not merely a civil but also a good society, one that nurtures the good virtues. Civic engagement, political support, and involvement in politics are regarded to have ‘‘direct policy relevance in areas such as health, crime, welfare, economic growth, the performance of political institutions, and the development of effective and democratic governance’’ (Maloney et al., 2000: 213). Influenced by such scholarly works, in their turn, many politicians and society watchers claim that a growing number of citizens are indifferent and skeptical about politics, and too narrowly focused on pure self-interest. This is considered a severe threat to the respect for human rights and human dignity, liberty, equality, and solidarity. In their view, the ‘‘good’’ civic values have declined or have even vanished, while the wrong, ‘‘bad’’ non-civic values triumph in today’s highly individualized society. No wonder that sociology and political science focus on the extent of people’s involvement in society, their engagement with communities, their interests and activities in politics, and other kinds of pro-social behaviors and attitudes.
Definition The term civic culture was coined by Gabriel Almond and Sydney Verba in their seminal study on political cultures. In that study they argued that a stable and effective democratic government depends upon people’s orientations that must be favorable to the political democratic process. They concluded that a mixture of participant (active) orientations and the others (passive orientations) would be the ideal combination for a stable democracy. What seems crucial to sustain the political democratic processes in a society is a vibrant civic culture which was defined as ‘‘a balanced political culture in which political activity, involvement, and rationality exist but are balanced by passivity, traditionality, and commitment to parochial values’’ (Almond & Verba, 1965: 30). Thus, democratic systems require political cultures that encourage citizens’ societal engagement, involvement, and participation. Civic culture refers to a number of virtues of citizens such as responsibility, cooperation, commitment, loyalty, tolerance, solidarity, law abiding, involvement, activism, and engagement. Their ideas were based on the character qualities of the democrat that Harold Laswell had identified, and they were inspired by Charles Merriam’s innovative work ‘‘The making of citizens’’ (see Almond, 1996). The main feature of civic culture is that citizens are active and engaged in society, and as such that idea is far from new. They were, though in different wordings, already stressed
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by Plato, Aristotle, Machiavelli, Tocqueville, and virtually all political thinkers (see Almond, 1980), and although there seem to be ‘‘as many definitions of civic culture as there are scholars writing about the subject,’’ all seem to ‘‘stress attitudes such as public spiritedness, participation and tolerance’’ (Janmaat, 2006: 366).
Historical Background ‘‘The civic culture’’ was one of the first empirical studies using the then recently developed research technology ‘‘of sample surveys, which led to a much sharper specification and elaboration of the subjective dimensions of stable democratic politics’’ (Almond, 1980: 22). The study was not innovative theoretically, as ‘‘the theories and hypotheses which it tested were well discussed in the historical and social science literature’’ (Almond, 1996: 3), but their study was groundbreaking because for the first time in history it was possible to ‘‘establish whether there were indeed distinctive nation ‘marks’ and national characters; whether and in what respects and degrees nations were divided into distinctive subcultures; whether social class, functional groups, and specific elites had distinctive orientations toward politics and public policy, and what role was played by what socialization agents in the development of these orientations’’ (Almond, 1980: 15). Almond and Verba’s study took place in a period of a more general ascension of the idea that culture is a prominent explanatory power in the social sciences and history. However, during the 1960s and 1970s, interest in culture as determining factor declined, for one part because culture appeared difficult to measure empirically, and for another part because rational choice theories became dominant. Following the logics of economics, social phenomena were explained as the result of the rational calculations made by self-interested individuals who aim at maximizing their own individual utility. In more recent years, interest in the cultural factor and civic culture rose again, not in the last place because rational choice models appeared to have limited explanatory power, for example, to understand collective action or to understand the survival of social norms such as altruism, reciprocity, and trust. In particular, Putnam’s Italian study (1993) in which he demonstrated that government performance was linked with citizens public engagement and involvement, and Fukuyama’s (1996) claim that a society’s socioeconomic development could be attributed to levels of trust among its citizens fueled the interest in the civic culture. Such studies demonstrated that mutual trust, informal social connectedness, and formal civic engagement are at least as vital as physical, financial, and human capital for the well-being of
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individuals and broader for the society at large because they are conducive to collective actions and feelings of happiness, but also to the better performance of not only democracies but also economies (see, e.g., Beugelsdijk & van Schaik, 2003; Knack & Keefer, 1997).
Key Issues The growing interest in the civic culture was encouraged by a growing preoccupation with the decline of values, in particular those values that make us good citizens and make society and human life good. ‘‘Widespread feelings of social mistrust, citizens turning away from prime institutions and political authorities, and engaging less in informal interactions are seen as indicators of the decline of the traditional civic ethic’’ (Ester et al., 2006: 17; Bellah et al., 1992; Dekker & van den Broek, 1996; Etzioni, 1996, 2001; Fukuyama, 2000; Putnam, 2000, 2002). In the current, sometimes heated, debate, the discussion is not so much on the decline of values as such, but more on the decline of decent, (pro-)social behavior and moral decline. Many politicians and society watchers claim that a growing number of citizens are too narrowly focused on pure self-interest and not anymore committed to others and the community. It is argued that in contemporary, highly individualized, secular, and globalized order, the significance of traditional structures and ties, such as religion, family, class, has receded, enlarging the individual’s freedom and autonomy in shaping personal life. People have gradually become self-decisive and self-reliant, no longer forced to accept the traditional authorities as taken for granted. The absoluteness of any kind of external authority, be it religious or secular, has eroded. Authority becomes internalized and deference to authority pervasively declines (Inglehart, 1999). The unrestrained striving to realize personal desires and aspirations, giving priority to individual freedom, personal autonomy, and private need fulfillment are assumed to have made people mainly interested in their own lucrative careers and devoting their lives to conspicuous consumption, immediate gratification, personal happiness, success, and achievement. The growing emphasis on the individual has eroded interest and participation in public life. As Sennett (1977) wrote, we are witnessing the Fall of Public Man. Evidence of such a development is found in increasing crime rates, marital breakdown, drug abuse, suicide, tax evasion, and other deviant behaviors and practices, and the increasing disconnection from family, friends, neighbors, and social structures, such as the church, recreation clubs, political parties, and even bowling leagues (Putnam, 2000). Because civic virtues, such as trust, social engagement, and
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solidarity are on the decline, and since these virtues are considered basic requirement for democracy to survive or to work properly (Putnam, 1993), contemporary society suffers a democratic deficit. Democracy is endangered because people are less and less inclined to engage in civic actions and are no longer willing to be committed to and engaged in society.
International Perspectives In The Civic Culture, Almond and Verba predicted an increasing support for democratic values, but as followup studies revealed, ‘‘such a tendency toward more widely held ‘civic’ attitudes has not been borne out’’ (Verba, 1980: 399). It appeared that people’s attitudes are strongly affected by the particular political issues which nations face and that each nation has to cope with specific crises and problems. Hence, nations follow their own trajectories and thus a much more differentiated pattern of development will be found. The authors of The Civic Culture did not, for instance, anticipate the declining resources many governments nowadays are confronted with and the rising demands from citizens; nor did they anticipate the development of modern welfare states, the modernization and individualization processes, the fast technological advancements, the integration of European states, and the recent influx of foreigners in many countries. All such developments are assumed to have severe consequences for the virtues of the civic culture and in the end for democracy. The erosion of confidence in the government is linked with the idea that contemporary democracies have become ‘‘overloaded by more and more insistent demands from an ever-expanding array of participants’’ (Putnam et al., 2000: 3; Dalton, 2004; Norris, 1999). Many contemporary democracies face a performance deficit because the state does not respond adequately to citizens’ demands (Thomassen, 1995). Contemporary citizens are more critical and demanding than before and the expansion of the welfare state created demands and expectations that governments could not meet ‘‘given the globalization of the economy, problems of government overload, and hence the ‘crisis of the state’’’ (Norris, 1999: 22). Political trust relies on the concrete policy measures taken by a government to solve these discrepancies but also by the images of politicians. The recent declines in political support in some countries, has been attributed to the personal scandals and abuses of power by political elites. It is obvious that the tendency of the mass media to report such scandals and abuses of power is conducive to increasing cynicism about politicians and politics (see also Dalton, 2004).
The current debate on the future of citizenship and civil society is directed strongly toward the negative effects of modernization and individualization processes and the severe consequences for society in general and democracy in particular. Individualization is regarded not to be very beneficial to civil society and to social solidarity because of the decline of social responsibilities and because individual citizens are less embedded in associative relations. A process of deinstitutionalization has occurred appearing as weaker societal bonds and (feelings of) detachment in society and a calculative orientation among citizens seems to prevail in the modern welfare state. It is argued that ongoing individualization will result ultimately in a society in which values, beliefs, and ideas are no longer commonly shared. Such a society is threatened by disintegration and the individual is threatened by anomie, radical individualism, and ethical relativism. Therefore communitarians argue that in order to solve the problem of individualistic, modern society a firm moral order in society should be established by (re)creating a strong ‘‘we’’ feeling and the (re) establishment of a ‘‘spirit of community’’ (Etzioni, 1996, 2001). The question is if it is realistic to assume that that can be achieved, for if one thing is clear in contemporary individualized society, such a spirit of community cannot be imposed from any authority because one of the key characteristics of individualism is that people are not inclined to accept any interference with their personal life (Inglehart 1997). The opening of Central and Eastern Europe and the democratization process that started there in the 1990s were not accompanied by economic growth and expanding welfare. As a result many Eastern Europeans became more cynical about politics in general and the fortunes of democracy in particular. The European project recently seems to have awakened nationalistic sentiments and movements from their slumber and massive migration waves into Europe seem to have triggered exclusionist reactions toward new cultural and ethnic minorities and increased intercultural and interethnic conflict (Touraine, 1994; Blokker, 2005). European unification along economic and political lines has been successful; it has brought peace and economic prosperity to its members over the past decades, but the European project is likely to fail if it remains defined along economic and political lines. The European project can only be successful if the people begin to feel and act as Europeans, and particularly become engaged Europeans. A European civic society has to develop, otherwise mutual trust, honesty, and morality will weaken and mistrust in
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European institutions and political authorities will rise (e.g., Dekker et al., 2003; Putnam, 2000, 2002). However, Europe is a complex continent; dynamic and diverse, full of histories and subtle nuances. Being a European is therefore not a simple or an obvious matter as it is to being a Frenchman or an Italian. Despite that ‘‘political institutions’’ were established and a monetary union built, a truly European society in the sense of a European community and European group identity (see also Glasius et al., 2006: 26–27) has not developed. Civil societies that exist at national and regional levels are suffocated in the process of economic and administrative harmonization and equalization. Increasingly, people perceive Europe as a threat instead of the cradle of their traditions and culture (Van de Donk quoted in Halman et al., 2005: 23). Both are rooted in civil society, and a flourishing civil society is regarded a medicine toward this ‘‘threat.’’ The creation of a European civil society will not be easy, but it is essential; the alternative is cynicism and a victory of the calculating citizen. There are other factors that erode people’s societal engagement, and their interest and participation in public life. According to Putnam, our civic engagement is endangered first of all by an increased pressure of time and money. People are simply so occupied with their work that they are unable to get civilly engaged, e.g., in voluntary activities. Secondly, people are increasingly mobile in the sense that they move so often that it is difficult for them to get acquainted with their neighbors and to engage in voluntary activities. Finally, people are increasingly watching TV, reducing the need for direct personal contact. The TV programs people watch are increasingly associated with civic disengagement: entertainment as distinct from news (Putnam, 2000: 246). Thus, increased mobility, time pressure, and the impact of technology (TV, in particular) decrease the likelihood of people being active in voluntary activities and thus have negative impact on our civic culture. However, at least the consequences of modern technology can be debated. For example, television can also be seen as an agent of socialization and creator of positive images of politics and the political system and thus be conducive to group attachment and social and political commitment (see also McBride, 1998). As Norris noted, the evidence that television is to be blamed for our political ills is not very convincing and the sources of the cynical and disenchanted publics need to be found elsewhere (Norris, 2000: 249–250). The same can be said about the use of other modern communication means such as the Internet. It has been demonstrated that the Internet
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‘‘meets citizen demand for political information’’ (Tolbert & McNeal, 2003: 184), and as such produces more politically informed, socially engaged, and interested people who are more likely to vote in elections (Gibson et al., 2000; Kavanaugh & Patterson, 2001; Karakaya Porat, 2005). Finally, the recent influx of migrant minorities and the multicultural society that is developing have provoked in many European countries an open debate on the consequences of value diversity and what exactly comprises the cultural entity and identity of nation-states. According to Kymlicka and Norman (2000: 5), multiculturalism has put a considerable strain on the norms of civility and good citizenship. An increase of minority groups and thus the rise of minority rights are issues that are considered to have severe consequences for the feelings of citizenship, cooperation, tolerance, solidarity, public involvement, and social engagement. Minorities may not be willing or able to identify with and participate in the society, while the majority may not be willing or able to recognize cultural minorities and to allow them to become full members of the society. This may very well result in, or be a consequence of, feelings of competition, mutual mistrust, and antagonism between the minorities and majority and as such feelings of citizenship, willingness to participate, and civic involvement and engagement are endangered.
Future Directions It seems likely that important issues to be addressed in future studies on the civic culture will have to focus first of all on the declining levels of political trust and increasing cynicism among mass publics and the consequences for political support. Second, attention has to be paid to the question as to how civil society and democracy will survive in a further individualizing and modernizing society. A third topic to deal with is the creation of a civil society across borders. This will be essential not only for the further advancement and proper working of the European Union, but will also be important for North America and its recently established trade agreement between Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Can such projects be successful if civil society does not develop? Further, the consequences of modern communication means, television, and the Internet have to be further explored for the results thus far are ambiguous, confusing, and not consistent. Finally, the consequences of migration for feelings of citizenship, societal participation, and civic engagement have to be studied carefully.
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Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Etzioni, A. ▶ Identity ▶ Participation ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Social Trust ▶ Solidarity ▶ Uncivil Society ▶ Values ▶ Volunteers ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Almond, G. A., & Verba, S. (1965). The civic culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Almond, G. A., & Verba, S. (Eds.) (1980). The civic culture revisited. Boston/Toronto: Little, Brown & Company. Almond, G. A. (1996). The civic culture: Prehistory, retrospect, and prospect. Paper presented at the Center for the Study of Democracy and the Department of Politics and Society, University of California, Irvine, November 1995, from http://repositories.cdlib. org/csd/96–01 Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1992). The good society. New York: Vintage Books. Beugelsdijk, S., & Van Schaik, T. (2003). Participation in civil society and European regional economic growth. In W. Arts, J. Hagenaars, & L. Halman (Eds.), The cultural diversity of European unity (pp. 119–146). Leiden/Boston: Brill. Blokker, P. (2005). Populist nationalism, anti-Europeanism, postnationalism, and the East-West distinction. German Law Journal, 6, 371–389. Castiglione, D., Van Deth, J. W., & Wolleb, G. (Eds.) (2008). The handbook of social capital. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dalton, R. (2004). Democratic challenges. Democratic choices. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dekker, P., Ester, P., & Vinken, H. (2003). Civil society, social trust and democratic involvement. In W. Arts, J. Hagenaars, & L. Halman (Eds.), The cultural diversity of European unity (pp. 217–254). Leiden/Boston: Brill. Dekker, P., & Uslaner, E. (Eds.) (2001). Social capital and participation in everyday life. London: Routledge. Dekker, P., & van den Broek, A. (1996). Volunteering and politics: Involvement in voluntary associations from a ‘‘civic culture’’ perspective. In L. Halman & N. Nevitte (Eds.), Political value change in Western democracies (pp. 125–152). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Ester, P., Mohler, P., & Vinken, H. (2006). Values and the social sciences: A global world of global values? In P. Ester, M. Braun, & P. Mohler
(Eds.), Globalization, value change, and generations (pp. 3–29). Leiden, Boston: Brill. Etzioni, A. (1996). The new golden rule. Community and morality in a democratic society. New York: Basic Books. Etzioni, A. (2001). The monochrome society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fukuyama, F. (1996). Trust. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Fukuyama, F. (2000). The great disruption. New York: Touchstone. Gibson, R. K., Howard, P. E. N., & Ward, S. (2000). Social capital, Internet connectedness & political participation: A four country study. Paper prepared for the 2000 International Political Science Association, Quebec, Canada. Glasius, M., Kaldor, M., & Anheier, H. (2006). Introduction. In M. Glasius, M. Kaldor, & H. Anheier (Eds.), Global civil society 2005/6 (pp. 1–34). London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage. Halman, L., Luijkx, R., & Van Zundert, M. (2005). The atlas of European values. Leiden: Brill. Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R. (1999). Postmodernization erodes respect for authority, but increases support for democracy. In P. Norris (Ed.), Critical citizens (pp. 236–256). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Janmaat, J. G. (2006). Civic culture in Western and Eastern Europe. European Journal of Sociology, 47: 363–393. Kavanaugh, A. L., & Patterson, S. J. (2001). The impact of community computer networks on social capital and community involvement. American Behavioral Scientist, 45: 496–509. Karakaya Polat, R. (2005). The Internet and political participation. European Journal of Communication, 20: 435–459. Knack, S., & Keefer, P. (1997). Does social capital have an economic payoff? A cross-country investigation. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 62: 1251–1288. Kymlicka, W., & Norman, W. (Eds.) (2000). Citizenship in diverse societies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Maloney, W. A., Smith, G., & Stoker, G. (2000). Social capital and associational life. In S. Baron, J. Field, & T. Schuller (Eds.), Social capital. Critical perspectives (pp. 212–225). Oxford: Oxford University Press. McBride, A. (1998). Television, individualism, and social capital. Political Science & Politics, 31: 542–552. Norris, P. (Eds.) (1999). Critical citizens. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Norris, P. (2000). The impact of television on civic malaise. In S. J. Pharr & R. D. Putnam (Eds.), Disaffected democracies (pp. 231–251). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Norris, P. (2003). Democratic phoenix. Reinventing political activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paxton, P. (1999). Is social capital declining in the United States? A multiple indicator assessment. American Journal of Sociology, 105: 88–127. Pharr, S. J., & Putnam, R. D. (Eds.) (2000). Disaffected democracies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone. New York: Simon & Schuster Putnam, R. (Ed.) (2002). Democracies in flux. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Putnam, D., Pharr, S. J., & Dalton, R. J. (2000). Introduction: What’s troubling the trilateral democracies. In S. J. Pharr & R. D. Putnam (Eds.), Disaffected democracies (pp. 3–27). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sennett, R. (1977). The fall of public man. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Civic Participation Skocpol, T. (2004). Diminished democracy: From membership to management in American civic life. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Thomassen, J. (1995). Support for democratic values. In H. D. Klingemann & D. Fuchs (Eds.), Citizens and the state (pp. 383–416). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tolbert, C. J., & McNeal, R. S. (2003). Unraveling the effects of the Internet on political participation. Political Research Quarterly, 56: 175–185. Touraine, A. (1994). European countries In a post-national era. In C. Rootes & H. Davis (Eds.), Social change and political transformation (pp. 13–26). London: UCL Press. Van Deth, J. W., Maraffi, M., Newton, K., & Whiteley, P. (Eds.) (1999). Social capital and European democracy. London: Routledge. Van Deth, J. W., Ramo´n Montero, J., & Westholm, A. (Eds.) (2006). Citizenship and involvement in European democracies. London: Routledge. Verba, S. (1980). On revisiting the civic culture: A personal postscript. In G. A. Almond & S. Verba (Eds.), The civic culture revisited (pp. 394– 410). Boston/Toronto: Little, Brown & Company.
Civic Participation ROD DACOMBE King’s College, London, London, UK
Introduction Participation in civic life has long been considered a core element of democracy and a fundamental expression of civil society. In recent years, a range of different forms of civic participation have taken on a growing prominence in public policy debates, with governments and scholars variously promoting these activities as vehicles for citizen choice, as counters to the decline of ‘‘community,’’ and more recently, as core expressions of modern citizenship. Indeed, the involvement of people in the business of civic life is often seen as a central element of political, as well as social, life in many countries. In this context, there has been an increasing concern over the perceived decline of civic participation, with social, economic, and cultural shifts damaging the ‘‘civicness’’ of communities. Although this is by no means a matter of complete consensus, many writers have traced the decline of individual and collective participation in a diverse range of activities which they believe are partly responsible for a range of intractable social problems including persistent forms of exclusion and poverty, rising crime, and declining social trust. Questions around the level and efficacy of civic participation have therefore become highly visible in public and academic discourse.
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Definition Defining civic participation can be a complex and demanding task, and different commentators have developed myriad definitions and understandings. Indeed, most definitions are drawn from a distinct social and cultural context and are usually country-specific, making broader application problematic. As a starting point, however, one can draw on the bulk of the literature and understand participation as some form of engagement, either individually or collectively, of people in the decisions that shape their lives. From this, within much of the literature, it is possible to distinguish between forms of participation that are overtly ‘‘political,’’ which have an obvious effect on public decisions, and other, more ‘‘private’’ forms of civic participation, such as volunteering, whose effects are perhaps less tangible. At its most general, ‘‘political’’ activity might include something along the lines of the approach taken by Parry et al. (1992), who suggest that it is ‘‘taking part in the processes of formulation, passage and implementation of public policies’’ (p. 16); in other words, activity directly connected to public decisions. Conversely, Robert Putnam (1993, 2000) is perhaps the most prominent theorist discussing the ‘‘private’’ forms of civic activity. He suggests that participation in associations and social life has, in and of itself, a beneficial effect on the functioning of democratic institutions. The divide between these two forms of activity is unclear, and has traditionally been made almost arbitrarily. Within the literature it is possible to trace a great number of divisions made between, for example, political and nonpolitical activity, formal and informal participation, and secular and religious activity. Although civic participation can (and increasingly does) occur at national and supranational levels, it is commonly a local concern. Beyond the focus of the activity, Putnam (2000) distinguishes between ‘‘collaborative’’ activities, where organized group action results in civic value, and expressive action, which focuses on the individual and might include any number of activities, such as writing a letter to a public official, contacting the media, or attending a public meeting, that people can undertake of their own accord. In fact, in many countries, participation of any weight or consequence tends to be collective – indeed, for many people engagement in organized collective activity is the sole method of political participation outside of formal elections. There are, however, problems with taking too rigid an approach to defining civic participation. First, it is important to understand that indicators of civic activity (such as those sketched above) do not necessarily translate into effective participation. Second, each of these forms of participation are well-established aspects of social life in
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many countries – any definition that emphasizes these forms of participation does so at the expense of other, less mainstream action, and new and emerging forms, such as those based on the Internet. For this reason, it is necessary to include a broad range of activities within conceptions of civic participation which do not sit on a linear scale that begins with ‘‘political’’ activities and ends with ‘‘volunteering.’’
Historical Background The idea of civic participation as playing a central part in political life is nothing new. Some of the classic treatises of democratic thought have placed an emphasis on the idea of the engagement of citizens as being essential to a healthy social and political life. As such, social theorists have long drawn parallels between modern democratic practice and the participatory aspects of, say, the Greek city-state, and the New England town meeting. However, modern thinking on civic participation owes a great debt to John Dewey (1927) who was one of the first scholars to link participation in civic life with the resolution of social problems. Like many subsequent commentators, however, Dewey was despondent at the inability (as he saw it) of the state to encourage, and respond to, the information provided by civic engagement on specific social issues. Dewey echoes the concern of J. S. Mill (1861), when identifying the ‘‘problem’’ of the public’s involvement in civic affairs – that the public, to participate effectively in civic life, has to have the knowledge and capacity to engage in a meaningful way.
Key Issues Why is it that People Participate in Civic Action?
A number of approaches to explaining the participation in civic activity have been put forward. Some commentators have directly applied rational choice models to civic behavior (e.g., Downs, 1957). Effectively, this focuses on the trade-off between the costs of participation (usually time) and the benefits (such as political power and influence). These discussions are generally based around the idea of economically rational civic actors maximizing the benefits of participation while minimizing costs, and therefore suggest that engagement is likely to occur where the costs of engagement are low and the potential benefits of action are high. Elsewhere, in his classic study of group behavior, Mancur Olson (1971) differentiates between collective and selective benefits associated with participation, where collective benefits are available universally, but selective benefits are restricted to participants. More recent literature suggests that incentives to encourage collective civic activity might arise from the indirect
benefits to interaction, such as personal satisfaction and strong group attachment. Conversely, Almond and Verba (1963) focused on the context of participation, identifying a range of indicators of ‘‘civicness’’ in their study of civic life in five different countries, based on the prevailing attitudes held by citizens of their relation to government. These indicators were used to categorize civic culture into the (1) parochial, where citizens are largely disconnected from government; (2) subject, where citizens are largely passive, despite higher levels of political awareness and interest; and (3) participant, where strong relationships between citizen and government decision making are exhibited. In reality, a mixture of these characteristics is likely to be exhibited in a country. Ronald Inglehart (1990) agrees that cultural factors are also significant in setting the scene for civic participation, suggesting that particular sets of attitudes and norms of behavior are important in fostering a participatory society. Away from these arguments, it is possible to trace a strong role for the state in promoting participation. J. S. Mill (1861) thought that local government played an essential role in providing ‘‘education for citizenship,’’ stimulating the ‘‘energy’’ of local people to engage in civic life. More recently, many commentators have developed this basic idea, suggesting that civic participation has a role to play in enhancing the political ‘‘literacy’’ of society. Different governments have taken the theme of civic participation as important in the success of their social programs, adopting a range of policies that promote participation. Neoliberal administrations, such as the Conservative governments of the late 1980s in the United Kingdom, tended to frame participation largely in terms of its ability to illustrate citizen preferences and encourage competition in public services through expressions of choice. This had a knock-on effect in the kinds of participatory structures encouraged by the state, and underpinned a rise in consumer-oriented methods of participation, such as complaints and suggestion schemes and customer satisfaction questionnaires. These approaches remain influential in many countries, although successive Third Way governments across the Western world have tended to develop policies that are based on a far broader role for participation and recognize the social benefits of association. More recently, the idea of civic participation underpinning the duties expected of citizens has gained currency, with the virtues of ‘‘active’’ citizenship espoused. Who Participates?
It is possible to identify a range of theoretical approaches to understanding the likelihood of civic participation in an individual. These include ideas based on
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socioeconomic status, the level of social capital, and the prevailing institutional setting. An abundance of literature exists that identifies clear distinctions between the likelihood of different social groups participating in civic activity. Most obviously, the socioeconomic status of citizens has long been held to show a strong correlation with the level of civic participation displayed. This has generally been conceived of in terms of the resources held by people: meaning that the higher levels of education, leisure time, and ‘‘civic skill’’ have an effect on the ability of people to participate in civic life (Brady et al., 1995). Recent evidence in a number of countries has brought these ideas into sharp focus, with general trends highlighting a correlation between low household annual incomes and civic disengagement. Longitudinal data suggests that these problems are becoming more acute, with interest in politics, particularly for the lowest socioeconomic groups, declining significantly, and the gap between the highest and lowest social classes, in particular, dramatically widening in the last decades. Further work suggests that the likelihood of participation in civic activity is strongly associated with social connections and association. In recent years, the networks of trust and reciprocal activity in local areas – social capital – have been increasingly linked to civic participation across the literature. Broadly, arguments around the importance of social capital to civic participation hinge on the correlation of a number of indicators of social connectedness and civic activity. Putnam (1993) found that where civic participation was strongest, dense networks of social connections and association existed in local communities. This has demonstrable beneficial effects: statistical analysis has shown an association between participation in voluntary action and economic regeneration (Casey, 2004). Equally, Richardson and Mumford (2002) show that voluntary group involvement can change social attitudes and behavior in a local area to reduce social exclusion. Arguments around the importance of social capital to civic participation tend to focus their analysis on the importance of association to various forms of social, political, and economic activity. However important, this focus tends to neglect the significance of the institutions of the state in shaping the context in which social interaction takes place. An emerging literature is developing away from the more established material dealing with socioeconomic status and the importance of social connections and capital that suggests the relatively underresearched area of institutional design is emerging as an important conceptual tool in understanding civic participation.
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In essence, these arguments suggest that the formal institutional structures, informal practices, and prevailing ‘‘tone’’ of participation in a particular setting, all have roles to play in deciding the likelihood of participation. Variables such as language, dress, the roles assigned to participants (whether formally and informally), and who controls the topics for discussion, are emerging in research in the area as increasingly important (Lowndes et al., 2006). How ‘‘Useful’’ is Civic Participation?
The issues traced above form the basis of a number of objections raised by commentators to approaches to civic participation that emphasize its usefulness in dealing with the disengagement of citizens from public institutions, and in tackling social problems. Some of these are rooted in concerns that participation might be an inadequate mechanism for engaging citizens in public life. In particular, a number of commentators base their concerns on the assumption that the shape of modern governance and its accompanying social problems have rendered civic action impotent. In other words, that the size and complexity of modern public institutions, together with the persistence of intractable, ‘‘wicked’’ social problems, are beyond the grasp of most citizens, who lack the wherewithal and the expertise to engage effectively. Further problems have been identified around the setting and efficacy of civic participation. As outlined above, the difficulties of engaging the voices of minority groups, the less educated, and less well-connected are well-established. This immediately raises concerns over the likelihood of the marginalization of these groups in favor of the privileged and confident. At the same time, the lack of social capital traced in deprived areas by many commentators suggests acute problems with the ‘‘civicness’’ of those living in such conditions. Each of these issues and the resulting parochialism and imbalances of power, are major concerns of those who espouse civic action as a salve to some of the problems of modern governance. However, a number of commentators disagree with these critiques. Archon Fung (2003, 2004) suggests that civic action can be promoted successfully through radical participatory structures, highlighting a range of institutional reforms that have promoted effective civic engagement in a range of different countries. Sherry Arnstein is the most well-known of many commentators who have attempted to typologize the conditions where participation is most successful. She closely identified participation with the redistribution of power, with those normally excluded allowed a voice in decision making. She imagined a Ladder of Participation (1963) ranging
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from ‘‘non-participation,’’ where those enjoying power imposed themselves on participants, through ‘‘tokenism,’’ where participants are allowed a voice, but there is no guarantee of resulting action, to ‘‘citizen power,’’ where participants are empowered in decision-making processes. This concept became highly influential, particularly within urban planning, and has been extended and developed in a number of areas, including the developing world and specific fields such as resource management.
Future Directions There is a clear research agenda emerging, prompted largely by the ways in which civic participation has been embraced by the state in recent years. Core to this is establishing a greater understanding of the kinds of social groups likely to participate in different forms of civic activity, the terms of their engagement, the consequences for public policy and the legitimacy of current approaches to encouraging civic participation. In particular, questions around how far people have a responsibility to participate, and the consequences of exit, or nonparticipation, would seem to be particularly pressing, given the inclusion of civic activity in many modern conceptions of citizenship. Beyond this, the impact on participation of new technology and the Internet is not yet fully understood (Castells, 1999). Websites are now run by a great number of public agencies that directly encourage the views and input of citizens in the planning and delivery of public services. More significantly, the Internet has established a range of possibilities for new forms of connection, association, and participation that were previously not possible. These can serve as forums for sharing information and ideas, opinions and empowerment (and control) that do not sit within national boundaries, and hold the capability to generate new movements that impinge on the political and public arenas, but do not move through established institutional channels.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Action ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society Theory: Dewey ▶ Citizenship ▶ Information Technology/Internet ▶ Olson, Mancur ▶ Participation ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of
References/Further Readings Almond, G., & Verba, S. (1963). The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Arnstein, S. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. American Institute of Planning Journal, July, 216–224. Brady, H. (1995). Beyond SES: A resource model of political participation. American Political Science Review, 89(2), 271–294. Casey, J. (2004). Third sector participation in the policy process: a framework for comparative analysis. Politics & Policy, 32(2), 241–257 Castells, M. (1999). The rise of the network society. Oxford: Blackwell. Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. Cambsridge: Addison-Wesley. Fung, A. (2003). Deepening democracy: Institutional innovations in empowered governance. Oxford: Princeton University Press. Fung, A. (2004). Empowered participation: Reinventing urban democracy. Oxford: Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lowndes, V. (2006). Local political participation: The impact of rules-inuse. Public Administration, 84(3), 539–561 Mill, J. S. (1861). Considerations on representative government. London: Dent. Olson, M. (1971). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press Parry, G. (1992). Political participation and democracy in Britain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Chichester: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Richardson, E., & Mumford, K. (2002). Community, neighbourhood and social infrastructure. Understanding social exclusion. In J. Hills et al. (Eds.), Understanding social exclusion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
CIVICUS ELIZABETH LEVI
Address of Organization CIVICUS House 24 Gwigwi Mrwebi Street (former Pim) corner Quinn Street Newtown Johannesburg 2001 South Africa www.civicus.org
Introduction CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation is a membership organization made up of 450 institutional and individual members in over 110 countries, who
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join as advocates to give voice to people and creative energies in the civil society sector. CIVICUS convenes annual World Assemblies that bring together leaders and activists engaged in global civil society and scholarship. CIVICUS describes itself as ‘‘an influential network of organisations at the local, national, regional, and international levels, and span the spectrum of civil society including: civil society networks and organisations; trade unions; faith-based networks; professional associations; NGO capacity development organisations; philanthropic foundations and other funding bodies; businesses; and social responsibility programs.’’
Brief History In 1991, an international group of 20 civil society leaders convened to explore how to support citizen participation with the aim of promoting civil society around the world. This process culminated in mid-1993, in Washington, DC, when a founding board comprised of 18 distinguished civil society leaders from six continents established CIVICUS, from the Latin term meaning ‘‘of the community’’. CIVICUS global headquarters is now located to Johannesburg, South Africa from which it has expanded its activities and network of organizations and individuals to strengthen citizen action and civil society. CIVICUS focuses on regions where participatory democracy and freedom of association are at risk. CIVICUS continues to be guided by its core beliefs that the health of societies are directly proportional to the degree of balance between state, the private sector, and civil society rendering CIVICUS as a focal point for knowledge-sharing, common interest representation, global institution-building and engagement among these disparate sectors.
Mission On its website, CIVICUS describes itself as ‘‘an international alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world,’’ driven by a vision of a ‘‘worldwide community of informed, inspired, committed citizens engaged in confronting the challenges facing humanity.’’ The activities of CIVICUS are dedicated to amplifying the voices of all citizens and to promoting their full participation through freedom of association, enabling them to engage in all sectors of society. CIVICUS counts among its central values: Justice and Equality, where all people are free to exercise their rights as citizens as defined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; Reciprocity and Respect; Knowledge; Vision; and Principled Courage, through which CIVICUS strives to promote civil justice and conducts its activities in a manner that honors the values of democratic civil society.
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Activities CIVICUS is engaged in the following spheres of activity in the service of its mission: the annual World Assembly is a major international conference; in 2008 over 900 participants convened in Glasgow from around the globe to share information and focus on emerging issues. The Civil Society Index is a regularly updated participatory needs assessment and action planning resource in the form of an accessible database for scholars and activists in the field. The Civil Society Networks Program convenes international advocacy and nongovernmental organizations to work collaboratively, with an emphasis on policy and accountability. Civil Society Watch strives to respond to emergent threats to the fundamental rights of citizens. The Participatory Governance Program emphasizes civil society organizations in the South, promoting participatory leadership and governance. The Legitimacy, Transparency, and Accountability Program aims to strengthen the individual and collective governance of Civil Society Organizations. Among the Special Projects conducted by CIVICUS are initiatives focused on civic participation and volunteerism.
Structure and Governance CIVICUS is led by Ingrid Srinath, who became Secretary General in May, 2008. The work of CIVICUS is conducted by 42 officers and professionals at the hub in South Africa; in the Washington, DC office; and staff posted to Geneva, New York and the United Nations, Europe and Canada. The governing body of CIVICUS is an International Board of 12 distinguished leaders from nine countries.
Funding Revenue to support the operations of CIVICUS is derived from multiple sources, including institutional funders, individual contributions, membership fees, publications sales, and registration fees for the CIVICUS World Assembly. The annual budget for the year ending 2007 was $2.9 million, with the majority funding support from over 30 institutional funders, including the Ford Foundation, Oxfam, UN Development Program and Millennium Development Campaign, World Bank and World Vision International.
Major Accomplishments Since it formal establishment in 1993, CIVICUS has built successively on its formative activities. The Civil Society Index (CSI) is a widely recognized research-action tool to which civil society organizations can turn to build knowledge and capacity. The CSI has engaged over 7,000
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stakeholders, providing a basis for learning and information exchange across the 50 countries that are involved. Through CIVICUS’ commitment to knowledge development and dissemination, expanded electronic news and regularly updated informational resources enhance CIVICUS’ extensive roster of print publications that are noted in the field for increasing understanding and contributing to building the resource base of the civil society sector. In 2005, CIVICUS established the Nelson Mandela Graca Machel Innovation Awards to recognize leading achievements of grassroots civil society organizations (CSOs). In 2009, four CSOs from Africa and one from Venezuela were each recognized with a cash award of $5,000 for innovative local projects addressing HIV/AIDS.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society Indicators and Indexes ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Participation ▶ Transparency
References/Further Readings Anheier, Helmut K. (2004). Civil society: Measurement, evaluation, policy. London: Earthscan. The Commonwealth Fund. (1999). Citizens and governance: Civil society in the new millenium. London: The Commonwealth Foundation. Heinrich, V. F. (2005). Studying civil society across the world: Exploring the thorny issues of conceptualization and measurement. Journal of Civil Society, 1(3), 211–228.
Civil Law and Civil Society LEON E. IRISH International Center for Civil Society Law, Crownsville, MD, USA
Introduction The relationship between civil law and civil society is not perspicuous. It exists, however, and the discussion of the two together yields interesting points.
Definition Civil law is the dominant legal tradition in most of Europe, all of Central and South America, parts of Asia and Africa, and even some discrete areas of the commonlaw world (e.g., Louisiana, Quebec, and Puerto Rico). Public international law and the law of the European Community are in large part the product of persons trained in the civil-law tradition. Civil law is older, more widely distributed, and in many ways more influential than the common law, the other principal legal tradition and the one that prevails in England, the United States, most of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and other countries of the British Commonwealth. Civil law has its roots in Roman law, Canon law (i.e., Catholic law) and the Enlightenment, alongside influences from other religious laws such as Islamic law. The legal systems in many civil-law countries are based around one or several codes of law, which set out principal provisions of the law. The most famous example is perhaps the French Civil Code, promulgated by Napoleon in 1804, although the German Bu¨rgerliches Gesetzbuch (or BGB) of 1900 and the Swiss Civil Code are also landmark events in the history of civil law. The civil-law systems of Scotland, the Scandinavian countries, and South Africa are uncodified. So-called Socialist law is often considered to be a particular case of the Romano-Germanic civil law, though in the past it was sometimes classified as a separate legal system. As generalizations, it is often said that the common law follows an ‘‘adversarial’’ model while civil law is more ‘‘inquisitorial’’ Civil law is ‘‘code-based’’: civil-law judges do not interpret the law but instead follow predetermined legal rules, whereas common law judges derive legal rules from prior precedential court decisions. In fact, much of the common law has been codified and many civil-law judges are guided by prior judicial decisions. Civil Society. There are myriad definitions of civil society in the postmodern sense. The London School of Economics Centre for Civil Society’s working definition is illustrative: ‘‘Civil society refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes, and values. In theory, its institutional forms are distinct from those of the state, family, and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family, and market are often complex, blurred, and negotiated. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors, and institutional forms, varying in their degree of formality, autonomy, and power. Civil societies are often populated by organizations such as registered charities, development nongovernmental organizations, community groups, women’s organizations, faith-based organizations,
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professional associations, trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions, and advocacy groups.’’
Historical Background Roman Law
The history of civil law, which is often called ‘‘‘continental’ law,’’ is a history of two periods, that of Roman law and that of modern civil law, beginning with the rediscovery of roman law in the eleventh century AD. The beginnings of civil law are often identified as the promulgation in 450 BC of the Twelve Tablets, which set out elementary principles for resolving disputes. When a dispute arose, a nobleman or patrician was assigned to act as iudex (judge) and hear the case. Corruption became endemic and one of the two annually elected praetors, also drawn from the patricians, was authorized to appoint a iudex and instruct him on how to handle the case. Upon election, the praetor would issue an edict stating the remedies he was prepared to supervise the adjudication of. The Edict became particularly important for the development of the equity law of Rome, the jus gentium, which applied to those persons who could not be classified as indigenous Romans. In any given case, the iudex had to investigate to determine what the relevant facts were, and appeals were created to correct errors by the iudex. To assist the praetor the College of Pontiffs (priests) was authorized to interpret the law, and these interpretations were written down and bound into volume (codex) form. The priests who interpreted the law – and developed it into an increasingly detailed and elaborate codex – were subsequently known as ‘‘jurisconsults.’’ The short-term, nonprofessional character of the Roman judiciary and its method of case disposal produced another result, important for the later development of civil-law systems: the lack of regard for the value of decisions in individual cases. Since the praetor was appointed for only 1 year and played a limited role in the resolution of cases, his decisions and rulings in particular cases were not accorded any particular weight or significance. Likewise, there was little respect accorded the decisions of the iudex. The iudex was appointed to decide only a particular case. There was no continuity in litigation, and no chance for the development of legal principles among the various cases presented for resolution. A judicial decision – involving actions by two separate judicial officials – resolved an individual case, and that was the end of the matter. Thus judicial decisions were never accorded any importance in the Roman legal
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system. The resulting derogation of the value of individual decisions in the judicial process elevated the importance of the jurists and their written opinions. The practice of the praetor in issuing the annual Edict at the beginning of his 1-year term evolved into merely a reissuance of the one issued by the previous office holder, with such changes and additions as were desired by the newly elected praetor. The result was an ever-lengthening document of uneven texture and content. This practice ended during the reign of the Emperor Hadrian (117–138 AD), causing the jurists to turn to a new form of legal writing: the treatise, which covered specific aspects of Roman law. Another practice that helped elevate the role of jurists was Caesar Augustus’s practice of ‘‘patenting’’ jurists, by which certain jurists were singled out for recognition. By such recognition the opinions of the patented jurists were accorded special significance and weight. Patented jurists eventually acquired the power of rule making, and their opinions were binding even on the emperor because they had the ‘‘force of law.’’ In the sixth century, the Emperor Justinian ordered the preparation of an even more comprehensive manuscript covering all aspects of Roman law. The Corpus Juris Civilis included not only a refinement of Gaius’s Institutes, but the Digest (writings of classical jurists), the Code (early imperial legislation), and the Novels (Justinian’s legislation). The Corpus Juris Civilis provided a rich store of legal ideas for contemporary and later students and scholars of the law. It brought together legal treatises and principles of law reflecting diverse viewpoints and arguments. As will be seen later in this discussion, the Corpus Juris Civilis, particularly the refined Institutes, became the essential building block for the system of law known popularly as the civil-law system, supplying many of its substantive provisions. Modern Developments
In the ‘‘first renaissance’’ – the tumultuous eleventh to thirteenth centuries – the separation between church and state was established and universities were established, focused on law and theology. Two developments occurred in the medieval period that greatly affected the content of the substantive law of the civil-law systems: (1) the creation of a comprehensive canon or ecclesiastical law by the Roman Catholic Church, and (2) the maturing of a law merchant, or law covering commercial transactions, as the result of the growth of commercial classes and expansion of commercial activities in European cities and regions. The practice of relying on various written forms of law, including scholarly commentaries, doctrinal treatises, and glosses on compilations of legal principles, for the
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creation of a legal system was well established throughout Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The formal, comprehensive codification of an entire body of law of the type characteristic of modern civil-law systems began primarily in France and Germany. Before discussing the codification process, however, it is necessary to examine briefly the influence of three intellectual movements of the period: ‘‘humanism,’’ which grew out of the Renaissance; the ‘‘natural law’’ school, which followed humanism; and finally, the Enlightenment. Humanism was an intellectual movement that had its origins in sixteenth century France, a time and place of great upheaval. There was a ferment of ideas, politics, culture, religion, and commerce. In politics and religion the decline in the secular influence of the Roman Catholic Church and the waning of the power and authority of the Holy Roman Empire were accompanied by the birth of the concept of the nation-state and an emphasis on strong, central governments. These developments culminated in the creation of the modern European system of states by the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years War and, with it, the Holy Roman Empire. With its emphasis on rational thought and the potential for individual achievement, humanism was inspired by the culture of antiquity – primarily Greece, and to a lesser extent Rome. It encouraged scholarly examination of law, particularly the nature and function of law, and in the process the science of jurisprudence was founded. The school of natural law was an outgrowth of humanism. The origins of natural law are several, but the writings of Hugo de Groot (better known as Grotius) stand out as the real starting point in the development of natural law thinking. The similarity of approach of the natural law scholars led to the conclusion in one history of law that ‘‘codification in the sense of a rationally organized statement of the whole field of law (or of all private law) was only possible after the work of the natural lawyers.’’ Of course these scholars had much legal tradition with which to work, including Justinian’s Institutes, the glosses of the thirteenth century Italian glossators, the commentaries of the post-glossator period, the collections of ecclesiastical principles that became canon law, and the compilation of commercial customs, rules, and regulations into various manifestations of the law merchant. The intellectual and social turmoil of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries culminated in the eighteenth century in what has come to be known as the Enlightenment. This intellectual movement included the French Revolution and contained the near origins of the modern European codes as well as the key concepts that underlie civil society. The Enlightenment was based
on a belief in the fundamental importance of reason as a liberating force in intellectual life and in how society was organized, a belief that grew out of the precepts of the natural law school. In Europe the effects and influence of the Enlightenment provided the final stimulation for the creation of the modern comprehensive codes of the different European states. Emergence of Civil Society
The modern conception of natural law was seen as implying natural rights, including the rights to life, liberty, and property. John Locke, arguably the most important natural law theorist of modern times, and the works of the eighteenth century Philosophes, including Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, argued that certain rights self-evidently pertain to individuals as human beings. As these rights were elaborated over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth century, they came to include the right to freedom of belief, the right to freedom of expression, the right to religious freedom, the right of peaceful assembly, the right to freedom of association, the right to information, and the right to participate in government. Collectively these rights became the rights of citizens, and civil society became the fullest expression of them. After World War II they became enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. It is these rights of citizens that permit the full range of activities of civil society organizations in modern liberal democracies.
Key Issues With the growth and increasing complexity of the state, the law has grown commensurately. Indigenous legal traditions have largely been eliminated. Religion and religious morality have their place, but not in public life. There are now not only civil codes, there are penal codes, commercial codes, urban codes, codes of administration, of forestry, of taxation, and even of sport. Each has its implementing regulations. As secular civil law has expanded, its language has changed. This has something to do with humanism and humanist rationality. There are still many different forms of expression of civil law, however. The French civil code is relatively untechnical. Its language is not far from everyday life; its structure not complex. It was drafted largely by practitioners with a sense of the literary. With its combination of simplicity and beauty of language with conceptual reach, it has been widely emulated in the world. The German civil code came a century later and is probably the most technical and abstract of the civil codes. It has been viciously parodied within Germany, but
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it, too, has its attractions and virtues and has been emulated, notably outside the civil-law world and in the United States. The Centrality of the Person and the Growth of Rights. Prior to the late eighteenth century, Europe was a place of gross social inequality. Some people did most of the work and for the advantage of a few. Law perpetuated this situation. It was relational and obligational. People were stuck in their existing relations to one another, often hierarchical, and that is where the law said they had to stay. Judges were corrupt. Roman law, modernized in the civil law, allowed individuals to move from status to rights. Rights, of course, are not absolute, and the law controls the conditions and manner of their exercise. They are, however, a powerful instrument for bringing about basic conditions of human dignity. Once rights exist, and everyone has them without regard to birth or race or wealth, then there is also a notion of social equality. And, since people have the power, in rights, to resist oppression, there is also a guarantee of human liberty. At the base is the centrality of the person. The religious rationalists, such as Descartes, Grotius, Pufendorf, and Locke, developed the foundations for human law which were lacking in traditional indigenous law. So law comes to be recognized as having a human goal, a human instrumentality. There had to be rights and there had to be codes to ensure their respect. What did it mean to be rational in law? The lawyers of the enlightenment harked back to the Greek and Roman traditions of natural law. Deductive thought, the hallmark of the civillaw tradition, followed from this form of logic. Given a point of departure, you can reach further conclusions which are derivable from or entailed by it. Using law as the instrument of reason, you can also construct a modern state, which is essentially created out of formal, written law, though resting on a transnational legal tradition supporting its existence in multiple, national forms. Law is inextricably linked with the modern state; it created the state; it depends on it for its enforcement; it guarantees, as best it can, its continuing efficacy and integrity. As states develop, and develop into democratic institutions, functions of legislation and execution develop, and separate themselves from the more rudimentary form of government, which is dispute settlement. So we now have the separation of the state from the church, the separation of distinct powers within the state, and the recognition and protection of the rights of citizens, which enable civil society. If everyone has predefined rights, then their violation may exist prior to judgment, and the judicial function is largely one of verification of
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claims to violation of preexisting rights and remedying the violations.
International Perspectives In 1800 Napoleon appointed four senior practitioners of law to develop a comprehensive legal code. These four practitioners were experienced jurists who had studied Grotius, Pufendorf, and the other great writers of the natural law school. The basic structure of the code reflects the influence of Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis, while the overall design also conforms to the Declaration of the Rights of Man produced during the French Revolution. The language is simple and clear, since it was designed to be understood by every citizen. It does not deal with procedure, commercial law, or criminal law; those three areas were covered by codes developed later and separately. The civil codes, based as they are on the Corpus Juris Civilis, emphasize form, structure, and the enumeration of both abstract and concrete principles of law within a unified whole. The reasoning process from code provisions is deductive – one arrives at conclusions about specific situations from general principles. The function of the jurists within and for the civil-law system is to analyze the basic codes and legislation for the formulation of general theories and extract, enumerate, and expound on the principles of law contained in and to be derived from them. As the legal systems of Europe developed, the evolution of the role of jurists in the different countries diverged. In particular, the German model became distinctly different from the French one. In Germany the status of jurists and juridical doctrine, in the manner of Rome, was enhanced, while in France it was diminished. One of the reasons for the elevation of the role of jurists in Germany was the condition of the sixteenth and seventeenth-century German courts, staffed by lay judges untrained and unsophisticated in the law. The untrained lay judges required impartial advice, and this situation, in the manner of the judices in Rome, led to the practice of the German judges, seeking advice from the law faculties of the universities. In France the role and influence of jurists was lessened. The monarchy encouraged legally trained men into the judiciary. The result was that the formally trained judges were not compelled to seek outside legal advice in the manner of their German counterparts. Consequently, French legal scholars and law professors were never able to achieve the standing and power accorded their colleagues in Germany.
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Future Directions The civil-law tradition is associated with dominance. The Romans dominated, then the national civilians dominated, then the world became a zone of influence of civil laws, primarily through colonization, but also through admiration and emulation. The European law that is developing so fast today is principally civilian in nature. Many common law jurisdictions have taken on civilian structures and approaches, so perhaps a world law is developing that is fundamentally civilian in nature. And, the universalization of human rights gives global commonality to the concept of civil society.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History ▶ Business and Employers’ Associations ▶ Charity Law ▶ Civic Action ▶ Civic Agency ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Common Law and Civil Society ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ Human Rights ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations
References/Further Readings Bellomo, M. (1995). The common legal past of Europe 1000–1800. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Bergel, J. L. (1988). Principal features and methods of codification. Louisiana Law Review, 48, 1073. Berman, H. (1983). Law and revolution: The formation of the Western legal tradition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dawson, J. P. (1968). Oracles of the law. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Edwards, M. (2004). Civil society. Cambridge/England: Polity Press. Glendon, M. A., Gordon, M. W., & Osakwe, C. (1994). Comparative legal traditions. St. Paul, MN: West Publishing, Pt. II (‘‘The Civil Law Tradition’’). Glenn, H. P. (2007). Legal traditions of the world (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Honore, A. M. (1974). The background to Justinian’s codification. Tulane Law Review, 48, 859. Jolowicz, H. F. (1972). Historical introduction to the study of Roman law (3rd ed., rev. by P. Stein). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Langbein, J. (1985). The German advantage in civil procedure. University of Chicago Law Review, 52, 825. Lawson, F. H. (1953). A common lawyer looks at the civil law. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Lewis, A., & Ibbetson, D. (1994). The Roman law tradition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lupoi, M. (2000). The origins of the European legal order (A. Belton, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Merryman, J. H. (1985). The civil law tradition (2nd ed.). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Merryman, J. H., Clark, D., & Haley, J. (1994). The civil law tradition: Europe, Latin America, and East Asia. Charlottesville, VA: The Michie Co. O’Connell, B. (1999). Civil society: The underpinnings of American democracy. Medford, MA: Tufts University Press. Perlas, N. Shaping globalization – civil society, cultural power and threefolding. ISBN 0-95838858X. Pollock, G. (March 2001). Civil society theory and Euro-nationalism. Studies in Social & Political Thought (4), 31–56. Stein, P. (1999). Roman law in European history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steiner, J. J., Alston, P., & Goodman, R. (2008). International human rights in context (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tuck, R. (1979). Natural rights theories: Their origin and development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vinogradoff, P. (1968). Roman law in medieval Europe. New York: Barnes & Noble. von Mehren, A. T., & Gordley, J. R. (1977). The civil law system (2nd ed.). Boston: Little, Brown. Watson, A. (1981). The making of the civil law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zimmermann, R. (2001). Roman law, European law: The civilian tradition today. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Civil Society and Civic Education DIRK LANGE University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany
Introduction In classical civic education, ‘‘citizens’’ were conceived of in a narrower sense as citizens of the state. The consequence of this was that content was focused on the institutions and processes of the state. In modern society, the political realm can no longer be considered as interchangeable with the state. The discourse and regulation of public concerns has become a function of civil society. The historical transformation of the conception of the state means that civic education can no longer educate citizens exclusively in their relation to the state. It has to educate learners as actors in civil society, who then must also have the necessary skills to orient themselves and participate in non-state arenas. The basic concepts and interpretive skills of learners constitute the beginning and end point of civic education. They are transformed during the learning process. This situation renders it necessary to reflect on the academic modeling of citizenship awareness in civic education.
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For this article, the question to be focused on is what interpretive skills are necessary for citizens for them to have the ability to effectively exercise judgment and take action in civil society. In seeking to answer this question, I will make the case that civic education – by educating responsible citizens – first creates the preconditions for a functioning civil society (see Milner, 2002). First, the challenges facing a civil society will be depicted, in which an expanded and modified political understanding is discussed. Following that, it will be shown what interpretive skills must be developed within citizenship awareness in order for the citizen to act effectively in civil society.
Definition Civic education organizes learning processes with the aim of improving the ability of citizens to politically orient themselves and take action. The function of this type of education is to legitimize, anchor, and reproduce democratic rule. Civic education emphasizes the importance of the competence and skills necessary for political selfdetermination, while it conceives of the autonomy and responsibility of democratic authority as the beginning point and basis of the education process. Civic education does not simply aim at maintaining the democratic status quo. Rather, it seeks to develop citizens’ skills to judge and act, enabling them to thus create, change, and maintain a political system in such a way that a space continually remains open for self-determination to occur. The pedagogical focus of civic education is ‘‘citizenship awareness.’’ ‘‘Citizenship awareness’’ is that aspect of (civic) consciousness where an individual forms the cognitive skills that allow him or her to interpret and actively influence political and social realities. Within citizenship awareness, the contents and structures of subjective meaning constructs of politics and society are expanded upon and altered. In civic education, of interest are the meaning constructs and formation of meaning that learners use to explain political–social reality. This subjective meaning allows one to see, judge, and act in a political way (see Lange, 2008).
Historical Background The understanding of politics and civic education has changed over the course of time. The frame of reference for civic education has changed depending on what the conception of the state or political system has been. In the following, the historical changes in political understanding will be depicted. These changes that have consequences for the conception of civic education are closely connected to the development of the conceptions of
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civil society, whereby the concept Zivilgesellschaft (civil society) is often used synonymously for Bu¨rgergesellschaft (bourgeois society) (see Arenho¨vel, 2000). The understanding of politics from which traditional civic education took its lead is based on a narrow understanding of the state. It figures in the philosophical tradition of Hegel, who understood bourgeois society (Bu¨rgergesellschaft) as the ‘‘difference entering into the space between the family and state’’ (Schulze, 1991: 127, see Hegel, 1974: 472ff). In the older understanding of civil society, this difference did not yet exist. Those men or even those groups could feel they belonged to civil society if they participated in one way or another in the formation of rule. An independent economic realm separate from the family was not recognized. With the separation of the state and society, the citizen is represented in a twofold way. He simultaneously dwells in a politically relevant sphere and in an apolitical sphere. As a ‘‘citoyen,’’ he moves in the arena of the political-administrative system and participates in this realm in the institutions of representative democracy. The state and its institutions are for him the field of the political. The other part of the citizen, the ‘‘bourgeois,’’ on the other hand, lives in the economic, social system, where he is only subjected to the practical restraints that require no political legitimation. By understanding the state as the ‘‘reality of the ethical idea’’ and society as the ‘‘system of needs,’’ G. Hegel justifies the primacy of the state over society, which forms the basis of the German theory of constitutional law. Liberal theories of the state stand in contrast to the latter, as they emphasize the primacy of society over the state by viewing the social contract as subordinate to the state of nature. He moves in the area of the nonpolitical. Traditional civic education was thus based on an understanding of politics that located the center of the political in the state.
Key Issues The concepts of civil society have, in the meantime, overcome the strict division between state and society. Accordingly, the civil state not only refers to the state in the narrow sense, but also includes a plurality of social practices. A broader understanding of the state thus can be expressed in the formula ‘‘state = political society + civil society’’ (Gramsci, 1992: 783). At the basis of this model is a decentralized concept of the state that comprises the interrelations between the political and civil society. The society as a ‘‘system of private needs’’ was identified with the economic spheres in the tradition of Hegel. But since the societal aspects of communication, the
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public or solidarity are not mediated by the state or the economy, Habermas (1961) considers it necessary to conceive of the civil society as constituting a third sphere. Accordingly, in civil society, communicative public spheres form a sensory system that does not have any primary political function, but which nevertheless influences the general regulation requirements of a society through the perception and rationalization of societal moods and problematic areas. This deliberative form of democratic participation can no longer be conceptually accounted for by the state in the narrower sense. In a broader sense, it must also comprise the politically relevant aspects of civil society (see Habermas, 1992: 364; Schmalz-Bruns, 1995: 257ff.). The modern state thus does not have a monopoly on the potential to shape political reality. Regulatory changes are increasingly called for by the social arena, so that the state loses in its power to decide and steer. In a broader understanding of the state, it must be assumed that the development described cannot be equated with a loss in the autonomy of political action. An ‘‘end to politics’’ would then only be established if the concept of politics were to remain limited by the institutionalized political system. According to Beck, the actual potential for generating and implementing general commitments is not fundamentally lost, but is rather moved into a ‘‘sub-political system’’ (1986: 305). Thus, it is not politics in itself, but rather the place of politics that becomes blurred. Instead of parliamentary debates and decisions by politicians, the contours of another society become visible in the developments of the technical-economic system. Through this development, ‘‘the political’’ tends to become ‘‘unpolitical’’ and ‘‘the unpolitical, political’’ (Beck, 1986: 305). For a broadened concept of the state, see also Esser (1995: 738 ff.). From a democratic perspective, this development gives rise to the problem that the ‘‘sub-political’’ arising in the social system reduces the claims of parliamentary authority and legitimation. The generation of generally binding rules can no longer be guaranteed by the traditional institutions of the state. The new forms of politics are subjected to a pressure to justify themselves against the nonparliamentary initiatives and social movements. Through this process, the state tends to become disempowered relative to a growing politicization of society, which takes on state functions (see Beck, 1986: 300–374). Using the model of the delimitation of the state, some of the aporia are resolved concerning the concept of the political that is centered on the state. In the end however, the ‘‘battle for the limits between the political and the
non-political arena’’ (Hennies, 1973: 61) does not render obsolete the conceptual separation of the citizen concept into ‘‘citoyen’’ and ‘‘bourgeois.’’ To some extent, another figure is added. A kind of ‘‘bouryen’’ arises as a hybrid figure who moves in the social sphere but maintains the potential for political change. Implicitly, this leads to the reproduction of a state-related concept of the political, since the connection of the political with state action is not eliminated, but rather the understanding of the state is expanded. The citizen in this conception initially remains acted upon by politics. He or she is the object of the shaping power of the political will of an expanded state. Nevertheless, arising in the form of media publics, citizen initiatives and protest movements are ‘‘intermediary forms of reciprocal controls that avoid parliamentary centralism and create comparable justification restraints’’ (Beck, 1986: 368). In yet another civil society concept, Greven proposes abolishing the dichotomy between state and society, which is the basis of the state-centered concept of the political, in favor of the concept of the ‘‘political society’’ (Greven, 1990). In doing so, he tries to grasp the new political problem areas that come into view. The concept is justified by two types of development tendencies. Alongside a ‘‘politicization ‘from below’ through social praxis,’’ modern societies are characterized by a ‘‘politicization by state action ‘from above’’’ (ibid 1994a: 290). Here, he understands the theoretical possibility that all areas can become political through the dissemination of state regulation technologies in modern societies. In the political society ‘‘no societal relation, no social spheres, no institution and none of the social processes of societal reproduction are protected from potential access by state regulation’’ (ibid). In Greven’s political society ‘‘we are all politicians’’ (Greven, 1994b: 243) and participate in the creation of political reality through our action and forbearance: ‘‘It is not structural developments that determine our future, but rather the complicated, to some extent composite results of the social and political praxis of the diverse political forces and groups that now determine our everyday life’’ (Greven, 1994b: 252). Dahrendorf (1999) has developed a concept of civil society in which ‘‘freedom rests on three pillars’’ (ibid, 91). These consist of political democracy, the free market as well as civil society. The latter is the decisive bonding factor of the three pillars. Civil society in turn is based on the diversity of different non-state organizations and institutions, the freedom of association for citizens and their willingness to do
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so outside of state intervention as well as an active participation in civil society. The peaceful, tolerant, and solidaritybased interaction necessary for civil society is called civicmindedness. Concerning the newer concepts of civil society and their conception of the separation of state and society, see Himmelmann (Himmelmann, 2001a: 171ff.; ibid 2001b.) The concepts of civil society assume that the forms and processes with which generally binding rules are constructed are potentially found in all areas of society. In this understanding of politics, areas of social reality and of everyday life that have been excluded until now have become completely relevant categories for civic education. Civic education has the task of enabling and activating the actors of civil society to participate. The sovereignty of the modern state takes shape in its competence to judge, criticize, and act in all areas of society. Citizens act in civil society. In the following, I will sketch what necessary skills for this should be imparted by civic education. Citizenship Awareness and Civic Education
Citizenship awareness (see Lange, 2008) refers to the entirety of the mental ideas about political-social reality. It serves to orient individuals in politics, economy, and society and produces the meaning that enables people to judge and actively influence preexisting phenomenon. The meaning constructions in citizenship awareness are didactically so relevant because they influence learning processes and change in learning processes. The transformation of citizenship awareness is not only an educationally induced process, but rather a component of the political everyday life of the learner. Didactically relevant here are not only issues concerning the transfer of scientific knowledge into lifeworld knowledge, but rather the lifeworld construction of meaning in citizenship awareness. On the one hand, citizenship awareness provides schema that organize and refract reality. On the other hand, it provides a structure allowing for an intended engagement with reality. A person needs and uses these models to explain and change the world. Citizenship awareness is the mental area that civic education must activate in order to educate responsible citizens. Citizens require specific skills in order to be able to act adequately in civil society. Didactically, these skills can be structured through the meaning constructs in citizenship awareness. Concerning the categorical permeation of citizenship awareness, it can be assumed that each person has five basic meaning constructs: ‘‘socialization,’’ ‘‘value justification,’’ ‘‘satisfaction of needs,’’ ‘‘social change,’’ and ‘‘legitimation of rule.’’ The meaning constructs here refer to
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mental figures by means of which a person constructs expertise. This expertise can be reconstructed in the lifeworld and science and is thus independent of the degree of scientification. The characterizations needed for depicting the meaning constructs vary from individual to individual and can contradict the scientific conceptual understanding. For each meaning construct, the five heuristics are given, which have a search function for the empirical study of the meaning construct. They serve in the discovery of subjective concepts in citizenship awareness. In the meaning construct ‘‘socialization,’’ the citizenship awareness structures ideas about how individuals integrate in society. Learners have an idea about the relation between the individual and society. They experience the social heterogeneity, which they organize and group subjectively. In citizenship awareness, they develop statements and justifications about the meaning of social differences in light of gender, ethnicity, origins, social inequality, lifestyle, or other categorizations. Concepts of plurality must be developed in order to explain how social cohabitation functions despite social diversity. The process of socialization is rendered explainable through concepts of the individual and the mechanisms of his or her inclusion or exclusion. To answer the question as to how society holds together despite diversity, ideas in citizenship awareness are also present concerning the forms of interaction and communication between members of society. With the representation ‘‘how do individuals integrate in society,’’ recourse is taken to the concepts of ‘‘individual,’’ ‘‘heterogeneity,’’ ‘‘society,’’ ‘‘integration,’’ and ‘‘the public.’’ In the meaning construct ‘‘value justification,’’ citizenship awareness structures ideas about what generally valid principles guide social cohabitation. Each learner has ideas about values and norms that are expressed in political conflicts, social debates or economic undertakings. The meaning constructs in citizenship awareness allow for a political-moral formation of judgment on the basis of generally valid principles. In doing so, each person has schema he or she uses to judge questions concerning social justice, the political equality of different people, the peaceableness in cohabitation, the recognition of difference or individual freedom. For the meaning construct ‘‘which principles guide social cohabitation?,’’ the following concepts are used: ‘‘justice,’’ ‘‘equality,’’ ‘‘peace,’’ ‘‘recognition,’’ and ‘‘freedom.’’ In the meaning construct ‘‘satisfaction of needs,’’ citizenship awareness structures ideas about how needs are satisfied by goods. Learners have their own ideas about the important structures and processes of economic life and they can designate these functions of the economic system
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subjectively. In doing so, they use models about the emergence of needs, they describe processes of the production of goods and the possibilities of their distribution (market concepts, for instance). In the representation ‘‘satisfaction of needs,’’ concepts such as work and consumption as well as distribution of labor and business are used. In order to explain ‘‘how needs are satisfied by goods,’’ citizenship awareness takes preliminary recourse to the following concepts: ‘‘need,’’ ‘‘production,’’ ‘‘value,’’ ‘‘distribution,’’ and ‘‘consumption.’’ In the meaning construct ‘‘social transformation,’’ citizenship awareness structures ideas about how social transformation takes place. Learners discover that the political-social reality is not stable, but rather changes over time. They have constructed their own concepts to render these transformations explainable. Crucial to this is the memory of the past, the expectation for the future and an idea of temporality that connects the past, today, and tomorrow. For the characterization of social transformation tendencies – whether it be globalization, individualization, democratization, progress, or history in general – citizenship awareness takes recourse to continuity and development. Thus for the mental construction of the representation, ‘‘how does social transformation occur?,’’ five concepts are assumed: ‘‘continuity,’’ ‘‘development,’’ ‘‘temporality,’’ ‘‘the past,’’ and ‘‘future’’. In the meaning construct ‘‘the legitimation of rule,’’ citizenship awareness structures ideas about how partial interests are transformed into generally binding rules. Learners can describe and justify how power is exercised in society in order to assert interests. They know processes of conflict resolution and can say in what ways the individual can participate in the political process. In citizenship awareness, ideas about state structures and institutions as well as concepts of power and rule are formed. Depending on the size of the group, problem, and context, learners have different models of democracy and autocracy at their disposal. Additionally, they are in a position to justify and criticize power relations. For the representation ‘‘how do partial interests become generally binding?,’’ the following five concepts can be seen as essential: ‘‘interests,’’ ‘‘conflict,’’ ‘‘participation,’’ ‘‘statehood,’’ and ‘‘rule.’’ These five meaning constructs play a central role for the individual understanding and subjective explanation of civil society. Crucial are the mental models that are also fundamental for the didactics of civic education. They arise and change in processes of social, political-moral, economic, historical-political, and political learning. Far too little is still known didactically about which concepts, terminology, and symbols learners use to characterize the meaning constructs of citizenship awareness. The least
likely case is the language of science. The concepts characterized as essential for meaning constructs can thus only serve as preliminary heuristics. See here also the fundamental concepts in civic educations (see Sander, 2007; Weißeno, 2008: 152–258). These also continue to follow the logic of related disciplines, but could also serve in the analysis of civic consciousness as a search instrument. One of the challenges in didactics is to subjectively reconstruct the meaning constructs and concepts of citizenship awareness. This is due to the fact that the knowledge of the citizenship awareness of learners is a prerequisite enabling the normative aim of civic education – responsible citizens and their entitlement to fair social participation – to be reached not only in relation to the state but also to civil society. To that extent, not only the actual, but the desired citizenship awareness is of interest for the didactics of civic education. The didactics of civic education poses the question: What social science ideas can motivate individuals to conceive of responsibility and autonomy as valuable and in this sense to think about them critically in terms of politics, society, and economy in everyday life? Civic Education as Civil Society Skill
Which didactic methods can be used to address the necessary skills for civil society participation within the meaning constructs of citizenship awareness? Alongside the orientation on democratic principles, the principles of everyday, action, and problem orientation are included among the basic orientations of civic education. In the framework of the everyday orientation, civic education looks closely at both the micropolitics of everyday life as well as the everyday relations of ‘‘larger politics.’’ Through action orientation, learner activating and self-guided learning processes find entrance into civic education. This gives the learners the opportunity to act politically. In the research and simulation as well as in the intervention in political-social reality, innovative, and creative methods are now being used (see Lange, 2007). The principle of problem orientation guarantees that civic education is not reduced to drilling content into the learner, but rather stimulates independent political formation of meaning and thinking. Here, civic education processes use a controversy or question that is dealt with by the learners.
International Perspectives In some schools in Germany, students with a migration background comprise the majority of the student body. This topic is therefore of particular importance and relevance within this social, political, and national
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context. What is the relevance of citizenship and citizenship education for native born Germans, and those originally from other countries? What differences and similarities can be identified, and how can they be perceived and applied for the greater good, both domestically and internationally? The international research tasks to be carried out as part of citizenship education can be divided into four areas. The purpose of citizenship education as a field of science is to analyze the level of political awareness of learners by adopting empirical, normative, reflective, and application-oriented methods. Empirical Assignment
The empirical assignment to be completed in citizenship education comprises an analysis of current levels of political awareness. Efforts in this field will focus on the conceptions which male and female pupils have of political subject matters. To make sure that not only data on attitudes and knowledge of learners are gathered but sense-building capabilities are also taken into account, the quantitative and qualitative methods applied in social research are also used in a didactical analysis of citizenship education. Traditionally, citizenship education was focused on legitimizing teaching contents and on the teaching methods applied in delivering this knowledge. To achieve this goal, the individual qualifications of learners and the learning process itself were negligible. In the future, the ability to analyze capabilities of pupils will be more important in citizenship education. As part of this analytical process the conceptions which pupils bring into the learning process may not be interpreted as mental dysfunctions. These conceptions are rather subjective theories which help pupils to cope with everyday situations. Political learning processes must proceed from existing conceptions, and they should be learning occasions for pupils which can be modified and further differentiated. Hence, the empirical task to be performed as part of citizenship education is to record and analyze the ‘‘current status’’ of civic educational processes: ● Analyses of learners’ conceptions of subject-specific matters (political awareness from an empirical perspective) ● Studies on the efficiency of learning ● Observations of classroom instruction Normative Assignment
The normative research assignment to be completed in citizenship education is legitimizing a desired level of
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political awareness. The efforts undertaken by the government to influence the political conceptions of citizens through deliberate learning processes provided in class requires justification. What is at issue here is the substantiality of political learning objectives. Didactics of civic education explores which political conceptions a given society ought to acquire on a mandatory basis. It is one of the consensus goals of citizenship education that political learning processes are designed to promote democratic sense-building capabilities. The values delivered as part of citizenship education are consistent with the notion of a democracy. However, how a democracy ought to work and how concrete social problems are to be resolved in a democratic manner are still controversial issues, not only in society, but also among the scientific community. The normative research task of citizenship education is to develop learning objectives and purposes for citizenship education. This task field closely links the didactics of civic education with the normative theory of democracy. On the basis of the guiding principle of responsibility, the qualities and capabilities citizens living in a democracy should have are explored in the didactics of citizenship education. Normative research carried out as part of the didactics of citizenship education serves as the justification of learning objectives, educational standards and conceptional designs of citizenship education: ● A democracy-centered justification for the delivery of skills which ‘‘responsible citizens’’ need ● Criticism of educational objectives in political subjects ● Developing curricula for schools Reflective Assignment
Reflective research carried out as part of citizenship education is about exploring the potential level of political awareness. In the process, learning materials are analyzed for their educational potential. Not only the learners’ experienced world but also subject-related disciplines are explored for the educational potential they hold. The assumption underlying this study is that teaching and learning material for citizenship education cannot be derived linearly from existing structures. Rather, subject matters for teaching require didactical reconstruction. On the one hand, the experienced world of male and female pupils must be analyzed with respect to their potential for promoting the development of political conceptions. On the other hand, subject-specific science is increasingly becoming a subject matter of didactics in civic
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education. This discipline draws on the specialized knowledge gained in the social sciences and explores which learning materials advance the political conceptions of pupils and in which manner this occurs. Hence the reflective task to be carried out as part of research in citizenship education is to identify potential political opportunities for learning in the experienced world of the learners and in research. Reflective research carried out as part of citizenship education is about identifying the potential for civic education in the learner’s experienced world, in research and in educational media. ● Didactical reflection of subject-specific scientific material ● Subject-specific analysis of everyday objects ● Analysis of educational media; out-of-school learning locations Application-Oriented Assignment
Application-oriented research to be carried out as part of citizenship education comprises structuring of civic educational processes. To achieve this, the findings obtained from empirical, normative, and reflective studies will be used and related to each other in a meaningful manner. The goal to be achieved is to develop guidelines for planning, implementing, and reflecting teaching units in citizenship education on the basis of a didactical analysis. Application-oriented research to be carried out as part of citizenship education is to structure civic educational processes. The findings obtained will be condensed into opportunities for learning. The teaching principles applied and the educational material used for teaching will themselves be the objects of acceptance and efficiency studies. Application-oriented research carried out as part of citizenship education helps to structure civic educational processes and serves three functions: ● Developing teaching guidelines. ● Designing teaching and learning opportunities. ● Developing educational media.
Future Directions The normative research on citizenship awareness relies on general theories of democracy and society. Guided by the idea of responsibility, the didactics of civic education reflects the qualities and skills citizens should have in a civil society. Future research will have to continue to provide continually refined definitions of these attributes in order to achieve an ever clearer view of the topic, both
from a scientific point of view, as well as from a sociopolitical perspective. The movement of political power into non-state institutionalized arenas of society has created new challenges for civic education. For a civil society to support and stabilize a democratic system, civic education must not only educate citizens to be responsible citizens of the state but also capable participants in civil society. This is because a functioning civil society is based on a strong citizenship, which is able to act in the different political-social skill fields. These skill fields can be didactically addressed through the meaning constructs in civil consciousness. As a consequence, civic education focuses increasingly on empirical investigations of the meaning constructs in citizenship awareness in order to refine in a step by step way the methodological access to democratic-participative oriented development of meaning constructs. We look forward to future research in this area, and eagerly anticipate the outcomes and progress that result from it.
Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society Theory: Dahrendorf ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci ▶ Political Society
References/Further Readings Arenho¨vel, M. (2000). Zivilgesellschaft/Bu¨rgergesellschaft. Wochenschau fu¨r politische Erziehung, Sozial- und Gemeinschaftskunde, 2, 55–94. Beck, U. (1986). Risikogesellschaft: Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne, Frankfurt am Main. Dahrendorf, R. (1999). Die Bu¨rgergesellschaft. In A. Pongs (Hrsg.): In welcher Gesellschaft leben wir eigentlich? Bd. 1, Mu¨nchen. Esser, J. (1995). Staatstheorie. In D. Nohlen (Hrsg.): Wo¨rterbuch Staat und Politik, Bonn, S. 733–743. Gramsci, A. (1992) Gefa¨ngnishefte. Bd. 2, Hefte 6–7, Hamburg ff. Greven, M. Th. (1990). Die politische Gesellschaft als Gegenstand der Politikwissenschaft. In: Ethik und Sozialwissenschaften 2, S. 223–228 u. 255–261. Greven, M. Th. (1994a). Die Allgegenwart des Politischen und die Randsta¨ndigkeit der Politikwissenschaft. In C. Leggewie (Hrsg.): ¨ ber das Neue in der Politik, Darmstadt. Wozu Politikwissenschaft. U S. 285–296. Greven, M. Th. (1994b). Kritische Theorie und historische Politik: theoriegeschichtliche Beitra¨ge zur gegenwa¨rtigen Gesellschaft, Opladen. Habermas, J. (1961). Reflexionen u¨ber den Begriff der politischen Beteiligung. In Ders. u. a. (Hrsg.): Student und Politik: eine soziologische Untersuchung zum politischen Bewusstsein Frankfurter Studenten, Neuwied am Rhein.
Civil Society and Cultural Organizations Habermas, J. (1992). Faktizita¨t und Geltung: Beitra¨ge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts und des demokratischen Rechtsstaats, Frankfurt am Main. Hegel G. W. F. (1974). Vorlesungen u¨ber Rechtsphilosophie 1818–1831, Bd. 4, Philosophie des Rechts, n. d. Vorlesungsschrift v. K.G. v. Griesheim 1824/25, Edition und Kommentar v. Karl-Heinz Ilting, Stuttgart. Hennies, W. (1973). Demokratisierung. Zur Problematik eines Begriffs. In M. Greiffenhagen (Hrsg.): Demokratisierung in Staat und Gesellschaft, Mu¨nchen/Zu¨rich. 47–70. Himmelmann, G. (2001a). Demokratie Lernen als Lebens-, Gesellschaftsund Herrschaftsform. Ein Lehr- und Studienbuch, Schwalbach/Ts. Himmelmann, G. (2001b). Was bedeutet der Staat fu¨r den Bu¨rger und der Bu¨rger fu¨r den Staat?, in: PolBil, Jg. 34, H. 3, 57–71. Lange, D. (2007). Methoden Politischer Bildung, Basiswissen Politische Bildung Bd.2 (hrsg. v. D. Lange u. V. Reinhardt), Baltmannsweiler. Lange, D. (2008). Kernkonzepte des Bu¨rgerbewusstseins. Grundzu¨ge einer Lerntheorie der Politischen Bildung. In G. Weißeno (Hrsg.): Politikkompetenz. Was Unterricht zu leisten hat, Bonn. Milner, H. (2002). Civic Literacy: How Informed Citizens Make Democracy Work, Hanover N.H. Sander, W. (Hrsg.) (2007). Handbuch politischer Bildung, Bonn. Schmalz-Bruns, R. (1995). Reflexive Demokratie: die demokratische Transformation moderner Politik, Baden-Baden. Schulze, W. (1991). Einfu¨hrung in die neuere Geschichte. 2. verbesserte Auflage, Stuttgart. Weißeno, G. (Hrsg.) (2008). Politikkompetenz. Was Unterricht zu leisten hat, Bonn.
Civil Society and Cultural Organizations YUDHISHTHIR RAJ ISAR The American University of Paris, Paris, France
Introduction and Definition The binomial ‘‘civil society and cultural organizations’’ could be read in several ways (just like the relationships between civil society and ‘‘culture,’’ cf. Civil Society and Culture). The term is understood here as the interface between the ways cultural organizations of a governmental nature envisage the contribution of civil society to cultural policy objectives and conversely, the ways in which entities that identify themselves as belonging to civil society envision their role with regard to cultural policy. Some might want to focus their attention on civil society organizations that have a specifically cultural remit, but there would be limited analytical purchase in such a reading. ‘‘Cultural policy’’ here means both the common sense usage, i.e., what any authority (but principally governmental ones) envisions and enacts in terms of support to and regulation of cultural affairs, and the more
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academy-driven notion of ‘‘the politics of culture in the most general sense. . . the clash of ideas, institutional struggles and power relations in the production and circulation of symbolic meanings.’’ (McGuigan, 1996: 1). Several key aspects of the interface between civil society and official organizations can be usefully examined. Some confusion may arise because of the fact that many civil society entities are ‘‘cultural organizations’’ as well; therefore, the defining trait for our purposes cannot be their organizational nature but their civil society characteristics. As regards culture, the ‘‘arts and heritage’’ meaning is emphasized (Williams, 1988: 90), except that the broader rubric of ‘‘cultural expression’’ makes it possible to encompass many collective forms of artistic work that may not be defined as ‘‘art.’’ It should be noted, however, that today the arts and heritage understanding of culture is increasingly elided with the broader ways of life meanings: defense of or support to cultural expression is increasingly justified not for the intrinsic value of the latter, as sheer human creativity and/or ground for delectation, but as a means of shoring up distinct ways of life against the perceived forces and trends of cultural homogenization. It should also be mentioned that the interface between cultural organizations and civil society has been subjected only to limited scholarly inquiry. The analyst has little literature upon which to draw, instead she can observe and dissect a set of discursive formations regarding cultural organizations and civil society. This set of discourses has evolved both through the activism and institutional position-taking of civil society entities themselves and through deliberate outreach to this sector on the part of governmental bodies and the world of business. One can extrapolate from these discourses and the practices that result from them. Hence this entry will first discuss two emblematic cases and then explore the socioeconomic and cultural causes of these emergent interactions between cultural policy-making and civil society.
International Perspectives A good illustration of the interface at the international level is provided by the manner in which the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) sees the role of civil society in the ‘‘protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions.’’ This role has actually been articulated by state actors, in other words governmental delegates working together on an Intergovernmental Committee established to oversee the implementation of the 2005 Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. Article 11 of that international treaty states that ‘‘Parties acknowledge the fundamental
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role of civil society in protecting and promoting the diversity of cultural expressions. Parties shall encourage the active participation of civil society in their efforts to achieve the objectives of this Convention.’’ The Intergovernmental Committee’s task is to flesh out such provisions and make them operational. In a document proposing a set of ‘‘operational guidelines on the role and participation of civil society’’ in the implementation of the Convention, the Committee (Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, 2008) takes the position that as regards the diversity of cultural expressions, civil society entities can fulfill the sorts of generic roles set out by Anheier (2007), namely bringing citizens’ concerns to governments, monitoring policy and program implementation, serving as a warning mechanism, value-guardian, and innovator as well as contributing to the achievement of greater transparency and accountability in governance. In that light, pursues the document, governments should encourage civil society to perform such functions by creating an ‘‘enabling environment’’ consisting, inter alia, of a legal and regulatory framework; the provision of spaces and mechanisms that make it possible to involve civil society in consultations on cultural policy-making, and in systems for accessing public information relating to the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions. By the same token it recommends to governments that ‘‘civil society should be encouraged and advised to act as an awareness-raiser and cultural service provider, in particular by offering specific expertise, contributing to capacity building and carrying out data collection in the field of the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions.’’ The document goes on to underline civil society’s potential to act as an innovator and cultural change agent in this field, hence advises governments to encourage civil society to bring new ideas and approaches to the formulation of cultural policies, as well as to the development of innovative cultural processes, practices, or programs that could help achieve the objectives of the Convention. It recognizes the role civil society plays in defending specific cultural values by giving voice to social groups such as minorities, indigenous peoples, women, etc., and states that ‘‘civil society organizations should endeavor to assist Parties in ensuring that all stakeholders’ interests are taken into account when formulating cultural policies.’’ On the international level, civil society organizations should be proactive in the area of cooperation for development, by initiating, creating, and participating in innovative partnerships with the public and private sectors. A specific North–South dimension is built in here, as
the document urges that ‘‘it is essential that, in addition to being encouraged by Parties, civil society in developing countries receive support and assistance from its counterparts in developed countries, in terms of expertise and organizational, technical and financial support.’’ The general openness demonstrated by governmental organizations towards civil society today is a mix of pragmatism and rhetoric, some of it linked to a genuine recognition of the sector’s role, both demonstrated and potential, some of it stemming from the recognized inadequacy of state institutions to solve all societal problems (Anheier, 2007). In the case of UNESCO and cultural diversity, this posture perhaps also reflects the important role bodies such as the International Network for Cultural Diversity (INCD) played in the elaboration of the Convention and in the initial stages of its implementation. The INCD was established originally at the instigation and with the financial support of the Canadian government, desirous of having a civil society partner in its efforts to advance the ‘‘cultural exception’’ agenda internationally, but was also funded by the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations. This development was significant in itself, as a demonstration of how one polity, the Canadian, can deliberately choose to highlight and stimulate civil society participation and input to serve its own ends (in contrast, for example, to the statist paradigm under which the French government operates, allowing non-state actors to play but a minor role). The INCD describes itself as ‘‘a worldwide network working to counter the adverse affects of globalization on world cultures.’’ It has members in all regions of the world: cultural organizations, artists, and cultural producers from every media, academics, heritage institutions and others. In point of fact, it was called upon at every turn by Canadian cultural diplomacy to support, refine, or relay its international strategic positions (and even correct them in some instances), reflecting Zemans’ notion (2004: 6) that ‘‘civil society provides legitimacy for governments seeking new international understandings of the role of nations in controlling their own cultural policies.’’ While the INCD has never gone beyond the stance of being advisory to governments, its role in the elaboration of the Convention has embodied a new kind of dialectic of between state and civil society representatives. Substantively, it appears to have pushed the envelope beyond questions of national cultural sovereignty alone, also grounding a ‘‘discourse of rights and responsibilities as being crucial’’ (Zemans, 2004: 6). It has contributed to broadening understanding of the need for a new global trade regime as regards cultural goods and services; it has, with the help of the new technologies deployed a judicious mix of information, symbolic, and
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leverage politics (Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Khagram et al., 2002) in order to build awareness of this particular reading of cultural diversity in the public realm of many countries that otherwise would not have such awareness emerge. The institutions of the European Union, notably the European Parliament and the European Commission, are also increasingly mindful of the role of civil society in the still fledgling cultural arena of EU policy-making. This stance provides another instructive case. In 1992, the European institutions encouraged and supported the creation of the European Forum for the Arts and Heritage (EFAH), a body set up by and for cultural sector activists who were eager to give a voice to and for European ‘‘cultural civil society’’ at the precise moment when for the first time, in the Treaty of Maastricht, cultural activities were given legal status at the EU level. As a result, the European Commission acquired a cultural mandate, albeit a limited and constrained one, because of the primacy of the ‘‘subsidiarity’’ principle. Thus the Commission became de facto a cultural organization in addition to its existing economic and political nature. EFAH was the platform of cultural networks and organizations active at the pan-European level which could serve as a leading interlocutor for the European institutions. Rebranded ‘‘Culture Action Europe’’ in 2008, the platform today has some 90 member organizations that in turn represent over 6,000 organizations across the 27 EU Member States and beyond, active in all cultural domains, ranging from orchestras to writers’ associations, national theatres to international cultural networks, conservatoires to choirs and festivals to foundations. It has had recognized success in developing policy positions for the cultural sector and presenting them to European Union institutions, through one-to-one contacts with Members of the European Parliament and the European Commission, expressing its views and influencing the work of policy-setting committees at the European Parliament, as well as with other nongovernmental groups campaigning for a democratic, participatory Europe. It serves also a source of information for its members, monitoring European Union legislation and policy in cultural affairs, giving members the information they need to take advantage of funding opportunities and to anticipate emerging trends in funding priorities. The degree to which it’s views have been heeded is illustrated by the content of a key recent policy document issued by the European Commission ‘‘on a European agenda for a globalizing world,’’ which refers frequently to the role of civil society in achieving innovative purposes in this field (Commission of the European Communities, 2007).
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The Emergence of the Civil Society Turn
The cooperation between cultural organizations and civil society illustrated by these two cases is emblematic of the way in which civil society involvement is increasingly taken for granted by states or organizations exercising state agency in the cultural realm. The examples are international and regional respectively; yet national examples could readily be cited as well. Involving civil society is the reigning common sense, its emergence is relatively recent however; it has unfolded over the past half century, interconnected with a series of significant economic, political, social, and cultural changes. It is advocated and practiced by cultural organizations at many different levels, not only on pragmatic, dollars, and cents, grounds but for reasons of a less instrumental kind, based on ethics, symbols, and values. This reasoning has been driven by various contemporary trends of concept and of context in the cultural field. A first key trend of concept has been the shift from strictly aesthetic criteria to broader humanistic or cultural ones, from a paradigm of aesthetics to a paradigm of representation. Aesthetic or historical criteria for cultural valuation now take a back seat to issues of group identity, self-awareness, and power. In other words, cultural value is closely associated with the politics of difference and identity. In urban and regional planning frameworks, for example, the question of culture is no longer limited to embellishment and beautification. Today it extends to more operational definitions of how people use, relate to, celebrate, or desecrate their living environments. A second conceptual factor is the growing awareness that whilst expenditure on culture and cultural conservation can and should be justified on economic grounds, culture ought not to be reduced to a purely instrumental role. To be sure, cultural methods are often very effective in achieving noncultural objectives, ranging from health promotion or education to employment. As culture has come to be recognized more fully as part of the broader ecology of human settlements, investment in heritage preservation, for example, has increased commercial activity and raised property values, leading to a virtuous circle of economic growth, as has been shown in hundreds of heritage districts, ranging from the ‘‘Main Street’’ programs of North America, to the Marais in Paris or the abandoned docklands of Bilbao. Conservation works tend to stimulate quality employment and training, they also develop premises for the community, which can have a significant social value. In increasingly impoverished and insecure inner cities, cultural activities are helping keep disadvantaged youths off the city streets, reduce poverty, combat social exclusion and foster equity and citizenship, as we can observe in the
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urban slums of Brazil (Ramos, 2007), the Medina of Fez or the Ilha do Mocambique. Climbing onto this particular bandwagon has its risks, however. Doing so means playing by a new set of rules, rules that are set by considerations other than those of the integrity of the cultural heritage. Playing by these rules means accepting to lose when another sector with a higher economic or social impact can make more robust claims. Hence Amartya Sen would ask whether economic growth is to be valued for its own sake, or whether it is only an instrument with less claim to a foundational role than other aspects of human life, including the cultural. Thus the World Commission on Culture and Development, in its report entitled Our Creative Diversity (1996) refused to limit culture to a subsidiary position as a mere promoter of economic growth. It must also be seen as an end in itself, said the Commission, as the social basis of the ends themselves. Once we shift our attention from the purely instrumental view of culture to awarding it a constructive, constitutive, and creative role, we have to see development in terms that in terms that include cultural growth. The two conceptual shifts have together resulted in the major trend of content, which is the exponential growth – in sheer quantity as well as in sheer diversity – of cultural awareness in all world societies. This has had several qualitative implications. A huge range of different kinds of cultural action, from the preservation or ancient archaeological remains to the promotion of front-edge digital art, is now expected to be undertaken on behalf of a wide array of different communities. The criteria of selection, access, custodianship, and control regarding all such activities have had to change, with important implications for funding, service delivery and overall policy purview. It is not merely a question of giving more to particular groups but of recognizing, promoting, and preserving the resources which count as cultural to these groups. This demand far outstrips the resources available, particularly in these times of shrinking public sector budgets and the inexorable trend towards privatization. Finally, three trends of context. First, the devolution of public sector expenditure – not just the decrease – as central governments seek to offload responsibilities to lower tiers of administration as well as to other sectors. The result is that cultural budgets are under ever increasing stress, despite the now vigorous cultural industry arguments that sees cultural expression and its creativity as valuable resources for investment (Anheier & Isar, 2008). This reasoning is valid as far as it goes, which is to say not as far as the kinds of cultural activity that require subsidy because they cannot be adequately generated and/or distributed under the aegis of market forces alone. Faced with declining budgets, central governments
everywhere are looking for ways to lighten their burdens as curators, impresarios, and suppliers of cultural infrastructure. The responsibility for cultural stewardship has to be spread more evenly over a broader set of shoulders. This trend has intersected with a second one, the cultural affirmation of the local. As people become increasingly aware of and swept up in the powerful forces of globalization, culture has been taken up in an extraordinary world wide dialectic of cultural self-awareness – of their own inherited way of life as a value and a political right. The world cultural system has generated a strong reaction in local cultural orders, thus the potential for an increasing diversity of cultures. This cultural assertion of the local has in turn contributed to reinforcing the third trend, which is the affirmation of local citizenship through the steadily advancing ethic of participation: the recognition that cultural, economic, and social policy-making priorities should emerge from the grassroots. This shift from ‘‘top-down’’ to ‘‘bottom-up’’ models of governance is also bound up with the commitment to cultural diversity, for only such a commitment will enable the voices and choices of a wide variety of cultural, ethnic, and other collectivities to be heard. Taken together, both participation and the celebration of diversity contribute to reducing the gap between ends and means, in generating energies and resources for cultural expression. Governments cannot or will no longer seek to meet that gap and market forces cannot be expected to do so (the realities of business sponsorship and corporate citizenship warrant no more than relatively limited add-on funding at the best of times. . .). Hence not-for-profit sector and voluntary work and service emerging from civil society are also being solicited and encouraged, and are themselves becoming increasingly proactive stakeholders.
Future Directions Yet because cultural identity and national sovereignty are so closely interlinked, will such stakeholdership be even more fully recognized by organizations charged with delivering cultural regulation and services on behalf of governments? The question is an open one. Is the ‘‘civil society turn’’ destined to be durable? It should be noted that this question does not apply to the two North American societies, the United States and Canada, whose cultural systems have been shaped chiefly by cooperation between market forces and civil society inputs and which for that reason would merit a differently worded entry as regards this topic. Elsewhere, however, while it is likely that we shall see a diversification of alliances between cultural organizations and civil society, the key question is whether their scale will transcend present
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levels. What will current and emerging economic, political, and social conditions do to transcend rhetoric on all sides and enable true intersectoral partnership to be developed? On the governmental side, how much voice and power do the authorities really wish to offer to civil society in questions of cultural governance and to what degree will civil society wish to retain its freedom to maneuver independently of governmental purposes?
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and the European Union ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Interest Politics ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Public Value ▶ Subsidiarity
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K. (2007) Civil society and the convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions (2005). Paper prepared for the UNESCO Secretariat. Anheier, H. K., & Isar, Y. R. (Eds.) (2008). Introduction. The Cultural Economy. The Cultures and Globalization Series 2. London: Sage. Commission of the European Communities. (2007). Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions on a European agenda for culture in a globalizing world (document COM (2007) 242 final. Intergovernmental Committee for the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. (2008). Operational guidelines on the role and participation of civil society (Art. 11 and related articles). UNESCO document CE/08/1.EXT.IGS/5. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (Eds.) (1998). Activists beyond borders. Ithaca/ London: Cornell University Press. Khagram, S., Riker, J. V., Sikkink, K. (Eds.) (2002). Restructuring world politics. Transnational social movements, networks and norms. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. McGuigan, J. (1996). Culture and the public sphere. London/New York: Routledge. Ramos, S. (2007). The pedagogy of drums: Culture mediating conflict in the slums of Brazil. In H. K. Anheier & Y. R. Isar (Eds.), Conflicts and Tensions. The Cultures and Globalization Series, 1. London: Sage. Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press. UNESCO. (2005). Convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions, from http://portal.unesco.org/cul ture/en/ev.php-URL_ID = 11281&URL_DO = DO_TOPIC&URL_ SECTION = 201.html Williams, R. (1988). Keywords. London: Fontana Press. World Commission on Culture and Development (1996). Our Creative Diversity. Paris: UNESCO Publishing. Zemans, J. (2004). Advancing Cultural Diversity Globally: The Role of Civil Society Movements. Unpublished discussion paper.
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Civil Society and Culture YUDHISHTHIR RAJ ISAR The American University of Paris, Paris, France
Introduction and Definitional Issues ‘‘Civil society’’ and ‘‘Culture’’ are both broad concepts, dauntingly polysemous, the former more than the latter. This makes their coupling problematic. When the two abstract categories are yoked together, as we do here, the difficulty is compounded. Several questions arise. First, what understandings of both of these abstractions should we use? Second, what is to be made of the conjunction ‘‘and’’? What sorts of relationships does it imply? The uses of civil society in the cause of culture, or the uses of culture by civil society? Recent developments suggest that it should be both. As regards the first definitional question, the notion of ‘‘civil society’’ is easier to circumscribe. We can take it to be ‘‘a sphere located between state and market – a buffer zone strong enough to keep both state and market in check, thereby preventing each from becoming too powerful and dominating’’ while noting that ‘‘civil society is not a singular, monolithic, separate entity, but a sphere constituted in relation to both state and market’’ (Anheier, 2007). Given its plurality and plasticity, however, to what degree can it be claimed that this particular societal sphere exercises a form of agency that is different or independent from agency in and of other sectors of society? Isn’t the relationship between culture and civil society the same thing as the relationship between culture and society tout court? In the case of the word culture, definition is an even more complicated matter. Do we have in mind, in terms of the classic Raymond Williams typology (1988), the original idea of a general process of intellectual, spiritual, and aesthetic development? Or are we concerned with particular ways of life or systems and structures of meaning? Or do we mean the works and practices of intellectual and especially artistic activity, both past and present (including therefore ‘‘heritage’’)? The first sense, still dear to humanists, may not have a great deal of purchase as far as our notion of civil society is concerned. The second is highly salient in the contemporary zeitgeist, yet it flirts with over-extensivity. It takes breadth to the point of meaninglessness, for surely civil society is a part and manifestation of culture so envisioned, just as both state and market are ‘‘cultural’’ forms in this reading. The third meaning, arts and heritage, for which we choose to use the more encompassing term ‘‘cultural expression,’’ is more
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straightforward. Yet while it may well be more amenable to analytical precision, this understanding also poses a problem of tautology. Cultural expression and its consumption and enjoyment permeate entire societies, so what significance resides in the distinction between civil society production and/or consumption of cultural expression as opposed to market production – particularly at a time at which commodities have been so thoroughly aestheticized and the aesthetic so largely commodified? And the same question is relevant as regards government-sponsored forms (which remains culture despite the sources of patronage). A semiotic reading may help. We could take culture to be the social construction, articulation, and reception of meaning – encompassing both art and symbolic production in general, the commodified output of the cultural industries as well as the spontaneous or enacted, organized or unorganized expressions of everyday life, including social relations (Anheier and Isar, 2007: 9). Such a reading would be germane to what Stuart Hall (1997) sees as the constitutive position of culture in all aspects of social life. More precisely, its substantive centrality in economic and political terms, as the means of producing, circulating, and exchanging culture have been dramatically expanded through the new media technologies and the information revolution. Also its epistemological weight, i.e., culture’s position in relation to knowledge and concepts: how it is involved in understanding, explaining, and envisioning the world. Both in turn explain the force and intensity the concept has acquired at the service of the intensive practice of identity in our time. It is now central to the repertoires of discourses and strategies deployed by ‘‘imagined communities’’ at different levels and many of which have crystallized in the sphere of civil society, both within and across national boundaries. To this extent, ‘‘culture’’ has become an area of concern for civil society organizations that represent themselves as cultural, of a range of entities that describe themselves as belonging to and representing the realm of ‘‘cultural civil society’’; more broadly, civil society resistances to neoliberalism, particularly in Latin America, have opened up discourses and practices of struggle in which culture is a crucial dimension (Yu´dice, 2003). But this set of discourses has been little analyzed academically. As is the case with interactions between civil society and cultural organizations (see entry ‘‘Civil Society and Cultural Organizations’’), apart from a limited quantity of work emerging from Latin America, there is next to no research that focuses on the interface between civil society and cultural phenomena. Both have been studied separately, not together. Joining them up under a dedicated research
agenda has to the best of our knowledge not been attempted, no doubt because the two categories are so broad, diffuse, and protean in content. Yet there are a number of issues around which, clearly, there is scope for a specific focus and it is these that will be briefly discussed below.
Key Issues Culture, Power, Culturalism, and Citizenship
A first key issue is the interaction between culture and power, a topic broadly discussed in both anthropology and cultural studies. Appadurai, for example, famously characterized contemporary culturalism as ‘‘the conscious mobilization of cultural differences in the service of a larger national or transnational politics’’ (1996: 15). Such a politics is indeed increasingly becoming one of the causes adhered to by CSOs. It should be noted in passing that the ways this ambient culturalism has cleaved to readings of culture as a principally national phenomenon, readings that are in direct descent from the Herderian notion of culture as the national Volksgeist, are often at variance with the visions of current cultural theory. Paul Gilroy (2004: 6) holds, for example, that the idea of culture ‘‘has been abused by being simplified, instrumentalized, or trivialized, and particularly though being coupled with notions of identity and belonging that are overly fixed or too easily naturalized as exclusively national phenomena.’’ In other words, it is freighted with ‘‘methodological nationalism,’’ the assumption that the nation-state is the only proper container for culture. Today, however, the nexus of culture and nation no longer holds sway. Culture is now appropriated by collectivities at narrower as well as broader levels, as well as by individuals who articulate claims to culture as members of civil society. Writing on agenda-setting for political and social policies in Latin America, George Yu´dice (2003; see also Alvarez et al., 1998) evokes the innovative role of civil society actors who ‘‘put a premium on culture, defined in myriad ways, a resource already targeted for exploitation by capital (e.g., in the media, consumerism, and tourism), and a foundation for resistance against the ravages of that very same economic system.’’ In all such self-conscious articulations of cultural ‘‘identity,’’ there is a growing awareness of the porosity of boundaries and the fluidity and multiplicity of identities that matches the unease of the social science disciplines with the fixity and stasis of the traditional view of cultures as bounded wholes and over the essentialization and reification that so often results from this view. Yet despite the problems with these readings of the culture
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concept itself, social scientists stay with it, if only, as Hannerz (1996: 43) puts it, ‘‘to retain the common ground it has created . . . and profit from the fact that the general public increasingly understands what we mean when we employ it.’’ Such pragmatism is of course inspired by the way in which civil society actors propagate ‘‘complex whole’’ readings of culture on behalf of the groups to which they belong and, concomitantly, a fixed vision of the corresponding ‘‘culture.’’ Civil society actors themselves perform the rituals that project complex wholes by way of specific dramaturgies that use ‘‘the intersubjective abilities – of culture – to build monolithic and truth-generating symbolic worlds’’ (Wicker, 1997: 42). Putting this predicament somewhat differently, Cowan, Dembour, and Wilson (2001: 3), the editors of the volume Culture and Rights, observe how ‘‘at the very moment in which anthropologists were engaged in an intense and wide-ranging critique especially of the more essentialist interpretations of the concept, to the point of querying its usefulness at all, they found themselves witnessing, often during fieldwork, the increasing prevalence of ‘culture’ as a rhetorical object – often in a highly essentialized form – in contemporary political talk.’’ Yet it would be wrong to conclude that as civil society engages in the shifting and contested process of constructing collective identities, its ideologues and leaders are unaware of such pitfalls. For civil society actors are also among the principal agents of the interconnected phenomena of transculturality, deterritorialization, hybridity, and creolization that are produced by ‘‘flows and crossovers between cultures, and the patterns of their intermingling that are produced by the movement of peoples and the restless cultural mixing that now characterizes developed cultural markets’’ (Bennett, 2001: 19). The phenomenon is often referred to as deterritorialization, as Garcı´a Canclini (1995: 261) puts it, the end of the ‘‘natural’’ relation of culture to geographical and social territories. In exploring various forms of cultural mobility and border-crossing between tradition and modernity, and between countryside and city in contemporary Latin America, he observes that ‘‘all cultures are border cultures.’’ CSOs are among the most active explorers of these emergent zones of culture in which old traditions survive and meld with contemporary novelty, just as many of them negotiate the processes known as creolization, ‘‘the recent confluence of separate and different traditions not themselves pure, bounded wholes, but identifiable as of different derivation at the moment, or period, of creolization’’ (Hannerz, 1996: 67). Another key feature is the way in which ideas of citizenship, with which the very notion of civil society is entangled, are now being modulated by the growing
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significance social movements attach to the cultural dimension. These movements are now articulating this awareness ever more forcefully and linking it to other domains of social and political life. The claims being articulated here relate centrally to the idea of ‘‘cultural’’ citizenship, which can be defined as recognition of the ways of life of different groups in ways that create an entitlement to equal opportunity for each individual to participate in all the practices that constitute the field of culture and at the same time to function effectively as a citizen without being required to change her/his cultural allegiances and affiliations (Bennett, 2001). Across the world today, many new social and cultural movements are focusing on the rights to recognition, preservation, and protection of the ways of life of all kinds of groups. These rights go beyond rights for welfare protection, political representation or civil justice, and focus on the recognition of a cultural identity or lifestyle as well as the right to preserve or reproduce it. Already in the 1960s, Williams suggested an alternative democratic framework for his own (British) society, where a radically decentralized communications system would be open to the ‘‘challenge and view’’ of a republic of voice. The idea was to represent the voices of ordinary people, artists, and radical critics so that they might engage with a wider public on issues of common concern. A society of actively engaged citizens requires both the protection offered by rights and opportunities to participate. This implies a diverse civic and popular culture. Cultural Expression
Phenomena such as those briefly evoked above play out increasingly as peoples – in other words civil societies – and not just nation-states, articulate multiple rhetorics and practices of cultural preservation and reaffirmation, in the attempt to find a place in the planetary culture whilst preserving their own distinctive specificities. In the global South, the challenge is to introduce modernization, i.e., the tools and methods of the global North, in their own terms, at their own pace, under their own control. While they do not want their identity to be absorbed into a single world culture, many of these societies are in fact building a new, hybrid synthesis: traditions on the one hand, and today’s cosmopolitan cultural repertoire on the other. At their best, these are not mere transfers, but real transformations. And we observe that the transformations contributing to the world repertoire can emerge from Bahia or Bombay just easily as from London or Paris. But there are many ‘‘combat zones’’ as well. There are the producers of culture (artists, ideologues, media producers, and entrepreneurs) educated and trained in the North, and, often in opposition to them, more
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introverted groups who see themselves as the rightful guardians of a cultural essence. There are the people who constitute the audiences of cultural production who are divided on more or less the same lines. There are political leaders who instrumentalize culture as a workable rhetoric to help shape the processes of nation-building and development, indulging thereby in what Beck terms ‘‘introverted nationalism’’ (2006). Amongst themselves these groups debate, often passionately, the question of which of the various forms and expressions of culture – new or old, local, or global – shall gain dominance and have the greatest influence. At issue, of course, is the question of which groups, and which values, will emerge possessing the authority and power to represent more general cultural consciousness and identity. A somewhat less contested terrain has emerged in the cities, towns, and villages of the global South, where different forms of cultural expression and heritage are being mobilized by a range of activist groups concerned with social change and development. These kinds of CSOs can muster up a dynamism and engagement that is more organically related to the needs articulated by local populations than either the performative rhetoric of official bodies or the logic of the marketplace. An increasing number of civil society networks now play a crucial role in facilitating both production and dissemination of a variety of cultural forms. It is in recognition of this that the Dutch NGO HIVOS (Humanist Institute for Cooperation with Developing Countries) and the Open Society Institute (OSI), in cooperation with the Budapest-based Center for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS) organized in December 2008 on the Bangalore campus of the information society giant INFOSYS, a conference on ‘‘Culture and Civil Society Development in Asia.’’ The conference announcement stated that ‘‘networks in the arts and culture sector have created platforms for the interaction of practitioners and mediated between the producer, market and the state.’’ (http://www.cscsarchive.org/cscs/ announcements_folder/announcements.2008–11–01.076 2716893/announcement.2008–11–01.1130677957). The organizers of the conference hoped to identify obstacles to the further development of such interplays as well as develop solutions for them. It is worth noting the way they recognized the very different starting points and trajectories of the respective national civil societies concerned: ‘‘Cultural practitioners from Central Asia struggle with the Soviet cultural inheritance and the contingencies of the post-Soviet independent states, with weak institutions, competing ideological projects, mass impoverishment and cultural isolation despite the penetration of global cultural products. The Indian
counterparts work in a parliamentary democracy with huge regional differences and deeply ingrained inequalities despite the postindustrial boom, the growing participation in a global economy and the emergence of a middle class. Cultural production in Sri Lanka is marked by a protracted civil war. In Indonesia, a fragile democratic order is being tested by enormous cultural differences, socioeconomic stratification and radical politics inspired by religion.’’ Civil Society Against Cultural ‘‘Bads’’
There is no doubt a special place for cultural civil society in situations of crisis and political repression. This goes beyond the image of the individual artist ‘‘speaking truth to power’’ and catalyzing popular energies that was made familiar during the fall of European Communist regimes, e.g., Vaclav Havel and Kurt Masur, and reincarnated more recently by the writer Arundhati Roy in her public positions against ecological destruction and the related ethnocide in contemporary India. Local associations and networks in the cultural field, whether local, national, or transnational, step in at a less exalted level at critical moments of social transformation, as observed recently by the Commonwealth Foundation in its reflections on culture and development: ‘‘with multiple paths available as possible outcomes, cultural practitioners can play an important role at critical junctures in shaping how citizens and political actors think about their reality and about which paths are viable’’ (2008: 47). The South African case is emblematic of such roles being filled both in resistance to oppression and the processes of healing and reconciliation. Civil society entities and networks deploy the powers and resources of cultural expression to pursue a series of goals in such contexts. These purposes are diverse and can include: strengthening group identity, social organization and community; generating social energy; overcoming feelings of inferiority and alienation; teaching and consciousness raising; promoting creativity and innovation as well as democratic discourse and social mediation; promoting pluralist visions in culturally diverse (and hence possibly conflict-prone) societies. Increasingly, as the reach of the marketplace broadens, such cultural CSOs are also facilitating the production and distribution of cultural goods and services (Kleymeyer, 1994). This kaleidoscope of activities is still somewhat under-researched however; the principal focus of cultural research has shifted to the workings of the cultural economy, under the rubrics ‘‘cultural industries’’ and/or ‘‘creative industries,’’ indeed also ‘‘creative economy.’’ The remainder retains its focus on governmental policymaking. How CSOs can or could interact with
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government and the marketplace is beginning to occupy a more prominent place on the research agenda, but the pickings are limited so far, for the scope of such inquiry is simply not yet holistic and transversal enough, as Pratt has observed (2005). No Global Epistemic Community
It is somewhat paradoxical to observe, therefore, that these local and national activities have spread only thinly to the transnational level. There is no real global epistemic community for either of the senses of culture we have used here, only a limited number of international cultural NGOs (most of which gravitate around UNESCO, such as the International Council of Museums or, the International Council on Monuments and Sites), a handful of transnational advocacy networks (see ‘‘Civil Society and Cultural Organizations’’) and no significant transnational cultural movements or coalitions (as defined by Keck and Sikkink, 1998; Khagram et al., 2002). To be sure, globally shared anxieties with regard to cultural homogenization and the erosion of local cultures are regularly voiced in global social and economic forums, notably in the context of antiglobalization movements, but these evocations are almost invariably secondary, residual, even ritualistic; they do not contest nation-state positions and on the contrary may well echo them, as is the case for example with the ‘‘cultural exception’’ arguments now subsumed under the rubric of ‘‘cultural diversity’’ and that inspired the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and the Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions (cf. ‘‘Civil Society and Cultural Organizations’’). There is no worldwide cultural movement comparable, mutatis mutandis, to Greenpeace or to Amnesty International. This lacuna has been noted and regretted by some scholars such as Kleberg (1998) since the 1980s, the concern surfaces in the public pronouncements of platform organizations such as Culture Action Europe and has been the motivation behind a number of short-lived start ups using the notion of ‘‘World Culture Forum.’’ A militant cultural wing has yet to emerge in global civil society. The question is, can large-scale mobilization around cultural causes ever emerge? The fact that it has not yet done so despite overabundant rhetorical reiteration of the central importance of culture does not encourage a positive response.
Future Directions More specific inquiry needs to be directed at a number of questions. First, at the question of whether there are forms of culture (in diverse understandings of the term) that are emerging from civil society understood as a self-defined sector of society which is performing certain social roles.
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Second, the question of whether civil society discourses and practice regarding culture are different from the positions taken by governmental authorities and of the divergence or complementarity between the two positions. Third, the question of why there is not yet a ‘‘cultural civil society’’ at the global level and whether there are certain factors or processes are promoting the emergence of such a global formation.
Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations ▶ Civil Society and Ethnicity ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Havel, Vaclav ▶ Hybridity ▶ Identity ▶ Public Value ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Alvarez, S., Dagnino, E., & Escobar, A. (Eds.) (1998). Cultures of politics, politics of cultures: Re-visioning Latin American social movements. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Anheier, H. K. (2007). Civil society and the convention on the protection and promotion of the diversity of cultural expressions (2005). Paper prepared for the UNESCO Secretariat, Paris. Anheier, H. K., & Isar, Y. R. (Eds.) (2007). Conflicts and Tensions. Cultures and Globalization Series, 1. London: SAGE. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large. Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Beck, U. (2006). The cosmopolitan vision. Cambridge: Polity. Bennett, T. (2001). Differing diversities. Cultural policy and cultural diversity. Strasbourg, France: Council of Europe Publishing. Commonwealth Foundation (2008). Putting culture first. Commonwealth perspectives on culture and development. London: Commonwealth Foundation. Cowan, J. K., Dembour, M. B. Wilson, R. A. (Eds.) (2001). Cultural rights: Anthropological perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garcı´a Canclini, N. (1995). Hybrid cultures: Strategies for entering and leaving modernity. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Gilroy, P. (2004). After empire. Abingdon: Routledge. Hall, S. (1997). The centrality of culture: Notes on the cultural revolutions of our time. In K. Thompson (Ed.), Media and cultural regulation. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Hannerz, U. (1996). Transnational connections. Culture, people, places. London/New York: Routledge. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (Eds.) (1998). Activists beyond borders. Ithaca, NY/London: Cornell University Press. Khagram, S., Riker, J. V., & Sikkink, K. (Eds.) (2002). Restructuring world politics. Transnational social movements, networks and norms. Minneapolis, MN/London: University of Minnesota Press. Kleberg, C. J. (Ed.) (1998). Promoting cultural research for human development, report from three seminars. Stockholm: The Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation & Gidlunds Fo¨rlag.
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Kleymeyer, C. (Ed.) (1994). Cultural expression and grassroots development. Cases from Latin America and the Caribbean. Boulder, CO/ London: Lynne Riener. Pratt, A. (2005 March). Cultural industries and public policy. An oxymoron? The International Journal of Cultural Policy, 11(1), 15–29. Wicker, H. R. (1997). From complex culture to cultural complexity. In P. Werbner & T. Modood (Eds.). Debating cultural hybridity. Multi-cultural identities and the politics of anti-racism. London: Zed Books. Williams, R. (1988). Keywords: A vocabulary of culture and society. London: Fontana. Yu´dice, G. (2003). The expediency of culture. Uses of culture in the global era. Durham, NC/London: Duke University Press.
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of democratic consolidation, Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan (1996) have provided a starting point for this broad perspective by distinguishing between five interacting and mutually reinforcing ‘‘arenas’’ of democratic consolidation: (1) civil society, (2) political society, (3) economic society, (4) the rule of law, and (5) state bureaucracy. The role of civil society is best understood when distinguished from the other arenas. Figure 1 presents an illustrated summary of these different arenas, and the interaction between them (drawn from Howard, 2003). In order to understand Fig. 1, several key points need to be made explicit. The first is the broad distinction between the public and private spheres, indicated by the solid line separating family and friendship networks, on the one hand, from civil society and the other four arenas, on the other. This distinction refers to the important difference between social activities that are within close
MARC MORJE´ HOWARD Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction Several decades ago, ‘‘civil society’’ was an arcane concept in political theory. Today, it is a term that floods academic, journalistic, and everyday discourse. The concept of civil society was revitalized in the 1980s by the Polish opposition movement and the subsequent wave of democratization around the world. Civil society as an object of study has experienced a veritable explosion, and today, it is commonly applied to very different contexts and continents throughout the world. In the post-Cold War era, in which many countries have embarked on various forms of democratization, civil society has come to be seen as one of the main indicators of that process, as well as an appealing way to frame such research. A vibrant civil society is often seen as a key ingredient for the success of advanced Western countries, as well as a panacea for developing countries elsewhere in the world. Within the social sciences – even though trust, political participation, and democratization have been standard themes in comparative politics for decades – civil society has become an appealing way of framing such research, with applications throughout the Western and non-Western world.
Definition In order to understand the role of civil society, it is useful to start with a wider view of social relations in any given democratic or democratizing system. Within the context
Civil Society and Democracy. Fig. 1 The arenas of democratization
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and trusted circles, and those that go beyond them to involve interaction with other forms of social organization in society at large. The next distinction is between the two arenas that are above, and the three that are below, the dotted line in Fig. 1. The state bureaucracy and the rule of law are based first and foremost on legal-rational institutions and organizing principles, which provide the essential core of any modern democratic system. Political society, economic society, and civil society, in contrast, consist of concrete organizations and groups of people that shape and define the particular character of that democratic system. As indicated by the thick arrow connecting these two categories of arenas, they interact in a mutually reinforcing way. The relationship among the three arenas below the dotted line in Fig. 1, consisting of concrete organizations and groups of people, is more complex. Simply put, political society refers to elite politics, namely political leadership and the competition for political power and office. Economic society refers to the myriad business organizations in pursuit of economic profit in a capitalist system. Civil society refers to the realm of organizations, groups, and associations that are formally established, legally protected, autonomously run, and voluntarily joined by ordinary citizens. More explicitly, the conceptual and empirical feature that differentiates civil society from political society and economic society is the important distinction between the elite and the mass level. In civil society, individual members can effect or prevent change through or by virtue of their organization. In economic society and political society, however, individual elites still have the power to control economic or political policies even when they are not acting within, and on behalf of, an organization. In other words, political society and economic society are primarily composed of elite actors and institutions that are involved with the pursuit of power or profit, whereas civil society is the realm of ordinary citizens, who join and participate in groups and associations on the basis of their everyday interests, needs, and desires. Unlike the organizations of political and economic society, civil society organizations – although they often seek political influence, and they constantly need financial support – have neither power nor profit as their objective or rationale. The fact that there are crucial differences between these three concepts in abstract terms does not mean that there are always clear-cut conceptual or practical lines that separate them. On the contrary, there is small but significant overlap among all three of the arenas. As shown in Fig. 2, the three arenas constitute overlapping
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circles. The central elements of political society consist of the leadership groups of political parties, interparty alliances, and professional politicians and elites. Economic society – which, along with civil society, maintains a close connection with the private sphere, since its origins stem from the very concept of private property and personal and family entrepreneurship – includes most importantly businesses, financial institutions, and entrepreneurs and economic elites. Finally, civil society encompasses a wide array of groups, associations, and organizations, including community and local organizations; human rights, peace, and environmental groups; educational or cultural activities; churches or religious organizations; sports or recreational clubs; women’s, veterans’, youth, elderly, disabled, animal rights, health, and self-help groups; and many others. But this is not the end of the story. According to the above definitions of each of these three arenas, there must be groups and organizations that belong to more than one type of arena at the same time. For example, political interest groups and large-scale nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) usually have the explicit goal of influencing and changing political power structures, yet they also rely on participation and support from ordinary citizens for legitimation of their cause. The overlapping section between civil society and economic society includes labor unions, professional, employers, and producers associations, and economic interest groups and NGOs. All of these belong to economic society since they are concerned with influencing economic outcomes; yet their membership basis is voluntary, and they consist of large or small numbers of people who come together to discuss and act on their common interests. The overlap between political and economic society consists of an array of elite-based political-economic interest groups and NGOs, which are not at all based on citizen participation or support. This would also include the corporatist or quasi-corporatist arrangements between firms and unions, which in certain sectors operate separately from the input of their members. Finally, cutting across all three arenas, one could place the media, which plays an influential agenda-setting role within political and economic society, while also serving as the fundamental means of communication to, and among, ordinary citizens. Overall, this conception and delineation of civil society remains true to the theoretical origins of the concept and to contemporary discussions of democracy and democratization. It also shows how different types of groups and organizations from the real world actually fit into an otherwise theoretical conceptualization of civil society.
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Civil Society and Democracy. Fig. 2 The groups of political society, economic society, and civil society
Key Issues The Democratic Benefits of Civil Society
A common understanding of most scholars who write about civil society – however they define or operationalize it – is the assumption that it has a positive and beneficial influence. Indeed, for most people, the term immediately brings to mind a peaceful, moral, and idealistic image. But what exactly are the benefits of civil society? Larry Diamond (1996: xxiii, 227–240) presents a general account of the role of civil society, listing many ways
in which it can exert a positive influence on the process of democratic consolidation. According to Diamond, in addition to ‘‘checking and limiting the power of the state,’’ civil society ‘‘stimulates political participation, develops a democratic culture of tolerance and bargaining, creates additional channels for articulating and representing interests, generates cross-cutting cleavages, recruits and trains new political leaders, improves the functioning of democratic institutions, widens and enriches the flow of information to citizens, and produces supporting coalitions on behalf of economic reform,’’ all of which help to
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strengthen and legitimate a democratic state. While Diamond adds that a strong civil society in itself is no substitute for solid political and legal institutions, which are a sine qua non for a democratic system, he concludes that once these basic institutions are set in place, civil society can and indeed must develop in order to establish a more deeply rooted, legitimate, and effective democracy. Diamond’s account provides a useful summary of the potential virtues of civil society in a democratic system, but how does civil society actually cause or influence them? Skeptics remain unconvinced by wide-reaching generalizations about the beneficial effects of civil society – even those that seem logical or obvious – in the absence of concrete evidence about how the causal mechanism works empirically. In other words, could other factors, such as economic well-being, the effectiveness of democratic political institutions, or long-standing cultural factors, be more important for explaining the outcomes that Diamond attributes to civil society? The question is impossible to answer systematically and definitively, but there is certainly no shortage of skepticism (e.g., Berman, 1997; Edwards & Foley, 1998). While perhaps not as clear-cut as Diamond’s description of the benefits of civil society, most of the empirical research – whether qualitative or quantitative, contemporary or historical – on this topic has pointed to a strong positive relationship between civil society and democracy. That said, the skeptics correctly object to the hyperbole that some scholars express when treating civil society as if it were the only or the most important factor, rather than simply one important factor among others. But in the end, while they might dispute over the relative emphasis placed on civil society when compared to other factors, few would actually deny its importance in establishing and sustaining a vibrant and healthy democratic system. And fewer still, if any, would suggest that a weaker civil society would actually be more beneficial for a democracy. The scholarship on the beneficial effects of civil society can be broken down into two general approaches. The first, most closely associated with the work of Robert Putnam (1993, 2000), emphasizes on the positive effects that participation in civil society has on individual people, which in turn contributes to a more peaceful, harmonious, and democratic society. Putnam has outlined a series of different ways in which civil society – or more generally the broader rubric of ‘‘social capital’’ – can have beneficial consequences. He writes (2000: 287): ‘‘Does social capital have salutary effects on individuals, communities, or even entire nations? Yes, an impressive and growing body of research suggests that civic connections help make us healthy, wealthy, and wise.’’ His study includes chapters
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on ‘‘Education and Children’s Welfare,’’ ‘‘Safe and Productive Neighborhoods,’’ ‘‘Economic Prosperity,’’ ‘‘Health and Happiness,’’ and ‘‘Democracy,’’ and for each, he synthesizes much of the scholarship on social capital from the past decade, highlighting its positive effects. More specifically, the basic logic of arguments made by Putnam and other ‘‘social capitalists’’ is that civil society organizations serve as what Putnam, paraphrasing Tocqueville, calls ‘‘schools for democracy.’’ In other words, the existence and flourishing of autonomous organizations allow ordinary citizens to interact with one another outside of their networks of family and close friends, thereby developing greater trust, tolerance, and bargaining skills, all of which are beneficial for democracy. Furthermore, their experience with the organizations of civil society allows people to gain a greater sense of their own roles and capacities in a participatory democratic system, thus creating a more proficient and engaged citizenry. The more people participate in the voluntary organizations of civil society – even in those that are not explicitly political – the more they internalize the norms and behavior of a participatory democratic citizenry, which can only strengthen the institutions and performance of a country’s democratic government. The second approach is generally associated with the work of historical institutionalists such as Theda Skocpol (2004), who argue that the organizations of civil society provide a direct source of popular influence on political or economic developments, thus benefiting individuals and society. Unlike Putnam, who emphasizes the socialpsychological benefits of consensus and cooperation that group participation will provide to its members and to society overall, this approach emphasizes the role of group conflict and struggle in shaping the historical development of modern democracy. As Skocpol and Fiorina (1999: 15) put it: ‘‘From an institutionalist perspective, voluntary associations matter as sources of popular leverage, not just as facilitators of individual participation and generalized social trust.’’ In the contemporary context, the institutional approach emphasizes the ability of the organizations of civil society to serve as a shield or a self-defense mechanism that protects citizens against a potentially intrusive state. In other words, in a democratic system, the groups and organizations of civil society have the capacity to prevent the state from passing new laws that oppose the organized interests of groups of citizens, as well as to positively influence those laws and regulations that do get passed. Moreover, voluntary organizations provide legislators with a greater breadth of information, viewpoints, and pressure, all of which can contribute to more effective and equitable policy making.
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The institutionalist emphasis on the direct political leverage of civil society can also be applied to individuals. As explained by Amy Gutmann (1998: 1): ‘‘Without access to an association that is willing and able to speak up for our views and values, we have a very limited ability to be heard by many other people or to influence the political process, unless we happen to be rich or famous.’’ Moreover, in the words of Alexis de Tocqueville (1969 [1835]: 190): ‘‘An association unites the energies of divergent minds and vigorously directs them toward a clearly indicated goal.’’ In short, membership in organizations provides direct and tangible benefits to individuals and to society, by allowing people to have an influence on the processes that affect their lives, and by achieving collective goals that could not be reached without the means of an organization. These two types of arguments are not at all mutually exclusive, of course, and proponents of one often recognize the importance of the other, but the difference in emphasis – either on the value of participation or on the power of institutional leverage – is analytically and substantively significant. Measuring Civil Society
Generally speaking, there are two alternative empirical approaches to the measurement of civil society within a wider comparative perspective. One is to focus on the organizations and associations themselves, by presenting extensive data on the distribution of different types of organizations within a country’s civil society, listing the numbers and percentages of voluntary associations that break down into different categories. Yet there are two main problems with this type of report: first, the categories of types of organizations are rarely standardized, and they vary tremendously from study to study, thus ruling out meaningful comparison across countries; second, the data are often collected haphazardly, based on unclear and unsystematic sampling methods, resulting in a dubious claim of representativeness. In addition to focusing on the distribution of voluntary organizations in a given country, some analysts report data on civil society organizations by showing the changes in the number of registered groups over time. This allows for an analysis of trends, a vital topic in most discussions of civil society, which attempts to measure or predict changes in the level of civil society over time. While a consideration of trends in the number of registered organizations is certainly more helpful than a simple typology of different types of organizations, nonetheless, it is problematic. The data should be viewed with a certain skepticism, given inconsistent methods for
counting the number of organizations across countries, especially when based on a subsample of organizations. These discrepancies make comparative analysis particularly difficult and tentative, since the findings have limited utility for researchers seeking to establish a comparative ‘‘baseline’’ on civil society across countries and regions. While there is no perfect measure of civil society across different countries, a second approach views representative surveys as a more valid and reliable starting point for such research. Indeed, the very reason why theorists and scholars have considered civil society an important feature of democracy is not so much because of the quantity and ‘‘form’’ of the groups themselves, but rather, is based on the meaning and ‘‘content’’ provided to them by the participation of ordinary citizens. By measuring the percentage of respondents who are members of voluntary associations, surveys not only give a better approximation of the development of a country’s civil society than a hollow list of total numbers or types of registered organizations, but they also allow for extensive comparisons, both with other countries and between different social strata within a country. Major survey projects such as the World Values Survey, the European Social Survey, and the US Citizenship, Involvement, Democracy survey have including questions about people’s membership and participation in voluntary organizations. Although there are certainly limitations to this approach as well – necessitating more in-depth case studies to contextualize larger patterns and differences – well-designed high quality surveys allow for more meaningful comparisons across countries. Both approaches have strengths and weaknesses, and can be viewed as legitimate within the framework of a particular research project. But given the significant challenges in conducting valid and reliable comparative research on the organizational level, focusing on civil society as participation – measured by representative surveys that replicate the same questions in many different countries – probably provides a better starting point for comparative research on this important attribute of democracy and democratization. Civil Society in Nondemocratic Contexts
An important question in the comparative study of civil society is whether civil society does (or can) exist in nondemocratic and/or non-Western countries. There are a variety of possible answers, spanning from a very narrow to a quite broad conceptualization of civil society. A narrow view will posit that civil society derives from the particular theoretical tradition and practical
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historical experience of the West. According to this position, civil society refers specifically to the kinds of voluntary organizations that emerged from the American and West European models, and in some sense, civil society can only exist in societies with that historical background. In other words, even if this gives the concept an ethnocentric bias, civil society is viewed as an inherently Western concept that arose out of a distinct historical experience. In contrast, a broad view of civil society – of the type that is generally stressed by anthropologists – argues that the conceptualization and measurement of civil society should be expanded from its narrow focus on voluntary organizations in democracies, so that it treats all forms of social organization and practices as different manifestations of the same general phenomenon, civil society. According to this perspective, each country has its own civil society, and any cross-national variation is in the form that civil society takes, rather than in its level or strength. A third approach is closer to the middle. According to this view, civil society is not a universal concept that exists everywhere, just under different guises. And it does not support that the original definition and empirical manifestations of civil society should be diluted and stretched in order to fit contexts that are vastly different, since this may result in the mischaracterization of some of the most interesting and unique forms of political and social action in some countries, by forcing them into the ‘‘civil society’’ label. At the same time, however, unlike the narrow view, this approach does not restrict the applicable empirical terrain to countries that are culturally or historically ‘‘Western.’’ For there is an actual substantive and practical basis for the study of civil society – even while still viewing it as a specifically Western concept – in non-Western countries, since many of them have attempted over the past few decades to Westernize and democratize. From this perspective, regime type is the crucial distinction, and what one might call ‘‘classical’’ civil society can only really exist within countries that have democratic institutions (regardless of their ‘‘Western-ness’’). This is not to say, however, that countries must be advanced liberal democracies in order for civil society to exist, but rather that they should meet the basic minimal criteria of procedural democracy. In other words, civil society is a legitimate, appropriate, and important object of exploration and analysis within countries that can be considered electoral democracies. But to extend the concept beyond that to various types of authoritarian regimes may risk lumping in too many different phenomena and forms of organization into one already-beleaguered concept.
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This debate is by no means resolved. As the comparative study of civil society continues to grow and expand (Heinrich & Fioramonti, 2007), and as more scholars develop empirical indices to measure the strength of both civil society and democracy, the concept of civil society will continue to be applied to a wide array of countries and contexts – perhaps with mixed results for those concerned with systematic and meaningful comparisons.
Future Directions The study of civil society and democracy has come a long way since the early 1980s, when few people had heard of the term ‘‘civil society,’’ and democracy was hardly on the political agenda in most areas of the world. Although the flurry of research and advocacy work on civil society in the 1990s may have exaggerated its existence and impact in many places, the current state of the field is somewhat more sober and realistic about the relationship between civil society and democracy, both in advanced democracies and in countries struggling to institutionalize elections within an authoritarian historical tradition. While there will certainly be no shortage of skepticism and debate – whether on the larger conceptual issues or the more technical empirical questions of measurement and operationalization – civil society will continue to serve as an object of study and fascination within the context of democracy and democratization.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Economy ▶ Civil Society Indexes and Indicators ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Participation ▶ Political Society ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Skocpol, Theda ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Political
References/Further Readings Berman, S. (1997). Civil society and the collapse of the Weimar Republic. World Politics, 49(3), 401–429. Diamond, L. (1996). Rethinking civil society: Toward democratic consolidation. In L. Diamond & M.F. Plattner (Eds.), The global resurgence of democracy (pp. 227–240). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Edwards, B., & Foley, M. W. (1998). Civil society and social capital beyond Putnam. American Behavioral Scientist, 42(1), 124–140.
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Gutmann, A. (1998). Freedom of association: An introductory essay. In A. Gutmann (Ed.), Freedom of association (pp. 3–32). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Heinrich, V. F., & Fioramonti, L. (2007). CIVICUS global survey of the state of civil society (Vols. I & II). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Howard, M. M. (2003). The weakness of civil society in post-Communist Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press. Linz, J. J., & Stepan, A. (1996). Problems of democratic transition and consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and postCommunist Europe. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Putnam, R. D. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Skocpol, T. (2004). Diminished democracy: From membership to management in American civic life. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Skocpol, T., & Fiorina, M. P. (Eds.) (1999). Civic engagement in American democracy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press and the Russell Sage Foundation. Tocqueville, A. (1969 [1835]). Democracy in America (G. Lawrence, Trans.). In J. P. Mayer (Ed.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Anchor Books.
provided social scientists with tremendous insight into the economic possibilities and limitations of human, institutional, and other forms of agency influencing redistribution schemes advancing civil society construction. This body of knowledge has not only demonstrated the importance of public and private mediating responses independently, but has also demonstrated their impact when integrated together through subcontracting and other complex systemic arrangements. The political economy of public and private mediation, as well as the structures that these activities have developed, have sometimes eluded more action-oriented theorists advocating change. Nevertheless, the systemic processes of economic intervention that seek to ameliorate or maintain existing inequalities associated with stratified societies should be of profound interest to researchers concerned with civil society building around the world. This branch of knowledge has evolved under the rubric of economy of civil society.
Definition
Civil Society and Economy LISIUNIA A. ROMANIENKO Wrocław University, Wroclaw, Poland
Introduction In exploring the economic evolution of theoretical frameworks to demystify civil society, the discussion begins with Berger and Neuhaus’s (1977: 148) concept of mediating structures, which are defined as ‘‘those institutions standing between the individual in his private life and large impersonal structures of public life.’’ The concept emerged in research attempting to align the role of the individual to powerful institutions including voluntary or nonprofit organizations. In addition to the nonprofit sector, the state figures prominently as another powerful institution of mediation. Both the state and nonprofit sectors as mediating structures are of tremendous importance in unraveling the concept of civil society, because public and private institutions are able to intervene (individually, competitively, or cooperatively) in the often deleterious socioeconomic processes that lead to unequal distribution of societal resources within nation-states and across the globe. The mediating structures of interest are therefore, the welfare apparatus (public intervention) and the nonprofit apparatus (private intervention). By focusing on these dual mechanisms of mediation, civil society epistemology has
According to Patten (2002), civil society refers to the action of community-building in democratic societies that ideally seeks to capture pluralistic voices of discourse, that motivates individuals to accumulate increased forms of human capital, and that tends to occur within a charitable atmosphere full of cooperation spirit. Both public and private sector community-building figure prominently. Economic perspectives of civil society were first described by Weisbrod (1977), who viewed civil society construction in both public and private spheres as a layered response to failures of other sectors. His failure diversification paradigm argued that the demand for public goods is first attempted by the state when left unsatisfied by the market. Then when the demand for public goods is left unsatisfied by the state, the desire to meet demand is attempted through the private sector. In this early view, public or private sector provision of social services (as goods) is an economic model of opportunism driven exclusively by consumer demand. Extending this notion, Esping-Andersen (1990) called this sectoral interdependence the public-private mix. He described three systemic typologies in the industrialized civil society, the liberal welfare regime (characterized by minimizing the state, individualizing risks, and promoting market solutions), the social democratic regime (characterized by universal provision, comprehensive risk coverage, generous benefits, and egalitarianism), and finally, the conservative welfare regime (status segmentation and familialism, where head of households prevail and high pension returns are derived for high status workers).
Civil Society and Economy
While the typology provides a global framework suitable for cross-cultural analysis, the delineation between public and private schemes is not clearly delineated. Theorists like Salamon et al. (1999) distinguished public and private partnerships by focusing on civil society construction through the nonprofit supplementary paradigm, which views private mediation as the innovative fulfillment of particular social service objectives which the state has not been historically involved. Others like Handy (1988) prefer the transactional perspective or cooperative view, focusing on subcontracts and other resources flowing between the two that illustrates high degrees of interdependence rendering them virtually inseparable. Wagner (2000) transcends beyond cooperative agreements, and focuses on power inherent in contract relationship types as either complementary (where public and private partnerships together share some elements of primary responsibility) or substitutive (where the state holds primary accountability but substitutes its role through providers in the private sector). Young (2000) adds the adversarial view, suggesting that public and private structures are not always harmonious in pursuing respective interests. Regardless of perspective, the economic construction of civil society through both public and private sector mediation has a rich tradition of scholarship that highlights unique intervening mechanisms used independently or in conjunction to redistribute (often scarce) societal resources. To demystify how mediation operates with greater specificity, scholars have gone to considerable lengths to distinguish public and private approaches to economic construction of civil society through elaborate mapping of emerging structures and activities associated with the rise of the welfare state and the nongovernmental or nonprofit sector.
Key Issues Public Mediation Through the Welfare State
Piven and Cloward’s (1971) groundbreaking work discussed the welfare state as a necessary response to the failures of capitalism. Due largely to demand fluctuations in goods during declining periods of economic depression and recession, coupled with the production changes brought about through modernization; unemployment is demonstrated to be a permanent and irrevocable feature of capitalism. Because workers are unable to adapt as quickly as economic conditions warrant, periods of unemployability are a consistent longitudinal generational phenomenon. When social instability arises as a result of these changes, civil society construction occurs through
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the design and implementation of welfare state programs in an effort to realign social unrest back to a state of equilibrium (pp. 7, 40). "
[T]he legitimacy of the social order itself becomes questioned. The result is usually civil disorder. . .that may even threaten to overturn existing social and economic arrangements. It is then that relief programs are initiated or expanded. To restore order, the society must create the means to reassert its authority. [Welfare is] a surrogate system of social control . . . used to recapture the allegiance of disaffected blocs.
The mechanism of control is not physical or psychological coercion as has been the case under communism in the Soviet Union and China, but is instead a quid pro quo involving transactions of aid in exchange for fostering certain conforming behaviors among the needy. The goals of state welfare systems are highly normative. They involve the quelling of expressions of civil discontent, reengaging electoral participation, coercing individuals to accept undesirable low wage work, compelling employers to sustain exploitative hiring practices by providing endless supplies of historically marginalized laborers, perpetuating the segmentation of labor markets, motivating submission through complex bureaucratic systems of humiliation and degradation, and the absorption of moral, psychological, or other character deficiency (as opposed to economic capitalist systemic deficiency) among an entire strata of citizens. Another groundbreaking work that strengthened interest in this branch of knowledge is Wilensky’s (1975) research that fully discounted state ideology as a determinant of welfare state expenditures which he defined as government-protected minimum standards of income. Instead, his cross-cultural structural analysis found evidence to suggest that demographic factors, especially age, played a significant role in influencing the extent to which a state provides collectivistic versus individualistic protections. Although on the surface the findings provide evidence to bolster Weisbrod’s suggestion that welfare is a consumer-driven demand-based market phenomenon, Wilensky showed that welfare allocations compete and are mitigated by simultaneous demands for other public goods and services. Competition of public goods includes military spending, which are asserted by the state and not exclusively determined by consumer preferences. Welfare expenditures as transfer payments are similarly influenced by levels of taxation, so citizens residing in large industrialized nations tend to benefit exponentially. By exploring these combinations of variables, Wilensky advanced welfare mediation scholarship by moving
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beyond simple demand-oriented consumer models, to offer macrosocioeconomic nonmarket factors that influence welfare state allocations around the world. His analysis attempted to demystify the causes of fluctuating levels of welfare expenditures in both capitalist and communist industrialized societies exhibited at the time of his analysis. But are these fluctuating expenditures any genuine indication of structural mediation per se? In looking back at two decades of welfare analysis, Esping-Andersen (1990) believes that social scientific explorations of international welfare should have yielded more to this understanding. He suggests that Wilensky and others fall into what he called the comparativist framework, which distort realities by focusing on expenditures and related bureaucratic and demographic correlates. Expenditures in his view are no genuine indication of welfare mediation, because resource transfers originating from the elite are often absorbed circuitously by the elite (i.e., civil servants, administrative directors, insurance pension matching schemes, etc.). He suggests that welfare states not only prevent the redistribution of wealth, but paradoxically operate to rigidly solidify and deepen existing class divisions of a given society. Here, the role of welfare structure mediation is not a redistributive one, but rather, one that is self-confirming, self-perpetuating, class legitimating, and ‘‘an active force in the ordering of [existing] social relations’’ (p. 23). Esping-Andersen agrees that the net redistributive effects of welfare are determined largely though taxation, but he suggests greater attention to analytical details. He recommends demographic segmentation to determine what proportion of recipient populations such as the aged are found among a nations’ poor and needy. He also suggests taking into account level-of-living, which transcends beyond dollar exchange rates with regard to budgetary welfare allocations, and attempts to capture sociocultural nuances that can greatly inflate or deflate the quality of living in a given society. Welfare allocation levels compared cross-culturally, as dismal as they sometimes may appear, actually overestimate the strength of redistribution efforts in industrialized societies. In an attempt to move beyond false perceptions in order to embed ideology and demographics more deeply within welfare mediation scholarship, the issue of segmented labor markets under conditions of capitalism is integrated by feminist analysis such as that offered by Scott (1984: 7, 9) to suggest that public welfare services are disproportionately in demand by women. The author argues therefore, that any analysis of welfare state mediation must incorporate gender rigorously.
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Sociological literature offers us packaged explanations to the effect that poverty is influenced by class, race, nation, economic region, ethnic group, and gender. This is an ideologically impeccable conclusion that can never get you into trouble but also does not leave you much the wiser. In fact, considerable academic research has been done on the role of the first five factors in determining who is poor, the sixth is a recent afterthought. Yet gender cuts across all the others. Women are poorer than men in all five categories. Surely this says something about the power of gender as a way of getting at the whole issue of poverty.
Clark, Cochrane, and Smart (1987) also argue that mediating welfare state structures have disproportionate affects upon women. The combination of capitalism and patriarchy led women (and their dependent children) to be more economically vulnerable and in need of special mediations. The intention was to move women on a continuum from paternalism to independence, and from individualism to collectivism. This led to legislation attempting to provide direct public relief to women when needed, rather than through spousal or other household indices (pp. 146, 149). "
Key concepts in the formation of these more coherent analyses of welfare and social policy [involved] a major critique of traditional family life and its values, and a rejection of the institution of marriage [thus weakening the] system of male oppression over women. In contemporary feminist ideology the state is fully implicated in the structure of family life, the labour market and hence in constructing the very poverty of women which in turn causes women to make demands of the state for welfare benefits.
Women of color who are simultaneously vulnerable to institutionalized discrimination by gender as well as race face particularly difficult conditions of double jeopardy (Romanienko, 2001). Societal mediation through public welfare is thus viewed by many race, gender, and class theorists as a potential source of liberation to reverse historic economic and cultural oppression that manifests through reduced accumulation of educational and cultural capital as well as the severe socioeconomic deprivation that these disparate conditions cause. Leonard (1997) suggests that these ideological goals remain largely unfulfilled. The civil society dreams of mediation that are inherent in the welfare state as an ‘‘emancipation project of progress and order . . . upon which human betterment [could be] constructed’’ fell somewhat short of its intended target. The welfare state
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merely shifted functions of dependency from the family and labor market toward the state, giving vulnerable citizens choices of dependency types. These arrangements create significant dual-edged threats to the existing elite, thereby worsening the social and economic conditions of both parties (pp. 51, 53). "
[D]ependency on state financial support means the absence of support on the labour market, the latter being a form of dependency essential to the reproduction of capitalist social relations. At the same time, lack of dependency on the labour market results. . .in a reduced ability to consume. In brief, dependency on the market is approved precisely because it is necessary to the dynamic of the capitalist system itself . . . while dependency on the state is criticized or even reviled.
He discusses the lack of human emancipation through the perspective of those invoking structural mediation, the welfare recipients, which he describes as resistant moral agents, whose action serves as an indictment against the existing arrangements that leads to stratified dissimilarity. This perspective significantly broadens the definition of dependency and the role of human agency with regard to mediating structures. Private Mediation Through the Nonprofit or Nongovernmental Sector
Beyond public interventions through the welfare state, the second pillar of mediating structures lies in the activities of the nonprofit sector. Through the act of association, individuals organize freely within this sector to aid in the construction of civil society. It has been suggested by Meister (1984) that this form of mediation has the fewest impediments for social integration, when compared to for-profit and governmental sectors. He cites three forms of association activities that describe non-state, private mediation. They are routine association (typified in professional associations, other existing group representing particular interests), instigated association (usually in response to environmental stimulus such as antiwar organization proliferation), and voluntary association (usually created by members to fulfill a need). Beyond typology, Meister extends Goldthorpe and Lockwood’s (1962) notion of instrumental collectivism and argues that association manifests as a result of strong human need to instrumentalize contacts and interpersonal relationships. Because the social structure is antagonistic, individuals create and withdraw into voluntary groups seeking warmth and camaraderie at levels of action that cannot be provided by traditional family structures. Social distances inherent in complex institutional arrangements are
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thus mediated, and shared commonalties discovered to advance mutual interests and mediation objectives. While Meister’s research illustrates the social circumstances that facilitate the formation of voluntary association groups, it does not describe the social, economic, political, or cultural functions beyond the immediate needs of organizing participants. Later Ware (1989) offers a broader analysis. He describes four functional levels of importance; first, nongovernmental organizations or nonprofits act as a countervailing source of economic power to balance the activities of both market and state. Secondly, they give democratic citizens a level of participation that is unavailable through for-profit or government sectors. Here, the act of nonprofit association is viewed as a form of participatory democracy constructing civil society through social integration. Next, the sector provides public goods (services) that are unavailable through the other sectors, and does so safer and more efficiently than possible through government. Finally, the sector stabilizes democratic principles by providing financial and other opportunities for direct structural mediation by giving voice to oppositional forces and enabling them to mobilize collective efforts. Salamon (1995) elaborates on the mediation functions of the nonprofit sector in even greater detail, stating that the sector is much more powerful than previous research suggests. Nonprofit sector organizations enjoy substantial degrees of autonomy, exercise tremendous discretion over the spending of public money, and have developed an arsenal of sophistical weapons of political resistance he calls the ‘‘proliferation of new techniques of social action.’’ The increased prestige surrounding nonprofit associational activities is rooted in the unique qualities of sectoral activities. The innovation and lack of centralization, or what Salamon refers to as the directness-automatic dimension, enables swift accountable action without regard for strict chain of command, thus enabling these organizations to rapidly and quantifiably mitigate many of the deleterious consequences of poverty. Beyond mere effectiveness, Salamon describes the importance of the creativity-visibility dimension. This enables organizations to reach objectives through a variety of innovative approaches, such as the distribution or solicitation of inkind relief (Poole et al., 2000), and to do so creatively in a haute couture, non-civil service-like fashion. So if the nonprofit sector is such a powerful and effective economic instrument to combat social, cultural, and political inequality internationally; why does inequality persist with such vehemence and why does the world remain so uncivilized? Salamon reminds the reader that
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the sector is plagued with problems preventing it from fulfilling its’ economic mediation role in strengthening civil society. First, he states that sectoral failures are to blame. Just as markets and governments fail, so too do organizations in the nonprofit sector. Secondly, the sector’s inability to generate the necessary resources results in leadership spending an inordinate amount of time cultivating relations and actions advancing fundraising activities, which he calls philanthropic insufficiency. In addition, nonprofits tend to fixate on particular forms of civil society construction, to the detriment of others, which he calls philanthropic particularism. Also, the sector has been undemocratically usurped by dominating powerful funders, whose special elite interests rarely align with those at the bottom, a phenomenon he calls philanthropic paternalism. Salamon also attributes mediation weaknesses with certain occupational specializations resulting in philanthropic amateurism. In his view, the immersion of social workers and psychologists that disproportionately design and conceptualize sectoral activities negatively influences the trajectory of actions toward a therapeutic ‘‘self-help’’ orientation, misdirecting precious resources toward programs addressing the emotional needs of middle-class paraprofessionals, rather then the truly disadvantaged that their programs are allegedly intended to serve.
International Perspectives The challenges facing those involved in public and private mediation efforts, as well as the complex organizational factors that are associated with these mediation failure theories elaborated by researchers, is expected to become even greater for the future. Demands for economic mediation in light of demographic shifts taking place around the world will only intensify pressures for relief. Aging populations, collapsing financial institutions, increasingly inhospitable labor markets for women – youth – people of color, the rise in full-time gainfully-employed working class poor, the eradication of labor unions, deindustrialization, dismantling of small scale agrarian production, continued migration to overcrowded cities, proliferation of low-skilled service sector employment, bilateral trade agreements benefiting large corporations, coercive regulatory government intervention hindering nonprofit activities, and tax legislation that discourages philanthropic support; are some economic factors that are expected to intensify challenges for international mediation around the world. In addition, with the end of the cold war and dismantling of communist regimes no longer competing with capitalism on a global stage, there is no longer a need to publicly legitimate market failure or
democracy through formal ideological mediation (Seibel, 1990; Standing, 1996). Yet Van Til (2000) points out that nonprofits have, and will continue to behave, as a festering source of institutional pedagogy socializing citizens in ways to advocate on the behalf of pluralistic voices in democratic societies. Smith et al. (1972) argues that economic social scientific mediation scholarship must move inquiry beyond enumeration and multiple-level sectoral mapping, to provide interested constituencies with more compelling insight into genuine socioeconomic and political factors influencing global community organizing. Bayat (2005) and Wuthnow (2004) suggests that Islamic, Christian, and other faith-based organizations will be a powerful contestational force for capacitybuilding, while Van Aelst and Walgrave (2002) identify web-based communication as revolutionizing the speed, efficacy, and popularity of economic justice mediation efforts disseminated across borders.
Future Directions In the spirit of the challenge to demystify the economic roots of civil society construction taking place in complex public and private mediation structures evolving around the world, Wagner (2000) has suggested that transactions are an important source of political agency that influences systemic programming, while Handy (1988) goes further to describe calculative transactions (fairly explicit exchanges involving tilted but harmonious controls), cooperative transactions (creative pursuit of mutually beneficial exchanges with balanced controls), and coercive transactions (exchanges occurring through concentration of powers with the method of control involving threat of punishment that can include deprivations). Although transaction-oriented methodologies have enjoyed limited popularity, an exploration of exchanges taking place across core to periphery might enable those concerned with economic paradigms and processes driving the civil society project to abandon the strict sector-centered view by functional differentiation, in order to more accurately portray complex resource exchanges taking place in light of an increasingly globalized, often coercive, one world economy (Frank, 1966; Wallerstein, 2000). Another potentially fortuitous approach for future analysis is to focus on civil society professionalism, which could advance the understanding of organizations significantly. Brown, Kenny, and Turner (2000) embed organizational power in the professionalization of occupations under capitalism. They suggest that the phenomenon results in occupational conflict among elites and others, vying to inform activities within the frameworks of each
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respective profession. This results in severe internal competition that may be a detriment to operations. Excessive professionalization is rendered even more problematic through the contemporary absorption of generic managerial types from business to superficially legitimate (but substantively weaken) sectoral progress. Exorbitant remuneration for celebrity spokespeople and executive leadership are deemed shockingly excessive by many charitable observers, while occupational eliticism brought on by nepotistic interlocking directorates is expected to further weaken institutional legitimation. Isomorphism and routinization might present even more deleterious consequences for authentic civil society construction for the future (Gibelman, 2000; Meyer and Rowen, 1991). The recent preponderance of mergers and franchises may also be leading to excessive financial, cultural, and ideological dependencies through large scale multilateral public – private mediation efforts. Critics claim these increasingly counterproductive, non-mediating, dependencybreeding efforts taking place around the globe attempt to cultivate unsustainable development patterns and projects that are highly inconsistent with avant-garde alternative economic justice globalization strategies known as alterglobalization; while inadvertently (or perhaps intentionally) contributing to the chaos and lawlessness that fosters exploitative trade relations prioritizing industrial petroleum, diamond, and arms proliferation over development goals. Observers suggest that the economic construction of civil society among governmental and nongovernmental organizations is leading to such widespread complicity with powerful, multilateral structures such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization, the United Nations, and bilateral trade commissions; that they run the risk of rendering the civil society project virtually innocuous. The intended or unintended consequences of existing arrangements is, by even the most casual observation, resulting in unprecedented levels of death and destruction to the planet and its people manifesting through genocides and mass dislocation of refugees, widespread famine and starvation, water wars, dwindling access to genetically unmodified food, generic pharmaceuticals to combat the HIV pandemic, climate change, and many other urgent socioeconomic, political, and ecological conditions on a scale, breadth, and depth that civil society organizations have been unwilling or are yet unable to sufficiently address. By many accounts, neither public nor private mediation efforts constructing the global civil society have developed any authentic or cohesive economic resistance strategies to effectively combat the complex consequences of
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exploitative capital circulating around the globe due to collusive deregulatory government policies that have detrimental affects upon the poor. In response, participants at worldwide alterglobalizing events are working outside and beyond conventional public and private mediation organizations to conceptualize and implement alternative forms of economically-sustainable civil society that attempts to recognize and mitigate these hegemonic socioeconomic and political conditions. Has the potential of traditional mediating structures been permanently and irrevocably usurped as a result of financial dependencies on world capitalist system? Scholarly inquiry will surely have to address these rather plausible indictments posing difficult introspective questions, if research is to continue to strengthen the utopian potential inherent in the global civil society project for the future.
Cross-References
▶ Contracts and Contract Regimes ▶ Esping-Andersen, Gøsta ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Social Origins Theory ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic ▶ Weisbrod, Burton A
References/Further Readings Bayat, A. (2005). Islamic and social movement theory. Third World Quarterly, 26(6), 891–908. Berger, P., & Neuhaus, R. (1977 [re-issued in 1996]) To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy [re-named] To Empower People: From State to Civil Society] American Enterprise Institute Press. Berger, P. L., & Neuhaus, R. J. (1996). To empower people: From state to civil society. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Brown, K. M., Kenny, S., & Turner, B. S. (2000). Rhetorics of welfare: Uncertainty, choice, and voluntary associations. New York: St. Martin. Chomsky, N. (1999). Profit over people. New York: Seven Stories. Clarke, J., Cochrane, A., & Smart, C. (1987). Ideologies of welfare: From dreams to delusion. London: Hutchinson. Esping-Anderson, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity. Frank, A. G. (1966). The development of underdevelopment. Monthly Review, 18(17), 17–31. Handy, C. (1988). Understanding voluntary organizations. London: Penguin. Gibelman, M. (2000). The nonprofit sector and gender discrimination: A preliminary investigation in to the glass ceiling. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 10(3), 251–269. Goldthorpe, J. H., & Lockwood, D. (1962). Affluence and the British class structure. Sociological Review, 11(2), 133–163. Leonard, P. (1997). Postmodern welfare: Reconstructing an emancipatory project. London: Sage.
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Meister, A. (1984). Participation, associations, development, and change. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1991). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. In P. J. DiMaggio & W. W. Powell (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago. McPherson, J. M. (1981). Voluntary affiliation: A structural approach. In P. Blau & R. Merton (Eds.), Continuities in structural inquiry. London: Sage. Patten, M. (2002). Democracy, civil society, and the state. In K. L. Brock (Ed.), Improving connections between governments and nonprofit and voluntary organizations. Montreal, Canada: McGill University. Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1971). Regulating the poor: The functions of public welfare. New York: Pantheon. Poole, D. L., Ferguson, M., DiNitto, D., & Schwab, A. J. (2002). The capacity of community-based organizations to lead local innovations in welfare reform. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 12(3), 261–276. Romanienko, L. A. (2001). Dual labor market theory and the institutionalization of farmers markets. Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, 12(4), 359–373. Salamon, L. M. (1995). Partners in public service: Government – nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Salamon, L. M., Anheier, H. K., List, R., Toepler, S. S., & Sokolowski, W. (Eds.) (1999). Global civil society: Dimensions of the non profit sector. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Scott, H. (1984). Working your way to the bottom: The feminization of poverty. Boston, MA: Pandora. Seibel, W. (1990). Organizational behavior and organizational function. In H. Anheier & W. Seibel (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: International and comparative perspectives. Berlin, Germany: de Gruyter. Shiva, V. (1999). Stolen harvest: The hijacking of the global food supply. Cambridge, MA: South End Press. Smith, D. H., Reddy, R., & Baldwin, B. (Eds.) (1972). Voluntary action research. Lexington, MA: DC Health. Standing, G. (1996). Social protection in Central and Eastern Europe: A tale of slipping anchors and torn safety nets. In G. Esping-Anderson (Ed.), Welfare states in transition. London: Sage. Van Aelst, P., & Walgrave, S. (2002). New media, new movements ? The role of the internet in shaping the ‘‘Anti-globalization’’ movement. Information, Communication, and Society, 5(4), 464–493. Van Til, J. (2000). Growing civil society: From nonprofit sector to third space. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University. Wagner, A. (2000). Reframing ‘‘Social Origins’’ theory: The structural transformation of the public sphere. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(4), 541–553. Wallerstein, I. (2000). The essential Wallerstein. New York: New Press. Ware, A. (1989). Between profit and state: Intermediate organizations in Britain and the United States. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. Weisbrod, B. A. (1977). The voluntary sector: An economic analysis. Lexington, MA: Lexington. Wilenski, H. L. (1975). The welfare state and inequality: Structural and ideological roots of public expenditures. Berkeley, CA: University of California. Wuthnow, R. (2004). Saving America: Faith-based services and the future of civil society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton. Young, D. R. (2000). Alternative models of government-nonprofit sector relations: Theoretical and international perspectives. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(1), 149–172.
Civil Society and Ethnicity MARY KAY GUGERTY, TRAVIS REYNOLDS University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA
Introduction The idea that ethnicity and ethnic heterogeneity may be inimical to civil society has long been debated. Crosscountry empirical research suggests that ethnically diverse societies have slower economic growth and are more prone to corruption and political instability than ethnically homogeneous societies, as a result of political conflict and lack of cooperation across ethnic groups (Mauro, 1995; Knack and Keefer, 1997). Easterly and Levine (1997) argue that ethnic diversity has had particularly harmful effects in sub-Saharan Africa, the most ethnically diverse region in the world. While civil society has been increasingly praised for its growing role in public service provision in countries across the globe, agreement on the link between ethnic diversity and lower provision of public goods appears so strong that it has been characterized as among the ‘‘most powerful theses of political economy’’ (Banerjee et al., 2005).
Definition Ethnicity
Ethnic identity can be broadly construed as a communal and individual identity that is both felt and expressed – a notion of ‘‘our people’’ (Fenton, 2003: 114). Family and kinship obligations are not equated with ethnicity, though certainly family and household life constitute important venues for learning and exercising many aspects of an ethnic identity. Early theories of ethnic identity understood ethnicity as ‘‘primordial’’ (Geertz, 1973; Rabushka and Shepsle, 1972); even today ethnic identity is still believed to be exceptionally salient for group identification because it is organized around characteristics that are either impossible to change, such as color of skin, or difficult to change, such as language or religion (Posner, 2005). Horowitz (1985) argues that the concept of ethnicity includes all categories based on ascriptive group identities (race, religion, tribe, or caste) that are based on a myth of common ancestry. In some societies ethnic categorizations may overlap with economic class – as in the cases of apartheid South Africa, or the caste system in India for example – such systems can be thought of as ranked ethnic systems. Fearon (2003) proposes that individuals linked by ethnicity have a distinct history as a
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group or share a common culture that is valued by the majority of members. However, though the importance of such more or less immutable attributes remains readily apparent today, ‘‘primordial’’ conceptions of ethnic identities have given way to a notion of ethnicity as a partially constructed category (Chandra, 2004; Horowitz, 1985; Olzak, 1992; Hutchinson, 2000; Posner, 2005) that is flexible, influenced by contextual factors and group leaders’ strategies, and amenable to change over time (Alesina and La Ferrara, 2005; Fearon and Laitin, 2000). Recent evidence from political science confirms the idea that the salience of an ethnic identity is based in part on the nature of political jurisdictions (Posner, 2004a). Other evidence suggests that the immediacy of important events such as highly contested elections shifts the salience of ethnic identity for individuals (Eifert et al., 2008). Ultimately, as Chandra (2006) argues, ethnicity as a category is in need of additional clarification. Chandra proposes that ethnic identities be understood as a set of identities in which membership eligibility is determined by attributes associated – or believed to be associated with – descent. In this definition, ethnic identities are characterized by two features: constrained change and visibility. Ethnic identities are constrained because, although malleable, these identities are also sticky and resistant to change. Visibility implies that some information about an individual’s ethnic identity can be obtained through ‘‘superficial’’ observation. Civil Society
Just as with ethnicity, there is not universal agreement on what constitutes civil society. Some scholars see civil society simply as the public sphere (Habermas, 1998, 1992) – any of the myriad relations and communications between citizens, possibly informed by laws and government policies but not dependent on them (Dewey, 1927; Fraser, 1992; Edwards, 2004). Others see civil society as a source of the attitudes, norms, and values needed to ‘‘make democracy work’’ (Hodgkinson and Foley, 2003). Shils (2003) for example construes civil society as the realm of public spiritedness, tolerance, civic virtue, and indeed ‘‘civility’’ towards one’s fellow citizens. Tocqueville saw a civil society that could limit majority tyranny and teach civic virtues: ‘‘[he] likens civil associations to permanently open schools of public spirit within which citizens learn their rights and obligations, press their claims, and become acquainted with others’’ (Keane, 1988: 61). Putnam’s acclaimed work follows a similar argument, linking differences in the efficiency and legitimacy of local governments to the degree of civic engagement by
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citizens in different regions (Putnam et al., 1993). In this view, ‘‘social capital’’ – or social networks and the norms that sustained them – are crucial to democracy and economic prosperity (Putnam, 1995a, 1994b, 2000). Recently researchers have linked social relations and communication to increased participation in civic and political life (Wollebaek and Selle, 2002), and for some the notion of a ‘‘global civil society’’ promises to expand peace and democracy across the globe (Heinrich, 2007; Vogel, 2006; Rohrschneider and Dalton, 2002; Easterly, 2001). Nevertheless there are counterarguments – and indeed there has long been debate over whether or not civil society is a ‘‘good thing.’’ Hegel saw in civil society the danger of particular interests overwhelming the public good, and argued for a state that could and would override civil society when necessary for the greater public well-being. Along a similar vein Marx and later Gramsci saw civil society as a non-state sphere of outright domination controlled by the ruling elite (Bobbio, 1988). Civil society was merely another tool by which the modern state (an expression of the power of the dominant class) could maintain control over society without the need for extensive use of force. Gramsci in particular saw civil society as an alternate battlefield in which the struggle for class dominance and hegemony took place. These philosophers saw civil society neither as performing a democratic ‘‘educational function’’ (Hadenius and Uggla, 1996: 1622) nor as promoting egalitarianism or democracy. Another perspective views associative groups in civil society not as instruments of control, but as interest groups advocating for members’ interests at the expense of the public good. Theorists in the public choice tradition have considered roles for both civic associations and ethnicity in the purported ‘‘rent-seeking’’ activity of groups. Buchanan (1981) argued in Toward a Theory of the Rent-Seeking Society that interest groups sought primarily to gain advantage (rents) from their ‘‘special relationships’’ with legislators and bureaucrats. Olson’s (1982) The Rise and Decline of Nations claimed to show empirically that an increase in the relative number of organizations in a given country was associated with decreased economic performance and even the outright paralysis of political institutions. Perhaps the most commonly accepted notion of civil society is that there exists a space between the family and the state and which makes interconnections between individuals and families possible. Civil society is thus an organized part of society, a set of institutions and relationships which is distinct from states and markets, and which is generally formed for the purposes of advancing common interests and facilitating collective action (Edwards, 2004).
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Key Issues The Contributions of Ethnic Groups to Civil Society Can Be Both Reinforcing and Destabilizing
Can ethnic ties contribute to civil society or are they always inimical to it? Civic or civil values are sometimes thought to represent the highest ideals, while people’s attachment to ‘‘their mates, family, and wish for improvement’’ are seen to be secondary, superficial, and even selfish (Shils, 1957: 130). Hadenius and Uggla have argued that ‘‘traditional norms, rituals and patterns of authority are part of the reason why a strong and viable civil society is absent in many Third World countries’’ (1996: 1625). Edward Shils (2003, 1957) argued to the contrary, that ‘‘primordial’’ ties of kinship and more immediate ‘‘civil’’ ties exist essentially on the same social plane, but play different roles at different times: primordial ties are reinforced daily through interactions or through the definition of the relationship (as in blood relatives or shared ethnic heritage), while civil ties are more abstract and not acted upon on a daily basis, but come to the forefront in the face of national crises, or important events like elections. This gives rise to another series of questions: Must civil society organizations be voluntary? Can forms of organization that rely on acriptive characteristics or birth be civil? Gellner (1995) argues that a modern civil society is modular and transcends acriptive characteristics. He argues that traditional society is defined by segmentalism, in which categories are defined by birth. In this view, organizations built upon ethnic divisions are not civil. Wesolowski (1995) follows this line of thinking to define ‘‘associative ties’’ as the generic features of civil society. Civil groups share a number of key characteristics: they can be freely joined and left; they usually rely on debate to make decisions; and they tend to pursue interests and goals defined by their members. They may favor in-group loyalty, but nevertheless when negotiating with other groups they perceive and treat them as equally valid social units. As such, associative characteristics create ‘‘a framework for resolving conflicts between groups, and are typical of stable Western democracies’’ (Wesolowski, 1995). In contrast, Wesolowski argues, the ‘‘communal ties’’ that are characteristic of ethnicity have a much different character. An individual is born with them (and even then such ties only persist to the extent that fellow members of the community consider the individual to be born with them). Individuals are integrated into the group by a set of symbols, values, and beliefs that produce a high degree of loyalty and devotion to the group (Hutchinson and Smith, 1996). For nonmembers, however, communal groups are characterized by separateness and closure
(Portes, 2007; Oliver and Wong, 2003). Consequently communal groups are more prone to conflict than are associative groups – to members of a communal group, ‘‘other’’ groups may appear to be misguided, at best, or menacing, at worst (Wesolowski, 1995). In reality most associative group forms are likely hybrids – characterized by both freedom of access to the group and some fundamental values, as well as by aversion to other groups. Numerous authors have confirmed this suspicion (e.g., Stolle and Rochon, 1998). Bryant (1995) notes that civil society as a phenomenon is capable of being ‘‘inclusive and tolerant of pluralism (as in the Netherlands) or inclusive and assimilationist (as in France), or it can be exclusive and suspicious of pluralism (as in Germany)’’ (1995: 145). Varshney (2001) also notes that many communitarian organizations are hybrids: ethnic and religious associations combining elements of both ascription and choice. Indeed ethnic associations can perform many ‘‘modern’’ functions, such as participating in democratic politics, facilitating entry into modern education and so forth (Birnir, 2007; Tavits, 2005; Posner, 2004b; Trager, 1998; Agh, 1994; Rudolph and Rudolph, 1967). Ultimately it may be the goals of the association, more than the form of organization, that are the critical test of its contributions to civic life. Advocates for the importance of associative ties in creating a civil society often emphasize the importance of dense, reciprocal ties for sustaining ongoing cooperation (Putnam et al., 1993; Putnam, 2000); many ethnic groups contain these sorts of ties. A key basis for sustaining cooperation is the information on others that these associative ties produce. Ongoing interaction builds reputations and provides evidence on the likely strategies used by others in interactions, all of which combine to produce norms of trust to support cooperative strategies (Fearon and Laitin, 2003; Putnam et al., 1993). A number of underlying mechanisms might support this cooperation: common tastes, increased concern for the welfare of coethnics, the ability to devise common strategies and sanction noncooperators, and individuals’ choices about which strategies to use or behavior to employ in a given setting (Habyarimana et al., 2007). Recent empirical work confirms the power of ethnic ties to induce cooperative, civic behavior. Miguel and Gugerty (2005) find that social sanctions are more effectively imposed within ethnic groups than across them, leading to higher levels of public goods contributions and greater participation in school governance in ethnically homogenous areas. Habyarimana et al. (2007) find that co-ethnics tend to comply with in-group reciprocity norms that favor cooperative strategies.
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The evidence suggests that ethnic ties provide a template for cooperation, yet the empirical evidence also suggests that interethnic cooperation is a challenge and the lack of ties across ethnic groups can lead to conflict. Fearon and Laitin (2003) point out that given the heterogeneity of many societies, ethnic violence is actually quite rare. They attribute this to the importance of expectations – when both groups in a potential conflict expect that a breakdown of cooperation will lead to longterm conflict, the perceived costs of that conflict may be sufficient to maintain cooperation. In addition, ethnic groups may be willing to engage in in-group ‘‘policing’’ and sanctioning of co-ethnics who defect against an ethnic ‘‘other.’’ Nonetheless there is ample evidence that strong in-group ties may be associated with poorer public outcomes. Khwaja (2000) shows that social heterogeneity has a negative effect on the maintenance of community projects in northern Pakistan. Alesina et al. (1999) find that higher levels of ethnic diversity are empirically associated with lower local public goods funding across US municipalities, and argue that this may be the result of different preferences for public goods. Alesina and LaFerrara (2000) show that if individuals prefer not to mix across ethnic lines, participation in community organizations be lower in ethnically diverse areas, leading to lower provision of public goods, particularly when it is costly for distinct ethnic groups to self-segregate into separate organizations. Interactions Between Ethnicity and Civil Society Are Conditioned by State Context
Shils notes that one component of civil society which was neglected in practically all discussions in the nineteenth century was the concept of nation or nationality (Shils, 2003). Nation and nationality were supposed to be characteristics of the type of society which was being superseded by civil society. Nevertheless, Shils contended, as civil societies became increasingly widespread over the course of the nineteenth century ‘‘the nation or nationality provided the cohesion which would otherwise have been lacking in those civil societies’’ (2003: 294). Many of the classic definitions of civil society rely on the juxtaposition of civil society and state. In Democracy in America de Tocqueville distinguishes between state government and civil life: while the state is composed of assemblies, courts, police, and armed forces, civil life refers to the public life of citizens, that is, life that is neither part of the state nor part of life within the family or household. De Tocqueville noted in particular that civil life in America was notable for the proliferation of associations – phenomena which he defined as ‘‘citizens
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coming together in an organized fashion to pursue common purposes’’ (Hodgkinson and Foley, 2003). In de Tocqueville’s writings, private organizations such as churches and literary associations were treated similarly to public bodies like town councils – all were seen to be autonomous local public bodies providing ‘‘one of the means whereby citizens both achieve common purposes and maintain their independence of state and federal government’’ (Bryant, 1995: 143). Many authors have since echoed this sentiment: Frentzel-Zago´rska (1990) calls civil society ‘‘a structure of the self-organization of society, located outside, though not disconnected from, the institutional framework of the state.’’ Bryant (1995) defines it as ‘‘the association of citizens – social self-organization – between households and the state and aside from the market’’ (Bryant, 1995: 148). Since the enlightenment civil society has been considered by many as a defense against unwarranted intrusions by the state on individual rights and freedoms: ‘‘organized through the medium of voluntary associations. . . .civil society was a self-regulating universe of associations, committed to the same ideals that needed, at all costs, to be protected from the state’’ (Edwards, 2004: 7). More recently, Orvis declares modern civil society to be a public sphere of formal or informal, collective activity autonomous from but recognizing the legitimate existence of the state (Orvis, 2001). In contrast, ethnicity need not necessarily be separate from the state. Bryant (1995) calls ‘‘ethnic nations’’ those states that relate citizenship and full participation in society to ethnicity and descent. He contrasts these directly with ‘‘civic nations,’’ which may attribute a leading role in their formation to one or more ethnies, but also extend citizenship to other groups, and hold pluralist (or assimilationist) ideals. Bryant (1995) identifies France as a ‘‘civic nation,’’ with habitants and migrants of various origins accorded citizenship and entrance into civil society. This is in contrast to the strict hereditary criteria for citizenship in Germany. Kaldor (2003) uses the term ‘‘extreme ethnic chauvinism’’ to characterize those movements, like religious fundamentalism, which seek to play at identity politics – laying claim to political power in the name of identity (and to the exclusion of other identities). While civic associations are by definition inclusive and forwardlooking, she argues, fundamentalist or ethnic extremist identity politics is inherently backward-looking: ‘‘They conjure up an idea of a pure traditional way of life – nostalgia for a past where supposedly this existed’’ (2003: 98). Moreover, in her studies of societies in conflict Kaldor finds such nationalist strategies to be particularly effective among the poor – while the NGO sector may
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have widespread moral authority in many countries, it is often filled with an educated elite minority; nationalist and fundamentalist movements may be better able to capture popular sentiment (2003: 100). As a possible counterpoint Fenton speaks of different levels of ethnic identification: ‘‘totalizing ethnicities’’ that pervade all aspects of individual and group life; ‘‘tacit ethnicities’’ where cultural symbols are linked to ethnic identity but have no explicit social value; and ‘‘provisional ethnicities’’ that take on meaning only in certain social contexts external to the individual (Fenton, 2003: 115). Birnir (2007) suggests that ethnicity and civil society serve similar roles in organizing communities and forming identities: consequently in the absence of wholly voluntary associations (as in the case of an authoritarian state) it is likely that ethnicity will emerge as a strong organizing principle around which group members will rally. Kasfir (1998) suggests we should ‘‘use civil society to gain a wider understanding of particular societies and their relationship to their states’’ (3). When mobilized, both civil society and ethnicity can be powerful sources of action. Civil society has been linked to the toppling of regimes in Latin America and Eastern Europe. Ethnicity, meanwhile, as Fenton observes, has the potential to become a ‘‘totalizing identity: if people are concerned about their jobs, their neighborhoods, their education and that of their children, their legal status, their personal security, under the right circumstances ethnicity may be incorporated in all of these’’ (2003: 115).
International Perspectives If, as we have argued, the interactions of ethnicity and civil society are conditioned by the characteristics of societies and states, then patterns of interaction between ethnic groups and civil society will vary by region and country as well. Many scholars have argued that ethnicity and the primacy of ethnic groups restrict the growth of civil society in the developing world, for example. Hadenius and Uggla have argued the ‘‘traditional norms, rituals and patterns of authority are part of the reason why a strong and viable civil society is absent in many Third World countries’’ (1996: 1625). For such writers, NGOs and civil society are part of a wider project of transformation and development that seeks to break down undesirable institutions within ‘‘other’’ societies and to promote modern (i.e., liberal), democratic ones in their place ‘‘to make societies truly ‘civil’.’’ Membership in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil groups that cut across ethnic
and regional cleavages are considered a key mechanism for breaking down ‘‘traditional,’’ ‘‘deeply rooted’’ and potentially divisive sociocultural identities contrary to liberal democracy: ‘‘civil society can also be a crucial arena for the development of other democratic attributes, such as tolerance, moderation, a willingness to compromise, and a respect for opposing viewpoints’’ (Diamond, 1994: 8). Hadenius and Uggla similarly argue that ‘‘‘making civil society work’ is a question of ‘socialization into democratic norms . . . it is a matter of changing popular norms’’’ (1996: 1622–1623). The African continent provides a salient example. A common perspective blames ethnicity in Africa for a number of the continent’s ills. Callaghy (1994) and others argue that a lack of appropriate norms and deep cleavages in African society result in a civil society that is a ‘‘disorganized plurality of mutually exclusive projects that are not necessarily democratic’’ (Fatton, 1995: 75). Berman argues that modern ethnic identities are colonial constructions and argues that the lack of a trans-ethnic public arena, universalistic norms and civic trust means there is little to undercut the patron-client relations and neopatrimonialism most scholars see at the heart of African politics (Berman, 1998). As a result, ‘‘political tribalism’’ dominates (Lonsdale, 1994). A number of African scholars argue that western ideas of civil society cannot be easily applied to African societies. Kasfir (1998) suggests the definition of civil society provided by the ‘‘conventional view’’ should be broadened when examining Africa by dropping the normative elements in the definition in order to include ethnic and other types of political activity usually ignored or lambasted in the literature (1998: 127). Orvis argues that African civil society is guided by norms of ‘‘moral ethnicity,’’ rather than by norms of liberal democracy. These norms, he argues, provide a sphere of public activity separate from the state with the potential to limit state encroachment and to promote political participation (Orvis, 2001). The history of ethnicity and civil society in much of the Americas rests on a somewhat different foundation (Oxhorn, 1995; Arellano-Lopez and Petras, 1994). In many countries in the Americas, social movements organized around ethnicity – indigenous social movements – played an important role in helping citizens to achieve their rights. In Mexico, Fox (1994) describes how the thickness of indigenous social organizations influences the distribution of state resources and the gradual progression towards democracy. The politics of ethnicity in many South Asian countries with ranked ethnic systems, such
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as India, give rise to a different set of interactions between ethnic groups, the state, and civil society. For example, Clarke (1998) argues that despite the efforts made by Indian NGOs to establish a broad-based voluntary action umbrella network, the unity of the NGO sector remains lacking due to deep ethnic, religious, political, and regional cleavages in civil society (see also Banjeree et al., 2005). Clarke (1998) also points to the highly organized NGO sector in the Philippines where, in spite of extensive political engagement, broader cross-sector cooperative movements are short-lived because of personal, ideological, and regional tensions.
Future Directions Whether ethnic ties are supportive or inimical to civil society may depend in part on whether they have ‘‘bonding’’ or ‘‘bridging’’ characteristics (Putnam, 2000; Woolcock and Narayan, 2000). There may be ways in which policy can support more positive interactions between ethnic groups and civil society. For example, the presence of organized forms of interethnic engagement can help to prevent ethnic conflict (Varshney, 2002). Deliberate nation-building policies can help to overcome divisive affiliations and promote interethnic collective action (Miguel, 2004). Yet some of Gramci’s earlier arguments echo today in the form of critiques of the neo-Tocquevillian tradition: structural obstacles prevent some groups from articulating their interests based on ethnocentrism or unfounded assumptions about associations and their effects (Edwards, 2004). Globalization and economic restructuring, political corruption, and power relations all remain key factors in whether or not civil society ‘‘works’’ and who is incorporated.
Cross-References
▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Buchanan, James McGill ▶ Civic Action ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gellner ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Shils ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society, Violence and War ▶ Identity
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▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Trust ▶ Uncivil society
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Eifert, B., Miguel, E., & Posner, D. (2009). Political competition and ethnic identification in Africa. Afrobarometer Working Paper, No. 89. Ekeh, P. (1992). The constitution of civil society in African history and politics. In B. Caron (Ed.), Proceedings of the symposium on democratic transition in Africa (pp. 187–212). Ibadan, Nigeria: CREDU. Escobar, A., & Alvarez, S. (1992). The making of social movements in Latin America. Boulder, CO: Westview. Fatton, R. Jr. (1995). Africa in the age of democratization: The civic limitations of civil society. African Studies Review, 38(2), 67–100. Fearon, J. D. (2003). Ethnic structure and cultural diversity by country. Journal of Economic Growth, 8(2), 195–222. Fearon, J., & Laitin, D. (1996). Explaining interethnic cooperation. American Political Science Review, 90(4), 715–735. Fearon, J., & Laitin, D. (2000). Violence and the social construction of ethnic identity. International Organization, 54(4), 845–877. Fearon, J. D. & Laitin, D. (2003). Ethnicity, insurgency, and civil war, American Political Science Review, 97(1), 75–90. Fenton, S. (2003). Ethnicity. Cambridge: Polity. Finlay, C. J. (2004). Hume’s theory of civil society. European Journal of Political Theory, 3(4), 369–392. Fisher, J. (1998). Non governments: NGOs and the political development of the third world. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Fowler, A. (1991). The role of NGOs in changing state–society relations: Perspectives from Eastern and Southern Africa. Development Policy Review, 9, 53–84. Fox, J. (1994). The difficult transition from clientelism to citizenship. World Politics, 46(2), 151–171. Fraser, N. (1992). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 109–142). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Frentzel-Zagorska, J. (1990). Civil society in Poland and Hungary. Soviet Studies, 42, 759–777. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books. Gellner, E. (1995). The importance of being modular? In J. Hall (Ed.), Civil society: Theory, history, comparison. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell. Gramsci, A., Hoare, Q., & Smith, G. N. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Guarnizo, L. E., Portes, A., & Haller, W. (2003). Assimilation and transnationalism: Determinants of transnational political action among contemporary migrants. The American Journal of Sociology, 108(6), 1211–1225. Habermas, J. (1992). Further reflections on the public sphere. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 421–461). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1998). Between parts and norms: Contributions to a discourse theory of law and democracy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habyarimana, J., Humphreys, M., Posner, D. N., & Weinstein, J. M. (2007). Why does ethnic diversity undermine public goods provision? American Political Science Review, 101, 709–725. Hadenius, A., & Uggla, F. (1996). Making civil society work, promoting democratic development: What can States and donors do? World Development, 24(10), 1621–1639. Hall, J. A. (1995). Civil society: Theory, history, comparison. Cambridge: Polity. Heinrich, V. (2007). CIVICUS global survey of the State of civil society. Bloomfield, CT: CIVICUS.
Hodgkinson, V. A., & Foley, M. W. (2003). The civil society reader. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Horowitz, D. L. (1985). Ethnic groups in conflict. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hulme, D., & Edwards, M. (Eds.) (1997). NGOs, states and donors: Too close for comfort? London: Macmillan. Hutchinson, J. (2000). Ethnicity and modern nations. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 23, 651–669. Hutchinson, J., & Smith, A. D. (1996). Ethnicity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kaldor, M. (2003). Global civil society: An answer to war. Cambridge: Polity. Kasfir, N. (1998). Civil society, the State and democracy in Africa. Commonwealth and Comparative Studies, 36(2), 123–149. Keane, J. (1988). Despotism and democracy: The origins and development of the distinction between civil society and the state 1750– 1850. In J. Keane (Ed.), Civil society and the state (pp. 35–72). New York: Verso. Khwaja, A. I. (2000). Can good projects succeed in bad communities?: Collective action in the Himalayas, Harvard University, Unpublished manuscript. Knack, S. & Keefer, P. (1997). Does social capital have an economic payoff? A country investigation. IRIS Working Paper 197, University of Maryland at College Park, College Park. Layton, R. (2006). Order and anarchy: Civil society, social disorder and war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lonsdale, J. (1994). Moral ethnicity and political tribalism. In P. Kaarsholm & J. Hultin (Eds.), Inventions and boundaries: Historical and anthropological approaches to the study of ethnicity and nationalism (pp. 130–150). Denmark: Institute for Development Studies, Roskilde University. Mauro, P. (1995). Corruption and growth. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110(3), 681–712. Mercer, C. (2002). NGOs, civil society and democratization: A critical review of the literature. Progress in Development Studies, 2(1), 5–22. Miguel, E. (2004). Tribe or nation? Ethnicity and public goods provision in Kenya versus Tanzania. World Politics, 56, 327–362. Miguel, E., & Gugerty, M. K. (2005). Ethnic diversity, social sanctions, and public goods in Kenya. Journal of Public Economics, 89, 2325–2368. Mouzelis, N. P. (1995). Modernity, late development, and civil society. In J. A. Hall (Ed.), Civil society: Theory, history, comparison. Cambridge: Polity. Ndegwa, S. (1996). The two faces of civil society: NGOs and politics in Africa. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Ndegwa, S. (1997). Citizenship and ethnicity: An examination of two transition moments in Kenyan politics. American Political Science Review, 91(3), 599–616. Oliver, J. E., & Wong, J. (2003). Intergroup prejudice in multiethnic settings. American Journal of Political Science, 47(4), 567–582. Olson, M. (1982). The rise and decline of nations: Economic growth, stagflation, and social rigidities. New Haven: Yale University Press. Olzak, S. (1992). The dynamics of ethnic competition and conflict. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Orvis, S. (2001). Civil society in Africa or African civil society? Journal of Asian and African Studies, 36(1), 17–38. Oxhorn, P. (1995). From controlled inclusion to coerced marginalization: The struggle for civil society in Latin America. In J. A. Hall (Ed.), Civil society: Theory, history, comparison. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Civil Society and Gender Portes, A. (2007). Migration, development, and segmented assimilation: A conceptual review of the evidence. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 610(1), 73–97. Posner, D. N. (2004a). Measuring ethnic fractionalization in Africa. American Journal of Political Science, 48(4), 849–863. Posner, D. N. (2004b). The political salience of cultural difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas are allies in Zimbabwe and enemies in Malawi. American Journal of Political Science, 98(4), 525–545. Posner, D. N. (2005). Institutions and ethnic origin in Africa. Cambridge/ New York: Cambridge University Press. Putnam, R. D., Leonardi, R., & Nanetti, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. D. (1995a). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78. Putnam, R. D. (1995b). Tuning in, tuning out: The strange disappearance of social capital in America. PS: Political Science and Politics, 28(4), 664–683. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rabushka, A., & Shepsle, K. A. (1972). Politics in plural societies: A theory of democratic instability. Columbus, OH: Charles Merriam. Rohrschneider, R. & Dalton, R. J. (2002). A Global Network? Transnational Cooperation among Environmental Groups. Journal of Politics, 64, 510–533. Rudolph, L., & Rudolph, S. (1967). The modernity of tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shils, E. (1957). Primordial, personal, sacred and civil ties. British Journal of Sociology, 8(2), 130–145. Shils, E. (2003). The virtue of civil society. In V. A. Hodgkinson & M. W. Foley (Eds.), The civil society reader. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Stolle, D., & Rochon, T. R. (1998). Are all associations alike? Member diversity, associational type, and the creation of social capital. American Behavioral Scientist, 42, 47–65. Tavits, M. (2005). The development of stable party support: Electoral dynamics in post-communist Europe. American Journal of Political Science, 49(2), 283–298. Trager, L. (1998). The politics of primary patriotism – home-town linkages and local development in South-Western Nigeria: Whose agenda? What impact? Africa, 68(3), 360–383. Varshney, A. (2001). Ethnic Conflict and Civic Civil Society: India and Beyond, World Politics, 53, 362–398. Varshney, A. (2004), Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life, New Haven: Yale University Press. Vogel, A. (2006). Who’s making global civil society: Philanthropy and US empire in world society. The British Journal of Sociology, 57(4), 635–655. Wesolowski, W. (1995). The nature of social ties and the future of postcommunist society: Poland after solidarity. In J. A. Hall (Ed.), Civil society: Theory, history, comparison. Cambridge: Polity. Wollebaek, D., & Selle, P. (2002). Does Participation in Voluntary Associations Contribute to Social Capital? The Impact of Intensity, Scope, and Type. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 31, 32–61. Wood, G. (1997). States without citizens: The problem of the franchise state. In D. Hulme & M. Edwards (Eds.), NGOs, states and donors: Too close for comfort? (pp. 79–92). London: Macmillan. Woolcock, M., & Narayan, D. (2000). Social capital: Implications for development theory, research, and policy. World Bank Research Observer, 15(2), 225–249.
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Civil Society and Gender HAKAN SECKINELGIN London School of Economics, London, UK
Introduction The relationship between civil society and gender can be observed in a number of fields. The relationship between civil society and women has a long history. It can be traced back to the antislavery movement in the eighteenth century where many women supported and developed strategies for advocacy through their churches. Also, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century witnessed the suffragettes women’s movement both in the United States and in the United Kingdom advocating electoral equality with men. Women were also active in many nationalist movements in the Middle East during the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. The relationship further developed with the peace activism of the second part of the twentieth century. Here one of the most important arenas was activism against nuclear weapons. The Greenham Common protests of women in the United Kingdom from 1981 onwards are emblematic of the relationship between civil society and gender (Harford and Hopkins, 1984).
Definition Gender in this context means socially constructed and attributed roles of being man and woman in a society. These positions are the representation of relative value attributed to the status of women ad men in that society. They establish norms of regulating social relations too. Civil society has many definitions and conceptualizations. One definition that is broad enough to cover some of the differences is the definition used by the Centre for Civil Society, at London School of Economics: ‘‘Civil society refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes, and values. In theory, its institutional forms are distinct from those of the state, family, and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family, and market are often complex, blurred, and negotiated. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors, and institutional forms, varying in their degree of formality, autonomy, and power. Civil societies are often populated by organisations such as registered charities, development nongovernmental organisations, community groups, women’s organisations, faith-based organisations, professional associations, trades unions,
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self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions, and advocacy groups’’ (http://www.lse.ac.uk/ collections/CCS/pdf/CCSDL_LeafletJuly06.pdf).
Historical Background Recent developments in the relationship between civil society and gender can be analytically mapped into three areas. The reason to consider these three areas is to highlight both how conceptualizations of civil society have influenced women and how women’s movements have framed the civil society discussions. The first area is the relationship linked to the reemergence of civil society debates in the late 1980s due to the activism and struggles against communist regimes in the Eastern Europe and authoritarian regimes in Latin America (Einhorn and server, 2003; Tobar, 2003). The participation of various women’s organizations in these struggles identified women with the political activism towards regime change. In a number of Latin American countries the valorization of motherhood as the grounds for political activism enhanced women’s participation for social change (Arditti, 1999). The second area is the expanding use of civil society models as organizational innovations by national and international policy makers in their developmentrelated interventions in many countries. The emergence of many women’s groups in this process since the late 1980s has created a large number of organizations that can be seen under the nongovernmental organizations rubric across both Africa and Asia (Al-Ali, 2003; Tripp). The third area is the emergence of women’s activism within international organizations. In this field one of the most important international organizational platforms has been the United Nations itself. It has provided a space for many nongovernmental women’s organizations to develop, pursue, and implement pro-women policies across the world. This is evident in a series of UN-based debates and processes leading to a number of important conventions. The beginning of this process can be traced back to the 1975 First World Conference on Women in Mexico. The 1985 Cairo and 1995 Beijing conference are also important milestones in relation to women’s international activism. Follow-up procedures established for monitoring and reviewing the progress in the implementation of the conventions provided further space for international women’s activism. Another area within the UN is the women’s activism within the Security Council. Here the main aim was to establish women’s vulnerabilities, including violence against women during conflicts, as a central part of the UN’s peace and security agenda. The outcome of this process was the adoption of the Security Council’s resolution 1325 that recognized
women’s vulnerabilities and established priorities for dealing with them in UN missions (True-Frost, 2007). The process presents one of the junctures where women’s international peace activism, built by localized experiences of war, violence, and struggle to participate in peace processes, impacted on international organizations and the ways they engage with civil society. These areas demonstrate that women are active in civil society and in many cases their social activities create major reference points for understanding civil society activity in many countries. These processes also show that there is a great diversity in the women’s activism. In particular looking at the history of the UN Women conventions it is possible to understand the diversity of views that are employed for claiming women’s rights and equality. Another common ground in most of these areas is the attempt to claim rights for the women from a political authority dominated by men. As a result most of the relationships articulated between civil society and gender are discussed as a way of understanding women’s role in civil society and the success of the feminist politics in the last few decades in claiming equal rights for women. There is no doubt that feminist politics have been very central in many struggles to identify and fight problems faced by many women in many societies. The situation also raises an empirical and theoretical question as to the link between gender and women and their influence on civil society. If one takes gender to represent the socially constructed positions attributed to men and women in a given society, then the gender perspective needs also to account for the position of men and what happens to it as a result of the women’s activism within civil society. Furthermore, it requires one to ask about the ways norms and values have been instrumental in the civil society change on gender lines, because of the above mentioned activist movements. These questions remain open and require further research. More generally, these questions require us to unpack the relationship between civil society and gender to understand the interconstitution of gender and civil society as a space for social action.
Key Issues There are many articulations of civil society as a concept both in sociology and in political theory. Many definitions conceptualize civil society from a more structural functionalist position as a social space which is located between other social spheres, such as the state, market, and the family. In these articulations civil society is seen in various forms as a balancing factor in relation to other actors. Here the emphasis is on the kinds of organizations that can be observed in a given sociocultural context to assess the
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nature of civil society. Another way of thinking about civil society is from the position of a structure and agency relationship. Here the focus is on social relations that are constitutive of politics. The analysis is on how social relations are negotiated at the level of everyday exchanges in the society. The point is to acknowledge the existence of the structures and to see how they are constituted by people’s actions and how, in due course, the organizational world and people interconstitute each other in a given society. In this manner the conceptualization of civil society focuses on the relations that inform social action rather than prioritizing the existence of a distinct space that can be recognized as civil society. Such views have also helped analysts to understand non-western cultures and contribute to the debate in many different ways. In many of these debates there is an implicit assumption on the relationship between public and private spheres. In the western political tradition many civil society discussions there is a reference to public action, which takes place in public sphere, and life within families is considered private. At times civil society in its many variations is about getting out of the family, the private sphere, with its norms and values seen as limiting the individual (Cahoone, 2002). In some variations, for instance in Hegel’s arguments on civil society, the family is not included since he considers the family as a unit without much conflict (Howell, 2006: 5). Activities within the family sphere are considered distinct from the public sphere. No doubt that the designation of boundaries between public and private spheres varies across different societies. In many cases sociocultural norms and values underpinned by law, both as legislation and customary forms, provide the operational infrastructure for the relation between the public and the private. These norms and values establish boundaries between public and private spheres and also decide or regulate a designated category of actors’ participation in the public sphere and civil society. It is in this context that gender norms and values are central in underpinning a regulatory regime in the western traditions of civil society. Here the public sphere is considered to be a space for men’s activities outside the family, while women are located within the private sphere of the family. As a result the politics in the public sphere is about the politics of men, since they are the legitimate actors in this domain. Women’s rights and claims are mediated by the male members of the household. According to Cohen and Arato, the Hegelian tradition about the distinctness of civil society from family is also about regulating gender relations in the society. They argue that only the family’s ‘‘(male) head enters the world of civil society’’ (1997: 628–631). Jude Howell also points out that this gender-based distinction, which regulates different
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genders participation in the civil society, is still common place in some contemporary discussions (2006: 5). This tradition presents a limiting frame for civil society debate. Civil society is considered to be a secular space that is not linked with state ideology or with the specific norms, values, and attachments of a family. People (men) are expected to develop values differentiated from those particularistic feelings, towards the more socially transcendental norms and values relevant to everyone in the society. Such an expectation also implicitly suggests that women cannot take this step in that they are seen as more sentimental. Here Howell’s observation about the link between the story on the formation of civil society and how it implicitly impacts women’s positions is interesting: theorists ‘‘argued that the space and organizational forms of civil society emerged in the context of capitalist industrialization. By characterizing civil society as a modern category beyond the intimate ties of family civil society theorists not only contribute to the reification of the particular spheres. . . . but also fail to investigate the way these spheres are intertwined through blood-bound social relations, cultural norm sand values’’ (2006: 9). Another outcome of this limiting civil society to the sphere outside family has been to limit women’s participation in social change and to link their sociopolitical interests to their male relatives in the family. As a result civil society in general must be seen as an essentially gendered space where a patriarchal set of gender norms regulates participation and behavior within that space. The nature of these gendered norms and values must be also considered from a Gramscian perspective on civil society. If civil society is considered as a platform for hegemonic negotiations among various power holders in the society then the boundaries of gendered participation in that space will also reflect these actors’ interests and values. In the same vein the emergence of a gendered public/private sphere distinction which locks women into the private sphere is also the outcome of such processes. These hegemonic powers vary from society to society and at times include religious groups, military, judiciary, and institutions of education. Furthermore the outcomes of hegemonic negotiations on gendered limits of public sphere are maintained by institutionalizing these limits within various spheres. The ongoing debates on headscarves, for instance, in France and Turkey are interesting examples in this area (Seckinelgin, 2006). Civil society located within the framing based on the distinction of public and private represents a particular case in which patriarchal norms and decision making processes are taken to be guiding principles and participation in political discussion is naturalized as a male concern. While women
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might be excluded from these negotiations and political discussions, their lives are still framed by these debates. In other words they live lives determined and confined according to the interests of the dominant male ideology within the society. This also means that not all men agree with this but still can comply with it (Connell, 1995; Carver, 1998). Civil society in its approach to women becomes top-down and prescriptive. Civil society groups tend to be interested in maintaining a set of social norms in their work which focus on, for instance, the wellbeing of women at home, women’s acceptable sexual behavior and sexuality in a society. This confining quality of civil society together with the overall sociopolitical framing of gender relations came under severe and sustained attack from various forms of feminisms. Their motto ‘‘personal is political’’ is an important statement. It immediately politicizes relations in what has been ignored as the private sphere, family. It highlights that there can be different interests within the family and these cannot be presented only by the head of family in the public sphere. The impact of this strategy to highlight and use personal experience to appear in public life has been very effective. Many of the achievements that were outlined in the opening were linked with this strategy. Another aspect of this move was the development of feminist epistemologies that utilize the personal as a research tool (Jackson, 2006). This has provided an alternative research agenda to challenge some of the conceptual framings discussed above. In this way academic work and activism gender framings have been challenged both nationally and internationally. The analytical division provided at the beginning is relevant here. By the valorization of womanhood in terms of fighting communism and authoritarian regimes, the personal was valorized as a part of the debate, from a part of the society which had previously been ignored, family, or assumed to have converging interests with the public declarations of the authorities. Here, in the context of valorization of motherhood in a number of Latin American countries, there is an even more direct challenge to the established hegemonic discourses of the church in these countries. In terms of the second area, the emergence of women in developing countries as public actors participating in many areas also represents a shift in focus on thinking about women’s needs and addressing their needs by creating spaces for them to think how to solve problems in their own ways. For instance, the emergence of micro-finance institutions in many countries allows women’s emergence as public actors. In a number of African countries women were then able to move on to political life and to gain influential positions. The third issue in relation to the advocacy within the international organizations, it also demonstrates the emergence of women’s experiences as tools for change at
the global level. Here another interesting aspect is the global coalition building among various actors as global civil society. For instance, by utilizing women’s experiences in conflicts and war an alternative gender view on war and peace theory has been developed (Cockburn, 2007; Elshtain, 1995). In this process the feminist activism within the Security Council was successful due to the relations that they have established within the UN bureaucracy. Here the activism of the feminist bureaucrats called ‘‘femocrats’’ was central to the success (Thomson, 2001). This can be seen as an indication of how a cross social status, ethnicity, and nationality coalition was possible for resolution 1325 to be established.
Future Directions The analysis here highlights central tensions that remain in the relationship between civil society and gender. It is clear that there are large numbers of women who are creating civil society space, activism, and who are taking part in many other groups’ activities. However, it is not clear how far these have changed the patriarchal instincts that are foundational to western thinking about civil society. This presents a central challenge both to the conceptualization of this relationship and to civil society activity globally. While women have emerged as important actors within civil societies in the west, they seem also to have located their politics with the patriarchal framing. This position has global implications. While this move is linked with the particular politics of appearance in public as an actor, it also established an overall discourse about women’s activism and issues as a global framework for civil societies and women across the globe. It is possible to talk about an internal tension within women’s activism between universalistic instincts and the motto ‘‘personal is political.’’ This creates a paradox whereby a liberating social activism in one context can become a top-down prescriptive solution in another. This is due to the fact that not every society has public/private sphere distinctions similar to those which have been foundational in the western thinking on civil society. The most central problem is the focus on women. Most discussions in this area highlight the success and failure of civil society in relation to allowing or creating new spaces for women to have a voice in civil society and in the overall society. While this is important and central, it is not clear whether or not the success stories that have been mentioned have changed the overall gender framing of civil society thinking.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci
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▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Social Movements ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits ▶ United Nations
References/Further Readings Al-Ali, N. (2003). Gender and civil society in the Middle East. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 4(2), 216–232. Arditti, R. (1999). Searching for life: The grandmothers of the Plaza De Mayo and the disappeared children of Argentina. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Cahoone, L. E. (2002). Civil society: The conservative meaning of liberal politics. London: Blackwell. Carver, T. (1998). A political theory of gender: Perspectives on the ‘‘universal subject’’. In V. Randall & G. Waylen (Eds.), Gender, politics and the State. London: Routledge. Cockburn, C. (2007). From where we stand: War, women’s activism and feminist analysis. London: Zed Books. Cohen, J. L., & Arato, A. (1997). Civil society and political theory. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. London: Polity. Einhorn, B., & Sever, C. (2003). Gender and civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 4(2), 163–190. Elshtain, J. B. (1995). Women and war. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Harford, B., & Hopkins S. (1984). Greenham common: Women at the wire. London: Women’s Press. Howell, J. (2006). Gender and civil society. Global civil society Year Book. London: Sage. Jackson, C. (2006). Feminism spoken here: Epistemologies for interdisciplinary development research. Development and Change, 37(3), 525–547. Seckinelgin, H. (2006). Civil society between the state and society: Turkish women with Muslim headscarves? Critical Social Policy, 26(4), 748–769. Thompson, M. (2001). Femocrats and babes: Women and power. Australian Feminist Studies, 16(3), 193–208. Tobar, M. S. (2003). Chilean feminism(s) in the 1990s paradoxes of an unfinished transition. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 4(2), 256–280. Tripp, A. M. Women in movement transformations in African political landscapes. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 4(2), 233–255. True-Frost, C. (2007). The security council and norm consumption. International Law and Politics, 40, 115–217.
Civil Society and Religion MARK JUERGENSMEYER University of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA
Introduction Civil society and religious communities have always had an ambivalent relationship. Some would argue that
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religious ideas and institutions have never been part of civil society – that the Enlightenment notion includes only voluntary civic associations and a sense of citizenship separate from the coercive influences of state and commerce. To a large extent leaders of religious organizations have tacitly agreed, often – but not always – siding with the power of the state. But religious movements often have played an antiauthoritarian role in mobilizing a population against perceived corrupt elements of the establishment. During the Protestant era of the social gospel in nineteenth century United States, religious institutions played a powerful role in movements of social reform. In the twentieth century churches became involved in movements for the prohibition of alcohol, women’s rights, and civil rights. In Latin America, Jesuits and parish priests joined liberation theology movements for social justice.
Definition At the end of the twentieth century and the first decade of the twenty-first, religious movements were affected by currents of global civil society. Often the role of religious activists was stridently antiauthoritarian and opposed to modern organized society, and religion became identified with the culture and politics of the hostile antiurban village. Religion often appeared in the news as part of the angry local tribalism of Jihad that Benjamin Barber identified as the opponent to the homogenous global culture of McWorld (Barber, 1995). But at the same time, some religious activists have played a more active role in social change, and faith-based nongovernment organizations (NGOs) have played an important role in global social services. Even the religious opposition to civil society has been nuanced. Some of the most strident activists – such as militant Sikh supporters of the Khalistani movement in India – have wanted a new religious state, a sort of Sikh version of Shi’ite Iran. Others, like the Christian militia in the United States and bin Laden’s al Qaeda network, have envisioned a transnational religious entity, a kind of religious civil society to supplant the secular one. Other forms of religious opposition are far less strident. Prophetic religious voices have called for moderation, justice, and environmental protection, joining those of other concerned civic citizens in speaking out against the unbridled excesses of civic capitalism and an indiscriminate popular consumer culture. Some faith-based NGOs have been issue-oriented, urging civil rights, social justice, and freedom of religion. These religious activists do not blow things up, but when it comes to the contemporary social order they do demur: they seek a better world than the one of civic consumerism. So even when
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religion is the enemy of the establishment, its opposition has been varied, and its voices have been diverse. Although often religion has been a divisive element within society, religious ideas and institutions have also played a positive role in helping to provide a basis for social and cultural integration. Religious communities have provided the understanding and tolerance necessary for civil society’s multicultural communities. And at times it has offered alternative visions of civic values of its own.
Key Issues The fact is that religion is a part of civil society in many ways. Whatever civil society is – whether one conceives it as the homogenizing forces of a national community, or a sense of citizenship with transnational dimensions – the globalizing trends within contemporary societies have led to new cultural patterns and shared values that have affected religion along with everything else. This civic interaction of people and information around the world has produced new forms of cultural syncretism that contain religious sensitivities and moral values as one ingredient. This means that the religious factor in civil society is often a puzzling one. Its role – though significant – is frequently contradictory. In some cases it provides the resources for shared values – including a universal sensibility toward spirituality and the elements of a civic ethic – that provide the cultural basis for transnational laws and regulations, agencies of economic and social accountability, and a sense of civic citizenship. In some cases it helps to ease the cultural difficulties experienced in multicultural societies by providing the shared values that allow peoples of divergence cultures to live together in harmony. In other cases it sounds a prophetic note by warning against the superficial aspects of a homogenous civic culture. And in extreme cases it also fosters ideologies of rebellion that embolden its proponents to reject civil society and reassert traditional allegiances, sometimes with quite violent methods. How can one make sense of this religious ambivalence to civil society? Part of the analytic difficult resides in the terms ‘‘religion’’ and ‘‘civil society’’ in the context of contemporary civic social change. ‘‘Religion,’’ for instance, can mean the expressions of particular organized communities of faith, but it can also imply a more widely shared sentiment of morality and spirituality. The term, ‘‘civil society’’ can point not only to nongovernmental service organizations but also to a broader sense of civic citizenship, both in specific national societies and in transnational communities of global civil society. So there are both narrow and broad interpretations of both of these terms.
But whether one is speaking about the role of religion in civic civil society in the narrow or broad definitions of these terms, there are common elements. In each case one can assume that there are forms of culture that are global, that there is a transnational community that in some way nurtures a civil society on a global scale, and that religion is a factor in this civic culture and its attendant civil society. Religion in the broadest sense is most conducive to civic civil society when it is conceived in the broadest sense of those terms, but religion’s civic role cannot be placed into a single mold. There are at least six ways in which religion plays a role in civil society: Religious Identities. Traditional societies gain much of their sense of internal cohesion and cultural integrity from religious culture. But people do not stay put, and they take their religious identities with them. The remarkable mobility of the world’s population in an era of mass transportation and easy communications means that most religious communities are now dispersed across the planet. This creates both difficulties and new possibilities as diverse religious groups occupy the same civil society. On one level, religious culture provides a strands of multiculturalism in pluralist societies. But religious commitments also allow adherents to go beyond the superficial acceptance of multiculturalism and inquire into the religious conditions for cultural tolerance in civil society. This suggests that religion, in such changing contexts, can adapt to pluralistic contexts and help to undergird the unity of multicultured societies. Civic Values. Some of the traditional values of religion – including honesty, justice, fair play, tolerance, and respect for others – are necessary for the maintenance of any society, perhaps even more so for a multicultural society that is not dominated by any one tradition. In a civic culture the shared values of different religious traditions can provide a collective sense of virtuous conduct in public life. Virtually every religious tradition embraces the concept of hospitality towards those who are different, and there are shared legal assumptions that could undergird a world legal system. Religious attitudes towards property and place can be antithetical to a sense of cross-cultural citizenship but also in some instances enhance it. Social Criticism. These same values of morality in public life can be marshaled by critics of society when they perceive that these values are being undermined. Hence religion can be opposed to aspects of society that are seen as unjust or immoral, at times playing a prophetic role. Socially-conscious religious groups have been active in critiques of what they regard as exploitive and unjust policies in the neoliberal global economic system,
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and often play a role in assisting developing countries that are often left out of the successes of the global economy. Guerilla Antiauthoritarianism. In extreme cases religion can support the position of enemies of a social order deemed so immoral and corrupt as to be beyond reform, or an international force that it regards as oppressively imposing the values and power of one country over the others. This is the position associated with many of the most strident religious activists, including Christian militia in the United States, and Muslim jihadi activists in the Middle East. Acts of terrorism are sometimes associated with these religiously-motivated guerilla antiauthoritarian activists. Though these radical religious activists oppose the dominant social order they also imagine a more just political order structured along traditional religious lines. In this sense the radical religious politics of the contemporary age involves a contest between opposing views of social order and in some cases, competing understandings of civil society. Alternative civil society. As noted above, the criticism of civil society often contains alternative visions of a just order and a different understanding of the righteous relationship between the citizenry and the government. There are, indeed, many ways to conceive civil society – and for that reason, many ‘‘civil societies.’’ Religion often conveys the differences among these views. For instance, some Islamist groups resist what they regard as the Americanized version of civil society and affirm the values of civic civil society in their own Islamic way. The Ayatollah Khomeini was animated over what he regarded as ‘‘Westoxification’’ – the inebriation of Western values – that he thought permeated Iranian society during the time of the Shah. The purpose of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 was to transform Iranian social values and create a new kind of civil society as much as it was intended to provide a regime change of government rules. A less extreme example of a culturally based alternative civil society is in the efforts of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew to utilize traditional Chinese Confucian values to develop a new kind of civic culture for the island nation. Civic Religiosity. One of the most interesting alternative visions of civil society is a world in which the shared sense of spirituality and morality forms a new kind of civil religion. The blending of American political heritage and religious images in the United States, for instance, has produced a civil religion that is often expressed in the pious platitudes of politicians and in the religious character of national patriotism. A similar pattern of religious nationalism exists in other countries. In the era of global civil society, there are also spiritual and ethical
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dimensions of an emerging global civic culture. Hence it is useful to inquire not only whether there is religion in civil society but also whether there might be a religious dimension to civil society. It is possible, therefore, to identify the diverse forms that religion takes in responding and relating to civil society. At the same time there are central issues that weave through all over these different forms of religion in civil society. One of the most important of these issues is the question posed at the outset of this essay: Is religion good for civil society or its foe? The easy way of responding is to say that it is both. But the more difficult response is to determine what conditions make the religious factor conducive to civil society and what situations make it antithetical to it. As Abdullahi An-Na’im puts it, the issue is what kind of role religion can play in civil society – whether it can enter into a kind of ‘‘tactical cooperation’’ or ‘‘reluctant partnership,’’ or whether it will resist civil society and persist in standing outside it, providing its own alternative communities. In an increasingly multicultural world, religion’s role could go either way, depending on the religion and on the perceived character of the social context around it. Religion could foster shared values or become an agent of schism. In some cases, civil society will have to mediate between warring religious camps and determine which, if either, it will allow to play a dominant social role. Legal systems could provide one location where religion and civil society interact. Since the establishment of civil order on a large social scale requires a shared moral basis for law, this implies a faith in justice that could be supported by all. Such a shared ethical and spiritual sensibility could provide the basis for a civil religion and moral community beyond the limitations of a particular religious community. The public theologies of particular faiths could address the moral concerns of a whole society – even multicultural ones – as well as traditional communities. Religious attitudes towards property and citizenship can also shape the ability of groups to transcend the defense of particular allegiances and locations and provide the basis for a sense of civic community and a shared responsibility for the environment. As we have noted, religion can also play a prophetic role in rejecting the oppressive features of an unjust social order that may permeate a civil society. In some instances religion may be identified with movements not only for justice but also for mercy, as in the case of the religious support for relief of international debts. When religious activists do reject civil society this may be a complicated matter and may, in many cases, lead not only to escape and withdrawal from
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society but to innovative new visions of a civil society in which religion plays a more dominant role. This tension between the parochialism of religion and its potentially civic reach is at the heart of religion’s ambivalence towards civil society. Case studies demonstrate that these issues are part of the dynamics of particular communities in which religion plays a role in alternative notions of civil societies. In one Islamic movement in Egypt, for instance, radical religious politics have been transformed into more moderate forms that are compatible with secular democracy through a process that the movement calls ‘‘political learning.’’ Sometimes these forms point towards a new understanding of the role that religion can play in civil society. A study of a multicultural religious environment in an urban American setting showed that religious leaders were able to move beyond the superficial homogenous secular culture of multiculturalism and provide a kind of interfaith-based notion of the shared spiritual values in civil public space. It is therefore not possible to provide a simple yes-orno answer to the question of whether religion is good for civil society. Though one might think that Islam does not allow for social change, tolerance, and democratic ideals, the example of the case above is a dramatic illustration of a situation in which it is Muslim leaders who are at the forefront of acceptance and social change. This Islamic discussion raises an even larger question: whether it is possible to profile any religion. Do the histories and cultures of religious traditions define religions in predictable ways, or do the diversity of religious strands, the changing interpretations of religious tenets, and the various social settings in which religious communities exist make religions so malleable as to be nigh near unpredictable? Social scientists like to deal with known sets of values, but often religious stances are not so easy to predict.
Future Directions Religion interacts with the forces of civil society in various ways and plays a role in both national cultures and an emerging global civil society. It is fair to conclude that when religion is seen primarily in limited organizational terms, and when civil society is viewed primarily as voluntary associations for public service, the two may be on different tracks. In the narrow view of religion, the values of particular communities of religion may indeed clash with the wider social milieu. But when religion is conceived in its widest sense, as a stratum of spiritual sensibility and shared moral responsibility, it is congenial with the notion of civil society in its broadest sense – the idea of civic citizenship.
In this latter case we might envision not a clash between religion and civil society but the possibility of a coalescence between them. Since the world’s religious traditions have abundant resources for thinking about tolerance, harmony, and human dignity on a civic scale, religion can be seen as a deep repository of shared moral values and social order. No one tradition – certainly not contemporary Western consumer-oriented popular culture – has a monopoly on a vision of shared values and the family of humanity. Hence there is every reason to expect that members of all religious traditions are potentially participants in civil societies within their own national communities, within multicultural societies, and within a global world civilization. This is the interesting possibility raised by the political scientist, Susanne Rudolph in her edited book, Transnational Religion and Fading States (Rudolph and Pescatori, 1997). In her introductory essay she speculates about the future of religion in the global age. She presents a prophetic vision that some day the emergence of a global civic society will lead to new forms of shared morality, spirituality, and social values. In Rudolph’s vision, a future generation of global citizens will look back on such widely venerated figures of today as Mohandas Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Bishop Tutu, and the Dalai Lama and see them as civic saints. They may be viewed in the future as the harbingers of a civic spirituality in a new global civil society. At the same time, the hostile attitudes towards civil society persist among many religious activists. Hence it is safe to conclude that all the options are open – from religion as supportive of guerilla antiauthoritarian social movements to religion as a harbinger of a new civic religiosity. As the world changes the role of religion in civic civil society also evolves, often in innovative and surprising ways. It is not inconceivable, then, that one religious response to civil society will be a new form of civic religion, as both religion and civil society become transformed within a global age.
Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Dalai Lama ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Gandhi, Mohandas ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Mother Teresa ▶ Religious Organizations ▶ Values
Civil Society and Social Capital in Australia and New Zealand
References/Further Readings Berger, P. L., & Huntington, S. P. (Eds.) (2002). Many globalizations: Cultural diversity in the contemporary world. New York: Oxford University Press. Herbert, D. (2003). Religion and civil society: Rethinking public religion in the contemporary world. Aldershot, England: Ashgate Religion, Culture & Society Series. Juergensmeyer, M. (Ed.) (2006). Religion in global civil society. New York: Oxford University Press. Roof, W. C. (Ed.) (2007). Religious pluralism and civil society. Philadelphia: Annals of the American Academy of Religion. Rudolph, S. H., & Piscatori, J. (Eds.) (1997). Transnational religion and fading states. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Australia and New Zealand MARK LYONS1, GARTH NOWLAND-FOREMAN2 1 University of Technology Sydney, Lindfield, NSW, Australia 2 Unitec New Zealand, Auckland, New Zealand
Introduction Australia has been populated for around 60,000 years by aboriginal peoples from Asia who spread thinly over the continent. Organized into tribal and clan structures they spoke over 300 languages. By contrast, New Zealand is one of the most recently settled major landmasses. The first settlers were Eastern Polynesians who came probably in a series of migrations between 700 and 2,000 years ago (King, 2003). Europeans, mainly from the British Isles, first settled both countries at the end of the eighteenth century. By the middle of the nineteenth century several British colonies had been established around the Australian mainland, in Tasmania and the two islands of New Zealand. Over the next 50 years the population of these colonies grew greatly, the consequence of several major gold discoveries. Self government was negotiated and at the beginning of the twentieth century the five colonies on the Australian mainland and Tasmania federated to form Australia. New Zealand became a separate nation. Both countries gradually separated themselves from the influence of the British government. Between the 1880s and 1914 both countries saw the granting of male and then female suffrage, the emergence of trade union controlled labour parties, a consequent polarization of the polity along class based lines and the first governments anywhere
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to be formed by the labour movement. Australia and New Zealand were studied and praised by progressive Europeans as social laboratories. The nineteenth century settler societies that emerged in what were to become two nations reproduced and amplified the civic institutions and active civil society that characterized British society. Colley (1992: 88) identifies this as a time when voluntary associations were ‘‘breaking out like measles over the face of Britain and the rest of Europe.’’ Indeed, some of these organizations had previously ‘‘helped drive the colonial enterprise: missionary and emigration societies encouraged British intervention and then facilitated the movement of settlers [to New Zealand]’’ (Tennant et al., 2008: 6). Trade unions, friendly societies, cooperatives, mechanics institutes, sports clubs and a vast variety of hobby and interest groups proliferated. So too did business and professional associations. The better-off supported benevolent societies and hospitals for the poor. In the absence of an established church a great variety of Christian denominations fought for adherents in an increasingly skeptical populace. In those parts of Australia, especially along the east coast, where large numbers of Irish Catholic migrants mixed with people with English and Scottish ancestry, occasional outbursts of sectarian conflict sustained many denominational charities: hospitals, child and more general welfare services and, especially, Catholic schools. When, in the middle of the twentieth century, governments came to take over and expand hospitals and welfare services, they did not touch the existing denominational providers, but instead added to the subsidies many already received. In the 1960s government assistance was provided to nonprofit schools. Thus even today, on the east coast of Australia there is a stronger nonprofit provision of education, health, and welfare services than in the western parts or in New Zealand. The last 50 years of the twentieth century saw large changes in the shape of civil society in both Australia and New Zealand. The friendly societies were the first to shrink in the face of public provision of sickness, unemployment, and other benefits beginning with the passage of the New Zealand Social Security Act in 1938, followed by similar Australian legislation over the next 10 years. Then, beginning in the 1970s most large finance and insurance mutual associations succumbed to competition from for-profit enterprises, a process encouraged by government policy. In Australia, of the big mutuals, only hospitality clubs and credit unions survived unscathed into the twenty-first century. Trade unions and the major Christian denominations also lost adherents. Class based
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political parties ceased to be mass movements and were replaced by a variety of social movements: feminism, environmentalism, and various rights based movements. But many new forms of association emerged, in health, in the arts and among the growing immigrant populations from continental Europe, Asian, and Pacific countries. A major difference between civil society in Australia and New Zealand is the place of indigenous organizations in each country. In Australia, European settlement disrupted the way of life of the aboriginal peoples. Many died from introduced diseases or were killed; the remainder coerced into settlements. Only since the 1970s have government policies and the law come to recognize their prior settlement and continuing rights to land. There are now many thousands of aboriginal associations but most are in dependency relations with state and national governments. By contrast, in New Zealand, the strength of Maori social organization, and the encouragement of missionary societies, meant that settlers recognized their prior occupation and sought to purchase land and develop a treaty with Maori chiefs. The role then of indigenous Maori social organization in New Zealand has been identified as distinctive by international standards, not only in maintaining traditional kin-based associational forms – indeed with ‘‘renewed potency’’ since the later twentieth century – but also ‘‘participating in the organizations of mainstream society, bringing distinctive cultural perspectives to them, while borrowing some of their structural forms. . . . , result[ing] in distinctive forms of organization which do not readily fit internationally recognized nonprofit sector categories’’ (Tennant et al., 2008: 3). Today, 21 million Australians occupy a land mass of 7,692 million hectares, an extremely dry continent but one rich in minerals. Around 60% of Australians live in the five mainland state capital cities. Four million New Zealanders occupy just under 270 million more temperate hectares; almost one third in the North Island city of Auckland.
Civil Society In Australia and New Zealand the term civil society has no agreed meaning and little popular resonance. Michael Edwards (2004) has attempted to group the great variety of ways the term is used into three broad conceptions: associational life, the good society and the public sphere. All three can be found in the thin discussion of civil society in both countries. When it first emerged, in the 1990s, civil society was intertwined with the concept of social capital and barely moved beyond the pages of a few pamphlets. In 1994, Nick Greiner, an ex-Premier of New South Wales, in a conference
speech called for a renewal of ‘‘the institutions for common action’’ which relied on the instincts for voluntary collaboration and cited several well known voluntary associations. He championed these institutions and deplored the common polarization between the institutions of state and market. An expanded version of the speech, published by a right-leaning think tank (Greiner, 1995) cited many key American and British writers on these matters, such as Robert Putnam, Elinor Ostrom and David Green, but while Greiner talked of civil society, his preferred term for this set of institutions was civic capitalism. Social capital was described as an important institution for facilitating coordinated action. This idea of civil society as a third set of institutions between state and market received little attention. The powerful polarizing force of the conventional state/market dichotomy soon reasserted its influence. The first time civil society received popular attention in Australia was when the feminist commentator Eva Cox titled her 1995 Boyer lectures A Truly Civil Society (Cox, 1995). She argued for a stronger role for the state in preserving and growing the institutions of civility, especially the allocation of basic rights. She claimed these had been weakened by the growing power of markets. She too invoked social capital: a civil society was one that had strong social capital. At the same time the Business Roundtable, a major New Zealand right wing think-tank, commissioned From Welfare State to Civil Society: Towards Welfare that Works in New Zealand, from a visiting UK commentator and champion of friendly societies, David Green (1996). This sparked a considerable local debate – though one with little if any New Zealand content or analysis. Although Green argued that his philosophy was not individualistic, but based on a ‘‘rich view of community,’’ he essentially argued for greater private responsibility and a smaller role for the state, assuming greater voluntary activity would emerge to produce his vision of civil society. At the end of the decade a study for the Commonwealth Foundation, Civil Society and the New Millennium, used Michael Walzer’s formulation of civil society as a space for uncoerced citizen action. Based on an analysis of secondary data, focus groups and interviews the Australian report for this study noted a decline in the membership of many well-known associations and reported claims that the capacity for associational life was not as strong as it had been a generation ago and that alienation from government was growing. The report noted the growth of new forms of association and of political engagement and concluded that civil society was undergoing a transformation (Stewart-Weeks & Lyons, 1999). Four years later two prominent social scientists at a leading university, in final
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reflections at the conclusion of a multivolume study of Australia’s institutions regretted that they had not included any examination of Australia’s civil society (Brennan & Castles, 2002). The New Zealand research for the Commonwealth Foundation study noted a dearth of data on New Zealand associations, threats and opportunities for citizen engagement, and the relevance of concepts of social capital in reforming public policy as it related to civil society organizations and citizens (Bradford et al., 2001). The term civil society remains on the periphery of public discourse, available to be invoked in one or other of its conceptions. In 2004, the executive directors of two large umbrella organizations representing many church sponsored health and social service nonprofits edited a book entitled Church and Civil Society (Sullivan & Leppert, 2004). The context explained the title. Church sponsored nonprofits provide many health and social services in Australia. Many of these and other church leaders had become increasingly critical of Australian government policies and were in turn told by government ministers to keep out of the public sphere. The book was a claim that the churches contributed to a civil (i.e., a good) society and had a right to participate in wider public debates. The term civil society is used rarely to describe the sum or even a part of either country’s large and diverse nonprofit or third sector. Bradford et al. (2001: 84), for example find only a handful of authors using the term in the New Zealand literature up to that time. There is little understanding of the scope of the nonprofit sector, even among leaders of various parts of what some academics would describe as nonprofit sector or civil society. People talk loosely of NGOs, of not-for-profit organizations, of community groups and voluntary organizations, of private or nongovernment schools, of sports groups, of unions, of churches, of environment groups, of charities and of the community sector without ever seeking to provide definitional clarity and without trying to encompass them by reference to civil society or to any other overarching term (Lyons, 2001; Tennant et al., 2006). Increasingly leaders of nonprofit organizations providing social services claim to speak on behalf of the nonprofit sector, but examination of their claim reveals that they are speaking only for social service nonprofits. Civil society is rarely invoked by groups of nonprofit organizations to describe themselves. In 2006, the Australian Council of Trade Unions organized a meeting of national umbrella groups encompassing unions, environment groups, churches, and social service nonprofits to explore common grievances with government policies. It called itself the National Civil Society Dialogue (Australian
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Conservation Foundation, 2008). It meets annually, but has had little impact. In late 2008, anyone searching the ubiquitous Google website for ‘‘civil society’’ in Australia would first find a link to Civil Society, an agency that provided bands to music festivals!
Social Capital The concept of social capital has had a higher profile in Australia and New Zealand than civil society. It has been examined by many academics and taken up by governments and applied in many policy settings. But its popularity has been at the cost of conceptual clarity; it has been increasingly criticized and has now declined into infrequent use. The term social capital was already being used in sociology and education disciplines before Robert Putnam’s popularizing of the term in the mid-1990s. As a result there were a score of Australian articles using social capital as an identifier in the decade before Cox’s Boyer lectures gave it a wider public airing. In the next 3 years there were 69 articles (Winter, 2000). The range of topics are wide: the meaning of social capital, whether it is always a good thing or whether it can be found in discriminatory associations, whether it can be measured and whether government policies can strengthen its positive forms (Winter, 2000). Some of these studies were conceptual and sought to establish the importance of social capital by examples. They drew on focus groups and vignettes and were designed to explore strengths and weaknesses of social relations at the local level. Some of their authors had also contributed to the civil society literature and were interested in the well-springs of collective action (Norton et al., 1997; Stewart-Weeks & Richardson, 1998). Other work focussed on measurement. One of the most important of these was a demonstration that social capital could be operationalized and measured along different dimensions in different communities (Onyx et al., 1997; Onyx & Bullen, 2000). In New Zealand, there was also a particular interest in the Maori tradition of social capital, as a collectivist kin-based culture – for example, Williams & Robinson (2002). The potential that an understanding of social capital held for shaping more effective public policies generated considerable interest within and outside government. Robert Putnam was brought out to New Zealand in 1996 by some nonprofit activists and researchers. The intention of at least some is summed up in the title of a paper presented to an Institute of Policy Studies seminar the following year – ‘‘Bringing Back Balance: The Role of Social Capital in Public Policy.’’ The balance referred to in that paper included recognition of the importance of
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social as well as economic goals, of community as well as individual interests, and of the important place of ‘‘church, voluntary and other civic bodies’’ in society (Riddell, 1997: 13). Putnam spoke in private and public sessions with senior politicians, bureaucrats, and nonprofit leaders. With the direct interest and support of the then Prime Minister, Jim Bolger, high level policy work on the application of this concept was undertaken in a wide range of agencies – including those responsible for finance, health, conservation, justice, trade and industry, community development and local government. The Institute of Policy Studies sponsored workshops in 1997, 1998, and 2000 on aspects of social capital and public policy (Robinson, 1997, 1999 and 2002) Statistics New Zealand developed a framework for the measurement of social capital (Spellerberg, 2001). This surge of policy interest, however, was short-lived, as Bolger was replaced as Prime Minister in December 1997 by his own political party. Two factors led to his demise: perceptions that he was not tough enough in his dealings with a minor coalition partner and his use of ‘‘social capital’’ as the theme of his Leader’s Address to that years annual regional conferences of his political party’s members. In Australia, some of the interest in social capital was driven by a lively debate about the decline of rural communities and the associated emergence of One Nation, a populist movement with racist overtones that stole votes from all parties, especially the conservative coalition. Social capital was used to understand why some communities adjusted more readily to decline than others and to develop policies to strengthen communities. This work was most fully developed by the Victorian government. In 2001 and again 2002 the Australian Institute of Family Studies published papers proposing approaches to the measurement of social capital (Stone, 2001; Stone & Hughes, 2002). In 2003 the Australian government’s economic think-tank, the Productivity Commission published a paper on social capital arguing that while it was difficult for governments to grow social capital, government actions could diminish it and these should be avoided (Productivity Commission, 2003). In the following year the Australian Bureau of Statistics published a framework and a set of indicators for measuring social capital (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2004). Data on these indicators were collected by the ABS in its 2006 General Social Survey, but by the time results were released in 2007, interest in social capital had waned (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007a). In July 2008 the director of a leading university based social policy research centre observed that social capital ‘‘had been superseded in the political lexicon’’ and claimed that
it ‘‘has become an overburdened and tired expression with little meaning’’ (Katz, 2008).
Empirical Data One interpretation of civil society equates it with nonprofit associations. It has been estimated that there are around 700,000 nonprofit associations in Australia (Lyons et al., 1995). Of these only around 40,000 are what the ABS describes as being economically significant (in effect large enough to employ staff). According to a survey of a sample of these organizations conducted by the ABS in 2007, they employed 885,000 persons, or 8.6% of all employed persons. Their revenue was Au$74.5 billion. Of this 38% came from the sale of goods and services, 34% from government and 14% from fundraising and membership fees (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008). These economically active nonprofits were found in many industries. The sample was too small to allow much disaggregation, but 21% of total expenditure of Aus$68 billion was by nonprofits in education and research, 16% by those providing social services, another 16% by those providing culture or recreation, 14% by those in health and 13% by business and professional associations and unions. Nonprofit organizations provide a majority of social services and over 30% of children are educated in nonprofit schools. In both cases a majority of these nonprofit organizations have links to religious organizations. The best guide to Australia’s nonprofit sector is Lyons (2001). The size and economic value of New Zealand’s nonprofit sector was first systematically reported in Non-profit Institutions Satellite Account 2004 (Statistics New Zealand, 2007) and put in international comparison by Sanders et al. (2008). Around 97,000 nonprofit organizations were identified. Ninety percent of these employed no paid staff; relying entirely on volunteers. The remaining 10% employed just over 100,000 people or 5.4% of employed people. Thirty percent of these were employed in social services and 19% in education & research and 16% in culture and recreation. Overall, the income of these organizations in New Zealand was NZ$8 billion. Of this 45% came from the sale of goods and services, 25% from government, and 24% from fundraising and members fees. In addition, the contribution of volunteers has been conservatively costed at NZ$3.3 billion. Nonprofit organizations are widely supported by Australians. Around 87% belong to at least one association (Passey & Lyons, 2005); a similar percentage support them each year with donations worth Au$5.7 billion in 2004 (Lyons & Passey, 2005). A 1999 study found that 70% of
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New Zealanders identified themselves as belonging to an organization, club, or group (Ministry of Social Policy, 2001). Volunteering is another form of support for nonprofit associations; it is also taken to be an indicator of social capital. In its latest Voluntary Work Survey (for 2006) the ABS estimated that 35% of adult Australians had volunteered more than 700 million hours during that year (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007b). Eighty-seven percent of these hours were volunteered for nonprofit associations, the rest for government agencies or for-profit firms. This has been estimated as contributing the equivalent of a further Au$13 billion to the nonprofit sector. One million New Zealanders (31% of the population 12 years and over) volunteered an estimated 270 million hours in 2004 (Statistics New Zealand, 2007). Internationally, New Zealand nonprofit organizations are more reliant both on volunteers (making up 67% of the full time equivalent nonprofit workforce, compared to a 41 country average of 42% and 40% for Australia) and philanthropy (making up 20% of nonprofit income, compared to 15% for a 38 country average and 10% for Australia) (Sanders et al., 2008). Another measure of social capital is the percentage of people who are prepared to trust strangers. Only 54% of those surveyed by the ABS in 2006 felt that ‘‘most people could be trusted’’ (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2007a). This was relatively uniform across population groups and regions. In 2006, 76% of New Zealanders said they believed people can be trusted, with 18% reporting people can almost always be trusted and 58% reporting people can usually be trusted. This is relatively high by international standards – sixth highest among 25 OECD countries. Levels of trust increased with personal income, and was lower among Maori and Pacific Island populations than European New Zealanders (Ministry of Social Development, 2008).
Outlook/Concluding Assessment The terms civil society and social capital encompass a range of institutions and practices: voluntary associations, public civility, high levels of civic and political participation, responsive governments, a tolerant public. At a superficial level signs of change can be found in many of these institutions: declines in membership associations, the professionalization and corporatization of large charities and sports, a levelling-off in numbers volunteering, but these can be balanced by new forms of association emerging around new causes, some using new web-based technologies. In Australia and New Zealand, although it is unlikely that the terms will be widely used, it is likely that the institutions of civil society and social capital will continue slowly to transform, but fundamentally will remain strong.
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Cross-References
▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Missionary Societies ▶ Nonprofit Organizations in the System of National Accounts ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Trust ▶ Volunteering
References/Further Readings Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2004). Measuring social capital: An Australian framework and indicators (Catalogue No. 1378.0). Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2007a). General social survey: Summary results 2006 (Catalogue No. 4159.0). Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2007b). Voluntary work, Australia 2006 (Catalogue No. 4441.0). Canberra: Australian Bureau of Statistics. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2008). Not-for-profit organisations, Australia, 2006–07, from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats Australian Conservation Foundation. (2008.). Climate change: A call for leadership on climate change, from http://www.acfonline.org.au/ articles/news.asp?news_id¼1946&c¼265951; 26/09/08. Bradford, S. (2001). Citizens and governance in New Zealand. Wellington: Association of Non-Governmental Organisations of Aotearoa. Brennan, G., & Castles, F. (Eds.) (2002). Australia reshaped: 200 years of institutional transformation. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press. Colley, L. (1992). Britons. Forging the Nation 1707–1837. New Haven: Yale University Press. Cox, E. (1995). A truly civil society. Boyer Lectures, Sydney: ABC Books. Edwards, M. (2004). Civil Society. London: Polity Press. Green, D. (1996). From welfare state to civil society: Towards welfare that works in New Zealand. Wellington: New Zealand Business Roundtable. Greiner, N. (2005). Civic capitalism: An Australian agenda for institutional renewal (CIS Occasional Papers 54). Crows Nest: Centre for Independent Studies. Katz, I. (2008). From the director. SPRC Newsletter, 99(3). King, M. (2003). The penguin history of New Zealand. Auckland: Penguin Books. Lyons, M. (1995). Data on Nonprofit Organisations: An Examination of Two Data Sources (CACOM Working Paper No. 30). Lindfield: CACOM, University of Technology, Sydney. Lyons, M. (2001). Third sector: The contribution of nonprofit and cooperative enterprises in Australia. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. Lyons, M., & Passey, A. (2005). Australians giving and volunteering 2004, Report for the Prime Ministers Community Business Partnership. Ministry of Social Development. (2008). The social report Te Puronga Oranga Tangata 2008. Wellington: Ministry of Social Development. Ministry of Social Policy. (2001). The social report Te Puronga Oranga Tangata 2008. Wellington: Ministry of Social Policy. Norton, A. (1997). Social capital: The individual, civil society and the state. Crows Nest: Centre for Independent Studies. Onyx, J., & Bullen, P. (2000). Measuring social capital in five communities. The Journal of Applied Behavioural Science, 36(1), 23–42. Onyx, J. (1997). Measuring social capital in five communities in NSW: An analysis (CACOM Working Paper No 41). Lindfield: CACOM, University of Technology, Sydney.
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Passey, A., & Lyons, M. (2005). Voluntary associations and political participation. In S. Wilson (Eds.), Australian social attitudes (The First Report). Sydney: UNSW Press. Productivity Commission. (2003). Social capital: Reviewing the concept and its policy implications. Research Paper. Canberra: AusInfo. Robinson, D. (Ed.) (1997). Social capital and policy development. Wellington: Institute of Public Policy, Victoria University of Wellington. Robinson, D. (Ed.) (1999). Social capital in action. Wellington: Institute of Public Policy, Victoria University of Wellington. Robinson, D. (Ed.) (2002). Building social capital. Wellington: Institute of Public Policy, Victoria University of Wellington. Statistics New Zealand. (2007). Non-profit institutions satellite account: 2004. Wellington: Statistics New Zealand. Stewart-Weeks, M., & Lyons, M. (1999). Civil society in the new millennium: A report to the commonwealth foundation. Lindfield: CACOM, University of Technology, Sydney. Stewart-Weeks, M., & Richardson, C. (1998). Social capital stories: How 12 Australian households live their lives. Crows Nest: Centre for Independent Studies. Stone, W. (2001). Measuring social capital: Towards a theoretically informed measurement framework for researching social capital in family and community life. Research paper No. 24. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies. Stone, W., & Hughes, J. (2002). Social capital: Empirical meaning and measurement validity. Research Paper No. 27. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies. Spellerberg, A. (2001). Framework for the measurement of social capital in New Zealand. Research and Analytical Report 2001:14. New Zealand: Wellington Statistics. Sullivan, F., & Leppert, S. (Eds.) (2004). Church and civil society: A theology of engagement. Adelaide: ATF Press. Tennant, M. (2006). Defining the nonprofit sector: New Zealand (Working Papers of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, No.45). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Centre for Civil Society Studies. Tennant, M. (2008). The history of the non-profit sector in New Zealand. Wellington: Office for the Community and Voluntary Sector. Williams, T., & Robinson, D. (2002). Social capital-based partnerships: A maori perspective and a comparative approach. In D. Robinson (Ed.), Building social capital. Wellington: Institute of Policy Studies, Victoria University of Wellington. Winter, I. (2000). Social capital and public policy in context. In I. Winter (Ed.), Social capital and public policy in Australia. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Brazil MARCO ANTONIO FIGUEIREDO MILANI FILHO, MARCIA SERRA RIBEIRO VIANA Mackenzie Presbyterian University, Sao Paulo, Brazil
Introduction The Brazilian civil society had its foundations laid during the process of colonization by Portugal at the beginning of the sixteenth century. The first nongovernmental
organizations were the Santa Casas de Miserico´rdia, charitable organizations originated from Portugal’s medieval guilds’ effort to organize it communities’ needs. In Brazil the Santa Casas were established as Civil Counsels maintained by society’s notable men, rich, and related to the Catholic Church. Historically these organizations cared for the sick, widows, orphans, abandoned children. With time, their main service became the maintenance of hospitals, providing free services of health (Landim, 1993). These organizations of social welfare and health were the only ones authorized by the Portuguese government to work with the population, as they served the interests of Portugal by dealing with popular demands. The participation of the charity organizations with religious ties continued even after independence, with the advent of the Brazilian Monarchy (1822–1889), that had yet Roman Catholic faith as official state religion, and in the subsequent republican period, even though the republican constitution established a freedom of faith and religion. The social movements emerged with more emphasis only after 1920, with industrialization and urban population growth. Such movements have been influenced by ideologies such as Marxism and Anarchism, relating to the labor issues and policies, but, in general, were not yet expressed through independent and formal organizations. The State was driven by established oligarchies, but the social movements represented expressions of disagreement with the existing sociopolitical situation. Later, during the government of the authoritarian and populist Vargas (1930–1945), the labor movement was organized under State regulation and unionism had expression in national scenario. Despite the strengthening of the labor movement, the Civil Society was based more on welfare than on political institutions. During these years the organization groups of different ethnic origins, in associations and foundations, are created to attend the needs of migrant communities. In general, these groups emerged after the economical success of some of the immigrants’ community. From 1964–1985, during the military government, various organizations of Civil Society did not meet the State’s interests, and were considered illegal and then banned. The free expression of popular interests with political connotations was restricted. Many organizations with social goals were established with government support to act in areas considered strategic for the socioeconomic development. The unions continued to exist, but under intense monitoring of their activities. Since 1986, considering the democratization of politics and with the new Brazilian Constitution issued in 1988, the Civil Society has watched the emergence of various Civil Rights organizations and protection of
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interests of disadvantaged minorities (Indians, women, afro-descendents etc.). It is assumed that the 1980s were a landmark for the Brazilian Third Sector. Currently, there are about 338 thousand nonprofit entities in Brazil and it is estimated that the Third Sector represents about 1.5% of the Gross National Product, and employs about 1.5 million people (IBGE, 2004). There is a trend of growth and development of activities related to civil rights, but the practices of social assistance are predominant. Organizations of the Third Sector are the subject of debates in the academic community regarding the discussion if they are complementing the State in the formulation and implementation of public policies or are replacing the State in the care of social demand which is a public responsibility. Researchers on the role of the State and its relationship with society, as Bresser Pereira (2000, 2001), argue that the expansion of the Third Sector is a consequence of the greater adequacy and efficiency of nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations to provide social services that are not naturally monopolistic. However, it is assumed the existence of social mechanisms to control these organizations by the Civil Society in order to assure that the services can be efficient and effective. Brazilian regulatory bodies are starting to devote more attention to nonprofit organizations, which are experiencing a period of transition considering the management aspect, moving from the amateurism that characterized the managers of many entities in the past or even trying to change the negative image caused by occasional frauds and financial scandals in order to adapt themselves to the demands and responsibilities expected for professional managers. Accountability, efficiency, and effectiveness are words that have been incorporated into the vocabulary of modern managers, as well as these professionals have become elements of monitoring by their stakeholders. Besides the Government, the donors and supporters of Civil Society organizations have become the main pressure elements for the improvement of the managers in the Third Sector. The approval procedures for the transfer of resources imply in performance monitoring of the social projects, following stricter criteria. The requests for information on the use of resources, on the targets set and on the achieved goals, driven the fund raising process from simple advertisings based on emotional appeal to complex activities based on feasible plans of actions and well-prepared budgets. Another point of discussion in recent governmental and academic spheres is the increasing influence of environmental organizations with headquarters or offices in
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other countries on specific issues which are considered to be strategic to Brazil. There are different points-of-view if those influence and practices can interfere in national sovereignty, such as the preservation and sustainable use of Amazonian forest, or the production of biofuels (ethanol alcohol). The major challenge being faced by legislators, scientists, managers, donators, and other stakeholders is balancing the different interests present in relations between State and Civil Society, particularly in the design and implementation of mechanisms for accountability and governance. The objective is, also, that the disclosure on the economic, financial, and social performance of the institutions of the Third Sector provides the information needed for their respective stakeholders to make decisions to allocate resources efficiently and effectively.
Civil Society Definition
There is not a unique definition for Civil Society, but basically its concept refers to a realm where private nonprofit organizations and voluntary movements support and promote activities in order to meet social needs and common interests. Civil Society is also known as the Third Sector. Despite being a popular expression, commonly used by the media, the concept of Third Sector is still unknown to most of the Brazilian population, and yet, it generates some disagreement among researchers. It is a space to gather people and organizations that share common interests and values to achieve collective objectives. It represents a virtual area that brings together all private organizations with public purposes. Considering a set formed by three sectors, where these sectors are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, the Third Sector exists between the Public (First Sector) and the Market (Second Sector). Classifying an organization, just as nongovernmental, is not enough to express its real purpose, because this fact only characterizes it as an entity that is not owned nor run by governmental organs and agencies. All private companies (Second Sector) are not governmental too. On the other hand, if the organization is nonprofit one, this fact only characterizes it as not belonging to business activities. The governmental agencies (First Sector) are nonprofit oriented too. Organizations of the Third Sector, therefore, differ from the First Sector because they are not run by the Government, and are differentiated from the Second Sector because they are nonprofit oriented. In other words, it
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can be said that these organizations are simultaneously nongovernmental and nonprofit. The three sector approach is not absolute, but it is a simplified framework in order to contrast the nature and purposes of the organizations. As the interests and aims of the researcher, it is possible to separate and to rejoin the organizations according different criteria. A common mistake is to confuse the meaning of Third Sector with the Tertiary Sector, which is used in the economic perspective to represent the companies that provide services. Despite the great diversity among the organizations of the Third Sector, such as different sizes, specific objectives, economic resources etc, it can be possible to highlight the following common characteristics: they all have
– No owners – Autonomy policy – Take upon themselves the role of the state, in response to certain social needs Structure and institutional presence Seek to provide social benefits Are economic agents No distribution of the excess of revenues over expenses to its members or employees, reinvesting the surpluses achieved – Tax privileges, established by law
– – – –
Examples of organizations of the Third Sector are: philanthropic hospitals, environmental organizations, unions, associations, religious organizations, associations of neighborhoods. These organizations can also obtain certificates that recognize their social objectives and, officially, their social relevance. In Brazil, the main certificates are: Utilidade Pu´blica – UP, Beneficeˆncia e Assisteˆncia Social – CEBAS, Organizac¸a˜o da Sociedade Civil de Interesse Pu´blico – OSCIP. Main Objectives of the Third Sector
Considering the mission and objectives of the Third Sector’s organizations, various projects are formulated and implemented for providing services and for offering products regarding collective interests. Problems related to the inefficiency and ineffectiveness of government policies in the face of increasing social demands are considered by the government failure theory, whose central idea is cited by authors such as Weisbrod (1988) and Salamon and Anheier (1998), suggestive as a reason for the emergence of nonprofit organizations, as a response of Civil Society to government inefficiency. From this perspective, the government failure theory assumes new contours as the Government itself may be,
deliberately, encouraging that Civil Society organizations develop and take public actions, not necessarily because the Government is unable, but because it prefers to rely on civilian organizations such as extensions of its social policy. Falconer (1999) discusses the intention of liberal governments to reduce their direct participation in social activities and promote or encourage the entry of organizations of the Third Sector in public programs, as partnerships. Under a complementary approach, the lack of economic interest of business companies to provide social services can contribute to the growth of the Third Sector. The so-called market failure theory suggests that the Third Sector is encouraged to offer goods and services to the community when these products have no economic attraction for the Second Sector. Some of the issues addressed by the Third Sector are: health, social assistance, civil rights, transparency, and corruption, the environment preservation, labour, and income improvement, education, arts, and culture, youth, transport, violence, freedom etc.
Social Capital Social Capital is a concept related to the people’s connections, with emphasis on collective activities, social networks, shared information and values. According to Putnam and Goss (2002), the feeling of unity based on common interests and goals improves the relationship among the members of a group and it facilitates to reach political, social, and economic objectives. In this sense, a strong Civil Society needs a strong social capital framework, based on collaborative actions, trust, defined objectives and freedom. Under a historical and political perspective, democratic contexts stimulate situations for development of voluntary organizations and social movements, and from another standpoint, Civil Society is an essential factor for mobilizing efforts against authoritarian regimes. Sen (1999) considers democracy as a relevant element to expand political rights and guarantee freedom of expression in order to induce social responses to economic needs.
Empirical Data Historical and Human Geographical Background
Brazil has a social history webbed on diversity resulting from groups of migration, settled in a vast territory, as well as a Portuguese cultural base, that integrates the new in the existing culture. The result is a changeable permanence, that is, a culture that receives new traces as its own by
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incorporation, does not tend to isolate social groups, and maintains its identity through constant changes. It causes no estrangement, therefore, to find Brazilian Civil Society’s action equally diverse, adaptable, and changeable. Barbosa (2007) indicates that, as far as mobilization, organization, and articulation one should be expect action of Civil Society to be as diversified as society as a whole. The difficulties are, in a way, originated from the countries enriching diversity. A population formed by constant migration movements, from colonial days to this date. Some basic data might help understand this scenery in which Brazilian Civil Society organizes itself. Dealing with a territorial dimension of 8.547.403 km2, a population of 183.9 million (according to estimates, to the year of 2025, this population should reach 228 million), a demographical density of 21.5 inhabitants per km2, 75.4% inhabiting urban areas; 49.7% declare themselves white, 42.6% of mulatto, 6.9% of negroes and 0.8% other origin, as declared to the 2006 house to souse research. (IBGE, 2008). The population is distributed in the regions as follows: Southeast (77.8 million), Northeast (51.5 million), South (26.7 million), North (14.6 million) and Central West (13.3 million). Most concentration of people is in the following cities: Sao Paulo (6.0%), Rio de Janeiro (3.3%), Salvador (1.6%), Brasilia (1.4%), Fortaleza (1.3%) e Belo Horizonte (1.3%). The pyramidal graphic of absolute age distribution for 2006 shows balanced sexual division of the population, with 48.7% of men and 51.3% of women; in the distribution by age groups, 26% are from 0 to 14 years old, 63.8% from 15 to 59 and 10.2% of 60 or more; the gross of the population is found on the productive strata. Almost 20% of these men and women live on the rural area and about 80% on urban regions. Most of this population inhabits the southern and southeastern states of the country, and the costal areas of northeaster states. The northern, central, and western states have a low density population. Even though the rate of illiteracy has dropped on the last decades, the country still has (IBGE, 2008) 9.9% of men and 9.3% of women 10 years old or more who cannot read or write. Of the population more than 15 years old, 10.1% of women and 10.6% of men are still illiterate, with small chance of changing their schooling situation. The financial situation of the population is not exactly better than their illiteracy: 0.2% do not have any income, 29.4% earn up to 1 minimum wage (m.w.), 51.8% earn from 1 to 3 m.w., 9.2% earn from 3 to 5 m.w., 5.6 earn from 5 to 10 m.w., 1.8% earn from 10 to 20 m.w., 0.5% earn more than 20 m.w. As far as wages are concerned, the country has, yet, a great concentration of its population on the lower wages strata.
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The composition of the work force, as far as gender, is relatively equitable; of the economically active population, in 2006, 43.7% were women and 56.3% men. About 8.4% of Brazilian workers are on agricultural activities, working from less than 14 h to more than 49 h a day; of the 91.6% working on nonagricultural activities, 47% have from 40 to 48 h a day; 13% work more than 49 h a day, 14% work from 15 to 39 h a day, and 3% work up to 14 h a day. Once more, there is a large concentration on the lower side of the pyramid, 60% work from 40 to more than 49 h day. Living conditions of this population are not in a level of excellence: 80% houses have running water; 70% have what is considered sanitary satisfactory condition (either with sewerage system or patent concrete cesspit); 85% of the residences have trash collecting service; 99% have electrical light and 75% telephone services. One should observe that, as it was mentioned, the demographic concentration on regions such as South and Southeast, could result in bias, since general statistical indexes does not take in consideration that those populous regions are also the areas with better living condition. As a consequence, one could infer that the country, as a whole, had a better tendency of well fare that it really has. Good living conditions, however, are not universal for Brazil. This is the basic scenery in which the Brazilian Civil Society finds a need to organize itself; a population that works up to 48 or 49 h to earn, if so much, from US$50 to US$600, having difficulty, therefore, to participate on the consumer’s market; even on urban area, a good number has yet to be able to read and write properly. Sanitary conditions are improving, but health situation has in its most important indicator, infant mortality, a very fragile point. International Perspectives
Historically established as result of the financial and communitarian effort of the members of its own citizenship, Brazilian Third Sector has had direct international influence, along with other countries of the Third World. Falconer (1999,) states that since the period of 1970s The World bank made a heavy contribution to this Sector in the third world, including Brazil. The authors go on, indicating the role of Foundations such as Ford and W. K. Kellogg as Maecenas of the Third Sector. In fact, this is more than a tendency, it is par of the reality of financial support for the Sector’s organizations all over Brazil: if on one hand the great enterprises of the country invest heavily on the sector, on the other hand the international investment responds to a need that results in the continuous growth of large and longtime projects.
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Technological development and global communication enables simultaneous knowledge of happenings in different regions of the planet and promotes the perception of how local social and economic problems can affect the rest of the world. The more a local issue is related to global concerns, the more attention it will be given. Information, ideas and interests flow across borders. A positive aspect of this fact is that local solutions can be shared globally and governments and organizations can evaluate what works best in which conditions. In addition, external help can be used, if possible, to solve internal problems. But there are delicate issues, such as the discussion about matters pertaining to the national sovereignty, which need to be treated carefully. In Brazil case, there is a dynamic Civil Society dedicated to find solutions to local problems, and many organizations of the Brazilian Third Sector keep relationship with international agencies and nonprofit organizations. It is, therefore, expected that, as this Sector matures, the influences of and in international Civil Societies will continue, and a tendency of participating in the Sector’s international discussion will grow continually.
Apart from the increasing research interest for the Third Sector in Brazil, there are gaps of knowledge about the real contribution of nonprofit organizations to the development of the country. Global and domestic emerging issues, such as economic growth, rational utilization of water, conservation, and climate change, sustainable agriculture in the Amazonian forest, production of biofuels, education, violence etc, have become part of the Brazilian civil society’s agenda for the coming years.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Community Philanthropy ▶ Grupo de Institutos, Fundacoes e Empresas (GIFE) ▶ Instituto Ethos ▶ MST ▶ Philanthropy in Latin Ame´rica ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Movements ▶ Third Sector
Outlook/Concluding Assessment
References/Further Readings
The Brazilian Civil Society is multifaceted and complex, therefore it cannot be presented under a single perspective. Considering its regional contrasts, different approaches can be used to discuss the main aspects of this arena. Like other nations in Latin America, after living through periods of authoritarian regimes, Brazil is strengthening the democratic mechanisms for the expression of Civil Society and this fact has decisively contributed to the emergence of thousands of private nonprofit organizations dedicated to the care of social, political, and economic interests of the citizens. On the community development, there are many Brazilian nonprofit organizations focused on this subject. It is relevant to separate the programs considering two regional characteristics: urban and rural areas. The Brazilian population is predominantly urban. The South and Southeast areas are more socially and economically developed than North, Northeast, and West Central areas. For small communities, there are many social and economic programs supported by nonprofit organizations and by the Federal Government, specifically in the poorest regions (North and Northeast). Most of these programs have the objective to improve income and to reduce the poverty in urban areas. In the rural areas, nonprofit organizations and social movements are involved in activities of environmental preservation and land reform (reforma agra´ria).
Barbosa, I. M. S. P. (2007). Sociedade civil brasileira: ac¸a˜o, articulac¸a˜o e mobilizac¸a˜o. Revista 3 setor, 1(1), 34–38. Bresser, P. L. C. (2000). A reforma gerencial do estado de 1995. Revista de Administrac¸a˜o Pu´blica/FGV, 34(4), 7–26. Bresser, P. L. C. (2001). Do estado patrimonial ao gerencial. In S. Pinheiro, J. Wilheim, & I. Sachs (Eds.), Brasil: um se´culo de transformac¸o˜es. Sa˜o Paulo: Companhia das letras. Falconer, A. P. (1999). A promessa do terceiro setor: um estudo sobre a construc¸a˜o do papel das organizac¸o˜es sem fins lucrativos e do seu campo de gesta˜o. Sa˜o Paulo: Centro de estudos em administrac¸a˜o do terceiro setor, USP. Fernandes, R. C. (1994). Privado, pore´m pu´blico. Rio de janeiro: Relumedumara´. IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatı´stica. (2004). As fundac¸o˜es privadas e associac¸o˜es sem fins lucrativos no Brasil. Brası´lia: IBGE. IBGE – Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatı´stica. (2008). Pesquisa nacional por amostra de domicı´lios: sı´ntese de indicadores. Rio de Janeiro: IBGE. IPEA – Instituto de Pesquisa Econoˆmica Aplicada – IPEA (2005). Radar social. Brası´lia: IPEA. Landim, L. (1993). A invenc¸a˜o das ongs – do servic¸o invisı´vel a` profissa˜o sem nome. Tese doutorado em antropologia social. UFRJ. Ministe´rio da Sau´de do Brasil. (2004). Evoluc¸a˜o da taxa de mortalidade no Brasil, from http://portal.saude.gov.br/saude/visualizar_texto.cfm? idtxt=24437; 10/28/2008. Putnam, R., & Goss, A. K. (2002). Introduction. In R. Putnam (Ed.), Democracies in flux. The evolution of social capital in contemporary societies. New York: Oxford University Press. Rose-Ackerman, S. (1986). The economics of nonprofit institutions: Studies in structure and policy. New York: Oxford University Press. Salamon, L. M. (1987). Of market failure, voluntary failure, and thirdparty government: Toward a theory of government-nonprofit
Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe relations in the modern welfare state. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 16(1), 29–49. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1998). Social origins of civil society: Explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Voluntas. (9)3, 213–248. Sen, A. (1999). Development as freedom. New York: Oxford University Press. Weisbrod, B. A. (1986). Toward a theory of the voluntary nonprofit sector in a three-sector economy. In S. Rose-Ackerman (Ed.), The economics of nonprofit institutions: Studies in structure and policy (pp. 1–44). New York: Oxford University Press. Weisbrod, B. A. (1988). The nonprofit economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe KLA´RA CZIKE National Volunteer Centre of Hungary, Budapest, Hungary
Introduction Social capital is a relatively new research area in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) – Albania, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Kosovo, Latvia, Litvania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, and Slovenia (by OECD). At the same time, it is a very popular approach in the research about the region, applied, for example, by the World Bank or the United Nation’s Development Programme. At the same time, the concept of civil society has a great history in the CEE countries too. In this region, it was during enlightened absolutism that civil society started to thrive, firstly the Church, then the state and private individuals started to set up establishments: foundations and associations. The establishments that have existed in Western Europe since the fifteenth century, in this region, in fact, came about in the second half of the 1800s, following the growth of the middle class and the economic development. Although the wars did leave a trace in the development of the civil society in the west too, the laws of the CEE countries after World War II made the development of the civil society impossible for 40 years. At the same time, civil society continues to survive as an underground movement, as one of the manifestations of the dissidence. Later, following the political transformations, this informal development made it possible for the power of the civil society to manifest itself so fast in real organizations.
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It is important to emphasize that social capital is referred to not only as a horizontal voluntary organization or voluntarism (community participation). This article, however, will focus mainly on these two fields (while we can also speak about political participation, informal networks and sociability or trust, norms, and sanctions). The CEE countries are very diverse, but, as a special group, are even more clearly distinct from those of the western countries. Some countries are closer to the Western European and North American civil society models. Here belong Poland or Slovenia with their wide civil society base and civil traditions. Another group comprises the Czech Republic and Hungary where civil initiative both traditionally and culturally is defined differently. In Hungary, for instance, the coming about of the nongovernmental organizations after the political transformation was initiated both by the state and private individuals, but these organizations were established with a much smaller social base than in, for instance, Poland. It is exactly this wide social base behind the nongovernmental organizations that has been missing until today, and this has also been the reason behind the fact that a large part of the NGOs still exist in dependency from the state. Because of this dependency, only a small part of the NGOs can be considered to represent real criticism of the state, or is seen as the replacement and quality control of state services. Large community foundations that are typical of the Anglo-Saxon civil society, or even of Poland, do not really exist in Hungary or the Czech Republic. At the same time, it is typical of the whole region that the states function with little flexibility and considerable political predetermination, and these circumstances make the emergence of innovation difficult.
Civil Society The definition of the civil society is as old as that of democracy. According to the majority of the earliest authors (Hobbes, Locke, Ferguson, Tocqueville), civil society is the generic term for both active independent individuals who express their freedom and citizens who are in some relationship with the state. The modern and global definition of civil society is the entirety of institutions, organizations, individuals, values, and networks, etc., which point beyond the national societal, economic, and political boundaries. On the national level, civil society is culturally and historically embedded. Due to similar historical experience, the civil societies of the CEE countries are very similar, but individual specificities can also be observed. The concept nowadays is considerably interwoven with the concept of social capital.
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Social Capital There are many definitions of social capital, but a widely accepted version defines it as an ‘‘investment in social relations with expected returns in the marketplace’’ (Lin, 2001). This definition is consistent with the interpretations offered by all of the main ‘‘fathers’’: Bourdieu, Coleman, Lin, and Putnam. The term has been in use for almost a century, while the ideas behind it go back further still. Social capital may first have appeared in a book published in 1916. Author Lyda Hanifan referred to social capital as ‘‘those tangible assets [that] count for most in the daily lives of people: namely goodwill, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among the individuals and families who make up a social unit’’ (quoted from Putnam, 2000: 19). Since the early 1990s, the concept of social capital has been widely used both in research and development. The concept was popularised by Putnam in his book about the Italian civic culture (Putnam, 1993), but it also has former fathers such as Bourdieu or Coleman. Bourdieu defines social capital as ‘‘the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’’ (Bourdieu, 1986: 248). Bourdieu’s aim was to analyze different forms of capital, such as cultural, social, political, symbolic, and economic. He also examines what impact these may have on each other. James Coleman, an American sociologist, defined social capital according to its function: ‘‘It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: they all consists of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of actors – whether persons or corporate actors – within the structure’’ (Coleman, 1988, cited in Adam & Roncevic, 2003: 159). Robert Putnam, who is the newest mediator of the concepts, defines social capital as ‘‘features of social organisation, such as trust, norms, and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions’’ (Putnam, 1993: 167). Francis Fukuyama, according to whom social capital is identical to trust, compares low trust (France, Italy) and high trust (USA, Japan) societies in order to examine the consequences of such differences as regards the levels of trust. In a low trust society, families can have a great deal of social capital (trust). The concept of social capital is not a clear theory but rather a fusion of various concepts: interpersonal trust, generalised trust (social solidarity), belief in the legitimacy of institutionalized norms and confidence in their implementation and cultural traditions.
According to the World Bank definition, ‘‘social capital refers to the norms and networks that enable collective action. It encompasses institutions, relationships, and customs that shape the quality and quantity of a society’s social interactions. Increasing evidence shows that social capital is critical for societies to prosper economically and for development to be sustainable. Social capital, when enhanced in a positive manner, can improve project effectiveness and sustainability by building the community’s capacity to work together to address their common needs, fostering greater inclusion and cohesion, and increasing transparency and accountability’’ (www.wordbank.org). Social capital is defined by the OECD as ‘‘networks together with shared norms, values, and understandings that facilitate co-operation within or among groups’’. (www.oecd.org) Putnam measures four indicators of social capital: vibrancy of associative life, incidence of newspaper readership, referenda turnout and preference voting (Putnam, 1993: 91–94). At the international and national level, there are numerous surveys which capture one or more dimensions of social capital. The World Bank approach to measurement is to identify patterns of bonding and bridging social capital through questions on whether other members of a group, organization, or network to which the respondent belongs are of the same ethnic, linguistic, gender, educational, occupational, or religious background. Informal social networks and mutual support is also a topic of interest in the World Bank approach. The World Values Survey (WVS) is conducted by an international network of social scientists. The main purpose of the survey is to measure changes in basic values and beliefs of the general public in more than 65 countries including a number of developing countries. It builds on the European Values Surveys, first carried out in 1981. A wide range of countries are included over various points in time, and links can be made to a potentially important outcome or correlate variables such as perception of health and well-being. Time use surveys generally approach questions on behavior through recorded time diaries. Data from the Multinational Time Use Study in respect of 23 countries are stored at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex. Information is recorded on different types of activities, including information on ‘‘where and with whom,’’ over a fixed time period. Typically, a very wide range of activities is covered, including work, leisure, conversation with others, study, personal care, voluntary work, ‘‘civic duty,’’ religious activities, visiting friends, travelling to
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work, etc. There is also a variable for other persons involved in the main activity. These other persons are distinguished by a family member in a household, other family members, relatives, colleagues, neighbours, strangers etc.
Empirical Data Social capital works on the basis of trust, which was shown also in the section containing definitions. Naturally, trust can be of many types. Answers can be as diverse as are the many institutions. The figure below shows the data revealed by the Eurobarometre in May 2008, and outlines the trust citizens have in the national parliaments of the respective EU countries (Figs. 1 and 2).
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At the same time, the situation does not change significantly even when the question is about the trust people have in consumer associations. The CEE countries again are below the EU average. The difference that is so frequently mentioned between Western and Eastern Europe in respect of the civil society or the level of development of social capital, can, therefore, be explained by economic, cultural, and historic differences. One of the main arguments in Putnam’s books is that social capital (the social engagements) is eroding in the world. The critics of the concept say that it is true only for the traditional forms of the movements (e.g., groups of neighborhoods, bowling leagues or school clubs for
Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe. Fig. 1 Trust citizens have in their own national parliaments The figure shows well that all CEE countries have a level of trust in their own national parliaments that is below the European Union average.
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Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe. Fig. 2 Trust citiziens have in consumer associations.
parents) but not true in case of new groups such as environmental protection or lesbian/gay rights. These new groups are based on common beliefs, and are organized on the Internet rather than in the locality (e.g., Greenpeace, Amnesty International). It may be exactly for this reason that in the majority of the CEE countries the number of nongovernmental organizations and individuals pursuing volunteer activities still shows a growing tendency (the number of nonprofit organizations in Hungary has continuously been growing since 1989, and, within this, the associations have been growing even more dynamically. The situation is identical as regards the number of those who have been involved in voluntary activities). At the same time, cooperation among organizations is poor.
At the same time, a number of learning organizations have been set up in these countries in order to fight the old paternalistic forms. They follow up-to-date objectives such as protecting human rights or the environment, encouraging voluntarism, etc. In Western Europe less and less youth work in the third sector, and it is difficult to get them involved in voluntary work. These are not hot issues in most of the CEE countries, because more and more students and youth are ready to join these movements. Most authors claim that social capital in CEE is very low and/or is even diminishing in comparison with Western Europe or North America. Another group of authors argue that social capital in CEE is not much different, or, in some cases, it is higher than in the West.
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According to the reports (OECD, World Bank, etc.), the reason for this course of development in CEE countries is the deficit in interpersonal or organizational trust or confidence. The development of civil society and social capital is based on trust, therefore, it is difficult to run an independent civil society if the cooperation between organizations does not work (Figs. 3 and 4). The difference between the two figures is evident (Word Values Survey, 1999–2000): more than 70% of the polled individuals in CEE countries stated that one cannot be careful enough with respect to others, while in western countries there is a much larger variation in this respect – the differences among them can be explained much more with the cultural differences. The relationship between the state and the non-state actors is seen as crucial in the production or hindrance of civic engagement (Mihaylova, 2004). The states themselves in many cases have failed to recognize the power of the NGO sector. Also, in many cases, the critical and oppositional voice of the NGO sector has deterred the state from providing support to NGOs.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe. Fig. 3 Trust in people in western countries.
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For municipalities, these organizations frequently mean competition in the fight for resources. In many places, however, the power of joining forces and partnership has been recognized. NGOs compete with each other as well, mostly for resources. In many cases, professionalism as well as business and strategic mentality that ensure sustainability are missing. In order to improve the situation, reinforcement of trust is an important task (which can be achieved probably primarily by encouraging and teaching cooperation, as well as through the involvement of as many individuals in organizational and other voluntary activities as possible). The support for this to be achieved is in the hands of the European Union, since the earlier significant international or American support is provided only to a part of the CEE countries. Therefore, it is essential for the EU to have a concept for how to proceed with the development of these organizations that are half way through their development. The civil society of the non-EU CEE countries still requires significant development. Other countries could take part in this so that social capital in the countries of the region could further develop, and cooperation among an ever increasing number of countries and organizations could come about. In Hungary, NGOs organize their activities in an increasingly proactive and well-planned way. They seek donations, pay attention to the establishment of transparency, and the number of their volunteers is growing. The dynamic increase of the number of nonprofit organizations has stopped, but the growth is still significant. An important function of the civil society is that it passes on everything that the community used to know about the accumulation of social capital to the future generations. When examining the concepts of social capital and trust outlined in the section containing definitions, we found that, with respect to numbers, the extensive growth
Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe. Fig. 4 Trust in people in CEE countries.
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of the Hungarian civil society has slowed down, but, with respect to quality, positive changes have appeared. Those social changes that have taken place in the past 30–40 years all over the world have significantly influenced the development of social capital, the trust between people, and have had a similar effect on the development of the role of civil initiatives and movements. These phenomena – the change of the role of the families, the decrease in the number of marriages, the increase of the number of divorces, the sudden increase in the number of one-parent families and those living alone, have all had their effect on the processes connected to civil society in America and Western Europe. Putnam (2000) elaborated a method of calculation extensively supported by scientific methods and statistics in order to examine the proportion in which social changes have affected the activity of people in the civil society, as well as the percentage by which they have decreased this activity. His research pointed to a number of such causes in the past couple of decades’ development in the American society, causes that can also be detected in the Hungarian society. Among these causes he lists the pressure that time and money exert on individuals, the economic difficulties, the changes in the roles families have, the geographical mobility, the effects of the television and of the revolution in the area of electronics, the effects of globalization, the growth of the welfare state, the revolution in the area of civil rights, as well as the influences of the social developments of the 1960s. In each case, his calculations are based on statistics and secondary analyzes, and the proportion of specific events in the social movements – with reference to certain causes of the decrease in the participation in civic actions – is estimated based on the numbers outlined at the end of the research. Summarizing the possible causes, he offers the following figure (Fig. 5): Among the generation changes are the social changes mentioned above, one third of which constitute also the
Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe. Fig. 5 Possible causes for the decrease in the participation in civil actions in the United States.
emergence of the ‘‘TV generation,’’ therefore, the TV and the revolution in the area of electronics have, in fact, a double effect. According to Putnam’s argumentation, the pressure of time and money that burden individuals decreases social capital at least by one tenth. The largest social change that has taken place in Hungary was the economic transformation that took place after the political transformation. As a result of a transition to the market economy, the time and money that burden individuals has presumably a significantly stronger effect in the Hungarian society. For centuries, the development of the middle class took place parallel to urbanization. Nowadays, a trend opposite to this one can be observed: the wealthier part of the people (at the same time, as we saw earlier, those who brought about social capital) move out of the cities, and, hereinafter, exercises its role primarily on the local level. These trends can be discerned in Hungary as well. Putman estimates this trend’s contribution to the decrease of social capital to be at around 10%. Those technological changes at the core of which is the spread of the television and the computer also have a very significant effect. These activities generally take the time from the community initiatives. Although, with the spread of the Internet areas have become connectable and geographical distances/proximity has gained new meaning, this effect remains insignificant compared to the fact that the time spent on TV watching is still continuously increasing. According to a 1999 survey (Hungarian Central Statistical Office, 2000) which examined the time spending of the Hungarian population, men, and women spend more than a half of their free time watching television (women: 59%, men: 56%). The survey also revealed that the traditional roles continue to exist: compared to men, women are still less involved in the exercise of social activities. Activity of this type pursued by women is only one fifth of similar activities pursued by men. The time spent on social activities (conversation, receiving guests, exercise of religion, work carried out in organizations) is one third of the time spent on watching television for both men and women in the case of active population (15–74 years of age). These changes, according to Putman, are responsible for a quarter of the decrease in social capital. In Hungary, in my view, this proportion is somewhat higher: I believe that these processes are responsible for one third of the changes. Putman considers the transformation of the set of values between generations to be the most important change. He believes that these factors are responsible for 50% of the changes. As a result of the political transformation, the changes in the set of values in Hungary are
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even clearer than in America. The change of values and attitudes that is perceivable also in the everyday life can be easily experienced. However, this change shall be seen rather as a negative one as far as social capital is concerned. Studies justifying the understanding that the individualization processes ongoing in society (inter alia, Ferge, 1997) endanger the solidarity that used to exist within society appear one after another. In Hungary, these changes make for at least 50%, or even 60% of the evolvement of social capital. It is through living with a partner and through their children that the majority of people meet new people and establish new relationships. Therefore, states Putman, organizations that are connected to the school and/or kindergarten are much more popular in the American society than organizations that are connected to sports, culture, and social activities. It seems that in Hungary the majority of the population is also interconnected through leasure and sports activities, and membership performance in professional representations cannot be neglected either. Therefore, the phenomena described by Putman can be found and traced in Hungary. However, the Hungarian civil society, from this point of view, has not only deficits, but also resources that emerged following the political transformation. These resources can be traced in the continuous growth of the sector’s numerical proportion as well as in the quality changes. The categories mentioned by Putnam have also created new resources in Hungary, thus, the market economy, the development of a democratic institutional system and the technological development for the system provide authorization also for a positive consideration. It is not only the economic expenses that social capital optimizes or decreases. It is faster and easier to find solutions to the collective problems that emerge in a given society if the community is comprised of individuals who interact with each other, have trust towards each other, and who are ready for compromises and solidarity. The condition of social capital can be measured by the way and the efficiency with which individuals living in a society tackle their individual problems, that is, for instance, how high the suicide and divorce figures are, what the health related situation is, how large unemployment is, and what the level of tolerance towards each other is.
Concluding Assessment The conclusion is that application of the same measurement to different countries with different political, cultural, economical, and historical background is not a feasible method. At the same time, we cannot say that a country
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has a strong deficit in its civil society or social capital because ‘‘civil society’’ or ‘‘social capital’’ cannot see itself. It is important to measure social capital and compare the different cultures and attitudes toward the civil society and its institutions. Social capital as idea was the missing bridge between the third sector and the cultural, political, and economic background of a society. It means that the third sector is not homogenous and we cannot define it per se only with a very tight interaction with social capital and its outcomes. One of the most significant challenges is to accommodate the theory of these fields into practice, e.g., policy making in education, in health or employment.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society, Nineteenth Century ▶ Civil Society Theory: Ferguson ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Tocqueville ▶ Coleman, J. ▶ Putnam, R. ▶ Social Trust
References/Further Readings A lakossa´g ido˝felhaszna´la´sa 1999 szeptembere´ben. (2000). Budapest: KSH. (Hungarian Statistical Office) Alexander, J. C. (Ed.) (1998). Real civil societies – Dilemmas of institutionalization (p. 48). London: Sage Studies in International Sociology. Angelusz, R., & Tardos, R. (1998). A kapcsolatha´lo´zati ero˝forra´sok a´trendezo˝de´se´nek tendencia´i a 90-es e´vekben (pp. 234–255). Ta´rsadalmi Riport, Budapest: TA´RKI. Arato´, A. (1992). Civil ta´rsadalom Lengyelorsza´gban e´s Magyarorsza´gon. Politikatudoma´nyi Szemle 2. ´j Arato´, A. (1999). Civil ta´rsadalom, forradalom e´s alkotma´ny. Budapest: U Manda´tum Ko¨nyvkiado´. Bartal, A. M. (1999). Nonprofit szervezetek. Doktori e´rtekeze´s. ELTE Szociolo´giai e´s Szocia´lpolitikai Inte´zet. Budapest. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. G. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood. Bourdieu, P., & Wacquant, L. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Coleman, J. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 95–120. Czike, K., & Kuti, E´. (2006a). Lakossa´gi adoma´nyok e´s o¨nke´ntes teve´kenyse´gek – Gyorsjelente´s a 2004-es felme´re´s eredme´nyeiro˝l. ¨ nke´ntes Ko¨zpont Alapı´tva´ny-Nonprofit Kutato´csoport Budapest: O Egyesu¨let. ¨ nke´ntesse´g, jo´te´konysa´g, ta´rsadalmi Czike, K., & Kuti, E´. (2006b). O integra´cio´. NP Kutata´sok 14. Budapest: Nonprofit Kutato´csoport ¨ nke´ntes Ko¨zpont Alapı´tva´ny. Egyesu¨let-O Dahrendorf, R. (1997). After 1989 – morals, revolution and civil society. London: Macmillan. Deakin, N. (2000). Civil society as a revolution? The Hungarian case. Manuscript.
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Eurobarometer (http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb68/ eb68_en.htm) Ferge, Zs. (1997). A szocia´lpolitika paradigmava´lta´sa – A ta´rsadalmi individualiza´la´sa. Ke´zirat. Budapest: PHARE Szocia´lpolitikai Fejleszte´si Program. ELTE Szocia´lpolitika Tansze´k. Frane, A., & Roncevic, B. (2003). Social capital: recent debates and research trends. Social Science Information, 42(2). Fukuyama, F. (1996). Trust: The social virtues of the creation of prosperity. Free Press Paperbacks/Simon & Schuster. Gellner, E. (2000). Trust, cohesion, and the social order. In D. Gambetta (Ed.), Trust: Making and breaking cooperative relations (chap. 9, pp. 142–157). Department of Sociology, University of Oxford. Hanifan, L. J. (1920). The community center. Silver, Burdett. Kuti, E´. (1996). A nonprofit szervezetek szerepe a kilencvenes e´vek magyar ta´rsadalma´ban e´s gazdasa´ga´ban. Ko¨zgazdasa´gi Szemle: okto´ber. Kuti, E´. (1998). Hı´vjuk tala´n nonprofitnak. Budapest: Nonprofit Kutato´csoport. Kuti, E´., & Marschall, M. (1991). A harmadik szektor. Budapest: Nonprofit Kutato´csoport. Lakossa´gi adoma´nyok e´s o¨nke´ntes munka. (1995). Budapest: KSH. (Hungarian Statistical Office) Lin, N. (2001). Social capital; a theory of social structure and action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mihaylova, D. (2004). Social capital in Central and Eastern Europe. Budapest: Central European University. Nonprofit szervezetek Magyarorsza´gon, (2006). Ko¨zponti Statisztikai Hivatal, Budapest, 2008 (www.ksh.hu). Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone. New York: Simon & Schuster. Putnam, R. D., Leonardi, R., & Nanetti, R. Y. (1993). Making democracy work. Civic traditions in modern Italy. Priceton, NJ: Priceton University Press. World Values Survey (www.worldvaluessurvey.org)
Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Southern Africa SCHIRIN YACHKASCHI Cape Town, South Africa
Introduction In both southern and central Africa, the political contexts in each country are not homogenous. According to CIVICUS (2006: 25–26), the regions are challenged by severe income inequalities, rural-urban divide, insufficient basic services and infrastructure, extreme poverty, illiteracy and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Further, political turmoil and conflict in some of the countries have led to severe humanitarian crises. Civil society groupings in southern and central Africa have historically played a role through liberation movements fighting colonial oppression. Here, trade unions, youth groups and churches supported liberation
struggles. In the immediate postcolonial times, civil society organizations (CSOs) were closely linked to political parties. Initially, CSOs moved from liberation work to assisting the reconstruction and development of the countries. With the increase of repressive governments in the postcolonial era, civil society activity included activist work, leading to the emergence of new social movements and human rights organizations. In some countries like apartheid South Africa or conflict ridden Mozambique and Angola, community organizations emerged to provide humanitarian assistance supported by international organizations. Mashumba and Clarke (2005: 12) point out that with new political freedoms in countries like South Africa and Mozambique during the 1990s, a vast range of CSOs emerged. At the same time, the impact of neoliberal policies in an international context further influenced civil society activity. According to Habib and Kotze´ (2003, in Kotze´, 2003: 17) organizations formed to either function in line with such tendencies to implement more technocratic approaches to development, or organized to challenge the new order and fight for more social justice.
Civil Society According to Mashumba and Clarke (2005: 12) the concept of civil society in Southern Africa has been influenced by European groups and popular movements in Latin America that contested the interests of oppressive states and international financial interests. This notion became relevant particularly in the 1990s when the subregion experienced a shift from authoritarian, one-party governments to multiparty democracies (such as in South Africa, Mozambique, and Zambia). In countries where authoritarian governments prevail such as Zimbabwe, political tensions between civil society groupings and governments are predominant. This has also led to links between civil society groupings and opposition political parties, such as the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe or the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) in Zambia. The distinction between civil society and oppositions parties is not always as pronounced in the region as in other parts of the world. In central Africa, the concept of civil society is evolving with political changes in the subregion. Many conflict ridden areas are in different phases between conflict and democratic consolidation. Hence, civil society formations have emerged in response to their contexts, and range from liberation movements over human rights activists to negotiators in peace processes.
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Social Capital While the term civil society is widely used in southern and central Africa due to the region’s history of civil society activity, the concept of social capital is not as strongly in use, and does not feature much in the literature of the region. Social capital has mainly been introduced as a concept by international organizations like the World Bank, but does not yet form part of the language of most CSOs. Some civil society actors dislike the term as it is associated to an instrumentalist view of society as a form of capital. Andersson (1999: 2) describes social capital in the context of grassroots community organizations in South Africa and their activities related to building the social fabric, such as the work of cre`ches, religious groups and cultural associations. Robson and Roque (2001: 118–125) refer to the diminishing social capital in the bairros of Luanda, Angola due to the high degree of poverty and crisis. Here the importance of both structural social capital (understood as forms of organization, structure, rules, and procedures) as well as cognitive social capital (through culture, ideology, norms, and values) are seen as important to revitalize collective action. With increasing focus on community development and the recognition of the need to support communitybased organizations in the region, the concept of social capital is relevant, but the term may not always be used in those contexts. Maluccio, Haddad, and May (1999: 3) point out that the concept of social capital is related to the understanding of ‘‘Ubuntu’’ in South(ern) Africa, which describes an African notion of humanness in the sense of ‘‘I am because you exist.’’
Empirical Data The following section provides an overview of empirical data in the region. It is subdivided into themes relevant to the topic. Civil Society Organizations
According to Mashumba and Clarke (2005: 13), civil society in southern Africa includes diverse actors, spaces and institutional forms, such as registered charities, development organizations, community groups, women’s organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, coalitions, and advocacy groups. Most CSOs work predominantly towards poverty eradication and, less pronounced, towards environmental sustainability.
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Civil society formations in southern Africa have been active in development, welfare and service delivery, peacebuilding, advocacy and human rights work, research and documentation and capacity building work. In the absence of government delivery to poor communities, many CSOs have formed in response to dire needs at grassroots level. Ekiyor and Mashumba (2006: 26) argue that in central Africa the role of civil society is still evolving, as central African countries are at various stages of conflict, peace, post-conflict reconstruction and democratic consolidation. Hence, their work is guided by the environment in which they operate. In the Central African Republic (CAR), human rights organizations emerged as a response to human rights violations during recurring civil wars, particularly women’s organizations. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) during the Mobutu Sese Seko era (1965–1997) CSOs resembled political parties. The Institute for Security Studies (2006: 5) point out that particularly in conflict ridden countries such as Angola, Lesotho, Mozambique and the DRC, CSOs contributed to humanitarian relief, international advocacy work and campaigning for peace. According to Ekiyor and Mashumba (2006: 26–27), faith-based organizations have played an important role in both regions and seem in some countries the strongest civil society formations supporting communities and advocating against human rights violations. Examples are listed from Angola, the DRC, South Africa, Malawi, and Zambia. Women’s organizations have been particularly vital in conflict ridden areas, as wars and conflict often worsen gender relations, increase violence against women and in some cases women are forced to combat. In central Africa, women’s groups, associations and networks have played roles in peace-building and post-conflict situations, such as in the DRC, Burundi and Rwanda. At a grassroots level, women’s groups assist in rebuilding their societies. However, in central Africa, women have been largely excluded from all formal peace negotiations and processes. According to Mashumba and Clarke (2005: 20), in southern Africa, women’s organizations have a stronger influence on regional policies, issues and injustices such as gender inequality, poverty, and conflict. Women’s organizations advocated successfully for the adoption of the 1997 Declaration on Gender and Development in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries. CSOs in some countries in the region still have to operate under colonial legislation and in others the legislation governing nonprofit organizations is not comprehensive. Registration processes can be lengthy and costly in
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many countries and discourage grassroots organizations. This impacts directly on the ability to receive state and donor funding which generally requires formal registration. Donor conditionality can further become a problem among civil society groups, who increasingly spend their time to comply with such conditions, which reduces their ability to respond to the needs of their constituencies. The issue of donor-driven behavior of many CSOs is enforced by a still widely top-down approach from various donors. Many organizations lose their grassroots credibility as a result of upwards accountability to donors (Yachkaschi, 2008: 157–158). Networks and Umbrella Bodies
Because of its diversity, civil society cannot be identified as an entity, or represented by an overarching structure. Therefore, civil society can rather be understood in its specific formations or networks in a particular context. Internationally, some activist organizations are linked to networks such as the World Social Forum (WSF), and the African Social Forum, which includes a wide range of human rights and social justice organizations on the continent. Regional, national or local Social Forums are connected to the larger umbrella, such as the Central Africa Social Forum, Southern Africa Social Forum. Bond (2006: 152) points out that the WSF and its affiliates still need to develop collective programs, which need to emerge from real social struggles. On a regional level of government networks, the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) in 1983 and the SADC in 1992 have been established to foster regional integration, economic growth, defense, as well as peace and security issues. In both communities, civil society participation forms part of the agenda, but has been rather weak in practice. Support from civil society to governments, such as in research, capacity building and conflict, has had some successes, whereas contentious areas such as democracy, governance, and human rights work have not been embraced by governments (Ekiyor & Mashumba, 2006: 21–24). In Southern Africa, the Southern African Regional Poverty Network (SARPN) is advocating for socio economic justice, providing a platform for policy generating dialogue in the region. Similar regional work is provided in collaboration by the Economic Justice Network (EJN). National and international networks complement the work, such as faith-based organizations like World Vision, the World Lutheran Church and the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE). Ekiyor and Mashumba (2006: 26) argue that in central Africa many organizations do not consult each other,
leading to a duplication of initiatives. Regional or national networks, such as in southern Africa, are not yet organized. In the CAR, however, over 200 human rights oriented nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have established a coordinating team. On a national level, there are various networks of CSOs in southern Africa, such as the South African NGO Council (SANGOCO), the Lesotho Council of NGOs (LCN), the Botswana Council of NGOs (BOCONGO), the Council of NGOs in Malawi (CONGOMA) and Zimbabwe’s National Association of NGOs (NANGO). The purpose of such networks is to provide inclusive platforms for civil society voices, strengthening collaboration and minimizing doubling and competition for financial resources. The successes of such networks vary due to the diversity of organizations, ongoing competitions and a lack of inclusiveness. Mashumba and Clarke (2005: 26) further list differences in ideology, strategies and mandate, and therefore argue for the need for more inclusiveness and acceptance of a diverse range of organizations. The networks listed above have provided the framework for a subregional SADC-CNGO. The membership in this body is limited to organizations who are members in their national bodies, excluding organizations that cannot participate in those. However, while the diversity of CSOs may hinder their collaboration and cohesion, Mashumba and Clarke (2005: 27) also stress the strength that lies in the diversity of roles that CSOs play from large, formalized organizations to small community-based structures, including a range of expertise from academic, formal skills to indigenous knowledge and capabilities of coping with crises. Relationships with Governments and Networks
Generally, civil society activities are influenced by the presence or absence of an enabling environment in which they operate. This includes their relationships with governments as well as their ability to be formally recognized and supported through resources and networks. CSOs have to balance their role between collaboration with and contestation of governments. In more repressive states, questions arise whether to strengthen state institutions towards better governance, or to actively work towards regime change. Tactics vary and are ideologically motivated, where organizations have to choose between using the ‘‘boardroom’’ versus the ‘‘street.’’ Historically, civil society has played a vital role in fighting colonialism and advocating for democratic governance in postcolonial autocratic or conflict ridden countries. In countries with repressive legislation and mechanisms like Zimbabwe, CSOs continue to contest
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governments as well as provide basic services to the most vulnerable people suffering from marginalization, poverty and HIV-AIDS. In southern Africa CSOs have contributed to multiparty democracies, for example through trade unions, such as in Zambia in 1991. In various countries the main opposition parties have their roots in trade unions, like the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe. Similarly, in Swaziland trade unions and other CSOs have advocated for democracy and a written constitution. In countries where the dominant parties were constituted out of former liberation movements, such as the South-West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) in Namibia, the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), the Mozambican Liberation Front (FRELIMO) or the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, there may be assumptions that the party still represents civil society, while contemporary CSOs, particularly social movements, are viewed with suspicion. In southern Africa, CSOs active in development, service delivery or conflict resolution have easier relationships with governments, whereas organizations advocating for human rights, democracy and good governance are seen as a threat and viewed with suspicion. In many countries in the region, civil society’s impact on policy making is low and activist organizations are frequently harassed by state officials. CSOs often avoid contesting government activities, and are on the contrary increasingly subcontracted by local government to become providers of government services. Galvin (2005: 7) describes how changes in the funding environment have forced many NGOs to look to government for funds, which has led NGOs to adopt a more corporate identity leading to less independence. Habib and Kotze´ (2003, in Kotze´, 2003: 17) describe a paradigm shift, where the language of neoliberalism has led to a more technicist discourse about development and a lack of critical engagement from NGOs with economic and political matters. Particularly human rights organizations have been accused by governments of being manipulated by external donor agendas, such as by statements from former South African president Thabo Mbeki in 2005 who questioned the credibility of CSOs that were critical of government policy, like the antinuclear energy movement of Earthlife Africa. Governments are increasingly questioning the legitimacy and mandate of CSOs aiming at challenging and influencing policy. In South Africa, Oldfield and Stokke (2004: 30) describe the competition over the right to be the legitimate representatives of poor people between the dominant parties and trade unions and their civil society affiliates; and new
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social movements which challenge the postapartheid neoliberal democracy and advocate for more socioeconomic justice. This is leading to civil society having to balance between engagement and opposition in a period generally marked by mistrust between CSOs and state actors. Habib (2003: 238–239) describes the plurality of responses of South African CSOs to the effects of democratization and globalization; which are divided into three distinct blocks along a spectrum: on one end of the spectrum are survivalist CBOs in marginalized communities, who have no relationship with the state. On the other end are social movements or activist communitybased organizations challenging neoliberal policies, and engaging with the state in an adversarial role. The third block is constituted by formal, service related NGOs which enter partnerships with the state or are subcontracted. The boundaries between the blocks can be blurred, as the organizational forms are diverse and cannot easily be classified. In various countries, social movements are not only challenging government policy but also international global institutions such as the World Bank (WB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and their prescribed structural adjustment programs, such as through demonstrations from Harare University students in Zimbabwe and the South African Durban Social Forum Declaration, linking neoliberal country policies to international institutions like the WB, IMF, G8, and the world Trade Organization (WTO). In 2004, half a million workers in Zambia participated in a strike against the IMF, organized by the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions. Social movements around various issues have emerged on the political landscape since the late 1990s, advocating for an alternative development agenda and social justice, including food security, debt relief, environmental justice, land rights, women’s rights, access to AIDS-treatment, rights to sexual orientation and against the privatization of basic services and resources. In central Africa, relations between civil society and government have been tense, mainly due to human rights violations by governments, as well as corruption and mismanagement. For example, Chadian CSOs have been criticizing the Chad-Cameroon Pipeline for its negative impacts on human rights in the region. Civil society actors have also been seeking dialogue with governments as a contribution to consolidating peace. However, CSOs operating within autocratic states also face the challenge of governments trying to steer civil society operations and co-opting organizations to act on their behalf. In the Inter-Congolese Dialogue Process of 2002, several civil society associations were included as a
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neutral third party next to the government and armed groups. In the process, CSOs entered into competition with each other, aligned with strong opposition parties or were co-opted into the transition-government of 2003. This brought into question their level of cohesion and independence, and their impartiality became impossible. Particularly in countries where governments are less accountable, transparency and accountability is not widely practiced by CSOs either, including cases of corruption. A weakness of formal CSOs has been their lacking ability to include ordinary citizens in informal democratic processes. In this way, advocacy campaigns remain driven by elitist groups in large cities who are often disconnected from the realities of people at grassroots level in the periphery of cities and in rural areas. The following section therefore discusses the role of community-based organizations. Community-Based Organizations
The discourse about CSOs in southern and central Africa is often limited to more formalized NGOs. The more formal and better resourced NGOs are mainly based in large cities, and therefore remain removed from the majority of citizens, which live in rural areas. Especially women and rural dwellers remain excluded from citizen participation in civil society activities run by larger NGOs. There are however many community-based organizations (CBOs) within rural areas and impoverished parts of cities. Those groupings are largely informal and marginalized, suffering from the lack of resources and their inability to cooperate with one another (CIVICUS, 2005: 25–26). According to a national study, there were nearly 99,000 nonprofit organizations in South Africa in 1998, 53% of which were CBOs or Voluntary Associations (53,929 in total). They worked in sectors like culture and recreation (15,853), development and housing (12,023), social services (10,011), health (4,191), education and research (4,028), advocacy and politics (3,465), religion (2,532) and environment (1,826) (Swilling and Russell, 2002: 21). The study contradicts a dominant image that development services are mainly provided by formal and professionally run NGOs, and shows that most organizations have been established by people from poor communities to meet needs from within through community organizing and solidarity. Similarly, in Namibia there are an estimated 150 NGOs and as many CBOs (with a population of only two million people) (Ho¨hn, 2008: 3). Galvin (2005: 13–19, 30) developed a typology of rural CBOs in South Africa, classifying them into (a) coping/ survival CBOs; (b) income generating CBOs; (c) service
delivery, governance and advocacy CBOs; and (d) culture, youth and sport CBOs. The composition of those CBOs also reflected local power dynamics and gender divisions: survival and income generating CBOs were predominantly run by voluntary members, most of whom were women; and service delivery, governance and advocacy CBOs were mainly constituted by elected members with political or economic standing, who were mostly men. Such local power dynamics seem to limit CBOs in their ability to play a larger role in society. While CBOs are seen as an indicator of social capital in poor communities, Habib (2003: 236–237) argues that as a response to globalization and neoliberalism, civil society has reconstituted, including formations like CBOs, in order for marginalized communities to survive. Hence, one cannot simply understand them as indicators for a strong and vibrant civil society, but as survivalist responses towards a state that does not meet its socioeconomic obligations. Government spending on social development is too little in relation to historical inequalities and future needs, and can only allow for slow improvements over time (Swilling & Russell, 2002: 71). Added to this can be the discourse on voluntarism. Whereas 49% of the workforce of the nonprofit sector in South Africa was made up of volunteers in 1998 (Swilling & Russell, 2002: 22), this may mainly constitute CBOmembers. Kotze´ (2003: 24) refers to a level of exploitation in the face of acute poverty; and a growing gap between well- and under-resourced CSOs.
Outlook/Concluding Assessment Civil society has been playing an important role in both regions, and is still relevant today in its diversity of formations. Although in many countries there is a sense that support and international funding may be waning, as organizations now have to compete with governments for international funding, there are still many organizations that receive foreign and local funding for their activities. In this context, the independence of CSOs is often questioned, as many donors (from international and national aid organizations, foundations as well as government) tend to overtly or covertly dictate activities, even if their focus is on participatory practices. Tendencies from international organizations like the WB to support social capital by strengthening CBOs are therefore also seen with suspicion, as the stronger the power asymmetries, the higher the danger for small organizations of being instrumentalized in the process, leading to them becoming cheap implementers of international aid projects (Yachkaschi, 2008: 74).
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Generally, the diversity of CSOs is seen as a strength, while at the same time also pointing to the varying theories of development, leading to the diversity of responses to problems. The divide between service oriented organizations versus activist organizations, as well as between well resourced NGOs versus poor and informal CBOs reflects divisions in societies at large, and choices resulting from social standing, ideology, education and levels of marginalization.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in East Africa ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in West Africa ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society in Post Conflict Scenarios ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Social Capital ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Andersson, G. (1999). Partnerships between CBOs, NGOs and government in South Africa: Insights derived from experience. Pretoria, South Africa: USAID. Ballard, R., Habib, A., & Valodia, I. (Eds.), (2006). Voices of protest. Social movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Durban, South Africa: UKZN Press. Bond, P. (2006). Looting Africa. The economics of exploitation. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa/London: UKZN Press/ZED Books. CIVICUS. (2006). CIVICUS Civil Society Index: Preliminary findings, phase 2003–2005, from http://www.civicus.org/civicusbooksandpublications/csi-publications, 1/3/2009 Colvin, J. C. (2007). Civil society and reconciliation in Southern Africa. Development in Practice, 17(3), 322–337. van Donk, M., & Pieterse, E. (2004). Contextual snapshots: Development challenges and responses during the transition. In E. Pieterse, & F. Meintjies (Eds.), Voices of the transition. The politics, poetics and practices of social change in South Africa Sandown: Heinemann.(pp. 38–52). van Driel, F., & van Haren, J. (2003). Whose interests are at stake? Civil society and NGOs in South Africa. Development Southern Africa, 20(4), 529–543. Ekiyor, T., & Mashumba, N. (2006). The peacebuilding role of civil society in Central Africa. Policy Seminar Report. Centre for Conflict Resolution. Cape Town, South Africa: University of Cape Town. Friedman, S. (2003). Golden dawn or white flag? The state, civil society and social policy. Avocado Working Paper Series. Durban, South Africa: Olive. Galvin, M. (2005). Survival, development or advocacy? A preliminary examination of rural CBOs in South Africa. Avocado Working Paper Series 1/2005. Durban, South Africa: Olive.
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Habib, A. (2003). State civil society relations in post-apartheid South Africa. In J. Daniel, A. Habib, & R. Southall (Eds.), State of the nation. South Africa 2003–2004 Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press.(pp. 227–241). Haysom, N., Cachalia, F., & Molahleli, E. (1999). Civil society and fundamental freedoms. An enabling framework for civil society in Southern Africa. South Africa: The Development Resource Centre. Ho¨hn, S. (2008). The failures of success – NGOs and the decreasing support for civil society in Namibia. Political Perspectives, 2(1), 1–21. Institute for Security Studies & Konrad Adenauer Stiftung. (2006). Civil society and governance in Southern Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: KAS & ISS. James, R., & Katundu, B. (2006). Counting the organisational cost of HIV/ AIDS to civil society organisations. Pilot Research Study, Malawi. Praxis Paper No. 11. Oxford, UK: INTRAC. Kotze´, H. 2003. Responding to the growing socio-economic crisis? A review of civil society in South Africa. In Centre for Civil Society (Eds.), Development update. The deepening divide. Civil society and development in South Africa 2001/2002 (pp. 1–32). Johannesburg, South Africa: Interfund. Lo¨fgren, M. et al. (Eds.) (2007). Global civil society. More or less democracy? Development Dialogue, 49, November 2007. Maluccio, J., Haddad, L., & May, J. (1999). Social capital and income generation in South Africa, 1993–98. Paper prepared for IDS-IFPRI Workshop April 7–8, 1999, Economic Mobility and Poverty Dynamics in Developing Countries. International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, DC/Centre for Social and Development Studies, Durban, South Africa. Manji, F., & Burnett, P. (Eds.) (2004). African voices on development and social justice. Editorials from Pambazuka News. Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Mkuki na Nyota Publishers. Mashumba, N., & Clarke, Y. (2005). The peacebuilding role of civil society in Southern Africa. Policy Seminar Report. Centre for Conflict Resolution and Electoral Institute of Southern Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: University of Cape Town. McKinsey, D., & Naidoo, P. (Eds.) (2004). Mobilising for change. The rise of new social movements in South Africa. Development Update, 5, 2. Notes from Nowhere. (Ed.) (2003). We are everywhere. The irresistible rise of global anticapitalism. London: Verso. Oldfield, S., & Stokke, K. (2004). Building unity in diversity: Social movement activism in the Western Cape Anti Eviction Campaign. Durban: University of Kwazulu-Natal, School of Development Studies. Piazza-Georgi, B. (2002). Human and social capital in Soweto in 1999: Report on a field study. Development in Southern Africa, 19(5), 615–639. Pieterse, E. (2003). Rhythms, patterning and articulations of social formations in South Africa. In D. Everatt, & V. Maphai (Eds.), The real state of the Nation. South Africa after 1990 (pp. 101–136). Development Update 4/2003, Special Edition. Johannesburg, South Africa: Interfund. Preece, J., & Mosweunyane, D. (2006). The name assigned to the document by the author. This field may also contain sub-titles, series names, and report numbers. What citizenship responsibility means to Botswana’s young adults: Implications for adult education. Compare: A Journal of Comparative Education, 36(1). 5–21. Robson, P. (2001). Communities and community institutions in Luanda. In P. Robson (Ed.), Communities and reconstruction in Luanda in Angola. Occasional Paper No. 1 (pp. 163–181).Canada: Development Workshop.
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Robson, P., & Roque, S. (2001). Here in the city there is nothing left over for lending a hand. In search for solidarity and collective action in periurban areas in Angola. Occasional Paper No. 2. Canada: Development Workshop. Swilling, M., & Russell, B. (2002). The size and scope of the non-profit sector in South Africa. South Africa: University of the Witwatersrand and University of Natal. Yachkaschi, S. (2006). Drinking from the poisoned chalice. How the demands of the ‘‘development industry’’ undermine the resourcefulness and identity of Community-Based Organisations. CDRA Online: http://www.cdra.org.za/LibraryandResources/Nuggets.htm, 10/13/2006 Yachkaschi, S. (2008). Towards the development of an appropriate organisational development approach for optimising the capacity building of Community-Based Organisations (CBOs): A case study of 3 CBOs in the Western Cape. Ph.D. Dissertation. Stellenbosch, South Africa: University of Stellenbosch.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Central Asia KIMAIRIS TOOGOOD-LUEHRS George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA
as Central Asian Survey, particularly the third volume of the September 2005 edition which is completely devoted to the topic of civil society and on other related topics, such as nation-state development, economic underdevelopment, and the revitalization of Islam in daily life. Central Asian scholars and practitioners agree that a better understanding of the regions ever-evolving ‘‘civil society’’ is needed to further our analysis on the processes that are continuing to shape the region and its people. This entry intends to do two things. First, I will attempt to document the way in which the concepts of civil society has struggled into existence in today’s Central Asia. In doing so, I will illustrate the complexities involved in defining the concept of ‘‘civil society’’ in the region, and the nuances of thinking about how this definition applies in each of the Republics, with its unique post-independence experience. Second, I will use the concept of ‘‘social or human capital’’ to analyze both the current status of civil society and its future potential. One caveat is that it is impossible to give all five republics equal attention in a short encyclopedia entry, therefore, this entry seeks to discuss the region as a whole, comparing and contrasting the aforementioned countryspecific nuances in the process.
Introduction
Central Asia: Soviet Era and Beyond
Central Asia has long been an under-researched region of the world, with a growing number of researchers and practitioners from various disciplines expanding the body of literature on the plethora of development issues facing this Post-Soviet territory. Many questions remain unanswered pertaining to the past and current political, military, and socioeconomic status of the five republics that constitute the heart of Central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. This entry is prompted by one such question: ‘‘Is there a ‘civil society’ in Central Asia? If so, what form does it take? In this civil society, what is the understanding of the concept of ‘social capital’? If ‘civil society’ and ‘social capital’ do not exist, why not?’’ This topic was first critically analyzed in 1998 by prominent scholars at a two-day conference sponsored by the Center for Civil Society International in Seattle Washington and the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute of the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC (*the resulting book was titled Civil Society in Central Asia by Ruffin & Waugh, 1999). This is cited as the first substantive and comprehensive analysis on countryspecific and regional development issues facing Central Asian Republics from independence through its publication in 1999 (Central Asian Survey, 2005). Subsequent works, however, have followed in popular journals such
The region that is now known as Central Asia consists of five post-Soviet Republics: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. These nationstates were launched into existence with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991; however, the region’s history precedes the Russian and Soviet Invasions in 1717 and 1921 respectively, and was significantly influenced by the legacy of its aforementioned colonizers. The Central Asian region, known as the Ancient Tamerlane after the Mongol warrior that roamed the region in the Middle Ages, boasted one of the most historically significant trading routes from Asia to Europe, and was known for one of the most significant trading routes on the Silk Road. While the Central Asian region lost its most prominent when a water route was found linking India to Europe, it remained an important land trading route based solely on its geography. It is also known as ‘‘Middle Asia’’ or ‘‘Inner Asia,’’ and as parts of larger geographic understandings, ‘‘Eurasia’’ or ‘‘Turkestan’’ (Gleason, 1997; Roy, 1997). The inception of five individual republics resulted from Joseph Stalin’s policy of ‘‘national delimination,’’ of the breaking up of the landmass that was originally created by Vladimir Lenin. Stalin’s intention was to divide the power this single and centralized entity that would have been a competitor for the solidification of Moscow’s power. Interestingly for Central Asia’s future, this process of
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creating Soviet Republics created significant pockets of ethnic minorities residing within boundaries that were not their own, creating a region composed of ethnic pluralism that continues through independence in 1991 (Roy, 1997). The 70 years of Soviet rule had lasting effects on the history of the region. Moscow’s control ushered in heightened social and economic collectivism and strictly hierarchical political governing patterns. This period also brought high levels of literacy and education to the region, especially for women, and when not perceived as a threat to the centralized Soviet regime, saw the creation of semi-independent, citizen-based institutions that could be considered the precursor for postindependence civil society. In fact, the status of women in society was never higher than under the Soviet period with women organizations and associations outnumbering others, and continued at independence in 1991. Scholars continue to debate whether or not these institutions could in fact be considered a form of ‘‘state-led civil society’’ in Central Asia, as the Soviet state apparatus was intimately involved in this ‘‘realm’’ or ‘‘sphere’’ of societal relations (interesting debate on this between Babajanian and Illkhamov in Central Asian Survey 2005). This touches on the larger debate on whether or not liberal, Western definitions of civil society should be applied in the Central Asian context, and will be discussed in the next section. In addition to the Soviet legacy which questionably developed a type of ‘‘state-led civil society,’’ the region’s religious composition has had lasting effects on the development of civil society. Under the Soviets, many civil liberties and rights previously enjoyed under the Imams and Umahs of the Khanates were usurped by the governing apparatus in Moscow in order to build the greater Sovietization of the Muslims included in their union. Not particular to Central Asia, there are growing debates on the compatibility of Islam with the development of civil society in our globalizing world. Some scholars claim that Muslim societies privilege collective bonding such as those under the Soviet era which are at odds with the individualistic nature of citizenship rights emphasized by Western notions of civil society (Ernest Gellner, 1996; Serif Marden, 1999; S. Frederick Starr in Ruffin & Waugh, 1999). Other scholars claim that Muslim-dominated Central Asia does not need to reconcile its religious life with the creation of civil society as defined by Western philosophy, but must work to create its own notion of civil society that adequately combines religious practices with the creation of its social, political, and economic civic sphere (Sabine Freizer, 2005; Shirin Akiner, 2002; S. Frederick Starr in Ruffin & Waugh, 1999). The role of Islam does indeed
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play a vital role in this communal sense of civil society. Indigenous Islamic traditions regained their prominence with the cessation of the Soviet rule in the region, but are found to have played a vital role in daily life throughout colonization. And while this debate requires more space than provided in this entry, suffice it to say that there are adequate empirics to illustrate that the Central Asian region continues to struggle in developing its nascent civil society and, thus, its conception of social capital.
Civil Society ‘‘Upon independence in 1991, did the Central Asian Republics have a type of ‘civil society’?’’ The fundamental answer is ‘‘yes,’’ but it prompts a continuing debate among Central Asian scholars (Olivier Roy in A. Sajoo, 2002) between whether communal civil society and not the Western-supported neoliberal civil society that has been blossoming since independence should be considered (Howell in Central Asian Survey, 2005). In order to adequate describe ‘‘civil society in Central Asia,’’ it is essential to discuss both types of civil societies that exist in the region. And while I am discussing Central Asia as a regional bloc, I will attempt to differentiate the points of divergence between each nation-state when it becomes relevant, as it is difficult to find two civil societies that are composed of similar actors or function the same way all the time in all situations (Roy, 2005). Contemporary or ‘‘Neoliberal’’ Civil Society in Central Asia
Philosophers in the premodern and modern periods such as Immanuel Kant, G. W. F. Hegel, John Locke and Karl Marx are cited as the foundation of political thought on civil society and its inception vis-a`-vis the state apparatus. Without discussing the entire debate, suffice it to say the crux of this debate centers on whether civil society can be interpreted as a political community which takes direct authority from the state or that it is a realm of choice, personal freedom and individual responsibility. Regardless of the side of the debate one theoretically leans towards, the relationship between the state and the civil sector is important, and that one must precede the formation of the other. In general, it is considered that the emergence of civil society depends on the existence of a minimum degree of basic social organization, and an effectively functioning state which protects the constitution and the rule of law in society must precede the formation of civil society (Atabaki, 1998). Under Soviet domination, it can be argued that the ‘‘state-led civil society’’ that was implemented could be considered the aforementioned political
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community that takes direct authority from the state. And with independence, there have been great strides made to decrease this understanding of civil society towards the latter understanding which creates a space between society and the state for autonomous decision making and action. Therefore, the on-going process in Central Asia is to transform the ‘‘state-led civil society’’ into the neoliberal civil society’ as dictated by Western donors funding the postindependence organizations and associations. Problems inevitably arise in this process of transforming Soviet institutions to mirror Western models (Weinthal). This topic prompts a larger debate on Central Asian regime capacity and transformation of the governing bodies and institutions, but it is understood among scholars and practitioners that the Central Asian republics, to a varying degree, are in a transition period. Whether or not that is a transition towards democracy building is debatable. The literature on postauthoritarian regimes has categorized the Central Asian republics as ‘‘competitive authoritarian’’ regimes as of 2008 (Levitsky & Way, 2002, 2006). Regardless, as part of a larger liberal peace theoretical effort, Western attempts to use the development of civil society as a democratizing tool has not been missed by the former Communist Party leaders that inherited the five Central Asian republics. From independence to the present, Central Asian leaders have verbally embraced the concept of democratization as an alternative to former authoritarian rule from Moscow, but the empirics on whether or not they have implemented the institutions associated with democracy have been lacking. Associated with this concept is a stress on the implementation of freedom of association and speech, equal rights for minorities and women, rule of law where citizens have meaningful rights and there are both nonprofit organizations and voluntary associations. It is more accurate to say that the laws that guarantee the freedoms of expression and association and the extent to which rule of law even exists throughout the region are in their infancy and will remain so if the corruption and poor governance structures, with associated nepotism based on kinship and clan ties persist. This is not to ignore the important relationship between civil society and the state institutions that it maneuvers through and or around, as is often the case in Central Asia. As the neoliberal civil society continues to push to define itself as a realm autonomous from state institutions and influences, it must also work with the state closely as it tries to serve as a watchdog for the ‘‘reforms’’ of state institutions. Therefore, this civil society must take into account and have a full understanding of the contextual political and institutional conditions in Central Asia, which are constantly in flux.
More importantly, unlike the post-Soviet countries in Eastern Europe that used the banner of ‘‘civil society’’ to thwart their totalitarian regimes in the mid-1970s, the Central Asian republics have no similar history (Uhlin, 2006), but the leadership is fully aware of the consequences of such civic activism. And the financing that poured into the former Soviet Union breakaway countries upon independence from Western donors had an emancipator agenda tied to it that was interpreted as ‘‘democracy or bust.’’ And so what you find is that in order to continue to make agreements and arrangements with Western donors and powers, nepotistic Central Asian leaders allow the flourishing of this neoliberal conception of civil society through the proliferation of NGOs and allow citizens to exercise their rights to speech, press, media, religion, and association, but within limits. The threshold of this civic activity is when the government perceives a threat to stability of the status quo. Since independence there are several citable examples in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, with the government meeting protesters with military might and bloodshed being the result (See Daniel Stevens’ ‘‘Political Society and civil society in Uzbekistan-never the twain shall meet?’’ for brief analysis of the Andijan massacre in May 2005). That being said, there are also limits to this threshold maintenance, and it is there that civil society in the neoliberal sense of the concept may in fact, be taking hold. Kyrgyzstan is cited as the most recent example of this, with its youth-backed social movement that ousted President Akaev in 2006. Who constitutes civil society actors in the neoliberal sense? Do political and nonpolitical actors count (Hewison & Rodan, 1996)? In all Central Asian republics with the exception of Tajikistan, neoliberal civil society is composed of organizations and associations with no overt political aims that may be perceived as threatening to the states. However, civil society groups are often acting politically regardless of whether they claim their aims to be inherently political. One civil society group in Tajikistan known as ‘‘Dialogue’’ which is run by the chairman of the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) may be considered the overlap of the political party institutions and the civil society groups in the civil society sphere. Regardless, for all the republics, civil society functions as the realm of institutions such as education, religion, economics, and commerce, community life, and health associations as well as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), all of which carry people through the stages of their lives. Like the mahalla leadership in communal civil society, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) (both international and national) are perhaps the most important civil
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society actor in Central Asia. As highlighted above, NGOs are only one of many civil society actors at work in Central Asia, but as is the case in many transitioning countries, they often play the most visible and important role in the development of civil society. International NGOs such as Soros Foundation, Eurasia Foundation, and Mercy Corps have been active in the region for over a decade. Recognizing the difficult political situation of working in competitive authoritarian regimes, many international organizations began financing national NGOs to build social capital and networking capabilities between them, thus promoting a more sustainable corps to work on projects even after the international organizations leave. For example, Counterpart Consortium operates in all five republics and works to strengthen local NGOs. Between 1993 and 1997, ISAR contributed over $400 K in grants to over 350 NGO projects throughout Central Asia (www.isar.org). Debate continues in the development world if it is better for international NGOs to continue financing national or local NGOs even when they would not be sustainable without the financing (Erika Weinthal et al., 1996). NGOs first appeared in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan followed by Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, although unlike the previous countries, Tajikistan’s NGOs appear because of a near state collapse in the 1992 civil war. There has been a proliferation of all types of NGOs in Central Asia, but it is not to be assumed that quantity equals quality. The most significant factor in understanding the sustainability of quality NGOs is financial and mostly dependent on foreign aid money. Another pressing factor in the sustainability of these NGOs has and will remain the style of governing apparatus that controls the country. One interesting inregion comparison is between Former President Askar Akayev in Kyrgyzstan and the recently deceased President Saparmurat Niyazov or ‘‘Turkmenbashi’’ in Turkmenistan in which the former had allowed a semi-open space for civil society organization and association formation by limiting the registration fees for the organizations and making policies and regulations transparent unlike the Turkmenistan government. The result was that between 1991 and 1999,
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Kyrgyzstan had between four and six times as many NGOs and associations at work on building civil society than Turkmenistan. And since 1999, this number has continued to grow, although the Kyrgyz neoliberal civil society has received enormous praise and criticism since its forced resignation of President Akayev and support of elected President Kurmanbek Bakiyev since 2005.
Social Capital Traditional or ‘‘Communal’’ Civil Society and Associated Ideas of Social Capital
If we narrow our definition of civil society to Western notions of free markets and press, fair elections and competition, then Central Asia has not had a tradition of civil society in its modern history. But if we widen the understanding of what constitutes the ‘‘civil’’ sphere, we will find the traditional elements of the region’s people and history lends itself to the essential values of civility. These five states are composed of strong networks of familiar and community support with kinship and tribal connections within and across villages that is an important element of both civil society, and its sub-entity, social capital (Olivier Roy in A. Sajoo, 2002). Communal civil society has been defined as a sphere for social interaction on a voluntary basis in which individuals exchange information and deliberate collective action. In the Central Asian context, these exchanges and deliberations are highly informal and therefore often overlooked. But this realm is located in the family, community, within friendship networks and voluntarism, and has strong connections to conceptions of social capital. Some scholars say the various indigenous elements in Central Asian societies such as the community mahalla that served as a regulator of activity between the government and individuals, along with other communal associations such as the avlod, guilds, jamoat resource councils, and various village organizations which historically provided goods and services such as education or healthcare should be considered a type of, or basis for a
Country
Intl
Environmental
Business
Education
Health
Law and human rights
Social welfare
Women
Youth
Tajikistan
12
8
7
4
0
4
3
4
5
Turkmenistan
4
3
0
1
0
1
1
2
0
Uzbekistan
12
5
9
4
3
3
14
14
4
Kazakhstan
11
22
10
5
2
7
36
12
8
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communal conception of civil society in Central Asia (Sabine Freizer, 2005; Olivier Roy in A. Sajoo, 2002; S. Frederick Starr in Ruffin & Waugh, 1999). Traditional social organizations, also called ‘‘communitybased organizations’’ to Western donors, have been overlooked as an avenue to continue the development of a nascent civil society. And given the fluidity of the liberal NGOs and associations to be discussed in more detail below, these community-based or civil society organizations have persisted for the duration of Soviet rule, and are considered to be the basis for any form of citizen collective action given the entanglement with daily life. For example, throughout history, the mahalla, composed of several prominent community leaders, worked to promote the interests of the community through advocacy and served as a type of institutional structure for citizens when they had local conflict. There has been a recent effort by international NGOs to make partnerships with these mahallas in Central Asia, as they are beginning to understand the essential role these community organizations play (Daniel Stevens, 2005). I stress the role of the mahalla in daily life, as it plays a fundamental role in the way Central Asians conceptualize social capital. Without extrapolating on the various arguments surrounding definitions of social capital, it is essential to ground the Central Asian usage of the concept within one set of definitions. Social capital in the Central Asian context follows the ideas of Gittell and Vidal (1998) as well as Woolcock (1998), which stresses the horizontal ‘‘bonding and bridging’’ networks among individuals in a community, and the vertical ‘‘linkages’’ which promotes the spread of ideas from the individual to institutions. Bourdieu’s concept also fits these ideas, as individuals are able to translate their individual social capital into connections with others. The Robert Putnam definition of social capital that stresses the collectivity of social capital that stresses a level of social trust is difficult to assess in the Central Asian context. There are associated ideas of social capital and the level of ‘‘trust’’ that exists within society and in relation to the state, but there has not been significant analysis and data to assess trust levels among citizens in Central Asian republics although it is inferred to be low due to the high level of repression and corruption throughout society; therefore, that concept is not stressed or problematized in this entry (for empirical analysis of social capital and ‘‘trust’’ in Central Asia, see Takashi Inoguchi & Zen-u Lucian Hotta, 2006). This concept is also to be differentiated from that of human capital, which in Central Asia is marked by conventional quantifiable indicators (for a discussion of ‘‘human capital in Central Asia’’ see Bolormaa Shagdar, 2006).
The mahalla has historically and continues to be able to mobilize individuals in the community toward collective activity and empowerment through the social bonding and bridging function it serves. The more connections Central Asian have, the more social capital they have according to the definition above and the mahalla provides these ties and linkages up to the state for many individuals that would otherwise be isolated from these institutions of decisionmaking. Often in the pre-Soviet period, not only did these mahallas have a prominent role, but informal craft associations or guilds were regulating trade and labor throughout the region (S. Frederick Starr in Ruffin & Waugh, 1999). Many national NGOs in Central Asia arose from these guilds and other associations, and are contributing to the development of social capital in the region. This communal understanding of civil society, which stresses the bridging and bonding and linkages of organizations and associations is based on family and clan ties and friendship connections that enable the provision of goods and services in the material sense as well as emotional support. But that is not to say there is no critique of this communal civil society. Given the highly patriarchal nature of society in Central Asia, the values this communal civil society often claims reinforce this conservative tenet in the name of safety and security. Also, the very nature of ‘‘bonding’’ mechanisms is that often minority groups become alienated from the ‘‘in-group bonding’’ if they are not part of the familial or clan of that village, and thus, become excluded from communal civil society organizations and associations, limiting their social capital.
Empirical Data Several types of NGOs, both national and international, have been more active than others in the region. As highlighted above, NGOs with openly political aims are the least popular as the state considered them a threat to regime stability. Interestingly, environmental NGOs seemed to proliferate in all five Central Asian republics. In Kyrgyzstan, poverty reduction NGOs have had the most sustainability, while in Tajikistan, social welfare and women’s NGOs have lasted through the civil war to the present. This following section details the empirics associated with the neoliberal civil society organization and associations. One brief caveat is tied to the aforementioned point about having NGOs proliferation in quantity without quality. There is a difference in registered and active NGOs in the region, and the following table lists only REGISTERED NGOs without differentiating the active ones. Below is a general listing of common types of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in existence in all five republics: environmental, business, educational, health,
Civil Society and Social Capital in Central Asia
law and human rights, social welfare, women, and youth focused.
Outlook/Conclusions The process of building civil society and social capital in Central Asia is complicated, but has potential if a number of factors are considered, including levels of corruption. More importantly, any evaluation of civil society in the region is incomplete without accounting for the presence of neo-liberal communal civil society. Thus far, it is fair to say that all five republics at the heart of Central Asia have civil societies, although not all of them are in the same place in the development of the communal or neoliberal civil societies. There are a number of factors that have and will continue to dictate how civil society and social capital develops in these countries. One argument is that while there is an on-going national identity making process, there will be no solidification of civil society (Hanks in Ruffin & Waugh, 1999). The idea here is that in other Post-Soviet nation-states such as Ukraine and Poland, the national identity had not only territory associated with it but linguistic composition that did not need to be invented upon independence from the Soviet Union like the Central Asian republics did. It can be said that Central Asian countries had firm ethnoreligious identities upon independence, but no certain ideas about national identities, or a sense of collectivity that is a prerequisite for the formation of a civil society (Gleason, 1997). Also, associated with this national identity formation process is finding a role of Islam in the neoliberal civil society. The Central Asian republics have used Islam as a social bonding mechanism in communal civil society, and it will continue to play a fundamental role in the development of civil society in the region (Hanks in Ruffin & Waugh, 1999).
Cross-References
▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civic Action ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Civil Society and Ethnicity ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Kant ▶ Good Governance ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development
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▶ Open Society Institute ▶ Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of
References/Further Readings Akiner, S. (2002). Prospects for civil society in Tajikistan. In A. Sajoo (Eds.), Civil society in the Muslim world: Contemporary perspectives. London: I. B. Tauris. Also, see Open Society Institute’s September 25th, 2005 Forum titled: ‘‘Whither Civil Society in Central Asia?’’ Speakers: Andreas Berg, Alisher Illkhamov, and Daniel Stevens. www.soros.org/intitiatives/ cep/events/civilsociety Atabaki, T. (1998). The impediments to the development of civil societies. In T. Atabaki & J. O. Keefe (Eds.), Post soviet Central Asia. London: Tauris. Bourdieu, P. (1972). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bunce, V. (2005). Domestic conditions and democracy promotion. Paper presented at Roundtable on US democracy promotion in PostCommunist societies, US Department of State. Bunce, V., & Wolchik, S. (2005). Promoting democracy after communism: Electoral revolutions in Slovakia, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. Ithaca, New York. Collier, P. (2002). Social capital and poverty. In C. Grootaert & T. V. Bastelaer (Eds.), The role of social capital in development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cox, R. W. (1999). Civil society at the turn of the millennium: prospects for an alternative world order. Review of International Studies, 25, 3–28. Civil society on Central Asia and the Caucasus [Special issue]. (2005, September). Central Asian Survey, 24(3). Freizer, S. (2005 September). Neo-liberal and communal civil society in Tajikistan: Merging or dividing in the post war period? Civil Society in Central Asia and the Causasus [Special issue]. Central Asian Survey, 24(3), 225–243. Friends and Partners. Civil Society in Central Asia. Book Review. www.friends-partners.org/CCSI/info/civilca.htm Gellner, E. (1983). Nations and nationalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Press (Multiple Reprints). Gellner, E. (1996). Conditions of liberty: Civil society and its rivals. London: Penguin. Gittell, R., & Vidal, A. (1998). Community organizing: Building social capital as a development strategy. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Gleason, G. (1997). The Central Asian states. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Harvey, P. (1998). Rehabilitation in complex political emergencies: Is rebuilding civil society the answer? Disasters, 22(3), 200–217. Hewison, K., & Rodan, G. (1996). The ebb and flow of civil society and the decline of the left in Southeast Asia. In G. Rodan (Ed.), Political oppositions in industrializing Asia. London: Routledge. Hyden, G. (1997). Building civil society at the turn of the millennium. In J. Burbidge (Ed.), Beyond prince and merchant: Citizen participation and the rise of civil society. New York: Pact Publishers. Inoguchi, T., & Hotta, Z.-u. L. (2006). Quantifying social capital in Central and South Asia: Are there democratic, developmental, and regionalizing potentials? Japanese Journal of Political Science, 7(2), 195–220.
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Kamp, M. (1994). Between women and the state: Mahalla committees and social welfare in Uzbekistan. In P. J. Luong (Ed.), The transformation of Central Asia: States and societies from soviet rule to independence. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Levitsky, S., & Way, L. (2006). Competitive Authoritarianism: The origins and evolution of hybrid regimes after the cold war. Toronto/Canada: Manuscript. Marden, S. (1995). Islam and civil society. In J. A. Hall (Ed.), Civil society: Theory, history, comparison. Cambridge: Polity Press. McFaul, M. (2005, July). Transitions from postcommunism. Journal of Democracy, 16(3), 5–19. Megoran, N. (2005, March). Preventing conflict by building civil society: Post-development theory and a Central Asia-UK policy success story. Central Asian Survey, 24(1), 83–96. Pottenger, J. R. (2004, March). Civil society, religious freedoms and Islam Karimov: Uzbekistan’s struggle for a decent society. Central Asian Survey, 23(1), 55–77. Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78. Roy, O. (1997). The new Central Asia: The creation of nations. New York: New York University. Roy, O. (2005). The predicament of ‘civil society’ in Central Asia and the ‘Greater Middle East. International Affairs, 81(5), 1001. Ruffin, M. H., & Waugh, D. (Ed.) (1999). Civil society in Central Asia. Seattle/London: University of Washington Press. Sajoo, A. (Ed.) (2002). Civil society in the Muslim world: Contemporary perspectives. London: I.B. Tauris. Shagdar, B. (2006). Human capital in Central Asia: Trends and challenges in education. Central Asian Survey, 25(4), 515–532. Stevens, D. (2005, September 28). Whither civil society in Central Asia? Open Society Institute Audio Recording. New York: OSI. Tismaneanu, V. (1995). Political culture and civil society in Russia and the new states of Eurasia (Vol. 7). The International Politics of Eurasia Seminar. Armonk, NJ/London: ME Sharpe. Uhlin, A. (2006). Post soviet civil society. London/New York: Routledge. Weinthal, E. (2000). Central Asia: Aral sea problem. Foreign Policy in Focus, 5(6). Woolcock, M. (1998, April). Social capital and economic development: Toward a theoretical synthesis and policy framework. Theory and Society, 27(2), 151–208.
Civil Society and Social Capital in China KIN-MAN CHAN The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Introduction The concept of civil society is somewhat foreign to most Chinese people, although a relatively autonomous societal space, minjian shehui, existed in traditional China until the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. During Mao’s rule, independent social groups were either banned or absorbed into the party-state structure.
The idea of civil society was introduced into China after the launch of reforms in the late 1970s, as the Chinese state gradually withdrew from the economic and social arenas. There has been phenomenal growth in the number of civic groups in China, especially business, professional, and academic associations, although Unger and Chan (1995) query whether these groups constitute a system of corporatism rather than civil society. Recent studies of grassroots nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), however, reveal that many of these groups are devoted to providing services to the underprivileged, poverty alleviation, rural education, public health, and environmental protection. They are relatively autonomous and are paving the way toward civil society (Chan, 2005; Chan et al, 2005; Ma, 2006). Social capital is understood as the resources embedded in social networks, and the Chinese are famous for making use of guanxi, or instrumental-personal ties (Walder, 1986), to acquire the resources that they need. This article, however, investigates whether civic groups, rather than personal networks, can create social capital in China. It discusses whether vertical networks hamper the development of horizontal networks, and whether civic groups can provide an institutional basis for social integration in China.
Civil Society Civil society is often defined as a societal structure composed of autonomous civic organizations located between the state and the family (Frentzel-Zagorska, 1990; Cohen & Arato, 1995). This concept of civil society is rooted in a liberal tradition that pits society against the state. Huang (1993) argues that in traditional Chinese society, the public arena was understood as the ‘‘third realm’’ where state and social groups such as kinship organizations met and cooperated, and hence should not be mistaken for civil society, or the public sphere, in the Western sense of these terms. The idea of civil society was not directly transplanted into Chinese soil, given the notion’s cultural and political baggage. Chinese scholars are exceedingly cautious about constructing a discourse of civil society. According to Ma (1994), the first Chinese publication related to the subject appeared in 1986 with an article by Shen Yue, who unearthed the concept of ‘‘townspeople’s rights’’ (shimin quanli) from the classical writings of Marx (Shen, 1986). The term refers to the right of equal exchange of commodities that is available to all townspeople, both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. It had been mistranslated as ‘‘bourgeois rights’’ (zichangjieji quanli) in Chinese, and these rights were thus regarded as a kind of improper
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privilege. Shen (1990) also argues that the term used by Marx and Engels, ‘‘burgerliche Gesellschaft,’’ had been mistranslated as ‘‘bourgeois society’’ (zichanjieji shehui). The correct translation, according to Shen, should be ‘‘townspeople’s society’’ (shimin shehui), which implies the universality of civil rights for different classes and is a concept that is remarkably similar to the idea of civil society. Fully aware of the political effect of the translation of the term ‘‘civil society,’’ Deng (Deng & Jing, 1992), one of the foremost thinkers on this subject, also adopts the term ‘‘townspeople’s society’’ (shimin shehui) in advocating for the construction of civil society in China. Ma (1994) argues that the concept and theory of civil society borrowed by most Chinese scholars in this period focus on the making of a modern citizenry that consists of law-abiding and civil members of society, and that the existence of this entity does not exclude the active involvement of the state. Since the 1990s, however, the translation of the term ‘‘civic groups’’ has evolved, from ‘‘social organizations’’ (shehui tuanti) and ‘‘intermediate organizations’’ (zhongjian tuanti) (Wang et al., 1993) to ‘‘people’s organizations’’ (minjian zuzhi). In 1995, many Chinese learned for the first time the term ‘‘non-governmental organization’’ (NGO) because of the prominent presence of NGOs at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing. The first research institute in China in this field, the NGO Research Center of Tsinghua University, was established in 1998. However, Peking University was the pioneer in using the term ‘‘civil society’’ (gongmin shehui) in setting up a similar institute, the Center for Civil Society Studies, in 2005. In 2006, the Institute for Civil Society was established at Sun Yat-sen University, signifying the growing acceptance of the idea of civil society in the Chinese academic world. Civil society has acquired a wide range of meanings in China. In the broader sense, it can mean a society constituted by people in their role as citizens. This notion of civil society, or ‘‘civilized society,’’ emphasizes the citizenry and civic virtue of people, and is appealing to Chinese because in the past, they were defined as ‘‘people’’ (renmin) in the political sense while without due legal protection of their rights. The Cultural Revolution further demoralized a generation of Chinese who had once been committed to ‘‘serve the people’’ but was finally traumatized by a series of political struggles. The idea of citizenship speaks to many Chinese who now demand proper protection of civil rights and value the genuine expression of social obligations, such as volunteering. Scholars usually use a more narrow definition of civil society, referring to an autonomous social structure composed of NGOs or
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non-profit organizations (NPOs) that not only provide services but also promote participation and social change. However, as the establishment of an NGO is still under stringent state control in China, informal networks and cyberspace are seen as alternative structures through which civic action can take place.
Social Capital The idea of social capital has begun to take root in China although Chinese have a long tradition of cultivating social relationships. The concept of social capital was introduced by Bourdieu (1977), who defines it as ‘‘the aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.’’ Coleman (1990) defines social capital as a productive structure of social relationships. The concept calls for analysis at the individual and the collective level. Scholars investigating the individual level of social capital such as Lin (1999) and Burt (1992), focus on the social resources that one can assess in social networks and the instrumental utility of such resources (Lin, 1999). In contrast, those examining the collective level of social capital focus on how groups or associations develop and maintain social capital in terms of trust and norms of reciprocity. According to Putnam, social capital of this kind is crucial for maintaining effective democracy and capitalism (Putnam, 1993). The importance of social capital was recognized in China before the concept gained popularity in the West. However, the emphasis has mainly been on the individual rather than the collective aspect of social capital. Guanxi or instrumental-personal ties (Walder, 1986) is perceived to be important in Chinese society in terms of the social resources within social networks that one can access and utilize. Little attention has been paid to social capital at the collective level until recently. The influence of participation in social groups on the overall social and economic development in China is unclear as yet.
Empirical Data A special issue of Modern China (April, 1993) was devoted to a debate on whether civil society existed in traditional China. It was agreed that a relatively autonomous social sphere existed in the past because of the limited capacity of the state to penetrate into the vastness of rural China. Huang (1993), however, argues that this ‘‘third realm’’ should not be seen as a liberal sphere aiming at taming state power. Madsen (2002) argues that even the word ‘‘society’’ was transplanted from the West into China through Japan in the nineteenth century. Madsen (1986)
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found that by translating a public domain such as a village into a private domain, that is, family, traditional society could motivate people to contribute to the public good through Confucian (family) ethics. However, a number of studies show that a nascent civil society emerged in the late Qing and early Republican periods, that is, during the late nineteenth and the early twentieth century (Rankin, 1986; Strand, 1989). Chambers of Commerce, guilds, kinship organizations, charity groups, and intellectual associations were established for fostering not only economic and cultural activities but also social and political participation. Intellectual salons, teahouses, and temples became part of a public sphere in which people could discuss public matters. This surge in associations and the development of a public sphere was partly due to rapid commercialization and the rise of urban centers in this period. It was also caused by the waning of the imperial state, which led to a relaxation of political control and an increasing need for local self-governance (White et al., 1996). These associations continued to participate in social and political affairs in the Republican period, but after the Nationalist government was set up in Nanjing in 1927, the party changed its strategy. It no longer sought to develop strong civic associations (to support its bid for national power) but rather to consolidate its rule by empowering the state through a combination of repression and incorporation. Radical organizations suspected of having a Communist background were suppressed or disbanded. After the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, associational life was further curtailed as spontaneous social forces were seen as a threat to the new regime. Society was organized by the party-state based on a principle of vertical rule. People were incorporated into hierarchically organized institutional systems through danwei (work units). The horizontal links of individuals and organizations across these danwei were restricted, and people’s lives were encapsulated within these systems. During this period, civic organizations were either banned or incorporated into official organizations such as the Women’s Federation and Federation of Industry and Commerce. The reforms that began in the late 1970s have brought dramatic changes to China. The gradual withdrawal of the Chinese state from the economic sector has resulted in the development of a strong market economy over the past 3 decades, but the promotion of ‘‘small government, big society’’ since the 1990s has yet to make a comparable impact. Immediately following the democracy movement of 1989, the Regulation on the Registration and Management of Social Organizations was enacted. After a screening period, the number of social groups was cut down to
107,304 in 1991. By 2007, however, the number had grown exponentially to 386,916, including 211,661 social organizations (shuhui tuanti or associations with membership), 173,915 ‘‘non-governmental non-enterprise danwei’’ (minban feiqiye danwei or public services agencies), and 1,340 foundations. The sector hired more than 4.5 million people (official website of the Ministry of Civil Affairs: www.chinanpo.gov.cn). Impressive as these numbers may appear, these are mainly organizations established under state policy guidance. In 2005, according to official statistics, 32% of social organizations were business organizations, such as trade associations or guilds, 30% were professional groups, such as accountant associations, and 23% were academic associations. The rest were friendship, sport, hobby, and cultural groups. They were established to enhance market transition, provide services to the needy, and enrich people’s cultural lives. Religious, environmental, and public health groups were relatively few in number, not to mention advocacy or human rights groups. Looking at their governance structure, many of these groups were far from non-governmental. A study in the late 1990s in Guangzhou found that in only 20% of these groups was the board of directors made up of everyday citizens. The board of directors of the majority was partly or completely made up of officials (Chan, 2005). Hence, most of these social organizations are called GONGOs (government-organized nongovernment organizations) in China. Scholars such as Unger and Chan (1995) argue that these groups constitute a system of corporatism – interest representation in which a limited number of constituent units are created and recognized by the state as monopolizing representatives of respective sectors. In the past decade, however, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of civic groups outside the state registration system. Community-based groups, such as book discussion clubs, choral societies, hiking clubs, amateur sports clubs, literary circles, religious groups, hobby groups, elderly associations, friendship groups, student associations, patient groups, and the like, flourish in every corner of Chinese society. Wang and He (2004) estimate that these civic groups may number as many as 30,000–50,000 nationwide (2004). Unable to fulfill the legal requirements for registration, many of these groups are forced to operate without legal protection. Some, however, have chosen to become ‘‘patronized groups’’ (guakao organizations) or to register as commercial entities to acquire quasi-legal status to continue their operations (Chan, 2005; Chan et al., 2005). Patronized groups are groups that are sheltered by government units, state or private enterprises, mass organizations, or registered
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social organizations. For example, universities shelter numerous volunteer organizations. Many groups exist as virtual organizations by setting up websites and communicating through email and discussion forums. The extensive use of the Internet not only cuts organizational costs but is also a way to avoid political risk. However, groups providing services in the community need to avoid bringing trouble on local governments by operating in the ‘‘safe zone’’ on projects such as poverty alleviation, gender issues, and education. When working in sensitive areas such as labor, NGOs need to be careful not to overstep the tacit boundaries (e.g., not try to organize trade unions) that have been laid down by the government. As concluded in the Civicus Civil Society Index Report (NGO Research Center of Tsinghua University, 2006), a nascent civil society has developed in China. The environment for this development is not particularly friendly given the legal and political restrictions. The structure of this civil society is rather fragile given the limited participation of citizens (37% of the population are members of at least one civic group; 57% of the population are volunteers in loose sense, meaning giving hand to others without pay) and lack of sustainable resources. Chinese civil society, however, exhibits a good degree of commitment to universal values such as equity, non-violence, and tolerance. It has also had a remarkable impact on poverty eradication and environmental causes. Can the civic groups discussed above create social capital in China? In fact, quite a number of studies have investigated the individual level of social capital in China, and most of them relate social networks with social mobility and social stratification (Lin, 1999; Bian, 1997). Of those examining the collective level, Chan and Qiu (1999) are among the first to apply Putnam’s theory to the context of China. Their study shows that many registered social organizations lack autonomy and demonstrate over-reliance on government. The vertical control of government over associations has also hindered them from developing horizontal connections with peer associations, and such connections are regarded as a key component to fostering trust and norms of reciprocity within a society. This finding, however, is far from conclusive. Wang and He (2004) argue that associations with good connections with the state may be more resourceful and still capable of producing social capital. Another important study is that of Tsai (2007), which addresses the question of how social capital can have an impact on governmental performance in countries such as China where strong democratic and bureaucratic institutions are absent. Her research in rural China reveals that Chinese officials still organize and provide public goods
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when there are local encompassing and embedding solidary groups. Solidary groups refer to groups based on shared moral obligations and shared interests; an encompassing structure means that the group is open to everyone under the local government’s jurisdiction; and an embedding structure means that the group has local officials as members. The magic of solidary groups, such as temples and lineage groups, lies in the informal rules and norms embedded in the groups that can award local officials moral standing if they provide public goods. Because of solidary groups, local officials have stronger incentives to provide public goods. Thus, Tsai’s (2007) research demonstrates the importance of social capital in holding local governments responsible, even when the general accountability of formal institutions is absent. Other research attempts to study the relationship between social capital and political participation. Sun et al. (2007) find that only political trust (perception of local government) has a significant impact on participation in elections, and that social capital (people’s participation in informal organizations and interpersonal relationships among village people) does not have a significant influence on political participation. Hu (2006) also finds that the correlation between social trust and political participation is insignificant but that participation in societal organizations and a sense of belonging to the local community do have a significant impact on people’s participation in village elections. In sum, community embedded with strong social capital is found to be able to exert an influence on local governance but not necessarily in the form of formal political participation such as voting in elections.
Outlook/Concluding Assessment In the 2006 Civicus Civil Society Index Report for China, China received a score of 1 for civil society structure and 1.2 for the environment (out of 3). The value dimension received a score of 1.8 and the impact of Chinese civil society, 1.6. The overall level of development was low, and China’s environment was deemed unfriendly and its structure fragile. Among the many civil society issues that China faces, two are particularly pressing. 1. Resources. At present, China has no statistics of the total amount of donation citizens contributed while it is clear that many NGOs complain that they lack resources. Civic groups relying on state resources face the problem of maintaining autonomy, whereas NGOs receiving funds from foreign foundations shoulder political risk. Many grassroots NGOs are unable to solicit resources or obtain funding from either source, which greatly constrains their development. The difficulty of developing
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philanthropy in China has to do with the problem of trust. Hsu (2008) argues that China has no history of organizations such as Western donation-style charities. How one can trust strangers (general trust) beyond the circle of familiar people (specific trust) is a cultural or social capital issue that needs to be addressed in China, especially as rampant corruption in the government and its affiliated structures means that people are naturally suspicious of where their donations to official charity organizations will go. Project Hope, a charitable organization that supports rural education, was the pioneer in breaking through these cultural and institutional barriers to soliciting donations from the public. In the past two years, NGOs and foundations established by successful entrepreneurs, including SEE (Society Entrepreneur Ecology), the Narada Foundation, and the China Social Entrepreneur Foundation, have not only made significant contributions to environmental protection, education, and poverty eradication but also become important local funding sources for many grassroots NGOs. Another important advance in the development of local philanthropy is the case of Jet Li’s One Foundation, which was established with the support of the Red Cross Society of China, a major relief GONGO. Because of this connection, the Foundation is allowed to independently solicit donations from the public. It not only devotes its resources to disaster relief but also aids in building a stronger charity sector by funding exemplary NGOs. To better mobilize local resources to support civil society, China desperately needs to relax the legal and administrative controls over foreign and local foundations related to the raising of funds from the public. Improving the governance of NGOs, such as their transparency, and their capacity in service provision are equally important in gaining people’s trust in this sector. 2. Political control. The Regulation on the Registration and Management of Social Organizations that was promulgated in 1989 and amended in 1998 stipulates that only one association of the same kind is allowed to register within an administrative region, which has resulted in the creation of a monopoly by some GONGOs in their respective areas. In addition, the Regulation stipulates the practice of ‘‘dual supervision’’ over civic groups. Each organization needs to find a related state unit (government department or official social organization) to be its ‘‘business supervisory unit’’ (yewu zhuguan danwei), and must register with civil affairs departments at different levels. These supervisory units have political responsibility for inspecting
the activities and finances of civic groups, and thus government units have little incentive to sponsor such applications except when there are material interests or personal connections involved. This is the most common reason that NGOs fail to register with the authorities. The Regulation also stipulates the number of members, the amount of funding, and the availability of premises as conditions for registration, which have become registration hurdles for many grassroots NGOs. The main reason for setting up such stringent laws is political in nature. The Chinese state is ambivalent toward the rise of civil society. On the one hand, the state needs the third sector to supplement the provision of public services. On the other hand, it is worried that civil society may turn into an independent political force that threatens communist rule. The state established a system of state corporatism with GONGOs as monopoly representatives of societal interests but has realized that a nascent civil society has emerged. In the near future, the Chinese government will be reforming the registration system to allow more community-based NGOs to acquire semi-legal status through connecting with local state structures. The development of service-oriented NGOs will be encouraged through state financial support in the form of purchasing services from NGOs, as has already happened in Shenzhen and Shanghai. However, advocacy groups and NGOs working on labor or other human rights issues, particularly those receiving foreign funding, will still be closely monitored and at times, suppressed.
Cross-References
▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ CIVICUS ▶ Coleman, James Samuel ▶ Corporatism ▶ Fundraising ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Government Organized Nongovernmental Organizations (GONGOs) ▶ Harmonious Society ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Putnam, Robert
References/Further Readings Bian, Y. (1997). Bringing strong ties back. In Indirect connection, bridges, and job search in China. American Sociological Review, 62(3), 36–385. Bourdieu, P. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice (Richard Nice Trans.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Civil Society and Social Capital in East Africa Burt, R. (1992). Structural holes: social structure of competition. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Chan, K. (2005). The development of NGOs under a post-totalitarian regime: The case of China. In R. Wellner (Ed.), Organizing between family and state: Non-governmental organizations, globalization and political change in Asia (pp. 20–41). New York: Routledge. Chan, K., & Qiu, H. (1999). She Tuan She Hui Zi Ben Yu Zheng Jing Fa Zhan (Social Organizations, Social Capital, and Political and Economic Development). She Hui Xue Yan Jiu (Sociological Research), 4, July 20, 64–74. Chan, K., Qiu, H., & Zhu, J. (2005). Chinese NGOs strive to survive. Social transformations in Chinese societies, 1, 131–159. Cohen, J. L., & Arato, A. (1995). Civil society and political theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Coleman, J. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Deng, Z., & Jing, Y. (1992). Jian Gou Zhong Guo De Shi Min She Hui (Constructing Civil Society in China). Zhong Guo She Hui Ke Xue Ji Kan (Chinese Social Science Quarterly), 4(5), 88–102. Frentzel-Zagorska, J. (1990). Civil Society in Poland and Hungary. Soviet Studies, 42(4), 759. Hsu, C. L. (2008). Rehabilitating charity in China: The case of Project Hope and the rise of non-profit organizations. Journal of Civil Society, 4(2), 81–96. Hu, R. (2006). Social capital and villagers local autonomous participation in rural China – An analysis of factors influencing villagers’ participation in village elections. Sociological Studies, 2, 61–85. Huang, P. C. C. (1993). ‘Public sphere’/‘Civil society’ in China? Modern China, 19(2), 216–240. Lin, N. (1999). Social networks and status attainment. Annual Review of Sociology, 25, 467–87. Ma, Q. (2006). Non-governmental organizations in contemporary China. New York: Routledge. Ma, S-Y. (1994). The Chinese discourse on civil society. China Quarterly, 137(March), 180–193. Madsen, R. (1986). Morality and power in a Chinese village. Berkeley: University of California Press. Madsen, R. (2002). Confucian conceptions of civil society. In S. Chambers, & W. Kymlicka (Eds.), Alternative conceptions of civil society Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. NGO Research Center, Tsinghua University. (2006). CIVICUS Civil Society Index Report China (Mainland): A nascent civil society within a transforming environment. Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rankin, M. B. (1986). Elite activism and political transformation in China: Zhejiang Province, 1865–191. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Shen, Y. (1986). Zichangjieji Quanli Ying Yi Wei Shimin Quanli (Bourgeois Rights should be translated as Townspeople’s rights). Tianjin Shehui Kexue (Tianjin Social Science), 4. Shen, Y. (1990). Shimin Shehui’ Bian Xi (An examination of ‘Townspeople’s Society’). Zhexue Yanjiu (Philosophy Study), 1, 44–51. Strand, D. (1989). Rickshaw Beijing: City people and politics in the 1920s. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sun, X., Xu, Z., Tao, R., & Su, F. (2007). Impacts of political trust and social capital on villagers’ committee election participation in China. Sociological Studies, 4, 165–245. Tsai, L. L. (2007). Solidary groups, informal accountability, and local public goods provision in rural China. American Political Science Review, 101(2), 355–72.
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Unger, J., & Chan, A. (1995). China, corporatism, and the East Asian model. The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs, 33, 29–53. Walder, G. A. ( 1986). Communist neo-traditionalism. Berkeley: University of California Press. Wang, S., & He, J. (2004). Associational revolution in China: Mapping the landscapes. Korea Observer, 35(3), 485–533. Wang, Y., Zhe, Y., & Sun, B. (1993). Intermediate sphere in society: Reforms and Chinese social organizations. Beijing: China Development Press (in Chinese). White, G., Howe, J., & Shang, X. (1996). In search of civil society: Market reform and social change in contemporary China. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Civil Society and Social Capital in East Africa KARUTI KANYINGA University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
Introduction In the last 2 decades, civil society everywhere has expanded at a rate that authors such as Salamon et al. (1999) have described as a ‘‘global associational revolution.’’ Growth of civil society has taken place alongside global disillusionment with state institutions as agents of change in developing countries and as agents of channeling development assistance from the North. East Africa has witnessed this ‘‘associational revolution’’: countries that comprise East Africa – Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania – have witnessed an increase in the number and activities of civil society organizations in the last 2 decades. Partly responsible for the growth of Civil Society in East Africa is also disillusionment with the failure of the state to promote development and improve democratic conditions. Starting from the 1980s, this disillusionment occasioned donors to shift their attention towards private non-state institutions as agents for promoting development and democratic governance. Civil society agencies, of which Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs) were well known and most visible in the development space, evolved as most viable for complementing government development efforts and countermanding bad governance. NGOs became even more important from the early 1990s when countries in the region were experiencing social-economic difficulties brought about by adoption of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs). This resulted in reduced role of the state in the delivery of basic services. Civil society filled the gaps. Civil society in the region has been significant in another respect: facilitating expansion of the democratic space for enjoyment of rights and freedoms as well as
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countermanding bad governance. Actors within the civil society led the struggles for introduction of neoliberal political reforms including multiparty democracy beginning the early 1990s. Civil society in East Africa has a bearing on social capital in one important manner. Groups voluntarily form to address social-political challenges. People group together, voluntarily, to undertake collective action on various problems. It is in this context that ‘‘social capital’’ has acquired relevance in the region. Local communities and institutions in all the three countries uphold certain values and norms that drive their everyday relations. They are linked together by a desire for mutual and collective benefits or what Putnam (1995: 67) calls norms of reciprocity, trust, and social networking that facilitate cooperation. Civil society and social capital do not owe their origins to recent events. They have a base in Africa’s tradition of communalism and voluntarism whose existence predates the colonial situation. People would form age group associations, lineage, and kinship organizations and many others to promote local welfare and protect group interests. Elaborate mutual self-help groups organized along family, clans, or neighborhood lines existed have a long period of existence. Colonial experience beginning, the late nineteenth Century, brought about modern civil society organizations. This experience restructured communal and traditional mutual aid context in a variety of ways. In the three countries, Christian missionaries established charitable and education institutions that augmented traditional mutual self-help institutions. The three countries ascended to independence at different times in the first quarter of the 1960s. After independence, Kenya encouraged mutual self-help and traditional forms of social solidarity to mobilize political support for the new government. This gave rise to official recognition of the harambee (literally pulling together) collective efforts in which people would pool resources to build basic facilities. Tanzania established tight control of civil society at the outset. The government’s African socialism policies tightened state control of the development space and all agencies of development. State-civil society relations improved in the last half of 1980s when the state came to rely more on civil society to complement development. Uganda’s experience in the early period of 1960s was similar to Kenya. The state used civil society to mobilize political support. But political conflict that followed from the first coup d’etat in 1971 led to politicization of the civil society and a tendency by different regimes to coopt or marginalize organizations. Administrative regulations
effected this tendency. However, the last half of 1980s saw improved relations between the state and the civil society. A new government came to power through organized movement. This movement created an enabling policy for growth of civil society.
Meaning Civil Society
In East Africa, the meaning of civil society is a subject of debate especially because definitions draw from Western tradition and experiences. Authors such as Gibbon (2001) note the challenges of using this tradition in identifying civil society properties in Africa. This notwithstanding, Hegelian conception of civil society has been influential in providing a basis for identifying groups that compose civil society. In this usage, civil society broadly refers to the realm of autonomous and voluntary associations located between the state and the household. Its activities are voluntarily organized and are aimed at promoting social wellbeing. Individuals and groups of individuals, collectively, form these organizations for the purpose of promoting common good and/or protect their interests and values. But the use of the concept civil society has a very recent history in East Africa. Mamdani (1996: 19) observes that the concept came to prominence with the fall of communism in Eastern Europe through uprisings in the late 1980s. Following these uprisings, Africa experienced a wave of democratic struggles in which ‘‘popular organizations’’ took a leading role in mobilizing citizens for political change. A political conception of civil society came to the fore during this period: civil society now referred as well to civic associations and institutions that were involved in struggles for political change. Civil society came to be seen as a realm of plurality of selforganized and vigilant civil associations. Shivji (1990) argues that the term was used synonymous with autonomous organizations of people within the society with no aim of taking political power but seeking to control and democratize the state. Before the early 1990s, the term ‘‘Non-Governmental Organizations’’ (NGOs) was widely used in reference to autonomous and voluntary organizations. The term NGOs referred to formal and well established voluntary development organizations – national and international – that were undertaking social development. Usually exempt in this usage were groups of self-help voluntary organizations formed by ordinary citizens to undertake community development or delivery of services to members who formed the groups.
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An important feature of civil society in East Africa is its heterogeneity. There is a diverse range of autonomous associations and institutions that compose civil society. As noted by Kiondo and Mogella (2006: 25–29) with regard to Tanzania, Kanyinga (2004) and Mutahi (1999: 119–122) with regard to Kenya, and Bazaara (2002) on Uganda, civil society comprises different organizations involved sometimes in distinct subsectors within civil society. It comprises NGOs, human rights advocacy organizations, self-help community groups such as women and youth groups, cultural organizations, faith-based, or religious organizations, unions, professional associations and clubs, trusts, and foundations, and cooperatives. Although there is growing consensus on the meaning of civil society in East Africa, there is a debate on the extent to which civil society is independent of the state and the market. Mamdani (1996) in fact observes that the guarantor of that autonomy is none other than the state; it uses legal regime to guarantee or deny civil society that autonomy. The form of the state in the three countries has meant increased control of civil society through legal regimes. Secondly, relationship between political associations and civic groups especially during the struggles for democratization has aroused more debates on the boundaries between civil society and political society. Social Capital
James Coleman (1990: 302) brought the term ‘‘social capital’’ into wider usage with the claim that social capital is productive just like any other capital and that any group of people that places extensive trust in one another accomplishes much more than a comparable group lacking that trustworthiness and trust. Coleman (1990) further noted that social capital exists in the relations among persons and comes about through changes in these relations. Cooperation between and among individuals is therefore facilitated by social capital. Robert Putnam (1993: 167), however, has had the most far reaching influence on the usage of social capital because of his claim that voluntary cooperation is easier in a community that has inherited a substantial stock of social capital in the form of norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement. Other definitions also emphasis the significance of social capital in fostering cooperation in the society. These definitions show that social capital is produced through reciprocity and other values that stress cooperation for mutual benefit. Volunteerism and collective efforts therefore are important products of social capital; they are the result of trustworthiness among persons. Viewed this way, societies in East Africa are rich
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in social capital. They have a rich tradition of communalism, voluntarism, and collective self-help or the key features of social capital. Bazaara (2002) points out that in Uganda, communal organizations existed in precolonial Uganda to support production, distribution, and consumption. There was an elaborate mutual self-help networks organized along clan, family, or neighborhood lines. In Tanzania Ndumbaro and Yahya-Othman et al. (2007) observe that there were different mutual aid groups active in community affairs before colonialism. Kanyinga et al. (2004: 100) also notes that in precolonial Kenya communities established institutions that provided social safety net and emergency relief for members. In many societies in East Africa, thus people sharing common age status, family ties or lineages would organize themselves to accomplish certain production tasks and assist members in need. This remains the tradition in much of the region. The usage of the concept social capital in East Africa is implied in local development literature where it is used with specific reference to self-help voluntary efforts in which people pool resources to provide for basic services, among others. One good example of such endeavors is Kenya’s tradition of Harambee (literally, pulling together) in which people pool resources to undertake community development projects. But the history of traditional mutual assistance in the whole of East Africa has a deep history than Harambee would suggest and as discussed above. The importance of collective action and cooperation for mutual benefit is central in the civil society. Hyden (1999: 4) indeed notes that it is within civil society that values of social capital are nurtured and developed. Viewed this way, density of associational life itself is an explication of the strength of social capital and by implication vibrancy of civil society. And where these associations build social capital they contribute to development. In this sense, civil society contributes to development by promoting production of social capital through increased use of local communities and institutions. Use of indigenous knowledge and popular participation are expressions of this endeavour.
Nature and Scope of Civil Society and Social Capital in East Africa Size and Numbers
In East Africa, the size and scope of civil society varies between countries. A survey undertaken in the three countries in collaboration with the Centre for Civil Society Studies, Johns Hopkins University, in the early 2000 reveals differences in terms of size and scope of civil society in the region. Kenya has perhaps the highest number of CSOs.
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Kanyinga et al. (2007) show that the country had about 140,000 organizations in 1999. The number increased to about 186,000 organizations in 2002 and to about 350,000 organizations in 2005. Ndumbaro and Yahya-Othman (2007) study in Tanzania reported about 60,000 registered CSOs in 2001 while the study by Kibikyo (2001) on Uganda had about 30,000 registered civil society organizations by 1999. These figures are exclusive of thousands of associations that people form to promote interests such as culture and welfare. Such associations are not captured in governmental administrative records. These organizations often are informally established but have elaborate selfregulatory structures complete with office holders and record keeping. Economic Significance
Civil society is a significant economic force in each of the three countries. Kanyinga et al. (2004) show that in Kenya, civil society expenditure in 2000 represented about 2.5% of Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product. The workforce in the sector – both paid and volunteer – represented about 2.1% of economically active population. This was equivalent to 16.3% of Kenya’s nonagricultural employment. Kiondo et al. (2004) show that in Tanzania, civil society expenditure was about 2.9% of GDP while workforce was equivalent to 2.1% of Tanzania’s economically active population or over 20% of its nonagricultural employment. Uganda had a similar picture. The sector is large though relatively smaller compared to the size of the sector in Kenya and Tanzania. Bazaara et al. (2004) observes its expenditure was about 1.4% of GDP. Workforce represented about 2.3% of the country’s economically active population or 10.9% of Uganda’s nonagricultural employment. However, the sector’s workforce in Uganda is far larger than the public sector workforce in the country: It is one and half times larger than the public sector workforce in Uganda and over half the size of all manufacturing subsectors. Scope of Volunteering and Membership
Civil society in East Africa is significant in yet another way: volunteering. In Uganda, about 23% of the adult population engage in some volunteer work while in Tanzania 11% of the population engage in volunteer work. Kenya has the least number of volunteers: 6% engage in volunteer work. Many people in the region value volunteering and consider it an important undertaking – it is considered as an important moral responsibility to which one has to contribute at some point in life. But as already observed, there is a tendency for people to volunteer in an organization so as
to advance their careers and/or broaden their experience. This does not in any way imply diminishing social capital; it is social capital manifest in a modern form. Size of membership in the civil society is an important indicator of the significance of civil society. The estimated size of the civil society membership or people who belong to different civil society organizations is huge. In Kenya size of civil society membership in 2000 was about 17% of the national population. During the same period, Tanzania’s civil society membership was about 15%. Although there are no figures on membership of civil society in Uganda, figures on the size of the sector in the country suggest that that size of membership could be more than what obtains in Kenya and Tanzania. These figures are underestimates because they do not include community mutual aid groups, which dot all corners of the region. Adults everywhere seem to belong to some form of association or another. Some are formalized and others are not. Urban burial societies and welfare groups in rural areas, social clubs and numerous other groups are not captured in existing records. National accounting systems gloss over them in documenting economic related activities. Both issues of volunteerism and membership in civil society point to yet another important feature of the civil society and social capital in East Africa: levels of social trust. People form, contribute to, and maintain these associations because of the trust they have in one another. Social sanctions usually apply to errant behavior and therefore people cohere on account of confidence in each other. Of course at the national level, how much different communities trust one another ranges from one country to another with Tanzania leading as a ‘‘nation.’’ National integration in Kenya and Uganda is at a much lower level than in Tanzania.
Outlook/Concluding Assessment Civil society in East Africa comprises several sets of autonomous and voluntary organizations. It is a term that encompasses voluntary development organizations such as NGOs and other autonomous voluntary social economic organizations. It includes self-help groups and social-cultural organizations committed to the welfare of members and the society in general. The term civil society in East Africa has a very recent usage. Wider usage of this term began with the wave of democratization that swept the region from the early 1990s. Before then, the term ‘‘NGOs’’ was used in reference to the formally organized autonomous voluntary development organization. The term ‘NGOs’ excluded social-cultural and welfare groups. An important aspect of the civil society in East Africa is that it is within the civil
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society that social capital is nurtured. Various groups form on basis of trust among members. The group with the largest presence in all the countries is the self-help community organizations. These organizations are dependent on high levels of trust and reciprocity among members to reproduce themselves. Social capital is significant in East Africa in one important way. It is social capital that provides the values for formation of civil society organizations. Thus while civil society nurtures the values of social capital, the latter provides a base for formation of civil society groups. Dense associational life witnessed in the three countries – and Kenya in particular – owes much to social capital. The values of social capital are well embedded in the region. All the societies in the region have a rich tradition of communalism; voluntarism, trust, reciprocity, and the value of collective efforts is ingrained in societal life. This tradition and the community groups forming around it provide an appropriate entry point to local development by modern civil society organizations. The tradition of communalism thus is the bedrock of modern day associational life in East Africa. The basis of this voluntarism is social capital. The three countries have important variations in terms of size of civil society. These variations reflect the different political histories of the three countries. Common among the three countries is that civil society is an important social-economic and political force. Its share of GDP is significant compared to other sectors. Civil society contributions to democratization through advocacy work have been significant. Its workforce exceeds that of important sectors and in some instances exceeds the public sector workforce. The future of civil society in the region does not necessarily depend on levels of social capital. Social capital and civil society at present are well intertwined. The future is dependent on governmental policies and trends towards creating an enabling environment for the civil society. As argued by Mamdani (1996) the state is the guarantor of civil society’s autonomy and independence. Future state-civil society relations thus will dependent – and remain to depend on – regime types in the region.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Action ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Southern Africa
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▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in West Africa ▶ Civil Society: Definitions of, and Approaches ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Collective Action ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Self-Help Groups
References/Further Readings Bazaara, N. (2002). A critical analysis of the historical development of the nonprofit sector in uganda (Working Paper No.79/2002). Kamapala: Centre for Basic Research. Bazaara, N. et al. (2004). Uganda. In L. Salamon & W. S. Sokolowski (Eds.), Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (Vol. 2). Bloomfield: Kumarian Press (in collaboration with Johns Hopkins comparative nonprofit sector project). Coleman, S. J. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press. Gibbon, P. (2001). Civil society, locality and globalization in rural Tanzania: A forty-year perspective. Development and Change, 32, 819–844. Hyden, G. (1999). Civil society, social capital, and development: Dissection of a complex discourse. Studies in Comparative International Development, 32(1), (spring 1997), 3–30. Kanyinga, K. et al. (2004). Kenya. In L. Salamon, W. S. Sokolowski, & Associates (Eds.), Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (Vol. 2). Bloomfield: Kumarian Press (in collaboration with Johns Hopkins comparative nonprofit sector project). Kanyinga, K., Mitullah, V., and Njagi, S. (2007). The Non-profit sector in Kenya: Size, Scope and Financing. Nairobi: Institute for Development Studies. Kibikyo D. L. (2001). Revenue, expenditure and employment and outputs of the nonprofit sector in Uganda. Kampala: Centre for Basic Research (Mimeo). Kiondo, A., & Mogella, C. (2006). Historical development of the civil society in Tanzania. In A. Kiondo & J. Nyang’oro (Eds.), Civil society and democratic development in Tanzania (pp. 19–32). Harare: MWENGO. Kiondo, A. et al. (2004). Tanzania. In L. Salamon, W. S. Sokolowski, & Associates (Eds.), Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (Vol. 2). Bloomfield: Kumarian Press (in collaboration with Johns Hopkins comparative nonprofit sector project). Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and legacy of late colonialism. London: James Currey Ltd. Mutahi, N. (1999). Civil Society and the Challenge of Multi-party Transition in Kenya. In Nyang’oro, J. E. (Ed.). Civil society and democratic development in Africa: Perspectives from eastern and southern Africa. Harare: Mwongo Publications. Ndumbaro, L., & Yahya-Othman, S. (2007). The third sector in Tanzania: Capabilities and challenges of civil society organizations. Dar es Salaam: University of Dar es Salaam Press. Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78. Putnam, R. (1993). Civil society traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Shivji, I. (1990). State coercion and freedom in Tanzania. Lesotho: Institute of Southern African Studies. Salamon, L. et al. (1999). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Centre for Civil Society Studies.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Japan YUTAKA TSUJINAKA University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan
Introduction The term ‘‘civil society’’ (Shimin shakai) and the related words such as ‘‘NGO’’ (nongovernmental organization), and ‘‘NPO’’ (nonprofit organization), generally came into common use in Japanese mass media since the 1990s, particularly after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995 (Tsujinaka et al., 2007a). However, the substance of civil society (indicating here simply social organizations independent from the modern state) has longer history in Japan, while their nature has been problematic in academia (Garon, 2003; Pekkanen, 2003; Gordon, 2003; Tsujinaka, 2003). Although this may be similar to the situation in other Asian countries, the context in which these phrases have been used differs from that of Western societies in daily life as well as academia (Alagappa, 2004). According to Fukuda (2006), there is a great deal of historical evidence concerning associational development in premodern Japan. After the Meiji Restoration in 1868, what we consider modern associations formed rapidly. However, aside from the critical factor that the basic concept of such associations was imported from Western countries, it is impossible to relate Japan’s civil society experience with that of other countries without taking into consideration the organizational experiences and the accumulation of social capital that took place before Japan’s modern period. Since the modern revolution, Japan experienced several waves of democratization. First, during ‘‘the movement for freedom and people’s civil rights (Jiyu-minken)’’ from the 1870s into the 1880s, over 2,000 associations were recorded as being formed. Furthermore, together with the start of Japan’s constitutional government in 1889 (imperial sovereignty), increases in land taxes prompted close to 4,000 petitions in a certain year. Various groups such as agricultural associations, chambers of commerce, business associations, and industrial associations formed
rapidly. Particularly, during the development of party politics from 1918 to 1937, or the years of the TaishoShowa Democracy, the wave of association establishment included labor unions and social movements (Tsujinaka, 1988; Garon, 2003). However, by the end of the 1930s, all of the associations that were formed in the prewar period were either absorbed within war mobilization efforts or – for those who resisted – coerced and ultimately realigned into the state corporatist structure (Pempel and Tsunekawa, 1979). This meticulous systematization throughout almost all association sectors would directly affect Japan’s civil society after the war. After the war, under the Occupation, the Japanese Constitution was enacted in 1947, and societies and petitions were liberalized and became fully legitimated. Along the democratic constitution, various new laws were enacted relating to associations and Japan’s civil society was virtually reborn. Japan’s defeat and the postwar reforms caused a remarkable breakdown in civil society. A particularly reflective example is that of labor unions which recorded an unprecedented high unionization rate of 55.8% in 1949, despite the fact that there were no unions under the war-system (Tsujinaka, 1988). Similarly striking figures were also seen with cooperative associations, as consumer groups and citizens’ organizations such as the Japan Housewives’ Association came into being. After the end of the Occupation in 1952, further legislation was enacted, particularly with regard to industrial associations, providing the initial structure for Japan’s civil society that would continue through Japan’s high-growth period of the 1960s and into the early 1970s. Unlike the above understanding, a cross-national comparative survey of civil society from the perspective of the nonprofit sector conducted in over 30 countries by the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (Salamon et al., 2004) ranked Japan in the middle between Western developed nations and non-Western developing nations. When considering ‘‘civil society’’ as an idealized alternative of Western societies, the Westerntype advocacy groups such as NGOs and NPOs have garnered a certain amount of attention, and it has been pointed out that Japan’s civil society is comparatively weak and underdeveloped. If the term ‘‘social capital’’ is used to refer to relationships between fellow human beings, public and private networks, trust, and reciprocity norms, then it can be argued that Japan’s economic-oriented society, with its traditionally broad and multiple grassroots structure, corporations and industry, demonstrates evidence of a wealth of social capital (Fukuyama, 1995). In fact, there has been a great deal of debate regarding the nature of Japan’s civil society as being ‘‘rich’’ in social
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capital yet ‘‘poor’’ in terms of civic or advocate mindedness (Pekkanen, 2003, 2006; Schwartz and Pharr, 2003). As it will be described later, there appeared a rich substance of civil society in Japan since at least 1970s on. Yet, puzzlingly why has the concept of ‘‘civil society’’ not acquired legitimacy until 1990s? These puzzles are clue to understand Japan’s civil society and social capital. There is a clear need for approaches to civil society with a broad perspective in order to answer these problems (Tsujnaka et al., 2007a).
Civil Society It is generally thought that the development of civil society in many Western countries has accompanied the appearance and features of modern societies and modern states (Schwartz and Pharr, 2003). Yet, in Japan, modern society and civil society were not considered to be corresponding. In fact, it was not until the 1990s when the two concepts became equivalent. What enabled it to become a widespread phrase was the tragedy of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995 and the ‘‘volunteer revolution’’ that ensued. Three reasons can be provided for the amount of time that it has taken for ‘‘civil society’’ to take root in Japan even under the postwar democratic constitution. First, for a long time, the phrases ‘‘citizens’’ and ‘‘civil society’’ held the implications of participation in urban areas. As until recently opposition parties were mainly concentrated in such urban areas, and the concepts of ‘‘citizens’’ and ‘‘civil society’’ came to be associated with such opposition forces. For this reason, many conservative governing leaders and their supporters resisted using these terms. Second, the long ‘‘statist’’ bureaucratic regulations are another factor. Especially the Civil Code in 1896 and other laws have molded the arrangement of civil society since the Meiji era to the present and bureaucratic paternalistic culture toward civil society has been influential even since the postwar era until recently (Pekkanen, 2006; Garon, 2003). The state’s goals have revolved around modernization stances that have focused on bureaucracy-led ‘‘catching-up’’ processes (e.g., ‘‘rich nation and strong army’’ in the pre-war era and ‘‘Income Doubling plan’’ in the 1960s). Third, an additional criticism came from the left, pointing out that ‘‘citizens’’ (shimin), residents (jumin), and the populace (minshu) did not share the same ‘‘public’’ perspective. With a background of class consciousness, it was thought that there was a perceived bias towards urban residents, the educated class, and the socially aware middle class, leading to questions as to whether the working class and the general populace were being excluded. According to
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Yamaguchi (2004), there was also the further criticism from the left that residents’ movements were contrapositive to citizens’ movements. At this juncture in the twenty-first century, however, there are few definitive ideological differences between the ruling conservative government and the opposition. During the process of the formation of the NPO Law, ruling and opposition parties as well as labor and management were able to cross their existing boundaries to combine forces in establishing the law. Although the name of the NPO Law had changed from the proposed Citizen Activities Promotion Law to the Law to Promote Specified Nonprofit Activities, in the first section of the law, there is a description of the concept of ‘‘citizen,’’ and this law has assumed the character of a ‘‘law to promote civil society.’’ Thus, in the aftermath of the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake together with the burst of volunteer activity, expectations for civil society are quite high.
Social Capital There are three elements related to the concept of social capital in Japan. First, research concerning the concept of socially related capital or Social Capital (The common usage of ‘‘social capital’’ by Putnam entails trust, reciprocity norm, and social networks, and it should be differentiated from social capital generally used in Japan), as it came into currency throughout the world in the 1990s, was originally imported to Japan and developed since the latter half of the 1990s. At the present time, conceptually speaking, it conformed to definitions mainly forwarded by Western authors and international institutions with little or no distinctiveness. In this regard, similar to the situations in other countries, while there has been no conceptual conformity, it has demonstrated diverse evolutions. Second, one particularly important distinction in the concept of ‘‘social capital’’ in Japan is its use in an entirely different context; namely, in general relation to economicrelated infrastructure. In fact, government statistics and the use of the phrase ‘‘social capital’’ in daily conversation tend to assume this understanding (Tsujinaka, 2002a; Miyamoto, 1976; Kodansha, 1993). Third, systematic research on civil society organizations, NPOs, the nonprofit sector, and NGOs continues to advance. This can be considered as part of the structural research that focuses on Social Capital. And finally, Social Capital has taken on a multifaceted character as a ‘‘variable’’ incorporating diverse social policy orientations and applications (Cabinet Office, 2003; Yamauchi and Ibuki, 2005; Ikeda, 2006; Inoguchi, 2002 as examples).
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In Japan, while research concerning social capital became quite popular in the early twenty-first century, conceptually speaking, it has not developed further from the Cabinet Office (2003) surveys that drew on Putnam’s work, as interest dispersed in different areas.
Empirical Data There has been a wealth of statistics collected concerning the development of civil society in the past half century, spanning from 1950 to the present time (Tsujinaka, 2002b 2003). Four phases of civil society in the postwar period and general trends of association establishments
As of the associational structure of Japan’s civil society, the disconnection between its prewar and postwar formations and the unprecedented rise in the number of associations during the Occupation, up to the middle of the 1990s, Japanese civil society maintained extremely stable development. However, Japan’s civil society reached a critical turning point in the latter half of the 1990s, exhibiting marginal increases in the number of associations, stagnating numbers of association staff, and rapidly worsening financial conditions. Furthermore, public participation also declined, save for one segment of the advocacy sector. With the enactment of the NPO Law, systematization in the advocacy sector progressed. Figure 1 illustrates the overall structure of civil society in terms of their establishments (offices). As a brief explanation, with regard to association establishment statistics, comparisons with similar statistics from the United States and South Korea may be informative (Tsujinaka, 2002b). In the 36-year period
from 1960 to 1996, the number of association establishments in Japan increased by 3.7 times; comparatively speaking, during the same period of time, there was close to a threefold increase in the number of American association establishments. In South Korea, there was a sharp increase after liberalization, and thereafter, stagnation. With regard to the density of associations as measured per capita (hereinafter referred to as ‘‘per capita association density’’), the US figure in 1960 was one third, which dramatically increased to 85% by 1996. However, after 1996, this figure stagnated, and as of 2006, 32 association establishments existed per 100,000 people. In examining the association figures in terms of type, while the predominance of business/economic associations (comprising approximately 40% of the total number of association) is noteworthy, their figures remained static throughout the 1980s and beyond. Rather, what is particularly striking is the rate of growth in the number of ‘‘other’’ associations (‘‘N.E.C.’’ or ‘‘not elsewhere classified’’ in Fig. 1). From the above representation, four distinct phases can be seen in the evolution of Japanese civil society. First phase (1945 until approximately 1957): During the first half of this period, the number of associations sharply increased. In general, rebirth and new formation of civil society took place during this period, with the focal point being the labor unions. In the late 1950s, substantial reorganization and retrenchment is evident. Second phase (1957–1975): While during this phase, there was an overall direction toward developmentalism, and business/economic associations and labor unions made up a substantial number of total associational formations, social movements such as citizens’ and residents’
Civil Society and Social Capital in Japan. Fig. 1 Number of associational establishments in Japan, 1951–2006 (per 100,000 people)
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movements, also started. In addition, progressive local governments also went through a reform period. Third phase (1975–1996): After the 1970s being a critically dangerous period for the ruling government, in the 1980s under the resurgence of the conservative mood, there was a shift from citizens’ and residents’ movements to citizen participation that coordinated their efforts with the public administration. Awareness of the activities pursued through initiatives led by civil society expanded beyond the local government level to include the central government as well. International NGOs also developed in parallel to ODA growth in this period (Reiman, 2003). Fourth phrase (1996 to the present day): While during this period a great number of social service and advocacyoriented NPO associations emerged, as seen later, in civil society overall, the financial conditions of associations sharply declined, as well as participation figures. ‘‘Associational revolution’’ and the establishment year of civil society organizations
Turning from the association establishment statistics, the topic will shift now to the comprehensive surveys focusing on the structure of civil society. These surveys named JIGS (Japan Interest Group Survey) have covered Japan and four other countries twice, and as of 2008, there is data available for a total of 10 countries. Figure 2 illustrates the findings of the JIGS2 survey conducted in 2006–2007. In this survey, data was collected from 6.1% of all neighborhood associations, 17.3% of the various social associations listed in the telephone directory, and 21.9% of the NPOs registered with the government (Tsujinaka et al., 2007b).
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Figure 2 illustrates three graphs pertaining to the establishment year of the civil society organizations. Drawing on a similar data from 10 different countries (Tsujinaka et al., 2007a, b) as well as what Salamon (Salamon, 1994) terms as an ‘‘association revolution,’’ it can clearly be seen that from the latter half of the 1980s until 2000, in a number of countries, an ‘‘establishment boom’’ took place. To a certain extent different from the pattern, establishment was somewhat dispersed in the United States, Germany, and South Korea. Yet, despite these cases, a similar phenomenon can be seen in many countries. In comparison, social associations in Japan, along with neighborhood associations, from the postwar period through to the period of high economic growth throughout the 1960s, assumed an ascending and enduring pattern of establishment. While certainly the noticeable outburst of registered NPOs can be described as an ‘‘association revolution,’’ as seen earlier, this did not have much of an effect on the number of association establishments and the number of social associations that were listed in the telephone directory. Basically, the phenomenon of what could be termed an ‘‘association revolution’’ in Japan only occurred in one segment of civil society which may only be attributable to institutional reform in terms of the NPO Law. Present Status of Civil Society in Japan
Japan’s incorporation system (legal personality) in general is complicated, and in addition, particularly with regard to the system for public interest legal persons (PILP), it has been pointed out that there are a number of
Civil Society and Social Capital in Japan. Fig. 2 Establishment year of Japanese civil society organizations, 1865–2006
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regulations and restrictions set forth by the government with respect to civil society (Yamamoto, 1998; Pekkanen, 2006). With or without incorporation, the government’s position towards each group within civil society in terms of the attitude it displays with regard to government authorization, sanctions, extent of promotion, is important (Pekkanen, 2006). Even aside from incorporated associations and foundations, Japan’s corporation law specifies 110 separate categories with special laws for social welfare corporations, educational corporations, and religious corporations, and allows them to receive benefits such as a prescribed amount of preferential tax treatment. Aside from PILP, there are 22 separate categories for corporations that are relatively close to the government such as semigovernmental corporations and authorized corporations. With regard to agricultural, fishing, and forestry cooperatives as well as their medium and small business counterparts, there are over 30 different types of cooperatives. Throughout Japan, in the period between 2005 and 2007, there were a total of 440,000 civil society organizations that had obtained corporate status or government registration. Of these, in terms of sheer numbers, religious corporations were the most prevalent with 183,000, followed by 76,000 registered political organizations, 61,000 labor unions, 38,000 medium and small business cooperatives, 35,000 registered NPOs, 22,000 authorized community-based associations, 18,000 social welfare corporations, 13,000 incorporated associations, and 12,000 foundations. According to the findings of the JIGS2 survey, among the associations listed in the telephone directory, 60% possessed legal status, of which 49% were incorporated associations and foundations, and 20% were cooperatives. While it is problematic to accurately comprehend the nonlegal status groups, among the existing 300,000 neighborhood associations, only 7% possess legal status as authorized community-based associations. There are a number of associations such as residents’ groups that are connected with recreational activities aimed at senior citizens, housewives, and children and found in the immediate area of neighborhood associations that do not have legal status. Associations in which citizens individually participate with advocacy have found it difficult to acquire legal status before the NPO Law was enacted. As a consequence, formalizing their organizations and acquiring amenities for operating a business such as having a place of business, staff, and a telephone have also proved difficult. Even if an association has obtained legal status, it is not necessarily the case that they have substance in the actual scope of their activities. For this reason, having a business establishment and a telephone can be said to be one
measure of the structure of civil society. It is possible to compare business establishment figures in Japan with those of the United States and South Korea. According to the distribution of associations in Japan in 2006, a total of 40,681 associations operate a business establishment, and of those, 37% are business/economic associations, 12% are labor associations, 2% are political associations, 3% are academic associations, and 46% are ‘‘other associations.’’ By comparison, in the United States, 16% are business/ economic associations, 14% are labor associations, 3% are political associations, 41% are civic associations, 7% are professional associations, and the remaining ‘‘other associations’’ are 20%, and in South Korea, 19% are business/ economic associations, 8% are labor associations, 3% are political associations, 6% are civic associations, 8% are professional associations, and the remaining 56% are ‘‘other associations.’’ From this comparison, certain distinct features emerge. Statistically speaking, although it may be difficult to accurately compare these figures as there is no category in Japan for ‘‘civic associations,’’ it is clear that there is too much importance is attached to business/economic associations in Japan (Tsujinaka, 2002b, 2003). In JIGS 2 survey above, among the major four categories, Japan has the largest proportion of the profit sector (including business and economic associations with direct linkages to producers and markets, labor unions, and agricultural associations), among the 10 countries surveyed. The nonprofit sector is somewhat large, and the citizen advocacy sector is the second smallest next to Turkey (Tsujinaka et al., 2007a). Thus, describing the framework of associations in Japan as assuming the characteristics of the developmental state as originally conceptualized by C. Johnson (Tsujinaka, 2003) has its roots in this structural arrangement. However, Japanese civil society in this type of developmental state, as shown in the chronological distribution, saw a turning point in the latter half of the 1990s. While the large variation in the number of association establishments shown in Fig. 1 may illustrate nothing more than static situation, in effect, with the economic stagnation that occurred during the 1990s, the financial conditions of civil society associations, particularly the business/economic and labor associations, suffered a major shock. Comparing figures in 1996 and 2006, on the whole, the financial situation of associations decreased 30%, deteriorating to the same level as in the mid-1980s. Citizen Participation and social capital
The turning point for associations did not stop at the market-oriented associations of the developmental state. As shown in Fig. 3, citizen participation in any organizations has eroded since the mid-1990s.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Japan
The Association for Promoting Fair Elections, an organization affiliated with the government, conducts public opinion surveys during each general election period in which it measures respondents’ sense of participation. Data compiled from 1972 through 2005 provides a comprehensive overview of citizens’ attitudes towards participation. The survey asks respondents if they are actually members any of civil society organizations. The highest rates of participation occur in neighborhood associations. While the level of participation in the mid-1980s reached 70%, in recent years, the level of participation has dropped to 50%, further slipping to 46% in the most recent survey. Even so, this level of high participation is not evident in any other countries (Pekkanen, 2006). Incidentally, respondents indicated relatively high rates of participation in groups such as clubs and hobby groups (approximately 15%). Participation in senior citizens’ clubs was close to 9%, while participation in women’s and youth associations decreased to 8% in recent years. PTA participation as well decreased by half to 8%. Participation in economic and producer-related associations on the whole declined as well to around 3–5%. In general, it is presumed that many associations saw their highest participation figures during the 1980s. The results also recorded a 1983 figure of 15% of respondents who were ‘‘non-participation in any organizations’’ had grown to over 30% by the early 2000s. As a cognitive aspect to social capital, while there have been debates concerning general feelings of trust and the amount of trust in various systems, comprehending these aspects through qualitative research and various survey outcomes have resulted in large variances (for instance Hamaguchi, 1996; Inoguchi, 2002). In fact, trust in itself has a strong bearing in cultural norms and is not readily adaptable to international comparisons. The Japan
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General Social Survey found that in terms of general trust, 20% of respondent indicated a positive response, 10% a negative response, and close to 70% claiming that ‘‘it depended on the given situation.’’
C Activities of civil society organizations and political influence
This final section provides characteristics of civil society based on JIGS2 survey (Tsujinaka et al., 2007b). As is shown, there are 300,000 neighborhood associations, approximately 90,000 listings in the telephone directory and 25,000 registered NPOs in the survey frame. While policy interests and areas of activity of them are mutually overlapping, in some degree their policy fields are also segregated. In fact, neighborhood associations have interest in the community policies, social associations’ primary policy orientation lies with industrial and development and NPOs are mainly concerned with social service policies. From the perspective of effectiveness on policy activities, the subjective relationships of neighborhood associations’ policy input and output, strength of influence, satisfaction, and trust is portrayed as a felicitous cycle. Social associations embed them in the upper echelon of the policy process, leaving NPOs that came late to the scene in the 1990s with a sense of dissatisfaction. In Japan, it is clear that neighborhood associations, social associations, and NPOs, each participate in the governance of families, enterprises and governments, and each makes contributions from their respective perspectives (Tsujinaka et al., 2007b).
Concluding Assessment As a tradition that has extended since premodern times, Japan has a thick layer of voluntary associational activity,
Civil Society and Social Capital in Japan. Fig. 3 Participation rate (neighborhood associations only) and nonparticipation rates (in any CSOs)
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with a history of human relationships with society that are based on trust. With the Meiji Restoration and the defeat in the war, while individual structures may have become disconnected, they also passed on a well-developed sense of organization. Since the Meiji Restoration through the postwar growth era, Japan’s goals have revolved around modernization stances that have focused on ‘‘catchingup’’ processes. Therefore, Japanese civil society has kept the developmentalist structure. After the war, the concept of civil society was adopted as an ideal type. At the same time, a welfare society was created through the welfare oriented companies and business associations, service-minded neighborhood associations, and variety of residential and citizen movements as late comer. However, three different reasons caused civil society concept foreign to the society until 1990s. After the bubble economy, the matured civil society in Japan became manifest. The critical years were the mid 1990s, with the loss of power by the ruling government, the major earthquake in 1995, and the enactment of the NPO Law in 1998. With fiscal concerns about the ageing and with globalization of society, civil society played a major role, and recognition of this fact that overcame various political ideologies, became clear. There was a burst of NPO activity at the grassroots level, although at the time, there was no fiscal support policy that could accommodate civil society organizations. One particular feature is that on the whole, civil society organizations entered a period of financial uncertainty. In this sense, the associational boom that occurred in the rest of the world in the 1990s also occurred in Japan ‘‘partially’’ only in some sector and in some regional area. Japan’s social capital, characterized by networks, trust, and reciprocity norm through its traditional structures and relationships, is quite difficult to measure in a concrete, comparative manner. However, as a whole, social capital, with its perspective in neighborhood associations and NPOs as well as rich developmental associations, can presumably maintain its support. While Japan has not passed through a period of being a welfare state, unlike some of its Western counterparts, it continues to aim at a high degree of publicness and social capital in the matured civil society, as well as lessening the burden on the government. From this time onward, it can be expected to see new policies and new associations that follow and maintain this path.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Civic Culture
▶ Civic Society-Business Relations ▶ Civic Society and Democracy ▶ Civic Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Corporatism ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Social Trust ▶ Salamon, Lester
References/Further Readings Alagappa, M. (Ed.) (2004). Civil society and political change in Asia: Expanding and contracting democratic space. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Cabinet Office, Japan (Naikakufu-Nippon So-ken) (2003). Social capital: Yutakana Ningen-kankei to Shimin-katsudo no Kou-jyunkan wo motomete (in Japanese), Nippon Soken. Fukuda, A. (2006). Kesshu, Kessha no Nihon-shi [A history of association and people in Japan]. Tokyo: Yamakawa-shuppan-sha. Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. New York: Free Press. Garon, S. (2003). From Meiji to Heisei: The state and civil society in Japan. In F. Schwartz & S. Pharr (Eds.), The state of civil society in Japan (pp. 42–62). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gordon, A. (2003). A modern history of Japan: From Tokugawa times to the present. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haddad, M. A. (2007). Politics and volunteering in Japan: A global perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hamaguchi, E. (1996). Revival of Japanese type trustworthy society (in Japanese). Tokyo: Toyokeizaisinposha. Ikeda, K. (2006). Political culture and ‘‘Social Capital’’: Eastern and Western perspectives. In G. Helgesen & S. R. Thomsen (Eds.), Politics, culture and self: East Asian and North European attitudes (pp. 235–253). Copenhagen, Denmark: NIAS Press. Inoguchi, T. (2002). Broadening the basis of social capital in Japan. In R. D. Putnam (Ed.), Democracies in flux (pp. 359–489). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kodansha. (1993). Japan: An illustrated encyclopedia. Tokyo: Kodansha. Miyamoto, K. (1976). Theory of social capital (in Japanese). Tokyo: Yuhikakubooks. OECD. (2002). Social capital: The challenge of international measurement, 25–27 September 2002, London, from http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3343,en_2649_39263294_2380248_1_1_1_1,00.html;1/ 31/2009. Pekkanen, R. (2003). Molding Japanese civil society: State structured incentives and the patterning of civil society. In F. Schwartz & S. Pharr (Eds.), The state of civil society in Japan (pp. 175–204). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pekkanen, R. (2006). Japan’s dual civil society: Members without advocates. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Pempel, T. J., & Tsunekawa, K. (1979). Corporatism without labor: Then Japanese anomaly. In P. C. Schmitter & G. Lehmbruch (Eds.), Trends toward corporatist intermediation (pp. 231–270). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Reiman, K. (2003). Building global civil society from outside in? Japanese International Development, the state and international norm. In F. Schwartz & S. Pharr (Eds.), The state of civil society in Japan (pp. 298–315). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salamon, L. M. (1994, July/August). The rise of the nonprofit sector. Foreign Affairs 73(4), 109–122.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Korea Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., & Associates. (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Schwartz, F., & Pharr, S. J. (Eds.) (2003). The state of civil society in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The Japan General Social Survey, from http://jgss.daishodai.ac.jp/english/ eframe/englishtop.html 1/31/2009 Tsujinaka, Y. (1988). Rieki Shudan [Interest groups in Japan]. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press. Tsujinaka, Y. (2002a). The cultural dimension in measuring social capital: Perspective from Japan, OECD-website, from http://www.oecd.org/ dataoecd/2/2/2380346.pdf.;01/31/2009. Tsujinaka, Y. (Ed.) (2002b). Gendai nihon no shimin shakai, rieki dantai [Civil society and interest groups in modern Japan]. Tokyo: Bokutakusha. Tsujinaka, Y. (2003). Japan’s civil society organizations in comparative perspective. In F. Schwartz & S. Pharr (Eds.), The state of civil society in Japan (pp. 129–174). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tsujinaka, Y., & Pekkanen, R. (2008). Civil society and interest groups in contemporary Japan. Pacific Affairs, 80(3), 419–437. Tsujinaka, Y., Choe, J.-Y., & Ohtomo, T. (2007a). Exploring the realities of Japanese civil society through comparison. ASIEN 105, 16–32. Tsujinaka, Y., Choe, J.-Y., Yamamoto, H., Miwa, H., & Ohtomo, T. (2007b). Nihon no shimin shakai kouzou to seiji sanka: Jichikai, shakai dantai, NPO no zentaizou to sono seiji kanyo [The structure of civil society in Japan and political participation: The overall picture of neighborhood associations, social associations, and nonprofit organizations and their political engagement]. Leviathan (Bokutakusha, Japan), 41, 7–44. Yamaguchi, Y. (2004). Shimin shakai ron: rekishiteki isan to shin tenkai [Civil society: Historical legacy and new developments]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku. Yamamoto, T. (Ed.) (1998). The nonprofit sector in Japan. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Yamauchi, N., & Ibuki, H. (Eds.) (2005). Social capital in Japan (in Japanese). Osaka, Japan: School of International Public Policy, Osaka University.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Korea TAE-KYU PARK1, CHANG-SOON HWANG2 1 Yonsei University College of Business and Economics, Seoul, Korea 2 Soonchunhyang University, Asan, Chungnam, Korea
Introduction The brief history of Korean civil society, which was actually formed after the liberation from Japanese rule in 1945, will be first covered in this entry. It will be followed by the description of the main characteristics of various civil society organizations including definitions, boundaries, and cultural contexts of civil society in general. Some quantitative aspects of Korean civil society will also be introduced in the last section.
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History While civil society in the sense of a nonpublic sector arena is well developed in Korea, civil society in the sense of associational groups is not. Before 1945, the nonprofit sector was dependent on the government and as a result it built no indigenous capacity. Kinship-based and centralized agrarian social systems did not develop into a civil society with diversity and dynamics. After liberation from Japanese rule in 1945, a large number of social and political groups formed in a changing Korean society. They were politicized, from far right to far left. Many service-oriented religious groups and charities or enlightening institutions were also founded during this period. Korea has been increasingly influenced by nongovernmental civil organizations since liberation in 1945. The Korean experience of the nonprofit sector in the post-Liberation period can be roughly divided into three stages. The first stage encompasses the period before the early 1960s when the primary goal of the government was to maintain national security. Most nonprofit organizations in those days were service-oriented, providing welfare services or implementing development projects for the poor, and were mostly supported, if not established, by foreign aid. In this period Korea was still an agrarian society, and community and blood-based associations were popular. The realm of civil society in an agrarian society was in one’s neighbors, communities, and religious activities. Nevertheless, many political groups and social movements appeared in the changing Korean society, expanding the social sphere dramatically. They were ideologically diverse and successful in mobilizing people. After the Korean War of 1950–1953, the Korean government became repressive and undemocratic; Korean civil society subsequently had to endure a turbulent period. Consequently, the revolutionary movement broke out in April of 1960 when students and intellectuals revolted against the undemocratic state. The second stage began with the authoritarian developmental government. It lasted from the early 1960s until 1987 when the authoritarian regime fell under the Great Democratic Movement. Rapid growth of the economy resulted in the differentiation of society and the development of a middle class. In the meantime, there was a rapid growth of civil organizations. Activities of civil organizations in this period can be classified into three categories. (i) Advocacy-oriented organizations mostly involved dissident intellectuals and students who demanded a reduction in the government’s discretionary power. This movement aimed for the promotion of social justice, democracy, and human rights on behalf of the workers, peasants, and other alienated people in society. (ii) Education and service-oriented organizations had a
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nonpolitical character and played a significant role in providing public goods and social services. (iii) Quasigovernmental organizations functioned as governmental agencies. These pro-government organizations played a significant role in mobilizing people for national development or in publicizing government’s policies. In this period independent civil activities in Korea could develop only within a limited political space. Nevertheless, from the early 1980s popular support for various civic groups such as women’s groups, consumer advocacy groups, and environmental activities grew with the emergence of a middle class. Rapid industrialization and urbanization, differentiation of class structure, and the growth of the middle-class represents the preconditions for the awareness of the problems of the authoritarian regimes. Discrepancies began to prevail in almost every aspect of society: between city and country, between classes, between regions, and between sexes. Corruption was widespread in the government and among political elites. There were already popular organizations and substantial funding available when the democratic transition in 1985–1987 occurred. The third stage of the Korean nonprofit experience began with the abrupt end of the authoritarian regime in June 1987. However, the rise of people’s movements had already begun to play an important role in the mid-1980s. The dramatic rise of citizens’ and labor movements and nongovernmental organizations during the late 1980s and early 1990s was clearly due to the rapid democratization beginning in the mid-1980s. New at this stage of evolution of the Korean civil society was the emergence of increasingly effective and sophisticated civic groups led by younger generations. They emphasized progressive advocacy functions including efforts to broaden public debate and participation in the formulation of public policy, safeguard, or expand the domain of human rights, and safeguard public resources such as the environment from the pressures of economic growth. The immediate post-democratization period between the late 1980s and the early 1990s has added important new players to the old roster including the traditional leader groups such as student organizations and underground groups. They were gradually replaced by group of new civil organizations. It has been said that the decade of the 1990s in Korea was ‘‘the age of civil society.’’ This indicates several distinct evolutions within the sector. First, the Korean nonprofit sector has grown into a visible and independent entity in relation to the government and business. The Korean nonprofit sector has been understood as an institutionalized and self-generating reality capable of pressing bureaucrats, politicians, and big business. Second, the
Korean nonprofit sector has been internally differentiated significantly; this differentiation contributes to the development of the Korean nonprofit sector itself and to social and political pluralism. Finally, academic as well as journalistic interest in the nonprofit sector has been growing. Strong public awareness and support are also important developments.
Civil Society in Korea Related to civil society, there are several major terms used in Korea. These terms include: NPOs (beyoungri danche), NGOs (mingan danche), civil society organizations (simin danche), civic movement organizations (simin woondong danche), and public interest corporations (gongick bubin). They are not clearly defined and are frequently used interchangeably. The terms ‘‘NGOs’’ and ‘‘civil society organizations’’ (CSOs) are the most popular in the field of academia as well as in journalism. The term ‘‘public interest corporations’’ is commonly used only in a legal context. Although the major form of nonprofit organization is the civil associations, the sector also includes foundations and corporations. The NPO term has not been recognized well in Korea until recently since the terms NGOs and CSOs have gained much popularity among researchers and journalists. The term NPOs (beyoungri danche) is the most inclusive term that refers to all organizations that are neither governmental nor for-profit organizations. Beyoungri danche includes all NGOs, nonprofit hospitals, and educational institutions. Most culture and arts organizations, foundations, nonprofit nursing homes, research institutions, religious institutions, professional associations and interest groups are also constituents of NPOs (beyoungri danche). Now, the sector of nonprofit organizations is a distinctive entity, and the term NPOs (beyoungri danche) is used frequently in Korean society to denote all nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations and associations. The other major term used to describe nonprofit organizations in Korea is NGOs (mingan danche). In fact, NGOs is the most popular and general term to depict many kinds of private or voluntary organizations in Korea. NGOs actually cover almost all kinds of nongovernmental and nonprofit activities including the environment, women’s issues, social services, art and culture, membership-serving organizations, religion, and international cooperation. In Korea mingan danche means NGOs in a broad sense of NGOs since the term NGOs refers to all forms of associations that are nonprofit, nongovernmental, and voluntary. NGOs (mingan danche) covers civic groups,
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community organizations, social service providing institutions, environmental groups, culture, and art institutions, education, and research organizations, religious foundations and institutions, labor unions and activities, business, and professional associations, and international NGOs. South Korean NGOs usually do not include schools/universities and health/hospitals. Civil society organizations (simin danche) refer mostly to NGOs, but usually do not include foundations, business, and professional associations, social services, and art and culture organizations. Civil society organizations (simin danche) denote the more public-interest oriented NGOs. In South Korea, people assume that civil society organizations are exemplary NGOs since they are private, public-good oriented, and voluntarily managed. Particularly under the democratic government in the years after 1992, the term ‘‘civil society organization’’ (CSO) has become a social and political reality. Even though there has always been a large number of social service providing institutions and professional associations, these institutions and associations have not played an important role in promoting democratic mobilization. Civil movement organizations (simin woondong danche) refer simply to civic groups or advocacy organizations that are advocating democracy, citizens’ rights, justice, and quality of life concerns. The most distinctive characteristics of civil movement organizations (simin woondong danche) are reform-oriented and public-mobilizing civil society organizations (simin danche). These organizations are very active and influential in South Korean society. Advocacy organizations, civil rights organizations, and workers and peasants organizations are the key components of civil movement organizations. Public interest corporations (gongick bubin) usually refer to legally established nonprofit organizations. In Korea public interest corporations generally mean registered NGOs. So, the term of public interest corporations is a legal term rather than an academic or journalistic one. The most distinguishing characteristic of public interest corporations is that they are registered. Public interest corporations can also be divided into two categories based on their purposes: public-benefit organizations and nonprofit organizations whose orientation is member-serving. Public interest corporations may also be divided into incorporated foundations and incorporated associations, depending on the basis of their establishment. While most incorporated foundations belong to the public benefit category, incorporated associations can belong to either category of public interest corporations. The three dominant types of public interest corporations are educational institutions, foundations providing
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research grant or scholarships, and social welfare institutions. Religion, art, and culture, and medical corporations are three other popular types of public interest categories Public interest corporations are relatively well organized and active since they possess legal status. The Civil Code in general, and the Nonprofit Act and accompanying Decree in particular, provide the specific procedures and requirements for formal establishment of a nonprofit corporation as a legal entity. As for social capital, the term is rarely used by civil society practitioners in Korea. Only the academic circles use the term to compare the general level of trust in society, to test the role of informal networks in corporations and other organizations, or sometimes to apply the concept to life long education and other learning situations. While scholars and journalists emphasize the importance of social capital in developing Korean society from low trust society to high trust society, the term has some limitations to fully apply in everyday life.
Empirical Data The size of nonprofit sector in terms of total expenditure, except religious organizations, relative to GDP in Korea is estimated to be 3.89% in 2003. As of 2003, total employees of nonprofit sector are 585,101. The size of employment of nonprofit sector relative to nonagricultural sector and service sector is estimated to be 2.9% and 9.5% respectively. Looking at the composition of nonprofit sector in 2003, education & research still accounts for the largest proportion of the nonprofit sector, followed by health sector. Composition percentage of education & research sector has been 32.9%, while health sector has increased from 32.4%. As of 2003, the total volunteer full-time equivalent employment is 396,408. For volunteer employment, ‘‘Religion’’ becomes the first as 11.3% of the total, ‘‘Social Services’’ 21.0%, ‘‘Civic & Advocacy’’ 55.8%, ‘‘Health’’ 1.3%, ‘‘Culture & Recreation’’ 4.9%, ‘‘Education & Research’’ 5.4%, and ‘‘Professional Associations’’ 0.3%. Including both paid and volunteer FTE employment, ‘‘Education & Research’’ still becomes the first employer sector, 30.9%, then followed by ‘‘Religion’’ 23.8%, ‘‘Health’’ 19.7%, ‘‘Social Services’’ 11.8%, ‘‘Civic & Advocacy’’ 7.5%, ‘‘Culture & Recreation’’ 3.7%, and then ‘‘Professional Associations’’ 2.6%. As of 2003, there exist 18,180 nonprofit organizations of all types, including educational, health, social services, and civic & advocacy organizations. And the participation rate in social organization is 44.8%, including multiple responses. Those membership organizations, such as
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culture & recreation, civic & advocacy, religion, professional organization, have more than 16 million memberships in total. The participation rate in voluntary service is 14.6% and more than 63% of Korean people participate in charitable giving.
Concluding Assessment Since the end of the Japanese colonial period, nonprofit organizations have played an important role in Korean society. Nonprofit organizations have been acting as major providers in education, social welfare, and medical services as well as important employers in those areas. Advocacy nonprofit organizations also have contributed to political democratization and to building a new governance model of Korean society. Especially, in Korea, advocacy-oriented nonprofit organizations that have blossomed beginning in the late 1980s’ have changed the characteristics and role of Korean civil society profoundly. Those organizations have begun to participate actively in public discussions on many important social issues and sometimes offered policy alternatives to the government. They have been remarkably successful in broadening public agenda in politics and the media, and they have been pivotal in reforming the national governance structure in Korea. Civil society has had a significant impact on societal development and change in Korea. However, the activities of NPOs in Korea are constrained by insufficient personnel and financial resources. And they are sometimes blamed for opaqueness in its operation for the inadequate accountability and less transparency. Nevertheless, the capacity and opportunity of institution building of the nonprofit sector will be more concrete in Korea. It is expected that the governments in Korea will institutionalize the impact of civil society and build a good relationship between government and civil society.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Social Movements ▶ Social Trust ▶ QUANGOs
References/Further Readings Citizens’ News Paper. (2006). Korea nonprofit organization yearbook. Citizens’ News Paper. (2006). Korea nonprofit organization yearbook: 2006, Citizens’ News Paper, Seoul, Korea. (in Korean).
Hwang, C. -S., & Kim, I. (1999). The history of nonprofit organizations in Korea. Seoul, Korea: Institute of East & West Studies, Yonsei University. Jung, K. S. (1991)‘‘The historical review of private nonprofit activities in Korea,’’ Social Science Review, Institue of Social Science Research, Vol. 2, pp. 279–311, Kangnung National University, Kangnung, Kangwon-do, Korea. (in Korean). Jung, K. -S. (1991). The historical review of private nonprofit activities in Korea. Social Science Review of Kangnung University, 2. Kim, I., & Hwang, C. -S (1999). Defining the nonprofit sector. Seoul, Korea: Institute of East & West Studies, Yonsei University. Korea Nationa Statistics Office. (2006). 2005 Social indicators in Korea, Korea National Statistics Office, Seoul, Korea. (in Korean) National Statistics Office of Korea. (2006). Social indicators in Korea. Park, T. K. (2006). A study on estimation of nonprofit organizations and its economic meaning. Quarterly Bulletin, Bank of Korea. Park, T. K. (2006). ‘‘A study on estimation of nonprofit organizations and its economic meaning,’’ Quarterly National Accounts, Vol. 4, pp. 44–77, Bank of Korea, Seoul, Korea. (in Korean). Park, T. -K., Lee, H. –k., Hwang, C. –S., & Kim, I. (2005). The impact of the nonprofit sector in Asian industrial countries. Seoul, Korea: Institute of East & West Studies, Yonsei University. You, P. M. (1998). The history and social functions of non-governmental social movement organizations in recent Korea. Dongseo Yongu, 10, 77–120.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Mexico and Central America ALEJANDRO NATAL1, JORGE CADENA-ROA2 SARA GORDON RAPPOPORT2 1 El Colegio Mexiquense, Toluca, Mexico 2 Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
Introduction After independence, the countries of the region inherited a number of associations organized around the Catholic Church, who was the main provider for social needs. Therefore, Catholic values permeated social action: social care was understood as a moral duty, and philanthropy and volunteering as Christian charity. Nonetheless, the nineteenth century witnessed a number of associative forms – independent from the state and the Church in financing and decision making. These were mainly scientific, artistic, and cultural associations that emerged in most cities and even in some towns of the region. Similarly, mainly in Mexico, several associations started to promote political culture and build up public opinion. This was the case of the Patriotic Juntas dedicated to promote republican
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ideals by organizing civic festivities and honoring national heroes, therefore playing an important role in civic values socialization and the creation of national identity. In the nineteenth century, independent media became also an important channel for developing public opinion. There were intense debates on federalism and on citizenship rights, among others. In parallel, the growth of higher education institutions contributed to spreading liberal ideas. The National University and the Institutos Literarios (Centers for Higher Education) in Mexico, the University of San Carlos in Guatemala, and the University of Leon in Nicaragua became spaces where liberal ideas were shared and openly discussed. These educative centers contributed to the construction of independent states vis-a`-vis factual powers, such as the military and the Catholic Church. They paved the way to liberal governments and fostered the enactment of laws aimed at consolidating the new States. Liberals also brought a new understanding of social care, which turned private charity and moral commitment into a state duty, contributing to further differentiate the associative sector. In Mexico, liberal laws and specialized fund-raising agencies boosted social assistance and the emergence of civil society organizations (CSOs), such as second-tier grant makers, social and mutual organizations, as well as social assistance nonprofits (mainly hospitals and orphanages). Similar tendencies took place in Central America, where Liberal Reforms – undertook roughly from 1870 until the 1930s – fostered the creation of several mutuality associations. However, liberal ideas and reforms were inhibited by lack of administrative experience, political instability, and bankrupted governments. All this compounded with endemic problems, such as, a restrained access to education, widespread poverty and systemic inequality. Reforms also clashed with a culture of intolerance, privilege, hierarchical, and exclusionary values, as well as by an understanding of citizenship that marginalized the majority of the population: a culture in which elites rarely had social initiatives apart from the Catholic Church and that, thus, maintained Catholic values at the center of philanthropy. Under this state of affairs, the Church, therefore, not only kept its place as the main social care provider throughout the nineteenth century but became the core of sector, increasing her power. A dominant Church in the social arena was only one of the aspects of this strong factual power, whose values and resources were brought to the large and harsh struggle for political supremacy it had with the States of the region in the nineteenth century (particularly Mexico). A struggle that in some cases, has continued ever since in the form of distrust, competition, and even open conflict.
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In this manner Mexico and Central America entered the twentieth century. For the case of Mexico, after the Mexican Revolution of 1910, the State managed to become the main actor in political affairs and economic planning. The State controlled also public action and validated the spaces and arenas for public involvement. Furthermore, the State legitimized social organization through state-sanctioned corporate organizations. Attention to social needs was subordinated to the political agenda and to groups’ loyalty to the official party; in consequence, the understanding of citizenship came to be equal to partisan membership and the exercise of voice and citizen participation in public affairs were often not tolerated. Social entrepreneurs were coopted, bribed, or even persecuted and/or imprisoned. Challenging this state of affairs and aiming at opening up participation spaces, a number of social movements (SM) appeared through the early to middle twentieth century, whose impetus brought up in the late 1960s a contracultural movement leaded by the students of the National University (UNAM). Though this movement was viciously repressed, it gave rise to a number of other different social actors, such as independent unions, feminists, environmental, and human rights movements, among others. In parallel by late 1960s Paulo Freire’s methodologies for education, the Theology of Liberation and the adoption of alternative and self-help development ideas, spread widely and informed NGOs’ work. All these factors contributed to the emergence of highly politicized organizations and forms of civic action, from urban SM to independent peasant networks, as well as a growing number of NGOs. Meanwhile, the Catholic Church continued playing a key sponsorship role to welfare associations and NGOs initiatives and kept capturing most private donations, mainly because private funding of social affairs was seen with suspicion by the state. During the last quarter of the twentieth century recurrent economic crises limited the Mexican government capacity to pay loyalty and attend client groups, diminishing its legitimacy. For CSOs, these economic crisis compounded by a rigid fiscal framework and lack of philanthropic culture, were major limitations to their growth and action. Nonetheless, the 1985s earthquakes in Mexico sprung up an unprecedented and widespread social participation and meant a turning-point for a number of social actors that realized their own collective potential and weaved new links in the social fabric. From then on, organized collective action started to have unprecedented achievements by lobbying and institutional building. Key examples of the Mexican society capacity to pressure for, proposing and even building
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institutions are the National Commission for Human Rights, the NAFTA ‘‘parallel agreements’’ on labor and environment (resulting from joint lobbying of Mexican, Canadian, and American CSOs). Most noteworthy, CS forced the government to step out from the IFE, the national agency charged of organizing and overseeing elections. These societal achievements paved the way to the arrival of the first democratically elected Mayor of Mexico City and a plural Congress in 1997 (when the official party lost the majority of seats), and finally a peaceful alternation in the Executive branch in 2000. The new administration, as expected, widened participatory mechanisms at different levels and spheres so CSOs could express their views on public policy implementation, thus opening unprecedented participation in the design, planning, and scrutiny of policies and programs. More public funding for CSOs and larger governmentCSOs collaboration followed, as did the Law for the Right to Information and a Law aimed at Fostering CSOs Activities. Private resources to finance social action also grew and contributed to create a better climate for the development of CSOs, though did not match the needs of a resource-hungry and speedily developing sector. By 2006, a major social coalition proposed an agenda for the in-coming government – the Acuerdos of Chapultepec – signed by all presidential candidates. Nevertheless, the incoming government not only neglected them but also dismantled the agency dedicated to fostering CS-state relations and radically reduced CSO funding and participation spaces. In Central America, with the exception of Costa Rica and to a certain degree of Honduras, Theology of Liberation as well as various Marxist ideas influenced SM, labor, middle class and popular organizations against the brutal military dictatorships that governed the region (Paige, 1997). In Guatemala, the guerrilla warfare (mid-1950s), and radicalization of Maya indigenous leadership linked to Marxist guerrilla (1970s) faced brutal military repression but finally attained the change of the political regime. In El Salvador, SM started as early as 1925 posing social demands to the authoritarian government. The failure of democratization efforts of the opposition coalition in the 1972 presidential election resulted in the emergence of guerrilla organizations linked to SMs who fought for labor rights and democratization. Political polarization led to civil war which lasted until the early 1990s when a Peace Treaty was signed. In Nicaragua, the student movement turned in a guerilla (late 1960s) that ended with the Somoza dictatorship. The Sandinista government, which took over, gave way to political change and democratization.
This, decades-long struggle against dictatorships and systematic violations of human rights by vested interests shaped Central America’s CS organizations and SMs. Thus, the construction of democracy became one of the main objectives of a number of organizations which have played a major role in the democratization of the region (Thomas & Armony, 2000). In Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, for instance, several organizations have networked aiming at increasing authorities’ accountability, monitoring electoral campaigns, as well as promoting participation and citizenship construction. On this line, it is remarkable the Asociacio´n Latinoamericana de Organizaciones de Promocio´n, an example of how regional networks can successfully fight powerfull vested interests. The arrival of democratic governments, the opening of participation in public affairs, and the support of international financing, have contributed to an increasing differentiation of civil society in CA. Nonetheless, a large dependence on foreign donors has significantly shaped the agenda of organizations in the region, though some local agendas have somehow emerged. In Guatemala, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador, for instance, the local private sector has started to sponsor social and political local projects on issues like environment, violence, development, women empowerment, and disaster relief. More recently, trade issues have also raised special attention. NGOs and grassroots organizations in Central America have proposed ideological and market alternatives to neoliberalism (Hale, 1994). Likewise, several NGO have participated in Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) negotiations, stimulated by international organizations such as International Development Bank (IDB). This has contributed to foster collective action diversification and to attenuate social polarization, slowly configuring new organizational paths. One interesting outcome of this process is the number of local organizations dedicated to attend gender issues, like Fondo Centroamericano de Mujeres and Pro-Mujer, which deal mainly with women involvement in community development, violence, and women empowerment. The environment has also become an issue of attention and a number of conservation and lobbying organizations have been formed, like the Fundacio´n Defensores de la Naturaleza in Guatemala. This evolution of the associative sector has been analyzed in the region around three main different concepts: Civil Society (CS), Social Movements (SMs) (which for reasons of space we will discuss in the same section) and Social Capital (SC). Though these approaches are not incompatible, each considers different elements as central for the sector and therefore focuses on distinct types of
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actors and organizational forms. These approaches rarely debate among themselves.
Civil Society Civil Society in the region is generally understood in relation to political society and citizens-rulers relations within a theory of democracy, and therefore, debates have been dominated by political scientists. The main issues discussed are: the study of the relations between CS and the state (Olvera Rivera, 2003); CS contribution to Mexico’s democratization (Cadena-Roa, 2003); the creation of institutions and SMs reactions to public policies. In Mexico, research on CS has been organized around two main traditions. One marshaled by Manuel Canto, which develops issues like participation, civic organizations and its relationships to public policy (Canto Chac, 1998). A second one is leaded by Alberto Olvera, who, building on Habermas and Cohen and Arato, sees CS as a self-limited sphere, differentiated of the market and the State, seeking to influence the public sphere by bringing up alternative solutions to problems derived from power and the need of adding plurality to society. Besides these two lines of thought, in Mexico, there have been also studies on the number of CSOs (Verduzco Igartu´a, 2003) and their legal framework, the networks they have built, their relations with political parties, their use of technology, their experiences at the local level, and their international links (see Cadena-Roa, 2004). In Central America, the fight against dictatorship and/ or civil war has produced research concerned with: how societal actors build relations with the state, as well as with the military and paramilitary forces. Thus, conventional wisdom in CA understands the concept of CS in Gramsci’s terms; and though most authors acknowledge that there is a distinction between CS and political society, they are concerned with how to build up CS hegemonic project in a context of social movement organizations’ fragmentation. This is specially the case for Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Authors are also interested with the limited influence some organizations and SMs exert in public policies and elections monitoring, mainly in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras. Others are interested with the growth, diversity, and fragmentation of organizations in the region (Monge Granados, 1999). Social Movements are in the region a significant part of CS, and even as a promoter of the rights that allow its development and strengthening. The difference is that SMs use noninstitutional channels to raise their demands, while the rest of CSOs use more often institutional or noncontentious means. Therefore, SM concept is concerned with noninstitutional forms of political participation used by
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powerless and poor people groups when the institutional political participation forms (such as parties, elections, and bodies of political representation) are closed to their demands. In Mexico, the study of SMs became a booming industry. It encompasses a large body of literature focusing on particular cases, seeking to describe relations, processes, and outcomes, such as labor movement history and studies of several fields of collective action on the assumption that they were expressions of CS. The study of urban movements became particularly salient because they were multiclass – labor and recently migrated peasants – and had a significant political potential; they were also seen as the modern expression of traditional movements controlled by the State. In Mexico, SMs research has put special attention on domestic agents’ role on social change in relation with state institutions, and explored the relations among structures, social actors and the perspectives of democracy building (Gonza´lez Casanova 1979 [1965]). Research encompasses pre-1968 movements, as well as the 1968 movement itself; its impact on the country’s polity, its consequences on the democratization process and on transition to democracy (Cadena-Roa, 2003). In Central America years of political struggle and polarization has also produced studies on SMs that have been linked to actors in conflict, either from the left or right. Departing from the concept of CS, other research trend analyzes NGO and SMs’ ideological orientations. There are also a number of scholars interested in the role of CSOs of Central America peace processes, poverty reduction and political consensus building, mainly in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador (Castellanos Ponciano, 1996). More recently, there have also been studies analyzing the relations among Central American CSOs and international agencies and the impact of foreign aid organizations (Ortega Carpio & Luz, 1994). More recently, research on SM in the region is guided by specific questions seeking to test and develop theory, such as: the relationship between movements and rights; the influence of political opportunities in grassroots electoral participation, or the impact of SMs on public services planning. Contemporarily, four main forces impinge on the rise of SMs in Mexico and Central America and its study: struggles for recognition; anti neoliberal movements; seizing opportunities opened by democratization; international networks of advocacy and support. Many SMs seek recognition based on specific identities such as indigenous peoples, women, and indigenous women. The Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico, created a whole body of literature (Ruiz & Lorena, 2005). Research on anti neoliberal movements analyzes
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how economic global pressures impacting poor population livelihood translate into protests, as well as resistance against neoliberal policies constraining access to social rights, from which international agencies and local governments are the parts to blame. SMs role on promoting transition to democracy in Central America, has also been studied. Recent approaches point research questions on SMs collective action in the frame of a more open polity that protects civil and political rights, independent political parties, competitive elections and the opening of new channels between institutional and noninstitutional politics. Finally, SM studies in Mexico and Central America analyze the impact on local collective action of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and advocacy networks, as well as the spreading of global communications in a context of international treaties protecting rights and putting under scrutiny local authorities. Those studies recognize new and significant players at global level on topics such as labor, farmers, and farm workers, trade advocacy, immigrants, human rights, and environmental protection.
Social Capital SC in the region is understood as sum of relations among people that facilitate coordination, resource mobilization, and economic development. It emphasizes civic virtues and values such as trust, reciprocity, and commitment. In the region there were several works on the matter since the late 1980s (Durston, 2000), but it was the publication of Putnams’ Making Democracy Work which became most influential (Gordon, 2006; Milla´n & Gordon, 2004). Some authors acknowledge the Third Sector as a concept that identifies a number of actors that the orthodox understanding of CS does not apprehend. Other authors study CSO involvement in development, recognizing that it is an economic, social, and political process, and that associative experiences can produce alternative solutions to those proposed by the State and the Market. Within this understanding authors analyze community actors and their networks; institutional arrangements as reciprocity and norms; and cooperative processes. They understand that associative forms act against State failures and power abuse, and that civic action helps solving complex problems such as poverty. This perspective has brought up to light several organizations previously neglected by researchers and policy planners in Mexico, like rural community based organizations, community foundations (Natal, 2007), microcredit (Conde, 2000) and assistance organizations (Guadarrama Sa´nchez, 2008), among others. The SC perspective does not carry a specific political program, but expects an incremental civil influence of societal
actors on Market and State affairs. Other group of new studies include topics like social organizations NGOs (Me´ndez, 1998); organizations participation in global affairs such as international trade (Natal & Gonza´lez, 2002). Likewise, some scholars have increasingly acknowledged the complexity of associational forms in different areas of social life and have developed research on associational performance (Espinosa & Christina, 2008). Though SC studies in Central America are beginning to develop, at least three mainstreams of analysis can be identified: one influenced by Coleman (Cruz, 2001); another related to Putnam’s civic engagement view; and a third informed by Durston’s understanding of community cooperation (Durston, 2000). Often, SC is conceived as the quantity and quality of grassroots organizations and researchers also inquire about NGO’s positive or negative impact on SC (Miranda Abaunza, 2003). Other explored topics are, SC relation to violence in urban poor settings and to democracy building in an environment of repression; impact of agriculture programs in Nicaragua and Costa Rica on SC; poverty and violence in Guatemala; and citizen participation and electoral processes in Honduras. In parallel to academic work, there is a large grey literature produced by a number of NGOs as in-house research. The Mexican Centre of Philanthropy (CEMEFI), using a definition of Third Sector that makes little differentiation between societal actors and their processes within democracy or development theory, has published research on volunteering, philanthropy, and corporate social responsibility. Similarly, in Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, organizations have produced interesting research closely related to donors’ interests. Main topics discussed are: local democracy, environment, violence, development, women empowerment and disaster aid.
Empirical Data For the case of Mexico, Calvillo and Favela (Calvillo & Favela, 2004) identified 8,618 CSOs in 1998 and 10,805 in 2000, a 25.4% increase in the period. Of them, 1.7% were created before 1940, while 25.5% were created in the 1980s and 52.3% in the 1990s. These figures indicate that every year new CSOs are formed and that some of them are dissolved or enter into latency, while a reduced number endure through long periods. A 36% of these CSOs lacked any legal registration and 53% legally registered as asociaciones civiles. Most Mexican CSOs (73%) promote welfare and development. There are other data basis with similar numbers, like CEMEFI with 10,485 OSCs registered (http://cemefi.org/directorio/buscasl.php [access: 12/ FEB/09] and the National Registrer of CSOs with 8,785
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(http://201.155.34.177/buscadorOSC1/index.aspx [access: 12/FEB/09]). For Mexico there is also the very controversial study by Salamon and associates’ (Salamon et al., 1999), which most unexpected finding is that the Mexican Nonprofit sector (NPA) represents the smallest one in Latin America, smaller even than Haiti’s. For these authors, the Mexican NPS had a share of total paid employment in 1995 of 0.4%, (while the 22 country average was 4.8% and the Latin American of 2.2%); volunteer time 0.7% (Latin American average of 3.0%). They report the strong Catholic Church influence through charitable service entities (hospitals and schools). They also stress that, relative to funding, Mexico’s NPS is a fee-dominant country (85% of the NPS revenue). However, this study underestimates the size and importance of the Mexican NPS, and of its volunteering, since a number of activities developed in the social economy were not accounted for and a large number of organizations were not acknowledged because they could not be captured by the study’s conceptual framework. All the studies on Mexican CSOs, have in common that they fail to capture those small, informal, and resource constrained organizations that do not need/want to have legal registration but still develop activities in favour of third parties. The 2006 LAPOP survey includes an indicator of interpersonal trust for several Latin American countries. The survey reports that in Mexico a fifth of the population expresses that people within their community are very trustworthy, while almost 50% think they are relatively trustworthy; one quarter thinks they are little and 10% think people aren’t trustworthy. In comparison with Central American countries, Mexico has larger levels of trust than Panama, but similar to those of Nicaragua and Guatemala; and less than El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica (see Ricardo et al., 2007). The LAPOP 2006 reports an increase in the participation in religious organizations and a decrease in the participation in Unions (LAPOP, 2006). For Central America, Booth and Bayer (1998), analyzed public opinion surveys conducted in the early 1990s to explore the links between the formation of political and social capital and levels of democracy existing in the region. Employing multiple regression techniques they studied items like political participation, political attitudes, values, and democratic values, they found that CS activism raise respondents’ levels of social and political capital. This study reports that formal group activism contributes significantly and positively to political information (beta=0.253) and interpersonal trust (beta=0.054); while communal level activism contributes negatively to political information
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(0.097), but positively to interpersonal trust (0.059). The authors also found that the power of civil society activism for political information levels is very strong (R2 of 0.25), while it accounts very little for interpersonal trust (less than 1%). They report that political repression, destroys both, social capital (information and trust) and political capital (democratic norms, voting, contacting, and campaigning), what may indicate that political context is determinant in the shaping of civil society and in the formation of social and political capital. Most notably, authors also report that GDP per capita does not correlate positively with social and political capital. In terms of trust, the LAPOP for El Salvador shows that 35.1%, have much trust in their community, the 28.3% relative, 25.8% some and the 10.8% none. El Salvador has more than the average of the region, and LAPOP states that it is among the countries with larger trust.
Concluding Assessment The hallmark of Mexican CS during the twentieth century was its quest for democracy and its long struggle against corporatism, cooptation, patronage, corruption and authoritarianism. Now-a-days the sector is growing, strengthening, and diversifying itself. However, there are still many challenges, chiefly, the creation of trust as a main component of social capital, the increase in citizens’ participation, the overcoming of an elite culture of Catholic philanthropy and popular expectations that the State could and should solve all kinds of problems with no need of nongovernmental public action. Similarly, Central American CS has systematically faced violence and human rights abuses but still contributed significantly to the transition to democracy in the region. Some of the challenges to be faced in the region are mainly, an increase in citizens’ participation, more CSOs diversification, a larger interaction with citizens, the construction of local agendas, and the reduction of social and ideological polarization.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci ▶ Civil Society in Post-Conflict Scenarios ▶ Centro Mexicano para la Filantropia, AC (CEMEFI) ▶ Freire, Paulo ▶ Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies ▶ Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations ▶ Social Economy ▶ Social Movements
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References/Further Readings Booth, J., & Bayer, P. (1998, August). Civil society, political capital, and democratization in Central America. The Journal of Politics, 60(3), 780–800. Cadena-Roa, J. (2003). State pacts, elites, and social movements in Mexico’s transition to democracy. In J. A. Goldstone (Ed.), States, parties, and social movements (pp. 107–143 ). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cadena-Roa, J. (Ed.). (2004). Las organizaciones civiles mexicanas hoy. Me´xico: UNAM. Calvillo, M., & Favela, A. (2004). Dimensiones cuantitativas de las organizaciones civiles en Me´xico. In J. Cadena-Roa (Eds.), Las organizaciones civiles mexicanas hoy (pp. 73–120). Me´xico: UNAM. Canto Chac, M. (1998). De lo cı´vico a lo pu´blico. Una discusio´n de las organizaciones civiles. Me´xico: REMISOC-CAM. Carpio, O., & Luz, M. (1994). Las ONGD y la crisis del desarrollo. Un ana´lisis de la cooperacio´n con Centroame´rica: IEPALA. Castellanos Ponciano, K. (1996). El rol de la sociedad civil en los procesos de paz de Guatemala y El Salvador: procesos de negociacio´n comparados. Guatemala: INCEP. Conde, C. (2000). ONGs y combate a la pobreza. Proyectos financieros Internacionales para pobres. In Cuadernos de Discusio´n sobre el Tercer Sector. Programa Interdisciplinario de Estudios del Tercer Sector. El Colegio Mexiquense. Me´xico. Cruz, Jose´ Miguel. (2001). Pandillas y capital social. Estudios Centroamericanos, 56, 637–638. Durston, J. (2000). Que´ es el capital social comunitario? Santiago: CEPAL. Cristina, P. E., & Luna, M. (2008). Accio´n colectiva y organizacio´n: estudios sobre desempen˜o asociativo. Me´xico: UNAM. Gonza´lez Casanova, P. (1979 [1965]). La democracia en Me´xico. Me´xico: Era. Gordon, S. (2006). Confianza, reciprocidad y asociatividad: Relacio´n indispensable para el desempen˜o institucional? Estudios Sociolo´gicos, El Colegio de Me´xico, 24(71). Guadarrama Sa´nchez, G. (2008). Tiempo, circunstancia y particularidades de la asistencia privada en el estado de Me´xico. Me´xico: El Colegio Mexiquense. Hale, C. (1994). Resistance and contradiction. Miskitu Indians and the Nicaraguan State, 1894–1987. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Me´ndez, J. L. (1998). Organizaciones civiles y polı´ticas pu´blicas en Me´xico y Centroame´rica. Me´xico: MAP. Milla´n, R., & Gordon, S. (2004). Capital social: una lectura de tres perspectivas cla´sicas. Revista Mexicana de Sociologı´a, 64(4), 711–747. Miranda Abaunza, B. (2003). Capital social, institucionalidad y territorios. El caso de Centroame´rica. Nicaragua y Costa Rica: ICCA. Monge Granados, H. (1999). Centroame´rica: la sociedad civil, protagonista del proceso de integracio´n. Costa Rica: ALOP-CECADE. Natal, A. (2007). Instituciones privadas para fines pu´blicos. Me´xico: CEMEFI-SYNERGOS. Natal, A., & Gonza´lez, T. (2002). La participacio´n de la sociedad civil en los procesos de integracio´n comercial: el caso del ALCA en Me´xico. In Cuadernos de discusio´n sobre el terceer sector, 18. El Colegio Mexiquense. Olvera Rivera, A. (2003). Sociedad civil, esfera pu´blica y democratizacio´n en Ame´rica Latina: Me´xico. Me´xico: FCE. Paige, J. (1997). Coffee and power. Revolution and the rise of democracy in central America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Ricardo, C., Cruz, J. M., Seligson, M. A. (2007). Cultura Polı´tica de la Democracia en El Salvador, Data, University of Vanderbilt. USAID. Ruiz, P., & Lorena, M. (2005). Todos somos zapatistas! Alianzas y rupturas entre el EZLN y las organizaciones indı´genas de Me´xico. Me´xico: INAH.
Saiz, R., & Manuel, J. (1987). El movimiento urbano popular en Me´xico. Me´xico: Siglo XXI. Salamon, L. M., Anheier, H., List, R., Toepler, S., Woljciech Sokolowski, S., & Associates (1999). Global civil society. Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. Verduzco Igartu´a, G. (2003). Organizaciones no lucrativas: visio´n de su trayectoria en Me´xico. Me´xico: COLMEX-CEMEFI.
Civil Society and Social Capital in North Africa ANDREA LIVERANI London School of Economics, London, UK
Introduction Forms of civic and community organization have existed in North Africa for centuries, especially around ideas of mutual self help (Touiza), charitable giving and community organization such as corporations, religious brotherhoods (turuq); religious lodges zawaˆyaˆ and village assemblies (jama‘aˆt). Contemporary forms of associationalism developed within the contours of modern state forms, especially during the colonial period. In Egypt, modern charity associations and mutual aid societies started appearing in the middle of the nineteenth century (LaTowsky, 1997). Similarly, colonial Algeria was characterized by a large associative sector spurred by the enactment of the 1901 law on freedom of association (Carlier, 1995: 43–65). This entry explores some of the main features of North African civil society. The investigation of the concept of social capital is only touched upon here because of the scant research to draw upon. Although the experience of each country is different, the entry focuses on similar trends and features, giving particular emphasis on the key issues. (a) Without attempting to be exhaustive, it delves into some of the distinguishing features but also on the uncertain character of civil society and social capital in North Africa and attempts to define the quantitative extent of these concepts in practice; (b) sums up the literature exploring its import for social and political dynamics in the region; (c) explores key issues and avenues for future research.
Civil Society and Social Capital The connotation of Social Capital and Civil Society varies across and within North African countries. The colonial legacy is an important driver of such differentiation, as
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the second language spoken in the country is often the one through which notions of civil society and social capital penetrate social research and political debate (Comaroff and Comaroff, 1999). In Egypt, civil society is normally intended in its Anglo-Saxon meaning, i.e., the space between state, family, and market normally occupied by traditional life (Ibrahim, 1988). In Francophone countries, this meaning is sometimes blurred with references to notables or intellectuals, or more generally the elite not directly associated with the visible power structure. Increasingly, civil society is used as a catch all phrase referring to organized social life structured around associations, and particularly nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Particularly in the Maghreb, the ‘‘associative movement’’ or ‘‘associational life’’ are terms used interchangeably with ‘‘civil society.’’ In the Maghreb notions of social capital are less widespread and limited to social science research. In common language, the phrase ‘‘social capital’’ is affected by a degree of ambiguity in that its literal translation into French – ‘‘capital social ’’ means ‘‘registered capital’’ of private companies. It is worth noting here that Pierre Bourdieu – one of the leading French anthropologists, developed his notion of social capital based on his work in Algeria (Addi, 2004). As imported notions, the application of civil society and social capital to the NA context needs to pay due attention to the Western biases and assumptions which they come with. Research on how these notions are actually perceived and applied in different countries in the region and by different strata and groups is needed.
Empirical Data Conceiving civil society as an associative realm allows for the quantification of its scope. Over the last 2 decades the number of associations in North Africa countries has increased exponentially. Considering that freedom of association was granted only in 1989, Algeria’s associative growth has been striking. Officially registered associations grew from a few thousands at the end of the 1990s to over
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70,000 in 2006 (Derras, 2008). The associative sector is larger than in other comparable countries which show equivalent or even larger populations, legal systems allowing comparable degrees of associative freedom, and longer histories of associational life (Marzouk, 1997: 196; Ben Nefissa, 1997; Denoeux and Gateau, 1995). In Tunisia, up to 10,000 NGOs officially exist. According to the Egyptian Government, in 2006, the number of NGOs in Egypt hit 23,000 (GOE, 2007). As to Morocco estimates clam that by 2006 there were over 30,000 NGOs across the country (Ennaji, 2006) (Fig. 1). Yet, these figures mask a complex reality. Despite the large number of officially registered NGOs, very few are actually active. In Egypt less than half of all organizations are said to be active (AbdelRahman, 2004: 121), and the same is the case for Tunisia (Civicus, 2007), and Algeria (Liverani, 2008). Moreover, active associations often revolve around a limited number of people. In Egypt for instance, only a small minority of citizens (3.5%) claims to be active in CSOs, although volunteering is more common 6.4% (Civicus, 2007: 116). Research on Algeria shows that associations tend to be family centered and revolve around a close-knit group of individuals (UNDP, 1998; Derras, 1999; Liverani, 2008). These qualifications also help quantifying the extent of social capital in the region. Since the work of Robert Putnam, civic associations have been considered as a site where trust is built, stored and spread. The vibrancy of associational life represents a proxy for the presence of networks of horizontal cooperation, norms of reciprocity and society’s endowments of social capital (Lewis, 2002: 571). Hofstede provides a rating of Arab countries according to cultural measures including societal trust measures (1991: 53, 68, 84, 113). Indicators of associationalism such as the width of associations’ membership or the number of associations per capita are taken to measure levels of social capital within a country and thus indicate a proxy for its future developmental trajectory (Putnam, 1993; Mishler & Rose, 1997; Rose, 1998). Yet, research
Civil Society and Social Capital in North Africa. Fig. 1 Growth of registered local associations in Algeria 1989–2005. Sources: Liverani (2009)
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on North Africa only partially confirms this. In Algeria for instance, widespread instances of scissions due to internal strife within associations lead to their residual existence around individuals rather than groups. This calls for investigating whether – rather than a site of social capital formation – the forms and evolution of the associative sphere can be interpreted as a symptom of a breaking down of social trust and a reliance on traditional forms of social ties, primarily the family (Liverani, 2008). The quantification of the associative phenomenon in North Africa remains an important empirical gap in the literature.
Africa. First, in all North African countries, Islamic charities represent the largest associative sector by far. Second, the analytical distinction between religious and secular civil society organizations becomes increasingly blurred on the ground. There is no clear-cut boundary consistently demarcating Muslim from secular organizations. Third, as Singerman points out: ‘‘The organizational structures, repertoires of contention, collective identity, and so forth of Islamic movements are similar to those of other movements throughout the world’’ (in Wiktorowicz, 2004: 143). Fourth, the analysis of Islamic charities in North Africa is still limited (Benthall & Bellion, 2003; Harrigan, 2009).
Civil Society and Islam
The interrelationship between Islam and ‘‘civil society’’ is a central theme in the literature. Gellner (1994) argued that Islam is structurally and normatively incompatible to civil society, because of its tendency to deny autonomy to the individual and impede society’s differentiation. The argument has been questioned and/or qualified by a number of authors (Zubaida, 1995; Ayubi, 1995, Herbert, Goldberg, 1991; Hanafi, 2002). Harrigan (2009) provides a comprehensive discussion of social capital in Islam. The influence of religion on the development of civil society in the region also shaped Western research less explicitly. Turner (1984) shows that the interplay of civil society and Islam has provided a central hinge for Orientalist comparisons of West and East, including the works of Marx and Weber. In general, two kinds of normative biases can be detected in the literature. Models of civil society applied to the region often exclude religious associations, either explicitly or implicitly, thereby assuming secularism and individualism as defining traits of ‘‘civil society’’ (Carapico, 2007). The second is a tendency to treat the spread of Islamic associations as product of marginalization, poverty and exclusion, ‘‘as a compensatory reaction to structural changes rather than a potential force for change in itself ’’ (Sparre & Petersen, 2007: 16). Another research avenue concerns the role of charities in the rise of political Islam. In Algeria, the FIS built its electoral strength on a vast network of Islamic charities born out of Mosque building societies (Boukra, 2002). In Egypt, Islamic NGOs provide the space through which the Muslim Brothers can put pressure on the state (Leiken & Brooke, 2007). Because of the role they play in relaying political opposition, Islamic CSOs are tolerated – and strictly controlled – by the North African state. Four general statements can be made in relation to the interplay between religion and civil society in North
Civil Society and Economic Liberalization
The role of economic liberalization in spurring the growth of civil society and the spread of social capital is another important, although less studied, research issue. Economic liberalization programs have been a feature of all North African countries, except Libya. State retrenchment under liberalization has contributed to opening up spaces for civic actors to provide welfare provision, particularly on health and education. In Tunisia state welfare provision actually increased under liberalization, while in Egypt and Algeria increased poverty and a decline in the quality of state welfare provision under liberalization programs led to a large increase in welfare activities carried out by civic organizations. Far from happening purely by default, this process was partly encouraged by North African governments. In Algeria for instance, freedom of association was granted through two laws (1987 and 1989) at a time when the state was clearly disengaging itself from social service provision (Babadji, 1989). Faith-based charities have been most prominent in filling the vacuum left by the retreating North African state (Harrigan, 2009). Building on a long tradition of responsibility towards the needy (Habib, 1990) In Egypt, Islamic, but also Coptic societies became key in ensuring welfare provision (Sullivan, 1994, 1997). The collapse of oil and gas revenues in the 1980s and the prolonged fiscal crisis of the 1990s reproduced the same dynamics in Algeria. But throughout the region, certain segments of the associative sector also provided a countervailing force to governments’ liberalizations policies. In Morocco, during the period of economic reform, both trade unions and civic groups mobilized several national strikes and demonstrations (Ennaji, 2006). Tunisia was the only country which managed to avoid the collapse of social services during economic reform, and therefore limit the role of civic organizations in this area. Based on the role
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of liberalization and welfare provision retrenchment in spurring an increase in civic activity, Harrigan (2009) hypothesizes a positive correlation with increases in social capital. Research on trust within associations in Algeria questions this type of conclusions (Liverani, 2008: 47–68). The Social Bases of Civil Society
One of the ideas underlying neoliberal portrayals of civil society is that its growth is driven by emerging and increasingly assertive social groupings engaged in a struggle with the state to maintain or reshape the contours of the publicprivate divide (Gill, 2002; Norton, 1996). The scant evidence on the social bases of associational life in North Africa questions this view. Although in its initial stages associative growth revolved around the liberal professions (lawyers, engineers, academics) in all countries its quantitative development has inevitably led to an expansion of associational life to broad sectors of the population. Particularly prominent are public sector employees. Research on Morocco (Denoeux and Gateau, 1995: 19) Egypt (BenNefissa, 2000) and Algeria (Derras, 1998, 2007) shows that the public sector employees (including doctors and teachers) provide the main human capital behind associational life. Given the relative size of the public sector in these countries, this is not surprising. Other explanatory factors for the prevalence of public sector workers within associative sphere include (a) the need to compensate for the relative fall of status and living standards due to state downsizing, and (b) a de facto intersection between bureaucracy and associative sphere fostered by the legal and administrative constraints on associative activities. Throughout North Africa, civil society remains a predominantly urban phenomenon: 80% of Egyptian associations for instance are found in urban areas (CIVICUS, 2006: 29). Civil Society and Gender Inclusion
The role of civic associations in furthering women’s rights has provided an important theme in western research. As other parts of the associative sectors of North African countries, the women movement generally finds its roots during colonial time. In Tunisia for instance, early forms of organized women’s engagement in the public sphere go back to the 1920s (Arfaoui, 2005). Algerian women played a key role in the 1954 revolution (Smail Salhi, 2005). The civic sector has undoubtedly opened a space for women’s public participation, sometimes leading to substantial successes regarding women’s rights. In
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Morocco, for instance, the women’s movement was instrumental in the reform of the legal code (Mudawana) and in securing quotas in elected positions. In Algeria, where the women’s movement battled against an equally repressive Family Law, progress has been more limited. The drivers and outcomes of the women civic movement remain an important object of future research. Civil Society and Democracy
By far the main object of the focus on civil society in North Africa has concerned its relation to democratization. Throughout the 1990s, the regional rise of voluntary associations fuelled a vast literature applying Tocquevillian notions of associationalism. This literature is characterized by a blurring of analytical and normatively charged objectives. Associational life is both used (a) as a conceptual device to investigate state-society relations, and (b) as a precondition of democracy. It is in this dual capacity – epistemological and normative – that the focus on civil society has gradually shifted from the role played by voluntary organizations and grassroots groups in the demise of authoritarian regimes in Latin America (O’Donnel & Schmitter, 1986) and Eastern Europe (Keane, 1988) to the democratization processes in Africa (Bratton, 1989; Chazan, 1992) and then the Middle East and North Africa (Hudson, 1991; Bellin, 2004; Norton, 1993, 1995; Schwendler, 1995; Marzouk, 1996). The remarkable rise of associational life in Algeria was no exception to this rule. With Algeria being perceived as an exemplary case of failed democratization and reversal into repressive authoritarianism (Entelis, 1994; Zoubir, 1995; Djebaili, 1996; Norton, 1995: 114; Zoubir, 1999), observers of Algerian politics saluted the associative sector’s rapid expansion as an encouraging sign of the country’s democratic prospects. The authoritarian state on the other hand was singled out as the main obstacle to its consolidation (Layachi, 1995). Although the ‘‘civil society in democracy perspective’’ remains the dominant paradigm for understanding the emergence of the associative sphere in the North Africa, the idea of a positive, universal connection between associational life and democracy has been questioned from various angles, both in general (Armony, 2004) and with specific reference to the North Africa and more generally the Middle East (Yom, 2005). Much of the focus is on the state’s attempt to control the development of associations, either through funding, legal and administrative rules as well as other means. The North African state is an active funder of associational life. In Egypt, 35% NGOs receive some funding from the Ministry of Social Affairs.
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In Algeria, specific budget lines are allocated to financing associations, and public funds from central and local governments constitute the main income of associations. In Morocco, specific funds have been created to finance associations, such as the Hassan II Fund, the Compensation Fund, and the Mohammed V Fund. In most countries, regulations attempt to closely monitor the activities of associations. In both Algeria and Egypt, the main laws regulating the associative sector (Law 32 of 1964 in Egypt and law Law 31 of 1990 for Algeria) give the government sweeping powers to recognize associations, limit their activities particularly in relation to fundraising, and disband them (Liverani, 2008). The North African state also directly engages in the creation of civil society organizations – in Morocco, where the Monarchy has actively established prominent NGOs (Denouex & Gateau, 1995) such as the associations such as the Fes-Saiss Association, Association du Grand Atlas and Association Oujda-Angad. An opposing and interesting view casts the inability of North African civil society to bring democracy as not due to its weakness, but to its strength. Democracy is not occurring in the region precisely because civil society is too vibrant and intransigent, particularly in its Islamist component, for the state to engage in a pacted transition (see Volpi, 2004). The growth of associational life in North Africa might not necessarily mean the development of civil society as understood by Western political theory, and indeed it might not lead to ‘‘democracy.’’ This realization is spurring new empirical investigations of the character of North Africa’s liberalized autocracies (Brumberg, 2003). The contribution of this literature to a better understanding of the political role of the associative sector in North African political development is still in its infancy. Veering away from a focus on the effect of civil society on the form of government (i.e., democracy vs. autocracy) to its impact on the form of state (welfarist, nationalist, security-oriented), and more importantly on the continuing process of state building that countries like Algeria are still going through, can provide important avenues for future research.
Concluding Assessment The application of the twin concepts of social capital and civil society to the region is however recent, and has gained currency in both academic enquiry and political discourse since the late 1980s. Imported directly from western political theory, the notion of civil society has taken root as a methodological tool to investigate the dynamics of social
and political change, as well as well as a normative domain where varying view of political and social development play out. Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco have all provided case studies and evidence. Data and research for Libya are more limited. The application of the notion of Social Capital to North African context is on the other hand scarce. As in relation to other regions, democratization has provided the main theoretical framework for investigating these notions. The interplay of religion and civil society has provided another key perspective.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the Middle East ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gellner ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ GONGOs ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Mosques ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Social Movements ▶ Social Trust
References/Further Readings AbdelRahman, M. (2004). Civil society exposed: The politics of NGOs in Egypt. Cairo, Egypt: The American University in Cairo Press. Addi, L. (2004). Pierre Bourdieu revisite´. La notion de capital social In L’anthopologie du Maghreb selon Berque, Bourdieu, Geertz, et Gellner. Paris: Awal Ibis Press. Arfaoui, K. (2005). The development of the Feminist Movement in Tunisia: 1920s–2000s. Sixth Annual Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting Florence. Ayoubi, N. (Ed.) (1995). Rethinking the public/private dichotomy: Radical Islam and civil society in the Middle East. Contention, 4(3), 79–105. Babadji. (1989). Le phe´nome`ne associatif en Alge´rie: Gene`se et perspectives. Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord, XXVIII, 229–260. Ben Ne´fissa, S. (2000). NGOs, Governance and Development in the Arab World: Discussion Paper. Management of Social Transformations (MOST-UNESCO), 46, 1–32. Boukra, L. (2002). Alge´rie, La Terreur Sacre´e Algiers: Favre. Carapico, S. (2007). Muslim NGOs: Sleeping with the devil? ISIM Review, 20. Carlier, O. (1995). Entre nationa et Jihad. Histoire Social des Radicalismes Alge´riens. Paris: PFSP, 43–65. Cavatorta, F. (2006). Civil society, Islamism and democratisation: the case of Morocco. Journal of Modern African Studies, 44(2), 203–222. Civicus. (2007). Global Survey of the state of civil society (Vol. 1). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Comaroff & Comaroff. (1999). Civil Society and the political imagination in Africa. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Russia Denoeux, G & Et Gateau, L. (1995) L’essor des associations au Maroc: a´ la recherche de la citoyennete´’ Monde Arabe n 150. Derras, O. (1999). ‘Le fait associatif en Alge´rie. Le cas d’Oran’ in Insanyat n.8 Mai-Aout. Ennaji, M. (2006). Socialpolicy in Morocco: History, politics and social development, Chapter 4. In M. Karshenas, & V. Moghadam (Eds.), Social policy in the Middle East: Economic, political, and gender dynamics. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Ferrie´, J. N. (2003). Les Limites d’une Democratisation par la societe civile en Afrique du Nord CEDEJ (MAE/CNRS, Le Caire) Gellner, Goldberg, E. (1991). Smashing idols and the state: The protestant ethic and Egyptian Sunni radicalism. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 33, 3–4. Government of Egypt. (2007). State Information Service Yearbook Cairo. Habib, R. (1990). Religious protest and class struggle in Egypt. Egypt: Dar Sinai. Hanafi, H. (2002). Alternative conceptions of civil society: A reflective Islamic approach. In S. Chambers & W. Kymlicka (Eds.), Alternative conceptions of civil society (pp. 171–189). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Harrigan, J., & El-Said, H. (2008). Economic liberalisation, social capital and Islamic welfare provision. Basingstoke: Palgrave Mac Millan. Herbert, D. (2000). Faith, trust and civil society. In F. Tonkiss, A. Passey, N. Fenton, & L. C. Hems (Eds.), Trust and civil society. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Ibrahim, S. E. (1998). The troubled triange: Populism, Islam and civil society in the Arab World. International Political Science Review, 19(4), 373–385. LaTowsky, R. J. (1997). Egypt’s NGO sector: A briefing paper. Education for Development Occasional Paper Series, 1(4), 1–22. Layachi, A. (1999). State, society, and democracy in Morocco: The limits of associative life. Review – book reviews. Arab Studies Quarterly (ASQ). Leiken, R. S., & Brooke, S. (2007, March–April). The moderate Muslim brotherhood. Foreign Affairs. Marzouk, M. (1997). ‘The Associative Phenomenon in the Arab World: engine of democratisation or witness to the crisis?’ in Hulme, D. and Edwards, M. NGOs, States and Donors: too close for comfort? New York: St. Martin. Sadowski, Y. (1993, July–Aug). The new orientalism and the democracy debate. Middle East report, 14–21. Singerman, D. (1997). Avenues of participation: Family, politics and networks in Urban Quarters of Cairo. Cairo, Egypt: The American University in Cairo Press. Smail Salhi, Z. (2005). Claiming their space on Earth: Algerian women’s struggle to conquer the public sphere during colonial times. Sixth Annual Mediterranean Social and Political Research Meeting, Florence 2005. Sparre, S. L., & Petersen, M. J. (2007). Islam and civil society case studies from Jordan and Egypt. DIIS Report 2007:13, October 2007, p. 116. Sullivan, D. (1994). Private voluntary organisations in Egypt: Islamic development, private initiative and state control. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. Sullivan, D., & Abed-Kotob, S. (1999). Islam in contemporary Egypt: Civil society vs the State. London: Lynne Rienner. Turner, B. (1984). Orientalism and the problem of civil society in Islam. In A. Hussain, R. Olson & J. Qureishi (Ed.), Orientalism, Islam, and Islamists. Brattleboro, VT: Amana Books. Zubaida, S. (1992, Nov–Dec). Islam, the state & democracy: Contrasting conceptions of society in Egypt. Middle East Report.
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Civil Society and Social Capital in Russia LEAH GILBERT Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction After the Soviet Union collapsed, many hoped civil society organizations in Russia would play a central role in the country’s democratization. Indeed, initial analyses of Russian civil society in the early 1990s showed a rapid growth of nongovernmental organizations (‘‘NGOs’’) throughout the country. These NGOs provided essential services to citizens during the transition from a state-based to a market economy and allowed individuals to actively take part in Russia’s political transformation. Despite these successes, civil society in postcommunist Russia has faced severe challenges, including uncooperative state authorities, intense resource scarcity, and a population that does not embrace volunteering. While the current regime maintains that the development of civil society is a governmental priority, many scholars argue that the form of civil society now promoted by the Putin/Medvedev administration is too closely tied to the state to effectively promote democratization.
Civil Society Definition
Similar to the international literature on civil society, there is much diversity in the way civil society (grazhdanskoe obshchestvo) is conceptualized in Russia. Some scholars employ relatively broad definitions of civil society that include informal organizations or social movements (e.g., Evans et al., 2006; Henderson, 2003; Uhlin, 2006), while others have more narrow definitions (Fish, 1995; Howard, 2003). Similarly, there is scholarly disagreement over whether ‘‘civil society’’ is a useful term or can even exist in nondemocratic contexts, which is a crucial issue considering Russia’s political history (Weigle, 2000: 29–33). Despite these controversies, most Russian and Western understandings of civil society focus on organizations that people join voluntarily, are orientated towards public ends, are noncommercial in nature, and are independent from the state. The degree to which a civil society organization must be independent from the state has been a subject of much debate. This issue is of particular importance in Russia, as Vladimir Putin has advocated for a state-centered version of civil society since he took office in 2000. According to a
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statist conception of state–society relations, the state has the right to regulate social organizations in order to protect both nonstate society and the state (Hale, 2002: 309). The ultimate goal of the statist model is to maintain order (Hale, 2002: 307).
nonstatist approach, social capital cannot be created by the state, although the state can destroy it (examples cited by Petro, 2001: 229 include Nichols, 1996; Rose, 2000). While there are many alternative approaches, most definitions of social capital center on the norms and networks that enable people to achieve common ends.
Historical Overview of Civil Society in Russia
Elements of Russia’s historical record can lead to both a pessimistic and optimistic assessment of its potential to develop civil society. Historically, civil society in Russia has been shaped by the country’s ruling political regime. During the Tsarist period civil society was limited, as the regime repressed most forms of free association and expression. However, the state’s attempt to prevent the emergence of independent associations was not entirely successful and some argue that a vibrant ‘‘middle sphere’’ emerged in late imperial Russia (Clowes et al., 1991; see also Balzer, 1996; Conroy, 2006). This situation changed dramatically after the October revolution. Anchored by an ideology that stressed the importance of a mobilized society to build its ideal of socialism, the communist regime eliminated almost all independent associations and channeled the populace into state sponsored organizations (Evans, 2006a: 38). For example, almost all children in the Soviet Union belonged to a ‘‘Young Pioneer’’ organization and working adults were required to be members of a state-sanctioned trade union for their profession. Thus, the communist period was notable for forced participation in public life in a manner directed by the state. Nevertheless, as in the Tsarist period, the totalitarian state was unable to fully inhibit the independent organization of its citizens. This was particularly true once General Secretary Gorbachev began to institute his reforms in the 1980s. Under the rubric of perestroika and glasnost, new space was created for public engagement and discourse. ‘‘Informal’’ groups independent of state control emerged all over the Soviet Union and by 1990 some estimate that as many as 60,000 such groups existed (Hosking, 1990: 64).
Historical Overview of Social Capital in Russia
Like civil society, Russia’s historical record may point to either a pessimistic or optimistic assessment of its potential to develop social capital. When discussing social capital in the Soviet period, scholars often highlight the role of blat, or the use of personal networks and informal contacts to deal with the shortages and bureaucratic hurdles that characterized daily life in the Soviet Union (Ledeneva, 1998). More than just providing material benefits, there is evidence that blat generated trust over the long term (Ibid., 141), leading scholars such as Marsh (2000: 187) to suggest that blat may be a distinctly Russian form of social capital. Despite the existence and importance of blat, most scholars do not believe that there was a significant amount of social capital in Soviet society. Instead, scholars focus on the high levels of distrust and apathy that resulted from people’s experience of living under a totalitarian regime that lacked trustworthy institutions (Rose, 1994). For example, Ken Jowitt (1992) maintains that an exclusive distinction was drawn between the official and private realms of society to deal with the political monopoly of the communist party and its penetration of social life. This distinction created a particular worldview in which ‘‘political life is suspect, distasteful, and possibly dangerous; to be kept at bay by dissimulation, made tolerable by private intimacy, and transcended by private virtues or charismatic ethics’’ (293). In other words, individuals focused their energy on private relationships and interests and avoided public engagement.
Empirical Data Post-Soviet Civil Society
Social Capital Definition
As is the case with civil society, the meaning of social capital in Russia is a source of debate. Scholarship is divided between ‘‘statist’’ and ‘‘non-statist’’ approaches (Petro, 2001). As Petro (2001: 229) notes, those who employ a statist approach view the state as an important facilitator and source of social capital (examples include Petro, 2001; Twigg & Shechter, 2003). In contrast, according to the
The number of independent social organizations in Russia has grown dramatically since the end of the Soviet period. Between 1993 and 1997 the number of organizations in Russia increased from an estimated 50,000 to nearly 66,000 groups that were registered with the authorities (Weigle, 2002: 123). By 2005, 450,000 organizations were registered with the authorities; although, only 20–25% of these organizations are considered to be regularly active (USAID, 2006: 169). While organizations of all types and sizes operate within the Russian Federation, the majority
Civil Society and Social Capital in Russia
are engaged in social or charitable activities (Ibid., 169). While less in number, trade unions remain some of the largest civil society organizations (Kubicek, 2002). Membership in the umbrella organization Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia is estimated at 28 million in 2007 (http://www.fnpr.org.ru/1/8/1274.html). Nevertheless, membership is largely perfunctory and in general trade unions have not been a strong political force (Kubicek, 2002; Ashwin & Clarke, 2003; Davis, 2006). Despite the initial outburst of organizational fervor at the end of the Soviet period, the overall level of membership and activity in voluntary associations throughout the Russian Federation remains low by international standards. According to the New Russia Barometer, a yearly public opinion survey, in 2007, 95% of respondents said they did not belong to any sports, arts, community, or charitable organization (Rose, 2007: 13). Low organizational involvement is not only a trend in Russia, but is a common feature of the entire postcommunist region and is considered one of the enduring legacies of communist rule (Howard, 2003). Despite low overall volunteering rates, USAID (2006: 175) notes that citizen volunteering in Russia appears to increase every year. The general weakness of civil society in Russia is commonly explained by the overarching influence of the state and its impact on attitudes and forms of organization. For example, Fish (1995) highlights the unique structural barriers put up by the Soviet state that negatively influenced the organizational capacity and functional capabilities of the nascent democratic opposition in Russia. Similarly, in his comparative analysis of Russia and East Germany, Howard (2003) notes the powerful impact of the state on individual attitudes and behavior and focuses on three factors that explain the weakness of Russian civil society: citizens with higher levels of mistrust in communist organizations tend to be less active in voluntary associations today, people whose friendship networks have persisted in the postcommunist period are less likely to join organizations, and the more disappointed people are with postcommunist developments the less likely they will be to participate in voluntary organizations. Civil society in Russia has also been impacted by foreign funding. Due to the large amounts of money invested by international donors (By 2000 USAID had spent over $1 billion on democracy promotion in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; Henderson, 2003: 6) as well the general environment of resource scarcity in Russia, foreign funding has been extremely important in shaping post-Soviet civil society. Multiple studies have found that foreign funding has had mixed results in Russia (e.g., Sperling, 1999; Richter, 2002; Crotty, 2003;
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Henderson, 2003; Sundstrom, 2006). While foreign funding increased a group’s professionalism and resources, it also caused many groups to focus more on the donor’s expectations and priorities than on those of its domestic constituency (Henderson, 2003). Foreign funding frequently spurred competition rather than coordination among groups (Sperling, 1999). Foreign donors appear to have learned from their mistakes and are increasingly changing their funding requirements in an attempt to address these weaknesses. Despite these difficulties, Russia has a number of successful civil society groups. For example, scholars have noted the strength and influence of soldiers’ rights organizations (Caiazza, 2002; Sundstrom, 2006). Prominent among these organizations is the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia, which in the late 1990s became two groups: the Union of Committees of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia and the Russian Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers (Sundstrom, 2006: 193). According to Sundstrom (2006), in addition to achieving various policy victories like amnesty for army deserters who experienced abuse during the first Chechen war, this group has also expanded its membership, regional coverage, and public awareness (179–180). Smaller scale successes have also been achieved by groups advocating on behalf of causes like the environment, women, and the disabled (see case studies on these topics in Evans et al, 2006). Post-Soviet Social Capital
Many of the same factors that shaped the trajectory of civil society’s development in Russia have also had an enormous impact on social capital. For example, many studies have found that the Soviet legacy and contemporary sociopolitical contexts have a strong impact on social capital in Russia (Nichols, 1996; Rose, 2000; Twigg & Schechter, 2003). Scholars have likewise highlighted the role of corruption and an unresponsive and inefficient government in both generating and perpetuating widespread distrust and apathy (Rose, 1998). Key measures of social capital, such as associational activity and trust in political institutions, reveal that the national stock of social capital in postcommunist Russia is comparatively low. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the yearly New Russian Barometer survey, which documents the levels of trust in political institutions over time. In a 1993 survey only 40% of respondents stated that they trusted courts (Rose, 1994: 14). This figure dropped to 28% in 2007 (Rose, 2007: 37). The level of trust respondents have in political parties is also exceptionally low, although during this period it did slightly increase from 7% to 10%. The level of social capital in Russia is further
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complicated by the role of blat in the current regime. For example, Ledeneva (1998) argues that the transformation to a market economy significantly disrupted the traditional use of blat. While informal networks continue to be important in post-Soviet Russia, these networks are based on different principles and ethics (Ibid., 211). Despite this generally bleak picture, research on social capital in postcommunist Russia has produced some reasons for optimism. When replicating much of Putnam’s methodology, Christopher Marsh found large variation in the stocks of social capital across Russia’s 89 regions (Marsh, 2000). Marsh maintains that a number of Russia’s regions, like Moscow, Pskov, and Smolensk have high levels of social capital, which is reflected in their greater level of democratization and economic performance in comparison to other areas of Russia (198). Similarly, Nikolai Petro’s (2001) analysis of social capital in Novgorod, a region 190 km south of St. Petersburg, demonstrates that its economic success can be attributed to high levels of social capital, which he argues resulted from local government policy. These studies show that stocks of social capital are by no means uniform throughout Russia and that regional trends may hold important lessons for its development on a national level (see also Twigg, 2003). Even so, more recent work on social capital in Russia’s regions suggests that the casual link between economic growth and social capital is tenuous (Buttrick & Moran, 2005).
Outlook/Concluding Assessment At the convocation of the 2001 Civic Forum, President Putin stated his intent to actively work with civil society and emphasized its contribution to Russia’s democratic development (Weigle, 2002). This announcement stood in stark contrast to Yeltsin’s stance towards civil society. Although the legal framework for independent associations was established under Yelstin, most scholars believe that he did not view civil society as an important part of Russia’s political process (Weigle, 2002: 132; Hale, 2002: 314). Since the 2001 forum, the Putin administration has undertaken a number of new measures that have had a large impact on civil society. For example, Evans (2006b) documents the increased pressure that was placed on human rights groups and others critical of the regime during Putin’s first term as President. He also notes that by 2004, President Putin and other top officials openly criticized groups that received foreign funding, linking them with foreign governments and non-Russian values (Ibid., 150). Notably in 2006, the Federal Security Service (FSB) accused human rights groups of receiving funding from an alleged British agent in what became known as the ‘‘spy scandal’’ (see Bigg, 2006).
Another significant policy was the creation of the Public Chamber (obshchestvennaia palata) in 2005 to promote greater interaction between society and government authorities (http://www.oprf.ru/ru/about/). The Chamber’s 126 members are chosen in ways that allow the Kremlin to influence which individuals and organizations are allowed to participate. The Chamber’s recommendations to the government do not carry the force of law and by filling the chamber with its supporters, the Chamber may be a way for the regime to control societal approval of its policies (see Abdullaev, 2005). Another important policy is Russia’s 2006 NGO law, which introduced changes to the regulation of domestic and foreign NGOs. This new law created a wide range of new regulations on registration procedures, reporting of activities, and sources of funding. These new regulations have placed significant burdens on NGOs and have set up many new barriers for their operation (USAID, 2008; Orttung, 2008). Finally, the support of government organized nongovernmental organizations, or ‘‘GONGOs,’’ is a new feature of the organizational landscape in Russia. One of the most visible GONGOs is the pro-Putin youth movement, Nashi (‘‘ours’’), which commentators believe is the Kremlin’s response to the Orange Revolution in Ukraine. The meaning of these changes is an object of considerable debate. Proponents of these measures argue that they are meant to strengthen the role of civil society in Russia by providing new sources of funding (The Public Chamber gave $51 million via competitive grants in 2007; USAID, 2008: 196) and engagement with public officials. These proponents also believe that closer regulation of Russia’s NGOs will minimize incidences of fraud and corruption and ensure that other governments are unable to use foreign-funded NGOs to destabilize Russia. Critics counter by stating that these measures are generally hurtful for civil society and require groups to give up their independence in exchange for influence and resources. Some claim that these measures demonstrate that Vladimir Putin seeks to build a quasi-civil society in which ‘‘social organizations are subordinated to the authority of the state and express demands within the parameters of the program of the highest executive leadership’’ (Evans, 2006: 149). Regardless of the trajectory of Putin’s policies, due to both domestic and international pressures it is unlikely that civil society in Russia will revert to its repressed Soviet form (Sundstrom & Henry, 2006: 319). However, it may be argued that Vladimir Putin’s policies, combined with the general weakness of civil society in Russia, make it less likely that any change to the political status quo will be initiated from below. Finally, the economic crisis that began in 2008 created daunting new challenges for a
Civil Society and Social Capital in Russia
revised leadership lineup with Dimitri Medvedev as President and Vladimir Putin as Prime Minister. These challenges promise to provide new opportunities as well as pitfalls for the future development of civil society and social capital in Russia.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Economy ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central Asia ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society Indicators and Indexes ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ GONGOs ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definitions and History ▶ Philanthropy in Russia and Central Asia ▶ Social Capital, Definitions of ▶ Uncivil Society
References/Further Readings Abdullaev, N. (2005, February 21). Public chamber left toothless. Moscow Times, from http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/9062–12.cfm; 10/31/08 Ashwin, S., & Clarke, S. (2003). Russian trade unions and industrial relations in transition. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Balzer, H. (Ed.) (1996). Russia’s missing middle class: The professions in Russian history. Armonk: M. E. Sharpe. Bigg, C. (2006, January 25). Russia: Spy Scandal Highlights Mounting Pressure on NGOs. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, from http:// www.rferl.org/content/Article/1065077.html; 7/6/2009. Buttrick, S. C. & Moran, J. P. (2005). Russia’s missing Link? Social capital, entrepreneurialism, and economic performance in postcommunist Russia. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 38, 357–368. Caiazza, A. (2002). Mothers and soldiers: Gender, citizenship and civil society in contemporary Russia. New York: Routledge. Clowes, E. W. et al., (Eds.) (1991). Between tsar and people: Educated society and the quest for public identity in late imperial Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Conroy, M. S. (2006). Civil society in late imperial Russia. In A. B. Evans et al. (Eds.), Russian civil society: A critical assessment (pp. 11–27). Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. Crotty, J. (2003). Managing civil society: Democratisation and the environmental movement in a Russian region. Communist and PostCommunist Studies, 36, 489–508. Davis, S. (2006). Russian trade unions: Where are they in the former workers’ state? In A. B. Evans et al. (Eds.), Russian civil society: A critical assessment (pp. 197–210). Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. Evans, A. B. (2002). Recent assessments of social organisations in Russia. Demokratizatsiya, 10(3), 322–342. Evans, A. B. (2006a). Civil society in the Soviet Union? In A. B. Evans et al. (Eds.), Russian civil society: A critical assessment (pp. 28–54). Armonk: M.E. Sharpe.
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Evans, A. B. (2006b). Vladimir Putin’s design for civil society. In A. B. Evans et al. (Eds.), Russian civil society: A critical assessment (pp. 147–158). Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. Evans, A. B. et al., (Eds.) (2006). Russian civil society: A critical assessment. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. Fish, S. M. (1995). Democracy from scratch: Opposition and regime in the new Russian revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Russia, from http://www. fnpr.org.ru/1/8/1274.html; 10/31/08 Hale, H. (2002). Civil society from above? Statist and liberal models of state-building in Russia. Demokratizatsiya, 10(3), 306–321. Henderson, S. (2003). Building democracy in contemporary Russia: Western support for grassroots organizations. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Hosking, G. (1990). The awakening of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Howard, M. M. (2003). The weakness of civil society in post-communist Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jowitt, K. (1992). New world disorder: The leninist extinction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kholodkovsky, K. G. (Ed.) (1998). Grazhdanskoe obshchestvo v Rossii: Struktury i soznanie (Civil society in Russia: Structure and conscience). Moscow: Nauka. Kubicek, P. (2002). Civil society, trade unions and post-soviet democratisation: Evidence from Russia and Ukraine. Europe-Asia Studies, 54(4), 603–624. Ledeneva, A. V. (1998). Russia’s economy of favours: Blat, networking and informal exchange. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Marsh, C. (2000). Social capital and democracy in Russia. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 33, 183–199. Nichols, T. (1996). Russian democracy and social capital. Social Science Information, 35(4), 629–642. Orttung, R. (2008). Country Report: Russia. In Nations in transit. Freedom House. Petro, N. N. (2001). Creating social capital in Russia: The Novgorod model. World Development, 29(2), 229–244. Public Chamber, from http://www.oprf.ru/ru/about/; 10/31/08 Richter, J. (2002). Evaluating Western assistance to Russian women’s organizations. In S. Mendelson & J. Glenn (Eds.), The power and limit of NGOs. Rose, R. (1994). Distrust as an obstacle to civil society. Glasgow: Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde. Rose, R. (1998). Getting things done in an anti-modern society: Social capital networks in Russia. Glasgow: Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Strathclyde. Rose, R. (2000). Uses of social capital in Russia: Modern, pre-modern, and anti-modern. Journal of Post-Soviet Affairs, 16, 1, 33–56. Rose, R. (2007). New Russia barometer XV: The climax of the Putin years. Aberdeen: Centre for the Study of Public Policy, University of Aberdeen. Shineleva, L. T. (2002). Obshchestvennye nepravitelstvennye organizatsii i vlast (Non-Governmental Organizations and power). Moscow: Dashkov. Sperling, V. (1999). Organizing women in contemporary Russia: Engendering transition. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Sundstrom, L. M. (2006). Soldiers’ rights groups in Russia: Civil society through Russian and Western eyes. In A. B. Evans et al. (Eds.), Russian civil society: A critical assessment (pp. 178–196). Armonk: M. E. Sharpe. Sundstrom, L. M., & Henry, L. (2006). Russian civil society: Tensions and trajectories. In A. B. Evans et al., (Eds.), Russian civil society: A critical assessment (pp. 305–322). Armonk: M.E. Sharpe.
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Twigg, J. L. (2003). Social capital in Russia’s regions. In J. L. Twigg & K. Schecter (Eds.), Social capital and social cohesion in post-soviet Russia. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. Twigg, J. L., & Schecter, K. (Eds.) (2003). Social capital and social cohesion in post-soviet Russia. Armonk: M.E. Sharpe. Uhlin, A. (2006). Post-soviet civil society: Democratization in Russia and the Baltic states. New York: Routledge. United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Bureau for Europe and Eurasia. (June 2008). Country overview: Russia. In The 2007 NGO sustainability index for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Bureau for Europe and Eurasia. (May 2006). Country overview: Russia. In The 2005 NGO sustainability index for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Weigle, M. A. (2000). Russia’s liberal project: State-society relations in the transition from communism. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press. Weigle, M. A. (2002). On the road to the civic forum: State and civil society from Yeltsin to Putin. Demokratizatsiya, 10(2), 117–146.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Scandinavia KARL HENRIK SIVESIND1, PER SELLE2 Institute for Social Research, Oslo, Norway 2 University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
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Introduction The Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, are characterized by high levels of trust, volunteering, participation in voluntary organizations and a political culture that combines equality, national solidarity, and individual autonomy. The Scandinavian countries are in many comparative studies ranked on top when it comes to social capital (Rothstein, 2002), organizational participation (Dekker & van den Broek, 1998), and civil society’s vitality (Salamon et al., 2004). The popular movements have been important for the development of these characteristics. The first part of the article goes through some common features in Scandinavian history. The second part looks at volunteering, social trust and civic engagement in recent studies. In the last part theoretical explanations of the findings are examined.
Civil Society Civil society, through voluntary associations and popular movements, has played a significant and distinctive role in the building of democracy, nations, citizenship rights and welfare states in the Scandinavian countries since early in the nineteenth century. Stein Rokkan among others used the concept of an ‘‘age of associations’’ (Rokkan, 1967) to
describe emergence of the popular movements. Associational life in Scandinavia in this early phase was in many senses a direct continuation of the life in the traditional homogenous social structure with a nobility too weak to prevent the farming class from being economically and politically independent. In addition, there was a Lutheran culture of a Nordic type, much more oriented towards inclusion than towards establishing an opposition towards the state and other main institutions and actors (Stenius, forthcoming). Philanthropy was limited and oriented towards self-help through work, since there was no upper or middle-class strong enough to be able to sustain welfare, cultural, or educational institutions for the needy. Instead, a political culture developed that to a large extent emphasized one norm for all: people in general were expected to contribute a certain minimum – more if they could – to what was considered common responsibilities, such as helping the worthy poor, building churches, and mutual neighbour assistance. The institution of ‘‘voluntary community effort’’ (dugnad) had existed since the Middle Ages and became important in coordinating the production of public goods. Similar norms may be found other places as well. However, in Scandinavia, as voluntary associations emerged, they were considered as a crucial part of this common responsibility, and therefore the norm of ‘‘dugnad’’ applied to them. This is important for understanding the evolving role of the popular movements in Scandinavian societies, and a precondition for high levels of social capital and a political system with openness towards civil society (Kuhnle & Selle, 1992; Tra¨ga˚rdh, 2007). The golden age of popular movements lasted from 1880 to 1960. Most important were farmers, fishermen, smallholders, temperance, lay Christian, and social and humanitarian associations, and in Norway there was also a countercultural struggle for New Norwegian language. As institutions, the local associations were the core level with a high level of autonomy in a nationally coordinated organizational structure. Almost without exception, organizations imitated the levels of the political system (local, regional, national) and chose the same structure as the parties, to which many of them were also directly affiliated. As a consequence organizational community in Scandinavia was characterized by not being divided between the local and national level. This hierarchical structure represented rather stable channels of communication between the local and the central level – between individual and society. There was a comparatively broad recruitment of members, and through the organizations they were pivotal in the development of democracy, nation
Civil Society and Social Capital in Scandinavia
and welfare state. The hierarchical structure promoted loyalty and a sense that the individual members belonged to a greater cause. At the same time, ties to the central level provided the opportunity to bring local matters to national attention, and to bring information about political and social issues back to be discussed on the local level. The popular movements were important for political mobilization. The different movements were connected to ‘‘their own’’ political parties and were crucial in the competition for political power. This resulted in political and administrative systems that were quite open towards the popular movements and interest groups and paved the way for ‘‘corporative pluralism’’ (Rokkan, 1966). Stein Kuhnle and Per Selle, with their relational perspective, used the term the ‘‘state friendly society,’’ to describe how general welfare associations and the state in the post-war period joined forces in a search for the best common solutions to social problems mounting in the post-war period, such as care for elderly and seniledement patients. In many cases, the voluntary organizations promoted public solutions, even in welfare fields in which they had been pioneers, policy makers, and entrepreneurs (Kuhnle & Selle, 1992; Selle, 1993). There was a strong growth in number and types of organizations until about 1980. During the nineties, however, there was no numerical growth, but the types and structures of organizations still changed (Wijkstro¨m, 2004; Wollebæk & Selle, 2002a). Until about 1960 the public health and other nonmember benefit organizations grew at the same time as the welfare state expanded. From the 1960s, the recreation and culture field was the fastest growing field, with musical groups, hobby associations, sports clubs, and associations for children and youths, as an affluent leisure society gradually emerged (Wollebæk & Selle, 2002a). Since the late 1980s/early 1990s new organizations tend to view participants more as customers than members with democratic governing-rights. Some of them adopt new management strategies inspired by business management. New public management ideas have also infused the relations between public sector and voluntary sector providers with a contract culture, focusing on competition, timedelimited contracts, legal control, and accountability (Sivesind, 2008a). This is in strong contrast to what Kuhnle and Selle (1990; 1992) described as a relationship between state and voluntary associations characterized by high degree of proximity in terms of communication and contact, while dependence by means of finance and control was been less prominent. Even if some organizations could be heavily dependent on public funding, they had great autonomy in the use of that money.
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Since the 1980s, the popular movements are no longer a dominant part of the voluntary sector, i.e., farmers, fishermen, smallholders, New Norwegian language, temperance, lay Christian, and social and humanitarian. The expanding organizations have more informal and less committing relations to members and participants, and the activities are oriented towards local community, culture, sports, and recreation. The organizational community is less conflictoriented and focussed on broad social matters, and more consensus-oriented and focussed on members. The expanding types of organizations are service organizations, dominated by the expanding culture and recreation organizations. Still, interest organizations have a strong position, although they seem to become more oriented towards the members and local issues. There are also examples of successful communitarian organizations that are oriented towards consensus and society, such as local community associations, and historical societies. The most striking feature, however, is the lack of successful popular movements, a form of organization that have played a decisive role as democratic infrastructure connecting the central and the local level since the beginning of the ‘‘associational revolution.’’ These democratically organized, member-based, and hierarchically structured organizations have brought broad segments of the population in contact with decisive political opinion- and decision-making processes (Wollebæk & Selle, 2002a, 2008). The feminist and environmental organizations culminated in the 1970s and 1980s. They have contributed to change of policy and attitudes in their areas, but never reached remotely similar proportions as the old popular movements. One reason may be that politicians surpassed each other in political correctness and the state took on responsibility in these policy areas, which made civic engagement seem redundant. For instance, the state established foundations and campaigns that emulated environmental organizations (Grendstad et al., 2006). In the 1990s, new organizations are to a less extent connected to national networks, resulting in a more fragmented organizational community. The local and the central level have become more separate, even within the same organization. New organizations tend to have a specialized purpose and a weak ideological foundation, primarily accommodating the members’ participation in activities. People seem less interested in spending much time in meetings working for social change in the long term. These kind of democratic processes are increasingly perceived to take too much time. In stead, new organizations create relations to members that are more similar to the relations between producers and consumers in a market, often inspired by business management ideas. The
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organizations present activities that members either want to take part in, or they leave the organization. Participants are less loyal and organizations more short-lived. There is also a growing segment of organizations that are building local identities, such as local community associations, local history associations, or societies for conservation of old ships, houses, or other relics. To a large extent, these organizations also lack ideological foundation and change-orientation (Wollebæk & Selle, 2002a, 2008). Many recent trends converge in a ‘‘here-and-now’’ type of organizations (Tranvik & Selle, 2007), but it is still an open question how dominating it will become as part of civil society. An important reason for the decline of social movements is the weakening of collective identities that were constructed under remotely different social structures and cultural conditions. The economic foundations for primary sector-based interest-representation have eroded in an increasingly differentiated and knowledge-based economy. Organizations for industrial workers are in decline while professional and public services are increasing. New forms of interest organizations represent sick, disabled, and welfare clients in relation to administrations and public and private service providers. A strong reduction of the most urgent social problems and high public sector ambitions in policy areas previously targeted by voluntary organizations, have contributed to the decline of social movements for women, environment, and general health and welfare. In short, social movement organizations decline in areas where people think it seems less likely that they can contribute to significant changes. In addition, secularization, cultural globalization, and social and geographic mobility have weakened traditional forms of counter-cultural identity organization. On the other hand, partly commercialized, transnational youthcultures gives rise to new more or less organized sparetime activities, such as skateboard, snowboard, cricket, computers, games, role-play, fantasy and science fiction. At the same time new policy areas such as sustainability and climate, infrastructure, and security politics have gained importance – all fields with many voluntary organizations and NGOs involved in governance networks on local, national, and supranational level. However, many of them have a weak membership base, and some have no members at all. Many of them also lack mechanisms for democratic governance, in contrast to the popular movement organizations. All in all we have seen a transformed role for popular movements in Scandinavia as service and knowledge based economies and an affluent leisure society gradually have emerged. Whether this also means a weakened civil society will not be concluded here. However, it seems to result in a less distinct civil society compared with other Western European countries. In the next section,
recent comparative studies of social capital will be analyzed to see how distinct the Scandinavian countries are in that respect.
Social Capital Although many of the characteristics of the popular movements have declined in the transition towards a service and knowledge-based economy and an affluent leisure society, the organizational community in Scandinavia still stands out in comparative perspective. Almost three quarters of contemporary voluntary associations are part of a hierarchical structure – a much higher percentage than Torpe and Ferrer-Fons’ (2007: 101) report from five other countries. Voluntary organizations still enjoy broad popular support. The average number of memberships per person has been declining – in particular among young people. However, analysis of the European Social Survey (2002) shows that the Nordic countries, alongside the Netherlands, rank highest whether organizational affiliation is measured by membership or active participation (Wollebæk & Selle, 2008). In addition, record high shares of the population volunteer. This can be demonstrated by comparing population surveys of volunteering for nonprofit organizations during the last 12 months. The Scandinavian surveys from 2005 and 2004 are compared with recently published findings from the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (CNP) (Salamon et al., 2004) (Table 1). In Norway the adult participation rate was 58%, in Sweden it was 49, while in Denmark it was just 35. However, this is still higher than the data for industrialized countries from the CNP-study. United Kingdom has
Civil Society and Social Capital in Scandinavia. Table 1 Share of the population that has volunteered during last year in industrial countries (Percent) Country
Volunteers
Norway
58
Sweden
49
Iceland
40
Denmark
35
UK
30
USA
22
Netherlands
16
France
14
Australia
13
Sweden and Iceland 2005, Norway and Denmark 2004, other countries 1995. Source: Hrafnsdo´ttir, 2006; Koch-Nielsen et al., 2005; Olsson et al., 2006; Sivesind, 2007; Salamon et al., 2004.
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30%, USA 22, Netherland 16, France 14, and Australia 13%. This means that the voluntary associations attract broad support in Scandinavia, and the tendency seems to be that more people volunteer now than 10 or 15 years ago (Sivesind, 2007: 12; Fridberg et al., 2006: 68; Olsson et al., 2006: 13). If we look at volunteering FTE in relation to the size of the economic population, we find that Sweden has the highest share with 6.7%, then comes Norway with 4.5% and Denmark with 3.1% (Note: The Swedish survey is counting hours volunteering reported for last 12 months, while the other countries count volunteering last 4 weeks. This probably results in a higher number in Sweden. Calculations are based on (Olsson et al., 2006, 1335)). This is still higher than the 2.3% average that can be found in what is called the welfare partnership countries in the CNP-study (See Salamon et al., 2004). All these countries have ambitious welfare arrangements, but in Scandinavia this does not reduce the level of volunteering. Even with a very high participation rate, the average hours per volunteer is relatively high. In Sweden the average per volunteer is 14 h in a month (Olsson et al., 2006: 15), in Norway it is also 14, while in Denmark it is 17 (Fridberg et al., 2006: 69). Moreover, volunteering FTE in Scandinavia is highly concentrated in the culture and recreation field, with 54% in Norway, 49% in Denmark and 50% in Sweden. In the welfare partnership countries the share is just 32% (Table 2). In contrast, the shares in the welfare field (Education and research, Health, and Social Services) are rather small. They are from 22% to 12% in Scandinavia compared to 32% in the welfare partnership countries. However, since welfare services to a larger extent are financed and provided by the public sector in Scandinavia, nonprofit welfare services represents a much smaller field than in the welfare partnership countries. Seen in relation to the paid employment on the welfare field, volunteering is high in Sweden, average in Norway, and low in Denmark, compared to Western EU-countries (Sivesind, 2008b). Moreover, volunteering on the welfare field in Scandinavia to a large extent takes place in the member-based activities in organizations like Cancer Societies, National Health Organizations, Red Cross, People’s Aid, and to a less extent in relation to the provision welfare services (Table 2). In religion we find only 6% of the volunteering FTEs in Denmark and Norway and 8% in Sweden, compared to 15% in the welfare partnership countries. This seems to be a declining field with many small organizations and volunteers with high age (Sivesind, 2007). The Scandinavian countries do not diverge so much if we look at society-oriented organizations, which includes
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Civil Society and Social Capital in Scandinavia. Table 2 Volunteering FTE for voluntary organizations by organization category (Percent)
Sweden Norway Denmark
Welfare partnership countriesa
Activity
50
54
49
32
Welfare
22
12
15
32
Society
10
10
16
10
Housing/ economy
8
17
13
8
Religion
8
6
6
15
Sweden 2005, Norway and Denmark 2004, other countries 1995. a Unweighted average of France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, United Kingdom. Percentages do not add up to 100 because ‘‘other organizations’’ are omitted. Source: Koch-Nielsen et al., 2005; Olsson et al., 2006; Sivesind, 2007; Salamon et al., 2004.
environment, civic and advocacy, international and aid organizations, and housing and economy organizations, which includes housing cooperatives, and local neighbourhood organizations. The exceptions are Denmark that has a large share of volunteering in society-oriented organizations and Norway where housing and neighbourhood organizations has a large share. Volunteers can be board members, and in addition, all dwellers are expected to take part in fixing up common areas, gardens, and playgrounds. The decline of religious organizations, and societyoriented organizations, is a consequence of the weakened traditional movements. However, people still consider voluntary organizations as a common responsibility where the ‘‘dugnad’’ norms apply, in particular in the culture and recreation field. Above all, parents volunteering for organizations where their children are active has been increasing (Sivesind, 2007; Fridberg et al., 2006: 69). To some extent this replaces paid employment, but volunteers are extensively used to generate income for organizations through cafe sales, flea markets, performing tasks for municipalities and businesses that the organizations get paid for. This keeps the membership fees down, and thus contributes to levelling out economic differences. In addition, music and cultural festivals attract increasing numbers of volunteers. Many organizations on the welfare field coordinate, supervise and train volunteers to do limited tasks like visiting sick and elderly, guiding refugees, homework assistance, etc. Tasks necessary for the normal operation of organizations like board member, cashier, that are difficult to set the limits of, are less popular. All in all, this means that
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volunteers increasingly are non-members and contribute to culture and sports activities, in addition to supplementary welfare activities.
Outlook Even if it is difficult to show that participation in voluntary organizations and volunteering contributes to social capital on an individual basis (Wollebæk & Selle, 2002b), country comparisons show that a reciprocal causal relationship seems reasonable. People in the Nordic countries (Scandinavia and Finland) have the highest generalized trust scores in the European Social Survey (ESS) 2002/ 2003 (Fridberg & Kangas, 2008). The Nordic countries are also ranked high in trust for national institutions and the legal system in the ESS 2004 (Listhaug & Ringdal, 2008). Much of the citizens’ trust and the organizations’ trust in the state are accumulated in the process by which next to any group can be consulted in the state’s decision-making processes. Bo Rothstein and Dietlin Stolle have argued that social capital is embedded in and linked to formal political and legal institutions. Not all political institutions matter equally, however. Trust thrives most in societies with effective, impartial, and fair street-level bureaucracies (Rothstein & Stolle, 2003). The causal mechanism between these institutional characteristics and generalized trust is illustrated in a cross-national context. This institutional approach seems important to explain particularities of the Scandinavian countries (Wollebæk & Selle, 2007). However, in historical perspective, the popular movement tradition is an indispensable factor for the development of an open political culture where the state is not considered as remote and alien, but as a common endeavour of the people. In political rhetoric the same word has often been used for community and state (Tra¨ga˚rdh, 2007). Hence a bottom up perspective is necessary to explain how Scandinavian particularities in social capital and civil society have developed over time.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Collective Action ▶ Corporatism ▶ Goverment-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Participation ▶ Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations ▶ Political Organizations ▶ Religious Organizations ▶ Salamon, Lester ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Change Organizations
▶ Social Movements ▶ Social Trust ▶ Volunteer Management ▶ Volunteers ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Dekker, P., & van den Broek, A. (1998). Civil society in comparative perspective: Involvement in voluntary associations in North America and Western Europe. Voluntas, 9, 10–38. Fridberg, T., & Kangas, O. (2008). Social capital. In H. Ervasti, T. Fridberg, M. Hjerm, & K. Ringdal (Eds.), Nordic social attitudes in a European perspective (pp. 65–85) Cheltenham, UK/Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Fridberg, T., Koch-Nielsen, I., & Henriksen, L. S. (2006). Frivilligt arbejde. In T. P. Boje, T. Fridberg, & B. Ibsen (Eds.), Frivillighed og nonprofit i Danmark. Omfang, organisation, økonomi og beskæftigelse SFI-rapport 06:19 (pp. 41–70). København, Denmark: Socialforskningsinstiuttet. Grendstad, G., Selle, P., Strømsnes, K., & Bortne, Ø. (2006). Unique environmentalism. A comparative perspective. New York, NY: Springer. Hrafnsdo´ttir, S. (2006). The Icelandic Voluntary Sector. Development of research. In A.-L. Matthies (Ed.), Nordic civic society organisations and the future of welfare services – a model for Europe? TemaNord 2006:517. Copenhagen, Denmark: The Nordic Council of Ministers. Koch-Nielsen, I., Henriksen, L. S., Fridberg, T., & Rosendahl, D. (2005). Frivilligt arbejde – Den frivillige indsats i Danmark Rapport 05:20. København, Denmark: Socialforskningsinstitutet. Kuhnle, S., & Selle, P. (1990). Meting needs in a welfare state: Relations between government and voluntary organizations in Norway. In A. Ware & R. E. Goodin (Eds.), Needs and welfare (pp. 165–184). London: Sage. Kuhnle, S., & Selle, P. (1992). Government and voluntary organizations: A relational perspective. In S. Kuhnle & P. Selle (Eds.), Government and voluntary organizations. A relational perspective (pp. 1–33). London: Avebury. Listhaug, O., & Ringdal, K. (2008). Trust in political institutions. In H. Ervasti, T. Fridberg, M. Hjerm, & K. Ringdal (Eds.), Nordic social attitudes in a European perspective (pp. 131–151). Cheltenham, UK/ Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Olsson, L.-E., Svedberg, L., & Grassman, E. J. (2006). Medborgarnas insatser och engagemang i civilsamha¨llet – na˚gra grundla¨ggande uppgifter fra˚n en ny befolkningsstudieno. Arbetsrapportserie nr 39. Sko¨ndal: Sko¨ndalsinstitutet. Rokkan, S. (1966). Norway: Numerical democracy and corporate pluralism. In R. A. Dahl (Ed.), Political oppositions in Western democracies (pp. 1–401). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rokkan, S. (1967). Geography, religion, and social class: Crosscutting cleavages in Norwegian politics. In S. M. Lipset & S. Rokkan (Eds.), Party systems and voter alignments (pp. 367–444). New York: The Free Press. Rothstein, B. (2002). Sweden: Social capital in the social democratic state. In R. D. Putnam (Ed.), Democracies in flux. The evolution of social capital in contemporary society (pp. 289–331). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rothstein, B., & Stolle, D. (2003). Social capital, impartiality and the welfare state: An institutional approach. In M. Hooghe & D. Stolle (Eds.), Generating social capital. Civil society and institutions
Civil Society and Social Capital in South America in comparative perspective (pp. 191–210). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., & Associates (Eds.). (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector, Volume II. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Selle, P. (1993). Voluntary organisations and the welfare state: The case of Norway. Voluntas, 4, 1–15. Sivesind, K. H. (2007). Frivillig sektor i Norge 1997–2004. Frivillig arbeid, medlemskap, sysselsetting og økonomi. Rapport no. 2007:10. Oslo, Norway: Institute for Social Research. Sivesind, K. H. (2008a). Halvveis til Soria Moria. Ikke-kommersielle velferdstjenester, politikkens blinde flekk? Rapport no. 2008:03. Oslo, Norway: Institute for Social Research. Sivesind, K. H. (2008b). Nonprofit organisasjoner pa˚ velferdsfeltet i Norden. In B. Ibsen, T. P. Boje, & T. Fridberg (Eds.), Det frivillige Danmark (pp. 161–178). Odense, Denmark: Syddansk Universitetsforlag. Torpe, L., & Ferrer-Fons, M. (2007). The internal structure of associations. In L. Tra¨ga˚rdh (Ed.), State and civil society in Northern Europe. The Swedish model reconsidered. New York: Berghahn Books. Tranvik, T., & Selle, P. (2007). The rise and fall of popular mass movements: Organizational change and globalization - the Norwegian case. Acta Sociologica, 50, 57–70. Tra¨ga˚rdh, L. (2007). State and civil society in Northern Europe. The Swedish model reconsidered. New York: Berghahn Books. Wijkstro¨m, F. (2004). Changing focus or changing role? The Swedish nonprofit sector in the new millennium. In A. Zimmer & C. Stecker (Eds.), Strategy mix for nonprofit organisations: Vehicles for social and labour market integrations (pp. 15–40). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Wollebæk, D., & Selle, P. (2002a). Det nye organisasjonssamfunnet – Demokrati i omforming [The New Organization Community – Democracy in Change]. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Wollebæk, D., & Selle, P. (2002b). Does participation in voluntary associations contribute to social capital? The importance of intensity, scope and type. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 31, 32–61. Wollebæk, D., & Selle, P. (2007). Origins of social capital: Socialization and institutionalization approaches compared. Journal of Civil Society, 3, 1–24. Wollebæk, D., & Selle, P. (2008). A social democratic model of civil society? In B. Jobert & B. Kohler-Koch (Eds.), Changing images of civil society. From protest to governance (pp. 47–70). New York: Routledge.
Civil Society and Social Capital in South America MARIO ROITTER Center for the Study of State and Society – CEDES, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Introduction South America as a region comprises 13 countries, most of which share similar social, economic, and cultural features in various areas. Notwithstanding, the strong
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diversity in many fields that makes it difficult to approach the region as a whole in a simple way, there are similar patterns that allow us to consider it as a single unit of study, focusing on shared trends and characteristics. This entry covers Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. (Brazil, Guyana, Surinam and French Guyana are not included.) The presence of private non profit organizations goes back to the historic period previous to the consolidation of the different National States that took place by the end of the nineteenth century. In all of these countries, even in Colonial times, there were numerous institutions of public welfare acting in the social, cultural, political, and above all, in the welfare area (Campetella y Gonza´lez Bombal, 2000; Sanborn, 2008; Villar, 2001). Yet, what constitutes a relatively recent event is the growth that these organizations have had and the public visibility that they have reached, as well as the will to consider them part of a sector that, even though they are characterized by being very diverse between themselves, would place them in parallel with the State and the market as part of a trisectorial concept’ and logic of the economy. As List and Salamon pointed out, ‘‘[. . .] in recent decades, [. . .] this sector has been significantly reinvigorated by a new associativism that has empowered new strata of society and encouraged a broad process of democratization. The result is a rich assortment of institutional types – still dominated in terms of overall economic weight by religiously affiliated schools and hospitals, but also including more autonomous community-based groups, human rights agencies, and intermediary support organizations of various types’’ (List & Salamon, 2001: 1). Around the mid-1980s, a transition towards consolidated Democracies is witnessed and from the beginning of the 1990s the economic and social policies put into practice claim a reappraisal of the relationship between the public and the private spheres. From that moment onwards, Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) became more and more important so that it is in the mid-90s that the first systematic studies about their structure and scope are commenced. The idea of social capital has become evident at a later stage, at the end of the nineties after the impact that the so call Washington Consensus recipes have had on the region and considering the poor results that the neoliberal economic and social policies implemented have yielded in terms of social equity.
Civil Society The vocabulary used in the region to designate the wide range of social organizations that work institutionally
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Civil Society and Social Capital in South America in comparative perspective (pp. 191–210). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., & Associates (Eds.). (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector, Volume II. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Selle, P. (1993). Voluntary organisations and the welfare state: The case of Norway. Voluntas, 4, 1–15. Sivesind, K. H. (2007). Frivillig sektor i Norge 1997–2004. Frivillig arbeid, medlemskap, sysselsetting og økonomi. Rapport no. 2007:10. Oslo, Norway: Institute for Social Research. Sivesind, K. H. (2008a). Halvveis til Soria Moria. Ikke-kommersielle velferdstjenester, politikkens blinde flekk? Rapport no. 2008:03. Oslo, Norway: Institute for Social Research. Sivesind, K. H. (2008b). Nonprofit organisasjoner pa˚ velferdsfeltet i Norden. In B. Ibsen, T. P. Boje, & T. Fridberg (Eds.), Det frivillige Danmark (pp. 161–178). Odense, Denmark: Syddansk Universitetsforlag. Torpe, L., & Ferrer-Fons, M. (2007). The internal structure of associations. In L. Tra¨ga˚rdh (Ed.), State and civil society in Northern Europe. The Swedish model reconsidered. New York: Berghahn Books. Tranvik, T., & Selle, P. (2007). The rise and fall of popular mass movements: Organizational change and globalization - the Norwegian case. Acta Sociologica, 50, 57–70. Tra¨ga˚rdh, L. (2007). State and civil society in Northern Europe. The Swedish model reconsidered. New York: Berghahn Books. Wijkstro¨m, F. (2004). Changing focus or changing role? The Swedish nonprofit sector in the new millennium. In A. Zimmer & C. Stecker (Eds.), Strategy mix for nonprofit organisations: Vehicles for social and labour market integrations (pp. 15–40). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Wollebæk, D., & Selle, P. (2002a). Det nye organisasjonssamfunnet – Demokrati i omforming [The New Organization Community – Democracy in Change]. Bergen: Fagbokforlaget. Wollebæk, D., & Selle, P. (2002b). Does participation in voluntary associations contribute to social capital? The importance of intensity, scope and type. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 31, 32–61. Wollebæk, D., & Selle, P. (2007). Origins of social capital: Socialization and institutionalization approaches compared. Journal of Civil Society, 3, 1–24. Wollebæk, D., & Selle, P. (2008). A social democratic model of civil society? In B. Jobert & B. Kohler-Koch (Eds.), Changing images of civil society. From protest to governance (pp. 47–70). New York: Routledge.
Civil Society and Social Capital in South America MARIO ROITTER Center for the Study of State and Society – CEDES, Buenos Aires, Argentina
Introduction South America as a region comprises 13 countries, most of which share similar social, economic, and cultural features in various areas. Notwithstanding, the strong
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diversity in many fields that makes it difficult to approach the region as a whole in a simple way, there are similar patterns that allow us to consider it as a single unit of study, focusing on shared trends and characteristics. This entry covers Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela. (Brazil, Guyana, Surinam and French Guyana are not included.) The presence of private non profit organizations goes back to the historic period previous to the consolidation of the different National States that took place by the end of the nineteenth century. In all of these countries, even in Colonial times, there were numerous institutions of public welfare acting in the social, cultural, political, and above all, in the welfare area (Campetella y Gonza´lez Bombal, 2000; Sanborn, 2008; Villar, 2001). Yet, what constitutes a relatively recent event is the growth that these organizations have had and the public visibility that they have reached, as well as the will to consider them part of a sector that, even though they are characterized by being very diverse between themselves, would place them in parallel with the State and the market as part of a trisectorial concept’ and logic of the economy. As List and Salamon pointed out, ‘‘[. . .] in recent decades, [. . .] this sector has been significantly reinvigorated by a new associativism that has empowered new strata of society and encouraged a broad process of democratization. The result is a rich assortment of institutional types – still dominated in terms of overall economic weight by religiously affiliated schools and hospitals, but also including more autonomous community-based groups, human rights agencies, and intermediary support organizations of various types’’ (List & Salamon, 2001: 1). Around the mid-1980s, a transition towards consolidated Democracies is witnessed and from the beginning of the 1990s the economic and social policies put into practice claim a reappraisal of the relationship between the public and the private spheres. From that moment onwards, Nonprofit Organizations (NPOs) became more and more important so that it is in the mid-90s that the first systematic studies about their structure and scope are commenced. The idea of social capital has become evident at a later stage, at the end of the nineties after the impact that the so call Washington Consensus recipes have had on the region and considering the poor results that the neoliberal economic and social policies implemented have yielded in terms of social equity.
Civil Society The vocabulary used in the region to designate the wide range of social organizations that work institutionally
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attributes of the organizations that form this third sector, this point of view is particularly objected to. The process of globalization of the idea of civil society as a new way of referring to a non profit and associative universe starts in the mid 1990s, when it was added to the vocabulary of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDB) and other international agencies (Mato, 2004). Roughly, there are two ways of linking civil society with the nonprofit sector: the first one, would consider them quasi synonymous; the second one would conceive them as social representations or social images that have just some elements in common but have neither equivalent content nor similar scope (Nun & Aboy Carles, 2002; Roitter, 2005). As a mater of fact, and following in some way the European tradition, the notion of civil society that is more widely accepted in South America is that which emphasizes the impact functions in the public area rather than the provision of goods and services. In reference to Latin America Edwards and Foley point out that in this region people tend to think of civil societies as the space that ‘‘generates identity and voice to the distinct interest and diverse points of view characteristic of a modern society; it stimulates public debate and presses government for action’’ (Edwards et al., 2001: 6). Quoting Olvera (1999), Gonzalo de la Maza states that civil society has two main components: on the one hand, the corpus of institutions that define and protect citizens’ political, social, and individual rights and encourage their free association, the possibility of protecting themselves from strategic actions of power groups and the market and the viability of citizen intervention in the dynamics of the system. On the other hand, the group of social movements continually brings up new principles and values, new social demands and also controls that the rights already granted are precisely exercised. That is to say that civil society is more than the gathering of associations and that the sum of these associations is something different from civil society (de la Maza, 2000: 10). Precisely, in order to establish the relevant differences between the non profit sector and civil society, the expression ‘‘organized civil society’’ has recently turned up, taking for granted that the space that these societies occupy is part of a much wider universe. This denomination has been appearing more frequently in congresses and regional and international meetings, particularly in those promoted by European agencies. It is important to point out that sometimes this sort of ‘‘terminology inflation’’ has a theoretical justification. But, in many cases, various social actors, either as individuals or as a collective might express semantic differences in order to improve their relative positioning in the academic arena or in other fields of social struggle. This in no
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way implies ignoring the discussion for the content and sense of terminology where various social actors intervene. They may participate in the institutionalized world or not, they may belong in the NPS or other sectors. But, in any case, this debate expresses the very essence of the idea of civil society, as long as it is conceived as the arena where disputes are settled, consensus is built and sometimes new social agreements are reached.
Social Capital The idea of social capital brings to mind the whole universe of social articulations built on the basis of mutual trust and the reciprocity relationships that arises from it. The production and accumulation of this form of capital is essentially social. It is brought into being when a certain type of relationships is produced between groups and individuals through their participation in networks that are established by different organizations. The reintroduction of this concept in social sciences, particularly in economy, tries to change the focus of analysis from the study of individual behavior of organizations to an approach that emphasizes the social relations that they establish with different social groups and institutions. The promise of social capital is centered in that the poor, by means of their organization (which is a readily available resource) could reach external resources (potentially available) by constructing relationships with other organizations (horizontal bonds) and with the state (vertical bonds) (Villar, 2004). In South America, this concept was recently introduced in the vocabulary of policy makers, mainly by the impulse of the MDBs that operate in the region (WB, IDB) as well as by international agencies such as the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC) and the United Nation Development Program (UNDP), which are interested in taking part of the development strategies in the region. There are numerous definitions used in the region to designate social capital. As the ex Executive Secretary of the ECLAC, Jose´ Antonio Ocampo points out there is a wide range of dispersion in the definition of social capital and this is undoubtedly related to the fact that the different accents and disciplinary languages that surround this concept converge together (Ocampo, 2003: 28). The unconsolidated characteristics of the notion, the relative intangibility of this form of capital and the fact that authors who belong to different theoretical traditions or even have antagonistic points of view make extensive use of the term, generates a vast empirical work that show a tendency to present an individual notion of social capital that has close relation or is similar to others already created by the
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pioneers in the field or by the authors who have used this approach more frequently to explain different social phenomena. In this sense, it is not possible to determine a unique sense for this concept, nor to establish a specific form of usage and much less to find a unique way of understanding how it interacts with other factors that have an effect on social and economic development. As for example, and especially in South America, the case of the unfair distribution of income and the macroeconomic policies enforced during the last years that have little to do with the encouragement and strengthening of social capital. However, many authors agree on highlighting the importance that social capital has in economic development and, they also coincide, though to a lesser extent, in considering it useful to ameliorate the persistent poverty that nowadays afflict significant segments of rural and urban population. As for the critical opinions on social capital in the region, two authors, among others, can be mentioned: Portes and Landolt (2000) and Hintze (2004). Portes and Landolt claim that this concept has acquired such popularity and is used in such a varied way that its original sense and its explanatory aptitude is severely questioned. According to these authors its importance has been exaggerated because the phenomena that the concept refers to have already been studied under other labels. Similarly, Susana Hintze, on the other hand, expresses a marked restraint in granting a special explicative value and objects to its political implicances. She points out that reciprocity, trust, and growing nets formed by relatives and neighbors have evolved from a kind of resource in the strategies for survival of the poor to a capital, a social capital in these cases. That is why she proposes a disillusioned and critical look on the current expansion of the term in a context where the inequalities of income and wealth in the region have acquired enormous dimensions. Social Capital and Development
In South America, the widespread disappointment with the results of the developing models that were put into practice during the last decades, visible through the unrelenting existence of poverty, the increase in social tension and the wider gap of income distribution as well as the limited participation of subordinated social actors in finding a solution to their problems, have helped in the search for new strategies and perspectives that could achieve higher levels of social inclusion. Following the pioneers in this field, authors such as Serageldin (1998) or Kliksberg (2000) among others in the region, have linked the question of social capital to the problem areas of development. In the main, the approaches to social capital and development have been
conceived to act locally, for example microcredits, and to reach social and productive organizations, leaving aside the broader discussion on macroeconomic and institutional policies. In this way, they focus on actions aimed at opening spaces for the expression and empowerment of the people by means of strengthening social capital. The idea of empowerment is not only circumscribed to the development of self-centered collective action of impoverished and isolated communities, but it also requires to articulate the bonds of solidarity that exist at the core of excluded groups with the bridges that would give them access to other available resources present in society. As Serageldin (1998) points out, even though there is consensus on the relevance of social capital for achieving development, there is no agreement among researchers and actors who implement social policies on the different ways in which social capital should be conveyed, in how to generate or multiply it and how to study this phenomenon systematically and empirically. Portes and Landlt (2000) point out the limitations of the concept as a force capable of transforming communities or even nations when it is taken out of context. They conclude that it is not advisable to be optimistic about what can be achieved by reinforcing bonds based only on trust and solidarity. Social capital is no substitute for the granting of health, education, infrastructure, and loans. The vast majority of essays and research on social capital and development deal with impoverished urban sectors. However, in some countries, a high percentage of the population lives in rural areas. Durston, who has studied Chilean rural areas, has a high regard for the opportunities provided by the approach of social capital in such areas, because it gives certain centrality to the territorial dimension of this notion. In this respect, he highlights that rural communities provide an ideal atmosphere for social capital to emerge or be generated. The fair stability of personal relations glued together by family and circumscribed to the same area during the whole life, holds the promise to be a kind of precursor of social capital. But he warns that it is important not to fall into a bucolic romanticism when considering rural life; an idealized vision of farming communities and rural life should be avoided. Social relations in these areas are certainly multiple and complex but not necessarily are they dense. That is to say, the social space is affected by the geographical location, and the distances between neighbors (at least in models of disperse settlements) and the inadequate means of transport all conspire against the creation of a strong institutionalization of rural social capital (Durston, 2002).
Civil Society and Social Capital in South America
The relation that is established between civil society and capital has led to measure social capital through organizational density that is in direct relation to a determined population. Among the indicators intended to measure social capital organizational density (measured in terms of number of NGOs per 1,000 inhabitants) and volunteer involvement (studied in terms of the amount of time devoted to work in community projects) are highlighted. This methodology has been questioned drawing attention to the fact that most of these indicators shed little light on their own and have to be ‘‘accompanied by information about two indicators: what people actually do as members, and how far its relates to public as well as private goods’’ (Schuller et al., 2000: 27). That is why, broadly speaking, research relays mainly in case studies instead of measurements such as the ones mentioned above (Portocarrero et al., 2006).
Empirical Data There have been two important attempts, encompassing several countries of South America, aimed at generating and systemizing information about the dimensions, structure, and main characteristics of the organizations that operates in a distinguish sphere between the business sector, the public sector and the families. The first one was developed by the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University, while the other, the Civil Society Index (CSI), was initiated by CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation, an international NGO. The pioneering one was the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (CNP), based on a structural and operational definition and on the International Classification of Nonprofit Organizations System (ICNPO). This Project was implemented in 37 countries including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Me´xico, and Peru. Taking into account the research carried out by the CNP in the Latin American countries, a series of common traits among the NPOs in the region can be detected: (a) A large proportion of informal NPOs, which are not easily accounted for in the available registers and not even in the national census. (b) Many of the organizations have been created, promoted, financed, and even controlled by the State. (c) The existence of a variety of specific organizational models that do not fulfill all the characteristics specified in the structural-operational definition has been detected in each country, the bone of contention being the criteria used to define ‘‘voluntary.’’ (d) A sort of dualism has been detected, represented on one hand by well structured, professional
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organizations which provide the highest number of salaried employees in the respective NPS and which in many cases also offer services to the middle classes, mainly in the fields of education and health. On the other hand, the largest part of the organizations are generally small and are based on volunteer work, lending assistance the poor. The results of the second phase of the CNP not only highlighted differences among the Latin American countries that participated but also between these and the developed ones. This can be explained from a perspective based mainly on differences that hinge upon the degree of urbanization, the distribution of income and sociohistorical factors that seem to have created an environment and certain conditions that affected the NPS differentially in each of South American countries. One of the most intellectually sophisticated frameworks conceived for the understanding such differences is the theory of the Social Origins, which posits a set of more or less distinct regimes that can be traced to an identifiable and predictable set of social circumstances (Salamon & Anheier, 1996). Each of these types of nonprofit regimes (liberal, social democratic, corporatist, and statist) is characterized not only by a particular state role but also by a particular position for the third sector; and, most importantly, also reflects a particular constellation of social forces. As to the size of the NPS in South America, the information given by List and Salamon (1999: 8) points out that ‘‘[. . .] the nonprofit sector constitutes an important economic force in the Latin American region as a whole, accounting for considerable shares of expenditures and employment in most of the countries. In fact, the nonprofit sector in these five Latin American countries had 2.2% of their joint gross domestic product (GDP).’’ Furthermore, behind these expenditures lies a sizable workforce that includes the equivalent of nearly 2 million full-time equivalent (FTE) paid workers. This represents 2.2% of all nonagricultural workers in these five countries, 7.3% of service sector employees, and the equivalent of nearly 19% of the people who work for government at all levels. There is no homogeneous information on the number of organizations and the amount of paid workers they employ for all the countries of the region, so it is not easy to reach any conclusion based on the available sketchy data, because of the different moments some of these estimations refer to and because of the dissimilar methodological approach they used. In any case, the most outstanding difference is the higher density of organizations that can be detected in Chile, Peru, and Colombia,
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which would seem to indicate a higher degree of ‘‘capillarity’’ in contrast to the case of Argentina, Uruguay, and Venezuela (See Table 1). In reference to the participation of volunteers, Salamon et al. (2003) points out the existence of a Latin American Model. One of the characteristics of this model is that ‘‘volunteers play an unusually small part in the workforce of the Latin American civil society sector, accounting for 0.7% of the economically active population on average. This may be related to the role that civil society organizations play in this region. That role, as reflected in the data, is heavily oriented to service functions, and particularly education, which absorbs a third of the total civil society workforce and 44% of the paid workers. While some of this represents religious education open to all, a significant portion also reflects elite private education. Reflecting this, fees and charges constitute an unusually large share (74%) of total civil society sector revenue in Latin America. Even with the value of
Civil Society and Social Capital in South America. Table 1 Size of the third sector
Country
Number. of organizations
Argentinaa 51.750/104.642
1.49/2.95
Bolivia
N/D
N/D
Chileb
86.723
5.38
Colombiac 135.599
3.54
Ecuador
N/D
N/D
Paraguay
N/D
N/D
Peru´d
110.621
4.64
Uruguaye
3.566/7.000
1.09–2.15
Venezuelaf 27.249 a
Number of organizations/ 1,000 inhabitants
1.16
The first number corresponds to 1995. Source: Roitter and Bombal (2000) and the second to 1999, source PNUD/BID/GADIS (2004). These cannot be compared due to the methodological differences in the gathering of facts, the first based on the National Economic Census and the second on legal registers and surveys b Year: 2004: source: Irirrazaval, et al (2006) c Year: 1995: source Villar (2001) d Year; 1995: source: Portocarrero, et al. (2001) e Year: 1997. The first number refers to the OSFL having legal status and the second is an estimate of the total number of OSFL that exist in the country. Both figures consider the religious subsector. Source: Bettoni and Cruz (1999) f Year: 1998: source Go´mez as cited in Ja´come, F. (2007) The information about the total population of each country for the corresponding year was taken from CEPALSTAT, Latin American and Caribbean Statistics. Available at http://www.eclac.org/estadisticas/ bases/
volunteering included in the revenue base of the region’s civil society organizations, fees account for two thirds of the support [. . .] While there is clear evidence of the emergence of advocacy and empowerment-oriented organizations, these institutions maintain a wary coexistence with the more substantial elite oriented educational institutions and church-related assistance agencies’’ (Salamon, et al., 2003: 50). Taking the data provided by these authors, in Argentina, Colombia y Peru´, the amount of working time volunteers dedicate to nonprofit organizations represents on average, 34% of the total number of hours of their human resources, while the average resulting from 35 countries is 38%. With respect to distribution, according to the fields of activity within the NPS and taking as an indicative variable the number of salaried people, it can be seen that ‘‘ [. . .] Of all the types of nonprofit activity, the one that accounts for the largest share of nonprofit employment in all five Latin American countries is education[. . .] more than 44% of all nonprofit employment in the Latin American region is in the education field [. . .] significantly more than any other region’’ (List & Salmon, 1999: 12). In Chile, two thirds of the total number of people employed by the non profit sector (this includes salaried and volunteer workers) are concentrated in four fields of activity: education, health, social services and community development (Irarra´zaval et al., 2006). In Uruguay, the most prominent nonprofit organizations are the ones that carry out sports activities and social activities (youth, childhood, women, elderly population, and health) (Bettoni & Cruz, 1999). Venezuela represents a particular case for which Francine Ja´come (2007) citing Go´mez, points out that the main activities, according to the number of organizations, are related to ‘‘laws, the defence and promotion of rights, parents, and representative associations and housing.’’ In some South American countries, there is a high concentration of NPOs in urban contexts. Although the data is incomplete and unsystematic, there are some figures that seem to confirm this tendency. In the case of Argentina, 34% of the NPOs and 51% of employment is concentrated in the Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area (Roitter, 2001). This situation is even more manifest in Uruguay where 70% of the organizations are headquartered in Montevideo (CIVICUS-ICD, 2006). On the other hand, Chile evidences a lower concentration because only 35% of employment is found in the Santiago Metropolitan Area (Irarra´zabal, 2006). The opposite seems to occur in Bolivia, where a CSI Community survey – Bolivia, (2005) – indicates that 44% of persons affiliated to NPOs live in rural areas, which is consistent with
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the relatively low percentage of the population residing in urban areas, in fact one of the lowest of all South America. The sources of income in Argentina, Colombia, and Peru´ stem mainly from instalments, payments, or services lent to the organizations (Salomo´n et al., 1999). A similar situation occurs in Chile (Irarra´zaval et al., 2006). The second most important source of income in these countries is the State, whereas less than 15% comes from philanthropic sources. In Ecuador, according to CIVICUS-Fundacio´n Esquel (2006), the main source is other local donors, along with the instalments, while the State’s contribution is marginal. Although figures are not available, it is safe to say that companies and private foundations are providing an increasing amount of financing in almost all the countries but nevertheless the amounts are not very important in the overall picture. Likewise, the importance of funds provided by international cooperation institutions has decreased in those countries with higher levels of per capita GDP (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Venezuela). As was previously pointed out, another empirical approach applied in the region is the Civil Society Index (CSI), which was launched in 1997. ‘‘The CSI is designed to assess and score four different dimensions of civil society: (1) the structure of civil society, (2) the external environment in which civil society exists and functions, (3) the values held and advocated in the civil society arena, and (4) the impact of activities pursued by civil society actors’’ (CSI Team CIVICUS, 2006). Based on the analysis of the Structure of the Civil Society as a dimension defined by CSI, the documents prepared for each country take into account the averages for the scores obtained for the overall size, strength, and influence of civil society in human, organizational, and economic terms (see Table 2).
As a result of the review of these outcomes, an overview report was prepared for each country obtaining the following results. The score for the dimension structure in Argentina ‘‘indicates the existence of a civil society with almost a half of the highest possible mark’’ (CIVICUS-GADIS: 20). In the case of Bolivia, ‘‘the score for this Dimension is 1.8, indicating that the structure of civil society in Bolivia is moderately strong’’ (CIVICUS-CIPCA-CRS: 25); In Chile the ‘‘[. . .] final score (1.9) indicates a not so well structured civil society of medium strength’’ (CIVICUS-Fundacio´n Soles:22); ‘‘These features are described in terms of Ecuadorian CSOs’ human resource base. The scoring received by the Structure dimension was 1.2, which represents a rather small civil society’’ (CIVICUS-Fundacio´n Esquel: 26); In Uruguay the ‘‘[. . .] structure dimension is the dimension with the lowest score (1, 3), indicating a rather weak structure’’ (CIVICUS-ICD: 24).
Outlook/Concluding Assessment As was pointed out by Catalina Smulovitz (1996), Gonzalo de la Maza (2000), Olga Lucı´a Toro (2001) and Ine´s Gonza´lez Bombal (2001) in their respective evaluations on the state of Latin American research, the foundations have been laid for the appearance of a new intellectual space which is receiving much recognition within the academic field. Indeed, empirical and theoretical research in South America, on the questions of civil society and civil capital has taken great strides since the mid-90s when the JHU’s International Comparative Project – an initiative that established a first vision of the universe of associations in some countries in the region – was begun. Since then, the CIVICUS initiative has made noteworthy contributions in the region, including an increased number of dimensions and aspects to be studied by means of the Civil Society Development Index. At the same time, the participation of Latin American
Civil Society and Social Capital in South America. Table 2 Scores for the structural dimension – civil society index Sub-dimensions
Argentina
Bolivia
Chile
Ecuador
Uruguay
Breadth of citizen participation
2
Resources
1
2.2
2
1.2
1.2
1.7
1.5
1.3
0.7
Inter-relations
1.5
1.7
3
2
1
Level of organization
1.2
2
1.5
1
1.2
Diversity of civil society participants
1.7
1.5
2
1.5
1.5
Depth of citizen participation
1.2
1.7
1.3
0.3
2
Average structural dimension
1.4
1.8
1.9
1.2
1.3
Sources: CIVICUS Country Reports. All reports available at http://www.civicus.org/csi/phase-one/csi-country-reports: Argentina: CIVICUS – GADIS (2006), Bolivia: CIVICUS-CIPCA (no datado), Chile: CIVICUS-Fundacio´n Soles (2006), Ecuador: CIVICUS-Fundacio´n Esquel (2006), Uruguay: CIVICUSICD (2006)
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researchers in the ISTR (International Association of Third Sector Researchers) has been important, as has the creation of a Latin American chapter of the same network. The training processes, the post graduate formation at various Latin American institutions as well as the generation of specific places for the production of knowledge at various institutes and universities in the region have also contributed to move things along in that direction. Likewise, in all South American countries, a continuous growth process can be seen in relation to the number of organizations, their participation in the supply of goods and services, their influence on the drawing up of public agendas and in their bringing to debate of different problems that affect the lives of people in South America. Particularly relevant to this is the struggle to increase citizen’s rights with respect to social equality, access to health services, education, and housing. Another important achievement in this respect is the presence of numerous social movements that participate in the construction of the public sphere and their influence on society. It is important to mention a current initiative of The Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University oriented to promote the implementation of the UN Nonprofit Handbook which seeks to improve the treatment of nonprofit organizations in national economic statistics. The System of National Accounts, of which this Handbook is now a part, is a consensus system. Countries are encouraged to abide by its guidelines but are not required to do so. That is why this Project includes disseminating the Handbook to national statistical agencies, encouraging them to adopt it, ensuring effective implementation, and creating a mechanism to assemble and report the results. It comprises 31 countries that have committed to implementing the Handbook or some version of it, among them Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru´. As it is demonstrated by the facts presented, it is still necessary to advance in search of more and better information, as well as a better understanding of the sense, scope, and non-neutrality of the terms employed when referring to these organizations as a whole, thus avoiding over-simplified views and perspectives that present civil society in South America in a unilateral, biased, or naı¨f way. To this effect, it would be important to pay attention to the local-global complexity and the specific practices of the various social actors that take part in it, taking into account both the cooperation processes as well as the conflict that characterizes it.
Cross-References
▶ CIVICUS ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Brazil
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Mexico and Central America ▶ Civil Society Indicators and Indexes ▶ Collective Action ▶ International Society for Third-Sector Research ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Nonprofit Organizations in the System of National Accounts ▶ Philanthropy in Latin America ▶ Social Movements ▶ Social Origins Theory ▶ Solidarity ▶ Third Sector ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Bettoni, A., & Cruz, A. (1999). El Tercer Sector en Uruguay. Montevideo, Uruguay: Instituto de Comunicacio´n y Desarrollo. Campetella, A., & Gonza´lez Bombal, I. (2000). Historia del sector sin fines de lucro en Argentina. In M. Roitter & I. Gonza´lez Bombal (comps.), Estudios sobre el sector sin fines de lucro en Argentina. Buenos Aires: CEDES – The Johns Hopkins University. CIVICUS. Civil society index summary of conceptual framework and research methodology, from http://www.civicus.org/new/media/ CSI_Methodology_and_conceptual_framework.pdf CIVICUS – CIPCA. (no datado). Civil society index report. Civil Society in Bolivia: From mobilization to impact. Bolivia. CIVICUS – Fundacio´n Esquel. (2006). An efficient civil society going beyond its weaknesses. Quito, Ecuador. CIVICUS – Fundacio´n Soles. (2006). Chile: the associational reconstruction of a nation. Santiago, Chile. CIVICUS – GADIS. (2006). La Sociedad Civil por dentro: Tiempo de crisis, tiempo de oportunidades. ´Indice CIVICUS de la Sociedad Civil Argentina (2004–2005). Argentina: Buenos Aires. CIVICUS – ICD. (2006). The brilliance & imperfections of a diamond, Results of the civil society index in Uruguay. ICD – Instituto de Comunicacio´n y Desarrollo, Montevideo, Uruguay. Civil Society Index Team Civicus (2006). Civil society index: Preliminary findings phase 2003–2005. CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation. de la Maza, G. (2000). Sociedad Civil y Construccio´n de Capital Social en Ame´rica Latina: Hacia do´nde va la investigacio´n? Dublı´n, Ponencia presentada a la 4ª Conferencia Internacional de la International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR). Dublı´n, 5 al 8 de julio 2000. Departamento de Asuntos Econo´micos y Sociales de las Naciones Unidas. (2003) Durston, J. (2002). El Capital Social Campesino en la Gestio´n del Desarrollo Rural. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL. Edwards, B., Folley, M., & Diani, M. (Eds.) (2001). Beyond Tocqueville. Civil society and the social capital debate in comparative perspective. New England: Tufts University Press. Hintze, S. (2004). Capital Social y Estrategias de Supervivencia. Reflexiones sobre el “Capital Social de los Pobres. In C. Danani (Compiladora) Polı´tica Social y Economı´a Social, Debates Fundamentales. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Altamira-Fundacio´n OSDE.
Civil Society and Social Capital in South Asia Irarra´zaval, I., Hairel, E. M. H., Wojciech Sokolowski, S., & Salamon, L. M. (2006). Estudio comparativo del sector sin fines de lucro – Chile. Santiago de Chile: Johns Hopkins University/PNUD/Focus Estudios y Consultorı´as. Ja´come, F. (2007). La Sociedad Civil en Venezuela, 1999–2006. In B. Sorj & M. D. de Oliveira (Eds.), Sociedad Civil y Democracia en Ame´rica Latina: crisis y reinvencio´n de la polı´tica. Rı´o de Janeiro, Brazil/San Pablo, CA: Ediciones Centro Edelstein/Ediciones iFHC. Kliksberg, B., & Tomassini, L. (2000). Capital Social y Cultura: claves estrate´gicas para el desarrollo. Buenos Aires, Argentina: BID-Fondo de Cultura Econo´mica. List, R., & Salamon, L. (1999). Beyond NGOs: The third sector in Latin America. Baltimore: Center for Civil Society Studies, Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. Mato, D. (coord.) (2004). Actores globales, redes transnacionales y actores locales en la produccio´n de representaciones de ideas de sociedad civil. In Polı´ticas de ciudadanı´a y sociedad civil en tiemos de globalizacio´n. Caracas, Venezuela: Facultad de Ciencias Econo´micas y Sociales, Universidad Central de Venezuela. Nun, J., & Carle´s, G. A. (2002). Los estudios sobre organizaciones de la sociedad civil en Argentina, trabajo no publicado. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales, Universidad Nacional de General San Martı´n. Ocampo, J. A. (2003). Capital social y agenda del desarrollo. In R. Atria, M. Siles, I. Arriagada, & S. Whiteford (Compiladores), Capital social y reduccio´n de la pobreza en Ame´rica Latina y el Caribe: en busca de un nuevo paradigma. Santiago de Chile: CEPAL. PNUD/BID/GADIS (2004). Indice de Desarrollo de la Sociedad Civil de Argentina Total Paı´s. Buenos Aires, from http://www.gadis.org.ar/ documentos/IDSC%20de%20Arg.pdf Portes, A., & Landolt, P. (2000). Social capital: Promise and pitafalls of its role in development. Journal of Latin American Studies, 32(2). Portocarrero Sua´rez, F. (2006). Capital social y democracia: explorando normas, valores y redes sociales en el Peru´. Lima, Peru: Centro de Investigacio´n de la Universidad del Pacı´fico. Portocarrero, F., Sanborn, C., Cueva, H., List, R., & Salamon, L. M. (2001). El tercer sector en el Peru´: una aproximacio´n cuantitativa. CIUP. RedEAme´rica, from http://www.redeamerica.org/Portals/0/Publicaciones/ Cuadernillo_1_esp.pdf Roitter, M. M. (2001). Apuntes para contribuir a (des)cifrar el sector no lucrativo argentino en el contexto latinoamericano. Ponencia presentada al Tercer Encuentro de la red latinoamericana de ISTR, Buenos Aires 2001/Cape Town, 2002, from http://www.istr.org/ conferences/capetown/volume/roitter.pdf Roitter, M. M. (2005). Tercer Sector como Representacio´n Topogra´fica de Sociedad Civil. In B. Arditi (Ed.), Democracia post-liberal? El Espacio Polı´tico de las Organizaciones Ed Anthropos. Barcelona. Roitter, M. M., & Gonza´lez Bombal, I. (comps.). (2000). Estudios sobre el sector sin fines de lucro en Argentina. Centro de Estudios de Estado y Sociedad. Buenos Aires: The Johns Hopkins University. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1996). Social origins of civil society: Explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Working papers of the Johns Hopkins comparative nonprofit sector project. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University, Institute for Policy Studies. Salamon, L., Anheier, H., List, R., Toepler, S., & Sokolowski, W. (Eds.) (1999). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society.
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Salamon, L., Sokolowski, W., & List, R., (Eds.) (2003). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Baltimore: Institute for Policy Studies, Center for Civil Society Studies, Johns Hopkins University, from http://www.kpbooks.com/pdf/gcs2.pdff Sanborn, C. (2008). Filantropı´a en Ame´rica Latina: tradiciones histo´ricas y tendencias actuales. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero (Eds.), Philanthropy and social change in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schuller, T., Baron, S., & Field, J. J. (Eds.) (2000). Social capital: A review and critique. In Social capital. Critical perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Serageldin, I. (1998). The initiative on defining, monitoring and measuring social capital: overview and program description. In Social capital initiative. Papeles de trabajo Nº1, Banco Mundial. Smulovitz, C. (1996). La investigacio´n sobre el Tercer Sector: El Sur Tambie´n Existe. Baltimore: ISTR. Thompson, A. (1990). El tercer sector y el desarrollo social. In E. Bustelo & E. Isuani (Eds.), Mucho, poquito o nada. Crisis y alternativas de polı´tica social en los 90. Buenos Aires: UNICEF – CIEPP/Siglo XXI. Toro, O. L. (2001). El Estado de la Investigacio´n sobre el Tercer Sector y la Sociedad Civil en Ame´rica Latina y el Caribe. Baltimore: ISTR. Villar, R. (2001). El Tercer sector en Colombia: Evolucio´n, dimensio´n y tendencies. Bogota´, Colombia: Confederacio´n Colombiana de Organizaciones No Gubernamentales (CCONG). Villar, R. (2004). Niveles de intervencio´n en el desarrollo de base. RedEAme´rica.
Civil Society and Social Capital in South Asia HANS BLOMKVIST, KATRIN UBA Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Introduction South Asia has a long history of citizens’ mobilization in the arena between state, market, and family–civil society. Its early development was dominated by nationalist and religious movements. As Behar and Prakash (2004) note, there were three major civil society groups in British India– Christian missionaries, Indian bourgeoisie and Mahatma Gandhi initiated voluntary groups that became the heart of nationalist movement. Missionaries focused on the issues of education and philanthropy, Indian middle-class focused on urban social problems, and Gandhian groups aimed at diminishing rural poverty via self-reliance movements. Although nationalist and regional movements are still active in India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, the issues of education, urban, and rural development characterize the South Asian civil society also today. The following is a concentrated picture of contemporary civil society and social capital development in the region.
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Civil Society There are numerous definitions of civil society, but here it is suitable to adopt the one that is sometimes found in the studies on South Asia: "
Civil society is as an intermediate associational realm between state and family populated by organizations, which are separate from the state, enjoy autonomy in relation to the state and are formed voluntarily by members of society to protect or extend their interests or values. (White, 1994:379)
Scholars, such as Putnam (1993) or Chandhoke (2003), sometimes extend the concept and in addition to voluntary associations even refer to civic values and trust. The last is related to the concept of ‘‘social capital’’ and discussed in the second section of the chapter. Here, the focus is on a diverse set of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and social movements. These range from rural development and sport organizations to trade unions, church and caste panchayats (in India). A common denominator of civil society organizations (CSOs) is the autonomy from state and market. The first was especially important for Gandhian voluntary organizations in India that first opposed the British colonial authorities and later mobilized against the 18 months suspension of democracy under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (Behar & Prakash, 2004). Today, there are numerous political, non-party organizations opposing statepower in the region. Some groups, such as trade unions in India, have affiliated with political parties and this, as argued by Candland and Sil (2001), has restricted their autonomy of action. In less democratic countries (e.g., Bangladesh, Pakistan) the autonomy of civil society is limited by strict bureaucratic rules. The autonomy from market has been challenged by growing number of professionalized NGOs in the region since the 1980s. Although CSOs are expected to be nonprofit, large amounts of producers’ co-operatives and service delivery oriented organizations (e.g., dairy cooperatives in Andhra Pradesh, India) operate in a certain greyzone. The small firms in the development business have received development aid in Pakistan despite lacking voluntary members and having little resemblance to traditional civil society (Blair, 2005:933). This all does not only limit autonomy, but also accountability of CSOs. The last is also challenged by expanding transnationalism and international funding of civil society in the region. Some South Asian governments have reacted to increasing dependence on foreign funding by legal actions. For instance, Thomas et al. (2008) note that India approved a
Foreign Contributions Management and Control Bill for restricting foreign contributions to local NGOs. In addition to the questions of autonomy and accountability, the strength (or size) of civil society and its relationship with democracy has been of interest for many scholars. The issue is strongly related to authors’ definition of civil society. Those arguing for the exclusion of informal associations note that India has a weak civil society, while the proponents of informal networks see it as strong (cf. Chhibber, 1999; Rudolph, 2000). In the remote rural regions that characterize entire South Asia formal organizing is difficult due to the lack of functioning infrastructure. Thus, including grass-root informal networks into the discussion on civil society is unavoidable. Scholars who define civil society as a property of a good and democratic government do not consider radical nationalist groups as a part of civil society (cf. Putnam, 1993; Chandhoke, 2003). Neglecting Hindu nationalists’ mobilization in India or Tamil Tigers’ activities in Sri Lanka leads, however, to a limited picture of civil society in the region. Therefore, it is useful to adopt the broad definition and divide South Asian civil society in three groups: NGOs, political organizations and identity based movements (cf. Alagappa, 2004).
Empirical Data NGOs and Volunteering
Estimating the size of South Asian civil society or its strength in specific countries is difficult because of the lack of regular surveys and the controversies over definitions and measurement (cf. Rao, 2005). Table 1 shows that in India the numbers vary from 30,000 (Mishra et al., 2005) to 1.2 million CSOs involving 19.2 million people (Srivastava & Tandon, 2005). Official statistics show even smaller accounts and significant intra-India variation (Mishra et al., 2005). The varying number of civil society organizations across South Asia is certainly related to the size of the countries, but refers also to political history. For instance, the majority of peace-building organizations have international character and this explains why conflict prone Sri Lanka and Nepal have the highest rate of secretariats of international NGOs per capita (Table 1, second column). The number of CSOs has also increased since the 1990s. In Nepal, the sector grew six times during 3 years–from 220 in 1990 to 1210 in 1993 (Mishra et al., 2005). In Pakistan, the increase was related to growing number of educational non-profit organizations that already form half of countries’ registered NGOs. Religious
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Civil Society and Social Capital in South Asia. Table 1 Civil society and social capital indicators in South Asia
Bangladesh India Maldives Nepal
NGOs/nonprofit organizations
INGOs per million people (2003)
Interpersonal trust (%)
Norms of reciprocitya
23,000
0.2
25
70
30,000–1.2 mil
0.2
34
67
500
0.0
47
80
3,400
0.9
27
85
Pakistan
10,000–45,000
0.2
50
76
Sri Lanka
10,000–20,000
1.1
25
63
a
Percent of respondents who answered positively to the question ‘‘If you saw somebody on the street looking lost, would you stop to help?’’ Data from Asia Barometer 2005 (see Inoguchi & Hotta 2006) Sources: Chhibber (1997:17), Gauri and Galef (2005:2047), Inoguchi and Hotta (2006), Mishra et al. (2005), Anheier et al. (2004), Report of the Asian Regional Meeting of Status and Strengthening Civil Society National Platforms (2007)
humanitarian organizations have also expanded in the region, leading to accusations that these proselytize poor and lower caste people (Thomas et al., 2008). The majority of NGOs and voluntary non-profit organizations in the region deal with the delivery of social services, mainly in relation to rural and sustainable development, education, and public health. The development oriented NGOs have gained a lot of attention because of the Nobel peace prize to professor Muhammad Yunus and the Bangladeshi Grameen Bank in 2006 (Abed & Matin, 2007). Similar microcredit associations have now been created all over South Asia. Politically Oriented Associations
The long history of nationalist movements in South Asia has inspired many politically oriented organizations. In India, it is estimated that there are about 20,000– 30,000 such movements (Shah, 2004). As noted by Misra (2007), contemporary groups combine multiple issues and environmental movements focus also on the questions of social justice and human rights. One of such movements is the Narmada River Movement in India, which has been active since the 1970s. Nevertheless, surveys show that people perceive Indian political parties and religious groups more useful for solving their problems than NGOs or trade unions (Chandhoke, 2003). The last are sometimes seen outside the civil society due to their party-affiliation, but this has changed since the 1990s when labor movement cooperated with other political groups for opposing neoliberal economic policies for instance in India (Uba, 2008). Even the influence of political groups varies across the region. For instance, farmers’ associations (kisan) have been more influential in India than in Bangladesh (Blair, 2005:931).
Identity Based Movements
The political character of South Asian identity-based groups is much related to their long-term marginalization from political and social life. The organizations range from Janajatis’ and Madhesis movements in Nepal, Dalit groups in India to Sinhala and Tamil movements in Sri Lanka (See, Shah, 2004). Dalit movements are probably the most known as they have successfully fought for the reservations of government jobs and against discrimination. Simultaneously, however, have radical nationalist movements (e.g., Hindu fundamentalists) gained popularity and is seen as a threat to democratic character of Indian civil society (Alagappa, 2004). In addition to ethnic identity, the mobilization of women’s and youth groups has also grown in the region. Women’s movements that focus on the question on violence against women have been successful in bureaucratic and legal spheres, but rarely at political arena (Basu, 2005). To sum up, one can say that there is a diverse set of voluntary organizations and vivid civil society in South Asia. The way it functions is well described by Ashutosh Varshney (2002:44): "
If what is crucial to the notion of civil society is that families and individuals connect with others beyond their homes and talk about matters of public relevance without the interference or sponsorship of the state, then it seems far too rigid to insist that this takes place only in ‘‘modern’’ associations.
Social Capital Social capital refers to relations between individuals or actors and is often measured as networks, norms, and trust (Putnam, 1993; Krishna, 2002). By facilitating
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cooperation for mutual benefit within a group it helps solving collective action dilemmas. For instance, communication and conflict resolution among Sri Lankan irrigation farmers was aided by social capital (Uphoff & Wijayaratna, 2000). Social capital can be strengthened by and harbored in formal civil society organizations, but has also an informal character. Therefore it is of particular political importance in South Asia with relatively few formal organizational structures for opponents of state power. The concept has been used to study countries, Indian states (Blomkvist, 2003; Widmalm, 2008), villages (Krishna, 2002), and small groups such as rotating credit associations (Abed & Matin, 2007). Usually it is used to study cooperation that has a beneficial outcome for society at large, such as development or democratization. But social capital also has a ‘‘dark side’’; it can be utilized by criminal gangs, terrorists, religious mobs or extremist political parties (cf. Chandhoke, 2003). Similarly to other human resources (e.g., physical capital or knowledge) it can be used for benevolent or ugly purposes. Thus, one should see social capital as an analytical, not normative, concept. The theoretical idea of social capital probably goes back to pre-modern political thought and the usage of the term has been traced to 1917 (Woolcock, 1997). The concept became popular among social scientists after Robert Putnam published a study on Italy in 1993. Taking a cue from Putnam, many used membership in formal associations as a proxy for social capital. But since relatively few citizens in most developing countries report being members in formal associations (see Table 1) the concept and theory were criticized for a ‘‘western bias.’’ Krishna (2002:4) has noted that such a critique confused the concept of social capital with some of its manifestations. Thus, in South Asia social capital manifested itself mainly in terms of informal networks, and studies showed that entire 90% of Indians can rely on one or several informal networks when needed (Agora study in Blomkvist, 2003). There are, however, regional disparities, not least in the giant – India. A study of five large Indian states showed differences in social trust from 32% in West Bengal to 75% in Uttar Pradesh. The associational membership varied from five percent in Uttar Pradesh to 51% in Kerala (Ibid.). The theory of social capital aggregates any and all relations, critics have argued. Susanne Rudolph (2000), among others, has questioned whether it is meaningful to lump all associations together into one category. One can concur with Rudolph on the theoretical importance of conceptual disaggregation depending on the purpose of the inquiry, but still relate social capital to participation in political and non-political; deliberative and interest-
oriented; hierarchical and egalitarian; or voluntary and ascribed associations and networks. Another important debate on social capital discusses the causal direction: Does social capital cause democratization or is social capital caused by healthy democratic institutions? Since most studies capture situations at one point in time the causal direction is difficult to ascertain. But Krishna (2007) was able to show over a 7-year period that the quality of government institutions did not explain changes in social capital over this period. ‘‘Traditional’’ Sources of Social Capital
People acquainted with South Asia are well aware of the social, cultural, and political importance of religious and ethnic segmentation. Some scholars consider the prevalent trust and networks within ‘‘traditional’’ communities such as castes or tribes – often called bonding social capital – negative (Woolcock, 1997). Rudolph (2000: 1766) notes that many modernization theorists in the 1960s saw ascribed (Gemeinschaft, primordial) associations as ‘‘incapable of being concerned with the common good.’’ She argues that this argument misses the point as ethnic identities such as Buddhist, Brahmin, or the Ghilzis tribe can be the result of intention as much as birth. The doye´n of Indian sociology, Andre´ Be´teille (1996), emphasizes the integrative but also hierarchical characteristics of traditional institutions of kinship, caste, and religion thus separating them from open and secular organizations congenial, in his view, to civil society. Many view social capital within segments as a potential source of influence and economic strength for a community without negative effects on other communities. Sten Widmalm (2008), for instance, shows that trust within communities acted as a ‘‘bulwark’’ against corruption on the local level in Madhya Pradesh and Kerala. Still, networks and trust within South Asia do not always translate into good relations with others. In a study of tubewell irrigation in Balochistan, Pakistan (Mustafa & Qazi, 2007: 1803) a villager is quoted: ‘‘There is conflict on communal land use . . . the other tribe’s tubewell is close to our and therefore there is conflict.’’ The civil war in Sri Lanka is a stark example of another group conflict. As Orjuela (2003: 202) puts is, the trust between the Sinhalese and the Tamils has broken down and the population has ‘‘become polarized into relatively clearly defined groups.’’ Cases such as mobilization among Indian students in the late 1990s against job reservations in the public sector, or among the Sangh Parivar (Hindu extremists) destroying the Babri Mosque in northern India show the dark side of social capital (Chandhoke, 2003). Networks and trust between
Civil Society and Social Capital in South Asia
communities, bridging social capital, is pivotal to avoid sectarian conflict and violence according to an important argument. In a major study of Hindu–Muslim relations in India, Ashutosh Varshney (2002) shows how connections and trust between these religious communities on the local level are crucial for communal harmony. Effects of Social Capital
There are studies of the potential effects of social capital on democracy, economic development, communal harmony, and local development. Pretty and Ward (2001) review summarized studies on the impact of social capital on watershed management, irrigation, micro-finance, forest management, pest management, and farmers’ research groups. They estimated that more than 200,000 local groups in South Asia were started in these sectors during the 1990s. The Grameen Bank in Bangladesh is known worldwide for its successful work with micro-credit institutions, utilizing local social capital as collateral. BRAC, another big Bangladesh NGO, promotes micro-credits, health, education, and job creation programs building on local social capital (Abed & Matin, 2007). In participatory forest management the most significant changes have taken place in Nepal and India. Some 250,000 farmers participate in 33,000 irrigation groups in Sri Lanka (Pretty & Ward, 2001) with increasing productivity in rice farming as one result (Uphoff & Wijayaratna, 2000 also cite studies of similar experiences in Bangladesh and India).
Concluding Assessment The nationalist movements were strong harbingers of contemporary civil society in South Asia. Mobilization of farmers’, Dalits’, tribal, women’s, and other groups has gained strength and been successful from time to time. Civil society and social capital is arguably strong in the region. This conclusion has some caveats. For long periods since independence civil society organizations have had to struggle in non-democratic contexts in several countries. Some groups have also become quite ‘‘uncivil,’’ for instance, extremist or terrorist organizations claiming legitimacy from Hinduism or Islam. Despite the large number of NGOs and other voluntary organizations, studies indicate that quite a small proportion of citizens are members. Functions usually associated with formal associations are instead performed by informal networks; social ties are often stronger and more important than in western countries. The networks are often based or have their roots in kinship, caste, or religious communities. In sum, empirical studies show a controversy: social capital in such ‘‘traditional’’ communities can be good for the larger society, but ‘‘bonding’’ social capital can also be
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detrimental for outsiders, even contributing to civil war. There are similar contradictory theoretical claims about multi-ethnic societies: contacts on the local level between the ethnic groups are important or even crucial for communal harmony, vs. the argument that such contacts will lead to friction, conflict, and even violence. This all can be explained by lacking studies attempting to compare and evaluate the meaning and impact of networks and trust within versus between communities. South Asia is a region rich in any kind of ethnic group identity, and also rich in varying development experiences – thus a fertile ground to research this question more fully. Today, there is a dearth of cross-country comparisons in the region either on the national level, or on state/province or local/ village level. This is somewhat surprising, considering the vast variation in political and economic outcomes and a similar cultural and historic background.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ BRAC ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Ethnicity ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Gandhi, Mohandas ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Identity ▶ Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations ▶ Social Capital, Definition ▶ Social Movements ▶ Social Trust ▶ Uncivil Civil Society
References/Further Readings Abed, F.H. & Matin, I. (2007). Beyond lending: How microfinance creates new forms of capital to fight poverty. Innovations, Winter-Spring, 3–17. Alagappa, M. (Ed.) (2004). Civil society and political change in Asia. Expanding and contracting democratic space. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Anheier, H. et al. (Eds.) (2004). Global Civil Society 2004, from http:// www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Publications/Yearbooks/2004/DataProgramme2004.pdf, retrieved 15.12.2008. Basu, A. (2005). Women, political parties and social movements in South Asia. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) Occasional Paper No. 5. Be´teille, A. (1996). Civil society and its institutions. The First Fulbright Memorial Lecture, Calcutta. US Educational Foundation in India. Reprinted in Elliott (Ed.), Civil society and democracy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Behar, A., & Prakash, A. (2004). India: Expanding and contracting democratic space. In M. Alagappa (Ed.)Civil society and political change
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in Asia. Expanding and contracting democratic space. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Blair, H. (2005). Civil society and pro-poor initiatives in rural Bangladesh. World Development, 33, 921–936. Blomkvist, H. (2003). Social capital, civil society, and degrees of democracy in India. In C. M. Elliott(Ed.), Civil society and democracy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Candland, C., & Sil, R. (Eds.) (2001). The politics of labor in global age: Continuity and change in late-industrializing and post-socialist economies. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chandhoke, N. (2003). The ‘‘civil’’ and the ‘‘political’’ in civil society. In C. M. Elliott (Ed.), Civil society and democracy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Chhibber, P. (1999). Democracy without Associations. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Gauri, V., & Galef, J. (2005). NGOs in Bangladesh: Activities, resources, and governance. World Development, 33, 2045–2065. Inoguchi, T., & Hotta, Z. L. (2006). Quantifying social capital in Central and South Asia. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 7, 195–220. Krishna, A. (2002) ‘‘Enhancing Political Participation in Democracies: What is the Role of Social Capital?’’ Comparative Political Studies, 35, 437–460. Krishna, A. (2007) ‘‘How Does Social Capital Grow? A seven-year study of villages in India’’ Journal of Politics, 69, 941–956. Mishra, D., Biswas, S.W., & Roy, R. (2005). Governance of NGOs: Contextualizing in the Indian experience. International Journal of Rural Management, 1, 185–201. Mustafa, D., & Qazi, M. U. (2007). Transition from Karez to tubewell irrigation: Development, modernization, and social capital in Balochistan, Pakistan. World Development, 35, 1796–1813. Orjuela, C. (2003). Building peace in Sri Lanka: A role for civil society? Journal of Peace Research, 40, 195–212. Pretty, J., & Ward, H. (2001). Social capital and the environment. World Development, 29, 209–227. Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton University Press. Rao, S. K. G. K. (2005) Size of the non-profit sector. Economic and Political Weekly, July, 3098. Report of the Asian Regional Meeting of Status and Strengthening Civil Society National Platforms in Asia, 13–15 March 2007, Hyderabad, India. Rudolph, S. (2000). Civil society and the realm of freedom. Economic and Political Weekly, 20, 1762–1769. Shah, G. (2004). Social movements in India: A review of literature. New Delhi: Sage. Srivastava, S. S., & Tandon, R. (2005). Non-governmental organizations: How large is India’s non-profit sector? Economic and Political Weekly, 40(9), 1948–1952. Misra, S. (2007). Spirituality, culture and the politics of environmentalism in India. Journal of Entrepreneurship, 16(2), 131–145. Thomas, G. M. (2008). Legitimacy and the rise of NGOs: The global and local in South Asia. Journal of Civil Society, 4(1), 31–42. Uba, K. (2008). Labor Union resistance to economic liberalization in India: What can national and state level patterns of protests against privatization tell us? Asian Survey, 48(5), 860–884. Uphoff, N., & Wijajaratna, C. M. (2000). Demonstrated benefits from social capital: The productivity of farmer organizations in Gal Oya, Sri Lanka. World Development, 28, 1875–1890. Varshney, A. (2002). Ethnic conflict and civic life: Hindus and Muslims in India. New Haven: Yale University Press.
White, G. (1994). Civil society (I): Clearing the analytical ground, democratisation and development. Democratisation, 1(3), 378–389. Widmalm, S. (2008). Decentralisation, corruption and social capital: From India to the West. New Delhi: Sage. Woolcock, M. (1997). Social capital and economic development. Theory and Society, 27(2), 151–208.
Civil Society and Social Capital in Southeast Asia MEREDITH WEISS University at Albany (SUNY), Albany, NY, USA
Introduction Southeast Asian regimes run the gamut from liberal and illiberal democracy to military authoritarianism and absolute monarchy. As such, generalizations regarding civil society and the generation of social capital in the region are impossible. Still, all states in the region leave at least some space for civil society (including informal opposition) and even formal opposition. These civil societies are neither homogeneous nor static. Moreover, it is not necessarily the institutionally strongest democracies that provide the broadest space for generation of social capital or collective action within civil society, though the opportunities and constraints facing citizens under a particular regime may favor or discourage particular modes of association and mobilization. While attention to civil society and social capital has increased in the region since the 1980s, these are not new phenomena. By the 1920s, at least, substantial and vibrant associational life characterized much of the region, manifested most obviously in mass-based nationalist challenges to colonial rule and postcolonial nation-building movements, in trade unions and chambers of commerce and industry, and in literary societies of various forms. Social capital, at least, accumulated through these initiatives, even if the sort of civil society associated with democratic accountability had yet fully to take shape. Among the most substantial of these early organizational forms were associations based on religion: Catholicism in the Philippines, Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia, Buddhism in Thailand and Burma, and so forth. The church, mosque, or wat (Buddhist temple) itself was significant – providing education and social functions as well as straightforward devotional observance – but these lines of association were echoed in organizations from Burma’s nationalist Young Men’s Buddhist Association
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to Indonesia’s still-powerful Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah mass organizations. Moreover, informal structures, such as the Malay cooperative tradition of gotong royong, fostered local networks and built up reserves of social capital.
Civil Society While the term civil society is understood in Southeast Asia to mean much what it does elsewhere, distinct nuances bear noting. Where Southeast Asian cases diverge most obviously from prevailing definitions is in the significance of associations and networks premised on ascriptive identities (marginalized from some ‘‘mainstream’’ approaches) and in the recourse to ‘‘uncivil,’’ violent tactics on at least an occasional basis by a subset of nonstate activists in several countries. While those tactics might bar organizations from being glossed as civil society in some accounts, sometimes-violent separatist movements, underground radical leftist groups, exclusivist religious organizations and other associations not only shape state responses to civil societal activism, but themselves contribute to political life between family and state – the domain of civil society. Moreover, several less generic concepts flesh out an understanding of civil society in the region. First, scholars use a range of terms to describe the forms of democracy found in the region. While the term of art for the regime type found in Malaysia, Singapore, and elsewhere is electoral authoritarian (allowing for varying, but still constrained levels of political competition), terms from communitarian democracy to semi- or quasi-democracy are more common in standard parlance. These frameworks embody and reflect sets of assumptions regarding the polity beyond the state, in particular the relative salience of adversarial versus consensus-oriented norms and the civil liberties available to facilitate and safeguard citizens’ engagement. In addition, innovative conceptions of civil society may be noted in the region. Garry Rodan (1997), for instance, explores the concept of a civic society in Singapore, in which contributions from the public are tolerated and even solicited, but are encouraged to come through stateestablished channels and to be constructive rather than merely carping. A comparable framework, described largely in terms of predominantly-Muslim Malaysia and Indonesia, is masyarakat madani, or a society modeled on that of Medina in the time of the Prophet Mohammad. Such a society, built upon Islamic principles of communal interdependence, prioritizes morality, justice, fairness, civility, and consultation rather than majoritarianism or performance-based criteria for evaluating leaders.
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Social Capital Prevailing understandings of social capital follow much the same pattern: general concordance with the wider literature, but with perhaps a more inclusive compass. Bonding social capital (among members of the same ascriptive category) tends to be stronger than bridging social capital (across categories), but the intensity of these patterns varies across states and localities, time periods, and to some extent, economic sectors and classes.
Empirical Data Attention to civil society has been most keen in relation to questions of regime change and good governance. Several states in the region have experienced civil societal movements – whether or not these have yielded substantial political change – over the past quarter-century: Burma, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand. The appearance and success of such movements has not paralleled lines of economic development (for instance, reflecting development of a substantial middle class) or degrees of democracy, though mass activism has been salient to regime transitions, for instance in the Philippines in 1986 and Indonesia in 1998. Reflecting this variation, Alagappa (2004) offers an empirically-derived taxonomy of regimes: those with a ‘‘legitimate civil society,’’ a ‘‘controlled and communalized civil society,’’ or a ‘‘repressed civil society.’’ Southeast Asian states with legitimate civil societies include Indonesia post-1998, the Philippines, and Thailand – this category is the broadest one, although few of its members would be termed liberal democracies. States with controlled and communalized civil societies include Malaysia and Singapore. States in the region with repressed civil societies include Burma and Vietnam. Importantly, civil society may be legitimate without being terribly strong. For instance, Filipino civil society is arguably more vibrant and politically engaged than in Thailand, though both fall in the same broad category. Moreover, civil society may reinforce the formal political opposition, but is not necessarily an accurate indicator of the latter’s strength. Malaysia, for example, has more strongly institutionalized opposition parties than Singapore, though both have ‘‘controlled’’ civil societies, while Burma has strident extra-institutional political opposition on the margins of the state, but no legal space for electoral opposition. This taxonomy offers a way to circumvent less nuanced and more implicitly derogatory classifications found in much of the literature on civil society, which tends to presume a necessary conjunction with liberal democracy. In that literature, the Philippines and contemporary Indonesia are considered liberal democracies on
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the basis of their institutions and rights accorded to citizens; Malaysia, Singapore, and Cambodia would be classified as some variant of electoral authoritarian; and military-ruled Burma, absolute monarchy Brunei, and communist Vietnam and Laos are all classified as authoritarian. The literature on ‘‘Asian democracy’’ (for instance, Pye, 1985) presents a similar approach, stressing Asians’ cultural predilection for benevolent, paternalistic leadership, marked by relations of security and dependency. Such accounts leave less space for a politically-germane civil society than may in fact be found in Southeast Asia. Factors ranging from colonial legacies (British vs. American vs. Dutch vs. French rule), to internal homogeneity or heterogeneity, postcolonial economic trajectories and openness, availability of charismatic and/or competent leaders, and other factors combine with cultural ones to produce the variations in civil society and social capital that shape political forms and outcomes. Furthermore, while there may be something to the arguments of Pye and others regarding Asians’ tendency toward deference, the removal of legal curbs on the press and association in Indonesia, for instance, yielded an outpouring of criticism in the media and on the streets; public life in the Philippines is hardly calm and orderly; and critics in Burma, Vietnam, and elsewhere have been forcibly silenced rather than voluntarily mute. The sorts of civil society and popular participation supported by a regime help to determine the forms and nature of citizens’ engagement in political life. Those states with a legitimate civil society tend to have reasonably vibrant associational life, supported by legal safeguards, including freedoms of association, speech, and the press, albeit often with some limitations. Space for political opposition may still be curtailed, or the chances of a constituency’s gaining formal political power. The Philippines has arguably the most vibrant civil society and media in the region, for instance, spanning middle class, urban NGOs to trade unions with strong legal safeguards, yet political power is, always has been, and will remain for the foreseeable future concentrated among a narrow economic elite (including the church hierarchy). That disparity helps to explain the failure of significant land reform initiatives, despite decades of armed insurgency, peaceful protest, election pledges, and more. On the other hand, shifts in the space for civil society and formal opposition may move in tandem. Post-transition Indonesia, for example, has seen an increase in activism among trade unions, NGOs, and the like alongside the proliferation of political parties and the diffusion of power among them (even if New Order elites remain strong, especially at a regional or local level).
The situation in states with a controlled or communalized civil society is at least as complex. In such states, the electoral process is not meaningless: opposition parties may post some significant gains, but the political arena and civil liberties are relatively constrained and often deeply striated. Malaysia and Singapore in particular, though, challenge Western conceptions of civil society that exclude organizations based on ascriptive identities. In both states, both formal politics (government and opposition) and civil society are largely structured, in form as well as core priorities, on racial or religious grounds. Yet these arrangements are not inimical to accumulation of social capital – just more often social capital of a bonding than bridging variety. Lines of cleavage, moreover, may change over time, as from a supposedly-monolithic Malay identity toward fractured Muslim identities in Malaysia. Furthermore, even ‘‘legitimate’’ civil societies may be communal or controlled in areas, as in predominantly Malay-Muslim southern Thailand; even in these areas, civil society may still be influential. In Singapore, too, ascriptive criteria are supposed to be precluded in much of public life (for instance, political parties’ appeals), yet some civil societal organizations still tend to follow communal lines – not least government-organized NGOs (GONGOs), such as communal self-help groups. All the same, all these states also host issue-oriented segments of civil society that evade communal classification, both reflecting and furthering crosscutting identities and bridging social capital. States with repressed civil societies find the sphere ever harder to repress. Burmese activists participate in a vibrant civil society, for instance, albeit housed in Thailand, Sweden, and dissident border regions. Moreover, community welfare organizations and their ilk may be apolitical in a formal sense, but they build up social capital, providing a basis for mobilization and embodying recognition of the limited ambit of the state. In addition, organizations representing business and industrial interests (both local and foreign) may be particularly influential in politically controlled, but economically ambitious states like Vietnam. Overall, a set of propositions developed across an array of cases in Alagappa 2004 (spelled out especially in Chapters 14 and 15) capture the dynamism, variability, and impacts of civil societies throughout Southeast Asia. The volume notes the rapid growth of civil society organizations across the region since the mid-1980s, albeit with diverse and shifting compositions, resources, goals, and formal institutionalization. These civil societies both support and challenge aspects of prevailing political systems, and are themselves arenas of power, struggle, and cooperation alike. While there is no necessary or sufficient connection
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between civil society and democratic change, the former may support democracy if its dominant discourses and organizations are pro-democratic, and if opportunity structures within political society offer avenues for liberalization. While the strengthening of civil society has limited the power and reach of the state (whether through confrontational or more cooperative approaches), the state remains the most powerful institution across Southeast Asian polities, and fundamentally shapes the development and spread of civil society. Lastly, the boundary between civil society and political society is porous and imprecise; there is synergy between the development of these two spheres. Transnational dimensions of civil society, and the development of border-crossing social capital amidst heavy migration and other human flows, are critical to contemporary politics. Regional institutions like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) put some amount of pressure on internal policies of member states, or at least facilitate discussion of varying perspectives on topics such as mechanisms for safeguarding human rights. Track II and III initiatives continue to develop within those institutions. In addition, cross-border civil societal organizations are increasingly prominent in the region, for instance the Southeast Asian Press Alliance, Alternative Southeast Asian Network on Burma, Asian Network for Free Elections, Catholic and Muslim groups, Asian student associations, and more. These networks and groups provide ideas, training, resources, and validation. (Indeed, cross-border militant links are also potent, from the reach of Jemaah Islamiyah across the region to sanctuary provided Thai Muslim dissidents in Malaysia.) In the same vein, prevailing international norms may impact upon civil societies in Asia. Increasing global attention to the rights of women, for instance, has fostered improvements in women’s space for political and economic empowerment, but also a wave of legislation across the region on domestic violence, harassment, and the like, pressed by women’s groups that emerged especially in the 1980s–1990s. Similarly, growing global attention to indigenous peoples’ rights has affected local strategies and technologies, ideological and discursive frameworks, and available allies and networks. International funding only bolsters these trends.
Outlook/Concluding Assessment Contemporary studies of civil society, opposition, and political liberalization in Asia suggest two key areas meriting especial increased attention: the dynamism of institutions across the region and the ways political space is conceptualized. First, the regimes of Asia are far from static, rending civil society and political opposition moving targets as
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objects of study. For instance, the official dominance of the communist party is indubitable in Vietnam, yet the political space available in and around the party is clearly widening, not least with shifting levels of economic empowerment. A new constitution in Indonesia, new state in East Timor, continuing institutional evolution in Cambodia, recalibrations of state structures in Singapore and Malaysia, new strategies for influencing formal politics in the Philippines, ongoing insurgencies in various states, increasing inclusion of women and other categories of political actors across the region, and more in recent years are testament as well to this dynamism. It is thus critical to conceptualize democratic space as multivalent (spanning formal and informal politics, and national and local levels) and highly amorphous, as rules change, leaders change, and prevailing international and domestic norms and ideas change, with profound implications for civil societal engagement. Finally, amidst all these changes, frameworks for understanding and conceptualizing forms of social capital and mobilization also have shifted and continue to shift. Increasing scholarly attention to civil society and the refinement of critical approaches to power (for instance, feminist frameworks), have offered a more nuanced grasp of ‘‘democratic space’’: it is not just an electoral or procedural matter, but also spans civil societal organizations, from NGOs, to religious organizations, to unions, to economic associations; furthermore, social capital may foster bonds with, outside, or against state institutions. These developments are not unique to Southeast Asia, but the variability and continuing changes in regimes across the region highlight enduring themes regarding the forms, functions, and effects of civil society and social capital.
Cross-References
▶ Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Friends of the Earth ▶ GONGOs ▶ Good Governance ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Buddhism ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Hinduism ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Philanthropy in South East Asia
References/Further Readings Alagappa, M. (Ed.) (2004). Civil society and political change in Asia: Expanding and contracting democratic space. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Aspinall, E. (2005). Opposing Suharto: Compromise, resistance, and regime change in Indonesia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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Bell, D., et al. (Eds.) (1995). Towards illiberal democracy in Pacific Asia. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Boudreau, V. (2001). Grass roots and cadre in the protest movement. Manila, Philippines: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Boudreau, V. (2004). Resisting dictatorship: Repression and protest in Southeast Asia. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bowie, K. A. (1997). Rituals of national loyalty: An anthropology of the State and the Village Scout Movement in Thailand. New York: Columbia University Press. Callahan, W. A. (2000). Pollwatching, elections and civil society in Southeast Asia. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Chua, B. H. (1995). Communitarian ideology and democracy in Singapore. New York: Routledge. Clarke, G. (1998). The politics of NGOs in South-East Asia: Participation and protest in the Philippines. New York: Routledge. Eldridge, P. (1995). Non-government organizations and democratic participation in Indonesia. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Oxford University Press. Hedman E. L. (2006). In the name of civil society: From free elections movements to people power in the Philippines. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Hefner, R. W. (2000). Civil Islam: Muslims and democratization in Indonesia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Heryanto, A., & Mandal, S. K. (2003). Challenging authoritarianism in Southeast Asia: Comparing Indonesia and Malaysia. New York: RoutledgeCurzon. Jones, D. M. (1998). Democratization, civil society, and illiberal middle class culture in Pacific Asia. Comparative Politics, 30(2), 147–169. Jones, D. M., & Brown, D. (1994). Singapore and the myth of the liberalizing middle class. The Pacific Review, 7(1), 79–87. Kerkvliet, B. J. (1977). The Huk Rebellion: A study of peasant protest in the Philippines. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Kerkvliet, B. J., et al. (Eds.) (2003). Getting organized in Vietnam: Moving in and around the socialist State. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Koh, G., & Ooi, G. L. (2000). State-society relations in Singapore. Singapore: Oxford University Press. Piper, N., & Uhlin, U. (Eds.) (2004). Transnational activism in Asia: Problems of power and democracy. London: Routledge. Pye, L. W. (1985). Asian power and politics: The cultural dimensions of authority. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rodan, G. (Ed.) (1996). Political oppositions in industrialising Asia. New York: Routledge. Rodan, G. (1997). Civil society and other political possibilities in Southeast Asia. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 27(2), 156–178. Schak, D., & Hudson, W. (2003). Civil society in Asia. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Scott, J. C. (1985). Weapons of the weak. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Uhlin, A. (1997). Indonesia and the ‘‘Third Wave of Democratization’’: The Indonesian Pro-Democracy Movement in a changing world. Richmond: Curzon Press. Verma, V. (2002). Malaysia: State and civil society in transition. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Walker, M. (1996). NGO participation in a corporatist State: The example of Indonesia. Berkeley, CA: Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California-Berkeley. Weiss, M. L. (2006). Protest and possibilities: Civil society and coalitions for political change in Malaysia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Weiss, M. L., & Saliha, H. (Eds.) (2003). Social movements in Malaysia: From moral communities to NGOs. London: RoutledgeCurzon. Yamamoto, T. (Ed.) (1995). Emerging civil society in the Asia Pacific Community: Nongovernmental underpinnings of the emerging Asia Pacific Regional Community. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition THOMAS P. BOJE Roskilde University, Roskilde, Denmark
Introduction Civil society-based institutions have had a significant historical impact in Europe both on the formation of modern notions of the nation and on the creation of national identity, as well as on the definition of citizenship rights and understandings of a democratic culture. If support for citizenship rights through civic institutions – at the workplace and in public institutions – is weakly articulated, it creates a fragile democratic culture and – consequently – less comprehensive social protection. The possibility of civil society becoming a locus for democratic learning, political reflexivity and governance depends, firstly, on its specific institutional mechanisms, and, secondly, on the broader institutional configuration, which civil society forms part of. The definition of civil society used in this context is broad and comprehensive. Organized civil society includes public interest organizations, social movement organizations, churches, NGOs, and promotional associations. In research on civil society focus has primarily been on participation and nonprofit institutions. This overview is based on an understanding that civil society and citizenship rights are strongly dependent on social participation in all spheres of everyday life – from involvement in labor market, family matters and community networks to the shaping of civic, public and private institutions, and the realization of democratic rights more generally within contemporary societies. Therefore in conceptualizing citizenship and civil society the involvement of citizens has become a key issue on political and institutional agendas in recent years. The growth of interest in the concept of social and civic participation is based on experiences of deficiency in the way democratic processes function, and – consequently – a crisis of legitimacy for the modern idea of democracy. An
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additional reason can be found in the difficulties of establishing frameworks that involve citizens in strategic decision-making for the community, and in the identification and organization of services and welfare. These problems have been ascribed to the limitations of representative forms of democracy in capturing the heterogeneity, complex interests, and multiple identities characterizing groups and individuals living in the contemporary European societies.
Civil Society With the establishment of advanced economic and political integration, discussions within Europe about the role of civic institutions in the promotion of an inclusive and active citizenship have intensified. The intensified interest in civil society and its impact on active civic participation and cultural identity appeared at a time that has been marked by a number of historical developments and political crisis. These included the collapse of totalitarian regimes and authoritarian states, in Europe as well as other parts of the World, the crisis of politics, which refers to citizens’ disenchantment with politics, the crisis of representation, which refers to such issues as the dominance of executives and spin doctors, and finally the crisis of the party system as a vehicle for societal representation. These developments collectively questioned the political classes and the state institutions in Europe, and they contributed to enhancing the role of citizenship, organized civil society and active participation. Whenever a ‘‘European Social Model’’ gets mentioned, it is underlined that organized civil society and social protection has played an outstanding role in the formation of European nation-states as democratic welfare states. On the other hand in the public and scientific discourses about welfare and citizenship, the role of active citizenship, social capital, and organized civil society has often been omitted. The complementarily between public welfare institutions and civic organizations in providing social welfare is, however, important in understanding the relationship between civic participation, social capital and volunteering in the different European societies. The vibrancy of civil society thus depends upon the active participation of members of society in a variety of organizations from churches to trades unions. These represent both a bulwark against an oppressive state and also a system of representation of interests in a complex society. It is not obvious if merely being a member is sufficient or whether active membership is a condition in evaluating the strength of civil society institutions. However it is evident that the level of participation and the strength of social networks are important in both contexts. There are a number of ways in which this can be
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assessed – either through surveys analyzing the type and level of civic participation, involvement in social network or through measuring the function and coverage of civil society institutions. The role of civil society within democratic institutions can be understood in a number of ways, according to different conceptions of what a legitimate political process should be. The literature lists a number of advantages that derive from the inclusion of civil society in political processes: engagement in dialogue with civil society is seen as a viable way to enhance public participation, in the context of decreasing trust in political institutions (Putnam, 2000; Rothstein, 2001); civil society organizations can supplement political parties in informing debates and aggregating preferences; and they can take account of the increased cultural and ethnic differentiation of European countries. Civil society organizations should also be involved in the implementation of policies, because public authorities are often no longer able to deliver services that meet the needs of an increasingly differentiated population (Evers & Laville, 2004). At the EU level, the participation of civil society is said to be a useful way addressing the perceived democratic deficit of the European Union, and in this context organizations would be required to act as agents of political socialization (Carlo Ruzza, 2007). The aspiration of shaping European civil society institutions is closely related to the evolution of European citizenship rights (Janoski, 1998). On the other hand, active participation and organized civil society are not confined to interest organizations and social protection is not always a state-based issue. First of all, active participation can express itself by building and producing forms of self- and co-organized social welfare including voluntary work, that is neither exclusively state-based nor entirely a matter of the political administration and professionals. Secondly, organizations in the field of social welfare and protection are not only an outcome of participation by interest formulation but, possibly, they themselves can work as bodies that activate civic participation in various forms. Thirdly, considering social networks and their importance for social participation and the capability of building a coherent society the more informal and civic activities are just as important as the institutional type of participation. Social participation, however can take many different forms from informal relation, local social network to active participation or passive membership within formal organizations. In the East and Central European countries formal network and civil society organizations are spare. In these countries authoritarian regimes have lead to a
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strong distrust in the formalized associative life and in participation in public organizations (Wallace et al., 2004). In building up the civil society in these countries it is shown that more informal forms of social participation have played a significant role. In the Northern European countries it is on the other hand the institutionalized collective organizations which for long time have been the core element of the civil society and therefore it is through these organizations that most people are establishing their social networks.
Social Capital Researchers have identified good citizenship or civic behavior as being an important outcome of social capital. Social capital can be defined as shared norms, values, practices, and understanding that facilitate cooperation between social groups in order to pursue shared objectives. Three different dimensions are normally included in the definition: (1) social capital as investment in social relations including participation in organizations and civil society (bridging social capital); (2) participation in informal social relations and family networks (bonding social capital); (3) social capital as reflecting the general public legitimacy: trust in institutions, generalized trust; and (4) social capital as civism, civic mindedness and civic engagement (Portes, 1998; Putnam, 2000; van Oorschot & Arts, 2005). Social capital is linked to the idea of civil society, or the layer of independent organizations between the individual and the state (Cohen & Arato, 1992). It is argued that a healthy organizational life is an indicator of an active civil society, which again may help to ensure democracy and social cohesion. Several studies show that the level of volunteering and other types of civic participation is very different and have developed in different directions among the European countries (see Dekker & Broek, 1998; OECD 2001; Putnam, 2002; van Oorschot & Arts, 2005; Wallace, 2005) These variations in associational life and informal activities follow typically the different structuring of the welfare system in the European societies. What is an appropriate measure for social capital in one context may not be appropriate in others. Thus the Nordic countries tend to emerge as the ones with highest levels of social capital as measured by civic mindedness and civic participation, whilst these things are low in Southern and Eastern Europe (van Oorschot & Arts, 2005). This raises the question of whether other forms of social cohesion are evident in Eastern and Southern Europe – and other parts of the world – that may offer alternatives to formal social capital and organized civil
society. In those countries, the experiences of living in authoritarian or totalitarian regimes have, as mentioned earlier, lead to a distrust of civic organizations and the state. Yet organized civil society has been building up since the transition to democracy and now plays a certain part in their governance. This development is most obvious in the Southern countries – Spain, Portugal and Greece – but also under way in Central Europe. Oorschot et al., (2006) find in a study of social capital in Europe that the Scandinavian score highest on all dimensions measuring social capital – trust, political involvement and participation in social networks. Only in relation to informal relations to family and relatives they found a lower level of contact in the Scandinavian countries than in other European welfare systems. Wallace and Pichler (2007) show similar results in an analysis of formal and informal social capital among the EU Member States. Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands score high on all types of social capital. It concerns both close relations for friend, neighbors, and family – bonding social capital – and when it comes to participation in social network and volunteering in organized civil society – bridging social capital. In the Southern – and Central European countries the level of participation in social network and involvement in political activities score low, while some of these countries – e.g., Portugal and Bulgaria have a comprehensive informal network around family. These differences between the European countries are confirmed in Table 1 reporting result from some of the major European studies of volunteering and membership of nonprofit organizations. Using the figures from the Johns Hopkins Study of Nonprofit Organization (JHU-survey) I have found a similar pattern by comparing the European countries on two different measures – level of volunteering for nonprofit organizations and the economic importance of the nonprofit sector in the national economy (Boje, 2008). Calculated on figures for the size of the voluntary work force in the individual countries and OECD-figures on public expenditures on welfare services following pattern can be found for the relationship between volunteering and public financing of welfare services (see Fig. 1). The relationship between level of volunteering in nonprofit organizations and public financed welfare services confirms the thesis that a society with a high degree of universalism in provision of social services and high social equality also is characterized by extensive social networks, high level of institutional trust and significant level of voluntary involvement (Rothstein & Kumlin, 2005). For the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands this connection is obvious – see also Table 1. These countries have
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Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition. Table 1 Membership and volunteering for a nonprofit organization in European countries in proportion of the adult population – result from recent surveys. Ranged by proportion doing voluntary work in the European Social Survey
Nation
Johns Hopkinsa Voluntary work as proportion of the economically active population
EURO-barometerb Proportion of the population who has done voluntary work in a year
EURO-barometerb membership of nonprofit organizations – 3 or more organizations
European Social Surveyc Proportion of the population who has done voluntary work in a year
Norway
5.1
–
42
37
Sweden
5.4
50
56
35
The Netherlands
5.8
48
39
29
Denmark
3.0
42
43
28
Germany
3.0
36
10
26
United Kingdom
5.6
33
12
23
Belgium
2.4
38
16
23
France
4.2
36
8
19
Ireland
2.3
41
12
16
Austria
1.1
43
13
14
Hungary
0.2
16
1
9
Spain
1.5
15
5
7
Portugal
1.2
13
2
6
Italy
1.7
23
4
5
Poland
0.2
20
2
5
Czech Republic
0.8
23
2
–
a
Johns Hopkins: Voluntary labor force (FTE) in percent of the active population in 2004 Eurobarometer: Proportion of the population who has done voluntary work in 2004 c European Social Survey: Proportion of the population who has done voluntary work for an organization in 2002/2003 b
Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition. Fig. 1 The relationship between volunteering and public financed welfare services
a highly developed social welfare system and a high level of volunteering. We also find a relatively high level of public financed social services in Belgium, France and Austria but in all three countries the level of volunteering is restricted. In these countries it is an old tradition that
nonprofit organizations are involved in production of social services – elderly care and institutions for children – but the costs for providing these services are financed by the state. Furthermore these social services are primarily produced by paid labor employed by the nonprofit
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organizations and the involvement of voluntary unpaid labor is restricted. Denmark and the Netherlands represent deviant cases in different ways. Denmark is characterized by a high level of nonprofit involvement in production of social services – social services and education. A pattern which to some extent is similar to the Continental European countries. However, the level of volunteering in general is higher in Denmark than in the Continental countries, but this most concerns volunteering in cultural and recreation while Denmark has few volunteers in social service. The Netherlands combines a large nonprofit involvement in production of social services with a high level of volunteering in both social service and in the society in general. The Dutch society has a long tradition for nonprofit institutions in providing social services for children as well as for elderly – and volunteering is widespread especially among Dutch women (Boje, 2007). In the other end of the scale characterized by low level of volunteering and a low public involvement in financing welfare services we find the Southern – and Central European countries. The Southern countries are in Gallie and Paugam’s welfare typology described as a ‘‘subprotective’’ welfare system meaning a system with no or very modest social protection. In these countries social protection is primarily provided through the kinship network or by private – mostly – religious organizations (Gallie & Paugam, 2000: 5). In their analysis Gallie and Paugam uses this label on the Southern European welfare systems, but the description fits very well on the Central European countries too. Here we are talking about countries with a high level of social differentiation and large socioeconomic inequality. These are social conditions which typically are restricting creation of social capital and viability of social network and reducing the involvement in voluntary activities.
Empirical Data Most empirical studies find that the level of volunteering in all European countries is growing or at least stable while there has been a decline in the institutional membership of the more conventional nonprofit organizations like political parties, unions, charity organizations etc. (Hodgkinson & Weitzman, 1996; Rothstein, 2001). Instead we have seen a growing affiliation to grassroots organizations at community level, single-case organizations dealing with e.g., environmental issues and counseling groups where membership is not a precondition for being active participants. To give a more precise picture of the nonprofit and the voluntary activities taking place in selected European
countries we have divided the functions in four different categories (see Boje, 2008): Welfare activities: education, health, and social services. Expressive activities: culture, recreation, sport Advocacy: trade unions, business organizations and local interest organizations Political and ideological activities: political parties, religious organizations, human rights groups and environmental organizations Others: International aid organizations, philanthropy, and others. The countries included in Table 2 are representative for the four different types of relationship in Europe between level of social welfare commitment and civic involvement through volunteering for nonprofit institution shown in Fig. 1. Looking first at the paid workforce in the nonprofit sector we find that welfare activities play a dominant role in all countries included in the comparison, but most pronounced in the Netherlands and Ireland followed by Germany and Spain. Here a substantial proportion of social services for children and elderly people are provided by nonprofit organizations, which have contracts with the government and are reimbursed for producing services for children and elderly people. According to Table 2 Denmark comes close to the Continental countries with two-thirds of the paid labor force in the nonprofit sector employed in welfare services. In the other Nordic countries the nonprofit paid work force is less concentrated towards welfare production while a larger proportion of the paid nonprofit workforce is employed in advocatory activities in relation to policy organizations, professional organizations, unions, and advocacy groups. This type of institutions is part of the welfare society as pressure or supportive groups defending the interests of social groups in the cooperative Nordic democracies. Finally the Central European countries represented by Hungary are characterized by a small nonprofit sector where most of the paid work takes place in recreation and political activities. Turning to the composition of the unpaid voluntary workforce the composition is different. In the volunteer workforce the welfare services only play a minor role in the Nordic countries while this type of voluntary work is much more widespread in the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland, where large groups of women are volunteering in social nonprofit institutions providing services for children and elderly people. In all the Nordic countries unpaid voluntary work force is dominated by recreative activities and next come the advocacy and
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Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition. Table 2 Paid and unpaid workforce in the nonprofit sector by type of activity in selected European countries Paid workforce Denmark
Norway
Sweden
The Netherlands
Germany
Spain
Ireland
Hungary
Welfare services
66
56
42
88
79
69
81
26
Recreative activities
7
12
27
4
5
12
6
38
Advocacy
21
17
21
5
10
13
6
29
Political activities
4
15
9
3
6
6
7
7
Other activities Total
2
0
1
–
0
0
–
–
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
Unpaid voluntary workforce Welfare services
16
11
10
42
16
48
52
41
Recreative activities
49
51
51
36
33
22
26
30
Advocacy
12
15
20
2
6
7
10
7
Political activities
16
23
17
20
33
23
11
22
Other activities
7
0
2
–
13
0
1
–
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
100
Total
Source: The Danish figures are calculated based on figures provided from the national population survey 2004, SFI and Statistics Denmark: Survey of National Account 2003. For the other countries it is the John Hopkins Nonprofit Sector Project.
political activities – especially in Norway and Sweden. The large proportion of voluntary activities in political and ideological activities in Germany, Spain and partly in the Netherlands can be explained by a significant amount of voluntary work in connection to religious organizations.
Outlook/Concluding Assessment The basic idea of citizens’ participation and involvement of civil society organizations coincide with the move from a government model towards a governance model. In this new model, a decentralization process is promoted and the centralized public organization is replaced by innovative forms of horizontal collaboration between public authorities and civil society institutions, and networks emerge as an increasingly significant mode of coordination. Looking at these processes it can be said that a shift from a system characterized prevailingly by government models to a more ‘‘polycentric’’ system has taken place and this shift has been supported both at national and European level with an effort to promoting inclusive decision-making processes that involve citizens actively. The main problems related to the promotion of participation are twofold: on the one hand, stereotyped interpretations of participation processes need to be overcome; on the other hand, it is of crucial importance to
understand how different types of institutions – public, for-profit, and nonprofit – practically contribute to encourage the participation of citizens and make it possible. One dimension of special importance in this context is the level of welfare commitment measured by level of universalism in access to social security and provision of social services meaning that the welfare system compensates for stratification and inequality in the individual society. A high level of governmental spending on social welfare and consequently a low level of inequality seem to facilitate higher levels of voluntary involvement of the citizens while low spending on social welfare are not necessarily compensated by higher levels of voluntary involvement in solving social problems (Salamon et al., 2004). Another important welfare dimension in determining level of voluntary involvement seems to be how the welfare system is organized. A highly organized and institutionalized welfare system tends to stimulate voluntary involvement and to increase the role of the nonprofit sector. It may be organized through the state apparatus as in the Social Democratic system or through the corporative organizations as in the Continental system. The two previously discussed dimensions concern primarily voluntary work done in an institutional frame for a civil society organization. When it comes to the other types of social capital or civic involvement – informal networks and care for friends or family members outside the household – this
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type of participation seems to be high both in countries characterized by equalized social structure such as Social Democratic welfare systems and in countries with an underdeveloped system of social protection but characterized a strong familialism in the system of social network (see Esping-Andersen, 1999; Wallace, 2005). Whilst the transition to a knowledge-based society in Europe is seen as the key factor in creating social innovation, knowledge-based growth, and greater economic integration, it may, however, also carry risks for individuals, families and communities and may result in greater social marginalization and exclusion. The strong emphasis on social capital, citizenship, and participation reflects an awareness of the increased risks in knowledge-based societies of social polarization and long-term poverty and skills entrapment, the need to promote gender equality and women’s employment and its links with social participation, the vulnerable position of ethnic minority families, the links between work, family, community, and civic organizations.
Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and the European Union ▶ Volunteering ▶ Welfare State ▶ Social Cohesion
References/Further Readings Boje, T. P. (2007). Welfare and work. The gendered organisation of work and care in different European Countries. European Review, 15(03), 373–395. Boje, T. P. (2008). Den danske frivillige nonprofit sektor i komparativt perspektiv. In F. Boje & H. Ibsen og (Eds.), Det frivillige Danmark. Odense, Denmark: Syddansk Universitets. Cohen, J., & Arato, A. (1992). Civil society and political theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dekker, P., & van den Broek, A. (1998). Civil society in comparative perspective: Involvement in voluntary associations in North America and Western Europe. VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 9, 11–38. Esping-Andersen, G. (1999). The social-economic foundation of postindustrial economies. Cambridge: Polity. Evers, A., & Laville, J. L. (Eds.) (2004). The third sector in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Hodgkinson, V., & Weitzman, M. (1996). Giving and volunteering in the United States. Washington, DC: Independent Sector. Janoski, T. (1998). Citizenship and civil society: A framework of rights and obligations in liberal, traditional and social democratic regimes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. OECD (2001). The well-being of nations: The role of human and social capital. Paris: OECD.
OECD (2007). Employment Outlook 2007. Paris: OECD. Portes, A. (1998). Social capital: Its origins and applications in modern sociology. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 1–24. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Putnam, R. D. (Ed). (2002). Democracy in a Flux. The evolution in social capital in contemporary societies. New York: Oxford University Press. Rothstein, B. (2001). Social capital in the social democratic welfare state. Politics and Society, 29, 1–26. Rothstein, B., & Kumlin, S. (2005). Making and breaking social capital: The impact of Welfare State Institutions. Comparative Political Studies, 38, 339–365. Ruzza, C. (2007). Multi-level governance and organized civil society. CINEFOGO Report. Denmark: Roskilde University. Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, W., et al. (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector Vol II. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. van Oorschot, W., & Arts, W. (2005). The social capital of European welfare states: The crowding out hypothesis revisited. The Journal of European Social Policy, 15, 5–26. van Oorschot, W., Arts, W., & Gelissen, J. (2006). Social capital in Europe: Measurement and social and regional distribution of a multifaceted phenomenon. Acta Sociologica, 49, 149–167. Wallace, C. (2005). Interaction between social capital and social policy. Paper 4. European Observatory on the Social Situation, Social Cohesion, Trust and Participation. Aberdeen: Aberdeen Centre of European Social Research. Wallace, C., & Pichler, F. (2007). Patterns of formal and informal social capital in Europe. Denmark: Roskilde University Paper. Wallace, C., Haerpfer, C., & Latcheva, R. (2004). The informal economy in East. Central Europe 1991–1998. Wien, Austria: IHS sociological series no 64.
Civil Society and Social Capital in the Middle East ALAA SABER Near East Foundation, Cairo, Egypt
Introduction The thinking of civil society and social capital in the Middle East has evolved in relation with three distinct, yet overlapping, terrains of thoughts. One draws upon the deeply-rooted, religious-based traditions of charity and its expressions particularly in the private endowment systems with which the early forms of autonomous civil associations flourished in the region as early as the fifth century. The second concerns itself with the geopolitical and economic circumstances that led to the emergence of ‘‘new’’ forms of associations in the early nineteenth century, concomitant with the fade of the private endowment system and the beginnings of the state encroachment on civil associations. The third terrain of thoughts underscores the region’s social
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structure, centered on family, kinship and social networks, and its many manifestations of informal associations and determinants to the evolution of both the civil society and social capital. It is through the various encounters between these three terrains of thoughts that the literature on the subject has developed, and the different, often contradictory, viewpoints of scholars, researchers, and writers have been carried on for decades. An apparent outcome of these encounters is one impression: whereas the region is rich in terms of social capital at least from one strand of thought, the civil society does not generally mimic the Western model, at best, or weak to absent, at worst. Some scholars, probably since Weber’s time, have been intrigued by thinking and conceiving of the Middle East based on the analysis of the prevalent culture and religion, to which they attribute the weakness of civil associational life in the region. In contrast, geopolitical, and economic studies, emerged over the past few decades, contend that the state formation, nature and accompanying policy choices, the international relations, and legacies of colonialism have been the major determinants for civil society evolution and its state of affairs. Looking into the Middle East history, in its entirety, the eminent historian Fernand Braudel (1987), however, seemed to suggest that the Middle East’s ‘‘uniqueness’’ is probably owed to its history above anything else. Not for being exceedingly long, or for its mark of the first interface of humanity with civilizations and religions, but for the fact that warfare and conquests have been its inseparable companions. Endlessly renewing themselves with fleeting times of serenity in-between, wars and conquests compose an almost unaltered story for the Middle East. The Assyrians, Persians, Greek, Romans, Byzantium, Arabs, Seljuk, Mongols, Crusades, Ottoman Turks, and the European colonizing powers, all either gained dominance or waged wars in various historical periods. Such unparalleled history combined with the region’s landscape, vast stretches of empty desert separated by densely populated areas, seem to have conspired to create the perilous world of the Middle East, where insecurity and scarcity are the formidable long-lived landmarks. The region’s insecurity has certainly been the deeprunning, trans-temporal, force in setting the social structure of the Middle East into perspective. The well known Arab ‘‘tribalism’’ or ‘‘familism’’ is not a cultural trait, as Orientalists once thought, but rather a very ancient adaptive response to insecurity, under which ‘‘family’’ serves as a political resource, argues Rosemary Sayigh (1981). Whereas individual self-interest, freedom, and independence are the hallmarks of Western liberal ideologies, the kinship and family in the Arab World are cited as the
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more valid units of society by the mainstream sociologists, anthropologists, and political scientists. The Middle East kinship and family probably provide the element of stability, a basis for communal solidarity, that people in the region use to counterbalance the deep-seated elements of instability and insecurity. Civil society and social capital in the Middle East are the children of the region’s history and landscape. Not being well endowed by nature, argued Fernand Braudel (1992: 556), the wealth of the Middle East has been historically based above everything else on commerce and trade movement and transit. No wonder, the first civil association to encounter in the Middle East history, known as ‘‘commanda,’’ was an association of merchants to organize trade, and dates back to the fifth century. Tarek Ismail (1997: 2) recounts that the peak of such form of association was reached during the Islamic dynasty period of Abbasids, from about AD 723 to 945. The then flourishing bourgeoisie in the urban centers across the region alongside the growth in industrialization, commerce, and business activities spurred the emergence of numerous autonomous civil associations or guilds (asnaf). Associations formed during that time derived their autonomy from sovereignty of law and judiciary. Their expansion seemed part of the then thriving economy and a growing culture of knowledge that the ruling leaders laid the basis for with increasing translations into Arabic from the Greek sciences and philosophy. Fernand Braudel (1992: 160), drawing on such history, argued that one might just say of Islam the same that Max Weber’s theorized about Protestantism: ‘‘it has been suggested that Islamic law and the Islamic ideal of society shaped themselves from the very first in accordance with the ideas and aims of a rising merchant class.’’ Parallel to the associations of merchants and businesses, the institutions of endowment, awakf (plural), emerged as the more long-standing, anchor of civil life in the region from the fifth century and until the early nineteenth century. Through these institutions, the wealthy and notables withheld land, buildings, or other possessions for public benefit, financing not only public utilities, hospitals, schools, universities, infrastructure projects, houses, and research institutions, but also extended to feeding the birds, sheltering of stray animals, accommodation places for travelers, and provision of water. The institutions of endowment enjoyed both legal and financial autonomy, were managed by independent judges and solely under the jurisprudence of law. Khalid Abou El Fadl (2001) recounts that the independent institutions of juristic nature that emerged within the first 300 years of Islam seemed to have served roles so
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much as we know civil society today, mediating between the public and political elites, and between these and other social and commercial elites. These early associations suffered numerous setbacks after the Abbasids decline. The encroachment on the judiciary and legal bodies, turning the jurists into state functionaries, began with the Seljuk invasion in the eleventh century, recounts Tarek Isamil (1997: 3), and continued thereafter. The culture of knowledge and openness to scientific explorations were halted. Under the successive intrusions of the Crusades, Mongols, the environment for trade, industry, and commerce has been staggering, setting the economy into a declining trajectory. By the Ottomans’ time in the sixteenth century, the merchants, business owners, and entrepreneurs were already in lower status vis-a`-vis the military and state servants. The Ottomans’ attempts to modernize the army, agriculture, tax systems, economy, and state structure, based on the then advancing models in Europe with which trade relations were increasing, ushered in a slow process of even increasing state control. In Egypt, for instance, Mohamed Ali confiscated much of the waqf land and created in 1851 a central administration to regulate the awqaf instead of the independent judicial structures that were still in place. The assault on the private endowment system and its collapse was the most detrimental to the evolutionary process that underpinned the formation and flourishing of the early civil associations. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, the Middle East fell in the grips of the European colonizing powers that continued to expand state control at the expense of religious and independent judicial institutions. These were the same policies that the nationalist regimes after independence, ironically, continued to adopt. Notwithstanding the earlier associations, most scholars take the mid nineteenth century as their point of departure for the region’s history with civil society, when associations based on the European model of civil society emerged in Egypt and Lebanon (the first was the Greek Society in 1821 in Egypt). Alan Richard and John Waterbury (1990) assert that significant state and class transformation in the Middle East modern history began in the mid-to-late nineteenth century with European penetration into the Middle Eastern markets. Janine Clark (2000: 9) tells that the increasing trade relations with Europe during that period resulted in the emergence of a new bourgeoisie class of traders, merchants, and artisans, who gradually dominated the middle-class at the cost of religious clerics and wealthy families. The associations they founded, though remained charity in nature, represented a clear deviation from the earlier
forms of private endowment, and epitomized more the working class endeavors with associations. It was not long, however, before another significant shift in the character of the middle-classes across the region took root. As the colonial powers and the nationalist regimens that followed, promoted public education to provide civil servants needed to carry out their directives, Janine Clark (2000: 10–11) argued, increasing numbers of salaried employees – teachers, physicians, students, technocrats, journalists, and army officers – began to outweigh the merchants and traders and changed the outlook of the region’s middle-classes. The boundaries between the new whitecollared and the old merchant-dominated middle-classes have, however, remained highly fluid and overlapping. For the new middle-class, having little wealth yet seeking to play larger roles in their societies, ‘‘civil associations’’ were among their means to move forward. They continued to usher civil associations, particularly in response to the emerging new needs for social, education, and health services. The Middle East, henceforth, is like elsewhere: the middle-classes stood behind the formation and evolution of the civil society, and the character of the middle-classes varied over time in relation with socioeconomic circumstance and the state policies. While new classes emerged and sat to rise, older ones declined. James Bill and Robert Springborg (2000) conceptualize social structure in the Middle East as an intricate web of vertical and horizontal stratifications – those based on family and tribe (vertical stratification), and those based on class (horizontal stratification).
Civil Society Linguistically, the term ‘‘Al-ahly,’’ denoting family and relatives altogether, is widely heard in the Arab Middle East as a reference to the nonprofit sector. In Arabic language, the term ‘‘Al-ahly’’ denotes the ‘‘intimacy’’ with which philanthropic behavior of individuals and organizational practices have been culturally determined. The term captures the essence and historical underpinnings of that sector in the region, better than the term ‘‘madany,’’ which is the direct translation of the ‘‘civil’’ in English language. Although the media and the international organizations promote the latter as a substitute concept to the homegrown one, the public continues to misperceive the term as deriving from the word ‘‘city,’’ in English language. Amany Kandil (1994) coins the word ‘‘indigenous’’ as the English equivalent widely used within the Arab region. Whereas some scholars see that the more intimate connotations of the term ‘‘al-ahly’’ historically bestowed the region great advantages for a thriving civic life, Sa’ed Karajah considers that such connotations that
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give preeminence to family and clan ties stifle the development of a ‘‘civil’’ society as contemporary defined in Western terms. The Orientalist school, more vocal over many decades, draws an image of the region altogether as incompatible to civil associational life. The basic argument it presents is that the prevalent culture in the Middle East, with Islam as its principal attribute, is the prime cause for the absence of pluralist vision conducive to a thriving civil society in the region. Through the Orientalist prism, the associational forms in the region are mere expressions of patriarchal relations in Arab societies. Their attempts to align the region along one dimension, overwhelming the culture and religion with negative connotations to interpret Middle Eastern society with no regard for its political economy and the international politics, has been widely criticized. Driven by predispositions of cultural supremacy, argued Edward Said in his seminal work of ‘‘Orientalism’’ in 1978, Orientalists’ discourse was fraught with either falsely positive or beside the point conclusions. Treating culture as an unchanging construct posed in an ahistorical dimension, obscure the real dilemmas that the Middle East faces, and the possibilities for its change. Over the more recent decades, geopolitical, economic, and sociological studies began to unseat the Orientalist position, offering very different frameworks within which the dilemmas of the Middle East can be treated. For civil society, by its very nature, is rooted in its local context, the thrust of these studies is that a civil society is better understood in its own merits when born, grown, and changed over time. The unique differences between the various countries in the region receive emphasis, even calling into question the approach to the Middle East as a singular homogenous unit. Still recognizing the cultural specificities of the region, they at the same time seek to discern the origin and evolution of the institutional phenomena in the region in relation with the colonial legacies, political and ideological underpinnings of state formation and the resultant policies, and the socioeconomic realities under which civil associational life is expressed. Contrary to received cultural biases about the Middle East, these studies suggest that the weakened state of contemporary civil society in the region is ‘‘within reasons.’’ The authoritarian nature of the ruling regimes in the Middle East, the co-optation strategies and corporatist arrangements they employ, and the ‘‘rentier’’ character of the economies across the region are analyzed and cited as reasons for hindering a robust civil society to emerge. A distinguishing feature of associations in the Middle East, vis-a`-vis their western counterparts, is that they did not arise out of class conflict or scrutiny of the
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government. The degree of autonomy of civil associations is a function of how much freedom the state grants to them, rather than what they gain through confrontation and/or pressure. The reason that most discussions of civil society in the Middle East are centered on the nongovernmental and voluntary organizations, with seldom references to syndicates, labor unions, or political parties, is linked to the heavy control of the state apparatus, and legal amendments that the regimes invented to forge their hegemony. The ‘‘low-membership’’ civil associations such as NGOs are more prominent than the ‘‘high-membership’’ organizations such as the political parties. Laurie King-Irani (2000: 1) argues that although NGOs provide valuable services in diverse realms, they also tend to segment and disperse, rather than coalesce and amplify, political power. He asserts that ‘‘whereas resistance groups and popular unions of students, workers, and professionals in the 1970s arose from and reflected broadbased movements. . . . .proclaiming unabashedly political objectives, NGOs reflect the fragmentation and segmentation of a wide popular base and the de-politicization of popular discourse.’’ In a similar vein, Marzouk sees NGOs evolution ‘‘more of horizontal accumulation of organizations with little decisive effect on the established political and social landscape.’’ In Lebanon, the Lebanese writer Fawwaz Trabulsi noted that NGOs hinder the emergence and formation of effective parties since they splinter popular demands into a multiplicity of interests, which are addressed by specialist professionals, cited Laurie KingIrani (2000: 1). Algeria is the only Arab country where a legal procedure of ‘‘declaration’’ rather than ‘‘authorization,’’ suffice for civil associations to exist, a procedure that led to exponential growth of number of associations. Syria, Tunisia, and Libya are the countries where heavy constraints on civil associations are more noticeable. Compared with other Gulf States, Kuwait, contends Maha Abdel-Rahaman (2004: 81), endorses a higher degree of freedom for civil society, owing to its wider participatory political institutions, distinguishing demographic features, and the politically organized merchant elite. In general, the ad hoc manner in the implementation of the liberalization projects across the Middle East amidst the lagging-behind legislative and legal frameworks are obstacles toward the development of a strong and autonomous civil society in the region. An important thrust in the Middle East with much significant influences on civil associations has been the rise of Islamism at the turn of twentieth century. Islamism inspired, still is, a large number of NGOs. Over the past 4 decades, the proliferation of Islamic institutions across the
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region has been astonishing. Amany Kandil (1994) estimates that 43% of all NGOs in Egypt are Islamic, and regards them as the most autonomous from the state, more organized than other NGOs, the least dependent on external funding, and with wide access to volunteers. Janine Clark (2000: 12) cites an estimate of 70% of all the registered NGOs in Yemen as religiously motivated. Islamic organizations are typically more visible and play greater roles in relief and charity work, preschool and elementary education, rehabilitation of physically and mentally disabled, primary and tertiary health care, literacy, care of orphans, and women income-generation activities In the broad context of Islamism, the Islamic associations are categorized within the stratum of ‘‘moderate’’ Islamism. While some scholars view the Islamic associations as a means to provide the alienated mass majority with a community of social and moral solidarity, Janine Clark (2000: 13) offers ample evidence that these are neither embodiments of political activism nor charitable voluntary bodies, but rather part of a social movement, and reflect a larger uncoordinated network underneath. Run by and for the educated and professional middleclasses, they serve as vehicles for cross-class recruitment and/or mobilization. Rather than vertical recruitment or mobilization of the poor, she argued that they function more to strengthen the horizontal ties of trust, solidarity, among middle-class doctors, donors, volunteers, and clients.
Empirical Data The variations in size, scope, and structure of the sector in the region, reflect a wide array of historical underpinnings and policy choices that the various countries made over the past 3–4 decades. Generally, associations in the region, argued Ben Neffisa (2001: 12) are characterized with being: few in number, carry little weight, elitist, undemocratic, and marked with patronage relations with both the governments and population they serve. The traditional charitable and social service associations, often infused with religious and family overtones, dominate the sector across the region. Estimates of these traditional forms range between 30–50% in the various countries across the region. Health, education, direct assistance to the poor, and catering for the needs of orphans or disabled children, are the main vocations of these associations. The ‘‘gap-filling’’ conception seems to hold truth in the region; associations flourish where states are weak or lack popular support, like in Algeria, Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, and Sudan, more than in countries where governments more effectively deliver services like in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States.
Since the 1990s, there has been an exponential growth in the number, scope and activities of NGOs. Several separate trends in the political, social, and international arenas converged to drive this growth. One of these is the mounting pressures emanating from the international donors, financial institutions, and Western governments on the political regimens in the region to espouse the economic and political liberalization policies. Another is the declining role or withdrawal of the governments from providing several social, health, and educational services, spheres of action customarily carried out civil society organizations. The increased mobilization of resources from charitable Islamic and Christian groups, and the increased level of funding channeled to NGOs, think tanks, and advocacy groups in the region have also led to the noted growth in number of NGO. The quest for democratization, environment conservation, consumer protection, environment, micro-lending, conservation of cultural heritage, women rights, and minorities’ rights has certainly added unprecedented dimensions for the civil society in the region since the 1990s. The new associations in these fields however remain elitist in character and fragile financially and politically. Boosted by the ‘‘globalization’’ trends on the international scene, ‘‘human rights’’ is also a growing field of civil activism across the region. The ‘‘human rights’’ discourse however tends to focus on political rights, while social and economic rights are not addressed, and rely more on engaging international organizations to stand by its cause. The forerunners of human rights organizations include professionals’ organizations and trade unions. Over the last decade, Algeria witnessed the most notable growth in number of associations, 20,000, over only a 3-year span of time. Tunisia, Jordan, and Libya have witnessed a relative increase in number of association. Two thirds of the Tunisian associations however are sought as government appendages. The same goes for Libya, Morocco, and Jordan. Egypt and Lebanon are establishing new associations at a rate of 200 and 250 per year respectively. Egypt however has a low percentage of associations per number of population, 0.2 per 100,000, and 20% of all associations are placed in Cairo. Syria is where the lowest number of association is noted, Sraah Ben Nefissa (2001: 13). One trend to note in the region is the slow, but steady, increase in the use of social media and the internet by civil society groups and activists, to compose statements, distribute anonymous political messages to targeted audiences, particularly young supporters, and to mobilize followers for demonstrations. According to the UN in 2005, 31.5% of people in the region live on less than $2/day, and 23.6% lack basic health and education services. In addition, illiteracy, human
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rights, and women participation continue to pose pressing problems for the region. The UNDP Arab Human Development Report (2005: 16) was wholly devoted to assert that a better future of the Arab world is contingent on improved participation of women in the Arab societies. The studies in the Arab World showed evidence of gender bias, more notable in the lowest income quintile population where favoring men, in intra-household consumption and investment in human capital is entrenched. Generally speaking, significant progress achieved in reducing male-female disparity in accessing education, and health services. In contrast, however, women-headed households (rising is the trend) are more likely to suffer from chronic poverty than the male-headed ones. The region recorded 3.5% average economic growth rate over the late 1990s, but women share of the total labor force continues to be low, 28% in 2005. The UNDP Arab Human Development Report (2007: 3–5) tells that women don’t have equal access to employment opportunities in the formal nonagricultural sector. Major disparities in unemployment rates between males and females are noted, highest in Egypt, Syria, and Bahrain.
Social Capital The Middle East is endowed with a rich and pervasive network of family and kinship relationships, and social networks which constitute the many manifestations of social capital in the region. Nevertheless, social capital remains a contested concept in the context of the Middle East, as elsewhere. It presents a debate no less polarized than the debate on civil society. When viewed as an instrument, as Bordieu (1986) thought of it, social capital in the Middle East, where ‘‘rentier’’ type of economy is commonplace, serves as a classic case of how the privileged use it to wield power and gain economic benefits. For the less privileged, social capital then becomes a survival mechanism that they use to help themselves overcome inequalities and gain access to goods and services that are otherwise inaccessible. Diane Singerman (1997: 172) seems to confirm this view based on her research in urban Cairo. She sees that the role of the prevalent social networks at communitylevel is ‘‘to organize individual consumers and households into a more powerful, collective body, to increase access and influence of men and women in the society, over scarce private and public goods.’’ Singerman (2006) does not merely explain the prevalence of informal networks in Egypt as a cultural issue, but accounts for the ‘‘historical legacy of intentional political exclusion by the state, which benefits some of its citizens and harms others.’’ Using the case of Egypt, she notes that although one can say that social capital is plentiful in
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Egypt, ‘‘any narrative that celebrates social capital in Egypt is problematic if it minimizes the state’s role in constricting and limiting formal, legal politics to certain realms.’’ Suad Joseph (1983) mirrors this viewpoint based on her research with the working class in Lebanon; she views family networks as the resource of the popular classes to provide security where economic and political uncertainties are ever-present. The family affiliation gives individuals identity, loyalty and physical protection and the ‘‘family has become the basis for a political community for lower-class men and women.’’ Whereas Singerman and Joseph tend to view the positive role of social networks and families at the lower stratum of Middle East societies, Bill and Leiden (1984), in their analysis of family and kinship role in Middle Eastern politics, view family and kinship in the region as part of the domineering patriarchal system where unquestionable obedience of the leader is the norm, power relations are difficult to alter and the class consciousness of individuals is limited. They argue: ‘‘the family, which is the basic unit of groups in the Middle East, retains characteristics that render it more rigid and formal than most factional and non-associational groups.’’ Family, kinship and social networks in the Middle East may be viewed as attributes to what Putnam (2000) coined ‘‘bonding social capital’’ whereby intra-group ties are strengthened, more than to the development of the ‘‘bridging social capital.’’ Diane Singerman (1997) seems to suggest that social networks involve both types. She mentions that members of the informal social networks she encountered intentionally extend membership to the more powerful stakeholders such as communal and national institutions. In contrast, Khalf (1986) seems to suggest that the strong ‘‘bonding social capital’’ within the various factions and groups in Lebanon vis-a`-vis the scarcity of ‘‘bridging social capital,’’ was the nation’s predicament that led to the outbreak of civil war and the erosion of ‘‘civic ties and national loyalties.’’ In a nutshell, it is legitimate to say that social capital in the region is an abundant resource within an intricate web of social networks, family and kinship relations. In the region’s context, it maybe useful to look at social capital from Coleman’s perspective that social capital is conceptually neutral, and its use would determine its function. Most research on the subject in the Middle East is limited to analyzing the role of family, kinship, and social networks at given community-level in the creation of social capital, while the aggregate function of social capital at larger levels of nations remains unclear. The ‘‘bonding’’ dimension of social capital to cultivate reciprocity, trust, and solidarity among the
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politically excluded and marginalized communities seems more dominant and influential, than the ‘‘bridging’’ one. This may be understood in relation with the particular social structures in the region that tend to reinforce exclusive identity within a family and kin, or the fact that social capital, under the authoritarian regimens in the region, tends to lock itself within the safer boundaries of families and kin relations.
Outlook/Concluding Assessment Junctures in the realms of culture, social structure, history, and geo-polity have been influential in shaping civil society and social capital in the Middle East. Different scholars place particular emphasis on any one realm in tackling the questions that arise with Middle Eastern civil society and social capital. A trans-temporal, steadfast, and dedicated attempt to develop a comprehensive understanding of these two concepts in the context of the Middle East is yet to emerge. In contrast to the region’s distant past in the eighth to eleventh century when there were thriving and autonomous civic associations that the widespread philanthropic impulse created, the civic associational life relapsed and lost much of its ground with the continual state encroachments during the nineteenth to twentieth centuries. Generally today’s civil associations in the region can hardly be seen as independent of the state, and, with the exception of few, they are rather appendages of it. In the past 5 years or so, however, growing pluralism and enlarged internet presence have distinguished civic action in the region, testifying to new assertiveness and sense of public mission in civil society. Nonetheless, governments across the region have not taken the announced reforms seriously, but only to cover up their continued oppressive policies. The weak civil society in the Arab world is causing the region its political and social ills, such as seriously severed trust relations in Arab societies between those who rule and the ruled. Taking into account the historical and current socioeconomic and political factors in the Middle East, the growth of civil society is only likely to take place with specific changes taking place. Establishing peace across the region will be conducive to the development of a vibrant civil society as was seen in post World War II Europe. In addition to this, the prospering of civil society in the Middle East will depend upon the extent to which the ruling regimes in the region can come to terms with a modernity project of which civil society is an essential element. The pace with which political liberalization programs will be carried out will determine the new territories for civil society action. Central to this in the Middle East is
whether or not Islamists can be assimilated within civil society and whether they will accept its definitions and terms of references. Moreover, the future of civil society will largely depend on the extent to which the full potential of women in the region can be realized and reconcile the conflicting demands that modernization pursuits places on women against the more conservative cultural heritage in the region. Finally, civil society in the Middle East will only grow if the economies will advance in ways that move away from the ‘‘rentier’’ model, provide opportunities for the low-income population to move upward, achieve higher levels of living standards and income levels.
Cross-References
▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Coleman, James Samuel ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Human Rights ▶ Non-governmental Organizations, Definitions and History ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Philanthropy in the Middle East ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Wakfs (Muslim Charitable Foundation)
References/Further Readings Sayigh, R. (1981). Roles and functions of Arab women: A reappraisal. Arab Studies Quarterly, 3, 258–274. Abdelrahman, M. (2004). Civil society exposed (pp. 79).Cairo, Egypt: The American University in Cairo Press. Abdullahi An-Na’im. (2000). Problems of dependency: Human Rights Movement in the Arab world, an interview. Middle East Report, No. 214, 30(1), 20–23. Ben Nefissa, S. (2001). NGOs, governance and development in the Arab world. UNESCO, Management of Social Transformation (MOST), Discussion Paper No. 46, Volume 4, Number 15, p. 12. Bill, J., & Springborg, R. (2000). Politics in the Middle East (5th ed.). New York: Longman. Bill, J. A., & Leiden, C. (1984). Politics in the Middle East (2nd ed.). Boston: Little, Brown. Bordieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–258). New York: Greenwood. Braudel, F. (1993). A history of civilization (p. 62). New York: Penguin Books. Braudel, F. (1992). Civilization and capitalism, 15th-18th century (Vol. 2, p. 556). Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA: The Wheels of Commerce, University of California Press. Clark, J. (2000). Islam, charity, and activism (pp. 9). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Civil Society and Social Capital in the United States Coleman, J. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94(Suppl.), S95–S120. El-Karanshawy, H. Introduction. In Philanthropy in Egypt (1st ed., pp. xx). Center for Development Services. From the Editor (2000, November). Middle East Report, 214, 1. Ibid, p. 17. Ismael, T. (1997). Civil society in the Arab world: Historical traces, contemporary vestiges. Arab Studies Quarterly, 19(1), 2. Joseph, S. (1983, February). Working-class women’s networks in a sectarian state. American Ethnologist, 10, 1–22. Kandil, A. (1994). Features of NGOs in the Arab world. In S. Ben-Nafissa, & A. Kandil (Eds.), NGOs in Egypt. Cairo, Egypt: Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. Kandil, A. (1995). Civil society in the Arab world. Cairo, Egypt: CIVICUS (Arabic Document). Karajah, Sa.’ (Ed.) (2007, April). Civil society in the Arab world: the missing concept. The International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, 9(2), 4. Khalf, S. (1986). Lebanon’spredicament (pp. 14). New York: Columbia University Press. Khalid Abou El Fadl. (2001). Conference of the books: the search for beauty in Islam (pp. xvi). Washington, DC: University Press of America. Marzuk, M. (1997). The associative phenomenon in the Arab world: Engines of democratization or witness to the crisis? In D. Hulme & M. Edwards (Eds.), NGOs, states, and donors too close for comfort. New York: St. Martin’s Press. ‘‘Middle East Report’’: From the Editor, Spring (2000), Middle East Research and Information Project (MERIP), Inc., Washington, DC, November 214, p. 1. Millennium Development Goals Report for the Arab Region. (2005). UN Commission for Western Asia, 2005. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Richard, A., & Waterbury, J. (1990). A political economy in the Middle East. Boulder, CO: Western Press. Singerman, D. (1997). Avenues of participation (p. 172). Cairo, Egypt: The American University of Cairo Press. Singerman, D. (2006). Restoring the family to civil society – Lessons from Egypt. Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies, 2(1), 17. The Arab Human Development Report (2005), United Nations Publications. Amman, Jordan: National Press. The World Bank. (2007). Middle East & North Africa, Gender Overview (pp. 16–17).
Civil Society and Social Capital in the United States CARL MILOFSKY Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA
Civil society refers to a realm of informal social networks, associations, community structures, and social movements in which processes of community and political action occur (Hunter & Milofsky, 2007; Seligman, 1992; Shils, 1991, 1997). It lies between the intimate spheres of family and
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other private activities, on one hand, and the formal organizations of the state, of the economy, and of large, paid-staff nonprofit organizations on the other (Billis, 1993; Lohmann, 1992; Smith, 1997a, b). It is both a location for certain kinds of social life and an attitude towards or a process for interacting – people choose to be civil. Civil society is hard to observe directly. It is based on relationships that often are transient, associations that are never formally constituted and whose activities often are ambiguously defined, and attributes of space like physical neighborhoods that promote an active local social life. Civil society is essential to social action and political participation in a democratic social order. Social capital is a parallel concept referring to the stock of network connections, reciprocal exchange relationships, and arrangements of trust and collective action that allow groups to transcend individual self-interest and undertake community action (Putnam, 1997, 2000; Schneider, 2006a, b). Social capital is not automatically present in a community or social system and we may characterize it as significantly present or relatively absent. Dense network ties produce trusting relationships, rich opportunities for exchange and personal gain, and community benefits that cannot be produced solely from individual, self-interested action (Coleman, 1994). Civil society is thought to be critical for democratic governance to function effectively and for states to have legitimacy with citizens. Democracy refers to political systems based on free elections that result in nonconflictual regime changes, an array of personal freedoms, rights, and social benefits guaranteed by government, and participation by citizens in the processes of governance, policy formation, and program implementation. For such a system to work well individual citizens and the institutions of the state must be linked to each other through intermediate structures. Intermediate entities allow the expression of group interests that originate at the lowest level of society and are channeled upwards (Dahl, 1961, 1981; Warren, 2001). Meanwhile they allow for information, news, and political interpretations to be channeled downwards from the level of elites to the grassroots. Civil society is the realm of intermediate entities and relationships that allows this vertical traffic of information, interests, and influence to happen (Berger, 1977; Calhoun, 1992; Couto, 1999).
Civil Society in Europe While civil society is essential for democracy, there tends to be a sharp difference in the way its role is conceived between Europe and the United States. In Europe one finds a distinction made between representative
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government and civil society influences on government. Elected representatives make legislative decisions with a measure of insulation from the public. In the United States there is an expectation that governance will be based on pluralism. This refers to competition between interest groups to directly influence the decision-making of elected representatives. In the parliamentary systems of government that prevail in Europe there generally are many political parties and small citizen interest groups tend to be affiliated with different parts of a highly segmented or divided political system. Elected representatives are given the power to make political decisions and there tends to be some resistance to granting influence in the political system to autonomous, private citizens groups. Citizens are thought to have a direct relationship to the state. Although there has been growing acknowledgement in Europe of the importance of a ‘‘civil society sector’’ often comprised of locality-based organizations, there also tends to be distrust of private special interest groups thought to be centers of elitism and reactionary sentiments. In this framework, civil society organizations are most important when they are social change-oriented political and identity movements.
Civil Society in the United States The expectation in America is that lobbyists and pressure groups will play an important role in policy formulation, in passing legislation, and in the political process generally. Of course, the most effective lobbying groups are likely to represent industries and other financially wealthy elements of society. To counterbalance them, the interests of the working and middle classes can only be represented if there exists a large number of citizens’ groups that voice concerns, challenge official actions, and have the potential to use the voting process to reward or punish politicians. A market in influence drives political decision-making. Votes and political legitimacy with the population are the primary currency. Politicians are viewed as pragmatic actors whose decisions are based on perceptions of the public mood and also in terms of their calculations of how support lines up on the different sides of an issue. Ideology and rational decision making take a back seat to the management of a chaotic, unpredictable, interactive process of politics (Lindblom, 1980). The system is anchored in an expectation that Americans will be involved in many associations in the normal course of their community and civic life. There is a perception that the United States is a ‘‘society of joiners’’ and that compared to other societies a higher proportion join informal groups than happens elsewhere (Tocqueville,
2004; Warren, 2001). An important engine of this activism is the pluralism of American society. In contrast to Europe where nations long had traditions of ethnic and religious homogeneity, the United States have had a national self-image as a society made up of many discrete groups that compete both for the benefits of public life and for ideological dominance. The futility of any single group emerging as a dominant elite has led to an expectation of pluralism. One aspect is recognition that there will be many different ethnic and identity groups that exist and must be tolerated as partners in the processes of community and politics. A second aspect is that these groups will express their distinctive viewpoints in more or less forceful and effective ways. They will compete for resources and political approval and the political system cannot keep them out of participation. These are civil society organizations and there is an expectation that American governance will include a substantial element of participatory democracy. Elected leaders may think they can follow the European principle of representative democracy and ignore the public will that is expressed through civil society organizations. Doing so, however, politicians may soon find that they are being chased from office.
Associational Life For the pluralist model of democracy to be effective a high percentage of citizens must participate in a variety of associations since these make up the understory of the political flora. Social scientists have long expressed concern that the richness of informal involvements and of social networks is on the wane (Kornhauser, 1959; Stein, 1960). Social theory tells us that this is a predictable consequence of the migration of people from rural to urban areas and the growing centrality of globalization in both world and personal affairs. As citizens become more geographically and socially mobile, as electronic media rather than direct face-to-face communication dominate our private lives, and as political life comes to be centered on professionals, associational networks and the trust and activism they breed – the quality we call social capital – declines (Aronowitz, 1996; Putnam, 1997; Skocpol, 2003). This theory about democratic decline directs our attention to the reality that associational memberships and civil society are comprised of a system of informal relationships. These exist in communities, in families, and in the spaces between major, formal institutions like bureaucratized social service institutions, businesses that make up the economy, and the formal elements of government. Three elements are primary. The first is the nature and
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quality of local community life. The second has to do with the intensity and extensiveness of family life. The third has to do with horizontal and vertical linkages that exist via associational memberships between localities and other communities and voluntary systems (Putnam, 2000). Horizontal linkages are those that cut across community boundaries (Warren, 1963). Through these, individuals have relationships that tie separate and perhaps competing communities together. Vertical linkages are those that tie individuals in the locality to regional and national systems of organization and power (Hunter, 1993; Milofsky, 2006). Social life in late nineteenth and early twentieth century America was built around geographically defined communities (Rae, 2005). Secondary organizations – the term William Lloyd Warner gave to local associations (Warner & Lunt, 1942) – were fundamental to community dynamics. Many industries were locally owned and economic institutions were integrated with community structures. Informal political, religious, and fraternal were intertwined through a system of strong network ties. Enduring relationships anchored in families, ethnic identification, and residential stability provided the context for personal social lives. Local associations provided entertainment in the form of activity clubs and they also provided venues in which the social processes of community life could be played out. Leaders of local chapters traveled to regional and national meetings of fraternal societies and through these experiences they gained knowledge and experience about civic leadership. They also provided channels of information and influence. Regional and national leaders could inform local communities about important social and political developments through their leaders. Leaders in turn could tell officials working at higher levels of social aggregation about local concerns and also could develop influence to bring resources back home. Secondary organizations were voluntary social groups created as a penumbra around the primary organizations and institutions of the community. Men’s and women’s clubs that were part of congregations are among them. Unions were part of this system. Book clubs, sports clubs, and hobby clubs were included. Local civic boards and associations were significant. Tocqueville (2004) viewed America as an associational society because these informal clubs were everywhere in local communities. Primary sources of entertainment and with identity and economic opportunity tied to affiliations one had with church and ethnic clubs participation seems to have been high. Community life also seemed to involve a physical presence on the streets where shops, parks, and cramped housing
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created a social flow and a non-intimate sense of connection, membership, and mutual responsibility that contemporary urban planners recognize and appreciate. A series of macro-social changes undermined this community system between the 1930s and the 1970s. Local businesses were gradually sold out to national corporations. The emergence of multinational corporations and the globalization of both product sales and labor markets gradually led to the failure of local heavy industries in many towns and urban neighborhoods. Meanwhile the inflation of educational credentials led young people to seek careers based more on credentials than on strong network ties. People became geographically mobile to follow jobs at the same time that numerous influence transformed a society anchored in local social life into an integrated national system. World War II played a role. The Interstate highway system played a role. Television and computers played a role. Rapid air travel played a role. Lives became less defined by membership in strong, locality-based social groups and more by individual choices and private entertainments. These processes are responsible for the perceived thinning of civil society and the decline in social capital (Putnam, 1997, 2000). One of the important manifestations of this change in community life was a dramatic decline in church participation during the 1960s. Students of religion have made much of the decline in religiosity in this period and the increase in church participation that followed in the 1990s. The 1960s decline also is one of the clearest indications we have that community life was experiencing a deep transition. Churches had been a venue for the enactment of community social processes and they also were engines for producing a penumbra of associations that both carried out church business and provided a scaffolding upon which local civil society could build. The decline of churches was both a cause and a consequence of the decline of informal community social life. As churches shrank in numbers they generated fewer informal ties. Thinner social networks meant people did not seek out the kind of social world churches provided (Cnaan, 2006).
Nonprofit Organizations The decline of intense local community life manifested fundamental changes in the way Americans lived in neighborhoods and families but it is best to see this as a process of change rather than as a process of decline. The way Americans conceived of communities and acted within them was changing. One of the most important changes was in the realm of helping and in the provision of social services. In earlier times informal relationships played an essential role in helping the disabled and the
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needy survive with independence in their neighborhoods (Klinenberg, 2002; Sampson, 2003). Similarly local fraternal societies provided economic assistance and social guidance to residents. These associations and social ties represented a social treasury by which social capital was stockpiled, trust was built, and problems were solved. The War on Poverty and programs associated with it (Marris & Rein, 1967; Moynihan, 1969) recognized that community decline also meant that basic social supports for the poor had disappeared. New programs were required to bring community members into governance structures. They also were defined and funded using a new method for distributing money: categorical grants. The previous generation of social services had often been provided through large bureaucratic organizations that had considerable decision-making autonomy and whose offices were tied to the political structure of local government. New programs were initiated at the federal level and were rationally designed to target and solve particular local problems. The classic, enduring example is Headstart providing early childhood education to poor families with a model that included education for the parents who would be included in the program. The program itself would build community and the vehicle for doing this was a new, small nonprofit organization. The War on Poverty lasted less than 5 years. Its legacy was a policy device by which distant policy planners with resources at their disposal could target specific problems at the local level, channel funds to an autonomous organization, and then develop stringent administrative and professional controls on practices. Federal government programs adopted this model for funding all manner of programs and grant-making foundations followed suit. Entrepreneurs at the local level enthusiastically pursued opportunities by incorporating local nonprofit organizations and securing grant funding that would pay for their activities. Between 1960 and 1980 the number of new nonprofit organizations grew exponentially from a national total of about 300,000 to over 900,000 (Weisbrod, 1988). The explosive growth of the nonprofit sector has been one of the significant societal changes of the last halfcentury. It would be an exaggeration to credit that growth just to the introduction of categorical grants programs and the experience of the War on Poverty. Whatever the reason nonprofits expanded an important consequence is that governments around the world have moved away from direct service provision and instead have attempted to ‘‘privatize’’ services. Salamon (1987) calls this ‘‘third party government’’ as, increasingly, traditional governmental functions have been taken over by a third party,
by nonprofit organizations. Among nonprofit organizations that are formally incorporated and that employ paid staff about 60% if their resources come directly from government (the percentage varies depending on which of the major institutions in the nonprofit sector we focus upon).
Nonprofit Organizations and Civil Society In the United Kingdom nonprofit organizations (called voluntary organizations) tend to be equated with civil society organizations. In the United States this equation has been challenged. Critics claim that the growth of the nonprofit sector has undercut the structure of informal associations that comprises civil society. The counter perspective is that new modes of political participation and advocacy action have evolved with the development of the nonprofit sector. Political representation is less anchored in local community participation and activity. We may argue, however, about whether democratic governance has become less effective as civil society advocacy has become couched in large, professionalized institutions. Decline of Democracy
Skocpol (2003) tells us that networks of local associations historically influenced political decision making via hierarchical chains that linked local fraternal society to regional and national bodies within an organization. The associations were built around a variety of social movements at the community level. Leaders of local associations made connections with leaders outside their home communities as they participated in conventions and meetings that took them away from home. This is the classical pluralist idea where local concerns and interests were passed up the organizational hierarchy while policy actions and political interpretations developed at the state or national level were passed down the system. Meanwhile being given organizational responsibilities and managing the challenges of the offices local society leaders developed civic skills that helped them move into broader political leadership roles. Participation and relationships that cut across community boundaries were fundamental to pluralistic, democratic politics in Skocpol’s eyes. Two changes have altered this dynamic. The first is development of new organizational technologies that allow national movements to draw resources from local communities without at the same time creating autonomous local organizations. Financial disconnection from local chapters has profound consequences. We may look at an organization like the YMCA (Zald, 1970) as an organization in the old mold where an international movement led to the
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formation of local chapters. Local chapters took instruction from the national body and may have received resource support in the beginning years so a local chapter could get going. Over time the local might become stronger and was more economically successful. When this happened there was pressure to contribute to the national both to support their training and administrative efforts and to help fund new or less financially successful chapters like those serving poor neighborhoods. Locals might resist these demands or making contributions they might insist on more controls over program decisions important to local chapters. This was productive tension because it forced local and national bodies to seriously engage each other, to maintain strong communications, and to negotiate around mutually significant issues. This dynamic has been changed by new social movements that combine an ideological commitment to a cause with arguments that identity changes are an important part of political change. Ideological movements like the National Organization for Women or pro-life and pro-choice abortion related organizations (Milofsky, 1997; Staggenborg, 1991) were in the vanguard that were able to create national offices that drew on local fundraising without depending on strong local organizations to raise funds. In turn there has been no need for national organizations to form exchange relationships with local chapters and a national elite of advocacy organizations has emerged that is disconnected from local movements. Instead there is a professionalized network of national social movements whose leaders influence political decision-making with little connection to local settings (Aronowitz, 1996). The second dynamic that concerns Skocpol is the replacement of local community organizations with small nonprofits run by professionals and funded by the government. In earlier days we might imagine a process where community members would recognize that some local situation has become a problem that demands action. Community members would come together to create shared awareness of the difficulty, form an association to voice their concerns, contact, and pressure government to take action, and receive resources to deal with their concerns (Milofsky, 2008). Some of these local movements might mirror national movements as was the case with temperance organizations in the early twentieth century or women’s shelter organizations between 1970 and 1980 (Loseke, 1992; Stark & Flitcraft, 1996). They all were fundamentally amateur operations with strong voluntary components. Privatization of government and creation of the new nonprofit regime has led to a process where government
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responds to protest by creating programs and hiring protest leaders as administrators (Milofsky, 2008; Piven & Cloward, 1979). This blunts protest because leaders who once challenged government now must defend government programs to former movement members. This is important because significant new resources are likely to become available for dealing with a problem movement leaders have deep concerns about. At the same time government definitions of the situation come to dominate making change-oriented practices difficult to sustain. Liability and professionalism concerns, for example, made impossible for battering shelters to retain the highly participatory and egalitarian style they established in the early years of that movement. Proliferation of small nonprofits also exhausts the capacity of communities to mobilize resources and provide organizational leaders. Each nonprofit organization needs a board of directors and these individuals are the ones who would have been civil society leaders in the past. Local organizations almost always are short of funds so the energies of board members are directed at carrying out continual small fundraising drives. Meanwhile organizational mission, program focus, and procedural requirements are all defined by funders. The result is that tremendous community energy goes into maintaining the fleet of small nonprofits in a community at the same time that civic leadership and the capacity to define new community problems is deflected into routine management business in these organizations. Political energy is neatly defused and government increasingly is run by a professionalized class disconnected from community life. Formalized Civic Capacity
The matrix of informal social relationships and trust – social capital – that existed early in the twentieth century has declined dramatically or disappeared. With it has gone the system of public representation and citizen involvement in participatory organizations and movements envisioned in pluralist democratic theories. However, this has happened substantially because society and the way we have lived our lives has changed. Putnam’s (1997, 2000) account suggests that the decline arises because citizens lives have become more private and people are less interested or involved in civic affairs (Foley & Edwards, 1997). In the nineteenth century world Skocpol describes transportation and communication were difficult and localities operated as self-sustaining systems that were loosely tied to the larger society. Today the populace is a more educated populace. Television and Internet communications allow instant, in depth, widespread sharing of news and ideas. The Interstate highway system and
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efficient air travel allow citizens in the smallest hamlets to travel widely and directly experience problematic social conditions. Small town residents can discuss problematic social conditions with knowledgeable cosmopolitan residents of other places who witness them first hand. Even international immigrants arrive, settling in new homes with detailed knowledge about travel, communications, and training to secure jobs in a new country (Levitt, 2001). Functional conditions that pushed people into intense, interactive, local community lives no longer exist. Political participation also has changed. An educated and informed populace that is well connected to communication systems can take ideas and issues formulated at the national level and apply them locally without the intermediate layers of association that Skocpol finds so important. Internet chat groups and mobilization networks are not only effective at raising funds but they also foster social relationships that are intense but not local. The 2008 presidential election showed that Internet mobilization can effectively lead to new, local community organizations that have great electoral power. We are seeing experimental efforts to use the combination of Internet mobilization and local organization to sample public opinion at the local level shaping national policy. An ideology of professional management has permeated national and local nonprofit organizations so that critical advocacy efforts generally are oriented towards maintaining stability in the existing social and political system (Aronowitz, 1996). This makes it extremely difficult for outsider social movements to influence the political system. At the same time the growth of the nonprofit sector has built a system with a permanent organizational presence where a concern with social and political issues is maintained and always present. In an earlier age political pressure would wax and wane depending on the accidents of history and public interest in political issues. There also would be geographic variation in terms of whether political movements could develop since organizational talents and political resources were not equally available in all communities. Today nonprofit organizations and movements retain a national presence because they are able to build a strong resource base and maintain a continual lobbying presence. Meanwhile, unlikely social services that respond to outsider critical groups (shelters for battered women and AIDS service organizations are important examples) exist in the smallest, most socially and politically conservative towns (Milofsky, 2008). For movement leaders concerned with effectively dealing with their core issues, it is more important to have broad coverage and reliable funding than it is to worry
about the stifling of movement energy that comes from state funding and administrative control. Furthermore the proliferation of small nonprofit organizations operating at the community level systematically pulls citizens into board and staff roles so that vast numbers of people are being trained to think in systematic organizational terms. One consequence is that when new issues or projects come along and citizens become interested and involved in developing an initiative there is high likelihood that civic organizational skills will be easy to recruit. People know how to write grants, organize fundraisers, create competent accounting records, and conduct strategic planning. These skills may be directed at creating public protest movements or they may be used to create new organizations that thrive with little funding or public visibility but with great passion. The pet rescue movement is an example of a large scale, enduring, voluntary effort carried out with passion and commitment by citizens but that has little connection to the political system. Movements like this one suggest that civil society is alive and well in America but that its form and processes have significantly changed over the last half-century.
Conclusion Social capital is comprised of networks, associations, and cross-community connections. Civil society allows this social treasury to be directed at recognizing and solving social and political problems have been transformed. These are essential qualities that must be present for pluralistic democracy to function in a society. The nature and importance of civil society tends to be different in Europe and the United States. The United States is fundamentally pluralistic in its ethnic makeup, its religious orientation, and its expectations about how political decisions will be made. Grass roots, participatory movements are expected to be active parts of the governmental decision process in a way that often is not expected in Europe. Despite these expectations the social quality of communities has changed in the last century so that social capital, understood as a dense system of social relationships at the local community level, is thinning. With the decline of social capital there is a perception that effective pluralistic democracy also is on the wane. While there may be fewer and less vital social relationships in today’s society compared to 50 years ago the emergence of the nonprofit sector on a large scale now plays an important role in giving civil society vitality. The nonprofit sector provides a permanent presence for many social service and social action agendas. There is concern that the professional quality of these organizations and their dependence on government and foundation funds
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causes nonprofit organizations to undercut social activist movements. At the same time, these organizations provide a consistency of services across society and a systematic mobilization of citizens as board and staff members of small, lightly funded organizations that gives civil society vitality. There has been dramatic social change in the way social participation and representation are organized in America. It is not clear that the new system is less effective or dynamic in terms of representing the public will.
Cross-References
▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Nonprofit Organization ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Skocpol, Theda ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Movements ▶ Third-Party Government ▶ YMCA
References/Further Readings Aronowitz, S. (1996). Against the liberal state. ACT-UP and the emergence of postmodern politics. In The Death and Rebirth of American Radicalism (pp. 125–144). New York: Routledge. Berger, P. L. (1977). To empower people: The role of mediating structures in public policy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Billis, D. (1993). Sector blurring and nonprofit centers: The case of the United Kingdom. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 22(3): 214–157. Calhoun, C. (1992). The infrastructure of modernity. Indirect social relationships, information technology, and social integration. In H. Haferkamp & N. J. Smelser (Eds.), Social change and modernity (pp. 205–236). Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Cnaan, R. A. (2006). The other Philadelphia story. How local congregations support quality of life in America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Coleman, J. S. (1994). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology Supplement, 94, S95–S120. Couto, R. A. (1999). Making democracy work better: Mediating structures, social capital, and the democratic prospect. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press. Dahl, R. A. (1961). Who governs? Democracy and power in an American city. New Haven: Yale University Press. Dahl, R. A. (1981). Democracy in the United States. Promise and performance. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Foley, M. W., & Edwards, B. (1997). Social capital and the political economy of our discontent. American Behavioral Scientist, 40(5): 668–677.
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Hunter, A. (1993). National federations: The role of voluntary organizations in linking macro and micro orders in civil society. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 22(2): 121–136. Hunter, A., & Milofsky C. (2007). Pragmatic liberalism. Constructing a civil society. New York: Palgrave McMillan. Klinenberg, E. (2002). Heat wave. A social autopsy of disaster in Chicago. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kornhauser, W. (1959). The politics of mass society. New York: Free Press. Levitt, P. (2001). The transnational villagers. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Lindblom, C. E. (1980). The policy-making process. Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Lohmann, R. A. (1992). The commons. New perspectives on nonprofit organizations and voluntary action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Loseke, D. R. (1992). The battered women and shelters. The social construction of wife abuse. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Marris, P., & Rein, M. (1967). The dilemmas of social reform. New York: Atherton. Meyerson, M., & Banfield, E. C. (1955). Politics, planning, and the public interest; The case of public housing in Chicago. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Milofsky, C. (1997). Community organizations and the new politics. In J. Stanfield (Ed.), Social justice philanthropy. Research in social policy (Vol. 5, pp 139–168). Milofsky, C. (2006). Small towns and mass society. In R. Cnaan & C. Milofsky (Eds.), Handbook of community movements and local organizations (pp. 60–73). New York: Springer. Milofsky, C. (2008). Smallville. Institutionalizing community in twentyfirst century America. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England. Moynihan, D. P. (1969). Maximum feasible misunderstanding. New York: Free Press. Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1979). Poor people’s movements. Why they succeed, how they fail. New York: Vintage Books. Putnam, R. D. (1997). Bowling alone: Democracy in America at century’s end. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–79. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York/London: Simon & Schuster. Rae, D. (2005). City: Urbanism and its end. New Haven: Yale University Press. Salamon, L. (1987). Partners in public service: The scope and theory of government-nonprofit relations. In W. W.Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector. A research handbook (pp 99–117). New Haven: Yale University Press. Sampson, R. J. (2003). Neighborhood-level context and health: Lessons from sociology. In I. Kawachi & L. F. Berkman (Eds.), Neighborhoods and health. (pp 132–146). New York: Oxford University Press. Schneider, J. A. (2006a). Social capital and welfare reform: Organizations, congregations, communities. New York: Columbia University Press. Schneider, J. A. (2006b). Small nonprofits and civil society: Civic engagement and social capital. In R. Cnaan & C. Milofsky (Eds.), Handbook of community movements and local organizations (pp. 74–88). New York: Springer. Seligman, A. (1992). The idea of civil society. New York: Norton. Shils, E. (1991). The virtue of civil society. Government and Opposition, 26, 3–20. Shils, E. (1997). The virtue of civility. Indianapolis, IN: The Liberty Fund. Skocpol, T. (2003). What we have lost. In Diminished democracy (Chap. 6, pp 221–253) Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Smith, D. H. (1997a). The rest of the nonprofit sector: Grassroots associations as the Dark Matter ignored in the prevailing ‘‘Flat Earth’’ maps of the sector. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 26, 114–131.
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Smith, D. H. (1997b). Grassroots associations are important: Some theory and a review of the impact literature. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 26, 269–306. Staggenborg, S. (1991).The pro-choice movement. Organization and activism in the abortion conflict. New York: Oxford University Press. Stark, E., & Flitcraft, A. (1996). Women at risk. Domestic violence and women’s health. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Stein, M. R. (1960). The eclipse of community. An interpretation of American studies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tocqueville, A. de. (2004). Democracy in America (A. Goldhammer, Trans.). New York: Library of America. Warner, W. L., & Lunt, P. S. (1942). The status system of a modern community. New Haven: Yale University Press. Warren, M. E. (2001). Democracy and association. Princeton, NJ/Oxford: Princeton University Press. Warren, R. L. (1963). The community in America. Chicago: Rand McNally. Weisbrod, B. A. (1988). The nonprofit economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Zald, M. N. (1970). Organizational change: The political economy of the YMCA. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Civil Society and Social Capital in West Africa EBENEZER OBADARE University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
Introduction In order to understand the evolution of civil society in West Africa, particularly how the concepts of civil society and social capital are understood there, it seems necessary to place the subregion in a sociohistorical context. There is a fairly established, and not entirely irrational, tendency among historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and political scientists to analyze West Africa as a unitary geographical, economic, and political space. This is due to several factors. One is that long before colonial interruption and the process that eventuated in the creation of today’s postcolonial states, a tradition of sustained interregional migration and trade had fostered something approximating a pan-regional consciousness (Adamu, 1978; Manuh, 2006; Lovejoy, 1980). Created in 1975, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) was, in a way, an institutional symbol and expression of this history of continuous economic, cultural, and political interaction. Second, in the modern era, and linguistic differences notwithstanding, the subregion has been notably porous in terms of the circulation of cultural forms and political phenomena. One illustration is the way in which popular agitation for sovereign national conferences in the
Francophone speaking parts of the subregion (starting with the successful example of the Republic of Benin in 1990) managed to percolate to the Anglophone parts, though with varying degrees of success. Part of the explanation for this, apart from the intangible but largely predictable process whereby social and academic concepts are dispersed, is the presence across the subregion of what appears like a common postcolonial political culture, especially in terms of the profound alienation between the governing classes and the citizenry. This relationship (or the absence of one in a majority of cases) is clearly the norm, whether in the examples of relatively stable countries like Senegal and The Gambia, or others like Nigeria and Ghana where the military class was once (touch wood) a disruptive force. Consequently, one goal of civil society groups has been to reconfigure the political culture by working towards greater political accountability on the part of the national ruling elites. While mobilization to hold ruling elites to account is clearly of historical vintage, going as far back as the nationalist agitation for independence from colonial rule, the same is not true of the terminology – civil society – that is now commonly used to describe both the groups and activities involved. Civil society did not become pandemic in West Africa until the late 1980s and early 1990s. This was an important phase in the political evolution of West African societies. Beginning with Ghana in March 1957, West African countries had gradually thrown off the yoke of French, British, and Portuguese colonialisms, enthroning leaders who promised that everything was possible once the political kingdom had been wrested from the hands of the colonial oppressors. Nevertheless, by the early 1990s, after more than 3 decades of putative political independence, there was clear frustration at the failure to translate hard-earned political freedom into economic liberation. This was despite the fact that, in the immediate aftermath of independence, many West African countries had posted consistently high growth rates, sometimes (as in the case of Cote d’Ivoire) as high as 10% per annum (Olukoshi, 2004). Such was Cote d’Ivoire’s upward mobility that, at a point, its capital, Abidjan, in a significant testament to its prosperity and homely serenity, was dubbed ‘‘the Paris of Africa.’’ Just as in other parts of the continent, this ascent did not last. By the late 1980s, much of the entire subregion was caught up in a spiral of economic downturn, one that the political leadership (instructively, in a majority of cases, the same leadership that had wielded power since independence) showed little imagination in responding to. The implementation of Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) at the instance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank did nothing to stem the
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downward spiral. By deepening popular immiseration, SAP actually made individual political regimes even more unpopular, leading to an often bitter social ferment which saw student associations, religious groups, trade unions, women’s groups, professionals, the media, and sundry civic associations literally take up arms against the state. Although the contexts and contents of these popular movements varied from country to country, the broad aims were to remove unpopular leaders (military or civilian) and to undo the pauperizing economic policies that, in the view of many, seemed to have been codified by the philosophy of Structural Adjustment. It was the rump of these popular movements that, starting from the late 1980s, assumed the mantle of civil society.
Civil Society As suggested above, the discourse of civil society in West Africa emerged in the context of radical sociopolitical fermentation. The most common understanding of civil society is of the welter of civic associations and activities that occupy the space between the national state and economy on the one hand and people’s daily lives on the other. The essential notion, as Goran Hyden once surmised so pithily, is ‘‘to cater for those whose place at the state table is not reserved’’ (Hyden, 1997: 27). Understandably, therefore, there is a primarily political understanding of civil society, in that it is seen as that aspect of general society that exists to rein in an often overbearing, if not apathetic, state, while ensuring in the process that the same state is constantly reminded of its responsibility to the poor and marginalized. Because of this, across West Africa, civil society and civil society organizations are more often than not part and parcel of the wider discourse of liberal democracy. Perhaps owing to the specific circumstances in which civil society entered the general vocabulary, they (civil society organizations) are expected to act as the linchpin of democratic agitation, which is eventually expected to be translated into economic, that is, bread and butter, terms. Non governmental organizations (NGOs) are the most visible contemporary expression of this yearning. Functioning as what David Lewis refers to as ‘‘wider institutions of transnational governmentality’’ (2002: 9) they have been an integral part of the social, economic, political, cultural, and reproductive spheres in West Africa since the mid 1980s. The earliest ones in Nigeria, to take an example, were established in the 1980s to fight for the rights of women, the poor, the disprivileged, and (political) prisoners. Nigeria’s oldest civil, gender, and human rights advocacy groups, like Women in Nigeria (WIN), the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (NADL) the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), the Committee for the Defence
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of Human Rights (CDHR), and the Constitutional Rights Project (CRP) were all established between 1983 and 1990 (Akinrinade, 2004). Since the early 1990s, and in a seeming irony, there has been an explosion in the number of such NGOs, in part because the economic and human rights situations they set out to campaign against have actually worsened in tandem with the increase in the number of groups campaigning against them, and partly because international human rights and development groups have often provided generous funding for them. At the end of the 1990s, in a country of 10 million people, at least 200 NGOs were officially registered with Burkina Faso’s NGO Monitoring Office, the Bureau de Suivi des NGOs (IDEA, 1998). Due to their visibility and relative access to resources, NGOs have been at the forefront of both the promotion of the idea of civil society and the calculation of an agenda for it. In this, they have been more successful than not because of their links with the media, the business class, and the intelligentsia. Indeed, the most successful NGOs usually comprise individuals from various social spheres. Their modest successes notwithstanding, NGOs have not been without their critics. Some of the accusations leveled (sometimes legitimately) against them are: that for groups intent on promoting democracy, they are all too often rigidly hierarchical; that they are mostly urbanbased, steering clear of the hardships in the rural areas; that they are politically and culturally disembedded; and that they rely too heavily on external grants for their sustenance. The harsher criticisms relate to their perception as vehicles of elite accumulation (the late Nigerian Afrobeat musician and social activist, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, dismissed NGOs as ‘‘En j’iwo,’’ meaning ‘‘you are stealing money’’) (Obadare, 2007) and serious skepticism about their capacity (especially in the case of development NGOs) to deliver on promises of economic prosperity. Ultimately, many see them as nothing more than a dubious ruse to preserve elite dominance of politics in developing countries. While the jury is still out on some of these allegations, there is no denying that a focus on the shrubbery of NGOs has tended to obscure scrutiny of, and interest in, the general landscape of civil society. As suggested earlier, part of the blame for this diversion should go to NGOs themselves, though they have been unable to abolish the fact that a tradition of organizing civically is a recurrent thematic in West African history right from precolonial times. Such associations include hometown associations, trade guilds and business unions, development associations, women’s associations, and peasant groups, all collectively testifying to the vitality, complexity, and robustness of social life in various local communities (Honey & Okafor, 1998).
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Depending on locale, these associations served different kinds of roles, but most significantly, they provide(d) spaces for sociability for members and oases of support amid allpervading material austerity. In rejecting the tendency in contemporary civil society discussions to ‘‘primordialize’’ these associations, Meagher (2005) has emphasized one of their most significant attributes, particularly in precolonial West Africa, which is their embeddedness across kinship, ethnic, and religious cleavages. This rejection itself is important because it goes to the heart of critical debates on the meaning and possibility of civil society in non-Western contexts. In West Africa, as in the rest of the continent, the much theorized segmentation between ascriptive groups and voluntary associations (Rosenblum & Post, 2002) has little or no empirical substantiation. On the contrary, recent civil society activism across the subregion has drawn equally from both founts.
Social Capital In contemporary West Africa, social capital as a concept has none of civil society’s ubiquity. Social capital owes its recent revival to the work of scholars like James Coleman (1990), Robert Putnam (1993, 2000), and Francis Fukuyama (1995) respectively. The core proposition in the discourse of the idea of social capital can be summarized as follows: ‘‘Societies work best, and have always worked best, where citizens trust their fellow citizens, work cooperatively with them for common goals, and thus share a civic culture’’ (Rotberg, 2001: 1). Outside of this safety zone, the larger world of the social capital debate is disputed territory. A persistent source of tension is the difficulty involved in separating social capital from other kinds of capital, for example economic capital or human capital (Ostrom & Ahn, 2003). In addition, there are different forms of social capital (for instance scholars distinguish ‘‘bridging’’ from ‘‘bonding’’ social capital). Also, it is not entirely clear how social capital works, and under what conditions it becomes productive, as the theory goes, of ‘‘goods’’ like civil society, economic growth, and political stability. Finally, while it is generally agreed that social capital may not necessarily be continuous; there are no clear guidelines as to how and under what circumstances specific forms of social capital may freeze, or what becomes of such societies, and how they are to rebuild social capital. Because of this, and particularly for African societies, mainstream emphasis on the ‘‘modernizing’’ potential of social capital can often seem like the definitional equivalent of having a gun pointed at one’s head, in which case the stark choice is either to do as one’s assailant dictates, or risk serious harm. But not all societies are like Western
societies (in any case not all Western societies are alike), and the expectation that political systems whose patterns of state evolution, elite formation, and civic engagement are different than the West’s will evince similar social capital seems a tad unfair. So, what is to be done? How can social capital be rescued from its apparent conceptual straitjacket? How can it be employed to provide illumination in societies and political cultures that operate according to different social and cultural logics? Some scholars have suggested using social capital as ‘‘a metaphor’’ rather than ‘‘a theoretical proposition,’’ and ‘‘to describe empirical realities rather than directly to use or refute the available theory’’ (Rotberg, 2001: 5). For those who adopt this approach, the key issues for (West) Africa will then be: What kinds of social capital have respective societies accumulated right from the precolonial period through to the present era? How do these forms of social capital help us to understand the political culture that has emerged there? As said earlier, there exists among different societies across the subregion (as in the rest of the continent) a rich and deeply-rooted tradition of both intra- and inter- communal cooperation. This is shown in the existence of a wide variety of mutual aid groups, age-related groups, kinship, and lineage groups, religious associations, associations that operate strictly along gender lines, and thrift and credit unions, etc. Through these associations, ‘‘norms and normative codes through which people are made accountable and responsible to other members of society’’ (Hann & Dunn, 1996: 20) are generated. They (civic associations) also draw philosophical breath from a cultural code in which ‘‘notions of moral obligation and interpersonal accountability’’ (Kelsall, 2008: 627) are highly privileged. In closing this section, it is important to put on record two phenomena which, in recent times, have put this cultural code and the people’s sense of collective solidarity under profound stress. One is the economic crisis which has been on the ascendance since the early 1980s, an adverse consequence of which has been massive social destabilization due to mass rural–urban migration. Another effect is the erosion of the basic trust that has always characterized interpersonal relations in many of these communities. Second, sporadic sectarian violence involving adherents of opposing religious groups, in particular Christian and Islamic groups, have created mutual distrust.
Empirical Data Events in the political and economic spheres have dictated the nature of activities engaged in by civil society groups in various West African countries. Since analysis of individual countries is impracticable in an essay of this nature,
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the appropriate focus should be on some commonalities. For the sake of expediency, the focus here is on the political sphere. Within the past 2 decades, the cause ce´le`bre for civil society groups across West Africa has been the expansion of the public space and the inauguration of pluralist ethos. As noted earlier, the Francophone countries could be said to have made the first tentative steps in this direction, though in general, all the countries in the subregion were impacted in one way or the other by the logic of the global Third Wave of democratization. Since independence in the 1960s, basic political power had been exercised by members of a narrow elite (civilian or military) in various West African countries, with some of them becoming in the process reluctant emblems of personalist hegemony. Examples are Benin Republic, Togo, and Cote d’Ivoire, where Mathieu Kerekou, Gnassingbe Eyadema, and Houphouet Boigny respectively held on to the reins of power for several decades, often at exorbitant social costs. In these and many other countries, the repression of civil society activity had led to a contracting of the public space, which also meant significant civic atrophy. For civil society groups in the different countries, the Third Wave of democratization was a crucial window, particularly as many of them could readily count on moral and financial support from various western countries and institutions. This was the social backcloth to the remarkable explosion of civic, human rights and community based associations, voluntary associations, and student and youth groups across the subregion in the early to mid 1990s. Nigeria is a case in point. In a report prepared in 2000, the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), noted that in the decade of the 1980s, more civic organizations were registered than in any other period in the postindependence history of the country. Unsurprisingly, a high percentage of NGOs currently in existence were registered during that period. Predicated on an existing culture of communal organizing which has been noted earlier, and radicalized by the charged political atmosphere (and a worsening political climate), the groups campaigned vigorously for an end to military dictatorships, the termination of personalist rule, and in places like Benin Republic, Mali, Nigeria, and Cote d’Ivoire, a sovereign national conference with a mandate to rewrite the political destinies of the respective countries. At the apex of the surge in Nigeria was the Campaign for Democracy (CD), an umbrella body for other pro-democracy groups. In addition to pro-democracy groups, NGOs flourished in many other aspects of social life, including education, conflict resolution, health and reproductive rights, women’s rights, the environment, and economic rights.
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As said before, the agenda of these groups was usually determined by the character of the regime in place and fallouts from the political sphere. Thus, for civil society groups in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Cote d’Ivoire, mobilization has been directed at bringing the fratricidal violence in the respective countries to an end. The example of Liberia, where a trans-ethnic and trans-religious coalition of women’s groups was crucial to the peace process is particularly instructive. In a way, it provides an apt summary of the countless struggles for peace, democracy, and social justice engaged in by different groups across the subregion. It is also a measure of how much the public space has been opened up in the last 2 decades to include marginalized groups like women. However, important as these groups, particularly development and human rights NGOs, are, it is grossly misleading to equate their apparent density with either an effective civil society, or a vibrant public sphere. We have already noted some of the problems with NGOs in particular. Furthermore, as argued elsewhere (Obadare, 2005), an extensive network of civic associations hardly translates into democratic vitality. The reason is that associations themselves come in various ideological colors – some are progressive, and most are not. Indeed, organizations within civil society may well frustrate democratic aspirations. The more significant conceptual caveat is that the notion of civil society ought to be seen as transcending associations; that is, it is not difficult to imagine nonorganized ways through which ordinary people in West Africa variously engage with, resist, defy, and oppose the state. For example, scholars like James Scott (1990) and Alex Thomson (2000) have documented various creative means (the ‘‘hidden transcripts’’) by which the subordinate classes across Africa hold their own in the face of state repression or apathy. Such means, like ridiculing of state officials through different traditional media (Olukotun, 2002), remain valued by groups and cultures in the subregion.
Outlook/Concluding Assessment There exists in West Africa a robust and deeply embedded associational culture. This culture predated colonial rule, and arguably subtended the nationalist agitation for independence in the 1960s. The emergence of a new generation of ‘‘modern’’ NGOs in the last 2 decades has introduced a new dimension to this culture. It would seem therefore that civil society has two faces (the ‘‘traditional’’ and the ‘‘modern’’) as Ndegwa (1996) seems to argue for the whole of Africa. In fact, the emergence of the discourse of civil society and the popularity of the idea can be traced to the emergence and social visibility of these NGOs. The space for their emergence and
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subsequent success was made possible by a coincidence of state failure and the global shift toward liberal democratic principles. It is arguable that in the aftermath of this fortuitous conjuncture, the usual penchant of regimes in the subregion for ‘‘systematic destruction of broad-based autonomous social organizations’’ appears to have been tamed somewhat (Reno, 2005, 139). Yet, the outlook remains grim, especially if we are to judge by recent events in Guinea where, in December 2008, the military returned to power following the unexpected demise of President Lansana Conte after. What this suggests is that, though there are tangible gains to be pointed out as a result of the liberal fermentation of the 1990s, such gains remain fragile indeed. That being the case, civil society organizations would appear to have their work cut out for them.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Action ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Southern Africa ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in East Africa ▶ Civil Society: Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society Theory: Walzer ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History
References/Further Readings Adamu, M. (1978). The hausa factor in West African history. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press. Akinrinade, S. (2004). On the evolution of civil society in Nigeria. In M. Glasius, D. Lewis, & H. Seckinelgin (Eds.), Exploring civil society political and cultural contexts (pp. 141–148). New York: Routledge. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. New York: The Free Press. Hann, C., & Dunn, E. (Eds.) (1996). Civil society challenging western models. London: Routledge. Honey, R., & Okafor, S. (Eds.) (1998). Hometown associations indigenous knowledge and development in Nigeria. London: Intermediate Technology Publications. Hyden, G. (Spring 1997). Civil society, social capital, and development: Dissection of a complex discourse. Studies in Comparative International Development, 32(1), 3–30. International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA) (1998). Democracy in Nigeria Continuing Dialogue(s) for Nation-Building International Capacity-Building Series 10. Burkina Faso. Kelsall, T. (2008). Going with the grain in African development? Development Policy Review, 26(6), 627–655. Lovejoy, P. E. (1980). Caravans of kolat the hausa kola trade, 1700–1900. Zaria: Ahmadu Bello University Press.
Manuh, T. (Ed.) (2006). At home in the world? International migration and development in contemporary Ghana and West Africa. Ghana: SubSaharan Publishers. Meagher, K. (2005). Social capital or analytical liability? Social networks and African informal economies. Global Networks, 5(3), 217–238. Ndegwa, S. N. (1996). The two faces of civil society: NGOS and politics in Africa. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Obadare, E. (2005). Second thoughts on civil society: The state, civic associations and the antinomies of the public sphere. Journal of Civil Society, 1(3), 267–281. Obadare, E. (2007). Religious NGOs, civil society and the quest for a public sphere in Nigeria. African Identities, 5(1), 135–153. Olukoshi, A. (2004). Towards the restoration of a social state in Africa. In A. Triulzi & M. C. Ercolessi (Eds.), State, power, and new political actors in postcolonial Africa (pp. 249–271). Milan: Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrnelli. Olukotun, A. (2002). Traditional protest media and anti-military struggle in Nigeria, 1988–1999. African Affairs, 101(403), 193–211. Ostrom, E., & Ahn, T. K. (Eds.) (2003). Foundations of social capital. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Putnam, R. (1993). Civil society traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Reno, W. (2005). The politics of public intellectuals under Abacha and after. In J. I. Guyer & L. Denzer (Eds.), Vision and policy in Nigerian economics: The legacy of Pius Okigbo Ibadan: University of Ibadan Press. 129–147. Rosenblum, N. L., & Post, R. C. (Eds.) (2002). Civil society and government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rotberg, R. I. (2001). Social capital and political culture in Africa, America, Australia, and Europe. In R. Rotberg (Ed.), Patterns of social capital stability and change in historical perspective (pp. 1–18). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Thomson, A. (2000). Introduction to African politics. New York: Routledge.
Civil Society and Social Inequality THOMAS KLIE Zentrum fu¨r zivilgesellschaftliche Entwicklung, Freiburg, Germany
Introduction At a time when social inequalities are on the increase both within nations and in the relations between poor and rich countries, the notion of civil society has become a matter of particular interest in national as well as supranational debates. However, this coincidence tends to engender mistrust whenever countries or supranational bodies pin their hopes on the civil society (or the ‘‘global civil
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society’’) as a resource in the creation of a fair and just world in the age of globalization. At the outset of debate, after all, globalization was associated with the hope that it would lead to a liberal, democratic, and just world order. There is an expectation that with the emergence of a global civil society, a more emancipated world order would be created. The liberal, cosmopolitan idea of a global civil society refers to the widening, deepening, and accelerating global interconnectedness and interdependence. Many normative international theorists insist that an emerging global civil society would reconstitute the positions of power and authority in international society. Yet not only governments are shaping the international society. In fact, a growing number of internationally operating NGOs, global civic networks and global social movements are influencing (inter-)national decision-making and the agenda of world politics. The concept of civil society always contains a visionary core that is essential for every national and supranational society or association of countries (Kitamura, 2005). Albeit all liberality that is inherent in the concept of civil society, the notion of social inclusion and of societal commitment to make social inequality an issue and to tackle it is also part of this vision.
Definition Following Hradil (2001), the definition of social inequality is addressed whenever some individuals regularly receive more of a society’s valuable commodities than others on the basis of their position within the social fabric. Valuable commodities, in this respect, are regarded as goods commonly perceived as precious and thus capable to determine life conditions. For instance, money, permanent employment, education, social participation, health, or power can be rated as valuable commodities. However, not all advantages and disadvantages, not all betterments and degradations can be referred to as manifestations of social inequality, but only those distributed in a socially structured, comparatively permanent and generalisable way. Their connectedness to relatively constant societal ties and positions distinguishes social inequalities from other forms of diversity (Hradil, 2001, S. 29). Social inequality exists (and has existed) in all known contemporary and historical societies and is, even though it may appear naturally, always a socially constructed fact (Greiffenhagen, 2002). Premodern explanation patterns interpreted social inequality often as a fact of nature or as a divine concept. Aristotle, for example, explained slavery with the natural fact that some individuals are born for
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subjection, others to rule. From ancient Greece to the caste system in India, (social) inequalities were perceived as natural. Equality as a political aspiration was not expressed until Rousseau’s disquisition about the causes and principles of inequality or with Karl Marx’s ‘‘programme on equality.’’ Social and political effects of social inequality were made subjects of sociology, political science as well as of social philosophy. The macroeconomic effects of uneven distribution are disputed. In the economic-political debate, they are associated with a positive function, since social equality would disable competition and thus neutralise personal accelerating incentives. In public health contexts, social inequality within nations can systematically be put into a relation with the society’s state of health and the prevalence of chronic diseases. The perception of an uneven distribution is interpreted as a factor of societal destabilization (Sen, 1997). Particular manifestations of social inequality can be most diverse. Admission to health care services or different shares in the increasingly important access to water can be as important as access to knowledge, education, or money. In civil society contexts, social inequality comes to be an issue in various respects. In the Latin American emancipation movements of the last century’s sixties and seventies, social inequality was one of the core topics. The confrontation with social inequality in a less political sense is the self-chosen purpose of civil society organizations throughout. And finally, however, civil society organizations with their distinctive middle-class orientation might conserve social inequalities in industrialized countries.
Key Issues Empirically, one can identify a tension between civil society and social inequality in several respects: ● On a global scale, it becomes evident that in the age of globalization, the gap between poor and rich countries is increasing parallel to the international discourse in civil society. In the shadow of globalization, it also comes into notice that according to Paul Collier (2007) the ‘‘bottom billion,’’ i.e., the countries that miss out in the process of globalization, are mainly those lacking what is usually associated with civil society: Protection of human rights, tolerance, democratic participation, renunciation of violence and sustainable economic action in ecological, social, and economic respects, etc. The emancipatory power of civil society is yet based on cultural and political preconditions and on education – elements that especially the losers of globalization lack of. Nevertheless,
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hardly any official objectives for development aid or scientific cooperation are made without claiming that civil society structures are to be enhanced. Democratically ‘‘not sufficiently’’ legitimated governments are to be controlled and in a sense of good governance, corruption-tending political and economic elites should be confronted with controlling elements. ● It is not just the gap between thriving and ‘‘losing’’ countries, basically between North and South that is widening. The gap between the poor and the rich within the industrialized world is widening, too – thus creating losers under the globalization winners. Moreover, on the respective national levels one may critically identify that civil society-related types of voluntary commitment, of NGO activities and of democratic participation can lead to exclusion mechanisms (Brooks & Geer, 2005): People with low education or income and typically people with a migration background are clearly among the groups less represented in the participation in civil society contexts. Individuals with a migratory background are as excluded from civic involvement as people from social strata with poor education or a low degree of participation are (Gensicke et al., 2005). In a civil society, essentially interpreted as the ‘‘third sector’’ or the area of NGOs, lower social ranks and disadvantaged milieus are less represented. Furthermore, it becomes evident that in those fields of commitment associated with the civil society, bonding effects can rather be identified than bridging effects (Putnam, 2001). This holds likewise true for the relationship between generations (senior citizens tend to help senior citizens while younger people tend to help younger people) as for milieus: Emerging solidarity often operates from a particular social origin back into the same milieu. Hence, effects of exclusion rather than inclusion can be observed as developments in the domain of voluntary action and NGOs.
Future Directions and International Perspectives It is a question whether civic involvement with its emphasis on the middle-class (Gensicke, 2006) is dividing the society but also how this can be tackled and how alliances between generations and different milieus can be created. It becomes evident that those social strata displaying less commitment are confronted with the dilemma that they lack both material and nonmaterial resources to get involved in civil society – and that for this very reason, they fail to access socially, integrative, and occupationally relevant learning processes. At best, a civilisation of charity in national and international contexts can be
ascertained: Altruism is being civilized in the discourse of civil society. It strongly reflects a sociological interpretation and motivation patterns in a sense that a not socially integrative society is neither safe nor does it grant freedom to its members. Despite all integrative power that goes with civil society as a general concept, there is a danger that a simplified understanding of civil society as civic commitment for common welfare purposes and as the level of NGO activities (Salamon et al., 2003) may divide society and that it may promote exclusion rather than inclusion of groups exceptionally threatened by marginalization. Adhering to the opinion that the vision of an international civil society as a perspective for more justice in the world does not have an alternative, this will have implications on a normatively and strategically fixed concept of civil society. This implies a tradition of critique introduced from the civil society that was time and again of highest historical significance, like for example in the democratic emancipation movements in South America in the twentieth and twenty-first century or in Europe during the nineteenth century. New social movements and NGOs like the worldwide open platform of the World Social Forum (WSF) stand in this tradition. The World Social Forum has become a place and a process where diverse movements and groups promoting alternatives to corporately led globalization have come together to clarify the collective aims and identities and to forge new international partnerships. Despite the wide range of groups and interests, there is a common call for a more democratic and equitable global order. The WSF-process is, like the civil societies it consists of, fraught with tensions and uncertainties as well as possibilities. It represents an international civil society that advocates the vision of a global civil society beyond the limits of national concepts (Smith et al., 2007). On the respective national level it does not suffice to equate civil society with the third sector and NGOs. The NGOs themselves pursue their particular interests and it should not be delegated to them to deal with state failure, effects of global economic developments or structural changes in the welfare system. A multidimensional concept of civil society could not only grasp civil society as an area between state and market that is autonomously organized by the citizens but also as a conception of society that accepts the interdependence of societal sectors as the basis of all activities (including state-run actions). It would understand civil society activity as a mode of interaction in a sense of fair and negotiation-oriented action with gradual integration of civil society preconditions into the particular system logic including normative implications like human rights, tolerance, or the state monopoly on the legitimate
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use of physical force. Such a civil society will make social inequality and its minimization its central concern. This holds true both on a national level (regarding the fact that civil society can guarantee participation in society and contribute to social inclusion) and on an international level (since civil society is not only created and defended locally, but reflects the responsibility for consequences of own actions in other parts of the world). This insight applies for states as well as for corporations, for NGOs and for the citizens. A civil society discourse not accepting social inequality as an essential concern and not reflecting the effects of commitment in civil society regarding the impending aggravation of social inequality does not satisfy the normative preconditions of a civil society. The liberal-cosmopolitan idea of global civil society requires new agendas towards international ethics. There is awareness that the benefits of globalization are not equally distributed and that this inequality is a threat to the vision of a global civil society. It is clear that globalization has not only created one world but has also created a divided world. It is nowhere near that all people are included in a global civil society. Many are left outside its boundaries and remain excluded. Even though global civil society is flourishing, it is clear that it is divided. Global civil society, which could promote global democracy and justice, bears an essential, significant meaning. Nevertheless, in practice it is a contested idea. Despite of being normatively ideal to reflect a global public sphere, it can include others only to a certain extent. This problem results in an idea of global civil society being controversial in terms of an ethical evaluation. The more this idea emphasizes the principle of the inclusion of people as global citizens, the more the idea disregards the limits of inclusion of marginalized people (Brooks & Geer, 2005).
Cross-References ▶ Altruism ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Good Governance ▶ INGOs ▶ Social Movements ▶ World Social Forum
References/Further Readings Brooks, D., & Geer, J. G. (2005, September). Incivility, negativity, and campaigns. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, Marriott Wardman Park, Omni Shoreham, Washington Hilton, Washington, DC, from http://www. allacademic.com/meta/p41527_index.html; 06/30/2008 Collier, P. (2007). The bottom billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Gensicke, Th. (2006). Bu¨rgerschaftliches Engagement in Deutschland. Das Parlament, with the Supplement Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 12, from http://www.das-parlament.de/2006/12/beilage/002.html; 20.03.2006 Gensicke, Th., Picot, S., & Geiss, S. (2005). Freiwilliges engagement in Deutschland 1999–2004: Ergebnisse der repra¨sentativen Trenderhebung zu Ehrenamt, Freiwilligenarbeit und bu¨rgerschaftlichem Engagement. Carried out by TNS Infratest Social Research on behalf of the Federal Ministry for family affairs, senior citizens, women and youth, from http://www.bmfsfj.de/Kategorien/ Forschungsnetz/forschungsberichte,did = 73430.html; 06/27/2008 Greiffenhagen, M. (Eds.) (2002). Handwo¨rterbuch zur politischen Kultur der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Hradil, S. (2001). Soziale Ungleichheit in Deutschland. Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Kitamura, O. (2005, March). Global civil society in a world of difference: Inclusion, justice and international ethics. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Hilton Hawaiian Village, Honolulu, Hawaii, from http://www.allacademic. com/meta/p69697_index.html; 06/27/2008 Nolte, P. (2003). Zivilgesellschaft und soziale Ungleichheit. Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen, 16(2), 38–45. Putnam, R. D. (2001). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. London: Simon & Schuster. Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski S. W., & List, R. (2003). Global civil society. An overview. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, from http://www.jhu.edu/ccss/publications/ pdf/globalciv.pdf; 06/27/2008 Sen, A. K., & Foster, J. E. (1997). On economic inequality. Oxford: Clarendon. Smith, J. et al. (2007, August). The world social forums and the challenges of global democracy (With updates on the Recent US Social Forum). Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, from http://www.allacademic.com/ meta/p177724_index.html; 2008–07–21
Civil Society and the Elderly JU¨RGEN KOCKA, KAI BRAUER Social Science Research Center, Berlin, Germany
Introduction Due to an increasing life expectancy and low birth rates the share of the elderly of the population is increasing in many countries. In Germany, the share of those aged 60 or older amounted to 14.6% in 1950 and 23.6% in 2000, and is estimated to be around 40% in 2050 (StBA, 2006). The equivalent values for the same years in the United States are 12% (1950) to 16% (2000) and 27% in 2050, while in Europe they are 12% (1950) to 20% (2000) and 35% in 2050. The worldwide share of persons over 60 has grown from 8% in 1950 to 10% in 2000 and will more than double to 21.5% by 2050 (UN, 2006). The share of the
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elderly who are (no longer) part of the labor force has been increasing in many countries in the past decades, especially where social security systems make possible the transition to retirement without impoverishment. As an average of all OECD countries the labor force participation rate of 55–64-year-olds was only 54.2% in 2006 – with big differences in rates between countries (OECD, 2006). Only 8% of the 65–69-year-olds in Europe were gainfully employed (Eurostat, 2006), whereas in the United States the labor force participation rate of people over 65 increased from 12% in 1998 to 16% in 2008 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2008). The following questions with regard to civil society arise from the increase in life expectancy, the lengthened life time after the employment phase, and the increased share of the elderly: To what extent can the elderly contribute to strengthening and activating civil society through their civic engagement? To what extent can civic engagement contribute to societal inclusion and to the enrichment of the life of the elderly after they exit from the labor force? To what extent can the increasing need to take care of the elderly be dealt with in civil society; to what extent can civic engagement, in this respect, supplement the family- and kin-based networks as well as professional assistance? To what extent do civic groups and activities contribute to protecting the basic rights of the elderly and struggle against or prevent their discrimination? One has to look at the extent, the preconditions, and the consequences of civil engagement for the elderly. This relates to the debates about ‘‘productive aging’’ (Butler & Gleason, 1985), about services that the elderly perform for the community, and about the inclusion and well-being of the elderly – in each case through civic engagement.
Definition The category of ‘‘the elderly’’ or ‘‘the aged’’ is generally determined by age, but there is no common or general definition. Thus Paul Baltes referred to 60 as the beginning of the ‘‘third age’’ and 80 as the beginning of the ‘‘fourth age’’ (Baltes & Smith, 1999). In the literature dealing with the labor market, persons older than 50 or 55 already belong to the group of ‘‘older employees.’’ Studies of old age generally begin with this group, and sometimes even with younger groups. In most countries, the beginning of retirement is determined to be 65. For this reason this figure is frequently used as the beginning of the phase of old age, as in Burgess (1960). Surveys show the popular view of the beginning of old age as between 70 and 75 (Kohli & Ku¨nemund, 2002: 98). As the agerelated decline in performance, engagement, and health varies enormously, definitions that are oriented on
biological age have to be viewed critically (see Neugarten, 1982). In view of the increasing differences between the elderly, Bill Bytheway (2005a, b) sharply criticized the use of upwardly open age group definitions because they suggest a homogeneity between 50-, 60-, 70-, 80-, or 100-year-olds which obviously does not exist. When aging in civil society is discussed in the following article, less thought is given regarding age groups beyond a certain numerical age and more regarding social groups that normally find themselves in the post-occupational phase. Thus, a qualitative criterion is used that is based on the trichotomy of the life course which has emerged as typical for modern societies. However, the sharp distinction between the phase of employment and retirement – still a useful heuristic tool for analyses – has become more fluid in recent development and is predicted to become more gradual in the future. The following definition is found in an amendment to the Older Americans Act of 2005: ‘‘The term ‘civic engagement’ means an individual or collective action designed to address a public concern or an unmet human, educational, health care, environmental, or public safety need.’’ This refers to ‘‘voluntary work,’’ work not for wages or for individual profit (Anheier & Salamon, 1999). It distinguishes between formally organized civic engagement (community organizations, parties, unions) and informal civic engagement (neighborhood, peer group, family). The elderly surely make their greatest contribution to society within the family by looking after their grandchildren and supporting their adult children or taking care of their spouses or other relatives. These familyrelated activities will not be discussed in the following sections. Rather, the discussion will deal with the civic engagement of the elderly outside their families: activities in civil organizations, networks, and initiatives of civil society.
Key Issues Civic Engagement of the Elderly
It was long believed that old age was naturally accompanied by a retirement from gainful occupations and public life. This was explicitly formulated by Cumming and Henry (1961) as disengagement theory: ‘‘The elderly disengage from productive social roles in order to relinquish these roles to younger members of society. As the process continues, each new group moves up and replaces another, which, according to disengagement theory, benefits society and all of its members.’’ This implies that, in addition to gainful employment, the elderly also relinquish civic engagement to the younger generations and that this is in
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accord with societal succession arrangements. This does appear to hold true to a certain extent, as most studies actually show a decline in engagement with increasing age. For example, the intergenerational volunteering survey of the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) shows that volunteering increases with age up to about 65 and decreases thereafter (Harootyan & Vorek, 1994). Volunteering tends to decline most clearly among the very old, typically for those beyond the age of 75. One argument against the simple assumption of a voluntary withdrawal of the elderly in the sense of the disengagement theory is the observable strict correlation between withdrawal and poorer health, because this holds true for all age groups (Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006). Health status has a powerful effect on volunteering. This explains part of the observable withdrawal of the elderly from volunteering. It is also noticeable that the engagement of the elderly is highly variable and has increased noticeably in some countries in the past decades. Clear increases in the engagement of persons older than 65, were documented in the AARP survey in some American states starting in the 1960s and going on into the 1990s (Chambre, 1993). On the basis of German surveys it has been shown that volunteering rates increased between 1999 and 2004 from 26% to 30% among those aged 60 and older and from 31% to 37% among those between 60 and 69 years (Gensicke, 2006). With data from the German Aging Survey no differences between rural and urban regions in the intensity of engagement of elderly are proven (Scherger et al., 2004). We also have to take into account the fact that the amount of the engagement of the elderly is highly variable. According to a survey of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics in 2006, the active elderly reported an average of 2 h of engagement weekly. But 10% reported more than 10 h. Furthermore, it shows that multiple activity is widespread. Elders are often involved in several formal and informal activities. In the Commonwealth Productive Aging Study (Caro & Bass, 1995) four areas were surveyed: gainful employment, voluntary engagement, informal long-term home care, and looking after grandchildren. Three quarters of the people between 65 and 74 are active in at least one of these areas, a third of them in two or more areas. An international comparison of the amount of participation is generally doomed to failure due to the available data, differing definitions, and measuring methods. The fact that regional differences are important was shown by Putnam (2000) and a comparative study of 10 European countries (SHARE). According to the
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definition selected in this study, around 10% of the Europeans between 65 and 75 did voluntary work or the like (Bo¨rsch-Supan et al., 2005). At the same time a strong North–South divide was revealed. This share is highest in the Netherlands – it is over 25% there – followed by the Scandinavian countries. In Spain and Greece, on the other hand, less than 4% of the people older than 50, do volunteer work. Whether this is due to institutional reasons or whether one must look for explanations in the area of culture or modernization theory will have to be investigated further. In contrast to the widespread ‘‘crowding out’’ assumptions, which proceed from the assumption of a decline in civic engagement in view of large welfare state expenditures, the reported evidence seems rather to indicate the opposite (‘‘crowding in’’): The voluntary engagement is greater in European countries with a well-developed social welfare system and a high level of social services than in countries that are poorer in these respects. The newest research has not confirmed the disengagement theory. The elderly do not necessarily withdraw from voluntary work after going into retirement. On the contrary, they sometimes even participate to an increasing extent in clubs, neighborhood associations, and civic groups. With more exact measurement, a slight increase is seen in the rate of engagement directly after the transition to retirement that only declines with increasing age. This supports approaches that see in civic engagement a compensation (Baltes & Baltes, 1990) for the loss of activities at the workplace. The research also shows, though, that persons who were civically engaged in earlier years exhibit a higher probability of also being active in retirement than those who had no experience with civic engagement in younger years (Smith, 2004; Erlinghagen & Hank, 2006). Productive aging has to be learned and prepared for in early stages of the life course. Effects of Engagement on the Elderly
The data of the European Social Survey show that traditional volunteer work in associations and organizations, namely in sports clubs, social clubs, churches, and religious groups, as well as in welfare organizations, constitutes the most common form of civic engagement for the elderly. The engagement of the elderly in neighborhood and citizens’ initiatives, but also in senior citizens’ cooperatives and self-help initiatives appears still to be relatively marginal. However, out of all age groups, people over 60 express the strongest political–public interest. In political parties, which suffer from a lack of younger members in many countries, people between 65 and 75 are the most willing to accept an honorary office.
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This is an area that is varied and capable of development. Much is in fluctuation. Engagement in clubs, initiatives, and self-organized institutions offers the chance for meaningful activity, for retaining and developing competencies, for self-affirmation, social recognition and inclusion – precisely for the life phase after full gainful employment. Also contacts with people in other age groups could arise from this. In contrast to the many forms of gainful employment with their hard discipline and heteronomy, taking over civic activities is usually possible in smaller, variable amounts – depending on the capabilities and preferences of the elderly persons (Kocka, 2007: 359–360). Much speaks for the fact that civic engagement and the well-being of the elderly correlate. But it is often difficult to determine whether one is dealing with selection effects or whether the well-being of the elderly was improved through engagement. When comparing, among those 70 and older, inactive persons and those who had volunteered more than 100 h per year, after 7 years of clinical findings did not show significant differences (Lum & Lightfood, 2005). But the civically active elderly assessed their state of health to be significantly better than the inactive group did. This is evidence for the fact that civic engagement cannot clinically slow down the process of aging, but has a positive effect on the general well-being. At the same time the type of civic engagement is important. Analysis of the data from SHARE for Europe has shown that voluntarily performed services go together with an increase in well-being particularly when these services have a high degree of societal recognition (Wahrendorf et al., 2006). Governmental Promotion of the Engagement by the Elderly
Policy can make it easier to use the potential of the engagement of the elderly. The United States, where the Older Americans Act (OAA) has provided the administrative support for the engagement of the elderly since the 1960s, is considered to be the forerunner in this respect. A starting point for this can be found in the Foster Grandparent Program (FGP) that was launched 1965 as a pilot program designed to engage people over 60 with some income limitations in community service. The Domestic Volunteer Service Act of 1973 (amended in 1999) improved the legal and financial basis for such programs like the Senior Companion Program (SCP). It was meant to expand the role of low-income older volunteers who provide person-toperson services. The program Senior Corps, that expressly pursued an intergenerational approach, resulted from the linkage of the FGP and the SCP. It supported preferentially
older people (as mentors) and younger people (as their pupils). It sought to use the specific capabilities and life situations of the different generations, so, for example, the support by the younger elderly in the care of the oldest groups. Along with two comparable programs (AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America) Senior Corps finally became part of the newly formed Corporation for National and Community Service (NCS). NCS brings the wide range of domestic community service programs under the umbrella of one central organization. Thus a complex system of governmental promotion of civic engagement has come into being in the United States, which is designed to alleviate societal injustices and is based on voluntary participation. Volunteers in the NCS receive some financial support for living expenses. This fact is occasionally criticized, because of the perforation of the border between gratuitous volunteering and low-wage jobs (Bass, 1995; Martinson & Minkler, 2006; Moody, 2001). This criticism is answered by the argument that engagement has positive effects for those who practice it voluntarily and in a selfdetermined way, and that poorer people cannot be included in the system of civil society without financial support, which is exactly what the programs of the NCS aim at. As it is well documented, the socioeconomic status has a strong influence on the likelihood of engagement (Tang, 2008). Voluntary organizations are therefore advised to facilitate older adults from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds in taking volunteer roles. In most European countries such promotion is limited to general tax deductions for financial contributions to nonprofit organizations, for the establishment of foundations, and similar engagement. There are various programs for the elderly in some European countries. The EU also promotes voluntary engagement in the course of its efforts to integrate the elderly more strongly into the labor market. The specific promotion of engagement beyond the pension age is, however, just beginning. Financially securing the subsistence in old age is one of the central governmental responsibilities in many European countries, especially in Scandinavia and Germany. The result of this is a generally high level of integration of the elderly in the social welfare system, especially through universal health insurances (Leisering & Leibfried, 1999). But additional programs for promoting the civic engagement of the elderly were initiated in recent years. Bottom Up: The Nonprofit Organizations of the Elders
In an international comparison, a connection is also seen between the extent of engagement of the elderly and the existence of organizations that represent the interests of
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the elderly in regard to old-age policy. As Erlinghagen and Hank (2008) have shown, the civic engagement of the elderly is comparatively low in Greece, Spain, and Portugal. Organizations for the elderly are also hardly known or insignificant there. On the other hand, the lobbies for policy for the elderly are influential in northern Europe, especially in Great Britain. Age Concern, an umbrella organization for more than 350 initiatives in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, has a turnover of over £80 million yearly through donations and nonprofit activities (Annual Report, 2007) and attempts to influence laws to protect the rights of the elderly. In Europe, Great Britain with Age Concern and other initiatives is considered to be the forerunner. Even the British organizations cannot match the attainments of the American lobbies for the elderly, though. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) with 30 million members is the largest independent (nonprofit, nonpartisan) organization in the United States. It is not the only representation of the elderly in the United States. It competes with the Alliance for Retired Americans (ARA), which emerged from the National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSC), and the American Seniors Organization (ASO), which is close to the Republican Party. In the struggle for members and influence these organizations attain a high level of activation. The organizations are capable of influencing political decisions. This goes together with the fact that there is no other country with a stricter safeguarding of the basic rights of the elderly than the United States. Laws against age discrimination in gainful employment, e.g., the AntiDiscrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) which was passed in the 1970s and the formidable Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), offer effective protection and participation regulations for elderly jobseekers which also have an effect on the area of civic institutions. Through the establishment of the National Center on Elder Abuse (NCEA) and the Administration on Aging (AoA) within the US Department of Health and Human Services, effective governmental institutions were created which did not supersede the work of the many civic institutions, but apparently motivated it. In addition to the mass organizations already mentioned (AARP, ARA, ASO), there are also a multitude of nongovernment, nonprofit organizations that perform practical work for the elderly and are active in different task areas. Here it is important to mention the American Society on Aging (ASA), the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education (AGHE), the Elvirita Lewis Foundation (ELF), and the National Council on the Aging (NCOA). In addition to these organizations that work for the elderly and
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against ageism in general there are also organizations that represent specific groups of the elderly. The most well-known are surely the Older Women’s League (OWL), the National Caucus on Black Aged (NCBA), the National Association for Hispanic Elderly (NAHE), and the National Senior Citizen’s Law Center (NSCLC), a nonprofit group of attorneys, which legally represents the elderly poor. The impulses to protect the rights and the standing of the elderly emerged originally from the civil rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The vast governmental funding for research into old age – and thus enlightenment – has surely also had a supportive effect. The National Institute on Aging alone has a yearly budget of US $1 billion at its disposal. Its founding director Robert N. Butler is considered to be the inventor not only of the concept of ‘‘productive aging’’ but also of the concept of ‘‘ageism’’ (Butler, 1969; Brauer, 2008). With his work he strengthened the basis of the struggle against age discrimination, which a large number of organizations are now devoted to. Today, Butler is the president of the most internationally important nonprofit organization devoted to fighting ageism: the International Longevity Center (ILC) in New York (www: www.ilcusa.org).
Future Directions The civic engagement of the elderly has grown considerably in the past decades. Much indicates that it will grow further. It has gained importance in the course of demographic change. On the one hand, the increasing number of active elderly and those who could be activated in the future represents a large resource for strengthening civil society. The civic engagement of the elderly can also contribute to meeting the ever-increasing need to supplement professional care institutions and family care-givers in regard to care for the frail elderly. On the other hand, various types and amounts of civic engagement after the phase of gainful employment – after the exit from the labor force – offer the elderly the opportunities for meaningful activity, for social recognition, for intergenerational contacts, for life enrichment. The promotion of civic engagement of the elderly is increasingly being seen as a political objective. High social welfare standards and governmental activities for the elderly tend to support their civic engagement. Societies in which the civic engagement of the elderly is supported by political means and in which the elderly find organizations that protect them as a group from discrimination and in which they can represent their group interests will probably see increasing rates of engagement in the future. This strengthens their productivity.
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Cross-References
▶ AARP ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civic Action ▶ Corporation for National and Community Service ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (1999). Volunteering in cross-national perspective: Initial comparisons. Law & Contemporary Problems, 62, 43–65. Baldock, C. V. (1999). Seniors as volunteers: An international perspective on policy. Ageing & Society, 19, 581–602. Baltes, P. B., & Baltes, M. M. (1990). Psychological perspectives on successful aging: The model of selective optimization with compensation. In P. B. Baltes & M. M. Baltes (Eds.), Successful aging: Perspectives from the behavioral sciences (pp. 1–34). New York: Cambridge University Press. Baltes, P. B., & Smith, J. (1999). Multilevel and systemic analyses of old age: Theoretical and empirical evidence for a fourth age. In V. L. Bengtson & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of theories of aging (pp. 153–173). New York: Springer. Bass, S. A. (Ed.) (1995). Older and active. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Bo¨rsch-Supan, A. (2005). A new comprehensive and international view on ageing: Introducing the survey of health, ageing and retirement in Europe (SHARE). European Journal of Ageing, 2, 245–253. Brauer, K. (2005). Bowling together: Clan, clique, community und die Strukturprinzipien des Sozialkapitals. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fu¨r Sozialwissenschaften. Brauer, K. (2008). Ageism in aging societies: Ein ‘‘natu¨rliches’’Problem? In K. S. Rehberg (Ed.), Die Natur der Gesellschaft. Frankfurt a.M./ New York: Campus. Bureau of Labor Statistics (2008). US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (data.bls.gov/PDQ). Burgess, E. W. (Ed.) (1960). Aging in Western societies. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Butler, R. N. (1969). Age-ism: Another form of bigotry. The Gerontologist, 9, 243–246. Butler, R. N., & Gleason, H. P. (Eds.) (1985). Productive aging: Enhancing vitality in later life. New York: Springer. Bytheway, B. (2005a). Ageism. In M. L. Johnson, P. Coleman, & V. Bengtson (Eds.). The Cambridge handbook on age and ageing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bytheway, B. (2005b). Ageism and age categorization. Journal of Social Issues, 61(2), 361–374. Caro, F. G., & Bass, S. A. (1995). Dimensions of productive engagement. In S. A. Bass (Ed.). Older and active (pp. 204–216). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Chambre, S. (1993). Volunteerism by elders. past trends and future prospects. The Gerontologist, 33, 221–228. Cumming, E., & Henry, W. E. (1961). Growing old: The process of disengagement. New York: Basic Books. Erlinghagen, M., & Hank, K. (2006). The participation of older Europeans in volunteer work. Aging & Society, 27, 567–584. Eurostat (2006). Eurostat news release 129/2006 (29 September 2006). Gensicke, T. (2006). Freiwilliges Engagement a¨lterer Menschen im Zeitvergleich 1999–2004. In T. Gensicke, Freiwilliges engagement in Deutschland 1999–2004 (pp. 265–301). Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag fu¨r Sozialwissenschaften.
Harootyan, R. A., & Vorek, R. E. (1994). Volunteering, helping and gift giving in families and communities. In V. L. Bengtson & R. A. Harootyan (Eds.). Intergenerational linkages: Hidden connections in American society. New York: Springer. Kocka, J. (2007). Chancen alternder Gesellschaften. Merkur. Deutsche Zeitschrift fu¨r europa¨isches Denken, 61, 357–361. Kohli, M., & Ku¨nemund, H. (2002). La fin de carrie`re et la transition vers la retraite – Les limites d’aˆge chronologiques sont-elles un anachronisme? Retraite et Socie´te´, 36, 81–107. Leisering, L., & Leibfried, S. (1999). Time and poverty in Western welfare states. United Germany in perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lum, T. Y., & Lightfoot, E. (2005). The effects of volunteering on the physical and mental health of older people. Research on Aging, 27, 31–55. Martinson, M., & Minkler, M. (2006). Civic engagement and older adults: A critical perspective. The Gerontologist, 46, 318–324. Moody, H. R. (2001). Productive aging and the ideology of old age. In N. Morrow-Howell et al. (Eds.), Productive aging: Concepts and challenges. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Neugarten, B. L. (Ed.) (1982). Age or Need? Public Policies for Older People. Beverly Hills: Sage. OECD – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2006). OECD Employment Outlook 2006: Boosting jobs and incomes, from www.oecd.org Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Scherger, S., Brauer, K., & Ku¨nemund, H. (2004). Partizipation und Engagement a¨lterer Menschen im Stadt-Land-Vergleich. In G. Backes et al. (Eds.), Lebensformen und Lebensfu¨hrung im Alter (pp. 173–193). Opladen: VS. Smith, D. B. (2004). Volunteering in retirement: Perceptions of midlife workers. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33(1), 55–73. StBA – Statistisches Bundesamt Deutschland (2006). 11. Koordinierte Bevo¨lkerungsvorausberechnung – Annahmen und Ergebnisse. Wiesbaden. Tang, F. (2008). Socioeconomic disparities in voluntary organization involvement among older adults. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 37, 57–75. UN – Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat (2006). World population prospects: The 2006 revision, from esa.un.org/unpp Wahrendorf, M., Siegrist, J., & von dem Knesebeck, O. (2006). Social productivity and well-being of older people – Baseline results from the SHARE study. European Journal of Ageing, 3, 67–73.
Civil Society and the European Union BEATE KOHLER-KOCH Universita¨t Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
Introduction Research on civil society and the European Union (EU) has become a growth industry and it reflects both a growing presence of organized civil society in EU affairs
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and rising expectations in the democratic virtues of a European civil society. From the very beginning, a core question has been, if civil society can enhance the democratic quality of the EU. In spite of this common interest, the concept of civil society is highly ambiguous, which makes it difficult to put the different strands of thinking together. Scholars are attached to their own research agenda and those who are primarily interested in the constitutionalization of the EU (Fossum & Trenz, 2006) will take a different stance from those who take up the issue of relocation of social activism (Ruzza, 2004) and those who want to know how the involvement of organized civil society in EU governance affects the democratic legitimacy of the Union (Greenwood, 2007; Kohler-Koch, 2007). This article will try to make sense of the various meanings of civil society in the context of the EU, explore key issues such as the influence of civil society organizations on EU policies, the involvement of civil society in the shaping of Europe, the contribution to democratic legitimacy, and it will also indicate future directions both in real-world developments and in research.
Definition There is ample evidence to support the observation by Finke (2007: 20) that two scholars who refer to civil society and the EU may not necessarily mean the same thing and that this is even more obvious when political activists talk about civil society. The observer is faced with a puzzling variety of meanings, which are, more often than not, only implicit because many authors shy away from giving a precise definition. Kohler-Koch (2009) has argued that ‘‘it is difficult to agree on the political role and the democratic credentials of civil society in the EU not just because the concept of civil society is ambiguous but also because civil society is linked to different images of the nature of the European polity.’’ Is the EU a political community in the making or rather a persistent supranational polity or just a system of multilevel governance? From the perspective of an emergent political community the constitutionalization of Europe is closely linked to the image of civil society as the embodiment of the EU’s social constituency. European citizenship has conferred civil rights on the European people and is embodying a common European identity. Civil society, however, does not emanate from the rights of individual citizens, but from a communicative process, which forms an imagined political community. In this line Trenz (2009) has defined European civil society as a discursive formation within the public sphere. This selfascription among active citizens, ready to line up with
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others, conveys an image of civil society with strong positive connotations. It is a one in all representation of the active citizenry, which gives legitimacy to those who speak as representatives of civil society. Civil society as such, however, has no actor quality. Actor quality comes with organized civil society. When the EU is taken as a supranational polity, civil society is seen as comprising a multitude of associations that connect the realm of the political with the social. With an ever-expanding membership and a constant deepening of its competence, the EU is in need of public support. Organized civil society is said to represent the diversity of interests, value preferences, and tastes; civil society organizations (CSOs) are functioning as intermediaries and are thus complementing the democratic input of the European Parliament and the member state governments. By inserting ideas from the grassroot level and by bringing the wealth of citizens’ knowledge to the decisionmaking process, organized civil society is expected to contribute not only to the input, but also to the output legitimacy of the EU system. The democratic potential of organized civil society is a core concern for all those who see the EU as a political system with state-like features. Scholars who approach the EU from a policy-analysis perspective are mainly interested in the functioning of this system of multilevel governance. The ‘‘governance turn’’ in EU studies has drawn attention to the cooperative forms of policy making involving both public and private actors in the common effort to attain problem-solving efficiency. The introduction of new modes of governance such as the ‘‘open method of coordination’’ (OMC) has underscored the importance of civil society actors, but CSOs also figure prominently in the traditional setting of European law-making. Sabel and Zeitlin (2008: 276) have argued that CSOs have the capacity ‘‘to generate novel possibilities for consideration’’ by bringing in their unfiltered experience. They are an asset in a system of multilevel governance geared at joint problem solving. The governance approach has not developed a coherent concept of civil society; rather CSOs are seen as individual participants in an open process of policy deliberation. These different images of the Union have a strong imprint and can explain why scholars have difficulties to speak to each other. The variety of definitions adds to the confusion. The hypothesis that the meaning of civil society can be reduced to just two basic conceptions has been tested in a survey among academics who have published works on civil society and the EU. The correlation between the agreement scores for different definitions supports a dual image of civil society. Kohler-Koch and Quittkat (2009: 16–17) have called it a ‘‘social sphere
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approach’’ locating civil society in the sphere of social interaction and a ‘‘governance approach,’’ which is focused on civil society organizations articulating and representing the interests of a constituency.
Historical Background The different images of civil society have surfaced in different periods of the integration process. Organized civil society has a long history in the European Communities. From the beginning, the support of societal forces was considered to be indispensable for creating a new Europe. However, as long as European integration was mainly an effort to build a common market, relations with civil society was limited and targeted at market actors. With the surge of policy regulations extending beyond the free movement of goods and services set off by the Treaty of Maastricht in the early 1990s, public interest associations and social movement coalitions increasingly turned to Brussels and joined the already large constituency of interest groups.
Key Issues Interest Politics by Organized Civil Society
EU scholars interested in politics and policies of the European system addressed the newcomers from the perspective of interest group research. Accordingly, the focus was on the collective action problem of societal interests, on biased representation, and on access and influence. Not civil society, but organized civil society was at the fore and this also reflected the self-ascription of the groups, which had a substantial interest in more environment-, consumer-, and human rights-friendly EU policies. The question raised by Balme and Chabanet (2002: 21) ‘‘who is profiting from Europe?’’ moved to center stage. It instigated detailed policy studies investigating the lobby impact of economic interest groups as compared to the impact of groups representing diverse interests. Notwithstanding differentiations due to varying factors such as actor constellations, issue salience, and context conditions, research findings tell a consistent story: Public interest groups have become organized at EU level, they have gained access to policy makers, have had an impact on the setting of the political agenda but have largely failed to shift policy outcomes in their favor. De Bie`vre (2008: 4) argues that this weakness does not result from a lack of presence or a lack of expert knowledge, ‘‘but may well be explained by their lack of resources to diminish or enhance the chances of political actors to be reelected or reappointed.’’ This creates an implicit link between CSO performance and the potential resonance in a
wider European public, which up to now is an underresearched field. Although the resource-influence-driven approach is still prominent in comparative politics, an explicit civil society discourse gained ground. It emanated from the increased relevance of other forms of collective actions, such as social movement activities and political contestations (Imig & Tarrow, 2001) and also from growing concerns about the transformation of civil society and democracy in the process of European integration. For Ruzza (2004: 1) the relocation of social activism to the Community level has manifold consequences for civil society. By introducing a sociological approach he draws attention to the importance of cognitive factors and the relevance of framing and communication for the flow of ideas from social movement coalitions to European governance. Ruzza (2004: 180) argues that the field of advocacy coalitions in Brussels ‘‘(. . .) is in part informed by bureaucratic politics, but also by an attempt to legitimize the project of European construction – (. . .) – and by joint engagement in promotional causes with social-movements representatives.’’ These insights have spurred the interest in the polity dimension of civil society engagement, above all in the potential of organized civil society to support the democratic legitimacy of the EU. Opening the EU to Civil Society
The White Paper on European Governance (Commission, 2001) made public that the EU was concerned about the declining permissive consensus among European citizens. It set the frame for the present EU–society relations. The ‘‘involvement of civil society’’ became the ‘‘ide´e directrice’’ and with it the principle of participation was put first. Accordingly, not only directly affected stakeholders, but also civil society organizations representing general interests, usually figuring as NGOs, were to be involved in the dialogue on Europe. Good governance characterized by openness, participation, accountability, effectiveness, and coherence was put on the agenda and EU institutions, above all the European Commission, became engaged in participatory engineering. The efforts resulted in what Kohler-Koch and Finke (2007: 212) have classified as a participatory consultation regime. Standard operation procedures were established to increase transparency and new instruments such as online consultations were designed to augment inclusiveness by lowering the thresholds for access. Observers agree that EU institutions have become more dedicated than ever before to give CSOs and citizens a voice; consultations are addressing a wider public and the new instrument of online consultations has multiplied since the turn of the millennium from less than
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a dozen to 100 and more in recent years and has attracted large numbers of respondents. The strategy of involving civil society has cumulated in institutionalizing a ‘‘civil dialogue’’ in the Constitutional Treaty. The mushrooming of societal interests in Brussels and the civil dialogue is, however, only part of the picture. It is worth mentioning that in the same time period, expert groups have increased considerably and the CSOs, especially public interest organizations, are in a minority. Furthermore, the handling of EU–society relations is far from uniform. In their survey study Fazi and Smith (2006: 35) found that the Commission ‘‘is generally perceived as the most pro-active institution,’’ the European Parliament is seen ‘‘to be particularly open to NGOs and their concerns,’’ whereas the Council ‘‘is often depicted as the most closed institution.’’ The expectation that new modes of governance, such as the Open Method of Coordination (OMC), would be more open to societal actors than the Community method of law-making and that it would bring local civil society into the multilevel system of EU governance, did not materialize. In her literature review Kro¨ger (2008) reports that the participation of CSOs in OMC was for the most part marginal and did not encourage open deliberation. And the striking evidence of an exceedingly poor involvement of CSOs in the new member states draws attention to the underlying power relations. Bo¨rzel (2009: 266) points out: ‘‘State actors themselves see their weakness as a major obstacle for cooperation with non-state actors.’’ EU–society relations also vary across policy fields and administrative departments. Even though the involvement of organized civil society is accepted in principle, some General Directorates are pace-setters and others are laggards. In the field of third world development, in employment and social affairs, and also in public health and consumer protection, Commission services have in many ways even supported the formation of interest groups. They have also pushed for institutionalized cooperation among groups by granting access selectively and by designating quasi-official functions to CSO alliances; they used CSOs as service providers and, last but not least, as public relations platforms. Bauer (2002: 388) has called this Commission –civil society relation ‘‘lobby sponsoring.’’ A similar critical view relates to funding. As Greenwood (2007: 343) has pointed out: ‘‘Virtually every one of an estimated constituency of 300 citizen interest groups organized at EU level receives EU funding.’’ The Commission and influential public interest groups have justified funding ‘‘to counterbalance existing power imbalances within society’’ (The Social Platform, 2006). Funding
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was decisive both in promoting the representation of public interests and in aggregating the multiplicity of (small) groups in networks and umbrella organizations. Eight such networks constitute the Civil Society Contact Group, which, in their own understanding, represents the rights and value-based NGO sector and looks after common institutional interest such as a fair representation in the EU ‘‘civil dialogue’’ or in the various dialogue and advisory groups of the Commission. Did funding and ‘‘lobby sponsoring’’ curb the autonomy of civil society organizations? Empirical analysis gives evidence that European CSOs are quite unyielding but in the pursuit of their substantive interests they have the tendency to advocate ‘‘European solutions’’ and as a result support the Commission and the EP in their strive to gain more competence. Therefore, the promise of ‘‘involving civil society’’ has not bridged the gap between Europe and the people, but rather sponsored a Brussels-based CSO elite working in the interest of deeper integration. Civil Society a Remedy to the European Democratic Deficit?
When trying to assess the democratic value of civil society engagement, we have to take into account that normative benchmarks vary by theoretical approach. Theorists of liberal democracy will rank equal representation, effective participation, and political accountability first. From this perspective, civil society involvement will enhance the democratic quality of EU governance when it contributes to giving citizens a voice, to redressing biased representation and to exerting a citizen watchdog function so as to hold decision makers accountable. Notwithstanding the Commission’s recent efforts to becoming more open, inclusive, and participatory, equal representation has not been achieved. Even the easily accessible online consultations show asymmetries: market-related organizations such as business and professional associations are far more numerous than general interest organizations. Equally pronounced is the distortion in territorial representation: The old and large EU member countries are overrepresented when compared to the smaller member states and the recent accession countries. However, it is worth noting that CSOs from Central and East European countries feel well represented by their EU-level confederations. The presence in numbers is a proxy and not a reliable indicator for democratic participation. The relevant criterion ought to be what Dahl called ‘‘effective participation’’: having impact on output. Civil society groups have increased pressure to put in place an efficient and effective dialogue and joined forces with responsive Commission
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departments to review and monitor CSO involvement. As a result, the Commission administration is easily reached while the influential scientific and comitology committees are largely off limits; they still lack transparency and members are recruited without civil society overview. Accountability is a strong mechanism to make participation effective. The principle is well acknowledged in the EU, but accountability relations do not necessarily involve civil society. The European Parliament renders account to the European electorate and the Council – apart from legal accountability – is not accountable collectively yet each government is subject to domestic accountability. The Commission, due to a lack of resources and legitimacy is more reliant on the input of societal groups and consequently more receptive to the call for civil society accountability. As part of an improved consultation procedure the Commission has committed itself to provide feedback and give reasons why relevant positions have or have not been taken on board. A synthesis report following consultations is now common, but not a universal practice. The legal obligation of transparency, the requirement to submit impact assessments on major policy initiatives, the pledge to provide road maps to better track the consultation and decision-making process, and the above-mentioned feedback procedures are stepping stones to accountability. However, all these procedural innovations do not institutionalize accountability in the strict sense. The Commission is not subject to any legally binding obligation to account for its decisions, and the political commitment to do so is at the discretion of the Commission. Furthermore, the readiness of the Commission to render account is constraint by institutions: The Commission is a strong player in the EU decision-making process because the Council and the European Parliament act on its proposal; in order to keep this strong position the Commission has to retain autonomy and should not be forced to negotiate with tight hands. Hence, it is in the logic of the system that civil society cannot exact accountability by imposing consequences on the Commission. Civil society can neither exert legal nor political sanctions, and soft sanctioning by blaming and shaming has limited impact since publicity is limited. Thus, when assessing the role of CSOs from the perspective of liberal democracy we see improvement but the system does not live up to given normative standards. The picture looks different though not brighter when looked at from the perspective of deliberative democracy. In recent years, the discourse on EU–civil society relations was heavily influenced by normative theories advocating deliberative democracy as the best suited model for organizing democracy beyond the nation state. The benefits of deliberation and the potential contributions of civil
society organizations to enhance the epistemic quality of decisions are well argued in theory (Eriksen & Fossum, 2000). The findings from empirical research, again, are sobering. Instruments of participatory engineering aiming at directly involving citizens, such as ‘‘citizens’ forums’’ or ‘‘Cafe´ debates,’’ reach only small groups and at best raise awareness for European issues in a very small sector of society. The new consultation instruments, which are the most open such as online consultations and public hearings provide no space for deliberation (Hu¨ller, 2008). Only a few privileged Brussels NGO networks and CSO umbrellas enjoy continuous and face-to-face working relations with EU institutions, which are a prerequisite for deliberation. Furthermore, these deliberations hardly reach beyond Brussels. Numerous case studies support the assessment by Dabrowska (2007: 299) that the intensified exchange of views between EU institutions and NGOs do not ‘‘support the emergence of a larger engaged public and deliberation in the general public sphere.’’
Future Directions Summing up we can conclude that the positive connotations of civil society have spurred a participatory discourse and that the dedication of the EU to involve civil society has resulted in a consultation regime that is more open, transparent, and inclusive than ever before. ‘‘Values- and rights-based’’ groups have become more prominent but effective participation in terms of impact on outcome is still biased. High hopes in the amelioration of the European democratic deficit did not materialize. Rather, participation centered on organized civil society is instrumental to ‘‘better legislation’’; it motivates CSOs to professionalize and act as efficient advocates. The recent shift in the official EU terminology from civil society to stakeholders is indicative of this more output-oriented approach. The future of civil society in the EU will be closely linked to the Europeanization of national civil societies. The Europeanization of national civil societies still is under-researched and taking into account the vast differences in civil society cultures across member states it is not possible to draw any general conclusions. Furthermore, country-specific studies (Saurugger, 2007) have highlighted the ‘‘differential impact’’ also on national non-state actors. Warleigh’s (2001) pessimistic assessment that the elite character of European CSOs is hardly reconcilable with a socializing function has so far not been contested. When taking a bottom-up view both detailed case studies (Bozzini, 2007) and comparative surveys underline the distance of national and local CSOs to ‘‘far away’’ Brussels. To make matters worse, as van Deth (2008: 342) has pointed out: ‘‘A bottom-up flow of
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engagement is unlikely to emerge because attitudes towards Europe and the EU are relatively weak particularly among those citizens who are active in voluntary associations at the local level.’’ What is missing above all is a theoretically convincing approach to isolate those variables, which might explain the Europeanization of civil society. The accession process opened windows of opportunities in the applicant countries for a strengthening and orientation of civil society toward Europe. According to Bo¨rzel (2009: 288) ‘‘The EU has developed a sophisticated tool box to strengthen the capacities of non-governmental actors; but it is largely geared towards making EU policies more effective.’’ From this perspective the EU policy-induced Europeanization would be tantamount to the dissemination of a functional understanding of civil society. It has to be seen if the ‘‘civil society-democracy’’ rhetoric may have a compensating effect. Because of the paucity of comparative research we also do not know if a reorientation of civil society actors toward norms and patterns of behavior classified as European is spreading. Cram (2006: 242) draws on the concept of ‘‘banal nationalism’’ and argues that with the daily practice of involvement the EU ‘‘is becoming enhabited’’ and will slowly be taken as the normal environment in which civil society actors operate.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Civic Partcipation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Good Governance ▶ Interest Politics ▶ Non-Governmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Participation
References/Further Readings Balme, R., & Chabanet, D. (2002). Introduction. Action collective et gouvernance de l’Union europe´enne. In R. Balme, D. Chabaner, & V. Wright (Eds.), L’action collective en Europe/collective action in Europe (pp. 21–120). Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Bauer, M. (2002). Limitations to agency control in European Union policy-making: The commission and the poverty programmes. Journal of Common Market Studies, 40(3), 381–400. Bo¨rzel, T. (2009). After accession: Escaping the low capacity trap? In T. Bo¨rzel (Ed.), Coping with accession to the European Union. New modes of environmental governance in Southern, Central and Eastern Europe (pp. 264–290). London: Palgrave. Bozzini, E. (2007). Why to get involved in Brussels? A cross-sectoral and cross national comparison of the involvement of civil society organisation in EU policy processes, CINEFOGO Mid Term Conference,
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Roskilde (Dk), 1–3 June 2007, from http://cinefogo.cuni.cz/index. php?&id_result=20036&l= 0&w=15&id_out=82; 02/19/2009 Commission. (2001). European governance – A white paper. Brussels: Commission of the European Communities, COM (2001) 428 final, from http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2001/ com2001_0428en01.pdf; 02/19/2009 Cram, L. (2006). Inventing the people: Civil society participation and the enhabitation of the EU. In S. Smismans (Ed.), Civil society and legitimate European governance (pp. 241–259). Edward Elgar: Cheltenham. Dabrowska, P. (2007). Civil society involvement in the EU regulations on GMOs: From the design of a participatory garden to growing trees of European public debate? Journal of Civil Society, 3(3), 287–304. De Bie`vre, D. (2008). Assessing interest group politics in EU governance. In B. Kohler-Koch, D. De Bie`vre, & M. Maloney (Eds.), Opening EU-governance to civil society. Gains and challenges (pp. 1–8). Mannheim: CONNEX Report Series Nr. 5. From http://www.mzes. unimannheim.de/pjojekte/typo3/site/fileadmin/BookSeries/Volume_ Five/Introduction_I_DDB.pdf Della Sala, V., & Ruzza, C. (Eds.) (2007). Governance and civil society in the European Union: Exploring policy issues (Vol. 2). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Eriksen, E. O., & Fossum, J. E. (Eds.) (2000). Democracy in the European Union: Integration through deliberation. London: Routledge. Fazi, E., & Smith, J. (2006). Civil dialogue: making it work better. Study commissioned by the Civil Society Contact Group. From http://act4europe.horus.be/module/FileLib/Civil%20dialogue%2C %20making%20it%20work%20better.pdf; 19/02/2009 Finke, B. (2007). Civil society participation in EU governance. Living reviews in European governance. From http://www.livingreviews.org/ lreg-2007–2; 19/02/2009 Fossum, J. E., & Trenz, H. J. (2006). The EU’s fledging society: From deafening silence to critical voice in European constitution-making. Journal of Civil Society, 2(1), 57–77. Greenwood, J. (2007). Organized civil society and democratic legitimacy in the European Union. British Journal of Political Science, 37(2), 333–357. Imig, D., & Tarrow, S. (2001). Contentious Europeans: Protest and politics in an emerging polity. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Hu¨ller, T. (2008). Demokratisierung der EU durch Online Konsultationen? Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen, 21(2), 73–82. Kohler-Koch, B. (2007). The organization of interests and democracy in the European Union. In B. Kohler-Koch & B. Rittberger (Eds.), Debating the democratic legitimacy of the European Union (pp. 255271). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Kohler-Koch, B. (2009). The three worlds of European civil society. Policy and Society, 28(1), 47–57. Kohler-Koch, B., & Finke, B. (2007). The institutional shaping of EUsociety relations: A contribution to democracy via participation? Journal of Civil Society, 3(3), 205–221. Kohler-Koch, B. et al. (Eds.) (2008). Opening EU-governance to civil society. Gains and challenges. Mannheim: CONNEX Report Series Nr. 5. http://www.mzes.unimannheim.de/pjojekte/typo3/site/fileadmin/BookSeries/Volume_Five/CONNEX%20Report%20Series_Book %205.pdf Kohler-Koch, B., & Quittkat, C. (2009). What is civil society and who represents civil society in the EU? – Results of an online survey among civil society experts. Policy and Society, 28(1), 11–22. Kro¨ger, S. (2008). Nothing but consultation: The place of civil society in EU policy-making across policies. European governance papers
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(EUROGOV) No. C-08-03. From http://www.connex-network.org/ eurogov/pdf/egp-connex-C-08-03.pdf; 02/19/2009 Maloney, W., & van Deth, J. (Eds.) (2008). Civil society and governance in Europe: From national toward international linkages? Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Ruzza, C. (2004). Europe and civil society. Movement coalitions and European governance. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Ruzza, C., & Della Sala, V. (Eds.) (2007). Governance and civil society in the European Union: Normative Perspectives (Vol. 1). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Sabel, C., & Zeitlin, J. (2008). Learning from difference: The new architecture of experimentalist governance in the EU. European Law Journal, 14(3), 271–327. Saurugger, S. (2007). Differential impact: Europeanising French nonstate actors. Journal of European Public Policy, 14(7), 1079–1097. Smismans, S. (2006). Civil society and legitimate European governance. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Steffek, J. et al. (Eds.) (2007). Civil society participation in European and global governance: A cure for the democratic deficit? London: Palgrave Macmillan. The Social Platform. (2006). Communication: selling Europe or opening Europe? – Response of the platform of European Social NGOs to the White Paper on a European Communication Policy. Platform of European Social NGO’s. From http://www.socialplatform.org/module/ FileLib/EN-ResponseWhitePaperonCommunication.pdf; 02/19/2009 Trenz, H. J. (2009). European civil society: Between participation, representation and discourse. Policy and Society, 28(1), 35–46. Van Deth, J. (2008). European civil society: The empirical reality in the multi-level system of the EU. In B. Kohler-Koch, D. De Bie`vre, & W. Maloney (Eds.), Opening EU-governance to civil society – Gains and challenges (pp. 326–348). Mannheim: CONNEX Report Series Nr. 5. From http://www.mzes.unimannheim.de/pjojekte/typo3/site/ fileadmin/BookSeries/Volume_Five/Chapter14_van%20Deth.pdf Warleigh, A. (2001). Europeanizing civil society: NGOs as agents of political socialization. Journal of Common Market Studies, 39(40), 619–639.
Civil Society and the Media ARVIND RAJAGOPAL New York University, New York, NY, USA
Introduction It is safe to say that all civil societies are mediated by technologies and organizations of mass communication, and that they are encountered largely as the outcomes of such mediation. Questions of civil society in relation to ‘‘the media’’ thus not only raise issues of infrastructure and liberal institutions, but as well about the dispersal and transformation of civil society as it is mediated within and across nations across the world. This dispersal has resulted in a range of forms, so that in assessing their
differences we are led once again to the question of how civil society is mediated.
Definition Civil society is not a preexisting entity. Distinguished from the state of nature and as well from community, i.e., what Tonnies called gemeinschaft, it is an artifact of modernity. For G.W.F. Hegel, the most influential writer on the subject, civil society was envisaged as Sittlichkeit, a form of collective ethical existence transcending mere individualism on the one hand, and primordialism on the other, enabled by voluntary associations outside the state that were spared the burden of political struggle, with citizens engaging in pursuits that were not only based on selfinterest, but went beyond them (1991: PR }182–184; }238; }235–236). The assumed unit of civil society, the autonomous individual who can freely enter or leave any association, and is unconstrained by ascribed characteristics, is clearly a theoretical category. But ‘‘theory is the norm, and reality is the exception’’ when discussing civil society, Marx wrote (1978: 44). Invocations of civil society form part of a mission of improvement, fulfilling the promise of Enlightenment. As such the concept is oriented to an indefinite future; the aspiration it entails is more important than the reality meant to be transformed.
Historical Background Emerging amidst Enlightenment polemics against the ancien regime, ‘‘civil society’’ was designed to demarcate a dimension of human interaction independent of theological or monarchical influence, whose existence was beyond doubt and drew on the natural inclination for commerce and conviviality. Neither civility nor sociality were new words, but Diderot’s Encyclope´die claimed ‘‘civil society’’ as a novel term, and as divinity on earth, as it were (1751–1761: 251; cited in Baker, 2002: 86). Civil society thus arrives in the modern era as theological, feudal and other forms of power give way to the dominance of a new kind of power that presents itself as liberal, secular and enlightened. Civil society is the domain where this new kind of state power is exercised, although it is not coterminous with the state; rather it is distinct and irreducible to it. The work of mediation is thus at the origin of civil society. An example that will illustrate the point. In Kant’s well-known essay on the subject, he defines Enlightenment as a people’s overcoming of their self-incurred tutelage, and proposes a compact between the Prince and his subjects. In return for good governance and a gradual increase of liberties, the people are to offer obedience and the responsible exercise of their freedom of opinion (http://www.
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english.upenn.edu/mgamer/Etexts/kant.html. Accessed January 11, 2009). As subjects are educated into the desired norms of citizenship, the achievement of civil society is meant to be defined by an internalization of the protocols of political authority. Civil society can hence be understood as the medium for the liberal state to regulate people and things, and arrange them in the most mutually convenient and efficient ways; Michel Foucault has for instance, made this argument (2008: 295). To pose the question of civil society in relation to ‘‘media’’ is thus to examine an already mediated reality. Further, just as the story of the modern state is not one of ‘‘withering away,’’ as envisaged by Karl Marx as well as by some conservative thinkers, quite the contrary, ‘‘media’’ too as complexes of material and symbolic practices are not vanishing mediators, but entities that visibly grow in size and influence, while becoming increasingly difficult to separate from the reality they convey. Hence their prominence today draws attention to the mechanisms by which civil society is sought to be achieved, and the political alliances, calculations and strategies surrounding these mechanisms. Such an approach has the advantage of sidestepping the received teleological view where civil society is understood purely as a space of freedom and individual self-actualization, as opposed to the state, which in the anti-absolutist tradition of European political thought, is perceived as a domain of unilateral power and an instrument of subjection (Kaviraj, 2002: 287–323). Print media for example were seen by absolutist state authorities as potentially subversive and requiring to be censored, while emergent middle classes embraced them as instruments of emancipation, and as means for creating public spheres that could exercise a rational-critical force on existing political authority (Habermas, 1989; Calhom, 1993). It should be noted that the very same middle classes, as they came to power, endorsed the maintenance of strict controls over communications in the colonies, while pronouncing values of enlightened and transparent governance. Their justification was one familiar from the history of absolutism, namely that their subjects were not ready, and that the colonial state fulfilled a custodial role in preparing the natives for self-governance. Colonial civil society was thus marked by a paradox: it defined itself as modernizing but maintained itself as racially exclusive and insular. Colonial use of modern print media tended to reproduce this mystification, although divisions of language and dialect complicated it. The transparency of modern communications arrived in the colonies as a mystique of alien power; anticolonial nationalists responded with counter-mystification,
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presenting indigenous culture and communication as superior, distinguishing their nation as cause for mobilization (Chatterjee, 1993).
International Perspectives Around the world, where civil society has been sought to be created, it has taken shape as an explicit project of political mediation and as a condition and a platform for the nation-state’s goals of modernization. State intervention is seen not as interference but as an indispensable requirement. Accordingly, mass media begin to be seen as porous transmission devices for the right kind of political will, instruments that in the service of the proper authorities, can produce positive effects (Rajagopal, 2001). This helps to explain how in the aftermath of the Second World War, and the wave of decolonization accompanying it, there was immense optimism about the effects of mass media, as being reliable signs and stimulants of modern civil society. Mass media were thought to enhance secular forms of socialization, modes of interaction reliant on the impartial circulation of information and argument, not dependent on rank or on status, and hence devoid of prejudgment or prejudice. As such they were understood to be reliable means for achieving an enlightened gesellschaft, forms of association that were individualistic, but not too much so, means of enhancing social participation but voluntarily. To quote an influential statement from the period: ‘‘In our time. . .the spread of empathy around the world is accelerating. The earlier increase of physical experience through transportation has been multiplied by the spread of mediated experience through mass communication. . . . [N]o modern society functions efficiently without a developed system of mass media. . . . [T]he conditions which define modernity form an interlocking ‘system.’ They grow conjointly, in the normal situation, or they become stunted severally’’ (Lerner, 1958: 52, 55). Much like grafts from a tree, mass media were thought for awhile to reproduce trunk and branch of western civil society where they were transplanted. Seen not simply as technologies of governance but as radiators of pro-social values and replicators of modernity, the media were believed to promote empathy, and thus to educate people out of tradition and into ‘‘mobile personalities,’’ capable of shifting across contexts and roles as required. The optimism about the media involved a peculiar amnesia, given the experience of Fascist propaganda, and Allies’ own instrumental uses of mass media in mobilizing support for the war effort. In fact there has tended to be a cycle of optimism about the utopian effects of a given mass medium, turning into pessimism, only to be revived by the
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combination of a new communication technology and political opportunity. Its latest variant applies to the internet and the possibility of a new information revolution and a (new) global civil society in the post Cold War context.
Future Directions There is no question today that, with the spread of technological communications, the question of how voluntary associations between individuals are mediated, i.e., what kinds of civil society formations may take shape, has become an increasingly complex one. Those living in different countries and in widely divergent circumstances may now interact with each other and not only with other citizens in the locality or region they live in. Fleeting gestures and momentary impulses can be invoked, multiplied and consolidated through incremental acts such as text messages and clicks on the internet to create civil society formations that straddle any constituted legal authority, and gather enormous force. Activists in new social movements mobilize such means, expressing ethical stances in response to issues where the political agencies required to effectively intervene may not always exist yet, such as global warming or world peace (Devji, 2005). Two contrasting examples will indicate how if civil society used to be considered the matrix within which communications media were assigned defined and subsidiary roles, in the context of a globalizing civil society, crisscrossing lines of influence between national civil societies, local and global media can be discerned. A 2008 Fox Studios film, Slumdog Millionaire (dir. Danny Boyle) showed how the American television program ‘‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,’’ when transposed to India was no mere game show. When a Mumbai-based chai [tea] delivery boy is within reach of the prize, he is taken to police custody and tortured, his offence being that he knows more than his social betters in the show. If the gesture of the game show is to bring an audience member on screen, the film brings the society around the chai-wallah as well into view and shows the dense networks of iniquity and suffering around him, not usually seen on TV. The message might be that as Western media culture alights in India, it can create opportunities for individuals, while acknowledging the immense struggle and suffering all around them. Of course one can point to other cases where spectacular suffering is visited on classes of people or even on nations, say in Gaza, or in Darfur in Sudan, and despite saturation media coverage from the top down, no respite ensues. Bottom-up examples where the media are used to open up spaces in civil society for the poor and marginalized can also be adduced. In early 2008, victims of the
1984 Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal, together with some of their supporters, about 50 in all, embarked on a march, to New Delhi to place their demands for relief and rehabilitation before the Prime Minister. The 800 km journey went through scores of villages and towns. Amenities were scarce en route. Small towns were the worst in offering access to toilets, and running water and electric power were intermittent where they were available. One convenience, however, was never in short supply. Every few miles there was a wireless transmission tower; at every point during the march cell phone signals were available, and press releases could flow to the news media with little interruption (Bala Kailasam, personal interview, November 2008). Basic needs of the Indian population are not met, and infrastructure for basic sanitation and well-being is inadequate. Meanwhile select aspects of the national communications infrastructure have grown exponentially, granting traction not only to commercial operations and public institutions, but also to campaigns seeking publicity and support. It was not only grassroots activists from Bhopal that were involved in this effort. A worldwide network of activists and supporters distributed YouTube video clips, photos and stories from the march. As the gas victims went on hunger strike and were thrown into jail after they arrived in New Delhi, their allies not only in India but as well in countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States were gathering signatures for petitions, sending faxes and making phone calls to the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi, urging that the gas victims be treated fairly (see www.bhopal.net for details). The disproportionate development of communications thus leads not simply to faster and more efficient information exchange, but as well, to greater demands for participation in civil society, and increasing challenges to the existing terms of social inclusion and exclusion. The virtual publics formed by mass mediation challenge the publics of regional and nationalist imaginaries, with the resulting contradictions resolved through the contingencies of political struggle. Media publicity does not always signal the existence of civil society but can be used to respond to its absence, without, of course, any guarantee that the standards of civil society will then be applied to the situation publicized. This may be because local authorities are recalcitrant and the major powers are unwilling to force given outcomes.
Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society and Culture
Civil Society History I: Antiquity
▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Kant ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Global Civil Society
References/Further Readings Baker, K. (2002). Enlightenment and the institution of society: notes for a conceptual history. In S. Kaviraj & S. Khilnani (Eds.), Civil society: History and possibilities Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.(pp. 84–104). Calhoun, C. (Ed.) (1993). Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chatterjee, P. (1993). The nation and its fragments. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Devji, F. (2005). Landscapes of the Jihad. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Diderot, D., & d’Alembert, J. L. R. (Eds.) (1751–1761). Encyclope´die ou Dictionnaire raisonne´ des sciences, des arts et des metiers, par une socie´te´ des gens de lettres (Vol. XV). Paris: Briasson. Foucault, M. (2008). The birth of biopolitics: Lectures at the College de France 1978–79 (G. Burchell, Trans.). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Habermas, J. (1989). Structural transformation of the public sphere (T. Burger, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hegel, G. W. F. (1991) Elements of the philosophy of right (H. B. Nisbet, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kant, I. (1784). From http://www.english.upenn.edu/mgamer/Etexts/ kant.html Accessed January 11, 2009. Kaviraj, S. (2002). In search of civil society. In S. Kaviraj & S. Khilnani (Eds.), Civil society: History and possibilities Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.(pp. 287–323). Khilnani, S. (2002). The development of civil society. In S. Kaviraj & S. Khilnani (Eds.), Civil society: History and possibilities Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.(pp. 11–32). Lerner, D. (1958). The passing of traditional society: Modernizing the Middle East. New York: Free Press. Marx, K. (1978). On the Jewish question. In R. C. Tucker (Ed.), The Marx-Engels reader. New York: W.W. Norton. Rajagopal, A. (2001). Politics after television: Hindu nationalism and the reshaping of the public in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Civil Society History I: Antiquity GA´BOR MOLNA´R University of Kaposva´r, Kaposva´r, Hungary
Main Characteristics of the Period Although the term ‘‘civil society’’ is an ancient coinage, its meaning has since undergone such a great change that it is not self-evident to talk about civil society (in the modern
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sense of the word) concerning antiquity without reservation. However, as will be clear later, the old and the modern usages are not totally unrelated, and it may prove to be illuminative of the understanding of present-day civil societies to look for ancient counterparts. General Economic and Political Conditions
Throughout this entry antiquity will be understood as classical antiquity, that is, the Greco-Roman world, covering the time span from ca. 600 BCE to 476 CE. All ancient societies were more or less complex agrarian (or pre-industrial) societies organized politically in states. Since the economic integration of larger areas was extremely difficult due to the underdeveloped technologies of agricultural production and transportation, they could only be integrated by force. This brought into existence empires with rather weak and dysfunctional state structures, which, paradoxically, forced them to be extremely oppressive and exploiting towards their subjects as well as imperialistic towards their (smaller) neighbors. The only viable alternative to the militarily patchedup empire, under pre-industrial circumstances, was the small state, especially the city-state comprising an urban centre and a modest rural hinterland. Hansen (e.g. 2006) introduces the concept of ‘‘city-state culture’’ for historical regions unified by a common culture (language, religion etc.), but divided into several city-states. These cultures were usually unexampled among pre-industrial societies in many respects: they were more urbanized, economically more market-oriented, and politically more democratized. In the above sense, archaic and classical Greece was indubitably a city-state culture before the rise of Macedonia as was Italy before the rise of Rome. The highly diversified world of the several hundred Greek and Italian city-states has often been compared to a great laboratory experimenting with politics. The solutions ranged from monarchies (either traditional kingships or charismatic tyrannies), via different forms and degrees of oligarchic constitutions (rules of a few men selected either by birth or by wealth) to democracy. At the latter extreme, the classical Athenian democracy was practically the only state before modernity which allowed its citizens extensive political participation (albeit they formed a minority of the population). However, after falling prey to the Macedonian Empire, the Greek citystates merged into the conglomerate of Hellenistic monarchies, whereas Rome, originally one Italian city-state among others, grew into an empire by conquering and annexing the whole Mediterranean Basin, Greece and a great part of the Hellenistic East included. This in turn inevitably resulted in the change of the original republican – in fact
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highly oligarchic – regime, which had become ineffective and unstable, into monarchy. Micro-social Relations
The low level of economic integration and the fragility of state structures in pre-industrial societies gave special weight to self-help groups organized upon (real or fictitious) kinship, locality, professional, or even voluntary basis such as the extended family, the ‘‘clan,’’ guild-like or religious associations. Two special forms of enduring personal relationships deserve mentioning, both of which were reciprocal in exchanging goods and/or services. One (much more characteristic of the Roman society than of the Greek) was patronage, an asymmetrical relation between a member of the elite, the patron, and a man of lower socio-economic status, the client. The other, called ‘‘friendship,’’ obtained between the members of the elite (that is, between peers or roughly peers) and typically had a political character. Culture and Religion
All the societies concerned can be regarded as developed high cultures characterized by an advanced level of literacy (alphabetic writing, relatively great number of literate persons) and a polytheistic religion, without a segregated priestly caste monopolizing religious knowledge and practices, which demanded from its followers not so much emotional devotion or dogmatic commitment as the accomplishment of certain public or private rituals (‘‘civil religion’’). Devotional religiousness was mainly a private business (mystery cults, early Christianity) either tolerated or persecuted by the authorities, up to the late antiquity, when Christianity became the official state religion of the Empire.
Key Developments The Ancient Conception of Civil Society
The modern term ‘‘civil society’’ goes back to the Latin societas civilis coined by the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero (1999: 21). This in turn is the equivalent (possibly the translation) of the Greek term politike koinonia (‘‘political community or partnership’’), a central notion in Aristotle’s political philosophy, because the Greek word politike derives from polites (‘‘citizen’’), whereas the Latin civilis from civis (‘‘citizen’’ again), and the meanings of koinonia and societas also overlap partly. This equivalence may be striking to the modern reader since the common denominator of modern definitions of civil society, no matter how different they are otherwise, is exactly the opposition between civil society and the state.
For Aristotle and Cicero, however, ‘‘civil society’’ was but another aspect of the (city-)state (polis or civitas). They conceived of it instead in opposition to those who were, although living under the supremacy of the state, excluded from participation in politics: the noncitizens (women, minors, resident aliens, and slaves). Both in Politics, and in the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle (1984: 1987 and 1833, resp.) regards political community as the supreme community which embraces all the rest – and not only extensionally. It aims at the highest and most authoritative good of all: good (that is, ethically valuable) life. As Ehrenberg (1999: 9ff.) notes, Aristotle acknowledges more than Plato the multiplicity of the spheres people live in, embodied in the most diverse kinds of social organizations. And yet he subordinates them totally to the most comprehensive one, political community. It is ‘‘by nature clearly prior to’’ both the individuals and to any particular associations of individuals because it alone is self-sufficing. For Cicero (ibid: 18) the commonwealth is based on ‘‘agreement on justice and community of interest’’: it is thus a societas (‘‘partnership’’) of citizens, and law is ‘‘the bond of civil society’’ (ibid: 21), making a certain equality of rights necessary even for the rather antidemocraticminded Cicero. The above-mentioned divergence from the modern approach was first noticed by Thomas Hobbes in Chapter 21 of Leviathan, and elaborated later by Benjamin Constant in a lecture on ‘‘The Liberty of Ancients Compared with that of Moderns’’. The liberty of the ancient Greeks and Romans, they explained, was not the freedom of particular individuals to resist their own representative or to do as they please in their private life, but that of the commonwealth to act collectively. The individual’s freedom accordingly consisted solely in the right to take part in this collective decision. Although clearly oversimplified (the beneficiary of ‘‘good life’’ and ‘‘equality in law’’ is after all the individual), this distinction captures something of a real difference between typical ancient and modern attitudes towards the state. Different senses of civil society can be distinguished along these lines. While in the classical conception civil society was, to use Ehrenberg’s (ibid: xi) wording, ‘‘the politically organized commonwealth’’ itself, one modern understanding (the apolitical one) regards civil society organizations as voluntary associations of private individuals in pursuit of private goals either approved of or tolerated or even – a controversial point perhaps – banned by the state. Another modern approach (the political one) sees in them agencies keeping the state under control, preventing, or combating its antidemocratic distortions.
Civil Society History I: Antiquity
However, it might be possible to discern a common element between the ancient view and the political version of the modern conceptions: it is the civic responsibility and courage to stand up for liberty against powers whatsoever endangering it – be they other states, the citizens’ own state alienated from them either in a representative democracy or in a dictatorship or any other authorities and vested interests. Furthermore, at a more abstract level, the feature of self-motivated activity within a nexus or group of individuals striving partly for common goals is shared even with the less politicized modern understandings of civil society. Ancient Antecedents of Modern Civil Society
Modern definitions of civil society typically demarcate it from the spheres of the state, the market and the family. It is worth examining those social institutions in ancient society the modern counterparts of which are generally regarded as constituents of civil society. The most conspicuous such entities are voluntary associations. In accordance with the aforesaid demarcation, the following criteria seem to be applicable to ‘‘filter out’’ the equivalents, or antecedents, of modern civil society associations in the ancient world: (i) Nongovernmental (and nonmunicipal) – therefore, e.g., the priestly colleges of the Roman state religion cannot be reckoned among them, nor the municipal districts (demes) of Athens (ii) Nonprofit – this excludes economic enterprises such as the societies of public contractors (however, for a liberal position ranking market organizations with civil society, see Long’s (1998) analysis of Athenian democracy) (iii) Non-kin – as against both real and fictitious kinship groups such as the Roman gentes or the Greek phratries Such voluntary associations had various forms in antiquity and can best be categorized on motivational grounds, although different objectives were often interwoven. In modern terms, there were (a) Professional associations: colleges of craftsmen, millers, merchants etc. protecting common interests – however, they generally maintained the cult of the patron deity as well, may have functioned as burial associations, the colleges of craftsmen or clothmakers also as local fire brigades (b) Social clubs: for men’s common meal and socializing (c) Benefit societies: most typically funeral associations for mutual aid to secure worthy burial
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(d) Private religious associations: to maintain the cult, and possibly the temple, of some deity (e) Political clubs: mostly of members of the upper strata Emperor Justinian’s Digest (47.22.4) preserved a law attributed to the Athenian law-giver Solon (c. 594 BCE) which guaranteed certain autonomy to private associations – provided that their internal regulations did not clash with the laws of the city-state. This short text shows, so to speak, the concept of social organization at the moment of birth. For lack of a general name, it enumerates endlessly and disorderly the specific kinds of associations: demes, phratries, naval, ritual, devotional, burial, dining, and trading societies, even plunderer companies. It treats them, however, legally as alike. The list also suggests that, as Jones (1999: 30ff) calls attention, in democratic Athens modern dichotomies such as public–private or voluntary–nonvoluntary (consequently the criteria (i)–(iii) above) are less important, forming not so much alternatives as continua. Social associations were used as subsidiaries of direct democracy. The Romans subjected the associations growing both in number and in diversity to more extensive legal regulation, ordaining e.g. state authorization. Political clubs and certain foreign religious associations (e.g. the Christian communities until 313 CE) were declared ‘‘illicit colleges.’’ It is usually supposed that the Roman Empire was suspicious, or even hostile, towards voluntary associations in general. For example, in a famous letter to the Bithynian governor Pliny the younger (Epist. 10.34), Emperor Trajan ‘‘disadvises’’ the organization of a fire brigade in a local town lest it turn spontaneously into a political club. However, as Arnaoutoglou (2002) has recently argued, the real targets of the bans on associative life, issued quite regularly according to literary and inscriptional sources, were not the well established colleges, but rather those amorphous social gatherings of the character of civil disobedience that emerged from time to time in a province. This, on the other hand, means that these colleges did not function as civil society institutions in the political sense of controlling the state. Small wonder because their internal organization usually epitomized the hierarchical structures of Roman magistracy and they were often patronized by members of the elite. Patronage became the general model for unequal relationships as the Roman society grew larger and more differentiated – especially when the institution of collective patronage (of a college, a town or even of a conquered province) by some influential men evolved. The patron–client system was a rather ambivalent phenomenon with regard to civil society. On the one hand, it
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partly occupied in ancient societies the place, and fulfilled some of the functions, of a modern civil society. Structurally, it was distinct from the family, the state and the market as much as it was possible under pre-modern circumstances. Functionally, it helped exchanging services and goods on a reciprocal, although asymmetrical basis; it accumulated social capital and contributed greatly to the stability of the society by integrating a considerable part of the masses to the more organized upper part of the society. On the other hand, it could rightly be regarded as an ‘‘anti-civil society phenomenon,’’ by which the political establishment could keep the whole society under control. It produced legitimacy and social capital for the elite (in exchange of their ‘‘charity’’ activity), integration happened ‘‘from above’’ in clusters, transforming vertical social conflicts between social strata or classes into horizontal conflicts between rivaling political cliques. To sum up, whereas Athenian direct democracy was inclined to make voluntary associations instrumental to itself, oligarchic and monarchic regimes tried to keep them apolitical, and even so under social and political control. As for charity, community patronage and patronage of art, they were generally not practiced by voluntary associations in antiquity; rather they were the duties, and politically profitable privileges, either of the wealthiest individuals, or of the state. Private charitable foundations (pia causa) came into being only in the late Christian era. Preconditions of Modern Civil Society
The period of classical antiquity was in many ways formative for the making of modern societies. Here only some of the most important ancient developments can be touched upon that proved to be essential for the formation of present-day civil societies.
– The democratic/republican political institutions that came into being at Athens and at Rome, together with the concomitant – although not always sympathetic – political and social philosophy, have become constant sources of paradigm and stimulation for political action and thinking since the Renaissance. The modern ideas of active citizenship and civil society (as a reservoir of spontaneously acting associations) have, as already indicated, their origins in Greece. Similarly, the ancient Greek debate culture immortalized by the Platonic dialogues (in a somewhat distorted way though) can rightly be considered the archetype of the Habermasian public sphere as the community of ‘‘publicly reasoning private individuals.’’ – The rather complex postconventional legal system and the corresponding legal science the Romans developed
became the basis of the common legal tradition in continental Europe (‘‘civil law’’) and influenced to some degree the common law legal systems, too. Through them it has acquired global significance in modern times, and present-day civil society organizations, either national or international, would obviously be inconceivable without this sophisticated legal environment. – A certain moral universalization taking place in the multicultural worlds of Hellenism and Roman Empire (e.g., the concepts of humanity and cosmopolitanism in Stoic philosophy, the extension of the concept ‘‘neighbor’’ beyond the compatriot in early Christianity or possibly in Hellenistic Judaism) is one of the main historical sources for the motivation, either in a religious or in a secularized form, of modern, especially international, humanitarian activities. – The early Christian Church that can be conceived of as a network of voluntary associations has permanently served as a paradigm for later religious movements seeking spiritual renewal either within or outside traditional churches, but also for other civil society movements. – Literacy in the developed form characteristic of the Greco-Roman world was an indispensable factor both in calling into being the above mentioned achievements and in preserving them – if not as living realities, at least in the cultural memory of later societies, making thereby the phenomenon of ‘‘renaissance’’ possible (most importantly the Carolingian and the Italian Renaissances).
International Perspectives Although the Greek and the Roman sociocultural worlds became more and more fused after the Roman military conquest of Greece accompanied by the Greek cultural conquest of Rome, there were nevertheless differences between them that retained their importance. At the micro-social level, Roman social relations were generally more authoritarian in nature than Greek ones. This manifested itself in the familial relationships (the Roman father’s almost unlimited rights over even his adult sons) as well as in the pervasive phenomenon of patronage. With an elite well integrated through kinship, friendship and patronage networks, and lower classes integrated to the elite through patron–client bonds more tightly than to one another, this became an obstacle for a democratization process similar to the one at Athens. At the macro-social level, the difference in the respective colonization strategies deserves special attention:
Civil Society History II: Medieval Period
a Greek mother-city typically established independent colonies in distant foreign lands, whereas Rome set up colonies in an already annexed territory (preferably contiguous with the earlier Roman lands) and the colonists retained a kind of second-rate citizenship. This strategy led naturally to the emergence of a large empire, rendering even the earlier, restricted forms of popular participation in politics impossible.
Cross-References
▶ Charity, History of ▶ Civil Society Theory: Aristotle ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Philanthropy, Ancient
References/Further Readings Aristotle (1984). The complete works (Vol. 2). Barnes, J. (Ed.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Alfo¨ldy, G. (1988). The social history of Rome. London: Routledge. Arnaoutoglou, I. N. (2002). Roman Law and collegia in Asia Minor. Revue Internationale des droits de l’Antiquite´ XLIX, 27–44. Cicero (1999). On the commonwealth and on the laws. Zetzel, J. E. G. (Ed. and Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crone, P. (1989). Pre-industrial societies. Oxford: Blackwell. Ehrenberg, J. (1999). Civil society. The critical history of an idea. New York/London: New York University Press. Finley, M. I. (1983). Politics in the ancient world. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garnsey, P., & Saller, R. (1987). The Roman empire. Economy, society and culture. London: Duckworth. Hansen, M. H. (2006). Polis. An introduction to the ancient Greek citystate. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jones, N. F. (1999). The associations of classical Athens. The response to democracy. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kloppenborg, J. S., & Wilson, S. G. (Eds.) (1996). Voluntary associations in the Graeco-Roman world. New York: Routledge. Long, R. T. (1998). Civil society in ancient Greece: The case of Athens. http://www.lewrockwell.com/long/long9.html; 09/27/2008. Wallace-Hadrill, A. (Ed.) (1989). Patronage in ancient society. London/ New York: Routledge.
Civil Society History II: Medieval Period FRED POWELL National University of Ireland-Cork, Cork, UK
Introduction The medieval world spans the period between the end of antiquity, symbolized by the Barbarian sack of Rome in 410 AD, and the advent of the Renaissance approximately
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a millennium later. It is widely represented as a distinctly Western phenomenon, since the Eastern Roman Empire survived at Constantinople, until it was overwhelmed by the Turks in 1453. While the medieval world is directly associated with the advance of Christendom, Islam played a defining role in its inception, according to historian Henri Pirenne, whose controversial thesis argued that the real break with antiquity did not occur until the seventh century and was due to the rapid and unexpected expansion of Islam, through its conquest of south-eastern Turkey, Syria, Palestine, North Africa, and southern Spain. Consequently, Western civilization was pushed northwards to France, England, Ireland, Scotland, Western Germany, central and northern Italy, and northern Spain. The popes changed their political allegiance to the secular powers to the north, breaking classical civilization’s geographical link with the Mediterranean, the cultural and economic hub of the Roman Empire. A new civilization was born. Impoverished, agrarian, and backward, it was the first Europe. Charlemagne (742–814), crowned Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day 800, became its iconic symbol-consolidating Christian culture in the West.
Main Characteristics of the Period Medium Aevum, ‘‘the Middle Age,’’ defined in Christian cosmology a temporal space between Christ’s first and second coming. The chivalry of knights, the feudal structure that bound the nobility to the land, along with the serfs who cultivated the soil, and the cloistered monks and nuns, became the cultural symbols of this ‘‘Middle Age.’’ It had a sense of immobility, in which social change occurred at a glacial pace, if at all. The seigniorial presence of God in the form of the Roman Catholic Church provided the cosmological explanation for a world defined by hierarchy and inured to change. The pope stood at the spiritual top of the pyramid of power, encroaching into the temporal domain. The resulting struggle for supremacy turned into the Investiture Contest, when Pope Gregory VII (1073–85), promulgated 27 propositions in his Dictatus Papae (the Pope’s Supremacy). This tension between the spiritual realm (papal power) and the temporal sphere (secular power) dominated the political landscape of the medieval world. The philosopher Augustine of Hippo had laid down the political principles of medieval society in his great work Civitas Dei (City of God), commenced in 413, 3 years after the sack of Rome. It was completed 13 years later. In this major philosophical work Augustine sets out the basis of a Christian civil society. At the core of his thinking is a duality based upon the idea of two cities, an
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earthly city (Civitas Terra) and the City of God (Civitas Dei). The use of the word civitas or city is influenced by the classical political formation of city state and should be understood as a form of governance or polis. The relationship between church and state is defined by the superiority of ecclesiastical authority in Augustine’s dualism. Divine law transcended secular power. Christian civil society is based upon the premise of human frailty embodied in the doctrine of the Fall of Adam and Eve, i.e., original sin. Human sin makes political autonomy and individual choice impossible, according to Augustine’s world view. It produced a hierarchical order in which war, property, slavery, and the state provide the pillars of political society. While the Church asserted its supremacy over the secular sphere, it enjoined the faithful to accept the state’s authority in their daily lives. The reality of civil society in practice was often very different to its theological conception. But there was an overarching sense of Christian Commonwealth that defined civil society as a political and social construct.
Key Developments As the Middle Ages progressed towards the Renaissance the ideas of antiquity in the form of neo-Aristotelianism began to reshape political thought, allowing more space for secular civil society to reassert itself and break with the theological fusion between ecclesiastic and secular spheres. Christianity began to be challenged by classical ideas and values. Ironically, the rediscovery of the classical texts of Plato and Aristotle was achieved by Arab and Jewish scholars and subsequently taken up by Christian philosophers. Averroes (1126–98) was the most famous of Arabian philosophers. He became the key commentator on Aristotle’s work, reintroducing rationality in his doctrine of Universal Reason and denying the immortality of the individual soul. His work was later condemned by Pope Leo X. Maimonides (1135–1204), a Jewish philosopher and physician, whose career was spent in the Islamic world, also played a key role in the rediscovery of Aristotelianism. In turn, their spirit of enquiry and zest for knowledge found its counterpart in the West in the twelfth century awakening. The University of Paris became the center of intellectual dissidence, led by Peter Abelard (1079–1142). Abelard, historically famed for his romantic relationship with Heloise, became the champion of critical ideas, leading him to be denounced by the church as a heretic and corrupter of youth. His intellectual legacy was to force the church to reconcile reason with belief – a task undertaken by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274). Aquinas’ major work Summa Theologica reconceptualized the philosophical basis of Christianity in a vast synthesis which sought to incorporate Aristotelian
scientific rationalism into the philosophical canon of Christianity. In doing so, it unleashed civil society from the dogmatic constraints of Augustinian orthodoxy. As medieval society slowly began to transform itself from an agrarian rural society into an increasingly urban world, the complexities of civil society demanded a philosophy that could negotiate Aristotle’s idea of political community, based upon the city state. Aquinas sought to provide the necessary intellectual pluralism and respect for political diversity in his Christianized Aristotelianism. Politics was no longer simply the product of sin, resulting from the Fall. European civil society had begun a slow progression towards the secular sphere that was to open the road to democracy and the right to association as the basis of modern civilization. Culture, Civility and Manners
Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) exposed the venality of papal power in his immortal work, the Divine Comedy (1309– 1320). His poetry was to once again place culture on the agenda of civilization. The Divine Comedy is an authentically medieval masterpiece that draws upon the traditions of antiquity, astrological folklore, coupled with Arab and Jewish philosophical influences. It recounts Dante’s journey through hell and purgatory and finally paradise. His work sparkles with the influence of heretics and dissidents of his times. But it also symbolizes the reemergence of cultural life in the mainstream of European civil society. The Roman concept of societas civilis, based upon civility, informed the twelfth century awakening. Manners and tastes became culturally significant, as the contors of a European civilization began to take shape. Norbert Elias (1897–1990) in his monumental study The Civilising Process (2000) has provided a historical account of the meaning of civility (or civilite´), which he observes during the Middle Ages was popularly regarded as the difference between ‘‘Latin Christendom’’ and paganism. He argues that the concept of civility was an expression and symbol of a social and cultural formation, embracing the various nationalities that composed the First Europe. A shared language in Latin was a key prerequisite to a sense of sociocultural unity. Also essential were the psychic structures that moulded shared social attitudes regarding violence, sexual behavior, bodily functions, table manners, and forms of speech. These were the cultural ingredients of a civilized society and unsurprisingly first emerged at the top of the social hierarchy in courtly etiquette. The Angevin court of Eleanor of Acquitane (1122–1204), at Poitiers, became the chief academy in Europe for instruction in the arts of civility, which included music, poetry, and courtly love and etiquette. Women’s role as the arbiters of civility critically shaped
Civil Society History II: Medieval Period
civil society in Medieval Europe, in terms of tastes and manners. It provided the civilizing processes for the development of a civil society that was shaped by a secular humanist world view, beyond the theocratic gaze of the male ecclesiastical authorities.
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Charity defines the care of the poor in civil society as a Christian duty. In its idealized form, charity is presented as an individualistic and altruistic act, as a private affair between two parties, the benefactor and the beneficiary. In Christian cosmology, redemption was possible through charity, however venal the life. Ontologically, charity balanced the venal and acquisitive in a moral and social compact with God. Justice was divinely ordained through divine law. The philosopher, Thomas Aquinas, defined the Christian principles of charity ordering them into seven ‘‘spiritual aids’’ and seven ‘‘good works.’’ The spiritual aids included: consule (counsel), carpe (sustain), doce (teach), solare (console), remitte (rescue), fer (pardon), and ora (pray). Added to these seven spiritual aids were seven ‘‘good works’’: vesto (clothe), poto (to give water), cibo (feed), redimo (redeem from prison), tego (shelter), colligo (nurse), and condo (bury). The recipients of charity varied greatly from the poor, the homeless, the hungry, the sick, and dead to the imprisoned. The exercise of charity defined virtue in a Christian civil society. Medieval society had a simple Christian view of the world based upon faith in God, where the pious worked together to ensure protection, healing, and redemption.
Celibacy was accompanied by fasting, in the belief the abstinence made the ‘‘soul’’ pure. In this rarefied world many of the most intellectually able and idealistic men and women of their age sought to retreat from the ‘‘barbarism’’ of everyday medieval life. Albeit, there were important exceptions. Irish monasticism was imbued with missionary zeal. The Irish monk, St. Columban (543– 615), established monasteries in France and Italy. While preaching against the inequities of the age, Columban sought to impose a particularly rigorous form of Christianity on Europe, often coming into conflict with the secular authorities, which he did not hesitate to rebuke. Monks were not simply evangelists. They were also scholars. There was a two-way traffic across Europe. When life became too dangerous in continental Europe, monastic scholars sought refuge in Cornwall on the southern English coast, the Hebrides in isles north of Scotland and Ireland. In 550 some 50 scholars fled from Europe to Cork on the Southern Irish coast, where they founded a seat of learning. Another Irish monk, St. Columba (563–597) established a monastery on Iona in Scotland that was to prove the centre of Celtic Christianity where the Book of Kells was produced before being returned to Ireland. This tradition of monastic scholarship maintained on the furthest reaches of Western Europe spread eastwards as the dangers of the early Middle Ages eased. Monastic scriptoria became centers for the preservation of both religious and philosophical ideas that underpinned European civilization, albeit they were deeply conservative and traditionalist in their philosophical speculation, being guided by the doctrines of the Church.
Monasticism, Asceticism, and Virtue
Monasticism and Civil Society
Those seeking Christian perfection joined monasteries, which were viewed by the laity as symbols of human virtue embodied in the ascetic life. Albeit the monasteries did not always abide by those ideals. Within the seclusion of the monastic life, the secular world was regarded as remote and venal. Monastic was derived from the Greek work monachos, meaning solitary. While the pope and episcopacy were engaged in a struggle for power within the secular sphere, the monastic tradition abjured these worldly concerns under the influence of eastern ascetics. Monks, nuns, and hermits from the fifth century began to appear in scattered settlements throughout Europe, where monasticism took a communal form as opposed to the solitary nature of eastern asceticism. The word religio was employed to describe the life of an ascetic who had entered the religious life in a convent or monastery. These ascetics in the West, like their counterparts in the East, regarded themselves as the true custodians of Christianity. They lived a celibate life from the beginning, emphasizing the importance of the spiritual over the bodily desires.
Monasteries were, however, not simply a refuge for ascetics and scholars from an otherwise ‘‘barbarous’’ world. They were also an important social experiment that provided a form of civil society, often in the midst of chaos. The monastery formed a complex micro-society enmeshed in the wider society outside it. The great abbeys of France, such as Cluny (910), Clairvaux (1115), and Fonte´vraud (1099) typified the emergence of the monastery as a major European institution. The Royal Abbey at Fonte´vraud, located on a seminal site in French and English history, where Kind Henry II, Queen Eleanor of Acquitane and their son Richard I, Coeur de Lion, are buried, epitomized the social, political, and civic significance of the religious institution. Founded by a Breton monk at the end of the eleventh century, Fonte´vraud abbey was composed of both monasteries and nunneries but also institutions for the sick, lepers and reformed prostitutes, several of which are still extant, including the leprosarium of St. Lazare. Over this large complex an abbess presided at its head, normally drawn from the
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ranks of the royalty or nobility and often a widow, ensuring wisdom and experience as a condition of appointment. Eleanor of Acquitane rejected the position of Abbess of Fonte´vraud. As the most significant female personage of her age, whose name was synonymous with civility, courtly etiquette, and political power, Eleanor’s association with the role of Abbess of Fonte´vraud is testament to both its importance and the connection between monasticism and civil society. Monks and clerics were often the only medical practitioners in medieval society. According to Roy Porter (1999), the Benedictine monks made the care of the sick their primary concern, making monasteries the key medical centers in Europe prior to 1300. Monasteries provided infirmaries for the sick and cultivated herbs for their curative properties. They were not simply a refuge for ascetics but also for the poor, sick and outcasts of society. The significance of the monastery in European civil society during the medieval period cannot be overstated. Its communal form in Western Europe made it a centre for civil society. While the monks formed a discrete microsociety, they also interacted with the outside world through preaching, learning, and healing. In the late middle ages, monasticism went into decline. The onset of the Reformation led to the suppression of monasteries, notably in Protestant countries such as England. Their role in civil society as the center of communal activity in a largely rural society also began to be challenged by the emergence of urban life.
International Perspectives While the medieval world was a predominantly rural society locked into feudal structures that bound the mass of the population to the land, the emergence of cities and towns in embryonic form began a process of change. Walled cities and towns reflected the dangers and insecurities of medieval life. By the twelfth century the process of urbanization was clearly visible – led by the Italian cities of Venice, Pisa, Genoa and Florence. Other parts of Europe followed suit such as Paris and London, as well as Ypres, Bruges, and Ghent in Flanders. New class structures emerged with burghers providing a commercial class that rivalled the aristocracy in terms of wealth, influence and power. Florence stands out as a city of virtuosity in the arts, commerce, and a thriving civil society. In 1300, its population stood at 95,000. Smaller than Milan, Venice, and Genoa, Florence nonetheless had a magnetic attraction for the young, who gravitated to it from rural areas. They included artists such as Giotto, Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci and Desiderio da Settignano but also artisans, notaries, and public officials.
Florentine civil society rested upon the guild system that facilitated the popolo minuto (citizenry) to form associations for their economic and political advancement. It achieved its apogee in the in the unsuccessful Ciompi Revolution in 1378. While the Ciompi Revolution failed to achieve democracy, it did represent the assertion of guild power and its extension from the professions to artisans, shop keepers, and labourers. Merchant guilds were now complemented by craft guilds. The guilds not only afforded their members political and economic power but also social protection and mutual aid. The guilds controlled the cities’ 200 factories. They overlapped with civic government but also contested for power with it. In this sense, guilds provided the basis of a civil society that was independent of the city state, the commercial aristocracy, and the Church authorities, who aligned themselves with the ruling oligarchy. With urbanization emerged not only the political challenge to the medieval order represented by the Ciompi Revolution in 1378 but also a resurgence of humanism. Florence was also a center of vibrant intellectual life. While Paris was the university center of intellectual dissidence during the Middle Ages, Florence produced the humanistic revival that was to undermine the medieval world view fundamentally. Niccolo` Machiavelli is widely regarded as the first genuinely modern thinker because of his denial of Divine Law. The custodian of Divine Law was the Catholic Church. Born in Florence in 1469, Machiavelli proved himself to be a consummate statesman, diplomat, and writer. In the Age of Discovery he travelled widely, observing contemporary civilization with a keen humanist eye. Yet, he learned to bend to the will of his political masters, surviving torture to end his life as a man of letters. His death in 1527 left a unique legacy. He is best remembered for The Prince, based upon the life of Cesare Borgia, Duke of Valentino and illegitimate son of the corrupt Pope Alexander VI. Published in 1532, The Prince has been condemned over the centuries as a diabolical work bordering on the sacrilegious. Pope Clement VIII was the first to condemn this study of the nature of elite politics as the naked pursuit of power. Since then Machiavellianism has become a byword for the corrupt use of power. The conventional interpretation of The Prince is evidenced in Chapter XVII entitled ‘‘Cruelty and Compassion and Whether it is Better to be loved than feared, or the Reverse.’’ Machiavelli declares with surrealistic irony: "
Cesare Borgia was accounted cruel; nevertheless, this cruelty of his reformed the Romagna, brought it unity, and restored order and obedience. On reflection, it will be seen that there was more compassion in Cesare than in
Civil Society History II: Medieval Period
the Florentine people, who, to escape being called cruel, allowed Pistoia to be devastated. So a prince should not worry if he incurs reproach for his cruelty so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal. By making an example or two he will prove more compassionate than those who, being too compassionate, allow disorders which lead to murder and rapine. These nearly always harm the whole community, whereas executions ordered by a prince only affect individuals. (Machiavelli, 1961: 95)
In The Prince, ‘‘virtue’’ is equated with the capacity of a person to achieve success and fortune as an individual, whether by justice or deceit and cruelty. Borgia learnt to his cost that fortune can be fickle and cruel (‘‘the wheel of fortune’’). The Prince is essentially a democratic statement of power. Machiavelli regarded monarchy as an inferior form of government, only necessary when the people lacked the virtue to form a republic. In The Discourses (1518) Machiavelli sets out the requirements for good governance, the need for strong military defence and the role of religion as subordinate to the State: "
But as regards prudence and stability, I say that the people are more prudent and stable, and have better judgement than a prince; and that it is not without good reason that it is said ‘the voice of the people is the voice of God’; for we see popular opinion prognosticate events in such a wonderful manner that it would almost seem as if the people had some occult virtue, which enables them to foresee good and evil.
Machiavelli, in turning the medieval view of church-state relations on its head, likens virtue in the body politic to a healthy lifestyle in the individual. These qualities of vigor and sacrifice equate with a virtuous political life that makes people free. It is this willingness to subordinate private egotistical advantage to the public good that defines the virtuous society. The idea that power is divinely ordained is, therefore, rejected by Machiavelli. He reconfigures the exercise of power in purely secular terms. A view that enraged the Pope but was the mark of his humanism and Western Europe’s intellectual liberation from the cosmic hegemony of Christian theology. In the Renaissance thought of Machiavelli is born the idea of human beings becoming moral actors in their own personal and political struggle to transcend fate as given – the external Christian view that ‘‘God is in his heaven and all is well with the world.’’ Here the germ of the idea of civic virtue in modern life was born. Hope displaced fate. Virtue became a human quality and stratagem. As art freed itself from the celebration of the divinity of God to focus on the beauty and passion of
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humanity, so humans beings began to think differently about their world and how they could change it for the better. Gone was the illusion that power is divine. This was the death knell of medievalism. Medieval civil society was based upon a Christian ethic. It rested upon the view that the Church was superior to the state. Humanity was ontologically defined by the Fall as innately sinful, necessitating the predominance of divine law over secular sphere. But this Christian view of the world was constantly challenged by the secular sphere, both politically and culturally. A Christian civil society flourished in the medieval world in which charity was viewed as the highest virtue. Monasticism in Western Europe embodied the principles of religious virtue in institutional form through its care of the sick and outcast population. But a more secular version of civil society emerged in the twelfth century awakening, beginning in the pursuit of civility in the social and cultural life of elite courtly society. Urbanization gave secular civil society a further impetus in which the populo minuto (citizenry) began to contest for economic and political power. Machiavelli was to strip the vale of legitimacy from the divine law and papal authority. His critique proved to be the defining statement of modernity, in which medieval Christian civil society was consigned to historical oblivion. Yet its legacy is a powerful one representing a (albeit temporary) triumph of Jerusalem over Athens and Rome, of faith over reason.
Cross-References
▶ Charity, History of ▶ Civil Society History III: Renaissance ▶ Civil Society Theory: Aristotle ▶ Religious Orders
References/Further Readings Davies, N. (1997). Europe: A history. London: Pimlico. Ehrenberg, J. (1999). Civil society: The critical history of an idea. New York: New York University Press. Elias, N. (2000). The civilizing process. Oxford: Blackwell. Hall, P. (1998). Cities in civilization. London: Phoenix Giant. Heer, F. (1974). The medieval world: Europe from 1100–1350, London: Cardinal. Machiavelli, N. (1961). The prince (originally published in 1532). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Machiavelli, N. (1970). The discourses (originally published in 1531). Harmondsworth: Penguin. Pirenne, H (1968). Mohammed and Charlemagne (originally published in 1939). London: Unwin. Porter, R. (1999). The greatest benefit of mankind: A medical history of humanity from antiquity to the present. London: Fontana Press. Reader, J. (2004). Cities. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press.
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Civil Society History III: Renaissance
Civil Society History III: Renaissance CURTIS SARLES New York University, New York, NY, USA
Main Characteristics of the Period The Renaissance is a time when the intellectual community of Europe rediscovered the works of classical philosophy and early Christianity, and took their originality and greatness as a source of inspiration. This era saw the founding of the humanities in their contemporary form, and was propelled forward by a creative tension between the glorification of God and the glorification of humankind. The era yielded some of Europe’s greatest artists, political thinkers, and religious dissidents. Beginning in the late fourteenth century, in Florence, the movement spread throughout Italy and much of Europe, extending to the Nordic countries and as far east as Poland. It arose out of an intellectual climate in which religious scholars engaged in doctrinaire disputes over the interpretation of sacred texts, and seldom bothered to take a fresh look at the texts themselves. To wrest itself from this mire, the city-states of Italy enlisted the help of Byzantine and Muslim scholarship, which had engaged energetically with original texts while the Western tradition languished. As the paintings of da Vinci and Michelangelo show, the Renaissance shifted Europe’s attention toward the lot of humanity. Once the humanities emerged, the beginnings of social scientific inquiry followed suit. Critical engagement with authority figures within church and state had momentous consequences for European social life. Criticism of the Catholic Church led to the Protestant Reformation. And once this Church lost its monopoly over religious life, European states gained a newfound autonomy that proved destabilizing. Renaissance thinkers often advocated for a strong, centralized monarchy, and their arguments helped usher in the period of absolutist government. Yet the Renaissance spirit of rational-critical inquiry outmatched even absolute monarchy, which eventually gave way to republican and democratic politics. Many features of Renaissance social life vanished long ago, but the principle of critical inquiry it inspired lives on. Thus while scholars generally deem the Renaissance a cultural period that concludes with the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, the notion of Renaissance involves the rebirth of critical inquiry, and consequently the birth of modern life.
Key Developments This was a crucial time for reflection on the optimal relationship between state authority and private life. Whereas the beginning of the Renaissance was marked by the political fragmentation of feudalism, political thinkers of the period began to question a political system that led to constant tension between neighboring city-states, and thus advocated for larger political entities that would win the loyalty of their citizens. The words used to describe civil society shifted during the Renaissance, as important translations of Aristotle appeared and scholars used the terms from these translations to refer to contemporary phenomena. Cohen and Arato point out that Aristotle’s politike koinonia, a political community with a unifying ethos, was translated into Latin (the language of scholarly discourse during the Renaissance) as societas civilis, but societas civilis was applied to entities such as empires that could have no unifying ethos. Societas civilis was also equated with res publica and used to revive republican thought during the period. On this sense, societas civilis brought up a dualism, but it was not the familiar opposition between state and society. Instead, it was an opposition between the crown and the estates of the realm: the nobility, the clergy, and the commoners. The era of absolute monarchy in Europe saw an end to the distribution of power between the sovereign and the estates of the realm, as monarchs sought to monopolize power. It was at this moment that societas civilis could take on the current meaning of ‘‘civil society’’ as opposed to ‘‘state.’’ Shifting from language to material practice, everywhere wealth was a precondition for the development of civil society institutions. Those who could generate surplus, and therefore support leisurely pursuits such as art and higher education, tended to be successful business people. The city-states of Italy were strategically positioned between the luxury goods providers of the near and far east, and the voracious European market. The wealth they amassed through trade with these regions gave private people room to maneuver, to win favorable treatment from the state, to occupy positions within the state, and to critique both particular state policies and the system of city-states more generally. Civilized Comportment
While wealth was a prerequisite to the emergence of civil society as a counterbalance to the state, the constant feuding of prominent families provided motivation for reforming political life. The commercial class stood to benefit from increasing political stability. As Muir (1999) shows, public religiosity, juridical practice, and
Civil Society History III: Renaissance
refined manners all contributed to the pacification of public life. Religious life in the Renaissance had major secular consequences. In Venice, which was precocious in its elimination of political violence, a patrician in each neighborhood was given the responsibility to create and maintain public shrines to the Virgin Mary or a patron saint. As a result of its public religion initiatives, public space in the city became sanctified, and thus imbued with (antiviolent) religious sentiment. Potential criminals might not hesitate to harm other citizens, but doing so in front of the Virgin or patron saint appears to have given them pause. The obvious impracticality of blanketing the countryside with such images highlights the urban character of Renaissance civil society. Widespread literacy, which made informed debate possible, was another essential precondition for the emergence of civil society. The spread of juridical culture helped to valorize literacy by making people dependent upon literate notaries. These professionals traveled from town to town, writing up the formal terms of dowries, apprenticeships, business contracts, and wills. This formalization of social relations aided in creating an autonomous public capable of concerted action outside of the state. Whereas scholars have devoted disproportionate attention to Florence in the study of Renaissance humanism, England has received the most attention for the formation of a literate public. Habermas (1989) chronicles the formation of a public sphere in England, an educated segment of the population that convened in locations like coffee shops to debate political issues, disregarding their differences in status and wealth. The high point of this rational-critical debate occurred in the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, but literacy itself began to expand beyond a small intelligentsia during the Renaissance, as movable type print made mass publication possible. Also, long before the French Revolution and the industrial revolution, there was a revolution in manners that influenced all of Europe’s subsequent political development. This revolution ties together many of the threads in the formation of civil society. The escape from violence was a key component in the transformation of manners. Thus, the writer Mario Savorgnan taught his children to avoid retaliation for physical violence, thereby escaping the cycle of violent feuds into which so much of Europe was embroiled. Erasmus’s Manners for Children and Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier were major texts that instilled sober, moderate, peaceful conduct.
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Toward Nationalism
In addition to the private conduct that helped to make civil society possible, scholars of the Renaissance began to criticize Europe’s political fragmentation. The scale of political organization contributed to the formation of civil society. When scholars of the modern period refer to civil society, they usually have in mind the civil society of a national state. Renaissance Europe, of course, was divided into a much larger number of smaller states. The presence of innumerable city-states and principalities allowed families to gain undue political influence, and these families feuded incessantly. Political thinkers of the Renaissance sought to reduce this factional violence by invoking overarching symbols of unity. The most famous was Machiavelli, who deplored the constant state of warfare into which his native Florence had fallen. Machiavelli’s book The Prince has become renowned for the ruthlessness he advocates in the face of internal dissent, but the reader must also keep in mind that all of Machiavelli’s recommendations were made in the name of national unity. Eventually, he hoped, the Italian peninsula might become a single nation. And national unity, he believed, would bring domestic peace and prosperity. The Prince was written as a book of advice for Lorenzo de’ Medici, prince of the principality of Florence. And while there is little evidence that Medici took any of Machiavelli’s advice, the work is remarkably prescient. Political leaders, in the years since its publication, have tended to become much less concerned with familial conflicts, and much more so with winning the loyalty of the populace. And while few would opt for a return to the constant feuding of the early Renaissance, it is possible to criticize Machiavelli for disregarding the autonomy of civil society. In his analysis, the public appears as putty in the hands of the prince, rather than esteemed participants in the political process. As such, The Prince is an uncomfortable anticipation of plebiscitary, representative government. In his other major work, the Discourses, Machiavelli sets forth his views on the prospect of republican government, wherein power is distributed amongst the citizens rather than concentrated in the hands of a sovereign. Machiavelli believes that republics are the most stable form of government in the long run, as they are not so dependent on the judgment of a single individual. Nonetheless, in cases of emergency, he argues that it is necessary to defer to the judgment of a sovereign. Like so many cultural practices of the Renaissance, political thought had its roots in Florence and spread out to the rest of Europe. Among the most important writers to receive Machiavelli’s work was the French scholar Jean Bodin, whose Six Books of the Commonwealth
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sought to find a basis for political order in an era when the supremacy of the Catholic Church could no longer be taken for granted. Writing in the sixteenth century, Bodin opposed Machiavelli’s advocacy of ruthless statecraft, and founded his political thought on the sanctity of the family and the authority of the sovereign. Moreover, Bodin broke from the tradition of justifying policies in terms of the proper relationship between church and secular ruler. Instead, he sought to establish policies that would benefit the commonwealth for its own sake. Like Machiavelli, Bodin ends up advocating a political system wherein individuals other than the sovereign have little influence over the form and policy of the state, also known as absolute monarchy. Both theorists recognize the freedom of a private sphere, a sphere wherein individuals are free of the constraints of the state, but they conceive of it in purely negative terms, regarding it as apolitical. Joining Machiavelli and Bodin in the absolutist tradition is Hobbes, whose 1651 work Leviathan seeks to justify an absolute sovereign in terms of a population’s right to freedom from ‘‘wounds, and chains, and imprisonment.’’ Like Machiavelli, Hobbes’s first concern is to avoid civil war, though he bases this concern in the English Civil War and not warring Italian city-states. Hobbes, however, distances himself from the contingencies of the present and argues that a primordial state of ‘‘war of all against all’’ justifies the existence of a powerful central state. Hobbes is less historically specific than Machiavelli, and while scholars of the present often take this as a weakness, notions of a primordial ‘‘state of nature’’ proved highly influential upon subsequent political theorists who took as their object ‘‘human nature’’ (e.g., Rousseau) or the notion of a ‘‘social contract’’ justifying the existence of the state (e.g., Locke). Yet the less attention these theories gave to historical specificity and the more they posited a hypothetical contract between state and humankind, the more they neglected the possibility of citizens influencing the state through their concerted action. The political thought of the Renaissance can appear as bleak, as negating the individual’s right to participate in the political process, but this is so only from the point of view of the present. When these authors wrote, universal adulthood suffrage was unheard of. Reflection on democracy involved considering the proper balance between the monarch and other political elites. By reviving this mode of thought, the political thinkers of the Renaissance prepared the ground for modern republican thought. Heroic Individualism
A decisive turning point occurring during the Renaissance was the glorification of the individual person.
Hence, the Renaissance made possible Albrecht Du¨rer’s self-portrait, a type of painting that did not exist in medieval times. In political theory, too, the individual took on new importance. Medieval political theorists had encouraged political actors to embody the values of Stoicism or Christianity. In contrast, theorists of the Renaissance urged the individual to rise up above the conditions of the age (which might be corrupt or fragmented) to create the best possible polity. Thus The Prince is not a call for despotism, but instead an appeal for the individual to promote the welfare of the people through the exercise of virtu, or excellence. Conversely, Machiavelli and Guicciardini held that the individual can only become virtuous by taking part in the formation of policy; their theories are equally relevant to princes and ordinary citizens.
International Perspectives As explained above, the prominence of absolutist rule during the Renaissance limited the forms of activism available to non-state actors. Nonetheless, international variation in forms of civil society emerged during the period. Under absolutism, the sovereign not only upheld the law, but also took on the obligation to promote the people’s welfare. Thus, the state took an increasingly active role in foundations established by citizens, ranging from educational institutions to shelters for the sick and the poor. Moreover, the continental states took a more interventionist path than the English state. Many foundations began as institutionalized offerings to the dead, a tradition that changed wherever the Protestant Reformation took hold. The Reformation generated increasing opposition to prayers for the dead, and Protestants took on a more worldly orientation to their lives. The states in which Protestants dwelled, however, differed in the degree to which they intervened in the activities of foundations. What the English called ‘‘charitable foundations’’ were known as ‘‘public foundations’’ on the European continent, and continental states tended to manage them more actively. Whereas the Prussian state helped to manage foundations, the English state only intervened to stop the abuse of trust. These differences in the degree of state intervention persist to the present day, suggesting that the varieties of welfare capitalism were in place even before the industrial revolution. Was the Renaissance the Prototype of the Modern?
Those who lived in the Renaissance did not know it by this name, as it was the nineteenth century historian Jacob Burckhardt who first postulated a rebirth of classical greatness spreading outward from fourteenth century
Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment
Florence in The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy. Burckhardt argued that modern cultural and political forms originated in this period, a position that has been roundly criticized since. One line of argument against Burckhardt is that viewing the Renaissance as the prototype of modernity mistakes the part for the whole. Republican thought, for instance, was never fully extinguished in Europe, and regarding the Renaissance as its source neglects its predecessors along with the abundance of non-republican political theory produced at the time. Absolutist thought, for instance, predominated at the time, whereas modern political theorists often seek to break with monarchy and other forms of traditional rule. Another line of critique holds that Burckhardt neglects major innovations that took place in Europe prior to the fourteenth century, such as the twelfth century construction of the Cathedral of Chartres. Burckhardt’s critics can amass volumes of data to support their position, but, like the resplendent works of Michelangelo and da Vinci, the notion of Renaissance refuses to disappear. Political thinkers continue to draw inspiration from the new forms of inquiry that emerged in fourteenth century Florence. In a sense, however, it is only fitting that Burckhardt’s thesis should be subjected to endless controversy, as Renaissance, at its core, is critical engagement with the works of humanity, aimed at improving upon what has gone before.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society in the European Tradition ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society, Antiquity ▶ Civil Society, Definitions of and Approaches ▶ Civil Society II: Medieval Period ▶ Civil Society IV: Enlightenment ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Political Society ▶ Public Sphere
References/Further Readings Aron, R. (1965). Main currents of sociological thought (Vol. 1). New York: Basic Books. Black, A. (2003). Guild and state: European political thought from the twelfth century to the present. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Bodin, J. (1955). Six books of the commonwealth. Oxford: Blackwell. Burckhardt, J. (1990). The civilization of the renaissance in Italy. New York: Penguin Books.
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Calhoun, C. (1992). Introduction. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Calhoun, C. (2002). Civil society/public sphere: History of the concept. In N. Smelser & P. Baltes (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences. New York: Elsevier. Castiglione, B. (1959). Book of the courtier. New York: Doubleday. Cohen, J., & Arato, A. (1992). Civil society and political theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Coing, H. (1981). Remarks on the history of foundations and their role in the promotion of learning. Minerva, 19(2), 271–281. Erasmus, D. (2008). A handbook on good manners for children. London: Preface. Erasmus, D. (1942). The praise of folly. New York: W. J. Black. Ferguson, A. (1966). An essay on the history of civil society. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Ferguson, W. (1962). Europe in transition, 1300–1520. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Ferguson, W. (1948). The renaissance in historical thought. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hobbes, T. (1998). Leviathan. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Luther, M. (1961). Selections from his writings. New York: Doubleday. Machiavelli, N. (1984). Discourses. New York: Penguin Books. Machiavelli, N. (1985). The prince. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Mann, M. (1984). The autonomous power of the state: Its origins, mechanisms, and results. Archives Europe´ennes de Sociologie, 25(2), 185–213. Montaigne, M. (1958). Complete essays. Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press. More, T. (1975). Utopia. New York: Norton. Muir, E. (1999). The sources of civil society in Italy. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 29(3), 379–406. Pocock, J. (1975). The Machiavellian moment: Florentine political thought and the Atlantic republican tradition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Skinner, Q. (2004). Visions of politics, Volume 2, Renaissance virtues. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wallace, D. (1997). Chaucerian polity: Absolutist lineages and associational forms in England and Italy. Stanford, CA.: Stanford University Press.
Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment FRED POWELL National University of Ireland-Cork, Cork, Ireland
Introduction The Enlightenment represented a rupture in Western civilization. It is often viewed as an epistemological break with the past, in which human beings cast off the yoke of religious cosmology and embraced a new world of science, research, and civility. Historically, the Enlightenment period encompasses the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Sociologically, it is synonymous with the emergence
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of modernity. But it was not simply an epistemological rupture with the past, in which a belief in scientific progress replaced religious verities. The Enlightenment also represented a profound change in human consciousness that produced the American Revolution (1776) and the French Revolution (1789). Absolutism was replaced by republicanism and democracy. Economic liberalism, based upon the free market, was also a product of the Enlightenment. A public sphere emerged in the form of civil society. It was defined by the right to associate freely as citizens as a basic precept of democratic society. This public sphere was political but it was also social and cultural in character. New mental and moral sensibilities redefined human beings relations with nature and each other. The practical realities of this civilizational reconfiguration appeared in an outpouring of new political and social ideas, assisted by the emergence of a mass print media culture and a vigorous coffee house society. Outside this thriving public sphere were the poor. Enlightenment society unsentimentally applied reason to the regulation of the poor. This produced a system of public charity that transformed its eschatological meaning into a secular system of social control.
Main Characteristics of the Period The Enlightenment is often called the Age of Reason. The philisophe (philosophers such as Montesquieu [1689–1755], Voltaire [1694–1778], Diderot [1713–1784] and Rousseau [1712–1778]) became the interpreters of the Enlightenment. As such it represented a development beyond the medieval preoccupation with faith. While the Renaissance had restored humanism to European civilization, the seventeenth century Wars of Religion were a reminder that faith still set the cosmological agenda. The key metaphor for the Enlightenment was ‘‘light’’ provided by reason. Light facilitated an escape from the darkness of religious belief – the light of reason! The French called the Enlightenment movement the Sie`cle des Lumie`res. In Germany it was called the Aufklarung. Americans called it ‘‘the Great Awakening.’’ For the British there was some uncertainty that there was an Enlightenment at all. However, key Enlightenment thinkers were British, notably John Locke (1632–1704) and David Hume (1711–1776). Reason was an essential part of Britain’s preoccupation with scientific discovery that drove its prodigious eighteenth century industrial revolution. Ultimately, the Enlightenment was not a movement but a way of thinking that permeated all societies in Western civilization. The Enlightenment, as interpreted by the philisophe, viewed itself as a return to classical civilization based upon the ascendancy of reason. Humanism was reborn.
Democracy looked back to the ancient Athens of Pericles (490–429 BC) for its inspiration. The grandeur of Rome provided the model for a classical cultural and architectural revival. In an Enlightenment world, where skepticism, empiricism, and a belief in progress shaped the age, human beings believed that reason had freed them from traditional forms of authority, whether religious (the church) or political (monarchical absolutism). The triumph of reason over tradition promoted a belief in the political and civil rights to liberty and equality that underpinned democracy and civic virtue, the core elements of the modern governance. This was the context in which the idea of civil society flourished both amongst scholars and in the public mind. The Scottish philosopher and historian, Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) published An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1766). His central theme was the fluctuating historical influence of civic virtue in shaping society. He argued the case for subordinating the private to the public in the greater interest of society. He was influenced by Machiavelli’s idea that human societies had to make a choice between virtue (the common good) and fortune (individual interest). Ferguson was concerned that the pursuit of self-interest in a market society over the common good weakened civic virtue. He contributed to raising public interest in civil society. Similarly, the German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) addressed the idea of civil society. In his Philosophy of the Law, first published in 1821, Hegel produced a seminal statement in which he sought to theorize the relationship between civil society and the modern state. In Germany the state was to keep civil society closely within its grasp because of unease about its political potential. However, Hegel’s legacy to civil society is fundamental because he identified within modern society a public sphere distinct from the state. Hegel had also located civil society within the realm of politics. Democracy would be its midwife, albeit not in Prussia, where Hegel had to carefully balance the realities of monarchical absolutism against the liberating potential of civil society. Nonetheless, Hegel’s legacy to the theorization of civil society is fundamental. The debate about civil society in modern social and political thought started in the Old World but quickly crossed the Atlantic to the New World of the American Colonies. Essential to the widening of the debate was Tom Paine (1737–1809), raconteur, polemicist, and commoner, who dominated progressive political thought in Britain, France, and America during the age of revolutionary struggle against absolutist tyranny in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. In his highly influential
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pamphlet, Common Sense, published in 1776, Paine introduced the term ‘‘civilized society’’ as a natural and potentially self-regulating form of association, counterpoised to ‘‘government,’’ which was, in his view, at best a necessary and artificial evil. While Paine was vague about what precisely he meant by civil society, he popularized the values and ideas that shaped this alternative view of the world, where active citizens freely associated in pursuit of liberty and equality. His publication The Rights of Man during 1791–92 provided a template for modern democratic civilization. Paine’s final great work The Age of Reason, in which he propounded his views on religion, alienated him from Washington and many of his supporters. But no one better epitomized the spirit of the times in thought and action. Roy Porter (2000: 452) describes Paine as ‘‘the chief oracle of enlightened philosophy.’’ The Rights of Man became the core revolutionary text of its day. In it Paine argued that all men and women are born equal, with equal rights. This became the basis of civil rights, which is today called human rights. Paine viewed civil society as the basis for the realization of equal rights for all citizens. He embraced a radical philosophy of equality in which a welfare state would be constructed that would provide: a right to poor relief; universal elementary education, family allowances for children under 14, old age pensions, maternity benefits, funeral allowances, work experience for training young people and public works for the unemployed. In order to pay for his welfare state, Paine advocated cuts in military expenditure and a system of graduated income tax. His message anticipated the social democratic politics of the twentieth century, in which a social state fused with civil society in the interests of deepening democracy through the pursuit of equality.
Key Developments The Enlightenment was quintessentially a battle of ideas carried out within civil society through the print media and in the emerging public sphere of a coffee house society. The pamphlet emerged first as an agitational instrument, followed by the mass circulation press that created a political public, deeply engaged in discussing the great political issues of the day. The print boom also began to reshape popular tastes and manners by discussing social and cultural issues. The idea of community moved beyond locality to embrace shared interests and identities that transcended the limitations of space. Enlightenment society was a thoroughly modern civilization in terms of communication through the medium of print. During the seventeenth century the pamphlet emerged as a potent agitational instrument. John Milton’s
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(1608–1672) Aeropagitica, published in 1644, was a powerful critique of censorship and a lofty defence of the freedom of the press. In the following century the pamphlet became one of the most widely employed modes of political debate by political and philosophical commentators including Joseph Addison (1672–1719), Jonathan Swift (1667–1745), Voltaire (1694–1778) and, of course, Tom Paine, who emerged as a political agitator without peer. Many of these critical voices, which used parody and satire to promote skepticism in the popular imagination, experienced imprisonment and exile. But nothing could halt the print boom. In Britain, the annual sale of newspapers in 1713 was 2.3 million. By the 1770s, there were 9 London dailies and 50 provincial weeklies with a circulation of 12 million. By 1801, newspaper circulation in Britain had risen to 16 million. The flamboyant figure of John Wilkes (1727–1797) became synonymous with the battle for press freedom in Britain, which he waged through his journal North Briton. For his relentless attacks on the government, Wilkes was sent to the Tower of London but released on a writ of habeas corpus because he was an M.P. (Member of Parliament). The French Revolution in 1789 inspired the modern newspaper with both news coverage and discussion. Camille Desmoulins (1760–1794) emerged as the greatest journalist in revolutionary France. In Paris alone there were 500 newspapers in 1792, and approximately 1,400 in France between 1789 and 1792. But after the 18th Brumaire and the advent of Napoleon Bonaparte, censorship, and control of the press became systemic. The link between democracy and press freedom was fundamental. Civil society flourished in a democracy, where there was freedom to associate and communicate. When these freedoms were suppressed, as in Germany and Russia, civil society was driven underground in the form of Masonic lodges and secret societies that promoted a culture of conspiracy and political intrigue. In more democratic societies, a flourishing civil society congregated and communicated in clubs, societies, and associations for a myriad of purposes: social, cultural, scientific, economic, humanitarian, as well as political. Coffee house society became a metaphor for this new mass culture. The British coffeehouse of the eighteenth century and the cafes of the great European cities, such as Paris and Vienna, epitomized this new civil society which became a space between the private and the public spheres. In this convivial atmosphere a conversational democracy took shape that sparkled with new ideas, driven by modernism’s impatience for change. Whether artists, political radicals or writers, there was a shared sense of destiny being created in this social space, where
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democratic and revolutionary ideas took shape – of counter-publics, where seditious gatherings could discuss the de-traditionalization of society, politically, socially, and culturally. The Enlightenment had produced a civil society led by ideas where philosophy became a popular preoccupation. The poor were excluded from this world of bourgeoisie civil society. Enlightenment civil society marked the advent of a secular moral sensibility based on the work ethic which invested poverty with a new meaning in society and conferred on the poor the status of deviant. The distinction between the impotent and able-bodied poor was made by contemporaries and has been a pivotal consideration in the historiography of social policy. Underneath the surface distinction between impotent and able-bodied poor lay a more fundamental process of categorization bringing a new rationality to bear on the management of the poor as a whole. It encompassed: vagrants; syphilitic and orphan children; the sick, aged, infirm, and insane who collectively were perceived as a problem population of socially and economically useless individuals. A new style of social control emerged during the Enlightenment, based on the systematic regulation of poverty. The effective organization and financing of this burgeoning apparatus of charity necessitated the growing involvement of the state in the social arena. This process took place through the transformation of the institution of charity into a means for enforcing a system of values based on the work ethic. Moral responsibility for poverty was displaced from the rich onto the poor. Poverty was turned into a social issue and charity the instrument of its regulation. The Enlightenment was an increasingly secular age where the religious values of the middle-ages waned with other medieval institutions. Reason replaced belief as the arbiter of social values. In the provision of charity, science was substituted for sentiment. It was a new world where generosity had no place and compassion no role. The logic of charity was turned on its head. Mutual aid, provided outside the context of the prescribed institutional norms of organized charity, became subversive. Even the sick, as objects of medical experimentation, contributed to supporting the new order where entrepreneurial medicine held sway. Meanings and values attached to customary forms of helping were undermined in a society where the eschatological purpose of charity was spurned by contemporaries.
International Perspectives The relief of the poor had moved towards the sphere of secular morality, which was less concerned with the
transcendent and more preoccupied with preservation of public order and the promotion of the work ethic. The new mentalite´ involved a much different concept of charity. It was to crucially shape the nature of social policy in early modern Europe. The secular ideology which infused charity in early modern Europe was reflected in the emergence of public charity. The term public charity was employed a system midway between private initiative and the state. The regulation of the health of the population best exemplified this process in action. The emergence of the medical charities coupled with the expansion of the apparatus of government was essential to this development, including: infirmaries, lying-in hospitals and asylums, as well as foundling hospitals for syphilitic and unwanted children. The development of medical charities during the eighteenth century can be attributed to a number of factors. The advancement of medicine at this time conferred a new-found social significance and economic importance on the ideas, activities, and pronouncements of doctors. Medicine played a key role in the emergence of an incipient knowledge regarding the causes, scale, and effects of disease, which entered in to the field of public discourse. But the advancement of medicine and expansion of medical charities in early modern society devolved on more fundamental socioeconomic interests. First, during the Enlightenment period a mercantilist view of the population growth, concerned with fostering the health of the labor force, was dominant. It was not until the late eighteenth century that the negative Malthusian view of population growth came to be reflected in social policy and the problems of a labour surplus began to be addressed (see below). Positive attitudes towards population growth heightened public awareness of the importance of hygiene and health services in combating disease. Second, while disease was primarily experienced by the poor it did not respect class boundaries. Once they had contracted disease, the rich, paradoxically, proved less resistant than the poor. Consequently, the control of infection, notably contagious diseases, was recognized as being in the interests of society as a whole. Third, experimentation on the poor ultimately benefited the rich, since it allowed for the scientific advancement of medical knowledge. The medical charities involved a high degree of class interest. Public charity created widespread opportunities for employment and corruption through the misappropriation of funds. But medicine had found a crucial role in the governance of society. Public health provided the state with the opportunity of extending its power into the regulation of social life. The emergence of the concept of public charity, forging a partnership between the State and the
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voluntary sphere, opened up boundless new possibilities for the accretion of power over the toiling masses. The movement towards the segregation of the victims of physical diseases was paralleled by the development of facilities for ‘‘lunatics and idiots.’’ The treatment of the insane has been a major focus for the attentions of social control theorists. In 1967, the publication of Foucault’s Madness and Civilisation laid the groundwork for subsequent scholars. In this study he argued that the insane were the archetypal outcasts. The import of Foucault’s argument was that madness in the Age of Reason came to be perceived as a fundamental social threat requiring the erection of a barrier between the insane and the rest of humanity. The asylum became the instrument for the exclusion of those deemed to be mentally ill or intellectually disabled from the rest of the population. The Old English Poor Law introduced in 1601, according to Piven and Cloward (1971: 130) ‘‘was based on several key principles: that relief should be a local responsibility; that relief allowances should be less remunerative than wages (the principle of ‘less eligibility’), and that ‘settlement’ in the local community should be a prerequisite for aid.’’ By the late eighteenth century the political climate had altered. In response to the challenge from the spread of revolutionary ideology and popular unrest, a more liberal administration of the Old English Poor Law had developed on the basis of local initiatives in the mid-1790s. This was known as the Speenhamland system. It permitted large-scale outdoor relief to the ablebodied poor financed by the imposition of a labor rate. The Speenhamland system was in essence a stop-gap response to a temporary political threat to the hegemony of the ruling order. It conferred on the poor a basic right to a subsistence living in the community. In the long-term it did not provide a viable scheme for capital, because it was necessary to alter the mercantilist emphasis on settlement, if the growing demand for urban industrial labor was to be met. Mercantilism was the dominant economic theory of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, which contended that the prosperity of a nation depends upon its capital. A poor law system designed to curtail the mobility of labor had become increasingly anomalous in the age of the Industrial Revolution. Moreover, the Speenhamland system was believed to encourage population growth. This was irrational according to the political economists of the late eighteenth century, who advocated a prudential check on population and opposed statutory support for the poor, i.e., the right to poor relief. Even before the political challenge posed by the French Revolution had receded a debate about the fundamental principles upon which the English Poor Law rested had
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commenced. In this debate the pessimistic theory of Malthus (1796) that the multiplication of population always outstrips food production was to the fore. Malthus’ pessimism was complemented by Adam Smith’s (1776) theory of a ‘‘wages fund’’ which asserted that there was a fixed percentage of the national income available for wages. It was subsequently supported by Ricardo’s (1819) ‘‘Iron Law of Wages’’ which contended that wage payments above the market level in the long term operated to the detriment of the poor since higher wages would encourage excessive population growth leading to greater levels of misery. These classical economists presented their arguments as being informed by reason, regardless of the human consequences. While Malthus and Ricardo envisaged abolition as the ultimate goal of poor law reform, another exponent of classical economic theory, Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), believed that the ideological position of this group could be reconciled with the concept of relief. He advocated in his Pauper Management Improved, first published in 1797, a system whereby England’s 250 Houses of Industry would be brought under a system of centralized control and subject to rational administrative principles. These proposed penitentiaries for the poor (workhouses) were to prove decisive in shaping the Government’s response to the Poor Law reform debate in England and became a model for the rational management of the poor in the industrial world. This was the Enlightenment’s legacy to the poor. Civil society during the Enlightenment flourished in a world that had cast off the constraints of religion. Reason became the intellectual faculty that opened people’s minds to new possibilities, politically, culturally, and socially. Democracy became a reality through the emergence of a mass print media culture and a popular coffee house society. The intellectual ideas of the philisophe reshaped human consciousness, creating a society that was informed by reason and secular values. This was to prove a liberating experience for a bourgeoisie society that redefined itself in terms of modernity and democracy. However, for the poor the experience was very different. A system of public charity emerged. It redefined the meaning of charity eschatologically, instituting it as a system of social regulation midway between the state and voluntary associations.
Cross-References
▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Charity, History of ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society Theory: Ferguson ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel
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▶ Civil Society Theory: Montesquieu ▶ Civil Society Theory: Paine ▶ Civil Society Theory: Rousseau ▶ Hume, David ▶ Locke, John
References/Further Readings Anheier, H., & Seibel, W. (2001). The non-profit sector in Germany, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Archambault, E. (1997). The non-profit sector in France, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Davies, N. (1997). Europe: A history, London: Pimlico. Ehrenberg, J. (1999). Civil society: A critical history of an idea, New York: New York University Press. Foucault, M. (1967). Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason, London: Tavistock. Keane, J. (1996). Tom Paine: A political life, London: Grove Press. Paine, T. (1969). The essential Tom Paine. New York: Mentor. Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. (1971). Regulating the poor. New York: Vintage. Porter, R. (2000). Enlightenment: Britain and the creation of the modern world. London: Penguin. Powell, F. (2007). The politics of civil society. Bristol: Policy Press. Seligman, A. (1992). The idea of civil society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Civil Society History V: 19th Century ARND BAUERKA¨MPER Freie Universita¨t Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Main Characteristics of the Period In the late eighteenth century, monarchical absolutism was increasingly questioned and under attack. As Enlightenment spread from its first strongholds in France and Britain to most regions of Europe, a new intelligentsia emerged. Its members assembled in clubs and associations, which thus became pillars of the nascent civil society. It was based on deliberation in literary circles and increasingly public discourses that challenged the claims of political rulers to initiate and control discussions ‘‘from above.’’ At the same time, the Freemasons, which had originated in England in the early eighteenth century, expanded considerably throughout Europe. Contrary to clubs and learned societies, they attempted to evade political supervision by meeting secretly. Thus, Freemasons entertained an exclusive rather than public discourse (Hoffmann, 2001: 267). Industrialization, too, gradually undermined the absolutist state. Beyond the strata of artisans and merchants, the new bourgeoisie promoted industrial production in manufactures and factories.
The dynamics of commercial and industrial growth gradually loosened the shackles of mercantilist economics. Monarchical rule was also shaken by the revolution of 1848–1849. Although it was finally suppressed in France, Prussia, and the Habsburg Empire, in particular, the revolutionary upheaval deeply shattered the existing monarchies throughout Europe. Ultimately, absolutism was not to recover. The revolution also fuelled political and social mobilization and led to the expansion of public spheres which had received considerable impetus from the enlightened discourse. Even in the period of restoration from the late 1840s to the 1860s, political and social mobilization in Western and Central Europe did not come to a standstill. It was in the last three decades of the nineteenth century, however, that industrialization entered a new stage in the advanced European countries. Whereas coalmining, steel production and textile industry receded, chemicals, electronics, and engines became the new leading sectors of industrial development, especially in Germany and the United States of America, but also in Britain and France. The merger of companies and economic concentration led to the expansion of industrial plants, raised the social status of the bourgeoisie and lent them increasing political power. Moreover, a new group of managers emerged who were responsible for the daily operation of the industrial plants. Not least, bureaucratization gave rise to an expanding stratum of clerks, in state authorities as well as in factories. Not least, growing functional differentiation in society and economics led to an increase in the number of professionals (like doctors, architects, and lawyers). On the other side of the social ladder, skilled and unskilled labor expanded. Altogether, feudal status hierarchies were replaced by a class society characterized by growing social polarization. Nevertheless, recent research has demonstrated the resilience of the nobility and the gentry in Central European states like Germany and the Hungarian territories, but even in industrial England. The German Junkers, for instance, represented the persistence of the old (often local) large landowners, who continued to be influential elites, especially in Eastern and Central Europe, where they largely maintained their political power and social prestige in the late nineteenth century. Nevertheless, they were not able to stand the tide of democratization which went hand in hand with increasing political participation and the formation of modern parties in the latter half of the nineteenth century. From the 1830s onwards, electoral reforms had undermined the seemingly omniscient power of absolutist rulers. The ‘‘subscriber democracy’’ (Nord, 2000: XVI, XXVIII), which was based on procedural rules and established
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democratic politics as an ensemble of everyday rituals and practices, gradually replaced autocratic, paternalist rule and reduced the power of traditional honorary elites. Yet almost exclusively proprietors (e.g., of houses and other premises) were allowed to vote in major European states like Britain. From the mid-nineteenth century onwards, electoral reforms also extended to the rising middle classes of the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. Yet it was not until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that large sections of the working classes were given the right to vote. Like the middle-classes, they had to stand the proof of ‘‘respectability.’’ Moreover, women continued to be excluded from the electorate. They were also heavily disadvantaged in social advancement and prevented from taking up careers in academia and the economy. Thus, mass electorates emerged in Europe as late as the interwar period. In the 1920s, too, a full-fledged consumer culture emerged in the United States and western and central Europe, before the Great Depression gave rise to economic deprivation, social dislocation and political extremism from 1929 to the mid-1930s.
Key Developments Following the emergence of clerics and court consultants in the Middle Ages as well as the rise of humanist scholars in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, European Enlightenment was taken up and at the same time promoted by a new group of intellectuals in the late eighteenth century. These hommes de lettres were mostly no longer tied to state administration and assembled in scholarly or literary associations (socie´te´s de pense´e and socie´te´s litte´raires, respectively). Freemasons, too, adopted enlightened ideas and founded lodges throughout Europe. In the early 1780s, about 700 lodges had been established in Europe and North America. Freemason associations counted 100,000 members in France alone in 1793 (Budde, 2002: 632; Sdvizˇkov, 2006: 39). Apart from associations and clubs, new publications like encyclopaedia also contributed to the rise of public spheres. In the early nineteenth century, civil society was largely a vision of free deliberation. Beyond the realm of ideas, concepts, values, and norms, civil society was increasingly an ensemble of social groups and values mainly directed against state control. As a social formation, it was initially represented by urban citizens as well as the emerging intelligentsia and bourgeoisie. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, however, the middle classes as well as skilled laborers increasingly adopted the ideas and values of civil society, such as self-reliance, individual independence, tolerance, mutual trust and political freedom. Yet this set of values was marred by contradictions,
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as universalistic ideals coalesced with the vested interests of the bourgeoisie and intelligentsia. Social equality, for instance, largely remained a promise throughout the nineteenth century, as the marginal role of the working classes and the subordination of women in the expanding pockets of civil society clearly demonstrate. Altogether, civil society was carried and supported by social groups that were united by their opposition to state control and supervision. They also adhered to common cultural values, cultivated a particular lifestyle centred on the family and shared an often strong distain for the lower classes. Its foundation of property and education (Bildung) lent civil society its exclusive character, quite apart from the persistence of the ancien regime and semifeudal rule, particularly in Eastern Europe. Not least, associations and clubs proved to be ambivalent and even ambiguous with regard to civil society. Although contemporary observers like Alexis de Tocqueville who published his two-volume travelogue on the United States in 1835 and 1840, respectively, contended that associations were the indispensable pillars of American democracy, they were by no means universally inclusive. On the contrary, some clubs and organisations like the Freemasons strictly controlled the entry of new members (Hoffmann, 2001). In a similar vein, not all associations promoted or even shared the basic tenets and values of civil society. As chauvinism spread in the late nineteenth century, for instance, nationalist pressure groups rejected political freedom and tolerance in favour of a strong state. Even liberal elites, which fundamentally supported democratisation, upheld social demarcations, reinforced ethnic cleavages and fuelled nationalism (Hoffmann, 2003). Nevertheless, civil society unfolded its considerable attraction across boundaries and borders. In the nineteenth century, philanthropic societies were transformed into associations that concentrated on the furtherance of certain issues. Thus, movements protested against vivisection and slavery, promoted the rights of women and advocated peace. Workers’ associations also sprang up. In order to mobilize support for their specific concerns they agreed on cross-border cooperation. Philanthropic associations and literary circles had started to engage in crossborder and intercultural communication, before International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) emerged in the nineteenth century (Baker, 2001). As a movement deeply rooted in European Enlightenment as well as in the culture of the Quakers, the ‘‘British and Foreign AntiSlavery Society,’’ which was founded in 1839, has been designated the first organization of this type. Thus even a global civil society gradually appeared on the horizon. As economic and social problems and disruptions like the
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depression of the 1870s increasingly transcended national borders, international solidarity and the formation of crossborder networks of civil society gained momentum. Simultaneously, the formation of modern nation-states and the emergence of territorially-bound political governments also furthered activities by actors of civil society extending beyond borders. Thus, the number of registered INGOs increased from 1874 to 1914 from 32 to as many as 1.083 (Keane, 2003: 44–50; Anheier et al., 2001: 4). The social foundations of civil society also expanded. Beyond the educated, professional bourgeoisie (Bildungsbu¨rgertum, i.e., educated persons like doctors, professors, and lawyers) and the economic bourgeoisie (Wirtschaftsbu¨rgertum, i. e., entrepreneurs and managers), the universalistic values of civil society were also adopted by middle and lower classes in the late nineteenth century. Bourgeois culture also proved to be attractive beyond the realms of particular social groups. In Western and Central Europe, in particular, skilled laborers imitated bourgeois family life, respect for work and education, the values of personal autonomy, individual achievement and success as well as a style of life that was strongly influenced by clubs, associations, and communication in public spheres (Kocka, 1997: 501f.). The working classes, however, selectively appropriated this particular culture, as they fused it with their traditional lifestyles. As a social formation, civil society was by no means homogeneous. Social differences and cultural distinctions separated the economic and educated bourgeoisie, professionals, and the middle classes of the artisans, clerks, and civil servants. Moreover the gulf between males and females closed only gradually at the end of the nineteenth century. The geographical divide between Western and Eastern Europe as well as between the western and nonwestern world has to be taken into account, as well.
International Perspectives In Tsarist Russia, for example, enlightened ideas had been taken up by Peter I and Catherine II in the late eighteenth century, before pockets of civil society emerged in the latter half of the following century. Yet public activities and civic mobilization were largely restricted to some cities, where merchants and entrepreneurs gave donations for public purposes. Although these activities were not completely free from vested (economic, social, and political) interests, the nascent bourgeoisie promoted education, initiated associations and promoted public deliberations and discourses. At the same time, daily newspapers gave rise to local public spheres in urban society. Citizens were also politicized. After the first duma (parliamentary assembly) had been installed after the revolution of 1905,
the scale of social and political participation widened. Thus, noble self-administration, which had been institutionalized in the zemstva from the 1860s onwards, was reinforced as much as the local public spheres in major cities. State control and Tsarist power diminished. Yet there was no society beyond mere sociability, before the Bolsheviks dispossessed and disempowered the bourgeois and educated strata that had supported the values and structures of civil society before November 1917 (Hausmann, 2000; Hildermeier, 2003). In Britain, bourgeois entrepreneurs had ascended from the early nineteenth century onwards. Although the gentry and nobility retained strong positions in Britain, their political clout had gradually diminished by the late nineteenth century. In France, feudal rule was largely abolished by the Revolution of 1789. Contrary to England, however, the first French Republic continued to rest on strong state authority and an extensive public administration. Bureaucratic traditions were even more influential in Germany where the Bildungsbu¨rgertum commanded a particularly high social prestige. The important rule of civil servants in this group reflected the persistence of the particular political power and social prestige of state bureaucracy. Civil society therefore remained weaker in Germany than in Western Europe, but it was stronger than in the East European territories, particularly in the Habsburg, Tsarist, and Ottoman Empires. Yet the German bourgeoisie was increasingly challenged by the rising working class in the last three decades of the nineteenth century. Not least, the resilience of the semifeudal rule by noble landowners in the countryside restricted the political influence of the educated and economic bourgeoisie as much as the relatively early expansion of the franchise. Altogether, the development of civil society in nineteenth century Germany represented the transitory and fragmentary character of civil society, both as an ideal and a social formation, in Germany. This deficiency was to intensify in the early twentieth century. But it was nationalist associations that were to contribute to the downfall of the Weimar Republic. Associational militancy had turned against democracy and key values of civil society (Berman, 1997; Nord, 2000: XV, XVI, XXIII, XXXI).
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Freemasons ▶ INGOs ▶ Social Movements ▶ Quakers
Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century
References/Further Readings Anheier, H., Gladius, M., & Kaldor, M (2001). Introducing civil society. In H. Anheier, M. Gladius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global civil society 2001 Oxford: Oxford University Press.(pp. 3–22). Baker, K. M. (2001). Enlightenment and the institution of society: Notes for a conceptual history. In S. Kaviraj & S. Khilnani (Eds.), Civil society. History and possibilities Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.(pp. 84–104). Bauerka¨mper, A. (Ed.) (2003). Die Praxis der Zivilgesellschaft. Akteure, Handeln und Strukturen im internationalen. Frankfurt/ Main: Vergleich. Berman, S. (1997). Civil society and the collapse of the Weimar Republic. World Politics, 49, 401–429. Budde, G. -F. (2002). Denn unsere Bruderliebe soll ihn leiten. Zum Zusammenhang von Ku¨nstlerexistenz und Freimaurertum bei Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Historische Zeitschrift, 275, 625–650. Conze, W., & Kocka, J. (Eds.) (1985). Bildungsbu¨rgertum im 19 Jahrhundert. 2 Teile. Stuttgart. Gamm, G., & Putnam, R. (1998). The growth of voluntary associations in America 1840–1940. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 29, 511–557. Gosewinkel, D. (Eds.) (2004). Zivilgesellschaft – national und transnational. Berlin: Edition Sigma. Hall, J. A., & Trentmann, F. (Eds.) (2004). Civil society. A reader in history, theory and global politics. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Hausmann, G. (2000). Die wohlhabenden Odessaer Kaufleute und Unternehmer. Zur Herausbildung bu¨rgerlicher Identita¨ten im ausgehenden Zarenreich. Jahrbu¨cher fu¨r Geschichte Osteuropas, 48, 41–65. Hettling, M. & Hoffmann, S. -L. H. (Eds.) (2000). Der bu¨rgerliche Wertehimmel. Innenansichten des 19. Jahrhunderts. Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Hildermeier, M. (2003). Traditionen aufgekla¨rter Politik in Rußland. Historische Zeitschrift, 276, 75–94. Hoffmann, S. -L. (2001). Internationalism and the quest for moral universalism. German Freemasonry 1860–1914. In M. H. Geyer & J. Paulmann (Eds.), The mechanics of internationalism. Culture, society, and politics from the 1840s to the first world war Oxford: Oxford University Press.(pp. 259–284). Hoffmann, S. -L. (2003). Democracy and associations in the long nineteenth century: Toward a transnational perspective. Journal of Modern History, 75, 269–299. Jessen, R., Reichardt, S., & Klein, A. (Eds.) (2004). Zivilgesellschaft als Geschichte. Studien zum 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Wiesbaden. Keane, J. (1998). Civil society. Old images, new visions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keane, J. (2003). Global civil society? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kocka, J. (Ed.) (1985). Arbeiter und Bu¨rger im 19. Jahrhundert. Varianten ihres Verha¨ltnisses im europa¨ischen. Vergleich: Munich. Kocka, J. (Ed.) (1987). Bu¨rger und Bu¨rgerlichkeit im 19. Jahrhundert. 15. Beitra¨ge: Go¨ttingen. Kocka, J. (1997). The difficult rise of a civil society: Societal history of modern Germany. In M. Fulbrook (Ed.), German history since 1800. London. Kocka, J., & Mitchell, A. (Eds.) (1993). Bourgeois society in 19th-century Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lundgreen, P. (Ed.) (2000). Zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte des Bu¨rgertums. Eine Bilanz des Bielefelder Sonderforschungsbereichs (1986– 1997). Go¨ttingen. Morris, R. J. (1983). Voluntary societies and British urban elites 1780– 1850: An analysis. Historical Journal, 26, 95–118.
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Nord, P. (2000). Introduction. In N. Bermeo & P. Nord (Eds.), Civil society before democracy. Lessons from nineteenth-century Europe. Lanham. Reichardt, S. (2004). Civil society. A concept for historical research. In A. Zimmer & P. Eckhard (Eds.), The future of civil society. Wiesbaden. Ryan, M. P. (1999). Civil society as democratic practice: North American cities during the nineteenth century. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 29, 559–584. Schulz, A. (2005). Lebenswelt und Kultur des Bu¨rgertums im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Munich. Sdvizˇkov, D. (2006). Das Zeitalter der Intelligenz. Zur vergleichenden Geschichte der Gebildeten in Europa. Go¨ttingen. Trentmann, F. (Ed.) (2000). Paradoxes of civil society. New perspectives on modern German and British history. New York: Berghahn Books. Wehler, H. -U. (1987). Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Vol. 2: Von der Reforma¨ra bis zur Industriellen und politischen Deutschen Doppelrevolution1815–1845/49. Munich. Wehler, H. –U. (1995). Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Vol. 3: Von der Deutschen Doppelrevolution bis zum Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs 1849–1914. Munich.
Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century THOMAS DAVIES City University, London, UK
Main Characteristics of the Period Introduction
This article examines the evolution of civil society during the first half of the twentieth century. This is a topic that is in need of more extensive research. Despite the centrality of civil society to key developments in the period, it has received inadequate attention from historians of the era. In addition, despite the period’s critical place in the intellectual history of civil society, notably in the writings of Antonio Gramsci, empirical civil society in this era has received comparatively little attention from contemporary specialists on the topic. As this piece will highlight, civil society in the first half of the twentieth century witnessed some of its most remarkable achievements, and also underwent developments that provide unique insights into its nature. During this period, the boundary between governmental and nongovernmental – and between civil and ‘‘uncivil’’ – associational activity was often particularly blurred. Owing to the constraints of a brief article, this piece can consider only a limited sample of countries and movements. Main Characteristics
The international history of the first half of the twentieth century is commonly characterized as the era of the two
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World Wars of 1914–1918 and 1939–1945. The period is equally notable for the intense ideological contestation that developed after the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917 and the advent of the National Socialist dictatorship in Germany in 1933. In addition, whereas the period is said to have begun without any government conforming to present-day standards of democracy, it has been estimated that by 1950 one third of the population of the world lived under democratic rule as understood today (Freedom House, 1999). At the same time, European colonialism became increasingly challenged, culminating in the success of the Indian independence campaign in 1947. The world’s first comprehensive intergovernmental organization, the League of Nations, was established in 1919 and was succeeded by the United Nations in 1945. The period concluded with the onset of the Cold War in the late 1940s. Civil society was both shaped by and helped to shape all of these developments.
Key Developments and International Perspectives Given the variations between different regions of the world, it is difficult to generalize about the evolution of civil society as a whole in this period. Nevertheless, the overall development of civil society internationally in the first half of the twentieth century may be divided into several phases. The first phase, from the onset of the twentieth century until the First World War, witnessed the continuation of nineteenth century expansion and differentiation. The First World War brought with it a contraction of civil society activities, but also sparked the creation of new and reinvigorated associational life in its aftermath. The 1920s and early 1930s were for much of the world an era of unprecedented expansion in civil society activity, but this was followed by a period of contraction in the later 1930s and during the Second World War. Finally, while civil society recovered and expanded in parts of the world after this conflict, the onset of the Cold War ensured that this was only partial. Before the First World War
The opening of the twentieth century witnessed in general continuation of the expansion of civil society that had taken place in the nineteenth century. In Europe and North America, where civil society was arguably most developed, associational life is said to have experienced a ‘‘fourth surge’’ between 1890 and 1910. By the turn of the century in Great Britain the number of voluntary associations was expanding more rapidly than the population, while in the United States up to one fifth of men belonged to fraternal lodges, and in continental Europe an estimated 45,000 associations had been established in France,
and 60,000 in the Austrian Hapsburg Empire (Hoffmann, 2006: 61–63). The political conditions for associational activity in continental Europe improved during the first decade of the twentieth century: the 1901 Associations Act abolished legal restrictions on the right of association in France and the 1908 Reich Association Law permitted cross-regional associational activity in Germany. Developments such as these helped accelerate existing trends such as the increasing participation in associational life of previously marginalized groups including Catholics, national minorities, women, and the working class. Each of these groups created organizations not only for the advancement of their rights, but also for their own leisure, philanthropic, and other varied activities paralleling those of the elite. While many of the best-known of these organizations had already been founded in nineteenth century, the first decade of the twentieth century witnessed innovations such as the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in the United States in 1909. During this period, Russia also experienced growth in associational life, especially after the 1905 revolution and an (albeit restrictive) associations law the following year. Russian civic activity tended to be dominated by elite organizations such as businessmen’s clubs. The same was true in China, where ‘‘professional associations’’ (fatuan) became increasingly common after 1903. In Japan, too, professional associations expanded in number thanks to the growth of the ‘‘new middle class.’’ In all of these countries, Christian-led groups such as the Young Men’s Christian Associations, the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union and the Salvation Army played an important role, and established some of the earliest branches of ‘‘Western’’ international nongovernmental organizations in these countries. On the other hand, developments such as the Boxer rebellion in China in 1900 reflected a growing reaction to Western influences such as these. The trend in South Asia was not dissimilar, where the number of indigenous associations grew in this period, which witnessed the creation of the region’s first formal trade unions and the launching of the Muslim League in 1906. However, Europeans continued to dominate civic life in this region, and associational activity was much less substantial there than in the period following the First World War. The same was true of much of the Middle East, although some countries such as Egypt had developed over the course of the nineteenth century a variety of nongovernmental groups including professional associations, women’s organizations and labour unions operating under conditions affording relatively considerable freedom of association.
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In Latin America, the onset of the twentieth century witnessed an expansion in the number of labor unions and professional associations, which joined the community associations, support groups and Catholic organizations that had developed during the nineteenth century. Variations within the region persisted, with civil society in countries such as Argentina and Colombia more advanced than in Brazil and Mexico. In Sub-Saharan Africa, too, the general trend of expansion was experienced, with preexisting self-help networks along clan, family, and neighborhood lines becoming increasingly joined by civil society organizations set up by European colonizers, often to address problems caused by colonization. At the global level, the transnational dimension of civil society may also be seen as having continued to grow, with internationalist activities peaking with the mass petitions and transnationally coordinated activism that took place at the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907. Notable international organizations that emerged in this period include the International Federation of Trade Unions set up in 1901, as well as some of the earliest Latin American international nongovernmental organizations. The development of international associations culminated in the establishment in 1907 of an international nongovernmental organization of international nongovernmental organizations: the Union of International Associations. However, at the same time as internationalism in Europe flourished, so too did nationalism. As Michael Howard (1978: 72) argued, internationalists in 1914, ‘‘hypnotised by the apparent transformation of warmongering capitalists into a strong force for peace,. . . underestimated the true dangers: those arising from forces inherent in the states-system of the balance of power which they had for so long denounced, and those new forces of militant nationalism which they themselves had done so much to encourage. It was these which combined to destroy the transnational community they had laboured to create.’’ The Era of the Two World Wars
It has been common to view the period from the First World War to the Second as one during which associational activity stagnated, or even declined, especially in Europe and North America. This viewpoint may be supported if a comparison is made between the extent of civil society in 1920 and that in 1940 (Gamm & Putnam, 1999). However, such a perspective neglects the important changes which civil society underwent in this period, as well as the remarkable expansion in associational life that took place during the 1920s and early 1930s before the Great Depression and the proliferation of authoritarian governments reversed this trend.
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Some of the most significant changes to civil society in this period were a consequence of the First World War. While the immediate impact of this conflict was a considerable diminution of associational foundations and activities, the war also led many civic leaders to reorganize and refocus associational life. In the case of the peace movement, for example, weaker preexisting organizations became surpassed by a variety of more vigorous new organizations such as the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, established in 1915, and the movement for the creation of a League of Nations. The establishment of such an organization in 1919 was not the only significant apparent achievement of nongovernmental campaigning to follow the First World War: pressure from workers’ organizations contributed towards the foundation of the International Labor Organization in 1919; women’s suffrage groups saw the enfranchisement of women in Germany, Great Britain, the United States and twenty-five other countries in 1918– 1921; and the temperance movement witnessed the implementation of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1920. Throughout much of the world, the 1920s and early 1930s saw the expansion of civil society activities on an unprecedented scale. In Western Europe and North America, after a temporary reduction in the rate of foundation of voluntary associations during the First World War, many new associations emerged during the 1920s. Notable examples included new humanitarian assistance organizations such as Save the Children, founded in London in 1919, and new advocacy groups such as the first US gay rights organization, the Society for Human Rights, established in Chicago in 1924. Associational life also became better coordinated through national bodies such as Great Britain’s National Council for Voluntary Organisations, established in 1919. In central and eastern Europe, where the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire left a large number of newly independent democracies, preexisting ethnic national associations were joined by a wide range of new societies. Thus by 1932 in Hungary alone, one third of the population belonged to a total of 14,365 associations (Kuti, 1993: 4). In Russia, also, the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 initially brought with it an active civic life in some areas such as the workplace and revolutionary arts. In much of the Middle East, the aftermath of the First World War and the decline of the Ottoman Empire were accompanied by new opportunities for associational activity. As Ibrahim (1995: 36) has argued, ‘‘new civil organizations. . . . thrived in the interwar period (1918– 1939). The embryonic new middle class was the backbone of these civil organizations,’’ Islamic, Arab nationalist,
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left-wing, and liberal. However, there were considerable variations within the region, such as the contrast between relatively thriving Egyptian civil society and the limited scope for voluntary associations in Morocco and Lebanon under French administration. Anti-imperial movements gained strength in the Middle East in the 1920s, reflected for instance in the Syrian revolution of 1925–1927. From a global perspective, possibly the most influential independence movement developed in India, particularly after Gandhi’s return in 1915. Beyond the independence movement, Gandhian voluntarism with its emphasis on empowerment and societal transformation was to have immense influence on Indian associational life in general. India also experienced major Muslim mass mobilizations in the early 1920s, in the form of the Khilafat movement. The development of movements against colonial exploitation extended to Africa, too, in the 1920s, with notable examples including the Butaka movement in Uganda and the Kikuyu Central Association in Kenya. The period after the First World War also witnessed the reinvigoration of Chinese nationalism after May Fourth 1919. In China in the 1920s, David Strand (1993: 58) has argued that ‘‘a similar public sphere [to that in eighteenth and nineteenth century European cities] was developing in Beijing . . . it had intellectual salons as well as locality inns (huiquan) with their locality clubs (tongxianghui), merchant and craft guilds, bathhouses, restaurants, teahouses, brothels, public parks, pavilions, and temples which functioned as mini-convention centres for guilds and political groups. These social organizations and spaces hosted and housed a lively associational and public life.’’ Across the East Sea, civic activity also became increasingly diverse in 1920s Japan, where organizations representing groups such as women and the working class overcame aspects of their previous marginalization: achievements included universal manhood suffrage in 1925 and repeal of a 1900 law banning female participation in public meetings. Steps towards Asian regional international nongovernmental organizations took place in the years following the First World War, such as the All Asian Women’s Conference in India in 1931. The transnational dimension of civil society also became increasingly global, with the establishment of branches beyond Western Europe and North America of secular international nongovernmental organizations such as those of the labor and women’s movements. In addition, the League of Nations and the International Labor Organization provided new opportunities for transnational associations, with the representatives of trade unions standing on an equal footing with representatives of governments at the International Labor Organization.
As with civil society within many countries, transnational civil society expanded at an unprecedented rate after the First World War: twice as many international nongovernmental organizations were founded in the 1920s as in the entire nineteenth century. Transnational civil society also became more diverse, with some of the earliest human rights and environmental international nongovernmental organizations being established, including the International Federation of Human Rights and Birdlife International in 1922. Just as national coalitions of a range of civil society actors became increasingly common within countries, so too did transnational coalitions at the global level. Movements that had already had considerable successes in respect of their primary objectives, particularly the women’s suffrage movement, turned their attention to forming broad transnational coalitions for internationalist causes. Thus, for example, international women’s organizations claiming to represent 45 million women formed a Disarmament Committee of Women’s International Organizations in 1931 to promote disarmament. This particular cause was to attract widespread attention in the late 1920s and early 1930s, mobilizing a coalition of actors as varied as Rotary International, the International Federation of Trade Unions, the International Council of Women and the Communist International, and a huge range of other nongovernmental groups jointly claiming to represent a combined membership as high as half the population of the world (Davies, 2007). Cross-movement coordinated activism on this scale at both national and international levels reflected the development of ‘‘mass politics’’ in the period between the two World Wars. Cultural commentator Valentine Cunningham argued that never before, ‘‘not even in the Victorian age of great cities had people been so conscious that modern industrialized, urban life was mass life. . . . Inescapably, the post-First-World-War sensibility had to grasp that it was an age of mass-production, massdemonstrations, mass-meetings, mass sporting occasions, mass-communications, mass armies, a time when things would be done in, and to, and for crowds’’ (cited in Richards, 2006: 376). The Communist International (or Comintern), an international organization set up in 1919 for the purpose of uniting the international Communist movement under Soviet control, was keen to exploit this, and a major feature of late 1930s politics was a range of front organizations uniting a broad variety of bourgeois and socialist groups such as the International Peace Campaign and the World Committee against War and Fascism. This latter organization’s name indicates the orientation of these fronts, and highlights the way in which civil
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society became torn between the political extremes of the period. At the other extreme was fascism, a movement that also briefly flirted with the creation of an ‘‘International’’ in the mid-1930s, but which was unable to follow the Communist example. It has been argued that, just as the Bolshevik revolution emerged from a sector of civil society, so too did fascism. As Hoffman (2006: 83) has claimed: ‘‘the Nazis conquered German civil society from within’’ having penetrated German associational life (which at the beginning of the 1920s had been predominantly liberal or socialist) with a network over 1,400 local clubs (Chickering, 1992: 318). With the ascent of authoritarian forms of government during the 1930s, the last third of the period between the two World Wars saw the contraction of civil society. Even in countries that retained liberal forms of government, the Great Depression brought with it a reversal of the earlier expansion, although it did bring demand for greater welfare provision and some new groups such as unemployed workers’ organizations. In countries where fascist governments took power, however, private associational activities were actively suppressed. In Germany, for example, the Nazi policy of Gleichschaltung brought the nonprofit sector under party control. In Japan, the military dictatorship succeeded in disbanding nearly all autonomous associations and absorbing them into state-run organizations in the 1930s. In countries that became the victims of fascist expansionism, including China and central and eastern European countries, associational life was also forced into retreat. Elsewhere, civil society came under pressure from different forms of authoritarianism. For example, in Stalin’s Soviet Union by the end of the 1930s virtually all associational life had been brought under the control of the state. In Turkey under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the scope for associational activity was also reduced. And in Latin America civic groups became increasingly subjected to ‘‘controlled inclusion’’ by the state, following such developments as the military coups in Argentina and Brazil in 1930 (Hall, 1995: 257). From the Second World War to the Cold War
The defeat of the axis powers in the Second World War may be seen as having provided an opportunity for civil society to regain its strength after the downturn of the 1930s. The reestablishment of democratic institutions in Germany and Japan brought with it the possibility of revitalized associational life in these countries. In much of Asia and later Africa, the apparent success of the Gandhian movement in India in 1947 provided
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inspiration for anticolonial movements, and achievement of independence from colonial rule widened the scope for civic activity in several countries. At the transnational level, the establishment of the United Nations, with its recognition of nongovernmental organizations in Article 71 of its Charter, provided a hospitable environment for transnational associations, and the aftermath of the Second World War stimulated the creation of well-known international nongovernmental organizations such as Oxfam and CARE International, founded in 1942 and 1945 respectively. However, in many ways civil society arguably failed to recover fully from the triple blows of the Great Depression, the rise of authoritarianism and the Second World War in the decades immediately following that conflict. The onset of the Cold War in the late 1940s was one of the principal reasons for this. Divisions within formerly united civic groups – notably the international trade union movement which split in two in 1949 – both reflected and exacerbated this new form of international conflict. The solidification of the Eastern bloc from 1948 ensured that civil society remained relatively repressed in much of central and eastern Europe. The Communist victory in China in 1949 brought with it the closure or subsuming of much of the voluntary sector in statecontrolled ‘‘mass organizations.’’ Beyond the Communist bloc, civil society was arguably stunted, too. In parts of the Middle East, private associations were inhibited by the development of populist Arab regimes in the 1950s, and in much of South America policies of ‘‘controlled inclusion’’ continued. In Western Europe, the increasing welfare role of the state after the Second World War in countries such as France and Great Britain restricted in some ways the scope for voluntary sector activities. Midcentury, therefore, civil society was somewhat underdeveloped, with much its contemporary ascent to emerge from events later in the twentieth century.
Conclusion The first half of the twentieth century was one of the liveliest and most varied periods in evolution of civil society. A wide range of significant developments took place, such as increasing national and international coordination of civil society organizations, and the spread of a wide range of third sector activities throughout much of the world. The period also highlights the remarkable ways in which civil society organizations and governments have interacted, both to the advantage and detriment of civil society, as well the ways in which civil society may have contributed towards its own demise. With its rich history, this period merits greater attention than it has hitherto received.
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Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Charity, History of ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society History V: Nineteenth Century ▶ Civil Society History VII: Late 20th and 21st Century ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci ▶ Civil Society, Violence and War ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ National Council of Voluntary Organisations ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Professional Associations ▶ Salvation Army ▶ Save the Children ▶ Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom ▶ World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Movement ▶ YMCA
Ibrahim, S. E. (1995). Civil Society and the Prospects for Democratization in the Arab World. In A. R. Norton (Ed.), Civil Society in the Middle East (Vol. 1, pp. 27–54). Leiden: E. J. Brill. Iriye, A. (1997). Cultural Internationalism and World Order. Baltimore/ London: Johns Hopkins University Press. Kaviraj, S., & Kilnani, S. (Eds.) (2001). Civil Society: History and Possibilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kuti, E. (1993). Defining the Nonprofit Sector: Hungary. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. Morris, R. J. (1990). Clubs, Societies and Associations. In F. M. L. Thompson (Ed.), The Cambridge Social History of Britain, 1750–1950 (Vol. 3, pp. 395–443) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, M. (2006). The Popular Front. In G. Martel (Ed.), A Companion to Europe, 1900–1945 (pp. 375–390). Malden, MA: Blackwell. Salamon, L., & Anheier, H. K. (Eds.) (1993). Working Papers of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. Strand, D. (1993). Protest in Beijing: Civil Society and Public Sphere in China. In R. V. Des Forges et al. (Eds.), Chinese Democracy and the Crisis of 1989 (pp. 53–86). New York: SUNY. Tarrow, S. G. (1998). Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
References/Further Readings Chickering, R. (1992). Political Mobilization and Associational Life: Some Thoughts on the National Socialist German Workers’ Club (e.V.). In L. E. Jones & J. Retallack (Eds.), Elections, Mass Politics, and Social Change in Modern Germany (pp. 307–328). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davies, T. R. (2007). The Possibilities of Transnational Activism: The Campaign for Disarmament between the Two World Wars. Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff. Davies, T. R. (2008). The Rise and Fall of Transnational Civil Society: The Evolution of International Non-Governmental Organizations since 1839 (City University Working Papers on Transnational Politics). London: City University Department of International Politics. Des Forges, R. V. (1997). States, Societies, and Civil Societies in Chinese History. In T. Brock & B. M. Frolic (Eds.), Civil Society in China (pp. 68–98). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Freedom House. (1999). Democracy’s Century: A Survey of Global Political Change in the Twentieth Century. New York: Freedom House. Gamm, G., & Putnam, R. D. (1999). The Growth of Voluntary Associations in America, 1840–1940. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 29(4), 511–557. Garon, S. (2003). From Meiji to Heisei: The State and Civil Society in Japan. In F. J. Schwartz & S. J. Pharr (Eds.), The State of Civil Society in Japan (pp. 42–62). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Guan, L. H. (2004). Civil Society in Southeast Asia. Singapore: ISEAS. Hall, J. A. (1995). Civil Society: Theory, History, Comparison. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hall, J. A., & Trentmann, F. (Eds.) (2005). Civil Society: A Reader in History, Theory and Global Politics. Houndsmills: Palgrave MacMillan. Hoffmann, S. L. (2006). Civil Society (Studies in European history). Houndsmills: Palgrave MacMillan. Howard, M. (1978). War and the Liberal Conscience. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Civil Society History VII: Late 20th and 21st Century ARND BAUERKA¨MPER Freie Universita¨t Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Main Characteristics of the Period In the literary circles and Masonic lodges of European Enlightenment, a transnational civil society had gradually evolved from the late eighteenth century onwards. These groups had been inspired by the promises of freedom universal citizenship and the concept of basic human laws. Several decades later, the off-springs of these philanthropic societies concentrated on the furtherance of particular issues. In order to mobilize support for their specific concerns, they even agreed on cross-border cooperation. Ultimately, the first International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs) were founded. As a movement deeply rooted in European Enlightenment as well as in the culture of the Quakers, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (established in 1839) has been designated the first organization of this type. Civil society gradually reached global dimensions, although it did not spread evenly and continuously. Economic and social problems enhanced international solidarity and cooperation. Thus, cross-border networks of civil society expanded. The formation of modern
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nation-states and territorially-bound political governments also propelled actors of civil society to extend their activities beyond borders. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the formation of the workers’ movement, the quest for peace and the advocacy of women’s rights, in particular, became important pillars of civil society. Yet this process was halted by the First World War, which largely destroyed the vibrant civil society networks. Despite organisations like the League of Nations and the pan-European movement of the interwar years, civil society suffered another setback with the rise of fascism, Nazism and authoritarian dictatorships in the interwar years and in the Second World War. After 1945, however, the legal and social foundations of civil societies have broadened substantially. While this process was most pronounced in western democracies during the Cold War, it also reached the Communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, where civil society advanced to a crucial normative platform for dissidents and protest movements (Miszlivetz, 1999). This dynamics marked a new stage in the development of transnational networks. It was the foundation of the United Nations, above all, which marked the final institutionalisation of INGOs as political actors transcending the confines of the nation-states. In its Article 71, the Charta of the UN granted them the legal status as consultative institutions of United Nations Economical and Social Council (ECOSOC). The creation of the European Union finally provided an important framework for the rise of INGOs on a European-wide scale (della Porta & Kriesi, 1999; Marks & McAdam, 1999). Their activities have been supported by an emerging transnational public sphere which has gradually evolved in Europe, the United States and (to a lesser extent) beyond as a framework for dealing with national issues. Although even the European public sphere is still decentralized and by no means uniform, civil societies have been tied together by INGOs. The increase in cross-border travelling and in economic as well as personal exchange between Europeans since the 1950s has reduced tensions and differences (Kaelble, 2001: 150–183). Yet due to the lack of social mobilization for Europe and the resilience of autochthonous traditions in nation-states and regions, a full-fledged European civil society has not appeared on the political horizon. Paradoxically, it was the Cold War which triggered off a notable increase in the number and scope of the actors of civil society. On the one hand, the escalating arms race with the frightening prospect of a nuclear war invigorated the European peace movement in the 1950s and 1960s. On the other hand, both superpowers utilized grass-roots
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social movements in Europe as their allies in the overarching conflict of the Cold War, which profoundly shaped domestic politics and social relations. By contrast, grassroots protest against social and political stagnation erupted in western states in the late 1960s (Josselin & Wallace, 2001: 6; Evangelista, 1999; Parkin, 1968). The late 1960s and early 1970s saw the emergence of the new social movements, which have been defined as a ‘‘sustained challenge to power holders in the name of a population living under the jurisdiction of those power holders by means of repeated public displays of that population’s worthiness, unity, numbers and commitment’’ (Tilly, 2003: 247; also see Khagram et al., 2002; Rucht, 1994; Smith & Johnston, 2002). Addressing both local and global problems, these movements have worked on fields as diverse as environmental issues, developmental policies, human rights, workers’ issues, feminism, nuclear disarmament and consumers’ rights. As grass-roots organizations, all these movements share a sceptical attitude to the modernization process. They are also characterized by organizational structures based on densely interconnected networks and a membership consisting of the relatively highly educated middle classes. The ‘‘global associational revolution’’ of the 1990s, in particular, has caused an unprecedented expansion of the non-profit sector, which has become a significant economic force (Salamon et al., 1999: 4). At present, the influence of social movements on politics can hardly be overestimated, as their sheer number indicates. In the field of environmental politics alone, there is an estimated number of 100,000 NGOs (Wapner, 1996: 2). However, civil society associations and the non-profit sector have emerged most strongly in the western world, whereas their formation and expansion has proceeded at a slower pace in the developing countries.
Key Developments Civil society has increasingly regained the transnational momentum that it had achieved before the First World War. The number of registered INGOs had increased from 1874 to 1914 from 32 to as many as 1,083 (Anheier et al., 2001: 4; also see Keane, 2003: 44–50). It was after the Second World War, however, when the number of International Non-Governmental Organizations under the umbrella of the Union of International Organizations (established in 1909) exploded. The growth amounted to 230% from 1960 to 1988. The number of these organizations steeply rose in the course of the 1990s. Thus, as much as about one quarter of the 13,000 INGOs registered in 2000 had been founded in the preceding decade. Organizational structures as well as strategies of
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social and political mobilization have changed considerably in the last few decades. Instead of formal and hierarchically structured institutions, more loosely organized cross-border social alliances and networks have allowed a flexible adaptation to rapidly changing needs. Moreover, civil society activists have inaugurated new forms of activities. Apart from meetings, demonstrations, resolutions, and appeals, international non-governmental organizations have increasingly been engaged in political lobbying and in monitoring official policies. Most importantly, new topics have risen to the political agenda since the 1960s. Whereas demands for female suffrage and temperance, for instance, are – at least in Europe – no longer viable issues, problems like human and citizens’ rights, disarmament, environmental damage, enduring poverty in the developing states of the ‘‘Third World’’ and migration have increasingly received political attention and thereby triggered off the formation of new civil society organizations. Thus, a transatlantic movement for nuclear disarmament emerged after British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein had published their famous manifesto in 1955. The Pugwash Committee on Science and World Affairs, as it came to be known, was established by Joseph Rotblat, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995. Transnational actors and scientific networks even succeeded in putting pressure on a political system as secretive as the Soviet Union (Evangelista, 1999). In the field of security politics, common norms and beliefs fostered the emergence of a cross-border social movement. Although many peace movements and groups were profoundly influenced by the global confrontation of the Cold War, the search for choices beyond and beneath the bipolar confrontation inspired the activities of peace activists. In their view, peace had become a transnational issue mainly because of the obvious threat of a nuclear war, which would have devastating consequences for human life on Earth. Transnational orientations in the protest movements against war, namely the movement against the First Gulf War in 1991, suggest that anti-war groups have increasingly become globalized. However, whereas the pictures of the war were similar all over the world, the forms of mobilization and organization of the protests markedly differed. As has been aptly emphasized, the ‘‘translation of global social processes still passes through a powerful filter of national political cultures and opportunity structures’’ (Koopmans, 1999: 69). The women’s movement was propelled by a ‘‘second wave’’ in the 1970s, the UN decade of women. The programme for social action, which was drafted at the EU summit in 1972, also played a central role. The promotion
of women’s interests and concerns thus became an official policy of the European Commission. Feminism organised itself around new objectives. Thus, the programmatic scope of women’s movements was increasingly extended in order to tackle global issues. This change, in turn, encouraged female activists to adopt new organizational structures and procedures. Loose networks and low political leverage have become the principal features of globally-oriented women’s activists. Their groups have also adopted sophisticated and politically credible critical stances on economic developments in recent decades. Women’s activists have even been able to put pressure on the World Bank. At the same time, the global interconnections between feminist movements have given rise to new conflicts. The integration of formerly excluded women from ‘‘Third World’’ states, for example, has nourished cultural misunderstanding and rows about the aims and strategies of contemporary feminism (Diamond, 1998; O’Brien, 2000: 33; Ashworth, 1982). Since the Second World War, the social and political context of the international workes’ and trade union movements, too, has changed considerably. Their traditional orientation towards the nation-states as well as the bipolar confrontation of the two superpowers, which utilized the workers movement in their ideological struggles, undermined the internationalist claims of the workers’ representatives. The fight between the Sovietdominated World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) and the strongly anti-communist International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), for instance, absorbed considerable political power and administrative capacities. In recent years, workers’ organizations have been faced with new problems. In particular, their entrenched traditions of international unionism have inhibited necessary structural reforms. Moreover, unions are still deeply embedded in domestic political structures. This dependency has impeded the formation of crossnational coalitions. Not least, the shift in employment towards non-unionized labour has significantly contributed to the decrease in trade union membership on a global level (Josselin, 2001). The dwindling attractiveness of trade unions has resulted above all from their hierarchical structure. The ICFTU, which had been joined by 136 states by 1996, coordinates the work of different International Trade Secretariats, which are continuously involved in negotiations with employers. These secretariats are closely affiliated to national or regional trade unions. Due to their strong bonds to the nation-states, groups that are connected to the new social movements cannot be integrated into the hierarchical structure of the secretariats. Working at the grass-roots level and often connected
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to other social movements, they are reluctant to cooperate with the established hierarchies of the transnational workers’ movement (O’Brien, 2000: 73ff.; della Porta & Kriesi, 1999: 19).
International Perspectives In recent scholarship, the transnational extension of civil society has received increasing attention (see, e.g., Keane, 2003; Anheier et al., 2001). The analytical scope in studies published in the last few decades, however, has been largely confined to Europe. By contrast, the colonies and – after their liberation – the new states of the ‘‘Third World’’ have received little attention (van der Linden & van Voss, 2002). The demise of the colonial empires – which ultimately gave rise to the new paradigm of ‘‘postcolonial’’ history –, the end of the Cold War, and the growth of critical literature on globalisation inspired scholars to study ‘‘transnational’’ developments. Focussing on how members of the formerly excluded and underprivileged strata of the population in the ‘‘Third World’’ were mobilized in order to gain influence, a new normative notion of ‘‘transnationalism’’ has entered academic discourse. Thus, scholars have stressed the ‘‘new qualities’’ and ‘‘new realities’’ of a transnational system, which is based on migrants’ identities across and beyond national borders. These increasingly dense crossborder networks have occasionally even allowed migrants to negotiate with national governments about their legal status. Yet inhabitants of ‘‘Third World’’ states have accepted and simultaneously subverted the hegemonic West European and North American political culture in processes of hybridization and diffusion. This transformation underpins the subversive, normative aspects of the emerging transnational culture (Clifford, 1999; Fawcett, 1999; Glick Schiller, 1996; Gupta, 1992; Olwig & Sorensen, 2002). Yet the values, structures and social bases of civil society have varied according to specific contexts. In India, for instance, actors of civil society have not primarily opposed state authorities (contrary to the European Continent), as power had never been highly centralised and not reached absolutist rule. On the contrary, political authority has been segmented. Moreover, post-colonial elites that had been educated in western states have taken up concepts of civil society and initiated associations. These orientations and activities, however, have not intruded into the countryside and reached peasants. As they live in a ‘‘world of more complete commitments,’’ they do not appreciate social individuation. Moreover, they lack the skills of association. Nevertheless, the imposition of civil society ‘‘from above’’ has contributed to the gradual dissolution of caste barriers and begun to break up the isolation ob the
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‘‘untouchables.’’ The varied nature of global civil society has been demonstrated in studies which have concretely reconstructed the social practices of specific actors in particular constellations, including their world-views, interpretations and appropriations of civil society (Kaviraj, 2001: 309, 311, 314ff., 317, 319; Pernau, 2007: 57, 62 Pernau, 2008). In the Arab states, for instance, networks of civil society advocates that have emerged from the nineteenth century onwards have been strongly tied to the changing triangular relationship between the nationstate, secular institutions and the Muslim community, the umma (Hamzawy, 2003: 10–46). Like in India, civil society in China lacks an uncompromising stance towards state authorities. On the contrary, political rulers have alternatively furthered or restricted the emergence and expansion of public spheres and civil society, the gongmin shehui (‘‘society of public people’’). The term accentuates the responsibility of citizens for public goods and obliges them to decent behaviour. After the movement for ‘‘self-empowerment’’ (ziqiang) had encouraged civic mobilization and the demand for ‘‘self-administration’’ (zishi) had spread in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the profound transformation of the Communist regime after Mao Zedong’s death (1976) has resulted in the emergence of new civic associations that initially took root in the cities. Yet these groups have largely remained linked to state authorities. The violent suppression of the students’ protest movement in June 1989 has even reinforced these bonds. In this political and cultural context, leaders and members of civic associations increasingly strive for selforganization and at least partial individual autonomy. Not least, they pursue goals transcending vested interests. As such, these groups advocate and promote civil society. Yet its independent institutional base is still weak, although the internet has provided new opportunities to voice demands for a civil society. It has also given rise to a critical public sphere. Yet the prevailing ideal of ‘‘harmony’’ has restricted pluralism and banned conflicts. It has also safeguarded the control of the mighty bureaucracy. Under these conditions, the scope of action for the proponents of an autonomous civil society has remained limited in China. Not least, the non-governmental organizations operating in the country have themselves preferred professionalism and planned campaigns at the expense of spontaneous grass-roots activity (SchmidtGlintzer, 2008: 127, 132, 144, 151, 171ff., 175ff., 186; Heberer, 2006: 20–26; Kuhn & Wie, 2007: 43–49). In the contemporary world, civil society has largely emerged as an antidote to a global economy and to omniscient political power. It has also been furthered as a
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palliative against failed states. In a world, in which nationstates are increasingly losing control over global actors like Transnational Cooperations (TNCs), organized crime, terrorism and threats like environmental pollution and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, only a ‘‘transnational society’’ seems nowadays capable of solving these problems (Albrow, 1996; Appadurai, 1998: Castells, 1999; Ruggie, 1998; Sassen, 1996). ‘‘Civil society’’ as a panacea foralmost all global problems has assumed almost utopian qualities, especially in times of financial turbulences and anxieties of economic slump. It serves as a catch-all-phrase for answers to a new political reality (Held, 1995). Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether civil society is the much-desired ‘‘‘middle way’ between sole reliance on the market and sole reliance on the state . . .’’ (Salamon et al., 1999: 5).
Cross-References
▶ Anti-Slavery International ▶ Civil Society: 19th Century ▶ Harmonious Society ▶ INGOs ▶ Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) ▶ Quakers ▶ Union of International Associations ▶ United Nations (UN)
References/Further Readings Albrow, M. (1996). The global age. State and society beyond modernity. Cambridge: Polity. Anheier, H., Glasius, M., & Kaldor, M. (Eds.) (2001). Introducing civil society. Global civil society 2001 (pp. 3–22). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Appadurai, A. (1998). Modernity at large. Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Ashworth, G. (1982). The United Nations ‘‘Women Conference’’ and international linkages in the Women’s Movement. In P. Willets (Ed.), Pressure groups in the global system. The transnational relations of issue-orientated non-governmental organizations. London: Frances Pinter. Castells, M. (1999). The rise of the network society. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Clifford, J. (1999). Diasporas. In S. Vertovec & R. Cohen (Eds.), Migration, diasporas and transnationalism (pp. 215–251). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. della Porta, D., & Kriesi, H. (1999). Social movements in a globalizing world: An introduction. In D. della Porta, H. Kriesi, & D. Rucht (Eds.), Social movements in a globalizing world (pp. 3–22). Houndmills/Basingstoke/London: Macmillan. Diamond, M. J. (Ed.) (1998). Women and revolution: Global expressions. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer. Evangelista, M. (1999). Unarmed forces: The transnational movement to end the Cold War. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Fawcett, J. (1999). Networks, linkages, and migration systems. In S. Vertovec & R. Cohen (Eds.), Migration, diasporas and transnationalism (pp. 16–25). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L., & Blanc-Szanton, C. (Eds.) (1993). Towards a transnational perspective on migration. Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. New York: New York Academy of Sciences. Gupta, A. (1992). The Song of the Nonaligned World: Transnational Identities and the Reinscription of Space in Late Capitalism, Cultural Anthropology, 7, 63–79. Hamzawy, A. (Ed.) (2003). Normative dimensions of contemporary Arab debates on civil society. In Civil society in the Middle East. Berlin, Germany: Schiler. Heberer, T. (2006, December 4). China – Entwicklung zur Zivilgesellschaft? Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte. Beilage zur Wochenzeitung ‘‘Das Parlament’’, 49, 20–26. Held, D. (1995). Democracy and the global order. From the modern state to cosmopolitan governance. Cambridge: Polity. Josselin, D. (2001). Back to the front line? Trade unions in a global age. In D. Josselin & W. Wallace (Eds.), Non-state actors in world politics (pp. 169–186). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Josselin, D., & Wallace, W. (Eds.) (2001). Non-state actors in world politics: A framework. In Non-state actors in world politics (pp. 1–20). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Kaelble, H. (2001). Europa¨er u¨ber Europa. Die Entstehung des europa¨ischen Selbstversta¨ndnisses im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Campus. Kaviraj, Sudipta (2001). In search of civil society. In: S. Kaviraj & S. Khilnani (Eds.), Civil Society. History and Possibilities Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (pp. 287–323). Keane, J. (2003). Global civil society? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Khagram, S., Riker, J. V., & Sikkink, K. (Eds.) (2002). Restructuring world politics: Transnational social movements, networks and norms. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Koopmans, R. (1999). A comparison of protests against the Gulf War in Germany, France and the Netherlands. In D. della Porta, H. Kriesi, & D. Rucht (Eds.), Social movements in a globalizing world (pp. 57–70). Houndmills: Macmillan. Kuhn, B., & Wie, W. (2007). Civil society and the internet in the P.R. China. Beijing, China: Tsinghua University. van der Linden, M., & van Voss, L. H. (2002). Introduction. In L. H. van Voss & M. van der Linden (Eds.), Class and other identities. Gender, religion and ethnicity in the writing of European Labour History (pp. 1–39). New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books. Marks, G., & McAdam, D. (1999). On the relationship of political opportunities to the form of collective action: The case of the European Union. In D. della Porta, H. Kriesi, & D. Rucht (Eds.), Social movements in a globalizing world (pp. 97–111). Houndmills: Macmillan. Miszlivetz, F. (1999). Illusions and realities. The metamorphosis of civil society in a new European space. Szombathely, Hungary: Savaria University Press. O’Brien, R., Goetz, A. M., & Scholte, J. A. (2000). Contesting global governance: Multilateral economic institutions and global social movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Olwig, K. F., & Sørensen, N. N. (Eds.) (2002). Mobile livelihoods: Making a living in the world. In Work and migration. Life and livelihoods in a globalizing world (pp. 1–19). London: Routledge. Parkin, F. (1968). Middle class radicalism: The social bases of the campaign for nuclear disarmament. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Pernau, M. (2007). Gab es eine indische Zivilgesellschaft im 19. Jahrhun¨ berlegungen zum Verha¨ltnis von Globalgeschichte und hisdert? U torischer Semantik. Traverse, 14(3), 51–67. Pernau, M. (2008). Bu¨rger mit Turbane Muslime in Delhi in 19. Jahrhundert. To¨ttinger, Germany: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht.
Civil Society in Post-Conflict Scenarios Rucht, D. (1994). Modernisierung und neue soziale Bewegungen. Deutschland, Frankreich und USA im Vergleich. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Campus. Ruggie, J. G. (1998). Constructing the world policy. London: Routledge. Salamon, L. M. (1999). Global civil society. Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. Sassen, S. (1996). Losing Control? Sovereignty in an Age of Globalization. New York: Columbia University Press. Smith, J., & Johnston, H. (Eds.) (2002). Globalization and Resistance. Transnational Dimensions of Social Movements. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield. Schmidt-Glintzer, H. (2008). Kleine Geschichte Chinas. Munich, Germany: Beck. Smith, J., & Johnston, H. (Eds.) (2002). Globalization and resistance. Transnational dimensions of social movements. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Tilly, C. (2003). Agendas for students of social movements. In J. A. Goldstone (Ed.), States, parties, and social movements (pp. 246– 256). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics. Wapner, P. K. (1996). Environmental activism and world civic politics. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Civil Society in Post-Conflict Scenarios DENISA KOSTOVICOVA London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
Introduction The civil society plays a variety of roles in the complex task of peace building in the aftermath of conflict in the global age. On the one hand, civil society’s post-conflict roles correspond broadly with numerous and competing definitions of civil society. On the other hand, they match a wide range of tasks assumed by post-conflict peace builders. Thus, civil society conceptualized in terms of buoyant non-state sphere reinforces democratization in the Tocquevillian tradition; the creation of social capital in Putnam’s sense is conducive to development, and civil society as a space of civility and tolerance echoing Habermas’ thinking is deemed to be an answer to sectarianism. In sum, both scholars and practitioners of post-conflict peace building alike consider development of civil society critical to sustainable peace. Acknowledging the definitional elasticity of civil society, as well as problems arising from it, they have been preoccupied with the questions concerning the modalities of external support to, and impact on, local civil society with the aim of effective promotion of peace. Consequently, the question why
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civil society may not be a priori conducive to post-conflict peace building has been all but marginal in the scholarship on the subject. However, civil society’s contribution to undermining peace and stability is an integral part of its complex interaction with the post-conflict context. Such contradictory dynamics can be appreciated from the vantage point of reconsidering the notion of ‘‘civil,’’ while addressing the conceptual and policy challenges of ‘‘uncivil’’ society. It is also inseparable from the understanding of the new nature of conflict in the age of globalization that blurs the line between conflict and peace, state, and society, as well as local and transnational.
Definition The post-conflict in the global context can at best be defined as an absence of bloodshed. Silent guns and discarded machetes usher in the peace that is underwritten by the continuation of the conflict dynamics in the form of exclusive identities, economic informality, and weak states. The persistence of ideas, actors, and structures, which originate in war, in the post-conflict context can be attributed to novel ways of warfare in the age of globalization elaborated in the ‘‘new wars’’ literature. While there is disagreement among scholars over the most appropriate name (whether they should be called ‘‘new,’’ ‘‘postmodern,’’ ‘‘post-nation-state’’ wars, etc.), there is a consensus, albeit with emphasis on various aspects, that contemporary wars are different from those fought in the heyday of the nation-state (Muenkler, 2005). These wars are different insofar as neither the political, economic, nor security dimensions can be accounted for without reference to globalization. Kaldor (2006) has argued that identity and violence of the new wars, which primarily targets civilians, cannot be divorced from the nature of war economies. Privatization of violence reflects the erosion of the tax base of a state unable to cope with the global economy, and translates into recourse to privatized military groups that employ pillage, looting, extortion, and robbery as the main source of funding for their activities and also as their motivation. Contributors to the ‘‘greed or grievance’’ debate have highlighted the economic benefits of violence. In new wars, according to Duffield (2000), the politics of violence and profit merge, while globalization allows the warring parties to develop their own means of economic sustainability by plugging into parallel and transborder links for survival. The implications for post-conflict are manifold. Insofar as new wars are about state fragmentation, the emerging new statelets are entirely legitimized by exclusive identities. This strategy is construed to conceal their dysfunctional character. These states are weak, and, as such, are
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inadequate providers either of public goods or national cohesion. Further, new wars remove a clear distinction between the state and the society. The two are connected by political, economic, and ethnic networks motivated by the spoils of war. Ultimately, their nation-stateness is underwritten by a paradox. Ideologically, they premise the achievement of nationhood on the separation of the inside and the outside. But, functionally, they have been thoroughly transnationalized, with cross-border links annulling this separation. Such a reordered post-conflict context conditions civil society’s contribution to peace building.
Key Issues The Case for Civil Society
The post-conflict entails the recovery after a breakdown of state and society, as both are left fractured in the wake of new wars. Therefore, the aim of civil society strengthening in post-conflict is to support the reconstruction of state and society at the same time. It is also envisaged to act as a bridge between the two, providing a critical source of legitimacy for the state. Politics of Identity in the Conflict Aftermath
New wars construct illiberal and exclusive identities through violence, intimidation, and expulsions, rather than the other way round (Kaldor, 2006). Multiethnicity has been the target of ethnic cleansers from the Balkans to the Caucasus and Africa. Territories may have been homogenized, but a degree of ethnic diversity, nonetheless, still remains. At the same time, the post-conflict is defined by structural and societal ethnification. External conflict resolution and post-conflict institution-building strategies, as in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq, have been informed by management rather than by removal of difference. With the state implicated in the ideology of ethnic exclusion, civil society has provided an alternative route for restoring cross-ethnic trust and coexistence. As a space blind to ethnic difference and a fertile ground for cross-ethnic links, civil society has been envisaged as a corrective to the institutionalization of ethnicity. In addition, its engagement in bringing about justice in the wake of war crimes and mass human rights violations is part and parcel of building an inclusive society. Civil society groups have challenged the ‘‘ideological denial’’ of past atrocities (Cohen, 2001), such as the exposure of the Serbian state’s involvement in the killing of Bosnian Muslims from Srebrenica by a local civil society activist. The debate about appropriate transitional justice mechanisms, including trials, truth commissions, reparations, etc., is paralleled by a discussion about the type of civil
society actors who are most suitable to the task, distinguishing between Western-style NGOs and local initiatives, best illustrated by gacaca courts of community justice in post-genocide Rwanda. Civil society’s involvement in establishing a sense of justice as a foundation for peace and reconciliation has also contributed to other pillars of peace building, such as the respect of the human rights, the rule of law, and the return of refugees. Post-Conflict Democratization
In the aftermath of democratic breakdown that accompanies conflict, the restoration of democracy is a process involving procedures, values, and actors. In this undertaking, civil society’s role is critical in consolidating and deepening the democracy. The holding of the first postconflict multiethnic elections, often under some form of international oversight, marks only a start of democratization. A key challenge for young post-conflict democracies is to move from a formal democracy or ‘‘electocracy,’’ characterized by the existence of competitive multiparty elections, to substantive or consolidated democracy that assumes the guarantees of political, social, and economic rights as well as belief and acceptance of peaceful arbitration of conflict according to the agreed norms. Civil society is a bearer of the democratization project. It forges accountability between an often unaccountable, unresponsive, and corrupt post-conflict state and the citizens, while helping democracy mature by holding the state in check through advocacy, articulation, and representation of a multitude of interests. By giving voice to marginalized groups, like women or minorities, civil society brings about a profound transformation of the public sphere. In sum, the conceptual linkage between the strengthening of civil society and democracy translates into donors’ policy of support to the building of civil society in the post-conflict setting. Post-Conflict Governance
Closely related to democratization, and more specifically, to civil society’s role in reconstitution of legitimate political authority in the post-conflict, is the area of governance. Governance is distinct from government insofar as it is preoccupied with the manner of governance as opposed to the actions of ruling. According to Brinkerhoff (2007: 18), ‘‘[g]overnance is about the relationships between state and society.’’ Such a conception of governance goes beyond the technocratic nature of public administration and economic resource management and incorporates its sociopolitical dimension. In the postconflict environment, the aspiration to good governance is directly linked to capacity building. The concept of
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capacity denotes the ability to function effectively based on the availability of human expertise, which is also affected by the material conditions. Mass displacement and dispersal, often of best-qualified segments of population, and widespread destruction of infrastructure, including administrative buildings, is one of the features of new wars. A broad conceptualization of governance emphasizes the role of civil society and its interaction with state structures, whether they are national, regional, or local. To the extent that the core functions of governance in post-conflict societies are assuring security, achieving effectiveness, and generating legitimacy (ibid: 4–7), their substance, viability, and validation depend on the public participation and public dialogue. Therefore, civil society, as a monitor of policies and services, provided not just by national and local governments but also by a variety of external actors involved in post-conflict rehabilitation, as well as a pool of expertise on policy issues, has been significant for shaping governance outcomes, although, on its own, insufficient in many countries. The interactive understanding of ‘‘good governance’’ depends on civil society, that is an integral part of accountability mechanism. At the same time, civil society has been a welcome resource for addressing the capacity deficit in post-conflict context by providing staff for government departments or training for public administrators. Development and Peace Building
The ‘‘developmentalist’’ approach to the post-conflict peace building correlates the outbreak and recurrence of conflict to the persistence of poverty and inequality. Economic recovery from conflict encompasses competing aims of emergency assistance, rebuilding of infrastructure, and creation of a sound economic system to support long-term development. The economic recovery is simultaneously determined by the system preceding the conflict as well as transformations introduced during the conflict itself. New wars create war economies, with legacies for post-conflict characterized by the persistence of informal economies, predatory elites, patronage networks, and integration in global illicit flows. In the post-conflict context of high unemployment when formal economy is but at a standstill, the inherited clandestine structures are able to offer an instant and effective way of addressing the vital question of livelihood, as illustrated by the control of poppy production by former tribal warlords in rural Afghanistan. It may be counterintuitive that resourceendowed war-torn areas be stuck in the cycle of poverty, underdevelopment, and conflict. The so-called ‘‘resource curse’’ argument posits that the access to oil or diamonds, as in Iraq and Sierra Leone respectively, is not necessarily
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a guarantee to prosperity, equitable welfare, and even sustainable peace. Most often than not, this access gives rise to rent seeking rather than a productive economy, that perpetuates and exacerbates inequities at the root of the conflict. On the one hand, the political economy of postconflict reconstruction ought to heed the reproduction of inequalities and cleavages that initially sparked the conflict. On the other hand, it ought to simultaneously tackle the structures created through the war that adjust quickly to the dynamics of peace with the effect of distorting and subverting local and external efforts at putting the economy on its feet. Lastly, development is not a discrete area of the post-conflict efforts, and a narrow economic focus as a ‘‘stay-in-your lane’’ policy is bound to be ineffectual. The dismantling of war economies depends on advances in other areas, particularly, institution building, good governance, and rule of law that reinforce the economy-oriented effort and vice versa. Besides economic dislocation associated by war and flourishing of criminal economy there are also elements of imaginative enterpreneurial activity that survive the conflict. Civil society has an important part in such a holistic approach to development, while its roles and input change in accordance with the priorities and aims of a particular stage or aspect of economic post-conflict recovery. Responding to the breakdown of state and its functions in the immediate conflict aftermath, local and international NGOs have been able to quickly address the most urgent needs, such as food and medicine provision, or house and school reconstruction, thus carrying on their humanitarian engagement from the conflict period in a modified form. Moving on from the immediate relief stage, civil society’s role becomes that of a monitor, advisor as well as an actor in the execution of economic policy. The participatory approach to development that civil society ensures is ultimately aimed at socially inclusive development, particularly important in the post-conflict when simple projects such as road or bridge reconstruction as well as complex ones such as privatization may entrench ethnic divisions. Civil society’s contribution to sound economic policy is part and parcel of conflict prevention and building of sustainable peace. In the practice of post-conflict reconstruction there is an evident emphasis on NGOs as service providers. NGOs are viewed as potential efficient providers of social services and channels of international assistance because of their alleged distinct value orientation as compared to the public and private sector. They are perceived as low cost, participatory, flexible, innovative, and they have the ability to reach the most vulnerable.
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Accordingly, initiatives, such as those by local microcredit NGOs in Bosnia and Herzegovina, have been able to reinforce several post-conflict development aims, including employment, ethnic reconciliation through integration of the displaced, and reinforce state capacity through tax collection. Local and transnational civil society has also been an important partner in addressing the dynamics that allow the perpetuation of war economies and clandestine structures. The creation of the oversight mechanisms for the revenues from the Doba-region oil fields in wartorn Chad and its spending aimed at boosting government capacity and revenue management or the establishment of international certification scheme for rough diamonds such as the Kimberley process are illustrative. Lastly, civil society has been a vocal critic of the neoliberal orthodoxy which underpins external economic assistance, and its counterproductive impact in the post-conflict context that exacerbates poverty and stimulates shadow economies (Pugh, 2005). Marginalization, if not a complete removal of informal clandestine structures, is a necessary building block of peace. Therefore, civil society’s criticism of the developmental paradigm that provides an opportunity for these structures is a contribution to transforming a war economy into a peace economy. The Case for Caution
The recognition of a diversity of civil society roles in the overlapping areas of sustainable peace building in the postconflict is offset by the appreciation of limitations and constraints on civil society’s achievements. The post-conflict political landscape has been transnationalized within the scope of ‘‘shadow’’ or regressive globalization. At the same time, it has been positively globalized as well. Civil societies in post-conflict zones, in particular, are intertwined in multidimensional partnerships including international organizations, international NGOs, international financial institutions, foreign governments, as well as national and multilateral development agencies. Consequently, critical assessment of civil society in post-conflict is inseparable from the analysis of interaction between global forces, be they negative or positive, with the local conditions. Nonetheless, for the sake of analytical clarity, the case for caution regarding the limits of civil society’s contribution to advancing post-conflict reconstruction agenda will be addressed from the vantage point of external interventions and civil society in the local context. External Assistance and Its Contradictions
Reflecting on outside efforts to construct civil societies, Howell and Pearce pointed to the challenge concerning politics of definition and choice. External donors, they
argue, operate with ‘‘a narrower slice of the civil society cake’’ (2001: 114) than the plurality of non-state associational forms would allow. As a result, using the limited criteria of ‘‘nonprofit’’ and ‘‘nongovernmental,’’ they bias the selection of groups and constrain the choice. This line of criticism in the literature has been echoed in terms of NGO-ization of civil society with a twofold consequence. On the one hand, it has led to the cloning of local civil societies in a form of Western-style NGOs. On the other hand, it has overlooked a variety of traditional grassroots institutions, networks, practices, and actors, whose engagement could potentially be more conducive to the advancement of the aims of post-conflict reconstruction. Pouligny cites the contribution of mediums and healers (kruu and ruup) in reintegration of displaced people and refugees in Cambodia (2005: 502). Proliferation of NGOs, typical in post-conflict settings, has in many ways been counterproductive. The dependence on external donors for their existence, programs, and activities has directly undermined civil society autonomy and even its capacity. Under pressure to win funding, local NGOs uncritically adopt the donors’ agendas, which weakens their own capacity to develop their own solutions to problems they are facing (Howell & Pearce, 2001: 119–121). This issue is closely related to a short-term nature of financing. Many NGO’s are project based, and often disappear from the scene until the opportunity for the next one arises. The lack of their specialization is another side effect (World Bank, 2005: 12–15). The question of capacity also impacts on institution building. With externally funded higher salaries, the NGO-sector has attracted well-qualified individuals, who contribute to the internal brain drain. Instead, of working in the local civil service or the education system, professionals often prefer jobs as drivers or interpreters in NGOs and INGOs. The dependence of local civil society on external funding also affects the ability of civil society to be a pillar of accountability and an instrument of state legitimation critical to the post-conflict state reconstruction. Seen as being in the ‘‘pockets of international donors,’’ CSOs are derisively dubbed as ‘‘grantoids,’’ i.e., grant-eaters, or ‘‘peace-profiteers,’’ whose multiethnic activism is perceived as being induced by financial reasons rather than value orientation (Kaldor et al., 2007: 111). Consequently, the externally funded civil society becomes alienated from the grass roots, and forfeits the claim to hold the state accountable on behalf of the bottom-up. Ultimately, the external dependence of civil society results in the instrumentalization of civil society. Howell and Pearce note, civil society is ‘‘reduced to a technical
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exercise of coordination, cooperation, and joint effort, depoliticised and neutralized’’ (2001: 117). It becomes a means to an end, which can be democratization, economic growth, etc., rather than an end in itself. As a consequence, civil society loses its critical edge (ibid: 118). With it, civil society loses its credibility to be the voice and the agent of empowerment of the grass roots, as well as a corrective and counterweight to the weak post-conflict state. Critical assessments of external civil society building pave way for conceptual and practical avenues leading to qualitative improvement in the outside engagement and its effect. By contrast, critical analysis of civil society in the local post-conflict contexts reveals a ‘‘dark side’’ of civil society that is anything but conducive to peace and stability. It raises a conceptual question that does not have to do with ‘‘how’’ but with ‘‘whether’’ civil society can be a partner in peace building. Civil Society in the Local Context
The appreciation of civil society contribution to the outbreak of conflict in the first instance and to the perpetuation of identities, ideologies, and structures that undermine post-conflict reconstruction challenge the notion of civility, understood in terms of tolerance, in conceptualizing civil society. In this sense, pluralism inherent in the concept is turned on its head, and denotes the presence and endorsement of extreme, illiberal, and exclusive ideas and interests by non-state actors. These can be Westernstyle NGOs; religious groups; traditional social formations such as clans, tribes, and kinship groups; voluntary associations, etc. New wars in the age of globalization, by and large, owe their ferocity and brutality to the bottom-up nationalism, which is conveniently manipulated by state structures. The examples of the Belgrade-based Serbian Association of Writers and the Radio Te´le´vision Libre des Mille Collines (RTLM) in Rwanda, both of which played an important role in constructing hatred toward the ethnic ‘‘other’’ and moderates belonging to one’s group in their respective environments, are telling. The path to war and wars themselves have led to diversification of civil society actors involved in violence and extreme ideologies that legitimize it. Therefore, private militias, paramilitary groups, local criminal gangs, transnational diasporas, exclusively oriented charities and NGOs, groups at home and abroad using modern media including satellite broadcasts as well as websites, epitomize new wars. Whether these are extreme members of the Tamil or Croatian diaspora, Serbian war criminal Arkan’s ‘‘Tigers,’’ or Sierra Leone’s ‘‘West Side Boys,’’ all of them are part of society, but not of one that is nonviolent and tolerant.
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Post-conflict reconstruction takes place in the framework of a war–peace continuum since peace after a new war is its continuation by other means, to paraphrase Clausewitz. The ‘‘dark side’’ of the civil society landscape provides ample evidence of such continuation. Postconflict civil society is a site of vigorous contestation of identity politics, pitting liberal groups advocating reckoning with war crimes and extreme groups promoting their denial couched in the language of victimization. Yet, at the same time, civil societies in multiethnic contexts, as in Kosovo or Sri Lanka, remain ethnically segmented and unable to meaningfully bridge the sectarian divide. The perpetuation of exclusive identities at the grass roots is a major obstacle to the democratization project. At the same time, the penetration of the state by shady ethnic and transnational networks, rooted in war economies, sabotages the goals of good governance, rule of law, and development. Civil society nominally loses is autonomy from the state by nurturing the relationship of patronage with the corrupt elites and political parties. However, in actual fact, it effectively constitutes itself as a parallel site of power and authority. Likewise, its actors can provide an outright alternative to state, as illustrated by the provision of a minimum wage for coca pickers and pensions for retired guerrilla by Revolutionary Armed Forces in Colombia (FARC). Such positioning of civil society in relation to the state in need of reconstruction identifies civil society as a structural impediment to peace-building enterprise. However, the separation of civil society’s adverse effect on post-conflict reconstruction into structural versus ideological is artificial. The case of ‘‘ethnic privatization’’ in Bosnia and Herzegovina exemplifies the linkage between ‘‘technical’’ issues of governance and rule of law with exclusive identity politics.
Future Directions Civil Society in Post-Conflict: A Verdict?
The analysis of civil society in the post-conflict while taking into account the complex legacy of conflict in the global age and multiple aspirations of post-conflict peace building defies a singular verdict. Just as the analysis of a variety of contributions as well as limitations does not warrant uncritical enthusiasm regarding the positive contribution of civil society to post-conflict peace building; there is no room for its outright dismissal even though civil society can be the spoiler of post-conflict recovery. The critique of external civil society-building efforts with all their counterproductive consequences ought to take into account a weak and dysfunctional post-conflict state. Not only can it not provide the enabling structure for
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existence and flourishing of civil society, as it does in established democracies, it also often perceives and treats civil society as a rival. Consequently, it obstructs civil society activities and its expansion through regulation, while discrediting the NGOs ideologically as Western ‘‘imports’’ and ‘‘mercenaries.’’ With post-conflict civil societies vitally dependent on external support, the preoccupation of scholars and practitioners concerning modalities of assistance to effectively and constructively contribute to post-conflict reconstruction through civil society building including the openness to the diversity of local grassroots organizations has been a worthwhile effort. However, it also requires further understanding of ‘‘uncivil society’’ and its expansion in the post-conflict. In particular, more research is needed to generate understanding of its interaction and interference with peace building. The study of mechanisms utilized by ‘‘uncivil’’ society to achieve legitimation in local contexts, and effective ways of challenging such a distorted appropriation of the concept of civil society is long overdue. The success of post-conflict reconstruction is dependent on mutually supportive state and civil society building. The asymmetric prioritization in either area is conducive neither to democracy nor to peace. The transnational post-conflict setting is permeated by forces both of progressive and regressive globalization. The ultimate challenge after a war and bloodshed is to create, expand, and reinforce the space of civility and tolerance. This cannot be accomplished satisfactorily, especially from the outside, without local knowledge and information, whose ultimate authority and conduit is local civil society in the variety of its forms.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society, Violence and War ▶ Good Governance ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Identity ▶ NGOs and Socio-Economic Development ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Uncivil Society
References/Further Readings Brinkerhoff, D. W. (2007) Introduction – Governance challenges in fragile states. In D. W. Brinkerhoff (Ed.) Governance in post-conflict societies: Rebuilding fragile states (pp. 1–21). London/New York: Routledge. Cohen, S. (2001) States of denial: Knowing about atrocitities and suffering. Cambridge: Polity; Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Duffield, M. (2000). Globalization, transborder trade, and war economies. In M. Berdal & D. M. Malone (Eds.) Greed and grievance: Economic agendas in civil wars (pp. 69–89). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Howell, J., & Pearce, J. (2001) Civil society and development: A critical exploration. Boulder, CO/London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. Kaldor, M. (2006) New and old wars: Organized violence in a global era (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity. Kaldor, M., Kostovicova, D., & Said, Y. (2007) War and peace: The role of global civil society. In M. Kaldor Global civil society 2006/7 (pp. 94–121). London: Sage. Muenkler, H. (2005). The new wars. Cambridge: Polity. Pouligny, B. (2005). Civil society and post-conflict peacebuilding: Ambiguities of international programmes aimed at building ‘‘new’’ societies. Security Dialogue, 36(4), 495–510. Pugh, M. (2005). The political economy of peacebuilding: A critical theory perspective. International Journal of Peace Studies, 10(2), 23–42. World Bank (2005). Engaging civil society organizations in conflictaffected and fragile states. Report No. 32538-GLB. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank.
Civil Society Indicators and Indexes V. FINN HEINRICH Transparency International, Melville, South Africa
Introduction For most of its history, the concept of civil society has been confined to the realms of political theory and philosophy. From the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment via Gramsci’s cultural hegemony perspective to the revival of the term by Eastern European dissidents in the 1980s, civil society was always used in the context of imagining a normative ideal-type society. In addition, these various philosophical traditions differed quite strongly in their definition of the concept and its boundaries, leading commentators to lament the conceptual confusion around the term and questioning its usefulness for contemporary sociopolitical analysis (Knight & Hartnell, 2001; Grimond, 2002). Given this ideological and normative baggage, the operationalization of the concept for empirical research – a necessary prerequisite for the development of indicators and indices – is an extremely challenging undertaking. In fact, the applicability and relevance of civil society for empirical–analytical research is a contested issue: while there are scholars who regard the term as an essentially normative and theoretical construct (Tester, 1992; Foley & Edwards, 1998), there is a growing number of researchers who contend that civil society can and should be added to the repertoire of
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macro-level concepts used for sociopolitical analysis (Edwards, 2004: vi; Anheier, 2004). However, those looking for empirical data on civil society are likely to be confronted with a gaping hole. Due to the tendency of official statistical agencies to be preoccupied with either state or private sector institutions, the third sector – which is often used synonymously with civil society – largely remained empirical terra incognito (Anheier, 2004: 11). As a consequence, up to the end of the twentieth century one does not find any explicit quantitative empirical work under the rubric of civil society. This has changed quite profoundly because of a number of special research projects dedicated to analyzing ‘‘real existing civil societies,’’ and due to several attempts at conceptualizing and measuring the concept by scholars working in the empirical–analytical research tradition.
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Definition While it is not a standing term used in the social sciences, civil society indicators can be defined as specific measures of pertinent aspects of the phenomenon, which lend themselves to operationalization and measurement and to tracking changes over time. A good indicator should meet the SMART standard, i.e., it should be (analytically) sound, measurable, accessible/available, relevant, and timely. A civil society index is a composite indicator, which combines the individual indicators (or variables) in a single measure. For the development of indicators and indices, an underlying theoretical framework which helps the researcher define and select the relevant indicators and organize them in a way that accurately reflects the assumptions about their interrelationships is of crucial importance.
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Historical Background Up to the 1970s, social science data were highly skewed toward economic issues. Despite the emergence of a social indicator movement in the 1970s, empirical information on civil society has remained scarce. The only quantitative aspect of civil society which has been covered by largescale international surveys for several decades is the extent of the population’s participation in voluntary organizations. When in the late 1990s civil society became one of the key buzzwords among the international policy and development community and academics alike, the dire state of civil society data triggered the establishment of a substantive number of international research projects on civil society and related issues. The following projects are the most widely known: ● Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (http://www.jhu.edu/cnp/), which analyzes the
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scope and economic contributions of the nonprofit sector in more than 40 countries. The project is also working with the UN statistical division to introduce basic indicators on the nonprofit sector in the official reporting system of national statistical agencies. CIVICUS Civil Society Index Project (www.civicus.org) – a participatory and multi-method approach to assess the state of civil society in more than 50 countries. Global Civil Society Yearbook (http://www.lse.ac.uk/ Depts/global/researchgcspub.htm), published by the London School of Economics, charts key themes and challenges for global civil society in an annual publication. Civil Society and Governance Programme at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex (http://www.ids.ac.uk/ids/civsoc/), which from 1998 to 2001 examined civil society’s relations with government in 22 predominantly developing countries. Citizens and Governance Project, run by the Commonwealth Foundation in 2000 (http://www. commonwealthfoundation.com/uploads/documents/ cg_global_synthesis.pdf), which used a participatory methodology to investigate people’s conceptions of a good society and the role of civil society in governance in Commonwealth countries. ARVIN Tool (http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/ESSD/ sdvext.nsf/PrintFriendly/C386845885F530EB85256 EA700 64EB14?Opendocument) developed by the World Bank, which seeks to assess the enabling environment for civic engagement and has been applied in a number of developing countries. USAID NGO Sustainability Index for Eastern Europe and Eurasia (http://www.usaid.gov/locations/ europe_eurasia/dem_gov/ngoindex/), which has been generated annually since 1998 by USAID to assess the sustainability of the NGO sector in the region. World Value Survey (http://www.worldvaluessurvey. org/), a large-scale international public opinion survey, which includes questions on civic participation. The survey data forms the basis for a number of crossnational indices on civil society and social capital (e.g., Norris, 2002; Howard, 2003).
Key Issues As a consequence of the increasing availability of crossnational data on civil society assembled via the projects listed above, as well as of the growing attention by comparative social researchers to issues of conceptualization, a vibrant debate about how to conceptualize, operationalize,
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and measure civil society has ensued (e.g., Heinrich, 2005; Anheier, 2005; Sokolowski & Salamon, 2005; Howard, 2005; Kubik, 2005). Conceptualizing Civil Society
Civil society is clearly one of the most contested and most challenging social science concepts to conceptualize and measure. On a basic level, one can distinguish between normative–theoretical approaches to civil society, which are preoccupied with developing a vision for what civil society should be like and empirical– analytical perspectives, which focus on analyzing real existing civil societies. A second distinction can be made between conceptualizations of civil society treating the phenomenon as synonymous with a ‘‘good society’’ and those defining it as a distinct sphere or sector within society at large (see Table 1). Almost all studies which employ indicators and indices fall into the lower right-hand box in Table 1, with the notable exception of Putnam’s civic community index, which measures the ‘‘civicness’’ of an entire community as opposed the characteristics of the nonprofit/ civil society sector within a community (Putnam, 1993). Civil Society’s Boundaries: However, within the dominant empirical-analytical approach to the civil society sphere/sector, there is considerable diversity in terms of defining civil society’s boundaries (extension) and core dimensions (intension). Regarding the extension of the concept, two different approaches can be distinguished. First, the structural-operational definition, which focuses on the following key characteristics of organizations to classify them as part of civil society: organized, private, nonprofit-distributing, self-governing, and voluntary (Salamon & Anheier, 1997). Second, a functional approach which puts emphasis on the nature of the activities performed in civil society, which are usually defined as the expression of interests in the public sphere (Heinrich, 2004, Uphoff & Krishna, 2004). The choice of ‘‘function versus form’’ concept has important downstream implications for the development of indicators. For example,
Civil Society Indicators and Indexes. Table 1 Civil society concepts Normative– theoretical Property of society (a ‘‘good society’’) Object within society (sphere/sector)
Empirical– analytical
while the structural-operational definition leads to a focus on organizational indicators, the latter approach implies a wider perspective, also including nonorganized civic behavior. Civil Society’s Core Dimensions: A further key conceptual choice concerns the identification of civil society’s core characteristics, which are to be operationalized and measured via specific indicators. Here, the lacking consensus around the term’s core meaning and the underdeveloped body of theorizing on civil society have proven to be crucial impediments for the development of a widely agreed operational concept. While a common operational concept is lacking, there is broad agreement about the multidimensional nature of civil society, requiring a composite index approach involving multiple indicators. As regards the key dimensions of civil society, recent research has identified a convergence toward a twodimensional conceptualization of structural and cultural features which mirrors a similar emerging orthodoxy in the social capital literature (Heinrich, 2005; Van Deth, 2003). While the structural dimension, which examines the extent of civic participation as well as the key features of organized civil society, is well-established in the literature, the cultural dimension is a rather new addition and remains still underdeveloped in terms of operational tools and measures. These cultural facets relate to the norms, values, and interests expressed in civil society; by focusing on the content of civic activities they complement the structural dimension, which is mainly concerned with the quantity and form of these activities.
Civil Society Indicators
There is a wide range of different civil society indicators in use, which can be classified according to their data type and data sources. On the one hand, there are objective indicators which use information obtained from official statistical agencies or public opinion surveys. Some examples are: ● Share of paid employment in nonprofit sector (Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project) ● Percentage of population who is a member of at least one voluntary organization (World Value Survey) ● Percentage of people who trust others (LSE Global Civil Society Index) On the other hand, there are subjective indicators which involve an intermediary step between the raw data and the indicator score. This step is usually undertaken by experts, who assign the indicator score based on the
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available information and based on their own knowledge. There is an extensive range of subjective indicators, primarily generated by USAID’s NGO Sustainability Index and the CIVICUS Civil Society Index. Civil Society Indices
Due to improved data availability, there are a growing number of composite indicators on civil society. The following indices are available for a substantive number of countries: 1. The Global Civil Society Index developed by the Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project at Johns Hopkins University (Salamon & Sokolowski, 2004) 2. The Civil Society Strength Index developed on the basis of the CIVICUS Civil Society Index data (Heinrich, 2008) 3. LSE’s Global Civil Society Index (Anheier & Stares, 2002), which measures the extent to which a country’s civil society participates in global civil society 4. USAID’s NGO Sustainability Index for post-Communist Europe and Eurasia 5. Marc Howard’s measure of organizational memberships (Howard, 2003) 6. Pippa Norris’ Social Capital Index (Norris, 2002: 150–151) Research by the author has found moderately strong correlations among the first four indices, while the latter two measures, which rely on a limited number of indicators based on the World Value Survey, often yield substantively different results from the other indices (Heinrich, forthcoming). However, in general and different from composite measures in many other areas of the social sciences, such as democracy, there are considerable differences in individual country ratings and rankings across the entire range of civil society indices. To illustrate this with an example: The Czech Republic occupies a low position on Howard’s measure and the Johns Hopkins Index, a medium position on Norris’ Social Capital Index, but a relatively high ranking on the Civil Society Strength Index and the LSE index. These substantial differences cannot be attributed solely to the different sample compositions, but are likely to be a consequence of the vastly different operationalizations, scarce data as well as the limited validity of the available data sources. Operational concepts range from using organizational membership as the sole indicator of civil society (Howard), to a focus on economic features (Johns Hopkins Index) or the NGO sector (USAID), while operationalizations which span civil society’s multilevel nature of micro-level (individual behavior), meso-level (organizational characteristics) and macro-level (organized civil
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society) are rare (Heinrich, forthcoming). In addition, each index is plagued by a specific set of validity concerns, such as the subjectivity of expert assessments (CIVICUS, USAID), the doubtful cross-cultural validity of public opinion surveys (Howard, Norris, LSE), or the existence of a large gap between concept and indicator, such as in the case of the Johns Hopkins Index, which uses primarily economic indicators to measure the sociopolitical concept of civil society.
Future Directions Empirical research on civil society has grown significantly since the turn of the millennium. The initial approach of using organizational membership as the sole indicator for civil society has been superseded by multidimensional composite indicators, which are designed to capture the various facets of this complex macro-phenomenon. However, in general, civil society indicators and indices are still a nascent area of research which has to rely on imperfect measures and limited data sources. Future research should focus on a number of key challenges. First, existing indices rarely cover more than 50 countries with a strong overrepresentation of OECD countries. Thus, the development of larger and more globally representative datasets remains a key task for the future. While the process of including economic data on the nonprofit sector in the official reporting by statistical agencies is certainly an important step forward, the political, social, and cultural aspects of civil society are likely to remain outside of the remit of statistical agencies and therefore require additional private efforts to data collection. Second, the cultural dimension of civil society remains underdeveloped, conceptually as well as empirically: How civil societies differ in terms of the values, norms, and interests they espouse and promote is a question that has not been addressed by the scholarly community and for which valid indicators remain scarce. Third, developers of civil society indices need to pay more attention to their underlying concepts. Too often, the concepts of civil society, social capital, third sector, and associational life are conflated even though they relate to substantively different phenomena. In addition, researchers should specify which specific characteristic of civil society they intend to capture with their measure, since notions of civil society’s strength, sustainability, quality, or capacity – while related – imply different choices in terms of the selection of indicators. Last, but not least, since the scholarly community is still far from having established a widely
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accepted composite measure of civil society, ongoing engagement among researchers involved in the crucial, yet highly complex, task of measuring civil society is likely to be key to advancing the field.
Uphoff, N., & Krishna, A. (2004). Civil society and public sector institutions: More than a zero-sum relationship. Public Administration & Development, 24(4), 357–372. Van Deth, J. W. (2003). Measuring social capital: Orthodoxies and continuing controversies. International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 6(1), 79–92.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society, Definitions of and Approaches ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Anheier, H., & Stares, S. (2002). Introducing the global civil society index. In H. Anheier, M. Glasius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global civil society yearbook (pp. 241–254). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anheier, H. K. (2004). Civil society: Measurement, evaluation, policy. London: Earthscan. Anheier, H. K. (2005). Measure for measure: A commentary on Heinrich and the state of civil society indicators research. Journal of Civil Society, 1(3), 241–246. Edwards, M. (2004). Civil society. London: Polity. Foley, M. W., & Edwards, B. (1998). Beyond Tocqueville. Civil society and social capital in comparative perspective. American Behavioral Scientist, 42, 5–20. Grimond, J. (2002). Civil society. The Economist, The World in 2002. London: The Economist. Heinrich, V. F. (2004). Assessing and strengthening civil society worldwide. A project description of the CIVICUS civil society index: A participatory needs assessment & action-planning tool for civil society. Johannesburg: CIVICUS. Heinrich, V. F. (2005). Studying civil society across the world. Exploring the thorny issues of conceptualization and measurement. Journal of Civil Society, 1(3), 211–228. Heinrich, V. F. (2008). What makes civil society strong? Measuring and analysing the strength of civil society across the world. Ph.D. thesis. Hagen: Fernuniversita¨t Hagen, forthcoming. Howard, M. M. (2003). The weakness of civil society in post-Communist Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Howard, M. M. (2005). Conceptual and methodological suggestions for improving cross-national measures of civil society: Commentary on Heinrich. Journal of Civil Society, 1(3), 229–234. Knight, B., & Hartnell, C. (2001). ‘Civil society – Is it anything more than a metaphor for hope for a better world?’ Alliance, 6(4), 16. Kubik, J. (2005). How to study civil society: The state of the art and what to do next. East European Politics & Societies, 19, 105–30. Norris, P. (2002). Democratic Phoenix. Reinventing political activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Putnam, R. D. (1993). Making democracy work – Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. (1997). Defining the nonprofit sector. A cross-national analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Salamon, L. M., & Sokolowski, S. W. (2004). Measuring civil society: The Johns Hopkins Global Civil Society Index. In: M. Salamon & S. W. Sokolowski (Eds.), Global civil society. Volume 2. Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (pp. 61–92). Bloomfield: Kumarian Press. Sokolowski, W., & Salamon, L. (2005). Mirror, mirror on the wall? Commentary on Heinrich. Journal of Civil Society, 1(3), 235–240. Tester, K. (1992). Civil society. London: Routledge.
Civil Society Theory: Aristotle MARTY SULEK Indiana University Center on Philanthropy, Farmland, IN, USA
Aristotle’s Life Aristotle (384–322 BCE) is one of the most important philosophers of antiquity, and a founding figure of Western philosophy. A student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great, Aristotle founded the Lyceum, one of the earliest and most influential philosophical schools of the ancient world. By some accounts, he also invented political science as a distinct academic discipline (Strauss, 1978: 21). There is a rich biographical tradition on Aristotle in ancient sources, of which Du¨ring (1957) provides a useful scholarly inventory. One of the most extensive extant ancient accounts is provided by Diogenes Laertius (‘‘DL’’) in the fifth book of his Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, written sometime in the second century AD. In the introduction to his translation of Aristotle’s Politics, Lord (1984) also provides a speculative biography, extrapolated from the biographical record, that traces the philosopher’s likely, though for political reasons never explicitly stated, political activities. Aristotle was born in 384 in Stageiria, a Greek colony on the Chalcidice peninsula, on the Gulf of Strymon, in the northern Aegean Sea. He remained a citizen of Stageiria his entire life, despite living elsewhere for most of it. Later in life, he performed great services for his home polis, including drafting its written code of laws. His mother, Phaestis, originally hailed from Chalcis, on the island of Euboea, and his father, Nicomachus, was an Asclepiad, retained as court physician by King Amyntas II of Macedon. Aristotle thus received his early education in an aristocratic setting at the Macedonian royal court. His mother died when he was still very young, and his father died when he was ten. Thereafter, he was brought up under the guardianship of Proxenus of Atarneaus, the husband of his sister, Arimneste. At the age of 17, Aristotle moved to Athens to pursue his advanced education. He may have initially enrolled in
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Isocrates’ oratorical school, as evinced by his keen interest in deliberative and forensic rhetoric and logic. The fact that Plato was away in Sicily in 367 would support this thesis. In any event, Aristotle likely enrolled at Plato’s Academy fairly soon after his arrival in Athens. It is commonly held that he studied there continuously until Plato’s death in May of 347; DL, on the other hand, cites sources contending he seceded from the Academy while Plato was still alive. Chroust (1967) offers a plausible scenario in which Aristotle likely left Athens in the autumn of 348, due to anti-Macedonian sentiment among the Athenians arising from events of the Olynthian War earlier that year. Around the same time, Aristotle successfully petitioned the king of Macedon, Phillip II, to restore Stageiria, which the Macedonian army had destroyed during the conflict. In any event, Plato was succeeded as head of the Academy by his nephew, Speusippus, which may or may not have contributed to Aristotle’s move to Asia Minor shortly thereafter. At the invitation of Hermias, the ‘‘tyrant’’ of Atarneaus, Aristotle and another fellow alumnus of the Academy, Xenocrates, relocated to Assos; a polis located in the Troad, the peninsula situated along the southeast shore of the strategic Dardanelles Straight. Hermias had studied at the Academy in his youth, where he first met Aristotle. He went on to found a respectable sized kingdom encompassing the regions of Aeolis, the Troad and Mysia, which he carved from out of the border regions of the then decaying Persian Empire. Under the patronage of Hermias, two other Academy alumni – Erastus and Coriscus – had established a school in Assos. Hermias would thus appear to have been assembling a circle of prominent Platonic philosophers, possibly to act as advisors, emulating a long Greek tradition of political leaders employing wise counsel: from Agamemnon with Nestor and Odysseus, to Pericles with Anaxagoras and Protagoras. While living as a guest of Hermias, Aristotle married his host’s adopted daughter or niece, Pythias (who is also described as Hermias’ concubine by some of DL’s sources). She bore Aristotle a daughter whom they also named Pythias. During that time, Aristotle conducted research on botany and zoology on the nearby island of Lesbos along with his pupil, Theophrastus, who was also an alumnus of the Academy. After Hermias was captured while attempting to put down a rebellion, and was tortured and killed in 342/1 by the forces of the Persian King Artaxerxes III, Aristotle fled to Mytilene on Lesbos. The following year, he was invited by Philip II to tutor his son, Alexander III, then age 13, who would go on to become Alexander the Great. At age 16, Alexander was appointed regent of Macedon while his father was away conducting a
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military campaign against Byzantium. Aristotle, released from his teaching obligations, retired to Stageiria. After the death of Phillip in 336 and Alexander’s ascension to the Macedonian throne, Aristotle returned to Athens and founded his own school the following year. It was named the Lyceum after the precinct it occupied, which was dedicated to Apollo Lyseius and the Muses, and was located northeast of Athens, just beyond the city walls. There, Aristotle rented some buildings, including a gymnasium, and equipped the new school with a large library and natural history museum, toward which Alexander reputedly contributed 800 talents (the modern equivalent of approximately US$240 million). Aristotle presented his lectures on the walkways [perı´patos] that ran through the Lyceum’s tree-lined groves, which led to its members being called Peripatetics. During Aristotle’s second stay in Athens, his first wife died. He lived thereafter with Herpylis of Stageiria, who bore him a son, Nicomachus, after whom his most definitive ethical treatise, Nicomachean Ethics, is named. Aristotle continued teaching at the Lyceum until Alexander’s death in 323, after which Athens led an unsuccessful Greek revolt against Macedonian rule, known as the Lamian War. During the war, which lasted a year, the Athenians proceeded to persecute anyone connected with Macedonian rule. Aristotle, a close associate of the Macedonian court and a critic of democracy, was, like Socrates before him, prosecuted for impiety; in this case, in connection with a poem he had composed years before honoring Hermias. Remarking that he would not allow Athens to ‘‘sin twice against philosophy,’’ (Marcianus, Vita Aristotelis 41) he instead withdrew to his mother’s family’s estate at Chalcis, where he died a year later of an intestinal disorder (although some of DL’s sources claim he drank poison). Upon Aristotle’s death, he was succeeded as head of the Lyceum and the Peripatetic school of philosophy by his old pupil and friend, Theophrastus.
Aristotle’s Writings After Aristotle’s death, the manuscript originals of his treatises and other unpublished works were bequeathed to Theophrastus and remained at the Lyceum as his property. Both Strabo (Geography 13.1.54) and Plutarch (Sulla 26) record that Theophrastus willed his library, or that portion of which included his and Aristotle’s writings, to a certain Neleus, who transported it to Scepsis in Asia Minor. There it was hidden in a cellar by Neleus’ heirs, where it lay neglected and forgotten until the beginning of the first century BCE, when it was discovered and purchased by Apellicon, a rich book collector and Aristotle enthusiast. He brought it back to Athens and attempted to
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repair the damaged manuscripts by filling the gaps in the texts, but only succeeded in producing an edition ‘‘full of errors.’’ After the Roman conquest of Athens in 86 BCE, Apellicon’s collection was acquired by Sulla, the Roman statesman and general, who brought it to Rome, where it eventually came into the hands of Andronicus of Rhodes. Andronicus edited and, around AD 30, published the definitive ancient editions of the works of both Aristotle and Theophrastus, along with extensive commentary on the authorial authenticity of each work. This edition is the source from which all surviving manuscripts of Aristotle ultimately derive. The definitive modern edition of Aristotle’s works in Greek was published between 1831 and 1837 by August Immanuel Bekker, from which the standard page references to his works are derived. Aristotle’s writings fall into two broad categories: published works [ekdedome´noi lo´goi] almost none of which have survived, and lecture notes [akroatikoı` lo´goi] derived from the manuscripts willed to Theophrastus. DL, writing in the second century AD, identifies 156 titles attributed to Aristotle totaling 445,270 lines. Unfortunately, only a small fraction, currently comprising 48 titles, have survived to the modern period, including some likely pseudonymous works. Of the surviving manuscripts, only Athenian Constitution, discovered in 1890 on two Egyptian papyri, is thought to derive from his published works. Almost all of Aristotle’s extant works, then, are notes and treatises not originally intended for publication. These surviving works may be arranged into five categories, according to the subjects they address: logic, metaphysics, natural science, ethics/politics, and rhetoric/poetry. This article is, of course, primarily concerned with his works on ethics and politics, the most important of which are Nicomachean Ethics, Politics, and the Athenian Constitution.
Aristotle on Civil Society Before examining how Aristotle’s ideas relate to civil society, it is useful to first review what, exactly, is meant by ‘‘civil society’’ in modern parlance. Contemporary conceptions of civil society may be arranged into three distinct, but mutually supportive, categories encompassing: associational life, the public sphere, and the good society (Edwards, p. 91). ‘‘Associational life’’ theories, primarily found in the social sciences, define civil society as a function of the various organizations that constitute the voluntary, non-profit sector. ‘‘Public sphere’’ theories, by comparison, view civil society as the site of public debate – including independent media, civic forums, or even just plain talk among citizens – where consensus is
forged through open-ended discussion of issues of public concern. ‘‘Good society’’ theories, finally, view civil society as a normative concept describing the type of society in which people would (or should) ideally like to live as free and reasonable citizens. Aristotle addresses all three modern conceptions of civil society in his extant works: associational life is primarily dealt with in Politics and Athenian Constitution (‘‘AC ’’), the public sphere as an arena of debate in Rhetoric, and the ideal of the good society in Politics. Aristotle’s Politics actually forms the second part of a single treatise, of which Nicomachean Ethics (‘‘NE ’’) is the first. In NE, Aristotle examines what he considers the highest good of human life: namely, the happiness attained through striving for excellence [areteˆ]. Politics, on the other hand, primarily examines which political regimes are most conducive to their citizens’ pursuit of excellence. Aristotle defines areteˆ as the attainment of a virtuous mean between two extremes of bad behaviour (1106b). The preeminent classical virtue of courage [andreiooˆ] is thus defined as the mean situated between the extremes of fearfulness or lack of confidence, and excessive fearlessness or rashness. Failure to attain this virtuous mean can thus lead to the vices of either cowardice or foolhardiness. Aristotle, along with many other Greek thinkers, posits free will as a precondition of virtue. In contrast to modern notions, though, he defines voluntary action [hekousios praxeis] both in terms of the absence of coercion, as well as full knowledge of one’s actions (1110a); for it would be absurd to refer to an action as voluntary, he goes on to argue, when it results in consequences unintended by the acting agent (1111a). Aristotle describes seven major and six minor virtues in NE, the major ones being: courage [andreiooˆ] (1115a), moderation [soˆphrosuneˆ] (1117b), generosity [eleutherioteˆs] (1119b), magnificence [megaloprepeia] (1122a), magnanimity [megalopsuchia] (1123b), and justice [dikeˆ] (1129a), plus a range of intellectual virtues (1138b-1152b) corresponding to the classical virtue of wisdom [sophia]. Aristotle’s taxonomy of areteˆ contrasts in interesting ways from earlier Homeric conceptions, where it is primarily associated with personal talents. In the Iliad, likely written in the first half of the eighth century BCE, areteˆ is defined in terms of courage (11.760, 11.90, 13.275, 14.117, 22.268), strength (8.535, 22.242), speed (20.411), talents generally (15.642), and horsemanship (23.571). The virtue of gods (9.498) and the speed and mettle of horses (23.276 & 23.374) are also mentioned. In the Odyssey, likely written in the latter half of the eighth century, areteˆ is also employed to describe courage (12.211), including how Odysseus vies in courage with his father
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(24.515), but it also encompasses a much wider array of virtuous behaviors. It describes the qualities of ‘‘wily’’ Odysseus (4.725, 4.815, 18.205), his faithful wife, ‘‘heedful’’ Penelope (2.205, 18.251, 19.124, 24.193, & 196), and the foremost among her ‘‘haughty’’ suitors (4.629, 21.187), their talent for war craft in particular (22.244). Areteˆ is used a number of times in an abstract sense, with no reference to any particular person or quality (8.237, 8.240, 8.244, 8.329, 8.329, 14.402, 17.322). It is also used in a rather novel fashion, finally, to describe success (13.198) and the good leadership under which a people prosper (19.114). Conceptions of areteˆ evolved considerably further by the fifth century BCE, reflecting significant developments in Greek society as a whole. Protagoras, the greatest sophist and reputed teacher of virtue in the classical age of Greece, defined areteˆ primarily in terms of courage [andreiooˆ], wisdom [sophia], justice [dikeˆ], moderation [soˆphrosuneˆ], and piety [hosioteˆs] (Plato, Protagoras, 329c–e). Socrates presents a remarkably similar description of areteˆ in his enumeration of the virtues of the citizens of the perfectly just polis, although he drops piety (Plato, Republic, Bk IV, 427e). Aristotle also excludes piety from his list of the virtues in NE, but notably adds the qualities of generosity, magnificence, and magnanimity. Generosity or ‘‘liberality’’ [eleutherioteˆs] is derived from the word for freedom [eleutheros], and is etymologically related to eleutherios, meaning to speak or act like a free man. Magnificence [megaloprepeia] is defined as generosity on a grand scale, and is derived from the word prepoˆ, meaning to be conspicuously fitting. Magnanimity or ‘‘great-souledness’’ [megalopsuchia], finally, is proper pursuit of the great honors associated with public service (cf. Plato, Republic, Bk III, 402b). Among the minor virtues, Aristotle also includes a ‘‘virtue concerned with small honors’’ (1125b) that bears the same relation to generosity that magnanimity bears to magnificence. The Greek conception of areteˆ thus substantially evolved from the eighth to the fourth centuries BCE. In the archaic period, it initially defined excellences such as courage, strength, and skill, the benefits of which are largely confined to the person possessing them. By the classical age, though, its meaning had expanded to include public virtues, such as piety and justice, that emphasized one’s obligations to others, such as the gods and one’s fellow man. This latter, public-spirited conception of areteˆ receives its most sophisticated expression by Aristotle, who emphasizes the crucial importance of voluntary public service, both great and small, to the formation of excellence in human character, and thereby to both the experience of pleasure and the attainment of
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happiness. By dropping piety and adding generosity, in tandem with the virtue concerned with small honors, Aristotle’s conception of areteˆ also aptly reflects both the secularizing and democratizing trends current in Greek society during the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Politics [Politikoˆn] contains Aristotle’s most definitive theoretical treatment of the concept of civil society. In fact, the nature of civil society forms the very essence of the subject addressed by the treatise, which opens with the introductory observation: "
Every state [po´lin] is as we see a sort of partnership [koinoˆnı´an], and every partnership is formed with a view to some good [agathou] (since all the actions of all mankind are done with a view to what they think is good). It is therefore evident that, while all partnerships aim at some good, the partnership that is the most supreme of all and includes all the others does so most of all, and aims at the most supreme of all goods; and this is the partnership entitled the state [polis], the political association [koinoˆnı´a he politikeˆ]. (1252a)
Aristotle’s conception of political association, or koinoˆnı´a he politikeˆ, is roughly synonymous with the modern theoretical notion of civil society (Lord, 1987; Kumar, 1993). Aristotle is the first political thinker to employ the term politikeˆn koinoˆnı´an in a technical sense, to describe a particular socio-political phenomenon. Plato employs the phrase only once in his authentic works (Alcibiades I, 125e), but with nothing approaching Aristotle’s theoretical intent or precision; koinonı´a is prominent, though, in the definition of politeı´a formulated by Platonists in the late fourth century BCE Academy (Plato, Definitions, 413e). As Aristotle conceives it, every individual pursues what they consider good, and enters into partnerships with others they believe to hold similar conceptions of the good in order to further that end. The political association, in turn, channels these collective pursuits to serve the common goal of attaining the good society; in the same way that an architect directs the activities of various tradesmen in order to construct a sound building, that being the supreme goal that determines their activities. Aristotle employs two interrelated methodologies in Politics to develop his theoretical understanding of political association: analyzing the composite whole by breaking it down into uncompounded elements; and studying its origins and early development (1252a). The oldest and most fundamental partnership in civil society is the union of male and female, brought about by natural instinct for the continuance of the species. With the addition of children, other family members, and servants or slaves, this union
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becomes a household [oikı´a]. The partnership of several households, in turn, forms a village [koˆmeˆ], while the partnership of several villages results in the city-state [po´lis]. Hence, Aristotle concludes, the polis exists by nature, as it constitutes the end or purpose for which the other forms of partnership exist (1252b). Elsewhere, he mentions several other forms of association prevalent in ancient Greek society that contributed toward the feeling of friendship [philı´a] between members of the political partnership [politikeˆn koinoˆnı´an] (1281a), including: clans [genoˆn], brotherhoods [phratrı´ai], and clubs for sacrificial rights and social recreations [thysı´ai kaı` diagoˆgaı` toyˆ syzeˆn] (1280b); tribes [phyla`s] and demes [deˆmoys] (1300a); and political clubs [etairioˆn airoyˆntai] (1305b). Man is, by nature, a political animal, Aristotle asserts, and ‘‘a man who is incapable of entering into partnership [koinoˆneıˆn], or who is so self-sufficing that he has no need to do so, is no part of a state [po´lioˆs], so that he must be either a lower animal or a god.’’ (1253a) Aristotle derives additional evidence for the intrinsically political nature of human beings from the fact that we are the only animal to employ speech, or logos, which ‘‘is designed to indicate the advantageous and the harmful, and therefore also the right and wrong’’ (ibid). Besides distinguishing humans from the other animals, then, speech also grants us our unique ability to perceive and communicate what is ‘‘good and bad, right and wrong, and the other moral qualities, and it is partnership in these things that makes a household [oikı´an] and a city-state [po´lin]’’ (ibid). Precisely because of the unique moral and political capacities of human nature, it is particularly necessary to habituate people to virtue through participation in civil society. For just as ‘‘man is the best of the animals when perfected, so he is the worst of all when sundered from law and justice’’ (ibid). Civil society thus plays a crucial role in directing the polis, as ‘‘the decision of what is just, is the regulation of the political partnership [politikeˆs koinoˆnı´as]’’ (1253b). Every partnership is composed of two elements: that which commands, and that which obeys (1254a). Aristotle considers slavery a natural condition of human existence, but condemns the conventional practices of legal slavery (1255a). A conventional or legal slave is someone enslaved by force, whether through capture in war or by defaulting on debts secured by their personal freedom. A natural slave, on the other hand, is someone incapable of exercising reason and foresight, usually due to excessive slavishness toward their passions. In modern parlance, this might mean people incapable of acting in their best interest due to mental or physical defect, such as
compulsive behaviors. A natural master, on the other hand, is someone capable of acting not only in his own best interest, but also in the best interests of those under his command. In this sense, then, there is a ‘‘certain community of interest and friendship [even] between slave and master in cases when they have been qualified by nature for those positions, although when they do not hold them in that way but by law and by constraint of force the opposite is the case’’ (1255b). Aristotle strongly advocates the institution of private property in Politics, and condemns the communal ideals expressed in Plato’s political philosophy as unworkable. In Plato’s dialogue, Republic [Politeia], Socrates argues that, in order for a polis to be perfectly just, all property must be held in common, at least among the members of its ruling class. Aristotle challenges this assertion, countering that ‘‘it is better for possessions to be privately owned, but to make them common property in use’’ (1263a). In other words, it is preferable for property to be privately held, but for its owners to make it available for public use, in accordance with the precepts of public virtue. Aristotle’s justification for private property is primarily based upon the pleasure that possession of things gives the possessor. Selfishness and covetousness are justly condemned, he argues, but since the love of self and possessions is so deeply rooted in human nature, it is better to moderate and harness this powerful instinct, rather than simply trying to deny it. Furthermore, ‘‘to bestow favours and assistance on friends or visitors or comrades is a great pleasure, and a condition of this is the private ownership of property’’ (1263b). Not only does property give its possessor pleasure, then; it also forms a precondition to the development of important forms of virtue. Aristotle concludes that, while legislation proposing the abolishment of private property and the holding of all things in common ‘‘has an attractive appearance, and might be thought to be humane [phila´nthroˆpos];’’ in fact, the precise opposite is the case (ibid). The key to knowing a polity, for Aristotle, is understanding the nature of its ruling class or political regime. Following Plato, he categorizes regimes according to the proportion of the citizenry that compose the ruling class, and whether they rule corruptly or virtuously. A corrupt regime rules in its own interest, to the detriment of those ruled, while a virtuous regime rules in the best interests of the polis as a whole. Thus, when one man rules for his own benefit, it is termed tyranny [tyrannı´s], whereas when he rules for the benefit of the polis, it is termed kingship [basileı´a]. Similarly, when a small group of individuals, usually composed of the wealthy, rule for their own benefit, it is termed oligarchy [oligarchı´a]; whereas when
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a small group, chosen for their political virtue, rule for the benefit of the polis, it is termed aristocracy [aristokratı´a]. When the political class is composed of a majority of citizens who rule for the benefit of the many, but to the detriment of a minority, finally, it is termed democracy [demokratı´a]; while when the multitude govern, but with a view to the advantage of all, ‘‘it is called by the name common to all the forms of constitution, ‘constitutional government’ [politeı´a]’’ (1279a). Aristotle’s conception of constitutional government more closely approximates mixed government, where all citizens have the right to participate in political rule, but only a small minority of notables [gnoˆrimoˆn] possessed of both wealth and public virtue choose to do so. Aristotle places a low value on political innovation and a correspondingly high value on regime stability. He warns against habitual recourse to civil war as a means of correcting political imbalance, as through it ‘‘the bonds of civil society [politikeˆn koinoˆnı´an] are loosened.’’ (1272b) He devotes considerable analyses to the causes of the transformation of one type of regime into another. Radical democracy, for instance, tends to degenerate into tyranny, given the inherent political dynamic of demagogues among the masses. Aristotle advocates the creation and maintenance of what he terms a ‘‘middle class [me´soˆn]’’ (1295b) as an antidote to the political instability that plagued the regimes of his day; a rather innovative idea in the context of the political philosophy of his time. A middle class would, he thought, tend to balance the conflicts that inexorably arise between aristocratic or oligarchic elites, and the larger, poorer, and less educated masses of the citizenry. Aristotle’s call for the creation of a middle class may be seen to stem from reasoning similar to that he employs to describe the virtues, as a mean between two extremes of behavior. He also likely derived much inspiration for the idea of a middle class from the ruling practices of Phillip II of Macedon (Lord, 1984: 6). Aristotle concludes Politics with an unfinished consideration of the constitution of the ideal polis. He differs somewhat from Plato in his approach, striking more of a compromise between the ideal and what is practically possible. He does closely follow Plato, though, in placing a strong emphasis on the need for public education, given its importance to both the attainment of virtue and political cohesion, for: "
inasmuch as the end for the whole state is one, it is manifest that education [paideı´an] also must necessarily be one and the same for all and that the superintendence of this must be public [koineˆn], and not on private lines, in
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the way in which at present each man superintends the education of his own children, teaching them privately, and whatever special branch of knowledge he thinks fit. (1337a)
Significantly, both Aristotle and Plato practiced what they preached in this regard, and created the schools they called for in their political works. The Academy and the Lyceum were not quite the public educational institutions they had in mind, though; rather, these schools were constituted as private, religious societies, given the considerable political restraints they faced. Athenian Constitution (‘‘AC ’’) is one of the most important surviving accounts of the operations of the Athenian polis, and contains valuable information on the legal status of its private associations organized to serve public purposes. An entire class of legal action considered by the public law courts, for instance, concerned ‘‘friendly society business’’ [eranika`s] (LII.3); i.e., the regulation of social, religious, and beneficent associations. AC was originally one of 158 constitutional histories of various Greek polies assembled by Aristotle, likely in association with students at the Lyceum. This collection also likely formed the third part of a work of which NE and Politics are the first two, given the references to such a collection at the end of NE (1181b). The high degree to which Aristotle derived his political theories, as expressed in Politics, from empirical research is apparent from AC. It is also a valuable supplement to other ancient political histories of early Athens; particularly that of Herodotus, with his overtly democratic sympathies. In Aristotle’s view, Solon’s greatest political reform was not the introduction of written laws, but rather the reform of debtor law to prohibit loans secured by the borrower’s personal freedom (VI.1). He also casts the ‘‘tyrant’’ Peisistratus in a much more favorable light: praising him personally as mild [praos], philanthropic [phila´nthroˆpos] and popular [eˆthei] (XVI.2&8); describing his rule as being much more moderate [metrı´oˆs] and constitutional [politikoˆs] than tyrannical [tyrranikoˆs] (XVI.2); and comparing his reign to the golden age of Kronos (XVI.7).
Aristotle’s Modern Relevance Aristotle may be seen to have exercised a decisive influence on modern political thinkers and ideas across the political spectrum: from Locke’s justification of private property as an aspect of natural law, to Marx’s critique of civil society as the site of class warfare, to Mill’s refined version of utilitarianism, to Nietzsche’s fundamental distinction between master and slave moralities. Despite the
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undeniable significance of his ideas to the development of modern political thought, though, Aristotle is largely ignored by contemporary social science. Since at least the late Renaissance, when Galileo famously chided his contemporaries for believing the testimony of Aristotle more readily than the evidence of their own eyes, Aristotelian philosophy has been indelibly linked with the dogmatic, premodern thinking that was superseded by the more skeptical methodologies of empirical science. It didn’t help matters that Aristotelian science was pronounced the official dogma of the Catholic Church, after St. Thomas Aquinas’ successful synthesis of Aristotelian philosophy and Christian theology in the thirteenth century. As has been demonstrated above, though, Aristotle was eminently empirical, methodical and, yes, even critical in his approach to political science. Aristotle’s scientific method has often been criticized for employing teleological principles to construct theories explaining natural phenomena; i.e., positing that telos, or the end or goal of a thing, causes its development. This approach has been rendered implausible since at least Darwin, whose findings in regards to evolution have been interpreted by some as meaning that nature is best understood as a blind and random evolutionary process, utterly lacking any ultimate end or goal. However deficient teleological principles may be in the natural sciences, though, it is not quite so clear how irrelevant they are to the social sciences. To this day, civil society organizations are legally defined and organized in terms of the ends they serve, as defined by their mission, which purportedly directs and determines their activities. It would still seem to make sense, then, to employ teleological principles in studying these organizations. Aristotle is also sometimes criticized for dwelling on the outdated notion of the polis in his political writings, particularly when supra-political entities, such as kingdoms, empires, and federated leagues of polies, had existed for centuries prior, and were on the political ascendancy in his day. These criticisms aren’t heard quite as much since civil society groups overthrew the seemingly permanent regimes of the communist bloc, and the academic study of civil society came back into vogue. As Aristotle himself points out, he purposely focused his investigation on the polis because it is the smallest self-sufficient political unit capable of realizing full human potential (1252b). As Aristotle himself might have remarked, all politics is local; all else is ephemeral. Aristotle’s political thought is bound to sound heretical and even contradictory to modern ears. He considers politics an outgrowth of human nature; whereas postmodern thinkers generally follow Hegel’s view of society
as an artificial construct, unfolding within the realm of history and freedom, in counter-distinction to nature. Aristotle advocates the value of personal freedom and the practice of civic virtue, but believes that inequality and slavery are a natural aspect of the human condition. He calls for the creation and maintenance of a middle class to help ensure political stability, but advocates disenfranchising the merchant and artisan classes that could make the middle class a real economic possibility. Despite the dissonance between modern ideals and Aristotle’s political thought, prominent ‘‘Neo-Aristotelian’’ ethicists such as MacIntyre (1984) point to the continuing relevance of his rational, secular analysis of moral issues, firmly rooted in the fundamentals of human nature and experience, and advocate a return to an updated version of his virtue ethics. The particular value of Aristotle’s ideas to contemporary political thought is the unique perspective he brings, unclouded by modern normative assumptions that sometimes obfuscate human nature. The proverbial Achilles heel of modern social science is that the observations it gathers and interprets, in accordance with its empirical method and modern ideals, are generally limited to a relatively narrow sample of contemporary behaviors, from which it then extrapolates to construct theories with implicit claims to universality. This is an untenable epistemological position for which Aristotle’s political philosophy holds the potential to act as a theoretical corrective.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society History I: Antiquity ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Leadership ▶ Locke, John ▶ Mill, John Stuart ▶ Philanthropy, Ancient ▶ Political Society
References/Further Readings Bartlett, R. C. (1994). Aristotle’s Science of the Best Regime. The American Political Science Review, 88(1), 143–155. Chroust, A. H. (1967). Aristotle leaves the academy. Greece & Rome, 2nd Ser., 14(1) 39–43. Coby, P. (November 1988). Aristotle’s three cities and the problem of faction. The Journal of Politics, 50(4), 896–919. Du¨ring, I. (1957). Aristotle in the ancient biographical tradition. Go¨teborg (distr.: Almqvist & Wiksell, Stockholm).
Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato Edwards, M. (2004). Civil society. Cambridge: Polity. Irwin, T. (Trans.) (1985). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co. Jowett, B. (Trans.) (1988). S. Everson (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kraut, R. (2002). Aristotle political philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press. Kumar, K. (September 1993). An inquiry into the usefulness of an historical term. The British Journal of Sociology, 44(3), 375–395. Loos, I. (November 1897). The political philosophy of Aristotle. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 10, 1–21. Lord, C. (1984). Introduction. Aristotle’s Politics (pp. 1–24). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lord, C. (1987 [1st publ. 1963]). Aristotle. In L. Strauss & J. Cropsey (Eds.), The history of political philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. MacIntyre, A. C. (1984). After virtue: A study in moral theory (2nd ed.). Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Marcianus of Heraclea. (1962). Vita Aristotelis Marciana (Ed.) Olof Gigon, Berlin: De Gruyter. Strauss, L. (1978 [1st publ. 1964]). The city and man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Rackham, H. (Trans.) (1st publ. 1932). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (English with accompanying Greek text). Rackham, H. (Trans.) (1st publ. 1934). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (English with accompanying Greek text). Rackham, H. (Trans.) (1st publ. 1935). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (English with accompanying Greek text). Rackham, H. (Trans.) (1st publ. 1935). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (English with accompanying Greek text). Reeve, C. D. C. (Trans.) (1998). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Co. Tessitore, A. (Ed.) (2002). Aristotle and modern politics – The persistence of political philosophy. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato ANSGAR KLEIN Bundesnetzwerk Bu¨rgerschaftliches Engagement (BBE), Berlin, Germany
Brief Biography of the Theorists Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato wrote numerous articles in the 1980s to help define the contours of the debate on ‘‘civil society’’ in the United States and in Europe. Jean Cohen began her career as a professor of social science at Bennington College (1980–1983), then as an assistant professor for sociology at the University of California, Berkeley (1984). Since then, she has been teaching political science at Columbia University in New York City. She is active as the Associate Editor of the journals Constellations and Dissent, and she is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal Ethics & International Affairs. Andrew Arato has been the Dorothy Hirshon
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Professor of Political and Social Theory in the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research since 1998. He spent some time at the end of the 1960s at the Frankfurter Institut fu¨r Sozialforschung (Frankfurter Schule) (the Frankfurt Institute for Social Research – Frankfurt School) and became familiar with the subject of civil society through his work on Eastern European societies. His research focuses on The Frankfurt School, the history of political and social thought, theories of East European societies and social movements. Their collaborative major work ‘‘Civil Society and Political Theory’’ was published in 1992. The book is considered to be a modern classic of the discourse on civil society and has also had a strong influence on the European discourse. At that time, the euphoria associated with the democratic events of 1989 was already abating. A changed context of perception, ethnic conflicts, the war in the former Yugoslavia, populist and nationalist movements and phenomena of right-wing radicalism had gain importance and changed our context of perception, contributing to a sober general assessment of civil society debate.
Main Lines of Argument Placing the History of Ideas
For Cohen and Arato, Hegel’s ‘‘Philosophy of Right’’ is the starting point for a modern republican theory where the liberal concept of negative liberty is synthesized with the republican concept of positive political liberties. Hegel, like Montesquieu and, later, Tocqueville, viewed corporations of civil society as a hotbed of civic virtues and political identity. They are the political-cultural sounding board of legitimate domination. However, honoring the republican ethos attributed to the state by Hegel in a paternalisticstatist perspective has, from Cohen and Arato’s point of view, its foundation in civil society itself. There, processes of social integration, communicative understanding and demand formation in intermediary institutions occur which also perform a political-integrative service for overall society. Cohen and Arato turned the state-oriented Hegel on his head and assign the integration services that Hegel attributed to the state to civil society. Cohen and Arato give an overview of the development of the concept of civil society in the twentieth century. The starting point for this development is the categorical differentiation between economy, civil society and state. From their point of view, the works of Talcott Parsons and Antonio Gramsci are important contributions to the development of the theory of civil society. But both authors raise specific theoretical questions. Parsons, according to his
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critics, reduces the varied forms of civil society conceivable (by Parsons, the ‘‘societal community’’ responsible for the social integration) to the institutional form of American society with apologetic intentions. Gramsci’s concept of civil society, on the other hand, is influenced by Marxist reductionism that forces him to functionally reduce civil society to a creative collaboration of forms of cultural domination in the capitalist society. In order to avoid such conceptual weaknesses, Cohen and Arato resort back to the differentiation of systems (state/economy) and the living world (civil society) introduced by Ju¨rgen Habermas. In their discussion of prominent critics of the concept of civil society in the twentieth century, Cohen and Arato first try to lay the grounds for their own approach. They criticize the term politics as described by Hannah Arendt, who, for them, is the most important representative of the republican theory of civil society, due to its view of politics as decaying. The looming expansion of the sphere of plural social interests in modern civil society leads, from Arendt’s point of view, to blurring the distinction between privacy and publicness. For Arendt, this is the cause for the decline of republican ethos of politics, which retreats to a few constitutional moments in modern times. Because of an assessment of modern special interest politics that is negative overall, Arendt, according to Cohen’s and Arato’s critique, has not appropriately recognized the importance of the intermediary space in modern democracies that mediates between private and public spheres and in which associations voluntarily organize on a horizontal basis. In a comparative analysis, Cohen and Arato show similarities and differences of the conception of civil society and state of Carl Schmitt, Reinhart Koselleck and the young Habermas of ‘‘The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere.’’ As a challenge to a contemporary appropriate concept of civil society, they extract variations of an argument of fusion of civil society and state by Schmitt and the young Habermas. Both question the differentiation of state and civil society and diagnose a crisis of political mediation between state and society. According to Carl Schmitt, continued political democratization leads to the loss of state neutrality and to actions by the state affected by private interests. In addition to the overlapping of government actions and private interest, the private sphere is politicized because of expanding state activities. As per Schmitt, this development leads to the decline of the – mediating between state and society in the liberal sense – parliament. The young Habermas shares with Schmitt the diagnosis that state interventionism is expanding and that the political space is occupied by corporatism of private interests and adds the culturally and theoretically pessimistic thesis of manipulated mass
culture, which leads to the disintegration of the public as mediating agent between civil society and state. Cohen and Arato’s concept of civil society rejects the differentiation of state and society claimed at different versions of the fusion thesis and the decline of the mediating intermediary authorities in connection therewith. Their concept of civil society reacts to the fusion thesis and to the decline of intermediary authorities by referring to the interplay of political-cultural processes of generating interests in civil society with created interest pluralism in the political society and a proceduralism of willformation and decision-making processes by the state. Contrary to Habermas’ thesis of decay of the public sphere, they refer to associations with society as an issuer of public processes – an argument that Habermas incorporates in his later democratic-theoretical magnum opus ‘‘Faktizita¨t und Geltung’’ [‘‘Facticity and Validity’’]. From Cohen and Arato’s point of view, these civil society associations do not allow themselves to be taken over completely by mass media and the cultural industry, and they are an important counterweight to the de-democratization of the political public sphere. Michel Foucoult’s discussion on the theory of power, which analyses society as a network of relationships of power, lead Cohen and Arato discuss the scope and outlines of the concept of power in civil society theory. Finally, Niklas Luhmann’s discussion is the socialtheoretical measure of a civil society concept that, from the point of view of Luhman’s system theory, is especially vulnerable because of its mostly hermeneutic dependence on history of ideas, comparison of theories and the selfimage of social actors. Luhmann’s system-theoretical analysis of societal differentiation processes denies further theoretical value to the basic distinction between state and society: According to Luhmann, the variety of externally differentiated societal subsystems, the internal differentiation of the political system and the many specific intersystem connections cannot be sufficiently analyzed any more by such dichotomic theory concepts. The social-integrative function, attributed to the civil society from Hegel to Parsons, that generates solidarity through forms of participation and articulation of interests by the public sphere, relationships, and legitimacy-providing model answers is transferred to the externally differentiated legal system by Luhmann. Cohen and Arato dispute the selective external differentiability of participation processes in the public sphere as asserted by Luhmann and of processes of creating norms, which, from their point of view, cannot be delegated to the legal system but remain dependent on the creative collaboration of civil society. Habermas incorporated and
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discussed this idea in his subsequent democratic-theoretical magnum opus ‘‘Faktizita¨t and Geltung.’’
The Concept of Civil Society: An Overview of the Systematic Argument In chapter 3 of their magnum opus, Cohen and Arato introduce their concept of civil society. They discuss societal framework conditions and civil societal actors, framed by thoughts on political ethics at the beginning and a discussion of civil disobedience at the end. At the center of the argument are the ethics of discourse and the theory of law. It is evident, that in connection with the conception of political ethics the term politics is defined based on the concept of civil society. Let’s have a closer look at this connection. The concept of politics championed by Cohen and Arato specifically takes into consideration the cultural aspects of political action and what effect they have in processes of articulation of interests and interpretation of needs. In that sense, politics is not a process reduced to negotiating and aggregating interests; not the existing interests of individuals, but the formation of interests of civil societal actors while networking in a coordinated way. In a way, the formation of political-culturally sensible second-order preferences – is given priority in this analysis of the political process. This developed grown political knowledge moves quite far from politics as a pursuit of conflicting interests and as a negotiation of interests and focuses on the legitimizing sensible side of political action in political society. Group-specific interpretations and value models enter the process of articulating interests are championed here only in as far as they define the horizon of politically communicated interests. For the political process, it is important that civil societal actors accept the political society’s procedural rules, because only those processes make possible the continued contribution of group-specific interests to the political process. The political ethics discussed by Cohen and Arato observe that cultural particularity coexists within cultural pluralism and create the theme for the condition for communication in a political society. Political ethics are supposed to bridge the highly charged environment between community and society. To morally filter cultural pluralism produces, from this point of view, the binding force of an overlapping political identity that does not become lost in the actions of political society. The possibly explosive nature of cultural pluralism (ethnic, religious, nationalistic, and fundamentalist movements) is defused by a civil reactive culture whose normative character is explained by discourse ethics. The discourse-ethical pacification of cultural particularism requires civil society’s
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recognition of cultural plurality, from which political identity emerges. Discourse ethics, per Cohen and Arato, target the procedural principles of symmetry, reciprocity, and reflexivity, which help to form political commitment and to recognize the legitimacy of the political system. As the formal principle of founding norms, discourse ethics is the only option to justify the legitimacy of norms provided there are cultural plurality and a corresponding multitude of conceptions of the ‘‘good life.’’ Insofar as discourse ethics political philosophy includes a ‘‘structural concept of goodness’’ which not only takes into consideration negative liberties but also positive liberties of cultural self-fulfillment, it includes group-specific articulation of needs and political participation. Discourse ethics approximately expresses the moral standard for procedural conditions of realizing particular forms of the good life in a – culturally heterogenic – political society. Cohen and Arato follow Habermas’ social theory. Using the concept of institutional intermediation, they would like to discuss options and scope of democratizing the question of differentiation – increasing the weight of Habermasian thoughts. Institutional ‘‘sensors’’ and ‘‘receptors’’ in societal subsystems are supposed to keep the system integration sensitive to the requirements of social integration. They do not orient themselves defensively to the Habermasian thesis of ‘‘colonialization of the living world’’ in the sense of looking for barriers against the escalating dynamic of system integration. In fact, Cohen and Arato aggressively look for possible forms of ‘‘self-limiting’’ influence of civil society on the state and economy through institutional intermediation (Habermas has followed them later on this point). With that institutional intermediation, the democratization of differentiated societies without the price of external differentiation and subsequent loss of effectiveness in connection should become possible. Unfortunately, substantiating this theoretically promising goal is one of the weaker parts of their main work. Whereas the associations of civil society are especially open to democratization, the externally differentiated societal subsystems depend for their institutional sensitization from impulses from civil society. This is only conceivable, however, in limited forms of participation and requires analysis of institutional options receptive to this sensate opening of the subsystems. This opening is possible through installation of organization-specific forms of discourse procedures that institutionalize the interplay between orientation on effectiveness and claims for legitimacy. Civil societal actors create topics and views of problems, assess the output of the externally differentiated subsystems under consideration of concerns and
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expressed needs, which are transferred to externally differentiated subsystems in the processes of institutional intermediation. In this way, the topics are translated into the perception of societal subsystems, this means heightened context sensitivity and a possible slowdown of self-sustaining momentum. The mediating institution designated by society is the law, which not only guarantees the infrastructure of civil society but also – e.g., in form of reflexive, procedural law – institutionalizes the contextual sensitivities of societal subsystems. Here, Cohen and Arato sensitize for a – later more systematically carried out by Habermas (1992) – differentiation of law as medium and law as institution and make clear the significance of the law as institution. The chapter on social movements is supposed to deliver, from a social science point of view, evidence of exactly that type of civil societal actors normatively require for the concept of civil society. In social movements, a phenomenon especially prominent in the 1970s and 1980s, Cohen and Arato see the self-limiting radicalism at work they themselves demanded which connects defending and democratizing civil society to forms of influence on state and economy, which does not call into question the complexity level of structural differentiation as such. Using social movements is, rather, selective of norms. In their main work, the authors do not discuss social movements because they fall short of the democratictheoretically formulated level of requirements on civil societal actors. So the actor working within the exactly, normatively-formulated civil society without further ado is put on the same level with the new social movements. However, the authors do not continue this leveling in later works, e.g., when looking at the war in Yugoslavia. The argument proceeds in two steps: At first, Cohen and Arato carve out the alternate unilateralism of the American research on movements (Resource-Mobilization-Approach, RMA) and European research on movements (New Social Movements approach, NSB-approach). RMA methodically assumes social movements to be strategic actors, particularly, through Rational Choice. A look at structures of political opportunities of movement organizations complements the RMA paradigm, which concentrates on their contribution to the formation of interest organizations. Here, RMA’s analytic framework also works for Cohen and Arato. What the approach cannot do is to analyze collective actions below the threshold of interest conflict and strategic actions. Civil society’s actors use politicalpublic processes to influence political society and forms of ‘‘politics of identity’’ in civil society that aim to form (group) identities but do not tackle the democratization of social relationships. In this area the analytical power of the
NSB approach can be used with its attention to cultural processes, development of social identities or normative changes and relationships between associations.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Through differentiation between civil society and political society, Cohen and Arato’s concept of civil society is able to assign both approaches to the research on movement an appropriate place and to support their alternate emphasis for political theory. Concerning the two paradigms of research on movements, the authors distinguish between different forms of politics: Civil societal actors emerge through politics of identity; civil societal actors enter the sphere of activity of political society in forms of inclusive politics; through politics of influence civil societal actors participate in public political discourse and influence political societal actors; reform politics is the institutional establishing of discursive elements as ‘‘sensors’’ and ‘‘receptors’’ in the societal subsystems, also establishing the political and economic society. According to Cohen and Arato, social movements are found in the whole broad scale of different forms of politics and act in civil society as well as in the political society. Movement politics are a normal part of self-democratizing civil societies. The final chapter of the magnum opus addresses civil disobedience as action of political influence by civil society. Cohen and Arato discuss liberal positions (Rawls and Dworkin) and republican ones (Arendt, Habermas) and go back to their discourse-ethical considerations in connection with liberal legal principle and the principle of democratic legitimation. Contrary to the reference to Hannah Arendt and the classic republicanism, which is outdated in terms of social theory, they focus on civil disobedience as a form of politics of civil societal influence in the intermediary area through response from the public sphere. The self-restrictions of civil societal politics are especially valid for civil disobedience. Civil disobedience challenges the legitimacy of individual laws or politics using the right to be right. It aims for the reconstitution of the responsiveness of the political system with the help of a legal system that is sensitive to legitimacy and the impulses of civil society. Civil disobedience renews the principle of democratic legitimacy, which amounts to more than its established institutional forms, in process proceduralism and the principle of majority rule. According to Cohen and Arato, civil society expresses demand for a continued and in principle unfinished democratization of representative democracies especially through civil disobedience. Democratization is merely reduced to notions
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of legitimacy which prioritizes civil disobedience as form of civil society exerting influence. Scope and Limits of the Concept of Civil Society as a Political Theory of Civil Society Exerting Influence
With the background of their concept in context of normative democracy theory, Cohen and Arato emphasis on forms of ‘‘politics of identity’’ and public-deliberative influence. They focus their attention on the politicalcultural creative collaboration and the legal-institutional mediating context switching of legitimate domination. However, it is notable that their political theory differentiates a more broadly constructed inventory of political action forms. Their discussion of the politics of inclusion and reform remains categorical, but is barely discussed on an analytical basis. It almost appears as if the analytical differentiation between civil society and political society within a conception of institutional mediation is the reason that the direction of the analysis of intermediary processes unilaterally limits civil society’s forms of influence on political society and masks the processes of enforcing interests in the political society as well as their effect on civil society. Additionally, the state-theoretical consequences of the conception of a political society should be addressed. In political science discourse, this approach becomes more problematic as more normative conditions are introduced in the analysis of empirical findings on civil society forms of politics: Formation of a political identity is ensured by the existing structures of a rationalized living world, which defuses the possible dramatics of a cultural pluralism. This political identity, in turn, is the prerequisite for an ambitious reflexive action by civil societal actors under the conditions of a self-limiting radicalism. One cannot easily dismiss the danger of overstressing the normative argument. All in all, one cannot help but think that the consequence for political theory – all protests to the contrary – is a defense of potential civil societal conflicts, in which political forms of reform and inclusion are not sufficiently taken into consideration anymore. Cohen and Arato’s comments on the installation of ‘‘sensors’’ and ‘‘receptors’’ for the democratization of societal subsystems keep the discussion on options for a ‘‘democratization of the question of differentiation’’ (Hans Joas) in a rather metaphorical frame to a great extent. This overall impression is confirmed by the final chapter, in which Cohen and Arato discuss the exceptional case of civil disobedience as paradigmatic case of influence by civil society. In this chapter, they concentrate on the options of articulating aspects of legitimacy in the language of the law and totally neglect the problem of
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transferring questions of legitimacy into aspects of control of ‘‘systemic’’ coordination. The obvious question remains unanswered: how the perspectives on problems, needs, and interests generated in civil society may be asserted in the political process. They are of special relevance to political science in these discussions. Here one can find many apparent connecting threads to political sociology discussions. For example, the discussion about the ‘‘effects of institutionalization’’ makes references for the analysis of inclusive political processes in modern social movements. The same is also true for the discussion of interaction and interdependence of movement actors, parties, and organizations as political actors in political society and the effects of these processes on state actions. In the discussion on associations, the development of ‘‘discursive organizations’’ is addressed and, at the same time, the chances of organizing long-term and/or general interests are questioned; from the point of view which here dominates the ‘‘logic of collective action,’’ this can be particularly precarious. The research on parties analyzes the range of possible changes in the organization of parties Cohen and Arato, in emphasizing the responsiveness necessary of political institutions, have prepared paths to analyzing the organizational change in the intermediary sector, but they only follow these very selectively. The concept of intermediation presented overall goals for the internal adaptability of state/administration and market and they could have gone into greater depth into the questions asked here only in the bullet points; unfortunately, Cohen and Arato neglect to discuss these threads. Cohen and Arato’s concept of civil society provides an extremely fertile and inspiring theoretical framework that, in its complexity, makes possible a connection to the previously-stated problems of political science discussion. Of course, this requires moving the emphasis of the argument, which takes the limitations of forms of politics of civil society as a reason to discuss those as part of more comprehensive politics of reform. Only after such change can Cohen’s and Arato’s contribution be fully measured in the claims which they have made with the addition of their discussion of the democratization of representative democracies as well as to a reflexive continuation of the project welfare state.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Interest Politics ▶ Intermediary Organizations and Field ▶ Political Society
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▶ Schmitt, Carl ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Habermas, J. (1982). Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns, 2 Bde., Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (1992). Faktizita¨t and Geltung. Beitra¨ge zur Diskurstheorie des Rechts and des demokratischen Rechtsstaats, Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp. Cohen, J. L., & Arato, A. (1992). Civil society and political theory (771 S). Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press. Joas, H. (1990). Die Demokratisierung der Differenzierungsfrage. Die Krise des Fortschrittglaubens und die Kreativita¨t des kollektiven Handelns, In Soziale. Welt, Jg. 41, 8–27. Klein, A. (2001). Der Diskurs der Zivilgesellschaft. Politische Hintergru¨nde und demokratie-theoretische Folgerungen. Opladen: Leske/Budrich.
Civil Society Theory: Dahrendorf DHRUBODHI MUKHERJEE Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL, USA
Brief Biography of the Theorist Born in Hamburg in 1929, Ralf Dahrendorf got involved with the anti-Nazi movement during his school years and as a result in 1944, was arrested by the Gestapo. Between 1947 to1952 he studied Sociology and Philology in Hamburg University. Later, at the London School of Economics, he continued his research as a Leverhulme research scholar and received his Ph.D. in 1956. In 1957, he became a fellow at the Center of Advanced Sciences in Behavorial Sciences in Palo Alto; Professor of Sociology at the University of Hamburg in 1958; University of Tu¨bingen in 1960 and followed his tenure to the University of Konstanz in 1966. He has also taught at a number of North American Universities. From 1964–68 he has acted as the Adviser on Educational Questions, Land Government of Baden-Wu¨rttemberg and Vice-Chairman, Founding Committee, University of Constance (Wikipedia, 2008). He continued to serve the German Parliament as a representative of the Freie Demokratische Partei from 1969 to 1970. Finally, before becoming the Director of the London School of Economics in 1974, he became the Commissioner of the European Commission in Brussels. After more than a decade at the LSE, he returned to Germany as a Professor of Social Science at the University of Konstanz in 1984.
Dahrendorf again moved to England in 1986 and became the Governor of the London School of Economics. In 1987, he was nominated as the Warden of the St. Anthony’s College in Oxford succeeding historian Sir Raymond Carr. The following year he became a British citizen and subsequently accepted Baronage from Queen Elizabeth II in 1993. As a member of the House of Lords he regularly resided as an independent crossbencher. In 2005, he went back to Berlin and became a professor at the Research Centre for Social Research. On January 11, 2007, Dahrendorf received the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Studies (Wikipedia, 2008). His famous works include Marx in Perspective (1953); Industrie- und Betriebs- soziologie (1956); Class and Class Conflict (1957); Homo Sociologicus (1959); Society and Democracy in Germany (1965); Pfade aus Utopia (1967); Essays in the Theory of Society (1968); Pladoyer fur die Europaische Union (1973); The New Liberty (Reith Lectures 1975); and Life Chances (1979) (Wikipedia, 2008).
Main Lines of Arguments German sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf, writing in the pluralistic tradition, has rejected the Marxist notion of class conflict and reformulated social conflict as conflict between interest groups and the struggle for authority (Dahrendorf, 1958b). Dahrendorf has equally distanced himself from the two dominant theoretical approaches to understand social systems, the conflict and the functionalist perspectives, accusing them of creating theoretical utopias. He challenged the non-negotiable dichotomy that has been created between the conflict and consensus traditions (Dahrendorf, 1958a). Dahrendorf has provided a refreshing alternative explanation to understand social systems by claming that it is the social structures, which should be placed at the center of analysis of social systems. According to him the social structure contains both conflict and consensus values embedded in it (Dahrendorf, 1958b, 1968, 1977; McNamee, 1982). Drawing on the meso-conflict theory of Simmel, Dahrendorf has underscored that it is the struggle for authority instead of property that led to the modern day conflicts (Lorimer, 2006; Robbins et al., 2005). Dahrendorf and Moore (1958) further suggested that social organizations become the place-holders for different forms of authorities distribution mechanisms. It results in the creation of various interest groups who are constantly competing with each other to control for the authority. Dahrendorf draws parallels between the struggles for authority and class struggle involving domination of few groups and subordination others. Thus, Dahrendorf argues that social conflicts in a post-industrial society do
Civil Society Theory: Dahrendorf
not stem entirely from class issues, instead people representing different affiliations form interest groups that clash with each other to uphold their self-interests. Hence, Dahrendorf suggests that social conflicts have changed its primary domain from social class affiliation to interest group affiliation, and the latter is characterized by the struggle for authority and leverage in the society. This is a significant shift from classical Marxian notion of social conflict. Dahrendorf proposed a conflict model of society and questioned the Parsonian approach of comparing social structure with function oriented bio-mechanical systems (Dahrendorf, 1980). Dahrendorf termed the class-based model of social conflict as pre-industrial, where extreme emotional bonding used to create homogenous communities. These high bonding communities used to have strong identities determined by culture and property ownership (Bourdieu, 1984). Thus, such groups used to act as collectives to maintain their economic advantage over others. Dahrendorf termed these bonding networks as ligatures, which, according to him had created lack of inter-community cohesion. He argued that the industrial societies are fluid with more opportunities (life chances) characterized by more bridging networks across diverse groups. As a result, there has been more fluidity on the class lines and grouping around common interests leading to interest group crisis (Dahrendorf, 1977, 1980; Robert & Kelley, 1979; Wikipedia, 2008). Ralf Dahrendorf ’s ideas of civil society had called for a structural understanding of social conflict as opposed to Marxist-Leninist definition that strictly define social conflict as class conflict (Hazelrigg, 1972; Maier, 1969; Robert & Kelley, 1979). In fact, Dahrendorf should be credited for reintroducing the social conflict perspective in the sociological discourse on civil society when the Marxian ideas of social class and Lenin’s call for ‘‘dictatorship of the proletariat’’ had been widely termed as ‘‘utopian’’ and unrealistic (Dahrendorf, 1958a; Weingart, 1969). Dahrendorf had also challenged the prevalent communitarian theories of civil society, which view society as primarily consensus driven integrative structure, and do not acknowledge the inherent conflicts that may exist in society because of historical antecedents and structural anomalies. In order to understand the theoretical positioning of Dahrendorf, it is important to draw a little background on the theories that preceded him and influenced his work profoundly (Weingart, 1969). Talcott Parsons’ theory of structural functionalism had marked a shift in the direction of sociological theories from social conflict to social integration. Questions such as, ‘‘What brings society together?’’ became more
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important than ‘‘what drives society on?’’ The influence of Parsonian approach to sociology is profound, as it had transformed the theoretical discourse, from the late 1930s for the next several decades, to understand the factors responsible for social equilibrium (Robbins et al., 2005). The social conflict approach, which was prevalent during most of the earlier century since the publication Karl Marx’s monumental work titled the ‘‘Communist Manifesto’’ in 1848, had been challenged by the emergence of counter-theoretical perspectives such as the Parsonian systems theory (Lorimer, 2006; Robbins et al., 2005). Ralf Dahrendorf attempts to reinvent the social conflict perspectives as a supplement to the system theory interpretations of the social world. While doing so he has diverged from both Talcott Parsons and Karl Marx, the proponent of system and conflict theories respectively. He argued that in the past social conflict has been made synonymous with class conflict, which is an oversimplification of a more complex construct (Burt, 1992, 2000; Coleman, 1994). Dahrendorf posits that conflict in societies can occur for various reasons other than social class, for example conflicts of values and conflicts of authorities can result due to structural reasons. Dahrendorf, thus, had called for a ‘‘realistic approach’’ to theoretical understanding of the civil society that would uphold the ever-changing status of social institutions and norms and appreciate both the conflict and integrative characteristics of society (Dahrendorf, 1980). Dahrendorf termed both the classical Marxist notion of social conflict and Parsonian notion of social integration as utopian for their tendency to uphold either conflict or integration as mutually non-coexistent constructs. Dahrendorf proposed the analysis of social structure as a plausible route to estimate the roles of social conflict and social integration. His emphasis on the need for locating the origin of social conflict within social structures has been influenced by the development of scientific methods in sociology to gather and analyze data to measure social structures (Feldman, 1969; Maier, 1969; McNamee, 1982). Dahrendorf challenges the ‘‘conservative bias’’ of Talcott Parsons’ structural functionalist approach that overemphasizes the importance of maintaining the social order through individual will and structural integration of collective norms and values while grossly overlooked the social conflict that is a byproduct of effective functioning of every social system (Robbins et al., 2005). Dahrendorf took upon the onerous tasks of supplementing gaps within the framework of Parsonian structural functionalism by identifying structural conflicts that are not class-driven. He sides with the Marxian notion of
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social conflict and warns of the dangers of negating such fundamental characteristic as the structural conflict. He, however, infuses the idea of authority, as the key unit of analysis for social structure, as opposed to Marxian property. He takes a different approach from Marx by moving away from property-based class conflict paradigm to more authority-based power struggle approach to define structural conflict. Thus, Dahrendorf attempts to revert the argument back to social conflict and social change, a more Marxian notion, while broadly staying within the conceptual framework of Parson’s theory of structural functionalism. Dahrendorf calls for identification and classification of the problems that fall under the rubric of social conflict to avoid broad generalizations. For example, there are intrinsic conflicts seen in both war and political party rivalries, yet the tenor and the characteristics of both kinds of conflict are fundamentally different. According to Dahrendorf the structural origins and forms of different social conflict vary and it is important to take that into consideration before employing broad generalizations to define them. Thus, Dahrendorf has moved away from both Marx and Weber, who, according to him, had equated social conflict exclusively with class conflict. Thus, he assumes a unique position in the firmament of sociological theorists as one who had taken up the onerous task of fusing conflict perspective with the communitarian social integration theories, and thus making a significant contribution to social theory.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Through most of the twentieth century, the significance of social conflict and Marxian notion of class struggle was uncontested. In most parts of the world barring a few countries communism has been almost ubiquitously termed as authoritarian and exploitative. The political landscape was transformed in 1980s and 1990s with the collapse of Soviet Union, extinction of communist parties everywhere outside China and South-East Asia and an abrupt end to the ‘‘Cold War’’. This rapid end of communism has taken the most conservative political scientists by surprise. Thomas Friedman (2006) further noted that the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989 was eerily coincided with the invention of the Internet, symbolizing a tectonic shift of social forces. The Reagan and the Thatcher era also put socialist and social-democratic parties on the defensive. The much-touted Reaganomics that called for smaller government and more control in the hand of private enterprises became popular in America and to some extent in the Western Europe. International Monetary Fund guided
policies also brought neo-capitalism and representative democracies in many ex-colonies in Asia and Africa (Friedman, 2006). The decline of the Soviet Union had also witnessed a simultaneous rise of the laissez-faire conservatism that vigorously promoted the functionalist-equilibriumconsensus model of social structure against social conflict perspectives. The American tradition of pluralism led by Daniel Bell (1976) denied the neo-Marxian assertion that power concentrating in the hand of small elites could lead to oppression, suggesting that such classbased power concentration cannot occur in American system. After the fall of the Soviet Union, American influence grew dramatically in a unipolar world propagating the social equilibrium approach to inform social policy in many countries (Appadurai, 1996; Bell, 1976; Robbins et al., 2005). In the early 1990s, a Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam (2001) came up with the ultimate association driven analysis of American civil society. He declared after analyzing six decades of longitudinal data on civic and voluntary participation that Americans were witnessing a decline in their social capital. He defined social capital as ‘‘features of social life, networks, norms and trust that enable participants to act together more effectively to pursue shared objectives’’ (Putnam, 1995a, p. 169). An analysis of the above definition of social capital reflects a structural functionalist approach that suggests that social structure is horizontal and participation in social structure always brings about positive outcome. Putnam’s theory of social capital emulates the Durkheimian concept of solidarity, which is primarily based on trust and norms across social networks (Field, 2003; Baron et al., 2000; Fukuyama, 1995). The very juxtaposition of the term social and capital itself are indicative of the fact that social association would always yield a capital value (positive connotation) for participants in a social relationship. Putnam has been widely criticized by social conflict theorists for not acknowledging the vertical positioning of networks in a social structure. Putnam has been time again been accused of overlooking the structural disadvantages. Pierre Bourdieu (1990), on the other hand, defines social capital by identifying the structural hierarchies of society, which allow persons who are better positioned in social, economic, and cultural hierarchy to use their homogenous (similar) and heterogeneous (diverse) social networks to sustain the existing power distribution that benefits them. Bourdieu (1984), here, brings about how new kind of interests groups are created through their advantageous social networks (Wasserman & Faust, 1994).
Civil Society Theory: Dahrendorf
Dahrendorf should be credited for identifying the role interest groups in present-day conflict and thus highlighting the structural hierarchy factor of current social systems. Civic associations do not always necessary leads to consensus and equilibrium, interest group conflict could be a byproduct of the same that equilibrium theorist had failed to estimate (Putnam, 2001). This is more profound in the modern day Internet driven discourse on political and civic issues; interest groups like Move-On.org have used the Internet effectively to generate consensus around their agendas and came in direct confrontation with conservative interest groups such as National Rifle Association. Different lobbyist and activist groups have used the Internet time and again to ramp up their viewpoint and organize communities in real time and space (Bradley & Poppen, 2003; Qiaoming Liu & Besser, 2003). According to Dahrendorf, these kinds of social conflicts play an important role in determining policies and election processes in democratic societies and deserve the attention of the theorists. However, these conflicts are manifested within the legal framework of a given system and rarely deter the social system from functioning. This way the conflict mechanisms mentioned above are different from the Marxian and Neo-Marxian traditions and similar to the functional perspective, however, unlike functional perspective it takes into consideration the structural conflict between interest groups over authority (Appadurai, 1996). Dahrendorf has been criticized for trying to preside over an unholy marriage between two polarized social perspectives, namely the social conflict tradition and equilibrium-consensus tradition. He has been accused of diluting the realities of class struggles by replacing private property with authority as the unit of conflict. He has been accused of interpreting conflict theory to the likings of the functionalists and at the same time reinventing the conflict tradition in a new way within the broad framework of functionalist tradition and this should be treated as the most significant contribution of Dahrendorf in contemporary social theory. He might appear a little grey from the philosophical standpoint but his positions render reality orientation to understanding functional social structures and embedded inter-group conflicts within it. This is essential to understand social processes in the age of globalization and Internet driven communication (Bhagwati, 2004; Friedman, 2006).
Cross-References
▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups
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▶ Interest Politics ▶ MoveOn.org ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Webner, Max
References/Further Readings Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press Baron, S., Field, J., & Schuller, T. (Eds.). (2000). Social capital: Critical perspectives. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bell, D. (1976). The coming of post-industrial society. New York: Basic Books. Bhagwati, J. (2004). In defense of globalization. New York: Oxford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1984). Disctinction: A social critique of the judgement of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bradley, N., & Poppen, W. (2003). Assistive technology, computers and Internet may decrease sense of isolation for homebound elderly and disabled persons. Technology and Disability, 15, 19–25. Burt, R. S. (1992). Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Burt, R. S. (2000). The network structure of social capital. Research in Organizational behavior, 27(1), 17–40. Coleman, J. S. (1994). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press. Dahrendorf, R. (1958a). Out of utopia: Toward a reorientation of sociological analysis. The American Journal of Sociology, 64(2), 115–127. Dahrendorf, R. (1958b). Toward a theory of social conflict. The Journal of Conflict Resolution, 2(2), 170–183. Dahrendorf, R. (1968). Essays in the theory of society. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Dahrendorf, R. (1977). A confusion of powers: politics and the rule of law. The Modern Law Review, 40(1), 1–15. Dahrendorf, R. (1980). Life chances: Approaches to social and political theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Feldman, G. D. (1969). Untitled. Journal of Social History, 2(3), 273–277. Field, J. (2003). Social capital: key ideas. New York: Routledge. Friedman, T. L. (2006). The world is flat: A brief history of twenty-first century. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: the social virtues and the creation of prosperity. London: Hamish Hamilton. Hazelrigg, L. E. (1972). Class, property, and authority: Dahrendorf ’s critique of Marx’s theory of class. Social Forces, 50(4), 473–487. Lorimer, D. (2006). Fundamentals of historical materialism: The Marxist view of history and politics. Delhi: Aakar. Maier, C. S. (1969). Untitled. History and Theory, 8(1), 119–133. McNamee, S. J. (1982). Untitled. The American Journal of Sociology, 87(4), 972–975. Putnam, R. (1995a). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 67–78. Putnam, R. (2001). Civic disengagement in contemporary America. Government and Opposition, 36(2), 135–156. Qiaoming Liu, A., & Besser, T. (2003). Social capital and participation in community improvement activities by elderly residents in small towns and rural communities. Rural Sociology, 68(3), 343–365.
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Robbins, S. P., Chatterjee, P., & Canda, E. R. (2005). Contemporary human behavior theory: A critical perspective for social work. New York: Allyn & Bacon. Robert, R. V., & Kelley, J. (1979). Class as conceived by Marx and Darendorf: effects on income inequality and politics in the United States and Great Britain. American Sociological Review, 44, 38–58. Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Social network analysis: Methods and applications. New York: Cambridge University Press. Weingart, P. (1969). Beyond Parsons? A critique of Ralf Dahrendorf ’s conflict theory. Social Forces, 48(2), 151–165. Wikipedia. (2008). Ralph Dahrendorf. Retrieved August 28, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahrendorf.
Civil Society Theory: Dewey SHYAMA KURUVILLA Boston University School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA
Wars – for which he was criticized by those for and against the wars. He stressed the need to continually clarify the aims of war, maintain academic freedom, and to continue developing democratic institutions and processes. According to Dewey, resorting to wars ‘‘suggests that existing political and legal forms and arrangements are incompetent to deal with the situation.’’ (Dewey, 1954/1927: 128). He engaged in deliberations on the formation of the League of Nations and then the United Nations. At the age of 78, he chaired the commission in Mexico that found Leon Trotsky ‘‘not guilty’’ of the crimes alleged by Stalin (Bullert, 1989; Schilpp & Hahn, 1939/1989). Dewey is internationally known for his work on education, including in Japan, Turkey, Mexico, South Africa and Russia (Ryan, 1995; Schilpp and Hahn, 1939/ 1989; Westbrook, 1991). In China he was considered a ‘‘second Confucius’’ (Ryan, 1995; Westbrook, 1991). In a New York Times book review, Rorty (2003) retells one example of Dewey’s influence in China, "
Brief Biography of Theorist John Dewey (1859–1952) was a philosopher, social reformer, educationalist, and one of the most influential political voices of his time, both in the United States and internationally (Ryan, 1995; Schilpp & Hahn, 1939/1989; Westbrook, 1991). Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce and William James constitute the founding triumvirate of classical pragmatist philosophy (Center for Dewey Studies, 1961 – current). While the focus in this encyclopedia entry is on Dewey’s civil society theory, Dewey discussed these issues as part of a more comprehensive and integrated analysis of democracy and human experience. His analysis drew from philosophy and psychology, to the natural and social sciences, and art and education – with a view to developing more comprehensive and integrative understanding to guide human agency. He believed that philosophy should inform, and be informed by, scientific inquiry and democratic process; this was reflected in his direct involvement with academia, civil society, and government. Dewey was an active participant in civil society organizations, including labor unions and civil rights groups (Caspary, 2000; Westbrook, 1991). He acknowledged as an important source of inspiration in his work, his collaboration with Jane Addams at the Hull House in Chicago – one of the first resettlement homes for women in the U.S., focusing on social policy reform and providing services, including education and work programs for underserved communities (Shields, 2003). Dewey’s involvement in public service extended to his advising the U.S. government, including on both World
Dewey’s prestige in China was such that the State Department, in 1942, asked Dewey to write a message to be dropped from airplanes, encouraging the Chinese to keep on resisting the Japanese.
Dewey believed in translating theory to action. As an illustration of his practical orientation, Dewey had a small farm on Long Island where he kept hens. Ryan (2000: 168) recounts that at one local reception, where Dewey was the guest of honor, a lady was heard to exclaim in surprise, ‘‘My goodness, it’s the egg man.’’ Dewey’s publications include over 400 journal articles and 40 books (Center for Dewey Studies, 1961 – current). Collections of his work also comprise public speeches and invited lectures, essays, policy briefs, letters, and articles in popular magazines and newspapers, including the New Republic and New York Times. Due in part to this, Dewey was, and often is, subject to criticism based on incomplete readings of his work (Garrison, 2000; Ryan, 1995; Snider, 2000). As Snider (2000, p. 489) cautions, "
Peirce, James, and Dewey were not satisfied with proclaiming only a few of pragmatism’s points. Rather, they went to great lengths to develop pragmatism as a comprehensive and integrated theory of thought.
Dewey’s work is now made increasingly accessible through recent reprints, analyses, anthologies, biographies, and online resources. Notably, the Center for Dewey Studies has compiled a thirty-seven-volume edition of Dewey’s complete writings that is also available as a searchable electronic database (Boydston and Hickman, 1882–1953/1999).
Civil Society Theory: Dewey
Main Lines of Argument Against the vast panorama of Dewey’s work, two key aspects of classical pragmatist philosophy related to civil society theory are highlighted here: ● The relationship between self and society ● The distinction between state and civil society Self and Society
Dewey based his work on civil society, and democracy overall, on an explication of the interrelationship between individuals and society. Pragmatist philosophy differs from early liberal philosophies, for example those of Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau, where individuals and societies are considered as distinct, separate entities (Dewey, 1935/ 1999). Dewey working with sociologist George Herbert Mead explained that neither individuals nor societies develop in isolation. Individuals develop in relation to the societies in which they live, and can only define themselves as unique and individual in relation to others. Societies, in turn, cannot form without individuals (Dewey, 1954/1927; Mead, 1967 [1934]). In pragmatist philosophy this concept of interdependence extends to the natural environment of which human beings and their transactions are a part. In a critique in Liberalism and Social Action, Dewey (1935/1999, p. LW.11.30) points out that, "
The underlying philosophy and psychology of earlier liberalism led to a conception of individuality as something readymade, already possessed, and needing only the removal of certain legal restrictions to come into full play. It was not conceived as a moving thing, something that is attained only by continuous growth. Because of this failure, the dependence in fact of individuals upon social conditions was made little of . . . social arrangements were treated not as positive forces, but as external limitations.
Dewey held a position, aligned with Jefferson’s, that the community is the basis of democratic practice. "
Wherever there is conjoint activity whose consequences are appreciated as good by all singular persons who take part in it, and where the realization of the good is such as to effect an energetic desire and effort to sustain it in being just because it is a good shed by all, there is in so far a community. The clear consciousness of a communal life, in all its implications, constitutes the idea of democracy. (Dewey, 1925–1953/1999 p. LW.2.328)
Dewey recognized that communities are not built on physical contiguity alone. He foresaw that ‘‘to a very considerable extent, groups having a functional basis will probably have to replace those based on physical
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contiguity’’(Dewey, 1939/1989, p. 123). There are multiple, pluralistic ways in which people define themselves and the communities they form. Dewey (1954/1927) emphasized that pluralism is both a reality, and a rich resource on which societies could draw to resolve problematic situations, learn, and flourish. Dewey was concerned that it was becoming increasingly difficult to locate, build, and sustain functional communities. Pluralism can pose a challenge to coherence and continuity in building strong and evolving communities. A particular challenge is posed by the rapid development and dispersal of communication technologies and the means of production for goods and services, over the composition and content of which individuals have little control (Dewey, 1939/1989). These are issues that continue to challenge the development of global civil society movements, for example with respect to ‘‘deliberative forums’’ on the Internet (Glasius, 2005). Dewey stressed that ‘‘res publica, the common concern, remains vague and latent till defined by impartial, disinterested social organs. Then it is expressed in regular and guaranteed modes of activity. In the pregnant phrase of Aristotle, the administration of justice is also its determination: that is, its discovery and promulgation’’ (Dewey, 1899–1924/1999, p. MW.5.40). Thus a public order is required ‘‘which guarantees, defines, and enforces rights and obligations’’ towards the common good. There are two dimensions of public order that define and promote rights and laws for the common good: Civil Society and State. "
No hard and fast line can be drawn between civil society and the State. By the State, however, we denote those conditions of social organization and regulation which are most fundamental and most general: conditions which are summed up in and expressed through the general will as manifested in legislation and its execution.’’ (Dewey, 1899–1924/1999, p. MW.4.423)
For Dewey, ‘‘civil society . . . represents those forms of associated life which are orderly and authorized, because constituted by individuals in the exercise of their rights, together with those special forms which protect and insure them. Families, clubs, guilds, unions, corporations come under the first head; courts and civil administrative bodies, like public railway and insurance commissions, etc., come under the second.’’ (Dewey, 1899–1924/1999, p. MW.4.504) These categories of civil society organizations are aligned with Durkheim’s concept of ‘‘intermediate organizations’’. Building these institutions is seen as one way to address the seeming ‘‘inability of so-called ‘advanced’
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societies to develop institutions that are capable of acceptably reconciling inevitably scarce resources with individual and collective desires, [for instance] to have all the health care we want’’ (Mays, 2000, p. 122). To guide the development of a public order and related institutions that promote the public good, Dewey stressed the importance of education and the social organization of knowledge. Societal intelligence in his view was not the sum of individuals’ intelligence but: (1). The number and range of pluralistic intellectual resources in a society, particularly for the resolution of problematic situations. (2). The extent to which these resources are organized and made available to all members of society. If members of a society do not have access to the knowledge, technologies, and culture that define and drive their society, there is a risk of social fragmentation (Dewey, 1954/1927). Dewey also put forward The Ethical Postulate (a reconstruction of Hegel’s Sittlichkeit) that he hoped individuals and societies would test in evolving democratic practice and developing individual and societal capacities. "
In the realization of individuality there is found also the needed realization of some community of persons of which the individual is a member; and, conversely, individuals who duly satisfy the community in which they share, by that same conduct satisfy themselves. (Dewey, 1891/ 1999, p. 322)
State and Civil Society
The pragmatist concept of civil society, as discussed in the preceding section, is based on the idea of the common good and of developing a public order to promote this common good (Dewey, 1882–1898/1999, p. EW.3.32). However, what constitutes the public good and the public order change with time and social context. Dewey illustrates these changes using the examples of evolving forms of judicial law and geopolitical governance. In ancient Athens, inanimate objects and animals were brought to trial, for example, a tree after falling on a man was held liable for his death. Dewey cautioned that while much progress has been made from these primitive laws, there is need to go much further, for example, with respect to conflicts on the death penalty and on the treatment of juvenile delinquents in courts (Dewey, 1899–1924/1999, p. MW.5.413); these continue to be contentious issues in the twenty-first century. In the same vein, Dewey considered that: ‘‘The development of national States marks a tremendous step forward in the realization of the principle of a truly inclusive common good. But it cannot be the final step. . . (Dewey, 1899–1924/1999, p. MW.5.431).
Dewey was well aware of the limitations of government. He appreciated that ‘‘the movement to restrict the functions of government, the laissez-faire movement, was in its time an important step in human freedom, because so much of governmental action was despotic in intention and stupid in execution’’ (Dewey, 1899–1924/1999, p. MW.5.425). For reform of government in keeping with individuals’ and societies’ development, Dewey stressed the importance of the role of civil society, rather than of government. ‘‘We cannot expect the causes of a disease to combine effectually to cure the disease they create. The need is that the nonpolitical forces organize themselves to transform existing political structures’’ (Dewey, 1954/1927, p. 129). As discussed with respect to the Ethical Postulate, to guide societal reform, Dewey believed that individuals and societies would find that a commitment to ethical and moral development was without parallel as a means for social coordination and as a foundation to support individual and societal flourishing. "
The moral criterion by which to try social institutions and political measures may be summed up as follows: The test is whether a given custom or law sets free individual capacities in such a way as to make them available for the development of the general happiness or the common good.... It may be stated from the side of associated life as follows: The test is whether the general, the public, organization and order are promoted in such a way as to equalize opportunity for all. (Dewey, 1899–1924/1999, p. MW.5.431)
Dewey emphasized that for sociopolitical change to be meaningful, the moral basis for civil society action needs to be reflected and integrated across society. In describing an ideal state, Aristotle made a distinction between an inferior class of laborers or ‘‘natural slaves’’ who produced material goods and an elite class that contemplated civil and moral affairs (Dewey and Tufts, 1908/1999). In contemporary society, similar distinctions are be made, for example, between the corporate and production sector, the government and the general public, and civil society activists, academics, and ethicists. Such divisions between the material and the moral not only lead to discriminatory practices, but also compound what Dewey referred to as the problems of ‘‘materialism and brutality of our economic life’’ (Dewey, 1920/1999, p. MW.12.178). Dewey did not see human beings as inherently moral or immoral, but instead regarded moral development as an evolutionary process resulting from the democratic resolution of problematic situations in societies. Dewey believed that promoting scientific and moral development was the best way to develop civil society and democratic practice to support human flourishing.
Civil Society Theory: Dewey
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Deweyan pragmatism is increasingly seen as relevant to contemporary civil society theory. However, some view pragmatist philosophy as being naively optimistic about the ability of civil society to rationally deliberate on, and effect, social change in a way that ensures individual and societal flourishing (Bernstein, 1998; Ryan, 1995). Bernstein notes that Dewey’s was a qualified optimism (Bernstein, 1998, p. 149): "
I do think that at times Dewey is excessively optimistic about the real social and political possibilities of resolving serious social conflicts by open communication. Although this is a weakness in Dewey’s thinking, we can read him in a different way. For we can interpret Dewey as telling us that it is precisely because conflicts between different groups run so deep, that it becomes all the more urgent to develop those habits and virtues by which we can intelligently seek to negotiate and reconcile differences. . . He always stresses the ongoing creative task of nurturing the habits of intelligence – habits that can only be sustained in critical, open, tolerant communities.
The challenge, as Dewey (1954/1927) himself observed, continues to be the ‘‘improvement of the methods and conditions of debate, discussion and persuasion’’. Developing more effective methods of deliberation is a key concern of contemporary civil society theorists (Glasius, 2005; Shook, 2004). Shook discusses Dewey’s theory on deliberation in relation to Rawls’ and Habermas’, "
Habermas believes that if people were allowed to include in discussion some appeals to their actually held ethical values and norms, then that discussion would be irredeemably distorted away from genuinely rational and morally acceptable discourse. But from Dewey’s perspective, democratic deliberation should primarily concern the diversity of respected and pursued social goods and norms. Dewey would obviously agree with Habermas that democratic discourse should be free from coercion and violence. But Habermas, like Rawls, goes too far in seeking a democratic forum that requires a person to suspend or ignore her genuine values and norms. Nothing is more deserving of public deliberation than our most cherished values. (Shook, 2004: 40–41)
Dewey’s test for all social institutions and processes is whether they support the development of individual and societal capacities towards the common good and equalize opportunity for all. This pragmatist position is aligned with Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum’s capability approach, where they argue that the primary goal of
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development is not end state utilities (such as health, wealth, happiness), but rather promoting individuals’ functional capabilities (such as the ability to access health care and education, and participate in economic transactions and political affairs) (Nussbaum and Sen, 1993). Dewey’s approach goes further than Sen and Nussbaum’s in explicitly linking the development of individual capacities with the development of society and the common good. Dewey’s emphasis on pluralism in civil society is consistent with Sen’s (2006) thesis on identity, that recognizes the multiple ways in which people define themselves and the publics they form rather than any one definitive categorization or lens. This view is also consistent with that of those feminist scholars who recognize attention to a diverse range of socio-cultural practices, perspectives and choices may be more politically useful, even for women, than attention to singular ‘‘identities’’. Diversities in sociocultural practices cannot be reduced to a single identifying category and cannot find adequate protection under such categories, even within human rights or antidiscrimination law (Charlesworth and Chinkin, 2000). Environmental concerns are a key catalyst for contemporary civil society activism. Hugh McDonald discusses how pragmatist philosophy can inform contemporary debates on the environment, drawing on Dewey’s situating human transactions within the natural environment of which these transactions are a part (McDonald, 2004). In Pragmatism and feminism: reweaving the social fabric, Charlene Haddock Seigfried (1996: 21) discusses the past divergence of the social sciences from pragmatist philosophy and notes: "
But from my perspective it [pragmatist philosophy] seems to have been criticized and eventually relegated to the margins for holding the very positions that feminists today would find to be its greatest strengths. These include early and persistent criticisms of positivist interpretations of scientific methodology; disclosure of the value dimension of factual claims; reclaiming aesthetics as informing everyday experience; linking of dominant discourses with domination; subordinating logical analysis to social, cultural, and political issues; realigning theory with praxis.
Dewey explicity intended that pragmatist philosophy would be tested and evolve past his time to make it relevant for contemporary inquiry; this type of sociopolitical learning being a central tenet of pragmatist philosophy. Thus he would have welcomed critiques and connections being made between pragmatist philosophy and contemporary civil society theory.
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Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society in the US ▶ Civil Society Theory: Aristotle ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Rousseau ▶ Community, Types of ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Identity ▶ Locke, John ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good
References/Further Readings Bernstein, R. J. (1998). Community in the pragmatist tradition. In M. Dickstein (Ed.), The revival of pragmatism: new essays on social thought, law and culture (pp. 141–156). Boydston, J. A., & Hickman, L. A. (Eds.). (1882–1953/1999). The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953. The electronic edition. Carbondale/ Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, Charlottesville: InteLex ‘‘Past Masters’’ series. Bullert, G. (1989). John Dewey on war and fascism: a response. Educational Theory, 39(1), 71–80. Caspary, W. R. (2000). Dewey on democracy. Ithaca/London: Cornell University Press. Center for Dewey Studies. (1961–current). From http://www.siu.edu/ deweyctr/index.htm, retrieved 12/12/2006. Charlesworth, H., & Chinkin, C. (2000). The boundaries of international law: a feminist analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Dewey, J. (1882–1898/1999). The early works of John Dewey, 1882–1898. In J. A. Boydston & L. A. Hickman (Eds.), The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953. The electronic edition. Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, Charlottesville: InteLex ‘‘Past Masters’’ series. Dewey, J. (1891/1999). Outlines of a critical theory of ethics. In J. A. Boydston & L. A. Hickman (Eds.), The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953. The electronic edition (Vol. 3). Carbondale/Edwardsville; Charlottesville: Southern Illinois University Press, InteLex ‘‘Past Masters’’ series. Dewey, J. (1899–1924/1999). The middle works of John Dewey, 1899– 1924. In J. A. Boydston & L. A. Hickman (Eds.), The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953. The electronic edition. Carbondale/ Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, Charlottesville: InteLex ‘‘Past Masters’’ series. Dewey, J. (1920/1999). Reconstruction in philosophy. In J. A. Boydston & L. A. Hickman (Eds.), The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953. The electronic edition. Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, Charlottesville: InteLex ‘‘Past Masters’’ series. Dewey, J. (1925–1953/1999). The later works of John Dewey, 1925–1953. In J. A. Boydston & L. A. Hickman (Eds.), The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953. The electronic edition. Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, Charlottesville: InteLex ‘‘Past Masters’’ series. Dewey, J. (1935/1999). Liberalism and social action. In J. A. Boydston & L. A. Hickman (Eds.), The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953. The electronic edition. Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, Charlottesville: InteLex ‘‘Past Masters’’ series. Dewey, J. (1939/1989). Freedom and culture. Amherst: Prometheus Books.
Dewey, J. (1954/1927). The public and its problems. Athens: Swallow Press/ Ohio University Press. Dewey, J., & Tufts, J. H. (1908/1999). Ethics. In J. A. Boydston (Ed.), The collected works of John Dewey, 1882–1953. The electronic edition. Carbondale/Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, Charlottesville: InteLex ‘‘Past Masters’’ series. Garrison, J. (2000). Pragmatism and public administration. Administration & Society, 32(4), 458–477. Glasius, M. (2005). Deliberation or struggle? Civil society traditions behind the social forums. Ephemera, 5(2), 240–252. Mays, N. (2000). Legitimate decision making: the Achilles’ heel of solidaristic health care systems. Journal of Health Services Research and Policy, 5(2), 122–126. McDonald, H. P. (2004). John Dewey and environmental philosophy. Albany: State University of New York Press. Mead, G. H. (1967 [1934]). Mind, self, and society from the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nussbaum, M., & Sen, A. (Eds.). (1993). The quality of life. New York: Oxford University Press. Rorty, R. (2003, March 9). The invisible philosopher. [Book review, ‘‘The education of John Dewey: a biography’’ by Jay Martin, 2002]. Columbia University Press. The New York Times. Ryan, A. (1995). John Dewey and the high tide of American liberalism. New York, London: W.W. Norton. Ryan, A. (2000). What did John Dewey want? In J. Haldane (Ed.), Philosophy and public affairs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schilpp, P. A., & Hahn, L. E. (Eds.). (1939/1989). The philosophy of John Dewey (3rd ed.). La Salle: Open Court. Seigfried, C. H. (1996). Pragmatism and feminism: reweaving the social fabric. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Sen, A. (2006). What clash of civilisations? Why religious identity isn’t destiny. Retrieved 03/2007, from http://www.slate.com/id/2138731/ Shields, P. M. (2003). The community of inquiry: classical pragmatism and public administration. Administration & Society, 35(5), 510–538. Shook, J. R. (2004). Deliberative democracy and moral pluralism: Dewey vs. Rawls and Habermas. In J. Ryder & K. Wilkoszweska (Eds.), Deconstruction and reconstruction. The Central European Pragmatist Forum (Vol. 2). Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi. Snider, K. F. (2000). Response to Stever and Garrison. Administration & Society, 32, 487–489. Westbrook, R. (1991). John Dewey and American Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Civil Society Theory: Ferguson LISA HILL University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Brief Biography of the Theorist Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) was a leading figure of the ‘‘Scottish Enlightenment,’’ a period of intense intellectual activity that took place in the second half of the
Civil Society Theory: Ferguson
eighteenth century. Famous in his day, Ferguson held the Chair in Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh (1764–1785) and exerted considerable intellectual influence in Britain, Europe and America. His major works were An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767), The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic (1783) and Principles of Moral and Political Science (1792). Ferguson’s intellectual achievements were considerable: He is sometimes identified as ‘‘the first sociologist’’ and his thought embodies one of the first sustained critiques of modernity and market society (Hill, 1996). He also contributed significantly to an important strand of classical liberal thinking, namely the anti-constructivist, laissez-faire stream that was developed and popularized by Frederich von Hayek (Hill, 2006: 2–4). Most recently, he has interested scholars looking for early sources on the nature and preservation of civil society (e.g., Gellner, 1994, 1996; Foley and Edwards, 1996; Varty, 1997).
Main Lines of Argument Although Ferguson is often identified as the originator of the term ‘‘civil society,’’ it was actually in common usage during his time, denoting a social unit ‘‘larger than and different from a tribe’’ (Shils, 1991: 5) and more advanced or ‘‘civilized’’ than rude or barbarous types (Varty, 1997: 30–31). It was also a synonym for society under government, an understanding dating from classical times. Ferguson partly embraces this general conception but also develops it so that his use of the idea influenced further elaborations of civil society, most notably G. W. F Hegel’s (Waszek, 1988: passim). Ferguson’s main contribution here lay in his emphasis on the self-organizing and spontaneous character of civil society as well as the positive normative connotations with which he imbued the term. Though Ferguson nowhere systematically defines what he means by ‘‘civil society,’’ it is evident that it meant far more to him than simply living under government and also that it was not restricted to economically developed or ‘‘polished’’ societies. Civil society, for Ferguson. encompasses both the realm of uncoerced collective action and the sometimes coercive realm of the organized state, the latter of which he conceives, not as antagonistic to the liberties and desires of human agents, but as a product of their own activities, motivations and needs. Civil society is a state of social order; a condition where a people are organized (and especially self-organizing); where both informal norms and positive laws generate orderly conduct and the use of violence is moderated and regulated. Therefore the market, voluntary social and religious organizations as well as the state and its legal, military and
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political institutions are all understood to fall within civil society. Further, civil society has normative connotations because it is condition that exists only where a peoples’ lifeways and institutions are generated spontaneously and where a citizenry is civically engaged, other-regarding and therefore virtuous. Civil society is the ‘‘good’’ society and it ‘‘is in conducting the affairs of civil society, that mankind find the exercise of their best talents’’ (1995 [1767]: 149). The history of civil society – the subject of Ferguson’s most famous work – is a history of progress in political, military and legal institutions, social structure, arts, sciences, manners, population, literature, production, consumption, wealth, and liberty. It is a history of society and the polity broadly understood, referring to a process of development by which people gradually refine political society and regulate their relationships and conflicts legally, where ‘‘civility’’ and order reign, ‘‘national concert’’ is achieved and the population is civically active (Ferguson, 1995 [1767]: 28; Kumar, 1993: 377; Varty, 1997: 30–31). In its advanced (i.e., ‘‘polished’’) form civil society is characterized by a culturally homogenous yet professionally differentiated population (1995 [1767]: 178–179) that is imbued with a refined ‘‘sense of humanity,’’ a ‘‘regard to the rights of nations’’ and an ‘‘admiration of civil wisdom and justice’’ (1995 [1767]: 149). Such societies have also learned to ‘‘soften the rigours of war’’ and control the use of violence (1995 [1767]: 190). In accommodating the organized state within his idea of civil society, Ferguson’s conception is therefore different from that famously elaborated by G. W. F. Hegel who saw it as separate and distinct from the state. This is ironic since ‘‘Hegel read and used Ferguson’s work’’ and ‘‘it was Ferguson’s Essay in its German translation which helped to make the notion of ‘bu¨rgerliche Gesellschaft’ fashionable in German scholarly circles’’ (Oz-Salzberger, 1995: xix).
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Civil Society and Spontaneous Order. Ferguson’s embrace of the organized state within the realm of civil society is an unavoidable consequence of his innovative social science which is built around the idea of spontaneous order and a belief in the self-organizing character of human society. He vigorously rejects the type of contractarianism found in early modern political philosophy – a rejection that made possible the transition to modern social science – (Vernon, 1979: 58; Eriksson, 1993: 254–255) and explores the manner in which subrational forces like innate drives, habit, custom and convention, material circumstances and
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conflict generate both formal and informal mechanisms for the achievement of social order (Hill, 2006: passim). Ferguson’s discourse on the origins of the state discards all rationalistic notions of a state of nature and of any social contract. Contrary to Rousseau’s postulate of pre-social ‘‘man’’ living independent, ‘‘[s]olitary, indolent’’ and ‘‘dispersed among other animals’’ (Rousseau, 1973 [1754]: 58, 54) Ferguson insists that humans have always lived in groups (1995 [1767]: 21) and have always been political and progressive. As he wrote: ‘‘the latest efforts of human invention are but a continuation of certain devices which were practised. . .in the rudest state of mankind’’ (1995 [1767]: 14). Ferguson explicitly rejects Rousseau’s attempt to ‘‘discover the natural man’’ as well as his assumption that the state of society is an impediment to such knowledge (Rousseau, 1973 [1754]: 43–45; Ferguson, 1995 [1767]: 11). Political and social institutions are coeval with the human species because they are instinctively developed. Such apparently artificial structures as regular government are, in fact, perfectly natural, because they are immanent in human nature (1792 I: 256, II: 244–245; 1995 [1767]: 129, 84). Further, ‘‘it appears to be the will of Providence that wherever there is society there should be government also’’ (1792, II: 496). Ferguson counsels ‘‘to receive, with caution, the traditional histories of ancient legislators, and founders of states,’’ insisting that history is, by and large, a spontaneous affair generated by the accumulated acts of innumerable actors through time. Contrary to the kind of ‘‘Kings and Queens’’ histories that dominated in his time, the governments of Rome and Sparta ‘‘took [their] rise from the situation and genius of the people, not from the projects of single men’’ (1995 [1767]: 121). Rather than being the result of conscious planning and design, civil society is the product of subrational group processes whereby ‘‘nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design’’ (1995 [1767]: 119, My emphasis). Thus civil society has no precise point of inception for Ferguson. Since there never was a state of nature and since humans have always lived in some sort of political order, civil society – and therefore the state (in however rudimentary a form) – has always existed. Even so, there are stages in the refinement and entrenchment of civil society: it is originally characterized by transitory institutions, a diffusion of authority, the deployment of organized violence and a more even and egalitarian social structure; it proceeds through various stages (the ‘‘savage,’’ ‘‘barabarous’’ and ‘‘polished’’) to more formal, refined, centralized, and permanent institutions characterized by structured rank distinctions and hierarchies in which the majority
turn away from martial duties towards the concerns of production (Gellner, 1996: 121). Importantly, Ferguson insists that the terms ‘‘civilised’’ and ‘‘polished’’ are not synonymous; after all, ‘‘[c]ivilisation has been conspicuous in nations who made little progress in commerce, or the arts on which it proceeds.’’ The Romans, for example, ‘‘had formed a very accomplished republic, and exhibited many an illustrious character; whilst, in respect to family estate and manner of life, they were nearly in the condition of peasants and husbandmen’’ (1792, I: 252). ‘‘Polished’’ society is commercial society, whereas ‘‘civilised’’ society is something that humans have been able to achieve at almost every stage of their economic development (1995 [1767]: 79). In other words, civil society is about the level of effective political condition, not the level of economic development. Complications and Ambivalence. Though it has been mentioned that the organized state is part of civil society nevertheless there are times when Ferguson indicates that the state might pose a threat to civil society, specifically when that state is under despotic military control (see, e.g., Ferguson, 1995: 88). Similarly, while the market is an inherent aspect of civil society, Ferguson also perceives within the market dangers to civil society. These two threats are related; when civil society is enervated by the virtue-sapping, apathy-inducing effects of specialized market life, the emergence of military government becomes possible, even likely. Whereas for Ferguson’s friend and contemporary, Adam Smith, an expanding market protects civil society from the potentially noxious power of the state, for Ferguson a key threat to civil society comes from the market itself which, if left unchecked, contained the seeds of despotism. And unlike many other of his contemporaries who saw history as an inexorable march towards better and more refined states of social and political effectiveness, Ferguson is more cautious. Progress brings some gains in effective political condition but it also brings costs. On the one hand, there is an expansion of freedom and legal rights as well as a diffusion of wealth and therefore economic independence, all of which developments can enable and enrich political society (1995 [1767]: 247). Yet, on the other hand, progress and market society damage the social fabric by undermining social cohesion and the solidary passions and by depriving its specialized citizens of opportunities to practice and express their civic – and especially martial – virtue. The new prosperity of the polished age certainly brought luxury, wealth, comfort, and ‘‘convenience’’ but it also held the promise of social decay or ‘‘a kind of spontaneous return to obscurity and weakness’’ (1995 [1767]: 197–199). Commercially successful societies are characterized by increasing levels of
Civil Society Theory: Ferguson
specialization, differentiation, individuation, privatization, legalism, and depersonalization which can lead to apathy, political inertia, loss of civic virtue and the possibility of political tyranny, namely, praetorian rule. Commercialism thereby administers a kind of fatal ‘‘poison’’ to the moral health of the polity (1995 [1767]: 80) causing people to withdraw from ‘‘public affairs’’ and inducing them to become ‘‘profligate, licentious, seditious’’ and self-interested (1978 [1769]: 243–244). Anticipating an important theme of nineteenth century sociology, Ferguson notes that in modern commercial states, the division of labor erodes social cohesion, or in his own words, ‘‘loosen(s) the bands of political union’’ (1995[1767]: 206–209). The new individualistic ethic of commerce causes ‘‘members of a community. . .to lose the sense of every connection. . .and have no common affairs to transact but those of trade. . .in which the national spirit. . .cannot be exerted.’’ In simple (that is, ‘‘savage’’ and ‘‘barbarous’’) societies ‘‘the public’’ exists as an intimate ‘‘knot of friends,’’ bound by a sense of common danger (1995 [1767]: 208); each male citizen is responsible for the defense of common territory and this gives rise to the vital bonds that define and preserve community. In such intimate, small-scale societies war strengthens social bonds; the perception of external common enemies results in communities of ‘‘faithful, disinterested [and] generous’’ friends (1995 [1767]: 26–29). But in modern states, the development of professional standing armies and the concomitant rise of laboring and merchant classes freed from security responsibilities and at liberty to devote themselves entirely to the pursuit of private interests (2006: 143–152), ‘‘commercial spirit’’ comes to displace vital civic spirit. Inevitably, an ‘‘admiration, and desire of riches’’ brings with it ‘‘an aversion to danger’’ (1995 [1767]: 231). Whereas in small-scale, pre-commercial (‘‘savage’’ and ‘‘barbarous’’) societies the ‘‘intercourses of men’’ are ‘‘friendly. . .affectionate and happy’’ (1995 [1767]: 104) in commercial orders avarice, individualism, competition, and legalism corrode spontaneous affection. Social relationships are now defined and constrained by contract and the pursuit of profit. In polished society ‘‘man is sometimes found a detached and solitary being: he has found an object which sets him in competition with his fellow creatures, and he deals with them as he does with his cattle and his soil, for the sake of the profits they bring’’ (1995 [1767]: 24; 1792, II: 376–377). Unlike Smith, Ferguson eschews rating the prosperity of societies according to such quantitative indicators as wealth, military might or population levels. Instead, he employs the Stoic index of the moral and civic disposition of its citizenry (1995 [1767]: 62). Civil society is characterized by an active public and a constitution
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capable of embracing and promoting political and military participation (1792, II: 509). Yet, under the effects of progress, the populace becomes ‘‘disunited and corrupted and incapable of public affections’’ in direct ‘‘consequence of their numbers’’ especially when these numbers congregate in close proximity (1978 [1769]: 242–244; 2006: 393). Though intellectually committed to progress, Ferguson personally believed that it was in the small to moderatescale city-state that people stood the best chance of living the ‘‘good life,’’ that is, as civic animals (1756: 19). Even so, he also accepted the naturalness of progress and held that the good life was still possible in large-scale societies provided that virtue was consciously and consistently cultivated. This concession was part of his attempt to remain committed to progress while finding plausible answers to the eighteenth century debate about the compatibility or otherwise of wealth and virtue. It is possible, he decides, that they are indeed compatible but only if it is understood that happiness does not consist in prosperity alone and that prosperity can threaten civic virtue (1995 [1767]: 6). It was the urgent task of government to find ways by which ‘‘reconcile. . .the social affections of mankind, with their separate and interested pursuits’’ (1995 [1767]: 138). Nevertheless, Ferguson seems unsure about whether this can be achieved to the point where ambivalence about the wealth/virtue opposition could be described as the keynote of his body of work.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society History I: Antiquity ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gellner ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Rousseau ▶ Civil Society Theory: Smith ▶ Freedom of Association
References/Further Readings Barry, N. (1982). The tradition of spontaneous order. Literature of Liberty, 5(2), 7–58. Edwards, M. (2004). Civil society. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. Eriksson, B. (1993). The first formulation of Sociology: A discursive innovation of the eighteenth century. European Journal of Sociology, 34(1), 251–276. Ferguson, A. (1756). Reflections previous to the establishment of a militia. London: R and J. Dodsley. Ferguson, A. (1776). Remarks on a pamphlet lately published by Dr. Price, intitled ‘‘Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty. . .,’’ in a Letter from a Gentleman in the Country to a Member of Parliament. London: T. Cadell. Ferguson, A. (1792). Principles of moral and political science: Being chiefly a retrospect of lectures delivered in the college of Edinburgh (Vols. 2). Edinburgh, UK: Printed for A. Strahan and T. Cadell, London/W. Creech.
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Ferguson, A. (1834 [1783]). The history of the progress and termination of the Roman Republic. London: Jones. Ferguson, A. (1969 [1778]). Institutes of moral philosophy. New York: Garland Publishing. Ferguson, A. (1978 [1769]). Institutes of moral philosophy. New York: Garland Publishing. Ferguson, A. (1995 [1767]). An essay on the history of civil society. In F. Oz-Salzberger (Ed. and with an Introduction). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ferguson, A. (1995). The correspondence of Adam Ferguson. In V. Merolle (Ed.) with an Introduction by J. B. Fagg (Vols. 3). London: William Pickering. Ferguson, A. (2006). Manuscripts of Adam Ferguson. In V. Merolle (Ed.). London: Pickering and Chatto. Foley, M., & Edwards, R. (1996). The paradox of civil society. Journal of Democracy, 7(3), 38–52. Gellner, E. (1994). Conditions of liberty: Civil society and its rivals. London: Penguin Books. Gellner, E. (1996). Adam Ferguson and the surprising robustness of civil society. In E. Gellner & C. Cansino (Eds.), Liberalism in modern times: Essays in honour of Jose G. Merquior. London: CEU Press. Hill, L. (1996). Anticipations of nineteenth and twentieth century social thought in the work of Adam Ferguson. European Journal of Sociology, 37(1), 203–228. Hill, L. (1997). Adam Ferguson and the paradox of progress and decline. History of Political Thought, 18(4), 677–706. Hill, L. (2006). The passionate society: The social, political and moral thought of Adam Ferguson. Berlin, Germany/New York: Springer. Kumar, K. (1993). Civil society: An inquiry into the usefulness of an historical term. The British Journal of Sociology, 44(3), 375–395. Oz-Salzberger, F. (1995). ‘Introduction’ to Ferguson, Adam, an essay on the history of civil society. In F. Oz-Salzberger (Ed. and with an Introduction). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pelczynski, Z. A. (Ed.) (1984). The State and civil society: Studies in Hegel’s political philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rousseau, J. J. (1973 [1754]). A discourse on the origin of inequality. In The social contract and discourses (G. D. H. Cole, Trans. and Introduction). London: Everyman’s Library. Shils, E. (1991). The virtue of civil society. Government and Opposition, 26(1), 3–20. Varty, J. (1997). Civil or commercial? Adam Ferguson’s concept of civil society. Democratisation, 4, 29–48. Vernon, R. (1979). Unintended consequences. Political Theory, 7(1), 57–73. Waszek, N. (1988). The Scottish enlightenment and Hegel’s account of civil society. Boston: M. Nijhoff.
The annexation of Sudetenland by Nazi Germany and the growing rise of anti-Semitism in the German-controlled protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia forced his family to emigrate and settle in London in 1939. Gellner adapted quickly to the new life in England and won an Oxford scholarship to study philosophy, economics, and politics. At Oxford Gellner was exposed to Wittgenstein inspired idealist philosophy of language which deeply conflicted with his already discernible materialist understanding of social world. With the end of war Gellner longed to return to Prague but this proved to be a futile attempt as he became profoundly disillusioned with the new Czechoslovak state’s gradual embrace of the Soviet ideology. Upon his graduation in 1947 he was appointed lecturer in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. In 1949 he took up a new appointment in the department of sociology at the London School of Economics where he soon became a professor and where he was to stay for the next 35 years. His first book, Words and Things (1959), a stern attack on the linguistic philosophy, established his reputation as an intellectual maverick who scorned trendy approaches and hegemonic schools of thought. This reputation was further reinforced with the succession of books and articles that successfully straddled philosophy, sociology, anthropology, and history and articulated a distinct analytical position that blended rationalist and materialist ontology with the historically embedded positivist epistemology. Following an extensive fieldwork in Morocco he completed his Ph.D. thesis on the Berber religious tribes which sparked his life long interest in Islam and was also a backbone of his book Saints of the Atlas (1969). In 1974 Gellner was elected to the British Academy while in 1984 he was appointed a chair in social anthropology at the Cambridge University. The collapse of communism coincided with his retirement and in 1993 he returned to Prague to head the Centre for the Study of Nationalism at the newly established Central European University. Gellner died in Prague in 1995.
Main Lines of Argument
Civil Society Theory: Gellner SINISˇA MALESˇEVIC´, VESNA MALESˇEVIC´ National University of Ireland, Galway, Aras Moyola, Galway City, Ireland
Brief Biography of the Theorist Ernest Gellner was born in 1925 in Paris but grew up in the culturally diverse environment of interwar Prague.
Although Ernest Gellner was an erudite polymath whose expertise covered such diverse research fields as kinship studies, nationalism, civil society, Islam, psychoanalysis, postmodernism, state socialism, analytical philosophy and historical sociology, his intellectual preoccupation was focused on one central puzzle: how the modern social form came into being and in particular to what extent modernity is unique relative to all other social orders? The key to unlock this puzzle was to be found in comparing and contrasting two historically dominant forms of social organization: the agrarian and industrial world. Whereas,
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in his view, agrarian social universe is characterized by excessive violence, rigid hierarchy, cultural polarization and economic stagnation, the industrial society is its antipode: a social order underpinned by intensive social mobility, continuous scientific advancement, value pluralism, egalitarian ethics, cultural standardization and economic growth. However rather than being an inevitable product of evolutionary social development the transition from the agrarian into industrial world was seen by Gellner (1988) as nothing short of a structural miracle. In his view this was a profoundly contingent and unprecedented event emerging through the synergy of multiple historical accidents that occurred on the European continent including the church-state stalemate, religious wars, the existence of permeable aristocracy, the independence of free towns and the emergence of a plural state system. In Gellner’s account the birth of civil society was firmly linked to this extraordinary transition from the agrarian to industrial world. For Gellner (1994) civil society is more than a cluster of nongovernmental institutions and associations which are independent and strong enough to counterbalance the state. Although civil society requires the existence of autonomous and powerful nongovernmental bodies which can keep the state authority in check without paralyzing its role as an arbitrator between group interests and an essential keeper of internal peace these characteristics are insufficient for the existence of a fully fledged civil society. In Gellner’s view the indispensable ingredient of civil society is an individual autonomy. Any concept of civil society that does not incorporate an emphasis on the personal liberty, in Gellner’s view, can not differentiate between civil society proper and the premodern segmentary communities. In other words many traditional patrimonial collectivities such as clans, lineages, bands, or tribes were characterized by a substantial degree of autonomy vis-a`-vis central authorities, often being in position to strongly challenge the will of the rulers. However as these collectivities clearly lacked a sense of individual freedom and were governed by the strict ritualistic practices they had little, if anything, in common with the civil society. Rather, as Gellner (1994: 7) puts it one could escape the tyranny of kings at the expense of living under the tyranny of cousins. That is, the only way one could evade the oppression of the central authority in premodern world is through the obedience to a particular social subgroup. Hence in his theory civil society is conceptualized in wider and historically specific terms as a distinctly modern social order amiable to proliferation of independent associations which do not stifle one’s personal liberty.
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Since the emergence of civil society is firmly tied to modernity Gellner argues that one of the key preconditions for it to happen involves the structural transformation in human relations: from the rigidities of social status to flexibilities of contractual arrangements. Consequently Gellner (1995) depicts modern individuals as ‘‘modular’’ creatures who, just like modular furniture units, are variable and adaptable to ever changing conditions and opportunities of the modern world. In his view modularity is the precondition of civil society as under modern conditions one has the freedom to change memberships in various associations, to switch allegiances and loyalties to distinct subgroupings without being automatically ostracized from the society. Unlike the agrarian world where one’s social status and communal membership were inscribed on birth and regularly reinforced through ritual and coercion and thus were not particularly efficient, the human relationships in the industrial world derive their efficiency from their flexibility, instrumentality, and temporary character. In Gellner’s (1994: 103) witty and colorful language one can join a modern political party ‘‘without slaughtering a sheep’’ and one can leave it ‘‘without incurring the death penalty for apostasy.’’ In this theoretical model modernity also presumes existence of a substantial degree of statewide cultural homogeneity. In other words the transition from the agrarian to industrial order simultaneously spawn birth to civil society and nationalism. As the two phenomena have historically shared the same adversary – an absolutist and hierarchical social order that combined disdain for individual liberty with ignorance and antipathy for vernacular cultures – they acted as allies for much of the nineteenth century. Furthermore as proliferation of civil society required much broader cultural horizon than that of segmentary subgroupings while the spread of early nationalism depended heavily on the emerging civil society networks this alliance has initially proved mutually beneficial. Moreover as nationalist ideology has been instrumental in creating conditions for context-free communication, the standardization of a singular idiom of expression and comprehension while at the same time fostering the view of its members as being of equal moral worth early nationalism was often a springboard of civil society. However once the nation-state acquired monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within its territory and the institutional and organizational instruments of political centralization were firmly in place civil society and nationalism gradually became ideological foes. In Gellner’s view liberal individualism is a distinct feature of civil society and as such it was bound to find itself on the collision course with the stringent collectivist
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Civil Society Theory: Gellner
ethos of nationalism. Hence much of the twentieth century saw nationalist movements as hostile opponents of civil society. Furthermore for Gellner civil society entails a clear separation between the political and economic spheres as strong political institutions provide stability and security while economic pluralism limits the extent of political centralization. In social orders where there is no firmly demarcated balance of power, such was for example Soviet model of state socialism, the political monopoly over the economy impedes economic growth, brings chronic inefficiency and curbs technological innovation and creativity. Consequently the dependency and weakness of the economic sphere allows for the emergence of overly coercive and unrestrained state. In other words civil society requires a fine balance between political centralization and economic decentralization. However for Gellner (1994: 206) this does not mean that economy and the polity have somehow equal weight in this relationship of independence and interdependence but he argues that civil society operates much better under condition where economy dominates ‘‘treating the polity as its accountable servant.’’ In addition to modernity and economic plurality the emergence of a viable civil society entails also ideological pluralism. In Gellner’s view civil society cannot function in an environment where the social order is sacralized and where one doctrine permeates the entire society. For example both communist states and Islamic and other theocracies act as guardians of the absolutist normative universes where truth, power, and social order are intertwined. If political authority is not understood merely as an institutional means for organizing social life but as an essential agent for the implementation of an absolute goal for the entire society then any opposition to such authority is perceived as a direct threat to a moral order of the whole society. Hence if there is an ideological monopoly at work the institutional separation of the economic and political spheres is in itself unlikely to generate social conditions hospitable to the emergence of civil society. For Gellner (1994: 137) civil society is essentially ‘‘an amoral order’’; that is a social form that does not compel individuals to share a uniform moral universe or to unquestionably embrace a singular teleological vision of the world. In a nutshell Gellner’s concept of civil society implies the existence of economic plurality and decentralization, political pluralism underpinned by stable state structures, ideological heterogeneity, the modularity of human action and modernity. In his own words: ‘‘Civil Society. . . is a society in which polity and economy are distinct, where polity is instrumental but can and does check extremes of individual interest, but where the state is
in turn checked by institutions with an economic base; it relies on economic growth which, by requiring cognitive growth, makes ideological monopoly impossible’’ (Gellner, 1994: 211). Although Gellner develops a persuasive theory of civil society this model has also been criticized for making no clear distinction between liberalism and civil society, for conceptualizing civil society in a singular, mostly Eurocentric, way, for overly economistic understanding of human action, and for distinctively sanguine view of capitalist modernity (Hann, 1995, 2003; Lessnoff, 2002; Macfarlane, 2007; Malesˇevic´, 2007). As Gellner’s understanding of civil society privileges negative over positive liberty and explains social behavior largely in instrumental terms there is too little explanatory room left for the role ideologies and geopolitics have played in the historical development of civil society in the West. While focusing extensively on the rivals of civil society outside of western, capitalist, modernity Gellner neglects the inherent tension that exists between global capitalism and civil society. Although well aware that neoliberal model of economic development might not be the ideal environment for flourishing of civil society he nevertheless does not explore the hegemonic potential of large corporations in stifling civil society. It is far from being self-evident that the tyrannies of cousins, the state and the single faith are substantially worse than the tyranny of the market.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Contemporary relevance of Gellner’s theory of civil society can be summarized in three main points. Firstly, Gellner proposes that civil society can only flourish in modern context where the separation of political and socioeconomic spheres clearly exists. If this precondition is to be met, a balance of power between market regulators and state authorities is essential to ensure scope for actions and relationships that transcend both kinship ties and extreme individualism. In order to highlight what civil society is and what type of social order is conducive to its development, Gellner explores its historical alternatives: Marxism and Islam. By adopting Marxism as an all embracing ideology the communist states combined the tyranny of political centralization with the tight command economy. And this is the root cause of their failure: if political ideology dictates economic realm it inevitably leads to economic inefficiency and political corruption. This is well illustrated by examples from many postcommunist societies where the slow pace of transition and repeatedly failed economic restructuring uncovered the depth of state’s inaptness which contributed to the mass protests, loss of trust
Civil Society Theory: Gellner
(Sztompka, 1998) and turn towards rigid nationalism. Gellner’s account of the Islamic world highlights the issue of religious renewal through the analysis of economic modernization and bureaucratization and their relationship with political authority. Although economic modernization brought about structural changes in organization of society, it was not accompanied by novel types of social action and thought since the particular overarching religious creed dictates the (moral) order of society. In this context, ‘‘society seems to possess no cement other than faith on the one hand, and loyalty on the other . . . . The residue of the population not locked into any such network is effectively disfranchised’’ (Gellner, 1994: 28). Secondly, Gellner suggests that civil society requires modular persons who are engaged in a whole set of relationships but free to leave any associations without fear of stigmatization. Modularity is another precondition for a functional civil society since allegiance to a specific group is transferable within conditions of modernity. Human modularity is closely tied to industrial society in two main respects: ‘‘it makes possible civil society, the existence of plural political associations and economic institutions; and it makes mandatory the strength of ethnic identity, arising from the fact that man is no longer tied to a social niche, but to a culturally defined pool’’ (Gellner, 1995: 54). Whether the idea of civil society or ethnic identity will prevail depends on the specific cultural, political, and economic conditions in any given society. Modularity seems to encapsulate to some extent notions of individuality in liberal democratic societies which stand is stark contrast to communist, early postcommunist and Islamist concepts of non-modular ‘‘good citizen.’’ As in state socialist and Islamic order ‘‘good citizen’’ meant essentially ‘‘good communist’’ or ‘‘good Muslim’’ so in early postcommunist transition the onus was on replacing one model of non-modularity with another: ‘‘good Croat or Serb,’’ ‘‘good Catholic or Orthodox.’’ Finally, Gellner’s concept of civil society offers a broader understanding of the conditions of modern life than most standard liberal democratic models. While context of liberal democracy may be conducive to extreme individualism, atomization, social isolation and formal recognition (but possibly poor implementation) of political freedoms and human rights, Gellner’s idea of civil society is focused on the institutional preconditions necessary for the emergence and persistence of a thriving civil society. There is no guarantee that by ensuring political pluralism and economic development individual liberties and rights will automatically follow. In addition when civil society is perceived to stand in direct opposition to the political structure (Gellner, 1994: 56), than the liberal
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concept of civil society becomes another ‘‘moral project’’ against which other social orders are measured. And here lies Gellner’s major contribution to the civil society debates: civil society is not just a set of any nongovernmental institutions able to counteract state power. It is a historical and sociological phenomenon that requires subtle interplay of several distinctive prerequisites: modern social condition, political autonomy buttressed by steady but supple state apparatus, regulated economic freedom, absence of ideological monopolies and a flexible, contractual character of social relations.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Ethnicity ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society, Definition and Approaches ▶ Popper, Sir Karl ▶ Social Cohesion
References/Further Readings Gellner, E. (1964). Thought and change. London: Weidenfeld/Nicolson. Gellner, E. (1975). Legitimation of belief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gellner, E. (1988). Plough, sword and book: The structure of human history. London: Collins Harvill. Gellner, E. (1994). Conditions of liberty: Civil society and its rivals. London: Hamish Hamilton. Gellner, E. (1995). The importance of being modular. In J. A. Hall (Ed.), Civil society: Theory, history and comparison (pp. 32–55). Cambridge: Polity Press. Gellner, E. (1998). Language and solitude: Wittgenstein, Malinowski and the Habsburg dilemma. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, J. A. (Ed.) (1998). The state of the nation: Ernest Gellner and the theory of nationalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hall, J. A., & Jarvie, I. (Eds.) (1996). The social philosophy of Ernest Gellner. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Hall, J. A. (2009). Ernest Gellner: An Intellectual Biography. Hann, C. (1995). Philosophers’ models on the Carpathian Lowlands. In J. A. Hall (Ed.), Civil society: Theory, history and comparison (pp. 158–182). Cambridge: Polity Press. Hann, C. (2003). Civil society: The sickness, not the cure? Social Evolution and History, 2(2), 55–75. Lessnoff, M. (2002). Ernest Gellner and modernity. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Macfarlane, A. (2007). Ernest Gellner on liberty and modernity. In S. Malesˇevic´ & M. Haugaard (Eds.), Ernest Gellner and contemporary social thought (pp. 31–49). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malesˇevic´, S. (2007). Between the book and the new sword: Gellner, violence and ideology. In S. Malesˇevic´ & M. Haugaard (Eds.), Ernest Gellner and contemporary social thought (pp. 140–167). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Malesˇevic´, S., & Haugaard, M. (Eds.) (2007). Ernest Gellner and contemporary social thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Sztompka, P. (1998). Mistrusting civility: Predicament of a post-communist society. In C. A. Jeffrey (Ed.), Real civil societies. Dilemmas of institutionalization (pp. 191–210). London: Sage.
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Civil Society Theory: Gramsci
Civil Society Theory: Gramsci HAGAI KATZ Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel
Brief Biography of the Theorist
(or government). And indeed, elsewhere Gramsci writes that ‘‘between the economic structure and the state with its legislation and coercion stands civil society’’ (Gramsci, 1971: 209). However, it is important to note that for Gramsci these distinctions are only analytic or theoretical. As Joseph Buttigieg explains: "
Gramsci’s enlarged concept of the modern State is, therefore, triadic; its three elements, political society, civil society, and the economic sphere, are inextricably intertwined— they are separable only for methodological or heuristic purposes. (Buttigieg, 2005: 43)
Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937), an Italian journalist and the leader of the Italian Communist party who died in the Fascist prison, is considered one of the major theoreticians of civil society. His ideas have become extremely influential in the civil society discourse, on both its academic and political sides. His notions of civil society, the state, and hegemony are discussed in over 30 notebooks of history and analysis of socialism, fascism, and other topics, written in the Fascist prison, as well as in some of his preprison writings. Gramsci’s concept of civil society, like much of his notions and conceptions, isn’t summed up in a single place in his writing, but rather develops gradually from early remarks in his pre-prison writings through fragmentary and seemingly haphazard formulations in several of his prison notebooks. While there are a few passages in the Prison Notebooks where Gramsci addresses the concept of civil society in a more formal and systematic way, much of his observations on civil society are intertwined with his analyses of a wide variety of topics.
And so, civil society includes representative institutions of the economic sphere, such as employers’ associations and trade unions, together with the more commonly accepted manifestations of civil society, such as churches, parties, professional associations, educational and cultural bodies. Gramsci’s work depicts a complex and dialectic interrelation between the state, civil society and hegemony. Within this relationship civil society plays a dual and dialectic role, as an agent of government and the hegemonic forces that control the state, which on the one hand is used as an instrument to maintain the current relations of power in society. On the other hand, civil society is the arena of creativity where counter-hegemonic forces develop alternatives to the hegemonic ideologies and practices, and from where, under specific conditions, reformist processes can emerge.
Main Lines of Argument
Civil Society and Hegemony
For Gramsci, civil society is located within society’s superstructure (in Marxist and Neo-Marxist thought the base is equivalent to the mode of production and the social order enforcing it, while the superstructure is the culture, technology, institutions, etc. which emerge from the material conditions and circumstances of production and support it), which in Gramsci’s works, pertains to institutions, forms of consciousness and political and cultural practices (Williams, 1978). The superstructure is the sphere of mass cultural and ideological reproduction, and it consists of two major levels:
The concept of Hegemony is central to Gramsci’s idea of civil society. Gramsci’s idea of hegemony is based on Marx’s notion of ‘‘false consciousness,’’ which is a state in which the members of the dominated classes are ideologically blinded to their subordinate position in the social structure. Thanks to false consciousness, true class consciousness is hindered by the ideology of the ruling class, and the masses are made to identify with a system which exploits them and its underlying ideology. Gramsci used the term ‘‘hegemony’’ to name the process of political domination through ideological domination. He showed how dominant elites use the state as well as the popular culture, mass media, education, and religion to reinforce an ideology which supports their position in the relations of force. Gramsci defines hegemony as a form of control exercised by a dominant class over subaltern groups in society. Although in his prison writings Gramsci typically is careful not to use Marxist terminology such as ‘‘class,’’ and ‘‘proletariat’’ (because his work was read by a Fascist censor), his class distinctions reflect the reality of his place and time.
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[O]ne that can be called civil society, that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called private, and that of political society, or the State. (Gramsci, 1971: 12)
Since the superstructure is distinct from the base, which consists of social relations of production of a predominately economic character, and following Gramsci’s critique of Marxist economism, it is often argued that Gramsci developed a three-way distinction between the economy (the market), civil society, and the state
Civil Society Theory: Gramsci
Gramsci’s dominant class was the bourgeoisie, the modern Capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of waged labor; and the central subordinate class was the proletariat, but also other subaltern groups. Gramsci’s hegemony refers to a process of moral and intellectual leadership through which dominated or subordinate classes succumb to their own domination by ruling classes, as opposed to being simply forced or coerced into accepting inferior positions. Hegemony, thus, refers to a sociopolitical situation or as Gramsci calls it ‘‘a moment,’’ in which there is an alignment of the superstructure (the dominant ideology) with the base (class divisions and the economic and political practices that support them). In hegemony, a certain way of life and thought is dominant, and is diffused throughout society to inform norms, values and tastes, political practices, and social relations (Showstack-Sassoon, 1982). Hegemony thus saturates the society to such an extent that it corresponds to the reality of social experience. In this way, people contribute to the continued dominance of the ruling class, by accepting the dominant culture’s values and assumptions as their own: repression is replaced by inculcation (Moen, 1998). Class dominance, as theorized by Gramsci, results from a combination of coercion and consent. The dominant class becomes hegemonic and promotes it own ideology as the commonsensical way of thinking through leadership and persuasion, so that instead of imposing itself on the subaltern classes, it acquires their consensus. The dominant class becomes firmly established not by forceful repression of the subaltern classes but rather by creating and disseminating an ideological commonsense, what Gramsci calls ‘‘forma mentis,’’ and by establishing a system that embodies this forma mentis and transmutes it into a certain social order, or even ‘‘makes it appear to be orderliness itself ’’ (Buttigieg, 1995: 13). Naturally, coercion is never completely missing from arrangements of power, but in hegemonic arrangements what matters is the power of ideas and the politics of consent, while force and coercion are less visible (Rupert, 2005). Since hegemony is not a result of imposition but rather of consent, this leadership is not exercised primarily through the mechanisms of government, rather it is acquired chiefly in the sphere of civil society where consensus is generated. In order for the hegemonic groups to control political society with the consent of the governed, that is for them to be ‘‘hegemonic,’’ they must allow for a space where free association and action (or a belief of free association and action) is allowed. When the ideas and worldviews formed in this ‘‘free’’ space buttress existing social, economic, and political arrangements, they are thought of as doing so willingly and spontaneously. In this, the action
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within civil society, directed by hegemonic elites and the forma mentis they engender, serves to legitimize existing arrangements and relations of power. Achieving a hegemonic position in civil society is resolutely more important to the ruling classes than gaining control over government. Controlling government allows hegemonic groups to use the legitimate force of the state to protect their interests, if they must. However, relying only on brute force as their only source of power would make them vulnerable to a simple straight-on challenge on the control of legitimate force such as in a coup d’e´tat. Contrastingly, hegemony causes potential opposing groups to consent with the dominant groups’ control and identify with its ideology, and this is likely to prevent a coup d’e´tat from occurring in the first place. To give credibility to the belief that the government is above class distinctions, the dominant class must make some concessions to accommodate some of the aspirations of subaltern groups. The subaltern groups’ aspirations, however, are bounded by the prevailing forma mentis, and consequently they will promote ‘‘their’’ interests in a manner that does not threaten the existing order and is compatible with the established rules of the game. Simultaneously, the subaltern groups’ imagined freedom to act on their own behalf acts as a sort of a pressure valve, by which the unrest caused by domination is given an outlet within the sphere of civil society, without disturbing the apparatus of the state and the existing forma mentis it protects. In this way hegemonic forces allow for minor changes and adjustments, such that don’t change the basic power arrangements in society, but give subaltern groups a feeling that change is possible. In this slow and wellcontrolled process, which Gramsci calls ‘‘passive revolution,’’ the hegemonic elite forgoes some of its immediate economic interests and allows for the forms of its hegemony to change marginally, for the purpose of fortifying the basic power arrangements and buttress its dominant position in these arrangements. Gramsci mentions Frederick Taylor’s ‘‘scientific management’’ movement as an example of passive revolution, as it introduced changes in the organization of work, but left existing patterns of ownership intact. Obviously, the hegemonic elites are not passive observers. They are present and participate in various institutions, cultural activities, and other forms of social interaction, and provide leadership in specific directions. Thus, hegemony is achieved through indoctrination by different institutions of civil society, some of which are controlled by hegemonic elites, others are infused with the hegemonic ideology, and yet others are co-opted by the hegemonic elite, what Gramsci called ‘‘transformismo’’ – ‘‘a process whereby the hegemonic groups absorbed,
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Civil Society Theory: Gramsci
translated and articulated the demands of some of the dominated sectors the better to defuse them’’ (Munck, 1996: 43). The result is ‘‘coercive orthodoxy’’ (Persaud, 2001: 65) – the self imposition of the hegemonic doxa by the subaltern elements in society on themselves. Therefore, civil society is the arena where the prevailing hegemony in the modern state is constantly being reinforced, but also the only arena where it can be truly contested. Since in Gramsci’s thought civil society, and not the state as in Hegel, is the active and positive element in historical developments, it is the locus of impending change. It is the creative space, where subaltern groups can coalesce and engage in a counter-hegemonic effort to alter society (Showstack-Sassoon, 1982). Actually, hegemony necessitates counter-hegemony, since it creates contradictions that cause unrest among subaltern groups. Hegemony and counter-hegemony are best seen as ‘‘simultaneous double movements’’ that reciprocally shape one another – hegemony informs counter-hegemony, and counter-hegemonic efforts cause hegemonic forces to realign and reorganize themselves (Persaud, 2001: 49).
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society State and Civil Society
Gramsci’s use of hegemony cannot be understood apart from other concepts he developed, including those of ‘‘State’’ and ‘‘Civil Society.’’ Actually, what sets hegemony apart from domination is the symbiosis between government and civil society. This can only be analyzed in a meaningful way when one understands that civil society is not separate from or exclusively opposed to the state (Buttigieg, 2005). Gramsci’s insights on the state and civil society were developed in the context of the dramatic events of his time, such as the Russian Revolution, the ascent of fascism, World War I and the social unrest that followed it, rapid European industrialization; and were influenced by his point of view as the leader of the Italian communist party. The most concise expression concerning civil society and the state appears in his sixth notebook, where he writes: ‘‘one might say that State = political society + civil society, in other words hegemony protected by the armor of coercion’’ (Gramsci, 1971: 263). Hence, Gramsci rejects the sharp distinction drawn in mainstream liberal theory between civil society and the state or government. For him, the distinction between political society and civil society is purely methodological, and actually, as he argues in his 13th notebook, civil society and state are one. He saw civil society as a part
of his notion of the ‘‘integral state’’ (Gramsci, 1971: 267). In fact, although political society is the most immediately visible aspect of the state, civil society is its most resilient constitutive element. The intricate, organic relationships between civil society and political society is what produces hegemony, and thus makes it possible for certain classes of society to dominate the state and maintain their dominance, perpetuating the subalternity of other classes. Political society and civil society mutually reinforce each other to the advantage of certain classes, groups, and institutions. Control of the state is accomplished through hegemony in civil society, hegemony that is achieved through consent. But consent of the subaltern groups to hegemonic ideology is not a truly free choice; it is manufactured and manipulated by the dominant classes who control certain institutions of civil society, co-opt others, and infuse the rest with the forma mentis that they desire. So, the real indication of the state’s strength is what Gramsci calls a ‘‘dialectical unity’’ between government power and civil society (Gramsci, 1971: 169–170). The sturdiness of the modern state is dependent on the support offered by a sturdy civil society: ‘‘In the East [here Gramsci refers to the Tsarist, pre-modern state in Russia HK] the state was everything, civil society was primordial and gelatinous; in the West [here Gramsci refers to western modern liberal states -HK], there was a proper relation between state and civil society, and when the state tottered a sturdy structure of civil society was immediately revealed. The state was just a forward trench; behind it stood a succession of sturdy fortresses and emplacements’’ (Gramsci, 1971: 238). Civil Society as a Revolutionary Project
Gramsci’s elaboration of the concept of civil society is not just a theoretical or philosophical project. It is set up expressly to develop a revolutionary strategy that would disable the coercive apparatus of the state, allow subaltern groups to gain access to political power, and create the conditions that could give rise to a consensual society wherein no individual or group is reduced to a subaltern status (Anderson, 1976). Gramsci’s transformation of society starts in civil society, and ideally ends with the complete extension of civil society so that it no longer needs a coercive apparatus to protect it. The existence of civil society and the necessity of hegemonic elites to permit some freedom of action within it (otherwise they rely on force alone, and cannot achieve hegemony) provide the space and opportunity for counter-hegemonic mobilization. The subaltern state provides the incentive. The reliance of the modern liberal state on acquiring dominance through hegemony (that is,
Civil Society Theory: Gramsci
through generating consent in civil society) brings about the very cultural, social, and political formations that challenge hegemony. Hegemony in Gramsci’s view is not a final and unchangeable state, but rather an unstable result of an ongoing process of political and ideological altercation, which he called ‘‘war of position’’ and which takes the form of a ‘‘reciprocal siege’’ between hegemonic and counter-hegemonic actors. Hence, Gramsci’s political project calls for addressing the popular forma mentis, calling the subaltern elements’ attention to the tensions and possibilities within it, and to the social implications and the political ramifications that these possibilities can bring (Rupert, 2005). Since civil society is where hegemonic forces achieve and bolster their power in peaceful ways, it is also where resistance to such hegemony must take place. To generate hegemonic change the subaltern groups need to assume leadership (‘‘direzione,’’ in Gramsci’s words) in the cultural sphere. Revolutionary activity is a protracted process of developing, propagating and inculcating an alternative forma mentis. This is done through intellectual elaboration and education on a mass scale, and through systematic organization. These activities are only possible in civil society, and they create new spaces in civil society that are beyond the reach of the state. How is change obtained? Gramsci’s concept of hegemony pertains to the condition in which the dominant classes utilize the state to both coerce and at the same time achieve consent to their dominance within civil society. Since this marginalizes the interests of some of the subordinate groups, they organize in the only space available to them – in civil society. For real and lasting change adjustments must be made in the ‘‘relations of force’’ at the political level. The ability to make such adjustments is affected by the degree of political organization and aggressiveness of the rival forces, the strength of the alliances they manage to mobilize, and their level of organization. There are several pre-conditions for hegemonic change. These can be summarized into organization, ideology and action. The first condition involves the creation of a counter-hegemonic ‘‘historic bloc’’ – a coalition of groups, bridging the differences between the myriad groups disadvantaged by the relations of force in society at a specific historic moment. Gramsci’s revolutionary project is essentially democratic and all-inclusive, as it aims ‘‘to construct an intellectual-moral bloc which can make politically possible the intellectual progress of the mass and not only of small intellectual groups,’’ and as a result ‘‘to create the conditions in which this division [leaders/led] is no longer necessary’’ (Gramsci, 1971: 332–5, 144). The concept of the historic bloc is central to the conception of social
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change in Gramscian thought. Societal transformations which are not merely passive revolution cannot be engendered by isolated single actors. They can only be brought about by a coalition of groups, determined to acquire hegemonic control over society, what was referred to by Gramsci also as the ‘‘united front’’ (see for example in Anderson, 1976: 58). This is a radical-pluralist conception that locates the forging of counter-hegemony in the ‘‘multiplicity of antagonisms’’ evolving in and by way of the social relations within civil society (Ratner, 1992: 235). The second condition is development of political consciousness (Forgacs, 1988) of the different actors in the historic bloc, and the advance of a shared counterhegemonic (reformist) ideology by the different subaltern groups. While Gramsci thought that labor should lead the counter-hegemonic bloc, he envisioned the historic bloc as a dialogue between labor and other groups, organized around all sorts of identities, including gender, racial identities, and more: "
An historical act can only be performed by ‘‘collective man,’’ and this presupposes the attainment of a ‘‘culturalsocial’’ unity through which a multiplicity of dispersed wills, with heterogeneous aims, are welded together with a single aim, on the basis of an equal and common conception of the world. (Gramsci, 1971: 236)
This involves also an attempt to infuse public opinion with counter-hegemonic ideas, as both a mobilizing mechanism and a change strategy (Fontana, 2006). Lastly, the elements of the counter-hegemonic historic bloc must take action – they must stop being a passive participant in the relationships of power, become agents, and take actions aimed specifically at hegemonic change. As Gramsci envisioned: "
. . .if yesterday the subaltern element was a thing, today it is no longer a thing but an historical person, a protagonist. . . an agent, necessarily active and taking the initiative. (Gramsci, 1971: 336–7)
But Gramsci didn’t call for a head-on assault on the state and the hegemonic elites that hold it. Using military jargon, he distinguished between war of maneuver, which is a full blown attack on the institutions of hegemony, trying to seize the state on the one hand, and war of position, on the other hand. War of position is a longrange contestation for ideological hegemony, and it is a gradual process taking place on many fronts (Moen, 1998). A war of maneuver may succeed in overthrowing the current hegemony, but if its impact is to last, and a new hegemony is to be forged, it requires the organization of widespread consent, only achievable through a
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Civil Society Theory: Habermas
prolonged war of position within civil society. Hence, the counter-hegemonic historic bloc should engage in an integrated intellectual and political struggle at a variety of levels at the social order that slowly builds up the social foundations for a new regime (Rupert, 1993). Gramsci’s ideas of civil society have become increasingly influential in the civil society discourse. However, often the application of his ideas is done in a simplistic way. His theory highlights the complex relations between civil society and hegemony, and the position that civil society takes as the sphere that links hegemony to the state. It cannot be reduced to simple dichotomies or to simple anti-statist sentiments. One of the most attractive features of Gramsci’s thought is the blueprint for social change that he offers. In recent writings applying his blueprint to our time, civil society is all too often taken as a homogenous reformist force. Nothing can be further from Gramsci’s theory of civil society than such an overly benign view of civil society.
Rupert, M. (1993). Allienation, capitalism and the inter-state system. In Stephen Gill (Ed.), Gramsci, historical materialism and international relations (pp. 67–92). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rupert, M. (2005). Reading Gramsci in an era of globalizing capitalism. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 8(4), 483–97. Showstack-Sassoon, A. (1982). Approaches to Gramsci. London: Writers and Readers. Williams, R. (1978). Marxism and literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Cross-References
Brief Biography
▶ Civic Agency ▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Political Society ▶ Theories of the Nonprofit Sector, Political ▶ Theories of the Nonprofit Sector, Sociological
References/Further Readings Anderson, P. (1976). The antinomies of Antonio Gramsci. New Left Review, 100, 5–78. Buttigieg, J. (1995). Gramsci on civil society. Boundary 2, 22(3), 1–32. Buttigieg, J. (2005). The contemporary discourse on civil society: A Gramscian critique. Boundary 2, 32(1), 33–52. Fontana, B. (2006). Liberty and domination: Civil society in Gramsci. Boundary 2, 33(2), 51–74. Forgacs, D. (1988). An Antonio Gramsci reader: Selected writings, 1916– 1935. New York: Schocken Books. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks of Antonio Gramsci. London: Lawrence & Wishart. Moen, D. G. (1998). Analysis of social transformative movements in advanced capitalism: A neo-Gramscian approach. Journal of Policy and Culture, 3, 117–133. Munck, R. (1996). For a sociology of transformation. Transformation, 29, 41–52. Persaud, R. B. (2001). Counter-hegemony and foreign policy: The dialectics of marginalized and global forces in Jamaica. New York: State University of New York Press. Ratner, R. S. (1992). New movements, new theory, new possibilities? Refelections on counter-hegemony today. In W. K. Carroll (Ed.), Organizing dissent: Contemporary social movements in theory and practice: Studies in the politics of counter-hegemony (pp. 234–242). Toronto: Garamond Press.
Civil Society Theory: Habermas DIETER RUCHT Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Ju¨rgen Habermas, born in Du¨sseldorf (Germany) in 1929, is widely known and respected as a theorist who bridged philosophy and sociology. Beginning in 1949, he studied various disciplines of the social sciences and humanities in Go¨ttingen, Zurich, and Bonn. After having finished his Ph.D. dissertation in philosophy in 1954, he began to write for several newspapers and journals before serving as an assistant of Theodor W. Adorno at the renowned Institut fu¨r Sozialforschung in Frankfurt. There he became familiar with leading figures of the so-called Frankfurt School and their classic referents including Karl Marx. Because of tensions with the institute’s director Max Horkheimer, Habermas submitted his postdoctoral dissertation at the University of Marburg. Published under ¨ ffentlichkeit (1962), it the title Strukturwandel der O became a milestone in its field. Via the support of the hermeneutic philosopher Joachim Gadamer, Habermas got a professorial position at the University of Heidelberg in 1961. He succeeded Horkheimer as a chair of philosophy and sociology in Frankfurt in 1965. In 1971 he became codirector of the then newly created Max Planck-Institute in Starnberg (Bavaria). After 10 years, he returned to Frankfurt to work there as a professor of philosophy until his retirement in 1994. Since then, Habermas has remained active in writing numerous books and articles. In addition to his scholarly work ranging from the logic of social sciences, to linguistic theory, to the role of law in modern societies, he did not shy away from political debates, for example on the student movement in the 1960s (of which he was critical), and on European integration.
Civil Society Theory: Habermas
Main Lines of Argument Compared to the concepts of the public sphere and communicative action, the concept of civil society is definitely less prominent in Habermas’ writings. It was only in his book Faktizita¨t und Geltung (1992) that he sketched his ideas on civil society in a chapter entitled ‘‘On the role of civil society and the political public sphere’’. Yet the foundation for these reflections on civil society can be found in his earlier work, in particular his opus magnum Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (1981). Here he gives up his earlier assumption that society as a whole can be analyzed in terms of action theory only. Instead, he conceives of modern societies as systemically stabilized interactions between socially integrated groups (1981: 228). They are a composite of functional systems (basically the economy and the state) and the lifeworld. Throughout the evolution of humankind, systems and lifeworld have become separated from each other. Nevertheless, they are interdependent and cannot replace each other. Systems that are highly organized have to be understood in a functional perspective. They are integrated by abstract mechanisms such as money (the economy) and power (the state). Lifeworld has a different status and a different purpose: serving the socialization of individuals, cultural reproduction and social integration. It is a kind of intuited cultural knowledge shared by those engaged in communicative action and mutual understanding. While in systemic contexts individuals are primarily oriented towards instrumental and strategic action, lifeworld is the realm of communicative action rooted in the use of language and open to interpretation. The interplay of systems and lifeworld tends to be problematic insofar as systems have a tendency to expand their operational logic beyond their own realm and invade the lifeworld. By this process which Habermas, in an often cited formula, coined ‘‘the colonization of lifeworld’’ (1981: 522), the latter risks loosing its integrity and, more particularly, its capacity to reproduce itself. Such an undermining of the lifeworld, in turn, would also endanger the performance of systems which depend on the external structures that secure social integration. Moreover, even the mechanisms on which systems are based are ultimately anchored in the sphere of the lifeworld. While the concept of the public sphere was absolutely central in Habermas’ first monograph Strukturwandel der ¨ ffentlichkeit (1962), it played a less salient role in his O Theory of Communicative Action (1981). Nevertheless, there he provides some hints on how to define the public sphere against the backdrop of his general theory
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of society. In discussing the exchange processes between the functionally integrated subsystems and the lifeworld, Habermas attributes to the lifeworld two ‘‘institutional orders’’ (1981: 473): first, the private sphere which primarily rests on the core family, specialises in the task of socialization and, in the modern capitalist system, is discharged from economic functions; second, the public sphere based on networks of communication which are intensified by cultural institutions and, in the later stages of modernity, the mass media. In terms of material or monetary exchanges, the state (or administrative system) provides organizational services (e.g., infrastructures) by taking taxes. In terms of power exchange, the state offers political decisions by expecting mass loyalty. Thus, from the perspective of the state, the public sphere is able to procure legitimacy. Strikingly, the category of civil society is absent in this conceptualization. This gap is at least partially filled in some of Habermas’ later publications. His conceptualization of civil society and the political public sphere in Faktizita¨t und Geltung is inspired by two lines of thought. First, regarding the structure and processes of politics, Habermas draws on a model developed by Bernhard Peters (1993). Accordingly, democratic constitutional systems are characterized by the dissociation between the political center and its periphery. The center, institutionally represented by administrations, judiciaries, election processes and parliamentary bodies, has the formal authority to make decisions. The periphery is broadly divided into an internal and external segment. The former consists of a range of quasi-statist institutions (e.g., universities, social security organizations) which closely interact with administrations or perform functions that the state has delegated to them. The outer periphery, in turn, is divided into two parts. On one hand, there exists a host of organizations with whom state authorities coordinate in order to secure smooth implementation of their policies. This coordination occurs mainly in informal and non-transparent ways, as exemplified by the tripartite neo-corporatist arrangement that exists in some countries. On the other hand, there is a vast array of associations, private and public interest groups, social movements, and citizen initiatives that seek to influence the state. It appears that Habermas considers this outer periphery to be the stronghold of a politically attentive civil society that, in extraordinary situations, has the will and capacity to challenge the political center by the ‘‘mode of besiege’’ (1989: 475). In such a situation, the political decision-makers are forced to justify their decisions, to engage in a public discourse, and probably to make concessions or even to fundamentally change their position.
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Second, in specifying the role and quality of civil society, Habermas draws on the work of Cohen and Arato (1992). According to them, civil society is marked by the principles of plurality, publicity and legality. Habermas also adopts their idea that civil society could serve as a mediator between the political system and the lifeworld. Through this idea, he seems to re-define the status of the public sphere. While in 1981 he defined the public sphere, along with the private sphere, as an ‘‘institutional order of lifeworld’’, he now understands the public sphere to be a structure that ‘‘mediates between the private sectors of lifeworld on the one hand and the functionally specified action systems on the other hand’’ (1992: 451) and, in other terminology, as a resonance board for those problems which have to be solved by the political system (1992: 435). Yet in Faktizita¨t und Geltung, Habermas neither properly distinguishes the public sphere from civil society nor clarifies their relationship. He only provides some clues, asserting that the political public sphere is based on civil society which, in turn, is rooted in the lifeworld. However, he specifies that the public sphere should not be mistaken as an institution, an organization or a system. Instead, it is a communication structure that refers to the social space created by communicative action. In this communication process, different opinions are presented, aggregated and condensed into public opinion. Public opinion is not oriented to seize power but to influence power (1992: 439). This is possible because the political system has to remain sensitive in order to maintain its legitimacy. The potential quality of public opinion stems from its procedural underpinnings: It is the outcome of a deliberative process with free access and the free flow of views and arguments. Obviously, such a process can be severely hampered by a public sphere which is dominated by power structures. Therefore, the public sphere should not only serve as a (de-)legitimizing structure vis-a`-vis the political center, but also as a self-reflexive structure that is willing to overcome its own deficiencies. Habermas contends that the interplay of a civil societybased public sphere with an institutionalized and legally bound formation of opinion and political will, within parliamentary und judicial settings, suggests the sociological application of the idea of deliberative politics as specified by Cohen and Arato. He also agrees with these authors about the importance of civil society’s self-restriction. Civil society should not be mistaken as the heart and mind of a society’s self-organization. Rather, it is a limited sphere that cannot replace the formal institutions of political decision-making. Public opinion cannot rule. Instead, it has to pass the filter of institutionalized procedures so that
communicative power becomes transformed and eventually has an influence on authoritative law-making (1992: 449–50). This is particularly so in extraordinary situations when salient issues are debated. In a recent article Habermas (2008) further specifies his understanding of the public sphere and civil society. The public sphere is defined as a space between the formally organized consultations and negotiations within the center and the activities and informal talks of civil society at the margins of the political center (2008: 164). More importantly, Habermas elaborates on the role of the public sphere and its relationship with civil society in both descriptive and normative terms. All participants, whether from the center, the functional systems or civil society, engage in political communication to influence the formation of public opinion. Even when operating in a strategic manner (as opposed to the spirit of seeking mutual understanding), these participants have to respect certain rules in order to become effective: ‘‘They must contribute to the mobilization of important themes, provable facts and convincing arguments which, in turn, are submitted to critical examination’’ (2008: 177). This very much resembles Immanuel Kant’s thoughts on how to establish public reason. The possibility of such a critical examination depends on a number of requirements which, according to empirical findings, are by no means guaranteed. Habermas is well aware of pathologies of political communication which are likely to produce passive and diffuse mass loyalty instead of a normatively preferable legitimacy based on a deliberative model. The latter would depend on two elementary conditions: First, political communication which strongly relies on mass media must be guided by self-regulating mechanisms and have relative autonomy with regard to its environment. Second, there must be a feed-back between the discourses of the informed elites and a civil society responsive and ready for intervention. Democratic legitimation via public communication requires adequate input into the political system – input that reflects the whole range of citizen’s interests. From a normative viewpoint, this participation should not be restricted to influencing the composition of parliamentary bodies and the government via electoral participation. Besides the fact that the attitudes of the voters are formed within the context of public opinions, the collectively binding political decisions should always be made under the eyes of a communicating and controlling political public. On the other hand, participation of civil society is only possible ‘‘when the media-supported communication reaches the citizens who want and are capable of participation in
Civil Society Theory: Habermas
the formation of a reflected public opinion by taking a stance vis-a`-vis the publicly discussed problems of society’’ (2008: 184). Habermas certainly attributes to civil society a vital role: Civil society articulates those deficits that are experienced by various groups in the lifeworld. These public opinions and concerns potentially influence the voters who, in turn, have an impact on the competition between political parties. Ultimately, the voters may challenge a government’s legitimacy (see 2008: 168–69). At the same time, he does not assign to civil society a central position. As one among various arenas of political communication, civil society is situated at the margin of the political public sphere. Or, as suggested in a diagram (2008: 171), it is an element even external to the public sphere. This latter perception is also indicated by the assertion that civil society disposes on ‘‘its own, more or less autonomous public spheres‘‘(2008: 183). While it is not clear whether Habermas considers such a marginal position of civil society to be normatively desirable, he doubtless takes this marginality as an empirical fact. He observes ‘‘a hierarchy of actors on the stages of the political public sphere dependent on the categories of power or capital’’ (2008: 176f.). Corresponding to this hierarchy there are varying degrees of structuration: ‘‘With regard to the highly institutionally condensed center represented by the state, the political public sphere is a loosely structured periphery that is rooted in the still more evasive communicative networks of civil society’’ (2008: 164). Relative to professional politicians and lobbyists the civil society actors are in an unfavourable position. The signals and impulses of civil society are usually too weak to trigger, at least in the short run, learning processes in the political system or to profoundly re-orient processes of political decision-making. The public sphere works as a filter system in which some participants, for example the established political parties and large interest groups, prevail over the mass of dispersed, unorganized participants. Moreover, the organization of mass media tends to reflect and deepen that asymmetry so that, apart from extraordinary moments, those well-organized participants who operate in front of the mass public overshadow those weak and loosely organized participants who emerge out of the mass public (see 1992: 453).
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Though having never devoted much energy to elaborating on the concept of civil society, Habermas is, nevertheless, influential for a theory of civil society. This is mainly so because several of his theoretical building blocks support
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or complement the idea of civil society, most importantly the concepts of the (political) public sphere, the role of morality, law and civil liberties as a precondition for a thriving civil society, and the relevance of discourse with its central element of the ‘‘forceless force of the better argument’’ (1971: 131). At the same time, Habermas warns us against an idealization of the role and the potential of civil society. To him, civil society is not the heart of society at large. Nor does he agree with attempts to reintegrate the economy into the concept of civil society – attempts primarily promoted by neo-liberal strategists and transnational corporations. After all, according to him, modern societies are a web of various systems and spheres which should maintain their relative autonomy. Civil society can only unfold its complementary and critical potential under certain conditions and in interaction with more formalized institutions of the political center under the rule of law. While some commentators blame Habermas for idealizing the power of discourse and deliberation, they fail to recognize his distinction between a highly conditional potential and empirical reality. Habermas has only slightly softened his sceptical view of the structures and processes of political communication (Habermas, 1990). And to the extent that political communication is shaped, if not distorted, by the use of power and money, the civil society, which has to pass the public sphere to influence the political decision-makers, generally remains a weak participant. There is a lesson, then, for the passionate promoters of civil society: It is more important to reduce the obstacles for a deliberative communicative praxis within the public political sphere than it is to strengthen the associational web of civil society. Also in taking a look at transnational public spheres and the use of the Internet, Habermas is not overly optimistic that civil society will be able to strongly influence, via the public sphere, the political decision-making processes.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato ▶ Intermediary Organizations and Field ▶ Political Society ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Cohen, J. L., & Arato, A. (1992). Civil society and political theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ¨ ffentlichkeit. Neuwied/Berlin: Habermas, J. (1962). Strukturwandel der O Luchterhand.
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Habermas, J. (1971). Vorbereitende Bemerkungen zu einer Theorie der kommunikativen Kompetenz. In Habermas, Ju¨rgen, Luhmann, Niklas (Eds.), Theorie der Gesellschaft oder Sozialtechnologie (pp. 101–141). Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (1981). Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Band 2. Zur Kritik der funktionalistischen Vernunft. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (1989). Volkssouvera¨nita¨t als Verfahren. Ein normativer ¨ ffentlichkeit. Merkur, 43(6), 465–477. Begriff von O Habermas, J. (1990). Vorwort zur Neuauflage. In Habermas, Ju¨rgen ¨ ffentlichkeit (pp. 11–50). Frankfurt/M: (Ed.), Strukturwandel der O Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (1992). Faktizita¨t und Geltung. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (2008). Hat die Demokratie noch eine epistemische Dimension? Empirische Forschung und normative Theorie. In Habermas, Ju¨rgen (Ed.), Ach, Europa. Kleine Politische Schriften XI. Frankfurt/ M.: Suhrkamp. Peters, B. (1993). Die Integration moderner Gesellschaften. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp.
Civil Society Theory: Hegel ANSGAR KLEIN Bundesnetzwerk Bu¨rgerschaftliches Engagement (BBE), Berlin, Germany
Brief Biography of the Theorist Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel was born in 1770 as the son of a royal Wu¨rttemberg magistrate family in Stuttgart/ Germany. After leaving secondary school he was educated in theology and philology between 1788 to 1793, holding a scholarship at the Tu¨binger Stift. He studied together with Schelling and Ho¨lderlin. The outbreak of the French Revolution is celebrated but as well they are inspired by antiquity. These two reference points had a deep impact on Hegels works. After working as a tutor in Bern/ Switzerland (1793–1797) and Frankfurt/Germany Hegel qualified as a professor in Jena, that used to be an intellectual centre in Germany, and was appointed to an extraordinary professorship. In Jena his first big work the Paenomenology of Spirit is published in 1807. Due to financial problems - the professorship is only poorly paid - Hegel then works as editor of the Bamberger Zeitung (1807–1808) and later as principal of a Gymnasium (secondary school) for eight years (1808–1816). In this period the two volumes of Science of Logic are published (1812 and 1816). Only in 1816 he was able to go back to university, first in Heidelberg/Germany (1816–1818) then in Berlin. There Hegel unfolds his great impact on his contemporaries in big lectures on the ‘‘Philosophy of History’’, the ‘‘History of Philosophy’’,
‘‘Religious Philosophy’’, ‘‘Aesthetics’’ and ‘‘Philosophy of Right’’. His Philosophy of Right in particular were a significant groundwork and starting point for Hegel’s notion of the bourgeois society. It was finished in 1820 but published only in 1882 because of problems with censorship. On the peak of his activity and influence Hegel died of the cholera in Berlin in 1831. In 1821, in his Philosophy of Right (Hegel, 1976), Hegel differentiated between ‘‘civil society’’ and ‘‘state’’ in a theoretical-systematic manner that characterized the modern understanding of state and society in Continental Europe. Hegel was not the first theorist to distinguish between state and civil society. In his conceptual version of this distinction, however, he not only discussed and made explicit the implications and consequences of a modern application of a concept which differed from the classic conceptual understanding, but at the same time attempted, based on modern conceptual understanding, to connect the political experiences of the French Revolution as well as the economic and sociological experiences of the Industrial Revolution with a virtuous thinking of the motives stemming from the historical tradition of the republican discourse. Hegel’s effort to unite the liberal conception of negative freedom with the republican tradition of political society under the conditions of modern society – in Taylor’s words, the integration of the Lockean with the Montesquieu thread within the liberal tradition (Taylor, 1993: 142) – has become one of the most important points of reference in the most recent discussions about civil society.
Main Lines of Argument On the Formal Structure of the Philosophy of Right
In order to understand Hegel’s interpretation within the civil society discussion, it is reasonable to first start on the main features of his political philosophy. Firstly, as regards the formal structure, in the 1821 Hegelian Philosophy of Right, right and morals, along with family, civil society, and state, belong to the domain of the ‘‘objective mind.’’ They form the purpose of political philosophy (Go¨hler/Klein, 1993a: 307ff). In the Philosophy of Right of 1821, a distinction is made between the dimension of abstract right (}} 34–104) and morality (}}105–141) and the dimension of ethical life (}}142–360). The ‘‘abstract right’’ represents Hegel’s response to the theories of natural law and includes property and contract references on a legalistic level, in accordance with the functional requirements of civil society as a capitalistic market economy, as well as the state’s power to impose sanctions. If necessary, the state can also force compliance with contracts, which
Civil Society Theory: Hegel
are the ‘‘recognition of property, health, honor, and life of other individuals’’ (Go¨hler, 1993b: 6). The field of ‘‘morality’’ includes Hegel’s critique of the Kantian universalistic moral philosophy as an individualistic, decontextualized rational law (Ilting, 1975). Despite this critique, Hegel treats the moral standpoint as an ‘‘aspect of law for the free personality which is not simply eliminated from the ethical life, but rather remains in force inside this free personality as the law of subjectivity and of conscience’’ (Benhabib, 1992: 48). In the field of ‘‘ethical life,’’ Hegel then discusses the interrelationship of family, civil society, and state. This comes across to the reader as a ‘‘context of lived relationships and institutions’’ (ibid. 48). The civil society plays an intermediary role between the family as the ‘‘direct or natural’’ ethical life (} 157) and the political state as a substantial unit of subjectivity and generality (} 260). The right of the modern (male) individual to distinctiveness and subjectivity (}} 152 and 154) – the recognition of which differs in the modern state from that of the ancient polity – is realized in the family if it is a top priority in civil society (}} 158–181) (For a feministic critique of Hegel’s political philosophy, see Benhabib and Nicholson, 1987: 540ff.; for more recent debates on civil society from a feministic standpoint and the associated inclusion of the family into the civil society – also reproduced in this form by Cohen and Arato – see part 1, chapter 4.4.1 of this analysis). Civil society is the ‘‘outer state – a state based on need and reason’’ (} 183), in which the ‘‘citizens of this state are private persons, having their own interest for their purpose’’ (} 187). This civil society is composed of the economic field of the ‘‘system of needs’’ (}} 189–208), the ‘‘administration of justice’’ under private law (}} 209– 229), the ‘‘police’’ (}} 231–249), and the ‘‘corporations’’ (}} 250–256). It also appears to be particularly a field of egoistic self-interest characterized by a ‘‘loss of the ethical life’’ (} 181) (When Hegel’s Philosophy of Right is viewed in a line of continuity with his earlier political systems (Go¨hler, 1974; Go¨hler, 1993a and 1993b), one discovers the interconnection of traditional and modern elements which can be observed for the ‘‘civil society’’ of the philosophy of right). Hegel contrasts the ‘‘political state and its constitution’’ with civil society distinguished in such a manner (}} 257–360; see } 267). The system of needs includes Hegel’s perception of the modern economic literature of his time: Smith, Say, Ricardo (} 189). Here the individual seems to be a private person who seeks to satisfy individual needs under the terms of a work-sharing economy moderated by the market. The economic dynamics occur from backstage, beyond individual awareness and in a contradictory
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manner. In line with the system of needs, Hegel anticipated a generalization and expansion of needs in the course of the monetization of trade, as well as an expansion of social inequality. He sees the contribution of the division of labor for the establishment of economic value, but also its unilateral results for the individual laborer. Hegel spoke out critically a number of times about the possible negative social and political effects of the market economy on the polarity of wealth and poverty (approx. }} 241–245; compare Go¨hler/Klein, 1993a: 311). Ultimately, Hegel also regards social differentiation as a consequence of the market economy dynamic, though without incorporating the emerging working class into his concept of groups and their mergers in corporations. These he conceives in a modern sense as freely chosen associations. The corporations are a reintegrated factor which unifies the individuals within civil society alongside ‘‘righteousness’’ and ‘‘reputation’’ (Hegel, 1976: } 207). In a narrower sense, because they were deliberately chosen, the corporations no longer belong to the abstract, willless, and unconscious process behind the backs of concerned parties that characterizes the workings of the market economy. Aside from the system of needs, which requires a private person, Hegel simultaneously outlines a tangible person within civil society as a ‘‘legal person, client of general authority, and association member. It is only on the level of the system of needs, the description of which Hegel derives from political economy, that a radical depiction of civil society as anti-moral is consistently upheld’’ (Cohen and Arato, 1992: 97). After the family, Hegel explicitly designates the corporation as ‘‘the second and moral root of the state established in civil society’’ (} 255). Therefore, in Hegel’s civil society, there are elements of an interest that overcomes private egoism in questions of generality and the solidary merger, which contradict a reductionistic economic vision – e.g., with Marx or in neoliberal interpretations – and plan for a political component of social integration. Corporations are also not merely a new edition of the old guilds, but are ‘‘voluntary organizations in which persons organize themselves according to their vocation, trade, and interest. Above all, the weakness of the traditional democratic and liberal theory lay in its rejection of all intermediary groups standing between the individual and the state. Similar to de Tocqueville one or two decades later, Hegel wants to restore equilibrium between the two’’ (Avineri, 1976: 198) (This concept of corporations embodied by Avineri represents the origin from which Hegel attempts to produce a conception of civil society based on ‘‘free associations’’ and autonomous publicity from Cohen and
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Arato, in terms of the Montesquieu line of civil society accentuated by Taylor). The separation of the state from civil society is attended by the distinction of social and political integration, which is foreign to the republican discourse on virtue but essentially forms the basis of the liberal discourse on interest. According to the discourse on interest, the scope of private interests constitutes autonomy of the social interest. More recent socio-scientific discussions differentiate between three dimensions of social integration, namely ‘‘problems of functional coordination of activities in the outer world, problems of moral integrity, and problems of expressive collectivization’’ (Peters, 1993: 399; see also Fuchs, 1999 and the articles in Friedrichs and Jagodzinski, 1999). Perhaps not in these notions but surely as regards content, Hegel is familiar with functional coordination as a task of the state agenda, regulation, and compensation of social problems stemming from the economic dynamics (For Hegel, the expressive collectivization is a duty of the ethical life of the state and is thus a purpose of political integration, while moral integrity is not simply eliminated from the ethical life via the right of free personality, but rather remains in force inside this free personality as the law of subjectivity and of conscience). The system of needs requires legal protection by the liberal state which rules by laws. In the ‘‘outer state – a state based on need and reason’’ in the civil society, the economy of the market society presumes ‘‘administration of justice’’ to be an application of law and adjudication by a court of law. The term ‘‘police’’ denotes state measures for safeguarding inner order and welfare within civil society (According to the conceptuality of the time, this is ‘‘the entire field of activity of the interior ministry’’ (Go¨hler, 1993b: 3)). The state-regulated components of civil society for Hegel should not be overlooked. On the one hand they create the general conditions for the system of needs, but on the other hand they compensate for its consequences. This obviously applies to the administration of justice, but particularly to the police: ‘‘The police represents state penetration into civil society to serve the interests of justice and order by compensating for both of these phenomena without eliminating their basic causes, which lie in the dynamism of the system of needs’’ (Cohen and Arato, 1991: 104f.). Though it remains to be seen if Hegel has precapitalistic interventions of the state or a modern welfare state in mind, his considerations can be related to an expanding radius of action of the state, as it can be seen in the social state’s later development. On the one hand, the state reacts to the problems of social integration as a constitutional and interventionist state. On the other hand, Hegel treats the demands that arise for modern
societies with regard to moral integrity and expressive communization as problems of morality. In addressing the context exchanges of family, civil society, and state in the Philosophy of Right, Hegel did not merely form sociological significant insights into the complexity of modern societies. As a political theorist, he is primarily interested in conceptually grasping the demands on political integration that arise here under the conditions of a self-autonomizing social integration.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Integration and Mediation: A Statist and Civil Societal Interpretation by Hegel
Hegel deliberately places civil society in a mediating position between family and the political state. Even though civil society – particularly in view of the ‘‘system of needs’’ – appears to be a place of modern subjectivity and particularity and of loss of ethical life, it is conveyed – and here Hegel adheres to the central intentions of the republican discourse of virtue – in the political state in such a way as to ensure that political integration is made possible: ‘‘The principal of the modern states has the tremendous strength and depth to cause the principle of subjectivity to complete itself into the autonomous extreme of personal specialty while simultaneously leading it back into the substantial unit and thereby retaining this in itself. . . .The nature of the new state is that the generic be joined with the full freedom of specialty and with the wellbeing of individuals; that the interest of the family and civil society must therefore gather itself to the state; but that the generality of purpose cannot progress without individual knowledge and want of specialty which must retain its right’’ (Hegel, 1976: } 260). Through the corporations, civil society also remains politically integrated and is conveyed to the state through assembly of estates and public opinion. ‘‘The Hegel Perception,’’ by Jean Cohen and Andrew Arato, addresses the politically integrative function of civil society. In Hegel’s mediation between the state and civil society, they want to make clear the theoretical positions of points that characterize the new understanding of civil society as political society: ‘‘Thus is our thesis that the mediation of anti-morality and morality culminates in a notion of public life that Hegel only inconsistently identified with state authority’’ (Cohen and Arato, 1992: 96). According to the quintessence of their perception, politics are with Hegel by no means concentrated on the domain of the state, but characterize a public space which has settled ‘‘as an intermediary’’ between state and society. Above all, he
Civil Society Theory: Hegel
derives his impulses from the associative mergers that Hegel placed as corporations in civil society. Cohen and Arato emphasize the interrelationship of social integration and political integration within the scope of a society-oriented theory of politics which, even with Hegel, was placed by this interrelationship. Therefore, they place the role of corporations, assembly of estates, and public opinion, as civil society’s means of communication in the sphere of the state, in the foreground of their interpretation. They find indications that in Hegel’s concept of civil society, political integration is already being conceived as its independent achievement within its context exchange with the state. Cohen and Arato understand political integration primarily as an accomplishment of civil societal association in combination with deliberate publicity. They emphasize the interrelationship of social and political integration in an associative democracy. However, in critical differentiation of Hegel in reference to his concept of corporations and public opinion, they shift the task of the political integration of society back into civil society, a step that Michael Stolleis designates as a step ‘‘from the ethical state to citizen virtues’’ (Stolleis, 1995). The Hegelian concept of corporations is central to their perception. Decidedly understood in a new reading as free associations including new social movements, corporations assume, in the deliberate-democratic interpretation, a pivotal role in the development of rationaluniversal political identity (Cohen and Arato, 1992: 113). Instead of the state, civil society as political society becomes the primary point of reference of political integration, which is then, of course, also to be appropriately represented in political institutions. Cohen and Arato are skeptical regarding the ‘‘ethics’’ of the state, in the sense of a discourse-ethical establishment of deliberative theory of democracy. The state is to limit itself to the procedural safeguarding of civil society’s ‘‘plurality of forms of life’’ under the conditions of individual autonomy. Their objection to Hegel is that ‘‘he did not discover that modern civil society is characterized by the conflict not only of moralities (which he at times seemed to recognize) but also of the normative conceptions of politics itself.’’ Thus, he did not see that it was possible to establish a new form of Sittlichkeit (‘‘civility’’) containing a plurality of forms of life; this would make consensus possible only on the level of procedures, but even such a consensus can lead to some shared substantive premises and even a common identity’’ (Cohen and Arato, 1992: 94). Elements of statehood in Hegel’s civil society, such as administration of justice and police, in which both the principle of negative freedom and ‘‘the fundamental principal of the liberal concept of the state’’ (Go¨hler, 1993: 3)
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are accentuated, do not simply exist. With corporations, the associative momentum of the ‘‘corps interme´diaires’’ (intermediary bodies) is also included, which we came across with Montesquieu as a fundamental element of the conception of ‘‘political society’’. Then again, in Hegel’s ‘‘political state’’ there are elements of mediation with civil society which assume the function of political integration: With Hegel, these elements are: the bureaucracy (executive), the assembly of estates (legislative), and public opinion. In the ‘‘Hegelian Philosophy of Right,’’ a line of argument can be followed in which political integration – concern for the general interest – is viewed as a principal task of the state. In Hegel’s theory of architecture, the previously outlined elements of a legal framework, as well as of a regulating and compensating state, are effective within civil society as ‘‘administration of justice,’’ as the ‘‘general power’’ of the police, and as the ‘‘general state’’ of bureaucracy. Yet, connected in a vertical alignment with the institutions of the ‘‘political state’’ and their concern for public welfare, these elements acquire traits of a paternalism of state which is expressed in a wide spectrum of tasks, ranging from interventions in markets (price control), to public welfare and upbringing through public allocation of work, to the problems of colonization which existed in Hegel’s time. Just as Hegel grasped judicial power and the police as governmental power, bureaucracy is also not only a social standing of civil society, but at the same time – as state administration – a political institution. With Hegel, however, there is a second reading of mediation between state and civil society aside from this allocation of duties – which penetrates the entire Philosophy of Right – to a paternalistic state that regulatively interferes with civil society. Hegel offers a horizontal political mediation correlation through the politicalintegrative cooperation of social classes, their corporate mergers, the assembly of estates representative of them, and public opinion. Here the citizens’ orientation on public welfare and their mergers, which are of particular interest to Hegel, are communicated from civil society. This civil society now comes into view as a place of social integration and of a political learning process aimed at a political will of the state and decision making. This line of Hegel’s political philosophy now offers connections for a newer comprehension of civil society. Hegel is skeptical about the understanding of interest representation, which has become a distinctive factor in modern liberal democracies. In his view, it breeds too much individual arbitrariness and particular interest – a caveat which he also avers with the civil public in mind. However, just as he considers ‘‘subjective freedom’’ indispensable, he also emphasizes that ‘‘insights and causes’’
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(} 316, addendum) are accentuated in public. The public deserves ‘‘to be both respected and despised’’ (} 318) in the area of conflict of ‘‘distinctiveness of public intentions’’ and of insights and causes. In light of such ambivalent public opinion, the duty lies with the intellectuals and the political elite to, in their interpretation, ‘‘find the truth in it’’ (} 318, addendum). In corporations, interest groups join together. These interest groups create the labor division of the ‘‘system of needs’’ – for Hegel, this is particularly the standing of the ‘‘industry’’, while he does not take into consideration associations of the worker class, which for him are already foreseeable (The special position of nobility and bureaucracy as classes in Hegel’s state structure should not be dismissed here). However, it is not the aggregating interest representation (the special position of nobility and bureaucracy as classes in Hegel’s state structure should not be dismissed here) that sets corporations apart. Although representation by delegates is inevitable, it should ‘‘not be automatically disbanded as with individuals nor assembled at short notice merely for a single and temporary act, but rather should be arranged as in its associations, communities and corporations which have already been constituted. In this manner, they will maintain political cohesion’’ (} 308). The corporations’ orientation on class ‘‘honor’’ is definitive in this regard, on which Hegel centers the focus: ‘‘It is also recognized that the member of a corporation, A.K., belongs to the whole, which itself is an element of the general society. The member moreover has interest and efforts invested in the unselfish purpose of the whole’’ (} 253). For Hegel, socialization and education are the characteristics that set corporations apart. ‘‘Thus all of corporate life, assuming the already mentioned modernization of its structure, helps to overcome the gap civil society produces between bourgeois and citizen by educating individuals to internalize the common good and develop civic virtue’’ (Cohen and Arato, 1992: 106). Aside from the family, the corporations are in this sense the second ‘‘ethical root of the state established in civil society’’ (} 255). Arising from the specific, particular purposes of corporations is a substantial general interest, as well as ‘‘patriotism, the political disposition’’ (} 268). In the assembly of estates, the rationality of corporations’ political power of judgment is accentuated in a political-institutional manner. In the assembly of estates’ ‘‘consultation and conclusion,’’ it does ‘‘not depend on the abstract and separate individual speaking up, but on his interests being claimed in an assembly dealing with general things’’ (} 309, addendum). Thus, on the one hand, the control which the legislative assembly of estates
exerts on public opinion is in the context of the statepaternalistic traits of his argumentation, yet the assembly of states is under the influence of the corporations: ‘‘In this sense, not only does the political public of the legislature control public opinion (Hegel’s stress), but a pre-political public sphere plays an important role in constituting public life in the political sense’’ (Cohen and Arato, 1992: 111). Here, Hegel’s acceptance of a public ability to rationalize remains bound to the reflexive self-understanding within the corporations, which is led by viewpoints of ‘‘honor.’’ For Hegel, as Cohen and Arato summarize, the goal of the ethical state is indisputably the rational universalistic identity of a patriotic ethos – the ‘‘awareness that my substantial and special interest is preserved and contained in the interest and purpose of another (in this case, of the state) as well as in relation to myself as an individual’’ (} 268). Nevertheless, it remains unclear ‘‘whether the generation of this ethos is assigned to a state sphere dominated by the executive and linked only to the projections of the state into civil society (the assembly of estates, A.K.), or to a sphere dominated by a legislature drawing on autonomous societal resources such as the corporations and public opinion’’ (Cohen and Arato, 1992: 113). In this way, in light of the ever-appearing ambivalence of his lines of argument of political integration – alternating to and fro between, on the one hand, paternalism of state and a vertically conceived will-formation of state and, on the other hand, a modern republican line of argument which horizontally emphasizes society’s process of will-formation, which is admittedly subordinated to the state and yet political – Hegel’s perception of the idea of civil society must be limited to bringing to the fore a line of argument of a modern republicanism from the Hegelian concept formations with the intent of constructive theory. ‘‘It is precisely at this level, at the point where civil society and the state intersect, that Hegel rediscovers and integrates, without explicitly saying so, the ancient topos of political society’’ (Cohen and Arato, 1992: 110). Hegel’s reference to republicanism’s discourse of virtue, in its distinctiveness, then becomes apparent: Hegel’s recourse to positive freedom and political society follows the constitutive foundation of the liberal concept of negative freedom. Hegel’s advocacy of political civil rights and liberties, of publicity of legislation, of the political role of the entity of association, and of the combination of public opinion and deliberation only becomes understandable in this normative framing. As an imposing struggle for the mediation of negative and positive freedom characterizing Hegel’s entire political philosophy, his
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Philosophy of Right leads to the center of democratic theory’s question which occupies the discourse of civil society (Wellmer, 1993a, b). His theory of corporations as the ‘‘pillars of public freedom’’ (} 265) sheds light on the efforts to define civil society according to political theory as the ‘‘association of associations’’ (Walzer, 1992: 79) in the institutional interrelationship of liberal-representative modern democracies. The developments of theory, which have reproduced or criticized Hegel’s movement since his time, can be pursued from this point.
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Michael Stolleis 1995: Staatsethik’, oder: Vom sittlichen Staat zu den Bu¨rgertugenden. In: Kritische Vierteljahresschrift fu¨r Gesetzgebung & Rechtswissenschaften, Heft 1, 58-68. Charles Taylor 1993: Der Begriff der‚ bu¨rgerlichen Gesellschaft’ im politischen Denken des Westens, in: Micha Brumlik / Hauke Brunkhorst (Hg.): Gemeinschaft und Gerechtigkeit, Frankfurt/Main: Fischer. Michael Walzer 1992: Zivile Gesellschaft und amerikanische Demokratie, Berlin: Rotbuch. Albrecht Wellmer 1993a: Freiheitsmodelle in der modernen Welt. In: Ders.: Endspiele. Die unverso¨hnliche Moderne. Essays und Vortra¨ge, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 15-54. Arbrecht Wellmer 1993b: Bedingungen einer demokratischen Kutlur. Zur Debatte zwischen, Liberalen‘ und, Kommunitaristen’. In: Ders.: Endspiele. Die unverso¨hnliche Moderne. Essays und Vortra¨ge, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 54–80.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Civil Society Theory: Montesquieu
Civil Society Theory: Kant References/Further Readings Shlomo Avineri 1976: Hegels Theorie des modernen Staates, Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp. Seyla Benhabib/Linda Nicholson 1987: Politische Philosophie und die Frauenfrage. In: Iring Fetscher/Herfried Mu¨nkler (Hg.): Pipers Handbuch der politischen Ideen, Bd. 5, Mu¨nchen-Zu¨rich: Pieper, 513-562. Jean Cohen/Andrew Arato 1992: Civil Society and Political Theory, Cambridge/Mass – London: MIT-Press. Seyla Benhabib 1992: Kritik, Norm und Utopie. Die normativen Grundlagen der Kritischen Theorie, Frankfurt/Main: Fischer. Ju¨rgen Friedrichs/Wolfgang Jagodzinski (Hg.) 1999: Soziale Integration, Opladen-Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher. Dieter Fuchs 1993: Soziale Integration und politische Institutionen in modernen Gesellschaften, WZB (Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin fu¨r Sozialforschung)-Arbeitspapiere, FS III 99-203. Gerhard Go¨hler 1974: Dialektik und Politik in Hegels fru¨hen politischen Systemen. Kommentar und Analyse. In: ders. (Hg.): Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Fru¨he politische Systeme. System der Sittlichkeit. ¨ ber die wissenschaftlichen Behandlungsarten des Naturrechts. U Jenaer Realphilosophie, Frankfurt/Main – Berlin – Wien: Ullstein, 337-610. Gerhard Go¨hler 1993: Hegel und das Problem der gesellschaftlichen Einheit – die Staatslehre neu gelesen (Manuskript). Gerhard Go¨hler/Ansgar Klein 1993: Politische Theorien des 19. Jahrhunderts. In: Hans-Joachim Lieber (Hg.): Politische Theorien von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart, Bonn: Bundeszentrale fu¨r politische Bildung, zweite Auflage, 259-656. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 1976: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundriss (1821). Bd. 7 der Theorie-Werkausgabe, Redaktion: Eva Moldenhauer/KarlMarkus Michel, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp. Karl-Heinz Ilting 1975: Die Struktur der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie. In: Manfred Riedel (Hg.): Materialien zur Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 52-81. Ansgar Klein 2001: Der Diskurs der Zivilgesellschaft. Politische Hintergru¨nde und demokratietheoretische Folgerungen, Opladen: Leske und Budrich Bernhard Peters 1993: Die Integration moderner Gesellschaften, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp.
JU¨RGEN SCHMIDT Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Brief Biography of the Theorist Immanuel Kant and European enlightenment can be seen quite as synonyms (Geier, 2003: 186ff.). Not only with his essay ‘‘An Answer to the Question: ‘What is Enlightenment’’’ written for the monthly newspaper Berlinische Monatsschrift this connection became obvious. With his entire philosophy he ‘‘eradicated the last traces of the medieval worldview from modern philosophy’’ (Guyer, 1998/2004). Kant was born on 22 April 1724 in Ko¨nigsberg, East Prussia, as son of an artisan master. Except for several years during his work as tutor in households in the surroundings of Ko¨nigsberg he never left this city. While earlier autobiographies characterized Kant as stiff, dutiful, only concentrated on his work, the recent autobiographies show a person who was integrated in Ko¨nigsberg society and on familiar terms with different social groups within the town (Ku¨hn, 2001/2003). Kant worked since 1755 as lecturer and sublibrarian before he was appointed as professor of logic and metaphysics in 1770. The first works Kant wrote and published dealt with natural science, but then he turned since the late 1750s more and more to philosophical questions, but without neglecting his interest on natural phenomena. As he put it in one of his famous words in ‘‘Critique of Practical Reason’’: ‘‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me’’ (Kant, Critique
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of Practical Reason, quoted in Guyer, 2006: 1). Among his most influent writings are Critique of Pure Reason (1781), Critique of Practical Reason (1788), Toward Perpetual Peace (1795), and Metaphysics of Morals (1797). The epistemology of Kant is called – and called by himself – the ‘‘Copernican revolution in philosophy’’ since he argued against the natural perception that things are given and the human being can recognize them as such; in contrast, cognition is not formed by given things but things are constructed by human mind and cognition (Guyer, 2006: 45–125, esp. 50ff.). Kant died on 12 February 1804.
Main Lines of Argument Kant developed no complete political theory and his political thinking has to be reconstructed within his whole work. As one result some of his thoughts, e.g., the thinking about revolutions, appear in part inconsistent (Kater, 1999). Besides this, Kant contributed to the debate about civil society in at least four sectors: the relationship between civil society and the state, the principle of public sphere, the problem of exclusion/inclusion and global civil society. While some authors see Kant’s thinking about civil society and the state only as predecessor of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Adloff, 2005: 30), Kant made some arguments that can be considered under different interpretation. On the one hand a distinction between state and society can be noticed. In Kant’s political essay ‘‘Towards Perpetual Freedom’’ he describes the ‘‘[state] as a society of men, which no one other than itself can command or dispose of’’ (Kant, 1991: 94). It is concluded that ‘‘the strong systematic position of the term ‘society of men’’’ which has to be understood not as a mere assembly of people but as a strong economic and cultural unity ‘‘refutes the prevalent notion that Kant did not differ between state and society’’ (Gerhardt, 1995: 52–54). On the other side Kant explicitly stated in an ‘‘Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Purpose’’ that the existence of a free society could only be fulfilled under the condition of ‘‘the most precise specification and preservation of the limits of this freedom’’ (Kant, 1991: 45). John Ehrenberg concluded from this: ‘‘There can be no freedom without law, no civil society without the state, and no peace without coercion’’ (Ehrenberg, 1999: 117). But Kant did not think in terms of a totalitarian suppressive state. The opposite was the case. The best model to realize a ‘‘civil state’’ was a republic. But since people lived in an ambivalent status of ‘‘unsocial sociability’’ (ungesellige Geselligkeit) a modus of coexistence within society had to be found where the three main principals of the civil state – ‘‘1. The freedom of every member of society as a human being. 2. The equality of
each with all the others as a subject. 3. The independence of each member of a commonwealth as a citizen’’ (Kant, 1991: 74) – could be realized. And this was a state directed by moral law and reasonable judgment. But this – so to say Hobbesian heritage with new solutions (Tuck, 1999: 207–225) – was only one aspect within Kant’s civil society approach. If one of the main origins of civil society can be ‘‘found in the philosophical revolution which discovered the autonomy of deliberative judgement’’ (Howard, 1985/1993: 46), Immanuel Kant stands for this strand as most central figure with his famous answer to the question ‘‘What is Enlightenment’’: ‘‘Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another. The motto of enlightenment is therefore: Sapere aude! Have courage to use your own understanding!’’ This finding was the political outcome of Kant’s Copernican revolution. The emphasis to use one’s own mind, central to every civil societal engagement until today, was only one aspect within this text. In addition, in this essay written for a broader audience Kant underpinned the role of the public sphere. Since it was unlikely that one single person could leave his state of immaturity behind Kant believed that a ‘‘public audience’’ would be able to take that decisive step because within in a broader audience there ‘‘will always be a few who think for themselves’’ and who ‘‘thrown off the yoke of immaturity.’’ Central for the success of this process of enlightenment according to Kant was freedom, especially that freedom ‘‘to make public use of one’s reason in all matters’’ (Kant, 1991: 54, 55). The claim of the right to speak and gaining public opinion is a powerful factor. It is, on the one hand, a central point within Kant’s republican thinking which opens for the citizen the possibility to participate as reasonable citizen. On the other hand, this argument was and is an important instrument to bring even in states, where human rights are abandoned, principles of the civil state on the fore (Niesen, 2005: 179, 184; Sassenbach, 1992: 76). Finally, the public use of reasonable discourse was in Kant’s view the only means to bring together the different social groups in reflecting their situation and find a way to sociability. Thus, this argument refers back to the civil state and its ‘‘a priori principles’’ of the human being, the subject and the citizen. Kant’s reflection about civil state, civil society, autonomous human being, public sphere and republican forms of governance did not lead him to an argumentation for a widespread participation. In contrast, Kant differentiated
Civil Society Theory: Kant
between active and passive citizens. In ‘‘On the Common Saying: ‘This may be right in theory, but it does not apply in practice’’’ as well as in ‘‘Metaphysics of Moral’’ Kant excluded children, disabled persons, women, and dependent workers from participation in civil society. Arguing from natural law as well as from the economic sphere Kant saw theses groups as nonautonomous because they had no form of private property. Changing from the high morals of his own thinking to social reality Kant fell back on the conventional use of the term civil society. Norms and facts diverged. The utopian project of civil society turned to a bourgeois society model and Kant was criticized in later interpretations as advocate of bourgeois economic interests. However, some defenders of Kant argued that in this case it is necessary to differentiate between Kant’s considerable philosophical method and his unacceptable specifications of content, while others stated that ‘‘his formalism prevented him from probing deeply into the network of material relations that constituted civil society.’’ What remains is the ambivalence between Kant’s engagement for liberal rights and his entanglement in terms of exclusion (Niesen, 2005: 194–201; Klar, 2007: 169–176; Saage, 1994: 12; Ehrenberg, 1999: 118). Kant appears here as some kind of narrow-minded person; on the other side, Kant was a global thinker. His ideas of the republic and of the public sphere are both thought in a world perspective (Gerhardt, 1995: 196; Kater, 1999: 60). In ‘‘What is Enlightenment’’ Kant already stated: Those who participate in the public reasonable discourse have to be aware that they are members ‘‘of a complete commonwealth or even of cosmopolitan society (Weltbu¨rgergesellschaft)’’ and that their real audience is ‘‘the world at large’’ (Kant, 1991: 56ff.). Kant’s global approach became most obvious in his essay ‘‘Toward Perpetual Peace.’’ Kant did not from the beginning of his political and philosophical reflections favor peace politics. In his 1784 published ‘‘Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose’’ Kant emphasized that history of mankind showed that from ‘‘discord’’ arose a lot of evil, but it also forced people to stretch one’s strength and thus created new culture and art. Even more explicit he wrote in ‘‘Critique of the Power of Judgment’’ that war, if waged by respecting order and civil rights, had something sublime. Only five years after this statement he published ‘‘Toward Perpetual Peace.’’ It was the French Revolution that forced Kant to change his mind. He recognized that this occurrence brought people in a new position with regard to law and politics. And in modern theory it was Dick Howard who described ‘‘the political revolution for which autonomy meant literally autos-nomos, the
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self-giving of the law free from external constraint’’ as second pillar of the origins of civil society – besides philosophical thinking of autonomous human beings (Howard, 1985/1993: 46). Kant would have never gone so far since he favored reforms instead of revolutions to create a civil state (see Kant, What is Enlightenment, 1991: 55; Kersting, 1992: 358–361), but with regard to his position to war and peace the French Revolution was the central turning point for him. The revolution demonstrated that people gave themselves of their own accord a free constitution and moved without war to a higher level in the civilizing progress. From now on Kant saw that the pursuit of autonomous citizens was directed towards freedom and equality. In this reasonable progress war would violate while in the former thinking of Kant before French revolution war was part of that civilizing progress. At first Kant postulates in six preliminary articles the basic rules which a perpetual peace between states needs. Among these concrete articles Kant differentiated between those of the ‘‘strictest sort’’ (e.g., no forcible state intervention of one state in the constitution and government of another) and those which ‘‘allow some subjective latitude according to the circumstances in which they are applied’’ (e.g., abolition of standing armies, ban of contracting debts in regard to external affairs of the state) (Kant, 1991: 93–97). That peace definitely works and enduringly lasts Kant in the following formulated in three ‘‘definitive articles’’ essential conditions: all states had to become republics, the right of nations had to be based on a federation of free states, while the cosmopolitan right (Weltbu¨rgerrecht) should be limited to universal hospitality. To secure world peace in Kant’s view one had to start with the legislative order in the interior of the state. Second, international relations had to be organized in a union of states where each state still holds its sovereignty, whereas an international state, a world republic, in which only one sovereignty existed, was an utopian idea. Hospitality finally guaranteed every citizen everywhere ‘‘the right of a stranger not to be treated with hostility’’ (Kant, 1991: 98–108). In a historical period in which global politics and global economy came on the agenda and more and more actors became involved (American Revolution, colonialism, e.g.,), Kant offered ways of a peaceful coexistence. And, with the claim of hospitality his philosophical sketch ‘‘perpetual peace’’ not only had the seed of criticizing colonial politics inherent, but – interpreted as an entitlement of a citizen against another state authority – was the predecessor of European Union legislation that every citizen of the EU can take legal action against an EU-state to which he does not belong (Gerhardt, 1995: 105ff.).
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Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society First, in civil society approaches the relation between exclusion and inclusion is debated. While in Kant’s reasonable arguing a civil society of free and equal human beings arose, the term of autonomy could also lead to exclusive mechanisms within civil society. The ‘‘utopian surplus’’ of the civil society concept during enlightenment (Kocka, 2007: 86) could also become a burden which could not be fulfilled. Second, the same ambivalence is true for debating global civil society. On the one side, Kant is still one of the central basing points, since in his thinking he ‘‘envisaged a ‘law of world citizenship’ (ius cosmopoliticum) which binds citizens and states into a higher republican commonwealth of states.’’ Tracing content and arguments in Kant’s ‘‘perpetual peace’’ in the previous paragraph demonstrated the entanglement between Kant and global civil society. On the other side, in this context it is also possible to recognize that Kant’s and his coevals’ idea about cosmopolitanism ‘‘was the privilege of those whose lives were already anchored in local civil societies’’ (Keane, 2001: 25, 28). Therefore, in addition, reflecting Kant’s global perspectives opens the possibility to discuss the role of the self and the other. The recognition of the other as basis of a moral order of society becomes here a central argument (Honneth, 2001) and points of contact to this consideration can be found in Kant’s work: ‘‘All right consists solely in the restriction of the freedom of others, with the qualification that their freedom can coexist with my freedom within the terms of a general law; and public right in a commonwealth is simply a state of affairs regulated by a real legislation which conforms to this principle and is backed up by power, and under which a whole people live as subjects in a lawful state (status iuridicus). This is what we call a civil state, and it is characterized by equality in the effects and counter-effects of freely willed actions which limit one another in accordance with the general law of freedom’’ (Kant, Common Saying, 1991: 75ff.). John Ehrenberg concluded: ‘‘Authority may be necessary for moral freedom, but Kant’s notion that everyone is capable of moral judgment represented a radical break with prevailing ideas about the moral capacity of ordinary people. [. . .] Kant’s contribution to modern theories of civil society consisted in his conception of a public life infused with moral purpose that is accessible to all’’ (Ehrenberg, 1999: 118). Therefore, discussing civil society under the auspices of an interactive normative approach and civility Kant still can be an influential mentor who established global civil society by reason not by utopian thinking.
Cross-References
▶ Civility ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Public Sphere
References/Further Readings Adloff, F. (2005). Zivilgesellschaft. Theorie und politische Praxis. Frankfurt/ Main, Germany: Campus. Ehrenberg, J. (1999). Civil society. The critical history of an idea. New York: New York University Press. Geier, M. (2003). Kants Welt. Eine Biographie. Reinbek bei Hamburg, Germany: Rowohlt. Gerhardt, V. (1995). Immanuel Kants Entwurf ‘‘Zum ewigen Frieden’’. Eine Theorie der Politik. Darmstadt, Germany: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. Guyer, P. (1998/2004). Kant, Immanuel. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge, from http://www. rep.routledge.com/article/DB047 Guyer, P. (2006). Kant. London/New York: Routledge. Honneth, A. (2001). Recognition or redistribution? Changing perspectives on the moral order of society. Theory, Culture & Society, 18, 43–56. Howard, D. (1985/1993). From Marx to Kant (2nd ed.). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kant, I. (1900ff.). Kant’s gesammelte Schriften. Edited by Ko¨niglich Preußischen (today Berlin-Brandenburgische) Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vols. 29). Berlin, Germany: Reimer, later Walter de Gruyter (standard German edition). Kant, I. (1968ff.). Werke in 12 Ba¨nden. In W. Weischedel (Ed.) (Vol. 12). Frankfurt/Main, Germany: Suhrkamp (more modern German edition). Kant, I. (1991). Political writings. In H. Reiss (Ed.). 1Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (all Kantian texts are cited according to this edition). Kant, I. (1992ff.). The Cambridge edition of the works of Immanuel Kant in English translation. In P. Guyer & A. W. Wood (Eds.) (Vol. 16). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (standard English edition). Kater, T. (1999). Politik, Recht, Geschichte. Zur Einheit der politischen Philosophie Immanuel Kants. Wu¨rzburg, Germany: Ko¨nigshausen & Neumann. Keane, J. (2001). Global civil society? In H. Anheier et al. (Eds.) Global civil society 2001 (pp. 23–47). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Kersting, W. (1992). Politics, freedom, and order: Kant’s political philosophy. In P. Guyer (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to Kant (pp. 342– 366). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Klar, S. (2007). Moral und Politik bei Kant. Eine Untersuchung zur Kants praktischer und politischer Philosophie im Ausgang der ‘‘Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft.’’ Wu¨rzburg, Germany: Ko¨nigshausen & Neumann. Kocka, J. (2007). Civil society in nineteenth century Europe: Comparison and beyond. In M. Hildermeier (Ed.), Historical concepts between Eastern and Western Europe (pp. 85–100). New York/Oxford: Berghahn.
Civil Society Theory: Keane Ku¨hn, M. (2001/2003). Kant. Eine Biographie. Mu¨nchen, Germany: Beck (English version: 2001). Niesen, P. (2005). Kants Theorie der Redefreiheit. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos. Saage, R. (1973/1994). Eigentum, Staat und Gesellschaft bei Immanuel Kant. Mit einem Vorwort ‘‘Kant und der Besitzindividualismus’’ von Franco Zotta. Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos. Sassenbach, U. (1992). Der Begriff des Politischen bei Immanuel Kant. Wu¨rzburg, Germany: Ko¨nigshausen & Neumann. Tuck, R. (1999). The rights of war and peace. Political thought and the international order from Grotius to Kant. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Civil Society Theory: Keane CRISTINA PUGA Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
Brief Biography of the Theorist John Keane has been a leading figure in civil society theory for more than 3 decades. A student in Toronto of C. B. Macpherson under whose direction he wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the public sphere, now a professor of Politics at the Wissenschaftszentrum in Berlin and at the University of Westminster in London, where he founded the Centre for the Study of Democracy, Keane was one of the first contemporary authors to draw new attention to the concept of civil society and to bring together a remarkable group of intellectuals to reflect on the subject. Along the period, he has intelligently witnessed the changes of civil society, has underlined its relation to real democracy and has produced substantial ideas and insights on civil society development and new tendencies. His contribution became truly remarkable in 1988 when two books under his name were simultaneously published: one (Democracy and Civil Society) reunited seven essays on the subject of civil society, several of which dwelled on the democratic limitations of the soviet system, where Keane remarked that civil society was absorbed within the State which kept citizens under permanent surveillance; the other (Civil Society and the State) with Keane as editor, contained essays by authors such as Agnes Heller, Norbert Elias, Clauss Offe, Norberto Bobbio, and Va´clav Havel on different aspects of an awakening civil society in the world, including a chapter by Keane himself on the use of the term along the last two centuries. The moment was particularly important. The books were still on press when the soviet system collapsed:
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Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Berlin people, among others, became living proof of the importance of the new concept that Keane and his colleagues had set on the table, and of the need to go further on the new role of civil society in the democracy-building process. It was the best moment to engage in the discussion that Keane was driving to ‘‘about an old-fashioned category, to invest it with fresh theoretical meaning and political significance’’ (OI: 5) Between 1995 and 2007, new books by Keane on similar subjects were published: The Media and Democracy, Tom Paine. A political life; Reflections on Violence; Civil Society: Old Images, New Visions; Vaclav Havel: a Political Tragedy in Six Acts; Global Civil Society, and Violence and Democracy. Common denominators in all of them have been a strong belief in democracy as a system of freedom and pluralism, a well-informed research on the social trends to violence and a quest on the role which civil society plays in promoting one and avoiding the other. John Keane is a consultant to the United Nations and the Evolution of Global Values project at the University of Leiden and a recent member of the American Institutions of Democracy Project. He lives in London and, after a research of more than 6 years, has just finished The Life and Death of Democracy, a major book on the history of democracy just published in the United Kingdom.
Main Lines of Argument Civil society, democracy, and violence are the three axes of Keane’s work, interwoven in a distinct but complex tapestry which is, perhaps, inevitably unfinished as Keane starts from the idea of an ever-changing civil society which exists in relation to its times and its conditions of existence. This historical perspective is well reflected in a recent essay on the changes of society’s attitude towards children (‘‘Children and Civil Society,’’ London 2008). Keane shows how a new struggle against cruelty and violence towards children, together with the concern for their well-being and with a growing respect for their opinions, is part of a trend to consider them as an important and active part of civil society, quite a change from the former tendency to see youngsters as immature human beings subject to parents and other adults’ wills and severe punishments. State institutions, markets and media development as well as international communication and awareness are important conditions of civil society’s existence and of its swifting from a wide range of local associations and movements defending national identities to an increasingly diversified and cosmopolitan conglomerate of people, organized groups, virtual movements and networks among communities otherwise separated by oceans and
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Civil Society Theory: Keane
cultural differences. Globalization acts as a new and complex environment which has modified the scope and political importance of civil society. Communications have changed and a wider world recognition has emerged. A new dynamics of capitalism – ‘‘turbocapitalism’’ Keane calls it – transports cultures and ways of living, enhances perceptions of each other and gives a new significance to civil societies around the world. Civil society has given way to global civil society. Civil Society
Keane is reluctant to offer a strong definition of civil society. In his own words, it is a ‘‘fragile and polysemic’’ concept, ‘‘object of intensive discussion and controversy’’ (CSS) since the second half of the eighteenth century when civil society was first considered as a realm separated from state. One of his essays traces the story of the concept from the aristotelic tradition of a civil society or a polis equal to the State, to Tocqueville’s conviction about the power of citizens against state despotism, including Tom Paine and Hegel along the development of the concept. Prevention of despotism – this last looked at as an ideal type of extreme concentration of power – set the ground, says Keane, ‘‘to an entirely new understanding of civil society – a term which was itself capable of striking fear into the hearts of a good many political despots, old and new’’ (DD: 66). Keane considers that also civil society can be understood as an ideal type category ‘‘that both describes and envisages a complex and dynamic ensemble of legally protected non-governmental institutions that tend to be non-violent, self-organizing, self-reflexive, and permanently in tension with each other and with the start institutions that ‘frame’, constrict and enable their activities’’(OI: 5). Civil societies, he adds in a controversial text, ‘‘are differentiated in complex ways by a multiplicity of nongovernmental rules: intimacy and friendship, public debate and social conversation, forms of play and rites of passage to do with birth, marriage, procreation, and death, but also by the rules of money, property, commodity production, exchange and consumption’’ (CSM: 4). The concept is certainly multivalent and, as Keane himself repeatedly points out, value-laden. To grasp it, he finds three possible and valid approaches: analytical, strategic (political) and normative. The analytic approach tries to develop a precise and operative concept of civil society which takes into account on one side, its separation from government power and its complex relation to market, and on the other, the diversity of an ensemble of organizations, groups, movements, and individuals with a great variety of interests and tendencies; a civil society
which is often far from the idealized image of harmony and civilization that many authors have bestowed upon it. The second approach refers to the political use of civil society as a collective actor, able to oppose state policies, market constraints and authoritarian leaders. While that has been often the case of social movements and citizen initiatives, Keane reminds that the inner diversity of civil society certainly confers to groups and movements the capacity of contestation, denounce, and change but also includes many other not so active or even democratic trends. The third approach points towards a desirable behavior of civil society as a guardian of freedom, tolerance, and peace. However, he insists, civil society is ‘‘wreckable’’ and should not be ‘‘mythologyzed’’ (OI: 50–52). All in all, in the three cases, explored with a wide theoretical baggage which draws both from classic authors and from contemporary experiences, Keane guards against an ideological use of the term and keeps present the historical, polemic, plural, and deliberative nature of civil society. There is however, a slight normative bias in the whole of his work because of several reasons: because he believes that the action of civil society may be crucial to set limits to State’s authoritarian tendencies; because he thinks that civil society is plural and requires pluralism to survive, so it has to preserve democracy as a plural field; because he sees civil society as the ‘‘guardian’’ of equality and solidarities, and because he thinks that uncivil society – that is, violence, haunts civil society and an effort is permanently required to avoid and prevent it. The best in civil society is a recognized tendency towards trust and good living conditions – that which has been called ‘‘social capital’’ – and that has to be strengthened and defended. Democracy and Civil Society
No doubt, democracy lies under Keane’s approach to civil society as a sort of leit motif which not only explains civil society but stands as the necessary social environment for its existence. Democratic institutions from rules to parliaments and elected governments guarantee the freedom for a plural and tolerant civil society to exist. Democracy is not just universal vote, periodical elections and replacement of leaders, but a complex set of procedures which grant the possibility to a variety of unrestricted ways of living and exchange of opinions. Minority rights, freedom, rule of law, as well as equalizing policies (health, education, income) are fundamental to provide a fair and well-informed citizenship, which, on turn has the fundamental task of watching and controlling the exercise of power.
Civil Society Theory: Keane
Civil society, says Keane, is intrinsically diverse and requires a permanent exchange of ideas to find agreements among individuals even from very different points of view. From this perspective, an active, pro-positive, and vigorous civil society can only survive if democracy is kept and perfected to ensure the possibilities to exercise freedom and tolerance in an unrestricted way. He thinks a democracy is only such if it can provide the grounds for a safe exercise of freedom, for a continuous flow of ideas and for the possibility of contesting the government decisions. That also explains his assert that civil society could not survive within the socialist regimes where government tends to be present in any realm of society and avoids or punishes any spontaneous action coming from it. Respect for the individual and for his freedom of ideas and choices is the basis of a true democracy and of an active civil society. Somehow unsettling for those who see the Arab world as a source of violence, he recalls in different writings that real tolerance has been present in Muslim culture (which recognizes every individual’s right to choose his own religion) for a long time, and that Islam is ‘‘a potential force for civility’’ (VD: 185). Keane’s more recent works on democracy recall the changes occurred along history to move from ancient direct democracy, to representative democracy, then to a more recent and complex democracy where new participatory mechanisms extend to civil society the possibility of power-control and monitoring. Democracy is seen as an ever-changing system which has different characteristics in different parts of the world and, that, as a whole, is still being built, However, remarkable ‘‘counter-trends’’ endanger it: social inequality, lack of trust in political parties, multiculturalism, and insecurity among other elements, create a fragile and uncertain future for democracies (DE). Also, because civil society is far from being perfect and free from injustice, wrong judgment and failure, democracy in former Keane’s writings appears as a sort of mined field, subject to the excesses, contradictions, and trespassings of its own citizens – that is, of its own civil society. Nevertheless, a democratic, plural background is a prerequisite for any initiative from civil society. So, to preserve democracy becomes a responsibility of civil society because it is the only way to preserve its own existence. Actions against democracy which aim to destroy pluralism, can revert against the whole existence of civil society itself. Violence and Uncivil Society
Keane finds that civil society is prone to violence. From Hobbes to Arendt, many authors including Elias, Paine,
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Montesquieu, Schumpeter, and Marx have recognized the tendency and even the need for violence in different ways – some consider it as a part of the human condition, others relate it to politics, with the idea that the transformation of a certain political form will automatically lead to more peaceful forms of life within society. From the experience of a century loaded with violence (concentration camps, genocidal wars, nuclear explosions) Keane’s concern is not where does violence lay as has been the preoccupation of others, but mostly if there is a chance of stopping it from the action of a civil society that has grown more civil – or civilized – but can easily become uncivil. Civilization (‘‘a march through stages of gradually increasing perfection’’) means in Keane’s proposal, a detachment from violent means and from causing suffering to others, instead finding deliberative ways to end conflict. The way of democracy is also the way to peace and nonviolence. Against the idea of a violent human nature, Keane suggests to look for reasons in civil society itself and in the conflicts and tensions produced by society’s contradictions. ‘‘Why do the shock-absorbing institutions of civil societies – he asks – tend to be overburdened, such that they generate from within their own structures of violence that contradict the freedom, solidarity and civility which otherwise make them so attractive?’’(RV: 114). To his own question he finds a long list of reasons. Plurality of forms of life; capitalist expansion; developmental differences (‘‘the whole modern history of colonization and bullying of the uncivilized has been riddled with violence’’) freedom to associate in complex ways; discrimination (racial prejudice, joblessness, etc.) and discontent with private life conditions (the ‘‘conflict-ridden logics of the household’’) are some of the multiple causes of violence, not excluding the fact of violence experienced as pleasure from people who need it to give meaning and excitement to their lives through violent movies, novels, or witnessing violent acts. The question is closely related to the problem of how to control power. Because the State has the monopoly of lawful violence and the faculty to declare war, it has become a permanent menace upon its subjects and those of conquered countries. Actually, Keane finds an additional reason for violence in nationalism, where a deep rooted sense of identity is easily manipulated and used against others. ‘‘Like other ideologies, nationalism is an upwardly mobile, power hungry and potentially violent language game which makes falsely universal claims.’’ It has ‘‘a fanatical core’’ and a tendency to simplify things. Contrary to complex civil society; it is arrogant and fearful of ‘‘the other’’ (RV: 125).
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In the last two centuries, citizens have tried to find ways to keep at hold state power and with it, the excesses of violence and the possibilities of war. The Philadelphia model, where every citizen is embodied with a certain capacity (even armed) to defend against power abuses has somehow been extended to supranational models which, not free from contradictions, try to restrain the Westphalian model of interstate power and to democratize the means of state violence. But more important is a trend of citizens towards a ‘‘politics of civility’’ which aims to avoid the arbitrary use of violence against civil society. Keane’s discourse in this point finds an obstacle in the problem of legitimate violence where he has to make some exemptions to his own rule, such as suicide when it becomes a way to rebel against authority and to bring attention to the violation of freedom (as was the case of Jan Palach in Czechoslovakia); euthanasia; revolts against autocratic and dictatorial regimes, collective resistance and liberation wars. Most of these actions are exerted by citizens led by the belief in a more pacific and harmonious society, a utopia, ‘‘where less violence is thinkable, perhaps even achievable. . .’’ (RV: 87). Pacifism and civilization are also menaced by internal wars – which happen when a sector of society cannot find formal or informal channels to solve problems and then takes arms against power. Resistance movements, sabotage, guerrilla, and insurrection as more or less agreed stages of civil war may generate extreme violence: ‘‘the most terrible experience of death and destruction’’ as was the case of Bosnia which Keane has in mind when he writes about this kind of violence. Additionally, a certain decay of conventional armies and nation frontiers favor the emergence of a diffuse civil war directed by smaller groups within society: Cities witness a new local violence such as drug barons or crazy killers, which have made some authors as Robert D. Kaplan and Enzensberger talk about a ‘‘primitive’’ warfare. Keane refers to them as uncivil wars, ‘‘the quintescense of incivility’’ and worries that the legitimate fight against them leads towards more violence and suppression of freedom. A ‘‘plurality of strategies’’ including macrolevel agreements concerning arms reduction, war crimes tribunals and the need for regional integration of previously sovereign states, as well as micro level laws against body harassment and everyday violence is thus required (RV: 152). Those are only effective (to an extent) if civil society nurtures them through multiple actions, from public spheres at micro levels such as clubs, associations, and local movements to meso and macro levels, which include media and global civil societies. Against the thesis on violence saturation by media, and on a pure sado-masochistic relationship of publics to
violent media or newsreels, he believes that images of war, concentration camps and extreme violence have helped to create a sense of shame on civil society which gives a push towards a better and more peaceful world. Markets and Civil Society
The relation between civil society and markets is perhaps the most controversial aspect of Keane’s theory. Opposite to various purist assumptions of civil society as a realm completely separated from economy, he shows that the logics of market and civil society are closely interrelated. To consider civil society as an uncontaminated sector which exists without any connection to market is unreal and self-deceiving. His main thesis on this subject is that markets need civil society to develop and flourish as much as civil society requires the network of economic relations created by markets, and has a need of economic means in order to carry on its projects. Both society and market create rules that become part of the general institutional environment. Markets (which are human creations) are organizing forces that have an influence on ways of living, on moving people from one country to another, on creating social rules and on stimulating social exchange and interaction. At the same time, they have a tendency ‘‘to spoil social interaction.’’ Although civil society ‘‘can never be transformed into capitalist markets,’’ Keane concludes, ‘‘the marriage between markets and other civil society institutions may be (and often is) unhappy, but for the sake of their mutual survival their divorce is forbidden’’ (MCS: 4). The importance of markets for civil society to develop and thrive, increases when they become global. ‘‘Turbocapitalism’’ generates additional income, goods, and services across countries, resets local rules and spreads consumption habits; business firms create new networks, provide training, develop technologies and have the power to move their investments from one country to another. In a dynamics that is positive and negative at the same time, turbocapitalism ‘‘both nurtures and disorders the structure of global civil society within which it operates’’ (GC: 82). Global Civil Society
Economic changes, market expansion and communication technologies lead to a new kind of civil society with a worldwide scope and network capacity. Civil society becomes global and their efforts towards peace and pluralization of power ‘‘are felt everywhere. . .to the planetary level itself ’’ (GCS: 8). Keane is not referring to an organized unique network but to a diverse and ‘‘multilayered’’ universe of
Civil Society Theory: Keane
individuals, organizations, and collective actors that may act together or separately, that have many different and often contradictory goals and ways to achieve them, ‘‘a vast scenario in which hundreds of thousands and millions of individual and group adventures unfold, sometimes harmoniously through cooperation and compromise, and sometimes conflictually. . .’’ (GCS: 11). Big firms, international regulatory organisms and many small groups acting locally but with globally interconnected potentialities may be part of that rather vague though increasingly influential conglomerate that Keane presents as an ideal type comprising five defining features: it is nongovernmental (that is, existing without a direct relation to States and governmental order), social (in the sense of a dynamic society) civil (referred to the spaces of freedom, regulation, and nonviolence that ensure social life) plural (which means diverse and often conflicting ideas) and of course, global, that is, made of ‘‘politically framed and circumscribed social relations that stretch across and underneath state boundaries and other governmental forms’’ (CSC: 17). Migrations, adopted habits, hybridized languages, increasing tolerance and reciprocal influences from different cultures help to integrate this global civil society which, nevertheless, remains as a new phenomenon still alien to a great many social groups and national societies which lack the economic, political, intellectual, and communicative conditions to be part of it. It is not, recalls Keane ‘‘a universal society’’: it resembles instead, ‘‘a string of oases of freedom in a vast desert of localized injustice and resistance’’ (GCS: 141). With globalization a new set of institutions above national frontiers come to control and define economic relations and many other aspects of social life: Keane refers to them as a ‘‘cosmocracy’’; a conglomerate of institutions and processes that work at different levels (local, regional, state, and global), and have political effects, at a global scale.(GCS: 98). Power, which was behind Keane’s interest in civil society from his first works, becomes, with globalization a much more complex problem. A new governance, based on a multilevel system is growing, creating rules in fields as diverse as human rights, bird migrations or internet usage, but still missing accountability, general acceptance, social participation mechanisms, and freedom from the territorial and arrogant dominance of the United States. Wishfully, ‘‘cosmocratic structures will facilitate a Global New Deal: a multilayered political settlement defined by a core of governing institutions designed to rein in the most destructive behaviors, and a periphery of governing institutions based on more voluntary and noncoercive regulations’’ (GCS: 126).
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Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Keane is important not only because he was one of the first contemporary authors to draw new attention to the concept of civil society but also because at the same time he developed new related subjects which have added dimensions and elements of analysis to understand the relation of civil society to democratic change and sustenance. In his work, power, market, violence, media, and global economy have been identified as key factors to understand the shaping of civil society as well as its potentialities. The recognition of global civil society as a new concept, different from the simple civil society, leads towards the many complicated and diverse possibilities of social change in the near future. The foresight is contradictory. On one side, based on a wide knowledge of cultural and theoretical sources of his object, Keane seems to have a well-founded intellectual trust on the civilizing action of civil society. From the campaigns of the nineteenth century against slavetrading to the movements which changed labor laws during the first decades of the twentieth, and to the many different causes of the new century, he finds a civil society tendency towards regulation, peace, and cultural understanding. On the other side, he draws a picture where peace movements and human rights initiatives run together with massive arms production and nuclear risks, where mass movements can easily become violent and uncontrollable, where violence is easily privatized and used against others and where a ‘‘turbocapitalism,’’ which acknowledges the need of peace for a better market functioning, and which promotes communications among peoples and organizations, also deepens inequality, promotes violent governments and causes environmental destruction. Thus the prudent and sometimes even contradictory way in which Keane refers to the potentialities of a civil society towards a more peaceful, equalitarian, and participative world. Although he draws a line between civil and uncivil society, he often recognizes that civil society moves towards change for a better world at the same time than it can get involved in violence and irrationality. Even terrorism, dwells in small retreats of civil society and operates in its ‘‘more or less invisible channels.’’ He also finds democracy guilty of excesses and trespassings in the name of order and of its fight against enemies such as terrorists or drug barons. However, he finds that civil society – global civil society – as a new awareness of living together in a diverse world, can be seen as a normative ideal. Global civil society sets the ethical condition of pluralism, because it creates a global space for
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tolerance, trust, hospitality, and freedom. Although it cannot be predicted to last and prevail, Keane sustains that global society, ‘‘the universal precondition of the open acceptance of difference’’ (GCS: 203) exerts a pressure towards peace and towards the preservation of the planet.
ANSGAR KLEIN Bundesnetzwerk Buergerschaftliches Engagement (BBE), Berlin, Germany
Cross-References
Brief Biography of the Theorist
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Economy ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century ▶ Civil Society History VII: Late 20th and 21st Century ▶ Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci ▶ Civil Society Theory: Paine ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Civil Society, Violence and War ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Uncivil Society
References/Further Readings Keane, J. (1988). Civil society and the state (quoted as CSS). London: Verso. Keane, J. (Ed.) (1988). Democracy and civil society (DCS). London: Verso. Keane, J., Inoguchi, T., & Newman, E. (Eds.) (1998). The changing nature of democracy. Tokyo/New York: United Nations University Press. Keane, J. (1991). The media and democracy. London: Polity. Keane, J. (1995). Tom Paine. A political life. London: Bloomsbury. Keane, J. (1996). Reflections on violence (RV). London: Verso. Keane, J. (1998). Civil society. Old images, new visions (OI). Cambridge: Polity. Keane, J. (2000). Vaclav Havel – A political tragedy in six acts. London: Bloomsbury. Keane, J. (2002). Whatever happened to democracy? London: Institute of Public Policy Research. Keane, J. (2003). Global civil society (GCS). Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Keane, J. (2004). Violence and democracy (VD). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keane, J. (2006). Civil society: Berlin perspectives. Oxford/New York: Berghan Books. Keane, J. (2009). The life and death of democracy. London: Simon and Schuster. (A brief essay on Democracy, from Encarta Encyclopedia is quoted as DE). Mellucci, A. (1989). Nomads of the present – Social movements and individual needs in contemporary society. London: Hutchinson. A larger view of Keane’s books, articles and essays may be consulted at http://www.johnkeane.net
Civil Society Theory: Marx
Karl Marx (1818–1883) spent his college years from 1835 to 1841 in the German cities of Bonn and Berlin. Hegel’s philosophy and the Left Hegelian critique made a deep impression on Marx who soon became a member of the young Hegelian circle of intellectuals around Bruno Bauer. Due to his affiliation with the Left Hegelians, an academic career seemed rather unlikely for Marx. In October 1842, therefore, he took over the editorial leadership of the liberal ‘‘Rheinische Zeitung’’ that became one of the leading oppositional papers. Marx decided to leave the editorial office in March 1843 owing to the frequent censorship by the Prussian government. In the same year, Marx wrote a ‘‘Critique of the Hegelian Constitutional Law’’. He went to Paris to edit the ‘‘German-French Annuals’’ together with Arnold Ruge. The project, however, failed after the first issue in 1844 in which the two essays ‘‘On the Jewish Question’’ and ‘‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’’ were published. In the same year, Marx wrote the ‘‘Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts’’, first published in 1932, which contains the famous passages on his notion of labor. During his stay in Paris through February 1845 (when he was expelled from France), Marx met well-known socialists and communists like Proudhon amongst others. The French worker’s meetings that he joined from time to time left a big impression on him. In this period, he got to know Heinrich Heine and also Friedrich Engels (August 1844) with whom he would work together closely for the rest of his life. From 1845 to 1848, he lived in Brussels with his family. Here, he wrote in a notebook the ‘‘Theses on Feuerbach’’ (1845), ‘‘The Holy Family’’ (1845) together with Engels, and ‘‘The German Ideology’’ (1845; published in 1932) disagreeing with Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer, Max Stirner and the ‘‘genuine socialists.’’ In 1846, Marx had an altercation with Wilhelm Weitling’s communism; in 1847, the French edition of ‘‘The Poverty of Philosophy’’, a critique on Proudhon, was published. Marx wrote the ‘‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’’, together with Engels in February 1848. It was commissioned by the headquarters of the Communist League, in the Brussels section of which Marx was presiding over since 1847 and was inspired by the 1848 revolution.
Civil Society Theory: Marx
After being exiled from Brussels to France in March 1848, Marx returned to Germany in April to take over as a chief editor of the ‘‘Neue Rheinische Zeitung’’ in Cologne. Its 301 issues that were published between 31 March 1848 and 18 May 1849 are an impressive evidence of how the attempt to promote the socialist republic within the German middle classes failed. Marx was banished as a stateless person by the Prussian state on 16 May 1849. With his family, he went through France into London exile, penniless. After giving up all expectations of a nearterm revolution together with Engels, Marx delved into a study of economics in the following years. In 1857, he started writing the ‘‘Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy’’; in 1862, the Hamburg publishing house Otto Meissner edited the first volume of his main politicaleconomic work ‘‘Capital,’’ the second and third volumes of which were edited posthumously by Friedrich Engels in 1885 and 1894. Marx was a founding member of the International Worker’s Association, The First Internationale that wasinitiated by English and French workers. There, supporters of Fourier, Cabet, Proudhon, Blanquis, Bakunin, and Mazzini came together. Marx took over the lead of the general secretariat and wrote the inaugural addresses and the organization’s by-laws. In the following years, he tried to strengthen the impact of his ideas within the numerous political currents. Serious tension with the supporters of Proudhon during the first years was followed by fierce struggles with the Russian anarchists around Bakunin. Marx emerged victorious in 1872. Bakunin was excluded; the organization, however, broke up in the aftermath of this controversy. Marx’ health deteriorated in his last years, so his production declined too. He died in March 1883 in London (Rubel, 1968; Lieber/Helmer, 1988).
Main Lines of Argument The Bourgeois Society as an Economic Society
In his early works, Marx criticized social inequalities in a radically democratic way. However, for the early Marx the question of legal relationships and form of government had to be understood within the context of social, particularly economic, living conditions. In his later works, ‘‘outperforming and radicalization of the bourgeois democracy’’ (Wellmer, 1986, p. 230ff.) came second after the critique of democracy which he understood as the form of rule in the bourgeois class society. Thus, Marx could only define the relationship between the citizen and the political community in a future society aporetically, not being able to develop a political theory in his later work. Marx’s notion of a future society, in which the state is
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reintegrated into society and in the classless society loses its ‘‘bourgeois’’ qualities, aims at a utopian space beyond politics. In the early works Marx considered the citizens’ freedom and equality as a political expression of establishing the ‘‘egoist person’’ in the bourgeois society. He criticized the separation of ‘‘bourgeois’’ and ‘‘citizen’’ (citoyen) that to him was artificial and needed to be overcome. It is his critique of the political economy that first reduced freedom and equality of the individuals to a sheer equivalent of the capitalist exchange of commodities. Bearing in mind Hegel’s presupposed separation of state and society Marx analyzed the political institutions of the bourgeois state with regard to how they function within the capitalist trading and production structure. The bourgeois state based on the rule of law guarantees, through the equality of the legal entities and the freedom of selfseeking private interests, the prerequisites under which an advanced trade can take place. The freedom of the private owner mainly means freedom from personal constraints or negative freedom. Guaranteeing the characteristics of the owner as a legal person, his or her secureness, freedom, equality, legal capacity, and legal protection necessarily require public law. Unmasking the quasi-egalitarian regime of the bourgeois democracy – connected with the concept of ‘‘gegensta¨ndliche Ta¨tigkeit’’ – at the same time displays the difficulties of Marx’s political theory. As the capitalistic form of exploitation does not oppose the nominal freedom and equality but rather can only be realized within these legal conditions, all forms of freedom and equality are ideologically criticized. From this follows that Marx’s concept of the proletarian revolution leaves out the political and institutional needs of a future society – a gap regarding theory of democracy. Political power to Marx was mainly an instrument to revolutionize society. ‘‘Instead of developing the bourgeois democracy’s potential to emancipate itself toward the general condition of emancipation, Marx is solely interested in the bourgeois institutions as the means of a proletarian takeover and prestages of a proletarian anti-regime’’ (Zimmermann, 1985: p. 228). In the Communist Manifesto, to Marx, the ‘‘struggling for democracy’’ was nothing else rather than ‘‘Erhebung des Proletariats zur herrschenden Klasse’’ (‘‘to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class’’) (MEW 4, p. 481), and in his second ‘‘The Civil War in France’’(1871), the republic was just a ‘‘revolutiona¨res Mittel, um die Klassenherrschaft selbst zu brechen’’ (‘‘revolutionary means of breaking down class rule itself’’) (MEW 17, p. 608).
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Marx understood the ‘‘political transition period’’ in terms of dictatorship: ‘‘Zwischen der kapitalistischen und der kommunistischen Gesellschaft liegt die Periode der revolutiona¨ren Umwandlung der einen in die andere. Der ¨ bergangsperiode, deren entspricht auch eine politische U Staat nichts anderes sein kann als die revolutiona¨re Diktatur des Proletariats’’ (‘‘Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat) (Kritik des Gothaer Programms/Critique of the Gotha Programme, in MEW 19, p. 28). If the antagonism of the classes ceases, of this Marx was sure, politics must finally cease because ‘‘politische Gewalt im eigentlichen Sinne ist die organisierte Gewalt einer Klasse zur Unterdru¨ckung einer andern’’ (‘‘political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another’’) (Kommunistisches Manifest (Communist Manifesto, in MEW 4, S. 482). ‘‘The Dictatorship of the Proletariat’’
Referring to Blanqui, Marx had already used the phrase ‘‘dictatorship of the proletariat’’ in 1850. Blanqui had conceived the dictatorship of the proletariat as an ‘‘Erziehungsdiktatur’’ that was supposed to propagate communism. Marx considered this kind of dictatorship essential even if it just had a transitional function at this stage of his thinking. Within a political-actionist concept, to him the revolutionary socialism was ‘‘die Permanenzerkla¨rung der Revolution, die Klassendiktatur des Proletariats als notwendige Durchgangsperiode zur Abschaffung der Klassenunterschiede u¨berhaupt.’’ (‘‘the declaration of the permanence of the revolution, the class dictatorship of the proletariat as the necessary transit point to the abolition of class distinctions generally’’ (Klassenka¨mpfe in Frankreich/The Class Struggles in France, MEW 7, p. 89). Following the Blanquist tradition, to Marx the takeover of power is first of all an action of a few determined communists. The political action then, being an example, is to evoke political consciousness in the working class masses. For Marx there is no doubt that the proletarian dictatorship will finally be a majority rule. His actionbased notion of a forced upheaval brought about by a minority became less important in the 1850s due to the changing historic-political context. Up to then he had expected revolutions breaking out in the advanced capitalist countries in Europe in the near future. Now, he tied the eruption of revolutions more to economic circumstances and the course of crises. In the final years of the 1860s Marx would even consider that revolutions might
first erupt in the predominantly rural countries in the periphery (like Russia). ‘‘Das internationalistische Konzept verlangt die Koordinierung der Arbeiter mit anderen Klassen und Schichten (Bu¨ndnisproblematik) und mit ‘Nationalka¨mpfen’. Der Sektor ‘Diplomatie’ wird zum Gegenstand der Arbeiterpolitik’’. ‘‘The internationalistic concept calls for a coordination of workers with other classes (Bu¨ndnisproblematik) and with nationalistic struggles. Diplomacy becomes an element of workers’ politics’’ (Arndt, 1985, p. 111). The concept of a permanent action is replaced by the notion of a long-term political struggle. The transition period of the dictatorship of the proletariat, too, becomes a protracted process. In the context of the political conflict in the advanced capitalist countries in Europe the universal suffrage and with it the forms of parliamentary debate gain political importance (Sieferle, 1979). ‘‘Die Indienstnahme des Staates fu¨r die rechtliche Durchsetzung und Garantie des Normalarbeitstages mindert die Konkurrenz und Zersplitterung der Arbeiterklasse. Auch die Forderung nach einer Abschaffung des Erbrechts za¨hlt ¨ bergangsmaßregeln. . ., die geeignet sind, Marx zu den U schließlich einen radikalen Wechsel der Gesellschaft zuwege zu bringen’’ (MEW 16, p. 369). Under certain preconditions Marx then considered a ‘‘peaceful’’ transition to the proletarian dictatorship possible. In doing so he perceived the alternative of a peaceful and violent takeover to be dependent on tactical decisions on suitable political forms of struggling: ‘‘Der Arbeiter muß eines Tages die politische Gewalt ergreifen, um die neue Organisation der Arbeit aufzubauen. . . . Aber wir haben nicht behauptet, daß die Wege, um zu diesem Ziel zu gelangen, u¨berall dieselben seien. Wir wissen, daß man die Institutionen, die Sitten und Traditionen der verschiedenen La¨nder beru¨cksichtigen muß, und wir leugnen nicht, daß es La¨nder gibt, wie Amerika, England, und wenn mir eure Institutionen besser bekannt wa¨ren, wu¨rde ich vielleicht noch Holland hinzufu¨gen, wo die Arbeiter auf friedlichem Weg zu ihrem Ziel gelangen ko¨nnen. Wenn das wahr ist, mu¨ssen wir auch anerkennen, daß in den meisten La¨ndern des Kontinents der Hebel unserer Revolution die Gewalt sein muß; die Gewalt ist es, an die man eines Tages appellieren muß, um die Herrschaft der Arbeit zu errichten’’ (‘‘Someday the worker must seize political power in order to build up the new organization of labor. . . . But we have not asserted that the ways to achieve that goal are everywhere the same. You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries – such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would
Civil Society Theory: Marx
perhaps also add Holland – where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force; it is force to which we must some day appeal in order to erect the rule of labour’’; MEW 18, p. 160). Irrespective of how the takeover of power might happen Marx stuck to his concept in which the dictatorship of the proletariat is an inevitable transition period on the way to a future communist society. This question was at the center of the argument with the anarchist Bakunin and his supporters in the First Internationale. While Bakunin called for the immediate abolition of the state and the replacement of authority by autonomy as the first revolutionary measures, Marx persisted on the need to revolutionalize the social conditions and to break the resistance of the capitalist class by the help of the government (Lenk, 1981, p. 70f.). Marx first assumed that the working class needed to commit the bourgeois state for its purposes in a different way. However, he stated his view more precisely when he experienced the Paris Commune of 1871. Thus, he came to believe that the working class could ‘‘nicht die fertige Staatsmaschinerie einfach in Besitz nehmen und diese fu¨r ihre eignen Zwecke in Bewegung setzen’’ (‘‘cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes’’) (‘‘Der Bu¨rgerkrieg in Frankreich’’; MEW 17, p. 336). In the political organization of the Commune he believed to have found an ideal for the political organization of the dictatorship of the proletariat: Marx emphasized the system of councils with an imperative mandate for political representative, civil servants, and judges, worker’s wages for public functions, the decentralization of political fundamental units, and the abolition of a standing army – this last element Marx had pointed out since 1848. Marx later decided against generalization of the political structures of the Paris Commune (Brief an Domela Nieuwenhuis, MEW 35, p. 159f). His comments on the impact and design of the political institutions of a transitional period (that are mainly to be found in his historical writings) were not developed to a degree of general understanding. Remarkable is the peculiar connection of the concept of a political system of councils – characterized by decentralization and grassroots democracy – with the concept of an economic centralization. The victorious proletariat is to implement the socialist working method by transferring the means of production into public ownership. Marx emphasized ‘‘daß das gegenwa¨rtige ‘spontane Wirken der Naturgesetze des Kapitals und des Grundeigentums’ nur im Verlauf eines langen Entwicklungsprozesses neuer
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Bedingungen durch ‘das spontane Wirken der Gesetze der ¨ konomie der freien und assoziierten gesellschaftlichen O Arbeit’ ersetzt werden kann. . . . Aber die Arbeiterklasse weiß zugleich, daß durch die kommunale Form der politischen Organisation sofort große Fortschritte erzielt werden ko¨nnen’’ (‘‘spontaneous action of the natural laws of capital and landed property’’ can only be superseded by ‘‘the spontaneous action of the laws of the social economy of free and associated labour’’ by a long process of development of new conditions. . . . But they know at the same time that great strides may be [made] at once through the Communal form of political organization’’ (MEW 17, p. 546f). The economically justified expropriation of expropriators is supposed to end all social basics of class rule. Not only the emancipation of the worker but, as Engels stated in ‘‘The Origin of the Family,’’ also that of wife and children will be possible (MEW 21, p. 76–84). The socialist society of the transition period conforms the relations of production to the conditions of the forces of production that have been constituted by the capitalist society. All members of society are to be flagged down to ‘‘productive labour’’ even if, in the beginning, they need to be forced to work, ‘‘Arbeitszwang’’ – as it is stated in the Communist Manifesto. Politically protected by the proletarian dictatorship – domestically suppressing the overthrown class and guaranteeing the education of the working class, externally defending from hostile powers – the economic institutions of capitalism are to be gradually transformed.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Unlike the early socialists Marx and Engels believed that the measures to establish a communist society must evolve from a ‘‘science-based’’ understanding of the present society. Nevertheless, their picture of a future society is shaped by their socialist predecessors’ notions: the notions of the satisfaction of needs in an affluent society, of social homogeneity coming along with balanced working and living conditions, of the removal of a gendered division of labor and of the international community leaving behind national rivalry reappear in Marx and Engels. The Difference Between Bourgeois Society and Civil Society
Justice loses its function in a communist society that is solely based on the principle of free association. As soon as legislation ceases to be the expression of state authority and power – but only exists as self-determined volition – it can be abandoned. Hence the state institutions that are needed to enforce legislation become dispensable. Regarding this consideration Marx remains a student of
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Rousseau and his notion of self-legislation through the common will of the ‘‘volonte´ ge´ne´rale.’’ That there might be a possible contradiction between the will of all (volonte´ des tous) and the common will that could not ultimately be empirically tested seemed to Marx inconceivable when considering future society. Therefore, political institutions providing opinionand will-forming as well as the law guaranteeing freedom and equality are unnecessary. All functions of government in the traditional sense become dispensable: ‘‘Ist einmal das Ziel der proletarischen Bewegung, die Abschaffung der Klassen erreicht, so verschwindet die Gewalt des Staates, welche dazu dient, die große produzierende Mehrheit unter dem Joche einer wenig zahlreichen ausbeutenden Minderheit zu halten, und die Regierungsfunktionen verwandeln sich in einfache Verwaltungsfunktionen’’ (MEW 19, p. 50). The dictatorship of the proletariat leads to a society without a state. According to the ‘‘Communist Manifesto’’ it is superseded by a barely defined ‘‘public power’’ acting on the basis of a social ‘‘Assoziation, worin die freie Entwicklung eines jeden die Bedingung fu¨r die freie Entwicklung aller ist’’ (‘‘an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all’’; MEW 4, p. 482). In Marx the desired picture of a harmonious communist society free of conflict seems to have obscured questions of political forms of settling conflicts, also eclipsing liberal guarantees of human and civic right as well as challenges of a democratic opinion-forming and the formation of will (Cohen, 1982). The Marxian ‘‘republic of labour’’ is outrightly interpreted as an ‘‘association of free people.’’ His notion of the social practice which he derived from his notion of labor (Honneth, 1980) is meant to comprehend, by the cooperation features included in it, all essential social communication and understanding that are to align both needs and interests. Regarding the immediacy of individual action, a characteristic of the future society, the specific rules and institutions of social self-regulation do not apply. Concerning Marx’s ‘‘republic of labour,’’ similar reservations toward the anarchistic concept of a society free of rule may be necessary: the organizational form of free association cannot be a model of complex societies and it conceals the challenges of an institutionalized way to handle conflicts. These cannot exclusively be explained by their freedom-limiting nature. The actual explosiveness of Marx’s and Engels’ political concept consists in linking the future communist society to the transition period of the ‘‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’’ While not defining an institutional structure the notion of a ‘‘republic of labour’’ legitimizes a
certain type of government. This type of government puts up to negotiation the democratic and legal achievements of the bourgeois democracy – even though it is pictured as a majority rule and as a matter of principle limited to a transition period (Kelsen, 1923). The emphatic radical-democratic position of the younger Marx turns into a speculative framework of metahistory that, by postponing democratization to the future society, hinders the continuation of his original themes of critique. The immense power of Marx’s theory for political mobilization might not least of all be due to this utopian aim that he claimed to be of a scientific nature (Speth, 2000). Ironically, Marx’ target of a society free of rule, in the twentieth century, served to philosophically legitimize a social system that in order to be stable needed to build on a bureaucratic governmental rule. Marx’s justification of the dictatorship of the proletariat offered problematic starting points for that. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the Eastern European dissendent movements of the 1980s, in their critique of the post-Stalinist societies, are linked with the political concept of civil society. Their recourse to the outstanding emancipatory potentials of democracy owes to the experience that these potentials can by no means be reduced to a form of bourgeois government. This Marx has not defined clearly enough. Guaranteed human and civil rights and an institutionalized pluralism of interests, positions, and lifestyles form the essential political framework of a socially fair-minded society – this is what the discourse of civil society shows. The current global economic crisis as well shows that the dynamics of the capitalist market economy that Marx critically described still challenge the state and civil society today. For the current debate about civil society, Marx’s legacy remains to a great extent relevant.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Proudhon, Pierre Joseph
References/Further Readings Arndt, A. (1985). Karl Marx, Versuch & u¨ber den Zusammenhang seiner Theorie. Germany: Bochum. Cohen, J. (1982). The limits of Marxian critical theory, Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press. Honneth, A. (1980). Arbeit und instrumentales Handeln. In A. Honneth & U. Jaeggi (Eds.), Arbeit, Handlung, Normativita¨t (pp. 185–233). Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp. Kelsen, H. (1923). Sozialismus und Staat (2nd ed.). Leipzig, Germany: Hirschfeld. Klein, A. (2001). Der Diskurs der Zivilgesellschaft. Politische Kontexte und demokratietheoretische Bezu¨ge der neueren Begriffsverwendung. Opladen, Germany: Leske Budrich.
Civil Society Theory: Montesquieu Lenk, K. (1981). Theorien der Revolution (Revised ed.). Mu¨nchen, Germany. Lieber, H.-J., & Helmer, G. (1988). Marx-Lexikon. Zentrale Begriffe der politischen Philosophie von Karl Marx. Darmstadt, Germany. ¨ konomie. RohentMarx, K. (1974). Grundrisse der Kritik der Politischen O wurf. Berlin: GDR. Marx/Engels selected works. (1958–1983). Moscow: Progress Publishers. Rubel, M. (1968). Marx-Chronik/Daten zu Leben und Werk. Mu¨nchen, Germany: Carl Hanser Verlag. Sieferle, R. (1979). Die Revolution in der Theorie von Karl Marx. Frankfurt/M: Ullstein. Speth, R. (2000). Nation und Revolution. Politische Mythen im 19. Jahrhundert. Opladen, Germany: Leske & Budrich. Wellmer, A. (1986). Naturrecht und praktische Vernunft. In E. Angehrn & G. Lohmann (Eds.), Ethik und Marx (S. 197& –238). Ko¨nigstein/Ts. Zimmermann, R. (1985). Utopie – Rationalita¨t – Politik, Zur Kritik, Rekonstruktion und Systematik einer emanzipatorischen Gesellschaftstheorie bei Marx und Habermas. Freiburg/Mu¨nchen: Alber.
Civil Society Theory: Montesquieu CLAUDIA OPITZ-BELAKHAL Universita¨t Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Brief Biography of the Theorist Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Bre`de et de Montesquieu, was born on January 18, 1689 in the Chaˆteau de la Bre`de near Bordeaux and died on February 10, 1755 in Paris. Born into an old noble family of the Bordelais, Montesquieu accomplished his classical and literary studies at the College of the Oratorians of Juilly near Paris in 1705. Between 1705 and 1708 he studied law at the University of Bordeaux and in 1715, after a second stay in Paris, he got married to the Protestant noblewoman Jeanne de Latrigue who brought him a substantial dowry and with whom he had three children. The following year, he inherited a fortune upon the death of his uncle as well as the title ‘‘Baron de Montesquieu’’ and ‘‘Pre´sident a` Mortier’’ in the ‘‘Parlement de Bordeaux.’’ Nine years later, he resigned from his office and gave himself entirely to study. Some time earlier, he had achieved literary success along with some scandal by anonymously publishing his Lettres Persanes (1721), a novel based on the imaginary correspondence of two Persians who point out the absurdities of the contemporary French society and state while visiting Europe and Paris. Due to the scandal surrounding the book, Montesquieu was elected member of the ‘‘Acade´mie Franc¸aise’’ only in 1729 although he had been a candidate some time before.
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In younger years, Montesquieu had gone on a travel through Europe, spending 1 year in Italy and 18 months in England where he had become a member of the ‘‘Royal Society’’ and of a Masonic Lodge before resettling in France. These experiences became an inspiration for his work on The Spirit of Laws (De l’Esprit des Lois), a comparative study of political systems, constitutions and traditions published in 1748 which had kept him busy for almost 20 years. Earlier on, he had published two novels – Le Temple de Gnide (1724) and Arsace et Isme´nie (1730) – before he took up his historiographical and political studies on the Roman Empire which resulted in the Conside´rations sur les Causes de la Grandeur des Romains et de leur Decadence published in 1734. At an older age, Montesquieu was handicapped by poor eyesight and had gone completely blind by the time he died from a high fever in 1755. He is buried in the church of Saint Sulpice in Paris.
Main Lines of Argument Montesquieu’s major work, De l’Esprit des Lois (publ. 1748) quickly rose to enormous influence although it met some harsh criticism, especially in France, for including old-fashioned climate theory and stating that the climate may substantially influence man’s nature and human society. Montesquieu reacted against this criticism by writing a defence on his book, entitled La De´fense de L’Esprit des Lois and published in 1748. In 1751 the Roman Catholic Church banned De l’Esprit des Lois along with most of Montesquieu’s other works and put it on the Index accusing the publication of containing severe attacks against papacy, celibacy and church law. Yet, De l’Esprit des Lois received highest praise from liberal thinkers in Europe and North America where the writing directly influenced the Virginia Constitution. In his complex and sometimes diffuse treatise Montesquieu analyzes ‘‘the interrelations that laws must have with the structure of any government concerning customs, climate, religion, trade and so forth . . .’’ The work is therefore a mixture of traditional political theory and sociological and anthropological reasoning. There are, he says, echoing and somehow deforming Aristotle’s theory on politics, three main forms of government: monarchy, democracy and despotism. He further points out that these government forms not only depend on climate, geography, and the economic situation but run according to social principles: while monarchies rely on the principle of honour, republics rely on the principle of political or civic virtue and despotism relies on fear. Free governments are dependent on fragile constitutional arrangements and, therefore, monarchies as much as republics can more easily turn into despotic
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political systems than a despotic regime can be turned into a free(er) one. In monarchies and democracies (or republics) the behaviour of its citizens and people is a decisive force in the struggle against despotism, whereas in despotism it is the ruler himself who might establish a certain kind of freedom – like, for example, Tsar Peter the Great who decided to reform Russia’s inherited despotic government structures. But interestingly enough, in all cases not only men’s but equally women’s behaviour is crucial for the success or failure of liberty. Therefore, Montesquieu includes a brief but systematic comparison of women’s situations in different political systems (chapter VII.9) saying that women in despotically ruled countries in the South and in the Orient endure most misfortune because they have to live in slavish dependency and bondage. According to Montesquieu, women in the more temperate North – where monogamy is usual – women hold a strong position in marriage as well as in society and are clearly better off. Still, the fact that women dominate marriage and society alike is perceived to be dangerous for the political system there – democracy – that will likely either turn into a monarchy – where luxury rules together with women’s pleasure, like Montesquieu puts it – or into despotism where women have to live in domestic slavery. Democracy appears to be a fairly unstable system which tends to overwhelm its citizens, women even more than men, for ‘‘in the republics women are free according to the laws and captive according to the customs’’ (ibid.). Consequently, according to Montesquieu, monarchical government offers the best conditions for women as much as for men. Women here not only can inherit and possess wealth and buy all sorts of luxury, but the mixture of liberty and constraint, of passion and reason, of vanity and luxury inherent in monarchical government also allows them a certain amount of power and influence as can be seen at the French Court or in the Parisian salons. It is here that one can find most ‘‘civilization’’ of manners and customs. In fact, in The Spirit of Laws one cannot explicitly find the term ‘‘civil society’’ which has actually been coined by the Scottish social philosopher Adam Ferguson only in 1759, but Montesquieu uses already terms like ‘‘esclavage civile’’ (civil serfdom) or ‘‘liberte´ civil’’ (civil liberty) to describe social settings and mechanisms. In Montesquieu’s description of the gender-mixed salons and semi-domestical ‘‘circles,’’ one can discern at least an allusion to a modern civil society concept since salons and semi-domestical circles help to prevent despotism; just like the French nobility or the ‘‘parlaments’’ they
serve as ‘‘pouvoirs interme´diaires’’ intermediary powers, but are not part of the political constitution of the realm. By considering women and sociability to have a forceful influence on governments, Montesquieu overcomes powerful traditional models of political thinking and becomes one of the first modern sociologists: a specialist in societies which are ‘‘civil’’ by definition, since ‘‘civil’’ sociability and salons are not considered to be a possible replacement for political institutions or else a school for politically ambitious women. According to Montesquieu, women do actually have an important role and influence on politics, albeit not by political means though, but by their female character, especially their love of luxury. Due to a perfect combination of (self-) control and luxury liberty can and will reign. As diligent consumers, women help to establish and push forward (luxury-) trading which is in turn itself a forceful agency of civilization, as Montesquieu underlines in chapter XX.1, but is actually capable of corrupting virtuous morals in republics – as much as women are. In the salons, women are entertaining conversation, helping thereby to civilize their male companions who not only are salon visitors but also (potential) warriors. Yet, women should never be allowed to be public speakers, officeholders or citizens. For if they transgress the given gender limits, they not only transgress (moral) laws, but also endanger, willingly or not, the whole political system – although, in Montesquieu’s view, women endanger monarchies far less than, for example, republics where women’s moral behaviour is vital to the public as much as to the domestic order. Therefore, as Montesquieu further points out, women in republics of their own accord avoid the public sphere (since they feel ashamed to ‘‘go public’’) whereas in despotic regimes they are forced to stay at home or in the harem. The informal meeting and mingling of men and women in a space between familial domesticity on the one hand and political institutions on the other is, in Montesquieu’s view, the very expression of a stable and moderate monarchical government as much as of a liberal and social regime – hence a ‘‘(civil) society.’’ In The Spirit of Laws Montesquieu takes the welfare and suffering of women into consideration to this extent because he reflects the social, cultural, and material conditions of politics in a larger sense than his forerunners in Classical Antiquity or in the Renaissance did. To Montesquieu, society is the realm of the ‘‘social animals,’’ inhabited by women and men alike. Montesquieu, like many other Enlightenment thinkers, considers society to be no longer situated between a sphere of order guaranteed by absolute political power, and a sphere of anarchy, of contested or even destroyed political order through civil
Civil Society Theory: Montesquieu
war. In his view, human beings have already been ‘‘civilized’’ (women a little more than men) and society is then a sphere located between politics and domestic life. In Montesquieu’s view, this realm is not only considered a defence against despotic powers, but also places monarchical government as a sort of middle ground system between republics with an totally politicized everyday life and the total depolitization of despotic regimes. Montesquieu obviously shared the eighteenth century idea that (civil) society was the ground upon which any legitimate political and economic structure has to be built. At least, this is the definition found in the Encyclope´die where – in the article on ‘‘Philosophe’’ – it is said that ‘‘civil society (socie´te´ civile) is, so to speak, a divinity on earth,’’ i.e., an absolute moral power and a force in political life. But whereas the Encyclope´die promotes the ideal ‘‘civil society’’ as a ‘‘socie´te´ des gens de letters,’’ an association of learned people, Montesquieu did not consider literary life and learned institutions like the ‘‘acade´mies’’ or the ‘‘socie´te´s des lettres’’ to play an important role in civilising society. He agreed with most of the gallant French philosophers of his days who saw civil society as ‘‘a vast gathering of free and polite individuals – a kind of universal salon,’’ as Daniel Gordon puts it. And women seemed to be the most important agents within this ‘‘universal salon’’ simply because they did per se not have political power and public positions.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Still, it is puzzling that Montesquieu describes the policing role of women in rather negative terms. He once even speaks of their ‘‘corrupting’’ influence. However, this ‘‘corrupting’’ influence is in Montesquieu’s view not a real problem as long as it helps to uphold political and moral order. Therefore, it mostly depends on the government’s character whether women are dangerous or not. In monarchies for example, women help to ‘‘limit virtue,’’ as he says, for ‘‘virtue needs limitation,’’ whereas in democracies, women’s love of lust and luxury is devastating and could turn democracies into monarchies or even into despotism. Thus, as Dena Goodman puts it, ‘‘the philosophers allotted them [i.e. women] a dignity and a legitimate authority. At the same time, however, they defined in gendered terms different and complementary roles for men and women within that society and thus [. . .] inscribed gender difference in the conception of society and its governors.’’ What is even more troubling, Montesquieu in fact put a quite obvious political agenda on his book: His
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arguments follow his political convictions in many ways. He wanted to show that a ‘‘mixed’’ constitution such as the one to be found in England would be better for France than the then established absolutist monarchy. On the other hand, he is a fervent admirer of French salon culture and Parisian sociability. Consequently, Montesquieu’s political theory is not only a mixture of systematic and descriptive reasoning, but it is biased in various ways: It is Franco– as much as Eurocentric – because despotism, for example, the worst of all political regimes, is perceived to be a political system found almost exclusively in Muslim countries in Asia. Thereby, Montesquieu was one of the inventors of the concept of ‘‘oriental despotism’’ which still is a trope in vigour today. Moreover, Montesquieu’s analysis is deeply influenced by his reserves against republicanism as much as by his zeal of limiting monarchical power. As a result, he reduces the concept of civil society to a balancing factor for monarchical government (in France), limiting hereby narrowly women’s political roles and at the same time making them look to be a serious threat to republican government or democracies. Even if one takes into account that Montesquieu’s foremost interest was to outline a model of the making and transformation of political and legal systems and not to give an empirically correct description of the world, his writing is in no way an adequate or objective description of eighteenth century European and ‘‘Oriental’’ gender relations and/or political regimes. Hence, his book is a quite fragile basis for any discussion on civil society today. Still, Montesquieu’s book and arguments reminds one that ‘‘civil society’’ is – at least in its beginnings – an extremely biased concept in a gender perspective as much as in the perspective of different political systems or cultural traditions. In order to establish a less biased and more far-reaching conceptual framework, it still seems helpful to go back to its very roots and to decipher its ambiguous, even contradictory but always political implications.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society History I: Antiquity ▶ Civil Society History III: Renaissance ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Civil Society Theory: Aristotle ▶ Civil Society Theory: Ferguson ▶ Civil Society Theory: Paine ▶ Civil Society Theory: Rousseau
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Civil Society Theory: Paine
▶ Civil Society Theory: Smith ▶ Free Masons
References/Further Readings Althusser, L. (1972). Politics and history: Montesquieu, Rousseau, Marx. London: NLB. Baker, K. M. (1994a). A Foucauldian French Revolution. In J. Goldstein (Ed.), Foucault and the writing of History Oxford/Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.(pp. 195–96). Baker, K. M. (1994b). Enlightenment and the institution of society: Notes for a conceptual history. In W. F. B. Melching & W. R. E. Velema (Eds.), Main trends in cultural history Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi.(pp. 95–120). Goodman, D. (1994). The republic of letters: A cultural history of the French enlightenment. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. Goodman, D. (2001). Policing society: Women as political actors in the enlightenment discourse. In H.-E. Bo¨deker & L. Steinbru¨gge (Eds.), Conceptualising woman in enlightenment thought Berlin, Germany: Berlin-Verlag.(pp. 129–142). Gordon, D. (1995). Beyond the social history of ideas: Morrellet and the enlightenment. In J. Merrick & D. Medlin (Eds.), Andre´ Morrellet (1727–1819) in the Republic of letters and the French Revolution. New York: Peter Lang. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere. An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society (Trans. T. Burger with the assistance of Frederick Lawrence). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Keohane, N. O. (Ed.) (1980). Montesquieu: Constitutionalism and civic virtue. In Philosophy and the state in France. The renaissance to the enlightenment Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (pp. 392–419). Krause, S. R. (2002, October). The uncertain inevitability of decline in Montesquieu. Political Theory, 30(5), 702–727. Opitz-Belakhal, C. (2002). Aufkla¨rung der Geschlechter, Revolution der Geschlechterordnung. Studien zur Politik- und Kulturgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, Mu¨nster, Germany: Waxmann. Pangle, T. L. (1973 [1989]). Montesquieu’s philosophy of liberalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shackleton, R. (1961). Montesquieu; a critical biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Starobinski, J. (1953 [1981]). Montesquieu. Paris: Seuil.
Civil Society Theory: Paine FRED POWELL National University of Ireland-Cork, Cork, Ireland
Introduction "
These are the times that try men’s souls. . . .Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Tom Paine
Modernity gave birth to a movement called ‘‘modernism,’’ which was revolutionary in its impact, both in politics and
culture. It spawned a rigorous civil society. The debate about civil society in modern social and political thought started in the Old World but quickly crossed the Atlantic to the New World of the American colonies. Essential to the widening of the debate was Tom Paine (1737–1809), who dominated progressive political thought in Britain, France and America during the age of revolutionary struggle against absolutist tyranny in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. It was the simplicity and clarity of Tom Paine’s philosophy that made him so popular with an emerging political public ready for change. He questioned the source of government and its purpose, concluding sovereignty belongs to the people through the democratic expression of their will in civil society. At the core of Paine’s philosophy was natural rights theory. He asserted ‘‘natural rights are those which appertain to a man in the right of his existence.’’ Paine’s remarkable contribution was to turn Enlightenment humanism into a popular topic of public debate. In doing so, he was to reshape the course of world history. This was his monumental achievement that has defined modernity in terms of political values in the West and set a standard for the rest of the world to emulate.
Brief Biography of the Theorist Tom Paine was born in England at Thetford in 1737 and died in New York City in 1809. His brilliance as a pamphleteer, political agitator, controversialist, and popular interpreter of the Enlightenment values made him one of the great intellectual figures of his time. The son of a small business man and a family with Quaker beliefs, Tom Paine demonstrated intellectual ability from an early age, winning a place at a local grammar school. However, he was to abandon scholarship for a life at sea in his early teens. He returned to live a restless life in London and a variety of towns on the south coast of England, before finding a government position as an excise man in Lewes, where he married. Already his political outspokenness was apparent, when he was sent to lobby parliament in London in 1772 on behalf of excise men seeking better wages. His militancy was rewarded by dismissal from the public service. At the age of 37, he decided England no longer offered him a future and departed alone for the American colonies. His decision was a fortuitous one because it launched Tom Paine on a career as a revolutionary agitator with few peers in modern history. If democracy is to claim a modern revolutionary founder, it would be hard to find a candidate with a better claim to the title than Tom Paine, who interpreted its meaning to a vast public audience, eager for liberation from despotism.
Civil Society Theory: Paine
In America, he found a patron Benjamin Franklin (1706–90), statesman, scientist and founding father of the United States. This association was to launch Paine in history, propelling him to the highest levels of American political circles, on the side of independence. He became a close political ally of George Washington (1732–99), who admired his political genius. The publication of Paine’s pamphlet Common Sense, on the eve of the American Declaration of Independence in January 1776, made him a household name. It sold over 200,000 copies in a population of three million. The impact of Common Sense on the American Revolution can be compared to that of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the Civil War (1861–5). It made Tom Paine a celebrity in America. His description of King George III as ‘‘the Royal Brute of Great Britain’’ resonated with the oppressed colonists, mystified by the rule of a continent from a small European island. Paine’s republicanism won both their hearts and minds. Democratic ears warmed to his invective prose that castigated monarchy as an absurd and inherently corrupt form of government. One honest man, Paine opined, was worth ‘‘all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.’’ The choice, according to Paine, was between a tyrannical king, colonial domination and economic exploitation based upon unjust taxation or liberty, happiness and democracy in an independent republic. Paine had captured the revolutionary moment and articulated its case as no other contemporary, galvanizing the popular mood while framing the constitutional language of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. During the ensuing campaign for independence, Paine produced another 15 pamphlets relentlessly asserting the case for democratic revolution. Paine was rewarded with a position and modicum of power after the American Revolution by the grateful citizens of what he had, in 1777, named ‘‘the United States of America.’’ But at the height of his political fame in America, Paine’s natural restlessness asserted itself, drawing him back to Europe and new political campaigns for democracy. At heart, Paine was an internationalist, whose political ambitions were global. As Tom Paine put it himself, ‘‘my country is the world’’ and his ambition ‘‘to do good, my religion.’’ Paine’s irrepressible hope and creative political imagination were soon to embark on new skirmishes in the cause of democracy. Back in Europe, Tom Paine was to inspire another revolution. He responded to Edmund Burke’s conservative pamphlet Reflections on the French Revolution (1790), which sought to galvanize despotic regimes across Europe against the revolutionary tide of democracy. Paine produced his historic Rights of Man in two parts in 1791 and 1792. Burke and Paine were well-matched as the master
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voices of respectively conservative and radical thought. But in the Rights of Man, Paine left little doubt as to his revolutionary intent of over-throwing the existing tyrannical political order. Burke retorted with a hint to the authorities that Paine’s work was seditious, which was soon followed by a warrant for Paine’s arrest and the banning of the Rights of Man. The extraordinary popular success of the Rights of Man, which reached audiences of in excess of 200,000 in Britain and 100,000 in the United States, as well as bumper sales in Ireland on the eve of the 1,798 Rebellion, was too much for the embattled authorities to ignore, because it counterpoised democracy against hereditary power. Burke’s dubbing of Paine as a purveyor of sedition illustrated the paucity of the conservative case against democracy. But it also highlights the political dangers Tom Paine faced from his enemies. Public opinion was being turned against him in England, as an agent of the French revolutionary cause. Paine departed for France, ahead of a political trial to take his seat in the French National Assembly, as the representative for Calais. In France he was welcomed as a hero. The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen by the National Assembly in Paris was a triumph for Paine’s advocacy of democratic politics. He hailed it as a milestone in history: ‘‘truth has given it an establishment; and Time will record it with a name as lasting as its own.’’ But Paine was soon out of kilter with the Jacobins’ reign of terror. He refused to vote for the French king’s execution. His natural humanism and Quaker origins had not prepared him for revolutionary violence. He soon found himself incarcerated in the Luxembourg prison, after France declared war on England. He was lucky to escape with his life, largely due to the intercession of the American ambassador, James Monroe. Tom Paine now turned to his most controversial work The Age of Reason, published between 1794 and 1796. It was widely interpreted as an attack on organized religion from a secularist perspective. The Age of Reason was vilified by conservatives in England and shunned by his former revolutionary colleagues in America. In seeking to expose the superstition of organized religion, Paine had taken a step too far in challenging the popular imagination to think for itself in the Age of Reason. He lost his natural constituency. Remarkably, Tom Paine continued on his intellectual odyssey in his last important work – Agrarian Justice Opposed to Agrarian Law and to Agrarian Monopoly (1795) – linking his economic ideas to his previous political and social views expressed in The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason. In this work he moves close to socialism, discussing the iniquities of wealth and the injustice of poverty.
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While Tom Paine died in obscurity in America, a forgotten and forlorn figure, his legacy to revolutionary politics is seminal. Overshadowed by the Soviet (1917) and Chinese (1949) revolutions during the twentieth century, Paine’s revolutionary democratic brand of political change offers a powerful intellectual inspiration to campaigns to ‘‘democratize democracy’’ in the twenty-first century. Tom Paine is a quintessential modernist political figure that advocated the power of civil society to democratically confront tyranny through moral argument, based upon human rights and peaceful nonviolent protest, epitomized by the Velvet Revolutions of the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. But his work in its modernist orientation also identifies a radical tradition in civil society that challenges the liberal view of Paine’s near contemporary Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–59), much favored by present-day mainstream political opinion in liberal democracies. Paine’s modernist political legacy is a powerful testament to democracy, liberty and equality. That is the greatness of his achievement.
Main Lines of Argument John Keane’s authoritative biography Tom Paine: A Political Life (1995), in an exegesis on Common Sense, rests his analysis on this core distinction between state and civil society. It is essential to the modernist interpretation. Premodern concepts of the relationship between civil society and the state rested upon their unity. Such views were shaped by the political structures of Ancient Greek and Roman civilization. The Greeks located their concept of civil society (politike koinonia) in the institution of the agora, a site of political assembly or local market place, an interface between the public and private spheres of social life. For the Greeks, the polis or city state, constituted the body politic of citizens. The Romans used the term civitas to describe the city state, emphasizing the rule of law and civility (in public tastes and manners), as the overarching principles of a civilized society. For Tom Paine, the state and civil society had counterpoised meanings. He viewed the state as a system of governance that oppressed citizens. Its powers, according to Paine’s Common Sense, ought to be constrained because free citizens in a democracy needed to subordinate the state to civil society, rather than the other way round. Paine boldly asserted in Common Sense: "
Society in every state is a blessing but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without a government, our calamity is
heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. Government, like a dress, is a badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise.
Paine’s vision of civil society transposed previous subjects into citizens with rights. He viewed this transformed political landscape as the model for American governance. While the government of the United States was to rest upon the principle of representative democracy, as befitting the scale of a continental nation, civil society was to be essentially the voice of participatory democracy. Paine’s idealism as set out in Common Sense, his blueprint for the American Revolution, was perhaps misplaced. Women, slaves, first nation Americans and many other social groups were not included in the new political order. But his underlying arguments that supported citizenship, human rights and democracy were to act as a counterweight to the hegemonic forces that began to shape the United States into the most powerful economic and military nation in the world. American values continued to be contested by American civil society. In this respect, Paine was vindicated in his ambitions for American democracy. Tom Paine’s return to the European political stage in 1787, after his sojourn in America was to prove fortuitous for European democracy and evolving notions of civil society. Both the American and French Revolutions were products of the eighteenth century Enlightenment. However, they offered quite different interpretations of its meaning. For Americans (at least those within the ruling orders), liberty defined virtue. On the other hand, Europeans became preoccupied with the pursuit of equality as the defining virtue of the good society. Europe was emerging from a highly stratified feudal social order. The belief that it was only possible fundamentally to transform the ancien regime by revolutionary action into a new democratic order was the motor force driving European history. European notions of civil society devolved on the right to associative democracy. Europeans’ view of what that right meant went far beyond Alexis de Tocqueville’s bucolic picture of Americans associating in a utopian world, where communitarianism flourished. For Europeans, the right to associate encompassed political, economic and social rights. In other words, association envisaged a robust democracy, based on conflict, in marked contrast to the assured American consensus. European civil society grew out of clandestine Masonic lodges that sought to promote progressive political change, notably in France and Germany. Freemasonry
Civil Society Theory: Paine
emerged as the first substantive expression of this right to associate, building on medieval roots in guilds and brotherhoods. This was the political context into which Paine plunged with the publication of the declamatory pamphlet, The Rights of Man, in the early 1790s. His extraordinary statement of human rights was to set Europe ablaze with revolutionary ideas, rather like Karl Marx and Freidrich Engles’ publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848. Paine argued that citizens must be the source of sovereignty upon which government rested. Heredity, as the source of government, was at odds with natural rights in the modern world. The divine right of kings to rule was finished, according to Paine: "
It was not against Louis XVI but against the despotic principles of the government that the [French] Nation revolted. These principles had not their origin in him but in the original establishment, many centuries back; and they were become too deeply rooted to be removed, and the Augean stable of parasites and plunderers too abominably filthy to be cleansed, by anything short of universal Revolution. . . .The natural moderation of Louis XVI contributed nothing to alter the hereditary despotism of the Monarchy. All the tyrannies of former reigns, acted under that hereditary despotism, were still liable to be revived in the hands of a successor. It is not the respite of a reign that would satisfy France, enlightened as she then has become. A casual discontinuance of the practice of despotism, is not a discontinuance of its principles; the former depends on the virtue of the individual who is in immediate possession of power; the latter, on the virtue and fortitude of the nation.
Paine reinterpreted natural rights within the political realities of democratic society based upon citizenship. He equates civil society with civil rights: "
Hitherto we have spoken only (and that but in part) of the natural rights of man. We have now to consider the civil rights of man, and to show how the one originates from the other. Man did not enter into society to become worse than he was before, not to have fewer rights than they had before, but to have those rights secured (Paine’s italics).
In Part 2 of the Rights of Man, Paine addressed himself to the question of what he means by ‘‘civilized society’’ in a chapter entitled ‘‘Of Society and Civilization.’’ At the outset, Paine asserts the collective nature of civil society, ‘‘the mutual dependence and reciprocal interest which man has upon man, and all the parts of a civilized community upon each other, creates a great chain of connection, which holds it together.’’ He concludes, ‘‘no one man
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is capable without the aid of society, of supplying his own wants; and those wants, acting upon every individual, impel the whole of them into society, as naturally as gravitation acts to the centre.’’ In the Rights of Man, Paine states his position on the future role of government, seeing it as subordinate to civil society in an associational democracy: "
Formal Government makes but a small part of civilized life; and when even the best that human wisdom can devise is established, it is a thing more in name and idea than in fact. It is to the great and fundamental principles of society and civilization – to the common usage universally consented to, and mutually and reciprocally maintained – to the unceasing circulation of interest, which passing through its million channels, invigorates the whole mass of civilized man – it is to these things, infinitely more than to anything which even the best government can perform that the safety and prosperity of the individual and of the whole depends.
Paine’s view of government is very different from the despotic variety ‘‘government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.’’ Stripped of its despotic powers, in Paine’s view, government fuses with civil society as part of associational democracy. Clearly, he is open to accusations of utopianism. However, Paine’s view needs to be considered within the context of his doctrine of universal revolution.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Paine was a committed internationalist dedicated to changing the global political order in the cause of democratic revolution. He was the first modernist political activist to dedicate himself to the cause of world revolution. Others were to follow: Marx; Lenin; Trotsky, and Mao Zedong. Paine described himself as ‘‘a citizen of the world’’ and futuristically speculated on the possibilities of the ‘‘universal citizen.’’ His belief in human rights was to anticipate the UN Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 that laid down the basic elements of global citizenship. His hopes for democratic revolutions were significantly realized in the decolonization process of the twentieth century, which were the ultimate realization of his democratic ambition to make all human beings equal. Paine’s relevance to the present-day was highlighted when President Barack Obama, in his inauguration speech on January 20, 2009, cited Common Sense ‘‘Let it be told to the future world. . . .that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive. . .that the city and country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet it.’’ These words, originally read at the command of
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George Washington to his troops, provided President Obama with a metaphor for our present-day financial crisis that threatens democratic values and institutions. Paine’s vision of government subordinated to civil society was achieved during the twentieth century. The ideals of civic virtue and social obligation dominated social thought in the Western World between 1900 and 1975. They gave rise to the Welfare State as an antidote to the vagaries of the market and the iniquities of a society based on the principle of acquisitive individualism. Since the mid-1970s fiscal crises, including inflation, stagnation and external trade imbalances, have created new realities. The Welfare State had represented for many a growing civilization of expectations in which social obligation and civic virtue became synonymous. Paine’s dream was achieved, if only to be undone by welfare reform in the latter years of the twentieth century. Classical conservatism, once the most powerful critique of capitalism, does not exist in a postmodern world. There is no political movement in the developed world arguing the case for divine right of kings, landed aristocracies and organic and economic institutions that dominated Western civilization for millennia. In its place, liberal democracy has created a dynamic materialistic and all-pervasive global culture that we call postmodernity. All that is left of classical conservatism is a romantic yearning for a world of lost innocence, as is imagined to have existed prior to its transformation by capitalism and its ideological counterpart, liberalism. Burgeoning global capitalism, by curtailing national expenditure possibilities, has also undermined the Welfare State as the political solution to societal contradictions. Where do civil society and the state fit into the structure of postmodern society? We have noted the changing nature of the postmodern project in the West. It is, however, impossible to ignore the momentous events of 1989, when the Communist world collapsed during the Velvet Revolutions, in which civil society confronted tyrannical states in the name of democracy. This raises challenging questions about the future. Will the historical symbiosis between capitalism and democracy that characterized the West be generalized on a global scale? Should we not see the return to nationalism, fascism, and racism in Europe precisely as a reaction to this process of global unification? What future has civil society as a vehicle for social action and change in this new social order? How would Tom Paine have viewed this democratic challenge? One can take the pessimistic view and envisage the future role of civil society activists in terms of defensive politics as governments increasingly temporize with markets and unleash the full force of the security state.
As social divisions widen between class groups, gender groups, and ethnic groups, civil society activists can seek to advocate the cause of social justice by helping the socially-excluded to challenge fundamental inequalities. The politics of participation can become the touchstone of civil society in the twenty-first century as the emancipatory political dreams of the twentieth century disappear into the realms of historical curiosity. That is the pessimistic scenario. It suggests a vital but Sisyphean role for civil society in the future. It is very unlikely that Tom Paine would have accepted such pessimism. He would have viewed it as democratic defeatism. On the other hand, taking the Paine approach, one can embrace a more cosmically optimistic view of the future of the world and the role of civil society. The political changes we are witnessing at the beginning of this century are undoubtedly profound. But, arguably, even more profound changes are taking place in which the modernity with which we are familiar is being replaced by a new modernity, which some sociologists call postmodernity, others latemodernity, yet others postindustrial society or the information society. They agree, however, that this a ‘‘reflexive modernity’’ which is qualitatively different to anything experienced by humankind to date. In this transformed landscape, the concept of active citizenship that underpins civil society opens up a new site for democratic practice. The pursuit of an ethicallybased citizenship provides new space for social activism. In this context, the traditional conflict between capitalism and democracy is moved on to new ground. In essence, the struggle for recognition is against social exclusion, which can be defined as the absence of social, cultural and political rights. Social movements have become the embodiment of this new politics in which civil society is recuperating democracy by offering alternatives to the elite representative model. This has given rise to a Social Left that arguably is inspired by Tom Paine’s vision of civil society. No political thinker could be more relevant to late modern realities than Tom Paine, the apostle of democracy.
Cross-References
▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville
References/Further Readings Hook, S. (Ed.) (1969). The essential Thomas Paine. New York: Mentor. Keane, J. (1995). Tom Paine: A political life. London: Bloomsbury. Powell, F. (2007). The politics of civil society. Bristol: Policy Press.
Civil Society Theory: Rousseau
Civil Society Theory: Rousseau CLAUDIA OPITZ-BELAKHAL University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Brief Biography of the Theorist Jean Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1712 as the son of a failed watchmaker, and his whole life he spoke of himself as a citizen of Geneva, the prospering city Republic at the French border. He was one of the most influential philosophers and novel writers during the Enlightenment although he had never had a systematic education at school or university. Especially his political philosophy (the Contrat Social publ. in 1762) influenced the French Revolution and the development of liberal, socialist and (ex negativo) conservative theory. With his Confessions, Reveries of a Solitary Walker, and other writings, he influenced modern autobiography and encouraged a new focus on the building of subjectivity that bore fruit in the work of thinkers as diverse as Hegel and Freud. His novel Julie, ou la nouvelle Heloise (published in 1761) was not only a best-seller but most influential for the development of romanticism. His novel ‘‘Emile ou De l‘ Education’’ (publ. in 1762) became one of the most seminal texts for modern pedagogy and educational debates. He also made important contributions to music as a theorist and a composer. He led a quite instable life and had to face a lot of criticism and personal persecution for his writings on religion and politics although he never failed to find supporters and finance for his personal needs, even from within the French aristocracy. He had to flee once from Geneva and went to Savoy, where he met a French noblewoman, Mme de Warens, and turned from Calvinism to Catholizism. Then he went to Paris and from there to Venice. He had to leave Venice for a dispute with his master, the French Ambassador, therefore went back to Paris, where he spent most of his life as a writer and composer. For political reasons he had to leave Paris, too, and turned back to Geneva and to Calvinism to get back his Genevan citizenship in 1754. While in Paris, he had become friends with French philosopher Diderot and beginning with some articles on music in 1749, he contributed several articles to the latter’s Encyclope´die. His most noted work was an article on ‘‘political economy’’ written in 1755. Soon after, his friendship with Diderot and the Encyclopedists became strained. Rousseau returned to Geneva and lived in the nearby mountain village Motiers. But again, he had to flee: for his unorthodox religious ideas and life style he was chased
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by the village people; so he turned to England and stayed at David Hume’s house for some time in 1765 where he fell mentally ill and suffered from paranoid fantasies. He returned to France in 1767, and finally to Paris, where he married The´re`se Levasseur, his loyal companion for so many years. Rousseau spent his final years in deliberate withdrawal. He died at Ermenonville in July 2, 1788, and was reburied alongside other French national heroes in the Panthe´on in Paris, 16 years after his death, in 1794.
Main Lines of Argument In a civil society perspective, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s most important work surely is the ‘‘Contrat social’’ (Social Contract), which outlines the basis for a legitimate political order within a framework of classical republicanism. Published in 1762, it became one of the most influential works of political philosophy in the Western tradition. It developed some of the ideas mentioned in an earlier work, the article Economie Politique, featured in Diderot’s Encyclope´die. Rousseau claimed that the state of nature was a primitive condition without law or morality, which human beings left for the benefits and necessity of cooperation. As society developed, division of labor and private property required the human race to adopt institutions of law. In the degenerate phase of society, man is prone to be in frequent competition with his fellow men while at the same time becoming increasingly dependent on them – an idea he borrowed from David Hume and other liberal philosophers of his time. The double pressure of competition and dependence threatens both his survival and his freedom. According to Rousseau, by joining together into a political society through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural right, individuals can both preserve themselves and remain free. This is because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law. While Rousseau argues that sovereignty should be in the hands of the people, he also makes a sharp distinction between sovereignty and government. The government is charged with implementing and enforcing the general will and is composed of a smaller group of citizens, known as magistrates. Rousseau was bitterly opposed to the liberal idea that the people should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly. Rather, they should make the laws directly. For the sake of his model of a direct democracy, or a ‘‘political society,’’ Rousseau despised, on the other hand, the then widely spread idea of the civilization of manners or socie´te´ police´e, another term for civil society. Already in
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his Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750) Rousseau had challenged the widely-held belief that society had improved over time. In the Discours sur l’Ine´galite´ (1754), he continued to challenge the philosophy of history which underlay the Enlightenment narratives of progress from barbarity to civilization by championing l‘homme sauvage (the wild man) over l‘homme public (public man). In doing so, Rousseau denied the value of both civility and civil society and redefined gender roles. For Roussseau acknowledged the policing role of women; what he rejected was society – a civil society grounded on difference, as Dena Goodman put it (Goodman, 2001). In Rousseau‘s view, l‘homme police´ (the civilized man) was in no way superior to l‘homme sauvage (the wild man), and, even worse, the socie´te´ police´e was grounded in usurpation and injustice. The only legitimate orders for Rousseau were the natural order of the family and a political order rooted in the sovereign wills of the individuals (or, more exactly: adult males) who composed it. For in Rousseau’s polity, order is achieved by the elimination of difference which, in practice, meant the exclusion of women from it: not only did he assume that women were essentially different from men whereas men were essentially ‘‘identical,’’ but he identified women as the primary causes of differences (that is, conflicts) between men. In fact, in the Discours sur l’ine´galite´ (Discourse on inequality; 1755), civilization and conflicts alike begin with the passionate contact between men and women. So, for Rousseau as much as for the other French Enlightenment philosophers, difference was the reason for policing and at the heart of civil society, but fascinated by the classical (and by his time idealized) republicanism of the ancient Greek and Roman writers, he rejected sociability as the foundation of (democratic) political association. His polity is the unitary expression of a group of men who do not form a society because they are defined by their identity, not by their difference. The policing role of women, so dear to many Salon visitors and Salonnie`res of Enlightenment Paris, ‘‘was a red flag for Rousseau’’ (as D. Goodman puts it) not only because it put men under the governance of women, but because it compromised masculine ‘‘natural’’ freedom and thus violated nature. As a consequence, Rousseau radically eliminated society from his ideal world of family and state. Civility, to him, was antithetical to an order based on nature. All necessary civil or even civic education, though, had to be secured by the (patriarchal) family which he conceived of as ‘‘natural education.’’ As Ernst Cassirer put it, Rousseaus ‘‘radical opposition’’ to the Enlightenment was grounded on a rejection of the idea that ‘‘all political and social enterprise must stand on the same foundation.’’
(Cassierer, 1954). And Ju¨rgen Habermas underlines that ‘‘Rousseau projected the unbourgeois idea of an intrusively political society in which the autonomous private sphere, that is, civil society, emancipated from the state, had no place’’ (Habermas, 1989). Unlike the ‘‘general will,’’ which Rousseau described as an emanation of individuals acting in legislative institutions, the ‘‘public sphere’’ constituting a ‘‘public opinion’’ was defined as a product of private exchange – and this was exactly what he despised as ‘‘depraved’’ or ‘‘degenerated’’ egoism and lack of ‘‘civic virtue.’’ A multiplicity of wills, in Rousseaus view, could be unified into a general will only when these wills issued from individuals who thought like ‘‘citizens’’ rather than ‘‘men,’’ i.e., ‘‘private persons.’’ The general will was thus a unification of subjectivity effected through the enactment of ‘‘virtue’’ within a clearly demarcated political sphere. For Rousseau it was therefore crucial that the process of voting in the legislature take place without prior discussion so as to avoid the ‘‘corruption’’ that emerges when ohne thinks about what others are thinking. The exchange of opinions and arguments, i.e., ‘‘communication’’ and ‘‘public opinion,’’ in contrast, stands for those processes of interaction that could lead to conflict, manipulation and personal interest. ‘‘Virtue,’’ in Rousseaus view, implies the active involvement of individuals in government and political decision making, whereas ‘‘communication’’ refers to sociability in a ‘‘civil (not civic) society.’’ Moreover, as Dena Goodman states rightly, Rousseau ‘‘drew a line in the sand between (natural) masculine freedom and civil (governed) society. He thereby contributed not only to the ‘‘feminization’’ of the notion of society but demanded a reconfiguration of society, polity, and the place of women in both’’ (Goodman, 2001). Rousseau rejected the idea of a differentiated (civil) society and notions of the state as a political sphere for the powerful few legitimized by it, while bringing the theory of gender difference at the heart of a society-based notion of civilization and used it to ground two separate and gendered spheres: the moral sphere of the family, whose soul was the natural virtue of women; and the public sphere of the commercial economy and the state, in which men were driven by rationality and civic virtue.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Most writers today agree that Rousseau is something like an anti-civil society thinker with an outspoken anti-modernist approach. Keith M. Baker f. ex. points out that to accept a Rousseauian discourse means to reject a discourse of modernity, in which social progress goes hand in hand with social difference and differentiation; it means to reject the
Civil Society Theory: Shils
very notions of civilization and society associated with women as being outside the political community of citizen-men. It means to reject the Enlightenment theory of history as a progress onto liberty, happiness, and civilization (Baker, 1990). And Dena Goodman underlines: ‘‘By eliminating society, Rousseau eliminated difference from political discourse’’ (Goodman, 2001). Still, Rousseaus Contrat social and his radical thinking of the sovereignty of the people cannot altogether be left aside in further discussions of civil society. If one considers, as M. Edwards does rightly, that there are different conceptions of ‘‘civil society’’ in present-day discourse, there are still some lessons to learn from Rousseaus writings. He of course decisively rejected any idea of society as associational life but he fostered obviously the concept of civil society as the ‘‘public sphere’’ – ‘‘a whole polity that cares about the common good and has the capacity to deliberate about it democratically’’ (Edwards, 2005). ‘‘Civil society’’ as a political and radically democratic gathering of ‘‘citizens’’ was and still is a vision of many civil society activists and supporters – albeit one has to consider the deeply anti-modern and anti-feminist (even: anti-diversity) strand in this tradition of classical republicanism. Finally, Rousseau is certainly the most outspoken Enlightenment thinker of the concept of ‘‘civil society as the good society’’ (Edwards, 2005) by moralizing politics and politicizing morals, public as much as private ones, males as much as females. This is probably the most critical point in his thinking (and the reception of his thinking) until dotay. Even if one doesn‘t necessarily agree with Starobinski and others who think that the mentality of the Revolution, especially the Terreur, was but a reflection of the thinking of Rousseau (Starobinski, 1988; Blum, 1986; Baker, 1990), one should seriously consider today the obvious weaknesses of his conceptualization of politics and order in terms of diversity (be it gender, race, sex or class, or any other possible source of inequality). His highly moralized discourse though – the ways in which he drew lines as sharp demarcations f.ex. between women and men, public and private, nature and culture, good and evil – can no longer be an example for any debate on politics or on civil society.
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▶ Civil Society Theory: Montesquieu ▶ Civil Society Theory: Paine ▶ Civil Society Theory: Smith
References/Further Readings Carol, B. (1986). Rousseau and the republic of virtue: The language of politics in the French Revolution. Ithaca/New York: Cornell University Press. Daniel, G. (1992). Philosophy, sociology, and gender in the enlightenment conception of public opinion. In French Historical Studies, 17(4), 882–911. Dena, G. (1994). The republic of letters: A cultural history of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca/New York: Cornell University Press. Dena, G. (2001). Policing society: Women as political actors in the enlightenment discourse. In Hans-Erich Bo¨deker/Lieselotte Steinbru¨gge (Eds.), Conceptualising woman in enlightenment thought (pp. 129–142). Berlin: Berlin Vlg. Ernst, C. (1951). The philosophy of the enlightenment. (Fritz C. A. Koelln, & J. P. Pettegrove, Trans.). Boston: Beacon Press. Keith, M. B. (1990). Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French political culture in the eighteenth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Idem, Enlightenment and the Institution of Society. (1994). Notes for a conceptual history. In W. F. B. Melching & W. R. E. Velema (Eds.), Main trends in cultural history (pp. 95–120). Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi. Edwards, M. (2004). Civil society. Cambridge: Polity. Edwards, M. (2005). Civil society. In The encyclopedia of informal education, from www.infed.org/association/civil-society.htm. Habermas, J. The structural Transformation of the public sphere. An inquiry into a category of Bourgeois Society, transl. Thomas Berger etc., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jean, S. (1988). Jean-Jaques Rousseau: Transparency and obstruction (A. Goldhammer, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Judith, S. (1969). Men and citizens: A study of Rousseau’s socialtheory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ju¨rgen, H. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere. An inquiry into a category of Bourgeois society. (T., Burger, & F., Lawrence, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Polity Press. Lieselotte, S. (1995). The moral sex. Woman’s nature in the French enlightenment (P. Selwyn, Trans.). New York: Oxford University Press. Nannerl, O‘K. (1980). Philosophy and the state in France. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Civil Society Theory: Shils Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society History I: Antiquity ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Civil Society Theory: Aristotle ▶ Civil Society Theory: Ferguson
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FRANK ADLOFF Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Brief Biography of the Theorist The sociologist Edward A. Shils (1910–1995) – who worked in his younger years with Talcott Parsons but still managed
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to produce an independent theory of society – published several essays near the end of his life (Shils, 1997a) which deal with the concepts of civil society and civility and contain many important insights which have gone largely unnoticed in the current debates over civil society. Shils did not produce any monumental theoretical works. Instead he wrote many shorter investigations and essays which have had a significant impact on the debates within sociological theory (cf. Turner, 1999). He read widely, and his broad knowledge reveals itself throughout these shorter works. Shils was born in Philadelphia in 1910. He arrived at the University of Chicago in 1933, where he came into close contact with Louis Wirth and Robert Ezra Park, important members of the Chicago School (Bulmer, 1996). He soon secured a permanent position in Chicago – later also on the Committee on Social Thought – and taught there until his death. At the same time, Shils held various positions at English universities: from 1946 until 1950 he was a reader in sociology at the London School of Economics; in the 1960s a fellow at King’s College, Cambridge; from 1970 a fellow of Peterhouse in Cambridge and at the same time a member of the anthropology department at University College London. In the last years of his life, Shils was regularly invited to discussions at the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. It was in the context of these discussions that one of his central texts on civil society and civility appeared (Shils, 1991). Shils’ life and influence manifest a strong transatlantic connection. He was interested from a young age in the classics of European sociology and translated into English, for example, texts by Karl Mannheim and Max Weber (his methodological writings). Shils received many honors, among them the Jefferson Lectureship – a high accolade in the humanities in the USA – and in 1983 the Balzan award, an award similar to the Nobel Prize for fields without one. In 1962, he founded the journal Minerva in England. In the early 1950s, Shils was coauthor with the social theorist Talcott Parsons of such important works as ‘‘Toward a General Theory of Action’’ (1951) and ‘‘Working Papers in the Theory of Action’’ (1953). However, Shils had a stronger empirical orientation than Parsons and blazed his own paths, both while working with Parsons and after. The following quote documents Shils’ distance from Parsons’ attempt to lay out a general theory of society: ‘‘Theory will bear fruit in sociology only when it has been assimilated into the perception of concrete and particular events, and not as long as it is thought to be something which comes before and emerges from research’’ (Shils, 1957: 145). He gained recognition independent from
Parsons with an early military-sociological investigation, studied intellectuals and dealt with questions of modernization theory. In so doing he delved into fundamental problems of modernization theory in which Parsons was also involved (Joas and Kno¨bl, 2004: 442), namely with culture-theoretical questions and in particular with the relationship between power and culture. Here he systematically confronted Weber’s concept of charisma.
Main Lines of Argument Edward Shils’ (1972a) transformation of Weber’s concept of charisma is directed towards the question of the integration of modern societies. Max Weber too was not only interested in the ‘‘charismatic leader’’ and other exceptional cases, but also in the institutionalization of charisma and its integration into everyday life. However, Shils was the first to lay out systematically a concrete synthesis of charisma and everydayness. He brought together the late Emile Durkheim’s idea that every society regards something as sacred with Weber’s concept of the charismatic and proposed the thesis that one can find things, persons or institutions in all societies to which charismatic or sacred qualities are attributed (cf. Turner, 2003): ‘‘The attachment to the sacred cannot be evaded in any society. All societies regard as sacred certain standards of judgment, certain rules of conduct and thought, and certain arrangements of action. They vary only in the intensity and self-consciousness of their acknowledgment, the scope which they allow to the sacred, and the extent of participation in them’’ (Shils, 1958: 156). These institutions and symbols have a societally stabilizing function, because they express the bond to particular commonly shared values; they constitute the center of a society. These central and value-bound institutions – be they sacred or charged with charisma – are as a general rule esteemed, supported and acknowledged. In this way, Shils frees Weber’s concept of individual charisma on the one hand from its extraordinary, disruptive and transformative character, and on the other hand he also ascribed charisma to roles, institutions and symbols, and not only persons: ‘‘Where institutions, roles, persons, norms, or symbols are perceived or believed to be connected or infused with these charismatic powers, we say that they are perceived as charismatic’’ (Shils, 1972b: 110). According to Shils, the root of charisma lies in a cognitive as well as normative need for order, which he sees as anthropologically grounded. In particular, a society’s elites serve this need according to a (transcendental) order; and charisma is ascribed to them in the following manner (cf. Eisenstadt, 1995): initially the simple concentration of power in an institution incites the
Civil Society Theory: Shils
ascription of charisma, but this alone is not sufficient; there must also be a connection to a transcendent realm of values, for instance through a connection with the value of justice: ‘‘the justice of the Supreme Court is the link between the transcendent order and the earthly order’’ (ibid.: 134). The charismatic elements of a society’s center are endowed with esteem and deference. The most respected professions are those which stand nearest the society’s center (Shils, 1972d: 147), i.e., the society’s elites. Thus wealth can serve as the basis for societal recognition, esteem and deference, in so far as it goes hand in hand with a ‘‘commensurate lifestyle’’ which refers to recognized societal values. Solidified positions of deference also form the basis for social stratification processes: speaking Weberian, one could say that various corporative ranks are conferred with charisma – and thereby also deference – of varying intensity. Shils (1972c: 124f.) however reproaches Weber for being in essence only interested in the most intensive form of charisma – beyond the form it takes in everyday situations – and that he disregarded ‘‘the possibility of its dispersed and attenuated existence’’ (ibid.: 124). Weber negated the possibility ‘‘that charisma can become an integral element in the process of secular institutionalization’’ (ibid.: 125). However, the fact that Weber didn’t attribute an equal charismatic charge to all institutions of modern society – instead distinguishing between institutional complexes charged with varying intensities of charisma and between different historical threads – should not necessarily be seen as an error, rather quite the opposite. It should be emphasized that Weber saw a marked difference between the ‘‘pure’’ – i.e., extraordinary and revolutionary – forms of charisma and their institutionalized form – integrated into the everyday – and felt that this distinction should not be blurred, which is what Shils sometimes does. Every extraordinary charismatic relationship or authority is unstable and, for Weber, is confronted with the problem of how it can be perpetuated and be ‘‘transposed and bent into the ‘institutional’’’ (Weber, 1972: 661). For Shils, only through being bound to a charismatic center and the values to be found there can a modern, democratic and pluralistic society be integrated, for the tendency towards irresolvable conflicts of ideology and interest are inherent in such a society. A notable work in this context is his investigation – presented in 1953 together with Michael Young – of the coronation ceremony for the accession of Queen Elisabeth II to the British throne. Traditions, rituals, and ceremonies thus constitute for Shils a societally integrating cement. For Shils, there is no dichotomy of tradition and modernity; traditions are also to be found in modern societies.
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Whenever sacred or charismatic qualities are ascribed to them, social facts are clothed with the aura of tradition. Thus tradition and sacredness don’t die away in modernity; at the most they are sublimated. The appropriation and continuation of traditions are carried out principally by elites. Their positions of power and authority are ascribed with charisma and in this way they are also able to keep traditions alive. In this context, Shils also introduces the concept pair of ‘‘center’’ and ‘‘periphery,’’ which he construes not geographically or economically, but culture-sociologically. Each society has a center, which is defined through central values and notions of belief: ‘‘the center, or the central zone, is a phenomenon of the realm of values and beliefs. It is the center of the order of symbols, of values and beliefs, which govern the society. It is the center because it is the ultimate and irreducible; and it is felt to be such by many who cannot give explicit articulation to its irreducibility. The central zone partakes of the nature of the sacred. In this sense, every society has an ‘official’ religion, even when that society or its exponents and interpreters conceive of it, more or less correctly, as a secular, pluralistic, and tolerant society’’ (Shils, 1972e: 93). This value center is constituted and reproduced by elites; it radiates thereby into more remote ‘‘regions’’ – i.e., outwards into the periphery – where it thereby loses potency: ‘‘A society’s social, governmental, military, religious and cultural leaders cluster at the centre; followers, indifferent or alienated citizens, and disloyal dissidents are dispersed, or concentrate, at the periphery’’ (Bulmer, 1996: 14). Thus, unlike many social scientists of his time, Shils does not regard modern society as an anonymous mass society. Society is not something constituted by individuals atomized by self-interest, but is instead held together by ‘‘an infinity of personal attachments, moral obligations in concrete contexts, professional and creative pride, individual ambition, primordial affinities and a civil sense which is low in many, high in some, and moderate in most persons’’ (Shils, 1957: 131). Shils’ entire approach – and in particular his writings on civil society and civility – can be interpreted as a defense of liberal democracy, just as one can regard Michel Foucault’s and Ju¨rgen Habermas’ analyses as critiques of the same (see Turner, 1999). Seen in contrast to Carl Schmitt, Shils’ position is clear: as is well known, in the text ‘‘The Concept of the Political’’, Schmitt levels the critique that liberalism has transformed the political concept of struggle as well as the distinction between friend and enemy into the concept of (parliamentary) discussion. For Schmitt, liberalism is distinguished by the depoliticization and neutralization of societal spheres such as
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the market, religion, law, science, and culture. The liberal politics of discussion hold that these neutralized zones should not be sources of conflict; instead they should be withdrawn from the discussion. Indeed, according to Schmitt, such politics quickly become undemocratic whenever they refuse to make these neutralizations and demarcations objects of democratic politics. In defense of liberalism, Shils introduces into this debate the concept of civility. Civility excludes particular content from the political discussion – content which is thus depoliticized and neutralized. Shils sees rooted in liberalism the necessity that limits are drawn around politics: he considers a discussion without such limits to be destructive (cf. Turner, 1999). While for Habermas the problem of liberal democracy consists in the fact that not all possible issues are discursively fluidized, and thus that particular areas of the economy, technology, science, etc. are not made into objects of discursive confrontation, Shils reveals himself to be a defender of this liberal bearing. Civility presupposes that fundamental societal institutions and rules are consensually accepted and also that not everything is sucked into the maelstrom of political conflict: ‘‘the political system of freedom must, for the most part, be accepted by its members, at any particular moment, as given. It must be the product of a free acceptance in which a belief in the sacredness of the order as a whole is latent. The intrinsic and autonomous value of the other man, of the other party, and of the institutions within which they meet, be they the parliamentary body or the university or the system of industrial negotiations, must be accepted as given’’ (Shils, 1958: 157). Thus, for Shils, a free society also has to rely on traditions, in which this connection to sacredness is preserved and reproduced. A liberal democratic society which is at the same time a civil society embodies enough civility for ‘‘struggle’’ and special interest politics to be kept within certain limits through an orientation towards the common good. Thus a civil society can also not be based primarily on primordial ties; members of the society must see each other as fellow citizens and not as fellow kinsmen (Shils, 1997b: 71). The members of a civil society may belong to quite different social spheres, but they regard each other reciprocally as fellow citizens and relate themselves to the center of the society as a whole. Civility – or civic spirit – is the typical way of thinking and acting in a civil society, which expresses itself in the binding of individuals to the society as a whole. The central institutions – sacred and charged with charisma – are esteemed and supported, and members of the society recognize that they have to consider the whole society and the common good in their
actions. A liberal democracy depends on this consideration, and can only survive if it is maintained, such is Shils’ conviction. As civility is directed towards a society’s center, the forms and limits of a society are also affected. The orientation towards a common good functions best through the social conditions of nation and patriotism, whereby, of course, the danger also exists that these orientations could also slide into an uncivil nationalism. Every part of the society needn’t necessarily be equally civil. According to Shils, the center should possess a higher level of civility than the periphery: ‘‘A civil society is imperiled if there is a low degree of civility within and between its centers. [. . .] Incivility within the centers and among them breeds incivility in the citizenry (. . .)’’ (ibid.: 86). Particular institutional complexes are a necessary precondition for the existence of a civil society – e.g., representative government, competing political parties, regular elections, a secret ballot, universal suffrage, an independent judiciary, a free press, the freedom of association, independent educational institutions, private property and the freedom of contract – but these complexes are not sufficient conditions; there must also be a public civility. These institutional complexes also require that society is differentiated functionally, in other words that autonomous institutions and spheres of action exist which are clearly distinct from families, clans, and the state. More explicitly, in Shils’ own words, ‘‘the pluralism of civil society is twofold. Its pluralism comprises the partially autonomous spheres of economy, religion, culture, intellectual activity, political activity, etc., vis-a`-vis each other. [. . .] The pluralism of civil society also comprises within each sphere a multiplicity of many partially autonomous corporations and institutions; the economic sphere comprises many industries and many business firms; the religious sphere comprises many churches and sects; the intellectual sphere comprises many universities, independent newspapers, periodicals and broadcasting corporations; the political sphere many independent political parties. There are many independent voluntary philanthropic and civic associations, etc.’’ (Shils, 1997c: 330). The institutional autonomy of different spheres of action is a conditio sine qua non for the existence of a modern civil society. These are undergirded by ‘‘supporting institutions’’ – e.g., voluntary associations and coalitions which exercise the civil rights of association, assembly and representation or competition. The sociological question which then arises with regard to civility is in which institutions or sections of the population civility is more strongly anchored (cf. Pye, 1999). Universities, for example, are institutions which should be oriented towards the truth alone, and
Civil Society Theory: Shils
professors should thus stand outside the political conflicts of the day. Churches, straddling worldly and otherworldly aspects, can all the same become important actors in a civil society. The upper classes can display both a tendency towards the acceptance of responsibility and an orientation towards the common good as well as an at times harsh incivility. The working class and the lower middle class serve, according to Shils, mostly as the bulwarks of a civil society, as they rarely actively incite revolution or subvert civic order. Shils orients his concept of civility towards Montesquieu’s concept of republican virtues – for Montesquieu, virtue in a republic is love for that republic. For Shils, the virtue of liberal democratic societies is their civility. The link to Adam Ferguson here is also clear, since Ferguson warns on the one hand of despotic power and on the other hand of an excessive pursuit of private interests in the market economy. He analyses how the capitalist economy liberates and rewards self-interest. For Ferguson, it is essential that in a civil society politically engaged citizens fulfill their noncommercial, ethical ambitions. Part of these ethical ambitions are the ‘‘polished and refined manners’’ on which Shils places particular value. Civility is for Shils a bearing towards the society as a whole: ‘‘civility is an appreciation of or attachment to the institutions which constitute civil society. It is an attitude of attachment to the whole society, to all its strata and sections. It is an attitude of concern for the good of the entire society’’ (Shils, 1997c: 335). The actions of a particular person are to be characterized as civil when his individual consciousness has ‘‘been partly superseded by his collective self-consciousness, the society as a whole and the institution of civil society being the referents of his collective self-consciousness’’ (ibid.). This also implies that the dignity of others is honored equally – that one treats others with respect and regard, no matter what position they might hold. Political adversaries are consequently also regarded as members of the same political community, which is to go beyond courtesy and good manners. Civility is thus for Shils – once again with reference to Carl Schmitt – the opposite of a splitting of society into friend and enemy: ‘‘without such civility, a pluralistic society can degenerate into a war of each against all’’ (ibid.: 341). Here Shils refers, for the sake of example, to the conflicts in the Weimar Republic and in the Russian Czardom at the end of the First World War. Whether political adversaries can actually agree on a common good is not the crucial matter here; their reciprocal recognition as members of an ‘‘inclusive collectivity’’ is much more important. Civil society is, as it were, the institutional, cognitive and normative answer to that
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unavoidable fact of modernity, namely pluralism and individualism (cf. Shils, 1991).
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society While in the early 1990s Shils saw the future of civil society in Middle and Eastern Europe in a relatively positive light, his judgment of the European Union was more skeptical. National societies offer their members more possibilities for identification with the center and the common good, so that a single European civil society – and not merely several European national civil societies – still seems quite far away: ‘‘for Europe to become a single, albeit very differentiated, civil society, it will have to come forward much more prominently in the collective selfconsciousness of European individuals‘‘(Shils, 1997c: 355). The European Union is still confronted with this challenge today. In most debates over civil society these days, a sphereoriented definition of civil society is postulated. Thereby, civil society is understood as an independent sphere of society, which can be distinguished from the family, the state and the economy. Free associations are often regarded as the typical organizational form taken by this sphere – for Tocqueville, Putnam, Habermas, Dahrendorf and many others. On the other hand, there is an interaction-oriented and more normative definition, which refers less to a differentiated sphere of civil society than to a communitarian or republican perspective from which particular motives and modes of actions are normatively preferable. Civility and public or civic spirit are distinguished here as ‘‘virtuous’’ and seen as the epitome of action in a civil society. Shils’ particular contribution to the civil society debate is to propose a combination of sphere-oriented and interaction-oriented definitions of civil society. However, this is not to say that he simply combines these two perspectives. The sphere of civil society is for him not limited to the voluntary, self-organized sector of nonprofit organizations and associations. The autonomy of functionally differentiated spheres of action is for him the fundamental institutional precondition for civil society. But only through a civil bearing – which means more than just ‘‘good manners’’ – can a civil society come to fruition. For Shils, civility in a civil society means an orientation towards a sacred center of society; it is a matter of the realization of the ideals of a politics which is directed towards public compromise and understanding, agrees to nonviolence, acknowledges plurality and differences, and is oriented towards the common good.
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One of the few social scientists who have followed Shils in his fundamental considerations of the concept of civil society is the sociologist Jeffrey Alexander. He gave Shils’ concept a discourse-analytic turn: civil society possesses for him certain cultural codes and narratives. In Alexander’s understanding – following Shils’– it is a matter here of a genuine cultural-symbolic sphere, a sphere of collective consciousness. This is structured according to the dichotomy of pure/impure or sacred/ profane. This cultural grid lies at the foundation of every culture: ‘‘just as there is no developed religion that does not divide the world into the saved and the damned, there is no civil discourse that does not conceptualize the world into those who deserve inclusion and those who do not’’ (Alexander, 1998: 98). A society consequently classifies according to dichotomous codes what it considers to be ‘‘good’’ civil society and what is excluded as ‘‘impure’’, ‘‘contaminated’’ or ‘‘uncivil’’. In contrast to Shils’ approach, Jeffery Alexander’s research program primarily amounts to a discourse-analytical reconstruction of what counts as civil or uncivil in a society, while thereby abstaining from any normative evaluation of the functionality of this distinction.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Dahrendorf ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Civil Society Theory: Ferguson ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Montesquieu ▶ Civility ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Schmitt, Carl ▶ Uncivil Society ▶ Weber, Max
References/Further Readings Alexander, J. (1998). Citizen and enemy as symbolic classification. In J. Alexander (Eds.), Real civil societies (pp. 96–114). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bulmer, M. (1996). Edward Shils as a sociologist. Minerva, 34, 7–21. Eisenstadt, S. N. (1995). Power, trust, and meaning. Essays in sociological theory and analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 167–201. Joas, H., & Kno¨bl, W. (2004). Sozialtheorie. Zwanzig einfu¨hrende Vorlesungen. Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp. Pye, L. W. (1999). Civility, social capital, and civil society: Three powerful concepts for explaining Asia. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 29(4), 763–782. Schmitt, C. (1976 [1926]). The concept of the political. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Shils, E. A. (1957). Primordial, personal, sacred and civil ties: Some particular observations on the relationships of sociological research and theory. The British Journal of Sociology, 8(2), 130–145.
Shils, E. A. (1958). Tradition and liberty: Antinomy and interdependence. Ethics, 68(3), 153–165. Shils, E. A. (1972a). The constitution of society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shils, E. A. (1972b). Charisma. In E. A. Shils (Ed.), The constitution of society (pp. 110–118). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shils, E. A. (1972c). Charisma, order, and status. In E. A. Shils (Ed.), The constitution of society (pp. 119–142). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shils, E. A. (1972d). Deference. In E. A. Shils (Ed.), The constitution of society (pp. 143–175). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shils, E. A. (1972e). Center and periphery. In E. A. Shils (Ed.), The constitution of society (pp. 93–109). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Shils, E. A. (1991). Was ist eine civil society? In K. Michalski (Ed.), Europa und die Civil Society, Castelgandolfo-Gespra¨che 1989 (pp. 13–51). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Shils, E. A. (1997a). The virtue of civility. Selected essays. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Shils, E. A. (1997b). Civility and civil society. Good manners between persons and concern for the common good in public affairs. In E. A. Shils (Ed.), The virtue of civility. Selected essays (pp. 63–102). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Shils, E. A. (1997c). The virtue of civility. In E. A. Shils (Ed.), The virtue of civility. Selected essays (pp. 320–355). Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Shils, E. A., & Janowitz, M. (1948). Cohesion and disintegration in the Wehrmacht in World War II. The Public Opinion Quarterly, 12(2), 280–315. Shils, E. A., & Young, M. (1953). The meaning of the coronation. Sociological Review I, 2, 63–81. Turner, S. (1999). The significance of Shils. Sociological Theory, 17(2), 125–145. Turner, S. (2003). Charisma reconsidered. Journal of Classical Sociology, 3(1), 5–26. Weber, M. (1972 [1922]). Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriß der verstehenden Soziologie. Tu¨bingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Civil Society Theory: Smith LISA HILL University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia
Brief Biography of the Theorist Adam Smith (1723–1790) was a leading figure of the ‘‘Scottish Enlightenment’’ and, among other things, Chair of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. He is best known as a pioneer of political economy but he was also a moral philosopher with a keen interest in social theory and human psychology. Smith’s first major work was The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) but he is better known for An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) which secured his reputation as the ‘‘father’’ of modern economics. Smith’s most
Civil Society Theory: Smith
influential ideas relate to his theory of ‘‘natural liberty,’’ the free market and his belief in the positive effects of selfinterest.
Main Lines of Argument Markets and the System of Natural Liberty. For Smith, the realm of uncoerced collective action was naturally very large and he regarded the market as almost synonymous with what would now be referred to as ‘‘civil society.’’ Smith perceived beneath the complex of seemingly arbitrary social arrangements and artificially imposed institutional constraints on human behavior a system of natural and spontaneous social and economic relations which, when left to itself, would function harmoniously. The existence of this self-organizing social and economic system is defended in Smith’s antirationalist account of the manner in which the general equilibrium of society emerges spontaneously from the seemingly random behaviors of individual actors. Rather than being the result of conscious planning and design, order is the product of subrational, internal processes played out at the micro-level of individual human action. Smith rejects such historiographic ‘‘fictions’’ as contractarianism, great legislator myths and the diffusionist theory of civilization and assumes that rationality and long-term, deliberate planning play only a minor role in the unfolding of human history. Instead, human drives secure social order. The most important of these drives is self-interest. Self-interest. Though he was neither the only, nor the first, to explain why benevolence could not sustain a modern, commercial society, Smith’s was, arguably, the most subtle account to date of the impracticality of benevolence as the basis for social life. In Smith’s spontaneous system of ‘‘natural liberty’’ each person is by nature the best judge of her own interest and should therefore be left unhindered to pursue it in her own way. She is able in this manner to achieve, not only her own best advantage, but that of society as well. It was this belief in a natural order that led Smith to make his celebrated statement that in pursuing their own advantage each individual was ‘‘led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention’’ namely the general welfare and prosperity of the nation (1979 [1776], IV.ii.9: 456). Smith’s economic agent is consistently self-regarding, self-sufficient, utility maximizing, pecuniary, competitive, and acquisitive. Each person ‘‘is fitter to take care of himself than of any other person’’ therefore ‘‘it is fit and right’’ that we are all self-regarding creatures (1976 [1759], II.ii.2.1: 82). The ‘‘desire’’ of fortune and ‘‘of bettering our condition’’ is instinctive and ‘‘naturally’’ insatiable (1979 [1776],
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II.iii.28: 341). Self-preservation is the first task suggested by nature, reflecting the Creator’s desire for people’s physical safety, security, prosperity, and perpetuation (1976 [1759], VII.ii.1.15–1.16: 272; ibid., II.ii.2.1: 82). Such a task must be entrusted to utterly dependable ‘‘original and immediate instincts’’ because benevolence (or ‘‘beneficence’’) could never be relied upon to secure the welfare of a being so thoroughly dependent on things external to it. Without beneficence society may ‘‘still be upheld by a mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed evaluation’’; society is no longer an intimate community of otherregarding agents locked together in necessitous and ascribed relationships but is bound together by contracts and ‘‘a sense of its utility.’’ Beneficence certainly makes life more pleasant but it plays, at best, a marginal role in the ultimate goals of human existence: survival, ‘‘the support of the individual’’ and the achievement of social recognition (1976 [1759], II.ii.3.2–3.3: 86). Yet Smith’s world is not a chaos of unbridled selfishness; due to the workings of temperate ‘‘sympathy’’ and the ‘‘impartial spectator,’’ social relations are spontaneously and adaptively harmonized. Social Physics: Sympathy and the Impartial Spectator. The ‘‘impartial spectator’’ is a moral faculty that works in concert with sympathy to monitor ‘‘passions and appetites,’’ constantly judging ‘‘how far each of them was either to be indulged or restrained’’ (1976 [1759], III.5.5– 5.6:165–166). Together sympathy and the impartial spectator limit conflict, regulate selfish drives and exact precise fulfillment of contracts; without them, society could not possibly function. Smith described the operations of the impartial spectator in the following terms: ‘‘We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behavior, and endeavor to imagine what effect it would, in this light, produce upon us. This is the only looking glass by which [we] can, in some measure, with the eyes of other people, scrutinize the propriety of our own conduct’’ (1976 [1759], III.1.5–1.6: 112–113). Meanwhile, sympathy is not, as might be imagined, synonymous with beneficence, ‘‘pity,’’ or ‘‘compassion,’’ but ‘‘denote[s] our fellow-feeling with any passion whatever’’ (1976 [1759], I.i.1.5: 10). The act of sympathizing involves placing ourselves in the position of the person under observation and imaginatively experiencing her state of mind. The person under consideration reflexively reciprocates and imaginatively adopts the perspective of those observing her in order to carefully calibrate and moderate her behavior accordingly. The impartial spectator is thus the mechanism by which one regulates her own and others’ behavior while the degree of sympathy registered determines the extent to which the impartial spectator either bestows or withholds social approval.
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In commercial transactions, sympathy is elicited by fair play and financial success. Striving and achievement is universally applauded but, no matter how intense the competition, there can be no ‘‘violations of fair play’’ and the laws of natural liberty at the risk of losing the muchdesired ‘‘sympathy’’ of the impartial spectator (1976 [1759], II.ii.2.1: 83). The successful and active commercial agent constantly seeks to augment ‘‘his fortune’’ but it is not for the sake of the ease or convenience afforded by wealth but in order to be regarded with sympathy and approval by our ‘‘fellows’’ (1976 [1759], I.iii.2.ii: 50–51).
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society The Organized State
Smith’s economic thought has been highly influential in shaping contemporary expectations of the state’s proper role in the economic realm. Given the self-organizing character of society and the economy, Smith regarded the organized state as, generally, an obstruction to social equilibrium and a thriving economy; conversely, an expanding free market is the main guard of civil society due to its role as a bulwark against the potentially noxious power of the state. Smith wrote that once ‘‘[a]ll systems either of preference restraint’’ have been ‘‘taken away, the obvious and simple system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord.’’ On the belief that such a system was capable of spontaneously delivering economic prosperity, he famously advocated a small, unobtrusive state. Yet, though, ideally minimal, the state is absolutely necessary because there are some collective action problems that cannot be resolved by market mechanisms alone. Within ‘‘the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to,’’ namely, defence, justice, and public works or infrastructure (1979 [1776], IV.ix.51: 687–688). The provision of defence, both internal and external is necessary in order to maximize human happiness and permit commerce to flourish. The state should not only act to address the problem of ‘‘injustice or oppression’’ between compatriots but should also provide security from ‘‘violence and injustice’’ perpetrated against the nation by ‘‘other independent societies’’ (1979 [1776], V.i.a-b.39–44: 705– 708). When ‘‘[t]he natural effort of every individual to better his own condition’’ is unleashed under conditions of ‘‘freedom and security’’ the society will be prosperous and happy (1979 [1776], IV.v.b.43: 540). Another means for facilitating commerce lies in the provision of a system of justice to enforce contracts and grant patents and copyrights. Smith wrote that an organized system of justice underpinned by regular policing and military defence affords ‘‘to industry, the only encouragement
which it requires, some tolerable security that it shall enjoy the fruits of its own labour’’ (1979 [1776], I.xi.n.i: 256). Finally, the state is responsible for the erection and maintenance of public works like ‘‘roads, bridges, navigable canals’’ and harbors, all of which ‘‘facilitate the commerce of any country’’ (1979 [1776], V.i.d.1–3: 724). The Civil Society of Specialization and Strangership
Smith’s sociology of commercial life displays considerable originality. His observations on the effects of specialization were particularly striking and they influenced the work of such later thinkers as Karl Marx and Emile Durkheim (Hill, 2007). The drive to specialize –which is innate – plays a central role in Smith’s economic and social thought. Specialization, and the exchange culture to which it inevitably gives rise, leads to the development of a society where ‘‘every man. . . lives by exchanging’’ (1979 [1776], IV.1: 37). Over time, exchange has come to displace clan and familial displays of loyalty as the paradigmatic social interaction. Smith describes and endorses a community held together by amicable strangership and sustained by formal justice and cool virtues like probity, frugality, and punctuality. In moving from social intimacy, homogeneity, and the exigencies of security to a highly differentiated exchange culture, society has become more impersonal and yet at the same time there is more interdependence and mutual enablement than ever before (1979 [1776], I.ii: 30; I.ii.1–3: 25–28). A modern commercial society like Britain was affectively constituted as an ‘‘assembly of strangers’’ (1976 [1759], I.i.4.9: 23). Accordingly, classical ‘‘warm’’ virtues like charity, philanthropy, altruism, military valour, self-sacrifice, and especially benevolence were no longer sufficient to supply its members increasingly multifarious wants. The cooler, more temperate and reliable sentiments of prudence, propriety, and especially justice were best suited to that task (1976 [1759], III.6.9–6.11: 174–175). Smith thought that society could be adequately regulated and held together by cool virtues, the division of labor, a regular system of justice and police, and the social physics generated by sympathy and the impartial spectator. He approvingly describes an atmosphere permeated, not by the spontaneous vitality of benevolent warmth, but by the constancy of legal rules and the steady constraints of social decorum (Mizuta, 1975). Smith’s ideal (liberal-commercial) civil society is more pacific, orderly, and predictable than its ‘‘rude and barbarous’’ stadial predecessors (the hunting, herding, and agricultural stages) partly because its regulating mechanisms are generated outside intensely emotional and exclusivistic social units like the family, the village, the umma or the feudal estate. A diffusion of ‘‘probity and punctuality’’ ‘‘always accompan[ies]’’ the development of commerce;
Civil Society Theory: Smith
in fact, the more commercialized a nation, the more are its people ‘‘faithful to their word.’’ In a mass society regulated by formal institutions of justice people naturally become more prudent and circumspect in their dealings with others. Self-interest leads every member of commercial orders to protect her reputation and to scrupulously ‘‘observ[e] every engagement’’ (1978B, 327: 538). Social behavior is now learned more diffusely and impersonally through interaction with the world at large, in ‘‘societies,’’ ‘‘associations,’’ ‘‘companies,’’ and ‘‘clubs,’’ in the ‘‘bustle and business of the world’’ (1976 [1759], III.3.25: 146; ibid., I.i.4.10: 23). Civil society is composed of ‘‘civilised,’’ self-governing, private individuals where enmity and suspicion are neutralized and the particularistic alliances generated by sectarianism, tradition, archaic norms and social location are ‘‘dissolved’’ (Silver, 1989). Though Smith endorsed the idea of good citizenship, it is a comparatively meagre and tepid characterization, consisting mainly of a ‘‘respect’’ for laws, obedience to ‘‘the civil magistrate’’ and a generalized, though not particularly energetic, interest in ‘‘the welfare of the whole society’’ (1976 [1759], VI.ii.2.10: 231). Smith was not oblivious to the disadvantages of progress; he thought that commercialization, and in particular the growth of cities, could have a pernicious effect on moral character. Specialization also has a detrimental effect on moral character because it ‘‘sinks the courage of mankind and tends to extinguish martial spirit’’ (1978B, 331: 540). Neither was Smith oblivious to the problems of isolation and alienation that absorbed the minds of contemporaries like Adam Ferguson (see, for example, 1979 [1776], V.i.g.12: 795–796). But, although Smith recognized the moral and social disadvantages of commercial progress, he ultimately rejected the simple social forms admired by Ferguson in favor of large scale, non-particularistic communities based on civilised strangership, ‘‘calculation,’’ ‘‘self-interest’’ and regulated by impartial justice. In this increasingly differentiated, mass society it is social distance, not social intimacy, that Smith promotes. The new voluntaristic civil society is preferable because it lacks the intensity and exclusivity of archaic societies and is capable of naturally and exponentially widening the circles of amity and association beyond the narrow confines of kinship, clientage, and security alliances. This new world is one that has to be negotiated mostly by and between strangers; accordingly the fierce passions attendant on feudal alliances must be superseded by tamer and more open modes of interaction. Since all strangers are now potential contractees or role-pair candidates, and not potential enemies, the exchange culture is, and must be, calm, open, rational, impersonal, polite, flexible, voluntaristic, and rule-governed. Such an order is generated and
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sustained by the division of labor and a regular system of justice and defence. Both developments break down the particularistic constraints of class and clan thereby unleashing the enormous productive power of individual, autonomous agents. Citizens are no longer bound together by total forms of governance, the exigencies of security, or the restrictive ties of place and tradition, but move about freely, anonymously, and in a modular fashion. Concluding Comments
Contrary to Fergusonian and Christian accounts, it is not the ‘‘soft spark’’ of beneficence that makes social life possible in the modern age because advanced commercial societies are too unwieldy to be held together by a drive so inconstant and random as spontaneous affection. Commercialising society is regulated and sustained by the bonds of contract (the primary mechanism of association), a regular system of justice, the self-government generated by internal psychological mechanisms like sympathy and the impartial spectator and the mutually-enabling effects of the division of labor. Rather than tearing communities asunder (as per Ferguson’s account) specialization generates unprecedented levels of mutuality. Now associations are increasingly voluntaristic, egalitarian, and mutually beneficial; a matter of purely instrumental mutual ‘‘good offices’’ (1979 [1776], I. ii.2: 26). The knot of intimate compatriots celebrated by Ferguson is, on Smith’s interpretation, restrictive, oppressive, precarious, intermittently traumatic but generally ‘‘indolent,’’ monotonous and dull (1980: 251) compared to Smith’s rich new ‘‘strangership’’ of the commercial age with its endless possibilities for social and material exchange, personal development, liberty, mobility, refinement, comfort, prosperity, and economic growth.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Civil Society and Economy ▶ Civil Society–Business Relations ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Civil Society Theory: Ferguson ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Social Cohesion
References/Further Readings Berry, C. J. (1992). Adam Smith and the virtues of commerce. Nomos, 34, 69–88. Hill, L. (1996). Ferguson and Smith on ‘‘Human Nature,’’ ‘‘Interest’’ and the role of beneficence in market society. Journal of the History of Economic Ideas, Adam Smith Special Edition, 4(1–2), 353–399. Hill, L., & McCarthy, P. (2000). Hume, Smith and Ferguson: Friendship in commercial society. In P. King & H. Devere (Eds.), The challenge to friendship in modernity. London: Frank Cass.
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Hill, L. (2001). The hidden theology of Adam Smith. European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 8(1), 1–29. Hill, L. (2007). Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and Karl Marx on the division of labour. Journal of Classical Sociology, 7(3), 339–366. Mizuta, H. (1975). Moral philosophy and civil society. In A. S. Skinner & T. Wilson (Eds.), Essays on Adam Smith. Oxford: Clarendon. Silver, A. (1989). Friendship and trust as moral ideals: An historical approach. European Journal of Sociology, 30, 274–279. Silver, A. (1990). Friendship in commercial society: Eighteenth-century social theory and modern sociology. American Journal of Sociology, 95(6), 1474–1504. Smith, A. (1976) [1759] The Theory of Moral Sentiments, D. D. Raphael and A. L. MacFie, (Eds), Oxford: Clarendon. Smith, A. (1978) Lectures on Jurisprudence, R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael and L. G. Stein (Eds.), Oxford: Clarendon. Smith, A. (1979) [1776] An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, (eds.), Oxford: Clarendon. Smith, A. (1980) Essays on Philosophical Subjects, I. S. Ross, (Ed.), Oxford: Clarendon.
Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ASPEN BRINTON Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA
Brief Biography of the Theorist Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America is a hallmark citation within contemporary civil society literature. Rarely does an academic work exploring the historical importance of civic associations finish without some reference to his work. Born in 1805 to an aristocratic French family, Tocqueville first traveled to America at the age of twenty-five. What began as a research trip to explore the American penal system resulted in his seminal work Democracy in America, appearing in two volumes in 1835 and 1840. Tocqueville lived and wrote through an epoch of French history when the future of democracy in Europe remained uncertain, but when the spreading equality of conditions seemed to confirm American’s democratic destiny. The transition from aristocracy to democracy captured Tocqueville’s intellectual interest for his entire lifetime, creating a body of work recognized as philosophically valuable by both his contemporaries and posterity. The 12th edition of Democracy in America went to press as the Revolutions of 1848 spread throughout Europe, and one more edition would appear in 1850 before Tocqueville’s death in 1859. His place within the Western Canon has been secure for many decades, as is his place as a forefather of the contemporary civil society discourse. His ideas still spark impassioned and controversial debate about what
democracy is, what American’s role in the world might be, and how civic associations shape modern societies.
Main Lines of Argument The Associational History of the Americans
In the first volume of Democracy in America, Tocqueville’s point of departure is the interface of immigrant settlers with the physical landscape of America’s unchartered territory. From this moment onward, Tocqueville’s observations are interwoven through the ‘‘novelty in the United States. . .that most vividly struck [him:]. . . the equality of conditions’’ (p. 9). When the early Americans came together to form an association, sail across the Atlantic, and build a new Puritan society, the basis of their covenant with one another was equality. From this origin, American democracy grew outwards, where associations helped to promote this ‘‘equality of conditions,’’ becoming part of the fabric of life holding people together on frontier lands without previously established governments, where one could observe ‘‘the birth and growth of that local independence which is still the mainspring and lifeblood of American freedom’’ (p. 44). Tocqueville’s enthusiastic descriptions of early townships and selfgovernment, contrasted with France’s aristocratic bureaucracy, form the first major foothold in Democracy in America for theorists and practitioners of contemporary civil society. Tocqueville described a world where liberty was balanced with duty, independence balanced with restraint, where The People governed effectively at the local level, turning to the state for assistance only rarely. It was indeed political associations, rather than civic associations, which occupied most of Tocqueville’s attention in Volume One. He expressed fascination with how Americans gathered together to fix common problems, to help those in need, to combat social ills, and to petition the government on behalf of minority interests. When elaborating upon the importance of political associations, Tocqueville articulates his well-known thoughts on the ‘‘tyranny of the majority.’’ He claims ‘‘freedom of association has become a necessary guarantee against the tyranny of the majority’’ (p. 192). Minorities gather together into groups to have their voice heard, utilizing the American tradition of forming associations to combat all sorts of practical problems, including political ones. The importance of associations in the history and social formation of the United States is a key aspect of Tocqueville’s analysis throughout his discussion of many topics, including of the institutional specifics of the democratic government, how federalism works, the spirit of the legal institutions (with clear influence from Montesquieu), as well as the maintenance of a democratic government
Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville
through the inculcation of proper mores, or what he calls ‘‘habits of the heart’’ (p. 287). Associations are not only essential to combat the tyranny of the majority within democratic governments, but Tocqueville also claims that associations help maintain the balance between the center and the periphery by being a counterweight to democracy’s natural tendency to create large central governments (p. 515). Situated in Volume One between the blessings of federalism and the habits of the heart born from America’s historical experience, associations in Volume Two come to occupy even more diverse roles within Tocqueville’s vision of democracy.
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associations; he evokes the distinction between civilization and barbarism, claiming that‘‘[i]f men are to remain civilized or become civilized, the art of association must develop and improve among them at the same speed the equality of conditions spreads’’ (p. 517). In one of his mostcited quips, he also asserts that ‘‘feelings and ideas are renewed, the heart enlarged, an understanding developed only by the reciprocal action of men one upon another’’ (p. 515). Without ‘‘self-interest properly understood,’’ associations cannot flourish; without associations, self-interest will overtake ‘‘self-interest properly understood.’’ Civic Associations
Self-Interest and Self-Interest Properly Understood
One of the key problems in the transition from aristocracy to democracy for Tocqueville is the loss of aristocratic virtues in democratic societies. With the equality of conditions, there are no more heroes and exemplars to hold up above the rest, causing Americans to seek other avenues to distinguish the socially hurtful from the socially helpful. In Volume Two, Tocqueville claims that conditions of equality give rise to the idea that helping others is a way of helping oneself and sustaining public goods. He observes how ‘‘enlightened self-love continually leads [the Americans] to help one another and disposes them freely to give part of their time and wealth for the good of the state’’ (p. 526). He calls this phenomenon ‘‘selfinterest properly understood:’’ ‘‘[i]t does not inspire great sacrifices, but every day it prompts small ones; by itself it cannot make a man virtuous, but its discipline shapes a lot of orderly, temperate, moderate, careful, and selfcontrolled citizens. If it does not will directly to virtue, it establishes habits which unconsciously turn it that way’’ (p. 527). The habit of association is one such habit, turning the otherwise self-interested individual unconsciously toward the virtues of cooperation, where people come to recognize others’ interests as bound up with their own. It is just after Tocqueville’s discussion of the how Americans combat the pernicious effects of excess individualism, and just before his discussion of self-interest properly understood, where he inserts his most wellknow passages about the benefits of associations. Since ‘‘[d]espotism. . .sees the isolation of men as the best guarantee of its own permanence’’ (p. 509), by corollary the freedom-loving Americans have developed habits of association, whereby ‘‘as soon as common affairs are treated in common, each man notices that he is not as independent of his fellows as he used to suppose, and that to get their help he must often offer his aid to them’’ (p. 510). He observes how Americans of ‘‘all ages, all stations in life, and all types of dispositions’’ (p. 513) turn towards
From these brief examples, one can understand why these particular pages of Democracy in America have received more attention from scholars and researchers of civil society than any other part of the 700-page tome. Even accepting that his whole oeuvre cannot be summed up through only the lens of civic associations, scholars very often come away from Tocqueville with a distinct impression that democracy would indeed be endangered without associations. The onslaught of equality, and the attending despotism, is inevitable for Tocqueville, so the line between civilization and barbarism really does seem to partly depend upon civic associations. Anyone who thinks that there is an important role for civil society organizations, nongovernmental organizations, nonprofits, charities, voluntary groups, or any other similar entity, will evoke these passages eagerly. Tocqueville is, without a doubt, a friend of civic associations. There are, however, scholarly consequences to omitting from analyses what comes before and after these statements on associations. Volume Two has its most optimistic moments in these pages, but slowly begins to slide into a darker, more melancholy, and increasingly pessimistic tone. Tocqueville uncovers the dark sides of democracy and the sometimes self-defeating habits of democratic peoples. The last chapter is entitled ‘‘What sort of despotism democratic nations have to fear’’ (p. 690). He admits that ‘‘despotism’’ is not quite the right word for the ‘‘brand of ordered, gentle, peaceful slavery’’ (p. 692) he is trying to describe, but he nonetheless ends on a note where it seems no number of flourishing civic associations could alone save the day. The logic of equality perpetuates this soft despotism, but so do the responses of governments, churches, families, schools, universities, newspapers, and each individual to that equality of conditions, with too many indirect and unintended consequences to fully enumerate here. This more pessimistic Tocqueville believed that religious associations were just as necessary as civic associations to save
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democracy from itself; he observed how changing family structures destabilized society; he knew democratic governments would have a tendency to grow too large, but even in celebrating local government, he was emphatic that the central government needed to regulate some of the irregularities and prejudices of isolated locales. As Tocqueville’s aim is not just to extol civic associations, but also to glimpse into the future of democracy, his analytical style often opens more doors than it closes, resulting in interpretations of Democracy in America that disagree with each other. For example, some will argue that Tocqueville extols civic associations because he advocates highly limited government involvement in social affairs, while others will point to the way he intertwines political associations, government, and civic associations as a recipe for moving a potentially estranged society closer to its democratic government. Tocqueville does in fact condone both paths, for different reasons at different moments, observing how local associations in modern democracies help prevent barbarism, but are not enough to ensure freedom in all cases. Overall, Tocqueville is searching for the right sort of relationship between government and civil society, where each supports the other and where self-interest is ‘‘properly understood,’’ including the state’s self-interest, the self-interest of civic associations, and the self-interest of individuals. Associations are not the only outpost of properly understood selfinterest; society cannot achieve the enthusiastic political participation of the township and the brotherhood of ‘‘renewed feelings and enlarged hearts’’ without the right sort of responsive democratic state, where the minority can petition the majority’s representatives and be heard, as occurs in the America he praises. So Tocqueville is both a theorist of civic associations as well as a theorist of the state. Referencing his famous American civic associations may have become cliche´, but his thoughts on government are reminders that every theory of civil society implicitly contains a theory of the state. Finding and building states supportive of civil society is a search that continues in contemporary democratization efforts, among other places. Tocqueville might have foreseen contemporary arguments that civil society helps make democracy work, but he also knew that democracy is much more than just a public sphere of vibrant civil society associations. The Sociological Roots of Democracy
While he is frequently used to substantiate the causal linkage between a robust civil society and a good democracy, Tocqueville would also ask us to remember that the democracy in Democracy in America is not procedurally disembodied from the place where it was born; beliefs,
traditions, and ‘‘habits of the heart’’ contribute significantly to democracy’s development. The preposition in Tocqueville’s title must be instructive; in America it is thought that all will be treated equally when people petition the government, so everyone has incentives to associate with others and petition together. Democracy dwells in a place and in a time for Tocqueville; if its development in other places follows a path structurally similar to America’s experience, then religion, history, and sociological knowledge will profoundly influence it. Tocqueville’s long description of American history, contrasted to the history of aristocratic France, suggests that both democracy and civic associations work differently in different places. There are boundaries to the range of possible ideas that can underlay democracy and genuinely peaceful associations operating within the modality of ‘‘self-interest properly understood.’’ Tocqueville’s description of the American frontiersman is but one of his more memorable claims about what has made democracy possible: ‘‘All his surroundings are primitive and wild, but he is the product of eighteen centuries of labor and experience. . . [so he plunges] into the wilderness of the New World with his Bible, ax, and newspapers’’ (p. 303). This frontiersman, even in a landscape naked of civilization, will set up civic associations and democratic townships based on those eighteen centuries of collective know-how.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society Tocqueville knew how specific the American experience was, and would caution everyone today that setting off into new territories will involve different tools, experiences, and memories, all capable of producing quite different sorts of societies and political systems. Implicitly Tocqueville has an explanation of why ‘‘democratization’’ can be frustratingly incomplete, rarely able to create democratic societies in the image of developed, Western democracies. Yet as with other ambiguities in Tocqueville’s thinking, the tension between the universal attributes assumed of contemporary democracy, and the particularities of America’s democracy, gives fodder for debate. He is cited as the forefather of ‘‘American exceptionalism,’’ which holds that American democracy was a phenomenon ‘‘entirely new in the world’’ (p. 412). On the other side, and more frequently cited within the literature on civil society, is the claim that associations are ‘‘schools of democracy’’ (p. 522), wherever and whenever democracy happens. These interpretations suggest that democracy can be universally inculcated regardless of history and landscape, as long as there are civic associations. Tocqueville does, after all, observe how men and nations are becoming more alike
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one another, and how ‘‘the gradual progress of equality is something fated’’ (p. 12). Yet citing only Tocqueville’s comments about associations as ‘‘schools of democracy,’’ and leaving aside his full theorization of democracy’s sociological roots, obscures Tocqueville’s observations about how particular habits of heart and certain frames of mind are necessary to conceive of democracy and civil society. Ideas and conceptions matter for Tocqueville, because ‘‘without ideas in common, no common action would be possible, and without common action, men might exist, but there could be no body social’’ (p. 433). Granting all ambiguities, Tocqueville can be characterized as a theorist of both state and civil society, concerned with both the purposive actions of associations and the fatalistic equality of conditions brought about by democracy, looking towards both history and the future. In Tocqueville’s bleaker America, ‘‘since the past throws no light upon the future, the spirit of man walks through the night’’ (p. 703). Even though these are his last words in Volume Two, the final message of Democracy in America remains more open. Tocqueville would like to see a world where the past is remembered to pave the way towards the future, where associations stem the tide against lonely and destructive self-interest, and where freedom is preserved. Despite pessimistic foreboding, his commentary on civic associations evokes a world that need not always be so dark. Citing Tocqueville as a theorist of civil society will always be, as it is today, an act of hope.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ Civil Society in the European Tradition ▶ Civility ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations
References/Further Readings Armony, A. (2004). The dubious link: Civic engagement and democratization. Stanford University Press. Beem, C. (1999). The necessity of politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1985). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment in American life. New York: Harper & Row.
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Mill, J. S. (1974). On liberty. London: Penguin Books. Mitchell, J. (1995). The fragility of freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Putnam, R. D. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Skocpol, T. (1997) The Tocqueville problem: Civic engagement in American democracy. Social Science History, 21(4), 445–479. Tocqueville, A. (1969). Democracy in America. Translated by George Lawrence. J.P. Mayer (Ed.). New York: Harper & Row. Wolin, S. (2001). Tocqueville between two worlds: The making of a political and theoretical life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Civil Society Theory: Walzer EBENEZER OBADARE University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
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Civil society is a project of projects; it requires many organizing strategies and new forms of state action. It requires a new sensitivity for what is local, specific, contingent – and, above all, a new recognition (to paraphrase a famous sentence) that the good life is in the details. (Walzer, 1998: 143)
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The third place is the famous but not always easy to locate ‘civil society,’ where organizations of all sorts proliferate, and some of them are ours: environmentalists, feminists, defenders of civil liberties, advocates on behalf of minority groups, and so on. These are the ‘fragments’ of a left politics that still has not come together and may not come together anytime soon. But the fragments are important in themselves, the more the better, and the people who work in them constitute a kind of civil service of the left. Anything we can do to expand these groups is worth doing, even if many of them are wholly engaged in a rearguard, defensive politics. (Walzer: 2003) (emphasis added)
Brief Biography of the Theorist Michael Walzer, arguably one of the most nuanced social philosophers writing today, has enjoyed a long and distinguished academic career since receiving his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1961. Following an initial 4-year stint at Princeton (1962–1966), and an even longer stay at Harvard between 1966 and 1980, professor Walzer has called Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study his institutional home since 1980. A contributing editor of The New Republic and editor of the left-leaning Dissent, Walzer’s
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work spans a stupendous array of topics in political theory and moral philosophy. Unsurprisingly for a thinker blessed with a light touch and searing insight, no part of Michael Walzer’s extensive work lends itself to easy characterization.
Main Lines of Argument This essay elaborates what might be called his ‘‘theory of civil society.’’ However, since it is open to debate whether Walzer’s views on civil society are elaborate and/or systematized enough to warrant the tag, ‘‘theory’’ here is used in a guarded sense. Thus, the allusions in what follows are to cogitations scattered in essays and articles on civil society, the public sphere, obligation, democracy, as well as just war, terrorism, justice, toleration, politics, the rule of law, citizenship, pluralism, and civil disobedience. While, in the case of some authors, this spread might be a problem, it is suggested that in Walzer’s case, and especially with regard to the subject of civil society, it couldn’t be more apt. One reason is that it is doubtful whether Walzer actually attaches any significance to an overarching theory of civil society, ‘‘an account of society’’ whose complexity, imprecision, and uncertainty he has lamented. This is not to say that he does not approach civil society with the right sort of moral seriousness. Rather, when Walzer ponders civil society – its meaning, uses, possibilities, forms, pathologies, dangers, inadequacies, et al – it is invariably within a larger context of his (intellectual and practical) engagement with what is generally, if often vaguely, referred to as ‘‘the good life’’ (see first quotation above). His writings on civil society must be appreciated against this background, and given their historicity; it seems safe to say that Walzer’s reflections on civil society in praxis prefigure the post-Berlin Wall revival of academic interest in the idea. To understand Walzer’s interest in civil society therefore, it helps to be cognizant of his intellectual bona fides, for it is clear that the vision of civil society that he espouses is both grounded in and animated by his combined scholarly interests and political convictions. Though it is easy to anticipate why it might raise hackles in some quarters, Walzer is best described as a modernizing social democrat, an unrepentant academic leftist who is nonetheless sensitive to the paradoxes of the real world (As he memorably put it in a 2003 interview, ‘‘I live on the left, but quarrel with some of my neighbours. . .’’ See ‘‘The United States in the World – Just Wars and Just Societies: An Interview with Michael Walzer’’ Imprints A Journal of Analytical Socialism Vol. 7 no. 1 (2003)). As a result, though he is fastidiously committed to, for instance, Politics and Democracy, it is always with some sort of
qualification – imagine politics with a small p and democracy with a lower case d. In this vein, democracy is a ‘‘good thing, and perhaps ought to be promoted worldwide, but never by governments (not even the most well-meaning), and only within the social space afforded by ‘‘international civil society.’’ Walzer does allow for exceptional circumstances of course, but insists that in principle, promoting democracy, especially via military intervention, is generally a bad idea. Walzer’s agnosticism about the merits of exporting democracy can be said to be informed by his intellectual understanding of what it requires to bring about ‘‘democracy.’’ First, he is sharply aware of the irony that democracy often takes root in unexpected ways and places. Second, given his practical experience of actual democracy in the United States and other western liberal democracies, he is able to see that nurturing democracy requires time, energy, and money. These, among other important reasons, explain the recurrent emphasis in his work on a good system of public education. For him, a good public education system, particularly one that encourages alternatives within it, is the best laboratory for preparing citizens for the challenges of social life in a diverse and democratic society. A good educational system makes for ‘‘equal citizenship’’ (Walzer, 2002: 66). However, although he underscores the need for an educated citizenry, Walzer is not one to be carried away by ‘‘citizenly virtue’’; thus his emphasis on the supervisory agency that, he argues, only the state is able to provide. For Walzer, a strong state is something of a moral necessity as soon as you have a fully-fledged capitalist system. This is essentially because, pace Adam Smith, some form of ‘‘policing’’ of ‘‘the invisible hand of the market’’ is always going to be needed given the propensity for fraudulent behavior and need to protect competitors against fraud and deceit. (Writing late in 2008 in the shadow of the global financial bust, it is difficult to see how anyone can seriously challenge this). But Walzer insists on a strong state for an altogether more profound reason, for which he deserves to be quoted at some length. For him, "
There is no community and no common good without social justice. Political societies cannot survive on evocations of citizenly virtue, responsibility, and fellow feeling. There must also be a commitment in practice to the weaker members. This is a commitment that only the state can make in a universalizing way. The stronger civil society is, the more the state can act indirectly to fulfill its commitment, seconding the direct activity of its citizens in their voluntary associations. But given the divisions of civil
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society, and the inequalities that appear naturally within it (of resources, numbers, competence, and so on), the state can never cease entirely to act in its own name, addressing the needs of all its citizens. A democratic state, rooted in the associational life of civil society, will also be continually active in fostering, subsidizing, and regulating the associations- so as to maintain a fair distribution of welfare and opportunity. (Walzer, 1998: 3) (emphases added)
At least two things are obvious in this excerpt: (a) the fundamental reason why Walzer places a premium on the existence of a strong state – it is the Uber-institution, able to guarantee the ‘‘common good’’ by ‘‘seconding’’ the activity of civil society; and (b) an indication of how Walzer conceptualizes civil society, above all its relation to the state. Before going into further detail on Walzer’s idea of civil society, a quick observation on the subject of the state and the significance of Walzer’s privileging of it is in order. Perhaps the most absorbing aspect of current academic debates on the consequences of globalization is the question of the state’s continued relevance. Many scholars have argued that the combined emergence of various transnational politico-economic forms and hybridized social identities signals the desuetude of the sovereign state as traditionally understood. Specifically, some doubt whether state sovereignty still carries yesterday’s normative purchase in today’s world of continual flows and seemingly inexorable deterritorialization. Contra these claims, Walzer insists that the state has not been ‘‘superseded’’ and remains potent, not least because ‘‘Identity politics, particularly in its nationalist version, is still focused on the achievement of sovereignty’’ (1998: 4). In any case, he argues, given the complexity of many of the issues thrown up by transnational processes (immigration policy, say) only the state has the resources and institutional capacity to successfully mediate because only it (the state) possesses ‘‘the power of closure’’ (1998: 4). Overall, Walzer seems to be suggesting that the fissures that are integral to civil society would always warrant the state’s moral oversight. In this vision, both civil society and the state are therefore mutually reinforcing.
Relevance for Present-Day Discourse on Civil Society This background helps put Walzer’s approach to civil society in a clear perspective. His basic idea can be summarized as follows: the West has lost some of its pluralist luster due, in large part, to the neglect of ‘‘the networks through which civility is produced and reproduced’’ (1991: 294); and neither the market nor nationalism
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(among other ‘‘rival ideologies’’) is in a position to provide a sustainable basis for the ‘‘good life.’’ So how is this lost sheen to be recaptured? The answer, Walzer believes, is to be found in what he calls ‘‘critical associationalism’’ (1991: 303) which is central to the idea of civil society. Why should we expect civil society to succeed where other approaches to ‘‘the good life’’ has failed? Walzer suggests that the fundamental strength of civil society lies in its ‘‘inclusivity’’: "
Associational engagement is conceivably as important a project as any of the others, but its greatest virtue lies in its inclusiveness, and inclusiveness does not make for heroism. ‘‘Join the associations of your choice’’ is not a slogan to rally political militants. And yet that is what civil society requires: men and women actively engaged- in state, economy, and nation, and also in churches, neighborhoods, and families, and in many other settings too. (1991: 303)
But inclusivity is not the only positive attribute that recommends civil society. Equality (and peaceableness) is another. According to Walzer, ‘‘Civil society simply is that place where the stakes are lower, where, in principle at least, coercion is used only to keep the peace and all associations are equal under the law’’ (1991: 300). Furthermore ‘‘the actual experience of civil society’’ not only works against both ‘‘the intolerant universalism of (most) religions’’ and ‘‘the exclusivity of (most) nations’’ (1991: 300), it also ‘‘challenges state power, most importantly when associations have resources or supporters abroad: world religions, pan-national movements, the new environmental groups, multinational corporations’’ (1991: 302). None of this of course should lead us into thinking that civil society is self-sufficient, a line of thinking that he deems ‘‘anti-political.’’ For Walzer, there is simply ‘‘no choosing civil society alone,’’ and while the latticework of associations may incorporate, it ‘‘cannot dispense with, the agencies of state power.’’ Its radical intent notwithstanding, Walzer’s affirmation of and faith in associations and associational engagement as the bedrock of civil society (‘‘the civility that makes democratic politics possible can only be learned in the associational networks’’) (1991: 302) is actually of ‘‘conservative’’ vintage. From Alexis de Tocqueville to Ernest Gellner, the ‘‘habit of association’’ is at the heart of western civil society theorizing, and a demonstration of the importance attached to it could be seen in the reaction that greeted Putnam’s assertion (1995) that Americans may have stopped ‘‘bowling together,’’ meaning that a previously sturdy associative bond was in danger of unraveling. In this imagination, the ‘‘denser’’ the social
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network of associations, the better, and though unlike some theorists Walzer insists that state agency is always necessary, even if only to ‘‘give a particular shape to the common life’’ (1991: 302); his basic assumption that associations are an inalienable prerequisite for the existence of civil society means that he has much more in common with mainstream understanding of civil society than is at first obvious. The point here is not to deny the risk to associational life in the West, or that it is not right to emphasize their (associations’) importance. The extensive post-Putnam literature on social capital, community, and communitarianism may diverge on several points, but there appears to be a broad consensus on the imperative to revivify the communal bond in western countries and create a communal spirit where the need may be acute. But this consensus begs some key questions: how important is a social network of associations to that project? Are associations the be all and end all of civil society in the way that they have been beatified by a section of the theoretical literature? Do associations of a contrary spirit count? Is inclusivity in associations necessarily a virtue? And finally, what about the thump and riot of quotidian life outside the corset of associations? Is that a part of civil society, or is it not? It is valid to argue that, in his insistence on the need for plurality (of people, cultures, and visions) in a liberal society, Walzer already anticipates these questions and the nonstructured kind of civil society thinking that they provide a basis for. After all, if he has enunciated the properties of ‘‘a democratic civil society,’’ it is because he takes for granted the possibility of a ‘‘non-democratic’’ one. Walzer also grants that we need not be involved all the time in our associations, that ‘‘we are likely to be members of many associations’’ (1991: 302–303), that civil society contains ‘‘organizations of all sorts’’ (see second quotation, above), and that the ‘‘different and uncoordinated processes’’ (Ibid) through which members control a democratic civil society ‘‘needn’t all be democratic’’ (1991: 303). Still, there are reasonable grounds for grousing with his treatment of associations and the problems that they pose, both for the moral life of societies in general, and our understanding of civil society in particular. For instance, what happens when associations are not inclusive, and can we really say that associations produce more engaged and better citizens without developing a moral typology of associations? What does more engagement mean and why should it result in ‘‘better’’ citizen-ness? These queries are raised in a nonmartial spirit, more as a pointer to the tensions inherent in a particular understanding of civil society, rather than as a direct
challenge to Walzer’s, for whom there is actually a mitigating circumstance – his is a rendition of civil society as ‘‘a civil service of the left,’’ meaning that it is specific and expressly ideologically animated. If Walzer enunciates a particular ideal of civil society, it is, presumably, only to the extent that it can be pressed into service in the struggle against inequality, for in a society of growing inequality, as he asserts, economic inequalities are potentially convertible to other forms of inequality. Walzer’s civil society is one among many projects for combating this challenge, and the problems with his idea of civil society are best seen as a perfect illustration of the impossibility of a single coherent narrative of the idea.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Community, Types of ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Justice
References/Further Readings Cahoone, L. E. (2002). Civil society. The conservative meaning of liberal politics. Oxford: Blackwell. Ehrenberg, J. (1999). Civil society. The critical history of an idea. New York: New York University Press. Hall, J. A. (Ed.) (1995). Civil society. Theory history comparison. Cambridge: Polity. Kaviraj, S., & Khilnani, S. (Eds.) (2001). Civil society. History and possibilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Miller, D. (Ed.) (2007). Thinking politically essays in political theory – Michael Walzer. New Haven: Yale University Press. Miller, D., & Walzer, M. (Eds.) (1995). Pluralism, justice, and equality. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78. Rosenblum, N. L., & Post, R. C. (Eds.) (2002). Civil society and government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Seligman, A. B. (1992). The idea of civil society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Shaughnessy, M. F., & Sardoc, M. (2002). An interview with Michael Walzer. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 21, 65–75. The United States in the world – just wars and just societies: An interview with Michael Walzer‘‘ Imprints a journal of analytical socialism Vol. 7 no. 1 (2003). Walzer, M. (1991). A better vision: The idea of civil society. A path to social reconstruction. Dissent, Spring(39), 293–304. Walzer, M. (1997). On toleration. New Haven: Yale University Press. Walzer, M. (Ed.) (1998). Toward a global civil society. New York: Berghahn Books. Walzer, M. (1982). Obligations essays on disobedience, war, and citizenship. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walzer, M. (2004). Arguing about war. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches
Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches JOHN KEANE The University of Westminster, London, UK
Introduction For nearly a century after 1850, the language of civil society virtually disappeared from intellectual and political life and, as recently as 2 decades ago, the term itself remained strange sounding and unfashionable, or was greeted in some circles by cynicism and hostility. Since then, around the world, the term civil society has become both a master category in the human sciences and a key phrase often used by politicians, corporate executives, journalists, charitable foundations, human rights organizations, and citizens.
Definition The renaissance of interest in civil society draws strength from its European roots, which are traceable to the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century development of the distinction between civil society and the state (Keane, 1998). During the revolutionary period 1750– 1850, the traditional language of civil society (societas civilis), which had until then referred to a peaceful political order governed by law, underwent a profound transformation. Contrasted with government, civil society meant a realm of social life – market exchanges, charitable groups, clubs and voluntary associations, independent churches and publishing houses – institutionally separated from territorial state institutions. This is the sense in which civil society is still understood today: it is a term that both describes and anticipates a complex and dynamic ensemble of legally protected nongovernmental institutions that tend to be nonviolent, self-organizing, self-reflexive, and permanently in tension, both with each other and with the governmental institutions that ‘‘frame,’’ constrict and enable their activities. In the contemporary period, the term civil society has proved useful in many fields of research, including the analysis of past phenomena, such as the uneven geographic distribution of absolutist states (Szu¨cs, 1988), or the emergence of modern forms of exclusion of women from public life (Pateman, 1988), or the ‘‘civilising’’ of European manners (Elias, 1978). The originally eighteenth century term has also been used to make new and different sense of contemporary social and political developments. In Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and
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elsewhere, the language of civil society was a vital ingredient in the resistance to totalitarian regimes after the crushing of the Prague Spring; and it has featured in most political efforts to push back or overthrow dictatorship, whether in Taiwan, Brazil, South Africa, or Iran. In most regions of the world, the language of civil society has also been applied to such disparate political phenomena as the decline and restructuring of welfare states, the rise of ‘‘free market’’ economic strategies, and the growth of social movements (Melucci, 1988).
Key Issues Various philosophical and political arguments have also been mustered against the suspicion that the term civil society is obsolete. The case for civil society has been wide ranging. It has included the observation that a civil society gives preferential treatment to individuals’ daily freedom from violence and other incivilities (Keane, 2004); claims concerning the importance of enabling groups and individuals freely within the law to define and express their various social identities, as equals who have feelings for others and, thus, the capacity for trust and solidarity (Alexander, 2006; Habermas, 1982). There is also the argument that freedom of communication is impossible without networks of variously-sized non-state communication media (Keane, 1990); and the insistence that politically regulated and socially constrained markets are superior devices for eliminating all those factors of production that fail to perform according to current standards of efficiency. In recent years, there have also been efforts to counter the suspicion that civil society is an ide´e passe´e by thinking unconventionally and constructively about the optimal conditions under which democratic institutions can survive and flourish globally, especially after a century plagued by revolutionary upheavals, total war, totalitarianism, dictatorship, and state dirigisme marked by dysfunctions caused by ‘‘the overreach of the state’’ (Chandhoke, 1995). For the first time in their history, the political languages of democracy and civil society have become conjoined. Democracy has come to mean a special type of political system and way of life in which civil society and government tend to function as two necessary moments, separate but contiguous, distinct but interdependent, internal articulations of a system in which the exercise of power, whether in the spheres of civil society or government, is subject to public monitoring, compromise, and agreement (Keane, 1988a, 1998). Seen in this novel way, democratization is defined as neither the extension of state power into the non-state sphere of civil society
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nor the abolition of government and the building of spontaneous agreement among citizens living within civil society. The unending quest for democracy, so it is claimed, must instead steer a course between these two unworkable and undesirable extremes. Democracy is seen as a never-ending process of apportioning and publicly monitoring the exercise of power by citizens within polities marked by the institutionally distinct – but always mediated – realms of civil society and government institutions. The revised understanding of democracy as more than simply government by means of periodic elections, party competition, majority rule, and the rule of law has had wide global appeal. Truly remarkable is the way the language of civil society has in recent decades traveled to virtually all regions of the globe. The global talk of civil society is evidently bound up with the dramatic growth, especially during the second half of the twentieth century, of nongovernmental business and civic organizations operating within and beyond the borders of territorial states. It is even possible that the global extension of the concept signals a first step in the long-term emergence of common frameworks of meaning and identity underneath and across state boundaries – a trend that resonates with, and practically reinforces, such trends as the globalization of communication media, the rebirth of international humanitarian law, and the growth of a shared (if diffuse) sense within nongovernmental organizations and publics at large that civilians have obligations to other civilians living beyond their borders, simply because they are civilians. A measure of the ‘‘emigration’’ of the term from its European birthplace is the way that the contemporary renewal of interest in civil society first began during the second half of the 1960s in Japan (Uchida, 1967; Hirata, 1969). In Latin America, neo-Gramscian versions of the concept of civil society were subsequently used as a theoretical weapon against dictatorship (O’Donnell and Schmitter, 1986). Scholarly studies of sub-Saharan Africa also emphasized how associational life – farmers’ organizations, lawyers’ and journalists’ associations, mineworkers’ unions, Christian churches and Islamic brotherhoods – are most likely to thrive in the presence of effective states; and how, paradoxically, weak states can become stronger – more effective at promoting the accumulation and better distribution of wealth, and improving their own legitimacy and power potential – by allowing a good measure of pluralism in associational life (Bratton, 1989). There have been as well many studies of Muslim-majority states guided by civil society perspectives (Norton, 1994 [1996]; Mardin, 1995).
International Perspectives Important controversies have erupted concerning how to translate the originally European term civil society into local Asian languages. Some Chinese scholars, for instance, prefer the term ‘‘citizen society’’ (gongmin shehui), while others prefer to speak of ‘‘civilised society’’ (wenming shehui) or ‘‘urban society’’ (shimin shehui). And in the Korean peninsula, recent analyses have highlighted the contrasts between the totalitarian state of North Korea, whose rulers appear to have enjoyed firm control of an obedient population, and South Korea, in which the long and bloody transition from the authoritarian rule of Syngman Rhee, toppled by a student uprising in 1960, has been fuelled by the vigorous rebirth of civil society, whose roots are traceable to the struggle against Japanese colonization (1910–1945) and the massive peasant rebellions, called the Tonghak Uprisings, of the late nineteenth century (Koo, 1993). The spreading popularity of the language of civil society, even the invention of the term ‘‘global civil society’’ (Anheier et al., 2001; Keane, 2003), has had many effects, including the multiplication of its different and sometimes conflicting meanings. The growing popularity of the term civil society has bred some confusion, and this implies the need for greater clarity and care in the way it is used. Three crisscrossing but different ways of wielding the category of civil society can be identified. Although these approaches sometimes overlap and complement each other, they also tend to produce divergent claims and should therefore be distinguished. Some writers use the term ‘‘civil society’’ as an idealtyp to analyze and interpret the empirical contours of past, present, or emergent relationships between social and political forces and institutions. The immediate or avowed aim of such empirical-analytic interpretations of civil society is not to recommend courses of political action or to form normative judgments. Rather, the language of civil society is used to develop an explanatory understanding of a complex sociopolitical reality by means of theoretical distinctions, empirical research and informed judgments about its origins, patterns of development and (unintended) consequences. Although empirical-analytic interpretations of civil society usually alter perceptions of what is or is not significant within any given reality, the term is mainly used for observational purposes: that is, to describe that reality, or criticize prevailing descriptions of it, in order better to clarify what is otherwise a potentially confusing and disorientating reality. The language of civil society can also be used in ‘‘pragmatic’’ ways, as a guide to formulating a social and political strategy or action program for achieving a predefined or assumed political good. In contrast to
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empirical-analytic-interpretative approaches, which are concerned with such intellectual tasks as naming, categorizing, observing, theorizing, comparing, and understanding, strategic usages of the term have an eye for defining what must or must not be done so as to reach a given political goal. The term civil society is bound up with efforts to calculate the tactical means of achieving or preserving certain ends. This pragmatic usage is traceable to the last quarter of the eighteenth century, to recommendations, like Thomas Paine’s revolutionary pamphlet Common Sense (1776), about how best to contest despotic power by establishing the earthworks of civil society. Recent comparative studies of the defeat of various forms of political despotism in southern Europe, Latin America and postcommunist countries develop this line of thinking (Linz and Stepan, 1996). They show the vital role played by civil society in the transition towards democracy, and its subsequent consolidation. A robust civil society can start transitions, help block reversals, generate political alternatives and keep post-authoritarian governments and states on their toes. Still other scholars and activists view the term civil society from a normative standpoint – in order to highlight the ethical superiority of a politically guaranteed civil society compared with other types of government. Since the eighteenth century, disputes about the normative status of civil society have flourished. Some thinkers (Georg Forster, Thomas Jefferson) have considered civil society to be the earthly expression of God-given natural rights. Others interpret the concept from within the framework of a theory of history that supposes either that civil society is a moment in the actualization of the ethical idea, of mind (Geist) actively working its way into the existing world (Hegel); or that civil society is a passing moment in the development and overcoming of modern, classdivided bourgeois society (as Marx and others within the communist tradition supposed). Other scholars have considered civil society as a spontaneous group-centered expression of ‘‘loving kindness and fraternity’’ (Durkheim, 1915). And there are thinkers (steeped in the originally conservative reverence for tradition) who interpret civil society as a customary, time-bound ensemble of precious institutions and practices that are confined to certain regions of the earth and perforce do not enjoy any metahistorical guarantee that they will flourish, let alone survive. These are just samples of the bewildering plurality of normative justifications of civil society, but they illustrate why some critics have been tempted to draw the conclusion that civil society is a muddled, essentially
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contested ideal (Seligman, 1992). Their conclusion plausibly highlights the polysemic quality of the term civil society, but both the complaint and the conclusion arguably abandon, prematurely, the possibility of normatively justifying civil society in fresh, publicly relevant ways. In particular, these critics fail to see that the plural structures of a civil society are best expressed through non-foundational normative justifications that recognize, and actively muster support and respect for, a multiplicity of normative ways of life. This is to say that the term civil society is a signifier of plurality, the friend and guardian of dynamic difference.
Future Directions Ethically speaking, civil society is not a First Principle; it is the precondition of freedom from any kind of First Principle. Attempts to build grand normative theories of civil society should therefore be doubted. For to speak of civil society is to warn against the harm caused by organized attempts to impose on others particular norms not of their choosing. When seen in this revised way, the civil society norm breaks with the bad monist habit of philosophically justifying ethical norms by referring back to a substantive grounding principle, such as the early modern notions of God-given justice, natural rights or the principle of utility, or more recent attempts to justify civil society according to such grounding principles as rational argumentation (Habermas) or knowledge of a ‘‘good which we can know in common’’ (Sandel). From this revised perspective, normative support for civil society has no need of so-called Absolutes. To the contrary: the choice to favor civil society implies suspicion of the moralizing faith in Grand Ideals such as the State, Nation, Progress, Socialism, Free Markets, God, Truth, or Ethics. Positively speaking, support for civil society implies the duty of citizens and policy makers to defend greater pluralism – to cast serious doubt on dogmatic, falsely universal norms by giving greater emphasis to the recognition of institutional complexity and public accountability as vital barriers against dangerous accumulations of power, whenever and wherever they develop. To speak favorably of civil society is not to plummet into so-called relativism, with its self-contradictory insistence that there are no certain or preferable guidelines in life. It is rather to be committed everywhere to the construction, preservation, and development of a legally protected nongovernmental order, whose diverse identities, mediated by representative mechanisms such as political parties and independent communication media, together ensure that hierarchies and abuses of power are checkable. The converse equally applies:
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anyone who does not recognize and respect the need for the institutions of civil society, government and their intermediaries, or who works actively against them, even to destroy them, is no friend of pluralism – and perhaps even its dangerous foe. Civil society, in short, is an actual or anticipated condition of possibility of the ongoing struggle for egalitarian diversity. Those who practically deny civil society in this normative sense are probably arrogant monists – and most likely manipulators, bullies, tyrants, or totalitarians.
Seligman, A. B. (1992). The idea of civil society. New York/Toronto: The Free Press. Szu¨cs, J. (1988). Les Trois Europes. Paris: L’Harmattan. Uchida, Y. (1967). Nihon Shihonshugi no Shiso-zo (Images of Japanese capitalism through the social sciences). Tokyo: Iwanami-Shoten.
Civil Society, Violence and War MEGAN MEYER1, SIMON STACEY2 University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA 2 University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD USA
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References/Further Readings Alexander, J. C. (2006). The civil sphere. New York: Oxford University Press. Anheier, et al. (Eds.) H., (2001). Civil society. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Bratton, M. (April 1989). Beyond the state: Civil society and associational life in Africa. World Politics, 41, 404–430. Chandhoke, N. (1995). State and civil society: Explorations in political theory. New Delhi, India: Sage. Durkheim, E. (1915). ‘L’Allemagne au-dessus de tout’. La mentalite´ allemande et la guerre. Paris: Armand Colin. Elias, N. (1978). The civilizing process: The history of manners (Vol. 1). New York: Pantheon Books. Habermas, J. (1982). Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp. Hirata, K. (1969). Shimin-Shakai to Shakaishugi (Civil Society and Socialism). Tokyo: Iwanami-Shoten. Keane, J. (1988a). Democracy and civil society. London/New York: Verso. Keane, J. (Ed.) (1988b). Despotism and democracy. The origins and development of the distinction between civil society and the state, 1750–1850. In Civil society and the state. New european perspectives. London/New York: Verso. Keane, J. (1990). The media and democracy. London/New York: Polity Press. Keane, J. (1998). Civil society: Old images, new visions. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Keane, J. (2003). Global civil society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Keane, J. (2004). Violence and democracy. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Koo, H. (Ed.) (1993). State and society in contemporary Korea. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Linz, J. J., & Stepan, A. (1996). Problems of democratic transition and consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and post-communist Europe. Baltimore, MD/London: John Hopkins University Press. Mardin, S. (1995). Civil society and Islam. In J. A. Hall (Ed.), Civil society: Theory, history, comparison. Cambridge: Polity Press. Melucci, A. (1988). Nomads of the present: Social movements and individual needs in contemporary society. London/Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Norton, Augustus Richard. (Ed.) (1994 [1996]). Civil society in the middle east (Vol. 2). New York: Brill. O’Donnell, G., & Schmitter, P. C. (1986). Resurrecting civil society. In Transitions from authoritarian rule: Tentative conclusions about uncertain democracies (pp. 48–56). Baltimore, MD/London: John Hopkins University Press. Pateman, C. (1988). The sexual contract. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Introduction The early 21st century is a particularly appropriate time to review the relationship between civil society, violence and war. All have been transformed in the last century. Violence and war, though always endemic to human society, have become destructive in ways unimaginable in the past. States, organizations and even individuals can now marshal the means to do violence on a scale and of an intensity never before seen. The world’s most devastating wars were fought in the twentieth century. Ethnopolitical violence has increased dramatically since the end of the Second World War (Gurr, 1993), though some scholars claim that the total number of deaths per decade due to war and collective violence has been more or less constant since 1945 (Kaldor & Muro, 2003: 160). Terrorism has become a global scourge. At the same time, civil society has become a feature of the modern world that cannot be ignored. Scholars estimate that the number of The reach of civil society organizations (CSOs) has also broadened, and it is now no longer aspirational to talk of global civil society. The increasing density of civil society, and its spread across the world, means that it has never been as powerful as it is today. This article seeks to clarify the relationships between these important phenomena.
Definitions Civil Society
Other entries in this encyclopedia offer more comprehensive understandings and definitions of the concept of civil society than this entry can, but it is important that we provide the definition of civil society with which we will be working. Perhaps most important is the recognition that to use the term, as is commonly and uncritically done, as a synonym for civilized society, artificially
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delimits its scope. So we avoid defining civil society such that it has a positive normative denotation. (For one of many uses of the term in this normative fashion, see Annan, 2000; for doubts about this approach, see Ahrne, 1998; Alexander, 1998; Kaldor & Muro, 2003) Instead, we define civil society socio-locatively, as the sphere of actors, values, and institutions ‘‘that is analytically independent of- and, to varying degrees, empirically differentiated from’’ family, state and market (Alexander, 1998: 6). The advantage of this approach is that it does not predicate a social agent’s membership of civil society on whether that agent behaves violently or not, and we are therefore not definitionally prevented from considering the ways in which civil society is often involved in uncivil and uncivilized acts – acts, indeed, that sometimes amount to violence. However, it must be acknowledged that the most prolific employers of violence throughout human history have been states or proto-states (Turner, 1998; Human Rights Watch, 1995), and that when they were not directing this violence against other states, they tended to direct it at elements of their own civil societies. So, while we are concerned above to stress that civil society must not be defined so as to exclude the possibility that it commits violence, we do not want to be misinterpreted as suggesting that civil society and the state are anything like equal partners in the commission of violence. Indeed, it is CSOs that typically offer much of any resistance offered to statedriven violence, and seek to minimize or remedy the effects of violence. Violence and War
We will be concerned with only some forms of violence in this article – collective, sociopolitical forms. This is not, we should stress, to downplay the importance of other forms of violence – domestic violence or criminal violence, for example – nor to diminish the role of CSOs in combating and preventing them. With that caveat registered, one standard definition of violence is ‘‘deliberate physical injury to property or persons’’ (Gamson, 1990: 74). On this account, violent acts range from vandalism and arson, rock throwing, rioting and looting to beating, bombing, and killing. War is therefore a form of violence, perhaps the most destructive form, and we define it as the deliberate and organized direction of a state’s capacity for violence against another state. (But see Keegan, 1993 on the difficulty of defining war.) We are sensitive to Gamson’s contention that ‘‘[t]o use the term violence as a catch-all for unpleasant means of influence or social control confuses the issue’’ (1990: 74) and are therefore not considering what some have called ‘‘economic violence’’ (Chasin, 2004) or ‘‘economic warfare’’
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(Naylor and Blum, 2001) in this article. Also, we are concerned here with what might be called ‘‘hot’’ wars – wars in which violence is actually deployed – rather than ‘‘cold’’ wars, in which the threat of violence is not in fact realized. Because war is a form of violence, it can sometimes be difficult to decide whether a specific case is best considered violence or war. This is especially a problem when parties to a conflict include both the state and (perhaps multiple) militarized CSOs: such a case might qualify as a civil war, or may instead be an instance of more ‘‘regular’’ sociopolitical violence.
Key Issues While war and violence, in one form or another, have been constant features of human societies from the earliest times, civil society proper, on most accounts, has not existed until much more recently (Seligman, 1995). It is therefore mostly anachronistic to investigate the relationship between civil society and war or violence before, perhaps, the seventeenth century. There are only intimations in early human history of what might be regarded as civil society involvement in war and violence. Where such proto-civil society involvement activity has occurred, it tends to have been the work of churches and religious organizations (and occasionally individual authors or intellectuals), though the often close relationship between such institutions and rulers reduces the similarity of these organizations to a state-independent civil society as we define it (See Raaflaub, 2007). The growth and maturation of civil society in the last 200 years, however, coupled with the development of a secular human rights culture, has dramatically increased civil society’s engagement with violence, war, and war-making states. This section therefore focuses on this period, and mainly on the twentieth and twentyfirst centuries. Civil Society and War
CSOs both seek to influence debates about whether or not states should go to war, and also oppose and support declared wars, as well as specific practices of war. Although CSOs and individuals of all types play these roles, the press and academia/intellectuals are often among the most important civil society actors. Civil Society Against Wars
Opposition to war, declared or potential, can take many forms: organized letter-writing campaigns, mass protests (protests against the invasion of Iraq in 2003 were the largest against any war), boycotts (e.g., of American products by some consumer groups in Europe in 2003, in protest against the invasion of Iraq), draft evasion/
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opposition and support for those evading or opposing conscription (Foley, 2003), and even violent resistance (Varon, 2004). The advent of globalization and improved communications even allows CSOs in one nation-state to mobilize against the wars or proposed wars of other nation-states; for instance, three million people are estimated to have marched in Rome against the US-led invasion of Iraq. Some research suggests that CSOs can achieve small gains: for example, Lebel (2008) argues that organizations of parents of dead Israeli Defense Force (IDF) soldiers effectively mobilized to change IDF tactics in the 1990s. And resistance from civil society to the Vietnam War almost certainly played a significant role in bringing that war to and end (DeBenedetti, 1990). On the other hand, the largest antiwar protests in history did little to prevent the Iraq invasion. Assessing the efficacy of civil society opposition to (proposed) wars and military policy is difficult, and an under-researched issue. As a rebuttable generalization, however, it seems likely that the often overwhelming ideological, repressive and economic capacities of the state typically allow it to withstand many civil society challenges to its wars. Some CSOs seek not to prevent specific wars, but instead to lessen the frequency of war in general, to render it less destructive, or to build the infrastructure and capabilities necessary to lessen the damage it does. Some CSOs attempt to foster tolerance or communication between states in regions at risk of war, or try to spread the message of pacifism. Large, well-established organizations such as the American Friends Service Committee, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the War Resisters League, and the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom work to achieve world disarmament and the elimination of war, as well as other forms of violence. Other organizations have less ambitious goals, such as limiting the use of particularly damaging weapons: the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, for example, operate programs designed to reduce the spread of nuclear and biochemical weapons. Still other CSOs, such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, provide assistance to victims of war, whether soldiers or noncombatants. It is also argued that that civil society in general – and not antiwar CSO of the sort just described – may play an unintended role in preventing some wars. According to the democratic peace theory, democratic nation-states very rarely declare war on one another (For a recent review of the democratic peace theory debate, see Rasler and Thompson, 2005). It is a commonplace of both civil society studies and democratic theory that civil society
contributes to the survival and flourishing of democracy (for the classic statements, see Tocqueville 1966; Putnam, 1993). If this is true, and if the democratic peace theory is correct, then civil society deserves at least some of the credit for the paucity of wars fought between democracies. Civil Society for War
Civil society support for war and war-making also takes various forms. For example, neoconservative think tanks in the United States played an active role in supporting the US invasion of Iraq, and continue to try to influence the course of the war. Many media organizations also play significant roles, sometimes unwittingly, in disseminating pro-war attitudes, especially once wars begin (Murray et al., 2008). Similarly, civil society often plays an important role on the ‘‘home front.’’ In the United States, civil society mobilized during World War II to encourage resource conservation and recycling and to promote the buying of war bonds and a variety of prominent service groups united to establish the USO in 1941 (Winkler, 2000). The Effects of War on Civil Society
War often has implications for civil society, both negative and positive. On the one hand, states often restrict the activities of CSOs and citizens in times of war, either by altering their legal environment or by intimidation (Naidoo, 2004). At the same time, some CSOs cooperate so fully with states that they may be regarded as having been co-opted and as having forfeited their autonomy. Civil society can also become polarized and ineffective if CSOs take antithetical positions about a war. On the other hand, wars sometimes lay the groundwork for the expansion of civil society in subsequent years. For example, the incorporation of women into the work force during the Second World War in particular portended a much expanded role for women in civil society in the United States and in Western Europe in the postwar years (Winkler, 2000). There is even an argument to be made that warfare is indirectly responsible for the very existence of civil society. Tilly (1990) has suggested that the need to raise revenue to pay for military operations largely explains the genesis of the modern state, and as civil society is impossible to conceive of apart from a (wellfunctioning) modern state, it could be claimed that warmaking is responsible for the birth of civil society. Civil Society and Non-war Violence
Civil society may contribute to the prevention or diminution of collective violence and ethnic conflict within states, and to remedying the damage done by such
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violence and conflict. Violence of these types increased dramatically after the end of the Second World War, peaked in the early 1990s, but has modestly declined since (Gurr, 2000). While no definitive accounting yet exists of how many CSOs are dedicated to preventing violence, or to mitigating its effects, it seems safe to claim that a significant proportion of CSOs are involved in some way in such anti violence prevention, as well as with attempts to prevent terrorism. The Final Report of the Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict (1997) identifies three categories of CSOs involved in violence prevention: (a) human rights and advocacy groups; (b) humanitarian and development organizations; and (c) mediation or ‘‘track two’’ groups that pave the way for formal peace processes in violent situations. Human rights and advocacy groups, like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, can pressure governments to respect international human rights norms and refrain from the arbitrary use of violence (Clark, 2002), and can help preserve the space for violence-averting dialogue between potential antagonists. Such organizations often maintain offices in trouble spots, so are typically well-informed about developments in these areas, and can warn of emerging crises (Barnes, 2006). Human rights and advocacy CSOs can also play a role when violence ends, by establishing or contributing to transitional justice processes, supporting the rule of law and encouraging good governance. Humanitarian and development CSOs like Oxfam or CARE adopt, arguably, a somewhat less direct approach to violence prevention: these organizations concentrate on alleviating the background conditions that may lead to terrorism or ethnic violence, such as ignorance, radicalizing educational institutions, environmental degradation, resource scarcity and, especially, poverty. It is important to note, however, that claims about causal connections (and even positive correlations) between poverty/lack of education and violence/terrorism have been contested (Kreuger and Maleckova, 2002). These CSOs can also play a crucial role in the aftermath of violence (and war). Many of them are adept at working under the adverse conditions that characterize most post-conflict situation, and can meet the needs of victims and refugees – for medical treatment, shelter, nutrition – well before sometimes hamstrung or weak governments are able to. They may also be able to avoid the stigma of association with parties to the violence, though scholars have suggested that CSOs are not as neutral or free from outside influence as they may appear (Pearce, 1998). Finally, mediation CSOs like ‘‘The Elders’’ or ACCORD (the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes) can assemble
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adversaries, develop negotiation agendas, provide impartial fora for dialogue between them, and facilitate dispute resolution procedures. Some such CSOs can also bring moral pressure to bear on adversaries in order to bring them into the diplomatic process. All three categories of CSO are often global in scope, and capable of organizing action and cooperation on a very large scale. But there is a further role for civil society to play beyond the deliberate and self-conscious interventions by CSOs just described. Many theorists of civil society argue that perhaps the greatest contribution civil society can make to the prevention of violence is inadvertent: roughly, the claim goes, the mere existence of a thriving civil society, regardless of the focus and issue-orientation of the CSOs that make it up, is a force for peace and nonviolence, as well as democracy and the rule of law (Hadenius and Uggla, 1996; Azarya, 1992). While it may seem intuitive that civil society plays this role and has these effects, and while it is irrefutable that there are many circumstances where it does, there is also persuasive evidence to suggest that these are not the necessary outcomes of a vibrant civil society. First, Berman’s (1997) pioneering article, building on an insight from Huntington (1968), showed that in Weimar Germany high levels of civil society, when coupled with low levels of political institutionalization, actually contributed to the failure of representative democracy in Germany and the subsequent violence (and war-making) of the Nazi regime. That this was not an isolated incident has been confirmed by later work on Northern Ireland (Cormier and Couton, 2004) and Cote d’Ivoire (Maclean, 2004). In other words, both the nature of civil society, and the nature of the political context in which it operates, must be considered before the conclusion is drawn that a polity’s CSOs immunize it against political violence. Second, some CSOs are themselves intolerant and violent: in such cases, rather than simply failing to prevent violence by state or other social actors, they may be responsible for it themselves. Scholars who generally accept the thesis, or parts of it, that a strong civil society inhibits violence have nonetheless had to concede that CSOs have committed violence in Sri Lanka (Orjuela, 2003) Somalia (Harvey, 1998), India (Varshney, 2001) Nigeria (Ikelegbe, 2001), and Northern Ghana (Pul, 2003). Of course, this is not to suggest that the state is not culpable in such situations: Human Rights Watch documents the role of governments in fomenting, instigating and supporting communal violence among ethnic groups as a means to achieve a political objective (Human Rights Watch, 1995). But a romantic fascination with the potential of civil society for preventing violence should not blind us to its capacity to do it, as well.
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The Limits of Civil Society
Finally, even if CSOs were to work as efficiently, effectively and cooperatively as possible to prevent violence and remedy its effects, it is crucial to register that civil society simply does not possess the resources or capacity to ‘‘solve’’ the problems of violence or war. Indeed, civil society may perhaps not even be the prime mover in this regard. At a UN Security Council meeting on ‘‘The Role of Civil Society in Conflict Prevention and the Pacific Settlement of Disputes,’’ the President concluded that ‘‘The Security Council stressed the essential responsibility for conflict prevention rests with national governments’’ (United Nations, 2005). Even Kaldor, in a work entitled Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (2003), acknowledges that civil society will be only part of that answer to war. Her five point program involves strengthening international humanitarian law, establishing multilateral international law enforcement capacity, resolving local ‘‘wars on terror,’’ removing authoritarian regimes, and entrenching a commitment to global justice. While it is clear that there will be multiple roles for CSOs to play in bringing to fruition some parts of this ambitious agenda, it is equally clear that civil society cannot be expected to accomplish it on its own.
Cross-References
▶ Amnesty International ▶ Catholic Relief Services ▶ Civic Action ▶ Civil Society and Ethnicity ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Civil Society in Post-Conflict Scenarios ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Collective Action ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ International Campaign to Ban Landmines ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations ▶ Schmitt, Carl ▶ Social Movements ▶ Uncivil Society
References/Further Readings Ahrne, G. (1998). Civil society and uncivil organizations. In J. Alexander (Ed.), Real civil societies: Dilemmas of institutionalization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Alexander, J. (1998). Bifurcating discourses. In J. Alexander (Ed.), Real civil societies: Dilemmas of institutionalization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Annan, K. (2000). Address at the opening of the signing conference for The United Nations Convention Against Transnational Organized
Crime. Palermo, 12 December 2000. Available at http://ungift.org/ docs/ungift/pdf/knowledge/Conv_Trans_Orga_Crime.pdf Azarya, V. (1992). Civil society and disengagement in Africa. In J. Harbeson, D. Rothschild, & N. Chazan (Eds.), Civil society and the State in Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Barnes, C. (2006). Governments and civil society organizations: Issues in working together towards peace. Den Haag: European Center for Conflict Prevention. Berman, S. (1997). Civil society and the collapse of the Weimar Republic. World Politics, 49(3), 401–429. Carnegie Commission on Preventing Deadly Conflict. (1997). Preventing deadly conflict: Final report. New York: Carnegie Corporation of New York. Chasin, B. H. (2004). Inequality & violence in the United States: Casualties of capitalism. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Clark, A. (2002). Diplomacy of conscience: Amnesty International and changing human rights norms. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cormier, J., & Couton, P. (2004). Civil society, mobilization and communal violence: Quebec and Ireland, 1890–1920. The Sociological Quarterly, 45(3), 487–508. DeBenedetti, C. (1990). An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Foley, M. S. (2003). Confronting the war machine: Draft resistance during the Vietnam War. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Gamson, W. (1990). The strategy of social protest (2nd ed.). Homewood, IL: The Dorsey Press. Gurr, T. (1993). Minorities at risk: A global view of ethnopolitical conflicts. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. Gurr, T. (2000). Peoples versus States: Minorities at risk in the new century. Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace. Hadenius, A., & Uggla, F. (1996). Making civil society work, promoting democratic development: What can States and donors do? World Development, 24(10), 1621–1639. Harvey, P. (1998). Rehabilitation in complex political emergencies: Is rebuilding civil society the answer? Disasters, 22(3), 200–217. Human Rights Watch. (1995). Slaughter among neighbors: The political origins of communal violence. New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press. Huntington, S. (1968). Political order in changing societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ikelegbe, A. (2001). The perverse manifestation of civil society: Evidence from Nigeria. The Journal of Modern African Studies, 39(1), 1–24. Kaldor, M. (2003). Global civil society: An answer to war. Cambridge: Polity. Kaldor, M., & Muro, D. (2003). Religious and nationalist militant groups. In M. Kaldor, H. Anheier, & M. Glasius (Eds.), Global civil society 2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keegan, J. (1993). A history of warfare. New York: Knopf. Kreuger, A., & Maleckova, J. (2002). Education, poverty, political violence and terrorism: Is there a causal connection? NBER Working Paper No. W9074. Lebel, U. (2008). Civil Society versus Military Sovereignty: Cultural, political and operational aspects. Armed Forces and Society, 34(1), 67–89. MacLean, L. (2004). Mediating ethnic conflict at the grassroots: The role of local associational life in shaping political values in Cote d’Ivoire and Ghana. Journal of Modern African Studies, 42(2), 589–617. Murray, C. et al. (2008). Reporting dissent in wartime: British Press, the Anti-War Movement and the 2003 Iraq War. European Journal of Communication, 23(7), 7–27.
Civil Society–Business Relations Naidoo, K. (2004). Coming clean: Civil society organizations at a time of global uncertainty. The International Journal of Not-For-Profit Law, 6(3). Available at: http://www.icnl.org/KNOWLEDGE/ijnl/vol6iss3/ special_1.htm Naylor, R., & Blum, J. (2001). Economic warfare: Sanctions, embargo busting, and their human cost. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Orjuela, A. (2003). Building peace in Sri Lanka: A role for civil society? Journal for Peace Research, 40(2), 195–212. Pearce, J. (1998). From civil war to ‘Civil Society’: Has the end of the Cold War brought peace to Central America? International Affairs, 74(3), 587–615. Pul, H. (2003). Exclusion, association and violence: Trends and triggers in Northern Ghana’s Konkomba-Dagomba Wars. The African Anthropologist, 10(1), 39–82. Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Raaflaub, K. (2007). Introduction: Searching for peace in the ancient world. In K. Raaflaub (Ed.), War and peace in the ancient World. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Rasler, K., & Thompson, W. (2005). Puzzles of the democratic peace: Theory, geopolitics and the transformation of world politics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Seligman, A. (1995). The idea of civil society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tilly, C. (1990). Coercion, capital, and European States, AD 990–1990. Cambridge: Blackwell. de Tocqueville, A. (1966). Democracy in America. New York: Harper & Row. Turner, S. (1998). Global civil society, anarchy and governance: Assessing an emerging paradigm. Journal of Peace Research, 35(1), 25–42. Varon, J. (2004). Bringing the war home: The weather underground, the Red Army Faction, and revolutionary violence in the sixties and seventies. Berkeley/Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press. Varshney, A. (2001). Ethnic conflict and civil society: India and beyond. World Politics, 53(3), 362–398. Winkler, A. (2000). Home Front USA: America during World War II. Wheeling, IL: Harlan Davidson.
Civil Society–Business Relations JAMES E. AUSTIN, ALNOOR EBRAHIM Harvard Business School, Boston, MA, USA
Introduction Civil society organizations (CSOs) and businesses have a long and diverse history of relationships, ranging from confrontation to collaboration. Over the past decade, there has been growing attention among scholars and practitioners to understanding the challenges and dynamics of civil society–business relationships. This increased interest has been especially pronounced internationally on issues of societal or public concern, such as environment, human
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rights, and globalization, but cross-sector collaborations have also spread broadly across the entire spectrum of CSO causes and business sectors. As companies have gone global in their operations, so too have their engagements with CSOs (Kulik, 1999; Bendell & Kearins, 2005). Civil society–business relations in the international context encompass those occurring in different countries and those crossing borders. Despite country-level variations, interactions between the two sectors occur almost universally. While the frameworks discussed in the subsequent sections appear to have considerable applicability across countries, cultural and institutional differences affect the interaction dynamics (Austin et al., 2004; Sanborn & Portocarrero, 2005).
Definition The range of civil society–business relations may generally be grouped into three categories or types: complementary, adversarial, and collaborative. All the three types are introduced briefly below, followed by a discussion on the adversarial and collaborative categories. The discussion’s use of the term CSO is broader than the terms nonprofit organization (NPO) or nongovernmental organization (NGO), as it includes a range of actors including religious organizations, labor unions, and self-help groups, to name just a few. All three terms are, however, often used interchangeably in practice. Types of Civil Society–Business Relations
Complementary relations involve separate coexistence among organizations in the private, nonprofit, and public sectors. This is a traditional framing of the sectors, with each sector serving a different function, and in which businesses and civil society organizations (such as nonprofit or nongovernmental organizations) are viewed as having little need to interact with one another. While each sector does have distinct functions in society, in practice, there is a growing overlap and interdependency across the sectors, leading to growing interactions. Adversarial relations are characterized by civil society organizations operating as ‘‘watchdogs’’ or ‘‘activists’’ seeking to hold businesses to account. In a global context, such relations are most apparent on issues of trade and investment, human rights and labor conditions, and environment and sustainable development. In adopting an adversarial stance, CSOs aim to get companies to change existing practices that they see as socially undesirable or to institute new practices that they consider to be socially enhancing, often by bringing media and public scrutiny to the activities of companies.
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Collaborative relations arise where CSOs and companies work together around some shared goals or agenda, often to address a social problem. These interactions range from purely philanthropic, in which businesses provide financial support to the activities of nonprofit organizations, to activities involving a much deeper integration of mission, strategy, and operations. A growing interest in collaboration is due in part to the recognition that the complexity and magnitude of major social problems, such as those of sustainable development and poverty, transcend the capacity of sectors to deal with them separately. Accordingly, the major emphasis below is placed on this third type of relations. Beyond the scope of this entry, there is a considerable literature on public–private partnerships (PPPs), which focuses on collaborations between governmental actors and either businesses or nonprofits or both. Some PPPs involve the private provision of public services carried out under commercial contract.
Key Issues Adversarial Relations
Adversarial or confrontational interactions among civil society organizations and businesses often arise from differing perspectives on what constitutes socially desirable behavior. This is especially apparent where business practices are viewed by CSOs as causing harm, for example, regarding human rights and labor conditions (e.g., sweatshop and child labor, blood diamonds, and displacement of indigenous peoples for infrastructure projects), environment and sustainable development (e.g., in the extractive industries of oil and mining, large dams projects, and genetically modified organisms), and on issues of trade and investment (e.g., agriculture subsidies and tariffs as well as structural adjustment policies). In the second half of the last century, the bulk of growth in the numbers of international nongovernmental social change organizations occurred in the arenas of human rights and the environment (Khagram, Riker, & Sikkink, 2002). The most traditional operational approach used by advocacy CSOs is the highly visible public pressure campaign. Two pivotal campaigns, both of which gained momentum in 1977, demonstrated the power of adversarial civil society advocacy. One was a series of disinvestment campaigns targeting companies and governments doing business in South Africa during apartheid. Faith-based institutional investors played a central role in the US campaign, a key component of which was establishing conditions for the equal treatment of employees regardless of race. These ‘‘Sullivan Principles,’’ developed by an African-American
preacher who was also on the board of General Motors at the time, were adopted by over 125 US corporations doing business in South Africa, with over 100 completely withdrawing operations from the country (see [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sullivan_Principles; 3/23/2008]). A second highly visible campaign in 1977 focused on a boycott of Nestle´, launched by several groups concerned about the company’s aggressive marketing of infant formula in developing countries. The campaign centered on concerns about the health impacts on children of promoting milk formula over breast milk, and it was instrumental to the adoption, by the World Health Assembly in 1981, of an International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestle´_boycott; 3/23/2008]). A network of over 200 advocacy groups in more than 100 countries continues to monitor corporate marketing behavior and to push for the adoption, by national governments, of legislation based on the international code. More broadly, a variety of international NGOs have focused on the creation of standards and certifications, for example, on labor conditions, sustainable forestry, marine stewardship, and fair trade commodities (Conroy, 2007). From the standpoint of companies, such advocacy campaigns have often been seen as interfering with their business operations and hindering profitability. Yet they pose a serious challenge, particularly to businesses with broad brand-name recognition. As advocacy CSOs have grown in experience and effectiveness, they have combined specialized technical expertise (lawyers, policy analysts, and scientists) with elaborate networks (of other CSOs, public-interest lobbyists, regulators, legislators, media, and the Internet) in order to get their campaign messages out quickly. And while advocacy CSOs do not have the regulatory authority to require changes in corporate practice, their effectiveness stems from a degree of public legitimacy and moral authority that enables them to highlight conflicts between corporate profit motives and the social well-being of citizens. As such, they have been described as ‘‘civil regulators’’ (Zadek, 2004: 30). These confrontational interactions, imbued with considerable antagonism, have produced changes in business practices or in turning consumer preferences. In some instances, however, civil society actors have lost credibility either because they have used inaccurate information to make their case, or because their own legitimacy in speaking for the public good has come into question. For example, Greenpeace significantly overestimated the amount of oil stored in the Brent Spar oil platform, which Shell had proposed to sink in the North Sea in 1995. Yet in other instances, the intensified interaction emanating
Civil Society–Business Relations
from these processes have led businesses and nonprofit organizations to greater mutual understanding and to discovering areas of collaboration (Yaziji, 2004). The discussion below centers on this collaborative arena, which has led to a number of innovations in civil society–business relations. Collaborative Relations
Collaborative relationships can be further categorized into relationships that are philanthropic, transactional, or integrative (Austin, 2000a). ‘‘Philanthropic’’ relationships are benefactor–recipient interactions centered on the donation of funds or products from companies to nonprofit organizations. For example, corporate donations in the USA amounted to $15.69 billion or 5.1% of total giving in 2007 (Giving USA Foundation, 2008). Corporate giving in absolute inflation-adjusted terms has nearly tripled over the last 4 decades in the USA, amounting to about 1.1% of pre-tax profits. In comparison, ‘‘transactional’’ relationships focus on specific activities and involve the exchange of a broader range of resources, with value flowing in both directions. Sometimes these interactions are more commercial in nature, such as cause-related marketing or event sponsorships, whereby the business associates its name with the nonprofit’s name and cause. Often these relationships are financed from companies’ marketing budgets rather than their philanthropic funds. For example, fees earned by US nonprofits through cause-related and arts sponsorships rose to $1.6 billion in 2005, a 33% increase since 2000 (IEG, 2006). In other instances, the relationship is purely commercial and involves contracting the provision of goods and services. A third category of collaborative relationships can be termed ‘‘integrative’’ in which businesses and nonprofits become much more strategic and organizationally integrated in terms of mission, strategy, and operations. The relationship is more like an enduring joint venture than a transaction. Others have characterized these various relationship types as philanthropic, commercial, and strategic (Galaskiewicz & Colman, 2006). The discussion below considers the motivations for and evolution of collaboration, as well as emerging knowledge on the steps involved in building business– civil society collaborations. Motivations
From a theoretical perspective, the motivations for collaborations are often explained by: (1) resource dependency theory, whereby organizations interact with others in order to obtain important resources available only from
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the collaborating organization (Gray, 1989); (2) stakeholder management in which organizations collaborate with various stakeholders to manage the risks posed or advantages conferred by them (Andrioff et al., 2002); or (3) social issues, whereby organizations collaborate to address a particular social problem that crosses sectoral boundaries (Selsky & Parker, 2005). Empirical studies of cross-sector alliances reveal that motivations of companies to engage with CSOs can range from purely philanthropic to highly utilitarian (Austin et al., 2004). This motivational spectrum can be conceptualized into four distinguishable, but sometimes interrelated, categories: compliance which is dictated by legal obligations or expected standards; risk which is driven by the need to manage external threats; values which aim at fulfilling core organizational or individual beliefs; and, business opportunity which seeks to capture economic value (Austin, 2007). Analogously, the motivations of CSOs fall into three often interrelated categories: funds mobilization, in which partnerships enter in as a new source of revenue generation; capabilities enhancement, whereby partnering with corporations will enable developing better skills and organizational capacities; and mission attainment, stemming from congruency of goals and the capture of synergies that increase scale, scope, or quality. Evolution
Relationships are dynamic; they undergo significant changes over time. Retrospective analyses of enduring relationships reveal a ‘‘collaboration continuum’’ ranging across the above-mentioned philanthropic, transactional, and integrative relationships (Austin 2000a, b). Most collaborations start and remain in the philanthropic stage, but many move into more transactional activities, and a smaller number evolve into more complicated and strategic integrative relationships. There is nothing automatic about this progression along the continuum, and there can be regression as well. The dynamic depends on the decisions and actions taken by the collaborators. Nor are the stages discrete. Rather, as displayed in Table 1, there are multiple factors (e.g., level of engagement, importance to mission, magnitude of resources, type of resources, scope, interaction intensity, trust, managerial complexity, and strategic value) that characterize the relationships and their evolution. As the relationships evolve, each of these parameters might progress at different speeds, such that some characteristics might be more in the philanthropic stage, while others might be more transactional or even integrative. The utility of the continuum framework is that, first, it enables one to understand more fully the types of
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Civil Society–Business Relations. Table 1 The collaboration continuum (Austin, 2000a)
relationships that a company or CSO has in its ‘‘collaboration portfolio.’’ Second, it provides a basis for managing and evolving the relationship more effectively.
Stages of Collaboration
Reviews of several successful civil society–business collaborations by Austin (2000a) suggest four key stages in the process: starting alliances, handling the relationship, building the partnership, and managing the portfolio. They are summarized below. 1. Starting Alliances A fundamental starting point for collaboration is to identify congruent goals or areas of common interest. A common organizational problem is that partners have different ends or purposes that motivate the collaboration. While it is tempting for CSOs to assume that everyone should share their noble causes and for companies to assume that any CSO should want to partner with them, this is not often the case in practice. Experience from successful collaborations suggests that the closer the fit, the stronger and more sustainable will be the relationship, and that assuming or forcing a fit is likely to return to haunt the relationship later. Consultations with critical stakeholders do not necessarily seek complete congruency, but rather sufficient overlap to ensure compatibility and a basis for creating mutual value. Most fundamentally, partnering is about generating value, for the partners and society. A central component in trying to start a collaboration is formulating a value proposition for the other partner. Consequently, whether or not an alliance is created depends on a weighing of the benefits and costs embedded in those value propositions. Studies of collaboration practices reveal that the level of rigor of evaluating such propositions varies widely, and many aspects of the assessment are qualitative judgments
rather than quantitative calculations. The potential benefits range widely, generally increasing as a relationship moves from philanthropic to transactional to integrative. For companies, various benefits are reported. At the most basic level, there is the emotional gratification of helping others and a general enhancement of the company’s reputation as a good corporate citizen. More specifically and powerfully, engagement with a CSO and its cause can create a more intense relationship with a variety of key stakeholders: increased buyer preference and customer loyalty; opening up or development of new market segments; enhanced attraction, motivation, and retention of employees; greater credibility with and access to governmental authorities; greater support from local communities by an enhanced social and political ‘‘license to operate’’; and deeper social bonds with suppliers and distributors, which in turn strengthen the commercial relationship. In effect, the company can harvest a set of benefits that enhance its competitive advantage and organizational sustainability. These benefits, however, do not always accrue, and nor are they easy to measure. Analyses aimed at establishing quantitatively links between corporate social engagement and financial performance have produced ambiguous results (Waddock & Graves, 1997; Margolis & Walsh, 2001). Similarly, various benefits can accrue to the collaborating CSO. The philanthropic modality, of course, is premised on cash or in-kind contributions. As a relationship develops and involves other aspects of the business, the CSO’s capabilities are sometimes strengthened, e.g., through new management techniques, operating systems, communications methods and channels. Some nonprofits have gained greater exposure, credibility, and access to other funding sources, media, companies, volunteers, and distribution channels. But collaborations also come with costs, most visibly those associated with financial and material transfers, personnel time, as well as assumed risks. These include
Civil Society–Business Relations
the risks of the partner not delivering adequately the promised inputs or actions, or of inappropriate behavior outside of the collaboration that might damage reputation. In addition, there is the risk of mission drift on the part of CSOs. Generally, businesses have been able to assess the benefits and costs to the company of partnering, but the nonprofits have been better able to judge the social value emanating from the partnership (Austin et al., 2007). Starting a collaboration often also runs into the challenge of attaining cultural compatibility. Businesses and nonprofit organizations often have quite different organizational cultures, for example in terms of governance structures, decision-making processes, operating norms, time frames, values, and even language. This challenge calls for both sides to recognize that differences will exist, try to understand them, and be open to learning and adapting to the other’s ways. A certain amount of frustration is common. The cultural shift can lead to problems, with some observers noting that nonprofits adopting more managerial tactics tend to have more internal disagreements (Galaskiewicz & Bielefeld, 1998). The above steps in starting an alliance – identifying congruent goals, weighing benefits and costs, and attaining cultural compatibility – ultimately come down to setting partnering terms. These terms not only clarify the purposes of partnering but also establish respective responsibilities and accountability: Who will provide what and when. 2. Handling the Relationship Once a collaboration has been started, much of its effectiveness depends on how well it is managed. Three tasks appear to be particularly important: communicating, dealing with tensions, and ensuring accountability. Undercommunication and miscommunication are reported as common problem areas in partner relationships. Clear and sufficient communication is deemed to be central to building trust, which is the social glue that creates partnering cohesion. Trust, as practitioners commonly report, is earned by backing up one’s stated promises with the corresponding deeds. Credibility is a function of the capacity to deliver. In addition to communication between partners, importance is also given to communicating internally to employees and trustees so that they understand the purpose and importance of the partnership. Of similar import is communicating to external stakeholders, who in some cases view a crosssectoral alliance with suspicion because they do not understand its rationale. Tensions inevitably arise in relationships. Smart practices suggest that it is constructive for partners to try and identify potential areas of tension and discuss in advance
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how to deal with these in particular and others yet unforeseen. For example, there may be tensions around the relative imbalance of power stemming from different sizes and resource bases, or the use of each other’s brands or other communications to external audiences. Identifying tension areas, formulating decision rules, and establishing dispute processes appear to prepare both sides better for dealing with difficulties in a problem-solving mode. Additionally, strong alliances frequently designate a relationship manager who has the primary responsibility for managing the interaction with the partner. These actions appear particularly important in instances where major crises in the other organization or the collaboration itself emerge, as these are tests of the strength of the relationship and the capacity for joint problem solving. In strong alliances the partners identify ways to ensure accountability. Formal mechanisms of accountability include contracts or written terms and expected outputs of the collaboration. Formal accountability is also enhanced by transparency in producing and sharing information, evaluation both during and after key events, as well as options for sanction or withdrawal from the partnership should key expectations be violated. Informal mechanisms of accountability are equally crucial, and rely on processes to build and nurture trust among the players. These rely on the building of social and professional relationships, shared goals, and opportunities for answerability where parties can seek explanations for decisions taken (Ebrahim & Weisband, 2007). 3. Building the Partnership While many collaborations, particularly in the philanthropic stage, may remain relatively static, others seek to become more robust through generating greater value, scaling, or broadening. The amount of value generated in a partnership is partially a function not just of the amount of resources that the partners bring to bear but also the type (Austin, 2000a). When each organization contributes ‘‘generic resources’’ – those that any similar organization could provide, such as funds from companies or reputational credibility from CSOs – value is indeed created. Greater value is generated, however, when each partner mobilizes its ‘‘core competencies’’ – those key assets, capabilities, infrastructure, reputation, systems, and knowledge that are central to its success (Kanter, 1994). Leveraging these distinctive resources increases the possibilities and power for value creation. Still further value can be created through combining the core competencies of the business and CSO partners. The melding together of distinct sets of assets into new synergistic constellations provides a basis for creating innovative approaches to long-standing problems.
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Over time, greater benefits to the partners and society can be attained by increasing the scale of the collaboration. Growth, however, places greater demands on the partners’ organizational capabilities, so investing in strengthening institutional capacity appears to be a concomitant to scaling. Growing can occur in a variety of ways: bringing in other partners to expand the resource pool, stimulating others to replicate the current operations, or developing networks (Wei-Skillern, 2008). Increased impact and benefits might also occur by broadening the activities that the collaboration encompasses. This broadening often is the result of a mutual learning and discovery process. Over time partners deepen their understanding of each others’ capabilities and see opportunities for undertaking new joint activities. Their knowledge of the underlying social problems also grows, thereby opening new insights into how to attack those. Lastly, growing trust and collaborative capabilities enable the partners to take on distinct, more complicated, and perhaps riskier undertakings. 4. Managing the Portfolio Many companies and nonprofit organizations have multiple cross-sector relationships. The task then becomes one of managing their ‘‘collaboration portfolio’’ (Austin, 2003). The first step in portfolio management is to create a clear view of the contents of the collaboration inventory. This mapping exercise can usefully draw on the ‘‘collaboration continuum’’ discussed previously to categorize where different collaborations lie relative to philanthropic, transactional, and integrative relationship types. At the heart of portfolio management is achieving an optimum mix through balancing. Different collaborations can fulfill distinct functions. They also can impose varying levels of demand on managerial resources, hence requiring a balancing of capabilities against these requirements. There can also be different levels of risk exposure and reward gain. Wise risk management often seeks diversity of types and avoids overconcentration or dependence. Portfolios are dynamic. They are renovated or adjusted to fit changing objectives and varying performance of the assets in the holdings. This means that new collaborations will enter and others will exit. The starting of new collaborations has been discussed above. The ending of a collaboration poses distinct challenges. A certain interdependency has been created, so minimizing disruption is crucial. This implies sufficient advance notice and an exit process that is clear and provides enough time for appropriate adjustments to take place such that harm to the partners and the social beneficiaries is minimized.
Future Directions Civil society–business relations will continue to evolve in complexity and diversity. While the basic nature of adversarial and collaborative interactions described above can be expected to persist, there is a growing recognition by business and civic actors of the global and cross-sectoral nature of public problems. Responding to these challenges will require innovations in governance, operations, and financing through new sets of relationships not only among civil society and business, but also with governments. For example, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is a partnership among all three sectors and affected communities in order to finance international health. Global governance will also continue to evolve. The World Trade Organization, for instance, has become increasingly active in international trade disputes, such as those concerning agriculture and access to essential medicines. The new challenges facing business and civil society thus lie at systemic rather than sectoral levels. The new frontier for corporations may be in finding ways to integrate social value creation into their business models rather than separately as philanthropy. And CSOs may be similarly dared to seek solutions that craft private enterprise for the public good. More specifically, with growing interdependence and even convergence, businesses and CSOs will become much more adept at creating strategic alliances that produce and capture crosssector synergies.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Accountability, Partnerships, Social Enterprise ▶ Advocacy ▶ Civil Society – Business Relations ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ▶ Greenpeace ▶ INGOs ▶ International Baby Food Action Network ▶ Partnerships ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Stakeholders
References/Further Readings Andrioff, J., Waddock, S., Husted, B., & Rahman, S. (2002). Unfolding stakeholder thinking: Theory, responsibility and engagement. Sheffield, UK: Greenleaf. Austin, J. E. (2000a). The collaboration challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Civility Austin, J. E. (2000b). Strategic collaboration between nonprofits and businesses. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(1), 69–97. Austin, J. E. (2003). Strategic alliances: Managing the collaboration portfolio. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 1(2), 48–55. Austin, J. E. (2007). Sustainability through partnering: Conceptualizing partnerships between businesses and NGOs. In P. Glasbergen, F. Biermann, & A.P.J. Mol (Eds.), Partnerships, governance and sustainable development: Reflections on theory and practice. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Austin, J. E., Reficco, E., (2004). Social partnering in Latin America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Austin, J. E., Gutie´rrez, R., Ogliastri, E., & Reficco, E. (2007). Capitalizing on convergence. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 5(1), 24–31. Bendell, J., & Kearins, K. (2005). The political bottom line: The emerging dimension to corporate responsibility for sustainable development. Business Strategy and the Environment, 14, 372–383. Conroy, M. E. (2007). Branded!: How the certification revolution is transforming global corporations. Gabriola, BC: New Society Publishers. Ebrahim, A., & Weisband, E. (2007). Global accountabilities: Participation, pluralism and public ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Galaskiewicz, J., & Bielefeld, W. (1998). Nonprofit organizations in an age of uncertainty: A study of organizational change. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Galaskiewicz, J., & Colman, M. S. (2006). Collaboration between corporations and nonprofit organizations. In R. Steinberg & W. Powell (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., New Haven/London: Yale University Press.pp. 180–204). Giving USA Foundation (2008). Giving USA 2007. New York: American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel. Gray, B (1989). Collaborating. Finding common ground for multiparty problems. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. IEG (2006). IEG Sponsorship Report 2005. Chicago, IL: IEG, LLC. Also see www.sponsorship.com Kanter, R. M. (1994). From spare change to real change. Harvard Business Review, July–Aug., 96–108. Khagram, S., Riker, J. V., & Sikkink, K. (Eds.) (2002). Restructuring world politics: Transnational social movements, networks, and norms. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Kulik, T (1999). The expanding parameters of global corporate citizenship. Report 1246. New York: The Conference Board, Inc. Margolis, J. D., & Walsh, J. P. (2001). People and profits? The search for a link between a company’s social and financial performance. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sanborn, C., & Portocarrero, F. (Eds.) (2005). Philanthropy and social change in Latin America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Selsky, J. W., & Parker, B. (2005). Cross-sector partnerships to address social issues: Challenges to theory and practice. Journal of Management, 31(6), 849–873. Waddock, S. A., & Graves, S. B. (1997). The corporate social performance-financial performance link. Strategic Management Journal, 18(4), 303–319. Wei-Skillern, J. (2008). The networked nonprofit. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 6(2), 38–43. Yaziji, M. (2004).Turning gadflies into allies. Harvard Business Review, February, 110–115. Zadek, S(2004). The civil corporation: The new economy of corporate citizenship. London/Sterling, VA: Earthscan.
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Civility HELMUT K. ANHEIER1,2 1 University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany 2 Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany
Introduction Like civil society, the term civility has a long history in the social sciences (see Boyd, 2004) and the humanities (see Carter, 1998), and a history that reflects different uses and changes in meaning over time. Today, the term also overlaps with concepts such as civic engagement, civic mindedness, civic culture, even cosmopolitanism (Archibugi, 2003); and like these as well as the term civil society itself, it is a complex concept that can easily become normatively charged and used for different ideological purposes, either implicitly or explicitly. Differences in perspectives on what some see as a much needed normative foundation and others interpret as a moral bias are at the core of an emerging debate about the meaning, role, or function of civility in modern societies.
Definition Billante and Saunders (2002), having surveyed the growing literature on civility, suggest three elements that together constitute civility. The first element is respect for others, or in Shils’ words (1997: 338): ‘‘Civility is basically respect for the dignity and the desire for dignity of other persons.’’ The second element is civility as public behavior towards strangers, or in Carter’s terms (1998: 58): ‘‘Civility equips us for everyday life with strangers.. . . we need neither to love them nor to hate them in order to be civil towards them.’’ The third element is selfregulation in the sense that it requires empathy by putting one’s own immediate self-interest in the context of the larger common good and acting accordingly (Billante & Saunders, 2002: 33). Civility is learned behavior, embedded in the social and cultural codes of society, and requires positive reinforcement. Like social capital, in particular interpersonal and institutional trust, civility requires enactment, acknowledgment, and maintenance in actual social life. Civility is not a constant, but can be learned as well as unlearned, and increase and decrease over time. Understanding of civility as learned public behavior demonstrating respect for others while curtailing one’s immediate self-interest when appropriate, leads to the next issue: What is the role or function of civility?
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Here a look at history is very instructive. Elias (2000) suggests that the modern Western notion of civility began to form in the late Middle Ages, and emerged more fully in the sixteenth century. It involved a complex process of behavioral and institutional transformations, triggered by a demand for greater stability and predictability in social and political relations, including conflict management, as economic ties across localities and regions expanded. This civilizing process for creating and protecting nonviolent, institutional spaces began in the aristocratic court society first, trickled down to the emerging urban middle classes and bourgeoisie next, and increasingly encompassed larger and larger segments of society. ‘‘Polite society’’ became the norm. One could make similar arguments for other parts of the world as well, e.g., China, Japan, Persia, or Turkey, where political and economic development demanded violence-free zones and greater routinization and institutionalization of behavior, including conflict management. Civility, therefore, is important, because it helps social cooperation, and is vital for bridging social capital to operate in modern society. For Shils (1997) civility serves to locate different human beings as equal members of the same inclusive public, whereas incivility is a device of exclusion. Yet, there is a deeper purpose civility serves in modern pluralist societies, as Rawls (1993) and Hayek (1976) suggest. This purpose has to do with the relationship between means and ends or methods and objectives in diverse societies where people primarily follow their self-interest. Hayek (1976: 3) argues that the relative peace and nonviolence of diverse societies becomes possible because ‘‘individuals are not required to agree on ends but only on means which are capable of serving a great variety of purposes and which each hopes will assist him in the pursuit of his own purposes. Civility is one such method of collaboration.’’ Similarly, Rawls (1993: 147– 149) sees civility functioning as the ‘‘modus Vivendi’’ for reducing the collision of ‘‘unrestricted liberties’’ in modern, diverse society. One could make similar references to the notion of the public sphere as a violence free and equal space of communication (Habermas, 1991).
Historical Background The term civility derives from the Latin civilitas and civilis, meaning ‘‘relating to citizens,’’ and expressing, in its early use, not only the state of being a citizen of Rome but also the notion of being a good citizen with appropriate behavior. In the sixteenth century, the term shifted away from citizen status and began to emphasize formal politeness and courtesy in behavior and, increasingly, speech. As this change took place in the court societies of Europe’s interconnected aristocracy, the everyday
meaning of civility in English, French (civilite´) or German (Zivilita¨t) remained fairly close. At the same time, the term soon acquired elitist connotations by reference to behavior (etiquette) at court, and in aristocratic circles generally. According to Elias, civility became a mechanism of exclusion for the European upper classes who held themselves in higher esteem than others they ‘‘deemed as simpler and more primitive’’ (2000: 48; own translation). Civility became a privilege associated with elite status, and separated elites from others, be they members of the working class, farmers, or the poor. What is more, during colonialism, civility as a form of individual behavior became closely tied to the broader concept of civilization, and the notion that the West has a civilizing mission towards the world. The people and societies of Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania were to be civilized and turned from ‘‘savages’’ into ‘‘civilized human beings.’’ This process involved diverse institutions (ranging from religion and the law to education to high culture) and organizations (ranging from the military to missionary societies and from corporations to finishing schools), and existed in a variety of frameworks (English or French Empire), but typically rooted to some sense of superiority. By the middle of the twentieth century, civility had become politically and morally implicated not only as elitist but also as fundamentally corrupt in the face of Western colonialism, two brutal world wars, and genocides. The critique of Western civilization implied a critique of civility, but mostly the term was seen as antiquated, snobbish, and reactionary at best. Gradually, however, the term moved into the cultural background of more egalitarian and affluent societies. While civility has not regained more currency in everyday language, it has reentered the discourse in the social sciences and the humanities. It did so in the wake of analyses about the changing social fabric of modern societies (Bauman, 2001), the alleged decline in social capital (Putnam, 2000), and a rise of social isolation, social vices, and crime (Bennett, 1995; Lane, 2000). The current treatment of civility detached the term from connotations with Western civilization and elitism, and links it to notions of community, sociability, and mutual dependence (Dekker, 200x; Misztal, 2001: 72), and responsibility and self control (Elchardus, 2008).
Key Issues Compared to the term civil society, research has neglected civility, and has generally failed to take adequate conceptual and empirical account of the term. This neglect resulted from an implicit treatment, perhaps even being taken-for-granted, of the adjectives ‘‘civil’’ and ‘‘civic;’’ and
Civility
a focus on civil society institutions and organizations rather individual behavior and dispositions. To remedy this neglect requires a reorientation of civil society research that makes the concept of civility explicit, and a refocus, indeed, broadening of the empirical approach taken. Civility is still primarily seen in the context of national societies, especially in its capacity to help ‘‘manage’’ diverse communities. However, in the context of globalization, civility could play a similar role in the many emerging transnational arenas of economy and society, including culture and politics. Civility, as often tacit, culturally embedded ‘‘agreements to disagree agreeably’’ allows for routinization of collaborative behaviors that may involve actors that are different in a variety of respects. Civility creates predictability, and builds social capital through successful encounters across national, cultural, political, economic, and linguistic borders. It promises to create the nonviolent, stable, and predictable zones for institutions, organizations, and individuals to operate and flourish in transnational contexts. An emerging global civil society is one important sphere in which such zones can be established, maintained, and grown, though it is not the only one. Businesses and governments can also serve as agents of the wider ‘‘civilising process.’’ Some authors like Ezzat and Kaldor (2007: 36–37) argue that civil society actors and organizations have a special duty in pointing out civility failures and taking corrective action accordingly. They call for ‘‘pre-emptive civility’’ that tries to create the mechanism and opportunities for communicating respect for one another, and write: ‘‘If global civil society is to have a mission at this historical moment of humanity, it would be to recapture the power of language and to regain its (civilising) role, providing a forum for deliberative democracy, re-rooting legitimacy in civil society, and highlighting the importance of politics of presence, not merely representation’’ (2007: 36). In other words, global civil society is to establish, defend, and build zones of non violence and social as well as cultural predictability to encourage debate and dialogue. The previous definition of national and global civil society focused on the ‘‘what’’ in terms of its constituent elements. It said nothing about the roles, contributions, or functions of what civil society is to achieve at local or transnational levels. Adding civility to the definition and making it explicit, we are not only addressing the ‘‘how,’’ e.g., Rawls’ modus Vivendi or Habermas’ public sphere notion, but also the ‘‘why.’’ In other words, civility offers the field of global civil society research potentially an explicit ‘‘independent’’ and ‘‘dependent variable’’: to what extent, under what conditions and how is civil
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society able or unable to create, maintain, and grow zones of non violence and predictability at local, national, international, and transnational levels?
Conclusion It becomes clear that such an understanding of civility and its role in civil society as well as in society at large involves more than the correction in terms of definitions suggested above. Research activities must follow suit and ‘‘map and measure’’ civility in terms of nonviolent zones of communicating respect, the range and depth of the modus Vivendi Rawls identifies, and the preemptive capacity of global civil society Ezzat and Kaldor suggest. So far, research has little to show when in comes to these issues, and the future empirical research agenda should address this deficit.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civil Society Theory: Habermas ▶ Civil Society Theory: Shils ▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Social Capital, Definition of
References/Further Readings Archibugi, D. (2003). Cosmopolitical democracy. Debating cosmopolotics. London: Verso. Baxi, U. (2002). The future of human rights. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. Bauman, Z. (2001). The individualized society. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bennett, W. (1993). The book of virtues. A treasury of great moral stories. New York: Simon & Schuster. Billante, N., & Saunders, P. (2002). Why civility matters. Policy, 18(3), 32–36. Boyd, R. (2004). Michael Oakeshott on civility, civil society and civil association. Political Studies, 52, Oxford: Blackwell.603–622. Calhoun, C. (2003). The consciousness of frequent travellers: Towards a critique of actually existing cosmopolitanism, debating cosmopolitics. London: Verso. Carter, S. (1998). Civility. New York: Basic Books. Dahrendorf, R. (1994). Der moderne soziale Konflikt. Essay zur Politik der Freheit. Munich: DTV. Dekker, P. (200x). Zerreist das Soziale Band. Elchardus, M. (2008). Self-control. Notes on the emergence of symbolic society working paper. Department of Sociology, Free University of Brussels. Elias, N. (2000). The civilizing process: Sociogenetic and psychogenetic investigation. Oxford: Blackwell. Ezzat, H. R., & Kaldor, M. (2007). Not even a tree: Delegitimising violence and the prospects for pre-emptive civility, global civil society: 2006/7. London: Sage. Habermas, J. (1991). The structural transformation of the public sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hayek, F. A. (1976). Law, legislation and liberty: Vol. 2, the mirage of social justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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Keane, J. (2003). Global civil society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lane, R. (2000). The loss of happiness in market economies. New Haven: Yale University Press. Misztal, B. (2001). Trust in modern societies. London: Routledge. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone. The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rawls, J. (1993). Political liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press. Shils, E. (1997). Civility and civil society: Good manners between persons and concern for the common good in public affairs, the virtue of civility. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund.
Mission Initially established for the ‘‘mental, moral, and physical improvement of the inhabitants of Cleveland,’’ by 2008 the mission of The Cleveland Foundation had expanded ‘‘to enhance the lives of all residents of Greater Cleveland, now and for generations to come, by building community endowment, addressing needs through grantmaking, and providing leadership on key community issues.’’
Activities The Foundation focuses on seven ‘‘vital issues’’:
Cleveland Foundation ANTHONY FILIPOVITCH
Address of Organization 1422 Euclid Avenue, Suite 1300 Cleveland, OH 44115 USA www.clevelandfoundation.org
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
Arts and culture Early childhood and youth development Economic development Advanced energy International relations Neighborhoods and housing Public education reform
Structure and Governance
The Cleveland Foundation was the first community foundation, and throughout its history has been a leader in shaping the form of the contemporary community foundation.
The Cleveland Foundation is incorporated as a public trust, managed by a board of 15 members representing the business community and the community at large. The daily operations are managed by a President/CEO, four vice presidents (Donor Relations, Governance & Administration, Programs & Evaluation, Chief Financial Officer) and a staff of 66 other people.
Brief History
Funding
Introduction
The Cleveland Foundation was formed in 1914 by Federick H. Goff, an estate attorney and President of the Cleveland Trust Co. He and the Cleveland Trust Co. developed a form of corporate trust to provide greater flexibility for his wealthy clients who wished to leave some of their wealth to charity, a trust that focused on the community in which it would act rather than on a specific use for the funds. In its early years, The Cleveland Foundation funded a series of Cleveland Social Studies which identified areas of specific need in the community. It also funded the Cleveland Metropark studies, which resulted in a chain of parks encircling the city – the ‘‘emerald necklace,’’ as it was called. In the 1930s, the Foundation was opened to other trustees than the Cleveland Trust Co. (which greatly enlarged its donor base) and received two significant gifts of $3 million each. In 1967, the Foundation began making grants to the City of Cleveland, opening the door to expanded public/private partnerships. These partnerships were significantly expanded under the leadership of Steven Minter, its president from 1983–2003.
The Cleveland Foundation at the end of 2007 held over US$2.2 billion in assets, and received US$59 million in new contributions. Its return on invested endowment was 8.36%. The Foundation used those resources to authorize almost 3,000 grants worth US$85 million.
Major Accomplishments Originally called a ‘‘community trust,’’ Frederick Goff ’s innovative perception was to pool permanent endowments from wealthy individuals into a charitable corporation which would be continuously managed by a board of directors for a broadly defined set of purposes that would benefit of a defined community. The model prior to this time was for individuals of wealth to create a trust in their wills to benefit in perpetuity a specific cause – which led to outdated and unattended charitable trusts, which Goff called the ‘‘dead hand of philanthropy’’ (Magat, 1989). Incorporated with a broadly defined purpose, the community foundation model permits the Board of Directors to adjust the mission to meet changing community needs. By managing an endowment composed of pooled
Climate Action Network
gifts from many donors, the community foundation broadens the base for charitable giving to the community and brings economies of scale to the process of grantmaking and fundraising. Within 5 years, the Cleveland model had been adopted in Chicago (Illinois), Boston (Massachusetts), Milwaukee (Wisconsin), Minneapolis (Minnesota), and Buffalo (New York). Ninety years later, there are more than 700 community foundations in the United States, and an additional 365 in 37 other countries (The Cleveland Foundation, ‘‘About the Cleveland Foundation’’).
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Goff, Frederick
References/Further Readings Howard, N. (1963). A trust for all time: The story of the Cleveland Foundation and the Community Trust Movement. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Foundation. Magat, R. (1989). An agile servant. Washington, DC: The Council on Foundations. Tittle, D. (1992). Rebuilding Cleveland: The Cleveland Foundation and its evolving urban strategy. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press.
Climate Action Network KRISTIAN KRIEGER
Address of Organization International Secretariat Charles-de-Gaulle Strasse 5 53113 Bonn Germany www.climatenetwork.org/
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Brief History The Climate Action Network was founded in 1989, initially with regional representations in Europe and the United States. The rationale behind its establishment was the coordination of the activities of nongovernmental organizations and the provision of a forum for the development of a joint strategy of NGOs for and during the Second World Climate Conference in 1990. Since then, CAN continues to act as coordination network for NGO activities at international climate conferences. It has expanded the number of regional nodes from the original two to seven, complemented by national representations, as well as an increasing number of member organizations.
Mission CAN’s mission focuses on addressing the issue of climate change. Reflecting its nature of a coordination network, it states as its mission ‘‘to support and empower civil society organisations to influence the design and development of an effective global strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ensure its implementation at international, national, and local levels in the promotion of equity and sustainable development.’’
Activities In accordance to its origins, CAN is mainly concerned with influencing international negotiation processes, e.g., by issuing network-wide press releases and producing the conference newsletter ECO. Some regional offices of CAN also engage in other forms of advocacy work. CAN Europe, for instance, produces position papers on a wide range of issues relevant for international climate policy negotiations, and runs an information service on climate change. Beyond this advocacy work at international negotiations, CAN offers its members tools to coordinate their strategies and activities. The network uses CANtalk as main coordination tool which is used to send out confidential messages to all members. Physical coordination between all networks members only commenced in 2000 with the first CAN summit.
Introduction The Climate Action Network (CAN) is a loosely coordinated worldwide network comprising more than 365 member nongovernmental organizations from 85 countries. It is ‘‘working to promote government, private sector and individual action to limit human-induced climate change to ecologically sustainable levels.’’ Members include large international NGOs such as Greenpeace, WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature, and Friends of the Earth, as well as smaller groups from developing countries such as Terre Vivante from Mauritania and the Green Coalition from the Philippines.
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Structure and Governance The Climate Action Network is a decentralised network coordinating the exchange of information and NGO strategy on international, regional, and national climate issues. It is organized in seven regional blocs with individual regional coordinators and subsets of national organizations. Only the regional nodes in Europe and the United States have offices with full-time staff whilst coordinators of the other regional nodes are usually members in regional NGOs that took on CAN work in addition to their NGO duties. Apart from being active in the policy field of
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global warming, organizations that seek membership have to obtain supporting letters of two existing member organizations and respect unwritten guidelines of conduct.
Funding The funding sources of individual member organizations and regional representations of the network are diverse. CAN Europe received funding from the European Commission, the Oak and the European Climate Foundations, the Belgian Environment Ministry, and its member organizations.
Accomplishments CAN is particularly well-known for the publication of its daily newsletter ECO during climate negotiations.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Friends of the Earth ▶ Greenpeace ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits ▶ WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature
References/Further Readings Duwe, M. (2001). The climate action network: A glance behind the curtains of a transnational NGO network. Reciel, 10(2), 177–189. Newell, P. (2000). Climate for change: Non-state actors and the global politics of the greenhouse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Clubs and Clans MARY KAY GUGERTY University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Introduction Clubs and clans are common forms of associational life globally and are significant components of civil society in many communities and societies. But in academic and popular usage, both concepts suffer from a lack of conceptual clarity in their definition and measurement. Clubs and clans each represent a distinct form of collective action, varying in their structure, membership attributes, and goals. These different features may affect the impact of each form of association on civic engagement and civil society. Here we seek to differentiate between the two according to key structural features, highlighting the resulting impacts and interactions with civil society.
Definition Smith et al. (2006) define clubs as nonprofit groups whose principal goal is to foster social relations and sociability with secondary goals of service, leisure, or political involvement. Clubs are membership associations in which members share similar needs, attitudes, or interests (Lord & Elmendorf, 2008). Clubs tend to be relatively small-scale, local and involve face-to-face contact. Clubs may be informal, small and independent, or they may formal and part of a larger federated national or international organization. Classic examples of service clubs in the United States include the Kiwanis, Rotary International, and the Elks. Examples of social clubs include country clubs, book clubs, or garden clubs. Some clubs may have a self-help or self-improvement character. Thus rotating savings and credit associations around the world help members accumulate capital, while other savings clubs provide insurance for unforeseen expenses resulting from ill health or death. The study of clubs also forms an important literature in public economics and economists have a specific way of defining clubs to examine how collective action in clubs is maintained. Economists view clubs as voluntary groups whose members derive mutual benefit from sharing the costs of providing a joint good or service, or by sharing similar interests or affiliations (Cornes & Sandler, 1996). Clubs provide collective goods that can be shared by members, but which nonmembers are unable to enjoy. Because of the excludable nature of club goods, clubs are more likely to overcome classic problems of free-riding and under-provision since they can charge members for participation (Olson, 1965). Clubs must therefore develop and maintain rules for entry and fees for membership as well as sanctions for those who do not contribute. Perhaps the classic example of a club is the country club, but club analysis has been extended to many arenas including the study of voluntary regulation programs among firms and nonprofits (Gugerty & Prakash, forthcoming). The core features of the club concept are shared goals and provision, shared cost of provision, and some kind of barrier to entry or membership restriction. The term ‘‘clan,’’ is also used in different ways by different disciplines, but these definitions share a common core. Clans are networks of individuals who typically know each other personally and transact face-to-face. Kinship-based clans are closed, nonvoluntary systems in which individuals are linked by ties based on ascriptive characteristics (such as ethnicity, religion, or caste) that are relatively immutable, at least in the short-run. By this definition, clans are not voluntary organizations, since an individual can not choose which clan to join. Kinship ties may be based on blood relations, or they may be ‘‘fictive’’ ties based on another
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close relationship such as family alliances, neighborhood, or village. A clan is both an organization and an identity (Collins, 2004). The goals of clan organization are typically to promote the interests of the clan, and do not necessarily include civic engagement or public service. The dense ties that bind members of a clan together form the basis for social cooperation. The term clan has also been adopted to study the structure of cooperation within more formal production organizations. This conception builds on Durkheim’s idea of clan as form of ‘‘organic solidarity’’ that resembles a kin network but has a different basis for membership (Durkheim, 1933). Clan forms of organization support cooperation through the socialization of participants into their roles within an organization, so that organizational goals are congruent with individual goals (Ouchi, 1980). Norms of reciprocity and common values and beliefs, along with shared information about ‘‘the ways things are done’’ suffice to undergird cooperation and joint production without the need for constant performance evaluation. With goal congruence, managers need to spend less time supervising employees or developing complex contracts that try to align employee incentives with those of managers. In this way, clan forms of organization reduce the transactions costs involved in monitoring workers. Rather than promoting self-interest, clans in this conception can produce quality production in settings requiring a high degree of teamwork and characterized by uncertain, fluid, or changing technologies.
Historical Background and International Perspectives The literature on formal voluntary clubs is surprisingly sparse, given their prevalence in many societies. In the United States, modern service clubs have their origins in the colonial era, when merchant clubs were established to support businesses (Sieder, 1996; Charles, 1993). These clubs undertook service projects to enhance the economic appeal of towns and cities, similar in many ways to modern Chambers of Commerce (Wilke, 1997). Subsequently, men’s fraternal organizations were established to address social and religious ends. While membership was drawn from a wider range of occupations than in the merchant clubs, these fraternal orders were deliberately exclusive and members entered by invitation only (Hapgood, 1989). Fraternal orders met member social aspirations through a series of symbolic and secret rituals of brotherhood, but also offered members illness and death benefits. Lodges served the community interest by contributing to local charities. Membership in such societies began to decline in the early twentieth century, as employers began to offer
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insurance benefits and industrialization gave rise to a growing middle-class. Responding to greater leisure and income, new clubs formed around recreational pursuits. Women’s clubs and societies emerged as an outlet for educated to expand their social and public sphere, which translated into a great deal of civic activity (Charles, 1993). In response to these changes, the first Rotary club was founded in 1905, with the goals of increasing the business contacts of members and supporting community service (Charles, 1993). While Rotary and other clubs initially focused on the promotion of business interests, after World War I service took on a larger role, as middleclass men sought to assert their influence in their communities (Wilke, 1997). By 1995, however, Robert Putnam argued that civic participation and associational life in the United States was in marked decline, measured in part by substantial declines in participation in fraternal organizations, service clubs, parent-teacher associations and, most famously, bowling leagues (Putnam, 1995, 2000). Service clubs could be seen as uniquely American phenomenon, but service clubs have a large international profile as well. By 1930, Rotary, Kiwanis and Lions clubs had been established on every continent and by 1997 worldwide membership was reported to be nearly three million (Wilke, 1999). Perhaps because they were seen as incubators of middle-class values, informal social clubs often sprung among marginalized and excluded populations: African-Americans in the United States (Crewe & Reynolds, 2006), among immigrants (Mooney, 2003; Portes & Landolt, 2000) and among colonized populations (Newell, 2001). Clans historically formed the basis for social and economic organizations in many societies, but the expectation of many political scientists and sociologists was that clans were incompatible with modern society and that as modernization occurred, clans would wither away as loyalties shifted from family and village to state and nation (Huntington, 1968). However, in many modern societies clans persist as important forms of social organization. The ‘‘economy of affection,’’ in which informal forms of social organization permeate civic and political life, continues to persist in many societies (Hyden, 1980; Scott, 1976). Informally organized clans continue to resist state power over social order in many countries in the Middle East (Anderson, 1986) and in Central Asia (Collins, 2006). In many countries in Africa, the failure of colonial and postcolonial states to fully consolidate borders and permeate societies contributes to the influence of informal social organizations, such as clan, on civic life (Herbst, 2000). Many scholars of democracy argue that
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clan-based forms of social organization continue to impede democratic reform and economic growth in a number of countries (Lauth, 2000). Collins (2004) documents how clans in Central Asia have tended to ‘‘crowd out’’ other forms of association that might act as a counterweight to clan or state power. As a result clan politics tends to undermine civil and political liberties and may create a vicious circle in which clans vie to strip the state of productive assets.
Key Issues A large body of theoretic and empirical work seeks to understand how associational life is connected to civic engagement and civic vibrancy. The connection between participation and associations is often traced back to the work of Alexis de Tocqueville who emphasized how faceto-face interactions in civic associations undergirded American democracy in the mid-nineteenth century. Tocqueville argued that participation pulled people away from the closed, binding ties of family and kinship and encouraged them to develop habits of association and to work for the common good (Tocqueville, 1969 [1840]). Since then a number of ‘‘neo-Tocquevillians’’ have analyzed these arguments in more systematic fashion (Howard & Gilbert, 2008). These scholars propose a number of pathways through which associational life contributes to civil society and several characteristics of associational form and purpose that may matter for these contributions. First, participation in associations helps create social capital, conceived as the ‘‘norms of reciprocity and networks of civic engagement’’ that facilitate cooperation and generate trust (Putnam et al., 1993; Putnam, 2000). While the work of Robert Putnam is perhaps the best-known recent contribution to this literature, his work builds on the earlier contributions of Bourdieu (1980) and Coleman (1988). Bourdieu defined social capital as the opportunities and resources that accrue to individuals because of their membership in particular communities and as a result of investments made in individual and communal relationships (Portes and Landolt, 1996). Coleman viewed social capital as a resource lodged in interpersonal relationships that could be both a source of social control as well as a source for civic advancement. Putnam, Nanetti, and Leonardi’s (1993) research on civic life in Italy argued that participation in intensive, face-to-face, horizontally organized forms of association in the north Italy produced norms of generalized reciprocity and trust that could sustain collective action for collective benefit. Such cooperative experience, they argued, provided a template for future cooperation, overcoming classic dangers of free-riding and shirking (ibid; Olson, 1965).
The social capital argument makes several assumptions about the kind of associational life needed to create social capital. First, the social capital perspective argues that horizontal, democratic, ‘‘web-like’’ networks and associations contribute more to civic life than do more hierarchical, vertical forms of organization. Horizontal associations are more likely to foster norms of generalized trust: as interactions are repeated, reputations are built and social ties can be used to sanction or discipline noncooperators. Vertical or hierarchical associations are less likely to generate information and trust, because subordinates typically have less access to information and are less able to sanction superiors. In addition, open associations are thought to contribute more to civic life than more closed forms of association. Associations with a high degree of closure can create a form of thick trust that enhances cooperation among insiders, but this closure may also result in distrust of outsiders. As a result, it does not provide the basis for a more generalized civic engagement (Coleman, 1988; Wollebeck & Selle, 2002). These associations create ‘‘strong ties’’ that bind members together, rather than ‘‘weak ties’’ that connect and transmit information but do not encumber (Granovetter, 1973). In this view, associations are more likely to generate trust and shared norms when they are ‘‘bridging’’ rather than ‘‘bonding’’ organizations (Woolcock & Narayan, 2000). Associational life may also enhance civil society through the inculcation of civic and political skills (Cohen & Rogers, 1995; Verba et al., 1995). But the acquisition of civic skills may require active participation: attending meetings, writing letters, learning to mediate conflict. Active face-to-face participation, rather than passive participation, may be necessary for associational life to impact civic engagement. The specific goals of association may also matter for civil society and particularly for political engagement. The social capital argument rests on the assumption the associational participation affects the internal orientation of individuals, making them more likely to engage externally in ways that promote good governance and accountable institutions. But it is possible that participation in associations for one’s own pleasure and leisure does not directly translate to civic engagement (Fung, 2003). In addition, political engagement may be result only if associations are explicitly political in nature. Finally, association goals matter because associational life has a dark side (Theiss-Morse & Hibbing, 2005) and social capital can easily be ‘‘unsocial’’ in nature (Levi, 1996). Members of the Aryan Brotherhood or the Ku Klux Klan all attend meetings, elect officers, and make
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decisions democratically within the group, but without the external pursuit of democratic ends (Armony, 2004). Thus associational life can act to defend the status quo against demands for greater civic engagement or to undermine civil society through the pursuit of narrow group goals. In this case, horizontal organization within associations is not by itself a good metric by which to judge the civic contributions of associations. But, it is also possible that exclusive, hierarchical associations may nonetheless possess the potential to increase individual potential for civic engagement by fostering self-respect and self-confidence (Rosenblum, 1998).
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consist of dense ties, and involve face-to-face interaction. Clubs and clans tend to differ in their membership recruitment tactics and capabilities to promote bridging ties outside the group. On the face of it, clubs appear to be more potent incubators of civil society, but the impact of any particular club will depend on its particular constellation of characteristics. Not all clubs have bridging characteristics. Membership may be quite exclusive and club goals nondemocratic. Thus understanding the context of clubs and clans is critical to understanding their potential to contribute to civil society.
Future Directions Contributions of Clubs and Clans to Civil Society
In many ways, social and service clubs are the exemplars of social capital, at least according to Putnam’s early work. But social science literature is largely pessimistic on the ability of clans to build civic engagement and civil society since clans tend to promote communal norms and values and create ‘‘bonding’’ rather than bridging forms of networks and social capital. Trust tends to be particularistic and clan-specific: as some have noted, the ‘‘radius’’ of particularized trust is short (Fukuyama, 2000). Many kin-based clans tend to be narrow, exclusivist and relatively non-civic (Gibson, 2001). While clans promote norms of reciprocity that facilitate collective action, this reciprocity tends not to extend outside the clan. Table 1 summarizes the stylized characteristics of clubs and clans based on the discussion above. Clubs and clans share key features: they are typically horizontally organized,
Clubs and clans are forms of association in constant flux. Since the mid-nineteenth century, voluntary clubs in the United States have reinvented themselves numerous times and proliferated in many countries around the world. In the new century, new forms of cyber-connection may replace older face-to-face forms of association, but with as yet unknown impact. While participation in social and service clubs has declined in many western societies, participation in professionalized membership organizations has grown. Some scholars of civil society have argued that the passive involvement characteristic of this form of membership is less likely to produce social capital. From this perspective, these professionalized ‘‘tertiary’’ membership associations are essentially ‘‘advocates without members’’ and are less likely to provide hands-on experience or teach civic skills (Skocpol, 1999). Moreover, since the main method of contribution in
Clubs and Clans. Table 1 Stylized features of clubs and clans Characteristic Structure & maintenance
Clubs
Clans
Horizontal
Vertical and horizontal
Dense
Dense
Face-to-face
Face-to-face
May involve democratic or traditional authority
Tend to involve traditional basis for authority
Active participation
Active participation
Network ties based on shared benefits, shared goals Network ties based on personal loyalty and patronage Membership
Goals
Open but limited
Closed
Voluntary
Involuntary, based on ascriptive characteristics
Bridging & bonding
Bonding
Public service
Service of the clan
Member benefit
Member benefit
Social/recreational Political engagement
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these associations is typically financial, membership is skewed towards individuals with higher levels of education and income, in comparison to older secondary associations whose memberships often crossed class and occupational lines and provided civic opportunities to a wider crosssection of individuals (Skocpol, 2003). Others have argued, however, that large national organizations play a critical role in civil society by mediating collective identities and shaping public discourse (Minkoff, 1997). Other observers argue that the available data do not capture new forms of association – soccer leagues, health clubs, and motorcycle groups – that are replacing older forms of associational life in the United States (Schudson, 1996; Stengel, 1996). A number of scholars seek to identify the conditions under which informal associations such as clans may contribute in more positive ways to civic life. Where informal association goals exhibit congruence with state goals, informal institutions may have complementary effects on civic life. Such complementary outcomes have been observed in countries such as Chile and Costa Rica. (Helmke & Levitsky, 2003; Lauth, 2000). The clan metaphor in the study of firms underlines the positive productive capacity of clan forms of organization; the challenge is to develop crosscutting ties across clans that create a shared interest in a common civic life.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society and Ethnicity ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Coleman, James ▶ Collective Action ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Goods and Services, Types of ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Mutual Organizations Mutual Societies ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Skocpol, Theda ▶ Social Capital, Definition of
References/Further Readings Anderson, L. (1986). The state and social transformation in Tunisia and Libya: 1830-1984. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Armony, A. C. (2004). The dubious link: Civic engagement and democratization. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ayala, L. (2000). Trained for democracy: The differing effects of voluntary and involuntary organizations on political participation. Political Research Quarterly, 53, 99–115. Banfield, E. (1958). The moral basis of a backward society. Glencoe, IL/ Chicago: Free Press/Research Center in Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago. Bates, R. (2001). Prosperity and violence: The political economy of development. New York: Norton. Bourdieu, P. (1980). Le capital social: Notes provisoires. Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales, 31, 2–3. Charles, J. A. (1993). Service clubs in American society: Rotary, Kiwanis, and Lions. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Cohen J., & Rogers, J. (1995). Associations and democracy. London: Verso. Coleman, J. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94, 95–121. Collins, K. (2004). The logic of clan politics: Evidence from the central asian trajectories. World Politics, 56, 224–261. Collins, K. (2006). Clan politics and regime transition in Central Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cornes, R., & Sandler, T. ([1986]1996). The theory of externalities, public goods, and club goods (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crewe, E., & Reynolds, S. (2006). Black Women’s Clubs: Mitigating the effects of inequality. Paper presented at the Association for the Study of African American Life & History, 2006 Annual Meeting. Durkheim, E. (1933). The division of labor in society. New York: Free Press. Fukuyama, F. (2000). Social capital and civil society. IMF Working Paper 00/74. Conference Paper, IMF Conference on Second Generation Reforms. Fung, A. (2003). Associations and democracy: Between theories, hopes, and realities. Annual Review of Sociology, 21(1), 515–539. Gibson, J. (2001). Social networks, civil society and the prospects for consolidating Russia’s democratic transition. American Journal of Political Science, 45(1), 51–69. Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. The American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. Gugerty, M. K., & Prakash, A. (2008). Nonprofit Accountability Clubs: Voluntary regulation of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations. Manuscript under review at Cambrdige Univeristy Press. Hapgood, L. A. (1989). Dimensions of service: The Kiwanis story. Chicago: Kiwanis International. Helmke, G., & Levitsky, S. (2003). Informal institutions and comparative politics: A research agenda. Paper presented at the conference Informal Institutions in Latin America, University of Notre Dame, April 23–24. Herbst, J. (1999). States and power in Africa. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Herbst, J. (2000). States and power in Africa: Comparative lessons in authority and control. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Howard, M. M., Gilbert, L. (2008). A cross national comparison of the internal effects of participation in voluntary associations. Political Studies, 56, 12–32. Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hyden, G. (1980). Beyond Ujamaa in Tanzania: Underdevelopment and an uncaptured peasantry. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kaufman, J., & Tepper, S. J. (1999). Groups or gatherings? Sources of political engagement in 19th century American cities. Voluntas: International Journal of voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 10(4), 299–322.
Coady, Moses Michael Lauth, H. J. (2000). Informal institutions and democracy. Democratization, 7(4), 21–50. Levi, M. (1996). Social and unsocial capital: A review essay of Robert Putnam’s making democracy work. Political Studies, 24, 45–55. Lord, B. E., & Elmendorf, B. F. (2008). Are recreation organizations representative of all participants? Journal of Park & Recreation Administration, 26(1), 87–96. Minkoff, D. (1997). A producing social capital: National Social Movements and civil society. American Behavioral Scientist, 40(5), 606–619. Mooney, M. (2003). Migrant’s social ties in the U.S. and investment in Mexico. Social Forces, 81(3), 1147–1170. Newell, S. (2001). Paracolonial networks: Some speculations on local readerships in Colonial West Africa. Interventions, 3(3), 336–354. Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ouchi, W. G. (1980). Markets, bureaucracies and clans. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25, 129–136. Portes, A., & Landolt, P. (1996). The downside of social capital. The American Prospect, 26, 18–23. Portes, A., & Landolt, P. (2000). Social capital: Promises and pitfalls of its role in development. Journal of Latin American Studies, 32, 528–547. Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy 6.1, 65–78. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Putnam, R., Leonardi, R., & Nanetti, R. (1993). Making democracy work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rosenblum, N. (1998). Membership and morals: The personal uses of pluralism in America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schudson, M. (1996). What if civic life didn’t die? The American Prospect, 25, 17–20. Scott, J. C. (1976). The moral economy of the peasant: Rebellion and subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sieder, R. (1996). Central America: A fragile transition. New York, NY.: St. Martin’s Press. Skocpol, T. (1999). Advocates without members: The recent transformation of American civic life. In T. Skocpol & M. P. Fiorina (Eds.), Civic engagement in American democracy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Skocpol, T. (2003). Diminished democracy: From membership to management in American civic life. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Smith, D. H., Stebbins, R. A. et al. (2006). A dictionary of nonprofit terms and concepts. Bloomington, Indiana University Press. Stengel, R. (1996). Bowling together. Time, July 22, 1996. Theiss-Morse, E., & Hibbing, J. R. (2005). Citizenship and civic engagement. Annual Review of Political Science, 8, 227–249. Tocqueville, de A. (1969 [1840]). Democracy in America. New York: Harper Collins. Uslaner, E., & Conley, R. (2003). Civic engagement and particularized trust: The ties that bind people to their ethnic communities. American Politics Research, 31, 1–30. Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilke, T. A. (1997). Those benevolent boosters: Spatial patterns of Kiwanis membership in the United States. Journal of Cultural Geography, 17(1). Wilke, T. A. (1999). International expansion of the American-Style Service Club. Journal of American Culture, 22(2), 45–52.
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Wollebaek, D., & Selle, P. (2002). Does participation in voluntary associations contribute to social capital? The impact of intensity, scope, and type. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 31(1), 32–61. Woolcock, M., & Narayan, D. (2000). Social capital: Implications for development theory, research, and policy. World Bank Research Observer, 15(2), 225–249.
Coady, Moses Michael JIM LOTZ
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1882 in the Margaree Valley in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (Canada), Moses Coady led the Antigonish Movement, based at Saint Francis University (StFX) in that town from 1928 to 1952. Through it, thousands of poor fishermen, farmers, and miners learned how to break out of poverty and dependency through a program that combined adult education with the formation of co-operatives and credit unions. Coady entered StFX in 1903, becoming a college athlete and an outstanding student. Influenced by his double cousin, Father Jimmy Tompkins, he studied for the priesthood in Rome, and was ordained there in 1910. Returning home, Coady joined the faculty of StFX and helped Tompkins to organize the first People’s School on the campus in 1921. In that year, he also revitalized the Nova Scotia Teachers’ Union. In 1928, StFX set up an Extension Department, headed by Coady. He took up his duties there after organizing the United Maritime Fishermen. Through the 1930s, Coady and his small staff set up study groups throughout Eastern Nova Scotia. The members practiced self-help, mutual aid, and local self reliance through creating credit unions and cooperatives. In 1939, Coady published Masters of Their Own Destiny, a visionary book on how to create what its author called ‘‘the good and abundant society.’’ Coady retired from StFX in 1952. He died in Antigonish in 1959, the year in which StFX established the Coady International Institute to continue his work in developing nations.
Major Contributions A tall, rugged-looking individual, Coady had a charismatic presence, an exciting teaching style, and the ability to simplify complex issues. Co-operatives had a long history in Nova Scotia. The genius of the Antigonish Movement lay in the way its leaders combined the creation of credit unions and co-operatives with an ongoing program of adult education. They encouraged members of study
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groups to ‘‘Listen! Study! Discuss! Act!’’ and supplied them with information on how to solve their problems. Coady, a powerful orator, inspired people by telling them that they could do ‘‘ten times what you think you can.’’ He urged consumers to use their buying power to make merchants responsive and accountable to their needs. Since 1959, the Coady International Institute has taught over 5,000 learners from developing nations how to tackle problems of poverty and exclusion.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Credit Unions ▶ Tompkins, James John, Rev.
References/Further Readings Alexander, A. (1997). The Antigonish movement: Moses Coady and adult education today. Toronto: Thompson Educational Pub. Coady, M. M. (1939). Masters of their own destiny. New York: Harper and Brothers. Lotz, J., (2005). The humble giant: Moses Coady, Canada’s rural revolutionary. Ottawa: Novalis. Welton, M. (2001). Little Mosie from Margaree. Toronto: Thompson Educational Pub.
Coalitions and Networks JONATHAN FOX University of California-Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, USA
Introduction Coalitions are partnerships among distinct actors that coordinate action in pursuit of shared goals. But what distinguishes them from other kinds of partnerships? The term is widely used to describe joint ventures in a wide range of arenas, most notably in international geopolitics or political party competition and governance. The literature on coalitions is dominated by discussions of war and peace, election campaigns, and parliamentary dynamics. Just as in war or politics, successful collective action in civil society often depends on the formation and survival of coalitions – insofar as the whole is often greater than the sum of the parts.
Definition In a review of the political science literature on ‘‘coalition theory and government formation,’’ Strøm and Nyblade define coalitions more broadly as ‘‘a team of individuals
or groups that unites for a common purpose’’ (2007: 782). Yet this formulation is so broad that it could describe most forms of collective action – and hence fall prey to ‘‘conceptual stretching’’ (Sartori, 1984). Clearly, coalitions involve collective action, but they involve collaboration between actors that remain distinct in some way (in contrast, for example, to fusion or a merger). Downs offers a more precise definition of coalition: ‘‘when two or more political groups or actors agree to pursue some common objective(s), pool resources . . . and actively communicate during joint action’’ (2008). He suggests that one of the most challenging questions involve the conditions under which adversaries sometimes cooperate. Many approaches to coalitions refer to interest-based collaboration involving instrumental behavior, often within a limited time horizon, in pursuit of tangible goals (e.g., to win a war, an election, or to pass legislation). From the viewpoint of civil society analysis, however, many actors that form coalitions are also value-based in their orientation. These values may well conflict with some of the instrumental behaviors and power imbalances that often characterize, for example, short-term campaigns. This latter view of coalition does not resonate with the verb to coalesce, which implies growing together – but it raises one of the main issues that arises when considering coalitions and alliances (a widely used synonym). One of the main challenges involved in defining coalitions is how to distinguish them from networks. Among the many definitions of network, few are tailored to civil society actors. Keck and Sikkink’s classic study offers a succinct formulation: ‘‘[N]etworks are forms of organization characterized by voluntary, reciprocal, and horizontal patterns of communication and exchange’’ (1998: 8). Both coalitions and networks vary empirically in terms of their respective degrees of centralization or decentralization. For organizational theorists, who distinguish networks from markets and hierarchies, coalitions would refer to a form of network. For civil society actors, coalitions refer to networks that are engaged in joint action. As Keck put it, ‘‘coalitions are networks in action mode’’ (cited in Fox, 2002).
Key Issues Coalitions Are Distinct from Networks and Movements
In practice, civil society discussions often use the term coalition interchangeably with movements and networks. Yet the three terms are not synonyms, and for analytical purposes it is useful to distinguish between them. Movements are always grounded in social networks,
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though only some networks generate movements (Diani & McAdam, 2003). In the process, labels can be confusing – some dense coalitions refer to themselves as networks. Some thin networks refer to themselves as coalitions. Some coalitions of disparate actors describe themselves as movements, overstating their degree of cohesion and shared collective identity; on the other hand, some movements may express themselves as coalitions of organizations. Meanwhile, the global justice movement has been described as a ‘‘movement of movements’’ (e.g., Sen et al., 2004). One way to frame the distinction between networks, coalitions, and movements is to consider each term as referring to a different point along a continuum of varying degrees of organizational density and social cohesion. This approach provides a useful lens for disentangling the various strands that come together in the ‘‘thickening’’ of civil society (Fox, 1996). Moreover, transnational coalitions face challenges that are similar to those faced by domestic coalitions – especially insofar as they cross class, gender, or racial boundaries (Bandy & Smith, 2005: 7). Both networks and coalitions involve interconnected systems of communication, grounding the emergence of a transnational public sphere. Yet while many networks involve shared goals among their participants, they do not necessarily involve joint action. Whether networks are face-to-face or virtual, they involve exchanges of information, experiences, and expressions of solidarity. Sometimes these exchanges generate networks of ongoing relationships. Sometimes these networks generate the shared goals, mutual trust, and understanding needed to form coalitions capable of collaborating on specific campaigns. But networks do not necessarily coordinate their actions, nor do they necessarily come to agreement on specific joint actions (as implied by the concept of coalition). Transnational movements are, in turn, distinct from both networks and coalitions. Movements imply a high degree of shared collective identity, for example, yet neither networks nor coalitions necessarily involve significant horizontal exchange between participants. Indeed, many rely on a handful of interlocutors to manage relationships between broad-based social organizations that may have relatively little awareness of the nature and actions of their counterparts. At the same time, some transnational movements achieve such a high degree of shared symbolism and collective identity that active members can identify strongly with each other in spite of very limited actual contact – as in the emblematic case of the anti-apartheid movement of in the 1970s and 1980s. For a paradigmatic contemporary coalition of
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transnational social movements, in which NGOs play a strictly support role, consider the Via Campesina experience (e.g., Borras et al., 2008; Desmarias, 2007). The concept of transnational social movements suggest a much higher degree of density and much more cohesion than is involved in networks or coalitions. The more precise term ‘‘transnational movement organization’’ suggests an organized membership base that is present in more than one country, as in the case of diasporic movements of organized migrants, or transnational federations that have organized affiliates (not just employees) in multiple countries, such as Amnesty International, Catholics for Choice, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and Oxfam. The term transnational is stressed here to avoid confusion with the term ‘‘international NGO,’’ which is often misapplied to NGOs that are fundamentally national but are involved in international activities. Note that underscoring these distinctions between various degrees of density does not imply any judgment that more cooperation is necessarily better. On the contrary, realistic expectations about what is possible are critical to sustain any kind of collective action. Indeed, cross-border cooperation involves significant costs and risks that must be taken into account, depends heavily on finding both appropriate counterparts with whom to cooperate, and needs shared targets to inspire joint action (Fox, 2002; Khagram et al., 2002). As Table 1 suggests, transnational civil society exchanges can produce networks, which can produce coalitions, which can produce movements. Distinguishing between networks, coalitions, and movements helps to avoid blurring political differences and power imbalances within what may appear from the outside to be implicitly more homogeneous transnational movements. As Keck and Sikkink point out, transnational networks face the challenge of developing a ‘‘common frame of meaning’’ in spite of cross-cultural differences (1998: 7). In practice, such shared meanings are socially constructed through joint action and mutual understanding rather than merely through professed values and goals. Political differences within transnational networks are also not to be underestimated, in spite of apparently shared goals. Even those transnational networks that appear to share basic political-cultural values, such as environmental, feminist, indigenous, or human rights movements, often consist of actors who have very different, quite nationally distinct political visions, goals, and cultures. At the same time, national borders are not the only ones. For example, ecologists or feminists from different countries who share systemic critiques may have
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Coalitions and Networks. Table 1 Transnational civil society networks, coalitions, and movements Shared characteristics
Transnational networks
Transnational coalitions
Transnational movement organizations
Exchange of information and experiences
Shared
Shared
Shared
Organized social base
Some have bases, others do not
Some have bases, others do not
Counterparts have bases
Mutual support
Sometimes shared, from afar and sometimes strictly discursive
Shared
Shared
Material interests
Not necessarily shared
Sometimes shared
Sometimes shared
Joint actions & campaigns
Sometimes loose coordination
Shared, based on mutually agreed goals, often short-term, tactical
Shared, based on shared long-term strategy
Ideologies
Not necessarily shared
Not necessarily shared
Usually shared
Collective identities and political cultures
Often not shared
Often not shared
Shared political values, repertoires, and identities
Shading illustrates suggested degree of relationship density and cohesion
more in common with their cross-border counterparts than they do with the more moderate wings of their respective national movements. Networks Often Need Shared Targets to Become Coalitions
As Edelman notes, ‘‘networks beget networks’’ (2004). Yet one of the distinctive characteristics of network activity is ‘‘its dual quality as both a means to an end and an end in itself ’’ (Riles, 2001: 51, cited in Edelman, 2004). Coalitions, in contrast, are much more likely to be means to an end. This distinction raises the question of the conditions under which networks become coalitions, in the sense of sustaining joint action among members. The interestbased principle of ‘‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’’ may be enough to account for coalition formation among nation-states or political parties, but is often not sufficient to account for collaboration between civil society actors. Shared political ideologies certainly facilitate coalition formation, but are not a precondition – indeed, coordination between actors of differing ideologies distinguishes coalitions from movements, which involve shared worldviews and collective identities. What role, then, does ideology play in bringing together otherwise diverse actors? The menu of civil society ideologies shared across borders has changed over time, from the primary role played by religious, Cold War, and anticolonial worldviews in the mid and late twentieth century to now also include environmentalism, feminism, indigenous rights, and human rights, among others. Arguably, epistemic communities – transnational networks that share technical scientific, or professional worldviews – might also be seen as being
grounded in shared ideologies (Haas, 1992). Like other transnationally shared worldviews, their adherents include policy makers as well as civil society actors. In practice, apparently global ideologies are locally appropriated in distinct ways. As a result, few ideologies are shared homogeneously by social actors in different countries. Political Islam would be one of the most prominent contemporary examples. The notion of shared ideology goes far beyond shared goals, to include comprehensive visions of desirable futures, based on political cultures and values. In short, since ideologies are rooted in political cultures, few are shared across borders. Sometimes collaborative experiences can generate shared political values, cultures, and ideologies, but that level of unity is the result of the process of joint action, not the starting point. To explain most cross-border civil society partnerships, therefore, one must look beyond shared ideologies. Shared targets are key, though not all shared targets are either obvious or predetermined. Shared threats are the clearest candidate, as in the notable case of emblematic bearers of economic globalization, such as the WTO, the World Bank or NAFTA (e.g., Bandy & Smith, 2005; Edwards & Gaventa, 2001; Fox & Brown, 1998; Fox, 2002, 2005; Khagram et al., 2002). Shared targets can also be ‘‘politically constructed’’ – as in the case of efforts to build cross-border partnerships for fair trade. Shared targets are especially relevant for coalition building because they create opportunities for joint action – thus transcending expressions of solidarity to actively pursue shared goals. Yet shared targets do not necessarily provoke coalition formation. For a notable example, the US war in Indochina provoked protest in countries all over the world, yet
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there was little coordination between national antiwar movements. Civil Society Networks and Coalitions Are Based on Interests as Well as Ideas
Transnational advocacy networks are defined ‘‘largely by the centrality of principled ideas or values in motivating their formation’’ (Keck & Sikkink, 1998: 1). Indeed, many cross-border civil society relationships are motivated by shared worldviews. Other analysts claim that interests predominate, and characterize North–South civil society relationships as driven by competition in a ‘‘global morality market’’ (Bob, 2005: 4). In this view, well-endowed international NGOs provide the supply of support, while a myriad of local causes constitute the demand. In the context of this power imbalance, Bob argues that principles are insufficient to account for international NGOs’ choice of ‘‘clients,’’ and that they have ‘‘strong incentives to devote themselves to the challenger whose profile most closely matches their own requirements’’ (2005: 5). Bob’s framework is undermined by its assumption that the global marketplace of civil society issues is inherently fixed – if it could grow, then competition for support would not be a zero-sum conflict, as he suggests. In the context of the previous focus on shared targets as grounding the joint action associated with coalitions, one question is whether those targets are chosen based on ideas or interests. Moreover, coalition partners may share targets but bring different motivations, especially when coalitions reach across borders, classes, ideologies, or cultures (Rose, 2000). The 1999 labor–environmental coalition that protested the WTO in Seattle was a classic case. Further probing suggests that the ‘‘ideas vs. interests’’ frame for explaining the motivations of collective action is often a false dichotomy. For example, while human rights activists are certainly driven by strongly held values, many frontline rights defenders are also acting in self-defense – in the immediate interest of themselves and their communities. Conversely, the defense of worker rights – which for exploited workers is clearly grounded in self-interest, is also a value-based cause, often for those same workers. Consider a classic slogan from the early twentieth-century US labor movement: ‘‘An injury to one is an injury to all.’’ This idea is intended to convince people that self-interest is broadly defined, thereby challenging the dichotomy between ideas and interests. One of the main characteristics of sustained coalitions is that each party’s self-interest comes to be redefined through collective action, reciprocity, and deepened mutual understanding to create a broader sense of shared, common interests.
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Both Keck and Sikkink, and Bob concur that the different parties to cross-border civil society relationships are strategic in the framing, the content, and the targeting of their campaigns. Both approaches recognize power imbalances within North–South coalitions. Indeed, studies of domestic civil society campaigns would find analogous imbalances between national capitals and the provinces. Hertel’s study takes the discussion one step further in her study of the North–South tensions within transnational coalitions (2006). Her study of two human rights campaigns underscores the different repertoires that ‘‘receiving-end activists’’ use to either block or modulate Northern-led campaigns that are ostensibly on their behalf. Another approach to disentangling ideas and interests within coalitions involves distinguishing between coalitions that are issue-based, versus those that are constituency-based. In other words, some coalitions are driven by campaigning for or against a specific goal (or target), while others are based on the recognition that different actors share similar interests – without necessarily assuming a predetermined shared goal. The latter approach involves a coming together of counterparts, which are defined as actors that share similar social locations and political challenges in their respective societies (Fox, 2002). For example, while indigenous rights activists from around the world come from unique cultures, with their own distinctive histories of struggle, many face analogous dynamics of social and political exclusion. Sustainable Coalitions Require Clear Terms of Engagement
Coalitions, insofar as they involve coordinated action in pursuit of shared goals, are most sustainable when grounded in shared terms of engagement – such as the principle that each party should ‘‘agree to disagree’’ about a wide range of issues outside the scope of the coalition’s goals. More generally, realistic expectations are key. Yet many dimensions of mutual engagement often receive little explicit attention. For example, it is often a challenge to develop mechanisms for mutual accountability and transparency. Indeed, to the degree that civil society coalitions bring together disparate actors, they will have different expectations and definitions of mutual accountability (e.g., Jordan & Van Tuijl, 2006). Balanced decision-making processes are especially difficult to construct, especially across cultural and organizational divides. Who decides how representative each actor is? In a single membership organization, a one person, one vote principle is straightforward, but how is representation to be allocated in coalitions that include membership organizations of different sizes? If a simple majority rule were to
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always prevail, then organizations with smaller memberships and different ideas would feel excluded and have little incentive to participate. If the larger organizations see a need to keep the smaller ones onboard, for example, to ensure more ideological breadth or ethnic diversity, then they may well accept a one organization–one vote principle (e.g., the Congress for a People’s Agrarian Reform in the Philippines in the late 1980s). Similarly, how is decisionmaking power to be allocated in coalitions that are composed of NGOs, which may be of varying sizes, or have degrees of commitment to the campaign? Multi-sectoral coalitions also face this challenge, especially if they combine NGOs and broad-based membership organizations – each with very different political cultures and concepts of representation (e.g., the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras, on the US–Mexican border). The terms of engagement underlying coalitions are also complicated by the role of money. Access to resources often shapes an organization’s capacity to sustain participation in coalitions – especially across distances. In some cases, under the influence of external funders, coalitions only exist because of access to resources. Sustainable Multi-sectoral Coalitions Depend on Cross-Cultural Interlocutors
Shared goals and targets are often not enough to sustain coalitions. Given the limitless possibilities for misunderstanding and conflict in coalitions which bring diverse actors together, cross-cultural interlocutors that can bridge the gaps between them are key. They are the ‘‘synapses’’ and ‘‘relays’’ that make communication possible. Tarrow calls them ‘‘rooted cosmopolitans’’ (2005). They must play the role of translator, both in the linguistic and the conceptual sense – in order to help each actor understand where the others are coming from. These communication skills are also crucial for establishing trust, insofar as by entering into a coalition, actors must trust their new partners to avoid actions that would put them at risk through guilt by association. To play this linking role, these interlocutors require both cultural capital and social capital. In the language of social capital, coalitions embody bridging social capital. In this context, the cross-cultural interlocutors are actors that play this bridging role. These interlocutors apply the glue that undergirds the ‘‘strength of weak ties’’ (Granovetter, 1973). Transnational Coalitions Are Long-Term Investments with Uncertain Payoffs
Networks that do more than exchange information from afar require human and material resources. Coalitions, because of their higher levels of coordination and joint
action, require even more resources to sustain (Fox, 2002). Less well-endowed groups must carefully weigh the trade-offs involved in transnational engagement. Aside from the travel costs and carbon footprint, every week that an activist spends in another country is a week not spent organizing on the ground at home. Yet private foundations are often more willing to fund international travel than grassroots organizing. Coalitions can also involve certain risks, insofar as one set of partners may or may not consult before making decisions that could be politically costly for the other. Local struggles that overestimate their international allies’ clout can pay a high price, as in the Ogoni case in the mid-1990s (Bob, 2005). On the positive side, investments in networks and coalitions often generate social capital, which can produce often unpredictable multiplier effects. But precisely because the empowering effects are difficult to assess, investments in coalitions compete with much more pressing demands, and with alternative investments that promise more immediate results. This calculus underscores the political economy foundations of coalitional engagement that can keep grassroots movements and NGOs apart. Grassroots movements are under pressure to deliver tangible results to their bases in the near term, while large NGOs can afford to make longerterm investments with uncertain results.
International Perspectives The resonance of terms like coalition and network differ across social and linguistic contexts. Their meanings often must be politically constructed, especially in societies with strong legacies of centralized, vertical forms of social organization. In the history of Mexican civil society, for example, long before electoral democratization, grassroots movements challenged the dominant corporatist form of aggregating membership organizations (literally called centrales). In response, local movements of the urban poor, peasants, teachers, and other workers forged linkages across regions permitting joint action without sacrificing their autonomy. These coalitions were called coordinadoras – literally ‘‘coordinating bodies’’ (Fox & Herna´ndez, 1992). Meanwhile, NGO activists in Mexico were adopting the term ‘‘red ’’ – a term that not only means network, but also net. As civil society strategist Gustavo Esteva pointed out, however – before the Internet – nets can be used to capture things (1987). Those zealous of defending their autonomy were wary of being ensnared – even in relationships that were supposedly horizontal. In response, in an effort to describe the kind of flexible mutual support, joint action and horizontal relationships that respect the autonomy of
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each participant, Esteva proposed the alternative term: hammock. Hammocks are flexible, they adapt to each participant’s particulars, they are portable, and are available as needed.
Future Directions Much of the literature on coalitions in general is relevant to understanding the dynamics that are specific to civil society actors. Yet the broader discussion tends to focus on coalition formation and maintenance – and much less on the question of under what conditions coalitions reach their goals. For political party coalitions, for example, the goal is straightforward – retaining institutional power. Civil society coalition goals are often quite different – for example, their strategies often attempt to influence the behavior of other actors, such as states, international organizations or private firms, whose actions in turn would either do less harm or more good. The various links in this causal chain complicate efforts to explain the impacts of civil society campaigns. Coalition partners may also differ over what kinds of impact count. For some, changing the terms of debate or official policies in national or international arenas may be the key battles, yet such victories often translate with great difficulty into tangible improvements on the ground. In some cases, local–global coalitions may win policy victories that only apply to future decisions, leaving the local partners still subjected to the results of past decisions that are not reopened (e.g., Clark et al., 2003). Coalition partners may also assess partial victories differently, depending on whether they have minimalist or maximalist expectations – and on whom they represent. International campaigners may declare victory and move on, while local organizers still face the task of making limited concessions meaningful at the community level. These differences over how to assess impacts reflect the broader challenge of addressing cultural, ideological, and interest-based differences within coalitions. In this context, leadership certainly plays a key role in encouraging the shared vision, mutual understanding, and respect for difference that are all required to keep disparate actors working together. Deep down, however, where one stands depends on where one sits.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Amnesty International ▶ Citizens Coalition for Economic Justice ▶ Collective Action ▶ Friends of the Earth ▶ Global Civil Society
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▶ Greenpeace ▶ International Campaign to Ban Landmines ▶ Jubilee 2000 ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Shack/Slum-dwellers International ▶ World Social Forum ▶ World Trade Organization
References/Further Readings Bandy, J., & Smith, J. (Eds.) (2005). Coalitions across borders: Transnational protest and the neoliberal order. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Bob, C. (2005). The marketing of rebellion: Insurgents, media and international activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University. Borras, S., Edelman, M., & Kay, C. (Eds.) (2008). Transnational agrarian movements confronting globalization. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Clark, D., Fox, J., & Treakle, K. (Eds.) (2003). Demanding accountability: Civil society claims and the World Bank inspection panel. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Desmarais, A. (2007). La Via Campesina: Globalization and the power of peasants. London: Pluto Press. Diani, M., & McAdam, D. (Eds.) (2003). Social movements and networks: Relational approaches to collective action. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Downs, W. (2008). Coalition. In W. Darity (Ed.), International encyclopedia of the social sciences. Detroit, MI: Macmillan Reference. Edelman, M. (2004). When networks don’t work: The rise and fall of civil society initiatives in Central America. In J. Nash (Ed.) Social movements: A reader (pp. 29–45). London: Blackwell. Edwards, M., & Gaventa, J. (Eds.) (2001). Global citizen action. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Esteva, G. (1987). Regenerating people’s space. Alternatives, 12, 125–152. Fox, J. (1996). How does civil society thicken? The political construction of social capital in Rural Mexico. World Development, 24(6), 1089–1103. Fox, J. (2002). Lessons from Mexico–US civil society coalitions. In D. Brooks & J. Fox (Eds.), Cross-border dialogues: US–Mexico social movement networking (pp. 341–418). La Jolla, CA: University of California/San Diego, CA: Center for US-Mexican Studies. Fox, J. (2005). Unpacking transnational citizenship. Annual Review of Political Science, 8, 171–201. Fox, J., & Brown, L. D. (Eds.) (1998). The struggle for accountability: The World Bank, NGOs and grassroots movements. Cambridge: MIT Press. Fox, J., & Herna´ndez, L. (1992). Mexico’s difficult democracy: Grassroots movements, NGOs and local government. Alternatives, 17(2), 165–208. Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. Haas, P. (1992). Introduction: Epistemic communities and international policy coordination. International Organization, 46(1), 1–35. Hertel, S. (2006). Unexpected power: Conflict and change among transnational activists. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Jordan, L., & Van Tuijl, P. (Eds.) (2006). NGO accountability: Politics, principles and innovations. London: Earthscan. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Khagram, S., Riker, J. V., & Sikkink, K. (2002). From Santiago to Seattle: Transnational advocacy groups restructuring world politics.
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In S. Khagram, J. V. Riker, & K. Sikkink (eds.), Restucturing world politics: Transnational social movements, networks and norms. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota. Riles, A. (2001). The network inside out. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Rose, F. (2000). Coalitions across the class divide: Lessons from the labor, peace and environmental movements. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Sartori, G. (1984). Social science concepts. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Sen, J., Anand, A., Escobar, A., & Waterman, P. (Eds.) (2004). World social forum: Challenging empires. New Delhi: Viveka Foundation. Strøm, K., & Nyblade, B. (2007). Coalition theory and government formation. In C. Boix & S. Stokes (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of comparative politics (pp. 782–802). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tarrow, S. (2005). The new transnational activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Codes of Ethics and Codes of Practice MIRJAN OUDE VRIELINK1, COR VAN MONTFORT1,2 1 Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands 2 Court of Audit Public-Private Sector, The Hague, The Netherlands
Introduction Codes of ethics and codes of practice are found everywhere from nonprofit organizations, to professional and trade associations and to large multinationals (Wood & Rimmer, 2003). These have inspired worldwide an extensive body of research, mainly in business ethics literature. Most studies focus on American codes, but in the last two decades, a steady increase of literature on codes in other countries can be observed. In the course of history, a wide range of publicized scandals in government, business, social work agencies, universities, and other types of organizations have raised concerns about ethical behavior. The scandals each time have invoked a rise in popularity of codes, with the intention to visibly express corporate values and, as such, to guide the ethical behavior of employees, companies, or professions. The use of codes assists corporate and professional organizations in their ongoing relationship with society and helps them to balance their pursuit of autonomy and the public’s demand for accountability (Frankel, 1989; Higgs-Kleyn & Kapelianis, 1999). Modern organizations are allowed to pursue their mission and goals in return for accountability to shareholders/ stakeholders and, in a lesser extent, to the wider public. The nonprofit sector generally is conceived of as a ‘‘do-good sector’’; without civil society organizations, many important social issues would go unaddressed. Despite its better
reputation with regard to its ethics, in recent years, this sector is found to be no different from the public and private sectors (Ethics Resource Center, 2008). In part, this might be explained by the observation that in confronting with resource scarcity and as they age, nonprofit organizations become more bureaucratic and tend to adopt practices and goals that follow the fashions of their institutional fields rather than the logical dictates of their mission and core values (Rothschild & Milofsky, 2006, p. 138). Interestingly enough, this has not inspired a thread of research on codes of ethics and codes of practice from a civil society perspective.
Definition Codes of ethics and codes of practice are often used as synonyms, referring to their shared purported purpose, i.e., to articulate behavioral standards valued by an organization (c.f. Canary & Jennings, 2008, p. 265). They also appear under a variety of other names, such as codes of conduct, business codes, integrity codes, codes of honor, voluntary agreements, guidelines, and recommendations (Kaptein, 2004; Kaptein & Schwartz, 2007). For the purposes of this entry code, definitions are derived from the Dictionary of Civil Society, Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector. A code of ethics is defined as "
a statement of principles established by an organization and used to influence the professional conduct of its staff and members. Such a code of ethics is typically developed by a professional body or trade association, monitored by that body, and enforced by it, especially in field for which little or no governmental regulation is in place. In general, members must adhere to these rules and regulations in order to remain in good standing with the organization. (Anheier & List, 2005, p. 57)
A code of practice is "
an agreement among members of a professional association, umbrella group, or a single organization, in which they agree to act in a certain way. Such codes are typically developed in professions or trades that are not regulated by a governmental institution. (Anheier & List, 2005, p. 58)
Some scholars distinguish a code of practice from a code of conduct. A code of conduct is defined as a practical document of standards governing client relationship, and a code of practice, as a technical document setting standards for the members of a profession. The definition of a code of practice used in this entry encompasses both types of documents. Both definitions of Anheier and List refer to the involvement of a professional or trade association, which
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is typical of professional codes. It differentiates them from corporate codes, which are issued by and for individual companies (Pater & Van Gils, 2003, p. 265). Corporate codes can be conceived of as one of the layers of a larger system consisting also of codes on a meso-level, i.e., professional, industrial, and national codes, and macrocodes, i.e., codes for business that are developed by international institutions (Kaptein & Wempe, 1998; Kaptein & Schwartz, 2007). The presented definitions mirror the main elements of an often referred to definition of Schwartz (2001, p. 248) who describes a corporate code as ‘‘a written, distinct, and formal document that consists of moral standards used to guide employee or corporate behaviour.’’ A particular type of codes are governance codes that generally include principles or practices regarding board composition, the transparency of the information provided by the company, and the business community and/or professional associations within the business community. The definition of Schwartz draws attention to what a code consists of, to what or to whom it applies, and to its formal nature (cf. Pater & Van Gils, 2003, p. 764). Codes lay down standards – also referred to as a value system, aspirational ideals, guidelines, ethical principles, norms and beliefs, or ground rules – that help to understand what behaviors are morally acceptable or improper. They address employee behavior or an organization’s behavior and are laid out in a written, stand-alone and explicit document (Schwartz, 2004, p. 324). Though Schwartz’ definition typically is used to describe corporate codes, it bears a close comparison to professional codes (cf. Pater & Van Gils, 2003, p. 265). The purported purpose of codes of ethics and codes of practice is to guide employee, corporate, or professional behavior. According to Wood and Rimmer (2003, p. 186) research focuses upon five aspects of the ‘‘content’’ of codes of ethics: 1. Moral content – what are the prescribed actions and values? 2. Procedural content – how are codes enforced and violations dealt with? 3. Public ownership – how is the code publicized and among which stakeholders? 4. Adaptation – is the code a living document updated to meet changing conditions? 5. Company specificity – is the code tailored to the needs and culture of the organization? The stated principles and practices clarify to both insiders and outsiders what norms ought to govern behavior (see for categorizations of the various functions a code may perform, Schwartz, 2001, p. 255; Frankel, 1989,
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pp. 111–112). In addition to this, several scholars have discussed the adoption of codes as a result of symbolic isomorphism (Long & Driscoll, 2008) or for reasons of personal interest, such as promotion of public image (Ethics Resource Center, 1990) or avoiding legal consequences (Carasco & Singh, 2003; Canary & Jennings, 2008; Boulding, 2000).
Historical Background The distinction of professional codes and corporate codes is reflected in distinct bodies of research. Professional codes are of a much earlier date than corporate codes. Their prevalence and growth over time, however, is not very well recorded (Pater & Van Gils, 2003, p. 265). The first code of ethics addressed the professions of physicians and surgeons. It was proposed in a pamphlet published in 1794 by Thomas Percival of Manchester. Until then, professional ethics had nothing to do with formal codes; it was about character, honor and dishonor, virtue and vice (Baker, 1999). Percival drafted the code in response to a particular crisis arising from the mismatch between the personalized ethics of individual honor and the requirements for standardization inherent in a modern institution, the hospital. The proposed code of ethics replaced the language of oath and subjectivity with standards of conduct formulated in numbered duties, justified by the medical profession’s core collective responsibility to care for the sick. The code proposed by Percival was not an actual code of ethics, since writing such a code requires a statement of a sufficiently authoritative body, the profession itself (Davis, 1999). This occurred in 1808, when the Boston Medical Society adopted a code of ethics for its members. By 1847, the newly formed American Medical Association was the first national professional society to adopt such a code, and by the beginning of the twentieth century, codes had become the dominant form of professional ethics in the United States (Baker, 1999). The American Bar Association (ABA), for example, adopted its first code of professional ethics in 1908 and the accounting profession in 1907 (Backof & Martin, 1991, p. 101). By now, professional codes had become the dominant form of professional ethics. The adoption of corporate codes of ethics is of more recent date. Though there is little record of the dates of early corporate codes of ethics, literature shows a steady growth of codes of ethics in many companies in the United States. Cressey and Moore (1983) discuss what they then considered to be a temporary movement in the mid-1970s, pointing at a fast growth by 1976 followed by a decline in 1979 in the collection of codes in the Watson Library of the Conference Board in New York.
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Codes of ethics enjoyed renewed popularity during the late 1980s, as the Center for Business Ethics has shown. It conducted a survey in 1986, which found that of the 28% of respondents, 75% had corporate codes of ethics. Compared to the American trend the adoption of ethical codes in, for example, Europe, Canada, and Australia lags behind. By 1995, Berenbeim was reporting incidences of codes of ethics in over 84% of comparable US companies, 66% of Canadian, and 50% of European companies, and Wood, McClaren and Callaghan were quoting a rate of 33% for codes of ethics in Australia (Wood & Rimmer, 2003, p. 182). Based on recent studies conducted into the prevalence of codes in specific countries, Kaptein (2004) indicates that the percentages of large companies possessing codes rate from 78% in the United States, England, and India to 37% in Japan. His own study into the 200 hundred largest multinational firms in the world shows that 52.5% of them have a code.
Key Issues Research on codes of ethics and codes of practice is directed at various knowledge interests representing distinct lines of inquiry. One topic area that has received a great deal of research attention concerns the content of codes, including both normative as well as empirical studies. The normative studies are concerned with guidelines for developing and implementing a code, while the empirical studies mainly have resulted in inventories or content analyses of existing codes. A second line of inquiry that has gained much attention, mostly from an empirical point of view, deals with the effects of a code on employee, organizational or professional behavior. A third line of inquiry, which is still in its infancy, takes an interest in what mechanisms an organization can or should have in place or what obstacles have to be overcome to ensure a code actually is coming into practice in the organization. Within these three lines of inquiry, the focus usually is on either corporate codes or codes developed by professional associations. Studies seldom address both types (see, e.g., Somers, 2001; Pater & Van Gils, 2003). Helin and Sandstro¨m (2007) carried out a thorough and systematic review of empirical studies on corporate codes published from 1994 to mid-2005. They distinguish between content-oriented, output-oriented, and transformation-oriented studies, discussing the body of knowledge and main themes of each strand. Content-oriented studies map and sometimes compare the content of codes in explicit countries. The general pattern in the content-oriented studies is that codes are similarly designed and basically carry the same message. Also, several of these studies argued that in spite of
the intended purpose, the main motive is corporate self-defense, protection, and window dressing. Comparative studies have shown that American, Canadian, and Australian share this inward orientation on the corporation (Lefebvre & Singh, 1996; Singh et al., 2005). These studies also revealed some differences. For instance, Australian codes rely less on internal and external watchdogs compared to American codes, which primarily is explained by the different business cultures in these countries (Wood, 2000). Codes of corporations operating on the international market also have gained research attention. The studies focus on the content of international codes (Preble & Hoffman, 1999), and more recently on codification of business ethics in codes of transnational or multinational corporations (Carasco & Singh, 2003; Kaptein, 2004). The output-oriented studies reviewed by Helin and Sandstro¨m share a focus on (key factors that might explain) the effectiveness of codes in influencing actions toward ‘‘more ethical’’ behavior. The findings regarding the impact of codes point in different directions. Some studies, under different circumstances, identify a positive influence on perceptions and behavior of individuals or organizations (cf. Boo & Koh, 2001; Harrington, 1996; Kaptein & Wempe 1998; Kolk & Tulder, 2002), whereas others are inconclusive or contradict the acclaimed effect on behavior (Nwachukwu & Vitell, 1997; Farrell et al., 2002; Schwartz, 2001, 2004), suggest that codes play a mere symbolic role (Adams et al., 2001), constituting an important symbolic artifact (Stevens, 2004) or are used as window dressing (McKendall et al., 2002). Transformation-oriented studies concentrate on the adoption of codes, discussing what organizations need to overcome when implementing a code. They draw attention to issues such as the code’s relevance and consistency (Kaptein & Wempe, 1998; Snell & Herndon, 2004), the coupling of a code to a development process with a broad consultation (Montoya & Richard, 1994; Snell & Herndon, 2004), and procedures of communication, education, maintenance, and reinforcement (Kaptein & Wempe, 1998; Montoya & Richard, 1994; Somers, 2001). The key issues addressed by Helin and Sandstro¨m are consistent with findings of empirical research on professional codes (Somers, 2001, p. 185). But the typical involvement of a professional or trade association also adds new knowledge interests to this line of research. Scholars, for instance, have discussed the adherence to a profession’s or association’s code when its content conflicts with a corporation’s code (Higgs-Kleyn & Kapelianis, 1999), or with the reality experienced by members of the profession (Frankel, 1989, p. 113). Other issues
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dealt with are the (lack of) mechanisms to ensure that professional values are internalized (Somers, 2001, p. 194) and that infringements of professional codes are sanctioned (Bird, 1998). With regard to the latter, researchers raise particular concerns such as the reluctance of the profession’s members to report violations of the code (Frankel, 1989, p. 113) and whether, how, and to what extent codes can and will be enforced by professional societies (Bird, 1998; cf. Donabedian, 1993, p. 91–92).
Future Directions By the mid-1990s, most studies of codes of ethics and codes of practice suffered from a lack of information on how the codes were communicated in the organization and whether or not they were effective (Stevens, 1994). Helin and Sandstro¨m (2007) have shown that the knowledge gap has continued to exist in literature on corporate codes. A lot of studies still target the content of a code, often without explicit use of theory, but an equal or even greater interest is taken in the behavioral effects of a code. The latter predominantly focus on perceptions and behavior of managers or employees. From these studies it can be learned that there is still a great deal of uncertainty around whether codes are effective. Some studies have found that contextual factors inside or outside the corporation need to be taken into consideration, but little research has been conducted on why and how ethical codes become what they become over time. In order to develop the body of knowledge on codes, empirical research on different levels in the organizations is needed with sensitivity to how managers and employees translate the codes in practice. Moreover, targeting the knowledge gap seems to require a stronger explicit interest in theory and a greater reliance on qualitative research methods rather than data collection through surveys (Helin & Sandstro¨m, 2007, pp. 261–263). The body of knowledge on professional codes has progressed in a similar vein. After an initial focus on the content and adoption of professional codes, recent literature shows a growing interest in behavioral and contextual issues associated with the codes. The knowledge gap observed by Helin and Sandstro¨m is mirrored too. More research on understanding the processes embedded in the context in which codes operate is considered highly desirable (Somers, 2001), and a lack of theory identifying how professional codes are associated with ethical behavior is observed (Pater & Van Gils, 2003, p. 765). Also, most studies have focused on either a single association, or relatively few associations. Replication of such studies in a different industry or sector is desirable to assess the generalization of the results. Empirical data on the effects
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of professional codes reveal that, generally, the professional association is of limited value in regulating ethical behavior of professionals (Gunz et al., 2002; Somers, 2001). Based on previous research Pater and Van Gils (2003, p. 766) noted that professional codes are not likely to bring about positive effects, unless compliance with the professional codes is enforced by the organization in which professionals work. The value of an enforced professional code is to be found in its potential effects on the ethical climate rather than in its direct effects, since professional associations are not involved enough in the daily activities of member organizations to affect their ethical behavior (2003, p. 270). An interesting avenue for further research therefore would be to investigate the effects of various modes and methods of enforcement. Furthermore, it would be interesting to explore other ways in which professional or trade associations (can) contribute to ethical behavior, for example, by training members in dealing with ethical and professional issues or by establishing knowledge centers that collect and disseminate information about mechanisms that effectively ensure ethical behavior in professional organizations (Pater & Van Gils, 2003: 770). A third topic for further research stems from the definitions of a code of ethics and a code of practice this entry started with. The relationship between codes as a device for self-regulation (Schwartz, 2001) and governmental regulation addressed in these definitions has been understudied in literature on corporate and professional codes. Insights into this relationship are desirable, since in the last two decades new modes of regulation have been introduced that take the form of rule making by private organizations encouraged or on behalf of government authorities. To name just a few examples: coerced selfregulation (Black, 1996), mandated self-regulation (Rees, 1988), sponsored self-regulation (Huyse & Parmentier, 1990). Codes of ethics and codes of practice are considered as one particular form these new modes can take on (cf. Irvin, 2005). Since these new modes of regulation stimulate or enforce corporate and professional organizations to regulate themselves on behalf of public interests, this raises new research questions. For instance: How are codes processed when public interests differ from professional or corporate interests? And what parties should be involved in the development, monitoring, and enforcing of the codes? A final knowledge gap particularly pertains to the field of civil society studies. So far, the issues discussed in this entry did not call for a distinction between corporate and professional organizations in for-profit and nonprofit sector. However, a difference may be perceived when it
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comes to the substantive values and ethics, i.e., the objectives nonprofit organizations want to realize that are not being achieved through profit seeking or governmental organizations. Nonprofit organizations ‘‘are the organizational expression of their members’ ethical stance toward the world: nonprofit organizations, by way of their very existence and practices, convey a public statement of what their members see as a better, more caring, or more just world’’ (Rothschild & Milofsky, 2006, p. 137). The substantive values and ethics, however, are understudied and often overlooked in the research on nonprofit organizations (Rothschild & Milofsky, 2006, p. 139). An investigation of the prevalence and content of codes of ethics and codes of practice could provide more insight into these values and ethics. This in turn may help the nonprofit sector to meet the growing demand for accountability, while holding on to its pursuit for autonomy. Externally imposed accountability systems may suppress the mission-driven natures of nonprofit organizations (Ethics Resource Center, 2008, p. 25; cf. Rothschild & Milofsky, 2006, p. 139; cf. Sidel, 2005, p. 804), harming the premise of the nonprofit sector.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Good Governance ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Professional Associations ▶ Self-Organization ▶ Social Trust
References/Further Readings Adams, J. S., Tashchian, A., & Shore, T. H. (2001). Codes of ethics as signals for ethical behaviour. Journal of Business Ethics, 29, 199–211. Anheier, H., & List, R. (2005). A dictionary of civil society, philanthropy and the nonprofit sector (Vol. 1, Pt. 4, pp. 57, 58). New York: Routledge. Backof, J., & Martin, C. L. Jr., (1991). Historical perspectives: Development of the codes of ethics in the legal, medical and accounting professions. Journal of Business Ethics, 10, 99–110, 199. Baker, R. (1999). Codes of ethics: Some history. Retrieved September 4, 2008, from http://ethics.iit.edu/perspective/pers19_1fall99_2.html Bird, S. J. (1998). The role of professional societies: Codes of conduct and their enforcement. Science & Engineering Ethics, 4, 315–320. Black, J. (1996). Constitutionalising self-regulation. Modern Law Review, 59(1), 24–55. Boo, E. H. Y., & Koh, H. C. (2001). The influence of organizational and code-supporting variables on the effectiveness. Teaching Business Ethics, 5, 357–373. Boulding, M. E. (2000). Self-regulation: Who needs it? Health Affairs, 19(6), 132–141.
Canary, H. E., & Jennings, M. M. (2008). Principles and influences in codes of ethics: A centering resonance analysis comparing pre- and postSarbanes-Oxley codes of ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 80, 263–278. Carasco, E. F., & Singh, J. B. (2003), The content and focus of the codes of ethics of the world’s largest transnational corporations. Business & Society Review, 108(1), 71–94. Cressey, D. R., & Moore, C. A. (1983). Managerial values and corporate codes of ethics. California Management Review, 25(4), 53–77. Davis, M. (1999). Writing a code of ethics, Perspectives on the professions, a periodical of the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions (CSEP), Illinois Institute of Technology, Vol. 19, No. 1, Fall. Donabedian, B. (1993). Accounting self-regulation and the enforcement of professional codes. Journal of accounting and public policy, 12, 87–112. Ethics Resource Center. (1990). Creating a workable company code of ethics. Washington DC. Ethics Resource Center (2008). The Ethics Resource Center’s 2007 national workplace ethics survey. Farrell, B. J., Cobbin, D. M., & Farrell, H. M. (2002). Can codes of ethics really produce consistent behaviours? Journal of Managerial Psychology, 17(6), 468–490. Frankel, M. S. (1989). Professional codes: Why, how, and with what impact? Journal of Business Ethics, 8, 109–115. Gunz, H. P., Gunz, S. P., & McCutcheon, J. C. (2002). Organizational influences on approaches to ethical decisions by professionals: The case of public accountants. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 19(1), 76–91. Harrington, S. J. (1996). The effect of codes of ethics and personal denial of responsibility on computer abuse judgments and intentions. MIS Quarterly, September, 257–278. Helin, S., & Sandstro¨m, J. (2007). An inquiry into the study of corporate codes of ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 75, 253–271. Higgs-Kleyn, N., & Kapelianis, D. (1999). The role of professional codes in regulating ethical conduct. Journal of Business Ethics, 19, 363–374. Huyse, L., & Parmentier, S. (1990). Decoding codes: The dialogue between consumers and suppliers through codes of conduct in the European community. Journal of Consumer Policy, 13, 253–272. Irvin, R. A. (2005). State regulation of nonprofit organizations: Accountability regardless of outcome. Nonprofit and voluntary Sector quarterly, 34, 161–178. Kaptein, M. (2004). Business codes of multinational firms: What do they say? Journal of Business Ethics, 50(1), 13–33. Kaptein, M., & Wempe, J. (1998). Twelve Gordian knots when developing and organizational code of ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 17, 853–869. Kaptein, M., & Schwarz, M. S. (2007). The effectiveness of business codes: A critical examination of existing studies and the development of an integrated research model. Journal of Business Ethics, 77, 111–127. Kolk, A., & van Tulder, R. (2002). The effectiveness of self-regulation: Corporate codes of conduct and child labour. European Management Journal, 20(3), 260–271. Lefebvre, M., & Singh, J. B. (1996). A comparison of the contents and foci of Canadian and American corporate codes of ethics. International Journal of Management, 13(2), 156–170. Long, B. S., & Driscoll, C. (2008). Codes of ethics and the pursuit of organizational legitimacy: Theoretical and empirical contributions. Journal of Business Ethics, 77, 173–189. McKendall, M., DeMarr, B., & Jones-Rikker, C. (2002). Ethical compliance programs and corporate illegality: Testing the assumptions of the corporate sentencing guidelines. Journal of Business Ethics, 37(4), 367–383.
Coleman, James Samuel Montoya, I. D., & Richard, A. J. (1994). A comparative study of codes of ethics in health care facilities and energy companies. Journal of Business Ethics, 13, 713–717. Nwachukwu, S. L. S., & Vitell, S. J. (1997). The influence of corporate culture on managerial ethical judgments. Journal of Business Ethics, 16, 757–776. Pater, A., & Van Gils, A. (2003). Stimulating ethical decision-making in a business context: Effects of ethical and professional codes. European Management Journal, 21(6), 762–772. Preble, J. F., & Hoffman, R. C. (1999). The nature of ethics codes in franchise associations around the globe. Journal of Business Ethics, 18, 239–253. Rees, J. (1988). Self-regulation: An effective alternative to direct regulation by OSHA? Policy Sttudies Journal, 3, 602–614. Rothschild, J., & Milofsky, C. (2006). The centrality of values, passions, and ethics in the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 17(2), 137–143. Schwartz, M. S. (2001). The nature of the relationship between corporate codes of ethics and behaviour. Journal of Business Ethics, 32, 247–262. Schwartz, M. S. (2004). Effective corporate codes of ethics: Perceptions of code users. Journal of Business Ethics, 55, 323–343. Sidel, M. (2005). The guardians guarding themselves: A comparative perspective on nonprofit self-regulation. Chicago-Kent Law Review, 80, 803–837. Singh, J., Carasco, E., Svensson, G., Wood, G., & Callaghan, M. (2005). A comparative study of the contents of corporate codes of ethics in Australia, Canada and Sweden. Journal of World Business, 40, 91–109. Snell, R. S., & Herndon, N. C. (2004). Hong Kong’s code of ethics initiative: Some differences between theory and practice. Journal of Business Ethics, 51(1), 75–89. Somers, M. J. (2001). Ethical codes of conduct and organizational context: A study of the relationship between codes of conduct, employee behavior and organzational values. Journal of Business Ethics, 30, 185–195. Stevens, B. (1994). An analysis of corporate ethical code studies: ‘‘Where Do We Go From Here?’’. Journal of business ethics, 13, 63-69. Stevens, B. (2004). The ethics of the US business executive: A study of perceptions. Journal of Business Ethics, 54, 163–171. Wood, G. (2000). A cross cultural comparison of the contents of codes of ethics: USA, Canada and Australia. Journal of Business Ethics, 25(4), 287–298. Wood, G., & Rimmer, M. (2003). Codes of ethics: What are they really and what should they be? International Journal of ValueBased Management, 16, 181–195.
Coleman, James Samuel JOHANNES MARX
Basic Biographical Information James Coleman was born May 12, 1925, in Bedford, Indiana. He started his academic education studying chemistry at Purdue University in 1949. After a very brief career as a chemist, he decided to study sociology at Columbia University. His academic environment was
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quite illustrious: Among his teachers were Paul Lazarsfeld, Robert K. Merton, and Seymour Martin Lipset, and during his studies he became well-acquainted with renowned sociologists such as Peter M. Blau, Daniel Bell, Alvin S. Gouldner, and Immanuel Wallerstein. After earning his Ph.D. in 1955, Coleman worked at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, California, before he became assistant professor in Chicago. In 1959, he founded the Department of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. Coleman returned to Chicago in 1973 where he had the unique opportunity to discuss his ideas with the members of the famous Chicago School of Economics. James Coleman died on March 25, 1995 in Chicago, Illinois.
Major Contributions Coleman is one of the most outstanding, outspoken, and controversial American sociologists. He sought to explain social phenomena by employing both mathematical models and quantitative methods. He was interested in laying methodological groundwork, developing theoretical frameworks and testing them empirically. He is just as renowned for introducing the rational choice approach to sociology as for the famous Coleman Report on the educational system in the United States, for analyzing the micro–macro transition in sociological explanations as for his research on social capital. Coleman was one of the earliest users of the term social capital. He defines social capital ‘‘by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: They all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure’’ (1990, p. 302). Like other capital forms social capital is productive helping individuals achieving specific goals that would not be accessible without this resource. Coleman’s work on social capital became a major theoretical reference for Robert Putnam’s work on social capital and for the rational choice strand of the social capital literature. For many years during the 1980s, Coleman and Gary S. Becker hosted an interdisciplinary seminar, the famous ‘‘Becker-Coleman-Seminar,’’ on rational choice theory in the social sciences, featuring among their regular participants renowned microeconomists such as Ronald Coase, Richard Posner, Daniel Friedman and George J. Stigler. In 1989, Coleman established the interdisciplinary journal ‘‘Rationality and Society’’ as a platform for publications on the impact of rational choice theory in sociology. His magnum opus, ‘‘Foundations of Social Theory,’’ focuses on the application of rational choice theory on questions of social structure. On the basis of
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Collective Action
methodological individualism, Coleman seeks to explain complex social phenomena such as social trust, authority, collective action problems, norms, and social capital. In contrast to classical microeconomists, though, Coleman does not devise actors as atomistic individuals but as embedded in a social context. Thereby, Coleman provides an economic foundation for sociology and, thus, introduces economic methods to the analysis of questions of social life.
Cross-References
▶ Collective Action ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of
References/Further Readings Clark, J. (Ed.) (1996). James S. Coleman. London: Falmer Press. Coleman, J. S. (1993). The impact of Gary Becker’s work on sociology. Acta Sociologica 36(3), 169–178. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.
Collective Action STEVE PFAFF, SARAH VALDEZ University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Introduction Collective action lies at the heart of any vibrant civil society because civic engagement requires individuals to work together as part of a group. In plural societies, political parties, interest organizations, voluntary associations, and religious congregations serve an important role. Putnam et al. (1994) said these associations all help to ‘‘make democracy work.’’ Meyer and Tarrow (1998) characterize contemporary postindustrial societies as ‘‘social movement societies’’ in which interest organizations and protest groups are nearly ubiquitous. Too often, however, collective action is taken for granted by civic activists and prescriptive theorists of civil society alike. It is easy to assume that, because people belong to groups with common interests, the members of that group will act in concert to achieve those interests. These assumptions are challenged by collective action theory.
Definition Developing out of rational-choice theory, the theory of collective action asserts that even if there are widely-shared group interests, cooperation and voluntary
contribution to realize them does not necessarily result (Hardin, 1982). Actors are assumed to be self-interested and rational, acting intentionally to realize their individual interests at minimal cost. Even if coordinated mobilization behind a common goal occurs, members of a group will be tempted to contribute little or nothing and rely on the efforts of others. Few potential beneficiaries will voluntarily pay costs or hazard risks to advance the cause. Even those that willingly participate are expected to be opportunistic, seeking advantages that benefit them individually even if it detracts from the provision of widely desired collective goods. This need not mean that people act only in heedless self-interest because rational egoists are expected to be constrained by the rules imposed by institutions, by the availability of information, and by the opportunity costs of foregoing one course of action by choosing another. Interest organizations in civil society face the greatest hurdles when they are interested in the production of public goods. Public goods are things which groups want that are nonexcludable (noncontributors cannot be denied its enjoyment easily) and nonrivalrous (i.e., my enjoyment of the good is not in rivalry with your enjoyment, hence there is no ‘‘crowding’’ effect that diminishes the value of the good the more that others exploit it). Examples of such public goods could include public safety, clean air, public broadcasting, and so on. In addition to public goods, there is another class of collective goods which is important in this discussion. Common-pool resources are nonexcludable but rivalrous goods (and thus prone to overexploitation by self-interested rationalists). Such common-pool resources include, for example, fisheries, potable water, broadcast airwaves, and other resources which are limited, not privately owned, and not easily enclosed. Garrett Hardin (1968) famously described the failure to prevent or contain the selfish exploitation of such resources as the ‘‘tragedy of the commons.’’
Historical Background At least since Mancur Olson’s (1965) seminal work, The Logic of Collective Action, social scientists have identified social dilemmas that must be overcome in order for voluntary activity to be reliably or efficiently produced. Olson’s work dispelled commonly held beliefs about collective action. First, it helped to reveal the fallacy of group composition, that is, the mistaken notion that if something is in the collective interest of the group, then rational members of that group will act to produce that thing. Olson’s theory showed why members of a group do not necessarily act together simply because they have a shared goal. Rather, in many instances rational actors are unlikely
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to contribute to the production of a collective good unless they are somehow coerced or compensated for their effort. This is an important correction to many streams of thought, such as those associated with Karl Marx, which posit that collective action emerges naturally among groups of people with similar interests. Collective action theory also broke with the field of collective behavior, which generally treated participation in protest and social movements through the lens of crowd psychology or explained it by reference to irrational factors such as frustration, resentment, and aggression.
Key Issues Free Rider Problem
The social dilemma which presents a problem for civil society is twofold. Firstly, rational, self-interested individuals will not act to achieve collective goods that would be shared equally among all, including people who do not contribute, because they can take advantage of the goods without incurring any personal costs. For instance, one need not petition, march, or donate money for the cause of clean air if others are doing so because if they achieve their goal, everyone will have equal access to cleaner air, regardless of their contribution. Secondly, rational, selfinterested individuals will be prone to overexploit common resources. Hardin’s (1968) classic example concerns a shared pasture. It is in each member’s self-interest to place as many animals possible on the shared parcel, quickly leading to depletion of the resource, which is in nobody’s long-term interest. Therefore, individuals acting in their own interest harm the collective interest. So, rather than contributing to a group effort to obtain public goods and using one’s fair share of common-pool resources, rational individuals will seek to avoid paying costs for a good that would be shared more or less equally among all group members, and will be motivated to take more of their share of common resources (if only because they fear if that if they don’t, others will). Thus there is often a conflict between what would be optimal for individuals and what would be optimal for the group and it is generally more advantageous for an individual to take a share of a collective good without ever making a contribution to providing it. This is called the free rider problem. It is worst where the size of the group is large and there is no coordinating organization to monitor and control contributions. If left unaddressed, the tendency toward ‘‘free riding’’ will result in the suboptimal production of public goods or the tragedy of the commons as shared resources are inefficiently exploited.
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Nevertheless, it is known that in practice public goods are sometimes produced and common resources are used efficiently. Collective action is not impossible, despite the social dilemmas it confronts. Following the general logic of Olson’s theory, a rational actor will be most likely to contribute to collective action when: (a) the actor is coerced into contributing to the collective good and punished when she fails to contribute or opportunistically exploits it (what might be called the Hobbesian solution); (b) the actor is compensated through selective incentives, or benefits for cooperation, that are divisible and only available to those that help produce the collective good (what might be called the Smithian solution); or (c) when a resourceful third party subsidizes the production of the collective good, for example, by paying the costs of coordinating or organizing collective action. By themselves, these solutions remain unpersuasive because they have simply pushed back the free rider problem; i.e., an organization that would enforce norms, provide selective incentives, or subsidize collective action would itself be the result of prior collective action that resulted in an organization for the promotion of collective goods. Likewise, the normative solution – a group has norms that deter free riding – so often favored by sociologists and anthropologists is unpersuasive because the creation and enforcement of norms against free riding are themselves collective goods. This is referred to as the ‘‘second-order’’ free rider problem – a proposed solution to free riding which is not immune from the same collective action dilemmas that encourage free riding (Heckathorn, 1989). The implication is that collective action is far less likely to occur than had generally been acknowledged by sociologists and political theorists. But Olson’s theory may be overly pessimistic. Under some circumstances collective action is commonplace and some groups manage to avert the tragedy of the commons (Ostrom, 1990). In general, early models of collective action were too pessimistic because they assumed that all actors are rational egoists with uniform preferences for collective goods. To address this problem, some researchers began to modify the standard motivational assumptions of collective action theory. One set of explanations focused on the role of trust (particularly that produced by group solidarity); the other on preference heterogeneity. Theories focusing on trust predict that collective action is most likely to occur in groups linked by strong social network ties and rich in social capital. Theories focusing on difference predict that collective action is most likely among socially heterogeneous groups in which actors have varying resources and different preferences for the collective good.
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Trust and Social Capital
In many cases, voluntary cooperation is contingent on what an actor thinks others will do. If an actor thinks that others will free ride on her efforts, she may be less likely to contribute herself. Likewise, if achievement of a collective good requires extensive collective action and an actor expects that a sufficient number of others will not contribute, she will also refrain, no matter how great her preference for the good. So how do actors overcome the problem of contingency? Individuals belonging to the same social categories are likely to have shared interests. However, the organizational structure of groups can facilitate or hinder the flow of information necessary to alert individuals of their shared interests and allow them to monitor others’ contributions to the group. Homogeneity among individuals may facilitate collective action because people who are similar to each other are likely to have common interests or objectives and share a large stock of common knowledge that informs their expectations. Without the confidence that others are reliable contributors, civil society groups will be unable to overcome the free rider problem. Hence, some theorists posit that in tightly-knit communities, small groups, and intimate settings, free riding and opportunism should be much less common than in large, relatively anonymous groups. James Coleman (1990) argues that actors are well aware of the free rider problem. In trying to achieve common ends, actors have clear incentives to withdraw or defect; but often compliance does occur and people do make fair contributions, even excessive or altruistic contributions. They volunteer, risk their lives, and contribute great sums, and so on, in order to achieve some common good. Given principles of rationality, why would they do that? Coleman shows that, in practice, actors try to assure each other that they will not cheat or defect from a common enterprise by signaling a willingness to comply. They can make informal compacts, or agreements, to follow the rules. What makes these compacts credible? Compacts are supported by enforceable social norms. But norms are themselves public goods, only effective if they are backed up by some kind of sanction. The problem with sanctions is that they also impose costs, which often deters actors from sanctioning the free riding or defection of others. In everyday life, ordinary social actors have resources that help them organize collective action and make norms effective (Ostrom, 1990). For one thing, they are generally embedded in the webs of social relations that define communities. In communities, actors have information about others and robust expectations about the likely
reactions of others to situations. If people value their place in community, social incentives such as reputation may persuade them to cooperate and the possible loss of status may effectively sanction free riding, as Chong (1991) explored in the case of the US civil rights movement. Rational action theorists expect that dependence on a group for desired goods and the closure of social networks helps to overcome free riding by monitoring and sanctioning defection or cheating (Hechter, 1987). In a closed social network, the costs of sanctioning and monitoring are reduced and the incentives for compliance are raised (Coleman, 1988). If social ties are valuable, actors will be reluctant to jeopardize them by ignoring group norms. By contrast, marginal social positions may be poorly regulated, difficult to sanction and therefore unlikely to generate group solidarity. Everyday exchange in social life generates social capital, social relationships that enhance the production of desired goods or the accomplishment of goals. Such capital is a potential resource for the achievement of collective goods as well as individual ends. Zeal is most likely to form in closed groups where members reinforce collective interests, so group norms and opportunities to exit or defect are closed off. Closed groups may even succeed in instilling individual preferences that are consistent with collective preferences. In these situations, self-interest is difficult to discern from altruism as other group members reward those that act zealously to achieve the common good. But for zeal to thrive, individuals must be socially encapsulated such the costs of defecting are high or they are unaware of exit options. Social capital can refer to either social networks that enable action or facilitate exchange, or to the capacity of a group to act together because of its solidarity – density, reliability, extent of mutual obligations, and so on. Social capital typically works when an actor can call on another actor for assistance in producing a collective good or to facilitate an exchange with a third actor (such as the government) that is a potential supplier of that good. Cook et al. (2005) illustrates how social capital can facilitate collective action by contrasting the structure of cooperation in agrarian societies characterized by hamlets and small towns versus industrial and postindustrial cities characterized by large towns and cities. In the village, generalized trust is unimportant because the enforcement of norms is straightforward, due to the fact that monitoring and sanctioning are easy and everyone shares a stock of common knowledge that makes compacts credible. In cities, by contrast, generalized trust is important because monitoring and sanctioning are difficult and most actors are strangers to each other. If barriers to trust cannot be
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overcome in urban societies, it may be very difficult for citizens to achieve collective goods. This is why theorists of democracy argue that civic attachments formed in settings such as neighborhoods, churches, labor unions, clubs, sports teams, and small-business associations are so important for robust civil society. In short, trust matters for collective action by forming the expectations actors reach concerning other’s likely contribution to producing collective goods. Trust is most likely to facilitate collective action where (1) actors have information about other’s interests; (2) information is available to assess another’s character or disposition; (3) actors have an interest in maintaining a reputation for trustworthiness and make moral commitments. Preference Heterogeneity and the ‘‘Critical Mass’’
If everyone who stands to benefit by collective action is prone to free ride, production of the good will be suboptimal regardless of the magnitude of the demand for the good. If, however, some potential beneficiaries are willing to bear greater costs than others, then they will not free ride and will also tolerate some free riding by others. Prior collective action theory generally assumed that cooperation is most likely where social actors are alike and share uniform preferences for collective goods. However, Marwell et al.’s (Marwell and Oliver, 1993; Marwell et al. 1985) important innovation in collective action theory emphasizes the role of difference among actors. There is much evidence to suggest that collective action crystallizes around a small, devoted segment of the group that undertakes initial action. Collective action is most likely to get started by those alert and resourceful actors who are willing to pay the relatively high costs of initiating and coordinating collective action. This small segment of actors is likely to deviate from the average group member in their level of dedication to the cause, willingness to contribute time and resources, or useful skills and knowledge. Therefore, collective action is most likely to arise in groups which have a diverse membership in terms of individual resources, alertness, and level of preference for the collective goods. Threshold imagery is a useful way to explain how within-group heterogeneity can facilitate broad participation in collection action (Granovetter, 1978). An action threshold refers to an individual’s propensity to participate in collective action. The segment of the group willing to initiate action has a threshold of zero, meaning they will act regardless of other participants’ contribution to the shared goal. This may be because they are especially interested in the collective good or because they fear that if they do not move first and contribute more than others,
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collective action will fail. Oliver (1984) describes them as the sort of people that might declare ‘‘If I don’t do it, nobody else will.’’ At the other end of the spectrum are those with a 99% threshold – they will undertake action only after everyone else has. Most group members can be expected to fall between these two extremes and will engage in a collective effort once a certain number of others have already acted, although each individual’s threshold varies according to the situation. How such thresholds are distributed across a group is enormously important for that group’s capacity for collective action (Schelling, 1978). Mass participation is expected when threshold levels are clustered near the low end of the threshold distribution because a few highly interested and resourceful individuals will initiate action, which stimulates more individuals to act, and a cascade occurs, with waves of actors joining in as their thresholds for action are met. However, when many members’ thresholds are on the high end, only low levels of participation are expected. A few individuals may initiate action, but most members’ thresholds will not be met so they will never join in. If all group members have only a low level of interest in the collective good and high thresholds, then it is quite likely that collective action will never get started at all. Collective Action in Social Movements
Collective action theory rejects the proposition that people involved in nonmainstream groups, such a social movements or new religious groups, are necessarily irrational, deviant, or socially marginalized. Collective action theory maintains that participants in such movements are driven generally by grievances or dissatisfaction, since otherwise the costs associated with movement participation are difficult to justify. The likelihood of collective action occurring also depends on the resources and opportunities available to groups (Tilly, 1978). One can conceive of the relationship between established political actors and their insurgent challengers in terms of two struggles: (1) a contest to set the costs and perceived benefits of collective action; and (2) a contest over the means to mobilize and sustain collective action (Lichbach, 1994). Social movements are thus often initiated by political entrepreneurs that are adept at marshalling resources, instilling confidence in followers, and discrediting opponents. The resource mobilization theory of social movements highlights how existing resources, or resources which are contributed by third parties to political contention, influence a group’s ability to organize and act collectively. Economic resources matter because they may be used to provide selective incentives to group
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members, thereby inducing them to act in the group’s interest. Furthermore, funds can be used to hire a professional staff; thereby eliminating the need to for a critical mass to form on its own. However, nonmaterial resources are also important to collective action. For instance, the amount of time each member is willing and able to devote to group goals is important, as are the ideas and skills that they can muster. In addition to the availability of resources, political structures affect the likelihood of collective action. Different types of regimes are likely to encourage different types of collective action because movement leaders adapt their strategies for obtaining goals to the environment around them (McAdam et al., 1996, Tilly, 1978). In general, highly despotic states monopolize the resources of collective action and severely repress challengers, making dissident collective action unusual and limited to dedicated cadres willing to endure very high costs. Democratic, plural polities allow for a wide distribution of resources and facilitate challengers, making for collective action that is common and extensive. Hence, closed political regimes allow citizens very little access to the polity, whereas open regimes allow routine access through activities such as voting, lobbying, or petitioning. Strong, repressive regimes are likely to stifle contentious collective action and have an underdeveloped civil society. Weak, repressive regimes are likely to limit civic activity and generally undermine collective action. However, any collective action that does emerge is likely to be contentious mobilization against the state because the movement may be perceived as likely to topple the weak regime. On the other hand, completely open regimes allow citizens free access to the polity, so routine civic engagement is less costly than contentious mobilization. Therefore, these societies tend toward high levels of collective action, and thus a vibrant civil society. High levels of contentious mobilization are most likely in regimes that fall between these two extremes. In moderate regimes that are neither fully repressive nor fully open, the lack of institutional political opportunities creates incentives for dissenting groups to organize outside and against the regime because, unlike in an open regime, the chances of achieving goals within the system are poor. At the same time, moderate levels of repression fail to deter the most dissatisfied groups, which is generally not the case under a strong, repressive regime.
Future Directions As originally formulated, collective action theory made several incorrect assumptions and was too pessimistic concerning the possibilities for collective action. Social
scientists working in the tradition of collective action theory have not only identified the many obstacles that hinder collective action but also factors that may enable it. As they have struggled to understand how the social dilemmas that complicate collective action can be resolved, theories of group behavior have become more realistic and complex. Moving forward, empirical researchers will need to continue to test and refine theories of collective action. This often presents evidentiary challenges since they often lack the reliable individual-level data required to cast light on the motivation for participation in collective action. Usually the best one can do is to probe the self-reported motives of participants retrospectively. Theoretical progress has been made through simulation studies, which have shown the effects of thresholds, reciprocity, and institutions on the emergence of collective behavior. However, convincing empirical tests of computer simulation models are few. One fruitful avenue for explaining the motives behind collective behavior may be experimental studies (see e.g., Henrich et al., 2004) (Fehr and Gintis, 2007). Drawing from methods used in psychology and economics, researchers have replicated the individual and collective incentive structures that influence collective action through laboratory experiments by, for example, giving subjects a sum of money that can either be pocketed (thereby satisfying the individuals’ immediate self interests) or pooled into a common fund which is multiplied (creating a public good in everyone’s interest, so long as no one free rides). Yet another mode of gaining insight into the mechanisms behind collective action may be through ethnography or longitudinal surveys similar to those done to study the emergence of solidarity in business and organizational environments. Finally, researchers should continue to explore how institutions such as norms emerge in social life and how pro-social behavior evolves through interaction. A combination of methods – simulations, experiments, comparative and historical studies, and ethnographies – will contribute much to the existing knowledge about why and when people are likely to act in concert to achieve shared goals.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Associations, Definition and History of ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Coleman, James ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Commons ▶ Goods and Services, Types of
Coluche
▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Lobbying ▶ Olson, Mancur ▶ Political Organizations ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Movements ▶ Social Trust
References/Further Readings Chong, D. (1991). Collective action and the civil rights movement. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Coleman, J. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94(Suppl.), S92–S120. Coleman, J. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Cook, K. S., Hardin, R., & Levi, M. (2005). Cooperation without Trust? New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Fehr, E., & Gintis, H. (2007). Human motivation and social cooperation: Experimental and analytical foundations. Annual Review of Sociology, 33, 43–64. Granovetter, M. (1978). Threshold models of collective behavior. American Journal of Sociology, 83(6), 1420–1443. Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243–1248. Hardin, R. (1982). Collective action. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hechter, M. (1987). Principles of group solidarity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Heckathorn, D. (1989). Collective action and the second-order free-rider problem. Rationality and Society, 1(1), 78–100. Henrich, J., Boyd, R., Bowles, S., Camerer, C., Fehr, E., & Gintis, H. (2004). Foundations of human sociality: Economic experiments and ethnographic evidence from fifteen small-scale societies. New York: Oxford University Press. Kollock, P. (1998). Social dilemmas: The anatomy of cooperation. Annual Review of Sociology, 24, 183–214. Lichbach, M. (1994). The rebel’s dilemma. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Marwell, G., & Oliver, P. (1993). The critical mass in collective action: A micro-social theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Marwell, P., Marwell, G., & Texeira, R. (1985). A theory of the critical mass. I. interdependence, group heterogeneity, and the production of collection action. American Journal of Sociology, 91(3), 522–556. McAdam, D., McCarthy, J., & Zald, M. (1996). Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings. New York: Cambridge University Press. Meyer, D., & Tarrow, S. (Eds.) (1998). The social movement society. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield. Oliver, P. (1984). If you don’t do it, nobody else will: Active and token contributors to local collective action. American Sociological Review, 49(5), 601–610. Oliver, P., & Marwell, G. (2001). Whatever happened to critical mass theory? A retrospective and assessment. Sociological Theory, 19(3), 292–311. Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Putnam, R. D., Leonardi, R., & Nanetti, R.Y. (1994). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Schelling, T. C. (1978). Micromotives and macrobehavior. New York: Norton. Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley.
Coluche ANAEL LABIGNE
Basic Biographical Information The man who would be known as Coluche was born Michel Colucci in 1944 in Paris to a working class family of Italian immigrants. School did not spark Coluche’s passion, and he left with only the basic certificate in 1958. He later entered the army, but was released in 1965. He then worked as a florist and began singing on cafe´ terraces and in cabarets, where he took on his stage name, Coluche. Along with several colleagues, Coluche participated in the creation of the first theater-cafe´, le Cafe´ de la Gare. Their unusual, irreverent style brought him and the troupe notoriety. From his very modest beginnings, Coluche became a popular comedian and actor – as well as a political figure – well known for a style of humor that brought political and social ills to the fore and touched his audiences. Coluche died in 1986 in a motorcycle accident.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Coluche’s irreverent comedic style brought social and political issues to many audiences and into the homes of millions of French television viewers. No type of racial, social, or sexist prejudice was left untouched. In the late 1980s, Coluche announced he would run in the French presidential elections the following year. Though some thought it to be another one of his gags, others took his candidacy seriously. Eventually, as his popularity among voters grew, pressure and criticism from his rivals caused him to withdraw. Coluche, who had himself spent time ‘‘on the street’’ and now lived the good life, was struck by the incredible amount of food that was thrown away, despite the fact that many people did not have enough to eat. In 1985, Coluche founded ‘‘Les Restos du Cœur – Relais du Cœur’’ (Restaurants of the Heart – Relay of the Heart), which collects and distributes food, money, and clothes to the poor and homeless. Today there are centers all over
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France. Later, he launched the first ‘‘Tourne´e des Enfoire´s’’ (Tour of the Losers) to raise funds for this association. In 1988, two years after Coluche’s death, Coluche’s law was passed to allow donors to deduct charitable contributions from their taxes. The difference with this law is that the charitable deduction permitted small contributors (the most numerous) to benefit from the same tax breaks as big contributors.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Fundraising
References/Further Readings Boggio, P. (2006). Coluche. L’histoire d’un mec. Paris: Flammarion, from www.coluche.fr
Comite´ europe´en des associations d’inte´reˆt ge´ne´ral ▶ CEDAG
Commercialization and For-Profits in Disguise HOWARD P. TUCKMAN Fordham University, New York, NY, USA
Introduction The commercial activities of nonprofits went largely unrecognized by policymakers, foundations, and academics for many years, despite the existence of a variety of business ventures that involved partnerships between nonprofits and for-profit enterprises (e.g., Skloot, 1998). For example, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has sold copies of photographs from its collection since it opened its first sanctioned shop in 1908 and some museums have hosted commercial galas in their galleries. In part, this lack of recognition reflected the limited amount of available information on these for-profit activities and, in part, it reflected a focus by researchers on the prime mission of the sector as the provision of public goods (Weisbrod, 1988). The situation is changing with the growth of commercial activities within the nonprofit sector. In the late 1970s,
this situation was fueled by a variety of factors including the rising costs of service provision due to the double-digit inflation and cutbacks in funding by the Reagan administrations, pressures for nonprofits to exercise greater selfsufficiency, and the growth of the supply of new nonprofits relative to the supply of corporations and foundations willing to support them. By the year 2001, these pressures were compounded by the September 11 debacle with its focus on charitable efforts to address the problems created by this disaster, and into the decade by limited government support due to channeling of funds for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and by the rise of social entrepreneur based funding with its focus on the application of business practices to nonprofits seeking financial support, by growing numbers of consultants and advisors encouraging nonprofits to seek new revenue streams and offering techniques for doing so, by the recent oil induced rise in prices that have substantially raised the costs of doing business, and by the 2008 banking crisis which will likely shrink the pool of donor funds available for charitable purposes. The list is a long one and it foretells an environment in which nonprofits will continue to face serious fund-raising challenges.
Definition In every day use, commercialism refers to the process of applying business or commercial methods to an organization, usually implying adoption of the profit motive as a prime raison d’etre. The problem is that many nonprofits have exhausted their existing sources of revenue and this leads for a search for new revenue sources to foster stability and growth. One such source is engaging in the same type of commercial activity that for-profit firms are involved in which creates the risk that nonprofits start to copy nonprofits both in terms of the goals they pursue and the way that they provide products and services. The hiring of managers from commercial enterprises may hasten this process and ultimately undermine the fundamental justification for an organization’s special status as a nonprofit organization. What is a for-profit in disguise (FPID)? Essentially, it is a nonprofit that has financial rather than altruistic motives for its existence (Weisbrod, 1998). Such an organization maximizes its profits and uses the resulting surplus to enrich its officers and directors through higher than normal compensation and/or the provision of benefits that bring power and/or prestige to its managers. This behavior is a violation of the mission of nonprofits and it can lead to severe consequences including loss of nonprofit status and possible prosecution for illegal behavior. There is no simple formula for determining when a nonprofit crosses the line and becomes a FPID. While examples of nonprofits
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established to benefit their founders can occasionally be found in newspapers, the more prevalent way that a nonprofit becomes a FPID is when it slowly increases the number and type of its for-profit activities over time. Its initial foray into commercial activities may not initially interfere with its basic mission but as it begins to emulate its for-profit competitors it may drift from its initial mission, eventually undermining the justification for its existence as a nonprofit (Tuckman & Chang, 2006). A nonprofit hospital may add a parking lot, a convenience store, diagnostic facilities, a nursing home, health clubs, and rehab facilities. To run these activities, it hires people from the for-profit sector and adopts normal business practices in its commercial enterprises. Over time it expands its commercial activities and it may create hybrid enterprises that consist of separate for-profit and nonprofit enterprises and if the for-profits come to dominate the time of the parent, it runs the risk of losing sight of its mission. Hybrid structures enable nonprofits to enter the for-profit world and compete with other for-profit entities, paying taxes on their earnings and ultimately putting their profits at the disposal of the nonprofit that is typically their parent owner. It can be extremely difficult to judge the point when such an organization becomes a FPID. While many nonprofits have the incentive to commercialize, only a limited number are actually able to do so. Tuckman (1998) lists four conditions that are likely to give rise to a nonprofit’s successful decision to commercialize: 1. The nonprofit must feel a need for additional revenues and perceive that the sale of its outputs will provide a viable means to realize its goals. 2. The nonprofit’s governing board must decide that the pursuit of profits from the sale of outputs is consistent with, or at least does not substantially interfere with, the mission of the organization. 3. The nonprofit must have products suitable for sale in the marketplace. 4. Consumers must be willing to purchase the products offered by the nonprofit. The existence of these conditions suggests that the FPID problem will not exist throughout the nonprofit sector but rather in those areas where commercialism is feasible and the administration begins to seek out and provide commercial products and services. It is unlikely to be found in providers of services to abused wives, hospices, homeless and/or animal shelters and more likely to exist for art galleries, educational institutions, health care providers or research facilities, and museums.
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Historical Background Religious groups are the major originators of nonprofits, especially private schools, and this is a key reason why we find many nonprofit organizations in the education and health sectors. Religious organizations are unlikely to have the objective of maximizing profits but rather maximize the amount of religious faith they can produce or the number of religious adherents they reach. There are several advantages that these entities possess relative to for-profits in the field of education. They often have several advantages to offer such as a semicaptive audience consisting of children with a specific religious preferences, families who have trust in the school, volunteer, or lower cost (than for-profits) labor, and a reputation for quality built around their religious order that attracts students. This allows them to continue recruiting based on the differentiated product they provide even if they lose their cost advantage; and they may even be politically powerful enough to secure government subsidies. Many of these advantages motivate choice especially in countries outside the United States and Europe (James, 1998). Note, for example, the strong presence of Jesuit schools in India and the Philippines which is a reflection of the importance that the order places on providing quality education to people who might otherwise lack access. Nonetheless, this has not kept some religious institutions from engaging in commercial activities, such as conducting clinical trials for pharmaceutical companies. Other forces have also affected the development of the nonprofits and their mission and these also affect the ability to become a FPID. For example, after 1865 in the United States, strong advocates for the newly developing private business corporations actively created nonprofit colleges and universities to recruit and educate students who would form a pool of skilled and educated manpower, gather, structure, and analyze new social and economic data, and support the spread of new technologies on a national scale. For these entities, the goal was not maximization of profits but maximization of the quantity and quality of a newly trained labor force. By 1910, the demand for middle management had created a compelling market demand for business education and many nonprofits responded with new programs following the creation of Harvard Business School in 1908 (Daniel, 1998). Interestingly, almost one hundred years later, the educational sector consists of government, nonprofit, and for-profit institutions, some intent on undisguised profit maximization. The extent to which nonprofit maximizing behavior is affected by competition is important and large
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differences in competitive conditions exist by industry. For example, in the United States, child day care centers are about 60% nonprofit and 40% for-profit; theater companies are 48% for-profit and 52% nonprofit, and hospitals 65% nonprofit and 35% for-profit. In industries where nonprofits coexist with nonprofits, pressures exist to bring prices closer in line with for-profit competitors, as well as to provide similar services but many studies have shown that differences in the behavior of nonprofits exist when put in competition with forprofits (Brown & Slivinki, 2006). The challenge for both members of the sector and for policymakers is how to balance pursuit of a social mission against the need for new revenues to sustain their activities. Data provided for the United States indicate that the number of hybrids is quite small (Tuckman, 2008). The threat of for-profits in disguise entering the nonprofit sector is of less concern than the fact that the line between nonprofits and for-profits blurs to the point where the rationale for retaining the nonprofit sector can become an issue for public policy. This is especially the case for as nonprofit collaboration with corporations takes new and creative forms (Austin et al., 2007).
Key Issues Greater Specificity to the Mission Statement
Many mission statements are written in broad, unfocused, and all-encompassing terms, making it difficult to tell when the activities of a nonprofit are causing it to drift away from its intended mission (Tuckman & Chang, 2006). For example, a hospital with the mission of ‘‘improving the health of the population’’ can define multiple activities under its mission umbrella, some of which can involve largely commercial activities. In their pure form, nonprofit social missions require the provision of collective goods, goods that provide benefits to society at large, such as care for the poor, research that yields benefits to society, community services, and campaigns to educate the public. Provision of the same commercial service at the same price that a for-profit offers is not always a valid action for a nonprofit and if all of its activities are treated this way, even though it is carrying its mission, it may not be acting in the social interest yet limited oversight is usually provided as to what constitutes a valid mission statement. As a result, individual nonprofits and their boards are largely free to judge whether an activity is mission appropriate. As Weisbrod (1998) suggests ‘‘the challenge for public policy may well be to find alternative revenue sources that would make it possible for nonprofits to act less like private firms, at least in terms of choice
of outputs and target populations, and to concentrate more on their mission-related activities.’’ Mission Drift
Mission drift is difficult to capture even in the best of circumstances. It can be intentional, as when a nonprofit consciously decides to redirect its activities in a new direction, when it is influenced to seek a new direction through government or donor pressure or it may be unintentional, as when thought is not given to the effects of commercial activity and the organization gradually addresses its output of goods and services to a different mission over time (Tuckman & Chang, 2006). In the best of circumstances, it is difficult to identify because alternative activities can support the same mission and, in some situations, the same mission can be filled by either nonprofits or for-profits and the difference between nonprofit and for-profit methods for carrying out a mission may not be easily observable. Tuckman (2006) lists several behaviors that are a cause for concern. Administrators are driven by personal gain to spend so much time on for-profit activities that they lose sight of the ‘‘central role of providing socially valuable but privately unprofitable services, administrators reallocate their efforts to commercial activities at the expense of charitable activity, pressures from for-profits cause nonprofits to neglect significant segments of their previously served population, conflict of interest develops between the goals of the nonprofit and the goals of its commercial endeavor, dollars raised for charitable purposes are used as venture capital for for-profit activities, and charitable dollars are used to bail out failed businesses or for-profit projects.’’ Some of these activities are precluded by law but others are permitted. At present, it is largely up to the Boards of Directors to create a means for monitoring these activities in the United States and to take responsibility for monitoring them; especially in large diverse businesses like universities and hospitals, this is not easy. How Much Cross-Subsidization is Enough
Perhaps, the strongest rationale for pursuing commercialization is the theory of cross-subsidization which suggests that when revenues from donors, gifts, and other charitable sources are insufficient, nonprofit administrators opt to enter commercial businesses to create a larger profit that can be used to finance the production of desired goods and this leads to pricing policies different from those of for-profits (James, 1998). The model assumes administrators act benignly and use profits from commercial activities to subsidize the amount public goods and services they produce. It does not recognize that their
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behavior can be altered by exposure to business practices or that administrators will use funds to subsidize their own income or to provide themselves with shares in the new commercial entity. It also provides little explanation for when a nonprofit will choose a hybrid form and how it will choose among competing commercial activities. Clearly, there is a need for further research and applied studies as to how much cross-subsidization takes place and what boundaries should be placed on this. The Role of Changing Technology
Weisbrod (1998) notes that many of the industries in which commercialism is heavy (as reflected in partnerships, M & A, and conversions), there is a significant impact from institutional or technological change. In some cases, these affect the ideal size at which a nonprofit should produce, in others the ability to reach out to a new or existing constituency, and in others to better market and collect donations. Technological changes are particularly important where they make price financing more feasible and it may also be the case that the advantages to the nonprofit form, consisting of tax and subsidy benefits have lessened. Public policy would be greatly benefited if we better understood situations where some of the constraints on these nonprofits have been lifted, making it possible for them to act more like for-profits. Understanding the Hybrid Organization
Although hybrid nonprofits represent a small percentage of the total nonprofit community, they are important because of the role that they play in blurring the line between the for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Tuckman (2008) lists several reasons for creation of a hybrid with a for-profit subsidiary. First, many nonprofits need to protect their assets, especially when undertaking unrelated-business income generating activities. Second, segregation of assets may be helpful in attracting donors who would otherwise be concerned that their gifts would be used in unacceptable ways; e.g., dissipated on operations or spent on purposes other than the donor intended. Third, subsidiaries may be useful in targeting assets to specific groups. For example, a hospital may set up a separate subsidiary to provide hospice services. Fourth, we have noted above that too much commercial activity in a nonprofit may endanger its tax status and setting up a new for-profit entity can avoid this. Fifth, multiple subsidiaries may create the opportunity to share the salaries of senior management across multiple entities. This can lead to personal enrichment. Sixth, hybrid structures enable the nonprofit to separate employees with different talents, skills, and career goals. Finally, creation of a hybrid structure may be desirable if it creates greater
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flexibility for a nonprofit to work with a for-profit partner. These are all important considerations that suggest that a role exists for this type of organization. The problem is that we do not have either the data or the processes available to monitor the growth of these organizations and this suggests that they will go largely unnoticed, despite the fact that this is where many FPIDs are most likely to be located.
International Perspectives For-profits in disguise pose issues for public policy when they use their nonprofit status to obtain special benefits such as tax exemptions, lower postal rates, and exemption from antitax laws and use the savings for private gain. Each country has its own laws regarding how an entity qualifies for nonprofit status, what benefits accrue from having this designation, and how financial reporting should take place. For example, the European Union has several common features in the way its treats its nonprofits; they cannot distribute profits for private gain, should have formal legal status and be independent with respect to government and business, and have the purpose of playing a social role. Travaglini et al. (no date) find that nonprofit entities sell goods and services in EU countries and that financial statement regulation of nonprofits is ‘‘seriously inadequate,’’ suggesting that if FPIDs exist in these countries they may not be easily identified. In Spain, they find that the financial statements of nonprofits are insufficient to meet user needs because they use a model designed for business enterprises. In Italy, nonprofits must prepare annual financial reports but they need not make them public and the reporting structure is in need of clarification and standardization. In Russia, membership fees, donations, and other contributions are the key revenue sources for a majority of nonprofits and many earn profits from the various business activities they can legally engage in; sales are about 35% of their revenue (Livshin, 2005). Interestingly, the tax laws do not allow organizations that make contributions to deduct them from taxable profit but they allow special purpose revenues to be exempt from the profits tax on nonprofits. In 2001 nonprofits were required to pay the value added tax and in 2002, the profit tax was extended to all non special purpose revenues and the amount of business expenses could not be deducted in calculating the tax. These, as well as other factors, such as conditions unfavorable to the development of civil society, lack of stability, and deep contradictions in both the existing tax legislation and the way it is implemented, strongly reduce the incentives both to create both nonprofits and FPIDs. Finally, in some countries nonprofits have chosen to give up their nonprofit status to become for-profits. Austin
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et al. (2007) report, for example, that Bolivia’s top financial institution Banco Solidario S. A. began as a nonprofit micro finance nonprofit and evolved into a for-profit commercial bank after finding that it could secure more income and implement best practices better as a for-profit. Similar situations have existed for health care institutions in the United States who found the need for capital sufficient to motivate a change from for-profit to nonprofit.
Future Directions Salamon et al. (2000) calculate that globally nonprofits earn 57% of their income from commercial sales and only 13% from private donations. Given the forces described above, the need for funding will grow in the future as will the organizational changes that nonprofits will undergo as technological change continues to revise the best way for nonprofits to finance and deliver their services. The blurring of the lines between the sectors will continue as policymakers, donors, and other interested partners struggle with defining and controlling the conditions under which a nonprofit morphs into a for-profit in disguise.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Brands/Branding ▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations ▶ Civil Society–Business Relations ▶ Hybridity/Hybridization ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Mission ▶ Nonprofit Organization ▶ Partnerships ▶ Religious Organizations ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Austin, J. E., Gutierrez, R., Ogliastri, E., & Reficco, E. ( 2007). Capitalizing on Convergence. Stanford Social Innovation Review, winter. Brown, E., & Slivinski, A. (2006). Nonprofit organizations and the market. The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Daniel, C. A. (1998). MBA: The first century. Lewisburg: Bucknell University Press. James, E. (1998). The nonprofit sector in comparative perspective. In B. A. Weisbrod (Ed.), To profit or not to profit. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Livshin, A. (2005). Current issues of the development of nonprofit economy in Russia. Public Management. Electronic Journal Issue, v6. Salamon, L., Wojciech Sokolowszci, M. S., & List, R. (2004). Global civil society: An overview. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society. Skloot, E. (1998). Enterprise and commerce in nonprofit organizations. In B. A. Weisbrod (Ed.), To profit or not to profit. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Travaglini, C., Supino, E., Furentes, J., Perdomo, J. F., Perez, E. F. (no date). Accounting Regulation for Nonprofit Organizations in Italy and Spain: Towards a European Perspective. SRN-id1079454(1). Tuckman, H. P. (1998). Competition, commercialization, and the evolution of nonprofit organizational structures. In B. A. Weisbrod (Ed.), To profit or not to profit. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tuckman, H. P. (2008). The Strategic and Economic Value of Hybrid Nonprofit Structures. In Joe Cordes (Ed.), A New World of Innovation and Adaptation. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Tuckman, H. P., and Chang, C. F. (2006). Commercial activity, ‘‘Technological Change and Nonprofit Mission.’’ In The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.) New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Weisbrod, B. A. (Ed.) (1998). To profit or not to profit. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (The Filer Commission) ALICIA SCHORTGEN
Introduction The report of the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (Filer Commission) is often touted as the founding document of America’s modern nonprofit sector. Named for committee chair John Filer, Chief Executive Officer of the Aetna Life and Casualty Company in Hartford, Connecticut, the Filer Commission carried out the most thorough study of the US nonprofit sector to date. The commission brought together a diverse group of representatives from nonprofits and government as well as scholars and private businesspeople for the 2-year project.
Brief History The Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs was founded in November 1973 to study the role of philanthropic organizations in the American public policy landscape. Congressional hearings leading up to the Tax Reform Act of 1969 called into question several aspects of philanthropic behavior in the United States including the nonprofit sector’s financial independence and the appropriateness of tax deductibility. The Filer Commission Report was officially presented to Congress in December 1975.
Activities During the Filer Commission’s 2-year term, 85 studies were conducted to explore a variety of philanthropic concerns. Economists, sociologists, and other consultants
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prepared reports on topics including domestic and international policy analysis related to charitable activity as well as taxpayer giving behavior. The Commission convened a series of meetings across the United States to garner feedback from experts and concerned stakeholders. All of these activities informed the Giving in America report as well as the supplemental Filer Commission materials.
Structure John H. Filer chaired the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs for the entirety of its research and reporting efforts. The commission’s final membership consisted of 26 members representing myriad stakeholders. The Filer Commission’s overall structure was somewhat fluid, but the final report of the commission recognized 120 participants including consultants and researchers.
Funding Nonprofit policy activist John D. Rockefeller, 3rd privately funded the Filer Commission.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Filer Commission Report, Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector, is a 220-page report detailing the role of the charitable sector. The report, coupled with its five volumes of supplemental research reports and other materials, remain the most thorough study of nonprofits to date. The Commission’s 19 recommendations were divided into three main categories: (1) Broadening the Base of Philanthropy; (2) Improving the Philanthropic Process; and (3) A Permanent Commission. While the commission was most successful in maintaining the status quo of policies affecting charitable organizations including preserving tax deductibility of donations, John D. Rockefeller 3rd and other commission participants sought to promote the findings of the Filer Commission through Congress and various administrative agencies. The death of John D. Rockefeller 3rd in July 1978 stymied the efforts of Filer report supporters, and with the formation of the organization now known as Independent Sector, the Filer Commission officially disbanded.
Cross-References
▶ Independent Sector ▶ Filer, John H. ▶ Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the US ▶ Tax Exemption, Justifications for
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References/Further Readings Brilliant, E. L. (2000). Private charity and public inquiry: A history of the Filer and Peterson commissions. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. (1975). Giving in America: Toward a stronger voluntary sector. Washington, DC: Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs.
Common Law and Civil Society MATTHEW TURNOUR1, MYLES MCGREGOR-LOWNDES2 1 Neumann & Turnour Lawyers Brisbane, Brisbane, QLD, Australia 2 Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Introduction Common law does not (yet) recognize civil society as a unique legal sphere separate from public and private law in the way that civil society is now recognized as a separate space in some disciplines (Anheier, 2004). Civil society is therefore protected, enabled, regulated, and sometimes allowed preferences by the common law scattered throughout its various public and private divisions.
Definition The common law is usually described as unwritten law. It is the law developed by judges from the customs of the people expressed in judgments of courts of law and equity. It is therefore quite different both in substance and procedure from the civil law which is codified. The civil law had its origins in the Roman law codified in the Corpus Juris Civilis of Justinian while the genesis and early development of the common law is traceable to the unwritten customs of England. English judges heard and decided cases keeping in tune with the principles set out in earlier cases which were considered to be statements of the accepted norms of England at the time. The reports of these judgments led to the development of a body of law, which came to be known as the common law because it was common throughout England and Wales. These unwritten laws developed by the courts of England from precedents, traveled with English settlement to other parts of the world and now underpin the jurisprudence of over 100 jurisdictions (McPherson, 2007). The strict application of these common law rules sometimes resulted in injustice and so principles developed, initially, within religious courts to moderate the unfair outcomes that
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could result from the strict application of the common law. These moderating principles applied by religious courts became known as the principles of equity or simply as equity. Over time the principles of equity were applied in courts that also applied the common law. At the beginning of the twenty-first century there are, then, two components of what is commonly called common law. The first component is the common law itself and the second component is equity. As common law emanates from the judgments of courts, it stands in contrast to statute law which emanates in written form as Acts of Parliament. The common law is often also divided between those aspects that regulate the relationship of the citizens with the government, called public law, and those aspects that relate to the relationship among citizens, called private law.
Historical Background The common law protection of the freedom of citizens from government upon which civil society depends, predates the Magna Carta signed by King John of England in 1215 (Brooks, 1998). In that context the right to freely associate was limited to freedom of religious expression. The common law regulation of civil society as private relations between citizens also traces in part to religious expression. The religious concept of the ‘‘pious use’’ was the forerunner of the modern concept of charitable trust by which courts of equity ensured that gifts for public purposes were applied for those purposes. The formation of associations independent of government and the private control of such associations are traceable to medieval guilds. Whilst these were initially not dependent upon government for corporate status, during the reign of the Tudors that changed. Arguably, because associations are a rival to sovereignty (Jacobsen, 1980) it suited the Tudor sovereigns to require all associations to be dependent upon the sovereign for legal status. The formal development of the common law into an articulated body of law is due in no small part to the work of William Blackstone who was the first Vinerian Professor of Law at Oxford University. His Commentaries published in the 1760s (Blackstone, 2007) were the first substantive attempt to set out in an organized way the common law of England. Blackstone’s Commentaries became the source text for the common law not only in England but also in the United States, and indeed across the common law world. As the common law was considered to be the expression of the customs of the people, it was once presumed that an Act of Parliament did not intend to change the common law. The position in the United Kingdom and most other common law countries now is that an Act of
Parliament may extinguish even fundamental common law rights, immunities, and freedoms, provided the Act of the Parliament is clear and unambiguous (see, for instance, the judgment of Lord Hoffmann in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department; Ex parte Simms [2000] 2 AC 115 at 131–132, cited with approval by Chief Justice Gleeson of the High Court of Australia in Al-Kateb v Godwin [2004] 219 CLR 562 at [19], by Justice Kirby in Attorney-General (WA) v Marquet [2003] 217 CLR 545 at [180] and Chief Justice Elias and Justice Tipping of the Supreme Court of New Zealand in R v Pora 2 NZLR 37 at [53]).
Key Issues The common law is the foundation for many aspects of civil society. However, civil society as a concept is not recognized by the common law, so it is necessary to approach the protection, enabling, regulating, and sometimes preferring of civil society participation from within the accepted branches of the common law. Three branches of the common law are discussed in this section: first, the common law constitutional foundations for freedom of association; second, the laws of contract that provide the tools for governance of civil society organizations; and third, the principles of equity applying to charitable trusts. Constitutional Law
Whilst the right to freely associate for religious purposes has a long and contested history predating the Magna Carta, it is arguable whether there is a right to freedom of association independent of the right to freedom of religion at common law. The common law does not enshrine a right to public meetings and so participation in such civil society gatherings is arguably entirely dependent upon written, statutory, or Constitutional protections. Constitutional law protections of freedom to associate have their genesis in the English common law, but in the twenty-first century these rights are almost invariably expressed in written Constitutions and Bills of Rights (see, for instance, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Schedule B to the Canada Act [UK] 1982, c.11). Australia is the only common law country without some form of Bill of Rights but even the Australian Constitution provides basic freedom of religion protections (Section 116). Whilst it is difficult in common law history to separate freedom of association in civil society generally from religious freedom in particular, by the time Blackstone wrote his Commentaries in the 1760s he was able to point to certain well-recognized fundamental rights and it was these common law rights which subsequently found their way into various written ‘‘constitutions’’ of which the Constitution of the United States of America was the
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first. The most recent formulation of the right to associate finds expression in the South African Constitution. The preoccupation with religious freedom sometimes to the exclusion of the more general freedom of association in civil society is typical of the law in many common law countries. The common law rights, freedoms, and immunities of citizens to participate freely in civil society have also languished because of the codification of these common law rights in written Constitutions and Bills of Rights. This is because there has not been a need for reference to the common law protections because contests over such matters have been decided usually in the context of the relevant written Constitutional framework. Consequently, the common law applying generally to civil society fell into abeyance. Civil society is dependent upon the freedom to associate free of government controls but as the common law presently stands, conduct of a civil society organization is dependent upon government. This is because in most common law jurisdictions civil society organizations are dependent upon the government to enable corporate form to be taken. A corporate form is required because unincorporated associations are not recognized by the common law as capable of contracting, holding property, or engaging in litigation in their own right. In the United States there have been developments to both recognize and harmonize the law in relation to unincorporated civil society organizations (Joint Project to Create a Harmonized Legal Framework for Unincorporated Nonprofit Associations in North America, 2007). The European Court of Justice recognizes unincorporated associations (e.g., The United Communist Party of Turkey v Turkey [1998] Eur Court HR 1) but there is not yet common law recognition of unincorporated associations as separate legal entities, independent of their membership or office-bearers. So the right at common law to freely associate in civil society is presently dependant entirely upon the level of freedom not taken away by the parliament through legislation, while the formation of civil society organizations is entirely dependent upon government control of incorporation. Contract Law
The part of private law that enables and regulates civil society is found principally in the laws of contract. The common law courts have not always been ready to interfere in the internal management of civil society organizations but when they have, the courts have tended to affirm that the common law recognizes the constitution of an association as a contract between members. The laws regulating corporations, in particular corporations without shares are also important. The common law provides the
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basis for the laws that regulate meetings in civil society. Whilst the common law does not enshrine a right to public meetings, it does provide the rules for conduct of meetings. More generally, it provides the legal infrastructure underpinning participation in civil society by providing the rules governing meeting procedures for civil society organizations. In common law countries the rules of meetings are now often regulated by statute law but there remains a residual body of common law from which these statutes are often derived and which fills the gaps where there are not statutory provisions. The common law therefore provides not only the foundation for membership rights but also the principles by which civil society organizations must be governed. The principles of contract apply in very specific ways to the relationship between members and officebearers. In this context, the rules of equity operate to ensure that when persons are in control of resources on behalf of civil society organizations as office-bearers, they utilize those resources only for the purposes of the civil society organization and not for personal private benefit. Purpose Trusts
The branch of the common law that provides the legal infrastructure for the pursuit of charitable purposes, and thus the pursuit of a significant proportion of civil society purposes, is equity. Charitable trusts are a concept unique to equity. There is not a civil law equivalent. Equity recognizes as a general principle that a person or corporation can hold the full legal interest in something but that the thing must be used only for the benefit of another particular legal person or purpose. This relationship between the person holding the thing and the person or purpose to benefit is called a trust. Trusts for charitable purposes have proved very useful to civil society participants as vehicles for pursuing public-benefiting purposes. This important role for trusts is still the case in the United Kingdom, but is now less significant in the USA. The importance of charitable trusts as vehicles for the pursuit of civil society purposes is of varying significance in other parts of the common law world. The equitable principles that define charitable purposes are often the gateway to entitlement to preferences such as income tax exemption under statute law across the common law world and so the common law definition of charities is often very important (Luxton, 2001). As civil society organizations pursuing charitable purposes are likely to be able to access preferences that other civil society organizations are not, the definition of what is, and what is not, a charity in this context becomes important. But the definition of charities is, for historic reasons, quite technical and difficult. Many common law countries have had inquiries
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into the definition of charities in the latter half of the twentieth century and early twenty-first century. In Australia, Barbados, Scotland, England, and Wales that has led to the common law definition of charity being expanded by statutes adding a broader range of civil society purposes to the definition of charitable purposes. The effect has been to enlarge the scope of civil society organizations enjoying the preferences that were formerly limited to civil society organizations that satisfied the common law definition of charities.
International Perspectives The common law is remarkably consistent in relation to civil society issues across the world. Differences in the way civil society is enabled, regulated, and granted preference tend to flow from statutory additions and variations to the common law. This may be because the common law is in a relatively retarded state of development in relation to civil society in general. There are two international factors now driving common law development. The latter part of the twentieth century saw the emergence of a body of international law founded on international covenants. The first decade of the twenty-first century has witnessed an international response to terrorism. Both of these developments have had implications for the development of the common law applying to civil society. The common law applying to civil society has developed slowly according to its own rules over almost a millennium. But the internationalization of law crystallized in part with the entry of Great Britain into the European Community; and submission of the common law courts in Great Britain to the European Court of Justice brings with it significant challenges for common law judges. There is now a duty on common law judges to interpret and develop the common law in a manner consistent with Great Britain’s treaty obligations having regard to European civil law and international law principles (O’Halloran, 2007). This is likely to lead to further development of the common law applying to civil society. The internationalization of trade has led to the development of the common law dimensions of the laws of contract in ways that are more compatible with civil law. These developments could provide some guidance as to how the common law related to civil society might be similarly developed. At a more specific level it might be that by retracing the equitable principles into their religious heritage a juncture can be found from which civil society concepts at common law can be developed in a manner more consistent with the civil law – and more consistent with the development of conceptions of civil society in other disciplines.
The war on international terrorism has created challenges for civil society association and philanthropic giving. Freedom of association and freedom of philanthropic giving is increasingly regulated and controlled by government. This is due in part to resolutions of the United Nations Security Council. Beginning in 2001, the United Nations Security Council passed a series of resolutions calling upon member states to monitor, control, and seize funds collected for terrorist acts (Threats to International Peace and Security Caused by Terrorist Acts SC Res 1,373, UNSCOR, 4385th mtg 0155743 [2001]2005). The legislation which followed in many common law countries has created concerns amongst civil society commentators (Sidel, 2005) and human rights lawyers (Barker, ) which in turn has reawakened an interest in civil society rights, freedoms, and immunities protected by the common law in many common law countries. The interplay of these civil society rights with the common law was discussed in an Australian case. An Indian national, Dr. Haneef was arrested on terrorism-related charges in July 2007. In a subsequent deportation hearing the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia held that ‘‘freedom is not merely what is left over when the law is exhausted’’ but that ‘‘the common law . . . has its own set of constitutional rights, even if these are not formally entrenched against legislative repeal’’ (Minister for Immigration & Citizenship v Haneef [2007] FCAFC 203, Unreported, Black C. J., French and Weinberg J. J., 21 December 2007 [113], citing Allan, 1983). The scope of these freedoms is likely to be further tested and developed in the coming years and Australia may well prove to be an important jurisdiction in that development because it does not have a Bill of Rights.
Future Directions The challenges confronting the common law in relation to civil society include how the common law can develop a body of law recognized as unique to the space of a civil society similar to the way that public law developed as a body of law for the sphere of relationships between the citizen and government, or the way that divisions of private law such as contract developed to facilitate relationships in the private sphere. To resolve those issues, marking out of the space for civil society, in a way that goes beyond charity at common law, and additions to charitable purposes by statute may be required. Conceptually, freedom of association is a logical development of the common law from religious freedom. As the law protecting freedom of association in most common law countries is expressed in written form as Constitutions and Bills of Rights, contests over these
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rights and freedoms have found expression in cases on the interpretation of written Constitutions not the common law. The emergence of International Covenants beginning with the Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and the adoption of those International Covenants by common law countries into their domestic laws have provided fresh impetus for revisiting the common law foundations of civil society rights, freedoms, and immunities. This is because it is now necessary to bring these common law foundations into harmony with International Covenant obligations. The question is how the common law might be so developed having regard to its dependence upon its own precedent and the principles to emerge from that precedent. When considering these issues the extent of the regulation of civil society will be an integral issue for resolution (Garton, 2005). Development of the common law in relation to these rights, freedoms, and immunities may involve a return to the foundations articulated by William Blackstone before written Constitutions and Bills of Rights became popular. Future directions are also likely to be significantly informed by international law developments in countries that are not subject to the common law. Domestic developments or developments in other common law countries will be important but broader international trends, of which the response to international terrorism is but one example, are increasingly likely to shape the future of the common law applied to civil society.
Blackstone (2007). Blackstone’s commentaries on the laws of England. The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, from http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/ avalon/blackstone/blacksto.htm; 28/09/2007. Brooks, C. W. (1998). Lawyers, litigation and English society since 1450. London: Hambledon Press. Garton, J. E. (2005). The regulation of charities and civil society. King’s College. London: University of London. Jacobson, A. (1980). ‘‘The private use of public authority: Sovereignty and associations in the common law.’’ Buffalo Law Review, 29, 600–665. Joint Project to Create a Harmonized Legal Framework for Unincorporated Nonprofit Associations in North America (2007). ‘‘Statement of principles.’’, from http://www.law.upenn.edu/bll/archives/ulc/ hunaa/2007july_principles.htm; 7/10/2007. Luxton, P. (2001). The law of charities. Oxford: Oxford University Press. McPherson, B. (2007). The reception of English law abroad. Brisbane: Supreme Court of Queensland Library. O’Halloran, K. (2007). Charity law and social inclusion: An international study. New York: Routledge. Sidel, M. (2005) ‘‘Fallout from the war on terror’’. Yale Global Online, from http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id = 5865; 22/02/ 2007.
Cross-References
Introduction
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Charity Law ▶ Citizenship ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Tax Exemption, Justifications for ▶ Tax Policy ▶ Third Way ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Allan, T. R. S. (1983). ‘‘Parliamentary sovereignty Lord Denning’s dexterous revolution.’’ Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 3, 22–33. Anheier, H. (2004). Civil society measurement, evaluation, policy. London: Earthscan. Barker, I. (2005). ‘‘Human rights in an age of counter terrorism.’’ Australian Bar Review, 26, 1–20.
Commons ROGER A. LOHMANN West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA
Intellectual and academic interest in commons has grown across a broad front of sciences and disciplines since the late 1960s, aided perhaps by the growing realization that sciences and academic disciplines are important forms of commons. Much of that interest arose from the publication of an essay in Science (Hardin, 1967) that asserted a ‘‘tragic’’ dynamic in the problem of private communal natural resource utilization, for which the only viable solution was said to be public ownership. Although little known by civil society researchers, Hardin’s analysis – like nearly contemporaneous work by Mancur Olson (1965) – detailed what has since become known as the ‘‘free rider problem’’ as key to the alleged tragedy. In the ensuing 4 decades, researchers and theorists in environmental and life sciences, economics, law, history, political theory, agriculture, sociology, and numerous other theoretical and applied disciplines have invoked diverse models of commons, common-pool resources (CPRs) and common goods as ways to frame an increasingly broad range of practical and theoretical issues. The literature on
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commons problems has grown so dramatically that reviewing it completely would require several large volumes and the cooperation of scholars from dozens of disciplines. The International Association for the Study of the Commons (IASC) is an interdisciplinary research society formed in 1989 exclusively for work on the topic (www.iascp.org/).
Definition A common (or commons; the s ending is often applied indiscriminately to singular and plural usages) can refer to any economic, political, social, and legal institution or natural or organic process that enables joint, shared, mutual, or collective natural or social action by agents to affect a ‘‘pool’’ of shared or jointly held or mutually controlled resources. Commons are of historic and contemporary interest across a wide variety of empirical and theoretical problems and issues in nature and civil society, including environmental resource issues (Hardin, 1968), governance problems (Ostrom, 1990), and voluntary action and philanthropy outside markets and states (Lohmann, 1992a; Van Til, 2000). A common can be an actual, existing natural or social object (such as an ocean, a property or a philanthropic foundation), a unit of analysis or theoretical formalism (e.g., an ideal type) or an element or figure in an abstract logical construct (as in the ‘‘commons tragedy’’ or prisoner’s dilemma games), used to highlight or isolate natural, political, social, economic, or legal phenomena for closer analysis. There are several important collateral terms to consider as well. In interdisciplinary commons theory, commonpool resources (CPR) is a key term, referring to a collection of resources affected by and facilitating action (physical or social) by a plurality of agents. In political and economic theories, the term common goods is sometimes used to characterize real or intended products, outputs, goals, or desired end states of common (aka, community, or collective) action. In such cases, common goods are related to terms like public goods, general welfare and public interest, but embody a fundamental ambiguity – sometimes connoting shared resources, at other times the presumptive or aspirant good associated with particular commonpool resources and sometimes used synonymously with those terms. Sometimes reference is to a single commons (e.g., a world’s ocean or atmosphere) and at other times to the connotation that a class of commons are all alike in some way. In some cases, it can seem awkward to use the term commons without preceding it with the article. One can find instances to support just about any position on this.
Historical Background In civil society, the issues involved have long been associated with the general will (volonte´ ge´ne´rale) as first set forth by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. For civil society scholars in the USA, the underlying issue is also reminiscent of the Lippman-Dewey debate that began in the 1920s over Lippman’s advocacy of ‘‘the public interest’’ and Dewey’s espousal of multiple ‘‘public interests’’ (Dewey, 1927; Lippman, 1955). In general, however, the importance of commons for civil society has only come into clear focus in the past 3 decades.
Key Issues In contemporary civil society theory, exclusion, and rivalry are generally considered to be the two primary characteristics distinguishing public and private goods. (See Anheier (2005) for particular clear discussions of this issue.) Commons (as in Table 1) can be fitted into this scheme as two types of intermediate (often styled as quasi-public and quasi-private) goods mixing public and private characteristics. Membership associations and philanthropy (defined in Robert Payton’s colorful phrase as the private pursuit of public goods) fit this characterization well. The use of groups in the subtitle of Olson’s work (‘‘public goods and the theory of groups’’) introduces a second ambiguity as well. Although in commons theories, the term is almost always applied to sets of agents, groups can be simple aggregations, or sets of socially interacting entities. Some groups of agents engaged with common resource pools are sets of inanimate objects, insects, or animals and other clusters completely outside the domain of civil society, while others are human social groups interacting within the civil society context. The implications of the differences between natural/physical and social groups has not been explored or well tracked in commons theories. Currently, there are many different disciplinary, professional, and cultural approaches to the study of commons, many of them not cognizant of one another. Thus, Hess (2000, p. 8) accurately notes that the commons theory presented in Lohmann (1992a) was developed with little reference to the body of work presented through the IASC. A review of Lohmann (1992a) Commons. Table 1 Public, private, and two types of common goods Non-exclusion
Exclusion
Non-rivalry
Public good
Club good
Rivalry
Community good
Private good
Commons
characterized this as the ‘‘search for common ground’’ between a civil society/third sector approach and the common goods economics of Ostrom, et al. (Krashinsky, 1995). Contemporary work on natural resource commons or common goods economics is generally still not informed by recent research and theoretical perspectives on voluntary associations, and nonprofit organizations or other recent work on civil society. Natural, Human-Directed, and Artificial Commons
In an attempt to locate civil society commons studies relative to the larger body of commons research, a literature review of a large body of recent work on the commons was conducted. Unfortunately, space limitations demand that only a small, illustrative portion of the identified studies can be cited here. (A single representative study is cited in each case to support the point. For a more comprehensive listing of studies, contact the author at
[email protected].) Table 2 offers a simple model of the most important of these distinctions. A substantial body of work on commons exists in which natural, physical ‘‘common resource pools’’ are impacted by nonhuman ‘‘agents’’ (the box on the far right). There are, for example, studies fitting the concept of the commons to the electromagnetic spectrum and human gene pool (Lim, 2006), ‘‘galaxy associations’’ (Gurzadyan & Mazure, 1998), geothermal energy (Kerr, 1991), microbial populations (Maclean, 2003), and plant water use (Zea-Cabrera, et al., 2006). Each of these studies works within the basic commons model of a shared resource pool and an identified natural ‘‘agent’’ or process of ‘‘agency’’ responsible for affecting the distribution of resources from that pool. There is also a large body of work (represented by the middle box in Table 2) on human-natural environment interfaces (Roberts & Emel, 1992) and interspecies conflict and population density (Rankin, 2007). One of the most widely studied topics of interest to commons researchers is in the broad area of conservation, environmental, and evolutionary biology and natural resource management and spatial issues (Princen, 2008).
Commons. Table 2 Artificial, directed, and natural resource pools Common resource pools Artificial (humanly created) Resource pools (ARPs)
Natural resource pools directed by human agents (DNRPs)
Natural resource pools (NRPs)
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Much recent work on the commons specifically engages human social institutions impacting natural resource pools. Historical investigations, for example, tend to focus on real, actual instances of past and present common agricultural lands and practices, which existed in England and Wales. There is a widespread, and false, belief that common field agriculture was limited primarily to England and Wales in the late middle ages, and that is of historical interest only. This is probably owing to the important and notorious ‘‘enclosure’’ movement of the sixteenth century. This and widespread belief in the ineluctably ‘‘tragic’’ nature of common resource pool management are perhaps the two greatest errors associated with commons theory. Accounts of commons have also been reported in countless other nations and cultures. English common law has engendered a rich vocabulary of practical and legal terms with precise (often agricultural) meanings, like common fields, common pasturage (the right to graze animals on common land), estover (the right to collect wood from smaller trees), piscary (common rights to fisheries), tubary (the right to collect sod), and mast (the right to turn out pigs in a harvested field in the fall). Common problems in law also extend beyond common arable fields to maintenance of shared fence lines and the broader issue of, in Ellickson’s (1991) phrase, ‘‘how neighbors settle disputes.’’ Armitage (2008) reviews governance arrangements that ‘‘should connect community-based management with regional/national government-level management, link scientific management and traditional management systems, encourage the sharing of knowledge and information, and promote collaboration and dialog around goals and outcomes.’’ Huge literatures address common field agriculture throughout the world, and such human-environmental interactions as fisheries. Historic commons figure importantly in what Karl Polanyi (2001; first published in 1941) termed ‘‘the great transformation’’ and in analyses of public welfare and charity systems (e.g., Piven & Cloward, 1993). Many of these studies emphasize local and community referents, and reinforce the sense of an intermediate stage between the public domain of the nation state and the purely private domains characterized by alienation, property ownership, exclusion, and rivalry. (The domain of civil society and the third sector. Dowsley (2008) notes the failure of both ‘‘top-down’’ (statist) and ‘‘bottom-up’’ approaches and calls for development of ‘‘multilevel’’ governance capacities. Readers who follow issues in information technology, and in particular, open-source debates, are no doubt aware of the continuing impact of commons
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models there (Lessig, 2001). One of the important issues in current copyright debates, for example, involves efforts to privatize knowledge and corresponding efforts for the attempted identification of knowledge commons (Hess & Ostrom, 2006). Work on these lines has led to vast increases in the number of web sites incorporating commons themes, in particular those associated with the ‘‘open-source’’ movement. Two examples are particularly important. Apache is probably the most popular opensource web server on the Internet, operating roughly half of all known web sites, for example. The data trove where Apache code ‘‘applets’’ are archived is known as the Apache Commons (commons.apache.org). At least as significant (at least for authors) is the Creative Commons licensure approach to copyright and intellectual property (creativecommons.org). The use of the term ‘‘commons’’ to signify a group-directed, collectively held, common resource pool appears deliberate in both cases, and has generated a large and growing literature (Benkler, 2006). In both cases, these examples conform to the previously identified common resource pools, drawn upon by various human and electronic agents. Likewise, medical and health care research have taken interest in the commons along a variety of paths including studies of health (Woolf & Stange, 2006), emergency medicine (Lewis, 2004), pathology (Kerr et al., 2006), public health campaigns (Guttman & Ressler, 2001) ‘‘health commons’’ in New Mexico (Kaufman et al., 2006) and Swedish health services (Saltman & Bergman, 2005) and more. In a manner consistent with historical and contemporary studies of pastures, fisheries, and other agricultural institutions and local community orientations, a large body of commons studies also take specific geographic and community foci, on such topics as African pastoralism, the Anasazi in the Southwestern USA, an area in the USA heartland termed the Buffalo Commons, ‘‘open’’ cattle ranges in Ethiopia and northern Norway, fish mining in Egypt, groundwater in West Texas, grasslands in Inner Mongolia, and folkways in Maya Lowlands. In addition, the environmental movement has provoked concern with global commons including oceans, atmosphere, and Antarctica but also world systems and global commons as public goods (French, 1992). Commons studies have also looked at a broad variety of topics more directly related to the role of commons in civil society: Most important, perhaps, is the rapidly growing literature on governing the commons (Ostrom, 1990). Yoon (2000) detailed a companionate concept termed the anticommons to describe cases of multiple rights to exclude. Harrington (2004) applied the commons
model to civic life to suggest ‘‘an alternative analytical framework for civic engagement based on small-group interaction.’’ Carlsson and Berkes (2005) developed the concept of co-management as ‘‘a continuous problemsolving process, rather than a fixed state, involving extensive deliberation, negotiation, and joint learning within problem-solving networks.’’ Antoci et al. (2006) examined firms and nonprofit organizations as commons, with particular focus on trust and learning. Macy (2003) fit the commons model to collective action and the dilemma for organizers of balancing ‘‘the efficacy problem’’ and ‘‘the free rider problem.’’ Casas-Corts et al. (2008) examined knowledge practices of social movements. Other recognized civil society topics approached as commons include: collective intelligence, cooperation, discourse, folk ecology, the future, narcissism, professional environments, prosocial behavior, reputation, social issues, trans-generational altruism, universities, and volunteering among other issues and topics. While the defining elements of shared resource pools and agents (together with appropriate identification of causal mechanisms, or agency) may be both necessary and sufficient in consideration of natural commons, some additional explanation is necessary in the cases of common resource pools coming under the influence of human agents. While each of these (and other) instances involving human agents, and especially those involving the concerns of civil society, involves its own distinct, particular characteristics, it is also possible to identify certain general themes and characteristics of human, social commons (Lohmann, 1992a). In general terms, one may speak of these as the social organization of commons. Social Organization of Commons
The structures of agents and resource pools in natural commons is a matter completely outside this concern. The social organization of human-directed common resource pools of natural resources and social commons completely organized and directed by human social action shown graphically in Table 3 raise several interesting questions. Most notable, perhaps is the question of what can be said about the social organizations that create, direct, and control CRPs? The remainder of this article addresses a social organizational perspective on commons problems in civil society, with particular attention to those involving associations, foundations, social movements, some nonprofit firms and other forms of collective and voluntary action (see Table 3). In Governing the Commons (1990), Elinor Ostrom offered eight design principles for governing commons: they require (1) clearly defined boundaries, (2) there
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Commons. Table 3 Common resource pools in civil society Common resource pools ARPs
DNRPs
Meaningful
Instrumental
Expressive/spontaneous
Mission/purpose
Associations/commons
Nonprofit firms/benefactories
Lifeworlds
Systems
Vol. assns.
Clubs & congreg.
Prof. assns.
Charities
must be proportional equivalence between benefits and costs, and provision must be made for (3) collectivechoice arrangements, (4) arrangements for monitoring, (5) graduated sanctions, (6) conflict resolution mechanisms, (7) minimal recognition of rights to organize, and (8) nested enterprises. While these desiderata offer a fairly convincing case supporting a general rational-choice model of commons, their implications for commons in civil society, including voluntary, mutual, and membership associations, cooperatives, nonprofit organizations and foundations, have yet to be clearly delineated. Given the prominence of such artificial and humanly directed common resource pools, it is somewhat surprising how little sustained attention has been given to the question of their social organization in the commons literature. Lohmann (1992a) is apparently the only source to examine this issue from the standpoint of general social and economic theory. In that account, common resource pools, or shared resources, are one of three basic, defining conditions of a social commons. Also important are groups of voluntary, uncoerced participants and mission, or a shared sense of goals or purpose. When such pluralities of human agents control one or more common resource pools directed by a sense of mission several things are said to happen over time. First, a sense of philia, or camaraderie, or fellow-feeling will develop among the members; a development which itself can become a powerful resource for the commons. The resulting trust and networks of relationships that evolve form a distinctive and important form of social capital. This proposition brings two large and otherwiseunrelated bodies of theory and research together: commons theory and social capital theory. At the same time, groups of voluntary participants, possessed of purpose and shared resources can also be expected to evolve an emergent moral order, consisting of operating and procedural rules (e.g., by-laws), status systems (e.g., officers, membership requirements), rituals (e.g., initiation and office-transition rites) and other
NRPs Natural processes
Mutuals
Colonies Foundations
NP firms
more powerful instruments including mission and vision statements, manifestos, philosophies, histories, and intentional communities and ways of life. In the process of forming such moral orders, story telling, narrative, and other similar constructive processes are very important to social commons. As part of this process, individual participants may experience mild to profound modifications in their sense of personal identity. Thus, becoming a scientist or social scientist, a programmer, a Christian or Buddhist, a Shriner, Elk, or Moose or a computer hacker, are all examples of identities arising out of participation in commons. In the case of social commons, at least three important forms of common-pool resources can be identified: One is money or fungible financial resources (occasionally including important amounts of credit as well as cash). Also particularly important in the case of religious organizations, colleges, museums, libraries, and other types of civil society organizations are collections of objects. Such collections differ from business inventories in that they are not collected for sale or distribution; the objects are valued for themselves and not for their exchange value. Thus, the term ‘‘priceless’’ applied to such objects is often meant to connote not only that it is extremely valuable or not for sale, but also that its nonmonetary value is utmost in importance. Finally, one of the most intriguing forms of commonpool resource found in social commons are repertories of social skills, practices, methodologies, and other social behaviors. Focusing on repertories as a form of commonpool resource open many possibilities for joining commons theory to a broad variety of social science insights. For example, the sociologist Charles Tilly has identified important changes in the role of repertories of contention in eighteenth and nineteenth century social movements. Likewise, one of the important theorists of social capital, Pierre Bourdeau also offered an important study of practices that can be applied here. The strong emphasis on methodology in various social science research specialties
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represents an important form of repertory as a commonpool resource for research. All of these different types of resources and others are to some extent fungible, or convertible from one form to another, in commons: Thus, cash can be used to hire employees, purchase objects for a collection, or as tuition for training to acquire new repertories. At the same time, collections can be used to attract large and small payments from patrons, and form the basis for all manner of repertories to evolve (archeological excavation and restoration, curation, propagation, preservation, and myriad other distinct and identifiable repertories have evolved around different types of collections). An important discovery of commons theory has been that some forms of repertory that are not initially viable commercially (because no markets for them exist) can be developed and refined by nonprofit, voluntary, or nongovernmental organizations in possession of common resource pools. In some cases, for reasons not yet fully explained but at least hinted at by Ostrom’s design principles, some of commons-devised repertories become commercially viable while others do not. Thus, many forms of home health and education services were first developed with common-pool resources and later became commercially viable. In some sense, commercial art galleries and companies selling classical music recordings are likewise dependent upon the prior existence of art museums and symphony orchestras to shape, develop, and educate tastes and preferences which art and music consumers can then act upon. Commons as social organizations and common resource pools are also important in processes of government formation. Public funds may not be available, for example, for the complex and elaborate repertories and social capital that a President, Prime Minister or Governor must engage to form a new government following an election. Identifying, recruiting, and vetting suitable candidates are typically tasks undertaken by mixtures of political parties, interest groups and other factions, utilizing common resource pooled funds donated – often by those expecting to receive some consideration from the new government. (As this is written, the new Obama administration is engaged in an exceptionally open and public example of this process of government formation.) A staggering variety of terms exist for different types of commons as social organizations: Groups, associations, clubs, societies, fraternities, sororities, sodalities, peer, and friendship groups, parties, campaigns, and many other terms are used to describe pluralities of persons gathered together outside the bounds of the political state or
economic markets for various shared, collective, or mutual purposes. Foundations are an important form of legally constituted and formally organized common resource pool in contemporary civil society. Some forms of common resource pooling are purposely temporary: in addition to government formation, festivals, fundraising campaigns, religious pilgrimages are notable examples. In the USA, Section 501 of the US Internal Revenue Act is one major enabling statute for legal recognition of a wide variety of common resource pools, some of them taxable, others not. Similar enabling legislation exists in most countries today. In the USA, public law regulating commons tends to focus heavily on taxation and other financial matters: Laws typically spells out the conditions under which financial resources may be pooled and held, conditions for defining membership and participation, and allowable circumstances for distributions from common resource pools, whether fisheries, forests, or philanthropic foundations. ‘‘Property,’’ ‘‘contract,’’ ‘‘lawful purpose,’’ and the ‘‘right of association’’ which explicitly includes both ‘‘peaceable assembly’’ and petitioning government for ‘‘redress of grievances’’ (aka advocacy) are important concepts around which the legal institutions for enabling common resource pooling are established. Such legal principles obviously do not apply to natural commons, but only to social commons in which human agents are paramount in importance, and perhaps to a lesser degree to human-directed natural resource commons. Common Goods
Lohmann (1992a) sets out to link a distinctive type of output or good labeled common goods as the product of production based on common resource pools and to establish common goods as a third category of goods located between public and private goods (see discussion of Table 1). The originally stated view of common goods as a single category now appears somewhat dated; it is now clear that there are not one, but two categories of goods that can be located in the intermediate position between public and private goods. (Both were, in fact, mentioned in Lohmann, 1992a, but only common goods were dealt with in an extended manner.) Generally, civil society theorizing can follow the lead of economists and differentiate public goods from private goods on two grounds. (Anheier, 2005, pp. 117) Private goods are said to be rivalrous and exclusive: That is, in buying a new, lightweight, high-mileage auto I must compete with a variety of independent rivals (other buyers) who can, under different circumstances show disinterest or bid the price up. Likewise, once I buy my auto, it is
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mine and I can exclude others from driving or riding in it if I so choose. By economic convention, public goods are said to be non-rivalrous and nonexcludable. The atmosphere and the ocean are simply there and useable or not. In civil society, however, many forms of good are only partially public and yet not fully private: Rivalrous, but not exclusive; Exclusive but not rivalrous. For much of the past several decades, this condition has been hedged in many civil society discussions with phrases like ‘‘quasiprivate’’ goods and ‘‘semipublic’’ goods. The prospect of common goods as an intermediate form thus appeared quite appealing a quarter century ago (Lohmann, 1992a, 1989). This differentiation of rivalrous, nonexclusive (communal) goods from non-rivalrous, exclusive (club) goods is also a key to understanding the importance of commons theory for civil society. In actual point of fact, common resource pools (CRPs) in civil society are not restricted to any particular type of good. They can be used to produce all four types of goods shown in Table 1. Thus, for example, the common resource pool of a private, or voluntary charity or faithbased organization may be utilized to make financial payments or provide services to various types of poor, ill, or other clients. As such, this constitutes production of an important form of private good. In US law and the English Poor Law tradition, efforts are made to carefully restrict such purposes (e.g., for the poor or sick, for educational purposes) by carefully defining the mission of such commons. Increasingly, such production of private goods is in the hands of commercial, market-oriented firms, or quasi-commercial nonprofit firms, including tuition-based colleges, hospitals, and other nonprofit service vendors. Conversely, social clubs, membership organizations, and a bewildering variety of other associations are engaged in the production of (non-rivalrous, excludable) club goods, which may be available only to members as ‘‘member benefits’’ and non-rivalrous, often largely on the basis of disinterest on the part of nonmembers. Thus, members of stamp-collecting clubs may have exclusive access to certain first-issue stamps; a fact that may be of overwhelming disinterest to noncollectors. Noncollectors wishing to share in the benefit are encouraged to join and thereby become eligible. Club goods are significantly different from private and public goods but also from communal goods, like various bodies of knowledge. An abstraction one might term the social organization of the calculus serves to illustrate the point. Calculus (like Shakespeare or Mandarin or Sumerian history) is an esoteric but widely studied and important body of knowledge. First developed by Newton
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and Liebnitz and passed from teacher to student in mathematics, the sciences and engineering since that time, calculus knowledge might at first be thought to be the club good of a peculiar kind of club: the international society of those-who-know-calculus, as it were. However, calculus is in several important senses, nonexcludable. Just about anyone on the planet could, with a little effort, have access to a calculus textbook. There is no practical limit on the number of people who may know calculus, and an person’s knowledge of calculus in no way excludes, limits, or restricts any other’s ability to learn it; in fact, if one is willing to teach another, it facilitates it. However, the club of those-who-know-calculus is, like many forms of knowledge, rivalrous in an important opportunity cost sense. Thus, calculus may be a rivalrous good in the important sense that life is limited and the cost of my learning calculus may be having no time available to study Shakespeare, Mandarin, or Sumarian history. Thus, calculus knowledge is not strictly speaking, a club good but rather a communal good because of the effort-cost involved in learning it and the exclusion resulting from the fact that not everyone will have time or wherewithal to do so. Finally, many common resource pools (particularly philanthropic foundations) may be devoted to public goods, summarized in Payton’s phrase, ‘‘the private pursuit of public good.’’ Historically, this may be an artifact of efforts to overcome the effects of social change on philanthropic purpose and the ‘‘dead hand of philanthropy’’ also addressed by the cy pres legal doctrine. Regardless of the origins, however, it is clear that public goods in foundations find expression through the mission of these important organizations. Thus, many of the nearly 75,000 foundations existent in the USA today and comparable others elsewhere in the world have broad, global mission statements which truly express their commitment to delivering such public goods as civic education, scientific advancement, curing diseases, eliminating poverty and disaster relief.
Future Directions Research in the last 2 decades has established that common resource pools come in three basic varieties. One of these, natural resource pools, is of little interest to civil society studies except as a subject for research support from common resource pools at foundations and elsewhere. The other two, humanly created or artificial common resource pools and humanly directed natural resource pools, are both of significant interest to civil society studies. Current research on these covers a bewildering variety of topics, issues, and questions, some of
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which are mentioned in this article. Certain underlying similarities are evident in the social, economic, and political structures surrounding and controlling these two types of common resource pools. The theory of the commons is important to civil society studies because it offers a way to understand certain underlying similarities between voluntary associations, nonprofit, voluntary, and nongovernmental organizations, foundations, fundraising campaigns, and other forms of social organization found in civil society. Such entities tend to involve voluntary participation and shared missions as well as shared resources, and to demonstrate certain forms of institutionalization processes, including the emergence of philia, trust, networks, and other forms of social capital, and the evolution of distinct, and indigenous moral orders. The theory is also important because many of the forms of civil society organization are built around common resource pools, composed of financial resources, collections, and behavioral repertories of great variety. Lastly, common resource pools in civil society are utilized in the production of all four forms of goods: public, club, common, and private. For all of these reasons and more, scholars of civil society need to become more aware of the research being done in commons studies.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definition and History of ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society Theory: Dewey ▶ Civil Society Theory: Rousseau ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Collective Action ▶ Endowment, Definition and Management of ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Goods and Services, Types of ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Mission ▶ Polanyi, Karl ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Social Capital, Definition of
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K. (2005). Nonprofit organizations: Theory, management, policy. London/New York: Routledge. Antoci, A., Galeotti, M., Russu, P., & Zarri, L. (2006). Generalized trust and sustainable coexistence between socially responsible firms and nonprofit organizations. Chaos Solitons Fractals, 29(3), 783–802. Armitage, D. (2008). Governance and the commons in a multi-level world. International Journal of the Commons (Online), 2(1), 7–32.
Baden, J., & Noonan, D. S. (1998). Managing the commons (2nd ed.). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social production transforms markets and freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Carlsson, L., & Berkes, F. (2005). Co-management: Concepts and methodological implications. Journal of Environmental Management, 75(1), 65–76. Casas-Cort, M., Osterweil, M., & Powell, D. (2008). Blurring boundaries: Recognizing knowledge-practices in the study of social movements. Anthropological Quarterly, 81(1), 17–58. Dewey, J. (1927). The public and its problems. New York: Holt. Dowsley, M. (2008) Developing multi-level institutions from top-down ancestors. International Journal of the Commons. 2. 1. January, 2008. 55–74. Ellickson, R. C. (1991). Order without law: How neighbors settle disputes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. French, H. F. (1992). From discord to accord. World Watch, 5(3), 26–32. Gurzadyan, V. G., & Mazure, A. (1998). Galaxy associations’ as possible common features of galaxy clusters. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 295(1), 177–187. Guttman, N., & Ressler, W. H. (2001). On being responsible: Ethical issues in appeals to personal responsibility in health campaigns. Journal of Health Communication, 6(2), 117–136. Hardin, G. (1967). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243–1248. Harrington, B. (2004). Tiny publics: Small groups and civil society. Sociological Theory, 22(3), 341–356. Hess, C. (2000). Is there anything new under the sun?: A discussion and Survey of studies on new commons and the Internet. In Constituting the Commons, the eighth biennial conference of the International Association for the Study of Common Property, Bloomington, IN: Indiana. Hess, C., & Ostrom, E. (2006). Understanding knowledge as a commons: From theory to practice. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Kaufman, A., Derksen, D., Alfero, C., DeFelice, R., Sava, S., Tomedi, A., Baptiste, N., Jaeger, L., & Powell, W. (2006). The health commons and care of New Mexico’s uninsured. Annals of Family Medicine, 4(Suppl. 1), s22–s7; S58–S60. Kerr, B., Neuhauser, C., Bohannan, B. J. M., & Dean, A. M. (2006). Local migration promotes competitive restraint in a host–pathogen ‘‘tragedy of the commons.’’ Nature, 442, 75. Krashinsky, M. (1995). In search of common ground about the commons. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 5(3), 311–316. Lessig, L. (2001). The future of ideas: The fate of the commons in a connected world (1st ed.). New York: Random House. Lewis, R. J. (2004). Academic emergency medicine and the tragedy of the commons defined. Academic Emergency Medicine: Official Journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine, 11(5), 423–427. Lim, H. A. (2006). Multiplicity yours: Cloning, stem cell research and regenerative medicine. Silicon Valley, CA: World Scientific Books. Lippmann, W. (1995). The public philosophy. New York: Mentor. Lohmann, R. A. (1989). And lettuce is non-animal: Toward a positive economics of nonprofit action. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 18(4), 367–383. Lohmann, R. A. (1992a). The commons: New perspectives on nonprofit organizations and voluntary action. The Jossey-Bass Nonprofit Sector Series (1st ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Lohmann, R. A. (1992b). The commons: A multidisciplinary approach to nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and philanthropy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 21(3), 309–324.
Communitarianism Maclean, R. C. (2003). The tragedy of the commons in microbial populations: Insights from theoretical, comparative and experimental studies. Heredity, 100, 233–239. Macy, M. (2003). The mobilizer’s dilemma: Crisis, empowerment, and collective action. Social Forces, 81(3), 979–998. Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action; public goods and the theory of groups. Harvard Economic Studies (Vol. 124). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the commons: The evolution of institutions for collective action. The Political Economy of Institutions and Decisions, Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Ostrom, E., Gardner, R., & Walker, J. (1994). Rules, games, and commonpool resources. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Piven, F. F., & Cloward, R. A. (1993). Regulating the poor: The functions of public welfare (Updated ed.). New York: Vintage Books. Polanyi, K. (2001). The great transformation: The political and economic origins of our Time. Beacon Paperback (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Princen, T. (2008). Notes on the theorizing of global environmental politics. Global Environmental Politics, 8(1), 1–5. Rankin, D. J. (2007). Resolving the tragedy of the commons: The feedback between intraspecific conflict and population density. Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 20(1), 173–180. Roberts, R. S., & Emel, J. (1992). Uneven development and the tragedy of the commons – competing images for nature-society analysis. Economic Geography, 68(30), 249–271. Saltman, R. B., & Bergman, S.-E. (2005). Renovating the commons: Swedish health care reforms in perspective. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 30(1–2), 253–75. Van Til, J. (2000). Growing civil society: From nonprofit sector to third space. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Woolf, S. H., & Stange, K. S. (2006). A sense of priorities for the healthcare commons. American journal of preventive medicine, 31(1), 99–102. Yoon, Y. (2000). Symmetric tragedies: Commons and anticommons. Journal of Law and Economics, 43(1), 1–13. Zea-Cabrera, E., Iwasa, Y., Levin, S., & Rodrı´guez-Iturbe, I. (2006). Tragedy of the commons in plant water use. Water Resources Research, 42.
Communitarianism AMITAI ETZIONI The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
Definition Communitarianism is a social philosophy which maintains that societal formulations of the good are both justified in normative terms and supported by social science findings. Communitarianism is often contrasted with classical liberalism, a philosophical position that holds that each individual should formulate the good
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autonomously. Communitarians examine the ways shared conceptions of the good (values) are formed, transmitted, enforced, and justified. Hence, they are interested in communities and the moral dialogues they engage in, historically transmitted values and mores, and the societal units that transmit and enforce values, such as the family, schools, voluntary associations from social clubs to places of worship, and interpersonal rituals and holidays. Communitarians view the self as ‘‘embedded’’ in the community rather than as a freestanding agent. They find that individuals who are well-integrated into communities are better able to reason and act in responsible ways than isolated individuals. However, they also recognize that if social pressures to conform rise to high levels, they can undermine the individual self. Liberal theorists argue that the self may deal with the community as another environment, whose inputs or signals individuals take into account like other incoming information, but they still heed their own preferences. Communitarians show that communal influences penetrate individuals below the level of awareness and shape their preferences.
Historical Background The term ‘‘communitarian’’ was first introduced in 1841 to mean ‘‘of, pertaining to, or characteristic of a community or communistic system; communitive.’’ It was infrequently employed from then until the mid-twentieth century when it gained attention first in academia and then in public discourse, in reaction to the excessively individualistic eras of Thatcherism and Reaganism. Although all communitarians uphold the importance of the community, they differ in the extent to which their conceptions are attentive to liberty and individual rights. Early communitarians, most of whom were sociologists, like Ferdinand To¨nnies and Robert Nisbet, stressed the importance of closely knit social fabric and authority. In the 1980s, philosophical communitarians Charles Taylor, Michael Sandel, and Michael Walzer criticized the excessive individualism of classical liberalism. Asian communitarians argued that to maintain social harmony, individual rights and political liberties must be curtailed. They also favored relying heavily on the state to maintain social order (for instance, leaders and champions of the regimes in Singapore and Malaysia), beyond strong social bonds and moral culture (for instance, as Japan does). Asian communitarians also hold that the West’s notion of liberty actually amounts to ‘‘anarchy’’; that strong economic growth requires limiting freedoms; and that the West should not use its idea of legal and political rights to chastise other cultures that have inherent values of their own.
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In the 1990s, Responsive Communitarians such as Amitai Etzioni, Philip Selznick, William Galston, Mary Ann Glendon, and Jean Bethke Elshtain emphasized the need to balance commitment to the social good with respect for individual rights, and to reconcile the promotion of social virtue with liberty. They issued a platform (1991) endorsed by a wide range of leading academics, public intellectuals, and elected officials, published a quarterly (The Responsive Community), and formed a communitarian network. They have been credited with having influenced leaders of different persuasions in a number of Western countries: Tony Blair and David Willetts, Bill Clinton and Jack Kemp, among others.
Key Issues While a carefully crafted balance between liberty and social order defines a generic concept of the good society, communitarians point out that the historical-social conditions of specific societies determine the rather different ways a given society in a given era may need to change to attain the same balance. Thus, contemporary Japan requires much greater tolerance for individual rights, while in American society excessive individualism needs to be curbed. Studies indicate that Americans in the 1980s often avoided speaking up on moral issues. The work of Robert Bellah and his colleagues (1985) has been particularly influential here, demonstrating the rise of first expressive and then instrumental individualism, and their negative effects. Many Americans, and to some extent members of other Western societies, embraced the liberal ideology that what is morally sound is to be determined by each individual, and that one should not judge the acts of others. Large increases followed in crime, drug abuse, and divorce, as well as a general loss of trust in public institutions and legitimate authority and fraying of social bonds. Responsive Communitarians argue that neither human existence nor individual liberty can be sustained for long outside the interdependent and overlapping communities to which all individuals belong, nor can any community long survive unless its members dedicate some of their attention, energy, and resources to shared projects. They find that the exclusive pursuit of private interest erodes the network of social environments on which all depend, and is destructive to democratic self-government. According to Responsive Communitarianism (Etzioni, 1993, 1996), the preservation of individual liberty depends on the active maintenance of the institutions of civil society where citizens learn respect for others as well as self-respect; where people acquire a lively sense of their personal and civic responsibilities, along with an
appreciation of their own rights and the rights of others; where they develop the skills of self-government as well as the habit of governing themselves, and learn to serve others – not just self. Responsive Communitarians stress the importance of the social fabric as compared to the power of the state, and argue that moral voices achieve their effect mainly through education and persuasion, rather than through coercion. Responsive Communitarianism assumes that societies have multiple and not wholly compatible needs, in contrast to philosophies built on one core principle, such as liberty for libertarianism. A good society is based on a balance between liberty and social order, and between particularistic (communal) and society-wide values and bonds. This school of communitarianism stresses responsibilities people have for their families, kin, communities, and societies – above and beyond the universal rights all individuals command, the focus of liberalism. A Communitarian Approach to Civil Society
Communitarians and students of civil society often deal with the same subjects. Above all, both stress that there is an important human ‘‘space’’ that is neither state-based nor political. When one considers a small polis, one could readily collapse the distinction between state and society, and cause relatively limited damage to political and social analysis. However, such a reduction of two essential concepts to one is much more troublesome when one deals with much larger and more complex societies. Nevertheless, there is a common tendency to confound state and society by folding into the ‘‘political’’ numerous processes, actions, and institutions that are inherently social. This is evident, for instance, when citizenship (a legal status that defines one’s legal obligations to the state and one’s legal rights that the state is expected to protect and honor) is equated with membership (a social status the defines one’s membership in one or more communities or associations, the moral responsibilities one has toward other members of one’s community and the common good, and the moral claims that others have of him). Paying taxes, serving in the armed forces (when there is a draft), and – in some countries – voting are the obligations of citizens. The constitution or basic laws enumerate rights citizens have vis-a`-vis the state. In contrast, donating to charity, volunteering, caring for one’s friends and family (above and beyond one’s legal obligations), collaborating with neighbors, being tolerant of people of different background and habits (above and beyond what the law prescribes), pursuing social justice, working to protect the environment – these are all matters that concern membership, not citizenship.
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The distinction between citizenship and membership is especially important if one recognizes that the relationship between the state and society is somewhat akin to that between the state and the individual. The more the state takes over functions once discharged by communities, voluntary associations, and families, the weaker society will become. In contrast, the more the state generates opportunities for social actors to initiate and sustain their own action, the more viable the society will become. If, for instance, the government starts sending professional grief counselors, licensed and trained by the state, to the homes of people who have lost a loved one, this is likely to weaken friendship ties, those of neighbors, of religious groups, and of extended families. In contrast, public policies that recognize both the need for the state to attend to numerous social as well as personal needs (especially those of the more vulnerable members of society or citizens in vulnerable phases of their lives) and the need to avoid undermining social actors are those that build on the difference between the political and the social. To put it differently, one reason to cherish the distinction between the social and the political is to ensure that the social will not become the political. Social conservatives maintain that it is the role of the state (the core and focus of the political realm) to promote not merely citizenship but also the good person, not only skills needed to participate in the polity but also social virtues – those that make the society a good one. George Will, for instance, argues that people are selfindulgent by nature: left to their own devices, they will abuse their liberties, becoming profligate, and indolent. The state needs to restrain them. Other conservatives assert that in the name of ‘‘national greatness,’’ people need a ‘‘strong national government’’ that will be a ‘‘shaper’’ of citizens and help them cope with the weaker angels of their nature. Religious social conservatives have long been willing to rely on the state to foster behavior they consider virtuous. They favor banning abortion and pornography, making divorce more difficult, and outlawing homosexual activities. Additionally, both religious and secular social conservatives have strongly advocated longer, more arduous prison terms for more individuals and more kinds of crime, especially favoring life sentences without the possibility of parole, and death sentences. Harsh penalties are often applied to people of whose consumption and business the state disapproves (a large proportion of those in jail in the United States are there for nonviolent, drugrelated offenses) rather than for endangering public safety or failing to discharge their duties as citizens. These are not good-citizen issues but good-person issues.
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The term ‘‘the good state’’ appropriately summarizes the social conservative position because the state here is not viewed as an institution that threatens to debase people or undermine liberty, and hence must be constantly contained, as in the liberal position; but as an institution that can be entrusted with making people good. That is, although social conservatives do not suggest that the state is inherently good, they do hold that it – and hence the political – can do good by fostering virtue. Addressing the same sociohistorical conditions that led to the rise of the contemporary social conservative position, Responsive Communitarians have advocated a fundamentally different approach which rejects state regulation of most moral behavior, under most circumstances. Communitarians advocate state restraint because they believe that the society should be the main agent responsible for promoting moral behavior, relying on education, persuasion, and leadership rather than the law. Granted, developing and sustaining a good society does require reaching into what is considered the private realm, shaping behavior that does not directly relate to the state or to the state-mediated relationships with one’s fellow citizens. A good society, for instance, fosters trust among its members not solely or even primarily to enhance their confidence in the government, but to cultivate a better society, one in which certain types of conduct are preferred over others by the community, rather than leaving it to each individual to judge what good behavior is. Similarly, a good society fosters substantive values other than trust such as stewardship toward the environment, charity for those who are vulnerable, marriage over singlehood, having children, and showing special consideration to the young and elderly. These are all specific goods with regard to which the society, through its various social mechanisms, prefers one basic form of conduct over all others, and all concern the private realm. All this, however, does not mean that all or even most private matters need to be subject to societal scrutiny and normative suasion. One major way the communitarian position differs from the totalitarian, authoritarian, theocratic, and social conservative ones is that although the good society reaches into the private realm, it seeks to cultivate only a limited set of core virtues rather than having an expansive or holistic normative agenda. For example, American society favors being religious over being atheist, but is rather ‘‘neutral’’ with regard to which religion a person should follow. There are no prescribed dress codes (e.g., no spartan Mao shirts), correct number of children to have, places one is expected to live, and so forth. In short, a key defining characteristic of the good society is that, in contrast to the liberal
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state, it creates shared formulations of the good, but the scope of the good is much smaller than that advanced by government-centered societies, either of the secular (Soviet style) or religious kind (Iran, Taliban), or of social conservatives. To put it differently, the relationship between the political and the values of the society is deeply affected not merely by whether there are shared formulations of the good – but also by how encompassing these formulations are. Communitarians have long argued that politics is and ought to be engaged in the formulation and fostering of a core of shared values. An even cursory review of the politics of free, democratic societies shows that this empirical claim is a valid one. Such deliberations as a rule do not lead to cultural or civil wars. On the contrary, the absence of a broad array of shared values – for instance, between Jewish and Arabic citizens of Israel – is one key reason that such groups find it particularly difficult to resolve conflicts that arise for other reasons. Moreover, the law, never morally neutral, is at its best when it reflects widely shared moral values rather than imposing the values of one group (the majority included) on the general population.
Future Directions The Democratic candidates in the 2008 presidential election campaign in the United States have echoed key communitarian themes. Hillary Clinton (1996) has long held that to raise a child takes not just parents, extended family, friends, and neighbors, but a whole village. Barack Obama (2006) has been particularly extensive in his communitarian expressions, arguing that American individualism is, and has always been, bound by a set of communal values, on which, he writes, every healthy society depends.
Cross-References
▶ Civility ▶ Civil Society Theory: Walzer ▶ Citizenship ▶ Etzioni, Amitai ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ To¨nnies, Ferdinand ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Bell, D. (1993). Communitarianism and its critics. Oxford: Clarendon. Bellah, R. (1985). The habits of the heart. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Clinton, H. R. (1996). It takes a village: And other lessons children teach us. New York: Simon & Schuster. Durkheim, E. (1995). The elementary forms of religious life (Karen E. F., Trans.). New York: Free Press.
Etzioni, A.(1993). The spirit of community. New York: Touchstone. Etzioni, A. (1996). The new golden rule. New York: Basic Books. Etzioni, A., & Bloom, J. (Eds.) (2004). We are what we celebrate: understanding holidays and rituals. New York: New York University Press. Obama, B. (2006). The audacity of hope. New York: Crown. Responsive Communitarian Platform (1991), from http://www.gwu.edu/ ccps/rcplatform.html.
Community Chest of Korea SANG PEEL PARK
Address of Organization 1-17 Jung-dong, Joong-gu 100-120 Seoul South Korea www.chest.or.kr
Introduction/Brief History Community Chest of Korea (CCK) was established in 1998 by legislation promoted by many welfare movement organizations. CCK has strengthened the role of civil society in the welfare system for the last 10 years. It has grown to become Korea’s largest community-impact charity. Now it is a national network of 16 locally governed organizations that work to create lasting positive change in the community and people’s lives. CCK seeks to engage individuals, businesses, and local organizations to cultivate a culture of sharing in the community. It is a member of United Way International, a global network of nonprofit fund-raising organizations with 46 national members.
Mission/Objectives CCK’s mission is to empower the underserved and improve lives by spreading a culture of sharing in the community. It attaches importance to improving the lives of individuals and changing the community through the establishment of a voluntary donating culture.
Activities Its major activities are campaigns to promote the ‘‘happiness of sharing,’’ fund-raising, grant making, philanthropy research, conferring social contribution prizes, etc.
Structure and Governance CCK is structured with an honorary chairperson, chairperson, board of directors, executive committee, and
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secretary general. The executive committee has four parts: planning, fund-raising, allocation, and public relations. Under the secretary-general, there are two divisions, planning & management and project. Each division has four departments, which are composed of several staffs. CCK has also 16 district subdivisions, each of which is self-governed. It is not free from varied official interventions, though it has a widespread partnership with government.
Funding As of 2007, CCK fund-raised approximately US$267 million. The sources of donations are corporate (67.8%), nonprofit and religious group (11.8%), public organization (4.7%), and individual and other (15.7%). CCK can also issue lotteries to meet its own operating expenses by the permission of the national government.
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subject of significant debate that goes to the heart of the meaning of community, development, and civil society. A key issue that arises with CDOs is whether local organizations using local resources can materially improve the lives of community residents in the face of state and market restructuring. Addressing this question is complicated by the lack of a general consensus on what these organizations are or the meaning of their activity. Indeed, the very words that make up the term ‘‘CDO’’ are highly contested and frequently debated. Nonetheless, these issues do not operate equally everywhere at all times. CDOs have a historical trajectory and some consensus on defining them has developed in some places. For example, in the United States, CDO mostly refers to organizations that engage in the physical redevelopment of neighborhoods. However, that definition is historically and geographically specific and, in addition, continues to be debated even in the United States.
Major Accomplishments
Definition
CCK has contributed to the spread of a donative atmosphere and the construction of a sharing culture in Korea for the short period of the last 10 years. It has given support to community development, social welfare, relief of North Korean environmental damage, emergency service, and other public activities.
Community development organizations are organizations that leverage local knowledge and resources, sometimes in combination with external resources, in order to materially improve the lives of community members. According to an industry survey conducted in 1998, there are 3,600 community development corporations (CDCs) in the United States and there is probably a comparable number worldwide. The population of CDOs has exploded since the 1970s when nation-states began withdrawing from direct development activity and as localities began to resist large-scale, technocratic, and unaccountable development activity. In addition, economic restructuring around the world has created plenty of material deprivation that needs to be addressed. Generalizing much beyond this point is difficult. However, the point of engaging in specifically community development activity is to recognize and utilize locally available resources to leverage other improvements. These resources vary from one community to another, which necessarily results in organizational diversity within the CDO population. Nonetheless, there has been a rationalizing trend in the field of community development, which has made it possible to generalize about CDOs in particular times and places. Prying apart the terms ‘‘community’’ and ‘‘development’’ provides a window onto the diversity of organizations that exists under the umbrella term ‘‘community development.’’ ‘‘Community’’ is an oft-invoked category that has variously been used to define an identity, underpin critique, and describe social relations. It is rarely clear which use of the term is being referenced in community development. By extension, CDOs have claimed to serve
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Korea ▶ United Way
Community Development Organizations MICHAEL MCQUARRIE University of California–Davis, Davis, CA, USA
Introduction Community development organizations (CDOs) operate worldwide to leverage local assets and resources for the general benefit of local residents. In doing this work, CDOs have benefited from significant philanthropic support, have become models for the use of civil society organizations to facilitate economic development, and are innovators in imagining new ways of organizing and supporting local socioeconomic relations. Because of their prominence and oft-cited success, CDOs are the
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populations that share a given identity (e.g., recent Vietnamese immigrants to the Bay Area), they have situated themselves in a critical position relative to states and markets (e.g., when they claim that community-controlled development is superior to market forces or state activity), and they operate in communities that are built upon specific network ties and geographic propinquity. Even when CDOs are specific about what community they intend to serve, the very notion of community often masks the diverse identities and interests that actually prevail in the group in question. However, in looking for a usable definition of community, a useful place to start is to define it as a group of people connected by identity, geography, or networks of interpersonal social relations. This connection often leads to group-specific norms, practices, resource endowments, and resource deficits. Because community development has defined itself against state-led development, the most common meaning of community for CDOs is geographic and local, though the other understandings noted above are also prevalent. Like ‘‘community,’’ ‘‘development’’ is a term that has multiple and contested meanings that confuse the issue of defining CDOs. For example, in the Western humanist tradition, development has often referred to efforts to close the gap between existence and potential. While this can be understood in material terms, it can also be understood in terms of cognition, creativity, self-realization, and authenticity. Indeed, historically speaking, CDOs have often tried to ‘‘develop’’ these softer attributes. For example, the effort of settlement houses to culturally integrate recent immigrants in the early twentieth-century United States was based on a ‘‘soft’’ understanding of development. Immigrants needed social skills more than economic resources to successfully integrate. Often, development understood in these terms can underpin critique and efforts to transform society in ways that would be impossible through addressing material needs alone. For example, in the 1960s and 1970s community developers informed by the ‘‘Black Power’’ movement in the United States argued that personal development for AfricanAmericans required, not integration, but the development of autonomous African-American cultural and economic institutions, even at the cost of material deprivation. Today, development most commonly refers to either the material improvement of the lives of members of a community or to the physical development of a given geographic community. Despite increasing consensus around material understandings of development, there are still differences that are contentious both among CDOs and between CDOs and related organizational fields. Finally, recent spikes in commodity prices and concerns about the wasteful nature of modern consumer society has resulted in an increasing
emphasis on development that is sustainable, that is, development that does not result in unnecessary burdens on the carrying capacity and resources of the planet. It should be clear that community development has numerous meanings and analytically emphasizing any one of them in order to describe an organizational population can be problematic. Nonetheless, organizational actors do use more precise understandings and, today, the most common usage refers to the use of local resources and knowledge to materially improve communities and develop assets that can be further leveraged to build wealth. This orientation to community development often places particular emphasis on self-help activities, leveraging social capital, and community participation in defining development goals and implementing programs. However, it must be recognized that each proposed definition includes some and excludes others who claim to be developing communities. While these distinctions are frequently practical, they are also, at times, political and intentionally exclusionary. CDOs are organizations that work to develop communities using community input and locally available resources. Community development corporations (CDCs), which focus on housing and physical development, are the most prominent type of CDO in the United States. Neighboring organizational fields that are sometimes considered CDOs would include: cooperative businesses, community development financial institutions, community-based service providers, for-profit developers, and community organizing groups. These organizations are all understood to provide key building blocks of a healthy civil society. They engage in development activity that is not best undertaken by markets or states and they actively build the capacity of communities to materially improve their circumstances.
Historical Background Community development has historical roots in the intellectual traditions of cooperative socialism, anarchism, utopian Christian communities, and technocratic interventions designed to improve community life. These early roots were manifested in utopian socialist and Christian communities that attempted to isolate themselves from market society and cooperatives that were more integrated with modern society. All of these traditions were responding to the problems of systemic forces, such as the state and market, and attempting to organize communities around locally organized social relations. Current CDOs have their roots in a more specific reaction to state-led development efforts and the inability of market mechanisms to meet the needs of many. These criticisms came to a head in the 1960s and 1970s when the limits of both state-led development and market mechanisms became apparent around the
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world in the form of worldwide recession and a general crisis of technocratic and bureaucratic management. Moreover, in the Global South the very concept ‘‘development’’ was subjected to extensive criticism because as a concept and model it did not recognize the specificity of local culture and seemed to measure all societies against a standard set by the United States. In the Global North state-led development was accused of bureaucratic mismanagement, cultural insensitivity, and a lack of accountability to affected populations. Organizations that self-identified as CDOs in this period were usually development engines for local corporate leaders and real estate developers. It was in this context that a form of community development emerged that emphasized local participation, leveraging local resources, and a critique of state-led development. This criticism did not always emerge from civil society or communities. Indeed, the first community development corporations (CDCs) in the United States were established by the Title VII amendment to the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. Furthermore, various ‘‘War on Poverty’’ programs initiated during the Johnson administration began to emphasize the importance of local organizations that would be more responsive to community needs than top-down bureaucracies. This process was extended with the ‘‘New Federalism’’ of Richard Nixon, an approach to government which resulted in shrinking federal bureaucracies and an increasing reliance on nonprofit organizations for the provision of social services. These two developments led to the first significant growth of CDOs and the development of community development corporations with a particular focus on physical development. The devolution of service provision into communitybased organizations and philanthropies was given another large boost during the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush (1980–1992). This was the product of two related developments: first, large cuts in federal urban and social service programs, and, second, a valorization of civil society organizations and voluntary activity in the provision of these functions and services. By the 1990s, the idea that civil society organizations were better suited to development activity was not just entrenched in the United States, but throughout much of the world. In the United States CDOs were the recipients of significant government funding as well as philanthropic dollars and, consequently, the population of CDOs has exploded since the 1980s. A similar explosion in nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) engaged in development activity has occurred around the world. Ironically, the withdrawal of state support has caused CDOs to increasingly rely on market mechanisms for the achievement of their goals. This is most evident in the United States where CDCs have become increasingly rationalized around
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physical development that is designed to attract new investment rather than directly serve existing populations. The dynamic occurs more broadly with an increasing programmatic emphasis on entrepreneurship and competitiveness in an increasingly global economy.
Key Issues The main issues that arise with CDOs fall along two axes. The first is the relationship between CDOs and other organizations and systems that are organized at scales beyond the community, such as the market, the state, and other civil society organizations. The second set of issues revolves around the issue of CDO relations with the communities in which they operate. The central question here is whether CDOs are expressive of community needs and desires or whether they are organizations whose primary goal is organizational survival, a goal that warrants drawing on resources from outside the community. Despite the claim to be community-based organizations, CDOs are an organizational population that is heavily dependent upon outside investment, whether that investment comes from private sources, government, or philanthropies. Most importantly, deindustrialization in the Global North and structural adjustment programs in the Global South can have a huge impact on affected communities, an impact that CDOs can only hope to mitigate rather than reverse. For example, after two decades of trying to rebuild real estate markets in poor neighborhoods via the production of newer, more desirable housing, the recent credit crisis has resulted in renewed neighborhood crisis even in areas with a healthy CDO population. The issue here is the viability of development using community resources alone. If such development is viable, then the cost of organizations that are more rationalized around externally determined priorities can seem high, especially if it comes at the price of the ability of communities to determine their own priorities and needs or if it stifles the creativity of civil society organizations like CDOs. On the other hand, if external resources are necessary for community development, the relationship of CDOs to external institutions and organizations is essential and the rationalization of programmatic goals more desirable. In the case of state investment, as states retrench or reallocate resources, the result can be local economic crises or booms. However, states also have a more immediate impact on CDOs themselves, which are often heavily dependent on government funding which is variable over time. While states have generally come to acknowledge the role of civil society organizations in community development activities, they do not always provide resources that correspond with need. There is an additional problem. To the degree that CDOs come to be dependent upon
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government funding there is a danger that the voice and interests of community members can be marginalized. If the latter is the case, then the overall effect of devolving development activity onto CDOs has been to replace large, centralized bureaucracies with small, localized ones without altering the instrumentality and hierarchy of the policy-implementation apparatus. The other relevant extra-local institutions for CDOs are philanthropies and, over the last 20 years, intermediary organizations. Since states have been retrenching even while they have come to rely on CDOs, an increasing burden has been placed on philanthropies for funding CDO activity. While foundations have made a large commitment to CDOs, a commitment that has been essential for the growth of the CDO population, this commitment has not been unproblematic. For example, foundations are often interested in quantifiable results and observable material improvement. This has probably aided a general rationalization of CDO activity around the production of housing and commercial development that might not have otherwise occurred. Increasingly, foundations are limiting the grants available while increasing their willingness to invest in development deals. This general shift in funding availability limits the scope of activity for CDOs even as it makes some activity more viable and easier to undertake at scale. A related issue is that as community development activity has been rationalized it has prompted foundations to spin off intermediary organizations. Intermediaries use their control over retail funding to actively intervene in CDO activity in order to increase CDO capacity and increase the ability of CDOs to achieve programmatic goals. The Local Initiatives Support Corporation and the Enterprise Foundation are prototypical community development intermediaries in the United States and have provided a model for the growth of intermediary organizations in a number of programmatic fields around the world. There are also a number of issues surrounding CDOs themselves and their relationship with the communities in which they operate. The most basic of these questions is whether CDOs are organizations that are strategically acting to ensure their survival and growth or expressions of a community’s needs and desires? In the former case, CDOs should be expected to gravitate toward more stable sources of funding and resources, and to rationalize themselves around the tasks that enable them to secure those resources. In the latter case, the organizational population should be expected to be diverse and transient – reflecting variation in the communities themselves and the relative lack of secure resources. There is a larger civil society question here. If CDOs are civil society organizations, then they are useful because they generally accomplish tasks and facilitate social
relationships that would not be available with market and state forms of organization. If not, they are really just nonprofit extensions of the state and market. In this case the question is functional: What do CDOs actually add to the organizational mix that makes them worthwhile? Naturally, there is a third possibility: CDOs are interstitial. That is, they are neither pure expressions of community nor fully rationalized organizations and their effectiveness comes from their ability to connect systemic needs and resources with community needs and desires. These issues are related to another question that has dominated scholarly discussion of CDOs. If civil society is valuable in part because of the possibility that is inherent to its plurality and diversity, the issue of rationalization is a central concern. Indeed, if plurality and diversity are essential then the goal would be to have CDOs that can help people create new social relations in their communities even if that entails disrupting existing social relations. On one side of this issue are those who are concerned about whether CDOs promote or limit community civic engagement. On the other are those who argue that CDOs are social movement organizations that challenge social relations that are harmful or destructive to communities. There is nothing about CDOs that suggests they are inherently one or the other. What is in question is the role that specific CDOs play in specific communities and the historical trajectory of the organizational population over time. In general, it seems fair to say that, in comparison with the 1960s, CDOs in the United States have experienced significant rationalization around the goal of physical redevelopment. There is nothing inherent or necessary about this and it seems reasonable to imagine that this might change in the wake of a massive credit crunch and decline in housing values. Regardless, these questions organize a series of related concerns in the scholarly literature on CDOs. Are CDOs instruments to manage and co-opt political radicalism? Or do they facilitate the expression of community desires at the systemic level? Are they flexible, creative, and adaptive? Or are they increasingly rationalized and technocratic? Are they expressions of community control and self-help that make up for the absence of functioning markets? Or are they instruments that facilitate the introduction of market mechanisms? These are key questions for which there is no single answer.
International Perspectives Many of the key issues that arise in the literature on American and European CDOs also arise internationally. The biggest difference is the cultural meaning of these organizations and their activity in the Global South. For example, the meaning of the terms ‘‘community’’ and
Community Development Organizations
‘‘development’’ is different in many parts of the world. Integration with a global economy centered on the Global North and its history of imperialism and resource exploitation has altered the meaning of terms that might seem relatively innocuous. ‘‘Development,’’ for example, is unobjectionable as a value in Christian theology. However, when it is used as a justification for transforming property relations and disrupting communities the meaning of the term necessarily changes. In many parts of the world, development has come to be associated with disruptive economic transformations. These issues are compounded when the advocates of community development are international aid agencies that have ideas about community and development that are oriented to the needs of funding agencies or the sentiments of a donating public in the Global North. For example, a CDO might be engaged in a project to protect local wildlife in order to create an attraction for tourists and create jobs for the local community. In the Global North where people are dependent upon wage income for survival this is a reasonable approach. In the Global South such a project might be understood as an appropriation of community resources to serve the goals of an organization that is responding to the needs of people who are unconcerned with local residents. Moreover, such projects may end up serving the needs of local elites or the state – the very opposite of common positive understandings of ‘‘community.’’ In scenarios such as this one, community development can be understood as serving the needs of a very distant ‘‘community’’ rather than helping local communities develop their own resources for their own improvement. On a more positive note, CDOs in the Global South are far less dependent on legal sanctioning and monetary resources than such organizations in the Global North. Organizations are less regulated and less rationalized which, ironically, means that they are potentially more able to realize civil society’s promise to deliver innovations that make use of community social capital. The Grameen Bank, famous for its microlending to the poor of Bangladesh, is an instructive example. Both the developmental leverage that small cash loans can have and the ease with which the bank can provide them cannot be matched in much of the Global North. This is not a management issue. Microlenders in the United States, for example, usually have to borrow the funds at market rates which results in usurious interest to those they intend to serve. At the same time, the amounts necessary to have an economic development impact are much larger due to the marginal utility of noncash resources in the Global North.
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Future Directions Many of the research questions discussed above have not produced definitive answers; nor should they be expected to. However, it is worth asking the question of whether researchers are producing designs that are likely to yield good answers to these questions and, unfortunately, too often the answer is ‘‘no.’’ Research on CDOs is heavily dominated by case studies of either exemplary organizations or organizations that reveal a dynamic in a particularly good way. Another prominent mode of research is to pool data from a variety of CDOs and then make generalizations based on that data. For example, there are studies that interpret community development entirely through the understandings of the community developers themselves. There are others that make interpretations entirely on the basis of structural relationships such as funding sources. In generalizing, studies often analytically obliterate the real diversity of CDOs. A key question for future research is not simply to pick one of these methods of analysis or restate an old line of argument. At this point, the goal should be to integrate the insights to be gained from these various approaches. In meso-level studies it is possible to study subjective meanings alongside structural relationships and good organizations alongside bad ones. On a related point, much current research starts from the assumption that CDOs either represent the communities they operate in or are determined by systemic and organizational imperatives. Only infrequently has research on CDOs attempted to objectify this question and answer it systematically. Another key question is whether community development really is effective at achieving the goal of development. As civil society has become a prominent issue of academic concern, questions about CDOs have revolved around things such as civic engagement, social capital, and political pluralism. Community development has been a key tool for policy makers for several decades now, yet the question of whether such work actually accomplishes development goals is rarely tackled head on. Certainly a number of CDCs operate in communities that are impoverished. On the one hand, this is certainly good; they operate where they are needed. On the other hand, if they are in the poorest areas why are those areas not becoming less poor? One answer is that these communities would be much worse off without CDCs. This might be true, but there are no notable studies that attempt to analyze this question objectively. Nor are there studies that attempt to compare the effectiveness of community development to, say, direct subsidies to individuals or state-led industrial or development policies.
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Cross-References
▶ Civil Society–Business Relations ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Credit Unions ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ Intermediary Organizations and Field ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development
References/Further Readings Campfens, H. (1997). Community development around the world: Practice, theory, research, training. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Cnaan, R., & Milofsky, C. (2007). Handbook of community movements and local organizations. New York: Springer. Crush, J. S. (1995). Power of development. London: Routledge. Ferguson, R. F., & Dickens, W. T. (1999). Urban problems and community development. Washington, DC: Brookings. Marwell, N. P. (2004). Privatizing the welfare state: Nonprofit communitybased organizations as political actors. American Sociological Review, 69, 265–291. Medoff, P., & Sklar, H. (1994). Streets of hope: The fall and rise of an urban neighborhood. Boston, MA: South End Press. National Congress for Community Economic Development (1995). Tying it all together: The comprehensive achievements of communitybased development corporations. Washington, DC: NCCED. Rubin, H. J. (2000). Renewing hope within neighborhoods of despair: The community-based development model. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Selznick, P. (1949). TVA and the grass roots: A study in the sociology of formal organization. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Stoecker, R. (1997). The CDC model of urban redevelopment: A critique and an alternative. Journal of Urban Affairs, 19, 1–22. Walker, C. (2002). Community development corporations and their changing support systems. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
Community Development Resource Association (CDRA) LAWRENCE S. CUMMING
Address of Organization P.O. Box 221 Woodstock, 7915 South Africa www.cdra.org.za
Introduction The Community Development Resource Association (CDRA) is a distinguished specialist nongovernmental organization which enjoys a solid reputation at home
and abroad. Now over 2 decades old, it has worked with over 600 organizational clients throughout Southern Africa and beyond.
Brief History The CDRA came into being in 1987 at the height of the South African anti-Apartheid struggle, in company with a great many other civil society organizations born during that historic era. Its founders’ purpose was to support a wide variety of both welfare and development initiatives. It is rooted in what it terms ‘‘a progressive and humanist approach to social justice and change.’’ (All references: CDRA website.)
Mission/Objectives/Focus Area In the words of its Mission Statement, CDRA aims ‘‘to help bring about and support authentic and coherent development practice amongst people, organizations and institutions working towards those forms of social transformation that most benefit the poor and marginalised.’’ The Association does this through contributing to the effectiveness and efficiency of organizations. It places a high value on diversity and counteracts the use of power to undermine, exploit and diminish creative potential. The CDRA’s broad social purpose is to ‘‘contribute to building a society that is sustainable and civil’’ by employing ‘‘organizing principles, processes and practices that promote inclusion, dignity and development.’’
Activities The CDRA works in South Africa, other parts of the Southern Africa region and sometimes beyond. It aims to build capacity in organizations in ways that enable all parts to contribute to the enlargement of the whole. Its work includes organizational consultancy, ‘‘accompaniment’’ in establishing qualitative learning processes inside organizations and training in social development practice. It also conducts evaluations and other forms of social research that demand the active involvement of all the parties in a system. Other projects include facilitated dialogue and action research processes intended to enable rigorous peer learning from experience, sharing and improving practice. The CDRA seeks to ‘‘generate a practitioner voice on matters that shape the development sector, to develop relationships and a culture in the sector that support continuous improvement and to record and disseminate the results of these for a wider audience.’’ The scope of CDRA’s engagements encompasses small community based initiatives, networks, and associations and large institutions (mainly donors) with global reach.
Community Foundations of Canada/Fondations Communautaires du Canada
It has also done limited work with branches of the South African Government. The content of CDRA’s initiatives is very broad, addressing both urban and rural development, youth development, women’s organization, health, welfare, environment, HIV/AIDS, policy making and research, nonformal education, grant making, children’s rights, human rights, gender, and other themes.
Structure and Governance The CDRA is governed by a ten person Board of Directors. The staff team includes ten practitioners, of whom four have been with the organization for over 10 years.
Funding The CDRA budget is roughly R5.5 million per annum. Just under one third of this is generated through the provision of services. The major portion of its funding is supplied by foreign donors. The Association believes that this form of wealth redistribution is fully appropriate, provided that the civil society organizations are able to ‘‘operate in an ethical, values-based manner.’’ Over the years, the CDRA has consistently promoted this view to donors while building meaningful and constructive relationships with them.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Southern Africa ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History
References/Further Readings Community Development Resource Association. ‘‘About us,’’ an overview of CDRA’s history and work, from http://www.cdra.org.za SANGONET. A development information portal for NGOs in South Africa, Community Development Resource Association, from http://www. sangonet.org.za
Community Foundations of Canada/ Fondations Communautaires du Canada SHARILYN HALE
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Introduction Community Foundations of Canada (CFC) is a national membership organization for community foundations across the country. Supporting the community foundation movement as a way to enhance community vitality, CFC offers resources and publications to established and developing foundations, provides a framework for national partnerships and engages in public awareness and policy initiatives to promote philanthropy and community foundations.
Brief History While the first community foundation in Canada was established in Winnipeg in 1921, CFC was established in 1992 as a unifying and supporting resource to the increasing number of community foundations emerging across the country. Since its founding, CFC’s membership has grown from 25 to 165 community foundations which hold more than $2.9 billion CDN in shared assets, positioning them among the largest donors in Canada.
Mission/Objectives CFC’s mission is to build stronger communities by enhancing the philanthropic leadership of community foundations. With an emphasis on long term resources for long term solutions, CFC aims to assist community foundations to build their endowments and enhance donor services, promote philanthropy and the role of community foundations as stewards of community assets and nurture Canadian philanthropic leadership.
Activities CFC helps build capacity among community foundations and encourage effective philanthropy to best meet broadly defined community need. In pursuit of its mission, CFC combines three key portfolios including national programs and partnerships, publications and resources, and public policy initiatives. Examples range from their annual Vital Signs checkup which measures the vitality of communities across the country, and numerous how-to publications on effective and accountable foundation administration and best practices, to position papers and studies on trends and issues within the community foundations movement.
Address of Organization
Structure and Governance
75 Albert Street, Suite 301 Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5E7 Canada www.cfc-fcc.ca
CFC is a registered Canadian charity. It is governed by a Board of Directors with 15 members comprised of community leaders and representatives of the community foundation movement in Canada. Led by a CEO, a staff
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of 13 run the day to day operations of the organization with the support of six regional representatives.
Funding In fiscal year 2007, CFC’s operating budget was $2,718,000 CDN. This was supported in large part by membership fees and donations as well as project sponsorship/grants and earned revenue through publications and sales.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions A major contribution that CFC makes each year is Vital Signs. First published in 2007, it compiles data on social and economic trends evidenced across the country, then assesses how communities are faring as a result. This annual community checkup not only draws attention to pressing social issues but also provides a responsive framework for community engagement initiatives, grant making and social planning.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Philanthropy in North America ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings Sacks, E. W. (2008). Community Foundation Status Report. WINGS, from http://www.wingsweb.org/information/publications_community.cfm
UK company, incorporating either as a private company limited by guarantee (CLG), or a private company limited by shares (CLS), or a public limited company. The defining characteristics of the CIC are intended to make it particularly suitable for community-based social enterprise – those that wish to work for community benefit within the relative freedom of the noncharitable company form, but with a clear commitment to a nonprofitdistribution status. CICs are subject to the general framework of company law.
Historical Background The activities of the Social Enterprise Unit and the Social Enterprise Coalition have played a role in promoting a huge interest in social enterprise in the United Kingdom – this can be seen in outcomes such as the development of strategies for social enterprise and new legislation to facilitate the creation of new locally based social enterprise through the community interest company (CIC). The Bill (legislative act) received its Royal Assent in October 2004. There followed a detailed consultation on draft regulations with the social enterprise sector, and the new legal form was available for use in July 2005. During the first year of its operation, over 360 companies were registered as CICs, and by the end of July 2008 around 1980 had been formed.
Key Issues The distinguishing features of the CIC are as follows:
Community Interest Companies ROGER SPEAR The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Introduction The community interest company is a new legal form for UK social enterprise. It is one of a series of new legal forms arising in Europe specifically for social enterprise, although many social enterprise still use traditional nonprofit or other legal forms that allow trading.
Definition The community interest company (CIC) is a nonprofitdistributing social enterprise providing benefit to a community. Such enterprises currently operate in areas such as childcare, social housing, leisure, and community transport. The CIC is a new variant of existing forms of
● The need to satisfy a community interest test, confirming that the enterprise will pursue purposes beneficial to the community and will not serve an unduly restricted group of beneficiaries. The test is that of a reasonable person judging if the CIC’s activities would benefit the community. ● Exclusions from CIC status: Political parties, companies controlled by political parties, and political campaigning organizations. ● Charitable status: CICs will not be able to have charitable status, but charities can establish CICs as subsidiaries. ● Annual reporting: CICs must produce company reports containing key information relevant to CIC status, lodged with the public register of companies. ● An asset lock – CICs will be prohibited from distributing profits they make to their members; and a CIC’s residual assets, when it is wound up, will not be distributed to its members, rather they will pass to another similar organization with restrictions on profits distribution like another CIC or a charity.
Community Philanthropy
● CICs limited by shares can pay dividends to ‘‘investor shares,’’ subject to a cap regulated by the Regulator; but a CIC limited by guarantee, cannot make such distributions; limits on conventional interest payments on fixed term debt will not be applied. ● The Regulator approves applications for CIC status, receives copies of the community interest company reports and polices the requirements of CIC status, including compliance with the asset lock. The CIC Regulator will have close links with the Registrar of Companies. ● CICs are required to provide an additional annual community interest company report to the registrar of companies; this covers: what the CIC has done during the year to benefit the community; the steps, if any, that the company has taken to involve in its activities its stakeholders; information about payments related to its financial instruments, and the remuneration of its directors.
International Perspectives Since the Italian social cooperative legislation of the early 1990s, there has been a wave of social enterprise legislation across Europe (with some developments further afield in South East Asia and South America). See below for a brief overview with approximate numbers of enterprises formed, where data is available: ● Italy: Social cooperative (1991 Type A + B) 7000+ ● Portugal: Social solidarity cooperative (1996/8 Type B) 500+ ● Spain: Social initiative cooperative (1999 Type A + B) ● Spain: Work integration enterprise (2007 Type B) ● Greece: Limited liability social cooperative (1999 Type B mental health) ● France: Collective interest cooperative society (2002 Type A + B) 94 ● Poland: Social cooperative (2006 Type B) ● Belgium: Social finality enterprise (1996 All types) 400 ● Finland: Social enterprise (2004 Type B) 69 Often this legislation has paralleled the two types of social enterprise in the Italian legislation – type A and B – the former is for the provision of social, educational, or health services, the latter for the integration of disadvantaged people into work. But some countries have adopted quite restrictive forms of legislation, either in terms of target groups (e.g., Greece – mentally ill people), or in terms of its requirements (e.g., in France a tightly specified form of multi-stakeholder involvement). In contrast the UK model is marked by its high flexibility and by its
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option of accessing external finance through shareholding structures – albeit regulated.
Future Directions After 3 years on the statute books, the CIC legislation has clearly seen popular approval, gauged by the numbers of CICs formed. As time passes it should be possible to gather more information on the effectiveness of some of its characteristics, in particular community stakeholder involvement, and external investor involvement. So far very few annual community interest company reports have been produced so it is not possible to judge how effectively the community interest has been served. And while this UK social enterprise legislation has been distinctive in facilitating access to external investors (via ‘‘investor shares’’ and the use of company limited by share structures), it is yet to be seen whether this will have been effective; the asset lock may present difficulties for certain investors to arrange exit strategies from their investment in a CIC.
Cross-References
▶ Charity Law ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Social Enterprise
References/Further Readings http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/third_sector/social_enterprise.aspx http://www.cicregulator.gov.uk/index.shtml
Community Philanthropy XI ZHU, DAVID KNOKE University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA
Introduction Community philanthropy involves raising resources within and for members of a community, whether defined by geography or by identity. Although initial efforts in the United States can be traced back to the nineteenth century, the most rapid expansion occurred in the last half of the twentieth century. European community philanthropy took off in the last 2 decades, particularly in Eastern Europe after the collapse of state socialism left holes in the public welfare safety net. Community philanthropy has generally lagged behind in developing nations. Formal organizations engaged in community philanthropy display a diversity
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of forms and governance structures. As with most charitable institutions, achieving financial sustainability and accountability are enduring issues. The dearth of rigorous empirical studies of community-philanthropic organizations, particularly international comparisons, should be seen as an opportunity for future advances in understanding this important civic activity.
Definition Among several competing definitions of community philanthropy, two are noteworthy. Bernholz, Fulton, and Kasper (2005, p. II) defined it as ‘‘the practice of catalyzing and raising resources from a community on behalf of a community.’’ The European Foundation Center’s definition (EFC, 2004, p. 5) stated that ‘‘community philanthropy is the act of individual citizens and local institutions contributing money or goods, along with their time and skills, to promote the well-being of local people and the improvement of the community in which they live and/or work.’’ Both definitions emphasize activities intended to promote the betterment of a community and to improve quality of life for people of a community. In each definition, community can be defined in various ways. During the early years of community-philanthropic practice, it was used exclusively for geographically bounded communities. However, community can also be defined in terms of issues or identity. One prominent development in community philanthropy over the last 3 decades was the emergence of new forms of organization that aim at improving conditions in issue- or identity-based communities. One difference between these definitions is that the first specifies the source of philanthropic resources as ‘‘from a community,’’ while the second definition does not limit where the resources come from. Given the diversity of contemporary community philanthropy organizations (CPOs) and the communities they represent, and the reality of many communities receiving resources and support from other communities or international CPOs, the boundary of the resource pool should be expanded to include any donors, volunteers, and organizations contributing to the common good of a community. The EFC (2004, p. 5) distinguished two kinds of community philanthropy: informal and formal. Informal community philanthropy is anecdotally based, involving activities ‘‘such as citizens and local businesses helping other residents in times of crisis.’’ Formal community philanthropy, on the other hand, is more organized and involves activities by CPOs that collect, manage, and utilize resources to promote community well-being on a long-term basis. This entry focuses on formal community
philanthropy where CPOs are important vehicles to ‘‘nurture, sustain and enhance community development, and make it possible for individual citizens to have a larger impact at local level than when they act alone’’ (EFC, 2004, p. 5).
Historical Background Philanthropic activities in communities existed probably in every culture and in almost all historical periods. Although the tradition of generous giving and taking care of others has different social roots in diverse communities, the existence of philanthropy is almost a universal phenomenon (Ilchman et al., 1998). In the United States, where institutionalized community philanthropy originated, Bernholz et al. (2005) identified four distinct eras in the history of community philanthropy: the early era, the institutionalization era, the democratization era, and the age of commercial charity. In the early era (before 1900), charitable helping existed in many geographic, religious, or ethnic communities. Some embryonic CPOs were established during this era. For example, the Female Hebrew Benevolent Society, whose mission was to aid Jewish women in financial crisis, was founded in 1819 in Philadelphia. It is considered as the oldest Jewish charitable organization in the United States. By a conservative estimate, one in ten American males belonged to fraternal and benevolent societies and lodges in 1910 (Beito, 2000). In addition to providing such direct mutual benefits as insurance, scholarships, and burial funds, fraternal societies fostered their members’ social capital in the form of opportunities for making business contacts, learning leadership skills, and building moral character. Nevertheless, in the early era, community philanthropy was largely informally organized. Institutions started to emerge, but functioned only as ‘‘secondary to the shared identity and commitment within groups’’ (Bernholz et al., 2005, p. 4). The institutionalization era (1900–1929) began with the creation of many formal CPO structures for community. Some of these institutional structures still exist and continue to play an important role in today’s community philanthropy. The first community foundation, the Cleveland Foundation, was founded in 1914 by Frederick Harris Goff in Cleveland, Ohio. ‘‘Goff’s idea was a community-oriented foundation where charitable individuals could establish permanent funds that would be available to respond to current and future community needs’’ (Guo and Brown, 2006, p. 268). This powerful organizational form spread quickly to Canada, and later around the world, and has become the most prominent form for organizing community philanthropy. During the Great Depression and World War II, community philanthropy
Community Philanthropy
slowed down substantially. Following the war, the democratization era (1950–1990) witnessed many significant social and political changes, especially the human rights movements. Community philanthropy adapted to these changes by focusing on building institutions for self-help by identitybased groups, including various ethnic groups, women, and gays and lesbians (Bernholz et al., 2005). Before the 1990s, community philanthropy was primarily a territory of the nonprofit sector. According to Bernholz et al. (2005), the establishment of Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund in 1991 launched the current era of commercial charity. Since then, the entrance of commercial firms as direct participants has transformed, and will likely continuously change, the landscape of community philanthropy. Offering a range of professional services, commercial funds provide donors with an opportunity to manage their giving and realize their charitable goals more directly. This change challenges community foundations, the major players in community philanthropy, to adjust their strategies and redefine their roles in the community. In nations around the world, community philanthropy developed out of various social and historical contexts. An explosive growth of community philanthropy outside North America, particularly taking the form of an international community foundation movement, occurred over the last quarter of the twentieth century. In Europe, the first community foundation was established in 1976 in the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom had a long tradition of private and secular community philanthropy, which declined during the nineteenth century with the rise of the social welfare state (Sacks, 2000). Interest revived with the new community foundation movement of the late 1970s, and quickly developed after the Community Foundation Network (formerly known as the Association of Community Trusts and Foundations) was formed in 1991. In Central and Eastern Europe, community philanthropy emerged after the collapse of communist regimes and was spurred by declining state provision of social services. The first community foundation in former communist countries was established in Slovak Republic in 1994, followed by foundations in Poland, Russia, and many others (EFC, 2004). Overall, Europe experienced rapidly expanding community philanthropy since the 1990s. The number of CPOs in Europe grew from about 30 in 1994 to more than 530 by 2004 in at least 18 European countries (EFC, 2004). In postcolonial Africa, philanthropic organizations traditionally receive most of their funds from international organizations and donors. However, local giving and community philanthropy are growing in many countries (WINGS-CF, 2005). The Kenya Community Development
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Foundation (KCDF), founded in 1997, aimed to strengthen communities to mobilize local resources and build capacities to address and meet local needs. Several community foundation-like organizations were built in the late 1990s in many African nations, such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Ghana, Uganda, and South Africa (WINGS-CF, 2005). Development of community foundations in South America, Asia, and the Pacific followed a similar time line as in Europe and Africa. Most countries began their efforts to build organized community philanthropy in the 1990s. One exception was Australia whose first organization, the Victorian Community Foundation, was established in 1983.
Key Issues Organizational Forms
Involvement of formal philanthropic organizations is a defining characteristic of community philanthropy. A community philanthropy organization ‘‘is an independent non-governmental organization designed to gather, manage and redistribute financial and other resources useful for the community’s well-being, and to do so in ways that engage the community’’ (Mayer, 1999, p. 1). Diverse forms of CPOs coexist in the contemporary community philanthropy field, with the following comprising the most prominent types: Community Foundation: WINGS-CF (2005, p. 6) defines community foundations as grant-making organizations that ● Seek to improve the quality of life for all people in a defined geographic area ● Are independent from control or influence by other organizations, governments, or donors ● Are governed by a board of citizens broadly reflective of the communities they serve ● Make grants to other nonprofit groups to address a wide variety of emerging and changing needs in the community ● Seek to build a permanent resource for the community, most often through the creation of endowed funds from a wide range of donors, including local citizens, corporations, governments, and other foundations and nonprofits ● Provide services to donors to help them achieve their philanthropic goals ● Engage in a broad range of community leadership and partnership activities, serving as catalysts, conveners, collaborators, and facilitators to solve problems and develop solutions to important community issues
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● Have open and transparent policies and practices concerning all aspects of their operations ● Are accountable to the community by informing the general public about their purposes, activities, and financial status on a regular basis United Way: ‘‘United Way is a movement of community chests and similar organizations that mobilize and allocate financial and volunteer resources in their communities’’ (Anheier & List, 2005, p. 276). United Way, originating in the United States during the late nineteenth century, developed into an international network of local nonprofit organizations across the world that adopted its essential values and characteristics. A United Way organization is a volunteer-led, nonprofit organization that leads, supports, and participates in collective, inclusive community efforts to identify the root causes of key issues, to build capacity and mobilize resources, and to create positive, long-term social change in the local community (United Way International, 2008). Today, United Way International is the peak organization that leads the movement and sets the global membership requirements. Giving Circle: Giving circles are a recent form of philanthropy in which a group of donors pool their funds and other resources and collectively agree on which causes or organizations to support. Giving circles range in size and structure from shared giving circles (small, informal groups of acquaintances often meeting at a potluck dinner or wine tasting) to large, formal social investment clubs (often hosted or sponsored by a community foundation). A survey conducted on a sample of 61 giving circles found that more than 5,300 donors had raised almost $32 million and given about $23 million in grants, suggesting that giving circles represent a growing trend in American philanthropy (Rutnik & Bearman, 2005, p. 6). The primary benefits of giving circles are that ‘‘they provide grantmaking and other support to the community; they allow donors to learn together; they cultivate philanthropists; and they build community’’ (Rutnik & Bearman, 2005, p. 12). Identity-Based Fund: Identity-based funds, also called focus funds, seek to improve conditions in nongeographic communities defined by race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and other identity-based distinctions. These organizations are typically grassroots philanthropies that raise funds from members of the dispersed communities they serve and are usually constituentdirected. For example, the Horizons Foundation based in the San Francisco Bay Area offers education and support programs to increase philanthropic participation in causes favored by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) communities.
Hometown Association: Hometown Associations (HTAs) are philanthropic organizations formed by immigrants in the United States who ‘‘seek to support their places of origin, maintain relationships with local communities, and retain a sense of community as they adjust to life in the United States’’ (Orozco, 2003, p. 1). Currently, HTAs exist mostly in Mexican immigrant communities in the United States and usually fund projects intended to alleviate poverty in their communities of origin. Increasingly, HTAs are engaging in advocacy on political and social issues in their US communities of residence (Americas Program, 2003). In addition to the five forms described above, community philanthropy support organizations (CPSOs) are another emergent type of player in community philanthropy. CPSOs help CPOs in their start-up period by assisting local leadership and building organizational capacity. CPSOs also solicit public support and improve the legal and financial environments for community philanthropy (Mayer, 1999). In Central and Eastern Europe, the emergence of institutional community philanthropy was often fostered by a national CPSO. In Africa, some pioneering CPOs (e.g., KCDF in Kenya) fulfilled the role of CPSOs in cultivating the development of local philanthropic organizations. Enabling Environment
Favorable legal and tax environments can play an important role in encouraging community philanthropy. The development of US community philanthropy especially highlights the impact of these environmental factors. Sacks (2000) pointed out that the accelerated growth of American community foundations after 1970 was largely triggered by the Tax Reform Act of 1969. This legislation granted public charities the advantage of larger tax deductions and looser government regulation, which made them a preferable vehicle for charitable giving. Such conducive legal and tax arrangements exist in many countries. But, such arrangements are still underdeveloped in some other countries. An international comparative study revealed that, in practice, more than half of the countries with CPOs have insufficient tax incentives for individual or corporate donors. Nor do these countries give special organizational tax-exempt status to their CPOs (WINGS-CF, 2005). In some countries, legal systems can impose restrictions on what organizational form community philanthropists can use. For example, in Croatia, registering community foundation is difficult because of restrictive legal requirements. Therefore, only initiative groups have been formed so far in Croatia to organize local philanthropy.
Community Philanthropy
Traditions and public attitudes toward charity are also important enabling factors for community philanthropy. In Central and Eastern European countries, where formerly communist governments were responsible for social services, changing people’s mindsets toward philanthropy and volunteerism has proved to be the most challenging task for community leaders (Mayer, 1999). On the other hand, in countries with a long tradition and wide acceptance of charity, such as Brazil and South Africa, community philanthropy has developed to some degree even though the legal and tax environments are not favorable. Sustainability
Sustainability refers to the ‘‘long-term survival, performance and impact’’ of philanthropic projects (Anheier & List, 2005, p. 260). The traditional CPO model, especially for community foundations, is to achieve financial sustainability by building permanent endowments. This model allows a CPO to meet the community’s current needs with revenues generated from its endowment while keeping the principal intact so that the CPO can operate on a long-term basis. Some practitioners also believe that an endowment provides a CPO with credibility, reliability, and independence (St. John, 2006). Although important, a permanent endowment is not required for CPOs to be sustainable. For example, the United Way relies on annual local fund-raising and flowthrough grants to achieve philanthropic goals. Even within the community foundation sector, knowledge about how big a sustainable endowment is necessary remains underdeveloped. One study found that, compared to their counterparts in the United States, European community foundations have much smaller endowments (EFC, 2004). Many philanthropic professionals have learned that sustainability cannot be achieved solely with financial resources. Engagement and leadership are crucial ingredients of successful community philanthropy. CPOs can make a significant impact only when they develop a deep understanding of, and connection to, the communities they serve. As St. John (2006) reflected, ‘‘the only form of community philanthropy that is ultimately sustainable is one that builds upon the indigenous impulse and traditions of philanthropy that exist in every culture, religion and human heart.’’ Accountability
In recent years, scandals about investment fraud and unethical use of funds by CPO leaders have raised increasing concerns about CPO accountability. For nonprofit organizations, the accountability issue has multiple facets, including fiscal honesty and avoidance of fraud, good governance,
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adherence to mission, and demonstration of their effectiveness (Brody, 2002). Different stakeholders have different interests in holding CPOs accountable. Donors want to ensure that their donations will be used properly and their charitable objectives can be fulfilled. Communities and grant recipients want resources to be allocated effectively and fairly, key issues to be addressed promptly, and public interests to be taken into account. Internally, board members and staff are held to achieve accountability through their activities. At the same time, CPO staff members have an interest in accountability because they want to ensure the survival, thriving, and integrity of their organization (Keating & Frumkin, 2003). Maintaining high standards of accountability can sometimes be challenging for CPOs. Because CPOs are accountable to many different stakeholders, which stakeholders’ interests should be given priority is not always clear. For example, Frumkin (1997) discussed the case of Buck Trust, in which a donor who passed away had stipulated a narrow geographic boundary inside of which her donation could be used. However, an unexpected growth of her estate triggered a rancorous dispute between her charitable intention and the community foundation’s mission to serve a much wider community.
International Perspectives Several studies conducted by international associations of foundations – such as the Council on Foundations, the EFC, the World Initiatives for Grantmaker SupportCommunity Foundations (WINGS-CF), and the Transatlantic Community Foundation Network (TCFN) – have produced rich information about the histories and current situations of community philanthropy in various countries (Sacks, 2000; EFC, 2004; WINGS-CF, 2005; TCFN, 2007). These studies indicate a similar and upward trend for community philanthropy around the globe since 1990, as indicated both by the growing number of new CPOs and an increasing public awareness of the concept. Sacks (2000) declared that the major factors driving this growth were the collapse of communism, the decline of welfare states, and the end of large programs operated by major international funders. Cross-national comparisons, however, lead to a consensus that each country has a unique environment for community philanthropy. Government type and expenditures, taxation, acceptance of the philanthropic concept, and a culture of giving are among the important factors shaping variation in community philanthropy at the local level. The community foundation has diffused as the dominant organizational form in most parts of the world, with noticeable national adaptations. Institutional innovations have
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emerged in local contexts as well. For example, percentage philanthropy, in which taxpayers may designate a specified percentage of their income tax to support nonprofit organizations, is an innovative form of community philanthropy in Central and Eastern Europe.
Future Directions Current knowledge about community philanthropy derives largely from research by practitioners and consultants in the field. These sources reflect the historical development of the field as a whole as well as experiences of particular organizations. Topics covered by current research include philanthropic environments, diffusion, and adaptation of different organizational forms, learning and development of CPOs, and models of sustainable operation. Some writers offered suggestions for the future development based on their analyses of the changing environment for community philanthropy (see Bernholz et al., 2005). In short, current knowledge about community philanthropy mostly answers the question about what has already happened. A social research that explains the relationship among different aspects of the phenomena is still lacking. For example, at the organizational population level: What factors explain the diffusion rate in the adoption of an innovative organizational form? At the community level: Is the degree of acceptance for community philanthropy affected by community social structure, as Putnam (2001) suggested? At the organizational level: Does governance structure affect CPO performance? Sociological theories of nonprofit organizations and sectors (DiMaggio & Anheier, 1990) offer some hints for answering such research questions. However, testing theories with quality data remains a great, urgent opportunity for researchers in the field of community philanthropy.
Cross-References
▶ Cleveland Foundation ▶ Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Giving Circles ▶ Goff, Frederick Harris ▶ United Way ▶ WINGS
References/Further Readings Americas Program (2003). Mexican hometown associations, from http:// americas.irc-online.org/pdf/series/05.hta.pdf (Downloaded 08/24/ 2008). Anheier, H., & List, R. (2005). A dictionary of civil society, philanthropy and the non-profit sector. London: Routledge.
Beito, D. (2000). From mutual aid to welfare state: How fraternal societies fought poverty and taught character. Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation, http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/ hl677.cfm. (Downloaded 09/06/2008). Bernholz, L., Fulton, K., & Kasper, G. (2005). On the brink of new promise: The future of U.S. community foundations. San Francisco: Blueprint Research and Design, Inc. http://www.blueprintrd.com/ text/foc_ FINALfutureofcommunity_complete.pdf (Downloaded 08/12/2008). Brody, E. (2002). Accountability, effectiveness, and public perceptions. In L. Salomon (Ed.), The state of America’s nonprofit sector (pp. 471–498). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press/Aspen Institute. Brown, D., & Moore, M. (2001). Accountability, strategy, and international nongovernmental organizations. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 30(3), 569–587. Bullain, N. (2004). Explaining percentage philanthropy: Legal nature, rationales, impacts. International Journal of Non-for-Profit Law, 6(4), from http://www.icnl.org/knowledge/ijnl/vol6iss4/art_3.htm Downloaded (08/24/2008). DiMaggio, P., & Anheier, H. (1990). The sociology of nonprofit organizations and sectors. Annual Review of Sociology, 16, 137–159. EFC (2004). Community philanthropy watch: Europe 2004. Brussels, Belgium: European Foundation Center, from http://www.efc.be/ ftp/public/CPI/Report.pdf (Downloaded 08/17/2008). Frumkin, P. (1997). Fidelity in philanthropy: Two challenges to community foundations. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 8(1), 65–76. Graddy, E., & Morgan, D. (2006). Community foundations, organizational strategy, and public policy. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(4), 605–630. Guo, C., & Brown, W. (2006). Community foundation performance: Bridging community resources and needs. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(2), 267–287. Ilchman, W., Katz, S., & Queen, E. (1998). Philanthropy in the world’s traditions. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Keating, E., & Frumkin, P. (2003). Reengineering nonprofit financial accountability: Toward a more reliable foundation for regulation. Public Administration Review, 63(1), 3–15. Mayer, S. (1999) Community philanthropy in Central/Eastern Europe. Flint, Michigan: Charles Steward Mott Foundation, from http://www.mott.org/~/media/pdfs/Legacy%20Publications/Special/ communityphilanthropy%20pdf.ashx. (Downloaded 07/20/2008). Orozco, M. (2003). Hometown associations and their present and future partnerships: New development opportunities? Washington, DC: Agency for International Development, from http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/final%20USAID%20HTA%20Report.pdf (Downloaded 08/20/2008). Putnam, R. (2001). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rutnik, T., & Bearman, J. (2005). Giving together: A national scan of giving circles and shared giving. Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, from http://www.givingforum.org/s_fohttp://www.givingforum.org/s_forum/bin.asp?CID = 5892&DID = 9583&DOC = FILE.PDF (Downloaded 09/06/2008). Sacks, E. (2000). The growth of community foundations around the world. Washington, DC: Council on Foundations, from http://www.wingsweb.org/download/CFGrowth_English.pdf (Downloaded 08/24/ 2008). St. John, S. (2006). Questioning the conventional wisdom. Alliance Magazine, March 2006, from http://www.alliancemagazine.org/free/html/ mar06e.html (Downloaded 08/17/2008).
Community, Types of TCFN (2007). The future of community foundations: A transatlantic perspective. Brussels, Belgium: TCFN/Bertelsmann Stiftung, from http://www.tcfn.efc.be/download.php?d = 356 (Downloaded 08/12/ 2008). United Way International (2008). http://uwint.org (Downloaded 08/24/ 2008). Walenhorst, P. (Eds.) (2001). Building philanthropic and social capital: The work of community foundations. Gu¨tersloh, Germany: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers. WINGS-CF (2005). 2005 community foundation global status report. Brussels, Belgium: Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker SupportCommunity Foundations, from http://www.wingsweb.org/download/GSR2005_p1a.pdf (Downloaded 08/24/2008).
Community, Types of HEATHER DOUGLAS RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Introduction With the urbanization, industrialization, and globalization of contemporary society, nostalgia has grown for the traditions of community (Delanty, 2008). Community is a vital dimension in modern society and a key element of social organization. The notion of community suggests positive aspects of society and connections with others, ‘‘good things’’ that will improve individual well being and bring benefits to society as a whole. Community has emotional overtones. It indicates familiarity, social and emotional cohesion, and commitment. It implies a degree of attachment and belonging and a common sense of identity. Community is anticipated to offer beneficial contributions to build a strong and vibrant society. Although it is difficult to identify precisely what a community, it is recognized that many different kinds of community exist. Different communities are based on diverse arrangements of associations and types of connections. Relationships may be personal or at a group level. Interactions may be physical, ideological, or virtual. The degree of commitment and involvement may be strong or weak. The feelings of connection among community members may be positive or negative. Clearly there are different types of community, and the variety means it is important to have a clear understanding of which type of community is being discussed.
Definition No agreed definition exists of exactly what constitutes a community. Community can be considered as a
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theoretical concept and a philosophy, such as ‘‘community spirit’’ or ‘‘connected community.’’ Alternatively community may be considered as a practice of engaging and connecting with others for instance ‘‘creating community’’ or ‘‘building community.’’ Often community is used as a substitute term for locality, but community exists well beyond physical places. Indeed, Hillery (1955) identified 94 different types. Brint (2001) suggests communities are connected primarily through common emotions and personal interests in one another. He defines communities as ‘‘aggregates of people who share common activities and/or beliefs and who are bound together principally by relations of affect, loyalty, common values, and/or personal concern (i.e., interest in the personalities and life events of one another).’’ This definition is, however, a little romantic by not attending adequately to negative aspects of communities. Community is not always positive, proactive, and committed. Not all community interactions are friendly; yet strong communities can exist even if relations are not amicable, or the aim is not to benefit others, or the motivation for interaction is not moral. A community may be defined as a set of meaningful social connections in a group of any size where members have some interest in common and a degree of common intention. A community is social. It is a web of some kind of relationships. A community operates within certain boundaries that are agreed among members either tacitly or explicitly. Each community establishes traditions and patterns of behavior which may be implied or written as rules. Members of a community share some kind of a bond such as location, interests, background, or identity, situations or experiences. Thus a community is a social institution, that is, a stable structure and agreed set of procedures and conventions that provides social order and meaning (Scott, 2001: 34). An alternative definition of community is more functional and focused on the purpose of the activity. For instance Porter (2006) defines a virtual community as an ‘‘aggregation of individuals or business partners who interact around a shared interest, where the interaction is at least partially supported and/or mediated by technology and guided by some protocols or norms.’’ This definition has some merit. It considers the special nature of the shared interests along with protocol and norms, and as in Brint’s definition above, it implies aspects of a relationship. Many virtual communities are social exchanges shared by people who may, or may not, be able to identify respondents. Porter’s definition, however, has limitations in that not all virtual communities are connected to business.
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Community Typologies Many different types of community exist. Each type has different characteristics, purpose, membership requirements, and traditions of interactions. Each community institutes accepted arrangements of engaging with other members, establishes customary forms of relationships, and determines particular conventions for interactions and ways of maintaining contact. Researchers, policy makers and practitioners have a clearer understanding of different types of communities if they are systematically and precisely defined; however, few typologies of communities have been published. This is quite surprising given the lack of consensus regarding appropriate definitions, or agreement on categorization. To¨nnies distinguished two types of communities. On the one hand was the simplicity of village life (community or Gemeinschaft); then there were complex social relationships in urban environments (society or Gesellschaft). In To¨nnies’ view, these two kinds of communities had alternative and opposing characteristics. Community is relatively childlike, where interactions are close and frequent among small numbers of familiar residents and members have a common way of life and beliefs. In community, traditions and systems of interactions are relatively stable. In contrast, [urban] society is proposed as mature social relations where interactions are more distant and infrequent among a large number of relatively unknown citizens whose lifestyles and beliefs are different and change constantly. This view has some merit as an analysis of the rapidly changing urban culture of the time. It still offers a useful starting point to study rural and urban populations, but it is less relevant to distinguish among the many and varied types of communities that exist in urban and rural areas. By the middle of the twentieth century, different types of communities were classified according to rituals, density of relationships, and involvement with organized activities particularly in small groups (Brint, 2001). Less tangible cultural elements also categorized different types of communities, particularly common belief systems and the perception of similarities among the population. Hillery (1955) identified elements that characterized communities as geographic area, kinship, self sufficiency or separateness, common lifestyle and type of social interactions (Marshall, 1998: 97–98). Worsley (1987) organized Hillery’s elements into an early typology of three different community types. Locality forms the foundation of the first kind of community. Neighborhoods, villages, and some bounded urban areas can be identified by residents and outsiders as a community, thus they have a ‘‘sense of place’’ (Stedman, 2002). In a second type of community, members share some
common features and have some sense of collective identity. This is sometimes called a ‘‘sense of community’’ (Kim & Kaplan, 2004). The sense of community may be based on an identifiable characteristic such as ethnicity, or a common experience of disadvantage, or to those who belong to a particular profession. The third type of community is established by common feelings, understandings, and sense of belonging among members who establish a ‘‘community spirit’’ (Etzioni, 1993; Rovai, 2002). Members have a sense of connection based on a network of relationships and interactions which may or may not be through physical interactions. The relationships are mostly positive and reciprocal, but not always. For example, this type of community is evident among those who have a strong commitment to a cause. Worsley’s typology extends earlier concepts and the two types of communities proposed by To¨nnies, but it is still very general. Delanty (2008) suggests four ways of conceptualizing community. First, community may be viewed as social connections, identity, and a sense of belonging. A second approach may imply social and spatial disadvantage that requires recognition and a response from government. Third, community may be envisaged as organized political and collective action for change and improvement for an identified group of disadvantaged people. Finally, community may be conceptualized beyond traditional concepts of place, and positions social relationships within imagined ideological or technological environments. Others have proposed typologies of specific types of communities. For instance, Schubert and Borkman (1991) outline a typology based on organizational structures. While this is only intended to apply to self-help groups, it offers some helpful concepts to consider a broader range of types of communities. The two dimensions of this typology (internal power and authority systems and external dependence on resources) result in five types: Unaffiliated, Federated, Affiliated, Hybrid, and Managed. This typology is helpful to understand the different organizational systems, but it relates more to communities of organizations than to other types of communities, for instance, it has limited applicability to virtual communities. Wellman (2002) describes three iterations of modern community. The first is traditional, closely knit communities that Wellman describes as ‘‘Little Boxes.’’ These traditionally place-based communities have tight, dense ties among members, the community is tightly bounded, and regular interactions among residents provide a wide range of social support and companionship (1999: xiii). In essence, these traditional communities are similar to To¨nnies Gemeinschaft. These traditional communities have transformed into ‘‘Glocalized’’ networks in
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which clusters of households are linked both locally and globally. In Wellman’s view, modern community now has become ‘‘Networked Individualism’’ where individual members are sparsely linked without regard to physical space. These contemporary networked communities are loosely bounded, that is, most ties are not within a single locality. Interaction occurs between a minority of members, and communities provide a limited range of social support and companionship to members. Although the interactions among members of contemporary communities are not visible, they are no less important in the contribution they offer to the well-being of individual members. Brint’s (2001) typology is one of the few available to classify distinctly different types of contemporary communities. The foundations of his community typology are (1) physical interactions among members, (2) the frequency and priority placed on interactions among members, and (3) the primary motivation for interaction. Brint’s typology has four levels of variables with alternative options at each level: ● Basis of relationship: geographic or choice ● Reason for interaction: activity or belief ● Location of other members: concentrated or dispersed in space ● Amount of interaction: frequent or infrequent Eight community types emerge from these alternatives: Geographic communities: 1. Small-scale communities of place and neighborhood groups 2. Local friendship networks, primarily activity-based 3. Communes and collectives 4. Local friendship networks, primarily cultural Choice-based communities: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Activity-based elective communities Belief-based elective communities Imagined communities Virtual communities
Brint’s typology attempts to provide a systematic process to organize communities. It assists to understand some of the varieties evident in contemporary communities: however, there are some limitations. This classification system does not explain different types of membership systems. It does not cover many contemporary communities, such as the specialized community of education and learning practice (Barton & Tusting, 2005; Wenger, 1998). Likewise the dark side of community does not fit
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readily into this framework, for instance crime syndicates which have strong, bounded connections that are not necessarily based on friendships, activities, or beliefs. In addition, socially oppressed or excluded communities – such as the homeless or slaves are not easily accommodated into Brint’s typology. The addition of some of these concepts into a new typology would assist to further clarify different types of communities. In essence, the characteristics of the community members and system of interactions differentiate different types of communities. These structural and intangible cultural characteristics are equally applicable to distinguish various types of modern communities, for instance virtual communities; however they are insufficient to classify the many different types of modern virtual communities.
Historical Background The notion of ‘‘community’’ can be traced to Aristotle’s concept of polis. This was the public arena in which debates could occur to refine concepts of higher virtues and other qualities, such as happiness and the common good. During the Enlightenment, vigorous debates and reviews of social systems reemerged. Ferdinand To¨nnies ([1897] 1951) usually is credited with articulating the concept of community as a system of social interactions occurring in an identifiable space. To¨nnies compared and described nineteenth century life, and proposed modern society was in transition from village to urban settings. Since educated people of this time were expected to know English, French, and German, there was considerable interaction and transfer of information between scholars, enabling other early sociologists to extend the notion of community. Karl Marx, Max Weber and Emile Durkheim investigated the social transformation of traditional communities associated with industrialization and urbanization. Durkheim scrutinized modern social relations in organizations such as the church and care institutions. He proposed community as sophisticated and complex interactions with religion as a bonding mechanism that sets norms of behavioral interactions and ties communities together. Weber also examined religion although he is better known for his work describing the internal communities entrenched within large bureaucracies. Marx concentrated on the emergence of capitalism and examined the divisions in society and disruptions to social traditions and relationships during urbanization. The hub of sociology moved to the United States as the two World Wars interrupted academic life in Europe. Many early community researchers in the United States and elsewhere undertook place-based studies, with the
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Chicago School leading the way in urban ecology techniques. Studies such as those by Gans (1962) and Young and Wilmott (1960) provided rich descriptions of community life. These studies painted rich, in-depth understandings of activities, functions, and rhythms of life in villages, small towns and rural communities. Warmth and supportive social connections are described as a core part of small community life, but studies also identified a variety of divisions, conflicts, and social stratification in communities that on the surface appeared cohesive. Later studies commenced during the expansion of sociology in the 1970s examined fringe communities, such as gays, street dwellers and community activists. In general these studies are less concerned with categorizing different types of communities than in describing the functioning and relationships among community members. The nature of community continues to be debated. Contemporary community is shaped by cognitive and symbolic structures that are not necessarily underpinned by interactive spaces or social intimacy. Community may result from imaged or virtual connections as described by Benedict Anderson (Anderson, 1991). Contemporary liberal democratic societies are organized within particular political structures and economic conditions which influence societal arrangements. The qualities of civil society and social organization, meaningful relationships and moral life, communitarianism, liberalism, and economic exchange, are proposed by authors such as Amitai Etzioni, John Rawls, Francis Fukuyama and Robert Putnam. Communities are recognized as not being homogenous in their social or economic arrangements. Rather, communities vary in structures, specific practices and different arrangements of behaviors (Little, 2002). Communities may be havens of citizen commitment to the common good, but they exhibit vices as well as virtues. There is growing recognition that each community is unique and organic, and that fostering and developing systems relevant to each particular situation can be beneficial.
Key Issues Community is not a place or an aggregation of population, but a mode of relating (Calhoun, 1998). Community can be understood as the life people live in dense networks of relationships. Communities institutionalize arrangements for individual actions, and provide measures for conflicts to be resolved (Habermas, 1998). It can be considered as a system for change: structure, problems, development, and action (Sussman, 1978). A community implies a sense of belonging, connection, communication, and interaction. Attachment to a
community confers benefits and improves well being (Brown et al., 2003). Belonging to community is viewed almost as a necessity to have a meaningful life. For example, Kegley (1997) writes about engaging with ‘‘genuine community’’ as a means of improving individual well being by strengthening knowledge, intentionality, and enlightenment. In this sense, community is a substitute for spirituality, a way of engaging in and understanding a greater force for good that offers guidance and personal philosophy for living. In general this is proposed as an individual benefit, however the ‘‘health’’ of different types of communities also varies (Kawachi et al., 1999). Communication is suggested as the core element that binds a community together (Miller, 1992). The process of engaging and building connections within a community is described as ‘‘building community.’’ A sense of community connection can be built among members either accidentally, or via a deliberate and informed process. Systematic and deliberate community building involves thinking, feeling, and doing. Kelly and Sewell (1998) describe this method of community building as using ‘‘head, heart, or hand.’’ Head is a capacity for knowing: a logical, rational, thinking connection based on a judgment of anticipated benefit to the person or others for whom there is a close attachment. Heart is a facility for feeling: enacted with a sense of purpose, commitment, and emotion. Hand is a competence of doing: a service based on various techniques to achieve a result. While these may be combined as pairs of actions, combining as all three is much more powerful and successful to form a strong and stable attachment to a community of choice. The process can be applied to build all types of contemporary communities, even those that may have no physical interactions, or those without a positive goal. Some types of communities function well and have good connections among members. Other types build connections among members aimed not to accomplish social cohesion, but rather have negative antisocial goals and aim to achieve social disruption. Dark types of communities are strongly oppressive or exploitive and result in systematic social exclusion of those who do not conform to an expected behavior or condition. The foundation of exclusionary types of communities may be class, race, or nationality, gender, sexuality, disability, or possessions. Anderson (1991) expands on ‘‘imagined communities’’ formed around nationality that build a sense of purpose, and then may engage in nationalistic endeavors such as invasions or ethnic cleansing. Weiss and Friedman (1995) provide a comprehensive overview of exclusionary community based on gender. Likewise Paoli (2003) describes the mafia crime brotherhood as an exploitive
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community. When oppression is not considered legitimate, however, the oppressed may bond into their own tight knit community to offer mutual support or engage in counter actions. Over time, communities change. The activities, membership, and ways of interacting may alter. Communities may falter and fold, or evolve into new forms. Many lament that community is disappearing in modern, industrialized western societies. For instance, Brock (2008) insists modern communities are fragmented and at odds, with people living in their ‘‘own worlds.’’ The loss of community is tied to a supposed depletion of social capital where fewer citizens now belong to civil society organizations (Putnam, 1995). There is no doubt physical interactions occur less regularly among residents, especially in modern cities: however others are less despondent that community is in decline, but suggest instead that new types of community are emerging. Contemporary communities are qualitatively different from traditional place-based communities. Contemporary communities rely less on regular physical interactions, than on virtual contact that informs the member and fulfills a need for information or interaction. A sense of community may be established among members even when contact is irregular and members never meet. The need for meaningful relationships is now provided by virtual friendship communities rather than from regular interaction with a close knit family. Virtual communities offer members a sense of belonging, communication media, and personal benefits. Members who belong to social network systems, virtual dating and chat communities are as much involved in their communities as residents of traditional neighborhood communities. Virtual communities exist around common interests without members ever needing to meet physically. The common interests are diverse, for instance ham radio operators, world wide book crossing exchange groups, or professional communities of practice connected via the Internet.
Future Directions A gap is apparent between understanding community as a practice of physical and social interactions, and considering community as a political philosophy. Frequently the extent of diversity and pluralism in communities is neglected. There is a clear need to develop a new typology of communities to help organize and understand the variation evident in different kinds of communities. Modern communities are a network of relationships which form around an interest or other aspect members have in common. Each community evolves particular
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conventions of behavior and actions. This concept helps to understand the variation in connections among members of different types of contemporary communities, but offers little to help appreciate the differences that distinguish one type of community from another. Membership of each type of community varies: it may be established by voluntary association, or conferred by existing members. Communities may be established by geography or choice; they may be based on activities, actions, or beliefs. Different kinds of community result in various arrangements of interactions, exchanges, and relationships, and the various kinds of community offer different kinds of contributions to daily life. With so many iterations of community types, an agreed typology would be very useful to assist researchers and practitioners alike to extend understanding of how various types of communities form, function, and fold.
Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Collective Action ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Cyber-Communities ▶ Community Development Organizations ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Etzioni, Amitai ▶ Identity ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Self-Help Groups ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ To¨nnies, Ferdinand ▶ Uncivil Society ▶ Weber, Max
References/Further Readings Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities. London: Verso. Barton, D., & Tusting, K. (Eds.) (2005). Beyond communities of practice: Language power and social context. Learning in doing: social, cognitive and computational perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press. Brint, S. (2001). Gemeinschaft revisited: A critique and reconstruction of the community concept. Sociological Theory, 19(1), 1–23. Brock, P. (2008). Community: The structure of belonging. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler. Brown, B., Perkins, D. D., & Brown, G. (2003). Place attachment in a revitalizing neighborhood: Individual and block levels of analysis. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 23(3), 259–271. Calhoun, C. (1998). Community without propinquity revisited: Communications technology and the transformation of the urban public sphere. Sociological Inquiry, 68(3), 373–397.
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Delanty, G. (2008). Community. Milton Park/Abingdon/Oxon: Routledge. Etzioni, A. (1993). The spirit of community: Rights, responsibilities, and the communitarian agenda. New York: Crown. Gans, H. (1962). The urban villagers: Groups and class in the life of Italian Americans. New York: Free Press. Habermas, J. (1998). The inclusion of the other: Studies in political theory. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hillery, G. A. (1955). Definitions of community: Areas of agreement. Rural Sociology, 20(2), 111–123. Kawachi, I., Kennedy, B. P., & Wilkinson, R. G. (1999). Crime: Social disorganization and relative deprivation. Social Science & Medicine, 48(6), 719–731. Kegley, J. A. K. (1997). Genuine individuals and genuine communities. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press. Kelly, A., & Sewell, S. (1998). With head heart and hand: Dimensions of community building. Bowen Hills, Brisbane: Boolerong Publications. Kim, J., & Kaplan, R. (2004). Physical and psychological factors in sense of community – new urbanist Kentlands and nearby orchard village. Environment and Behavior, 36(3), 313–340. Little, A. (2002). The politics of community: Theory and practice. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Marshall, G. (Ed.) (1998). Oxford dictionary of sociology (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Miller, B. (1992). Collective action and rational choice – place, community, and the limits to individual self-interest. Economic Geography, 68(1), 22–42. Paoli, L. (2003). Mafia brotherhoods: Organized crime, Italian style. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Porter, C. E. (2006). A typology of virtual communities: A multidisciplinary foundation for future research. Journal of ComputerMediated Communication, 10(1), 631–5171. Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78. Rovai, A. P. (2002). Building sense of community at a distance. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 3(1), 1–16. Schubert, M. A., & Borkman, T. J. (1991). An organizational typology for self-help groups. American Journal of Community Psychology, 19(5), 769–787. Scott, W. R. (2001). Institutions and organizations (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Stedman, R. C. (2002). Toward a social psychology of place – predicting behavior from place-based cognitions, attitude, and identity. Environment and Behavior, 34(5), 561–581. Sussman, M. B. (Ed.) (1978). Community structure and analysis. Westport, CT Greenwook Press. Toennies, F. ([1897] 1951). Gemeinschaft und gesellschaft (community and society) (Charles P. Loomis, Trans.). New York: Harper. Weiss, P. A., & Friedman, M. (Eds.) (1995). Feminism and community. Philadephia: Temple University Press. Wellman, B. (1999). Networks in the global village: Life in comtemporary communities. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Wellman, B. (2002). Little boxes, glocalization, and networked individualism. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2362, 337–343. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. New York: Cambridge University Press. Worsley, P. (1987). New introductory sociology. London: Penguin. Young, M., & Wilmott, P. (1960). Family and kinship in East London. London: Harmondsworth.
Compagnia di San Paolo ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization C.so Vittorio Emanuele II, 75 10128 Torino Italy www.compagnia.torino.it
Introduction An Italian banking foundation with approximately 80 staff members, Compagnia di San Paolo is a private, nonprofit organization that promotes research, education, the arts, cultural, and landscape heritage, health, and social assistance. Although it is deeply rooted in Torino and works mainly in the regions of Piedmont and Liguria, in Northwestern Italy, the Compagnia plays a significant role in national, European, and international projects, often in cooperation with other major foundations.
Brief History In 1563, the same year that Torino was established as the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, seven citizens of Torino founded the Compagnia di San Paolo with the dual purpose of offering a support program to the general public, which at that time was afflicted by extreme poverty, and blocking the expansion of the protestant reformation. The brotherhood drew a wide membership from merchants, lawyers, state officials and craftsmen, and soon was able to increase its numbers. By the end of the sixteenth century, the activities of the brotherhood were identified by their social and humanitarian nature. Some of the group’s early activities worked to promote ethical loaning practices, offer a dowry to underprivileged women (sustainable income for that time period), and provide assistance to impoverished nobility. Falling subject to wartime expenditures, the Compagnia was dissolved in 1802 and replaced by publicly appointed boards. However, a significant portion of the new ‘‘beneficence committees’’ was made up of the foundation’s officers, who, with their previous experience, ensured continuity of the foundation’s work. With the Restoration, the Compagnia was entrusted in 1814 with providing health services for the city’s impoverished classes. In 1867, the Compagnia established the Credito Fondiario, a mortgage credit institute.
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After acquiring the assets of the Banca Agricola Italiana in 1931, the Istituto di San Paolo expanded through Piedmont and Liguria. The next year, the Government conferred on the Istituto di San Paolo di Torino the statute of a public-law credit institute, which reflected its commitment to simultaneous credit and charity. Twenty years later, the name was changed to Istituto Bancario San Paolo di Torino. In 1991, in a process involving many other State-controlled savings banks, the ‘‘Amato-Carli’’ bill transformed the bank into a joint-stock company owned by a foundation, and the Compagnia di San Paolo foundation was thus re-created. Subsequently, other bills provided for the new banking foundations to sell their majority control of the banks. By 2000 the Compagnia was a fully fledged, private foundation.
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Accomplishments Among the foundation’s most notable areas of impact is its continuous support of the arts. Major cultural and arts-related projects organized by the foundation include the Exposition of the Holy Shroud in 2010, celebrations of the 150th anniversary of Italian Unity in 2011, as well as continued support of the main museums and cultural centers in Torino.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition ▶ Foundation, Operating ▶ Philanthropy in Europe
References/Further Readings Mission/Objective/Focus Area The work of Compagnia di San Paolo is driven by its mission to support works of public interest and social well-being, particularly in the fields of scientific, economic, and legal research, education, art, and culture, and health; and to provide assistance to, and protection of, less-privileged social groups.
Cavallo, S. (1995). Charity and power in early modern Italy. Benefactors and their motives in Turin, 1541–1789. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gastaldo, P. (2007). Let’s not forget the past – A commentary on Italian philanthropy rediscovered. Effect Magazine, 1(16). MacDonald, N., & Tayart de Borms, L. (Eds.) (2008). Philanthropy in Europe: A rich past, a promising future. London: Alliance Publishing Trust.
Activities Within its programming areas, the Compagnia defines its objectives through multi-annual and annual programs, and it both makes grants to organizations and directs its own programming. The foundation’s work and support falls into six areas: Education, The Arts, Conservation, and enhancement of Cultural Heritage and Actvities and Landscape heritage, Health, Welfare Policy, and Special Projects.
Structure and Governance The Compagnia’s Governing Bodies are the Consiglio Generale, which decides the priorities, programs, and objectives of the foundation, the Chair, the Management Committee, which provides administrative oversight, the Board of Auditors, and the Secretary-General, who is at the head of the Compagnia’s operating organization.
Funding A significant portion of the foundation’s assets is invested in one single stock, Intesa Sanpaolo which was, as of December 28, 2006, was acquired by Banca Intesa SpA. Intesa Sanpaolo provides a range of credit and financial products and services to its customers in Italy and internationally. At the end of 2007, the overall value of the foundation’s financial activities amounted to €9.12 billion.
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Compassion FEISAL A. YUNIS Cairo University, Al-Haram, Giza, Egypt
Introduction Compassion is one of those versatile concepts that have very wide applications in many areas of modern life. In recent years, there has been quite an upsurge of interest in advocacy and study of compassion. In a literature search spanning the period from January 1980 to July 2008, the following data bases were searched: Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, EconLit, EconLit with Full Text, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, Humanities International Index, MasterFILE Premier, MLA Directory of Periodicals, PsycARTICLES, PsycEXTRA, and PsycINFO. A total of 17,198 entries were found covering very wide constellations of issues involving compassion, such as religion, healing, selfcompassion, compassion fatigue, compassion among members of the caring professions, the politics of compassion, and the economics of compassion. Globalization has had a tremendous impact on the limits and practice of compassion. In a globalized world,
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disasters and other forms of human misery are widely popularized and exposed through a mass media that follows events instantaneously. There is no excuse for not providing help and compassion out of ignorance of the misery of those in need any more. Civil society is playing a positive role in promoting compassionate interference in areas of conflicts and disasters. It can be said now that there is a global network of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that makes its business the practice of global compassion. Examples are Doctors Without Borders (Me´decins sans Frontie`res), Save the Children fund, Oxfam, Amnesty International, and the like. All these organizations consider compassion as their main objective, and concentrate efforts on the more practical side of compassion, i.e., providing help and support to those who need it the most, irrespective of who they are where they are.
Definition The compact edition of the Oxford Dictionary defines compassion as ‘‘[s]uffering together with another, participation in suffering, fellow feeling, sympathy.’’ The modern psychological view of compassion is not much different. VandenBos in the American Psychological Association’s (APA) Dictionary of Psychology (2007) defines compassion as ‘‘a strong feeling of sympathy with another person’s feelings of sorrow or distress, usually involving a desire to help or comfort that person’’ (p. 203). In this sense, compassion implies a social interactive process that involves sharing pain and misery at an emotional level, motivated by strong feelings of empathy. It also implies cognitive beliefs about the seriousness of the suffering of fellow humans, and that the suffering does not serve a useful function. Porter (2006) determines the marking features of compassion as ‘‘the graveness of a situation in which persons or groups experience serious pain, anguish, torture, misery, grief, distress, despair, hardship, destitution, adversity, agony, affliction, hardship, and suffering’’ (p. 100). Compassion belongs to a group of concepts, all related to unselfish behavior, notably altruism, empathy, and sympathy. The APA dictionary defines altruism as ‘‘an apparently unselfish concern for others or behavior that provides benefit to others at some cost to the individual’’ (p. 40). It does not necessarily require sharing the suffering or the existence of a jeopardized state, like an illness or a disaster. In the same dictionary, empathy is defined as ‘‘understanding a person from his or her frame of reference rather than one’s own, so that one vicariously experiences the person’s feelings, perceptions and thoughts’’ (p. 327). Like compassion, empathy
involves the sharing of feelings, but it is not restricted, as compassion is, to the partaking of negative feelings. It does not imply, in itself, any desire for action for helping. Sympathy, however, does. One of its meanings mentioned in the dictionary is ‘‘a capacity to share in and respond to the concerns or feelings of others’’ (p. 916). However, in another meaning, it is ‘‘feelings of concern or compassion resulting from an awareness of the suffering or sorrow of another’’ (p. 916). In that sense, it is almost synonymous with what is meant by compassion, and this explains why the two words are frequently used interchangeably. It seems that, while compassion does not require face-toface communication to take place, sympathy does. Compassion is more public, and this is emphasized in the use of the concept in the political and economic sense. Some writers like Hoijer (not dated) reserve the concept of compassion for compassion with the suffering of others in the public sphere, claiming that the other three concepts do not include the same public and political dimensions as the concept of compassion.
Key Issues Religion
The relationship between religion and compassion is not simple. On the one hand, all religions value compassion very highly; Buddhism even put compassion as the ultimate value. On the other hand, the empirical data relating compassion and religion are scarce. A study reported by Brooks (2004) examined this issue. Using the US General Social Survey (GSS) data, he found that religious people are far more likely than secularists to have compassionate feelings. This fact remains true regardless of age, race, education, sex, marital status, and income. Looking at religious teachings one can find that all religions insist on compassion as a central value guiding the behavior of the believers. Buddhism is the one religion most associated with the concept of compassion in recent times. As described by the Dalai Lama (1997), genuine compassion is based on the shared human desire to be happy and to eliminate suffering. Through the recognition of this fundamental equality and commonality, one develops a sense of affinity and closeness, and based on that, one will generate love and genuine compassion. Wisdom complements compassion and determines its intensity and depth. The ultimate compassion, or what the Dalai Lama called the third type, is the nonobjectified compassion, accompanied by insight into the ultimate nature of reality, where one can see the nature of sentient beings, and that insight reinforces one’s compassionate
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attitude toward sentient beings. In the Dalai Lama’s view, compassion is also based on reconciliation and respect for others’ rights and opinions. In Jewish prayers, God is referred to as ‘‘Ha-rachaman’’ (the compassionate one) and as ‘‘Av harachamim’’ (Father of compassion). The heart of Judaism is the principle mentioned in chapter 19 of Leviticus: ‘‘That which is hateful to yourself, do not do unto others.’’ It is the basis of commitment to human responsibility and social justice. The concept of ‘‘tzedakah’’ (charity) in Judaism, as in Islam, extends from common charity to include the more encompassing human responsibility. Charity is an obligation rather than a choice. The highest level of charity, according to the great Jewish scholar Moses Maimonides, is to strengthen the hand of the poor to help them become independent. Compassion is the core value emphasized in Christianity. In his life, as described in the New Testament, Jesus felt compassion for all those in jeopardized situations. Compassion in Christianity is not just restricted to feelings, but rather extends to actions: to heel and to save. Jesus restored sight to the blind, created bread for the hungry, and raised the dead. In Islam, compassion is mentioned from the outset of the very first pages. In fact, whenever one starts reading the introductory ‘‘basmalah’’ or invocation of every Quranic ‘‘Soura’’ (chapter), one finds the name of God intertwined with that of the ‘‘Compassionate.’’ As Abdul Gayoom (2002) stated, the foundations of sharia (Islamic Law) are based on compassion and mercy. No soul is asked to bear more than it possibly could. In everything that the Almighty had commanded, whether it involved an obligation toward Him or toward others, the convenience of the people and their needs and welfare was taken into consideration. In social dealings, the rights of neighbors, relatives, parents, and wives are based on compassion, and extend even beyond humanity to other creatures of God. Like Judaism, the duty (Farida) of ‘‘Zakat’’ is more than just mere charity. It is an obligation to be compassionate in the most positive sense. Compassionate Care
Lately, there has been a surge of interest in what is called ‘‘optimal healing environment’’ (OHE). This is a new medical paradigm, which promotes the idea that optimal medical care should balance the need for rigorous scientific principles, evidence based treatments, and rationality with the need for kindness, love, and compassion. Compassion has always occupied a central place in nursing care. In fact, many professionals consider compassion as the ‘‘heart of nursing’’ and nursing’s most
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precious asset. Looking into how nurses conceptualize compassion, Hudacek (2008) found nurses report that compassion is to go beyond hands-on skills and techniques to alleviate suffering and pain through empathic concern and to be emotionally and physically present. However, some writers like Schantz (2007) see the meaning of the concept, as it applies to nursing, as neither clearly defined nor widely stressed in contemporary everyday nursing practice. Schantz notices that the concept of compassion as related to nurses changes over times and contexts and she reviews the changes from compassion to empathy and caring. It is, in her opinion, even devalued with the increased reliance in technology and the changes in nursing education. But the hard core of nurses and nursing professionals still believe that compassion is the ultimate value in nursing. In 2008 Hudacek published the findings of a study that aimed at identifying the dimensions of care in nursing practice. Participants were 200 nurses from different countries. Participants were asked to describe one caring practice that made a difference in her/his life and in the life process of a patient she/he has cared for in the past. The study was designed to help the nurse to reflect on the meaning of care. The stories were analyzed and seven dimensions of caring that define professional nursing practice were found: caring, compassion, spirituality, community outreach, providing comfort, crisis intervention, and going the extra distance. All of the nurses in the study, irrespective of where they live in the world, reported compassionate caring. Carl Rogers (1961) was the therapist who contributed most to transferring psychotherapy from a patientcentered endeavor to the care for the human person. Starting from an existential and humanistic standpoint, he emphasized empathy, congruence, and unconditional positive regard as the necessary and sufficient conditions for successful psychotherapeutic encounters. In some more progressive forms of psychotherapy like Family Systems Therapy and Transactional Analysis, compassion becomes the core of therapy. As Hutnik (2005) describes: ‘‘[P]sychotherapy is the compassionate caring for the mental well-being of another person’’ (p. 399). With more patients suffering from more or less existential problems and long-term difficulties in adaptation, techniquebased psychotherapeutic methods are not very effective. What the patient needs is compassionate understanding and supportive presence in his/her life. A developing trend in psychotherapy focuses on linking Buddhism and Buddhist values, mainly compassion and mindfulness, with modern psychotherapeutic theory and technique. A book edited by Gilbert (2005) concentrates on
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enriching cognitive behavior therapy, the more popular psychotherapeutic technique of today, with compassion, as manifested in Buddhist teachings, as well as in psychological theories of attachment and prosocial behavior. While the central concern of religion is compassion toward ‘‘all sentient beings,’’ psychotherapy is mainly about helping the person to be compassionate toward ‘‘Self.’’ Gilbert (2005) believes that depressive patients are self-punitive and lack the capacity for self-soothing. If it is possible to train them to be kind to themselves, recovery will be more complete. Compassion Fatigue
It has been well documented that professionals involved in the care of trauma victims, people with mental or physical health conditions, severely handicapped persons, or any other individuals in jeopardized conditions are at a greater risk of developing emotional and physical symptoms. Figley (1995) labeled these symptoms as ‘‘compassion fatigue.’’ The work on compassion fatigue is an extension of the work on trauma victims. Traumatic experiences usually result in emotional and mental symptoms. These were first labeled as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the third version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-III) of the American Psychiatric Association (1980). Figley draws attention to the fact that the suffering from PTSD is not restricted to those who have first-hand experience of trauma, but extends to others who are in close contact with them. He labels this empathic suffering from the experience of others ‘‘Secondary Traumatic Stress Disorder (STSD),’’ which he defines as ‘‘the natural consequent behaviors and emotions resulting from knowing about a traumatizing event experienced by a significant other – the stress resulting from helping or wanting to help a traumatized or suffering person’’ (p. 7). He coins the term ‘‘compassion fatigue’’ to refer to this syndrome. The symptoms of compassion fatigue are similar to those of PTSD, except that the patient does not experience the traumatic event. They cover recollections of events, dreams, reliving the experience, avoidance, or numbing of reminders of events, and different signs of persistent arousal, as well as changes in the patient’s relationships to himself/herself, family, friends, and community. Self-compassion
The first account in the psychological literature of selfcompassion was that presented by Kristen Neff (2003a) as an alternative to self-esteem in explaining psychological health. Like compassion, self-compassion ‘‘involves being touched by and open to one’s own suffering, not avoiding or disconnecting from it, generating the desire to
alleviate one’s suffering and to heal oneself with kindness. Self-compassion [as described by Neff] also involves offering nonjudgmental understanding to one’s pain, inadequacies, and failures, so that one’s experience is seen as part of the larger human experience’’ (p. 87). According to Neff, self-compassion entails three basic components: (a) self-kindness, i.e., being kind to oneself and not being self-critical; (b) common humanity, the person perceives his/her experience as a part of the wider human experience, making him/her more connected and less isolated; and (c) mindfulness, the balanced awareness of one’s thoughts and feelings and not overidentifying with them. Neff argues that self-compassion is not related to selfishness and being self-centered because it is part of being compassionate to others; it is, in a way, ‘‘part of the human condition, and that all people – oneself included – are worthy of compassion’’ (p. 223). Neff (2003b) developed a scale to measure selfcompassion. Factor analysis resulted in six dimensions of the concept: self-kindness, self-judgment, common humanity, isolation, mindfulness, and overidentification. Inter-factor correlations were all highly significant and second-order factoring resulted in a general robust factor of self-compassion. In another study by Neff, Rude, and Kirkpatrick (2007) positive correlations were found between selfcompassion and a number of positive mental health variables: happiness, optimism, positive affect, wisdom, personal initiative, curiosity and exploration, agreeableness, and conscientiousness. Furthermore, it correlated negatively with negative affect and neuroticism.
International Perspectives The Politics of Compassion
According to Sznaider (1998), public compassion has two dimensions. The first relates to democratization processes in which equality is central. The second relates to the market society where exchange of goods and services unintentionally extends the moral concern for strangers. Compassion became more prominent in politics after the fall of the Soviet Union and the introduction, by former president George Bush, of the concept ‘‘new world order,’’ where international action is no longer guided by ideological differences between capitalism and communism. Ho¨ijer (2003) states that there is an increased political willingness to interfere in political conflicts, crossing national sovereignty when there is an assumed risk of human rights violations or victimization of civilian population. Ignatieff (1998) describes two models characterizing the present situation: the new nationalism with ethnic
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claims and conflicts, and a moral universalism that is based on human rights. Politicians are no longer motivating international intervention in the rhetoric of political ideologies or power interests, but in the rhetoric of human rights and global compassion. Territorial and economic claims may be in the hidden agenda, but are not mentioned. Wars against Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, and so on are waged for their crimes against civilian populations and persecutions of minorities. This is supported by extensive media coverage of distant suffering that has become part of ordinary citizens’ perceptions of conflicts and crises in the world. Nongovernmental organizations that work solely in conflict areas and interfere across borders out of compassion are mushrooming. Business is exercising ‘‘corporate compassion’’ through humanitarian sponsoring by giving money and other resources to social and humanitarian aid. This, as Ho¨ijer (2003) points out, may be discussed as a cynical exploitation of human suffering, or an expression of true compassion. Smith (2004) dismissed the motives for aid offered to poor African countries by the US government under the slogans of compassionate conservatism as a policy to guarantee oil supplies from this resources-rich continent. There is a small body of research concerning compassion and political attitudes. A study by Brooks (2004) shows that conservatives have slightly more compassionate attitudes than liberals. For example, they are three percentage points more likely to say they have tender, concerned feelings for the less fortunate than liberals. Religious practice interacts with political attitudes. In expressed compassion, secular liberals are less compassionate than religious conservatives. What is more striking is the fact that religious liberals are 24 points more likely to feel compassionate toward the less fortunate than the secular conservatives.
Future Direction There are other areas of compassion not covered in this brief article that are expected to assume high level of importance in the future. Compassion in economics, in organizations, with animals, and education for compassion, are all but a few examples. From what has been seen so far, it seems that one is faced with an extremely illusive, complex, and multifaceted concept. To develop a coherent theory of compassion, research into its psychosocial correlates is in order. Work on personality characteristics conducive of compassion, on the relationships between compassion and other prosocial behaviors, and socialization for compassion is needed. This work will need more effort in designing measures to tap different behaviors described as compassion. The genesis of
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compassionate behavior must lie in the brain circuitry and early learning experiences. These need to be researched and elucidated. In real life, globalization is expected to continue to make compassion a legitimate justification for cross-boundary interference. As the process of universal compassion is taking hold of international politics, there is a need to base compassion on universal, secular, and humanitarian values, rather than specific religious experiences.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Amnesty International ▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Dalai Lama ▶ Me´decins Sans Frontie`res ▶ Oxfam ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Save the Children ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Abdul Gayoom, M. (2002). Islam: A religion of justice, tolerance and compassion. Paper Presented to the Conference, ‘‘This is Islam.’’ The Academy of Islamic Research of the Al-Azhar University, Cairo, Egypt. Brooks, A. C. (2004). Compassion, religion, and politics, from http:// findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0377/is_157/ai_n6237450/print?tag = artBody;col1 (visited: July 14, 2008) Dalai Lama (1997). Healing anger: The power of patience from a Buddhist perspective. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications. Figley, C. R. (Ed.) (1995). Compassion fatigue: Coping with secondary traumatic stress disorder in those who treat the traumatized. New York: Brunner/Mazel. Gilbert, P. (2005). Compassion: Conceptualizations, research and use in psychotherapy. Hove, East Sussex: Routledge. Ho¨ijer, B. (2003). The discourse of global compassion and the media. Nordicom Review, 24(2), 19–29, Also from http://www.nordicom.gu. se/common/publ_pdf/32_019-030.pdf (visited July 12. 2008) Hudacek, S. S. (2008). Dimensions of caring: A qualitative analysis of nurses’ stories. Journal of Nursing Education, 47, 124–129. Hutnik, N. (2005). Toward holistic, compassionate, professional care: Using a cultural lense to examine the practice of contemporary psychotherapy in the west. Contemporary Family Therapy, 27, 383–402. Ignatieff, M. (1998). The warrior’s honor. Ethnic war and the modern conscience. New York: Henry Holt (cited by Hoijer, not dated). Neff, K. (2003a). Self-compassion: An alternative conceptualization of a healthy attitude toward oneself. Self & Identity, 2, 85–101. Neff, K. D. (2003b). The development and validation of a scale to measure Self-compassion. Self & Identity, 2, 223–250. Neff, K. D., Rude, S. S., & Kirkpatrick, K. L. (2007). An examination of self-compassion in relation to positive psychological functioning and personality traits. Journal of Research in Personality, 41, 908–916.
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Porter, E. (2006). Can politics practice compassion? Hypatia, 21, 97–123. Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person. Boston, MA: HoughtonMifflin. Ruiz, P. O., & Mi’nguez, R. N. (2001). Global inequality and the need for compassion: issues in moral and political education. Journal of Moral Education, 30, 155–172. Schantz, M. L. (2007). Compassion: A concept analysis. Nursing Forum, 42, 48–55. Smith, C. (2004). Old wine in new barrels. Index of Censorship, 1, 60–65. Sznaider, N. (1998). The sociology of compassion: A study in the sociology of morals. Cultural Values, 2, 117–139. VandenBos, G. R. (2007). APA dictionary of psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Comte, Auguste STEVE VAN ECK
Basic Biographical Information Auguste Comte was born Isidore Marie Auguste Franc¸ois Xavier Comte to a Catholic family in Montpellier, France, on the 17th of January in 1798. He is famous for contributing the notion of positivism, among other theories, and coining the term ‘‘sociologie,’’ prior to his death on the 5th of September in 1857. As a boy, Comte attended the Lyce´e Joffre academy before pursuing academic studies at the University of Montpellier and the Ecole Polytechnique, in Paris. In 1816, while at the engineering and sciences academy, the Ecole Polytechnique, Auguste Comte led a protest of students against the manners of one of the tutors and was expelled. Upon his expulsion, Comte found himself befriending some of the leading intellectuals of France – the ideologues – as they were then called, including Marie Antoine Condorcet, whom Comte would later call ‘‘my immediate predecessor.’’ In that period he steeped himself in the works of Adam Smith, Jean-Baptise-Say, and David Hume, and began working on a model of a future society, inspired by his time at the Ecole Polytechnique, where a new elite of scientists and engineers governed the masses. He met Comte de Saint-Simon, and became his secretary and student. Comte de Saint-Simon brought Comte into the intellectual limelight of early nineteenth century France, in which Comte developed his theories of positivism. In those arguments he was among the first to introduce the term ‘‘sociologie’’ and ‘‘altruism.’’ He introduced the term ‘‘altruism’’ in these arguments to describe a definitive formula of human morality in which people have a moral obligation to their instincts of benevolence.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Comte sought in his philosophy to outline a science of human behavior, what Saint-Simon called a ‘‘social physiology.’’ Comte termed this science ‘‘sociologie’’ and insisted that like other sciences, it have its own methods. He also argued the development of these scientific methods for understanding social behavior would develop as other scientific methods had, that the methods of sociology would develop in alignment with the progress of the human mind, a notion that Comte shares with Condorcet. Between 1830 and 1842 he developed and published his six volume ‘‘Course of Positive Philosophy,’’ which expands on the development of new scientific methods for sociology, and introduced the Law of Three Stages, which includes the notion of Positivism, his most outstanding contribution to the field of civil society. The argument of the law of three stages holds that each science proceeds through three successive stages: the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific (or, positive). Comte instructed that progression from one stage to the next is both inevitable and irreversible; yet perfect positive knowledge is never achieved. In his work, Comte longed for a period when civilized nations would realize their development towards a society on a scientific understanding of human’s innate altruistic nature, and a society where altruistic systems prevailed over egotistical and materialist ones.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Hume, David ▶ Civil Society Theory: Smith ▶ Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy
References/Further Readings Marvin, F. S. (1965). Comte, the founder of sociology. New York: Russell & Russell. Wilson, M. V. (1924). The social-political philosophy of Auguste Comte.
Consumers International FLORIAN REHLI
Address of Organization 24 Highbury Crescent London N5 1RX UK www.consumersinternational.org
Contracts and Contract Regimes
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funding, such as for example funding through the European Union Commission. CI’s annual turnover is approximately US$5,500,000.
Consumers International (CI) is the world federation of consumer groups. This international nongovernmental organization (INGO) has more than 220 member organizations in some 115 countries.
Accomplishments
Brief History
In 1985, the United Nations’ General Assembly adopted the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection, following a long advocacy campaign by Consumers International.
The organization was founded in 1960 as the International Organization of Consumers Unions (IOCU) by national consumer organizations in order to globalize and strengthen the defense of consumer rights. It shortened its name to Consumers International in 1995. In 2006, CI went through a fundamental internal reform process and has reviewed its organizational design and strategy.
Mission CI is a powerful international movement to protect and empower consumers worldwide, fighting for the satisfaction of basic consumer rights. In particular, CI strives to generate access to safe and sustainable goods and services for customers worldwide.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ IANGO ▶ INGOs
References/Further Readings CI. (2007). Summarised financial statements and annual report 31 December 2006. London: Consumers International, from http:// www.consumersinternational.org/shared_asp_files/GFSR.asp?NodeID= 97163, 5/12/2008. Hilton, M. (2008). Prosperity for all. Consumer activism in an era of globalization. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Sim, F. G. (1991). IOCU on record: A documentary history of the international organisation of consumers unions, 1960–1990. New York: Consumers Union.
Activities To pursue its mission, CI is campaigning for the rights of consumers across the world. On the national level, CI works with national member organizations to influence governments and to raise grass roots support. Internationally, CI cooperates with global institutions such as the World Health Organization and acts as a global watchdog on the behavior of international corporations. Through publications and press work, CI tries to raise awareness about purchasing choices of consumers. To these ends, CI also organizes the World Consumer Rights Day and assigns, since 2007, the so called Bad Company Award.
Structure and Governance CI globalized its structures relatively early and maintains regional offices in Santiago de Chile, Kuala Lumpur, Harare, and London at present. CI is governed by a Council of 20 representatives of full member organizations elected from the organization’s membership. The Council appoints an eight member Executive to which some responsibilities are delegated. The staff is lead by a Director General. CI is a founding signatory to the International Organizations’ Accountability Charter.
Funding A large part of CI’s income is generated by membership fees. The rest is financed through public and private
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Contracts and Contract Regimes STEVEN RATHGEB SMITH University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Introduction Government contracting with private nonprofit service agencies has emerged as a central government strategy to address urgent social problems in many countries. Indeed, government’s primary response to a wide variety of social problems including emergency relief, AIDS, community living for the developmentally disabled and chronic mentally ill, job training for the disadvantaged, and foster care, has relied heavily upon government contracting. This reliance on contracting has in turn profoundly affected government policy, the governance of nonprofit agencies receiving contracts, and the relationship of citizens to government and nonprofit agencies. Over time, contracting also affects the politics of social and health services and encourages government to restructure its relationship to contract agencies and their clients. This chapter examines the growth of government contracting with nonprofit agencies with a particular focus on
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the impact on agencies, clients, and the politics of human services. The basic argument of this article is that contracting over time changes the internal management and the political behavior of human service agencies. In recent years, contracting has also promoted greater competition in human services, leading to further organizational changes and responses as nonprofit agencies strive to compete for clients and contract dollars in an increasingly crowded field of organizations providing services.
Definition Contracting with nonprofit organizations has unique characteristics that distinguish it from other types of contracting (such as contracting for garbage collection or water). First, many nonprofit agencies provide complex services – such as residential care for the chronic mentally ill or foster care – with uncertain, contested outcomes. Second, many nonprofit programs such as home care, counseling, hospice care, and workforce development are very labor intensive; thus it can be difficult to achieve productivity gains and/or significantly reduce costs over time. Third, the clients of nonprofit agencies may be unable or unwilling to exercise their own voice to register complaints with services, although increasingly client input and feedback is sought. Fourth, many nonprofit agencies with government contracts, especially newer community-based agencies are undercapitalized, particularly compared to for-profit firms. Undercapitalization, in turn, can create serious problems for agency cash flow, infrastructure development, political influence, and longterm sustainability. Fifth, government contracting with nonprofit agencies often exists in a market environment where little genuine competition exists. A major reason is that many communities simply lack a sufficient number of service organizations to create effective competition. However, many nonprofit service agencies are quite specialized, so even in regions with many agencies, significant competition may not exist. These characteristics of contracting with nonprofit service agencies create complicated principal-agent problems which affect the relationship between government and nonprofit agencies. In this framework, which originated in economics, a principal (e.g., government) employs an agent (e.g., a nonprofit agencies) to deliver a service (see Alchian & Demsetz, 1972; Pratt & Zeckhauser, 1985; Donahue, 1989; Van Slyke, 2007). This principalagent perspective usefully calls attention to the problem of ‘‘information asymmetry’’ in a contracting relationship. Government as the principal has an incentive to monitor the performance of their agents – nonprofit agencies. However, monitoring is difficult because agencies have
an incentive to portray their organizations positively to government. The resolution of this information asymmetry can be quite costly, especially since the program outcomes are often uncertain, long-term, and contested. The principal-agent framework suggests an approach to the understanding of contracting with nonprofit agencies that is based upon a hierarchical model whereupon a powerful principal employs an agent to achieve specific purposes. This situation in turn creates potential goal conflicts between the principal and the agent on questions on programmatic, financial, and informational issues. The vision of a hierarchical model was at least in part at the root of the initial resistance of many nonprofit agencies to government contracts in the USA in the 1960s and 1970s (see Coughlin, 1965; Perlmutter, 1969). Many agencies especially sectarian agencies were concerned that government contracts would compromise their autonomy and independence, especially since many agencies regarded their mission as distinctly private and quite separate from government. A related concern was voiced that government accountability demands and accompanying regulations would be onerous and unreasonable, thus diverting resources and staff and volunteer resources from providing quality programs (Hartogs & Weber, 1978). Also, some scholars and agency staff worried that government contracts would lead to professionalism and higher costs, undermining the voluntaristic component of nonprofit social and health agencies (Hartogs & Weber, 1978; Meyer, 1983; Glazer, 1988). One alternative to the hierarchical model was articulated by Kramer (1982, 1987) who suggested that government and nonprofit service agencies were ‘‘mutually dependent’’ upon each other: government needed the agencies to provide services and the nonprofit agencies relied upon government contracts for the resources to provide services. The basic conclusion was the government faced constraints on its ability to impose inappropriate regulations or requirements on nonprofit agencies. And the agencies for their part needed government funding so they faced incentives to cooperate with government and not subvert government priorities or intentions. Overall, Kramer suggested that concerns about agency autonomy were overblown, especially since monitoring and regulation was often weak and lax (also, Salamon, 1987; Hartogs & Weber, 1978; Perlmutter, 1969). Lester M. Salamon’s partnership model of government–nonprofit relations is consistent with this approach articulated by Kramer (Salmon, 1987). In practice, though, the actual effects of government contracting with private nonprofit agencies are more complex. Fundamentally, government and nonprofit agencies
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have important differences in organizational norms. James Q. Wilson (1967) observed that organizations are guided by five critical imperatives: equity, efficiency, responsiveness, fiscal integrity, and accountability. But nonprofit agencies and government weigh these criteria differently. Nonprofit agencies are typically created by ‘‘communities’’ of people interested in a particular problem or cause such as community development, homelessness, or juvenile delinquency. Thus, the volunteers and staff of the nonprofit view the first priority as being responsive to this community (Smith & Lipsky, 1993). A community mental health center may regard its primary responsibility as serving people with mental health problems in a defined geographic area. Or a halfway house for youth may regard its primary constituency as at-risk youth who have not been involved in serious criminal activity. The primacy placed on responsiveness can lead to conflict with government because government places greater emphasis on equity as a guiding norm. Government officials face the challenge of justifying their allocation decisions given that the demand for government funding and services inevitably exceeds demand. Consequently, government officials are pressured to develop equitable and fair standards to guide their allocation decisions. These standards are especially evident in social and health services where government has increasingly strict standards of eligibility. For instance, government funded welfare-to-work programs require that the contract agency only serve clients who are eligible under the new TANF guidelines. Medicaid-funded programs for the mentally ill have very strict eligibility requirements on who is eligible to be served as well as very specific expectations on reimbursable services. The differences in guiding norms between government and nonprofit organizations create two vexing dilemmas for the contracting relationship. First, nonprofits tend to be more accepting of client difficulties and situations. And, they are more likely to be interested in serving a client rather than evaluating the specific effectiveness of the service. By contrast, government cannot be so accepting and increasingly is focused on outcomes and extensive eligibility documentation. Second, nonprofits – due to their emphasis on responsiveness to a specific community of interest – may reject clients who are regarded as incompatible with their mission. For example, faith-based nonprofits might reject individuals who do not embrace their particular faith. Or nonprofits might reject clients with chronic mental illness because the nonprofits regard its mission as serving people with less serious mental disorders. In both types of dilemmas, government and nonprofits may clash over the appropriate boundary between government and
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nonprofit responsibility, especially if government is providing most of the funding for the nonprofit program. Over time, the government-nonprofit contracting relationship can be regarded as a ‘‘contracting regime’’ whereupon government and nonprofit agencies develop a common set of assumption to guide their relationships. The regime concept – which was originally applied in the field of international relations – suggests that two parties are mutually dependent upon each other so that each party cannot easily exit the relationship. However, an equally important aspect of regimes is that one party is typically much more powerful than the other. In the case of contracting regimes, government tends to be the more powerful partner and is in a position to dictate programmatic and financial expectations even in the face of opposition from their contract agencies (Smith & Lipsky, 1993; Considine, 2003; Considine & Lewis, 2003). For example, government child welfare department and several nonprofit child welfare agencies may develop specific norms about acceptable practice, referral policies, and reimbursement rates. These norms then guide the behavior and strategic management of the government departments and the nonprofit service providers. In this relationship, government is able to drive the evolution of these norms given their resources and political influence and the relative absence of alternative funding sources for nonprofit services. Contracting regimes also tend to operate based upon trust among the two parties, despite this power imbalance. Contracts are often relational and long-term even in instances where competitive bidding is required (Smith & Smyth, 1996). This ‘‘relational contracting’’ does not preclude differences of opinion or outright conflict but it does underscore the stability of many contracting arrangements and the importance of cooperation among the two parties (Deakin & Michie, 1997; Ring & Van de Ven, 1992; Van Slyke, 2007). But this cooperation occurs within a framework established by the more powerful partner. For instance, nonprofit organizations may cooperate with government on a contract for community care for the chronic mentally ill; but the standards of care, financial regulations, and outcome measures are still set largely by government. Put another way, a nonprofit agency, by its decision to contract, indicates a willingness to cooperate with government on the implementation of a government program. Consequently, relational contracting does not capture the substantive character of typical contracting relationships since relational implies equity in decision making and power which tends to be atypical in contracting between government and nonprofits.
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Key Issues Government contracting has profound effects on the management of nonprofit agencies, especially by shifting the agency to a more professionalized, corporate style management. This model has several key features: larger, more professionalized boards of directors; a risk management approach to financial and programmatic decisions; an emphasis on a lean management infrastructure; and a flexible workforce. To an extent, this corporate management style reflects the growth of many nonprofit organizations from small community based organizations to large multiservice agencies; the resultant programmatic complexity, regardless of the revenue source, drives a change in management style and approach. However, government contracting policies in many countries including performance based contracting have promoted this shift. From the perspective of nonprofit agency, contracting occurs in a very uncertain environment that is fraught with frequent delays in payments, cash flow challenges, low payment rates, and an increasingly competitive funding environment. Not surprisingly, agencies respond with changes in their approach to organizational management in order to sustain their agencies in this turbulent environment. The extent of this shift varies depending upon the contracting regime and the characteristics of the nonprofit organization. Smaller agencies with a singular focus may choose to remain less corporate in their approach. Other agencies may want to professionalize their boards but lack to connections and resources to attract a different mix of board members. This more corporate style of management is also evident in changes in the staff composition in many nonprofit contract agencies. In the USA, the hallmark of nonprofit service agencies for many years was full-time employment, often with substantial benefits. This staff pattern was especially characteristic of the larger agencies and was supported by the initial wave of contract funding. But over time, agencies adapted their employment patterns as an adaptation to the more competitive contracting environment by relying to a greater extent on part-time employees or contract employees who work on an ‘‘as needed’’ basis. Typically these workers do not have the same salary and benefit package as full-time employees. This shift to a more professionalized management style may have potentially very important implications for clients. As noted, nonprofit organizations emerge to serve a particular community such as a geographic area or a group of individuals with similar concerns or problems (such as the developmentally disabled). This focus tends to encourage nonprofit agencies to be responsive to the
presenting problems of these individuals even if means serving these individuals at substantial expense. Government contracting makes it much more difficult to sustain this focus on responsiveness to client interests due to government regulations and reimbursement policies. For example, many government contracts are structured as performance contracts so an agency will only get paid when they meet certain performance targets. Further, they will only get paid a specific amount regardless of the amount of resources employed by the agency. Performance contracting in competitive environments may also offer incentives to ‘‘cream’’ the clients who have the greatest possibility of successful outcomes. For example, performance based job training contracts may encourage nonprofit service providers to work with clients who can succeed, especially since an agency will not be reimbursed unless clients are successful. In a competitive contract culture, agencies want a positive reputation in order to obtain new contracts or retain existing contracts. This incentive can promote the creaming of clients, even if it is counter to the overall objectives of the contract (see Considine, 2003). The government-nonprofit agency relationship may be different if the contract is short-term. In particular, some government contracts to nonprofit social welfare agencies are awards for program innovation with no expectation of a continuing contract. However, even in these circumstances, government increasingly requires extensive documentation of program services and finances. Also, the competition for contract funds means that even if a contract is short-term, the agency may hope to replace a contract with another contract. Nonprofit organizations may try to overcome some of the limitations imposed by government contracts by using private funds to cross-subsidize the cost of service (Smith & Lipsky, 1993; Gronbjerg, 1993). Or workers may essentially volunteer their own time to help particular clients in ways that go beyond the expectations of the government contracts. Yet, the more recent shift in government contracting in many countries including the increased importance of performance contracting, restricts the management discretion of agencies. Low vendor rates and greater competition push agencies to be more bottom-line oriented and reduce the ‘‘slack’’ in agency operations. Thus, nonprofit staff are likely to interact with clients differently and focus even more directly on the specific expectations of the government funder and less likely or capable of providing services tailored to individual needs and concerns; the service, in other words, becomes more standardized. Somewhat unexpectedly though, this change in management due to contracting may encourage more
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community connections by nonprofit agencies. Many nonprofit agencies, especially organizations founded in the last 20 years, were started by individuals who were very passionate about addressing a specific problem such as substance abuse, low-income housing, or mental health. The boards of these agencies tended to be small and government contracts tended to make these boards passive in terms of their governance responsibilities since many board members were not familiar with the intricacies of government contracts and joined the board for their passion for the agency’s programs rather than their funding expertise and connections. Further, since funding was initially adequate to support operations, agency boards had little incentive to seek broad-based community support. But the new pressure to be efficient and compete encourages nonprofit service organizations to restructure their board and their community relations in order to improve their competitive position for government contracts, and raise private donative or earned income to supplement their contracts since contracts frequently do not cover the full cost of service. Thus, government expectations for effective practice directly affect nonprofit management. Government contract administrators place great priority on principles of sound management: good financial management (including annual audits); attention to outcome evaluation including the use of current program evaluation models such as logic models; up-to-date tracking of clients and services; and a good reputation in the local community. In order to meet government expectations on these important priorities, human service agencies need to invest in expertise in financial management, program evaluation, and information technology. This investment in capacity and infrastructure in turns tends to promote greater professionalization of the agency. Overall, then, the impact of contracting is consistent with the predictions of institutional theorists including Powell and DiMaggio (1991) who suggested that organizations in a particular field (such as child welfare) are subject to powerful isomorphic tendencies that push organizations to become more similar. Nonprofit agencies in the same field may adopt similar internal practices in order to compete effectively for government contracts. Indeed, they are in many cases required by the stipulations of the contract to abide by specific financial and programmatic regulations (Considine, 2003). Isomorphic tendencies fit with contracting regimes whereupon government and nonprofit agencies develop norms and practices that guide their behavior. Shared professional standards are often part of this contracting regime. However, organizations with certain cultures or histories may
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resist these isomorphic tendencies, especially if government contracts are relatively small part of their overall revenue or if they provide low-intensity or low priority services where government regulations are less intrusive and extensive. Another trend affecting nonprofit organizational development is a form of ‘‘co-production’’ whereupon two or more nonprofit service providers agree to jointly provide a service (usually a social or health service) with public contract funds. For example, government might award a contract to a community nonprofit agency to help at-risk youth. But the nonprofit would jointly produce this program through a collaboration with the local school district to provide the program on school property after regular school hours. Many new low-income housing projects are joint efforts of a nonprofit housing developer and a social service agency which provides supportive services to the poor, disabled, and/or elderly clients who reside in the housing projects. This type of co-production reflects the keen interest of public and private funders in collaboration and services integration, especially given the growth of nonprofit service agencies in many countries. Co-production can realize important efficiencies but it complicates governance and accountability. It is also difficult to successfully achieve if the various parties to the collaboration do not have a high level of trust. Prior to extensive contracting, nonprofit agencies tended to focus on their own private set of concerns that were regarded as quite separate from government. Government regulation of nonprofit agencies tended to be quite minimal with few regulatory standards even in highly sensitive services such as child protective services. With scant government regulations and funding, nonprofit service providers possessed little incentive to actively lobby government (especially since government was unlikely to respond with any substantial changes in policy). Contracting though profoundly changed the incentives faced by nonprofit agencies regarding political activity and their interest in influencing government policy. The availability of contract dollars meant that nonprofit organizations could obtain funds for their programs. And, nonprofit agencies receiving government contracts are directly affected by government policy regarding contract rates, regulations, and programmatic standards, referral policies, and the overall government budgetary climate. Nonetheless, nonprofit agencies can face significant obstacles to political activity. Many nonprofit agencies are quite small and lack the staff resources to actively participate in the political process. The boards of directors of nonprofit
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service organizations tend to be attracted to board service due to their commitment to the agency’s mission and services such as child welfare or homelessness; consequently, most board members possess little experience with government policy. The board and staff of the agency may be concerned that political activity might jeopardize their relationship with government and affect their existing or future contracts (Berry, 2003; Bass et al., 2007). Indeed, government has many sometimes subtle ways to alter contract terms and expectations even if the full amount of the contract remains in force. For instance, government may slow the level of referrals, creating financial and programmatic problems for the agency. Or government can refuse or ignore requests for more funding. Government can award new contracts to other agencies. And government can order an audit of an agency’s books, requiring extensive agency staff time and resources (Smith & Lipsky, 1993; Berry, 2003; Bass et al., 2007). In short, nonprofit agencies face sometimes contradictory pressures regarding political activity (Chaves et al., 2004). Agencies may cope with these pressures by increasing their political activity in some areas especially collective activity, while remaining very cautious or selective in their individual agency activity. Regarding collective activity, nonprofit organizations may band together to create coalitions and associations of service providers to lobby government and advocate for key agency priorities. These coalitions can be formally incorporated tax-exempt organizations with paid staff or more loosely organized associations with no formal legal status. In general, these coalitions and associations focus on the funding and regulatory of interest to their members. Associations might lobby the legislature or advocate before government contract administrators for more funding or favorable regulations. Association staff or board members might undertake their lobbying directly or rely upon their member agencies to contact government officials.
Future Directions Government contracting with human service agencies is in the midst of an important transition phase that is likely to continue, although local forces and circumstances will certainly affect the character and pace of this transition. First, human service agencies will continue to grapple with the twin pressures for more collaboration with other agencies while at the same time coping with a more competitive contracting environment. Collaboration will be encouraged by pressure to reduce costs, the need to be more influential politically, and the continuing demands by public and private funders for agencies to share costs and programmatic expertise in service of the clients.
This pressure for collaboration is complicated by the increasingly competitive environment for government contracts, reflecting the intense interest of government in accountability, efficiency, and results. Greater competition does not necessarily mean that dramatic changes will occur in local human service delivery. Many agencies will retain their contracts and even grow due to increased demand and funding. Government will continue to face political obstacles to contract termination or drastic restructuring of contracts. But the more competitive environment can affect nonprofit service agencies quite profoundly even if contracts are retained: The number of clients can be reduced; rates can fail to increase significantly because government has many available providers; client referrals from government can change abruptly; and new programmatic demands may be placed upon the agency. The worldwide financial crisis has already put pressure on funding levels for government contracts. Given these trends, the challenge for nonprofit agencies is to adapt their management and organizational structure to emphasize flexibility, nimbleness, and efficiency while retaining a commitment to their mission. Agencies will have to be innovative in their organizational structure and willing to invest resources in complying with government regulations and outcome expectations. More broadly, agencies will need to think about new ways to engage citizens and service users in agency governance. In sum, government contracting with nonprofit agencies is an increasingly important strategy to provide publicly supported services to the citizenry. As such, contracting transforms nonprofit service agencies from a relatively narrow niche within social and health policy to the front-lines of policy implementation. Nonprofit social welfare and health agencies are now central to social citizenship since these agencies are the effective gatekeepers for the access of the citizenry to an array of social service benefits – from home care to community living to job training and child care. Access to these benefits in this era of contracts and competition requires sustained public investment in adequate funding for nonprofit agencies and ongoing government monitoring, technical assistance and support. Without this investment, nonprofit agencies receiving government contracts will be unable to provide effective and quality services to citizens in need.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency
Cooperatives and Employee Ownership
▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Results and Performance ▶ Third-Party Government ▶ Work and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector
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Smith, S. R., & Lipsky, M. (1993). Nonprofits for hire: The welfare state in the age of contracting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Smith, S. R., & Smyth, J. (1996). Contracting for services in a decentralized system. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 6, 277–296. Van Slyke, D. M. (2007). Agents or stewards: Using theory to understand the government-nonprofit contracting relationship. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 17(2) (April), 157–188. Wilson, J. Q. (1967). The Bureaucracy Problem. The Public Interest, 6, pp. 3–9.
References/Further Readings Alchian, A. A., & Demsetz, H. (1972). Production, information costs, and economic organization. American Economic Review, 62(5) (December), 777–795. Bass, G. D., Arons, D. F., Guinane, K., & Carter, M. F. (2007). Seen but not heard: Strengthening nonprofit advocacy. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute. Berry, J. M. (2003). A voice for nonprofits. Washington, DC: Brookings. Chaves, M., Stephens, L., & Galaskiewicz, J. (2004). Does government funding suppress nonprofit political activity? American Sociological Review, 69(2) (April), 292–316. Considine, M. (2003). Governance and competition: The role of nonprofit organisations in the delivery of public services. Australian Journal of Political Science, 38(1), 63–77. Considine, M., & Lewis, J. M. (2003). Bureaucracy, network, or enterprise? Comparing models of governance in Australia, Britain, the Netherlands, and New Zealand. Public Administration Review, 63(2) (March/April), 131–140. Coughlin, B. J. (1965). Church and state in social welfare. New York: Columbia University Press. Deakin, S., & Michie, J. (1997). Contracts and competition: An introduction. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 21, 121–125. Donahue, J. D. (1989). The privatization decision. New York: Basic Books. Glazer, N. (1988). The limits of social policy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gronbjerg, K. (1993). Understanding nonprofit funding. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hartogs, N., & Weber, J. (1978). Impact of government funding on the management of voluntary agencies. New York: Greater New York Fund/United Way. Kramer, R. M. (1982). Voluntary agencies in the welfare state. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kramer, R. M. (1987). Voluntary agencies and the personal social services. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 240–257). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Meyer, J. A. (Ed.) (1983). Meeting human needs: Toward a new public philosophy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Perlmutter, F. (1969). The effect of public funds on voluntary sectarian agencies. Journal of Jewish Communal Service, 45(4) (Summer), 312–321. Powell, W. W., & DiMaggio, P. J. (Eds.) (1991). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Pratt, J. W., & Zeckhauser, R. J. (Eds.) (1985). Principals and agents: The structure of business. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Ring, P. S., & Van De Ven, A. H. (1992). Structuring cooperative relationships between organizations. Strategic Management Journal, 13(7) (October), 483–498. Salamon, L. M. (1987). Partners in public service: The scope and theory of government-nonprofit relations. The nonprofit sector: The research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. pp. 99–117.
Cooperatives and Employee Ownership DEREK C. JONES1, PANU KALMI2 1 Hamilton College, Clinton, NY, USA 2 Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
Introduction The main focus of this article is to provide a brief introduction to economics research on cooperatives and employee-owned firms. We start by providing definitions and then review issues surrounding historical background and incidence. Concerning research, we note that the theoretical literature on employee-owned firms and particularly worker cooperatives have been well developed following the early contributions of Ward (1958) and Vanek (1970), although often theory was insufficiently informed by empirical regularities observed in actually existing worker cooperatives. For other types of cooperatives, there has not been a unifying theoretical framework, and most of these cooperatives have not received a treatment in the literature one would expect on the basis of their economic significance. However, much of this literature has been empirically and institutionally oriented. In the final section we discuss potential future directions for research and emphasize that the availability of new data sets may contain significant promise for research on cooperatives.
Definitions and Examples For our purposes the essential features of cooperatives are given by enterprises that have the following characteristics: (1) Ownership is not determined solely by investment in shares, but the owners have another transaction relationship with the enterprise (as employees, suppliers, or customers); (2) Voting rights are not divided in relation to capital but equally between members. As such this definition de-emphasizes other Rochdale principles including open membership, limited interest on capital,
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religious neutrality, cash trading and the promotion of education (Bonner, 1961). As already indicated a wide variety of firms can be listed under the cooperative umbrella, including agricultural, credit, and consumer cooperatives. One form that has proved to be of particular interest to many is the producer or worker cooperative. In such firms the position of the worker is crucial so that membership is restricted to worker-members in the business who effectively own and control the firm. One of the best known examples today of worker cooperatives are the Mondragon cooperatives (see http://www.mcc.es/ing/) though there are other prominent examples in Italy and France. Employee ownership also encompasses a wide variety of types, notably employee stock ownership plans, employee stock purchase plans and stock options. For some employee ownership is seen as part of ‘‘shared capitalism’’ – where employees participate in the rewards of the business, similar to other alternative methods of compensation including profit sharing and gain sharing (Kruse et al., 2008). In the vast majority of instances of employee ownership, and unlike in cooperatives, voting rights reflect ownership of capital which are not equal either amongst employees or between employee and non-employee owners. In firms with employee ownership, capital owners sometimes do introduce arrangements that enable employees to have enhanced involvement in decision making. While this often happens, it is also rarely to such a degree that firms with employee ownership and worker cooperatives are aligned in this respect. Instances in which this has happened, such as the Eroski retail chain in Spain or in some British consumer cooperatives where employee directors are present (Jones, 1987) are the exception rather than the rule.
Historical Background and International Perspectives The first cooperatives appear to have been established in the eighteenth century. Early utopian writers, notably Owen, who saw cooperative communities as alternatives to competitive and individualistic capitalism, were a major stimulus to the establishment of these first cooperatives. Equally, practical necessities, such as the need to obtain unadulterated foods, played major roles in the formation of early coops such as the flour mills at Woolwich in the 1760s and the famous Rochdale store in 1844. Subsequently while the development of the coop movement continued to be inspired by the writings and actions of individuals such as Fourier, Blanc, and Buchez, pragmatic considerations have always played prominent roles in the evolution of cooperatives.
Diverse forms of cooperatives exist. Hansmann (1996) and Birchall (1997) amongst others provide good descriptions of cooperatives around the globe. Empirically, the most important forms of primary cooperatives, both in the US and elsewhere, appear to be cooperatives in the agricultural sector (mainly in food production), in banking and finance (in the form of credit unions and cooperative banks), in insurance (either mutual or cooperative form), and in retailing, where cooperatives are either retailer- or consumer-owned (the latter is fairly uncommon in the United States but is very popular in some European countries). Cooperatives are economically significant actors all around the globe, and the combined membership in cooperatives, according to the International Cooperative Alliance, is more than 800 million people (see www.ica.coop). Moreover some cooperative forms, including cooperative banks, have been found to be of growing importance in their sectors (Fonteyne, 2007). However, the importance of cooperatives does not derive solely from their economic significance, but also because of their democratic governance and their perceived ability to address market failures (see, e.g., Kalmi, 2007). In part reflecting their social objectives, associations of cooperatives are a prominent feature of the cooperative landscape. Compared to cooperatives, interest in and examples of employee ownership are much more recent phenomena. The oldest forms of employee ownership are stock purchase and stock option plans and have existed only for about 100 years. But even 50 years or so ago such schemes were often quite extensive – for example, they are believed to have covered at least one million employees in several countries including Germany and the United States. However interest in those schemes has often been limited since stock tended to be owned by highly compensated employees. By contrast the growth of employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) has stimulated a reawakening of interest in employee ownership. By the mid 1980s it was estimated that the number of plans existing in the United States was approaching 10,000 and that 10 million employees were covered (Rosen et al., 1986.). Also employee ownership has grown rapidly elsewhere. Thus in Japan, in little more than a decade ESOPs (mochikabukai) grew to cover more than 90% of top listed companies (Jones & Kato, 1995). And in Europe the Pepper reports (e.g., Lowitzsch, 2006) document the rapid dissemination of diverse forms of employee ownership especially in the last 20 years. The reasons for the recent growth of employee ownership appear to be quite different from those forces behind the fluctuating fortunes of cooperatives. For many years it is believed that most actors were not
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enthusiastic about employee ownership – for example, employees stressed problems flowing from income variability in firms in which they had an ownership stake. The attitude of governments around the world mirrored this lack of enthusiasm and few promoted ownership by employees. However in recent years this stance has changed and various fiscal incentives for companies and individuals often exist as governments seek to encourage productivity growth, stimulate capital formation, anchor jobs and ameliorate income differences. This has led to a parallel growth in institutions dedicated to promoting the spread of employee ownership, such as the National Centre for Employee Ownership in the United States or the European Federation of Employee Share Ownership. Also the collapse of the command economies and the move away from state ownership led to many ‘‘privatization surprises’’ (Uvalic & Vaughan-Whitehead, 1997) and the emergence of considerable employee ownership. However, in the main, employee ownership has not proved to be stable during economic transition (see, e.g., Jones & Mygind, 1999).
Key Issues While cooperatives and firms with employee ownership are often quite different animals, research by economists on these organizations often concentrates on similar issues. This is especially the case for the overlap between worker cooperatives and firms with employee ownership and in this section we first discuss the economics literature on worker cooperatives and employee ownership. Second, we discuss literature on other types of cooperatives. Much of this literature has been theoretically focused, and empirical literature has followed with a considerable lag. However, this has not been the case in the study of cooperatives within development economics. In that field, empirical observations have motivated theoretical models, but a unifying theoretical framework has been lacking. Issues Concerning Employee-Owned Enterprises and Worker Cooperatives
Much of the economics literature on employee-owned enterprises and worker cooperatives has followed the pioneering work of Ward (1958) and Vanek (1970). In this literature, worker cooperatives (or employee-owned firms more generally) are positioned within a standard microeconomic (comparative static) framework, where it is argued they maximize income per member. Much of the subsequent theoretical literature either has extended directly from these assumptions or has examined the consequences of deviations from these standard
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assumptions. Most empirical literature has tested predictions arising from that theoretical framework and Bonin et al. (1993) and Dow (2003) provide useful surveys of that literature. One set of issues concerns the comparative scarcity of worker cooperatives or firms with employee ownership. Why, apparently, are such firms rare (compared to conventional investor-owned firms)? In turn this leads to examination of issues relating to formation, survival, and life cycle. One might also classify the many studies that examine issues of the incidence of cooperatives and firms with employee ownership under this broad heading. In investigating such matters, work on both producer cooperatives and firms with employee ownership has tended to have a mainly micro focus and to proceed by examining a set of such firms within one country. See for example studies of the entry and exit of French worker coops (Perotin, 2006) or the investigation by Blair et al. (2000) of the stability of employee-owned firms. This is also the case for studies of firm survival. Such studies tend to refute the prediction that firms with employee ownership, including producer coops, will have lower survival rates (e.g., Perotin, 2006). At the same time, beginning with the work of the Webbs and continuing with formal economic modeling by, amongst others, Ben-Ner (1984) researchers have analyzed the tendency of particular types of cooperatives (notably producer cooperatives) to transform themselves into organizations within which control rights are vested in a small number of worker-members. There is also a growing literature that investigates the determinants of the incidence of firms with some degree of employee ownership. For representative studies see, for example Poutsma et al. (2005) for listed firms in European countries. A second area of inquiry revolves around issues of employment and output. For worker cooperatives a vast body of theoretical work was triggered by a seminal paper by Ward (1958) in which a worker cooperative was believed to maximize per capita income of worker-members rather than total profits, as in a capitalist firm. A key finding emerging from this early model is that, relative to a capitalist twin, the producer cooperative will tend to have smaller employment, a negatively sloped supply curve and that labor will be inefficiently allocated within an economy of producer cooperatives. Most subsequent theoretical work overturned the pessimistic conclusions that resulted from this simple Ward model and little or no empirical support was found for these key propositions. Indeed the better empirical inquires, including Craig and Pencavel (1992) find that producer cooperatives have more stable employment. No evidence has been found
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either of short run inefficiencies or of perverse supply curves. And work for firms with employee ownership also finds evidence of more stable employment (e.g., Blair et al., 2000). A third area of investigation is investment and finance. The way in which capital requirements are financed and the resulting structure of ownership of the firm’s assets are matters that have attracted the interest of many researchers, especially students of cooperatives. In cooperatives the issues are particularly interesting since assets may be owned by members individually or collectively as well as by non-member financiers. The non-transferability of ownership rights in many cooperatives has led some theorists to argue that some cooperatives, notably worker cooperatives, will face persistent underinvestment. However empirical support for such predictions is weak (e.g., Jones & Backus, 1977), a finding that many find unsurprising since many real world cooperatives have implemented specific institutional design to ameliorate potential problems that pure theorists have identified. A fourth and final area is the matter of the role of incentives and performance in firms that are cooperatives or within which there is some degree of employee ownership. One issue of especial interest to theorists is whether employee ownership and/or co-operation will lead to employees supplying efficient effort. For example, will democratic firms suffer from shirking by employees? For both types of organization a vast empirical literature has emerged to examine not only the links between employee ownership and firm performance but also the roles of employee involvement in decision making. To date the bulk of the evidence rejects the hypothesis that employees in firms with employee ownership supply lower levels of effort. Following Jones and Backus (1977) a commonly favored approach to test this and similar hypotheses has been to augment a standard production function by a vector of ownership and participation variables. The key result is that the null hypothesis that the various forms of participation taken together do not affect productivity is rejected. Other Types of Cooperatives
Among the various types of cooperatives, worker cooperatives have received most of the attention in the economics literature, disproportionately so compared to the size of this sector. However, this was the case already in the economics literature of cooperatives in the early twentieth century (Kalmi, 2007). Financial cooperatives have been studied to some degree and there are attempts to model their specific characteristics such as whether members may have diverging preferences depending on whether
they are net savers or net borrowers. Also the composition of the membership is likely to influence the setting of interest rates, as demonstrated in theoretical models by (e.g., Smith et al. (1981). More recently, Emmons and Schmid (2002) have extended this framework into a situation where cooperative banks can also distribute dividends. However, very little empirical work has been undertaken to date in this field. There is also a large empirical literature that uses data from cooperative banks, with much of this literature testing more general propositions using samples of cooperative banks. Fonteyne (2007) is an excellent guide to much of the literature. Studies of interest that focus on issues of more specific cooperative issues include Angelini et al. (1998), who find that cooperative banks provide better access to credit for small firms, and Hesse and Cihak (2007), who find that cooperative banks are more stable than commercial banks. There is also literature analyzing the determinants of membership rates in financial cooperatives including Emmons and Schmid (1999) and Kalmi et al. (2008), the latter attempting to explore the role of various motivations (in particular monetary versus social) in the membership decision. There is a surprising dearth of research concerning consumer cooperatives, with. Ireland and Law (1983) constituting a notable exception. In contrast, research on farmer producer cooperatives has proven to be an enduring topic of interest in the field of agricultural economics in journals such as American Journal of Agricultural Economics (see, e.g., Sexton, 1986; Torgerson et al., 1998). Perhaps the most lively area within the field of cooperatives might is that of development economics. Much of this research is motivated by the rise of microfinance and other grass-roots economic initiatives. In recent years, the research on cooperatives that has found its way into major economics journals has often come from development economics (e.g., Banerjee et al. 1994; Pitt & Khandker, 1998.) Finally, there is literature that attempts to provide more general approaches to cooperatives. Hansmann (1996) presents an elaborate theory on optimal ownership structures, building especially upon the argument that different ownership structures have different implications on collective decision-making costs. Jones and Kalmi (2009) use the recent ICA Global 300 (see www.global300.coop) dataset on the largest cooperatives in the world and find that cooperative incidence is very strongly and positively related to the level of interpersonal trust in a society. They determine that trust is a much more robust predictor of cooperatives than is the case in large listed firms, although there is some evidence that the presence of large listed firms is also higher in the presence of higher trust.
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Future Directions Commenting on the literature on worker cooperatives up to the early 1990s, Bonin et al. (1993) noted that the literature had been theory-led and that empirical literature had lagged significantly behind. At the same time, it was apparent that theory building had often ignored many well-known stylized facts. Also, most of that early literature on labor-managed firms (worker coops) used a comparative static framework that appears somewhat dated by current standards (e.g., Vanek, 1970). By contrast some of the leading figures in contract theory have developed models that are based on more modern approaches (e.g., Rey & Tirole, 2007). While such models are still in their infancy and have not been subject to empirical testing potentially large dividends will accompany better modeling that is grounded in stylized facts. Early empirical studies often contained results that contradicted the most basic propositions of the early theory. Reflecting the general rise in the of esteem of applied work in economics, in part because of improved access to data and the broader availability of more powerful statistical software, empirical research on cooperatives and firms with employee ownership has made great strides in the last 30 years or so. However, it is also clear that much remains to be done. Before many research questions can be addressed it is also clear that much more and better data are needed. And while much progress in assembling improved data sets continues to be made, it is also apparent that empirical research in particular will continue to suffer because of the demanding requirements imposed by the challenges posed by robust empirical design. These points can perhaps be best illustrated by considering work on questions at the macro level – for example, work which aims to understand the reasons for the varying importance of cooperatives or employee ownership across time and space as well as the impact of these phenomena on macro variables such as employment adjustment. In this respect most useful beginnings have been made by the ICA and its recent efforts to provide systematic data on the top 300 coops around the world. Equally the nature and quality of data on employee ownership has been much helped by the continuing efforts of those institutions that act to assist firms with employee ownership, such as the NCEO. One example of the potential that such macro data have to offer is the paper by Jones and Kalmi (2009) that was discussed earlier. Equally such work is necessarily still in its infancy since the available data are typically restricted in important ways, including the span of years or the less-than-comprehensive way in which the universe of coops or employee-owned firms is covered. In turn these deficiencies often reflect the historical ways that
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data have been collected by national authorities (such as census data), with a continuing failure to, for example, distinguish alternative organizational forms such as coops from conventional firms. It is also the case that better micro data is needed. Again the traditional ways that government agencies collect data is often quite limited – there is a tendency to give only cursory attention to what goes on inside the ‘‘black-box’’ that is the firm. Consequently there is little on-going and systematic data collection on phenomena such as the presence and extent of employee ownership. In this context it is unsurprising that many firm-level studies have suffered from several important shortcomings. For example, many studies operate with samples of convenience rather than samples that are representative of the underlying populations. Often the range of key variables that are able to be measured is limited – thus studies of firms with employee ownership may omit measures of other potentially important variables, such as the extent of employee involvement. And when key variables are measured sometimes this is done so in an oversimplified way – for example a dummy variable for a producer cooperative, which ignores differences among producer cooperatives in critical respects such as the extent of worker membership. However, we are also seeing research on cooperatives that uses empirical approaches and new data that are close to the frontier of current applied work. For example, Pencavel et al. (2006) creatively combines and matches organization-level with individual-level data, while Arando et al. (2009) undertake the first econometric case study of a Mondragon cooperative. Apart from these empirical issues, there are also theoretical issues that are underdeveloped in current economics research. One glaring example is the role of cooperative networks in the growth and survival cooperatives. All types of cooperatives are often organized into federations. Among the services these federations provide are collaboration in marketing, raising public awareness of cooperatives, often economic cross-insurance, training, liquidity management in the case of financial cooperatives, wholesale operations in the case of cooperative stores, and so on. Often these networks have a regional character (e.g., Mondragon cooperatives, Antigonish movement in Nova Scotia, Maharashtra cooperatives in India, Emilia-Romagna cooperatives in Italy). Despite the fact that the importance of such networks has been recognized in the cooperative literature from its early dawn, economists, in contrast to sociologists (e.g., Halary, 2006), have not paid much attention to it. Moves in that direction include Joshi and Smith (2008.) A second promising research field is the relationship between cooperatives and social capital. While much of the literature emphasizes how cooperatives can contribute
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to the building of social capital (e.g., Borgen, 2001), there is much less literature that looks into social capital as a prerequisite of meaningful cooperatives or as a motivator to participate in cooperatives (e.g., Jones & Kalmi, 2008; Heikkila¨ et al., 2008). This research can potentially give important insights into whether it is the narrower, ‘‘bonding’’ type of social capital that is associated with the rise and sustainability of cooperatives, or the more general, inter-group ‘‘bridging’’ social capital that matters. It is also possible that the determinants of local cooperative formation and successful operations of large cooperative networks require different types of social capital. The importance of social capital can also give indications for general development plans for cooperatives in developing countries; for instance, it suggests that centralized attempts to promote cooperative either by large donor aid infusions or government decrees may not be appropriate.
Cross-References
▶ CIRIEC ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Credit Unions ▶ Fourier, Charles ▶ Gide, Charles ▶ International Cooperative Alliance ▶ Raiffeisen Banks ▶ Raiffeisen, Friedrich ▶ Schulze-Delitzsch, Franz Hermann
References/Further Readings Angelini, P., Di Salvo, R., & Ferri, G. (1998). Availability and cost of credit for small businesses: Customer relationships and credit cooperatives. Journal of Banking and Finance, 25(6–8), 925–954. Arando, S., Gago, M., Jones, D. C. and Kato, T. (2009). Productive Efficiency in the Mondragon Cooperatives: Evidence from an Econometric case Study. Mimeo, Hamilton College. Banerjee, A. V., Besley, T., & Guinnane, T. (1994). The neighbor’s keeper: The design of credit cooperatives with a theory and a test. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 109(2), 491–515. Ben-Ner, A. (1984). On the stability of cooperative type of organization. Journal of Comparative Economics, 8(3), 247–260. Birchall, J. (1997). The international cooperative movement. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Blair, M., Kruse, D., & Blasi, J. (2000). Employee ownership: An unstable form or a stabilizing force? In M. Blair & T. Kochan (Eds.), The new relationship: Human capital in the American corporation. Washington, DC: Brookings. Bonin, J. P., Jones, D. C., & Putterman, L. (1993). Theoretical and empirical studies of producer cooperatives: Will ever the Twain meet? Journal of Economic Literature, 31(3), 1290–1320. Bonner, A. (1961). British co-operation. Manchester: Cooperative Union. Borgen, S. O. (2001). Identification as a trust generating mechanism in cooperatives. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, 72(2), 209–228.
Craig, B., & Pencavel, J. (1992). The behavior of worker cooperatives: The plywood companies of the Pacific North West. American Economic Review, 82(5), 1083–1105. Dow, G. K. (2003). Governing the firm: Workers control in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Emmons, W. R., & Schmid, F. A. (1999). Credit unions and the common bond. Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, September/October, 41–64. Emmons, W. R., & Schmid, F. A. (2002). Pricing and dividend policies in open credit cooperatives. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, 158(2), 234–255. Fonteyne, W. (2007). Cooperative banks in Europe: Policy issues, IMF Working Paper 159/07. Halary, I. (2006). Cooperatives in globalization: The advantages of networking. In P. Kalmi & M. Klinedinst (Eds.), Participation in the age of globalization and information (Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory and Labor-Managed Firms, Vol. 9). Hansmann, H. (1996). The ownership of enterprise. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Hesse, H., & Cihak, M. (2007). Cooperative banks and financial stability. IMF Working Paper, WP/07/02. Heikkila¨, A., Kalmi, P., & Ruuskanen, O -P. (2008). Social capital and financial access: Evidence from Uganda, manuscript, Helsinki School of Economics. Ireland, N. J., & Law, P. J. (1983). A Cournot-Nash model of the consumer cooperative. Southern Economic Journal, 49(3), 706–716. Jones, D. C. (1987). The productivity effects of worker directors and worker financial participation in the firm: The case of British retail cooperatives. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 41(1), 79–92. Jones, D. C., & Backus, D. (1977). British producer cooperatives in the footwear industry: An empirical examination of the theory of financing. Economic Journal, 87, 488–510. Jones, D. C., & Kalmi, P. (2009). Trust, inequality and the size of cooperative sector: cross-country evidence. Working Paper 2008–02, Department of Economics, Hamilton College, from http://academics. hamilton.edu/economics/home/workpap/08_01.pdf Jones, D. C., & Kato, T. (1995). The productivity effects of bonuses and employee ownership: Evidence using Japanese panel data. The American Economic Review, 85(3), 391–414. Jones, D. C., & Mygind, N. (1999). The nature and determinants of ownership changes after privatization: Evidence from Estonia. Journal of Comparative Economics, 27, 422–441. Joshi, S., & Smith, S. C. (2008). Endogenous formation of coops and cooperative leagues. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 68(1), 217–233. Kalmi, P. (2007). The disappearance of cooperatives from economics textbooks. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 31(4), 625–647. Kalmi, P., Jones, D., & Jussila, I. (2008). What determines membership in cooperatives?: Evidence from Finnish banks on the role of ownership, manuscript, Helsinki School of Economics. Kruse, D., Blasi, J., & Park, R. (2008). Shared capitalism in the U.S. economy: Prevalence, characteristics, and employee views of financial participation in enterprises, NBER working paper # 14225. Lowitzsch, J. (2006). The pepper III Report: Promotion of Employee Participation in Profits and Enterprise Results in the New Member and Candidate Countries of the European Union, Rome/Berlin. Pencavel, J., Pistaferri, L., & Schivardi, F. (2006). Wages, employment and capital in worker-owned and capitalist firms. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 60(1), 23–44. Perotin, V. (2006). Entry, exit and the business cycle: Are cooperatives different? Journal of Comparative Economics, 34(2), 295–316.
Cooperatives, History and Theories of Pitt, M., & Khandker, S. (1998). The impact of group-based credit programs on poor households in Bangladesh: Does the gender of participants matter? Journal of Political Economy, 106(5), 958–996. Poutsma, E., Kalmi, P., & Pendleton, A. (2005). The relationship between financial participation and other forms of participation: New survey evidence from Europe. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 27(4), 637–667. Rey, P., & Tirole, J. (2007). Financing and access in cooperatives. International Journal of Industrial Organization, 25(5), 1061–1088. Rosen, C., Klein, K. J., & Young, K. (1986). Employee ownership in America: The equity solution. Lexington, MA: Heath. Sexton, R. J. (1986). The formation of cooperatives: A game theoretic approach with implications for cooperative finance, decision making and stability. American Journal of Agricultural Economics, 68(2), 214–225. Smith, D. J., Cargill, T. F., & Meyer, R. E. (1981). An economic theory of a credit union. Journal of Finance, 36(2), 519–528. Torgerson, R. E., Reynols, B. J., & Gray, T. W. (1998). Evolution of cooperative thought, theory, and purpose. Journal of Cooperatives, 13, 1–20. Vanek, J. (1970). The general theory of labor-managed market economies. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Uvalic, M., & Vaughan-Whitehead, D. (Eds.) (1997). Privatization surprises in transition economies: Employee-ownership in Central and Eastern Europe. Aldershot: Elgar. Ward, B. (1958). The firm in Illyria: Market syndicalism. The American Economic Review, 48(4), 566–589.
Cooperatives, History and Theories of MORRIS ALTMAN Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand
Introduction Cooperatives have evolved significantly over the last 200 years and are of increasing importance to economies and societies throughout the world irrespective of their level of socioeconomic development. Yet, cooperatives, generally speaking, are peripheral to contemporary scholarly analyses. Moreover, they are treated as inefficient and relatively ineffective organizational types whose presence is typically transient and of some importance in times of crises and to marginal socioeconomic participants. Even those with a sympathetic eye consider cooperatives to be of marginal importance. It is therefore of some consequence to discuss the significance of cooperatives over historical time and the extent to which they are actually both efficient and effective economically and socially. Contemporary economic theory has played an effective role in the cooperative (Hill, 2000; Kalmi, 2007). Nevertheless, alternative theoretical lenses provide insight
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into the cooperative advantage in different economic sectors and why this advantage is not always realized or exploited. In fact, the evidence is overwhelming that cooperatives can be potentially much more economically efficient than their noncooperative counterparts and can represent important dynamic components of contemporary competitive market economies (Altman, 2006; Bonin et al., 1993; Dow, 2003; Doucouliagos, 1995).
Definition In general, a cooperative comprises a voluntary network of individuals who own or control a business that distributes benefits on the basis of use or ownership where ownership is largely weighted equally across individual members. Benefits are generated by, for example, a share of surplus or profits, improved working conditions and benefits, lower prices, higher quality of product, product type and variety that better serve members’ preferences, and better access to credit. Members control the cooperative on the basis of one member, one vote, with a guaranteed platform to exercise voice. Members invest in the cooperative and thus have a financial stake in the organization. Unlike the typical private business, in the cooperative financial risk is more narrowly distributed amongst users or workers, whereas in the private business, ownership and financial risk need not fall on the shoulders of users or workers. In some jurisdictions, the risks to cooperative owners are restricted by limited liability protection afforded by the law. There are various types of cooperatives which dominate, least important of which, quantitatively at least, is the workers’ cooperative (see Cropp, 2005; Emelianoff, 1948). It is only in the workers’ cooperative, however, that the overall position of the worker is definitively different from what exists in the traditional private sector firm. However, in the emerging multi-stakeholder cooperative it is possible for the nonworkers’ cooperative to incorporate significant components of the substance of the workers’ cooperatives into their corpus (see below). Workers’ cooperative
Such a cooperative is owned and controlled by the workers through the standard one member, one vote platform. Many such cooperatives are run, on a day-to-day basis, by managers and a board of directors. But worker-owners have the ultimate say as to how the firm is managed over the long term and are characterized by a much less hierarchical system of management than the standard narrowly owned firm. Workers’ cooperatives are configured to meet the interest of workers first, as opposed to maximizing profits or share values in the short run. Maintaining and growing employment is often a binding constraint
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of a workers’ cooperative. Profits or surplus can be disbursed across members, based on memberships or hours worked, or invested in to grow the firm or to make it more competitive. Like traditional firms, workers’ cooperatives must be concerned with their production costs if they are to survive and flourish in the marketplace. Workers’ cooperatives are found largely in the processing and service sectors, albeit manufacturing is not unimportant. Consumer cooperative
This is the most important type of cooperative in terms of membership. Consumer cooperatives are sometimes referred to as retail cooperatives. Such cooperatives are quite important in the retailing of food and clothing. Members own the cooperatives and control them through the one member, one vote platform. However, day–day management can and often does take place as it would in traditional firms, and management can be quite hierarchical in structure, especially when the cooperative is large. In addition, management–labor relations are often similar to those in the traditional firm. In theory, a key distinguishing feature of consumer cooperatives is that they should be configured to best meet the preferences of their member-owners in terms of product type, quality, and price. Moreover, the objective of the cooperative is not to maximize the difference between unit cost and price, but rather to charge the lowest price possible, given quality and the investment requirements of the cooperative. But consumer cooperatives typically charge the market price for their product. However, any surplus accrued is supposed to be directed toward investment purposes, disbursed amongst members, or invested in socially beneficial projects as decided upon by members (typically by management). It is important to reiterate that a key difference between a traditional retailer and the cooperative is the overriding importance of the member-owner and the fact that in a cooperative ownership is weighted on the basis of the individual. Thus, no one individual can have a greater ownership or membership share than another. Additionally, consumer cooperatives, especially the smaller ones, have been established in localities and product lines where private retailers have deemed it too risky and unprofitable. When consumer cooperatives have better information on preferences and markets, given asymmetric information, they can survive and even prosper in domains where the traditional retailer cannot. Credit union
A credit union is a type of consumer cooperative that specializes in the money market and it is, along with the food and clothing retail cooperative, among the largest in terms of membership. A credit union is owned and
controlled on the base of one person, one vote, and is typically locally owned. But the credit union is managed on a day-to-day basis by an elected board and professional managers. In additional, management–labor relation can and often maps that of the traditional financial institution. Credit unions initially developed to provide financial resources to individuals and firms that found it difficult to secure these in the traditional financial sector. Credit unions have evolved into financial institutions that cater the needs of individuals across all income levels and firms of different sizes. This allows credit unions to spread the risk of their financial portfolios. In addition, contemporary local credit unions are often part of regional and national credit unions networks, allowing them and their members to take advantage of economies of scale and scope as can traditional financial institutions. A key distinguishing feature of a credit union is the capacity of members to determine the direction of its local credit union. Profits or surplus income can be disbursed to members, invested in the firm, or in social projects. Moreover, the credit union has the capacity to exploit local knowledge (asymmetric information) so as to serve individuals and firms and their particular needs which traditional financial institutions find too risky. But just like traditional financial institutions, credit unions must be carefully managed otherwise a sufficient number of bad loans can force a credit union into bankruptcy. Supply and purchasing cooperative
This type of cooperative is quite important in agriculture where farmers establish a cooperative to obtain goods and services required for their business or for personal use at lower prices than would be possible if they were to go it alone. Thus farmers can take advantage of economies of scale and scope that are afforded to larger corporate farms. But the management of such a cooperative can mimic that of the traditional firm. Marketing cooperative
This type of cooperative aligns the interests of producers with regard to marketing output to retailers or wholesalers. A marketing cooperative can also store, process, and package output prior sale. This allows farmers, for example, to take advantage of economies of scale and scope in storage and production, increasing their net income over what it might otherwise be. It also serves to increase the bargaining and marketing power of farmers. In addition, a marketing cooperative can help stabilize farmers’ income through its inventory capacity, providing farmers with a relatively stable income as marketing prices fluctuate. As with other cooperatives, a marketing cooperative must pay attention
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to efficiency considerations as well as maintaining the flexibility to vary the prices paid and surplus (and loses) disbursed to member farmers as markets restructure over time. Otherwise, it risks bankruptcy.
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training. It provides services that private sector firms will not or cannot provide. Such cooperatives often survive on the basis of subsidies, donations, and voluntary labor. But very often, noncooperative providers of these services survive on the basis of government support as well.
New generation cooperative
This type of cooperative is also referred to as a value-added or new wave cooperative, although cooperatives of old typically added value to their output. The express purpose of this cooperative is to transform raw material inputs into processed output, such as cranberries into juice or wheat into flour. Typically found in agriculture, farmers are owner-members who supply the raw material for processing, hoping to reap additional net income from valueadded activities. Like traditional cooperatives, the new generation cooperative, is owner-member-controlled. But unlike most traditional cooperatives, the new wave cooperative’s membership is restricted to those with the means and the willingness to provide substantial equity capital. This provides the cooperative with the necessary finances to build a competitive value-added enterprise and provide those with an equity stake in the cooperative with shares (typically) in proportion to the equity supplied. The farmer is obliged and has the right to supply the cooperative on the basis of share value. And shares can be sold at market value, which can be greater or less than the purchase or equity price, when the farmer or other supplier wishes to dissociate himself or herself from the cooperative. Multi-stakeholder cooperative
This cooperative has two or more groups of members that may include workers, consumers, producers, investors, community, and/or government. Such a cooperative has the potential of aggregating the interests of different individuals and groups of individuals within one cooperative thereby making them all stakeholders of a particular cooperative. For example, a consumer cooperative, by provided a membership and ownership stake to workers, transforms a traditional consumer cooperative to one where workers’ interests gain significant representation. The consumer cooperative develops characteristics of a workers’ cooperative. This can have significant efficiency benefits to the cooperative. Any cooperative that brings in government, community, or private sector representation strengthens the stakeholder and knowledge base of the cooperative as well as spreading risks without the core cooperative members losing control. Social cooperative
This is a particular type of multi-stakeholder cooperative that brings together providers and users of social services such as day care, health services, housing, and job
Historical Background The Rochdale Principles
The cooperative movement is strictly defined and relates very closely to democratic forms of governance with regard to members. The cooperative is not simply a group of individuals who cooperate in particular economic activities. For cooperation of this type can take place under coercive forms of governance, ranging from serfdom to slavery to the state-sponsored collectives of Communist China, the Soviet Union, and Cuba. Wage labor in a democratic society also requires cooperation amongst the economic actors. But a cooperative requires much more than mere cooperation, even when the latter is relatively freely undertaken. The modern cooperative movement aspires to a set of principles first clearly and coherently articulated by members of the Rochdale consumer cooperative, founded by 28 weavers in Rochdale, England, at a time when worker and consumer rights were relatively limited. Consumer cooperatives received legal sanction in England only in 1852. The original Rochdale Principles defining cooperative organizations are (Birchall, 1997; International Co-operative Alliance, 2008; MacPherson, 1996: Thompson, 1994): 1. 2. 3. 4.
Democratic control (one member, one vote) Open membership Limited interest on capital Distribution of surplus in proportion to a member’s contribution to the society 5. Cash trading only (no use of credit) 6. Providing for the education of members in cooperative principles 7. Political and religious neutrality For the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), the official governing body of cooperatives, the following four of the Rochdale principles are central to the governance of member organizations: 1. Open membership 2. Democratic control (one member, one vote) 3. Distribution of the surplus to the members in proportion to their transactions 4. Limited interest on capital
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The following three principles are deemed important and necessary to membership in the ICA: 1. Political and religious neutrality 2. Cash trading only 3. Promotion of education The fact of the matter is that many cooperatives have very clear political and religious agendas. Most use credit as a means of sale. The latter is critical in contemporary market economies and is often the preferred means of payment. Also, a plethora of cooperatives invest little in the domain of education. Kibbutzim and Mondragon Cooperatives
Two important examples of national cooperative movements are the Kibbutzim of Israel (first established in 1910) and the Mondragon Cooperative Association founded in the Basque country of Spain in the 1950s. The Kibbutz Movement of Israel is the largest cooperative grouping in the world. By the end of the twentieth century there were 270 of these collective settlements with a population of 120,000. These settlements are community owned and run and represent a me´lange of worker, consumer, producer, and financial cooperatives. Initially, largely agricultural in orientation, manufacturing, and tourism now plays a significant role in the Kibbutz economy as Kibbutzim adjust to increasing competitive pressures. Most cooperative settlements are small (they vary from about 50 to over 2,000), but there is significant cooperation amongst these (Communal Studies Association, 2008; Avrahami, 2002). The Modragon Cooperative Association of Spain is comprised of over 160 companies operating in manufacturing, distribution, and finance. Member companies employed almost 80,000 people and the Modragon group of companies was the seventh largest in Spain in 2006. But at least 20% of Modragon’s employees are nonmembers (Mondragon Corporacion Cooperativa, 2006; Whyte, 1991). The Kibbutz movement also now employs a large number of nonmembers. For the Kibbutzim, this has been to a large extent fueled by severe labor shortages – the inability to attract an adequate supply of labor to meet ongoing demand. Both of these long-standing cooperative movements thus employ many individuals to whom the principles of the cooperative movement do not necessarily apply. Both these movements have had to adjust to ever-changing and increasing market pressure, meeting with much success.
Key Issues Economics and Cooperatives
Contemporary economic theory pays little heed to the cooperative, especially worker and consumer cooperatives. Whereas, supply and marketing cooperatives are treated as contributors to monopolistic pricing, therefore contributing to economic inefficiency (allocative inefficiency) and the misallocation of resources. At best, cooperatives as an organizational type are looked upon as a possible solution to economic dilemmas faced by the economically marginalized members of society. The cooperative is not regarded as a source of economic efficiency and possible contributor to material welfare (Bonin et al., 1993; Dow, 2003; Hill, 2000; Kalmi, 2007). This is a product of the behavioral assumptions embedded in the theory. Although cooperatives are not dominant, their quantitative importance in most countries in both marginal and mainstream sectors, and their profitability and relatively high levels of productivity compared to their privately owned counterparts suggest that cooperative economic organizations must be doing something right to have maintained a significant presence in an increasingly competitive global economy. On the other hand, it is important to understand why cooperatives are not dominant if they are economically efficient. Theory and Workers’ Cooperatives
How does one explain the economic success of workers’ cooperatives? Conventional theory assumes that no such success is possible given that cooperatives are not obliged to invest profits (focusing on employment and workers’ income) and are too egalitarian to generate economically efficient incentives and to engage the employment of superior management. But there exists a cooperative advantage in the workers’ cooperative that lies in its capacity to increase the quantity and quality of effort inputs into the ‘‘production process,’’ thereby producing higher levels of output and a superior quality of output (Altman, 2002, 2006; McCain, 2008). This can also be referred to as the x-efficiency effect (Altman, 2001; Leibenstein, 1966) of cooperative organization. In the cooperative, worker-owners and owner managers have the incentive to work harder and smarter – a possibility assumed in the traditional modeling of the firm. Conventional theory assumes that the manner in which a firm is organized does not impact the extent of x-efficiency. Moreover, where workers’ cooperatives focus on improving benefits and working conditions whilst maintaining and even growing employment they are incentivized into
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adopting and developing technologies that make them competitive. Workers’ cooperatives can, therefore, be more costly to operate than traditional firms, especially low-wage traditional firms, but they can also be much more productive, such that their unit costs and profits can be the same as that of the traditional firm. The cooperative productivity advantage countervails the increased costs of operating the cooperative. Thus in the worker’s cooperatives workers would be much better of without their benefits causing their firm to become uncompetitive. Workers’ cooperatives can yield competitive outcomes without driving out of the market noncooperative traditional firms. Such workers’ cooperative can function and prosper in mainstream economic sectors, even in highly competitive environments. Moreover, when workers are also owners, there is much less incentive for workers to quit. Reducing quit rates and thus turnover rates increases labor productivity and reduces production costs by maintaining the most productive workers and reducing average training costs. Overall, workers’ cooperatives can generate higher levels of material welfare than the traditional firm. This argument is illustrated in Fig. 1 (based on Altman, 2001, 2002, 2006). As traditional analysis would have it, workers’ cooperatives incur higher costs (such as higher levels of labor benefits) and this yields higher unit or average production costs. This is given by line segment am which relates increasing cooperative-
Cooperatives, History and Theories of. Fig. 1 Unit production costs and x-efficiency.
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related costs to average production costs. In the traditional model, increasing labor benefits, for example, has no impact on labor productivity. More realistically, in a more democratic firm wherein labor benefits also increase, labor productivity increases, illustrated by ahi. Therefore, in the cooperative firm, the level of x-efficiency increases as incentives improve. The cooperative firm induces firm members into becoming more productive. To the extent that such productivity increases offsets the increased cooperative-associated costs, average or unit production costs need not change as labor costs increase, illustrated by line segment ag. Eventually, the level of x-efficiency cannot be sufficiently increased to offset increasing labor costs, at points b and h, yielding increased average costs. This induces technological change, illustrated by a shift in the cost curve from agc to agd, which serves to further offset cooperative-related costs when x-efficiency is at a maximum. Lower wage and higher turnover traditional firms need not be more competitive than cooperative firms and the more productive cooperative firms need not have the capacity to drive out the less productive traditional firms. Given the superior incentive system of the workers’ cooperative there is no good theoretical reason to presume that workers’ cooperatives cannot be both competitive on the margin and prosperous. On the other hand, this does not imply that workers’ cooperatives can be expected to dominate the economy. The workers’ cooperative represents only one ‘‘extreme’’ alternative to hierarchical organizational types. Privately owned participatory firms (which allows for some workers’ ownership of firm assets and effective voice) represent another alternative; one where workers need not risk their capital nor bear the risks entailed in ownership (Altman, 2002; Gordon, 1998). Also, they need not invest the time and effort that might be required at the management and corporate decision-making levels in a workers’ cooperative. This firm type overlaps with the multi-stakeholder cooperative. Given the possibility and option of a privately owned participatory firm, many workers might choose the latter. Moreover, workers might choose traditional hierarchical firms given the risks and effort required to establish and maintain a workers’ cooperative. Also, establishing workers’ cooperatives can be problematic if financing is difficult to come by given that financiers have limited say on corporate governance in traditional cooperatives. This constraint can be obviated in multi-stakeholder cooperatives. In addition, establishing workers’ cooperatives suffers from coordination problems – it is difficult and costly to coordinate the
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efforts of individuals to establish a cooperative. This issue is somewhat mitigated by regional and national cooperative federations. Finally, misinformation about the design and operation of workers’ cooperatives can negatively affect preferences for cooperatives. For these reasons, workers’ cooperatives are often established in the wake of crises wherein the traditional firm is on the verge of closure. In the absence of a workers’ cooperative unemployment, the breakdown of social networks and less preferred jobs becomes the default. Such cooperatives can succeed if the new incentive environment increases productivity and encourages technological change wherein the traditional firm was economically inefficient and resistant to improved technology. Cooperatives can also survive on the basis of low wages, where worker-owners willingly sacrifice material benefits so as to remain competitive and thereby secure their employment. Competing on this basis in the short run provides such a cooperative with the capacity to search for efficiencies in production that will allow it to compete on the basis of higher wages and improved working conditions in the longer term. Such a capacity does not typically exist in the traditional hierarchical firm given mistrust, asymmetric information, and different preferences between workers, owners, and managers. Consumer Cooperatives
Establishing consumer cooperatives and other types of nonworkers’ cooperatives face some of the same constraints as do workers’ cooperatives, but not those related to the risks and time that workers must absorb to establish and operate a workers’ cooperative. However, consumer cooperatives have met with considerable success. But they need not be organized in terms of nonhierarchical forms of management and can remain competitive on the basis of low wages and poor working conditions, matching the immediate labor costs of their noncooperative counterparts. In this case consumer cooperatives need not generate superior material welfare outcomes for its workforce, although they should generate material welfare gains to coop members in terms of price and quality and product type. However, through multi-stakeholder organizational setups, consumer cooperatives can overlap with more democratic and less hierarchical working environments, yielding both pecuniary and nonpecuniary benefits to their workforce. The cooperative advantage of consumer cooperatives lies in its capacity to better meet the preferences of their members than privately owned concerns, thus enhancing members’ welfare. For example, the cooperative might be better able to supply member consumers with the right product mix and quality and, in relatively noncompetitive markets where consumers have little bargaining power;
provide preferred bundles of goods and services at lower prices; it might be able to overcome information asymmetries in the credit market providing loans to individuals unable secure such loans from private banks; and it might be able to secure higher prices for members of marketing cooperatives by improving their bargaining power relative to purchasing conglomerates with well-established bargaining power. Even when consumer cooperatives can do no better than privately owned concerns in terms of commodity supply and price, they can enhance members’ welfare if the cooperative generates a sense of belonging or community (social cohesion) amongst members (Fairbairn, 2003). However, such social cohesion and sense of identity with the coop provides the cooperative with the ‘‘protection’’ from market forces allowing it to charge higher prices and supply lower quality products. Member-owners might be willing to pay higher prices, up to a point, simply because a product is sold by their cooperative. But such behavior would undermine the economic and social viability of the cooperative. Nevertheless, there is nothing intrinsic in the cooperative organizational type that implies that this must be the case. Cooperatives can produce and supply quality goods and services at competitive prices. Also, the extent of social cohesion can diminish when consumer cooperatives increase in membership. Each member has less power and voice and more difficulty in having an affect on the decision-making process and outcomes. Less social cohesion and related sense of belonging can undermine the membership base of the cooperative. And the cooperatives success then becomes a function of its capacity to compete with traditional producers and suppliers.
International Perspectives There exist no precise estimates on the importance of cooperatives in the new millennium (International Cooperative Alliance, 2008; Kalmi, 2007; Global300.coop, 2007; United Nations 2005, 2008a, b). But the United Nations guesstimates that the ‘‘cooperative movement’’ had over 800 million members at the beginning of the new millennium and provided for about 100 million jobs. In addition, over the last 150 years cooperatives have spread to over 100 countries. Cooperatives are of importance in both developed and less developed economies. Moreover, cooperatives are of significance in both the more free market-oriented economies, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and the more statist market economies of Continental Europe. About half of the world’s agricultural output is marketed by cooperatives, which speaks to the significance of marketing cooperatives. Overall, it is in the agricultural
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sector that cooperatives of various types remain dominant. In the financial sector, credit unions encompass about 120 million members in 87 countries. Especially in poor countries, cooperatives provide important microcredit services. Consumer cooperatives continue to play an important role worldwide, with its importance varying across countries. Health care cooperatives service about 100 million people in over 50 countries. Electricity provisioning cooperatives have become important. For example, in the United States, such cooperatives service over 30 million people. Least important in terms of quantitative significance are workers’ cooperatives. Only a small percentage of the 100 million individuals employed by cooperatives are controlled by the workers themselves. Thus, consumer, producer, or financial cooperatives need not be managed in a manner that benefits employees where the latter’s (nonmembers’) interest conflicts with that of cooperative member-owners. The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), the formal governing body of cooperatives, referring to the United Nations, also maintains that cooperatives made secure the livelihood of approximately three billion people across the globe or about half of the world’s population. But this reference is quite nebulous in meaning, but suggests indirect economic importance of cooperatives through its multiple linkages. Survey evidence strongly supports the view that cooperatives serve to reduce poverty amongst cooperative members as well as amongst nonmembers and the same can be said with regard to reducing gender inequality. The evidence also suggests that cooperatives can provide a means of generating income and wealth well above any particular measures of poverty.
networks, credit unions, multi-stakeholder cooperatives, and facilitating legal environments. Market forces, no matter how powerful, do not require and cannot force noncooperative solutions to socioeconomic problems. Competitive markets and cooperative organizational forms are all quite compatible. Ceteris paribus, the case can be made that a world without cooperatives is, at a minimum, one that is poorer. Cooperatives have been forced to engage in dramatic changes in terms of organization, production, and markets over historical time. Much success has been achieved as is exemplified by the overall global importance of this democratic organizational type. New forms of cooperatives have been developed where the core value is democratic governance by member-owners; where ownership still adheres to the one person, one vote protocol. But cooperative values as articulated in the Rochdale Principles can become less salient as the cooperative grows and the voice of each individual member becomes less effective. Local control becomes critical to maintaining effective voice and social cohesion within the cooperative. Also, democratic governance excludes employees in most cooperatives. A significant iteration of the cooperative is the democratic privately owned firm. Another is the multi-stakeholder cooperative, which strengthens any particular type of cooperative by providing effective voice to individuals and groups who contribute or who can potentially contribute substantively to the cooperative viability and prosperity. One vital lesson gleaned from the history of cooperatives is that democratic governance within the firm can contribute significantly to socioeconomic well-being.
Future Directions
Cross-References
Overall, the cooperative solution can produce higher socioeconomic welfare levels to members whilst also overcoming significant market failures. In other words, cooperatives and cooperative type organizations can have large positive effects on the economy while at the same time generating significant improvements to the social and spiritual well-being of members. The nonmaterial and economic benefits are dialectically and positively related. This reality is marginalized in much of the conventional literature. To some extent, whether cooperative solutions are adopted depends upon the preferences of individuals given that cooperatives can be competitive even in extremely competitive environments. Not all workers prefer pure cooperatives. Not all consumers choose consumer cooperatives. Nevertheless, preferences for cooperatives need not be met as a consequence of the dearth of financial resources and organizational capacity. These constraints can be overcome through cooperative
▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Civic Agency ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil society, Definitions of and Approaches ▶ Community Development ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Credit Unions ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) ▶ Proudhon, Pierre ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers ▶ Social Accounting for Social Economy Organizations ▶ Social Cohesion
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▶ Social Economy ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Social Investment ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic
References/Further Readings Altman, M. (2001). Worker satisfaction and economic performance. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Altman, M. (2002). Economic theory, public policy and the challenge of innovative work practices. Economic & Industrial Democracy: An International Journal, 23, 271–290. Altman, M. (2005). Reconciling altruistic, moralistic, and ethical behavior with the rational economic agent and competitive markets. Journal of Economic Psychology, 26, 732–757. Altman, M. (2006). Workers cooperatives as an alternative competitive organizational form. Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory & Labor-Managed Firms, 9, 213–235. Avrahami, E. (2002). The changing kibbutz, from http://www.kibbutz.org. il/eng/; 08/05/2008. Birchall, J. (1997). The international co-operative movement. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press. Ben-Nur, A., & Jones, D. (1995). Employee participation, ownership, and productivity: A theoretical framework. Industrial Relations, 34, 532–554. Bonin, J. P., Jones, D. C., & Putterman, L. (1993). Theoretical and empirical studies of producer cooperatives: Will ever the twain meet? Journal of Economic Literature, 31, 1290–1320. Communal Studies Association (2008). The kibbutz movement, From http://www.ic.org/icsa/kibbutz.html; 08/05/2008. Cropp, R. (2005). A glossary for cooperatives. Bulletin no. 10. University of Wisconsin, Centre for the Study of Cooperatives, from www.wisc. edu/uwcc; 08/05/2008. Doucouliagos, C. (1995). Worker participation and productivity in labormanaged and participatory capitalist firms: A meta-analysis. Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 49, 58–77. Dow, G. (2003). Governing the firm: Workers’ control in theory and practice. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Ellerman, D. (2005). Helping people help themselves: From the world bank to an alternative philosophy of development assistance. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Emelianoff, I. V. (1948). Economic theory of cooperation: Economic structure of cooperative organizations. Reprinted by the Center for Cooperatives, University of California, 1995, from http://www.cooperatives.ucdavis.edu/reports/index.htm; 08/05/2008. Fairbairn, B. (2003). Three strategic concepts for the guidance of co-operatives linkage, transparency, and cognition. Saskatoon, Canada: Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, University of Saskatchewan. Freeman, R. B., & Rogers, J. (1999). What workers want. Ithaca, NY/ London: Cornell University Press/ILR Press. Global300.coop (2007). International co-operative alliance, global 300 list, from http://www.global300.coop/en. Gordon, D. M. (1998). Conflict and cooperation: An empirical glimpse of the imperatives of efficiency and redistribution. In E. O. Wright (Ed.), Recasting egalitarianism: New rules for communities, states and markets (pp. 181–207). London/New York: Verso. Gulati, G. M., Isaac, T. M., & Klein, W. A. (2002). When a workers’ cooperative works: The case of Kerala Dinesh Beedi. UCLA Law Review, 49, 1417–1454.
Hill, R. (2000). The case of missing organizations: Co-operatives and the textbooks. Journal of Economic Education, 31, 281–295. International Co-operative Alliance (2008). What is a co-operative? from http://www.ica.coop/coop/index.html#difference; 08/05/2008. Kalmi, P. (2007). The disappearance of cooperatives from economics textbooks. Cambridge Journal of Economics, 31, 625–647. Leibenstein, H. (1966). Allocative efficiency vs. ‘‘x-efficiency.’’ American Economic Review, 56, 392–415. MacPherson, I. (1996). Co-operative principles for the 21st century. Geneva: International Cooperative Alliance. McCain, R. A. (2008). Cooperative games and cooperative organizations. Journal of Socio-Economics, doi:10.1016/j.socec.2008.02.010. Mondragon Corporacion Cooperativa (2006). The history of an experience, from http://www.mcc.es/ing/quienessomos/historia.html; 08/05 /2008. Prychitko, D. L., & Vanek, J. (Eds.) (1996). Producer cooperatives and labor-managed systems (Vols. 1 & 2). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar. Rural Cooperatives Center, University of California, Davis (2008). What is a co-op?, from http://www.cooperatives.ucdavis.edu/whatis/index. htm; 08/05/2008. Spear, R. (2000). The co-operative advantage. Annals of Co-operative & Public Economics, 71, 501–523. Thompson, D. (1994). Co-operative principles then and now. Co-operative Grocer, 53, from http://www.cooperativegrocer.coop/ articles/index.php?id = 158; 08/05/2008. Tomer, J. F. (2001). Understanding high-performance work systems: The joint contribution of economics and human resource management. Journal of Socio-Economics, 30, 63–73. United Nations (2005). Cooperatives in social development: Report of the Secretary-General, from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/social/ cooperatives/coop_docs.html; 08/05/2008. United Nations (2008a). Cooperatives and social development, from http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/social/cooperatives/; 08/05/2008. United Nations (2008b). Cooperatives at work, from http://www.un.org/ esa/socdev/social/cooperatives/coop_docs.html; 08/05/2008. Ward, B. (1958). The firm in Illyria: Market syndicalism. American Economic Review, 48, 566–589. Whyte, W. (1991). Making mondragon: The growth and dynamics of the worker cooperative complex. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Zeuli, K. (2004). The evolution of the cooperative model. In C. D. Merritt & N. Walzer (Eds.), Cooperatives and local development: Theory and applications for the 21st century (pp. 52–69). Armonk, NY/London/England: M. E. Sharpe.
Corporate Giving STEFAN NA¨HRLICH Aktive Bu¨rgerschaft, Berlin, Germany
Introduction Businesses are producers of goods and services; as lobbyists they represent their own economic interests or the interests of their branch in politics. Increasingly, firms also contribute directly to the common welfare of society. In some companies there has been a long tradition of
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philanthropic involvement, especially in the form of corporate donations. Yet over the last 2–3 decades, corporate giving has increased considerably in scope in many countries. Although valid data regarding the extent of corporate giving is often lacking, current information which partially stems from regular surveys reveals that businesses play an important role in supporting nonprofit organizations. Corporate giving is implemented in differentiated forms with various instruments. Given the globalized economy, these instruments are used in numerous countries. Businesses are becoming increasingly more involved in corporate giving in order to achieve their firm’s goals. This development goes hand in hand with the changing relationship between the market, state, and civil society.
Definition Corporate giving is when businesses voluntarily contribute money or donate in-kind contributions to nonprofit organizations or for a charitable purpose without receiving any services in return. The classic instrument of corporate giving is corporate donations. Employee and customer donations are also considered part of corporate giving if they are related to the company’s donation programs. Corporate giving can be differentiated from donations by private individuals who are associated with a company and become active with their income or assets (individual giving), as exemplified by the patronage or philanthropic involvement of well-known personalities such as Rockefeller, Rothschild, or Krupp. In the narrow sense, corporate giving can also be differentiated from the concrete services received in return, especially in terms of tax laws. Yet many authors as well as practitioners consider instruments such as sponsorship and cause related marketing to be part of corporate giving. In contrast to business donations, sponsorship is connected to concrete services that are contractually agreed upon and usually take the form of publicity (Bruhn, 2003). It is similar for cause related marketing where the business’s financial donation to a nonprofit organization depends on selling a product or service (Fuljahn, 2008). In these cases the firm is acting voluntarily, but not altruistically as is required by the tax laws for it to be considered a charitable donation. In practice, however, the boundaries are not so strict and it depends in individual cases on the respective national tax laws and their interpretation through the current jurisprudence. Regardless, the classic donation activity within businesses is not free from following long-term interests or achieving firm-specific advantages (Na¨hrlich, 2008). Approaches such as strategic corporate philanthropy and above all corporate citizenship
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emphasize this and provide legitimacy for distributing the firm’s resources to benefit the company (business case) rather than to predominantly contribute to the common good (social case). Conceptually corporate giving is often viewed as one of the three pillars of corporate citizenship alongside corporate foundation and corporate volunteering. Yet corporate volunteering activities are also understood as being an instrument of corporate giving. ‘‘Corporate giving is the making of charitable donations by companies engaged in business activity. These donations can be cash, products, in-kind services, or employee voluntarism’’ (Council on Foundations, 2009). Similarly some authors view the establishment of corporate foundations or donating through corporate foundations as a type of corporate giving (Mecking, 2008). The boundaries amongst the three pillars are in flux, especially due to the individual classifications and ways of organizing in business praxis. Corporate giving on the whole as well as sponsorship in particular are linked with the corporate social responsibility approach in different ways.
Key Issues Instruments
Corporate giving can be implemented through different instruments. The classic instrument is the corporate donation. Yet special giving programs that are managed through employees or the department of a company or an intermediary firm or nonprofit organization also belong to such instruments. Quite often the donation activities are supplemented through the involvement of the business’s foundation. It is common to have a mix of corporate giving instruments. The costs of corporate giving programs are often included in the annual budgets of various business departments (marketing, public relations, human resources, etc.). The amount of the expenditures is influenced by the company’s performance. As a general rule, there is no obligation to report on corporate giving, but there are exceptions in certain countries with regards to their foundation activities. Cash Contributions
Cash contributions are direct contributions to, for example, nonprofit social services organizations, schools, educational institutions, universities, and research institutes both domestically as well as abroad. They are in the form of scholarships or emergency aid for catastrophes or disasters and are provided both directly and indirectly to individuals. Cash contributions are given both on request as well as part of programs or special events such as
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company anniversaries. To some extent they are given as prizes or award grants in order to specifically support certain developments, depending in part on whether the NPO is successful in gaining additional funding (challenge grant). They are also given to NPOs in which the employees of the company are involved as volunteers (volunteer grant). Giving Programs
In large companies there is a special principle of giving that is composed of various factors and provides the basis for the allocation of donations: general allocation guidelines which describe the goals and values of the company’s involvement, decision making powers and modes of communication; certain times for applications and the allocation of funds as well as the usual or maximum contribution for certain groups; and different instruments and additional nonmonetary forms of support for nonprofit organizations or projects. Matching and payroll giving (Philanthropy New Zealand, 2007) are well-known instruments. Many companies support, for example, employee donations in that they match each donation of the employee by a similar or different amount. Employee matched giving entails that the regular donation of an employee to a nonprofit organization is supplemented by the company by a certain amount. Matching can also be related to other target groups. In Germany, matching funds have been specifically used by businesses, mostly cooperative banking associations, over the past years to build up the assets of community foundations. With regards to payroll giving, the company receives the employee’s consent to retain a certain amount of the employee’s salary (e.g., the extra cents) and donate this money to a nonprofit organization or for a certain charitable purpose. For the companies, payroll giving is a means of supporting the involvement of employees with very low costs and administrative effort. For the employees, the special tax benefits of this type of giving are often advantageous. An additional special giving program is the so-called ‘‘savings from winnings’’ (Gewinnsparen). Banks that are subject to public law (savings banks) and private cooperative banking associations are licensed by the state to hold a lottery, for example, in Germany. A portion of the earnings from the sale of lottery tickets is given to the nonprofit organizations and is donated to local nonprofit organizations or for charitable purposes by the banks that sold the lottery tickets to their customers. To put it more precisely, ‘‘savings from winnings’’ refers to donations by the customers of a company. There are laws that regulate the allocation of these donations (Na¨hrlich & Biedermann, 2008).
Cause-Related Marketing
In addition, in the narrow sense cause related marketing (Fuljahn, 2008) is also concerned with donations by the customers of a company. Advertising for a brand and product merchandizing are connected to a charitable purpose for a certain period of time, for example, to save the rainforest or to promote children’s education in Africa. A certain percentage of the price of the product or a set amount is donated to a nonprofit organization. The donation occurs only through the sale of the product. After cause related marketing was introduced in the United States in 1983 through the large campaign of a credit card company, this instrument of corporate giving has remained disputed given competition laws in Germany. It is being discussed if and to what extent the willingness to help on behalf of the customers is being systematically exploited for economic advantages and to what extent the customer must be informed about the type and scale of assistance for ‘‘doing good.’’ Given the concrete return of services that is connected with cause related marketing and sponsorship, these instruments are not unanimously endorsed in the literature as being a part of corporate giving. Sponsorship
Just like cause-related marketing, sponsorship (Bruhn, 2003) places a central emphasis on following a firmspecific publicity goal. An essential feature of sponsorship is that the service is accompanied by a return of services that is relevant and supports the company’s own marketing goals. In contrast to cause related marketing, the service yielded is not dependent upon the sale of a product. By sponsoring a sports team, a cultural event or an educational program, the company’s image profits and the company comes in contact with its target audience. The sponsored institution which is not restricted to the nonprofit sector participates in achieving this goal, for example, by having the company’s logo of the sponsor on a team’s jersey or presenting it on various media, making the sponsoring company’s name a part of the club’s or team’s name or naming a sports facility after the company. The type and scope of the services of the sponsor and recipient are normally contractually agreed upon. The services related to sponsorship are subject to different tax laws than charitable contributions are, both for the company as well as the nonprofit organization. Venture Philanthropy
Despite being conceptually close to a market economy investment, venture philanthropy is not concerned with repayable capital investments that yield interest. John (2006) referred to venture philanthropy as ‘‘an
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approach to charitable giving that applies venture capital principles – such as long-term investment and hands-on support to the social economy.’’ The basic characteristics of venture philanthropy include allocating financial resources for developing organizational infrastructure (capacity building), providing further personal, ideational, or various support by the donors, as well as measuring results according to the defined goals. Companies and corporate foundations have recently shown increasing interest in performance and results-oriented giving approaches. Venture philanthropy is connected to the discussion about social entrepreneurship (Achleitner, 2006). Corporate Foundations
Nonprofit corporate foundations (Mecking, 2008) are a further form of corporate giving which are usually understood as a separate pillar of corporate citizenship given their complexity and importance. Corporate foundations are private foundations which have received their assets through the financial contributions of the company. Foundations are often established by businesses to secure their financial involvement in an enduring and sustainable way. Corporate foundations can support other projects or carry out their own projects. They have their own legal personality and are usually tied closely to the company through the foundation’s board members and the regulations in the foundation’s bylaws. Given that the company’s name is often part of the corporate foundation’s name, this form of involvement is also appropriate for supporting the company’s public relations. In-Kind Donations and the Allocation of Noncash Services
In addition to financial support, noncash contributions play a large role in corporate giving (Ciconte & Jacob, 2009). They are in-kind donations, such as free or discounted use of, for example, office computers or software from the manufacturer, as well as the company’s used hardware, software, or office equipment. In certain branches such as the pharmaceutical branch or the food industry, donations of products are of central importance. Another form is when the company provides free services such as telecommunication, financial, or transport services as well as the opportunity to use the company’s property for meetings and events. Typical examples include waiving fees for certain telephone numbers, bank accounts or the use of company cars. Further measures are related to the area of corporate volunteering such as designing or providing layout services for a nonprofit organization’s publications. The extent to which these measures lead to
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a reduction in taxes for the company is dependent upon the individual case as well as the country’s tax laws. Corporate Volunteering
Corporate volunteering is concerned with the degree to which the free provision of services, for example, marketing, legal, or management support for nonprofit organizations, is connected with the activities, special capabilities or competences of the company’s employees. Corporate volunteering is one of the pillars of corporate citizenship. It encompasses a variety of instruments and special programs ranging from supporting company employees who become privately involved, to releasing employees from their duties for social days or days of caring, to long-term partnerships with nonprofit organizations or special volunteer programs for managers or trainees. Dimensions of Corporate Giving
There is a lack of valid and differentiated data on corporate giving. While the data available in the United States is comparatively good, this area remains in the dark in countries such as Germany despite the long tradition of corporate giving and the significant size of corporate donations. The different classifications of the various corporate giving instruments and the different tax laws regarding assessments make comparison even more difficult. The United States of America
Whereas the amount of corporate donations was only $38 million in 1940, it reached $462 million in 1960 and $3 billion in 1982 (Useem & Kuttner, 1984). According to Giving USA (2007) the amount of donations by corporations and corporate foundations reached $12.7 billion in 2006. Adjusting for inflation, the amount of donations was 10% less than in the previous year, which can be traced back to the exceedingly high level of donations given the different natural disasters in 2005. Excluding these donations, corporate giving rose by 1.7% after adjusting for inflation. According to a survey conducted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy (2008) in 2007, the 150 largest US companies donated 1.4% of their profits for charitable purposes, as compared to 0.9% in the previous year. In a study conducted by the Conference Board (2008), the 189 surveyed companies gave a total of $7.9 billion, thereby representing ‘‘62% of the overall estimated $12.7 billion in corporate charitable giving in the United States in 2006.’’ The individual donations ranged from $72,200 to over $916 million in 2006. The median was $10.7 million as compared to $8.7 million in the previous year. The main areas that benefit from corporate giving are health and social services, which still received 53.4% of all
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support in 2006 despite a 7.6% decrease in comparison to the previous year. In 2006, the donations towards education increased for the first time since 1999 and rose by 7.1%–17.8%. The importance of the field of education is also shown in the survey conducted by the Business Civic Leadership Center (2008) of the US Chamber of Commerce in which 468 managers from various sized companies in the 100 largest cities of the United States took part. 54.9% of the surveyed companies donated to education, 44.9% donated to the field of youth and family and 44.2% donated to nonprofit organizations such as United Way or Catholic Charities. In-kind donations were predominantly given to the field of education (24.9%). The yearly rankings of top donors as compiled in Forbes magazine or the Chronicle of Philanthropy reveal the extent of in-kind contributions in the individual branches. In 2007, the first three companies gave a total $2.8 billion in product giving. All three of the companies belong to the pharmaceutical industry. The top three companies for cash donations gave a total of $658 million in 2007. These companies are from the retailing, financial, and petroleum industries (Forbes, 2008). The survey of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (2008), which 155 US companies including 69 of the top 100 largest US companies (Fortune 100 List) participated in, reported the amount of cash and product giving at $11.6 billion in 2007. The Fortune 100 companies donated mainly to the fields of health and social services and education, spending twice as much as the median amount of all surveyed companies ($23.53 million) with an average of $46.31 million. The costs for human resources and administration of the giving programs amounted to an average 6.1% of the volume of donations. Great Britain
The daily newspaper The Guardian has published data and facts about corporate giving in British companies since 2002. The Giving List provides information about cash donations and in-kind donations and their relation to the profits of the top 100 largest firms registered with the London stock exchange (FTSE 100). According to The Guardian (2006), these British firms gave an average of 0.79% of their pretax profits to charitable, social, or ecological purposes in 2005, as compared to 0.87% in the previous year. The absolute total of donations reached £986 million in 2005. Individual donations ranged from £30,000–61,000 million. For further information on the involvement of British firms, see Campbell et al. (2002). According to a study by the Business in the Community (2003) network, 101 British corporate foundations donated a total of £82 million in 2000–2001. The
corporate foundations thereby contributed 10.8% of the entire amount of corporate giving which totaled £755 million in 2000–2001. Ten years before in 1990–1991, corporate giving amounted to 445 million and in 1996– 1997 it totaled £490 million. In 2000–2001, corporate giving contributed to financing roughly 5% of the British voluntary sector, with the total financing amounting to ca. £15.6 billion. Australia
According to the most recent study of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2002), the Australian economy spent a total of AU$1.447 billion to support nonprofit organizations during the period of time in which the study was conducted. Of this total, $921 million were cash contributions. Whereas small businesses predominantly donated to charitable purposes, the large corporations were mainly active in sports sponsorship. The performing arts received $21.5 million in corporate sponsorship in 2002, as compared to $25.8 million in 2006. In 2006, corporate sponsorship made up 63% of the total sponsorship and donation revenue (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2008). For further information on the involvement of the Australian economy, see Noble et al. (2008). Germany
At this point it is not possible to make any reliable statements about the size and importance of forms of corporate giving. There are no central statistics regarding donation revenues. Nonprofit organizations are not obliged to report their financial data (Mecking, 2008). Extrapolating from the results of a representative study (Forsa, 2005), the amount of cash donations of all owner-managed companies with yearly sales starting at €100,000 was ca. €1.5 billion in 2004. There is an additional monetary value of €1.9 billion in services for the free provision of services, the free allocation of products or goods and the use of the company’s facilities and equipment free of charge. Prominent donors in Germany are companies from the credit services sector. Over €700 million were allocated to nonprofit organizations in 2007 in the form of donations, sponsorships, and returns from the respective corporate foundations of the Deutsche Bank (€82 million), Commerzbank (€39 million), Dresdner Bank (€8 million), the group of the cooperative financial services network (€112 million) and the savings banks group that is governed by public law (€465 million) (Na¨hrlich & Biedermann, 2008).
Future Directions In many countries corporate giving has a long tradition and makes an important contribution to supporting
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nonprofit organizations and central social functions such as financing education, health care and social services. Despite country-specific differences and contexts, there are three current challenges that can be identified: Implications of the Financial Crisis
The implications of the current financial crisis for corporate giving are difficult to foresee at present. The worsening economic situation and decreasing firm profits have an impact on the direct financial involvement of many companies. Given the losses in assets, corporate foundations are also impacted more or less depending on the type of their assets investment. Overall, various surveys indicate that the amount of corporate giving will decrease in 2009. Yet, there still are signs of hope (Chronicle of Philanthropy, 2008). Some individual firms are increasing their donation activities, while other companies who have decreasing financial resources for corporate giving are trying to compensate for this by increasing the use of different instruments, such as transferring knowledge and competences through cooperating with nonprofit organizations. Even the effective and efficient use of resources in managing donations with regards to the company as well as the recipient can be understood as a reaction to the decreasing availability of resources (LBG Research Institute, 2009). In this respect, the financial crisis could also have positive consequences for corporate giving or corporate citizenship in the medium-term. For several years there has been an intense discussion about linking social involvement and firm strategy on the one hand and achieving a greater impact in solving social problems. Management of Corporate Giving and Corporate Citizenship
From an in-house perspective, a central topic is how to strategically anchor corporate giving in a better way. Foohey (2004) comes to the conclusion that social involvement is being employed strategically in many companies and aids in achieving the company’s goals, but this occurs at a rather low level. Googins and Rochlin (2008) also view a better strategic alignment between involvement and the company’s goals, as well as further training in and professionalizing the management of corporate citizenship programs and measures as the most important challenges in the future. In German-speaking countries corporative giving has only been paid little attention. Even in the more comprehensive publications, articles or keywords about corporate giving are scarce; whereas, the more general aspects of corporate involvement and other instruments such as corporate volunteering are given broader attention. In
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business praxis there is an increasing need for efficient donation management, as the number of donation requests has risen. In particular, opportunities, and instruments for measuring success in terms of social impact as well as in relation to achieving company goals are viewed as necessary (Na¨hrlich, 2008: 189). Businesses and Society
Protecting the environment, financing social welfare systems, as well as promoting democracy and education are central global challenges. The part that companies can play in solving such problems goes beyond a pure financial contribution in the narrow sense of corporate giving (Schwab, 2008; Scherer & Palazzo, 2008). The role of companies in society is changing and with it their relationship to the state and civil society and the types of cooperation with public agencies and nonprofit organizations as well. At the same time it does not only concern the positive social contribution that companies can make, but also the question of how negative economic consequences can be avoided or reduced. Not only does the current financial crisis require action, but previous cases of, for example, bribery and corruption in applying for contracts, falsifying financial statements, child labor and pollution of the environment also point to a lack in responsibility towards customers, owners, employees, and the environment.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ Fundraising ▶ Marketing ▶ Raiffeisen Banks ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Venture philanthropy
References/Further Readings Achleitner, A. (2006). Social Entrepreneurship und Venture Philanthropie – Erste Ansa¨tze in Deutschland. Erschienen in: Iris Hausladen (Hrsg.): Management am Puls der Zeit – Strategien, Konzepte und Methoden. Mu¨nchen: TCW-Verlag 2007, S. 57–70. Australian Bureau of Statistics (2002). Generosity of Australian businesses, from http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/3568 44094DDD6666CA256BE50004530F/$File/81570_2000–01.pdf Australian Bureau of Statistics (2008). Arts and culture in Australia: A statistical overview, from http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber. nsf/0/0FDB6275792354A2CA2574520010AD6F/$File/41720_2008% 20(first%20edition).pdf Bennett, R. (1998). Corporate philanthropy in France, Germany, and the UK: International comparisons of commercial orientation towards giving in European Nations. In: International Marketing Review 15, S. 458–475.
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Bruhn, M. (2003). Sponsoring. Systematische Planung und integrativer Einsatz. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag. Business Civic Leadership Center (2008). Report on the state of corporate community investment. Washington, DC. Business in the Community (2003). Corporate foundations – building a sustainable foundation for corporate giving. A research report. London Campbell, D., Moore, G., & Metzger, M. (2002). Corporate philanthropy in the U.K. 1985–2000 some empirical findings. Journal of Business Ethics, 39(1–2/August 2002), S. 29–41. Chronicle of Philanthropy (2008). A gloomy giving outlook. Washington, DC. Ciconte, B. L., & Jacob, J. (2009). Chap. 10 Corporate fundraising. In Fundraising basics: A complete guide. Sudbury: Jones and Bartlett. Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (2008). Giving in numbers, 2008 edition. New York. Council on Foundations (2009). What is corporate giving?, from http://www.cof.org/members/content.cfm?itemnumber = 1247& navItemNumber = 2417 Foohey, P. (2004). Theory and evidence. Corporate philanthropy: Strategic in nature, poor in execution. New York: New York University. Forbes (2008). America’s most generous corporations. New York. Forsa – Gesellschaft fu¨r Sozialforschung und statistische Analysen (2005). Corporate Social Responsibilty in Deutschland. Untersuchung im Auftrag der Initiative neue soziale Marktwirtschaft. Berlin. Fuljahn, A. (2008). Cause-related marketing in Deutschland: Theoretische und empirische Analyse der Konsumentenreaktionen. Saarbru¨cken: Vdm Verlag Dr. Mu¨ller. Giving USA (2007). A publication of Giving USA foundation, researched and written by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. Googins, B. K., & Rochlin, S. A. (2008). Corporate citizenship in the United States. In H. Backhaus-Maul, C. Biedermann, S. Na¨hrlich, J. Polterauer (Hrsg.), Corporate Citizenship in Deutschland. Bilanz und Perspektiven (pp. 454–480). Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag. Hall, P. D. (1989). Business giving and social investment in the United States. In R. Magat (Hrsg.), Philanthropic giving. Studies in varieties and goals (pp. 221–245). New York: Oxford University Press. John, R. (2006). Venture philanthropy. The evolution of high engagement philanthropy in Europe. Skoll Centre Working Paper, Ma¨rz 2006. Kamens, D. H. (1985). A theory of corporate civic giving. Sociological Perspectives, 28(1), S29–50. LBG Research Institute (2008). Doing more with less: How the economic downturn will impact corporate giving in 2009. Stamford, CT. Mecking, C. (2008). Corporate giving. Unternehmensspende, sponsoring und insbesondere Unternehmensstiftung. In H. Backhaus-Maul, C. Biedermann, S. Na¨hrlich, & J. Polterauer (Hrsg.), Corporate citizenship in Deutschland. Bilanz und Perspektiven (pp. 307–322). Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag. Na¨hrlich, S. (2008). Tue Gutes und profitiere davon. Zum Nutzen von Corporate Citizenship Aktivita¨ten. In H. Backhaus-Maul, C. Biedermann, S. Na¨hrlich, & J. Polterauer (Hrsg.), Corporate citizenship in Deutschland. Bilanz und Perspektiven (pp. 183–200). Wiesbaden: VS-Verlag. Na¨hrlich, S., & Biedermann, C. (2008). Spenden-und Stiftungsengagements deutscher Banken. Paper. Noble, G., Cantrell, J., Kyriazis, E., & Algie, J. (2008). Motivations and forms of corporate giving behaviour: Insights from Australia. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 13(4), S315–325. Philanthropy New Zealand. (2007). Payroll giving: An overview, from http://giving.org.nz/files/Payroll%20Giving%20Reflective%20Paper_ 0.pdf
Scherer, A. G., & Palazzo, G. (2008). Handbook of research on global corporate citizenship. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Schwab, K. (2008). Global Corporate Citizenship. Working With Governments and Civil Society. Foreign Affairs, 87(1), S107–118. The Conference Board (2008). The 2007 corporate contributions report. New York. The Guardian (2006). FTSE 100 giving list 2005. London, from http:// image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Society/documents/2006/11/08/ftse100. pdf Useem, M., & Kuttner, S. I. (1984). Corporate contributions to the nonprofit sector. Working Paper No. 94, New Haven, CT: Ponpo.
Corporate Social Responsibility ANTHONY J. FILIPOVITCH Minnesota State University-Mankato, Mankato, MN, USA
Introduction During his first term as president of the United States in the early 1980s, Ronald Reagan embarked on an ambitious plan to privatize much of the federal domestic program (Frederick, 2006). His domestic funding cuts were to be made up in local communities through private sector provision of services and private sector support of community agencies. Since the private sector is more efficient than the public sector (it was argued), better services would be offered at less expense; since the provision of services would be decentralized, more focused services could be provided more responsively. His program was not unique in expecting that the vast, untapped resources of the corporate sector could be enlisted to solve all manner of problems. Community development agencies also have their hands out for ‘‘public–private partnerships.’’ Local government officials look to private foundations to fund unpopular projects for which they dare not spend tax revenues. Often, these ‘‘partners’’ expect to set the agenda for the private sector to fund, although they come to the table empty-handed. Corporations, for their part, have found business opportunities in meeting community needs. But in some cases, those opportunities have turned out to be an exercise in marketing or public relations more than meeting a community need. Other community needs have gone ‘‘unsponsored’’ when no corporation found a business opportunity in them. Gifts of corporate products can also be a way to unload unwanted goods.
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There is a corporate interest in the public good, but that interest is often more subtle than the community imagines, and failure to master those subtleties risks poisoning the well for further public–private partnerships. Should that happen, the corporation will suffer along with the community because, as the proverb has it, ‘‘[w]hether the pitcher hits the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it’s going to be hard on the pitcher.’’
Definition Most of the writing about corporate social responsibility is quick to point out that the term has no single, commonly accepted definition (e.g., Smith & Ward, 2007). Every definition has at its core some sense of corporate duty or responsibility that goes beyond or is other than simple profit maximization. In other words, just as there is more to life than ‘‘making a living,’’ so too there is more to a corporation’s existence than just making a profit. A business corporation has a duty to be ‘‘socially responsible’’ in addition to being profitable. The differences arise, as will be seen below, in the meaning assigned to ‘‘social responsibility.’’
Key Issues Private business corporations are machines for using the market to generate capital. Managing the traditional factors of land, labor, and capital, corporations attempt to minimize the costs of inputs and maximize the value of outputs; in other words, they attempt to make a profit. Milton Friedman (1962) argued that, once the (minimized) inputs of land and labor are satisfied, the surplus value of outputs should go to the capital – to the shareholders in the firm. Others (Bowen, 1953; Committee for Economic Development, 1971; O’Toole, 1985; Tuleja, 1985) argued that the shareholders are only one of several stakeholders in a firm, and the role of management is to maximize the satisfaction of customers, employees, and the community as well. For them, performance is evaluated not only by financial return (the ‘‘bottom line’’) and intangible value (the difference between book and market value of stock), but also by social performance. From this perspective, profit is the reward for serving society well and business thrives in a community that is prosperous. From the perspective of a socially responsible firm, there are at least four stakeholders in the firm: employees, suppliers, stockholders, and customers (and consumers more generally) (Committee for Economic Development, 1971). While different authors identify these groups differently (Laszlo [2003] expands this list to ten categories,
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including others like government, the local community, and unions), all share the emphasis on a broader understanding of the constituencies to whom a corporation is responsible and a broadened time frame in which the success of corporate action is judged. Although the concept of a socially responsible corporation is not new (John Deere in the United States, for example, was an early practitioner in the late nineteenth century), the confluence of three forces pushed it to the forefront in the 1980s in the United States: The shift from founder-controlled to publicly held corporations placed greater emphasis on long-term profitable growth. Since corporations are enduring institutions which intend to continue long after the death of the founders, they have a greater interest in trading long-range sustainability for short-term gains (Committee for Economic Development, 1971). Second, the displacement of family leadership by professional managers shifted the emphasis of corporate management. Not so much an ‘‘owner,’’ the modern manager was more of a ‘‘trustee’’ who must balance the interests of multiple constituencies (Committee for Economic Development, 1971). And third, welfare economists described ways in which the market alone fails to provide an optimal allocation of goods and services. Garrett Hardin (1968) and Thomas Schelling (1978) demonstrated that individually rational decisions can add up to irrational group decisions (a situation which violates Adam Smith’s assumption of an ‘‘Invisible Hand’’ which guides the market). Economists of both the left (Bish, 1971) and the right (Savas, 1982) developed a formal understanding of ‘‘public goods’’ – goods and services which cannot be served by the market but which are necessary for the orderly progress of society (including the market). In practice, corporate social responsibility has expressed itself in three ways: ● Smaller, privately held firms frequently engage in a form of charity. The emphasis here is on a duty to respond to community need, with no direct tie to the corporation’s interest. In larger corporations, this approach can lead to professionally managed corporate giving programs which follow the patterns of pure philanthropy. The strength of this approach is the diversity of issues that it can address; its weakness is the potential lack of discipline (Ylvisaker, 1984). ● Many firms pursue the public good as an expression of enlightened self-interest. A number of arguments have been offered for tying business self-interest to community interest. Some argue that business does well in a community that is doing well (this was Henry Ford’s
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defense for paying his workers the outlandish wage of $5 a day – he needed to pay them well so they could afford to buy his cars). Others point out that corporations depend on the goodwill and good order of society. If contracts are not honored, if property is not secure, if qualified labor is not available, a business cannot thrive. Further, by behaving in a constructive, efficient, and adaptive manner corporations can avoid the risk of governmental or societal interference which might be more restrictive, costly, and ungainly than what corporations themselves might provide (Committee for Economic Development, 1971). ● A third approach to corporate action in service to public good is to capitalize on what business does best, which is business. A corporation can organize itself to exploit societal needs as business opportunities, developing profit-making, entrepreneurial line operations. This approach combines an awareness of the corporation’s responsibility to meet society’s needs with a conviction that, given the opportunity, the market is the best way to meet those needs. Although the corporation uses the market to meet those needs and prepares a business plan that anticipates at least recovering direct costs (but perhaps shows a profit only in the long run), the corporation is also prepared to bear substantial risk and to forego higher rates of return on investment in order to respond to a societal need (Gilmore, 1986). Corporations have balanced these three approaches in different ways over time. Drawing mostly on the North American experience, Frederick (2006) divides the development of the concept of corporate social responsibility into four historical eras: ● The earliest stage focused on the role of a good ‘‘corporate citizen,’’ and corporate involvement in charity and community improvement programs. There was little agreement on what was to be done or how it was to be done; the emphasis was on exhorting corporations to realize a duty to do anything at all. In this phase, corporate social responsibility and corporate giving were often considered to be synonymous. ● By the 1980s, the discussion shifted to corporate reputation and stakeholder responsiveness. Corporations began to target their social responsibility efforts to stakeholder demands, creating public affairs departments, managing stakeholder involvement and, in the United States, forming political action committees (PACs) to influence legislation. On the heels of wellpublicized scandals like the tobacco industry’s
handling of lung cancer research, Hooker Chemical’s handling of pollution at Love Canal, AH Robins handling of medical complications from its Dalkon Shield device, Dow Corning’s issues with leaky silicone breast implants, and the Ford Pinto’s exploding gas tanks, corporate social responsibility was seen as good public relations and as a response to various advocacy groups who were targeting corporations for the (sometimes unintended) negative impacts of their business. Not only did socially responsible activities counter negative publicity, it was argued, but it could even have a positive effect on corporate profits. Even though empirical research has been unable to demonstrate a clear link between profitability or growth and social responsibility (Kolstad, 2007), corporations seemed to find a link between doing good and looking good (Himmelstein, 1997). ● By the 1990s, the emphasis shifted from general reputation to corporate social performance, accountability, and compliance. Corporations voluntarily adopted codes of ethical conduct and, in 1998, Royal Dutch/ Shell published the first corporate social responsibility report. This approach, focused on external measures and reporting a relative position on various scales, turned what had been a normative focus on ethical behavior into a morally neutral report card. Since such reports are self-generated, they ran the risk of becoming more an exercise in marketing than a hardnosed auditing of social accounts. After all, the nowdefunct Enron Corporation had regularly published its corporate social performance report right up until the scandals brought it down. Nonetheless, as Bowen (1953) had pointed out long before, voluntary self-regulation and reporting can forestall or even prevent government regulation. ● In the twenty-first century, the focus of corporate social responsibility has broadened to include the role of corporations in addressing environmental sustainability as well as social crises (Laszlo, 2003). Many corporations now report a ‘‘triple bottom line,’’ addressing profitability, social impact, and environmental impact and there has been a growth of social accountability oversight organizations such as Social Accountability International and the Ethos Institute. Social Accountability International works around the globe, the Ethos Institute works primarily in Brazil, both of them focusing on training and certifying corporations in ‘‘socially responsible’’ business practices, including health and safety standards and fair labor practices such as adequate pay, reasonable working hours, not using child labor or forced labor. In return,
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companies may use their certification to assure buyers, whether supply-chain partners or consumers, that their products are manufactured in a socially responsible manner. A number of the tensions in using the term ‘‘corporate social responsibility’’ run through this chronological narrative (see also Geva, 2008). For some, the term implies a normative command that corporations act in a certain way; for others, it is a neutral yardstick for placing a corporation’s actions along a continuum of possible behaviors. For some, a responsible corporation is one which meets the requirements of the law and behaves ethically; for others, it implies going beyond avoiding what is illegal and unethical in order to respond positively to a duty to do good. For some, social responsibility is a brake on untrammeled corporate greed for profits; for others it is a goal to be achieved through all of a corporation’s actions. For some, social responsibility is an objective in tension with other corporate objectives; for others all of the objectives of a corporation are mutually entailed in a symbiotic interdependence. For some, corporate social responsibility is an exercise in corporate self-interest; for others, it is an exercise of virtue and altruism.
International Perspectives Internationally, the conceptual discussion of corporate social responsibility is very similar to the North American discussion. The differences come from its application in business practice in various parts of the world. A recent book on Global Corporate Citizenship (Dayal-Gulati & Finn, 2007) covers the same categories of issues developed by Frederick (2006): economic empowerment (community improvement phase), corporate transparency (legal and ethical responsiveness phase), social issues such as workforce development and health care in the AIDS crisis (social performance phase), and green management and green business, such as flex-fuel technology (environmental responsibility phase). A recent review of the experience in the European Union (Schutter, 2008) found that corporate social responsibility there began with an emphasis on environmental responsibility, but is now shifting to corporate performance and reporting. As was the case earlier in the United States, he raises the question of whether the ‘‘business case’’ (corporate self-interest) is strong enough to ensure responsibility or whether EU regulation would eventually be required to ensure social and environmental responsibility. A study of corporate social responsibility in Bulgaria, recently emerging from what is described as a ‘‘corporate paternalism’’ socialist model (Iankova, 2008) and another study of corporate
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social responsibility in Ghana (Ofori & Hinson, 2007) both find a local corporate culture that subscribes to normative and duty-based models more than the utilitarian and performance-based models currently dominant in the rest of Europe and North America.
Future Directions The absence of a precise and commonly accepted definition of corporate social responsibility is not necessarily a problem – terms like ‘‘patriotism,’’ ‘‘public good,’’ and (recently) ‘‘terrorism,’’ have proven quite serviceable despite their myriad meanings. Several recent works are attempting to reframe the different meanings as differences in discourse (Jonker & Marberg, 2007) or differences in sense making (Basu & Palazzo, 2008), but they have not (yet) led to a serviceable application. On the other hand, Aviva Geva (2008) has developed a conceptual model which finds support in a more process-oriented paper by Porter and Kramer (2006). Geva (2008) describes a ‘‘concentric circle’’ model of corporate social responsibility by which the economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities of a firm are integrated, all sharing a common core. The graphic image of this is a set of concentric circles, like a bull’s-eye, with economics as the smallest, inner circle and philanthropy as the largest, outer circle. Such a model implies a commitment by the corporation to operate in a way that promotes the good of society. Profit is not separate from social good and economic calculations cannot ignore the social (and environmental) costs in those calculations. Further, this commitment should be central to the way the corporation acts, whether or not such action is required by law or custom. Porter and Kramer (2006) describe in some detail a direct linkage between corporate competitive advantage and social responsibility – not in the utilitarian sense that social responsibility is good for the bottom line, but in the ontological sense that socially responsible business is the bottom line. Social responsibility can itself be the source of a corporation’s competitive advantage, its unique value in the market. In Porter and Kramer’s sense, a corporation earns its profits by applying its resources (human, organizational, and capital) to activities that benefit society. They refer to this as ‘‘shared value,’’ and insist that every business decision should seek the opportunity for shared value. From their perspective, corporate strategy is not about best practices or scoring highly on a checklist of performance standards; it is about focusing a corporation’s resources in a unique way to benefit society (‘‘good citizenship’’) and improve the market context (‘‘mitigating harm’’ from the procedures by which a firm creates value) as part of its business strategy.
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One area that is particularly underdeveloped in the literature on corporate social responsibility is a positive exploration of a socially responsible relationship between the corporate and the governmental sector. Most of the literature focuses on the tension between the two sectors. It treats the government as a constraint on the corporation (the regulatory function) or as a controlling of the corporation (the policing function). In practice, the government and corporations often work together to achieve common goals; but the literature has not developed such collaborations as a significant element of the theory of corporate social responsibility. Describing and analyzing such positive relationships between corporations and their governments could be fertile ground for future research. While discussion in the literature over the last 30 years has done much to clarify and sharpen the differences between the various connotations of the term ‘‘corporate social responsibility,’’ it has not been able to resolve those differences. For the foreseeable future, the language of social responsibility will continue to embrace many dialects, some of which are barely intelligible to each other even though they have all sprung from a common source.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Ford, Henry ▶ Goods and Services, Types of ▶ Instituto Ethos de Empresas e Responsabilidade Social ▶ Marketing ▶ Performance and impact measures, outcomes ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Social Accountability International ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Sustainability
Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Geva, A. (2008). Three models of corporate social responsibility: Interrelationships between theory, research, and practice. Business & Society Review, 113(1), 1–41. Gilmore, J. T. (1986). A framework for responsible business behavior. Business & Society Review, 58(1), 31–34. Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243–1248. Himmelstein, J. L. (1997). Looking good and doing good. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Iankova, E. A. (2008). From corporate paternalism to corporate social responsibility in post-communist Europe. The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 29(Spring), 75–90. Jonker, J., & Marberg, A. (2007). Corporate social responsibility: Quo vadis? Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 27, 107–118. Kolstad, I. (2007). Why firms should not always maximize profit. Journal of Business Ethics, 76(2), 137–146. Laszlo, C. (2003). The sustainable company. Washington, DC: Island Press. Ofori, D. F., & Hinson, R. E. (2007). Corporate social responsibility (CSR) perspectives of leading firms in Ghana. Corporate Governance, 7(2), 178–193. O’Toole, J. (1985). Vanguard management. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Porter, M., & Kramer, M. (2006). Strategy & society. Harvard Business Review, 84(12), 78–92. Savas, E. S. (1982). Privatizing the public sector. Chatham, NY: Chatham House. Schelling, T. (1978). Micromotives and macrobehavior. New York: W.W. Norton. Schutter, O. de (2008) Corporate social responsibility European style. European Law Journal, 14(2), 203. Smith, N. C., & Ward, H. (2007). Corporate social responsibility at a crossroads? Business Strategy Review, 18(1), 16–21. Tuleja, T. (1985). Beyond the bottom line. New York: Facts on File. Ylvisaker, P. (1984). Philanthropy in a favorable climate. In V. Esposito (Ed.), Conscience and community. New York: Peter Lang.
Corporation for National and Community Service JESSICA MOORE
References/Further Readings
Address of Organization
Basu, K., & Palazzo, G. (2008). Corporate social responsibility: A process model of sensemaking. Academy of Management Review, 33(1), 122–136. Bish, R. (1971). The public economy of metropolitan areas. Chicago, IL: Markham. Bowen, H. R. (1953). Social responsibilities of the businessman. New York: Harper & Row. Committee for Economic Development (1971). Social responsibilities of business corporations. Washington, DC: CED. Dayal-Gulati, A., & Finn, M. W. (Eds.) (2007). Global corporate citizenship. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Frederick, W. C. (2006). Corporation, be good! The story of corporate social responsibility. Indianopolis, IN: Dog Ear Publishing.
1201 New York Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20525 USA www.cns.gov
Introduction The Corporation for National and Community Service is an independent federal organization of the United States of America that acts as a service catalyst by providing strategic critical support to volunteer organizations that deliver much-needed services to communities throughout the US.
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Brief History The CNCS was created by the National and Community Service Trust Act in 1993 in order to connect Americans of all ages and backgrounds with opportunities to give back to their communities and their nation. The legislation, signed into law by President Bill Clinton, officially established the CNCS programs it would oversee: SeniorCorps, AmeriCorps, and Learn and Serve America. The CNCS prides itself as being evidence of the United States’ history of commitment to building a culture of citizenship, service, and responsibility.
Mission The mission of the CNCS is to improve lives, strengthen communities, and foster civic engagement through US service and volunteering initiatives.
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also provide vital assistance to national and local nonprofits, schools, faith-based and community organizations, and various public agencies.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and the Elderly ▶ Volunteer Management ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Ashby, C. N. (2003). Corporation for National and Community Service: Preliminary observations on the National Service Trust and AmeriCorps. Washington, DC: General Accounting Office. Metz, A. (1997). National Service and AmeriCorps: An annotated bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Activities The CNCS provides grants, training, and technical assistance to developing and expanding volunteer and service organizations. The CNCS also explores, develops, and models effective approaches for using volunteers to meet the US’s human needs. Research is also conducted and disseminated by the CNCS in order to help develop and cultivate knowledge that will enhance the overall effectiveness of national and community service programs.
Structure and Governance The CNCS is governed by a Chief Executive Officer and a Board of Directors, all of whom are appointed by the President of the United States and confirmed by the United States Senate. The Chief Executive Officer oversees the agency, which includes about 600 employees operating throughout the United States and its territories. The Board of Directors sets policies and direction for the CNCS and is accountable for all actions carried out by the Chief Executive Officer with respect to standards, policies, procedures, programs and initiatives as are necessary to carry out the organization’s mission.
Funding The fiscal budget for the CNCS is provided by the United States Government. The 2009 budget appropriation provided to the CNCS totaled $888,462,000.
Major Accomplishments Since the organization’s inception, over 400,000 individuals have served in AmeriCorps, in excess of 1 billion service hours have been generated by Senior Corps volunteers, and more than 1 million high school students participate annually in service-learning initiatives funded by Learn and Serve America. CNCS members and volunteers
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Corporatism MAX STEPHENSON JR. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA
Introduction Recent years have witnessed growing interest in crosssectoral collaborations and partnerships among leaders of for-profit, nonprofit, and public institutions at both the national and international scales. These cooperative networks typically join civil society organization representatives, envoys of governmental organizations and business people to address a common concern. Such collaborations have become increasingly important, as leaders in the various sectors have grappled with complex social challenges whose contours appear to require common engagement and cooperation. Examples include efforts to address national and international environmental degradation, provide humanitarian relief following conflicts and disaster events, assure effective medical care for the most poor, oversee alternative energy research and development and secure social services for the needy. These cases suggest that the search to create inter-sectoral collaboration to address large-scale social concerns has now become commonplace. In addition to the increased complexity of public problems now confronting nations around the globe, at least two additional long-lived trends have fueled creation of these collaborative networks. First, for several decades, proponents of neoliberalism have persistently called into question the legitimacy and efficacy of the state in
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addressing many social needs. These thinkers and policy advocates have argued either for state withdrawal from such responsibilities or for third sector or for-profit entities to address them on behalf of the state. This stance has been justified with arguments that these organizations were either more representative or efficient or effective or all of these, than state bureaucracies could be in providing such services. In practice, however, the state role has not been devolved as often as advocates have urged and a complex structure of government-overseen contracts and collaborations has developed which have required the creation of new networked and interorganizational structures. Many of these, though not all, are de facto led by public representatives ultimately responsible for creating sufficient cooperation among those participating to secure desired governmental results. A second trend fueling the development of intersectoral collaboratives aimed at addressing complex social problems is a broad belief among many Western world leaders that past public efforts often had overreached and not achieved their stated aspirations. These perceived failures, themselves sometimes still debated, led many national leaders to a new modesty of public action that sought to draw on the perceived strengths of other sectoral organizations to assist the state in addressing public needs. Those who follow this line of thought have suggested it is better to bring the assumed efficiency of market institutions and the supposed democratic character of nonprofit entities to bear to serve the commonweal when possible in order to overcome the perceived wastefulness and bureaucratic clumsiness and worse, of state institutions. Irrespective of their wellsprings, each of these arguments places collaborative networks in an essentially positive light. As framed by their advocates in recent decades, these entities are necessary to address difficult challenges and overcome the inappropriateness, inadequacies, or ineptitude of state action. One particular form of crosssectoral collaboration now receiving sustained attention at the international scale and which has been adopted from national experience in Europe and Latin America is corporatism. The remainder of this article examines the phenomenon of inter-sectoral collaborative networks through the lens of corporatism, whose dynamics have not always been as welcome as those of collaborative networks more broadly framed. The article evaluates the current trend in the United Nations (UN) system and among other international institutions, including the World Bank, toward the creation of such arrangements involving transnational civil society organizations, international governmental organizations (IGOs) and multinational businesses. The article examines their legitimacy, representativeness,
and transparency/accountability. While the analysis emphasizes the role(s) of civil society organizations in these networks, the reader should keep in mind that these collaboratives also always involve multinational businesses and international governmental organizations. The article concludes by suggesting that while corporatism may usefully help to describe an increasingly employed form of NGO engagement with international governmental (and business) entities, such patterns of interaction will demand ongoing attention and public scrutiny if they are to meet acceptable standards of democratic accountability and legitimacy.
Definition As originally conceived, corporatism sought to provide a variety of functional interest groups – prototypically business groups and labor unions – formal and formalized opportunities to press their claims in national political systems perhaps most notably in Germany and Austria. The groups so engaged were normally peak associations and usually participated in tripartite councils that functioned separately from traditional parliamentary institutions. Government, business, and union representatives met and worked in these councils to attain consensus concerning possible policy choices, and their efforts were then introduced into public choice-making (and often quickly legitimated) as representative of the political will of large shares of society. The councils explicitly sought consensus and all concerned assumed the legitimacy of their role in shaping public decision-making processes. Schmitter (1979: 8) has defined this original conception of corporatism succinctly: Corporatism can be defined as a system of interest representation in which the constituent units are organized into a limited number of singular, "
compulsory, noncompetitive, hierarchically ordered and functionally differentiated categories, recognized or licensed (if not created) by the state and granted a deliberate representational monopoly with in their respective categories in exchange for observing certain controls on their selection of leaders and articulation of demands and support.
A variation of this form of governance involving civil society organizations has been applied in the international arena since at least 1999 when then Secretary General of the United Nations Kofi Annan called for creation of a new sort of ‘‘global compact’’ at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. As part of an ongoing package of institutional reforms, the Secretary General sought development of a collaborative among relevant representatives of UN entities, civil society organizations
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and businesses. Annan initially envisioned these groupings working together in corporatist-like networks to address hotly contested international environmental protection and human- and worker-rights issues. While originally commissioned by the Secretary General to advance his reform agenda, the Report of the Cardoso Panel on United Nations–Civil Society Relations, released in 2004, We the Peoples: Civil Society, the United Nations and Global Governance, was not well received by Annan or many other UN officials (Willetts, 2006: 308). Nonetheless, and perhaps paradoxically, the Panel reinforced the trend toward increased United Nations and other international organization–civil society interaction by calling for still greater engagement by these organizations with civil society institutions around the world (UN Doc.A/58/817 June 11, 2004, Willetts, 2006). In general, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) had an incentive to participate actively in conferences or in other forums when called upon by the United Nations, at least in those areas of internationalization of policies and action that would permit them to enlist the international entities to assist them to obtain leverage for change in the policies of lagging individual nation-states. Linkages with IGOs provided NGOs and international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) potential opportunities to influence norm-violating states (sometimes their own home states). This ‘‘boomerang model’’ gained particular currency in linking social movements to larger scale change opportunities in specific policy domains, including, perhaps most notably, human rights (Risse & Sikkink, 1999). These efforts included the integration of civil society organizations into UN operations in humanitarian relief via the Steering Committee for Humanitarian Response and the Economic and Social Council and in broader governance and policymaking via the NGO Working Group on the Security Council. These and similar initiatives institutionalized collaborative inter-sectoral consultative institutional arrangements in the late 1990s and early in the present decade (Martens, 2006). While NGOS do not enjoy a formal status in the UN General Assembly, they have now been integrated into formal consultation roles. Taken as a whole, the trend has been toward involving NGOs and INGOs in mediating specific interests in collaborative arrangements with UN and other international entities and for-profit institutions.
Key Issues The chief challenges confronting these evolving international UN-NGO-business corporatist networks ultimately are democratic in character and concern whether and how their individual organizational members can be said legitimately to represent and be accountable to either the
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broader sectors from which they are drawn or the populations/stakeholders of the nations or international organizations they serve. These concerns are treated in turn next. The Challenge of Legitimacy
However conceived, these corporatist networks of institutions must confront the challenge of legitimacy. That is, these organizations whose members are unelected, whose gatherings, agendas, and roles are not subject to direct popular control and yet whose existence is aimed at securing consensus to proceed with policy on behalf of that populace or set of stakeholders must operate in ways that secure broad popular awareness and consent. Domestic corporatist network decision-makers are indirectly accountable for their choices to the population they purportedly represent via the state’s policymakers whom they at least implicitly serve. Policymakers can, at least in theory, reject the claims of the corporatist councils advising them. But this indirect link is weaker in international networks in which corporatist decisions serve international institutions, which themselves possess few direct connections to the populations of the states they represent. This situation suggests an ongoing paradox. Corporatist organizational forms are at least partly justified on the basis of their supposed advantages in permitting the stakeholders involved, who are viewed as aggregating the popular will for large shares of relevant populations, to come to consensus on difficult topics confronting governance. Yet, in truth, these organizations do not directly represent those populations and therefore may not claim legitimacy for their recommendations. When these recommendations are simply accepted by relevant authoritative actors, they may reasonably be challenged as illegitimate because they were never subject to all but the most indirect form of democratic accountability. They emerge as contested, contestable, or illegitimate. The Challenge of Representation
Whether operative in nations or at the international scale, corporatist networks are open to the challenge that they do not represent the diversity of the interests of the sectors they purport to represent. They are comprised of peak associations and the representational capacity of trade unions or NGOs, for example, is often contested although these entities are joined not only by shared economic, but often fraternal or normative bonds. To be truly representative of sectors, these groupings would need to embrace the full diversity of those represented and do so in a nearly holistic fashion or be subject to popular accountability in some form. For UN-affiliated international groupings established further to Annan’s agenda for institutional change, both of these conditions have been difficult to attain.
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While a number of well-known and well-established international nongovernmental organizations based in developed nations (e.g., Project Hope International, Doctors without Borders, Oxfam International) have been called upon for counsel by the United Nation and other international organizations, their Southern counterparts have complained vigorously that their views neither represent nor legitimate any perspective other than their own. Instead, representatives of these organizations suggest that Northern NGOs are in fact too often arrogant and unwilling to share capacity or wherewithal that would allow their Southern cousins to participate effectively as well. Moreover, Northern NGOs are not, their critics complain, close enough to conditions on the ground in the developing world to represent them as important international policies and concerns are considered. In short, Northern INGOs although often invited to participate in corporatist international networks, because they are perceived to ‘‘represent’’ an important sector of the political economy, arguably often do not attain in practice the standing they are accorded in the abstract. There is another and perhaps more significant challenge linked to the representativeness of corporatist forms in international governance and politics that concerns whether the notion underpinning the strategy – the direct representation of social interests in international governance decision-making – can ever be sanctioned as democratic, however framed. In the abstract, it appears that if left open to any civil society organization (or for-profit) willing to ask to join, this form of inter-sectoral collaboration might be representative. In practice, however, the ability to engage in such advocacy depends both on capacity to monitor and become aware of such opportunities and on the fiscal and human resources to address them once identified. Many civil society organizations possess neither and may not feel comfortable relying on other institutions to represent their interests. This has certainly been so for the many Southern NGOs that have complained bitterly that their Northern counterparts do not represent their perceived interests in UN-related collaborative advisory or advocacy networks. Notably, this slippage occurs before the corporatist network even meets to develop consensus and offer its guidance to authoritative decision-makers. Another challenge to the representativeness of networks is still more basic: Whether most NGOs were established in the first instance to represent the broader populations from which they spring. Concerned citizens typically create NGOs to provide a service or address a perceived need. They are not created further to popular election or plebiscite, and they may, indeed often do, provide services to otherwise unpopular constituencies –
the homeless, drug addicted or alcoholic, for example. NGOs do not represent relevant political constituencies. Electorates at the ballot box do not periodically popularly sanction their work or claims. Indeed, for those seeking to assist troubled clients, it is not always clear that those individuals would agree that the NGOs working on their behalf are doing so in ways with which they would concur. This reality highlights another concern, whether and how IGO corporatist networks and their organizational participants may be made to function in democratically accountable ways. NGOs are not democratic in the sense of serving general community interests or the popular will, as understood electorally. Nonetheless, they are eminently democratic in arising from the felt concerns of at least a segment of a population who take direct action in concert to address an issue. If this is true for NGOs, it is still more significant for INGOs that operate transnationally and may count no single populace their authoritative overseer in a democratic (electoral) sense. The Twin Challenges of Transparency and Accountability
The capacity of corporatist networks to produce consensus positions to secure paths forward for policymakers is accompanied by less public transparency and accountability among the institutions engaged than might otherwise be desirable to ensure democratic accountability. These networks risk compromising the multiple stakeholder interests involved by eliciting undue pressures to cooperate and compromise that may badly serve those in whose name the stands are taken. More than this, civil society organizations participating in these networks may lose some share of the identity with their donors that allow them to retain a degree of public salience and thereby to raise funds. More precisely, INGOs need to be able to demonstrate to their stakeholders that they are providing vital services and achieving their goals and objectives in doing so. To the extent that engagement in networks make it more difficult for donors to understand the independent roles of the NGOs participating in them or otherwise makes their operations less transparent or open to public scrutiny, it may be more difficult for them to attain enough trust and salience to raise necessary funds, let alone to assure accountability for choices made. More generally, international corporatist networks may not be readily salient to the populations they serve and affect most directly. To the extent that network choices are not clear and open to the public and their potential impacts widely discussed, it will be difficult for their members to claim even a modicum of democratic accountability for their actions. Since neither the
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participating NGOs nor the participating international or business organizations possess direct democratic accountability in the first instance, this situation represents an especially difficult dilemma. Overall, this reality suggests that NGOs particularly, will want to be especially careful to make their roles in these networks transparent so as to secure and maintain a modicum of accountability to the constituencies that support them – if only for the purpose of assuring continued support for their operations.
Future Directions The last 2 decades have witnessed the rapid growth of corporatist networks in the international governance system. Despite the skepticism of many governments and ongoing concerns among participating NGOs that the interests of their sector not be lost in the process of such engagement or lost altogether, these forms of organization, often dubbed ‘‘partnerships’’ to connote their positive potentials, have proven quite durable and even popular. But they bring with them enduring concerns about whether and how their deliberations and recommendations may be rendered legitimate, representative, accountable, and transparent. As it happens, none of these attributes or states is readily attained given the realities of the international system and the fact that the outputs of the great bulk of these networks are mediated by IGOs; themselves relatively insulated from the populations their efforts serve. As with the broad-scale adoption of intersectoral organizational arrangements at the national scale, international decision-makers may expect that corporatist collaboratives of the sort described in this article will continue to raise these concerns. To address them effectively will require the development of mechanisms that assure relevant network stakeholders that ‘‘their’’ organizational representatives are able to behave with relative autonomy as well as with their best interests at heart. These are not static criteria and neither will be easy to attain or maintain. Rather, they will require both shared norms and management systems that ensure the legitimacy, representation, transparency, and accountability claims highlighted as critical in this analysis.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Partnerships ▶ Social Movements ▶ Transparency
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▶ Transnational Forums and Summits ▶ UN Global Compact
References/Further Readings Brown, L. D. (2008). Creating credibility: Legitimacy and accountability for transnational civil society. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press. Brown, L. D., & Timmer, V. (2006). Transnational civil society and social learning. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 17(1), 1–16. Crouch, C., & Streeck, W. (Eds.) (2006). The diversity of democracy: Corporatism, social order and political conflict. Northhampton, MA: Edward Elgar. Fox, J. A., & Brown, L. D. (1998). The struggle for accountability: NGOs, social movements and the world bank. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Martens, K. (2001). Non-governmental organizations as corporatist mediator? An analysis of NGOs in the UNESCO system. Global Society, 15(4), 387–404. Martens, K. (2006). NGOs in the United Nations system: Evaluating theoretical approaches. Journal of International Development, 18(5), 691–700. Ottoway, M. (2001). Corporatism goes Global: International organizations, nongovernmental organization networks and transnational business. Global Governance, 7(3), 265–292. Reinicke, W., & Deng, E. (2000). Critical choices: The United Nations, networks and the future of global governance. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre. Risse, T., & Sikkink, K. (1999). The socialization of human right norms into domestic practices: Introduction. In T. Rise, S. C. Ropp, & K. Sikkink (Eds.), The power of human rights, international norms and domestic change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ruggie, J. G. (2002). The theory and practice of learning networks: Corporate social responsibility and the global compact. The Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 27(10), 27–36, Spring 2002. Schmitter, P. (1979). Still the century of corporatism? In P. Schmitter & G. Lehmbruch (Eds.), Trends towards corporatist intermediation (pp. 7–52). London: Sage. UN. Doc. A/58/817. (2004). We the peoples: Civil society, the United Nations and global governance. New York: United Nations. Vogel, D. (2005). The market for virtue: The potential and limits of corporate social responsibility. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Willetts, P. (2006). The cardoso report on the UN and civil society: Functionalism, corporatism, or global democracy. Global Governance, 12(3), 305–324.
Cosmopolitanism MARIANO CROCE ‘‘Sapienza’’ Universita` di Roma, Rome, Italy
Introduction The term ‘‘cosmopolitanism’’ derives from the Greek word ‘‘kosmopolites,’’ which means, approximately, ‘‘citizen of
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the universe.’’ It refers to two key notions in the conceptual horizon of ancient Greek culture: the kosmos (kόsmος, i.e., the universe or world, in a broad and comprehensive sense) and the polis (pόliς, i.e., the city, as the basic political unity). The former is intended to signify a physical entity which, at the same time, reveals epistemic and ethical features. Actually, the kosmos is a complex order, characterized by an intrinsic harmony and governed by natural laws. The latter circumscribes the space of political action, in which the parties organize themselves. But, in contrast to the restricted notion of polis – namely the bordered space in which the political community (koinonı`a politike` or, in its Latin translation, societas civilis) constitutes itself as an ensemble of citizens who share a political and cultural tradition – in the kosmopolis there are neither foreigners nor strangers, and therefore no political enemy. Modern and contemporary forms of cosmopolitanism embody many features of Greek understanding, in that, by and large, they all claim that human beings belong to the same human community by virtue of their equal nature and their common rationality.
Definition Two factors make it hard to define cosmopolitanism: historical contingencies and conceptual vagueness. On the one hand, cosmopolitanism can be represented as a theoretical, ethical, and political stance, in light of which human beings may become aware of their common nature and their joint human condition. Every form of cosmopolitanism reveals a universalistic tendency insofar as its advocates believe that humans’ equal nature transcends political boundaries and ethnical allegiances. But, if it is true that all the various articulations of cosmopolitanism defend such a tenet, the theoretical structures within which cosmopolitan ideals take form alter significantly the meaning itself of the term ‘‘cosmopolitanism.’’ On the other hand, the general and intuitive meaning of cosmopolitanism is rather vague also because it may correspond both to the class consciousness of frequent travelers (uninterested in any political or social engagement) and to the political projects for a democratic reform of global governance. Hence, in order that the meaning of cosmopolitanism be clarified, it is necessary both to trace it back to its historical origin and developments and to analyze the different meaning that it assumes within the different theoretical frameworks. A common feature of the several forms of cosmopolitanism is the conviction (which sometimes remains a conviction and sometimes is corroborated by theoretical argumentations) that human differences are, at least to
some degree, the result of a social construction. The different symbolic universes – composed of norms, values, beliefs, and principles – which characterize the various cultures are the outcome of a human activity, intended to create a stable order within the natural environment. In light of this comprehension of social reality, cosmopolitans maintain that any culture leaves more or less room for revision and change. What differentiates the various forms of cosmopolitanism addressed below is the way in which this process of revision should be pursued, the scope of it, and the subjects who are required to act.
Historical Background Cosmopolitanism is deeply rooted in Greek culture, where it was a cosmological, physical, social, epistemic, and ethical perspective: It invited human beings to understand the natural world, physical nature, human forms of organization, human knowledge, and human persons as arising from, and implanted in, the same seedbed, i.e., the relation with the universe governed by the logos. This logos is the logical and ontological structure of the world and produces the discrete logoi of human beings. On this reading, any particular tie with a delimited community risks narrowing and harming humans’ comprehension of their real nature and their compliance with the prescriptions of the universal logos. According to Diogenes Laertius, the term kosmou politeˆs was first used by the cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, who wanted to stress his aversion to the traditional and conventional political-territorial bonds. But cosmopolitan way of thinking had penetrated into the Greek reflection since the crisis of the polis. Actually, Plato had already offered a description of sophists as overt enemies of patriotisms and keen advocates of the sociopolitical and biophysical similarity of human beings. Still, their cosmopolitanism was noticeably individualistic and relativistic, for sophists set it out as a critical stance against the conventionality and arbitrariness of political bonds. Famously, stoics were the very first cosmopolitan thinkers. Ancient stoicism was a multifaceted philosophical school stretching over many centuries and countries. Its core tenet was the unity and the orderliness of the kosmos, which was conceived as a complete and comprehensive good. Since they thought of every sphere of reality as ruled by the same logos, stoics held that all human beings (just because they are bestowed with reason) may reach such a logos, regardless of political, cultural, or social distinctions. Hence, according to stoics, inasmuch as universal logos transcends parochial allegiances and national boundaries, by referring to it all human beings may be reckoned to be citizens of the world. Human
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perfection consists properly in the ability to grasp the orderliness and the unity of the world in light of the logos. Within this general framework, Zeno of Citium, the founder of stoicism, and Chrysippus of Soli painted the ideal polis as the homeland of humanity. Nevertheless, Greek cosmopolitanism never acquired the status of a political theory. It was above all a moral and social viewpoint, with several individualistic and apolitical implications. Stoicism was introduced in Rome by Panaetius of Rhodes, and then elaborated by Cicero (who is better classifiable as an eclectic), Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius. In addition to the aspects mentioned above, Roman philosophical elaboration conferred on cosmopolitanism philanthropic and legal traits. On the one hand, cosmopolitan thinking impinged on the Roman way to understand social relationships and human common nature, as depicted by the sentence of Terence: ‘‘Homo sum, humani nil a me alienum puto’’ (‘‘I am a man, I consider nothing that is human alien to me.’’). On the other hand, and more importantly, cosmopolitanism turned out to merge with a universalistic conception of the Roman law of peoples (ius gentium), which Roman jurists considered to be somehow based on a broader (and rather vague) natural law (lex naturalis). As a matter of fact, a cosmopolitan standpoint seems to be embodied in the renowned Cicero’s definition of the natural law as the highest reason, rooted in nature, which commands things that must be done and prohibits the opposite. Obviously, Cicero’s understanding is quite far from that of Greek stoics. By defending such a conception of natural law he did not want to embrace a cosmopolitan conception of politics, but to pursue a twofold aim: He tried both to advocate and exalt the Roman republican tradition, and, at the same time, to illuminate a universal moral code which would be able to mitigate Roman imperialism and prevent it from becoming a despotism. This is evidence that not even in Rome cosmopolitanism succeeded in acquiring the status of a political theory and that it served mainly as a moral benchmark. Cosmopolitanism was linked to political action only in that the stoic conception of kosmopolis ended up being an intellectual cover for Roman imperialism. But if the imperial policies actually managed to establish an almost universal commonwealth, many stoic philosophers (Seneca, for instance) were not at ease with the most despotic features of it. The ecumenism of Christian announce rendered cosmopolitanism into a broader universalism, in light of the common relationship with the bearer of the announce, i.e., Christ, the God become man. This was the conceptual basis of the rising Respublica Christiana. But the Middle Ages was crossed by contradictory tendencies of
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universality (under the image of a human common destiny, which prevails over the transient differences among human beings) and particularity (in the form of a vast array of discrete and autonomous territorial entities, freed from close ties with a political center). The dialectic between the common law, as a series of mandatory principles generally valid for every country, and customary laws, as the outcome of the free interpretation and application of the same common law in the different territories, confirms the presence of this underlying ambiguity. In addition, the ongoing conflicts between European and non-European cultures limited drastically the cosmopolitan scope of medieval politics: Only Christians had the privilege to be citizens of the universal Republic. Cosmopolitanism reemerged in the modern era, within the context of the prevailing system of States. The formation of political units, arisen as autonomous and unitary actors in a sort of global ‘‘state of nature,’’ along with the increasing growth of colonialism, apparently determined a reviviscence of cosmopolitan consciousness. But it would be highly misleading to speak of a genuine connection between the ancient cosmopolitanism and the jusnaturalist theories of ius gentium. While the original ius gentium had risen as a legal arrangement aimed at regulating the relationships between Romans and nonRomans (so that it put the legal subjects, be they persons, groups, or peoples, at the center of the legal order), the modern ius gentium was thought of as a series of norms designed to regulate the relations among States. In fact, modern jusnaturalism took shape in a political, legal, and social framework dominated by the two newborn realities mentioned above, i.e., the State (the only legitimate political actor) and the race for colonies. It could even be said that modern jusnaturalism may be better understood as an intellectual complement of the State-building process, at both the international and the domestic level. Actually, not only did modern jusnaturalists defend a concept of international law in which the sole protagonists were the States, but – especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – they favored de facto the process of political renovation promoted by the new central governments to the detriment of the traditional sub-territorial mediators of the Ancient Regime. Hence, also in virtue of the intellectual contributions of jusnaturalist thinkers, the medieval vision of a vertical Respublica Christiana was progressively replaced by the vision of a horizontal ensemble of independent and sovereign respublicae, that is, the emerging Leviathans. A careful reading of the legal theory of F. de Vitoria shows that he gave the ius gentium a quite formal and softly binding role, closer to a moral admonishment than to a compulsory legal standard for the States’
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action. Furthermore, this soft role was even weakened by authors such as A. Gentili, H. Grotius, and S. Pufendorf, whose reflections contributed to reinforce the political state of things that C. Schmitt named ius publicum europaeum. On this interpretation, one may not speak of a modern cosmopolitanism at least since that wave of theoreticians (such as W. Penn, Saint-Pierre, I. Kant, J. Bentham) who committed themselves to elaborate workable strategies for reaching a durable peace among States. In particular, Kant’s Perpetual Peace may be considered as the main modern contribution to cosmopolitan theory, up to the work of H. Kelsen. In this writing, Kant singles out three types of law: constitutional, international, and cosmopolitan. It is worth noting that, for the first time in modern political thought, the third type was presented as independent of those stemming from State sovereignty. Cosmopolitan law consisted in a legal (therefore, neither moral nor philanthropic) right of the stranger not to be treated as an enemy when he or she arrives in the land of another. Yet, notwithstanding such a fundamental step toward a positive acknowledgement of a kind of law independent of the State, cosmopolitan approaches continued to depict the world political scenario as the arena of sovereign and autonomous States, called upon to respect (by way of a self-obligation) certain individual rights. Only in the twentieth century did cosmopolitanism become a sound political and legal project. Kelsen, one of the most influential scholars in the history of jurisprudence, gave sophisticated theoretical reasons for eroding the modern notion of autonomous State sovereignty. According to him, the international legal system embraces and is superior to all other normative systems, including the national ones, to such an extent that international law rules out the notion itself of national sovereignty. In accordance with its pure theory of law, which had already overturned the relationship between State and sovereignty (the State does not produce the legal system, but is the legal system itself and thus depends on the logic functioning of law), Kelsen dismantled the argument that international law rested on the conventional self-obligation of States and that international norms were valid only insofar as the governments or parliaments of the discrete countries recognized them. Kelsen argued that national legal systems were but ‘‘partial systems’’ operating within a superior international legal system that conferred validity on the national ones. Hence, any domestic norm incompliant with international norms was to be considered null. The attempt to rethink the international order starting from the collapse of the modern concept of the absolute State sovereignty, at least by and large, characterizes
all the forms of contemporary cosmopolitanism, which will be sketched below.
Key Issues Today, many theories present cosmopolitan nuances and many cosmopolitan features are present in noncosmopolitan paradigms. Hence, it is worth looking for an interpretative scheme which allows outlining genuinely cosmopolitan theories. In addition to the well-known distinction between moral and political cosmopolitanism, it is possible to identify a further variable, i.e., the focus of the theory either on subjects (be they individuals, groups, or cultures) or on institutions (i.e., States, governments, national, and international public authorities). By intersecting these two variables, it is possible to single out four general forms of cosmopolitanism: moral theories focused on subjects, moral theories focused on institutions, political theories focused on subjects, and political theories focused on institutions. Of course, such forms are not mutually exclusive or fully independent of each other. They are significantly interlinked, in that, for instance, individualistic moral theories often give indications to political institutions as well as political theories focused on institutional reforms often endorse moral principles. Nonetheless, an interpretative scheme, meant to illuminate the basis and the core of the various theories, is necessary in order to capture the different meanings that the term ‘‘cosmopolitanism’’ comes to assume in the different theoretical frameworks. Moral theories focused on subjects
There are theories which attribute a greater importance to the questions concerning moral life of individuals and groups than to the political processes which are at the basis of societal organization. It is possible to divide such theories into two main paradigms: the cosmopolitanism of self and the cosmopolitanism of cultures. The first looks at the self as the basic unit of moral experience and thus as the chief target of cosmopolitan reflections. It is well-represented by some writings of M. Nussbaum (see 1997), who openly recalls the Greek and Roman tradition, from Diogenes to stoics. In Nussbaum’s view, human beings ought to conceive of themselves as having common goals and projects and thus to realize that they all belong to a sort of Kantian kingdom of free rational beings, equal in humanity, each one to be treated not as a means but as an end. Such a cosmopolitanism constitutes a sort of educational process, a set of practices aimed at shaping the cultural and moral personality of individuals, so as to make them aware of their sharing a common nature. According to some critics, not only does this
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stance represent a purely moral position, but, furthermore, it has apolitical outcomes (just like the tradition which Nussbaum recalls), in that it tends to transform political philosophy into a generic philanthropic moralism (see Dallmayr, 2003). The second paradigm, i.e., the cosmopolitanism of cultures, concentrates less on individual moral experience and more on social constructivism. It is a reply to communitarianism and strong multiculturalism, and, more in general, to all those theories which assert that for individuals to shape an integral and coherent identity they need to enjoy an integral and coherent culture. This type of cosmopolitanism claims that not only integral and coherent cultures are a product of imagination – a human artifact often promoted by political interests – but also that cultural isolation is an unfit and dangerous solution for facing today’s global challenges. As an example, J. Waldron (1992) maintains that cultures do count in individuals’ development, but, at the same time, individuals cross many cultural contexts and have a multiplicity and perhaps disparate communal allegiances. Such a position, Waldron adds, does not lead cosmopolitans to support the liberal ethereal conception of self. Instead, cosmopolitans uphold a concept of self as a set of commitments and involvements which can be balanced better by assuming a cosmopolitan perspective. The cosmopolitan gamble is that human diversity, cultural pluralism, and social fuzziness are not something to be prevented and cured, but an opportunity for creating new and wider contexts of sociality in which individuals may jointly find better way to fulfill their needs. Moral theories focused on institutions
This kind of moral theories is composed of those positions which move from a specific ideal of social justice; they focus on institutions insofar as justice is advanced as a normative ideal meant to shape the basic structure of society. In this light, the tradition opened by J. Rawls offers a paradigmatic example. Rawls (1999) may be hardly classified as a cosmopolitan thinker, as his intention to pick up the thread of Kant’s reflection on international law still rests on an image of world society as divided into sealed-off national societies. A far more promising approach is that of C. Beitz (1979) and T. Pogge (2002). They continue the contractarian approach of Rawls, but apply it to the whole global society: Their main goal is to face inequalities in basic life chances by implementing a system of global redistribution, for which they provide a philosophical justification. Yet, ‘‘cosmopolitanism’’ here tends to shade off into ‘‘universalism.’’ And in fact, Pogge himself stresses that its conception of moral justice can be said to be
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universalistic, since he wants his proposal to be valid for all persons, to assign the same fundamental moral benefits and burdens to all, and to formulate these fundamental moral benefits and burdens so as to privilege or disadvantage no person or group. Political theories focused on subjects
A theory is (primarily) political so long as it does not privilege a moral or ethical foundation and tries to encompass the entire spectrum of the positive ethics embodied in the international Charters of rights. It does not imply that political theoreticians are uninterested in moral thinking. But their political approach is expected to avert ethical conflicts and to privilege political conciliation by strengthening democratic procedures. It is possible to define as focused on political subjects (in particular, noninstitutional actors belonging to the so-called civil society) those cosmopolitan models which understand transnational politics as mainly based on the commitment of these subjects, who are deemed to be the main source of democratic transformation. This is the case, for example, of M. Kaldor and J. Dryzek. According to Kaldor (1999), cosmopolitan politics is mainly associated with the activities of civil society, in particular, nongovernmental organizations and independent media. Such a politics should enhance a transnational cooperation between local actors and those engaged in a variety of transnational activities committed to a cosmopolitan approach. This approach must counter the traditional and narrow politics of particularistic identities with a cosmopolitanism based on inclusive and universalistic values. Only this cosmopolitan engagement, Kaldor points out, can prevent what she calls ‘‘new wars,’’ i.e., those wars brought about by the lack of authority of the State, the weakness of representation, and the deficiency of state economic and legal arrangements. Dryzek (2006) also gives an increasing importance to nongovernmental organizations and to transnational public spheres constituted primarily by network of association and communication. In fact, the suitable context of cosmopolitan practices, as a series of righteous constraints on institutional policies, is the more informal realm of international public sphere. In doing so, such cosmopolitanism endorses a sort of institutional minimalism, which confers on nonpublic transnational actors an ever bigger role. Political theories focused on institutions
Differently from the first political cosmopolitanism, some authors claim that the commitment from below can meet with success only while promoting a parallel reform of domestic and international institutions. They move from
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the assumption that, although the territorial State played (and perhaps will continue to play) a significant role in establishing the rule of law, it is not the only possible context for democracy to develop and thrive. Therefore, they envisage a broader process of democratization of international political structure; an extensive and cooperative global governance through which the intertwined communities of fate would be able to face the growing crisis of their discrete political systems. This kind of cosmopolitanism (also known as ‘‘cosmopolitan democracy’’) is an articulated project for promoting democracy within and among States by means of a multilayered form of global governance, to be founded on a robust and proceduralized global constitutional framework. Two paradigmatic examples are the proposals of D. Archibugi and D. Held. In continuing Kant’s and Kelsen’s approach, Archibugi (2008) argues that the notion of sovereign authority is to be replaced with that of overlapping authorities, operating under the supervision of a supranational judicial body, which should assure compliance with a set of general rules. This theory pursues two primary objectives, as it is aimed both at reducing the occurrence of conflicts between political actors and at minimizing forms of violence and exclusion. That would be achieved by implementing two kinds of reforms. On the one hand, although States would continue to hold many of their current powers, they should accept the normative solutions issued by arbitral bodies and international courts. On the other hand, the international constitutional machinery would secure some political and legal tools for every individual, in the form of a world citizenship. Such a citizenship would not substitute the national one; it would provide a restricted but welldefined series of civil and political rights, which only supranational institutions may guarantee. Held also emphasizes the necessity for a multilevel and polycentric governance, able to guarantee the symmetry and the congruence between political decisions and affected people’s requirements. In his view, cosmopolitan democratic law should guarantee that all those significantly affected by decisions may have a say during decision-making processes and may always contest the outcomes of them. On this reading, national politics would be only one site of political activity among many; and all of the sites would be governed by an overlapping cosmopolitan regulation, as the sole adequate response to global challenges.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society History I: Ancient ▶ Civil Society Theory: Kant ▶ Communitarianism
▶ Community, Types of ▶ Global civil society ▶ Human rights ▶ Schmitt, Carl ▶ Social Justice ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Archibugi, D. (Ed.) (2003). Debating cosmopolitics. London: Verso. Archibugi, D. (2008). The global commonwealth of citizens: Towards cosmopolitan democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Beitz, C. (1979). Political theory and international relations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brock, G., & Brighouse, H. (Eds.) (2005). The political philosophy of cosmopolitanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dallmayr, F. (2003). Cosmopolitanism: Moral and political. Political Theory, 31(1), 421–442. Dryzek, J. (2006). Deliberative global politics: Discourse and democracy in a divided world. Cambridge: Polity Press. Fine, R. (2007). Cosmopolitanism. London/New York: Routledge. Heater, D. (1996). World citizenship and government: Cosmopolitan ideas in the history of Western political thought. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Held, D. (2004). Global covenant: The social democratic alternative to the Washington consensus. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kaldor, M. (1999). New and old wars: Organized violence in a global era. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Nussbaum, M. (1997). Cultivating humanity. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Pogge, T. (2002). World poverty and human rights: Cosmopolitan responsibilities and reforms. Cambridge: Polity Press. Rawls, J. (1999). The aw of peoples. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Vertovec, S., & Cohen, R. (Eds.) (2002). Conceiving cosmopolitanism: Theory, context and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Waldron, J. (1992). Minority cultures and the cosmopolitan alternative. University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, 25, 751–793.
Council on Foundations ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization 2121 Crystal Drive, Suite 700 Arlington, VA 22202 USA www.cof.org
Introduction The Council on Foundations is a Washington, DC, areabased nonprofit membership association of more than
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2,100 foundations and corporations. The Council provides a wide variety of services primarily for endowed, grantmaking organizations throughout the United States, but also in foreign countries. Within the past 4 years, the Council has emphasized its role in increasing collaboration among affinity groups, regional associations, and university-based, nonprofit-research, and education programs and in making them a part of the Council’s growing resource network.
Brief History In 1949, the National Committee on Foundations and Trusts for Community Welfare was organized under the leadership of Edward L. Ryerson, a leading steel executive in Chicago. With the new name of National Council on Community Foundations, the organization was officially incorporated as a non-profit organization in New York City in 1957. The next year, full-time operations began with a challenge grant of $45,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Council permitted private and company foundations to become affiliated with it. In 1964, the Council amended its by-laws to admit family and corporate foundations as full, voting members and the name of the organization adopted its current name. In 2006, the Council focused on transitioning its leadership role from effective programming to philanthropic leadership. Communication and government relations took on new importance as the Council sought to communicate the definition and role of philanthropy to the general public, the media and national policy makers. Through discussions about charitable reform at the first annual Foundations on the Hill event, government relations became more visible and active at the national and state levels.
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In addition to the Council’s ongoing research (e.g., the Annual Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Report), the Council also conducts various studies that relate to modern issues in philanthropy. The Council’s most recent studies include Foundations Support Families Hit by Economic Downturn: Results of a Survey (May 1, 2008), and Donor Advised Funds Provide the Majority of Grant Funds Awarded by Community Foundations: Results of a Survey (January 13, 2009). Through its Public Policy Department, the Council produces the annual Foundations on the Hill event, which serves as an opportunity for grantmakers to meet with their federal lawmakers in Washington, DC. Through this convening, the Council informs United States congresspeople, senators, and their staffs about philanthropy, and it advocates on issues affecting foundations. In addition, this series of meetings encourages members of Congress to view foundations as resources on key public policy issues. The Council’s Conferences and Meetings Department generally organizes three separate large scale conferences annually: the Family Foundation Conference, the Community Foundation Conference, and the Annual Conference. In addition, the Council offers to its members guidance from expert staff in areas including research and benchmarking, guidance on legal issues, governance, and leadership. For nonmembers, the Council offers several useful resources including the online Career Center (on which job descriptions and resumes can be posted from the general public), the Major Meetings Calendar (on which submitted meetings and events can be publicized), and Courses, Online Learning, and Webinars (through which conversations on topics including Investment Policy Design and Legal Basics can be downloaded).
Mission/Objective/Focus Areas The purposes of the Council are to promote, encourage, and enhance the public good through private giving. The mission of the Council on Foundations is to provide the opportunity, leadership, and tools needed by philanthropic organizations to expand, enhance, and sustain their ability to advance the common good.
Activities The Council’s activities to support its member organizations fall into several areas including publishing and disseminating research, increasing visibility around public policy and advocacy to support effective charitable giving, and organizing educational programs (e.g., webinars, seminars, roundtables), and annual conferences.
Structure and Governance The Council’s governing body at present consists of 32 board members, including four board officers. In addition to elected board members, five individuals serve on the board ex-officio with full voting rights. They include the president & CEO, the chair of the Committee on Family Philanthropy, the chair of the Committee on Corporate Grantmaking, the chair of the Community Foundations Leadership Team and one representative from the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers.
Funding Council revenues are primarily derived from membership dues, conference fees and publications.
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Accomplishments Through research, advocacy, and convening, the Council seeks to promote influential exchanges among practitioners and thought leaders in philanthropy, and one of the most highly regarded topics that the Council has recently addressed involves diversity in institutional philanthropy. The Council made significant advances by establishing its first ever Director of Diversity and Inclusive Practices in 2007. In February 2008, the Council published Diversity and Inclusion in Philanthropy: Position and Action Steps Response to California Assembly Bill A.B. 624, which echoed the Council’s call ‘‘for an active and ongoing process that affirms human diversity in its many forms, encompassing but not limited to ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, economic circumstance, disability, and philosophy.’’
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Civic Action ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Philanthropy in North America
References/Further Readings Boney, R. (2008). U.S. funders face the downturn: Part 1. Philanthropy Journal. From http://www.philanthropyjournal.org/news/ us-funders-face-downturn-part-1;1/28/2009 Chao, J. et al. (2008). Philanthropy in a changing society: Achieving effectiveness through diversity. New York: Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. O’Connell, J. et al. (2008). Local charities may profit from Council on Foundations’ summit. Washington Business Journal. From http:// www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/04/21/story4.html; 1/29/2009
Credit Unions IAN MACPHERSON University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
During the middle of the nineteenth century many people in several European countries turned to the organized cooperative movement (i.e., associations made up of cooperative organizations owned by their members and legally registered with governments) as a way to meet a variety of social and economic needs. They were
particularly interested in cooperative banking because of the ‘‘enigma of credit’’: the challenges the middle and lower classes commonly were encountering during a time of general economic growth in accessing secure savings and borrowing institutions that paid reasonable interest rates on deposits and charged fair rates on loans. They were forced to meet their personal financial needs by using such savings as they possessed or by relying on mutual associations, ‘‘friendly societies,’’ other community organizations or, most commonly, family members. In response to these situations, cooperative movements developed two kinds of banking organizations in the last half of the nineteenth century. One consisted of cooperative banks operated as subsidiaries of large and growing cooperative organizations, such as the Cooperative Bank owned and operated by the Co-operative Wholesale Society in England. This model was employed by consumer movements in several other European countries, followed by agricultural and fisheries cooperative organizations in Europe and overseas in Asia and Latin America. In addition to serving the needs of cooperative members, such cooperative banks were a common way for different kinds of cooperatives to raise the capital they needed for necessary for local, regional, and national development. The second kind of cooperative bank consisted of community-based banking organizations owned directly by their member-users and varying somewhat in their structure and powers in different countries. The banking counterparts of the Rochdale system of consumer cooperatives, they were based on direct member ownership, democratic governance, and the distribution of surplus (or profit) based on participation – in their case through limited interest return on deposits. This kind of cooperative bank spread throughout the world from the later nineteenth century onward, typically as part of the cultural baggage of immigrants, or, as in the case of India and many African countries, the result of assertive imperial policies, most commonly those directed at developing rural communities. The name most commonly used for these organizations in the global South was thrift and credit cooperatives, but in the twentieth century the term ‘‘credit unions’’ became increasingly common. Community-based banking first emerged vigorously in the German states in the 1850s, associated largely with the efforts of Hermann Schulze from Saxony and Friederich Raiffeisen from Heddesdorf in the Rhineland. Both men were deeply concerned about the economic hardships, social unrest, and political turmoil of the 1840s, and experimented with a number of social and economic institutions to respond to them. Both
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ultimately decided that developing community-based banking could help meet many needs, and they devoted most of their lives to that approach from the late 1850s onward. Schulze was elected to the Saxony legislature in 1848. Shortly thereafter he added Delitzsch to his name to distinguish himself from other Schulzes in the assembly. This political connection was important for his banking work. He used it to help popularize his community banks and, most importantly, to secure legislation under which they could be effectively developed. He was especially interested in the challenges confronting small business people and craftsmen in the towns of Saxony, people who had limited access to savings and lending institutions and who faced serous obstacles amid the depression and uncertain economic times of the 1840s and 1850s. Philosophically, he was essentially a liberal who sought ways to provide the financial support individuals needed to better their economic situation. Raiffeissen concentrated largely on the needs of rural people caught between traditional, largely self sufficient farming and the emergence of profitable marketing opportunities in the growing cities made more accessible and reliable by rapid developments in agricultural science, technological innovations, and transportation improvements. He was a profoundly religious man, and he emphasized the importance of ‘‘character’’ or reputation in making loans, unlimited liability for depositors, community bonds, and the inculcation of habits of thrift among members. His approach reflected a deeper concern for general community well-being and social improvement than did that of Schulze-Delitzsch. Community banking movements soon emerged in other European countries as well, notably in Italy and France during the 1870s and 1880s and in Central and Eastern Europe during the following 2 decades. Luigi Luzzatti, who would become President of Italy (1910– 1911), became particularly well known through his efforts to help workers in the northern, industrializing parts of the country form community banks. He became an ‘‘expert’’ on cooperative credit, rivalling SchulzeDelitzsch and Raiffeisen for his knowledge and impact. An even more prominent and completely informed expert was Henry J. Woolf, in the early years of the twentieth century a President of the International Co-operative Alliance, the international organization for the global cooperative movement formed in 1895. Woolf was the author of a book on cooperative banking that went through five printings, and he was at the centre of an informal international network of cooperative banking enthusiasts.
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In 1897, Alphonse Desjardins, a Parliamentary recorder in the Canadian House of Commons, was shocked to learn, while listening to a debate on lending practices and interest rates for loans to low-income Canadians, about the exorbitant charges being levied by lenders. He heard about a Montre´al case, for example, where a man had paid $5,000 on a $150 loan – an astounding interest rate of over 3,000% – because he could never pay off the principle and the interest at stipulated due dates. He heard about other examples almost as bad, all because borrowers had difficulty in paying off their loans on time, given the interest rates they had to pay. Desjardins had already shown interest in the problems of credit for lower income people, and he was engaged in reading about the ‘‘enigma of credit’’ in the European cooperative literature, including community-based banking. He intensified his reading after the debate, and he corresponded with many of the movement’s European leaders, but particularly Luzzatti and Woolf. In December 2000, with the help of his wife, Dorime`ne, the local priest, and a dozen neighbors, he opened the first caisse populaire, as he called his version of a community bank, in the town of Le´vis, across the St. Lawrence River from the city of Que´bec. At first, the mouvement Desjardins grew slowly, in part because Dejardins and his associates had difficulty in securing appropriate legislation under which caisses could be established. They unsuccessfully tried six times to have national legislation passed in the Canadian Parliament but each attempt failed because of the opposition of merchants wanting to impede the development of any kind of cooperative and because of uncertainties over whether the federal of provincial governments should have jurisdiction. The result in Canada was that credit unions had to develop within provincial jurisdictions, creating important differences among them and impeding the development of a strong national organizational framework. From the beginning, therefore, it can be said that governments, through their regulatory regimes, have significantly affected whether and how credit unions could develop; a pattern that had already been demonstrated in reverse in the German experience. News about Desjardins’ work soon spread to the United States, particularly to areas in New England where emigrants from Que´bec had settled. Father Pierre Hevey, with the assistance of Desjardins, organized the first credit union (the caisse populaire Sainte-Marie) in November 1908, even before there was state legislation for it, in the community of Manchester, Massachusetts. At about the same time, a group of civic leaders in Boston were increasingly concerned about the economic
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challenges confronting the urban working class in their city. They learned with interest about the formation of the Manchester caisse and invited Desjardins to Boston to explain his work to them. As it turned out, the most important person in the Boston group was Edward A. Feline, a member of a wealthy family that had pioneered in the development of a clothing department store catering to the needs of lower income people. Filene believed that the problems of production had been solved by technology and the genius of the Ford assembly line, and he thought that the greatest impediment to the development of a stable, sustainable economy was the lack of purchasing power among the masses of the population. He also believed that work place relationships created bonds of understanding and knowledge about peers that could form the basis of sound economic development. He became a convinced proponent of credit unions, a name he suggested for the new kind of cooperative bank envisioned by legislation passed in the Massachusetts legislature in 1909. At the end of World War I Filene started to contribute funds (ultimately a million dollars, a large amount in the first half of the twentieth century) from his considerable fortune to make possible the formation of the Credit Union National Extension Bureau to promote the development of credit unions in the United States. The first director of the Bureau was Roy Bergengren, a lawyer and World War I veteran from Lynn, Massachusetts. From the time of his appointment in 1920 until his retirement in 1945, Bergengren travelled tirelessly around the United States and into Canada promoting the development of credit unions and lobbying state, provincial, and federal governments for effective legislation. He and the American movement generally were convinced that the effective development of sound credit union movements relied upon effective and appropriate legislative and regulatory regimes. The American experience and subsequent experiences in other countries have validated the correctness of that assumption. In the 1930s, the federal government in Washington embraced credit unions as a way to help the working classes meet their needs for personal loans. In 1934 it passed an enabling federal act that complemented the credit union legislation that had had, by that time, been passed in some 30 states. The development of this new legislative framework contributed to a restructuring of the American movement. The Credit Union Bureau became the Credit Union National Association, and the movement organized a cooperative, CUNA Supply Cooperative, to provide credit unions with necessary services and supplies. More importantly, it also organized CUNA
Mutual Insurance Company, an associated insurance company to insure the deposits and loans of credit union members. Although envisioned at first as a small auxiliary organization, CUNA Mutual prospered (it often provided the only life insurance working class people had), and it became very influential within the movement, rivalling CUNA for influence and quickly surpassing it in economic strength. This unequal and separate division of influence and power became a source of considerable division within the American and, by extension, within the English-Canadian movement as well. It also became a focus for disagreement when the Canadian cooperative/ credit union movements organized their own insurance companies during the 1940s and 1950s. Ancillary services are always important within credit unions as outlets for the entrepreneurial instincts they invariably stimulate, as providers of member services that become increasingly important, and as producers of important income. The English–Canadian movement grew steadily, in some years rapidly in the years after World War II. It did so by providing personal loans, much like the American movement, but it also differed from that movement in three key respects: many of the Canadian credit unions were closely tied to other kinds of cooperatives, especially consumer co-ops, thereby having strong community as opposed to workplace, religious, and ethnic associations; they began to offer, often shortly after their development, household mortgages, meaning that they had different managerial and capital needs; and they were often prominent in rural areas – as opposed to the more common urban locations and orientations of the American movement. As in the United States, the Canadian movement largely expanded as part of the growing consumerism of the post-War period, associated with urban growth, increased travel, more frequent family relocations, the ‘‘love affair’’ with the automobile, suburban lifestyles, and rising education costs. Credit unions played significant roles in this changing pattern of life for many North Americans, still serving lower income members but increasingly becoming important providers of financial services for the middle class. The resultant changes were symbolized by the construction of new premises, many of them (in the case of employee or religiously-based credit unions) moving away from their host organizations and locating on business thoroughfares, even Main Street. Many credit unions, too, began to open branch offices, thereby reducing the sense of specific ‘‘place’’ that had characterized their early development. Credit unions largely became bankers to a growing segment of the
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amorphous middle class that expanded so rapidly in the two countries between 1945 and 1995. As the movement in the two countries grew, people from other parts of the world began to take an interest in it. Several networks, such as trade union, political connections, and family associations, contributed to the popularization of credit unions overseas, as did visits by people from other countries to the CUNA offices, located since 1935 in Madison, Wisconsin. Many also visited the campus of St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, where a group within the Extension Department, under the leadership of Monsignor Moses Coady had developed an effective approach to community development that typically used credit unions as the base for a wide range of social and economic activities, but particularly the expanded use of many types of cooperatives. This increasing interest, and the remarkable growth of the Canadian movement led CUNA to create a new organization, CUNA International, in 1954, as a framework for the international movement. Since the vast majority of credit unions, for many years, would be located in the United States, however, CUNA International would remain heavily influenced by the American movement, which essentially funded it and dominated its outlook. The international movement grew steadily, in some years rapidly, in the later 1950s and 1960s. A main reason for this growth was the strong interest among many Roman Catholics, especially those concerned about social justice issues. They included people within religious orders (e.g., the Jesuits and the Scarborough fathers) as well as local priests and lay leaders. They began to foster the development of credit unions in Ireland, in Central and South America, in Africa, and in some Asian countries, notably Korea. While these movements emulated the experiences of the United States and Canada to varying degrees, each of them also reflected the cultures and economic life of their communities, an important dimension of the international movement that can easily be underestimated by observers from outside, most of whom tend to search out the similarities with the credit unions in their own lands. In Latin America, many Roman Catholics influenced by Liberation Theology were particularly conspicuous in the development of the movement, though others reflecting more conservative theological positions could readily be found. The result was that credit unions in countries such as Guatemala, El Salvador, and Peru´ were divided between competing political groups and were adversely affected by the fierce political struggles of the period.
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In Africa and parts of Asia, as the former colonies of European empires struggled in the postindependence periods, the credit unions were often buffeted by the intense politics of the times; governments with scarce resources searching for ways to shape the new nations often eyed covetously their social and economic power or wanted to use them to deliver financial service for which they were ill-prepared. In such situations, credit union movements had to forcefully insist, with different degrees of success, on maintaining the kind of independence needed for their successful development. At the same time, credit unions that had started primarily within Roman Catholic or other faith groups tended to expand beyond their original networks to become genuinely nondenominational. By 1970, the international credit union movement had grown to the point that there was strong resistance among non-American credit union leaders to the domination of the American movement within CUNA International. Pressures from Canadian, Australian and some American leaders led to a restructuring of CUNA International into the World Council of Credit Unions, which extended more influence to Canadian and other movements through a modified board system and budgetary practices that allowed for increased international influence. This shift also coincided with the strengthening of international development assistance programmes for credit unions, encouraged by the United Nations and funded by significant grants from national government organizations, such as United States Agency for International Development and the Canadian International Development Agency. As those programmes developed, in many instances at least partly within attempts to limit the expansion of the Soviet bloc, they augmented very significantly the funds raised within the Canadian and American national credit union/ cooperative movements for the expansion of credit union movements overseas. From the 1970s onward the movements in the two North American countries were engaged in several development projects overseas, for many credit unionists activities in which they took great interest and from which they derived much pride. During the 1970s and 1980s, the movement expanded in many countries, with movements in the United States, Canada, Australia, Korea, and Ireland experiencing the most rapid development. In Latin America, the rest of Asia, and Africa, growth was slower, economic conditions in many countries fluctuated more, and there were in many countries difficulties in establishing stable, significant masses of credit unions upon which to build national and regional organizations. In some instances, most commonly in Africa, the state was too much involved and the local bases of credit unions were too fragile to allow for
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the emergence of strong leadership cadres and structures regionally or even within national movements. Finding the right mixture of local activism and national or regional coordination has always been a challenge for the credit union movement, as it is typically for all kinds of cooperative organizations. The common pattern of continuous growth during the 1980s and 1990s was affected to varying degrees by general economic conditions. During the 1980s the movement in North America, but particularly in the more diversified Canadian movement, financial uncertainties associated with rapidly fluctuating interest rates and increased pressures from regulators significantly increased the levels of reserves required. These encouraged governments to try and regulate credit unions much like banks, potentially (and sometimes in reality) a threat to the distinctive qualities of credit unions, notably in more stringent reporting regulations, levels of reserves, and regulations regarding the start of new credit unions. The rapid change within credit unions led to the employment of a growing number of professional managers, some trained within the movement but many of them attracted from other financial institutions. The pressures of technological change, along with the ambitions of elected and employed leaders, encouraged the merger of many local credit unions into larger units. Larger credit unions, so it was argued, could offer members a wider range of services and more professional advisors. Larger credit unions, however, also raised the danger that, if their leaders did not think imaginatively about how to retain their local connections and how to adjust their democratic processes, then they could easily lose the distinctive features and competitive advantages they had enjoyed in their formative and development stages. Growth and financial success create their own quandaries; people and organizations are often challenged in unanticipated ways by how best to deal with wealth. Today, the credit union movement is an important grouping within the international financial industries and the international cooperative movement. Statistically, it includes 49,000 credit unions in some 96 countries with over 177,000,000 members and more than $1,181,000,000,000 (US) in assets (World Council of Credit Union’s website, accessed: Dec. 27, 2008). Its importance, though, exceeds what even these relatively large numbers suggest. Since the mid-1990s, the movement has gained remarkable new strength in the Eastern European countries, notably Poland and Ukraine, and it has made steady progress in many countries in the global South. Though it has tended to moved upward from its lower income roots in the United States and
Canada, it has retained even expanded its services to some lower income groups in both countries. The record of ‘‘Community Credit Unions’’ in the United States in serving African Americans and Hispanics is particularly notable, as is the record of some credit unions (such as VanCity and Assiniboine) in Canada, many others in Ireland, and Kenya. They have sought innovative ways to reach out to lower income groups and to stimulate community economic development in places where local economies have declined. Much more importantly, the role played by credit unions in the southern part of the world among people with low incomes is remarkable. In countries like Sri Lanka they emphasize how important is the mobilization of savings for people wanting to gain and retain reliable control over their economic destiny. It is a subtle but important difference from the more commonly celebrated microlending approaches that seek to foster economic development through loans drawn from funds raised elsewhere. When considered from these perspectives, both for what they can do to ease financial pressures among those most in need and for what they do in creating economic possibilities for communities in difficulty, credit unions play far greater roles than the mere tabulation of assets suggests. The more conventional successes in meeting the needs of the middle class should not overwhelm this statistically less easily tabulated but crucially important dimension. It is an example of a set of peoples’ organizations developing around the world, a frequently unnoticed phenomenon in the modern era of globalization.
Cross-References
▶ Coady, Moses Michael ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theories of ▶ International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) ▶ Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies ▶ Raiffeisen, Friedrich ▶ Schulze-Delitzsch, Franz Hermann
References/Further Readings Berthoud, R., & Hinton, T. (1989). Credit unions in the United Kingdom. London: Policy Studies Institute. Davies, I. (2005). Issues in International Commercial Law. Farnham: Ashgate. Ferguson, C., & McKillop, D. G. (1997). The strategic development of credit unions. Chichester: Wiley. MacPherson, I. (1999). Hands around the globe. Victoria, BC/Madison, WI: World Council of Credit Unions. MacPherson, I. (2007). One path to co-operative studies: Papers and presentations. Victoria, BC: British Columbia Institute for Cooperative Studies. Moody, J. C., & Fite, G. C. (1984). The Credit Union Movement: Origins and development 1850 to 1980. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt.
Cyber-Communities
Cyber-Communities LORI A. BRAINARD The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction From Community to Cyber-Community
In order to understand cyber-communities, one must first understand the concept of community more generally. While scholars in different disciplines at different points in time have defined and redefined community, the German sociologist, Ferdinand To¨nnies (2001 [1887]), provided a famous, and brief, definition. Tonnies drew a distinction between a society, or a loose association (Gesellschaft, in German) based primarily on self-interest, individualism, and weak social ties on the one hand, and community (or Gemeinschaft, in German), based on stronger ties, including those associated with family, belief, place or location, or need. The reader would do well to avoid binary thinking when it comes to the concept of community. In fact, it is better to think of the notion of community as lying on a continuum with Tonnies’ understanding of Gesellschaft and Gemeinschaft denoting the extremes. On one end of the community continuum would be a completely individualistic society based exclusively on self-interest. On the other end would be a strong community with thick ties based on people living in close familial and geographical proximity to each other. In between these two extremes, there might be different variations of community. This provides an opportunity to understand community in a more nuanced – though admittedly more messy – way. This more nuanced thinking about community and its variants is particularly necessary in light of the emergence of the Internet as a major force in contemporary life. As the Internet has become more pervasive, scholars and practitioners from different disciplines (sociology, political science, public administration, public policy, economics, and so on) have offered their perspectives on the key issues involved in understanding cyber-communities. These differing perspectives and key issues are reflected, in part, in different objects of study and different definitional understandings of cyber-community.
Definition/Historical Background What are cyber-communities? The answer depends on who is answering that question. Howard Rheingold
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(1993), for example, looks at ‘‘virtual communities’’ and defines them as ‘‘social aggregations that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on [those] public discussions long enough, with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in cyberspace’’ (p. 5). Rheingold notes that the term, cyberspace, was coined originally in William Gibson’s 1984 science-fiction novel Neuromancer as ‘‘the name some people use for the conceptual space where words, human relationships, data, wealth, and power are manifested by people using CMC [computer-mediated communication] technology.’’ Rheingold thus emphasizes social discourse and affect over time in cyber-space as the key factors in cyber-communities. Barry Wellman originally focused on social networks (1996), as opposed to communities. The Internet, itself a vast network, of course, facilitates and enhances the development and scope of social networks more generally. Wellman later (1999) came to understand social networks as communities and, thus, Internet-based or Internet-enhanced social networks as virtual communities. Wellman’s important contribution is that he equates social networks with community and argues and provides evidence that communities do not need to be geographically based. In the meantime, Hill and Hughes (1998) focused on ‘‘cyber-groups,’’ and Brainard (2004) identified and studied ‘‘cyber-organizations’’ (see also Brainard & Brinkerhoff, 2004). Both cyber-groups and cyber-organizations are forms of cyber-communities.
Key Issues Are Cyber-Communities ‘‘Real’’?
Though each of these (and other) scholars has identified and studied a different kind, dimension, aspect, or component of communities, they all are getting at a common, central question: Is a cyber-community a ‘‘real’’ community? This question intersects with the larger issue of social capital. Social capital (Loury, 1977, 1987; see also Bourdieu, 1986) denotes community and collective resources that stem from social relationships and that promote cooperation and allow people to take action. So another way of phrasing the question is to ask whether cyber-communities build, foster, or are repositories of, social capital? Rheingold (1993: 13) answers this question affirmatively. He notes that a key function of communities and cyber-communities is to provide collective goods and argues that cyber-communities are especially good at generating such collective goods as social network capital (a group of social contacts), knowledge capital (informational resources of all kinds), and communion (or fellowship). Following their study of Usenet news groups Hill
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and Hughes (1998) state: ‘‘We found that Usenet newsgroups fit the three criteria necessary for describing a group. They engage in leadership activities designed to establish a group norm, they police those who violate that norm, and they recruit others to their cause and they do so strategically – they seek out those most likely to agree with them’’ (p. 72). Wellman (1999), too, argues that virtual communities are indeed real communities. In fact, he points out that it is erroneous even to draw a distinction between cyber-communities and ‘‘real’’ communities because the cyber realm and the ‘‘real’’ world are not separate and distinct realms. Rather, cyber-communities connect to, link with, support, and are supported by traditional types of community, including those that are place-based. He notes, cyber-groups ‘‘are a technologically-supported continuation of a long term shift to communities organized by shared interests rather than by shared place (neighborhood or village) or shared ancestry’’ (p. 172). Wellman further notes that his studies demonstrate that the long-standing norm of reciprocity, as well as both the weak and strong social ties necessary for community (Granovetter, 1973), exist in cyber-communities. Robert Putnam (2000) provided an important and compelling retort to those who argue that cybercommunities were real communities. In his wildly popular book, Bowling Alone, Putnam argued that community and social capital have been declining in the United States over the past few decades. Acknowledging the growing understanding of cyber-communities as real communities, Putnam devoted a section of a chapter to the cybercommunity phenomenon. In general, Putnam argued that cyber-communities could not serve as real communities and could not build the kind of social capital that could effectively compensate for the loss of, and decline in, social capital more generally. Specifically, Putnam made several points. First, he argued that the Internet has resulted in cyber-balkanization, a phenomenon in which people seek out only like-minded others and thereby close themselves off from ideological opposition, alternative understandings, and uncomfortable discussions. Second, he argued that online communities generally either fell into anarchy or, as a way to ameliorate anarchy, resulted in dictatorship. In other words, he argued that the norms – frequently generated and perpetuated by nonverbal communication in a face-to-face environment – so important to ‘‘real’’ community were not in play in cyber-communities. Third, he argued that there is too much expression on the Internet to facilitate cyber-communities. Here he was getting at the importance of communication and discourse in fostering community, arguing that if
everyone was able to speak (or, more accurately, type) on the internet, then no one was listening and effective communication, discourse, and deliberation could not take place. Galston (2002), like Putnam, agrees that cybercommunities are not ‘‘real’’ communities, yet his argument is somewhat different. Galston, in addition to echoing Putnam’s point about cyber-balkanization, stresses the ease with which a person may leave an online community compared with the great uprooting involved in exiting a traditional place-based community. Galston writes: ‘‘We should not organize our lives around the fantasy that entrance and exit can always be cost free or that we can wall ourselves off from those who are different without paying a long-term social price’’ (p. 56). Brainard (2004; see also Brainard & Brinkerhoff, 2005) responds to the arguments of Putnam, and others, that cyber-communities are not ‘‘real’’ communities. Identifying a collection of ‘‘cyber-organizations,’’ Brainard argues that cyber-organizations do establish norms, although they are transitory and emergent – with norms changing the people/participants change. Cyber-communities also do not necessarily engage in too much expression. This is true in a number of senses. First, while there is a great deal of expression in cyber-organizations (indeed, because they only exist on-line, they only exist to the extent that people post and write in), there is also discussion, conversation, and discourse. In other words, people do listen and respond, rather than simply expressing themselves. Second, they do not necessarily engage in mere talk (versus action). Rather, they do take action in the external world, whether that action is in the form of lobbying, advertising, or letter writing. Finally, Brainard found that members do not simply ‘‘exit’’ a cyber-community at the first sign of not getting their way. Rather, she found that members of cyber-communities do stay and engage in discourse, arguments, deliberation, mediation, and reconciliation rather than simply leave the community. Role in Governance
Galston (2002) a critic of cyber-communities and their several variants writes: ‘‘Online groups can fulfill important emotional and utilitarian needs, but they must not be taken as solutions for our current civic ills, let alone as comprehensive models of a better future’’ (p. 56). While scholars who study cyber-communities usually do not propose those communities as a panacea for civic ills, they do argue that cyber-communities can and do contribute to civic life. Brainard (2004), for example, describes instances in which members of cyber-communities learn the valuable skills involved in building strong social relationships,
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leading/following others in pursuit of shared goals, and lobbying Congress and other political institutions. Indeed, Stanley, Weare, and Musso (2004) investigate electronic rulemaking and identify participation among a broader, more representative group of people than in traditional government rulemaking. Interestingly, they found that the full benefit of electronic rulemaking was not achieved, in part, because the participants were individuals, rather than cyber-communities! Also, Davis, Elin, and Reeher (2002) provide a first in-depth account of the role of Internet in a US presidential election. They argue that ordinary citizens, using the Internet to form themselves into cyber-communities, made better use of cyberspace than did existing formal institutions, such as parties and candidates. They note: ‘‘The Principal political institutions used the Internet as a new version of the older, one-to-many TV, radio and print media and were in fact able to achieve some notable innovations inn political communication. However, they failed to change political life in the dramatic ways many Internet and political observers had hoped to see. Instead, the greatest and most positive political impact was the way informal groups and individuals used the Internet to create and enhance political communities’’ (pp. 5–6; emphasis in original).
International Perspectives As a global network, the Internet has implications for the international arena. The Internet is becoming a key aspect of closed, authoritarian regimes as much as it is a key aspect in open, democratic regimes. Thus, one question is whether the pervasiveness of the Internet, and the increased flow of information and ideas and the enhanced formation of cyber-communities that it facilitates, will force authoritarian regimes to develop and democratize. One early attempt to analyze this question was made by Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor Boas (2003). They find mixed results. While some authoritarian regimes have not had to censor the Internet – primarily because Internet penetration is so low in developing countries – others have engaged in censorship and even the imprisoning of those who post commentaries critical of the government. A second international issue is the political and civic role played by cyber-communities that span several countries but target their political activities at their home country. Thus, for example, emerging work on ‘‘digital diasporas,’’ diaspora groups that use the Internet to engage in information sharing, bonding, and identity negotiation among their members, demonstrates that such cybercommunities, and the political activities they undertake, have implications for security and development in both their home and host societies (Brinkerhoff, forthcoming).
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Future Directions In addition to more work on international perspectives, there are other key issues for future consideration. For example, the digital divide is rapidly shrinking, and one must continue to ask whether cyber-communities will become more diverse and representative of the public at large. Related to this, one must ask if the shrinking of the digital divide will make governance more diverse, representative of the public at large, and respond to a different set of demands. Also, the last two presidential elections in the United States – 2004 and 2008 – have been affected by cybercommunities specifically and Internet-based politics generally, as Howard Dean received significant cyber-grassroots support for his failed bid for the Democratic nomination in 2004, and Barack Obama benefited from the intensive use of cyber-community tools and techniques in 2008.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Community, Types of ▶ Digital Divide ▶ Dotcauses ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Information Technology/Internet ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ To¨nnies, Ferdinand
References/Further Readings Bourdieu, P. (1986). Forms of social capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education (pp. 241–260). Westport, CT: Greenwood. Brinkerhoff, J. (Forthcoming). Digital diasporas: Identity and transnational engagement. New York: Cambridge University Press. Brainard, L. (2004). Citizen organizing in cyberspace: Lessons from health care and implications for public administration. American Review of Public Administration, 33(4), 384–406. Brainard, L., & Brinkerhoff, J. (2005). Lost in cyberspace: Shedding light on the dark matter of grassroots organizations. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33(3), 32S–53S. Davis, S., Elin, L., & Reeher, G. (2002). Click on democracy: The Internet’s power to change political apathy into civic action. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Galston, W. (2002). The impact of the Internet of civic life: An early assessment. In E. Kamarck & J. Nye (Eds.), Governance.com: Democracy in the information age (pp. 40–58). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Gibson, W. (1984). Neuromancer. New York: Penquin. Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360. Hill, K., & Hughes, J. (1998). Cyberpolitics: Citizen activism in the age of the Internet. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
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Kalathil, S., & Boas, T. (2003). Open networks, closed regimes: The impact of the Internet on authoritarian rule. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Loury, G. (1977). A dynamic theory of racial income differences. In P. Wallace & Le Mund (Eds.), Women, minorities and employment discrimination. Lexington, MA: Lexington, Books. Loury, G. (1987). Why should we care about group inequality? Social Philosophy & Policy, 5, 249–271. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rheingold, H. (1993). The virtual community: Homesteading on the electronic frontier. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Stanley, W., Weare, C., & Musso, M. (2004). Participation, deliberative democracy, and the Internet: Lessons from A national forum on
commercial vehicle safety. In P. Shane (Ed.), Democracy online: The prospects for political renewal through the Internet. New York: Routledge. Tonnies, F. (2001 [1887]). Community and civil society (Jose Harris, Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wellman, B., & Gulia, M. (1999). Virtual communities as communities: Net surfers don’t ride alone. In A. M. Smith & P. Kollock (Eds.), Communities in cyberspace (pp. 167–194). London/New York: Routledge. Wellman, B., lman, B., Salaff, J., Dimitrova, D., Garton, L., Gulia, M., & Haythornthwaite, C. (1996). Computer networks as social networks: Collaborative work, telework, and virtual community. Annual Review of Sociology, 22, 213–238.
D Dalai Lama PRADEEP KUMAR
Basic Biographical Information His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama – Tenzin Gyatso (Bstan-dzin-rgya-mtsho) – is both the spiritual and political leader of Tibet (Dalai is a Mongolian word meaning profound knowledge, and Lama, a Tibetan term meaning religious teacher). He was born on July 6, 1935 into a Tibetan family living in a small hamlet of Taktser (Amdo) which is located in north-eastern Tibet (Qinghai province of China). At the age of two, he was recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso (1875–1933). On February 22, 1940 he was formally enthroned and assigned the position of the 14th Dalai Lama as the 74th manifestation of Avalokiteshwara tracing from Sakyamuni. Early socialization and education were imparted in the Tibetan Buddhist monastic system following an order known as the Gulpa or Yellow Hat sect. By the age of 23, he completed the ‘‘Geshe Lharampa degree,’’ the highest-level degree equivalent to a doctorate of Buddhist philosophy. In 1959, he left Tibet and moved to India because of the Chinese repression, and since then is continuously struggling for freedom of Tibet and establishment of peace in the region. For this peaceful struggle he has been honored across the world: The Albert Schweitzer Humanitarian Award in 1987 and the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989 in recognition of his non-violent philosophy and as a messenger of peace.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The contemporary debate of civil society has large variations with time and place, but there is agreement that the nonprofit and non-state agencies between family and state are based on collective conscience. The present Dalai Lama is a most ardent advocate of this collective conscience. He comes from a simple farming family and was assigned to spiritual leadership in early childhood through the reincarnation philosophy of Tibet, but he is
also a staunch believer of modern democracy based on ethics. According to him, the system of governance must include freedom, equality, tolerance, and compassion. As he says, ‘‘new world order’’ cannot truly emerge unless it is matched by ‘‘new world freedom’’. Order without freedom is repression and freedom without order is anarchy; hence, we need both. Perhaps these are the basic principles of any civil society where the role of the state is minimal. In 1959, due to repression by the Chinese military in Lhasa, the Dalai Lama, with 100,000 followers, crossed the border of Tibet and took refuge at Dharamsala (India). Thereafter he set up a Tibetan government-in-exile with a non-military philosophy and zone of peace. Further, he also categorically declared that if Tibet is freed, he will give up even his status of Dalai Lama. Tibet, the land of monks and mysteries, has very few empirical studies of its civil society, particularly the third sector. A recent study reveals that during 1999 there were only 74 social organizations which increased to 266 in 2003. According to Qiusha Ma (2006) even this size is larger than Guangdong or Sichuang province of China in terms of per capita density of NGOs. However, changes in the number of social organizations from 1999 to 2003 also indicate the peoples’ increasing assertion for a free Tibet. While the Dalai Lama is putting his efforts in liberating Tibet from colonization and subjugation, he is equally dedicated to the idea of peaceful means to accomplish this. Despite several violent attacks on their own people by the state of China (PRC), he always follows and propagates the message of peace and nonviolence. He believes that oppression has never succeeded anywhere in supporting the eternal desire of people to live in freedom.
Cross-References ▶ Compassion ▶ Good Governance
References/Further Readings Bstan-dzin-rgya-mtsho (1962). 14th Dalai Lama: ‘‘My land and my people: The autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.’’ Bombay: Asia Publication (His first account, translated from Tibetan and edited by David Howarth).
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Bstan-dzin-rgya-mtsho (1990). 14th Dalai Lama: ‘‘Freedom in exile: The autobiography of the Dalai Lama.’’ New York: Harper Collins. Qiusha Ma (2006). NGOs in Contemporary China. London: Routledge. Shiromani, A. A. (1998). The political philosophy of His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama. Tibetan Parliamentary and Policy Research, New Delhi.
and resource building though its Organizational Effectiveness program. The Foundation has also supported leadership programs and scholarships for emerging leaders from black and tribal colleges focused on public health and math and science. The Foundation also focuses on conservation, population, and children’s issues particularly centered around their focus on diversity.
Structure and Governance
David and Lucile Packard Foundation PATSY KRAEGER
Address of Organization 300 Second Street Los Altos, CA 94022 USA www.packard.org
Introduction The Packard Foundation is a family foundation which is focused on supporting nonprofit organizations with their management and administrative capacity.
Brief History The David and Lucile Packard Foundation was created in 1964 by David Packard (1912–1996), the cofounder of the Hewlett-Packard Company, and Lucile Salter Packard (1914–1987). The Packards believed that America was unique in that organizations depended upon private funding and volunteer efforts. Throughout their lifetime, the Packards engaged in a variety of philanthropic and volunteering activities. When David Packard died in 1996, a significant portion of his estate went to the Packard Foundation.
Mission The Board of Trustees is responsible for setting the mission and the strategic direction of the Foundation. Thinking big is a core value of the Packard Foundation. The Packards passed on a set of four core values to the foundation as follows: integrity, respect for all people, belief in individual leadership and a commitment to effectiveness.
The Packard Foundation is a California nonprofit public benefit corporation and holds 501(c) (3) status from the Internal Revenue Service. Only Packard family members are members of the corporation. The Packard Foundation is governed by a board of directors which consists of three classes of Trustees: Family Trustees, General Trustees, and an Ex Officio Trustee.
Funding As of December 31, 2007, total assets of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation were $6.6 billion. The Foundation has a grant making budget of $300 million for 2008.
Major Accomplishments Among its significant and diverse grant making since 1964, the Foundation funded the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in 1986 which operates in conjunction with Stanford Medical School in California. In 2005, the hospital was named one of the ten best pediatric hospitals in the nation by US News and World Report, making it the highest-ranking pediatric hospital on the West Coast. In 1987, the Packards created the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute and its expeditions have led to the discovery and published descriptions of at least 17 new species of marine animals.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Packard, David
References/Further Readings Ellsworth, F. L., & Lumarda, J. (2002). Foundation management: Innovation and responsibility at home and abroad. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Activities In 2007, the Packard Foundation awarded worldwide grants totaling nearly $304 million to nonprofit organizations working to conserve and enhance resources and improve the quality of life. The Packard Foundation is particularly interested in supporting nonprofit capacity
DECA, Equipo Pueblo ▶ Equipo Pueblo
Diakonisches Werk der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland
Desroche, Henri ANAEL LABIGNE
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1914 in Roanne, France into a working class family, Henri Desroche was a strong influence on the study of cooperatives and associations in post-World War II France. After attending seminary and living in the abbey of Chambe´ry, Desroche was mobilized for war in the years 1939 and 1940 before continuing his studies in 1942. At that time he became acquainted with the group around the priest Louis-Joseph Lebret and his research centre E´conomie et humanisme (Economy and Humanism). However, Desroche was more interested in the grand utopianists of the nineteenth century and studied the link between religious messianic ideas and utopian theories, particularly as it pertains to the phenomena of associations and cooperatives. His disagreement with the dogmas of the Catholic Church was expressed for the first time in Signification du marxisme (1949) (The Significance of Marxism). But Desroche was not, like often said, excluded from the Church. Rather, he decided to leave the priesthood and distance himself from the Church in order to start a career as a sociologist. Desroche died in 1994, two months before his 80th birthday.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Attracted by ideas of collectivism Henri Desroche strongly influenced the study of cooperatives and associations in France after the Second World War. In 1951, Desroche entered the famous French scientific research center Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS – National Centre for Scientific Research), where he explored the praxis of community life, the prehistory of cooperatives and forms of associations, and international cooperation, in particular the relationship between the rich North and the poor South. In 1953 Desroche founded the Bureau d’E´tudes Coope´ratif et Communautaires (BECC – Department of Cooperative and Community Studies) and in 1957 the International Archive for the Sociology of Cooperation and Development. One year later, upon the recommendation of Franc¸ois Perroux, the French critic of orthodox economic theory, Desroche was appointed the first chair holder for the newly created research area on cooperatives at the E´cole Pratique des Hautes E´tudes (Practical School for Advanced Studies).
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Desroche also founded the Colle`ge Coope´ratif and the Universite´ Coope´ratif Internationale (International Cooperative University), which for several decades brought together activists from Africa, Latin America, the United States and Europe four times a year. In contrast to most of the researchers of cooperatives and associations of that time, Desroche focused not only on consumer cooperatives but also on production cooperatives. Having been a teacher for cooperatives during his entire career, Desroche believed in adding value through a process of exchange and convening, not only regarding community development but also knowledge creation. What he called ‘‘autobiographie raisonne´e’’ was intended to highlight the expertise already held by his students, who where often militants, activists or professionals of the cooperative sector.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Mutual Organizations, Mutual Societies
References/Further Readings Desroche, H. (1977). Economie et sociologie coope´ratives. Textes et recherches pour une anthologie provisoire. In Archives de sciences sociales de la coope´ration et du de´veloppement, Nr.: 41/42, pp. 1–410. Editor: B.E.C.C, Paris. Poulat, E´. (1996). Henri Desroche, un passeur de frontie`res. Paris: L’Harmattan.
Diakonie ▶ Diakonisches Werk der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland
Diakonisches Werk der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland CHRISTOPH GOLBECK
Address of Organization Stafflenbergstraße 76 70184 Stuttgart Germany www.diakonie.de
Introduction The ‘‘Diakonische Werk der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland e. V.’’ (Diakonisches Werk, known
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commonly as Diakonie) is the social service agency of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD). With more than 800,000 full-time and voluntary employees, Diakonie is one of the largest non-statutory welfare organizations in Germany.
Brief History In 1848 the first Protestant umbrella organization was established as ‘‘Centralausschuß fu¨r die Innere Mission’’ (Central Committee for the Inner Mission). Its founding father was Johann Hinrich Wichern, a Protestant priest, who in 1833 started the ‘‘Rauhe Haus’’ (Rough House) as reaction to deplorable and pitiful living conditions of many children in the city of Hamburg. Another Protestant welfare organization, the ‘‘Hilfswerk der Evangelischen Kirche’’ (founded 1945), and the Inner Mission merged in 1957 to form Diakonie which is based in Stuttgart.
Mission In the biblical tradition Diaconia (Grecian: service), means working for reconciliation, especially bringing help where it is needed, demanding justice in situations of exclusion, and advocating for those whose voice is not heard. The mission of Diakonie has to be seen in line with this tradition. It is deeply rooted in the Christian faith within the heritage of Reformation, aimed at supporting the poor and underprivileged.
that of a registered association (eingetragener Verein, e.V.). Diakonie has a multitude of institutional members, among them the 22 dioceses of the EKD, nine free churches, and 81 professional associations. It is overseen by an executive board, consisting of 18 members from the dioceses and other individuals.
Funding Because of its status as a non-statutory welfare organization Diakonie’s work is financed primarily through state funding (about 90%; mainly through contributions to the nursing care insurance) but also through individual donations, voluntary work and the German church tax.
Accomplishments Diakonie is one of the most important social service agencies in Germany. Its outstanding record covers nearly all areas of human personal service not only in Germany but also in international projects.
Cross-References
▶ Wichern, Johann Hinrich
References/Further Readings Boeßenecker, K.-H. (2005). Spitzenverba¨nde der Freien Wohlfahrtspflege. Eine Einfu¨hrung in Organisationsstrukturen und Handlungsfelder der deutschen Wohlfahrtsverba¨nde. Weinheim, Germany: Juventa. Schwarzer, U., Schmitz-Elsen, J. (2003). Non-statutory welfare – people to people. Berlin, Germany: Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Freien Wohlfahrtspflege e. V.
Activities Diakonie is engaged in most fields of social service production among them elderly care and nursing. But it also runs hospitals and works in the field of international development aid. As of 2005, its member organizations comprised about 27,500 autonomous bodies which provide more than 1,000,000 nursing and care places; they employ about 435,000 full-time staff members. Most importantly, the work of Diakonie is supported by about 400,000 voluntary members who are organized in about 3,600 voluntary and self-help associations also belonging under Diakonie’s umbrella. In 1959, the Protestant churches in Germany initiated the development aid program Brøt fu¨r die welt (www.brot-fuer-die-welt.de), which has since been the responsibility of Diakonie.
Structure and Governance As an important part of the so-called ‘‘Spitzenverba¨nde der Freien Wohlfahrtspflege’’ (Umbrella Societies of Non-Statutory Welfare Organisations) Diakonie has to be seen among others as an integral component of Germany’s corporatist welfare legacy. Its legal status is
Digital Divide DALIA YUSUF European Muslims Project International, Giza, Egypt
Introduction Although the digital divide has been a globally recognized phenomenon since the mid-1990s, it reveals a vast array of controversial interpretations and approaches. Contrary to the technocratic perception of the digital divide as inequality in providing access to technology, information sociologists see it as a manifestation of many social, economic, geographical, and educational divides. The first study of the digital divide was made by the US Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) in July
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1995 – a survey entitled Falling Through the Net. The survey introduced the haves and the have nots of information and communication technologies (ICTs). Since 1995, the NTIA has published a series of reports exploring the digital divide from various conceptual and practical perspectives including distribution policies, models of usage, and describing the ICTs’ access as an issue involving civil rights. Nowadays, integrating ICTs into different societies is inevitable as a means to empower people and enhance their social development. However, marginalized disadvantaged groups should be enabled to conduct their own policies in accessing, utilizing, and creating knowledge.
Definition The digital divide represents the gap between people who do have and those who do not have access to digital technology. Typically this means Internet access, but the term has broadened to include other information and communication technologies (ICTs). ICTs in this sense include the use of fax machines, telephones, computers, media, CDs, and the Internet among others to facilitate the flow of information (http://www.virtualactivism. org/articles/04/usingICTS.htm, July 7, 2008). Although approaching the digital divide with binary classifications of who is on-line looks natural at the beginning of the diffusion process, some scholars have argued that digital divides can be better understood by suggesting other varying levels at which divides exist (DiMaggio & Hargittai, 2001). From the time the National Telecommunications and Information Administration published its first report Falling Through the Net: A Survey of the Have Nots in Rural and Urban America in 1995, researchers have introduced many kinds of digital divides analyzing the inequalities of access to and use of this medium. Many researchers studied the factors of this gap (e.g., socioeconomic, racial, gender, generational, geographical, and residential) and its impact on various segments of society. Seeking a multidimensional interpretation of the digital divides, Kling (1998) made a distinction between technological access (the physical availability of technology) and social access (the professional knowledge and technical skills necessary to benefit from information technologies). Norris (2001) believed that the digital divide is a blend of circumstances which needs to be considered from the perspective of the global divide that encompasses differences between developed and developing countries; the social divide which highlights inequality within one country; and the democratic divide which refers to
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the differences between those who do and do not use digital technologies to participate in democratizing their societies. Another classification suggested five dimensions of digital inequality: technical means, autonomy of use, skill, social support, and use patterns (DiMaggio & Hargittai, 2001). Similarly (DiMaggio & Hargittai, 2001) by focusing on possible interpretations of the digital gap in terms of access, ability to use, and actual use, Fink and Kenny (2003) suggested another interpretation: that the gap is in the impact of use – measured by financial and economic returns. Looking deeply into the digital divide Lisa Servon (2002) argued that it is a symptom of a more complex problematic status of poverty and inequality. Similarly Warschauer (2003) suggested that new technologies require social inclusion and are an ‘‘essential medium that supports other forms of production, participation and social development.’’
Key Issues Alternate Concept: Social Inclusion
The digital divide can deepen the worldwide social divide as disadvantaged social groups who cannot afford access to information and communication technology (ICT) are in danger of being excluded from accessing informational society opportunities. However, mere access to ICT does not reflect the exact nature of the digital gap or its impact. Focusing on the important social issues of technology and inequality helped to deepen public understanding of the ‘‘digital divide’’ DiMaggio and Hargittai (2001), Jarboe (2001), and Warschauer (2003) overcome the simplified notion of the gap by emphasizing the complex interrelationship between technology and society. Integrating ICT into different communities and institutions may contribute to social inclusion. Social inclusion challenges inequalities and responds to a complex system of problems. Technology can help improve economic, cultural, social, and political conditions, but this can only be achieved by observing the sociocultural sensitivities and uniqueness of the different communities. Analyzing the different forms of access to information and technology is inevitable in combating social exclusion and marginalization. The effective integration of ICT requires a list of prerequisites including physical (access to computers and telecommunication connections), digital (on-line digital materials), human (issues such as literacy and education), and social (community and institutional structures that support access to ICT) resources (Warschauer, 2003).
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Any social inclusion strategy to empower targeted disadvantaged groups should address the various dimensions of the digital divide related to income, race, gender, age, residence, and so on. Socioeconomic factors appear very influential as the gap can be described as a cycle whereby low income promotes limited information technology use and low information technology use limits the potential to increase one’s income (Wallsten, 2005). Accordingly, it was recommended that low-income communities should be represented in the policy arena and the marketplace to guarantee that the evolving technologies meet the basic needs of everyone regardless of the ability to pay (Benton Foundation, 1998). Hoffman and Novak (1998) studied the racial gap by supporting the notion that the presence or lack of a computer in the home is the reason behind gaps in Internet use, particularly, between whites and blacks, while other studies measured the gender gap on the Internet (Bimber, 2000). There is some support for the idea that the digital divide is not merely a generational effect (Loges & Jung, 2001). The rural–urban gap may be bridged by accessing and designing web pages to supply services for farmers to develop human resources and promote natural, historical, and cultural values (Strover, 1999). Education
Education can be both a cause and a result of narrowing the digital divide. People with higher levels of education are likely to have better opportunity to gain access to the Internet and possess adequate web-use skills. At the same time, information and communication technologies (ICTs) contribute to the improvement of educational systems throughout different regions and beyond the classroom. The acceleration of information flow provides learners with a wider range of materials and enhances models of sharing knowledge. Various international forums and reports recognized the fact that education is an indicator of the extent to which the digital divide has been overcome (NTIA, 1999). Moreover, some educational experts believe that ICTs can overcome the traditional educational barriers such as geographic location and physical disabilities (Forum Barcelona, 2004). School Internet access becomes crucial in bridging the digital and educational divide. As well-resourced schools were more likely to provide their students with regular computer access, narrowing these divides becomes more of a challenge. Inequality in distributing resources within the education system, between rich and poor schools, negatively impacts disadvantaged learners in terms of their performance. Discussions surrounding the digital
divide in schools, moves from basic access to computers and the Internet, to skills and training. Seeking sustainable educational and developmental models, some scholars have redefined education as a set of social practices more than a number of physical tools. They believe that education is more effective when it meets the social needs (Freire, 1994). In the same context, they criticized methods that mainly focus on individual skills while ignoring broader social systems (Warschauer, 2003). E-democracy
As liberal democracy is determined by the capacity to participate in the new public space, a new democratic divide appears between those who do and do not use Internet resources so as to engage, mobilize, and participate in public life (civic engagement). The key indicators of e-democracy (e.g., e-government, e-vote, e-petition, etc.) could provide an opportunity for improving the ways democracy operates. Disadvantaged social groups with inadequate ICTs access would be underrepresented in these evolving arenas. Widening the democratic and digital gaps contradicts the core concept of democracy. Caldow (2004) stated that ‘‘academics and others are beginning to explore models of e-democracy. The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) defines three types of e-democracy interaction – a one-way information provision; a two-way relationship where citizens have the opportunity to give feedback on issues; and, finally, a partnership relationship whereby citizens are actively engaged in policymaking.’’ In addition, he introduced Gartner Dataquest’s four-stage model linking e-democracy and e-development: ‘‘In the first stage (presence) the Internet site provides on-line information in a static format. In the second stage (interaction) citizens search information, download forms, or access links to other relevant sites. The third stage (transaction) alleviates the need to complete a transaction by mail or to make an office visit. The fourth stage is transformational. Some attributes of this stage are wireless access, enabling sites to push government information to citizens and robust customer relationship management (CRM) tools.’’ There are various stances toward integrating ICTs into the workflow of governments and international organizations. For instance, there are recommendations to ‘‘incorporate ICTs into their work to increase public participation and transparency’’ in the United Nations similar to other international organizations, such as the World Bank, the EU, and the WTO (Rik Panganiban, 2005). Others argued in favor of the significance of e-voting
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and its relevance to ‘‘the primary political impact of the Internet on democracy within the European Union’’ (Paper for the Workshop on ‘‘E-voting and the European Parliamentary Elections’’ Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Villa La Fonte, EUI May 10–11, 2002). Despite the digital divides and their impacts on marginalized groups, many human rights activists and social movements agreed on the possibility of e-democratization. The flow of information and the use of the web as an alternative media to publicize different opinions encourage people to participate even in remote regions. Networking as a main characteristic of ICT use becomes an important factor in breaking the silence, political empowerment, and mobilization. To support their work, many social and human rights activists believe that open content and free software are inevitable to achieve on-line equality and overcome democratic divides. Global Digital Divide
As the digital divide refers to differences in technology access within a country, the global divide is apparent between industrialized, developed, and developing countries. Generally the digital divide is attributed to the socioeconomic status of each country (Cullen, 2003). The Internet and PC penetration rates are greatly affected by per capita income (Chinn & Fairlie, 2004). However, this is not the only factor; there are more influential factors such as state regulations of the supply of telecommunication services and providing infrastructures to develop and improve these services. Differences in the diffusion process of Internet access between countries widen the global digital divide. It is noted that in some countries ‘‘granting monopoly to a national operator and charging high license fees for Internet-access services are examples of market barriers’’ that discourage the development of telecommunication sectors (Sehrt, 2003). Another technical obstacle is infrastructure including Internet connection and phone lines. Increasing the speed of access and the number of phone lines helps to reduce the global digital divide. Measuring a complex dynamic phenomenon like the global digital divide is challengeable. One way is to measure the penetration of telephone subscribers and Internet users. However, measurement is not that simple; for example, while the United States remains the largest Internet market in terms of the number of Internet subscribers, China is gaining fast and, if the current growth rates continue, China could overtake the United States in terms of total Internet subscribers.
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The cost of Internet access is much lower in developed countries than in developing countries. Comparisons of Internet costs between Asia, Europe, and the United States, allow one to map the digital divide across the world. Moreover, it is known that the digital divide is most obvious in Africa. The divide widens in Africa’s countryside, where a lack of roads, telephone lines, and electricity separates the rural majority from their urban counterparts (Mutume, 2003). According to the World Information Society (WSIS) Report 2007, the digital divide continues to evolve. This is so, despite the fact that statistics show a general improvement across the globe in both PC and Internet use rates. Nevertheless, there is still a long way to go to achieve global digital equality. In 1998, the International Telecommunication Union adopted a resolution to hold a World Summit on the Information Society under the umbrella of the United Nations. The summit was held in two phases; the first from December 10 to 12, 2003, in Geneva, Switzerland, and the second from November 16 to 18, 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia. The digital divide was at the top of the agenda in both phases. In Geneva, world leaders declared: ‘‘We are fully committed to turning this digital divide into a digital opportunity for all; particularly for those who risk being left behind and being further marginalized.’’ In the same context, the WSIS stocktaking was launched in 2004. It is a searchable database of WSIS-related activities and initiatives initiated to become an effective tool for exchanging information and experiences, and encouraging all WSIS stakeholders to contribute in enhancing the database. The least developed countries participate in world information summits looking forward to eliminating regional imbalances in utilizing information and communication technologies (ICTs). These summits have evolved over the last few years in structuring international cooperation aiming at dealing with the global digital divide. However, these summits could be witnessing conflicting interests across the world that might negatively affect reducing the divides. Aiming to raise awareness about the digital divide, the United Nations holds an annual celebration of the World Information Day which takes place on May 17.
Future Directions Many scholars, professionals, and politicians around the world continue to discover ways to solve the digital divide. One approach to combat this problem is the availability of affordable technologies, such as low-cost computers, which are specifically designed for the income levels and
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socioeconomic conditions of developing countries (James, 2003). In reviewing data from Falling through the Net 2001 from the US Department of Commerce, Anthony Wilhelm stated that the concept of the digital divide has been superseded; leading-edge wireless broadband information and communications vehicles, such as thirdgeneration wireless or Ka-band satellite, both of which afford great opportunities as well as pose considerable hurdles to communities that are unable to afford or avail themselves of these new services. In the same context and at the roundtable organized within the framework of the World e-Democracy Forum, October 3, 2007, Marie-Christine said that the switchover of technologies from high-speed (xDSL) to very high-speed (FTTH) could intensify the digital gap because only 50% of the population would at best be covered by 2012. The growth in utilization requires an infrastructure of quality. The World Information Society Report 2007 indicated that the debate over the future of the digital divide is now moving away from ‘‘quantity’’ in basic connectivity and access to ICTs to measures of ‘‘quality’’ and ‘‘capacity,’’ or speed of access. Engagement with the digital divide requires an innovative theoretical framework as well as achievable action plans. New theoretical perspectives are inevitable in providing researchers with useful tools to understand the various impacts of the digital divide. Instead of discussing the demographic differences of access and ownership, scholars should concentrate their future efforts in studying the consequences of these differences (Van Dijk & Hacker, 2003). Moreover, solid theoretical frameworks can help in assessing actual public policy interventions and their effects in bridging the divide (Gordo, 2003). The action plans and initiatives that could overcome the digital divide are undertaken by governmental as well as nongovernmental circles. The digital divide is a common subject in US politics and various government policies. Former US president, Bill Clinton, was enthusiastic to reduce the national divide talking about turning it into a ‘‘digital opportunity.’’ The Clinton administration was specifically concerned with the impact of the digital divide on school systems. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, over 90% of the United States was connected to the Internet, but the extent of the access varied (Education Statistics Quarterly). Tackling the emergence of the new broadband divide, President George W. Bush gave a speech on March 26, 2004, in which he called for highspeed Internet service for all Americans by 2007. In February 2008, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) reported that the aim to afford access to broadband for all has been
achieved ‘‘to a very great extent.’’ Critics argued that the report seems very optimistic, emphasizing that the connection speed off-campus and in households, remains a future challenge. Various nongovernmental organizations have engaged with the digital divide through community-based projects and initiatives on national and international levels. Over the last two decades, most of these projects have focused on Internet connectivity and providing hardware for educational purposes such as ‘‘One Laptop per Child’’ with the objective of affording cheap computers to disadvantaged children across the world. Searching for a better understanding of the lifestyle of disadvantaged groups is a precondition for any sustainable solutions to the digital divide. At the top of future challenges is reexamining the possibility of empowering those who have been marginalized by involving them in decision making, establishing plans, and choice determination to select what suits their status and socioeconomic contexts.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Participation ▶ Cyber-communities ▶ Dotcauses ▶ Information technology, Internet
References/Further Readings Benton Foundation (1998). Losing ground bit by bit: Low-income communities in the information age. Washington DC: Benton Foundation and National Urban League. Bimber, B. (2000). Measuring the gender gap on the Internet. Social Science Quarterly, 81, 868–876. Caldow, J. (2004). e-Democracy: Putting down global roots. January 2004. Institute for Electronic Government/IBM Corporation. Chinn, M., & Fairlie, R. W. (2004). The determinants of the global digital divide: A cross-country analysis of computer and Internet penetration. Yale University Economic Growth Center, Yale University, New Haven, CT. Cullen, R. (2003). The digital divide: A global and national call to action? The Electronic Library Oxford, 21(3), 247–258. DiMaggio, P., & Hargittai, E. (2001). ‘‘From the ‘digital divide’ to ‘digital inequality’: Studying Internet use as penetration increases,’’ Princeton University Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Working Paper Series number 15. Fink, C., & Kenny, C. J. (2003). W(h)ither the digital divide? January. Freire, P. (1994). Pedagogy of hope: reliving pedagogy of the oppressed, notes by Ana Maria Araujo Freire (trans. Robert R. Barr). New York: Continuum. Gordo, B. (2003). Overcoming digital deprivation. IT & Society, 1, 166–180. Hoffman, D. L., & Novak, T. P. (1998). Bridging the racial divide on the Internet. Science, 289. James, M. J. (2003). Free software and the digital divide: Opportunities and constraints for developing countries. Journal of Information Science, 29(1), 25–33.
Ditchley Foundation Jarboe, K. (2001). Inclusion in the information age: Reframing the debate. Athena Alliance, from http://www.athenaalliance.org/ apapers/inclusion.html Kling, R. (1998). Technological and social access on computing, information and communication technologies. White Paper for Presidential Advisory Committee on High-Performance Computing and Communications, Information Technology, and the Next Generation Internet, from http://rkcsi.indiana.edu/archive/kling/pubs/NGI.htm Lisa, J. S. (2002). Bridging the digital divide: Technology, community, and public policy. Oxford: Blackwell. Loges, W., & Jung, J. (2001). Exploring the digital divide: Internet connectedness and age. Communication Research, 28(4), 536–562. Mutume, G. (2003). ‘‘Africa takes on the digital divide.’’ Africa Recovery, 17(3). NTIA (National Telecommunications and Information Administration) (1999). Falling through the net: Defining the digital divide, US Department of Commerce. Norris, P. (2001). Digital divide. Civic engagement, information poverty, and the Internet worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Panganiban, R. (2005). E-Democracy and the United Nation. Digital Divide Network, http://rikomatic.objectis.net/work/e-democracy book/ Sehrt, M. (2003). E-Learning in the developing countries: Digital divide into digital opportunities. UN Chronicle, XL(4). Strover, S. (1999). Rural Internet connectivity. Rural Policy Research Institute, from http://www.rupi.org/. Van Dijk, J., & Hacker, K. (2003). The digital divide as complex and dynamic phenomenon. The Information Society, 19, 315–326. Wallsten, S. (2005). Does sequencing matter? Regulation and privatization in telecommunications reforms, development research group, The World Bank. Warschauer, M. (2003). Technology and social inclusion: Rethinking the digital divide. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. http://www.digitaldivide.net, June 5, 2008. http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_7/warschauer/, June 5, 2008. http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue7_4/hargittai/#author, June 5, 2008. http://www.virtualactivism.org/articles/04/usingICTS.htm, July 7, 2008.
Ditchley Foundation MARTIN HO¨LZ
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in 1958 by Sir David Wills, it is headquartered in Ditchley Park, Oxfordshire, UK.
Brief History The founder of the Ditchley Foundation, Sir David Wills, was a descendant of the family that co-founded Imperial Tobacco. He purchased Ditchley Park in 1953 not for the stately mansion, but for the beautiful park attached to the property. His experience in World War II led him to dedicate the use of the mansion to encourage transatlantic dialog in the hopes of promoting global understanding, peace, and security. The Ditchley Foundation was established with this purpose in 1958. Its sister organizations, the American Ditchley Foundation and the Canadian Ditchley Foundation, were established in 1964 and 1981, respectively, to recruit participants in the dialogs from these countries, to fund the participants’ travel, and to help shape the content of the dialogs.
Mission/Objectives The main aim of the Ditchley Foundation is to foster Anglo-American dialogue and relations, but has expanded to also promote international relations in a broader sense.
Activities The Ditchley Foundation organizes some 12 conferences a year and an annual lecture, mainly taking place at Ditchley Park. The conferences bring together some 40 invited experts from all sectors to reflect on current international policy issues. For the conference held in February 2008 to commemorate the Foundation’s 50th anniversary, the topic focuses on ‘‘The Priorities of US foreign policy after George W. Bush.’’ The diverse topics on the agenda for 2009 include the nature and role of international NGOs, the role of universities in securing the future, the relationship between architecture and society, and the future of US–European Union relations. The Director regularly posts on the Foundation’s website reports on his impressions from each conference.
Address of Organization
Structure and Governance
Ditchley Park Enstone, Chipping Norton Oxon OX7 4ER UK www.ditchley.co.uk
A Council of Management governs the Ditchley Foundation. In 2009, former UK Prime Minister Sir John Major was chairman and Lady Wills remains Honorary Life President. A Programme Committee advises the Director regarding forthcoming conferences.
Introduction
Funding
The Ditchley Foundation is an operating foundation with the aim of advancing international learning and serving as discussion platform for international experts. Established
For its 50th anniversary, the Foundation launched a development campaign with the aim of raising more than four million British pounds; by its close in February 2008,
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it had raised some three million British pounds. Complementary funding is raised by the American and Canadian Ditchleys.
Major Contributions/Accomplishments In its 50 years of history the Ditchley Foundation fostered not only Anglo-American dialogue, but beyond that an international debate on current objectives. Bringing together decision-makers from the worlds of politics, business and industry, the civil service, the armed forces, the media and academic life, international policy issues are addressed and new solutions are sought.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Operating
References/Further Readings http://www.ditchley.co.uk/
Doctors without Borders ▶ Me´decins Sans Frontie`res
Donor/Donor Intent JENNY HARROW Cass Business School City University, London, UK
Introduction The centrality of the donor and donor accomplishments, characteristics, and preferences is a marked feature of nonprofits literatures. Whether as enabler of nonprofits’ independence, sign of citizen activism, or expression of personal values, the donor is the emblem of voluntarism. As such, the donor experiences rewards and risks. Balanced against the rewards of personal satisfaction, prestige, and new social connections are the risks of poor donation choices, minimal influence over donees, even anxiety over meeting donor promises. To minimize risk and maximize reward, the notion of donor control continues to gain ground, with the principle of donor intent as a benchmark for directing donee action. Conditional gifts are, of course, a feature of wider social life, reminding recipients of the donor’s expressed or nascent power. It may be argued that the issue, if not the legal expression, of
donor intent will become increasingly critical in donors’ thinking, as their incomes come under pressure during periods of economic downturn. Equally, the social expression of donor intent will ensure that donors’ values, exemplified in their giving, will come under public scrutiny as never before. Paradoxically, the donor as the emblem of voluntarism is surrounded by increasing professionalism. Fundraisers provide ‘‘donor development’’ and some donors press donees to demonstrate high performance levels. Yet, the image of the information-rich, resource-rich donor, spurring others to donate, is at odds with those social and religious injunctions which emphasize the importance of private, if not secret, donation. This image also challenges donor–citizenship association, if those unable to donate are seen as lesser citizens. The donor will then be both courted and castigated, alongside multiple narratives of donors’natures, from saintly to dangerous. Donor courtship is the task of the resource-seekers, where donor identification with a cause is a critical factor. Donor castigation – from their choice of cause to their desire to influence closely (or conversely, to neglect) a nonprofit’s direction – occurs in sociopolitical spheres. Across this courtship–castigation spectrum, the donor is subject to a variety of governmental regulation, regionally, nationally, and internationally, making the global donor a particularly complex actor.
Definition The individualized nature of ‘‘the donor’’ is stressed in dictionary definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary sees the donor as ‘‘the person who gives’’ (from Middle English, donoure, from Anglo-French, doneur, from Latin, donare). Thus the characteristics of donors reflect human nature writ large – generous or miserly, selfless or selfish, prompted by or avoiding public display. Underpinning this personalization is a sense of devotion or commitment. Thus, a donor may be an individual acting as a biological material source (blood, organs), and as a giver of time, through volunteering, as well as through money or in-kind gifts, to a cause (or person) that is generally understood as worthy. The intermingling of the terms ‘‘donor’’ and ‘‘philanthropist’’ makes for uncertainty, with an apparent implicit understanding in much writing that the latter is an enlarged and more structured version of the former. From the individualist perspective, much literature explores the nature of the donor in terms of who they are (age, gender, race, location, education), where they are (employment sectors, career level, income stability, geographical location), and how they self-identify (family,
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community, locality, religion, interrelationships). Thus, Houston (2006: 67), for example, finds government employees more likely to volunteer for charity and donate blood than for-profit employees, whilst ‘‘no difference is found among public service and private employees in terms of individual philanthropy.’’ Hughes and Luksetich (2008: 278), considering giving variability, find that ‘‘the size and stability of the income flow may be more of a consideration for charitable contributions than is the preference of the individual who earns the income.’’ Describing and understanding donor segmentation, as a precursor to targeting particular donors, is a strong feature in practice and academic literatures. Thus, McClintock (2004: 6) notes of the ‘‘typical Canadian donor’’ that he or she is between 34 and 54, with postsecondary education, a full-time job, and a household income above $60,000, and attends religious services regularly. Yet Shelley and Polonsky, in an Australian context (2002: 19), examining whether motivations of donors vary by age or gender, offer results suggesting that ‘‘there may be limited benefits in segmenting existing donors and that charities may be able to use similar promotional strategies for all existing donors.’’ Still, the emphasis on the person of the donor, or with corporate giving by firms, on the proxy donor who decides the firm’s action, remains. Notwithstanding the extensive literature on corporate donors as motivated by business advantage and stakeholder pressures, the individual responsibility for those decisions is also shown. For Dennis, Buchholtz, and Butts (2007), the most important factor in corporate giving is the degree to which the chief executive declares themselves a philanthropist. Those who lack the capacity as well as the inclination to donate may be disadvantaged in their wider community. Valentine (2005: 113) emphasizes that ‘‘the exclusion of already marginalized people from donating blood presents a risk of further marginalization. If blood donation is understood to be a civic practice . . . it becomes too easy to see those who cannot donate as non-citizens.’’ Levenson and Farrant (2002) raise similar issues, analyzing the limited response in the UK prison service to the ‘‘unlocking potential’’ of prisoners’ active citizenship and volunteering. Modernization, social exchange, and expectancy theories all offer perspectives on donor thinking and practice. For Rehberg, ‘‘modernization theory posits a change from traditional or ‘collective’ forms to modern or ‘reflective’ forms of volunteering’’ (2005: 109), in a study of young Swiss adults’ motivation for international volunteering, where ‘‘for only 11% of them, altruism . . . was the one and only driving force.’’ Social exchange theory assumes
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that relationships involve ‘‘give and take’’among partners, so that the donor weighs up the costs of donation (money or time). Expectancy theory argues that donors have expectations about future events and that their giving behavior reflects these expectations. Weertz and Ronca (2007) examine these theoretical arguments in turn in the context of alumni giving and voluntary support for higher education. In exploring donor rationality, the view of donors engaged in transactions between parties (including other donors as well as donees) is prominent. Handy (2000: 439) presents the charity role as often that of ‘‘an agent that brokers a charitable transaction between the donor and the recipient,’’ with the accompanying issue of the principal/agent problem, and its impact on donor behavior. Where the donor is understood as a nation-state as well as an individual, transactional gain is widely understood as a key motivating factor; where donor decisions concern not only ‘‘how much’’ but positioning relative to other donors (Lebovic, 2005, assesses bilateral aid positioning distributed to 101 countries between 1970 and 1994 by the United States, Japan, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, the OECD’s five largest bilateral aid donors). The extent to which ‘‘donors’’ are also the voter/taxpayers of donor nations provides further ambiguity, with a study of voter responses to governmental decision making underpinned by the World Values Survey, explored by Chong and Gradstein (2008).
Key Issues The Donor–Fund-Raiser Nexus
The extensive literature exploring the nature and direction of donor spending provides shifting evidence on donor profiles and insights into donor adherence to or flight from particular funding commitments. Some debates in this field seem to have a life of their own – does government funding of some nonprofits deter donors, or shift them to other causes; is the baby boomer generation showing high levels of generosity or have they already spent or committed their money, and so on. Within this literature, knowledge transfer takes place between scholars and fund-raisers, for example, on donors’ attitudes to overhead costs (Bowman, 2006), on nonprofits’ approaches to donors in customer services contexts (Polonsky & Sargeant, 2007), and in exploring links between donor perceptions and donation levels (Sargeant et al., 2006). Here, the challenge is to sustain the level of theoretical debate, whilst recognizing the distinctive learning needs of donors and fund-raisers, in contexts where competition for donors continues to escalate.
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Other debates reflect the tensions inherent when donors take private decisions to address public problems. Donors as public policy brokers or social issue entrepeneurs (following Leat’s 2005 study of foundations and public policy) offer further dimensions of power. The power factor trickles down from the nation-state donor to small-scale or intermittant donors, and also to the informal or semi-formal donor groups, such as giving circles, pooling resources to be given away, where members’ learning and community problem solving may face imbalance (Eikenberry, 2007). Together, these areas point to three key issues for further exploration: those of donor education, donor trust, and donor control. Donor Education
Unsurprisingly, those cultivating donors, rather than donors themselves, argue for the need for ‘‘donor education,’’ although the as yet small-scale organization of ‘‘philanthopy classes’’ for the younger members of major donors’ families, and the development of the donor/philanthropy curriculum in schools and colleges may challenge this. Little is also known about the influence of financial and related advisers in channeling donor effort. This makes Madden’s continuing survey research on attitudes and behaviors of professional advisers (bankers, financial planners, lawyers, accountants) in raising the topic of philanthropy with their clients especially important (Madden & Newton, 2006). Nonprofits’ ability to support donor education will be limited by resources. Siegel and Yancey (2003: 43), examining the state of donor education in the United States, argue that ‘‘there is a tremendous shortage of donor educators . . . in both the hard and soft sides,’’ and acknowledge problematic questions such as who can and should be donor educators. Nonprofits’ overwhelming fear of ‘‘losing donors rather than empowering them’’ is a continuing theme in Siegel and Yancey’s work (ibid.: 44). Donor Control and Donor Intent
In international development fields, where donors may be a blanket term for transnational NGOs but most often for nation-states, donor empowerment is invariably a given; with donors castigated for overcontrol or insufficient control in almost equal measure. Thus Subramaniam (2007: 551) emphasizes, drawing on case study research in rural India, that ‘‘donors pre-determine activities to be pursued and utilize the capacity building initiatives as mechanisms for promoting theoretical ideas and frameworks that conform to knowledge production in the West.’’ Alternatively, McNamara
and Morse (2004), with the collective experience of 54 years of work in a Nigerian nongovernmental development organization, emphasize that whilst injudicious donor interference had had damaging repercussions, their overall experience suggests that ‘‘care and consideration flow throughout the aid chain and actions are not malevolent.’’ In national and domestic settings, it seems possible that donor control is an uncertain attribute among many potential donors, and is often restricted to assertions about the ‘‘oughts’’ and ‘‘ought nots’’ of nonprofit practice, for example that all donations should go ‘‘straight to the cause’’ and that ‘‘high’’payment or even payment at all of a nonprofit’s staff is unacceptable (clear cases both for ‘‘donor education’’; but problematic for fundraisers). Donors in the workplace, as a bounded group with a chosen focus, may provide another control source (Barman, 2007), or at least influence, as in employee behavior to encourage their employers’ donor role, in times of major disaster (Harrow et al., 2006). In situations where donors initiate funding rather than respond to requests, a degree of donor control is often explicit, including those rarer cases where donors give to government bodies, such as local government. Whether most donors are likely to seek growing control over donees, or whether this is primarily a function of the growth in wealthy donors (who model donor and investor roles together) is a moot point. Paradoxically, high levels of donor control may carry a high cost for and adversely affect the efficiency of the donee. Nevertheless, it is difficult to review the work on donor control without acknowledging the consumerist and individualized approach which underpins these developments. The willingness of nonprofits to offer donors opportunities to set tight boundaries on their gifts’ use also represents a fund-raising strategy in its own right. Here, flexibility is traded for resource availability, and, potentially, resource leverage. Ultimately donor choice in this form may become enshrined in nonprofits’ ways of working, whether or not particular circumstances require subsequent flexibility (Barman, 2007). Informal as well as formal means of ensuring that donor intentions are honored not only by the donee but by a donor’s family, is shown in the development of ‘‘legacy charters,’’ extensions of ‘‘donor charters,’’ where donors’ families are offered stakes in funding direction. Their efficacy has yet to be shown. It also remains to be seen whether the ongoing lawsuit of Robertson v. Princeton, in which descendants of donors providing a major gift in 1961 to the university seek to remove their foundation from Princeton’s control, becomes a landmark case in
Donor/Donor Intent
donor–beneficiary relations. Certainly it may already have encouraged donors and nonprofits to approach restricted gifts more cautiously, and be more prepared both to withdraw and decline the offer of that gift. For living donors, the enforcement of their intent may be straightforward or controversial. In the latter case, Kehoe (2004: 503) describes the difficulties when, between 1929 and 1939, the donor of a new gallery at the British Museum to house the Parthenon (Elgin) marbles held a vision at odds with that of the Museum establishment, ‘‘one that generated controversy, including the unauthorized cleaning of the marbles.’’ Recourse to law where donor intent appears violated or neglected will be dependent upon the extent to which national jurisdictions give prominence to donors’ rights. In the United States, donor intent is understood, fluidly, as a donor’s expected outcome in making a contribution. Where written documents set out donor requirements or conditions, these documents are subject to the jurisdiction of state-level courts (Brody, 2005). Brody comments that as illustrated by controversy over the American Red Cross’s handling of contributions for victims of the September 11 attacks, the legal rights of donors generally depend on state attorneys general for vindication. More problematic may be situations where donor intent cannot be realized, because of donor fund collapse or bankruptcy (op cit). Ostrander’s seminal paper on developments in the United States (2006) contrasts her development of a social relations theory underpinning for donor–donee relations to the formalization of donor-control mechanisms, as a concomitant of the growth of wealthy donors and the shared agenda of many such donors and nonprofit advocates to enable high levels of control in return for resources. Whilst Ostrander is clear that donors ‘‘do not always or inevitably donate the specific terms of their gift’’ (ibid.: 357), the option to decline gifts will be open to very few. Increased control is thus delivered through the creation of new relationships, through ‘‘donor exclusivity (donor networks, giving circles), donor intermediaries and . . . donor oversight between ‘‘social investors’’ and their nonprofit ‘‘partners’’ in high-engagement philanthropy’’ (ibid.: 356). Urging scholars and researchers to pay attention to the means whereby donor and recipient can, alternatively, engage collaboratively in nonprofit development and directions, Ostrander presents a perspective that not all practitioners and scholars would share. This is that a donor collaborative rather than control approach would ‘‘be more likely to increase and stabilize philanthropic support’’ than offers to donors to specify the use their gifts (ibid.: 370). This may be the kind of challenge which
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community foundations, especially where they offer formal donor education programs, may be well-placed to test. However, it may also be argued that the controlinvestment style of donor–donee relations is already too well-embedded to return to a more developmental, collegial approach (see, e.g., Barman’s examination of United Way’s approach to ‘‘donor choice’’, 2008). This may then have to wait until disenchantment with the restrictions and demands of investment-style donors sets in. In the meantime, it would be ironic if the widely cited (but mostly unresearched) phenomenon of ‘‘donor fatigue’’ set in among wealthy donors, because the donor control which they have imposed is wearisome, as well as failing to deliver evidence of the ‘‘high impact’’ they have been promised, in the forms and over the periods which they would like.
International Perspectives The international reach of donor actions shows borders of states becoming less relevant in understanding donor behavior and achievements. The opportunities provided by technology for E-philanthropy also emphasize the fluidity of donors, making them a less catchable group of socioeconomic actors. Donation activity for major international disasters offers insights into donors’ ‘‘moral geography’’ (Silk, 2004) whilst international media reporting may both encourage new donors and increase donor wariness of giving. In such circumstances, traditional regulatory systems seem to have little impact, and it is unclear whether the inevitable donor detachment from donees is compensated for by high flows of information or made more likely by it. Expectations by donors of high performance by nonprofits working locally in affected regions also emphasizes the importance of the donor conduit in engaging donor sympathy and in demonstrating the effectiveness of contributions. Thus the major issue of donor trust, not only of intermediary NGOs to deliver services and host nonprofits to draw in funds, but also of states to legitimate and not hinder donor actions becomes important. Leadership in donor practice may appear to be, but may not necessarily be, best exemplified by previously well-known international organizations and philanthropists; and the competitive climate in which giving occurs seems easily sustained. Global companies’ global donation record – notably in regions where they work or seek to work – is a case in point. Donor practice on a cause-by-cause basis suggests continuing patterns of responsiveness that do not evidence the kind of donor fatigue, discussed above, arguably because the recipients’ lists of needs will be relatively clear and
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purchasable by or on behalf of the humanitarian consumerdonor. The trend in the international community’s setting of general development aims – for example the Millenium Goals – may encourage some donors’ continuing support. Yet such wide goal-setting also seems out of favor with other donors, who still seek the specific as a focus for their giving. Comparative research on donor motivation at the nationstate level is both growing and judgmental. For example, Berthe´lemy (2006), comparing donors’ degrees of altruism, finds donors in Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, and most Nordic countries among the most altruistic; and Australia, France, Italy, and to some extent Japan and the United States among the most egoistic. Although nation-state donors may be upbraided for lessening or even not delivering on donor promises, other donors may not. The phenomenon of donor withdrawal from particular fields, which may appear perverse and damaging to many, whilst entirely consistent with private decision making to others, will be magnified on the international stage. For the most wealthy donors in this field, the choice of apparently clear targets – for example the worldwide eradication of particular diseases – makes for the kinds of specificity which other donors may admire, and creates an independent context in which their work occurs, and can be measured. Comparative data on donor choices and levels are also suggesting a continuing personalization of the donor function. Pharoah, for example, (2008) tracks comparative family foundation growth in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe for the first time, analyzing the relative burden of giving carried by these particular forms of donor action. Whilst overall family foundation giving remains highest in the United States, the largest 100 UK family foundations’ giving is worth 0.07% of GDP, surpassing 0.04% for the United States and 0.02% for the rest of Europe. The rationales for, and outcomes of, the international global reach of donors will be interpreted differently by differing ideologies, for example, as evidence of shared humanity or the imposition of a particular hegemony. Just as donor education may seek to encourage donor growth in small communities as expressions of community continuity and values, so it is possible that the ‘‘next big thing’’ in international donor development is not the transnational global donor ‘‘club.’’ Rather, it may be the appearance of donors in regions where formal giving has appeared less evident or was politically problematic, albeit that informal giving of resources, time, and support will have long flourished. (See, e.g., Laliberte´’s account, 2003, of a Taiwanese-founded organization’s 10 years of relief work in China, despite cross-Straits tensions.)
Future Directions Scholarship and practice-led research will continue its overriding interest in donor profiles, demographics, motivations for and propensity to give, locally, nationally, and internationally. Such research enables exploration of non-donor as well as donor activity, predictive work on the elusive question of donor identity, and the development of theoretical understanding on the ways in which donor action and choice drives nonprofit strategy, their rise, or demise. This work continues to raise the question as to the extent to which the donor’s role is essentially private or public. The hybridity that comes from publicity for some donors and anonymity for others makes it uncertain as to where donor communities reside, not least where donors make donations to multiple causes, and have multiple identities, some independently held as individuals, others shared with, for example, families, friends, faith and associational groups, and fellow employees. Further research on donor attachment is thus needed, in line with that exploring altered perceptions of, and purposes of, volunteering, as is the study of the extent to which ‘‘non-wealthy’’ donors are willing and able to claim donor status in citizenship contexts. Donor perceptions and practice in ‘‘good’’ and ‘‘bad’’ times (see Madden & Scaife, 2008) may also become a further research theme, aligned with the growing focus on donor accountability. Complete anonymity in donor practice seems increasingly less well-regarded, as piecemeal regulatory effort requires greater donor openness (most recently in the United States, with corporate donors required to declare gifts to lawmakers’ favored charities, undercutting donation as a lobbying tactic). Deepening understanding of governmental policy activism in relation to donor proclivity, its effects and impact on recipient nonprofits and on donors alike, is then also important. This relates especially to the development of regulatory frameworks to enhance donor confidence or economic policy shifts to reward donors, for example through tax advantage. It also relates to those policies seeking to curb donor support, whether for legitimate or illegitimate civil society organizations, both nationally and transnationally (Crimm, 2004). The inherent competitiveness of donor action which predominates is, of course, dependent on donor visibility, which may prove to be less attractive to a wider public in straitened economic times. Ironically, many of the staples of middle- and lower-income donor practice – regular income deductions, payroll giving – are invisible or less visible actions, so that copying by others becomes less easy. Even perceptions of donation as always discretionary may be changing. The British parliamentarian Frank
Donor/Donor Intent
Field’s suggestion for enforcing a culture of giving among the wealthy (increasing tax for the ‘‘super-rich,’’ which is capable of being offset entirely by charitable giving) offers a view of donation as a quasi-mandatory action, perhaps even a lesser form of economic punishment (Field, 2008). Donor trust still remains as a critical aspect, whether giving is or is not voluntary. Thus, the factors and features affecting donor trust (beyond the formal structures of regulation and self-regulation) remain an important, if problematic, research field, often inevitably confined to snapshot studies of the wake of unusual events, such as nonprofit fraud or misconduct. A less-researched area of the donor–donee relationship is the question of recipient or beneficiary trust, arising when donor pledges and promises do not come to fruition, and donor failure is problematic or spectacular. Just as the for-profit literature is beginning to evidence customer forgiveness (and repeat business) with less well-performing firms, so the extent (and feasibility) of mutual donor–recipient forgiveness in the face of nonprofit or donor failure suggests an intriguing research field. To develop this area would be a small contribution to the return to social relations frameworks of understanding donor and recipient roles, for which Ostrander has argued cogently.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Citizenship ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Fundraising ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Giving Circles ▶ Philanthropy and Professional Advisors ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Barman, E. (2007). An institutional approach to donor control: From dyadic ties to a field level analysis. American Journal of Sociology, 112(5), 1416–1457. Barman, E. (2008).With strings attached: Nonprofits and the adoption of donor choice. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 37(1), 39–56. Berthe´lemy, J. C. (2006). Bilateral donors’ interest vs. recipients’ development motives in aid allocation: Do all donors behave the same? Review of Development Economics, 10(2), 179–194. Bowman, W. (2006). Should donors care about overhead costs? Do they care? Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(2), 288–310. Brody, E. (2001). Enforcement; legal standing and private remedies. New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising, 31, 7–22. Brody, E. (2005). The charity in bankruptcy and ghosts of donors past, present, and future. Seton Hall Legislative Journal, 29(2), 471–530.
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Chong, A., & Gradstein, M. (2008). What determines foreign aid? The donors’ perspective. Journal of Development Economics, 87(1), 1–13. Crimm, N. (2004). High alert: The government’s war on the financing of terrorism and its implications for donors, domestic charitable organizations, and global philanthropy. William & Mary Law Review, 45(4), 1341–1452. Available at SSRN:http://ssrn.com/abstract = 1103239. Dennis, B. S., Buchholtz, A. K., & Butts, M. M. (2007). The nature of giving: A theory of planned behavior examination of corporate philanthropy. Business & Society Online, September, from http:// bas.sagepub.com/cgi/rapidpdf/0007650307305368v1 Eikenberry, A. M. (2007). Philanthropy, voluntary association, and governance beyond the state: giving circles and challenges for democracy. Administration & Society, 39(7), 857–882. Handy, F. (2000). How we beg: The analysis of direct mail appeals. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(3), 439–454. Harrow, J., Palmer, P., & Bogdanova, M. (2006). Business giving, the Tsunami and corporates as rock stars: Some implications for arts funding. Cultural Trends, 15(4), 299–323. Houston, D. J. (2006). Walking the walk of public service motivation: Public employees and charitable gifts of time, blood, and money. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 16(1), 67–86. Hughes, P., & Luksetich, W. (2008). Income volatility and wealth: The effect on charitable giving. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 37(2), 264–280. Irvin, R. A. (2007). Endowments: Stable largesse or distortion of the polity? Public Administration Review, 67(3), 445–457. Kehoe, E. (2004). Working hard at giving it away: Lord Duveen, the British Museum and the Elgin marbles. Historical Research, 77(198), 503–519. Laliberte´, A. (2003). Love transcends borders’ or ‘‘blood is thicker than water’’? The charity work of the Compassion Relief Foundation in the People’s Republic of China. European Journal of East Asian Studies, 2(2), 223–261. Leat, D. (2005). Foundations and policy involvement. New York: The Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Lebovic, J. H. (2005). Donor positioning: Development assistance from the US, Japan, France, Germany, and Britain. Political Research Quarterly, 58(1), 119–126. Levenson, J., & Farrant, F. (2002). Unlocking potential: Active citizenship and volunteering by prisoners. Probation Journal, 49, 195–204. Madden, K. M., & Newton, C. J. (2006). Is the tide turning? Professional advisers’ willingness to advise about philanthropy. Technical Report Working Paper No. CPNS 30. Brisbane, Australia: Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology. Madden, K. M., & Scaife, W. (2008). Good times and philanthropy: Giving by Australia’s affluent. Brisbane, Australia: The Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology. McClintock, N. (2004). Understanding Canadian donors (pp. 1–40). Toronto, Canada: Canadian Centre for Philanthropy. McNamara, N., & Morse, S. (2004). Voices from the aid ‘‘chain’’: the personal dynamics of care. Social & Cultural Geography, 5(2), 253–270. Ostrander, S. (2007). The growth of donor control: Revisiting the social relations of philanthropy. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 36(2), 356–372. Pharoah, C. (2008). Family foundation philanthropy. London: Centre for Charity Effectiveness, Cass Business School, City University.
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Polonsky, M., & Sargeant, A. (2007). Managing the donation service experience. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 17(4), 459–476. Rehberg, W. (2005). Altruistic individualists: Motivations for international volunteering among young adults in Switzerland. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary & Nonprofit Organisations, 16(2), 109–122. Sargeant, A., Ford, J. B., & West, D. C. (2006). Perceptual determinants of nonprofit giving behaviour. Journal of Business Research, 59(2), 155–156. Shelley, L., & Polonsky, M. J. (2002). Do charitable causes need to segment their current donor base on demographic factors? An Australian examination. International Journal of Nonprofit Marketing, 7(1), 19–22. Siegel, D., & Yancey, J. (2003). Philanthropy’s forgotten resource? Engaging the individual donor: The state of donor education today and a leadership agenda for the road ahead. Mill Valley, CA: New Visions Philanthropic Research and Development, from http://www.hewlett.org/nr/ rdonlyres/e2a8f872-c769–4080–9a6d-c71b069e380c/0/deifinalreport. pdf, 14 May 2008. Silk, J. (2004). Caring at a distance: Gift theory, aid chains and social movements. Social & Cultural Geography, 5(2), 229–251. Subramaniam, M. (2007). NGOs and resources in the construction of intellectual realms: Cases from India. Critical Sociology, 3(3), 551–573. Valentine, K. (2005). Citizenship, identity and blood donation. Body & Society, 11(2), 113–128. Van Til, J. (2008). Searching for critical issues in philanthropy. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 19(1), 121–128. Weertz, D. J., & Ronca, J. M. (2007). Profiles of supportive alumni: Donors, volunteers, and those who ‘‘do it all.’’ International Journal of Educational Advancement, 7, 20–34.
Dotcauses NUNO S. THEMUDO University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Introduction New technologies invariably affect the way in which we participate in the world around us and are likely to disrupt existing institutions as groups renegotiate their relative positions (Castells, 1998; Rheingold, 2002). The impact of the invention of the printed press, for example, is hard to overstate, transforming both national and transnational social relations, reducing dependence on the power of the Catholic Church and paving the way for modern nation states. Like the naval innovations in the fourteenth century, the press in the fifteenth century, and the automobile in the twentieth century, the Internet has considerably shrunk the world. By supporting an explosion of transnational information exchange, the Internet is often equated in its revolutionary potential to the invention of the press. A few scholars see the Internet
as the great equalizer, capable of projecting the voice of traditionally excluded groups and resisting domination by existing power structures, thus democratizing state, market, and global public sphere (e.g., Clark, 2003; Norris, 2001). But like other technological revolutions, the rise of the Internet is likely to produce winners and losers. Groups mastering the new technology are likely to increase their power relative to those who don’t. Who are the challengers and how do they organize their onslaught? How do power holders respond to it? These are critical questions in understanding the revolutionary, and potentially emancipatory, potential of the Internet revolution. This piece focuses on a critical dimension of the Internet revolution: the recent rise of Internet-based civil society networks, or ‘‘dotcauses,’’ in world politics. In the following I will define dotcauses, analyze the main opportunities and challenges resulting from organizational virtualization, and conclude with a brief discussion of dotcauses’ main impacts on civil society and world politics.
Definition Dotcauses are ‘‘cause-promoting networks whose organizational realm falls largely within Internet-space’’ (Clark & Themudo, 2006: 50). They are civil society networks, which mobilize support for social causes primarily (but not necessarily exclusively) through the Internet. From a social movement perspective, dotcauses can be seen as ‘‘mobilization structures,’’ that is, ‘‘collective vehicles . . . through which people mobilize and engage in collective action’’ (McAdam et al., 1996: 3). They foster collective action by reducing the costs of participation, providing virtual meeting spaces for communities of interest, and facilitating identity formation and trust building at the global level. Some of the earliest dotcauses were the Free Burma campaign network, starting in 1995, followed by networks waging campaigns against Shell in Ogoniland and against McDonald’s (O’Neill, 1999). The dotcause is the civil society equivalent of the ‘‘dotcom’’ organization in the business world (i.e., a commercial organization, such as Amazon.com, which relies primarily on its Internet presence to undertake its core business). Similarly, dotcauses rely on the Internet to undertake core activities such as resource mobilization and coordination, which are mostly undertaken through ‘‘virtual’’ rather than face-to-face communication: ‘‘Believe it or not, the Indymedia has no central office, and therefore we have no address, phone number or fax’’ (IndyMedia’s website). This high level of virtualization and lack of physical presence is also exemplified by Attac, which held its first truly international ‘‘physical’’ meeting almost 4 years after its birth, after it had already
Dotcauses
relied on the Internet to build a membership of around 80,000 individuals. Klein (2000: 394) found a similar level of virtualization in a third dotcause: "
McLibel’s head office is nothing more than a tiny room at the back of a London flat with graffiti in the stairwells. The office walls are papered with subvertisements and anarchist agitprop. Helen Steel, Dave Morris, Dan Mills and a few dozen volunteers had gone head to head with McDonald’s for seven years with a rickety PC, an old modem, one telephone and a fax machine. Dan Mills apologized to me for the absence of an extra chair.
Without the Internet, dotcauses would not exist or would not exist in anything like their current form. As Diani (2000: 395) points out, the Internet ‘‘improves the effectiveness of communication dramatically, and in doing so it often makes the very existence of these networks possible.’’ Virtualization, that is, the extent to which networks depend on virtual over face-to-face communications between members, is the defining characteristic of dotcauses, conveying both challenges and opportunities for their mobilization capacity and impact.
Key Issues
such as printing and broadcasting, the Internet encourages audience participation in shaping the message and resulting collective action. The physical separation typically involved in virtual networks presents significant obstacles to monitoring and control, and consequently to the development of bureaucracies. Virtualization thus encourages more egalitarian networks over hierarchy and informality over structure (see Handy, 1995; Anheier & Themudo, 2002). Networks emphasizing self-monitoring, collegiality, and shared goals are therefore more appropriate forms in virtual settings. Dotcauses such as Peoples Global Action (PGA) often see themselves as ‘‘coordination mechanisms,’’ not formal organizations; they are not registered anywhere and have no spokespeople, but they do have a manifesto. PGA’s main activities are to coordinate antifree trade and anti-WTO activities around the world and to organize a conference on these themes every 2 years. PGA’s website is its main point of contact with its supporters and the outside world (PGA website). Another dotcause, Subversive Enterprises International, presents an extreme example of informality and lack of hierarchy: "
Opportunities from Virtualization
Virtualization can greatly reduce the costs and the bureaucracy needed to coordinate collective action, especially at the transnational level (see Klein, 2000; Warkentin, 2001), therefore reducing the barriers to entry for new players and enabling the mobilization of less well-resourced groups. Virtualization enables rapid and inexpensive coordination, avoiding the high costs of physical space. This is aptly illustrated by the anecdote that when the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, a dotcause, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997, it did not even have a bank account to receive the award money (Mekata, 2000). According to Boyd (2003), ‘‘The Internet allowed [United For Peace and Justice] to start serious organizing with only $5,000–$10,000. We pulled off a demo in five weeks that would normally take five or six months.’’ Bypassing traditional mass media, dotcauses also help disseminate alternative opinions and information to a wide audience (see Bennett, 2003; Clark & Themudo, 2006). Dotcauses can disseminate alternative analyses of complex policy making negotiations in ‘‘real time’’ thus informing rapid civil society responses such as during the negotiations for a Multilateral Agreement on Investment or during various intergovernmental meetings aimed at reaching new free trade agreements. By allowing for more interaction than traditional forms of communication,
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Who is in charge of Subversive Enterprises, Int’l.? No one. . . . Each member of Subversive Enterprises, Int’l. is responsible for their own actions, and their own leadership. . . .No one is higher than anyone else. No one is lower than anyone else. We are a network, not a bureaucracy. Feel free to consider yourself a member right now. . . . The only reason this ‘‘organization’’ was formed, was that we hoped that individuals like yourself (-selves) might be more encouraged to take action if you knew that there were others out there like you, with similar interests and goals. You want to start you own chapter/branch/franchise of Subversive Enterprises, Int’l.? Go right ahead. We would prefer that your agendas be somewhat compatible with ours, but anything goes (Subversive Enterprises International’s website).
This is not to say that all dotcauses have no hierarchy. Instead, virtual organizations tend to organize more on collegial and less on hierarchical principles (Handy, 1995). In dotcauses power commonly flows from participation, which encourages further participation. This is especially true in dotcauses which, for ideological reasons or a weak financial base, rely on Internet-connected volunteers for most, if not all of their work. For example, within Attac, "
Membership equals participation, and participation equals decision-making power. There is no elite group of lobbyists supported by passive members, and no
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bureaucracy to deal with. Members of local groups organize whatever events and campaigns they’d like to see happen, as long as the topic is consistent with Attac’s platform (Attac’s website).
Virtualization also helps to protect anonymity, which facilitates more aggressive campaigning at the margin of the law. While Internet regulation is increasing, it is still remarkably difficult to catch and prosecute offenders in cyberspace. In terms of activism this puts more aggressive campaigners beyond the reach of corporate lawyers and state officials. Internet activists can use various technological tools to undertake ‘‘virtual sit ins’’ and disrupt their targets, in what has been called ‘‘hacktivism’’ (Hartigan, 1999). For example, FloodNet, a project of two dotcauses, Digital Zapatista Movement and Electronic Civil Disobedience, bombards targeted servers (such as that of the White House) with requests for information. If enough computers are participating in the protest, the target server may shut down, unable to deal with all the data requests. Another dotcause, Electronic Disturbance Theater, successfully shut down the World Economic Forum’s website in 2002 (Childress, 2004). Even though such activities are illegal (Hartigan, 1999), there have been very few attempts to hold accountable those responsible, partly because the law is unclear and partly because many activists act outside the legal boundaries of their target countries. By using inexpensive and interactive communications technologies, dotcauses offer alternative forms of participation in civil society. They often facilitate the mobilization and coordination of traditionally excluded groups, such as anarchists and Southern indigenous groups, who may be underrepresented in the policy arena and previously unable to participate and organize at the global level because they were too resource poor (Chadwick, 2006). Challenges of Virtualization
The vast mobilizing potential of the Internet is in practice limited by equally sized challenges. The lack of sustained physical contact reduces the virtual organization’s ability to generate the level of trust between members required for sustained commitment to collective action (Handy, 1995; Diani, 1999). The anonymity and informality often involved in virtual relationships create a major obstacle to identifying organizational constituencies and, consequently, defining accountability relationships and building trust between members, especially at the transnational level. The self-selection of dotcause adherents makes it likely that they share a common analysis of the cause in question, and even worldview, but the medium of communication makes it difficult to reach consensus on strategies
and tactics without preexisting trust. Hence dotcauses are powerful tools for raising public concerns about social causes, for attracting whistleblowers and alternative sources of information, for demystifying and making transparent the processes of policy-making and for enhancing accountability of power-holders, but in building up widespread and coherent campaign strategies, problems of trust become evident. According to Jordan and Van Tuijl (2000: 2065), ‘‘the necessary trust to seriously discuss agenda setting, strategies, and risk management cannot be developed by email alone (if it is available).’’ Dotcauses’ ability to generate trust is further hampered by the fact that they tend to be young networks, with incipient reputations. Hence it is more difficult for virtual and young groups such as dotcauses to attract trust and resources from outsiders than for older and more established ‘‘physical’’ CSOs. Since the strength of a network is directly proportional to membership, frequency of exchanges and the trust generated between network members (Keck & Sikkink, 1998), trust building remains one of dotcauses’ greatest organizational challenges. Despite the steep obstacles to building trust through virtual communications, many successful dotcauses demonstrate that it is not impossible. They pursue several strategies to help solve the ‘‘trust challenge,’’ such as hyperlinking to other websites with more trustworthiness, associating with reputable public figures, dissociating themselves from the status quo by providing alternative news and analysis, and encouraging members to create affiliated ‘‘physical franchises’’ (Clark & Themudo, 2006). Such strategies have shown some success, sometimes even in attracting financial donations which require a high level of trust between giver and recipient. For example, during the 2000 Presidential campaign in the United States, MoveOn.org helped Howard Dean to fundraise several million dollars (Chadwick, 2006). Today, the advocacy group has 3.2 million individual members and its strong fundraising capacity was again demonstrated during the recent Obama campaign. Another dotcause, Kiva, has fostered person-to-person microfinance, using the Internet to connect lenders and microentrepreneurs. In less than 3 years after its creation, Kiva had channeled over $50 million to microenterprises in developing countries. And its resource mobilization capacity is increasing. For example, during the first week of December 2008, as stock and credit markets continued to be afflicted by one of the worst financial crises in history, through Kiva 9,472 lenders loaned $0.69 million to 1,953 entrepreneurs, and almost 6,000 new lenders joined the network. These transactions are sustained by virtual communications, with few prospects that a lender will ever
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meet an entrepreneur face-to-face. Therefore, despite their improbable ability to generate sufficient trust to sustain collective action, dotcauses have repeatedly defied expectations, suggesting that trust building in virtual settings is possible. A second key challenge relates to power and exclusion. It is important to not assume that the Internet automatically leads to inclusion, dialogue, and democracy (Coleman, 1999; Norris, 2001; Surman & Reilly, 2003). Virtualization raises important issues of access and participation. Through their websites, dotcauses are able to catapult local issues into the global arena. On the other hand, only those with Internet access and who can work in a major international language (preferably English) can participate fully. This leaves many people out, especially due to different rates of Internet access and technological expertise between rich and poor, old and young, educated and uneducated, and South and North. Dotcauses have made important efforts in translating their content into multiple languages and making their websites friendly to low bandwidth access, but aside from problems of technological reach, large cultural and standpoint obstacles remain. Because of the Internet’s ease in crossing national boundaries, dotcauses are often transnational and transcultural networks. But generally there are important differences between Northern and Southern activists’ perspectives on different issues, so dotcauses are still critically influenced by the physical location of the members of the network. Despite their ‘‘virtual’’ presence in ‘‘cyberspace’’ the location of dotcauses’ staff and supporters is still relevant. The emergence of the Internet and dotcauses has helped to reduce the distance between North and South but, clearly, the distance remains significant. A New Force in Civil Society
Traditional ‘‘physical’’ CSOs such as Nature Conservancy, Save the Children or GreenPeace also rely increasingly on the Internet to promote their missions. But they rely on virtual communications as a complement to physical presence, which dominates in terms of resources, staff time, and contribution to mission. They are therefore much more likely to have formal bureaucratic procedures and clear lines of authority in place due to internal and external accountability pressures, offering less opportunity for member participation. According to Tarrow (2004: 31): "
The Internet as a form of movement communication has had a more transformative effect on new movement organizations than on established ones, which continue to rely more on face-to-face communications and on conventional organizational channels of communication.
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Dotcauses’ distinctiveness is driven by technology and enhanced by the fact that they are part of a newer generation of CSOs. The average dotcause is much younger than the average traditional CSO, since by definition dotcauses have only emerged since the Internet became an important mass communications medium in the 1990s, and most of them have been created much more recently. Through ‘‘organizational imprinting,’’ we expect organizations – and their missions and processes – to be strongly influenced by conditions of the period in which they were formed (Stichcombe, 1965). Emerging at a time of rapidly growing Internet-based communications, globalization, and mistrust toward representative democracy and hierarchies, it is not surprising that many new civil society networks adopt a dotcause form, using the Internet as their primary medium of communication to create participatory, and often transnational, structures. These differences combine to suggest dotcauses are a new type of CSO requiring a separate analysis. Alongside the traditional family, school, church, and local network mobilization structures, the development of the Internet has brought about the dotcause as a new type of mobilization structure which is transforming civil society.
Future Directions The impact of Internet on civil society and world politics is likely to intensify as traditionally excluded groups improve their access to technology. The emergence of dotcauses is an important dimension of this impact. Given the lack of research in this area, however, this concluding section can only suggest tentative hypotheses about dotcauses’ impact, in the hope of generating future empirical exploration. Dotcauses have a complex impact on civil society. On one hand, dotcauses can empower the social movements in which they participate. As organizational networks and mobilizing structures, dotcauses play important roles in furthering their causes such as attracting new support, coordinating collective action, disseminating information and new ideological framings, and facilitating the inclusion of groups traditionally excluded from civil society participation. By undertaking these tasks in new and cheaper ways they offer an alternative to traditional mobilization structures, potentially attracting new support for new and old causes. Dotcauses can therefore strengthen civil society by increasing resource availability, coordination, and inclusiveness. By giving voice to traditionally excluded groups, dotcauses also contribute to civil society’s democratization, especially at the global level. On the other hand, dotcauses may potentially undermine traditional CSOs’ strength by increasing
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competition for attention, resources, and legitimacy. Campaigning activity relating to globalization and the institutions of global governance have always included large CSOs such as Oxfam, Sierra Club, Environment Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth and Amnesty International as well as small activist groups – with varying efforts to coordinate across sector and to work transnationally. Up till the early 1990s the larger groups tended to be most prominent in the public eye and most influential with decision-makers, because they had wider followings and could command greater coverage in the mainstream media. Size, and often age, was a fundamental advantage. However, a decade later the comparative advantage has partly shifted. In the Internet age, the transaction costs of communicating to large audiences, of networking and of working transnationally have diminished, while the advantages of nimbleness – of being able to respond swiftly to events as they unfold – have grown. More established CSOs are hobbled by elaborate management and board processes that must approve major policy statements; dotcauses are free of such constraints. Hence, today there are strong advantages to being small, flexible, and dependent primarily on virtual communications. It isn’t that dotcauses are inherently stronger because they are virtual groups – rather that established CSOs are restrained by difficult trade-offs between their traditional and their new webbased support-bases, and between high visibility tactics and cultivating respect amongst policy makers and the mainstream media. By offering an alternative form of participation in civil society, dotcauses may therefore contribute to an erosion of traditional CSOs’ support base. The overall impact upon civil society strength will depend on the extent to which dotcauses contribute to civil society’s resource base and efficiency, possibly compensating for the potential predatory impact on traditional CSOs. By providing new opportunities for citizen participation in international affairs, dotcauses are changing world politics. For example, despite their weak resource base and ‘‘trust challenge,’’ dotcauses have visibly helped to coordinate transnational campaigns, demystify complex multilateral agreements, provide an alternative to the corporate media, and support indigenous movements. A less visible, but potentially more consequential, impact derives from dotcauses’ demonstration that alternative transnational organizational forms are possible and effective. Could they help put a check on the current growth drive of international bureaucracies such as the United Nations (see Barnett & Finnemore, 2004), helping to democratize them? Many members of international organizations cherish democratic values but regularly set them aside while solving global coordination challenges. As ‘‘experiments’’ in a natural ‘‘institutional lab,’’ dotcauses
represent potential solutions to global coordination problems in the context of complex political relations and very scarce resources, revealing the many opportunities as well as challenges of the Internet in helping to solve global governance problems. Indeed, organizational theory suggests that technologies which facilitate information processing and diffusion reduce the need for hierarchical forms of organization, privileging network structures. It is possible, therefore, that while the Internet may offer the means, dotcauses may show the way to alternative, more participatory, institutional arrangements in world politics.
Cross-References
▶ Amnesty International ▶ Attac ▶ Collective Action ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Cyber-communities ▶ Friends of the Earth ▶ Greenpeace ▶ International Campaign to Ban Landmines ▶ Internet, technology ▶ Nature Conservancy ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Participation ▶ Save the Children ▶ Sierra Club ▶ Social Movements ▶ World Economic Forum
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Themudo, N. (2002). Organizational forms of global civil society: Implications of going global. In H. K. Anheier, M. Glasius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global civil society 2002 (pp. 191– 216). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ATTAC: http://attac.org.uk/attac/html/about.vm (accessed on March 21, 2006). Barnett, M., & Finnemore, M. (2004). Rules for the world: International organizations in global politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Bennett, W. L. (2003). Communicating global activism: Strengths and vulnerabilities of networked politics. Information, Communication and Society, 6(2), from http://depts.washington.edu/gcp/pdf/bennettnmpower.pdf Boyd, A. (2003, August 4). The web rewires the movement. The Nation, 13–18. Castells, M. (1998). End of millennium – The information age: Economy, society and culture (Vol. III). Oxford: Blackwell. Chadwick, A. (2006). Internet politics: States, citizens, and new communications technology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Childress, S. (2004, August 30). ‘Hacktivists’ log on: Police are on guard against threats of electronic chaos. Newsweek. Clark, J. D. (Ed.) (2003). Globalizing civic engagement. London: Earthscan. Clark, J. D., & Themudo, N. S. (2006). Linking the web and the street: Internet-based ‘Dotcauses’ and the anti-globalization movement. World Development, 34(1), 50–74.
Drucker, Peter Ferdinand Coleman, S. (1999). Cutting out the middle man: From virtual representation to direct deliberation. In B. Hague & B. Loader (Eds.), Digital democracy: Discourse and decision making in the information age. London: Routledge. Diani, M. (1999, September). Social movement networks virtual and real paper for the conference ‘‘A New Politics?,’’ 16–17, CCSS, University of Birmingham, from http://www.nd.edu/dmyers/cbsm/ vol2/bgham99.pdf Diani, M. (2000). Social movement networks virtual and real. Information, Communication & Society, 3(3), 386–401. Hulme, D., & Edwards, M. (Eds.) (1997). Too close for comfort? NGOs, states and donors. London: Macmillan. Handy, C. (1995). Trust and the virtual organization. Harvard Business Review, 73(3), 40–50. Hartigan, P. (1999, January 24). They call it ‘Hacktivism.’ Boston Globe, F01. IndyMedia: http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/FrequentlyAsked QuestionEn (accessed on March 21, 2006). Jordan, L., & Van Tuijl, P. (2000). Political responsibility in transnational NGO advocacy. World Development, 28(12), 2051–2065. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders: Advocacy networks in international politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Klein, N. (2000). No logo: Taking aim at the brand bullies. New York: Picador USA. McAdam, D., McCarthy, J., & Zald, M. (1996). Introduction: Opportunities mobilizing structures and framing processes. In D. McAdam, J. McCarthy, & M. Zald (Eds.), Comparative perspectives on social movements: Political opportunities, mobilizing structures, and cultural framings (pp. 1–20). New York: Cambridge University Press. Mekata, M. (2000). Building partnerships toward a common goal: Experiences of the international campaign to Ban Landmines. In A. Florini (Ed.), The third force: The rise of transnational civil society (pp. 143–176). Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Brookings Institution Press. Norris, P. (2001). Digital divide. Civic engagement, information poverty, and the internet worldwide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Brien, R., Goetz, A. M., Scholte, J. A., & Williams, M. (2000). Contesting global governance: Multilateral economic institutions and global social movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. O’Neill, K. (1999). Internetworking for social change: Keeping the spotlight on corporate responsibility (Discussion Article no. 111). Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. People’s Global Action: http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/en/ (accessed on March 21, 2006). Rheingold, H. (2002). Smart mobs: The next social revolution. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing. Stichcombe, A. L. (1965). Social structure and organizations. In J. G. March (Ed.), Handbook of organizations (pp. 142–193). Chicago: Rand McNally. Subversive Enterprises International: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/2484/intro.htm (accessed on May 2002; has been taken from the web since the writing of this article). Surman, M., & Reilly, K. (2003, November). Appropriating the Internet for social change: Towards the strategic use of networked technologies by Transnational civil society organizations. Information Technology and International Cooperation program, Social Science Research Council, from http://www.ssrc.org/programs/itic/ Tarrow, S. (2004). Beyond globalization: Why creating transnational social movements is so hard and when is it most likely to happen, from http://www.antenna.nl/waterman/tarrow.html (accessed February 2004). Warkentin, C. (2001). Reshaping world politics: NGOs, the internet, and global civil society. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
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Drucker, Peter Ferdinand CAMILLO VON MUELLER, TIMO MEYNHARDT
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1909 in Vienna, Austria Peter Ferdinand Drucker attended the Universities of Hamburg and Frankfurt, receiving his LL.D at the latter in 1931. After the rise of the National Socialists, Drucker moved to London in 1933 where he worked in insurance and banking. After the marriage with German born Doris Schmitz, Drucker and his wife emigrated to the United States in 1937. Drucker taught at Bennington College in Vermont as professor of philosophy and politics from 1942 to 1949. In 1942, Drucker conducted a two-year analysis of the social and structural relationships of General Motors under Alfred P. Sloan, laying the groundwork of modern management research and consultancy. Drucker was a professor of management at New York University from 1950–1971 and a professor of social science and management at Claremont Graduate University, in Claremont, California from 1971–2002. Since the 1940s, Drucker advised various institutions such as Coca Cola, Google, IBM, the American Red Cross, and the Salvation Army. Drucker held 25 honorary doctorates from American, Belgian, Czech, English, and Swiss universities as well as orders from the governments of Japan and Austria. In 2002 he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the US’s highest civilian honor. Drucker died in 2005 at his home in Claremont, California.
Major Contributions Drucker is generally known as one of the fathers of modern management. Writing almost on every topic of management, he developed a number of concepts (e.g., ‘‘knowledge work,’’ ‘‘management by objectives’’) and identified major trends in society. Drucker’s work includes early comprehensive studies on the functioning of fascism (1939), predictions concerning the role of pension funds in corporate America (1976) and forecasts on the role of nonprofit organizations in society (1990). In 1990, Frances Hesselbein, the former director of Girls Scouts United States, established the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management (now Leader to Leader Institute) to honor Drucker’s achievements in providing managerial and educational expertise to nonprofits. Peter Drucker called himself a ‘‘social ecologist’’ who was primarily interested in societal issues rather than in management. In his seminal work ‘‘Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices’’ (New York: Harper & Row,
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1973) he described management as a ‘‘societal function’’ and as a ‘‘liberal art and not a science.’’ Drucker built his impressive work on the intellectual heritage of Wilhelm von Humboldt, Ferdinand To¨nnies, and Alexis de Toqueville including also observations from scholars such as Othmar Spann and Julius Stahl. During his seven decades of teaching, consultancy, and research Drucker published 36 books that have been translated into more than 30 languages as well a several hundreds of scientific articles and papers. In 1987, the Claremont Graduate University named its School of Management after him. The Peter F. Drucker Research Library and Archive (1993) and the Drucker Institute (2006) have also been instituted at Claremont Graduate University. Affiliated to the Drucker Institute, Drucker Societies exist around the globe connecting institutions such as Bejing Normal University, China, and the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ International Red Cross and Crescent Movement ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Salvation Army ▶ Sloan, Alfred P. ▶ Toennies, Ferdinand
References/Further Readings Drucker, P. F. (1945). Concept of the corporation. New York: John Day. Drucker, P. F. (1939). The end of economic man: A study of the new Totaliarianism. London: William Heinemann. Drucker, P. F. (1976). The unseen revolution: How pension found socialism came to America. New York: Harper & Row. Drucker, P. F. (1990). Managing the non-profit organization. New York: HarperCollins.
Dunant, Jean-Henri (Henry) GEORG VON SCHNURBEIN
Basic Biographical Information Born 1828 in Geneva (Switzerland) into a well-situated family, Henry Dunant became an unsuccessful businessman and – led by his affection for the situation of the needy – the founder of several organizations, amongst the most important is the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Dunant started working at a bank in 1849.
After working for a Swiss mill company in Se´tif/Algeria, he founded his own mill company in Algeria in 1858 (Socie´te´ financie`re et industrielle des Moulins des Mons-Dje´mila). In 1867, the liquidation of his company ends in a scandal and he is forced to leave the ICRC. Impoverished, he lived in Heiden (Switzerland) until a journalist rediscovered him in 1895. Afterwards he received several awards and in 1901 the first ever Nobel Peace Prize together with Fre´de´ric Passey. He died in 1910 in Heiden.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Although Dunant was raised in a strong Calvinist family closely connected to revivalism, it was the experience of a battle that changed his life. In his book A Memory of Solferino he recorded his memories of the aftermath of the battle of Solferino, where 40,000 soldiers were left on the battlefield, injured or dying. Dunant organized first aid, convinced the population to help the wounded regardless of their nation and convinced the victorious French army to release the captured Austrian doctors. Back in Geneva, he developed ideas and principles of a neutral organization to provide care to the wounded soldiers. In 1863, the ‘‘Comite´e International de Secours aux Militaries Blesses’’ was founded, which later became the ICRC. In 1864, 12 European states signed the first Geneva Convention that was based on Dunant’s ideas. After his bankruptcy in 1867 he was expelled from the ICRC and was shunned by his former colleagues. Despite his own situation he traveled through Europe to promote his humanitarian ideas. He argued for a supranational court to mediate international conflicts and promoted the idea of a world library. He wrote about women’s rights and corresponded with Bertha von Suttner. Besides the ICRC, Dunant was founder and initiator of several other organizations. He was one of the founders of YMCA Geneva in 1852 and among the founding fathers of the World Alliance of YMCA in Paris in 1855. In 1866 the former Swiss Red Cross is founded with his support. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), he founded the Common Relief Society (Allgemeine Fu¨rsorgegesellschaft) and soon after the Common Alliance for Order and Civilization (Allgemeine Allianz fu¨r Ordnung und Zivilisation).
Cross-References
▶ Human Rights ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ YMCA
Durkheim, E´mile
References/Further Readings Boissier, P. (1985). History of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Volume I: From Solferino to Tsushima. Geneva: Henry Dunant Institute. Dunant, H. (1986). A memory of Solferino. Geneva: ICRC. Moorehead, C. (1998). Dunant’s dream: War, Switzerland and the history of the Red Cross. London: HarperCollins.
Durkheim, E´mile ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Basic Biographical Information
Born into a rabbinical family in 1858 in E´pinal, France, E´mile Durkheim is considered one of the founders of sociology. Studying at the E´cole Normale Supe´rieure under Auguste Comte, among others, he developed an early interest in a scientific approach for understanding society modeled after the natural sciences. After graduating in philosophy in 1882 and spending a year studying in Germany, he taught pedagogy and social science at the teacher’s training center in Bordeaux. From here, Durkheim proceeded to help develop the theoretical and methodological foundations of sociology through a series of major publications (The Division of Labor in Society, 1893; Rules of the Sociological Method, 1895; and Suicide, 1897). He also established the journal L’Anne´e Sociologique, and founded the first Department of Sociology in France, at the University of Bordeaux. By 1902, Durkheim had finally obtained a prominent academic position as Chair of Education – later renamed Chair of Education and Sociology – at the Sorbonne in Paris, from where he continued to pursue the goal of establishing sociology as a scientific discipline. Durkheim died in Paris in 1917. His last years were full of personal tragedy, having lost his son as well as many of the young sociologists he had trained to World War I.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions One of his main arguments was that individuals, while ultimately creating the societies they live in, experience society as something external, as a ‘‘social substratum’’ with its own underlying logic and force. He examined this tension between the individual and society in a number of fields such as religion, deviant behavior, and social integration. By doing so, he made significant contributions to the field of sociology more broadly, and laid the
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groundwork for many key concepts in the study of civil society, social capital and philanthropy, including solidarity and social cohesion. For example, in The Division of Labor in Society (1893), Durkheim explores issues that are closely related to notions of bonding and bridging capital today, but also to aspects of civil society and social self-organization. Indeed, the central questions are very contemporary: what holds societies together, and what binds individuals to the societies they live in? In addressing these questions, Durkheim differentiates two large systems equilibrating social order: mechanical solidarity and organic solidarity. Under mechanical solidarity, social order is maintained primarily through shared beliefs and sentiments, along with repressive laws, that tie the individual to the society as a whole. Mechanical solidarity would be typical of preindustrial or tribal societies, in which ties within societal units, e.g., family, church, or neighborhood, are strong, but those between units tend to be weaker. The second large system is characterized by organic solidarity, typical of industrial societies, in which higher levels of differentiation and complexity translate into greater ties of interdependency. Under organic solidarity, shared practices and loyalties ensure a more stable, flexible social order and different beliefs and values can be accommodated (through law). At the same time, Durkheim felt that the centrifugal economic and social forces of modern societies towards selfishness and individualization may be too strong for the cohesive power of organic solidarity. He suggested that business and professional associations in particular, but other forms of intermediate organizations generally, could offer stability to modern society by looking after the common good. An example would be the professional codes of conduct developed and enforced by businesses, professions, etc. While these could contribute significantly to compensate for the lack of moral regulations in modern societies, the state is seen as essential for offering a moral compass and as an instrument for subordinating individual to collective interests when needed.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Business and Employers’ Associations ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Comte, Auguste ▶ Mutual Societies, Organizations, Mutual Societies ▶ Professional Associations ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Solidarity
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References/Further Readings Alexander, J. C. (1988). Durkheimian sociology. Cultural studies. England, New York: Cambridge University Press. Durkheim, E´. (1938). The rules of sociological method (8th ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Durkheim, E´. (1965). The division of labor in society (G. Simpson, Trans.). New York: Free Press. Durkheim, E´. (2002). Suicide. A study in sociology. London: Routledge.
E EAPG ▶ European Association for Planned Giving (EAPG)
Ebadi, Shirin JEANETTE ROHR
Basic Biographical Information Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer and human rights activist who in 2003 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her outstanding commitment to democracy and human rights. Ebadi was born into a religious middle-class family in Hamadan, Iran, where her father was a professor of commercial law. The family moved to Tehran in 1948. Ebadi graduated from the law department of Tehran University in 1969 and started to work as a judge. She received her master’s degree in law in 1971. In 1975, she became the first woman to preside over an Iranian legislative court. During the same year, she married Javad Tavassolian with whom she has two daughters. Having initially supported the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Ebadi was forced to step down from her position as a judge due to conservative clerics insisting on women being prohibited to officiate as judges. She applied for a lawyer’s concession which was given to her only in 1993. In the meantime, she wrote a number of books and newspaper articles dealing with human rights issues. She lectures law at Tehran University.
Based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Ebadi supports the concept of a pluralistic and democratic society and opposes fundamentalism. She demands a reform of Iran’s legal system in order to establish independent judges and lawyers. Adherent to the principle of gender equality, Ebadi has shown herself as a strong campaigner for strengthening the legal status of women and children. In 1994, she founded the Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child (SPRC) in Iran which campaigns for increasing the age of criminal responsibility. She is currently president of Iran’s most important human rights organization, the Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC) in Tehran. In 1996, she was given the Human Rights Watch Defender Award. In October 2003, Ebadi became the first Iranian as well as the first Muslim woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. As the leading figure of Iran’s human rights movement, she has since taught and lectured at a number of universities all over the world. In spite of threats to her life and her family, she has been proceeding to defend Iranians accused of political crimes.
Cross-References
▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights Watch
References/Further Readings Ebadi, S. (2006). Iran awakening: A memoir of revolution and hope. New York: Random House. Hubbard-Brown, J. (2007). Shirin Ebadi: Champion for human rights in Iran. New York: Chelsea House Publishers.
Major Contributions As a lawyer, Ebadi has taken up numerous cases of dissident intellectuals. Prominent examples are Darioush Forouhar and Parvaneh Eskandari, a married couple which fell victim to a series of murders committed by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence during the late 1990s. Ebadi also represented the families of both Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad who was killed in the Iranian student protests of 1999 and Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi who died in Iranian custody in 2003.
Ebert, Friedrich ▶ Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
ECF ▶ European Cultural Foundation (ECF)
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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EFC ▶ European Foundation Centre (EFC)
Effectiveness and Efficiency BRAM VERSCHUERE University College Ghent and Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Introduction Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are increasingly under pressure to prove to their constituencies that they are achieving their missions and goals in an efficient and effective way (Murray, 2005: 345). This environmental pressure on the NPOs by their funders, clients, regulators, and other stakeholders is one of the primary causes of the growing interest in organizational performance. NPOs are forced to show their stakeholders that they have an impact on complex social problems, in order not to lose their legitimacy. Murray (2005: 347) argues that this general tendency to stress organizational effectiveness and efficiency is linked to the so-called accountability movement, which also increasingly affects the public sector. According to the accountability movement, NPOs and the people that run them should be accountable to those they are created to serve and those who provide the money to operate them. Besides these external pressures for more accountability and effectiveness, managers and board members also increasingly demand better information on how the organization is performing. More and more, managerial tools such as outcome measurement, benchmarking, client satisfaction surveys, and quality systems are adopted to increase the managerial capacity of NPOs (and public agencies), which in turn is assumed to increase efficiency and effectiveness (Sowa et al., 2004; Light, 2000). This kind of pressure the NPOs are confronted with, inducing them to be effective, makes (measuring) their performance increasingly important, both from a practitioner’s and from an academic point of view.
Definition Organizational effectiveness and efficiency is a concept that has many synonyms (Baruch & Ramalho, 2006). Many terms are used in the literature to designate organizational outcomes and results: effectiveness, efficiency, performance, productivity, quality, success, health, etc.
The most straightforward definition of organizational performance that puts many of these terms in relation with one another is the production of the welfare framework (POW) by Kendall and Knapp (2000, in Anheier [2005: 194]). A similar model is the input/output model by Pollitt and Bouckaert (2000: 13). According to both models, efficiency can be defined as the ratio between the organizational inputs (resources of the organization) and the organizational outputs (measurable products and services delivered by the organization). For example, the number of graduates per annum in a public school, in relation to the resources of that school (subsidies, grants, personnel), can convey something about the efficiency of the school. Considering two public schools with a comparable amount of resources and pupils, school A with 100 graduates per annum can be considered as being more efficient than school B with 50 graduates per annum. Effectiveness can be defined as the ratio between the objectives set by the organization (e.g., increasing the general education level in the neighborhood) and the outcomes that are the result of the organization’s efforts (results, e.g., the number of a school’s graduates that obtain a university degree; and impact, positive effects for the neighborhood of the fact that many people with high education levels live there). This approach to organizational performance is, however, very rational and instrumental. It puts a large emphasis on the linear relationship between inputs (resources) of the organization, outputs (measurable results) that are the result of the organization’s functioning, and outcomes or societal effects that are the result of the organization’s efforts. This basic approach to organizational effectiveness comes close to the goal model of organizational effectiveness (Herman & Renz, 2004; Rojas, 2000; Forbes, 1998). According to the goal model, organizations have goals, and the extent to which the goals are met by the organization determines the organizational success. The model departs from the assumption that organizational goals are identifiable and unambiguous. This assumption makes the goal model prone to critique, as one can argue that only real people (and not organizations) have goals, that in real life goals are often ill-specified, and that organizations often do not include unofficial but still important goals. Hence, the goal model offers a rather narrow and instrumental approach to organizational effectiveness and efficiency. A second approach to organizational effectiveness is the system resource model of effectiveness, which considers organizations that are able to exploit the environment to acquire scarce resources as being effective. In other words, organizational effectiveness can be measured as the
Effectiveness and Efficiency
viability or survival of the organization in its environment. In sum, effective organizations are able to maintain their functioning by their ability to exploit environmental resources. The main critique to this approach is that the ability to collect valuable and scarce resource may be an important criterion of effectiveness for some organizational stakeholders (e.g., the board or the management), though not for all stakeholders (e.g., clients that are mainly interested in the quality and cost of the services delivered). Thirdly, the multiple constituency model claims that the many stakeholders of NPOs all have different conceptualizations of organizational effectiveness in mind, or at least have different criteria to assess the NPO’s effectiveness. According to this model, organizational effectiveness is not a single reality, but a more complicated matter of differing interests and expectations among different organizational stakeholders. This model is ontologically rooted in social constructivism theory, assuming that realities are constructed by people’s beliefs, values, and knowledge. Hence, according to the multiple constituency model, organizational effectiveness and efficiency is whatever the stakeholders judge it to be. The result is that no single organizational effectiveness exists, but that in reality, stakeholders of the NPO (board, management, employees, volunteers, clients, funders, etc.) may all have different opinions on what effectiveness means, and on how effective the organization is.
Key Issues Effectiveness and Efficiency as a Heterogeneous Concept
As the overview of definitions of organizational effectiveness shows, NPO effectiveness and efficiency is not a neutral or homogeneous concept. Firstly, organizational effectiveness is always a matter of comparison (Herman & Renz, 1999). The effectiveness and efficiency of an organization, be it an objective reality or as a social construct, can only be assessed in a meaningful way when compared to the effectiveness and efficiency of other organizations, to an ideal type organization of its kind, or to the organization itself at another moment in time. Secondly, organizational effectiveness and efficiency is a multidimensional concept that cannot be reduced to one single measure. The multidimensional integrated model of nonprofit organizational effectiveness (MIMNOE) (Sowa et al., 2004) is exemplary for this. MIMNOE captures two levels of effectiveness, management effectiveness and program effectiveness, on two sublevels, organizational capacity and organizational outcomes. Other examples
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include the balanced scorecard, or the competing values framework. The implication is that an organization most unlikely will be able to maximize effectiveness and efficiency on all dimensions or criteria simultaneously. Thirdly, the assessment of organizational effectiveness and efficiency will depend on who is evaluating (Murray, 2005). NPOs often have multiple stakeholders, who all might have other opinions on what the effective NPO should be like and on what criteria to use for assessing effectiveness and efficiency. Clients will stress the quality of services delivered, the management might be interested in the quality of internal management processes, while board members might assess organizational effectiveness on resource acquisition and economy in using these resources. Problems in Measuring Effectiveness and Efficiency in the Nonprofit Sector Generic Problems in Measuring Effectiveness
There are two broad and generic reasons why measuring or evaluating organizational results can be problematic (Murray, 2005). Firstly, there are technical problems in evaluating organizational performance. Some goals or objectives of an NPO are hard to measure because of their vagueness and ambiguity. How does one measure the goal of the community organization that is ‘‘making our neighborhood a better place to live’’? It is very challenging, from a technical point of view, to develop valid and quantifiable measures to assess the extent to which such vaguely described goals are met by the organization. Next to that, one can measure organizational performance but also the performance of organizational subunits. This raises the question about how results obtained for the effectiveness of part of the organization can be aggregated to the organization as a whole. A similar problem arises when NPOs manage different programs. One program can be more effective than another, but how is that observation related to the organizational overall effectiveness? Finally, even when every stakeholder agrees on the desirable output and outcome of the organization, there still are technical problems on how to measure these outputs and outcomes. This is the question to what extent the measures used really capture the goals they are intended to measure? For example: Does an employment agency that is able to direct 90% of its unemployed clients to the labor market, but is very selective in the type of client they help (e.g., only highly educated unemployed), really meets its goal of ‘‘reducing unemployment in the region’’? A second problem in assessing effectiveness and efficiency of NPOs is related to the nature of human beings (the people that assess and interpret organizational results).
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If the assessment shows good organizational effectiveness, people tend to take full credit for the good results, thereby neglecting the fact that good performance is the result of a combination of factors, and that personal contribution to the good result is only one factor. Ceteris paribus, in the case of poor results, people tend to avoid blame, and will want to explain poor performance as being beyond their own personal control. Murray (2005) has labeled this mind-set as ‘‘look good and avoid blame.’’ Next to that, the results of the evaluation of effectiveness may also be interpreted subjectively (‘‘subjective interpretation of reality’’). This is often the case when evaluation results need to be explained and interpreted, and occurs because there are many variables that cannot be controlled but still influence or moderate the presumed link between organizational (or personal) behavior and eventual organizational performance. The Specific Context of the NPO
The observation that organizational effectiveness is a multifaceted and heterogeneous concept also invokes some (potential) problems when one wants to measure NPOs’ effectiveness and efficiency. Studying and measuring organizational effectiveness and efficiency in the context of NPOs is problematic for several reasons (Forbes, 1998). The distinctive nature of NPOs, characterized by the absence of a profit-motive and the aim of creating social added value, prevents the use of measures of effectiveness that are commonly deployed for business (for-profit) organizations such as profitability or stock-market performance. Next to that, the fact that NPOs often have amorphous and heterogeneous goals, and often offer intangible services, makes quantitative measures of performance difficult. One can measure the number of clients that have consulted the social worker in the organization during 1 week, but it is much harder to measure the quality of the conversation between social worker and client, and the effect of that consultation (whether they eventually come up with a solution for the client’s problem). Thirdly, the work of NPOs is often based on societal values about which consensus is often hard to find, implying that also consensus about the criteria to evaluate the organization and its performance is often difficult to reach. When Is the NPO the Most Effective Organizational Form?
In an environment that is characterized more and more by competition for delivering services between nonprofit organizations and for-profit organizations, for example in the delivery of welfare services, the question which organizational form is the most effective one is extremely important. That said, this kind of assessment is also
extremely difficult, given the variety of possible criteria organizational effectiveness can be measured upon (cf. supra). It can be assumed that NPOs and for-profit organizations (and also government agencies) behave differently because they have different functions, distribution criteria, goals, motivations, etc. (Anheier, 2005). Notwithstanding these differences, organizations of different types (NPO, for-profit) often deliver services in the same field (e.g., nursing homes, child care, and health care). A central question is then whether organizational form matters in delivering these services. One could argue that the non-distribution constraint that applies to NPOs (preventing NPOs to redistribute profits or savings to owners of the organization) may lead to better quality of services delivered because the organization is not driven by the profit-motive. In other words, nonprofit supply services to those in need (altruistic), while for-profits supply to the highest bidder. On the other hand, one can argue that the profit-motive will be an incentive to behave cost-efficient, and that in this case the for-profit organization may have the comparative advantage. Krashinsky (1998) found that Canadian nonprofit daycare centers do appear to offer better quality than forprofit day-care centers, but he added the important conclusion that some nonprofits offer low quality, while some for-profits offer high quality. He thus concludes that the non-distribution constraint does not induce all NPOs to offer good quality in any case. Especially when organizations are small, the non-distribution constraint is difficult to enforce, and managers may engage in disguised profit distribution such as increasing salaries, engaging in shirking (avoiding duties and work), or downgrading quality of one service to support another (preferred) service. Variables Affecting Effectiveness and Efficiency
There is a large literature that addresses the question: Under which circumstances are NPOs effective and efficient? At least three sets of variables can be identified that are supposed to have an effect on the effectiveness and efficiency of NPOs (Herman & Renz, 2004; Schmid, 2002; Forbes, 1998): the practice and the efficiency of the board of the organization, the management practice, and organizational characteristics. More recent research supports the hypothesis that effective board practice (e.g., the use of prescribed board practice such as involvement in strategic planning, using meeting management techniques, and low internal conflict) is related to organizational effectiveness. In addition to that, there is a considerable amount of evidence that relates effective management practice (e.g., planning, measuring results, independent audit) to organizational effectiveness.
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Considering the relationship between board and management practice on the one hand, and organizational effectiveness on the other hand, however, the research evidence must be nuanced. Firstly, most research is based on assessment of perceptions of organizational members about the effectiveness of the organization. Secondly, most research is not longitudinal, so that claims about causality are difficult to make (e.g., effective board practice leads to organizational effectiveness). Thirdly, it is unlikely that the causal relationship between managerial best practices and organizational effectiveness is absolute. Some particular innovative managerial tools or practices may work well in some contexts or settings, but not necessarily in others. The practical implication is that every organization should discover its own best practice, as practices are only effective because of their value in the context of the organization (Herman & Renz, 2004: 701–702). Also, organizational characteristics such as the level of centralization, formalization, the amount of worker autonomy, coordination and control, and staff empowerment seem to be related to organizational effectiveness (Schmid, 2002). For example, decentralized authority within the organization seems to contribute positively to effectiveness in organizations where flexible and informal structures and patterns of management prevail, and where professionalism among staff is high. To the contrary, in organizations that require a high level of supervision and control over the quality of services (provided by non-professional staff whose level of functional maturity is low), centralized authority may be more effective. As a second example, organizations with a large number of professional staff (e.g., medical staff in hospitals) may benefit from large levels of worker autonomy, because in such organizations the workers typically face challenges, risks, and opportunities as conditions for effectiveness. Also, organizations with a highly skilled professional staff may benefit from relatively loose control and high worker empowerment, because in such organizations workers need to be able to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and need to have the power and autonomy to deal with different people and situations (Schmid, 2002: 390–391).
Future Directions Comparative research into effectiveness and efficiency between public, nonprofit (voluntary), and for-profit sectors and their organizations can be developed further. Relatively straightforward and rather unidimensional criteria like efficiency, productivity, market share, and quality of services can be measured and compared between organizations belonging to different sectors
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(Baruch & Ramalho, 2006). Comparing effectiveness and efficiency between sectors becomes all the more important giving the increasing presence of the market sector in areas that were previously the monopoly of public and voluntary sectors (e.g., social care and health care). On the other hand, multidimensional analysis may provide much richer assessments of effectiveness and efficiency of NPOs (Sowa et al., 2004). Especially in a nonprofit context, effectiveness is a complex concept that can be assessed at varying levels (individual, program, organization, sector), and varying dimensions (outputs and goals, structures and processes, capacity, etc.). In addition, under the assumption that NPOs are different (compared to business and public sector organizations), conceptions and indicators that are appropriate for measuring effectiveness and efficiency of NPOs should be developed further. In this respect, Herman and Renz (1999: 123) advocate the further development of a measure of responsiveness as an indicator of effectiveness. This responsiveness goes further than being attentive to needs and demands of organizational stakeholders, and considers the role of NPOs as also being responsive to the interest of the least advantaged in the community or society. This is, according to Herman and Renz, a more challenging conception of responsiveness that deserves attention, because ‘‘if NPOs are not for social justice, who will be ?’’ (Herman & Renz, 1999: 123). Furthermore, both objective and perceptual measurements of organizational effectiveness can be compared and combined in future research. From a social constructivist point of view, measuring organizational effectiveness via assessing the perceptions of the many organizational stakeholders may yield interesting conceptual and theoretical conclusions (see, e.g., Tassie et al., 1998). Finally, as to research strategy, both large-N survey research, as well as small-N case study research might be used and combined, depending on the research purpose (typology development, hypothesis testing, etc.).
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Governance, Good ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Performance and Impact Measures, Outcomes ▶ Results and Performance ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Sustainability (Financial)
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. (2005). Nonprofit organizations. Theory, management, policy. London/New York: Routledge.
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Baruch, Y., & Ramalho, N. (2006). Communalities and distinctions in the measurement of organizational performance and effectiveness across for-profit and nonprofit sectors. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(1), 39–65. Forbes, D. (1998). Measuring the unmeasurable: Empirical studies of nonprofit organization effectiveness from 1977 to 1997. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 27(2), 183–202. Herman, R., & Renz, D. (1999). Theses on nonprofit organizational effectiveness. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28(2), 107–126. Herman, R., & Renz, D. (2004). Doing things right: Effectiveness in local nonprofit organizations, a panel study. Public Administration Review, 64(6), 694–704. Kendall, J., & Knapp, M. (2000). Measuring the performance of voluntary organizations. Public Management, 2(1), 105–132. Krashinsky, M. (1998). Does auspice matter? The case of day-care for children in Canada. In W. Powell & E. Clemens (Eds.), Private action and the public good (pp. 114–123). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Light, P. (2000). Making nonprofits work. Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press. Murray, V. (2005). Evaluating the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations. In R. Herman et al. (Eds.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management (2nd ed., San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.pp. 345–370.) Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, G. (2000). Public management reform – A comparative analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rojas, R. (2000). A review of models for measuring organizational effectiveness among for-profit and nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit management & leadership, 11(1), 97–104. Schmid, H. (2002). Relationships between organizational properties and organizational effectiveness in three types of nonprofit human service organizations. Public Personnel Management, 31(3), 377–395. Sowa, J., Coleman Selden, S., & Sandfort, J. (2004). No longer unmeasurable? A multidimensional integrated model of nonprofit organizational effectiveness. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33(4), 711–728. Tassie, B., Murray, V., & Cutt, J. (1998). Evaluating social service agencies: Fuzzy pictures of organizational effectiveness. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary & Nonprofit Organizations, 9(1), 59–79.
Eigen, Peter ALEXIA DUTEN
Basic Bibliographical Information Born in 1938 in Augsburg, Germany, Peter Eigen studied law and political economy in Erlangen and Frankfurt, before completing a doctoral degree in law. Eigen founded Transparency International in 1993. At the age of 29, Eigen was already working for the law division at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. Sponsored by the Ford Foundation, he became legal adviser for the governments of Botswana and Namibia. Shortly after, he was appointed Director of the Regional Mission for
Eastern Africa of the World Bank. He left the institution in 1993 for an early ‘‘retirement.’’ Retirement turned out to be very busy for Peter Eigen. On the basis of his 25 years’ know-how in economic development, Eigen engaged in an academic career. After lecturing law and international relations at his home university in Frankfurt, Germany, as well as at Georgetown and at John Hopkins University in the United States, he became a faculty member of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, a visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was appointed honorary professor at the Freie Universita¨t, Berlin. In 2000, Eigen received an honorary doctoral degree of the Open University in the United Kingdom and in 2004, the Readers Digest Award ‘‘European of the Year 2004’’. After the loss of his first wife, Peter Eigen remarried to Gesine Schwan, social democrat candidate to the German presidency in 2004 and 2009.
Major Contributions Through his own experience but also connected to his first wife’s activities as a doctor in poverty-stricken countries, Eigen was confronted with the magnitude of corruption. He measured the damages corruption was afflicting to politics, the economy and the society in developing countries. These experiences triggered the launch in 1993 of Transparency International (TI), ‘‘the global coalition against corruption.’’ Eigen chaired the NGO for twelve years. In 2006, he also chaired the International Advisory Group of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). The identification of corruption as the enemy of development was an important step for global governance. TI became the leading organization in terms of fight against corruption and engaged in political consultancy. Eigen’s bestseller ‘‘Das Netz der Korruption’’ (2003) is a work of reference. Eigen himself is often characterized as being a ‘‘global player’’ since his work of a lifetime not only enriched international and development politics but also shaped global governance. Peter Eigen also founded the Berlin Civil Society Center, that ‘‘works for a stronger civil society and a better global governance’’ by means of seminars and workshops customtailored for the needs of civil society organisations.
Cross-References
▶ Good Governance ▶ Transparency ▶ Transparency International ▶ World Bank
EMES – European Research Network
References/Further Readings Eigen, P. (2003). Das Netz der Korruption: Wie eine weltweite Bewegung gegen Bestechung ka¨mpft. Campus Verla, Frankfurt am Main. Transparency International. (2008). Global corruption report 2008: Corruption in the water sector. Cambridge University Press.
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pacified places as a specific type of security. Compared to premodern societies, in which the individual lives in an insecure environment, the modern society creates pacified places, in which the individual is not any longer exposed to extreme situations.
Cross-References
Elias, Norbert BENEDIKT KROLLPFEIFER
Basic Biographical Information Norbert Elias, a German sociologist of Jewish descent (later became British citizen), was born on June 22, 1897 in Breslau (Wrocław). In 1915, he volunteered for the German army in World War I. The war events shook Elias to the core. In 1918, he started the studies of philosophy, psychology, and medicine at the University of Breslau. After passing the preliminary examination in 1919 he quit medicine. During his studies he had two exchange semesters, one at the University of Heidelberg, where he met Karl Jaspers, and one at the University of Freiburg. He graduated with a doctoral dissertation in philosophy in 1924 at the University of Breslau. After the seizure of power by the Nazis, Elias fled to Paris in 1933. In 1935, he moved on to Great Britain, where he wrote his main work The Civilizing Process. After several lectureships in Leicester, Accra, Heidelberg, and Frankfurt, he settled down in Amsterdam, where he died at his home on August 1, 1990.
Major Contributions With regards to civil society, Elias’s concept of civility is of crucial importance. Civility means politeness, tolerance, and confidence. Therefore, for Elias, the major feature of civil society is respect of individual autonomy, which is based upon security and trust. The civilizing process is a process of individualization in which external control is of secondary importance. Rather, self-monitoring and self-control of the individual come to the fore. Driving forces of the civilizing process are the formation of the monopoly of force and the growing stability of the major societal institutions. Furthermore, the increasing complexity of human relationships has positive effects on the civilizing process. The monopoly of force and the growing stability of the societal institutions facilitate the realization of
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civility
References/Further Readings Elias, N. (1988). Violence and civilization: The state monopoly of physical violence and its infringements. Translation from German of ‘‘Zivilisa¨ ber das Staatsmonopol der ko¨rperlichen Gewalt tion und Gewalt. U und seine Durchbrechungen’’ (1981). In J. Keane (Ed.), Civil society and the state. New European perspectives. London: Verso. Elias, N. (2000). The civilizing process. Sociogenetic and psychogenetic investigations (Rev. ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.
EMES – European Research Network ALEX MURDOCK
Address of Organization c/o University of Lie`ge Bd du Rectorat, B33 Box 4 4000 Lie`ge (Sart-Tilman) Belgium www.emes.net
Introduction The EMES is a research network of established university research centres and individual researchers whose goal is to gradually build up an European corpus of theoretical and empirical knowledge, pluralistic in disciplines and methodology, around ‘‘Third Sector’’ issues.
Brief History EMES arose in 1996 when a group of European academics obtained European Union funding to create the network. It is named after its first research program, on ‘‘the emergence of social enterprises in Europe.’’ However EMES regards itself as having a broader interest than simply social enterprise. It sees the Third sector as broadly defined.
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Mission
Funding
The mission of EMES is primarily a scholastic one to encourage and disseminate research and learning in the broader third sector. The prime area of interest is Europe (including Eastern Europe) but it has developed a more international focus.
The initial funding of EMES was from the European Union. Ongoing funding has been derived from a range of sources.
Activities EMES has undertaken six major research projects in the following areas: ● Social Enterprise – The Emergence of Social Enterprise in Europe (1996–1999) – Promoting the role of Social Enterprise in CEE and CIS (2006) ● Third Sector – The Third Sector and Employment ● Personal and Social Services – Child Care Project (2001–2006) ● Work Integration – Social Integration Services in Europe – ELEXIES project (2001–2004) – Socioeconomic performance of Social Enterprises in work integration – PERSE Project (2001–2004) EMES has run and also has been associated with various conferences and other collegial research activities over the period of its operation. In 2008 it combined with the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) to organize a major European Conference. In July 2009 EMES plans to hold its second international conference on social enterprise in Trento, Italy. EMES has more recently created a Ph.D. student network which includes a research summer school. It has also developed links to develop Ph.D. education. The links have now reached across to Canada and the Canadian Social Economy Student Network.
Structure and Governance EMES has a legal form as a nonprofit association established under Belgian law. It is a membership based organization and, perhaps unusually, admits members on both an institutional and on an individual basis. It is to a large extent an open academic community which welcomes all who share its aims to develop scholarship in social enterprise and the third sector, defined broadly.
Major Accomplishments EMES has succeeded in generating a great deal of well rated published research much of which can be downloaded from its website. It also has been associated with the development of a European community of scholars and the strengthening of an emerging academic field. The links it has developed with other bodes as indicated above have also represented a very positive development.
Cross-References ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Third Sector
References/Further Readings www.emes.net/
Endowment, Definition and Management of RENE´E A. IRVIN University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, USA
Introduction Endowment, in the vernacular, can refer to any asset of substance that allows a person, organization, or country to excel in their pursuits of business or leisure. For example, economists specializing in international trade describe a country as having an ‘‘endowment’’ of abundant land for agricultural crops. A man or woman can be described as ‘‘well-endowed,’’ but this implies a topic more risque´ than a generous trust fund or accumulated retirement savings. Nonprofit sector ‘‘endowment’’ is analogous to a savings account. Organizations may have endowments of other types of assets (a beautiful campus, historic facilities, etc.), but their financial endowment is the primary focus of this discussion.
Definition Nonprofit (nongovernmental) organizations and foundations – especially foundations – use endowment earnings as a source of income for their operations. Endowment is
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more than just savings, however. Nonprofit and for-profit firms alike use reserves, a form of savings, to survive temporary increases in cash needs when income receipts are insufficient to cover the shortfall. Another type of savings is capital project accounts, which accumulate funds over multiple years in order to finance larger purchases of equipment or buildings. Each of these can be spent down to zero as the situation dictates – to relieve a shortage of cash or to purchase a building. Endowment, however, is often restricted, whether by protocol, donor intention, or a binding legal contract, so that the original corpus of funds is never spent. Note the very sharp difference with this type of savings. For-profit firms do not speak of endowment, nor do they face binding legal restrictions on how their savings must be spent. If a for-profit firm accumulated a significant amount of funds in savings, it would be a target for a takeover. Accumulation of cash reserves is a signal to others that the firm is not investing in itself properly. Accumulation of endowment for a nonprofit, on the other hand, is a sign of organizational maturity and acceptance by the donating public that the mission should endure over time. The legal definition and practice of endowment establishment and spending differ by country, but elemental to the degree to which a nonprofit endowment fund is restricted is the donor intention of the original gift. Centuries upon centuries of gifts to the church or state illustrate the historical significance of donations establishing churches, universities, and parks. If the donor intended that his or her gift fund a specific purpose into perpetuity, future caretakers of the endowment must direct funds toward that purpose only, and must steward and preserve the corpus of the endowment so that its growth allows perpetual payout for that purpose. This is often referred to as a ‘‘true’’ endowment. Nonprofit organizations also have the option of establishing a ‘‘quasi’’- endowment. That is, a variety of income sources – donations, fees, and bequests, for example – may be directed into a fund that is not a true and legally binding endowment. The funds may be spent down to zero if needed because the organization itself decided to put them aside as savings (they were not directed to do so by a donor, specifically). The organization calls this fund an endowment and pledges to pay out only a portion of the annual growth of the fund so that the fund may grow over time. Unless the donations going into this fund were specifically restricted for a certain purpose, the quasi-endowment’s earnings over time can be used to fund any organizational need. Unlike true endowment, quasi-endowment can be considered
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simply as savings with unusually conscientious practices governing withdrawals. The reason why many nonprofit organizations place their savings in quasi-endowment instead of a true endowment account is to signal to all organizational stakeholders that these funds are not merely reserves, but assets set aside to preserve the organizational mission over time. The ‘‘endowment’’ label promotes prudence in future expenditure of the funds’ earnings. On the other hand, the quasi-endowment arrangement allows the organization some flexibility to spend the principal, not just annual earnings or capital gains, when the organization is facing a large operational deficit. Throughout the rest of this article, ‘‘nonprofit organizations’’ are considered to include both foundations and (non-granting) organizations, unless otherwise noted. Acquisition of endowment funds is similar between public foundations (where donations come from many individuals) and nonprofit organizations. Public foundations include community foundations, established to receive funds from community members to disburse in the form of grants to organizations within a geographically defined area. Germany, for example (and to a lesser extent England), has shown the most rapid growth in community foundations over the past decade, as cities and even neighborhoods within cities establish and grow their foundations to promote local quality of life initiatives. Private foundations, on the other hand, are established from a gift or group of gifts from one person or family. Although private foundations face the same stewardship and payout considerations that nonprofits and public foundations must contend with, the private foundations do not have the perpetual task of appealing to the public or membership to build the endowment.
Key Issues Endowment Management
Earnings and capital gains of endowment assets over time provide an attractive source of revenue for a nonprofit organization. Once the initial gift arrives, the stream of revenue from endowment assets arrives without virtually any labor expended, as would be necessary with commercial fees, annual donations, and grants. With a larger endowment, the organization can devote more of its time to program implementation and less time on fund raising activities. Furthermore, unrestricted endowments provide a revenue stream that can be used for whatever the nonprofit needs, such as ongoing program costs, a much needed roof repair, or updated accounting software. In contrast, revenues from other sources such as grants are
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difficult to obtain for these more prosaic needs. Will a foundation provide funds for the new accounting software, or for a program that extends service to a previously unmet segment of the population? The grant makers will gravitate toward the direct programmatic support, while the hidden operational support of the organization goes unfunded. Thus, revenue from unrestricted endowment can fulfill a critical need for the less newsworthy but vital supporting services in an organization. Restricted Endowments
Major donors often designate their largest gifts to fund a specific purpose (for example, a university might receive a gift for scholarships for students from a certain area of the country). The nonprofit or foundation must comply with these restrictions forever, unless the court agrees that the purpose for which the funds were intended no longer exists. In that case, the funds would be directed to a purpose that is close to the donor’s original intent. It should be noted that a nonprofit may have a large endowment or total endowments, but if the funds are restricted to selected purposes, the organization has less managerial flexibility than an organization holding unrestricted endowment funds. Statistics listing total endowments held by nonprofit organizations rarely describe the extent to which these funds are restricted or unrestricted, and thus do not provide a complete picture of comparative fiscal health. Building the Endowment
Building a strong endowment is a high priority for most nonprofit organizations and many foundations (not private foundations, but those receiving donations from the broad public). How is this achieved? If the organization builds a quasi-endowment, it may gather revenue and follow its own managerial guidelines to pay into the endowment. For example, a nonprofit may put all bequest gifts or a certain percentage of annual giving revenue toward endowment. For a more formal emphasis on building endowment, especially true endowment, nonprofits and public foundations concentrate their efforts on obtaining gifts from major donors. Universities in particular are adept at staging multi-year endowment campaigns with very large campaign goals of a billion dollars or more. Thus, endowment funds overwhelmingly originate from high-wealth individuals, not from the small gifts received in broad-based campaigns (such as direct mail). Nonprofits concentrate their endowment efforts on fund raising from major donors because it usually takes less managerial effort to obtain one $1,000,000 gift than
ten thousand $100 gifts. Also, a large gift to endowment is a gesture that suggests a deep dedication to the mission. ‘‘Endowment’’ is difficult to explain to a neophyte donor (after all, it isn’t all immediately spent on the cause), but begins to make sense to a donor who is nearing his or her life’s end and hoping to bestow a lasting gift to a beloved organization. Nonprofits with planned (estate) giving programs, therefore, usually direct those gifts toward the permanency of an endowed fund. An optimal size of endowment is an elusive concept. Some human service organizations are reluctant to build a large endowment, for fear of losing grant contracts or even annual gifts from donors. Grant makers may view a large endowment as an indication that the organization is not devoting enough expenditure directly to the mission. Not only appearances, but also compelling current needs – such as hunger, or the need to save an animal species before it goes extinct – motivate agencies to limit their endowmentbuilding efforts. In the end, the optimally sized endowment from a societal perspective depends on the organization’s mission and the existence of its alternative revenue streams now and in the future. Stewardship
In the course of an endowment campaign, a nonprofit may establish an endowment advisory committee to set policy and supervise investment and payout policies. This committee reassures potential donors that the nonprofit will steward the assets properly with prudent investment choices, and select a payout strategy that is neither too generous, resulting in loss or inadequate growth of the endowment, nor too miserly, resulting in a suboptimal level of program services produced. Prudent endowment investment choices are difficult to define, but more evident in contrast to imprudent investment choices, where the endowment’s corpus is threatened by losses from risky investments. In the 2001–02 recession, one US foundation lost over forty percent of its fund balance because the assets were held in just one stock. The decision to hold the assets in one company’s stock was specified by the original donor, so no imprudence is implied, but for other foundations or nonprofits, diversification of asset holdings is one of many important ways to reduce portfolio risk. Some nonprofits and foundations may choose to limit their investment holdings to stock in those companies whose activities do not conflict with the nonprofits’ missions. Payout Practices
Payout strategies can differ widely. In the United States, nonprofit organizations are not required to pay out any of
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their endowment in any given year. This allows organizations to undergo an endowment-building phase. Private foundations, on the other hand, are required to pay out at least 5% of their asset base annually. Growing the foundation’s endowment is easily done if the investment returns are robust, but the 5% payout requirement for private foundations leaves little room for growth during lean years. To reduce the variation in their annual payout, nonprofits and foundations may adopt a rolling average model whereby they pay out a set percentage of a multi-year average of their assets. Payout also depends, of course, on the original donor stipulations. If the donor preferred a true endowment into perpetuity, the payout policy will seek to protect the corpus of the endowment over time. If the fund is a quasi-endowment, the organization may draw down the endowment substantially in times of extreme financial distress. Other Endowment Issues
From the nonprofit or foundation’s point of view, more endowment is always better, unless the gift is unduly restricted to a purpose that is difficult to carry out. A broader societal benefit is also evident. Endowment serves a role in smoothing out public service expenditures over time. Through recessions or even depressions, when commercial revenues, donations and grants may fall, endowment assets can provide the steady revenue stream that allows society’s favored cultural artifacts and services to survive (Irvin, 2007). Generational Welfare
From a societal point of view, however, endowment growth at both foundations and nonprofit organizations is not entirely beneficial. Taking assets away from the freeflowing market economy and restricting them – permanently – to a specified function could, in theory, introduce drag on a macroeconomy. Generational equity is also a concern. If one allows an endowment to be kept untouched or carefully stewarded over the ages, it shifts consumption patterns (‘‘consumption’’ referring to any benefit the nonprofit sector produces) from the current generation to future generations. This is a positive development if future generations are indeed going to be worse off than the current generation. Are they going to be worse off? The evidence is mixed. Every generation seems to have its version of the ‘‘in my day, we had it much worse than you’’ admonishment, as well as a fond remembrance of ‘‘the good old days.’’ Rising consumption rates of modern conveniences and advances in health care over time support the argument that each generation is a little better off
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than the previous. Considering this apparently advancing quality of life, the intergenerational shift of endowment from current to future generations is unwise. Depending on the sector, opposing arguments can be crafted regarding the need for savings over time. Environmental protection organizations may benefit from either a sharp infusion of assets now, in a last-ditch effort to forestall climate change or preserve wild spaces and species. Similarly, an immediate investment in vaccines and other health-related innovations can eradicate diseases. . .forever, we hope. History and Relevance Over Time
Between 1480 and 1660, over 80% of charitable contributions in England went to endowments (quoted in Brody, 875). The recent growth of endowments in the United States and Europe, therefore, is a recent and comparatively insubstantial phenomenon. Across the ages, whenever wealth has concentrated sharply in a small tier at the top of the population, contributions to endowment have grown more quickly. Often, donors specify that their gift endow a specific service. Though well-intentioned, these restricted endowments pose awkward dilemmas for future generations. The need for the service may no longer exist, the selected beneficiaries may no longer exist, or the service which it funds may no longer be perceived as beneficial to current society. Rich (1961: 86) remarked, ‘‘Perpetuity, like eternity, is a very long time and offers abundant opportunities for bad guesses regarding the charitable needs of future generations.’’ Almost a century prior to Rich’s lament, Kenny expressed similar disapproval of perpetual charities; ‘‘[W]hilst charity tends to do good, perpetual Charities tend to do evil. Too often. . .they bless neither him that gives nor him that takes. . .[I]t is utterly expedient to narrow (endowed charities’) resources during their youth, for the purpose of augmenting their superfluities in their decrepitude’’ (quoted in Brody, 1997: 919). In these cases, the courts are sometimes asked to intervene to release the endowment funds for a purpose which has a similar mission to which the original donor preferred. Exchange of Tax Advantages for Public Benefits
Different countries have a range of tax advantages provided in exchange for charitable donations, including matching funds for donations, tax deductions, and credits. Usually, a gift for endowment is treated like any other donation provided to a nonprofit organization. For example, a donation may reduce the amount that the taxpayer must report as income. Assume the income tax rate is 40%. The taxpayer saves 40% of the cost of the donation
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via a reduction in his or her tax bill. In exchange for forgoing the taxes, the government receives the public benefits that the nonprofit organization produces (and indirectly, via the nonprofits that a foundation funds). If the endowment gift went directly to a nonprofit, the organization may wait several years before spending any of its endowment proceeds. If the endowment gift went to a private foundation, the government may see an immediate return, because the foundation is required to pay out a certain percentage of the endowment, in the form of expenditures on public benefit goods and services. That annual expenditure may be small; less than five percent of the endowment’s balance. Therefore, the government may have to wait an awfully long time for its tax exemptions to show up in the form of public benefits. Decision Making Control of the Assets
The individual donor, when restricting an endowment to fund a specific purpose, retains the most decision making control over the assets, even after the donor is deceased. Even if the endowment is not specified for a specific purpose, control of the assets rests with a small group of decision makers. Although the assets in endowment have been ostensibly earmarked for the benefit of the public, the decision making regarding the investment and payout of endowment funds is made by the respected community members who serve as foundation or nonprofit stakeholders (board members and trustees). These stakeholders are, as a rule, high-income or high-wealth, welleducated community elders (Abzug & Galaskiewicz, 2001). This point is not to imply that community elite are directing resources to self-serving interests, but to reveal an inherently paternalistic decision making structure. Community elites determine what community needs are, and use endowment resources to pay for those identified needs. Nonprofit sector decision making differs with respect to endowment expenditure radically from the use of government funds collected with taxes. Government decision making depends at least partially on the voting public to select the decision makers (politicians and the judiciary) to carry out voters’ broad preferences. Thus, while an individual community member can be highly involved in the nonprofit sector, the broad public is uninvolved with the big decisions directing the use of nonprofit and foundation funds. Is this a concern? Perhaps to an academic audience only, at this point, and it is probably not a concern if the decision makers in place have good ideas that yield benefits for society. Yet, as the accumulation of society’s assets in endowment rapidly accelerates, public
scrutiny of endowment and accountability of stakeholders involved in its stewardship will surely increase.
Future Directions For many nonprofit organizations, just now establishing their first endowment fund and planning an endowment campaign, the concerns about endowment center on how to attract donors, how to steward the investments wisely, and what payout strategy to use. Nascent nonprofit sectors in many countries may take a decade or more to progress to a point where building endowment is possible. Research that is most beneficial for these developing nonprofit organizations will invariably focus on innovations and best practices in building endowment. In other countries with long-established nonprofit and nongovernmental sectors, endowed charities may have a long history – in some cases, centuries – of existence. Here, more theoretical issues of societal control come to fore, allowing a rich tableau of scholarly inquiry. How does accumulated endowment affect the government/nongovernment power balance, as more and more assets are housed in the nonprofit sector? Is government getting its proper ‘‘return’’ in exchange for granting tax benefits to the donor? Is it truly beneficial to allow an individual to direct a flow of assets toward a certain purpose. . .forever?
Cross-References
▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Planned Giving ▶ Tax Exemption, Justifications for
References/Further Readings Abzug, R., & Galaskiewicz, J. (2001). Nonprofit boards: Crucibles of expertise or symbols of local identities? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 30(1), 51–73. Brody, E. (1997). Charitable endowments and the democratization of dynasty. Arizona Law Review, 39(3), 873–948. Hansmann, H. (1990). Why do universities have endowments? Journal of Legal Studies, 19(1), 3–42. Irvin, R. (2007). Endowments: Stable largesse or distortion of the polity? Public Administration Review, 67(3), 445–457. Klausner, M. (2003). When time isn’t money: Foundation payouts and the time value of money. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 1(1), 51–59. Rich, W. (1961). Community foundations in the United States and Canada, 1914 – 1961: A guide to their organization, Development and Operation (2nd ed.). New York: National Council on Community Foundations.
Equipo Pueblo
Equipo Pueblo MARTIN HO¨LZ, CHARLOTTE ANHEIER
Address of Organization Francisco Field Jurado N˚ 51 Col. Independencia Deleg. Benito Jua´rez Me´xico D.F., CP.- 03630 www.equipopueblo.org.mx
Introduction The Desarrollo, Educacio´n y Cultura Autogestionarios (DECA) Equipo Pueblo, a Mexican civil association, better known as Equipo Pueblo (the People’s Team), was founded on November 15, 1977. Equipo Pueblo aims to enable civic participation among all actors within Mexico’s society, allowing them to acquire roles as active citizens, in order to improve public policies.
Brief History The founders of Equipo Pueblo, Elio Arturo Villasen˜or Go´mez, Alex Morelli and A´ngel Torres, with the guidance of Bishop Sergio Me´ndez Arceo and Jose´ A´lvarez Icaza, all shared the experience with and commitment to the poor and indigenous peoples in Mexico’s rural and urban areas. The initiative arose amid the emergence of the lay movement under the auspices of the Catholic Church to work with and for the poor and unprotected. Equipo Pueblo was founded in 1977 to accompany the social movements underway at the time in Mexico seeking improvement in labor conditions and living standards, and more broadly, democracy. Equipo Pueblo has adapted its mission and approach to the political situation in Mexico. While in the beginning it focused on coordinating and strengthening the social movements already in place, Equipo Pueblo moved on to a strategy of focusing on pilot projects of community self-help and professionalizing the social movements to achieve greater impact. Gradually, it transitioned from its focus on mobilization to shaping and influencing public policies as well.
Mission/Objectives Equipo Pueblo seeks to provide a means for fostering democracy and sustainability in Mexico by focusing specifically on the creation of a just and democratic society including economic, social, cultural, and environmental rights. The organization aims to promote active participation by citizens in public debate, contribute to a
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transparent, just society, endorse human rights, and contribute to social development.
Activities To pursue these aims, Equipo Pueblo engages in investigation, articulation, and intervention. In order to ensure more participatory action, Equipo Pueblo executes projects in communities in the areas of gender, social, economic, and cultural rights as well as sustainable development, while also lobbying especially at the local government level. It also offers technical assistance, particularly in strategic planning, design, and evaluation of projects and programs, and other institutional development services.
Structure and Governance While the member’s assembly consists of nine individuals, three of whom are part of the directory council along with Maria Eugenia Mata Garcia, the president, the Executive Director manages the programs and the areas of interest. Suborganizations in four major regions in Mexico constitute the ‘‘Red Equipo Pueblo’’: the Comite de Defensa Popular de Zaragoza, which runs several health, housing, and agricultural programs and handles the treatment of dirty water; the Frente Democratica Campesino, located in the Chihuahua region, which advocates local sustainable development; the Union de Colonos de San Miguel Teotongo, which manages the regions of Itzapalapa in the Federal District; and Desarollo Integral Autogestionario, which is located in the district of Morelos. Equipo Pueblo maintains further relations to other sectors, civil society organizations and networks in Mexico.
Funding Equipo Pueblo has available several sources of funding. The average budget ranged between $ 25 000 and $ 50 000, 90% of which were contributions from international philanthropic organizations. Additionally, Equipo Pueblo is supported by foreign governments, several Mexican foundations and a state agency.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Promoting development at subnational areas Equipo Pueblo has contributed to increased civic participation and fostered democratic processes in contemporary Mexico. With its research and publications the organization also provides comprehensive knowledge of the effects of globalization.
Cross-References ▶ Advocacy ▶ Civic Participation
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▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Mexico and Central America ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Nun˜ez Garcı´a, S. (2000). Mexico and the United States: Is there a common way to promote social development from below? Available online: http//www.yorku.ca/robarts/archives/institute/2000/ pdf/garcia.pdf
Esmee Fairbairn Foundation NORMAN SPENGLER, JANA BRUNKE
Address of Organization Kings Place 90 York Way London N1 9AG UK www.esmeefairbairn.org.uk
Introduction The Esme´e Fairbairn Foundation is one of the largest independent grantmaking foundations in the United Kingdom. Grants are intended for organizations which aim to improve the quality of life for people and communities in the United Kingdom in a sustainable manner. The Foundation is a charity registered in England and Wales, based in Mayfair, London, and has a staff of approximately 20. The foundation commits approximately £30 million annually for activities in United Kingdom leading to a free, stable, and socially cohesive society.
Brief History Esme´e Fairbairn Foundation was established in 1961 by Ian Fairbairn whose company, M&G, was a pioneer of the UK unit trust industry. The Foundation was set up as a memorial to Ian Fairbairn’s wife Esme´e, who had played a prominent role in developing the Women’s Royal Voluntary Service and the Citizens Advice Bureaux. In 1999 the Foundation sold its holding in M&G in a takeover of the company by Prudential Corporation PLC.
Mission The Esme´e Fairbairn Foundation aims to improve the quality of life throughout the United Kingdom. Key areas of interest embrace cultural life, education, the natural environment and integration of disadvantaged
people. Organizations that try to conduct projects within these areas are called for applications which mainly include financial support. The foundation’s grantmaking strategy is especially designed to provide venture capital for risky enterprises within its scope.
Activities Significant grants in recent years have been agreed for the Community Land Trust Development Fund (together with Tudor Trust; £2 million to support the building of permanently affordable homes); Policy Studies Institute and Green Fiscal Commission (£432,810 to develop and disseminate evidence on the large-scale introduction of green taxation, to stimulate new proposals for green taxation in public debate); HEARTS (Higher Education, the Arts and Schools; in cooperation with others; £500,000 aiming to strengthen the position of the arts in initial teacher training); Village Core Program (£1 million over 3 years to the Plunkett Foundation, a leading promoter of rural issues); Primary Review (based at Cambridge University Faculty of Education; condition and future of primary education in the United Kingdom); Rethinking Crime and Punishment (aimed to raise the level of debate about the use of prison and alternative forms of punishment in the United Kingdom); Fear and Fashion (together with five other foundations; to address the problem of young people carrying knives and other weapons; aims at disseminating and sharing best practice). All project efforts are tracked regularly, and the dissemination of project impacts and results through media is also supported by foundation resources.
Structure and Governance The board of trustees meets once a quarter year to make decisions about future strategy, approve planning and budget, as well as accepting applications to be granted. A Charity Commissioners Scheme ensures ethical standards of Trustees and governance. The operative staff is led by Dawn Austwick, the current Chief Executive, and consists of three teams covering grantmaking, financial affairs and internal services. Several committees (on Audits, Finance and Administration, Investment and Nominations) and Program Groups complete the Foundation’s governance and structure.
Funding The Foundation holds assets of around £740 million. Total amount of grants made annually is around £30 million, of which the average grant is worth £50,000 and agreed for a maximum of 3 years; funding objects are mainly project costs and occasionally research. Two
Esping-Andersen, Gøsta
budgets of funding sources can be applied for: a Main Fund that makes up two-thirds of the annual funding asset and focuses on cultural life, education, the natural environment and encouraging people. Furthermore, a Strand Fund offers grants for specific topics that are adopted to identified societal needs on an irregular basis. In 2009, the Strand Fund covers a budget of about £3 million for projects in the realms of Biodiversity (supporting the development of effective conservation approaches), Food (enabling people in the United Kingdom to consume sustainable food), Museum & Heritage Collections (grantmaking for curatorial work, conservation, and collections management) and Learning (promotion of new approaches to teaching and learning for children and youth people against the background of current and future challenges).
Contributions Esme´e Fairbairn Foundation contributes to a modern civil society by distributing venture capital to innovative but risky projects in order to generate and disseminate new stimuli for both societal and policy development.
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Copenhagen and Wisconsin-Madison where he earned his Ph.D. His main research interests are welfare states and equality of opportunity as well as life course dynamics, social stratification and comparative social policy. He has in particular referred to the significance of family policy as the foundation of welfare state development claiming that ‘‘pension politics starts with babies.’’ Dealing with equality of opportunities he has called for a radical reform of the welfare state following the Danish example, focusing on education and its impact on other policy fields. Esping-Andersen presently is professor of Sociology at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona (Spain) and has taught at a number of other places before that, among them Harvard University (1978–1985) and the European University in Florence (Italy). As a consultant for international organizations such as the OECD, the EU, the United Nations and the World Bank, he has in addition also contributed to applied policy-relevant work. EspingAndersen is member of the scientific board of a great many scientific institutions, amongst others the Danish Institute for Social Research. He is married and father of two boys, his primary nonprofessional interest being writing and recording music.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Social Investment ▶ Venture Philanthropy
References/Further Readings Bolten, M. (2005). Foundations and social investment. Making money work harder in order to achieve more. London: Esme´e Fairbairn Foundation. Esme´e Fairbairn Foundation. (2007). Annual report & accounts 2007. Esme´e Fairbairn Foundation. London: Esme´e Fairbairn Foundation.
Esping-Andersen, Gøsta ANNE SANDER
Basic Biographical Information Gøsta Esping-Andersen, one of the most renowned contemporary social scientists, was born in Denmark in 1947. His mother a Swedish pianist and his father a Danish World Bank employee, he spent his childhood in Denmark, Iran, the United States and Syria. He then studied economics and sociology at the Universities of
Major Contributions Even though Esping-Andersen has written and published numerous books he is still most well-known for his 1990 work Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism which has influenced and shaped the scholarly debate about the welfare state significantly. In his book Esping-Andersen identifies three main types of the modern welfare state in developed nations – liberal, conservative, and social democratic welfare states – according to their level of decommodification. Classical examples for the respective typologies are the United States, Germany, and Sweden. This theoretical approach has been applied for analysis and comparative welfare state research ever since and served as a point of reference for the categorization of welfare regimes. Salamon and Anheier (1998) for instance have employed Esping-Andersen’s welfare state analysis for their civil society-based social origins theory. Combining Esping-Andersen’s approach with other theories, they identify four nonprofit regimes, characterized by combinations of nonprofit sector characteristics and a particular position of the nonprofit sector in society, as well as a particular state role and constellation of other institutions and social groupings. While some social scientists still refer to EspingAndersen’s typology, or have tried to amend it, others hold that it is outdated. Opponents of the framework
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claim that empirical studies have proven that the complex mechanisms of welfare states cannot easily be ascribed one of the three categories. Others hold that Esping-Andersen’s methodology and his statistical tools were insufficient. Esping-Andersen’s typology has however been one of the most influential theoretical approaches in recent welfare state research and has been adopted by and referred to by a variety of both scholars and political actors. Currently he is working on his latest book, called How Women Changed the World.
Cross-References
▶ Social Origins Theory ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Niejahr, E. (2003). Politik vom Wickeltisch. Portra¨t. In: DIE ZEIT, 02.10.2003/Nr. 41. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1998). Social origins of civil society: Explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 9(3), 213–247.
Ethos Institute ▶ Instituto Ethos de Empresas e Responsabilidade Social
Etzioni, Amitai ZEYNEP ATALAY
Basic Biographical Information Amitai Etzioni (b. 1929, Cologne, Germany) is an eminent sociologist and public intellectual, best known by his work on communitarianism. Born under the name Werner Falk, Amitai Etzioni emigrated to Palestine in order to escape the Nazi regime where he studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1958. Between 1958 and 1978, Etzioni served as professor of Sociology at Columbia University: part of the time, as Chairman of the Department. He went on to serve as
a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution (1978), as a Senior Advisor to the Carter White House (1979–1980), as the Thomas Henry Carroll Ford Foundation Professor at the Harvard Business School (1987–1989), as the founder and the first president of the International Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (1990), as the founder and director of the Communitarian Network (1993), and as the president of the American Sociological Association (1994–1995). Etzioni is the first University Professor of the George Washington University where he currently serves as the director of the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Amitai Etzioni is considered to be the founder of the communitarian movement in the United States. In the early to mid-1980s the communitarianism debate was limited to the disciplines of philosophy and political science, and the language used and expertise involved in these debates were restricted to specialists. Building on these early debates on communitarianism versus libertarianism, Etzioni organized the field, shaped major issues and debates, and most significantly, opened it to a wider audience outside of academe. The political climate in which communitarianism was born was shaped by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, the rise of social conservatism and laissez-faire economics. In response to the deterioration of the moral fabric of the society caused by excessive individualism that communitarians believed to be increasing, Amitai Etzioni and William Galston started to organize meetings to develop communitarian approaches to social issues. The group began publishing the quarterly journal ‘‘The Responsive Community’’ in 1991 and formed the ‘‘Communitarian Network’’ in 1993. The Communitarian Network, a nonprofit organization and think tank based in Washington, DC, serves as the widest intellectual platform for the communitarian project. The focus of Etzioni’s communitarianism is the deterioration of the sense of community as a consequence of the transformations that take place in contemporary modern society. The agenda of communitarianism is to build stronger communities that are more responsive to the needs of citizens, as it maintains that in contrast to isolated individuals, individuals who are well-integrated into communities are better able to reason and act in responsible ways. Amitai Etzioni is the author of 22 books, including The New Golden Rule: Community and Morality in a Democratic Society (New York: Basic Books, 1996), which received the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s 1997
European Association for Planned Giving (EAPG)
Tolerance Book Award. In addition to his prominence in the academic world, Etzioni is one of the major public intellectuals in the United States. He publishes in the leading news media and appears on network television regularly.
Cross-References
▶ Communitarianism ▶ Community, types of
References/Further Readings Etzioni, A. (1996). The new golden rule. New York: Basic Books. Etzioni, A. (2001). The monochrome society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press Etzioni, A. (2003). My brother’s keeper: A memoir and a message. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Etzioni, A. (2004). How patriotic is the Patriot Act? Freedom versus security in the age of terrorism. New York: Routledge.
European Association for Planned Giving (EAPG) PAURIC O’ROURKE
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capabilities and efficiencies within the planned giving sector, both nationally and internationally that will enable a culture and network of philanthropy to thrive. EAPG’s cross-sectoral and multidisciplinary expertise aims to optimize efficiencies and outcomes for the sector as part of a pan-European network. A diverse membership mix enables EAPG to serve as a meeting point for all relevant stakeholders – both charities and professional advisors – towards a deeper understanding of the dynamic of this evolving field.
Activities The diversity of EAPG’s membership shapes the nature of its activities in that it responds to and caters for both for-profit and nonprofit professions and intermediaries by offering a comprehensive, integrated, and accessible program of relevant events. These include online resources, newsletters, roundtables, workshops, training seminars, conferences, and publications addressing critical tax, legal, financial, political, social, and organizational issues impacting the field of philanthropy and planned giving in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe, and the world. It has strategic links with its equivalents in North America, namely the International Gift Planning Alliance and the National Committee on Planned Giving.
Structure and Governance Address of Organization 2 Swadlands Close GB Lenham, ME17 2AF UK www.plannedgiving.co.uk
Introduction The European Association for Planned Giving (EAPG) is a network member organization established to advance philanthropy by developing and promoting best policy and practice in the field of planned giving and cross border philanthropy.
History EAPG was founded in 1998 by James Myers, then President of the European American Tax Institute (E-ATI), through the joint collaboration of a group of progressive charities who recognized the need and value of a coordinated and consolidated response to this growing and evolving profession across the United Kingdom and Europe.
Mission The principal espoused aim of the EAPG is to ‘‘blaze a trail for philanthropy’’ by identifying and developing core
EAPG is incorporated as a limited company and a Registered Charity in England and Wales. It is governed by a Board consisting of ten trustees and a Chairperson, all drawn from various stakeholder interests in the nonprofit and charitable giving sector and intermediaries. The work of the Board is supported by an Advisory Council, which has a strong international composition of experts in the relevant fields. Jonathan Gold, of Alliance Berstein Global Wealth Management is the current Chair.
Funding Annual membership fees are the main source of funding, with for-profit and nonprofit member organizations paying different rates. It currently has a diverse membership of approx. 145, representing for-profits such as tax, legal, and financial wealth advisors and third sector consultants as well as nonprofits such as various foundations, higher education institutions and the full range of charities spanning arts, culture, heritage, medical, humanitarian, and NGOs.
Accomplishments It produces a Directory of Professional Advisers and Resources for Cross-Border Philanthropy and Charitable Planned Giving. See www.crossborderdirectory.org
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European Cultural Foundation (ECF)
It has contributed most significantly to the establishment, development, and professionalization of philanthropy and planned giving as a distinct field and profession within the third sector.
Cross-References
▶ National Committee on Planned Giving (NCPG) ▶ Philanthropy and Professional Advisors ▶ Planned Giving
ECF moved to Amsterdam under the presidency of Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands in order to be hosted by a signatory country of the Rome Treaty. During much of the Cold War the ECF focused on East-West initiatives such as the Concord East-West Orchestra as well as joint programs with Moscow. Subsequently, the ECF has continued the exchange of artistic endeavors while supporting new initiatives such as the development of parliamentarians of transitional democratic states through partnership foundations.
References/Further Readings Alliance Magazine – http://www.alliancemagazine.org/ – An online magazine that addresses current development in the fields of philanthropy, charitable giving and social investment. Ashton, D. (2004). The complete guide to planned giving: Everything you need to know to successfully compete for major gifts. Cambridge, MA: J.L.A. Publications. Barrett, R. D., & Ware, M. E. (2001). Planned giving essentials: A step by step guide to success. New York: Jones & Bartlett. See list of publications and references in the EAPG Cross Border Directory: http://www.plannedgiving.org.uk/eapg/index White, D. E. (1995). The art of planned giving. New York: Wiley.
European Cultural Foundation (ECF) CHRISTOPHER S. BIGGERS
Address of Organization Jan van Goyenkade 5 1075 HN, Amsterdam The Netherlands www.eurocult.org
Introduction The European Cultural Foundation (ECF) is a nonprofit organization primarily supporting intercultural dialogue through its European based network of independent professionals and organizations. Participants of ECF projects and programs are dedicated to cultural exchange and cooperation viewing them as a conduit to promote trust and understanding as well as social change.
Brief History The ECF was founded in 1954 in Geneva by the Swiss philosopher Denis de Rougemont whose main focus was organizing conferences committed to discussing the human element of European integration. By 1960, the
Mission The mission of the ECF is three pronged – a focus on cultural diversity, support of cultural cooperation, and advocacy of cultural policy frameworks throughout the EU and surrounding countries. In support of these three areas, the Foundation’s Board of Governors has established a grants program to further develop its yearly priority themes. In furthering the agenda, the ECF enables organizations and individuals to implement cultural programs within and beyond national borders by establishing networks of independent experts, further enhancing intercultural dialog.
Activities
Successfully awarding €1.5 million on average per year, the ECF’s grants program is one of the primary instruments used to address the pressing issues adopted by the ECF agenda. Other activities of the Foundation include support for a multitude of programs such as StepBeyond or the Cross Mediterranean Placement Programme which focus on mobility as a primary theme to bring artists, researchers, and translators into the wider European context. Through the ECF’s existing network, the Foundation’s activities seek to further the development of a ‘‘more comprehensive European action promoting artistic mobility’’ at the European level and surrounding regions.
Structure and Governance The governing structure of the ECF is led by the director and deputy director as well as a 12 member Board of Governors including treasurer, chair, and deputy chair. Other organs of the Foundation include a President and an Advisory Council with the support of a 25 member staff. The Board is the decision making body responsible for allocating fiscal resources as well as appointing the Advisory Council. Furthermore, the Board meets with the Advisory Council once a year in order to set the agenda and ‘‘overall strategy’’ for the upcoming year.
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Funding The ECF has partnered with individuals and organizations from both the public and private sector to ensure the necessary resources for its functioning. Most notably the ECF receives generous support from the lotteries in the Netherlands, mainly the BankGiro Lottery and the De Lotto, who have continued their ongoing financial contributions through the Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation.
Accomplishments Among the ECF’s notable accomplishments include their successful contributions to emblematic programs such as the Central and East European Book Project – assisting in the translation of contemporary works, and ERASMUS – promoting transnational university exchanges. Most recently, the ECF hosted high-level conferences with the aims of promoting culture as a part of EU foreign policy which initiated support for artistic projects in 48 different countries.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations
References/Further Readings Snel, G. (2004). Alter ego: Twenty confronting views on the European experience. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. ECF (2004). 50 years of sharing cultures 1954–2004. Amsterdam: ECF.
European Foundation Centre (EFC) RAQUEL CAMPOS FRANCO
Address of Organization 51, rue de la Concorde 1050 Brussels Belgium www.efc.be
Introduction The European Foundation Centre (EFC) describes itself as ‘‘an international association of foundations and corporate funders dedicated to creating an enabling legal and fiscal environment for foundations, documenting the foundation landscape, strengthening the infrastructure of
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the sector, and promoting collaboration, both among foundations and between foundations and other actors, to advance the public good in Europe and beyond.’’ The EFC serves over 230 members and 60 associates, as well as a further 50,000 organizations linked through a network of more than 40 information and support centers worldwide.
Brief History Established in 1989 by seven of Europe’s leading foundations, the EFC is a Brussels-based international nonprofit association of foundations. From the beginning in 1989, passing through several yearly meetings that ‘‘established the EFC’s role of providing the primary meeting point for foundation professionals in Europe,’’ to the 2008 Annual General Assembly in Istanbul with more than 600 attendants, the EFC has grown from a small group of foundations to a set of more than 230 members in 2009. The EFC has been struggling for years for the transformation of the European foundation statute into a law, and the launch of a feasibility study by the European Commission in 2007 was a promising step.
Mission The EFC mission is ‘‘to strengthen the independent funding element of European philanthropy through robust cooperation with an array of partners.’’ With this mission in mind, the EFC aims to contribute to the vision of ‘‘a resilient infrastructure from which European philanthropy – with its unique embrace of innovation, dynamism, and cooperation – can advance the public good in Europe and beyond.’’
Activities The EFC is committed to advance its mission through intervention in four priority areas: creating an enabling legal and fiscal environment for foundations, communicating and documenting European philanthropy, benchmarking, and capacity-building and network-building. EFC is the foundations’ sector main representative body with the European Union institutions, and under the priority of creating an enabling legal and fiscal environment for foundations, the main focus in recent years has been the European foundation statute. The aim is to see the statute become law in order to allow foundations’ cross-border work. Under the priority of communicating and documenting European philanthropy, EFC has recently launched a magazine – Effect. It also produces many other documents and databases, sometimes in collaboration with research institutes. In order to contribute
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to the setting of standards and the building of capacity in the sector, the EFC promotes benchmarking and training events. The Principles of Good Practice are presented by EFC as an example of the commitment to this priority. While engaging itself in network and partnership building, the EFC also acts as an enabler for members and others to engage in mutually beneficial partnerships. An example is the European Forum on Philanthropy and Research Funding, a platform for cooperation of foundations which are active in the research field.
Structure and Governance Ultimate authority of the EFC vests in the Annual General Assembly of Members, with governance entrusted to an elected Governing Council, supported by a Management Committee. The mandate of the Governing Council is to guide the programmatic and strategic work of the EFC. The Management Committee focuses on the day-to-day operational management of the EFC, and it consists of a group of individuals representing members of the Governing Council, including the Chair, the Vice-Chair, and the Treasurer of the Association and additional individuals representing members of the Governing Council. In 2007 four new programmatic and member-led committees were created, having launched a series of new initiatives during that year. There is also a newly established Nomination Committee, with the mandate of monitoring the composition of the Governing Council and Management Committee, and aiming to ensure a balance of gender of representatives, geographic regions as well as the size and type of organizations that are represented in EFC governing bodies. The EFC Audit Committee has as mandate the monitoring and assessment of the financial situation of the EFC. An important governance document is the EFC Principles, which encompass a set of seven Principles of Good Practice based on an identified set of core values that every foundation in Europe should aspire to embrace.
Funding The EFC Activities are financed primarily through projects (39%), general purpose grants (33%) and fees (24%) according to the 2007 Annual Report. EFC held a total income of €4 million in 2007, and 4.4 million as total assets.
Accomplishments In parallel with the efforts of defending the creation of a foundation statute in Europe, included in a more general
effort of creating an enabling legal and fiscal environment for foundations in Europe, the EFC has developed several relevant activities in its elected priority areas of intervention. It gathers and analyzes relevant information concerning the foundation world, it promotes and participates in partnerships and networks created with a thematic or geographic focus, and it opens spaces for dialogue and action in relevant fields.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and the European Union ▶ Codes of Ethics and Codes of Practice ▶ Philanthropy in Europe ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings EFC Annual Reports (http://www.efc.be/ftp/public/Annual%20Reports/ EFC_Annual_Reports/) EFC (2008), Fostering Creativity, EFC 19th Annual Conference Highlights.
European Research Network ▶ EMES – European Research Network
Evaluation and Civil Society LEHN M. BENJAMIN George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
Introduction Evaluation is a critical issue for civil society organizations (e.g., nongovernmental, nonprofit, private voluntary organizations). Policy makers, funders, activists, and scholars want to know whether civil society organizations (CSOs) are having an impact on the problems they seek to address. Evaluative demands are only likely to increase as CSOs continue to play a central role in public problem solving. At the same time, larger questions about the broader impact of civil society in democratic development loom large in a policy environment that continues to favor private action to address social problems. But evaluating civil society broadly, and CSOs specifically, is not easy. Many of the outcomes CSOs seek are long term and difficult to measure. At the same time, CSOs make other contributions to society beyond service
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delivery – they advocate for policy change, provide opportunities for civic engagement, organize and mobilize communities – all of which are even less tangible and more difficult to evaluate. Evaluation is even more complex when attempting to understand the impact of civil society more broadly. Despite these challenges, those who study the field are working to develop more applicable and innovative approaches to understanding the contributions of civil society evaluation. After giving a brief introduction to evaluation, this essay looks at some key issues in evaluating civil society organizations and concludes with recent developments.
Definition Patton (1997) defines evaluation as the systematic collection of information to make judgments, improve effectiveness, and/or inform decision making about a program, initiative, or organization. But this definition hides a diverse set of evaluation practices that have developed since the 1960s when evaluation was mandated for War on Poverty programs and took root as a professional field. In those early years, evaluators focused on determining whether these new programs caused observable outcomes with the hope of informing future policy making. Today, evaluation practice is informed by a broader set of theoretical ideas about the nature of reality (ontology) and knowledge (epistemology), as well as practical management and policy concerns. A quick glance at evaluation texts reveals a plethora of approaches: process evaluation is used to document how a program is experienced by various stakeholders; decision-oriented evaluation is used to look at how well a program has been implemented; and critical evaluation is used to examine how a program may be maintaining power and resource inequity. Perhaps more fundamental has been the development of evaluation approaches that draw on epistemological stances that move beyond positivism. At the risk of oversimplification, these stances suggest that measuring an objective reality is not possible because one’s observations are always shaped by one’s perceptions (e.g., critical realism, social constructivism), and that social phenomena cannot be understood outside of a context (e.g., hermeneutics, phenomenology, interpretivism). Regardless of approach, evaluation requires making certain key decisions: What criteria will be used to judge the merit or worth of the program or organization (goal achievement, quality of implementation, satisfaction of beneficiaries, or reputation of program among multiple stakeholders)? What standards will be applied to these criteria (e.g., X percentage of those trained get full-time
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jobs, a majority of the residents believe the organization is effective in addressing blight)? And what evidence will be needed to understand whether these standards have been met (e.g., survey of trainees 1 year after completion of the program)? Of course, many other questions need to be addressed along the way, including: Who determines these criteria, standards, and evidence? Is there agreement among stakeholders over what constitutes success? Can sufficient evidence be gathered to understand the merit or worth of the program? Are the costs of collecting data feasible? What is the purpose of the evaluation or how will the results be used? Are individuals, programs, civil society organizations, or civil society being evaluated more broadly?
Key Issues Early writings on evaluation and civil society focused on identifying the distinguishing characteristics of civil society organizations, as compared to public agencies and for-profit firms, and the implications of these unique organizational characteristics for evaluating CSO performance, including the importance of mission and the fact that CSOs have to attend to the expectations of multiple constituencies (e.g., donors, beneficiaries, volunteers), who often have different expectations of these organizations. Later work examined issues such as the prevalence of evaluation among nonprofit practitioners, measures of organizational effectiveness, and challenges to evaluating the sector as a whole. Taking a broad-brush view of the literature today, three central and related questions organize this work: (1) Are civil society organizations making a difference? (2) How can one best measure the difference civil society organizations are making? (3) How can evaluation be used to improve the difference that civil society organizations are making for those they serve? Before addressing these questions, it is worth distinguishing between evaluation and closely related concepts: accountability, performance measurement, and effectiveness. In brief, accountability is one possible purpose for conducting an evaluation but by no means the only purpose. Other evaluation purposes include improving programs or processes and generating knowledge. Performance measurement involves the ongoing collection of evaluative data to inform organizational decision making and is one approach to evaluation. As noted above, evaluation includes a broad range of approaches. Effectiveness is one important criterion used to evaluate a program or an organization, and is often defined as some level of goal achievement, but other criteria include efficiency, beneficiary satisfaction, responsiveness, and so on.
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Are CSOs Making a Difference?
Countless studies examine whether CSOs are making a difference. Some of these studies focus on CSOs working in particular areas like health, the environment, or international development while other studies examine the civil society sector more broadly. Most of these studies are internal and conducted primarily for the benefit of CSOs themselves and their funders. However, reviews of existing evaluations cited in Edwards and Hulme (1996), Flynn and Hodgkinson (2001), and Riddell (1999) reveal two clear and consistent themes. First, the data and methods of evaluating the impact of civil society organizations are woefully inadequate. Second, the evidence of CSO impact is mixed, making it difficult to draw any definitive conclusions about their impact on poverty. These studies challenge inflated expectations about CSOs, i.e., CSOs are more efficient, more effective because they are more innovative, more responsive to local conditions, and closer to the poor. Yet, these studies have also spurred useful conversations about how to capture the impact of CSOs, about the noninstrumental value of CSOs, about the burden evaluation requirements place on organizations, about the need to link performance expectations with capacity building, and about the need to ensure evaluative requirements do not distort nonprofit agendas. Recognizing these limits and the continued need to have some way to evaluate CSOs, researchers, practitioners, funders, and policy makers continue to work on ways to better measure the difference that CSOs are making. How Can the Difference that CSOs are Making be Measured?
Measuring the difference that CSOs are making requires addressing three challenging tasks. First, an agreement needs to be reached on the criteria used to evaluate civil society organizations (i.e., how does one know whether civil society as a whole or individual CSOs are making ‘‘a difference’’?) Second, methods and measures need to be selected that will give some indication of how civil society organizations stack up against these criteria. Finally, empirical research also reveals that evaluation efforts are often intertwined with political issues, power dynamics, and relationship concerns, all of which can affect the usefulness of evaluative efforts. Criteria Using mission related criteria would seem to be a straightforward way to evaluate individual civil society organizations. Because civil society organizations often have very broad mission statements (e.g., end homelessness) that are not really attainable by one organization, using mission-related criteria requires
translating the mission into a set of organizational goals (e.g., the percentage of homeless families served that have moved into decent, permanent, and stable housing). But using goal achievement as the criterion for evaluating CSOs is limited for several reasons. First, goal achievement assumes that one can translate mission into a set of goals that are definable, unambiguous, coherent, consistent, and do not conflict. Yet, many researchers, including Cutt and Murray (2000), Forbes (1998), Kanter and Summers (1987), and Herman and Renz (1999), point out that goals are often multidimensional, hard to operationalize, and plenty of studies have shown how this complexity and ambiguity leads to different perceptions of CSO effectiveness by key stakeholders. Second, goal achievement assumes that change is linear. But as Fowler (1996) points out, for many CSOs, adapting and responding to changing conditions, having programmatic assumptions challenged, and redefining goals is required for success. Third, goal achievement fails to capture other important contributions of civil society organizations, such as providing opportunities for civic engagement, advocating for policies that benefit the marginalized communities CSOs serve, and providing a check on state power. Method and Measures Assuming agreement on the criteria to evaluate CSOs, the next challenge is figuring out how to measure CSOs against these criteria. For example, if one is capturing the percentage of homeless families that have moved into decent, permanent, and stable housing, one needs to answer such questions as what counts as decent, permanent, and stable housing? How long after the CSO has provided services to the families should their housing situation be assessed? How should this information be collected – a written survey, telephone interview, observation? Yet, efforts to measure the difference CSOs are making have raised a number of concerns. These concerns include, but are not limited to, the following: (1) not everything valuable is measurable; (2) CSOs’ work is long term and often addresses deeply entrenched problems, but funders usually want to see immediate evidence of results; and (3) evaluation can lead CSOs to focus on what is measurable, to avoid the hardest cases because they are more time consuming and less likely to result in success, while discouraging experimentation and innovation. People, Politics, and Power Evaluation processes are infused with political interests, power dynamics, and basic human fears about judgment. For example, Cutt and Murray (2000), Murray (2005), and Tassie and colleagues (1996) all report on the misunderstandings and contradictions that can happen in an evaluation. Both funders
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and grantees contribute to these dynamics. On the one side, funders’ judgments about CSOs worth or value are based on formal and informal criteria. The failure to specify or even be clear about the role of implicit criteria is at the heart of many misunderstandings between funders and grantees and often leaves the grantees feeling like the evaluation is simply political. On the other side, CSOs become adept at explaining away their lack of performance on circumstances beyond their control, taking little responsibility for organizational performance. How Can the Difference that CSOs are Making be Improved?
Countless manuals and texts exist to help nonprofit managers collect evaluative data to inform decision making and improve performance (see, e.g., Bozzo, 2000; Cutt & Murray, 2000). This is a change. Early on, evaluation was the purview of expert social scientists who used experimental and quasi-experimental evaluation designs to prove whether a program caused observable results primarily to inform policy. But in the last 20 years or so, less emphasis is placed on using evaluation to prove that a program caused results, and more emphasis is placed on using evaluation to improve practice and inform management. While the latter also relies on some understanding of a causal relationship between the program and observed results, this understanding is based on a detailed analysis of a process and not variance theory (see Maxwell, 2005 for further discussion of causation). Most of these resources focus on helping nonprofits adopt outcome measurement, develop a logic model or logframe, specify a theory of change, or create a balanced scorecard. Civil society organizations working in international development are encouraged to institute a monitoring and evaluation system (M&E) and conduct an impact assessment (IA). All of these tools and approaches emphasize collecting information that provides some indication of whether intended beneficiaries are better off as a result of the civil society organizations’ work. For example, outcome measurement tools often focus on helping nonprofits distinguish between outputs, or the work that they accomplished (e.g., number of workshops conducted) and outcomes or the results of this work (e.g., people are more knowledgeable about the causes of type II diabetes and some of these people will make healthier eating choices as a result of this information). Despite all the effort going into building the capacity of civil society organizations to collect and use evaluative data to improve their performance and demonstrate accountability to key stakeholders, empirical studies, such as
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those by Fine, Thayer, and Coghlan (2000), Cutt and Murray (2000), and Urban Institute (2002), show that organizations largely use this information to report to funders, not to inform internal decision making. Part of this may reflect the fact that early demands for evidence of performance and results were funder driven; part of this may reflect the fact that nonprofits lack the capacity to collect and use data, and that with time this will correct itself; part of this may simply be the difference between the limited usefulness of data that can only partially describe reality; and part of it may reflect the need to find a balance between evaluations that seek to understand impact and results and evaluations that are intended to inform ongoing decision making.
Future Directions Practitioners, researchers, and funders continue to develop better approaches to evaluating civil society. Three recent developments are worth noting here. First, a number of tools and publications have focused on evaluating CSO advocacy (including advocacy for policy change and community organizing). Advocacy work is much less linear and predictable than traditional service delivery and consequently requires that evaluation provide realtime feedback on activities (instead of focusing on evaluation reporting timelines), respond to emerging strategies and changing goals, recognize the value of intermediate outcomes (changes that are short of getting new policies in place), and broaden outcomes to include changes in such things as capacity, social norms, and alliances (for further information see Evaluation Exchange vol. 13(1) 2007; Innonet has an advocacy evaluation project with publicly accessible resources; Alliance for Justice and Blueprint R&D have been working on tools for funders and nonprofits). Second, researchers have proposed multidimensional evaluative models to better capture CSO effectiveness, and the further development of these models is likely. These include some of the tools mentioned earlier like the Balanced Scorecard but also Cutt and Murray (2000) detail a framework developed in Canada that included 12 attributes (e.g., management direction, acceptance as measured by stakeholder satisfaction, working environment, achievement of intended results) while Sowa, Seldon, and Sandfort (2004) offer a framework that also captures programmatic and management effectiveness. Finally, scholars and practitioners have also started to address the complex and expansive task of evaluating the sector as a whole. Two recent volumes in this area include Anheier (2004) and Flynn and Hodgkinson
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(2001). The latter volume takes on the challenge of assessing the sector’s impact by exploring some of the measurement issues, looking at the impact or what is known about impact in different subsectors like health, the arts, and education. In his book Anheier proposes a framework for measuring civil society (its size, composition, revenue); the extent to which civil society is supported by enabling legal, political, and social conditions; the extent to which civil society organizations contribute to overall trust in a society and civil society’s contribution or impact. Undoubtedly, those working and studying civil society will see more developments to better measure and evaluate individual organizations and their collective impact on a society.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Alliance for Justice ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Social Accounting ▶ Social Audits
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. (2004). Civil Society: Measurement, evaluation and policy. London: Earthscan. Bozzo, Sandra L. (2000). Evaluation Resources for Nonprofit Organizations: Usefulness and Applicability. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 10(4), 463–469. Connell, J. P. (1995). New approaches to evaluating community initiatives: Concepts, methods and contexts. Washington, DC: Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives for Children and Families, The Aspen Institute. Cutt, J., & Murray, V. (2000). Accountability and effectiveness Evaluation in nonprofit organizations. London: Routledge. Edwards, M., & Hulme, D. (1996). Beyond the magic bullet: NGO performance and accountability in the post-cold war world. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Fine, A. H., Thayer, C. E., & Coghlan, A. T. (2000). Program evaluation practice in the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 10(3), 331–339. Flynn, P., & Hodgkinson, V. (Eds.) (2001). Measuring the impact of the nonprofit sector. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Forbes, Daniel P. (1998). Measuring the Unmeasurable: Emprical Studies of Nonprofit Organization Effectiveness from 1977 to 1997. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 27(2), 183–202. Fowler, Alan F. (1996). Assessing NGO Performance: Difficulties, Dilemmas and a Way Ahead. Chapter Thirteen in Beyond the Magic Built: NGO Performance and Accountability in the Post Cold War World. West Hartfort, CT: Kumarian Press. Herman, R., & Renz, D. (1999). Theses on nonprofit organizational effectiveness. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28(2), 107–126. Hoefer, R. (2000). Accountability in action? Program evaluation in nonprofit human service agencies. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 11(2), 167–177.
Kanter, R., & Summers, D. (1987). Doing well while doing good: Dilemmas of performance measurement in nonprofit organizations and the need for a multiple-constituency approach. The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kendall, J., & Knapp, M. (1999). Evaluation and the voluntary (nonprofit) sector: Emerging issues. Chap. 10 in International perspectives on voluntary action: Reshaping the third sector. London: Earthscan. Maxwell, J. A. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Murray, V. (2005). Evaluating the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations. In R. Herman (Ed.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management (2nd ed., pp. 345–370). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. O’Connor, A. (1995). Evaluating comprehensive community initiatives: A view from history. In New approaches to evaluating community initiatives: Concepts, methods and contexts. Washington, DC: Roundtable on Comprehensive Community Initiatives for Children and Families, The Aspen Institute. Paton, R. (2003). Managing and measuring social enterprises. London: Sage. Patton, Q. M. (1997). Utilization focused evaluation: The new century text (3rd ed.). London: Sage. Plantz, M., Greenway, M., & Hendricks, M. (1997). Outcome measurement: Showing results in the nonprofit sector. In using performance measurement to improve programs. New Directions for Evaluation, 75, 15–30. Riddell, R. (1999). Evaluating NGO development interventions. Chap. 11 in International perspectives on voluntary action: Reshaping the third sector. London: Earthscan. Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Leviton, L. D. (1991). Foundations of program evaluation: theories of practice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Tassie, Bill et al. (1996). Rationality and Politics: What Really Goes on When Funders Evaluate the Performance of Fundees? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 25(3): 347–363. Urban Institute (2000). A look at outcome measurement in nonprofit agencies. Elaine Morely, Elisa Vinson, and Harry Hatry. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Urban Institute (2002). How and why nonprofits use outcome information: Findings from a symposium. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Wholey, J. S., Hatry, H. P., & Newcomer, K. E. (2004). Handbook of practical program evaluation (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation GORDON SHOCKLEY
Address of Organization 4801 Rockhill Road Kansas City, MO 64110 USA www.kauffman.org
Introduction The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation (hereafter, Kauffman Foundation) was incorporated in 1966 by the entrepreneur Ewing Marion Kauffman. Operating in
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Kansas City, Missouri (United States), it promotes entrepreneurship as well as the education of children and youth in the United States.
Brief History Ewing Marion Kauffman ran successful business enterprises in the Kansas City area for many years, most notably the pharmaceutical company Marion Laboratories Inc. and the Kansas City Royals, a professional baseball franchise in the United States. His successes in these businesses endeavors enabled him to establish the Kauffman Foundation in the 1960s. The Kauffman Foundation’s early focus was on healthcare. Its first large-scale program promoted cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training. In the 1980s, the Kauffman Foundation refocused its efforts on youth and children development and education. It began to advance entrepreneurship in the early 1990s. One of its first entrepreneurship programs was the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Also in the 1990s the Kauffman Foundation made an important strategic shift from operating programs to giving grants.
Mission The vision of the Kauffman Foundation is ‘‘a society of economically independent individuals who are engaged citizens, contributing to the improvement of their communities,’’ while its mission is ‘‘to help individuals attain economic independence by advancing educational achievement and entrepreneurial success.’’ The key principles supporting the Kauffman Foundation’s dual mission are benefiting society through its programs; supporting practice-based research; utilizing the Kansas City region in which the Kauffman Foundation is based as a ‘‘program incubator;’’ and developing partnerships to leverage its resources and capabilities.
Activities The Kauffman Foundation focuses its efforts mostly in the United States, though its activities have policy implications outside the United States and the Kauffman Foundation is recognized around the world. Dr. Carl Schramm, the current president and chief executive officer of the Kauffman Foundation, summarizes in his book The Entrepreneurial Imperative (2006) the motivation of the foundation’s entrepreneurship activities: ‘‘Entrepreneurship is America’s comparative advantage, and we need to exploit it fully both at home and abroad’’ (p. 3). The Kauffman Foundation’s entrepreneurship activities center on support through grants, networking, and convening through a wide range of partnerships and programs
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to understand the economics of entrepreneurship, train entrepreneurial leaders, enhance entrepreneurial skills and abilities, and encourage new business formation. The Kauffman Foundation’s education activities generally target children and youth populations in Kansas City’s urban core. It works with regional partners to support programs that seek to improve children’s academic achievement in math, science, and technology skills. The Kauffman Foundation is currently engaged in a comprehensive, 10-year initiative to significantly improve math and science education in the Kansas City area.
Structure and Governance The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is a ‘‘Missouri Not For Profit Corporation.’’ It was incorporated in the State of Missouri (United States) as a nonprofit corporation in 1966 under The General Not for Profit Corporation Act of Missouri of 1953.
Funding The Kauffman Foundation ended FY 2007 with unrestricted net assets of USD$2,415,510,000. It receives the majority of its income from its investments (USD $435,621,000 in FY 2007). The Kauffman Foundation gave out USD$35,380,000 in grants and payments to partnering organizations alone in FY 2007.
Major Accomplishments One of the Kauffman Foundation’s major, recent accomplishments in entrepreneurship has been the Kauffman Campus Initiatives. Through this initiative, the Kauffman Foundation provided sizeable grants to several colleges and universities in the United States to support entrepreneurship education ‘‘across the campus.’’ Recent initiatives in children and youth education include the Kansas City Math and Science Initiative, which supports primary and secondary education programs focusing on those crucial subjects, and Kauffman Scholars, Inc., a separate but affiliated nonprofit organization that provides financial and other resources to assist disadvantaged, urban youth in attending college.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Social Entrepreneurship
References/Further Readings Baumol, W. J., Litan, R. E., & Schramm, C. J. (2007). Good capitalism, bad capitalism, and the economics of growth and prosperity. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Schramm, C. J. (2006). The entrepreneurial imperative: How America’s economic miracle will reshape the world. New York: HarperCollins.
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F Fairbairn, Esmee and Ian ▶ Esmee Fairbairn Foundation
Faith-Based Organizations CAROL J. DE VITA The Urban Institute, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction Faith-based organizations such as Catholic Charities, Lutheran Social Services, Salvation Army, and the YMCA have been an important part of the US social service delivery system for decades, providing child care, nursing home care, food, shelter, job training, and other services for people in need. In the mid-1990s, a new policy agenda emerged in the United States that sought to broaden the pool of faith-based organizations eligible for government funding. These policies, generally known as faith-based initiatives, sparked debate about the appropriate role of religion in the public square and the desirability of direct partnerships between church and state.
Definition One of the difficulties in studying faith-based organizations is that there is no universal definition, or even consensus, on what constitutes a faith-based organization. The term sometimes refers to religious entities such as churches, temples, mosques, and other houses of worship. It also refers to large social service agencies such as Catholic Charities and others that have a current or historical affiliation with a faith tradition. And it can also refer to a spiritual quality, rather than a formal affiliation or faith tradition, which is part of an organization’s mission, structure, programs, and services. The lack of a consistent definition creates difficulty in researching faith-based organizations and in implementing faith-based policies. Simply put, the term faith-based organization can mean different things to different people in different contexts. Many researchers and public administrators ask an
organization to self-identify as faith-based, or they use a series of criteria to classify organizations as faith-based. Sider and Unruh (2004) developed a typology of faithbased organizations that runs along a continuum. At one end are ‘‘faith-infused’’ organizations that connect religious faith to all aspects of the organization’s mission, staffing, governance, and programming. Faith is a central and an inseparable part of the organization’s identity and its programs. At the other end of the spectrum are ‘‘faithbackground’’ organizations. These groups have historic ties to a faith tradition but are organizationally structured like a secular nonprofit and have no explicit religious content in the delivery of their programs. A special case in this typology is ‘‘faith–secular partnerships’’ in which a secular organization joins with a religious congregation or explicitly religious organization to provide a service. Although staff and volunteers in these partnerships are often drawn from the religious community, the partnership is administered without regard to faith, and the content of the service typically has no explicit references to faith. Religious activities, such as attendance at worship services, may be offered as an option to participants, but are not required to receive services. As this typology suggests, faith-based organizations differ in organizational form and extent of religiosity.
Historical Background Recent interest in establishing partnerships between religious groups and government in the United States is not new. Government support for nonprofit health and educational organizations can be traced to the earliest roots of the nation. Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital, for example, received public funding in their early years, and in the nineteenth century, states and localities, particularly in the Northeast and Midwest, provided direct subsidies to religious organizations to run hospitals, orphanages, and schools (Hall, 2006; Salamon, 1995; Smith & Lipsky, 1993). Twentieth-Century Approaches
The rise of the modern welfare state in the twentieth century made government contracting with nonprofit social service providers increasingly common in the United States, but providing public funds directly to faith-based
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groups raised the issue of separation of church and state. This dilemma was bypassed by requiring faith-based providers to deliver their services in a secular manner – that is, without regard to faith and without faith content in the program. Today, many large faith-based providers, such as Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social Services, receive a sizable share of their revenues from government. Faithbased groups run 70% of the nation’s food pantries and soup kitchens, and many of these programs receive surplus food commodities from the federal government (Poppendieck, 1998). A quarter (27%) of emergency shelters and transitional housing are run by faith-based organizations, with many receiving funding under the federal homeless program (Aron & Sharkey, 2002). By the 1990s, some US policy makers began to call for a reexamination of the social welfare system. They argued that government contracting to secular service providers often resulted in impersonal and ineffective social service programs and that small, locally based providers, particularly faith-based groups, were better able to instill a sense of personal responsibility and personal transformation in service recipients (Olasky, 1992). Passage of Charitable Choice, a provision of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (Section 104 of P.L. 104-193) – commonly called welfare reform – opened the door to more contracting with faith-based organizations. Charitable Choice enables religiously affiliated organizations to compete for government contracts and accept government vouchers on an equal basis with secular service providers without giving up the religious character of their programs. The law expressly forbids using government funds to proselytize or conduct worship services or religious instruction and requires the state to provide alternative (secular) services if the service recipient objects to the religious nature of a program. The intent of Charitable Choice is to ‘‘level the playing field’’ and open the government contracting process to small, locally based religious groups, including religious congregations. The Bush Administration’s Faith-Based Initiatives
When President George W. Bush assumed office in January 2001, he made faith-based initiatives a centerpiece of his domestic policy agenda. Within days of taking office, he established the White House Office of Faithbased and Community Initiatives and through Executive Order established department- and agency-level Centers for Faith-based and Community Initiatives (CFBCI). He also ordered a review of procurement procedures to identify barriers that might restrict faith-based groups from applying for government funds. In August 2001, the
White House issued Unlevel Playing Field, which concluded that faith-based and small community-based organizations were at a disadvantage in the federal procurement process. As of June 2008, 11 federal agencies had CFBCIs. These offices provide information, resources, workshops, and conferences to faith-based and community groups on the availability of federal grants and the federal procurement process. Under the faith-based initiatives, all federal programs are to encourage faith-based organizations to apply for government grants and contracts, but the Administration initially targeted three priority areas: mentoring children of prisoners, prisoner reentry programs, and access to recovery – a program directed to the treatment of substance abuse and related recovery support services. Over the years, the priorities have expanded to include disaster preparedness, relief and recovery, as well as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and global malaria initiatives. In addition, the Department of Health and Human Services created the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF) to help small faith-based and community organizations build their organizational capacity. Working through intermediary organizations, which provide technical assistance to the faith-based organizations, the CCF seeks to build local capacity and enable more faith-based and community organizations to identify and respond to government procurement notices. Between FY 2002 and FY 2007, the Compassion Capital Fund received appropriations totaling $289.1 million. According to the White House, faith-based organizations received $2.18 billion in federal competitive funding from 11 federal agencies in FY 2006 – or approximately 11% of competitive funds (Table 1). In the aggregate, the Department of Health and Human Services and the US Agency for International Development made the largest awards to faith-based organizations in FY 2006 ($723.2 million and $552.4 million, respectively) however, the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Housing and Urban Development awarded the largest percentage of their competitive funds to faith-based groups (30% and 25%, respectively). Although the intent of the faith-based initiatives is to level the playing field for smaller faith-based organizations and increase their participation in the procurement process, a study by Montiel and Wright (2006) found only marginal effects. Based on a review of more than 28,000 grant awards for nine federal agencies over a 3-year period (FY 2002–FY 2004), the researchers found a slight increase in the share of awards going to faith-based organizations
Faith-Based Organizations
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Faith-Based Organizations. Table 1 US Federal competitive funding awarded to faith-based organizations in FY 2006 (White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives. Accessed on June 13, 2008, at http://www.whitehouse.gov/government/ fbci/final_report_2006.pdf)
US department or agency
Total awarded ($)
Awarded to faith-based ($)
Percentage of total to faith-based
Health & Human Services
9,774,274,710
723,171,246
7.4
USAID
3,884,458,053
552,363,250
14.2
Housing & Urban Development
2,054,962,792
512,014,071
24.9
Agriculture
1,811,016,754
193,038,168
10.7
Justice
645,485,827
73,091,780
11.3
Corporation for National & Community Service
573,020,592
69,892,379
12.2
Commerce
285,534,489
8,552,860
3.0
Education
191,663,976
15,221,243
7.9
Labor
157,088,195
15,536,283
9.9
69,158,052
20,790,952
30.1
Veterans Affairs Small Business Administration Total
12,246,842
989,192
8.1
19,458,910,282
2,184,661,424
11.2
FY 2006 data are based on a review of 134 competitive programs at HHS (65), HUD (11), DOJ (14), DOL (11), ED (5), USDA (20), DOC (6), VA (1), SBA (1), and 35 competitive programs areas at USAID (26) and CNCS (9)
(11.6% of grants in FY 2002 to 12.8% in FY 2004) and almost no change in the share of discretionary dollars awarded to faith-based groups (17.8% in FY 2002, 17.1% in FY 2003, and 17.8% in FY 2004). Furthermore, both the number of awards and total dollars awarded shifted to larger national and international faith-based organizations during this period, while local and regional organizations experienced relative declines. These data suggest that larger organizations with presumably greater capacity retain a competitive edge when seeking government funds.
Key Issues Four key issues have shaped the debates concerning the faith-based initiatives: (1) the separation of church and state, (2) the capacity of faith-based organizations to work with government, (3) hiring practices of faith-based organizations, and (4) the effectiveness of faith-based services. Separation of Church and State
The First Amendment of the US Constitution states: ‘‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise of religion.’’ Over the years, this Amendment (sometimes called the Establishment Clause) has been interpreted as a separation of church and state. In reality, the separation has always been somewhat porous, allowing faith-based organizations to work with government and to receive government financial support. However, the Charitable
Choice provision made the ‘‘separation’’ more permeable by enabling religious social service providers to openly retain the religious character of their programs. Although Charitable Choice explicitly prohibits proselytizing, there are no guidelines to distinguish between a simple religious message and an effort to convert. A related issue is the individual’s right to choose between faith-based and secular providers. Although Charitable Choice states that an alternative is to be provided if the individual objects to the religious nature of a program, formal mechanisms to notify individuals of this right are often lacking (US General Accountability Office, 2006). Even if notification is given, exercising this right may be problematic. In some places, especially rural areas, access to an alternate program may be difficult. Some programs, such as substance abuse treatment programs, have long waiting lists. If treatment is court-ordered, for example, an individual may be reluctant to reject a faith-based program if doing so results in or extends his or her incarceration. Individuals with mental disorders may be unable to make an informed decision. The GAO recommended that government agencies establish better guidelines and monitoring practices to determine compliance with these safeguards among its faith-based grantees. Capacity to Work with Government
Most social service programs (sometimes called social ministries) run by local congregations are small. They
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operate with limited budgets, limited staff, and often rely on volunteers. Like their small secular counterparts, these groups usually lack the capacity to identify governmentfunding opportunities, write proposals, and administer government-funded programs, which can require considerable paperwork. They often lack the technology, financial systems, and management infrastructures needed to comply with public reporting and regulatory requirements. A recent study of congregations in Indiana found that their management infrastructures are primarily geared toward running the church, not the social ministry programs, and adapting these systems to the congregation’s social ministries would not be easy (Clerkin & Gronbjerg, 2007). Especially for smaller congregations in lower-income neighborhoods, capacity issues can be a formidable challenge (De Vita & Palmer, 2003). Hiring Practices
One of the most controversial issues relates to the hiring practices of faith-based organizations that receive government funding. Under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, expanded in 1972, religious organizations are exempt from laws that forbid the hiring or firing of employees on the basis of religion or adherence to religious practices. In recent years, for example, the employment of gays and lesbians has been an issue. Supporters of the faith-based initiatives believe that to retain their religious character, faith-based groups must consider religious beliefs as part of their employment practices. Opponents argue that faith-based organizations may hire whomever they like with private money, but public funds should not be used to discriminate. The Bush administration regarded the issue as a matter of ‘‘protecting the civil rights and religious liberties of faith-based organizations.’’ Several states, including California and Colorado, introduced legislation exempting religious organizations from discriminatory employment practices, but none of these bills have passed as of 2008. Further, the US Supreme Court has been silent on this matter, declining to hear a case (LeBoon v. Lancaster Jewish Community Center) in April 2008 that focused on the firing of an evangelical Christian worker. A lower court ruling therefore stands, which said the JCC is considered a religious organization under the Civil Rights Act and exempt from discriminatory practices. In US law, ‘‘religion’’ is a term of art, and its definition varies in different statutes, adding to the complexity of defining a ‘‘religious organization’’ or a ‘‘religious employer.’’ Effectiveness of Faith-Based Services
The faith-based initiatives were predicated on the assumption that faith-based programs are more effective
than secular ones in transforming an individual’s behavior. Yet, until recently there was little rigorous evidence to assess the validity of this claim. The high visibility of the faith-based initiatives has spurred many researchers to study the issue. To date, the evidence that has emerged shows no appreciable differences between faith-based and secular providers. For example, a study of job training programs in Indiana found that participants in secular programs were more likely to find full-time jobs and receive health insurance than those in faith-based programs, but the differences were small (Deb & Jones, 2003). A national study of nursing homes found that faith-based homes were less likely than secular ones to receive complaints and inspection deficiencies, but again the differences were small (Ragan, 2004). And, a third study of welfare-to-work programs in Los Angeles found no systematic differences between one type of provider and another (Monsma & Mounts, 2002). From a methodological perspective, rigorous comparative studies are extremely difficult to conduct. It may not be possible to assign participants randomly to service providers and create control groups. Selection bias related to who enters or leaves a program can compromise results. Estimating the cost of volunteer labor and measuring the extent to which faith plays a role in service delivery are other hurdles to overcome. Additional research using rigorous research techniques is needed before conclusions about the effectiveness of faith-based and secular service providers can be drawn.
International Perspectives The faith community has a long history working outside the United States. For decades, groups such as Catholic Relief Services, World Vision, and World Relief have provided humanitarian assistance around the world. After World War II, faith-based groups were instrumental in the resettlement of Eastern Europeans, and in the 1980s, they were key players in resettling millions of Southeast Asian refugees in the United States. More recently as tsunamis, earthquakes, and other natural disasters have struck, faith-based organizations have responded to these crises with relief, recovery, and long-term development assistance. While most US faith-based groups that work in the international arena are Christian, humanitarian aid is a core part of all faith traditions. Groups representing a broad spectrum of faiths – such as, the Jewish Federation, Islamic Relief, and the Aga Khan Development Network – are active players in humanitarian aid and development assistance programs that address the needs of people throughout the world.
Faith-Based Organizations
For the most part, the faith-based agenda with its emphasis on government contracting is a product of US policy makers and emanates from the unique culture and historical experiences of the United States. Other countries have very different attitudes toward church–state relations, which permit the development of close ties and partnerships between these sectors. At present, there are no indications that other nations are pursuing a US-style faithbased agenda.
Future Directions Because faith-based initiatives in the United States are closely tied to the policies and administrative directives of the Bush administration, it raises the question of what will happen after President Bush leaves office. The legislative underpinning for the faith-based policies rests in three bills passed by Congress between 1996 and 2000: the original Charitable Choice provision in the 1996 welfare reform legislation, and extensions of Charitable Choice in the Community Service Block Grant program (1998) and in drug treatment and prevention programs (2000). Since 2000, no additional legislation has passed Congress, and all expansions of the faith-based programs have been through Executive Order. This leaves administrative structures such as the White House Office of Faith-based and Community Initiatives and the departmental Centers vulnerable to reorganization or even closure under a new administration. Indeed, shortly after taking office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order establishing a new White House Office of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which will work with both secular and faith-based organizations to address economic and social needs in local communities. In addition to the federal infrastructure created to advance the faith-based agenda at the national level, the Bush administration encouraged states and localities to create their own faith-based offices or liaisons to work with local groups. By 2008, 35 states and more than 100 cities had done so (White House, 2008). These entities range from a single advisor in the governor’s office to a small staff working with local faith-based groups. The presence of these offices and liaisons suggests that support for faith-based policies has devolved to lower levels of government and interest in sustaining some type of arrangement with the faith community is likely to continue even after Mr. Bush leaves office. What may change is the rationale and political justification for the policies. The Bush administration viewed faith-based policies through the lens of a competitive model. Compared with larger organizations, small groups
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were at a disadvantage and the playing field needed to be leveled. But many faith-based groups and small nonprofits are unable or reluctant to invest in the infrastructure required to work with government, and government procurement is still dominated by larger organizations. In the future, if the faith-based initiatives are to be sustained, they may need to be repositioned away from a competitive model and toward one that emphasizes collaboration. Under this paradigm shift, the overarching question would be: how can different types of organizations contribute to public policy goals, not who wins and who loses. Research on workforce development programs in California offers some insights into how this new paradigm might work (Campbell & Lemp, 2007). For example, faith-based groups are often good at reaching hard-to-serve populations (i.e., ex-offenders, addicts, people with limited English skills, etc.). And because faith-based providers see this work as an expression of their faith, they often engage in the intensive handholding and supportive services needed to help individuals overcome difficult circumstances. But faith-based organizations and small nonprofits also need assistance to partner with government. In California, the state did not rely on intermediaries to provide this assistance but built its own capacity through a newly created special projects division that worked with small providers. This arrangement enabled the state to monitor the programs and progress of the faith-based organizations and to understand directly the challenges that these groups face. Future models for partnerships between government and faith-based organizations may evolve through the development of local networks that come together to address community needs. This will require building trust among community residents, providers, and government, and filling gaps in the service delivery system – roles that the faith-based community has fulfilled in the past. Under this model, large and small organizations, faithbased and secular, may play different roles but are likely to work together toward a shared goal of improving the quality of life of individuals, neighborhoods, and nations.
Cross-References
▶ Aga Khan Foundation ▶ Catholic Charities ▶ Catholic Relief Services ▶ Churches and Congregations ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Islamic Relief ▶ Luthern Social Services ▶ Mosques ▶ Religious Organizations
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▶ Salvation Army ▶ World Vision ▶ YMCA
Fanon, Frantz ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
References/Further Readings Aron, L. Y., & Sharkey, P. T. (2002). The 1996 national survey of homeless assistance providers and clients: A comparison of faith-based and secular nonprofit programs,. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, from http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410496_1996_NSHAPC.pdf; 06/13/08. Campbell, D., & Lemp, C. (2007). Government workforce development partners: Final evaluation report on the California community and faith-based initiative. Davis, CA: California Communities Program. Department of Human and Community Development. University of California. Clerkin, R. J., & Gronbjerg, K. A. (2007). The capacity and challenges of faith-based human service organizations. Public Administration Review, 67(1), 115–126. Deb, P., & Jones, D. (2003). Does faith work? A comparison of labor market outcomes of religious and secular training organizations. Paper presented at the Faith-based Social Service Provision under Charitable Choice Conference, Washington, DC. De Vita, C. J., & Palmer, P. (2003). Church–state partnerships: Some reflections from Washington, DC. Charting civil society policy brief no. 14. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. Hall, P. D. (2006). A historical overview of philanthropy, voluntary associations, and nonprofits organizations in the United States, 1600– 2000. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 32–65). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Monsma, S. V., & Mounts, C. M. (2002). Working faith: How religious organizations provide welfare-to-work services. Philadelphia, PA: Center for Research on Religion and Urban Civil Society. Montiel, L. J., & Wright, D. J. (2006). Getting a piece of the pie: Federal grants to faith-based social service organizations. New York: The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy. Olasky, M. (1992). The tragedy of American compassion. Washington, DC: Regnery Gateway. Poppendieck, J. (1998). Sweet charity? Emergency food and the end of entitlement. New York: Viking. Ragan, M. (2004). Faith-based vs. secular: Using administrative data to compare the performance of faith-affiliated and other social service providers.. New York: The Rockefeller Institute of Government. Salamon, L. M. (1995). Partners in public service: Government –nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Sider, R. J., & Unruh, H. R. (2004). Typology of religious characteristics of social service and educational organizations and programs. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33(1), 109–134. Smith, S. R., & Lipsky, M. (1993). Nonprofits for hire: The welfare state in the age of contracting. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. The White House (2001). Unlevel playing field: Barriers to participation by faith-based and community organizations in federal social service programs. Washington, DC: The White House. The White House (2008). The quiet revolution. Washington, DC: The White House. US General Accountability Office (2006). Faith-based and community initiative: Improvements in monitoring grantees and measuring performance could enhance accountability. GAO-06–616. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Basic Biographical Information Frantz Fanon, a prominent francophone contributor to postcolonial studies, was born in 1925 to a mixed race, middle-class family living on the Caribbean island of Martinique (Antilles), which was then a French colony. He attended the respected Lyce´e Schoelcher in Fort-deFrance, where he was taught by Aime´ Ce´saire, founder of the concept of Ne´gritude, a movement that specifically rejected Western political, social, and moral domination and influenced Africans as well as Blacks around the world. The abuse of the Martiniquan people by the French soldiers forced to remain on the island during World War II was a major influence on Fanon; it showed him the realities of colonial racism. In 1943, at the age of 18, Fanon fled the island joining the Gaullist forces and became a member of the Free French Forces. After World War II, he studied medicine and psychiatry in Lyon, France. There he began writing political essays and plays and married a French woman, Josie Duble. In the 1950s he moved to Algeria where, while working as a psychiatrist, he joined the National Liberation Front. Expelled in 1957, he returned to France but then moved on to Tunisia. Fanon died 1961 in the United States where he sought treatment for leukemia under the name Ibrahim Fanon. The day of his death was the same day as his literary main-work ‘‘Les damne´s de la terre’’ (1961) (engl.: ‘‘The Wretched of the Earth’’) was published in Paris. This work became the classic manifesto of decolonization.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions No other francophone intellectual has been as influential wherever independence struggles have been fought around the globe and whenever theorists have attempted to understand their existential relationship to racial difference and oppression. Fanon’s political philosophy, ‘‘Fanonism,’’ has influenced many liberation movements. His works have inspired anticolonial liberation movements, including the student revolts of 1968, the South African anti-apartheid struggle headed by Steve Biko, as well as the Black Power Movement in the United States. Before he left France, Fanon had already published his first analysis of the effects of racism and colonization, ‘‘Peau noire, masques blancs’’ (1952) (engl.: ‘‘Black Skin, White Masks’’), which he had submitted as his (ultimately
Fa¯ra¯bi-al, Abu¯ Nas.r Muh.ammad ibn al-Farakh
rejected) doctoral thesis under the title, ‘‘An Essay for the Disalienation of Blacks.’’ For him the role of culture was essential. He saw culture in general as a totalizing structure, a system from which individual freedom must be wrested. To understand that system, he chose to analyze all spheres of cultural expression: the radio, the cinema, literature and science itself. Furthermore, Fanon’s psychological training and experience led him to argue that many of the problems he observed were based on psychological oppression. Fanon’s work is still relevant today for critical race theory, cultural politics of identification, and to a certain extent, for understanding the causes and sources of twenty-first century acts of terrorism.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Identity ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Caute, D. (1970). Frantz Fanon. New York: Viking. Fanon, F. (1965). The wretched of the earth. New York: Reprint of Les damne´s de la terre. Paris, 1961. Lionnet, F. (2005). Frantz Fanon. The Columbia history of twentiethcentury French thought In D. K. Lawrence (Ed.). New York: Columbia University Press.
Fa¯ra¯bi-al, Abu¯ Nas.r Muh.ammad ibn al-Farakh THORSTEN HASCHE
Basic Biographical Information Al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ was born in AD 870 in Turkestan at Wası¯j in the district of Fa¯ra¯bı¯ on the Jaxartes. His father was a qa¯’id, a Turkish soldier at an Abba¯sid court. Before going to Baghdad, al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ worked in a garden and a vineyard in Damascus, reading books at night by the torch of a guard. In Baghdad he studied logic and got acquainted with the whole range of Greek thought and contemporary philosophical and theological discussions. Although Al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ got famous during his lifetime, being called the second master (first master: Aristotle), he maintained his skeptical distance towards actual politics. After settling to the court of Sayf al-Dawla, Amir of Aleppo, and travelling
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to Egypt and Ascalon, he died in 950 in Damascus at the age of 80. He lived during a time of deep theological divisions and philosophical controversies due to the vast expansion of the Islamic ummah under the reign of the Uma¯yya¯ds. Living at the flourishing Abba¯sid courts al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ wrote and thought under the influence of ka¯la¯m (theology), the Greek legacy of fa¯lsa¯fa¯ (Islamic rationalism) and Shi’ism.
Major Contributions Al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ was the first systematic philosopher in Islam. His neoplatonic work, based on an emanationist scheme, consists of five major themes: logics, physics and meteorology, metaphysics and methodology, ethics and politics and, finally, music theory. In his major political treatises, namely The Opinions of the Inhabitants of the Virtuous City and Civil Polity, al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ outlines the concept of a political association (ijtima¯) in the form of large, intermediate, and small communities, identified with the inhabited world (ma’mu¯rah), the nation (ummah) and the city (madı¯nah). The main purpose of a political association is to provide a framework for the people to attain happiness and to help the people in their search for truth. On the top of the perfect city stands the Ima¯m who has reached intellectual perfection and is a recipient of the revelation from God through the intermediary of the active intellect. With his political philosophy al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ provided a scheme to criticize the existing political order, the caliphate, and strengthen the moral responsibility of the political association against pure political power and the mere accumulation of wealth. He also brought together conflicting methods of acquiring knowledge, namely theological and philosophical thinking, in one approach and therefore helped to mediate between the main factions in Islamic culture.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society History I: Antiquity ▶ Civil Society History II: Medieval Period
References/Further Readings Fakhry, M. (2002). Al- Fa¯ra¯bı¯, founder of Islamic neoplatonism. Oxford: Oneworld. Fakhry, M. (2004). A history of Islamic philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press. Netton, I. R. (1992). Al-Fa¯ra¯bı¯ and his school. London/New York: Routledge. Walzer, R. (1985). Al-Farabi on the perfect state. Oxford: Clarendon.
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Fe´de´ration Internationale des Ligues des Droits de L’Homme (FIDH)
Fe´de´ration Internationale des Ligues des Droits de L’Homme (FIDH) EVELYNE SCHMID
Address of Organization 17, Passage de la Main d’Or 75011 Paris France www.fidh.org
Introduction The International Federation for Human Rights, known by its French acronym FIDH, is a federation of nongovernmental human rights organizations striking to improve the prevention of human rights abuse and the sanction of perpetrators. Today, 155 organizations in approximately 100 countries are part of the federation.
Brief History French and German national human rights groups initiated the federation in 1922 as the first international human rights organization. Already in 1927, FIDH proposed a Worldwide Declaration of Human Rights and an international criminal tribunal. FIDH established the first fact-finding and observation missions after World War II.
Mission FIDH coordinates and assists the activities of its member organizations, at the local, regional, and international levels. The Federation’s priorities are the defense of victims, the support of local organization’s capacity for action, the mobilization of states and intergovernmental organizations and the dissemination of information and eyewitness accounts. The Federation particularly focuses on the protection of human rights defenders, the protection of women’s rights, an economic globalization founded on the respect for human rights and the eradication of impunity.
Activities The Federation’s main activities include advocacy and litigation, trial observation, fact-finding, and observation missions and specific interventions on behalf of victims or thematic situations. FIDH supports its member organizations and partners in their lobbying efforts and pursues judicial cooperation programs to
strengthen member organizations domestically. The Federation has opened a permanent office at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and conducts fact-finding missions and trial observations in over 60 countries.
Structure and Governance Every three years, the FIDH Congress elects the International Board and determines the strategic directions for the organization and decides on membership issues. An Executive Board is tasked to carry out the daily management. The international secretariat is based in Paris. Jointly with the World Organization Against Torture, FIDH runs the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders aimed at the protecting and enhancement the work of human rights defenders.
Funding The work of FIDH is financed primarily through grants, donations, and membership fees. In 2006, the federation received U$57,000 in membership fees and U$4,300,000 in grants and donations. For the same period, FIDH reported total expenditures of U$4,800,000. FIDH accepts funding from governmental and corporate sources.
Accomplishments The establishment of the International Criminal Court in 2002 was a realization of one of the oldest demands of FIDH. In 2003, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian human rights defender and head of the Federation’s Action Group for Women’s Rights.
Cross-References
▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Ebadi, Shirin ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Human Rights ▶ INGOs
References/Further Readings Landman T. (2006). Holding the line: Human rights defenders in the age of terror. The British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 8(2), 123–147. Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, FIDH and World Organisation Against Torture (2003). Human rights defenders in a ‘‘Security First’’ environment: Annual report 2003. Paris: FIDH. Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, FIDH and World Organisation Against Torture (2007). Steadfast in protest: Annual report 2007. Paris: FIDH.
Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs
Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs ANJA ERBEL
Address of Organization 18, Mahmoud Bassiouni Street Downtown – Cairo Egypt www.efyngo.org (currently under construction)
Introduction The Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs (EFYNGO), is considered the nongovernmental umbrella and hub of Egyptian youth-led NGOs and NGOs working in the area of youth development. It currently represents 14 Egyptian youth organizations from different Egyptian cities and governorates and it aims to eventually incorporate all youth-related NGOs in Egypt.
Brief History The idea to found the Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs was born during a workshop called ‘‘Day of Youth,’’ organized by the German Goethe Institute in Cairo in 2004. This event brought together leaders of 25 Egyptian NGOs working in youth development and youth initiatives and gave them the opportunity to network for the very first time. Until the workshop was repeated the following year, the leaders had brainstormed about establishing an umbrella organization for all youth-led nongovernmental organizations in Egypt working on youth development issues which could represent the different NGOs and facilitate cooperation. The Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs was founded by 11 youth NGOs in 2005 and registered with the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity in January 2006.
Mission The Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs has three main objectives pursued through their work. First, it aims to build the capacity of its member NGOs; moreover it seeks to coordinate development efforts among its member organizations. Finally the federation is aimed at improving communication and coordination between Egypt’s youth civil society and other sectors such as the donor, private, and governmental sectors in their youth development activities. In addition, Egyptian youth are represented through the Federation in various local, regional, and international events.
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Activities The Federation acts as a facilitating agent to help youth organizations in their activities; support is not limited to member organizations of the Federation. However, member organizations are prioritized in the application process for funding and training. The Federation currently runs four projects, each of them in cooperation with an investment company, a firm or an institution, such as the EFG Hermes Foundation, the Sharkawy and Sarhan law firm, Microsoft, the Goethe-Institute or the British Council. A large project entering its second year in cooperation with Microsoft for instance trains recent graduates and unemployed youth from all regions of the country in IT skills, soft skills, internet security and social entrepreneurship to enhance their employment possibilities. Projects run in collaboration with cultural institutes such as the Goethe-Institute and the British Council focus on youth exchange, education, research and youth advocacy rather than conveying technical knowledge. The ‘‘Youth Social Venture Fund,’’ financed by the EFG Hermes Foundation is a program offering those NGOs without easy access to funding the financial means they need to develop their organization and to train personnel in the skills required for efficient and professional NGO management. The Federation attended various events e.g., the Africa-Europe Youth Summit, Lisbon/Portugal; the Africa Youth Panel, Addis Ababa/Ethiopia; the Arab Youth Forum, Amman/Jordan; the Euro-Arab Coordination Meeting of Youth Organizations, Amman/Jordan; CIJEF (Conseil International des organisations des Jeunes de la Francophonie) Meeting, Quebec – Canada.
Structure and Governance The Federation General Assembly currently consists of 14 youth-led NGOs, 11 of which were also involved in the founding process of the organization. The EFYNGO’s Executive Board initially comprised five members, the number being expanded to seven members in 2008, each of them representing a different NGO out of the currently 14 member organizations. A chair, a vice-chair, a secretary and a treasurer in addition to three regular board members compose the board of the Federation. The Federation’s staff consists of the Director of Program, two Project Assistants and one Project Coordinator, in addition to a small number of volunteers.
Funding The Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs’ work is financed primarily through individual projects. The Federation receives no governmental funding and only
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negligible individual contributions and donations supporting their work. The projects mentioned in the ‘‘activities’’ section are the main source of funding for the Federation rather than yearly contributions which makes it difficult to define an average expenditure or budget due to variation.
United Way or a statewide association of nonprofit organizations. While these various manifestations of multipart, multisite nonprofit organizations are quite diverse, they are all ‘‘federated’’ in the sense of sharing of authority and control between their participating units (affiliates) and a central office.
Accomplishments
Definition
Established only recently, the Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs is not yet widely known by the Egyptian public. However, the EFYNGO itself does not pursue much publicity since the final projects are run by the youth NGOs themselves and not by the Federation. A major accomplishment of the Federation can be monitored in the project run in cooperation with Microsoft. It has so far managed to educate more than 1,300 young people and expects to increase this number by another 1,000 each in the second and third year of the project. Also through the Youth Social Venture Fund/EFG-Hermes Youth Sustainability and Viability Fund two EFYNGO projects, implemented by youth NGOs, could be financed.
Selsky (1998) defines federations as ‘‘associations in which the affiliates are organizations rather than individuals’’ (p. 286). This article refers to federations in the same way, which is a more inclusive definition than others. For example, O’Flanagan and Taliente (2004) define a federation as ‘‘a network of local affiliates that share a mission, a brand, and a program model but are legally independent of one another and of the national office.’’ This is just one type of nonprofit federation akin to a franchise system. Young (1989) and Oster (1992, 1996) sketched out taxonomies of nonprofit federated organizations. Young divided federations into three categories: corporate organizations in which authority and control are centralized; federal organizations featuring a balance between central authority and local affiliates; and trade associations where sovereignty resides in organizational members. Subsequently, Oster claimed that most nonprofit organizations in the United States were part of overall national systems that could be dichotomized into two categories: corporations with branch offices, and franchises in which rules and incentives ensured substantial autonomy for local affiliates. Franchise systems have been described in the business literature as a hybrid form of organization, between a hierarchy and a market, as Baucus, Baucus, and Human (1996: 374) explain, ‘‘requiring a nationally recognized brand name and efficient back-office operations, with customer service occurring locally.’’ Oster (1996) argued that for various reasons, including access to capital, performance incentives, and mobilizing and motivating volunteers, the franchise form was preferred for the majority of national nonprofit organizations that she examined. These arguments parallel those of authors of for-profit literature on franchising, such as Brickley and Dark (1987), who identify shirking behavior, risk-sharing, and free-rider problems as reasons for companies to franchise out or wholly own their retail units.
Federations, Nonprofit DENNIS R. YOUNG, LEWIS FAULK Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
Introduction Nonprofit federations exist in many forms and are described in various terms including federations, franchises, membership associations, systems, leagues, councils, and decentralized corporations. Some are aggregations of organizational units of very similar function and structure and consider themselves to be part of the same overall system or umbrella, such as YMCAs or chapters of the March of Dimes. Others are aggregations of more distinct and varied organizations in the same field of service, such as the Child Welfare League of America and the American Symphony Orchestra League. Still others are aggregations of differentiated organizations in a broad field of service that consider themselves part of the same system, such as a regional Catholic Charities or Jewish Federation. Yet others are aggregations of diverse nonprofit organizations that affiliate with one another for the specific purpose of collaborative fund-raising, policy advocacy, or capacity building, such as a regional
Historical Background As Hall (2006) explains, nonprofit associations in civil society in the United States have roots in the spread of translocal, non-state-related religious congregations,
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political organizations, and professional associations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These associations served as predecessors to secular and religious non-state-related federated organizations, including humanitarian organizations like the US Sanitary Commission that developed during the US Civil War, and the Red Cross in World War I. Hammack (1998) traces some of these developments in his reader through the reprinting of historical documents including de Tocqueville’s nineteenth-century essays on civic and political associations and Sills’ classic 1957 study of the history of the March of Dimes. Similarly, McCarthy (2003) traces the early development of social reform movements and associations, including those focused on abolition of slavery, women’s rights, humanitarian assistance, and civil liberties, from the beginnings of the American republic through the Civil War. The twentieth century witnessed a proliferation of nonprofit organizations of many forms, including nonprofit federations. As Young and Faulk (2010) discuss, the historical development of nonprofit federations followed a variety of patterns including bottom-up and top-down expansion and integration, depending on a number of economic and organizational factors.
Key Issues Leaders of federations make strategic and negotiated choices about their memberships and the degrees to which authority and control are distributed between affiliates and a central authority. Moreover, federations develop according to different growth scenarios, leading to alternative structural patterns. These scenarios are influenced by a variety of economic issues including economies of scale and scope, transactions costs, principal–agent considerations, and interorganizational externalities. Nature of Affiliates
Federations can consist of affiliates which are highly homogeneous, highly heterogeneous, or distinct but complementary in some important way. For example, the affiliated councils of the Girl Scouts of the USA or the Boy Scouts of America are highly homogeneous. While they are separately incorporated, they all take the same form, follow the same rules, use the same symbols and materials, earn revenue in similar fashion, and so on. The same is true of many health charities such as the American Cancer Society and the March of Dimes. In contrast, member organizations of a local United Way are highly diverse. They consist of various health and social service organizations whose common thread is to serve the social and health needs of a local community while receiving some fraction of their support from a
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shared community fund-raising campaign. Similarly, the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) consists of a diverse array of social service organizations that address the needs of children in some way, such as day care, foster care, education, or other services. These members have different names and logos and are likely to belong to other federations within their communities or particular fields of service as well. They come together under CWLA for educational resources, conferences, policy advocacy on behalf of children, and other common needs and interests, and they pay for these services largely with membership dues. Another category of federation features organizational affiliates that relate to one another as a ‘‘system’’ and may be institutions within a particular religious or ethnic community, such as Catholic Charities, Jewish Philanthropies, and Lutheran Services. They consist of various types of social service organizations, schools, and health care organizations that are interconnected through systems of referral, resource allocation and fund-raising, shared values, and policy setting by a central (regional) federation body. While affiliate organizations of these federations have highly diverse orientations and purposes, they are complementary to one another so that as a whole they can holistically address the needs of clients or communities with multiple issues and challenges. Central/Affiliate Relations
Relations between a federation’s central office and its affiliates also traverse a wide spectrum of possibilities, ranging from tight control through a corporate governing structure that limits affiliate autonomy, to a balanced system in which central and affiliate units share authority, to highly decentralized arrangements in which affiliates are autonomous and the central office is substantially confined to a support role. Here a distinction is made between control and decentralization. A large federation may delegate administrative authority to its affiliates for efficiency purposes but still retain authority or control through various mechanisms of accountability, such as issuing and revoking charters. In this sense, some nonprofit federations operate like franchises, setting rules and often tight boundaries on affiliates’ discretion, while eschewing direct control. Alternatively, as Oster (1996) explains, some federations operate essentially as unified corporations with their affiliates more tightly held and better characterized as ‘‘branch offices.’’ At the other extreme, in a highly decentralized federation, autonomous members may voluntarily choose to follow guidelines or policies defined by the central body but retain discretion to deviate from those policies. Bradach (2003) reasons that federations whose programs are more highly
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standardized or which do not strongly depend on replicating a particular organizational culture can employ looser, more decentralized structures, while those which are less standardized or more highly dependent on a particular organizational culture must necessarily be tighter and more centralized. He cites STRIVE, a job training organization, as an example of the former, and City Year, an organization that engages young people for a year of urban community service, as an illustration of the latter. Standley (2001) explains that health charities such as the American Cancer Society or March of Dimes tend to be more centralized, corporate type federations. Social service federations such as Volunteers of America or Catholic Charities tend to balance central authority with local autonomy and discretion, setting rules and guidelines for operations but also allowing programmatic choice at the local level. Finally, federations that have coalesced around a common set of issues or interests are likely to be highly decentralized, operating essentially as membership associations. The Southeastern Council of Foundations, the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, Independent Sector, or the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council are examples of such association-type federations whose central offices’ authority derive essentially from the consensus they can develop among their member organizations. Clearly, both the homogeneity of affiliates and the degree of central control are continuous variables that do not conform to strict categories. Moreover, many multipart nonprofits involve a mixture of forms – for example, having both branches and franchised units, as Brickley and Dark (1987) explain are found in for-profit companies as well. The centrality of entrepreneurship and growth in the development of federations mirrors the logic of franchises in the business sector. Baucus, Baucus, and Human (1996) argue that franchises grow in part because entrepreneurs are anxious to exploit the benefits of a franchise system in order to gain a competitive advantage over rivals in starting or expanding local businesses. Similarly, Young (1985) finds that case studies of start-ups as well as program innovations and expansions in the nonprofit sector often reveal entrepreneurial choices to leverage the advantages of federations and the difficulties of undertaking such initiatives independently. In fact, federations come about through a variety of entrepreneurial scenarios such as the following:
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5. 1. An organization could expand as a single entity, establishing internal divisions and branch offices as needed to manage efficiently. Thus, the March of Dimes was established as a single organization and grew through
the establishment of tightly controlled chapters throughout the country. An organization could replicate itself through franchise arrangements that allow it to retain control over the character of its affiliates as they spread and grow. To do so, it would establish a central office geared to overseeing franchised units. Once the system is established, independent local nonprofit entrepreneurs could decide to buy into it, establishing local franchises and agreeing to abide by the rules of the system. Breakthrough Collaborative is one contemporary example (www.breakthroughcollaborative.org). McCarthy (2002) provides several diverse examples from the social movement field – the Anti-Saloon League, the Southern Farmer’s Alliance, Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), and the Association for Children for Enforcement and Support (ACES). An organization could be imitated by other groups that adapt its concept to new venues. In this imitation process, the original organization could be passive, possibly hostile, or it might actively assist its imitators, perhaps, as Taylor, Dees, and Emerson (2002) explain, by licensing or selling its programs or products. Eventually, the original organization and its imitators may decide to collaborate by establishing an umbrella organization to assist with common challenges and support further growth of the movement, and possibly police the parameters of operation. The United Way of America and Boys and Girls Clubs of America illustrate this mode of development. An organization could expand its concept, diversifying the kinds of goods and services it offers, and the clients and donors it attracts. For example, a social service organization emphasizing treatment may find that it can do a better job by adding preventive or education services to its program portfolio. Young (1985) finds that the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services (JBFCS) in New York grew in this way, partly through mergers with other local social service organizations, and also in the context of a larger umbrella federation that encouraged its diversification and expansion. Project HOPE, a poverty fighting organization in Detroit began with a food distribution program and diversified to job training and education, remaining local in its operation, an approach which Taylor, Dees, and Emerson (2002) call ‘‘scaling deep.’’ An organization could decide to remain narrowly focused but increase its effectiveness by expanding its affiliations with other organizations that provide complementary services. This may lead ultimately to a federated system of diverse, related organizations
Federations, Nonprofit
such as Lutheran Social Services or Jewish Philanthropies. Local nonprofit entrepreneurs, either executives or board members of existing, perhaps fledgling, independent organizations, might choose to negotiate their entre´e into such a federation. 6. Organizations growing (or struggling) through all of the above scenarios may identify areas of common interest with other organizations, leading them to join or form associations of diverse members that pursue goals of mutual interest. The American Association of Museums and the Child Welfare League of America are examples. Taylor, Dees, and Emerson (2002) cite the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), a network of member schools and educational centers that share 10 essential principles of school restructuring and redesign. More broadly, as Selsky (1998) explains, even more diverse sets of nonprofit organizations may form federations such as state associations of nonprofit organizations, in order to pursue common interests in policy advocacy, and educational and technical assistance services. Multiple factors are involved in the development of nonprofit federations. These factors include: economies of scale, economies of scope, transactions costs, interorganizational externalities and principal–agent issues. Economies of Scale
A nonprofit organization may find that it can address its mission more efficiently by expanding the scale at which its services, or certain of its activities or functions, are carried out. Expansion strategies include internal growth or merger with another organization. Depending on the nature of the scale economies there are other strategies as well. If the savings from expanding scale are related to common, support functions such as purchasing, marketing, or fund development, such functions can be retained by a central office while smaller-scale field operations may be accomplished through branching or franchising. For franchise-like organizations whose members provide very similar services, O’Flanagan and Taliente (2004) argue that economies of scale in the areas of brand management, back-office services, fund-raising, and performance management constitute the essential justification for federation. Similarly, Bradach (2003) and Taylor, Dees, and Emerson (2002) argue that having a national umbrella allows nonprofits to take advantage of scale economies in quality management, organizational, and programmatic learning, as well as administrative support services. This is consistent with Brown’s (1998: 322) observations that economies of scale in franchise operations in the business
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sector manifest themselves in such functions as ‘‘regional and national advertising, quality control and product standardization.’’ Alternatively, if a nonprofit organization chooses not to expand itself (because of limited scale economies in operations) it may choose to join with imitators or organizations of similar interest in forming umbrella organizations, or join industry associations that perform the support functions at an efficient scale under an appropriate fee structure. Similarly, an organization choosing to join a system of complementary organizations may also take advantage of that system’s scale to achieve support function economies. Taylor, Dees, and Emerson (2002) explain that risk management is another area where economies of scale may apply. A federated system can be viewed as a portfolio of (semi) autonomous enterprises each with its own probabilities of success and failure. By differentiating its organizational ‘‘holdings’’ through federation, a growing nonprofit organization may reduce volatility and maximize its performance within its own parameters of risk tolerance. The effectiveness of this approach in managing risk necessarily grows with scale since expansion itself enables diversification. Moreover, the expansion permits greater organizational learning, helping members of the organization to avoid poor practices and learn about less risky ones. Alternatively, when several autonomous organizations band together into a federation, they can exploit economies of scale in insuring themselves against various kinds of risk. In effect, the federation serves as a safety net for any one of its affiliates. Economies of Scope
Often the mission of a nonprofit organization is more effectively addressed if its services are offered in tandem or combination with other complementary services. For example, the effectiveness of an occupational rehabilitation or work-training organization may be enhanced if convenient child day care services are easily accessible to its clients. A social service organization addressing the needs of children with behavior problems may be able to accomplish its goals more easily if it can coordinate its services with a family counseling program. A nonprofit devoted to improving conditions in a low-income community engages a variety of service providers, in areas such as housing, social services, health care, and youth recreation. Federation structures help nonprofits exploit these economies of scope. Transactions Costs
All structural arrangements involve transactions costs, i.e., the costs of doing business associated with economic
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exchanges among organizational units, including the gathering and assessment of information, and the monitoring and evaluation of processes and results. Ronald Coase (1937) recognized that the growth and size of a firm, and the boundaries between the firm and the open market, were intimately related to the nature of transactions costs. Coase hypothesized that a firm would continue to expand until the cost of the marginal transaction of doing business inside the firm exceeded the cost of performing that same transaction through a contractual arrangement in the marketplace. An application of this idea is developed by Brown (1998) who argued that the costs of motivating employees through an internal system of merit promotion rise as the ratio of subordinates to supervisors increases. At some level, therefore, firms choose to accommodate additional growth through franchises. This substitutes performance-based financial incentives for promotional opportunities and leads to a mixture of internally owned and franchised retail outlets. This basic idea is powerful for understanding how many nonprofit federations develop. A nonprofit may grow through internal expansion until it becomes too costly to conduct all business through a central hierarchy – at which point various alternatives may be considered including the establishment of branches, chapters, or divisions on the one hand, or franchises or affiliates, on the other. This decision may hinge on the relative costs of carrying out transactions under these alternative arrangements. In the former cases, the transaction costs center on internal administrative, budgeting, and control systems, while in the latter cases, transaction costs involve more arm’s-length mechanisms of negotiation, monitoring, and resource exchange through contractual arrangements. Principal–Agent Considerations
Barney and Hesterly (2006) describe principal–agent theory as dealing with the problems associated with carrying out the intent of a decision maker (principal) when the task is delegated to a manager, subordinate, or contractor. Delegation or contracting inevitably involves some loss of control which must be addressed through some combination of incentives and oversight. In forprofit literature, Brown (1998) cites various factors affecting the ability of managers to control their operations, including geographical dispersion of operations, costs, and effectiveness of alternative reward systems, and ability to measure performance. For nonprofit federations, alternative structural arrangements offer differing degrees of oversight, control, and alignment between principal and agent, and may be more or less effective for different variants of nonprofit
service. The measurement of performance in some service areas is more difficult than others, and some services are delivered in more geographically dispersed patterns than others. There are also some special characteristics of nonprofit service that complicate decisions to engage various structural forms. For example, the dearth of unambiguous quantitative measures of performance (such as profit) may enhance the attractiveness of federated arrangements that allow for benchmarking of some units against others, using whatever quantitative and qualitative indicators may be available. The more easily such internal comparative measurements can be made, the more the principal– agent problem can be ameliorated, assuming that the measures themselves are not too costly to collect or too distorting in the incentives they may introduce. The principal–agent problem in the for-profit sector is usually viewed as a ‘‘top-down’’ issue. In the nonprofit sector a more fundamental question is raised by alternative federated arrangements – namely who exactly is the agent and who is the principal? For centralized federations, the implication is clearly that the headquarters organization is the principal and the divisions or branches are the agents. For decentralized federations, sovereignty for the members may be implied and the central organization may be considered an agent of the members. For balanced federations, the central organization and its affiliates may each be both principals and agents, with each level having some degree of autonomy and some degree of accountability to the other. Interorganizational Externalities
Interorganizational externalities are the indirect economic impacts that one organization has on another, outside the realm of direct market transactions. For example, as Baucus, Baucus, and Human (1996) describe in business sector franchises, poor performance by renegade outlets or lack of consensus among franchisees and franchisors on overall goals or means of competition can reduce performance of all franchisees. In the case of nonprofit federations, as in business, such effects are closely bound to issues of reputation. For example, Taylor, Dees, and Emerson (2002) warn against the harm that can be done by ‘‘renegade’’ affiliates: organizations sharing the same or similar names, or to a lesser degree, organizations operating in the same industry or realm of service, affect each other by their actions because consumers, donors, other funders, or the general public may associate such ‘‘related’’ organizations with one another in their own minds, and paint them all with the same brush when it comes to allocating resources, choosing service providers, or advocating for changes in policy. Thus, all United Ways were badly hurt by scandals
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in the central office or in isolated local United Ways in the 1990s. All Catholic parishes were hurt by the pedophile problems of certain highly visible dioceses. And, perhaps to a lesser degree, all foster-care agencies are hurt by stories of abuse in some foster homes, just as all universities are hurt by corruption scandals involving student loan officers in some institutions. The omnipresence of interorganizational externalities is made all the more salient by the role of trust in the nonprofit sector. As Steinberg (2006) explains, trust is one of the theoretical pillars on which the presence of nonprofit organizations in a market economy is understood. In situations where consumers or donors are disadvantaged by asymmetry of information, the nonprofit form serves as a signal of honesty and integrity, based on the incentives and governing arrangements that differentiate nonprofits from for-profit firms. Issues of trust cut both ways for nonprofit federations. Nonprofits that belong to a federation can be hurt by such affiliation if one of its members behaves badly. To the contrary, nonprofit organizations are helped by belonging to federations that enjoy name recognition and trust, and which encourage or enforce appropriate behavior. Bradach (2003) calls this ‘‘ensuring the brand.’’
International Perspectives The development of global associations has been one of the fastest-growing aspects of civil society since the late twentieth century. Most global and transnational nonprofits assume some type of federated form and are subject to the same kinds of growth imperatives considered here. For a review of management and development challenges facing transnational nongovernmental organizations see Young (1991, 1992) and Young et al. (1999).
Future Directions Bradach (2003) criticizes nonprofit organizations for their inability to ‘‘go to scale’’ with their innovative and socially beneficial programs. This is a complex issue given the variety of ways in which nonprofit organizations ‘‘grow’’ by affiliating with one another through federations, and the large presence that federations have in the sector. One important empirical research question is the degree to which nonprofits belong to federations. Given the general definition offered here, it is likely that a very large proportion of nonprofit organizations, perhaps most, belong to a federation of one kind or another. Further, an important issue is the degree to which scale drives nonprofits’ decisions to federate. As discussed here, economies of scale are just one of several factors that
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nonprofit leaders must take into account in determining if, when, and how to grow. The particular nature of scale economies may influence nonprofits to expand as unitary organizations or only to combine certain functions through some form of federation. Clearly too, the absence of scale economies would recommend against a growth strategy based on internal expansion, but a federated strategy might be based on economies of scope, transaction costs, principal/agent issues or interorganizational externalities. Our present understanding of the decision to federate is rudimentary. Hence, nonprofit management practice could benefit from empirical research that clarifies the rationales for federating in different ways or not federating at all. Finally, alternative federation forms present different challenges of management, governance, and organizational strategy. Managing a franchise-like system is unlike managing a loose association of diverse organizational members. Perhaps what is most urgently needed is a sense of how leaders and members of a federation see themselves in relation to one another, in the context of alternative federated forms. Young (2001) argues that a common identity or vision may be a prerequisite to a management plan or strategy. Once these identities are understood, a logical next step is to discover and devise management and governance structures and procedures that best serve the missions of federations and their constituent organizational units.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Boy Scouts ▶ Business and Employers’ Associations ▶ Catholic Charities ▶ Child Welfare League of America ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Girl Scouts ▶ Independent Sector ▶ Intermediary Organizations and Field ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Lutheran Social Services ▶ March of Dimes ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Mothers Against Drunk Drivers ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Professional Associations ▶ Social Franchising ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ Umbrella Organizations ▶ United Way ▶ YMCA
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References/Further Readings Baucus, D. A., Baucus, M. S., & Human, S. E. (1996). Consensus in franchise organizations: A cooperative arrangement among Entrepreneurs. Journal of Business Venturing, 11, 359–378. Barney, J. B., & Hesterly, W. (2006). Organizational economics: Understanding the relationship between organizations and economic analysis. In S. R. Clegg, C. Hardy, T. B. Lawrence, & W. R. Nord (Eds.), The Sage handbook of organizational studies (2nd ed., pp. 111–148). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Bradach, J. L. (2003). Going to scale. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring, from http://www.ssireview.org/site/printer/going_to_scale/ Brickley, J. A., & Dark, F. H. (1987). The choice of organizational form: The case of franchising. Journal of Financial Economics, 18, 401–420. The Bridgespan Group (2007). Habitat for humanity: Funding growth. February, From http://www.bridgespangroup.org/PDF/ FundingGrowth/HabitatforHumanity.pdf Brilliant, E., & Young, D. R. (2004). The changing identity of federated community service organizations. Administration in Social Work, 28(3/4), 23–46. Brown, W. O. Jr., (1998). Transaction costs, corporate hierarchies, and the theory of franchising. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 36, 319–329. Coase, R. (1937). The nature of the firm. Economica, 4, 386–405. Community Action to Fight Asthma (CAFA) (2005). Asthma and environmental advocacy in California: The role of health coalitions – Lessons learned 2002–2005. Report Foster, W., & Fine, G. (2007). How nonprofits get really big. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring, from http://www.ssireview.org/ site/printer/how_nonprofits_get_really_big/ Glaton, J. D. (2007). Feeling pressure from Harvard on college cost. New York Times (pp. A1, A11). December 29. Hall, P. D. (2006). A historical overview of philanthropy, voluntary associations, and nonprofit organizations in the United States, 1600–2000. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., pp. 32–65). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hammack, D. C. (Ed.) (1998). Making the nonprofit sector in the United States. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press Kerlin, J. (2006). Social enterprise in the United States and abroad: Learning from our differences. In R. Mosher-Williams (Ed.), Research on social entrepreneurship, ARNOVA Occasional Paper Series, 1(3), 105–125. McCarthy, J. D. (2002). Franchising social change: Logics of expansion among national social movement organizations with local chapters. Pennsylvania State University, draft, May 1, presented to the Conference on Social Movements and Organization, University of Michigan, May. McCarthy, K. D. (2003). American creed: Philanthropy and the rise of civil society 1700–1865. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Miller, J. L., Shendell, D. G., & Love, M. B., et al. (2005). Asthma and environmental advocacy in California: The role of health coalitions: Lessons learned from community action to fight asthma: 2002–2005. Oakland/San Francisco, CA: CAFA and TCE, from http://www. calasthma.org/about_cafa/case_studies/ O’Flanagan, M., & Taliente, L. K. (2004). Nonprofits: Ensuring that bigger is better. McKinsey Quarterly, 00475394, Issue 2. Oster, S. M. (1996). Nonprofit organizations and their local affiliates: A study in organizational forms. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organisation, 30, 83–95.
Oster, S. M. (1992). Nonprofit organizations as franchise operations. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 2(3): 223–238. Philanthropy News Digest (2007). Habitat for humanity ousts some affiliates. The Foundation Center, October 18, from http:// foundationcenter.org/pnd/news/story.jhtml?id = 192200039 Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rodriguez, L. (2007). The Girl Scouts: Uncharted territory. The Nonprofit Quarterly, Fall, 16–22. Rosenfeld, D. (2002). The Cleveland orchestra story. Cleveland, OH: Gray & Company. Selsky, J. W. (1998). Developmental dynamics in nonprofit federations. Voluntas, 9(3): 283–303. Standley, A. (2001). Reinventing a large nonprofit: Lessons from four voluntary health associations. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 11(3): 305–320. Steinberg, R. (2006). Economic theories of nonprofit organizations. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., pp. 117–139). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Strom, S. (2007). Some worry home charity is shedding grass roots. New York Times, July 18, from nytimes.com Taylor, M. A., Dees, J. G., & Emerson, J. (2002). The question of scale: Finding an appropriate strategy for building on your success. In J. G. Dees, J. Emerson, & P. Economy (Eds.), Strategic tools for social entrepreneurs (pp. 235–266). New York: Wiley. Young, D. R. (1983). If not for profit, for what? Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath. Young, D. R. (1985). Casebook of Management for Nonprofit Organizations: Entrepreneurship and Organizational Change in the Human Services. New York: Haworth Press. Young, D. R. (1989). Local autonomy in a franchise age. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 18, 101–117. Young, D. R. (1991). The structural imperatives of international advocacy organizations. Human Relations, 44(9), 921–941. Young, D. R. (1992). Organizing principles for international advocacy associations. Voluntas, 3(1), 1–28. Young, D. R. (2001). Organizational identity and the structure of nonprofit umbrella associations. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 11(3), 289–304. Young, D. R., & Faulk, L. (2010). Franchises and federations: The economics of multi-site nonprofit organizations. In B. Seaman & R. D. Young (Eds.) Nonprofit management and economics. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar (forthcoming). Young, D. R., Koenig, B. L., Najam, A., & Fisher, J. (1999). Strategy and structure in managing global associations. Voluntas, 10(4), 323–343.
Feeney, Charles (Chuck) Francis FREDA DONOGHUE
Basic Biographical Information Charles Francis Feeney was born on 23 April 1931 in Elizabeth, New Jersey into a modest Irish American Catholic family. On graduation from high school at the age of 17 he signed up to the US Air Force. He served in Japan for
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4 years during the Korean War, after which he went in 1952, on a GI Scholarship, to the Hotel School at Cornell, which had a reputation for producing entrepreneurs. From the start Feeney demonstrated his entrepreneurial talents by setting up a sandwich enterprise selling to his fellow students, which helped provide him with extra income. In 1956, after Cornell, he went to France and from there to Spain. Establishing a duty-free business with another graduate of Cornell (and later two others), they started first by selling alcohol to the US naval ships and moved into cars and perfume. With a constant eye to opportunities, the duty-free empire that Feeney established eventually operated across many countries on several continents. As well as his duty-free business, Feeney made several other significant investments, all of which contributed to making him one of the world’s richest men. One of Feeney’s characteristics was his secrecy and when word eventually began to get out about how rich he was he had already transferred his wealth to a charitable foundation. First called the Atlantic Foundation, established in Bermuda in 1982, this was to eventually become known as the Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the largest philanthropic foundations in the world.
Major Contributions Feeney had already been involved in individual gift giving before he established the Atlantic Foundation and was influenced in his thinking by Carnegie. Reading widely on the subject of philanthropy, Feeney, through Atlantic, developed a model of strategic giving which was renowned for its efficacy and its anonymity. Not only were recipients sworn to secrecy, on threat of losing their funding should they spill the beans, but Feeney ensured from the start that Atlantic would give ‘meaningfully’. He was interested in giving that provided the impetus for other support, whether in the form of other philanthropic donations or government funding. In this way, Feeney worked to ensure that his giving had impact. Education has been the largest beneficiary of his philanthropy because of his belief in the power of education in personal, social, and economic development. Although Feeney was keen to remain anonymous, his giving eventually became so well known that secrecy was farcical and in 2001 the Atlantic Philanthropies officially discarded its policy of confidentiality and anonymity. Feeney was ‘‘outed’’ in the world press and at around the same time a decision was made, mulled over for the previous few years by Feeney, to ‘‘spend down’’ Atlantic’s endowment by around 2016. In addition, the foundation moved away from its previous interests and into the areas of ageing, human rights, health, and disadvantaged
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children and youth, with a commitment to strengthening civil society. Giving while living is regarded by Feeney as more effective and he has been as entrepreneurial in philanthropy as he was in the corporate world. A personally frugal man, his foundation has donated about $4bn and has contributed significantly to the United States, the island of Ireland, Australia, and Vietnam as well as South Africa, Great Britain, Thailand, Cuba, and Bermuda.
Cross-References
▶ Carnegie, Andrew ▶ Strategic Philanthropy
References/Further Readings O’Clery, C. (2007). The billionaire who wasn’t. New York: Public Affairs.
Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund A. JOSEPH BORRELL
Address of Organization P.O. Box 770001 Cincinnati, OH 45277-0053 USA www.charitablegift.org
Introduction Established in 1991 and opened to the public a year later, the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund (FCGF) is the US’s largest and best known donor-advised fund. In June 2008, the FCGF had over $4.7 billion in assets spread across nearly 48,000 named accounts within the overall fund. When measured by assets under management, the FCGF is among the five biggest US public charities.
Brief History FCGF, like other donor-advised funds, has changed the mechanics of giving. It democratized the process of philanthropy by allowing small donors to obtain some of the advantages enjoyed by private foundations or charitable trusts without the administrative responsibilities of these vehicles. In 2009, FCGF allowed individuals to set up named accounts with as little as $5,000 in initial donations.
Mission Accounts at FCGF can be created either through an outright gift or through a pooled income scheme, a type of
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planned giving, which provides lifetime income to a donor or donors and eventually an outright charitable donation. Donors are attracted to FCGF due to the tax advantages that may accrue to the donor from an irrevocable charitable gift of money or other assets to FCGF. Once completed, the funds donated legally belong to FCGF and must be used for charitable purposes. FCGF holds gifts from its various donors in separate accounts and invests the proceeds so that the donation can grow over time. At an appropriate time, a donor can request that the fund’s administrator make grants from the account to other charities of the donor’s choosing. While not legally bound to honor donor choices, virtually all recommendations for grant making are carried out by FCGF. When transmitting funds to other charities, FCGF allows donors to identify the holders of the account and be recognized for the donation or to give the money anonymously. Unlike a typical direct donation to a charity which may result in more fundraising appeals, the easy ability to remain cloaked behind the FCGF’s identity allows donors to freely give to charities while preserving donor privacy.
Activities There is little in the scholarly literature about the Fund. Also, the materials in the popular press (newspapers and magazines) about FCGF often contain now outdated information due to material changes in how the fund operates and tax law changes.
Structure FCGF is governed by an independent board of directors and organized as a public charity, which gives donations to FCGF significant tax advantages compared to donations to a private foundation. The fund’s relationship to the for-profit mutual fund giant Fidelity Investments has been controversial. Despite being able to receive money from the Gift Fund, other charities, including community foundations, have not been impressed by the growth of FCGF. Fundraisers argue that it is difficult for smaller charities to match the name recognition and awareness afforded to Fidelity’s charitable vehicle, given its relationship to Fidelity Investments and their combined large marketing budgets.
Funding The Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund employs Fidelity Investments to provide various administrative and investment services. For example, well known Fidelity Investments mutual funds are among the choices available for funds donated to FCGF, but awaiting disbursement to charities.
In addition, amounts held in the FCGF are assessed regular management and other fees.
Major Accomplishments In the first 15 years of operation, donors used the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund to funnel over $6 billion to other nonprofit organizations. Other investment companies have sponsored the creation of similar donor-advised funds, but FCGF remains the biggest and most wellknown of these funds.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Planned Giving ▶ Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the United States
References/Further Readings Cloutier, C. (2005). Donor advised funds in the U.S.: Controversy and Debate. The Philanthropist, 19(2), 85–108. US Government Accountability Office (2006). Tax exempt organization: Collecting more data on donor-advised funds and supporting organizations could help address compliance changes. Washington, DC.
FIDH ▶ Fe´de´ration Internationale des Ligues des Droits de L’Homme (FIDH)
Filer Commission ▶ Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (The Filer Commission)
Filer, John H. ALICIA SCHORTGEN
Basic Biographical Information John H. Filer was born in 1924 and received a Bachelor of Arts from DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana in 1947. In 1950 Filer earned his Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School. Filer served as a Republican state senator
Flexner, Abraham
from New Haven, Connecticut in 1957 and 1958. John Filer joined Aetna Life and Casualty Company in 1958 as assistant counsel and was named general counsel in 1966. Mr. Filer was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Aetna in 1972 and served as CEO until his retirement in 1984. Aetna’s market share tripled in size during Filer’s tenure and grew to become the nation’s largest shareholderowned insurance company. John Filer died in 1994 in a hospital outside of his hometown of West Hartford, Connecticut.
Major Contributions Often lauded as the ‘‘father of corporate philanthropy’’ because of his introduction of a formal corporate philanthropy program while leading Aetna, John H. Filer dedicated much of his professional life to exploring philanthropic interests. Early in Filer’s executive career, John D. Rockefeller third appointed Filer chairman of the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. The Filer Commission, as it became known, formed in the summer of 1973 to explore private giving to philanthropic organizations in America. On December 2, 1975 the Filer Commission Report, Giving in America: Toward a Stronger Voluntary Sector, was officially presented. John Filer made two short speeches that day, one to Al Ullman, then chair of the Ways and Means Committee, and one to the Washington Press Club. Filer’s contributions to the commission’s findings were significant, and his leadership paved the way for a report that remains the most thorough study of the third sector to date. John Filer served as Independent Sector’s chairman of the board from 1987 to 1989. Independent Sector is a nonprofit organization that serves as a forum for charities, foundations, and corporate giving groups to advance philanthropy and voluntary participation in the United States. During Filer’s leadership, Independent Sector launched its ‘‘Give Five’’ campaign calling upon Americans to give 5% of their income and five volunteer hours per week.
Cross-References
▶ Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (The Filer Commission) ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Independent Sector
References/Further Readings Brilliant, E. L. (2000). Private charity and public inquiry: A history of the Filer and Peterson Commissions. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (1975). Giving in America: Toward a stronger voluntary sector. Washington, DC.
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Flexner, Abraham DARWIN STAPLETON
Basic Biographical Information Abraham Flexner was born on November 13, 1866 in Louisville, Kentucky (United States) to parents who had emigrated from Germany. Graduating in 1886 from Johns Hopkins University, one of the most advanced American universities of its era, he returned to Louisville to establish an innovative college-preparatory school. In 1905–1906 he pursued graduate studies at Harvard University and the University of Berlin.
Major Accomplishments/Achievements In 1908 Flexner was hired by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching to study the status of North American medical schools. His ensuing publication, Medical Education in the United States and Canada (1910), often referred to as ‘‘the Flexner report,’’ was a scathing critique that confirmed and extended existing concerns. Flexner recommended closing four-fifths of the medical schools, and providing more support for the few that emphasized science-based clinical and laboratory instruction. Subsequently (1912–1925) Flexner was employed by the General Education Board, a Rockefeller philanthropy, to help put these reforms into practice, reforms that revolutionized medical education in North America. Flexner continued to promote imaginative, highquality learning at all levels throughout the rest of his career. His argument for modernized grade school education, published as The Modern School (1916), led to the founding of the progressive Lincoln School of Columbia University. From 1930 to 1939 he was the first director of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton University, one of the first think-tanks in the United States. Flexner was a consistent proponent of education for the gifted and capable, believing that it was necessary in the modern age to create a class of well- and broadlyeducated leaders. He also was an advocate for philanthropy on a grand scale, arguing that philanthropy should be directed toward major initiatives rather than to provide sustaining support.
Cross-References
▶ Philanthropy and Professional Advisors ▶ Philanthropy in North America ▶ Rockefeller Sr., John D. ▶ Think Tanks
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References/Further Readings Flexner, A. (1940). I remember: The autobiography of Abraham Flexner. New York: Simon and Schuster. Thomas N. B. (2002). Iconoclast: Abraham Flexner and a life in learning. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Wheatley, S. C. (1988). The politics of philanthropy: Abraham Flexner and Medical Education. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Fondation de France ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization 40 avenue Hoche 75008 Paris France www.fdf.org
Introduction The Fondation de France is a private nonprofit organization recognized by the French government as a charity working in the public interest. It was created to fill the gap between the public and the market of socially oriented organizations and to help other civil society organizations to undertake philanthropic, cultural, scientific, and general interest projects. It acts as an umbrella organization for other French foundations by receiving donations and legacies and awards scholarships and prizes.
provides grants mainly in the areas of housing and employment and in the area of violence prevention. Within Health and Medical Research, Fondation de France supports information dissemination, training, public health and medical research, with a focus on ethics, children, pain, addictions, psychological disease, palliative care, and health education for young people. As part of the Culture program, the foundation has set up pilot programs in which it carries out its mission as mediator between artists and society. In the area of Environment, Fondation de France promotes community gardens as a basis for social inclusion and the exploration of environmental issues. Finally, it supports the development of some 500 foundations.
Activities To pursue these objectives in the main focus areas, the Fondation de France undertakes a variety of activities. It raises and distributes funds to respond to the needs of society in the areas of health, scientific, and medical research, culture, the environment, and solidarity, in particular the fight against poverty and social deprivation. Acting as a sort of foundation incubator, it enables individuals and companies to create charitable foundations under the aegis of the Fondation de France and to have the benefit of the foundation’s advice on management. In its efforts to support the French civil society sector more broadly, the Fondation de France provides assistance in the creation and development of associations and helps them to achieve their aims. In addition, through Friends of Fondation de France based in New York City, the foundation helps US funders to support projects in France.
Brief History The Fondation de France was established in 1969 on the initiative of Andre´ Malraux, the first Minister of Culture of France, to help individuals and companies carry out philanthropic, cultural, environmental, or scientific projects and social activities.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Unlike most French foundations, which tend to have narrowly defined and fixed objectives, the Fondation de France is a multipurpose foundation. Its three central objectives are to give grants to associations working in the field of social problems with especially innovative approaches; to encourage philanthropy by both promoting generosity in France and improving the practice of philanthropy globally; and, finally, to house individual and corporate foundations. Fondation de France’s program areas cover a broad range of themes. Under the Social Cohesion program, it
Structure and Governance Fondation de France is governed by a Board of Trustees and an administrative council (‘‘conseil d’administration’’), which decides on general policies. A staff of more than 120 full-time employees is responsible for implementing the decisions of the administrative council. The administrative council and staff are supported by more than 400 volunteers, many of them working in committees of experts, voluntary professionals who are on hand to advise in the foundation’s various areas of activity, including programs and financial management.
Funding The Fondation de France received its first endowment from the Caisse des De´poˆts et Consignation, a public agency that pools the fund of the public savings banks and 17 other public or private banks. With assets in 2006 amounting to more than €900 million, the foundation
Fondazione Cariplo
finances itself through revenue from its endowment, donations, and bequests, and government funding. Two-thirds of Fondation de France grants come from individual foundations or funds, which contribute capital and designate a field to support in the form of prizes, scholarships, and grants. Total expenditures in 2006, including those of all the foundations and funds under Fondation de France’s management, amounted to more than €126 million.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In its more than 40 years of operations, Fondation de France has financed more than 100,000 projects and 50,000 associations. As of the end of 2007, more than 600 foundations or funds, including 57 created by businesses, were operating under the aegis of Fondation de France. Undoubtedly, it has contributed immensely to the development of the French foundation sector and to its civil society more broadly.
Cross-References
▶ Bloch-Laine´, Francois ▶ Philanthropy in Europe
References/Further Readings Pavillon, E. (1995). La Fondation de France: 1969 – 1994. L’invention d’un me´ce´nat contemporain. Paris: Anthropos.
Fondazione Cariplo ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization Via Manin, 23 20121 Milano Italy www.fondazionecariplo.it
Introduction An Italian foundation of banking origin in Milan, Fondazione Cariplo promotes the social, cultural and economic development of the Lombardy community as well as the communities of the Novara and Verbania provinces. With more than 50 staff members, the foundation is the fourth largest member of the European Foundation Centre, and its assets currently stand at €6.3 billion.
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Brief History Fondazione Cariplo was established in 1991 following the reorganization of Italy’s banking system under the Amato-Carli legislation. The foundation manages the assets of the Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde, a savings bank established in Milan in 1823. After defeating Napoleon in 1816, Imperial Austria had gained vast Italian territories, including Lombardy. In the face of terrible poverty from devastating, long-drawn Napoleonic Wars, the Austrian administration commissioned a group of capable, honest Milanese aristocrats to create and manage a philanthropic organization that would aid the poorest population and finance economic activities. Their efforts led to the creation of an entity named Commissione Centrale di Beneficenza, which exists to this very day as one of the governing bodies of Fondazione Cariplo.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area The mission of Fondazione Cariplo is to be a resource that helps social and civil organizations better serve their own community. The Foundation designs its work around the environment, arts and culture, social services, research and technology transfer. Each of these program areas maintains its own staff.
Activities In addition to offering a competitive grants program, Fondazione Cariplo also carries out independent programmatic initiatives. The foundation promotes, designs, and implements its own projects in partnership with other entities, and these projects are managed directly by the foundation’s staff. The foundation also supports a sizable independent art collection. Continuing the artistic heritage of the Savings Bank of the Lombardy Provinces, Fondazione Cariplo presently owns a collection of significant historicalartistic artwork, which includes 780 paintings, 118 sculptures, 52 objets d’art, and furniture that belong to a period between the first century and the second half of the twentieth century.
Structure and Governance Fondazione Cariplo’s main governing body is the Steering Board (also known as Commissione Centrale di Beneficenza, or CCB), which sets the Foundation’s operational strategies and policies. The 40 members of the CCB serve a 6-year term. The President is appointed by the CCB, and he supervises the implementation of the Foundation’s strategies. He is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors,
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which is in charge of operational decision-making. The Board of Directors consists of the Chairman, two Deputy Chairmen, and six other members elected by the CCB, and members serve a 3-year term. The Secretary General is responsible for the functional and organizational coordination of the Foundation. The current President of Fondazione Cariplo is Giuseppe Guzzetti, and Dr. Pier Mario Vello serves as Secretary General.
Funding Shortly after 1816, Milan’s Austrian administrators suggested that a savings bank be created in the fashion of Vienna’s Savings Bank. In 1823 Milanese savings bank Cassa di Risparmio di Milano (later renamed Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde) was incorporated, and its aim was to promote household savings in Lombardy. The Amato-Carli legislation of 1991 permitted the privatization of Italy’s banking system. Under the Amato-Carli Act, Italian savings banks demerged their lending businesses into newly formed joint-stock companies. The remaining entities changed their legal status and became foundations. In January 1998, Fondazione Cariplo completed the sale of its shares in Cariplo Spa (the joint-stock company), which led to the formation of Banca Intesa, one of Italy’s leading banking groups. The proceeds from that negotiation enabled Fondazione Cariplo to become one of the world’s largest foundations. For the last fiscal year, the earnings of Fondazione Cariplo were €462,938,703 and expenditures were €21,107,331. Fondazione Cariplo does not receive any government funds and its income is generated from the management of its financial asset base, which currently amounts to €6.3 billion.
Accomplishments Fondazione Cariplo was awarded the ‘‘Committed to Excellence’’ (C2E) recognition by the European Foundation for Quality Management (EFQM) for its implementation of the EFQM Model and the way it applied the principles of Knowledge Management to become a Knowledge Creating Foundation. The EFQM Model is used by over 30,000 organizations, and more information about EFQM is available at www.efqm.org The foundation also won the 2008 Annual Report Oscar in its category (Foundations of Banking Origin, Corporate Foundations, Nonprofit Grantmaking Organizations). The Annual Report Oscar is a prestigious award organized by FERPI, the Italian Association of PR Professionals, under the auspices of the President of the
Republic of Italy. In the last 45 years, the Oscar has been given to those organizations that achieved communication excellence in their annual reports. Other information about FERPI is available at www.ferpi.it/ferpi/association.
Cross-References
▶ Charity, History of ▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ European Foundation Centre ▶ Nonprofit Mergers ▶ Philanthropy in Europe
References/Further Readings Salole, G. (2007). We have only just begun – A conversation with Giuseppe Guzzetti. Effect Magazine, 1(2), 20. Stru¨bin, M. (2006). Community Foundations in Europe. Mennagio Magazine.
Ford Foundation ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization 320 East 43rd Street New York, NY 10017 USA www.fordfound.org
Introduction With 600 staff members, the independent and nongovernmental grantmaking foundation is headquartered in New York City and makes grants throughout the United States and in more than 50 countries. The second largest foundation in the United States and the third largest member of the European Foundation Centre, the foundation’s assets were reported at $13.7 billion in 2007.
Brief History Founded on January 15, 1936 with an initial gift of $25,000 ‘‘all for the public welfare,’’ the Ford Foundation was created by Edsel Ford, whose father Henry founded the Ford Motor Company. During the first years of the foundation’s work, grants were confined almost entirely to Michigan philanthropies of interest to the Ford family, mainly the Henry Ford Hospital and the Edison Institute. In 1949, the board approved the recommendations created by the seven-member Gaither Study Committee,
Ford Foundation
which proposed that the foundation become an international philanthropy dedicated to solving humankind’s most pressing problems. The committee, headed by California attorney H. Rowan Gaither, recommended that the foundation should commit to promoting peace, freedom, and education throughout the world. The foundation then expanded its grant making to include support for higher education, the arts, economic development, civil rights, and the environment, among other areas. In 1952, the foundation’s first international field office opened in New Delhi.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area The foundation’s mission to strengthen democratic values, reduce poverty and injustice, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement is reflected by its work in 13 individual fields, which include Arts and Culture, Community Development, Economic Security, Education, Governance, Human Rights, and Workforce Development.
Activities The foundation’s major activities fall into Programs, Signature Initiatives, and Partnerships. The foundation makes about 2,000 grants throughout the year in the following three program areas: Asset Building and Community Development, Peace and Social Justice, and Knowledge, Creativity, and Freedom. The foundation also supports 13 Signature Initiatives, which typically require significant funding over a period of years. Grantcraft, first a signature initiative in 2001, had in 6 years developed into a stand-alone project and currently offers dozens of guides, case studies, and videos designed to prompt discussions among foundation practitioners about strategic and tactical lessons in philanthropy. The foundation’s support for Israel and Eastern Europe, which dates back to the 1950s, has been expanded through its special partnerships with organizations in Jerusalem and Sofia whose work coincides with the foundation’s priorities. The foundation also publishes resources and reports for direct use by grantmakers. Its publications include regional brochures that highlight the foundation’s work organized by its 12 global offices, books and studies that cover a wide range of topics, and an online E-Library that includes archives from 1949–1999.
Structure and Governance The Ford Foundation is governed by a 14-member Board of Trustees – 11 from the United States and three who
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are citizens of other countries. All trustees are nominated by a trustee committee and their responsibilities include serving on one of the board’s three program committees, setting policies (in grant making, geographic focus, spending, investment, management, governance, and professional standards), and overseeing internal and independent audits. Trustees generally serve two 6-year terms and typically have extensive experience in higher education, business, law, government, nonprofit management and the civic sector. Notable past trustees include Kermit Gordon (former President, Brookings Institution), Roy E. Larsen (former President, Time Inc.), and William G. Milliken (former Governor of Michigan), The current Board Chair is Katherine S. Fuller (President and CEO of the World Wildlife Fund), and Luis A. Ubin˜as serves as the Ford Foundation President.
Funding In the 1940s, the bequests of Henry Ford and his son Edsel transformed the organization into what was then the largest foundation in the world. In 1949, the foundation received 1,153,809 shares of class ‘‘A’’ nonvoting stock from the estate of Edsel Ford, and the next year, it received 26,099 shares from the estate of Henry Ford. To date, the foundation has distributed more than $15 billion worldwide. As of the end of its 2007 fiscal year, the foundation’s assets were valued at $13.7 billion. The foundation operates solely on funding generated from its endowment.
Accomplishments The Ford Foundation’s most influential work rests around its long term support of projects that reflect its mission. In the area of public broadcasting, for example, the foundation has made significant impact through its funding and support from 1951–2005. Also, in civil rights and human rights both in the United States and abroad, the foundation’s influence since the late 1960s has resulted in significant social change, and it continues to be a core part of the foundation’s mission and work around the world.
Cross-References
▶ Ford, Henry ▶ Philanthropy in North America ▶ Social Justice
References/Further Readings Berman, E. (1983). The ideology of philanthropy: The influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller foundations on American Foreign Policy. New York: State University of New York Press.
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Edwards, M. (2008). Just another emperor? The myths and realities of Philanthrocapitalism. New York: Demos: A Network for Ideas & Action. Korey, W. (2007). Taking on the world’s repressive regimes: The ford foundation’s international human rights policies and practices. New York: Palgrave McMillian.
Ford, Henry DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Henry Ford was born in 1863 to Irish immigrant parents on a family farm in what is now Dearborn, Michigan. The first of six children, Henry showed an early interest in mechanics and would later revolutionize manufacturing while building the largest automaker in the world. At the age of 16, Ford left the family farm and went to work as an apprentice machinist in Detroit. Ford spent time operating and servicing steam engines and running a sawmill before becoming an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company in 1891. Within 2 years, Ford was promoted to Chief Engineer, and began experimenting with internal combustion engines. After two unsuccessful attempts to start an automobile company, the Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903. By 1908, Ford ushered in a new era of personal transportation with the introduction of the Model T. Ten years later, half the cars in the United States were Model Ts and Ford’s revolutionary assembly line production made the company the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. He died in 1947 in Fair Lane, his Dearborn estate, and he is buried in the Ford Cemetery in Detroit. After his death, Ford Motor Company recovered from its recent losses, and went on to become an American Institution. In 2007, Ford was the seventh-ranked overall American-based company, with global revenues of $172.5 billion.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions With a gift of $25,000 from his son Edsel, Ford and his son created the Ford Foundation in 1936 ‘‘to receive and administer funds for scientific, educational, and charitable purposes, all for the public welfare.’’ The Ford Foundation soon became a national and international philanthropy dedicated to reducing poverty, promoting democratic values, striving for peace and building educational capacities and understanding of human conduct. After Ford’s passing in 1947, and in response to a
commissioned study to chart the institutions’ future, the foundation expanded its grantmaking activities to include national and international support for higher education, the arts, economic development, civil rights, and the environment, among other areas. Notable gifts from the foundation include the first grant to support the creation of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in 1951 and a $1 million gift to the Children’s Television Workshop in 1969 to help create and launch ‘‘Sesame Street.’’ Although Ford is best known for his wealth and innovative manufacturing technologies, as an employer he helped introduce the concepts of minimum wage and the 40-hour work week. Recognizing that efficiency meant retaining quality employees, he enacted a $5-perday program in 1914 (more than doubling the previous minimum daily pay) and in 1926 he implemented a five eight-hour day work week.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Grantmaking Foundations
References/Further Readings Bak, R. (2003). Henry and Edsel: The creation of the ford empire. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Brinkley, D. (2003). Wheels for the world: Henry Ford, his company, and a century of progress. New York: Viking. Ford, H. (1922). My life and work [in collaboration with Samuel Crowther]. Garden City: Doubleday. Watts, S. (2005). People’s tycoon: Henry Ford and the American century. New York: A. A. Knopf.
Foundation Center SALVATORE ALAIMO
Address of Organization 79 Fifth Avenue/16th Street New York, NY 10003-3076 USA www.foundationcenter.org
Introduction The Foundation Center (FC) describes itself as ‘‘the nation’s leading authority on philanthropy, connecting nonprofits and the grantmakers supporting them to tools they can use and information they can trust.’’ They
Foundation Center
maintain a comprehensive database on US grantmakers and their grants, conduct research, and provide training for the purpose of advancing philanthropy. They have five regional library/learning centers in New York City, Atlanta, Cleveland, San Francisco and Washington, DC as well as a more than 340 cooperative collections across the country.
Brief History FC was founded in 1956 by the Carnegie Corporation, and the Ford, Rockefeller, Kellogg, and Russell Sage foundations for the purpose of providing centralized information about foundations and grantmaking activity. F. Emerson Andrews of the Russell Sage Foundation served as first president of what was then called The Foundation Library Center in New York City. The center’s model of cooperating collections began with its first collection in the Interlibrary Center in Chicago, in 1959 and grew to include a collection in every state by 1978. The Washington DC center opened in 1963, the Cleveland and San Francisco centers opened in 1977, and the Atlanta center opened in 1994. In 1968, the organization changed its name to The Foundation Center to represent their services beyond the libraries that are still active today. The organization continues to utilize technology in its services such as The Foundation Directory Online which debuted in 1999.
Mission FC’s mission is to ‘‘strengthen the nonprofit sector by advancing knowledge about US philanthropy’’ and its values include recognizing philanthropy’s important role in democratic society and that effective philanthropy requires accurate, shared information, accountability, and transparency.
Activities FC utilizes various methods for providing information about foundations and grantmaking in free, subscriptionbased, online, and hard copy formats. Some include Foundation Finder which provides free, basic information about foundations and the subscription-based Foundation Directory Online. Hard copy versions of foundation directories are available at all five locations. The Center also provides free real-time chats with their librarians for people conducting research or seeking information on grantseeking, grantmaking, and nonprofit management. FC conducts research on national, regional, and international grantmaking trends including Foundation Yearbook: Facts and Figures on Private and Community
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Foundations which provides information on the state of foundation giving. They also conduct research on special topics such as More Than Grantmaking: A First Look at Foundations’ Direct Charitable Activities; and provide statistics on grantmakers and grants. Training is provided by FC on various topics, both paid and free in person and online formats, including Proposal Writing Seminar, Proposal Budgeting Workshop, Cultivating Grantmaker Relationships, Proposal Writing Basics and How to Approach a Foundation.
Structure and Governance The Foundation Center is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization with approximately 15 trustees on their board from across the United States. The headquarters in New York City has approximately 14 senior staff, and their president also serves on the board. Each of the five regional offices (libraries) has directors who report to the New York office and have their own staff and advisory boards.
Funding The Center’s total revenue of more than $21.5 million for the year ending December 31, 2007 came from a variety of sources including approximately 12% from foundations and corporations; 44% from publication revenues; 10% from program service and other fees; 6% from return on investments; and 19% from net assets released from restrictions. The organization incurred expenses of approximately $20.5 million resulting in a surplus of about $1 million.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Foundation Center’s major contribution to civil society has been connecting grantseekers to grantmakers to enable more efficient and effective grantmaking intended to positively impact nonprofit management and the causes organizations serve. The Center’s inclusive access to accurate and current information has enabled organizations, especially those lacking capacity, to advance their operations through philanthropic fundraising, resulting in diminishing the hindrance of information asymmetry.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Philanthropy in North America
References/Further Readings Andrews, F. E. (1973). Foundation watcher. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Foundations, Community
Foundations, Community PETER WALKENHORST Bertelsmann Stiftung, Gu¨tersloh, Germany
Introduction Community foundations are local philanthropic organizations that seek to improve the quality of life in a defined geographic area. They establish and manage permanent endowment and other funds for a wide variety of donors, provide services to those donors, distribute grants, operate programs, and mobilize leadership to address community needs and opportunities. During the last two decades, this originally North American concept has spread around the globe. This worldwide dispersion of community foundations derives from the adaptability of their core ideals across national and cultural borders. The idea of a foundation that enables individuals with charitable impulses to respond to local or regional needs (‘‘connecting people who care with causes that matter,’’ as one foundation describes it) has proven its ability to adjust to various cultural, societal, and legal environments. As a result, the community foundations concept has become truly international and now offers a framework for the development of community-based philanthropy around the world. Notwithstanding the differences among individual countries, community foundations everywhere have similar functions: By building philanthropic and social capital they are strengthening the essential fabric of their given communities. By attracting financial resources from many different donors, they also make an important contribution to the democratization of philanthropy.
Definition The community foundation concept is, at the same time, both simple and complex. It is simple in the sense that a community foundation mobilizes and connects resources to needs in a community. It is complex, however, because this mission can be accomplished in various ways. Feurt (1999: 25) defines a community foundation as ‘‘an independent philanthropic organisation working in a specific geographic area which, over time, builds up a permanent collection of endowed funds contributed from many donors, provides services to those donors, and makes grants and undertakes community leadership activities to address a wide variety of current and long-term needs in its service area.
The foundation is governed by a board of citizens broadly reflective of the community it serves.’’ These functions and characteristics distinguish a community foundation from all other types of foundations. Yet, it is important to note that no two community foundations are exactly alike. While some display most of the attributes listed above, others place greater emphasis on one characteristic over another. Even in countries with a long history of community foundations, significant variations exist in their organizational structure, governance, and role in the community. Consequently, as the concept has spread to different countries, it has adapted and modified itself to relate to different societal and cultural contexts.
Historical Background Community-based philanthropy is not a new phenomenon. Nor is it an invention of Western civilization. The idea of a foundation that pools resources from local donors to address local needs can be found in many cultures around the globe. In the European tradition, for example, local charitable giving in collective forms dates back as far as the Middle Ages. The modern community foundation, however, was first established in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1914 on the initiative of Frederick Harris Goff, a local banker. As the administrator of many large bequests, Goff had observed firsthand how quickly posthumous gifts to charity could become obsolete. He had an idea to consolidate a number of these trusts into a single foundation that would be governed by a board of local citizens. While the banks would continue to manage the trust assets, the citizen board would be responsible for making grants to community organizations and initiatives. This new philanthropic vehicle not only relieved local trust banks of the burden of grant making, but also ensured that the changing needs of the community would be addressed in the future, even if the original purpose of a trust had become obsolete. Goff ’s idea caught on. What started as a local experiment in Cleveland, rapidly spread across the Midwest and Northeast of the United States and across the border to Canada. Between 1914 and 1924, 26 community trusts were set up in the United States alone, most of them in the Midwest. During the ‘‘Great Depression’’ in the 1930s, community foundations experienced a period of decline. The economic crisis also reduced confidence in the banks. As a consequence, when the movement revived after World War II most community foundations were now established under the charitable corporation form; boards had the authority to make their own investment decisions.
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Throughout the late 1940s and 1950s the numbers and assets of community foundations continued to increase steadily. Not until the 1960s, however, did their growth begin to show real vigor. Community foundations now also prospered in the West and the South, which had always lagged behind other regions. This trend was further accelerated by the Tax Reform Act of 1969. As part of the reforms instituted by the new law, community foundations received the favored tax status as ‘‘public charities’’ which gave them considerable advantages over private foundations. In addition, the newly established regulations included a ‘‘public support test’’ that required community foundations to prove that they received at least one third of their financial support from the general public. These changes had the side effect of spurring a new emphasis upon donor development and thus became the impetus for further growth during the late 1970s and 1980s. During the late 1970s and 1980s community foundation assets continued to grow rapidly. The concept spread across the country, often supported by large private foundations, which viewed community foundations as partners for promoting philanthropy or operating specific programs on the local level. This general trend was further enhanced during the 1980s by the massive reductions in government programs for community development and social services. Given these cutbacks in federal funding, individual donors, corporations, and private foundations increasingly looked to community foundations as a way to meet public needs. After the establishment of the Winnipeg Foundation in 1921, Canadian community foundations also experienced a slow but steady growth during the next decades. As in the United States, a more dynamic development began to occur in the late 1970s. During the same period, community foundations began to establish a foothold overseas. The first community foundation outside North America was established in the United Kingdom in 1976. More foundations followed in the 1980s. The political and economic situation in the United Kingdom during these years resembled that in the United States in many ways. The central government was actively reducing the financing of local not-for-profit organizations, which, therefore, began to search for new ways to build and sustain resources. Apart from the United Kingdom, the community foundation concept also set down roots in Australia where the first community foundation was established in 1983. Thus, by the end of the 1980s, a total of approximately 340 community foundations existed in the Anglo-American world, most of them in the United States.
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The final decade of the twentieth century marked a watershed in the evolution of community foundations. It was characterized by two different developments: the explosive growth of community foundations in both numbers and assets in North America, and the global spread of the community foundation concept. In the United States, the overall number of community foundations almost tripled, and their assets skyrocketed at a hitherto unprecedented pace. This explosive growth was spurred to a great extent by the increasing popularity of donor-advised funds which allow donors a more active role in grant making from those funds. Although community foundations had offered donor-advised funds since the late 1970s, a new generation of donors sought a higher level of engagement in their philanthropy. Consequently, community foundations, which during their early years grew primarily from bequests, increasingly focused their development efforts on living donors. The upsurge of community foundations was further enhanced by the continuing growth of private wealth and the economic boom of the 1990s. That wealth, however, as Bernholz and colleagues (2005: 6) have noted, ‘‘created not only more philanthropy, but the sudden realization that philanthropy was a business and potentially a profitable market or product extension for financial service firms.’’ The launch of the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, which entered the market in 1991, therefore, marked a turning point in the history of community foundations in North America. From this moment on, community foundations were facing sharp competition from charitable gift funds in what many of them considered their core business: providing options and services to donors. Many community foundations responded to this new competition by improving their operating practices and transactional efficiency. The new competitive environment also accelerated the development of National Standards for US Community Foundations which were adopted by the Council on Foundations (COF) in late 2000. These standards were designed to demonstrate transparency and fiscal responsibility, to guide sound policies and practices of accountability, and to distinguish community foundations from other philanthropic vehicles. As a result of these efforts, community foundations became one of the fastest growing forms of organized philanthropy in the United States. According to the Foundation Center (2008: 1, 4), in 2007, giving by 717 community foundations rose to a record US$4.1 billion, surpassing the rate of increase for independent and corporate foundations. Although community foundations constituted just 1% of all US grant-making foundations, they accounted
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for almost 9% of giving. In 2005, assets held by US Community Foundation amounted to a new record of US$49.9 billion. Like the United States, Canada saw an explosion of community foundation development during the 1990s. During the period from 1992 to 2007 the number of community foundations increased from 35 to 155. Today community foundations are located in all Canadian provinces and in the North West Territories. In 2006 they collectively held assets of roughly CAN$3 billion and granted over CAN$135 million for local priorities. Together they constitute one of that country’s largest philanthropic resources. While community foundations grew rapidly in the United States and Canada, the concept was successfully adopted in several European countries. In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) community foundations emerged as part of the transformation of societies after the collapse of communism in 1989. The first community foundation in continental Europe was formed in the Slovak city of Banska´ Bystrica in 1994. Within a few years, the concept was also explored in the Czech Republic, Poland, and Bulgaria. Community foundations in CEE were often the first philanthropic organizations in the communities in which they emerged. Thus, they played an important role in reinventing philanthropy and civic engagement which had been thoroughly compromised during the socialist era. Similar roles were being performed by community foundations in the Baltic States and Russia. In Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania, community foundations emerged at the turn of the century as part of the consolidation of democracy and civil society. In Russia, the first community foundation was registered in 1998 in the city of Togliatti. The Togliatti Community Foundation soon became the model for a countrywide movement which by the end of 2007 encompassed 27 community foundations. In Western Europe community foundations have become a well-established form of community-based philanthropy. They are widely seen as an instrument to promote philanthropy, especially among moderately wealthy donors. In the United Kingdom, where community foundations first emerged in the 1980s, the movement witnessed its most dynamic growth during the 1990s. By 2007, there were 55 foundations, most of them countrybased, holding total combined assets of over £141 million. With grants of over £70 million in 2006, community foundations, collectively, were the largest independent funding source to local charities and voluntary groups after government. The community foundation concept also spread rapidly throughout Germany. The first German community foundation was set up in 1996 in Gu¨tersloh
with assistance from the Bertelsmann Stiftung. Since then, the movement has gained considerable momentum. With over 200 community foundations in almost all parts of the country, the concept is, today, firmly grounded in Germany. Another example of the adaptation of the community foundation concept is in Italy, where the first community foundation was established in 1999 in Lecco. The concept was introduced and promoted by the Cariplo Foundation, a private foundation that originated from the privatization of the largest Italian savings bank. As a result of these efforts, by 2006, there were 22 community foundations, all of them located in northern Italy. In addition to the countries already mentioned, community foundations also emerged in Belgium, Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Croatia, and Turkey. Community foundations also developed in other parts of the world. In Latin America, Mexico has become the hub of community foundation development. The first Mexican community foundation was established in 1995 in the city of Oaxaca. In 2007, there were roughly two dozen formally established community foundations. They rely primarily on corporate and local government giving, and the bulk of funds received are not for endowment building, but for pass-through grant making. Besides Mexico, community foundations are also gaining a foothold in the Caribbean and in Brazil. They have also grown rapidly in Australia, where their number increased from three in 1997 to 28 in 2007. Likewise New Zealand, where the first community foundations was set up a decade ago, has seen a steady growth of this form of philanthropy. In Asia the community foundation concept is being explored in several countries, most notably in India, Thailand, and the Philippines. In addition, there are at least two community foundations known to exist in Japan and one in South Korea. Community foundations or community-foundation-like organizations also emerged in SubSaharan Africa. Most of them were established in the late 1990s. At present, community foundations exist in South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, and other countries have expressed interest in following suit. South Africa is the furthest advanced. The Uthungulu Community Foundation, the first community foundation in Africa established in 1997, and other South African community foundations are promoting the concept nationally and internationally and are providing technical assistance to organizations and local communities in search of a sustainable development model. As this brief historical sketch shows, community foundations are expanding rapidly in both developed and developing countries, proving that the concept is
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adaptable to various societal contexts, cultures, and traditions of giving. Although the exact number of community foundations worldwide is difficult to determine, because the definition is complex and there are many hybrid models, a conservative count by Sacks (2008: 16) shows over 1,450 community foundations in at least 46 countries that meet the above-mentioned characteristics. It is, however, too early to tell whether the proliferation of the community foundation concept around the world will result in sustainable organizations everywhere. Community foundations are still in their infancy in many parts of the globe, and most foundations outside North America are still struggling to become sustainable organizations.
Key Issues Financial and organizational sustainability constitutes the primary challenge for the majority of community foundations worldwide. As measured by their assets, most community foundations outside the United States and Canada are still quite small. Due to their relatively small asset bases and the consequently small returns on investment, a significant part of their annual operating budgets must be secured by ongoing fund-raising activities. In order to achieve sustainable growth as an organization, these foundations, therefore, will have to intensify their asset development and capacity-building efforts. Even in the United States, sustainability continues to be a key issue for many community foundations. As Nico and colleagues (2007: 4) have pointed out, ‘‘more than 50percent of community foundations in the US are less than 10 years old’’ and ‘‘two thirds have less than $25 million in assets.’’ This means that despite the remarkable success stories of many individual foundations, a great number of US community foundations – like the majority of their counterparts in other countries – are still faced with the challenge of becoming sustainable organizations. On the other hand, while many North American community foundations have increased their management and marketing sophistication and successfully raised vast amounts of new, mainly donor-advised funds, asset growth became their main indicator of success. This tendency to focus primarily on building assets rather than addressing community problems prompted critics to argue that many community foundations had de facto developed into charitable banks for wealthy individuals and were losing sight of their core responsibility: to respond to the needs of the entire community. Bernholz and colleagues (2005), for example, posited that community foundations would risk irrelevance if they continued to use the size of their endowment as the primary definition of institutional success. They recommended that, in light
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of competitive pressures from financial service firms and rapidly evolving technology that connects donors directly and instantaneously to not-for-profit organizations, community foundations should shift their emphasis from managing financial assets and serving donors to community expertise and leadership. As a result, more US community foundations are rethinking their mission, vision, and values, trying to make community leadership both a moral and market imperative of their work. Last, but not least, the global growth of community foundations also corresponds with the changing notion of ‘‘community.’’ Community foundations have been historically defined by the geographic territories they serve. This traditional focus on location is, however, becoming increasingly limited in an era of growing international connectivity. Communication technology and other processes of globalization as well as the rise of new communities of identity, interest, and experience are forcing community foundations to rethink the concept of ‘‘community’’ which had been taken for granted for many years.
International Perspectives Despite the fundamentally local mission and orientation of community foundations, many of them are becoming more engaged in international activities. Modern information and communications technology allows for the rapid dissemination of knowledge, and has created an accelerating trend toward working across national borders. As a result, community foundations around the globe are becoming increasingly connected not only within their own countries but also internationally. Networking and peer learning opportunities, supported by private foundations, such as the C. S. Mott, the Ford, and the Bertelsmann Foundations, have fostered this development. This powerful trend is being reinforced by the growing interest of many donors in giving to international causes. They expect their community foundations to assist them in this endeavor. In response to this development, several community foundations have enhanced their expertise in transnational giving, while others have amended their charters and bylaws in order to be able to facilitate cross-border donations. The growing international linkages and interactions among community foundations are an expression of their evolving roles in an increasingly globalized world. Although available data are extremely limited, there is evidence that transnational giving by community foundations has grown rapidly in recent years. According to Renz and Atienza (2004: 22–23), transnational giving from US community foundations’ unrestricted or donor-advised funds quadrupled between 1998 and 2002. During the same period, the number of community foundations
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making international grants increased from 29 to 42. A more recent study by the same authors reports that between 2002 and 2004 US community foundations, which accounted for just over 1% of international giving, displayed the fasted growth in grant dollars – up 35% to US$39.2 million (Renz & Atienza 2006: 2–3). The Community Foundation Silicon Valley distributed about 5% of its grants in 2004 outside the United States. Its board formally approved giving outside the region as part of what the foundation does, and has amended its articles of incorporation accordingly. The revised articles state the foundation’s mission of serving local charities and local donors and point out that serving those donors includes making grants locally, nationally, and globally. A large part of what is driving this trend toward transnational giving is commonly known as ‘‘diaspora philanthropy’’ charitable giving from individuals who reside outside their homeland to their countries or communities of origin. Diaspora philanthropy occupies a unique position in the shifting philanthropic landscape, because it is both local and international. For this reason it is of particular interest for community foundations, especially in cities or regions with sizable immigrant population who maintain a sense of identity with their homeland. Against this background, community foundations are likely to play a more active role in facilitating diaspora giving and transnational giving in general.
Future Directions Community foundations have evolved into a truly international form of organized philanthropy. Their unique features have made them attractive for communities all around the globe. The worldwide spread of the community foundation concept corresponds with the ongoing internationalization of community foundation activities as is becoming manifest in their growing international connectivity and their increasing transnational giving. The forces of globalization also enlarge the concept of ‘‘community’’ which is no longer defined exclusively in terms of geography. With rapidly evolving communication technologies, a growing variety of social activities is taking place irrespective of the geographical location of participants. The upsurge of community foundations at the international level is, however, a fairly recent phenomenon, and their continued growth and sustainability are by no means a forgone conclusion. Yet, although they constitute only a minor share of the overall number of philanthropic organizations, community foundations are strategically positioned to foster the development of philanthropy on the local as well as on the international level.
Cross-References
▶ Cleveland Foundations ▶ Community Philanthropy ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Functions of ▶ Goff, Frederick Harris ▶ Philanthropy, Definition
References/Further Readings Bernholz, L. et al. (2005). On the brink of new promise. The future of US community foundations. Blueprint Research & Design, Inc. and the Monitor Institute, a member of Monitor Group, from http://www. communityphilanthropy.org/pdf/fullreport.pdf; 04/28/2008. Carson, E. D. (2005). Standing at the crossroads. Community foundations worldwide are at a critical juncture where they must decide between being a field or a movement. Foundations News & Commentary, 46(1), 34–39. Feurt, S. L. (1999). International perspective: Models; experience and best practice.’’ In Bertelsmann Foundation (Ed.), Community foundations in civil society/Bu¨rgerstiftungen in der Zivilgesellschaft (pp. 23–49). Gu¨tersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers. Foundation Center (2008). Key facts on community foundations. Outlook for community foundation giving. New York: Foundation Center, from http://foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/ pdf/keyfacts_comm_2008.pdf; 22/12/2008. Hall, P. D. (1989). The community foundation, 1914–1987. In R. Magat (Ed.), Philanthropic giving (pp. 180–199). New York: Oxford University Press. Hammack, D. (1989). Community foundations: The delicate question of purpose.’’ In R. Magat (Ed.), An agile servant. Community leadership by community foundations (pp. 23–50). New York: Foundation Center. Hero deCourcy, P., & Walkenhorst, P. (Eds.) (2008). Local mission – Global vision. community foundations in the 21st century. New York: Foundation Center. Johnson, P. (2007). Diaspora philanthropy: Influences; initiatives, and issues, The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc. and the Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University, from http://www.tpi.org/downloads/ pdfs/Diaspora_Philanthropy_Final.pdf, 04/28/2008. Johnson, P., & Johnson, S. P. (2006). Community foundations and international giving. Opportunities for Global Engagement, The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc. Magat, R. (Ed.) (1989). An agile servant. Community leadership by community foundations. New York: Foundation Center. Nico, E., et al. (2007). Growing smarter. Achieving sustainability in emerging community foundations. The James Irvine Foundation Community Foundation Series, from http://www.irvine.org/assets/ pdf/pubs/philanthropy/Growing_Smarter.pdf, 04/28/2008. Renz, L., & Atienza, J. (2004). International grantmaking III. An update on US foundation trends. New York: Foundation Center. Renz, L., & Atienza, J. (2006). International grantmaking update. A snapshot of US foundation trends. New York: Foundation Center, from http://www.usig.org/PDFs/intl_update.pdf, 04/28/2008. Sacks, E. W. (2008). An international perspective on the history, development and characteristics of community foundations. In P. Walkenhorst (Ed.), Building philanthropic and social capital. The work of community foundations (Rev. 2nd ed., pp. 13–56). Gu¨tersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers.
Foundations, Corporate Tittle, D. (1992). Rebuilding cleveland. The cleveland foundation and its evolving urban strategy. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press. Walkenhorst, P. (Ed.) (2008a). Building philanthropic and social capital. The work of community foundations (Rev. 2nd ed.). Gu¨tersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers. Walkenhorst, P. (2008b). From local institutions to transnational actors: Spread and evolution of the community foundation concept. In P. Hero deCourcy & P. Walkenhorst (Eds.), Local mission – Global vision. Community foundations in the 21st century (pp. 11–45). New York: Foundation Center.
Foundations, Corporate MICHAEL ALBERG-SEBERICH Forum for Active Philanthropy, Berlin, Germany
Introduction In his satirical book The Devil’s Dictionary (1911), the American author Ambrose Bierce defines ‘‘corporation’’ as ‘‘an ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.’’ Bierce published this definition at a time when the American public was debating the risks of corporate monopolies. It was also a time when entrepreneurs like Andrew Carnegie were starting to address their responsibility to society by setting up foundations. Since the turn of the twentieth century the business community has constantly tried to define its role toward society not only as a business actor but also as a citizen. The corporate foundation is one of the instruments that a corporation uses to take on this role in society. Such foundations are often discussed under the umbrella of Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporate Citizenship or Corporate Philanthropy. The positioning of a corporation as a citizen and not only as a market actor is increasingly seen as a management principle of modern-day business.
Definition Strachwitz and Reimer (2005: 61), Schwertmann (2005: 209), and Mecking (2008: 317) agree that a key characteristic of a corporate foundation is that it is a separate legal entity set up by a business entity. In contrast to a ‘‘traditional’’ foundation, the corporate foundation is not established by an individual but by a for-profit organization. It often is an indication of a long-term involvement by the corporation in regard to a specific, strategic target (for example: promotion of the arts, the fight against AIDS). Such foundations in many countries have a tax-exempt status but often do not have a significant
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endowment but depend on funds paid by the corporation. Corporate foundations are also known in the United States context as company-sponsored foundations. More recently, European studies have called them corporate social responsibility (CSR) foundations. Fleishman (2007: 270) points out that corporate foundations are established by corporations to ‘‘signal to their stakeholders and the public at large their commitment to a high level of corporate social responsibility.’’ Anheier and List underline the close relationship between corporate giving programs and corporate foundations. They point out a key difference between the two, which is the higher autonomy that a corporate foundation has as an independent legal entity from the decision makers within a company (2005: 68). Along with the independent foundation, the operating foundation, and the community foundation, the corporate foundation is one of four foundation categories developed by the New York-based Foundation Center. As part of the greater family of foundations, corporate foundations are treated in many countries under the same legal regulations as other types of foundations. An exception to this rule is, for instance, France, where corporate foundations are regulated under a separate jurisdiction. There are several approaches to classifying types of corporate foundations, depending on the geographical area the authors are focusing on (CECP, 2008b: 27; BDS, 2007). In a European context it is crucial to point out that a corporate foundation is not the same as an industrial foundation. Thomson shows that especially in Europe, foundations can be owners of corporations. This means that such a foundation is ‘‘created to administer a large ownership stake in a particular company, very often donated to the foundation by the company’s founder’’ (Thomsen 2006: 237). In some countries, for example, Germany, such foundations can be the corporation. In other cases the foundation holds a major share of a company but is a separate legal entity with a charitable status; it may have charitable intent, and it uses a holding in a company to promote such a donor’s will. In summary, a corporate foundation is a private foundation that derives its grant-making funds primarily from the contributions of a profit-making business and/or its employees. The corporate foundation often maintains close ties with the donor company, but it is a separate legal organization, sometimes with its own endowment.
Historical Background The example of the United States shows that the corporate foundation is a rather new phenomenon in the world of philanthropy. Even so, the United States had already
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passed a law by 1935 to allow tax deductions for corporate charitable contributions; the so-called ‘‘golden age of corporate philanthropy’’ started after World War II. The first major company-sponsored foundations were founded in the late 1940s and 1950s in the United States (examples: Ford Motor Company Fund, 1949; AT&T Foundation, 1953). The corporate giving programs and corporate foundations that were set up at this time were the starting point for many corporate social responsibility programs as they are known today. The Foundation Center documents the development of corporate foundations throughout the decades. Of the presently active corporate foundations, most are quite young: just over one third have existed since the 1990s, while about 20% were established in the 2000s (2008b: 7).
Key Issues Corporate Social Responsibility
As corporate foundations are often seen as an integral part of a company’s corporate social responsibility strategy, many authors discuss the corporate foundation as part of the corporate philanthropy toolbox (e.g., Lenkowsky, 2002). Often, the corporate foundation carries the name of the corporation or is established on the occasion of a corporation’s anniversary. It can be seen as a long-term commitment to a cause by a corporation (Moon, 2002:3). In addition, a corporate foundation, if treated as rather independent, allows the engagement of the wider public in a cause. This includes those people who may have a rather critical attitude toward the company itself. Strachwitz and Reimer point out that this is plausible in a time when foundations are seen as favorable institutions in a society. History shows that, for instance, in the United States or France, foundations also have experienced times when they were not valued at all by the public (2005: 63). Foundation or Corporation
A key issue is the extent to which a corporation and its management influence the decisions of the foundation. Webb even considers it a key principle of a corporate foundation that company executives are also board members of the foundation (1994: 42). The downside of this observation is documented by Werbel and Carter, who showed in 2002 ‘‘that CEOs’ interests, as measured by membership in different organizations, was associated with foundation charitable giving’’ (1). The results of this study show the interdependence of company and corporation and underline how difficult it can be for a corporate foundation to position itself as an independent entity. There is a clear need for a transparent management of this relationship so the corporation can be an active
citizen that, in the long-term, sheds positive light on the company that set it up. Strategy and Impact
Since the corporate foundation is part of such a volatile relationship and was set up by a corporation that is supposed to earn a profit for its investors, its strategy is key. This is why Porter and Kramer’s 2002 article ‘‘The Competitive Advantage of Corporate Philanthropy’’ has had such an influence on the strategy development of corporate foundations. They connected a corporation’s charitable involvement with new opportunities for the core business of the cooperation. Their pledge that giving ‘‘can often be the most cost-effective way – and sometimes the only way – to improve the competitive context’’ (2002: 7) has been highly influential in the corporate responsibility community (e.g., Leisinger, 2007: 322–324). For many corporate foundations, the intensive discussion of strategic philanthropy has started a concentration and realignment of their work (e.g., The SMART Company, 09.2006: 67–68). This means that many corporate foundations have started to implement impact assessment instruments, begun to figure out their social return on investment and see evaluation as a key tool of their work. Another driving factor of this development has been the introduction of venture philanthropy as a more targetoriented form of giving (e.g., Letts et al., 1997). Communication
The debate over strategic philanthropy has also been the basis for a closer look at the value corporate foundations have for the public relations activities of corporations. Strachwitz & Reimer point out that corporate foundations are not a useful tool for short-term gains for the marketing or branding of company (2005: 63). This perception is also shared by public relations experts. Nevertheless, researchers like Marquardt have developed an elaborate toolbox for the integration of foundations into the public relations strategy of a company. He sees the corporate foundation as a focused, long-term public relations instrument (Marquardt, 02.2002: 28). This means that corporate foundations have to carry the burden of being able to communicate their actions, and that they should – in general – shed a positive light on the corporations that set them up.
International Perspective Anheier documents in a comparative paper the development of the foundation sector in general in Europe. He points out that ‘‘the sheer complexity and richness of the phenomenon – historically, legally, politically as well as culturally’’ – makes it extremely difficult to identify a common denominator for foundations in Europe. The
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paper also sheds some light on the development of corporate foundations (2001: 5f., 24, 26). Gerber provides a summary of the development of corporate foundations in Germany and shows that their origins can be traced to the turn of the twentieth century (2006: 19–21). An overview of the current status quo of corporate foundations in Germany was published by the Association of German Foundations in 2007 (Bundesverband deutscher Stiftungen, BDS). In 2006 the Charities Aid Foundation and the Cabinet Office sponsored the study ‘‘Revealing the Foundations – A guide to corporate foundations in England and Wales,’’ conducted by The SMART Company. This shows that, driven by interest groups, more and more countries are exploring the specific needs of corporate foundations. An overview of corporate foundations and their history around the world is still missing, however. There are indicators that corporate foundations are thriving on all continents. Philanthropy Australia hosts a network of corporate foundations. In 2008 the ASEAN Foundation established a research program to foster a better understanding of corporate foundations in Asia and also to enhance the cooperation of such foundations. Haslam points out that corporate foundations are an intrinsic part of the ‘‘corporate social responsibility system’’ in Latin America (03.2004: 12), but a further interpretation of their role is still missing. Africa seems to be a key target destination for corporate foundations from all around the world but cannot refer to many corporate foundations that originate there.
Relevance In 2006 there were 2,548 registered corporate foundations in the United States. This number is small in comparison to the 64,405 independent foundations there (Foundation Center, 2008b: 3). In 2006 in Germany, for instance, the number of corporate foundations was 863 (BDS, 2007: 37). Considering that Germany has around 15,449 foundations (BDS, 2008: 42), the market share of corporate foundations is not as small as in the United States. The overall numbers still underline the special niche of corporate foundations. The list of the top 25 US foundations by giving in 2006 has only one corporate foundation. Nevertheless, corporate foundations play a role in the world of philanthropy, since their giving is considerable compared to their number: of the $42.9 billion given by the 72,000 US foundations, more than one tenth ($4.4 billion) comes from corporate foundations (Foundation Center, 2008a: unpag.). Furthermore, they have continually increased their giving since 1990 (Foundation Center, 2008b: 2). In addition to this, corporate foundations are
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a lot more likely to work with professional staff. This means that they often have a greater presence in the philanthropy community and shape professional standards in the field. In addition they again and again set trends, like the discussion about strategic philanthropy or the increasing international involvement of corporations through their foundations (Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP), 2008a: 14). Corporate foundations always need to be considered as one instrument among many in a corporate social responsibility strategy. More than three-quarters of corporate giving is part of other corporate philanthropy programs, such as corporate giving, matching employee funds, corporate volunteering or in-kind contributions (Lenkowsky, 2002: 363).
Future Directions Things have changed since Ambrose Bierce defined the corporation. The corporate foundation can be seen as one way in which individuals take on responsibility within the corporate world. In addition, corporations are trying to evolve, amid all the dilemmas shown above, as corporate citizens themselves. This does not mean that a discussion about the role of corporations and their foundations has stopped. The intensive debate on globalization, for instance, again and again questions how businesses can take on greater responsibility for humankind (Leisinger, 2007: 318). Corporate foundations, and foundations overall, will also face questions in regard to their effectiveness and the ways of measuring their impact. This is especially true in at time where civil society organizations are asked to document their impact in new ways. Is the corporate foundation successful if it contributes to corporate targets or the wider public? Another development in this field are the increasing number of joint funds, like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, or public-private partnerships like the UN’s Global Compact. These show that also for corporate foundations cooperation is one way of solving global challenges like extreme poverty (e.g., Leisinger, 2007: 334). On a research level, there is a need to understand the corporate foundation and its principles a lot better all around the world. So far, the research in this field is very focused on the United States, where this form of a foundation evolved in its modern shape. Multinational companies have introduced the idea of this corporate foundation all over the world. We need a better understanding of this global phenomenon and its regional specifics. On a more practical level, there is a need for more professionals in this field. In the United States, the
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Association of Corporate Contributions Professionals and a great variety of academic institutes that also offer practical training for corporate foundation employees provide an example of an infrastructure that needs to develop all over the world.
Cross-References
▶ Carnegie Andrew ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Civil Society-Business Relations ▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Evaluation ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ▶ Philanthropy, Definition and History ▶ Social Investment ▶ Strategic Philanthropy ▶ UN Global Compact ▶ Venture Philanthropy
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. (2001). Foundations in Europe: A comparative perspective. Civil Society Working Paper, No. 18. London. Anheier, H., & List, R. (2005). Dictionary of civil society, philanthropy and the non-profit sector. London: Routledge. Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen (BDS). (2007). Unternehmensnahe Stiftungen. Berlin. Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen (BDS). (2008). Stiftungsjahr 2007. Berlin. Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP). (2008a). Capturing the corporate philanthropy opportunity. New York. CECP. (2008b). Giving in numbers, 2008 edition. New York. Fleishman, J. (2007). The foundation: A great American secret. New York: PublicAffairs Books. Foundation Center. (2008a). Foundation growth and giving estimates. New York. Foundation Center. (2008b). Key facts on corporate foundations. New York. Gerber, Pia. (2006). Der lange Weg der sozialen Innovation – Stiftungen und sozialer Wandel. Frankfurt a.M.: Peter Lang. Haslam, P. (03.2004). The corporate social responsibility system in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ottawa: Focal Policy Paper – Canadian Foundation for the Americas. Leisinger, K. (2007). Corporate philanthropy: The ‘‘Top of the Pyramid.’’ Business and Society Review, 112(3), 315–342. Lenkowsky, L. (2002). Foundations and corporate philanthropy. In L. Salamon (Ed.), The state of nonprofit America (pp. 355–386). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Marquardt, J. (02.2002). Corporate foundation – Ausdruck bu¨rgerschaftlichen Engagements von Unternehmen. In Stiftung & Sponsoring. Mecking, Ch. (2008). Corporate giving. Unternehmensspende, Sponsoring und insbesondere Unternehmensstiftung. In H. Backhaus-Maul, Ch. Biederman, St. Na¨hrlich, & J. Polterauer (Eds.), Corporate citizenship in Deutschland (pp. 307–322). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.
Moon, J. (2002). Corporate social responsibility: An overview. In the International Directory of Corporate Philanthropy (3–14). London: Europa Publications. Porter, M., & Kramer, M. (2002, December). The competitive advantage of corporate philanthropy. Harvard Business Review, 5–16. Schwertmann, P. (2005). Unternehmensstiftungen im Spannungsfeld von Eigennutz und Gemeinwohl. In F. Adloff, U. Birsl, & P. Schwertmann (Eds.), Wirtschaft und Zivilgesellschaft – Theoretische und Empirische Perspektiven (pp. 199–222). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Strachwitz, R., & Reimer, S. (2005). Corporate foundations. In S. Reimer & R. Strachwitz (Eds.), Corporate citizenship (pp. 59–68). Berlin: Maecenata Verlag. The SMART Company. (09.2006). Revealing the foundations – A guide to corporate foundations in England and Wales. London. Thomsen, St. (2006). Industrial foundations: Foundation ownership of business companies. In K. Prewitt, St. Heydemann, & St. Toepler (Eds.), Legitimacy of Philanthropy foundations: United States and European perspectives (pp. 236–251). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Webb, N. (1994). Tax and government policy implications for corporate foundation giving. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 23(1), 41–67. Werbel, J., & Carter, S. (2002). The CEO’s influence on corporate foundation giving. Journal of Business Ethics, 40, 47–60.
Foundations, Definition and History RUPERT GRAF STRACHWITZ Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany
Introduction Foundations are among the oldest cultural phenomena of humanity. Biologists, anthropologists, historians, and sociologists agree that both giving and wishing to be remembered are anthropological constants that may be observed in any society; giving even with primates (Godelier, 1996). While any survey of existing foundations worldwide shows that neither the act of giving nor an endeavor to be remembered always leads to a foundation nor does a foundation necessarily include such reasonings, to realize that these basic instincts exist is essential in understanding the essence of a foundation. In modern organizational theory, foundations are classified as one of essentially two basic forms within civil society. While the majority of civil society organizations are associational in that members constitute the core structure (universitas personarum), a minority is defined by the will of its founder(s) and the assets the organization is entrusted with (universitas bonorum). At times, this has rendered foundations questionable in theory and practice. While societal theory on occasion has had severe doubts as to whether the rule of the dead over the living
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as implied by the binding will of the founder is compatible with democracy and the rule of law (e.g., Kant, 1798: 178–187), governments have feared the alternative source of power vested in an institution equipped with considerable assets (Turgot, 1753, quoted in Liermann, 1963: 173). Legislative action (viz. the US Tax Reform Act 1969) has aimed at curbing the power of foundations (Frumkin, 1999). Yet, they have survived societal changes, laid proof of an extraordinary longevity, and are currently exordinately popular with citizens and governments alike. It is, therefore, reasonable to suppose that foundations have an inherent cultural legitimacy.
The concept of foundations shares some commonalities with the concept of philanthropy. But they are not synonyms, foundations, as will be explained below, being a wider organizational form, while philanthropy includes a wider view of giving, most especially giving of time, which foundations do not. In defining a foundation, three distinct concepts of human planning need to be analyzed:
Definition
Ideally, a foundation will emerge when these three concepts unite. But, while the first two concepts are concerned primarily with the impulse to start a foundation, the third will emerge as the governing principle as a foundation enters into its own history. Marcel Mauss has exemplified that the frequently made assumption that loving one’s fellow man in general as prescribed by Christian doctrine (Matthew 22, 39) is the origin of philanthropy, is false. Not only can this doctrine be traced in Jewish scripture (see, i.e., Leviticus 19, 18), but also foundations are known to have existed in Biblical times. It emerges that it entered human thought worldwide much earlier, between the eighth and fifth century BC. Giving was, thus, transferred from an action restricted to one’s immediate kin to a universal and more anonymous sector of society (Armstrong, 2006). Buddhism, too, encompasses the notion of a general brotherhood in the context of which giving was a valued form of action. This also extends to China, whereas it had long been thought that Confucian philosophy precluded this. Mozi, in the fifth century BC, clearly opposed Confucius who he believed had distorted the ethic of compassion by limiting it to the family (Armstrong, 2006: 270). Plato presents a paradox, as he was no advocate of kindness to others, but did perform an act of philanthropy by leaving his private fortune to the Academy he had founded. In Islam, sharing one’s wealth with the less fortunate is considered one of the five principles of religious observance. The idea that man is inherently concerned with preserving the memory of himself is older. In ancient Egypt, that the living should remember the dead, was deemed essential for the latter’s eternal peace. More concisely, Indo-European tradition, which exercised a determining influence on the entire Mediterranean and northern as well as the Asian world from approximately the 4th millennium BC. lays a strong emphasis on an enduring memory in this world as the prime goal of human life. From about the fourth century BC, Greece and later particularly the
While defining a foundation seems to some to be a simple exercise, in that they are commonly defined as assetholding entities, an analysis of legal frameworks shows very diverse definitions. A key question is whether a global definition of a foundation applicable anywhere in the world exists, and if so, whether this definition is meaningful. While the US definition is comparatively narrow, a broader definition is commonplace in Europe, with significant differences between countries. Islamic foundations (awqaf ), highly important to Islamic culture and very numerous in all predominantly Islamic countries, have to this day a strong religious connotation and are usually operating, while both European and American foundations today are usually secular, with American foundations being predominantly grant-making. Foundations in Latin America tend to follow the European model, while those in India, Japan, and Australia follow the American model. Many institutions termed foundations in one culture would not be termed that in another. Foundations may pursue their goals by four distinct, albeit frequently overlapping functions: (a) Ownership (e.g., preserving a church building as a church in perpetuity) (b) Operational (managing an institution or operating projects) (c) Grant-making (to a prescribed beneficiary or by a selective mechanism) (d) Individual aid (e.g., to individuals in need) The matter is further complicated by the fact that in most languages, both the act of giving, if intended as a longterm investment, on one hand, and the institution as such, on the other hand, are termed a foundation (fondation/ fondazione/Stiftung, etc.), thus blurring the issue whether the term applies to a process or an institution. This is clearer when applying the word Trust, traditionally used in English law in describing the legal status.
(a) the concept of giving, (b) the concept of memory, (c) the concept of binding an institution to the will of its founder.
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Roman Empire saw a plethora of memorial foundations, set up as stone memorials to the founder with the added purpose of reverence to a god or goddess. Citizens donating theaters and other public buildings in a form bearing all characteristics of a foundation were careful to include the memory of themselves among its purposes. Modern-day philanthropists more often than not name their foundation after themselves, thus, indicating their wish to be remembered through their foundation. Finally, the concept of binding the institution to the will of the founder is, while not their invention, exemplified most clearly by the principles laid down by the founders of both Christianity and Islam. Christians believe that their Church is the foundation instituted by Jesus Christ, which entails following what he laid down in religion, ethics, and procedures. The Quran is seen by Muslims as the final and uninterpretable command of God. Both Jesus Christ and the Prophet of Islam may in this context be interpreted as giving the revelation they received to the world, thus incidentally falsifying the notion that the gift has in every instance to be material. If in this sense the major contribution to philanthropy is attributed to religion (Syed, 2005, 238), this has much truth in it, but it must be borne in mind that until two centuries ago, virtually any human endeavor and action was seen in the context of man’s relationship with God. As a defining principle of a foundation, adherence to the founder’s wishes, albeit including the space he or she left for interpretation, has certainly evolved as the strongest, while the existence of material assets, let alone assets of a nature that bear a revenue, is not definitory. In combination, the three definitory aspects render a foundation a long-term investment rather than a passing whim, one-off gift or continually developing body.
Historical Background Ancient foundations share all characteristics of a foundation in a broad historical sense. Yet, the history of modern foundations can be said to begin with the Emperor Constantine’s Edict of Milan in AD 313. The establishment of the Christian Church as a public legal body was decisive for the evolution of present-day foundation theory, both in Christian and in Muslim society, while Buddhist and Chinese, as well as Japanese theories lack this institutional development, thus, giving space for foundations in spirit, but, as far as can be seen, not in law until European legal systems were adopted. The incorporation of the Church included the right to act as a trustee, thereby enabling Christians to entrust their Church with material assets and a provision for their usage. From this moment on, the Church could occupy the same position previously held by urban communities who had
adopted a practice of trusteeship some centuries before, complementing the autonomous foundations of the type described above. Given the foundation-type nature the Church ascribed to itself in a theological sense, donors endorsed the immaterial goal prescribed by Christ himself, complementing the immaterial with increasing material assets. The Emperors Theodosius in the 4th and Justinian in the 6th century AD further developed this legal framework. Most particularly, the Codex Justinianus, issued around 530, made ample provision for piae causae, good works that were to enjoy special protection if performed by nongovernmental entities, most especially the Church. These pious deeds were not exclusively religious in a narrow sense, but included hospitals and alms houses, orphanages, and xenodochia, lodgings for travelers. The memorial foundations popular in the Roman Empire found their way into Christian society as well. Early memorial chapels (cellae memoriae) can be traced back as far the second century and were to develop into the overwhelmingly important donations toward the building and upkeep of churches in the form of a foundation throughout the Middle Ages. The stability of the Church as an institution in times of political instability complimented the intended longevity of foundations. Three elements are noteworthy in this development: (a) From this early age, trusts administered by one or several trustees, and autonomous incorporated bodies exist side by side. (b) Foundations with assets destined to serve the purpose prescribed by the founders in themselves (e.g., a memorial stone or chapel) exist beside those equipped with assets yielding a revenue through which the purpose was to be fulfilled. (c) The Islamic and Christian traditions of foundations can both be traced back to the Codex Justinianus, thus rendering this document the first legal base for foundations that is still relevant to a modern-day concept. Theologically, Origines and other Fathers had developed a theory that Church assets were held in trust for the poor. This was a source of conflict in that foundations not only served to help the poor, but also for other religious purposes, notably for building churches. On the other hand, the Church, by its political and legal status, its stability and continuity, and its comparatively good reputation became the prime caretaker of all matters concerned with social and health services. Donations toward these services were strongly recommended to people of affluence, while the question how institutionalized these donations were intended to be, remained unclear. The absence of a legal framework resulted in a plethora of individual models ranging from free gifts to very concise acts of foundations.
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As far as buildings were concerned, the foundation model was easier to realize so that to this day in some European countries, foundations as owners of Church buildings, some dating back to the 1st millennium, are the largest single subsector of the foundation sector. As in Roman times, foundations in Europe in the Middle Ages were initiated by the rulers, nobility, and commoners alike. They fitted the model of any structural initiation in that somebody with the charisma and/or material resources to do so would create an institution in perpetuity, destined to last longer than his, in exceptional cases her, lifetime. From the 12th century onwards, foundations developed predominantly as an urban phenomenon. In a local community where all strata of society contained a number of equals rather than one single ruler, there existed an urge to transgress this equality by creating a lasting memorial. Besides the Church, townships, and later universities, became the most important trustees. In fifteenth-century Italy, the importance of charitable foundations was enhanced by the notion that newly rich bankers, notably the Medicis in Florence, were pressured into donating huge sums of money to religious orders, toward the embellishment of their home town, and also to establish educational institutions. The pressure was political as well as religious, counterbalancing usury being the key argument. What is exemplified here is that the act of giving while instrumental to the purpose it was to serve is not necessarily based exclusively on a voluntary implementation. A similar rationale prompted the Augsburg banker Jakob Fugger to initiate the foundations that exist to this day. The sixteenth-century reformation initiated a process of opposition against the concept of autonomous foundations. Theologically, protestant teaching believed eternal life to depend entirely on God’s favor, whereas Catholic dogma upheld the necessity of good works. The first wave of state intervention following the reformation was not, however, due to theological arguments, but due to the ensuing breakdown of the medieval social order. While in urban communities prone to adopt new religion, the memorial urge proved stronger and ensured a continuing foundation activity, the rise of the national state was a more dangerous threat. Both in England and France, autonomous wealthy institutions were eyed with increasing suspicion. The more independent rulers became of pope and emperor on one hand, and nobles and other vassals on the other, the more they attempted to suppress any entity not subjected to their will. King Henry VIII of England was a typical example. The sovereignty of the state emerged as the prime framework of society, the polyarchy in which foundations as well as geographically and membership-defined entities had played
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a decisive role being deemed a dated societal model. Thomas Hobbes in England and Jean Bodin in France provided political theory in support of this notion, the latter strongly influenced by the religious wars in France that led him to adopt a more decisive approach. Peace and stability could only be maintained if the state was strong and had a monopoly on exercising power. While England, in maintaining this principle, did allow for independent charities to exist (see Queen Elizabeth I. Statute on Charitable Uses, 1601), France eventually prohibited any form of nongovernmental organization. Foundations were first severely curbed in 1749 and finally wiped out of the framework of society in 1791. The theoretical background for this was provided by Turgot in the Encyclope´die. The English example is particularly interesting in that it gave the American colonies a legal base under which their opposing belief in a plethora of self-organized structures could flourish. American philanthropy, while more often than not religious in a more general sense, was able to develop independently from an established Church (McCarthy, 2003). The French model that forbade any intermediaries between the citizen and the state was upheld in France until 1901, and as far as foundations were concerned up to 1983, when the first legal framework for foundations since 1791 was introduced. In a global perspective, however, it remained an episode, copied to some degree in Austria and Italy, and superseded by the concept of social economy in France and eventually by the concept of an autonomous civil society worldwide. Both in Europe and America a model of foundations evolved, independent of the State and the Church, with varying degrees of state supervision being introduced in different countries. Contrary to this, the Islamic model of waq’f as a predominantly religious body persists to this day. In the Osmanic Empire and later in Turkey, successful attempts were made to bring these religious institutions under state control, but it was only in the later 20th century that secular foundations began to exist. In continental Europe, the modern secular state as envisaged since the early eighteenth century and developed in practice in the nineteenth century permitted foundations to exist, while insisting on government regulation and control. Kant’s formula that the state must at all times have the liberty to intervene with the governance and the work of foundations was adopted in spirit if not in name (Kant, 1798). In as much as governments acquired a secular constitutional base and the monopoly of law enforcement, foundations were obliged to concur with a regulative framework that could be more or less stringent. Both in Europe and in North America, the new bourgeouisie acting in a vein of thought not unsimiliar to that of medieval town burghers became active philanthropists (Adam, 2004: 16). Social
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housing, educational, and arts institutions became the focus of their activity added to the traditional care for the relief of the poor. However, personal wealth was no prerequisite. A number of important foundations were started by public subscription or the fundraising success of a spirited individual. In many cases, the dividing line between a substantial gift and the founding of a separate institution was not clear, as some gifts were put in trust with an existing legal body. The term foundation retained a nonlegal definition encompassing an act of investive philanthropy as well as a legal and/or fiscal entity in itself. Throughout the nineteenth century, as Thomas Adam has shown (2004: 18), the foundation model developed in a close interchange among Great Britain, Germany, and USA. The wealth of American industrialists and financial tycoons eventually raised the level of assets involved to heights few Europeans could match. John Jacob Astor’s will of 1849 was the first endeavor on this scale, to be followed by university founders like Vassar, Cornell, and Stanford, later Johns Hopkins, and eventually by the hitherto unknown dimensions of philanthropy shown by Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller (Krass, 2002: 240). Carnegie is particularly interesting in that he reflected on his philanthropy theoretically and published numerous essays on the subject. Rather than providing relief to the destitute, his ambition was to ‘‘place within its (the community’s) reach the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise,’’; thus, paving the way for a paradigm shift in foundation goals. While educational institutions had existed in foundation form before, and relief institutions continue to exist in that form, contributions to societal change became the thrust of foundation activity (Anheier & Daly, 2007). This was matched by Carnegie’s conviction that foundations should not originate through bequests but through living and engaged donors (Krass, 2002: 242). European industrialists, notably Sir Henry Wellcome and Ernst Abbe, had similar thoughts, while on both sides of the Atlantic, other foundation models both continued to exist and were newly developed, most notably the community foundation model, first started in Cleveland, Ohio in 1914, and foundations started and funded by government in the tradition of ancient rulers. France, Italy, and Spain under the influence of French political theory, during this period did not contribute in any notable way to this development. These being predominantly Catholic countries, this may have prompted a common belief that foundations had something to do with typically protestant, more precisely, Calvinist ethics. But while Andrew Carnegie may well have considered himself as a chosen one, per Calvin (Krass, 2002: 243), it would be difficult to argue that a Catholic
entrepreneur might not have acted similarly, if private resources and a concurring legal framework had enabled him to do so. More decisively, formal equality of citizens inspired the more fortunate and those aspiring to rise in society, to construct memorials of themselves.
Key Issues Despite the known existence of other models, the model of the foundation created by the will of a wealthy, philanthropically minded individual became the dominating definition in the public arena. With it came a discussion that echoed seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French thinking: considering their formidable size and possibilities, were foundations, the rule of the dead over the living and the rule of individuals over the fate of many, compatible with a society governed by democratic principles? (see, e.g., Report, 1970). With the dichotomy of ever higher taxes on one hand and tax breaks for philanthropic giving on the other, in fact rendering the community co-donors, this discussion has become ever more relevant. Answers throughout the twentieth century have oscillated between governments’ fear of losing overall power, theoretical considerations as to the desirability of pluralist think tanks and centers of activity, fiscal greed for posttax individual wealth, the urge of the citizens to contribute to society in assets as well as in time (Adloff and Sigmund, 2005: 258), and personal ambition and possibly vanity. It is worth noting that while Communist dictatorships had no use for institutions of this kind, Fascist regimes remained ambiguous in that high-ranking supporters actually set up foundations themselves, with assets quite regularly expropriated from victims.
Future Directions The history of foundations shows that there is a common denominator of foundations that is distinct from other civil society organizations. In modern civil society, given the notion developed over the past 20 years, foundations have acquired a position as one expression of self-determined engagement for public benefit (Strachwitz, 2008: 736), although the fact remains that not all foundations are by this definition part of civil society, belonging instead to the government or private sphere. At the beginning of the 21st century, foundations are more popular with the citizenry and their political leaders worldwide than they have been for a long while. They have become an instrument of devolution and privatization, as is best exemplified by the Italian banking foundations, instituted by law in the 1990s with the express aim of both privatizing the many state-owned banks and savings banks, and creating strong and independent grantmakers
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in the tradition of the nineteenth-century savings banks ideals. This movement bridges the gap between the necessities of realizing not-for-profit ideals in for-profit form, as in France in particular, and the strict borderline between for-profit and not-for-profit as exercised in Northern Europe, USA, and most other countries. In most countries, this has precluded or outlawed foundations with purely private goals, for example, providing an income to relatives or offspring. With few exceptions, like Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Austria, all nations with impeccable democratic credentials, law makers have deemed the questionable aspects connected to foundation activity to be tolerated only in connection with benefits to society at large. More generally, foundation activities on the scale of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Warren Buffett’s donation have added a new dimension to the legitimacy issue. While acknowledging both the undoubted real benefit to the beneficiaries and the advantages of a pluralist approach to social change and battling the challenges facing society, the undercurrent of questioning the legitimacy remains (Heydemann and Toepler, 2006: 5).
Cross-References
▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Carnegie, Andrew ▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Foundations, Functions of ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Grant-Making ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Mauss, Marcel ▶ Medici Family ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Judaism ▶ Wakf ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Adam, Th. (2004). Philanthropy and the shaping of social distinctions – nineteenth-century US, Canadian and German cities. In T. Adam (Ed.), Philanthropy, patronage and civil society. Experiences from Germany, Great Britain, and North America. Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press. Adloff, F., & Sigmund, S. (2005). Zur Soziologie der Philanthropie. In F. Adloff & S. Mau (Eds.), Vom Geben und Nehmen; Zur Soziologie der Reziprozita¨t. Frankfurt/New York: Campus. Anheier, H., & Daly, S. (2007). The politics of foundations. A comparative analysis. London/New York: Routledge. Armstrong, K. (2006). The great transformation. The world in the time of Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, and Jeremiah. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
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Assmann, J. (1991). Stein und Zeit, Mensch und Gesellschaft im alten Aegypten. Muenchen: Beck. Bringmann, K., & von Steuben, H. (1995). Schenkungen hellenistischer Herrscher and griechische Sta¨dte und Heiligtu¨mer. Berlin: Akademie. Canella, M., & Puccinelli, E. (2009). ACRI (Associazione di Fondazioni e di Casse di Risparmio Spa (ed.), Italian banking foundations, identity, roots for the future. Rome: ACRI. Carnegie, A. (1889). Wealth. North American Review, 148(391), 653–664. Cohen, M. (2005). Foundations and charity in the communities of Medieval Egypt. In M. Borgolte (Ed.), Stiftungen in Christentum, Judentum und Islam vor der Moderne. Berlin: Akademie. Dogan, M. (2006). In search of legitimacy: Similarities and differences between the continents. In K. Prewitt, M. Dogan, S. Heydemann, & S. Toepler (Eds.), The legitimacy of philanthropic foundations: United States and European perspectives. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Feurt, S. (1999). International experience: Models, experience, and best practice. In Bertelsmann Foundation (ed.), Community foundations in civil society. Gu¨tersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation. Frumkin, P. (1999). Private foundations as public institutions: Regulation, professionalization and the redefinition of organized philanthropy. In E.C. Lagemann (Ed.), Philanthropic foundations: New scholarship, new possibilities Bloomington, (pp. 69–100). IN: Indiana University Press. Godelier, M. (1996). L’e´nigme du don. Paris: Librairie Arthe`me Fayard. Gregory, A. (1993). Families of fortune: Life in the Gilded Age. New York: The Vendome Press. Heydemann, S., & Toepler, S. (2006). Foundation legitimacy at the community level: The case of community foundations in the US. In K. Prewitt, M. Dogan, S. Heydemann, & S. Toepler (Eds.), Foundations and the challenge of legitimacy in comparative perspective (pp. 150–174). New York: Russell Sage. Hibbert, C. (1974). The rise and fall of the House of Medici. London: Allen Lane. Hoelscher, Ph. (2006). Italienische zivilgesellschaft im wandel. Berlin: Maecenata. Kant, I. (1798). Metaphysik der Sitten. In Kant, Werke in sechs Baenden, Band IV, Wiesbaden 1956, (2nd ed., pp. 303–634). Kogelmann, F. (1999). Islamische fromme Stiftungen und Staat. Wu¨rzburg: Ergon. Krass, P. (2002). Carnegie. Hoboken NJ: Wiley. Laum, B. (1914). Stiftungen in der griechischen und roemischen Antike (2 vols.) Leipzig: Teubner. Liermann, H. (1963). Geschichte des Stiftungsrechts. Tuebingen: MohrSiebeck Mauss, M. (1923–1924). Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’e´change dans les societe´s archaiques. L’anne´e Sociologique. Seconde se´rie. McCarthy, K. (2003). American creed, philanthropy and the rise of civil society 1700–1865. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Mommsen, Th. [1882/86] (1992). Ro¨mische Kaisergeschichte. Mu¨nchen: Beck. Pickert, S. (2005). Die ro¨mischen Stiftungen der augusteischen Zeit. In M. Borgolte (Ed.), Stiftungen in Christentum, Judentum und Islam vor der Moderne. Berlin: Akademie. Report (1970). Foundations, private giving, and public policy. Report and recommendations of the Commission on Foundations and Philanthropy. Chicago, IL/London: The University of Chicago Press. Sauer, C. (1993). Fundatio und Memoria. Stifter und Klostergru¨nder im Bild 1100–1350. Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Signori, G. (2001). Vorsorgen – Vererben – Erinnern; Kinder- und familienlose Erblasser in der sta¨dtischen Gesellschaft des Spa¨tmittelalters. Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
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Sprengel, R. (2005). Frankreich. In R.G. Strachwitz & F. Mercker (Eds.), Stiftungen in Theorie, Recht und Praxis. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Sternberg, Th. (1991). Orientalium more secutus. Mu¨nster: Aschendorf. Strachwitz, R. G. (2005). Traditionen des deutschen Stiftungswesens – ein ¨ berblick. In R.G. Strachwitz & F. Mercker (Eds.), Stiftungen in U Theorie, Recht und Praxis. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Strachwitz, R. G. (2006). Die Stiftung in Kants Metaphysik der Sitten. Zeitschrift fuer Stiftungswesen 3/2007. Berlin: BWV. Strachwitz, R. G. (2008). Stiftungen in einer modernen Gesellschaft. Versuch einer Theoriebildung. In H. Kohl, F. Ku¨bler, C. Ott, & K. Schmidt (Eds.), Zwischen Markt und Staat. Ko¨ln: Heymanns. Syed, A. (2005). Muslim philanthropy and civic engagement. Berlin: Maecenata. Toepler, S. (1996). Das gemeinnu¨tzige Stiftungswesen in der modernen demokratischen Gesellschaft. Mu¨nchen: Maecenata. Turgot, A. R. J. (1751). Fondation. In Diderot/Le Rond d’Alembert (Eds.), Encyclope´die ou Dictionnaire raisonne´ des sciences, des artset des me´tiers, (28 vols. pp. 1751–1772) Paris. West, M. L. (2008). Indo-European poetry and myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Foundations, Family KEVIN LASKOWSKI National Center for Family Philanthropy, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction Family foundations comprise the largest and fastest growing subset of private grantmaking foundations in the United States today. Of the nation’s 72,000 foundations, the Foundation Center (2008: 1) estimates that more than 37,000 of them are family foundations. Since the phrase ‘‘family foundation’’ is not a legal term, philanthropic infrastructure groups rely on self-reporting and other objective and subjective criteria to identify these philanthropic families. The 37,000 figure is, therefore, most likely a low estimate (for more on the criteria used to identify family foundations, see Foundation Center, 2008; Lawrence, 2000). Identified family foundations commanded $267 billion in assets and gave away more than $16 billion in grants in 2006 (Foundation Center, 2008: 1). Some of the world’s largest foundations, e.g., the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, are familygoverned, as are most of the smallest. Approximately 60% of American family foundations reported less than $1 million in assets in 2006 (Foundation Center, 2008: 4). They give in a wide range of program areas in strikingly different ways but are united by the participation of the founding donor or the donor’s family. Esposito (2007)
contends that family foundations bring a family history, values, commitment, responsiveness, a cooperative approach, and sense of legacy and renewal to bear on community needs in a way no other kind of foundation can. Once the exclusive realm of ultra-wealthy families such as the Rockefellers in the early twentieth century, the family foundation world was ‘‘profoundly democratized’’ by the beginning of the twenty-first century (Gersick et al., 2004: 37). Both the number of family foundations and their overall giving have nearly doubled since 1998 (Foundation Center, 2008: 1). Since billionaire Warren Buffett’s highly publicized pledge of $37 billion to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2006, family foundations are receiving renewed attention as recognition of their vital social contribution grows.
Definition Family foundations have been an important part of civil society for more than a century. However, the phrase ‘‘family foundation’’ was only coined in the mid-1980s. Until that point, family foundations were simply known, like corporate foundations and some other grantmakers, by their general legal classification: private foundations. ‘‘Family foundation’’ is not a legal distinction but rather a term of art that refers to ‘‘a private foundation whose original donor and/or one or more relatives are still actively involved in the operations and/or control of the foundation’’ (Edie, 2002: 3). The phrase calls attention to the philanthropic sector’s growing understanding of unique characteristics, challenges, and opportunities of family grantmaking.
Historical Background While family foundations can be found around the world, ‘‘institutionalized family philanthropy is an American phenomenon’’ (Gersick et al., 2004: 37). The development of family foundations in the United States springs from a culture and a tax environment that mutually reinforce private initiative for the public good. Family foundations took shape along with the world of organized philanthropy around the turn of the twentieth century as the industrial era brought unparalleled wealth to many. As the United States government began to address vast differences in wealth through taxation, levying the first constitutional income tax in 1913, families created foundations as a way to meet mounting social needs, take advantage of tax exemptions for charitable organizations, and preserve family wealth. Assets of family businesses could be transferred to the family’s foundation and there sheltered from tax and takeover, thereby preserving many companies as family enterprises
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(Freeman, 1991: 22). For decades, foundations faced little regulation and few expectations. In 1961, Congress began an investigation into foundation activities that resulted in the seminal Tax Reform Act of 1969, which largely created what is now known as the modern grantmaking foundation. The term ‘‘private foundation’’ was legally defined for the first time. A new regime of excise taxes and reporting requirements was established. Furthermore, foundations were legally obligated to disburse a minimum amount for charitable purposes each year, a rule known as the ‘‘payout’’ requirement. The Act also closed the loophole that allowed families to preserve control of family businesses by requiring divestiture of substantial portions of such funds, known as excess business holdings, within 5 years of receiving them (Freeman, 1991: 23). Perhaps more important to family foundations, though, were the new rules against self-dealing, which presented a number of pitfalls for even well-meaning families. In an effort to curb certain abuses in the philanthropic sector, Congress essentially outlawed financial transactions between private foundations and so-called ‘‘disqualified persons.’’ These disqualified persons included directors, staff, ‘‘substantial contributors’’ to the foundation, and their relatives as well (Internal Revenue Code Secs. 4941 and 4946; see Edie, 2002; Sare, 2002). The hoped-for result of these changes was an institution assured of advancing its stated charitable purposes and not financially enriching its members. Despite these new requirements and restrictions, wealthy families continued to create family foundations into the 1980s. It would have seemed that families motivated solely by charity and the desire to reduce taxes would have abandoned the family foundation as a giving vehicle after 1969. The new regulations were seen as overly burdensome by some, and, when some new giving vehicles like donor-advised funds could be more taxadvantageous, the family foundation seemed doomed as a vehicle for charitable giving. However, for family foundations, the charitable impulse and tax incentives were always only part of the story. For families who choose this giving vehicle, the family foundation provided and continues to provide a sort of antidote to increasing family anxieties surrounding wealth and its obligations: ‘‘Beneficiaries of new wealth, by establishing family foundations, could simultaneously pursue a number of related goals: demonstrating socially responsible values about wealth to their children, counteracting envy and resentment in the community, and implementing their own vision of human, cultural, and environmental enhancement’’ (Gersick et al., 2004: 45).
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Thus, the family foundation became a phenomenon in its own right. No longer a mere creature of noblesse oblige and tax incentives, the family foundation became a conscious choice of concerned families. In the 1980s, the philanthropic infrastructure began to offer services tailored to the unique needs of these family philanthropists. In 1986, the Council on Foundations held its first family foundation program. In 1994, the Council created the Committee on Family Foundations and launched the Program on Family Philanthropy the same year. In 1997, the first organization dedicated exclusively to family foundations and family philanthropy, the National Center for Family Philanthropy, was founded. By 2000, the Foundation Center, in cooperation with the National Center for Family Philanthropy, was developing methods of identifying and tracking important statistics on family foundations. Following up on its study of multigenerational family foundations, Generations of Giving (Gersick et al., 2004), the National Center embarked on an initiative to monitor indicators of family foundation effectiveness in 2004. Today, family foundation services are a part of the regular work of community foundations, Jewish federations, regional associations of grantmakers, banks, financial planners and advisory firms, and other organizations the world over. While family foundations as a group have a rich history, most of the field is still relatively young and poised to grow even more. Nearly 67% of family foundations have been established since 1990 (Foundation Center, 2008: 4). Moreover, the United States finds itself in the midst of the greatest wealth transfer in its history. Havens and Schervish (1999) estimate that the 55-year period from 1998 to 2052 will witness $41 trillion pass from one generation to the next. They further estimate that the $41-trillion transfer will include $6 trillion in charitable bequests, likely generating a new ‘‘Golden Age of Philanthropy.’’
Key Issues Certain challenges are more or less common to all grantmakers: defining some sort of mission or purpose, developing a process for making a difference, making grants, and being accountable, among them. For family foundations, these issues take on important nuances that can make some tasks more challenging in some instances and provide distinct opportunities in others. Donor Intent and Mission
Esposito (2008) divides the motives of founding family philanthropists into three groups: ● Value-based motives: religious or personal beliefs about the importance of giving and the meaning of wealth
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● Family history-based motives: a family’s experience with a geographic community, a particular illness, or a close relationship to a valued institution, such as a center for the arts or university ● Community needs-based motives: thoughts and feelings about where resources are needed within a particular community Beyond the associations and identifications that spur charitable feeling (Schervish and Havens, 1997; Ostrower, 1995; Esposito, 2002), family foundation donors seek to accomplish some goal – or set of goals – that requires the creation of a long-standing, if not permanent, institution in which family members might be involved. Because donors are attempting to act on personal values with family members for public needs, Esposito (2002) encourages donors to ask what they are attempting to accomplish with their gifts and to communicate that vision to ensure that the personal, the familial, and the charitable do not conflict. Gersick et al. (2004: 34) note that family foundations are often ‘‘caught between honoring their legacy from the past and present, and maintaining commitment for the future.’’ Without clarity around issues of purpose, grantmaking can quickly become scattered, ineffective, and unrewarding. A clear, well-developed, reviewed sense of mission and purpose is, in fact, ‘‘the single best predictor’’ of engaging and effective family foundation performance (Gersick et al., 2004: 187). Family Dynamics and Governance
Philanthropic families must perform a careful balancing act: engage the personal interests and talents of trustees while working collectively as a family for a public purpose. Family dynamics inevitably affect the foundation’s governance, grantmaking, management, and administration. Even as some families strive to become more strategic, more professional, or more business-like in their grantmaking practice, there is no escaping the family’s history and culture, the relationships fostered or repressed by the foundation’s activity. Successful family foundations recognize this, examine and discuss this culture, and develop processes to effectively and fairly govern amidst these conflicts. Conflict typically arises within and among family groupings, i.e., between the donor and other family members, within and between a family’s branches, between family and nonfamily board and staff, and between generations, especially during times of transition and change (Hamilton, 2002). Differences of opinion can clash with long-held roles in family hierarchies and play out across branch and generational lines. Anticipating this, many families pursue practices that avoid conflict. For example, a family might create a system
of discretionary grants, a practice that allows individual trustees to make grants outside the standard approval process (Born, 2001). They are often employed to allow family members to pursue their own charitable interests to much success while preserving the family’s shared philanthropic mission. If discretionary grants are used, however, to avoid discussion and conflict around certain types of grants, the discretionary system may soon the foundation’s mission and turn a family philanthropy into a collection of trustee fiefdoms. Similarly, families may elect too many board members for fear of rejecting or offending a relative only to find board meetings are unmanageable. In these instances, the family may successfully avoid anticipated conflict, but it fails to invest in the policies that will make for better grants and eventually help when serious conflicts arise. Geographic Dispersion
Grantmaking can be challenging if family members do not live in the same area. In the foundation’s early years, family members may have lived, built their wealth, and made grants all in the same geographic area. It is for this reason that the family foundation’s earliest mission focus is a specific geographic community. As family members mature, move away, and put down roots in new communities, the timing and location of meetings may become difficult to coordinate. Family branches living apart may begin to develop their own family cultures and charitable interests, which not only clash with those of their relatives but erode the family’s larger shared mission. Creative families learn to stretch their philanthropy to embrace new communities and causes without abandoning their original community. Some have even embraced the distance as a way of promoting cross-fertilization of ideas and practices in different geographic areas (Stone, 1999: 53). Succession
Securing the future by successfully welcoming a new generation of capable philanthropists to the foundation board ranks among the most important issues facing foundations (Association of Small Foundations, 2007: 11). It is in this way that a family’s legacy of giving endures. Successful succession includes passing on both a philanthropic ethos and the technical skills required of foundation trustees. Esposito (2003) advises developing clear, fair criteria for participation on the family board, encouraging personal accomplishments and charity, and not limiting participation in the family philanthropy to board membership. The result is a generation prepared for leadership
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should they choose to assume such roles within the family foundation or in another charitable pursuit. Succession used to indicate transferring power from one clearly defined generation to the next, typically when the donor turned over the foundation reins to his children. Today, though, there are four generations, each with its own ‘‘generational personality,’’ above the age of 21, sitting on family foundation boards (Goldseker, 2006). So-called Traditionals, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials each bring different ideas and opinions shaped by their generation’s historical experience. Earlier foundations learned to negotiate the transition from one generational worldview to the next. Today’s foundations manage all four simultaneously. While much has been done to address next generation engagement, comparatively little has been developed for the senior generation or to address this new multigenerational landscape (Buhl, 2008). Successful succession has become less a matter of transferring power than one of effectively involving several generations in a common project. Effectiveness and Evaluation
Throughout the philanthropic sector, there is increasing emphasis on effective grantmaking for high impact. Family foundations want to see their philanthropic dollars go as far as possible. Whether the foundation’s grants serve a beloved hometown, fund research into a cure for a disease that took a relative’s life, or simply carry the family name, members are personally invested in seeing the foundation succeed. Families are increasingly adapting and developing evaluation and monitoring techniques appropriate to their grantmaking situation. However, like most nonprofit institutions but unlike their family business counterparts, family foundations lack a single ‘‘bottom line.’’ The profit discipline that may guide a family in its financial dealings does not carry over into its philanthropic choices. Ylvisaker (1999: 371) contends: ‘‘Family businesses and fortunes are usually disciplined by the bottom line and hierarchical, often patriarchal management; family fortunes sooner or later become divided or inherited into individualized control. Foundations, with a single corpus and collective decision-making, are quite another proposition.’’ Many families, however, find this lack of a bottom line liberating and seize the opportunity to take risks with their charitable dollars. Others embrace multiple bottom lines. Socially responsible and missionrelated investing form a significant part of the work of many family foundations who feel that their investment goals and their charitable goals can be aligned. Philanthropic evaluation methods typically concentrate on assessing the impact of individual grants and
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organizational efficiency. Even if the family foundation was performing well as a grantmaker and as a board, these metrics ignore the effect the foundation has on the donor family. Gersick et al. (2004: 3) argues: ‘‘Success must also be measured by the family members’ commitment to the foundation’s work, the satisfaction they take in doing that work together, and the foundation’s ability to evolve and remain vital from one generation to the next.’’ Family foundations commission foundation histories, conduct board retreats, and create committees to successfully engage the broader family in the work of an effective, enduring family institution. Perpetuity
Most family foundations are endowed in perpetuity. One reason is the family foundation provides the possibility of engaging generation after generation of future family members. A 1994 Foundation Center survey found that 69% of foundations plan to exist in perpetuity (Renz and Lawrence, 2004: 10). The Association of Small Foundations’ 2007 membership survey discovered that 72% of family foundation respondents formed to exist in perpetuity and plan to stay that way (Association of Small Foundations, 2007: 11). Nonetheless, more are discussing alternatives to perpetuity (Stone, 2005). Younger donors want the pleasure of seeing the impact their dollars will have and have chosen to give more now rather than leaving wealth to future generations. Family foundations concerned about preserving a donor’s explicit wishes may set a closing date for the foundation to prevent funds from being used in another way. Without the restrictions imposed by investing for perpetuity, foundations may feel free to increase their yearly payout to fund larger projects or make more grants without worrying about the possibly shortened life of the foundation. In this way, endowing for perpetuity is becoming less of an assumption among family foundations and more of a considered and discussed choice. Accountability
As stewards of a public trust, family foundation trustees are accountable in different ways to state and federal regulators and the general public amid growing scrutiny and a sometimes uninformed community. Political and media debates around the role and scope of the philanthropic sector continually resurface. Populist reformers concerned about undue family influence floated proposals to limit family control of foundations as early as 1965 (Freeman, 1991: 36). Such limitations have seldom gained traction because, as Nason (1989: 46) contends: ‘‘Family decisions might be enlarged and improved by
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nonfamily advice, but it would be contradictory and counterproductive to eliminate family control.’’ Still, many feel that increased transparency and greater community input would keep family foundations accountable.
▶ Philanthropy, Definition and History ▶ Tax Deductions for Charitable Organizations in the United States
References/Further Readings Future Directions As the size and influence of family foundations has grown so has the level of inquiry. Some are revisiting the payout issue: should foundations be asked to disburse more than the required 5% each year? Should administrative expenses continue to count toward the charitable distribution? Others are examining the diversity or lack of diversity on family boards. Should family foundations be required to have nonfamily board members? Finally, some regulators are questioning the nature and purpose of tax-exempt status and whether or not the public is served by family-controlled foundation boards endowed in perpetuity. Family foundations remain a vital part of civil society, funding necessary programs in everything from the arts and health care and research to the environment and human services as they attempt to reconcile the personal, the familial, and the charitable in a common philanthropic endeavor. Family foundations are the fastest growing portion of the foundation sector, and as more people ‘‘give while they live,’’ explore a more focused, strategic kind of philanthropy, and involve family, this form of giving will continue to be popular. With that potential and popularity has come considerable scrutiny as proposals to limit the size and regulate the composition and life span of family foundations are perennially suggested. However, as Ylvisaker (1999: 375) argues, ‘‘There is something distinctive and precious about family foundations that suggests they should remain as they are: a unique opportunity for families to make and leave their mark on the society around them, to share with others the fortune they have enjoyed and the creative energies they so often possess.’’
Cross-References
▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Buffett, Warren ▶ Council on Foundations ▶ David and Lucile Packard Foundation ▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Independent ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Lilly Endowment
Association of Small Foundations. (2007). 2007–2008 Foundation Operations and Management Survey. Washington, DC: Association of Small Foundations. Born, J. (2001). Discretionary grants: Encouraging participation . . . or dividing families? Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Buhl, A. (2008). Passing the baton? Generations sharing leadership. Passages series. Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Edie, J. (2002). Family foundations and the law: What you need to know (3rd ed.) Washington, DC: Council on Foundations. Esposito, V. (2002). The founder’s hopes: From values to vision. In V. Esposito (Ed.), Splendid legacy: The guide to creating your family foundation (pp. 1–15). Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Esposito, V. (2003). Successful succession: Inspiring and preparing new generations of charitable leaders. Passages series. Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Esposito, V. (2007). What’s family got to do with it? The value of family in family philanthropy. Family Philanthropy Online Teleconference Series, 20 September. Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Esposito, V. (2008). Values, vision, vitality: Pursuing excellence in family philanthropy. Presentation to Sheatufium Conference on Civil Society, 19 June, Sheatufim: The Israel Center for Civil Society. The Foundation Center. (2008). Key facts on family foundations. New York: The Foundation Center. Freeman, D. (1991). The handbook on private foundations (Rev. ed.). Washington, DC: Council on Foundations. Gersick, K. (2004). Generations of giving: Leadership and continuity in family foundations. New York: Lexington Books/Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Goldseker, S. (2006). Beyond duty and obligation. Foundation News and Commentary, January–February. Hamilton, D. (2002). Managing conflict and family dynamics in your family’s philanthropy. Passages series. Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Havens, J., & Schervish, P. (1999). Millionaires and the millennium: New estimates of the forthcoming wealth transfer and the prospects for a golden age of philanthropy. Boston, MA: Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston College. Lawrence, S. (2000). Family foundations: A profile of funders and trends. New York: The Foundation Center/Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Nason, J. (1989). Foundation trusteeship: Service in the public interest. New York: The Foundation Center. Ostrower, F. (1995). Why the wealthy give: The culture of elite philanthropy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Renz, L., & Lawrence, S. (2004). Foundation growth and giving estimates: 2003 preview. New York: Foundation Center. Sare, J. (2002). Facing important legal issues. In V. Esposito (Ed.), Splendid legacy: The guide to creating your family foundation (pp. 59–75). Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Schervish, P., & Havens, J. (1997). Social participation and charitable giving: A multivariate analysis. Voluntas, 8(3), 235–260.
Foundations, Functions of Stone, D. (1999). Grantmaking with a compass: The challenges of geography. Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Stone, D. (2005). Alternatives to perpetuity: A conversation every foundation should have. Passages series. Washington, DC: National Center for Family Philanthropy. Ylvisaker, P. (1999). Family foundations: High risk, high reward. In V. Esposito (Ed.), Conscience and community: The legacy of Paul Ylvisaker (pp. 370–375). New York: Peter Lang.
Foundations, Functions of VOLKER THEN, KONSTANTIN KEHL Universita¨t Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
Introduction Foundations are inherently political institutions. In that capacity they are dependent on and a formative element of the political culture of a country and its society. Foundations very much depend on the third sector regime, and different models of foundation sectors in societies can be distinguished. These models in turn have a strong influence on the roles which foundations play in society. At the heart of the political nature of foundations lies their independence – of any other controlling force. They have no owners, no members, are usually not subject to direct political or state intervention, and do not depend on clients or market forces. Their legal status grants them a substantial degree of autonomy, only to be limited by the binding forces of their charter and mission as determined by their donors or founders. As a result of this particular position in society, foundations enjoy an extraordinary degree of freedom. At the same time however, they are subject to public pressure for legitimacy. Their largest numbers are public benefit institutions, and this status requires them to pay attention to public perceptions of their appropriate contributions to the public good. The lack of direct control should therefore not lead to the false assumption that foundations can act without constraints and without regard to the public in general and public opinion of their specific work in particular. This could also be described as a situation of competition for public acceptance and legitimacy. In this competitive framework, foundations have both public institutions and other private institutions as their competitors – even though with different implications. While public institutions directly compete with foundations as to their contribution to the public good, private institutions can both
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serve as competitors for the public benefit as well as for the private market delivery of services and goods. This sector consideration positions foundations in their respective competitive relationship within each society and determines the framework for the roles which they can play in society. When considering their roles, one should of course keep in mind that they are contingent upon history and have changed over time considerably reflecting the changes of value systems, political systems, religious frameworks and structures of the economy. For the purpose of this overview, it seems to be appropriate to limit the considerations to foundations in modern, democratic societies based on market economies. The very nature of modern foundations as autonomous institutions needs to be guaranteed by a constitutional legal system and the rule of law. In societies without such a political and economic framework, foundations may exist – but will ultimately either face conflicts with the political system, serve as subversive powers to help change a system, or even cease to exist as a result of political oppression. In such a perspective, as Smith and Borgmann (2001) suggest, foundations can even be interpreted as an indicator of emancipation trends and forces in society.
Definition Different models of the foundation sector provide for a framework of explanation for the functions of foundations in society. The functions depend upon the visions of the relationship between the state and politics on the one hand, and the foundation sector on the other. Anheier and Daly (2007) distinguish six different models of that relationship: ● The social democratic model assumes a highly developed welfare state and describes foundations ‘‘in a well defined relationship with the state’’ and includes a strong share of operating foundations which ‘‘either complement or supplement state activities.’’ ● The state-controlled model refers to foundations which are ‘‘ultimately subservient to the state.’’ Law, administrative procedures, and oversight provide for tight control of foundation activities by the state. ● In the corporatist model, foundations exist in a ‘‘subsidiarity relation’’ with the state, and may be part of the social welfare or educational system, frequently combining grantmaking and operating activities. ● The liberal model describes foundations acting largely in parallel to the state and seeing themselves as an alternative to the state.
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● In the peripheral model, foundations are seen as fairly insignificant institutions even though they are regarded as ‘‘worthwhile institutions as long as they do not challenge the status quo.’’ ● The business model sees foundation as ‘‘instruments of corporate citizenship’’ helping businesses ‘‘in reaching out to communities and customers by serving the public benefit in enlightened but ultimately selfinterested ways.’’ Each of the regime types exists predominantly in a number of countries. In Europe, the social democratic model prevails in all Scandinavian countries, the state-centered model in France, Luxemburg, and Belgium. The corporatist model can be divided in two subcategories, the civil society-centered variety in Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland, and the Mediterranean version in Spain, Italy, and Portugal. The liberal model describes the situation in the United States and the United Kingdom, the foundation sectors are peripheral in Ireland and Greece, and the statist model applies to the Central and Eastern European countries. Particularly with regard to the above mentioned relationship to the political culture of a country and its society, it is not surprising that the six foundation sector types show certain parallels to the well-known welfare (state) regime classification established by Esping-Andersen (1990) and the nonprofit sector models, which Salamon and Anheier (1998) derive from Moore’s (1966) and Esping-Andersens’ work. Their theoretical approach treats the nonprofit sector as an essential part of a social system, whose role and scale depend on a complex set of historical forces. In each of the six regime models, foundations play distinct roles. In total, seven foundation functions could be identified against the backdrop of an international set of case studies carried out by Anheier and Daly (2007), exploring the contributions of foundation to societies: ● Complementarity: ‘‘Foundations serve otherwise under-supplied groups under conditions of demand heterogeneity and public budget constraints.’’ ● Substitution: ‘‘Foundations become providers of public and quasi-public goods’’ and substitute for public action by the state. ● Redistribution: Foundations are seen as contributors to social justice by redistributing resources in society. ● Innovation: Foundations are agents of change by stimulating innovations ‘‘in social perceptions, values, relationships, and ways of doing things.’’
● Social and policy change: Foundations are working to promote ‘‘structural change and a more just society’’ by helping to recognize new needs or give a voice to the underprivileged. ● Preservation of traditions and cultures: Foundations protect past achievements against social, economic, or cultural changes seen as a threat to them. ● Promotion of pluralism: Foundations promote and protect pluralism and diversity in society, work in favor of civil liberties potentially endangered by the state and provide for a challenge to economic, social, and cultural policies seen as worthwhile of reform. It is however important to note that those roles are an appropriate description of foundation activities only in as far as foundation representatives are aware of them and these roles are reflected in their visions and used to guide strategic thinking of foundation representatives. In particular, these roles were identified in the grantmaking approaches of foundations and really showed in foundation activities. Anheier and Daly (2007) of course highlight that the roles are dependent on feasibility ‘‘in terms of resources, capacity, approach, and competence’’ of the foundation. However, these roles do not coincide with the self-perceptions of foundation executives when asked to distinguish roles, and actually the very difficulty of foundation representatives to describe their normative premises help to shed light on the identity of foundation sectors in different countries.
Historical Background Historically, the legal situation of foundations and their roles were not always as much determined by the political and legal systems of the nation states. During most parts of premodern history, their point of reference was the predominant religion and they were institutions tied in with the religious institutions in society serving social purposes with a reference to religious transcendency and the personal expectations of donors to live on beyond their own limited lifetimes in the memories of their beneficiaries and society at large. In this concept, foundations were part of the faith-based institutions in society and served religious as well as social purposes. Referring to Aydin (2001), this observation is not limited to Christian societies and also applies to other religions. It can even be assumed even though this assumption does not seem to have been tested that foundations serve an anthropological quest for transcending the individual’s limited lifespan and establishing a lasting memory of the person’s contribution to society. Interestingly enough, this anthropological notion shows strongly in countries where democracy
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and political freedoms had not existed for most of recent history and only recent transformation processes brought about democracy or at least the right to establish foundations. Donors in these countries seem to share such an interest in personal memory, even though they may not be religious people in a more formal sense and seem to have very secular values. However, as Anheier and Leat (2006) point out, the long term traits of approaches to philanthropy are combined with more medium term developments of philanthropic cultures since the nineteenth century, characterized by a move from charity to scientific philanthropy and further on to strategic philanthropy in most recent debates.
Key Issues Looking at the role models in greater detail offers some further insights. The complementarity role is widely accepted as an appropriate description of foundation activities and largely relies on the subsidiarity principle, i.e., the assumption that social or public tasks and decisions should be dealt with at the lowest possible level in society. In addition, the role implies that the state should become active only if the citizens themselves, private organizations and civil society in general are incapable of addressing or resolving a social problem. The role is also being interpreted by foundation executives in two substantially different ways: They either see complementarity very much as a partnering relationship or as a bargaining and critical relationship. This reflects the position of civil society in more general terms towards the state and its administration. A great degree of variation emerges between a transition country in Eastern Europe (critical position towards former Communist structures) and a country in Western Europe, where partnering refers to a division of labor between foundations and the state based on different competences and backgrounds of experience. As Salamon (2006) argues, even partnering relations can be critical for foundations, e.g., when their flexibility and innovative potential are being reduced by formalization and bureaucratization encouraged by public authorities. This effect of ‘‘third party government,’’ to which foundations commit by contracting with governmental institutions, not infrequently leads to the situation that they are perceived as a mere extension of the state, and not as civil society organizations. Substituting for state functions relates foundation activities in a very direct way to state policies and action. With a perceived increasing degree of variation and unpredictability of state action, the substitution role transforms the volatility of political strategies into a challenge
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to the autonomy of foundations. Foundations find themselves in a growing need to clarify the distinct character and the value of their own contribution to society whilst their ‘‘competitor,’’ the state, creates a blur of roles. The challenge can again take different forms, depending more on reform contexts in providing social and public services in Western Europe and on the path to democratization in Eastern European countries. The preservation of cultures and traditions is only being reluctantly featured by foundation executives. It runs counter the prevalent tendency to see foundation activities as a strategic approach to resolve social problems and to consider strategic philanthropy. Against this picture of foundations as progressive and forward-looking organizations, cultural preservation is only strongly pronounced in a few countries like Italy and Switzerland, while regarded with some skepticism by most other foundation representatives. The redistribution role of foundations is also seen as less prominent among foundation roles by executives from most of the European countries. While rooted in the early days of modern philanthropy in nineteenth century industrialization which included giving back to society what had been accumulated as wealth due to entrepreneurial success, the role is regarded with skepticism more recently because of both its lack of feasibility and its limited scale among foundation spending. Mere redistribution may be seen as an expression of traditional charity, while modern approaches to philanthropy are concerned with root causes and therefore with social change and social justice. On the one hand, foundations simply lack the resources (even when regarded as the sector as a whole) to have a substantial impact on the reallocation of financial resources in society. On the other hand, they do not spend the vast share of their budgets for the benefit of disadvantaged social groups or classes but rather fund a lot of activities which in turn benefit the middle classes from whose upper strata the resources may have originated. Realizing the full potential of the social and policy change role requires a full strategic comprehension of the environment in which foundations operate and the way in which public policies shape the outcome of foundation strategies and vice versa. The role itself can be understood in quite different ways, reaching from changing attitudes, how people think about policy issues to structural and institutional innovations or reorganizations and to political reform approaches changing the framework of sectors or institutions in society. Foundations seem to realize the potential for performing this role,
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while many of their executives are somewhat skeptical as to the success which foundations may be able to realize in performing this task. Promoting pluralism can again take different forms: For some foundations it means the promotion of experimental opportunities in society or the promotion of diversity itself, while in other contexts it refers to bridging between different areas or communities. The first of these two options has again a close connection to the autonomy and degrees of freedom which foundations enjoy. If this is the case, the capability to meet this role successfully depends on the financial structure of the foundation, i.e., on the question, whether it exists based on an endowment or receives cash donations or transfers from public budgets. The latter cases limit the freedom of a foundation because it may actually be seen as dependent either on particular stakeholders and donors or on public policy preferences. Finally, we need to consider the innovation function of foundations. Following Kanter (1983), Anheier and Daly (2007) tested the innovation role of foundations against four criteria: The situation is characterized by ‘‘a degree of uncertainty in relation to both the process and outcome,’’ the innovations are knowledge-intensive, and they may be controversial. In addition, innovations ‘‘reach across established boundaries in organizations, fields, and sectors.’’ The uncertainty criterion refers to the unique capacity of foundations to take risks without having to pay attention to owners, shareholders, members, or other controlling stakeholders. This positions them to pursue long term strategies in particular, and proceed in a flexible way involving long-term steadfast commitments, which creates a competitive advantage against any public sector action in this regard. Foundations frequently seem to invest their knowledge to create innovation by applying existing ideas to new fields of practice rather than supporting the creation of completely new ideas. In this capacity foundations may serve the role of an innovation agent or scout to identify new needs in the provision of public services and then initiating a reaction which is first organized by the foundation sector and may then prompt the public sector to change policies. However those processes can be timeconsuming: A current example in the context of social welfare policy can be given for Germany, where several large foundations run multi-generation housing developments including community work to stimulate selforganized care-potentials within the neighborhood supplementing professional care. As Kehl and Then (2009a, 2009b) pointed out, it took almost 20 years of strategic planning and gaining experience to pave the
ground for a first social return on investment analysis of these pilot projects. It was confirmed that multigeneration housing has the ability to reduce the cost of care significantly, improve the health conditions of residents and stimulate a higher level of volunteer contributions compared to conventional settings. Because society was shown to benefit in many ways from substantial investments required, the debate on financing communitybased infrastructure among policy makers, academia and civil society representatives has gained substantial momentum. This already refers to the superior capacity of foundations as compared to public sector and other civil society organizations to cross sector and field boundaries. Foundations maybe particularly well positioned for networking approaches connecting institutions otherwise not working together. The third criterion of addressing controversial issues is actually a good test of a foundation’s capacity to innovate at all. If the foundation board and executives only start programs and projects not likely to stir public and social controversy, the potential for innovation may be more limited than what the foundation would be prepared to admit in the first place. This argument also identifies limitations of the innovative role of foundations: the composition of their governing bodies (gender, age, professional affiliations, field, and sector competences), the way the foundation operates (receiving open grant applications only or soliciting programmatic thinking and inviting partners to collaborate and develop program approaches), and the degree of public communication which the foundation is prepared to organize and accept.
Future Directions The functions of foundations in society depend very much on the relationship between the state and foundations, be it competitive or collaborative. This relationship requires key attention when trying to understand the functions and roles of foundations. While foundations like to see themselves as innovative institutions, which act independently of the state and take up tasks which the state and government are less well positioned to do, this notion is challenged by the resulting dependency on the policy environment and the development of public budgets. The preferred roles of the innovator and policy change agent contrast to the roles of preservers of cultures and traditions as well as redistributors which are less well received among foundation executives interviewed by Anheier and Daly. While foundations are very reluctant to be seen as substituting for public responsibilities, their innovative and change ambitions require more strategic thinking to find ways
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to live up to the challenge and play the role of the change agent effectively. According to Anheier and Then (2004), this will be a key professional task for the future given an increased pressure from sector competition as well as increased public attention which shows as competitive pressure for legitimacy.
Cross-References
▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Esping-Anderson, Gøsta ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Independent ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Nonprofit Organizations and Sectors, Comparative perspectives, Regime Types ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Philanthropy, Definitions of ▶ Social Change Organizations ▶ Social Investment ▶ Social Origins Theory ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ Third-Party Government
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Daly, S. (2007). The politics of foundations. A comparative analysis. London/New York: Routledge. Anheier, H. K., & Leat, D. (2006). Creative philanthropy. Towards a new philanthropy for the twenty-first century. London/New York: Routledge. Anheier, H. K., & Then, V. (2004). Zwischen Eigennutz und Gemeinwohl. Neue Formen und Wege der Gemeinnu¨tzigkeit. Gu¨tersloh: Bertelsmann. Aydin, D. (2001). Turkey. In A. Schlu¨ter, V. Then, & P. Walkenhorst (Eds.), Foundations in Europe (pp. 259–267). London: Directory of Social Change. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kanter, R. M. (1983). The change masters. New York: Simon & Schuster. Kehl, K., & Then, V. (2009a). Strategiebildung im Sozialsektor: Die Lebensra¨ume der Stiftung Liebenau. In R. Buber, & M. Meyer (Eds.), Fallstudien zum Nonprofit Management. Praktische BWL fu¨r Vereine und Sozialeinrichtungen, (2nd Ed.). Stuttgart: Scha¨ffer & Poeschel. Kehl, K., & Then, V. (2009b). Bu¨rgerschaftliches Engagement im Kontext von Familie und familiennahen Dienstleistungen. Gemeinschaftliche Wohnmodelle als Ausweg aus dem Unterstu¨tzungs- und Pflegedilemma? Expertise des Centrums fu¨r soziale Investitionen und Innovationen (CSI) zum Bericht zur Lage und den Perspektiven des ZivilEngagements in Deutschland. Berlin: WZB. Moore, B. Jr. Jr. (1966). Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: Lord and peasant in the making of the modern world. Boston: Beacon Press.
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Salamon, L. M. (2006). Government-nonprofit relations from an international perspective. In E. T. Boris & C. E. Steuerle (Eds.), Nonprofits & government. Collaboration & conflict (pp. 399–437). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Salamon, L., & Anheier, H. K. (1998). Social origins of civil Society: Explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Voluntas, 9(3), 213–248. Smith, J. A., & Borgmann, K. (2001). Foundations in Europe: The historical context. In A. Schlu¨ter, V. Then, & P. Walkenhorst (Eds.), Foundations in Europe (pp. 2–34). London: Directory of Social Change.
F Foundations, Grantmaking ELIZABETH T. BORIS The Urban Institute, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction Modern grantmaking foundations continue the tradition of philanthropic organizations that have existed around the world for thousands of years. The term ‘‘philanthropy’’ comes from the Greek and means ‘‘love for mankind,’’ a term that foundations embrace as a broad mandate to benefit the public in fundamental ways that go beyond ameliorating suffering and meeting immediate needs. Since the explosion of individual wealth in the 1990s, the number of foundations has grown sharply in the United States and in other countries. Foundations provide legal structures that allow donors to realize their charitable objectives by making grants over a period of years or in perpetuity. Grantmaking foundations are valued as flexible, independent, legally sanctioned entities that can channel private wealth for a wide variety of public purposes, such as supporting efforts to solve social problems, creating knowledge, and strengthening civil society. Increasingly, diverse donors, organizational structures, and activities characterize modern foundations, permitting them to meet the philanthropic goals of a new generation that often seeks direct involvement in foundation programs and measurable impacts for grants. Foundations today may combine grants, loans, business ventures, investments, and foundation-managed programs to achieve philanthropic missions. Foundation legal structures and permissible activities, however, vary from country to country. In some countries, government imposes few limitations on foundation activities and beneficiaries, while in other countries, government strictly regulates foundations. This article will describe grantmaking foundations mainly in the United States. The section on international
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perspectives will briefly describe grantmaking foundations in other countries.
Definition There is no legal definition of a grantmaking foundation in the United States, nor is there a universally accepted definition of such foundations worldwide. A general working definition of a foundation is ‘‘an independent nonprofit, nongovernmental philanthropic organization that receives money or other assets from individuals or corporations and uses the interest on those resources to make grants to qualified nonprofit organizations, individuals, and others for public benefit.’’ Grantmaking foundations in the United States may be established as nonprofit corporations or charitable trusts, by living donors or by donors’ estates after their death. Any type of organization may call itself a foundation, however, whether or not it makes grants, and some grantmaking foundations use other terms such as ‘‘trust’’ or ‘‘fund’’ or ‘‘corporation.’’ For example, the Carnegie Corporation is one of the first US grantmaking foundations, created by Andrew Carnegie in 1911, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund is a grantmaking foundation initiated by the children of John D. Rockefeller, Jr. in 1940. The Ford Foundation, created by Edsel Ford in 1936, is also a grantmaking foundation, but the New America Foundation is not a grantmaking foundation despite its name. It is a public policy think tank that promotes dialogue and research. In the United States, grantmaking foundations are ‘‘charitable’’ organizations. They are tax exempt, nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations recognized under United States Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Code Section 501(c)(3). Donations to grantmaking foundations are deductible, within certain limits, for income tax purposes, because these foundations conduct or support ‘‘charitable,’’ activities devoted to education, religion, promotion of health, relief of poverty, assistance to government, and other public benefits. Types of Foundations
Within the category of US charitable organizations, there are several types of grantmaking foundations and many types of operating organizations that provide services, conduct research, advocate, and generally serve the public through direct charitable activities, although some of those both operate programs and make grants. The IRS term for charitable organizations that have broad public support is ‘‘public charities.’’ Most public charities provide services or operate programs, although there are several types of grantmaking foundations such as
‘‘community foundations’’ that are public charities. They receive donations from many sources and use those resources to make grants for charitable purposes. Charitable organizations that do not have a broad base of contributors are called ‘‘private foundations.’’ Private foundations have less favorable tax status and a stricter regulatory framework than public charities. Most grantmaking foundations in the United States are classified as private foundations because they are created by an individual, a family, or a corporation and therefore do not have broad public support. Private foundations fall into a ‘‘residual’’ IRS category that includes both grantmaking foundations and direct service organizations that do not have sufficient public support (contributions) to qualify them for the more favorable tax-deductible status of public charities. Private foundations created by individuals, sometimes called ‘‘independent foundations,’’ may have living donors or families involved in their activities. Such foundations are often called ‘‘family foundations.’’ There are also ‘‘private operating foundations,’’ set up by individuals and families primarily to run an institution or a service program, which in some cases also chose to make grants. Private foundations that are created by business corporations are called ‘‘corporate foundations.’’ Examples include the Metlife Foundation, the Caterpillar Foundation, and the Wells Fargo Foundation, among others in every industry. These are legal entities separate from the sponsoring corporation that receive donations from that corporation and use those resources to make grants for charitable purposes. Few corporate foundations have substantial endowments; most receive gifts from the corporation and annually make grants with all or part of those contributions. Community foundations are classified as ‘‘public charities’’ and are subject to a less restrictive set of regulations than are private foundations. Traditionally, community foundations serve a specific city or region. For example, the New York Community Trust serves the New York City area and the San Francisco Foundation serves that city. Some community foundations such as the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, serve a state. In recent years, groups of individuals have formed grantmaking foundations that are modeled on community foundations, but benefit specific causes or underserved populations such as women, Native Americans, African Americans, and others. Women’s foundations, for example, began in 1972 with the creation of the Ms. Foundation for Women, a national grantmaking foundation supported by women contributing mostly modest amounts of money to benefit underserved women and girls.
Foundations, Grantmaking
Currently, the Women’s Funding Network has an international membership of 128 women’s funds that have assets of more than $450 million. There are also government-sponsored grantmaking foundations such as the National Science Foundation. These are not private foundations, and are usually excluded from statistics and descriptions of the US foundations. Scope of US Foundations
The number of US grantmaking foundations in 2006 is estimated by the Foundation Center (2008b) at 72,477 with assets of about $614.6 billion see Table 1. They made grants of $39 billion. Donors contributed almost $36.6 billion to existing and newly created foundations. Private
Foundations, Grantmaking. Table foundations, 2006 (dollars in millions)
1 US
grantmaking
2006 All foundations No. of foundations
72,477
Total giving
$39,004
Total assets
$614,656
Gifts received
$36,569
Independent No. of foundations
64,405
Total giving
$27,457
Total assets
$509,077
Gifts received
$21,591
Corporate No. of foundations
2,548
Total giving
$4,098
Total assets
$19,730
Gifts received
$4,374
Community No. of foundations
717
Total giving
$3,596
Total assets
$49,942
Gifts received
$6,033
Operating No. of foundations
4,807
Total giving
$3,853
Total assets
$35,906
Gifts received
$4,571
Source: The Foundation Center, Foundation Growth and Giving Estimates, 2008. Includes only foundations that awarded grants in the latest fiscal year
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foundations are the most numerous, and among them independent foundations account for 64,405 and corporate foundations 2,548. Community foundations number 717. There are no statistics available on other types of grantmaking public charities. A small proportion of US foundations hold the majority of assets and employ staff. Only an estimated 3,000 US foundations employ paid staff. Approximately 49 foundations that have endowments of $1 billion or more make over 22% of all US foundation grants. Most foundations have assets of less than $1 million dollars and do not employ staff. Foundation Activities
Grantmaking foundations pursue their charitable purposes mainly by making grants to operating nonprofit organizations (mostly public charities), which may deliver a service, such as education or training displaced workers; conduct basic or applied research in fields such as economics, biology, and medicine; perform concerts or plays; assess public policies; and many other activities. US foundations also make grants to individuals for scholarships, fellowships, prizes, and awards for outstanding achievements or contributions in a variety of fields. Such grants must have transparent processes approved by the IRS. Foundations may also make grants to government entities and business corporations although such grants are unusual. Foundations traditionally gave the largest share of their grant dollars for educational purposes followed by health and human services. In the most recent data shown in Table 2, grants related to health were slightly higher than those for education, and grants for international affairs are higher than in the past. In addition to making grants, foundations may use their resources and staff to provide services directly, conducting and publishing research, managing a facility such as a museum, holding conferences, building the capacity of nonprofits that they fund, and other activities. Grantmaking foundations engage in such direct service activities more frequently in recent years, according to Renz and Elias (2007). Some, usually the larger staffed foundations, also make loans or program-related investments using their assets to further their missions. While private foundations have great latitude in their grantmaking and other charitable activities, they may not engage directly or indirectly in electoral politics or lobby the government, except when proposed or existing legislation affects their status. Governance and Staffing
Grantmaking foundations are generally governed by a board of directors, if they are a nonprofit corporation or
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Foundations, Grantmaking. Table 2 US Foundation Grants, 2006 (dollars in thousands)
Subject
Dollar amount
Percent of total
Arts and culture
2,329,708
12.2
Education
4,306,090
22.5
Environment and animals
1,145,100
6.0
Health
4,394,462
23.0
Human services
2,645,895
13.8
International affairs, development, and peace
1,019,739
5.3
Public affairs/society benefita
2,042,490
10.7
Science and technology
550,591
2.9
Social sciences
259,092
1.4
Religion
412,955
2.2
Other Total
16,912
0.1
19,123,033
100.0
Source: The Foundation Center, Foundation Giving Trends, 2008. Based on a sample of 1,263 larger foundations. Due to rounding figures may not add up a Includes Civil Rights and Social Action, Community Improvement and Development, Philanthropy and Voluntarism, and Public Affairs
by a board of trustees if the foundation is set up as a trust. Board members are responsible for overseeing the integrity of the foundation’s finances and grantmaking programs and usually meet several times annually to make decisions and review the foundation’s work. The role of the board varies depending on the size and nature of the foundation. In foundations that do not employ staff (the majority of foundations in the United States) boards determine the policies and the grant recipients, and may be assisted by consultants and investment managers. If the foundation employs paid staff, board members make or enforce the foundation’s policies and procedures and may also approve grant decisions recommended by staff. In the largest foundations, boards often delegate funding decisions to staff except for very large grants. Those foundations are likely to employ grantmaking, administrative, and investment staff who conduct the day-to-day operations of the foundation. They may also hire consultants for specific tasks, such as evaluation of grant outcomes. Boards of foundations often include national and community leaders, business and financial experts, and people with knowledge of the foundation’s grantmaking interests. Family foundation boards are likely to consist of the foundation’s donor, family, friends, business associates, and trusted advisors. Top management of the
sponsoring corporation usually sits on corporate foundation boards. Community foundation boards usually include business and community leaders and major donors. Endowments
Most donors endow their private foundations with assets that consist of stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments. The interest on the endowment is used to make grants. Increasing numbers of new foundation donors choose not to endow their foundations. Instead, they make yearly or periodic gifts to the foundation and use those contributions to make grants, a pattern usually followed by business-sponsored foundations. Some of these ‘‘pass through’’ foundations are endowed over time, or receive an endowment gift from the donor’s estate. Other donors stipulate that their foundations die when they do, or within a specific number of years. These ‘‘limited life’’ foundations also seem to be increasing. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest grantmaking foundation, is a prominent example. It will cease operation 50 years after the death of the donors. Endowments of community foundations consist of aggregated gifts made by many donors. The income and sometimes the principal of the endowment are used to make grants. There are a variety of ways that donors can contribute to community foundations, among them are named funds, donor advised funds, special purpose funds (for schools or the arts), and undesignated funds. Community foundation staff and board members oversee the investment and management of the assets and the grantmaking. Regulation of Foundations
All foundations in the United States are regulated under specific rules designed to promote transparency and accountability and ensure that foundations serve the public interest, rather than the private interests of donors. The Internal Revenue Service is the national agency that oversees foundations, enforces regulations, and conducts research. Grantmaking foundations must annually complete and file with the IRS comprehensive public information reports, Form 990-PF for private foundations and Form 990 for public foundations. Both forms provide financial and governance information but Form 990-PF also requires lists of grants, direct charitable programs, and investment activities. Those reports must be available to the public. Private foundations must pay a tax on their investment income, are prohibited from engaging in certain forms of financial transactions between donors and other closely affiliated persons, are prohibited from acquiring certain types of risky ‘‘jeopardy’’ investments, are mandated to
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annually pay out in grants and related administrative expenses a minimum of 5% of their endowment by the end of the following year, are limited in the amount of voting stock they may hold in any one company, and are prohibited from lobbying and political activity, except in their own defense. See John Edie (1987) for a discussion of the regulations. Community foundations and other public foundations do not have these restrictions. The regulations also limit the income tax deduction for donor’s gifts of cash to private foundations to 30% of income, compared to a 50% limit for cash gifts to public charities.
Historical Background At the turn of the twentieth century Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and Margaret Olivia Sage initiated the modern grantmaking foundation with the considerable wealth each had accumulated from business ventures. This was a new form of organized philanthropy designed to attack the root causes of poverty through the application of scientific methods then becoming the norm in business. These foundations pioneered systematic and professionally staffed grantmaking that sought to identify and vet worthy projects for the foundations to fund. At about the same time Fredrick Goff created the first community foundation, the Cleveland Foundation, by converting moribund charitable trusts into a community foundation with the mission of using those resources and attracting other donors to meet the needs of the Cleveland, Ohio area. Today, community foundations are growing more quickly than private foundations, though from a smaller base, and they are increasingly being formed outside the United States. The numbers of foundations with more than $1 million dollars grew slowly for the first few decades of the twentieth century, and were created with increasing frequency during the decade of the 1950s. Growth leveled off during and following the Congressional hearings on foundations during the 1960s. In the mid-1980s, the formation of new foundations took off. There were 398 foundations created per year in the 1980s compared to 822 per year during the boom years of the 1990s. See Wing, Pollak, & Blackwood (2008) for creation rates of the large foundations. The wealth accumulated during the 1990s fueled a surge of new foundations in the United States. Giving by businesses was not legitimized until 1953 when the Supreme Court declined to review a New Jersey court decision in A.P. Smith Manufacturing Co. v. Barlow that corporations have the right to make philanthropic contributions. Since then, major corporations have
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created both endowed and pass-through foundations that make grants to a variety of causes both in the United States and in other countries where they have operations. The achievements of grantmaking foundations are significant, although largely unknown and unappreciated. Their role was critical in the first half of the twentieth century when the United States was moving from a collection of states to a nation that required research, data, analysis, and solutions to problems that the country was not equipped to handle. Joel Fleishman (2007) describes historical and contemporary examples of foundation impacts including the Rockefeller Foundation’s grants that fueled the Green Revolution by increasing crop yields and modernizing agriculture in Mexico and other countries (1943), the Carnegie Corporation and Ford Foundation’s grants that funded the Children’s Television Workshop and Sesame Street (1966) making a reality of educational television in the United States, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s grants to curb tobacco use that changed attitudes and behavior leading to a reduction in tobacco use (1991). Because of their contributions and the dominant pluralistic philosophy in the United States, foundations have thrived and grown as individual wealth in the United States has increased, but their ability to affect change is more limited now than in the midtwentieth century because government has more capacity and controls more resources than it did at that time. Foundations have always had staunch supporters and fierce critics. The inherent elitism of donors controlling vast sums of tax-exempt wealth and making decisions outside of the democratic process has made them lightning rods for populist attacks and attempts to limit their activities. The United States Congress has periodically held hearings on foundations. The Walsh Commission of 1916 resulted in a populist critique of concentrated wealth, the Cox Committee of 1952 examined whether foundations were engaged in ‘‘un-American’’ activities, and the Reece Committee was concerned with subversive activities. None of these investigations found serious abuses. The decidedly hostile tone of the Congressional Hearings organized by Representative Wright Patman beginning in 1961 led to the 1965 Treasury Department Report on foundations. That report acknowledged the societal benefits conferred by foundations, but also identified problem areas and suggested solutions. The regulations that emerged in the restructuring of the tax code in the Tax Reform Act of 1969 owed much to the findings and recommendations of the Treasury Report. The Tax Reform Act of 1969 was pivotal in the history of US foundations. It created a regulatory framework
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that promoted transparency through detailed financial reporting to the public and it provided the tools for enhanced government oversight of foundations. As a result, foundations are required to report the amounts and purposes of all grants, detail grantmaking expenses separately from investment expenses, report changes in investments, compensation of key foundation staff and board members, and all financial dealings with donors, trustees, and other insiders. To ensure that foundations do not hoard their assets, a minimum payout was established, calculated as a percentage of average investment assets. That amount was set at 5% in 1981. Foundations were also subjected to an excise tax on their investment income designed to pay for monitoring foundations and the charitable sector, although the tax revenue was never used for that purpose. The regulations promoted better and more transparent practices within foundations, but tended to curb grantmaking that could be construed as controversial or political in nature. The requirements of the Tax Reform Act also promoted the professionalization of larger foundations that began to hire administrative, program, legal, and investment staff to ensure that they complied with the Act’s requirements. In 1973 the privately organized Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, known as the Filer Commission (after its chair John Filer) commissioned research designed to help inform and shape the regulatory landscape in the aftermath of the Tax Reform Act of 1969. The 91 papers written for the Filer Commission began to fill a long-standing gap in empirical research on foundations and the nonprofit sector. The history of the Filer Commission and the earlier Peterson Commission reported by Eleanor Brilliant (2000) reveals how foundations and donors tried to mitigate the proposed regulations affecting foundations. After the Tax Reform Act, foundation leaders set about strengthening the organizations that provide services to and outreach for foundations. They increased the Foundation Center’s services to grant seekers and revamped the Council on Foundations, a national membership organization. Since the mid-1980s a large network of national and regional associations of foundations evolved. These groups hold educational conferences, promote good practices, and lobby legislatures and government agencies on behalf of foundations. In addition, affinity groups of grantmakers promote peer learning about grantmaking programs for distinct populations and specific fields.
Key Issues Historically, key issues concerning foundations fall into the areas of transparency and accountability, personal
benefit, public benefit, efficiency and effectiveness, political use of foundations, and the overarching issue of donor control and the legitimacy of foundations in a democracy. Congress periodically voices concern about whether the public benefits created by foundations equal or exceed the foregone taxes, whether the mandatory payout of 5% of investment assets is high enough, whether foundation salaries and administrative expenses are too high a proportion of their payout, whether foundation boards and staff reflect the diversity of society, and whether foundations benefit sufficiently the underserved, especially minorities, in society. Occasional scandals reported in the media suggest that government oversight of foundations is weak and that unscrupulous donors and families can use foundation resources for their own benefit. Actual data on the scale of abuses and many of the other issues are quite limited. Recent research is beginning to shed light on expenses and activities of foundations, identifying patterns and typical costs (Boris et al., 2008), and there are also efforts to document impacts (Fleishman, 2007) and measure performance. There is less vocal concern about the power of foundations, although the creation of mega foundations and growth in foundation endowments by the beginning of the twenty-first century has caused some to question whether there should be a limit on the size or life of foundations, and others to question whether more immediate use of foundation resources would benefit society more than payouts of 5% of assets each year in perpetuity.
International Perspectives Organized philanthropic structures exist throughout the world in every culture. As in the United States, however, there is no single definition of a foundation, and the legal framework differs from country to country. Many foundations in Europe do not make grants, but are equivalent of the US operating foundations or service providing charities because they operate programs, like a medical facility or museum, rather than making grants. Research reported in Anheier (2001), for example, estimates that there are 80,000 to 90,000 foundations in Western Europe and Turkey, but Heydemann and Toepler (2006) suggest that those totals would have to be reduced significantly if they included only grantmaking foundations that fit US definitions. Although the US style grantmaking foundation is a relatively new organizational form in many countries, it has become popular and the number of private and community foundations is growing quickly. The European Foundation Center (2007), a membership association of foundations, reports expansive growth
Foundations, Grantmaking
in the number of foundations in the countries of the European Union since the 1980s, with between 28% and 40% of all foundations created in the last 10 years. It has adopted a functional definition of foundations that states ‘‘public benefit foundations’’ are: "
Independent, separately-constituted non-profit bodies with their own established and reliable source of income, usually but not exclusively, from an endowment, and their own governing board. They distribute their financial resources for educational, cultural, religious, social or other public benefit purposes, either by supporting associations, charities, educational institutions or individuals, or by operating their own programmes.
Wealthy donors in Russia, Hong Kong, India, South Africa and other countries are increasingly creating private foundations, emulating US billionaire peers such as Bill Gates and George Soros. There has also been a deliberate effort to promote the creation of community foundations in many countries, notably in England and Mexico. Comparing US foundations with those in other countries, however, is complicated by the lack of data and by differing definitions and legal structures. Unlike in the United States, in some countries foundations may own businesses or benefit the donor family.
Future Directions There are many unanswered questions about foundations that need to be addressed with good research. Among the big ones are: Why do people create foundations? What do foundations accomplish? Who do they benefit? Are the results achieved by foundations commensurate with the cost of foregone tax revenue? With a new generation of very wealthy donors who operate globally, comparative studies of motivations for creating foundations would inform those seeking to design new philanthropic structures, tax and legal frameworks, and incentives to promote organized giving for public benefit. Research reported by Elizabeth T. Boris (1987) identified six clusters of motives from a survey of foundations: altruistic concerns (welfare of others, religious heritage, social responsibility, family tradition, personal philosophy); personal beliefs (concern with particular issues, political beliefs, philosophy, repay society for good fortune); instrumental motivations (flexibility of a foundation, tax incentives, systematic giving); memorial (memorial for self, family, personal satisfaction); community motivations (lack of heirs, commitment to a specific community); peer pressure (social pressure to
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create a foundation, personal satisfaction). How do these motivations compare to those of current donors? Changes in motivations over time and cross-national comparisons of motivations would be especially relevant, as would comparisons of differing motivations for choosing among giving to family foundations, community foundations, and other public grantmaking foundations, and to commercial donor-advised funds. It would also be useful to know if there are systematic differences among donors who choose to give during their lifetimes and those who give the bulk of their donations through their estates when they die. A growing literature, mostly historic, describes the achievements of foundations, but there are no generally accepted methods or accessible data that permit reliable large-scale measurement of impact or effectiveness. Recent foundation donors who employ business models resembling venture capital investment tend to require measures of outcomes. Their foundations invest in organizations, providing staff and consultants to assist with planning and capacity building. Grantee agencies must collect performance and outcome data to demonstrate their achievements. There are no reliable data on the extent of this ‘‘venture’’ model of foundation philanthropy or on the outcomes they achieve compared to other modes of grantmaking. As in the rest of the nonprofit sector, the common measures mostly capture how much foundations spend, not what they produce or accomplish. Theoretical and empirical work that differentiates among foundation practices and outcomes is rare. A notable exception is Francie Ostrower’s research (2004) that develops a typology based on differences in the attitudes and practices of staffed foundations with regard to effectiveness. More frustrating to some policy makers, there are no comprehensive data on the populations that benefit from foundation grants and programs. While the philanthropic ethos has long been to benefit society with long-term problem-solving grants, fueling innovation, and building knowledge, there is an increasingly vocal demand that foundations provide more direct benefit to the poor and underserved in society. In reality, there are few ways to influence foundation agendas. Congressional interest, however, is powerful and large foundations tend to react to the prevailing political pressures. Foundations are products of wealth accumulation. In the United States, the creation of foundations helps to legitimize wealth by permitting people to give away assets with little government interference and significant tax benefits. The contributions of foundations to society are many, but their role in engaging the country’s social,
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business, and government entrepreneurs to help address society’s intractable problems is a positive contribution in itself. Being involved in foundations educates them about the needs and the difficulty of making change in complex social, environmental, and policy areas. Innovation and advocacy can result. Assessing foundation contributions from a historical perspective is ongoing, but assessing their accomplishments from an efficiency or effectiveness perspective is a future task.
Cross-References
▶ Boards ▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Carnegie, Andrew ▶ Cleveland Foundation ▶ Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs ▶ Council on Foundations ▶ Endowment, Definition and Management of ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundation Center ▶ Foundations, Independent ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Goff, Frederick ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Philanthropy ▶ Rockefeller Foundation ▶ Rockefeller Brothers Fund ▶ Rockefeller, John D., Sr. ▶ Sage, Olivia
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. (2001). Foundations in Europe: A comparative perspective. In A. Schluter, V. Then, & P. Walkenhorst (Eds.), Foundations in Europe: Society, management and law. London: Directory of Social Change. Boris, E. (1987). Creation and growth: A survey of private foundations. In T. Odendahl (Ed.), America’s wealthy and the future of foundations. New York: Foundation Center. Boris, E. T., Renz, L., Hager, M., Elias, R., Somashekhar, M. (2008). What drives foundation expenses and compensation? Results of a three-year study. Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute. Boris, E. T., & Wolpert, J. (2001).The role of philanthropic foundations: Lessons from America’s experience with private foundations. In H. Anheier & J. Kendall (Eds.) The third sector policy at the crossroads. London: Routledge. Brilliant, E. L. (2000). Private charity and public inquiry: A history of the Filer and Peterson commissions. Bloomington/Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Edie, J. A. (1987). Congress and foundations: Historical summary. In T. Odendahl (Ed.), America’s wealthy and the future of foundations. New York: Foundation Center. European Foundation Centre (2007). Comparative highlights of foundation laws. Brussels, Belgium: European Foundation Centre.
Fleishman, J. L. (2007). The foundation: A great American secret. New York: Public Affairs. Foundation Center (2008a). Foundation giving trends. New York: Foundation Center. Foundation Center (2008b). Foundation growth and giving estimates. New York: Foundation Center. Heydemann, S., & Toepler, S. (2006). Foundations and the challenge of legitimacy in comparative perspective. In K. Prewitt, M. Dogan, S. Heydemann, & S. Toepler (Eds.), The legitimacy of philanthropic foundations. New York: Russell Sage. Ostrower, F. (2004). Attitudes and practices concerning effective philanthropy. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Renz, L., & Elias, R. (2007). More than grantmaking: A first look at foundations’ direct charitable activities. New York: Foundation Center Wing, K. T., Pollak, T. H., & Blackwood, A. (2008). The nonprofit almanac 2008. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute Press.
Foundations, Grant-Seeking SIMONA SˇKARABELOVA´ Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
Introduction It is only recently that foundations have begun to receive the long-overdue attention that they deserve, from researchers in various countries and internationally. This increased interest in foundations has led to the discovery of a wellpredictable fact, namely, that the foundation landscape is very rich and varied. First attempts have been made, especially in North America and Europe, at mapping the rich variety of forms and roles of foundations, and at classifying what is increasingly being exposed as a very heterogeneous phenomenon. The first comparative studies also emphasized the need for a comprehensive definition of what a foundation is: What is it that, in spite of all the differences, characterizes this type of organization? As a rule, the notion of what a foundation is varies from country to country along several dimensions. The ‘‘rich tapestry’’ of the various forms of foundations (Anheier, 2001; Hopt & Reuter, 2001) complicates a complete understanding of them, as it produces a highly complex, often confusing terminology. In order to find the common core that sets these organizations apart from the others, the definitions that have been offered for international comparison invariably come up with three indispensable characteristics: (1) A foundation is an asset that is dedicated to serving a purpose. (2) It must have a revenue-generating asset or aggregation of assets, which gives it a reliable source of income. (3) It must rest on an
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original deed – typically, a charter that defines the purpose which the financial resources must serve. This basic prototype of a foundation is then classified using various other criteria, such as the type of founder (individual, corporate, community, government-sponsored foundations, etc.), or the type of activity (grant-making, operating, mixed foundations). For practical use, the distinctions between grant-making and operating foundations and between individual and corporate foundations are usually considered sufficient. But a thorough study of the foundation phenomenon in any country usually offers a much more varied picture. In its third draft (1995), the European Foundation Centre (EFC) has offered a typology of foundations in Europe that lists 18 ‘‘of the most common foundation types in Europe’’ in four generic categories. What is interesting for the discussion that follows below is that even though the EFC’s definition of a foundation follows the established canon, describing foundations as ‘‘separately-constituted nonprofit bodies with their own established and reliable source of income (usually, but not exclusively) from an endowment or capital,’’ the typology itself recognizes the existence of so-called fund-raising foundations (European Foundation Centre, 2003, 6). The typology describes them as ‘‘foundations that are almost exclusively dependent on annual fund-raising from a variety of sources to obtain the funds that they will, in turn, distribute each year.’’ It goes on to characterize their ‘‘approach to the distribution of financial resources’’ as happening ‘‘via grant-making to associations, charities, individuals or nonprofit organisations.’’ And finally, it warns that ‘‘if the organisation raises funds primarily for a single purpose that it manages, such as a hospital, school, or for membership or social services, it should be classified as an association or charity, even if it has foundation in its name.’’ So, the EFC typology recognizes the existence of grantseeking foundations, besides grant-making foundations, but, in the discussion, stumbles over some of the typical difficulties these organizations pose for a coherent theory: Can fund-raising foundations use their financial resources in any of the same ways that other foundations do, or can they only re-grant what they raise? Can they serve a single purpose or a single institution, or do they have to award grants to a plurality of causes, and to a wide choice of applicants? And, are they foundations in the first place? One feels from the way the typology treats them, and from their place at the end of the list, that fund-rasing or grant-seeking foundations are, somehow, ‘‘improper,’’ and not really foundations. But nothing is farther from the truth. They are a well-established type of foundation, probably as old as the (modern) foundation concept itself;
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they are present in most countries, their numbers are impressive and growing, and they display a variety of subtypes and interactions with other organizations that prove their viability. In spite of the large numbers of grant-seeking foundations in existence, no substantial research has been carried out that would focus on this type of foundation. Grantseeking foundations are sometimes mentioned in passing in general discussions of foundation types, but they do not appear as a separate entity in statistical surveys, nor have they been subjected to mapping or research. Very little is known about this set of foundations as a result, and so a student of the phenomenon has to rely on anecdotal evidence scattered in a handful of articles, and on brief mentions in instruction manuals for foundation trustees and managers.
Definition A grant-seeking foundation takes the legal form of a foundation, but is created without substantial assets. Instead, it depends for its financial health on annual fund-raising from a variety of sources, like most other nonprofit organizations do. Its funding may come from appeals to the general public or to a specific group (such as ‘‘friends’’ or alumni), from grants from corporate funders and other foundations, or from governmental support. Grant-seeking foundations may also have an endowment or capital, or may be in the process of building it, but it is the dependence on fund-raising that distinguishes them from endowed/assetbased foundations. There are several terms that are used to describe this set of foundations and some specific members of the set: grant-seeking or fund-raising, collector/distributor or regranting, and parallel or special purpose foundations (also special fund-raising foundations). Grant-seeking or fund-raising are by far the most established terms used, and the most justified; collector/distributor or re-granting are used only for those foundations that collect funds from various sources and then redistribute them through their grant-making programs; and parallel or special purpose refers to those foundations that are set up by organizations such as universities and hospitals to seek gifts and grants in order to support the parent organization. Grant-seeking and fund-raising are the appropriate terms to be used because they classify these institutions by the one decisive criterion, namely their source of funding. The other terms mix two criteria (source of funding and type of activity) or refer to only one subtype of the grant-seeking foundation. Grant-seeking foundations are to be seen in contrast with foundations that operate on the basis of income
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derived from their assets. It is the criterion ‘‘source of funding’’ that distinguishes the two basic types. (It is likely, however, that in real life there are few clear-cut cases; a lot of foundations will be hybrids: asset-based foundations may match the income from their assets with annual fund-raising, and the funding portfolio of grant-seeking foundations may include some endowment, some annual gifts, and a lot of year-round fund-raising.) A specific case is the community foundation: these foundations collect funding from the members of a community and tend therefore to be organized as grantseeking foundations.
Key Issues Subtypes
The grant-seeking foundation is not a neat category whose members follow the same pattern of organization and behavior. The attribute ‘‘grant-seeking’’ (‘‘fundraising’’) refers to only one criterion that enables classification of foundations into two broad categories, namely the (dominant) source of income. Within their own category, however, grant-seeking foundations display the same wide variety of forms and play the same multifarious roles as foundations in the other category of endowed/ asset-based foundations. Thus, if one examines grant-seeking foundations from the perspective of their purpose or mission one finds that all the familiar types are represented, ranging from a single-purpose foundation supporting an annual school prize to a multipurpose community foundation that supports a variety of causes through a large number of grantmaking and operational programs. If one takes the type of activity that they use to fulfill their mission as a criterion, one can draw the same distinctions as in other foundations, distinguishing grant-making, operating, and mixed foundations, to say nothing of more refined subcategories such as prize-awarding or research foundations. By the type of beneficiary, there are foundations whose support is open to the general public through open grant competitions; other foundations limit their support to certain groups, to organizations only or individuals only, to certain types of organization only (such as nonprofits), etc.; still others collect funding for designated recipients only or for a single designated recipient; and finally, some foundations collect funding for their own programs and activities. A fund-raising foundation can be founded by an individual, group of individuals, a nonprofit organization, a for-profit firm or a government agency. In terms of
independence, there are wholly independent foundations at one extreme of the scale and foundations controlled by their founders at the other, with all shades of connectedness and semi-dependence in between. Since there are no substantial data and literature on grant-seeking foundations, it is difficult to know how numerous they are and which of the subtypes mentioned above are the most common. Arlett (1996) discusses one subtype, the ‘‘parallel’’ foundation, noting that their numbers are steadily rising. Citing from the 1995 Association for Healthcare Philanthropy annual survey Giving in Canada, he highlights the fact that 92% of the responding hospitals had parallel foundations. The instruction manuals and the anecdotal evidence also create the impression that (at least in North America) the grant-seeking foundation that serves one ‘‘parent’’ institution is by far the most common type. Flassenberger (2004, 29) seems to associate fund-raising foundations with the development in Central and Eastern European countries after the fall of communism and considers them to be a transitional phase in the life of those foundations that were set up without an asset but decided to build up an endowment of their own. Rosenmayer et al., (2004) carried out a large national survey of foundations in the Czech Republic and found that 62% of all the responding foundation-like organizations were ‘‘parallel’’ foundations, established to support and serve their parent organizations. Most of them were set by/for educational, health care, social care and cultural institutions, and churches. From a cursory look at individual examples of grantseeking foundations, it seems evident that geographically they operate on all levels, the local, regional, national, and international, even though, judging from the apparent prevalence of ‘‘parallel’’ foundations mentioned above, the local/regional foundations are likely to dominate. Rationale
Why do grant-seeking foundations get established? If an organization such as a college needs to begin fund-raising, why set a foundation, and not appoint a fund-raiser or establish a fund-raising department? If one wishes to raise funding for a cause, why not organize an appeal or a collection? Because of the lack of research, there is little understanding of the reasons, nor is there enough data to substantiate the claims that have been made so far. Fram (2002) interviewed personnel of 26 organizations with parallel foundations in the Rochester and Buffalo, New York metropolitan areas and he summed up the most frequent motivating reasons for the establishment of parallel foundations as follows:
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● Privately donated funds and public funds cannot be commingled. ● There is a community perception that the parent nonprofit organization might not be stable over a long period. ● Parent board members are unable or unwilling to be involved with fund-raising. ● The parent nonprofit needs to raise capital or special program funds. ● Assets may need to be protected from legal suits. ● Funds must be more effectively used or managed. Unfortunately, these claims are based on too small a sample and his probe has remained a sole attempt. Fund-raising foundations with national and international activities are often established by/in richer parts/ countries with a view to helping impoverished regions or nations. The fund-raising is done in the developed country/countries and then the finances and/or the aid are transferred to, and distributed in, the developing country, either directly to the recipient(s) or with the help of a local intermediary. For example, the Swiss diversethics Foundation supports underprivileged communities in the Mekong Sub-Region (Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand). Also, fund-raising foundations can be established in the free world to collect funding and to support individuals, groups, initiatives, or causes in countries with repressive regimes, where it would be difficult or impossible to set up a formal organization or to raise funding locally. So, for example, during the Cold War the Oxford-based Jan Hus Educational Foundation raised funding and organized support for the socalled underground university in Czechoslovakia, or the Charter 77 Foundation in Stockholm supported Czechoslovak dissidents and their activities in the 1980s. Foundation or Not?
A grant-seeking foundation appears to be a clear case of a contradictio in adjecto. Is it not the original gift that constitutes the very essence of what is understood regarding the concept of a foundation? How can a foundation serve its purpose without a reliable source of income from a separate, independent, revenue-generating asset? The very words that different languages use for this type of institution (foundation, foundation, fundacio´n, fundaca˜o, fundazzione, Stiftung, stichting, stiftelse, nadace, nada´cia, zaklada) refer to the asset (the root meaning of fund, fonds, zaklad) or to the act of donating it (the root of stift, nadace). Yet, the fact remains that grant-seeking foundations in their several basic forms are wellestablished in a number of countries and their numbers
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are reported to be rising. The idea of institutionalizing the fund-raising effort for a cause or for an organization seems as old as the concept of an endowed foundation. Medieval hospitals, orphanages, churches, schools, and colleges were set up as endowed foundations themselves or separate funds were created for their support. It seems that in the case of grant-seeking foundations the concept of a reliable income has to be extended to include permanent year-round fund-raising. However, the grant-seeking foundation is a borderline case. A number of its subtypes continue to raise the question of whether or not they can still be classified as foundations or are already something else. Whether or not they are independent entities or parts of other organizations and whether or not they are nonprofit organizations or rather parts of government or business. If a grant-seeking foundation spends the funds that it collects to operate its own programs, is there anything left that distinguishes it from a general charity or association? If a ‘‘parallel’’ foundation serves a single parent organization, is it an independent organization, and a separate entity, or is it de facto a unit of the parent organization? Do grant-seeking foundations differ in a meaningful way from appeals and collections? If a fund-raising foundation re-grants moneys raised from other donors, does it act independently or is its fund-raising controlled by the end-recipient and its grant-making by the donor? If a ‘‘parallel’’ foundation is established and/or controlled by government or business does it belong to the nonprofit sector or the other sectors? If a grant-seeking foundation raises funding for several organizations, does it not act like a commercial consultancy or service provider rather than a nonprofit entity? There are no answers to these and other questions because there is no definition of the foundation that is consistent with the existence of grant-seeking foundations. At the moment, grant-seeking foundations are included in the foundation community as a rule, albeit with some hesitation, but often some subtypes of the grant-seeking foundation are excluded (see EFC, 2003, quoted above). And sometimes they are not considered to be foundations at all. For example, in reaction to the mushroom growth in the number of foundations after the fall of communism, most of which were being established without assets and many of which were not in fact foundations at all but rather membership-based associations or corporations, even if their founders called them ‘‘foundation,’’ several Central/East European countries instituted new legislation in the course of the 1990s that strictly defined foundations as nonmembership-based organizations that must be in the possession of revenue-generating
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assets (e.g., Czech Law No. 227/1997 On Foundations and Funds or Slovak Law No. 34/2002 On Foundations and the Change of the Civil Code). (As a consequence of the implementation of the new legislation in 1998, the number of registered foundations in the Czech Republic dropped from over 5,000 to around 200 [in 2007, there were over 400 foundations]. In Hungary, where no such legislation was introduced, the number of foundations remained high, circa 22,000 in 2005.) Independence, Control, Governance
As the most common subtype of the grant-seeking foundation seems to be the ‘‘parallel’’ foundation, established to raise funds for a single ‘‘parent’’ recipient, the issue of independence and the related problems of control and governance occupy a prominent place in all the advice and instructions that are offered to board members and leaders of these ‘‘twin’’ arrangements. To find a good balance between the two organizations and to eliminate the inevitable tensions between their governing bodies and executive officers is a key initial task for those that set up the foundation and a key long-term requirement on their governance. There is plenty of potential for disagreement: the board of the parent organization does not understand fund-raising and the foundation board does not have full understanding of the mission and the programs of the organization; the board of the parent organization feels it does not have sufficient control over the fund-raising plan and activities; the foundation board feels the funding should be used differently from the decisions of the parent board; the parent board thinks the foundation is too expensive; the foundation thinks it is understaffed and underfunded to do the job that is required of them; since there exist two organizations with two separate boards, their respective missions, goals, and objectives can begin to diverge over time; if there is tension between the boards, there may be even more misunderstanding and suspicion between staff members; and so on and so forth. The advice usually given is to think twice before setting up a parallel foundation. The reasons for establishing a foundation should be given all the careful thought and planning that is required. The two key questions are: Why should I spend so much energy and finance to set up an arm’s length entity? And why would a donor give to a parallel foundation rather than to the organization itself? If the decision to create a parallel foundation is made, equally careful thought should be given to the bylaws of the foundation, to the overlap between the two boards, and to effective communication between them.
Future Directions As emphasized above, research on foundations that would include grant-seeking foundations is very sparse indeed, and substantial research that would specifically target these foundations is practically nonexistent. That is why basic research is needed to map this subsystem of philanthropy, identify the various types of the grant-seeking foundation, explore the reasons for their existence, and study their behavior. Such study would undoubtedly contribute to the understanding of organized philanthropy as such and feed back into general theory of foundations. With the new knowledge, one should be able to review the general definition of foundations so as to include the existence of grant-seeking foundations and to establish more clearly the borderline between foundations and other nonprofit forms.
Cross-References
▶ Charta 77 Foundation ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Functions of ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Fundraising ▶ Philanthropy, Definition of
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K. (2001). Foundations in Europe: A comparative perspective. In A. Schlu¨ter, V. Then, & P. Walkenhorst (Eds.), Foundations in Europe (pp. 35–81). London: Directory of Social Change. Arlett, A. (1996). Parallel foundations – too many, too trendy and too hasty. The Canadian Fundraiser, November 27, 1996, from http:// www.charityvillage.com/cv/research/rfm4.html; 08/20/2008 European Foundation Centre. (2003). Typology of foundations in Europe. As of October 1995, reworded 2003. Brussels: European Foundation Centre, from http://www.efc.be/ftp/public/EU/EURweb/ EFCtypology.pdf; 08/20/2008 European Foundation Centre. (2005). Foundation facts and figures across the EU –associating private wealth for public benefit. Brussels: European Foundation Centre, http://www.efc.be/ftp/public/EU/ EURweb/Facts_Figs_publication.pdf; 08/20/2008 Flessenkemper, T. (Ed.) (2004). T-Kit on funding and financial management. Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, from http:// www.youth-partnership.net/export/sites/default/youth-partnership/ documents/Publications/T_kits/9/tkit9.pdf; 08/20/2008 Fram, E. H. (2002). Fundraising foundations: What are they, & how are nonprofits using them? Nonprofit World. September/October 2002, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa5384/is_200209/ai_n 21319077; 08/20/2008 Hopt, K. J., & Reuter, D. (Eds.) (2001). Stiftungsrecht in Europa. Cologne: Carl Heymanns Verlag. Lavery, R. (1999). Considering a parallel or special interest foundation for your public library – Part 1. Signal, Fall, from http://www.sols.org/ links/clearinghouse/fundingdev/resources/foundations/parallel1.htm; 08/20/2008
Foundations, Independent Lavery, R. (2000). Considering a parallel or special interest foundation for your public library – Part 2. Signal, Spring, from http://www.sols. org/links/clearinghouse/fundingdev/resources/foundations/parallel2. htm; 08/20/2008 Rosenmayer, T., Hya´nek, V., Peka´rkova´, P., Pospı´sˇil, M., Sˇkarabelova´ S., & Tu˚mova´ Z. (2004). Ekonomicke´ vy´sledky nadacˇnı´ch subjektu˚ v roce 2002 [Foundation-like Organisations: Facts and figures 2002]. Brno: Centre for Nonprofit Research.
Foundations, Independent DAVID C. HAMMACK Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA
Introduction Independent foundations provide, within the limits permitted by governments and courts, an institutional device for holding, investing, and distributing funds for charitable, religious, scientific, artistic, and other approved purposes. Independent foundations can advance the ideals of civil society by providing multiple sources of initiative. Able (within the terms of their charters and within the bounds permitted by government) to shift resources at will, they can support new initiatives or advance special and minority agendas. Critics sometimes argue that foundations should be under the very close control of legislative majorities or ruling coalitions, but foundation defenders emphasize that their wealth is very limited, and that foundations must work in accepted ways and in cooperation with others if they are to have any significant impact. Through a foundation as by other philanthropic means, a donor can seek to transform financial capital into symbolic capital: through a foundation, a donor can also simply seek to advance a cherished purpose.
Definition An independent foundation is generally understood to be autonomous, self-governing, separate from the control of government (national, provincial, or local) and from such ‘‘operating’’ entities as religious institutions, schools, hospitals, arts organizations, and other charities (although of course government-sponsored as well as ‘‘private’’ operating entities can be in many important ways free from direct political direction). Some independent foundations are devoted to specific, narrowly defined purposes; others are at liberty, under their charters and applicable law, to turn from one charitable purpose to another as their boards decide. Independent foundations reflect a political
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system’s willingness to allow legal and political ‘‘space’’ for concerted independent action, to limit the powers of government, to permit an active civil society, to respect rights in private property.
Historical Background Successive periods and different national contexts have seen distinctive patterns of foundation giving. In general, foundations must always seek to leverage their financial gifts with knowledge and to fit them into larger contemporary institutional developments. Fueled by great industrial and commercial fortunes and encouraged by the waning of religious restrictions, independent foundations first became prominent towards the end of the nineteenth century. For discussion of religious and other foundations, see the articles in this book on ‘‘Charity and religion,’’ ‘‘Foundations, definition and history,’’ ‘‘Law, foundations,’’ and ‘‘Wakfs.’’ Germany produced the most notable nineteenthcentury foundations. In late nineteenth-century Germany, hundreds of foundations, some of them of considerable size, provided significant funding for scientific research, for the assembling of collections in museums of natural history and of art, and for universities, as well as for experiments in the improvement of housing, public health, and the amelioration of poverty. German foundations worked closely with national, provincial, and municipal governments, but they retained considerable scope, and they made possible many projects that governments could not complete by themselves. They provided a device through which successful businessmen could demonstrate commitment to public causes and to widely valued purposes, advance their social ambitions, exert influence on public affairs, and reinforce their economic positions. By the time of the World War I, the Koppel Foundation, the Hamburg Scientific Foundation, and many others were providing important support to the Prussian Academy of Science, Frankfurt University, the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical and Electrical Chemistry, the German Medical School in Shanghai, annual exchanges of faculty between the University of Berlin and Harvard, and the German Museum in Munich, among many other similar institutions. Other foundations underwrote experiments in lowincome housing, elementary and adult education, job training, and other causes. The great disruptions of the 1920s and 1930s brought this era of the German Foundation to an end. Notable nineteenth-century American foundations underwrote individual hospitals, colleges, libraries, arts institutions, and religious missions, as well as clusters of such organizations in particular cities and within the
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context of particular religious communities. Nineteenthcentury foundations provided some degree of support and security for the ministers and teachers whose work made possible the growth of several Protestant religious denominations. The Peabody Fund and several of Andrew Carnegie’s funds promoted the creation of tax-supported local and state-wide public school and library systems across the United States. The Baron deHirsch Fund, created from a European but established in New York, undertook a changing portfolio of measures to ease the adjustment of Jewish migrants from Eastern Europe to the United States. For several decades after 1900 and especially after 1920 the several Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Guggenheim foundations, and many others, extended the German approach (well known by American donors who sometimes collaborated with German philanthropies) by working to help build the modern American research university, the scientific and academic disciplines, and the university-based medical research and hospital center. The Russell Sage Foundation worked with several others to bring a sort of voluntary order to America’s highly decentralized and often inadequate networks of social service organizations. Pittsburgh millionaire and former US Secretary of the Treasury A.W. Mellon used his eponymous Educational and Charitable Trust to dispense funds for America’s National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, to purchase much of its core collection, and to fund other charitable projects, especially in his home city. Similarly the Duke Endowment for the Carolinas was established to support four universities as well as Methodist ministers in two states. Most generalizations about American foundations derive from the work of the foundations named above, and of a number of other foundations that pursued allied purposes. Less noted have been the very substantial contributions made by several American foundations to the League of Nations and its supporting institutions and to the education, travel, research, and conferences of specialists in international fields. Also less noted was the support provided by the Danforth, Texas Baptist, Eli Lilly, Luce and many regional funds (especially in the South and West) for Protestant causes in the United States and abroad; and of the W.K. Kellogg and several other foundations for rural and small-town educational, public health, and university extension efforts. In Britain, the government prevented the a very large gift of funds for the subsidy of housing. Historians have also documented several notable failures of mid-century efforts of American foundations. It seems clear that foundations failed to assure universal access to the best modern health care; to make secondary
education more effective for all students; to promote really effective voluntary responses to poverty; to promote various ‘‘moral reforms’’ having to do with alcohol, drugs, and sex. British foundations are perhaps the most studied among European foundations. Among the best-known independent foundations in Britain, the Carnegie UK Trust and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have emphasized changing programs in support of libraries, adult education, social services, and other efforts to build effective community institutions, while the Rhodes Trust, the Nuffield Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, and the Wolfson Foundation have emphasized universities and scientific research. During the 1920s and 1930s America’s Rockefeller Foundation also supported scientific and social scientific research in the United Kingdom. The British government has on occasion taken strong action to force foundations to conform to established national policy despite explicit statements of a donor’s intent, as its actions to restrict the housing scheme of the William Sutton Trust (founded 1900) made clear. In the United States, incomes grew rapidly in the decades after 1940; greater wealth allowed Americans to pay far more for education, health care, social services, and the arts. Stimulated by greatly increased payments for their services and by extraordinary levels of private giving, the nation’s colleges, universities, hospitals, and arts organizations grew rapidly. Meanwhile the New Deal, World War II, the Cold War, and the Great Society transformed the scope and scale of the US federal government. By the 1960s federal spending on health, higher education, scientific and medical research, and social support dwarfed the gifts that foundations could offer. And with federal funds came federal strings, limiting the potential impact of private grants. For several decades after World War II, America’s foundations struggled to redefine their roles in response to these dramatic changes. Private purchases of service and government funding did not displace private giving in the United States: rather, they transformed and vastly expanded work in most of the fields (especially in health, science, education, job training, and poor relief) to which private donors direct their gifts. Foundations changed their approaches in many ways. The Ford Foundation, the most notable new foundation of this period, often followed foundation actions of previous decades, making very large gifts to universities and arts organizations and seeking to increase the numbers of institutions capable of operating at the ‘‘world class’’ levels already established by others. But the Ford Foundation also moved in new directions. It supported social
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advocacy through the Fund for the Republic, through voter-registration drives, through the Vera Institute for Justice, and other initiatives. Its Gray Areas project sought new ways to empower people in impoverished communities to overcome their subordination and poverty. It underwrote massive efforts to support democracy, effective government, and economic and social development in India and other nations then emerging from colonialism. Most other independent American foundations had to begin to think of their work in ways that were more narrowly targeted. Rather than build new institutions, they increased their support for existing institutions in their home regions, with substantial grants to private as well as state universities, not-for-profit as well as county hospitals. The larger foundations supported the creation of new fields (population studies, area studies, particular areas of biochemistry) rather than of wholly new institutions such as research universities or medical centers. Smaller foundations funded particular projects. They joined with others in funding responses to new diseases like AIDs, or to efforts to cure diseases ignored by the National Institutes of Health because they afflict relatively small populations. Or they helped expand important regional arts initiatives, like the Houston Opera Theater, the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, or the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. During the 1950s and 1960s, some independent foundations in the United States came in for considerable Congressional criticism. Too many financial advisors had encouraged clients to seek to protect family financial interests through the creation of a foundation. A very few foundations supported voter registration or other political efforts, often seen as part of the Civil Rights Movement, that provoked strong objection from existing interests. Congress and the US Treasury responded by tightening the regulations designed to prevent donors from using foundations for their ‘‘self-inurement’’ and for narrow electioneering purposes. The new regulations, together with the economic realities of the 1960s and 1970s, significantly slowed the growth of foundations in the United States. When more rapid expansion of American foundations resumed in the 1990s and 2000s, foundations seemed to enter a new era. Foundation leaders are accepting the reduced relative wealth of the funds they control, the increasing size and complexity of their fields of interest, and the diversity of the foundation field itself. Many now emphasize focus, seek to define objectives appropriate to their relative resources, and to find niches in which they can achieve results that they can measure and that can be sustained. Even the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest ever created, emphasizes the fact that its
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resources are very limited in relation to its desire to improve public health throughout much of the world. Many foundations are seeking social innovations that markets, including markets funded with government vouchers, will support. Others (Rowntree and Wellcome in Britain, the Milbank Memorial Fund, the R. W. Johnson Foundation, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Annie E. Casey Foundation in the United States) accept that ‘‘big government’’ is unlikely to shrink, and have worked creatively to find ways to help state as well as federal policy-makers find ways to more effectively deliver elementary and secondary education, medical care, job training, support for children and youth, and assistance to the elderly. Still others seek above all to increase leadership capacity in key segments of society, or to preserve cultural, artistic, environmental, social, and religious values. In much of the rest of the world, foundations have been expanding in numbers and importance as efforts to expand individual civil and property rights, to increase prosperity, to address inequality and social exclusion, and to build notable institutions of science and the arts, have called forth new institutions. Foundations have reemerged as notable features of German life, pursuing both the religious, scientific, educational, social, and cultural projects like those of their earlier predecessors, and – as through the Volkswagen Foundation and the German Marshall Fund – post-World War II agendas of international understanding. (For other cases, see the story of the Tata Trusts, and related articles in this volume on foundations and associations of foundations in many different nations.)
Key Issues If the global crisis of 2009 does not force a change in direction, a new foundation era may well be emerging, an era characterized by acceptance of foundation variety, an understanding of the severe limits on foundation resources and capabilities, often by a strong commitment to distinctive values, by a search for leverage, by a focus on measurable and sustainable results. But it is never clear whether a new era has emerged until long after the event. Among the great current issues are these: Will independent foundations retain and expand their independence, or will governments force them to return to the meek support of government priorities? Will foundations once again see a great decline in their resources, in relation to the scale of the fields they wish to address? Will foundations be able to find nonprofit and government partners capable of joining in large enterprises? Will it be possible for large foundation-supported enterprises to become selfsupporting? Or so at least it seemed in the 1990s and early 2000s, before the global financial crisis of 2009.
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International Perspectives As this article has suggested, the term ‘‘independent foundation’’ is used with distinctive meanings in different nations. In some cases, reference is to a national regulatory or funding agency that is, and is seen to be, separate from the immediate control of government or political influences. Such an agency often focuses on questions relating to medicine, drugs, or technical or accounting standards. Some ‘‘independent foundations’’ are designed to distribute funds for cultural, scientific, or medical research purposes. Others are set up to gather money from many donors for the care of people who suffer from a particular disease, and for research into its treatment, cure or prevention. Still others are designed explicitly to preserve funds for members of a family. National laws and practices determine governance arrangements for independent foundations. National funding and regulatory agencies are usually controlled by boards appointed by national governments – to that extent limiting their autonomy. Nationally-approved professional associations or corporations sometimes select governors. In some Nordic nations, certain kinds of public-serving foundations must be set up as associations open to the membership of all who are interested. In Great Britain, the United States, and in some other parts of the world, a small self-perpetuating board usually makes all decisions regarding investments and donations, subject to state and federal laws. In the United States, where individual states control the terms under which foundations incorporate and national law controls their federal (but not state or local) tax status, ‘‘independent foundations’’ have dominated the foundation field since early in the twentieth century. In the United States, an independent foundation holds its own substantial fund, usually invests that fund for long-term growth, and decides from year to year how to spend the income from the fund. So long as the foundation gives to broadly defined ‘‘charitable purposes’’ an amount equivalent to the average value of its assets over the past 3 years, it avoids most federal income taxes and donors reduce taxes on their incomes. At present there are more than 70,000 independent foundations in the United States. The majority of these funds have less than $1 million in assets and no regular employees; the 3,000 largest employ nearly all the professional foundation staff. Public attention naturally focuses on the very largest foundations – the 40 or so whose assets exceeded $1 billion in 2007–2008 – and even more on the very largest – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation – and the best-known of the oldest very large foundations – founded by Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, members
of the Guggenheim family, W. K. Kellogg, Eli Lilly, Andrew W. Mellon. Altogether, foundation grants add up to a substantial total: $41 billion in 2006 according to the Foundation Center. Recent surveys suggest that family and independent foundation giving is at a much lower level in the United Kingdom and in Europe in general: on the order of perhaps $3 billion in the United Kingdom, perhaps somewhat more in Europe, much less in other parts of the world. Many US laws and practices encourage people to give for a very wide range of purposes. It is likely that the possibility of giving through the device of an independent foundation encourages wealthy Americans to give more than they would if such an institution was not available to them. Other nations that have recently made their laws more supportive of the creation of foundations also intend to encourage giving, as well as to strengthen the autonomy of civil society. Independent foundations have in many cases provided sustained and sometimes very creative and effective support for educational, health-related, research, social service, religious, and artistic activities. Because they manage funds for long-term efforts, they can take continuing action to build not just individual institutions but self-sustaining clusters of nonprofit schools, hospitals, clinics, research institutes, social service agencies, and arts organizations. These institutions may be government-sponsored or ‘‘private’’ and more or less independent. Independent foundations in the United States can support individual creative efforts in religion, the arts, social study, the sciences, health, or community development, provided that they honor certain restrictions on grants to individuals. They can also support entire communities of people committed to shared goals, whether religious, cultural, social, or scientific. Because their resources are in every case very limited in comparison to national budgets or indeed the annual expenditures in any of the fields they address, foundations necessarily tailor their giving to particular fields, and to the context of the particular time and place in which they operate. Each field, in each era, offers its own opportunities and imposes its own constraints. As property-holding entities, foundations depend on the laws of the nations in which they are founded. But foundations also act across borders. An independent foundation can sometimes advance a national purpose more effectively than can a national government. Of course, every national government must also consider whether the foundations based in its territory are operating in accord with national purposes abroad – and whether grants from foundations based abroad are advancing acceptable purposes. Private donors at times chafe against restraints
Foundations, Independent
imposed by their home governments; private citizens often chafe against prohibitions by their own governments against accepting foundation grants (or other gifts) from abroad. When foundations operate across borders they inevitably raise questions, and a rich and sometimes contentious literature explores these questions. Among the leading topics addressed by this literature are the roles of the German Koppel Foundation and the American Rockefeller and Luce foundations in building modern universities in early twentieth-century China, of the Rockefeller and other foundations in shaping social science, and of certain American foundations during the postwar reconstruction of Europe and Japan and during Cold War-era struggles in Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere.
Future Directions The challenges facing those who study independent foundations are very much related to the ‘‘key issues’’ facing the foundations themselves, noted above.
Cross-References
▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Carnegie, Andrew ▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Functions of ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ German Marshall Fund ▶ Joseph Rowntree Foundation ▶ Kellogs, WK ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Lilly, Eli ▶ Nuffield Foundation ▶ Rhodes Trust ▶ Rockefeller Foundation ▶ Russell Sage Foundation ▶ Tata Trusts ▶ Volkswagen Stiftung ▶ W.K. Kellogg Foundation ▶ Wakfs ▶ Wellcome Trust
References/Further Readings Adam, T. (Ed.) (2004). Philanthropy, patronage, and civil society: Experiences from Germany, Great Britain, and North America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Anheier, H., & Hammack, D. C. (Eds.) (2009). American Foundations: Studies on roles and contributions. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, forthcoming.
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Anheier, H., & Toepler, S. (Eds.) (1999). Private funds, public purpose: Philanthropic foundations in international perspective. New York: Kluwer. Arnove, R. F. (1980). Philanthropy and cultural imperialism: The foundations at home and abroad. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Bulmer, M. (1984). The Chicago School of Sociology: Institutionalization, diversity, and the rise of sociological research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cannadine, D. (2006). Mellon: An American life. New York: Knopf. Coleman, P. (1989). The liberal conspiracy: The Congress for cultural freedom and the struggle for postwar Europe. New York: Free Press. Curti, M. (1965). American philanthropy abroad. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Fox, D. M. (2006). The significance of the Milbank Memorial Fund for policy: An assessment at its centennial. New York: Milbank Memorial Fund. Garside, P. L. (1999). The conduct of philanthropy: The William Sutton Trust, 1900–2000. New Brunswick, NJ: Athlone. Gordon, L. (1997). Wealth equals wisdom? The Rockefeller and Ford Foundations in India. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 554, 104–116. Hammack, D. C. (Ed.) (2001, June). Symposium: The quiet revolution in the nonprofit sector: Law, policy, and commerce. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 30(2), 157–173. Hammack, D. C., & Wheeler, S. (1994). Social science in the making: Essays on the Russell Sage Foundation, 1907–1972. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Karl, B. D., & Katz, S. N. (1981). The American Private Philanthropic Foundation and the public sphere, 1890–1930. Minerva, 19, 236–270 (1981, published 1983). Korey, W. (2007). Taking on the world’s repressive regimes: The Ford Foundation’s International Human Rights Policies and practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kuehl, W. F., & Dunn, L. K. (1997). Keeping the covenant: American internationalists and the League of Nations, 1920–1939. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. Lagemann, E. C. (1989). The politics of knowledge: The Carnegie Corporation, philanthropy, and public policy. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press. Lagemann, E. C. (Ed.) (1999). Philanthropic Foundations: New scholarship, new possibilities. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. McCaughey, R. A. (1984). International studies and academic enterprise: A chapter in the enclosure of American learning. New York: Columbia University Press. O’Connor, A. (2001). Poverty knowledge: Social science, social policy, and the poor in twentieth-century U.S. history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Ostrower, F. (1995). Why the wealthy give: The culture of elite philanthropy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Parmar, I. (2006). Anti-Americanism and the major foundations. In B. O. Connor & M. Griffiths (Eds.), The rise of Anti-Americanism (pp. 169–194). London: Routledge. Prewitt, K., Dogan, M., Heydemann, S., & Toepler, S. (Eds.) (2006). The legitimacy of philanthropic foundations: United States and European perspectives. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Quigley, K. F. F. (1997). For democracy’s sake: Foundations and democracy assistance in Central Europe. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Sealander, J. (1997). Private wealth & public life: Foundation philanthropy and the reshaping of American Social Policy from the progressive era to the new deal. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
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Schneider, W. H. (Ed.) (2002). Rockefeller philanthropy and modern biomedicine: International initiatives from World War I to the Cold War. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Smith, J. A., & Borgmann, K. (2001). Foundations in Europe: The historical context, and Helmut K. Anheier, Foundations in Europe: A comparative perspective. In A. Schluter, V. Then, & P. Walkenhorst (Eds.), Foundations in Europe: Society, management and law. London: Bertelsmann Foundation, The Directory of Social Change. Sutton, F. X. (1987). The Ford Foundation: The early years. Daedalus, 116, 41–92. Walden, J. W. H. (1909), The universities of ancient Greece. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons. Wheatley, S. (1988). The politics of philanthropy: Abraham Flexner and medical education. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Foundations, Operating STEFAN TOEPLER1, OLIVIER CHAVAREN2 1 George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA 2 George Mason University, Paris, France
Introduction Although operating foundations are historically the older form, the surge of grantmaking foundations in the twentieth century – particularly in the United States – resulted in a relative lack of policy and analytic interest in foundations that are not primarily grantmakers. As a result, the American research focus has been on the distributional impact of foundations on the nonprofit sector rather than on the way foundations operate. In Europe, the situation is somewhat different. Medieval hospice foundations survived over the centuries, and transformed into modern hospitals or homes for the elderly, the disabled or the needy; they remain vital parts of the European foundation communities. Thus largely for historical reasons, operating foundations either dominate the foundation sectors in some countries, such as Italy and France, or account for a substantial part of the total foundation universe, as is the case in Germany (Anheier & Toepler, 1999; Schlu¨ter et al., 2001). Likewise in the Islamic world, many religious endowments (wakfs) are akin to operating foundations in that they hold or support mosques, schools (madrassas) or hospitals. While operating foundations maintain a strong and visible presence in European foundation communities and many other parts of the world, they appear to figure less prominently in the Anglo-Saxon world and especially in the United States. This is because in the common law tradition, there is less of a clear-cut distinction between
operating foundation and other (endowed) charitable institutions. This is not to say that there are no operating foundations to speak of. As of 2007, the J. Paul Getty Trust, operating its cluster of museums and research institutes in Los Angeles, had the third largest financial endowment of all US foundations ($10.1 billion) after the Gates ($38.9 billion) and Ford Foundations ($13.8 billion). Another operating foundation, the Casey Family Programs, engaged in child welfare services, also made the list of the 25 largest US foundations with a $2.5 billion endowment (see Table 1). In addition, there are other institutions that are de facto operating foundations although they are not normally considered as such in the United States. This includes the Howard Hughes Medical Institute with a 2007 endowment of close to $19 billion, the governmental Smithsonian Institution, and arguably a variety of colleges and hospitals.
Definition Foundations appear in a wide variety of types, legal forms, and sizes, and pursue a broad range of objectives. This makes it hard to get a firm grasp of the institutional form as a whole. Nevertheless, there are some basic commonalities. Foundations can generally be defined as assetholding entities, usually endowed by a single donor, that are dedicated to charitable or philanthropic causes and have organizational structures to fulfill their objectives. The ways in which goals are pursued allow for a general distinction between operating and grantmaking foundations, the former of which are more actively involved in carrying out the intended activities than the latter. Generally, two types of operating foundations can be distinguished: (a) foundations that operate and maintain specific institutions (such as hospitals, homes, schools, research institutes, museums, and other cultural institutions), and (b) foundations that operate their own programs and projects rather than specific institutions, but do not primarily fund organizations. The Bertelsmann Foundation in Germany or the Kettering and Russell Sage Foundations in the United States are prominent examples of the latter case. While the structural differences between grantmaking foundations and service-providing nonprofits are considerable, operating foundations are much closer in nature to other nonprofits. Specifically, operating foundations combine the economic independence, inherent to the endowed foundation form, with the service-delivery aspects of nonprofit service providers. The main difference to grantmaking foundations is that operating foundations do not rely on external parties to pursue their purposes and thus allow for ‘‘more direct donor participation in specific
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Foundations, Operating. Table 1 Twenty-five largest US foundations, by asset size (2007) Foundation/(state)
Assets
1. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (WA)
$38,921,022,000
2. The Ford Foundation (NY)
13,798,807,066
3. J. Paul Getty Trust (CA)
10,133,371,844
4. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (NJ)
10,094,684,000
5. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (CA)
9,284,917,000
6. W. K. Kellogg Foundation (MI)
8,402,996,155
7. Lilly Endowment Inc. (IN)
7,734,860,156
8. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation (CA)
6,350,664,410
9. John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (IL)
6,178,196,933
10. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation (NY)
6,130,849,710
11. Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (CA)
5,836,161,877
12. The California Endowment (CA)
4,773,842,000
13. The Rockefeller Foundation (NY)
3,810,308,773
14. The Kresge Foundation (MI)
3,329,856,115
15. The Annie E. Casey Foundation (MD)
3,326,105,746
16. The Starr Foundation (NY)
3,300,622,910
17. Carnegie Corporation of New York (NY)
3,137,026,487
18. Tulsa Community Foundation (OK)
3,136,698,010
19. The Duke Endowment (NC)
2,981,737,964
20. Robert W. Woodruff Foundation, Inc. (GA)
2,715,991,495
21. The Annenberg Foundation (PA)
2,685,286,093
22. Charles Stewart Mott Foundation (MI)
2,629,297,079
23. John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (FL)
2,618,700,006
24. Casey Family Programs (WA)
2,490,713,955
25. The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, Inc. (MD)
2,278,259,681
Source: The Foundation Center, 2008. http://foundationcenter.org/findfunders/topfunders/top100assets.html (Retrieved on August 22, 2008)
charitable operations’’ (Rudney, 1987: 195). The key distinction from typical nonprofits relates to the financial independence from other stakeholders (e.g., funders), although financial independence is all but a constitutive characteristic of operating foundations. Operating foundations nevertheless leave the donor a high degree of control. Such control and participation are less likely in other nonprofit service providers, where funding restraints may also lead to compromises in regard to the services offered and shared control between different groups of demand-side stakeholders (Gronbjerg, 1993). Perhaps more importantly, operating foundations not only allow donor participation and control, but also the pursuit of very specific preferences of the donor that might not otherwise be addressed by other nonprofit organizations. In such instances, operating foundations may be the preferred choice, since the success of
grantmaking foundations as financial intermediaries depends on the availability of suitable grantees for carrying out the intended purposes that perhaps may not yet exist. In other instances, operating foundations will be the means of choice for the preservation of memorials or monuments if other support is not available, or for maintaining collections in a specific context. John Paul Getty’s original stipulation to display his collection in his home – as well the famous case of the Barnes Collection, can serve as examples for the latter case.
Historical Background Some observers have argued that the earliest foundations can be traced back to Antiquity and examples include the Library of Alexandria as well as Plato’s Academy (Coons, 1938). Graeco-Roman law, however, did not recognize the foundation as a legal construct. As Plato
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bequeathed his Academy to his nephew, assets needed to be transferred to trustees tasked with fulfilling the donor’s wishes. Operating foundations as legal constructs developed in the fifth and sixth century, as Justinian Law began to allow bequests for religious and charitable purposes (ad pias causam) to establish independent, though Church-supervised institutions (Coing, 1981). This enabled the widespread emergence of hospice foundations, which were typically devoted to perform the biblical Corporal Works of Mercy (feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, cloth the naked, shelter the homeless, care for the sick, visit prisoners, bury the dead). The Islamic wakf foundations developed at about the same time. Monasteries and universities were also established as foundations during the Middle Ages. Joined by research institutes and cultural institutions in foundation form since the nineteenth century (Strachwitz, 2006), the operating foundation continued to evolve, culminating in the modern project-oriented foundation in the twentieth century.
Key Issues Legal Definition in the United States
Outside the United States, the difference between operating and grantmaking foundations is seen as a functional one, depending mainly on the donor’s intentions or the way a foundation sees itself, but has no further legal bearing. US tax law differs considerably in this respect. According to section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, a private foundation is an organization that is organized and operated exclusively for charitable purposes. In the logic of the tax system, section 501(c)(3) is primarily designed for private foundations, although the majority of organizations qualifying under it are public charities. Four categories of exclusions are laid out in section 509 (a). Section 509 (a)(1) defines the main types of excluded organizations. Explicitly mentioned are churches, schools, or colleges, and hospitals or medical research organizations; other publicly supported organizations also fall into this section as well as organizations operated for the benefit of certain state and municipal colleges and universities, and governmental units. All publicly supported organizations, except the specifically mentioned types, must pass a support test, which is satisfied when the organization normally receives at least one third of its total support from governmental units and/or from contributions made by the general public. Section 509 (a)(2) excludes publicly supported organizations that are not only governmentally or publicly supported, but also receive income on their own. In these cases, organizations must receive at least one third of their support from grants,
contributions, and related income, but no more than one third from investment and unrelated business income. Thus, organizations are excluded from private foundation status under section 509(a) that either conduct specific, explicitly mentioned types of activities or that are broadly supported by the general public. Section 509 (a)(3) furthermore excludes organizations that may be endowed by a single donor, family, or corporation. Entities classified here are supporting organizations that have close relationships with 509 (a)(1) or (2) organizations, and are established exclusively for the benefit of, for performing the functions of, or for carrying out the purposes of the latter. 509 (a)(3) organizations must be operated, supervised, or controlled either by or in connection with publicly supported organizations. They give up a significant degree of independence and cannot be controlled by the founder. The fourth category excludes organizations for the purpose of testing products for public safety. The residual (i.e., all 501 (c)(3) organizations not exempted under section 509) are classified as private foundations that have in common the fact that they lack significant public support. For private operating foundations, an additional subcategory was introduced by the Tax Reform Act of 1969. According to the then-introduced definition, operating foundations ‘‘make qualifying distributions directly for the active conduct of their educational, charitable, and religious purposes, as distinct from merely making grants to other organizations for these purposes’’ (Internal Revenue Service, 2008). Although most of the restrictions on private foundations in general also apply to operating foundations, they enjoy some advantages. For instance, donors can deduct charitable contributions at the same percentages as for donations to public charities. Contributions to private grantmaking foundations, in contrast, have considerably lower deduction limits. Grantmaking foundations that contribute to operating foundations face lighter monitoring burdens than they do for contributions to other grantmakers. Furthermore, operating foundations are not subject to the 5% payout requirement. To qualify for the status of operating foundation, a private foundation must pass an income test and another test that can be either an asset, a support, or an endowment test. The basic income test prescribes that qualifying distributions for the active conduct of activities must equal at least 85% of either the adjusted net income or the minimum investment return, whichever is less. Qualifying contributions include administrative expenses as well as assets acquired for the direct execution of the tax-exempt purposes. Each of the additional tests is basically designed to reflect the specific needs of certain
Foundations, Operating
types of purposes. The assets test is intended to apply to museums, libraries, and similar institutions; the support test to special-purpose foundations; and the endowment test to the organizations such as research foundations (for details, see Internal Revenue Service, 2008). Another subcategory, exempt operating foundations, was created in 1984. Exempt operating foundations are – in contrast to other operating and nonoperating foundations – not subject to an excise tax on net investment income. In order to qualify, an organization must already be an operating foundation and have received public support for at least 10 years. In addition, at all times of the year, the governing body has to be broadly representative of the general public. The introduction of the hybrid exempt operating form was intended to ameliorate the disadvantaged position of endowed museums and similar institutions vis-a`-vis hospitals and colleges. Beckwith and DeSirgh (1987: 282) note in this context that the creation of an exempt operating foundation category was a ‘‘significant development in that it signals the inability of Congress to develop or specify a generic definition for institutions such as museums and libraries – as it has done for such entities as churches, universities, and hospitals. Consequently, many of these institutions are classified as private foundations.’’ Problems Arising from the US Tax Classification
The sophisticated system of exclusions leads to a number of complications with regard to differentiating between operating foundations and other public charities. First, since churches, schools and colleges, hospitals, and medical research organizations are explicitly mentioned in section 509 of the Internal Revenue Code, these kinds of institutions receive public charity status automatically, even if they would not normally pass the public support test. Although many (though not all) of these organizations could be regarded as operating foundations from a functional point of view, they are usually not counted as such by virtue of their tax classification. As illustrated by Table 2, for example, if universities with their endowments would be counted as operating foundations, the list of the largest US foundations would be largely dominated by them. The same would be true for hospital endowments. Clearly, from a functional point of view, the boundaries between operating foundations and public charities are somewhat fuzzy and may be blurred even further by discretionary classification decisions at the tax administration level. The salient example is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI), which, according to a settlement agreement with the Internal Revenue Service, is classified as a medical research organization,
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Foundations, Operating. Table 2 Select US private universities’ endowments (2007)
Institution (state)
2007 Endowment funds ($000)
Harvard University (MA)
34,634,906
Yale University (CT)
22,530,200
Stanford University (CA)
17,164,836
University of Chicago (IL)
6,204,189
Johns Hopkins University (MD)
2,800,377
Source: 2007 NACUBO Endowment Study, ß 2008 National Association of College and University Business Officers
although it is formed by an endowment and held assets of $18.7 billion in 2007. Had the outcome of the ‘‘settlement’’ been different, the HHMI would be the second largest foundation in term of assets – considerably larger than the Ford foundation. Second, the residual character of the classification of foundations contributes to blurry boundaries between operating foundations and other nonprofits in another way. Following the tax definition, foundations are organizations that neither directly engage in specific activities nor receive broad support from government or the general public. Thus failed public charities (i.e., organizations that did not or have not yet succeeded in attracting a sufficient amount of public support) are automatically included in the private foundation category. Since these organizations are normally neither able nor willing to make primarily grants to other organization, they end up classified as operating foundations. Since having significant assets is not a constitutive criterion for a purely technical classification as operating foundation, many US operating foundations are indeed not operating foundations, but ‘‘nonpublic charities,’’ as John Simon once said. It becomes clear at this point that the choice between the legalistic American and a more functional approach to the classification of foundations has a severe impact on the size and understanding of the operating foundation sector. If a functional approach is chosen, the combined assets of grantmaking foundations have to be put in perspective by including public charities with significant endowments in the analysis of operating foundations. Although those ‘‘nonpublic charities’’ currently listed as operating foundations would have to be subtracted, the loss would be offset by adding other endowed institutions. Judging from this point of view, the US operating foundation sector would be considerably larger than it appears to be now. Table 3 shows the accumulated assets of grantmaking and operating foundations, as well as the assets
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Foundations, Operating. Table 3 Number and assets of endowed institutions (assets in millions) Type
Number
%
Nonoperating foundation
Assets
%
67,670
83.81
578,749,355
Operating foundations
4,807
6.0
35,906,295
2.0
Institutions of higher education
1,977
2.4
467,090,494
25.9
Hospitals
4,565
5.7
685,915,030
38.1
Medical research organizations
1,723
2.1
33,406,369
1.9
80,742
100.0
1,801,067,542
100.0
Total
32.1
Sources: NCCS Core File (Public Charities, circa 2006)
of some types of public charities that are specifically excluded by law from the private (operating) foundation category. Although grantmaking foundations still account for more than 83% of all endowed institutions, their combined assets constitute merely one third of the total. This is due to the concentration of assets within the trilogy – institutions of higher education, hospitals, and medical research organizations – which accounts for 65.9% of all assets. This high figure is also the result of the share attributed to the institutions of higher education, which stand for more than a quarter of all combined assets (Table 3). What the US foundation sector would look like if such operating foundations were added to the mix remains anybody’s guess, but chances are that the dominance of the grantmaking foundation would not be as pronounced by far as it appears to be on the surface. However, having an endowment is not a sufficient criterion to decide what is a foundation and what is not. Using the example of private universities again (Table 2), Harvard and Yale universities were founded and originally financed by the governments of their respective Colonies. As such, they lack most of the characteristics of an operating foundation even by European standards. The case is quite different though with other private universities, such as Stanford, Chicago, and Johns Hopkins, which all had a donor (Rockefeller among others in the case of Chicago) who initiated the establishment of the institution with sizable financial commitments. For all practical purposes, they are as much a foundation as are the Getty Trust or the Rockefeller Foundation. Comparative Implications
For comparative purposes, the divergent approaches to the definition of foundations may easily carry the danger of comparing apples to oranges, as long as the crossnational differences in the treatment of operating foundations are not sufficiently accounted for. One way to circumvent the problem is to restrict comparative
analysis to grantmaking foundations, thereby adopting the American view of foundations as financial intermediaries. Following the American implicit assumption that a capital-based endowment (and hence the ability to make grants) is the defining characteristic of a foundation would, in turn, have severe consequences for our understanding of the European foundation field. Nongrantmaking, operating foundations would drop from sight. Using rough data provided by Anheier (2001), this would mean that the foundation communities would shrink by at least 25% in Germany, by 30% in Finland, by 40% in Italy, and by 70% in Ireland. In Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Greece, and France, the foundation sector would essentially disappear. Conversely, including operating foundations, that is, endowed institutions, into the analysis also leads to a number of significant problems. In this case, the question arises where to draw the line between true foundations and other organizations that happen to have endowments. Clearly, definitions that emphasize the existence of a single founder/donor as an additional characteristic to differentiate between foundations and other organizations are not on the mark either. While this might help preclude organizations that raised endowments from a large number of smaller donations, that same might be true for organizations that had a founder/donor providing a small initial endowment that grew, however, over time by additions from multiples sources. To the extent that an operating foundation ‘‘essentially acts like a well-endowed nonprofit organization’’ (Schearer, 1997: 307), it might arguably indeed be preferable to adopt the first approach of concentrating on grantmaking foundations, as they embody the more distinctive characteristics of the foundation form. Especially with regard to foundations that basically operate serviceproviding institutions, such as nursing homes, hospitals, or museums, it appears questionable whether there are indeed sufficient differences between these foundations and similar,
Foundations, Operating
endowed institutions in other legal forms to justify a separate analysis. However, as suggested above, there are some conceptual markers that indicate very specific roles for operating foundations, and whether or not these translate into differences in organizational behavior remains a question in need of empirical investigation.
International Perspectives As a consequence of these definitional problems, a firm comparative picture of operating foundations is virtually impossible to obtain, as any data remain restricted to the most basic of statistics, such as the number of operating foundations and their share of all foundations. In Germany, for example, operating foundations account for about 22% of all foundations and mixed foundations (i.e., both operating and grantmaking) for another 17% (Adloff & Velez, 2001). In Italy, purely operating foundations accounted for nearly 40% of all foundations in the late 1990s with another one third of all foundations being mostly operating with some grantmaking programs (Barbetta, 1999). Unfortunately, it remains impossible to further quantify the field in economic terms. This is particularly so since many European foundations do not have financial endowments, but hold physical assets (such as art collections, real estate, facilities) instead that escape easy valuation (Doppstadt et al., 2002). Incidentally, the same holds true in the United States: for example, the Getty Center in Los Angeles (building cost of $1 billion in the early to mid-1990s) and the museum’s art collections are not reflected in the Trust’s endowment of $10 billion.
Future Directions The recent emergence of a number of project-oriented operating foundations primarily in Europe has been viewed as an indication of a new pattern in the establishment of foundations, which, according to some observers, may alter the future composition of the foundation sector (Strachwitz, 1994). Whether or not this will be the case, these projections are based on the assumption that project-oriented operating foundations provide a more suitable organizational form for an ‘‘active’’ pursuit of foundation policies as opposed to the administrativereactive character of traditional grantmakers. In the United States, this coincides with a notable trend among grantmakers to manage programs or projects themselves, although this is still a far cry from the European-style mixed foundation model. Nevertheless, in the light of recurring criticism of the short-term, uninvolved funding practices of US foundations (see Letts et al., 1997; Senator Grassley, 2008), a reevaluation of operating foundations as an alternative philanthropic vehicle might prove useful.
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▶ Bertelsmann Foundation ▶ Common Law and Civil Society ▶ Endowment, Definition and Management of ▶ Foundations, Definitions and History ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Law of ▶ Fugger, Jacob ▶ Getty, J. Paul ▶ Institut Pasteur ▶ Madrassa ▶ Philanthropy, Definitions and History ▶ Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH ▶ Rockefeller, John D., Sr. ▶ Russell Sage Foundation ▶ Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the United States ▶ Wakf
References/Further Readings Adloff, F., & Velez, A. (2001). Operative Stiftungen. Opusculum No. 8. Berlin: Maeceanata Institute. Anheier, H. K. (2001). Foundations in Europe: A comparative perspective. In A. Schlu¨ter, V. Then, & P. Walkenhorst (Eds.), Foundations in Europe. London: Directory of Social Chang. Anheier, H., & Toepler, S. (Eds.) (1991). Private funds, public purpose: Philanthropic foundations in international perspective. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Barbetta, G. P. (1999). Foundations in Italy. In H. K. Anheier & S. Toepler (Eds.), Private funds, public purpose: philanthropic foundations in international perspective. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Beckwith, E., & DeSirgh, J. (1987). Tax law and private foundations. In T. Odendahl (Ed.), America’s wealthy and the future of foundations (pp. 267–293). New York: Foundation Center. Coing, H. (1981). Remarks on the history of foundations and their role in the promotion of learning. Minerva, XIX(2), 271–281. Doppstadt, J., Koss, C., & Toepler, S. (2002). Vermo¨gen von Stiftungen: Bewertung in Deutschland and den USA. Gu¨tersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers. Grassley, C. (2008). Retrieved from http://grassley.senate.gov/news/press_ releases.cfm? selectedMonth=12&selectedYear=2008&selectedIssue= Education Gronbjerg, U. (1993). Understanding nonprofit funding. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Internal Revenue, Service. (2008). Tax exempt status for your organization. Publication 557 (Rev. ed.). Washington, DC: Department of the Treasury, Internal Revenue Service. Letts, C., Ryan, W., & Grosman, A. (1997). Virtuous capital: What foundations can learn from venture capitalists. Harvard Business Review, 2, 36–44. NACUBO. (2008). 2007 Endowment study. Washington, DC: National Association of College and University Business Officers. Rudney, G. (1987). Creation of foundations and their wealth. In T. Odendahl (Ed.), America’s wealthy and the future of foundations. (pp. 179–202). New York: Foundation Center.
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Schearer, S. B. (1997). Building indigenous foundations that support civil society. In L. M. Fox & S. B. Schearer (Eds.), Sustaining civil society: Strategies for resources mobilization (pp. 305–325). Washington, DC: Civicus. Schlu¨ter, A., Then, V., & Walkenhorst, P. (Eds.) (2001). Foundations in Europe: Society, management, law. London: Directory of Social Change. Strachwitz, R. G. (1994). Stiftungen–nutzen, fu¨hren und errichten: Ein Handbuch. Frankfurt: Campus. Strachwitz, R. G. (2006). Supporting culture and education: A german perspective. In K. Prewitt, M. Dogan, S. Heidemann, & S. Toepler (Eds.), The legitimacy of philanthropic foundations (pp. 217–235). New York: Russell Sage. Toepler, S. (1999a). On the problem of defining foundations in a comparative perspective. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 10(2), 215–225. Toepler, S. (1999b). Operating in a grant-making world: Re-assessing the role of operating foundations. In H. Anheier & S. Toepler (Eds.), Private funds, Public purpose: Philanthropic foundations in international perspective (pp. 163–181). New York: Kluwer /Plenum.
Introduction In 2008, there were six so-called political foundations in Germany: Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Hanns Seidel Foundation, Friedrich Naumann Foundation, Heinrich Bo¨ll Foundation, and Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. They serve as important think tanks and providers of civic education programs in Germany. They are also the biggest grantmakers of undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships for German students. Abroad the political foundations are promoting democracy assistance and development aid on behalf of the German government in more than 150 countries. They substantially contribute to the political discourses in German and European politics and are textbook examples for the interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity in the political system of Germany.
Definition
Foundations, Political MATTHEW FREISE Westfa¨lische Wilhelms-Universita¨t Mu¨nster, Mu¨nster, Germany
Each political foundation is organisationally independent, but closely affiliated to one of the political parties represented in the German federal parliament (see Table 1). They are almost fully financed by public subsidies. The amount of theses subsidies is dependent on the parliamentary representation of their respective affiliated party. In contrast to their names, just the Friedrich
Foundations, Political. Table 1 Political foundations in Germany
Foundation
a
Affiliated to
Establishment Legal form Headquarters
Annual Budget (2007)
Percentage of the federal Staff in subsidies for political 2007 foundationsa (abroad)
Friedrich Ebert Foundation
Social Democratic Party (SPD)
1925
Voluntary Bonn association
€111 million
35%
609 (95)
Konrad Adenauer Foundation
Christian Democratic Union (CDU)
1955
Voluntary St. Augustin association
€109 million
31.5%
535 (83)
Friedrich Naumann Foundation
Free Democratic Party (FDP)
1958
Foundation Potsdam
€43 million
11.3%
175 (29)
Hanns Seidel Christian Foundation Social Union (CSU)
1966
Voluntary Munich Association
€45 million
11.3%
270 (31)
Heinrich Bo¨ll Alliance 1990/ Foundation Green Party
1996b
Voluntary Berlin association
€43 million
11.3%
210 (26)
Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
1998
Voluntary Berlin association
€14 million
Not yet in allocation formula
75 (5)
The Left
Fixed in 2005, renegotiation likely in 2009 Successor of the Rainbow Foundation (established in 1988) as an umbrella for several green political foundations
b
Foundations, Political
Naumann Foundation is based on the legal form of a foundation. The other political foundations are voluntary associations.
Historical Background As a consequence of the failed first German democracy, the Weimar Republic (1918–1933), and the catastrophe of the subsequent Nazi rule (1933–1945), politicians in the Western part of divided Germany drew the conclusion that the state had to assume the obligation for the civic virtue of its citizens. However, the experience from socialist and national socialist systems forbade the state to be personally in charge for the reeducation and the definition of democratic values. Hence, the Federal Republic of Germany introduced a model of civic education based on a specific interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity which is a dominant principle of state action also in other German policy fields. It refers to the fact that the smallest units (family or civil society groups) are responsible for themselves, and that the state as the larger unit should only intervene when the smaller units are not able to deal with their tasks on their own. At the same time the state has to enable smaller units to execute their task by financing these services and by entrusting them with public tasks. In the course of this principle of state action German politics in the late 1950s decided to foster civic education programs in Germany by entrusting the most influential societal actors to implement the democratic education of the public without exerting influence on the thought values as long these were in harmony with the constitution (Vieregge, 1977). The selected partners of the state were the Protestant and the Catholic Church, the trade unions, the employer’s federations, and the four dominant political parties represented in the German parliament at that time. According to German federal electoral law, parties need at least 5% of the votes to be represented in the parliament. To avoid an illegitimate party financed by the state, the political parties were obliged to assign the task of civic education to affiliated independent organisations which are offering civic education programs for all citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany. Therefore the Friedrich Ebert Foundation served as a role model. Founded already in 1925 from donations to commemorate the death of Weimar Republic’s president Friedrich Ebert by the Social Democratic Party (SPD) the foundation was dedicated to fight workers’ discrimination by providing national education and scholarships for workers. After the foundation was banned during Nazi rule it was reinstituted in 1947 and totally restructured in
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1954 as an organisation which is affiliated to the Social Democratic Party for the purpose of enhancing civic virtue in Germany. In 1955 and 1958 the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) followed suit and established their own civic education organizations, the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (founded as ‘‘Society for Christian Democratic Education Work’’ and renamed for Konrad Adenauer in 1964) and the Friedrich Naumann Foundation (renamed as Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in 2007). In 1966, the Christian Social Union (CSU, which is only active in Bavaria and cooperating in a joint parliamentary group with the CDU in the federal parliament) founded the Hanns Seidel Foundation in Munich. For 30 years these four organizations constituted the political foundations which were responsible for civic education programs in Germany. In addition, the two big churches in Germany, the trade union’s Hans Bo¨ckler stiftung, and the employer’s federation (the latter today less important) developed their own civic education programs which are financed mainly by the state. Furthermore, the federal state and the single states (‘‘La¨nder’’) introduced their own agencies for civic education which are taking up topical and historical subjects by issuing scientific publications, by organizing seminars, events, study trips, exhibitions, and competitions, and by providing extension training for journalists. The focus of these agencies lies on imparting neutral political knowledge (on the basis of common democratic values), while the political foundations are also conveying the values of their respective affiliated parties. In the course of the establishment of the Green Party in the 1980s and its first success in the elections of the German federal parliament in 1983 the number of political foundations enlarged. Already in 1988 the Rainbow Foundation (Regenbogenstiftung) served as an umbrella organization for various organizations affiliated to Green social movements. In 1996 the Heinrich Bo¨ll Foundation finally displaced the Rainbow Foundation and was recognized by the Green Party as their political foundation. The youngest of the currently existing six political foundations is the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation which is affiliated to the leftwing party The Left which is a successor of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS). It is represented in the Federal Parliament since the reunification of the two German states in 1990. It was recognized by the Party to serve as their political foundation in 1996 and launched its Berlin headquarters in 2000. Over the past 50 years the political foundations have built up a dense network of institutions dedicated
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to the civic education of the German citizens all over the country. They maintain regional offices and academies which are providing seminars, round table discussions and other informational meetings on a broad spectrum of political and societal topics. These events are open in principle for all citizens of Germany and they are widely accepted: In 2007, more than 450,000 citizens participated in the programs of the six political foundations. However, although the membership in a political party must not be required for taking part in the events, the political foundations became important talent hotbeds and think tanks for their respective political parties (Lepszy, 2009). For instance, many seminars target the education of junior politicians. A common seminar offered many times every year by all political foundations in their regional offices and academies instructs new members of city parliaments how to understand municipal budget plans. Typically a member of the CDU will join such a seminar at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation while a member of the Green Party will take part in a seminar hosted by the Heinrich Bo¨ll Foundation. Almost every member of a party represented in the German federal parliament has participated in the programs of his respective political foundation. Furthermore, the political foundations serve today as important think tanks by providing input to the programmatic discourses inside their parties. Many party platform reforms have been influenced by the headquarters of the political foundations which maintain departments on central policies. The political foundations also maintain comprehensive archives documenting the history of the parties and the ideological development in Germany. For instance, the Archive of Social Democracy operated by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Bonn is the largest European specialized library on the development of social democracy and socialism. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation also operates the house of Karl Marx birth in Trier as a museum. Finally, the political foundations serve as important meeting places for their parties by providing conference facilities. For instance the annual Twelfth Day convention of the federal and the Bavarian parliamentary groups of the Christian Social Union (CSU) is traditionally held at the civic academy of the Hanns Seidel Foundation at the small village of Wildbad Kreuth. In a nutshell, the political foundations in Germany are in principle open for everybody, but in practice they are ideologically committed to their respective political party. These strong ties between party and foundation are also represented in the management level of the political foundations. Usually, the boards are staffed with merited
former politicians who enjoy broad acceptance inside their parties. For instance, in 2008, former chairman of the Federal parliamentary group of the Free Democratic Party Wolfgang Gerhard is chairing the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and former prime minister of Thuringia Bernhard Vogel is the chief executive of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. This strong personal interweavement can be observed in all six political foundations. Critics of the model of political foundation have complained many times about the affiliation of the foundations with their parties and described them as illegitimate ‘‘self-service shops for the established political parties’’ (Vieregge, 1977). However, the federal constitutional court made clear in its leading decision in 1986 that the financing of the political foundations is in line with constitutional requirements (Lepszy, 2009). This also holds true for the provision of scholarships for graduate and postgraduate students. Since the late 1960s the six political foundations have provided more than 5,000 scholarships on behalf of the federal government to highly skilled students which are sharing their values. Today, the political foundations are the biggest grantmakers of scholarships in Germany. In contrast to their functions inside Germany the activities of the political foundations abroad are relatively indisputable. In the 1960s the federal government started carrying out its first foreign aid programs. As a successor of the Nazi regime it was clear that the German state did not have the legitimacy to indoctrinate other nations on how to establish democracy. That is why German politics transferred the principle of subsidiarity to its foreign aid policy. The state is in charge of common diplomacy and short-term, not value-based development aid (for instance financial and technical emergency aid after natural disasters), while value-based democracy assistance is delegated to the political foundations. Since the early 1970s the political foundations maintain organizationally independent but on behalf of and financed by the German federal government development aid on the basis of their political values (Mair, 2000). In 2007, they were active with more than 300 project officers in more than 150 countries world wide and developed specific strategies in long-termed democracy promotion. All political foundations spend approx. half of their annual budget for their foreign offices. In 2007, the political foundations were allocated approx. €370 million from the federal budget. The allocation formula of the subsidies is negotiated by the political foundations themselves. They communicate it to the parliamentary budget committee which usually accepts it. As a benchmark they refer to the election results of their
Foundations, Political
political parties of the past four federal elections. The outcome of this is that the political foundations are dependent on the results of their parties and in strong ideological competition. Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Friedrich Ebert Foundation as the political foundations of the two leading German parties currently receive each approx. one third of the public subsidies while each of the other foundations get an eighth (see Table 1). The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation is not yet included in this allocation formula and receives a special grant from the federal budget. In the course of the upcoming budget negotiations it will be included in this formula. They will likely take place after the next federal elections in autumn 2009. Regarding their tasks all political foundations are organizationally structured in four central departments which are relatively independent from each other: ideological think tank, civic education, international development cooperation, and scholarship organization (Lepszy, 2009).
Key Issues The political foundations have drafted their self-conception and have formulated their position in 1999. According to this, their aims are: ● To achieve interest among citizens for political questions as well as to support and promote their political involvement through civic education. ● To develop essentials of political activity as well as to promote dialog and the transfer of knowledge between research, politics, the state and the economy through the support of the sciences and of political research and consultancy. ● To research the history of the political parties and the political and social movements. ● To promote the academic education and qualification of talented young people through granting scholarships and organizing tutoring programs. ● To promote the arts and culture through events, scholarships, and the maintenance of works of art. ● To support European integration and contribute to the understanding between nations through organizing information and international meetings. ● To offer help in development and contribute to the creation of democratic, free, and rule of law structures that serve human and civil rights through programs and projects.
International Perspectives In international comparison, the German model of development aid and democracy promotion is unique. On behalf of the state the political foundations provide
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democracy assistance programs by promoting human rights, self-determination, rule of law, democratic participation, minority rights and peaceful civil society activism. Special emphasis is laid on long-termed elite programs. Usually the project officers carry out a comprehensive monitoring of the political and societal landscape for identifying promising persons who could function as future democratic political leaders. Those persons are provided for instance with scholarships at German universities or internships in the German administrative system or in German companies. In many countries the political foundations have successfully attended the democratic transition process by educating the later decision makers. For instance the Friedrich Ebert Foundation trained emerging Portuguese social democrat politicians during the Salazar dictatorship. The Portuguese Social Democratic Party was founded in an academy of the foundation in the city of Bad Mu¨nstereifel. The political foundations celebrated similar success during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s by training democratic elites in Greece, Spain, Latin America and East Central Europe. Another focus of the democracy promotion is laid on the capacity building of civil society groups, church related organizations, political parties and political youth organizations. While the political foundations are in strong ideological competition in Germany, they closely cooperate abroad and carry out joint programs often since they are all sharing similar democratic values based on the German model of a strong welfare state with subsidiarian elements. Nevertheless, every political foundation has special target groups they are focussing on in regard to the values of their own ideology. Friedrich Ebert Foundation traditionally supports trade unions, while Konrad Adenauer Foundation and Hanns Seidel Foundation make grants to Christian movements and employer’s associations. Friedrich Naumann Foundation concentrates on associations of small and medium sized entrepreneurs. Heinrich Bo¨ll Foundation is focussing on ecological movements, but also on grassroots associations, in particular on women’s associations and human rights groups. The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation supports foremost social movements, women’s associations and associations promoting democratic socialism. All six foundations are also strongly cooperating with universities, other scientific institutions and the free media. Therefore the approx. 300 project officers of the foundations employ a huge number of local employees. For the German government this sharing of foreign aid programs is of great advantage, since it allows it to concentrate on pure diplomacy without intervening in the domestic affairs of the target countries. All value-based
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work is financed but delegated to the political foundations. In turn, the political foundations declare themselves as civil society actors which are independent from the state. This allows them to act more courageously than a government could ever do since it is bound to the restrictions of diplomacy. However, the political foundations have been critically observed by the authorities of their target countries which sometimes constrict their activities. For instance, Russia disbarred the Friedrich Naumann Foundation in 2006 after it organized several seminars for the opposition movement. In 2008, the Chinese government held the foundation responsible for the worldwide anti-Chinese protests and the violation of the Olympic torch relay.
Future Directions Since the German party system is currently in a process of change since the left-wing party ‘‘The Left’’ has established itself in the German parliament, the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation will likely be able to expand its national and international activities in the upcoming years. After the federal elections in 2009 the allocation formula for public subsidies will be changed. Hence, the public grants for the other political foundations will probably decline. A self declared great challenge for the political foundations for international activities will be the development of strategies to fight the negative aspects of globalization and international terrorism.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Friedrich Ebert Stiftung ▶ Friedrich Naumann Stiftung ▶ Hanns Seidel Stiftung ▶ Heinrich Bo¨ell Stiftung ▶ Konrad Adenauer Stiftung ▶ Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Annual Reports 2007 of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (available at www.kas.de), Friedrich Ebert Foundation (www.fes.de), Hanns Seidel Foundation (www.hss.de), Friedrich Naumann Foundation (www.freiheit.org), Heinrich Bo¨ll Foundation (www.boell.de), Rosa Luxemburg Foundation (www.rosalux.de). Konrad Adenauer Foundation et al. (1999). Joint declaration on the public financing of political foundations. Bonn: Self-published. Lepszy, N. (2009). Politische Stiftungen. In U. Andersen & W. Woyke (Eds.), Handwo¨rterbuch des politischen Systems der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (pp. 571–577). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.
Mair, S. (2000). Germany’s Stiftungen und Democracy Assistance: Comparative advantages, new challenges. In P. Burnell (Ed.), Democracy assistance. International co-operation for democratization (pp. 128–149). London: Frank Cass. Vieregge, H. V. (1997). Parteistiftungen. Zur Rolle der Konrad-Adenauer-, Friedrich-Ebert-. Friedrich-Naumann- und Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung im politischen System der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Baden-Baden: Nomos.
Foundations, Public Law or Government E´VA KUTI Budapest School of Management, Budapest, Hungary
Introduction Although their visibility is very limited, government foundations (sometimes existing under public law, and in many other cases, taking the form of private foundations) are present in the overwhelming majority of the national nonprofit sectors. The otherwise extremely rich international literature pays practically no attention to these special kinds of foundations. If at all they get a mention, in the research papers focusing on foundation issues, this is usually not more than a ‘‘footnote style’’ remark on their existence and specificities. However, a thoroughgoing search for these kinds of remarks in the collections of comparative studies (Salamon, 1997; Anheier & Toepler, 1999; Schlu¨ter et al., 2001; Zimmer & Priller, 2004; Anheier & Leat, 2006; Anheier & Daly, 2007) results in the discovery of a whole set of various government-initiated foundations. They are established by kings, parliaments, and central and local governments; they can be both grant-making and operating foundations; their legal status can be either private or public law entity. The rationale for establishing these government foundations includes a wish to decentralize governance, to accelerate privatization, to enable partnership with private capital, to guarantee the independence of specific policy areas, and to allow the participation of experts and civil society representatives in decision making.
Definition Foundations that exist under public law are mainly used by public authorities in order to organize public interest activities and to make redistribution decisions outside their own bureaucracy. Only the public authorities can be the official founders; private individuals do not have a
Foundations, Public Law or Government
right to establish public law foundations. If they still want to use this legal form, they have to seek the consent of authorities in order to get their intentions through the registration process. The public law foundations are generally provided with some endowment by their founders and/or receive regular support in the form of annual budget grants or some guaranteed income. They are kept financially accountable by relevant public authorities, while their professional activities can be more or less independent. The government nominees are not necessarily in a dominant position in their boards. The founding authorities can initiate the dissolution of a public law foundation if they think its function can be more efficiently fulfilled by another type of organization. The property of the dissolved public law foundation generally reverts to its founder. Apart from these special provisions, the basic legal regulation of private foundations applies to public law foundations as well. The legal form of public law foundations is available only in some Roman law countries, while the public authorities may have similar decentralization intentions everywhere. As a consequence, the vast majority of government-created foundations take the form of private foundations. As far as their objectives, activities, establishment, and financing mechanisms are concerned, these government foundations are not very different from the public law foundations. The only important difference is that, because of their private foundation status, they are not subjected to direct government control. This, theoretically unlimited, independence of government-created private foundations, together with the public origin of their funding, raises the issue of accountability.
Key Issues The public accountability of government-created private foundations (with endowments originating from the state budget) is rather problematic. Once established, such foundations become independent and operate on the same principles as any other private foundations. Thus, they take over certain public tasks and money without becoming accountable to the public. Unlike government agencies, market firms, and voluntary associations, private foundations have no equivalent set of stakeholders that would introduce a system of checks and balances. Thus, the establishment of government foundations under private law and their involvement in the provision of public services essentially eliminate democratic control over some originally government-conducted activities and circumvent legal procedures provided by constitutional and administrative law to control improper conduct of governmental affairs.
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The complexity of this problem has its origins in two conflicting principles. On the one hand, as third sector institutions, foundations have the right to be independent and free from state scrutiny. This is the very reason of their existence. If the public authorities do not want to let them decide on the use of public money, government foundations should not be created. On the other hand, foundations enjoying public support are supposed to be accountable to the public; and democratic governments, responsible to the people who elect them, are obliged to enforce the accountability requirements. Once this dilemma is highlighted (and this happens sooner or later in every country) by foundation scandals and explored by policy analysts, a wide variety of ideas also emerge. Different actors of the policy community tend to suggest different solutions. The most extreme among them is the proposition of minimizing (or simply abolishing) the relations between the government and the foundation universe. The majority of the experts are looking for a sophisticated system of regulations, while several others suggest institutional solutions. The latter accept that foundations play several different roles in economy and society and try to find separate legal forms for those, which take over government tasks. These are the foundations that assist the government in the income redistribution, in implementing policies, or in delivering services in the fields (e.g., education, health, social care, etc.) in which the state is clearly responsible for meeting at least basic citizens’ needs. If they are established in a specific legal form (such as the public law foundation) reserved for government foundations, their administrative obligations and public scrutiny can also be specific, obviously much stricter than those of the private foundations. While the administrative and accountability implications of drawing a clear dividing line between government and private foundations are undoubtedly advantageous, some other effects may be dangerous. If the government has its own foundations, these are likely to become a privileged part of the foundation sector, to the detriment of their private counterparts. Their stronger economic position can easily be translated into more lobby power and more political influence. (The rapid growth of their economic weight and the emergence of some special tax advantages available only for public law foundations in some countries seem to prove that these concerns are quite plausible.)
International Perspectives The public law foundation, which is the most clearly defined form of government foundations, can only exist in the ‘‘civil law’’ countries in which organizational forms
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and the related rights and obligations are spelled out in explicit legal codes (van der Ploeg, 1995). However, the distinction between the private and government foundations can also be detected in the legal system of the ‘‘common law’’ countries. For example, the law distinguishes two species of foundations in the UK. One is the ‘‘fundatio incipiens,’’ which may be created by a royal charter, by an act of parliament, or by a private individual acting under Royal license; the other is the ‘‘fundatio percipiens,’’ or endowment, which is created by a gift made by a private founder. Whether or not they have a specific legal status, and whether or not they are regarded as a separate part of the nonprofit sector, the government foundations are present in most of the developed countries though the intensity of this presence is very uneven. While public law foundations represent an economically important part of the foundation sector in Germany and in some Eastern European countries, local authorities are forbidden to set up foundations in France. (This perfectly fits the French tradition of distrust toward foundations: Even private foundations were formerly obliged to give a place to a state official on their board of directors. His/her role was to check the legality of the foundations’ activities. Since 2003, the role of this ‘‘government commissioner’’ has been changed to ‘‘observer’’.) The roles played by government foundations in different countries are also varied. The state-established foundations can be an important vehicle of the privatization of public service delivery; they may take a growing part in the distribution of public funds; and they can also contribute to the development of public–private partnership. As a part of the transition to democracy and market economy, a special kind of privatization has occurred in Central and Eastern Europe for the last 2 decades. The failure of the state-dominated welfare system (lack of appropriate financing and flexibility, poor efficiency, unequal and unjust distribution of the welfare services, etc.) made modernization and restructuring inevitable. The need for a new partnership between public and private service providers was quite obvious, but the potential social entrepreneurs did not have sufficient money to invest. Thus, the development of the nonprofit service provision depended heavily on government policy, including regulation, direct and indirect support, and contracting-out arrangements. Facing this challenge and recognizing the citizens’ expectations, the new democratic governments took the lead. Thousands of government foundations were created by them in order to provide welfare services and many state-run institutions were
converted into a foundation form in the countries of the former Soviet block (Zimmer & Priller, 2004). Similar tendencies can also be identified in Western Europe where the roles of government and nonprofit organizations have to be redefined in the context of the reform enforced by the crisis of the welfare state (Anheier & Kendall, 2001). Though the government use of the foundation form for privatization purposes is less frequent here than in the transition countries, the practice still exists. Examples can be quoted from countries as different as Italy and Sweden. Hundreds of specific groups of publicly controlled, local-level welfare institutions, museums, and other cultural institutions (including La Scala Opera House of Milan) are transformed into a foundation form in Italy. Lots of ‘‘appropriation foundations’’ are set up by public sector bodies in Sweden; two public sector universities have also been turned into appropriation foundations. While the use of the foundation form as a vehicle of privatization seems to be much more popular in the transition countries than in the more developed part of the world, the government foundations’ role in the distribution of public grants is very similar indeed. These foundations established, endowed, and/or regularly supported by public authorities are supposed to develop a less centralized and more participatory way of distributing public grants, to let stakeholders have a voice in the redistribution process. The social control over the redistribution process is guaranteed by the structure of the boards. They usually consist of experts and representatives of the target fields (e.g., culture, research, employment, etc.). They are expected to assure that the main flows of redistribution are consistent with the policy objectives and the actual grant-making procedure still remains free from politicization. This technique of the distribution of public grants is not new at all. Its early predecessor is probably the AngloSaxon arts council model. The arts councils were originally established in order to remove arts policy, or at least direct support of the arts, from the normal government agenda, in the hope of ‘‘insulating’’ the culture from politics. The number of fields (research, innovation, local and community development, social inclusion, environment, etc.), where such an ‘‘insulation’’ seems to be desirable has increased a lot for the last decades. When the government decides to establish a foundation (e.g., the Polish Science Foundation in Poland, the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland, the National Employment Foundation in Hungary, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs in the UK, etc.) and let it disperse the public funds as it sees fit, the objective is to remove the
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details of allocation and the responsibility for the results of particular projects from the sphere of partisan politics. Thereby, the government allows judgment to be made by actors who are closer to the actual target field and probably have more and more relevant information on the applicants and their planned projects. Of course, there are some limits to the insulation from politics, which are possible with any government-financed foundations, especially if they do not have a large endowment and receive the funds to be distributed on a periodic basis. This dependence is somewhat weaker in the case of the Lottery-resourced foundations of the Netherlands, Belgium, and the UK, which benefit from an annual allowance given by their respective National Lotteries. (In this context, it is also worth mentioning the rather extreme example of the Czech Republic, where the government distributed some parts of its privatization income among private foundations. Thus, more than 50% of the total Czech foundation endowments were donated by the state in this framework without creating any further dependence.) The degree of autonomy can also be decreased by the government’s entitlement to nominate board members. Nevertheless, the use of the government foundations is likely to minimize the intrusion of politicians and bureaucrats in the distribution process and maximize the influence of other kinds of stakeholders.
Future Directions As Anheier and Daly (2007, p. 28) pointed out, ‘‘the complementarity role of foundations is similar to the subsidiarity principle, which established a division of labor between public and private institutions. It stipulates that decisions should always be taken at the lowest possible level or closest to where they will have their effect.’’ In theory, the government foundations should be the very embodiment of the subsidiarity principle. If this is so, is simply not known. The operation of these foundations is neither explored nor documented enough. They are treated (and usually neglected) as borderline cases. The scope of the research projects is generally limited to the private foundations, which meet all criteria of the nonprofit definition, including the one on the nongovernmental character of these organizations. To develop a clear picture of the government foundations, their types, number, economic importance, and to measure the efficiency and impacts of their various activities represent a major challenge. A lot of further work, a whole series of both quantitative and qualitative analyses, would be necessary in order to answer even the basic questions about the contribution of government foundations to the
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solution of public problems. Cross-national studies seem to be especially important in order to understand the nature of relationships between government foundations and their private and public partners in countries with different traditions of the government–nonprofit cooperation.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Civil Law and Civil Society ▶ Common Law and Civil Society ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ GONGOs ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ QuANGOs ▶ Subsidiarity
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Daly S. (Eds.) (2007). The politics of foundations. A comparative analysis. London/New York: Routledge. Anheier, H. K., & Kendall, J. (Eds.) (2001). Third sector policy at the crossroads. An international nonprofit analysis. London/New York: Routledge. Anheier, H. K., & Leat, D. (2006). Creative philanthropy: Towards a new philanthropy for the 21st century. London/New York: Routledge. Anheier, H. K., & Toepler, S. (Eds.) (1999). Private funds and public purpose: Philanthropic foundations in international perspective. New York: Plenum. Salamon, L. M. (Ed.) (1997). The international guide to nonprofit law. New York/Chichester/Weinheim/Brisbane/Singapore/Toronto: Wiley. Schlu¨ter, A., Then, V., & Walkenhorst, P. (Eds.) (2001). Foundations in Europe. London: Directory of Social Change. van der Ploeg, T. J. (1995). Supervisory powers relating to foundations: a comparative analysis of foundation law. Voluntas, 6(3), 255–274. Zimmer, A., & Priller, E. (Eds.) (2004). Future of civil society. Making Central European nonprofit organizations work. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fu¨r Sozialwissenshaften.
Fourier, Charles STEVE VAN ECK
Basic Biographical Information The French utopian philosopher, Charles Fourier, was born Franois Marie Charles Fourier on 7 April, 1773 in Besancon, France, to the son of a wealthy cloth merchant to whom he served as an apprentice from the age of six. As
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the sole surviving son, it was in accordance with his father’s will that Fourier claim the head of the family cloth firm and enter commercial life upon his father’s death, or he would have to forfeit a substantial inheritance. Fourier found the commercial life unsatisfying, even repugnant, nonetheless Fourier began his career as a clerk, traveling salesman, and unlicensed broker at age 20, upon his father’s death. Although Fourier held little hope that his writings would be published or produce an income, Fourier wrote prolifically throughout his career in the cloth trade.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Fourier’s writing focused on the development of an imagined social economy where the quest for personal gratification would necessarily advance the state of civil society. In this imagined world, the friction between labor and desire would become extinct through the formation and mechanisms of interest-based associations. These associations would encompass a balanced diversity of shared interests and personal characteristics, and a contrast of sexes, ages, incomes, and educations. Fourier’s utopian visions inspired writers on the social economy, civil society, and labor movements including Karl Marx and other utopian visionaries such as Robert Owen and Henri Saint-Simon. Besides other visionaries, Fourier inspired applications of his ideal society model as an associational community, which he termed the ‘‘phalanx.’’ In the early 1830s Fourier drew a substantial following, which led to Fourierist movements in France, Romania, and the United States. In the United States and France, several phalanxes were established between 1843 and 1858, which had on average a life span of 2–5 years. As a social thinker, Fourier served as an intellectual bridge between the Enlightenment Era’s rationality and the instinctual sentiments of the Romantic age. He imagined communities of strong associations that bound intentional communities. He saw these intentional communities as a means to move beyond the ‘‘jailhouse of commerce’’ and into a social economy rooted in communal associations. Fourier died alone in a rented room in Paris. He was buried in Montmartre cemetery before many of his ideals would be tested in the formation of small phalanx communities.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Labor Movements/Labour Unions ▶ Owen, Robert ▶ Social Economy ▶ Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy
References/Further Readings Fourier, C. (1971). Design for Utopia; selected writings of Charles Fourier. 10. New York: Schocken Books. Fourier, C., & Franklin, J. (1901). Selections from the works of Fourier. London: S. Sonnenschein & Co. Fourier, C., Morell, J. R., & Doherty, H. (1968). The passions of the human soul and their influence on society and civilization. Reprints of economic classics. New York: A.M. Kelley.
Freedom House CLAUDIA BODE-HARLASS
Address of Organization 1301 Connecticut Ave. NW, Floor 6 Washington, DC 20036 USA www.freedomhouse.org
Introduction Freedom House describes itself as being a ‘‘clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world’’, working to advance the ‘‘expansion of political and economic freedoms’’ worldwide.
Brief History Freedom House was founded in 1941 with the original aim of encouraging popular support for America’s entry into the Second World War. The organization was from its onset convinced that the only force against totalitarian ideologies was the spread of democracy around the world. During the last 60 years, Freedom House was among other things concerned with military juntas in Latin America, the Apartheid regime in South Africa and Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe. From 1995 until 2006 the organization was also home to the Centre for Religious Freedom reflecting the widespread agenda of Freedom House. Especially in the aftermath of the terror attacks in New York and Washington, DC in September 2001 and the following global ‘‘war on terror,’’ Freedom House has been criticized for being a propaganda machine of the US government and international right wing forces because it had defended the war in Iraq arguing that it would help to democratize the Middle East.
Mission The basic idea on which Freedom House is built is that freedom is only possible in political systems that are
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democratic and based on the rule of law where governments are accountable to their citizens. Therefore, the organization supports civil society initiatives and democratic reformers in countries where freedom is either partially or totally denied. At the same time as acting as a ‘‘proponent of democratic values,’’ Freedom House is opposing dictatorships from either side of the political spectrum and challenges ideas and forces that are denying all people their right to be free. In this sense, the organization puts a special emphasis on the rights of women as well as on minority groups.
Activities The activities of Freedom House are divided into advocacy, action, and analysis. In its advocacy work, the organization is focusing on introducing higher standards in international bodies dealing with human rights issues as well as on informing politicians and decision makers of the human rights situation and the degree of freedom in countries around the world. Freedom House is working directly with the US government, briefing the Congress as well as the Senate on a variety of human rights issues, and is also present in international forums. Besides, the organization is widely known for its annual reports, especially for its analysis ‘‘Freedom of the World.’’ Published every year since 1972 this report offers a ranking of every country in the world regarding the degree of freedom existing there. But Freedom House is also publishing a number of other reports focusing on certain areas of interest like press freedom, issues of governance, corruption, and transparency as well as women and minorities. Its actions range from holding conferences and trainings for individuals and groups promoting democracy and human rights to directly funding such organizations in countries in transition.
Structure and Governance Freedom House is governed by a Board of Trustees comprising business and labor leaders as well as former government officials, scholars, and journalists. The organization’s headquarters is based in Washington while a second US-office is based in New York. In addition, Freedom House has a European office based in Hungary and several others in countries like Lebanon, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and South Africa.
Funding While Freedom House receives some funding from individuals and private foundations, its main source of donor money is provided by the US government through its Agency for International Development (USAID) and the
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State. Other governments, such as for example Department of the Netherlands and Hungary, are also among the donors of Freedom House as is the European Commission with its European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights. In 2006 the total budget of the organization was about US$26 million.
Accomplishments Besides its annual report ‘‘Freedom in the World’’ being an important source of information for scholars, journalists, and interested people alike, Freedom House was the founder of the Community of Democracies, an alliance that promotes a greater voice for democracy at international forums like the United Nations. Furthermore, the organization played a leading role in building the Coalition for Southern Sudan that helped pave the way to the peace agreement in the region. Freedom House is also supportive of a number of democratizing initiatives all around the world.
Cross-References ▶ Advocacy ▶ Good Governance ▶ Human Rights
References/Further Readings Freedom House. (2009, January). Freedom in the world 2009. Setbacks and resilience. Washington, DC. Freedom House. (2005, October). Women’s rights in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington, DC.
Freedom of Association KARLA SIMON Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction The freedom of association is protected by both international and regional human rights instruments. As the discussion below will illustrate, the protection of this important freedom is enshrined in national constitutions as well. In some countries (e.g., the United States), even though the Constitution does not specifically protect the freedom of association in the First Amendment, protection has been inferred in the case law (NAACP v. Button).
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Definition Freedom of association means the freedom to associate but also the freedom not to associate. The freedom of association includes the right to associate informally. It also implies the right to form legally registered (incorporated) organizations, such as associations, foundations, and not-for-profit corporations (civil society organizations or CSOs).
Historical Background Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 (Universal Declaration) states that ‘‘[e]veryone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression.’’ Article 20 protects the right of individuals to ‘‘peaceful assembly and association.’’ Although the Universal Declaration did not have binding effect when it was unanimously adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948, it has come to have normative force. Many of the provisions of the Universal Declaration have acquired binding legal status by being included in subsequent multilateral treaties, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In addition, regional systems for protection of the freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration are relevant to consider. These include: the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (European Convention), the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Charter), the Charter of the Organization of American States (OAS Charter), the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man (American Declaration), the American Convention on Human Rights (American Convention), and the Arab Charter on Human Rights (Arab Charter). (With regard to the last of these, the right is restricted to citizens; a restriction to citizens would appear to be inconsistent with Human Rights Committee General Comment 15, 1994 – ‘‘[a]liens receive the benefit of the right of peaceful assembly and of freedom of association.’’) The discussion here focuses on the ICCPR, as the most widely subscribed binding human rights instrument of relevance, and the European Convention, as the instrument with the best developed jurisprudence regarding the freedom of association. It is also important to note that the freedom of association is closely entwined with the rights to freedom of expression and assembly (and also freedom of religion), and the case law in Europe so demonstrates. The ICCPR creates direct binding obligations for the 161 countries that are states parties to it. Articles 19, 21, and 22 of the ICCPR guarantee the rights of expression, peaceful assembly, and association, respectively. By its
terms, the ICCPR not only explicitly guarantees rights enjoyed by individuals, but also requires States Party to adopt laws or other measures assuring protection for these freedoms. As a result, many countries have provisions protecting the freedom of association and related freedoms in their Constitutions. The ICCPR was strengthened by the adoption in1966 and the entry into force in 1976 of the First Optional Protocol (Optional Protocol). The Optional Protocol allows the Human Rights Committee established under the ICCPR to receive and consider communications from individuals who allege that their rights guaranteed by the ICCPR have been violated. The Optional Protocol has 111 signatories, but its complaint procedures, by being optional, are not as effective as the complaint procedures under the European Convention and the American Convention. The European Convention entered into force in 1953 and has been ratified by all 44 states that are members of the Council of Europe and is legally binding on those states that are parties to it. The European Convention enshrines the rights of freedom of expression (Article 10), association (Article 11), and peaceful assembly (Article 11). Article 25 of the European Convention establishes a complaint procedure that permits petitions addressed to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) from ‘‘any person, nongovernmental organization or group of individuals claiming to be the victim of a violation.’’ Accordingly, legal persons such as formal CSOs, individuals, and even informal CSOs may file complaints in the European Court for violations of rights protected by Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention. In the American system for the protection of human rights, the situation is little more complex. The OAS Charter, which established the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Inter-American Commission), does not specifically protect any rights, but those are affirmed in the contemporaneous American Declaration, of which Article IV (expression), Article XXI (assembly), and Article XXII (association) are most relevant here. Under the American Convention on Human Rights, the rights to freedom of expression (Article 13), peaceful assembly (Article 15), and association (Article 16) are also protected, and it is this document that sets up the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (Inter-American Court). Individuals, groups or persons, and nongovernmental entities ‘‘legally recognized in one of member states of the OAS’’ are permitted to submit petitions to the Inter-American Commission ‘‘containing denunciations or complaints’’ with regard to alleged violations of the
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Convention. Because the Commission is a treaty body of the OAS Charter, it therefore does not matter whether a state is a party to the Convention in order for the Commission to have jurisdiction over the petition. On the other hand, the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court is limited to those states that are parties to the American Convention. Finally, it must be noted that only the Commission can bring a case to the Inter-American Court. Although the freedom of association is protected under these instruments, the protection is not absolute. All three of the instruments provide for limitations on the exercise of the freedoms of association, assembly, and expression, and they do so in general by restricting what states can do to constrain their exercise. Using language that is virtually identical to or has the same meaning as the regional instruments, the ICCPR places curbs on state interferences with the rights – they must be ‘‘prescribed by law and . . . necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public order (order public), the protection of public health and morals or the protection of rights and freedoms of others.’’ The language regarding the freedom of expression is a bit different and includes reputational injuries as well as limitations on advocacy of racial hatred, etc. In the African Charter, Article 10 states the following: ‘‘(1) Every individual shall have the right to free association provided that he abides by the law. (2) Subject to the obligation of solidarity provided for in 29 no one may be compelled to join an association.’’ This regional instrument thus provides a smaller degree of protection than the ones mentioned heretofore because the limitation ‘‘provided that he abides by law,’’ grants lesser protections than the limitations in the ICCPR and the European and American Conventions. Nevertheless, the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) has stated explicitly that ‘‘[i]n regulating the use of this right, the competent authorities should not enact provisions which would limit the exercise of this freedom’’ (ACHPR /Res.5(XI) 92: Resolution on the Right to Freedom of Association (1992)). The African Charter is also not as clear on the extent to which non state parties can bring a communication to the attention of the Commission, though it seems to be possible for individuals to do so (Article 55).
Key Issues Not only does the freedom of association protect the right to associate, it also includes the freedom not to associate. This principle is confirmed in Africa not only by the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, but also by case law in various countries, such as Ghana
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and Nigeria, where mandatory membership in groups has been held to violate both constitutional and regional human rights norms. In the case of Agbai v. Okogbue in Nigeria, the Supreme Court held that the provision of the Constitution guaranteeing freedom of association also embraces the notion of freedom of non-association. As such, the customary law ‘‘age groups’’ could not be deemed mandatory in modern day jurisprudence (Iheme, 2002). In the ‘‘CIBA case,’’ a similar result was reached by the Ghanaian Supreme Court, which struck down legislation creating a Council of Independent Business Associations (CIBA), in which membership was mandated by law. The Supreme Court held that the Constitution of Ghana would forbid mandatory membership in an association of this type, even if the members agreed to the legislation (New Patriotic Party v. Att’y Gen’l, Supreme Court of Ghana, 1997). In some instances, however, joining an association, e.g., to which a state has delegated regulatory obligations, is permitted to be mandatory (Chassagnou case, 1999). This rule, from a case in the European Court of Justice, also appears to be accepted by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Advisory Opinion 585). The freedom of non-association has been protected in the United States only where organizations have what are called ‘‘expressive’’ associational rights (Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 1987). Thus, an organization cannot exclude women simply because of their gender. On the other hand where membership of certain persons, e.g., avowed homosexuals, would prevent the organization from sending its preferred message, then the organization has a protected freedom to exclude them (Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, 2000).
International Perspectives Recent decisions of the European Court of Human Rights make it clear that there is a right protected by international law to establish a formal CSO and that any such organization, once formed, enjoys the full protection of the European Convention from any interference or restriction by the state. These decisions are discussed in the paragraphs that follow. In the landmark 1998 decision in Sidiropoulos and Others v. Greece, the European Court of Human Rights unanimously held that the refusal by Greek courts to establish a Macedonian cultural association was an interference with the applicants’ exercise of their right to freedom of association. The Court unequivocally stated that ‘‘the right to form an association is an inherent part’’ of the right to freedom of association. The Court went on
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to say, ‘‘[t]hat citizens should be able to form a legal entity in order to act collectively in a field of mutual interest is one of the most important aspects of the right to freedom of association, without which the right would be deprived of any meaning.’’ Of equal importance is another 1998 decision in United Communist Party of Turkey and Others v. Turkey, holding that the action by the government of Turkey to dissolve the United Communist Party of Turkey (UCP) was a violation of Article 11 of the European Convention. The Court stated that ‘‘the Convention was designed to maintain and promote the ideals and values of a democratic society.’’ Since ‘‘political parties make an irreplaceable contribution to political debate, which is at the very core of the concept of a democratic society,’’ they can be shut down only for ‘‘convincing and compelling reasons.’’ Furthermore, political parties are essential to the protection of the freedom of speech, guaranteed in Article 10 of the European Convention. A third significant decision was rendered in 1999 in ¨ ZDEP) v. Turkey. This Freedom and Democracy Party (O decision further clarifies the importance of the freedom of association, linking it specifically to the freedom of expression in Article 10 of the European Convention. In the ¨ ZDEP case, the government of Turkey had dissolved a O political party on the grounds that its ‘‘program was apt to undermine the territorial integrity of the State and the unity of the nation.’’ The Court found that action by the state to be ‘‘radical,’’ noting that the party was ‘‘penalized solely for exercising its freedom of expression’’ because it was dissolved before it began any activities. ¨ ZDEP cases also held that The Court in the UCP and O the freedom of association would be largely theoretical and illusory if it were limited to the founding of an association, since the government could immediately disband it. ‘‘It follows that the protection afforded by Article 11 lasts for an association’s entire life and that dissolution of an association by a country’s authorities must accordingly satisfy the requirements of paragraph 2 of that provision.’’ ¨ ZDEP cases provide The Sidiropoulos, UCP, and O strong international law protection for the right to establish legally recognized CSOs and the right of those CSOs to operate with a minimum of limitations and restrictions. They also articulate very clear rules limiting the circumstances in which the freedom of association can be interfered with or restricted. These decisions under the European Convention have global significance, for, as indicated earlier, Article 11 of the European Convention, protecting freedom of association, is virtually identical to Article 22 of the ICCPR and Article 16 of the American Convention. In addition, the circumstances in which
interferences with the freedom of association are permitted are limited in a similar manner in the three instruments. In construing the permitted interference language in all three cases, the European Court of Human Rights emphasized that such interferences are permitted only under very limited circumstances. Application of the exceptions (situations in which interferences are permitted) must be ‘‘construed strictly,’’ only ‘‘convincing and compelling’’ reasons can justify restrictions, any restrictions must be ‘‘proportionate to the legitimate aim pursued,’’ and that there must be ‘‘relevant and sufficient’’ evidence for ‘‘decisions based on an acceptable assessment of the relevant facts’’ before a restriction can be justified. In none of the cases was an interference permitted. In Refah Partisi and Others v. Turkey, on the other hand the ECtHR held, over a strong dissent of three judges, that it was not a violation of the right to freedom of association under Article 11 of the European Convention for Turkey to dissolve a political party that had a long-term policy of setting up a regime based on Sharia (Islamic) law within the framework of a plurality of legal systems and that did not exclude recourse to force in order to implement its policy and keep the system it envisaged in place. In its opinion, the Court did not back away from any of the principles it had enunciated in its prior cases, though the evidence and reasoning relied upon by the Court have proven controversial. More recent decisions of the ECtHR confirm the basic principles of Sidiropolous and UCP, distinguishing Refah on its facts. These include United Macedonian Organization Ilinden-Pirin. In addition to the regional jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, the right of individuals to form associations was confirmed by an important resolution of the United Nations General Assembly on ‘‘Human Rights Defenders’’ (UN Declaration, 1998). This declaration states that ‘‘[e]veryone has the right, individually and in association with others, to promote and to strive for the protection and realization of human rights and fundamental freedoms at the national and international levels.’’ Finally, States Party to the ICCPR are required to adopt such legislation and other measures as are necessary to give effect to the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, and to assure that every person has effective remedies to redress any violation. States may impose certain narrowly tailored restrictions on CSOs exercising these rights, but they may not discriminate among individuals with respect to the exercise of these rights. This means, for example, that states cannot restrict to citizens the right to create or participate in a CSO, but must treat all persons within its territory on the same
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terms. In countries where resources traditionally have been concentrated in the hands of the state, this nondiscrimination principle becomes even more important.
Future Directions In many countries the freedom of association is respected only in the breach. In China, for example, people must have permission to form CSOs, and that permission is frequently unavailable (Simon, 2009). It is also clear that the trend toward greater freedom in this regard (referred to by Lester Salamon as an ‘‘associational revolution’’) (Salamon, 2004) has entered a new phase, with greater and greater restrictions being imposed in many countries. Thus, the question for the future is the extent to which the very strong jurisprudence in the European Court of Human Rights will prevail as time goes on.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Council on Foundations ▶ Human Rights ▶ ICNL ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Professional Associations
References/Further Readings Board of Directors of Rotary Int’l v. Rotary Club of Duarte, 481 U.S. 537 (SCOTUS 1987). Boy Scouts of America and Monmouth Council, et al. v. James Dale, 530 U.S. 640 (SCOTUS 2000). Chassagnou et al. v. France, judgment of 29 April 1999 ECJ, appl. nos. 25088/94, 28331/95, 28443/95) (which involved the question of whether statutorily regulated hunting associations must be deemed to be organizations that are governed by public law). Declaration on the Right and Responsibility of Individuals, Groups and Organs of Society to Promote and Protect Universally Recognized Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (A/RES/53/144, 9 December 1998). ¨ ZDEP) v. Turkey, Grand Chamber Freedom and Democracy Party (O 1999. Iheme, E. (2002). Freedom of Association in a Nigerian Community – Old Usages, New Rules. The International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, 4. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Advisory Opinion OC585, November 13, 1985 (the principal holding was that the mandatory membership in the journalists’ association in order to practice journalism did not violate the freedom of expression). But see separate opinion of Judge Rafael Neito-Navia, who suggested that mandatory membership would violate freedom of association. New Patriotic Party v. Att’y Gen’l, Supreme Court of Ghana, 1997 (CIBA case). Refah Partisi v. Turkey, Grand Chamber ECtHR 2003. Salamon, L. (2004). The Global Associational Revolution. Foreign Affairs.
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Simon, K. W. (2009). Regulation of Civil Society in China: Necessary Changes after the Olympic Games and the Sichuan Earthquake, 32 Fordham Int’1 L. J. 101. Sidirpolous and Others v. Greece, Grand Chamber ECtHR, 10 July 1998. United Communist Party v. Turkey, Grand Chamber ECtHR, 30 January 1998. United Macedonian Organisation Ilinden – Pirin and Others v. Bulgaria, ECtHR 20 October 2005.
Freemasons GUNNAR GLAENZEL
Address of Organization Grand Lodge of D.C. 5428 MacArthur Blvd NW Washington, DC 20016-2524 USA www.dcgrandlodge.org
Introduction Freemasonry is an international fraternity movement committed to an attitude of tolerance, democracy, and human dignity. Freemasons advocate self-fulfillment, helpfulness, peace, and social justice and harmony.
Brief History In its contemporary form, freemasonry dates back to the early eighteenth century when it was a secret movement for democracy. The very term, however, originates from medieval masons who associated as illegal trade unions in huts called ‘‘lodges.’’ Freemasons themselves date back their history to ancient times and claim the heritage of the builders of the Egyptian pyramids. As a result, there is no official founding date, although a significant landmark was the foundation of the first Grand Lodge in London in 1717.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Freemasons are primarily concerned with their own moral and spiritual development which they view as a precondition for contributing to society. Masonic rituals and symbolism, kept secret to externals and being essentially the same all over the world, are meant to help the individual find insight for personal development and selffulfillment. By learning to lead an increasingly conscious and responsible life, she/he will carry masonic values into society and promote universal progress in terms of humanistic values.
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Activities By far the most important masonic activity is the regular gathering as a lodge where the masonic ritual is practiced. These meetings are announced publicly, yet held behind closed doors. Apart from the secret ritual, there are no obligatory activities stated explicitly, yet general guidelines for appropriate masonic behavior (‘‘ancient charges’’) are published as ‘‘Constitutions of the Free-Masons.’’ In line with the central mission uniting all Freemasons despite their great diversity, philanthropic activities and long-term commitment in charitable projects are generally an integral part of masonry. They may also arrange lectures and discussions.
Structure and Governance There are between five and six million Freemasons worldwide organized in lodges usually registered with local authorities as associations. Each lodge is recognized as such by becoming member of a Grand Lodge and subject to its jurisdiction. These sovereign Grand Lodges, however, do not always accept one another; rather, they have to recognize others through a formal process and may then associate and cooperate in larger formations (e.g., ‘‘United Grand Lodges of Europe’’). There is no such organization governing Freemasonry worldwide.
impact can be attributed to their Freemasonry must remain largely uncertain. Therefore, it can be summarized that Freemasonry has substantively influenced humanity in general and politics and civil society in particular; yet possibly to a large extent this influence has to be spoken of as indirect.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ Dunant, Jean-Henri(Henry) ▶ Ford, Henry ▶ Rothschild Family ▶ Secret Societies ▶ Washington, George
References/Further Readings Bullock, S. C. (2004). Foreword: Masons, masonic history, and academic scholarship. In A. de Hoyos & S. B. Morris (Eds.), Freemasonry in context: History, ritual, controversy (pp. ix–xiii). Lanham: Lexington Books. Jacob, M. C. (2006). The origins of freemasonry: Facts & fictions. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press. Ridley, J. (2000). The freemasons. London: Robinson.
Funding At the organizational level Freemasonry has two funding sources: On the one hand, being registered as associations, Freemasons finance their basic activities through membership subscription fees. On the other hand, charitable work is funded largely by means of voluntary donations; Freemasons donate roughly $1 billion annually. In more abstract terms however, Freemasonry is supported and promoted by individual Freemasons’ behavior and contributions in multiple societal sectors.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The impact of Freemasonry on humanity is hard to assess, for Freemasonry is intended to impact primarily indirectly through individual Freemasons’ actions outside the narrow context of organized masonic life. While it is obvious that in several centuries of existence, both lodges and individual Freemasons have founded uncountable numbers of philanthropic organizations, the consequences of masonic thought and behavior are less easily attributable directly the Freemasonry. It is beyond doubt, however, that numerous Freemasons have had major impact on human history, such as Winston Churchill, 14 US presidents, and ten Nobel Peace Prize winners. Nevertheless, the extent to which these individuals’
Freire, Paulo MARTIN HO¨LZ
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1921 in Recife, Brazil, Paolo Freire was an educator who became known as the founder of the ‘‘pedagogy of the oppressed.’’ Following his studies in law and philosophy, Freire worked for 10 years with the Servicio Social da Industria (Industry Social Services), ultimately as director of the Department for Education and Culture in the state of Pernambuco. With his dissertation on the education of illiterates, Freire earned a doctoral degree from the University of Recife in 1959 and became Professor of Philosophy and History of Education. He went on to serve as the Director of the Cultural Extension Service at the University of Recife and was appointed in 1963 to lead the National Literacy Program. In 1964, he was arrested and forced to emigrate after a military coup. Following a stopover in Bolivia he fled to Chile, where he worked for the Chilean Institute for Agrarian Reform, and later to
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
Geneva, Switzerland, where he worked for the Office of Education of the World Council of Churches. He returned to Brazil in 1980 where he was employed by the Center for Educational Studies. Freire was later appointed the Secretary for Education of the State of Sao Paulo and taught at the University of Campinas and the Catholic University of Sao Paulo. He died in Sao Paulo in 1997.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Freire is perhaps best known for the development of a problem-posing concept of education he named ‘‘pedagogy of the oppressed.’’ Influenced by thinkers as diverse as Aristotle, Fanon, Marx, Hegel, and Rousseau and by liberation theology, Freire was convinced that change in the unjust and inhumane Brazilian society in which he lived could be achieved only through education. Through education, the oppressed would be able to fully join society. His educational method, in which students would learn to read and write within some 40 hours, was based on the principles of conscientization and dialog. Through conscientization, the student reflects on his or her own circumstances and can then enter into dialog with the teacher, rather than remain in a hierarchical student-teacher relationship. Freire introduced these literacy programs beginning in 1962 in the impoverished northeastern region of Brazil, spreading throughout the country by 1963. Throughout his working life, Freire was involved in founding new institutions to disseminate his method. Today institutes in such diverse countries as Canada, Israel, South Africa, Spain, and the United States are implementing, exploring, and further developing his method and theoretical foundations. Freire was awarded the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education in 1986 and was the first person to receive the King Baudouin International Development Prize in 1980 for his contribution to the spread of adult literacy.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Civil Society Theory: Rousseau ▶ Fanon, Frantz ▶ World Council of Churches
References/Further Readings Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Seabury. Freire, P. (1978). Pedagogy in process. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Freire, P. (1985). The politics of education. South Hadely, MA: Bergin & Garvey. Mayo, P. (1999). Gramsci, Freire and adult education: Possibilities for transformative action. London: Zed Books. Taylor, P. V. (1993). The texts of Paulo Freire. Buckingham/Philadelphia: Open University Press.
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Friedrich Ebert Stiftung MATTHIAS FREISE
Address of Organization Godesberger Allee 149 D-53175 Bonn Tel.: ++49 228 883 0 www.fes.de
Introduction The Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES – Friedrich Ebert Foundation) is the oldest German political foundation. It is closely affiliated to the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) and serves as a social democratic think tank by providing civic education.
Brief History Founded in 1925 as a foundation of the SPD, FES was named after Friedrich Ebert (1871–1925), a social democrat and the first President of the German Democratic Republic. Originally, the main concern of the foundation was to work against discrimination of workers by providing scholarships and research grants. During the Nazi rule, FES was banned. It was reinstituted in 1947 and totally restructured into a charitable organization ‘‘for the advancement of democratic education,’’ in 1954. Since the 1960s, the FES has been working in the areas of development aid and democracy promotion worldwide, in addition to its education programs.
Mission FES is committed to the ideology and basic values of social democracy. Its aim is to assist citizens in Germany and abroad in responding to changes in politics and society, and thus enable them to participate, in a critical and proactive manner, in promoting peace and understanding between peoples, supporting the democratization of the state and society, strengthening civil society, and gaining recognition for human rights.
Activities To pursue its mission, FES is active in four fields: 1. In its two headquarters in Bonn and Berlin, FES serves as a social democratic think tank through its research and consulting activities. It provides a large number of publications and has institutionalized influential discussion circles. It also operates the Archives of Social Democracy in Bonn.
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2. FES maintains 13 regional offices and four academies all over Germany for discussion forums and specialsubject conferences. 3. On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Science, FES grants graduate and postgraduate scholarships to approximately 2,000 students, who share the foundation’s values. 4. Abroad, FES maintains its own representations in 70 countries and is active in more than 100 countries in the field of sociopolitical development cooperation. Thereby, special focus is laid not only on capacity building for trade unions, but also on cooperation with politicians and NGOs.
Structure and Governance FES is a registered voluntary association. In 2007, it had a total staff of 609 employees. Usually, the management board comprises merited politicians of the SPD.
Funding FES is almost fully funded through grants from the federal budget and the German states. Donations and fees contribute only an insignificant part of the budget, which amounted to €111 million in 2007.
Accomplishments FES has successfully supported democracy and freedom movements, for instance, the African National Congress, and played an important role in overcoming dictatorial regimes in Greece, Spain, and Portugal by training the later political elites of these countries.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Foundations, Political ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Braun, B. (2005). 80 Jahre Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung – Eine Außenansicht. In Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (Ed.), 80 Jahre Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (pp. 6–12). Bonn: FES.
Friedrich Naumann Stiftung fu¨r die Freiheit MATTHIAS FREISE
Address of Organization Karl-Marx-Straße 2 D-14482 Potsdam Germany www.freiheit.org
Introduction The Friedrich Naumann Stiftung fu¨r die Freiheit (FNS – Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom) is a German political foundation. It is affiliated to the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and serves as a think tank by providing political and societal education, based on the values of liberalism and individual freedom.
Brief History FNS was founded in 1958 in Bonn by a group of liberal politicians to establish a systematic civic education program inspired by liberal values. The foundation was named after Friedrich Naumann (1860–1919), a Protestant theologian and influential liberal politician during the times of the German empire. In 2001, FNS moved its headquarters to Potsdam. In 2007, the foundation added the extension ‘‘for freedom’’ to its name.
Mission FNS is committed to the ideas and basic values of liberal democracy. It is dedicated to the development of structures that are democratic, market-oriented, and based on the rule of law so that more and more people can live in liberal and democratic societies.
Activities To pursue its mission, FNS is active in four fields: 1. It serves as a liberal think tank by maintaining the Liberal Institute (founded in 1985), which is involved in research and consulting activities. It provides a large number of publications and has institutionalized influential discussion circles. FNS also operates the Archive of Liberalism. 2. It maintains a civic education center, the Theodor Heuss Academy in Gummersbach, a virtual academy, and nine regional education institutes offering conferences, seminars, and workshops. 3. On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Science, it grants graduate and postgraduate scholarships to approximately 600 students. 4. Its international political dialog program provides a discussion forum for a wide range of liberal issues. The foundation’s counseling programs focus on candidates for political office, liberal political parties, and other civil society organizations in transition countries. Furthermore, it organizes a European Union and a Transatlantic Dialogue program. In 2007, FNS maintained 44 field offices that are coordinated by seven regional headquarters.
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Brief History
Unlike the other German political foundations, FNS actually operates under the legal form of a foundation. Usually the management board is filled with eminent politicians of the FDP. FNS had a total staff of 175 employees in 2007. In addition, the foundation employs 229 local people in the project countries.
David Brower founded Friends of the Earth US in 1969, after resigning as executive director of the United States Sierra Club because of disputes over campaign tactics and targets. Offices were established in San Francisco in 1969, Paris and London in 1970 and Sweden in 1971. The FoEI federation was founded in Sweden in 1971, by groups from France, Britain, the United States and Sweden.
Funding FNS is almost fully funded through grants from the federal budget, the German states, and the European Union (95% of the budget). Donations, fees, and earnings of the foundation contribute just an insignificant part of the budget, which amounted to approximately €43 million in 2007.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Foundations, Political ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Mair, St. (2000). Germany’s stiftungen und democracy assistance: Comparative advantages, new challenges. In P. Burnell (Ed.), Democracy assistance. International co-operation for democratization (pp. 128–149). London: Cass.
Friends of the Earth SAM ROYSTON, SARAH HARDS
Address of Organization Friends of the Earth International Secretariat P.O. Box 19199 1000 GD Amsterdam The Netherlands www.foei.org/
Introduction Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) describes itself as ‘‘the world’s largest grassroots environmental network.’’ The federation includes member groups in 77 countries, with about 1,200 staff and 5,000 local activist groups. Overall, FoEI claims over two million supporters worldwide.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas National FoE groups are autonomous from FoEI, however, according to their 30th anniversary report, groups do have shared values ‘‘that place people and the environment above the profit motives of the current global economic paradigm.’’ In addition, FoEI membership criteria state that groups should work on the ‘‘main environmental issues in their countries,’’ putting them in the context of ‘‘social, political and human rights.’’ According to the FoEI website, key themes running through campaigns include ‘‘protecting human and environmental rights,’’ ‘‘protecting the planet’s disappearing biodiversity,’’ and ‘‘the repayment of ecological debt owed by rich countries.’’ Currently, key issues for many national groups include climate change, food, deforestation, trade, and globalization.
Activities Campaigns operate on many levels, from grassroots mobilizations by local groups to international campaigns. Local groups often have considerable autonomy and may run locally-specific campaigns. FoE uses diverse tactics. Political pressure is a key tool, with targets ranging from local councils to international summits. The organization has also made legal challenges through the courts of many countries, targeting corporations or government agencies. However, FoE also enjoys a degree of ‘‘insider’’ status in certain countries, and FoEI has consultative status with some UN bodies. Campaigns often use visual imagery and the media, for example, with the construction of a giant sandbag dyke in The Hague during international climate negotiations in 2000. FoE has recently begun using new media, such as ‘‘cyberactivist’’ email lists, video-streams, and blogs. Both FoEI and national groups produce many publications and reports every year.
Structure and Governance FoE’s structure has four broad layers. First, local groups often cover single towns or communities. Not all countries have local groups, but in some, such as the UK, there is a well-established network. The second layer is the national
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groups. Roughly half call themselves ‘‘Friends of the Earth’’ in their own languages; others use different names. Thirdly, regional coordinating bodies cover Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Africa. Finally, the FoEI federation unites the national groups. National groups are autonomous of FoEI, but agree to abide by its principles. The federation’s policies are decided at a biannual general meeting, in which all members have an equal say, regardless of size or resources. This meeting elects an Executive Committee, which employs and oversees the work of an International Secretariat of approximately 25 staff and volunteers. Doherty (2006) notes that this federal structure makes FoEI distinct from other large international environmental NGOs such as the World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace.
Funding National groups are funded from diverse sources, including individual subscriptions, foundations, and trading. They vary greatly in their annual income. Some groups in developing countries (for example Swaziland and Papua New Guinea) receive financial support from foundations or aid agencies in the developed world. FoEI is financed by donations from member groups, and from governments and foundations. In 2007 they reported an income of over €2.4 million. Of this, €340,000 was from membership fees from national groups.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions FoE has a record of changing legislation. FoE England, Wales and Northern Ireland recently led a successful campaign for a climate change law, obliging the UK to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050. The legislation, passed in November 2008 is the first of its kind in the world. FoE also has a record of mobilizing public opinion, notably in anti genetic modification campaigns. For example, in January 2008 FOE France was a major player in the successful campaign to ban the only genetically-modified maize grown in the country. The organization is also adept in using legal systems. For example, in 2006, FoE US successfully brought litigation challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s approach to pollution in the Anacostia River.
Cross-References
▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Greenpeace ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Sierra Club ▶ World Wildlife Fund
References/Further Readings Doherty, B. (2006). Friends of the earth international: Negotiating a transnational identity. Environmental Politics, 15(5), 860–880. Friends of the Earth International. (2001). Sparks of hope, fires of resistance. Amsterdam: FoEI. Lamb, R. (1996). Promising the earth. London: Routledge. MacNaghten, P., & Urry, J. (1998). Contested natures. London: Sage.
Fugger, Jakob MATTHIAS FREISE
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1459 in Augsburg (Holy Roman Empire, today Germany) to a merchant family and educated in commerce in Venice, Jakob Fugger went on to build up a pan-European industrial empire and to become the richest and most influential merchant and banker of his time. Fugger’s business idea was to lend money on a grand scale to European rulers for warfare and other political purposes, among them the later Holy Roman Emperors of the German Nation, the Habsburg kings Maximilian I and Charles V to whom Fugger became also an important mentor. In return the rulers gave as payback shares of their mines to Fugger’s company so that he was able to control the European mining industry and to establish a silver and copper monopoly, which contributed to the accumulation of his inconceivable fortune. Fugger also secured the right to sell papal indulgences from Pope Leo X. When he died in 1525 in his hometown he had laid the foundation for the Fugger dynasty which strongly influenced European politics until 1650. In Germany, the name Fugger stands up until today as the prototype of capitalist action.
Major Contributions In addition to his vast fortune, Fugger is known for comprehensive patronage in his hometown and elsewhere in Europe. In harmony with the Catholic doctrine, strictly religious Fugger adhered to the principle of caritas et memoria which requires generous donations to the poor by the rich. In contrast to the modern understanding of charitableness, these donations were not free of selfinterest. Instead the patronage was connected to a reward: the beneficiaries must care for the salvation of the donor by honoring Fugger’s memory. Therefore Fugger founded the Fuggerei, the oldest social housing project in the world. Up until the present it is a walled independent
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medieval enclave in the city of Augsburg and serves as a place where needy Catholic citizens can be housed. Today the Fuggerei consists of 8 alleyways, 67 houses with 140 flats and several administrative buildings. By 2008, 150 inhabitants lived in the Fuggerei for an annual rent of 88 Eurocent (the equivalent of one Gulden which was fixed by Fugger himself) and three daily prayers for the salvation of the Fugger family. The Fuggerei is operated by the Fu¨rstlich und Gra¨flich Fuggersche Foundation. This foundation also maintains other buildings and artistic works which have been donated by the Fugger dynasty, among them the Fugger Castles in the cities of Kirchheim and Babenhausen, the Fugger Chapel in the Annakirche in Augsburg and the Thekla Church in Welden (Augsburg Rural District). Also in other places formerly under Fugger rule there are a number of well designed churches of pilgrimage such as in Biberbach (Augsburg Rural District) or in Kirchhaslach (Unterallga¨u Rural District).
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity
References/Further Readings Graf Fugger von Glo¨tt, U. (2004). The Fuggerei. The oldest social settlement in the world. Augsburg: Wißner. Kluger, M. (2008). The Fugger dynasty. The German medici in and around Augsburg. Augsburg: Context.
Fundacio´n ONCE MARTIN HO¨LZ
Address of Organization C/ Sebastia´n Herrera, 15 28012 Madrid Spain www.fundaciononce.es
Introduction Fundacio´n ONCE para la Cooperacio´n e Integracio´n Social de Personas con Discapacidad (ONCE Foundation for Cooperation and Social Integration of Persons with Disabilities) is a Spanish grantmaking foundation dedicated to ensuring the social integration of people with disabilities and improving their quality of life. It is unique that it
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is funded primarily by a percentage of the sales of lottery tickets through ‘‘la ONCE,’’ Spain’s national organization for the blind.
Brief History The history of Fundacio´n ONCE begins in 1938 with the founding of ‘‘la ONCE,’’ the Organizacio´n Nacional de Ciegos Espan˜oles (National Organization for the Spanish Blind). La ONCE is a public law corporation created in agreement with the government, whose membership is open to all Spanish citizens who have certified a certain level of visual impairment. ONCE’s main purpose is to provide educational, employment, and other services to and advocate for the blind in Spain. Its primary source of funding is the sale of lottery tickets licensed by the government. Fundacio´n ONCE was founded in 1988 as an expression of solidarity of the members of ‘‘la ONCE’’ with others who experience different types of disability, whether physical, psychological, or mental. In 1989, Fundacio´n ONCE created FUNDOSA, an umbrella for numerous social enterprises, to ensure workplaces for the disabled.
Mission/Objectives Fundacio´n ONCE’s mission is fourfold. It seeks to achieve the full integration of the disabled in Spanish and European society; to improve the quality of life of the disabled through the development of work integration, training, and employment programs; to encourage universal accessibility for people with limited mobility; and to ensure equal opportunities to make the integration of the disabled into society a reality.
Activities Fundacio´n ONCE makes grants to organizations and implements activities within the framework of two ‘‘plans,’’ or programs. Within the employment and training program, Fundacio´n ONCE provides funding for the creation of employment and occupational centers, the promotion of self-employment and social enterprises, and skills and other training. Under its accessibility program, it supports enhanced access to communications and collective transport, individuals’ access to their workplaces, and the promotion of personal autonomy and independent living. As set out in ‘‘la ONCE’s’’ agreement with the government, at least 60% of Fundacio´n ONCE’s resources are allocated to promoting stable employment and training for the disabled, while the remaining portion is dedicated to activities designed to achieve full accessibility. From its inception in 1988 to the end of 1997, Fundacio´n ONCE
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had made grants in support of some 22,000 projects totalling more than €1.1 billion.
Structure and Governance The main governing body of Fundacio´n ONCE is the Patronato, or Board of Trustees, which consists of delegates not only of ‘‘la ONCE,’’ but also of the main umbrella groups representing organizations of and for people with other disabilities and of the Spanish government. An executive committee is responsible for day-to-day activities.
Funding One of Fundacio´n ONCE’s key sources of income is the 3% of lottery sales dedicated to it by ‘‘la ONCE.’’ In addition, it relies on income from its social enterprises under the umbrella of FUNDOSA and revenues from other investments.
Major Accomplishments According to its annual report, in 2007, Fundacio´n ONCE approved funding for more than 1,300 projects providing people with disabilities employment opportunities and security and improving their access to communications, workplaces, and transport.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Social Enterprise
References/Further Readings Alvarez Ilzarbe, M. J. (2007). Servicios financieros accessibles para todas las personas. Madrid: Fundacio´n ONCE and BankInter. Fundacio´n ONCE. (2007). Turismo para todos. Desde la accessibilidad a la excelencia. Madrid: Fundacio´n ONCE and Fundacio´n ACS.
Fundraising WENDY SCAIFE Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Introduction Fundraising is mushrooming worldwide for various reasons. Governments increasingly cannot fully meet community need and many issues are so complex, costly, and global that only cross-sector input, including corporate, foundation, and individual support, will resolve them.
Against this backdrop, fundraising (or ‘‘development’’ or ‘‘resource mobilization’’ as it is variously known) is becoming more widespread in nonprofit organizations (NPOs). As both a profession and volunteering role, fundraising is increasingly sizeable, specialized, and academically probed. While fundraising practice varies across cultures, some core principles are a compelling need/case, strong, committed leadership willing to both give and seek funding, viable funding sources and infrastructure to facilitate giving (such as policies, people, technology, and accountability).
Definition The language of fundraising has some counterpoint with sales, marketing, law, and even religion, politics, and finance. The word itself in the corporate realm denotes sourcing investment to run or grow a business. Similarly in nonprofits, fundraising is about locating the resources an organization needs to achieve its aims on behalf of those it serves. Common definitions focus on raising money for a nominated cause or program. ‘‘Resource mobilization’’ is a frequently used term in some countries, again borrowing from the rubric of finance but emphasizing as well the idea that an NPO needs more than just funds and will seek people, their time and in-kind resources too. Ideally fundraising/resource mobilization will be from stable, ethical, diverse, and sustainable sources. Another variation on the fundraising theme is found in the word ‘‘development’’. Often used interchangeably with fundraising, it refers in essence to the whole process of garnering resources. It embraces creating the climate to ask for funds through, for instance, public relations and communication, and focuses more on the planned, yearround activity that buttresses successful asking for support. The fundraising function will often be called the Development Office (and sometimes ‘‘Advancement,’’ particularly in universities). Legal terms are found in the field (e.g., beneficiary: the organization or client benefiting from the funding/work; bequest: a gift in a will; and charitable trust: an entity set up for charitable purposes that grants to needy causes and organizations). So too, political jargon is present (e.g., campaign: a planned drive to raise funds; and constituencies: the type of groups or markets who logically may support a cause such as parents, alumni, or staff). Sales lingo is rife though considered an inappropriate import by some that adds a manipulative feel that is alien to ethical fundraising (e.g., cold list: a database that is not yet tested; identification, qualifying, cultivating, soliciting, and closing prospects: working to locate, assess, involve, and request support of the most likely potential donors). Faithbased expressions are plentiful (e.g., mission: the ultimate
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goal/s the organization has been set up to accomplish; stewardship: acknowledging and recognizing supporters and ensuring faithful use of their input to help the mission). The vocabulary of marketing is also well represented (e.g., acquisition and renewal: asking for first time support and then renewing that support; relationship fundraising: relating to donors as individuals with unique interests, needs, and preferences in supporting the cause and building their engagement with the organization and its ambassadors over time). It would be remiss to define fundraising without mentioning philanthropy as the two are intricately linked. Fundraisers take the message of worthy projects and causes to people who may want to give, and help these givers get involved and stay engaged in the mission. Fundraising has been linked strongly with people’s values and facilitates the expression of the beliefs people hold dear. Philanthropy normally relates to the ideal of articulating a love of humankind – and animal kind too. Increasingly, philanthropy is being associated with planned and structured giving rather than spontaneous, once-off gestures (e.g., through the deliberate decisions to forge a charitable foundation or donor advised fund or provide a major gift or bequest). Fundraisers will speak of a‘‘fundraising tripod’’ - referring to the three key income streams in a balanced fundraising organisation. The first stream is annual or budget fundraising, which involves the year in, year out activities that enable the organisation to operate. Annual fundraising might include activities such as direct mail, telemarketing, membership campaigns, special events, art unions/lotteries, face-to-face/direct dialogue giving and the like. The second stream is major giving, referring to major gifts and capital campaigns that provide larger contributions often toward a particular sizeable need such as a new hospital wing or a piece of research equipment. The third income stream is labelled deferred giving and encompasses bequests/legacies and other gifts that may flow beyond a supporter’s lifetime such as charitable remainder trusts, annuities and insurance policies.
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The Islamic religious endowment (wakf) has been dated to the seventh century. The teachings of Maimonides and collecting the tithe have long been part of the Jewish faith and the bulk of the world’s temples for all religions reflect the existence of philanthropy and fundraising. St Thomas Aquinas in 1250 highlighted two kinds of almsgiving – corporal and spiritual works of mercy, which highlight the practice of charity towards neighbors often collected through church fundraising. The Church’s fundraising role is underscored again in the Middle Ages with records of administering benevolent trusts. England’s 1601 Statute of Charitable Uses has cast a long shadow of influence beyond the UK as to what people support and recognize as charitable works. The tradition that still underpins fundraising today of those of means formally helping those in need was reinforced in the seventeenth and eighteenth century by merchants in Western Europe establishing organizations to fulfill worthy purposes. The foundation movement that sparked the common fundraising practice of grant seeking emerged most prominently in activities such as the large scale philanthropy in the USA of nineteenth century. There it was underpinned by writings such as Andrew Carnegie’s The Gospel of Wealth and the establishment of the Foundation model through such leading families of the time including the Rockefellers, and the Straus and Peabody families. Prominent universities also added to the fabric of organized fundraising with the first recorded US fund drive in 1643 for Harvard raising £500. The field blossomed during the twentieth century to now reflect consultants, specialist fundraising roles, and a shift from volunteer-only roles to volunteer-staff partnerships in larger organizations with paid professionals.
Key Issues Assorted issues and trends are molding fundraising today and tomorrow. Six multifaceted forces each with mini trends embedded are explored here. Relationship Fundraising
Historical Background Fundraising, philanthropy and charity are inextricably linked across the eons and very often religion has figured in the mix as well. Most religions and ancient civilizations had some focus on aiding those in need and archaeology verifies this moral stance in Egypt and Bablylonia, as does Christianity’s Old Testament of the Bible. The moral imperative to lift the quality of life in classical times backboned Ancient Greece and Rome with citizens funding sports, disaster relief and amphitheaters.
In the face of academic and practitioner research indicating poor donor relations, an important movement is the emphasis on relationship fundraising. In the 1990s, writers such as the UK’s Ken Burnett were signaling that the fundraising practice pendulum had swung too much in favor of an organization view at the cost of understanding and serving the all-important supporter. The term ‘‘relationship fundraising’’ was coined from the for-profit sphere’s ‘‘relationship marketing’’ and has grown more recently through the work of commentators such as
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Simone Joyeux and Tom Ahern. This trend has confirmed the centrality of such concepts as two-way donor communication, ‘‘high-touch’’ rather than ‘‘high-tech,’’ donor research, and enthusiasm to recognize and respect individual donor preferences in their interaction with the cause. The movement is perhaps a response to the trend of donor fatigue that has emerged with the proliferation of charities, perhaps exacerbated by the tenet and reality that ‘‘your best future donors are your best current donors’’. Studies such as Sargeant’s various works on donor lifetime value underline this reality but more importantly show donor loyalty is predicated on a sustained relationship, actively nurtured. Donor fatigue also raises the specter of so-called ‘‘invasive’’ fundraising methods. Telemarketing, for instance, attracts criticism despite enough numbers supporting this outreach to make it a viable fundraising option for many organizations. Much press has been given to the ‘‘chugging’’ (charity mugging) phenomenon, especially in the UK. Known generally as ‘‘face-to-face’’ or ‘‘direct dialog’’ fundraising, this approach involves charity representatives engaging people in the street and inviting their support via an ongoing direct debit. It has proved particularly fruitful for some cause areas and some donor markets and less popular with others. Keys have been the training and credibility of the askers and donor care to ensure retention. Detractors suggest unsolicited direct approaches by phone, mail, or in person are in fact harmful to the professional name of fundraising and counterproductive to achieving support. This debate is likely to continue. Also under this broad trend of donor centric fundraising is the new academic field of philanthropic psychology (see, for example, the work of Jen Shang), channeling the concepts of psychology into everyday practice to better understand and serve donors, rather than relying on industry ‘‘rules of thumb’’. Demographics
In many countries, giving and volunteering by younger generations is declining, despite a robust youth philanthropy movement evident in organizations such as Youth Philanthropy and Service in the USA, Youth Bank in Europe or Asia’s Youth for Causes. A related issue for many causes is the different cause preferences of younger demographics and their consequent need to appeal to a market far removed from their traditional Depression or postwar era donors. Relationship fundraising embraces the need to speak to different demographics in different ways and certainly direct dialog and internet fundraising vehicles reflect for instance tailored outreach to often a
younger supporter. Gender, race, and generation are progressively driving fundraising trends more and more. The demographic pattern of many nations points toward a bequests ‘‘bonanza’’ with an intergenerational wealth transfer much discussed. Pitted against this factor are the aging of the baby boomers, their longer life expectancy and funds needed to maintain that life. Ethnicity is increasingly a force, with people of the same race forming organizations to marshall local and diaspora giving. In gender terms, women have become a focus of study both as philanthropists and philanthropic influencers. An interesting development has been the advent of giving circles as a popular means of group giving particularly for women, whereby group members give the same amount annually, meet to decide its destination and often get involved beyond the monetary contribution. Giving circles are one of a range of new methods of fundraising as the next trend highlights. New Technologies, New Methods
Technology is facilitating fundraising processes. For instance, reports can be generated quickly onsite or offsite. Money can be saved. Take for example, the ability to send out a strategic direct mail appeal to just the areas that reflect a similar demographic profile to current supporters, rather than a mass mailing. Planning, monitoring, and management are light-years ahead of days past. It is ever easier to turn raw data into insights about where fundraisers should direct their time for best return to the mission outcomes. Accountability and transparency are ever more attainable. Off-the-shelf programs have replaced laborious single organization processes and are adding momentum to benchmarking efforts. Relationship building is cheaper and easier. Mass-customization has heralded the era of bespoke fundraising to individuals. Outreach to new donor markets now knows no borders, carrying challenges for fundraising legislation and potential competition for local nonprofits from international ones. Rural, regional, or international supporters can be better sourced and served, and individual preferences met. Similarly, awareness of needs across the globe has materialized. The needs of indigenous and fundraising in culturally appropriate ways have become more prominent. Recurrent giving has been facilitated through automation, impacting positively on both the amount and duration of donor support. Online giving has become a convenient reality that from small beginnings is now coming into its own in myriad ways. Electronic fundraising (e-fundraising) has moved far beyond a ‘‘Donate Now’’ button on the website to include the Web 2.0 social networking tools, virtual fundraising events, blogs, email
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blasts, charity portals, online video, podcasts and Wikis. Mobile fundraising is also growing from the early ‘‘download a ring tone’’ phase to volunteer and member recruitment and rapid donation channeling and outreach when a crisis strikes. Viral marketing, where supporters take the message easily into their own networks, is seeing causes and campaigns become infectious with strong dollar results. Committed donors can readily become fundraisers for the cause themselves in their unique networks. Highly interactive websites offering virtual tours of causes at work and enabling supporters to set up their own pages for event fundraising are just some of the developments driving fundraising forward. Virtual volunteering has been facilitated, online gift registries (e.g., buy a goat for a village instead of a 40th birthday present), In Memoriam pages, merchandise sales, online communities, online auctions – the list of fundraising flow-ons from this trend is large and growing. As a result, more spotlight has been thrown on integrated fundraising. Donors often have many touch points with an organization beyond their donation and this holistic relationship now possibly surpasses the more siloed interactions of the past. Using the many online and offline means of donor communication to reinforce one another and enable crossover to more economic modes has seen the advent of Integrated Fundraising Manager roles in organizations. Multi-channel fundraising is growing. Changing Face of Corporate Involvement
The traditional concept of corporate giving has become blurred. While some philanthropy is still evident, debate continues as to the extent of enlightened self-interest at work in such giving. The range of clearly mutual benefit arrangements based on a strong business case has matured. Cause-related marketing, which links product purchases with a percentage donation to charity has been around since the 1980s and continues today. Detractors suggest increased sales because of the charity association often outweigh the charity benefit while others point to some alliances trivializing the cause. For instance, critics of the many pink products targeting the female market with a breast cancer linkage claim overexposure has desensitized many to the issue. Perhaps the more challenging development for many fundraising charities though has been the increasing desire by companies to adopt a charity partner. The upsides are many and often lucrative for NPOs, ranging from employee volunteers, executives on loan, recurrent workplace giving, gifts in kind, special event participants, access to new networks and brand visibility. The challenges include locating and then servicing such a partnership, which commonly has
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concrete goals for both parties. Mission drift is possible and the quest for partnerships that embrace small and medium npos rather than just large national entities is ongoing. The Corporate Social Responsibility juggernaut has moved many new business players into charity involvements but lack of realistic expectations and the different philosophies sometimes confront charity/community partners. A related issue is the impetus by some companies to bypass NPOs and set up community mission delivery activities on their own, with mixed success. Professionalization and Public Trust
In the wider context, the totally volunteer organization still dominates the nonprofit landscape but the increasing use of paid, professional staff has had implications. Often such focus by dedicated, qualified personnel has multiplied outcomes and shifted organizations toward their real potential. Public perception of paying staff, including fundraisers has not necessarily kept pace. Major concerns about fundraising or administration cost ratios continue to emerge from donor studies and the need for public education about the realities of sustaining and growing organizations is clear. So too, the role of capacity building to ensure the most effective use of donated money is highlighted. Wide-ranging opinions are evident in donor studies also about the role of marketing per se for NPOs. Fundraising charities straddle the need to be businesslike and efficient but not a business or a slick marketing machine. Branding is a rising topic in academic and practitioner literature of NPOs that is very much part of development. Arguably, the best charities long term are those with a sturdy infrastructure that girds a wide volunteer net, despite the inherent investment in high caliber people, technology, and visibility required. By the same token, capacity building in winning sustained funding for organizations is an ongoing concern in the face of charity failures and cases of ethical flaws. The question of duplication – too many charities serving the same goals – and potential waste arises consistently in donor feedback as well. The issue of training professional fundraisers and attracting the best and brightest to the field impacts on cost ratios. Fundraisers who are productive, supported, trained, and professionally qualified are most likely to nurture supporters, achieve mission results, stay in the profession and mentor others. Such professionalization carries with it an expectation of a specialist’s salary yet in the minds of many donors and others, NPO staff should be willing to work for significantly less than commercial rates. Such philosophical questions about fundraising salaries, and appropriate cost ratios continue to unfold in media
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and in forums of the mounting numbers of watchdog organizations scrutinizing NPOs on behalf of donors and the community. This underlying issue of patchy trust in the NPO sector and of professional fundraising remains a fullbodied challenge. Accountability and transparency loom large in this trust building exercise but are challenged by the difficulty that donors may desert organizations that reveal a cost of fundraising a particular donor feels is excessive. International efforts to strengthen fundraising ethics and standards are well underway. The supply of not just fundraisers but also fundraising volunteers and campaign leaders is also shaping as a robust issue. A leadership deficit and the pending retirement of baby boomer fundraisers leaves a gap. The New Givers
Much has been written in recent years about the new breed of philanthropist who has eschewed the cheque writing, arms length giving of a bygone era in favor of hands-on involvement in programs to which they contribute their time, expertise, networks, and donations. This ‘‘impact philanthropist’’ joins the population of family, community, and corporate foundations, that have traditionally operated or have sprung to life following money made in the dot.com revolution or measures such as tax deductibility to recruit more high net worth individuals into philanthropy. National efforts to promote a greater culture of philanthropy (e.g., The UK’s Giving Campaign) often target the people with capacity to give but no involvement in the past. This more active philanthropist often seeks more precise impact measures than NPOs may have offered in times past. They appear also more likely to fund capacity building and infrastructure needs rather than just programs and projects alone. Sometimes these new givers may be venture philanthropists, philanthrocapitalists, or social entrepreneurs, borrowing the principles of venture capital and business to fund innovation and/or infrastructure often over a longer term and in differing ways, such as low-interest loans or start-up capital. The area of individual giving has long been dominant as a funding source for nonprofits, far outweighing corporate giving. Models of mega-giving such as the Gates and Buffett examples have thrown a spotlight on philanthropy that has promoted giving by those with capacity.
International Perspectives International fundraising organizations and conferences have existed for some time but fundraising continues to be unique in its regulation, operation, and growth from
country to country. Fundraising in Europe is said to have experienced significant growth in recent decades. Philanthropy carved out many of the landmarks of the continent’s past and the great cathedrals, universities, and museums stand testament to this rich history of giving to community causes. The past century however, reflects a shift from philanthropic to government funding. More recently, an upswing in the population of fundraising organizations and moves toward professional fundraising can be observed, as well as increased cross border fundraising and fundraising training standards amongst the Euro-market. Much vaunted potential for fundraising exists outside the Europe/US axis. Increasingly, organizations are testing the potential for local and international funds in the marketplaces of India and China, as well as other parts of Asia and points in South America. Increasing global exchange is also occurring amongst scholars who conduct national giving studies in countries such as The Netherlands, South Africa, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, Australia, the UK and the USA.
Future Directions Future progress in fundraising is likely to derive from the trend areas noted here and the increasing internationalization of the field. Higher investments in high caliber people, technology, and visibility look set to make fundraising more prominent within and outside of organizations. In research terms, beyond the national giving studies, more applied and theoretical research is flowing, as postgraduate courses in fundraising and nonprofit studies mature. This research agenda spans motivations, triggers, decision making processes, funding sources, fundraising vehicles and a host of other directions but the critical mass of fundraising research and researchers remains as yet ripe for growth but full of promise.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Association of Fundraising Professionals ▶ Brand, Branding ▶ Carnegie, Andrew ▶ Charity, History of ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Giving Circles ▶ International Committee on Fundraising Organizations ▶ Planned Giving ▶ Wakf
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References/Further Readings Ahern, T., & Joyaux, S. (2007). Keep your donors: The guide to better communication and stronger relationships. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Bekkers, R., & Wiepking, P. (2007). Generosity and philanthropy: A literature review (October 28, 2007). Available at SSRN: http:// ssrn.com/abstract = 1015507 Burlingame, D. F., & Young, D. R. (Eds.) (1996). Corporate philanthropy at the crossroads. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Burnett, K. (2002). Relationship fundraising. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. The Foundation Center (2005). The foundation center’s guide to proposal writing (4th Ed.), New York: The Foundation Center. Greenfield, J. M. (2001). The nonprofit handbook: Fund raising (3rd Ed.), Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Grønbjerg, K. (1993). Understanding nonprofit funding: Managing revenues in social service and community development organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Hart, T. (2007). E-philanthropy: Leveraging technology to benefit charities and donors. In A. Sargeant, & W. Wymer (Eds.), The nonprofit marketing companion (pp. 196–208). London: Routledge. Hogan, C. (2004). Prospect research: A primer for growing nonprofits. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett. Hopkins, B. R. (2000). The first legal answer book for fund-raisers. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Hopkins, B. R. (2001). Starting and managing a nonprofit organization: A legal guide (3rd Ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Mullin, R. (2002). Fundraising strategy, charities aid foundation. Kent: West Malling.
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Sargeant, A. (2004). Marketing management for nonprofit organisations (2nd Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sargeant, A., & Jay, E. (2004). Fundraising management. London: Routledge. Sargeant, A., & Woodliffe, L. (2007). Gift giving: An interdisciplinary review. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 12(4), 275–307. Sargeant, A., & Wymer, W. (Eds.) (2007). The Routledge companion to nonprofit marketing. London: Routledge. Shang, J., Reed, A., & Croson, R. (June 2008). Identity congruency effects on donations. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(3), 351. Smith, G. (1996). Asking properly: The art of creative fundraising. London: White Lion Press. Sprinkel-Grace, K. (2005). Beyond fundraising: New strategies for nonprofit innovation and investment (2nd Ed.). San Francisco, CA: Wiley. Tempel, E. R. (Ed.) (2003). Hank Rosso’s achieving excellence in fund raising (2nd Ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Varadarajan, P. R., & Menon, A. (1988). Cause-related marketing: A coalignment of marketing strategy and corporate philanthropy. Journal of Marketing, 52(July), 58–74. Warwick, M. (2001). Fundraising on the Internet: The e-philanthropy foundation organization’s guide to success online. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Warwick, M. (2004). Revolution in the mailbox. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Wymer, W., Knowles, P., & Gomes, R. (2006). Nonprofit marketing: Marketing management for charitable and nongovernmental organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
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Basic Biographical Information Born in Porbandar, Gujarat (India) to a high-ranking official of a princely state, and influenced by various religious and Arcadian traditions, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi rose to be the chief protagonist of nonviolent resistance campaigns against racial discrimination in South Africa (1893–1914) and of a massive, largely nonviolent nationalist movement against British colonialism in India (1915–1947). In so doing, he transformed nonviolence from being an ethical principle governing interaction between individuals into a powerful, political force on a large scale, the weapon of the disadvantaged in their ‘‘battle of right against might.’’ Gandhi’s social activism greatly contributed to traditions of civil society and social capital in diverse political and cultural settings across the world.
Major Contributions His political and philosophical ideas – dialogic resistance, satyagraha (truth-force), the significance of individual conscience, swaraj in the sense of control over the individual self so that the need for state regulation diminishes, noncooperation with evil, sarvodaya (welfare of all) – committed him to creating and refining civil society institutions. He saw these as empowering the people; they could be used to curb the coercive or corruptible tendencies of the state. So, in the course of his political career he founded a number of voluntary organisations and ashram communities, led different types of collective action programs, ran journals and published widely on many burning issues. (His writings run into 100 volumes of collected works.) But he also wished, at Independence, to dissolve the Indian National Congress as a political party. He desired to transform it into a people’s service organisation, preferring its civil society orientation to its statist role. Gandhi believed in active citizenship, in individuals and voluntary associations critiquing and guiding the state, but also in working with it when the situation so demanded. His exhortation, ‘‘be the change you wish to
see’’ meant engaging with a range of social, political, economic, and educational problems (from untouchability to the school curriculum) and concomitantly strengthening a variety of movements and self-help groups. His ‘‘constructive programs,’’ for which he felt he was born, included activities for economic self-reliance, revitalising panchayats (elected village councils), establishing schools, inculcating sectarian harmony and eradicating untouchability. They became the cornerstone of his social capital networks. Gandhi was the recipient of many funds from members of the public and capitalists. He used them with discrimination and accounted for them meticulously. Many modern activists have been inspired by Gandhi to use civil society sites to mount a check on governmental excesses or in rejecting the hegemonic discourse of ‘‘development.’’ In independent India, the Sarvodaya and Bhoodan movements of the 1950s were inspired by Gandhian values while the ‘‘new social movements’’ of the 1970s and later, demanding lower-class emancipation, women’s rights, environmental protection and a nonbelligerent foreign policy for India, have used aspects of Gandhian resistance. The movement against large dams on the Narmada River, led by Baba Amte and Medha Patkar, is a case in point. Outside India, Gandhi’s legacy has found expression in the politics of moral activists such as Martin Luther King Jr., Aung San Suu Kyi and the Mahatma’s erstwhile comrade, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. The peace and ecology movements of the global North too have successfully deployed many Gandhian principles. Finally, there are those such as Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko and Malcolm X. They may not fully endorse nonviolence as a principle but have fought for the ‘‘self-pride’’ and the self-assertion of the oppressed in exemplary ways. All these movements and people and their beacon, Gandhi, have expanded and enriched civil society interventions in the lives of nation states.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in South Asia ▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century ▶ Collective Action ▶ King, Martin Luther, Jr. ▶ Social Movements
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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References/Further Readings Brown, J. (1989). Gandhi: Prisoner of hope. New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press. Hardiman, D. (2003). Gandhi in his time and Ours. Delhi: Permanent Black. Parekh, B. (1989). Colonialism, tradition and reform: An analysis of Gandhi’s political discourse. New Delhi: Sage. Parel, A. J. (Ed.) (1997). Gandhi: Hind Swaraj and other writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rudolph, L. I., & Rudolph S. H. (2006). Postmodern Gandhi and other essays: Gandhi in the world and at home. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Gardner, John W. JAN SACHARKO
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1912 in Los Angeles to real estate brokers, John William Gardner would later go on to be a cabinet secretary to Lyndon B. Johnson, director of Medicare and many other Great Society programs, and founder of organizations that would profoundly affect civil society. Gardner would attend Stanford University, earning both a bachelor’s degree and master’s degree in psychology before receiving his doctorate at the University of California-Berkeley in 1938. He taught psychology at universities in Connecticut and Massachusetts, joined the Marine Corps during World War II, and eventually was assigned to the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. After the war he worked at the Carnegie Corporation, becoming president in 1955. For his contribution to education reform in the country while in that position, he would receive the 1964 Presidential Medal of Freedom and gain the attention of President Johnson. Shortly thereafter he was selected for Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW). After three years as Secretary, Gardner would continue to make his mark on civil society with the organizations he founded dedicated to bringing together people and causes and the many books he wrote on leadership. Gardner died in 2002 in California of complications related to cancer.
House Fellows Program. Gardner briefly chaired the Urban Coalition after resigning from the cabinet in 1968. In 1970 he founded Common Cause, a grassroots movement that opposed the Vietnam War, pushed for greater government accountability, and worked to increase voter turnout. Based on his experience in Washington he felt that ‘‘everybody’s organized but the people’’ and that with Common Cause they would build a lobbying group that would truly represent the people and not special interests. They worked to pass the 26th Amendment that lowered the voting age to 18, spent years working on campaign finance reform (which would pass the House of Representatives days before Gardner’s death in the form of the McCainFeingold bill), and urged Congress in many ways to open up their processes. The Watergate scandals would provide the opportunity for them to press their causes. Gardner left Common Cause in 1977 and chaired the committee that founded Independent Sector, a coalition of hundreds of nonprofit organizations, foundations, and philanthropy programs working together to create a stronger democracy with active citizens and open and accountable government. He served as chairperson there until 1983. In 1985 Independent Sector created the ‘‘John W. Gardner Leadership Award’’ to recognize outstanding work on the part of nonprofit and philanthropic leaders. He would return to teach at Stanford, writing his well known book ‘‘On Leadership’’ in 1990. Stanford University established the John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities in 2000 to honor Gardner’s life of service.
Cross-References ▶ Independent Sector ▶ Leadership
References/Further Readings Gardner, J. W. (1990). On leadership. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Gates, William H. III REGINA LIST, JESSE O. BOLLINGER
Major Contributions
Basic Biographical Information
As HEW Secretary, Gardner’s reach affected millions of Americans as he helped establish Medicare, enforced the Civil Rights Act, and created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, among other activities. While serving under Johnson, he also drafted the framework for the White
William H. Gates, cofounder of Microsoft and consistently ranked as one of the most generous philanthropists today, was born on October 28, 1955 in Seattle, Washington (United States). After graduating from the prestigious private Lakeside School in Seattle, Gates attended Harvard
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University until his junior year when he left in order to pursue business and technical ventures with childhood friend Paul Allen. In 2007, some 30 years later, Harvard bestowed Gates with an honorary doctor of laws degree. Together with Paul Allen, Gates founded the Microsoft Corporation, creator of the Windows operating system, the Office suite of applications, and Xbox, among others. Under his leadership, Microsoft grew into a multinational corporation employing some 70,000 people worldwide. In July 2008 Gates completed his transition from a day-to-day role at Microsoft to focus more time and energy on his charitable work. Although he no longer serves as Chief Software Architect, he remains nonexecutive Chairman of Microsoft and the largest individual shareholder with more than 8% of the company’s common stock. Gates has also published several works on his thoughts about technology and the future, including The Road Ahead in 1995 and Business @ the Speed of Thought in 1999. The proceeds from both texts were donated to charities important to Gates.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Gates’s reputation as one of today’s most generous philanthropists begins around 1994, when he and his wife Melinda used the sale of a portion of his stockholdings to create the William H. Gates Foundation. In 1999, the Foundation’s name was changed to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in 2000 it merged with the Gates Learning Foundation to make it the among the largest philanthropic foundations in the world. Now devoting the bulk of his time to his philanthropic endeavors, Gates has used his renown to promote his causes. Using the 2008 World Economic Forum meeting as a platform, Gates, the ‘‘impatient optimist,’’ introduced his idea of ‘‘creative capitalism,’’ an approach where ‘‘governments, businesses, and nonprofits work together to stretch the reach of market forces so that more people can make a profit, or gain recognition, doing work that eases the world’s inequities.’’ Gates is convinced that ‘‘this hybrid engine of self-interest and concern for others can serve a much wider circle of people than can be reached by self-interest or caring alone.’’ His proposal quickly launched a lively discussion online and in various forums and has already resulted in numerous publications. Gates has been recognized prominently for his wealth – ranked the richest man (or among them) in the world since 1998 – and for his philanthropy – regularly listed among the most generous philanthropists. In 2005, he was knighted Knight Commander by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his contribution to UK enterprise
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as well as his activities in the fight against poverty and, along with his wife Melinda and rocker Bono, was named by Time magazine ‘‘Person of the Year.’’
Cross-References
▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ World Economic Forum
References/Further Readings Bishop, M., & Green, M. (2008). Philanthrocapitalism: How the rich can save the world. New York: Bloomsbury Press. Gates, B. (1996). The road ahead. New York: Penguin Books. Gates, B. (1999). Business @ the speed of thought. New York: Warner Books. Kinsley, M. (2008). Creative capitalism: A conversation with Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and other economic leaders. New York: Simon & Schuster.
GCAP ▶ Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP)
Geldof, Bob LISIUNIA ROMANIENKO
Biographical Information Bob Geldof was born in 1951 in Dublin County, Ireland. He attended a private Catholic institution of higher education which exposed him not only to a rich tradition of liberation theology missionary work in the southern hemisphere, but also what he saw as institutional rigidity and injustices. He first gained notoriety as a member of the punk band Boomtown Rats. He soon combined his musical aspirations with community organizing skills and philanthropic pedagogy to reach out internationally. In recognition of his efforts to mobilize resources as well as his philanthropic leadership, Geldof was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, awarded numerous humanitarian distinctions, and granted honorary degrees from several universities.
Major Accomplishments Bob Geldof has explored the revolutionary potential and pushed avant-garde arts activism throughout his career.
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Through experimental music, video, and performing arts projects, Geldof has inadvertently challenged some critics of popular culture, and demonstrated the potential impact of pop music on politics and aesthetic culture alike. As a community-organizer with an ability to mobilize human and technological resources internationally, Bob Geldof has encouraged civic engagement among youth. In particular Geldof sought to enable diverse audiences to participate in effective and joyful pop culture rituals as a form of resistance to social, economic, and cultural injustices (Fokidis, 2007). Through the assistance of celebrity collaborators, Bob Geldof organized revenue-generating music and live concert fundraisers such as, ‘‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’’ by Band Aid and trans-Atlantic events such as Live Aid to benefit Ethiopian famine victims. Bob Geldof subsequently spearheaded other cultural activities including the Secret Policeman’s Other Ball, Hands Across America, USA for Africa, ‘‘We are the World,’’ Sun City Artists United Against Apartheid, ‘‘We Ain’t Gonna Play Sun City,’’ Make Poverty History, Drop the Debt, Peace TV, numerous other film and multimedia projects, and most recently, Live 8 to attract attention to the G8 Summit.
Cross-References
▶ Cosmopolitanism ▶ Fundraising ▶ Make Poverty History ▶ Philanthropy in Africa ▶ Social Marketing
References/Further Readings Chesters, G., & Welsh, I. (2006). Complexity and social movements: Multitudes at the edge of chaos. London: Routledge. Fokidis, M. (2007). Hijacking cultural policies: Art as a healthy virus within social strategies of resistance. Social Analysis, 51(1), 58–67. Weitzman, E. (2008). No fun: Aporias of pleasure in Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory. German Quarterly, 81(2), 185–202.
German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization 1744 R Street NW Washington, DC 20009 USA www.gmfus.org
Introduction The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a nonpartisan American public policy and grantmaking institution dedicated to promoting greater cooperation and understanding between North America and Europe. Founded in 1972 through a gift from Germany on the 25th anniversary of the Marshall Plan as a permanent memorial to Marshall Plan assistance, GMF maintains a strong presence on both sides of the Atlantic. In addition to its headquarters in Washington, DC, GMF has seven offices in Europe: Berlin, Bratislava, Paris, Brussels, Belgrade, Ankara, and Bucharest.
Brief History After World War II, the United States enacted the Marshall Plan, in which it allocated some $17 billion over 4 years to the recovery and rebuilding of Western Europe. In appreciation for Marshall Plan aid, the German government established the German Marshall Fund of the United States with a gift of $108 million in 1972. The German government renewed its commitment to GMF with subsequent rounds of funding in 1986 and 2001 that resulted in a substantial endowment. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, GMF rapidly expanded its grantmaking work to Central and Eastern Europe and played an instrumental role during the 1990s in assisting with the transitions to democracy in this region.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area Since its inception, GMF has brought Americans and Europeans together to increase understanding and to build future transatlantic networks among the political, media, business, and nonprofit communities. Through its grantmaking and programmatic initiatives, GMF seeks to stimulate the exchange of ideas and promote collaboration between North America and Europe. GMF staff and fellows are increasingly sought out by politicians, journalists, and the public to comment on or provide a context for particular policy challenges facing North America and Europe.
Activities Throughout its history, GMF has demonstrated work in grantmaking, convening, programmatic initiatives (including fellowships and exchange programs), and research in transatlantic policy issues. GMF offers a variety of papers and analyses by GMF staff and Transatlantic Fellows. In addition to its influential grantmaking, GMF also organizes high-level conferences, like the Brussels Forum, which brings together American and European political, corporate, and intellectual leaders to address pressing challenges currently facing both sides of the Atlantic.
Getty, J. Paul
GMF also works closely with partner organizations to sponsor several fellowship and exchange programs designed to provide both broad cultural exposure and more targeted opportunities for learning about specialized policy areas. These programs – the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, the Comparative Domestic Policy Fellowship, Congressional Leaders Program, the Journalism Program, the Transatlantic Fellows Program, and its newest program, the Transatlantic Academy – attract a wide range of candidates and reflect GMF-specific areas. Research and policy initiatives are designed to increase transatlantic cooperation and decrease tension around difficult issues, and are carried out by both GMF and its partner institutions. Such initiatives include supporting key institutions working on transatlantic issues, convening policymakers in a variety of forums, supporting in-house scholars, conducting transatlantic public opinion surveys, and developing issue-related projects.
Structure and Governance GMF is an American institution with an American Board of Trustees. Guido Goldman and Marc Leland serve as Board cochairmen, and Craig Kennedy serves as president.
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transatlantic partnership. Building on the successful model of BTD, in 2007, GMF created the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation (BST), a $20 million publicprivate partnership and GMF’s second trust for the wider Europe region. Like BTD, BST is also supported by USAID and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, with additional support from the Romanian government and Ministry of Defence, Government of Latvia. Based in Bucharest, Romania, BST provides grants to local and national NGOs, governmental entities, community groups, policy institutes, and other associations to implement projects in three programmatic areas: Civic Participation, CrossBorder Initiatives, and East-East Cooperation.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe ▶ Charles Stewart Mott Foundation ▶ Partnerships ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Bollag, B. (2001). Community foundations across Eastern Europe advance ‘‘Step by Step.’’ The Chronicle of Philanthropy.
Funding GMF draws from its endowment and seeks partnerships with foundations, governments, and corporations to further its work to strengthen transatlantic relations. GMF has received grants from the European Union, the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and others in support of its programs. As of its 2007 fiscal year, total assets were $254,055,581 and total giving amounted to $6,361,843.
Accomplishments In 2003, GMF partnered with USAID and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to create The Balkan Trust for Democracy (BTD). A 10 year, $30 million grantmaking initiative that supports democracy, good governance, and Euroatlantic integration in Southeastern Europe, BTD is structured to allow both European and US partners to join the effort to strengthen transatlantic cooperation in the Balkans. Since its founding, additional contributions from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Belgrade, the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), the Tipping Point Foundation, Compagnia di San Paolo, the Robert Bosch Foundation, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark have made BTD a true
Getty, J. Paul DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Jean Paul Getty was born in 1892 in Minneapolis, Minnesota (USA). His father, George Getty, would soon start an oil business that would propel his son toward being one of the world’s first billionaires. When his family moved to California in 1903, Getty attended private school in Los Angeles, California and graduated from Polytechnic High School in 1909. He then toured Europe before attending the University of Southern California and the University of California at Berkeley. He finally graduated from Oxford University in England with a degree in economics and political science in 1914. By becoming a successful ‘‘oil man’’ in his own right, Getty made his first million by the age of 24. When Getty’s father died in 1930, J. Paul became president of the George Getty Oil Company (successor to Minnehoma Oil), but his mother inherited the controlling interest in the firm. Getty continued to acquire assets during the Great
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Depression, gaining a controlling interest in Pacific Western Oil Corporation and eventually securing control of Getty Oil. He also began to dabble in real estate, purchasing the Hotel Pierre in New York City. In 1957, Fortune magazine named Getty the richest man in America. In 1967, all of Getty’s companies were merged into the Getty Oil Company, which became the $3 billion base of Getty’s fortune. He now owned 80% of Getty Oil and its nearly 200 affiliated companies and he remained president of Getty Oil until his death in 1976 at Sutton Place, Britain, where he lived the last 25 years of his life.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions An avid art collector since the 1930s, Getty viewed art as a civilizing influence in society and strongly believed in making art available to the public for its education and enjoyment. He opened the J. Paul Getty Museum in Malibu, California, to the public in 1954. The museum housed collections of Greek and Roman antiquities, 18th-century French furniture, and European paintings. When most of Getty’s personal estate, including his art collections, passed to the J. Paul Getty Trust in 1982, the Trustees sought to make a greater contribution to the visual arts through an expanded museum as well as a range of new programs. The Getty Conservation Institute, the Getty Research Institute, and the Grant Program were founded in the 1980s. The Grant Program, which furthers the work of all Getty programs and administers the Getty Leadership Institute, became the Getty Foundation in 2005. The J. Paul Getty Trust continues Getty’s vision, supported by directions from his will, which calls for ‘‘the diffusion of artistic and general knowledge.’’ In 2006, the J. Paul Getty trust was the third largest foundation in the United States, with assets in excess of $10 billion. As an operating foundation, however, annual giving almost fully supports the Getty museums and other programs.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations ▶ Foundations, Operating
References/Further Readings Getty, J. P. (1976). As I see it: The autobiography of J. Paul Getty. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Hewins, R. (1960). The richest American: J. Paul Getty. New York: Dutton. Lenzner, R. (1986). The great Getty: The life and loves of J. Paul Getty, richest man in the world. New York: Crown. Pearson, J. (1995). Painfully rich: J. Paul Getty and his heirs. London: Macmillan.
Giddens, Anthony JAN R. BUSSE
Basic Biographical Information Anthony Giddens, a British sociologist, was born in 1938 in Edmonton, North London. He is regarded as one of the most important contemporary sociologists of international relevance and has published some 40 books and 200 articles. Giddens was the first member of his family to go to university. He was educated at the University of Hull (B.A. 1959) and the London School of Economics (M.A. 1961) and achieved his Ph.D. degree (1976) from King’s College, Cambridge. He started his academic career at the University of Leicester before he moved to King’s College, Cambridge, where he became Professor of Sociology. From 1997 to 2003 Giddens was Director of the London School of Economics. In June 2004 he was appointed as a member of the House of Lords for the Labor Party.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Apart from his seminal elaborations on structuration theory, modernity, and globalization, Giddens’s work on the third way in politics is of crucial importance as it represents the intellectual framework for New Labour. Giddens was one of the most important advisers of former Prime Minister Tony Blair. The third way can best be described as the path beyond statist social democracy (Old Left) and right-wing neoliberalism (Old Right) aiming at modernizing social democracy. In particular, Giddens identifies five dilemmas by which social democracy is being challenged so that there is the need for a theory of the third way: globalization, individualism, blurring of the opposite between left and right, changes in the meaning of political agency, and ecological problems. Based upon these insights, Giddens develops a six-point framework for a reconstituted radical politics: repair damaged solidarities, recognize the centrality of life politics, accept that active trust implies generative politics, embrace dialogic democracy, rethink the welfare state, and confront violence. According to Giddens, third way politics should aim at helping people to cope with the major revolutions of our time: globalization, transformations in personal life and our relationship to nature. In this sense, the third way represents a discussion on how to reform the welfare state structures of government, how to live in a multicultural society, how to deal with gender revolution, and how to approach risk scenarios.
Gide, Charles
Cross-References ▶ Third Way ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Bryant, C. G. A., & Jary, D. (2001). The contemporary Giddens: Social theory in a globalizing age. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Giddens, A. (1994). Beyond left and right – The future of radical politics. Cambridge: Polity. Giddens, A. (1998). The third way. The renewal of social democracy. Cambridge: Polity. Giddens, A., & Pierson, C. (1999). Conversations with Anthony Giddens. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Gide, Charles ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Basic Biographical Information Charles Gide, an economist of solidarism and founder of the French theory of social cooperation, was born on June 24, 1847 at Uze`s in France into a Protestant family. Gide studied law and economics in Paris, where his older brother Paul Gide, the father of the famous Nobel Prize-winning author Andre´ Gide, was a Professor of Law. His thesis on the rights of associations with religious purposes, which had been prohibited in France since 1792, can be considered an essential input into the French association legislation, the famous Law of 1901, enacted almost 30 years later. Afterwards he became a professor at the Universite´ de Bordeaux, at Montpellier, at the Universite´ de Paris and finally at the Colle`ge de France.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Beginning in his student days, Charles Gide harbored reservations about the prevailing liberal doctrines and orthodox economic theory. On the other hand, he could never agree with the socialist doctrines of egalitarianism and violent expropriation. In 1885, out of this historic context-bound dilemma, he was attracted to a group of people in Nimes (mainly the social activists Auguste Fabre and Edouard de Boyve) who tried to put social cooperation into practice. They organized the first congress, the Congre`s de la Coope´ration Franc¸aise in Paris, and within a few years Gide became a spokesperson for cooperative thinkers in France. Gide saw the creation of
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the International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) in 1895 as a possibility to link the cooperative movement with the broader goal of global peace and justice. Gide’s involvement in these efforts enabled him to define a new, independent type of economic thought (and was important to the whole French cooperative movement that followed). After completing his Principles of Political Economy (1883), which was to go through 27 editions in 49 languages, Gide announced in 1889 the formation of a new economic school of solidarity. According to La coope´ration. Confe´rences de propagande (1906), cooperatives are the concrete expression of solidarity in the economic sphere. Together with Les Socie´te´s Coope´ratives de Consommation (1904) (engl.: Consumers’ Co-operative Societies, 1922), these works have become classics in the field of cooperativism. What makes Gide important to civil society studies is his application of solidaristic principles to economic thought and practice, for example, when he argues that consumer associations are the preeminent form of cooperatives and that they can enable working people to find a better way of life with more independence and freedom. As both an economist and a moralist, Gide considered cooperativism as having a direct link with social progress through the values of sharing, justice, tolerance, and solidarity. Not long before his death, Gide founded the Institut International d’e´tudes coope´ratives at Baˆle, France in 1931. Today there is a French Association Charles Gide Pour l’E´tude De La Pense´e E´conomique, which unites researchers adhering to this line of thinking and organizes events for exchange and discussion (www. charlesgide.fr).
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Desroche, Henri ▶ International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) ▶ Mutual Organizations, Mutual Societies ▶ Social Economy ▶ Solidarity
References/Further Readings Gide, C. (1906). La coope´ration. Confe´rences de propagande. Paris: Recueil Sirey. Gide, C. (1922). Consumer’s co-operative societies. New York: Knopf. Lavondes, A. (1953). Charles Gide: Un Pre´curseur De l’Europe Unie et De l’ONU. Uze`s, France: Editions La Capitelle. Maitron, J. (1974). Dictionnaire Biographique Du Mouvement Ouvrier Franc¸ais. Charles Gide. Paris: Les E´ditions Ouvrie`res.
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GIFE ▶ Grupo de Institutos, Fundaco˜es e Empresas (GIFE)
Gift/Giving FRANK ADLOFF Free University of Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Introduction and Definition The social sciences are broadly based on the dichotomy between self-interest and altruism. This distinction can already be found in the writings of Thomas Hobbes and Jean Jacques Rousseau. Circumventing these alternatives, it can be claimed, in contrast, that the dichotomy of interest and morality is transcended or dissolved by the effect of the gift as an initiator of social reciprocity. The long drawn-out and largely unproductive debate over the question of whether social action can be better explained through theories of rational choice and self-interest or through norm, culture, altruism, and socialization can be overcome by using this theoretical tradition. The classic point of reference for thinking on gift-giving and reciprocity is the famous text by the anthropologist and sociologist Marcel Mauss, the nephew of Emile Durkheim. ‘‘The Gift,’’ published in 1925, deals with the anthropological research on economic exchange from a systematic and theoretical point of view. Mauss (1990) synthesized the research of his time, especially that of Bronislaw Malinoswski and Franz Boas, and laid the foundation for economic anthropology. All subsequent social theorists pondering the gift refer to his work, the spectrum of ideas ranging from rational choice theories through normativist approaches to attempts to overcome the dichotomy between interests and norms. Generally speaking and following Alain Caille´ (2000a: 47), the gift can be defined as ‘‘every allowance of goods or services made without a guarantee of return, with a view to creating, maintaining, or regenerating the social bond.’’ The gift rests on a paradox, since it cannot be attributed to one set of motives.
Historical Background Premodern gift-giving represents according to Marcel Mauss a system of total prestations (prestations totales): giving, taking, and reciprocating are the basic collective
activities through which archaic societies reproduce themselves. Mauss emphasizes that the reciprocal presenting of gifts with the aim of establishing relationships rests on the voluntary and obligating aspects of giving, taking, and giving back simultaneously. Mauss places two variants of premodern gift-giving in the center of his analysis: the so-called kula ring on the Melanesian Trobriand Islands and the potlatch among northwest American Indians. He differentiates in this regard between more and less strongly agonistic gifts. Nonagonistic gifts create a sphere of approximate equivalences and mutual indebtedness in which the accumulation of wealth does not assume primacy. Gifts provoke counter gifts and in this way permanently ‘‘feed’’ mutual indebtedness and obligations, which cannot be conclusively settled. An example of this is the kula ring on the Trobriand Islands, in which two kinds of adornments – necklaces and bracelets – circulate in opposite directions between the islands. After ceremonial gift-giving the actual exchange of goods (gimwali), in which bargaining and trading takes place, begins. The offering of gifts establishes and maintains relationships of solidarity at the outset before the thus framed and selfinterested exchange of goods can start. Furthermore, in this form of gift-giving the attempt is made to build reputation through the fact that the decorative objects are of differing status. The more strongly agonistic gift, in which the fight for reputation takes place much more openly, can be seen paradigmatically in the potlatch of the peoples of the northwest Canadian coast, described by Mauss as a ‘‘war of wealth.’’ This is embodied in a reciprocal increase in gifts which continues until a clan or a chief has to drop out of the cycle of giving ever greater amounts; for only one can win in potlatch, the winning being in status. Everything here is based on the principles of antagonism and rivalry (cf. Godelier, 1996, 2002). Mauss drew attention not only to the interconnection of gifts and arrangements of reciprocity, but also to a further phenomenon of gift-giving in archaic societies. There, the gift or given object is usually not divorced from the identity of the giver. Mauss asks what it is that motivates the receiver of the gift to give something back, and in his interpretation of gift-giving among the Maori he arrives at the conclusion that the spirit of the giver ‘‘resides’’ in the given, compelling the receiver to make a counter gift. That the gift received contains something obligating rests for Mauss on the fact that the thing received is not inanimate. Even after the giver has handed it over, it is still a part of him, and through it he has power over the receiver. This interpretation launched a long
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debate in anthropology which mostly revolved around attempts to demystify the thesis of things imbued with souls (cf. Le´vi-Strauss, 1987 [1950]; Sahlins, 1972). In his essay Mauss was clearly pursuing goals connected to the present, positioned as he was in the French tradition of a critique of utilitarianism. Mary Douglas (1990) has demonstrated that his essay is actually about ‘‘politics’’ and human solidarity. Mauss was in fact less interested in the evolution of different forms of social interaction than in universals which can be found in every society (Geary, 2003). He was concerned with a third principle of solidarity, that of a form of reciprocal recognition through gift-giving and resting on social ties and indebtedness. The social contract, which Mauss perceives in the archaic and premodern societies, serves him as a model for the renewal of the contemporary social contract through the recognition of reciprocal indebtedness. The danger that he saw was that modern social relations would increasingly follow the model of barter, market, and contract – thus Mauss’ warning that homo oeconomicus still lay in store for us. Sociologists have tended to view the transition to modern society as the dissolution of ceremonial giftgiving and the differentiation of the system of reciprocity into, on the one hand, strict market logic and, on the other, a (residual) cultural logic of giving presents in the private sphere (cf. Berking, 1999). However, in contradiction of the view expressed in approaches based on differentiation theory, it was part of Mauss’ intention to show that the development of modern market societies did not lead to the disappearance of noneconomic motives as part of processes of social exchange – an argument already advanced by Emile Durkheim (1964 [1893]). The fixation in perspective on assumptions based in differentiation theory has hidden the fact that there is sufficient space in modern societies too for intermediary forms that follow the logic of the gift. However, some contemporary sociologists, especially Jacques Godbout and Alain Caille´, are involved in a reexamination of the concept of gift-giving and trying to use the concept for a new foundation of social theory and modern society. Godbout (1998) and Caille´ (2000b) discuss the two contradictory aspects of gift-giving: the aspect of voluntary giving and the obligation to give. Gift-giving is voluntary because it cannot be forced; it is obligatory because a violation of the norm of reciprocity will be socially sanctioned. They claim that this duality is often not adequately recognized, in such different strands of thinking represented by Derrida (1994, 1995), Bourdieu (1990, 1998), Blau (1964), Axelrod (1984) or
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Gouldner (1973). They all have, according to Caille´ and Godbout, a one-sided concept of the gift because they presuppose that a real gift has to be totally separated from self-interest. Only a gift without calculation that does not create social bonds would be a true gift and, at the same time, an inconceivable gift. Caille´ (2000b, 2001 [1994]), in contrast, sees the gift as being stretched out across a square comprising ‘‘interest in,’’ ‘‘interest for,’’ duty and spontaneity. If, asymptomatically, it approaches one or two of these four poles of action, a giftbased relation is transformed into an economic exchange, pure love or an ethics of duty. In a nondifferentiated state the gift-based relation is a basic mode of social interaction that cannot be reduced to one of these poles. For the same reason, Marcel He´naff (2002) emphasizes that the ceremonial gift as described by Mauss should not be confused with an economic gift but also not with an altruistic moral gift. What Mauss describes as a ceremonial or ritual gift can also be described in modern societies as gift exchange and the reciprocity associated with it, representing an independent mode of action, which can however tip over to one of the poles. Relations of reciprocity are in this sense foundational for relations of social interaction in everyday life and contain a latent and prereflexive normativity; when the course of daily events is disturbed and reflections thus occur, it is conceivable that one of the poles receives priority. On the microlevel people are permanently giving each other nontangible ‘‘things’’ in everyday face-to-face situations. This idea, so central to sociology, has however been interpreted too rarely in relation to the theory of gifts and reciprocity. Furthermore, the position can be advanced that in modern societies there is, besides the circulation of goods and services on market principles or through state redistribution, also a third area in which circulation is founded on the principle of gift and counter-gift. The most typical areas are those of, on the one hand, primary sociality, that is of friendship and family, and on the other, the so-called third or nonprofit sector.
Key Issues This article will be closed with some reflections on giftgiving and reciprocity in the sphere of the nonprofit sector. In investigations of philanthropic actions (that is donations and endowments of time, money, and ideas) it has regularly been established that resources are made available without a guarantee of a response that can be determined in advance. Therefore, the motive of giving and the effect evoked of reciprocity must initially be separated, even if they may be interwoven. For the subjective truth of the giver may be that he gives without the
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expectation of a counter-gift and yet simultaneously knows that he is ‘‘objectively’’ setting a cycle of obligations of reciprocity in motion. It is also conceivable that the donation which to the outside appears spontaneous may be felt by the giver to be an expression of gratitude or debt – e.g., to a hospital in which she was once treated or towards society in general. In relation to contemporary philanthropy Ilana Silber (1998) emphasizes that the modern gift is frequently a gift to strangers. It is precisely in the nonagonistic, individual donation to a relief organization that no relationship exists between giver and receiver, and the expectation of direct reciprocation becomes redundant (cf. also Titmuss, 1997 [1970]). If no third party learns of the gift then, phenomenologically speaking, this gift comes very close to the Christian conception of caritas and expresses a real relationship to strangers and others. With the transition to modern society gifts and connected (reciprocal) relations do not become obsolete, but on the contrary have in several social spheres undergone a radicalization and (in Max Weber’s sense) rationalization. For while in many social spheres a tendency towards balanced reciprocity (barter) has made itself felt, the charitable gift shaped by Judeo-Christian thought becomes, in the transition to modernity, universalized, radicalized, and ‘‘introverted’’ (Caille´, 2000b). Universalized gifts are no longer directed only at nearby social groups but also towards strangers, the radicalized gift no longer expects reciprocation, and the introverted gift sets itself apart from the theatrically staged gift visible for all to see. Anonymous donations or foundations and trusts operating discreetly correspond exactly to this type of giving. If, however, the donor or benefactor is known, chains of reciprocity may be set in motion. Frequently, it is not the receiver but a third party who responds to the gift: for example the peers within a donating elite. The culture of philanthropy may also include the practice of peers attempting to surpass each other in willingness to donate and endow in order to achieve prestige within the peer group or other social groups – this closely resembles the agonistic gift as described by Mauss in relation to the potlatch. Moreover, the gift – if it is not effected among equals but instead is asymmetrically orientated – often expresses a social position or place in a hierarchy and protects these (cf. Adloff, 2006). Thus, Randall Collins (Collins & Hickman, 1991), for example, has indicated how important it is in American society regularly to be philanthropically active in order to belong to ‘‘high society,’’ for it is only in this way that high economic status can also be ennobled and legitimated culturally and symbolically.
Gifts are always sign systems and carriers of identity and even in the medium of money donated questions of personal ties and identity are resolved. In a qualitative study of the culture of elite philanthropy in New York City Francie Ostrower (1995) found confirmation for this thesis. Elites whom she interviewed described philanthropy as a distinct elite culture. According to Ostrower, philanthropy is on the one hand an expression of an elite culture and collective identity and at the same time a method for integrating philanthropic elites. Gifts that are so to speak immobilized in the form of works of art exhibited in museums or professorial chairs are clear examples of the representation of ties of identity and thus express patterns of social relations and distinctions in relation to other social groups. The field of philanthropic giving has over the last decades become highly organized and institutionalized. Associations in which resources are pooled but not primarily for the aim of making profit and foundations, i.e., social agencies of value-oriented giving, are only two typical forms of organization. For Max Weber the association was the ideal type of sociation, since in associations citizens form horizontal networks, act in solidarity with each other and organize themselves in terms of a civil society. In foundations the common good is normed into an ide´e directrice through the concrete act of establishing a foundation and setting its goals and then put into effect in terms of action – as an ideal type fed from the proceeds of a fortune and on the long run the benefactor no longer participates in this process. Furthermore, there are organizations which professionally run the ‘‘begging’’ for donations that precedes giving, i.e., fundraising. In this respect the figure of the fundraiser serves as an intermediary between the giver and the receiver of the money and has to attempt to take account of the interests, motivations, and value commitments of both sides. Modern giving would be simply unthinkable without medialized and institutionalized forms of requests for donations. A market exists in which emotional and moral ties are ‘‘traded,’’ with the goal of awaking, binding, and perpetuating individual motivation. Finally, the third or nonprofit sector is in fact characterized by a high degree of interorganizational arrangements of reciprocity (cf. Adloff & Sigmund, 2005). In American philanthropy there are for example strong tendencies to subject nonprofit organizations to stricter controls by the financial backers and to make funds conditional on the fulfilment of clearly defined tasks.
Future Directions It can be concluded that the various forms of giving embedded within the modern gift economy in reciprocal
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arrangements not only selectively initiate and reproduce social relations but also stabilize and systematize the latter, these relations appearing in institutionalized and organized form. Consequently, gifts and evoked reciprocity should be studied as an autonomous principle of social action occupying an important place between rationalized forms of purely benevolent action on the one hand and selfinterested action on the other (Silber, 1998). The prevailing dichotomy of utilitarian and normativist thinking not only obscures our view of the irreducible logic of gift and reciprocity, it also causes the ubiquity of this logic in modern societies to disappear analytically. But the gift is an expression of both voluntariness and obligation, and is connected to much more than just economic transfers: it is just as much a carrier of identity and a tie-sign, an expression and carrier of interpersonal ties and trust.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ Civil Society Theory: Rousseau ▶ Durkheim, E´mile ▶ Fundraising ▶ Identity ▶ Philanthropy, definitions and history ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Social Trust ▶ Solidarity ▶ Titmuss, Richard ▶ Weber, Max
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Collins, R. & Hickman, N. (1991). Altruism and culture as social products. Voluntas, 2(2), 1–15. Derrida, J. (1994). Given time: I. Counterfeit money. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Derrida, J. (1995). The gift of death. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Douglas, M. (1990). Foreword: No free gifts. In Mauss, Marcel (Eds.), The gift (W. D. Hallis, Trans.; pp. vii–xviii). New York/London: W. W. Norton. Durkheim, E. (1964 [1893]). The division of labor in society. New York: Free Press. Geary, P. J. (2003). Gift exchange and social science modeling. The limitations of a construct. In G. Algazi, V. Groebner, & B. Jussen (Eds.), Negotiating the gift. Pre-modern figurations of exchange (pp. 129–140). Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Godbout, J. T. (1998). The world of the gift. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Godelier, M. (1996). L’e´nigme du don. Paris: Librairie Arthe`me Fayard. Godelier, M. (2002). Some things you give, some things you sell, but some things you must keep for yourselves: What Mauss did not say about sacred objects. In E. Wyschogrod, J. -J. Goux,& E. Boynton (Eds.), The enigma of gift and sacrifice (pp. 19–37). New York: Fordham University Press. Gouldner, A. W. (1973). For sociology. Renewal and critique in sociology today. New York: Basic Books. He´naff, M. (2002). Le prix de la ve´rite´. Le don, l’argent, la philosophie. Paris: E´ditions du Seuil. Le´vi-Strauss, C. (1987 [1950]). Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss. London: Routledge & Kegan. Mauss, M. ([1925] 1990). The gift. The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies (W. D. Hallis, Trans.). New York/London: W. W. Norton. Ostrower, F. (1995). Why the wealthy give. The culture of elite philanthropy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone age economics. Chicago: Aldine. Silber, I. (1998). Modern philanthropy: Reassessing the viability of a Maussian perspective. In W. James, N. J. Allen (Eds.), Marcel Mauss. A centenary tribute (pp. 134–150). New York: Berghahn Books. Titmuss, R. M. (1997 [1970]). The gift relationship. From human blood to social policy (original edition with new chapters). Oakley, Ann/ Ashton, John (Eds.). New York: New Press.
References/Further Readings Adloff, F. (2006). Beyond interests and norms: Gift-giving and reciprocity in modern societies. Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, 13(2), 407–427. Adloff, F., & Sigmund, S. (2005). Die gift economy moderner Gesellschaften – Zur Soziologie der Philanthropie. In: Adloff, F. & Mau, S. (Eds.), Vom Geben und Nehmen. Zur Soziologie der Reziprozita¨t (pp. 211–235). Frankfurt/New York: Campus. Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books. Berking, H. (1999). Sociology of giving. London: Sage. Blau, P. (1964). Exchange and power in social life. New York: Wiley. Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical reason, On the theory of action. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Caille´, A. (2000a). Gift and association. In A. Vandevelde (Ed.), Gifts and interests (pp. 47–55). Leuven: Peeters. Caille´, A. (2000b). Anthropologie du don. Le tiers paradigme. Paris: Descle´e de Brouwer. Caille´, A. (2001 [1994]). The double inconceivability of the pure gift. Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities, 6(2), 23–38.
Gift Relationship MATT BOWDEN Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, UK
Introduction The gift relationship is a foundational concept in the understanding of civil society. Because it embodies the idea of exchange of goodwill between actors the concept is central to the appreciation of its constituent concepts of trust, reciprocity, and solidarity. Furthermore, one knows from the literature on social capital that everyday exchange and reciprocation between actors produce social ties and create social bonds. However, while crucial to
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social capital, the gift relation has a dark side that presents a challenge for the nature of democracy in civil society; while gifting creates ties and underpins social bonding, it also reproduces systems of power and domination. In this latter sense it may indeed be contrary to the principles of participation upon which civil society is founded. Furthermore, the practice of gifting has proved to be resilient despite social change. To define the gift relation, three main theoretical contributions are outlined and considered: the first from Marcel Mauss (1872–1950), who emphasized the religious, symbolic, and moral origins of the gift relation; the second from Richard Titmuss (1907–1973), who argued that the ethic of the gift relationship was embodied in the practice of voluntary blood donation that underpinned social citizenship; and the third from Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002), who argued that gifts constituted a form of master–slave relationship based upon internalized obligation which tied the receiver to an unrecognized system of power.
Definition: Three Contributions to the Theory of the Gift Relation The gift relation predates the money-based economy, and the cultural practice of gifting has survived a number of major social transformations in human history. Marcel Mauss (1950) [1990] began his anthropological account with the idea of the gift economy being a ‘‘system of total services’’ exemplified in the ‘‘potlatch’’ as practiced by the North West native American tribal groups: the Haı¨da and the Tlingit. Here the potlatch also involved hostility and rivalry between nobles: tribal chiefs contracted on behalf of all their subjects and they engaged in the destruction of property as a challenge to visitors or neighboring groups to reciprocate; to destroy produce or valuables in equal or greater quantities. Mauss provided an exposition drawn from anthropological works throughout Polynesia and South Asia (including, for instance, Malinowski’s study of the Trobriand Islands) to demonstrate that although there were some local variations, such potlatch systems were widespread in this part of the world for a substantial period of time. In this analysis, Mauss identified that the obligation attaching to exchange of goods carried spiritual power; the object given was endowed with a symbolic value greater than its material worth. An example of this chosen by Mauss is the Maori Hau which encapsulated the spirit that moved with the object. If you were given a gift and you passed it on to another, for which you received goods as reciprocation, you would be compelled to pass these on to the original source of the gift. The object was endowed with
a soul and it was believed that it had a homing instinct to return to its place of origin. Harm would befall one if one did not uphold the spirit of the Hau (Mauss, 1950, pp. 15–16). The spiritual power of the Hau thus acted as a form of external constraint upon individual actors. According to Mauss, the potlatch involves obligation and honor on the one hand, but also status, and ultimately, freedom on the other. Trade is premised upon the money economy whereas the potlatch involves prestige. Citing Malinowski’s study of the Trobriand Islands, Mauss draws attention to the practice of the hoarding of yams: Islanders stockpiled them not for accumulating wealth but to give them away so as to gain prestige for their families. By virtue of its incorporation in ancient Roman, Hindu, and Germanic laws the practice of gift reciprocation from archaic societies entered into early formal contracts resulting in its survival into contemporary society. Following his mentor Emile Durkheim, Mauss’s version of the gift relation ties the practice to an objective morality. Gift and reciprocation is contrary to rationality in that it has spiritual and moral origins. An individual is not free of obligation, nor purely self-interested, as the concept of the rational agent of both classical and contemporary liberal economics. Rather he or she acts relative to the groups and subgroups (civil society) of which they are part. Human agents practice the gift relation by virtue of human sociability. From Mauss’s version of the gift, one can conclude that social practices cause economic effects, and not the reverse. That is not to say that the gift relation is entirely nonrational, for in Mauss’s framework it involves the maximization of status and prestige which outweighs utility and wealth based on money. The act of giving is thus part of social potentiality and the origin of altruism; it connects individual action to social groups, to culture, and to the wider society. Titmuss (1970) conceptualized the gift relation as a form of social altruism best expressed in systems of voluntary blood donation. Social good is about the expression of confidence in humanity; donors and beneficiaries are unknown strangers. People, he argued, ‘‘cause good’’ in the act of blood donation because they express faith in the future altruism of such unknown strangers. In this context, Titmuss (1970, p. 243) argued that the market was an exclusionary device that separated people from their right to give. In this line of thought, there is no expectation of individualized reciprocation: one is not bound by obligation but by securing one’s well-being in the future. This involves some degree of rational calculation as it entails securing future provision contingency. The organization of voluntary blood banking is a redistributive system and underlines the principles of
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social insurance in some social security systems. However, Titmuss’s definition might be criticized for being rather one-dimensional. In this regard, Sahlins’s (1974) typology of gift relations distinguished between generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity. Generalized reciprocity refers to gifts where one does not have to give in order to receive; this represents the ideal of a ‘‘pure gift’’ where the obligation to reciprocate is blurred and typical of that which operates in kin networks. Balanced reciprocity involves direct and immediate reciprocity between giver and receiver where goods of equal value are exchanged. Negative reciprocity refers to the maximization of advantage by one person at the expense of the other, described by Sahlins (1974, p. 195) as ‘‘the attempt to get something for nothing with impunity.’’ Developing this typology, reciprocity might be considered in four senses when applied to the analysis of welfare states (Adloff & Mau, 2006, pp. 115–116). The first of these relates to generalized reciprocity associated with systems of compensatory redistribution underpinning basic incomes policies where the welfare state follows a ‘‘normative-relational’’ logic of solidarity between classes. The second form of balanced reciprocity underlines social insurance which safeguards both social status and living standards and works according to the logic of equivalence whereby benefits can be expected in correspondence with the contributions already made. A third form, risk reciprocity, relates to the provision for the preservation of social minima based upon the logic that society accepts responsibility for social risks not caused by those affected. The fourth sense of reciprocity derives from the idea of the resocialization of those in need, or a reciprocity of obligation found in residualized welfare regimes. Here, the ‘‘deserving poor’’ are gifted on the basis that they should orient their behaviors to avoiding poverty. This establishes a relationship of debt and expectation on the part of the giver in that it places an onus of redress from the debtor; the recipient is expected to change their values and norms so as they can reenter the labor market (Adloff & Mau, 2006, p. 117). In the gift to strangers as articulated by Titmuss’s deployment of the theory of the gift, the notion of reciprocation is made redundant by the anonymity the exchange. This might be contrasted with staged gifting; a social ritual where the gift giving is rehearsed or stylized into moments that underline the beneficence of the donor. Adloff and Mau (2006) point out that unlike Titmuss’s radical conceptualization of the gift relation, such staged gifting where the benefactor is known sets off ‘‘chains of reciprocity.’’ In this latter sense, the gift relationship can be said to involve a process of social
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stratification between givers and receivers, and between the deserving and nondeserving. That the gift relation acts as a means of stratifying groups into classes, is central in the work of French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu. His concern was for the ways in which the gift sets off relations of domination and subordination. Moreover, Bourdieu’s sociology is one that seeks to understand actors’ strategies in the context of social structures. The gift is a form of cultural practice that as a symbolic act produces an unrecognized effect in shaping the dispositions of the actors involved in the exchange. In his Outline of a Theory of Practice, Bourdieu (Bourdieu & Nice,1977) introduces the concept of symbolic violence in connection with exchanges of credit, gifts, and domestic labor. From his analysis of the Kabyle society in Algeria, he pointed out that to appropriate the labor of one, a master first had to tie-in or create a bond with the laborer and had to ‘‘win’’ them personally. These pre-capitalist relations of domination had to be disguised or misrecognized and so personal dependence had to be transfigured for if they were not ‘‘euphemised’’ they would reveal the inequality and injustices of the situation. Thus the gift acted as a symbolic form of violence because overt violence in pre-capitalist economies was not a sufficient form of domination. Thus the euphemization of the relations of domination had to take a more invisible form and for Bourdieu, this was exemplified in the relations surrounding credit, hospitality, and gifts. Those tied to masters were dominated through codes of honor, debt, and gratitude. For Bourdieu, the offer-acceptance of the gift represented a shared denial by master and servant of the objective reality of the exchange relations. In Bourdieuian theory such practices survive in the contemporary capitalist world because they have become embedded in contemporary culture and are reproduced by a variety of institutions. The gift relation therefore is a type of practice that is played out in various fields: in the education field for instance, this takes the form of the passing-on of knowledge from the teacher to student; Bourdieu’s point is that the gift cannot be divorced from the social relations of cultural reproduction. The legitimization of the master–pupil relationship in schools further legitimizes the system of schooling which reproduces class cultures (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). Crucial is the content of the exchange and for Bourdieu this is various forms of capital; social and cultural capital are gained by the bearer of gifts; donors and benefactors strategize to maximize cultural capital, the accumulation of which is necessary in order to achieve symbolic power which is a prerequisite for legitimate domination over the receiver of the gift.
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Key Issues and Future Directions Civil society is premised upon a form of social peace reflected in the idea of the social contract. Thomas Hobbes argued that the route out of the state of nature, a war of all against all, was the quelling of individual passions and the surrendering of authority to a sovereign power; a commonwealth that guaranteed the social order so that civil society could flourish. What Mauss had discovered was a way in which individuals and small groups could avoid the state of nature without the need for a sovereign power. The archaic societies found social peace without formal law. In this way, Mauss had established the gift as a form of political contract underpinning civil society (Sahlins, 1974). In contemporary civil society considerable attention has returned to the network as an organizational form. Networks take many shapes ranging from the role of local networks in producing social capital, to networks of firms in achieving economies of scale and scope (see Piore & Sabel, 1984 for a discussion), and from online communities (Wellman & Gulia, 1999) to global networks of commercial interests and a global civil society (Holton, 2008). Over the last two decades also, there has been a growing interest in the role of policy networks in governance (see for instance, Rhodes & Marsh, 1992). In this context the gift relation has been crucial to expanding understanding of the distinct properties of networks as they operate alongside market and state organizations. Networks might be seen as an emergent form of governance and coordination and a means of dealing with the social order outside of rational calculation and rational legalism. Markets operate on the basis of price and competition (rational calculation) that generates competition; states on the basis of command, rules, and authority (rational legalism) that generates complicity; and networks on the basis of trust and reciprocity that generates cooperative behavior. In this sense, the network form is premised upon an economy of goodwill resources. However, networks are not devoid of strategy on the part of actors who engage by virtue of the temporal dimension of gift relations; they operate on the edge of the reciprocated and nonreciprocated gift. The deferral of the return obligates one person to the other setting off a relation of social debt; nonreciprocation relates to a blurred sense of the future prior to the closure of a gift transaction, between which trust acts as the cement that holds the relationship together (Thompson, 2003). The gift relation is central in civil society for it is the basis of social engagement in networks regardless of the market and the state. Despite multiple social, economic, and political transformations the archaic practice of the gift has survived and is seen in everyday practice and social ritual. A key
lesson here is the extent to which cultural practices are resilient and so social transformation can only ever be partial. The rise of late modern consumer societies, rather than replacing gifting with pure utility, has facilitated the expansion and deepening of the gift relation in terms of the type of gifts exchanged, the level of expense to which parties go to purchase gifts, and the commercialization of gifting festivals and practices such as weddings or religious festivals such as Christmas. Such consumption reproduces the practice of gifting and only alters the medium through which social obligations are expressed and social ties secured (see Caplow, 1984).
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Mauss, Marcel ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Trust ▶ Solidarity ▶ Titmuss, Richard
References/Further Readings Adloff, F. (2006). Beyond interests and norms: Toward a theory of giftgiving and reciprocity in modern societies. Constellations, 13(3), 407–427. Adloff, F., & Mau, S. (2006). Giving social ties: Reciprocity in modern society. European Journal of Sociology, 47(1), 93–123. Bourdieu, P., & Nice, R. (1977). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J. -C. (1977). Reproduction in education, society and culture. London: Sage. Caplow, T. (1984). Rule enforcement without visible means: Christmas gift giving in Middletown. American Journal of Sociology, 89(6), 1306. Carrier, J. (1991). Gifts, commodities, and social relations: A Maussian view of exchange. Sociological Forum, 6(1), 119–136. Holton, R. J. (2008). Global networks. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Mauss, M. (1950[1990]). The gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. London: Routledge. Piore, M., & Sabel, C. (1984). The second industrial divide: Possibilities for prosperities. New York: Basic Books. Rhodes, R. A. W., & Marsh, D. (1992). Policy networks in British government. Oxford: Clarendon. Sahlins, M. (1974). Stone age economics. London: Tavistock. Schrift, A. D. (Ed.) (1997). The logic of the gift: Towards and ethic of generosity. London: Routledge. Shaw, R. (2003). Theorizing breastfeeding: Body ethics, maternal generosity and the gift relation. Body Society, 9(2), 55–73. Thompson, G. F. (2003). Between hierarchies and markets: The logic and limits of network forms of organization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Girl Scouts Thompson, G. F., Frances, J. et al. (Eds.) (1991). Markets, hierarchies and networks: The co-ordination of social life. London: Sage/Open University Press. Titmuss, R. (1970). The gift relationship: From blood donation to social policy. Lonon: Allen & Unwin. Wellman, B., & Gulia, M. (1999). Virtual communities as communities: Net surfers don’t ride alone. In M. A. Smith & P. Kollock (Eds.), Communities in cyber space (pp. 167–194). London: Routledge.
Girl Scouts SALVATORE ALAIMO
Address of Organization 420 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10018-2798 USA www.girlscouts.org
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speaking and money management. An estimated 200 million boxes of cookies are now sold annually. Girl Scouts collected over one million articles of clothing that were sent overseas to victims of World War II. On March 16, 1950, the organization was reincorporated as the Girl Scouts of the USA when chartered by the US Congress. The four age levels of Brownie, Junior, Cadette, and Senior Girl Scouts were introduced in 1963, and the Daisy Girl Scout age level for girls 5 years old or in kindergarten was introduced in the 1980s. GSUSA evolved in the 1990s to address societal issues that impact the lives of girls including the P.A.V.E. The Way (Project Anti-Violence Education) program; Girl Scouts Beyond Bars, a mother-daughter prison visitation program; and health and physical fitness through their Girl Sports initiative. GSUSA more recently has infused technology as a means for providing resources to local councils, engaging girls on the Internet through online troop meetings, and offering various technology-based interest badges.
Introduction Girl Scouts of the USA (GSUSA) describes itself as ‘‘the world’s preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls – all girls – where, in an accepting and nurturing environment, girls build character and skills for success in the real world.’’ The volunteer-led, member-based organization provides opportunities for girls to learn about health, the environment, career choices, and other important topics while encouraging their service to the community.
Brief History On March 12, 1912 Juliette Gordon Low founded the Girl Scouts based on the British model of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides from their founder Sir Robert Baden-Powell, whom she met in 1911. The organization started with sixteen girls enrolled in two troops in Savannah, Georgia (United States) and grew to approximately 70,000 Girl Scouts by 1920. The organization was incorporated as Girl Scouts, Inc. in Washington, DC on June 10, 1915. The number of interest badges girls could earn continued to grow throughout the next 2 decades including Economist, Interpreter, Journalist, Motorist, and others. In the 1930s Girl Scouts exemplified the organization’s foundation of service to others when girls and adults collected clothing, gathered food, made quilts and engaged in other community relief efforts during the Great Depression. The first commercially baked sale of Girl Scout Cookies also took place in the 1930s. The annual sale has helped brand the organization and provide an activity that enables girls to learn public
Mission GSUSA’s mission is to ‘‘build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.’’
Activities GSUSA provides policies, program modules, training for staff and volunteers, and overall support for the 100+ local councils across the United States. The national office also engages in research and advocacy. The Girl Scout Research Institute (GSRI) conducts studies that address the complex and ever-changing needs of for the healthy development of girls. GSUSA’s Public Policy and Advocacy office in Washington, DC works in partnership with local councils to ‘‘inform and educate key representatives of the government’s legislative and executive branches about issues important to girls and Girl Scouting and lobby for increased program resources.’’
Structure and Governance GSUSA is a federated 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization and their national headquarters located in New York City has more than 400 employees and a board of directors with members from across the United States. The 144 local councils that together serve more than three million girls and adults are each separate 501(c) (3) organizations with their own staff and boards of directors. However, safety standards, program standards and modules, policies, the cookie sale structure and
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procedures, and other relevant guidelines come from the national office. Within these guidelines there is some flexibility for troop or group leaders and other adult volunteers delivering the Girl Scout Program to adjust to local and individual girl needs. GSUSA is a member of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts consisting of ten million girls and adults in 145 countries.
Funding The largest portion of GSUSA’s total operating revenue according to its 2007 annual report was membership dues which accounted for 40%. Other sources of revenue included merchandise sales at 18%, contributed airtime at 16%, gifts and grants at 10%, investment income at 9%, training/meeting revenue at 5% and other sources accounting for 1%. GSUSA’s contributions, gifts and grants for their fiscal year ending 2006 were fairly evenly split between direct public support from individuals, corporations, and foundations at 52% and 48% from more than ten federal agencies including National Science Foundation, US Department of Education, and the US Department of Agriculture among others.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Girls Scouts by emphasizing character and service to community as the foundations of the Girl Program and its intended outcomes have helped instill the values of service, helping others, and contributing to civil society while helping girls develop their full potential. They accomplish this by helping girls through a myriad of activities to ‘‘relate to others with increasing understanding, skill, and respect; develop values to guide their actions and provide the foundation for sound decision-making; and contribute to the improvement of society through their abilities, leadership skills, and cooperation with others.’’ These foundations are evident in the Girl Scout promise and Law in which the Promise states, ‘‘On my honor, I will try: To serve God and my country, To help people at all times, And to live by the Girl Scout Law’’ (see The Girl Scout Law at http://www.girlscouts.org/program/gs_central/promise_law). Many of the more than 50 million Girl Scout alumnae have reflected on Girl Scouts’ impact on their lives and have emphasized how they carry the skills they learned and continue to have such values throughout their adult lives.
Cross-References
▶ Brands and Branding ▶ Federations, Nonprofit
References/Further Readings Shultz, G. D., & Lawrence, D. G. (1988). Lady from Savannah: The life of Juliette low. New York: Girl Scouts of the USA. Soto, C. (1987). The Girl Scouts. New York: Exeter Books.
Giving Circles ANGELA M. EIKENBERRY University of Nebraska at Omaha, Omaha, NE, USA
Introduction Giving circles involve individuals pooling money and other resources, and then deciding together where to give these away. They are growing in popularity among various types of donors – especially women; people of various racial, ethnic, and religious groups; and people of more modest means – in the United States and, increasingly, in other parts of the world. It is impossible to say how many giving circles exist because of their grassroots nature. Since the US-based Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers began to track these groups in 2004, the number of giving circles identified has more than doubled to well over 500 groups; indeed, there is a strong indication that many more exist and more continue to be created (Rutnik & Bearman, 2005). Most giving circles are relatively new, having started only in the last five to ten years. They have been identified in at least 44 states and the District of Columbia in the United States; they have also been found in Australia, Canada, England, Japan, Scotland, and South Africa.
Definition Bearman (2007) defines giving circles as individuals coming together and pooling their dollars, deciding together where to give the money (and other resources such as volunteer time), and learning together about their community and philanthropy (p. 1). According to Eikenberry (2006), giving circles also tend to provide many social opportunities to members. Another unique feature of giving circles is that they are typically not tied to any one charity, though some (as donor-advised funds) do rely on community foundations or other host institutions to be fiscal agents. It is the members who decide to what charities or to which individuals funds should be distributed. There are exceptions, however. In a few giving circles that are associated with universities, for example, the members remain independent in that they still decide
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where the money is to be given, but they are limited to giving within the university. Giving circles come in many shapes and sizes, and have differing foci. There are three major ‘‘ideal’’ types of giving circles: small groups, loose networks, and formal organizations. Small group giving circles consist of a small number of people who tend to pool funds in equal amounts, ranging from $50 to $5,000 (there are also several small groups where the amount paid into the fund is left to the discretion of the individual). In small group giving circles, typically all of the members are involved in agenda setting, discussion, and decision making; leadership is often shared. The two major foci of small group giving circles are social and educational activities. The social aspect is emphasized through informal group interaction and discussions. The educational aspect is relatively informal, taking place through the grant-making process, site visits, meetings with nonprofit staff, and information sharing among group members. Some small groups have staff support (typically provided by a community foundation) to help with administration or fiscal management. An example of a small group is AsiaNextGen, a group of young professional Asian Americans seeking to address community needs and to engage in high-impact philanthropy by coming together and strategically funding issues of common interest in New York City. This group started in 2004 with five friends, who donated $4,000 each, growing out of a networking event of young professionals in New York City who had gathered at a reception sponsored by the Asian American Federation of New York. The Federation continues to host the giving circle. The goals of the group are as follows: to impact social change, leverage monetary contributions, infuse expertise and skills with financial and intellectual capital, and educate and evolve a new generation of philanthropists. Funding decisions and education about community issues are informed by guest speakers or workshops about philanthropy and issue areas, site visits to nonprofit organizations, group discussions, and connections to philanthropic networks. Loose network giving circles are frequently structured in such a way that a core group of people overseeing the group – who do the ongoing organizing, planning, and grant decision making – are surrounded by a loosely affiliated group of individuals who tend to come together around a specific event such as a potluck dinner or other type of fund-raiser. There is, typically, no or a very low minimum fee to participate. There is also typically no paid staff support within these groups; rather, they are often completely volunteer-driven. Members praise these groups’ flexibility and organic nature, low overheads, and
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non bureaucratic structure. Loose networks seem to be especially attractive to women; many who participate in these groups see it as an opportunity to fit ‘‘doing good’’ into their busy lives. What is also unique about these types of giving circles is that they tend to give money and inkind gifts directly to individuals in need, or to individuals doing good work. Thus, grant decision making often occurs in an ad hoc fashion, in response to the needs of individuals. An example of a loose network is Washington Womenade, which raises money by holding occasional potluck dinners where attendees donate $35 to a fund that provides financial assistance to individuals who need help paying for prescriptions, utility bills, rent, food, and so on. Membership in the group is fairly loose except for a core group of organizers. ‘‘Members’’ show up at events when they choose to and the focus of their time together is highly social, though there is some discussion at events about funding recipients. In 2002, Real Simple magazine did a story on Washington Womenade, leading to the creation of more than 40 Womenade groups across the country. This article also inspired Marsha Wallace to start Dining for Women, now a national network of more than 177 small groups across the country in which women meet for dinner on a monthly basis and pool the funds they would have spent eating out, to support internationally based grassroots programs helping women around the world. Formal organization giving circles are more formal in their structure and decision-making processes than the other two types of giving circles; looking very much like a traditional voluntary organization structure with a board or lead group, committees, and often, professional staff support. They are also larger and the cost to participate tends to be high compared to small groups and loose networks; the modal amount being $5,000–$5,500. The grant decision-making process typically involves committees or investment teams making grant decisions directly or making recommendations for a full membership vote. The major activities of formal organizations are education and engagement. Formal organizations also tend to have some kind of formal educational programming in addition to grant making and other informal educational opportunities. In addition, many formal organizations provide opportunities for members to volunteer with nonprofit organizations. Among the three types of giving circles, formal organizations are the most systematic and comprehensive in efforts to educate and engage members in the community. Social Venture Partners (SVP) has probably become the most well-known formal organization giving circle in
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the United States and Canada. SVP started in 1997 in Seattle and now has expanded to approximately 25 SVPtype giving circles in the United States and elsewhere. Its major foci are educating members about philanthropy and community issues and creating long-term, engaged relationships with funding recipients. The cost to join SVP is usually around $5,000. SVP also asks members to volunteer at the nonprofit agencies they fund, providing consulting and capacity-building support. SVP affiliates fund in various areas but often take an interest in issues related to youth and education.
Key Issues Are Giving Circles Really New?
There is some debate about how new giving circles really are, if they are new at all. Indeed, the idea of people voluntarily getting together to get something done is an old and far-reaching tradition in the United States and elsewhere. However, the environment in which giving circles have emerged and in which they operate – a philanthropic sector that is increasingly modernized, where traditional voluntary associations are losing numbers rapidly as suggested by Putnam (2000) and others, and individuals want to be engaged in their communities in new, but more fragmented, ways as suggested by Wuthnow (1998) – and their characteristics noted above do seem new for today’s philanthropic environment. What is also unique about giving circles is their underlying, express purpose: to give away resources for community betterment. Earlier institutions such as Women’s Clubs and Rotaries often did not start or sustain such a focus; the philanthropic aspect either emerged later or was secondary to the main intent of the group. Compared with other philanthropic mechanisms, such as check writing or foundation giving, giving circles seem to be something different in that they offer a more engaged, personal experience and enable individuals of less wealthy means to actively participate in organized philanthropy at a more significant level. Giving Circles’ Impacts
Another key issue regards what kinds of impacts giving circles have on society. Most giving circles’ stated focus is on giving away resources and otherwise increasing the charitable resources provided to nonprofit organizations and individuals in need or doing good work. Although financial support from giving circles is an important resource for mostly small, community nonprofit organizations (and individuals in need), it may not be as important as the other resources giving circles can bring to the
table for funding recipients such as good connections, access to new donors and volunteers, and a signal to others that the organization is worthy of support. Interviews conducted by Eikenberry (2008) with nonprofit executives who have received support from giving circles also indicate that their relationship with giving circles can be somewhat challenging in that it can be time consuming, short term, and generally more complex as giving circle members – as a group – sort out their own motivations and funding priorities. Additionally, to what degree giving circles increase and provide resources to where they are most needed in communities – that is, to address identified collective problems – is questionable to some extent. Eikenberry (2007) found that giving circles generally do a poor job of getting resources to where they are most needed (from a community perspective). For example, smaller and less formal giving circles are not very systematic about where and how much they fund, so are unable (and in some cases unwilling) to do the research needed to determine where funds might be best spent to address community issues in a more comprehensive fashion. This is not surprising, considering some of the shortcomings of voluntarism: it cannot sufficiently and evenly distribute resources and is short-term in focus and fragmented when it comes to addressing problems. Even larger and more formal giving circles are limited in the resources they can bring to bear on community issues. Research by Bearman (2007) estimates that giving circles in the United States have given more than $65 million over the course of their existence; however, this is only a fraction of the $260 billion given privately in the United States in 2005 alone as indicated by Giving USA (2006), and an even tinier percentage of what the government could spend on social-welfare-related areas. For example, according to Boris and Steurle (1999), private donations to charitable organizations have in the past represented less than 10% of the federal government’s spending on social welfare. Yet, giving circles are more than just funding agents; they are, perhaps more importantly and predominantly, groups meant to meet the needs of its members. Most giving circles do not seem to be very intentional about promoting or consciously bolstering this aspect of their giving circle even though it may be one of the most important aspects of attracting and keeping members and providing long-term effects on members’ philanthropy as well as making the most important contribution to democratic governance. One exception is the Social Venture Partners (SVP) model, where staff and leaders have realized that SVP may be more about creating processes or avenues for individuals to grow and
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learn than it is about creating a product such as growing funding for nonprofit organizations. To this end, SVP Seattle created a ‘‘Philanthropy Development Framework’’ for helping members in their personal philanthropic development. The framework consists of seven topic areas: financial planning and giving vehicles; values, motivation, and integration; issues; nonprofit sector; cultural competency; volunteering; and grant making (Social Venture Partners, 2006). SVP Seattle provides workshops and other educational forums to support growth in these areas. Giving circles do seem to follow a long tradition of self-help/mutual aid in the United States and around the world. They certainly share the self-help/mutual-aid ethos, described by Kurtz (1997), of anti-big, antibureaucratic, and anti-impersonality, favoring experience over expertise while reaffirming the traditions of community, neighborhood, values, and self-reliance. Indeed, many members say they appreciate the simple, nonbureaucratic nature of the giving circle model. In addition, like selfhelp groups, social learning takes place in giving circles through instruction, reinforcement, and modeling. Many groups have guest speakers who educate on areas of expertise, while interactions among members provide natural ‘‘reinforcers’’ for the approved behavior of voluntary giving. Finally, some members say they support and participate in giving circles because they want to promote an ethic of philanthropic behavior in others, whether they are peers, their children, or family members. Thus, giving circles are also infused with an ideology that puts great store in the importance of voluntary giving and influencing members with this ideology. The effects on members, then, could be seen as giving circles’ most important contribution to society and democratic governance. Giving circles appear to encourage people to become involved in the community in a meaningful way, though in a different way than traditional ‘‘join for life’’ voluntary associations. Members seem to be motivated to go beyond passive consumption and private concerns to create a new civic space where debate and deliberation are generally encouraged, especially during the grant-making process. This seems to be so even in giving circles where socializing is as or more important than the charitable aspect of the group. Members frequently learn about and discuss important social issues (but typically not political or personally controversial issues like abortion or gun control). Giving circles are limited to the degree to which they explicitly tie in to political activities and outcomes and thus, larger social change; however, it appears that through the process of participating in the giving circle, members learn about
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themselves, others in the group, and issues in the community (see Eikenberry, 2009). Giving circles seem to truly serve as ‘‘laboratories for democracy’’ in the sense described by de Tocqueville in Democracy in America, though it is still hard to say what influence this has on political and democratic outcomes.
International Perspectives So far, giving circles have largely been an American phenomenon, but they are starting to grow in number in other locations as noted earlier. Social Venture Partners has affiliates in Canada and Japan while the original London-based Funding Network has emerged as a model that has now spread to Leeds, Oxford, Scotland, South Africa, Southwest England, and Toronto. The Funding Network started in London in 2002 and brings people together to act as a ‘‘marketplace’’ to which individuals can bring projects that work toward a fairer, healthier, and more sustainable world; provide a mutually respectful setting where those who might like to join with others in funding such projects get to meet and hear those doing the work; and promote a paradigm of social change giving. The cost to join The Funding Network in London is £75 per individual or couple or £200 for corporate membership. In addition, members are asked to make a minimum pledge amount of £100 during funding meetings held occasionally throughout the year. Funding Network members provide funds to charities that first must be ‘‘sponsored’’ by a group member and then chosen by a committee to make a pitch to the entire membership at a funding meeting. At this event, members pledge – in an auction-like format – money to the charities of their choosing after charities present to the group in attendance. The group funds in the areas of human rights, environmental sustainability, health, education, and conflict prevention and resolution, favoring small-scale, difficult-to-fund projects. So far, the Funding Network has raised more than £1.5 million for 250 plus charities.
Future Directions Giving circles are a good example of the paradigm shift to a more engaged, donor-driven, or ‘‘supply side’’ philanthropy as described by Schervish and Havens (2001), emerging in the United States and elsewhere in recent years. That is, through giving circles, donors want more control over where and how their gift is spent and thus emphasize impact and accountability with funding recipients while mistrusting large, bureaucratic institutions. Within this context, Eikenberry (2008) outlines several issues nonprofit professionals, especially in smaller
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organizations, might consider related to potential future relationships with giving circles. First, if a nonprofit organization wants to attract giving circle funding, the best way to do so is through networking, building awareness, and essentially ‘‘being out there’’ to be found by giving circle members. In most cases, giving circles seek out organizations as a potential funding recipient as opposed to organizations seeking out giving circles. What seems to happen in most instances is that someone in the giving circle had heard about or was already familiar with an organization (and in most of these cases knew the director or someone on staff) and put the organization forward for potential funding. At the same time, nonprofit professionals should be somewhat cautious in seeking giving circle funding. Working with giving circles can be time consuming and difficult in some cases, so the nonprofit professional needs to make sure it is a good match. There can be a lack of sustainability and uncertainty that comes with funding from giving circles; it can be difficult to count on funding from year to year, especially from giving circles that are still formulating their own processes and funding focus. Tension can also occur when giving circle members are ‘‘too directive’’ in their giving, so that it can clash with the already established board governance structure of the organization. On an indirect level, by targeting their gift for a particular area or thing, the giving circle in some ways takes over organizational governance by taking away the board or staff ’s decision about where funding might best be spent. On a more direct level, some giving circles (such as some SVPs) require or strongly recommend that one of their partners hold a seat on the board of the organizations they fund. This again might usurp power from the board to form and govern itself and the organization. Nonetheless, nonprofit and philanthropic professionals should be heartened by the potential for giving circles to increase individual donors’ giving by attracting more diverse groups to the giving or organized side of philanthropy. In the short term, this could have negative impacts on institutional fund-raising through such means as direct mail or workplace and federated giving; however, in the long term, this could mean increasing the overall philanthropic pie because donors may be more committed and satisfied with their giving. On a broader societal governance level, if the greatest benefit of giving circles is what they do for members rather than nonprofit organizations or the broader community, this may change expectations about what these and other philanthropic voluntary institutions might be able to do to address problems in the community
and generally enhance human well-being. The self-help/ mutual-aid aspect of giving circles can enhance the civic engagement of individuals in society, but this does not necessarily translate into more democratic outcomes in addressing individual needs. In fact, the two aspects of meeting members’ needs and meeting community needs can be in conflict: a tension may exist between meeting the needs of members – such as enabling members to engage in the community or influencing their giving and civic behaviors – and meeting the needs of the community – such as funding for nonprofits’ general operating costs or for needs that are not of special interest to members but are needed by nonprofit funding recipients. Thus, in the case of giving circles, the self-help/ mutual-aid side does, and perhaps should, take prominence as their future value is assessed.
Cross-References
▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Mutual Organizations, Mutual Societies ▶ Self-help Groups ▶ Venture Philanthropy
References/Further Readings Bearman, J. E. (2007). More giving together: The Growth and impact of giving circles and shared giving. Washington, DC: Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers, from http://www.givingforum.org/s_ forum/bin.asp?CID=611&DID=5316&DOC=FILE.PDF; 4/28/08 Boris, E., & Steuerle, E. (1999, October 1). What charities cannot do. The Christian Science Monitor, 11. Eikenberry, A. M. (2006). Giving circles: Growing grassroots philanthropy. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(3), 517–532. Eikenberry, A. M. (2007). Philanthropy, voluntary association and governance beyond the state: Giving circles and challenges for democracy. Administration & Society, 39(7), 857–882. Eikenberry, A. M. (2008). Giving circles and fundraising in the new philanthropy environment. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 19(2), 141–152. Eikenberry, A. M. (2009). Giving circles: Philanthropy, voluntary association, and democracy. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Giving USA Foundation (2006). Giving USA 2006. Glenview, IL: Giving USA Foundation. Kurtz, L. F. (1997). Self-help and support groups: A handbook for practitioners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Rutnik, T. A., & Bearman, J. (2005). Giving together: A national scan of giving circles and shared giving. Baltimore: Forum for Regional Association of Grantmakers, from http://www.givingforum.org/ givingcircles/research.html; 2/28/05 Schervish, P. G., & Havens, J. J. (2001). The new physics of philanthropy: The Supply-side vectors of charitable giving. Part 1: The material side of the supply side. The CASE International Journal of Educational Advancement, 2(2), 95–113.
Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) Social Venture Partners Seattle (2006, March). Realizing civic and philanthropic potential through social venture partners Seattle: Lessons learned and future direction. Seattle, WA: Author. Wuthnow, R. (1998). Loose connections: Joining together in America’s fragmented communities. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) EVELYNE SCHMID
Address of Organization GCAP Global Secretariat P.O. Box 933, Southdale 2135 Johannesburg South Africa www.whiteband.org/
Introduction Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) is a worldwide alliance of a wide range of regional, national, and local campaigns dedicated to ending poverty and inequality. Thousands of member groups have formed platforms in more than 110 countries, involving NGOs, trade unions, community groups, faith groups, women, and youth organizations as well as other groups and celebrities. Together with the UN Millennium Campaign, GCAP has annually mobilized millions of people against poverty.
Brief History GCAP was launched at the World Social Forum in Brazil on January, 2005 in preparation of campaigns targeting the 2005 G8 Summit in Gleneagles, the UN World Summit in September and a meeting of trade ministers in December. While the coalition was initially founded as an alliance to campaign for a breakthrough on poverty in 2005, the members decided to prolong their efforts until the end of 2007. The Make Poverty History campaigns in different countries regrouped under the GCAP coalition. In May 2007, member constituencies voted to extend the alliance until at least 2015, the year by which the Millennium Development Goals are to be achieved.
Mission The movement demands solutions to address public accountability, just governance and the fulfillment of human rights, trade justice, a major increase in the quantity and quality of aid and financing for development, debt cancellation and gender equality in poverty eradication policies.
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Activities GCAP’s main activities are the joint campaigning efforts by which GCAP attempts to show world leaders the size and the scale of the concerns about world poverty. At important moments, the movement organizes the socalled White Band Days, asking all who want their governments to do more in the fight against poverty to wear a white band.
Structure and Governance Coalitions and groups come together to create platforms at the national level, layered under regional networks. Any nonprofit organization willing to support the messages and actions through mobilization and participation can join. Each national coalition may have its own identity and campaign plans, but helps to ensure that campaigners in development come together at key moments to speak with one voice against poverty. A General Assembly consists of the national coalitions and constituency groups and a Global Council establishes accountability between all GCAP constituents.
Funding Member groups of GCAP are responsible for their own funding but the movement provides limited technical support to some coalitions.
Accomplishments In 2005, GCAP was awarded the 2005 International Achievement Award of the Inter Press Service news agency, recognizing its role in the partnership between the United Nations Millennium Campaign and civil society. The organization was also awarded the Guinness World Record Certificate in November 2006, 2007, and 2008 in recognition of the largest recorded mobilization on any one issue in history.
Cross-References
▶ Civicus ▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Coalition and Networks ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ INGOs ▶ Jubilee 2000 ▶ Make Poverty History ▶ Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction ▶ Social Movements ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits ▶ World Social Forum
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References/Further Readings GCAP. (2007). Report of Activities 2007, from http://www.whiteband.org/ Action/materials/gcap-publications-and-booklets/gcap-booklet-2007/ gcap-annual-report-2007-english; 11/17/2008. GCAP. (2008). Stand up take action for the millennium development goals toolkit, from http://www.makepovertyhistory.com.au/getdoc/ 319cfb47-d94a-4540-b066-eef42b1fa41d/StandUpToolkit08.aspx; 11/17/2008. Owain, J. (2005). The global call to action against poverty. Development, 48(1), 107–109.
Global Civil Society SABINE SELCHOW London School of Economics, London, UK
Introduction Global civil society is a relatively new concept. It has entered academic, political, and public discourses in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Over the course of its brief life so far, the concept has become popular – even as it remains somewhat nebulous.
Definitions Within contemporary debate, the term ‘‘global civil society’’ is utilized in multiple ways. In public and political discourses, in which the term ‘‘civil society’’ has become extremely popular, ‘‘global civil society’’ is used to capture phenomena and actors as diverse as the multifarious protesters in Seattle at the time of the 1999 WTO talks, transnational social movements and campaigns like ‘‘Make Poverty History’’ and ‘‘Jubilee 2000,’’ as well as (most commonly) leading Northern-based international nongovernmental organizations, such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace, and Oxfam. Among social and political scientists, the term ‘‘global civil society’’ is used either descriptively or normatively and, most of the times, both descriptively and normatively. For some analysts, ‘‘global civil society’’ is simply the sum of its associations, in particular, international nongovernmental organizations that spread across the world. Other analysts deploy the term more narrowly, to refer to those nongovernmental actors that explicitly address global governance institutions and regimes. Others again conceptualize ‘‘global civil society’’ as a sphere in which a (global) social contract is negotiated. With regard to the Political Science and International Relations discourse, the focus on ‘‘global civil society’’ has
meant a general shift away from the traditional emphasis on state politics. This shift is motivated by the belief that ‘‘it is more probable that future politics will originate less in the actions of the ‘great women and men’ of state, than in patterns of everyday politics, of politics among people’’ (Lipschutz, 2000: 84). In this sense, the concept of ‘‘global civil society’’ is regarded as much as a description of an existing reality as it is considered to be a promotion of a ‘‘political idea’’ (Kaldor, 2003a: 3), a ‘‘new world-view, radically different from any that has existed before’’ (Keane, 2001: 23). Despite its increasing popularity in academic discourses, the concept of ‘‘global civil society’’ often lacks rigorous definition. Explicit reflection on the attribute ‘‘global’’ in ‘‘global civil society’’ is rare. The term is often used synonymously with ‘‘transnational civil society,’’ and the attribute ‘‘global’’ is often only used intuitively and somewhat imprecisely to indicate the ‘‘new’’ or contemporary character of those sociopolitical phenomena to which the term ‘‘global civil society’’ is applied (see, e.g., Anheier et al., 2001). Five explicit though different definitions of global civil society are provided by (1) the editors of Global Civil Society, an annual publication by the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE); (2) John Keane (2001); (3) Ronnie D. Lipschutz (2005); (4) Mary Kaldor (2003b); and (5) Jan Aart Scholte (1999): 1. In Global Civil Society, global civil society is defined in a broad sense as ‘‘the sphere of ideas, values, institutions, organizations, networks, and individuals located between the family, the state, and the market and operating beyond the confines of national societies, polities, and economies’’ (Anheier et al., 2001: 17). 2. For John Keane (2001: 23), the term global civil society denotes ‘‘the contemporary thickening and stretching of networks of socioeconomic institutions across borders to all four corners of the earth, such that the peaceful or ‘civil’ effects of these nongovernmental networks are felt everywhere, here and there, far and wide, to and from local areas, through wider regions to the planetary level itself.’’ 3. Ronnie D. Lipschutz (2005) investigates global civil society ‘‘as a central and vital element in an expanding global neoliberal regime of governmentality, which is constituted out of the social relations within that regime and which, to a large degree, serves to legitimise that regime.’’ 4. For Mary Kaldor (2003b), global civil society is a sphere in which ‘‘a social contract is being negotiated
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across borders establishing a set of global rules involving states as well as international institutions.’’ 5. For Jan Aart Scholte, ‘‘global civil society encompasses civic activity that: (a) addresses transworld issues; (b) involves transborder communication; (c) has a global organization; (d) works on a premise of supraterritorial solidarity,’’ although, as he acknowledges, these characteristics of civic activity do not necessarily need to appear together (1999: 10). Activities are considered ‘‘civic activities’’ by Scholte when they involve ‘‘a deliberate attempt – from outside the state and the market, and in some other organized fashion – to shape policies, norms, and/or deeper social structures’’ (1999: 4).
Historical Background Two factors together explain the rise of the concept ‘‘global civil society.’’ First, the concept arose because the idea of ‘‘civil society’’ experienced a renaissance in the 1990s. ‘‘Civil society’’ was introduced into political theory largely through English and Scottish thinkers conceptualizing political life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; it was further prominently developed and reframed in the nineteenth century (to refer to bourgeois society) by thinkers such as Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel and Karl Marx. In the first part of the twentieth century, ‘‘civil society’’ largely fell into oblivion until it was rediscovered and reinvented as a useful concept and a political keyword, in the 1980s, among dissidents and political activists in Eastern Europe and Latin America (Kaldor, 2003a). The second factor that explains the rise of the concept of ‘‘global civil society’’ is the sociopolitical developments at the end of the 1980s when the end of the Cold War, with the breakdown of the bipolar bloc system through the disappearance of one of the two super powers, accelerated, and intensified a complex set of social processes of increasing interconnectedness, which were experienced as fundamentally transforming sociopolitical reality. They have come to be collected together under the label ‘‘globalization.’’ Conjoining of the attribute ‘‘global’’ with ‘‘civil society’’ encodes these perceptions of a globalizing world in that, on the one hand and in empirical terms, the concept of ‘‘global civil society’’ denotes an attempt to capture the implications that contemporary developments of ‘‘globalization’’ have for the sociopolitical phenomena that are captured with the label ‘‘civil society.’’ And, on the other hand and in more conceptual terms, the concept connotes an attempt to reconceptualize the established political scientific concept of ‘‘civil society’’ into ‘‘global civil society’’ – that is to conceptualize the traditional political scientific notion of ‘‘civil society’’ in times of ‘‘globalization.’’
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Key Issues There is an intense debate about what ‘‘globalization’’ is (e.g., Held et al., 2003). This debate revolves around the conditions and consequences of the sociopolitical processes that are commonly denoted with this label. It is about their origins and driving forces, about how to deal with them and, not least, how ‘‘new’’ they actually are. Yet, despite this spirited debate about extent and shape, there is a basic agreement and a shared sense that contemporary times are shaped by processes entailing an increasing interconnectedness. These processes are multifaceted and include both forces and features of integration and diversification. The most obvious manifestation of ‘‘globalization’’ and, at the same time, one of its driving forces are new media technologies, such as prominently the internet, which have come to affect and even transform individual lives and communities in fundamental senses. ‘‘Action at a distance’’ and ‘‘time/space compression’’ are key concepts capturing the rescaling of sociopolitical life, which shapes contemporary times. With regard to politics, there is a broad consensus that (the idea of) borders and of the nation-state as hitherto understood are undergoing a transformation. There is a basic consensus that democratic self-determination can no longer be achieved merely through the constitution of democratic structures within a contained (national) society in combination with an external statist self-assertion, as it had previously been the touchstone of the international political system. Rather, globalization processes and global problems, such as environmental degradation, epidemics, the flow of capital and terrorism, do not stop at borders. Thus, they challenge the governance of sociopolitical life in fundamental ways. Individuals have begun to speak of and experience a global democratic deficit. In particular, the uneven development of global governance structures and regimes on the one side and the growing power of globally-active corporations on the other side has opened regulatory gaps. These gaps are widely experienced as a threat and as an unwanted side-effect of (economic) globalization. They have brought the question of ‘‘global justice’’ into the awareness of a growing number of people worldwide and onto the agenda of a number of political activists. In general, there seems to be something like a growing ‘‘global consciousness,’’ which triggers and guides contemporary political activism. This global consciousness refers to the increasing acknowledgment of ‘‘global issues,’’ in other words of issues, such as climate change, which have an impact on literally everybody. At the same time it refers to a growing perception of an ‘‘imagined community of mankind’’ (Anheier et al., 2001: 17).
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(a) In empirical terms, the multifaceted outcomes and processes of increasing global integration have a manifold impact on civil societies and on civil society activism. On the one side, civil society activism is shaped by these developments. On the other side, these developments have become the concern of activists and the targets of activism. (b) In conceptual terms, the multifaceted outcomes and processes of increasing global integration, which became most evident after the change in the world political order in 1989, have affected the way in which sociopolitical reality is understood and analyzed. As International Relations theorist James N. Rosenau (1990: 5) put it, ‘‘observers [were left] without any paradigms or theories that adequately explain the course of events.’’ This has lead to the emergence of the concept of ‘‘global civil society,’’ potentially offering itself as a new conceptual tool in order to grasp this ‘‘brave new world’’ (Bartelson, 2000: 192). Globalization and Civil Society Activism
Taking ‘‘globalization’’ as a lens puts us in a position to acknowledge two significant aspects of much of contemporary civil society activism. The first aspect which shapes a considerable amount of contemporary civil society activism is its genesis in a growing ‘‘global consciousness.’’ The second aspect is that much of contemporary civil society activism is in part the manifestation of a reaction to (the challenges of) ‘‘globalization’’ as well as that it is a sociopolitical phenomenon that is shaped by ‘‘globalization’’ processes (Anheier et al., 2001). Since the 1960s, a decade which saw the large-scale growth of the civil rights, women’s rights and the environmental and peace movements, there has been a consistent rise in nonparty political activism. Nonparty political activism accelerated in the 1990s and, today, involvement in social movements and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), as opposed to political parties, is more popular than ever. The number of NGOs worldwide can hardly be measured anymore and the number of international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) has risen from 32 INGOs in 1874, 1,083 in 1914 to around 18,000 in 2003 (Anheier et al., 2004: 302). Parallel summits, most prominently the annual World Social Forum which parallels the World Economic Forum, have become common place. (I) NGOs have become part of global governance structures to an extent hitherto unknown, e.g., through the consultancy status at the UN, and are involved in some hundred international regimes. At the same time they play a critical part in the reform and the development of these regimes and global governance institutions, as prominently seen
in the case of the establishment of the International Criminal Court (see Glasius, 2002). On the one side, the increase in nonparty political activism can be interpreted as a manifestation of the aforementioned growing ‘‘global consciousness.’’ As discussed above, ‘‘global consciousness’’ can be understood as a bipartite phenomenon, comprising the perception that there are ‘‘global problems,’’ threatening everyone, and the perception that there is an ‘‘imagined community of mankind,’’ which itself gives rise to a sense of global responsibility. The Green movement is a prominent example of the kind of activism which is self-evidently based on the belief that planetary environmental degradation is a problem fundamentally threatening the whole world. Human rights activism provides a good example of the kind of activism evolving out of the perception that there is an ‘‘imagined community of mankind’’ above and beyond the boundaries of single national legislations. On the other side, the striking increase in nonparty political activism can be seen as a reaction to the (perceived) deficits of traditional (statist) political mechanisms in the face of global challenges. New and alternative forms of political action seem to be perceived as more likely to be productive and more appropriately adapted to the task of shaping the future of the world than traditional party political engagement. In order to tackle contemporary problems a complex set of institutions and political actors need to be addressed which are not exclusively national governments anymore but include international institutions, such as the United Nation, the World Band and the WTO, as well as, increasingly, single powerful market players, such as Nike, BP, and Shell. In general, the ‘‘dark side’’ of globalization, that is the injustices caused by the liberalization of markets and the, in many respects, unregulated power of transnational corporations have become a major concern for a sizeable component of contemporary civil society activism. Under the banner of ‘‘a different world is possible’’ these aspects of ‘‘globalisation’’ are targeted by an increasing number of social movements and activist networks whose aim it is ‘‘to reconquer space lost by democracy to the sphere of finance’’ (attac URL). The pictures of the mass protests in Seattle in 1999, when a network of activists from various social movements and NGOs forced the cancellation of the opening ceremony of the WTO talks, have become iconic images of this struggle in particular and, indeed, are often associated with civil society activism in a globalized time in general. The targeting of market players through ‘‘political consumerism’’ is a particularly interesting form of contemporary civil society engagement with economic
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globalization. The term ‘‘political consumerism’’ refers to activism which uses the market as a sphere of politics; consumer choices go beyond classic economic calculations in that they take into consideration the ‘‘politics of a product’’ (Micheletti, 2004). ‘‘Political consumerism’’ is about boycotts, boycotts as well as forms of ‘‘discursive action,’’ such as culture jamming. Although boycotts and boycotts have always been repertoires of political struggles today they are embedded in an increasingly institutionalized environment of labeling schemes, such as Fair trade and ecolabels, and information sources provided by civil society organizations, such as ‘‘ethical shopping guides,’’ which make readily transparent the politics of a product. Political consumerism is a particularly interesting form of contemporary civil society activism because it illustrates a shifting perception of political responsibility in times of global integration and market domination. First of all, it is a telling example of the perception of an increasing individual responsibility for global developments which is often addressed with the metaphor of a ‘‘footprint’’ that everybody leaves on the earth; at the same time, while in the past boycotts and boycotts were about improving the conditions (of workers) at home, today it is more and more about ‘‘distant others.’’ In the face of the regulatory gaps that (are perceived to) exist between contemporary global governance structures/ regimes and the liberalized market, individuals themselves target corporations in attempts to regulate their actions. This, secondly, illustrates an increasing conviction that (transnational) market players too (should) have (social) responsibilities other than those they hold towards their shareholders. With that the boundaries between the political and the economic, the public and the private are blurred which triggers nothing less but questions about the very nature of politics in a globalized times. Another particularly crucial development of civil society activism in times of globalization is what can been called the ‘‘NGO-isation’’ of civil society in general and of development in particular. This refers to the increase in professionalized NGOs, which, especially in developing countries, step in for and provide services that traditionally fell into the realm of a legitimate authority, such as a (welfare) state. Following Kaldor (2003a: 9) this development can be seen as a manifestation of a ‘‘neoliberal’’ understanding of civil society which is promoted and nurtured by international donors. Looking through the globalization lens, this development can again be seen both as a reaction to and also as a consequence of ‘‘globalization’’ (with the latter arguably more significant than the former). On the one hand, it is a reaction to ‘‘globalization’’ and its ‘‘dark side’’ in that
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the growing perception of responsibility beyond borders motivates people to become active in NGOs. On the other hand, the ‘‘NGO-isation’’ (of development) is a consequence of ‘‘globalization’’ because the strategy by donors to proceed via NGOs (rather than governments) in turn has the potential to lead to greater liberalization and privatization. ‘‘In the absence of a global state, an army of NGOs [. . .] performs the functions necessary to smooth the path of economic globalization. Humanitarian NGOs provide the safety net to deal with the casualties of liberalization and privatization strategies in the economic field’’ (Kaldor, 2003a: 9). Besides general issues of legitimacy, accountability, and representation, this particular and increasingly institutionalized function of NGOs raises normative questions about the emancipatory role of civil society (activism) and its compliancy in supporting a (neoliberal) status-quo. A key example in regard to how globalization shapes contemporary civil society activism is the impact of new forms of communication in general and the internet in particular. The internet allows to link and mobilize at low cost. It also importantly provides the space for the provision of information independent of and alternative to mainstream media outlets. Although far from being accessible to everyone (due to censorship practices as well as technical and language barriers), the internet has at least the potential of being a platform for voices that provide perspectives that are otherwise unheard; particular prominent instances of exactly this are the blogs provided by dissidents in closed and/or oppressive regimes which have recently reached global attention (Kaldor & Kostovicova, 2008). The above sketched out developments and features of civil society activism in times of globalization have been addressed by academics and others under the rubric of several different terms. Some analysts set out to investigate what they call ‘‘transnational social movements’’; others approach the phenomenon via the concepts of ‘‘transnational advocacy networks,’’ ‘‘global citizen action’’ and ‘‘transnational civil society.’’ Yet others precisely use the concept of ‘‘global civil society.’’ Globalization as a Challenge for the Political Scientific Imagination
Concepts are general notions which serve to capture sociopolitical reality by simplifying complex phenomena. Through concepts, certain aspects of particular phenomena are highlighted while others are obscured. Concepts treat referents in empirical reality as if they had stable identities. Yet, of course, sociopolitical phenomena are
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never stable nor fixed but are inevitably subject to diachronic change. This is why concepts are often debated and challenged and why, at certain points in time, ‘‘the death’’ or ‘‘the end’’ of some concepts is announced, while at the same time, new concepts are developed and promoted as reflecting and capturing a ‘‘new’’ reality. Most of the concepts in the study of politics, such as ‘‘state,’’ ‘‘democracy,’’ ‘‘market,’’ ‘‘society,’’ ‘‘political community,’’ and, of course, ‘‘civil society,’’ were developed against the backdrop of the political imagination of an international system of contained sovereign nation-states. Yet, the above sketched out developments of global integration brought into question nothing short of the guiding category of this imagination. This guiding category was the idea of the ‘‘great divide,’’ which is the idea that there is a clear distinction between a peaceful inside and an ‘‘anarchic’’ outside, which has been the central point of reference in the political imagination since the birth of the idea of the nation-state (e.g., Clark, 1999: 15–33). There is a widely shared acknowledgement that contemporary ‘‘global’’ reality looks different in that it is shaped by a dispersion of competences and power as well as challenges besides and beyond the state, which affects not at least the idea of state sovereignty. In the 1990s, in an attempt to capture this new reality, a pattern of ‘‘global’’-izing concepts commenced among social and political scientists as well as in public and political discourses. This pattern entailed extending traditional concepts with the use of the attribute ‘‘global’’; scholars, political actors and the wider public started to speak of the ‘‘global economy,’’ ‘‘global governance,’’ ‘‘global market,’’ ‘‘global democracy,’’ and ‘‘global politics.’’ In this respect, ‘‘global civil society’’ is another example of such a ‘‘global’’-ized concept. Given that the conceptualizations of ‘‘civil society’’ over the centuries have been about capturing and explaining the relationship between the state and society, the concept of ‘‘global civil society’’ is about considering ‘‘a social sphere, a global civil society, above and beyond national, regional, or local societies’’ (Anheier et al., 2001: 3) and its relation to institutions acting in and above statist boundaries. As Mary Kaldor (2003: 78) puts it, the ‘‘global’’-ization of the concept of ‘‘civil society’’ signifies ‘‘the domestification of the international.’’
Future Directions The main area of prospective research on ‘‘global civil society’’ relates to the concept itself. In order to ensure analytical value of the concept the ‘‘global’’ dimension of ‘‘global civil society’’ must be taken seriously. In order to make ‘‘global civil society’’ a distinct and useful concept, the specific characteristics of contemporary global (e.g., in
contrast to ‘‘international’’) times must be further scrutinized and interwoven into theories of civil society. In the long run intuitive and imprecise applications of the attribute ‘‘global’’ need to be avoided. In the absence of a global state, the relationship between contemporary civil society and global rules as a framework (beyond the state) needs to be further conceptualized. At the same time, the critical engagement with the concept of ‘‘global civil society’’ will have to imply tackling the challenges posed by methodological nationalism (Beck, 2003). It asks, for instance, for the development of new ways of ‘‘measuring’’ ‘‘global civil society’’ which go beyond counting and cataloging international nongovernmental organizations or parallel summits. The chronology of global civil society events which is provided in Global Civil Society is one good starting point that asks for ongoing and systematic revision and thorough methodological scrutiny. As a ‘‘global’’ phenomena, the investigation of ‘‘global civil society’’ requires nothing less than an extension of the ‘‘rails on which standard academic sociological [and political scientific] inquiry runs into new regions’’ (Beck, 2006: 74). In general, given that the term ‘‘global’’ always already implies a notion of wholism, and, as Vandana Shiva (1998: 223) puts it, ‘‘a skewed view of a common future,’’ the discursive power behind the application of the attribute ‘‘global’’ asks for systematic and critical investigation and deconstruction by social and political scientists. This relates both to the application of the term in academic as well as in public and political discourses.
Cross-References
▶ Amnesty International ▶ Greenpeace ▶ INGOs ▶ Jubilee 2000 ▶ Make Poverty History ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Social Movements ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits
References/Further Readings Anheier, H., Glasius, M., & Kaldor, M. (2001). Introducing global civil society. In H. Anheier, M. Glasius, & M. Kaldoribid. (Eds.), Global civil society 2001 (pp. 3–22). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anheier, H., Glasius, M., & Kaldor, M. (2004). Global civil society 2004/5. London: Sage. attac (URL), Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions to Aid Citizens, from http://www.attac.org (last accessed 1 January 2009). Bartelson, J. (2000). Three concepts of globalization. International Sociology, 15(2), 180–196. Beck, U. (2003). The analysis of global inequality: From national to cosmopolitan perspective. In M. Kaldor, H. Anheier, & M. Glasius (Eds.), Global civil society 2003 (pp. 45–55). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Global Reporting Initiative Beck, U. (2006). Cosmopolitan vision. Cambridge: Polity. Berger, P. (2005). Religion and global civil society. In M. Juergensmeyer (Ed.), Religion in global civil society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Clark, I. (1999). Globalization and international relations theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Glasius, M. (2002). Expertise in the cause of justice: Global civil society influence on the statue for an international criminal court. In M. Glasius, M. Kaldor, & H. Anheier (Eds.), Global civil society 2002 (pp. 137–168). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Global Civil Society annual publication by the Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics and Political Science, from http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/researchgcspub.htm (last accessed 1 January 2009). Held, D., McGrew, A., Goldblatt, D., & Perraton, J. (2003). Global transformations: Politics, economics and culture. Cambridge: Polity. Kaldor, M. (2003a). Global civil society: An answer to war. Cambridge: Polity. Kaldor, M. (2003b). The idea of global civil society. International Affairs, 79(3), 583–593. Kaldor, M., & Kostovicova, D. (2008). Global civil society and illiberal regimes. In M. Albrow et al. (Eds.), Global civil society 2007/8: Communicative power and democracy (pp. 86–113). London: Sage. Keane, J. (2001). Global civil society? In H. Anheier, M. Glasius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global civil society 2001 (pp. 23–47). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lipschutz, R. D. (2000). Politics among people: Global civil society. In H. H. Hobbs (Ed.), Pondering postinternationalism: A paradigm for the twenty-first century. Albany: State University of New York Press. Lipschutz, R. D. (2005). Power, politics and global civil society. Millennium – Journal of International Studies, 33(3), 747–769. Micheletti, M. (2004). Political virtue and shopping: Individuals, consumerism, and collective action. London: Palgrave. Rosenau, J. N. (1990). Turbulence in world politics: A theory of change and continuity. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Scholte, J. A. (1999). Global civil society: Changing the world? (CSGR Working Paper No. 31/99). From http://www.unicef.org/sociapolicy/files/Global_Civil_Society_Changing_the World.pdf and http:// www.lse.ac.uk/collections/secretariat/legal/disclaimer.htm Shiva, V. (1998). The greening of global reach. In G. Thuatail & S. Dalby (Eds.), The geopolitics reader. London: Routledge.
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Introduction and Brief History The Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria is a partnership of governments, civil society and private businesses seeking a new approach to international health financing. In the decade of the 1990s, the global community began to acknowledge the increasing threat that HIV/ AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria pose, and how these epidemics are strongly connected to poverty and development issues. In 2000 this concern was placed on the table at the meeting of the G8 countries in Okinawa, Japan, and in 2001 at the United Nations’s special session on AIDS, where the creation of a global fund to channel more resources was proposed. The Global Fund’s Secretariat was established in June 2002, beginning the activity of this international financing institution.
Mission/Activities/Contribution The Global Fund seeks to mobilize resources to support programs that evolve from national plans and priorities, both in prevention and treatment strategies. The support plans follow the principle of performance-based funding, that is, a strong emphasis is placed on the policies’ results and the progressive scaling-up of their impact. By early December 2008, the Global Fund had signed grant agreements worth US$10.2 billion for 579 projects in 137 countries, and had disbursed so far US$6.8 billion to grant recipients. It is estimated that 2.5 million lives have been saved by the effect of those initiatives.
Cross-References ▶ United Nations ▶ World Bank
References/Further Readings Salinas, D. (2008). A Strategy for the Global Fund: Accelerating the Effort to Save Lives, Geneva.
Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria FRANCISCO MARTINEZ
Global Reporting Initiative SARAH JASTRAM
Address of Organization Geneva Secretariat Chemin de Blandonnet 8 1214 Vernier Geneva Switzerland www.theglobalfund.org
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Address of Organization Keizersgracht 209 1016 DT, Amsterdam The Netherlands www.globalreporting.org
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Global Witness Ltd.
Introduction The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is an independent, nonprofit, multi-stakeholder network, which aims to increase the accountability and transparency of organizations with regard to their economic, environmental, and social performance. The initiative developed reporting guidelines – including principles and performance indicators – which enable organizations to report to different interest groups (stakeholders) and increase the comparability of sustainability performance.
Brief History The Global Reporting Initiative was started in 1997 by CERES, a nonprofit network of investors, environmental organizations, and other stakeholders which works for the recognition and integration of sustainability principles into business activities and capital markets. In 1999, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) joined the initiative, and in 2000, the GRI released its first Sustainability Reporting Guidelines. In 2001, the GRI became an independent institution.
Mission The GRI’s vision is ‘‘that reporting on economic, environmental, and social performance by all organizations is as routine and comparable as financial reporting.’’ Its current priorities with regard to the establishment and improvement of sustainability reporting are the fields of human rights, supply chain management, the impact made by organizations on communities, climate change, and financial markets.
Activities The GRI concentrates most of its activity on the development, establishment, and improvement of its reporting guidelines. To help it achieve these goals, it involves multiple stakeholders drawn from business, civil society, labor organizations, and professional institutions, who deliberate on key strategic and policy issues. In 2006, following several feedback processes and stakeholder consultations, the current, third version of the Guidelines (G3) was released. In order to stimulate demand and create greater capacity for sustainable reporting, the GRI also develops learning materials, holds a biennial international conference, and accredits training partners.
Structure and Governance The GRI is governed by a Board of Directors. This has fiduciary, financial, legal, and overall strategic powers and responsibilities. The Board is advised by a Stakeholder Council (elected by the organizational members of the GRI) and a Technical Advisory Committee. The
International Secretariat, based in Amsterdam, is responsible for all administrative and coordinative work.
Funding Being a nonprofit initiative, the GRI relies on the funding of organizational and governmental donors and supporters (2/3) and on income generated through the provision of learning and other services (1/3).
Accomplishments Since its launch, 1,500 companies have used the GRI’s reporting standards. These include many of the world’s leading brands, e.g., Hewlett-Packard, BMW, and McDonald’s. The guidelines constitute the most prominent sustainability reporting framework in existence and are referenced by related and equally well-established initiatives such as the UN Global Compact.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Sustainability ▶ Transparency ▶ UN Global Compact
References/Further Readings Bennett, M., James, P., & Klinkers, L. (Eds.) (1999). Sustainable measures: Evaluation and reporting of environmental and social performance. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing. Enderle, G. (2004). The ethics of financial reporting, the global reporting initiative, and the balanced concept of the firm. In G. G. Brenkert (Ed.), Corporate integrity and accountability (pp. 87–99). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Global Witness Ltd. BASTIAN SPECHT
Address of Organization P.O. Box 6042 London N19 5WP UK www.globalwitness.org
Introduction Global Witness (GW) investigates and campaigns to prevent natural resource-related conflict and corruption. Exploitation and illegal trade in natural resources such as
Global Witness Ltd.
diamonds, oil, timber, and gas are often used to fund civil war or terrorist activity, hindering economic growth and contributing to continued instability which in turn has a direct correlation to human rights and environmental abuses.
Brief History GW was the first organization that sought to break the links between the exploitation of natural resources, conflict and corruption. It was established in 1993 by the three founding directors Charmian Gooch, Simon Taylor and Patrick Alley and today numbers over 40 staff working in its offices in London and Washington, DC. Having different backgrounds such as history, biology, and industry, the three had worked before for an environmental organization called Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which since 1984 pioneered investigative conservation by exposing environmental crime. In 1995, GW’s very first campaign closed the Thai-Cambodia border to the $10–$20 million per month timber trade between the Khmer Rouge and Thai logging companies.
Mission GW campaigns to achieve real change by uncovering seemingly intractable global issues. The international nongovernmental organization works to highlight the links between the exploitation of natural resources and human rights abuses, particularly where resources are used to fund conflict. Local civil society groups are often acutely aware of predatory and destructive natural resource exploitation but unable to document and expose it because of intimidation and/or a lack of resources.
Activities GW gathers detailed, firsthand evidence in respective cases and comprehensive reports are used to brief governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society and the media. Major publications like ‘‘A Rough Trade: The Role of Governments and Companies in the Angolan Conflict’’ (1998) contributed to the establishment of the Kimberley Process and ‘‘A Crude Awakening’’ (1999) highlighted corruption in Angola. Activities of GW comprise investigating the role of financial institutions and ending impunity for all entities involved in facilitating natural resource wars and corruption and further campaign to change international thinking with regards to illegal logging and combating conflict diamonds.
Structure and Governance The organization is a nonprofit company limited by guarantee, incorporated in England on 15 November 1993.
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The company was established under a memorandum of association which established the objects and powers of the company. Because activities involve campaigning and political lobbying it is not eligible for charitable status. The Global Witness Trust is a UK registered charity and therefore able to receive tax efficient gifts, such as gift aid.
Funding The majority of Global Witness’ funding comes from grants made by foundations, governments and nongovernmental organizations and in 2006 comprised £2,582,508. Approximately 50% came in the form of grants from trusts and foundations, 16% from governments, 10% from nongovernmental organizations, 24% from individual donations. Grants are only accepted on a ‘‘free to use’’ basis to maintain independence of its campaigning voice. The Global Witness Trust is a UK registered charity and the Global Witness Foundation is an independent nonprofit public benefit corporation, both legally independent of Global Witness Limited and governed by a board of voluntary trustees.
Accomplishments GW was co-nominated for the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize for exposure of trade in conflict diamonds which led to the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme. In other campaigns GW uncovered illegal logging that was funding the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia and former Liberian president Charles Taylor’s arms-for-timber trade which led to United Nations sanctions on exports of Liberian timber during the civil war. Exposing corruption in oil, mining and gas industries contributed to the establishment of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the Publish What You Pay coalition comprising around 300 NGOs. In 2005 GW was awarded the Gleitsman Foundation prize for its international activism.
Cross-References ▶ Human Rights ▶ INGOs ▶ Lobbying
References/Further Readings Braid, M., & Castle, S. (2000). How a little band of London activists forced the diamond trade to confront the blood on its hands. London: The Independent, 24 July 2000, from http://www.independent.co.uk/ news/world/africa/how-a-little-band-of-london-activists-forced-thediamond-trade-to-confront-the-blood-on-its-hands-707479.html; 25/11/2008. Global Witness (2002). Resources, conflict and corruption. The work of global witness. London: Global Witness Ltd.
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GMF ▶ German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF)
Goff, Frederick Harris ELEANOR W. SACKS
Basic Biographical Information Frederick Harris Goff created the first community foundation in 1914, The Cleveland Foundation, in Cleveland, Ohio. Goff was born in Blackbury, Illinois, December 15, 1858. His family moved to Cleveland when he was a child, and he attended the city’s public schools. He enrolled in the University of Michigan, receiving a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in 1881. After reading law, he was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1884. He did legal work for many wealthy residents of Cleveland, handling large and difficult estates. In doing so he became familiar with the difficulties surrounding the establishment of charitable trusts in perpetuity. Goff was also an expert on corporate structuring. His law firm represented Rockefeller interests in Ohio, where the Rockefeller oil empire had its start. Goff became widely known as a civic leader after devising a solution to a longstanding feud between two streetcar companies in Cleveland, one public and one private, which drove both into bankruptcy. In 1907 Goff devised a compromise plan that was good for both the companies and local citizens. This compromise secured his reputation as a leading citizen of Cleveland. In 1908, he became the head of The Cleveland Trust Company, where he instituted operating standards that were innovative for their time. The reforms established trust in his bank through implementation of open and transparent policies. His beliefs in how to organize and manage institutions affected the way he structured The Cleveland Foundation. He died on March 14, 1923 at age 68.
Major Contributions Fred Goff was perfectly placed to conceive of the community foundation idea. His experience as both a lawyer and a banker helped him develop a sound structure for a community foundation, which he devised and put into effect in less than two years. Goff studied the formation of the large private foundations set up by Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller and others. Like them, he believed that the wealthy had a responsibility to use their resources for charitable
purposes. He wanted to give wealthy individuals and those of more modest means a way to give back to their communities by creating a vehicle for philanthropy that was democratic – public, not private. Community foundations are grantmaking foundations that focus their activities in a geographical area. Goff’s community foundation idea consisted of combining multiple charitable funds established by donors, and administering them as a single trust within trust banks. The real innovation was the establishment of a Distribution Committee, in effect a board of trustees, to represent the public and make decisions on grants and grantmaking priorities. In the Cleveland Foundation model, the majority of Distribution Committee members were nominated by specified public officials and the remainder by the trust banks. Board members served limited terms and were not selfperpetuating, as were the boards of private foundations. Community foundations solved several troubling issues of the day, including how to deal with ill-conceived trusts that were frozen. Large amounts of money sat idle in banks, because their charitable purposes could not be carried out. Although it was possible to alter trusts, it had to be done through the courts and could take decades to resolve. Goff gave community foundations the power to alter trusts and freedom from the ‘‘dead hand of the law,’’ ensuring that assets for charitable purposes would be available in perpetuity. The community foundation idea proved to be a highly flexible form of community philanthropy, able to respond to the changing needs of vastly different communities over time. The concept spread quickly, in part because of the strength of the idea, but also, in the early days, due to the promotional efforts of the banking community and Goff himself.
Cross-References
▶ Cleveland Foundation ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Functions of
References/Further Readings The Cleveland Trust Company (1923). Frederick Harris Goff: A brief sketch of his life and an account of the memorial meeting held by the directors of The Cleveland Trust Company in March 1923. Cleveland: The Cleveland Trust Company. Freiberger, I. F. (1951). Frederick Harris Goff (1858–1923): Lawyer, banker, civic leader. Princeton, NJ: The Newcomen Publications, Princeton University Press. Howard, N. R. (1963). Trust for all time: The story of The Cleveland Foundation and the community trust movement. Cleveland: The Cleveland Foundation.
GONGOs
GONGOs LAWRENCE S. CUMMING Independent Consultant in International Development and Civil Society, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Introduction With apologies to Shakespeare, some are born NGOs, some achieve NGO-ness, and some have NGO-ness thrust upon them! Not all NGOs enjoy the purest of conceptions. Some are brought into being as the result of official action or at least connivance, and there are often ulterior motives involved in their creation. The idea of governments, or at least interests close to governments creating entities outside of government and not of government may be inherently risible, rather like an animal giving birth to a fish or a bird. However, closer examination quickly reveals that the oxymoron is alive and well. GONGO formation is something that happens rather regularly, frequently, for a variety of reasons and in many places.
Definition The Government Organized Nongovernmental Organization (GONGO) might, in some ways of thinking, constitute one subcategory of the QUANGO or Quasi-Nongovernmental Organization. In fact, some GONGOs might be also be QUANGOs or at least be indistinguishable. Because of their provenance, however, this category known as ‘‘GONGO’’ merits consideration as a separate classification. The acronym GONGO is one of an apparently expanding assortment that includes MONGO (my own NGO), PONGO (parliamentary organized NGO or, sometimes, personal NGO), FINGO (financially interested NGO), GANGO (gap-filling NGO), BRINGO (brief case NGO), (DONGO (donor organized NGO), DINGO (donor international NGO), BONGO (business organized NGO), BINGO (business interest NGO), BENGO (bent, in the sense of crooked NGO), CHONGO (city hall NGO), GRINGO (government run or inspired run NGO), PANGO (party-affiliated NGO), RONGO (retired officials NGO), COMENGO (come and go, or here today and gone tomorrow NGO) as well as MANGO or MONGO (Mafia-affiliated or Mafia organized NGO). Though some of these give rise to a certain amount of mirth, they do attempt to describe what is a rather serious phenomenon, namely nongovernmental organizations being created by other parties to further their own interests. Sometimes the intent is to masquerade. It may be done to
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create a respectable front for a questionable purpose. Other times, it may be to fill what someone in an official position deems a gap because no one else is filling it. Although the creation of GONGOs often invites cynicism, if not contempt, the possibility that some are created for honest reasons should not be discounted. There are examples to be found in the literature and in personal experience of organizations which exhibit most of the characteristics of a genuine NGO but whose inspiration was official. Ian Smillie (1995: 32–33) describes one such case from Sri Lanka. The common thread of this discussion is provenance. If it is a GONGO, its origin which tends to limit, qualify, or diminish its nongovernmental character. A ‘‘GONGO’’ is, simply put, an organization that is created, either directly or indirectly, by action of a government or one of its agencies. Thus its roots are official, in other words, inspired, or created by state initiative. Normally, one of the essential characteristics of an authentic NGO is that it is the product of an initiative emerging from somewhere within civil society, as an attempt by a group of citizens to address a perceived social need, one which they deem important. There is, it must be noted, some inconsistency of definition as offered by leading authorities in the literature. John Clark (Hulme & Edwards, 1997: 50), for instance, refers to ‘‘government-oriented nongovernmental organizations,’’ though this seems a little weak in addressing the question of parentage. David Korten and others use the simpler term ‘‘government nongovernmental organizations’’ (1990: 104–105). In some documents the term ‘‘GONGO’’ means ‘‘government operated NGO,’’ even though direct operation by a government does not seem to be a necessary aspect of the operative dynamics of such an entity. Because of its more widespread usage over time, but more because formulations that do not include the word ‘‘organized’’ might too easily be confused with QUANGO, this paper uses the term ‘‘government organized nongovernmental organization’’ (GONGO).
Historical Background In spite of the significant qualification which the phrase ‘‘government organized’’ suggests, GONGOs are clearly a sub-category of ‘‘NGOs’’ as a broader category. Despite its provenance, and often because of that provenance, a GONGO normally enjoys whatever formal social and legal status applies to more authentic NGO in the jurisdiction where it is registered It is usually considered as a nonprofit organization (if that term has any ascribed significance where it resides), and it may enjoy a formal legal registration as such in that jurisdiction. Depending
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on the laws applicable, it may also enjoy the privileges of a registered charitable organization, though the latter is not a defining characteristic. As noted elsewhere, the term NGO arose originally as an attempt to ascribe some identity and status to entities that were not part of any state apparatus but were seen as having a functionally beneficial relationship with departments or agencies of the United Nations. Initially, NGOs were those defined as having consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). With the passage of time, the number, variety, and location of NGOs proliferated. In present times, there are many more NGOs that have no formal relations with agencies of the United Nations than those which do. Moreover, the term ‘‘NGO’’ has come to be widely used to describe organizations engaged purely within their own particular national jurisdictions and having little or no involvement beyond their territorial borders. An early initiative that might, in later times, have been termed a ‘‘GONGO’’ was the Eva Peron Foundation, established by the wife of the Argentine President, Juan Peron as ‘‘the paradigmatic form of social assistance in the 1940s’’ (Vliadrich & Andres, 1996). No one was closer to the President than Ms. Peron, and the example would almost certainly qualify as a GONGO. During the ‘‘Cold War’’ period beginning at the end of World War II and continuing for roughly the next four and a half decades, GONGOs from the Soviet Union and eastern European countries, ‘‘peace movement’’ organizations most notably, acquired a dubious reputation if not notoriety as fronts for extending Soviet influence throughout the world. Another well known and instructive national case example is Indonesia where GONGOs and QUANGOs proliferated during the long Soeharto regime. As one author has described: "
In QUANGOs and GONGOs wives and close relatives of famous politicians are often to be found. They do not only serve the public interest but also make sure that the government wishes are taken into account. Even military generals might be found on their committees. . . . Any successful self-help initiative or NGO will either be regulated or soon co-opted into the quasi administration directed by the government or even forced to abandon its activities. The result is a disguised bureaucracy which looks like donors want it to look without any comparative advantage such as flexibility, participation, innovation and responsiveness. (Vahlhans, 1994: 3).
The Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Policy magazine cites a number of examples from around the world, including the
Myanmar Women’s Affairs Federation, Nashi (a Russian youth group), the Sudanese Human Rights Organization, the Kyrgystan Association of Noncommercial and Nongovernmental Organizations, Chonygryon (the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan) and the Venezuelan inspired Bolivarian Circles to be found throughout Latin America (Naim, April 21, 2007). In selecting this mix of geographies, he suggests that the practice of GONGO creation is quite widespread. Terms like ‘‘GONGO’’ and some of the others listed above have no official status. They have, however, found their way into common parlance and the lexicon of useful terms as descriptors of certain kinds of organization that anyone can easily recognize. These exist somewhere in the nether land between official state agencies and more ‘‘pure’’ NGOs initiated by public-spirited persons to address particular social needs in their own countries or in other parts of the world and feeling some compulsion to act. There is also a murkier development worthy of mention which takes things a step further. One authority has identified a type which she entitles the ‘‘flex organization,’’ ‘‘the defining feature (of which) is that they switch their status situationally – from state to private – back and forth, strategically manoeuvring their statuses so as to best access state, business and sometimes international resources’’ (Wedel, 2002: 3). These are found in the corrupt circumstances of postSoviet ‘‘situational states.’’ However, she goes on to say that: "
flex organizations are neither QUANGOs nor GONGOs (which) do not imply simultaneous overlap between government officials and NGO operatives . . . QUANGOs and GONGOs imply static relationships and thus cannot enable total deniability. . . . Whereas QUANGOs and GONGOs could come into conflict of interest with state organizations, flex organizations cannot because they obfuscate conflict of interest (p. 4).
This, then, forms the outer limit of the present discussion. The GONGO, along with other hybrid forms discussed elsewhere, clearly takes the legal and institutional shape of an NGO and has to be understood within these parameters.
Key Issues The key issues closely track those discussed under the QUANGO heading. Some may, however, bear repeating, while others are more particular to the GONGO phenomenon:
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Political and/or Geopolitical Control
The very idea of a GONGO suggests the exercise of a political interest in pursuit of a goal. Governments create mechanisms for the implementation of their policies. The sphere may be domestic, or it may be international and even global. If the latter, governments, particularly of the great powers will almost certainly have geopolitical interests which they will advance by a variety of means. One of these may be the GONGO which might well be established ostensibly to advance ideas and practices such as democracy promotion which are not, on the surface, politically contentious but, in fact, mask other economic and foreign policy objectives (see Chaulia, 2006).
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becomes particularly problematic if the other organizations are more honest, competent, and relevant to real social needs. Integrity and Credibility
An organization which was founded by civil society actors in response to a pressing need, as perceived by its founders, should, alteris paribus, be more likely to remain true to its vision and its mission than one which is created by a government. Likewise, if an organization is acting according to its best principles and values, and if it reflects honest and grounded experience when it speaks, it is likely to enjoy greater credibility than one which does not.
Authenticity
Sustainability
A genuine and honestly conceived NGO is normally an authentic social expression of interest in or concern about a certain social issue, usually one the founders deem to be pressing. Though a GONGOs might be a worthy response in particular circumstances, in the absence of any better, it tends to lack the authenticity of one organized by a group of citizens.
Government giveth, and government taketh away! An NGO with a broad base of support and recognized legitimacy is more likely to be sustainable through changing times, including shifting government funding policies and priorities. By contrast, it is usually very difficult for a GONGO, as a transplant, to put down roots in unfamiliar soil and flourish as a healthy and sustainable organization. An interesting sidebar to this discussion is to be found in efforts of agencies such as the United States Agency for International Development to assess sustainability of NGOs in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia (USAID, 2004). Given the amount of USAID sponsored effort directed towards developing NGOs in these regions, the attempt to measure sustainability would appear suggest some concern as to the efficacy of this approach.
Legitimacy
At a time when challenges to the legitimacy of selfappointing and self-perpetuating nongovernmental organizations are being given voice, GONGOs are particularly vulnerable to scrutiny. The burning question ‘‘who owns the agency’’ (Saxby, 1996), which is a valid and pressing one for any organization, assumes a particular poignancy in relation to GONGOs. Independence or Autonomy
As a general rule, the greater the degree of autonomy an organization enjoys, the greater is its scope for determining its own priorities and fields of action. A GONGO, like other organizations created by particular interests, especially if for ulterior motives, is most likely to continue to be beholden to those interests and inclined to do their bidding. Admittedly, it is not impossible to imagine a GONGO becoming more autonomous or even independent over time, assuming a willingness on the part of its founders to see it move in that direction, or perhaps a simple inability to generate and provide the necessary resources to continue controlling it. Privilege and Favouritism
If an NGO is created by the action of a government, or persons close to government and acting on its behalf, it has a privileged relationship. This probably means a less favored relationship for other organizations. This
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International Perspectives GONGOs are to be found around the world, in both the global south and the global north. Though some of the NGO literature suggests that the GONGO is a ‘‘southern’’ phenomenon, such entities are certainly not unknown in the global ‘‘north.’’ One of the best known, in fact, is the National Endowment for Democracy initiated by President Regan and created in 1983 by the United States Congress (Naim, April 21, 2007). Though the NDI has many defenders (as well as some detractors), whether or not it is a ‘‘good organization’’ is essentially beside the point in this discussion. Notwithstanding that it was created with an NGO form, it is an instrument of official United States foreign policy. Indeed it has been argued that the device is about how control and direction of interventions behind a facade of independence and nonpartisanship are maintained. (Chaulia, 2006). Another, albeit somewhat less controversial northern example would be Katimavik, created by Canadian Senator
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Jacques Hebert with encouragement and full funding by the Government of Canada. To this day, the official Katimavik website refers to its foundation in 1977 as being ‘‘from a vision of. . . . Mr. Jacques Hebert, with the help of his friend, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Canada’s Prime Minister at the time’’ (Katimavik). That youth service in remote and poor communities is a laudable aim, and that a great many young Canadians have gained extremely valuable life changing experiences and improved themselves as citizens is not in question. Sometimes in the literature, the term refers to organizations created in certain authoritarian contexts (frequently the former eastern bloc countries but not only these) to be mouthpieces in international fora, ostensibly representing ‘‘the people’’ but in fact speaking only for governments. Soviet era peace and friendship organizations were good examples. All this having been said, conditions in the global south may often be more conducive to the formation of GONGOs. In many instances, front organizations are created by relatives of government ministers or officials, members of national assemblies or local governments, business interests and so on to generate and channel money (usually foreign) into preferred community activities, thereby to enhancing their image and their positions and, generally, exercising forms of social influence and control. The diversion or siphoning of some of the money as it flows, it goes without saying, is not unknown.
Future Directions Notwithstanding the difficulty of being entirely sure as to what is likely to happen in each and every country of the world, there are some present trends which, if projected, give some indication of future directions. It is probably very unlikely that Governments will cease to create ‘‘NGOs’’ when they deem it in their interest to do so. Many will continue to see occasions when the ‘‘front organization’’ will operate with an apparent, if illusory independence that enhances the credibility of their work. Whether governments will prefer the route of establishing arm’s length or statutory bodies with a substantial degree of autonomy or GONGOs, depends on the history, the constitution, the political culture, the legal and social norms of the country in question as well as an assessment of advantages and disadvantages of each of the alternatives. Such decisions will, no doubt, also depend on the prevailing policy attitudes of donor governments and multilateral agencies from time to time. In a climate where NGOs are viewed instrumentally or as useful and credible channels, there remains a considerable likelihood of GONGOs being formed.
An interesting variant includes international NGOs established by nonsovereign governmental agencies. A very good example is the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI) which is an international association of local governments hosted by the City of Toronto but with members drawn from around the world and concerned with what local authorities might do, in partnership with one another and with local civil society and even the private sector to enhance the quality of the living environment. Whether this model becomes a trend or an isolated case remains to be seen, but it does testify to the flexibility of the NGO form. The foregoing is not to be confused with the equally interesting international phenomenon of NGOs created by nonstate actors in the absence of intergovernmental agreement or action, a good example of which is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Another hybrid, perhaps an historic anomaly, is the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), which might be discussed under either this or the ‘‘QUANGO’’ heading. ‘‘The ISO is actually not purely an NGO, since its membership is by nation, and each nation is represented by what the ISO Council determines to be ‘the most broadly representative’ standardization body of a nation.’’ These include both nongovernmental and governmental agencies. (Political Dictionary, Answers.com.) Much depends on evolving understanding of the role of the state versus that of civil society organizations and the prevailing winds at the time. Likewise, trends are influenced by accumulated experience of the value and efficacy of NGOs, individually, and collectively. Perhaps most importantly, there is the question of what support can be garnered. If, in the case of countries dependent on foreign aid, donors are more prepared to support NGOs than state institutions, there is incentive to create GONGOs as ‘‘reliable’’ channels for receiving and disbursing that aid.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Public Law or Government ▶ Government – Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ NGOs, Nongovernmental organizations ▶ QUANGOs, Quasi nongovernmental organizations
References/Further Readings Answers.com, www.answers.com/topic/non-governmental-organization Chaulia, S. (2006, January 19). ‘‘Democratization, NGOs’’ and ‘‘Colour Revolutions,’’ Open Democracy, from http:/www.opendemocracy. net/globalization-institutions_government/colour_revolutions Hulme, D., & Edwards, M. (Eds.) (1997). NGOs, states and donors: Too close for comfort? New York: St. Martin’s Press in association with Save the Children.
Good Governance and Civil Society Iriyama, A. (2005). Government-nonprofit relations: A Japanese case. Rikkyu Journal of Social Design Studies, Tokyo, from http://www. rikkyo.ne.jp/web/z2000368/journals/no4_thesis03.html Korten, D. (1990). Getting to the 21st century: Voluntary action and the global agenda. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Naim, M. (2007). Democracy’s Dangerous Imposters. Washington Post, April 21. NationMaster.com, Encyclopaedia: Non Governmental Organization. Saxby, J. (1996). Who owns the private aid agencies? In D. Sogge (Ed.), Compassion and calculation: The business of private foreign aid. London: Pluto Press. Smillie, I., (1995). The alms bazaar: Altruism under fire – non-profit organizations and international development. Ottawa: International Development Research Centre and Intermediate Technology Publications. Steen, O. I. (1996). Autonomy or dependency? Relations between non-governmental international organizations and government. Voluntas, 7(2), 147–159. Steinberg, N. (2001). Background paper on GONGOs and QUANGOs and Wild NGOs. New York: World Federalist Movement. United States Agency for International Development (USAID). (2005). The 2004 NGO sustainability index for Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia (8th ed.). Washington, DC. Vahlhans, M. (1994). The New Popularity of NGOs: Will the Enthusiasm Last? DþC Development and Co-operation, No. 3, pp. 20–22, Frankfurt. Viladrich, A., & Thomson, A. A. (1996). Women’s philanthropy in Argentina from the society of beneficence to Eva Peron. Voluntas, 7 (4), 336–349. Wedel, J. R. (2002, August). Blurring the boundaries of the state-private divide: Implications for corruption. Paper presented at the European Association of Social Anthropologists Conference in Copenhagen, from www.anthrobase.com/Txt/W/Wedel_J_01.htm Whiting, S. H. (1991). The politics of NGO development in China. Voluntas, 2(2), 16–48.
Good Governance and Civil Society CARMEN MALENA CIVICUS Participatory Governance Program, Stoneham, QC, Canada
Introduction Since its origins, the concept of civil society has been linked with the notion of governance. Throughout both ancient and modern history, ideas about civil society and governance have each followed their own complex and multifaceted trajectories but their relevance to one another has remained undeniable. Influenced by changing historic realities and varied sociopolitical contexts, different schools of thought have evolved regarding both the nature of the relationship between civil society and governance,
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as well as the level of importance placed on the link between the two. Since the 1980s, when governance failures began to be identified as a principal obstacle to the achievement of crucial world development goals, the link between civil society and governance has received renewed attention, at both the theoretical and operational levels. There is now broad consensus that good governance requires both a strong state and a strong civil society. Civil society institutions contribute to good governance through four principal means by: (i) nurturing civic virtues and behaviors; (ii) providing space for public debate and negotiation; (iii) checking the power of the state, and; (iv) contributing to or performing governance functions. Through these means, civil society actors contribute to each of the key elements of good governance: transparency, participation, responsiveness, rule of law, effectiveness, equity, and accountability.
Definition Governance refers broadly to the manner in which authority is exercised and decisions are made and implemented. The concept of governance can be applied to any form of authority or decision-making (at the global, societal, community, or organizational level) but it is most frequently applied to the governance of sovereign states. The World Bank, for example, defines governance as ‘‘the process and institutions by which authority in a country is exercised’’ (World Bank, 1994). According to the United Nations Development Program, governance refers to ‘‘the exercise of political, economic and administrative authority in the management of a country’s affairs’’ (UNDP, 1997). Since the dawn of the modern nation-state, governance has often been associated, and sometimes equated, with the actions of government. Since the late 1980s, however, the term has been reconceptualized to be more inclusive of all institutions and processes, both governmental and nongovernmental, that are relevant to societal decision-making. The World Bank states that, in addition to ‘‘the process by which governments are selected, monitored, and replaced and the capacity of the government to effectively formulate and implement sound policies,’’ governance includes ‘‘the respect of citizens and the state for the institutions that govern economic and social interactions among them’’ (World Bank, 1994). The United Nations includes in its perception of governance ‘‘those mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences’’ (UNDP, 1997: 2–3). Hyden et al. (2004: 16) assert that governance refers to ‘‘the formation and stewardship
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of the formal and informal rules that regulate the public realm, the arena in which the state as well as economic and societal actors interact to take decisions.’’ While there is broad consensus that governance is about more than governments, current definitions and schools of thought vary according to how much relative emphasis they place on state or nonstate actors and the relationship between them. Some definitions of governance go beyond the ‘‘state plus’’ formulation and identify shared responsibilities and relationships among state and nonstate actors as the core essence of governance. Stoker (1998: 38), for example, states that while the term government refers to the formal institutional structure and location of authoritative decision-making, governance refers to the ‘‘interactive relationship between and within government and non-governmental forces.’’ Tandon and Mohanty (2002: 10) define governance as ‘‘the joint responsibility of the state, market, and citizens to mobilize public resources and promote public decision-making towards the advancement of the common public good.’’ In recent years, a number of international organizations that support governance programs (such as the UNDP, World Bank and DfID) have begun to emphasize the ‘‘demand-side’’ of the governance equation and to adopt definitions of governance that emphasize the role of citizens and civil society. AusAid (2000: 3), for example, asserts that governance comprises ‘‘the mechanisms, processes and institutions through which citizens and groups articulate their interests, exercise their legal rights, meet their obligations and mediate their differences.’’ In the late 1980s, the World Bank began to attribute the failure of its economic policies in Africa to ‘‘bad governance’’ (e.g., inefficiency, lack of transparency, corruption). As a result, the concept of ‘‘good governance’’ attracted growing attention and rapidly became a buzzword in international development discourse (World Bank, 1992, 1994). For the World Bank, good governance is epitomized by ‘‘predictable, open and enlightened policy making; a bureaucracy imbued with a professional ethos; an executive arm of government accountable for its actions; and a strong civil society participating in public affairs; and all behaving under the rule of law’’ (World Bank, 1992 1994). According to the UNDP, good governance is participatory, transparent, accountable, effective, and equitable. It promotes the rule of law and ensures that political, social, and economic priorities are based on broad consensus in society and that the voices of the poorest and the most vulnerable are heard in decisionmaking (UNDP, 1997). Definitions and descriptions of what constitutes good governance vary, but they tend to share a number of common elements. These include:
transparency, participation, responsiveness, rule of law, effectiveness, equity, and accountability.
Historical Background Current ideas about the role of civil society in good governance draw upon a long history of political philosophy dating back to ancient Greece. For classical philosophers, civil society was synonymous with good society (i.e., one in which social conflicts are governed by rules and civic virtues prevail). The state and civil society were indistinguishable. They held that state represented the civil form of society and ‘‘civility’’ represented the requirement of good citizenship. Late medieval thought continued this tradition by equating civil society with law-bound associations that governed the ‘‘public arena’’ under the protection of the state (Edwards, 2004: 6–7). In the late 1600s, half a century after the Treaty of Westphalia and the birth of the modern state system, John Locke acknowledging the dangers of unchecked state powers, forged a social contract whereby people submit themselves to the common public authority, but one which is bound by civil and natural laws to respect basic human rights (of life, liberty, and property) (Locke, 1689). During the Enlightenment period (of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth Century) thinkers began to articulate the idea of civil society as a defense against violations by the state of basic freedoms and rights. This notion of civil society as an independent sphere checking the power of the state was subsequently taken up by a range of thinkers. Alexis de Tocqueville, writing at the turn of the twentieth century, underlined the importance of an independent civil society sphere to counterbalance state power. More recently, the New Left has emphasized civil society as a site for organizing political resistance and Putnam (1993, 2000) has highlighted the value of voluntary associations in curbing the power of centralizing institutions. Tocqueville also famously underlined the importance of civil society as a ‘‘school of democracy,’’ teaching values of association, debate, and collective problem-solving, thus providing the building blocks for democracy. A range of thinkers have since theorized about the various ways in which civil society lays the societal foundations for good/ democratic governance, for example, by promoting political participation (Almond & Verba, 1989) and nurturing trust and social capital (Putnam, 1993, 2000). Another school of thought emphasizes the vital role of civil society as a public space – providing an arena for contestation (Gramsci), a public sphere for debate and deliberation (Arendt, 1958), a space for ‘‘communicative action’’ (Habermas, 1992) and for nonviolent engagement between different social groups (Keyne, 1998).
Good Governance and Civil Society
How Civil Society Contributes to Good Governance Drawing on each of these different historic perspectives and schools of thought, four principal ways in which civil society contributes to good governance can be identified. These include the following. Nurturing Civic Virtues and Behaviors
Civil society is seen to play a crucial role in building the social foundations for good governance by nurturing civic values, skills, and relationships. Classical philosophers, such as Plato, saw civil society as a place where people practiced virtues of wisdom, moderation, and justice and dedicated themselves to the common good. Following in this tradition of civil society as an incubator of civic culture and practices, political philosophers have argued that civil society contributes to democracy and good governance by: promoting association, democratic decisionmaking and collective action (Tocqueville, 1900); building an informed and active citizenry (Almond and Verba); nurturing trust, shared vales and a sense of interconnectedness (Putnam, 1993, 2000), and; protecting pluralism (Cohen & Arato, 1992). Others, however, have questioned how virtuous and democratic civil society actually is – pointing to the ‘‘uncivil’’ nature of some civil society actors and actions and the lack of democracy and accountability within the sphere (Agnew, 2002). Providing Space for Public Debate and Negotiation
Civil society is also seen as contributing to good governance by providing a critical public space where issues, ideas, and interests can be exchanged and negotiated. Again, the idea that public debate is imperative to ensure civility and good governance can be traced back to classical philosophers (e.g., Socrates ‘‘dialectic’’). As discussed above, a range of thinkers throughout history and up to contemporary times (e.g., Gramsci, Arendt, Habermas, Keane) have emphasized the importance of civil society as a public sphere or arena for contestation, debate, deliberation, negotiation, and collective action. Checking the Power of the State
The role of civil society as a ‘‘watchdog’’ and check on the power of the state is seen as another of its crucial contributions to good governance. Locke’s social compact, binding the state to abide by civil laws, and Enlightenment thinkers’ emphasis on protecting against state violations of individual rights, established an important tradition of civil society as a countervailing force to the state. The role of civil society in mobilizing opposition to authoritarian rule and supporting democratic reforms has been well
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documented (Harbeson et al., 1994; Hall, 1995; Keane, 1998; Escobar & Alvarez, 1992). Civil society has also acted as a monitor and constant watchdog of democratic regimes. Over the past decade, the notion of social accountability has gained importance (Ackerman, 2004; Malena et al., 2004) and a plethora of increasingly effective approaches and tools which with citizens and civil society actors can monitor, oversee, and hold to account the state have evolved. Contributing to or Performing Governance Functions
A final way in which civil society is seen as contributing directly to good governance is by either participating in governance processes (such as public agenda-setting, policy-making, planning, budgeting, and service delivery) or directly taking on certain governance functions (e.g., in the context of self-government or community-driven initiatives or public-private partnerships). In the case of the former, ‘‘participatory governance’’ approaches that allow for the active participation of citizens and civil society actors in governance processes (e.g., participatory planning and budgeting practices) have developed significantly over the past two decades. Here, civil society organizations play a particularly important role in facilitating and mediating relationships between citizens and the state. Civil society organizations and local associations themselves taking responsibility for the delivery of basic services has arisen especially in developing country contexts where governments have been incapable of meeting basic needs. The idea was also promoted by the ‘‘new public management’’ movement of the 1990s, which held that governments should ‘‘steer rather than row’’ and delegate service delivery to private sector or civil society organizations who could perform more efficiently or effectively than public agencies (Osborne & Gaebler, 1992).
Key Issues Key elements of good governance include: transparency, participation, responsiveness, rule of law, effectiveness, equity, and accountability. Civil society, in its various roles as a school of civic virtues, a public space, a government watchdog and an active participant in governance processes contributes to each of these crucial dimensions of good governance. Transparency
Transparency means that information about the process and content of public decision-making is available and accessible to those affected by it. Transparency in public affairs is considered crucial in order to: guard against corruption; ensure that rules and regulations are followed;
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and provide citizens with the information they need to understand, monitor, and evaluate government decisions and actions. Civil society organizations play an important role in educating citizens about their information rights and nurturing demand for public information. They also play a key role in: supporting reforms to make government more transparent (e.g., Transparency International); lobbying for the adoption of freedom of information legislation (e.g., the Right to Information movement in India); advocating for greater public financial transparency (e.g., the Open Budget Initiative and Publish What You Pay campaign); and demystifying and disseminating key public documents (such as laws, budgets, policies, regulations, and fee tables). Participation
Citizen and civil society participation is considered a cornerstone of good governance (Commonwealth Foundation, 1999; Gaventa, 2006). It takes on myriad forms including: participating in elections and referendums; voicing concerns in public consultations, meetings, and forums; lobbying for reforms or action on key issues; contributing to public needs assessment and planning processes; and serving on public boards and oversight committees. Processes of decentralization in many countries around the world aim to promote and facilitate citizen and community participation in governance processes (Cheema et al., 2007; Oxhorn et al., 2004). Over the past two decades, innovations in the areas of participatory policy-making, participatory budgeting and community-based monitoring and evaluation of public services, for example, have broadened and deepened opportunities for civic participation. In many countries, civil society organizations have played a key role in: advocating for freedoms of association, expression, and participation; opening up spaces and opportunities for civic engagement; helping citizen groups to organize and access information; strengthening links between citizens and elected officials; and facilitating citizen-state interactions. Responsiveness
Good governance requires that public authorities are responsive to the priority needs and interests of all members of society. This requires that authorities are: aware of the genuine needs and interests of different societal groups; able to manage processes of deliberation and consensusbuilding on actions that best serve the common good; and willing to act on this basis. Civil society significantly contributes to each of these elements of responsiveness by: helping different societal groups to publicly articulate their needs and viewpoints (e.g., though community organization, participatory needs assessment, community
radio); convening or supporting processes of public deliberation and negotiation (using methods like citizens’ juries and deliberative polling); and monitoring government actions to ensure they respond to identified needs and agreed priorities (using social accountability practices as described below). Rule of Law
Good governance requires the primacy of rule of law, maintained through fair legal frameworks that are impartially enforced. It also requires full protection of human rights, particularly those of minorities and marginalized social groups. While primary responsibility for ensuring rule of law clearly lies with public authorities, civil society actors contribute to this dimension of good governance by: speaking out against breaches of rule of law; drawing public attention to human rights violations and advocating for their redress (e.g., Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International); lobbying for legal reforms; monitoring the effectiveness and impartiality of justice services (Court Watch initiatives); and providing legal and paralegal aid services (especially to underprivileged groups). Effectiveness and Efficiency
Good governance means that public institutions make effective and efficient use of the resources at their disposal. Civil society contributes to effective and efficient public management and service delivery in several important ways. First, an important threat to the effective and efficient use of public resources is corruption. Civil society actions aimed at promoting transparency and fighting government corruption, therefore, contribute directly to effectiveness and efficiency. Secondly, around the world, hundreds of thousands of community-based organizations and other nonprofit groups are directly involved in the delivery of key basic services (such as health, education, water, sanitation). Whether through self-help initiatives or public-private partnerships, experience shows that civil society organizations can frequently meet needs more effectively and efficiently than public service providers, especially when they are involved in decisionmaking as well as service delivery (Krishna, 2003). Finally – through measures such as independent budget analysis, public expenditure tracking, procurement watch programs, citizen report cards and community-based monitoring and evaluation – citizens and civil society groups are playing an increasingly important role in helping to ensure effective allocation of public resources, efficient public procurement and spending; and quality public service delivery.
Good Governance and Civil Society
Equity and Inclusiveness
Equity and inclusiveness is another key dimension of good governance. Social stability and well-being is dependent on ensuring that all members of society have equality of opportunity and do not feel excluded from the mainstream. Systems of governance based on representation tend to be elite-dominated and are not always able to ensure that the interests and concerns of socially marginalized and vulnerable groups receive fair consideration and attention. Despite concerns that such groups also tend to be marginalized and underrepresented within civil society (Chandhoke, 2007), there are many examples of traditionally marginalized groups (such as women, youth, poor people, minorities, people living with disabilities) forming associations to make their voices heard and many examples of ‘‘intermediary’’ civil society organizations supporting their efforts and defending their rights. That said, socioeconomic inequities and exclusion are persistent problems for both governmental and nongovernmental institutions and further effort and action is required across all social spheres to fulfill this principle of good governance. Accountability
Accountability, or the obligation of power-holders to take responsibility for their actions, is a cornerstone of good governance. The limited effectiveness of governments’ own internal mechanisms of accountability has led to increased emphasis on the role of citizens and civil society organizations in holding public authorities to account. A number of these mechanisms of ‘‘social accountability’’ – including independent budget analysis, expenditure tracking, participatory monitoring and evaluation and citizen oversight bodies – have been described above. Other social accountability strategies used by civil society groups include: public revenue tracking; informing/initiating parliament investigations; filing complaints; forging alliances with public ombudsmen or anticorruption agencies; or undertaking public litigation. Effective social accountability also depends on transparency (in order to have access to relevant information and data) and rule of law (in order to ensure enforcement and redress). Principles of social accountability challenge civil society organizations to enhance their own transparency accountability (especially ‘‘downwards’’ accountability to their members and the constituents they serve).
Future Directions The subject of civil society contributions to good governance is timely and dynamic. The current period is marked by both theoretical evolutions and operational innovations. While there is growing consensus that civil
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society is an integral element of the governance equation, this principle has not yet been fully worked through in the conceptualization and implementation of good governance initiatives. For example, the most recent generation of donor-supported ‘‘demand for good governance’’ initiatives still tend to conceive of citizens/civil society groups as ‘‘demanders’’ of good governance, and not as active contributors or ‘‘suppliers’’ of good governance. An important future area of work is to determine under what circumstances and conditions citizen and civil society action and/or ‘‘participation’’ can effectively contribute to good governance (Roy, 2008). What types of empowerment measures, governance systems and mechanisms and, legal and regulatory frameworks are required to enable and facilitate meaningful participation and social accountability? Much innovation and experimentation is currently underway but much work remains to be done in terms of exploring how such approaches can be scaled-up and systematized, how to ensure that they reinforce and complement existing governance institutions; and what types of legal and/or institutional reforms are necessary. As has been discussed, civil society contributes to good governance in a variety of ways. Ideas about the different roles of civil society are sometimes understood as competing with one another and, in practice, there has frequently been a disconnect between service-oriented organizations and those involved in social mobilization, advocacy, or research. An important future challenge for civil society theorists and practitioners is to explore the underlying commonalities and complementarities of divergent civil society roles and to find ways to ensure that the sum of civil society is greater than its parts. At the theoretical, strategic, and practical levels, there is a need to build linkages across different agendas, interests, and approaches. With regard to good governance, it is particularly important to strategically chart and strengthen relationships between grassroots constituencies, service deliverers, advocacy-oriented groups, think tanks and media – seeking to formulate ways in which joint action, either in collaboration with or independently from state institutions, can best advance the good governance agenda and citizen well-being.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civility ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency
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▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Participation ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Theories of the Nonprofit Sector, Political ▶ Transparency ▶ World Bank
References/Further Readings Ackerman, J. (2004). Accountability and society. Washington, DC: World Bank. Agnew, J. (2002). Democracy and human rights. In R. J. Johnston, P. J. Taylor, & M. J. Watts (Eds.), Geographies of global change. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Almond, G., & Verba, S. (1989). The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. London: Sage. Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. AusAID. (2000). Good governance: Guiding principles for implementation. Canberra: AusAID. Chandhoke, N. (2007). Civil Society. Development in Practice: An Oxfam Journal, 17(4–5), 607–614. Cheema, G. S., & Rondinelli, D. A. (Eds.) (2007). Decentralising governance: Emerging concepts and practices. Washington, DC: Brookings Institute Press. Cohen, J. L., & Arato, A. (1992). Civil Society and political theory. Cambridge: MIT. Commonwealth Foundation. (1999). Citizens and governance: Civil society in the new millennium. London: Commonwealth Foundation. Edwards, M. (2004). Civil Society. Cambridge: Polity. Escobar, A., & Alvarez, S. (Eds.) (1992). The making of social movements in latin America: Identity, strategy and democracy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Gaventa, J. (2006). Triumph, deficit or contestation: Deepening the ‘‘Deepening Democracy’’ debate (IDS Working Paper 264). Brighton: Institute of Development Studies. Habermas. J. (1992). Further reflections on the public sphere. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge: MIT Press. Hall, J. A. (1995). Civil Society: Theory, history, comparison. Cambridge: Polity. Harbeson, J. W., Rothschild, D., & Chazan, N. (Eds.) (1994). Civil society and the state in Africa. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Hyden, G., Court, J., & Mease, K. (2004). Making sense of governance: Empirical evidence from 16 developing countries. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner. Keane, J. (1998). Civil society: Old images, new visions. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Krishna, A. (2003). Partnerships between local governments and community-based organizations: Exploring the scope for synergy. Public Administration and Development, 23, 361–371. Locke, J. (1689). Two treatises of government. Thomas Hollis. (Ed.) London: A. Millar et al., 1764. Malena, C., Forster, R., & Singh, J. (2004). Social accountability: An introduction to the concept and emerging practice. Washington, DC: World Bank. Osborne, D., & Gaebler, T. (1992). Reinventing government. Boston: Addison-Wesley. Oxhorn, P., Tulchin, J. S., & Selee, A. D. (Eds.) (2004). Decentralization, democratic governance, and civil society in comparative perspective:
Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press. Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Roy, I. (2008). Civil society and good governance: (Re-) conceptualizing the interface. World Development, 36(4). Stoker, G. (1998). Public-private partnerships and urban governance. In P. J. Basingstoke (Ed.), Partnerships in urban governance: European and American experience (pp. 34–51). Basingstoke: Macmillan. Tandon, R., & Mohanty, R. (2002). Civil society and governance. New Delhi: Samskriti. Tocqueville, A. de. (1900). Democracy in America (H. Keene, Trans.). New York: The Colonial Press. United Nations Development Program. (1997). Governance for sustainable human development. A UNDP policy paper. World Bank. (1992). Governance and development. Washington, DC: World Bank. World Bank. (1994). Governance: The World Bank’s experience. Washington, DC: World Bank.
Goods and Services, Types of BRAM VERSCHUERE University College Ghent and Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium
Introduction In the literature, conceptually one can distinguish between different types or kinds of goods and services. Anheier (2005: 117) makes the distinction between public (or collective) goods, quasi-public goods, and private goods. A certain good or service can be attributed to one of these types based on the criteria of ‘‘excludability’’ (preventing people to make use of that good or service) and ‘‘rivalry’’ (individual use reduces the amount of that good available for other consumers). Moreover, goods or services can be preferred or non-preferred (Anheier, 2005: 205; Weisbrod, 1998: 49). Whether a good or service is preferred or not will depend on the relationship of that good to the mission of the organization that produces or delivers the good. As is the case with most organizations, nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are also so-called multiproduct firms that deliver and produce different (types of) goods and services at the same time. According to Weisbrod (1998), NPOs typically can produce three types of goods: preferred public goods, preferred private goods, and non-preferred private goods. In the following sections, different types of goods and services are defined, and some key issues are discussed.
Goods and Services, Types of
Definition A pure public good is a good to which no property rights can be established and which is available to all, irrespective of contribution (taxpayers and non-taxpayers). A public good is therefore ‘‘collective’’ and freely accessible to all. An essential characteristic is that the use of a public good or service is non-excludable. It is very expensive to try to exclude non-taxpayers from using or enjoying that good (e.g., public parks, public safety, public art). A second characteristic of the public good is that it is nonrival. One individual’s use of that good does not diminish the chances for other individuals to enjoy the use of it. Anheier (2005: 117) gives the example of a concert: the presence of other people in the audience does not (under normal circumstances) prevent a person’s enjoyment of the music. On the other hand, a pure private good is characterized by both excludability and rivalry. A very simple example is food that is purchased in the supermarket. This is a private good, as it is excludable (only available to those people willing to pay the price) and rival (the box of chocolates I buy cannot be bought by anyone else). Of course, the concepts of excludability and rivalry are often a matter of degree. Some goods may be partly rival or excludable. In this case, one can talk about a quasipublic good. Quasi-public goods that are non-excludable and rival are ‘‘common pool goods.’’ Although such goods are characterized by rivalry, exclusion is only possible at a certain price. Anheier (2005: 118) gives the example of fish in the village pond, which are rival (one fish can only be caught and consumed once), but exclusion is only an issue in the case of overfishing (by issuing a limited number of fishing permits, e.g.). Quasi-public goods that are non-rival but excludable are ‘‘toll goods’’ or ‘‘club goods.’’ People not willing to pay can be excluded from consuming that good, but essentially the good does not exemplify rivalry. Typical examples of toll goods are museums, sport clubs with an admission fee (member fee), or toll roads (e.g., highways in France). As already indicated in the introduction, goods and services may be preferred or non-preferred. Preferred goods are those goods that are related to the mission or the purpose of (the management) of the organization. The basic assumption is that managers in nonprofit organizations have preferences regarding the products to be delivered by the organization (contrary to the profit sector where the product mix is determined by the profit-maximization motive; Toepler, 2004). For example, the preferred product of an NPO in development aid is related to its mission of helping the poor in the third world: building schools, for instance. Non-preferred goods are not related to the organizational mission. An example is the restaurant
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in a hospital or a museum. Non-preferred goods and services are provided in most cases to gain extra revenue for the NPO. In that case, one can often speak of cross-subsidization (using the resources obtained by selling the non-preferred good for supporting the production of preferred goods).
Key Issues Types of Goods and Services Delivered by the NPO
According to economic theory, markets best provide private goods, while the state best delivers collective or public goods (Anheier, 2005: 118). The justification for this task division lies in the fact that the state has the power to raise taxes, thereby counteracting free-rider problems that might occur when public goods are supplied via private markets (some people taking advantage of the service without paying for it). Next to that, market supply of pure private goods is more efficient (handling individual consumer preferences) and avoids high transaction costs that would occur if the state provides goods that are rival and excludable (regulation, control, etc.). In the case of NPOs, one could argue that these organizations are suited to deliver quasi-public goods or services. NPOs can, for example, deliberately choose to provide some services to certain target-groups, thereby (implicitly) excluding other groups from the service delivery (e.g., care for elderly people). Although such goods are more or less excludable, they are not rival for those people receiving the services (e.g., care for one person in the elderly care facility does not prevent other residents from receiving the same services). According to Weisbrod (1998: 49) the product-mix of NPOs may contain preferred collective goods, preferred private goods, and non-preferred private goods. A preferred collective good is the organization’s true output which is closely related to its mission. This good is difficult to sell in private markets because of free-rider problems and difficulties in setting the correct market price. Typical examples are treating environmental pollution, research, or helping the poor. A preferred private good is also missionrelated, but can be sold on the market. NPOs, however, wish to make this good or service accessible to some consumers independent of their ability to pay (e.g., health care, education, arts, and culture). Non-preferred private goods are less related to the mission of the organization, and are produced by the NPO to acquire revenue for the production of the NPO’s preferred goods (cf. supra). Failure in Delivering Goods and Services
Following the previous paragraph, one can argue that markets, governments, and NPOs are suited to provide
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certain types of goods and services, and that they are less suited to deliver other types of goods and services. This is referred to as respectively market failure, government failure, and voluntary failure (Steinberg, 2006; Anheier, 2005). Markets ‘‘fail’’ when the private market cannot efficiently allocate or provide the good or the service in case. This occurs when there is a lack of competition (monopolies, e.g.), when effects for third parties outside the transaction parties exist (‘‘externalities,’’ e.g., the pollution by the car that is sold on the market affects the whole society), or when there are informational asymmetries between the transaction parties (e.g., very specific or technical goods for which quality assessment by the client is very difficult). In all of these cases, the correct price for producing or buying the good is difficult to determine. The trust-theory (Nelson & Krashinsky, 1973; Hansmann, 1987) explains the presence of NPO service provision as a response to market failure. Lack of information on the side of the client about the quality of the good or service provided makes clients go purchasing these services in organizations they can trust. NPOs are especially trustworthy, as the nondistribution constraint (preventing NPOs from distributing eventual profits to owners) may be a strong signal for clients that service quality will not be reduced in favor of the organizational (monetary) profits. Government failure occurs when a problem cannot be addressed adequately by the state or the public sector. The most important source of government failure lies in the fact that some citizens will be dissatisfied by the level, amount, quality, or style of the collective good or service provided by the public sector. Because opinions in society about the amount and quality of public goods provision are so divergent, it is technically impossible for the state apparatus to adapt to this heterogeneous demand. This observation inspired Weisbrod (1977) to develop his public goods theory, in which the existence of NPO service provision is explained by unsatisfied demand for collective service delivery by the government. Voluntary failure refers to situations in which the voluntary or nonprofit sector cannot provide a service or address a social problem at the necessary scale. NPOs may be unable to marshal the resources needed over prolonged periods of time, as they rely on contributions and subsidies that in the end may be insufficient for the task at hand. Other possible sources of voluntary failure include the tendency of NPOs to focus on particular subgroups while ignoring others (philanthropic particularism), potential lack of accountability to wider social needs because of a stress on issues that are close to donor’s interests (philanthropic paternalism), and philanthropic amateurism or the lack of professionalism in organizations with scarce resources and a lot of volunteers (Anheier, 2005: 130).
Beyond the Ideal-Typical Classification of Goods and Services
Although the previous paragraphs might suggest that it is relatively easy to attribute a certain task (product, good, or service) to a certain type of organization, reality is often more complex. Quasi-public goods such as health care and social services can be offered (and are in reality offered) by markets (private clinics), NPOs (nonprofit clinics) and governments (e.g., city hospitals). Hence, as Anheier (2005: 120) correctly states, ‘‘the dividing line between quasi-public and private goods is ultimately political,’’ and thus prone to different interpretations in differing conditions and contexts. Education, for example, can be considered as a private good, as a quasi-public good, or as a public good. Depending on the consideration made, the institutional choice for providing that good or service will be made. If education is considered as a public good – assuming that it leads to positive effects for the society as a whole – one might go for policies that make entrance to education universal and fund the educational system through taxation. However, if education is considered as a private good – assuming that the benefits are mainly for the individual receiving the education – one might go for policies that favor private institutions financed by tuition fees (Anheier, 2005: 120).
Future Directions Besides the classical types of goods and services that have been discussed above, one interesting view for looking at the voluntary and NPO sectors is the concept of ‘‘relational goods.’’ An essential characteristic of a relational good is that it is the quality of the relationship between people that to a large extent determines the value of the good. As Ben-Ner and Gui (2003: 14) state: ‘‘[W]hat matters to a person with demand for a relational good is not only the objective behavior of others, but also their attitude, and even their perceived motivations.’’ Future work into the (assumed) comparative advantage of NPOs in delivering such goods might be an important research challenge. One could argue that NPOs are particularly well placed to satisfy the demand for such sustainable and high-quality relationships between service-provider and service-receiver. Especially in social care and education, services are characterized by the fact that people have an opinion about the service. Clients expect more than care or education, and they are also concerned about how the services are delivered to them. Some even go further and suggest that stressing the normative and relational qualities of NPOs – the ‘‘peculiar’’ relationship between NPO and client that is based on trust (see Hansmann, 1980), qualitative service delivery, and good relationships – might be part of voluntary and third sector strategies in order to
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increase their legitimacy (Van de Donk, 2008). In other words, the nondistribution constraint alone may not be a sufficient basis for trusting NPOs. Trust can be stronger in the case when participants to the transaction (service provider and receiver) have aligned motivations from which high-quality relationships may stem (Kendall et al., 2006: 425).
Cross-References
▶ Nonprofit Organization ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Weisbrod, Burton A.
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. (2005). Nonprofit organizations. Theory, management, policy. London/New York: Routledge. Anheier, H., & Ben-Ner, A. (2003). The study of the nonprofit entreprise. Theories and approaches. New York: Kluwer. Ben-Ner, A., & Gui, B. (2003). The theory of nonprofit organizations revisited. In A. Ben-Ner & H. Anheier (Eds.), The study of nonprofit enterprise: Theories and approaches (pp. 3–26). New York: Kluwer. Hansmann, H. (1980). The role of nonprofit enterprises. Yale Law Journal, 89(5), 835–898. Hansmann, H. (1987). Economic theories of nonprofit organizations. In W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kendall, J., Knapp, M., & Forder, J. (2006). Social care and the nonprofit sector in the developed Western world. In W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., pp. 415–431). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Nelson, R., & Krashinsky, M. (1973). Public control and organization of day care for young children. Public Policy, 22(1), 53–75. Steinberg, R. (2006). Economic theories of nonprofit organizations. In W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., pp. 117–139). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Toepler, S. (2004). Conceptualizing nonprofit commercialism: A case study. Public Administration & Management: An Interactive Journal, 9(4), 1–19. Van de Donk, W. (2008). Maatschappelijk Besturen: Sector of Idee? Cahierreeks School voor Social Profit Management, Gent, Nr. 1. Weisbrod, B. (1977). The voluntary nonprofit sector. Lexington: DC Heat. Weisbrod, B. (1998). Modeling the nonprofit organization as a multiproduct firm: A framework for choice. In B. Weisbrod (Ed.), To profit or not to profit: The commercial transformation of the nonprofit sector (pp. 47–64). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Governance, Organizational SARABAJAYA KUMAR1, JONATHAN ROBERTS2 1 University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 2 London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
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Introduction It is only in recent decades that organizational governance has been the subject of sustained academic interest. While the bulk of such interest has been applied to corporate governance in commercial firms, research and commentary have also increasingly begun to engage with governance within civil society organizations. Not only has this field emerged as a progression from studies in corporate governance, but it also has roots in studies of the effectiveness of nonprofit organizations, in discourses on power and control from disability and other social movements, in public scandals relating to nonprofit bodies, and in current emphasis on ethical standards in public life. Organizational governance is concerned with power and control within organizations. As such it can be conceived as a technical concern, an attempt to control an organization to achieve maximum effectiveness. Alternatively, and especially within civil society organizations, the process of governance can itself be value-laden and significant, invoking debates about power and empowerment, equity, and democracy. This separation between functional and substantive approaches roughly corresponds to distinct nonprofit and social economy approaches to organizational governance. Organizational governance is a fluid and dynamic field. Civil society organizations, as they increasingly interact with state and market, come into contact with external governance systems which may constrain or affect internal organizational governance. Moreover, the growing political legitimacy of hybrid organizations such as social enterprises implies fascinating new challenges in this field.
Definition The term ‘‘governance’’ derives from the Ancient Greek verb kυbernάo, meaning ‘‘to steer.’’ Drawing on the origins of the term, Anheier (2004) describes organizational governance as a steering function. Cornforth (2003: 17), perhaps more strongly, describes organizational governance as ‘‘systems by which organizations are directed, controlled and accountable.’’ For Tricker (2000), governance is the exercise of power. From these perspectives it is clear that governance is closely linked to the concepts of control, accountability, and power. More detailed understandings of organizational governance are contingent on commentators’ theoretical approaches. From a rational actor perspective, governance is an instrumental response to the problem of coordination of self-interested actors within an organization (for an example of this view see Foss and Klein, 2007). Other approaches emphasize notions of ethical stewardship, especially in organizations that have some kind of moral or value-expressive dimension. Governance can be
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perceived to extend beyond simply the structure of control, so that governance becomes both the facilitator and the symbol of an organization’s philosophy. From a sociological perspective, governance can embrace issues of power and control as they relate to class, gender, ethnicity, and disability. Boundaries of Governance
A distinction is generally made between governance and management. Governance is conceived as a higher-level strategic process of direction; management, undertaken by staff, enacts this direction on a daily basis. Such a clear distinction is an ideal-type: in real-world settings, and particularly in small civil society organizations, the boundaries between governance and management are likely to be fluid and ambiguous. Organizational governance is often regarded narrowly as the activity of the governing board of an organization, or as the formal procedures for organizational decision making: this is indeed the focus of much literature on organizational governance in civil society. Such an approach may ignore informal structures of decision making. Further, as Kumar and Nunan (2002) describe, governance can be perceived by actors not only as a structure, but also as a philosophy, a list of functions, an individual role, and a set of legal responsibilities. It should be noted that, from the perspective of transaction costs economics, market-based contracts with external suppliers (for instance, an outsourced payroll function) can also be perceived as a system of governance, since they are a means by which an organization exercises control. This perspective of governance may become more relevant as civil society organizations increasingly outsource administrative and other functions.
Historical Background Sustained interest in organizational governance in the corporate, public, and civil society spheres is a relatively new phenomenon. Yet of course what is now called ‘‘organizational governance’’ has a much longer history. Adam Smith, writing in 1776, noted challenges of governance: ‘‘[T]he directors of companies, being managers of other people’s money than their own, it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which partners in a private copartnery watch over their own’’ (Smith, 1776/1852: 311). Tricker (2000) identifies the origin of corporate governance as the moment, at least 1,000 years ago, when the ownership of an enterprise became separated from its management. But it is not implausible to suggest that issues of organizational governance stretch back even further in civil society.
Tricker (2000) provides a brief overview of the emergence of contemporary interest in governance within corporate organizations. Catalysts for this interest, in the late 1980s and 1990s, included awareness of a growing separation between shareholders and managers in large corporate firms and unease at increasing evidence of corporate corruption, such as in the Polly Peck, BCCI, and Maxwell cases, in which weak governance appeared to be a key factor. In Anglo-Saxon countries a number of significant reports on corporate governance were published, including in 1992 the Cadbury Report in the United Kingdom. There has been renewed interest and disquiet in the first decade of the twenty-first century following the Enron and WorldCom scandals, which threw into sharp relief the problems of control in complex modern firms. Policy interest in organizational governance within civil society organizations took shape in the 1990s, especially in the United Kingdom. Initial interest can be traced to Woodfield’s ‘‘Efficiency scrutiny of the supervision of charities’’ in 1987; growing momentum can be discerned through the subsequent decade within the 1992 and 1993 Charities Acts, within the ‘‘On Trust’’ report produced by a civil society umbrella group in partnership with the charity regulator (NCVO, 1992), and finally within guidance commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (Ashby, 1997). The influential Commission on the Future of the Voluntary Sector also considered organizational governance in some depth (NCVO, 1996). Such policy interest has been accompanied by a significant growth in academic literature, particularly within North America and the United Kingdom. Such interest can be attributed to the convergence of multiple dynamics. First, in both the United Kingdom and the United States, civil society organizations suffered their own governance scandals. High-profile examples include the United Way, the Salvation Army, the Red Cross, and the Nature Conservancy. Second, there was generalized concern about standards of behavior in public life, which, in the United Kingdom, culminated in the establishment of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, originally chaired by Lord Nolan. The Nolan Committee established ‘‘seven principles of public life’’: selflessness, integrity, objectivity, accountability, openness, honesty, and leadership (Committee on Standards in Public Life, 1995). The codes of practice which the Nolan Committee produced were subsequently recommended by the Commission on the Future of the Voluntary Sector. Third, as Cornforth (2003) describes, the growing involvement of civil society organizations in state contracting drew attention to organizations’ use of
Governance, Organizational
and accountability for public funds. Fourth, social movements within civil society (feminism, the disability movement, community development groups) offered a critique of the paternalist governance of traditional nonprofits and charities. Finally, growing focus on sociopolitical notions of ‘‘good governance’’ gained prominence in the international development field. Bilateral and multilateral development organizations, as Turner and Hulme (1997) note, sought, as a prerequisite for development, fundamental changes in political and administrative structures from recipient countries. Moreover, as its conditions for development assistance, the World Bank emphasized the need for improved public sector management, accountability, legal frameworks, and information and transparency. Such requirements inevitably placed focus on the organizational governance of civil society organizations themselves.
Key Issues This section examines the following: theoretical bases which underpin academic approaches toward organizational governance; governance challenges faced by civil society organizations; governance functions and structures; and different perspectives on organizational governance, including nonprofit approaches and social economy and social movement approaches. Finally, there is consideration of the relationship between governance and the external environment.
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have the requisite expertise to maximize performance. An alternative refinement of principal–agent theory is offered by stakeholder approaches, which expand the range of actors who might be awarded some measure of control. These approaches predominantly present organizational governance as an intraorganizational phenomenon. Pfeffer (1973), however, argues that a primary function of the governing board is linkage between the organization and the external environment to support the acquisition of essential resources. For Abzug and Galaskiewicz (2001) the governing body fulfills a symbolic function which supports the acquisition of legitimacy among key external actors. Finally, Cornforth (2003) describes the democratic approach to governance which is characteristic of cooperatives, mutual organizations, and other membership associations. Typical features are one vote per member (irrespective of the number of shares held) and a lay professional board which is able to represent member interests. Each of these theoretical approaches offers a particular insight and describes a particular problem to which organizational governance must respond. But there are obvious tensions between them. As a remedy Cornforth (2003) advocates a paradox perspective approach, which focuses explicitly on the ambiguities and challenges of governance of civil society organizations.
Theoretical Bases
Challenges of Organizational Governance in Civil Society Organizations
Theoretical approaches to governance in commercial organizations – particularly from Anglo-Saxon perspectives – are dominated by consideration of the principal–agent problem identified by Adam Smith. The dilemma is simple – how can owners of organizations (those who have property rights) control self-interested managers, so that they act in owners’ interests? The theory rests on an assumption about human nature – that managers or agents will exploit any informational or other advantage in their own interests. Responses to agency problems – such as stringent monitoring – can be costly. Principal–agent approaches, however, have been variously criticized. Stewardship theory, as set out by Muth and Donaldson (1998), presents a contrasting conception of human nature as trustworthy: a more complex set of managerial motivations are presented, such as duty, identification with the organization, or intrinsic satisfaction in achievement. According to this perspective, control of the organization is optimally placed with managers, who
Long-standing Anglo-Saxon approaches reduce discussion of corporate governance in firms to simple principal– agent problems based on equally simple definitions of the principals (owners with property rights) and organizational effectiveness (maximized return on capital investment). Governance within civil society organizations is, arguably, more complex and more challenging. First, the right to control is contestable. Who should have decision-making power? This tension is played out, for instance, within the contrasting approaches of traditional philanthropic organizations, characterized by elite or expert control through an appointed board of trustees, and empowerment perspectives from the disability and other social movements, which emphasize the importance of user/client control. Second, organizational effectiveness is also often contestable, and the goods produced unmeasurable. Therefore judgments about the effectiveness of governance are complicated. Third, internal governance within commercial firms is augmented by the external governance of the
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market, through competition or takeover which (in principle) reduces inefficiency: the absence of such structures places more emphasis on the internal governance of civil society organizations. Finally, civil society organizations can be still more vulnerable than commercial firms to principal–agent dilemmas – indeed, according to economic theories, civil society organizations exist precisely as a response to agency problems caused by third-party purchasing, the giving of charitable gifts, or the production of unmeasurable social goods. Furthermore, civil society is populated by a diverse range of organizations. Numerous authors emphasize that governance structures must be differentiated accordingly – there can be no ‘‘one size fits all’’ approach. Relevant organizational variables include organizational form (for instance, voluntary and nonprofit organizations, foundations, cooperatives, community associations, federations, and faith-based groups), size, income sources, stage in life cycle, field, and external environment. Both organizational form and governance structure may reflect some commitment to wider values or philosophies – whether charitable paternalism, empowerment, solidarity, democracy, or religion. Functions and Structures of Governance Functions of Governance
In consequence it is unsurprising that organizational governance in civil society can have multiple overarching functions. Some of these – for instance, ensuring managerial compliance or supporting organizational performance – parallel functions in commercial firms; others are more idiosyncratic to civil society organizations. Key overarching functions include: ● Interpretation of mission ● Representation of multiple stakeholder interests ● Ensuring fit between mission and organizational activities ● Ensuring accountability – in principal–agent terms, overseeing managerial compliance ● Monitoring organizational performance ● Overseeing financial management and legal responsibilities ● Links to the external environment: acquisition of resources and legitimacy. More specific discussions of organizational governance functions are presented by Kumar and Nunan (2002) and Ostrower and Stone (2006).
Structures of Governance
Much academic research has focused on the role of the trustee board. Such an approach is understandable, since responsibility for governance resides formally with the board. Other structures of organizational governance, however, should not be neglected – for instance, the governing instrument of an organization, voting rights in membership organizations, consultative committees of various kinds (expert advisory groups, user councils, regional committees), or more informal consultative procedures which involve users. Organizational structures, indeed, reflect wider organizational philosophies. Cooperatives and other democratic member organizations are characterized by participative structures in which each member, at least in principle, has an equal voice. Other nonprofit forms may have more hierarchical structures. Perspectives on Organizational Governance
Two distinctive approaches to corporate governance within the commercial sector can be identified. From an Anglo-Saxon perspective, governance has remained fundamentally a principal–agent difficulty between owners and managers. European perspectives have alternatively given more prominence to stakeholder approaches, in which workers are allocated some degree of representation or control within governance structures. Within commentaries on civil society organizations, it is plausible to propose a similar divide. A significant volume of research, particularly in North America, has focused on issues of managerial compliance and organizational effectiveness in nonprofit organizations. Commentaries from social economy perspectives and also within the discourses of new social movements focus, by contrast, on democracy and empowerment. Nonprofit Approaches
Academic exploration of the governance of nonprofit organizations, generally in North America, has often focused on the function and behavior of boards (for an insightful overview of the organizational governance literature see Ostrower and Stone, 2006). There are useful insights into the tensions and dilemmas that exist in the relationship between boards and management. Much commentary, however, has been normative and prescriptive. Ostrower and Stone (2006: 617) identify two overarching models – the ‘‘harmonious partnership’’ and the ‘‘hierarchical authority’’ relationship. These models have obvious resonances with stewardship theory and principal–agent theory respectively. Both are problematic. A partnership may be especially necessary where board members are lay
Governance, Organizational
people and lack appropriate expertise. But, as Cornforth (2003: 10) warns, such an approach risks ‘‘managerial hegemony’’ – a principal–agent dilemma in which boards uncritically approve managerial decisions. On the other hand, excessive emphases on managerial compliance may restrict organizational performance by depriving boards of expertise and information. As Ostrower and Stone (2006) describe, research increasingly suggests that the real-world dynamics of governance are more complex and nuanced. The nature of the relationship between board and managers, for instance, can be contingent on individual, organizational, and environmental factors. Power may shift over time between boards and staff. Effective authority may lie with both voluntary board members and professionals simultaneously. It may be too, as Heimovics et al. (1995) propose, that, in a complex technological and legal environment, it is the role of a chief executive officer to guide boards so that they understand and fulfill their responsibilities. A body of research has also sought to trace relationships between effective governance and effective organizations. Some findings suggest a relationship between organizational effectiveness and proactive board involvement in strategic planning and policy formation. There is also some suggestion that board composition – for instance, the diversity of occupations represented on the board – may improve aspects of organizational performance. However, as Ostrower and Stone (2006) argue in their overview of research, such inquiries can be fraught with difficulties. Organizational effectiveness is itself a disputed concept. The direction of causality, moreover, is often unclear: does effective governance create an effective organization, or vice versa? They identify the need for future longitudinal research to establish causality and in-depth case studies to explore contextual variables. Social Economy and New Social Movement Perspectives
The emphasis within nonprofit approaches is typically on the contribution of organizational governance to effective technical performance; a hierarchical and, perhaps, bureaucratic organization is assumed. In contrast, social economy and new social movement approaches conceptualize the process of governance to be as important as the technical aim to which it contributes. Such approaches draw on democratic theory and critiques of power to justify governance processes which might appear, from an instrumental viewpoint, to be inefficient or ineffective. Thus Rothschild-Whitt (1979) describes the democratic decision making of collectivist organizations which is seen
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to contain inherent egalitarian and ethical value. Locke et al. (2003) describe how user control of governance in disability organizations is seen to have similar inherent value, in this case through empowering users and challenging the very notion of ‘‘disability.’’ Furthermore, social economy approaches – such as those described by Borzaga and Defourny (2001) in their edited collection – argue that valuable public benefits accrue from participative and democratic governance structures. Such benefits include social capital, collective citizen action, strengthening of the democratic process, and equity. The External Environment
There is growing interest in the interaction between the external environment and organizational governance. The environment in which civil society organizations operate is itself increasingly described as an arena of multiple systems of governance to which civil society organizations may be exposed. External governance systems may potentially constrain the autonomy of internal organizational systems, or imply particular demands to which organizational governance must respond. There is, for instance, particular academic interest in the impact upon civil society organizations’ internal governance of government contracting, which can be conceptualized as both market governance, in the form of competitive welfare markets, and top-down state governance, in the form of targets, monitoring, and audit. Other external governance regimes of relevance include specific nonprofit regulation (IRS, nonprofit, or charity law), network governance and professional governance (for instance, medical codes). In addition civil society organizations, as part of political initiatives to devolve decision making, may face increasing demands to participate in public governance systems – for instance, in commissioning welfare services. This may in turn place focus on the effectiveness and representative legitimacy of organizational governance structures.
International Perspectives It has been noted in the previous section that there is, broadly, a divergence between Anglo-Saxon approaches to organizational governance, which tend to focus on principal–agent conflicts and organizational effectiveness, and the perspectives of European social economy, in which there is focus on stakeholder involvement, empowerment, and the intrinsic value of the process of governance. Governance within civil society organizations in developing countries presents particular challenges. The
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issues of power, control, and accountability are brought into stark relief within relationships between INGOs and local communities. Moreover, as discussed above, the internal governance of civil society organizations in developing countries must function within a demanding and fluid external governance environment.
Future Directions Research into organizational governance in civil society organizations remains a young field. Numerous gaps in the research literature can be identified. Ostrower and Stone (2006), for instance, suggest the need for more research into governance in small or grassroots organizations, and also for longitudinal studies, both to examine dynamics of board composition and to establish causality between governance and organizational effectiveness. Studies will also need to expand governance beyond a narrow focus on the board and on organizational effectiveness in order to engage more readily with the idea that the process of governance can have inherent ethical value. At the same time research must keep pace with developments in policy and practice. The policy environment encourages hybrid organizational forms, of which social enterprises are the most obvious example. While the nature of such organizations is contestable, they are generally conceived to bring together the market and the ‘‘social.’’ Governance of such hybrid organizations and of the competing values intrinsic to them may prove challenging and demand innovative approaches. The external governance environment remains fluid and demanding, with quasi-markets and regulatory frameworks developing and subject to change. Civil society organizations themselves continue to incorporate commercial governance practice – for instance, in the use of market contracting as a governance system to oversee functions such as payroll or fund raising functions. How far such commercial practices are compatible with social missions will be an ongoing question.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Boards ▶ Civil Society Theory: Smith, Adam ▶ Good Governance ▶ Government – Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Organizational Form and Development ▶ Participation ▶ Social Economy
▶ Social Movements ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Theories of nonprofit organization, economic ▶ Trusteeship
References/Further Readings Abzug, R., & Galaskiewicz, J. (2001). Nonprofit boards: Crucibles of expertise or symbols of local identities? Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 30(1), 51–73. Anheier, H. (2004). Nonprofit organizations: Theory, management, policy. London: Routledge. Ashby, J. (1997). Towards voluntary sector codes of practice. York: York Publishing Services. Borzaga, C., & Defourny, J. (Eds.) (2001). The emergence of social enterprise. London: Routledge. Committee on Standards in Public Life (1995). Standards in public life: First report of the committee on standards in public life. London: HMSO. Cornforth, C. (2003). Introduction: The changing context of governance – emerging issues and paradoxes. In C. Cornforth (Ed.), The governance of public and non-profit organizations: What do boards do? (pp. 1–19). London: Routledge. Foss, N., & Klein, P. (2007). Organizational governance (SMG Working Paper No. 11/2007). Copenhagen: Center for Strategic Management and Globalization, Copenhagen Business School. Heimovics, R., Herman, R., & Jurkiewicz, C. (1995). The political dimension of effective nonprofit executive leadership. Nonprofit management & leadership, 5(3), 233–248. Kumar, S., & Nunan, K. (2002). A lighter touch: An evaluation of the Governance Project. New York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Locke, M., Begum, N., & Robson, P. (2003). Service users and charity governance. In C. Cornforth (Ed.), The governance of public and non-profit organizations: What do boards do? (pp. 57–73). London: Routledge. Muth, M., & Donaldson, L. (1998). Stewardship theory and board structure: A contingency approach. Corporate Governance, 6(1), 5–28. NCVO (1992). On trust: Increasing the effectiveness of charity trustees and management committees. London: NCVO. NCVO (1996). Meeting the challenge of change: Voluntary action in the 21st Century. London: NCVO. Ostrower, F., & Stone, M. (2006). Governance: Research trends, gaps, and future prospects. In W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pfeffer, J. (1973). Size, composition, and function of hospital boards of directors: A study of organization-environment linkage. Administrative Science Quarterly, 18(3), 349–364. Rothschild-Whitt, J. (1979). The collectivist organization: An alternative to rational-bureaucratic models. American Sociological Review, 44(4), 509–527. Smith, A. (1776/1852). An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. London: T. Nelson & Sons. Tricker B. (2000). Editorial: corporate governance – the subject whose time has come. Corporate Governance, 8(4), 289–296. Turner, M., & Hulme, D. (1997). Governance, administration and development. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Woodfield, P. (1987). Efficiency scrutiny of the supervision of charities. London: HMSO.
Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations
Government Organized Nongovernmental Organizations (GONGOs) ▶ GONGOs
Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations STEVEN RATHGEB SMITH The University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Introduction The relationship between government and the nonprofit sector is at a crucial transition point in many countries around the world. The growth of government funding of nonprofits especially through purchase of service contracting has created more competition among nonprofits and has generated ongoing pressure for more accountability and outcome evaluation, pushing government to greater levels of programmatic and administrative regulation. Yet, in many countries including the USA and the UK, government and the nonprofit sector are seeking new ways to collaborate in the delivery of services and more generally the resolution of urgent public problems.
Definition Government–nonprofit relations – in the USA and most everywhere else – are complex and dynamic including exchanges of financial and other resources as well as efforts to influence one another through regulatory activities or political mobilization. As such, they both reflect and shape the nature of civic engagement. Moreover, they vary across time, space, and fields of activities. Nor do they occur in isolation, but are conditioned by economic and market structures and by activities carried out informally in households or local communities. The linkages between government and the nonprofit sector are evident across several dimensions – in the legal framework under which nonprofits operate, in the role they play in the delivery of a wide range of valued services, and in the efforts they make to influence the agenda for government action. This analysis focuses mainly on the latter two dimensions. Regarding the service role, nonprofits provide a wide range of services financed through a diverse set of government funding streams including grants, contracts, tax credits, vouchers, loans, and bond
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financing. Throughout the world, government funding of nonprofits using these different revenue streams has been on the rise, although it certainly varies substantially depending upon the country. In the USA, New Zealand, and the UK, for example, a significant proportion of the growth in the nonprofit sector itself has been through an increasingly diverse public funding streams (Grønbjerg, 1993; Grønbjerg & Smith, 1999, 2006; Smith, 2006, 2007). Indeed, many government programs that traditionally provided the bulk of funding for nonprofit activity in the USA have declined in both absolute and constant dollars (except for health), while other public funding sources such as vouchers, tax credits, and various fee for service arrangements such as public health insurance reimbursement have grown (Grønbjerg & Smith, 1999; Smith, 2006; Salamon, 2002; Grønbjerg & Salamon, 2002). Thus the form of government support is shifting from producer- to consumer-side subsidies, including growing use of tax credits and deductions and vouchers. The result is a corresponding shift in the locus of decision making and greater competition among service providers across all sectors. The policy role of nonprofits has also increased, reflecting the deepening engagement of government across a wider scope of policy arenas in many societies and now affects broader segments of the population and in more profound ways. For example, government is now more extensively involved in efforts to regulate economic cycles, stimulate growth, support families, protect health and safety, and invest in human capital than 50 years ago. Although this particular tide recently has turned somewhat in many developed economies, over the long-term the result has been to create powerful incentives for various groups and associations to seek control over the public agenda, or at the very least to influence the public agenda in ways compatible with their own policy priorities and goals. Throughout the world, organized interest groups have grown in number and size. In some countries such as the USA, they can dominate politics and the political agenda because of their enormous financial support for political candidates and increasingly sophisticated lobbying activities. At the same time, advocacy groups including nonprofit transnational groups such as Greenpeace and Transparency International have flourished, offering citizens a wide range of possible organizations to join. Also, many service agencies have joined together to create their own advocacy groups to influence government.
Key Issues The new role of nonprofits in providing public services and their growing engagement in a wide variety of public policy concerns has transformed the governance of the public
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services and the role of nonprofit organizations in society. Hundreds of thousands of citizens now participate in the governance of nonprofits as board members, staff, and volunteers. Many nonprofit staff and board members are also involved in various advocacy activities. And, many very important public policy concerns involve extensive consultation with nonprofit organizations. This major shift creates new challenges for government and nonprofits. Accountability
First, the growth of government support for the service delivery role of nonprofits has produced increasingly intensive efforts to hold nonprofit organizations accountable. This effort has many components, although substantial variation exists throughout the world. First, governments increasingly demand that nonprofit service agencies measure their outcomes. Toward this end, many governments have instituted to varying degrees performance based contracting that strive to hold nonprofit (and for-profit) agencies accountable for reaching specific performance targets (Considine, 2000; Behn & Kant, 1999; Forsythe, 2001). For example, the current enthusiasm in the USA for the privatization of child welfare services hinges in part on the desire to put key child welfare services such as foster care and adoption of special needs children on a performance based management system. In particular, this shift to outcome evaluation often involves a revolution in thinking for nonprofits and their overall management. Agencies need new investments in management information systems and monitoring in order to track and compile important programmatic and financial data, track outcomes (to the extent feasible), and better understand their cost structure. The effect is to ‘‘professionalize’’ the administrative infrastructure of nonprofits which can then create problems of mission and focus for an organization since a more substantial infrastructure can require new resources that may be at variance with the previous programmatic focus of the organization. These adaptations can be an especially difficult challenge for smaller community based organizations. Nonprofit agencies started through community initiative often lack, at least initially, a highly trained professional or administrative staff. Some of these agencies originally emerge from an unincorporated group of like-minded people concerned about a social problem. A clear separation between the board and staff is absent and many of these agencies do not have full-time executive directors. Government accountability measures including performance based contracts often require these agencies to adopt new administrative procedures, add professionals,
institute new financial management practices, and in some cases, modify existing physical structures. These organizational changes are often difficult to achieve because many smaller agencies do not have the financial resources, especially since many of the newer community organizations are undercapitalized. Since the growth of the nonprofit sector has been disproportionately concentrated among smaller agencies, this problem of capacity and infrastructure is an increasingly difficult challenge for many governments. Importantly, the push for greater accountability and performance outcomes by nonprofit that are aligned with state and local government priorities can have lasting effects on the programs and services of nonprofit organization. Nonprofits emerge out of a desire of a group of like-minded ‘‘community’’ of people to address a problem or social need. Examples include battered women shelters, neighborhood drop-in centers for youth, interfaith homeless shelters, community health centers, and ethnic based immigrant associations. All of these organizations represent a ‘‘community,’’ and as such, in their ideal type, feel a special obligation to be responsive to their community of interest (Smith & Lipsky, 1993). Government, by contrast, tends to approach services and clients from the norm of equity. The ever-present problem facing government officials charged with distributing funds or services is to justify why they provide services to one group rather than another, since government does not have the resources to serve everyone in need. In a democracy, groups can seek redress if they feel they are being unfairly treated; government officials are accountable to these groups and to the citizenry in general for their policy choices. Equity is a norm consistent with the need of government officials to treat groups and individuals fairly. Equity can be interpreted in a variety of ways, but in social and health services it usually means defining need in order to allocate resources by criteria deemed to be fair, – e.g. income, geographic location, and severity of illness or need. Because of their emphasis on responsiveness, nonprofit agencies may clash with government, especially on policy matters relating to services, clients, and staff. For instance, a program for troubled youth may prefer to serve any adolescent in the community; but government officials may believe its funds should only serve the neediest clients. This same basic disagreement between government and nonprofits can occur in a wide variety of contexts and services such as housing, health care, emergency assistance, and food distribution to the hungry (Smith & Lipsky, 1993). Increasingly intensive accountability measures including performance contracts can also increase the
Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations
competitive pressure on nonprofits. In many countries, government funding to nonprofits for services initially started as direct grants with little accountability and outcome evaluation. But contracts in many countries including the USA, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand now try to tie reimbursement to performance, raising the specter that an agency could lose its contracts if it did not meet specific performance targets. Further, the increase use of consumer based subsidies such as vouchers creates greater uncertainty and competition (at least theoretically) among nonprofits for the public funds that the citizen (or their advocate) controls. The growing emphasis on competition raises a broader concern related to organizational governance and mission. Many community based organizations may feel pressure to be more competitive and emphasize services that generate adequate revenues, thus shifting away from their commitment to supporting valued community services lacking adequate funding (Eikenberry & Kluver, 2004; Alexander et al., 1999; Backman & Smith, 2000). Nonprofits may also change their governance structure through staffing and board changes that diminish their commitment to longstanding values and their historical mission. This problem can be especially severe in smaller community based agencies which lack resources to crosssubsidize the administrative infrastructure of their operations. This in turn can produce ongoing governance problems in the organizations, making it difficult for agencies to develop sustainable programs or expand programs to achieve economies of scale. The shift to extensive contracting with nonprofit organizations also entails new roles for government administrators and staff, especially in social and health services. When public services were primarily delivered by public agencies, state and local managers had well-defined positions and many managers rose through the ranks, starting initially with a direct service program position. As such, managers often were supervising friends and colleagues with whom they had worked for many years within the public bureaucratic setting. Widespread contracting though demands new skills of public managers that previously were not emphasized: negotiation and conflict resolution, collaboration, outreach, openness, and knowledge of the rate-setting process and nonprofit management and organizational development. Also, a detailed understanding of the network of nonprofit services is now very helpful in managing the service system since many government managers oversee many different nonprofit agencies and their programs. This knowledge is even more important in recent years given the widespread concern for the fragmentation of
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services due in part to the proliferation of separate, sometimes small contract programs. More than ever, public funders are emphasizing cooperation, collaboration, and the integration of services among agencies and programs. Thus, somewhat paradoxically, the diversification of policy tools which contracting and vouchers represents has produced a greater interest in more collaborative approaches to advocacy and service delivery including formal and informal partnerships, coalitions, collaborations, and hybrid organizations (Smith, 2007; Skelcher, 2005). To varying extents, partnerships and many different types of hybrid organizations are not premised on competition and contracting. Instead, they depend upon long-term relationships to take advantage of funding and programmatic opportunities. For instance, many community health agencies may work together on a project to improve health access by the disadvantaged. Or housing agencies may now work with a local social service agency in their bid to win new contracts to build assisted housing for the disabled. The support for collaboration tends to vary greatly across countries and localities. In general, countries with strong centralized governments that have enthusiastically embraced the New Public Management (Hood, 1991; Kettl, 2000) with its emphasis on market oriented reforms such as Australia (Lyons, forthcoming; Considine, 2000) have tended to emphasize competition with less interest in more collaborative approaches among government and the nonprofit sector. Whereas, the UK and the USA reflect a more mixed approach with marked support for performance contracting as well as collaborative, community based partnerships and collaborations involving nonprofits and public agencies (Smith, 2007; Lewis, 1999; Bovaird, 2004). Advocacy
This increased complexity of the government–nonprofit relationship is very evident in the changed politics of public services. In many countries, nonprofit service agencies have organized politically through coalitions and associations in service categories such as home care, child welfare and mental health where government regulations and policy are especially important. These associations focus on influencing government policy through political advocacy and lobbying. Most associations often have limited budgets and tend to focus on major policy issues of direct material interest to their members such as funding and regulatory policy. Many of the larger nonprofit service agencies also have ongoing contact and relationships with government
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legislators and administrators. Typically, this contact is not in regards to direct lobbying on a public policy issue but more likely to be in the form of public education on the agency’s programs and funding needs. The staff and board may also be mobilized to protest funding cutbacks or argue for rate and funding increases. As noted, many nonprofit organizations have been established to advocate on behalf of a wide variety of causes and interests. Good examples include neighborhood and community organizations, immigrant associations, environmental groups, and economic development agencies. Many of these organizations are supported directly or indirectly by government. For example, many cities in the USA have provided small cash and in-kind aid to neighborhood associations to promote greater engagement of these associations in the planning and implementation of important local policies such as zoning, transportation, and growth management. Often these community organizations and groups are small so they struggle with resource and capacity problems. To address these issues, government may sometimes provide technical assistance or small grants. Overall, the local civil society – i.e. the voluntary groups and organizations in the community – is much denser and richer than was previously the case, reflecting the sharp growth in the number of nonprofit organizations. Yet, the new landscape has many contradictory features: while more organizations are doing advocacy in the aggregate, many nonprofit organizations are relatively inactive politically. The roots of this inaction are complex. In many countries and localities nonprofits may be worried that political activity may create legal and political problems for the agency, given the restrictions on political activity by nonprofit public charities in federal law. Many of the newer and smaller community organizations lack the resources and expertise to effectively participate in the policy process. And some organizations such as immigrant assistance agencies may not necessarily view political activity as a priority given their mission and goals. Interestingly enough, many community organizations may lack broad-based community support as well. For example, many community organizations have been founded in the last 15 years by a relative handful of individuals committed to particular issues such as alleviating poverty or improving the environment. They may also be initially successful in obtaining a modest public and/or private grant to support their operations. As a result, these organizations may not be well-connected with their community and lack the necessary community political support to effectively participate in the political process.
Future Directions The growth of nonprofits in many countries around the world in the last 15 years and their central role in providing vital public services funded by government reflects many trends including the influence of the New Public Management, the privatization of previously government services, and the widespread interest in devolution, community, and the building of social capital. At least some advocates of privatization hope that this shift will shrink government and lead to lower costs for the public sector. In the process, citizens and communities will be empowered and civil society organizations including nonprofit organizations will grow and flourish. In the process, the relationship between government and nonprofits is fundamentally transformed. Yet, in the coming years, innovation and improvements in effectiveness within nonprofit organizations may hinge on the capabilities of government itself. In many countries, program innovations by nonprofits were supported directly or indirectly by public grants and contracts (Gronbjerg & Smith, 2006; Tendler, 1997; Kramer, 1981). Indeed, as the centrality of nonprofits to public policy has increased, the imperative for effective investment in the public sector actually becomes more urgent. Without effective oversight, nonprofit service agencies will not be accountable for effective performance. And without trained managers, government will lack to the capacity to collaborate with nonprofit organizations and respond appropriately. This oversight also includes an appropriate regulatory regime for nonprofits that promotes citizen support for nonprofits and a transparent governance structure (see Phillips, forthcoming; Smith, 2007). Given the rise of the advocacy and service role of nonprofits, political and social citizenship rights now hinge more than ever on the capacity of nonprofit organizations: they are on the front lines of public services delivery and they provide a vehicle by which millions of people participate in the concerns of their community and advocate in the political arena. So, effective governmental performance now hinges upon the health of nonprofit organizations. Given these responsibilities, nonprofits should pay considerable attention to their responsibilities in supporting social and political citizenship. This focus should push nonprofits to be more transparent and open in their governance and enhance their connections to their community and citizens more generally. This greater community support will aid nonprofits in developing a more diversified revenue base, more effective and sustained political advocacy, and greater responsiveness to the users of nonprofit programs. To achieve this greater community connection and support, nonprofits will need to think creatively about governance and community and
Gram Vikas
political support. Government should in turn support this greater transparency, accountability, and innovation in nonprofit governance and services. Overall, the relationship between government and the nonprofit sector in many countries is at a critically important time. In the last 15 years, government services have been profoundly changed and the role of nonprofit organizations has risen sharply. But fiscal constraints and enduring concerns about the effectiveness and efficiency of services provided by nonprofit organizations raise challenges for the future sustainability of many nonprofit programs. As a result, governments and the nonprofit sector will need to develop effective strategies to support and sustain nonprofits and the citizen engagement opportunities that they offer. This unfinished policy agenda will certainly be the central challenge facing governments and the nonprofit sector in the coming years.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Advocacy ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Greenpeace ▶ Hybridity/Hybridization ▶ Interest Politics ▶ New Public Management ▶ Partnerships ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Transparency International
References/Further Readings Alexander, J., Nank, R., & Stivers, C. (1999). Implications of welfare reform? Do nonprofit survival strategies Threaten civil society? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28(4), 452–475. Backman, E., & Smith, S. R. (2000). Healthy organizations, unhealthy communities? Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 10(4), 355–373. Behn, R. D., & Kant, P. A. (1999). Strategies for avoiding the pitfalls of performance contracting. Public Productivity and Management Review, 22(4) (June), 470–489. Bovaird, T. (2004). A public-private partnerships: From contested concept to prevalent practice. A International Review of Administrative Sciences, 70(2), 199–215. Considine, M. (2000). Contract regimes and reflexive governance: Comparing employment service reforms in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Australia. Public Administration, 78(3), 613–638. Eikenbery, A. M., & Kluver, J. D. (2004). The marketization of the nonprofit sector: Civil society at risk? Public Administration Review, 64(2) (April), 132–140. Forsythe, D. W. (Ed.) (2001). Quicker, better, cheaper? Managing performance in American government. Albany, NY: The Rockefeller Institute Press. Grønbjerg, K. (1993). Understanding nonprofit funding. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Grønbjerg, K. A., & Salamon, L. M. (2002). Devolution, privatization, and the changing shape of government-nonprofit relations. In L. M. Salamon (Ed.), State of the nonprofit America (pp. 447–470). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Grønbjerg, K. A., & Smith, S. R. (1999). Nonprofit organizations and public policies in the delivery of human services. In C. Clotfelter & T. Ehrlich (Eds.), Philanthropy and the nonprofit sector in a changing America (pp. 139–72). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Grønbjerg, K., & Smith, S. R. (2006). Scope and theory of governmentnonprofit relations. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: The research handbook (pp. 221–242). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hood, C. (1991). A public management for all seasons. Public Administration, 69, 3–19. Kettl, D. F. (2000). The global public management revolution. Washington, DC: Brookings. Kramer, R. (1981). Voluntary agencies in the welfare state. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Lewis, J. (1999). Reviewing the relationship between the voluntary sector and the state in Britain in the 1990s. Voluntas, 10(3), 255–270. Lyons, M. (forthcoming). Australia: A continuing love affair with the new public management. In S. Phillips & S. R. Smith (Eds.), Governance and regulation in the third sector. London: Routledge. Phillips, S. (forthcoming). Regulating for relational governance of the voluntary sector: Teetering toward reform in Canada. In S. Phillips, & S. R. Smith (Eds.), Governance and regulation in the third sector. London: Routledge. Salamon, L. M. (Ed.) (2002). The tools of government. New York: Oxford University Press. Skelcher, C. (2005). Public-private partnerships and hybridity. In E. Fairlie, L. E. Lynn, C. Pollitt (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of public management (pp. 347–370). London: Oxford University Press. Smith, S. R. (2006). Government financing of nonprofit activity. In E. T. Boris & C. E. Steuerle (Eds.), Nonprofits and government: collaboration and conflict (pp. 219–256). Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Smith, S. R. (2007). Hybrid organizations and the diversification of policy tools: The governance challenge. Paper delivered at the biennial conference of the Public Management Research Association, Tucson, Arizona. Smith, S. R., & Lipsky, M. (1993). Nonprofits for hire: The welfare state in the age of contracting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Tendler, J. (1997). Good government in the tropics. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Gram Vikas MAITRAYEE MUKERJI
Address of Organization Mohuda Village Berhampur – 760002 Ganjam, Orissa India www.gramvikas.org
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Introduction The literal meaning of Gram Vikas is ‘‘village development’’ and it is the name of an organization working since 1979 to bring about sustainable improvement in the quality of life of the poor and marginalised rural communities living in 701 villages spread across 21 districts of Orissa, India.
Brief History The genesis of Gram Vikas as an organization lies with the Young Students Movement for Development (YSMD), a group formed by students from Madras University to initiate development activities for the underprivileged. In early 1971, around 400 volunteers from this organization were involved in relief and rehabilitation of refugees of the Bangladesh war in India. However, in October 1971, around 40 members of YSMD, led by their president Joe Madiath, moved to coastal Orissa where a huge cyclonic tidal wave had caused much devastation. Nearly 10,000 people were killed and over a million rendered homeless. The volunteers began relief work in Kendrapara district of Orissa and stayed for over a year helping people rebuild roads, desalinate agriculture land and get their lives together. In the subsequent years the group worked on establishing community farming and dairy cooperatives, setting up community health programs and mobilizing tribal groups against exploitation, before being formally registered as Gram Vikas on January 22, 1979. Since its inception, Joe Madiath has been the executive director of Gram Vikas.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Gram Vikas’s mission is to promote processes which are sustainable, socially inclusive and gender equitable and enable critical masses of poor and marginalized rural people or communities to achieve a dignified quality of life. The mission is realized through activities of an integrated habitat development program called Movement and Action Network for the Transformation of Rural Areas (MANTRA). Formulated in 2004, MANTRA is guided by the belief that all people deserve to live in peace with dignity and is driven by the core values of inclusion, social equity, gender equity, sustainability, and cost sharing.
Activities Prior to 2004 the core activities of Gram Vikas were carried out under the Integrated Tribal Development Program, Biogas Program and Rural Health and Environment Program. Subsequently, all programmatic interventions of Gram Vikas were integrated under MANTRA and development activities in the villages are based on a combination of four key areas: (a) Enabling infrastructure involving
housing, community infrastructure, technology development and demonstration like vertical shaft brick kiln and others related to renewable energy; (b) livelihoods and food security including management of natural resources and livelihoods diversification; (c) education and health initiatives like village based education and residential schools water supply, sanitation, and community health; and (d) promotion and strengthening of self-governing people’s institutions. Women empowerment, strengthening of panchayats, alliance building and advocacy are the three themes cutting across all development interventions. Community managed water systems and sanitation program are the entry point activities for all villages and Gram Vikas begins its work in any settlement only after all families agree to be part of the intervention and contribute both money and labour for constructing the infrastructure. The intervention thus not only promotes improved health, but also transforms hierarchical caste and gender based exclusion into equitable inclusion. The approach and experience of Gram Vikas is well documented in their annual reports and as monographs, articles, conference proceedings and videos.
Structure and Governance Gram Vikas is registered as a society under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. Joe Madiath has been the executive director since its inception. Development practitioners, academicians, and professionals are members of the governing board of the organization. The executive director is supported by a management team comprised of managers for the field operations and staff support units.
Funding Gram Vikas is funded by host of international organizations like Christian Aid, SDC, DFID, Karl Kubel Stiftung (KKS) etc. and national level institutions including state government, PRIA, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation etc. While individual breakup is not available, for the year 2007–2008 around 40% of the total funding was from international organizations; governmental sources contributed around 31% and the rest were cumulative from national level funding organizations, bank deposits, awards, and individual donations.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Gram Vikas has received much recognition for its water and sanitation program including 2007 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship, Ashoka Changemakers Innovation Award for health and housing, and the Kyoto World Water Grand Prize 2006. Joe Madiath, founder of
Grameen Bank
Gram Vikas has received numerous awards for social entrepreneurship including the Outstanding Social Entrepreneur Award for the year 2001 given by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, Geneva.
Cross-References
▶ Ashoka ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ PRIA ▶ Schawb Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Skoll Foundation ▶ Social Entrepreneurship
References/Further Readings Madiath, J., & Jayapadma, R. V. (2002). Strengthening India’s villages the sustainable way. In A. Maharishi & R. Dhillon (Eds.), A common cause: NGOs and civil society (pp. 167–172). New Delhi: National Foundation for India. Gram Vikas (2004). People, communities and development in rural Orissa: A compendium of case studies from Gram Vikas. Berhampur, Orissa: Gram Vikas.
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poor. In October 1983, the Grameen Bank Project was transformed into an independent bank according to government legislation. The organization and its founder, Muhammad Yunus, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
Mission Professor Yunus founded the bank on the belief that credit is a basic human right, and that borrowers are not simply borrowing from a bank, but are committed to a philosophy built upon four core principles: discipline, unity, courage, and hard work.
Activities The Grameen Bank provides small loans (known as microcredit or ‘‘grameencredit’’), deposits, housing loans, microenterprise loans, special program for beggars, scholarships for the high performing children of Grameen borrowers (with priority on girls), higher education loans, loan insurance programs, life insurance for borrowers, pension fund for borrowers, and retirement benefits for bank staff.
Structure and Governance
FILIP ZIELINSKI
Grameen Bank had 2,539 branch offices that worked in 83,566 villages and employed a total staff of 24,240 in 2008. It functions differently from traditional banks, as all sales and support activities by the employees are done in the villages, at the clients’ homes. The top management is done by the Board of Directors and the Managing Director.
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Grameen Bank
Grameen Bank Bhaban Mirpur – 2, Dhaka – 1216 Bangladesh www.grameen-info.org
Introduction Grameen Bank provides small loans to the poor people in rural Bangladesh without requiring collateral. Based on a research project by economist Muhammad Yunus, the bank today serves more than six million poor families. The bank is fully owned by its clients, mainly women, and has been a model for microfinance institutions around the world.
Brief History The origins of Grameen Bank can be traced back to 1976 when Muhammad Yunus, Professor of Economics at the University of Chittagong, launched a research project to examine the possibility of designing a credit delivery system to provide banking services targeted to the rural
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In 2008, Grameen Bank disbursed $905 million. Monthly average loan disbursement was $75 million. Total revenue generated by Grameen Bank in 2007 was $155 million. Total expenditure was $153 million in the same year. Grameen Bank made a profit of $1.56 million in 2007. The Grameen Bank is owned by its borrowers. It works exclusively for their advantage. Borrowers of Grameen Bank at present own 95% of the total equity of the bank. The remaining 5% are owned by the government.
Accomplishments Grameen Bank has reversed conventional banking practices by removing the need for collateral and by building on mutual trust, accountability, participation, and creativity. Alongside credits, Grameen Bank has embarked on multidimensional programs aimed at empowering the poor and improving their social status by addressing such critical issues as housing, health, education, and disaster management.
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Cross-References
▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Yunus, Muhammad
References/Further Readings Bornstein, D. (2005). The price of a dream. The story of the Grameen bank. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yunus, M. (2003). Banker to the poor. Micro-lending and the battle against world poverty. New York: PublicAffairs.
Grassroots Associations DAVID HORTON SMITH Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Introduction Many kinds of membership associations (‘‘MAs’’; usually called ‘‘voluntary associations’’ in English), as one major type of nonprofit sector or civil-society organizations, have been studied for a long time in sociology and other social sciences under various labels. Several types of MAs are covered in other entries in this Encyclopedia, particularly in the article ‘‘membership and membership associations’’ (see ‘‘Cross-References’’ below for other relevant entries). However, the concept and term ‘‘grassroots association’’ (‘‘GA’’; plural ‘‘GAs’’) is quite a recent one. For instance, the WorldCat online database lists (as of 5/14/2008) 23,802,406 books in all languages worldwide. On 5/12/2008, this massive source on published books listed only ONE book ever published that uses ‘‘GAs’’ in the title and has a primary focus on such nonprofit groups. That one book was the research literature review and theory-building book Grassroots Associations by Smith (2000). Similar keyword searches of the online database ‘‘Web of Science’’ including the ‘‘Social Sciences Citation Index,’’ covering the 1,700+ most outstanding peerreviewed journals in 50 scholarly social sciences disciplines and fields, yielded 10 nonbook-review article ‘‘results,’’ 5 of which were articles by D. H. Smith (four centrally focused on GAs). No article title or abstract in these most prominent academic journals mentions either search keyword (‘‘GA’’ or ‘‘GAs’’) prior to D. H. Smith’s (1997c) first seminal article on GAs as the ‘‘Dark Matter’’
ignored by most Civil Society/Nonprofit Sector (‘‘CS/NPS’’) researchers. Hence, one can reasonably conclude that this article and subsequent publications by Smith (1997a, b, 2000) have brought the term ‘‘GAs’’ (‘‘GA’’) into increasing use by academic scholars globally. There is a great deal of scholarly literature on GAs if one does not insist on use of this precise term but looks for local voluntary associations/membership associations with other labels or names. Indeed, there are thousands of relevant academic journal articles and books, according to Smith (2000). This research literature on GAs has blossomed greatly in the past 10 years or so, with the use of the term ‘‘GAs’’ becoming much more common for scholarly works on this topic.
Definition The most serious analytical attempt to define GAs suggests that, in simple terms, they are essentially local-scope voluntary [or, synonymously, membership] associations. In more analytical detail, Smith (2000: 7) gives a connotative (vs. denotative) definition of GAs as ‘‘locally based, significantly autonomous, volunteer-run, formal nonprofit (i.e., voluntary [third sector, civil society]) groups that manifest substantial voluntary altruism as groups and use the associational form of organization and, thus, have official memberships of volunteers who perform most, and often all, of the work/activity done in and by these nonprofits.’’
Historical Background Broad historical overview studies of GAs in general (rather than of a specific type) are quite rare, using any label for this kind of nonprofit group. Ellis and Noyes (1990) provide an example for the United States, and Ross (1976) provides an example for primitive (preliterate) societies, selected ancient civilizations, and English medieval and later society. Smith (1997b) gives the most comprehensive overview of the world history of GAs. In what is essentially a bibliographic essay rather than detailed historical analysis, he shows (p. 190) that GAs ‘‘are not American in origin’’ as some fans of de Tocqueville may assert. GAs were by far the earliest forms of nonprofit groups to arise on earth in the human species about 25,000 years ago, flourishing from about 8,000 BC onwards on all continents.
Key Issues Introduction
One useful way to approach the key issues of GA research is to look at many of the 15 ‘‘Major Analytical Topics of Voluntary Action Theory and Research’’ suggested by Smith and the Participants of the Interdisciplinary
Grassroots Associations
Voluntary Action Task Force Planning Conference (1972). One recently emergent topic, Deviance and Misconduct in and by GAs, is also added here. Definitions, Theory, and Conceptual Issues
In addition to the definition of GAs given in the preceding section, there are many other conceptual terms related to GAs that have required careful analytical definitions. Smith et al. (2006) have recently provided such definitions for about 200 of the most important GA-related conceptual terms, as part of their larger dictionary of 1,700 CS/NPS conceptual terms. Although theory development has been weak in the CS/ NPS Studies field generally, some progress has been made at macro-levels, according to Anheier (2005: Chap. 6). Theory about GAs receives little attention by most of those concerned generally with the theory of the CS/NPS and nonprofit organizations (NPOs). One major exception is the work of Smith (2000: Part II). He derives inductively a general theory of GA structure and functioning from a massive literature review on GA empirical research (see below under Internal Structure and Process in GAs). Incidence and Prevalence Rates of GAs in Geographic Territories
GA prevalence research so far indicates that GAs have been found in most preliterate societies after they have reached the horticultural (settled village) stage of societal complexity. This is especially true for the past 10,000 years or so, as Bradfield (1973) shows for ten such societies from three major world regions. Similarly, GAs have existed in most ancient civilizations and in subsequent societies down to the present all over the world, as Ross (1976) and Smith (1974) have shown. Further, it is clear that sheer population size is a key explanatory factor in the absolute (non-standardized) prevalence of GAs in any territory since about 3,000 BC: the larger the population size, the more GAs are present. There has been very little qualitative/historical comparative research on the prevalence of GAs in different territories. One notable example is the book by Ross (1976), in which he investigates with historical data an early theoretical model of association prevalence created by Smith (1973b). Quantitative research does not seem to exist on GA incidence rates. Even quantitative research on GA prevalence is rare. The most rare of all are comparative studies that attempt to explain variations in GA prevalence rates (usually population-standardized) for a substantial number of territories of the same kind such as nations, states/ provinces, or municipalities.
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As one example of the foregoing, Smith and Baldwin (1990) used an elaboration of the Smith (1973b) association prevalence theory to explain 49% of the variance in the population-standardized prevalence of one specific type of GA among the 50 states of the United States. They found that transportation–communication network development of a state was the most important factor predicting prevalence of this GA. Smith’s re-analysis (Smith 1973b: 70–71) of data on 71 randomly selected preliterate societies, based on a study by Simmons (1945), showed that one form of GAs, secret societies, is significantly more prevalent in stable agricultural societies (with horticultural or more advanced agricultural practices) than in nomadic hunting-fishing-gathering societies that dominated the planet for most of the time back to the origins of the human species about 400,000 years ago (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2005: Homosapiens:1). Extant studies generally show that GA prevalence among territories of various kinds and levels can be explained to a significant extent when properly studied. Such studies confirm part or all of Smith’s theory that higher GA prevalence is explained by, apart from sheer population size of a territory, the degree of a territory’s intercommunication (including transportation) network development, goal differentiation, and collective action orientation. Internal Structure and Process in GAs
In general, GAs are much more informally organized than Paid-Staff Nonprofit Organizations (‘‘PSNPOs’’), let alone most government agencies and larger business firms. Nonetheless, GAs do have their own distinctive structure and process characteristics. Smith (2000: Part II) derives the first, empirically grounded, general theory of the nature of GAs in terms of structure and process, with 117 hypotheses/generalizations. He also constructs a general theory of PSNPO structure and process, often contrasting the latter with distinctive GA structure and process. Major findings for GAs are sketched below. GAs involve distinctive basic formational choices by their founder(s) regarding (a) member benefit versus nonmember benefit goals (or mix of these), (b) group style and subculture, (c) degree of autonomy from other organizations or networks, (d) degree of internal democracy versus oligarchy or autocracy, etc. GAs that become successfully established (e.g., live for a year or more) tend to have distinctive internal guidance systems, including provision of at least moderate amounts of ideology and of adequate incentives for membership and participation. GA incentive systems usually emphasize sociability/solidarity incentives (social interaction,
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friendship, social support) and purposive incentives (satisfactions from ideology and specific types of goal achievement), with few or no utilitarian/economic incentives for members/participants. In terms of internal structure, as compared to PSNPOs GAs tend to have more informal organization (less bureaucracy), more internal democracy, more member benefit goals, more often polymorphic (supra-locally linked) structure, substantial socio-demographic homogeneity, and few economic resources other than the imputed value of volunteer time and commitment, among other distinguishing factors. With regard to internal processes, as compared to PSNPOs GAs generally tend to have more intermittent activities, more evening and weekend timing of group activities, less professionalism, less (usually no) external funding, more informal recruitment, and more informal socialization of newcomers, among other distinguishing factors. Compared to PSNPOs, GAs generally tend to have top leaders elected by the membership (vs. appointed by a Board of Directors) who are volunteers (vs. paid staff) that show low professionalism, more charisma (especially top leaders), more consideration for participants, lower supervision of participants, and looser priority setting. In terms of life cycle changes, GAs tend usually to increase in complexity (e.g., bureaucracy) with increasing size of membership. However, unlike most PSNPOs, many GAs consciously resist the tendency to become more complex, preferring less bureaucratization and hierarchy and more informal relationships. Like PSNPOs, GAs tend to increase in size with age. As they age, GAs often increase their territorial scope of operations (if feasible), their external relations with other groups, their attraction of external financial resources (especially grant funding), their prestige and power, their use of material/ economic incentives, and their likelihood of future survival. Impact and Effectiveness of GAs
The impact of a GA (or any nonprofit/civil-society organization) refers to changes, if any, that a GA is able to bring about directly or indirectly, whether internal or external to the group. By contrast, the effectiveness (nearly synonymous with ‘‘efficiency’’) of a GA refers to how GAs are able to bring about their degree and types of impact in terms of GA structure and process by what GAs do. Impact of GAs
GA impact has long been studied in qualitative case studies, but only recently in quantitative research.
There have been no methodologically adequate comparative (multi-GA, or multi-GA-type), quantitative research projects on GA impact. Smith (1997a, 2000: 195–206) has reviewed the extant research literature and concluded that GAs in the many nations studied so far clearly have six key types of impact in general. Four are mainly internal impact types affecting participants by increasing (1) social (interpersonal) support, mutual helping, and self-expression; (2) stimulation and information; (3) happiness/satisfaction; and (4) better health/ lower mortality. Two other key types of impact are usually both internal and external: (5) increased socio-political activation of GA members, and the corresponding socio-political influence of many GAs on their larger communities or societies, especially at the local level; (6) significant positive economic outcomes, such as (a) improvement of the careers and human capital (skills, experience) of their participants as a kind of internal impact; (b) reduction of local taxes and contribution directly to the local economy by their (imputed) economically valuable service activities as well as by the GA’s purchase of goods and services for group use as kinds of external impact. GAs also promote and/or sustain economic development in developing nations worldwide in a variety of ways, as Fisher (1993) and Esman and Uphoff (1984) have demonstrated. There are many other significant kinds of internal and external GA impact, as Smith (2001) has discussed. However, most of these have received much less, if any, empirical research attention. GA Effectiveness
The effectiveness of GAs has been studied only to a modest extent, usually in small case studies. GA effectiveness has virtually never been studied in any large, comparative (with many GA types), let alone cross-national, quantitative, or even qualitative research projects. Smith (2000: 206–208) has developed an empirically grounded general theory of GA effectiveness. Some 18 propositions/generalizations are presented that deal with four general types of effectiveness factors: better resource mobilization, better ideology and incentives/values, better group maintenance and internal control, and better relationships and interactions with the group’s human environment. In addition, nine propositions of the theory are special effectiveness factor for internal impact. Another eight propositions of the theory are specific effectiveness factors for external impact on the GA’s public-in-contact and the larger community, nation, and world. Subsequent research studies also tend to confirm these propositions.
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Deviance and Misconduct in and by GAs
Smith (1972: 3) began the organized interdisciplinary and inter-professional field with a vision of including research on deviance, crime, and the ‘‘Dark Side’’ of GAs. In the subsequent 37 years of the emergence of this newly organized scholarly discipline the new field has largely neglected this Dark Side, as Smith (2008a, b) shows. However, academic scholars outside the emerging CS/NPS Studies discipline in more established disciplines like history, sociology, political science, and criminology/ deviance studies have paid increasing attention to such phenomena. The rare empirical research regarding GA deviance/ misconduct that has been done in VNTCS Studies mainly focuses on deviance by such groups as wholes (‘‘incivil’’ or deviant nonprofit groups; ‘‘DNGs’’). Deviance in mainstream/’’civil’’ GAs by particular leaders or other members is very much neglected. In his forthcoming book on The Dark Side of Goodness, Smith refers to his extensive general theory of DNGs, drawing on a transnational, comparative, qualitative, empirical research project with Stebbins (e.g., Smith & Stebbins, 2009a, b). This grounded theory of DNGs by Smith indicates that many very different types of deviant GAs (and supra-local membership associations, as well as some nonmembership PSNPOs) share a variety of common structure and process factors. The 24 types of DNGs studied empirically by Smith and Stebbins, using two or more published book-length case studies/histories for each type, included religious/occult GAs, political liberation/ influence GAs, anger/hate expression GAs, and sensual/ sexual expression GAs. A large majority of the revised initial set of 70+ hypotheses of Smith’s DNG theory (now with over 300 hypotheses in total) that were investigated empirically received some empirical support, usually involving one or more GAs as DNGs. These hypotheses receiving empirical support dealt with all major aspects of the DNG theory, including origins phases, ideologies, joining, membership and participation, internal structure and processes, leadership, outsider and insider reactions, group life cycle changes, and internal and external impact. Individual Entry into and Participation in GAs
Empirical studies of membership and/or participation in GAs began in the United States in 1936, according to Smith (1964: 302, 309). Smith (1964: Chaps. 4, 5, 1966) constructed the first comprehensive theory of why individuals join or participate in GAs. He showed that his theory could explain the majority of the variance in membership vs. nonmembership and in high vs. low (independently rated)
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participation for eight diverse GAs in Chile, using special, nonrandom, but carefully selected matched samples. Smith subsequently revised and expanded that theory with strong support from the research literature in subsequent literature review publications such as in Smith (1975) and Smith (1994), most recently culminating in Smith’s (forthcoming a) article on a general theory of individual volunteer participation and other socio-culturally valued leisure time activity. Substantial empirical research literature with US data now supports significantly this latest form of the theory. General GA participation (in nearly any kind of GA and for all GAs in which an individual participates) is fostered by the following factors: (a) Socioculturally Dominant Statuses, such as higher education, higher income, higher occupational prestige, middle age, more social integration, longer residence (b) Active-Effective Character, such as personality traits like extraversion and sense of efficacy (internal locus of control), attitudes like high neighborhood/community attachment and positive-cost-benefit attitudes regarding GAs generally and specifically regarding a given GA of interest, and capacities like verbal intelligence (c) Conducive Socio-Physical Environment, such as residence in a territory with high GA participation rates and opportunities, involvement in work or nonwork organizations with high GA participation rates and opportunities, and involvement in personal situations that foster high GA participation rates and opportunities (e.g., being asked to join or participate in a specific GA or GA type) (d) Conducive Leisure General Activity Pattern (‘‘Leisure GAP’’), such as greater involvement in other socioculturally approved leisure activities like volunteer service program activity, extensive friendship interactions/relationships, extensive neighbor interactions/ relationships, significant charitable giving, higher conventional political engagement/activity, church (mosque, temple, synagogue, etc.) attendance, more nonbroadcast mass media exposure, etc., according to Smith, Macaulay, and Associates (1980: Chap. 20), Smith (1994), and Smith (forthcoming a, c) The first three main types of factors are seen as causal independent variables in the Interdisciplinary Sequential Specificity Time Allocation Lifespan (‘‘ISSTAL’’) Theory of Smith (1994, forthcoming a, c; Smith et al., 1980: Chap. 18). There are interaction effects and a time-sequenced path model proposed by Smith in Smith et al. (1980: 441). The fourth type of factor, although widely seen as a statistical relationship in the research literature, is more complicated in causal terms. According to the Leisure
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General Activity Theory of Smith in Smith et al. (1980: Chap. 19) and Smith (forthcoming c), the Leisure General Activity Pattern is a positive interrelationship of socioculturally approved leisure activity types. This Leisure GAP results from a ‘‘deep leisure structure’’ of the individual’s Socioculturally Dominant Statuses, Active-Effective Character, and Conducive Socio-Physical Environment, which can vary over time. GA participation is but one manifestation of the presence in an individual of this ‘‘deep leisure structure’’ at a given time. The central generalization of the Leisure General Activity Theory is that most people in any society at any time tend to engage in leisure activities of two or more kinds that are generally approved in that society at that time in its history. The increased explanatory power of combining predictor variables from different established social science disciplines and realms of inquiry to understand better GA participation has now been clearly established for US samples, confirming Smith’s ISSTAL Theory in research literature reviews such as Smith (1975), Smith (1994), and Smith (forthcoming a). Musick and Wilson’s (2008) literature review book on program service volunteering (as contrasted with GA volunteering) also confirms many aspects of the ISSTAL Theory with several sets of US national sample data. However, these authors do not explicitly address the existence or relevance of the ISSTAL model, even though they cite Smith (1994) where the model is discussed and confirmed. Non-US studies also confirm the general outlines of the ISSTAL Theory. As one example, Bekkers (2004: 123) finds support for three of the four main predictor variable types (but not for his one Conducive Socio-Physical Environment variable predicting GA membership) in his analysis of national sample survey data from adults in the Netherlands. Broader studies of GA participation in Europe (sometimes conflating individual GA participation with service program volunteering), like those reported in J. Smith (1993: 23–29), further confirm these three major variable types as significant predictors. When relevant predictors were studied by empirical surveys in two nations, the fourth major ISSTAL Theory variable type (Conducive Socio-Physical Environment) was also confirmed as important in J. Smith (1993: 76, 135).
International Perspectives All sections of this article include research sources with a transnational (meaning two or more nations) base of data, information, and research. A prime example is Smith’s (2000) book Grassroots Associations: 21.7% of the 948 sources cited (many of them books) come from researchers outside the United States or from US
researchers who collaborated with non-US researchers or who used non-US research data to a significant extent in their published documents. The ‘‘Historical Background’’ section earlier draws mainly on a worldwide bibliographical essay by Smith (1997b). Every substantive section of the present article under ‘‘Key Issues’’ draws on transnational data sources and research. The article sections on Internal Structure and Process in GAs, on Deviance and Misconduct in and by GAs, and on Individual Entry into and Participation in GAs are outstanding in their degree of dependence on transnational sources of research and data. Some of the earliest research books on GAs with a central, multinational, comparative perspective were by Almond and Verba (1963), Bradfield (1973), Ross (1976), Simmons (1945), and Smith (1973a, 1974). The results of these and numerous other subsequent non-US and transnational research sources have all been included in the conclusions and theories presented in this article. Multinational, comparative research projects on GAs, using the same methods in a variety of nations studied, as done in Smith (1973a), have been very rare up through the present. Many more are needed. Especially in the past 10 years, research on particular GAs, or occasionally on single GA types, has been done increasingly by researchers located in or studying data from some given nation. But taken together, the past half-century of research on GAs covers most of the nations of the world. Some promising developments in highly multinational, comparative research include the World Values Survey as reported by Norris (2002: 147–151), the CIVICUS Civil-Society Index Project as reported in Heinrich and Fioramonti (2008: 220–224), and the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project in its latest version as reported by Salamon et al. (2004). One key problem for present purposes is that none of these admirable, comparative, multinational studies has taken the proper methodological care to identify GAs and GA membership/ participation as distinct from supra-local associational membership/participation. However, researchers such as the foregoing are getting better at distinguishing GA volunteering/participation from service program volunteering in their measurement procedures. Because of measurement issues, none of these three studies tells anything much about GA participation specifically. Further, from the perspective of the present article, each of these studies focuses mainly on the narrow research issues of counting nonprofit/civil-society organizations and measuring membership/participation in them to the neglect of all the other important ‘‘Key Issues’’ discussed in the present article. Nonetheless, it is especially promising that all three of these major comparative,
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multinational studies include both former ‘‘Second World’’ (former Communist Eastern and Central European) nations as well as ‘‘Third World’’ (developing, nonindustrialized, mostly agricultural economy) nations.
Future Directions Smith (2000: 251–254) argues that GAs are increasing in numbers and importance in human societies worldwide as both (1) a long-term macro-trend in the past ten millennia and (2) a meso-trend over the past few centuries. The longterm empirical data are qualitative, mainly from historical and anthropological studies. For quantitative researchers, such findings are weak, but still moderately convincing. The (3) micro-trend worldwide for the past 25–50 years is less clear, but available data also generally suggest increasing prevalence and importance of GAs. For the recent past, there are partial exceptions to this increasing global GA prevalence generalization for particular world regions (e.g., the Middle East and North Africa) and specific nations (e.g., the United States – a much disputed case). Reasons suggested by Smith (2000: 252–254) for this increasing global GA prevalence include: (a) sheer growth in population size in most nations, (b) growing preindustrial societal complexity, and (c) growing societal industrialization and modernization on a global scale. In addition, (d) there has been global growth in freedom and democratic political processes within many nations in the past 35 years, according to the
website (7/25/2008). Smith (2000: 254–261) argues that the present twentyfirst century will see very substantial growth in GAs and other forms of voluntary/membership associations and voluntary roles, including program service volunteering. He gives over a dozen major reasons for this forecast, and predicts that the present century will be the ‘‘Voluntary Century.’’ As such, the world will eventually witness the advent of Homo Voluntas, the volunteer person, as a typical resident of a more voluntary society in many, perhaps most nations of the world. Future basic research on GAs needs to focus more on highly multinational comparative studies (both qualitative and quantitative) to investigate the developing theories and conclusions of each of the sections of the present article. Existing research approaches, particularly theoretical paradigms, have many flaws, according to Smith (2000: Chap. 10). He identifies 19 major types of flaws, which he terms ‘‘Flat-Earth Paradigms,’’ and several apply to GA research. Smith (2000: 238–240) describes generally how a more useful ‘‘Round-Earth Paradigm’’ might be used, with special attention to improving research on GAs (Smith, 2000: 60–64).
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The most pressing specific topics for multinational, comparative, empirical research seem to be GA impact and effectiveness, GA structure and process, and GA deviance and misconduct. The latter must explicitly include publicly perceived stigmatization of misconduct by GAs (and other membership associations) in protest activities, especially when involved in socio-political systemchange/system-challenge activities, networks, and movements. GA incidence-prevalence-demise/exit is another cluster of topics that is very much understudied.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ CIVICUS ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Mutual Organizations, Mutual Societies ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Nonprofit Organization, Definition and history ▶ Participation ▶ Secret Societies ▶ Self-help Groups ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Sociological ▶ Uncivil Society
References/Further Readings Almond, G. A., & Verba, S. (1963). The civic culture: Political attitudes and democracy in five nations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Anheier, H. (2005). Nonprofit organizations: Theory, management, policy. New York: Routledge. Bekkers, R. H. F. P. (2004). Giving and volunteering in the Netherlands: Sociological and psychological perspectives. Utrecht, The Netherlands: Rene´ H. F. P. Bekkers, Utrecht University. Bradfield, R. M. (1973). A natural history of associations (2 vols). London: Duckworth. Ellis, S. J., & Noyes, K. H. (1990). By the people: A history of Americans as volunteers (Rev. Ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Esman, M. J., & Uphoff, N. T. (1984). Local organizations: Intermediaries in local development. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Encyclopaedia Britannica 2005 [DVD Online Version]. (2005). Menlo Park, CA: Avanquest USA. Fisher, J. (1993). The road from Rio: Sustainable development and the nongovernmental movement in the Third World. Westport, CT: Praeger. Heinrich, V. F., & Fioramonti, L. (Eds.) (2008). CIVICUS global survey of the state of civil society. Comparative Perspectives (Vol. 2). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian. Musick, M. A., & Wilson, J. (2008). Volunteers: A social profile. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Norris, P. (2002). Democratic phoenix: Reinventing political activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ross, J. C. (1976). An assembly of good fellows: Voluntary associations in History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., & Associates (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (Vol. 2). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian.
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Simmons, L. (1945). The role of the aged in primitive society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Smith, D. H. (forthcoming a). A general theory of volunteer participation and other socio-culturally valued leisure time activity. Unpublished paper. Department of Sociology, Boston College: Chestnut Hill, MA, USA. Smith, D. H. (forthcoming b). Four decades of growth of the emerging discipline of Civil Society/Nonprofit Sector Studies: Brief overview. Unpublished paper. Department of Sociology, Boston College: Chestnut Hill, MA, USA. Smith, D. H. (forthcoming c). The relationship of voluntary association participation with four other forms of socio-culturally valued individual leisure time activity: Unreported results from a 1973 U. S. national sample survey. Unpublished paper. Department of Sociology, Boston College: Chestnut Hill, MA, USA. Smith, D. H. (1964). Psychological factors affecting participation in formal voluntary organizations in Chile. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University (Ph.D. Dissertation). Smith, D. H. (1966). A psychological model of individual participation in formal voluntary organizations: Application to some chilean data. American Journal of Sociology, 72(3), 249–66. Smith, D. H. (1972). The journal of voluntary action research: An introduction. Journal of Voluntary Action Research, 1(1), 2–5. Smith, D. H. (1973a). Latin American student activism. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books/Heath. Smith, D. H. (1973b). Modernization and the emergence of voluntary organizations. In D. H. Smith (Ed.), Voluntary action research: 1973 (pp. 49–73). Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Smith, D. H. (Ed.) (1974). Voluntary action research: 1974. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Smith, D. H. (1975). Voluntary action and voluntary groups. Annual Review of Sociology, 1, 247–70. Smith, D. H. (1994). Determinants of voluntary association participation and volunteering: A literature review. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 23(3), 243–63. Smith, D. H. (1997a). Grassroots associations are important: Some theory and a review of the impact literature. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 26(3), 269–306. Smith, D. H. (1997b). The international history of grassroots associations. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 38(3–4), 189–216. Smith, D. H. (1997c). The rest of the nonprofit sector: Grassroots associations as the dark matter ignored in prevailing ‘Flat-Earth’ maps of the sector. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 26(2), 114–131. Smith, D. H. (2000). Grassroots associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Smith, D. H. (2001). The impact of the voluntary sector on society. In J. S. Ott (Ed.), The nature of the nonprofit sector (pp. 79–87). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Smith, D. H. (2008a). Accepting and understanding the ‘Dark Side’ of the nonprofit sector: One key part of building a healthier civil society. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of The Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, Philadelphia, PA, November 20–22. Smith, D. H. (2008b). Comparative study of fundamentally deviant nonprofit groups and their role in global civil society and democratic cultures as a new frontier for third sector research: Evidence for prevalence of the false ‘Angelic Nonprofit Groups Flat-Earth Paradigm.’ Paper presented at the Biennial Conference of The International Society for Third Sector Research, Barcelona, Spain, July 9–12. Smith, D. H. (2009). The ‘Dark Side’ of goodness. Bradenton, FL: David Horton Smith International. Smith, D. H., & Baldwin, B. R. (1990). Voluntary group prevalence among the U.S. states: Factors affecting the distribution of
intercultural understanding groups (Sister City Programs). International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 31(1–2), 79–85. Smith, D. H. & The Participants of the Interdisciplinary Voluntary Action Task Force Planning Conference (1972). Major analytical topics of voluntary action research: Version #2. Journal of Voluntary Action Research, 1(1), 6–19. Smith, D. H., Macaulay, J., & Associates. (1980). Participation in social and political activities. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Smith, D. H., Stebbins, R. A., & Dover, M. (2006). A dictionary of nonprofit terms and concepts. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Smith, D. H., & Stebbins, R. A. (2009a). A grounded theory about the origins phase of deviant nonprofit groups: Exploration of the ‘Dark Side’ of the nonprofit sector. Paper presented at Annual Conference of ARNOVA, Cleveland, OH, USA. Smith, D. H., & Stebbins, R. A. (2009b). Developing a grounded theory of the structural aspects of deviant nonprofit groups. Paper presented at Annual Conference of ARNOVA, Cleveland, OH, USA. Smith, J. D. (Ed.) (1993). Volunteering in Europe: Opportunities and challenges for the 90s. London: The Volunteer Centre.
Greenpeace LILI WANG
Address of Organization Ottho Heldringstraat 5 1066 AZ Amsterdam The Netherlands www.greenpeace.org/international/
Introduction Greenpeace is an international nongovernmental organization known for its activism and education on environmental and biodiversity issues. It describes itself as an ‘‘independent global campaigning organization that acts to change attitudes and behaviour, to protect and conserve the environment and to promote peace.’’ Greenpeace is present in over 40 countries across Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, and the Pacific. It has 2.8 million supporters worldwide.
Brief History Greenpeace began its first campaign in 1971 when the Don’t Make a Wave Committee founded by a group of activists, Irving Stowe, Jim Bohlen and Robert Hunter, sent a fishing boat, the Phylis Cormack, from Vancouver, Canada, to oppose the US nuclear weapons testing in Amchitka, Alaska. While the boat was intercepted before it reached its destination, the Amchitka voyage established Greenpeace’s reputation. In 1972, the group changed its
Grupo de Institutos, Fundaco˜es e Empresas (GIFE)
name to ‘‘The Greenpeace Foundation.’’ In 1979, to solve disputes between regional offices over fund-raising, the Vancouver-based Greenpeace Foundation accepted a new global structure and Greenpeace International was created.
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regulations: The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty adopted at the United Nations in 1996, the Kyoto Protocol on climate change which set legally-binding targets on greenhouse gases in 1997, and a whaling moratorium adopted by the International Whaling Commission in 1982.
Mission As an independent global campaigning organization, Greenpeace’s mission is to use nonviolent, creative confrontation to expose global environmental threats and their causes, campaign against environmental degradation, promote open and informed debate about society’s environmental choices, and seek solutions to ensure a green and peaceful future.
Cross-References
Activities
References/Further Readings
To pursue its mission, Greenpeace conducts scientific research, communicates with the media and the public to raise awareness, and lobbies on environmental policy. Greenpeace also carries out direct action, such as boycotting of companies believed to be harming the planet. It campaigns at the grassroots, regional, national, and international levels. Recent global campaigns focus on whaling, global warming, deforestation, toxic chemicals, nuclear power and disarmament and peace.
Structure and Governance Greenpeace consists of Greenpeace International in Amsterdam and 28 national and regional offices across the globe, providing a presence in more than 40 countries. Greenpeace International coordinates worldwide campaigns, monitors the development and performance of national/regional offices, provides services to these offices, and maintains contacts with supporters in countries where there is no Greenpeace office. The national/regional offices have autonomy in carrying out global campaign strategies within the local context and in fundraising. They also contribute financially to Greenpeace International and help shape the international campaign program.
▶ Advocacy ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ INGOs ▶ Social Marketing ▶ Transparency
Bohlen, J. (2001). Making waves: The origins and future of Greenpeace. Montreal: Black Rose Books. Hunter, R. (2004). The Greenpeace to Amchitka: An environmental Odyssey. Vancouver: Arsenal Pulp Press. Wapner, P. R. (1996). Greenpeace and political globalism. In P. Wapner (Ed.), Environmental activism and world civic politics. Albany: SUNY. Weyler, R. (2004). Greenpeace: How a group of Journalists, Ecologists and Visionaries changed the world. New York: Rodale Books.
Grupo de Institutos, Fundaco˜es e Empresas (GIFE) MARTIN HO¨LZ, CHARLOTTE ANHEIER
Address of Organization Av. Dr. Cardoso de Melo 1.666 9˚ andar Sao Paulo, CEP 04548-005 Brazil www.gife.org.br
Introduction
To maintain its independence, Greenpeace does not accept funding from governments, corporations, or political parties but relies mainly on contributions from individual supporters and foundations. Greenpeace reported total income of €212 million and total expenditure, including fundraising expenditure, of €187 million worldwide for the year ending December 31, 2007.
The grantmakers’ association Grupo de Institutos, Fundac¸o˜es e Empresas (GIFE – Group of Institutes, Foundation and Businesses) originated in Sa˜o Paulo, Brazil and represents one of the first organizations of its character to develop in South America. Having gained a respectable reputation both in Brazil and abroad, GIFE’s membership in 2008 consisted of more than 110 institutes, foundations and corporations, which together made social investments amounting to more than one billion Brazilian reales.
Accomplishments
Brief History
Among its other achievements, Greenpeace has played a significant role in the adoption of following international
GIFE emerged out of a discussion group formed in the late 1980s consisting mainly of corporate representatives meeting
Funding
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every 2 months to discuss philanthropic strategies. These initials discussions were sponsored in large part by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the American Chamber of Commerce, among others. Over the next few years, as the process of redemocratization raised awareness of social needs and corruption scandals affected both the public sector’s social welfare programs and the philanthropic world, the original group saw the need to formalize in order to promote the positive impacts of private social investment. With participation from this group of 25 organizations, GIFE’s constitutive meeting took place on May 26, 1995. One of its first acts was the adoption of a code of ethics.
Mission/Objectives GIFE’s mission is to develop and disseminate concepts and practices regarding the use of private resources for the common good. Its objective is to promote sustainable development in Brazil through political-institutional strengthening and supporting strategic initiatives on the part of corporate institutes and foundations, as well as other private entities that engage in social investment.
Activities GIFE offers a variety of services to its members and the general public including courses in strategic philanthropy and management, a weekly online newsletter (RedeGife online), guides to social investment, and a documentation center. Through its affinity groups and other means, GIFE tries to promote partnerships among its members and with others. It also organizes a biannual national conference on social investment. In addition, it mobilizes its members to advocate for an enabling legal framework for social investment and philanthropy. In cooperation with the journal Alliance and the Synergos Institute, GIFE publishes Alliance Brasil in Portuguese in order to extend the journal’s reach to the Portuguese-speaking population.
Structure and Governance GIFE’s structure consists of a governing board, a fiscal committee, and an executive team, currently led by Denise Aguiar.
Funding While in the beginning GIFE’s main source of income was foreign foundations, its current funding is more local and more diverse, with the largest portions of income in 2006 derived from events, educational courses, and publications and from member dues. Special projects are funded by individual member organizations as well as foreign foundations.
Major Accomplishments GIFE, with its membership drawn from some of the largest corporations and foundations in Brazil, has become a key player in advancing organized private social investment. Furthermore, it has set a positive example for other countries to initiate similar activities among its philanthropic – particularly corporate – community.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ Philanthropy in Latin America ▶ Umbrella Organizations ▶ Social Investment
References/Further Readings Costa, S. M. (2003). GIFE – Grupo de Institutos, Fundaco˜es y Empresas. A case study of a multipurpose association serving grantmakers and grantseekers. In J. M. Wood (Ed.), Case studies of Grantmaker Associations around the world (pp. 29–35). From http://www.wingsweb. org/download/csv1.pdf Kisil, M. (2007). Brazil. In H. K. Anheier, A. Simmons, & D. Winder (Eds.), Innovation in strategic philanthropy. Local and global perspectives (pp. 7–20). New York: Springer. Lessa, C., & Rosetti, F. (2005). Creating a more diverse sector. Alliance Magazine, 10(4), 33–35. Raposo, R. (2002). GIFE: Strengthening civil society. ReVista Harvard Review of Latin America (Edition ‘‘Giving and Volunteering in the Americas: From charity to solidarity’’), from http://www.drclas. harvard.edu/revista/articles/view/23
Guggenheim, Peggy MARGARETHA WARNICKE
Basic Biographical Information Peggy Guggenheim was born in New York City at the turn of the nineteenth century to two prominent Jewish families: a less wealthy branch of the famous Guggenheim family and the Seligman family. Her progenitors had accumulated substantial means through their activities in mining and merchant banking, respectively. Her parent’s marriage was tempestuous and plagued by her father’s infidelity. Her father died in 1912 while crossing the Atlantic on the ill-fated Titanic at which point her paternal uncles discovered that his financial affairs were in complete disarray. Guggenheim and her two sisters were primarily tutored at home and studied art, history, and literature.
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She credited Lucile Kohn, one of her tutors, for her eventual adoption of a radical stance towards politics and life in general. After her father’s death, her mother’s family supported them financially. She eventually inherited a modest fortune from both sides of her family. In the 1920s, Guggenheim adopted a bohemian lifestyle and traveled to Europe, where she remained for the next two decades. She married Laurence Vail, a Dada sculptor, in 1922. The tumultuous and sometimes abusive marriage produced two children, Pegeen and Michael Sindbad, but ended in divorce. She then engaged in numerous romantic affairs and married the German painter Max Ernst in 1942, but that marriage also ended in divorce. Guggenheim began collecting art in the 1930s. She remained in France during the first years of World War II, but finally left in the summer of 1941. After the war, she purchased a villa in Venice, Italy where she resided until her death in 1979.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In the late 1930s Guggenheim began amassing her now famous collection of modern art. She opened her first art gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, in London in January 1938. The Guggenheim Jeune offered exhibits for artists such as Jean Cocteau and Wassily Kandinsky, but still lost money. She ultimately decided that her efforts would be better spent creating a modern art museum in Europe. Guggenheim followed the advice of the art critic Herbert Read when planning her collection. Unfortunately, the eruption of World War II interrupted her plans. She used the money intended to finance the opening of the museum to purchase a painting a day, and thus built a large and impressive collection. During the war years, she spent much of her time and energy protecting herself and her art collection, which she finally shipped to the United States for safekeeping. Once in Venice, Guggenheim installed some of the 260 þ piece collection in her house, which she opened for visitors. She loaned many works to other cultural institutions. Upon her death, she bequeathed the collection, which was valued at over $30 million to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation with the conditions that her house become a museum and that the collection remain there.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and mid 20th Century ▶ Foundations, Operating
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References/Further Readings Dearborn, M. V. (2004). Mistress of modernism. New York: HoughtonMifflin. Gill, A. (2001). Peggy Guggenheim: Life of an art addict. London: Harper Collins. Guggenheim, P. (1979). Out of this century: Confessions of an art addict. London: Andre´ Deutsch. Tacou-Rumney, L. (1996). Peggy Guggenheim: A collector’s album. New York: Flammarian.
Guggenheim, Solomon Robert DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Solomon R. Guggenheim was born to Meyer and Barbara Myers Guggenheim – successful and well-off descendants of one of the first Jewish families to settle in Switzerland – in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1861. One of seven brothers, Guggenheim would become part of a well-known partnership with his siblings that created highly successful and profitable mining operations and amassed a vast fortune. After attending public and private schools in Philadelphia, Guggenheim spent time studying in Switzerland before joining his brothers in working for the family mining business. In the 1890s, Guggenheim traveled to several countries, including Mexico and Chile, helping to create new mining ventures. After the death of their father, the Guggenheim brothers established the Guggenheim Brothers Company and would pursue interests in mining, business and finance in the coming decades. In 1895, Guggenheim married Irene Rothschild from whom he would first encounter his passion for art. By 1918, Forbes had recognized the Guggenheims as the second richest family in America. Guggenheim died in Sands Point, New York in 1949 at the age of 88.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Throughout his professional career and retirement, Guggenheim gave extensively to Jewish philanthropies and other nonsectarian organizations. In the 1930s, Guggenheim began collecting art seriously in his retirement. He established a foundation – the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation – in 1937 with German artist Hilla von Rebay to increase public appreciation for abstract art. Started with an endowment of $1 million, the foundation
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set out to acquire art pieces and organize periodic exhibitions. In 1939, Guggenheim and Rebay opened the Museum of Non-Objective Painting in New York City, housing his collection of American and European abstract art. Guggenheim also continued to send collections on tour in order to promote a broader acceptance for the new kind of art. He shared his passion for art with his niece Marguerite ‘‘Peggy’’ Guggenheim, who became a world renowned and influential art collector and supporter. The Foundation provided scholarships and financial assistance to deserving and needy artists during the Great Depression. In the 1940s, the Foundation offered assistance to many refugee artists from Europe, including Marc Chagall, Fernand Le´ger, and the filmmaker Hans Richter. In 1943, architect Frank Lloyd Wright was asked to design the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York to house the mining tycoon’s growing collection and create a new and innovative space for sharing art. Sixteen years later, the Guggenheim Museum opened and has become a well-known architectural and cultural icon, attracting over one million visitors each year. In 1991, the Foundation began work to help create the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao – designed by renowned architect Frank Gehry and opened in 1997 – in Bilbao, Spain. The foundation has also opened art museums in Venice, Italy (The Peggy Guggenheim Collection), Berlin, Germany (Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin), and Las Vegas, Nevada (Guggenheim Las Vegas and Guggenheim Hermitage Museum). The foundation’s latest project is the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi Museum, which will be located in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The museum will also be designed by Gehry and at 450,000 square-feet will be the largest Guggenheim.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Grantmaking Foundations ▶ Guggenheim, Peggy
References/Further Readings Davis, J. (1978). The Guggenheims: An American epic. New York: Morrow. Hoyt, E. P. (1967). The Guggenheims and the American dream. New York: Funk and Wagnalis. Lawson-Johnston, P. O. (2005). Growing up Guggenheim: A personal history of a family enterprise. Wilmington, DE: ISI Books. Rebay, H. (2005). Art of tomorrow: Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim. New York: Guggenheim Museum. Unger, I., & Unger, D. (2005). The Guggenheims: A family history. New York: HarperCollins.
GuideStar RICHARD D. WATERS
Address of Organization 4801 Courthouse Street, Suite 220 Williamsburg, VA 23188 USA www.guidestar.org
Introduction GuideStar is a nonprofit organization that seeks to provide quality information on the United States’ nonprofit sector. Its name refers to modern telescope technology in that orbiting telescopes stores the positions of guide stars in their databases to determine their position. GuideStar’s reports and database serve that purpose for the nonprofit sector. GuideStar does not serve as a watchdog agency that provides a seal of approval; instead, it seeks to collect data and offer reports to donors, funders, researchers, governing agencies, and the media to allow informed decisions to be made concerning nonprofit organization funding and governance.
Brief History Before GuideStar was founded in 1994, research on nonprofit organizations was not readily available. Collecting information on the nonprofit sector was difficult and time-consuming. GuideStar was created to support charitable entities through the free flow of information in a public forum and to enable supporters and nonprofit managers to research and benchmark organizations’ missions, programs, and performance. In 1996, GuideStar received tax-exempt status from the US government. Currently, there are more than 1.7 million organizations in the database including information on more than 900,000 public charities, approximately 118,000 private foundations, and nearly half a million other exempt organizations. The information contained in GuideStar’s database includes information found on the IRS Business Master File of exempt organizations and IRS Forms 990, 990-EZ, and 990-PF. Nonprofits can update their reports with information about its mission, programs, leaders, goals, accomplishments, and needs at no cost.
Mission Overall, GuideStar seeks to improve philanthropy and nonprofit organization management through the provision of information about the sector’s financing and
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governance. The organization’s official mission is to revolutionize philanthropy and nonprofit practice by providing information that advances transparency, enables users to make better decisions, and encourages charitable giving.
Activities GuideStar is engaged in several activities designed to make the nonprofit sector work better for the general public. In addition to providing financial and governance information on nonprofit organizations, the organization also provides services in charity verification for individuals and foundations, compensation benchmarking of nonprofit employees at all levels, and analyst reports that create detailed reports highlighting organizational performance and trends in income, assets, and expenses. GuideStar also conducts activities designated for specific audiences. For example, the organization’s ‘‘Grant Explorer’’ program allows private foundations to research the activity of grantees and applicants to review their historical grant activity and evaluate current and past funding. Additionally, the Gov@GuideStar program offers a range of management tools designed to facilitate decision-making for government funding agencies. Finally, the organization provides outreach opportunities to organizations through a subscriber-based newsletter and the sale of nonprofit organization lists.
Structure and Governance Headquartered in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States, GuideStar is a registered 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization in the United States. Currently, its six-member leadership team works to carry out the organization’s mission under the guidance of its 12-member Board of Directors, which consists of leading scholars and practitioners from the nonprofit and for profit sectors. GuideStar is affiliated with GuideStar International, which has offices in seven additional countries.
Funding GuideStar is funded through a combination of fees and private donations. Subscriptions and licensing fees for the services detailed above constitute nearly two-thirds of the organization’s total revenue in 2006. The remaining 33% came from private foundations and donors. The foundations who support GuideStar’s work include Ford Foundation, Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Charles S. Mott Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, The Skoll Foundation, and Surdna Foundation.
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Major Accomplishments GuideStar continues to work diligently to provide information on the nonprofit sector. Currently, there are more than 1.7 million nonprofits in their database, and nearly 130,000 organizations voluntarily provide more information specific to their programs and services. Annually, more than 10 million people visit the Web site for information on nonprofits, and there are currently 1.2 million registered users for the services. Nearly 250,000 people subscribe to the organization’s newsletter. Two recent accomplishments for the organization include the ability to donate directly to nonprofit organizations through the GuideStar Web site through a partnership with NetworkforGood.org and a global expansion to strengthen civil society by providing information on international nongovernmental organizations. GuideStar UK is a registered charity in the United Kingdom and part of GuideStar International, which is developing programs in Germany, Hungary, India, Republic of Ireland, South Africa, and South Korea.
Cross-References ▶ Accountability ▶ Transparency
References/Further Readings Burlingame, D. (2004). Philanthropy in America. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. Frumkin, P., & Imber, J. B. (2004). In search of the nonprofit sector. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Light, P. C. (2000). Making nonprofits work: A report on the tides of nonprofit management reform. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Gulbenkian, Calouste Sarkis RAQUEL CAMPOS FRANCO
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1869 in Istanbul, Calouste Gulbenkian belonged to an ancient Armenian family of provincial bankers. He first studied in Calcedonia, then moved to France where he improved his French at high school, and in 1891 he completed his degree in engineering at King’s College in London. He was then sent by his father on a journey around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, where he was able to visit an oil field, and which would be the start of his professional career. He would prove to be a visionary
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investor, having played a crucial role in the shaping of the early oil industry in the Middle East: he would participate in the birth of the Royal Dutch Shell Group, he would create the Turkish Petroleum Company, and the Iraq Petroleum Company would be set up under his influence. In all his businesses he would demonstrate to be a very skilled negotiator, building bridges among different countries. He saw himself as a ‘‘business architect,’’ a man who had a vision and was able to balance several interests and design business structures accordingly. As he managed to hold at least 5% on the businesses he helped set up, he would often be referred after the nickname ‘‘Mister Five Percent.’’
Major Contributions Calouste Gulbenkian, who descended from an affluent family, followed his ancestors’ practice of patronage of the arts and welfare work. Throughout his life, he would support the Armenian communities around the world, fund educational and healthcare causes, and help build churches. Calouste was also an avid and skilled art collector, having acquired 6,440 pieces during his life, comprising 5,000 years of art history from Ancient Egypt to Art Nouveau. With British citizenship, he would live between London and Paris, and would hold for 24 years a diplomatic position as an economic adviser to the Persian embassy in Paris. During the Second World War he
decided to emigrate to the United States. In his trip he would stop in Lisbon, a city he fell in love with and where he decided to stay and live the 13 final years of his life. By his will Calouste Gulbenkian created an international foundation that would bear his name, with the mission to accomplish four aims – ‘‘charitable, artistic, educational and scientific.’’ With assets of approximately €3 billion, the Gulbenkian Foundation is among the largest foundations in Europe and has significantly impacted the Portuguese society.
Cross-References
▶ Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation ▶ Philanthropy in Europe
References/Further Readings Barreto, A. (coord.) (2007). Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian – cinquenta anos, 1956.2006 (Vols. I and II). Lisbon: Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian. Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian (2008). Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian 1956–2006 Factos e Nu´meros. Lisbon: Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian. Tchamkerten, A. (1999). Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian: the man and his achievements, 1869–1999. Lisbon: Fundac¸a˜o Calouste Gulbenkian – Servic¸o das Comunidades Arme´nias. Teixeira, A. J. (2008). Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation – The rich legacy of an Armenian visionary. In N. MacDonald & L. Tayart de Borms (Eds.), Philanthropy in Europe – A rich past, a promising future. London: Alliance Publishing Trust.
H Habitat for Humanity PATSY KRAEGER
Address of Organization 121 Habitat Street Americus, GA 31709-3498 USA www.habitat.org
Introduction Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) is a grassroots evangelical Christian house-building ministry founded in 1976. Habitat has approximately 1,700 US affiliates and 550 affiliates abroad in more than 90 countries and has built more than 300,000 houses in the world through mobilizing host country citizens and American volunteers.
Brief History Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI) began as an idea in the 1960s on Koinonia Farm in Americus, Georgia. Millard and Linda Fuller developed a Fund for Humanity in 1968, and during the next 5 years, two partnership houses were completed – one in Sumter County, Georgia, and one in Zaire. In 1976, Habitat for Humanity International was formed. The houses would be built with no profit added and no interest charged. Building would be financed by a revolving Fund for Humanity. The fund’s money would come from the new homeowners’ house payments, donations, and no-interest loans provided by supporters and money earned by fund-raising activities. The monies in the Fund for Humanity would be used to build more houses.
Activities HFHI is incorporated in the United States for legal tax purposes but its work is carried about by its local community affiliates who are independent and locally run nonprofit entities. ‘‘Each affiliate coordinates all aspects of Habitat home building in its local area – fund raising, building site selection, partner family selection and support, house construction, and mortgage servicing.’’
Structure and Governance Habitat for Humanity is an incorporated entity which also has been designated by the I.R.S. as a 501(c) (3) public charity. Habitat is led by its Executive Director and an ecumenical and international 25 member Board of Directors.
Funding Habitat for Humanity International’s work is financed primarily from direct public contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals and about one third from government contributions. HFHI reported total revenue of approximately $335 million and expenditures of $296 million for the fiscal year ending in 2007.
Major Accomplishments Habitat for Humanity International has built over 300,000 homes housing more than a million people worldwide since 1976. In 2001, former US President Jimmy Carter conducted the first World Leaders Build in 43 countries with 54 heads of state and government.
Cross-References
▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ INGOs
References/Further Readings Mission Habitat for Humanity calls itself an ecumenical Christian housing agency. Habitat ‘‘seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action.’’
Bagget, J. P. (2000). Habitat for humanity: Building private homes, building public religion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Leonard, P. (2006). Music of a thousand hammers: Inside habitat for humanity. London: Continuum International Publishing Group. Quelch, J. A., Austin, J. E., & Laidler-Kylander, N. (2004). Mining gold in the not-for-profit brands. Harvard Business Review, 82(4), 24.
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his main mission in the 1980s: he became the founding chairman of the Czechoslovak Helsinki Committee (1998), which he served until his death in 1993.
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Cross-References Basic Biographical Information Jirˇı´ Ha´jek was born in 1913 in Krhanice near Prague. He studied law at Charles University, where he joined the Young Social Democrats. At the beginning of World War II, he was arrested as a member of the resistance and spent the entire war in Nazi prisons. After the war he joined the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, which he then served for 20 years as member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and from 1955 until 1968 in diplomacy. In the 1960s he joined the reform wing in the Communist Party and during the Prague Spring he was Czechoslovakia’s foreign minister. After the Warsaw Pact invaded Czechoslovakia (21 August 1968), he protested against this in a speech at the United Nations – this caused his immediate dismissal from all his high offices and soon from the Communist Party itself. During 1969– 1972 he worked as historian in the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences until he retired in 1973. In the 1970s he joined the opposition against the occupational regime of President Gusta´v Husa´k. He was one of the founding signatories of Charta 77 and one of its first three spokesmen. He became target of brutal police interrogations and threats, but he remained strong in his stance and tireless in his work for the cause. After the collapse of communism in 1989, he worked for the Czechoslovak Helsinki Committee and as advisor to Speaker of the Parliament Alexander Dubcˇek. He died in 1993 in Prague.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Jirˇı´ Ha´jek was a Czech lawyer, historian, politician, and diplomat that spent all his active life serving the communist regime in Czechoslovakia only to become one of its most decisive opponents in his later years. His life thus encapsulates the tragic development of many other Czech politicians and intellectuals from early enchantment by communism, through disillusionment, to rejection. He remained on the political left even after the disillusionment of 1968 but he at the same time recognized the definitive failure of the communist project. He greatly contributed to the ethics of mutual tolerance and respect within the politically heterogeneous community of Charta 77. He emphasised the importance of the activities of independent civil society and the nonviolent defense of human rights as means of opposing oppressive regimes. He saw the importance of the Helsinki Accords for the subversion of the communist regime, and made the fight for human rights
▶ Charta 77 Foundation ▶ Human Rights
References/Further Readings Jirˇı´ Ha´jek – Biography at the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic (in Czech), from http://www.mzv.cz/wwwo/mzv/ default.asp?id = 23173&ido = 7970&idj = 1&amb = 1; 12/12/2008.
Hammer, Armand DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Armand Hammer was born in Manhattan, New York in 1898 to Russian-born Jewish immigrants and would become an immensely successful American industrialist. According to multiple biographers, Hammer was named after the ‘‘Arm and Hammer’’ symbol of the Socialist Labor Party of America (SLP), in which his father, a committed socialist, had a leadership role at one time. Hammer’s father, Julius, had worked his way through Columbia University medical school, developed a successful medical practice, and then diversified into the wholesale drug business and retail drug stores. After graduating from medical school at Columbia University in 1921, Hammer embarked on numerous business ventures with his brothers. In the early 1920s, Hammer moved to the newly formed Soviet Union with his younger brother Victor to oversee numerous business operations. After returning to the United States in 1930, Hammer got involved with a number of business, art, cultural, and humanitarian endeavors, including investing in various US oil production efforts. His investments in various US oil companies would eventually place him in control of Occidental Petroleum. Hammer died in 1990 at the age of 92.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Hammer was a philanthropist, supporting causes related to education, medicine, and the arts. Among his legacies is the Armand Hammer United World College of the American West (now generally called the UWC-USA, part of the United World Colleges). Hammer was also an avid collector of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist paintings.
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Art collecting was Hammer’s principal hobby starting in the 1920s, but his approach was always to share his collection with as many people as possible, based on his conviction that art is an important force for understanding among people of all cultures. His personal donation forms the core of the permanent collection of the UCLA Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, California and he also donated pieces to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Together with his brother Victor, he was the owner of the famed ‘‘Hammer Galleries’’ in New York City. Hammer also maintained close ties to the Soviet Union, a fact that made him unpopular in certain circles during the Cold War days, and worked for peace between the United States and Communist countries around the world. Following the Chernobyl disaster, Hammer arranged for physicians and supplies to be sent in to aid survivors. By the time he died, Hammer had won numerous awards in recognition of his philanthropy and diplomacy, including the Soviet Union’s Order of Friendship of People, the US National Arts Medal, France’s Legion of Honor, Italy’s Grand Order of Merit, Sweden’s Royal Order of the Polar Star, Austria’s Knight Commander’s Cross, Pakistan’s Hilal-i-Quaid-Azam Peace Award, Israel’s Leadership Award, Venezuela’s Order of Andre´s Bello, Mexico’s National Recognition Award, Bulgaria’s Jubilee Medal, and Belgium’s Order of the Crown.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations
References/Further Readings Blumay, C. (1992). The dark side of power: The real Armand Hammer. New York: Simon & Schuster. Considine, B. (1976). Larger than life: A biography of the remarkable Dr. Armand Hammer. London: Allen. Epstein, E. J. (1996). Dossier: The secret history of Armand Hammer. New York: Random House. Hammer, A. (1987). Hammer [with Neil Lyndon]. New York: Putnam. Weinberg, S. (1989). Armand Hammer: The untold story. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
Hanns Seidel Stiftung MATTHIAS FREISE
Address of Organization Lazarettstraße 33 D-80636 Mu¨nchen Germany www.hss.de
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Introduction The Hanns Seidel Stiftung (HSS) is a German political foundation. It is affiliated to the Bavarian-based Christian Social Union (CSU) and serves as a think tank by providing political and societal education in Germany and abroad.
Brief History The founding meeting of HSS took place in Munich in 1966 and was initiated by a group of CSU politicians in the Bavarian parliament. They named the foundation after Hanns Seidel (1901–1961), one of the cofounders of the CSU and former prime minister of Bavaria. In 1977, HSS launched its development aid program with the establishment of its first regional office abroad in Togo.
Mission HSS is committed to the ideas and basic values of Christianity. It is dedicated to foster democratic and civic education of the German people, to sponsor cultural aims, to foster international attitudes and understanding between nationalities, to promote European unification, and to provide development aid.
Activities Since HSS is affiliated to the Bavarian CSU, the foundation concentrates most of its activities in Germany on Bavaria. To pursue its mission, HSS works in four fields: 1. It serves as a Christian democratic think tank through its research and consulting activities. It has institutionalized influential forums for discussion and exchange of ideas. 2. It maintains two educational centers in Wildbad Kreuth and the Banz Monastery as well as a Conference Center in Munich for its civic education programs. The liaison office in Berlin practices civic education in the capital city and the new German states. 3. On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Science, HSS grants graduate and postgraduate scholarships to approximately 425 students. 4. HSS manages 90 projects worldwide in 57 different countries (as per 2006). The majority of the projects are concentrated not only in Asia and the South Pacific but also in Africa, South-Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Typical instruments of HSS’s development aid activities are in sociopolitical and job-oriented adult education and support in establishing organizational structures. The HSS Liaison Bureaus in Washington, Brussels, and Moscow have the task of promoting the understanding of nations and European unification through international debates and conferences.
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Structure and Governance HSS is registered as a voluntary association. The general meeting elects a board, led by a chairman and a substitute. The management is led by a managing director. In 2006, HSS had a total staff of 260 employees.
Funding HSS is almost fully funded through grants from the federal budget and the Bavarian state. Donations and fees contribute just an insignificant part of the budget which covered approximately €45 million in 2007.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Foundations, Political ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Hanss Seidel Stiftung. (2007). Im Dienst von Demokratie, Frieden und Entwicklung. 40 Jahre Hanns Seidel Stiftung. Gru¨nwald: Atwerb.
Hansmann, Henry JOHN SACCO
Basic Biographical Information Henry Hansmann (born October 1945 in the United States) holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Yale University and a J.D. also from Yale University. As of January 2009 he is the Augustus E. Lines Professor of Law at Yale University.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Henry Hansmann is scholar on corporate law with work not only in the nonprofit arena but also a theoretician on corporate law. He as well extended his theory to apply to diverse fields such as labor law. Hansmann’s 1980 article in the Yale Law Review, 89(5) ‘‘The Role of Nonprofit Enterprise’’ is considered a seminal contribution using economic and legal theory to explain the reason not only for the tax exempt status but also of the valuable role of nonprofit entities in market societies, especially given the variety of market and contract failures (information asymmetry) on the commercial side. For instance, will for profits provide food to the starving around the world? That lack of attention is a market failure. Contract failure occurs when consumers and clients are led to buy poor products for more that the product is worth rather than superior products because the seller knows the
quality while the buyer does not (Akerlof, 1970). Hansmann’s starting point is that nonprofit organizations are distinguished from profit seeking institutions by nonenurement, that is, no distribution of capital as can be the case for dividends to stockholders. In many other ways incorporated nonprofit organizations and incorporated for profit organizations are not only quite alike but the federal government has also pushed, based on pressure from the commercial side, to reduce any economic advantages nonprofit entities might have because they are often in the same businesses. Hansmann was open to many criticisms on the grounds that he considers the nonprofit structure to serve special purposes in society. A critical market view of Hansmann harkens back to the importance of allocation of scarce resources for efficiency. Without attention to a level playing field, scarce resources would be allocated in a suboptimal fashion and limit economic growth. Gradually since then the federal government and the courts have pushed to place for profits and nonprofits on equal footing. Overall, in Hansmann’s perspective, nonprofits with tax exemption, non-enurement, and volunteerism contribute positively for social welfare and economic wellbeing. Others, such as Ortmann and Shlesinger (1997), go so far as to label Hansmann’s 1980 article as a salute to trust as a way to get around information. One source of criticism of Hansmann’s 1980 view comes from the public choice school (Boettke & Prychitko, 2004). Hansmann underestimated the similarity of information asymmetry or the agency problem in both corporations and nonprofits. Self interest crosses all sectors and favors to the nonprofit sector, such as federal grants only for nonprofits, are economically inefficient. Those in executive positions, irrespective of sector, have more information than those in consumer positions and these executives can take advantage of that extra information. As a result, the power of non-enurement is dissipated.
Cross-References
▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Law, Nonprofit Corporations ▶ Public Choice ▶ Tax Exemptions, Justifications for ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Theories of the Nonprofit Sector, Economic ▶ Theories of the Nonprofit Sector, Sociological
References/Further Readings Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The market for ‘‘Lemons’’: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), 488–500.
Harmonious Society Boettke, P., & Prychitko, D. (2004). Is an independent non-profit sector prone to failure? Indianapolis, IN: The Philanthropic Enterprise. Ortmann, A., & Schlesinger, M. (1997). Trust, repute, and the role of nonprofit enterprise. Voluntas, 8(2), 97–119. Steinberg, R., & Gray, B. H. (1993). The role of nonprofit enterprise in 1993: Hansmann revisited. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 22(4), 297–315.
Harmonious Society KIN-MAN CHAN The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Introduction ‘‘Harmonious society’’ (‘‘hexie shehui’’) is a concept that was introduced by President Hu Jintao of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as a vision or objective for the country’s future socioeconomic development. After his succession to power in 2002, Hu presented this concept and a related idea, the ‘‘scientific development concept’’ (‘‘kexue fazhan guan’’), as the unifying concepts of his administration. Researchers point out that these two concepts distinguish Hu from his predecessor, Jiang Zemin (Lam, 2005; Delury, 2008). Both concepts were incorporated into the Chinese government’s 11th five-year plan (2006–2010) and the constitution of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2005 and 2007, respectively, and have generated much discussion. This article introduces the meaning of a harmonious society and discusses the relationship between a harmonious society and civil society. It also investigates the obstacles to attaining this harmonious society.
Definition Harmony is a central concept in traditional Chinese philosophy, especially in Confucianism (Delury, 2008). It is a social ideal that governs not only family and interpersonal relations but also those of the rulers and the ruled. In the Confucian classic, the pursuit of social harmony does not mean absence of conflicts and disagreements and there is even room for loyal opposition (Delury, 2008). Later interpretations, however, tend to put emphasis on order and stability, which might inevitably minimize and ignore social disparities and conflicts (Cheung, 1989). Similarly, Hu’s administration did call for harmonious society with an aim to achieve social stability, but they, as demonstrated below, were not blind to present social
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inequalities and problems. Rather, it is these conflicts and problems that lead them to set such a policy orientation. According to President Hu (2005:3), a harmonious society is a society that is ‘‘democratic and ruled by law, fair and just, trustworthy and fraternal, full of vitality, stable and orderly, and maintains harmony between man and nature.’’ These social values cover not only political and economic institutions but also cultural and environmental dimensions, which is demonstrated by the exhaustive list of suggestions made in the resolution of the Central Committee of the CCP in 2005 concerning the building of a harmonious socialist society. The suggestions cover a broad range of topics, including policy orientation regarding rural development, regional development, employment, education, medicine, and public health, environmental protection, the legal system, taxation, and fiscal policies, the social security system, community management, party leadership, and cultural enterprises (Chinese Communist Party, 2006). Although numerous policies fall under the rubric ‘‘harmonious society,’’ the concept is not unfocused. It was introduced against a background of the social disparities and conflicts that were induced by rapid economic development in China. In other words, this inclusive vision was invoked as Party leaders had already acknowledged a number of inequalities and externalities that had been generated by economic development, and building a harmonious socialist society represented the determination of Hu’s administration to solve these problems (Delury, 2008). How then can these social disparities and conflicts be solved? What are the guiding principles behind the exhaustive policies and programs? These questions are also related to the scientific development concept, which is discussed together with the concept of a harmonious society in several CCP documents and speeches by CCP members. If a harmonious society is the vision of Hu’s administration, then the scientific development concept is the means by which the harmonious society is to be built – they are two sides of the same coin (Fan, 2006). According to President Hu (2004), the main themes of scientific development concept are ‘‘putting people first, comprehensive, coordinated, and sustainable.’’ The scientific development concept emphasizes a more balanced approach to China’s development. Hu named five areas of development, or ‘‘five pairs of coordination’’ (‘‘wuge tongchou’’) to be coordinated or balanced to address the social disparities found in present day China: rural versus urban, coastal versus central and western, economic versus social, human versus nature, and domestic development versus openness to the world. While Hu’s administration aims for a ‘‘well-off society’’ (‘‘xiaokang shehui’’) and economic
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development is still the top priority, it seeks a more balanced and comprehensive development strategy. This latter objective is revealed in the 11th five-year plan, which takes seriously the issues of distribution and sustainability (Fan, 2006). Naughton (2005:1) comments that the 11th five-year plan ‘‘presents a program of government action designed to ensure that rapid growth will be more sustainable over the long term, and that fruits of growth will be more equitably shared.’’ It is through such a program that Hu’s administration seeks to attain and maintain social harmony in China.
Historical Background The harmonious society and scientific development concepts were introduced as Hu and other party leaders perceived that China has progressed to a different phase in development. In a speech delivered to provincial cadres, President Hu (2005), citing other countries and regions as examples, argued that when a country’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) per capita exceeds US$1,000, its socioeconomic development enters into a critical stage. In this stage, the country experiences either rapid economic growth and social stability or economic stagnation and social unrest, depending on whether or not its government makes the proper policies and decisions. Given that China’s GDP per capita has exceeded US$1,000 every year since 2003 (People’s Daily Online, 2004), Hu was implying that the country had already moved into this new phrase of development. In his speech, Hu identified a number of areas of social discord and problems that required a long-term strategy: rural-urban inequalities, regional disparities, uneven income distribution, energy supply shortages, environmental degradation, diversity in moral values and social interests, corruption, and crime. The present challenge facing the party, Hu pointed out, was how to steer the development process in tackling all these problems and conflicts. The Party developed a resolution (Chinese Communist Party, 2006) that describes the building of a harmonious socialist society as a continuous process to solve the social problems and conflicts generated by rapid development. As an idea that was corresponding to a new phase of growth, Hu’s vision of a harmonious society and its correlate, the scientific development concept, represents a break from the development paradigm of the previous leadership. In the initial stage of economic reforms in the 1980s, party leaders including Deng Xiaoping adopted a slanted policy that favored certain sectors (such as the upper and middle classes) or regions (such as coastal provinces and cities), the so-called theory of ‘‘letting some people get rich first’’ (‘‘xianfu lun’’). Although China’s
economy grew rapidly, gaps between different regions and social strata widened tremendously (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Research Team, 2005; Hu, 2007). Certain disadvantaged groups such as rural peasants and laid-off workers were barred from sharing the benefits of China’s economic development and became potential sources of social unrest. In contrast to previous administrations, Hu’s administration, while maintaining the goal of building a well-off society, emphasizes ‘‘common prosperity’’ (‘‘gongtong fuyu’’). Rather than seeking only to create wealth and attain rapid economic growth, Hu’s administration has striven to reduce the widening social inequalities by prioritizing the welfare of disadvantaged social groups and underdeveloped regions (Naughton, 2005; A. Hu, 2005; Fan, 2006). This shift in orientation is outlined in the ‘‘five pairs of co-ordination’’ of the scientific development concept. Along with the goal of common prosperity, that is, the even distribution of the benefits generated by economic growth, the notion of a harmonious society has broadened the previous development paradigm. Angang Hu (2007) comments that the principle of putting people first, which is enshrined in the scientific development concept, has changed the concept of development from one that narrowly focuses on economic development and growth in GDP to one that takes human and other aspects of development into account. The 11th five-year plan articulates goals that are related to issues including sustainability, energy consumption, and environmental conservation. This blueprint for development also addresses issues such as employment, social security, poverty eradication, education, medical care, and community organization. Comprehensiveness is, in fact, one of the key elements of the scientific development concept.
Key Issues Discussion of a harmonious society has provided unprecedented opportunities for scholars and activists in China to construct a new discourse of civil society. Chan (2006) and Angang Hu (2007) in different occasions similarly argued that in modern society, social conflicts are unavoidable and people should not expect harmonious relationships based on homogeneity as was the case in a traditional agricultural society. A more dynamic conception of harmony should be promoted along with due recognition of diversity in society. Both Chan (2006) and Angang Hu (2007) suggest three measures for the attainment of a harmonious society in today’s China. First, the Chinese government should take steps to reduce inequalities by implementing a more balanced development strategy (particularly, to induce investments in inland
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regions) and ensuring more progressive redistribution of income through social welfare and services. Second, the Chinese state should develop a fair and strong system, that is, democracy and rule of law, to resolve social conflicts. Because it is difficult to promote absolute values or reach consensus in modern society, it is important to maintain procedural rationality in conflict resolution. Democracy as majority rule and legal procedures such as admission of evidence, defense, and jury decision making provide a relatively level playing field for people to resolve their conflicts. Third, it is important to promote the idea of tolerance when addressing diversity in modern society. People should learn to respect differences, not just in religious beliefs and lifestyle, but also in the political dimension. Given the long and traumatic history of political struggles in China, it is important for people to learn how to deal with political opponents in such a civilized manner that political violence is avoided. In light of the discussion above, it is proposed that the development of civil society can contribute to three aspects of conflict resolution in China. First, many civic groups, particularly those dedicated to poverty eradication and issues relating to women, the environment, and education, play a crucial role in providing services to underprivileged groups. It is rather obvious that the ‘‘remedial function’’ of civil society can help reduce social inequality, which is the root cause of many social conflicts. Chinese people, however, appear to find it difficult to understand how the advocacy functions of civil society may also contribute to a harmonious society. In fact, advocacy groups such as labor and environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) play a significant role in raising public awareness of social problems and provide alternative sources of information outside governments. Only when the voices of the underprivileged, such as peasants and laid-off workers, or spokespeople for the natural environment are heard in the public domain can balanced public policies be formulated and social inequality alleviated. Civic groups also enhance the development of democracy and rule of law. By constantly aggregating and expressing the interests of the people, civil society deepens the meaning of democracy beyond electoral politics. Frentzel-Zagorska (1990) schematically depicts the functions of civil society on four levels: first, elaboration of those normative structures through which group identities and interests are defined; second, elaboration and expression of the encompassing collective identity of the given society, including the definition of its traditions, its hierarchy of values, and norms of social behavior; third, control over state policies from the viewpoint of their consistency with the socially constitutive value system;
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and fourth, self-defense of the society in cases in which this consistency is violated. In a nutshell, when state policies are made in accord with social values, it expresses the most important principle of democracy. Civil society is also pertinent to the establishment of the rule of law in a society. A legal culture with strong roots in civil society in terms of respecting individual rights and honoring contracts provides ongoing normative support to legal institutions. Civic groups that provide legal assistance to underprivileged groups also contribute to making the legal system a more equitable mechanism for conflict resolution. Finally, the civility embedded in associational life is crucial in nurturing tolerance in modern societies. To accommodate the great diversity of interests and beliefs in civil society, civic groups should learn to coexist and cooperate with other groups. Through overlapping membership and cross-pressure, people are more likely to move away from parochialism and extreme ideology. Shils (1991) defines civility as a feature of civil society that considers others as fellow citizens of equal dignity in their rights and obligations as members of civil society. Civility can be expressed as polished manner such as courtesy, self-restraint, and well-spokenness that facilitates communication and cooperation in public life. More importantly, civility is expressed as respect and tolerance, and includes concern for the good of adversaries as well as for the good of allies. Shils (1991) regards civility as the virtue of civil society. In sum, civil society can help reduce social inequality through the provision of social services to and advocacy for underprivileged groups. It enhances democracy and legal-rational procedures for resolving social conflicts. Civil society also promotes tolerance and respect for others, which may reduce conflicts arising from divergent interests, beliefs, and lifestyles. Thus, it is argued (Chan, 2006; Hu, 2007) that civil society can contribute to the attainment of a harmonious society in China, a society that President Hu characterizes as ‘‘democratic and ruled by law, fair and just, trustworthy and fraternal, full of vitality, stable and orderly, and [that] maintains harmony between man and nature’’ (Hu, 2005: 3).
Future Directions Although in theory civil society can contribute to the attainment of a harmonious society, and the latter does provide a legitimate discourse for promoting civil society in China, a number of obstacles exist for Chinese civil society to contribute to this end. On the one hand, the Chinese government realizes that NGOs in China supplement the state as a ‘‘third sector’’ by providing services to
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those who are poor and in need. On the other hand, the Chinese Communist Party is also worried that these groups may turn into an independent social force that challenges the regime. As a result, civil society in China faces tremendous constraints in several fronts. First, most NGOs are unable to attain legal status because stringent laws prohibit them from registering with Chinese authorities. All associations and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) are required to find a government unit as their sponsor before they can register with the civil affairs authorities. As sponsors need to shoulder political risks, few government units are willing to become sponsors except in the case of personal relationships or material consideration. Most NGOs are also short of resources, as the Chinese government is dilatory in providing funding; in addition, the Government does not encourage donations from groups that are not state-sponsored charity groups. As a result, many NGOs have to rely on overseas funding sources such as foundations or international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) in Hong Kong and Western countries. Since the ‘‘Colored Revolution’’ in Central Europe, NGOs with foreign connections have inevitably been under close scrutiny by the Chinese state. Also, overseas foundations and INGOs cannot find a way to acquire legal status in China, although a registration law for foreign foundations is already in place (Chan, 2005). Given these constraints, it is doubtful whether civil society in China can contribute to the attainment of a harmonious society as hoped. Only a small number of NPOs are able to provide quality services to the public. Advocacy groups are few and have only a limited range of strategies. Public discussion of democracy is still a sensitive issue in China, and the Chinese government has cracked down on NGOs that monitor government corruption. Solid evidence is still required to prove that Chinese associations are embedded in a culture of tolerance, particularly in the case of community-based organizations and indigenous religious groups. Whether local governments in China will interpret the meaning of a harmonious society as it is described by the President is another issue at stake. This concept can be interpreted as praise for absolute social order and used as a convenient tool for suppressing dissent. Unless the Chinese government formulates concrete policies to accompany its commitment to this direction of development, ‘‘harmonious society’’ will be just another slogan in China. Recently under discussion in China is the use of new indicators, including the Human Development Index and Green GDP, to reflect more comprehensively the level of China’s development; such measures are seen as a means to shape the behavior of local government officials.
If these indicators are adopted, then the performance of these officials will be assessed according to them, and the officials will have to value environmental protection, education, and other areas of social development to the same extent that they value industrial investments and outputs. Eventually, an environment that is more friendly to civil society will evolve, and that civil society will have a better chance of contributing to the development of a truly harmonious, and modern, Chinese society.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in China ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Civil Society Theory: Shils ▶ Civility ▶ Good Governance ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Sustainability
References/Further Readings Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Research Team (2005). Nuli Goujian Shehuizhuyi Hexie shehui (Striving to Build a Socialist Harmonious Society). Zhongguo Shehui Kexue (Social Sciences in China), 3, 4–16. Chinese Communist Party (2006). Zhonggong Zhongyang Guan Yu Goujian Shehuizhuyi Hexie Shehui Ruogan Zhongda Wenti De Jueding (Resolution by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning Several important questions for Building a Harmonious Socialist Society), from http://cpc.people.com.cn/BIG5/64162/ 64168/64569/72347/6347991.html; 19/05/2008 Chan, K. (2005). The development of NGOs under a post-totalitarian regime: The case of China. In R. P. Weller (Ed.), Civil life, globalization, and political change in Asia: Organizing between family and state. New York: Routledge. Chan, K. (2006). Meiyou Gongmin Shehui, Nalai Hexie Shehui (No Civil Society, No Harmonious Society). Minjian (People’s), Spring Issue: 33. (Civil Society Circular published by the Institute for Civil Society, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, PRC.) Cheung, T. (1989). Rujia Lunli Yu Zhixu Qingjie (Confucian Ethics and the Order Complex). Taipei: Juliu. Fan, C. (2006). China eleventh five-year plan (2006–2010): From ‘‘Getting Rich First’’ to ‘‘Common Prosperity.’’ Eurasian Geography and Economics, 47(6), 708–723. Frentzel-Zagorska, J. (1990). Civil society in Poland and Hungary. Soviet Studies, 42(4), 759–777. Hu, A. (2005). Envisaging China’a grand strategy: The ambitious goal of a prosperous people and a powerful nation. Social Sciences in China, Winter, 87–99. Hu, A. (2007). Zhongguo Erling Erling: Quanmian Xiaokang Yu Shehuizhuyi Hexie Shehui Mubiao (China in 2020: Comprehensive Well-off and the Goal of A Socialist Harmonious Society). In J. Zhou, A. Hu, & S. Wang (Eds.), Hexie Shehui Goujian: Ouzhou
Havel, Va´clav De Jingyan Yu Zhongguo De Tansuo (Building a Harmonious Society: The Experience of Europe and The Exploration of China) (pp. 165–212). Beijing: Tsinghua University Press. Hu, J. (2004). Zai Zhongyang Renkou Ziyuan Huanjing Gongzuo Zuotanhui Shangde Jianghua (Speech delivered at Central Seminar about Population, Resource and Environmental Work), from http:// news.xinhuanet.com/zhengfu/2004-04/05/content_1400543.htm; 20/05/08 Hu, J. (2005). Zai Shengbuji Zhuyao Lingdao Ganbu Tigao Goujian Shehuizhuyi Hexie Shehui Nengli Zhuanti Yantao Shangde Jianghua (Talk Delivered to Provincial Main Leading Cadres In Seminar about Enhancing Capacity to Build a Socialist Harmonious Society). Renmin Ribao (People’s Daily), 27/06/2005. Lam, W. (2005). China’s 11th five-year plan: A roadmap for China’s ‘‘Harmonious Society?’’ Association for Asian Research Articles, from http://www.asianresearch.org/articles/2756.html; 3/6/2008 Naughton, B. (2005). The new common economic program: China’s Eleventh Five year plan and what it means. China Leadership Monitor, 16, from http://media.hoover.org/documents/clm16_bn.pdf; 2/ 6/2008 People’s Daily Online. (2004). How is China’s per capita of US$ 4,580 calculated?, from http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/200408/05/ eng20040805_151944.html; 4/7/2008 Shils, E. (1991). The virtue of civil society. Government and Opposition, 26(1), 3–20. Shils, E. (2008). ‘‘Harmonious’’ in China. Policy Review, 148, 35–44.
Havel, Va´clav MIROSLAV POSPI´SˇIL
Basic Biographical Information Va´clav Havel was born in 1936 into a well-known and wealthy Prague family. He spent his early years under the two major twentieth-century varieties of totalitarianism – first Nazism, then Communism. As a ‘‘class enemy’’ he was barred by the Communists from formal education and so cobbled together an education by working as a chemical lab apprentice, attending night classes, and studying economics and, later, drama. He started writing poetry and plays in the late 1950s; in the 1960s he wrote a series of plays that won him international acclaim and he became actively involved in public life and politics. After the Warsaw Pact crushed the Prague Spring in 1968, the new regime banned Havel from all forms of theater and literary work. But he continued with both his writing and them Czechoslovakia and in the course of the 1970s and 1980s he became the unofficial leader and the most thought-provoking voice of anticommunist opposition in then Czechoslovakia. Most notably, he was one of the
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architects and founding spokesmen of Charta 77, besides Solidarnosc´ the most important opposition initiative in Eastern Europe. Havel was repeatedly arrested, and he served several years in prison for his dissident activities (1977, 1978–1979, 1979–1983, 1989). During the Velvet Revolution (November 1989), which toppled the weakened communist regime, he emerged as the undisputed leader of the opposition, and as Czechoslovak (1989– 1992) and Czech (1993–1998 and 1998–2003) president led his country to multiparty democracy, membership in NATO (1999) and the EU (2002). In his post-presidency Havel has focused on European affairs and the defense of human rights (Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Tibet) and has returned to writing.
H Major Accomplishments/Contributions Besides securing a place in history as playwright, politician, and statesman, Va´clav Havel is also a political thinker who has contributed significantly to the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. Using the idea of the Lebenswelt (‘‘natural life’’) from the Czech philosopher Jan Patoe`ka, he developed, in both his essays and his activities during the 1970s and 1980s, the concept of society’s self-organization and autonomy that greatly influenced the thinking and activities of Czechoslovak dissidents before 1989 and contributed to the rebirth of independent Czech civil society since 1989. In the 1990s he defended the vision of a strong civil society as an important and necessary pillar of stable democratic order against both nostalgia for paternalistic state socialism and ultraliberal concepts of society as a sum of individually-acting persons. Va´clav Havel and his first wife Olga as well as his second wife Dagmar have also led the way as civil society practitioners establishing several foundations and other NGOs of their own.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe ▶ Civil Society History VII: Late 20th and 21st Century ▶ Charta 77 Foundation ▶ Human Rights ▶ Self-organization
References/Further Readings Keane, J. (2000). Vaclav Havel: A political tragedy in six acts. New York: Basic Books. Kriseova´, E. (1993). Vaclav Havel (C. Crain, Trans.). New York: St. Martin’s Press. Pontuso, J. F. (2004). Vaclav Havel: Civic responsibility in the postmodern age. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
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Heinrich Bo¨ll Stiftung
Heinrich Bo¨ll Stiftung MATTHIAS FREISE
Address of Organization Schumannstraße 8 D-10117 Berlin Germany www.boell.de
Introduction The Heinrich Bo¨ll Stiftung (HBS) is a German political foundation. It is closely affiliated to the German Green Party (Bu¨ndnis 90/Die Gru¨nen) and serves as a think tank by providing expertise and civic education.
publications and has institutionalized influential discussion circles. It also documents the history of the German Green movement in its archive. 2. HBS maintains 15 regional offices all over Germany, and the Green Academy in Berlin, offering discussion forums and special-subject conferences to interested citizens. 3. On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Science, HBS provides graduate and postgraduate scholarships to approximately 750 students. 4. Abroad, HBS maintains its own representations in 28 countries for promoting the development of the Green political movement in more than 50 countries. Therefore, HBS supports individuals and civil society projects that are committed to ecology, human rights, self-determination, and cultural diversity.
Structure and Governance Brief History HBS was founded in 1996 by a Green Party convention pushing the merger of three separate foundations, which had been established in the 1980s. The new foundation took on the name of one of its predecessors: the Colognebased Heinrich Bo¨ll Foundation. The other incorporated foundations were the Feminist Women’s Foundation (Frauenstiftung) and the Colored Crayon Federation of Regional Foundations (Buntstift Stiftung). Since 1988, the work of these three was being coordinated by the Rainbow Foundation (Regenbogenstiftung), which served as an umbrella organization for foundations affiliated to Green movements. In 1997 HBS began its operations in its headquarters in Berlin. The foundation is named after Heinrich Bo¨ll (1917–1985), a German writer who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1972.
HBS is a registered voluntary association. It is recognized by the Green Party as a foundation allied to the party. It has a total staff of 210 employees (184 in Germany, 26 abroad).
Funding HBS is almost fully funded through grants from the federal budget and the German states (La¨nder). Donations and fees contribute just an insignificant part of the budget which amounted to about €42 million in 2007.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Political ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Mission HBS’s main tenets are ecology and sustainability, democracy, self-determination, and justice. It places particular emphasis on gender democracy, meaning social emancipation and equal rights for women and men. HBS is also committed to equal rights for cultural and ethnic minorities and to the societal and political participation of immigrants. Lastly, it promotes nonviolence and proactive peace policies.
Activities To pursue its mission, HBS is active in four fields: 1. In its headquarters in Berlin, the foundation serves as a Green think tank, through its research and consulting activities. It provides a large number of
Born, M. (2007). Parteinahme Stiftungen: Stiftung oder Partei? Stuttgart: Boorberg.
Heritage Foundation SANG-EUN LEE
Address of Organization 214 Massachusetts Ave, NE Washington, DC 20002-4999 USA www.heritage.org/
Hewlett, William Reddington
Introduction The Heritage Foundation is one of the leading nonprofit public policy research institutes based in Washington, DC. It is also described as ‘‘American conservative thinktank.’’ With extensive public policy research, Heritage influences not only those who are directly involved in the policy making process but also general citizens and organizations concerning policy issues.
Brief History The Heritage Foundation was founded in February 1973 by businessman Joseph Coors, prominent conservative activist Paul Weyrich, wealthy conservative Richard Scaife, and Edward Noble. During the Reagan administration, Heritage took a leading role in the conservative movement. Yet, Heritage has played the balancing role between the liberals and the conservatives.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Focusing its basic values on free individuals and enterprises, limited role of the government, and strong national defense, the Heritage Foundation aims to ‘‘formulate and promote conservative public policies.’’ Target audiences of the research by the Heritage Foundation are not only Congress members, policymakers, academics, and opinion leaders but also individuals and organizations concerning policy issues.
Activities As one of the leading think tanks, the Heritage Foundation has published various books, papers, journals, and magazines. The Reagan administration took its most wellknown book, Mandate for Leadership: Policy Management in a Conservative Administration published in 1981 as a policy manual. One of its most popular papers, Why Religion Matters: The Impact of Religious Practice on Social Stability, was published in 1996. It shows how the practice of religion influences the decrease in various problems confronted by US society. In 2009, Heritage’s focus was mainly on cutting taxes, reforming the education system, and preventing illegal immigration.
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analysts, Republican party officials, conservative scholars and grassroots citizenry.’’
Funding Heritage’s primary funding source is donations from general citizens and charitable foundations. According to its annual report in 2007, the operating revenue of $48.8 million was comprised of $26.4 million from individual donors, $16.9 million from foundations, and $2.3 million from corporation donors.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Heritage Foundation has been valued by its significant influence of conservative opinions with professionally performed research about various policy issues. After it made a considerable contribution to the ‘‘Reagan Doctrine’’ during the Cold War, Heritage played a supportive role for the Bush administration as to foreign policies. With three domestic policy departments – the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies, Center for Data Analysis, and Domestic Policy Studies – Heritage focuses on social policy including ‘‘welfare, Social Security, education, crime, religion, family, and civil society.’’
Cross-References ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Carter, S. C. (2000). No excuses: Lessons from 21 high-performing, high poverty schools. Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation. Fagan, P. F. (1996). Why religion matters: The impact of religious practice on social stability. Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation. Gillespie, E., & Schellhas, B. (1994). Contract with America: The bold plan by Rep. Newt Gingrich, Rep. Dick Armey and the House Republicans to Change the Nation. New York: Times Books. Heatherly, C. L. (Ed.) (1981). Mandate for leadership: Policy management in a conservative administration. Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation. The Insider – A magazine quarterly published by the Heritage Foundation.
Hewlett, William Reddington DAVID B. HOWARD
Structure and Governance Heritage has had Edwin Feulner as its president since 1977 and over 355,000 individual donors and about 38,000 foundation and corporate donors. With formally organized departments and institutes concerning domestic and foreign policy issues, the communication and marketing department and the external relations department facilitate Heritage’s activist role linking ‘‘policy
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Basic Biographical Information William (Bill) Hewlett was born in 1913 in Ann Arbor, Michigan (USA), where his father, a respected physician, served on the faculty of the university’s medical school. He moved to San Francisco at the age of 3 when his father accepted a position at Stanford University. He would
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then make the Northern California Bay Area his home for the next 84 years while helping to usher in the modern technological age. In 1939, Hewlett partnered with David Packard, a former engineering classmate at Stanford, to form Hewlett-Packard Company – the first major ‘‘start-up’’ company in the now famous Silicon Valley. That same year, he married Flora Lamson. Hewlett served as an Army officer during World War II. He was a staff member of the Army’s Chief Signal Officer and later headed the electronics division of the New Development Division of the War Department Special Staff. In 1947, shortly after he returned to Palo Alto, Hewlett was named vice president of HP and he was elected executive vice president in 1957. Hewlett was president of HP from 1964 to 1977, and served as CEO from 1968 to 1978. He became vice chairman of the HP board of directors in 1983 and in 1987 he was named director emeritus, serving in that position until he died in 2001, at the age of 87. When Hewlett died, HP had become the nation’s 13th largest business, with annual sales of nearly $50 billion and over 90,000 employees in 120 countries.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Hewlett dedicated himself to the advancement of the electronics industry as well as education and medicine. He served as board president of the Palo Alto-Stanford Hospital Center (now Stanford Medical Center) from 1956 to 1958 and as director from 1958 to 1962. He was a trustee of Mills College in Oakland, California for 10 years beginning in 1958 and Stanford University from 1963 to 1974. From 1969 to 1970, he was a member of the San Francisco regional panel on the Commission on White House Fellows. From 1972 to 1978, Hewlett was a director of the Kaiser Foundation Hospital and Health Plan and the Drug Abuse Council in Washington, DC from 1972 to 1974. In 1966, Hewlett and his wife founded the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. He served as chairman of the Foundation from 1966 to 1994. Influenced by Hewlett’s diverse interests in issues that spanned the globe, the Foundation has given grants in many areas, including to population issues and the status of women, conflict resolution, US-Latin American relationships, liberal arts colleges and research universities, the environment, and to the improvement of K-12 education, the performing arts, and the many communities and neighborhoods of the San Francisco Bay Area. In 1995, Hewlett supported the creation of the Public Policy Institute of California with an endowment of $70 million. In 2006, the Hewlett Foundation was the fifth largest foundation in the United States,
with assets worth over $8.5 billion and annual giving of nearly $212 million.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Grantmaking Foundations ▶ Packard, David
References/Further Readings Packard, D. (1995). The HP way: How Bill Hewlett and I built our company. Edited by David Kirby with Karen Lewis. New York: HarperBusiness. Tracy, K. (2003). William Hewlett: Pioneer of the computer age. Bear, DE: Mitchell Lane.
Hill, Octavia MARGARETHA WARNICKE
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1838 in Wisbech, Cambringshire in England, Octavia Hill was the ninth and last child born to James Hill, a Utopian and farmer, and Caroline Southwood Hill, an education reformer. Her mother raised the children alone when her father experienced a mental breakdown after suffering bankruptcy in 1840. Hill passed her childhood years in Finchley, a village just outside of London where she spent time with her maternal grandfather, a sanitation reformer. Educated at home by her mother, she read the works of and attended lectures by many prominent social reformers who were friends of her grandfather. The family eventually moved to London proper in 1851, where Hill took a variety of jobs, including assistant to her mother in a craft shop, copyist in a museum, and teacher. Her encounters with the impoverished inspired her to advocate methods of reform that aimed at building self-respect, boosting confidence, and providing affordable housing. She suffered several emotional and physical collapses throughout her life due to overwork and the deterioration of several important personal relationships. She died of cancer in 1912 in London.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In 1864, Hill established Paradise Place where she provided inexpensive housing to the economically disadvantaged. She monitored their activities closely by visiting tenants each week to collect rent, helping them find jobs, coordinating social and play activities for children, and
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otherwise assisting tenants. She replicated her method with other properties, which by 1884 had become quite grand in scale. In addition to expanding her own duties, she also promoted the use of her method to other cities and countries through articles and speeches. While the number of properties that she oversaw increased, Hill never supported macro-level methods for dealing with poverty and made numerous public arguments against municipal housing and even old-age pensions. Rather, she preferred small-scale efforts that focused on empowering individuals by fostering self-respect, which she felt could only be done with the knowledge gained through personal interaction. Hill worked with her older sister Miranda to preserve open spaces and parks so that natural beauty was not eliminated from urban settings. Through their efforts, areas such as Hampstead Heath and many other smaller properties were retained. Hill also advocated for women’s rights, although she adamantly opposed women’s suffrage. She firmly believed that women should stay home to care for their children, and worked to create a world where working class women could afford to do this.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century
References/Further Readings Darley, G. (2004). Octavia Hill. London: Constable. Hill, W. T. (1956). Octavia Hill: Pioneer of the national trust and housing reformer. London: Hutchinson. Maurice, E. (Ed.) (1913). Life of Octavia Hill as told in her letters. London: MacMillan.
Hla´vka, Josef MIROSLAV POSPI´S˘IL
Basic Biographical Information Josef Hla´vka was born 1831 in Prˇesˇtice near Plzenˇ to a poor clerk family. He studied at the Technical University in Prague and then learned architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. As a student he worked as a bricklayer apprentice in the firm of a Viennese builder of Czech origin, Frantisˇek Sˇebek, which he later led as managing
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director and finally took over when the owner had retired. The company flourished and Hla´vka soon became a respected and wealthy businessman, and he began to turn his attention to charity. In his middle age he had to overcome a long illness, but he never stopped working: for his business, and increasingly for charity and his nation. He was married twice, but both his wives died prematurely and childless. For his outstanding achievements he was awarded numerous prizes, honors, and honorable doctorates, he was a deputy in both the Czech and Imperial Assemblies and a member of the Lords Chamber. He died in Prague in 1908.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Josef Hla´vka is arguably the greatest Czech philanthropist of all time. Having himself experienced poverty and acutely aware of the value of education, his early charitable gifts were aimed at the support of poor students and talented scientists and artists. He established several foundations for their support. He also financed important cultural projects as well as individual writers, poets, musicians, and artists. As a devoted Czech patriot, he helped establish and fund important cultural, scientific, and educational institutions for the advancement of the Czech nation, most importantly the Academy of Sciences, Letters, and Arts in Prague in 1890. He also funded a new building for the Prague Academy of Fine Arts and created an endowment for it (1893), funded and built the Hla´vka College, a student dormitory in Prague (1904), and established and endowed Hla´vka’s Economic Institute (1906). Finally, he bequeathed his entire estate to a foundation that he established in 1904 and which bore his and both his wives’ names: Josef, Marie, and Zdenka Hla´vka Foundation. His will stipulated that 70% of the foundation’s yearly income be dedicated to the support of scientific, literary, and artistic efforts of the Czech nation and 30% to talented university students. The foundation miraculously managed to survive the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Nazi occupation and even the years of Communist rule, although it lost both its assets and autonomy between 1948–1989. After 1989, it resumed its activities and is now the oldest among major Czech foundations.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Philanthropy in Europe
References/Further Readings Ries, P. (1991). Josef Hla´vka, nejveˇtsˇ´ı ˇcesky´ mecena´ˇs [Josef Hla´vka, the greatest Czech philanthropist]. Praha: TV Spektrum.
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Hobbes, Thomas HANS-CHRISTIAN CRUEGER
Basic Biographical Information Thomas Hobbes was born in 1588 in Westport, Wiltshire (England). We know practically nothing about the early childhood of the man who went on to become one of the key figures in Western political thought. After 5 years at Oxford University he entered the services of the Cavendish family in 1608. Except for a few interruptions he should remain the family’s sons’ tutor throughout his life. During several visits to the European continent and during his e´migre´ time in Paris, which lasted no less than 11 years, he made the acquaintance of many outstanding contemporaries, such as Galileo Galilei, Rene´ Descartes, Marin Mersenne, and Pierre Gassendi. Over the course of his lifetime Thomas Hobbes contributed greatly to many fields of philosophy and the sciences, while his work also mirrors some of the major political events of his time, most notably the English Civil War (1642–1649). He is best remembered though, for his magnum opus, the ingenious ‘‘Leviathan,’’ which was published in 1651. Up until his last years, Hobbes continued to work and publish on various topics; he died in Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire (England) in 1679.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Thomas Hobbes does not come to mind naturally when civil society is the overriding topic. After all, he strongly opposed the civic idea itself, arguing in favor of a strong and sovereign government, endowed with any right to command its subjects. In fact, Hobbes delivered a sophisticated plea for absolutist monarchy. But in the particular way he did it, he laid the foundation of modern political legitimization theory. Thomas Hobbes’s role is essential in the establishment of social contract theory. In that regard – and most likely against his very own intentions – the political thinking of Thomas Hobbes is crucial to civil society. When civil society can be described as the sphere of voluntary organization and action with civic and social aims, the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes has brought about core concepts with respect to modern civil society. First, there is the notion of individual voluntarism, which forms the basis of Hobbes’s political argument. Secondly, Hobbes is certain about shared interests within groups of human beings. Thirdly and finally, Hobbes attempts to prove that individual rationality will eventually turn into collective cooperation.
It is of course necessary to stress that Thomas Hobbes did in no way connect these core concepts with civil society. But his writings have surely had a substantial impact on the evolution of a modern and ultimately liberal society, which, at the end, is the most important condition of civil society.
Cross-References
▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Locke, John ▶ Social Origins Theory
References/Further Readings Martinich, A. P. (2005). Hobbes. New York: Routledge. Skinner, Q. (2002). Visions of politics Volume 3: Hobbes and civil science. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Hodgkinson, Virginia Ann KATE RUFF, REGINA LIST, JAN SACHARKO
Basic Biographical Information Virginia Ann Hodgkinson is an American scholar of the voluntary sector. She received a B.A. and M.A. in English Literature from Fairleigh Dickinson University, and earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education from Southern Illinois University in 1976. She served as Vice President for Research at Independent Sector from 1983 to 1996, serving also as Executive Director of the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) while at Independent Sector. In 1997 she founded, and served as director until 2003, the Center for the Study of Voluntary Organizations and Service at Georgetown University – now called The Center for Public & Nonprofit Leadership. In 2002 she co-founded with Mark Warren the Center for Democracy and the Third Sector (now called the Center for Democracy and Civil Society) based at Georgetown University. After 2003, Dr. Hodgkinson remained with Georgetown as a research public policy professor until she retired in 2006.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Nonprofit Times named Hodgkinson to their ‘‘Power and Influence Top 50’’ list from 1998 to 2003, saying about her in 2000: ‘‘Hodgkinson remains not just a pioneer, as in past tense, but a leader in sector research. Her
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research findings remain the benchmark from where all others in the field start.’’ Under her direction, Independent Sector began a biennial series of statistical profiles of the independent sector. These profiles were the forerunners to two on-going comprehensive studies of the US nonprofit sector: the Giving and Volunteering series, which surveys Americans to understand ‘‘the who, what, when, and how’’ of household giving, and the Nonprofit Almanac, which provides data on the position of the nonprofit sector in the national economy and trends in wages, employment, private giving, volunteering, and finances. Hodgkinson also co-authored widely referenced books on these studies: Giving and Volunteering in the United States (1996) and the Nonprofit Almanac (1996–1997). Her most recent publications include Measuring the Impact of the Nonprofit Sector (2002), and The Civil Society Reader (2003) which she co-edited with Michael Foley. Dr. Hodgkinson has been awarded Doctorates of Humane Letters from Hartwick College (1990) and the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy (1997). In 1996, she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from ARNOVA, the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action. ARNOVA and Independent Sector established the Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Prize in 1995 to honor nonprofit researchers who have made an impact, locally, nationally, or internationally.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the United States ▶ Independent Sector ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Flynn, P., & Hodgkinson, V. A. (2002). Measuring the impact of the nonprofit sector. New York: Springer. Hodgkinson, V. A. (1996). Nonprofit Almanac 1996–1997: Dimensions of the independent sector. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Hodgkinson, V. A. (1996). Giving and volunteering in the United States. (1996 Edition). Washington, DC: Independent Sector.
Horton, Myles BARBARA A. METELSKY
Basic Biographical Information Myles Horton was an American adult educator and social activist. He was born in Savannah, Tennessee, in 1905, to
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parents who were school teachers before his birth but who later worked as farmers and sharecroppers. A childhood lived in poverty, his parent’s belief in the importance of education, and his involvement in the Presbyterian Church shaped Horton’s lifelong commitment to education for social change. This commitment led to his quest for economic and racial justice in the rural South, which resulted in Horton playing a significant role in the most important American social movements of the twentieth century; i.e., labor and civil rights. Horton’s work was largely influenced Reinhold Niebuhr, the theologian and social activist with whom he studied at the Union Theological Seminary. During Horton’s subsequent enrollment at the University of Chicago, he was introduced to the Danish Folk School movement. A trip to Denmark in 1931 helped Horton to further his vision for a community school designed to empower poor adults and communities in the South. In 1932, he and Don West established the Highlander Folk School. In 1935, Horton married Zilphia Mae Johnson who served as Highlander’s music director and is credited with promoting the song ‘‘We Shall Overcome’’ as the anthem for the Civil Rights Movement. After Zilphia’s death, Horton married Aimee Isgrig, an adult educator, who also became engaged in the work of Highlander. Myles Horton died in 1990.
Major Contributions Myles Horton’s contributions to civil society were undertaken through his work with the Highlander Folk School. Highlander was a center for adult education and social action designed with the expressed purpose of preparing rural and industrial leaders to bring about a new social order. Horton employed unconventional adult education methods that were grounded in his belief that the answers to society’s problems could be found in the experience and wisdom of ordinary people. During the 1930s and 1940s, Highlander’s focus was the training of Southern labor leaders. Activities included a community-based program, residential-based intensive courses, conferences, and cultural activities. Highlander staff supported strikes by Southern workers and also organized labor union drives. Highlander was one of the few places in the South, where Blacks and Whites could interact openly in defiance of Jim Crow laws. The first black speaker presented at Highlander in 1934 and workshops became fully integrated in 1942. As Highlander’s work began to shift toward the issue of racism, Horton’s opponents labeled him a communist and sought to close the school. By the mid-1950s Horton’s work focused primarily on civil
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rights. In 1960, the Tennessee Supreme Court revoked Highlander’s Charter. Horton filed for a new charter and opened the Highlander Research and Education Center in Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1961. Throughout the 1960s Highlander concentrated its efforts on school desegregation, voter education, and the registration of Black voters. Citizenship Schools, which taught African Americans to read so that they could pass literacy tests required for voter registration, were created across the South with the help of Highlander. Many leaders of the Civil Rights movement including Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young, and John Lewis studied or taught at Highlander. Horton moved Highlander to New Market, Tennessee in 1971. The focus of his work over the next two decades was poverty and the growing environmental degradation in Appalachia. In 1982, Horton and Highlander were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Today, the Highlander Center carries on his fight for social justice.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Freire, Paulo ▶ King, Jr., Martin Luther ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Social Justice ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Horton, M., & Freire, P. (1990). We make the road by walking: Conversations on education and social change. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Horton, M., Kohl, J., & Kohl, H. R. (1998). The long haul: An autobiography. New York: Teachers College Press. Jacobs, D. (2003). The Myles Horton reader: Education for social change. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press.
Human Rights MARLIES GLASIUS London School of Economics, London, UK
Introduction The notion of rules to protect citizens from arbitrary power is historically connected with the concept of civil society. Ideas akin to human rights can be found in different cultures throughout history, but for better or
worse, the most influential conception of human rights has been that within the western Enlightenment tradition, and related to the social contract. Thomas Hobbes and John Locke are considered as the founding fathers of the notion of civil rights and the notion of civil society alike. The two terms expressed different aspects of the guiding idea that a ruler did not have a divine right to do with his subjects as he pleased, but rather, that people came together voluntarily and negotiated a hypothetical social contract to form a civil society, in which the rights and obligations of the citizens and the ruler were clearly outlined. With the exception of Kant, the Enlightenment thinkers thought of this rule-bound society only in national terms. However, the post-World War notion of universal human rights, coupled with a thickening network of international rules directly affecting citizens, has given birth to the utopia of a global rule-bound society, which remains connected to global civil society in the modern sense of the whole of border-crossing, nonprofit, nongovernmental entities. It may be intuitive that the emergence of a global civil society is dependent on the development and observation of the international rule of law. The opposite connection is less obvious, but the history of human rights, of which only a small portion will be described here, has equally been a product of the activities of people outside government, much more than is commonly imagined.
Definition Human rights, as the term expresses, are inalienable rights inhering in the individual by virtue of being human. However, such rights can be understood normatively, as moral entitlements, or positively, as legal rights based on international law. In the latter case, the rights catalogued in the two almost universally ratified core conventions, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Convention on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) are common points of reference. Many human rights groups operate on the basis of a moral understanding of human rights, but also refer to existing legal norms in their advocacy work.
Historical Background The first catalog of individual rights proclaimed by citizens was the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen adopted by the French National Assembly in 1789. The idea of individual rights became an important ingredient in the foundation of constitutional states in Europe, and catalogs of civil and political rights found their way into many national laws and constitutions in Europe and the Americas.
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The Holocaust and other gross human rights violations associated with the Second World War gave birth to the idea that national guarantees of these rights were not enough, and they needed to be formulated and protected at the international and global level. It was due to the pressure of a small number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) who lobbied in San Francisco that human rights were included in the Charter of the United Nations. At the request of the General Assembly, a small group of lawyers led by (non-jurist) Eleanor Roosevelt drafted the ‘‘Universal Declaration of Human Rights,’’ adopted in 1948, a short and readable document avoiding legal jargon. Its legal status is controversial: it was meant to be a mere declaration, not a treaty, but some would argue that, having been reaffirmed so often by so many states, it has passed into customary law. The Universal Declaration was meant to be the prelude to the swift adoption of a comprehensive UN treaty on human rights. But the Cold War rift stymied these efforts for nearly 20 years. Idealogues in the Soviet Union and its satellite states began to realize that the idea of human rights, including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and freedom to enter and leave one’s country posed a threat to their political system. Instead of rejecting human rights outright, they began to argue that economic and social rights, such as the right to food, health, housing, and education deserved priority over civil and political rights. Developing countries were also attracted to this argument. USA on the other hand adamantly opposed, and continues to oppose, the suggestion that such ‘‘aspirations’’ have equal status to civil and political rights. Therefore, two treaties were concluded in 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). While ratification of these two treaties initially ran along the dividing lines of the two Cold War blocks, nowadays both treaties enjoy almost universal ratification. Alongside these two comprehensive treaties, a number of other human rights treaties were also adopted in the postwar years. The first category is that of regional treaties, including the European Convention on Human Rights, the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. The second category is specialist treaties, such as the Convention Against Torture, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention on Children’s Rights. While national and international movements and organizations have invoked human rights since the enlightenment, the first international organization explicitly founded as a human rights NGO would be the Fe´de´ration
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Internationale des Ligues des Droits de I’Homme (FIDH) founded with 20 national chapters in 1922. The International Commission of Jurists, founded in 1952 primarily to denounce human rights violations in the Soviet Union, quickly transcended its Cold War foundations to challenge human rights violations on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Amnesty International was founded in 1961 by British lawyer Peter Benenson to draw attention to ‘‘forgotten prisoners of conscience,’’ and emphasizing impartiality in the Cold War struggle. A number of developments in the 1970s began to rupture the previous culture of silence on human rights in interstate diplomacy. The US Congressmen introduced legislation linking possible US aid to a state’s human rights record, which provided an opening for civil society activists to testify in Congress. The Carter administration subsequently introduced annual human rights reports published by its State Department. In the United Nations, egregious violations by South American regimes sparked the establishment of a Working Group on Disappearances, and subsequently also Special Rapporteurs on particular countries. There are currently 29 thematic procedures and 10 countries under special scrutiny. These mechanisms provide great scope for civil society involvement, as they are typically led by independent experts, usually academics, and most substantial input comes from civil society since the UN lacks the means to carry out investigations. On the other hand, the most extreme response of the Human Rights Council, the successor of the Human Rights Commission, is ritual condemnation in a resolution. Also at the UN, committees attached to the two main treaties, ICCPR and ICESCR, monitor state implementation. Again, these are led by independent experts and have gradually allowed even more civil society input, but they attract even less attention than the Human Rights Council. Finally, the de´tente between the great superpowers led to the adoption in 1975 of the Helsinki Accords, which included the principle of respect for human rights alongside nonintervention in internal affairs. This gave birth to civil society organizations on both sides of the Iron Curtain devoted to monitoring respect for human rights in the Soviet Republics and its satellites: Moscow Helsinki Watch in the Soviet Union, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia, Helsinki Watch (the forerunner of Human Rights Watch) in USA, and the Helsinki Committees in many European countries. This new international architecture, with explicit recognition of human rights norms by both superpowers and a host of regional and international human rights monitoring mechanisms, in turn gave rise to what Keck and Sikkink (1998) have called ‘‘transnational advocacy networks’’: loose coalitions of civil society actors that appeal
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to norms beyond the state (i.e., human rights) in order to seek redress for state violations. Civil Society Activity
The activities of individuals and organizations in civil society in relation to human rights can be divided into three kinds: shifting norms; making law; and monitoring implementation. Norm-shifting. The rise of the human rights paradigm itself, partly at the expense of state sovereignty, can, of course, be considered as an important normative shift for which civil society has been at least partly responsible. A smaller concrete example of norm-shifting relates to the increasing acceptance of economic and social rights. From the 1980s onwards, both grassroots groups and academics including economists, philosophers, and lawyers began to draw attention to and justify these types of rights: by proving that fulfillment of the right to food or the right to housing is not correlated to the absolute stock of food or housing, by making moral arguments based on need, by elucidating the scope and content of the rights, or by exposing violations such as slum clearances or failure to distribute food stocks. Since then, economic and social rights, while by no means universally accepted, have become a point of reference for many organs of the United Nations, for mainstream human rights NGOs, and for development NGOs, which have adopted a rightsbased approach. At the national level, legal victories have been achieved in relation to the rights to food, health, and housing in South Africa, India, and Latin America. More recently, new synergies have emerged with medical practitioners on the right to health, and with anti-privatization and anti-dam activists on the right to water, and new methodologies are being elaborated, such as budget analysis and the development of indicators (Glasius, 2006). Another example of human rights norm-shifting by civil society relates to violence against women. With this new and increasingly influential framing, not only political violence against women (such as organized rape during conflict), but also communal violence (such as widow-burning or honor killings) and even domestic violence are being defined as human rights violations. Law-making. Civil society involvement occurs both at the domestic level, for instance, the Human Rights Act in UK, and internationally. While the two core conventions were almost entirely negotiated by state representatives, more recent treaties have been much more heavily influenced by civil society. The establishment of the International Criminal Court, arguably one of the most important institutional developments on human rights, has been heavily
influenced by civil society actors. The Coalition for an International Criminal Court was highly professional and enjoyed a high level of respect from, and a close working relationship with, state delegates. At the final negotiations in Rome in the summer of 1998, it was divided into regional caucuses, thematic caucuses, and monitoring teams for all 12 parts of the Statute, all closely monitoring the daily negotiations. But the influence of the civil society coalition cannot be solely ascribed to its professionalism. The ethical orientation of the civil society delegates, who collectively dwarfed any single state delegation, helped to shape the nature of the negotiations: they moved what was perceived as the middle ground by making utopian proposals; they limited the scope for secret negotiation and actually imposed a norm of transparency to which states subsequently began to appeal; their lines of reasoning constrained state representatives to make reasoned arguments based on conceptions of the global common good; and their presence strengthened the position of small and poor states. Monitoring. The greatest challenge in relation to human rights remains implementation. Monitoring implementation is the core activity of most domestic and international human rights organizations alike. A good example of the strengths and weaknesses of civil society’s monitoring function is the International Federation for East Timor (IFET)’s observer mission to East Timor’s referendum on self-determination in 1999. After the fall of Soeharto, Indonesia granted East Timor a UN-led referendum on self-determination, but the notorious Indonesian military would be in charge of maintaining peace and security. The international network of solidarity groups focused on East Timor, fearing violence but hoping to mitigate it, and organized a referendum observation mission, to observe the registration and voting, and to monitor the human rights situation. The vote proceeded relatively peacefully, but in the following days houses were burnt, and people intimidated. Instead of having a protective influence, the IFET teams actually became a target, especially after a majority for independence was declared, and had to be evacuated along with most UN personnel. President Habibie bowed to pressure and accepted an intervention force to protect the Timorese, led by Australia. This project highlights the fragility of unarmed civil society missions, and also the effects of public pressure on human rights policy. The observation mission failed to protect the Timorese, but without the publicity it gave to what was happening, there might not have been an intervention. Monitoring remains as both the most essential and the most dangerous element of civil society activity on human rights.
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Key Issues Universality
The history of the concept of human rights – like the concept of civil society – lays it open to the charge of being inappropriate in non-western cultural and political contexts. The debate about universality is held at three different levels: the academic, the governmental, and the civil society level. At the academic level, both philosophers and anthropologists have challenged the purported universality of human rights; the first from a theoretical standpoint and the second from their views of the lived experience of non-western peoples (Bell, 2000; Wilson, 1997). While there are trenchant critics of human rights in academia, much of the academic debate is oriented towards a constructive dialogue, with human rights theorist like Donnelly (1989) promoting ‘‘weak cultural relativism’’ in the interpretation of human rights, and Islamic and China-based scholars like An-Na’im (1992) and Bell (2000) pleading for the construction of an ‘‘overlapping consensus’’ on human rights values. At the governmental level, a particularly sophisticated response to criticisms of human rights violations emerged from Singapore since the late 1980s: instigated by Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, ‘‘Asian values’’ privileging harmony and consensus were counterposed to human rights. The same rhetoric was quickly adopted by the Indonesian and Malaysian government, and later also by the Chinese government. The Asian values rhetoric has been much less prevalent in relations between western and Southeast Asian states since the fall of the Suharto regime and the Anwar controversy in Malaysia in 1998. In civil society, the universality debate has in practice focused only on a few issues: primarily the rights of sexual minorities and the relation of human rights to sharia law. Such issues do, however, pose challenges for human rights organizations (Bell & Coicaud, 2007). Amnesty International has, for instance, adopted a policy on gay and lesbian rights that deviates from its policies on other issues: it calls for the release of those imprisoned for their sexual orientation, but it gives national sections of the organization the latitude not to work on this aspect of its mandate. Indivisibility and Hierarchy
At the first big UN human rights conference after the Second World War, in 1968 in Tehran, states adopted the formula that ‘‘human rights and fundamental freedoms are indivisible.’’ In Vienna, this was expanded to ‘‘all human rights are universal, indivisible, and interdependent and interrelated’’. This mantra was a response to the
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historic controversy between civil and political rights on the one hand, and economic, social, and cultural rights on the other. The position taken by the Soviet Union, that economic and social rights were the only important human rights, has no basis in Marxist thought (which is suspicious of rights language) and was never taken seriously at the level of civil society debate. The converse notion that economic and social rights are not really rights, but only aspirations, or a lower order of rights, has attracted much more debate. In classic liberal thought, individual rights are the key to a decent political system that transcends despotism, and as such they ‘‘trump’’ matters of normal political debate and policy choice. However, the classical canon did not include rights to health, housing, or education, and many self-defined liberals would place all welfare issues in the ‘‘policy choice’’ rather than in the ‘‘inalienable rights’’ category. Hence, the pairing of ‘‘economic and social’’ with ‘‘rights’’ had few champions on either side of the Cold War ideological divide (Glasius, 2006). In recent decades, the debate has been shifted by efforts of legal scholars to dispel the notion that civil and political rights only require negative state obligations to abstain, whereas economic and social rights require positive obligations to provide. Instead, they argue that all rights entail three types of obligations: to respect, to protect, and to fulfill (Eide et al., 2001; Baderin & McCorquodale, 2007). This trinity of obligations has been widely cited by judges and has made its way into the wording of the South African Constitution. Yet it is intuitive, on the basis of needs, that not all rights, or more accurately not all aspects of rights, are equally vital. Paid holidays are not as essential as food. The reluctance to barter with human rights, and particularly with economic and social rights, has laid human rights activists open to the charge of being maximalist and unrealistic. In practice, choices are made. It is not accidental that most global civil society activities in the area of economic and social rights began with the right to food, and the idea that each right has a ‘‘minimum core content’’ to be implemented regardless of circumstances is another concession to hierarchy. However, there is still not much discussion of what might be legitimate forms of human rights hierarchy or prioritization for states, and how much this narrows their margin for political choice. Collective Rights
Some rights can only be exercised collectively, such as the right to freedom of assembly or the right to speak one’s own language. Nevertheless, international law has, with one exception for a people’s right to self-determination,
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generally preferred to assign human rights to individuals. Some theorists have resolved this contradiction by arguing that while most human rights have a collective or social aspect, they are best protected at the individual level (Donnelly, 1989: 149–157). Others find this artificial and unsatisfactory, and require a recognition of collective rights, in particular in relation to minorities, and above all, indigenous people. But such a recognition in turn begs the question, how an individual’s right, for instance to reject her people’s cultural practices, relates to the collective right (Kymlicka, 1995). Humanitarian Intervention
There is a deep contradiction at the heart of human rights law, grafted as it was onto the Westphalian system of sovereign states: states are posed both as the problem and as the solution to fulfillment of human rights, both at the domestic level and at the international level, where they are tasked with monitoring each other. Discussions of human rights issues, and public condemnation of violations, are now a routine and legitimate part of international relations, but the possibility of military intervention by one or more states to end or prevent massive human rights violations in another state remains highly controversial, not just among states, but also within civil society. Before the 1990s, the rhetoric of humanitarian intervention was rarely employed by states, even in putative cases like the Indian intervention in Bangladesh in 1971 or the Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia in 1978. Since the creation of safe havens in Iraq in 1991, the lack of intervention in Bosnia and Rwanda, the failed intervention in Somalia, and the intervention without the blessing of the Security Council in Kosovo have all attracted debate and controversy under the rubric of ‘‘humanitarian intervention’’ (Kaldor, 2001). Kaldor discerns four ideological positions on humanitarian intervention: ‘‘Sovereignists’’ argue that such intervention is undesirable either from the point of view of the sending states (realists) or because it breaches the sovereign independence of the target state (communalists). Just war theorists basically argue that when the cause is just, the war is just. The ‘‘humanitarian peace’’ position holds that states never have pure motives for intervention, and that human rights cannot be granted by the sword – unarmed civil society activities are a more appropriate response to massive human rights violations. The human rights enforcement position, finally, holds that military intervention can be justified, but the manner of intervention must itself also abide by human rights standards.
In practice, civil society groups, and human rights groups in particular, have been deeply torn over specific instances of intervention. Controversy over the intervention in Somalia, for instance, caused the head of the Africa division of Human Rights Watch to split from the organization. In 1999, the same organization was deeply ambiguous about the Kosovo intervention, applauding the principle but condemning the bombings (Kaldor, 2001: 126; 128). The recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, where humanitarian considerations were cited by the interveners as only secondary motives, have nonetheless further problematized civil society views on the practice of humanitarian intervention. Impunity and Transitional Justice
After decades of building an international human rights system at the regional and global level failed to result in an obvious decline in human rights violations, the emphasis shifted toward implementation. It became increasingly clear that thinking of human rights violations as perpetrated by monolithic and abstract entities called states, and holding only states responsible, obscured the complexities of internal and external power structures, and stood in the way of human rights enforcement. The term ‘‘impunity’’ began to crop up in the reports of human rights organizations in the early 1990s, and shortly afterwards in the academic literature. The experience in many Latin American and other countries after transition to democracy was that it was not just legally, but also politically, socially, and psychologically very difficult to prosecute former perpetrators of human rights violations. A range of alternatives have sprung up: truth commissions, official or nonofficial, focus on documenting previously hidden violations, and making them part of the historic consciousness of the nation. But human rights groups also came to embrace international courts such as the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunal and hybrid courts in Sierra Leone, East Timor, and Kosovo, culminating in the effort described below to create the International Criminal Court. A final alternative, resorted to in Rwanda and currently being discussed in relation to Northern Uganda, is ‘‘traditional justice’’: informal courts rooted in local traditions to deal with lower level perpetrators. All these alternatives become paramount, hotly contested issues of debate in post-conflict societies. Non-state Actors
In a globalized world, more decisions affecting people’s lives are made by entities other than states than was the case in the decades immediately after the Second World
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War, when human rights law was largely developed. In many developing countries, for instance, large parts of the health care system may be paid for by foreign donors and implemented by local NGOs, but responsibility for the right to health still lies with the government. In other states, developed and developing alike, basic health care, education, and utility services have been privatized, but the relevant human rights obligations still lie with the state. In parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo, warlords continue to terrorise the population. The state has the human rights obligation to safeguard people from harassment, but this obligation is rendered meaningless without some minimum capacity to maintain law and order. As a result of all these developments, a human rights regime that imposes obligations solely on states has become deeply unsatisfactory. Civil society has in recent decades been particularly active in trying to construct sometimes moral and sometimes legal human rights obligations for a range of nonstate actors. For military combatants, for instance, human rights obligations can be derived from the – detailed but antiquated – laws of war, which impose obligations on all parties and confer legitimacy in return. In relation to corporate actors, the legal system is still very deficient (although attempts have been made to sue companies for human rights violating activities), but greater strides have been made in voluntary regulation: the Kimberley process for diamond certification, reducing the trade in ‘‘conflict diamonds’’, is an example of this. The literature on human rights obligations of nonstate actors is still underdeveloped (but see Feyter & Felipe Go´mez Isa, 2005; Clapham, 2006). It may be philosophically defensible that there should be a relation between an entity or a person’s capacity for making decisions that affect people’s lives, and human rights obligations, and that many actors may have concurrent rather than exclusive responsibility. But in practice, allocating such responsibility would be extremely complex.
Cross-References
▶ Amnesty International ▶ Civil Society in Post-Conflict Scenarios ▶ Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de L’Homme (FIDH) ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ Locke, John ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN
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References/Further Readings An-Na’im A. A. (Ed.) (1992). Human rights in cross-cultural perspectives: A quest for consensus. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Baderin, M., & McCorquodale, R. (2007). Economic, social and cultural rights in action. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Bell, D. (2000). East meets west: Human rights and democracy in East Asia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bell, D., & Coicaud, J.-M. (2007). Ethics in action: The ethical challenges of international human rights nongovernmental organizations. New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clapham, A. (2006). Human rights obligations of non-state actors. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Donnelly, J. (1989). Universal human rights in theory and practice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Eide, A., Krause, C. T., & Rosas, A. (Eds.) (2001). Economic, social and cultural rights: A textbook. Dordrecht/London: M. Nijhoff. Feyter, K., & Isa, F. G. (Eds.) (2005). Privatisation and human rights in the age of globalisation. Antwerp: Intersentia. Glasius, M. (2005). The International Criminal Court: A global civil society achievement. London: Routledge. Glasius, M. (2006). Panacea or pipedream: Global civil society and economic and social rights. In M. Kaldor, H. Anheier, & M. Glasius (Eds.), Global civil society 2006–07 (pp. 62–90). London: Sage. Ishay, M. (2004). The history of human rights: From ancient times to the globalization era. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Kaldor, M. (2001). A decade of humanitarian intervention: The role of global civil society. In H. Anheier, M. Glasius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global civil society 2001 (pp. 109–143). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders: Advocacy networks in international politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Kymlicka, W. (1995). Multicultural Citizenship: A liberal theory of group rights. Oxford: Clarendon. Steiner, H. J., Alston, P., & Goodman, R. (Eds.) (2007). International human rights in context: Law, politics, morals: Text and materials. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Welch, C. (Ed.) (2001). NGOs and human rights: Promise and performance. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Wilson, R. A. (Ed.) (1997). Human rights, culture and context: Anthropological perspectives. London: Pluto Press.
Human Rights Watch CLAUDIA BODE-HARLASS
Address of Organization 350 Fifth Avenue, 34th Floor New York, NY 10118-3299 USA www.hrw.org
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Introduction
Structure and Governance
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is a nongovernmental organization focusing on the defense and protection of human rights. According to the organization its tasks are to ‘‘give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes.’’
HRW has 11 principal offices located in the United States, Europe, and Canada. It consists of 275 paid staff members that are based either in one of the principal offices or in field missions in other countries around the world. The staff members are drawn from 40 different countries and include trained lawyers, academics, journalists, and country specialists. The programs of HRW are divided into six regional as well as into thematic ones whereas each of them has its own board of directors coordinating their activities. The board of executive directors heads the organization itself.
Brief History HRW developed out of the organization Helsinki Watch which was founded in 1975 as a result of the Helsinki Accords, an agreement intended to reduce the tensions between the West and the USSR. In this context, Helsinki Watch was tasked with supporting civil society initiatives in the Soviet block. When in 1981 a number of civil wars broke out in Central America, the organization Americas Watch was founded, followed shortly afterwards by Asia Watch in 1995, Africa Watch in 1988 and Middle East Watch in 1989. In 1988 Human Rights Watch was created as an umbrella for all the Watch Committees founded up to that point and for any new ones that could be created in the future.
Mission Human Rights Watch conducts in-depth and well founded research on special human rights issues as well as on the human rights situation in more than 70 countries around the world. The organization uses its information gathered to put pressure on politicians and other actors responsible for human rights violations and lobbies them to uphold their human rights obligations. According to the organization itself their work should ‘‘lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change’’ and ‘‘bring greater justice and security to people around the world.’’ HRW focuses on a range of special issues including arms, the rights of gays and lesbians, children’s and women’s rights and in recent years also on issues covering economic, social, and cultural rights.
Activities Besides the drafting of about one hundred reports on different human rights issues and country situations per year, HRW also publishes an annual ‘‘World Report’’ detailing the state of human rights all over the world. Another important activity used by HRW to highlight human rights abuses in public is the annual bestowing of the ‘‘Human Rights Defenders Award’’ to people dedicating their lives to the human rights struggle. Since 1994 the organization is also hosting an annual film festival in New York, and since 1996 also in London, covering human rights issues. When appropriate, the organization also uses internet campaigns to engage ordinary citizens in their work. Recently, the ‘‘Red Hand Campaign’’ to end the use of child soldiers has been launched.
Funding HRW describes itself as an independent organization and as such is funded by private contributions as well as by donations from different foundations. It does not accept any money from governments or related agencies. For the year 2007, HRW reports a budget of $120 million.
Accomplishments Human Rights Watch was one of the cofounders of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997. This focus on arms as one of the major topics the organization is working on continues until now. In 2008 HRW played a leading role in achieving a treaty to ban cluster munitions.
Cross-References
▶ Human Rights ▶ International Campaign to Ban Landmines ▶ Social Change Organizations
References/Further Readings Basoli, A. G. (2002). Redefining human rights: The human rights watch international film festival. Cineaste, 27(4), 34–35. Donnelly, J. (2002). International human rights. Dilemmas in world politics. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Neier, A. (2006). The attack on human rights watch. The New York Review of Books, 53(17).
Hume, David JOHN SACCO
Basic Biographic Information David Hume (originally spelled Home, but in Scottish pronounced Hume), born in Edinburgh, Scotland (26 April 1711–25 August 1776), was considered a Scottish
Hybridity/Hybridization
philosopher as was Adam Smith (1723–1790). Historians debate his education but Hume may have entered the University of Edinburgh at the age of 10.
Major Contributions He is famous for his work on societal authority and freedom can be understood by recognizing his empirical approach which was rather innovative for this period. In contrast to Thomas Hobbes (1588–1632), Hume took Hobbes’ social contract as a valuable but fictive basis for the study of major political and to an extent, economic issues. Under Hobbes and John Locke (1632–1704), government was formed when people allowed the sovereign the authority to maintain peace and security as long as government agreed to limited intervention in the lives of the people. Hume felt that a better basis for understanding government, authority, and freedom was by examining the facts. In all likelihood, government was formed by force, not a contract, with the people gradually obtaining the freedom from arbitrary rule. In addition, and this a both contemporary to Adam Smith’s (1723– 1790) view of the importance to the productive power of markets and a precursor to John Stuart Mill’s (1806– 1873) political economy, Hume felt that government should be measured by the utility it provided to the well being of the people. Freedom was vacuous without well being. Both the government and individual efforts were necessary to the general welfare although Hume continued his skeptical view that self interest could both drive and destroy general welfare. Skepticism was nonetheless a guard against the destructive element of self interest. Hume used the word knave to raise doubts about the willingness of people to forgo rights to the sovereign. Hume’s break with social contact theory added to the view that he was a skeptic. Take for example his harsh language (such as the use of the term vulgar) to criticize social contract theory. However, his empirical basis for studying politics and his use of utility, which became part of economic analysis, are far more acceptable in twentieth century (and twenty-first century) political and economic thought than social contract. When his empirical view is combined with utility it opens the way to measure peace, security, and the ability to sustain basic needs. Basic needs can be measured, following Hume’s empiricism, by the percentage of people below a poverty line. While Hume did not fully integrate the idea that utility could be subjective and thus not truly measured as objective facts, his skepticism provided some protection against rampant empiricism. The literature on interpretations of what Hume really meant is voluminous perhaps to the point of scholasticism, as in how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Of greater importance is his impact on an empirical
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basis for the study of politics and his integration of values such as well being. Hume skepticism would follow Karl Popper’s argument that tests only fail to disprove not prove. Today, a healthy dose of skepticism may have reduced the investment crises that have overtaken world economies since the 1980s.
Cross-References ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Locke, John ▶ Madison, James ▶ Mill, John Stuart ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Moore, J. (1977). Hume’s political science and the classical republican tradition. Canadian Journal of Political Science, 10(4), 809–839. Vermeule, A. (2003). Hume’s second-best constitutionalism. The University of Chicago Law Review, 70(1), 421–437. Whelan, F. G. (1994). Hume and contractarianism. Polity, 27(2), 201–224. Wulf, S. J. (2000). The skeptical life in Hume’s political thought. Polity, 33(1), 77–99.
Hybridity/Hybridization TACO BRANDSEN Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Introduction The concept of hybridity refers to the mixing of civil society, market, and state. Its chief purpose has been to describe empirical developments that blur the boundaries between these domains or sectors. These developments have arguably made civil society less distinctive. As Frumkin has put it: ‘‘[T]he lines delimiting the sector have frequently been subject to challenge and revision, as funds and responsibilities have shifted back and forth among business, nonprofit and government organizations. Reaching consensus on the very definition of nonprofit and voluntary sector is difficult because many of the core features and activities of nonprofits increasingly overlap and compete with those of business and government’’ (Frumkin, 2002: 1). The concept of hybridity has been enthusiastically embraced by a number of (especially European) scholars. At the same time, it has invited much criticism, both on theoretical and normative grounds. Theoretically, the concept tends to remain fuzzy and is in need of more
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precise definition. Normatively, a number of authors believe hybridity to be a form of moral corruption. However, there is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the concept is of empirical significance and cannot be easily dismissed. Recent developments in industrialized welfare states, connected to public service reform, have encouraged the emergence of an increasing number of hybrid organizations. Research on these organizations has examined why they come into existence, how they function, and how their performance must be assessed.
Definition The notion of hybridity has its origins in biology, where it refers to the combination of different species. It exists in various disciplines (e.g., public administration, organizational theory, economics, and business administration), in each of which the mix refers to another set of dimensions. For instance, in public administration research it tends to denote public/private mixes (making no clear distinction between the nonprofit and commercial dimensions), whereas in organizational theory it generally refers to combinations of coordination mechanisms such as hierarchies, markets, and networks. In the context of civil society, it refers to entities that combine characteristics of civil society, market, and state. Hybridity can be defined at various levels, with reference to organizations, networks, or systems. Hybrid networks are often discussed with reference to ‘‘public–private partnerships,’’ hybrid systems with reference to the ‘‘welfare mix.’’ This entry will focus primarily on hybrid organizations, as these have raised the most pressing questions in research on civil society. ‘‘Hybridization’’ refers to the process through which organizations become hybrid. When something is described as hybrid, it is essentially a negative definition, since it describes a phenomenon in terms of what it is not. Brandsen et al. (2005) have likened hybrid organizations to mythical creatures such as griffons: they are conceived only in terms of parts of other creatures. Essentially, all organizations are hybrid, since there are by definition few real-life organizations that wholly conform to the ideal types of either civil society, market, or state. However, the concept of hybridity implies that certain organizations mix elements of ideal types to the point that they can no longer be usefully described in terms of those ideal types, at which point, one should start searching for new ones. In that sense, hybridity is a transitional concept.
Historical Background Although the concept of hybridity can be applied to any type of entity, it has been mostly used in the context
of public service provision in the welfare states of Continental Europe. It is seen as the result of two historical processes: the bureaucratization following the integration of civil society organizations in expanding welfare systems and the marketization of public services in the last two decades of the twentieth century. In corporatist welfare systems, civil society organizations have generally received an important role in service delivery. Public funding has facilitated the enormous growth in the size and scope of civil society organizations in the second half of the twentieth century. However, it has also been accompanied by bureaucratization as regulation accompanying public funds has limited the formal autonomy of these civil society organizations. For instance, it has made it more difficult for civil society organizations to restrict the allocation of services to specific social groups. It has also encouraged the professionalization of civil society organizations, making them structurally dependent on public funding. Whether the advantages of vastly increased funds and scope outweigh the loss of autonomy has been vigorously debated. Fiscal crises and concerns over the incentive structure of the welfare state encouraged market-inspired reforms from the 1980s onward. Although these are particularly associated with the Thatcher and Reagan governments in the United Kingdom and the United States, respectively, they have been implemented throughout the industrialized world. They are one element in the New Public Management reforms aimed at reorganizing the public sector. (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004; McLaughlin et al., 2006). As many civil society organizations had been drawn into the public sector, they too were drawn into this process. It entailed the introduction of quasi-market elements such as competition between providers and, by extension, a greater focus on output and efficiency (Brandsen, 2004). As a consequence, civil society organizations began to incorporate elements of businesses, such as a greater emphasis on marketing and efficiency. An alternative road toward hybridization has been taken by organizations that were not originally involved in public service delivery, but applied for public funding when competition for contracts was opened up. In other words, the process has to a large extent been state-driven, but has also been embraced voluntarily by a great number of civil society organizations themselves. As such organizations have been affected by bureaucratization and marketization, it has become more difficult to classify them in terms of the traditional domains of state, market, and civil society. For example, a hospital originally founded as a charity may compete for patients with commercial and state hospitals, within the context of
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a publicly funded health care system. Such organizations defy any suggestion that these domains can be clearly demarcated.
Key Issues Is Hybridity Theoretically and Empirically New?
The concept of mixed entities is of course not new in itself. The concept of mixed organizations can be traced back to the work in organizational theory by people like Cyert and March. The concept of hybridity does not constitute an innovation in the context of this theoretical tradition. However, the type of mix that organizational theory refers to tends to be different from that of empirical studies of hybrid organizations. The latter tend to describe the mix in terms of public/private, or as state/ market/civil society, i.e., as belonging to a certain sphere in society. By contrast, organizational theory looks primarily at mixing in terms of internal coordination through hierarchy, network, or market, or as the confluence of diverse environmental influences. If the concept of hybridity is innovative, it is primarily so in the context of disciplines that defines their object in terms of domains, such as research on civil society or public administration. A related question is whether hybridization is empirically new. Although current research on the process focuses primarily on the recent empirical developments described above, it is unlikely that hybrid organizations came into existence only in the twentieth century. Indeed, the mixing of public and private interests is a recurrent theme in research on statehood. Likewise, there are examples of civil society organizations that incorporated elements of what would now be called states and markets (e.g., certain organizations within the medieval Catholic Church). One must of course be careful in imposing the meaning of contemporary concepts on history, but it is safe to say that from the current perspective, it is likely that more and more hybrid organizations will be ‘‘discovered’’ in the past. Is Hybridization Good or Bad?
The question whether hybridization must be discouraged or not has been strongly present in much of the debate. Among opponents of hybridity, the main argument is that mixing different types of organizations will start a process in which commercial interests start to take precedence over public ones. At the organizational level, this could mean that staff is driven to value the market position of their organization over the interests of their clients (e.g., by lowering the quality of services to raise profit margins). At the level of welfare systems, it can mean that
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commercial providers drive civil society organizations out of the market by focusing only on profitable segments, preventing the possibility of cross-subsidization. Criticism has been strongest where it centers on the potential cultural effects of hybridization. Koppell has warned of the difficulty of controlling organizations with a market orientation (Koppell, 2003) on the basis of an analysis of Freddy Mae and Fanny Mac, mortgage lenders, that have since spectacularly failed. Referring to corruption, Jane Jacobs warned of the emergence of ‘‘monstrous moral hybrids’’ (Jacobs, 1994). However, some authors have argued in favor of a positive interpretation of hybridization. Their argument is that the combination of different elements can lead to synergy, to organizations that combine the best of different worlds. In other words, organizations could combine public spiritedness with competitiveness and costefficiency. A concept that has been used to refer to such successful hybrids is that of the ‘‘social enterprise,’’ a term that is open to various interpretations, but in this sense close to the one adopted by the European EMES Research Network (see Borzaga & Defourny, 2001; Nyssens, 2006). One of the chief benefits ascribed to such organizations is their ability to innovate at the level of service delivery and to combine economic activity with such civil society characteristics as stakeholder participation and the aim to benefit the community. Does Hybridity Matter in Practice?
A final key issue is whether hybridity has any significant effect on actual service delivery. There is some evidence that the fact that an organization is hybrid from an economic or legal perspective does not, or only marginally, affect how professionals operate (see, e.g., Honingh, 2008; Bode, 2008). This may be because the organization has institutional filters that shield its primary production process and restrict the effects of hybridization to the managerial level. Alternatively, it may indicate that hybridity is more belief than reality. A third potential explanation is that it is at this point too early to truly assess the effects of hybridization and that these will only become apparent over a longer time period. It is only at the time of writing that systematic studies into this aspect of hybridization are becoming available.
International Perspectives To date there are no large-scale quantitative studies of the phenomenon of hybridization. This is partly because, as noted above, it deviates from traditional concepts and does not easily show up in existing data. However, this is also related to the lack of a uniform conceptualization and
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the overwhelming emphasis in research on hybridization on qualitative case studies. The most elaborate evidence on the phenomenon concerns Continental welfare states, where the relationship between European state and civil society has traditionally been closest. This may be because this is where the phenomenon is strongest, given the fact that a significant section of civil society organizations in these countries is involved in public service delivery and therefore more prone to influences of state and (by extension) the market. However, researchers may simply be more receptive to the topic. Anglo-Saxon civil society research generally avoids the term hybridity itself, although the issue has come in attempts to map the third sector (see, e.g., Van Til, 2000) and in studies on the role of civil society in publicly funded service delivery.
Future Directions From the key issues described above, it is clear which direction future research on hybridization is likely to take. As the concept is becoming more fleshed out, more detailed research will become available concerning its effects. Specifically, this concerns the following issues. One major objective will be to determine to what extent hybridization is occurring among civil society organizations. This will require a large-scale quantitative approach, which so far has been lacking in this line of inquiry. Furthermore, it is necessary to find out what its effects are at various levels of the organizations. This will require the continuation and intensification of the case study research conducted so far. Finally, there is a need for more refined normative frameworks to determine how these effects must be judged. Early discussions were dominated by extreme views for or against hybridization. It is only recently that more balanced assessments have been made, in part facilitated by the availability of more empirical evidence. Such future research will help to determine whether hybridization is as significant a development as some authors have claimed, or as morally reprehensible as others have argued. It may also eventually lead to a positive definition of hybrid organizations, which implies that the concept of hybridity itself can be discarded.
Cross-References
▶ Commercialization and For-Profits in Disguise ▶ EMES Research
▶ New Public Management ▶ Partnerships ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Social Enterprise
References/Further Readings Bode, I. (2008). The culture of welfare markets. The international recasting of pension and care systems. New York/London: Routledge. Borzaga, C., & Defourny, J. (2001). The emergence of social enterprise. London/New York: Routledge. Brandsen, T. (2004). Quasi-market governance: An anatomy of innovation. The Hague: Lemma. Brandsen, T., Van de Donk, W., & Putters, K. (2005). Griffins or chameleons? Hybridity as a permanent and inevitable characteristic of the third sector. International Journal of Public Administration, 28(9–10), 749–65. Brandsen, T., Dekker, P., & Evers, A. (2009). Civicness in the governance and delivery of social services, Baden Baden: Nomos. Dekker, P. (2001). What crises, what challenges? When nonprofitness makes no difference. In H. K. Anheier & J. Kendall (Eds.), Third sector policy at the crossroads. London/New York: Routledge. Evers, A. (2005). Mixed welfare systems and hybrid organizations: changes in the governance and provision of social services. International Journal of Public Administration, 28(9–10), 737–748. Evers, A., & Laville J. -L. (2004). The third sector in Europe. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Frumkin, P. (2002). On being non-profit. A conceptual and policy primer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Honingh, M. E. (2008). Teachers and middle managers in a hybrid educational sector. In S. Osborne (Ed.), The third sector in Europe (pp. 293–306). London: Routledge. Jacobs, J. (1994). Systems of survival. A dialogue on the moral foundations of commerce and politics. New York: Vintage Books. Koppell, J. G. S. (2003). The politics of quasi-government: Hybrid organizations and the dynamics of bureaucratic control. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McLaughlin, K., Osborne, S. P., & Ferlie, E. (2006) New public management: Current trends and future prospects. London/New York: Routledge. Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, G. (2004). Public management reform (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nyssens, M. (2006). Social enterprise between market, public policies and civil society, London/New York: Routledge. Osborne, S. (2008). The third sector in Europe: Prospects and challenges. London/New York: Routledge. Pestoff, V. (1998). Beyond the market & state: Civil democracy & social enterprises in a welfare society, Aldershot: Ashgate. Pestoff, V., & Brandsen, T. (2008). Co-Production, the third sector and the delivery of public services. London/New York: Routledge. Van Til, J. (2000). Growing civil society: From nonprofit sector to third space. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
I IANGO Workshop ▶ International Advocacy NGO Workshop
IBFAN ▶ International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN)
IBLF ▶ International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF)
Ibn Khaldun JAN KU¨ENZL
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1332 in Tunis (Tunisia) to an upper class family of functionaries, Ibn Khaldun became one of the most famous intellectuals in Islamic history. He received a traditional education in Koran studies, Arabic language, Islamic jurisprudence, math, logic, and philosophy. He traveled the whole Arabic world, and lived in Tunis, Granada, and Cairo. He held several high profile posts in politics, law, and education and even was jailed for 22 months due to an accusation of intrigue against a ruler of Fes. His fame derives from his book Universal History and especially from its introduction, the ‘‘Muqaddimah’’ (also known as the ‘‘Prolegomena’’). In 1400 he met Timur Lenk (Tamerlan) as an ambassador of the besieged Damascus. Ibn Khaldun died 1406 in Cairo (Egypt).
If traditional historiography was basically a linear chronology of rule, Ibn Khaldun was interested in the causes of social and political developments. He explained his main topic of interest, the rise and fall of dynasties, as dependent on social, cultural, and environmental factors. Khaldun’s central concept is the asabiyyah, a kind of solidarity, e´sprit de corps or community spirit. According to Khaldun, asabiyyah is particularly strong in relatively small communities with low social and cultural stratification and strong kinship ties, which were in Khaldun’s world, the Bedouin tribes at the periphery of the Arab empires. By contrast, urban societies are weakened due to the decline of asabiyyah which leads to their conquest by the strong tribes. The subsequent assimilation of the conquerors to the urban sociocultural framework closes the circle. The idea of group cohesion through some kind of solidarity determining the strength of a political entity and therefore its geopolitical fate was indeed new at Khaldun’s age. When the Muqaddimah became known in nineteenth-century Europe, Khaldun’s methods and ideas influenced thinkers like Marx, Durkheim, and Vico.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Durkheim, E. ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Solidarity
References/Further Readings Khaldun, I. (1967). The Muqaddimah: An introduction to history (F. Rosenthal, Trans.). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mahdi, M. (1957). Ibn Khaldun’s philosophy of history. London: Allen & Unwin.
ICA ▶ International Co-operative Alliance (ICA)
Major Contributions Ibn Khaldun is considered as the precursor of modern sociology and historiography due to his achievement in developing a whole new, secular approach to the reception of history.
ICBL ▶ International Campaign to Ban Landmines
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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ICNL ▶ International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL)
ICVA ▶ International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
Identity CHRISTINA SCHWABENLAND London Metropolitan University, London, UK
Introduction Identity, how we come to perceive ourselves and our surroundings in the ways that we do, is a concept which challenges and engages social, political, and organizational theorists alike. Within the area of organization studies, organizational identity is usually regarded as comprising those characteristics that give its members a sense of distinctiveness, often also of being unique in some way. These characteristics may also be seen as providing the organization with its strategic advantage (Dhalla, 2007).
Definition Identity can be understood as referring to the collective set of characteristics that render a person or an organization as recognizable, or known. These characteristics serve to create and maintain a sense of similarity with who share similar characteristics and a sense of distance or separation from those who do not. Organizational identity overlaps with similar concepts such as image, reputation, culture, and more recently, branding (Klein, 2000). Within the literature identity is seen as the way in which organizational members perceive their organization. Image refers to the ways they present the organization to its external audiences and stakeholders while reputation is the way in which they actually perceive it (Dhalla, 2007; Linstead et al., 2004). Organizational culture is one of the contributing elements of identity. The idea of branding embraces identity, image, and reputation and also may include some sense of the
organization’s values and principles. Linstead et al. (2004) point out the processes by which such meanings come to be created and known are profoundly iterative; each influences the other and so the boundary between the organization and its environment is very porous. They comment that ‘‘these images are projected outward and may the be absorbed back into the company’s meaning system to affect identity, that is who we are and who we think we are is always in interaction with who others think we are’’ (Linstead, 2004: 101). Clegg et al. suggest that organizational identity arises from the relationship between ‘‘temporal’’ and ‘‘spatial’’ (or cultural) differences (Clegg et al., 2007: 495).
Historical Background Interest in organizational identity is usually regarded as originating with work of Albert and Whetten (1985) who regarded it as being primarily stable and changing only slowly only over long periods of time or in response to particular crises (Dhalla, 2007; Albert & Whetten, 1985). However in recent years new contributions to theorizing about identity have come from feminist, gender, post structuralist and postcolonial critics and from queer theory. Taking their inspiration from de Beauvoir’s famous proposition that ‘‘one is not born a woman but rather becomes one’’ they suggest that identity is fluid, ever changing, a work in progress. While the earlier work regarded identity as enduring over time, these later theorists question this, regarding identity as inherently problematic and as shifting, multiple, and intersectional, resulting form processes of becoming and performing (Butler, 1999; Moya, 2000). From this perspective important questions can be asked about the roles organizations and civil society actors play, the different ways in which their meaning is being constructed and in relationship to what other vested interests. Identity as a concept has also been inextricably linked to identity politics, the political and emancipatory struggles that come together around the articulation of what is perceived to be a shared attributes and usually one which is experienced as a source of discrimination, oppression, or neglect. These struggles are characterized by political platforms based on a shared sense of what people are (such as gender, race, caste, tribe, religion) rather than what they do (such as struggles for workers’ rights). Identity can best be understood as a relational concept; we define ourselves in relation to others, definitions characterized by perceived differences and similarities. While much of the work on organizational identity is applicable more generally, the following sections draw
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out issues of specific relevance to the civil society sector and its organizations.
Key Issues Identity and Civil Society
The various attempts to define civil society and its organizations describe a space located between state and market whose boundaries are fuzzy and contours are vague. Keane comments that ‘‘global civil society. . . . is never a fixed entity but always a temporary assembly, subject to reshuffling and reassembly . . . . a form of self-reflexive dynamic marked by innovation, conflict, compromise, consensus, as well as rising awareness of the syncretic architecture, the contingencies and dilemmas of global civil society itself ’’ (Keane, 2003: 7). Anheier et al. describe it as ‘‘the sphere of ideas, values, institutions, organizations, networks, and individuals located between the family, state, and market and operating beyond the confines of national societies, politics, and economics’’ (Anheier et al., 2001). Schwabenland (2006) suggests that civil society organizations occupy ‘‘a social space in which societies and cultures construct questions about the good society and test out new and evolving responses [which is] contested and fought over and its boundaries endlessly debated’’ (Schwabenland, 2006: 6). These descriptions of civil society share two characteristics. The first is its ambiguity, which Billis, in one of the first attempts to create a model of the sector refers to as its inherent ‘‘messiness’’ (Billis, 1989). The second is that the boundaries of this space are determined by the other sectors, the state and the market. This suggests that our understandings of civil society are profoundly influenced by the ways in which we position its activities and organizations in relation to these other constructs of society. There have been many attempts to delineate this territory by establishing its defining characteristics. Each illuminates some areas of interest and obscures others and each has vociferous apologists and opponents. The dialectic between difference and distinctiveness underpins many of these debates about identity. Definitions, or narratives that focus on difference, what it is not, i.e., ‘‘nongovernmental’’ or ‘‘nonprofit’’ primarily try to define it in relation to these sectors. The first narrative is that of civil society in a relationship of constant reaction to the state, whether against state action or inaction, hegemony, corruption, or indifference, or of ‘‘filling the gaps’’ where the state retreats (or never went). In
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this narrative the associations of civil society, formal or informal, do the things that government does not, whether it is running hospitals or schools or experimenting with innovative models of service delivery and civic engagement. They also develop their campaigning strategies in terms of what they want the state to do, or not to do. The state represents the norm against which the sector defines itself and evaluates its activities. The competing narrative is that of civil society’s relation to the corporate sector and this underpins many of the activities of social enterprise and micro-credit initiatives. These different conceptualizations of the civil society sector are constructed through explorations, or ‘‘patrolling’’ (6, Perri, 1994: 2–3) the boundaries of the sector’s constantly changing relationships with the other two sectors. As the roles of the market and state differ across time and location the space that is claimed by civil society also differs accordingly. The third narrative is about the distinctiveness of the civil society sector, what the sector is as opposed to what it is not, and is concerned with identifying a set of intrinsic qualities, or values that are shared (Blake et al., 2006) such as ‘‘civility’’ (Anheir, 2007; Keane, 2003) ‘‘the pursuit of common public good’’ (Tandon & Mohanty, 2002: 6), ‘‘the sense within NGOs and publics at large that civilians live in one world and that they have obligations to other civilians living beyond their borders, simply because they are civilians’’ (Keane, 2003: 36). The Johns Hopkins global mapping project combines these approaches in identifying five characteristics of civil society institutions: that they are formalized in some way, independent from the state, nonprofit distributing, self governing and voluntary (Salamon et al., 2004: 9–10). From a postcolonial perspective such attempts to define a single set of ‘‘universal’’ attributes and values are inherently flawed. The question arises of how these values are chosen and by whom. Munck notes that they generally have a Western or Eurocentric bias (Munck, 2006). One criticism which can be made of all of these definitional projects in identity construction is that the differences between organizations occupying this space may be greater than the differences across sectors. For instance, social enterprises and micro-credit initiatives may share more in common with small, profit making enterprises. Large, welfare orientated service providers may share more in common with state run services (especially if they originally were state run enterprises that have been contracted out to the civil society sector). However, Keane comments that ‘‘empirically minded researchers. . . .point out that the quest to map and measure the contours of global civil society is essential
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for clarifying its empirical scope and complexity, its strategic or political capacity and its normative potential’’ (Keane, 2003: 4). Identity and Civil Society Organizations
Creating organizations: For many civil society organizations their identity is inextricably linked to their founding (Schwabenland, 2006; Billis, 1989). People come together with likeminded individuals to create an organization out of a shared concern or sense of purpose. For the founders this can be profoundly empowering because it involves them defining for themselves what problems they face and what changes they want, and the very creation of the organization lends legitimacy and gives presence to those aspirations. With it comes ‘‘the recognition of solidarity and common cause with others who share those concerns and the establishment of a shared endeavor, the excitement of creating some thing new’’ (Schwabenland, 2006: 49). Therefore, some of the element of that founding vision whether it be the nature of the problem to be addressed, the group of people whose needs are to be met or the values that the founders brought to the new organization are likely to make up key elements of the organization’s identity. For example, in India many civil society organizations celebrate ‘‘founders’ day’’ (Schwabenland, 2006). Others are known by their founder’s philosophy such as the Gandhian organizations. The move from an informal grouping to a more formal organization is marked by the need for clear rules of engagement and also the creation of a legal identity (Billis, 1989). This involves choosing a name for the new organization. Many organizations become named by the social problem they have identified. Others chose names that commemorate the founders, affirm allegiance to particular values, religions, or political orientations; still others chose more ambiguous names that allow the organization more strategic maneuvring room. The new organization has to give itself legitimacy through representing itself as unique in some way, by doing some thing that isn’t being done already, doing it differently, or better than other organizations, or for different people with different needs and perspectives. Many organizations have their roots in social movements that have coalesced around a sense of shared identity such as the women’s, gay, and disability liberation movements and have played a significant role in the demands for recognition and legislative protection. Tomei (2003) notes that the valuing of diversity as an integral element of the search for social justice was invoked in social movements asserting the presence and significance of a
multiplicity of differences outside the traditional axes of race and gender. Taking power to define your own needs and solutions legitimizes the perspectives of the creators, their uniqueness, the specificity of their visions. However critics of identity politics also point out that this process also creates exclusivity. Drawing a boundary involves determining the criteria for membership. By creating an organizational response to the needs of marginalized groups the boundaries that the organization sets may serve to increase their sense of separation and difference. These boundaries between the organization and its environment and the discourses of difference that sustain them separate an issue or a problem from the wider whole of which it is a part. A further challenge is that as the organization creates its own sense of identity by implication it also ‘‘fixes’’ the identity of others as equally stable and unchanging. Managing organizations: A strong sense of identity can be enormously important in decision making, creating a sense of direction (Dhalla, 2007) and steering an organization through crises. Schwabenland’s research (2006) suggested that at times of change and threat managers may resort to the founding visions to determine future actions. When that sense of identity is shared it can become an important motivating force. Inculcating a sense of identity can be achieved through attention to the organization’s culture, its stories and rituals and to the images it uses to present itself. Campaigning and advocacy: Civil society organizations engage in campaigning work to influence the development of public policy. This involves representing the wishes and needs of their constituents. But representation is one aspect of identity that has been the subject of much critique from postcolonial theorists (Said, 1993; Spivak, 1988) who question how that representation is done, who does the representing and with what kinds of legitimacy, what representations of the ‘‘other’’ are proposed and what constructions of the other are made possible (or impossible) by those representations. These questions, along with the debate about when a shared sense of identity is a source of renewed strength and when it becomes a ghetto, are at the heart of many of the debates around identity politics (Kwek, 2003; Moya, 2000; Alcoff, 2000). This is one of the criticisms of identity leveled by many feminist theorists: that constructs of identity can become imprisoning. Furthermore, the ways in which an organization’s client group or its campaigning issues are perceived can be a source of tension between the different roles of fundraising and lobbying on the one hand, and advocacy
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on the other; where representations of clients as needy can be effective in generating resources but also maintain people in marginalized positions. The influence of social movements and identity based civil society organizations on human rights and antidiscrimination legislation is profound. However, making identity the focus of campaigning and organizing raise uncomfortable questions about the balance between empowerment through the expression of difference and empowerment through the expression of commonality.
Future Directions The popularity of the various definitional and mapping projects and the debates, at times quite rancorous, within the sector about the nature of its subsectoral boundaries need to be understood against the backdrop of the near universal withdrawal of the state from the direct provision of services, a ‘‘voluntarisation’’ of the public sphere, and the increasing interest in social responsibility and ethics from the private sphere, a ‘‘corporatising’’ of voluntarism. These dynamics are causing fundamental shifts and realignments in the relationships both across and within sectors. These trends, which show little sign of stabilizing in the near future, are regarded as both a threat and an opportunity – a threat to the independence of the sector and an opportunity for more influence and increased funding. Accompanying these developments come increasing regulation and demands for transparency, demands which often function as powerful drivers of compliance (Schwabenland & Tomlinson, 2008). Against these threats, an expression of uniqueness may be a potentially powerful weapon to fight being insidiously co-opted into the public or private sectors.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Brands and Branding ▶ Civil Society and Ethnicity ▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society: Definitions of and Approaches ▶ Civil Society Theory: Keane ▶ Civil Society-Business Relations ▶ Civility ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Human Rights ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Lobbying ▶ Social Enterprises ▶ Social Movements
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References/Further Readings Albert, S., & Whetten, D. (1985). Organizational identity. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behaviour (Vol. 7, pp. 263–295). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Alcoff, L. M. (2000). Whose afraid of identity politics? In P. M. L. Moya & M. R. Hames-Garcia (Eds.), Reclaiming identity: Realist theory and the predicament of postmodernism (pp. 312–345). Hyderabad: Orient Longman. Anheir, H. (2007). Reflections on the concept and measurement of global civil society, Voluntas, 18(1), 1–16. Anheir, H., Galsius, M., & Kaldor, M. (2001). Introducing global civil society. In H. Anheir, M. Galsius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global civil society (pp. 3–22). New York: Oxford University Press. Billis, D. (1989). A theory of the voluntary sector: Implications for policy and practice Working paper no. 5, London: Centre for Voluntary Organizations, London School of Economics (LSE). Blake, G., Roblinson, D., & Smeardon, M. (2006). Living values. Newham: Community Links Foundation. Butler, J. (1990, 1999). Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. London/New York: Routledge. Clegg, S. R., Rhodes, C., & Kornberger, M. (2007). Desperately seeking legitimacy: Organizational identity and emerging industries. Organization Studies, 28(4), 495–513. Dhalla, R. (2007). The construction of organizational identity: Key contributing external and intra-organizational factors. Corporate Reputation Review, 10(4), 245–260. Keane, J. (2003). Global civil society? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Klein, N. (2000). No logo. Canada: Knopf. Kwek, D. (2003). Decolonising and re-presenting culture’s consequences. In A. Prasad (Ed.), Postcolonial theory and organizational analysis. New York: Palgrave. Linstead, S., Fulop, L., & Lilly, S. (2004). Management and organization: A critical text. Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan. Moya, P. M. L. (2000). Introduction. In P. M. L. Moya & M. R. Hames-Garcia (Eds.), Reclaiming identity: Realist theory and the predicament of postmodernism. Hyderabad: Orient Longman. Munck, R. (2006) Global civil society: Royal road or slippery path? Voluntas, 17, 325–332. 6, Perri (1994). The question of independence: The future of charities and the voluntary sector, Working Paper No. 3, London: Demos. Said, E. (1993). Culture and imperialism. London: Chatto and Windus. Salamon, L. M. et al. (2004). Global civil society; dimensions of the nonprofit Sector: Dimensions of the non-profit sector (Vol. 2). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, published in association with the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. Schwabenland, C. (2006). Stories, visions and values in voluntary organizations. Aldershott: Ashgate. Schwabenland, C., & Tomlinson, F. (2008). Managing diversity or diversifying management? Critical Perspectives on International Business, 4(2–3). Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the interpretation of cultures. Houndsmill: Macmillan. Tandon, R., & Mohanty, R. (2002). Civil society and governance. New Delhi: PRIA. Tomei, M. (2003). Discrimination and equality at work: A review of the concepts. International Labour Review, 142(4), 401–418.
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Imagine Canada
Illich, Ivan JENNY ELMACO
Basic Biographical Background A polymath, a polyglot and a polemic, Ivan Illich was born September 4, 1926 in Vienna, Austria. His family was of mixed descent – on his mother’s side Sephardic Jews, on his father’s, an aristocratic Catholic Dalmatian family. Although his father’s business and diplomatic ties protected them in the 1930s, their Jewish roots forced him, his mother and twin brothers to leave Hitler-controlled Austria in 1941 for Italy. He entered the University of Florence where he majored in chemistry. At the age of 24, he graduated from the University of Salzburg with a Ph.D. in history. He prepared for the priesthood at the Gregorian University in Rome and became ordained in 1951. Deciding to pursue his studies, he went to the United States in 1951, where he instead chose to serve as assistant pastor in an Irish-Puerto Rican parish in New York City. Because of his popularity among his constituents, at a tender age of 30, he was made a monsignor. From 1956 to 1960, he accepted an assignment as vicerector to the Catholic University of Puerto Rico, where he organized an intensive training center for American priests in Latin American culture. Illich moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, in 1961 and established the Center for Intercultural Documentation (CIDOC) whose purpose was to train American missionaries for work in Latin America. From 1964, he directed research seminars on ‘‘Institutional Alternatives in a Technological Society,’’ with a special focus on Latin America. Despite its popularity and success, CIDOC was riddled with controversy due to its unorthodox teaching and was closed in 1976. Increasingly discordant with the policies of the Catholic Church, he resolved to voluntarily resign from priesthood. Meanwhile, his thirst for knowledge urged him to travel and study oriental languages and culture. And his love for history and philosophy encouraged him to teach in several universities among them the University of Marburg, Germany and Pennsylvania State University, USA. Ivan Illich lived the end of his life mainly in Germany. He died in Bremen on December 2, 2002.
books from the 1970s–1980s on technological development (Tools For Conviviality, 1973), energy, transport, and economic development (Energy And Equity, 1974), medicine (Medical Nemesis, 1976) and work (The Right To Useful Unemployment And Its Professional Enemies, 1978, and Shadow Work, 1981). In his 1982 book, Gender, Illich claims that industrial society deforms the ‘‘dyssymetric complementarity’’ of men and women into a ‘‘legally engineered equality’’ where women are usually disenfranchised. In the mid- to late 1980s Ivan Illich shifted his attention to an exploration of literacy practices in ABC: The Alphabetization of the Popular Mind (1988) and In the Vineyard of the Text (1993). The latter traverses how revolutions in technology affect the method of text comprehension. Yet a common thread in his writings was his critique of institutions as a consequence of modernity which strengthened the need for an active civil society and called for societal engagement and dialog.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality
References/Further Readings Cayley, D. (1992). Ivan Illich in conversation interviews with. Toronto, ON: Anansi Press. Gabbard, D. A. (1993). Silencing Ivan Illich: A foucauldian analysis of intellectual exclusion. New York: Austin & Winfield. Kaller-Dietrich, M. (2008). Ivan Illich (1926–2002), sein Leben, sein Denken. Verlag der Provinz: Weitra. Sachs, W. (1992). The development dictionary: A guide to knowledge as power. London: Zed Books.
Imagine Canada SHARILYN HALE
Address of Organization 2 Carlton Street, Suite 600 Toronto, Ontario, M5B 1J3 Canada www.imaginecanada.ca
Major Contributions Deschooling Society (1971) revealed Ivan Illich to the world with the argument that universal education is not feasible and thus he is convinced that schooling promotes inequality and social stratification. He wrote six
Introduction Imagine Canada is a national umbrella organization for the nonprofit sector in Canada. Established in 2005, Imagine Canada provides resource and capacity building
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tools and opportunities for charities and nonprofits, encourages the community engagement of businesses, conducts and disseminates sector related research and publications, and engages in national public policy initiatives. It supports and is supported by a membership base of more than 1,300 charities, nonprofits, and businesses.
Brief History Imagine Canada was launched in 2005, uniting the Canadian Centre for Philanthropy (CCP) and the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations (NVO), with the aim to better serve the nonprofit sector in Canada in the areas of advocacy, research, and corporate citizenship.
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standards of accountability and transparency. Approved participants use a trustmark that signals to the public their compliance with the Code’s fundraising and financial accountability standards. In addition to the Nonprofit Library Commons, Imagine Canada provides The Canadian Directory to Foundations and Corporations which is Canada’s largest bilingual fundraising database and a valuable resource to charities seeking funds.
Cross-References
▶ Codes of Ethics and Codes of Practice ▶ Umbrella Organizations
Mission/Objectives Imagine Canada’s mission is to advance knowledge and relationships to foster effective and sustainable charitable and nonprofit organizations. The organization is increasingly seen as an important voice of the charitable sector in Canada.
Activities Imagine Canada’s key areas of activity include: signature research of issues and trends within the sector, community programs such as the Caring Company Program which promotes good corporate citizenship, member services and resources, the online Non Profit Library Commons which is the largest collection of Canadian nonprofit literature, and an active program to influence and shape public policy related to the sector.
Structure and Governance Imagine Canada is a registered Canadian charity. It is governed by a 13 member Board of Directors comprised of leaders from the nonprofit and business sectors across Canada. Led by a CEO, eight staff run the day-to-day operations of the organization.
Funding In 2006, Imagine Canada’s operating budget was $6,270,000 CAD. This was supported through government grants, corporate and foundation donations, membership fees, and revenue from publications and sales.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In 2008, Imagine Canada launched the Ethical Code Program. A revision to the previous code for member organizations, the new program was developed to demonstrate the sector’s heightened commitment to uphold high
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Independent Sector ELIZABETH LEVI
Address of Organization 1602 L Street, NW, Suite 900 Washington, DC 20036 USA www.independentsector.org
Introduction Independent Sector is an American forum that brings together over 600 organizations and their leaders to strengthen the nonprofit community of charities, foundations, and corporate giving programs. The Independent Sector is nonpartisan and strives to lead, advocate, and mobilize the charitable community to further a ‘‘just and inclusive society and a healthy democracy of active citizens, effective institutions, and vibrant communities.’’
Brief History In 1978–1979, an Organizing Committee was convened to create a new entity to raise the standards of practice and knowledge-sharing across the nonprofit sector. This national coalition of organizations, foundations, and corporate philanthropies was formally established as the Independent Sector (IS) in 1980. Two distinguished members of the founding group brought their visionary leadership to key roles at IS. Brian O’Connell became the first President and CEO, continuing after his retirement in 1995 as President Emeritus to the present. John W. Gardner served as Chairperson of IS from 1980 to 1983, remaining as Chair Emeritus until his death in 2002.
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Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Independent Sector frames its vision as working to create a ‘‘just and inclusive society and a healthy democracy of active citizens, effective institutions, and vibrant communities.’’ This vision underpins the organizational mission, ‘‘To advance the common good by leading, strengthening, and mobilizing the charitable community.’’ Independent Sector’s core values that define its activities include: Independence, including serving as a ‘‘leading voice for the common good;’’ Interdependence as it encourages cooperation and collaboration; Inclusiveness and Diversity; Transparency, Integrity, and Accountability; and Operational Excellence.
Activities Independent Sector convenes an annual conference which was attended by over 900 leaders from over 560 nonprofit organizations in 2008. Annual conference participants gathered to explore how to use the voice of the nonprofit sector more effectively to strengthen communities and improve the lives of their citizens. Independent Sector conducts and publishes research and position papers on important contemporary issues in the sector. As an active advocate, Independent Sector monitors and speaks out to promote public policy to benefit the nonprofit sector, with a focus on protecting nonprofit rights, charitable giving, and federal and state budget issues. In addition, staff, volunteers, and governing bodies who work in and serve the nonprofit sector can access Independent Sector guides and reports to achieve and maintain high standards of ethical practice and efficiency.
publications. Independent Sector counts among its donors for general support some of America’s leading foundations, including the Ford, Gates, Robert Wood Johnson, MacArthur, and Surdna Foundations, among others.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Independent Sector convenes The Panel on the Nonprofit Sector, which in 2007, published Principles for Good Governance and Ethical Practice: A Guide for Charities and Foundations. The volume focuses on ethical conduct, accountability, and transparency. Over 50,000 copies have been distributed to leaders, professionals, and volunteers in nonprofit organizations. Among its many publications, Independent Sector released The New Nonprofit Almanac & Desk Reference, a comprehensive summary of data and information for managers, researchers, and volunteers about the scope and size of the nonprofit sector in the United States. The Almanac was prepared by the Independent Sector in collaboration with the Urban Institute in 2002. In addition, Independent Sector has assembled several hundred research studies and listings of local, state, national, and international work on charitable behavior as a resource for scholars and practitioners through its Giving and Volunteering Research Clearinghouse. Independent Sector maintains a high profile advocacy effort at the state and federal level, including representing the sector at hearings before the US Congress. With its frequent press releases which are covered by the major news outlets in the United States, Independent Sector serves as a significant voice in the media on behalf of the voluntary sector. Independent Sector is also expanding its sphere to focus on international as well as national issues.
Structure and Governance The membership of Independent Sector includes leading American philanthropies, foundations and organizations, and has grown steadily to its current roster of some 600 member organizations. The Independent Sector is governed by a Board of 23 officers and members, including Diana Aviv, Chief Executive Officer, and leaders from preeminent American public sector organizations. Fifteen board Committees guide the organization, which is made up of a staff of over 40 professionals and administrative support personnel.
Funding The annual operating budget of Independent Sector as stated in the Annual Report of 2007 was $6.7 million. General and program-specific funding support is provided by philanthropic, corporate, and individual donors and revenue from membership dues, conference fees and
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Gardner, John W. ▶ O’Connell, Brian ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings O’Connell, B. (1997). Powered by coalition: The story ofiIndependent sector. New Jersey: Jossey-Bass. The Panel on the Nonprofit Sector (2007). Principles for good governance and ethical practice: A guide for charities and foundations. Available in hard copy or PDF download, from http://report.nonprofitpanel.org/ principles The Panel on the Nonprofit Sector (2005). Strengthening transparency, governance, and accountability of charitable organizations: A final report to congress and the nonprofit sector. Available in hard copy or PDF download, from http://www.nonprofitpanel.org/Report/ index.html
Informal Sector
Informal Sector MARTHA CHEN Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Introduction The formal–informal dichotomy – largely applied to the economy but also to institutional arrangements – has been a dominant theme in development discourse for more than half a century. The dichotomy has been largely applied to the economy: early on, to the modern market economy vis-a`-vis the traditional subsistence economy; and, later on, to the formal market economy vis-a`-vis the informal market economy. It has also been applied to institutional arrangements: notably, formal versus informal property rights (as in the case of common property management); formal versus informal social insurance mechanisms (e.g., burial or mutual health societies); and, more recently, formal versus informal organizations (as in the case of membership-based organizations of the poor, of workers, and of other categories of persons). This entry focuses on the formal–informal dichotomy in the economy but also, in less detail towards the end, among membership-based organizations of workers. The informal economy is the diversified set of economic activities, enterprises, and workers that are not regulated or protected by the state. Since its ‘‘discovery’’ in the early 1970s, the informal economy and its role in economic development have been hotly debated. Contrary to early predictions, the informal economy has continued to grow and has appeared in new forms. Today, it represents a significant share of the global economy and workforce. Some observers view the informal economy in positive terms, as a ‘‘pool’’ of entrepreneurial talent, a ‘‘cushion’’ during economic crises, or a source of livelihood for the working poor. Others view it more problematically, arguing that informal entrepreneurs deliberately avoid regulation and taxation. Each of these perspectives is right in regard to specific components or aspects of the informal economy.
Definition The informal economy is the diversified set of economic activities, enterprises, and workers that are not regulated or protected by the state. Originally applied to selfemployment in small unregistered enterprises, the concept of informality has been expanded to also include wage employment in unprotected jobs. The self-employed in small unregistered or unincorporated enterprises include:
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employers; own account operators (both heads of family enterprises and single person operators); and unpaid but contributing family workers. Wage workers without worker benefits or social protection include: employees of informal enterprises; informal employees of formal firms; casual or day laborers; unregistered or undeclared workers; industrial outworkers (also called homeworkers); most domestic workers; and some temporary or part-time workers. So defined, the informal economy comprises half to three-quarters of the non-agricultural labor force in developing countries. When informality in agriculture is also measured, the share of informal employment in total employment is higher still: as high as 90% in some countries in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. Although comparable estimates are not available for developed countries, evidence suggests that non-standard jobs and self-employment represent a sizeable (more than 25%) and growing share of total employment in Western Europe and North America.
Historical Background Over the years, the debates on the informal economy have crystallized into four schools of thought regarding the informal economy. The dualist school sees the informal sector as comprised of marginal and survivalist activities – distinct from and not related to the formal sector – that provide income for the poor and a safety net in times of crisis. According to this school, the persistence of informal activities is due largely to the fact that not enough modern employment opportunities have been created to absorb surplus labor in developing countries. The structuralist school subscribes to the notion that informal enterprises and informal wage workers are subordinated to the interests of large capitalist firms, supplying cheap goods and services. Structuralists see formal and informal modes of production as inextricably linked and attribute the persistence and growth of the informal economy to the nature of capitalist development. The legalist school, on the other hand, sees the informal sector as comprised of ‘‘plucky’’ micro-entrepreneurs who choose to operate informally in order to avoid the costs, time, and effort involved in formal registration. According to the legalists, cumbersome government rules and procedures create barriers to formalization and thus stifle the productive potential of informal entrepreneurs. The related voluntarist school assumes that informal entrepreneurs deliberately seek to avoid regulations and taxation and, in some cases, to deal in illegal goods and services. According to this school of thought, informal entrepreneurs choose to operate illegally – or even criminally – in order to avoid taxation, commercial
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regulations, electricity and rental fees, and other costs of operating formally. Given the heterogeneity of the informal economy, there is merit to each of these perspectives as each school reflects one or another ‘‘slice of the (informal) pie.’’ But the informal economy as a whole is more heterogeneous and complex than the sum of these perspectives would suggest. From an institutional perspective, membership-based organizations are organizations whose governance structures respond to the needs and aspirations of their members. Trade unions are membership-based but most of them are formal in structure and not directly concerned with organizing informal workers. Cooperatives are membership-based organizations but, again, not all of them are focused on the informal workforce and some of them have formal contractual arrangements that make them akin to formal firms. However, there are a large and growing number of membership-based organizations of informal workers that are akin to either trade unions or cooperatives but not formally constituted or registered. Until the late 1990s, the formal labor movement was reluctant to organize informal workers – because either it did not want to concede that informal employment was expanding, it saw informal employment as largely selfemployment or viewed informal jobs as ‘‘bad jobs,’’ and/ or it did not have the financial or human resources to do so. Meanwhile, the informal workforce, in many countries around the world, was organizing or being organized. The largest trade union of informal workers in the world – the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) of India – was established in 1972: it now has over one million members, all working poor women. Most membership-based organizations of informal workers tend to be small. But what they lack in size, they often make up for in numbers. Take the case of street vendor associations. There are scores or hundreds of street vendor associations in most cities in the developing world. For instance, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, there are estimated to be over 700 associations of street vendors. Consider the case of home-based women workers thought to be among the least visible and least organized of informal workers. A recent survey found over 500 organizations of home-based workers in Bangladesh and over 300 in Pakistan. In addition to local and national organizations of informal workers, there are regional and international organizations. There are regional organizations of homebased workers (called HomeNets) in South and South East Asia and of waste pickers in Latin America. There is an international association of street vendor organizations called StreetNet International. While the national, regional, and international associations tend to be
registered – that is, formal – organizations, their member organizations are often unregistered or informal. A related issue for the international labor movement is that many of the organizations of informal workers, whether registered or not, are not trade unions: they might be worker cooperatives, producer groups, issue-based organizations, or locality-based associations. However, like trade unions, many of them are membership-based organizations (with elected leaders) and engage in collective bargaining. Moreover, some of the membership-based organizations of informal workers are registered as trade unions but are not recognized by the formal labor movement. This was the case for many years of SEWA. Registered in 1972 as a trade union, SEWA did not gain formal recognition by the national and international labor movement for over 30 years.
Key Issues and Future Directions The recent renewal of interest in the informal economy stems from the recognition that the informal economy is growing and represents a feature of modern capitalist development, not just traditional economies. Given its size, significance, and permanence, several dimensions of the informal economy in today’s global economy need further conceptualization and empirical analysis. First, the segmentation within the informal economy by employment status, sex, and other variables needs further analysis, including differences in average earnings, poverty risk, and other characteristics associated with different segments. Second, the continuum of employment relations between pure ‘‘formal’’ relations (i.e., regulated and protected) at one pole and pure ‘‘informal’’ relations (i.e., unregulated and unprotected) at the other, with many categories in between, needs further analysis. Also, the linkages between units and workers along this continuum need to be better understood. Finally, the costs and benefits of working at different points along this continuum need to be better measured and understood. Mainstream economists – particularly those who subscribe to the voluntarist school of thought – tend to focus on the benefits of working informally to the relative neglect of the costs of doing so. However, recent studies have shown that there are often substantial costs – many of which remain ‘‘hidden’’ – associated with working informally. The new interest in member-based organizations of informal workers stems from two global trends: the growing number and share of workers that are engaged informally, and the declining number and share of workers that belong to formal trade unions. Some observers believe that the future of the international labor movement lies in being able to organize informal workers and
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joining forces with existing organizations of informal workers. Given the size and significance of the global informal workforce, it is important to understand the structure, strategies, and effectiveness of the growing movement of informal worker organizations. What structures and strategies characterize the MBOs of informal workers? What policies and institutions do they seek to influence? What factors account for their success or failure? What are challenges do they face? How can policy best help them? A related issue is the respective roles and relationships in addressing poverty, inequality, and other social issues of (a) membership-based organizations of the working poor in the informal economy compared to membership-based organizations of the poor more generally; (b) membership-based organizations of informal workers compared to formal trade unions that directly organize informal workers; and (c) membership-based organizations of the working poor or of the poor more generally and non-governmental organizations that are not membership-based but work with the working poor or the poor more generally. Most importantly, as some observers would suggest, are membership-based organizations of the working poor or the poor in general central to achieving equitable growth and poverty reduction? Finally, it is important in an increasingly complex world to question the usefulness of the formal–informal dichotomy in the realm of either the economy or institutional arrangements. However, as long as the policy and regulatory environment is constructed around the notion that some economic activities, enterprises, workers, and organizations are formal while others are not, the dichotomy construct will prove to be useful. Moreover, the solution to the dichotomy – constructed or real – may not be to formalize all economic activities, enterprises, workers, and organizations: especially if formalization means adhering to regulations that were constructed around the notion of a dualistic economy. What is needed in a complex world in which most economic activities, enterprises, workers, and organizations fall along a continuum between formality and informality is a complete rethinking of theoretical models as well as policy and regulatory regimes to take into account and encompass the complexity and hybrid nature of the economy and institutional arrangements in the early twenty-first century.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
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References/Further Readings Chen, M. A., Vanek, J., Lund, F., Heintz, J., Jhabvala, R., & Bonner, C. (2005). Progress of the world’s women 2005: Women, work, and poverty. New York: UNIFEM. Chen, M. A., Jhabvala, R., Kanbur, K., & Richards, C. (2007). Membershipbased organizations of the poor. London/New York: Routledge. de Soto, H. (1989). The other path: The economic answer to terrorism. New York: Harper Collins. Guha-Khasnobis, B., Kanbur, K., & Ostrom, E. (2006). Linking the formal and informal economy: Concepts and policies. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. International Labour Office. (1972). Employment, incomes and equality: A strategy for increasing productive employment in Kenya. Geneva: International Labour Office. International Labour Office. (2002). Women and men in the informal economy: A statistical picture. Geneva: International Labour Office. Available online at: http://www.ilo.org/public/english/ employment/ gems/download/women.pdf. Maloney, W. F. (2004). Informality revisited. World Development, 7, 1–20. Moser, C. N. (1978). Informal sector or petty commodity production: Dualism or independence in urban development. World Development, 6, 1041–1064. Portes, A. (1994). The informal economy and its paradoxes. In N. Smelser & R. Swedberg (Eds.), The handbook of economic sociology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Tokman, V. (1978). An exploration into the nature of the informalformal sector relationship. World Development, 6, 1065–1075.
Information Technology/Internet PAUL-BRIAN MCINERNEY University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA
Introduction Over the past decade, the Internet has evolved rapidly into a worldwide communications medium. Consisting of many technologies, the Internet provides people and organizations with the ability to create, deliver, and consume multimedia content. Yet, the growth of the Internet has been exponential and uneven. From its humble beginnings as an experiment in data sharing, the Internet has exploded into a cacophony of messages from commerce, government, and civil society interests. As such, the Internet affords many opportunities for and threats to civil society.
Definition Information technologies are hardware and software designed to collect, process, and store digital data. Information technology takes various forms from databases
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and communications software to computer networks and Personal Digital Assistants. The Internet is a widely distributed network of computer servers, which allow users to communicate and exchange data. The Internet is the infrastructure for information and communications technologies such as the World Wide Web and email.
Historical Background The Internet grew out of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), formed during the early stages of the Cold War by the United States government. (Abbate [1999]; Hafner and Lyon [1996] provide more complete histories of the Internet.) ARPA contracted with private and university researchers to build a robust telecommunications infrastructure that could withstand devastating damage in the event of nuclear war. The result of their efforts was the Internet, a widely distributed computer network. The Internet was an innovation over previous computer networks because of its use of packet-switching. Packet switching separates data into discrete ‘‘packets’’ at the source, sending them across a distributed network. Packets are routed along the way by electronic ‘‘switches’’ and reassembled at the destination. Packet switching adds robustness to the computer network by allowing packets to travel on the fastest (though not necessarily the shortest) routes across the network, bypassing nodes that are busy or incapacitated. Because it used public funds, the protocols developed for the ARPA project that led to the Internet were public domain, i.e., open to anyone to modify and improve. Many university researchers contributed code to the project. In exchange, their universities were granted network nodes for participating in the project. Academic researchers used the newly formed computer network to share data, access to mainframe computers, and collaborate on scientific research. The early use of the Internet endowed the technology with an ethos of openness and freedom. Such an ethos dominated the Internet until the 1990s, when commercial interests began exploiting the technological infrastructure for profit. However, even as commercial interests began to dominate the Internet, the hardware and software necessary to use the technology became available to more civil society organizations. In the 1980s, the nonprofit Institute for Global Communications (IGC) made Internet technologies available to progressive groups throughout the United States, expanding to Great Britain by the end of the decade. Through affiliated projects, IGC has helped nongovernmental organizations around the world gain access to the Internet, reaching 130 countries by the
mid-1990s. As a result, the Internet has proven a powerful communications medium for civil society organizations around the world.
Key Issues Studies about the Internet and civil society highlight the potential of the Internet for expression and mobilization, but highlight several key issues (for a full review, see DiMaggio et al., 2001). The most significant issue identified in the literature is structural inequality regarding access to and use of the Internet, known as the digital divide. Other important issues concerning civil society use of the Internet include public deliberation and discourse, privacy, and the effects of the Internet on organizational form. Structural Inequality and the Internet
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (1999) first identified a ‘‘Digital Divide’’ in the United States in the late 1990s. The digital divide refers to the structural inequality that prevents disenfranchised populations from accessing and effectively using the Internet. DiMaggio et al. (2004) have found that the digital divide is a multidimensional problem consisting of access, knowledge, and motivation. Van Dijk (2006) notes that as Internet penetration improves in developing countries, age and education become the leading determinants of Internet use, with younger and more educated populations being more likely to use the Internet effectively. The Pew Internet and American Life Project found that 73% of Americans had access to the Internet (Madden, 2006). The same study found that only 29% of people with less than a high school diploma go online while 89% of people with college degrees do so. Only 26% of Americans over 65 go online, compared to 84% of 18– 29 year-olds. While access issues are becoming less problematic in the United States, they remain troublesome globally. Even in China, where over 137 million people use the Internet, penetration is estimated at only 10% of the population (Fallows, 2007). China’s digital divide resembles that of the United States, with the additional dimension of a rural/urban split. Such a pattern is found throughout the developing world. Norris (2001) provides the most comprehensive study of the global digital divide to date. She suggests ‘‘human capital,’’ defined as individual skills and capacity gained through education, is the most significant predictor of Internet use worldwide. Similarly, civil society organizations face an ‘‘Organizational Divide’’ regarding their access and use of the Internet. Kirschembaum and Kunamneni (2001) first
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recognized that nonprofit and grassroots organizations lacked access to the Internet and the expertise to use it. Corder (2001) compared nonprofit organizations with public sector agencies to find that the former lagged behind the latter, which made interactions and partnerships between them difficult, especially when it comes to sharing information. However, more recent surveys have painted a more complex and nuanced picture of civil society organizations’ use of information technologies. Princeton Survey Research Associates (2001) finds that while most of the nonprofit organizations surveyed had access to the Internet, only half had Websites, most of which were large organizations. Surveying nonprofit organizations in New York City, Seley and Wolpert (2002) find that most have access to the Internet, but that information technologies are often underutilized. Their study finds that a lack of expertise and funding for training as the dominant reasons nonprofit organizations do not take fuller advantage of information technologies. Forster (2003) finds the organizational divide in terms of access had been largely overcome and that most of their staffs were using the Internet, but that nonprofit organizations surveyed desired more training to take advantage of information technologies. In an early study on nonprofit organizations’ use of the Internet, McNutt and Boland (1999) found that while many nonprofit organizations were using the Internet for advocacy, those surveyed reported expertise was the most important factor in determining their use of the Internet. Similarly, Robertson (2001) explains that foundation funding for information technology investments, in terms of both computers and training, are the primary reason that nonprofit organizations are not using the Internet and implementing more interactive Web content effectively.
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communities afford the types of interactions necessary for actors to organize for social change while ‘‘virtual’’ communities often splinter people into ever smaller factions, leaving them communicating only with those with whom they already agree. Similarly, Van Alstyne and Brynjolfsson (1996) argue that unfettered virtuality can lead to a ‘‘cyberbalkanization.’’ Putnam (2000) also warns of the overly-individualizing effects of the Internet and its ability to undermine the production of social capital. Few empirical studies have been done to assess the ‘‘real’’ community-building potential of the Internet. However, in a unique natural experiment, Hampton and Wellman (2003) test the propinquity thesis and find that virtuality enhances real community: neighbors with virtual ties are more likely to have and enact real ties. The Internet also allows civil society organizations to create and maintain ties and collective identities among activists as well as mobilize constituents. Diani (2000) shows that while the Internet is not effective for creating new ties, it effectively reinforces existing ties and mobilizes networks of activists. Haenfler (2004) shows how the Internet helps maintain activists’ collective identities in distributed social movements, which is necessary for mobilization. Smith (2001) provides strong evidence that the Internet helps activists mobilize global networks, vastly facilitating transnational movements. Her research focuses on how activists used the Internet to protest the 1999 World Trade Organization talks in Seattle. Since then, activists have used the Internet to organize protests worldwide. McInerney and Berman (2003) assembled a database of transnational civil society organizations using the Internet to mobilize against the First Iraq War, which shows the breadth of activism online. Privacy
Public Deliberation and Discourse
The Internet’s ethos of openness provides civil society actors with the ability to communicate directly with constituents. As the technologies of online publishing grow easier to use and affordable web design and communications tools become more widely available, more people and groups have the opportunity to voice their opinions. The result aligns with recent trends toward segmentation in society. Wellman (1997) shows how communities of interest displace geographical communities, enabling people to find others who share their political disposition and social likeness and allowing them to organize online. Similarly, Wellman and Gulia (1999) claim that electronic networks create virtual communities with real social effects. However, Calhoun (1998) warns against equating virtual and geographical communities: ‘‘real’’
The literature on privacy and the Internet presents stark warnings for civil society. In particular, Naughton (2001) describes civil society use of privacy protections through such technologies as encryption, but offers stark warnings about government restrictions on private use of encryption software. Dennis (2007) and others provide empirical evidence of China’s disregard for individual privacy online in the government’s quest to suppress oppositional voices. China and similar government control of the Internet poses threats to freedom as well as privacy. Similarly, the dominance of commercial interests online undermine the ability of civil society organizations to freely express their interests and concerns. These trends lead Baird (2002) to call for new forms of governance if the Internet is to remain a domain of public expression.
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Changing Organizational Structure of Civil Society Organizations
Fulk and DeSanctis (1995) explain that communications technology and organizational form are interdependent: decentralized technologies shape decentralized organizations. The Internet changes the form of civil society organizations. Earl and Schussman (2003) find that social movement organizations that implement Internet technologies become, on the whole, more decentralized and deliberative. Saidel and Cour (2003) find that nonprofit organizations also witness internal reorganization when they implement Internet technologies, especially regarding their administrative tasks and staff. However, staff at these formal organizations reported feeling their jobs were becoming more technical and therefore distanced from the service missions of the organization. Berlinger and Te’eni (1999) report similar tensions between technical and missionbased directives in their study of leaders of religious congregations. The research thus points to differential outcomes for formal and informal organizations that use the Internet, but more research is necessary to draw conclusions. Ebrahim (2003) finds that the structure of interorganizational relations shifts as NGOs and their funders engage in power struggles mediated by information needs and flows facilitated by information technologies. Similarly, Burt and Taylor (2003) find NGOs using information technologies strategically when communicating with other civil society actors, but that such use reflects the values of the organizations. Bach and Stark (2004) explain the ways that civil society organizations have coevolved with the Internet. Examining the case of Eastern European NGOs, the authors show how the decentralized, collaborative nature of the Internet has led to more decentralized and collaborative civil society organizations. As Bach and Stark (2002) note elsewhere, civil society organizations also become knowledge communities, interacting with one another, their host nations, and the world. While highlighting the potential, empirical research about Internet and information technologies remains ambivalent about the ability of these technologies to enhance or contribute to a healthy civil society. Levine (2004) warns that the digital divide, commercialization, and privacy will have to be addressed if the Internet is to enhance people’s abilities to effectively contribute to civil society. Becker and Wehner (2001) argue that the Internet strengthens civil society groups because it give voice to those without access to mass media. Castells et al. (2006) provide evidence that the Internet transforms civil society by allowing people to distribute information more freely, thus increasing the autonomy of civil society groups.
International Perspectives Despite the entry of commercial actors into the space, the technological infrastructure along with the pervasive ethos of openness and freedom affords great opportunities for civil society organizations across the world. The literature about civil society organizations using the Internet and information technology is replete with examples of successful global information campaigns. For example, Martinez-Torres (2001) provides an in-depth case study of how the Zapatistas exploited the potential of the Internet to access the global stage. Electronic communiques circulated by the movement reached people all over the world, who put pressure on Mexico, eventually leading to concessions with the Mexican government. Naughton (2001) provides several more cases, explaining how the Internet and civil society align with a libertarian ethos. However, Naughton warns that commercial intrusion and government control infringe on civil society’s use of the Internet and threatens freedom online and off. Castells (1997) demonstrates how the Internet empowers civil society actors independent of their goals or ideas of progress. Thus, human rights groups and hate groups come to have equal voices online. One under-examined barrier to global civil society’s use of the Internet is the dominance of the English language. Much of what is published online is in English, preventing non-English speakers from reading such materials and contributing to the global dialog. The extent of this barrier has been covered by journalists, but its depth and impact have yet to be studied systematically.
Future Directions There remains much work to do regarding the Internet and civil society. The Internet is constantly evolving. Advances and innovations take place regularly and spread rapidly. While many individual users take advantage of these changes, civil society organizations are generally slow to adopt new technologies. Research is needed to determine why this is the case and what it means for the future of civil society. While some studies point to a lack of time, money, and expertise as barriers to technology adoption among nonprofits, newer technologies are less expensive and easier to adopt. Many of the studies noted above were conducted in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when the Internet penetration was much lower, but growing rapidly. More recent technologies, including the Web 2.0, RSS (Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication) feeds, Wikis, podcasting, tagging, social bookmarking, blogs, social networking, and the increase in user-developed multimedia content (such as pictures and video on websites like Flickr and YouTube) are radically transforming the Internet and its potential uses for
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civil society. These newer Internet technologies have already played a role in changing the fortunes of politicians in the United States and abroad and may provide civil society actors with more immediate global connections for their platforms. Beyond these technologies, mobile Internet devices, such as web-enabled cellular phones show great promise as organizing tools for individual users and information distribution tools for civil society organizations. Much of the current research remains speculative: it explains the potential of Internet technologies for civil society without empirical data about actual use. As such, more systematic, empirical research is necessary to explain the recursive relationship between the Internet and civil society. As Orlikowski (1992) explains, technologies are reconstituted in use. The Internet changes and is changed by civil society. Research is needed to uncover and theorize the structurational processes by which the Internet and civil society are mutually reconstituted. On a practical level, scholars also need to conduct more research that helps individual users better access and use the Internet and informs civil society organizations about how they might use the Internet more effectively in their work.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in China ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in US and Canada ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Civil Society, Late 20th and 21st Century ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Cyber-Communities ▶ Digital Divide ▶ Dotcauses ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ MoveOn.org ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Social Capital ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Abbate, J. (1999). Inventing the internet. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Associates, Princeton Survey Research. (2001). Wired, willing and ready: Nonprofit human service organizations’ adoption of information technology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University. Bach, J., & Stark, D. (2002). Innovative ambiguities: NGOs use of interactive technology in Eastern Europe. Studies in Comparative International Development, 37, 3–25. Bach, J., & Stark, D. (2004). Link, search, interact: The co-evolution of NGOs and interactive technology. Theory, Culture & Society, 21, 101–117. Baird, Z. (2002). Governing the internet: Engaging government, business, and nonprofits. Foreign Affairs, 81, 15–20.
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Becker, B., & Wehner, J. (2001). Electronic networks and civil society reflections on structural changes in the public sphere. In C. Ess & F. Sudweeks (Eds.), Culture, technology, communications: Towards and intercultural global village (pp. 67–85). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Berlinger, L. R., & Te’eni, D. (1999). Leaders’ attitudes and computer use in religious congregations. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 9, 399–412. Burt, E., & Taylor, J. (2003). New technologies, embedded values, and strategic change: Evidence from the U.K. voluntary sector. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32, 115–127. Calhoun, C. (1998). Community without propinquity revisited: Communications technology and the transformation of the public sphere. Sociological Inquiry, 68, 373–397. Castells, M. (1997). The power of identity. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Castells, M., Fernandez-Ardevol, M., Qui, J., & Sey, A. (2006). Electronic communication and socio-political mobilization: A new form of civil society. In M. Glasius, M. Kaldor, & H. Anheier (Eds.), Global civil society 2005/06 (pp. 266–285). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Corder, K. (2001). Acquiring new technology: Comparing nonprofit and public sector agencies. Administration and Society, 33, 194–219. Dennis, K. (2007). Technologies of civil society: Communication, participation, and mobilization. Innovation, 20, 19–34. Diani, M. (2000). Social movement networks virtual and real. Information Communication & Society, 3, 386–401. DiMaggio, P., Hargitta, E., Celeste, C., & Shafer, S. (2004). Digital inequality: From unequal access to differentiated use. In K. Neckerman (Ed.), Social inequality (pp. 355–400). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. DiMaggio, P., Hargittai, E., Neuman, W. R., & Robinson, J. P. (2001). Social implications of the internet. Annual Review of Sociology, 27, 307–336. Earl, J., & Schussman, A. (2003). The new site of activism: On-line organizations, movement entrepreneurs, and the changing location of social movement decision making. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change, 24, 155–187. Ebrahim, A. (2003). NGOs and organizational change: Discourse, reporting and learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Fallows, D. (2007). China’s online population explosion: What it may mean for the internet globally and for US users. Washington, DC: Pew Internet and American Life Project. Forster, J. J. (2003). Revolution or evolution?: A longitudinal study of technology use by nonprofit organizations 2000–2002. Pittsburgh, PA: Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management, Robert Morris University. Fulk, J., & DeSanctis, G. (1995). Electronic communication and changing organizational forms. Organization Science, 6, 337–349. Haenfler, R. (2004). Collective identity in the straight edge movement: How diffuse movements foster commitment, encourage individualized participation, and promote cultural change. The Sociological Quarterly, 45, 785–805. Hafner, K., & Lyon, M. (1996). Where wizards stay up late: The origins of the Internet. New York: Touchstone. Hampton, K., & Wellman, B. (2003). Neighboring in Netville: How the internet supports community and social capital in a wired suburb. City & Community, 2, 277–311. Kirschenbaum, J., & Kunamneni, R. (2001). Bridging the organizational divide: Toward a comprehensive approach to the digital divide. Oakland, CA: PolicyLink. Levine, P. (2004). The internet and civil society. In V. V. Gehring (Ed.), The internet and public life (pp. 79–99). New York: Rowman & Littlefield.
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Madden, M. (2006). Internet penetration and impact. Washington, DC: Pew Charitable Trust. Martinez-Torres, M. E. (2001). Civil society, the Internet, and the Zapatistas. Peace Review, 13, 347–355. McInerney, P.-B., & Berman, D. (2003). IT and activism around the war in Iraq. New York: Social Science Research Council. McNutt, J. G., & Boland, M. (1999). Electronic advocacy by nonprofit organizations in social welfare policy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28, 432–451. Naughton, J. (2001). Contested space: The internet and global civil society. In H. Anheier, M. Glasius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global Civil Society Yearbook 2001 (pp. 147–168). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Norris, P. (2001). Digital divide: Civic engagement, information poverty, and the internet worldwide. New York: Cambridge University Press. National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). (1999). Falling through the net: Defining the digital divide. Washington, DC: Department of Commerce. Orlikowski, W. (1992). The duality of technology: Rethinking the concept of technology in organizations. Organization Science, 3, 398–427. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Robertson, B. (2001). Beyond access: A foundation guide to ending the organizational divide. Washington, DC: National Committee on Responsive Philanthropy. Saidel, J. R., & Cour, S. (2003). Information technology and the voluntary sector workplace. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32, 5–24. Seley, J. E., & Wolpert, J. (2002). New York city’s nonprofit sector. New York: The New York City Nonprofits Project. Smith, J. (2001). Globalizing resistance: The battle of Seattle and the future of social movements. Mobilization: An International Journal, 6, 1–19. Van Alstyne, M., & Brynjolfsson, E. (1996). Electronic communities: Global villages or cyberbalkans. Paper presented at the 17th Annual International Conference on Information Systems, Cleveland, OH. van Dijk, J. A. G. M. (2006). Digital divide research, achievements and shortcomings. Poetics, 34, 221–235. Wellman, B. (1997). An electronic group is virtually a social network. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the internet (pp. 179–208). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Wellman, B., & Gulia, M. (1999). Virtual communities as communities: Net surfers don’t ride alone. In M. A. Smith & P. Kollock (Eds.), Communities in cyberspace (pp. 167–194). New York: Routledge.
INGOs STEPHEN COMMINS UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Introduction International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) are nonprofit organizations that provide various types of services in low and lower-middle income countries. These organizations are ‘‘international’’ because they raise funds
in developed countries and utilize these funds in other countries. They operate in a variety of sectors: economic development; humanitarian emergency; environmental; human rights. For the purpose of this entry, INGOs will be confined to economic development and humanitarian emergencies, as these are the sectors where the term INGO is most frequently used.
Definition The term ‘‘Nongovernmental Organization,’’ as opposed to charity or voluntary association, has its origins in the evolution of the United Nations system and the definition of roles of state and nonstate actors. In some ways, the term ‘‘nongovernmental’’ is so broad as to be meaningless (is a table, a ‘‘non-water’’ object?) yet it has become the common terminology of international development. NGOs are not part of any agency of government, whether national, regional, or local, and are thus distinct from government organized and managed NGOs (GONGOs). International NGOs are NGOs that receive funds in more than one country (i.e., United Kingdom, Sweden, Canada, etc.) and either fund or directly manage programs in several other low and lower middle income countries.
Historical Background All of the organizations described as INGO were founded after 1900 and before 1955, with the oldest being Save the Children-UK (part of the International Save the Children Alliance), which was founded in 1919. The largest INGOs all emerged in response to situations of conflict (Save the Children, World War I; PLAN International, Spanish Civil War; Oxfam, World War II; CARE, World War II; World Vision International, Korean War). Other INGOs include Mede´cins Sans Frontie`res, ActionAid, and Christian Children’s Fund, and comparable INGOs in human rights are Amnesty International and in environmental issues, WWF. Over several decades of organizational evolution, these NGOs moved from a sole focus on emergencies to welfare models to various forms of what were termed community development. The community development emphasis generally has sought to reduce poverty through various mechanisms, but in practice the main NGOs have operated in a service delivery approach. INGOs are mission driven, their work based on particular founding principles or values, which have evolved over decades. Both the operational and governance structures of INGOs are highly diverse, ranging from somewhat centralized (PLAN and World Vision) management and operation systems, to more federal to loosely affiliated (Save the Children and Oxfam).
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Up until the mid-1980s, INGOs were relatively small players in the global aid scene. They experienced rapid expansion after the 1980s, as they were the ‘‘favored child’’ of donor agencies. They were supposed to be able to work closer to the grassroots, with less overhead and less politicized assistance. By the mid-1990s, an alternative view had emerged, with increasing criticism from civil society organizations in developing countries, from researchers and from within the INGOs themselves. The major change for INGOs in terms of growth and thus changes in operational structure came through their growth in the past two decades, as they received more public and private funding. Both OECD bilateral agencies and multilateral agencies identified certain attributes of NGOs that include the major INGOs. The shift to funding INGOs began with the goal of increasing local ownership of programs and outcomes. This eventually led to the counter criticism that INGOs were more donor driven than community focused and it is a criticism that pushed many INGOs to adjust their roles and relationships with local NGOs to promote increasing ownership of development processes. INGOs were assumed to be effective at improving design, execution, and outputs of development objectives and bringing community knowledge and innovation in many program areas. They were also seen as strengthening engagement between decision makers and communities, building space for participatory development, complementing the role of the state and the market, and also acting as partners in humanitarian interventions. Thus, beginning the 1980s, public sector donors increasingly designated a higher proportion of their funds to be spent through INGOs and Southern NGOs (SNGOs), believing they were more flexible, focused, community-based, and efficient. At first, most bilateral donors provided funding through ‘‘their’’ NGOs, in other words AUSAID provided funds through Australian NGOs, DFID through UK NGOs, etc. Over the 1990s, these donors began to shift their support directly to SNGOs and donors have challenged the role of international NGOs (INGOs). The donor model has been changing, with more direct funding of Southern NGOs, rather than those Southern NGOs that are branches of or mirror images of INGOs, or formed only to access funding.
Key Issues INGO Operations
Even as INGOs work to improve their relationships with local organizations, they also struggle with the challenge
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of management from a long distance. Every INGO has invested time and resources, and reinvented their systems, in order to try to improve communication and coordination between global headquarters and national offices, as well as front line program staff. A basic organizational system drives the demand for information, which means that field staff send their reports to national offices and global headquarters, which are then reviewed internally and transmitted to donors. This is the aspect of the information sharing learning model most commonly carried out in INGOs. However, when information dissemination stops at this point, a crucial opportunity for additional learning is missed. If the global office collects field reports, reviews, and compiles the material for ‘‘best practices,’’ and then provides it to the field offices, valuable data can be transformed into immediately useful knowledge. Field staff can also benefit from generating the primary reports, reading the compiled headquarters reports, and responding to any perceived inaccuracies or discrepancies. The most commonly reported concern from field offices is the unresponsiveness of headquarters to their needs, the flip side of the concerns from their global offices. While requiring field reports, global headquarters staff have challenges in sharing back to field offices their own work and global systems overview. This makes it difficult to establish dual accountability and an effective information system. No INGO would claim to have resolved the challenge, which remains complicated by distance, size, and diverse operating environments. External Relations
INGOs by their size and spread must manage a complex set of relationships with OECD government donors that provide funding for general support, for general programs and for specific projects. These relationships tend to result in INGOs developing their own internal expertise for bidding for and managing government and multilateral (such as UNDP or World Food Programme) contracts. Along with their relationship with OECD government donors and multilateral organizations, INGOs also must work with ‘‘host’’ governments in each country where they work. This often involves dealing with increasingly complicated government/NGO relations. Over the past two decades, most developing country governments have established more stringent and systematic regulations for INGOs. This relates back to the issues of relations between global headquarters and country field staff, and the tasks involved in management ‘‘at a distance.’’ Though international charities have a history over centuries of various international programming, the
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specific identity and relationships between INGOs, governments or international diplomacy emerged primarily after World War II. INGOs received the acknowledgement of their voice at the United Nations during the development of UN agreements in 1943 and 1944. The access of NGOs was outlined in Article 71 of the UN Charter and affirmed by many subsequent decisions. By 2000, about 2,500 NGOs had consultative status with the United Nation and many thousands more had official arrangements with other organs in the UN system and other intergovernmental bodies. INGOs and NGO coalitions have been the most visible manifestation of the global engagement of INGOs that has expanded significantly since 1990. The various UN summits in the 1990s highlighted the arrival of global civil society and the active presence of a vast array of NGOs, but also illustrated some of the tensions over the resources and voice of the large INGOs. The Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 set the pace for intense NGO participation in world conferences, with 17,000 NGO representatives participating in the NGO parallel forum and 1,400 directly involved in the intergovernmental negotiations. NGOs helped make the conference a success, claimed an important place in the conference declaration and played a key role in developing postconference institutions, like the Commission on Sustainable Development. Three years later, the Fourth World Conference on Women in September 1995 attracted an estimated 35,000 civil society representatives to Beijing to the parallel forum and over 2,500 to the intergovernmental negotiations. Other events such as the World Summit on Social Development, the World Conference on Human Rights and the International Conference on Population and Development all were venues where INGOs were part of a large collection of diverse civic society representatives. INGOs discovered that they were most effective at influencing policies when they were part of larger policy coalitions, sharing different strengths and resources, and seeking to align their advocacy efforts. INGOs are often key players in various civil society networks on international economic policies, which provide a forum for diverse voices and views to come together. These platforms range from civil society coalitions on specific issues to civil society forums at are linked to international conferences and negotiations. At the same time, serious tensions arose about who ‘‘speaks’’ for civil society at the global level. An example of some of the tensions facing INGOs in their relation with ‘‘global civil society’’ can be found in the World Social Forum which began as a countermovement to the World Economic Forum, and the internal
debates within the WSF highlighted how many individuals and organizations in the ‘‘global South’’ are skeptical of INGOs. They frequently criticized the INGOs are lacking a coherent alternative vision. The tension between system maintainers, system reformers and system transformers becomes especially sharp in regards to the WSF, relations with the World Bank and IMF, and countervailing visions. The WSF experience has illustrated the difficulties in establishing an effective civil society infrastructure that allows diverse groups to participate effectively in the different forums. Over the next decade, INGOs and their participation in different networks will remain one of the interesting forums for internal civil society debates on who speaks for whom. Along with the challenges of defining their place within civil society at the global level, INGOs face equally complex challenges with civil society in local contexts. INGOs programmatically must manage a range of complex upwards and downwards relationships, INGOs have to manage multiple accountabilities, to donors and beneficiaries – and there are increasing demands towards ‘‘downward accountability.’’ In their public statements and mission, INGOs see their primary responsibility is to the populations they serve. Yet, of necessity, INGOs must also respond to and be attuned to the expectations of the donors who make their work possible. The relationship between INGOs and local organizations are complex in ways that require attention and astute responses. NGOs experience tensions over the use of funds and program priorities, as well as the problem of subcontracting. INGOs, in particular in emergency relief situations, often operate as implicit or explicit subcontractors for multilateral and bilateral donors. When they begin to work with local NGOs or grassroots organizations, there is a danger that due to pressures of time and the larger operational structure within which they must function, the relationship will be established on a contractual basis for solely instrumental purposes. A further risk is that the pressure to ‘‘go operational’’ will reduce the ability of international NGOs to assess their potential counterparts. In recent years, donors have become increasingly more active in placing restrictions on the use of their funds. So there may be substantial pressure to utilize funds quickly or in ways that may not serve the best interests of the disaster victims. All of these factors create conflict within an INGO because those who receive the goods and services are not the ones who pay for them, which raises up issues of accountability by INGOs. Accountability is a process by which INGOs and their leaders provide information about their programs and the
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justification for how they spend their resources. It provides or should provide a mechanism towards building relations with local communities in ways in which they can access INGO decision-making, make complaints or criticisms, and request changes in programming and staff. In theory, the ways in which INGOs describe working with local partners and INGO partnership language is about accountability. While INGOs have all adopted the language of partnership, INGOs remain the keeper of the funds, and this has led to increased criticism of their distance from the communities. Many civil society organizations will express discomfort with mismatch between the resources and relative political immunity of INGOs compared to their own poorly resourced offices and the political risk they experience as local organizations. This mismatch may not surprise or trouble them because they recognize that it is ‘‘their war’’ or ‘‘their disaster’’ but INGO power and influence can lead to other asymmetries in the development of civil society. As grant-givers, the wealth of international NGOs can begin to control local civil society by dictating its shape and priorities. Indeed, some INGO leaders are pondering whether they should restructure some of their systems so that they are more transparently ‘‘donors’’ rather than ‘‘partners,’’ especially as the INGOs continue to seek new models for both their humanitarian and community development work. INGO Programs
INGOs are best known by their programs in both humanitarian and community development, and these programs define them in ways that are often difficult to see from a global level. The area of programming under ‘‘humanitarian’’ operations involves the response to natural disasters, both sudden onset (floods, cyclones, earthquakes) and slow onset (famines), and to conflict. INGOs have achieved their greatest international visibility in responding to sudden onset disasters such as the Asian Tsunami or Hurricane Mitch, to famines such as Ethiopian famine of 1984, and to conflicts, particularly internal wars such as Sudan, Somalia, or Bosnia. Two notable changes have occurred within INGOs in the past decade. One involves a deliberate effort to shift some programming from disaster response to disaster risk reduction, and the other involves more attention to the underlying nature of conflicts and avoiding negative impacts from aid programs (under the rubric of ‘‘do no harm’’). The goal of disaster risk reduction is to lessen poor communities’ vulnerability by increasing their capacities to prepare for, to cope with and to mitigate the adverse
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effects of disasters. Aware and organized communities can work with local government to implement policies and programs recognizing people’s needs and interests and promoting a safer environment The place of risk reduction in the cycle of disaster management linking preparedness and recovery represents a perennial challenge for the humanitarian system. Much of what is spent on humanitarian response could, it is argued, be spent to greater effect in terms of saving lives and livelihoods through disaster risk reduction measures. In addition, responses to disasters when they happen would be better in many ways if people were better prepared to manage the necessary responses. And there is a real cycle whereby future risks would be mitigated by incorporating the concept of risk reduction into the recovery efforts that are in fact a large part of what is done under the heading of humanitarian action. At the World Conference on Disaster Reduction in 2005 the ‘‘Hyogo framework’’ was agreed by 168 nations. The Framework offers guiding principles, priorities for action, and practical means for achieving disaster resilience for vulnerable communities. The end of the Cold War was seen as an opportunity for greater international cooperation, but turned out to be a time when INGOs faced exceptionally daunting challenges in complex emergencies. While there were many brutal wars before 1989, and thus there may be a fallacy in the view that 1989 was the date on which complex humanitarian emergencies increased, it may instead be the case that the removal of superpower restraints on client states has also been accompanied by growing awareness of the spread of such emergencies. These are characterized by the breakdown of political, economic, and social orders, and by the targeting of civilian populations for violence. The cruel realities of recent complex emergencies can be found in the earlier civil wars in which NGOs gained important experiences in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, there were many significant and brutal emergencies before 1989 (such as Afghanistan, Mozambique, Cambodia, and El Salvador), but these were overshadowed by the Cold War, and many were somewhat muted by the actions of different external actors. They share with more recent crises the character of being political, rather than natural, emergencies. The Cold War was a time of vicious, proxy wars, and while the patrons have been removed, the arms and sources of conflict have not. The growth of complex emergencies was illustrated by documented in the increased number of refugees after 1990, and notably the growing numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs), and the higher proportion of official development
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assistance (ODA) spent on emergency relief. One result of the recognition of the realities of working in long-term complex emergencies was the rethinking of the role of INGOs in these conflicts. The harsh lessons from experiences such as Rwanda, Somalia, and Bosnia point to the need for INGOs to give serious attention to how they operate in such contexts. Humanitarian operations are constantly challenged by crises that rapidly materialize and quickly change. Consequently, how prepared INGOs are to respond to a crisis will often mean the difference between survival or death for those affected. Catalyzed by the serious challenges presented to humanitarian agencies by back to back crises in Kosovo, East Timor, Mozambique, and Central America in the late 1990s, humanitarian organizations have taken significant steps to improve, systematize, and professionalize their emergency preparedness over the last decade. Contingency planning has emerged as a key tool used by humanitarian practitioners use to ensure they are as prepared as they can be to respond to the needs to those affected by natural disasters, conflicts, and other crises around the world. INGOs approach to community development has evolved through various approaches to individual welfare, social welfare, basic service delivery, and more recently various models of economic development or community empowerment, sometimes linked (not always clearly) to what is termed rights based development. There are wide spectrums of programs that come under the label ‘‘development’’ or ‘‘community development,’’ both between INGOs and within INGOs. Community development as used by INGOs has several meanings, as it is used as an analytic tool, as a programming tool, as a proxy for sectors such as agricultural development, and for various finance programs. Community development is sometimes used as a proxy for pro-poor growth, economic empowerment, and other phrases that imply that the programs will reduce inequality and improve the overall economic status of poor households. In the past, INGOs tended to also use the term to distinguish their programs from market based economic development that they viewed as having the potential to increase inequality, at least in the short term. Whatever their mechanisms for program implementation (i.e., direct program management, funding through partner agencies) INGOs remain vulnerable to several criticisms. Often, whatever the description, the programs could be labeled as primarily social welfare models with resource transfers, not programs directly capable of promoting long term economic growth and improved livelihoods. Further, critics argue that INGOs cannot demonstrate consistent
results in terms of improved well-being across a large number of projects. Internal evaluations in the past few years have raised troubling questions regarding NGO impact, which parallels European bilateral donor evaluations in the late 1990s which were unable to find consistent evidence that INGOs contributed to improved well-being compared to other aid programs. While larger INGOs have sought to move from service delivery to promoting economic development, smaller, more narrowly focused agencies, such as FINCA and Opportunity International, or the Grameen Bank, have established approaches that are built around the utilization of financial instruments that might promote economic growth in low income communities. Partly due to the alternatives being promoted by other agencies, as well as the criticisms of their ‘‘welfare’’ system, many of the larger INGOs have also adopted various approaches within their larger operations, leading the blossoming of MED, MFI, Household Economic Security or Livelihoods Security. The success of many microfinance, microcredit, or microenterprise programs has challenged the INGOs to consider whether and how to change their programmatic approaches or mix of programs. Currently there is no common INGO view on the role of the market, the importance of relative equity, the use of different financial instruments at different levels of the poverty pyramid, or the priorities between reducing relative and absolute poverty. Within INGOs, as well as among researchers, there is widespread concern over the lack of economic development expertise within INGOs, common understanding of core issues or agreement on what type of economic development each INGO is promoting.
Future Directions This note has identified some of the ongoing challenges for INGOs, such as management at a distance, relations with government and funders, accountability with connections to communities and programming models. Emerging issues for INGOs that are beginning to gain more attention include new ways to address urban poverty, climate change, and security in complex emergencies. Urban poverty is increasing at a faster rate than rural poverty, and is receiving less attention, making it a major future challenge for INGOs which have admittedly focused their programs and, more importantly, their program models on rural poverty. Urban contexts are different from rural contexts with regard to the spatial concentration of poverty and the number of people at risk from them. The concentration of hundreds of thousands or several million people in one geographic area creates
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particular problems in terms of poverty reduction, social services and economic development. The dynamics of poverty will be different, for example, the range of infectious and parasitic diseases that can spread rapidly amongst concentrated populations due to the close proximity of people, or the potentially dangerous industrial processes and industrial wastes. In 2008, for the first time in history, more people are living in cities than in rural areas, with 90% of slums located in low and lower middle income countries. INGOs have begun to give attention to climate change as a global issue that receives attention for global response mechanisms, but it is at the community level where the most significant impacts will be experienced, especially by poor and highly vulnerable groups. Recent trends have highlighted the potential severe impact on poor countries and communities. The majority of large scale disasters are related to extreme weather events. Twelve of the last 13 years (1995–2007) rank among the 12 warmest years (since 1850) in the instrumental record of global surface temperature. Changes in weather patterns include a rise in global sea level average, an increase in precipitation, and an increase in tropical cyclone activity. INGOs are just beginning to address how they will respond programmatically to reducing climate risk in their operations. A distinct but equally daunting challenge has emerged at the nexus between staff security and the humanitarian ethos. The humanitarian ethos has been based on the accepted neutrality of aid personnel, and their ability to work in situations of conflict with respect from all warring parties. There is well documented evidence of the deliberate targeting of humanitarian and United Nations personnel, including fatality, assault, and armed robbery, in a number of countries. Most aid worker victims are deliberately targeted for political and/or economic purposes, rather than being randomly exposed to violence. A recent survey showed that politically motivated incidents have increased by 208% from 1997 to 2005, and between July 2007 and June 2008, the United Nations Department of Safety and Security reported 63 deaths of international and national staff of nongovernmental organizations as a result of deliberate acts, the highest number of deaths on record for targeted violence. Among the key factors in the deterioration in the security environment of humanitarian workers has been the increase in predatory warlord type organizations, the appearance to some military factors of close cooperation with military and political actors by INGOs, and the view that INGOs are agents of outside interests. Even in
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the disaster responses, such as the Asian Tsunami, some ethnic and political factors believed that humanitarian action has been inextricably associated with states parties, ethnic, or religious favoritism, or other outside agendas. INGOs are struggling with how to deal with civil/military relations, whether with national militaries or UN authorized troops.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Action Aid ▶ Amnesty International ▶ CARE ▶ Civil society in Post-Conflict Scenarios ▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ GONGOs ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ Intermediary Organizations and Field ▶ Me´decins Sans Frontie`res ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Oxfam ▶ Save the Children ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits ▶ World Social Forum ▶ World Vision ▶ WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature
References/Further Readings Alnoor, E. (2003). Accountability in practice: Mechanisms for NGOs. World Development, 31(5), 813–829. Catherine, A. (June 2006). Trends in government support for NGOs: Is the golden age behind us? Geneva: UNRISD. Edwards, M. (1999). NGO performance: What breeds success? New evidence from South Asia. World Development, 27(2), 361–374. Fowler, A. (2000). NGO futures: Beyond aid: NGDO values and the fourth position. Third World Quarterly, 21(4), 589–605. Hulme, D., & Edwards, M. (Eds.) (1997). Too close for comfort? NGOs, states and donors. Basingstoke/New York: Macmillan. Jordan, L., & Tuijl, P. V. (Eds.) (2006). NGO accountability: Politics, principles and innovations. London: Earthscan. Koch, D. -J., Dreher, A., Nunnenkamp, P., & Thiele, R. (2008). Keeping a low profile: What determines the allocation of aid by nongovernmental organizations? World Development, 37, 5. Lister, S. (2000). Power in partnership? An analysis of an NGO’s relations with its Partners. Journal of International Development, 12(2), 227–239.
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Logister, L. (2007). Global governance and civil society. Some reflections on NGO legitimacy. Journal of Global Ethics, 3(2), 165–179. Mawdsley, E., Townsend, J., & Porter, G. (2005). Trust, accountability and face-to-face interaction in North-South NGO relations. Development in Practice, 15(1), 77–82. Mitlin, D., Hickey, S., & Bebbington, A. (2007). Reclaiming development? NGOs and the challenge of alternatives. World Development, 35(10), 1699–1720. Nelson, P. (2000). Heroism and ambiguity: NGO advocacy in international policy. Development in Practice, 10(3 & 4), 478–490. Ossewaarde, R., Nijhof, A., & Heyse, L. (2008). Dynamics of NGO legitimacy: How organizing betrays core missions of INGOs. Public Administration and Development, 28(1), 42–53. Pearce, J., & Eade, D. (Eds.) (2000). Development, NGOs and civil society. Oxford: Oxfam/Kumarian. Salm, J. (1999). Coping with globalization: A profile of the northern NGO sector. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28(1), 87–103. Sanyal, P. (2006). Capacity building through partnerships: Intermediary nongovernmental organizations as local and global actors. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(1), 66–82. Sogge, D. (1996). Compassion and calculation. London: TNI/Pluto Press. Tvedt, T. (2006). The international aid system and the non-governmental organizations: A new research agenda. Journal of International Development, 18, 677–690.
Institut Pasteur ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization 25, rue du Docteur Roux 75724 Paris France www.pasteur.fr
Introduction Founded by renowned French scientist Louis Pasteur and incorporated as a private foundation headquartered in Paris, the Institut Pasteur promotes research into infectious and parasitic diseases, as well as the study and teachings of all aspects of microbiology. It is named after Louis Pasteur (1822–1895), its founder and first director.
Brief History Louis Pasteur is known for many scientific accomplishments, including the development of the rabies vaccine, the process of pasteurization, and more broadly, the field of microbiology. The Institut Pasteur was founded by Pasteur in 1887, thanks to international donors willing to support his efforts to further develop the vaccine against rabies and conduct research on other infectious diseases. The Institut opened its doors in November 1888.
Its first teaching course in microbiology was offered by Emile Roux in 1889.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas According to organizational materials, the overall mission of the Institut Pasteur is to contribute to the prevention and treatment of disease. The Institut is guided by a set of principles that incorporates an original scientific approach, a desire to apply its findings to improve public health, professional ethics, and an openness to sharing knowledge broadly. Research carried out in the field and in the laboratory at its Paris headquarters and its 30 institutes around the world focuses on infectious diseases, including influenza, AIDS, malaria, and the plague. The national institutes tend to concentrate on those diseases affecting their own local populations.
Activities The Institut engages in three main types of activity. Key is its research in biology, specifically viral, bacterial, and parasitic deseases. The Institut ensures a linkage between basic research carried out over the long-term, without which no fundamental discovery can be made, short-term projects that take the necessary steps to obtain results, and rapidly progressing technologies. The Institut also has programs to educate young scientists and trainees from around the world, most of which are scientists, pharmacists, or medical doctors. The Institut also promotes public health more broadly by providing vaccinations, screenings, and other services at its medical centers.
Structure and Governance The Institut Pasteur is governed by an independent Board of Directors and General Assembly. An Executive Board and President oversees its general operations, while a Scientific Council composed of a mix of Pasteur researchers and external members oversees its research. Some 2,600 people work on the Institut’s Paris campus.
Funding The Institut seeks to maintain its autonomy through increasing commercialization of its research results and growing sponsorships and major gifts. It derived the majority of its 2007 annual budget of more than €233 million from private sources, including income from its own activities, donations, bequests, sponsorships, income on assets, and reserves. About one quarter of its budget is covered by government contributions.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Research emerging from the Institut Pasteur and its network have impacted the prevention and treatment of
Instituto Ethos de Empresas e Responsabilidade Social
numerous infectious diseases including tuberculosis, diptheria, and hepatitis, among others. Since 1900, ten Nobel Prizes have been awarded to researchers at the Institut Pasteur, most recently the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine to Professors Franc¸oise Barre´-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier for their discovery of the human immunodeficiency (AIDS) virus in 1983. The Institut Pasteur has an international network of institutes, eight have been granted the official status of regional, national, or international centres by the World Health Organization.
Cross-References
▶ Philanthropy, Definition of
References/Further Readings Institut Pasteur. (2007). Une fondation au service de la recherche et de la sante´. Rapport annuell. Paris: Institut Pasteur. Direction de la Communication et du Me´ce´nat. Vallery-Radot, R. (1960). The life of Pasteur. New York: Dover.
Instituto Ethos de Empresas e Responsabilidade Social
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social inequalities still persist, and government initiatives have failed to reduce unjust conditions. Grajew and the founding members of the Ethos Institute contend that private companies must also accept their social responsibility. Having been successful in promoting their purposes for over a decade, the Ethos Institute has become nationally and internationally recognized.
Mission/Objectives Dedicated to the reduction of social inequalities, the Ethos Institute’s main concern is to encourage businesses to concentrate on social responsibility. In order to concretize their mission, the Ethos Institute published a six point plan. First, businesses must understand and incorporate the concept of progressive socially responsible corporate behavior. Second, policies and practices must be implemented to meet high ethical standards. Third, companies must assume responsibility towards all those affected by these activities, including employees, clients, suppliers, the community, shareholders, etc. Fourth, businesses must convince their shareholders of the importance of socially responsible behavior in the long-term return of their investments. Fifth, innovative and effective ways of working with the community towards a common state of well-being must be identified. Lastly, companies must contribute to sustainable social, economic and environmental development.
MARTIN HO¨LZ, CHARLOTTE ANHEIER
Activities Address of Organization Rua Dr. Fernandes Coelho, 85, 10 Andar 05423-040, Sa˜o Paulo Brazil www.ethos.org.br
Introduction Established in Sa˜o Paulo, Brazil, the Instituto Ethos (Ethos Institute) is a nongovernmental and nonprofit organization that seeks to strengthen corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainable development by offering business opportunities which establish a commitment to social activities. Internationally recognized, Ethos Institute has many partner organizations throughout the world.
Brief History Led by Oded Grajew, cofounder of the World Social Forum, a group of businessmen founded the Ethos Institute in February 1998. Grajew, a successful Ashoka fellow who also established the ABRINQ Foundation, became the organization’s first president. Although Brazil’s economy is among the top ten largest worldwide, extreme
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The Ethos Institute maintains five basic strategies for fostering corporate social responsibility and sustainable development. First, to strengthen CSR, the Ethos Institute runs several network programs and media campaigns (e.g., ‘‘National Week for Citizenship and Solidarity’’) and awards several prizes. Second, in order to improve and widen the existing CSR activities, the Ethos Institute holds an annual conference and publishes an annual survey regarding ‘‘Social Responsibility Indicators.’’ Third, the Institute considers itself as a platform of exchange which allows it to run several information services such as newsletters and other publications. Fourth, in order to have an effect on markets, the Ethos Institute edits an annual index of successfully socially responsible companies. Lastly, it participates in several institutions to improve the statemarket relationship with regard to CSR. Further, in March of 2004 the Ethos Institute founded the UniEthos as an educational nonprofit institution.
Structure and Governance The Ethos Institute consists of a directory and four councils, which include a deliberative council, an advisory board, a fiscal council and an international advisory
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board. As of early 2009, the Ethos Institute claimed a membership of more than 1,300 businesses and a staff of some 60 individuals.
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US foreign development assistance as well as enhance the impact and accountability of NGOs towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Lastly, InterAction also aims at collaborating with other international NGO networks to achieve its objectives.
Supported mainly through membership dues, the Ethos Institute had a budget of $2 million in 2001.
Major Accomplishments In terms of strengthening corporate social responsibility and sustainable development on a national and an international level, the Ethos Institute acts as a role model: ‘‘Ethos has been able to increase the visibility of corporate responsibility in the media, between and within companies’’ (Raufflet, 2008: 104).
Brief History In 1984, 22 US-based NGOs decided to form InterAction with the main objective of achieving greater impact regarding American international development policies. The membership base has since then grown to include most major US-based NGOs with an international presence.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Cross-References
▶ Ashoka ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ World Social Forum
References/Further Readings Oliveira Neto, V. de (2002). ETHOS: Corporate social responsibility. ReVista Harvard Review of Latin America (Edition ‘‘Giving and Volunteering in the Americas: From charity to solidarity’’), from http://www.drclas.harvard.edu/revista/articles/view/24 Raufflet, E. (2008). Creating the context for corporate responsibility. The experience of Instituto Ethos, Brazil. Journal of corporate citizenship, 30, 95–106.
InterAction JANINE SCHALL-EMDEN
Address of Organization 1400 16th Street, NW, Suite 210 Washington DC, 20036 USA www.interaction.org/
Introduction InterAction (formally the American Council for Voluntary International Action) is a US-based coalition of over 165 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), collectively receiving around $6 billion annually for international development from the American public. InterAction’s focus is to advocate for an increase and improvement of
Specific areas of InterAction’s focus include advocacy to both the public as well as the US government, the effectiveness of international aid interventions, disaster response, and refugees. Other cross cutting issues that InterAction prioritizes are gender and diversity, as well as strategic impact of interventions. InterAction’s three main goals consider firstly the promotion of a stronger national agenda towards development and humanitarian assistance, engaging on the government and cabinet levels. Secondly, it aims to demonstrate and enhance NGO accountability and impact in development and humanitarian action. And lastly InterAction aspires to be the voice and prime representative of US international NGOs in building alliances and common agendas with NGO networks around the world and with other strategic partners.
Activities InterAction’s recent publications include: US Contributions to Reducing Global Poverty: InterAction worked with three member organizations (Bread for the World, Oxfam America and the World Wildlife Fund) to produce a comprehensive analysis of US government support for attaining the MDGs. Monday Developments: InterAction’s flagship publication provides in-depth news and commentary on global trends that affect relief and development work. InterAction Member Activity Reports: Member Activity Reports provide information on InterAction’s member organizations in selected countries. 2007 reports focused on the nations of Afghanistan, Colombia, Haiti, Somalia, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe. Member Profiles 2007–2008: This publication provides a detailed portrait of over 165 US-based NGOs working in
Interest and Pressure Groups
international development, disaster relief, humanitarian assistance and aid.
Structure and Governance InterAction members voted in a new Board of Directors in early 2008 composed of 28 civil society leaders and chaired by Charlie MacCormack, the current President of Save the Children. The organization’s 40 strong staff is organized in seven different departments according to InterAction’s six focus areas (see mission/objectives/focus areas section) in addition to the executive office.
Funding For the 2007 financial year, InterAction recorded total revenues of $5,097,069 and expenses of $5,992,398, excesses of which were absorbed by their net assets. Currently the value of InterAction’s net assets is of $2,229,621. InterAction’s main donors include the American Jewish World Service (AJWS), private foundations (including the Gates, Packard and Ford Foundations), US government agencies (such as the US Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration as well as USAID), and international organizations (World Bank and International Monetary Fund).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The primary accomplishment of InterAction was to form a strong partnership with international and national allies and boost support for development initiatives. In this regard the organization has assisted in increasing the visibility and impact of NGOs in the United States through their communications and advocacy efforts. The organization has also been able to open the possibility of a cabinet-level agency focused on the world’s poor.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Bread for the World ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Oxfam ▶ Umbrella Organizations ▶ WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature
References/Further Readings http://www.interaction.org/files.cgi/6311_Annual_Report_2007.pdf http://www.interaction.org/files.cgi/5739_IA_Goals.pdf
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Interest and Pressure Groups ROBERT DALZIEL University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Introduction The interest or pressure group can be a powerful way to hold people and organizations accountable for their actions in a democracy. At the same time, there is the pluralist idea that it is to some extent possible to avoid extremes in politics through the development of interest and pressure groups in society that serve the interests of a wide range of individuals and groups. More specifically, at different times, there will be different opportunities for individuals to benefit from working together and forming interest or pressure groups to try to achieve collective goals. Indeed, the job of lobbying and making sure your views are heard may be made easier through engagement in organized and coordinated interest and pressure group activity. An interest or pressure group will often want to be involved in shaping or determining the outcomes of a policymaking process or decisions about priorities for action to allocate important resources. There is often solidarity and task oriented or ideological benefits derived from the act of associating and deciding on collective goals. However, there may also be material benefits derived from the act of associating including rewards that have a monetary value.
Definition Pressure and interest groups are nonprofit and often voluntary organizations representing the views of individuals that share some political, social, or other goals. They are not political parties and consist of individuals that come together to articulate a collective view on a particular issue or cause and try to influence policymaking processes and the actions of others. However, pressure and interest groups can vary widely in the way that they are structured and the strategies that they use to gain access to politicians and articulate their views. On the one hand, they may focus on a single issue and consist of a small membership and a few employees. On the other hand, they may have views on a number of issues and consist of a large membership and many employees. Interest groups frequently attempt to rally support for a cause and maintain established practice and ways of working whilst pressure groups try to rally support for a cause and change established practice and ways of working. The different groups might raise their profile by lobbying politicians
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and trying to influence decisions, the targeted dissemination of information, and campaigns to promote their cause and political objectives. It is possible to use the terms interest group and pressure group interchangeably to describe similar types of organizational activity. For example, an interest or pressure group can represent the shared views and concerns of a particular section of society, which can include certain businesses, professions, or employees. A wide range of interest and pressure groups can emerge that reflects the various communities of interest that exist at the different levels of international, national, regional, and local government. On the one hand, sectional interest or pressure group activities can include business and trades union action to protect the interests of their members. On the other hand, public interest or pressure group activities might include lobbying on a particular issue such as heath inequalities or crime levels and disband as soon as the issue has been resolved or is no longer viewed as important (Berry, 1977). Meanwhile, a person’s reasons for getting involved in an interest or pressure group can vary from wanting to obtain some type of specific personal reward to recognizing some wider sense of civic duty and a desire to change an aspect of state policy or governance.
group. In the 1990s and 2000s the importance of public interest groups as a means for individuals to get involved in political processes has increased. Some early definitions of the interest or pressure group include only private formally organized associations. Such definitions excluded influential formally organized interest or pressure groups that are not private including the various incarnations of national, regional, and local government or their agencies and institutions such as the military. In turn, a narrow definition of the interest or pressure group would exclude many informally organized entities including influential political and professional elites. Meanwhile, interest and pressure groups that manage to become the experts in an area and represent a particular clientele improve their chances of survival. Such groups tend not to engage in public demonstrations or acts of civil disobedience preferring a less confrontational approach that includes debates and encouraging members to contact decision makers directly. The small number of interest or pressure groups routinely engaging in confrontational activities can meaningfully be characterized as outsiders with regard to formal or bureaucratic decision-making processes (Binderkrantz, 2005).
Historical Background
Key Issues
Truman (1951) used a pluralist view of collective activity to suggest that interest groups largely emerge spontaneously as individuals with shared interests come together. However, he also elaborated on the role of the new interest group and how it can create social tensions and uncertainties that impact on the interests of other potential groups that are stimulated to take action to ensure their interests are represented. In the 1960s, Olson (1965) suggested individuals are less likely to voluntarily contribute to a collective enterprise in situations where the outputs or outcomes are public goods benefitting group members and outsiders. He concluded that it is only in situations where groups are not too large and members stand to obtain special benefit from collective activity that there is a presumption that individuals will want to contribute in the absence of coercion. Other commentators have countered that the relationship between the level of collective activity and the size of groups is more complex than Olson originally indicated. For example, Salisbury (1969) used exchange theory to understand interest group membership and the way that group leaders and members can benefit from each others inputs to a group. In the early 1980s, Cook (1984) proposed that the organizers of an interest group offer certain benefits to potential members in exchange for the price of their affiliation with the
Some commentators have challenged the pluralist view of the role of interest and pressure groups and their ability to represent effectively the views of different sections of society. For example, Schattschneider (1935) says, ‘‘The heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper class accent’’ and suggests interest and pressure group operations are often biased towards the better off in society. Insider groups have privileged access to policymakers whilst outsider groups do not. In addition, insider groups are more likely to know their way around a political system whilst outsider groups are disadvantaged by a lack of forewarning about policymaking intentions and reduced capacity to take preemptive action. However, the acquisition of insider or outsider status by a group will often involve both a decision by government and a decision by the group concerned (Grant, 1989). Sometimes it is also possible to distinguish between insider and outsider groups based on the strategies that they use to achieve their goals. For example, insider groups may aim to persuade government through debate and contact with influential individuals whilst outsider groups that take an ideological approach are more likely to eschew the dominant political system. On the other hand, some outsider groups may wish to become insiders but lack the necessary understanding of the political system to attain such status or they may be
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potential insider groups that have not yet attained their desired goal. Organizations that offer to back an interest or pressure group often expect to receive some sort of benefit from their lobbying or campaigning activities. At the same time, interest or pressure group capacity to provide policymakers with information that helps with policy development and understanding competing interests and the implications of alternative decisions on a policy issue can be important (Maloney et al., 1994). However, an interest or pressure group risks being unable to end a relationship with an organization that it depends on for resources that ensure its survival (May & Nugent, 1982). Meanwhile, different types of interest and pressure group approaches to lobbying and campaigning may not be easy to separate and may be combined in an overall influence strategy (Beyers, 2004). There are also issues concerning interest or pressure group ability to organize and how easily shared views can be translated into cogent and well-prepared arguments. An interest or pressure group’s capacity to achieve such goals may depend on the extent to which it is able to obtain adequate resources to function up effectively and build a strong sense of organizational purpose and member commitment to organizational goals (Maloney et al., 1994).
International Perspectives An important factor that will influence or determine what types of interest or pressure groups emerge and can develop is differences in national political opportunity structures. Different population profiles and social and economic circumstances will help to shape of the wider political environment and encourage or discourage collective action on issues. Furthermore, national and local governments can take action to change people’s views on issues or arrange to deal with their concerns or grievances through a process of accommodation. At the same time, political cycles and events may weaken or destabilize a national government and provide opportunities for new protest and pressure groups to emerge. In this situation, people may be encouraged to participate in collective action to protest against some policy or lobby officials because they feel they have an increased chance of being successful. However, a lack of formal opportunities for people to voice their concerns and grievances may cause them to become frustrated and angry, which encourages participation in more extreme and violent kinds of protest.
Future Directions Changes in the political environment can help to facilitate or constrain interest and pressure group activity and
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attempts to form coalitions or alliances. However, governments may want to encourage interest and pressure group involvement in debates and decision-making processes to try to solve complex social problems. Indeed, democratic government may be seriously undermined in situations where there are few or inadequate opportunities for interest and pressure group involvement in the development of policy. Policymaking is more legitimate when a wide range of interests is encapsulated in its formulation. Meanwhile, interest and pressure groups need to be constantly thinking about how they are going to meet changing member and citizen demands for action on issues (Hojnacki, 1997). These issues include considering and dealing with the detrimental effects of globalization and environmental degradation. The resources that interest and pressure groups are able to obtain, the extent of conflict over issues, and their relations with government and other institutions will continue to influence decisions about the strategies used to achieve organizational goals. In turn, interest, and pressure group access to politicians and policymakers and the way that decision-making processes work (or not) will continue to impact on what views and ideas are considered more relevant than others are. It is likely many interest and pressure groups that want incremental policy change will continue to pursue insider negotiation strategies whilst those desiring change that is more radical will adopt outsider strategies (Maloney et al., 1994). But, even for insider groups policymaking influence is not equal for all participants. While a wide and diverse set of policy participants are involved in consultation, only a restricted number have significant influence. This might help to explain why outsider strategies have been on the rise not only in their use but also in terms of their effectiveness (Binderkrantz, 2005).
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Civic Action ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Collective Action ▶ Government – Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Lobbying ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Social Movements ▶ Solidarity
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References/Further Readings Berry, J. M. (1977). Lobbying for the people: The political behavior of public interest groups. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Beyers, J. (2004). Voice and access: The political practices of European interest associations. European Union Politics, 5(2), 211–240. Binderkrantz, A. (2005). Interest group strategies: Navigating between privileged access and strategies of pressure. Political Studies, 53(4), 694–715. Cook, C. E. (1984). Participation in public interest groups: Membership motivations. American Politics Quarterly, 12(4), 409–430. Grant, W. (1989). Pressure groups, politics and democracy in Britain. London: Philip Allen. Hojnacki, M. (1997). Interest groups’ decisions to join alliances or work alone. American Journal of Political Science, 41(1), 61–87. Maloney, W. A., Jordan, G., & McLaughlin, A. M. (1994). Interest groups and public policy: The insider/outsider model revisited. Journal of Public Policy, 14(1), 17–38. May, T., & Nugent, N. (1982). Insiders, outsiders and thresholders: Corporatism and pressure group strategies in Britain. Paper presented at the Political Studies Association conference. Canterbury: University of Kent. Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Salisbury, R. H. (1969). An exchange theory of interest groups. Midwest Journal of Political Science, 13(1), 1–32. Schattschneider, E. E. (1935). Politics, pressures and the tariff (p. 166). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Truman, D. B. (1951). The governmental process: Political interests and public opinion. New York: Knopf.
interest groups, being the backbone of interest politics, are not defined by the ubiquitous prevalence of ‘‘interest’’ but by their three main characteristics: (a) organization, including membership, leadership, and the like; (b) activities, denoting strategies to influence decision-makers; (c) boundaries, separating them from other entities operating on the political market. Attempts to define interest groups have focused mainly on these three attributes, as follows: Organization
By and large, the element of organization was regarded as an important conceptual component of the interest group definition. Some scholars, however, expanded the characterization of interest groups to include unorganized publics, as long as they shared an interest, even latent, such as women, taxpayers, or redheads (Truman, 1951; Almond & Bingham Powell, 1988). In general, however, the literature on interest groups has focused on organizations, permanently constituted and collectively governed, as the basic unit of observation and analysis. Bird watchers, card players, and those attending picnics in the park are engaged in highly esteemed social activity (Putnam, 2000) but they are not interest groups in the classic sense. Activities
Interest Politics YAEL YISHAI University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Introduction Interest politics emerged as the cornerstone of modern political science, seeking to free the discipline from the formal legalist tradition and to enhance understanding of the informal workings of the political system, operated by interest groups, in various forms and shapes.
Definition Interest groups have been defined in a variety of ways, and with little precision. On the one hand ‘‘interest’’ is the driving force of political activity on both the elite and the public level. As noted by Schmitter (2008: 195), ‘‘the answer to ‘why did he or she act politically?’ will usually be: ‘because it was in his or her interest to do so.’’’ Yet
Interest groups are defined in terms of what they do. Their major function is to influence government. This does not mean that they do not engage in other activities, for example, enlisting support or attracting media attention, but their attempt to exert an impact on political decisionmaking distinguishes interest groups from typically apolitical organizations like motorcycle clubs or sea divers. Here too, there are notable exceptions to this definition. Verba and Nie (1972), for example, regard interest groups also as organizations involved in ‘‘community affairs.’’ Generally however, interest politics is taken to be the purview of organizations that ‘‘engage in activities to seek specific policy or political goals from the state’’ (Petracca, 1992: 7). With activity taken as the basis of any definition, another ambiguity requires clarification. Often interest groups have been defined by what they do, meaning ‘‘pressure groups’’ (Grant, 1989). Still, interest groups obviously do not rely solely on pressure to promote their goals but often persuade, inspire, or sway their targets in a variety of ways, using multiple strategies. Boundaries
Interest groups are defined by their distinction. They are not part of the state and its agencies, nor are they part of
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the market. They represent society and are not identified with decision-makers, whom they attempt to influence. This view is not unanimously held. Almond and Bingham Powell (1988), for example, noted that what counts in order to qualify as an interest group is the common denominator and its conversion into political action. In this respect, say, the armed forces or the Ministry of Health can be perceived as ‘‘institutional interest groups,’’ being ‘‘institutional’’ for obvious reasons. But they are also interest groups because they attempt to secure a greater share of resources of the available stock and they exert influence on decision- makers to further their goals. Another point of contention in the literature concerns the distinction between interest groups and the market. By virtue of their nonprofit goals, the former are separate from the latter. But the notion that corporations belong to the realm of interest groups is also prevalent (Salisbury, 1984). Grassroots civic associations attempting to prevent the construction of a high-rise building in the neighborhood, mobilized for action on a temporary basis, are unmistakably separate from the market. But well established economic interest groups, such as industrialists’ associations or other members of the business community, are not as far removed from the market as one would assume. Finally, the boundary between interest groups and political parties is not clear cut. Some scholars argue persuasively that interest groups must be distinguished from political parties (Schlozman & Tierney, 1986) by virtue of their role in society. Parties nominate candidates for elective office and seek control of government. Interest groups may endorse candidates, but their members do not run for office (Wilson, 1981; Yoho, 1998). They wish to influence decision-makers rather than make authoritative decisions themselves. Yet in multiparty systems the distinction between interest groups and political parties is problematic, either because the two are hardly more than fronts for each other or because interest groups often try their luck in the electoral arena (Yishai, 1994; 1998). This is the case regarding pensioners’ parties, women’s parties and others focusing on specific policy issues rather than fulfilling their aggregative roles (for a comprehensive discussion of interest groups and political parties relations see Thomas, 2001). To sum up, interest groups may be defined in many ways because different scholars emphasize different elements of group structures, activities, and boundaries. Yet it has generally been held that interest groups consist of citizens who have a shared attitude or interest, operating outside the state and the market, who organize in an attempt to influence public policy.
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Historical Background Historical Conceptualization of Interest Groups
The term interest group was coined in the twentieth century in the United States, where groups easily formed, interests flourished, and government policy was subject to public pressure. But long before to the existence of the title ancient scholars, among them Aristotle, had been preoccupied with conflicts between people and groups and were well aware that individuals have interests they wish to promote. Still, even Alexis de Tocqueville (1969), the great advocate of voluntary activity, did not make a clear distinction between interest groups and political parties. In the early twentieth century the term ‘‘lobby’’ and its variations became established as the closest existing synonym of what later became known as interest groups. Analysis, however, focused on individuals engaged in lobbying activity rather than on the organization they represented (Yoho, 1998). In the literature ‘‘interest group’’ first appeared in Arthur F. Bentley’s The Process of Government, published as early as 1908 (Bentley, 1967). But he too regarded such groups as a factor shaping referenda-voting by people sharing the same interest. A further step toward the definition of interest group was taken by Peter Odegard in Pressure Politics (1928). By the mid-twentieth century the conceptualization of interest politics had established a firm foothold in scholarship, although, as noted by Yoho (1998), the term still lacked precision and consistency. Even David Truman, who devoted his seminal book The Governmental Process (1951) to interest politics, included in his analysis political parties making claims on government. Toward the end of the twentieth century ‘‘interest groups’’ became the term most preferred by political scientists to describe organized activity attempting to influence authoritative decisions. Since the 1970s the interest politics arena has much expanded with the inclusion of ‘‘public interest groups.’’ These are groups seeking a collective good, the achievement of which will not selectively and materially benefit the membership or activists of the organization (Berry, 1977: 7). Environmental groups, women’s movements and civil rights groups belong to this category. In the past they were considered social (or at best, political) movements. In contemporary scholarly terminology, they are part and parcel of the interest group arena. To the list one may add citizen groups that advocate material policies as part or all of their influence efforts, such as neighborhood associations and also groups involving selfactualization and personal growth purposes (Berry, 1999), as long as they are contenders for public policy.
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Historical conceptualization of interest groups evolved also along ideological lines. Initially, the term paralleled competition and conflict. It was associated with greed and regarded as a despicable vice (Hirschman, 1977; Schmitter, 2008) imbued with dangerous emotions. At present, the pursuance of interests is regarded not only as part and parcel of the political process but as a necessary, though not sufficient, condition, for democratic government. In practice and in theory, interest politics has turned into the hub of democratic politics. Perspectives and Approaches
The study of interest politics has evinced three major perspectives. The first, the pluralist perspective, assumed that interest groups largely reflect the distribution of salient interests in society, and that their activity contributes to sustaining democracy. Although not all interest groups were created equal, few remain without access to any resources necessary for both their survival and for pursuing influence (Dahl, 1967). Influence tactics were considered benign, engaging mainly in providing technical information to elected officials. The salience of the issue at stake had a marked effect on its processing and on governmental response. The second perspective tilted toward economics. The key term employed by the proponents of this approach was transactions, executed between interest groups and their members on the one hand and public officials on the other. The idea of transactions was first broached by Mancur Olson (1965), who suggested that selective benefits offered by interest groups are traded for involvement and participation. As these were available only to well established organizations, the universe of interest politics was biased in favor of the haves (Schattschneider, 1960). Institutional rules governing interest politics further reinforced bias in representation. Accordingly, the democratic picture painted by the pluralists was flawed and unsound. Hidden agendas further curbed the influence potential of social groups (Bachrach & Baratz, 1962). The third perspective is termed neopluralist, and its proponents are critical of the economic model and the pluralist model alike. Regarding the former, neo-pluralists widely dispute the theory of selective incentives due to the variety of compensations, the decline of membership organizations, and the ineffective transactions taking place in interest politics. They question the pluralist approach because it overlooks the fact that mobilization for action does not reflect the distribution of interests in society. Influence is far more restricted by structures and institutions than what the pluralists contend, and some groups have very little chance of getting what they want. The neo-pluralists (Lowery & Gray, 2004)
emphasize the multiple facets of the influence process and the linkages and feedbacks between the stages and the actors involved. Interest politics, accordingly, is complex, fluid, contextual, and uncertain. Variation, generated by complexity and competition, is emphasized. They also take note of the obstacles to mobilization and to choice of venues and influence tactics, and are aware of the imposition of structures. In short, neo-pluralists seek to reject some of their predecessors’ assumptions and to adopt others. Contemporary literature on interest politics reflects these three perspectives, keeping the discussion alive and intense.
Key Issues The key issue engaging students of interest politics is the ‘‘influence production process’’ (Lowery & Gray, 2004). The great riddle of the process is determining the circumstances under which influence is at its highest. Put differently, the underlying question is how much power interest groups have, and how power is distributed among different groups. Answers, though inconclusive, deal with the operationalization of ‘‘influence’’ and with evaluating resources at the disposal of interest groups. It is generally agreed that influence is a vague concept. To construct reliable indicators, and to measure them empirically, whether qualitatively or quantitatively, is a daunting task. The lively discussion of different ‘‘faces of power,’’ some of which are hidden, unknown even to the actors themselves, adds difficulty to gauging influence. Yet ‘‘control over outcomes’’ has turned into a key issue in studying interest politics (Dur & Bievre, 2007). Unfortunately, the fundamental question of ‘‘Who gets what, when, and how?’’ as regards interest politics remains open and knowledge is still largely fragmentary. How interest groups accumulate resources is the second focus of attention. Research has been conducted on mobilization, with some scholars explaining influence as lying on the individual level (in leaders or prospective followers) while others accentuate the environment, particularly ‘‘niches’’ making group mobilization possible (Baumgartner, 2001), or institutional structures creating adequate conditions for impact. The availability of resources is considered a necessary, though not a sufficient, condition for group influence. Group maintenance is another issue occupying researchers (Nowness & Lipinski, 2005). Mobilization does not guarantee longevity. In fact, data reveal a fairly high death toll, as problems of maintenance are created from the moment a group enters the political scene. Selection of leadership, tactics, and policy has proven to affect group maintenance. Once a group elicits resources and ensures its
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longevity the choice of strategies is a crucial question. Resources and strategies afford only a partial explanation of influence. The political opportunities available to interest groups (Kitschelt, 1986), as well as the cultural norms guiding their activity, are also part of the research agenda attempting to tackle the origins and magnitude of influence (Cigler & Loomis, 2007).
International Perspectives Although interest politics is a universal phenomenon, variations in outlook are noticeable across continents and cultures. In the United States, the cradle of modern interest politics, the emphasis was once on individuals coordinating their activity to protect their benefits or promote an idea they believed in. The Jacksonian idea presumed that every citizen was capable of influencing the functions of government, and every group could gain access to the core of power. Individual civil responsibility and involvement was the product of this process. The name of the game was pluralism, which the configuration of interest groups displayed with great accuracy. The pluralist arena was ever changing, since interest groups confronted both each other and the government in shifting patterns of competition. A natural dynamism created a diversity of groups whose ability to appeal to the many concerns of each individual guaranteed that no one interest would monopolize power. Furthermore, the essence of pluralism was a well defined boundary between interest groups and the political decision-making process, where the former were seen as working from outside the institutions of government. In Western Europe the focus was overwhelmingly on organizations, permanently constituted and collectively governed, rather than on individuals or on shifting configurations of groups. An alternative to pluralism was offered by Phillip Schmitter (1974), who formulated a theory of neo-corporatism to explain interest politics in Europe. Neo-corporatism denied the free market perspective offered by pluralists, and put the state at the heart of interest politics. A neo-corporatist regime involves the state’s formal recognition of the power of ‘‘strategic actors’’ among interest groups that have met certain threshold criteria. These groups are granted formal rights to influence governmental decisions through routine participation in policy-making bodies, including committees, boards, and councils. The number of partners to the government in the process of policy making is quite limited. They are mainly representatives of economic sectors such as business associations, trade unions, and professional groups. In a neo-corporatist regime the opportunity for change is limited because both institutions and culture shield existing structures. Yet scholars have
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noted that in recent decades economic organizations have been joined by post-materialist movements (Inglehart, 1990), including, for example, women, environmentalists, and peace advocates, all of whom form comprehensive systems of interest intermediation. A third way is presented by studies of developing countries or societies undergoing far-reaching transitions, where political culture is not ripe for civic action and participation in civil life is rudimentary. Under these circumstances the organization of interests is not spontaneous as in the United States, or structural as in Europe, but instead has an elitist quality. Interest groups are products of elite mobilization or party colonization. Social penetration by government agencies or political parties is the hub of the elitist configuration of interest politics. Yet it is assumed that interest groups, in their various forms and shapes, play a key role in both democratization and economic development. At the start of the twenty-first century all three approaches are challenged. Students of US politics have found that individuals are evidently manipulated, and their interest in politics is minor. People tend to ‘‘bowl alone’’ (Putnam, 1995), and many remain outside the influence process. European scholars note that neo-corporatism in its sheer form belongs to the past and that the interest arena is becoming much more open and pluralistic. The decline of the nation-state, yielding some of its authority to the European Union, has had a substantial impact on interest politics. The widespread erosion in the power of political parties has contributed to increasing the autonomy of interest groups. In this respect interest politics is becoming a universal phenomenon, removed from the peculiarities of region or culture. The impact of globalization on the one hand, and the individuation sweeping the contemporary world on the other, blur the distinction between different regimes of interest politics. The positive role played by interest groups in the process of economic development has also been challenged. Olson (1982) maintained that interest politics is to blame for the decline of nations. Others do not share the hope that interest groups (better known as NGOs in Africa and Asia) will propel developing nations to leap forward to prosperity and democracy. Despite the fortune invested by international organizations in sustaining a civic infrastructure, poor countries remain poor. Interest politics has failed to play the role of a magic bullet.
Future Directions Globalization, the expansion of electronic communication, and the commodification of public life have
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contributed to shaping the fledgling research agenda of interest politics. Until recently, studies largely confined themselves to national boundaries, and paid less attention to regions. But lately discussion has increasingly focused on transnational/regional efforts, as well as on transboundary tactics, in which interest groups choose to direct their energies at international bodies and/or economic actors (this last trend has been termed ‘‘private politics’’: Hendry, 2006). The strategies employed by interest groups and their cross-country efforts to influence both national and supranational decision-making are likely to constitute major areas of future research. Political scientists are particularly intrigued by the strategies of interest groups vis-a`-vis the European Union. What they do in Brussels is a major preoccupation, and will probably continue to be. The reason for this close attention is that the EU is less and more of a state at one and the same time. The access of interest groups to the EU’s agencies, the resources at their disposal, the strategies they employ, the coalitions they join, and their influence on the European decision-making process are on the front line of contemporary and possibly future research. Likewise, globalization has shifted concern with interest politics from First World countries to the Third World. The unique patterns of interest politics in developing nations is part of an incipient research agenda. In the study of states in the process of development the terms ‘‘civil society’’ and ‘‘interest groups’’ are used interchangeably, because the research focus is often on state-society relationship rather than on the state’s liaison, or conflict, with specific groups. A further outcome of the interchangeability of interest politics with civil society is the growing interest in underprivileged and marginalized groups, including ethnic minorities, the poor, women, immigrants, and the like. A major prospective research area is the impact of the electronic revolution on interest politics. How do interest groups cope with the decline in membership, and the loosening structural ties with affiliates in the era of digital revolution? Finally, there is a growing tendency to make the deliberation of interest politics more useful and practical. In addition to the question of ‘‘why do organized interests lobby?’’ there have been attempts to offer some research-based advice on the enhancement of efficiency in influence strategies. This includes contribution to political candidates (in the United States, via PACs), resorting to litigation, and particularly resorting to various forms of communication as a means of influence. Increasingly, the study of interest politics is inclining toward administration and economy, employing theories of rational choice and entrepreneurship.
Some scholars lament the theoretical decline of interest politics research, and current reviews of the field bemoan the lack of interest in general theoretical designs (Baumgartner & Leech, 1998); nevertheless, constant attempts are being made to rectify the situation by addressing both empirical and theoretical questions of interest politics.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Association, Definition of and history ▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Business and Employers’ Associations ▶ Citizens Coalition for Economic Justice ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Collective Action ▶ Corporatism ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ Lobbying ▶ Mancur, Olson ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Networks ▶ Nonprofit Organizations ▶ Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations ▶ Political Organizations ▶ Professional Associations ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Self Help Groups ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Social Movements ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Political
References/Further Readings Almond, G. A., & Bingham Powell, G. (1988). Comparative politics today: A world view (4th ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott Foresman/Little Brown. Bachrach, P., & Baratz, N. (1962). Two faces of power. American Political Science Review, 50, 947–952. Baumgartner, F. R. (2001). Interest niches and policy bandwagons: Patterns of interest groups involvement in national politics. Journal of Politics, 63(4), 1191–1213. Baumgartner, F. R., & Leech, B. L. (1998). Basic interests: The importance of groups in politics and political science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Bentley, A. F. (1967). The process of government: A study of social pressures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Berry, J. M. (1977). Lobbying for the people. The political behavior of public interest groups. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Berry, J. M. (1999). The new liberalism. The rising power of citizen groups. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Cigler, A. J., & Loomis, B. A. (Eds.) (2007). Interest group politics (7th ed.). Washington, DC: CQ Press. Dahl, R. A. (1967). Pluralist democracy in the United States. Chicago: Rand McNally.
Intermediary Organizations and Field Dur, A., & De Bievre, D. (2007). The question of interest group influence. Journal of Public Policy, 27(1), 1–12. Grant, W. (1989). Pressure groups, politics and democracy in Britain. New York: Philip Allan. Hendry, J. R. (2006). Taking aim at business: What factors lead environmental non-governmental organizations to target particular firms. Business and Society, 45, 47–86. Hirschman, A. O. (1977). The passions and the interests. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R. (1990). Culture shift in advanced industrial society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kitschelt, H. (1986). Political opportunity structure and political protest: Anti-nuclear movements in four democracies. British Journal of Political Science, 15(1), 57–85. Lowery, D., & Gray, V. (2004). A neopluralist perspective on research on organized interests. Political Research Quarterly, 57(1), 163–175. Nowness, J. J., & Lipinski, D. (2005). The population ecology of interest group death: Gay and lesbian rights interest groups in the United States 1945–1998. British Journal of Political Science, 35, 303–319. Odegard, P. H. (1928). Pressure politics: The story of anti-saloon league. New York: Columbia University Press. Olson M. (1968). Please change the data in the text. The Logic of Collective Action. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Olson, M. (1982). The rise and decline of nations. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Petracca, M. P. (1992). The rediscovery of interest groups. In M. P. Petracca (Eds.), The politics of interests. Interest groups transformed. Boulder, CO.: Westview. Putman, R. D. (1995). ‘‘Bowling Alone. America’s Declining Social Capital.’’ Journal of Democracy 6, 65–78. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone. The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Salisbury, R. H. (1984). Interest representation. The dominance of institutions. American Political Science Review, 78, 64–76. Schattschneider, E. E. (1960). The semisovereign people. New York: Holt/ Rinehart/Winston. Schlozman, K. L., & Tierney, J. T. (1986). Organized interests and American democracy. New York: Harper & Row. Schmitter, P. C. (2008). The changing politics of organized interests. West European Politics, 31(1–2), 195–210. Schmitter, P. C. (1974). Still a century of corporatism? Review of Politics, 36, 85–131. Thomas, C. (Ed.) (2001). Political parties and interest groups. Shaping democratic governance. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Tocqueville, A. de. (1969). Democracy in America. Garden City, NY: Doubleday Anchor. Truman, D. (1951). The governmental process: Public interests and public opinion. New York: Knopf. Verba, S., & Nie, N. (1972). Participation in America. New York: Harper & Row. Wilson G. K. (1981). Interest Groups in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press. Yishai, Y. (1994). Interest parties. The thin line between groups and parties in the Israeli electoral process. In K. Lawson (Eds.), How political parties work. Perspectives from within. Westport, CT: Praeger. Yishai, Y. (1998). ‘‘Civil Society in Transition. Interest Politics in Israel.’’ The Annals. The American Academy of Political and Social Science 555, 147–162. Yoho, J. (1998). The evolution of a better definition of ‘‘Interest Group’’ and its synonyms. The Social Science Journal, 35(April), 231–243.
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Intermediary Organizations and Field PAUL DEKKER The Netherlands Institute for Social Research The Hague, The Netherlands
Introduction In the field of nonprofit and civil society studies, specific kinds of organizations are sometimes exclusively labeled as intermediary organizations or ‘‘intermediaries.’’ According to Anheier and List (2006: 137) they ‘‘exist primarily in the social service delivery fields, where they tend to connect smaller organizations and the people they serve to the local delivery system, as well as in the field of international development and humanitarian relief, where they often mediate between foreign funding agencies and local government agencies or community organizations.’’ According to another nonprofit dictionary an intermediary is ‘‘a person or group who links the money and time of donors with the needs that nonprofit groups seek to meet. Furthermore, consultants, trainers, counselors, and program officers serve as intermediaries in the nonprofit sector. They run their own companies as intermediary nonprofit organizations or work for foundations, support centers, fund-raising firms, and the like.’’ (Smith et al., 2006: 95). Te’eni and Young (2003) see a future for nonprofits in the network economy as ‘‘trusted intermediaries to help people cope with a deluge of complex information.’’ Improved information technologies may undermine the advantages of nonprofit service providers because of information asymmetry and the public goods arguments, but information intermediation is a promising niche for nonprofits in the network economy. Focusing on internally operating organizations, Sanyal (2006: 67) writes about intermediary NGOs as ‘‘a new type of NGO that aims to create linkages between local issues and global institutions to be distinguished from conventional service providing NGOs.’’ As a last example somewhat outside the sphere of civil society, the labor market has specific ‘‘intermediaries’’ as well, meaning organizations that connect workers with employment (job placement, training, etc.). All these specific intermediary organizations or intermediaries are assumed to have a main task in mediating activities such as bringing together policy-makers, professionals, funders, and other stakeholders to foster collective action, to coordinate separately operating organizations and programs, to develop common procedures and quality standards, to integrate agenda-setting
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and interest representation, and to build a common infrastructure for information and research. However, intermediary organizations are not seen as an exclusive type of organization, which can be distinguished from other types in the way leisure organizations can be distinguished from business organizations, or churches from labor unions. Being ‘‘intermediary’’ means being in-between and that applies to almost every organization in some respect. Calling organizations intermediary means that one focuses on their mediating role, on the intermediary functions of organizations and not on their resource mobilization, internal planning processes, service-delivery aspects, etc. In this perspective, all organizations could be analyzed as intermediary organizations, but the concept is dominantly applied to voluntary associations and other nonprofit organizations that link between individual citizens and various levels of government. This entry will further focus on intermediary organizations in this sense: not as a separate organizational type, but to highlight intermediate functions of organizations in civil society in general.
Definition The same organization can be called a voluntary association, a nonprofit, an interest or pressure group or an intermediary organization, dependent upon one’s focus: does one want to illuminate the fact that the organization is set up voluntarily by citizens, that it has economic characteristics comparable with for-profits, that it represents interests and tries to influence government, or that it has connecting and mediating functions? As an intermediary organization it establishes ‘‘a link between different spheres of society’’ (Van Deth, 1997: 2). One may distinguish here between horizontal intermediary roles between (groups of) individuals, sectors of social and economic life, etc. on the one hand and, on the other, vertical intermediary roles between different levels of social or economic structures and governance. Most literature is dominantly or exclusively focused on vertical intermediary roles of organizations connecting individuals with the macro-institutions of society, in particular government. Whereas interest and pressure group literature looks ‘‘bottom up’’ from the needs and wants of individual citizens to the attempts of organizations to influence political decision making and other input in the political system, the conceptualization of intermediary organizations includes the ‘‘top down’’ perspective as well, with interest in how organizations transmit information from the political system to the people, help to implement policies
and legitimize political decisions, or try to discipline and moderate their rank and file. Similar to, but not full equivalents of, these intermediary organizations are the ‘‘intermediate associations’’ of Mark Warren and the ‘‘mediating structures’’ of Peter Berger and Richard John Neuhaus. Warren (2001: 39) describes intermediate or secondary associations (‘‘civic groups, sports clubs, religious associations, and the like’’) as something between the primary associations of family and friendships, and the tertiary associations such as interest groups and professional organizations in which members hardly know each other and hardly share more than the specific purpose of the organization. Mediating roles between society and state are ascribed to the intermediate associations and they are, with a reference to De Tocqueville, assumed to be virtuous for democracy. Berger and Neuhaus (1996: 158) define mediating structures as ‘‘those institutions that stand between the individual in his private life and the large institutions of public life.’’ They are ‘‘Janus-faced’’ institutions, looking upward and downward, in one direction protecting individuals from the alienation of modern life and empowering people, and in the other direction strengthening popular legitimacy of the state and other large institutions. Whereas Warren’s intermediate associations are a subsample of all organizations that can be considered as intermediary organizations, the mediating structures of Berger & Neuhaus are a broader category, including nonorganizations such as families and neighborhoods. The basic function of intermediary organizations is by definition mediation, which means (organizing and stimulating) communication, representation of interests, mutual understanding, and the search for common goals and strategies of the parties involved. More specifically as regards the role of civil society, voluntary and nonprofit organizations as intermediaries between citizens and the state, various functions, expected effects or contributions for democracy are mentioned in the literature. Warren (2001: 70–93) mentions development effects on individuals in the organizations (such as growth of feelings of political efficacy, becoming better informed about social and political issues, and learning political skills and civic virtues); public sphere effects or contributions to the formation of public opinion and collective judgments (public communication and deliberation, and representations of difference and of commonality); and institutional effects or contributions to the democratic functioning of institutions of governance (among other things by representation, resistance, legitimation of the state and providing alternative structures of governance). Similar functions are mentioned by Fung (2003), who
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describes six ways associations are supposed to enhance democracy: through the intrinsic value of associative life, fostering civic virtues and teaching political skills, offering resistance to power and checking government, improving the quality and equality of representation, facilitating public deliberation, and creating opportunities for citizens and groups to participate directly in governance. Wnuk-Lipinski (2007) distinguishes control, articulative, integrative, and educational functions that private organizations have in a pluralist democracy. In particular the individual (development and educational) functions these authors mention can be found as well in organizations without any link with politics and the political system; in intermediary organizations, however, they will have a higher political relevance.
Historical Background Intermediary organizations have a long history in the thinking about civil society, with both supporters and sceptics. Charles Taylor (2003) has made a useful distinction between an ‘‘M-stream’’ (referring to Montesquieu and including De Tocqueville) and an ‘‘L-stream’’ (referring to Locke and including the philosophers of the Scottish enlightenment). The ideal of civil society in the L-stream is development of societal self-governance against political power. Society is ideally based on the voluntary cooperation of citizens; they may delegate tasks to the state but they do this conditionally and preserving the primacy of society. In the M-stream the ideal of civil society is more concerned with creating the right balance, mediation, and buffering between political and societal powers. Political power is a given fact and society is a political construction to start with. More balanced and more strictly regulated relationships between the political power and societal powers help to protect the freedoms of individuals and make society more civilized. After Montesquieu, de Tocqueville discovered voluntary associations in America as an equivalence of the social power of the estates in France. De Tocqueville analyzes these voluntary associations as buffers against direct political and state interventions in social life, as organizations to represent political interests and as alternatives for public authorities as regards the production of public goods. Basically de Tocqueville saw voluntary organizations to a large extent as intermediary organizations between individuals or private groups and the state. They were for him primarily an ‘‘updating of Montesquieu’s pouvours intermediaries’’ (Villa, 2006: 236), not spontaneously originated citizen’s initiatives completely independent of politics and the state. In present-day ideals of the civil society, its apolitical character and distance from the
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state are often stressed and intermediary roles are sometimes seen with scepticism. This antistatist effect is understandable given the origins of the present debates about civil society in the struggles against totalitarian communist states and concerns about bureaucratic welfare states in the west. However, intermediary organizations have a long history in the discussion about civil society, and the ideal of a stateless civil society should not be labeled as (neo-)Tocquevillian.
Key Issues The benefits and drawbacks of the links of intermediary organizations government and their integration in policy networks are disputed in various respects. One issue concerns the effects on the internal democracy of the organizations and the relationship between leadership and rank-and-file. Is there a trade-off between effectiveness in relationships with politicians, bureaucrats, and officials of other organizations against member involvement and internal democracy? A strong intermediary position might stimulate concentration of power at the top level of organizations, as well as professionalization and bureaucratization. Discussion about member preferences, goals of the organization and strategic options might have to be restrained to remain a valuable and trustworthy partner of government (cf. Mu¨llerJentsch, 1985). Another issue concerns negative societal effects. Intermediary organizations can dominate or even monopolize interest representation and negotiations to the detriment of weaker and unorganized interests. This can reinforce social inequality in access to the political system as well as the dominance of policy fields with well organized interests over weaker fields and general interests. This issue is discussed for instance in relation to the strong integration of socioeconomic interest groups and public authorities in (neo)corporatist arrangements (cf. Streeck & Schmitter, 1985). A third issue concerns the consequences for parliament and government. What room is left for parliamentary decisions at the moment government and the ‘‘social partners’’ or other sets of intermediary organizations agree about policies? What room does government have if the organizations in a policy field already agree about what has to done? These are not only issues for political disputes, but also of scientific debates. Positions differ from the position that voluntary associations are ‘‘making democracy work’’ (Putnam, 1993) to the position that vested special interest groups contribute to ‘‘stagflation and social rigidities’’ (Olson, 1982).
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International Perspectives Countries differ with respect to the actual development of and appreciation for intermediary organizations and structures between individual citizens and the state. In some countries there is not much need for intermediation because the state does not accept much responsibility for social welfare and the well-being of its citizens; in other countries there is not much room for it, because the state (i.e., local government) is directly connected to citizens by delivering public services and offering opportunities to individual citizens for influencing politics and administration. In the terminology of Salamon and Anheier (1998), the former represents the ‘‘liberal’’ or ‘‘statist’’ model, while the latter represents the ‘‘social-democratic’’ model of third sector regimes. In their fourth, ‘‘corporatist’’ model, a high level of social welfare government spending is combined with a large scale nonprofit sector. In this model private nonprofits provide services on behalf of the state, paid for primarily with tax money. These nonprofits are well positioned to develop intermediating roles between citizens and the state: they communicate government policies to the public and public needs to bureaucrats and politicians. Single service providers, their umbrella organizations and organizations representing professional, employee, and employer interests, all develop intermediary functions. Wishes and wants of individual citizens are aggregated and transformed into organizational interests and these are negotiated, not only in relations with public bodies, but also in relations with nonprofits with competing interests. Countries differ in the way these relationships have developed, but in different forms an intermediary field has developed in which organizations deal with government and with one another. Sometimes public authority is formally or de facto delegated to the negotiating bodies of nonprofits, which creates corporatist arrangements in the traditional sense through which socioeconomic interest groups cooperate with public authorities and with each other in policy making and the governance of industrial relations (cf. Streeck & Schmitter, 1985). Western Europe has various examples of regions and countries with well developed intermediary fields. In Belgium (Flanders) and The Netherlands this field is often referred to as ‘‘societal midfield’’ (in Dutch ‘‘maatschappelijk middenveld’’). In both countries it developed strongly from the last quarter of the nineteenth century till the 1960s in a process of religiously and politically segmented growth of third sector organizations: from parties, unions, and employer organizations to newspapers, broadcasting companies and sports clubs, and to hospitals, schools and social housing associations. These were organized in ‘‘pillars,’’ which had important vertical intermediary functions
between citizens and the state, but also important horizontal roles at the level of national and local elites. Although the cultural drive of ‘‘pillarization’’ faded away decades ago, part of the organizational infrastructure is remains and there is still a high level of acceptance of a large semipublic space between the state and private life with strong intermediary organizations (cf. Dekker, 2004). This is still very different from, for instance, France, where, in a much more ‘‘statist’’ tradition there are clear borders between public and private, and there is not much room for nonprofits crossing this border. Here, intermediation between citizens and the state takes place more often in temporary collective mass action than through vested organizations and procedures. Different again is the situation in Germany, which never had ‘‘pillarization’’ to the same degree as The Netherlands or Flanders, but where the politico-religious social welfare umbrella organizations (‘‘Wohlfahrtsverba¨nde’’) nowadays are for this policy field much more important intermediaries than the pillarized leftovers in the low countries. Still another situation exists in Austria, where social-economic layers (‘‘Lager’’) still structure intermediary processes in large parts of the society. These few examples from Western Europe demonstrate the huge diversity of national patterns of intermediary organizations and fields.
Future Directions This diversity among member states of the European Union suggests that national traditions are strong and general trends may have limited impact. Nevertheless a few factors seem to be relevant for the future of intermediary organizations in civil society everywhere. One factor is the cultural modernization trend of individualization, including processes of decreasing submissiveness towards authorities and diminishing loyalties as members of organizations, as well as growing feelings of individual political competence and efficacy. These cultural shifts undermine the position of vested intermediary organizations. So do developments in information technology, which among others make it easier to create direct links between governments and individual citizens, and to create new media and make old mass media more interactive. Intermediary organizations become superfluous as sources of information and public opinion. Related to this seems to be a rise of populist attitudes in the public and among political (contra-) elites in many countries. The rejection of intermediary institutions is at the heart of these attitudes. Against these threats to intermediary organizations there are a few foreseeable challenges and opportunities that might strengthen existing organizations and lead to new intermediaries. One felt in many places is the lack of legitimacy of party politics and parliamentary
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governance. In new democracies attempts are made to build up ‘‘civil society from above’’. This applies to the European Union as such (creating various consulting bodies and procedures for a ‘‘civil society’’ of Brusselslocated NGOs) as well as for its new member states of communist origin. In the older democracies, new forms of direct democracy and interaction with individual citizens may turn out not to be an alternative, and the next step might be the search for more deliberative and binding forms of democracy which requires more intermediary organization. Another base for new intermediaries may develop at the local and regional level of the ‘‘network society.’’ From integrated social services to labor market schemes for disadvantaged groups and projects for neighborhood renewal, new forms of cooperation between public and private actors are developing and are in need of coordination and interest representation. A final factor is the imminent information overload for citizens because of the development of information technologies. As already mentioned in the introduction this can offer opportunities to nonprofits as ‘‘trusted information intermediaries’’ (Te’eni & Young, 2003). Taken together, threats and opportunities may result in a weakening of intermediary roles of broad multifunctional mass organizations and the growth of intermediaries for specific fields and processes.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Civil Society Theory: Montesquieu ▶ Corporatism ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ Locke, John ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Olson, Mancur ▶ Putnam, Robert
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & List, R. A. (2005). A dictionary of civil society, philanthropy and the non-profit sector. London: Routledge. Berger, P. L., & Neuhaus, R. J. (1996 [1977]). In M. Novak (Ed.), To empower people: from state to civil society. Washington, DC: AEI. Dekker, P. (2004). The Netherlands. In A. Evers, & J. L. Laville (Eds.), The third sector in Europe Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. (pp. 144–165). Fung, A. (2003). Associations and democracy. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, 515–539. Maloney, W. A., & Rossteutscher, S. (Eds.) (2007). Social capital and associations in European democracies. London: Routledge. Mu¨ller-Jentsch, W. (1985). Trade unions as intermediary organizations. Economic and Industrial Democracy, 6, 3–33. Olson, M. (1982). The rise and decline of nations. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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Putnam, R. D. (with L. Leonardi en, R.Y. Nanetti) (1993). Making democracy work. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1998). Social origins of civil society. Voluntas, 9, 213–248. Sanyal, P. (2006). Capacity building through partnerships. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(1), 66–82. Smith, D. H., Stebbins, R. A., & Dover, M. A. (2006). A dictionary of nonprofit terms and concepts. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Streeck, W., & Schmitter, Ph. C. (1985). Community, market, state – and associations? In W. Streeck, & Ph. C. Schmitter (Eds.), Private interest government. London: Sage. Taylor, C. (2003 [1989]). Modes of civil society. In C. M. Elliott (Ed.), Civil society and democracy. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. (pp. 43–62). Te’eni, D., & Young, D. R. (2003). The changing role of nonprofits in the network economy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32(3), 397–414. Van Deth, J. W. (1997). Introduction. In J. W. Van Deth (Ed.), Private groups and public life. London: Routledge. (pp. 1–23). Villa, D. (2006). Tocqueville and civil society. In C. B. Welch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Tocqueville. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (pp. 216–244). Warren, M. E. (2001). Democracy and association. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wnuk-Lipinski, E. (2007). Civil society and democratization. In R. Dalton & H. D. Klingemann (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political behavior. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (pp. 675–692).
International Advocacy NGO Workshop L. DAVID BROWN
Address of Organization c/o CIVICUS CIVICUS House 24 GwiGwi Mrwebi Street Newtown, Johannesburg, 2001 South Africa www.civicus.org/csn/iango-workshop
Introduction The IANGO Workshop is a network of leaders of international advocacy NGOs and networks that meets annually. Workshop members are concerned with a wide range of issues – development, human rights, environment, labor rights, governance, women’s rights – but they are all interested in effective policy influence on global issues.
Brief History The IANGO Workshop grew out of conversations among leaders of IANGOs, CIVICUS, and the Hauser Center for
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Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University. A CIVICUS-Hauser Center team convened and facilitated an initial 2-day meeting of 20 IANGO leaders hosted in 2003 by Transparency International in Berlin. Discussions identified a wide range of issues on which participants felt there might be productive discussions. Subsequent annual meetings have been hosted by members in Oxford, Amsterdam, London, Geneva, Berlin, and Barcelona and the network now includes 25–30 members.
Mission The mission and goals of the IANGO Workshop include four concerns. Members seek to learn from each other about the difficult and constantly-changing challenges of civil society advocacy across international boundaries. The Workshop also enables coalitions among members on issues that warrant united stands. Individual IANGO leaders often use the opportunity to discuss the challenges of leading IANGOs with others in similar positions. Finally, the Workshop creates task forces to enable collective action on issues that affect all IANGOs.
Activities The annual Workshop provides a vehicle for work on these goals as well as a forum for reporting on task force activities and identifying emerging issues. Annual workshops often engage outside resources on critical emerging issues. Coalition building initiatives sometimes catalyze joint action, such as campaigns on global trade initiatives and the UN norms on corporations. Participants often consult each other outside the Workshop as IANGO leaders draw on each others’ expertise. Issues of wide import, such as civil society legitimacy and accountability, have catalyzed discussion and activities over extended periods. The Workshop produced, for example, the International NGO Charter of Accountability to establish global standards for its signatories.
Structure and Governance The annual IANGO Workshop is hosted by different members. Its Steering Committee is composed of past, present, and future host IANGOs, a representative of smaller members, and the CIVICUS-Hauser Center convener/facilitators. The Secretariat for the Workshop is at CIVICUS, and it continues to draw on CIVICUS and the Hauser Center to develop and lead the annual Workshop. CIVICUS is also the Secretariat for the Charter of Accountability, which now has a Board composed of its signatories.
Funding The IANGO Workshop is supported by the time and resources of its members. It has received some funding from foundations to enable participation by small and Southern-based IANGOs and the CIVICUS-Hauser Center team. It receives no government funding.
Accomplishments The most visible contribution of the Workshop is the Charter of Accountability, which has been widely recognized as a step in enhancing the legitimacy and accountability of international civil society. Continued participation by busy IANGO leaders suggests they see the Workshop as a useful resource.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Advocacy ▶ CIVICUS ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Governance ▶ Human rights ▶ INGOs
References/Further Readings Brown, L. D. (Ed.) (2008). Negotiating sector credibility. In Creating credibility: Legitimacy and accountability for transnational civil society (pp. 97–118). Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press.
International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) LAWRENCE S. CUMMING
Address of Organization c/o Geneva Infant Feeding Association Avenue de la Paix 11 1202 Geneva Switzerland www.ibfan.org
Introduction The International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) consists of ‘‘over 200 public interest groups working
International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN)
around the world to reduce infant and young child morbidity and mortality’’ (IBFAN website).
Brief History Though the health and nutritional advantages of breastfeeding have long been known in professional circles, awareness became more widespread during the 1970s. In1979, the Infant Formula Action Coalition (INFACT) launched a campaign in the United States against the bottle feeding marketing practices of the Swiss based company, Nestle. In the years that followed, the campaign became truly international. IBFAN and its affiliates have always promoted breast feeding, most especially in countries and communities without reliable supplies of clean water. IBFAN itself was founded in late 1979 following a WHO and UNICEF convened international meeting on Infant and Young Child Feeding. IBFAN is one of the longest surviving a single-issue civil society organizations in the world. In 1981, the World Health Assembly International adopted the Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. The Code continues to be the reference point for all subsequent action.
Mission/Objectives IBFAN aims to improve the health and well-being of babies and young children, their mothers and their families through the protection, promotion, and support of breastfeeding and optimal infant feeding practices. IBFAN works for universal and full implementation of the International Code and subsequent Resolutions of the World Health Assembly.
Activities The international movement that constitutes IBFAN was instrumental in putting the marketing of baby foods firmly onto the global health agenda. Through ongoing vigilance, IBFAN continues to subject new marketing strategies to rigorous public scrutiny and to bring current thinking on infant nutrition to the attention of delegates at the World Health Assembly, national governments and other interested parties.
Structure and Governance IBFAN is an international network of diverse groups working on infant feeding issues, including mother support groups, consumer associations, development organizations, citizens rights groups and various others.
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Some are entirely volunteer operated while others are staffed. IBFAN is regionally based and structured. Representatives from each region, as well as other groups with specialist responsibilities, make up the IBFAN Coordinating Council. The first point of contact about IBFAN activities are the regional representatives listed on the network’s Website.
Funding As a very decentralized network, IBFAN’s own operating costs are minimal. Most funds are generated and spent by the regional and national entities. Revenue is generated by membership fees, publications, and short term grants for specific projects (research, publications, conferences, and so on). Donors include governments, various NGOs and UNICEF regional offices. IBFAN and its regional affiliates do not accept financial support from industries which manufacture or sell breastmilk substitutes.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The signature accomplishment of IBFAN was the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes (1981). Thirteen (13) subsequent World Health Assembly resolutions have kept the code up-to-date, and some 63 countries have passed legislation incorporating most or all of the Code’s provisions. IBFAN has been of critical importance in keeping official fest to the fire. In 1998 IBFAN received the Right Livelihood Award for its ‘‘committed and effective campaigning over nearly 20 years for the rights of mothers to choose to breastfeed their babies, in the full knowledge of the health benefits of breastmilk, and free from the commercial pressure and misinformation with which companies promote breastmilk substitutes’’ (Websites).
Cross-References
▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ INGOs ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations ▶ UNICEF
References/Further Readings Alain, A. (1989). IBFAN: On the cutting edge. Development Dialogue, 2, 5–38. Baby Milk Action. (2004). History of the campaign. Briefing Paper, from www.babymilkaction.org Right Livelihood Award. (1988). IBFAN, from www.rightlivelihood.org
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International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF)
International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF)
Activities
15-16 Cornwall Terrace London, NW1 4QP UK www.iblf.org
The IBLF maintains five programs under its direct leadership. These programs support international tourism, affordable access to technology, cross-sector partnerships in arts and sciences, as well as youth oriented business and career initiatives. In correlation with these programs, the IBLF hosts conferences all year around and across the globe to make businesses more aware of their growing responsibility to develop sustainable business standards. Since 2007, the Forum has begun raising money for a $25 million endowment to further its activities in the name of its late CEO Robert Davies.
Introduction
Structure and Governance
The International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) is an independent nonprofit organization providing ‘‘strategic counsel’’ to corporations in order to establish responsible business standards in developing economies. In the attempts to do so, the Forum has nurtured a large network of business leaders spanning across continents to over 90 countries.
The governing structure of the IBLF is led by a Board of Trustees at the head including ‘‘senior leaders’’ from its 18 Principal Business Supporters who advise on how best to achieve the Forum’s mission. In addition, there is a separate group of five Chairmen who develop regional partnership programs as well as IBLF specific projects. Lastly, the Forum’s management has an International Advisory Board which promotes IBLF’s own international growth and leadership strategy. The President and founder of the IBLF is the HRH Prince of Wales.
CHRISTOPHER S. BIGGERS
Address of Organization
Brief History The IBLF was founded in February 1990 when the Prince of Wales and a group of international business leaders convened a meeting to discuss the issues of globalization in Charleston, South Carolina. Among its first projects, the IBLF embarked on programs aiding transitional economies in Eastern Europe as well as those much further afield in South East Asia. Subsequently, the Forum has partnered with the United Nations, the European Union, the World Bank, and countless philanthropic organizations around the world to promote sustainable development. Since 1994, the Forum has published studies on diverse topics from the business community’s response to HIV/AIDS in developing countries to the implementation of human rights in business standards.
Mission The mission and objectives of the IBLF are three pronged: a focus on sustainable development, improving the opportunity of employment and entrepreneurship, and enabling corporations to contribute to solving health and human development issues. Much of the Forum’s agenda has its origin in the United Nations Brundtland Report which has defined the IBLF’s primary focus, ‘‘sustainable development,’’ as development ‘‘that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.’’ In order to accomplish this objective, among others, the IBLF has become an active partner of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals and the UN Global Compact.
Funding There are three tiers of affiliation through which the IBLF receives financial resources including Corporate Partners, Development Partners, as well as Philanthropic Donations. Since the Forum is linked with over 70 of the world’s leading companies producing over $2 trillion in profit, the IBLF largely obtains funding through the contributions of its corporate partners. However, the Forum does receive indirect assistance from multinational government agencies vis-a`-vis its development partnerships.
Major Accomplishments Among the IBLF’s most recent achievements includes campaigns with the World Bank which have helped raise standards of the footwear and garment industry in South East Asia. Furthermore, the Forum has created three independently assessed awards – the GAIN Business Award, the Rio Tinto Alcan Prize, and the World Business and Development Prize – creating incentives to further corporate reforms adopting sustainable ‘‘best practice’’ policies.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ United Nations ▶ UN Global Compact ▶ World Bank
International Campaign to Ban Landmines
References/Further Readings United Nations. (1987). Brundtland report: Our common future general assembly document A/42/427, from http://www.un-documents.net/ wced-ocf.htm
International Campaign to Ban Landmines LAWRENCE S. CUMMING
Address of Organization 9 Rue de Cornavin CH-1201 Geneva Switzerland www.icbl.org
Introduction The International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL) describes itself as ‘‘an international network of 1,400 Non Governmental Organizations in ninety (90) countries (including) human rights, demining, humanitarian, children’s, veterans’, medical, development, arms control, religious, environmental, and women’s groups . . . who work locally, nationally, regionally, and internationally to ban antipersonnel landmines’’ (ICBL website).
Brief History The Campaign was founded in 1991 by Handicap International, Human Rights Watch, Medico International, the Mines Advisory Group, Physicians for Human Rights and the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation. A mere 6 years later (December, 1997) the movement’s efforts culminated in the signing of the International Mine Ban Treaty, known also as ‘‘the Ottawa Treaty.’’ The ICBL is a truly international civil society movement that emerged in many and diverse countries, coalesced and manifested itself as an idea whose time had come. It represented a groundswell that encouraged and converged with what might be termed a ‘‘states-swell’’ at an historic moment in the early 1990s when a critical mass of governments and multilateral agencies had become convinced of the urgent need to act on the landmines problem.
Mission The Campaign characterizes itself as a ‘‘flexible network of organizations that share common objectives. . . . The International Campaign to Ban Landmines is committed to an international ban on the use, production, stockpiling,
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and sale, transfer, or export of antipersonnel landmines’’ (Website).
Activities The Campaign initially came into being to raise awareness of the problem of anti personnel mines and to press for a binding international agreement. It promotes increased international resources for humanitarian mine clearance and mine victim assistance programs. Since the signing of the Ottawa Treaty, it has continued to press for universalization of the Treaty’s coverage, full compliance with its terms and other related goals. It participates in the periodic official meetings of the Mine Ban Treaty Progress Review Process. It produces a number of publications, most notably the annual Landmines Monitor Report, and continues to advocate vigorously for ancillary goals, a good example being a ban on cluster bombs.
Structure and Governance The Campaign has always functioned as a remarkably broad, diverse, multi-centric, volunteer led global network. Each national committee pursues its own priorities, but all the while sharing a common vision and engaging in a mutually beneficial exchange of views and experience and building an international movement. From 1993 till 1998 the network was coordinated by a Campaign Steering Committee consisting of the six original members plus additional national members from Asia, Africa and Europe. In 1998, the Steering Committee became the Co-ordination Committee and expanded yet again to include other organizations from around the world committed to the mission. Since 2005, the network has been governed by a five member Management Committee and a 21 member Advisory Board. Though it initially did not have an international office, its day-to-day affairs are now managed by a small secretariat of seven persons, most of whom are based in Geneva.
Funding Financial support for the ICBL and its work has come from a variety of sources including 18 national governments, three United Nations agencies, the Holy See as well as the large and diverse array of members and endorsers.
Accomplishments The signature accomplishment of the Campaign was the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. This goal was reached in as a result of being able to work in close harmony with the International Committee of the Red Cross, United Nations agencies and sympathetic governments which shared the
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vision and took up the cause. The successful outcome is now a classic case of effective international civil society and state collaboration. The Campaign and its then Coordinator, Jody Williams of the United States, one of the key activists responsible for bringing the initiative into being were jointly awarded the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize. A more recent and no less significant achievement is the Convention on Cluster Munitions formally signed by 94 governments in December, 2008. Though, technically, another campaign called the Cluster Munitions Coalition led this effort, it built upon the ICBL experience, and many of the same actors were involved.
Cross-References
▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Dotcauses ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ INGOs ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
References/Further Readings International Campaign to Ban Landmines. (1999). International Campaign to Ban Landmines. Landmine Monitor Report (annual). International Campaign to Ban Landmines. (1998–2008). Landmine Monitor Report, and annual editions. Millennium Development Goal Campaign. (n.d.). Chapter 2: Case study, ‘‘The International Campaign to Ban Landmines’’ (ICBL), CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation and Millennium Development Goals Campaign Office, from www.civicus.org/mdg/2-cs.htm Montlake, S. (2003, September 25). International effort to stop land mines bears fruit. Christian Science Monitor. Williams, J. (1999, September 3). The international campaign to ban landmines – a model for disarmament initiatives? Nobelprize.org. Williams, J. et al. (Eds.) (2008). Banning landmines: Disarmament, citizen diplomacy and human security. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
whose main goal is to facilitate the development of the civil society through the improvement of the legal frameworks that regulate the operation of NGOs in each country. It operates through cooperation and alliances with local governments or organizations and currently has presence in four continents.
Brief History The ICNL was founded in 1992 by Leon E. Irish and Karla W. Simon, both professors of law and experts on taxation and civil society, among other subjects. Over time the organization has quickly grown from a two-person team with few local projects funded privately, to an international and sustainable institution with offices on four continents. After the departure of its founders in 2002 (who then founded the International Center for Civil Society Law) ICNL continued to grow and expand its activities, currently providing technical assistance to more than 90 countries.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas In the beginning, the institution’s main concerns were the registration and taxation laws that not-for-profit organizations had to confront. At the present time its aim has become broader and ICNL now seeks to promote legal environments for civil society and freedom of association and public participation around the world. The ICNL also embraces four core values, which it seeks to promote across all of its activities: ‘‘reform results from an indigenous and transparent process; sustainability is achieved through capacity-building; programs must incorporate public participation and consensus-building; and healthy civil society features the principles of selfgovernance, accountability, and transparency.’’
Activities
International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) FRANCISCO MARTINEZ
Address of Organization 733 15th Street, NW, Suite 420 Washington, DC 20005-2112 USA www.icnl.org
Introduction The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) is an international nongovernmental organization (NGO)
The state of development of the NGO sector and its necessities are not uniform in every country, therefore the characteristics of ICNL’s activities also vary from case to case. To describe them in a general manner, however, it can be said that each project addresses its particular situation through one or more of the following areas of focus: legal framework for civil society; civil society sustainability; good governance and accountability; publicprivate partnerships; self-regulation; public participation and advocacy; or educational initiatives. Since 1998, the ICNL also publishes the International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law (IJNL), a quarterly journal focused mainly on legal frameworks and regulation regarding the NGO sector. The journal, as well as, a knowledge center containing legal documents, court cases, and other documentation from several countries, is available free of charge at the ICNL’s website.
International Committee on Fundraising Organizations
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Structure and Governance
Introduction
The ICNL has a Board of Directors and an Advisory Council and the member composition of both instances accounts for the international character of the institution. Besides the central office in Washington, DC, smaller international offices have been set up and alliances with other organizations have been established, gaining presence in Budapest, Hungary; Sofia, Bulgaria; Almaty, Kazakhstan; Kiev, Ukraine; and Moscow, Russia.
Most countries have public interest and benefit organizations that raise funds from the public for various good causes. The goodness of the cause is often acknowledged by numerous tax and regulatory breaks. The quality of the goods and services that charitable organizations produce are, however, typically difficult to assess. In addition, charitable organizations are arguably as susceptible to mismanagement and fraud as their for-profit brethren, and quite possibly more so due to the nature of the goods and services that they produce and the lack of incentives for the state to provide effective enforcement. This leaves charitable organizations particularly susceptible to mismanagement and fraud (e.g., Ortmann & Schlesinger, 2003, for a discussion and relevant references). The resultant credibility, or fundraising, problem – how do donors know that their money is spent efficiently and for the advertised purpose (e.g., for victims of a tsunami)? – can be addressed in various ways. Certification is one such scheme. Contrary to self-regulatory activities, certification involves a third party that – after an investigation – assures potential donors that a certified organization is likely to spend the donated funds in ways that are both responsible and in line with the advertised purpose. In the older European Union member states one finds a stable and slowly growing set of such certification agencies (Ortmann & Svitkova, 2007), many of which are members of the International Committee on Fundraising Organizations. In addition to European certification agencies such as the Deutsches Zentralinstitut fu¨r soziale Fragen in Germany and the Stiftung ZEWO in Switzerland, a Taiwanese initiative has been added recently, and two non-secular certification agencies outside Europe have been members for a long time.
Funding At the end of 2007 the net assets were of US$6,566,685. In the year 2007 the ICNL registered total public support revenue of US$5,406,880, most of which was provided by the US Government and pass-through grants (in particular, ICNL has engaged in several collaborative initiatives with the United States Agency for International Development, USAID).
Cross-References
▶ Charity Law ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ INGOs ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations
References/Further Readings Simon, K., & Irish, L. (1998, September). Legal mechanisms to encourage development partnerships. The International Journal of Not-forProfit Law, 1(1). Blue, R., Galaty, M., & Green, A. (2006). ICNL: The CEE/SEE Program: Impact and potential. Retrieved on February 10, 2009, from www.ngo.ee/orb.aw/class = file/action = preview/id = 9329/ ICNLCEEEvaluationFINAL.pdf
Brief History
International Committee on Fundraising Organizations ANDREAS ORTMANN
Address of Organization Secretary General ICFO Burkhard Wilke c/o Deutsches Zentralinstitut fu¨r soziale Fragen/DZI Bernadottestr. 94 D-14195 Berlin Germany www.icfo.de
The ICFO was founded in 1958, and formally incorporated in 1990 in Holland as a Dutch Association.
Mission and Activities The ICFO acts as an international forum for discussion and debate on accreditation issues. It also aims to improve and strengthen national accreditation procedures through the exchange of information and coordinated development of standards and supports national initiatives towards independent certification organizations. ICFO has formulated its own set of standards for good governance and management for charitable organizations. On this basis, it now offers charities with an international structure to be monitored by ICFO. The standards cover membership and responsibilities of the governing body, the
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fulfillment of public benefit goals, fiscal control, management, and reporting, fundraising practices, and the provision of public information. Although the role of the ICFO is that of an international forum for discussion and debate on accreditation issues, it also seems to take on more representation tasks towards international supranational organizations such as the EU as it has become better known.
Structure and Governance As of the writing of this article, the ICFO has a ‘‘Constitution’’ that establishes, at least formally, the Annual General Membership (AGM) meeting as the key decision making body. The AGM elects the board (or removes members of the board), ratifies the acts of the board, and determines the dues levels (currently about €1,600). It also might terminate membership.
Funding The ICFO finances itself almost exclusively from membership dues.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions There is no hard evidence of its success, although theoretical analysis (Ortmann & Svitkova, 2007) and anecdotal evidence (e.g., the reliance of state agencies on the certification agencies in some countries) suggest strongly that this model of quality assurance is promising and, especially in light of the notoriously unaccountable and intransparent charity sector in Europe, well on its way to becoming a veritable success story.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Stiftung ZEWO ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Transparency
References/Further Readings Ortmann, A., & Schlesinger, M. (2003). Trust, repute, and the role of the nonprofit enterprise. In H. Anheier & A. Ben-Ner (Eds.), The study of the nonprofit enterprise New York: Kluwer/Plenum.(pp. 77–114). Ortmann, A., & Svitkova, K. (2007). Certification as a viable quality assurance mechanism in transition economies: Evidence, theory, and open questions. Prague Economic Papers, 16(2), 99–114. Ortmann, A., & Svitkova, K. (forthcoming). Does self-regulation work? Evidence and caveats informed by theory. In M. K. Gugerty & A. Prakash (Eds.), Nonprofit clubs: voluntary regulation of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Broekhoven, R. (2008). Engaging donors’ trust. ICFO, from www.icfo.de
International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) DAMIEN ROUSSELIERE
Address of Organization 15, route des Morillons 1218 Grand-Saconnex Geneva Switzerland www.ica.coop
Introduction The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is an independent, nongovernmental organization which ‘‘unites, represents and serves cooperatives worldwide.’’ Its members are national and international cooperative organizations in all sectors of activity (agriculture, banking, fisheries, health, housing, industry, insurance, tourism, and consumer cooperatives). Other organizations (controlled by cooperatives or promoted by the cooperative movement) can be admitted as associate members. In all, 221 member organizations from 87 countries represent more than 800 million individuals worldwide. The ICA flag, composed of the seven colors of the rainbow, was adopted in 1925 at the suggestion of Charles Gide. English, French, German, Russian, and Spanish are the official languages of the Alliance.
Brief History After a first tentative effort in Paris in 1867 – the meeting was prohibited by the prefect of police – the successful attempt at an international alliance coincided with the setting up of national federations in England and France. It was encouraged by theorists, such as George Holyoake and Charles Gide, and by patricians, such as Edward Greening, Edward Vansittart Neale, and Emile de Boyve, who in 1886, at the Plymouth Congress, first suggested its formation. The ICA was created at the London Congress in 1895 with delegates coming from 13 national groups (Europe, Argentina, Australia, India, and the United States). Since its foundation, the ICA has met in Congress every two or three years, interrupted only by the two world wars, neither of which broke the unity of the Alliance. Because of an ideology characterized by political neutrality, it survived also the Cold War when other international movements such as the Socialist International and the World Federation of Trade Unions split. In 1982, the ICA moved from London to Geneva. In order
International Co-operative Alliance (ICA)
to face the challenges of globalization, the 1992 congress at Tokyo agreed a new decentralized structure based on the regions of Europe, Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and the Americas.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The ICA’S main objectives are to promote ‘‘the world cooperative movement: to promote and protect cooperative values and principles; to facilitate the development of economic and other mutually beneficial relations between its member organizations.’’ With the definition of cooperative principles and the statement on cooperative identity, the ICA initiated debates and gave shape to the image of a worldwide cooperative movement. Three reviews were undertaken and presented to congresses in 1937, 1966, and 1995, which, based on the Rochdale principles, modernized the idea of cooperation, and tried to maintain its relevance.
Activities The collection and dissemination of information on all aspects of cooperative development, resources, and statistics is an important function of the ICA. Published since 1907, the Review of International Co-operation is the official journal of the ICA and presents discussion of issues that affect cooperatives around the world and a selection of research papers from the Annual International Co-operative Research Conference. In 2006, the first index of the world’s largest cooperatives, the ICA Global 300, was published in order to demonstrate the scale of the cooperative movement globally. With its consultative status accorded in 1946, the ICA was one of the first nongovernmental organizations officially recognized by the United Nations (UN). The fight against poverty, the preservation of international peace through the creation of decent work, and the economic development, linked with the improvement of living standards, represent the main points of collaboration between ICA, International Labour Office (ILO), and the UN. With them and other international institutions, the Committee for the Promotion and Advancement of Co-operatives (COPAC) was established in 1971. The ILO and the ICA have been working together since the 1920s to promote cooperatives, and have collaborated in the adoption of ILO Recommendation no 193 on the Promotion of the Cooperatives adopted in June 2002. A new campaign (Cooperating out of Poverty) follows the signing of a partnership agreement to promote decent work and reduce poverty through cooperatives in February 2004. First celebrated by the ICA in 1923, the ICA International Co-operative Day and the UN International Day
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of Cooperatives is celebrated in common on the first Saturday of July every year, since 1995. The theme for the celebration underscores the contribution of the movement to resolving global issues addressing both the Cooperative Movement and the UN.
Structure and Governance The ICA is composed of one Head Office (in Geneva, Switzerland) and four Regional Offices (Belgium, India, Kenya, and Costa Rica). The ICA is organized as an association, a corporate body regulated by the Swiss Civil Code. Only the European Regional Office (Cooperatives Europe) has a separate legal entity. The ICA has nine specialized bodies which enable different types of cooperatives to organize around their own interests: agricultural, banking, consumer, fisheries, health, housing, tourism, insurance, and workers. There are also four thematic committees: communication, gender equality, human resource development, and research.
Funding The ICA’s work is financed primarily through members’ contributions. The subscription formula is based on a universal basic rate, the number of members in a cooperative, and a regional weighting system (to take account of socioeconomic differences between countries). The Alliance reported total expenditures of more than CHF3.8 million for 2007.
Accomplishments In 1995, a new set of cooperative principles was accepted, along with a statement of cooperative identity. Based on seven principles (voluntary and open membership; democratic member control; member economic participation; autonomy and independence; education, training and information; cooperation among cooperatives; concern for community) and six values (self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity), the ICA defines a cooperative as ‘‘an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democraticallycontrolled enterprise.’’
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Desroche, Henri ▶ Gide, Charles ▶ Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers ▶ United Nations
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International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA)
References/Further Readings Birchall, J. (1997). The international co-operative movement. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Emmanuel, J., & MacPherson, I. (Ed.) (2007). Co-operatives and the pursuit of peace. Victoria: New Rochdale Press. Rhodes, R. (1995). The international co-operative alliance during war and peace 1910–1950. Geneva: International Co-operative Alliance.
coordination fora. As an advocacy alliance for humanitarian action, ICVA assists its members to increase the quality, accountability, and visibility of their work by finding ways to ensure local engagement in international response mechanisms.
Activities
International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) EVELYNE SCHMID
Address of Organization 26-28 Avenue Giuseppe Motta 1202 Geneva Switzerland www.icva.ch
Introduction The International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) is a global network for humanitarian policy and advocacy. In particular, ICVA supports the work of its member agencies in influencing national and international policies, advocating for the protection of refugees and displaced persons, and coordinating humanitarian response, as well as representing the humanitarian perspectives of NGOs vis-a`-vis governments and international agencies.
Brief History ICVA is one of the oldest global NGO alliances. It was founded on 6 March 1962 as a merger of three existing NGO networks: the Conference of Nongovernmental Organizations Interested in Migration; the Standing Conference of Voluntary Organizations Working for Refugees; and the International Committee for World Refugee Year. These organizations decided to broaden the focus to the humanitarian, social, and development spheres. In 1997, ICVA’s finances and functions were restructured and now focus on humanitarian and forced displacement issues. Over the years, membership has increased to over 75 nongovernmental, nonprofit agencies.
To achieve its mission, ICVA engages in informationsharing, advocacy, representation of its members and of crisis-affected populations at international fora and humanitarian reform projects. In addition, ICVA participates in the Global Humanitarian Platform, a forum bringing together NGOs, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and the United Nations. It is also involved in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, the main mechanism for the coordination of humanitarian assistance among UN agencies established by the United Nations General Assembly.
Structure and Governance ICVA is an association under Swiss Law. A General Assembly of members is responsible for the strategic formulation and review of programs and for the election of an Executive Committee. The Secretariat is based in Geneva.
Funding ICVA is financed through income from its membership (approximately $270,000 in 2007) and from institutional and government donors. Total expenditures for core costs amounted to approx. $635,000 in 2007.
Accomplishments In 1963, ICVA was awarded the Nansen Medal. The award recognizes outstanding contributions to alleviate the suffering of refugees. It is named after Fridtjof Nansen, the explorer and scientist who was the first High Commissioner for Refugees at the League of Nations.
Cross-References
▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Human Rights ▶ INGOs ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance
Mission
References/Further Readings
ICVA attempts to bring the experience and views of members at the field level to international policy and
ICVA (2007). Annual Report 2007, from http://www.icva.ch/doc00003053. pdf; 11/17/2008
International NGO Training and Research Centre
International NGO Training and Research Centre CLAUDIA BODE-HARLASS
Address of Organization Oxbridge Court Osney Mead Oxford, OX2 0ES UK www.intrac.org
Introduction The International NGO Training and Research Centre (INTRAC) describes itself as a ‘‘non-profit organisation working in the international development and relief sector.’’ According to the organization it is an ‘‘independent commentator, innovator and partner’’ to nongovernmental and civil society organizations around the globe.
Brief History INTRAC was established in 1991 with the aim of providing management training and research services for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working in the development sector. While initially the organization was focusing on northern based NGOs, it has continuously expanded its range to include organizations based in southern and eastern countries as well.
Mission INTRAC is dedicated to strengthening civil society organizations (CSOs) around the world in order to help them to achieve developmental goals such as the establishment of sustainable livelihoods and just societies. The organization believes that the creation of democratic societies depends on an active civil society which can hold its governments accountable and introduce new and innovative views, strategies, and actions. In order to fulfill these tasks, INTRAC’s aim is to improve the organizational effectiveness and program performance of NGOs and CSOs.
Activities INTRAC uses a variety of different methods to strengthen CSOs, linking academic knowledge and analysis with practical work while in all cases following the participatory approach. The organization conducts for example research on global development trends and practices leading to the publication of a number of books,
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papers, and policy briefs. Furthermore, it provides consultancy services for NGOs and CSOs which includes organizational capacity building and special training courses. Besides, INTRAC provides an international platform for NGOs and CSOs in the development sector bringing together people from all over the world in its annual conferences. The organization’s work in all fields and countries can be reviewed in its annual reports.
Structure and Governance INTRAC is a registered UK charity based in Oxford. Its 20 permanent staff members are supported by a number of associates and consultants working on a project basis. The organization is governed by a board of trustees which is headed by the Executive Director.
Funding The total budget of the year 2007 was £2.2 million, showing an increase of almost half a million pounds since 2006. INTRAC is funded by a variety of nongovernmental and religious organizations working in the development field such as Save the Children Sweden, Christian Aid or Concern Worldwide. But its donors also include a number of governmental agencies including the international development agencies of Sweden, Denmark, Canada, and Norway as well as the Dutch Foreign Ministry.
Accomplishments The organization is distributing a monthly electronic newsletter to more than 7,000 subscribers all around the world. Its more extensive newsletter ‘‘ontrac’’ which is focusing on the analysis of development trends is published three times a year not only in English but also in French, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic.
Cross-References
▶ NGOs and Socio-Economic Development ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History
References/Further Readings Bakewell, O., James, R., Hailey, J., Lipson, B., & Hunt, M. (2008). Praxis series collection -3 books: Sharpening the development process/capacity building for NGOs/capacity building framework. Oxford: INTRAC. Brehm, V. M. (2004). Autonomy or dependence? North – South NGO partnerships (INTRAC Briefing Paper No. 6). Oxford: INTRAC. Pratt, B. (Ed.) (2003). Changing expectations? The concept and practice of civil society in international development (INTRAC NGO Management & Policy Series No. 16). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) CHRISTOPHER KAAN
Address of Organization 1, ch. de la Voie-Creuse Case postale 56 CH-1211 Geneva 20 Switzerland www.iso.org
Introduction The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is an international organization which creates and fosters standards for goods and management systems. While ISO is formally a nongovernmental organization (NGO), it has governmental institutions among its members, and some of the private organizations have strong governmental ties.
Brief History ISO was founded in 1946 during a Conference in London by the unification of two predecessors: the International Federation of the National Standardizing Associations, which was established in New York in 1926 and administered from Switzerland, and the United Nations Standards Coordinating Committee, established only in 1944 and administered in London. Despite the different order of words in the long version, the organization decided to use the abbreviation ISO for its name. This refers to the Greek term ‘‘isos,’’ meaning equal or identical. Since its beginning the ISO has slowly grown to one of the most important standard-setters in industry and services throughout the world. Especially the shift away from product standards to more comprehensive management standards has increased the outreach and impact of the organization tremendously.
Mission The mission of ISO is the creation of international standards for industry and other business. The ISO administers a variety of standards, ranging from product standards in great diversity over process standards up to management system standards.
Activities The major activity of ISO is creation and negotiation of international standards. For each standard, the ISO assembles a Technical Committee (TC) consisting of
about 50 representatives to pursue the drafting process. The TCs are then supported by subcommittees and Working Groups where the majority of the discussions take place. ISO standards are nonbinding rules, but they have become increasingly relevant for intra-industry trade. Especially the management system standards for the quality management (ISO 9000) or for environmental management (ISO 14001) have reached a nearly obligatory status for suppliers and subcontractors.
Structure and Governance The ISO is a membership organization which is composed by the national standard-setting bodies. Each country is represented by one standard-setting body. These bodies vary in their nature: while in developing countries they tend to be public institutions like ministries or agencies, they tend to be private organizations like business associations in developed countries. Major strategic decisions in ISO like final adoption of a standard are taken by the General Assembly in which all members are represented and which meets once a year. It also elects the ISO Council, which represents the members between sessions and which drafts the proposals for the decision-making process. ISO has an international secretariat headed by a Secretary-General in Geneva.
Funding The work of ISO is financed by two different sources. First, the member organizations have to pay a subscription fee which serves to finance the International Secretariat. The work of the TCs is funded differently. For each TC, the ISO searches for a hosting organization (usually one of the member organizations). These organizers need to pay all the costs to uphold the operations of the respective committee, e.g., costs of the meetings, travel costs for participants, management costs and many more.
Major Accomplishments The major accomplishment of the ISO is the acceptance of its standards all over the world. In many countries ISO norms are being adopted by standard-setting bodies, either in whole scale or in part. Furthermore, some ISO standards are now recognized by the World Trade Organization as legitimate public standards and guidelines. Critics point to this quasi-public acceptance as a major problem of ISO. Because of the private nature of the organization and the low participation of civil society organizations, they deny any democratic nature of this process. Furthermore, other criticism declares that developing countries lack the capacity to participate on the same level as the developed countries and ISO standards thereby have a strong northern bias.
International Planned Parenthood Federation
Cross-References
▶ INGOs ▶ Legitimacy ▶ World Trade Organization
References/Further Readings Clapp, J. (1998). The privatization of global environmental governance: ISO 14000 and the developing world. Global Governance, 4, 295–316. Murphy, C., & Yates, J., (2008). ISO, the International Organization for Standardization: Global governance through voluntary consensus. London/New York: Routledge. Raines, S. S. (2001). Perceptions of legitimacy and efficacy of International Environmental Standards: The impact of the participation gap. Global Environmental Politics, 3(3), 47–73.
International Planned Parenthood Federation REBECCA DIBB
Address of Organization 4 Newhams Row London SE1 3UZ UK www.ippf.org
Introduction The International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), through its worldwide movement in 180 countries, advocates for sexual and reproductive health rights for all and provides services to individuals and communities.
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Mission The IPPF works to ensure that everyone has the right to ‘‘access good sexual and reproductive health care and services.’’ The federation believes that such rights must be recognised as universal human rights. The IPPF works for gender equality and the elimination of gender biases which often put women at risk. It promotes choices for individuals and encourages them to take control of their sexual and reproductive health.
Activities According to the IPPF, ‘‘approximately 32 million visits a year are made to over 58,000 IPPF facilities worldwide.’’ Their services include ‘‘counseling, gynecological care, HIV-related services, diagnosis and treatment of sexually transmitted infections, infertility services, mother and child health, emergency contraception and abortionrelated services.’’ The federation’s 10-year strategic framework plan 2005–2015 established the ‘‘five As’’ which outlines five priority work areas– Adolescents/young people, HIV/AIDS, Abortion, Access, and Advocacy. The IPPF designs tool-kits and guides on best ways to work and provide services on sexual and reproductive health issues.
Structure and Governance The IPPF’s highest policy-making body is the Governing Council, comprising of 30 members, which meets twice a year. The IPPF has 152 member associations across the world which must meet the federation’s 65 membership standards. The federation has six regional offices in Africa (Nairobi, Kenya), Arab World (Tunis, Tunisia), Europe (Brussels, Belgium), South Asia (New Delhi, India), East, South-East Asia and Oceania (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) and the Western Hemisphere (New York, USA). The IPPF works through a set of global indicators to ensure that the federation can measure their performance ‘‘against the strategic framework.’’
Brief History
Funding
The powerful campaign that women had the right to control their own fertility, as promoted by Elise Ottesen-Jensen from Sweden and Dhanvanti Ramu Rau from India, among other women, triggered the formation of the IPPF in 1952 at the Third International Conference on Planned Parenthood in Bombay, India. The federation initially worked on a very small budget before it began expanding alongside the increasing recognition of the importance of family planning and reproductive health. Sweden was the first country to give the IPPF a government grant in 1966 and in 1981 the first major world conference on family planning was sponsored by key stakeholders – IPPF, UNFPA, and the Population Council.
According to the IPPF’s 2007 financial statements ‘‘the overall income received by IPPF in 2007 was US$120.6 million.’’ The majority of the IPPF’s funding is from government sources, but funding also comes from the private sector, the European Commission and the United Nations ‘‘in particular UNFPA and UNAIDS.’’ In 2007, the IPPF’s ‘‘overall expenditure was US$101.8 million.’’
Major Accomplishments The IPPF can be seen as the strongest advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights globally. It has an important voice internationally and the IPPF has consultative status with the United Nations (UN) and
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participative status in the Council of Europe. The federation has been actively involved in following up on the Programme of Action after the landmark International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in 1994 in Cairo. The IPPF lists some of its key achievements in 2007/2008 as providing over 15 million sexual and reproductive health services to young people, Member Associations providing over 650,000 abortion-related services and nearly 3.3 million HIV-related services.
Cross-References
▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Human Rights ▶ INGOs ▶ United Nations
References/Further Readings Frances, D. (1973). The IPPF: 21 years of achievement. Journal of Biosocial Science, 5(4), 413–419.
International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement PATSY KRAEGER
Address of Organization The International Committee of the Red Cross 19 avenue de la Paix CH 1202, Geneva Switzerland www.icrc.org The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies Chemin des Creˆts, 17 Petit-Saconnex, CH 1211, Geneva Switzerland www.ifrc.org Movement Website www.redcross.int
Introduction The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement incorporates the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies as well as the 186 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies with 97 million volunteers, staff, and supporters.
Brief History The idea for the Movement came about as a result of a bloody battle, the Battle of Solferino, Italy in 1859. In 1863, the international committee for the relief of military wounded was established and, in 1876 was renamed the International Committee for the Red Cross. In 1864, a Geneva Convention was established for the treatment of wounded armies in the field. Between 1899 and 1949, additional Geneva conventions and protocols were established as well as several Hague Conventions regarding the treatment of military wounded in the field. In 1965, the ICRC developed a Proclamation of the Fundamental Principles of the Red Cross and in 1986, statutes for the ICRC and the Federation were developed. Since 1989, the movement has focused on conventions regarding the rights of children, weapons of mass destruction, to agreements on the organization of the movement as well as issues surrounding the creation of the International Criminal Court. In 2006, the movement adopted a third emblem in addition to the red cross and red crescent.
Mission The mission of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is ‘‘to prevent and alleviate human suffering wherever it may be found, to protect life and health, and ensure respect for the human being, in particular in times of armed conflict and other emergencies, to work for the prevention of disease and for the promotion of health and social welfare, to encourage voluntary service and a constant readiness to give help by the members of the Movement, and a universal sense of solidarity towards all those in need of its protection and assistance.’’ In pursuing its mission, the Movement shall be guided by its fundamental principles: humanity, impartiality, neutrality, independence, voluntary service, unity, and, universality.
Activities The movement operates through agreed upon principles of cooperation ‘‘to ensure a concerted, rational and rapid humanitarian response to the needs of the victims of armed conflict or any other situation of internal violence.’’ The ICRC structures the cooperation between itself, the Federation and the 186 national societies in four areas. Operational cooperation covers such activities as health care, first aid, transporting war casualties, food distribution and restoring family links. The ICRC also coordinates the movement’s activities in order to maximize its mandates and skill sets. There is cooperation on national capacity building where the ICRC shares its expertise on international humanitarian law, emergency aid and health care with the national societies. Finally, the ICRC
International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR)
leads the design and implementation of policies for the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
Structure and Governance The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies together constitute the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. The ICRC, the Federation and the National Societies are independent bodies. Each has its own individual status and exercises no authority over the others. In conflict situations, the ICRC will take the lead and direct the role of its partner societies pursuant to the 1997 Seville Agreement. The bodies of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement are the International Conference of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, the Council of Delegates of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, and the Standing Commission of the Red Cross and Red Crescent.
Funding The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement bodies are separately funded. The ICRC and the Federation receive funding from government, corporate, and individual giving and the Federation also receives membership dues. The 186 national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies may receive funding from the ICRC and the Federation, as well as other public funding from governments, corporations, foundations, and individuals. In 2005, the ICRC budget was approximately 970 million Swiss Francs. The Federation is projecting expenses of $260 million for 2009 and 2010.
Major Accomplishments Among its other achievements, Henry Dunant, the founder of the Red Cross won the first Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. The International Committee for the Red Cross subsequently won the prize again in 1917 and 1944 due to its humanitarian efforts during both world wars. And in 1963, the ICRC and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies won the Nobel Peace Prize on the occasion of the Movement’s 100th anniversary.
Cross-References ▶ Dunant, Henry ▶ INGOs ▶ QUANGOs
References/Further Readings Borton, J. (2007). Recent trends in the International Relief System. Disasters, 17(3), 187–201.
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Hutchinson, J. F. (1996). Champions of caring. Boulder, CO: Westview. Lavoyer, J. P. (1995). Refugees and internally displaced persons: International humanitarian law and the role of the ICRC. International Review of the Red Cross, 305, 162–180. Reychler, L., & Paffenholz, T. (2001). Peacebuilding: A field guide. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) ELIZABETH LEVI
Address of Organization 559 Wyman Park Building 3400 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218-2688 USA www.istr.org
Introduction The International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) is an international association registered as a nonprofit organization in the United States. ISTR is dedicated to promoting research and education in and about civil society, philanthropy, and the nongovernmental sector. ISTR brings together scholars and others to exchange and advance knowledge on a global as well as local level about the third sector, human well being and international development. As of 2008, ISTR was comprised of 748 members from around the world.
Brief History The International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) was founded in 1992, and from its establishment, has been housed in the Johns Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies. ISTR also became the home of the scholarly journal, Voluntas: the International Journal of Voluntary and Non-Profit Organizations, which had been established 2 years earlier in England.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas ISTR describes its mission as striving to ‘‘promote the development of high quality research and education internationally on Third Sector related issues, theories, and policies; and to enhance the dissemination and application of knowledge about the Third Sector as widely as possible throughout the world.’’ ISTR is
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committed to engaging researchers across the globe, welcoming those from all academic disciplines, with an emphasis on increasing the number of Third Sector research practitioners in Central and Eastern Europe and in developing nations.
in global civil society and the corresponding growth in scope and breadth of third sector research. ISTR’s gatherings and publications serve to support high quality research as third sector scholars work to create and make new knowledge available and accessible to the field.
Activities
Cross-References
ISTR publishes the interdisciplinary research and policy journal, Voluntas, four times a year offering scholarly theory, empirical studies and critical commentary. Every two years, ISTR convenes a major conference in a different country to bring members and colleagues in the field together to expand knowledge and new research about the third sector. ISTR also convenes Regional Network meetings for more locally focused researchers to gather to pursue high level discussion of region-specific issues. A quarterly newsletter keeps members updated on new developments, publications and research initiatives. ISTR also publishes occasional reports, which focus on regional or thematic issues in the third sector.
▶ Professional Associations ▶ Third Sector
References/Further Readings Hodgkinson, V., & Painter, A. (2003). Third sector research in international perspective: The role of ISTR. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 14(1), 1–14. Salamon, L. M. (1994). The rise of the nonprofit sector. Foreign Affairs, 73(4), 109–122. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1998). Social origins of civil society: Explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 9(3), 213–248.
Structure and Governance ISTR is managed through a central secretariat, staffed by the Executive Director, Margery Daniels, and a Program Assistant. An international board of 15 scholars and research professionals governs ISTR, complemented by three ex officio members, including the past president, the Editor of Voluntas, and the liaison to Johns Hopkins University, the host institution for ISTR.
International Trade Union Confederation FLORIAN REHLI
Address of Organization Funding The 2006 Annual Report records the annual operating budget as $379,000. Just over half of funding support for operations is derived from grant revenue, with about one quarter of the funding generated through institutional grants for support of the annual ISTR conference. Additional funding is generated by membership dues, conference fees, and publications.
Accomplishments/Contributions In its early years, ISTR’s journal and conference themes reflected the importance of defining the growing third sector among ISTR’s international constituents of researchers and practitioners, particularly for those from developing countries with a less clearly established nongovernmental sphere of activity and accompanying scholarship. ISTR convened the 2008 ISTR biennial conference in Barcelona, Spain, which drew its largest audience to date: over 600 participants from over 60 countries. The conference theme, ‘‘The Third Sector and Sustainable Social Change: New Frontiers for Research’’ reflects new challenges
Boulevard du Roi Albert II no: 5, Bte 1 1210 Brussels Belgium www.ituc-csi.org
Introduction The International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) is by far the world’s largest and most important trade union federation. Currently it represents 168 million workers in 155 countries and territories and has 311 national affiliates.
Brief History The ITUC was formed on 1 November 2006 when the former World Confederation of Labor (WCL) and the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) merged. The Founding Congress of the ITUC was held in Vienna and was preceded by the dissolution congresses of both the WCL and the ICFTU. Before, the history of international trade unionism had been marked by long periods of division and adversity.
Islamic Relief
Mission The ITUC’s primary mission is the worldwide promotion and defense of workers’ rights and interests. In its constitution, the ITUC states that it exists to unite and mobilize the democratic and independent forces of world trade unionism in giving effective representation to working people, wherever they work and in whatever conditions. In this regard, it strives in particular for the universal respect of fundamental rights at work and the strengthening of the rights of women, migrant workers, young people and disabled people at the workplace.
Activities To pursue its mission, the ITUC pursues a multilevel strategy combining international cooperation between trade unions, global campaigning, and advocacy with the major global institutions. On the national level, the ITUC supports trade union movements through the coordinated provision of international development assistance to strengthen capacities and membership. On the international level, the ITUC works closely together with the International Labor Office, other specialist agencies of the United Nations and other international trade union movements to strengthen worker’s rights and the representation of workers in the informal and formal economy. In its ‘‘Annual Survey of Violations of Trade Union Rights,’’ the ITUC gives an overview of trade union rights and major violations of these rights all over the world.
Structure and Governance The regional organizations of the ITUC are the Asia-Pacific Regional Organization (ITUC-AP), the African Regional Organization (ITUC-AF) and the American Regional Organization (TUCA). In Europe, the ITUC cooperates closely with the European Trade Union Confederation. The ITUC currently has 311 national affiliates. Its member organizations are required to be independent of outside influence and to have a democratic structure. The Congress of the ITUC consists of delegates representing the member organizations and elects a General Council and a General Secretary. While the General Council directs the activities of the ITUC and establishes the annual budget, the General Secretary is the representative and spokesperson of the ITUC and leads the Secretariat.
Funding The activities of the ITUC are primarily financed by annual affiliation fees which depend on the number of members of the member organizations. The General Secretary may also organize fundraising campaigns for defined
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purposes and apply for financing from private and public sources such as the European Union Commission.
Accomplishments Given the short history of the ITUC, it is too early to identify major accomplishments. Nevertheless, the fact that the major global trade union federations now try to work together regardless of ideological and sociopolitical orientations is a promising sign. Researchers and politicians agree on the necessity of a globalized union movement to effectively promote worker’s rights in the twenty-first century.
Cross-References
▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions
References/Further Readings Carew, A. et al. (Eds.) (2000). The International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. Bern, Switzerland: Russell Lang. ITUC (2006). Constitution and standing orders. Brussels: International Trade Union Confederation, from http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/ Const-ENG-W.pdf, 5/12/2008 ITUC (2008). Annual survey of violations of trade union rights 2008, from http://survey08.ituc-csi.org/survey.php?IDContinent=0&Lang=EN, 5/12/2008
INTRAC ▶ International NGO Training and Research Centre
Islamic Relief ELIZABETH LEVI
Address of Organization 19 Rea St South Digbeth Birmingham, B5 6LB UK www.islamic-relief.com
Introduction Islamic Relief Worldwide (IR) describes itself as ‘‘an international relief and development charity’’ which strives to
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alleviate suffering of the poorest people across the globe. For 25 years, Islamic Relief Worldwide has operated as an independent nongovernmental organization, headquartered in the United Kingdom, from which it delivers programs and coordinates with partners and field offices around the world to respond to disasters and emergencies. Islamic Relief Worldwide also supports sustainable economic and social development in communities in need across the world, providing its services on a nonsectarian basis.
through community-based capacity-building. Caring for orphans and children in need takes the form of protecting basic rights of children through education, health, social welfare and shelter programs, and includes IR’s wellestablished orphan sponsorship program. Campaigning and advocacy activities are achieved through partnerships with international NGOs to address global poverty and increasing awareness of the humanitarian Islamic values of Islamic Relief while maintaining an inclusive approach in all IR endeavors.
Brief History
Structure and Governance
Islamic Relief (IR) was established in Birmingham, United Kingdom, in 1984. Dr. Hany Abdel Gawad El-Banna was a physician who attended a medical conference in the Sudan in 1983. Dr. Hany was moved by the devastation of the famine he observed there and returned to the UK to create IR to assist people in poverty. Since that time, Islamic Relief has grown to expand its offices and operations worldwide, continuing disaster relief, and broadening its focus on humanitarian aid in medical, social, and educational spheres.
Islamic Relief Worldwide is a global organization, headquartered in the UK, where it is governed by a seven-member Board of Trustees, chaired by Dr. Essam A El Haddad. A six-member Executive Committee of professionals guides the day to day operations of the organization, led by Saleh Saeed, who became Chief Executive Officer in 2008. The worldwide headquarters coordinates two groups of partner organizations. The first is Islamic Relief Partners, which function as separate legal entities under their own jurisdiction of fundraising and local activities. The second group is comprised of over 20 Islamic Relief affiliated implementing partners, which are locally registered NGOs, working through field offices to provide programs on the ground, integrating with IR Worldwide headquarters through formal reporting and monitoring structures. There is over 100 staff working in the Birmingham headquarters that support over 1,500 staff and volunteers in over 30 countries where IR conducts programs. In addition, IR operates a subsidiary clothes recycling business with 50 employees in Birmingham, UK.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas In its 2007 Annual Report, Islamic Relief Worldwide affirms its vision of a ‘‘caring world where the basic requirements of people in need are affirmed.’’ This is accomplished through its mission, ‘‘inspired by Islamic values’’ to assist in the development of ‘‘safe and caring communities; help the poor to enjoy self-reliance with dignity; and to make it possible for those who wish to support others to reach people in need of their help.’’ Islamic Relief strives to achieve these overarching aims by providing help without bias, mitigating the impact of disasters through relief and rehabilitation, and promoting sustainable development, while advocating for the poor, aligning efforts to support achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
Activities In addition to its response to disaster and emergency response, Islamic Relief Worldwide conducts humanitarian programming in six sectors. Education activities focus on long term development emphasizing access to formal and vocational learning opportunities. Providing access to health and water activities is conducted with a focus on awareness and training, particularly of mothers and children, and providing sustainable water and sanitation facilities. Promoting sustainable livelihoods is conducted
Funding The Islamic Relief Worldwide 2007 Annual Report records charitable expenditures of £31.7 million, with the majority of funding support distributed in the form of emergency relief (36%), leading seven other funding areas of education, hunger alleviation, education, employment, health, water and sanitation, child and orphan welfare, and advocacy. Revenues are generated primarily through donations (close to 60%); 12 overseas funding partners (23%); and grants from institutional funders (18%).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In 1984, Queen Elizabeth II honored Islamic Relief founder Dr. Hany El-Banna for exceptional achievement and service
ISTR
with the Order of the British Empire. Among the accomplishments highlighted in the 2007 Annual Report were responses to natural disasters in Pakistan and Bangladesh by providing rescue, emergency food, medical care and temporary shelter. In Chad and Darfur, where long term conflict endures, IR provided emergency relief, shelter, water, sanitation, health, and education services in refugee camps, with an emphasis on maternal and child healthcare. In the politically destabilized and war torn regions of Somalia and Iraq, IR provided clean water, emergency food and shelter rations.
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References/Further Readings Benthall, J., & Bellion-Jourdan, J. (2003). The charitable crescent: Politics of aid in the Muslim world. London: I.B. Tauris. Ghandour, A.-R. (2004). The modern missionaries of Islam. In F. Weissman (Ed.), In the shadow of ‘‘Just Wars’’: Violence, politics, and humanitarian action, by Medecins San Frontiers. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
ISO ▶ International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
Cross-References
▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam
ISTR ▶ International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR)
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James, Estelle
GEORG VON SCHNURBEIN
SUSAN K. FEIGENBAUM
Basic Biographical Information
Basic Biographical Information
Klaus J. Jacobs, born 1936 in Bremen (Germany), was a member of a well-known coffee trader family. He was not only a remarkable businessman, but also a passionate horseman and a generous philanthropist. After his studies in Hamburg and Stanford and international working experience he entered the family business Jacobs AG in 1962. In 1970 he became the owner of the company and moved it to Switzerland in 1973. After selling the company to Philip Morris, he started a second business career in the temp-work industry and built up Adecco, one of the world’s biggest companies in this industry. Additionally, he became the world leading producer of chocolate with Barry Callebaut. Besides, he joined the Swiss dressage team at the Olympics.
Born in New York in 1935, Estelle James received her Ph.D. in Economics from MIT in 1961. Her academic career at the State University of New York-Stony Brook spanned almost a quarter of a century; she served as Professor and Chair of Economics and Provost of the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences. James has also held visiting appointments at such illustrious institutions as Yale University, London School of Economics and Tel Aviv University. In 1991, she retired as Professor Emeritus and joined the World Bank, first as Lead Economist in the Bank’s Policy Research Department and, later, as Director of the Pension Flagship Course.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Jacobs was a philanthropist both in time and money. In 1988, he established the Jacobs Foundation with the purpose of youth development. The foundation reached new dimensions when Jacobs donated a major part of his wealth, making the Jacobs Foundation one of the biggest Foundations in Switzerland. As the president of the foundation, Jacobs not only supported youth development directly, but also strengthened research facilities on the topic. Additionally, the foundation made a major contribution to establish the Jacobs University in Bremen, Germany. He understood that research was nearly as important as active help in order to achieve sustainable results.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking
References/Further Readings Lu¨chinger, R., & Willmann, B. (2007). Der Jacobs Weg. Zurich: Orell Fu¨ssli.
Major Contributions James has authored and edited numerous articles and books. Throughout her research career, James has explored the ‘‘blurred lines’’ that differentiate public, private, and private nonprofit institutional provision of goods and services. She turned her focus to the educational services sector when she realized that labor-managed enterprises in Yugoslavia bore a distinct similarity to the management of universities and academic departments. She observed that nonprofit universities cross-subsidized across a complex product mix (research, graduate training and undergraduate education) to maximize the well-being of faculty decisionmakers. This observation led to a generalized theory of ‘‘how nonprofits grow,’’ which has become the basis for much current thinking about nonprofit behavior. These forays into the economics of higher education eventually led James to examine the role and behavior of private nonprofit institutions at every level of education. During the 1980s, James traveled extensively throughout the world to study variations in the mix of public and private nonprofit provision of educational services. She identified key factors – such as excess demand for government provided education in developing countries and
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cultural heterogeneity (religious and linguistic differences) – that drove the growth in demand for, and supply of, private education. Importantly, James documented the political pressure that large nonprofit school constituencies (oftentimes religious) have brought to bear to obtain government funding, even in countries with separation of church and state doctrines. James demonstrated that these subsidies eventually turned decentralized nonprofit schools into bureaucratized institutions facing different incentive structures. James’ findings are of critical importance to those who advocate educational voucher systems and ignore the reality that government funding inevitably leads to regulation, which has a profound impact on the nature and behavior of the educational institutions themselves. At the World Bank, James applied her keen eye for institutional differences to address the global problem of growing national debt loads resulting from existing social security programs and aging populations. James argued that while the public sector has a comparative advantage in funding and managing a redistributive retirement plan, the private sector would be more efficient in managing private savings plans. This research has become the basis for much of the World Bank’s advice and for reforms that are now taking place in many countries. The depth and breadth of James’ research contributions – particularly those that relate to the institutional structure and financing of nonprofit educational delivery systems – and her global perspective have solidified her reputation as a pioneer in this field. While James may not have simplified the blurred lines that exist between private nonprofit and public providers, she has had a profound impact in focusing economists’ attention on institutional constraints, incentives, and behavior.
Cross-References
▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Simon, John G. ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic ▶ Weisbrod, Burton ▶ World Bank
James, E. (Ed.) (1989). The nonprofit sector in international perspective: Studies in comparative culture and policy. New York: Oxford University Press. James, E., & Rose-Ackerman, S. (1986). The nonprofit enterprise in market economies. In J. Lesourne & H. Sonnenschein (Eds.), Fundamentals of pure and applied economics and encyclopedia of economics. London: Harwood Academic Publishers.
JANPORA ▶ Japan NPO Research Association (JANPORA)
Japan Center for International Exchange JENNY ELMACO
Address of Organization 4-9-17 Minami Azabu, Minato-ku Tokyo 106-0047 Japan www.jcie.or.jp
Introduction The Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE) is an independent, nonprofit, and nonpartisan organization committed to strengthening Japan’s role in international networks of dialogue and cooperation. JCIE functions as a link to Japan and the rest of the Asia Pacific region by spearheading activities that promote international exchanges and by encouraging discussions between policymakers and experts from the global community. In addition, JCIE endeavours to build a milieu which is supportive of third sector engagement. In this manner, it aims to contribute to the enhancement of the role of civil society in local, global and multilevel governance.
Brief History References/Further Readings James, E. (1978). Product mix and cost disaggregation: A reinterpretation of the economics of higher education. Journal of Human Resources, Spring, 157–186. James, E. (1983). How nonprofits grow: A model. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2, 350–365. Reprinted in S. RoseAckerman (Ed.) (1986). The economics of non-profit institutions: Studies in structure and policy. New York: Oxford University Press.
JCIE evolved from two predecessors, the Association of International Education and the Japan Council for International Understanding. It was in 1964 when the Association of International Education and the Ford Foundation sponsored the first Japanese School Teachers’ Study Tour to the United States under the Japanese-American Teachers Exchange program. In 1967
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the first Japanese-American Assembly was conducted, cosponsored by the Japan Council for International Understanding and the American Assembly of Columbia University. In 1970, JCIE evolved into a self-sufficient entity with nonprofit status. JCIE/USA, its North American affiliate, was formed in 1975.
Mission JCIE projects are designed to encourage the development of networks of independent policy research institutions and help develop a new generation of policy thinkers who can participate effectively in concerted research and dialogue. JCIE’s commitment mainly revolves around the promotion of Japan’s significant involvement in the international community through initiating collaborative, cooperative and connective projects. It seeks to strengthen civil society engagement through meaningful dialogue and cooperation.
Activities JCIE’s activities are organized into three reticulate and mutually reinforcing programs: The Global ThinkNet is a program which aims to promote policy research and dialogue. The JCIE has its own cadre of researchers who work with outside experts in a collaborative effort to address pressing issues in the Asia Pacific region and the rest of the world. Two predominant themes for JCIE’s recent work have been East Asia community building and human security. The Political Exchange Programs sets sights on the creation of linkages among policymakers. At the forefront of JCIE’s activities has been to bolster a kinship between Japanese political and opinion leaders and their foreign counterparts. As an example, in 1968, JCIE promulgated a political exchange program between representatives of the US Congress and the Japanese Diet. To date the US–Japan Parliamentary Exchange Program is the oldest bilateral exchange program of its kind. The program CivilNet seeks to strengthen and promote civil society activities. These activities aim to advance an expansive and extensive understanding of civil society and philanthropy, reinforce civil society’s role in governance in Japan and around the world, and create collaborative networks among civil society organizations worldwide as well as with government, business, and other sectors of society.
Structure and Governance JCIE is guided by its Board of Trustees, further subdivided into a Board of Directors and Board of Counsellors, which is composed of notable leaders of both business and
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nonprofit sectors. Its operations are conducted under its staff and associates headed by its President. Its affiliate office in the United States has its own personnel. A European Representative Office also exists in Germany.
Funding JCIE funding comes from private foundation grants, individual and corporate contributions, and contracts. It receives no government subsidies.
Contribution JCIE pursues network-oriented programs and projects allowing participants to engage in an interactive structure that allows them to define and redefine their framing of the social world and to work together in order to build a better one. The creation of symbiotic relationships serves as a powerful tool for linking social actors, for bridging knowledge gaps, for assuring the communication of stakeholders in relevant issues, and for connecting ideas for solutions to the world’s problems. One of the networks formed under the banner of this initiative is the Asia Pacific Agenda Project (APAP). The latter is a multinational consortium of policy research organizations and academic institutions in the Asia Pacific. It also aims to train young scholars as the future leaders of international policy-related research. JCIE was also instrumental in establishing and operating Japan’s first charitable trust based on general fundraising, the Asian Community Trust (ACT). JCIE also facilitates various philanthropic programs for corporations and foundations from Japan and abroad. Another notable contribution of JCIE is its Donor Advised Fund which is an innovative manner of corporateNGO partnership. Under this structure, funds from a corporate philanthropy program are channeled through the JCIE which in turn distributes it to NGOs. From 1997– 2004, the Levi Strauss Foundation availed of JCIE’s intermediary function and this scheme was put into force with the aim of providing start-up capital to emerging NGOs in Japan.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Japan ▶ Corporate Giving
References/Further Readings Tadashi, Y. (Ed.) (2001). Governance and civil society in a global age. Tokyo/New York: Japan Center for International Exchange. Tadashi, Y. et al. (1989). Japanese private philanthropy in an interdependent world. The JCIE papers. Tokyo: Japan Center for International Exchange.
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Japan Foundation CHARLOTTE ANHEIER
Address of Organization 4-4-1 Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku Tokyo 160-0004 Japan www.jpf.go.jp
Introduction In order to better international relations as well as maintain international relationships, the Japan Foundation seeks to deepen other nation’s understanding of Japan, its culture and the Japanese language.
Brief History The Japan Foundation was founded in 1972 as a special legal entity under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In October 2003 it was declared an independent administrative institution, a type of legal body created as part of Japan’s government reform, which utilizes the management techniques of private sector corporations, and is given considerable autonomy in their operations and how to use their budgets.
promote information exchange on an international level. The Japan Center for Global Partnership, in association with the United States, aims to share global responsibilities, improve world welfare as well as conducting programs about intellectual, and grassroots exchange. Every year the foundation honors an individual or organization, which has made a meaningful contribution to cultural understanding between Japan and other countries, with the Japan Foundation Award.
Structure and Governance Headed by Kasuo Ogoura, the Japan Foundation’s main office is located in Tokyo with another branch in Kyoto. Japanese language institutes are located in Urawa and Kansai. The Japan Foundation has a further 21 overseas offices.
Funding The foundation relies on government investments, government subsidies as well as donations from the private sector.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Public Law or Government ▶ GONGO ▶ QUANGO
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas By promoting mutual understanding, the foundation encourages goodwill and friendship among people so as to contribute to world culture and cultural exchanges. The foundation also supports peace-building and restoration in post-conflict or post-disaster areas through cultural activities in an effort to preserve and restore indigenous cultural traditions.
Japan NPO Research Association (JANPORA) NAOTO YAMAUCHI
Address of Organization Activities The Japan Foundation focuses on three specific areas of interest. First, the foundation promotes arts and cultural exchange, which involves the exchange of projects in the figurative, performing and audio-visual arts in order to enhance the understanding of Japanese culture, and increase civic or youth exchange. Second, by offering training programs and grants and donating teaching materials the foundation improves Japanese language education overseas. Lastly, the Japanese studies and intellectual exchange program supports the intellectual exchange between Japan and other countries. Established in 2004, the Japan Foundation Information Center seeks to
146 Nishiojicho Kamigyo-ku Kyoto 602-8048 Japan www.osipp.osaka-u.ac.jp/janpora/index.html
Introduction The Japan NPO Research Association (JANPORA) was founded in 1999. Its mission is strengthening the nonprofit, volunteering, and philanthropy research, creating wider networks, and disseminating nonprofit and civil-society-related studies. Its principal activities include an annual conference, research seminars, publications, and awards.
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Brief History
Major Contribution/Achievement
In 1995, the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake hit Japan, and since then the people began to pay attention to the role of the civil society sector in the country. However, there was no sufficient scientific analysis and discussion on issues surrounding civil society activities such as law, governance, and sustainability. Moreover, there was a lack of communication between researchers and practitioners. In order to improve the situation, in March 1999, JANPORA was established supported by many people from academia and the civil society sector. Yujiro Hayashi, the former director of the Toyota Foundation, was elected as the first president. At the time of establishment, there were 600 members and today, membership has reached around 1,200 members.
The major achievement of JANPORA is to bring together both researchers, and practitioners to create an academic community of the people who are dedicated to the research and dissemination of nonprofit studies for the purpose of improving public wealth. As there were no such organizations earlier, the establishment of this community had a significant impact on the development of civil society activities and research by creating wider and deeper networks.
Mission and Activities The Association’s mission is promoting and disseminating nonprofit, volunteering and philanthropy studies and creating wider networks. Its main activities are holding an annual conference and regular research seminars, publishing newsletters and academic journals, and awarding outstanding research works. The first annual conference was held in March 1999. Since then, the meeting has become increasingly dynamic, exploring latest issues, presenting research findings, and bringing up stimulating discussions. Regular research seminars have been focusing on up-to-date issues such as civil society, social capital, and corporate social responsibility. The Association’s official journal, the Nonprofit Review has been published twice a year since 2001. It contains the latest theoretical and empirical research work. Newsletters have been published quarterly to provide interesting articles and latest information since 2000. In addition to these activities, JANPORA has been awarding distinctive research works since 2002 to encourage and support research activities. JANPORA also provides members with the association’s mailing list for promoting communication between members.
Governance Twenty-five elected members constitute the board of directors. The president and vice-president are nominated among board members. There are two auditors who are appointed by the president.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Japan ▶ Membership and Membership Associations
JCIE ▶ Japan Center for International Exchange
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization 140 S. Dearborn Street Chicago, IL 60603-5285 USA www.macfound.org
Introduction The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, one of the largest independent grantmaking foundations in the United States, is most widely known for its ‘‘genius’’ awards – the MacArthur Fellows Program which awards grants to exceptional individuals in various professional fields. Based in Chicago, the MacArthur Foundation is a major private foundation that funds programs in 60 countries. With 153 staff members based in the United States and an additional 20 working in other countries, the MacArthur Foundation offers grants that range in size from $5,000 to $26 million.
Brief History Funding The annual budget is around Japanese ¥10 million, which is mainly funded by the annual membership fees.
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Life & Casualty (BL&C) Company, the largest privately held insurance company. At the time of his death, he was one of the three wealthiest men in America, and the foundation was created around the time of his passing. He left 92% of his approximately $1 billion estate to create the foundation.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area Through the support it provides, the Foundation fosters the development of knowledge, nurtures individual creativity, strengthens institutions, helps improve public policy, and provides information to the public, primarily through support for public interest media.
Activities The Foundation makes grants and loans through four programs: Global Security and Sustainability, Human and Community Development, General grant-making, and the MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as ‘‘genius grants.’’ Topics of interest to the Foundation include international peace and security, conservation and sustainable development, population control, reproductive health, human rights, community development, affordable housing, and educational, juvenile justice, and mental health reform, public interest media, including public radio and independent documentary film. The Foundation also gives grants to arts and cultural institutions in the Chicago area, which increased from $5.5 million to $7 million earlier this year despite the economic challenges faced by the foundation in 2008. The foundation’s international grantmaking is directed extensively towards supporting program areas including: improving the sexual and reproductive health of women and young people, advancing human rights, and strengthening universities and scholarly infrastructure. Work is largely supported in India, Mexico, Nigeria, and Russia, where the Foundation also maintains offices.
Structure and Governance The Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors of up to 16 persons including the President who serves ex officio as a member of the Board. Each Director is eligible to serve up to three 4-year terms. A Director is reviewed by the full Board before election to a new term. Through the work of the Board and its Committees, the Board sets policies and strategic direction for the Foundation, approves grantmaking areas, initiatives and grants in excess of $500,000, oversees investments, and the audit process. The Board also reviews the performance of the President on an annual basis and approves his/her compensation and reviews compensation for senior staff on an annual basis.
Robert E. Denham is chair of the foundation’s board, and Robert Galluci began his term as President on July 6, 2009.
Funding As a private foundation, the MacArthur Foundation does not receive government funds. The Foundation’s grantmaking is supported by investment returns generated on the endowment created by the founder’s bequest. The Foundation, with year-end assets of approximately $7 billion in 2007, listed its total giving at $267.2 million in the same year.
Accomplishments The MacArthur Fellows Program awards 5-year, unrestricted fellowships in the amount of $500,000 to individuals across all ages and fields who show exceptional merit and promise of continued creative work. The fellows program, which represents only a small fraction of the foundation’s activities, was created by J. Roderick MacArthur, the son of John D. MacArthur. In the beginning of the program, many of the fellowships were awarded to widely recognized individuals such as Robert Penn Warren, Robert Coles, and Stephen Jay Gould. Other recipients include Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (1981), Marian Edelman (1985), Max Roach (1988), Twyla Tharp (1992), Bill T. Jones (1994), and Cindy Sherman (1995).
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Independent ▶ MacArthur, John D.
References/Further Readings Altman, A. (Sept. 2008). A brief history of the ‘genius’ grant. Time Magazine. Kriplen, N. (2008). The eccentric billionaire: John D. MacArthur – Empire builder, reluctant philanthropist, relentless adversary. New York: AMACOM. Nauffts, M. (2008). MacArthur foundation statement in response to crisis. PhilanTopic, from http://pndblog.typepad.com/pndblog/ 2008/11/macarthur-found.html; 12/12/08. Scott, J. (1997). MacArthur ‘‘genius’’ grants get some heat and a new head. New York Times, from http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage. html?res = 9E00E2D8123DF93AA35751C1A961958260: 12/9/2008.
Johnson, Robert Wood II DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Robert Wood Johnson II was born in 1893 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. His father, Robert Wood Johnson I,
Joseph Rowntree Foundation
was the founder of Johnson & Johnson, the health and medical care product manufacturer that would become one of the world’s most successful and well-respected companies. During World War II, Johnson became a brigadier general in charge of the New York Ordnance District. He eventually resigned his commission to accept President Roosevelt’s appointment as vice chairman of the War Production Board and chairman of the Smaller War Plants Corporation. Johnson was the president of Johnson & Johnson from 1932 to 1938 and chairman of the board from 1938 until 1963. Under his direction, the company grew from $11 million to $700 million in annual sales and expanded from New Jersey to around the globe. Upon Johnson’s death in 1968, he left the bulk of his $400 million estate to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, creating one of the world’s largest private philanthropies.
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visibility, effectiveness, and readiness of our public health systems; and ensuring that everyone in America has stable, affordable health care coverage. In 2006, the RWJF was the fourth largest foundation in the United States with assets exceeding $10 billion and annual giving nearing $370 million.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Grantmaking Foundations
References/Further Readings Cluff, L. (1989). Helping shape the nation’s health care system: A report on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s program activities, 1972–1989. Princeton, NJ: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Foster, L. (1999). Robert Wood Johnson: The gentleman rebel. State College, PA: Lillian Press.
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Major Accomplishments/Contributions As an executive at Johnson & Johnson, Johnson espoused a philosophy of corporate responsibility. His management credo stated that a company’s first responsibility is to its customers, followed by its workers, management, community, and stockholders – in that order. Johnson paid his workers a minimum wage even when unions did not expect such treatment. Johnson’s philanthropic leanings would leave a long trail and lasting footprints in the medical and education sectors. His first philanthropic endeavors mainly benefited the underprivileged, particularly through the support of health-related facilities, in New Brunswick. Johnson created the Johnson New Brunswick Foundation as a vehicle for his giving, and the foundation’s earliest grants supported food and clothing for poor families and other local causes. In 1952, the foundation was renamed the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), and Johnson would make regular contributions of common stock to the foundation until he died. The mission of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation is to improve the health and health care of all Americans. Before he died, Johnson helped lead to the founding of one of the nation’s first schools of hospital administration at Northwestern University. In the 1970s support from RWJF helped to create and spread what has become today’s emergency medical response system – 9–1–1. In the early 1990s, the foundation introduced new approaches for research, prevention, and treatment of tobacco use that have achieved extraordinary results, improving the public’s health and saving millions of lives. The foundation continues to address issues that include reversing the rise in childhood obesity; improving the quality of care and reducing disparities; raising the
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Joseph Rowntree Foundation DIANA LEAT
Address of Organization The Homestead 40 Water End York YO30 6WP UK www.jrf.org.uk
Introduction Joseph Rowntree Foundation is one of the best known and respected charitable foundations in the United Kingdom. It is one of three foundations created by Joseph Rowntree, a Quaker chocolate manufacturer; the other two are the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the non-charitable Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. All three trusts are guided by a Memorandum written by Joseph Rowntree in 1904. The Memorandum laid out Joseph Rowntree’s vision for the trusts – placing a strong emphasis on ‘‘searching out the underlying causes’’ of social problems – but also acknowledged that ‘‘new occasions teach new duties’’ and ‘‘time makes ancient good uncouth.’’
Brief History The history of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is complicated not only by the existence of its two sister foundations – with which it is often confused – but also be several changes of name and function. The Foundation has its origins in the Village Trust established by Joseph
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Rowntree in 1904 to build new communities, starting with New Earswick near York. In the 1950s the Trustees of the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust wanted to use their resources for a wider agenda. An Act of Parliament in 1959 enabled the trustees to widen the organization’s focus to include new research and development work in line with Rowntree’s original Memorandum. The new organization was called the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust and in its early years spent considerable sums of money on the founding of the University of York and on programs of research focused on poverty and housing. The Trust’s responsibilities for New Earswick and other housing and care developments were hived off into the Joseph Rowntree Housing Trust; although legally separate, the two organizations share the same trustees and staff. In 1988 the name of the Trust changed again to become the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and the Foundation’s assets increased considerably with the purchase by Nestle of the Foundation’s Rowntree plc shares. The Foundation continued its emphasis on poverty, housing, and care, increasing its spending on research and development work, publishing and dissemination, and policy and practice influence. The Foundation was one of the first in the United Kingdom to recognize that research alone would not lead to change and that it was necessary to ‘‘translate’’ research findings into short, accessible briefing papers for the media and policy makers and to actively disseminate these.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas In the Winter 2008 edition of its magazine Search (p. 36), the Foundation describes its purpose as ‘‘to search for evidence and demonstrate solutions in order to influence policy and practice about: people experiencing poverty and disadvantage; the homes and communities in which they live; and the services and support that foster well-being and citizenship.’’ Its key themes are: poverty, empowerment, and place. In addition to the programs of work above, the Foundation has recently conducted a consultation on ‘‘today’s social evils’’ (www.socialevils.org.uk).
Activities The Foundation’s key activities are informing, demonstrating and influencing. It works by commissioning research, convening around issues, developing costed and practical solutions, evaluating practice and learning from it, demonstrating primarily via the work of the Housing Trust influencing via publications, convening, meetings with policy makers and practitioners, and offering fellowships to journalists on issues of concern to the Foundation.
Structure and Governance The Foundation is governed by ten trustees drawn from a variety of disciplines and background. Trustees are appointed alternately by the Trustees and by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). It employs around seven directors, each with support staff, and has offices in York and London.
Funding The Foundation has capital of around £270 million, and spends around £10 million annually in grantmaking and support costs.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Foundation is widely regarded as having had a significant impact on policy and practice in relation to housing, care and poverty. The work it funds receives wide media coverage and debate – largely due to both the Foundation’s reputation and the active dissemination policy it pursues.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Quakers ▶ Rowntree, Joseph
References/Further Readings Leat, D. (2005). Foundations and policy involvement: creating options. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Smith, T. (Ed.) (2004). The Joseph Rowntree Inheritance 1904–2004. York: Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust/Joseph Rowntree Foundation/ Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd.
Jubilee 2000 MARK HAMILTON
Address of Organization Jubilee Debt Campaign (UK) www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/ Jubilee Research (UK) www.jubileeresearch.org/ Jubilee South Secretariat (Philippines) www.jubileesouth.org/ Jubilee USA Network (US) www.jubileeusa.org/
Introduction Jubilee 2000 (J2000) was a time-limited advocacy campaign mobilized by 170+ organizations in 40 countries in
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the late 1990s calling for cancellation of ‘‘poor’’ countries’ debt by the year 2000.
by its non-bureaucratic structure and time-limited commitment, which led to organizational dissolution by 2001.
Brief History
Accomplishments
J2000 called on leaders of donor nations to ‘‘cancel the unpayable debt of the world’s poorest countries by the year 2000 under a fair and transparent process.’’ The campaign’s mission was linked to the biblical ‘‘Year of Jubilee,’’ when ‘‘those enslaved because of debts are freed, lands lost because of debt are returned, and community torn by inequality is restored.’’
Regarding participation, J2000 created partnerships bridging religious and ideological divides. The campaign garnered support from celebrities, politicians, church leaders, and everyday citizens. Most participants were first-time activists, and J2000 leveraged its ‘‘big tent’’ for enhanced credibility and exposure. Regarding policy impact, rich countries agreed to write off more than US$100 billion in debt, but it took a successor campaign (discussed below) to secure wholesale debt relief commitments for the poorest nations. By 2008, approximately US$88 billion of this debt had been cancelled. Regarding legacy, J2000 left its mark with a campaign style incorporating a clear vision, young base, faith-based language, celebrity advocacy, loose solidarity networks, and expertise with global communications. The successor ‘‘Make Poverty History’’/‘‘One Campaign’’ movement used similar strategies and networks to advocate continued debt relief and increased development spending around the globe.
Activities
Cross-References
Roots of J2000 can be traced to the Debt Crisis Network, an association of NGOs organizing around debt relief during the late 1980s. By the early 1990s, Martin Dent, a UK professor, conceptualized J2000’s moral-religious frame and began his work with Bill Peters, former High Commissioner in Malawi, along with a consortium of UK-based NGOs. In 1996, J2000 opened its first office with support from the World Development Movement, Christian Aid, Tear Fund, and Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, among other groups.
Mission
The J2000 network undertook a wide range of activities in the late 1990s to raise awareness and lobby global policymakers. The movement secured 24 million signatures on its worldwide petition, the first of its kind. In 1998, 70,000 supporters formed a human chain in Birmingham, UK, encircling a summit meeting of G8 leaders. Similar actions linked around the world in the countdown to the new millennium. J2000 utilized celebrity promotions as a public relations tool. In 1999, U2’s Bono, Muhammad Ali, and other stars plugged the campaign at the Brit Awards, and later that year, the Pope received a high profile J2000 delegation.
Structure and Governance J2000 featured solidarity ties between activist networks in the North and South. The movement was held together by a common mandate in the J2000 petition and was defined
▶ Advocacy ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Make Poverty History ▶ Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Barrett, M. (Ed.) (2000). The world will never be the same again. Jubilee 2000 Coalition, from http://www.jubileeresearch.org/jubilee2000/ final/index.html. Busby, J.W. (2007). Bono made Jesse Helms cry: Jubilee 2000, debt relief, and moral action in international politics. International Studies Quarterly, 51, 247–275. Dent, M., Peters, B., & Judd, F. (1999). The crisis of poverty and debt in the third world. Aldershot: Ashgate. Mayo, M. (2005). The world will never be the same again? Reflecting on the experiences of Jubilee 2000, mobilizing globally for the remission of unpayable debts. Social Movement Studies, 4(2), 139–154.
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K Kaiser, Henry John DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Henry J. Kaiser was born in 1882 in Sprout Brook, New York. At the age of 13, he left school to begin working, and would one day become one of the world’s most renowned industrialists. In 1914 he formed a road-paving firm, which pioneered the use of heavy construction machinery. His boundless energy, imagination, and optimism were reflected in his company’s reputation for speed, efficiency, and economy. In 1931 he joined with several other large contractors to build the Hoover, Bonneville, and Grand Coulee dams. He also expanded into sand, gravel, and cement production. When the United States entered World War II, he decided to apply his company’s construction skills to shipbuilding. By 1945 the company had built 1,490 vessels, establishing new records for speed. During this period, Kaiser built the first integrated steel plant on the West Coast, a factory which supplied material for his wartime manufacturing. During the dam construction in the 1930s, the massive building projects and large labor forces created a demand for work health plans and medical care. In 1945, Kaiser – along with physician Sidney R. Garfield – founded Kaiser Permanente, an integrated managed care organization that has become the largest managed care organization in the United States. Kaiser died in 1967 in Honolulu, Hawaii. When he died, after 55 years in business, he had enterprises running in 50 countries.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Kaiser and his wife Bess established the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation in 1948 with the goal of meeting ‘‘the unmet health care needs of the citizenry.’’ One of Henry Kaiser’s favorite sayings was ‘‘find a need and fill it,’’ and that’s what the Foundation has tried to do. Today, Kaiser has an endowment of over half a billion dollars and an operating budget of over $40 million per year. The Foundation is a nonprofit, private operating foundation
focusing on the major health care issues facing the United States, with a growing role in global health. Unlike grantmaking foundations, Kaiser develops and runs its own research and communications programs, sometimes in partnership with other nonprofit research organizations or major media companies. One of Kaiser’s proudest achievements of this period was his medical care plan, begun for employees in 1942 and made public in 1945. In response to his focus on workers’ health and labor union concerns, he was presented the AFL-CIO’s Murray-Green Award for achievements in health and welfare in 1965.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Operating
References/Further Readings Adams, S. (1997). Mr. Kaiser goes to Washington: The rise of a government entrepreneur. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Foster, M. (1989). Henry J. Kaiser: Builder in the modern American West. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Heiner, A. (1989). Henry J. Kaiser, American empire builder: An insider’s view. New York: P. Lang.
Kauffman, Ewing Marion ▶ Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
Kellogg, William Keith REGINA LIST
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1860 in Battle Creek, Michigan (United States) to a Seventh-Day Adventist pioneer family, Will Keith Kellogg went on to become an accidental inventor of breakfast cereal, a shrewd businessman, and a generous philanthropist. Leaving school at age 14, Kellogg worked
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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as a broom salesman until becoming bookkeeper and business manager at the Battle Creek Sanitarium, where his brother was chief physician. Together they stumbled upon a method to turn grain into flakes, which became popular with sanitarium visitors. In 1906, after falling out with his brother over the marketing of the tasty flakes, Kellogg founded what would become the Kellogg Company and eventually massed tremendous wealth. Along the way, as described below, Kellogg made his mark with humane business practices and generous philanthropy. He died in 1951 in his hometown.
Khaldun, Ibn ▶ Ibn Khaldun
King Baudouin Foundation ▶ Koning Boudewijn-Stichting/Fondation Roi Baudouin
Major Contributions In addition to the famous breakfast cereals that bear his name, Kellogg is perhaps best known for the founding in 1930 of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. At the time, he had been appointed by President Herbert Hoover as a member of the White House Conference on Child Health and Protection. Determined to help, he founded the Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation, which shortly thereafter became the W.K. Kellogg Foundation with a broader scope. Over his lifetime, he transferred some $66 million of his assets to the foundation and stayed involved until just before his death. By 2008, the Kellogg Foundation was one of the largest foundations in the United States. Even before establishing the foundation that bears his name, Kellogg had given millions of dollars for educational and other youth-related programs, including a school for handicapped children, a civic auditorium, a junior high school and a youth recreation center, especially in his hometown of Battle Creek. On the corporate social responsibility front, Kellogg made a significant impression during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Instead of laying off employees, Kellogg reduced the number of working hours and added an additional shift, thereby spreading the payroll among more workers. In addition, instead of cutting back, the company increased spending on advertising and created even greater demand for his products, thus, need for additional production.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Independent ▶ W.K. Kellogg Foundation
References/Further Readings Hunnicutt, B. K. (1996). Kellogg’s six-hour day. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Powell, H. B. (1956). The original has this signature: W.K. Kellogg. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. SALVATORE ALAIMO
Basic Biographical Information Martin Luther King, Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), the son of an African-American Baptist minister. King also became a minister and preached as co-pastor with his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. His education included earning a B.A. degree in Sociology from Morehouse College, a B.D. from Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, and a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University along with studies at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University. King combined his education, experience as a minister, and study of nonviolence and civil disobedience from the likes of Gandhi to lead the Civil Rights Movement in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s and become one of the most important figures in American history. His life was tragically cut short by an assassin’s bullet on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee and he was buried in Atlanta on April 9.
Major Contributions Dr. King organized the Montgomery, Alabama (USA) Bus Boycott in 1955–1956, and it resulted in the desegregation of the Montgomery bus system. This large, nonviolent protest influenced King and other civil rights leaders to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957 which coordinated protest activities across the South through nonviolent mass action. King served as their President from 1957 to 1968. In August 1963, Dr. King led the March on Washington, the first large-scale integrated protest march, in Washington, DC (USA) where he delivered his famous
Klein, Naomi
‘‘I Have A Dream’’ speech. King’s work heavily influenced federal legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed by President Lyndon Johnson that forbade discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Later that year on December 10, Dr. King was recognized on the world stage for his efforts in nonviolence, civil disobedience and promoting peace when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway. King’s work also influenced the Voting Rights Act signed by President Johnson on August 6, 1965. In May 1966 Dr. King read an antiwar statement concerning the Vietnam War at a large Washington protest rally and served as cochairman of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam. King’s position on the war was most detailed in his 1967 book, The Trumpet of Conscience. Dr. King understood poverty’s role in civil rights and in November, 1967 with the SCLC formed the Poor People’s Campaign whose purpose was to represent and address problems of poor blacks and whites. King supported striking Memphis sanitation workers and led 6,000 protesters through downtown on March 28, 1968. Six days later, Dr. King gave his last speech, ‘‘I’ve Been to the Mountain Top’’ at Mason Temple in Memphis. King’s legacy lives on through the advancement of civil rights in the United States, and in the advancement of freedom and opportunity for African Americans and all citizens. Dr. King’s work and legacy have carried on through the service people engage in for social change and civil society all over the world. King in 1963 said, ‘‘That seemingly elementary decision set in motion what we know now as civilization. At the heart of all that civilization has meant and developed ‘community’ – the mutually cooperative and voluntary venture of man to assume a semblance of responsibility for his brother.’’
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Human Rights ▶ Gandhi, Mohandas ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings King, Jr., Martin Luther. (1986). A testament of hope: The essential writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. In J. M. Washington (Ed.). San Francisco: Harper & Row. King, Jr., Martin Luther. & Carson, C. (2001). The autobiography of Martin Luther King. New York: Grand Central Publishing. King, Jr., Martin Luther. (1967). The trumpet of conscience. New York: Harper & Row. Pastan, A. (2004). Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: DK Publishing. Smith, K. L., & Zepp, I. G., Jr. (1974). Search for the beloved community: The thinking of Martin Luther King, Jr. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press.
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Klein, Naomi PATRICK BOND
Basic Biographical Information Naomi Klein was born on 8 May, 1970, in Montreal, Quebec (Canada), the daughter of a US couple who went into exile during the Vietnam War era. She studied at University of Toronto where she edited a student paper, wrote for the Globe and Mail, and edited This Magazine, before becoming an independent writer, speaker, and organizer. Her major written works are NoLogo (2000) and Shock Doctrine (2007), and in between she published a collection of articles (Fences and Windows, 2002). Alongside her husband, journalist Avi Lewis, she produced a film about factory occupations in Buenos Aires during the early 2000s, The Take (2004). She has been given columns in the major left-liberal periodicals in the United States, Cananda, and Britain, and polls by American Prospect and Foreign Policy rank her amongst the dozen most influential public intellectuals in the world.
Major Contributions Klein has roots in the ‘‘autonomist’’ and anarchist traditions of anticapitalist cultural and Third World labour/ community organizing. Amongst youth activists, her assault on corporate power and the impact of branding on social consciousness resonated strongly, in part because her own vernacular reflected a personal background, as she put it, of a reformed ‘‘mall rat.’’ NoLogo sold more than a million copies, and was translated into 30 languages. Klein’s eloquence, openness, and innocence made radicalism far more compelling to mainstream audiences. Yet she never accepted the trappings of the media superstar she became, and regularly donated book royalties to activist projects in the most militant sites of social justice struggles, at which she invariably appeared in a supporting role. In a major lecture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal Centre for Civil Society in 2002, Klein rejected ‘‘civil society’’ as a concept, calling for more ‘‘civil disobedience’’ to shake up ruling elites. Still, after a hostile interview on BBC’s Hard Talk TV show, she and Lewis conceded (in The Take) that much more than rejectionist analysis was needed. Hence she moved to Argentina and reflected on worker takeovers of factories. What became apparent then was the extent to which cooperation amongst
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occupied factories and occasional necessary deals with the state compel a more sustained social organizing project. That appeared to take Klein from the vigorous autonomist tradition celebrating insurgencies to a more measured strategy that, by 2007, was self-described ‘‘democratic socialist’’ in nature. Not only was she instrumental in antiwar analysis and strategy, the crash of the US economy and other Northern financial markets in 2008 gave Klein’s Shock Doctrine a renewed relevance. Her critique of Milton Friedman’s economics begins in Chile where it was applied by the dictator Pinochet. It moves to sites including the Malvinas war of 1982 between Argentina and Britain, China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, Eastern Europe during the 1990s, the 9/11 attacks, the 2003 war on Iraq, the 2004 tsunami, the 2005 Katrina hurricane, and postapartheid South Africa. For Klein, the psychological dynamic in political economy is straightforward: ‘‘The bottom line is that, for economic shock therapy to be applied without restraint, some sort of additional collective trauma has always been required.’’ But in addition to conservative critics from The Economist, New Republic and Cato Institute, a few leftists (in Counterpunch.org and the Left Business Observer) have asked whether Klein’s new emphasis on extraeconomic coercion – as a prerequisite for neoliberal capitalist resurgence – is too mechanical and reductionist. However, renewed interest in Rosa Luxemburg’s theory of imperialism, the ‘‘articulation of modes of production’’ literature, and David Harvey’s recent work on ‘‘accumulation by dispossession’’ together suggest that Klein’s parallel work is well grounded in serious political economy.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Civic Action ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Social Change Organizations ▶ Social Justice ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Klein, N. (2000). No logo: No space, no choice, no jobs. New York: Picador. Klein, N. (2002). Fences and windows: Dispatches from the front lines of the globalization debate. New York: Picador. Klein, N. (2007). The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism. New York: Picador.
Klon/Jawor Association MICHAŁ NOWOSIELSKI
Address of Organization ul. Szpitalna 5/5 00-031 Warszawa Poland www.klon.org.pl
Introduction The Klon/Jawor Association is one of the most important Polish infrastructural organizations. Dedicated to ‘‘the values of an open, creative, self-organizing society,’’ it supports other Polish organizations and citizen initiatives by providing information and counseling.
Brief History Klon/Jawor was originally founded in 1990 as the Klon/ Jawor Information Bank on Nongovernmental Organizations Bank Informacji o Organizacjach Pozarza˛dowych Klon/Jawor), operated by the Bez Wzgle˛du na Niepogode˛ Foundation. Since 2000, it has functioned as an independent association.
Mission, Objectives, and Focus Areas The main assumption underlying Klon/Jawor’s mission is that ‘‘strong, competent organizations empower people to independently solve problems.’’ This determines the association’s focus on collecting and disseminating information about and for the third sector in Poland. Among the most crucial objectives of Klon/Jawor, two are undoubtedly the most important: collecting data on the Polish third sector, and providing nongovernmental organizations with information, knowledge, and reflections concerning the most important issues.
Activities Because of its focal points, Klon/Jawor is mainly involved in projects concerning the gathering and dissemination of information. One branch of the association’s activities is research into the Polish third sector and its environment. Klon/Jawor publishes annual reports on nongovernmental organizations and their situation, as well as reports on volunteering and philanthropy, based on representative surveys. Other research areas are: social economy and relations between the Polish third sector and public administration. Klon/Jawor took part in several international
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research projects like Civil Society Index, NGO Sustainability Index, and The Johns Hopkins University Comparative Non-profit Sector Project. Another major branch of activity is the maintenance of the most comprehensive database of Polish nongovernmental organizations and civil institutions – a database with more than 140,000 entries. Apart from that, Klon/Jawor provides NGOs with information on the most vital issues – law, social assistance, funding opportunities, and many more. This information is disseminated through the ngo.pl portal (www.ngo.pl), a monthly magazine entitled gazeta.ngo.pl, a series of brochures and other publications, such as ‘‘Warto Wiedziec´ Wie˛cej’’ (‘‘Worth Knowing More’’) and ‘‘Poznaj Swoje Prawa’’ (‘‘Know Your Rights’’), as well as through an information service and infoline which gives advice to more than 5,000 callers annually.
Gumkowska, M., & Herbst, J. (2006). Podstawowe fakty o organizacjach pozarza˛dowych. Raport z badania 2006 (Non-governmental organizations – Basic facts. Research report 2006). Warszawa, Poland: Klon/Jawor. Klon/Jawor (2007). Jak załoz˙yc´ stowarzyszenie? (How to establish association?) Warszawa, Poland: Klon/Jawor. Kwiatkowska, B. (2007). Jak załoz˙yc´ fundacje˛? (How to establish foundation?) Warszawa, Poland: Klon/Jawor.
Structure and Governance
Box 16066 SE-103 22 Stockholm Sweden www. wallenberg.com/kaw
Klon/Jawor employs about 20 people in three units, managing three different programs: the Social Information Programme, the Third Sector Research Programme, and the Portal ngo.pl programme. The association as a whole is managed by six-person board, with Ula Krasnode˛bska as chairperson.
Funding The activities of Klon/Jawor are funded mainly by donations intended for particular projects, which are provided by various foundations and institutions. Among the sponsors of Klon/Jawor are the Polish-American Freedom Foundation, the Stefan Batory Foundation, the Civic Initiatives Fund, and the European Commission. From these sources the association received around two million złotys ($700,000) in 2007. Additionally, Klon/Jawor has a source of income from selling products and services, amounting to about 200,000 złotys ($70,000) in 2007.
Major Accomplishments According to the 2006 Gemius Survey, the ngo.pl portal reached 12th place in the rankings of the most popular noncommercial portals in Poland.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe
References/Further Readings Baczko, A., & Ogrocka, A. (2008). Wolontariat, Filantropia i 1%. Raport z badan´ 2007 (Voluntary work, charity and 1%. Research report 2007). Warszawa, Poland: Klon/Jawor.
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Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse ANAEL LABIGNE
Address of Organization
Introduction The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, established in Stockholm in 1917, focuses on financing scientific research, mainly in the field of technical and natural science. Universities, academies and similar educational institutions are eligible for grants, especially when their research promises significant potential.
Brief History The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation was established in 1917 by the banker and politician Knut Agathon Wallenberg and his wife Alice Nickelsen, who married in 1878. Knut Wallenberg was the Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs from 1914 to 1917 and the chairman of the board of Stockholm’s Enskilda Bank, the first private Swedish bank, founded in 1856 by his father Andre´ Oscar Wallenberg. The foundation started with an initial endowment of 20 million Swedish crowns. The Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation and the Marcus and Amalia Wallenberg Foundation are known as the ‘‘Wallenberg Foundations.’’
Mission, Objectives and Activities The purpose of the foundation is to ‘‘promote scientific research, teaching and/or education beneficial to the Kingdom of Sweden,’’ which explains why most of the grants are given to Swedish universities and academies. In 2007, grants of 941 million Swedish crowns were awarded for the financial support of more than 100 different projects.
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Around 40% of the Foundation’s grants are devoted to financing expensive scientific equipment needed in the technical, natural science and biomedical fields. The Foundation also initiates fellowship programs and finances research projects. The Foundation supports, among others, the Universities of Lund, Uppsala and Stockholm in research areas as diverse as the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and the use of solar energy for hydrogen production. In a historically social-democratic oriented relationship between private and public investment as exists in Sweden, the Foundation often found itself forced to defend social investments in sectors such as education and health. The Wallenberg Foundation has had to legitimize its power and influence within Swedish society through transparency and accountability.
Structure and Governance The foundation is governed by a Chairman, which has been a Wallenberg family member since its inception, a Vice-chairman, an Executive director, a Principal’s representative and five directors with responsibilities for more specialized areas. The foundation is not financed by any government programs.
Funding In 2007, the Foundation reported holding assets valued at 48.5 billion Swedish crowns. Over the Foundation’s long history, grants totaling some 11.7 billion Swedish crowns have been made.
Cross-References
▶ Foundation, Family ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking
References/Further Readings Wijkstro¨m, F., & Einarsson, S. (2004). Foundations in Sweden. Their scope, roles & visions. Stockholm, Sweden: The Economic Research Institute, the Stockholm School of Economics.
Koning Boudewijn-Stichting/Fondation Roi Baudouin BRAM VERSCHUERE
Address of Organization Brederodestraat 21 1000 Brussels Belgium http://www.kbs-frb.be
Introduction The Koning Boudewijn-Stichting Fondation Roi Baudouin, (King Baudouin Foundation) is a Belgian independent public benefit foundation. It was established in 1976 when Baudouin I (1930–1993) celebrated his 25th anniversary as King of Belgium. He did not want to receive any personal gifts to mark his jubilee, so the idea of a foundation was born.
Brief History On March 31, 1976, the King Baudouin Foundation is presented to the King and the nation. The statutes of the Foundation appear in the annexes of the Moniteur Belge of 31 December 1975. In the early days the priority themes of the Foundation were selected: social aid, voluntary work, health and improving working conditions, rural planning, environment and forward-looking research, preserving cultural heritage and protecting young people. Since then, the mission of the Foundation has been continuously adapted to emerging and new social needs and themes. After the death of King Baudouin in 1993, the Foundation decides to continue its task and activities in the spirit desired by the King. Queen Fabiola, Baudoin’s widow, accepts the honorary presidency of the King Baudouin Foundation.
Mission Generally spoken, the King Baudouin Foundation supports commitment to create greater justice, democracy and diversity in society. Its mission develops along some fields of activity like migration and multicultural society, social justice and poverty, civil society and social commitment, health, and philanthropy, in Belgium as well as in other parts of the world (e.g., Balkans and Central Africa). As said above, in developing its mission, the Foundation takes into account new and emerging social needs and challenges. As a result, the focus of its mission has somewhat shifted over time. In the early years the work focused on nine programs like the fight against poverty as well as solidarity, youth and the environment. In the 1990s, the nine programmes are recentred on five major themes: solidarity, heritage, citizenship, the environment and the future. Starting in 1999, the King Baudouin Foundation concentrates its efforts on three themes: prosperity and well-being, living together in society and personal development. During the period 2006–2008, the Foundation continues to support projects and citizens in favour of a better society.
Activities To achieve this mission, the Foundation deploys various activities and working methods. They support third party
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projects. Individuals, organizations and institutions can respond to calls for projects on specific themes. The Foundation also organizes workshops, colloquia and seminars with citizens and experts. In this sense, they want to bring together people and groups with different perspectives and backgrounds to reflect on current social problems and future themes. Further, the Foundation publishes results of their work via various media like newspapers, annual reports, research reports and newsletters. Fourthly, the Foundation is also very active in networking with government bodies and institutions, and other partners like associations, NGOs, companies and other foundations. Finally, the Foundation is an important fund-raiser through its centre for philanthropy (donations, funds, wills and legacies).
Structure and Governance The most important body is the board of governors, guided by a chairman. Board members are assigned for 8 years maximum. The board sets the main policy lines of the Foundation. The executive committee is in charge of executing the policy of the board of governors. The Foundation has approx. 50 paid employees, headed by a managing director and five directors. The managing director is member of the board of governors. This daily management receives instructions from the executive committee. Two so-called censors are designated by the board to oversee the management of successions and legacies on behalf of the Foundation. Finally, there are several committees that assist the board in financial matters, matters of remuneration and personnel, and in financially auditing the Foundation.
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Accomplishments A major accomplishment is the creation of the Centre for Philanthropy, which advises donors and intermediaries on how most effectively to allocate their funds to a social objective. The Foundation now manages over 150 funds. Besides being very active in Belgian society, the Foundation also emphasizes the European and international dimension of projects. For example, the Foundation is involved among others in favor of the protection of minorities in Central and Eastern Europe. The situation in the Balkans caused the Foundation to initiate an action favouring the rebuilding of civil society in this region. Also, the efforts of the Foundation to encourage philanthropy are succesful, as the number of funds created by individuals, associations and companies grow in a considerable way. Finally, the foundation is influential in the policy debates via their (commissioned) research and reports. For example, their ‘‘General Report on Poverty’’ of 1994, in which the results of a survey among people who are underprivileged are presented, was and is still influential today.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Independent ▶ Foundations, Operating
Konrad Adenauer Stifung MATTHIAS FREISE
Funding The Foundation started in 1975 with an endowment of one billion Belgian francs (around €24,790,000) from a collection of funds, a subsidy from the Council of Ministers and the issuing of commemorative gold medals, silver coins and special postage stamps. In addition to the large grant from the National Lottery there are donations, legacies and the funds set up by individuals, associations and companies, government missions, partnerships and project accounts. A part of the income also comes from capitalizing the Foundation’s own funds and capital. In 2007, the Foundation spent €48 million, of which 8% is for the day-to-day management (taxes, supporting costs, provisions and general overhead). The rest (92%) is for financial support of third party purposals, launching its own calls for proposals, organizing seminars and creating publications, and personnel costs associated with these projects.
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Address of Organization Rathausallee 12 D-53757 Sankt Augustin Germany www.KAF.de
Introduction The Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) is a German political foundation. It is affiliated to the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and serves as a Christian Democratic think tank by providing civic education and development aid.
Brief History KAS was founded in 1955 as the ‘‘Society for Christian Democratic Education Work’’ by a number of CDU politicians for establishing a systematic civic education program inspired by Christian Democratic values.
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In 1964, it was renamed after Konrad Adenauer (1876–1967), first chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany and longtime chairman of the CDU. KAS has two headquarters, one in Sankt Augustin near Bonn and one in Berlin.
Accomplishments
Mission
Cross-References
As a private cultural nonprofit institution, KAS is committed to the ideas and basic values of Christian Democracy. It is dedicated to offering political education, conducting fact-finding research for political projects, granting scholarships to gifted individuals, researching the history of Christian Democracy, and supporting and encouraging European unification, international understanding, and development-policy cooperation.
KAS has successfully supported democracy and freedom movements in several African, Eastern European, and South American countries. In Germany, it plays an important role as a Christian Democratic think tank.
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Foundations, Political ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Beaugrand, G. (2004). Die Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung. Eine Chronik in Berichten und Interviews mit Zeitzeugen. Sankt Augustin: KAF.
Activities To pursue its mission, KAS is active in four fields: 1. It serves as a Christian Democratic think tank through its research and consulting activities. It provides a large number of publications and has institutionalized influential discussion circles. It also operates the Archive for Christian Democratic Politics. 2. KAS maintains two civic education centers in Germany, in the cities of Eichholz and Wendgra¨ben, as well as 16 regional education institutes offering conferences, seminars, and workshops. 3. On behalf of the Federal Ministry of Science, KAS provides graduate and postgraduate scholarships to approximately 2,000 students. 4. In 2007, KAS hosted more than 200 projects in around 120 countries across four continents, with 81 field offices. They are committed to fostering democracy and the rule of law, implementing social and marketeconomic structures, and promoting human rights.
Structure and Governance KAS is a registered voluntary association. It has a total staff of 640 employees (560 in Germany, 80 abroad). Usually, the position of the chief executive chairman is filled by an eminent politician of the CDU.
Funding KAS is almost fully funded through grants from the federal budget and the German states (96% of the budget). Donations and fees contribute only to an insignificant part of the budget which amounted to approximately €105 million in 2006.
Ko¨rber, Kurt A. FREYA BRUNE
Basic Biographical Information Kurt A. Ko¨rber, son of an engineer, was born in Berlin, Germany, on September 7, 1909. He showed a great technical talent, which brought him to his first patent by the age of 15. He started studying electrical engineering in Mittweida in 1928. In 1935 he entered the ‘‘Universelle Werke’’ J.C. Mu¨ller & Co. in Dresden, of which he became the technical director 5 years later. In the 1940s, Ko¨rber started over in Hamburg with the repairing of cigarette machines and the production of manual tobacco cutters. He founded the Universelle Department, a new enterprise of the Hanseatic Lehrenbau AG (1946), through which he gained access to the Lehrenbau AG’s resources, including skilled workers. The same year he established the Hauni machine construction plant, the Ko¨rber group’s largest business division and the world’s market leader for filter cigarette and tobacco processing machines. In 1959 he launched the foundation named after him. One year later he was rewarded the honorary doctoral title of the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen. In 1961 Ko¨rber founded the ‘‘Bergedorfer Gespra¨chskreis’’ (political discussion table). In 1987, the Ko¨rber AG was established and became the group’s parent company. The next year, the correspondent foundation became the group’s owner. Kurt A. Ko¨rber received different prizes and awards, such as the Diesel-Medal in gold (1965, an
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award for pioneering inventions), and the Medal for Services to Foundations by the Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen (1983); he was granted the honorary doctoral title of the Technical University Dresden (1989) and honorary citizenship of the city of Hamburg (1991), where he died on August 10, 1992.
Major Contributions The production of filter cigarettes as well as manual tobacco cutters most probably are considered to be Kurt A. Ko¨rber’s great inventions. Throughout his life he filed more than 200 patents. However, besides his technical awards, throughout his life, Kurt A. Ko¨rber supported cultural institutions in Hamburg. Besides the support of the reconstruction of the Thalia Theater, he was highly engaged in the renovation of the Deichtorhallen (former market, today exhibition halls). Additionally, Ko¨rber worked for the promotion of young talents, education, and advancement in the scientific sector. Kurt A. Ko¨rber became famous for the founding of the Kurt A. Ko¨rber and the Hauni Foundations in 1959 and 1969, respectively, which were merged in 1981 into the Ko¨rber Foundation, initiated as a nonprofit foundation that sponsors programs in the areas of intercultural dialog, civic involvement, education, science, and culture. With the 1961 creation of the ‘‘Bergedorfer Gespra¨chskreis,’’ a 2-day meeting with approximately 30 members, Ko¨rber began supporting the international dialog between politics, science, economy, and society. Nowadays, the ‘‘Gespra¨chskreis’’ focuses on the dialog between decision makers, diplomats, and international relations experts. In 1957 he launched a foundation to support the reconstruction of the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, described Ko¨rber as ‘‘an important and even more successful entrepreneur. He was a publicly acting philanthropist with a highly idealistic public spirit.’’ He always earned a lot of money, but also committed himself to do good deeds or to incite something good. Ko¨rber was also known as ‘‘the good soul of Bergedorf.’’
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations
References/Further Readings Fest, J. C. (2002). Die großen Stifter. Lebensbilder – Zeitbilder. Mu¨nchen: Siedler Verlag. Schmid, J., & Wegner, D. (2000). Kurt A. Ko¨rber – Anna¨herungen an einen Stifter. Hamburg: Ko¨rber-Stiftung.
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Kouchner, Bernard ANAEL LABIGNE
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1939 in Avignon, France to a Jewish father and Catholic mother, Bernard Kouchner studied medicine. He turned his medical skills to humanitarian purposes, working as a volunteer physician for the Red Cross during the Biafra War in Nigeria beginning in 1968. In particular, the experience in Biafra of local hospitals and relief efforts led him and several colleagues to create Me´decins Sans Frontie`res (MSF – Doctors Without Borders) in 1971. Conflict with members of the MSF board led Kouchner and others to leave in 1980 and establish Me´decins du Monde (Doctors of the World). Kouchner later held a number of positions in the French government and international organizations. In 1988 he became Secretary of State for Humanitarian Action and later Minister of Health under several socialist governments (1992–1993; 1997–1999; and 2001–2002). And in 1999, Kofi Annan, then-Secretary General of the United Nations, appointed him the high Representative of the United Nations in Kosovo. In 2007, he was named by the right-leaning government as French Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, though he has shown more center-left leanings in the past.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Aside from his political career, Kouchner is perhaps best known as one of the founding members of Me´decins Sans Frontie`res (MSF), an international humanitarian aid organization that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in danger and later as founder of Me´decins du Monde (Doctors of the World), which has a similar mission but different approach. He was also instrumental in the establishment of ‘‘La Chaine de l’Espoir’’ (The Chain of Hope), a nonprofit association involved in making medical care for the poorest children in developing countries more accessible. The activities of ‘‘La Chaine de l’Espoir’’ were possible thanks to an international network involving multinational surgical teams, local medical staff and hospitals. As an outspoken advocate for humanitarian causes, Kouchner has promoted recognition of the ‘‘right of interference,’’ i.e., permission to intervene on an official level in the internal affairs of a state that violates its citizen’s fundamental human rights. This boils down to
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a ‘‘duty of meddling’’ in a country when human rights are obviously violated. Kouchner is the author of several books, including Charite´ business (Charity Business) (1986), in which he highlights his understanding of himself as a doctor not only trying to heal illnesses but addressing all the factors that impact a person’s health and dignity. He also co-founded the journal L’E´ve`nement with Emmanuel d’Astier and regularly worked together with the magazine Actuel to highlight humanitarian needs. Among other human rights awards, Kouchner received the Dag Hammarskjold Prize and the Prix Europa.
Cross-References
▶ Human Rights ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ Me´decins Sans Frontie`res ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Pierre, Abbe ▶ United Nations
References/Further Readings Kouchner, B. (1986). Charite´ business. Paris: Le Pre´ aux Clercs. Kouchner, B., Pierre, A., & Burnier, M. A. (1993). Dieu et les hommes. Paris: Laffont.
L La Ligue de l’Enseignement EDITH ARCHAMBAULT
Address of Organization 3 rue Re´camier 75007 Paris France www.laligue.org
Introduction The Ligue de l’Enseignement (Education League) is one of the oldest nonprofit organizations in France. It is now an umbrella of 35,000 French associations of popular education providing services in the fields of culture, sports, recreation, and continuing education. It advocates for secularity, ideological and religious neutrality, and tolerance inside the public school and more generally inside the public sphere.
Brief History Founded in 1866 by Jean Mace´, a republican journalist, the League fought for a public, lay, free of charge, and compulsory primary education that was finally voted in 1882. After this first success in the long-lasting conflict of influence on education between the state and the Catholic Church, the League reoriented toward perischool activities and civic and adult education. During World War II, the League was suppressed by the authoritarian government of Vichy and refounded after the war. It remained the champion of the lay/secular camp and the public school during the twentieth century when in the 1950s the government began to subsidize the private schools, mainly Catholic, by paying the teachers. After the boiling down of the school war during the last two decades, the League fought racism, discrimination, and social inequalities and promoted solidarity and sustainable development.
Mission and Focus Areas The first mission of the League is to complete the education given by the public school during the post-school
hours and in the holidays and vacation periods. Its first target group, of course, is youth inside and outside the school but it addresses the adult population as well, especially those who could not complete their school curricula. It advocates also for secularity/laity, fights discrimination against immigrants and other minorities, and promotes civic behavior and European citizenship. The main focus areas of the League are: affordable sports and recreation activities with an explicit reference to an access to culture for everybody; education toward solidarity, civics, and tolerance; mainstreaming of immigrant youth and their families; education toward the respect of environment; and sustainable development.
Activities To fulfill its mission, the League provides a wide range of services for youth and targets publications intended either for the teachers or for the public at large. The League gives youth the opportunity to perform arts and sports during their idle hours, inside the school or in community centers, free of charge or at a low price. The League also runs many large facilities used as holiday camps during the vacation periods or welcoming discovery classes during school time. Thus, the League is a main actor of so-called social tourism. The League also organizes linguistic exchanges, the twinning of French and foreign schools or classes, and professional and vocational training. Lastly, the League supports development projects, mainly in Africa. Through its website and many debates or publications, the League gives information and references on education, citizenship, secularism, social inclusion, and many other current issues.
Structure and Governance The Ligue de l’Enseignement is an umbrella of 22 regional and 102 departmental federations grouping more than 35,000 local associations. It includes also specialized subsidiaries for sports or social tourism. It enjoys strong ties with the main teachers’ labor union and the main parent– teacher association. The indirect membership is 2,000,000 families. The League employs 5,000 employees but local associations rely mainly on volunteers, either parents or
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teachers. Its board is composed of 26 persons, but only two women. The League is affiliated with European platforms on education and to networks or INGOs, such as Solidar and the European Civic Forum.
Funding The two main resources of the League are membership dues and users’ fees on the one hand, and public funding, either subsidies or contracts, on the other hand. Public funding includes the payment of teachers seconded by government to the League. Private donations play a more symbolic role in the League’s resources.
Major Accomplishments The impact of the Ligue de l’Enseignement on the French civil society is deep-rooted as the League played a major role in defining the French concept of secularism, which was difficult to explain to foreigners: the fight against wearing an Islamic scarf inside the school is one example. More generally, the League was, and still is, a major actor in popular education and human rights defense and one of the leaders of the nonprofit world in France. Two Nobel Peace Prizes were awarded to the second and the third presidents of the League, in 1920 and 1927 respectively: Le´on Bourgeois, who was also the first president of the Society of Nations, and Ferdinand Buisson, who founded the League of Human Rights.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Human Rights ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings Tournemire P. (2000). La Ligue de l’Enseignement. Paris: Milan.
Labor Movements/Labor Unions JU¨RGEN SCHMIDT Social Science Research Center Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Introduction The relationship between labor movements/labor unions and civil society is ambivalent. First, on the one side, labor movements had and have strong roots and traditions to
socialist and communist ideas and are therefore opposed to ideas of the liberal civil society. On the other side, labor movements were one of the driving forces that helped to integrate working classes into society by bringing participation and emancipation into segments of the population, which were previously excluded from these basic societal processes. In addition, these labor movements and labor unions acted in a very early period as internationalorientated civil societal actors. Second, labor movements/ labor unions act in a force field between fighting for the self-interests of a part of society (better working conditions for workers) and fighting for a common good (just society). Third, on the one hand, in the long run some labor movements reacted in special historical contexts with violence to enforce their interests, and parts of the labor movements developed into communist parties which neglected the right of recognition of the other. Both forms of action, violence and nonrecognition, are in contrast to civil societal engagement. On the other hand, labor movements and labor unions demanded education, knowledge, and social equality for the people and fought for civil and democratic rights – from the early labor movements in the nineteenth century until the Polish Solidarnos´´c in the 1980s. To understand labor movements/labor unions in regard to their relation to civil society, it is thus necessary to consider the specific forms of social behavior and the normative implications of the civil societal concept as well as of the labor movement organizations.
Definition In this context, civil society is understood not only as an autonomous space between state, market, and private sphere (sectoral definition), but also as a maxim of social action connected with specific values and principles (action-related definition). Among these are nonviolent conflict resolution, the ability for self-organization, civic engagement and participation, tolerance and recognition of others as well as the orientation of action to the common good (Kocka, 2004; Harris, 2006; Schmidt, 2007: 13–28). Labor movements can be defined in a broad sense as all kinds of collective actions and organizations to improve the economic, social, political, and cultural situation of working class people. The kind of degree of organization is debated: for example, to what extent can Luddism be described as a form of labor movement? Therefore, in the following, labor movements will be understood in a narrower sense and require some basic organizational structures. Labor unions are part of this understanding of labor movements. Their main focus lies on the enforcement of economic and social interests of their members, and their forms of action are related strongly to the workplace
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and the relationship between employer and employee. Despite this, labor unions integrated political aspects, such as emancipation and participation, in their work in all historical periods (Touraine et al., 1987; Ebbinghaus & Visser, 2000).
Historical Background The emergence of labor movements is related to the process of industrialization. On the one hand, protest forms like machine breaking (Luddism) came up in Great Britain in the late eighteenth century and continued in Central Europe until the 1820s. On the other hand, related with craft traditions early organizational forms of labor movements have occurred since the 1820s. Roughly speaking, the first movements acted out of the logic of protecting their traditions and long-established experiences against the intrusion of a new economic system by trying to defeat their obvious enemy, the machine. In contrast to this, the second form of labor movement tried to find new solutions challenged by capitalism and the market by initiating associational and solidarity structures. In Britain, the friendly societies developed and first forms of labor unions established in Europe in the first half of the nineteenth century. Their main task was to protect their members against illness, misfortunes of old age, and accident. In some cases, especially in Germany, the members of these organizations received travel benefits – a form of subsidy for those who became unemployed at one place and the chance for them to move to the next town. Members of these organizations were artisans and skilled workers; among the first labor unions were those of the printers (e.g., in Sweden in 1846, in Germany in 1848). But labor movements not only emerged around conflicts about labor and the workplace. Especially in Central Europe and France, revolutions originated labor movements. The Brotherhood of German Workers (Arbeiterverbru¨derung) founded in 1848 profited from the liberal spirit and the political opportunities the revolution of 1848 made available. It was a nationwide organization from the northern states of Germany to Austria with roughly 18,000 members, most of them journeymen but also including master craftsmen. It understood its purpose not only as an organization of working class interests but also as a precursor for civil, political, and human rights of the working people. In the first half of the nineteenth century socialist ideas were made public. Henri de Saint-Simon (1770–1858), Charles Fourier (1772–1837), Robert Owen (1771–1858), and Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) formulated and published their works about ideal and equal societies in words of cooperative and utopian socialism. About this time
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Marxist ideas won first influence on labor movements, but ideas of cooperatives by Owen or Hermann SchulzeDelitzsch (1808–1883) in Germany determined practical work of the labor movements in this period, too. Although the discourse of class arose in this period, the real breakthrough for Marxism came in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. In the second half of the nineteenth century, especially in the years after 1880, labor movements developed into mass organizations with multifunctional purposes. Labor unions fought for higher wages, shorter working times, and better working conditions. Labor union membership rose to more than 2 million in Great Britain; 800,000 in France; nearly 700,000 in Germany; and 172,000 in Spain in 1900. Labor parties separated from liberal parties – in Germany already early in the 1860s, in England quite late in 1893 with the Independent Labor Party – and found their ways to parliament. Political mobilization and participation grew. In Germany, in elections to the Reichstag, the turnout of voters increased from 71% in 1890 to 85% in 1907; in France, the turnout reached in the 1902 elections was 80%. Local labor associations offered a variety of cultural infrastructure such as bicycles, sport, and gymnastic clubs, festivals, or discussion and debating evenings. As a whole, a quite homogeneous milieu, especially in towns, was established, which included working class families and generations from skilled workers and journeymen, in part unskilled workers, but also small shopkeepers, and master craftsmen (Thompson, 1963; Ritter & Tenfelde, 1992; Welskopp, 2000; Geary, 2001). The first half of the twentieth century brought severe crisis to the labor movement. The radical split between communist and socialist/social democratic became obvious throughout Europe; the nationalistic eruption before and in World War I destroyed the idea of an international, peace-keeping labor movement; the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe in the name of communism showed high potential of violence in radical left movements; and severe economic crisis in the first years after World War I, and in the late 1920s, weakened labor movements. On the other hand, in the 1920s socialist and social democratic parties came into government responsibility for the first time, for example, in Austria from 1918 to 1920 the Sozialdemokratische Arbeiterpartei, in Great Britain in 1924 the Labour Party, in the same year in France the different socialist parties of the cartel des gauches, and in the German Weimar Republic the Social Democrats. In Norway, the labor party (Det Norske Arbeiterparti) appointed in 1928 for the first time the prime minister, and in Sweden the labor movement began its exceptional success in the 1920s, which lasted until the
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1980s. While labor movements in the nineteenth century as opposite movements and critics of the existing political systems can be seen at least in part distinct from the state, this boundary blurred in regard of the labor parties. But this interaction allowed labor movements to extend welfare systems and to open ways of integration for workers (education, upward social mobility, urban planning, etc.). Between 1800 and 1950 labor workforce, manual work and wage laborer increased continuously throughout Europe. In the second half of the twentieth century this development decelerated and – at least in some states – finally stopped. Manual work was outsourced in countries out of Europe, whereas workplaces in the tertiary sector increased. Class consciousness and conflicts along class lines diminished; social milieus began to dissolve. One consequence of these developments was a decrease in labor union membership in a lot of ‘‘pioneer’’ countries of labor movements. The rate of unionization reduced for example in Great Britain from 52.2% (1980) to 29.5% (2000), in Germany from 33.6% to 21.6%, and in France from 17.1% to 9.0%. It seems that participation via solidarity structures in labor movements lost attraction in societies which kept up values like individuality, selffulfillment and consumerism. But this argumentation has its limits if one looks at the north European countries. In Sweden, Denmark, and Finland the rate of unionization increased from a very high level (about 70% in 1980) to about 80% in 2000 (reasons for this success in these countries are the mixture of central and decentral union organizations, a lasting compromise between labor and capital since the 1930s, and that unions administer unemployment benefits) (Visser, 1994: 18; Ebbinghaus & Visser, 2000; Judt, 2006: 404–408). In Eastern Europe labor unions followed different paths, especially in the 1980s. On the one side, in the German Democratic Republic the Freie Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund (Free German Trade Union Confederation) played no role in the dissident movement. On the other side, the Polish Solidarnos´´c (Solidarity) was the spearhead of civil societal opposition movements. A second fundamental difference has to be considered. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, labor movements moved between the two poles, reformism and radicalism. After World War II, labor unions went the way to reformism in Europe; even in Western communist strongholds like Italy, this process was irreversible, although in the late 1960s and in the 1970s so-called Eurocommunism in Western European countries won some influence and forms of militant protests occurred in the workplace. Unions in the former communist bloc before 1989 had to subordinate under the domination of the
communist parties and ended in fossilized structures (except Poland). For civil societal engagement that characterized the development of labor movements in the nineteenth century, there was no space (Berger & Broughton, 1995; Regini, 1994; Ebbinghaus & Visser, 2000; Crowley & Ost, 2001; Schroeder, 2003; Judt, 2006).
Key Issues Key issues can be recognized from two different points of view: in the perspective of labor movements and in the perspective of civil society. One central discussion studying labor movements was and is how class consciousness and class identity arose. While, roughly speaking, the one side belonging to a more or less Marxist class concept saw one fundamental reason in the economic sphere of production, the other side argued from a point of view that emphasized the cultural background as decisive for the formation of a working class. It is known that organized labor movements did not have their social basis in the poorest part of society or of working people. Workers who organized themselves were skilled and had traditions in organizations – they had something to lose, and so they wanted either to defend their status or to find new solutions for the changing situation. Within this complex debate, different approaches can be found to explain class-formation processes. Some emphasized social upheavals and protests, while others the development of a merchant capitalism which influenced a lot of artisan branches; some highlighted the influence of experiences at the workplace, and others, the fundamental role of urbanization with its processes of social segregation: some stressed the political contexts and others the establishing of a homogeneous milieu. It is obvious that the proletariat working in factories was not the driving force and starting point of labor movements in the nineteenth century (Geary, 2001: 123–126). This leads to one fundamental aspect regarding labor movements under civil societal auspices: the relationship of exclusion and inclusion within labor movements. Until the late nineteenth century, labor movements were dominated by skilled male workers. Unskilled workers and women had little access to labor organizations. For example, early labor unions in a lot of branches like cigar and printing industry tried to exclude female workers from the workshop. Permeated by a masculine culture the meetings offered no attraction for women (Canning, 1996). In the long run it became more and more obvious that labor unions fought for the interests of job owners. Although unions propagate a policy of full employment as their central aim and, in Germany after 2000, parts of labor unions supported the protests against cutting
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welfare benefits for unemployed, they found no strategy to integrate the unemployed in their organizations. In contrast to this development labor unions are still schools for learning a vivid democratic and civil societal culture. Discussing problems of society in meetings, organizing nonviolent protests and strikes, encouraging workers on shop-floor level to stand for their interests and rights are core elements for participation and emancipation processes of individuals. At least for Germany, Austria, and the North European states the close relation to the state has to be considered, too, if thinking about labor movements within the context of civil society. As mentioned in the historical background, labor unions got more and more involved in the intervening welfare state. While it is clear that civil society cannot substitute for the modern welfare system, especially labor unions have to weigh carefully their role within this framework. On the one hand, they can act with their strong and well-developed bureaucratic apparatus as partner of an intervening state and, for example, support strictly regulated tariff systems for their members. This would diminish their quality as civil societal actor. On the other hand, they can show a willingness to give room for more initiatives of one’s own and to repel overregulation. Individual proactive initiatives would not be the task, but new forms of cooperative and solidarity structures have to be found – this would strengthen labor movements as civil society protagonists (Kocka, 2003). Finally, labor movements did not and do not follow market rules and norms. They do not follow the logic of profit, of supply and demand. This is an asset within defining civil society (different assumptions can be found by Keane, 1998). But it is not only this distance from the market within a sectoral definition of civil society that characterizes labor movements. Their roots lie in ideas, thoughts, values, and lifestyle alternatives to capitalist mechanisms. With this tradition labor movements can become a focal point for those movements and nongovernmental organizations that resist the triumphal procession of capitalism after 1990. Summarizing the key issues, one can state that contemporary labor movements (in the Western world) are situated more than their precursors in a gray zone and intersection area between civil society on the one side, and the state, the market, and the private sphere on the other side. Labor movements are still central agencies to learn skills which are necessary for civil societal engagement (self-organization, providing a democratic and discursive structure within their organizations, nonviolent conflict solving, learning protest forms, emancipation, and participation), and it is necessary to remember that it was
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their fight for shorter working time, higher payment, and better education which gave working people the resources of time, money, and knowledge to act in civil societal movements (Schmidt, 2008). But labor movements, especially labor unions, have to be careful that they do not act as bureaucratic institutions or that they are perceived from the outside perspective as mere apparatus.
Future Directions It remains a central problem for labor movements and labor unions how to react to processes of globalization. ‘‘Flexible people’’ in the Western world described by Richard Sennett (1998) are difficult to organize, and it is difficult to create solidarity structures when working people change or have to change their work often, are isolated at their workplace, and have all opportunities to live an individual life independent from any form of workplace milieus. In contrast, in developing countries hard manual work in factories is concentrated but there exist only limited structures to transform these experiences in labor policies. In Eastern European countries where a lot of industry has been relocated, first successes of labor movements can be found. The unions build shop committees and organize strikes for higher wages. Workers in Romania, for example, in the ‘‘Dacia’’ factories, a subsidiary enterprise of French ‘‘Renault,’’ are no longer satisfied with getting a job. They do not want to be the cheap workbench for Europe, but want to increase their standard of living and have the same rights as their Western colleagues – labor movements are not yet at their end. This is also one perspective for future research. On the one hand, labor movements have to be considered in their national, regional, local, and company contexts. This raises questions about what concepts of labor and employment mean in different parts of the world. Permanent employment relations are in developing countries more the exception than the rule; in Western Europe permanent jobs are declining and limited job contracts are on the rise. What in the nineteenth century in regard to little master craftsmen was debated as ‘‘precarious autonomy,’’ is in new forms back at stake. A lot of these processes are results of transnationalization. Labor, production, industry, and labor movements therefore, on the other hand, have to be regarded from a point of view which includes transnational influences (van der Linden, 2003). This opens the possibility to see to what extent civil societal resources expanded or decreased in the process of globalization. If labor movements react in these fields of societal and workplace conflicts they have to be seen as important actors within the worldwide net of civil societal associations.
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Cross-References
▶ Civil society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Collective Action ▶ Fourier, Charles ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ Owen, Robert ▶ Participation ▶ Proudhon, Pierre ▶ Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri ▶ Schulze-Delitzsch, Franz ▶ Self-Organization ▶ Social Movements ▶ Solidarity
Schroeder, W. (2003). Die Gewerkschaften in Politik und Gesellschaft in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Ein Handbuch. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Sennett, R. (1998). The corrosion of character. The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. New York: Norton. Thompson, E. P. (1963). The making of the English working class. London: Gollancz. Touraine, A., Wieviorka, M., & Dubet, F. (1987). The workers’ movement. Cambridge/Paris: Cambridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme. Visser, J. (1994). The strength of union movements in advanced capitalist democracies: Social and organizational variations. In M. Regini (Ed.), The future of labour movement (pp. 17–52). London: Sage. Welskopp, T. (2000). Das Banner der Bru¨derlichkeit. Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie vom Vorma¨rz bis zum Sozialistengesetz. Bonn: Dietz.
Law, Foundations References/Further Readings Berger, S., & Broughton, D. (Eds.) (1995). The force of labour. The Western European labour movement and the working class in the twentieth century. Oxford/Washington, DC: Berg. Canning, K. (1996). Languages of class and gender. Female factory work in Germany, 1850–1914. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Crowley, S., & Ost, D. (2001). Workers after workers’ state. Labor and politics in postcommunist Eastern Europe. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Ebbinghaus, B., & Visser, J. (Eds.) (2000). Trade unions in Western Europe since 1945. New York: Grove’s Dictionaries. Geary, D. (2001). Working class. In P. N. Stearns (Ed.), Encyclopedia of European social history. From 1350 to 2000 (Vol. 3, pp. 121–138). Detroit: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Harris, J. (2006). Civil society. In R. A. W Rhodes, S. A. Binder, & B. A. Rockman (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of political institutions (pp. 131–143). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Judt, T. (2006). Die Geschichte Europas seit dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Mu¨nchen/Wien: Hanser. Keane, J. (1998). Civil society. Old images, new visions. Cambridge: Polity. Kocka, J. (2003). Gewerkschaften und Zivilgesellschaft – Dimensionen eines Konfliktverha¨ltnisses. Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte, 54: 10–11, 610–616. Kocka, J. (2004). Civil society from a historical perspective. European Review, 12(1), 65–79. Linden, M. v. d. (2003). Transnational labour history. Explorations. Aldershot: Ashgate. Regini, M. (Ed.) (1994). The future of labour movements. London: Sage. Ritter, G. A., & Tenfelde, K. (1992). Arbeiter im Deutschen Kaiserreich 1871 bis 1914. Bonn: Dietz. Schmidt, J. (2007). Zivilgesellschaft. Bu¨rgerschaftliches Engagement von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart. Texte und Kommentare. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt. Schmidt, J. (2008). The early German labour movement as a representative of civil society: Participation, emancipation and learning democracy in 19th century Germany (ca. 1848–1880). In S. Eliaeson (Ed.), Building civil society and democracy in New Europe (pp. 293–315). Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
TYMEN VAN DER PLOEG VU-University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Introduction Generally, a foundation can be characterized as an amount of assets managed by an independent management board that is set aside to be used for the interests of those other than the establishers and/or members of the management board. In most countries, this separation of assets from the original owner is specifically recognized when the assets are used for purposes of public benefit. The concept of foundation is connected with the so-called non-distribution constraint, which means that establishers and board members may not receive profit from the foundation. The legal position of the foundation is different, dependent on the legal family to which the country belongs. In European-continental countries and in former colonies of these countries, foundations are a separate legal person form, which can be distinguished from the other legal form for nonprofit organizations, the associations, by their lack of (voting) members. In the Anglo-American legal family, the foundation is not a specific form of legal person but is a private organization (that may have different legal forms) that enjoys specific fiscal treatment because of its public-benefit (charitable) character. In the Islamic-law family, the term foundation can be used for the legal form wakf, which is a trust-like institution (see further under ‘‘Wakfs’’). The foundation is normally established for an unlimited time.
Law, Foundations
There is no general trend around the world as to how foundations are regulated. In Anglo-American law, foundations are merely regulated by tax law. They enjoy tax facilities because of their public-benefit character. In the European-continental civil-law family the public benefit character is in some countries required, in other countries not. There are also big differences in the way of regulation: from a purely civil-law regulation to a merely administrative law regulation. In addition to the regulation of legal persons, in most countries of this legal family, there exist tax facilities for public-benefit foundations. Normally, a foundation is a private organization, independent from the government. As such the freedom of association and of speech implies the right to establish a foundation and restricts the legitimacy of heavy governmental influence. There is, however, also the practice that foundations are established and controlled by governmental agencies to perform public tasks, apart from the budget. We will not deal with this type of foundation (see ‘‘Foundations, public law or government’’).
Definition Foundation law is the law regarding the establishment, administration, and supervision of foundations as a legal person and the law regarding the conditions under which organizations enjoy tax facilities because of their publicbenefit character. The law on charities is not included here (see ‘‘Charity Law’’). Foundation law – regarding the legal person – is often part of the civil code concerning its civil-law aspects or is laid down in a separate law, in which also public-law aspects are regulated. In civil-law countries, the foundation has clearly a different governance system than the association. In the latter legal person form there is always a general meeting of members with certain competences concerning the internal structure, the appointment, and dismissal of members of the management board and other important issues. With regard to foundations, the law provides generally for only one body: the management board, but the articles of association may provide for other bodies, as long as they do not have comparative power like the general meeting of members in the association. In countries from the Anglo-American law family (United Kingdom, Ireland, United States, and former English colonies), such a distinction between associations and foundations does not exist. Foundation law is mostly rather meager with regard to governance rules; most is left to the establisher(s). In the United States, the term ‘‘private foundation’’ is used in tax law for legal entities (mainly nonprofit
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corporations) or trusts with a charitable purpose that receive support from an individual or a family (group). They may be ‘‘grant-making’’ or ‘‘operating.’’ Private foundations are under a less favorable fiscal regime than so-called public charities that are supported publicly. The terms private and public in this classification is clearly different from the civil-law use of these terms (private: from citizens; public: from the government). In certain countries, there is a special foundation law for enterprise foundations. There are a few countries where foundations are allowed to have as a purpose the support of a family or of another specific group of individuals. In these cases the foundation is just a device to keep these assets separate from personal properties of the establisher.
Historical Background In any case since medieval times, foundations have existed and therewith foundation law exists, as foundations are creations of law. In Southern Europe many foundations were created by churches and for purposes related to religion; in Western and Northern Europe also rich citizens established them. In these ‘‘civil’’ foundations, the local government was often designated by the establisher (eventual testator) to appoint new board members when there were vacancies. In course of time, several originally private foundations have become governmental institutions in this way. An important reason for governmental involvement with the establishment of foundations is the fear for the so-called mortmain. When assets are separated in foundations, they are ‘‘in the dead hand,’’ out of the national economy. In medieval times, the church foundations were not only outside the national economy but also outside the national legal sphere. This can be bad for the economy (and societal relations). For this reason, governments required that they approved the establishment and set the conditions. The codification of the law regarding foundations as legal persons is globally of recent time. Some legislation originates around 1900 (Italy, Germany, Switzerland, and Belgium). More recent (later than 1950) are the laws on foundations in The Netherlands, France, Austria, and Spain, while in Central and Eastern Europe the regulation of foundation law – in old and new states – obtained a (new) start after the fall of the communist regimes (1990 and later). Even in Russia, new foundation law was introduced in 1996. In Chinese law, the foundation as special form was introduced in 2004.
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Key Issues Regarding foundations as legal persons (as in the civil-law family) the following issues are essential: Establishment Rules
In the civil-law family, there are big differences between the rules regarding the establishment of foundations: from a fully private legal act to a private legal act that needs the approval of government. An issue for countries where the government has to approve of the establishment of foundations is to prevent arbitrary (discretionary) decision making and replace it by the control on legitimacy of the establishment. This presupposes that the legal conditions themselves are formulated with clear criteria. In several countries, alongside the foundation with a public-benefit purpose, there is the foundation type that may have another purpose and have no tax benefits (the so-called private foundation). In countries where government is involved in the establishment and supervision of public-benefit foundations, this governmental involvement is absent with regard to the establishment of private foundations. Management
In the civil legislation of foundations, there is mostly little attention paid to management aspects. This is left to the articles of association. Yet, in Spain and Switzerland foundations have to spend a certain portion of their income for the stated purpose. In many countries, – also of the civil-law family – rules about the governance and about the management of assets are made as conditions to enjoy tax facilities. Also, rules on these matters are designed in private codes in sectors of society where foundations are active (fund-raising, health care, education, etc.). As such the management board is supposed to be independent and fully responsible for the management. From this perspective the situation in China where the management board is under direct control of the supporting governmental agency is a-typical. Supervision
There are only a few countries where foundations are obliged to have a supervisory board, an internal body that can be very helpful. Mostly, external control is provided either by the government, or by the court – on request of the public prosecutor (and interested persons). This external control is put up to protect the proper use of the assets for the designated purpose, either for the general interest or in the interest of the founder(s). The reason for this is that normally the foundation does not have a strong competent body to control the management
board. The sanctions that the external supervisory body (government or court) may impose in case of mismanagement or other acts against the law and/or the articles of associations are: fines, dismissal of board members, or dissolution of the foundation. In certain areas, like fund raising, is sometimes provided for voluntary supervision by a private body on a contractual basis. This is helpful for keeping the management quality high, the possibilities for sanctioning are however restricted. Accountability and Transparency
In some countries foundations have to publish their annual financial statement, in most countries such a duty does not exist. It would be good for all stakeholders if foundations had more obligations. Transparency is supposed to be a means against criminal behavior. The war against terrorism of the United Nations and other international organizations and also the struggle against money-laundering have put more pressure on the requirement of openness for foundations. In the United States the Department of Treasury has issued Antiterrorist Financing Guidelines, Voluntary Best Practices for US-based charities, as nonbinding guidelines for international grant-making organizations (e.g.,. foundations) to minimize the use of grants by terrorist organizations. In Europe, terrorist foundations can be put on a list, in which case the property of the foundation is frozen. In The Netherlands legislation is developed where a unit of the Ministry of Justice screens all establishers, board members, and policy makers of public and private companies and foundations. The collecting of systematic data can be helpful for control. Also the obligation for foundations to have audited financial accounts and to publish these will become more common. Tax Facilities
As foundations with a purpose for the public benefit are considered to be useful when they execute their goals, governments in many countries give tax facilities to these foundations. It concerns mostly corporate (or company) tax, inheritance and gift tax, and income tax. The facility with regard to the foundation itself may range from exemption to a certain reduction of tax. With regard to income tax the principle is that donations to recognized public-benefit organizations by individuals (or corporations) may be withdrawn. The ways in which this is done, are rather diverse. In Anglo-American law the tax facilities are in fact the legal characteristics of foundations. In England and Wales the tax facilities are connected with the status of charity
Law, Foundations
that generally is given by the Charity commission, while in the United States tax-exempt status is granted by the federal Internal Revenue Services. In the countries of the civil-law family the legal status of the foundation is separate from its tax status. Tax facilities are granted to foundations for the public benefit in most countries. In both Anglo-American and civil-law families the granting of tax facilities takes place under certain conditions with regard to the governance and/or the asset management and/or financial and other reporting. In this way tax law can play an important role in the furtherance of the quality of the management of foundations.
International Perspectives Generally, foundations operate in the country where they are established; clear exceptions are development-aid foundations. There are, however, also (some) foundations that operate internationally. There is no universal law that applies to them. The way in which they are approached in a country depends of the law and policy of the specific country. A country either adheres to the real seat theory or to the incorporation theory with regard to foreign legal persons. In the first case the rule is that the country where the legal person (foundation) has its office, has to decide about the conditions under which it eventually recognizes the foreign legal person as such. In case a country adheres to the incorporation theory foreign legal persons (e.g., foundations) are recognized as legal persons, when they are established as a legal person according to the rules in the country where they are incorporated. Foreign foundations do not need then to fulfill admission conditions. In the European area several countries belong to the contracting parties of the European convention on the recognition of the legal personality of international nongovernmental organizations (1985) which contains more or less the same rule as the incorporation theory, specifically for international NGOs including foundations. For the establishment by foreigners of a foundation in a certain country mostly the same rules apply as in case of the establishments by local citizens. The foundation law of that country is applicable to all aspects of such a foundation with foreigners. In less open countries the establishment of foundations by foreigners is generally made rather inconvenient. Foundations enjoy like other NGOs the freedom of speech or of association, as formulated in national constitutions and in international treaties. The latter includes generally the rule that restriction of this freedom must be laid down in an act and necessary in a democratic society in the interest of public safety, etc. and for the protection
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of the rights and freedoms of others. This means that governmental involvement is not stimulated and has to be motivated by the restrictions allowed in the treaty. There are clearly practices of foundation law where this freedom has not been carried through. Tax facilities are generally restricted to domestic foundations. However, on the basis of a treaty or of supranational law, like EU law, in different parts of the world donations to foundations of certain foreign countries are deductible.
Future Directions In Europe there is a tendency to extend more and more the principle of free movement. When it will become possible in Europe to move the seat of a foundation to another European country, this may have as a consequence that establishers of foundations will look for the country in which foundation law is most favorable. This, in turn, may lead to harmonization of foundation law in Europe. To prevent a probable race to the bottom, a group of European experts have designed a regulation for a European foundation. In different parts of the world the amount of wealthy individuals is growing. They will look for possibilities to use their money for the general benefit and for private or family interests. In several tax havens the foundation is used as a ‘‘multiple purpose vehicle’’ with easy entrance conditions. For economic reasons other countries may develop equal types of legislation to keep the money of the wealthy citizens in the country. This will – where necessary – lead to a distinction in legal rules concerning public foundations (with public-benefit purpose) and concerning private foundations (with private and family interests). It seems a natural development that the law regarding the establishment of foundations will become more liberal, less dependent from arbitrary decision making of governments. On the other hand, it seems appropriate that more law on internal supervision will be developed and that the external supervision on foundations will become stricter than practice is now in many countries. There will necessarily be a more accurate inspection of the application of the tax- and competition rules to foundations and other NGOs as they develop more in an entrepreneurial direction.
Cross-References ▶ Accountability ▶ Association ▶ Charity Law
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▶ Civil Law and Civil Society ▶ Common Law and Civil Scociety ▶ Endowment, Definition and Management ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Grant-Seeking ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Foundations, Public Law or Government ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ INGOs ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Transparency ▶ Wakfs
References/Further Readings Fishman, J., & Stephen, S. (2006). Nonprofit organizations (3rd ed.) New York: Foundation Press. Hondius, F. W., & van der Ploeg, T. J. (2000), Foundations, J.C. Mohr (Paul Siebeck) Tu¨bingen 2000 and Vol. XIII, Chapter 9 of The international encyclopedia of comparative law, Dordrecht, M. Nijhoff. Hopkins, B., & Blazek, J. (2003). Private foundations: Tax law and compliance. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Hopt, K. J., & Reuter, D. (2001). Stiftungsrecht in Europa. Ko¨ln: Carl Heymanns Verlag. Hopt, K. J., Walz, R., von Hippel, T., & Then, V. (Eds.) (2006). The European foundation, a new legal approach. Gu¨tersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung. Koele, I. A. (2007). International taxation of philanthropy. Amsterdam: IBDF. Richter, A., & Wachter, T. (2007). Handbuch des internationalen Stiftungsrechts. Angelbachtal: Zerb Verlag. Simon, J. G., Dale, H. P., & Chisholm, L. B. (2006). The tax treatment of charitable organizations. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg, The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Law, Nonprofit Associations MYLES MCGREGOR-LOWNDES Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Introduction History records in all societies and cultures that humans have joined together in groups to pursue mutual purposes, be it based around family connections, pursuit of
profit, common beliefs and purposes or more recently the formal governance of communities and states. Law has played different roles in different eras and societies in facilitating and regulating such associations. The law of business associations and the constitutional law of nation states have been developing for some considerable period of time and more recently have started to converge on a global basis to varying degrees. The formal law of family groups varies across jurisdictions in both content and extent of formality. In contrast the law of associations which are outside the family and not formed primarily for the pursuit of profit, but hold other purposes central to their reason for existence has only recently begun to develop a coherent jurisprudence. The growth of the idea of freedom of association and the nation state which has from time to time sought to both facilitate and control private associations either as potential allies or enemies has been a driving impetus for the growth of such laws. One of the central themes across jurisdictions is the extent to which the state controls the legal recognition of associations apart from their members. Associations can be broadly divided in most jurisdictions between those with a grant from the state of a legal persona separate from their individual members’ persona (incorporated bodies/entities) and those without such a grant that operate with little or no legal facilitation from the state and rely upon their own means of ordering their internal and external relationships (unincorporated).
Definition Henry Hansmann (1980, 1981, 1996) is an American scholar who has made a significant contribution to shaping the current law and economic analysis of nonprofit associations and their regulation. Hansmann identified the cornerstone of the nonprofit organizational form as the legal attribute of an organization constitutionally barring the distribution of its surplus income to any controller, office holder, employee, or member. Any surplus must be used solely to finance the further attainment of the objects for which the organization was formed. He names this constitutional provision as the ‘‘nondistribution constraint.’’ Hansmann suggests that theoretically, nonprofit organizations exist in a for-profit market economy because they offer their patrons cheaper transaction costs than for-profit firms. They minimize transaction costs as they diminish the opportunity and incentive to cheat the patron because all surpluses can only be used for the purposes of the organization. Further assurance can be given by patrons controlling the management of the nonprofit organization. This is particularly evident where the patron
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has difficulty monitoring the fidelity of the other party where one party is unable to efficiently gather the information necessary to make informed market decisions (asymmetric information), e.g., health care, education of children and overseas aid. The usefulness of the nondistribution constraint as an organizing principle has been developed in a variety of contexts. It is used as a bright line to separate nonprofit organizations from for-profit organizations. Hansmann further separates nonprofit organizations from government on the basis that nonprofit organizations are solely private, independent, and voluntary, rather than public organizations. It is also used in developing theories and models about the regulation and governance of nonprofit organizations.
Historical Background The earliest associational law was embedded in religious ritual. Anderson (1971) traces the first associations that crossed kinship or territory bands, to some isolated instances in the Paleolithic-Mesolithic non-nomadic settlements with religious associations. The Neolithic villages in North America, Oceania, and Africa (8000–7000 BC) were marked by the creation of many religious and secret societies which were governed by their own rituals and traditions. Only from 3000 BC at the time of the pre-industrial states of China, India, Japan, Egypt, Rome, and Greece can it be seen that fledgling states started to impose laws on associations, both to facilitate and control activities of associations. The Roman law had the collegium, universitas, fideicommissa, piae causae, and sodalitas; the Greeks had genos, syssitoi, thiasos, symposia, eranos, gymnasiums, and stoas, which together with the general legal system played a role in shaping the western legal framework of association law. Some of the themes that emerge from these legal traditions are the use of coercive state law to dominate the church and other potential rival associations, the development of legal mechanisms to protect property dedicated for a specific purpose from diversion, the quest for perpetual dedication of an association’s property and developing a jurisprudential concept of a persona for the association which was separate and apart from the persona of its individual members. Upon these Greek and Roman foundations the laws of much of Europe moved to a civil law system and England and its colonies to the common law. European association law followed more closely the Roman laws of associations and notions of foundations. The English developed the concept of the use into the trust and eventually the charitable trust which flowed to its
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colonies. It is disputed whether the charitable trust owes its heritage to the Roman Fideicommissum, the German Salic salmannus, the religious law of the Franciscan Friars or the Islamic Waq f. Gaudiosi (1987) makes a compelling argument that the Waq f influenced the legal notion of the charitable trust using the constitutional arrangements of the first college of Oxford University (1274) as evidence. The Waq f appears to have developed in the seventh century under Islamic religious law independently of Greek or Roman influences and can be established for a work ‘‘pleasing of God.’’ It was used to endow public institutions with the property passing to ‘‘God,’’ the founder/trustee (mutawalli) controlling the property of the Waq f overseen by a local judge/overseer (awqaf). There appears to this day to be no secular law governing the Waq f. The struggle between church and state in Europe led to the state attempting to control the existence of associations by law. For example, in France the Revolution led to very restrictive controls on the creation of voluntary associations. In England, religious bodies were prohibited from owning land which would escape the mediaeval tithe to the Crown and Henry VIII sacked religious institutions. After the French Revolution England had a host of Acts such as the Unlawful Societies Act 1799, the Seditious Meetings Act 1817 and the Bubble Act 1720 which suppressed voluntary associations. The unincorporated association and charitable trust were the legal forms most legally accessible during this period unless a special grant of corporate persona was available from the Crown. It was not until the 1850s in England that corporate form for associations became readily available by administrative fiat. These laws flowed to the British colonies in the main and in many countries still form the basis of associational law. Colonies such as Australia and Canada have moved their associations more towards corporate bodies by creating special incorporation statutes for nonprofit associations in the 1880s. Until recently the law of the charitable trust has remained remarkably in tune with English case law. Law reform in this area has been slow and been driven largely by government law reform bodies and commissions. The American colonies, upon settlement, adopted much of the British law of charitable trusts and unincorporated associations, but following the Revolution the American states set out upon their own journey. Some states rejected the law of charitable uses and trusts. The corporation became the legal form of choice and developed far more quickly than in England during this time. Today, charitable trusts are upheld in all states, but the
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nonprofit corporation at state level dominates the legal landscape. The Internal Revenue Service has also become the most influential regulator because of its gate-keeping role in relation to income tax exemption and donor tax deductions, although the state attorneys general still have formal responsibilities for supervision. Whereas government inquiries and commissions have driven law reform in most jurisdictions, the United States is characterized by vibrant associations of lawyers and regulators who propose model legislation for adoption by states. The American Bar Association (ABA) is responsible for the Model Nonprofit Corporation Act (1964) and the Revised Model Nonprofit Corporation Act (1987). The 1964 model statute to govern nonprofits and versions of it are currently still in effect in Alabama, the District of Columbia, New Jersey, North Dakota, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The 1987 model is based on California law and sets out basic requirements for the structure and composition of boards. It has been adopted in whole or in part in 22 states, for regulation of nonprofit entities including charitable organizations. The Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) have also contributed model laws on trusts, management of institutional funds and unincorporated associations. The ABA is currently looking to a new revision that would make the ‘‘model’’ more like the Model Business Corporation Act. The American Law Institute (ALI) is responsible for restatements of the law of trusts and charitable investments. Its current project the Principles of the Law of Nonprofit Organizations is an extensive effort to reform nonprofit laws.
Key Issues The defining legal attribute of nonprofit associations, the nondistribution constraint, also provides the key legal issues which are present to varying degrees in all jurisdictions. It will be recalled that a nonprofit association is constitutionally barred from distributing any of its surplus to any controller, office holder, employee, or member. Any surplus must be used solely to finance the further attainment of the objects for which the organization was formed. The nondistribution constraint can be circumvented by a number of means which allow a surplus to be siphoned off to the personal gain of others as might be the case in a for-profit organization. The board or staff might be paid remuneration for their services which is far in excess of the market value and in reality be a division of surplus. The association can also pay over market rates for goods and services supplied by third parties which again can represent a distribution of the surplus. Examples are
management agreements with external managers, loans, lease/rent payments or supply of goods which are above equivalent market transactions. Such conduct is usually a breach of the duties owed to the association by its controllers be they trustees, governors, management committee or board of directors. Oversight of the fidelity of such controllers is exercised by members under the rules of the association and regulators. In some jurisdictions regulators have prohibited controllers being remunerated apart from reasonable incurred expenses, unless specifically excused (UK Charity Commission and charities) or able to demonstrate no ‘‘unjust inurement’’ (IRS and foundations). The nondistribution constraint may also be breached upon the dissolution of the organization where there are surplus assets. If the surplus is put to private uses, then there is a breach of the constraint. Where the organization is regarded as charitable, the law requires that the surplus be returned to a charitable purpose as near as possible to the original purposes (cy pres). This may be achieved by a change in the objects of the organization or passing assets to another organization with like purposes. This issue was raised in a spectacular fashion in the flurry of forprofit and management buy outs of nonprofit hospitals and health funds in some states of America. Associations which are member based with no charitable purposes may divide the surplus amongst the members at the time of the dissolution, being characterized as a return of their initial investment. Usually where the association has enjoyed taxation concession, the tax regulator will require a binding constitutional clause that requires a cy pres like treatment for any surplus. The requirement can be partially circumvented by spending or giving away the assets of the association so there is little or no surplus upon dissolution. Another point of legal intervention in maintaining the nondistribution constraint is the fidelity of the stated constitutional purpose of a nonprofit association. The qualification for legal existence, perpetuity, or tax and other concessions is often tied to a nonprofit association having purposes within certain bounds. The most prominent is the definition of charity in English jurisdictions where the very existence of the charitable trust depends upon it coming within the heads of charitable purpose and being for the public benefit. Some incorporation statutes also have restrictions on purposes that can be proposed as an association’s constitutional objects. There are ongoing policy contests in most jurisdictions about the boundaries (if any) of the activities that can be pursued in order to achieve the objects of the association over and above the laws that would apply to any legal organization.
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For example, in most charity law systems political activity is restricted in varying degrees as an activity to achieve the association’s purpose. There is also continuing conflict in many jurisdictions about the extent of activities that appear to compete with for-profit business which is taken to a higher level when the competing activity is unrelated to the association’s purposes apart from being to generate income to cross subsidize the association’s purposes. The construct of the nondistribution constraint to provide a bright line between nonprofit and for-profit is being seriously challenged by those seeking to implement social enterprise or social entrepreneurship. Profits might be partially shared and not totally reserved for reinvestment into purposes. Such social entrepreneurs want to move to outcomes rather than purposes. So, for example, getting unemployment down by whatever means would be their objective, rather than being restricted to the purpose of relieving unemployment. Again, their commitment would be to ‘‘make poverty history’’ rather than to relieve victims of its effects. They court the involvement of venture capital rather than appealing to the general public for donations or seeking government funds. Hybrid legal forms are starting to appear at the blurred boundaries. The government nonprofit legal boundary is also blurring legally as governments establish what are sometimes known as Government Owned Nonprofit Organizations (GONGOs) where the voluntary nature of nonprofit associations is challenged. The wind back of welfare states and the creation of contestable markets for community services where once there was only state service provision is often a driving force. The principal legal issue is how independent the organization must be of government control mechanisms such as appointing and removing the controllers (board, trustees, etc.) or approving finances. The final major issue facing jurisdictions seeking to facilitate nonprofit associations is the legal recognition of associations that for various reasons have not sought or for some reason cannot access corporate status. The award of a legal persona for the association usually enables associations to sue or be sued, and to have perpetual succession and the ability to contract and own property in the collective name separate from the persona of members. Large membership associations such a faith based organizations, international movements and political parties often choose to remain as unincorporated associations with captive corporate entities to hold property and conduct transactions with external parties. It is small grassroots organizations which pose a greater legal problem across all jurisdictions being denied incorporation because of initial or ongoing cost of requirements.
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Usually the most pressing issue is the liability of the association which may be borne personally by controllers or not at all which can disadvantage those harmed by the association’s activities.
International Perspectives United Kingdom
As noted above the United Kingdom has a rich history of varied and ancient corporate forms of nonprofit associations, but unlike American, Canadian, and Australian jurisdictions has only recently begun to embrace corporate forms over trusts and unincorporated associations. The unincorporated association and the charitable trust have been the most significant legal forms for nonprofit organizations. The company limited by guarantee first appeared in English legislation in The Companies Act 1862 (Eng) a few years after the first companies legislation. Unlike an orthodox company, a company limited by guarantee has no shares or shareholders, only members. The liability of its members is limited to such amount as the members agree in the constitution (usually a nominal sum) to contribute to the assets of the company in the event of the company being wound up. Although there is no legislative provision which restricts the form to a nonprofit organization, nearly all such companies are either nonprofit or mutual bodies. There is also special legislation for a range of mutual associations such as friendly societies, credit unions, industrial, and provident societies (co-operatives). The Charities Act 2006 introduced the first purposebuilt legal structure for charities, the charitable incorporated organization (CIO). CIOs must have a constitution, a principal office in England or Wales, and one or more members. Members may be either not liable to contribute to the assets of the CIO if it is wound up, or liable to contribute up to a maximum amount each. CIOs must have members and trustees, but they can be the same people. The Community Interest Company (CIC) is an entirely new hybrid form introduced in 2005 designed for social enterprises that use their profits and assets for the public good. CICs are characterized by an ‘‘asset lock’’ which prevents assets from being used for purposes that are not for the benefit of the community. A company satisfies the community interest test if a reasonable person might consider that the activities that the CIC is undertaking are being carried on for the benefit of the community. Neither the CIC nor its assets can be transferred into private ownership following a change in the constitution or a take-over by another organization. A CIC can pay its
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directors, provided that the payment is reasonable; and borrow money, with interest rate limits set by the CIC Regulator. In order to raise investment, a CIC set up as a company limited by shares (either private or public) can issue shares that pay a dividend to investors. However, there is a cap, set by the Regulator, on the level of dividends and on how much of the CIC’s assets can be paid as dividend. United Sates of America
The United States of America (USA) has been characterized by its law for nonprofit associations from its early colonization. It has a range of nonprofit association forms including unincorporated associations, trusts, private acts, letters patent, and various types of corporate bodies. The establishment and general conduct of nonprofit bodies is essentially a state matter, but the federal IRS exercises a significant regulatory role through its supervision of tax exemption and donation tax deductibility. The most common legal form for an association is a corporation and all but two states have statutes providing for the establishment of nonprofit corporations. As noted above the origins of such acts are usually related to the law reform proposals of either the ABA or the ALI. The United States has a large range of sophisticated hybrid legal and management structures which involve nonprofit associations. The interest of for-profit entities in managing or converting nonprofit hospitals and health care funds has led to a large number of complex legal arrangements comprising joint ventures, Limited Liability Companies (LLC), partnerships, and contractual arrangements. The first legislative hybrid form was permitted in Vermont during 2008 with a low-profit LLC, known as an ‘‘L3C.’’ The L3C is the same as the usual LLC, but its name must include the words ‘‘L3C.’’ The new form allows foundations who wish to invest in such activities to avoid red tape in IRS approvals. Foundations can only directly invest in for-profit ventures qualified as program related investments (PRIs), being an investment with a socially beneficial purpose that is consistent with and furthers a foundation’s mission. The basic purpose of the L3C is to signal to foundations and donor directed funds that entities formed under this provision intend to conduct their activities in a way that would qualify as a PRI.
Corporations Act. There are differing provincial statutes which allow incorporation of nonprofit bodies. Charitable trusts can be created and follow the English tradition. In Quebec, the civil code allows for the creation of a civil law foundation as well as a ‘‘social trust.’’ The federal government proposed in 2004 that provisions of the Canada Corporations Act applying to not-for-profit corporations be reformed to create a national Not-for-Profit Corporations Law but the Bill lapsed. Several provinces and territories are also considering nonprofit law reform. Australia
On settlement Australia adopted the English legal forms of unincorporated associations and charitable trusts. Early incorporation of nonprofit organizations occurred through royal charter under the hand of the English monarch, the state governor or state private act of parliament. Australian states adopted the company limited by guarantee through their copying of English corporate legislation in the 1880s. At this time two states passed legislation that created an ‘‘incorporated association’’ which appears to have been based on New York nonprofit corporation statutes. In the 1980s all other states and territories passed similar incorporated association legislation and this has become the most popular form of incorporation. Each state has legislation for mutual associations such as credit unions, friendly societies and co-operatives. Singapore
In 1889 the Legislative Council of the Straits Settlement passed the Societies Ordinance as a response to unlawful activities carried on by the secret societies, or triads, which were then rampant in Singapore. It required all nonprofit associations to be approved and registered with tight controls on their activities. Its successor, the Societies Act 1966 still makes it mandatory for all associations to register. Those that do not are deemed unlawful, and their members are liable to penal sanctions. These associations are either formed as trusts under the Trustee Act or companies limited by guarantee under The Companies Act 1967 modeled on an equivalent statute in New South Wales, Australia. Both organizational forms follow the English model, but regulators have greater power and grounds to refuse registration.
Canada
Canada is a common law jurisdiction except for the province of Quebec which has a civil code. Most nonprofit organizations in Canada are incorporated as societies or nonshare corporations. A nonshare corporation is registered under a federal statute, the Canada
New Zealand
New Zealand, like Australia and other British colonies, adopted nonprofit legal forms of the unincorporated association, company limited by guarantee and charitable trust. Following the lead of the South Australian
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jurisdiction, the Unclassified Societies Registration Act 1895, later to be amended as the Incorporated Societies Act 1908, established a nonprofit corporation legal form. Following introduction of the Companies Act 1993, companies limited by guarantee were abolished and were required to re-register as companies limited by shares. South Africa
South African law is derived from Roman-Dutch origins. There are three main nonprofit legal forms being: voluntary associations governed by the common law; trusts which are governed by a combination of common law and statute; and incorporated associations or Section 21 companies which are a form of company limited by guarantee. Voluntary association is the most common form of nonprofit body, often taken by public benefit bodies, sporting clubs, societies, and community based organizations. Under the common law (there is no applicable statute) voluntary associations fall into two classes. One has no legal persona and the other has a legal persona provided that the constitution makes provision for perpetual succession and capacity to own property separate from its members, and the purpose must not be for financial gain. Germany
Germany is a civil law country with several primary forms for nonprofit organizations: associations being membership associations (Verein); foundations (Stiftung); limited liability companies (Gesellschaft mit beschrankter Haftung – GmbH; or Aktien-gesellschaft–AG). Other types of legal forms include public institutions (Anstalten des o¨ffentlichen Rechts), foundations established under church law and public law, and cooperatives (Genossenschaften, which are formed and regulated under the Genossenschaftsgesetz). A trust which is like an unincorporated version of a foundation can be created when an individual donates resources for a public purpose. It is not a legal entity and relies on another legal entity to own the property. France
From the time of the French Revolution to 1901 the ability to form nonprofit organizations was severely limited due to ideological views of the role of the state. French law recognizes several primary legal forms of nonprofit organizations: associations; mutual friendly societies; cooperatives; trade unions; and foundations. Associations may serve either a private or public benefit. There are three primary forms of foundations: (1) public utility foundations; (2) sheltered foundations; and (3) corporate foundations. Four other forms of foundations also exist but are infrequently created: research
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foundations; partnership foundations; university foundations; and scientific cooperation foundations. All foundations must serve a public benefit purpose. India
India has a set of statutory laws establishing various nonprofit organizational forms which are modified by many Indian states. There are five types of nonprofit organization being: societies; trusts; cooperatives; trade unions; and companies. Societies are membership organizations that may be registered for charitable purposes. Societies are governed by the Societies Registration Act 1860, which has been adapted by various states. Unlike trusts, societies may be dissolved. Public charitable trusts can be established for a number of purposes, including the relief of poverty, education, medical relief, provision of facilities for recreation, and any other object of general public utility. Indian public trusts are generally irrevocable. No national law governs public charitable trusts in India except the broad principles of the India Trusts Act 1882 which governs private trusts, although many states have modifications of this law. Cooperatives are created and regulated under state laws which vary considerably. Trades unions are subject to the Trade Union Act of 1926. A company with limited liability may be formed for ‘‘promoting commerce, art, science, religion, charity, or any other useful object,’’ provided that no profits or other income derived through promoting the company’s objects may be distributed in any form to its members. This is known as a Section 25 company. The use of the company form is much less common than in other jurisdictions. Japan
Japan is a civil law country. Nonprofit legal forms include ‘‘Public Interest Legal Persons’’ (PILPs), or koeki hojin, being either associations or foundations; ‘‘Special Nonprofit Corporations’’ (SNCs), or tokutei hieiri katsudo hojin, created by the Special Nonprofit Corporation Promotion Law (SNC Law) enacted in 1998; various public interest organizations (distinct from PILPs), which were authorized after World War II by special laws, such as Social Welfare Entities, Medical Organizations, Private Schools, Relief, and Rehabilitation Enterprises, and Religious Organizations; ‘‘Intermediary Legal Persons’’ (ILPs), or chukan hojin, authorized by a 2001 law. These are mutual benefit organizations, which need not pursue public interest objectives and do not enjoy tax benefits. Three new laws introduced in 2008 are currently being implemented: the Association and Foundation Law;
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the Law on Recognizing Organizations as Public Interest (also translated as the ‘‘Charitable Recognition Status Law’’); and the Law to Consolidate Relevant Laws. These laws will significantly revise the NPO legal framework, and PILPs and ILPs will be given a 5 year period to transition to another form.
Future Directions Since about 2001 the reform of the law of nonprofit associations has been particularly evident in the United Kingdom and its former colonies. The Blair government’s New Way agenda brought about a series of proposals for the reform of charitable associations, their regulation and two new forms of association being the Charitable Incorporated Organization and Community Interest Company. Some of these reforms have already spread to Scotland, Ireland, and New Zealand with Australia and Canada being more cautious. Social enterprises in various shapes and sizes have appeared in the United States and United Kingdom jurisdictions and are spreading rapidly, often being a legal hybrid of the traditional nonprofit association. To date most have been cobbled together using for-profit legal forms and private treaty. The statutory introduction of Community Interest Companies (CIC) and the Charitable Incorporated Organizations (CIO) in the United Kingdom and the L3C in Vermont, United States are perhaps the first flows in a tide of statutory facilitations of hybrid organizations. These new legal forms challenge some of the previous requisites, the nondistribution constraint, specified purposes and even of voluntary action. This approach acknowledges the legitimacy of private profit, and provides for a return to those who invest either as a social return or a capped financial return on their monetary investment. The forces of globalization are driving a search for a legal form that can easily span jurisdictions for nonprofit associations such as environment and conservation organizations with global memberships. Europe has been actively considering membership and foundational legal structures which would cater for seamless European operations. However, the legal regulation of nonprofit associations in the name of prevention of terrorism is actively placing barriers to international activities, particularly the movement of funds, and resources between associations across borders.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History ▶ Charity Law ▶ Civil Law and Civil Society
▶ Common Law and Civil Society ▶ Freedom of Association ▶ GONGOs ▶ Grassroots Association ▶ Hansmann, Henry ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Tax Deduction for Charitable Contributions in the United States ▶ Wakfs
References/Further Readings Anderson, R. (1971). Voluntary associations in history. American Anthropologist New Series, 73(1), 209–222. Gaudiosi, M. (1987–1988). The influence of the Islamic law of Waqf on the development of the trust in England: The case of Merton College. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 136, 1231–1261. Hansmann, H. (1980). The role of nonprofit enterprise. The Yale Law Journal, 89(5), 835–898. Hansmann, H. (1981). Reforming nonprofit corporation law. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 129(3), 497–623. Hansmann, H. (1996). The ownership of enterprise. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Leadership ANDREAS SCHRO¨ER Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
Introduction For the United States researchers have projected an increasing demand for leadership in nonprofit organizations, as the growth of the sector is not matched by adequate training capacities for future leaders (Tierney, 2006). The very demand that arises from replacing already existing leadership positions in nonprofit organizations, foundations, and social enterprises can most probably not be satisfied from within the sector itself, let alone the top management jobs, which will emerge from new forms of welfare oriented organizations or the expected increase of inheritance. Even though we do not have data on leadership demand in Europe, the situation might be similar. In addition to the problems arising from supply and demand conditions, we face an empirical and conceptual deficit. We lack a consolidated list of specific requirements for leadership in nonprofit organizations and foundations, little empirical data are available on nonprofit leaders’ values, competencies, motivations, and
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recent challenges in the sector. And even more important there is a lack of theoretical frameworks of civil society leadership that would stand as a basis for further research. However, leadership as a process of influencing others to achieve a common goal is of particular importance in the nonprofit sector, which is driven by values, voluntary work, trust-based social networks and organizations. In such an informal and normative context, effective, visionary, and convincing leadership plays an as important role as efficient management. This paper offers a definition of leadership, outlines major strands of leadership theories, including their key issues, describes the distinctiveness of leadership in nonprofit organizations and points to international and future directions of leadership research.
Definition Research literature of the last 70 years contains different ways of conceptualizing leadership (Stogdill, 1974). There are classifications that view leadership as the focus of group processes, others conceptualize leadership from a personality perspective, or as defined by behavior or skills. In addition we find definitions that focus on power relations between leaders and followers, or transformational processes between both, others stress primarily the situational context of leadership to explain its effectiveness. In spite of this contemporary variety of approaches, it seems possible to identify the core components of leadership in the various definitions: "
Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. (Northouse, 2007, 3)
Defining leadership as a process stresses the interaction between leaders and followers unlike emphasizing characteristics of the leader’s personality. Leadership certainly is about influence, ‘‘without influence leadership does not exist’’ (Northouse, 2007, 3). Leadership occurs in groups, these groups can be within an organization or an institutionalized context; they can be small or big, a general public or a group of specialized scientists. Understanding the group environment adds to the comprehension of the situational context; of leadership. And finally leadership includes goal attainment, leaders want to mobilize followers to meet important goals and challenges (Heifetz et al., 2004), which requires a shared understanding of these goals. Leadership classifies a process from the perspective of interaction, whereas structure, system, or rules of leading can be described as governance.
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Leadership in civil society, more specifically in nonprofit organizations, NGOs, and foundations faces distinct challenges and tasks like: normative management, leading volunteers and professionals, managing multiple stakeholder relations, and strategic planning in multifunctional organizations.
Key Issues Leadership Traits, Behavior, and Situational Context
The early leadership researchers (1930s) were convinced that personality characteristics cause effective leadership and could be identified through empirical research: leaders behave in certain ways because of their traits, i.e., physical characteristics, personality, and skills. In recent studies five major traits are stated consistently: intelligence (curiosity), self-confidence, integrity, sociability (empathy), determination (ambition, self-control) (Yukl, 2006; Northouse, 2007). These leadership traits were believed to be the essential components for goal attainment of leaders: A person in possession of the relevant traits achieves leadership status within the group and helps the group in attaining its goals. However since these approaches solely focused on the leader, neither on the group, nor on the situation or task environment, they failed to explain leadership success. Even though personality traits could be linked to leadership effectiveness, cause and effect were not addressed. Some of the identified leadership traits, also were aspects of a persons behavior, others were skills (Gardner, 1989). Subsequently the next phase of leadership research (1950–1960) focused on leaders’ behavior towards followers. Patterns of behavior were labeled as styles and became an important instrument in management training (managerial grid). In retrospect four main leadership styles can be identified: concern for tasks (achievement of concrete objectives), concern for people (emphasis on human resources), directive leadership (leaders take decisions, subordinates follow instructions) and participative leadership (shared decision-making) (Wright, 1996). In terms of research results it was difficult to distinguish which style was significant for effective group work. The main problem still was the lack of context analyses, a proper look at the situation or task environment in which a particular style was used. Situation and context of leadership became popular in the 1970s. Fiedler (1967) argued in his contingency theory that leadership effectiveness depends upon interacting factors: leadership style and the situation, which gives
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the leader more or less influence. The comprehensive contingency approach talks about the relationship between leaders and followers, the structure of the task and the leaders’ position of power. Hersey and Blanchard’s (1984) life cycle theory helped to explain the choice of appropriate leadership styles (‘‘telling, selling, participating, delegating’’) for different stages of followers’ maturity, i.e., their degree of job experience and psychological maturity. Also the path-goal theory (House, 1971) explains how a leader’s behavior can be motivating or satisfying for followers if it increases the attractiveness of goals and the followers’ confidence in achieving these goals. The leader’s activity in this respect is guiding, motivating, and rewarding followers to navigate them on their path towards goal attainment. Which leadership activity or style is best suited for the goal depends upon the level of experience of the followers and the complexity of the task. Critics argue that these situational context models of leadership have a North American bias, ignore gender differences in leadership styles and ignore political and symbolic aspects of leadership altogether (Bolman & Deal, 2003). Leaders, Followers, and Organizational Culture
More recent theories of charismatic (House, 1971), transformational (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978) and servant leadership (Greenleaf, 1970) are also based on contingency approaches. Yet they have a more balanced view on the role of leaders, followers, and situational context and reintroduce ethical obligations of leadership in the debate. As an example, transformational leadership is seen as a process that changes individuals by stressing the role of ethics and long-term goals (Bass, 1985). The focus of the approach is on the process of interaction, which results in higher levels of motivation and morality for leaders and followers. In contrast to transactional leadership, which is based on rewards for performance and addressing the followers’ self-interest, transformational leadership accentuates the importance of task outcomes for the team and seeks to transcend self-interest for the sake of the organization. Transformational leadership consists of four main aspects: idealized influence (charisma, i.e., unique persons, strong role models with high ethical standards, which are greatly respected by followers), inspirational motivation (inspires followers to share his/her vision), intellectual stimulation (promotes creativity and innovation), individualized consideration (create supportive climate for followers). Greenleaf ’s model of servant leadership stresses even more the ethical responsibilities of leadership with his
basic assumption of leaders having a duty to serve in ethically and environmentally conscious ways and his focus on global long-term effects of leadership behaviors. Schein’s (2004) work on organizational culture and leadership points towards tacit assumptions as core elements or organizational culture. These unseen and not cognitively identified, often unspoken rules exist even without conscious knowledge of the members of the organization. Therefore they can cause paradoxical organizational behavior, like highly professional standards in the organization’s mission and tacit assumptions that contradict these standards. Leadership needs to be aware of and change these levels of organizational culture in order to be effective. Leadership and Ethics
Gardner (1990) acknowledged the moral dimension of leadership, Burns (1978) conceptualizes ethics at the heart of transformational leadership, and Ciulla (1998) and Rost (1991) argue that ethics is an undervalued core element of leadership and needs to attain more attention in leadership literature. Their work has sparked interest in ethical aspects of leadership which relate to three different questions: Is the leader a good (ethical) character? Does the process of interaction between leaders and followers follow ethical rules? Are the goals, changes, positions that leaders and followers intend ethical? The ethical quality of a leader’s character refers either to his virtues (honesty, sociability, modesty, fairness), or to the ethical principles (respect, service, honesty, community building, justice) that leaders apply in their actions. The questions of process and content focus even more on the ethical aspects of leadership as interactive process (Rost, 1991). This process can be defined at its core by the leader’s attempts to move followers to higher standards of moral responsibility (Burns, 1978) or to help followers to assess their own values and needs to raise them to a higher level (Ciulla, 1998) or by the leader’s attentive care and service to his followers (Greenleaf, 1970). While these approaches have drawn the attention to the ethical aspects of leadership, they lack a clear theoretical framework for what is ethical or a higher level of values in the leadership context as well as they lack significant from qualitative or quantitative empirical research. These different theories provide insights in the dynamics of leadership. Leadership is a complex process that plays a crucial role in mobilizing resources, motivating people, providing ethical orientation and balancing interests. These aspects are particularly important in civil society organizations, with their specific requirements of managing multi-stakeholders, mobilizing professionals
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and volunteers, responding to different cultural contexts, and balancing mission related and economic targets. The next chapter provides insights in specific tasks of leadership in nonprofit organizations. Distinctiveness of Nonprofit Leadership
The nonprofit sector has been growing and changing continuously over the last decades. Globalization, the changing welfare state models in Europe and blurring boundaries between government, economy, and civil society have led to an increase in hybrid organizations like social entrepreneurship or venture philanthropy and creates new challenges for management and leadership in the nonprofit sector. These new developments add to the already existing core tasks of nonprofit leaders: to balance mission (values) and survival (money), to integrate professional and volunteer staff and deal with multiple stakeholder groups in order to secure the organizations legitimacy. NPOs are defined as organized, private, nonprofit distributing, autonomous, and voluntary (Salamon & Anheier, 1997); they have diverse societal roles, like provision of social services, advocacy, value guardian, or vanguard for social innovation (Anheier, 2005). NPOs operate in specific cultural contexts, deal with heterogeneous issues (international aid, HIV/AIDS, poverty), and have particular organizational cultures (mission based, multi stakeholder). Leadership in NPOs can be described along specific tasks: 1. Dealing with the mission: NPOs have a distinctive purpose; unlike businesses their main goal is not to make profit, but to fulfill their mission. The mission is about the core values of the organization. These value oriented goals are often broadly stated and difficult to measure. Therefore nonprofit leadership needs to emphasize these mission oriented principles, norms, and rules of the organization, that lay the basis for organizational development and provides ethical legitimacy of the organizations action towards its different stakeholders. Leaders also need to balance mission orientation with the necessity of the organization to survive economically. The conflict between ‘‘distinctiveness imperative’’ (mission) and ‘‘survival imperative’’ (earned income) is a core challenge for nonprofit leadership. 2. Leading a diverse human resource situation: NPOs work with a considerable amount of volunteers, who are working on different levels of the organization, from operative assistants up to the board. Nonprofit leadership therefore needs to integrate volunteers and professionals in their strategy and operations.
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In addition employees as well as volunteers in NPOs usually have a particular motivation to do their jobs. Their motivation is value oriented and is highly related to the mission of the organization. Thus human resource development calls for forms of transformational leadership, using inspirational motivation and a climate of support. In NGOs it seems of particular importance to use a ‘‘participatory management’’ style, to listen and be responsive (Smillie & Hailey, 2001). 3. Strategic planning and entrepreneurship: The changing revenue situation with a greater emphasis on self generated income requires leadership that generates and evaluates new ideas, integrates resources and activities in a process of permanent renewal (organizational change) and puts strategic management as organic development, organizational learning and guided evolution at the top of a leader’s agenda (Lovas & Goshal, 2000). Such entrepreneurial activities ask for a certain set of skills in a leader, who needs to enable the organization to enter new markets, pursue new customers and find an innovative combination of the organizations resources. Skills that seem to be lacking in a considerable number of nonprofit organizations (Zietlow, 2001). 4. Corporate governance and multi stakeholder management: Corporate governance is the system by which companies are directed and controlled, which happens largely in the relationship between board, management, staff, and shareholders. Governance structures prescribe a procedure how owners (principals) can ensure that managers (agents) run an organization in a way that benefits the owners. In nonprofits it is not clear who the owners really are and shareholders don’t exist, hence a stakeholder approach is used to governance. Stakeholders include members, employees, volunteers, clients, users, contractors, funders, government, and others, depending on the specific organization. Therefore it is one of the major tasks of nonprofit leaders to deal with the different stakeholder interests of the organization, to find a way of prioritizing them and develop a measurement tool that allows to evaluate, whether the management has fulfilled the organizations mission in the perspective of the different stakeholder groups. This process makes nonprofit leadership a highly political endeavor. 5. Managing change and organizational culture: According to leadership scholars, one of the most important and difficult leadership responsibilities is to guide and facilitate the process of making organizational change (Yukl, 2006; Bass & Riggio, 2006). Leaders frame the challenges in the task organizations environment and
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they frame their organization in a particular way (Bolman & Deal, 2003). These frames shape problem solution mechanisms and product innovation in organizations as well as their organizational culture. In social service oriented and primarily in advocacy organizations frame alignment is a critical success factor for goal achievement, as civic movements are said to be successful when the frames projected align with the frames of participants to produce resonance between the two parties (Benford & Snow, 2000). In NPOs leaders need to be able to work with multiple frames, i.e., structural frame, human resource frame, political frame, symbolic frame (Bolman & Deal, 2003). Because of the heterogeneous stakeholder groups in NPOs, using the political frame is a very important aspect of effective leadership.
Philanthropic Leadership and Leadership Development
In addition to the debate on leadership in NPOs, another discourse on philanthropic leadership has evolved. Some authors (Heifetz et al., 2004; Damon & Verducci, 2006) discuss the role and tasks of leaders in organized philanthropy (foundations); others talk about the role of foundations in comparison to government or for-profitorganizations and argue that foundations need to use the broad array of resources (reputation, wealth, knowledge, leadership) specifically and strategically in order to achieve superior performance in their field of activity (Porter & Kramer, 1999; Anheier & Leat, 2005). Following such value creation strategies and seeking to lead coalitions of actors would allow foundations, despite their scarce resources, to tackle even vast social problems as education or health care actively and visibly (Heifetz et al., 2004), since they can view problems from a long-term perspective and have the standing to take the heat in current controversies. The challenge of leadership development, given the nonprofit leadership deficit, is to mobilize existing talent and to develop and motivate new high potentials like former administrators to become effective leaders. To fulfill this task, leadership development programs have evolved from formal, structured programs focusing on organizational and institutional issues to more process-based, experimental programs with a stronger emphasis on personal development and on change of personal attitudes and behavior (emotional intelligence, team-based, and collective leadership, collaboration, and networking). This shift is also reflected in the methods of leadership development, which include not only single training events but also a
wide variety of activities like coaching and mentoring, self-assessment, case and simulation exercises, narrative descriptions and more. One major problem in leadership development is to assess its impact. If impact assessment of nonprofit organizations is extremely complex, assessing the impact of nonprofit leadership development on individual leadership performance seems almost impossible. There is some evidence that leadership development can improve employee attitudes (motivation) and has greater impact in times of rapid change than in times of consolidation and stability (Burgoyne et al., 2004).
International Perspectives Increased economic, social, political, and cultural interdependence between nations creates new leadership challenges, including to design multinational organizations, select and train appropriate leaders for these organizations and manage culturally diverse staff. Therefore cross-cultural awareness, competence, and communication are gaining importance in the leadership discourse. There is particularly one study that has offered interesting findings (House et al., 2004) in this respect in recent years. The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project draws from a comparison of leadership behavior and effectiveness, including data from 17,000 managers in more than 950 organizations in 62 countries. For the comparison the researchers have developed nine cultural dimensions: uncertainty avoidance, power distance, institutional collectivism, ingroup collectivism, gender egalitarianism, assertiveness, future orientation, performance orientation, and humane orientation. Their empirical results show the dominance of some of these dimensions in different regional clusters. In the Anglo-American cluster researchers found a high performance orientation and low group collectivism, whereas the Confucian Asia cluster is characterized by high scores in performance orientation, institutional collectivism and in-group collectivism. Furthermore leadership style preferences in different cultures were analyzed: In the Anglo-American cluster the desired leadership type is charismatic and value based; in Asia a self-protective and team-oriented leadership type was preferred. The project has finally identified a list of ‘‘universal’’ positive and negative leadership attributes.
Future Directions A major issue of future nonprofit leadership is its distinctiveness: Will leadership of nonprofit organizations remain distinct from for-profit and public leadership? The spreading use of commercial activities, thinking, and
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acting in market terms in nonprofit organizations (Salamon, 2005), the blurring of the boundaries between the sectors and the increasing number of hybrid organizations might lead to a disappearing distinctiveness of nonprofit leadership and management. For nonprofits it is necessary to earn money by either distributing public services or offering activities in which private foundations take an interest. This might lead to a situation where the ‘‘survival imperative’’ wins over the ‘‘distinctiveness imperative’’ (Herman, 2005). If the moral distinctiveness of nonprofit organizations, and their particular role in society within their institutionalized framework remains noticeable, future research has to develop a theoretical framework for nonprofit leadership that reflects upon changes in the public governance arrangements. Many countries with a strong welfare state tradition have undergone massive change, which led to a new role of government. Modernizing government and professionalizing policy-making included increasing awareness for the impact of various social groups and the involvement of a wide range of interested parties, including those who will be affected by policy. The emergence of new governance arrangements, emphasizing inclusiveness and participation in network structures acknowledges the role of nonprofit organizations as advocates and as public service providers. This political awareness needs to be mirrored by active and competent leadership behavior. Leaders should use these new opportunities for advocacy and representation of interests. Further professionalization of leadership development requires more empirical analyses on changing job requirements for leaders in nonprofit organizations and foundations (due to the distinctiveness challenge and an increasing hybridity of sector organizations). In addition there is a need for more comparative data on motivation, career patterns and used instruments of nonprofit leaders as well as research on internationalization and their effects on leadership requirements.
Cross-References
▶ Gardner, John ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Hybridity, Hybridization ▶ Mission ▶ Nonprofit management ▶ Nonprofit organizations ▶ Philanthropy ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Strategic Planning ▶ Volunteers
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References/Further Readings Anheier, H. (2005). Nonprofit organizations: theory, management, policy. Oxon/New York: Routledge. Anheier, H. K., & Leat, D. (2005). Creative philanthropy: Towards a new philanthropy for the twenty-first century. Routledge: New York/London. Bass and Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership (1990). Theory, research and managerial applications. New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectation. New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M., & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational leadership. London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Benford, R. D., & Snow, D. A. (2000). Framing processes and social movements: An overview and assessment. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 611–639. Bolman, L. G., & Deal, T. E. (2003). Reframing organizations, artistry, choice and leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Burgoyne, J., Hirsh, W., & Williams, S. (2004). The development of management and leadership capability and its contribution to performance. London: DES Research Report 560. Burns, J. M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper Collins. Ciulla, J. B. (1998). Ethics, the heart of leadership. Westport, CT: Greenwood. Damon, W., & Verducci, S. (2006). Taking philanthropy seriously. Beyond noble intentions to responsible giving. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness. In L. Berkowitz (Hrsg.): Advances in experimental social psychology. New York: Academic. Gardner, J. (1989). On leadership. New York: Free Press. Greenleaf, R. K. (1970). The leader as a servant. In Greenleaf (1998): The power of servant leadership. San Francisco, CA: Berret-Koehler. Herman, R. D. (2005). The future of nonprofit management. In R. D. Herman (Ed.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management (pp. 731–736). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Herman, R. D., & Heimovics, D. (2005). Executive leadership. In R. D. Herman (Ed.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management (pp. 153–170). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hersey, P., & Blanchard, K. H. (1984). The management of organizational behavior (4th ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Heifetz, R. A. (1994). Leadership without easy answers. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Heifetz, R. A., Kania, J. V., & Kramer, M. R. (2004). Leading boldly. Stanford Social Innovation Review (4), 21–31. House, R. J. (1971). A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 16, 321–339. House, R. J. (2004). Culture, leadership and organizations: The GLOBE study of 62 societies. London: Sage. Lovas, B., & Ghoshal, S. (2000). Strategy as guided evolution. Strategic Management Journal, 21, 875–896. Northouse, P. G. (2007). Leadership: Theory and practice (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Porter, M., & Kramer, M. E. (1999). Philanthropy’s new agenda: Creating value. Harvard Business Review, Nov/Dec. 1999, 121–130. Porter, M., & Kramer, M. (2002). The competitive advantage of corporate philanthropy. Harvard Business Review, Dec. 2002, 3–14. Rost, J. C. (1991). Leadership for the twenty-first century. Westport, CT: Praeger. Salamon, L. M. (2005). The changing context of American nonprofit management. In R. D. Herman (Ed.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management (pp. 81–101). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1997). Defining the nonprofit sector: A cross-national analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Schein, E. (2004). Organizational culture and leadership (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Smillie, I., & Hailey, J. (2001). Managing for change: Leadership, strategy and management in Asian NGOs. London: Earthscan. Stogdill, R. (1974). Handbook of leadership. New York: Free Press. Tierney, T. J. (2006). The leadership deficit. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Summer, 26–35. Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership in organizations (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Wright, P. (1996). Managerial leadership. London: Routledge. Zietlow, J. T. (2001). Social entrepreneurship: Managerial, finance and marketing aspects. Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing, 9(1/2), 19–43.
Legitimacy L. DAVID BROWN Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Introduction The issue of the legitimacy of civil society organizations (CSOs) has taken on increasing urgency in the last two decades. As civil society actors have taken on increasingly important roles in governance and social problem solving in different countries and in the international arena, more questions have been raised about the bases of their legitimacy and the nature of their accountability for their actions. The growing attention and growing legitimacy of civil society actors is reflected in the fact that four of the last five Nobel Peace Prizes have been given at least in part to civil society activists.
Definition The concept of legitimacy has been a staple of political science and sociology for many decades. Early analyses focused on the legitimacy of political regimes and leadership, dealing with the relationship between the nature of acceptance of political regimes and their capacity to exercise power and authority. Weber’s (1924/1968) analysis of the traditional, charismatic, and rational–legal bases for political authority is the classic example. But the concept can be applied at multiple levels, from the legitimacy of regimes to the legitimacy of organizations to the legitimacy of individual actors. Different approaches to organizations have emphasized different aspects of legitimacy. Resource dependence
theory, for example, treats legitimacy as an important organizational resource. Pfeffer and Salancik (1978), for example, treat legitimacy as a tool for managing external pressures on the organization. Institutional theorists emphasize legitimacy as a reflection of the organization’s ability to fit into its societal context. Scott (1995), for example, defines legitimacy as a condition that represents cultural alignment, normative support, or consonance with relevant rules and laws. Analysts of the legitimacy of civil society organizations (CSOs), such as Edwards (2000), have emphasized the perception that the organization and its activities are lawful, admissible, and justifiable in their social contexts. All these definitions of legitimacy reflect alignment between the organization, its activities, and the values, norms, and laws of the societal context. Legitimacy is a relational concept in that it reflects how the individual or organization is seen by others in its social context. It is lost or gained in the eyes of external observers. The legitimacy of a civil society organization or domain may have important consequences for its ability to achieve its purposes and goals, particularly when those goals involve actions by, and impacts upon, the larger society. Civil society legitimacy often depends on the missions, strategies, and activities by which the organization engages with its contexts. Civil society actors have choices about strategies and activities that affect how other actors in their societies perceive them. But those perceptions are not easily subject to direct civil society control. So repairing lost legitimacy or enhancing current legitimacy is not easy or simple.
Historical Background In part, the growing attention to civil society legitimacy reflects widespread questions about many social institutions; events in many countries have raised doubts about the legitimacy of government agencies, private corporations, church hierarchies, media outlets, and many other important social actors. Civil society organizations are affected by more general global concerns about the fairness and acceptability of many highly visible actors. But civil society organizations are particularly vulnerable to legitimacy challenges. First, their claims to public support and influence are often grounded in missions that emphasize producing public goods and serving widely held values. To the extent those claims are widely seen as illegitimate, civil society organizations lose the public support and influence they need to survive and be effective. Second, civil society organizations are seldom accountable to clearly defined primary stakeholders, unlike business accountability to owners or government
Legitimacy
accountability to citizens. Civil society actors are accountable to many stakeholders – donors, clients, regulators, staff, allies – but primarily accountable to none. So legitimacy issues can be raised because of accountability questions. Third, the proliferation of civil society organizations as actors in many societies has produced a variety of abuses. The fact that some civil society actors are demonstrably corrupt or incompetent or subversive can generate questions about the legitimacy of others. Fourth, some civil society organizations work with poor and marginalized groups to improve their situations, sometimes by challenging the status quo. Such challenges often provoke counterattacks in the form of questions about legitimacy. Civil society organizations involved in political advocacy, for example, may have their legitimacy questioned by advocacy targets. Finally, legitimacy has become increasingly important for civil society organizations as they have become increasingly recognized as social actors as they have gained influence on important governance and social problemsolving initiatives. Assessments of civil society in dozens of countries, as reported by Heinrich, Mati, and Brown (2007), suggest that legitimacy and accountability are important challenges in most of them.
Key Issues At the heart of legitimacy for civil society organizations are the missions and values that guide their strategies and activities. Civil society organizations can ground their legitimacy claims in their missions and values in response to the often-conflicting claims of diverse stakeholders. That argument requires articulating the bases of legitimacy for those missions, recognizing challenges to those bases, and enhancing legitimacy by demonstrating fidelity to them in organizational activities. Assessing Bases for Legitimacy
Civil society claims to legitimacy can be rooted in different bases depending on what purposes and values the organization or domain seeks to achieve. Suchman (1995) and Brown (2008), for example, have identified several possible bases for legitimacy and a variety of strategies for enhancing or managing them. Civil society organizations may gain legal legitimacy by conforming to rules, regulations, and legislation that regulate their formation and activity. Meeting government standards for service delivery or for organizational registration and reporting can create legal legitimacy for service or political CSOs. The demands of legal legitimacy vary widely across countries: Some countries guarantee the
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right to free assembly and civil society organization while others regulate civil society organization very strictly. Normative and value-based legitimacy comes from exemplifying and acting for widely held values and moral obligations, such as preserving human rights, protecting children, or increasing good governance. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines, for example, emphasized ending the carnage and helping the victims of land mines, and won the Nobel Prize without having a formal organization or a bank account. Political legitimacy grows from credibility as the representative of members or constituents. Political legitimacy is particularly central for civil society organizations in policy advocacy and political influence: The Landmines Campaign became more influential as it increasingly spoke for strong national movements. Challenges to ‘‘unelected’’ and ‘‘unrepresentative’’ civil society organizations assume that political legitimacy is critical, though technical and normative legitimacy may also be important bases for advocacy. Building cognitive legitimacy involves aligning civil society activities with socially accepted meanings and expectations that are easily comprehensible or that define ‘‘the way things are.’’ Civil society organizations often adopt organizational forms and struggle to keep their overhead costs low to meet the popular perception that low overheads represent efficient performance. Civil society organizations develop technical and pragmatic legitimacy by providing resources, expertise, and services of value to key stakeholders. Civil society organizations may develop technical resources for solving social problems that make them legitimate across many stakeholders. The International Standards Organization, for example, has become an expert resource for many kinds of standards in the global arena. Finally, associational legitimacy comes from links to other individuals and organizations that are widely regarded as legitimate. Civil society organizations often recruit distinguished leaders to their Boards as evidence of their legitimacy. The International Campaign to Ban Landmines enhanced its legitimacy by building alliances with respected governments to build support for an international treaty. Civil society organizations and domains can emphasize one or several bases in articulating their claims for legitimacy. Most develop some degree of regulatory and normative legitimacy that is attuned to national legislation and value commitments. Organizations that emphasize service delivery and capacity building often focus on technical and pragmatic legitimacy. Advocacy organizations often focus on political legitimacy as well as normative and technical bases. Associational legitimacy
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can be particularly important to new organizations and domains. Cognitive legitimacy is important in areas where performance assessment is difficult to assess so fit with social expectations may substitute for it. Emerging Challenges
Challenges to the legitimacy of civil society activity appear to have been increasing with the increased visibility and impact of civil society organizations in a variety of fields. At least four areas of civil society work are particularly likely to generate challenges to their legitimacy. First, civil society organizations that engage in controversies over value differences are particularly likely to generate questions about their legitimacy. Civil society organizations are often value based in their inception and mobilization of resources, and so strongly committed to value positions. It is common to have civil society actors on several sides of issues, all accusing each other of illegitimacy. A second form of legitimacy challenge emerges when civil society organizations engage in the distribution and redistribution of political power. Civil society organizations that challenge government initiatives may be challenged as partisan or subversive by government agencies; civil society organizations that cooperate with government agencies may be challenged as ‘‘sellouts’’ by political oppositions. Since many civil society organizations are organized to support marginalized groups, political challenges to their legitimacy are common. A third arena for challenges to civil society organizations involves their competition with other sectors to deliver goods and services. In some countries, for example, competition is growing among public, private, and nonprofit deliverers of health or education services. In these areas the legitimacy of all the participants may be a topic of debate, as different standards of performance are debated and developed. Challenges to civil society legitimacy are also common when they work on social problems that demand innovation. When the Grameen Bank argued for micro-credit loans to borrowers without collateral, it contradicted well-established banking theory and practice – and so understandably stimulated skepticism and challenge from bankers. Innovations that undermine or discredit existing practices can expect challenges from established practice. Strengthening Legitimacy
Organization and domain legitimacy is derived from the perceptions of external observers and publics that are beyond organization or domain control. But analysts
such as Suchman (1995) and Brown (2008) have identified at least four approaches to strengthening agency legitimacy. Three of those approaches focus on aligning organization and domain activities with existing legitimacy expectations. The fourth emphasizes constructing new definitions of legitimacy when existing expectations prevent or constrain needed innovations. First, civil society organizations can enhance their legitimacy by complying with existing laws, regulations, values, norms, and expectations that define legitimacy in their contexts. This approach can focus on any of the bases of legitimacy and mobilize organizational resources to conform to its expectations. It is most useful when there are well-developed expectations and the organization can provide evidence for meeting them, such as complying with the requirements for registration or financial audits. A second approach is to inform key stakeholders of the organization’s compliance with or meeting legitimacy expectations. This approach emphasizes making information available about how the organization’s activities exemplify legitimate behavior. Building the ‘‘organizational story’’ that explains its activities is often critical to enhancing its legitimacy with key stakeholders. A third possibility is to enhance the organization’s association with legitimate resources and cultural symbols. Civil society organizations and domains can use cultural embodiments of legitimacy to improve public perceptions of their legitimacy. Recruiting well-respected board members, adopting donor-approved monitoring and evaluation schemes, and instituting organization structures used by successful agencies are ways to associate with other sources of legitimacy. In some cases, these strategies are largely cosmetic and have little impact on CSO functioning; in others, they can strongly affect organizational activity as well as its legitimacy. A fourth approach to enhancing legitimacy is to construct new legitimacy standards and expectations that are consistent with organization or domain activities. Aligning civil society activities with existing standards may reinforce the status quo that it seeks to change, so new laws, norms, cognitions, and values may be needed to enable innovations or social transformations. Organizations can reframe existing definitions to demonstrate their negative consequences and use their experience to articulate new expectations that enable innovations. Transparency International had to challenge existing perceptions that corruption is inevitable and ‘‘the way things are’’ to be seen as a legitimate international actor. Reconstructing definitions of legitimacy may require widespread public debate to articulate new arguments, engage existing discourses, and articulate new legitimacy standards and expectations.
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These strategies move from aligning the civil society actors with existing expectations to actively changing the expectations that underpin legitimacy judgments. While aligning the CSO with existing standards of legitimacy may be easier than constructing new standards, for some CSOs creating new standards lies at the heart of their missions – so struggling to transform present standards is central to their accomplishment.
International Perspectives Defining legitimacy in terms of alignments with values, norms, and laws suggests that challenges to civil society legitimacy are likely when there is little agreement on shared values, norms, and legal expectations. International contexts, often characterized by diverse values, norms, and laws, are particularly fertile fields for legitimacy controversies. When civil society actors with roots in political systems that emphasize human rights and the rule of law criticize actors in countries with different political traditions, intense controversies about legitimacy may emerge as a consequence. The rise of transnational civil society actors concerned with disaster relief, economic development, and political advocacy has multiplied the number of occasions in which crossnational differences in values, norms, and laws generate questions about the legitimacy of civil society actors. In these international arenas challenges to the legitimacy of multi-organization domains composed of civil society actors have become common. Questions may be raised about communities of organizations that have similar missions and modes of operation. International childsponsorship nonprofit organizations, for example, have been accused of misleading donors about the extent to which their contributions benefit children in developing countries. In response, a group of those organizations has created a set of standards and processes for accountability that can enhance their legitimacy with key stakeholders. A second common form of multi-organization domain is alliances of civil society organizations for advocacy campaigns. The legitimacy of such campaigns has often been challenged by their targets. Government trade negotiators have criticized the legitimacy of civil society alliances that have opposed, sometimes successfully, international agreements to regulate world trade. As civil society actors challenge other actors in contexts of diverse societal rules, norms, and values, they can expect to be asked questions about the bases of their legitimacy.
Future Directions Civil society organization and domain legitimacy will continue to be an area of controversy in many countries
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and in the transnational arena as civil society actors engage with government, business, and other actors on issues of governance and problem solving. While at the national level some struggles over legitimacy may be resolved by legislation and issue maturation that generates widespread public judgments, at the international level debates over legitimate parties to governance decisions and legitimate approaches to problem solving are likely to continue as globalization and transnational interdependence demand more attention from many actors. Articulating new standards for legitimate international problem solving and new approaches to holding international actors accountable can put an even higher premium on civil society legitimacy in the future. The debates on legitimacy today will be the basis for their participation in governance and problem solving in the future, and can be expected to remain an area of intensive work for some years to come.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Advocacy ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ International Campaign to Ban Landmines ▶ International Organization for Standardization ▶ Mission ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Transparency ▶ Transparency International ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Brinkerhoff, D. W. (2005). Organizational legitimacy, capacity and capacity development (Discussion paper No. 58A). Maastricht, The Netherlands: European Centre for Development Policy Management. Brown, L. D. (2008). Creating credibility: Legitimacy and accountability for transnational civil society. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (Eds.) (1991). Introduction. In W. W. Powell & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis (pp. 1–38). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Ebrahim, A., & Weisband, E. (Eds.) (2007). Forging global accountabilities: Participation, pluralism and public ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Edwards, M. (2000). NGO rights and responsibilities: A new deal for global governance. London: The Foreign Policy Centre. Heinrich, W. F., Mati, J. M., & Brown, L. D. (2007). The varying contexts for civil society accountability: Insights from a global analysis of country-level assessments. In W. F. Hienrich & L. Fioramonti (Eds.), CIVICUS global survey of the state of civil society: Volume 2: Comparative perspectives. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
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Jordan, L., & Tuijl, P. V. (Eds.) (2006). NGO accountability: Politics, principles and innovations. London: Earthscan. Pfeffer, J., & Salancik, G. (1978). The external control of organizations. New York: Harper & Row. Scott, W. R. (1995). Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Suchman, M. C. (1995). Managing legitimacy: Strategic and institutional approaches. Academy of Management Review, 20(3), 517–610. Weber, M. (1924/1968). Economy and society: An interpretive sociology. New York: Bedminster.
Lifecycle, NGOs STEPHEN COMMINS UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Introduction Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are each unique, yet there are certain commonalities in terms of how they evolve as organizations. This entry provides an overview of the lifecycle of NGOs, illustrating different phases with reference to the specific organizational dynamics found in the NGO sector. While each NGO is unique, they share a number of commons characteristics. In general, they are missiondriven organizations, struggling with limited resources in a world that characterizes their work as charitable and voluntary rather than professional and skills based. NGOs constantly balance competing demands: developmental change with emergency relief; visible and immediate impact with long-term sustainability; and donor and media demands with the needs of the population. Whether nationally or internationally based, the role of the NGO evolves constantly due to changing needs, trends, and demands.
NGOs are similar to nonprofits or charities, terms frequently used in OECD countries. The term ‘‘Nongovernmental Organization’’ has its origins in the ways in which the United Nations system has sought to distinguish member states from other actors involved in development, humanitarian, and similar areas of work. This entry focuses on NGOs in developing countries, but its description of the organizational lifecycle parallels a similar process for nonprofits or charities in OECD countries. An organizational lifecycle involves the different phases or stages in an organization’s life that reflect its organizational evolution through different types of leadership, management systems, programming, financial support and its external operating environment.
Historical Background NGOs have emerged in the post-World War II and postcolonial era as independent nongovernmental, nonprofit organizations established on a voluntary basis by natural and/or legal persons; which does not pursue gaining income (profits) as the main purpose of its activities, and does not distribute gained income (profits) among its participants (members). One of the essential distinctions between nonprofit organizations from the commercial ones is that the former have clearly stated objectives that are different from the purpose of making a profit. NGOs are formally registered with the appropriate government agencies and operate with formal budgets, governance systems (even if relatively informal), reporting mechanisms and management structure. There are many similar, but for the purposes of this entry, distinct nonprofit organizations, including less formal Community Based Organizations (CBOs) or Grassroots Organizations (GROs), social movements, peasant farmer associations, religious welfare organizations, ethnic, or culturally based organizations, as well as NGOs that are government sponsored and supported (GONGO).
Definition
Key Issues
NGOs can be distinguished from community based organizations (CBO) or grassroots organizations (GRO) in terms of their organizational structure and the ways in which they are more formal institutions. The distinctions and differences between NGO, CBO, and GROs are not rigid, and the terms are often used interchangeably, especially for smaller size NGOs. For the purpose of this entry, an NGO is an organization that formally exists as a legal or registered entity; it has some type of formal organizational structure, goals, objectives, necessary registration and some form of governance.
All NGOs face various specific challenges of managing organizational change, depending on their mission, history, and structure. Along with the specific organizational issues, there are also regular changes and trends that help define the lifecycle. One unique aspect of the annual life of an NGO is that each organization starts its new fiscal year with a ‘‘ticking clock,’’ a race between the ability to raise new funds and fulfill their organizational commitments. This means that whatever their programmatic goals, NGOs are daily faced with the task of acquiring funding, ‘‘gifts in kind,’’ or
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volunteers for their programs. The fund raising or marketing side of NGOs often receives less attention than the programs or advocacy, but the ability of NGOs to raise support for programs is central to their survival. The lifecycle illustrates the relative ability of an NGO to manage change on a regular basis, while recognizing that not all changes experienced by NGOs are of the same magnitude or impact. In an organization’s lifecycle, for illustration, there might be two relatively different types of changes, one that represents the normal flow of the NGO’s operations, the other signifying a challenge or change that presents a new stage or phase in the organization’s life. In effect, the NGO lifecycle in part exists due to two basic types of change for an organization, some that are more continuous and some more disruptive. Continuous change occurs within a relatively normal operational system and includes the daily organizational tasks that keep the NGO functioning. Discontinuous change, in contrast, reflects more dramatic opportunities and risks that either come from within the NGO itself, or the external fundamental environment in which it operates. Organizations experience continuous change every day – from a program assessment that leads to a decision to eliminate a staff position to recognizing the need to upgrade computers in a department. Discontinuous change, however, usually results from a substantial event – either internal or external – that alters the operating environment of an organization. Examples of these are the unexpected departure of an executive director or a major funder’s decision to end support of an organization. The lifecycle model generally sets out five stages in NGO lifecycle, which will illustrate both continuous and discontinuous change. While any model is necessarily stylized, a summary of the lifecycle model sets out five stages of the lifecycle: Start up; Early Growth; Mature; Stagnation, Crisis, or Decline; Different types of transitions, ranging from merger, to reform to dissolution. These are not fixed or universal, but they provide some indication of the various elements in an NGO’s organizational life. It is important to keep in mind that this model is only a framework that shows the typical path of an NGO’s organizational process. Not all NGOs have gone through each stage, and the rate at which an NGO passes through the stages varies. Each NGO will undergo changes that are unique to its mission and context, so there will be significant differences between organizations and the dynamics of their lifecycle. One organization may face difficulties or growth due to changes in funding opportunities, another due to senior leadership, and another to the particular
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dynamics of the relationship between the organization and its beneficiaries. In the start up phase, NGOs begin due to the specific goals, initiatives, innovation, and aspirations of a small group of individuals, often with one individual who plays the role as founder and leader. The NGO’s identity is strongly shaped by the early role of its leadership, which shapes and defines the core mission of the NGO. As an organization begins to take form, there are initial and varied challenges including defining the organizations’ vision, developing a formal or informal mission statement, identifying whether there are specific founding documents, and the tasks of setting up a governing body, hiring staff, and the processes around registration and legal status. The early phases of an NGO’s lifecycle include the establishment of the NGO’s functions, usually as much implicit as explicit in the early phase, especially for NGOs established by one founding leader. The NGO will begin to establish its core human and financial resources, again often in a relatively ad hoc and informal manner. More formal organizations develop systems for planning and implementation of programs, but these are often very informal in the early stages. Over time, as an organization grows, more systems are in place to support the organization’s ability and capacity to effectively provide services to its various clients, stakeholders, and constituents. If a new NGO grows in size and budget, one of the first tensions that it may encounter is that of the difference in perceived value of voluntarism and the value of professionalism. When an organization begins to employ staff, various issues arise in terms of how ‘‘professional’’ an NGO should become. As NGOs become larger, staff may expect advancement, growth, rewards, and even career prospects. This issue often receives little attention because of the ‘‘NGO ethos,’’ but in most low and lower middle income countries, unlike in OECD countries, working for an NGO, even a smaller agency, can be one of the few professional options for school graduates. Another issue that often emerges in the growth phase concerns what amounts to an acceptable cost of organizational expenses, or ‘‘overhead,’’ for the NGO. Most NGOs either implicitly or explicitly address as they grow the question of how to balance what is spent within the NGO with what is spent on programs and reaches the people for whom the NGO is supposed to work. While tax authorities and other government bodies may set maximum levels for internal expenses, the NGOs themselves often struggle with identifying an appropriate benchmark. As NGOs grow, they will also develop approaches to fund raising and funding sources, to
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communicating their messages, and to how they will manage programs. If the NGO manages to grow through acquiring more resources, and becomes larger than a few staff members, it begins to face the challenge of whether the NGO is capable of growing and managing more tasks. An essential part of an NGO’s growth involves whether it can, whether deliberately or haphazardly, build capacity. The importance of capacity building through the NGO lifecycle cannot be underestimated. Capacity building should not be confused with training. Capacity building is a response to the multidimensional processes of change, not a set of discrete or prepackaged technical interventions intended to bring about a predefined outcome. As the name implies, capacity building is a process of building relationships that allow the NGO to more effectively prepare for and respond to both continuous and discontinuous change. In broad terms, capacity building is any intervention designed to reinforce or create strengths upon which communities can draw to offset disaster-related vulnerability. Capacity building is a process by which individuals, groups, institutions, organizations, and societies enhance their abilities to identify and meet challenges in a sustainable manner. It is the nurturing of the abilities needed by society to take control of its destiny and to manage and direct the development process. A growing NGO will be able to develop its capacities around the major programs and goals, to adapt to the external environment, and to build up basic leadership roles, management systems and technical skills. The organizational and technical capacity in a growing NGO will illustrate to donors the ability of the organization to implement the key organizational and programmatic functions that are identified as core for achieving its strategic mission. Generally, organizations need skills in such areas as program development, program evaluation, financial management, and various forms of applied technology, depending on both internal and operational requirements. As an NGO reaches a level of maturity in terms of stable leadership, it will often invest in a more formal and elaborate functioning governance system. At the same time, it should be acknowledged that some NGOs never achieve stability, and those that do usually do not experience any particular phase as fixed or set. The mature NGO will give greater attention to processes such as strategic planning, client needs assessment, internal organizational assessment, external communications and financial systems. The system of governance provides the formal oversight of leadership, direction, and legitimacy for an
organization. It is often the case that NGO founders are charismatic individuals with a strong commitment to a cause or purpose and a definite set of ideas about how to serve that cause. However, as the organization grows, there is an increasing need for others to share, and also critique, the founders’ understanding and commitment if the organization is to be sustained. Another aspect of maturity is when an NGO moves beyond the drive of an individual’s leadership to a management system. A more formal organization requires systems of management that are responsible for the dayto-day operations of the organization and implementing the board’s policies and plans. Both the board and management monitor the internal and external environment and are responsible for adapting to change. The implementation of specific programs provides the clearest evidence of the effectiveness of the NGO as an organization. The NGO may have superb bylaws, a strong board, good public relations and well developed operational procedures, but it is on the front line of working with individuals and communities that an NGO’s impact is usually best understood. Programs are the strongest evidence of the success and value of most NGO operations. The organization may have excellent governance, effective administrative procedures, and a highly skilled staff, but it must use these resources to deliver quality services to its constituents and community. A well-run NGO ensures that its programs are sustained in addition to being appropriate quality services delivered in costeffective ways. Providing effective quality programs requires an understanding of community needs, specialized technical knowledge, and unique approaches to service delivery. A for-profit service business faces similar challenges. However, one characteristic of NGO service delivery differs from for-profit businesses – the efficiency of service delivery is measured by client benefit/cost, not sales dollars/cost. Assessing the impact – what changes in the lives of poor people are the result of an NGO’s services – is an integral piece of program capacity, and frequently missing within NGO operations. What an organization can achieve depends to a certain extent on the financial resources it has available and how well they are managed. A viable NGO has systems and procedures in place to ensure it has the funds to purchase the goods and services needed to conduct its affairs and is delivering services to constituents in a cost-effective manner. NGOs cannot be burdened with unnecessarily complicated procedures or systems. An NGO will be better served if it has simple mechanisms in place for organizing
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cash disbursements and receipts, maintaining ledgers/ journals and bank accounts, and meeting payroll, petty cash, and daily expenses. It is critical as well that the financial systems meet the requirements of donors, lenders, or clients who pay for the goods and services. Separate accounts probably will be needed for each significant donor, so that the funds can be tracked to assure money is spent in accordance with the conditions of the gift. Over time, all organizations face periods of crises, which lead to change, adaptation, or serious threats to the organization’s survival. One example that exists in both developing and OECD countries, concerns the ways in which both national governments and international donors have changed the structure of how they provide to NGOs. Often it appears in a shift from general program funding to specifically designed and structured contract funds. Contract funding involves clearly delineated government or donor purchase of defined services with specified outputs, with funding being closely monitored, and the establishment of less flexible and more rigorous goals. In the services and social welfare sectors of many developing and transition economy countries, national, and local governments are struggling with limited resources to meet the basic needs of their populations. Faced with difficult economic conditions, tight budgets and limited expenditures for the social sectors, governments have increasingly turned to local NGOs as potential partners in basic service delivery. Partnerships incorporate features such as performance contracts with NGOs for service delivery, sharing of staff between public sector agencies and NGOs, institutional innovations intended to increase incentives for service providers, decentralization, and the involvement of NGOs in sector policy-making. Service sector reforms often include new roles for their various partners, but in many countries lack of experience, capacity, and trust can make the reform process a challenging one at best, and at worst a failure. A critical problem, then, in service sector reform is how to make these expanded policy and implementation partnerships successful. Another hallmark of the transition has been the devolution of responsibility for service delivery in many sectors from national to local governments. This has generally included the provision of social services. Decentralization has been much greater for program administration and service delivery than for program design and funding. But funding responsibility has often shifted more in reality than stated in the law because of unfunded and underfunded national mandates.
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NGOs often find themselves under pressure to deliver services beyond what they have agreed to in a contract. They find that they need greater clarity on the distinctions and roles for regional government and municipalities compared to those of the NGOs. They have also learned that it is to their advantage to have effective government management and monitoring systems functioning, otherwise the NGOs may end up investing overstretched resources managing the impact of limited public finance.
Future Directions While there is extensive literature on organizational change and how NGOs respond to survival challenges, there is remarkably little literature on the demise of NGOs, whether the result of financial collapse, loss of community support or government intervention. Much of the current knowledge is anecdotal. It tends to summarize internal organizational disputes, particularly during a time of leadership change, or decisions by governments to withdraw the NGOs funding support or revoke legal status. Unfortunately, the crisis may also occur due to questions about financial integrity, whether from mismanagement or illegal use of funds. Financial crises are often at the root of an NGO’s decline. And while some crises result from funding shortfalls, unfortunately there are many cases where the crisis occurs because of a lack of financial controls and a system that is based too extensively on personal trust of individuals. A relatively unstudied aspect of NGO management has to do with the serious problems that occur through the increased flow of financial resources into resource poor communities. It is a frequent mistake that NGOs make too often on the assumed good intentions of their staff and ignore ‘‘internal control.’’ They fail to institute basic procedures to avoid accidental or deliberate misappropriation of cash and other assets. An organization’s survival, whether in good or difficult times, will depend in part on how well the NGO is structured to address its lifecycle challenges. This involves the current leadership, the existing management system, the capacity to adapt in both its operations and its capacity to raise funds. There are also times when an organization’s mission or purpose has been changed, either due to internal leadership decisions or the pressure of donors to take on new challenges. For example, a leadership crisis may occur when the NGO faces challenges that the key leaders are not prepared to face, or which are outside their past experiences. An individual or a leadership team can be very effective in one working environment, but whether due to external or internal changes, they may find themselves
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unable to adapt or adjust. Similarly, a management system may not be able to address in a clear and systematic way new challenges. Various issues involving serious problems with programs, finances, staffing, or technical skills can overwhelm existing systems and knowledge. This requires that NGOs be adaptive, which may not be easy, either due to the existing funding patterns or internal leadership processes. The worst case results in organizational failure leading to either merger, dissolution, or restarting with new board and management.
Cross-References
▶ Donor, Donor Intent ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Leadership ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Nonprofit Organizational Behavior: Psychological and Sociological Approaches ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Definitions and History of ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Strategic Planning ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organizations, Sociological
References/Further Readings Abbott, D., Brown, S., & Wilson, G. (2007). Development management as reflective practice. Journal of International Development, 19. Edwards, M. (1997). Organizational learning in Nongovernmental organizations: What have we learned? Public Administration and Development, 17(2), 235–250. Edwards, M., & Fowler, A. (2002). The earthscan reader on NGO management. London: Earthscan. Fowler, A. (1997). Striking a balance: A guide to enhancing the effectiveness of nongovernmental organizations in international development. London: Earthscan. Hafsi, T., & Thomas, H. (2005). Strategic management and change in high dependency environments: The case of a philanthropic organization. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 16(4), 329–351. Hailey, J. (2006). NGO leadership development: A review of the literature (Praxis Paper 10). Oxford: INTRAC. Hudson, M. (2004). Managing without profit: The art of managing thirdsector organization. London: Penguin. James, R. (2003). Leaders changing inside-out (Research Paper, OPS 43). Oxford: INTRAC. Lewis, D. (2007). The management of nongovernmental development organizations (2nd ed.). London/New York: Routledge. Newsletter of the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York. (September–October 1997). Organizational Life Cycles. New York Non Profits.
Padaki, V. (2005). Management development in nonprofit organizations: A program for governing boards. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage. Padaki, V. (2007). The human organization: Challenges in NGOs and development programs. Development in Practice, 17(1). Roper, L., & Petit, J. (Eds.) (2005). Development and the learning organization. Oxford: Oxfam /Kumarian. Smit, M. (2007). We’re too much in ‘‘To Do’’ mode: Action research into supporting (Praxis Paper 16). Oxford: INTRAC. Walsh, E., & Lenihan, H. (2006). Accountability and effectiveness of NGOs: Adapting business tools successfully. Development in Practice, 16(5), 412–424.
Lilly Endowment DAVID HORTON SMITH
Address of Organization 2801 North Meridian Street Indianapolis, IN 46208 USA www.lillyendowment.org
Introduction The Lilly Endowment is an Indianapolis-based, private, philanthropic foundation. It is distinctive in several ways. First, it is one of the ten largest foundations in the United States (as of March 2008) in terms of endowment assets, with over $7 billion. Second, it gives most of its grants to educational and charitable organizations based in the state of Indiana, especially Indianapolis, unlike all of the other largest foundations in the United States. (However, about 30% of the more than $7 billion the Endowment has given out in the past 70+ years has gone to nonprofit organizations based outside Indiana). Third, it has supported some key Civil Society/Nonprofit Sector (CS/NPS) national infrastructure organizations based in America.
Brief History J. K. Lilly, Sr., and his sons J. K. Lilly, Jr., and Eli Lilly, created the foundation in 1937 through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Company. Although stock in the original family company remains central to the assets of the foundation, the foundation and the company are distinct entities in terms of organization, governing boards, staff, and location. The Lilly family’s key priority was to help the people of their city and state build a better life. Although the Endowment also supports efforts of national significance and an occasional
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international project, it remains primarily committed to its hometown, Indianapolis, and home state, Indiana.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas In keeping with the wishes of the three founders, the foundation exists to support the causes of religion, education, and community development. The foundation give special emphasis to projects that benefit young people and that promote leadership education and financial self-sufficiency in the nonprofit, charitable sector.
Activities The foundation receives several thousand requests for grants each year, but supports only a small percentage of them after a thorough review process. In its Community Development interest area, the foundation has supported human services, arts, and culture, and economic development/revitalization, especially in Indianapolis. Statewide, it has supported the development of endowments of new and existing community foundations and the creation and funding of United Way agencies. In the Education area, the foundation has given grants that emphasize increasing higher educational attainment in Indiana. In the Religion area, the foundation has given grants that focus mainly on educating new church pastors and improving the excellence of current pastors. But it has also supported some important scholarship on contemporary religion in America.
Structure and Governance A small Board of Directors sets policy for the foundation. Seven principal officers, including Vice-Presidents in charge of the main interest areas, lead the nearly 40 paid staff, which is responsible for day-to-day operations.
Funding The foundation’s endowment assets at the end of 2007 were $7.7 billion.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions For the CS/NPS in America, the foundation’s main contributions have been supporting programs to increase charitable giving among Americans and to create more reliable knowledge about giving, fund-raising, and other aspects of philanthropy broadly conceived. This has included long-term support of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), and of the Indiana University Center on Philanthropy (COP). Other national CS/NPS contributions have included supporting, with other foundations, the National Congregations Study (Chaves, 2004).
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Cross-References
▶ ARNOVA ▶ Churches and Congregations ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Lilly, Eli ▶ United Way International
References/Further Readings Chaves, M. (2004). Congregations in America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kranz, B. (2004). Center on Philanthropy. In D. Burlingame (Ed.), Philanthropy in America: A comprehensive historical encyclopedia (Vol. 1, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.pp. 64–66). Smith, D. H. (2003). A history of ARNOVA. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32(3), 458–472.
Lilly, Eli DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Eli Lilly was born in 1885 in Indianapolis, Indiana and would become one of the great philanthropists of his time. In 1907, Eli graduated from his father’s alma mater, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, and accepted a position at the family company – Eli Lilly & Company, the pharmaceutical firm that his grandfather Colonel Eli Lilly founded in the 1860s. Two years later, he was promoted to head of the manufacturing department. Eli Lilly & Company continued to grow throughout the World Wars and the Great Depression, and became involved in the development and production of insulin as well as being one of the first companies in the country to produce penicillin. Eli was named president of the company in 1932 and 2 years later, under Lilly’s direction, the company made its first overseas ventures. In 1948, Eli Lilly relinquished the presidency to his brother Josiah, and assumed the role of chair of the board of directors. Today, Eli Lilly & Company is one of the world’s largest corporations with over 40,000 employees and revenues nearing $19 billion in 2008.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Along with his father, J.K. Lilly, Sr. and his brother J.K. Lilly, Jr., Eli founded the Lilly Endowment in 1937. The Endowment’s focus became the causes of religion, education, and community development. The Endowment
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affords special emphasis to projects that benefit young people and promote leadership education and financial self-sufficiency in the nonprofit, charitable sector. On a personal level, Lilly was interested in history and archaeology and founded the Historic Landmarks Foundation of Indiana to aid in the preservation of structures significant to the historical and cultural development of Indiana. Lilly was known to not simply make donations, but to make informed donations to organizations that he had researched and believed in. Lilly also showed a commitment to the study of philanthropy, and in the early 1950s he commissioned a 3-year study of philanthropy in Indianapolis. This led to the formation of the United Fund in Indianapolis. Lilly’s philanthropic influence also lives on through the Eli Lilly and Company Foundation, which was started in 1968 and is completely separate from Lilly Endowment. Funded through company profits, the corporate foundation consistently ranks in the list of the top ten most generous companies in the world. Among other things, the Foundation supports education, culture, and community. They also donate Lilly pharmaceutical products and offer an employee donation matching program for eligible nonprofit organizations.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ Grantmaking Foundations ▶ Lilly Endowment
References/Further Readings Clark, R. C. (1946). Threescore years and ten: A narrative of the first seventy years of Eli Lilly and Company 1876–1946. Chicago: The Lakeside Press. Kahn, E. J. (1976). All in a century: The first hundred years of Eli Lilly and Company. Indianapolis, IN: Lilly. Madison, J. H. (1989). Eli Lilly: A life, 1885–1977. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana Historical Society.
Lobbying TAKAYUKI YOSHIOKA Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA
are usually called ‘‘interest groups.’’ Nonprofit organizations representing their constituents’ interests, especially interests of the general public and/or the underrepresented are sometimes termed public interest groups. Interest groups provide citizens with mechanisms for transmitting information about their policy preferences to democratic government. When they attempt to influence public policy, their organized efforts are generally called ‘‘lobbying.’’ This entry addresses definitions, forms, theories, influences, and international perspectives of lobbying as well as future directions of research on lobbying.
Definition Political scientists define the term ‘‘lobbying’’ in a comprehensive manner. For example, Anthony J. Nownes (2006: 5) defined lobbying as ‘‘an effort designed to affect what the government does.’’ Jeffrey M. Berry and Clyde Wilcox (2008: 6) stated that ‘‘when an interest group attempts to influence policy makers, it can be said to be engaging in lobbying.’’ More specifically, to make the meaning of lobbying clearer, Lester W. Milbrath (1963) set up four criteria which lobbying must meet. The first is that lobbying is related to governmental decision making. The second is that lobbying is intended to influence public policy. The third is that lobbying is practiced by an intermediary or representative linking between citizens and policy makers, such as an interest group. The fourth is that lobbying involves an act of communication. In addition, Clive S. Thomas (2004) highlighted that lobbying is a process, involving three stages: gaining access, sharing a group’s view on an issue of interest with a legislator, and influencing a legislator in the group’s favor. The process of lobbying involves organized multiple efforts over a period of time rather than only one attempt at a time. John R. Wright (1996) put an emphasis on the role of information in lobbying, insisting that lobbying exists to provide policy makers with relevant information reducing uncertainty they face about reelection, legislative process, and policy performance and increasing chances to achieve their goals, such as reelection, good public policy, and more influence within the government. Although monitoring government alone is usually not considered as lobbying, it is essential for successful lobbying, since it is a first step for interest group representatives to know what policies are under discussion in the government and how proposed legislation will affect their organized interests.
Introduction
Historical Background
Formally organized groups that seek to represent and promote the interests of their constituency in the policy process
Frank R. Baumgartner and Beth L. Leech (1998) showed that the word ‘‘lobbying’’ originally referred to face-to-face
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individual meetings between legislators and interest group representatives for pleading the group’s case in the entry hall, or lobby, in the British House of Commons. Berry and Wilcox (2008) also explained why private meetings with legislators and interest group representatives are called lobbying. In earlier times, interest group representatives discussed the merits of a bill with legislators in the lobbies or anterooms adjoining legislative chambers, since many legislators did not have their own offices. However, the scope of lobbying has become much broader than individual meetings between legislators and interest group representatives since that time. At present, interest groups lobby in all three branches of government: the legislature, the executive branch, and the court. In addition, they practice lobbying at the local, state, and national levels. Also, they lobby the public. Various organized interests including business firms, nonprofit organizations, and even governmental agencies conduct lobbying. They work on exceedingly broad policy issues and employ a wide variety of lobbying techniques.
Key Issues Lobbying Forms
Lobbying takes a wide variety of forms, depending on what kinds of issues organized interests work for and whom they try to influence. Berry (1977) grouped various forms of lobbying into three general categories: direct lobbying, grassroots lobbying, and electoral lobbying. Direct Lobbying
Berry (1977) characterized direct lobbying as direct communication between interest group representatives and legislators as well as government employees. According to Kay Lehman Schlozman and John T. Tierney (1986), direct lobbying is ubiquitous among various kinds of interest groups. Nownes (2006) showed that the legislature, especially its committees, is the primary target of direct lobbying, since it has enormous power over public policy by passing laws and confirming executive appointments. In the legislature, interest group representatives may testify at congressional hearings. In addition, they may meet with legislators and/or legislative staff members. Individual meetings enable them to represent their interests and to provide relevant information to legislators and/or legislative staff members directly. Nownes (2006) pointed out the importance of two general types of legislative lobbying. The first is lobbying aimed at providing legislators and legislative staff members with general background information about who an interest group is, what kinds of interests the group
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represents, and what policy issues the group is concerned about. Also, this background information lobbying is aimed at letting congressional members and staff members know that the interest group is readily accessible if they need any information on issues of concern to the group. This type of lobbying is of importance, since it makes it easier for an interest group to gain access to legislators and legislative staff members when the group tries to affect a specific policy proposal. The second is lobbying aimed at influencing how congressional members work on a specific bill through in-depth policy analysis or expertise. Interest groups analyze, synthesize, and formulate a specific policy proposal. This policy analysis information allows legislators to readily understand how a relevant legislation will promote their policy goals and affect their constituencies as well as their opportunities for reelection. Nownes (2006) insisted that in general, interest group representatives place a special emphasis on this policy information lobbying. In addition to two types of lobbying emphasized by Nownens, Schlozman, and Tierney (1986) showed the importance of another type of legislative lobbying: political information lobbying. Organized interests monitor legislative developments that affect a bill of interest. They provide legislators and/or legislative staff members with political intelligence, such as other legislators’ or interest groups’ reactions, procedural obstacles, and trade-offs to gain majority support. This political information enables legislators to seek policy progress in more informed and strategic ways. The executive branch is also a common target of direct lobbying. For executive branch lobbying, interest groups lobby the bureaucracy and the chief executive. Nownes (2006) demonstrated that whereas the chief executive and executive staff members are usually inaccessible, organized interests frequently lobby the bureaucratic agencies, since the agencies have broad discretion given by the legislature to implement law, to issue permits, and to draft new regulations. Berry and Wilcox (2008) showed that the bureaucratic agencies are usually required to solicit public comments on proposed rules from interested parties. Thus, interest group representatives may meet personally with government officers to comment on proposed regulations and/or submit written comments to the agencies. In addition, they may testify at administrative hearings to provide in-depth analyses on proposed rules to the agencies. Also, they may file petitions requesting administrative action on a problem of their concern. Nownes (2006) suggested that policy analysis information or expertise are highly important when interest groups lobby the bureaucracy.
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Organized interests occasionally practice lobbying at the judicial branch. Baumgartner and Leech (1998) identified two primary avenues of interest group influence in the judicial branch: litigation and amicus briefs. Interest groups may file suits or sponsor litigation to seek or stop policy change. In addition, they may submit memos that present their views on an active case to the court, such as amicus briefs in the United States. Interest groups strategically choose the branch where they conduct lobbying. Nownes (2006) suggested that whereas organized interests practice lobbying at the legislative branch more frequently than at the bureaucracy, they lobby the chief executive and the judicial branch with the least frequency. On the other hand, Berry and Wilcox (2008) argued that many interest groups are more likely to focus their lobbying efforts on a particular administrative agency than the legislature. Grassroots Lobbying
Berry and Wilcox (2008) showed that grassroots lobbying is aimed at mobilizing ordinary citizens so that their voices will be heeded by legislators and/or government officers. Public opinion is critically important for lobbying, since it can weaken or strengthen the legitimacy of a group’s claims. Ken Kollman (1998) pointed out that grassroots lobbying has two purposes. The first purpose is to urge the public to share the group’s view on an issue. The second purpose is to pressure policy makers to support the interest group’s view on the issue by encouraging ordinary citizens to contact policy makers and to express their opinions to policy makers. Grassroots lobbying takes various forms. First, interest groups may ask their members to email, telephone, wire, or write letters to government decision makers. Second, organized interests may arrange meetings between their members and legislators as well as government employees. Nownes (2006) demonstrated that political intelligence is more important than policy analysis information for these types of grassroots lobbying. Interest group members generally are well-informed about an issue of interest through periodic newsletters or mail alerts but need to know when and how they should conduct these types of grassroots lobbying. Third, organized interests may disseminate research results or place advertisements in the media, aimed at influencing public opinion. Nownes (2006) revealed that general policy analysis information is useful for grassroots lobbying aimed at a broad audience. Fourth, interests groups may organize demonstrations or protests to make their policy positions visible to the media, to the public, and to legislators.
Kollman (1998) demonstrated what kinds of interest groups are more likely to practice grassroots lobbying. In general, most groups conduct grassroots lobbying, although grassroots lobbying is less common among interest groups than direct lobbying. In addition, labor unions and public interest groups are more likely to practice grassroots lobbying than business and professional groups. Electoral Lobbying
Electoral lobbying is designed to change public policy by influencing elections. Berry and Wilcox (2008) showed that electoral lobbying has two purposes. The first is that an interest group helps candidates carry an election who already agree with the group’s position. The second is that an interest group builds good relationships with candidates. Organized interests make use of several electoral lobbying techniques. The primary form of electoral lobbying is making contributions to candidates. Randolph Sloof (1998) pointed out two models for contribution strategies. The first is that an interest group helps get a candidate elected who already supports the group’s position by contributions. The second is that an interest group tries to change policy preferences of a policy maker who is a likely winner of an election but is not in line with the group’s position yet. In the United States, monetary contributions to candidates are regulated under the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA). Hence, interest groups may form political action committees (PACs) for contributions to candidates. In addition to campaign contributions, organized interests may sometimes get involved in political campaigns in nonfinancial ways. They may issue brief publications called voter guides which present candidates’ positions on issues of concern to the groups. Also, they may occasionally endorse a candidate for office. However, in the United States, 501 (c)(3) charities are barred from engaging in the electoral process, while 501(c)(4) organizations are allowed to engage in the electoral politics as long as such engagement is not their primary function. Thus, Berry and Wilcox (2008) demonstrated that many citizen groups do not endorse candidates in the United States since they are usually organized as 501(c)(3) charities. Theories of Lobbying
There is an ongoing debate in the political science literature about lobbying behavior of interest groups. Richard L. Hall and Alan V. Deardorff (2006) grouped theories of
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lobbying into three general categories: exchange theories, persuasion theories, and subsidy theories. Exchange Theories
Many interest group scholars examined what organized interests exchange contributions for, such as votes, access, and legislative efforts. Hall and Deardorff (2006) pointed out that in this theory, interest groups and congressional members are assumed to emphasize mutually beneficial relationships. First, interest groups may make contributions to legislators in the expectation of a vote favorable to the groups. However, Baumgartner and Leech (1998) revealed that literature on this issue has shown only mixed evidence that campaign contributions buy roll call votes. Second, Wright (1990) demonstrated that monetary contributions help gain access to candidates. Political donations increase chances that interest group representatives talk with policy makers. At the same time, campaign contributions can reinforce lobbying messages. Hence, direct lobbying and contributions are complementary. Third, Richard L. Hall and Frank Wayman (1990) showed that PAC contributions can mobilize sympathetic legislators to support the group’s position on a bill of interest.
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legislators increases their legislative resources and enables them to promote the group’s goals more actively. In addition, the authors insisted that lobbying can be analogized with a matching grant rather than a simple grant. It means that lobbying may allow a legislator to save some of his or her preexisting resources and, then, devote a larger part of his or her resources to the issue that the legislator and the group share. According to Hall and Deardorff (2006), the subsidy theory has an important implication on lobbying by public interest groups. Lobbying as legislative subsidy demonstrates that legislators will give access to likeminded public interest groups without reelection-relevant resources since lobbying by the groups can substantially increase their legislative resources. As Berry (1999) explained, public interest groups generally have a higher reputation for their accurate and credible policy analysis information or research than business interest groups, and policy analysis information or research can represent attractive legislative resources for legislators. The Impact of Lobbying Political Influence of Lobbying
Persuasion Theories
Several scholars analyzed lobbying with a game-theoretic model, especially a signaling game. In this theory, lobbying is modeled as the strategic transmission of information. An interest group acquires costly, private information about policy outcome or district opinion and strategically transmits it to legislators to change their policy preferences. David Austen-Smith (1993) showed that an interest group can effectively practice lobbying at the agenda-setting stage, while voting stage lobbying by the group frequently cannot affect the voting behavior of legislators. In addition, Austen-Smith and Wright (1994) indicated lobbying as efforts to alter the policy position of a legislator, demonstrating that an interest group lobbies a legislator who opposes the group’s position on a bill. Even when an organized interest lobbies a legislative supporter, the group sometimes does so to counteract lobbying by opposing groups. Subsidy Theories
Hall and Deardorff (2006) explored why interest groups tend to spend more time in providing information and labor to legislators who already agree with the groups rather than opposing or undecided legislators. The authors suggested that lobbying is an attempt to subsidize the legislative resources of the group’s strong and productive legislative allies. Providing policy analysis information, political information, and labor to likeminded
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There is also an ongoing debate in the interest group literature about the influence of lobbying. Baumgartner and Leech (1998) explained that early interest group studies showed that interest groups were enormously influential in policy subsystems. Insider networks in policy subsystems allowed organized interests to bring great pressure on legislators to control the content of bills. On the other hand, since the 1960s, the view of the primary role interest groups play in the policy process has been changed. As Raymond A. Bauer, Ithiel de Sola Pool, and Lewis A. Dexter (1963) demonstrated, lobbying has been considered as organized efforts to provide relevant information to legislative allies. In addition, John W. Kingdon (1989) pointed out that legislators receive abundant information from a wide variety of political players, such as their colleagues, their party leadership, their constituency, government officials, and the media. Interest groups are just one information source. These views on lobbying imply that the impact of lobbying is benign. After reviewing 15 lobbying studies and 33 PAC studies published in major political science and economics journals in the 1980s and 1990s, Baumgartner and Leech (1998) summarized that direct lobbying is strongly or marginally influential in most cases and that PAC contributions at times are highly influential but at other times have no effect. However, the evaluation of lobbying influence depends on what constitutes influence, such as impact
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on roll call voting, access, and policy outcome. Sloof (1998) pointed out that conclusions about political impact of lobbying vary, depending on the meanings of influence. In addition, lobbying influence is likely to vary with the characteristics of an issue of interest. Nownes (2006) revealed that lobbying can be highly influential on an issue which is not salient among the media as well as the public, an issue that is highly complex and technical, and/ or an issue that is neither partisan nor ideological. The reason is that few people care about the issue and that interest groups are unlikely to face opposition to the groups’ position on the issue. Rules for Effective Lobbying
Berry and Wilcox (2008) revealed several rules for effective lobbying. First, the credibility of interest group representatives is the most important. Policy makers never rely on group representatives without trust. Thus, group representatives must be honest and must not mislead policy makers in order to succeed. Second, an interest group’s message should be factual and specific. When group representatives have specific facts on an issue of interest which are valuable to policy makers, their message is more likely to be heard by policy makers. Third, it is of high importance to develop a reliable relationship between interest group representatives and policy makers, with the representatives providing relevant information to policy makers when policy makers need it. This reliable relationship increases opportunities for the representatives to display their expertise to policy makers. Fourth, interest group representatives should seek acceptable compromise, since it is almost impossible for them to achieve all they want. Thus, they have to pursue their high priorities but often also give up their low priorities. Fifth, an interest group should work together with other groups to attain their goals. Building coalitions can increase the group’s resources and strengthen the legitimacy of the group’s cause.
International Perspectives Comparative studies on lobbying are necessary to explain particular lobbying styles, such as typical American lobbying styles. Some scholars explored to what extent lobbying styles and success vary depending on countries. For example, Christine Mahoney (2007) revealed that whereas business interests are usually dominating in the United States, citizen groups and foundations as well as business interest groups in the European Union (EU) tend to attain their goals by negotiating and reaching compromise. In addition, Cornelia Woll (2006) demonstrated that lobbying in the EU is more subtle and consensus-oriented
than in the United States. One reason is that the author insisted that cross-industry peak organizations in the EU contribute to building trust and long-term relationships between interest groups and governments. On the other hand, due to the absence of such organizations in the United States, American interest groups are fragmented and short-term oriented, directly and aggressively competing against one another. While there are different lobbying styles between the EU and the United States, important similarities also exist in both continents. For instance, Woll (2006) argued that the scale and scope of lobbying in the EU and in the United States have increased during past decades, corresponding to the growth of the government activities in both continents. In addition, in both the EU and the United States, the role of information in lobbying is important to formulate and revise policy proposals.
Future Directions Although there are a number of case studies and largerscale surveys of the lobbying behavior and influence of interest groups, Baumgartner and Leech (1998) contended that political scientists reach little consensus on these issues. Thus, it is still worthwhile exploring what types of interest groups practice which forms of lobbying under what circumstances as well as when and how interest groups successfully influence public policy. In addition, it is of importance to employ different analytical approaches and data sets. As for analytical approaches, Baumgartner and Leech (1998) insisted that many interest group studies adopted the group approach, which focused narrowly on the role of groups. On the contrary, the policy approach highlighting policy subsystems or issue networks is under-evaluated. Thus, the authors suggested that the policy approach should be developed in interest group studies. Regarding data sets, previous research usually used cross-section data to compare voting behaviors of congressional members at a particular time. However, Sloof (1998) contended that time-series data should be employed to analyze how individual legislators change their voting patterns. From the comparative research perspective, Woll (2006) argued that previous studies tended to focus on describing to what degree lobbying behaviors vary among countries. Beyond the simple description of lobbying behavior, it is necessary to examine what specific mechanisms can lead to country-specific lobbying behavior. For this purpose, the author contended that institutional analyses help map which types of lobbying exist among countries and how they differ. Also, policy style analyses, such as analyses of the standard operating procedures for policy formulation and the legitimizing norms for lobbying, help identify country-specific lobbying
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cultures, as distinguished from strategic reactions to different institutional settings.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Collective Action ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ Interest Politics ▶ Political Organizations ▶ Social Movements
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Wright, J. R. (1990). Contributions, lobbying, and committee voting in the US House of Representatives. American Political Science Review, 84(2), 417–438. Wright, J. R. (1996). Interest groups and congress: Lobbying, contributions, and influence. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Locke, John HANS-CHRISTIAN CRUEGER
References/Further Readings Austin-Smith, D. (1993). Information and Influence: Lobbying for Agendas and Votes. American Journal of Political Science, 37(3), 799–833. Austen-Smith, D., & Wright, J. R. (1994). Counteractive lobbying. American Journal of Political Science, 38(1), 25–44. Bauer, R. A., Pool, I. S., & Dexter, L. A. (1963). American business and public policy: The politics of foreign trade. New York: Atherton. Baumgartner, F. R., & Leech, B. L. (1998). Basic interests: The importance of groups in politics and in political science. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Berry, J. M. (1977). Lobbying for the people: The political behavior of public interest groups. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Berry, J. M. (1999). The new liberalism: The rising power of citizen groups. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Berry, J. M. & Arons, D. F. (2003). A voice for nonprofits. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Berry, J. M. & Wilcox, C. (2008). The interest group society (5th ed.). New York: Pearson Longman. Hall, R. L., & Deardorff, A. V. (2006). Lobbying as legislative subsidy. American Political Science Review, 100(1), 69–84. Hall, R. L., & Wayman, F. (1990). Buying time: Moneyed interests and the mobilization of bias in congressional committees. American Political Science Review, 84(3), 797–820. Kingdon, J. W. (1989). Congressmen’s voting decisions (3rd ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Kollman, K. (1998). Outside lobbying: Public opinion & interest group strategies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mahoney, C. (2007). Lobbying success in the United States and the European Union. Journal of Public Policy, 27(1), 35–56. Milbrath, L. W. (1963). The Washington lobbyists. Chicago: Rand McNally. Nownes, A. J. (2006). Total lobbying. New York: Cambridge University Press. Schlozman, K. L., & Tierney, J. T. (1986). Organized interests and American democracy. New York: Harper & Row. Sloof, R. (1998). Game-theoretic models of the political influence of interest groups. Boston: Kluwer. Thomas, C. S. (2004). Introduction: The study of interest groups. In C. S. Thomas (Ed.), Research guide to US and international interest groups Westport, CT: Praeger.(pp. 1–23). Walker, J. L. Jr., (1991). Mobilizing interest groups in America: Patrons, professions, and social movements. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Woll, C. (2006). Lobbying in the European Union: From Sui Generis to a Comparative Perspective. Journal of European Public Policy, 13(3), 456–469.
Basic Biographical Information John Locke was born in Wrington (England) in 1632. After an unspectacular youth in the English countryside Locke went on to study at Westminster School in London and Oxford University. Once Locke had completed his studies, receiving a master’s degree in 1658, he stayed at Oxford working as a lecturer. In 1674, he was also awarded a bachelor’s degree in medicine, a subject he studied passionately; he even worked as a physician for a short period of time. As it was common to scholars of his age, Locke took a great interest in very different topics, natural and social sciences, as well as, epistemology. His most important political work appeared under the title ‘‘Two Treatises of Government.’’ Beside his academic career Locke did also act as a diplomat and government official. His political engagement though forced him to leave England in 1683. Locke did not return to England until the Glorious Revolution in 1688, after having spent 5 years in the Netherlands. During the last 16 years of his life Locke largely retreated from public life, concentrating on writing and publishing. He died in 1704 in Oates (England), already known widely for his major philosophical influence.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions John Locke is best known for his contributions to liberalism and social contract theory. His tremendous impact on Western political thought is obvious. For instance, the US constitution is heavily influenced by Locke’s thought. In general, Locke argued against absolutist rule and in favor of separation of powers. His particular importance with regard to civil society stems from his interpretation of the role of the modern state. In short, Locke can be described as the first contract theorist, who considered the state to be nothing but an indispensable instrument of law enforcement. According
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to Locke the state does not grant rights. Instead, it merely protects the natural right of any individual. Furthermore, Locke claimed that any society has the right to overthrow the government, if it does not act legitimately, that is, acting without the consent of the governed or failing in the protection of life, liberty, and property. Locke believes this trilogy to be the essence of civil life. Finally, he contributed greatly to the idea of civil society through his strong advocacy for tolerance.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Social Origins Theory
References/Further Readings Anstey, P. R. (Ed.) (2003). The philosophy of John Locke. New perspectives. London: Routledge. Dunn, J. (1969). The political thought of John Locke. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jolley, N. (1999). Locke, his philosophical thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Brief History Lutheran Social Services organizations have their roots in the congregational outreach efforts of Lutheran immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia who settled in the United States in the nineteenth century. Many of these organizations were established in the mid-1800s as hospitals or orphanages. New services and organizations continue to be developed as contemporary needs are identified and with demographic changes. In the 1990s, Lutheran Social Services organizations organized collectively, and became part of a consolidated federation of Lutheran social ministries known as Lutheran Services in America. In 1997, Lutheran Services in America (LSA) officially began as an alliance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod (LCMS), forming a social ministry partnership. Because of this structure, the remainder of the entry will focus on LSA, rather than the many affiliated service organizations.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas
Lutheran Social Services/Lutheran Services in America TIMOTHY R. DAHLSTROM
Address of Organization 700 Light Street Baltimore, MD 21230 USA www.lutheranservices.org
Introduction Lutheran Social Services organizations are diverse and independent, geographically based ministries which provide a variety of health and human service needs to communities in the United States of America and the Caribbean. Services provided by these organizations are open to everyone, regardless of religious affiliation. Lutheran Social Services organizations are affiliates of Lutheran Services in America (LSA), and partners of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) or recognized by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). The LSA and its affiliates are tax exempt, not-forprofit organizations qualified under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Working neighbor to neighbor, Lutheran Services in America creates opportunities with people in thousands of communities throughout the United States and the Caribbean as an alliance of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, and their nearly 300 health and human service organizations.
Activities LSA organizations provide services in health care, aging and disability supports, community development, housing, and child and family strengthening. Services are many and varied, but may include services such as retirement centers, refugee resettlement and immigration, adult day care, substance abuse treatment and prevention, food pantries, job networks, after-school instruction and recreation, and disaster response.
Structure and Governance LSA is governed by a Board of Directors composed of members of the ELCA or LCMS. It is overseen by The Church Council and Division for Church in Society of the ELCA and the Board of Directors and Board for Human Care Ministries of the LCMS. These bodies are active in LSA’s governance, provide grant support, designate staff liaisons to LSA, and collaborate programmatically with LSA.
Lutheran World Relief
Funding The major funding for LSA is from public sources. Significant funding also comes from program service revenue including government fees and contacts, as well as membership dues and assessments. At the year ending June 30, 2008, LSA reported total revenue of $2,303,082. The aggregated budgets of all LSA affiliated organizations totaled over $10 billion.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions LSA is one of the oldest and largest health and human service alliances in the United States. There are approximately 300 independent Lutheran health and human service organizations in thousands of communities all across the United States and the Caribbean. LSA organizations together touch the lives of one in 50 Americans each year.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Religious Organization
References/Further Readings Blom, P. (2006). God in the raging waters: Stories of love and service following hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress. McCurley, F. (Ed.) (2008). Social ministry in the Lutheran tradition. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press.
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are often bilateral, they also join their efforts through the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation and the Action by Churches Together. The LWR is the oldest of these Lutheran relief organizations. Although different missionary associations are involved in similar activities, churches’ relief organizations are regarded as part of their deacon work, not part of the missionary work. However, these activities are always intertwined to some degree. The difference is mostly on emphasis and religious subcultures inside these churches. Thus, Lutheran relief organizations focus more on emergencies while missions focus on planting and nurturing new churches although they have common ground in development cooperation.
Brief History LWR emerged during the World War II to help German and Nordic (except Swedish who did not need help and were also donors) Lutherans in rebuilding their churches from the ruins of war. ‘‘American packages’’ were for a long time a significant part of the Christmas celebrations of the poor families in these countries. Along with help for individual families, LWF financed new church buildings and helped to rebuild organisational aid capacities of its sister churches. After the work in Europe, the next large projects were in Palestine from the end of the 1940s and in Hong Kong, Korea and Bangladesh from the early 1950s. LWR started its work in Latin America in 1960s after natural disasters. Due to many civil wars and drought in Africa in 1970s and 1980s the organization focused there.
Mission
Lutheran World Relief MARTTI MUUKKONEN
Address of Organization 700 Light Street Baltimore, MD 21230 USA www.lwr.org/
Introduction Lutheran World Relief (LWR) is the relief agency of the US Lutheran Churches, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS). Other Lutheran Churches round the world have similar organisations and while their projects
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The mission of LWR and other Lutheran aid organisations can be traced to Luther who quoted the Old Testament: ‘‘There should be no poor among you.’’ Based on this idea, Luther reformed constitutions of many cities of the Protestant part of Germany and Halle Pietists took education as means of eliminating poverty. This elimination of poverty has been a special emphasis in all Lutheran relief activities. According to LWR its ‘‘approach to emergency response seeks to bolster impoverished communities’ assets and to increase their access to resources.’’ In principle, this is an application of the old Lutheran emphasis on everyone’s right to read and interpret the Bible by himself. LWF defines its mission as follows: "
Empowered by God’s unconditional love in Jesus Christ, Lutheran World Relief envisions a world in which each person and every generation lives in justice, dignity, and peace.
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In this definition justice (sedek) and peace (shalom) are Biblical concepts that were promoted by the American Social Gospel Movement before the WW I. They were also the major concepts in the WCC’s program ‘‘Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation’’ between Canberra (1983) and Vancouver (1991) Assemblies.
Activities LWR traces its activities from its basic beliefs. There are three fields of activities where the organisation works: Justice and Peace, Emergency Response and Sustainable Rural Development. LWR tells that ‘‘[a]round the world, LWR shares far more than relief supplies. With 100 local partners, LWR works to improve harvests, health and education in some 35 countries each year.’’ In addition to relief activities, the LWR promotes Fair Trade.
Structure and Governance LWR’s board of directors comprises eight members from the ELCA and five from the LCMS. The organization is divided into four main departments: the President’s Office, the International Programs Department, the External Relations Department and the Finance and Administration Department. In addition to the main office, LWR has 15 field offices in Nicaragua, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the Philippines. The total number of staff is 100 of which half are in the United States and half in the field offices.
87.4% of expenditures go to international programs, 4.7% to Communication, Education and Public Policy, 4.5% to General Administration, 2.9% to fundraising and 0.4% to Organizational Learning.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions LWR was a major actor in getting German and Nordic Lutheran churches on their feet after the World War II. After that, it has promoted sustainable development in other parts of the world. In 2004 Newsweek ranked the family of Lutheran relief agencies among the best relief organisations in the world giving it A+ rating. In 2007 the American Institute of Philanthropy gave LWR an A rating.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Churches and Congregations ▶ Diakonie ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Missionary Societies ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Religious Organizations ▶ World Council of Churches
References/Further Readings Aaker, J. (1993). Partners with the poor. An emerging approach to relief and development. New York: Friendship Press. Bachman, J. W. (1995). Together in hope. 50 years of Lutheran World Relief. New York: Lutheran World Relief.
Funding The total income of LWR in 2006 was US$34.6 million and its net assets were US$42.2 million. 35.5% of incomes come from private donations, 29.5% from church bodies, 15.1% from government and the rest from various sources.
Luxemburg, Rosa ▶ Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
M Maathai, Wangari Muta EVELYNE SCHMID
Basic Biographical Information Wangari Maathai was born on April 1, 1940 in Ihithe, Kenya at the foot of Mount Kenya. She is internationally recognized for her struggle for the environment, democracy, and women’s rights. Maathai was born into a traditional peasant family as the third of six children. It was her two older brothers who persuaded their parents to send the bright girl to school. She later earned a scholarship to attend a college in Kansas in 1960 where she obtained a bachelor in biology. She pursued her studies in Pennsylvania and in Germany before she returned to Kenya. Back in her home country, she was the first Eastern African woman to complete a Ph.D. She worked as a professor of veterinary anatomy in Nairobi and became the dean of her faculty. Maathai married in 1969 and has three children. The couple divorced in the mid-1980s and her husband, Mwang Mathai, was said to have remarked that she was too strong-minded for a woman. The case went to court. Maathai was jailed and was asked to give up her husband’s surname. She simply added an additional ‘‘a.’’ In 2002, she was elected to parliament and subsequently held the position of Assistant Minister for Environment, Natural Resources and Wildlife until 2005. As described below, Maathai has come to be known as the founder of the Green Belt Movement (GBM), a grassroots organization taking an integrated approach to sustainable development, equity, and community development. Her contribution was awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. She is currently residing in Kenya.
Major Contributions Maathai’s greatest contribution has been to show that the simple act of planting trees is contributing toward peace, sustainable development and gender equity. In 1977, the members of the GBM started to plant indigenous
trees in areas of Kenya that were being deforested for commercial reasons. Over the years, the movement expanded and now involves more than 50,000 individuals in several African countries, mostly rural women, who have planted more than 40 million trees. The GBM succeeded in stopping Kenya’s rulers from constructing a commercial building on a Nairobi city park. As the movement expanded and confronted the government, Maathai was beaten and jailed several times. The movement was originally not taken seriously and few people believed that rural women could really make a difference. Maathai however understood that these women could pass knowledge between communities and between generations. ‘‘Implicit in the act of planting trees is a civic education, a strategy to empower people and to give them a sense of taking their destiny into their own hands,’’ says the Nobel Prize laureate (United Nations Environment Programme (2004)). In addition, Maathai played a leading role in the Jubilee 2000 Africa Campaign, demanding debt cancellation for developing countries.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Community Development Organizations ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Human Rights ▶ Jubilee 2000 ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Breton, M. (2000). Women pioneers for the environment. Boston: Northeastern University Press. Maathai, W. (2006). Unbowed: A memoir. New York: Alfred Knopf. Maathai, W., & Green Belt Movement (2003). The Green Belt Movement: Sharing the approach and the experience. New York: Lantern Books. Merton, L., et al. (2008). Taking root: The vision of Wangari Maathai. Marlboro, NJ: Marlboro Productions. United Nations Environment Programme (2004). Women and the environment. Nairobi: UNEP.
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MacArthur, John Donald DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information John D. MacArthur was born in Pittston, Pennsylvania in 1897 to Baptist parents, and was the youngest of seven children. Despite growing up in an impoverished family, MacArthur would become a hugely successful businessman and well-known philanthropist. In the early 1900s, the MacArthur family moved to Illinois where his father became a nationally known Bible teacher. After the death of his mother, MacArthur followed his brothers and moved to Chicago, Illinois at the age of 17. He held several jobs, including stints as a newspaper reporter, a door-to-door insurance salesman in his brother’s company, and in three unsuccessful business ventures, before turning to insurance as his life’s work. By the age of 30, MacArthur had become sales vice president of State Life Insurance of Illinois. In the midst of the Great Depression, MacArthur bought Bankers Life and Casualty Company for $2,500 of borrowed money. Over the next 20 years, he would build the company through strong work ethic and strategic acquisition. He also made money through real estate investment, mainly in Florida – where at one point he owned 100,000 acres of land and was the largest individual landowner in the state – and New York. By the 1970s, MacArthur was one of the nation’s two billionaires. At the time of his death, MacArthur was one of the three wealthiest men in America, and was sole owner of the nation’s largest privately held insurance company. When he died, his companies had more than three million policy holders, with $5.5 billion worth of insurance, and a sales staff of more than 5,000.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In addition to being a keen salesman and businessman, MacArthur was recognized for his fair treatment of employees. In 1953, he received a Presidential Citation for employing the handicapped in his companies, and was widely praised as one of the nation’s few employers that did not force employees to retire. With that said, his charitable activities were minimal during his lifetime. When MacArthur died at age 80, assets appraised at approximately $700 million – over 90% of his fortune – were left to the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. He left no instructions as to how the
money should be used, giving the foundation’s board of directors discretion to oversee grantmaking direction. Today, the foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. The foundation supports work to defend human rights, advance global conservation and security, make cities better places, and understand how technology is affecting children and society. Each year, the foundation also designates between 20 and 40 MacArthur Fellows, awarding $500,000 (current award) to United States citizens or residents, of any age and working in any field, who show exceptional merit and promise for continued and enhanced creative work. The foundation is currently housed in the historic building where MacArthur ran his first insurance company just after the Great Depression.
Cross-References
▶ Grantmaking Foundations ▶ John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
References/Further Readings Hoffman, W. S. (1969). The stockholder. New York: Lyle Stuart. Kriplen, N. (2008). The eccentric billionaire: John D. MacArthur. New York: AMACOM Books. Sanford, B. (1996). John D. MacArthur: A view from the bar (A memoir). Highland City, FL: Rainbow Books.
MADD A. JOSEPH BORRELL
Address of Organization 511 E. John Carpenter Freeway Suite 700 Irving, TX 75062 USA www.madd.org
Introduction Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) is an international organization that supports victims of alcohol-related motor vehicle crashes, advocates legislation increasing the penalties for driving while intoxicated and runs educational campaigns to discourage underage drinking. MADD claims its anti-drunk driving communications and lobbying efforts over 3 decades have saved the lives of over one
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third of a million Americans who would have died in an alcohol-related car accident.
father whose 21-month-old son was killed by a drunken driver in 1988, became MADD National President in 2005.
Brief History
Funding
MADD was founded in California in 1980 by Candace Lightner, a mother who lost her 13-year-old daughter, Cari, when she was struck by an impaired driver who had previous multiple convictions for driving while intoxicated. Originally, the organization was titled Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Later, Lightner would quit the organization she founded on the grounds that it had become overzealous in efforts to restrict alcohol consumption.
MADD receives a mix of support from individual donors, local chapter promotional fundraisers and corporate sponsors. In the mid-1990s, MADD was criticized for having high fundraising costs from telemarketing and an overdependence on outside solicitors, but had changed its policies in recent years. Today, MADD frequently uses direct mail fundraising. MADD also receives money from corporations, including national automobile dealer Carmax and insurer State Farm. MADD is often at odds with alcohol manufacturers and distributors and receives no financial support from the industry.
Activities MADD is well known for its high media profile. Artists such as Stevie Wonder and Naomi Judd have written songs or advocated for the group. In addition, MADD’s leaders, often the victims of drunk drivers, have been effective spokespersons on television and before government bodies, advocating change in attitudes and laws about driving while impaired. In recent years, MADD has concentrated with mixed results on communicating to younger drivers a zero tolerance message for alcohol consumption. MADD has been criticized by some for being almost Prohibitionist in the organization’s attitudes toward alcohol. For example, MADD publicly rebuked the reigning Miss Teen USA in 2006 when reports surfaced of her underage drinking. This abstinence approach toward underage drinking has hurt MADD’s ability to work with other groups that advocate moderation when drinking. In addition, MADD’s advocacy of both higher legal drinking ages and lower blood alcohol concentrations for conviction of drunk driving is seen by some as unwarranted restrictions on the personal freedoms of citizens.
Structure and Governance MADD’s home office is responsible for issuing charters to local chapters. Local chapters, often run by volunteers, have to meet strict financial and membership requirements in order to stay in affiliation. While most MADD chapters are in the United States, other English-speaking countries have affiliates. Canada’s MADD organization is particularly active. MADD’s most effective leaders have been parents who lost a child as a result of a drunk driver and are able to effectively and emotionally communicate the group’s platform in a way that attracts great media attention. Despite the name, men and women are equally involved in management of the organization. For example, Glynn Birch, a
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Accomplishments Despite the characterization of MADD as a victim’s support group, MADD has been very effective in changing the view of drunken driving from a pitiful, even comedic, private failing to a very dangerous behavior worthy of social stigma. MADD’s early lobbying efforts to change laws, such as raising the legal drinking age to age 21 across America, resulted in quick implementation. US governmental statistics report that the number of alcohol-related deaths on American highways had declined by roughly 47%, from nearly 30,000 deaths a year when MADD was founded to around 16,000 roughly 25 years later.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Federations, Nonprofit
References/Further Readings Fell, J. C., & Voas, R. B. (2006). Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD): The first 25 years. Traffic Injury Prevention, 7(3), 195–212. Hamilton, W. J. (2000). Mothers Against Drunk Driving – MADD in the USA. Injury Prevention, 6, 90–91.
Madison, James ANAEL LABIGNE
Basic Biographical Information James Madison was the fourth president of the United States of America (1809–1817) and a pioneer of political theory at that time. He grew up in Virginia as the first of
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11 children on his family’s plantation. He studied at the College of New Jersey, now called Princeton University. After a long and strong engagement in the politics, earning the title of ‘‘father of the Constitution’’ and after governing the United States for eight years, he died in 1836.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions James Madison made various important contributions. Influenced by other Enlightenment writers like John Locke, Isaac Newton and Voltaire, he was instrumental in setting up the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and writing about a third of the Federalist Papers, a set of essays published in newspapers in 1787 and 1788 defending the Constitution from attack by its critics. Furthermore, James Madison helped frame the Bill of Rights when he was in the US House of Representatives from 1789 to 1797 and wrote at that time that ‘‘as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights’’ (Hutchinson et al., 1962: 598). James Madison was a defender of more liberal views when it came to the questions of religious freedom and of the right balance between a centralized government and a government more responsive to grassroots impulses. He proclaimed ‘‘liberty of conscience for all’’ and argued for a strong but not centralized national government as the safest way to protect freedom. He wanted to create a new national government that rested directly on the people rather than on the states. This is why he still is a relevant theorist for civil society studies. Madison was convinced that a horizontal and a vertical division of power must assure the right balance between democracy and freedom. The horizontal division refers to the division between the federal government and the different states and the vertical division to the one between legislature, executive, and judiciary. As Madison was one of the people taking detailed notes at the convention debates, he created one of the primary sources for historians studying the convention. Later on, in retirement, he organized his notes from the federal convention of 1787 for publication and also became the director of the University of Virginia.
Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Locke, John
References/Further Readings Brant, I. (1961). James Madison. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merril. Hutchinson, W. T. (1962). The papers of James Madison. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ketcham, R. (1990). James Madison: A biography. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia.
Madrassa (Madrasah) MUHAMMAD EEQBAL FAROUQUE HASSIM University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Introduction The madrassa is an oft-misunderstood topic in Islam and Muslim studies. Even the historical development of madrassas still remains cloudy at best, as initially argued by Shalaby (1954) and Tibawi (1976). This is despite the research conducted by scholars such as Totah (2002/1926), Rosenthal (1947), Shalaby (1954), Tritton (1957), Ahmed (1968), Tibawi (1962, 1976, 1979), Makdisi (1961, 1981, 1990, 1991), Stanton (1990), Gil’adi (1992), Chamberlain (1994), Lowry, Stewart, and Toorawa (2005), and Gunther (2005, 2006). Historical documentation in medieval Muslim times was more akin to the recording of notable events and figures. As such, little is known about how the development, or lack thereof, of the madrassas in medieval times has affected the nature of the modern madrassas. And few studies have explored how madrassas have remained static or evolved in response to their respective social contexts. Post-9/11, madrassas have suffered gross misconceptions that see the media representing them as bastions of orthodoxy, backwardness, ‘‘fundamentalism,’’ extremism, intolerance, and archaic rote-learning methods. Both in the past and at present, the majority of madrassas have adapted to the needs of developing Muslim societies, incorporating new branches of religious and nonreligious knowledge as they developed. In the modern period, madrassas are no longer just religious in nature, but rather encompass a wide range of educational modes, both religious and secular.
Definition There are several alternative ways to spell madrassa in English as there is no standard form of transliteration from the Arabic or the Arabic loanword used in the majority of Muslim languages such as Malay, Urdu, Persian, Turkish, and Bengali. Some of the most popular alternatives to madrassa include, for instance, ‘‘madrasah’’ and ‘‘madrasa,’’ both of which are truer to the Arabic original in spelling and pronunciation. Other variations like medrassa, medrese, medresa, madarassa, madraza, and madarsa appear to have been affected by variant pronunciations in different parts of the Muslim world. There are generally two main ways of defining madrassa in Arab-Islamic terminology, the first being
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purely linguistic, whilst the second uses Islam-specific definitions whereby the linguistic definition has been adapted into various Muslim theological, legal, spiritual, and cultural constructs and contexts. Linguistically, Arabic lexicographers, such as Lane (1955–1956) and Baalbaki (2000), have defined madrassa as ‘‘a school,’’ ‘‘college,’’ or ‘‘academy.’’ It is derived from the Arabic trilateral verb darasa, meaning ‘‘to study’’ or ‘‘to read with attention’’ (Al-Khudrawi, 1995, p. 134). In Islamic terms, one conception of the medieval madrassa, espoused by Makdisi (1961, 1981, 1990), sees the term implying advanced studies in Islamic law. Bosworth et al. (2002) have also presented this view. Modern sociologists, such as Aljuneid and Hussin (2005), have also been inclined to use the definition summarized by Bosworth. They base this on an opinion that the verb darrasa means ‘‘to teach law.’’ The term tadris, its verbal noun, means the ‘‘teaching of law,’’ while tadaris refers to ‘‘professorship of law.’’ The term dars denotes ‘‘a lesson or lecture on law’’ and mudarris signifies ‘‘the professor of law.’’ However, the madrassa as a mere college of law is not affirmed by all scholars of Muslim intellectual history. For instance, Shalaby (1954) and Tibawi (1962, 1976, 1979) argue that a wide range of religious disciplines, including Arabic poetry, linguistics, and literature, were taught in all madrassas, not just Islamic legal theory, or fiqh. Aljuneid and Hussin (2005) contend that while a simplistic rendering in contemporary language refers to madrassa as a ‘‘school,’’ it is not historically accurate. The medieval Muslim madrassa embodied both religious and worldly education such that it would be a misnomer to consider the madrassa as a mere religious school. Al-Attas (1980) and Roald (1994) argue that such inaccuracies are mainly due to the separation of modern thought systems from the original Islamic traditions. Since the eighteenth century, madrassa has now become the generic term for ‘‘school’’ in Arabic, whether private, public, primary, secondary, Muslim, non-Muslim, religious, or secular.
Historical Background/Key Issues The madrassa did not exist in early Islam; a formal school for Islamic education was not needed during the time of Prophet Muhammad, who, according to Muslim tradition, conveyed the message of the Qur’an through his words and deeds. The mosque was the first ‘‘school’’ in Islam (Shalaby, 1954; Tibawi, 1979; Massialas & Jarrar, 1983) as early Muslim education consisted largely of religious instruction. Tibawi (1976) mentions how teaching in early Islam was not a professional craft; rather it was a task that was conducted through verbal transmission by
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learned, noble, and pious men. According to Shalaby (1954) and Amin (2006), the standard form of academic progression prior to the proliferation of madrassas was (1) the kuttab (places for teaching children) followed by (2) scholarly circles (halaqat) for higher study. Those who did not attend the halaqat pursued trade. Al-Ahwani (1975) mentions that the stages of Muslim education after the rise of the madrassas in the eleventh century were generally: (1) the kuttab; (2) the mosque halaqat; (3) the majlis al-ilm or majlis al-adab (scholarly gathering of knowledge); and (4) the madrassa or kulliyya (higher education institution). Prior to the madrassas, other higher education institutions had already been established. These included the Jami’at al-Qarawiyyin, established in 859, in Fez, Morocco, the oldest university in the world, as well as Al-Azhar University, which was established by the Shiite Fatimids, in 959, in Cairo, Egypt. The term madrassa was not applied to these institutions although they appear to have been a precursor to the meteoric rise of the madrassas from the eleventh century. According to Makdisi (1989), the main difference between the jami’a (university) and the madrassa is that the jami’a offered a more universal curriculum, encompassing individual faculties and schools for various subjects. Other institutions that were related to the madrassas included the Sufi ‘‘boarding schools,’’ called ribat, zawiya, or khanqa. During the late Abbasid period, the Seljuk vizier, Nizam al-Mulk established one of the first madrassas in the Muslim world, the Nizamiyya in Baghdad, to teach theology, law, Qur’anic exegesis (tafsir), prophetic traditions (hadith), and Arabic. Nizam al-Mulk was central to the initial rise of the madrassa in the Muslim world, having established a system of state-run madrassas in various Abbasid cities prior to his assassination by political rivals (Aljuneid & Hussin, 2005, p. 250). In the medieval Muslim period, religious schools for children were not called madrassas, but kuttabs. As Shalaby (1954) notes, this term was derived from the Arabic verb kataba, meaning ‘‘to write,’’ which supports the historical observation that these schools initially taught writing. With the coming of Islam, another class of kuttab arose, which taught the Qur’an and other forms of religious education. According to Asimov and Bosworth (1999), Ibn Sina describes two levels of kuttab education. First, he wrote that children should be sent to the kuttab at the age of six and be taught the Qur’an, Arabic, creed, morals and manners, literacy, and arithmetic. Second, after the age of 14, the students, with their teachers’ guidance, should specialize in subjects they are most suited for.
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According to Shalaby (1954), girls, both in theory and in practice, did not study alongside boys in the kuttab. Girls had few educational opportunities and mostly studied at home. Classical Muslim scholars argued that the main reason was that mixing between the sexes would lead to temptation and evils. In madrassas, women did not enroll in formal classes but would attempt to informally listen to lectures. According to Lindsay (2005), Ibn Asakir, a twelfth-century Sunni historian, wrote about how women of his time could study, earn ijazas (recognition of academic achievement), and become scholars. Ibn Asakir himself studied under more than 80 female scholars (Lindsay, 2005, p. 196). By contrast, some scholars, like the educationist Ibn al-Hajj al-Abdari, were appalled at the loud behavior of the women who attended his lectures informally (Lindsay, 2005, p. 198). Madrassas were mostly established through the waqf (endowment) system, which allowed wealth and status to be passed on to one’s descendants. Through this system, Shalaby (1954) observes that many rulers and the wealthy set up madrassas in their names. Between 1155 and 1260, there were 75 madrassas in Cairo, 51 in Damascus, and 44 in Aleppo, with many more to be found in Andalusian cities, such as Cordoba, Seville, Toledo, Granada, and Valencia, during the Caliphate of Cordoba (929–1031). The founder of the madrassa also had the privilege to set the curriculum. The initial madrassas were almost entirely religious in nature, but later madrassas, according to Alatas (2006), incorporated philosophy, logic, mathematics, history, politics, ethics, music, metaphysics, medicine, astronomy, and chemistry. Although the bimaristan teaching hospitals were the primary medical institutions, several madrassas also included dedicated medical schools. Gibb (1970) notes how three of the 155 madrassas in fifteenth-century Damascus were also medical schools. In the Ottoman era, Inalcik (1973) notes how Suleiman the Magnificent added medicine to the curriculum and gave it the highest rank alongside Hadith. Ijazas (certificates of recognition) were handed out to students who had completed courses with a scholar and had attained a sufficient standard to teach, either independently or in support of another scholar. Ijazas were also offered to scholars who had attained the level of jurisconsult (faqih), Mufti, qari (Qur’an recite), and professor of prophetic traditions (muhaddith), for instance. According to Makdisi (1989), the origins of the doctorate degree date back to the ‘‘license to teach and issue legal opinions’’ (ijazat al-tadris wa al-ifta’). The term ‘‘doctorate’’ is derived from the Latin docere meaning ‘‘to teach,’’ shortened from the Latin licentia docendi (license to teach).
Similarly, the Latin doctor means ‘‘teacher,’’ or mudarris in Arabic, which had its own ijazas. Additionally, according to Alatas (2006), the term baccalaureus may have been translated from the Arabic qualification of bi haqq al-riwaya (with authority to transmit). Nakosteen (1964), through his comprehensive research on the topic, clearly asserts that much of Western traditions and practices were directly inspired by medieval Islamic education. Tibawi (1962, 1976, 1979), however, disagrees with Makdisi’s portrayal of the madrassa as a highly organized system like a modern university. During the Ottoman Empire, the first madrassas were built by Iznik in 1331, borrowing much from the traditions first instituted by the Nizamiyya madrassas. The Ottoman madrassas were ranked in the following order of decreasing significance: (1) Semniye; (2) Darulhadis; (3) madrassas built by the earlier sultans of Bursa; and (4) madrassas endowed by noble men (Inalcik, 1973, p. 167). According to Inalcik (1973), the Ottoman madrassas taught religion predominantly, but also covered calligraphy, Arabic language, Muslim philosophy, and logic. Philosophy was treated with ambivalence, reflecting the struggle between orthodoxy and rationalism that has existed in the Muslim world since the Abbasid era. Conversely, mathematics and logic were seen as aiding correct thinking in the religious sciences. Famous examples of Ottoman madrassas include the eight built by Mehmed the Conquerer, serving both novices and advanced danismends (students who have completed the lower levels). There was a strong element of consistency in the Ottoman madrassa curriculum. However, this ‘‘stagnation’’ may alternatively be seen as a form of consolidation as the faithful preservation of knowledge is one of the core tenets of Islamic learning. The curriculum was considered generally unchangeable as Muslim scholars had stipulated the core areas of religious knowledge that every Muslim needed to know. These areas were considered as being fard ayn (an obligation upon every sane, mature individual) as opposed to knowledge that is fard kifaya (a collective obligation). Madrassas would build on the fard ayn knowledge taught in the kuttab and teach the more advanced aspects of theology, jurisprudence, Qur’an, Hadith, Arabic, and Islamic history. Muslim conceptions of madrassa as an institution for advanced religious learning and, to a lesser extent, the acquisition of the natural sciences and philosophy changed in the eighteenth century. The later Ottoman period saw rapid modernization, as well as the introduction of Western ideas on education in various parts of the Muslim world, including North Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia.
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With the introduction of Western notions of primary and secondary levels of learning into the Muslim world, the term madrassa was also used to generically refer to a school, religious or secular. The term madrassa ibtida’iyya refers to a primary school and madrassa thanawiyya refers to a secondary school. Both madrassas provided a parallel form of education to the kuttabs, which were primarily reserved for religious instruction. Hence, with the modern period, the generally singular conception of madrassa had changed significantly.
International Perspectives In the Middle East, madrassas can refer to any type of school. The religious madrassas of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, and Iran, for instance, have carried on the tradition of the medieval Muslim madrassa. However, in the West there are concerns as to whether the curricula of these madrassas preach religious intolerance. However, it is important to appreciate that these madrassas play a major role as centers of learning and spirituality that have served the educational, religious, and political needs of Muslims for centuries. The lack of change is even starker in many parts of Muslim Africa that continue with centuries-old traditions in religious education. In Egypt, West Africa, and the Horn of Africa, for instance, religious kuttabs still exist, as well as the traditional mosque madrassas and circles. Some children still use stone and wooden tablets to learn to read and write the Qur’an. Indian and Pakistani madrassas have possibly attracted the most attention post-9/11, due to their alleged backwardness and preaching of ‘‘fundamentalism.’’ Additionally, their proximity to Afghanistan saw a link quickly established with the Taliban regime. There are more than 10,000 madrassas in Pakistan, catering to both children and more advanced students. Millions are said to be enrolled in these madrassas each year although exact figures are difficult to determine due to poor record keeping. The same may be said about the 30,000 or so Indian madrassas. One of the most famous madrassas, and the largest, is the Darul-Uloom-Deoband, the spiritual hub of the Deobandis. In the case of India and Pakistan, the word madrassa is often used in the context of anti-Americanism. In reality, many madrassas focus on spirituality and are religious schools without any political affiliation as noted by Moeller (2007). In Southeast Asia, there is a very rich system of madrassas and madrassa-like education which is mostly coeducational, unlike in the Middle East. The term madrassa (Islamic private school) reflects a modern
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curriculum combining both religious and ‘‘secular’’ learning. In contrast, the traditional pesantren (Islamic boarding school) traditionally taught religion. However, modern pesantrens, like Pondok Moderen Gontor, have been actively advocating curricular reform, incorporating a broad range of secular sciences. Hassim (2007) notes that more urban Muslims are choosing the new sekolah Islam (Islamic school), for example, Sekolah Islam Al-Azhar, which focuses on building Islamic character, rather than disciplinary Islamic studies, within an academic curriculum. In Aceh, the equivalent of a pesantren is the dayah, while the word surau, as in Malaysia, is used in West Sumatra. Indonesia has a dedicated system of State Islamic Universities (UIN), State Institutes of Islamic Studies (IAIN), and State Colleges of Islamic Studies (STAIN). Hassim (2007) notes that these institutions provide the formal disciplinary study of Islam and play a vital role in reforming religious education through their modern, nondenominational approach in Indonesia. Secular studies are also offered at the UIN. Muhammadiyah’s private university system also offers courses in Islam, among other ‘‘worldly’’ disciplines. In Malaysia, children and adults study Islam informally in mosque schools (pondoks), Islamic organizations, or private homes. The term pondok is derived from the Arabic funduq, meaning ‘‘inn’’ or ‘‘hotel’’ (Aljuneid & Hussin, 2005, p. 251). Many primary and secondary aged Muslim children attend State Religious Schools (SAR), which are mandatory in states like Johor. There are religious education schools (SMKA) that also teach secular subjects. Private madrassas, some of which act as boarding schools, offer a modern curriculum combining Islamic studies and secular studies. The International Islamic University of Malaysia (IIUM) and the Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization are global institutions that actively promote progressive Islamic scholarship. The University of Malaya (UM), the National University of Malaysia (UKM), the Technological University of Malaysia (UTM), the Scientific University of Malaysia (USM), Nilam Puri in Kelantan, and Sultan Zainal Abidin Religious College in Terengganu also offer qualifications in Islam (Hassim, 2007, p. 224). As in much of Southeast Asia, women play a significant role in the religious education sector, teaching, or learning. In Brunei, all schools provide weekly religious education, with the six Arabic schools placing more emphasis on religious education. The state has also established the Qur’an memorization Institute for secondary students, which even has a Braille stream, as well as the Religious Teachers College (RTC). The University of Brunei
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Darussalam (UBD) offers degrees and diplomas in Islamic disciplines through the Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien Institute of Islamic Studies (Hassim, 2007, p. 224). In the Muslim Thai provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat, opportunities to study Islam exist in over 1,000 Islamic kindergartens and primary schools, 88 early childhood mosque institutes, 250 pondoks, and around 1,000 Islamic private and government schools. The ministry of education supervises the state school curriculum but private schools enjoy greater freedom. Some schools are housed in impressive complexes with over 4,000 students, for example, Attarkiah Islamiah School. Islamic studies are also available at the College of Islamic Studies, Prince of Songkhla University, Yala Islamic College, and Princess of Narathiwat University (Hassim, 2007, p. 224). In Singapore, most of the 68 mosques and large Islamic organizations provide informal religious education. There are over 50 part-time madrassas and Islamic centers providing after-school religious education to primary and secondary students. MUIS (Islamic Religious Council of Singapore) is currently implementing a Singapore Islamic Education System in the face of allegations of backwardness in Islamic education. There are six full-time madrassas, which collectively cater for Kindergarten through grade 12. Madrassas used to mainly teach religious subjects in Arabic, but with the introduction of compulsory education in 2003, due to the poor achievements of madrassa students in secular studies, the ratio of religious to academic subjects is now equal. MUIS is presently standardizing madrassa Islamic studies in English. Several Islamic study programs twinned with a Malaysian or Indonesian Islamic university have emerged in the last ten years (Hassim, 2007, pp. 224–225). The madrassas in Singapore, as in other parts of Southeast Asia, are mostly defined along the lines of ibtida’iyya (primary) and thanawiyya (secondary). Some madrassas in Singapore offer the level of Aliya (equivalent to the GCE ‘‘A’’ levels). In some Muslim countries, such as Saudi Arabia, the level of Aliya corresponds to tertiary education. Most mosques and Islamic centers in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and other Filipino cities provide basic religious education to children and adults. There are also over 2,000 formal Islamic schools. In 2005, the government implemented a national madrassa framework, requiring madrassas to also teach a standard academic curriculum at primary and secondary levels. Public schools with more than 25 Muslim students may teach Islam and Arabic. The formal study of Islam at advanced levels is through the Zaid bin Thabit Quranic Memorization Center, Mindanao State University (MSU), the Institute of Islamic Studies in Manila, the King Faisal Center for Arabic, Islamic, and Asian Studies at MSU, Shariff Kabunsuan
College, Western Mindanao State University, and the University of Philippines (Hassim, 2007, p. 225). Most of the Cham Muslims in Vietnam and Cambodia have few educational opportunities and view education as solely religious. In Burma, Muslims have been oppressed by the ruling junta since the 1980s. The junta has destroyed mosques and madrassas, detained Islamic scholars, and banned imports of Islamic texts. Several mosques still survive and very few Islamic colleges remain in Buthedaung, Mandalay, and Hmawbi (Hassim, 2007, p. 225). In China, the first 40 years of the 1900s saw the birth of numerous Islamic schools and Islamic normal (teacher training) schools. The Mao Cultural Revolution (1966– 1976) saw the persecution of Muslims, but since the pronouncement of religious freedom in 1978, there are now over 40,000 mosques (at least 30,000 run a madrassa) and 24,000 students studying in formal Islamic schools (Hassim, 2007, p. 225). In Ningxia’s autonomous Muslim region alone, there are one ethnic Muslim university, two ethnic colleges, and 120 Muslim schools. The Chinese government has established ten state Islamic colleges to train imams or prayer leaders of a mosque (ahongs). Most colleges offer Islamic studies bachelor programs and intensive courses for imams. The state has also built eight large provincial Qur’anic institutes for similar purposes. Reservations about government-controlled Islamic colleges led several Muslim communities to establish private Islamic colleges in the 1990s using curricula developed mostly in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Women have played a pivotal role in reviving religious education in China. In Islamic colleges, more than one-third of teachers are women. More female religious teachers are becoming ahongs in womenonly mosques, found mostly in the Central Plain provinces. These reflect an almost unknown practice as many patriarchal Muslim societies have undermined the tradition of women’s leadership. According to Hassim (2007), female ahongs have seized the opportunity to develop social autonomy out of conservative cultural customs. In Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji, after-school religious education for children in mosques, Islamic organizations, rented school facilities, and homes is most common. In Australia and New Zealand, most Muslims have limited religious knowledge, and many religious teachers born and trained overseas are out of touch with the needs of the Muslim youth, for example, good English. Islamic schools in Australia and New Zealand collectively provide education from Kindergarten through grade 12 (Hassim, 2007, p. 226). There are over 25 Islamic schools in Australia and New Zealand collectively. In Australia, the government closely monitors Islamic schools that emphasize more on religious education to the detriment of the academic curriculum. In Fiji, there are over 15 small
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Islamic primary and secondary schools. Some Islamic schools in Melbourne offer Qur’an studies as part of the Victorian Certificate of Education (VCE), a high school certificate. Recently, institutes offering certificates and diplomas in Islamic studies and Arabic have appeared in Australia, for example, Al-Ghazzali Institute and Al-Kawthar Institute (Hassim, 2007, p. 226).
Future Directions The study of the role of madrassas in contemporary civil societies is still young. Early Orientalist perspectives on the madrassa tended to frame the medieval madrassas within a Western paradigm, influencing later studies, such as those by Makdisi, to use modern terminology to describe the medieval madrassa. In response, scholars such as Tibawi have attempted to use classical Islamic perspectives to more accurately depict the nature and role of the medieval Muslim madrassa. Since 9/11, there has been extensive academic, media, and political scrutiny on Islamic education, much of which is built on the erroneous assumption that madrassas teach religion in a strict and stilted manner such that they promote religious ‘‘extremism.’’ While some madrassas may fall within this category, the vast majority do not. In the modern period, madrassas have taken a wide variety of forms – to assume that madrassas are all religious and ‘‘fundamentalist’’ is an inaccurate generalization. There are two major challenges for madrassas in the near future. Firstly, madrassas in general have to confront the challenges of an increasing educational duality. This duality did not exist in medieval Muslim education as religion was often taught alongside other subjects. However, as Muslims are living in more secular societies, the challenges presented by this duality are pressing – religiously trained individuals have little appreciation of the complex mechanisms driving modern civil societies and secular trained Muslims do not understand enough of the Islamic tradition. Muslim educationists need to work closely with teachers, parents, and students to develop best practice models to bridge this gap. Negotiating this duality is tricky – if Muslim education is too religious, the rest of society sees it as hampering progress; if it is too secular, then this goes against the core essence of religion as the foundation of a Muslim’s education. Secondly, there needs to be more research into the role of all types of madrassas in the contemporary Muslim world, focusing on their contextual development. This approach stems from the key debate on duality, and one of the primary ways to negotiate this challenge is to better understand the role of the different types of madrassas as well as the societal expectations, both Muslim and non-Muslim, of these educational institutions. Not only is
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the madrassa a center for learning and scholarship, but it is also a think tank that influences a society’s worldview, politics, the economy, and the judicial system.
Cross-References
▶ Endowment, Definition and Management of ▶ Fa¯ra¯bi-al, Abu¯ Nas.r Muh.ammad ibn al-Farakh ▶ Ibn Khaldun ▶ Mosques ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Sadaqa ▶ Wakfs
References/Further Readings Ahmed, M. (1968). Muslim Education and the Scholors’ Social Status. Zurich: Verlay. al-Ahwani, A. F. (1975). al-Tarbiya fi al-Islam (Education in Islam). Cairo: Dar al-Ma’arif. Alatas, S. F. (2006). From Jami’ah to University: Multiculturalism and Christian–Muslim dialogues. Current Sociology, 54(1), 112–132. Al-Attas, S. M. A. (1980). The concept of education in Islam: A framework for an Islamic philosophy of education. Kuala Lumpur: Muslim Youth Movement of Malaysia (ABIM). Aljuneid, S. M. K., & Hussin, D. I. (2005). Estranged from the ideal past: Historical evolution of madrassas in Singapore. Journal of Minority Muslim Affairs, 25(2), 249–260. Al-Khudrawi, D. (1995). A dictionary of Islamic terms. Damascus; Beirut: Al-Yamamah. Amin, A. (2006). Duha al-Islam (The forenoon of Islam). Beirut: al-Maktaba al-Asriyya. Asimov, M. S., & Bosworth, C. E. (1999). The age of achievement (Vol. 4). Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Baalbaki, R. (2000). Al-Mawrid Arabic-English Dictionary. Beirut: Dar El-Ilm Lil Malayin. Bosworth, C. E. (Eds.). (2002). The encyclopedia of Islam (Vol. V, p. 1127). Leiden: Brill. Chamberlain, M. (1994). Knowledge and social practice in medieval Damascus. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Gibb, H. A. R. (1970). The university in the Arab-Moslem world. In E. Bradby & E. Barker (Eds.), The university outside Europe: Essays on the development of university (pp. 281–298). Manchester, NH: Ayer Publishing. Gil’adi, A. (1992). Children of Islam: Concepts of childhood in medieval Muslim society. New York: Macmillan. Gunther, S. (2005). Advice for teachers: The 9th century Muslim scholars Ibn Sahnun and Al-Jahiz on pedagogy and didactics. In S. Gunther (Ed.), Ideas, images, and methods of portrayal: Insights into classical Arabic literature and Islam (pp. 89–128). Leiden: Brill. Gunther, S. (2006). Be masters in that you teach and continue to learn: Medieval Muslim thinkers on educational theory. Comparative Education Review, 50(3), 367–388. Hassim, M. E. F. (2007). Women, gender and women’s religious education: Southeast Asia, East Asia, Australia and the Pacific. In S. Joseph (Ed.), Encyclopedia of women and Islamic cultures (Vol. 6, pp. 223–227). Brill: Leiden. Hefner, R. W. (2007). Introduction. In R. W. Hefner & M. Q. Zaman (Eds.), Schooling Islam: Modern Muslim education (pp. 1–39). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Inalcik, H. (1973). The Ottoman Empire: The classical age 1300–1600. New York: Praeger.
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Lane, E. W. (1955–1956). Arabic-English lexicon. New York: Ungar Publishing Co. Lindsay, J. E. (2005). Daily life in the medieval Islamic world. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. Lowry, J. E., Stewart, D. J., & Toorawa, S. M. (Eds.) (2005). Law and education in medieval Islam: Studies in honor of professor George Makdisi. Cambridge: Gibbs Memorial Trust. Makdisi, G. (1961). Muslim institutions of learning in eleventh-century Baghdad. Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies, 24(1), 1–56. Makdisi, G. (1981). The rise of colleges: Institutions of learning in Islam and the West. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Makdisi, G. (1989). Scholasticism and Humanism in Classical Islam and the West. Journal of American Oriental Society, 109(2), 175–182. Makdisi, G. (1990). The rise of humanism in classical Islam and the Christian West: With special reference to scholasticism. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Makdisi, G. (1991). Religion, law and learning in classical Islam. Hampshire, Great Britain; Brookfield, USA: Variorum. Massialas, B. G., & Jarrar, S. A. (1983). Education in the Arab world. New York: Praeger Publishers. Moeller, S. (2007). Jumping on the US bandwagon for a ‘‘war on terror’’. Yale Global Online, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, from http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id = 9324; 11/2/2008 Nakosteen, M. (1964). History of Islamic origins of Western Education. Boulder, CO: University of Colorado Press. Roald, A. S. (1994). Tarbiya: Education & politics in Islamic movements in Jordan and Malaysia. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International. Rosenthal, F. (1947). The technique and approach of Muslim scholarship. Rome: Pontificium Institutum Biblicum. Shalaby, A. (1954). History of Muslim Education. Doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge. Beirut: Dar al-Kashshaf. Stanton, C. M. (1990). Higher learning in Islam: The classical period A.D. 700–1300. Savage: MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Tibawi, A. L. (1962). Origin and character of ‘‘al-madrasah.’’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies, 25(1), 225–238. Tibawi, A. L. (1976). Arabic and Islamic themes: Historical, educational and literary studies. London: Luzac. Tibawi, A. L. (1979). Islamic education: Its traditions and modernization into the Arab national systems. London: Luzac. Totah, K. A. (2002 [1926]). The contribution of the Arabs to education. Doctoral dissertation, Columbia University, 1926. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press LLC. Tritton, A. S. (1957). Materials on Muslim education in the Middle Ages. London: Luzac.
Make Poverty History ANDREA SCHUESSLER
Address of Organization Regent’s Wharf 8 All Saint’s Street London N1 9RL UK www.makepovertyhistory.org
Introduction
Make Poverty History (written as MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY) is a UK alliance of charities, trade unions, campaigning groups and celebrities who started mobilising around the G8 summit in Gleneagles/United Kingdom in 2005 to fight global injustices such as poverty, AIDS, malnutrition, conflict and illiteracy. Make Poverty History was one of 84 national coalitions putting the global fight against poverty on the agenda in 2005. The global movement is called the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP).
Brief History World leaders agreed at the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy in 2001 to cut global poverty by 50% by 2015. In 2005, when world leaders met for the G8 summit in Gleneagles, UK, targets set to reduce poverty seemed unachievable to the organisation. Make Poverty History started to campaign in 2005 around the G8 summit and the British presidency of the European Union. The campaign urged world leaders, particularly Prime Minister at the time Tony Blair and Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time Gordon Brown, to take responsibility.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas According to the Make Poverty History Manifesto, the organization focuses on three key areas in the fight against global poverty: trade justice, erasing debts for the world’s poorest countries and more effective delivery of aid. Make Poverty History demands to completely cancel debts of the world’s poorest countries. According to the organization, donor countries should deliver at least another $50 billion in aid along with a development aid plan to spend 0.7% of national income on aid.
Activities The organization put the issue of international development on the agenda of the UK government. It linked trade and development together. People involved in the Make Poverty History campaign organized marches, bike rides, walks, debates and a host of other activities to attract the public’s attention and show solidarity. However, there were only little actual policy changes following the campaign. But the Make Poverty History campaign raised public awareness by extensive media coverage. The ‘‘White Band’’ signed with ‘‘Make Poverty History,’’ individually sold and wrapped around public spots such as London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, became a symbol of the movement. Many celebrities supported the campaign, especially at the ‘‘Live 8’’ concert in London’s Hyde Park July 2, 2005.
Structure and Governance The UK campaign had over 540 member organizations. The global Make Poverty History Campaign founded
Maktoum-al, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid
84 national committees. The organizers agreed to at least campaign until the year 2007. National campaign groups work under the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) coalition. BOND (British Overseas NGOs for Development) manages the UK representation on GCAP.
Funding Campaigns are assigned to country alliances and mainly funded by foundations and third-party funds, etc. The organization’s overall budget is not available.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Make Poverty History campaign raised awareness worldwide for the issues of developing countries and the responsibilities of industrial countries. Especially the Live 8 rock concerts in ten cities around the globe on July 2, 2005 illustrated the dimension and illuminating power of the campaign. The campaign, however, was also criticized as not being the appropriate tool to reduce poverty in an effective and lasting way.
Cross-References
▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Geldof, Bob ▶ Global Call to Action Against Poverty ▶ Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction
References/Further Readings Bond, P. (2006). Global governance campaigning and MDGs: from topdown to bottom-up anti-poverty work. Third World Quarterly, 27(2), 339–354; republished as ‘OMD et Gouvernance Mondiale: Quelles Luttes Contre la Pauvrete’ Alternatives Sud, 13(1), 127–147. Brown, G. (2006). Our final goal must be to offer a global new deal. We will be judged on how we deliver the resources to prove that making poverty history was not a passing fashion. The Guardian, January 11, 2006, from http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0001842/GordonBrown_poverty_Jan2006.pdf The Make Poverty History Manifesto is available for download at: http:// www.bond.org.uk/data/files/resources/72/manifesto.pdf Wolf, M. (2005). Aid is well worth trying. Financial Times, July 5, 2005, from http://www.nyu.edu/fas/institute/dri/Martin%20Wolf% 20column%20on%20aid.pdf
Maktoum-al, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid
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in the UAE and Scotland, United Kingdom and is a graduate of Mons Military Academy (United Kingdom). After almost a decade of de facto rulership, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum became the Ruler of Dubai on January 4, 2006 and was appointed UAE Vice President as well as UAE Prime Minister. A successful racehorse owner, he has also been instrumental in the creation of a number of companies including Emirates Airlines, Dubai World Ports, Emaar, Nakheel, and others. In 2008, Forbes magazine estimated his wealth at $18 billion.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In May 2007, the ruler of Dubai announced the establishment of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation (MBRF) with a personal endowment of $10 billion in order to promote education in the Middle East. It is considered to be one of the largest charitable gifts in history. Although recently established, the MBRF has three clearly defined areas of focus. First, it aims at promoting culture through publishing (including translation of foreign works into Arabic), training translators, the creation of the Arab Narrative Encyclopaedia, the Dubai International Poetry Festival, and international cooperation programmes with Turkey or Germany. Second, MBRF intends to stimulate employment and entrepreneurship (including empowering young people to innovate through grants awarded for the development of the Arab World), develop entrepreneurs’ skills, knowledge sharing and education (with the Arab Incubators’ Network), further knowledge dissemination and establish a regional hub for entrepreneurship research in the Arab world (through the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Centre for Entrepreneurship and Innovation), and attract talent in the UAE region through the ‘‘Best Employers in the Middle East’’ study (with Hewitt Associates). Third, MBRF seeks to promote knowledge and education via scholarships (Fellows and Pioneers programmes) and professional training to Arab educators to integrate technology into their curriculum.
Cross-References
▶ Sadaqa ▶ Social Entrepreneurship
OLIVIER CHAVAREN
References/Further Readings Basic Biographical Information Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum was born in 1949 in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He studied both
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Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, M. (2006). My mission: Challenges in the race for excellence. Dubai, UAE: Motivate Publishing. Wilson, G. (1999). Father of Dubai: Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al-Maktoum. Dubai, UAE: Media Prima.
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Mamdani, Mahmood
Mamdani, Mahmood JULIUS OMONA
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1947 in Kampala, Uganda, Mamdani is a thirdgeneration East African of Asian origin. He is currently the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Departments of Anthropology and Political Science at Columbia University in the United States. He attended the University of Pittsburgh, receiving a B.A. in 1967 and proceeded to get an M.A. and A.A.L.D. at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University in 1969. He received his Ph.D. in government at Harvard University in 1974 and has been named as one of the top 100 public intellectuals in the world by the US magazine Foreign Policy in May 2008 and the UK magazine Prospect in July 2008. Besides English and French, he speaks seven other languages. He has taught at the University of Dares-Salaam, Makerere University, and University of Cape Town, and was the founding director of Centre for Basic Research (CBR) in Kampala, Uganda.
He was director of the Institute of African Studies (IAS) at Emory, from 1999–2004. The Institute engages in promoting interdisciplinary teaching and research on Africa. From 1999–2002, he was the president of the Dakar-based CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa), an independent Pan-African research organization with the primary focus on the social sciences and a center of social knowledge production on the continent. Though he posits that civil society exists as a fully formed construct in Africa as in Europe and the driving force of democratization, he warns that in Africa it should not remain the terrain of the urban elite if it is to truly capture the complexity of rural and urban Africa.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Social Justice
References/Further Readings Mandani, M. (1975). Class struggles in Uganda. Review of African Political Economy, 2(4), 26–61. Mandani, M. (1986). The colonial roots of the famine in Karamoja: A rejoinder debate. Review of African Political Economy, 13(36), 85–92. Mamdani, M. (2004). Good muslim bad muslim: America, the Cold War, and the roots of terror. New York: Pantheon/Random House.
Major Contributions Mamdani’s reputation as an expert in African history, comparative politics and international relations has made him an important voice in contemporary debates about Africa and beyond. His publications and presentations focus on imperialism; development; agrarian, popular, and democratic struggles; class, gender, and social justice. These have provided impetus and insight for advocacy and lobbying by the civil society in favor of the marginalized. Some of his publications are: When victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and Genocide in Rwanda (2001), which has been deemed by scholars as a nuanced and groundbreaking book that holistically encompasses all the underlying factors of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda; and Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (1996), a postapartheid era book that was received in South African universities and in the US African studies community because it sought to answer the historical origins of the then social and governance problems in South Africa and the rest of Africa. The latter was recognized as ‘‘one of Africa’s 100 best books of the 20th century’’ in Cape Town in 2003 and was also awarded the Horskovitz Prize of African Studies Association of USA for ‘‘the best book on Africa published in the English Language in 1996.’’
March of Dimes ANDREA DEJONGE
Address of Organization 1275 Mamaroneck Avenue White Plains, NY 10605 USA www.marchofdimes.com
Introduction President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a victim of childhood poliomyelitis, was the originator of the March of Dimes, as it is known today. A champion to the cause of finding a cure for this deadly and debilitating disease, President Roosevelt’s efforts brought together funding and energy and eventually led to the discovery of the polio vaccine by Dr. Jonas Salk. With the near-eradication of polio worldwide, the March of Dimes expanded its mission to encompass other threats to infants and children, using a three-pronged approach to carry out this mission:
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March of Dimes funds research into birth defects and prematurity, advocates for public policies impacting maternal and childhood health, and educates both the public and health care providers regarding issues of maternal and childhood health.
Brief History In 1924, President Roosevelt first visited the hot springs of Warm Springs, Georgia, because of its reputation for therapeutic waters. Two years later, he purchased the property on which the springs bubbled and established the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation as a rehabilitation center to treat people afflicted by polio. In 1937, after a series of polio epidemics, President Roosevelt announced the formation of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, which focused on funding research for a polio vaccine, then treating and preventing polio itself. That year, the ‘‘Birthday Ball’’ (celebrations held each year during Roosevelt’s presidency which focused on fundraising for research into polio), was promoted by comedian and performer Eddie Cantor, who coined the phrase ‘‘March of Dimes.’’ The play was on ‘‘The March of Time,’’ a popular newsreel at the time, and suggested that the public send their dimes to the White House to support the cause. Eventually the Foundation legally changed its name to March of Dimes, and with the near-eradication of polio worldwide due to the Salk vaccine, the mission has expanded to encompass other threats to the health of babies, such as prematurity and prevention of birth defects.
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and Puerto Rico, and local divisions within most state chapters.
Funding March of Dimes receives the majority of its operating revenues through contributions, with a smaller amount coming from governmental and private grants, investment expenses, program revenues, and other sources.
Accomplishments March of Dimes’s most well-known accomplishment was that its funding directly led to the discovery by Dr. Jonas Salk in 1952 of a vaccine against polio, leading to the near-eradication of polio worldwide. What had been a disease that crippled or killed thousands of children yearly now occurs as rarely as one thousand cases per year worldwide, with even fewer cases of paralysis and death.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Federations, Nonprofit
References/Further Readings Creager, A. N. H. (2002). The life of a virus: Tobacco mosaic virus as an experimental model, 1930–1965. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Oshinky, D. M. (2005). Polio: An American story. Oxford University Press, USA. Rose, D. W. (2003). March of dimes (Images of America series). Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing. Seavey, N. G., Smith, J. S., & Wagner, P. (1998). A paralyzing fear: The triumph over polio in America. New York: TV Books.
Mission Although originally focused on care and prevention of polio in children, March of Dimes’s mission has expanded to ‘‘improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.’’
Activities March of Dimes pursues its mission through various channels, all focused on reducing threats to infant health. It funds scientific research aimed at learning about and preventing on birth defects and prematurity, educates parents and health care providers in a variety of contexts (from prenatal testing through pregnancy, including bereavement), and advocates nationally and at the state level for policies making maternal and children’s health insurance more available.
Structure and Governance March of Dimes is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization, with chapter offices in all 50 states, Washington DC,
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Marketing BRENDA GAINER York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
Introduction Marketing is the business discipline that concerns itself with mobilizing organizational resources in order to engage with external stakeholders and communities. However, while most nonprofit organizations pride themselves on their relationships with their communities of interest, advocate on behalf of particular stakeholders, design programs and services to engage external audiences and portray themselves as responsive – sounding, in theory
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at least, very much like a business that is oriented to responding to the needs of customers – the fact is that many civil society organizations have not embraced marketing as an essential aspect of management. On the one hand, there is enthusiasm in civil society organizations (CSOs) for the adoption of many of the techniques of marketing communications. Antipathy to what was perceived to be slick ‘‘Madison Avenue’’ persuasive techniques has now been overcome and almost all nonprofit organizations have embraced with enthusiasm various forms of communication such as public relations, advertising, special events, viral marketing, or web-based marketing to ‘‘get their message out’’ and persuade those in various target markets to support or engage with them. Other specific marketing tactics such as segmentation, loyalty programs or data-base marketing have also been imported into the nonprofit sector, usually sequestered in particular departments removed from the core program or policy aspects of management and called by such names as fundraising, volunteer management, communications, or government relations. On the other hand, very few organizations have a ‘‘Chief Marketing Officer’’ that plays a role in the toplevel strategic leadership of the organization as one would find in business organizations. There is little acceptance of marketing as one of the essential aspects of management, even though the existence of CSOs usually depends upon responding effectively to external stakeholders. Instead, marketing has often been viewed in the nonprofit sector with suspicion as the branch of business management that will, if embraced widely and applied fully, divert CSOs from their core mission and cause them to become ‘‘polluted’’ as they are forced to respond to market demands. Nonprofit marketing elicits this dual response because this management function focuses squarely on the tension between ‘‘mission’’ and ‘‘money’’ that is the most unique and dominant characteristic of nonprofit management. This tension is at the root of the historic debates in the marketing literature over the ‘‘boundaries’’ of marketing and whether, in fact, there is even such a thing as nonprofit marketing (Parson et al., 2008).
Definition The Exchange Paradigm: Marketing as Exchange
Marketing has been defined as the ‘‘science of exchange’’ since Bagozzi introduced this concept in 1974 (Andreasen & Kotler, 2008). Typically this definition refers to the fact that in the private sector, marketing is the management function that organizes and facilitates exchange between
firms that produce goods and services and the customers who pay for and consume them. For CSOs this idea of ‘‘exchange’’ is slightly problematic because the people for whom programs are designed, for example, are not the same ones as those who typically pay for them. This leads to a conceptualization of the nonprofit marketing function as being divided into two distinct sets of activities: resource allocation and resource attraction. In other words, the markets to which resources are allocated (e.g., to create public programs for the poor or to engage in policy development, advocacy, or lobbying activities) may be different from the markets that provide the resources to pay for that work (individual donors, foundations, volunteers, corporations, government departments). In the private sector, marketers are engaged in developing products (and their price, distribution, and advertising) that will appeal to customers. In the nonprofit sector, marketing is often considered to be a much narrower construct. However relationships with external constituencies in both of the basic markets associated with resource allocation and resource attraction must be managed and the exchange paradigm can be usefully applied in doing so. It may be more obvious that CSOs need to provide benefits in return for resource attraction but the exchange paradigm also suggests that clients who use free services or those who are persuaded by social marketing campaigns are also incurring costs – which need to be recognized and managed. The Marketing Concept: Marketing as a Response to Market Parameters
As CSOs strive to develop more unique relationships with particular groups of clients, donors, and funders, they are beginning to implement the marketing concept – a definition of marketing that has been widely internalized in the business sector for 3 or 4 decades but has only recently penetrated the nonprofit sector. The marketing concept, simply put, dictates that a company achieves profitability by satisfying the needs and wants of its customers better than its competitors. In other words, understanding and responding to the marketing ‘‘landscape’’ in terms of both customers and competitors is the key to organizational success. When applied to CSOs, this definition has four key elements: 1. The need to understand and respond to the needs and wants of external target markets as opposed to relying on internal ideas, experience, ‘‘know how’’ and ideologies as the starting place for organizational decisions
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2. The need to understand competitors and their particular way of servicing their markets in order to craft a unique and differentiated response to the market(s) 3. The need to understand an organization’s particular competencies (what they do ‘‘better’’ than others) in order to capitalize on strengths and create a competitive advantage 4. A direct link between the application of these broad strategies and the achievement of organizational goals (Gainer & Moyer, 2005) Segmentation, or the dividing of markets into homogenous groups with similar needs (or similar responses to the various elements of the marketing mix) is the first step in target marketing, a strategic process in which the marketing organization chooses which particular segments of a market to serve. Targeting particular markets has become more common in the nonprofit sector in recent years as the number of agencies with unique approaches, ideologies, and expertise has grown and agencies (and their funders!) attempt to reduce duplication and direct competition. Positioning is a technique used to differentiate a marketing organization from competitors in the minds of the target market. All the elements of the marketing mix can be used to position an organization; an organization is not differentiated solely on the basis of its programs or its particular policies but also by its means of distribution, its pricing, and its communication strategies (including how it communicates its brand). Branding has become a major preoccupation in the nonprofit sector in recent years. However, most CSOs that go through ‘‘branding exercises’’ concentrate only on developing logos, tag lines, and visual images. The notion of a brand as a perception related to the trust that external stakeholders can put in an organization in terms of its ability to deliver unique benefits on a consistent basis is not well understood. As a result, one of the most important elements of branding, a commitment throughout the organization at all levels and in all departments to incorporate and communicate the brand in all activities is usually lacking. Programs and policies are often developed without thought for the brand position, service delivery staff are not conscious of their role in ‘‘living the brand’’ and as a result the brand often fails to communicate the organization’s competitive position effectively. Those nonprofit organizations that are in the most competitive environments (which tend to be those that are most dependent on revenues from fundraising and/or ‘‘sales’’) are the furthest along in implementing the marketing concept. On the other hand, those organizations that
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are most dependent on government revenues and the least dependent on individuals and corporations for their funds are the least likely to have embraced it. In welfare states or those countries with mixed economies in which there is a strong reliance on CSOs to provide key elements of the social safety net there is less need for agencies to develop a sophisticated understanding of their ‘‘customers’’ or ‘‘competitors’’ and develop responsive marketing programs. The Four ‘‘P’s’’
This phrase is a common colloquial definition of marketing: the ‘‘Four P’s’’ refer to the ‘‘marketing mix’’ of product, price, promotion, and place. These four basic types of marketing tactics or activities have come to be understood as the essence of marketing itself, although they do not capture anything more than the means through which a marketing program is applied. The ‘‘P’s’’ are used to define marketing because they are simple and because of their alliterative effect, not because they are theoretically robust. In the business sector all four elements of the marketing mix will be combined to create a unique response to the needs of a particular market, based on an understanding not only of the customers but also the competitors. In the nonprofit sector, it is common to see managers conceptualize marketing as only one of these ‘‘P’s’’, namely promotion or communications. Decisions are made about the other three aspects of the mix, of course, but often by people not associated with ‘‘marketing or not concerned with the full spedum of external stakeholders.’’ In theory, ‘‘product’’ in nonprofit marketing refers to a wide range of organizational activities (such as program design, program cancellation, policy development, lobbying efforts, naming opportunities in fundraising, cause-related marketing partnerships, etc.) related to both resource attraction and allocation. However, as stated above, many of these activities, usually those associated with core mission values and operations, are often managed without the input of those in the organization who are later charged with the business of raising money to pay for them. In the nonprofit sector price is often thought of in terms of non-monetary costs that people incur, such as time, effort, or opportunity costs. Promotion is a technical term that refers only to one kind of marketing communications (incentive-based vehicles such as coupons or samples) and this ‘‘P’’ in fact includes the whole gamut of marketing communications, paid and unpaid, that an organization undertakes. ‘‘Place’’ is understood to mean how
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a product or service is distributed to its customers – in the nonprofit sector this would refer to how clients are able to access services, donate money, locate information, etc.
Historical Background The Evolution of Marketing Thought
Although authors have mused about subjects associated with marketing for centuries, theoretical and analytical writing explicitly focused on marketing as a field began in, and accelerated throughout, the twentieth century. Various “schools of thought” developed over time, including the post-World War II focus on Marketing Management, Consumer Behaviour, the Marketing Concept and Exchange (Tadajewski and Jones, 2008). The History of Nonprofit Marketing
Beginning in the 1960s, a debate began in the marketing literature over whether the definition of “marketing’ could be broadened to include nonprofit organizations (Kotler and Levy 1969 and Luck 1969). Up until that time marketing had been constructed in terms of the role in plays in a firm’s profitability. Regardless of the theoretical arguments that were presented on both sides as to whether “marketing” could really take place in a nonprofit organization focused on goals other than profitability, forward-thinking nonprofit organizations and managers began to employ many of the tools of marketing (advertising, public relations, segmentation, direct marketing) to increase their donations, educate the public, attract volunteers, augment their client bases and achieve other objectives tied to their non-finanacial goals. As a result of these developments in CSOs, the debates over “boundary issues” faded and nonprofit marketing has become widely accepted as a subject of scholarly inquiry and management practice (Parsons, Maclaran, Tadajewski 2008). Literature on nonprofit marketing over the past four decades has been mostly focused in three areas: developing theories about the unique properties of nonprofit marketing, using data from nonprofit situations to extend and modify mainstream marketing theory and analyzing the impact of applying mainstream marketing theory and models to the nonprofit sector.
Key Issues Non-monetary and Intangible Exchange
The most basic definition of marketing, that of the facilitation of exchange relationships between an organization and its external constituencies, is problematic in the nonprofit sector if exchange is conceptualized in terms of tangible flows of money, goods, and services in a dyadic
relationship. Since this is not typical of transactions in the nonprofit sector, why is the notion of exchange important at all? Marketing is a relatively ‘‘new’’ discipline, born out of the more traditional disciplines of economics and psychology; therefore a fundamental belief in marketing is that individuals are motivated to act because of the expectation of rewards or benefits (Andreasen & Kotler, 2008). This suggests it is important for nonprofit marketers to think about the benefits individuals are seeking (or what costs they seek to reduce) with respect to their transactions. Resource Attraction
This is perhaps most obvious with respect to fundraising and the literature is clear that it is easier for organizations to attract large sums of money when they can offer concrete benefits in return for donations. But even in situations where there are no tangible benefits on offer, nonprofit organizations have recognized that intangible benefits are also of importance to donors and the trend towards ‘‘relationship management’’ in fundraising recognizes the importance of providing cognitive and social value to their donors. The exchange paradigm also applies to institutions as well as individuals. Foundation and government grants are ‘‘exchanged’’ for the ‘‘public good’’ instead of private benefits – and organizations increasingly are having to provide concrete evidence that they are providing this benefit in exchange for their grants. Resource Allocation
The literature on exchange is not so highly developed with respect to the resource allocation side of nonprofit marketing, partly because organizational activities such as programming and policy development are not considered to be marketing activities in most CSOs. Therefore many staff tend to think only in terms of the benefits they provide to clients or the public and not in terms of the other aspect of the exchange – that is, the costs to external stakeholders of engaging with the programs or supporting the policies of a CSO. While few clients of social service organizations pay for the services they receive, their transactions with CSOs have costs: psychic, physical, social, and time (opportunity) costs need to be understood and taken into account. Adopting a marketing approach based on exchange leads to the realization that reducing the ‘‘costs’’ to the ‘‘customers’’ who use services or even those that support a social marketing program will lead to greater uptake in the community (Kotler & Lee, 2007). Multiple Markets/Multiple Constituencies
Recently a new ‘‘theory of nonprofit finance’’ has emerged (Young, 2006). This literature builds on the notion of
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multiple constituencies which has been cited as one of the essential aspects of a theory of nonprofit marketing since the 1980s (Lovelock & Weinberg, 1989). This literature puts forward the view that nonprofit organizations – and their management – differ substantially from private sector organizations because their revenue streams derive from multiple markets as opposed to a single market consisting of the customers to whom they sell their goods or services. CSOs’ revenue streams come from a mix of the following: clients or customers (admission, tuition, ‘‘fee-for-service’’ payments, etc.), government grants, foundation funding, corporations (donations or in-kind contributions), and individuals (donations of cash and in-kind contributions including volunteer labor). Balancing Interests
The implication of this theory of nonprofit finance for nonprofit marketing relates to the exchange paradigm; nonprofit marketers need to be aware that different markets will be looking for different benefits in exchange for support. Moreover, the interests and demands of some of these constituencies may be in conflict. For example, while government funders may be looking for particular outcomes from an international development agency, potential corporate partners may have very different and potentially conflicting interests. Extending the notion of multiple constituencies to include clients and the general public, one can see that the need to balance potentially conflicting interests is a central aspect of nonprofit marketing. Managing Risk
The other important implication of the multiple markets theory of finance is that, like a private financial portfolio, a balance of risk and return is prudent. Therefore nonprofit marketers need to concentrate not only on those markets that can produce the highest return on investment in the short term but minimize risk in the long term. They do this by developing relationships with a variety of markets, including some that demonstrate a relatively low yield. A diversified portfolio of high risk, high yield and low risk, low yield sources of income will help to protect a CSO from the shock of losing a large donor, government contract or foundation grant. Market Orientation
The operationalization of the marketing concept is discussed in the literature in terms of an organization’s ‘‘market orientation.’’ This construct represents a set of internal organizational values and behaviors which, when widely spread throughout the organization, are linked to performance outcomes. While the theory of marketing orientation originated on the basis of research in the corporate sector (Narver & Salter, 1990), there is evidence
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that similar relationships between market-oriented culture and behavior and organizational performance hold in the nonprofit sector as well (Gainer & Padanyi, 2002). The relevance of a market orientation for CSOs is contested among both practitioners and scholars. For example, many leaders in nonprofit arts organizations resist the idea of choosing their repertoire (product) on the basis of popular demand – arguing that responding to market demand is the business of commercial arts companies and that nonprofit arts companies are not in the business of responding to market demand but rather of creating new works without regard for the market. In the academic literature Sargeant and his colleagues have argued that a more appropriate notion than market orientation is that of ‘‘societal orientation,’’ suggesting that organizational culture and behaviors should be externally oriented to many groups of external stakeholders as well as to the more general public good (Sargeant et al., 2002). Among some organizations in the nonprofit sector there is deep resistance to the idea of market orientation. Arts organizations were mentioned above as having reservations about a cultural orientation that is primarily about responding to external market demand and others in the fields of religion, education, medicine, the environment, social justice, and community and social development often agree. Many conceptualize their role as engaging in the promulgation of ideas that demand change from external ‘‘markets’’ as opposed to a role that involves responding to their demands. Despite a view put forward in the field of economics that third sector organizations develop as a result of ‘‘market failure,’’ some would argue that many nonprofit organizations develop instead as a result of ideological opposition to many of the prevailing ideas associated with capitalist and consumerist economies–including marketing. The debate over market orientation in the nonprofit sector largely concerns the definition of ‘‘the market.’’ In fact, even those organizations that resist the notion of market orientation survive because there is a group of supporters who are pleased with their activities and are willing to fund them in exchange. The resistance is more to the vocabulary of ‘‘the market’’ than to the concept of organizational responsiveness to key external stakeholders. Managing for the Mission or Marketing for Money?
According to at least one of the definitions of marketing, achieving profitability is the measure of marketing success. But of course in many CSOs profitability is not a measure of success at all. CSOs have broad and lofty goals that cannot be measured in money and often are difficult
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to measure in any quantifiable terms. Even when measures of audience size or client use are available, these simple numbers may have no bearing on assessing the quality of an artistic production or the long-term benefits of a social program. However, there is no question that most CSOs are preoccupied with finding the financial resources to continue their operations. Thus managers of nonprofit organizations throughout the world are taxed with the burden of ‘‘marketing for the money’’ as well as ‘‘managing for the mission.’’ Of course, in a number of key marketing situations, money is the only goal. Fundraising activities are undertaken primarily to raise money. However there is a growing trend towards the convergence of raising money and the activities of the core program and policy departments. The overlap of the traditionally separate tasks of program/policy creation and the attraction of financial resources has led to allegations that the escalating demands of funders with respect to operations is diverting CSOs from the pursuit of their mission (Scott, 2003). Matrix models, normally used for making choices with respect to marketing strategy in the private sector, are now often used to conceptualize and manage this tension in the nonprofit sector. A simple 2 2 matrix with the axes representing ‘‘contribution to mission’’ and ‘‘contribution to revenue’’ can help with balancing choices with revenue implications (including program and policy development) by acknowledging the need to undertake at least some activities primarily directed at raising funds– even if only to ensure continuing operations and crosssubsidize core programs with less revenue potential.
International Perspectives Global Brands
A recent and growing phenomenon has been the emergence of the ‘‘multi-national’’ nonprofit organization. Major brands such as Habitat for Humanity, Medecins Sans Frontieres, the World Wildlife Fund and Oxfam are now as well known as many corporate brands. The major difference between multinational civil society brands and multinational corporate brands, however, is with respect to their governance. Very few nonprofit brands are managed globally and affiliates in different countries can have – and often do have – very different goals, strategic directions, programs, policies, and communications. While strong brand equity can be transferred from one national affiliate to another, major incongruencies in the way the brand is communicated through operational choices in different jurisdictions can cause donor confusion
and even, in some cases, disappointment and distrust (Quelch and Laidler-Kylander, 2006). International Aid
International aid has, over the last few decades, increasingly come to be focused less on specific projects operated directly by northern and western agencies and more on partnerships with local NGOs. This has been accompanied by a recognition of the value of local management, suppliers, and systems in terms of finding sustainable solutions to social and economic issues. However with the current emphasis on corporate social responsibility, multinational corporations are also becoming partners in these projects as they seek to extend their marketing profile internationally. With nonprofit agencies and government funders eager to tap into new financial markets, the marketing concept so widely accepted in business organizations may lead corporations unfamiliar with the history and values of civil society to believe that if they pay for the programs, they are entitled to get what they want in return – including a role in the management of projects. The relative imbalance of power between multinational corporations and local NGOs, as well as the divergence in their values, may result in a decline in local autonomy.
Future Directions A scan of the literature published in a number of nonprofit marketing journals suggests that most researchers are currently preoccupied with technical and applied studies (how to apply particular ideas or techniques and/or what the results are of doing so). There appears to be little interest in further theory development or in critical marketing studies. However the two following trends affecting nonprofit marketing are likely to attract scholarly attention in the future. Changes in Funding Patterns
The first of these is the blurring – and even convergence – of the traditional separation of the tasks of resource attraction and resource allocation. Institutional funders (foundations and governments around the world) are now taking a much more proactive role in terms of expressing their preferences about how nonprofit organizations conduct their business and what their priorities should be. At the same time there is a trend away from arms-length corporate philanthropy towards corporate partnerships that include comanagement. We are also seeing increased interest among individual donors in ‘‘donor-directed’’ funding. Because of these changes, there may be more of a tendency for management at all levels and in all departments of
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CSOs to respond to financial markets by modifying their strategic and operational decisions. As nonprofit organizations adopt more of a classic, private-sector marketing orientation, marketing may finally be elevated to the status of a ‘‘C-Suite’’ management function, as in the business sector. The issues for future research are what the implications of this trend are and whether the ‘‘C-Suite’’ is the appropriate place for marketing in the nonprofit organization. Changes in Corporate Partnerships
A trend that is beginning to be studied in detail among business strategy scholars and those management experts interested in sustainability is the role of multinational corporations in partnerships with NGOs in the Global South (described above). In addition, marketing scholars are becoming very interested in studying the potential of cause-related marketing, a trend in which corporations no longer simply sponsor charities’ events and lend their money and their names to a good cause but instead gain the rights to use the charities’ brand to market their own products and services. Although the vocabulary of ‘‘partnership’’ between the corporate and civil society sector has been used by nonprofit marketers for several decades, the new partnerships associated with the rise of the ‘‘corporate social responsibility’’ movement are characterized by a much more central role for business in the direction of these projects. There has been very little research done on the effects of this shift in the balance of power between the social and the business sectors and/or on the convergence of the two sectors. Future research needs to adopt a critical approach to studying this phenomenon at the macro level; examples of important topics are whether CSOs are losing the ability to exercise their traditional role in democratic societies and examining the ‘‘new colonialism’’ in the Global South.
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▶ Volunteer Management ▶ WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature
References/Further Readings Andreasen, A. R., & Kotler, P. (2008). Strategic marketing for nonprofit organizations (7th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Gainer, B., & Padanyi, P. (2002). Applying the marketing concept to cultural organizations: An empirical study. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 7, 182–193. Gainer, B., & Moyer, M. (2005). Marketing for nonprofit managers. In R. D. Herman & Associates (Eds.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kotler, P., & Lee, N. (2007). Social marketing: Influencing behaviors for good (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Kotler, P. & Levy, S. J. (1969). Broadening the Concept of Marketing. Journal of Marketing 33, 10–15. Lovelock, C. H., & Weinberg, C. B. (1989). Public and nonprofit marketing (2nd ed.). Redwood City, CA: The Scientific Press. Luck, D. J. (1969). Broadening the Concept of Marketing –Too Far. Journal of Marketing 33, 53–55. Narver, J. C., & Slater, S. F. (1990). The effect of a marketing orientation on business profitability. Journal of Marketing, 54, 20–35. Parson, L., Maclaran, P., & Tadajewski, M. (Eds.) (2008). Nonprofit marketing (3 vols.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Quelch, J. A., & Laidler-Kylander, N. (2006). The new global brands: Managing non-government organizations in the 21st century. Mason, OH: Southwestern Publishing Company Sargeant, A., & Wymer, W. (2007). The Routledge companion to nonprofit marketing. Oxford: Routledge. Sargeant, A., Foreman, S., & Liao, M. (2002). Operationalizing the marketing concept in the nonprofit sector. Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, 10(2), 41–45. Scott, K. (2003). Funding matters: The impact of Canada’s new funding regime on nonprofit and voluntary organizations. Ottawa: Canadian Council on Social Development. Tadajewski, M. & Jones, B. (Eds.) (2008). The History of Marketing Thought (3 vols.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Young, D. R. (Ed.) (2006). Financing nonprofits: Putting theory into practice. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Brands and Branding ▶ Civil Society–Business Relations ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Fundraising ▶ Habitat for Humanity ▶ Me´decins Sans Frontie`res ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Partnerships ▶ Social Marketing ▶ Venture Philanthropy
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Marshall, Thomas Humphrey DIETER GOSEWINKEL, DOMINIK SCHOLZ
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1893 in London (United Kingdom), Thomas H. Marshall studied history in Cambridge. This should prepare him for a diplomatic career. By analyzing social structures in medieval history, however, he entered the field of sociology. An involuntary incident brought him even closer to the emerging discipline of sociology: During a stay in Germany in 1914 Marshall was arrested
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and kept as a civilian prisoner with about 4,000 other British citizens in the surroundings of Berlin until the end of World War I. He considered the captivity as a remarkable social experiment. Back in Britain he graduated at Trinity College in Cambridge and joined the London School of Economics, where he taught from 1925 until his retirement in 1956. In 1944 he became head of the Social Science Department. From 1959 until 1962 he was president of the International Sociological Association. Besides his academic activities Marshall also officiated as a political adviser: He was the head of the German section in the Research Department of the British Foreign Office (1939–1944) and later served as Educational Adviser in the British Zone of Germany from 1949 until 1950. From 1956 until 1960 Marshall was the director of the social sciences department of UNESCO. He died in 1981.
Cross-References
▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Blumer, M., & Rees, A. M. (Eds.) (1996). Citizenship today: The contemporary relevance of T. H. Marshall. London: UCL Press. Marshall, T. H. (1950/1992). Citizenship and social class. London: Pluto Press (Reprint 1992). Marshall, T. H. (1963). Sociology at the crossroads and other essays. London: Heinemann. Marshall, T. H. (1973). A British sociological career. International Social Science Journal, 25, 88–100. Marshall, T. H. (1992). Bu¨rgerrechte und soziale Klassen. Zur Soziologie des Wohlfahrtsstaates. (Translation and Preface by Elmar Rieger). Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus Verlag.
Major Contributions Marshall is known as a mastermind in twentieth century sociology and social policy in Britain and beyond. His essay ‘‘Citizenship and Social Class’’ (1950) is among sociology’s most important contributions to the dynamics of modern societies and the welfare state. His analysis focuses on the antagonism between the democratic state, whose citizens benefit from absolute equality concerning civil rights, and the capitalist economic system, where inequality plays an important role. The time and context of his work were favorable to its upsurge, in consideration of the fact that the English and West European welfare state reached its height by 1949. Marshall perceived citizenship as an evolutionary set of sequential rights according to three main categories: first civil, then political and social rights. He argued that citizenship requires the interplay of all of these three factors – an approach that became the point of departure for the general theory and definition of citizenship after World War II. Later sociologists come to criticize the anglocentric orientation and temporal anchoring of Marshall’s work in the postwar period of booming economy. In their eyes, this impedes the generalization of the concept and its transfer to other societies, even in Western Europe. In the field of historical sociology, however, Marshall’s main contribution lies in demonstrating how and why citizenship has contributed to the individual’s emancipation from extreme poverty and social inequality towards more equality since the eighteenth century, without abolishing social differentiation and inequality as such. By describing the evolution of citizenship rights Marshall made a major contribution to analyze the legal foundation of claims for rights on which civil society and its activities are based.
Mauss, Marcel BETH BREEZE
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1872, in Epinal, France, Mauss studied philosophy at Bordeaux before moving to Paris where his teaching, writing, and institution building made him a significant figure in the development of both sociology and anthropology. His influence on civil society is due to the insights of his magnum opus, The Gift, into the nature and purpose of gift exchange, which have proved of lasting value to the study of charitable giving and philanthropic transactions. Mauss was the nephew and colleague of Emile Durkheim. Together they cofounded the influential journal L’Annee Sociologique (‘‘The Sociological Year’’) in 1898 and established the French Institutes of Sociology (1924) and Ethnology (1926). Mauss saw many friends and colleagues killed during World War I and, despite the emphasis in his work on the potential for social solidarity, he lived through a Second World War before dying in Paris in 1950.
Major Contributions Mauss’ most influential work is Essai sur le Don, written between 1923 and 1924; it was first published in English in 1954 as The Gift: The form and reason for the study of the gift economy. His crucial insight is that all gifts are in fact disguised exchanges, which comprise three elements: giving, taking, and giving back. Using ethnographic data from
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primitive and modern societies, he illustrates the universal logic of reciprocity and demonstrates that gifts are not frivolous transactions between loved ones but rather a form of ‘‘social glue.’’ The gift economy creates networks of mutual indebtedness that bind people together and ensures that societies cohere, rather than disintegrate. The Maussian perspective challenges the dominant utilitarian view that self-interest and accumulation are the only drivers of action, by positing intangible yet powerful social obligations to ‘‘give back’’ as a significant influence on behavior. His understanding that ‘‘there is no such thing as a free gift’’ settles the debate on the existence and propriety of donor-benefits because, as he notes, all gifts combine elements of self-interest and disinterestedness.
Cross-References ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Social Cohesion
References/Further Readings Douglas, M. (2002 [2004]). No free gifts (foreword). In M. Mauss (Ed.), The gift. London/New York: Routledge Classics. James, W., & Allen, N. J. (Eds.) (1998). Marcel Mauss: A centenary tribute. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books. Levi-Strauss, C. (1950). Introduction to the work of Marcel Mauss. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Mauss, M. (1954 [2002]). The gift: The form and reason for the study of the gift economy. London/New York: Routledge Classics. Silber, I. (1998). Modern philanthropy: Reassessing the viability of a Maussian perspective. In J. Wendy, & N. J. Allen (Eds.), Marcel Mauss: A centenary tribute. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Me´decins Sans Frontie`res ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization Rue de Lausanne 78 CP 116 – 1211 Geneva 21 Switzerland www.msf.org
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Introduction Me´decins Sans Frontie`res (MSF – Doctors without Borders) is an independent humanitarian medical aid agency that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in immediate danger as well as in the emergency’s aftermath.
Brief History The initiative to create MSF emerged from the experiences of a number of French medical professionals in two emergency situations: one, the great flood in Eastern Pakistan (later Bangladesh) and two, the Biafran War in Nigeria at the end of the 1960s. Bernard Kouchner and other medical colleagues who had volunteered to help in these emergencies were struck by the miserable conditions of local hospitals and the impediments of bureaucratic procedures and principles of neutrality. In 1971, following their return to France, they created the humanitarian organization Me´decins Sans Frontie`res (MSF) to bypass what they believed was an international aid system that was often medically inadequate and too easily compromised by legal obstacles. From these modest beginnings, MSF has grown to have offices in 18 countries with a secretariat based in Geneva and now engages some 2,500 volunteer healthcare professionals working in more than 70 countries.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas MSF pursues two main objectives. The first is to provide emergency medical assistance to populations in danger regardless of race, religion, sex or political views. More precisely this means that in countries where health structures are insufficient or even nonexistent, MSF collaborates with authorities, where necessary and feasible, to provide assistance. However, MSF also intervenes where it has identified an urgent need irrespective of prior approval. MSF’s second objective is to draw media attention to problems and injustices in the regions where they serve.
Activities In emergency situations arising from armed conflict or natural disasters and their aftermath MSF provides essential help. MSF also intervenes where disease is endemic or epidemic and where social violence or other circumstances result in excluding parts of the population from healthcare. Depending on the circumstances, the doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare professionals serving as MSF volunteers may run hospitals or clinics, respond to epidemics, carry out vaccination campaigns, operate feeding programs for malnourished children, and offer mental health care.
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Structure and Governance
References/Further Readings
MSF is governed by an international board of directors based in Geneva, Switzerland, and is organized into 19 national/regional sections and the international office. MSF sends out approximately 2,500 international volunteers per year and employs around 10,000 local staff. In addition there are 18 MSF offices around the world providing operations and support functions which employ over 600 permanent staff.
Biquet, J.-M. (2008). Humanitarian stakes. MSF Switzerland’s review on humanitarian stakes and practices. This publication is also available on the website www.msf.ch Kouchner, B. (1986). Charite´ business. S.l. Paris: Pre´ aux Clercs. Me´decins sans Frontie`res. (2008). MSF activity report 2007. Geneva, Switzerland: Me´decins sans Frontie`res.
Funding In order to prevent compromise or manipulation, MSF seeks to maintain neutrality and independence from individual governments. To help do so, the organization tries to ensure that the majority of funds raised for its work comes directly from contributions from the general public. In 2007, just over 90% of MSF’s worldwide revenue of more than €590 million derived from private sources, which include some 3.8 million individual donors, other private funders, and other income. MSF does accept income from international organizations and governments, including Belgium, Norway, and the United Kingdom, among others.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions According to MSF’s website, on any one day, some 27,000 healthcare specialists working in teams combining local and international colleagues are providing access to and delivering medical care around the world. In 2007, MSF engaged in more than eight million outpatient consultations and more than 300,000 inpatient admissions in 63 countries, with the majority of projects taking place in Africa. As a pioneering organization, MSF’s work is not without controversy. Often MSF sees a need and seeks to intervene, but is blocked by local or national government or sometimes local populations. In situations of armed conflict, MSF is often hindered in its work by one or both sides, and its colleagues – both international volunteers and national workers – have been kidnapped, injured or even killed. MSF has been awarded several prizes for its work and, in 1999, received the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of its continuous effort to provide medical care in acute crises, as well as raising international awareness of humanitarian disasters.
Cross-References
▶ Compassion ▶ INGOs ▶ Kouchner, Bernard ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance
Medici Family BRAM VERSCHUERE
Basic Biographical Information The Medici family was one of the most powerful Florentine (and Italian) families from the thirteenth to the seventeenth century. The family produced numerous rulers of Florence, three popes (Leo X, Clemens VII and Leo XI), and members of the French and English royalties. The origins of the Medici family are in the Mugello region (north Tuscany). The family is first mentioned in 1230. It was a very wealthy family thanks to the creation of the Medici Bank by Giovanni de Medici (1360–1429) in the late fourteenth century. The family was also an important political factor. From the thirteenth century on, members of the family served in the Florence city council. During the 1430s Giovanni’s son, Cosimo the Elder (1389–1464), took the political leadership of the Florentine Republic. In 1537, Cosimo the Great, a descendant of a secondary branch of the family, took the power and obtained the title of ‘‘grand duke of Tuscany.’’ It was the start of a dynasty that lasted until 1737, and that reigned over the whole of Tuscany.
Major Contributions The Medici family was a very wealthy family with a lot of political power. They were very active in the patronage of the arts and the architecture in the era of (Italian) renaissance. The most famous artists that were sponsored by the Medici are Michelangelo, Donatello, and Leonardo Da Vinci. The Medici popes were also responsible for large parts of the artistic beauty of the Vatican (e.g. the Sistine Chapel). As patrons of arts and architecture, the Medici contributed their fortune both for private purposes and for public purposes (reconstruction or renovation of numerous public buildings). The Medici also financed some of the most important buildings in Florence like the Uffizi gallery, the Belvedere and the Palazzo Medici. No doubt, Italian renaissance flourished thanks to the generous
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patronage of wealthy families, of which the Medici family is the most important. The motive behind spending large parts of their private fortune to patronage is most likely to be a mix between pleasure (private satisfaction through the arts), piety (supporting religion and its symbols) and prestige (social status and political power). Less known, but still significant was the patronage of science by the Medici. Galileo, for example, tutored generations of Medici children. Not surprisingly, one of the most significant heritages of the Medici is their large collection of artwork. A large part of their collection is still to be admired in the Uffizi museum in Florence. The Medici also established numerous charitable foundations, in banking, manufacturing, wealth, art, and cultural heritage.
Cross-References
▶ Philanthropy in Europe
References/Further Readings Clark, P. C. (1991). The Soderini and the Medici: Power and patronage in fifteenth-century Florence. Oxford: Clarendon. Parks, T. (2006). Medici money: Banking, metaphysics, and art in fifteenthcentury florence. New York: W.W. Norton.
Mellon, Andrew DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Andrew W. Mellon was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1855, to Irish Protestant immigrants and would go on to become one of the most successful businessmen of the twentieth century. At the age of 17, Mellon started a lumber business with his brother Richard and soon the pair joined their father, Thomas, a Pittsburgh banker and judge, to help manage the family banking business – T. Mellon and Sons. When Mellon was 27, he became owner of the family banking business and the company soon became the prime financial agent in the transformation of western Pennsylvania into one of the richest industrial regions in the United States during the first half of the century. In 1889, Mellon helped develop the Union Trust Company and Union Savings Bank of Pittsburgh. He continued to build an investment portfolio that included successful companies in diverse fields including oil, steel, construction, and shipbuilding. In 1921, Mellon was appointed US Secretary of the Treasury under President Warren Harding. During his
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tenure in office, Mellon was recognized for enforcing Prohibition, reducing taxes, and presiding over a period of great financial prosperity and reduced national debt. Mellon resigned from the Treasury in 1932 amid accusations of tax evasion, and took a 1-year position as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. Meanwhile, what started as the T. Mellon and Sons Bank back in 1869 continued to grow and prosper, and eventually became one of the world’s largest money management firms – Mellon Financial Corporation. Mellon died in 1937 in Southampton, Long Island, New York.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions By 1914, Mellon had become one of the richest men in the United States. During the First World War, from 1914 to 1918, he involved himself in a number of philanthropic and civic activities for a number of organizations. In his retirement years, Mellon continued to be active both personally and financially in philanthropic endeavors that supported education, culture, and research. He gave away $10 million during his lifetime, mainly to educational and charitable institutions in his native Pittsburgh. By the early 1930s, Mellon had amassed the greatest art collection of his time, and his most famous gift came in 1937, when he donated his collection to establish the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation was established in 1969 when his son and daughter merged two separate foundations that they had respectively established in the years following their father’s death. In 2006, the Mellon Foundation was the tenth largest foundation in the United States, with assets exceeding $6.1 billion and ranked 14th with total giving above $177 million. The Foundation’s philosophy is to build, strengthen, and sustain institutions and their core capacities, rather than be a source for narrowly defined projects. The foundation’s current program areas include higher education and scholarship, scholarly communication, research in information technology, museums and conservation, performing arts, and conservation and the environment.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations ▶ Grantmaking Foundations ▶ Philanthropy, Definition of
References/Further Readings Cannadine, D. (2006). Mellon: An American life. New York: A. A. Knopf. Hersh, B. (1978). The Mellon family: A fortune in history. New York: Morrow.
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Morse Wooster, M. (2002). Mellon family. In R. Grimm (Ed.), Notable American philanthropists: Biographies of giving and volunteering. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group. O’Connor, H. (1933). Mellon’s millions. The biography of a fortune; the life and times of Andrew W. Mellon. New York: John Day Co.
Membership and Membership Associations DAVID HORTON SMITH Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA
Introduction The present article first discusses the definition of the concept of membership. Then it summarizes research knowledge about membership associations (MAs), called ‘‘voluntary associations’’ in English. The focus here is placed especially on national MAs. Several subtypes of MAs are covered in other entries in this Encyclopedia (refer to cross-references), especially Grassroots associations’’ and ‘‘INGOs.’’
Definition ‘‘Membership’’ in English can refer to belonging to or being affiliated with a group, informal or formal, in any sector of society. Membership thus implies being in some sense a part of or supportive of a group. For this Encyclopedia, the focus is on members of Civil Society/Nonprofit Sector (‘‘CS/NPS’’) groups and organizations. Smith et al. (2006: 164–165) define organizations as more formalized groups, as contrasted with informal groups. In the CS/NPS, there are two distinct types of membership in terms of the kinds of entities involved: (1) members who are individual human persons, with the MA termed here an ‘‘individual-person association,’’ and (2) members that are groups of some kind, with the MA termed here a ‘‘collective-person association.’’ Some CS/NPS groups have both types of entities as members, termed here a ‘‘hybridperson association’’ or alternatively a ‘‘hybrid membership association.’’ A membership association (MA) can thus be defined as a special form of CS/NPS group that has individual or collective (‘‘corporate’’) ‘‘persons’’ as members and uses the associational form of organization. Smith et al. (2006: 24), having individual-person MAs mainly in mind, define this nonprofit form of organization as a manner of operating a group that usually involves having (a) official members who are mostly or all volunteers (not paid to
participate), (b) one or more elected leaders in formal roles (officers), (c) ultimate control by the membership, often represented by an elected policy-making subgroup (Board of Directors, Executive Committee, etc.), (d) often one or more other subgroups (usually called ‘‘committees’’) elected or appointed to perform specified group tasks, (e) payment of annual dues (‘‘subscriptions’’) or regular donations by official members as principal financial support for the group, and (f) regular face-to-face meetings at some territorial level attended by official members or other participants. Associational forms and processes have changed significantly in recent decades as a result of technological advances. Therefore, element ‘‘f’’ of the above ‘‘definition,’’ like element ‘‘d,’’ may be seen as common but not strictly definitional. MAs define ‘‘member’’ for themselves in different ways. Researchers may use the term ‘‘official member’’ to refer to whatever way a given MA defines ‘‘member.’’ Traditionally, MAs have defined as official members only those persons who pay their annual dues or subscriptions to the MA, whether individual or collective members. Some types of ‘‘individual-member’’ MAs (such as fraternal organizations, church congregations, secret societies) also require incoming persons to undergo some kind of initiation ceremony/ rite to become official (also called ‘‘formal’’) members. Many (often most) official members of MAs are members in name only (‘‘nominal’’ members). ‘‘Active’’ MA members are usually defined by researchers as persons (a) who do something (such as volunteer service or acting as a leader) for the MA, or (b) who somehow participate in or, more traditionally and locally, physically attend some MA meeting or other group event with some (specified) frequency during a given year. In the past decade or two, especially in wealthier nations, most national MAs have also conducted ‘‘virtual meetings’’ and other ‘‘virtual participation’’ through the Internet and telephone conference calls and ‘‘hotlines.’’ Many other important definitions relating to MAs are included in Smith et al.’s (2006) dictionary for the field of CS/NPS Studies. A non-exhaustive list of 34 concepts (p. 3) that relate particularly to MAs are defined in the book, along with 1,160 other concepts and terms that cover all theoretical areas of the field.
Historical Background Membership associations (MAs) have dominated the CS/ NPS for most of the relatively short time of its existence as an identifiable sector of human societies. MAs as grassroots associations (GAs) were the first form of CS/NPS group to arise about 25,000 years ago, according to Smith (1997) and others. For 20+ millennia, the only MAs that
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existed were local, all volunteer associations. Regional and especially national MAs are much more recent social inventions as CS/NPS organizational forms. The main initial period of formation of national MAs resulted, with a lag of about a half-century, from the Industrial Revolution. This initial flourishing of national MAs occurred first beginning in the early 1800s in advanced, industrial, Western nations like the United States and the United Kingdom with MA-conducive legal frameworks. This process was an integral part of the larger ‘‘organizational revolution’’ identified and described by Boulding (1953). National MAs were formed for labor unions, farmers, professions, types of businesses (‘‘trade associations’’), churches, political parties, social movements, fraternal, recreational, hobby, and sociability groups, and for other interests and purposes. Skocpol (2003: 26–28) gives many nineteenth century examples for large MAs in the United States in a time-ordered chart of founding dates.
Key Issues Theories About Membership Associations
For over a century, many sociologists have done research and created theory about MAs, as indicated by Knoke (1986), Smith and Freedman (1972), and Smith (1975, 2000). But academic scholars from many other disciplines and fields have also been studying MAs. CS/NPS Studies began as an organized field in 1971 with ARNOVA, as described by Smith (2003). This interdisciplinary, international field has since grown globally as an emerging academic ‘‘discipline,’’ according to Smith (2000: 250). It has had an interest in MAs from its beginning. Even in the first 5 years, the ARNOVA journal now called Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly/NVSQ published theory and conceptual discussions about MAs, as well as empirical research on MAs. Organization theorists and researchers more generally have paid very minimal attention to MAs, as shown by the massive recent research literature review in Hall and Tolbert (2005). Various major reviews of nonprofit organization theory and research in general (not specifically MAs) have, until the twenty-first century, also ignored MAs. And even those scholars who have reviewed specifically the research literature on MAs, such as Knoke (1986: 2) and Tschirhart (2006: 535–536) have been unable to identify or provide much theory that applies to MAs, especially extensive general theory. Nonetheless, there exists a significant amount of fairly general theory specifically about MAs, as shown by the work of Gamwell (1984), Knoke (1990), Lohmann (1992), Smith (2000, 2009), and Warren (2001).
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Incidence, Prevalence, and Life Cycle of MAs in Geographic Territories Introduction
There are three main subtopics to this general topic: (1) the scope of MA activity in the world; (2) the formation of MAs and the prevalence of MAs and MA memberships; and (3) comparative cross-national research and theories on MA prevalence. Scope of MA Activity in the World Today
Recent data from four major multinational studies show that MAs now exist in every nation surveyed so far (86 nations), according to Howard and Gilbert (2008), Norris (2002: 150–151), Salamon et al. (2004: 91), and van Deth (2008: 221–223). Other one-nation research by many scholars extends the direct research data showing positive (nonzero) prevalence of MAs to probably 150+ contemporary nations. If INGO membership is included, then virtually all of the world’s 300+ nations now have MAs of one kind or another. There are no adequate data on the precise number of active MAs of national or subnational territorial scope for most nations. However, the wealthiest large nations usually have fairly complete directories of national MAs specifically. In the U.S., such directories suggest that there are now about 26,000 national MAs. Accurate directories of subnational MAs do not exist anywhere for entire nations. Based on Smith’s (2000: 41) best estimate of the number of grassroots associations (GAs) per thousand population in the United States (about 30) and the current population, there are about 9,000,000 GAs in America today. Turning to MA membership, the best cross-national data on MA membership so far come from the ‘‘World Values Study’’ (WVS; Norris, 2002: 150–151). These national sample surveys show that there is wide variation among about 45 contemporary nations in the percentage of adults with MA memberships and their intensity of MA activity. The highest reported percentages of adults having at least one membership are above 90% in some nations, and the lowest for a nation is 25% in the WVS data. The average number of types of MAs that adults belong to is somewhat below two for the nations the WVS studied, which are biased toward more developed and Western nations. Formation and Prevalence of MAs and MA Memberships
In the United States, Gamm and Putnam (1999) show that local MAs (GAs) in a broad sample of 26 towns and cities of varying sizes grew generally in numbers from 1840– 1940. Number of MAs per-thousand-population (as listed in City Directories) peaked in 1910 at about 5.4, and then
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declined somewhat through 1940, ending at about 4. Putnam (2000: 54) has shown that membership in a variety of mainstream, American, national MAs of many types grew markedly from 1900–1960 (with a major dip in the Great Depression of the 1930s). However, national MAs declined substantially in membership from the 1960s to the 1990s, especially for the traditional ‘‘chapter-based’’ national MAs in the United States (Putnam, 2000: 54). Skopol’s historical quantitative studies of large, American, national MA federations confirm these trends at the organizational level of analysis. Skocpol (1999: 43) showed that the 1820s to the 1850s was an especially important period of formation for these MAs. More recently, Skocpol (2003: 153) has shown these large, federative MAs have been in decline since the 1960s, especially from the mid-1970s on. By contrast, the total number of US national MAs of all types more than doubled in this time period (Putnam, 2000: 49). The number of national MAs per million of population also grew by about 75% (computed from data graph in Putnam, 2000: 50). Comparable historical incidence and prevalence studies are needed for nearly all other nations, since few such studies now exist. Some national sample surveys of American adults reported by Verba et al. (1995), Baer et al. (2001), and Dekker and van den Broek (2005) contradict Putnam’s primary thesis on MA membership long-term decline in the late twentieth century. These studies find MA membership in America to be roughly stable from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. Baer et al. (2001) also find such stability in 13 of 14 other nations studied using 1981 and 1991 World Values Study (WVS) data. Using data from the 1981 and 2000 WVS and European Values Study (EVS) for 12 nations, Dekker and Van Den Broek (2005: 49) also find stability, not MA membership decline, in recent decades. Skocpol (2003: 161–163) has argued that associational participation in the United States has shifted in recent decades from individual participation in local chapters of national MAs toward more nominal, ‘‘long-distance,’’ contributions-only, ‘‘managed’’ MAs in which membership no longer has much interpersonal meaning. Putnam (2000: 63) referred to such newer civic associations with ‘‘only mailing list membership [as] . . . an entirely new species of ‘‘tertiary’’ association whose members never actually meet.’’ As such, these newer national associations lack what is termed here a ‘‘sub-national structural base,’’ especially GAs as a local base. However, using 1981+ and 1991+ WVS data for 15 nations, Baer et al. (2001) refute both in the United States and cross-nationally Putnam’s secondary thesis that
the quality or intensity of MA involvement has been declining generally. Their results show stability in active membership for the total set of 15 nations. The 12-nation WVS/EVS data for 1981–2000 reported by Dekker and Van den Broek (2005: 51–53) also refute the Putnam intensity-decline thesis, extending the time span by another decade. Comparative Cross-National MA Prevalence Study
There has been very little study of MA incidence rates (but see Skocpol, 2003: 68), let alone cross-national comparative studies. However, two cross-national comparative studies of MA prevalence rates among contemporary nations are exemplary. Van Deth (2008: 230) uses data on ‘‘civil participation’’ (mainly voluntary association membership, volunteering for nonprofit organizations, and charitable giving) for 43 nations gathered as part of the CIVICUS Civil Society Index Project. He is able to explain, using a linear multiple regression statistical approach, about 49% of the variance in civil participation using two predictor variables: socioeconomic levels and favorable legal environments (such as greater civil liberties). Smith and Shen (2002) use a less direct but simpler (non-index) MA prevalence dependent variable (number of INGOs that some of a given nation’s people or national MAs belong to) as a proxy for national MA involvement survey data or national MA counts. Using available secondary data sources, the authors test on larger contemporary nations a revised general theory of MA prevalence developed earlier by Smith. The theory proved to be very powerful, explaining 89% of the variance in MA activity among 107 nations from all continents and regions of the world in 1994 using linear multiple regression statistics. They could also explain 89% of the variance for 84 nations in a second, independent test using 1977 data. In both time panels of data, seven independent variables were statistically significant below the .05 probability level. Internal Structure and Processes in MAs
This aspect of MAs has received relatively little empirical inquiry, especially for substantial samples of MAs generally, or national MAs specifically, in a given nation, let alone in cross-national comparative research. In the United States, several studies have used directories of national MAs as data sources for sampling over the past 50 years. The Knoke National Association Study in the United States
Knoke (1990) designed and directed a survey research study of a stratified, systematic sample in 1984 of 459
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national MAs in the United States, using national MA directories. A stratified sample of 35 national MAs were also selected for mail questionnaire surveys of their members (N = 8746 completed). Results showed that most national US MAs are small in membership size, with the collective-person MAs (trade associations) by far smallest of all subtypes (mean size of 1,216 members). The median size for all national MAs in the completed data sample was only 750 members, but the mean size was 27,575. This indicated a highly skewed size distribution with many small and much fewer very large MAs. Other major results showed US national MAs to be quite variable in degree of bureaucratization and internal structural differentiation. They were also mainly dependent on annual dues for revenues, had mainly normative incentive systems (often combined with social and/or utilitarian incentives), and had some significant but rarely very large political influence capacity. More Limited Studies of National MAs
Unfortunately, there seem to be no comparable, recent, national sample in-depth studies of all types of national MAs in the United States or elsewhere. An example of much simpler and more limited studies of United States national MAs using national MA directories is the research by Smith (1992b). Using a 1988 directory, he drew a small (N = 200), systematic, random sample of national MAs. Results showed that national MAs had mainly occupation/work related or leisure/recreation related purposes, a median age of 18 years, a median of zero paid staff (five for MAs reporting paid staff size), and national headquarters concentrated in Washington DC (25%), followed by New York City (12%) and Chicago (4%). About two thirds of national MAs were individual-person type MAs, and the rest were collective-person MAs. Median membership size was much higher for the former (1,000) than for the latter (162). There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of research studies on the internal structure and/or processes of specific national MAs or MA purposive types in the United States and in other contemporary nations. These are usually histories or case studies, but occasionally are sociological analyses or surveys. The problem in summarizing them is that no one has yet tried to derive from them any grounded theory about national MA structure and process by comparative analysis of their findings. Nor are there cross-national comparative studies of MA structure and process using adequate samples of national MAs of all types, let alone multiwave time series (panel) studies.
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Impact of MAs
Most studies of MA impact have been done on GAs, not on national MAs. A summary of the results of such studies is given in Smith (2000: 196–206). A more recent version is given in the ‘‘Grassroots Associations’’ entry in this Encyclopedia. Quantitative studies of the impact of national MAs in general are very rare. There have been some important general theoretical discussions of MA impact in recent years that focus especially on MA effects on democracy, such as those by Cohen et al. (1995), Fung (2003), and Warren (2001). Warren (2001: Chap. 4) suggests three main types of democratic effects: (1) Development MA effects (on members) involve increased efficacy, information, political skills, civic virtues (attitudes/values), and criticaldeliberative skills. (2) Public sphere MA effects involve influencing political decision-making in democratic nations at different territorial levels. (3) Institutional and democratization MA effects are still broader and more difficult to gauge, involving changing democratic institutions in whole nations and the role of MAs as democratic institutions in their own right. Developmental (Internal) MA Effects
Smith (2000: 196–206) summarizes extensive research confirming several mainly positive effects of MA, especially GA, involvement on members. Sociopolitical activation is one key developmental impact that Smith (2000: 200–201) found in many studies. A much briefer, more recent, review of MA member impact is given by Tschirhart (2006: 527). She finds evidence of mostly positive psychological and social effects, but also some negative, antidemocratic effects. Turning to a few key empirical studies, Verba et al. (1995) examined MA membership and political activity in a large national sample survey of American adults. They showed (p. 378) that for most of the 13 types of nonpolitical MAs people belonged to, the majority of respondents reported practicing a civic skill (39% or more in 10 of the 13 MA types). They are ‘‘schools for democracy’’ to use Putnam’s (2000: 338) term. Political MAs have even stronger development effects of this sort. Howard and Gilbert (2008) use recent national surveys in 19 European nations and the United States to measure intensity of MA involvement (‘‘Civic Involvement Index’’) with an index ranging from inactive nonmembers of any MA to superactive members of at least one MA. They find suggestive evidence from multiple regression analyses for one time point (mainly the European Social Survey in 2002) that higher intensity of MA involvement leads to higher levels of individual political action, life satisfaction, and trust.
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Dekker and van den Broek (2005) use 1981, 1990, and 2000 WVS data for 12 Western European and North American nations to study MA membership effects. They find statistically significant relationships between belonging to one or more MAs vs. not being a member of any MA in regard to both social trust attitudes (in 10 of 12 nations) and political discussion. Paxton (2007) further specifies this kind of probable trust effect of MA involvement by showing for 31 nations that trust increases more when the MA membership is in a connected rather than an isolated MA. Public Sphere MA Effects
Knoke’s national MA sample study provides modest confirmation of the impact of the subset of national MAs in the United States engaged in trying to influence decisions of the Congress. In his United States National Association Study, Knoke (1990: 208) found that about 51% of all national MAs in his sample actively tried to influence the federal government. The leaders of such MAs reported, on average, that they perceived modest success in their MA’s influence attempts (mean of 4.2, where 10 meant ‘‘totally effective’’; p. 210). US interest groups in general, usually national MAs, have had major impacts on national legislative decisionmaking in the long term, according to a review of the literature by Hrebenar (1997: 331–339). Zeigler (1988) demonstrates that national MAs and national political cultures in many other nations also affect how governments regulate conflict and make legislative decisions. Major overview studies of the impact of social movements also demonstrate national MA effects on the public sphere. Gamson (1990) directed a major empirical study of an authentic (hence unusual) random sample of 53 ‘‘challenging groups’’ for the period 1800–1945 in America. Over 94% of them were national MAs (computed from information in Appendix b). Results showed that 49% of these social movement MAs achieved significant new advantages they were seeking (p. 37). The conclusions reached in the comprehensive international overview of social movement research by Snow et al. (2007) give much more extensive support globally to the generalization that social movements in most democratic nations often have substantial impact on the public sphere in their issue domains and do so often through national MAs. Institutional and Democratization MA Effects
Paxton (2002) used log-transformed data on number of INGO memberships by nations as a MA measure for four time points in a four-wave, cross-lagged, time series
analysis. The results for 101 nations showed clear impact of (mostly national) MAs, as one measure of social capital, on democracy for 1977 and 1991, but not for 1965. Tilly (2004) reviews the global rise of social movements (and often national MAs within or leading them) for the period 1768–2004. He concludes that such movements usually pursue particular interests, sometimes explicitly antidemocratic, rather than having general programs or goals of fostering democratization (p. 140). Yet the unintended results of many major social movements have been to promote democracy more generally by political activation and political skill learning of members and leaders, by getting more conventional MAs involved in more contentious political activity including coalition activity, and by inducing differential rather than monolithic negative responses of governmental officials to social movement actors (including national MAs; p. 141). The democratizing effects of social movements and their national MAs occur mainly in national government regimes that have a relatively effective central administration and at least modest levels of democracy rather than pure autocracy (Tilly, 2004: 142). Social movements can also promote decreased democratization under certain circumstances (p. 143). Contrary to the expectations of many, greater pluralism of interest groups has tended to occur in most democracies everywhere in recent decades, not just in the West. In his review essay on pluralism, Ellis (2001) states that the reports of pluralism’s (death or) decline ‘‘have been greatly exaggerated.’’ He argues that even though actual interest group pluralism tends to favor the more powerful and wealthier people and organizations in democratic societies, such pluralism does provide some effective counterbalance to central government control. The less (‘‘non’’) pluralistic political regime arrangement termed ‘‘corporatism’’ is fairly common in democratic nations of the world. But even these regimes involve both national MAs (by definition) and some muting of central government power. The most powerful and far-reaching theory of the role of MAs, including national MAs, in democratization has come from Inglehart. In one book, Inglehart (1997) used national survey data from three waves (nearly 3 decades) of the WVS on 43 nations that include about 70% of the world’s population. He showed that MA memberships and levels of trust explain much about the presence of stable democracies and patterns of democratization in recent decades. In a more recent book, Inglehart and Welzel (2005) use data on four waves of the WVS on a large number of nations that represent about 85% of the world’s
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population. Again the data show the important role of MAs in democracy and democratization. The authors place this relationship in the larger context of their general ‘‘post-modernization’’ theory of the development of democracy. Tilly (2007) provides a counterpoint theory of democratization that argues for the important role of social movements and contentious processes in moving nations either toward or away from democratic regimes. He shows that the activity of social movements in the past 50 years, including some national MAs, has been a double-edged sword. They have had democratic or autocratic political regime outcomes in various nations, depending on historical peculiarities in relation to three key processes shaping democracy: suppression of independent powers, elimination of categorical inequality (gender, race, ethnicity), and the integration of trust networks (including MAs) into the polity. Deviance and Misconduct in and by MAs
Deviance and misconduct of all kinds in and by CS/NPS groups (which Smith 2008a, terms the ‘‘Dark Side’’ of the CS/NPS) is a very understudied area by academic scholars in the CS/NPS Studies field, as shown by Smith (2008a,b). This neglect is no less true with regard to MAs, including national MAs, than for other kinds of CS/NPS groups and organizations. There is mild or moderate deviance in some conventional or ‘‘mainstream’’ MAs. Mild deviance and misconduct in mainstream CS/NPS organizations that are not MAs have received increasing study in the past decade or two under the headings of ‘‘accreditation’’ and ‘‘accountability,’’ as indicated by the work of Bekkers (2003) and of Jordan and van Tuijl (2007). But in the twenty-first century there have also been some researchers who focus directly on fraud and abuse in mainstream CS/ NPS organizations, as in Greenlee et al. (2007). A few researchers, such as Gibelman and Gelman (2001), have even studied deviance in CS/NPS organizations using the term ‘‘scandals.’’ Deviant Nonprofit Groups (DNGs) are the ‘‘darkest’’ portion of the ‘‘Dark Side’’ of the CS/NPS, according to Smith (2009). But he sees DNGs as ‘‘dark energy,’’ with positive potentials. They are thus distinctive among CS/ NPS groups. DNGs are defined as deviating significantly from one or more basic moral norms of their surrounding society [at a certain time], according to Smith et al. (2006: 68). DNGs usually have one or more basic goals, or one or more major means of seeking more conventional goals, that are significantly deviant or offensive to most people in their society at a given time.
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For more about DNGs, the reader should see the present Encyclopedia’s entry on ‘‘Grassroots Associations.’’ The work on a general, grounded theory of DNGs being developed by Smith (2009) and studied empirically by Smith and Stebbins (2009a,b) is briefly described there. The comparative historical and case study DNG research by Smith and Stebbins, using published books on 24 main types of DNGs from various nations (but mainly North America), shows that DNGs often originate as Grassroots Associations. But the more successful DNGs expand over time in territorial scope as MAs, often becoming national MAs (or even INGOs in a few cases). Smith’s (2009) book on The Dark Side of Goodness demonstrates that MAs are the most likely CS/NPS structural type of DNGs. The main reason for this fact is a simple matter of economics: In GAs and many other MAs, most people are participating principally as unpaid volunteers, not as paid staff. When they as DNG members or their whole MA engages in deviance, people do not risk losing their paid jobs in the DNG, and hence their principal source of income, because they very rarely have such a paid job in the DNG. Fung (2003) has reviewed some research literature on DNGs under the topic of ‘‘Resistance and Checking Power,’’ as one type of MA effect on democracy. Fung notes that in nations where democratic institutions are absent, young, or fragile, MAs mainly contribute to democracy by resisting what the DNG leaders perceive as ‘‘illegitimate’’ authority. In such nations, however, the government authority being resisted is usually dominant and claims to be the ‘‘legitimate’’ authority. Successful ‘‘resistance’’ DNGs often have nondemocratic purposes, forms, structures, and activity repertories, however, unlike the usual mainstream MAs in more stable democracies, according to Fung. Individual Involvement in National MAs
The analytical topic area of involvement in MAs has received the most extensive research of all aspects of MAs, with many thousands of articles and books dealing with it worldwide. Smith (1975, 1994, forthcoming) has reviewed this literature various times, especially for North America. His interdisciplinary, general theory of MA involvement (including joining/membership) is presented briefly in this Encyclopedia’s entry on ‘‘Grassroots associations,’’ with supporting empirical studies. Central research focus on individual (or collective-person) involvement in national MAs is quite rare. Most research and theory on volunteer activity, including MA membership and other MA involvement, does not
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distinguish national from subnational MAs. For this reason, Knoke’s National Association Study is again distinctively important. Knoke (1990: 179) was able to explain 61.6% of the adjusted variance in members’ internal (intra-MA) participation in a multiple regression analysis of his large sample of 8,746 national MA members. Statistically significant predictors included length of membership, democratic MA structure, less powerful MA authority system, lower environmental uncertainty, more internal issue interest, and more normative and social incentives. Three important considerations in future MA involvement research and theory development are the following: (1) making a clearer distinction between MA involvement vs. involvement in non-MA types of CS/NPS groups and organizations; (2) making a clearer distinction between explanation/prediction of service program volunteering as in a hospital, museum, or social agency (which is the main subject of Musick and Wilson’s (2008) recent literature review book, for instance) vs. explanation/prediction of actual MA involvement; and (3) making a clearer distinction among involvement in MAs of various levels of territorial scope, from local to regional to national to international. With regard to all of the above theoretical clarifications, most current research and theory on CS/NPS group, volunteer, and MA involvement fail to study these separately. As a result, important nuances of MA and volunteer involvement are often ignored to the detriment of the field.
International Perspectives All sections of this article attempt to include research sources with some transnational (meaning two or more nations) base of data, information, and research. This is especially true for sections citing cross-national comparative research studies. The greatest need for more crossnational comparative research of all the sections above is in the area of national MA structure and process. There have been very few national sample studies of national MAs in any nation other than the United States with such a central focus. However, there have been many studies that attempt to describe the whole CS/NPS in many nations, particularly those studies directed by Salamon, most recently in Salamon et al. (2004). National and subnational MAs, especially GAs, do not tend to show up much in these studies because of the standardized methodological approach they usually take.
Future Directions Future basic research on national MAs needs to focus more on highly multinational comparative studies (both qualitative and quantitative) to investigate the
developing theories and conclusions of each of the sections of the present article. Cross-national longitudinal and time series studies are particularly needed in many topical areas. Studies that follow the same cases (individuals or groups) through time are especially needed to establish probable causality directions in feedback processes. Existing research approaches to, particularly theoretical paradigms of, the CS/NPS have many flaws, according to Smith (2000: Chap. 10). He identifies 19 major types of flaws, which he terms ‘‘Flat-Earth Paradigms.’’ Most of these apply to MA research, including research on national MAs. Smith (2000: 238–240) describes generally how a more useful ‘‘Round-Earth Paradigm’’ of the CS/NPS might be used, with special attention to improving research on GAs as one key form of MAs (Smith, 2000: 60–64). This same broader research paradigm would also markedly improve research and theory on national MAs. With regard to applied research on national MAs, in the future a multinational approach could be taken for identifying CS/NPS policy research needs, using something like the collaborative discovery process performed by Smith et al. (1974) in the United States long ago. Policy research needs that relate to national MAs, as well as more specific applied national MA research needs, must be addressed with more funding and by more qualified CS/ NPS researchers in many more nations. This suggestion also applies to subnational MA policy and applied research needs, within and across nations.
Cross-References
▶ ARNOVA ▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Churches and Congregations ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Community-Based Organization ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies ▶ Nonprofit Organization, Definition and History ▶ Participation ▶ Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations ▶ Political Organizations (Parties, Action Committees, etc.) ▶ Professional Associations ▶ Religious Orders and Sects ▶ Secret Societies ▶ Self-Help Groups
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▶ Social Change Organizations ▶ Social Movements ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Sociological
References/Further Readings Baer, D., Curtis, J., & Grabb, E. (2001). Has voluntary association activity declined? Cross-national analyses for fifteen countries. Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology, 38(3), 249–274. Bekkers, R. (2003). Trust, accreditation, and philanthropy in the Netherlands. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32(4), 596–615. Boulding, K. E. (1953). The organizational revolution. New York: Harper. Cohen, J., Rogers, J., & Wright, E. O. (1995). Associations and democracy. London: Verso. Dekker, P., & van den Broek, A. (2005). Involvement in voluntary associations in North America and Western Europe: Trends and correlates 1981–2000. Journal of Civil Society, 1(1), 45–59. Ellis, R. J. (2001). Pluralism. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (pp. 11516–11520). New York: Elsevier. Fung, A. (2003). Associations and democracy: Between theories, hopes, and realities. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, 515–539. Gamm, G., & Putnam, R. D. (1999). The growth of voluntary associations in America, 1840–1940. Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 29(4), 511–557. Gamson, W. A. (1990). The strategy of social protest (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Gamwell, F. I. (1984). Beyond preference: Liberal theories of independent association. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gibelman, M., & Gelman, S. R. 2001. Very public scandals: Nongovernmental organizations in trouble. Voluntas, 12(1): 49–66. Greenlee, J., Fischer, M., Gordon, T., & Keating, E. (2007). An investigation of fraud in nonprofit organizations: Occurrences and deterrents. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 36(4), 676–694. Hall, R. H., & Tolbert, P. S. (2005). Organizations: Structures, processes and outcomes (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/PrenticeHall. Howard, M. M., & Gilbert, L. (2008). A Cross-national comparison of the internal effects of participation in voluntary organizations. Political Studies, 56(1), 112–32. Hrebenar, R. J. (1997). Interest group politics in America (3rd ed.). Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and post-modernization: Cultural, economic and political change in 43 societies. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy: The human development sequence. New York: Cambridge University Press. Jordan, L., & van Tuijl, P. (Eds.) (2007). NGO accountability: Politics, principles and innovations. London: Earthscan. Knoke, D. (1986). Associations and interest groups. Annual Review of Sociology, 12, 1–21. Knoke, D. (1990). Organizing for collective action. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Lohmann, R. A. (1992). The commons: New perspectives on nonprofit organizations and voluntary action. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Musick, M. A., & Wilson, J. (2008). Volunteers: A social profile. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
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Norris, P. (2002). Democratic phoenix: Reinventing political activism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Paxton, P. (2002). Social capital and democracy: An interdependent relationship. American Sociological Review, 67(2), 254–277. Paxton, P. (2007). Association memberships and generalized trust: A multilevel model across 31 countries. Social Forces, 86(1), 47–76. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., & Associates. (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (Vol. 2). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Skocpol, T. (1999). How Americans became civic. In T. Skocpol & M. P. Fiorina (Eds.), Civic engagement in American democracy (pp. 27–80). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Skocpol, T. (2003). Diminished democracy: From membership to management in American civic life. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. Smith, C., & Freedman, A. (1972). Voluntary associations: Perspectives on the literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Smith, D. H. (1975). Voluntary action and voluntary groups. Annual Review of Sociology, 1, 247–70. Smith, D. H. (1992a). National Nonprofit, Voluntary associations: Some parameters. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 21(1), 81–94. Smith, D. H. (1992b). A neglected type of voluntary nonprofit organization: Exploration of the semiformal, fluid-membership organization. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 21(3), 251–69. Smith, D. H. (1994). Determinants of voluntary association participation and volunteering: A literature review. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 23(3), 243–263. Smith, D. H. (1997). The international history of grassroots associations. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 38(3–4), 189–216. Smith, D. H. (2000). Grassroots associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Smith, D. H. (2003). A history of ARNOVA. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32(3), 458–472. Smith, D. H. (2008a). Accepting and understanding the ‘‘Dark Side’’ of the nonprofit sector: One key part of building a healthier civil society. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of ARNOVA, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Smith, D. H. (2008b). Comparative study of fundamentally deviant nonprofit groups and their role in global civil society and democratic cultures as a new frontier for third sector research: evidence for prevalence of the false ‘Angelic Nonprofit Groups Flat-Earth Paradigm.’ Paper presented at Biennial Conference of ISTR, Barcelona, Spain. Smith, D. H. (2009). The dark side of goodness: Deviance and incivility in the Angelic nonprofit sector. Bradenton, FL: David Horton Smith International. Smith, D. H. (forthcoming). A general theory of individual belonging and volunteering for membership associations. Unpublished paper, Department of Sociology, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA. Smith, D. H., & Shen, C. (2002). The roots of civil society: A model of voluntary association prevalence applied to data on larger contemporary nations. International Journal of Comparative Sociology, 42(2), 93–133. Smith, D. H., & Stebbins, R. A. (2009a). A grounded theory about the origins phase of deviant nonprofit groups: Exploration of the ‘Dark Side’ of the nonprofit sector. Paper presented at Annual Conference of ARNOVA, Cleveland, OH, USA. Smith, D. H., & Stebbins, R. A. (2009b). Developing a grounded theory of the structural aspects of deviant nonprofit groups. Paper presented at Annual Conference of ARNOVA, Cleveland, OH, USA.
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Smith, D. H., Penna, F., & Orme, C. N. (1974). Voluntary sector policy research needs: Report of a participative inquiry. Washington, DC: Center for a Voluntary Society. Smith, D. H., Stebbins, R. A., & Dover, M. (2006). A dictionary of nonprofit terms and concepts. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Snow, D. A., Soule, S. A., & Kriesi, H. (Eds.) (2007). The Blackwell companion to social movements. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. Tilly, C. (2004). Social movements, 1768–2004. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Tilly, C. (2007). Democracy. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tschirhart, M. (2006). Nonprofit membership associations. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., pp. 523-541). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Van Deth, J. W. (2008). Citizen participation in civil society around the world. In V. F. Heinrich & L. Fioramonti (Eds.), CIVICUS global survey of the state of civil society. Vol. 2: Comparative perspectives (pp. 217–234). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Verba, S., Schlozman, K. L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. Warren, M. E. (2001). Democracy and association. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zeigler, H. (1988). Pluralism, corporatism, and confucianism: Political association and conflict regulation in the United States, Europe, and Taiwan. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Michnik, Adam MICHAŁ NOWOSIELSKI
Basic Biographical Information Adam Michnik was born on 17 October 1946 in Warsaw, Poland, to a Jewish family of pre-war communist activists. Since high school he has been involved in political activities, initially as a young, nonconformist communist intellectual, and eventually as a dissident and opposition intellectualist. He began his studies in history at Warsaw University in 1964, but was expelled in 1968. He finished his studies at Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan´ in the mid-1970s. Michnik spent 6 years in prison for opposing the communist regime. In June 1989, he became a member of the first noncommunist parliament (1989–1991). In the years 1989–2004, Michnik was the editor in chief of one of the most influential newspapers in Poland – Gazeta Wyborcza.
Major Accomplishments and Contributions Michnik began his opposition activity as a 16-year-old, attending meetings of the informal Klub Krzywego Koła
(Crooked Circle Club), and later organizing the Klub Poszukiwaczy Sprzecznos´ci (Seekers of Contradiction Club). As a student, Michnik organized a group of young socialists – Komandosi (Commandos), critics of the Communist Party. He played an active role as a participant in the student movement protesting against the aggravation of state policy in 1968. In 1977, Michnik joined the Komitet Obrony Robotniko´w (Workers’ Defense Committee), founded in 1976. He took part in the Uniwersytet Lataja˛cy (Flying University), which offered courses in subjects prohibited by the authorities. Michnik cooperated with several underground dissident magazines, including Zapis and Krytyka. In the years 1980–1989, he was an advisor to the Mazovian Regional Board of the Solidarnos´c´ trade union movement. Imprisoned after the imposition of martial law on 13 December 1981, Michnik was released on amnesty in 1984. In 1989, he took part in the Round Table negotiations between the communist regime and Solidarnos´c´. Apart from his political activities, Michnik is known for his intellectual contributions to the Central European theory of civil society and political action. His political writings – The Church and the Left (1975), Letters from Prison and Other Essays (1985), and others – have made him as important to dissident literature on the subject as Jacek Kuron´, Va´clav Havel, Ja´nos Kis, and Gyo¨rgy Konra´d. Michnik’s conception of civil society is based on moral values, and closely linked with subjectivity and the permanent recreation of civic activity. For his political and intellectual activities, Michnik has received many awards, including the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award (1986) and the Erasmus Prize (2001). He is the recipient of a doctorate honoris causa from The New School for Social Research in New York, the University of Minnesota, and the University of Michigan.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe ▶ Civil Society History VII: Late 20th and 21st Century ▶ Havel, Vaclav
References/Further Readings Michael, J. (1991). The intellectual in uncivil society: Michnik, Poland, and community. Telos, 88, 141–154. Michnik, A. (1986). Letters from prison and other essays. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Michnik, A. (1993). The church and the left. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tighe, C. (1997). Adam Michnik: A life in opposition. Journal of European Studies, 27(3), 323–366.
Mission
Mill, John Stuart HANS-CHRISTIAN CRUEGER
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1806 in London (England) to James Mill, a Scottish philosopher and historian, John Stuart Mill had to endure an extremely harsh educational regime. Mill was kept away from the company of other children and had to study Greek from the age of 3 years on. Once a teenager, Mill had acquired an enormous erudition, speaking a multitude of languages fluently and commanding a vast knowledge in various subjects. He worked for the British East India Company and served as a Member of Parliament from 1865 to 1868. Apart from that, Mill published widely throughout his lifetime and was one of the most influential liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century. His most important political work, On Liberty, appeared in 1859. Mill died in Avignon (France) in 1873. Most notable is his relationship with Harriet Taylor, a British philosopher and women’s rights advocate, whom Mill married in 1851, after 21 years of close friendship. She cast considerable influence on Mill’s thinking during the course of their relationship.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions John Stuart Mill has contributed largely to the field of moral philosophy. He is one of the key scholars who shaped the school of utilitarianism, a particular branch of moral thinking, which is still of some importance today. Nevertheless, his major contributions to civil society are not necessarily related to utilitarianism. Instead, they can be found in clear-cut political arguments. Mill’s rather short masterpiece, On Liberty, contains many distinct arguments which today are seen as paramount to civil society. Mill classically lays out a liberal philosophy: only an authority which is installed to prevent one individual from harming another is a legitimate authority. Any other goals or purposes which a given authority might pursue are tyrannical. The advancement of individual freedom ought to be seen as the sole and sacred measure of political action. Aside from his contributions to the history of ideas, Mill engaged ardently in the political debates of his time. Here, his most remarkable interventions are probably the ones against slavery and for women’s rights. With respect to these two issues Mill has left a tremendous legacy, while his arguments also received considerate contemporary attention.
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Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ Participation
References/Further Readings Capaldi, N. (2004). John Stuart Mill. A biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Riley, J. (1998). Mill on liberty. London: Routledge.
Mission RAQUEL CAMPOS FRANCO Universidade Cato´lica Portuguesa, Porto, Portugal
Introduction A well thought-out, discussed, written, and shared mission can accomplish the role of guidance in an organization. Often quoted in textbooks on the issues of mission and mission statements, Yogi Berra, a famous American baseball player, is said to have stated: ‘‘If you do not know where you’re heading, you’re likely to end up somewhere else.’’ The mission can and should be the departure point of management and leadership in a nonprofit organization, especially because nonprofits do not have profit as a main aim. As Drucker suggested, ‘‘nonprofits need management even more than business does, precisely because they lack the discipline of the bottom line. The nonprofits are, of course, still dedicated to ‘doing good.’ But they also realize that good intentions are no substitute for organization and leadership, for accountability, performance, and results. Those require management and that, in turn, begins with the organization’s mission’’ (Drucker, 1989: 89).
Definition The mission is the reason for the existence or the purpose of an organization. It explains why the organization exists and who benefits from it. It usually also expresses the values held by the people in the organization. As Hudson put it (1995), the ‘‘mission is therefore concerned with both hearts and minds: the beliefs that come from the heart and the rationale that comes from the mind’’ (pp. 94–95). All organizations have a mission, although sometimes it is not explicit. When the mission is made explicit, in a
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written form, it is called a mission statement. A mission statement may play an important role at various levels in an organization: it may help motivate staff, volunteers, and members; it may help in orientation phases; it may help guide behavior; it may serve as a reference to review strategy; it may help solve strategic dilemmas; it may help in evaluation; and it may be a celebratory symbol of an organization’s culture. People in nonprofit organizations usually aim to help change the society in some way; therefore they are often imbued with a strong sense of mission or esprit de corps from the early organizational inception.
Key Issues Mission
The mission is the raison d’eˆtre of a nonprofit organization. It is one of the essential concepts of strategic management, together with the objectives, the strategy, and performance monitoring, and it is the main reference for measuring the organizational effectiveness. An effective nonprofit organization is one which is managed in such a way as to accomplish its purpose, or its mission, and its objectives in the most complete way possible. Nevertheless, effectiveness is only a dimension of organizational quality; another one is the level of congruence achieved among mission, strategy, operations, and results, which demands the cultivation of high levels of awareness and the correction of incongruities among those elements (Torbert, 1991). In order to fully understand the reason for the organization’s existence, or the social justification for its existence, Bryson cautions that attention must also be directed to the organizational mandates, or to what the organization is formally and informally required to do. Formal mandates can be found in laws, ordinances, articles of incorporation, charters, and so forth, while informal mandates may be embodied in the cultural norms and in the expectations of key stakeholders (Bryson, 1995, 2005). A distinction between mission and vision must also be highlighted as they are different although close and often misunderstood concepts. Hudson admits that the distinction is fine, and that the conceptual overlapping exists, but clarifies that while vision is concerned with the organization’s ultimate objectives or what the organization should look like and how it should behave, mission is concerned with the reason why the organization exists and why it is doing what it does. Visions are also likely expressed in a formulation such as: ‘‘We want a world in which,’’ expressing a view of what the organization
ultimately hopes to achieve, knowing though that it is unlikely to achieve it (Hudson, 1995). Bryson (1995) calls it the vision of success and highlights the fact that the vision includes the mission but goes well beyond it: the vision describes ‘‘how the organization should look like when it is working extremely well in relation to its environment and its key stakeholders’’ (p. 155). While a vision may not be necessary to improve organizational effectiveness, in the way that an agreed strategy is, it is nevertheless difficult to imagine an organization, and more so a nonprofit organization, without a vision of success. A good illustration of the distinction between a mission and a vision can be found in The Royal National Institute for the Blind mission and vision statements: "
Our vision is of a world in which blind and partially sighted people enjoy the same rights, freedom, responsibilities and quality of life as people who are fully sighted. Our mission is to challenge blindness by empowering people who are blind or partially sighted, removing the barriers they face and helping to prevent blindness. (www.rnib.org.uk; 30.6.2008)
Another illustration is from the European Foundation Centre: "
Vision: A resilient infrastructure from which European philanthropy – with its unique embrace of innovation, dynamism and cooperation – can advance the public good in Europe and beyond. Mission: To strengthen the independent funding element of European philanthropy through robust cooperation with an array of partners. (www.efc.be; 30.6. 2008)
Mission can also be distinguished from the sense of mission, which Mintzberg does when, writing about culture and power issues, he describes what is a missionary organization, a label that can be applied to many nonprofit organizations. A sense of mission, present in those missionary organizations, is then defined as a feeling that the group has banded together to create something unusual and exciting. Nevertheless, there are many organizations, nonprofit and for-profit, with strong ideologies, and therefore a strong sense of mission, that do not structure as missionary organizations. Mintzberg suggests, based on the Ouchio and Jaeger typology, that those are the type J organizations (later labeled type Z). Following from this, these types J or Z are described as organizations where there is greater loyalty, a strong
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collective orientation, less specialization, and a greater reliance on informal controls (Mintzberg, 1999). Mission Statements
All organizations have a mission but not all of them have a mission statement. A mission statement can be described as ‘‘a broadly defined but enduring statement of purpose that distinguishes the organization from others of its type and defines the scope of its operations in product (service) and market terms’’ (Pearce, 1982). It may also happen that certain or all service units of an organization need to define their own missions within the broader organization mission, in order to highlight their specificities inside the organization, especially when it is of a large dimension, and each service unit contributes in very different ways to the overall organizational mission. In many countries the purpose of the organization must be inscribed in the statutes presented in the act of formal registration, but the organization may not for long use that statement of purpose for any other aim than that of fulfilling those formal requirements. In a certain moment in time an organization may nevertheless feel the need to create a mission statement, or to discuss and rewrite the existing one, as it is not adjusted to the present reality and the organization potential. Some reflections about the content and the form of the mission statement, as well as about the process for its formulation are useful at this point. More than three decades ago, Drucker (1973) suggested that the mission statement synthesize the answers to the following questions: What is our business? Who is the customer? What is value to the customer? What will be our business? What should our business be? These questions are often referred as the ones a company mission should answer, or a nonprofit organization mission should answer, in this case probably with a few different word choices (for instance, activity instead of business, and beneficiaries or users or target publics instead of customers, although ‘‘customers’’ and ‘‘clients’’ are increasingly used words in the nonprofit world, especially in the context of capacity-building efforts). An also often-referred concept of mission was developed by Campbell and Tawaday, who proposed the Ashridge Mission Model, mainly focused on the for-profit world. According to this model the mission of an organization is comprised of four elements – purpose (why the company/organization exists), values (what the company/organization believes in), strategy (competitive position and distinctive competence), and behavior standards (the policies and behavior standards that underpin the distinctive competence and the value system).
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These four elements must be linked together and must reinforce each other in order to produce a strong mission (Campbell & Tawadey, 1990). Wymer and colleagues (2006) refer to a change in the type of mission statements now encountered, in comparison with what happened in the past. If in the past it was easy to find lengthy, value-laden mission statements, difficult to read and to remember, nowadays mission statements tend to be more concise and to the point. In addition to these characteristics, the authors suggest that mission statements specify the organization’s scope, be feasible, motivating, and distinctive. Scope implies that the mission statement answers three questions, very much in line with Drucker’s questions referred before: Who will be served by the nonprofits (the target users)? (2) What needs of the target publics will be met (target publics’ needs)? (3) How will the nonprofit go about meeting the specified needs of the target publics it will serve (technologies)? The mission statement must also be feasible, which means that the nonprofit organization should be able to achieve the mission with the resources it possesses. Oster underlines that mission statements have an economic as well as an ideological base, meaning that organizations must consider not only what they want to do but also what they can do, given the constraints imposed by the environment and by the characteristics of the market (Oster, 1995). The mission statement must also be motivating for the staff and volunteers, and it should be distinctive or unique to the nonprofit that chooses it. An observation of what the nonprofit organizations choose to show as purposes, for instance in their Internet sites, reveals that not always is there a reference to a ‘‘mission’’ as such, or if there is, often it is only found after a search in the website search engine in text documents. It is possible to find labels as ‘‘What we are’’ and ‘‘What we do,’’ ‘‘About Us,’’ ‘‘Our Values,’’ ‘‘Our Philosophy,’’ ‘‘Aims,’’ and so on, with more or less concise and clear texts, but only some of them containing the mission statement. On the observation of this reality, Sargeant suggests that terminology is unimportant, and that the essential accomplishment is the capacity of an organization to summarize its purpose in a few words, which might convey enough information for users, donors, or other supporters, starting this way a relationship of confidence and trust (Sargeant, 2005). An example: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation About Us: Bill and Melinda Gates believe every life has equal value. In 2000, they created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
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to help reduce inequities in the United States and around the world. Our Values: There are two simple values that lie at the core of the foundation’s work: ● All lives – no matter where they are being lived – have equal value ● To whom much is given, much is expected (www.gatesfoundation.org; 30.6.2008) And then follows a list of 15 Guiding Principles that reflect Gates family’s beliefs about the role of philanthropy and the impact they want this foundation to have. And they write: ‘‘The principles guide what we do, why we do it, and how we do it’’ (http://www.gatesfoundation.org/ AboutUs/OurValues/GuidingPrinciples/default.htm). A selection of mission statements is presented below, from nonprofit organizations in different activity areas: The Nature Conservancy The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. (www.nature.org; 30.6.2008) CARE Our mission is to serve individuals and families in the poorest communities in the world. Drawing strength from our global diversity, resources and experience, we promote innovative solutions and are advocates for global responsibility. We facilitate lasting change by: ● ● ● ● ●
Strengthening capacity for self-help Providing economic opportunity Delivering relief in emergencies Influencing policy decisions at all levels Addressing discrimination in all its forms
Guided by the aspirations of local communities, we pursue our mission with both excellence and compassion because the people whom we serve deserve nothing less. (www.care.org; 30.6.2008) WWF – Worldwide Fund for Nature WWF’s mission is the conservation of nature. Using the best available scientific knowledge and advancing that knowledge where we can, we work to preserve the diversity and abundance of life on Earth and the health of ecological systems by ● Protecting natural areas and wild populations of plants and animals, including endangered species.
● Promoting sustainable approaches to the use of renewable natural resources. ● Promoting more efficient use of resources and energy and the maximum reduction of pollution. We are committed to reversing the degradation of our planet’s natural environment and to building a future in which human needs are met in harmony with nature. We recognize the critical relevance of human numbers, poverty and consumption patterns to meeting these goals. (www.worldwildlife.org; 30.6.2008) Guggenheim Foundation The mission of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation is to promote the understanding and appreciation of art, architecture, and other manifestations of visual culture, primarily of the modern and contemporary periods, and to collect, conserve, and study the art of our time. The Foundation realizes this mission through exceptional exhibitions, education programs, research initiatives, and publications, and strives to engage and educate an increasingly diverse international audience through its unique network of museums and cultural partnerships. (www.guggenheim.org, 30.6.2008) Fundac¸a˜o de Serralves The Serralves Foundation is a European cultural institution serving the national community, whose mission is to raise the general public’s awareness concerning contemporary art and the environment. The Foundation pursues its mission via the Museum of Contemporary Art as a multidisciplinary centre, the Park as a natural heritage site ideally suited for environmental education and entertainment activities and the Auditorium as a centre for reflection and debate on issues facing contemporary society. (www.serralves.pt; 30.6.2008) Over time the mission may need to be changed, and the new mission statement may emerge of a more or less participatory process. More participation, and a really sharing process, may have significant effects on the motivation of the stakeholders involved. But before conceiving a new mission, Bryson (1995) suggests two things that an organization must develop, included in his ten-step strategic management and planning process. First, the organization must develop a complete knowledge of the mandates to which it must abide with. As the author puts it: ‘‘[T]he formal and informal mandates placed on the organization consist of the various ‘musts’ it confronts’’ (p. 26). Second, the organization must accomplish at least the first steps of a stakeholder analysis. According to the same author, satisfying stakeholders is the key to the
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success of the organizations, and the first steps in a stakeholder analysis are the identification of the organization’s stakeholders, of the criteria they use to judge the performance of the organization, and of how well the organization really performs according to those criteria. A further few steps could be taken to complete the analysis and those are ‘‘attempting to understand how the stakeholders influence the organization, identifying what the organization needs from its various stakeholders (money, staff, political support), and determining in general how important the various stakeholders are’’ (p. 28). After completing this analysis the organization can decide on what stakeholders to involve in the discussion process about the mission, and the degree and form of participation of each group. In what concerns the stakeholders’ consultation, and in the specific case of the users or customers, it must be underlined that in some nonprofit organizations there is a tension between the mission of the organization and the satisfaction of customer’s present needs (Sargeant, 2005). Thus, sometimes customer satisfaction may be sacrificed by the nonprofit organization in the short term, in order to allow a higher benefit for the society in the long run, and therefore the mission accomplishment. A museum of modern and contemporary art, for instance, may decide that its mission is, above all, to educate society to learn to appreciate that kind of art, and not necessarily to give the potential public what they want. Therefore, the management team of the museum can accept as a given the ‘‘product’’ (the exhibition or the whole program) conceived by the cultural and artistic team, and then the management or the marketing team may conceive a wrapping such as to make the product desirable by society, even if people are not very acquainted with that kind of art. Another kind of situation happens in nonprofit organizations devoted to the promotion of certain causes that demand the change of more or less deeply ingrained behaviors (e.g., stopping smoking, the use of condoms). In these cases the mission cannot reflect the interests of the beneficiaries as they would probably articulate them, but their long-term interests and those of the society in general. Mission statements bring with them several benefits not only per se, but also as consequence of the participatory process for its formulation. Anheier suggests that ‘‘mission statements both constrain and enable; they constrain because they set the boundaries of the organization’s work, and they enable because they help prioritize objectives and tasks’’ (Anheier, 2005: 178). The boundaries may always be enlarged or modified by a revision of the mission in case there is agreement among the stakeholders regarding the best path to follow. The ‘‘enabling effect’’ is intimately connected to the
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fact that the mission is the reference for the strategic management and planning process. Some other benefits of the existence of mission statements, more or less connected with this mentioned prioritization function, are discussed below. Mission statements foster a habit of focusing discussion on what is truly important. For instance, in Board meetings, a constant awareness of the existence of an organizational mission to accomplish may be a very positive influence on the way time and energy are managed. Mission statements clarify the organizational purpose. Creating a mission statement for the first time or reviewing the existing one, demands a clarification effort about the organization’s reason of existence. Once agreed, the mission statement is at the top of the list of the information to give to new staff, volunteers, board members, donors, or any other new stakeholder of the organization in a first contact. Mission statements allow more effective leadership as they help clarify what is demanded of the organization by its various stakeholders (if it is the product of a shared process), and therefore what is demanded of each service unit (which may have its own missions, that concur to the organizational one), and what is demanded of each person. Once mission statements clarify the organizational purpose, they consequently clarify the purpose of organizational structure and systems, including the resource allocation system and the evaluation system. The organization manager or management team finds in the mission the guide to decide the most urgent users to serve, for instance. Having the organizational purpose clear also makes easier the building of systems to evaluate the effectiveness of the organizations, of its units and workers, because success is ultimately measured by the degree to which the mission is attained. Mission statements may be fundamental references in difficult strategic dilemmas. In a situation of scarce resources, which is a reality for many nonprofits in the world, a new donor imposing a new area of work may be a difficult decision to take. A clear mission statement may help in the process of decision, as it indicates the organizational purpose, imposing a clear boundary to the relationship with that donor. In alternative there is also the possibility of reviewing the mission, as previously mentioned. Mission statements help leaders in the process of controlling internal conflict, not only because priorities are clearer for the leaders themselves, but also because participants in the conflict will be clearer about the organizational and their work purposes. Mission statements are embodiments of the organization culture and values and therefore an important
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reference for the motivation of workers and the other organizational stakeholders. Mission statements help in the process of understanding the organizational strengths and weaknesses, and contributing to the development of more accurate internal organizational assessments, and therefore to the building of a better basis for strategy formulation. A mission statement is an important instrument of accountability. As it is a public document, distributed to employees, volunteers, and funders, used in marketing campaigns, included in annual reports, and so on, the mission statement is a very public document, and it is ‘‘one of an organization’s primary accountability contracts with the public’’ (Kearns, 1996: 52). In spite of all the benefits, it is important to be aware, as Campbell warns, that developing a mission statement not only does not necessarily add value, but may do serious harm. When it contains values and behavior standards as most of them do, mission statements can stimulate three kinds of response: boredom, emotional applause, or emotional resistance. The first response is neutral, the second is positive, but the third can be seriously damaging. This last one happens when the reader recognizes in the mission values and behavior standards that are different to his or her own (Campbell, 1997). As a final note, highlighting the fact that the definition of mission statements may be an area in which nonprofits have much to teach other type of organizations, Peter Drucker wrote in 1989: ‘‘A well-defined mission serves as a constant reminder of the need to look outside the organization not only for ‘customers’ but also for measures of success. The temptation to content oneself with the ‘goodness of our cause’ – and thus to substitute good intentions with results – always exists in nonprofit organizations. It is precisely because of this that the successful and performing nonprofits have learned to define clearly what changes outside the organization constitute ‘results’ and to focus on them’’ (p. 89).
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K. (2005). Nonprofit organizations – Theory, management, policy. New York: Routledge. Bryson, J. M. (1995). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Bryson, J. M. (2005). The strategy change cycle – An effective strategic planning approach for nonprofit organizations. In R. Herman & Associates (Eds.), The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership & management. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Campbell, A. (1997). Mission statements. Long Range Planning, 30(6), 931–932. Campbell, A., & Tawadey, K. (1990). Mission and business philosophy. Oxford: Heinemann. Drucker, P. (1973). Management: Tasks, responsibilities, practices. New York: Harper & Row. Drucker, P. F. (1989). What business can learn from nonprofits. Harvard Business Review, July–August, 88–93. Hudson, M. (1995). Managing without profit: The art of managing thirdsector organisations. London: Penguin. Kearns, K. P. (1996). Managing for accountability: Preserving the public trust in public and nonprofit organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Mintzberg, H. J. (1999). Ideology and the missionary organization. In H. Mintzberg et al. (Eds.), The strategy process – Revised European edition (pp. 361–368). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Oster, S. M. (1995). Strategic management for nonprofit organizations: Theory and cases. New York: Oxford University Press. Pearce, J. (1982). The company mission as a strategic tool. Sloan Management Review, 23(3), 15–24. Sargeant, A. (2005). Marketing management for nonprofit organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Torbert, W. R. (1991). The power of balance – Transforming self, society, and scientific inquiry. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Wymer, W., Knowles, P. et al. (2006). Nonprofit Marketing – Marketing Management for Charitable and Nongovernmental Organizations, Sage.
Missionary Societies MICHAEL GOUSMETT University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
Cross-References
▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ CARE ▶ Drucker, Peter ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ European Foundation Centre ▶ Nature Conservancy ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Strategic Planning ▶ WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature
Introduction In the twenty-first century missionary societies, of which many were formed in centuries long since past, continue their work of propagating the Gospel in accordance with their particular beliefs. The propagation of the Gospel was not confined to the ‘‘mainstream’’ Protestant and Catholic churches and their missionaries from England, Europe and America working in foreign countries, as other missionaries, such as the Moravians, also transplanted their
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beliefs to England as well as to other nations, as described by Mason (2001). As England gradually colonized the world, missionaries were soon to follow. Irish migrants to America ensured that their Catholic faith was preserved, while the Protestants from England also took their priests and nuns with them. Missionaries, and the Societies that supported them, served two purposes: the conversion of heathens to Christianity, as well as preserving the faith of those who had migrated.
Definition The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (Oxford Dictionary) (Livingstone, 1997: 1093) describes ‘‘missionary enterprise,’’ that is the propagation of the Christian faith, as being ‘‘one of the main tasks of the Christian Church from its beginning.’’ Scherer (2003: 573) explains that the word ‘‘missionary,’’ ‘‘[d]erived from Lat. mitto (send) or missus (sent), has traditionally designated someone sent on a religious mission by God (Jesus Christ as representative of the missio Dei) or by a church, a mission society, or another sending body to propagate faith or carry out a mission task.’’ Scherer (2003: 574) also argues that ‘‘[i]t cannot be said that the missionary of modern times is, despite many similarities in task or function, the equivalent of the New Testament apostle, for in each case the authority of the sender is different.. . . The New Testament apostle was a unique phenomenon that cannot be equated with missionary vocation in later times.’’ The inspiration for mission must surely have been the work of the Apostles in spreading the Gospel of God’s salvation. Gensichen and Scherer (2003: 565) explain that the first Christians ‘‘aimed to bring the gospel to the people and thus have them respond to the call of faith,’’ rather than duplicating themselves. Their work was that of mission, but not as societies of mission. Throughout the early centuries, the work of Christian mission continued and, according to Gensichen and Scherer (2003: 567) it was ‘‘toward the end of the 15th century [that] the identification of Christianity and the West became determinative for the further spread of faith.’’ While a missionary has traditionally been one of the Christian faith, Scherer (2003: 573) considers that ‘‘[i]n recent years, emissaries of non-Christian faiths, especially Buddhists and Muslims, have sometimes been referred to as missionaries.’’ Missionaries, and missionary societies, are no longer unique to Christianity. Neither, according to Scherer (2003: 577) are mission activities ‘‘a monopoly of Christian churches.’’ Scherer (2003: 577) explains that,
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‘‘[f]or a century or more, adherents of other religions, envying earlier successes of Christian overseas missions and philanthropic activities, have studied and adapted the methods used and have begun sending their own missionaries to the West. Followers of Hare Krishna and of the Unification Church can now be found in many Western urban centers. Mosques in Western Europe and North America, originally intended for the worship of immigrant populations, are being transformed into ‘cultural centers’ that propagate Islam to lapsed Christians. Islam and Buddhism are inherently missionary faiths, and over time they will change from foreign diaspora communities to groups actively recruiting Westerners.’’ Thus societies, according to Tom Stransky (1991: 696) ‘‘had differing immediate aims: a specific area on the nonChristian map (e.g., India, China, interior Africa), a specific religious group (e.g., Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Roman Catholic/Orthodox; tribal religions were simply called pagan), a specific service (e.g., medical, agricultural, development, education, Bible translation and distribution, or all of these). A missionary society can be defined as a body of persons lay and religious as an incorporated entity with legal status, the main purpose of the society being the propagation of the gospel according to their beliefs to nonbelievers with secondary purposes beneficial to the community.
Historical Background Before the advent of the missionary society, mission was undertaken by religious orders such as the Jesuits who, Gensichen and Scherer (2003: 567) explain, were ‘‘very quickly at their head.’’ While the Reformed Churches initially undertook little missionary activity, the Oxford Dictionary (Livingstone, 1997: 1095) explains that ‘‘gradually . . . missionary societies were established throughout the Protestant world.’’ The Oxford Dictionary (Livingstone, 1997: 1095) notes that in 1649 in England, the Corporation for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England was founded, ‘‘but more important was the establishment of the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge in 1698, and the SPG in 1701. None the less, the main success and burden of missionary work rested with the Moravians who, under the inspiration of Count N.L. Zinzendorf, regarded themselves as a missionary community, and the Danish-Halle missions in India.’’ The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded in 1701 was joined in 1857 by the Anglicanbased Universities’ Mission to Central Africa (Gensichen and Scherer, 2003: 568).
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Other societies, according to the Oxford Dictionary (Livingstone, 1997: 1095), also arose, such as the Methodist Missionary Society in 1786, and the Baptist Missionary Society in 1792, followed by the London Missionary Society (1795), the Church Missionary Society (1799), the British and Foreign Bible Society (1804), and the London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge amongst the Jews. The growth in missionary societies was not limited to England, as noted by the Oxford Dictionary (Livingstone, 1997: 1095), for ‘‘similar organizations were springing up in Scotland, America, Germany, France, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands.’’ According to the Oxford Dictionary (Livingstone, 1997: 1095) ‘‘[t]he phenomenal expansion of work saw the rise of innumerable societies, most being specialized in their sphere of activity, [such as] the South American Missionary Society (1844), the Melanesian Mission (1846) and the Universities Mission to central Africa.’’ Gensichen and Scherer (2003: 568) observe that while by the eighteenth century Roman Catholic missions were in decline, the Lutheran Danish-Halle Mission in South India in 1706 ‘‘made a great impact by way of example and, with English support, quickly forged relations with other Christian groups.’’ According to Gensichen and Scherer (2003: 568) the Baptist pioneer W. Cary (1761–1834) inspired ‘‘the independent mission of the awakening,’’ with his program of world mission and his model at Serampore, near Calcutta, which became a center for Bible translation throughout Asia. Later, the Congregationalist London Missionary Society (LMS), founded in 1795 became, Gensichen and Scherer (2003: 568) noted, ‘‘the model for many later agencies.’’ However, Gensichen and Scherer (2003: 568) also noted that relationships with churches varied, as can be seen with the Anglican Evangelicals, who separated from the LMS in 1799 and formed the Society for Missions to Africa and East (after 1812 the Church Missionary Society). Thus it was, ‘‘to some extent,’’ that church missionary societies were formed: Gensischen and Sherer (2003: 568). Denominational missions, wrote Gensichen and Scherer (2003: 568), were also founded on the Continent, with neo-Pietism and Lutheran orthodoxies founding the Dresden-Leipzig Mission in 1836, and the Hermannsburg Society in 1849, with similar activities taking place in Scandinavia and America, thus expanding ‘‘the range and effect of mission.’’ The 2008 text by Cox, The British Missionary Enterprise since 1700 is credited, by an anonymous author in the flyleaf of the book, with providing ‘‘a fresh and much needed overview to this large, fascinating and
controversial subject.’’ Cox (2008: vii–ix) divided his text into four parts: The religious crisis of the British imperial state, 1700–1800; Building a movement, 1800–1870; Imperial high noon, 1870–1945; and Post-colonial missions since 1945. In his Introduction, Cox (2008: 3) sums up the key issue of the Imperial period as ‘‘a rapid institutional revival in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,’’ followed by ‘‘a period of decline in the twentieth century [that was] so rapid’’ that Brown (2001), a ‘‘distinguished historian,’’ described the decline as being ‘‘the death of Christian Britain.’’ While international missionary enterprise was dominated by British Protestant missions until the late nineteenth century, Cox (2008: 9) also notes that ‘‘[t]he modern Protestant missionary movement began at a time when Roman Catholic Missions were at a low ebb, largely because of the political eclipse of the Roman Catholic imperial powers and problems in the relationship of the papacy and the religious orders.’’ One such Protestant mission was the Unitas Fratum, or the Moravian Church which has made an unusual contribution to civil society, particularly in relation to charities and taxation, in those countries which have adopted English common law, such as Australia, Canada and New Zealand, amongst others. The Unitas Fratum, or Moravian Church
Freeman (2003: 648) describes the Moravian Church, formerly the ‘‘Brethren of the Law of Christ,’’ later ‘‘Unitas Fratum’’ or Unity of the Brethren, as today being an international body which dates from 1457. According to Freeman (2003: 648), in 1467 an apostolic ministry was instituted by the Unitas Fratum. In the eighteenth century, settlements of the Moravian Church, some of which were described as ‘‘pilgrim’’ and whose purpose was mission, expanded beyond Europe (Freeman, 2003: 650). Their expansion was extensive: the West Indies and Greenland (1733); South Africa (1736); Labrador (1752); and North America (Livingstone, 1997: 1112). According to the Oxford Dictionary (Livingstone, 1997: 1112) the first Moravian Church in Britain was established in 1738 by Peter Boehler who established ‘‘a religious society’’ at Fetter Lane, London. The Moravians have made a contribution to the charity law of common law countries in a quite unexpected manner. The background to that event is the Duties upon Income Act of 1799, introduced by William Pitt the Younger. The Duties upon Income Act provided, at section V, an exemption from income tax for corporations, fraternities, and societies of persons ‘‘established for charitable purposes only.’’ However, it was not until 1803, when
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Addington introduced in that year’s Income Tax Act deduction of taxation at source (Avery Jones, 2005: 43), that charities had anything in particular to concern them in that regard. By 1805, Pitt had found it necessary to augment the work of the General Commissioners in dealing with claims from charities for refunds of income tax by creating the role of the Special Commissioners (Avery Jones, 2005). It was to the Special Commissioners that in 1888 the Moravians had made a claim for a refund of income tax of £73 8s 3d. However, it was not until 1891 that their claim was resolved by the House of Lords sitting as a Court of Appeal in the case reported as The Commissioners for the Special Purposes of the Income Tax v Pemsel [1891] A.C. 531. The contribution to civil society arising from the judgement of that case was the pronouncement by Lord Macnaghten of the four principle divisions of charity: ‘‘trusts for the relief of poverty; trusts for the advancement of education; trusts for the advancement of religion; and trusts for other purposes beneficial to the community, not falling under any of the preceding heads’’ (Pemsel: 583.) Lord Macnaghten also declared that ‘‘[t]he trusts last referred to are not the less charitable in the eye of the law, because incidentally they benefit the rich as well as the poor, as indeed, every charity that deserves the name must do either directly or indirectly’’ (Pemsel: 583). The Pemsel case had, as its origins, a gift in 1813 by deed of trust from Mary Elizabeth Bates who had conveyed lands in England ‘‘to trustees upon trust after payment of costs and outgoings to apply two-fourths of the rents and profits for the general purposes of maintaining, supporting and advancing the missionary establishments among heathen nations of the Protestant Episcopal Church, commonly known as the Moravian Church’’ (Pemsel: 531). It was on this point, that is, ‘‘whether the purposes of supporting the missionary establishments among heathen nations of the Moravian Church are ‘‘charitable purposes’’ within the meaning of the Income Tax Act 1842’’ that the case was founded (Pemsel: 534). The outcome, not only for the Moravian Church but also for every organisation with charitable purpose then and since, was decisive. Regrettably, the contribution of the Moravian Church to civil society and its religious as well as secular entities has, in the twenty-first century, been all but forgotten. The Moravian Church continues to be an active participant in mission. Freeman (2003: 650) noted that when the World Council of Churches was formed in 1948, the Moravian Church was a founding member. In the twenty-first century the Moravian Church consisted of 19 provinces in continental Europe, Great Britain, North
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America, southern Africa, Tanzania, and the Caribbean, with a membership in 2000 which numbered 800,000 worldwide (Freeman, 2003: 648). The American Missionary Spirit
It was not until the 1920s, wrote Sweet (1929: 477), that we began ‘‘to realize fully that far too little stress has been placed on religious ideas, and the activities of the churches, in our attempts to understand American life, nor have we yet learned how to link up religious life and thought with the other influences and activities which go to make up the total life story of the American people.’’ Sweet’s comment was made in his review of Oliver Wendall Elsbree’s (1928) The Rise of the Missionary Spirit In America 1790–1815, in which Elsbree explored the background of American missions, and missionary activity: that of ‘‘John Eliot and his associates, which had died down by the end of the seventeenth century and the death of Eliot;’’ and ‘‘the second phase of Indian missions [which] came as one of the results and influences of the great Colonial revival, causing the establishment of numerous missions in central New York, and includes the activities of David Brainerd, and the several Congregational and Presbyterian missionaries, as well as the work of the Moravians and others’’ (Sweet, 1929: 477). Missionary Societies and Charitable Purposes
The nineteenth century saw ‘‘prominence given to charitable and educational works’’ by mission societies (Livingstone, 1997: 1094). This work was not confined to countries such as Africa and India, but spread to hitherto inaccessible countries, in particular China. While antimissionary legislation had restricted the activities of the few Roman Catholic missionaries working in China before the 1800s, eventually ‘‘a new generation of missionaries, fired by an evangelical revival in Protestant Europe, beginning with Robert Morrison [who] in 1807 spearheaded a renewed encounter between China and Western culture’’ (‘‘Protestant missions in China 1807–1953’’ at http://en. wikipedia.org/). Morrison, of the London Missionary Society, in spite of the opposition of the British East India Company and the ship’s captain, arrived in Canton via America (‘‘Protestant missions in China 1807–1953’’ at http://en.wikipedia.org/). Morrison had been challenged by the ship’s captain who asked: ‘‘And so, Mr. Morrison, you really expect to make an impression on the idolatry of the Great Chinese Empire?’’ to which Morrison replied, ‘‘No, sir, I expect God will’’ (‘‘Protestant missions in China 1807–1953’’ at http://en.wikipedia.org/ citing [presumably] Wylie, Alexander (1867) Memorials of Protestant Missionaries to the Chinese (Shanghai) American
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Presbyterian Mission Press 3–4). In 1843, the Presbyterian Board of America sent to of their missionaries in Singapore to China, with a medical hospital playing a major role in the work of the Board (‘‘American Presbyterian Mission’’ at http://en.wikipedia.org/). While the nature of missionary enterprise in the twentyfirst century has changed from that of earlier times, when propagation of the gospel was the sole focus, to addressing concerns such as medicine and education, medicine and education have increasingly become the responsibility of government aid and development programs, with governments contributing funds to the non-religious activities of those missions. One example of such an organization is The Leprosy Mission International. Founded by Wellesley Bailey in 1869 as The Mission to Lepers in India, Bailey wrote that ‘‘[t]he first and greatest need is the gospel, but in taking them the gospel it soon became evident that a good deal more was needed; e.g., good living rooms, good food, clothing, medical attention, sanitary regulations, etc., and much more could be done for them along these lines’’ (Hall, 2000: 3 after Davy, 1987: 25). Thus medical work became an integral part of the work of the Leprosy Mission. In common with many religious-based missions, the work of the Leprosy Mission has expanded, for example, to that of advocacy: ‘‘In support work the Mission will: . . . in pursuit of its vision, develop networks and partnerships with churches and other mission groups in support countries, in order to be an advocate for people affected by leprosy, and global mission work’’ (Hall, 2000: 37 after TLMI, 1998). The Twentieth Century
The twentieth century also saw the continuation of missions with charitable purposes being founded. The Christian Blind Mission International, founded by the German Pastor Ernst Jakob Christoffel (1876–1955) in 1908 as the Christian Mission for the Blind in the Orient, (‘‘Our History’’ Christoffel Development Cooperation at http:// www.light-for-the-world.at/), is considered to be ‘‘one of the world’s oldest and largest religious organizations serving the blind and disabled’’ (‘‘Christian Blind Mission’’ at http://en.wikipedia.org/). Christoffel began his work by building homes for blind children, orphans, physically disabled, and deaf persons, in Turkey and Iran (‘‘Christian Blind Mission’’ at http://en.wikipedia.org/). Today CBM has established itself in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, the UK, the USA, Germany, Switzerland and, as the Light for the World, in Austria (1988), and Sveˇtlo Pro Sveˇt in Prague (2007) as a sister organization to Light for the World.
In 1928 the Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB), ‘‘rooted in the healing ministry of Jesus,’’ was founded by Dr Paluel Flaff, an anesthesiologist at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York (Catholic Medical Mission Board at http://www.cmmb.org/). Dr Flagg, having been ‘‘struck by the dire plight of leprosy victims during a visit to Haiti, became an advocate of healthcare for needy people around the world, recruiting physicians, nurses and missionaries to volunteer for medical mission service in developing countries’’ (Catholic Medical Mission Board at http://www.cmmb.org/). The CMMB’s Statement of Core Values is an example of how the work of such missions has adopted the secular jargon which has evolved amongst modern international development agencies. The CMMB’s primary values comprise: building individual and community capacity; social justice; accountability; quality collaboration; and courage and risk-taking, as well as integrity, leadership and compassion (Catholic Medical Mission Board at http://www.cmmb.org/). The scale of the activities of CMMB can be seen in the September 2007 Financial Year results, CMMB having received revenue of USD $201,497,845 with Expenses totalling USD $216,346,664, and net assests of USD $16,119,042 after a deficit of USD $14,848,819. (‘‘Catholic Medical Mission Board’’ at http:// www.charitynavigator.org/).
Key Issues According to Houtart (1991: 192), the Christian church was slow in recognizing the implications of colonialism, as it was many years following the end of the Second World War before ‘‘colonialism’’ is to be found in official church records. Neither (in 1991) was colonialism to be found ‘‘in any of the great social encyclicals’’ (Houtart, 1991: 192). Houtart (1991: 195) also observed that there is also ‘‘little in the way of self-criticism as to the role played in colonialism by the churches themselves. . . . Nor are there any critiques of colonialism as such, of its economic and political roots and the domination resulting from it.’’ Missionary enterprise is characteristically divided into three colonial periods: the early colonial period; modern colonial imperialism; and the postcolonial era (Gensischen, 2003: 612). The Early Colonial Period
Bevans and Schroeder (2004: 30) provide a comprehensive study of the first centuries of mission and the role of the church as it began its missionary activities, claiming that ‘‘[w]e believe that a reading of the Acts of the Apostles shows that the origin of the Church is intimately connected to its consciousness of the mission that it saw
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before it, and so Acts can be claimed to provide a strong biblical basis for the dictum that the church is ‘‘missionary by its very nature’’ (AG2).’’ Bevans and Schroeder (2004: v–vii) then proceed to discuss historical models of mission in: the Early Church (100–301); the Monastic Movement (313–907); the Mendicant Movement (1000–1453); the Age of Discovery (1492–1773); the Age of Progress (1792–1914); and the Twentieth Century (1919–1991). Gensichen (1999: 612) describes the early colonial period as being based on concepts of the medieval period, namely the basis of overlordship given by the papacy to the Iberian rulers by which ‘‘the conversion of natives presupposed subjugation to the Christian Colonial power.’’ In later periods, according to Skreslet (2003: 560), ‘‘[the] Reformation movement, spearheaded by Martin Luther (1483–1546) and John Calvin (1509–64) failed almost entirely to remove the medieval leg-iron of territoriality from the ankle of European Christianity.’’ Modern Colonial Imperialism
‘‘Modern Colonial Imperialism’’ and the work of missionary societies, according to Gensichen (2003: 613) are intertwined to the extent that ‘‘[i]t is often stated that the missionary comes first, then the consul, then the army.’’ However, being ‘‘citizens of the colonial powers,’’ missionaries were able to claim protection, and cooperate with the colonists on matters such as ‘‘in the fields of education and medicine’’ (Gensichen, 2003: 613).
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569), ‘‘the massive decline in active Christian membership and participation among both Protestants and Roman Catholics, especially in European countries,’’ has resulted in ‘‘[a] decline of interest in, and resources for, global mission.’’ Gensichen and Sherer (2003: 569) note that, on the other hand, Third World churches have seen ‘‘remarkable numerical growth, individuality and maturity.’’ Africa, south of the Sahara, has become ‘‘predominantly Christian;’’ Latin America, ‘‘long a Roman Catholic stronghold, has experienced fresh growth, especially among Pentecostals;’’ and the Protestant population of China had grown from 1 million in 1949 to at least 50 million by 2000 (Gensichen and Sherer, 2003: 570). The seminal work by David Bosch on post-colonial mission has been recognized, according to Anderson in Bosch (1991: xiii), as ‘‘a monumental, magisterial work and a superb teaching tool. It was selected as one of the ‘‘Fifteen Outstanding Books of 1991 for Mission Studies’’ by the International Bulletin of Missionary Research. But it is more than that. Transforming Mission is in a class by itself. It has become a standard reference in studies of the Christian World Mission, perhaps the most widely used textbook in mission courses.’’ What is particularly interesting is that Bosch (1991: 185) draws on the paradigm theory developed by Thomas Kuhn while at the same time cautioning against the uncritical application of ‘‘Kuhn’s ideas to the area of theology.’’
International Perspectives The Postcolonial Era
While the hope of the sociologist Albert Schaffle (1831– 1903) ‘‘that within a century the adoption of Western ways would lead to the demise of colonialism’’ has, according to Gensichen (2003: 613), ‘‘proved to be illusory,’’ change in the Third World is evident. Gensichen (2003: 614) notes that ‘‘[w]hat is new is that today the congregations and churches of the Third World are themselves bearers of the good news of mercy and can thus help to overcome ancient barriers and lay the foundations of a new partnership.’’ According to Gensichen and Scherer (2003: 569) the later twentieth century has brought new challenges to the work of Christian mission, and its modern-day societies, due to events such as ‘‘the collapse of the older Christendom as a consequence of two major world wars and the spread of Communism; decolonization in Asia and Africa: the resurgence of major world religions, especially Islam and Hinduism; and the parallel emergence of powerful new ethnic or national identities in former mission areas.’’ In addition, write Gensischen and Scherer (2003:
An early interest in the work of the missionary societies is evident in the gazette of nearly 500 pages compiled in 1832 by B.B. Edwards, The Missionary Gazetteer; comprising a geographical and statistical account of the various stations of the American and Foreign Protestant Missionary Societies of all denominations with their progress in evangelizing and civilization. The work by Edwards was ‘‘prepared upon the basis of a volume published in London, in 1828, by Mr Charles Williams’’ (Edwards, 1832: 20). Williams acknowledged the similarities of his gazette with the American Gazetteer published by the Rev. Walter Chapin in 1824, but Williams assured his readers that ‘‘its plan was laid out several years before it was known that any similar work was extant’’ (Edwards, 1832: 20). Thus it appears that there were similar interests on both sides of the Atlantic of the work that was being undertaken by missionary societies internationally.
Future Directions Turgot (1727–1781), the French economist-philosopher, argued in Turgot (1757: 92) that ‘‘[t]here is no body that
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has not in the long run lost the sense of its original purpose.’’ In 1960, Webster (1960: 3) echoing Turgot, wrote that ‘‘[i]t does not necessarily follow that the justifications for calling a voluntary agency into being in one century remain valid for its remaining in existence in a subsequent century. The best thing for any association to do when it has gained its object is to wind up. . . . Nothing human is permanent. There will not always be an England. There will not always be a C.M.S. There will not always be an Anglican Communion.’’ It is apparent, from Webster’s (1960: 4) pamphlet, that in 1960 ‘‘there [was] an impatience sometimes bordering almost on despair about our missionary organization in the Church of England.’’ Webster attributed the disquiet then felt to three groups of reasons: theological; ecclesiastical; and administrative. In spite of these difficulties, Webster (1960: 20) considered that the challenge for the Church of England then was to think ‘‘of the missionary task on an entirely new dimension.’’ To this end the C.M.S. had developed a Five-Year Opportunity Plan, in the belief that ‘‘the obedience and commitment of an ever-increasing number of people within [the Church of England] to the missionary task could have incalculable results’’ (Webster, 1960: 20). Such were the challenges of mission in the late twentieth century. Yates (1994: ix) text provides a greater overview of the issues confronting Christian mission in the twentieth century, dividing the years into decades during which there was a particular theme on which he focused: Mission as expansion (1900–1910); Mission as a church of people (1910–1920); Mission as presence and dialogue (1950–1960); Mission as proclamation, dialogue and liberation (1960–1970); Mission as proclamation and church growth (1970–1980); and Pluralism and enlightenment (1980–1990). The picture Yates paints is one of evolution, rather than an acceptance, as Turgot suggested, of a work completed. Evidence of the Christian mission as an international phenomenon can be seen in Yates (1994: 252) Guide to the Missionary Conferences of the Twentieth Century in New York (1900), Edinburgh (1910), Jerusalem (1928), Madras (1938), Ontario (1947), Germany (1952), Ghana (1958) Mexico City (1963) Bangkok (1973), Melbourne (1980) and San Antonio, Texas (1989), as well as the Lausanne Series in 1974, 1980, and 1989. The seminal text by Bosch (1991), and those of Yates (1994) and Bevans and Schroeder (2004) demonstrate that the task of understanding mission and the work of missionary societies is not yet complete.
Cross-References
▶ Charity Law ▶ Churches and Congregations
▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Religious Orders ▶ Religious Organizations
References/Further Readings Avery Jones, J. F. (2005). The Special Commissioners from Trafalgar to Waterloo, British Tax Review, 1, 40–79. Beach, H. P., & Fahs, C. H. (Eds). (1925). World missionary atlas: Containing a directory of missionary societies, classified summaries of statistics, maps showing the location of Mission Stations throughout the world, a descriptive account of the principal mission lands, and comprehensive indices. Institute of Social and Religious Research. Bevans, S. B., & Schroeder, R. P. (2004). Constants in context a theology of mission for today. New York: Orbis Books. Bosch, D. J. (1991). (Seventh Printing, 1993) Transforming mission paradigm shifts in theology of mission. New York: Orbis Books. Brown, C. G. (2001). The death of christian Britain. Understanding secularisation 1800–2000. Christianity and Society in the Modern World London and New York. London: Routledge. Cox, J. (2008). The British missionary enterprise since 1700. London: Routledge. Davy, C. (1987). Caring comes first. Basingstoke: Marshall Pickering. Edwards, B. B. (1832). The missionary gazetteer . . . . Boston: William Hyde & Co. Elsbree, O. W. (1928). The rise of the missionary spirit in America 1790– 1815. Williamsport, PA: privately printed. Freeman, A. J. (2003). In E. Fahlbusch, J. Milicˇ, J. Mbiti, (Eds), The encyclopedia of christianity (Vol. 3). Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. Gensichen, H.-W. (1999). In E. Fahlbusch, J. Milicˇ, J. Mbiti, et al., (Eds), The encyclopedia of christianity (Vol. 1). Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. Gensichen, H.-W., & Sherer, J. (2003). In E. Fahlbusch, J. Milicˇ, J. Mbiti, et al., (Eds), The encyclopedia of christianity (Vol. 3). Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. Hall, David C. (2000). Reviewing the past, exploring the future. A biblical review of the leprosy mission’s work at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Unpublished internal document. Houtart, F. (1991). In N. Losky, J. M. Bonino, J. Pobee, et al., (Eds.), Dictionary of the ecumenical movement. Geneva: WCC Publications. Keen, R. A. (1968). A survey of the archives of selected missionary societies. Historical Manuscripts Commission (London). The Leprosy Mission International. (1998). Together we serve: Global vision and strategies for the next decade. London. Livingstone, E. A. (Ed.) (1997). The Oxford dictionary of the christian church (3rd ed). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mason, J. C. S. (2001). The Moravian church and the missionary awakening in England. Royal Historical Society Studies in History New Series, Number 21. Rochester, NY: Boydell, for the Royal Historical Society, London. Scherer, J. A. (2003). In E. Fahlbusch, J. Milicˇ, J. Mbiti, et al., (Eds.), The encyclopedia of christianity (Vol. 3). Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. Skreslet, S. H. (2003). In E. Fahlbusch, J. Milicˇ, J. Mbiti, et al., (Eds.), The encyclopedia of christianity (Vol. 3). Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing. Smith, T. (1824, 1825). The history and origin of the missionary societies, containing faithful accounts of the voyages, travels, labours and successes of various missionaries who have been sent out for the purpose of
Mosques evangelizing the heathen, and other unenlightened nations, in different parts of the habitable globe. London: Charles Banes. Sweet, W. W. (1929). Early missionary activities in America 9:3 The Journal of Religion 477–478. The University of Chicago Press. Tom, S. (1991). In N. Losky, J. M. Bonino, J. Pobee, et al., (Eds.), Dictionary of the ecumenical movement. Geneva: WCC Publications. Turgot A. R. J. (1727–1781). On foundations (1757) In K. M. Baker (Ed.), (1987). The old regime and the French revolution. University of Chicago Press. Walls, A. F. (1996). The missionary movement in christian history. New York: Orbis Books. Webster, D. (1960). Missionary Societies – One or many? The Highway Press. Wylie, A. (1867). Memorials of protestant missionaries to the Chinese. Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press. Yates, T. (1994). Christian mission in the twentieth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mohn, Reinhard FREYA BRUNE
Basic Biographical Information Reinhard Mohn was born on June 29, 1921 in Gu¨tersloh, Germany. After finishing high school, Mohn was drafted for war service within WWII. During the war, he was captured and was brought to an officer camp in Kansas, USA, which gave him the possibility of acquiring management and English skills, and where he, according to himself, for the first time experienced ‘‘what democracy really meant.’’ After the war he returned to Gu¨tersloh and, corresponding to the wish of his father, director of the publishing house Bertelsmann, he did a traineeship as an accounting clerk in order to afterwards take over the directorate of Bertelsmann, where he held the position of the chairman of the board from 1947 to 1981. In 1950 he founded the ‘‘Bertelsmann Lesering,’’ and during the next decades opened further branches of business, acquired other printing and publishing houses, and thus created the publishing group Bertelsmann, later Bertelsmann AG (1971). In 1977, Reinhard Mohn launched the Bertelsmann Foundation as a way to continue the publishing group’s civic engagement. After ending his chairman position in the Bertelsmann group in 1981, Mohn served as supervisory board chairman until 1991. After giving up this post as well, he acted as chairman of the board of the supervisory committee of the foundation. In the following years, the publishing house grew and became one
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of the most important and internationally well-known companies. Reinhard Mohn died on October 3, 2009, at the age of 88, in Gu¨tersloh. His daughter Brigitte Mohn succeeds him in the chair of the foundation.
Major Contributions Concerning the Bertelsmann publishing group, Mohn built up a globally known publishing and media empire. Furthermore, Mohn supported civil society with the creation of the Bertelsmann Foundation, which works for the public welfare and holds great influence in the international foundation community. In accordance with its founder’s ideas, the foundation believes that ‘‘competition and civic engagement are the essential basis for social progress.’’ Throughout his life Mohn has received several honors, including the Honorary Citizenship of the city of Gu¨tersloh (1981), the Great Cross of the Order of Merit (Großes Verdienstkreuz) (1994), as well as the Gold Medal of the Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen (1998), and the Teddy-Kollek-Award (2003).
Cross-References
▶ Bertelsmann Stiftung ▶ Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen
References/Further Readings Mohn, R. (2006). Modernizing the system of social organization. Gu¨tersloh, Germany: Bertelsmann Verlag. Mohn, R., Hochleitner, R. D., & Moller, U. (2000). Humanity wins: A strategy for progress and leadership in times of change. New York: Crown Pub. Schuler, T. (2004). Die Mohns: Vom Provinzbuchha¨ndler zum Weltkonzern: Die Familie hinter Bertelsmann. Frankfurt a.M., Germany: Campus Verlag.
Mosques SAIF ABD AL-FATTAH Cairo University, Giza, Egypt
Introduction Mosques represent both structure and people. They represent one of the most important pillars in Islamic societies; they guard the Muslim world, and are – symbolically – its fortresses, as sites and symbols of faith. Mosques have been essentially related to the Muslim, and have acted as an axis for his/her activity.
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The mosque is the center of unity of the Muslim community (the Ummah) and its material structure. The community would not be complete without a mosque where members meet to pray, converse, and deliberate; hence, the mosque represents a religious, political as well as social necessity for every individual Muslim as well as for the community of Muslims as a whole (Moanes, 1981: 34). In this light the mosque is one of the institutions of the Ummah (mosques, Fatwa, Ulama, Waqf. . .etc.) necessary to protect its civilizational existence. It is to be independent and act as a means of furthering the interests of the Ummah. And as all institutions of the Ummah, it is to abide by a group of ultimate goals that relate to its foundational values (Ismail & Al Guanahany, 2003: 67). Without such ultimate goals and foundational values institutions might take the common form without upholding the necessary values or performing the essential roles in the interest of the Ummah, and hence become institutions that harm and damage the social being of the Ummah.
Definition The word mosque corresponds in Arabic to Masjid or Jami’ meaning the place for worship. Masjid literally means ‘‘place of prostrations,’’ i.e., place of prayer (Al Asfahani, no date), and the Arabic terms Masjid and Jami’ have three uses (Al- Milad, 1998: 6): The first: Using the two terms interchangeably, which is common in Muslim societies. For example: In Gulf areas and the Arabian peninsula it is more common to use Masjid, while in the Levant and North Africa it is more common to use Jami’. The second: the term al-masjid al-jami’ which means the congregational mosque. The third: masjid al-jami’, meaning the Friday mosque (for Friday prayers). In fact, all three uses are correct, since every masjid (mosque) holds a congregation of people where they meet and pray. The third term masjid al-jami’ is used to denote the mosque where Friday prayers, prayers of the two main feasts, and public events are held. All terms signify the main role and that is of worship. Other roles and functions stem from this first and main function, and hence the term masjid which signifies a house of worship. Prostration signifies submission to God’s will, humility, and purification from vanity. Historians have explained naming this institution as masjid from prostration and no other activity related to prayers (like reciting for instance), since prostration is the noblest state in prayer. The term masjid is found 28 times in the
Qur’an, and is too numerous to count in the Sunnah (authentic custom of the prophet). As for the term Jami’, it signifies the collective and social sense, since the term means the place that congregates people, hence al-jami’ gathers Muslims together as diverse as they, as well as their activities may be. Thus, it is a social and religious center of the Muslim society and acts as a forum and a place for deliberation. The mosque, thus, is an institution that lays the foundation for the unity of the Muslim Ummah, and maintains its coherence. For the mosque to perform its duty it must maintain its nature as belonging to God. Any dispute, division, or disunity is regarded as a violation to the mosque, its nature and its roles. Ever since the very beginning of history of Muslims, building mosques has corresponded to the geographical extension of Islam. Hence, building mosques relates to worshipping God, as well as a manifestation of Muslims’ cultural identity.
Historical Background The history of the mosques is – in many respects – the cultural and social history of the Muslim society and many Muslim countries. And while poetry is regarded as the record of the Arabs, so can we regard mosques as the record of Muslims. Establishing the Prophet’s Mosque ushered the establishment of the Muslim Ummah in Madina. This Ummah has grown and expanded, and with it expanded the mosque. Each dynasty added to or rebuilt it, hence the history of the Prophet’s Mosque is to a great extent the history of most of the great dynasties in the Arab East. The same could be said for the great mosques of the major capitals of the Muslim world; thus the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As records a history of Egypt, the great mosque of Qairawan built by Uqba ibn Nafi represents chapters in the history of North Africa and Maghreb. Similarly the Cordoba Mosque is the history of the rise and decline of the Ummayad Dynasty in Andalusia. In fact each and every Caliph or Amir contributed to its enlargement; and hence the mosque’s walls hold the names of them all. The same also can be said of al-Azhar which witnessed the consecutive chapters of the history of Egypt ever since its establishment in 969 BC; hence the history can be read in the various Annals, and can be witnessed while glancing through the mosque (Moanes, 1981: 48–49). The historical establishment of the first mosque in Islam reveals the meaning and the relationship between the mosque and the Muslim society. The first Mosque was established by the Prophet upon reaching Madina and is noted to be the first act done after the Hijra. The place of
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the mosque was not chosen by him so as not to favor one group over the other, but it was chosen to be the very site where his camel knelt down. This way the site was chosen to bring together all people without distinguishing one group over the other (Al Tabary: 116). This represented the first step in establishing the society of Madinah, where the mosque played a vital role as the center of authority, and thus came to be known as one of the most active and important institutions in the Muslim world. Moreover, with the way it was established, the mosque became a gathering point that did not hold any uneasiness for the various groups that constituted the society of Madina, one – like most Arab societies before Islam – where kinship was fundamental in forming its social relations and structures. Walid Nowayhad argued (1994: 129) that replacing the tent as the political and social center of the tribe or city with the mosque, and the transition of the Arab society from the tent (i.e., a nuclear family) to the mosque as the public forum, fundamentally altered the relationships among Arab tribes and clans, since society ceased to be based on kinship, but – rather – on a political-religious basis that realigned relationships along more complex common interests (Al Milad, 1998: 11–13).
Key Issues The Mosque’s Architecture
The role of the mosque and its relation to the city is not limited to the availability of a public service, rather it infiltrates the architectural design, and projects an Islamic Identity. It also designs the functional structure of the city to match with the function of the mosque. Thus, the design of residential units of neighborhoods and cities go with the functional order of every day mosques, Friday Mosques, and Grand Mosques. This way the residential unit is demarked by the service area of the local mosque, and the larger neighborhood is demarked within the service area of the Friday Mosque, etc., and so it goes that the span of service of the different mosques determines the residential and social spaces. In addition to creating residential spaces, mosques also create social and educational spaces. The mosque is the first school in Islam; it brings together different generations to learn temporal and religious issues. Fathers take their children to mosques, and children come into contact with Muslims of their age and of older generations, and learn proper conduct towards the elderly and towards the mosque itself. This intergenerational congregation, as well as the discipline inherent in the educational role of the mosque,
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spills over to the society at large, creating intergenerational communication and appreciation of social order. Jurisprudence of the Mosque
The ultimate jurisprudential role of the mosque can be classified into three groups: the first relates to the function and importance of the mosque, the second relates to the importance of group prayer, and the third relates to the way of going to the mosque to perform prayers. And we can point to the role of the mosque with more details: Mosques derive their importance from the importance of the ritual performed therein, which is prayer. Prayer is the second pillar of Islam and is to be performed five times a day. In addition the Sunnah shows that the mosque is not, solely, a place of worship but for multiple political, cultural, and social activities as well (for example: giving lessons, healing of patients, reception of official delegations, etc.), which necessitates the availability of mosques to be within reach of all and in service of all. It is to be noted that many scholars took interest in outlining the jurisprudential principles of the mosques, their construction, prayers, architecture, and purification. The Mosque as a Worldview
Islam has made the ultimate goal for human’s existence vice regency (Al Naggar, 1987: 49, 1999), through Umran (developing earth and its civilization), which includes establishing mosques. This aspect of vice regency entails achieving potential capabilities of individuals and groups. The whole earth can be considered a mosque and place of worship; so it goes that a Muslim is to be concerned with preserving, developing, and civilizing the whole earth. The view that sees the whole earth as a mosque and place of worship reinforces the meaning of vice regency (Istikhlaf ) and development, as it entails the responsibility of man to develop and civilize. Hence the universe generally, and the earth in particular, are a stage where man is to play his developmental and civilizational role to achieve Umran. It can be understood that this highlights the perceived relationship between man and the universe not as a solely material one, rather as entailing normative aspects with regards to preserving and protecting the universe, as well as maintaining it against any forms of corruption or disintegration. In other words, by perceiving the whole earth as a mosque, the whole universe comes under the responsibility of man to protect, preserve, and develop. The Values of the Mosque
It is rather dangerous to perceive religious values as divorced from the daily and social lives of people, because
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such values have potential roles to play that can be negated by their marginalization. Among these values is the system of values that the mosques as structure and meaning have managed to introduce to the society, namely collective unity. The first within this structure of values is Tawheed (monotheism) as the essence of faith and a drive for civilization, which entails acknowledging the diversity and plurality in the society, within one unity stemming from unity of origin, unity of purpose, unity of honoring humans by virtue of humanity, and unity of the scale of preference which is piety. This entails that all acts and activities of the Ummah – diverse as they may be – are united. And the mosque is the symbol of such unity. Such meaning of Tawheed and unity of activities is reflected in the architecture and the plan of the city where the mosque lies in the center and is surrounded by institutions of administration and governing, then markets, then homes, then gardens and farms. Also the mosque itself unites several roles and functions in social, economic, cultural, and educational issues. As demonstrated, a value of Tawheed entails the value of collective unity of all those entering the mosque, as well as the understanding of worship as civilizational and developmental acts and as a way of life. Other values include human compassion, reciprocal responsibility, and collective solidarity. Such values are interwoven from within buildings when such buildings embody meanings, and from meanings when they transform buildings to effective systems of values (Al Asfahani, 1987: 90). Mosques and Waqf (Endowments)
Waqf (Endowments) have been related to activities of worship, regardless of the different social belongings to those making their endowments (Ghanim, 1998: 172). The fields of worship have been the more frequent attractions of endowments, where these endowments would finance for instance establishment of mosques and their administration (Al Doghmi, 1991: 45) as well as organizing study groups, lessons, memorizing and reciting Qur’an, and assisting others to perform acts of worship, like financing Hadj. The mosque, with its additional or annexed institutions, was the main attraction of endowments, and mosque endowments remained the center of the policies of Waqf. ‘‘Locality’’ was the main characteristic of these endowments; nevertheless there came endowments for the two Harams, al Masjid al-Haram in Mecca and the prophet’s Mosque in Medina, as well as al-Aqsa Mosque (Ghanim, 1998: 173–189; Abd Al-Fattah, 2008).
The Roles of the Mosque The Mosque and Adjudication
Using the mosque as a house of adjudication represents the primary example of perceiving the mosque as property of the whole society and an institution of the Ummah regardless of whomever had constructed it. This does not entail that the state was unable to construct special courts of law, rather that arbitrators and judges devised the judicial process to proceed away from the influences of the state and statesmen; hence they chose the mosques – which belong to the society – as their center, and only left to the state the implementation of verdicts. Mosques and Education
Although modern institutions of education have played their educational role independent of the mosque, the mosque still has a unique educational role. The mosque retains a spirituality of learning and instills an understanding of learning as worship, something which modern institutions of education have not managed to convey. The Muslim community used mosques as institutes of education, as education was the jurisdiction of the society not the state and the community itself would provide for tutors. The state did not assume this role except from the fifth century AH when schools were established in the east. This ensured the competence and freedom of scholars. The Social, Societal, and Developmental Role of the Mosque
The social role of the mosque came into being with the establishment of the mosques. This role can be deduced from the major functions performed by the early mosque, and also from revisiting the texts of Muslim travelers like Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Rushd or Ibn Battuta, where we find that a traveler who passed by a town with no acquaintances would first head to the mosque where he would find strangers like him and get informed about ways of living and perhaps get acquainted with the townsmen and be offered lodging or work. The mosque also used to be a center where people would leave leftovers on clean mats, so the needy and hungry would benefit from them. Hence, the mosque is to perform three functions: the religious, the educational, and the social. These roles were initially complementary within the Islamic civilization. They were only separated with a condition of retreat, a condition where concepts and meaning were transformed to facades without essences, and were ripped of their
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functions and roles. This happened to the mosque after being the most vibrant institution of the Ummah, and the corner stone of three intertwining spheres: the religioussocial, the administrative-political, and the urban and developmental. With the rise of the modern nation state and its institutions, the functions of the mosque were not supposed to be usurped since it is a civil institution and not a formal one. Its roles and services are directed to the civil society with no contradiction with what the state has to offer, since it is not required for the people to work only through the state’s institutions, and the state does not have the right to monopolize all institutions like the infringement of the mosque. Such an environment has limited the imagination towards several functions that could be played by such an institution, like for instance, scientific research (where such a role can be performed with establishing research centers associated with the mosques) or comprehensive development (Al Milad, 1998). The mosque could act as an early warning system for symptoms of deviance in the society, to monitor social phenomena and maintain societal security. The locality of the mosque makes such a task more appropriate to be performed by it rather than by a central government. The Mosque’s Role in Da’wa
Mosques are centers for da’wa, and hence their establishment relates to spreading Islam. A lot of times mosques would play a more vital role than major centers that might provoke antagonism. Historically the mosques played such a role in spreading Islam east of India and south of Maghreb, since merchants used to build small mosques along the trading routes, and these areas shortly became major Muslim societies (Moanes, 1981: 40).
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institutions and can perform such a role if their independence from the infringement of the state is ensured.
International Perspectives Mosques today face several challenges that can hinder them from fulfilling their roles and achieving their goals, among which are: 1. The infringement of governments on mosques, and their subjugation to specific enterprises of the state. Mosques under misguided policies turn into dead museums only fit for ritualized worship rather than relating to people’s daily lives, therefore Muslims turn for alternative sources of knowledge about religion. Turning the mosques into institutions serving rulers has evoked feelings of anxiety, distrust, and violence in some countries. 2. The domination of unqualified Imams over the mosque, and restricting themselves to formal duties without scholarship or learning, despite the huge responsibility that their positions entail. Some ignorantly discourage people from going to the mosques, by presenting ideas and concepts divorced from people’s life and context. 3. Other problems entail the absence of vital programs that care for people and their problems, for instance problems of unemployment, marriage, orphans, and health. Although the mosque represents collective unity, the rise of sectarian trends has shaken such understanding. Thus instead of mosques performing their traditional roles in national and group unity, they have become indicators for sectarian contestation, creating a kind of mosque populism and political self-interest and providing arenas for internal strife and platforms of mobilization instead of socializing effective citizens.
The Political Role of the Mosque
The Political Role of the Mosque and the Nation State
The mosque is the center for shura (deliberation and consultation) about public affairs among all members of society who are to be affected by whatever decision taken with regards to these affairs. This role is not intended to compete with the role of the state, rather to complement it. States and regimes are unstable, and the effects of such instability should have minimal effects on the society, which is not to be achieved except with independent societal and civil institutions that can move on in times of change and transformation to ensure some kind of stability. Mosques are among the most durable
After the establishment of the postcolonial nation-state in the Muslim world, the political elites – driven by their own understandings of modernization – approached the mosques in a way that eventually harmed their traditional roles. By trying to transform them into institutions associated with authority, sites of mobilization, and arenas brought under supervision, the traditional unifying nature of mosques was threatened and their roles were usurped. In some cases mosques were to be closed after prayers, no public issues were to be discussed, and no demonstrations or acts of protest were to be launched
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from them and thus the state infringed on a site of public sphere and collective public opinion. The Arab–Israeli Conflict and the Resistant Role of the Mosque
Historically the mosque has embraced forms of resistance to colonialism; examples would include al-Azhar during the French expedition, and various movements in Libya and the Sudan that resisted occupation through mosques. The Arab–Israeli conflict reflects an important example of resistance through mosques that culminated to the Intifadah as a model of resistance, and where mosques were used as religious symbols of resistance and mobilization. Such a role is exemplified in al-Aqsa Mosque in the Arab– Israeli conflict. This role holds many meanings and explanations. The first is that this area falls in center of the religious contestations by the two parties. Second, al-Aqsa mosque has a sacred significance to the Palestinians, Arabs, and Muslims since it is the first Qibla and the third among the three holiest mosques, hence the sanctity of place relates the mosque to Jerusalem and to Palestine. Third, this mosque represents several major junctures in the Arab–Israeli conflict. For example, after the Aqsa fire 1969 (Al Salih, 2000: 139) the Organization of the Islamic Conference was established to defend the issues of the Muslim world. Moreover the mosque was a catalyst and a birthplace for the first and second Intifadah. Contesting claims and several attempts on the Israeli part to claim the mosque makes it a central issue in the Arab–Israeli conflict. The Mosque and a Model for Intifadah
Although the facts of the occupation have limited the activities of Al-Aqsa Mosque to the minimum, occupation forces have not led to its abolition. The mosque has had its role weakened by attempts of limitation, neutralization, or politicization. Nevertheless it managed to prove itself as a sight of strength in harboring and nourishing the phenomenon of Intifadah. Hence regaining a political and social role especially in resistance. Within the Palestinian experience (Abu al Quraya, 2007: 224–225) the mosque plays three major roles: resisting occupation, offering various social services especially in absence of formal institutions, and maintaining national unity. Palestine’s mosques have played an active political role since the occupation, where Fridays’ sermons have turned to a political platform for free speech and political stances, and Friday’s prayers became weekly meetings followed by demonstrations and political advocacy, which signifies a transformation in the nature and roles of mosques in Palestine. Such a role has made mosques and other
Islamic symbols a target since 1948; consequently the number of mosques and religious buildings surviving 1984 went down from 313 to 200 (Abd al-Kareem, 2006: 61). Mosques in Countries of Diaspora
The mosque has its importance in diaspora countries and periphery areas in the Muslim world, where Muslim minorities live and depend on mosques as centers of faith and sources of group identity as Muslims belonging to a larger Ummah. This would hold for Southern Africa and South East Asia where mosques signify a relation to the unity of the Muslim world. Also, it holds for Western countries where Muslim diaspora communities relate to their mosques as centers of cultural and religious identity. This of course can have a problematic aspect in trying to maintain the balance between reinforcing group identity and integration in the wider society and active citizenship. It is to be noted that the western view of the mosques after the events of Madrid and London took a turn, and mosques came under surveillance, especially Friday sermons and lessons (al-Lawendy, 2006: 125). The Mosque and the Future of the Religious Discourse
Discourses of the mosque target various and diverse groups, hence special care should be taken in choosing the language and method of the messages delivered as well as issues that relate to the interest of the vast majority and redeem the deformities of their societies. Discourses of the mosques reflect the scientific, religious, and ethical orientation of the religious institution and the society as a whole. They also represent a cultural and a civilizational sphere in which interests of the present, directions of the past and expectations of the future are to complement each other in guiding the society to invest such a public space, and to revisit its stances, correcting its understandings and reinforcing its identity (Fadeel, 2003: 27–28). The mosque also plays a role in formulating the religious discourse at large through Friday Sermons, religious lessons, and cultural forums. Nevertheless, such a discourse sometimes represents a stray in reflecting the mosque’s role, especially the developmental role. This is due to a formality of the discourse, without reflecting the values initially related to the mosque, thus ignoring stimulating societal development. This dysfunctional type of discourse has withered a part of the cultural and public role of the mosque away. Nevertheless, it is doubtless that mosques still represent important sites of developing the religious discourse and relating it to the development of their societies.
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Electronic Mosques and New Multimedia
Mosques now face a lot of challenges to fulfill their roles, partly as an influence of distorted media messages and stereotypes; hence segments of youth evade them. Consequently, they have become only sites of rituals especially for older people. In the digital age, technology and namely the Internet have played a role in creating virtual communities and developing means of communication among individuals, and thus downplaying the limitation of space and time. New concepts have changed our understanding of life and among them the virtual mosque. The virtual mosques mean disseminating the message of the mosque using the tools that are provided by the Internet and interactive communication technology. Among those are: 1. Constructing web sites for mosques to identify the various services and activities. 2. Interactive services of the e-mosque to ensure keeping in touch with the visitors in an interactive two-way communication. This reflects on the Mosque itself, its administration, Imams, and visitors. And ensures a means of measuring reactions towards the messages the mosque disseminates and the various needs of the visitors. All this serves real mosques, but it is to be noted that it would not replace them; rather it provides information and communication capacities that can reach wider visitors and bring them to the mosques.
Future Directions Studying any institution like the mosque should cover its historical and civilizational memory, its ultimate goals and public roles, surrounding contexts, problems, and challenges it faces, as well as its potentials and abilities that can be invested and made use of. In this light, the mosque has represented a vital collective framework. It has performed several civilizational roles in different historical periods. This has produced several fixed roles extending to all essential social activities: educational, social, economic, political, and cultural. These roles have had their share of flourishing and decline in different times. Nonetheless mosques remained the focal point of activity and effectiveness in the Muslim world. It is doubtless that modern transformations have left their marks on the various traditional roles of the mosques, whether positively or negatively; hence the future of the mosques lies primarily within those who visit and establish them, and the extent to which they develop the spiritual, civilizational, and public roles (Hassan,
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2002: 27). The future of the institution of the mosques, whether in the Muslim world or the diaspora, lies in their social and civilizational roles and the ability to face real and pressing issues and not fake ones that weaken their real development. Accordingly, renewing the effective roles of the mosque lies in its ability as an institution to prove the following: 1. The renewing role of the mosque in producing religious discourse, albeit one able to face challenges and relate to the multiple and diverse contexts. 2. The ability of the mosque to cope with globalizing trends and the advancements in the technological sphere. The cyberspace would represent such an opportunity and potential in creating collective unity, networking, and communication to those who seek it. 3. It will be of importance to assert the role of the mosque in resistance and liberation, resistance to the tyranny of the state and injustices of occupiers, and arrogance in international politics.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Cyber-Communities ▶ Endowment, Definition and Management of ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Identity ▶ Information Technology, Internet ▶ Madrassa ▶ Organization of the Islamic Conference ▶ Participation ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Religious Organizations ▶ Sadaqa ▶ Sociability ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Solidarity ▶ Wakfs ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Abi al Fada Al Sayyid bin Abd al-Maqsood Al Athri (1991). Tahzir al Raki wal Sagid min Bidat Zakhrafat al Masajid (1st ed.). Beirut: Dar al-Gil. (In Arabic). Al Adib Talaat Bedeir (Saif al-in Fahmy supervisor) (1979). Dor Al Masjid fi Talbeyyat Hagat Gomhoroh. Cairo: Faculty of Education, Al Azhar University. (In Arabic). Al Asfahany, Al Raghib (No Date) Mofradat fi Gharib al Qur’an. Cairo: Al Maktaba Al Tawfikiya, (In Arabic). Al Aziz Rashid Abd (Rabee Omar Bashir: supervisor) (1982). Resalat Al Masjid Al Tarbaweia. Mecca: Faculty of Education. (In Arabic).
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Al Doghmy Mohamed Rakan (1991). Al Awqaf wal Masjid. Amman: The Committee of history of Jordan. (In Arabic). Al-Fattah Ismail Saif al-Din Abd (1999). ‘‘Al Quds Kashifa Fariqa’’. Al Quds, No. 2, February 1999. Cairo: Centre for Arab Media. (In Arabic). Al-Fattah Ismail Saif al-Din Abd and Al Habib Al Guanahany (2003). Al Mojtama Al madani wa Abadoh Al Fikreia (1st ed.). Damascus: Dar al-Fikr. (In Arabic). Al Fattah Saif al-Din Abd and Al Bayoumy Ghanim Ibrahim (2008), ‘‘Al Waqf wa Dawraho fi Al Nohoud Al Hadary’’, U.A.E.: Prince Abdulmohsin Bin Jalawi Center for Research and Islamic Studies. (In Arabic). Al-Hussein bin Mohamed al-Mofadal Abi al-Qasim Al Asfahany (1987). Al Zareiyaa Ila Makarim al Sharia (2nd ed.). Al mansoura: Dar Alwafaa for publishing. (In Arabic). Al-Kareem Ibrahim Abd (2006). ‘‘Al Ta’adeyat al-Sahyouniya Ala Al-Masajid Fi Al Manatiq Al Filistineya Al Mohtalla monzo 1984’’. Awqaf, No. 10, year six, May 2006. Kuwait: Al Amana Al Ama Lilawqaf. (In Arabic). Al Lawendi Said (2006). Al Islamophobia: limaza yakhaf al Gharb min al-Islam. Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization. (In Arabic). Al-Milad Zaki (1998). Al Jami, wal Jamia, wal Jamaa: Derasa fil Mokawenat al Mafahimia wal Takamol al Marifi. Cairo: International Institute of Islamic Thought. (In Arabic). Al Najjar Abd al-Majid Omar (1987). Khilaphat Al Insan bayn Al Wahy wal Aql: Bahth Fi Gadleyat Al Nas wal Aql wal Waqi (2nd ed.). Herndon, VA: IIIT. (In Arabic). Al Najjar Abd al-Majid Omar (1999). Fiqh Al Tahadour al Islami (1st ed.). Beirut: Dar Al Gharb Al Islami. (In Arabic). Al Qadir Akbar Gamil Abd (1992). Imarit Al Ard fil Islam (1st ed.). Beirut: Institute of Qur’an Sciences, K.S.A., Il Qibla lil Thaqafa House. (In Arabic). Al Qadir Fadeel Abd (2003). Resalit al Masjid, No. 2, September 2003. (In Arabic). Al Qadomy Eissa (2007). Al Masjid Al-Aqsa: Al Haqiqa wal Tareikh, Gameayit Ihyaa al Turath al-Islami, The Arab World Committee, Markaz Bait Al Maqdis lil dirasat al Tawthiqia. (In Arabic). Al Quraya Bashir Said Mohamed Abu (2007). Al Namozadj Al Intifadi Al Falestini: Dirasa fi Al Haraka al Watennia wal Zahira al Islamia, Ph.D thesis, Cairo University. (In Arabic). Al Rifai Obeid Mansur (1996). Manat Al Masjid wa Resaltoho. Cairo: Maktabat al dar Al Arabia lil Kitab. (In Arabic). Al Sajistany Abu Bakr (1963). Tafsir Ghareeb al Qur’an. Cairo: Mohamed Ali Sabeeh Library and Publishing House. (In Arabic). Al Tabary, Tarikh Al Ummam wal Muluk. Beirut: Al Aalami Institute. (In Arabic). Al Washly Abd Allah Qasim (1988). Al Masjid wa Dawroh Fil Talim Abr Al Halq Al Ilmeia. Beirut: Moasatit Al Resala. (In Arabic). Bin Ahmed Salih al Salih Mohamed (2000). Al Masjid Jami wa Jamiaa (1st ed.). Riyadh. (In Arabic). Ghanim Ibrahim Bayoumy (1998). AL Awqaf wa Al Seyassa fi Misr. Cairo: Dar Al sherouk. (In Arabic). Maher Soad (1987). Masajid Al seera Al nabawia. Cairo: General Egyptian Book Organization. (In Arabic). Moanis Hussein (1981). Al Masjid, Alam Al Marefa Series, No. 37, p. 34. Kuwait: National Council for Culture and Arts (In Arabic). Mohamed Hassan Nubi (2002). Imarit Al Masjid fi Daw’ Al Kitab wal Sunnah. Cairo: Dar Nahdit Al Sharq. (In Arabic). Nowayhad Walid (1994). Al Islam wal Siyassa: Noshoo’ Al Dawla fi Sadr al Da’wa. Beirut: Center of Strategic Studies, Research and Documentation. (In Arabic).
Mother Teresa BRAM VERSCHUERE
Basic Biographical Information Born in Skopje (the current capital of Macedonia) on August 26, 1910 in a wealthy family, Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu left her parental home in 1928 to join the Sisters of Loreto, an Irish Catholic community. She was sent to India, where in 1931 she took her initial vows as a nun and took the name of ‘‘Mother Teresa,’’ a reference to the Holy Theresia from Lisieux. From 1931 to 1948 Mother Teresa taught at St. Mary’s High School in Kolkata. Impressed by the suffering and poverty she witnessed outside the convent, in 1948 she received permission from her superiors to leave the convent school and devote herself to working among the poorest in the slums of Kolkata. In 1957, Mother Teresa received permission to start her own order, ‘‘The Missionaries of Charity.’’ In 1965 the order became an International Religious Family by a decree of Pope Paul VI. By the 1970s, Mother Teresa and her work started to be recognized throughout the world and she received a large number of awards and distinctions (124 in total), including the Nobel Peace Prize (1979) and the Bharat Ratna, India’s highest civilian award (1980). Mother Teresa died in Kolkata on 5 September 1997, where she was granted a state funeral by the Indian Government. The beatification of Mother Teresa took place in 2003, after which she received the title ‘‘Blessed.’’
Major Contributions Mother Teresa became a symbol of international charity. What initially started in the 1950s in Kolkata as a small Catholic missionary order with 13 members, the congregation of the Missionaries of Charities today has over 4,500 members running hospitals, orphanages, AIDS hospices and charity centers worldwide. By 1996 Mother Teresa was operating 517 missions in more than 130 countries. The Missionaries of Charity are aided and assisted by Coworkers who became an official International Association in 1969. By the 1990s there were over one million Coworkers in more than 40 countries. As a result, the focus of the work that was initially started by Mother Teresa has now broadened from relieving the poorest in the third world, to a broad range of activities throughout the world (relief work in the wake of natural catastrophes, and helping groups like homeless, prostitutes, alcoholics, and AIDS-sufferers also in the developed world). Today, Mother
Mott, Charles Stewart
Teresa’s work is still continued and even expanded by the Order of the Missionaries of Charity she established. During the course of her life, Mother Teresa became an international celebrity, which enabled her to attract billions of charitable funds. To give an impression, according to a witness, in 1996 the Order received 50 million dollars on its New York account alone. Mother Teresa also broke down barriers of faith. Although she was a deep Catholic herself, her charitable work did and does not discriminate between people of other faiths. Finally, it should be mentioned that Mother Teresa and her Order have been subject to criticism for their paternalistic and aggressive manner of providing charity (e.g., cultivation of miserability, their position concerning contraconception and abortion, and outdated standards of medical care). Besides that, some question whether the real mission of Mother Teresa was alleviation of poverty, or whether the increase of number of Catholics was her prime mission. However, whether these criticisms are legitimate or not, the fact remains that Mother Teresa has played a crucial role in charity, in India and the rest of the world.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Missionary Societies ▶ Religious Orders
References/Further Readings Chawla, N. (1992). Mother Teresa: The authorized biography. UK: Sinclair Stevenson Spink, K. (1997). Mother Teresa: A complete authorized biography. New York: HarperCollins
Mothers Against Drunk Driving ▶ MADD
Mott, Charles Stewart DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Charles S. Mott was born in 1875 in Newark, New Jersey and throughout his lifetime would become known as an industrialist, mayor, and philanthropist. Mott was born
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into a line of entrepreneurs, as his grandfather – Samuel R. Mott – founded the cider and vinegar company that would become Motts, Inc. (famous for its applesauce). After studying engineering in college, Mott went to work for his father and uncle who had purchased a bicycle wheel manufacturing business (Weston-Mott Company). After his father died, Mott’s uncle appointed him superintendent of the company. In 1906, Mott moved to Flint, Michigan after his company merged with Buick Motor Company. Two years later, the company was purchased by General Motors Corporation, and Mott served on the GM board of directors until his death. He was also vice president of GM from 1916 to 1937. By 1942, Mott was the corporation’s largest shareholder. Mott entered public service in 1912 when he was elected mayor of Flint. As mayor he was responsible for instituting fair property assessments, orderly accounting audits, health and safety ordinances, building codes and a house numbering system. He went on to serve two additional 1-year terms in 1913 and 1918. Mott died in 1973 in Flint, Michigan.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Throughout his life, Mott matched his financial success with concern about the welfare of his community. During his days in Flint, Mott established a camp, as well as medical and dental clinics for Flint’s children, and helped establish a number of nonprofit organizations that still exist today, including the Whaley Children’s Center, the Boy Scouts, and the YMCA. In 1926, he founded the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to address the increasing needs of Flint’s growing population. In 1935, in partnership with the Flint Community Schools, the Foundation became a major factor in the life of the city through school-based educational and recreational activities. This partnership ultimately developed into a nationwide community education movement. In 1953 Mott helped rebuild part of Flint after the Beecher Tornado hit the town. A year later, he was awarded the Big Brother award by Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1969, Mott gave $6.5 million to help create the C. S. Mott Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan. Since its founding, the Foundation has expanded the geographic scope of its grants, but has adhered to the major concern of its earliest origins: the wellbeing of communities. The mission of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, which is still headquartered in Flint, is to support efforts that promote a just, equitable, and sustainable society.
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Cross-References
▶ Boy Scouts ▶ C. S. Mott Foundation ▶ Grantmaking Foundations ▶ YMCA
References/Further Readings Young, C., & Quinn, W. (1963). Foundation for living; The story of Charles S. Mott and Flint. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mott, John Raleigh MARTTI MUUKKONEN
devoted his energy to the YMCA, he was not fighting for the YMCA but for its mission. Thus, he organized several other organizations, like the WSCF, International Missionary Council (IMC) and WCC. This ‘‘personal union’’ aspect between ecumenical organizations was one significant feature in Mott’s activity. Willem A. Visser ‘t Hooft’s (the first GS of the WCC) mother expressed the essential when she said that Mott ‘‘was like a spider and that no one who had been caught in his web could get out of it again (Visser ‘t Hooft, 1973: 18).’’ Mott was able to find young men with potential to whom he then gave training and put to work. The Ecumenical movement of the first half of the twentieth century was largely based on this web of Mott’s.
Cross-References
▶ World Council of Churches ▶ YMCA
Basic Biographical Information John R. Mott is the best known figure in the Ecumenical movement. He was a leader of several organizations that preceded the World Council of Churches (WCC). The story of Mott starts usually with his attendance the Mount Hermon Student Conference in 1886. Two years later, when he graduated, he accepted the post of College Secretary of the Intercollegiate YMCA (1888– 1915). In 1895, when the World Student Christian Federation (WSCF) was founded, Mott became its first General Secretary (1895–1920). In 1901, he became an Associate General Secretary (1901–1915) of the North American International Committee of the YMCA and in 1915 its General Secretary (1915–1928). Along with his work in the YMCA, Mott was a president of the Student Volunteer Movement (1886–1920) and general secretary (1895– 1920) and chairman of the WSCF (1920–1928). From 1891 on, Mott increasingly became a central figure in the World Alliance of YMCAs. In 1900 he became a member of the World’s Committee, representing the American movement. From the London Plenary of 1907 on, Mott was in practice the leader of the World’s Alliance. He became the president of the World’s Alliance in 1926 and held the post until 1947. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1946 for his work in uniting world youth. He died in 1955.
Major Contributions Although Mott was primarily an evangelist, he was also a gifted statesman who could solve controversies between various groups in the YMCA and in the Ecumenical movement. He was also an administrator who had a gift for raising funds and using them effectively. Although he
References/Further Readings Barnes, M. G. (1992). John R. Mott: A conversionist in a pluralist world. Microfilm in the US Congress Library. Fisher, G. M. (1952). John R. Mott: Architect of co-operation and unity. New York: Association Press. Hopkins, C. H. (1979). John R. Mott 1865–1955: A biography. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Mathews, B. (1934). John R. Mott: World citizen. New York: Harper and Brothers. Pierard, R. V. (1986). John R. Mott and the rift in the ecumenical movement during world war I. Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 23(4) (fall), 601–620. Visser ‘t Hooft, W. A. (1973). Memoirs. Geneva: WCC Publications.
MoveOn.org SHANNON ADAIR WILLIAMS
Address of Organization www.moveon.org
Introduction MoveOn.org is the joint website of two US organizations that offer ‘‘a way for busy but concerned citizens to find their political voice in a system dominated by big money and big media.’’ Using the Internet as their primary forum and mode of organizing, MoveOn.org includes a 501(c) (4) nonprofit organization Civic Action (MOCA) and a registered federal Political Action Committee (MOPA).
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)
Their website reports a membership of 4.2 million people across the United States.
History MOCA began in 1998 when Silicon Valley entrepreneurs Joan Blades and Wes Boyd distributed an online petition to ‘‘Censure President Clinton and Move On to Pressing Issues Facing the Nation’’. They gathered hundreds of thousands of online signatures in a matter of a few days and used the momentum of this early success to form an organization in which individuals across the country could participate in national politics through the use of digital communication. MOPA was also formed in 1998, with the specific aim of supporting Democratic candidates at a time when Republicans held a majority in the US Congress.
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Cross-References
▶ Digital Divide ▶ Dotcauses ▶ Information Technology, Internet ▶ Interest Politics ▶ Political Organizations
References/Further Readings Moveon.org. (2004). MoveOn’s 50 ways to love your country. Maui, Hawaii: Inner Ocean Publishing. Dawn, L. (Ed) (2006). It takes a nation: How strangers became family in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: The story of Moveon.Org civic action’s Hurricanehousing.Org. San Rafael, CA: Earth Aware. Hamm, T. (2008). The new blue media: How Michael Moore, MoveOn.org, Jon Stewart and company are transforming progressive politics. New York: New Press.
Mission MOCA’s mission is to educate and aggregate individual political voices in order to advocate for liberal public policies at the national level. MOPA supports Democratic candidates and seeks to influence the US Congress towards a more progressive agenda. The foci of MOCA and MOPA advocacy often overlap, covering issues such as public media and voting reform, privacy protection, campaign finance reform, opposition to the war in Iraq, the promotion of environmental standards, and political accountability.
Activities In addition to using online media, MOCA produces television and print advertisements to advance their policy positions. MOPA circulates online petitions or ‘‘Virtual Marches on Washington’’, organizes member-hosted house parties to screen documentary films related to their campaigns, and coordinates grassroots organizing to inform and register voters. MOPA has raised millions of dollars through their website and email campaigns for Democratic candidates.
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) MARTIN HO¨LZ, CHARLOTTE ANHEIER
Address of Organization National Office Alameda Bara˜o Limeira, 1232 CEP 01202-002 Sa˜o Paulo Brazil www.mst.org.br/mst/home.php www.mstbrazil.org
Introduction
The MoveOn.org organizations are currently supported by member donations.
Movimento do Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), which translates to the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement, began in Brazil and has become the largest social movement ever to occur in Latin America. Roughly 1.5 million members have been organized within 23 of the 27 Brazilian states making the MST one of the most recognized peasant organizations in the world. The MST, a direct action movement, operates on a local level utilizing its slogan ‘‘Ocupar, Resistir, Producir’’ (Occupy, Resist, Produce).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions
Brief History
MoveOn.org was one of the earliest organizations to successfully use electronic communication to mobilize and organize mass democratic participation around national issues.
Linked closely to the history of Brazil, the MST originated due to the extremely disproportionate allocation of land: only three percent of the population owned two thirds of the available farmland, which had caused the
Structure and Governance A board of directors is cochaired by Joan Blades and Wes Boyd. Eli Pariser serves as the Executive Director.
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mobilization of some affected in the 1950s. This former mobilization acted as a model for the MST, who had witnessed little change in land reform in spite of multiple alterations within government. In the 1960s, many rural workers found themselves facing unemployment due to modernization as well as oppression at the hands of the dictatorship. In the mid-1970s, inspired by the theology of liberation, the Catholic Church established the Commissao Pastoral da Terra (CPT – Pastoral Land Commission), which opposed the dictatorship. The first land occupations undertaken by some 6,000 families as well as the establishment of a cooperative took place in the state of Rio Grande do Sul in the early 1980s. Led by Joa˜o Pedro Stedile and others, the MST was founded in January 1984 in Cascavel, Parana. Since then, the MST has helped over 250,000 families gain rights to over 15 million acres of land following land occupations.
Mission/Objectives MST activists seek to obtain farmland for their livelihood by occupying certain areas of the land which lay fallow or are being illegally cultivated. Because the Brazilian Constitution lays out that these lands serve a larger social function, the MST ‘‘tries to find legal-constitutional methods to legalize these settlements (Gezerlis, 2002: 102).’’ Thereafter, the occupied land is redistributed and cultivated by members of the organization.
Activities The MST’s first commitment is to redistribute farmland to poor families so that they may survive by cropping land. Further, the MST practices specific methods of organic farming by maintaining their own shops as well as producing organic fertilizer. The MST runs 1,800 primary and secondary schools, which educate roughly 160,000 students using teaching methods inspired by Paulo Freire. Moreover, adult literacy programs tutor around 30,000 adults. Escola Nacional Florestan Fernandes, the first university established by the MST, was founded in 2005.
Structure and Governance Acting by means of grassroots democracy, the nucleus of the movement consists of collective units each consisting of about 15 families. Each unit is free to hold elections to determine its leaders. There are also coordinating bodies at the national, state, and regional levels. The MST is well connected to social groups such as unions, churches, other social movements and some political parties as well as small farmers’ organizations in 43 nations. While the MST
is a member and pillar of the ‘‘Via Campesina,’’ 14 solidarity groups also exist in Europe and North America.
Funding Besides receiving contributions from its own cooperatives and members, the MST is supported by development programs that are run by national and state governments. Further funding is provided by political parties, trade unions, international agencies, NGOs as well as the Catholic Church in form of the CPT.
Major Accomplishments In its attempts to improve Brazilian society, the MST plays a decisive role in fostering democracy, encouraging civil society, as well as fighting for human and civil rights. The majority of the Brazilian population approves of the MST and supports its desire to reduce the existing inequalities. The movement was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 1991 and the King Baudouin International Development Award in 1996.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Freire, Paulo ▶ Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations ▶ Social Movements ▶ Stedile, Joa˜o Pedro
References/Further Readings Carter, M. (2005). The landless rural workers’ movement (MST) and democracy in Brazil (Working Paper Number CBS-60-05). Centre for Brazilian Studies, University of Oxford. From http://www2.brazil.ox. ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/9361/Miguel20Carter2060.pdf Dias Martins, M. (2000). The MST challenge to neoliberalism. Latin American Perspectives, 27(5), 33–45. Edelman, M. (2003). Transnational peasant farmer movements and networks. In M. Kaldor, H. Anheier, & M. Glasius (Eds.), Global civil society 2003 (pp. 185–220). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Gezerlis, A. (2002). Latin America: Popular movements in neoliberal modernity. Democracy & Nature, 8(1), 87–116. Meszaros, G. (2000). Taking the land into their hands: The Landless Workers’ Movement and the Brazilian state. Journal of law and society, 27(4), 517–541.
MST ▶ Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)
Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies
Musgrave, Richard Able SAMIRA ROUSSELIERE
Basic Biographical Information Richard Abel Musgrave was born in Ko¨nigstein (Germany), December 14, 1910. He studied economics at the University of Munich in 1930/1931 and at the University of Heidelberg where he acquired the diploma degree in 1933. After immigrating to the United States of America in fall 1933, he studied at the University of Rochester as an exchange student and at Harvard, where he received a Ph.D. in economics in 1937. He was a professor of economics at Harvard between 1937 and 1941, while starting to develop his theory of public finance. During the Second World War, Musgrave join the Federal Reserve as a researcher economist. After the war, he joined the department of economics at the University of Michigan (1948–1958), John Hopkins University (1958–1961), and Princeton University (1962–1965) before returning to the faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Law School at Harvard in 1965 as a professor and became an emeritus professor there in 1981. In 1969, he became the chairholder of the ‘‘H.H. Burbank’’ Chair. After his retirement, Musgrave moved to the University of California as an adjunct professor when his wife, the economist Peggy Brewer Richman, was appointed there. He was in charge of workshops on public finances and state intervention. Remaining an active researcher until the end of his life, Richard Musgrave died in Santa Cruz (California), January 15, 2007. In 2003, the International Institute of Public Finance created the annual ‘‘Peggy and Richard Musgrave Prize’’ to encourage younger scholars (under 40 years old) to conduct research in public finance.
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needs and the stabilization function leads to full employment and price stability. Musgrave’s second major contribution is the establishment of the concept of merit wants or merit goods. It refers to the goods that people want the government to provide and which are not justified on the basis of the utility functions of the members of society. The use of merit good argument for the justification of state intervention is usual in cultural, health and education sectors. However this concept is still controversial in economic theory. Merit goods are indeed an interventionism justification slightly different from market failures (situation where the allocation of production or use of goods and services by the free market is not efficient) and redistribution problems. Therefore there is a strong difference between merit goods and public goods (goods that would not be provided in a free market system, and that are subject to free riding), and between merit goods and externalities (costs or benefits arising from an economic activity that affect somebody other than the people engaged in the economic activity).
Cross-References
▶ Goods and Services, Types of ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Social Economy ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic
References/Further Readings Musgrave, R. (1939). The voluntary exchange theory of public economy. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 53, 213–237. Musgrave, R. (1987). Merit goods. In J. Eatwell & M. P. Newman (Eds.), The new Palgrave: A dictionary of economics (Vol. 3, pp. 452–453). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Musgrave, R., & Musgrave, P. (1973). Public finance in theory and practice. New York: McGraw-Hill. Ott, A. F., & Cebula, R. J. (Guest Editors) (2008). Symposium in honor of Richard Abel Musgrave. Journal of Economics and Finance, 32(4), 324–433.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions One of Musgrave’s main contributions was in public finance theory. In order to analyze how governments allocate resources and respond to social needs, he identified three branches of governmental economic activity: the allocation of resources with related questions of efficiency, the distribution of goods and services via tax and transfer system and the stabilization of the broader economy. The distribution function is a major point of controversy in the determination of public policy. Its efficiency works on the assumption that the allocation function correctly determines the satisfaction of collective
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Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies EDITH ARCHAMBAULT Universite´ Paris1 Panthe´on-Sorbonne, Paris, France
Introduction Mutual organizations or mutual societies, often designated as mutuals, exist everywhere in the world, in developing as well as in industrialized countries, in a more or
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less institutionalized form. In a developing country, some mutual organizations appear as voluntary associations for gathering and pooling money to fund marriages, funerals, or a business start-up for one or several members (tontines). Other mutuals pool voluntary work to afford water supplies or to build roads in rural areas (development self-help associations). In a developed country, mutual societies are businesses; they operate in the same markets as corporations and compete with them. They are formed on a voluntary basis to provide aid, benefits, insurance, credit, or other services either to their members or to a larger population. In many countries, mutual organizations have historical backgrounds reaching into the remote past. According to a very broad definition of the European Commission in 2003, mutual organizations/societies ‘‘are voluntary groups of persons (natural or legal) whose purpose is primarily to meet the needs of their members rather than achieve a return on investment.’’ This broad definition includes self-help groups, friendly societies, cooperatives, mutual insurance companies, mutual benefit societies, credit unions, building societies, savings and loans associations, micro-credit, burial associations, Freemasons, etc. Hereafter, a more restricted definition is used, relying on principles shared by most mutuals in Europe, the region where they are most widespread: 102 million members, 168 million beneficiaries (AIM, 2008). However, some international examples put European mutual societies in perspective. As operating on the same markets as corporations, mutual societies are facing a global competition challenging their historical values. As forerunners or complements to the social security schemes, they have to find innovating responses to new social needs and to the crisis of the welfare state. These key issues and new challenges are at the roots of the dynamics of mutual organizations.
Definition The core organizations examined here will be mutual insurance companies and mutual benefit societies. In that sense, mutual societies are insurance companies run by their members for protecting them against property, personal, and social risks on a voluntary and non-compulsory basis. Mutual insurance companies deal with property and life risks, while mutual benefit societies protect their members against social risks such as illness, disability, and old age mainly. The above-quoted definition has to be specified by a set of principles shared by the bulk of mutual organizations and inherited of historical experience. Most of these
principles are also adopted by other social economy organizations: ● Absence of shares: Mutuals are a grouping of persons (physical or legal) – the members – and not a pooling of funds as in the case of corporations. Unlike cooperatives, whose capital is represented by shares, the funds of mutuals are owned and managed jointly and indivisibly. A mutual has no external shareholders to pay by dividends, and does not usually seek to maximize profits. Mutual organizations exist for the members to benefit from the services they provide; their main resources are the fees or premiums paid by their members/owners. ● Free membership: That means free entry (and free exit) for everyone who fulfills the conditions laid down in the bylaws and abides by mutualism principles. According to these conditions, the mutual can be ‘‘open’’ to the population at large, such as health mutuals in Belgium, or ‘‘closed,’’ reserved to a geographical area, an industry, or an occupation. In the case of compulsory insurance, health insurance or car insurance, for example, the choice of the insurer has to be free. ● Solidarity among members: This is a historical principle rooted in the nineteenth-century worker’s movement and the ideology of the solidarism current. Today, that means a joint liability and a crosssubsidization between good risks and bad risks in mutual benefit societies and no discrimination among members. ● Democratic governance: This is conveyed by the principle ‘‘one person, one vote’’ as opposed to the rule ‘‘one share, one vote,’’ which is symbolic of corporate governance. Board members are volunteers, as opposed to the practice of director fees in corporations. ● Independence: Mutuals are private and independent organizations, neither controlled by government representatives nor funded by public subsidies. In the absence of shares, a mutual cannot be subject to a takeover bid by a standard business. ● Limited profit sharing: The profit of a mutual can be shared among the owners/ members, usually as discounted premiums or rebates. The main part of the profit is reinvested in order to improve the services offered to members, to finance the development of the business or to increase their own funds. Profit sharing has to be limited because it is not the aim of the organization. The aim is to meet the interests of the members, and sometimes of the community at large, and also to empower the members. The fact that profit sharing is authorized in mutual societies
Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies
prevents most of them being included in the nonprofit sector, strictly nonprofit distributing. However, they belong to the larger social economy. These principles, often referred to as mutualism values, have emerged from a deeply rooted historical background.
Historical Background Mutual benefit societies date back to ancient times, while mutual insurance companies are more recent. Some precursory mutual organizations could be found in Ancient Egypt (mutual assistance among stone cutters) or in the Roman Empire (the same among bricklayers). However mutual benefit societies are mainly descendants of the oldest part of the European nonprofit sector: they appeared in the Middle Ages as charitable brotherhoods (Continental Europe) or friendly societies (United Kingdom). Brotherhoods were fraternal societies in urban areas linked to the guilds and, therefore, restricted to the same craft, business, or trade. These organizations helped the needy members of the guild in the case of illness of their families or the widow and the orphan in the case of death of the breadwinner; they served also as sociability and ceremonial places. Friendly societies fulfilled the same purposes but they were independent of the guilds and, therefore, more open than brotherhoods. The corporatist system, on which the guilds and brotherhoods relied, became weaker but survived with the rise of the free market and modern industry in most European countries. In France, the 1789 Revolution suppressed both guilds and their social subsidiaries, the brotherhoods. Nevertheless, mutual benefit societies flourished during the nineteenth century in Europe, when industrial revolution and rural depopulation pauperized the working class and broke the traditional solidarity of the family or the village. They were inspired by ideological currents such as utopist socialism (Owen, Proudhon) and the Fabian movement or solidarism (Bourgeois, Durkheim). Some of these mutuals were linked with the emerging labor unions and others were more middle-class oriented. Depending on the countries, the period, and the degree of recognition of the labor movement, they were either repressed or encouraged by the state. Whatever their form, mutual benefit societies were the forerunners of the welfare state. Mutual societies detected first the main social risks: sickness, disability, and old age, that were covered later by a public social insurance scheme in Continental European countries and by a National Health service and pension funds in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic countries. During the twentieth century, modern
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welfare states challenged mutual benefit societies, which were forced to become either complements or agents of the compulsory social security schemes. However, most of them keep their vanguard function. The forerunners of mutual insurance companies are more recent. They can be found in the second part of the nineteenth century when the progress of probabilistic mathematics transformed insurance in a modern industry. Farmers pooled their savings to protect themselves against risks of their property, bad weather and fires mainly, on a mutual basis. Other mutual insurance companies for retailers and craftsmen followed, in competition with insurance corporations, but the dissemination of mutual insurance among the salaried population is more recent; it was in many countries a by-product of the post-World War II consumption society, especially with the compulsory insurance against car accidents and other damage to real estate property. The second part of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century is also the time when mutual forms of banking appeared in Europe either as mutual societies or cooperatives to pool the savings and afford credit to the part of the population who had no access to commercial banks because of their lack of guarantee. The Raiffeisen banks in Germany are the most emblematical, the savings and loans associations or the savings banks, the most widespread.
Key Issues Competition
Mutual insurance companies compete with investordriven businesses. In this competition they have advantages and disadvantages. Some features can be put on the asset side: ● The mutuals rely on trust, a winning card in an industry with high information asymmetry as Hansmann shows it: the insurer knows more than the client on the probability of the risk but the client knows more on the quality of the car or dwelling insured. Trust in mutual insurance companies is manifested by a lower discrimination among members than in the competing businesses and by the education of their members to prevent the risks and not to cheat in their accident claims. ● They have a better quality/price ratio than their competitors due to their nearly nonprofit status, their policy of rebates, the fact that they have no or a few brokers, and also the homogeneity of their members in the case of professional mutuals.
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Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies
● They have a high financial solidity, because their investments are less risky and more often ethical than those of their competitors and also because they are not subject to takeover bids. In periods of stock exchange crises, they act as stabilizing agents and shock absorbers. This financial stability encourages mutual insurance companies to have long-term objectives. But shortcomings of the mutual status also exist: ● The mutual insurance companies have a limited access to external capital from the financial markets while their restricted voting rights may also discourage external investors. This limited access to external capital is an obstacle to life insurance, an activity that cannot be run with a pay-as-you-go system as with property insurance. In the latter, the premiums apply to members who have had a loss on an annual basis. ● The size of some of the big mutual insurance societies is likely to distance members from the decisionmaking center. In the smaller ones, the application of democratic governance may lead to delays in the decision-making process. Recently, the application to mutual insurance companies of the European directives on insurance led them to merge, to attain a critical size on the insurance market. These disadvantages facing competition have recently led many Anglo-Saxon countries toward a demutualization trend. Demutualization
In the United Kingdom, the demutualization of the building societies was the beginning of a wave of demutualization as part of the Thatcher’s government deregulation trend. The building societies first arose in the nineteenth century from working men’s mutual savings groups: by pooling their savings, members could buy or build their own homes. With the development of financial services, building societies offered mortgage loans as standard banks. In order to diversify their services to keep up with banks and other financial institutions in the commercial world the old societies needed to expand. To do that, they had to raise capital, a difficult operation with a mutual form because they had no access to equity markets. In 1986, the building societies became jointstock societies, the British form of corporations, and therefore they floated on the stock exchange. The capital and reserve funds were distributed among members who became shareholders. Of course, sharing the collective property of these mutual organizations accumulated by
many generations was a windfall gain for the present members who each received about $1,000. But the rising costs and prices which followed the demutualization were an unexpected consequence for consumers and the bankruptcy of Northern Rock, a former building society, during the sub-prime crisis was also disillusioning. A major demutualization wave took place in the United States in the 1980s and again in the late 1990s along the same line, and a smaller one in Australia. This demutualization trend affected savings and loans association in the United States and building societies in Australia. Demutualization was less pronounced in continental Europe and it is forbidden by law in some countries such as France, Luxemburg or Ireland. In those countries which insist on the intergenerational nature of solidarity, the registered capital and the reserve funds cannot be shared among the members/owners if the organization disappears. In this case, the property of the organization has to be transferred to another mutual or social economy organization or to the state. Mutual Benefit Societies in Changing Welfare States
Mutual benefit societies compete with complementary health insurance provided by standard insurance companies. In this competition to money transfers or reimbursements, they keep or extend their market shares in most countries as they have a better quality/cost ratio. Health mutuals rely on principles which are different from commercial insurance companies: fees are paid according to the members’ income and not according to their personal risk or their age. Bad risks are never rejected, there is no rate and benefit discrimination among members, and therefore, a cross-subsidization between bad and good risks and rich and poor occurs. However, mutual benefit societies are much more challenged by the retrenchment or change of the public welfare states when the demand for social services increases. Two long-term trends, the ageing of the population and the reduction of care self-service inside households, have led to an increase in the demand for day care, home care, and nursing homes. Facing what EspingAndersen called the ‘‘defamilialisation’’ or ‘‘family failure’’ of care services, during the past decades, mutual benefit societies in some European countries provided social services or facilities to the children, the disabled, and the frail elderly, with high-quality standards. In the social home care service provision, they compete with standard businesses and also with nonprofit organizations. These personal services are financed partly by the household itself, partly by the central and local governments or social security, partly by the employers. Nordic and
Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies
Anglo-Saxon countries are the forerunners in this new welfare mix spreading rapidly elsewhere.
International Perspectives Panorama of the European Mutual Organizations
Rooted in this long and diverse historical background, the European mutual organizations/ societies are today important providers of insurance and health services. Mutual insurance companies hold a very significant share of the insurance market: 50% of car and real estate insurance in France and 22% of the whole insurance industry in Germany, but they are rare in Italy or Greece. Their market share in life insurance and pension funds is smaller but it is growing. There are mutual benefit societies in every European country and all of them provide health insurance and other services. They are for historical reasons tightly linked to the social security schemes but their roles differ according to the form of the health protection: social insurance, funded by employers and employees contributions, in most Continental and Oriental countries (Bismarckian scheme) or national health services financed by tax in Anglo-Saxon, Nordic, and some Mediterranean countries (Beveridgian scheme). According to these various social protection schemes, mutual benefit societies either run the compulsory health insurance (Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands, Czech Republic, Slovakia) or provide a complementary sickness or old age insurance (France, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Spain, Portugal) or alternatives to the National Health System, such as quicker health care or higher pensions (United Kingdom and Nordic countries). Mutual benefit societies cover a larger part of the population in the Bismarckian than in the Beveridgian countries, as shown in Table 1. However, in Europe, mutual organizations do not extend to other industries than their historical ones:
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property, personal, and social insurance or credit. That is why they are the smaller part of social economy organizations. Table 2 gives only an order of magnitude of the respective part of cooperatives, mutuals, and associations/foundations in social economy. Even if these data are not strictly comparable because they not based on a common methodology, employment in mutual organizations is only 3.5% of the total employment in social economy organizations, compared to 29% in cooperatives and 68.5% in nonprofit organizations. International Perspectives
In the United States, many insurance companies were initially mutual insurance companies; the more some corporations mutualized, their ownership passed on to their policy owners. But a reverse trend of demutualization occurred in the 1980s. Nowadays, even if their name includes the term mutual, all insurance companies are joint-stock owned. Many savings and loan associations were also mutual companies, owned by their depositors, but most of them are now under stock ownership. In the same way, some health insurance companies, formerly created as nonprofit organizations, such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield, became, under the pressure of competition, more standard businesses; especially they discriminate among their clients’ health risks, a forbidden practice in European mutual benefit societies. Nowadays, in many developing countries where public social insurance does not exist or is at the very beginning, mutual organizations play the same role as the mutual benefit societies in the European countries in the nineteenth century, especially in Latin America, Asia, or Africa. As in Europe formerly, these mutuals start with the most organized and educated part of the population. The risks covered are illness, death, and accident. They provide also mutual help in case of social events such as marriages and funerals that are proportionally much more costly than in developed countries. Most of these
Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies. Table 1 Distribution of the population covered by a mutual benefit society in Europe (Association internationale de la mutualite´) Less than 20% of total population
20–40% of total population
40–60% of total population
60–80% of total population
80–100% of total population
Italy
Hungary
Slovakia
France
Greece
Denmark
Slovenia
Czech Republic
The Netherlands
Spain
Sweden
Ireland
Luxemburg
Belgium
United Kingdom
Finland
Portugal
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Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies. Table 2 Employment in mutual societies and other social economy organizations, EU 15 (Chaves & Monzon, 2007)
Countries Germany
Cooperatives 466,900
Mutual societies
Associations & foundations
Total social economy
Social economy as % of total paid employment, 2002
150,000
1,470,000
2,086,900
5.9
Austria
61,830
8,000
190,000
259,830
7.9
Belgium
1,077
11,230
161,860
174,167
5.0
Denmark
39,107
1,000
120,657
160,764
6.2
439,618
3,548
380,060
823,226
5.6
Finland
95,000
5,405
74,992
175,397
8.5
France
441,950
115,100
1,435,330
1,992,380
8.7
Greece
14,304
489
57,000
71,793
3.0
Ireland
35,992
650
118,664
155,306
10.6
Italy
837,024
–
499,389
1,336,413
7.5
The Netherlands
171,775
–
661,400
833,175
11.6
Portugal
51,000
–
159,950
210,950
5.5
United Kingdom
215,072
47,818
1,473,000
1,735,890
7.1
Spain
Sweden EU 15
52,117
8,000
95,197
155,314
3.8
2,924,000
345,000
6,903,000
10,172,000
6.3
mutual organizations were created during the last two decades and they are a source of empowerment for the population. For example, the Fandene mutuals in Senegal are controlled by elected countrymen of the same village; in Bolivia, Projecto de Salud provides free health care in exchange of volunteer work to build health facilities; in Philippines, Mother and Child Care relies on members fees but acts also as a lobby to obtain low prices from multinational drugs companies. When public health insurance or health service is created, mutual organizations shift to other risks such as old age. Mutual organizations such as the tontines are also widespread in developing countries. Tontines pool the savings among a small group of members or a village; a random winner every year takes all the money to realize a small business; the tontine’s life ends when every member receives the pooled savings once. These financial mutuals look like the building societies of the earliest times.
companies and the latter in mutual benefit societies. This frail equilibrium is nowadays challenged by the European Commission’s ambiguous guidelines. On the one hand, the European Commission acknowledges the publicbenefit role of mutual societies and other social economy organizations. On the other hand, the insurance directive and the Solvability 2 guideline consider them as insurance corporations and push them to a kind of standardization. More, the status of European mutual society that was drafted to make the cross-country collaboration of mutuals easier is no longer on the agenda. Another challenge is due to the merging trend in mutuals, partly a consequence of European guidelines. This horizontal integration increases the size of mutual societies resulting in more difficult democratic governance, with elected representatives of the owners/members. Many mutuals also created corporate subsidiaries, another way of trivialization or institutional isomorphism.
Future Directions
Mutual Societies are Fitted with Postindustrial Societies
European Mutual Societies at the Cross-Road
Mutual societies are driven by a twofold logic, insurance and solidarity; the former dominates in insurance mutual
Mutual societies are prototypes of social enterprises, an emerging form of enterprise. In postindustrial societies, personal services, difficult to standardize, offering a wide range of quality and asymmetric information are able to
MYRADA
be provided by mutual as well as nonprofit organizations. A democratic management fits the well-educated youth who dislikes the authoritarianism of standard firms and advocates the social responsibility of enterprise. A mutual form fits also high-technology services at least at their very beginning, when partners are supposed equal: the wiki movement for example shows it. A mutual could also run pension funds with a better financial solidity and a more ethical choice of investments than for-profit pension funds. So in the future, preindustrial forms of mutuals in developing countries could coexist with postindustrial forms, well adapted to the knowledge economy.
Cross-References
▶ Beveridge, Lord William Henry ▶ Bismarck, Otto von ▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Hansmann, Henry ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Owen, Robert ▶ Proudhon, Pierre ▶ Raffeisen Banks ▶ Self-Help Groups ▶ Solidarity ▶ Social Economy ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Archambault, E. (1997). The nonprofit sector in France. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Association internationale de la mutualite´ (AIM), from http://www. aim-mutual.org, 15/03/2008. Association internationale des socie´te´s d’assurance mutuelle (AISAM), from http://www.aisam.org/, 12/03/2008. Chaves, R., & Monzon Campos, J. L. (2007). The social economy in the European Union. CIRIEC Report to the European Economic and Social Committee, N CESE/COMM/05/2005. Defourny, J., Develtere, P., & Fonteneau, B. (1999). L’e´conomie sociale au Nord et au Sud. Brussel: De Boeck. Dreyfus, M. (1993). The labour movement and mutual benefit societies. Towards an international approach. International Social Security Review, 46(3): 19–27. European Commission, Enterprise Directorate General (2003). Mutual societies in an enlarged Europe. Consultation Document, 03/10/2003. Esping-Andersen, G. (1999). Welfare states in transition: National adaptations in global economies. London: Sage. Noya, A., & Clarence, E. (2007). The social economy. Building inclusive economies. Paris: OECD publishing. Salamon, L., & Anheier, H. (1997). Defining the nonprofit sector: A crossnational analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
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MYRADA MAITRAYEE MUKERJI
Address of Organization No. 2, Service Road, Domlur Layout Bangalore 560 071, Karnataka India www.myrada.org
Introduction MYRADA is the acronym and logo of a nongovernmental organization named Mysore Resettlement and Development Agency, that is headquartered at Bangalore and works for rural development in three southern states of India (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh). In other regions, both national and international, where it is not directly operational, it is engaged on a long term basis in capacity building of other institutions involved in rural development. The organization is often credited for being one of the pioneers of the self-help movement for credit and savings in India.
Brief History The founder and current executive director of MYRADA is Aloysius P Fernandez. The organization was registered as a society in 1968 and till 1978–1979 was primarily involved in the resettlement of Tibetan Refugees. After the successful completion of the resettlement program, it started to work in the rural areas adjoining the Tibetan settlements where Indians lived in poor socioeconomic conditions.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas ‘‘Building poor people’s institutions’’ are the keywords guiding MYRADA’s mission: (a) To foster a process of ongoing change in favour of the rural poor in a way in which this process can be sustained by them through building and managing appropriate and innovative local institutions rooted in values of justice, equity and mutual support; (b) To promote strategies and skills through which the livelihoods of poor families and the rights of women and children are secured; (c) To promote systems that foster primary health care and reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS/STIs on the poor and vulnerable in a sustainable manner; (d) To influence public policies in favour of the poor; and (e) To strengthen networks and linkages between and among formal and informal institutions that can foster and sustain the impact of development
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initiatives. Institutions like self-help affinity groups, watershed institutions, village forest committees, associated federations, village development committees, children’s clubs, and Soukhya Group (HIV/Risk groups) are some of the institutions identified and supported by MYRADA as alternate systems for the poor to mobilize, and manage the resources they need.
Activities MYRADA activities and programmes involve identifying and fostering self-affinity groups, formal and informal education, capacity-building, and legal support for women, management of micro watershed, regeneration of arid land and forestry management, health including prevention and control of HIV-AIDS, coordination of NGO networks related to watershed development projects and other projects, and promotion of a non-for profit finance company called Sangamitra. It is also involved in capacity building, sharing and training. MYRADA’s experience, especially with regards to Self-Help Affinity Groups (SAGs), Participatory Watershed Management and Microfinance are well documented in the form of books, occasional papers and videos. About 70 papers under the categories of Rural Management Systems, PRA/ PALM and Krishi Vigyan Kendra series can be downloaded free of charge from the website.
Structure and Governance MYRADA’s organizational structure consists of a board, an executive director, a deputy director and program staff. While personnel policies and mission statement are
common, management and financial systems are decentralized to the project level and below.
Funding Around 19 Indian (both government and private) and 10 international donors financially support MYRADA for the various programmes. International donors include PLAN International, Novib, German Agro Action, CIDA, HIDA (Canada), etc.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Since 1980s, MYRADA’s pilot initiatives in Self Affinity Groups and Watershed management strategies have influenced changes in national policies. In 2000, the executive director, Aloysius P. Fernandez was conferred the prestigious Padmashri title by the Government of India. In the same year, he also won the Caritas India Jubilee 2000 award.
Cross-References
▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ Self-Help Groups
References/Further Readings Fernandez, A. P., & Mascarenhas, J. (1993). Mysore Relief and Development Agency (MYRADA): Participatory rural appraisal and participatory learning methods. In J. Farrington et al. (Eds.), Nongovernmental organizations and the state in Asia: Rethinking roles in sustainable agricultural development (pp. 152–159). New York: Routledge. MYRADA. (2003). The MYRADA experience – People’s institutions managing natural resources in the context of a watershed strategy. MYRADA. (2004). Sanghamithra – A micro-finance institution with a difference.
N National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP)
Activities
NCRP is an advocacy and watchdog group that seeks to reform philanthropy by promoting accountability, transparency, and social justice in philanthropic giving. NCRP believes that community needs should drive philanthropy rather than the prerogatives of wealthy donors.
NCRP achieves its mission through research and advocacy. Over the years, it has conducted research on: financial accountability of foundations, philanthropic support for the agenda of the religious right, the effect of bank mergers on charitable giving, rural philanthropy, and the importance of general operating support for grantees. Advocacy by NCRP involves public education as well as offering testimony and advice to congressional bodies and regulatory entities responsible for overseeing philanthropy. Among the public policy issues raised by NCRP are changes in the estate tax, efforts to curtail the ability of nonprofit organizations to lobby, increased government oversight of foundation activities, increased disclosure of corporate giving, and increasing the payout requirement of private foundations. Recent activities include calling attention to abuses in donor advised funds and supporting organizations. NCRP is frequently sought out by the press for its expertise.
Brief History
Structure and Governance
TULLIA HAMILTON
Address of Organization 2001 S St. NW, Suite 620 Washington, DC 20009 USA www.ncrp.org
Introduction
NCRP was founded in 1976 as the successor of the Donee Group of the Filer Commission. Initiated by John Rockefeller in 1973, the Filer Commission was charged with studying philanthropic giving and to making recommendations on ways to strengthen the sector. Led by Pablo Eisenberg, a number of direct service and social action agencies known as the Donee Group protested the lack of grantee involvement in the Commission’s work. In response to the protest, the Commission gave the Group a consultative role. The report of the Donee Group was published along with the Commission’s findings in 1975, but for the most part was not part of the Commission’s final recommendations. When the Commission ended its work, the Donee Group continued as the NCRP with Robert Bothwell serving as its first CEO.
Mission NCRP promotes philanthropy that serves the public good, is responsive to people and communities with the least wealth and opportunity, focuses on the needs of grantee organizations, and is held accountable to the highest standards of integrity and openness.
Located in Washington, D.C., NCRP is organized as a public charity under the regulations of the IRS. The board is self-perpetuating and its members tend to be drawn from the types of entities for which NCRP advocates. Board terms are 3-years in length and members serve without compensation. The board is responsible for employing the CEO. The organization also has a membership structure. These members however, play no role in the organization’s governance.
Funding As a public charity NCRP’s support comes from the public, most of it in the form of foundation grants.
Accomplishments NCRP’s most important accomplishment has been in the area of federated giving. One of its earliest targets was United Way. Because of its monopoly on workplace giving and control by the corporate sector, membership in United Way was not only an important source of support for human service agencies, but also a seal of approval. NCRP encouraged local United Ways to include in their campaigns nonprofit organizations that had emerged from
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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the activism of the 1960s and new community based direct service organizations that addressed previously unacknowledged issues such as domestic violence, services for victims of rape, and disability rights. Combined Federal Campaign was the target of similar activity by NCRP. NCRP also encouraged groups ignored by United Way to create their own federated campaigns. In 1985, NCRP held the first national meeting for women’s funds which led to the creation of the Women’s Funding Network. Organizations like Earthshares and the many ethnically focused federated giving programs have benefited from NCRP’s advocacy.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Advocacy ▶ Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs ▶ United Way
References/Further Readings See the following NCRP reports: ● One billion for Ideas: Conservative Think Tanks in the 1990s, March 1999. ● Moving a Public Policy Agenda: The Strategic Philanthropy of Conservative Foundations, 1997. ● Not All Grants Are Created Equal: Why Nonprofits Need General Operating Support from Foundations, September 2005.
National Committee on Planned Giving ▶ Partnership for Philanthropic Planning
National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) NORMAN SPENGLER, FLORIAN BLAESS
Address of Organization Regent’s Wharf 8 All Saints Street London N1 9RL UK www.ncvo.org
Introduction The National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) is the national umbrella organization for voluntary and
community organizations in the United Kingdom and embraces currently over 6,600 members with over 280,000 individuals and over 13 million volunteers. NCVO aims at creating ‘‘a society in which people are inspired to make a positive difference to their communities.’’
Brief History NCVO’s birth can be traced back to Edward Vivian Birchall; a philanthropist who died 1916 on his 32nd birthday during the First World War in France. His legacy of ₤1,000 was used by his friend S. P. Grundy to found a National Council of Social Services (NCSS) in 1919. The main purpose of NCSS was to preserve the field of voluntary societies and to unite philanthropists in the United Kingdom under one umbrella organization. Since April 1980, the National Council for Social Service has become the National Council for Voluntary Organisations.
Mission ‘‘A vibrant voluntary and community sector deserves a strong voice and the best support. NCVO aims to be the support and voice,’’ is NCVO official mission statement in its 2007/2008 Impact Report. It does so by creating collaborations between and beyond the borders of civil society. NCVO became the most received ‘‘broadcaster’’ for the UK voluntary sector’s identity and perception as partner for government officials and business executives. The Council also fosters sector-internal information flow and network access based on the conviction, that ‘‘power und impact can be unleashed through collaboration and working together.’’ As speaker for the voluntary sector, NCVO also addresses issues and challenges to relevant groups in society and politics.
Activities To pursue its broad mission, NCVO carries out many activities. NCVO is engaged in an extensive set of infrastructural services for and on civil society. Several specialist teams are providing information, advice and support for the sector; settled in almost all relevant areas from funding strategy, management consultancy, campaigning to networking, advocacy and policy development. A wide array of communication tools and events (publications, conferences, seminars, forums, newsletters, hotlines etc.) are used to deliver access opportunities and disseminate research insights, information or identified policy issues. For example, NCVO publishes annually the state, outcome, scope and financial situation of the voluntary sector in its ‘‘UK Civil
National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC)
Society Almanac.’’ Recent activities focus on the generation of a commonly shared future vision of UK’s civil society, fundraising strategies and social entrepreneurial spirit in times of the global economic crisis. Among other services, NCVO is engaged in providing publications and consultancies on governance issues to the sector, among them e.g., the ‘‘The Good Trustee Guide’’ and a toolkit on ‘‘Good Governance.’’
Structure and Governance NCVO is a registered charity and a company limited by guarantee, registered in London, England, with sister councils in Wales (WCVA), Scotland (SCVO) and Northern Ireland (NICVA). Governed by a Trustees Board, NCVO is led by an appointed Chief Executive and subordinated directors that are responsible for different internal functions and operational services.
Funding For the fiscal year 2007/2008, NCVO reports a total income of £13,396,000. Major components were from associated sub-organizations, known as ‘‘hubs’’ (46%), earned income (18%) and project grant funding (12%). NCVO receives core government grants (8%), membership subscriptions (6%) and donations via CAF (7%).
Accomplishments Among its many achievements, NCVO as the umbrella organization manages to be the first contact for high quality information on the voluntary and community sector in the United Kingdom. It provides statistical data in and about this sector to members, political groups and connects with governmental organizations in order to influence their policies of voluntary society. By doing so, NCVO contributes for a more visible, professional and capable civil society that claims for an active part in societal development.
Cross-References
▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings Coles, K. (1993). National Council for Voluntary Organizations from 1919 to 1993: A selective summary of NCVO’s work and origins. London: NCVO Publications. Great Britain Central Office of Information, Reference Services. (1983). The National Council for Voluntary Organizations. London: HMSO. Reichardt, O., Kane, D., & Wilding, K. (2007). The UK voluntary sector almanac. The state of the sector 2007. London: NCVO Publications.
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National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) REBECCA DIBB
Address of Organization Weston House 42 Curtain Road London EC2A 3NH UK www.nspcc.org.uk
Introduction The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) is a large nation-wide children’s charity in the United Kingdom and Channel Islands, which works to ‘‘end cruelty to children.’’ Their work is done through widespread community-based projects, the NSPCC Helpline and ChildLine.
Brief History With widespread social deprivation and hardship across late nineteenth century UK, Reverend Benjamin Waugh, having witnessed child cruelty through his work in East London, founded the London Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1884 with Lord Shaftesbury as its president. At the 1889 annual general meeting, it changed its name to the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Queen Victoria became the Patron with Reverend Benjamin Waugh as its director.
Mission The NSPCC’s stated objectives are: ‘‘to mobilise everyone to take action to end child cruelty, to give children the help, support and environment they need to stay safe from cruelty, to find ways of working with communities to keep children safe from cruelty and to be, and be seen as, someone to turn to for children and young people.’’ As well as working directly with children and families, the NSPCC is also working on ‘‘influencing legislation, policy, practice, public attitudes and behaviours.’’
Activities The NSPCC provides extensive and varied services for children, young people and families such as domestic violence prevention, treatment and therapeutic services, young witness support and young people’s centres. They run two free 24-h helplines. The NSPCC Helpline is a
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confidential way for the public to do something to protect a child and ChildLine provides direct counseling to children who may be at risk or in distress. Through its research department, which carries out national research on child protection and welfare issues, the NSPCC (2000) published the first major general population study to explore childhood experiences of young people and it is one of few studies internationally to have explored the issue of abuse and neglect comprehensively. A key activity of the NSPCC is its public awareness campaign often done through wide media coverage as well as regular lobbying of Government on key NSPCC policies.
Structure and Governance The NSPCC employs 2,500 people and have 180 community-based projects. The NSPCC is registered with the Charity Commission and is governed by the Royal Charter and byelaws, which grant the Board of Trustees the full responsibility for the management of the organization and delegate responsibility through the appointment of a director and chief executive.
Nature Conservancy ANDREA DEJONGE
Address of Organization 4245 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 100 Arlington, VA 22203-1606 USA www.nature.org
Introduction The Nature Conservancy distinguishes itself from other environmental protection organizations by its sciencebased approach to preservation, as well as by its collaborative, nonconfrontational efforts to preserve land and ecosystems. At the time of this writing, it employs over 700 scientists and has over one million members, and has expanded from the East Coast of the United States. It also ranks as one of the largest US charitable organizations in terms of assets to projects worldwide.
Funding
Brief History
According to the Trustee’s financial report, the total incoming resources for the NSPCC for the year ending 31 March 2008 were £147.2 million of which the largest amount of funding remained from donations from individuals on a monthly basis. Expenditure on charitable activities was at £114.6 million for the same year, which was the highest ever.
The Nature Conservancy was organized in its current form as a nonprofit organization in 1951, with the primary objective of taking direct action to preserve threatened land areas. The primary method used to accomplish this mission is land acquisition, using funds to buy threatened land outright and manage/protect the land thereafter. In 1980, the Nature Conservancy launched its first international efforts, extending into Latin America, and 10 years later extended its efforts worldwide.
Major Accomplishments The NSPCC was voted the ‘‘best campaigning charity’’ by Members of Parliament in 2000 and journalists considered the Full Stop campaign ‘‘one of the most memorable’’ charity campaigns and since the start of this campaign calls to the NSPCC Helpline increased by over 80%. The organization’s campaigns have contributed to various Government policies such as the 2002 Education Act, the 2003 Criminal Justice and Sexual Offences Acts and the 2004 Children Bill.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Brands and Branding ▶ Lobbying
References/Further Readings Cawson, P., Wattam, C., Brooker, S., & Kelly, G. (2000). Child maltreatment in the United Kingdom: A study of the prevalence of abuse and neglect. London: NSPCC.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas While the Nature Conservancy primarily uses land acquisition to carry out its mission, ‘‘to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive’’ it has also focused on a nonconfrontational, collaborative approach to work with existing governments, landowners, and indigenous peoples to preserve and conserve land. It has also worked with governments (doing scientific research and contracting to manage land) to create beneficial public policies in land management.
Activities The Nature Conservancy focuses on seven initiatives to enhance its mission of land conservancy: fire, climate change, freshwater, and marine ecosystems, invasive species, protected areas and management. Its program ‘‘Last Great Places’’ (which began in 1991) emphasizes preserving core natural areas and educating surrounding
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communities on appropriate uses for the land. The most publicized program the twenty-first century is ‘‘Conservation by Design,’’ which aims to preserve at least 10% of each of the major habitat types on Earth by the year 2015, using a collaborative, science-based approach to evaluate programs and assess outcomes.
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NCRP ▶ National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP)
Structure and Governance The Nature Conservancy is guided strategically by its Board of Directors, with the work directed to be completed by Board Committees (including Executive, Finance, Audit, Conservation Activities Review, and Governance, Nominating, and Human Resources). The Board is also advised by various internal Councils.
Funding Monetary and land contributions provide a large part of the Nature Conservancy’s operating revenue, with a significant portion also coming from investment income and grants. It also receives operating revenue from the sale of land to government agencies and/or other conservation buyers.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Nature Conservancy has had great success in working not against governments, but with them in partnership to preserve and manage ecosystems. For instance, Nature Conservancy has worked with the US Department of Defense, Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and other US government agencies, as well as many governments in Central and South America. The Nature Conservancy also has programs helping residents to develop and sustain beneficial land-management policies in exchange for funds and investment into capital projects providing infrastructure for basic services, such as clean drinking water.
Cross-References
▶ Friends of the Earth ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development
References/Further Readings Birchard, B. (2005). Nature’s keepers: The remarkable story of how the nature conservancy became the largest environmental group in the world. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Grove, N., & Krasemann, S. J. (1992). Preserving Eden: The nature conservancy. New York: H.N. Abrams.
Naumann, Friedrich ▶ Friedrich Naumann Stiftung fu¨r die Freiheit
NCVO ▶ National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)
Nell-Breuning, Oswald von MATTHIAS FREISE
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1890 in Trier, Germany, to an old-established noble dynasty, Oswald von Nell-Breuning became an important Catholic theologian, political economist and philosopher. He is considered to be the originator of modern Catholic social doctrine. Nell-Breuning studied mathematics, theology, and philosophy in Munich. In 1911 he entered the Society of Jesus and was ordained priest in 1921. After his graduation to the doctor of theology at the university of Mu¨nster he became professor for moral theology, canon law and sociology in 1928 at the Catholic University of Sankt Georgen in Frankfurt, where he lived and worked up to his death in 1991. In the late 1920s, pope Pius XI called him into a Vatican working group for developing the encyclical Quadragesimo anno (proclaimed in 1931) which derives the foundations of modern Catholic social doctrine, including the principle of subsidiarity. During Nazi rule Nell-Breuning was banned to write and publish between 1936 and 1945. After World War II he became an important consultant to several federal ministries and was instrumental in building up the theoretical background of the Western German welfare state.
Major Contributions In his comprehensive work encompassing more than 1,800 publications, Nell-Breuning laid down the economic ethical basic principles of Catholic social doctrine which he has shaped over decades. He particularly dealt with the practical political implementation of its three
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core principles: personality, subsidiarity, and solidarity. Central topics of his work are the relationship between labor and capital, the cooperation of church and state, the importance of trade unions, workers’ participation, and the critical examination of Marxism. Nell-Breuning influenced the concrete arrangement of the principle of subsidiarity in German welfare provision. Due to his advice, young Federal Republic of Germany conceded a privileged position of the so called free welfare associations in social service delivery, among them the two church related associations of Caritas (Catholic) and Diakonia (Protestant). According to this very narrow interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity, up until present state authorities have to give preference to member organizations of the welfare associations over public and commercial providers in the core welfare fields (health care, social services, and youth work), thus guaranteeing the financing without jeopardizing the organizational autonomy of the welfare associations. Thereby, civil society organizations became important partners for third party government of the German welfare state. In 1992, Catholic University of Sankt Georgen founded the Oswald von Nell-Breuning Institute in Frankfurt. It is dedicated to dealing with ethical questions of economics and society and to honoring Nell-Breuning’s memory.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Diakonisches Werk der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ Third-Party Government ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Nell-Breuning, O. v. (1985). Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit. Grundzu¨ge katholischer Soziallehre. Mu¨nchen, Germany: Europaverlag. Pfeil, M. (2007). Called and gifted. Charism and Catholic social teaching. Horizons: The Journal of the College Theology Society, 34(3), 222–237. Uertz, R. (1995). Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit. Oswald von Nell-Breuning als politischer Denker. In K. Graf Ballestrem et al. (Eds.), Sozialethik und politische Bildung (pp. 139–159). Paderborn, Germany: Scho¨ningh.
New Economics Foundation KATE RUFF
Address of Organization 3 Jonathan Street London, SE11 5NH UK www.neweconomics.org
Introduction New Economics Foundation (NEF) is a London-based ‘‘think-and-do’’ tank that seeks to improve the well being of people and our planet through research, policy dialogue, public awareness campaigns, and pilot projects.
Brief History NEF was founded in 1986 by the leaders of The Other Economic Summit – a forerunner to The World Social Forum. NEF came into prominence in the mid-1990s, under the direction of Ed Mayo, with the launch of its sustainable development indicators, and its role in the Jubilee 2000 UK Coalition. In 2003 NEF was chosen as the Think Tank of the Year by Prospect Magazine.
Mission/Objectives NEF’s mission is ‘‘to improve quality of life by promoting innovative solutions that challenge mainstream thinking on economic, environment and social issues.’’ NEF has set out to rethink the theoretical underpinnings of economic growth and to deliver tools, research, and programs that document, promote, or exemplify a way of living that puts people and our planet first.
Activities NEF does a combination of policy development, civic engagement programs, and direct implementation of pilot projects in the areas of economics, environment, and society. These initiatives are supported by the development of practical guides for gathering data, measuring impact and engaging stakeholders. Areas of focus span from national policies on equitable international trade to neighborhood-based community finance initiatives.
Structure and Governance
NEPAD ▶ New Partnership for Africa’s Development
NEF is a registered charity governed by a board of trustees. NEF is managed by an Executive Director. NEF is a midsized organization with 40 employees on June 30, 2008.
New Partnership for Africa’s Development
Funding In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, NEF’s income was £2.65 M, of which £2.35 M was incoming resources from Charitable Activities; £0.25 M from voluntary contributions; and £0.04 M from investment incomes.
Major Accomplishments NEF is an established leader in their field. NEF’s influence is visible in UK national policies on corporate governance, community development, and climate change. NEF helped to shape and lead the Jubilee 2000 UK coalition, and currently runs a successor project called Jubilee Research @ NEF. NEF’s corporate accountability initiatives grew into AccountAbility and its widely used AA1000 Assurance Standard.
Cross-References ▶ AccountAbility ▶ Jubilee 2000 ▶ Think Tanks ▶ World Social Forum
References/Further Readings www.neweconomics.org Boyle, D., Cordon, C., & Potts, R. (2006). Are you happy? New economics past, present and future. London: NEF. Simms, A. et al. (2008). A Green New Deal: Joined-up policies to solve the triple crunch of the credit crisis, climate change and high oil prices. London: NEF. Woodward, D., & Simms, A. (2006). Growth isn’t working: the uneven distribution of benefits and costs from economic growth. London: NEF.
New Partnership for Africa’s Development JULIUS OMONA
Address of Organization Unit 101 Gateway Park Corner Challenger and Columbia Avenue Midridge Park Midrand 1685 South Africa www.nepad.org
Introduction New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) is an economic development program of the African Union (AU) adopted at the 37th Session of the Assembly of
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Heads of State and Government in July 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia. The UN has identified NEPAD as the framework through which the UN and the international community should channel support towards Africa’s development.
Brief History NEPAD is a merger of the Millennium Partnership for the African Recovery Program (MAP) and the OMEGA Plan. The merger was finalized on 3 July 2001 and gave birth to New Africa Initiative (NAI). NAI was approved by the OAU summit of Heads of State and Government on 11 July 2001. The plan was endorsed by the leaders of G8 countries on 20 July 2001. The policy framework was finalized by the Heads of State and Government Implementation Committee (HSGIC) on 23 October 2001, and NEPAD was formed and became a program of AU in 2002.
Mission NEPAD is designed to address the current challenges facing the African continent. It aims to: promote accelerated growth and sustainable development; eradicate widespread and severe poverty; accelerate the empowerment of women; and halt the marginalization of Africa in the globalization process.
Activities Activities are in eight priority areas: infrastructure development; good governance, peace and security; environment, population and urbanization; human resources development, employment and HIV/AIDS; agriculture, trade and market access; science and technology; tourism; and advocacy and communication. With respect to these activities, the civil society plays these key roles: 1. Capacity building at community level to transfer skills that are necessary for people to effectively participate in development 2. Provision of expertise 3. Acting as independent voice to monitor implementation of these priorities 4. Advising NEPAD as one of the key stakeholders consulted by the state
Structure of Governance The highest authority of the NEPAD implementation process is the HSGIC which reports to the AU Summit on an annual basis. There is also a steering committee, which oversees the projects and program development. NEPAD secretariat coordinates implementation of projects and programs approved by the HSGIC. Many individual African states have also established national NEPAD
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structures responsible for liaison with continental reform and development initiatives.
Funding A number of African and international institutions ranging from multilateral institutions, governments, civil society and private sector institutions support NEPAD programs. The UN is one of the leading financers.
Accomplishments Major achievements so far include: 1. The adoption of ‘‘e-schools program’’ in 2003 as an initiative to equip 600,000 primary and secondary schools in Africa with IT equipment and internet access within 10 years. 2. The voluntarily and unequivocal commitment to the tenets of good governance as the prerequisite for development. This has already witnessed 29 signatories to the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) and the completion of seven peer reviews so far by July 2008. 3. A new resolve to effect homegrown, continental or regional solutions to address conflict and the instability that arise. This is evidenced by their interventions in Somalia and Darfur conflicts.
Cross-References ▶ Good Governance ▶ United Nations
References/Further Readings Ayesha, K. (2004). NEPAD’s APRM: A progress report, practical limitations and challenges, from http://www.sarpn.org.za/documents/d0000954/ P1073-Kajee-2004_NEPADs_APRM.pdf Harsch, E. (2004). Civil society engages African plan. Africa Renewal, 18(3), 10. Manby, B. (2004). The African union, NEPAD, and human rights: The missing agenda. Human Rights Quarterly, 26(4), 983–1027. NEPRU. (2007). NEPAD Briefing No. 20: A series of informative reports on NEPAD, from http://www.nepru.org.na, March.
New Public Management CHRISTOPH REICHARD Universita¨t Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
approximately 30 years. Governments in many countries of the world have undertaken administrative reforms in the past few decades under the influence of this doctrine. NPM also has impact for the third sector (nonprofit sector) and civil society as it has changed remarkably the role and functions of government and has transferred numerous public tasks and responsibilities from the public to the third sector. As a result, third sector organizations have gained more influence in the past few years in providing public services. But NPM has also commercialized the relations between government and the third sector by introducing more competition and performance-based contracts. Consequently, actors in civic society should have some basic knowledge about the concepts, results, and effects of NPM-related reforms in the public sector.
Definition NPM is a set of ‘‘new’’ concepts and instruments to manage, i.e., to design, steer, and control public sector organizations. The concepts and tools are ‘‘new’’ in relationship to the traditional, classical, or bureaucratic concepts and instruments of coordinating and controlling the public sector and its various entities. It may be questionable, however, if we should still use the term ‘‘new’’ for a concept which has been well-known for almost 30 years. ‘‘New’’ public management covers several models and concepts that are in contrast to the approaches of ‘‘old’’ or ‘‘traditional’’ public administration in the Weberian sense (Lynn, 2006). Some of the ‘‘new’’ concepts have been transferred from the private business sector, as NPM-proponents were in favor of market-type and businesslike solutions that they expected to help governments in enhancing efficiency. Although the term ‘‘new public management’’ was created by an academic (Hood, 1991), the development and diffusion of NPM was mainly driven by practitioners and the consultancy industry. NPM may be called a movement as it emerged in the 1980s and 1990s with great speed and has captured the attention of a large part of the public sector for some time (Barzelay, 2001). It is ideologically based on neoliberal beliefs in the supremacy of markets and of private sector-based transactions. Consequently, Public Choice Theories, concepts based on the New Institutional Economics (e.g., Agency Theory) and perceptions of a universal managerialism inspired the conceptual evolution of NPM (Schro¨ter & von Maravic, 2007). The theoretical and conceptual roots of NPM are not at all homogeneous and consistent.
Introduction
Historical Background
New Public Management (hereafter NPM) is a doctrine of administrative reform that has been well-known for
NPM emerged foremost in the Anglophone world in the late 1970s (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). The United
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Kingdom of Margaret Thatcher, as well as Australia and New Zealand, are some of the forerunners. Other European states followed in several reform waves, with Southern and Central European countries classified as latecomers. The NPM doctrine also swept into some of the Asian states and played a role in modernizing the government of various developing countries. The NPM movement was triggered by a growing need for fiscal cutback and the dissatisfaction with slow and inefficient bureaucratic practices. NPM fitted quite well into the Zeitgeist of the 1980s and 1990s that was marked by the experience that the classical ‘‘producing’’ welfare state had reached its limits and that bureaucratic red tape became more and more a burden to citizens and businesses. In addition as the proponents promised easy and attractive solutions, the NPM-based reforms in the 1980s and 1990s swept through the governments of various countries in a remarkable wave of managerial change, at least at a rhetorical level. As is usual with such fashion waves, disillusionment quickly followed: After the initial conceptual euphoria, most countries have observed a decline in reform enthusiasm since approximately 2000. New concepts such as governance or electronic government have emerged since then and partly intermingled with NPM.
Key Issues The conceptual elements of NPM can be structured along four major areas of reform (see also Hood, 1991; Ferlie et al., 2007): (a) Perception of the role and functions of state and government (b) Internal steering and control of public sector units (management in the narrow sense) (c) Emphasis on markets and competition (d) Orientation toward citizens (or more specifically: customers) and strengthening of direct democratic elements What are prominent examples of concepts and instruments to be found in the NPM tool box? Some examples can be given according to the above-mentioned reform areas: Area a: One of the credos of NPM is concentration on core tasks and competencies of the state: NPM advocates for a lean core government and the autonomization of public agencies and corporations; furthermore, for the contracting-out of public services to private business or for material privatization. In fact, many governments decided to diversify their institutional landscape of public service provision and opted for agencification, corporatization, and for the externalization of services to private providers.
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Area b: NPM reformers frequently introduced more entrepreneurial and efficiency-oriented concepts into the internal management of public sector organizations. NPM basically offered solutions with regard to the following four dimensions of public management (examples): ● Organizational restructuring: e.g., decentralization of competencies, reduction of hierarchies, internal markets for auxiliary services. ● Performance orientation: use of performance measurement tools and of output- and outcome-oriented steering instruments like management contracts or Balanced-Score-Card. ● Human resource management: introduction of performance-related incentives and reduction of traditional privileges of civil servants. ● Financial management: shift from cash-based accounting and budgeting toward resource-based and accrual concepts, including managerial cost accounting and performance-related auditing. Area c: Marketization was another relevant reform issue. Governments tried to strengthen competition by introducing market-type mechanisms and by providing more choice to their customers (e.g., by distributing vouchers). Public sector units were forced to be more efficient by introducing competitive tendering and market testing. In sectors without contestable markets, forms of nonmarket competition were introduced, e.g., by promoting benchmarking exercises or quality awards. Area d: Although usually not at the center of reform activities, some governments invested in improving their relations to the citizens by introducing one-stop-offices, complaints management or citizen charters. In some cases, governments strengthened the civic rights of their citizens by increasing opportunities for referendums or quorums or by introducing focus groups or user boards.
International Perspectives The relevance of the above-mentioned reform areas was not uniform in every country (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004). While some of the reforming states put more emphasis on the internal modernization of structures and procedures, others concentrated on strengthening market-type mechanisms and on downsizing the bureaucratic apparatus. The different trajectories of managerial reforms can easily be explained by the diverging cultural and legalistic contexts, with path dependencies and with varying pressures of reforms in the different countries. Although the rhetoric of NPM reforms was very similar around the world, the practical reform strategies and even more
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the processes of implementation and their results were extremely varied from country to country (see Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004 for some evidence of reforms). Relevance for the Third Sector
NPM reforms are also relevant to some extent for civic society actors and members of third sector organizations. Redefining the role of the state and the consequent downsizing of the public apparatus has impact for the nonprofit sector and for self-help associations in the civic society, as tasks and responsibilities are shifted from the public authorities to those actors. Several governments have – at least rhetorically – promoted the enabling and the activation of civic society groups (labeled the ‘‘enabling and activating state’’). The increased emphasis of public authorities for performance measurement may also have impact as these authorities are more aware of results and effects of certain public services with regard to their target groups (which often also are the target groups of voluntary associations). Furthermore, some governments introduced performance contracts and more detailed reporting schemes in relation to nonprofit organizations that provide public services on behalf of the government. Sometimes such contracts and reporting requirements have increased the pressure on the nonprofit organizations. More generally, the marketization trend within the NPM movement has intensified the competitive pressure on nonprofit organizations because the government forced them to bid for service contracts and because commercial firms moved into the markets. Results of NPM Reforms
In sharp contrast to the conceptual aim of NPM to strengthen transparency and to measure performance, there is only poor empirical evidence of the results of NPM reforms in most countries. Most governments were not much interested in knowing about the ‘‘real’’ changes and their effects. The bulk of literature on NPM is about ‘‘talk,’’ i.e., about concepts and reform plans; only a few studies have drawn on the experiences about implementing NPM reforms and about assessing their results and effects (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004 is one of the rare examples). Taking stock of NPM reforms can be done from various perspectives: A first dimension of evaluation is the institutional changes that have been achieved through these reforms. The introduction of new accounting instruments or the reduction of hierarchical levels within a public sector organization is an example of it. Many governments have been quite successful with implementing new institutional patterns and managerial concepts in
the past few decades. The discrepancy is however quite strong between the ‘‘talk’’ of reform brochures and political declarations of intent on the one hand, and the ‘‘real’’ change of structures, processes, and instruments on the other hand. Furthermore, in the meantime, some governments have reversed to some extent their institutional reforms after experiencing critical results. Institutional changes are, however, not the ultimate aim of NPM reforms. Rather, it is the positive effect on the inputs, outputs, and outcomes of public sector organizations and on the quality of policy making in general. The following observations of the results and effects of reforms are, hence, based on limited empirical evidence from a few countries and on a series of case studies. With this reservation in mind, we can say that NPM reforms, in some countries at least, had the following positive results (Peters & Savoie, 1998; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004): ● Efficiency and productivity gains and cost savings could be observed, although there are problems of causality. ● The quality of public services could be at least maintained, sometimes even increased. ● Response time could be reduced in citizen-related services (e.g., waiting time on administrative decisions). ● Transparency of administrative processes has increased, citizens receive more information from and better access to public authorities. ● Satisfaction of citizens with public services has increased. ● Change in the administrative culture: from strict bureaucratic values to a more managerial culture. On the whole, there are some positive results of NPM reforms in various countries with regard to reduced expenditures, leaner, and faster service structures and increased customer satisfaction. However, it would not be surprising to learn about several critical, often unintended effects of NPM reforms. The following results which came up in several evaluations are particularly striking (Christensen & Laegreid, 2001; Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004; Schro¨ter & von Maravic, 2007): ● Decentralization and autonomization inside government often led to quite fragmented structures of the administrative body which made effective steering and controlling more difficult and sometimes caused new deficiencies. For instance, the units of large and complex municipal holdings developed strong centrifugal powers and made effective coordination and supervision almost impossible.
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● A ‘‘NPM-bureaucracy’’ emerged as a result of deregulation, contracting-out, and the introduction of more sophisticated steering and controlling tools. Requirements to control and oversee the complex production and delivery structures created new bureaucratic red tape (e.g., massive tables of performance indicators) that led to increased transaction costs. ● The intended clear-cut division between the focus of politicians on strategic issues and the concentration of the bureaucratic apparatus on policy execution did not work, because it was based on wrong assumptions concerning the actor rationalities. Politicians did not accept the retreat on strategic framework decisions and they were not keen to determine clear and measurable goals. Generally, they were afraid of losing power by strengthening the competencies of bureaucrats. Thus, the intended division of labor among politicians and administrative officials appeared to be unrealistic; this pillar of NPM clearly failed. To some extent, the political accountability and legitimacy within the whole politicoadministrative system have been weakened. ● The public service ethics of public employees may have been damaged to some extent by NPM reforms. There is some evidence that unethical behavior has increased. The risks of corruption for instance are probably higher because of more interfaces with the decentralized and fragmented public body and because of value shifts toward commercial and competitive incentive structures. Generally, it is not surprising that along with the NPM request to strengthen the value for money perspective and the competitive mechanisms, public managers tend to behave like their private counterparts and they sometimes prioritize monetary goals at the loss of the common interest. By and large, the overall balance of success of NPM reforms in most of the OECD-world is somewhat mixed. Some positive results with regard to efficiency and responsiveness are accompanied by a number of rather critical, and sometimes unintended effects, which may undermine the general standing, accountability, and legitimacy of public administration in the long run. Looking at the actual situation of the public sector, we may summarize that NPM was an intensive phase of reforms that also had some characteristics of a fashion wave. Governments all over the world have been engaged in NPM-related reforms in the past two decades and – as usual – they have come up with some limited and mixed reform results. Overall, the NPM has proved to be quite an ambivalent concept: On the one hand it has led to cost
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reductions, more flexibility and better customer relations. On the other hand the reforms have resulted in less reliability of administration, in a reduced focus of the common interest, in increased problems of political steerability and in ethical problems. Presently, the high season of NPM is probably over and the movement is converting into new patterns that better fit the actual requirements.
Future Trends The current tendency of administrative reforms is the expansion and enrichment of the rather narrow and managerial NPM concept into a broader and more open concept of public governance. Such a development takes current trends toward service networks and diversified delivery structures with multiple public, private-nonprofit, and commercial actors into consideration. It is also a reaction to the current trend from the ‘‘producing state’’ to a perception of the enabling and ensuring state. Civic society and third sector organizations play a more important role in such a governance context; they participate in policy making and in delivering public services. The future result of this development may be the integration of the managerial and ‘‘inside government’’ – oriented view of NPM with the more ‘‘outward bound’’ and open perspective of governance to the symbiosis of public governance. What will be the future role of the state in this context? The NPM reforms resulted in some changes of the traditional bureaucratic structures of state and government, e.g., in a relaxation of hierarchical structures and controlling instruments. However, so far the basics of the bureaucratic administration have survived. The reforms may therefore end up in a kind of a Neo-Weberian State (Pollitt & Bouckaert, 2004, 99–102).
Cross-References
▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Public Choice ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Results and Performance ▶ Third Party Government ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Barzelay, M. (2001). The new public management. Berkeley, CA: UC Press. Christensen, T., & Laegreid, P. (Eds.) (2001). New public management. The transformation of ideas and practice. Aldershot: Ashgate. Ferlie, E., Lynn, L., & Pollitt, C. (Eds.) (2007). The Oxford handbook of public management. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Hood, C. (1991). A public management for all seasons? Public Administration, 69(1), 3–19. Lynn, L. (2006). Public management: Old and new. New York/London: Routledge. Peters, G., & Savoie, D. (Eds.) (1998). Taking stock: Assessing public sector reform. Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Pollitt, C., & Bouckaert, G. (2004). Public management reform – A comparative analysis (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Schro¨ter, E., & von Maravic, P. (2007). New public management. In M. Bevic (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Governance (pp. 712–717). London: Sage.
NGOs ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History
NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance MAX STEPHENSON, JR. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA USA
"
Try again. Fail Again. Fail Better. Samuel Beckett, Worstward Ho, 1983
Introduction The role of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in humanitarian relief has grown vigorously in recent years, but that rise has been characterized by a changing and increasingly difficult strategic and operating context for these entities. Paradoxically, while perhaps never more significant, relief organizations now confront more opaque and more problematic strategic environments as well as a variety of enduring and bedeviling operating level challenges. At the strategic scale, NGOs are dependent upon the often unpredictable decisions of key states for funding, are enmeshed in a service delivery structure characterized by competition, complexity, and diffuse authority and accountability and are divided as well by growing differences in how participating organizations define their identities, especially in light of more than a decade of experience with human rights-related humanitarian interventions. They also are divided over how to integrate relief support into longer-term development efforts when natural or human disasters afflict developing nations. At the operating scale, these institutions confront the formidable challenges of ensuring sufficient capacity to
manage their operations in often chaotic conditions, finding ways and means to draw effectively upon local community knowledge and competence to shape effective responses, assuring media salience for their activities and discerning means to manage not only their own work, but also the multiple agents demanding accountability to whom they must respond. This article treats these factors and characteristics, providing a brief overview of the principal challenges now facing these organizations as they seek to offer services and succor in addressing human suffering in the face of natural and human-made calamities. It concludes by emphasizing how dependent relief organizations are for their legitimacy and efficacy on institutions and actions beyond their direct spheres of action. While relief organizations may build management and logistics capacity, they cannot by themselves raise sufficient resources or be expected to possess all the means necessary to secure the relief and long-term sustainability of the populations and communities they assist. Much depends on donor governments as well as the media. And much also depends on how the populations affected respond themselves and how their knowledge is integrated into overall response efforts.
Definition Humanitarian relief and assistance has long been identified with the provision of relief to those afflicted by natural or human-made disasters. The sort of relief contemplated includes vigorous and rapid efforts to supply those badly affected by disasters access to adequate water, food, shelter, and professional treatment for injuries and illness.
Key Issues Background
The international humanitarian relief system is comprised of a complex assortment of organizational actors, including numerous United Nations (UN) entities (international governmental organizations such as the United Nations Development Programme, The United Nations World Food Programme and the United Nations Children’s Fund), various states, including especially, members of the European Union, the United States and Japan; a number of international nongovernmental organizations (e.g., Project HOPE, Oxfam G.B., Save the Children, International Rescue Committee) and various local nongovernmental organizations. Of this welter, this article focuses on the roles that international and local NGOs play in the provision of humanitarian relief. Smillie and
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Minear have suggested that the NGO part is large in what is effectively a very big business: "
An estimated 10–15 percent of all humanitarian assistance is generated in the form of private donations to NGOs, churches, and the Red Cross family—as much as $1.5 billion annually. On top of that, NGOS receive about one-third of all bilateral contributions to the humanitarian relief effort in the forms of grants and contracts. And they program as much as half of what goes through the UN system. NGOs, therefore, program as much as 60percent of all humanitarian assistance, or roughly $6 billion per year. (2004: 236)
Roughly 75% of this NGO spending is managed by perhaps a dozen international nongovernmental organizations whose reach, professional capacity and resources allow them transnational roles (Stoddard et al., 2006). This subgroup dominates an arena comprised of approximately 2,500 INGOs and NGOS routinely engaged in relief provision. Many of the latter are small organizations that often do not survive a particular event or disaster. Strategic Scale Challenges
NGOs receive funding to address complex humanitarian scenarios (famine, natural disaster, the aftermath of war) in two basic ways. First, many, especially the larger international organizations, raise funds though solicitation of private donations, employing all forms of media to do so. These solicitations seek to ‘‘brand’’ entities for their potential contributors, many of whom provide sums in support of their missions without benefit of any additional information. These donors often are attentive to learning about how their funds are used and interested in the individual purport of their gifts. In addition to this stream of support, relief INGOs compete for contracts for UN support and for assistance from specific national aid agencies. For their part, United Nations organizations raise funds by means of a complicated process – the Consolidated Appeals Process (CAP) – in which each contributes to a strategic assessment of needs linked to a given scenario. That analysis of needed resources is then provided to potential national government funders. On average, those nations fund 40–50% of the sums requested. There is no penalty if these governments choose to ignore or discount a request for funding and thereby either not address, or incompletely address, an emergency that the relief community otherwise urgently believed merited attention. Recent infamous examples of this behavior include the civil war in Sierra Leone; the systematic and brutal attacks of the Janjaweed in Darfur and the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 (Dallaire, 2004).
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Assuming that CAP estimates of community need are not routinely 50–60% higher than the actual sums necessary to provide populations support in the aftermath of famine, floods, storms, or conflict, this typical situation places relief organizations in the difficult position of deciding how to allocate (and stretch, where possible) what are often inadequate resources in the first place (Smillie and Minear, 2004: 239–240). Similarly, many donors do not provide funding for overhead or administrative support. This requires NGOS to use precious private donations for the purpose or to employ fewer individuals in oversight roles, thereby running the risk of less effective project management. A second defining characteristic of the humanitarian relief strategic environment is the absence of a single authoritative or controlling organization within it. The many UN relief organizations compete for donor salience and funding, as do the principal INGOs and interested NGOs. While the United Nations Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs is formally charged with encouraging the coordination of the activities of organizations active in providing relief in a disaster or other emergency, that office does not enjoy power or authority to require other UN institutions or NGOs to harmonize their activities (Stephenson, 2005). With no organization formally in control, United Nations organizations and NGOS alike cooperate only in so far as each believes such activity serves its organizational interests. This situation places the funding states firmly in control of relief activities, a status they appear unlikely to relinquish soon (Cahill, 2007: 8). Because multiple organizations vie for attention and resources in relief environments and because no organization can coordinate the activities of the many organizations engaged, the relief environment is persistently difficult and as persistently polycentric in character (Stephenson and Schnitzer, 2009). The lack of a central authority in humanitarian relief also complicates accountability for participating organizations. Relief NGOs often must manage answerability to multiple private contributors/overseers – public and private – even as they seek to provide aid to those most needy in the catastrophic conditions they confront. Because different funders may have different aims, and because these may not be readily reconcilable, NGOS must seek to manage their competing claims against one another and against the needs they believe paramount in the scenarios they are addressing. This can be difficult at best, and at worst can lead to breakdowns in reporting or service, or both. These entities must manage multiple accountabilities as these emanate from the (top-down – donor states, UN, or other contractor),
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from the (bottom-up – the needs of those being served) and from other organizations in the field with whom they must cooperate to provide services and needed assistance (middle-out) including local governments, other NGOs and local and international media (Jordan, L., & van Tuijl, P. 2006). An additional matter now characterizing the strategic environment for NGOS engaged in humanitarian relief relates to how they should conceive of their roles in the efforts in which they are engaged. This concern has sharpened since the Yugoslav conflict of the 1990s as various major states and the United Nations have sought several times since to intervene in otherwise sovereign nations to redress human rights violations or to seek to prevent their continued abrogation. These interventions have occasioned tough dialogue amongst NGOs concerning whether, in such situations, they may continue to maintain their traditional stance of neutrality, impartiality, and consent. Historically, relief organizations have provided support to all those injured or needing assistance, regardless of their role in a particular situation or conflict. But whether that position is defensible or feasible when one side is perpetrating genocide or engaged in ethnic cleansing or other horrific practices is by no means clear. Similarly, it is not clear what should occur when relief organizations are denied consent to operate in a nation and that government is responsible for atrocities on its people or systematically failing to provide aid to them. This scenario unfolded in Darfur in Sudan and in the former Yugoslavia as well as in Myanmar recently. More broadly, it is unclear whether organizations dedicated to assisting the afflicted, irrespective of their national identity, religion, ethnicity, or other characteristics, can be ‘‘neutral’’ among parties in a country when it is clear that one or another of those is prosecuting violence against innocents. This situation obtained in the refugee camps established following the Rwandan genocide into which many Interhamwe, militia, and former government troops integrated themselves and thereafter continued their harassment of targeted populations. These cruel realities associated with many disaster and relief scenarios over the last 2 decades have divided the relief community increasingly into distinct groups that Weiss has labeled solidarists versus classicists: "
A philosophical chasm is widening about the political implications of humanitarian action. On one side are the ‘‘Classicists,’’ who continue to uphold he principles of neutrality, impartiality and consent. On the other are the ‘‘solidarists,’’ who side with selected victims, publicly confront hostile governments, advocate partisan public policies in donor states, attempt to skew the distribution of
aid resources, and refuse to respect the sovereignty of states. (2007: 144)
Above all, the classicists are concerned that if humanitarian relief organizations come to be associated with one side or another in conflicts they may lose the protection provided by their historic dedication to neutrality. On the other side are those who worry that relief should not support inhumanity, and that if it does so, even indirectly, it will necessarily lose its central claim to legitimacy, whatever its agents’ perceived neutrality. This debate is an elemental one that may not formally be resolved in the abstract, but instead through choices NGOs make while operating in specific contexts. This controversy goes to the core of the rationale for providing assistance in the first instance. One final strategic-level matter causes serious difficulties for humanitarian assistance NGOs. This challenge concerns how best to offer relief while also contributing to the long-term (re)development of an afflicted region. As there is no known single replicable mechanism to ensure this goal, those providing relief must make judgments as they wrestle with how to make choices during the immediate aftermath of a disaster or conflict to provide aid in ways that inure to the long-term development of affected areas. The questions are difficult and range from the ethical to the pragmatic. Ethically, a central issue is whether preexisting conditions constitute an apt standard for redevelopment. For example, if homes destroyed by a storm were previously located too close to the shore and constructed to meet insufficient building standards, should they be rebuilt in the same place and with like materials and to similar standards because that is how the community lived previously? Similarly, if devastated communities previously relied on unsustainable strategies to farm or to process waste, should these be honored or should relief workers seek to begin to equip citizens with new capacities and strategies as they rebuild? As a practical matter, and in often difficult conditions, how can one ensure that steps taken in relief will be consonant with longterm community needs including such matters as whereto dig wells, where to locate housing and so on. These questions really demand a preexisting cross-sectoral disaster reduction plan, but these may not be available or feasible in many developing nations, and in any event they are very difficult to develop and even more challenging to implement. Operating Scale Challenges
Both humanitarian relief INGOs and NGOs confront a critical need to provide help and sustenance to typically
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large and dispossessed populations. Displaced residents require shelter, potable water, food, and medical care. For INGOs, the question is how to ensure that these services can be made available as soon as feasible and at the highest level of quality appropriate. This imperative in turn implies the need for substantial expertise and often, preplacement of supplies in locations known to be at risk. It also implies a need to pre-contract for logistics and transport support and for other sorts of materials and space as well. Beyond these obvious physical needs, generally aimed at ensuring that an INGO can address its mission when providing relief (providing shelter, potable water, medical care, food, etc.), these organizations require competent personnel. This suggests the need for adequate funding, for experienced hands, for effective managers and for individual staff capable of acting with strong initiative, adapting to wide swings in fortune amidst unfolding circumstances and addressing unforeseen contingencies as they arise. These responsibilities demand high-level analytical capabilities that must be learned. Assuring them is a constant preoccupation for INGOs whose employees work long hours in often extraordinarily difficult conditions. These analytical capacities are also necessary for local NGOs whose resource and personnel base may not be as strong as that marshaled by their INGO counterparts. Indeed, part of the responsibility of contributors and funders who wish to support local NGOs in their efforts to respond to crises is to provide support aimed at enabling them to do so. This involves capacity building to ensure necessary organizational infrastructure, but also necessary training for staff. If NGOs are to provide a ‘‘voice’’ of the communities from which they spring and to enjoy the perceived legitimacy that such grassroots engagement bespeaks, they must possess personnel, expertise, and resources to do so. These are developed and that development takes time and support. An additional critical operating level question affecting both INGOs and NGOs is how to ensure that they draw upon and mobilize the capacities of the populations they are serving. While relief organizations are normally under enormous pressure to offer aid swiftly (major media organizations measure effectiveness by how quickly relief organizations are ‘‘up and running’’) they are not the first responders, nor are they likely to be as knowledgeable about the areas they are serving as those who live there. It makes intuitive sense for these organizations to work diligently to ensure that those who reside in an afflicted community play important roles in securing relief for themselves and their fellow residents. Nonetheless, this is difficult, as it requires that aid organizations
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develop strategies for reaching out and for listening even as they are under intense pressure to act, both to address vital needs and to meet accountability claims from external stakeholders. It may be far more effective for humanitarian INGOs and NGOs to consult carefully with community leaders and actors before adopting specific strategies in order to ensure that they are appropriate for the context and habits of living of those they aim to serve. In the long run, this very practical step can build good will, secure important local knowledge, establish trust and the partnerships that can arise from it and perhaps ameliorate the potential paternalism implicit in even the bestintentioned offers of aid from ‘‘professionals who are here to help.’’ The challenge for INGOs at the local scale is to offer support and assistance in ways that allow affected communities voice in decision-making and in the design of relief processes. For local NGOs, this test often includes those dimensions plus ensuring that they indeed possess necessary human and fiscal capacity to respond with aid in their targeted areas with some likelihood of success. INGOS and NGOs alike also confront an accountability dilemma at the operating scale. As noted above, many media outlets measure the effectiveness of humanitarian relief on the basis of how quickly forms of support are made available to victims. This accountability claim runs counter to learning from local leaders about what is necessary and how best to assure it before seeking to act. It may also run counter to the realities of logistics and supply chains and indeed, in some cases, to the character of needs. But falling afoul of media expectations can leave INGOs especially in a very vulnerable position with both major funders and private donors. Being perceived as slothful or inefficient can depress fundraising and also adversely affect an organization’s ability to compete for contracts. As important as managing this strand of accountability may be, INGOs must also coordinate with other relief entities working in the disaster region, as well as with relevant government organizations. All of these streams of accountability claims, originating with different agents – some fiscal, some programmatic, some logistical and some combinations of all of these – must actively be managed to secure successful provision of relief. Doing so can require a great deal of time and attention of organizational leaders and can also create tensions when not all agents of accountability claims agree on modes of action or strategic direction. But perhaps primary among accountability claimants are the media whose reports can do much to shape how a relief effort is perceived globally.
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Future Directions NGOs involved in humanitarian relief continue to face a number of enduring challenges. First, the complexity of conditions in the immediate aftermath of catastrophes is daunting and requires strong organizational capacities to address them. These capacities must be developed, refined, and redeveloped, as changing circumstances require. Such action demands not only organizational awareness, but also sustained political support. Second, relief NGOs operate in a context that is characterized by a dearth of overarching authority. In this situation, humanitarian NGOs must continually devise ways and means both to make sense of their strategic and operating environments and to establish mechanisms by which to coordinate with other institutions active within them. This requires both highly capable leaders willing to work to find cooperative modalities even when the vagaries of everyday organizational life appear to demand competition instead. Third, as the relief arena is threatened increasingly by securitization, whether by the ‘‘War on Terror’’ or by alliance or UN interventions aimed at stopping the systematic abrogation of human rights by one party or another, NGOs must find their way to a new identity that does not divide them in their capacities to respond to human needs. The need to provide support is sufficiently compelling that it requires a united array of organizational handmaidens. Fourth, these organizations will need to continue to experiment and to learn from their efforts to understand better how relief and longterm community sustainability relate. The more they learn, the more likely it will be that NGOs can take actions during relief efforts that at least will not contravene the continuing needs of the communities in which they are working. Fifth, humanitarian relief organizations must work to press the case that they be allowed to learn from their experiences and to involve those they serve as they do so. Such a change in orientation would require the media and donors not demand immediate action alone and allow relief NGOs to work with grassroots partners and governments to test and evaluate alternate modes of service delivery. These initiatives might entail more, not less, funding in the near term. They might also require occasional failures that should not be penalized, but instead scrutinized for what they might mean for future practice. This perspective would require that donor states redefine accountability claims away from specific outputs only – number of homes constructed or renovated, number of wells dug, filtration systems shared, number of patients served and so on – and toward a more inclusive array of measures aimed at increased concern with longterm community outcomes and sustainability. Since this
has never really been undertaken before, it would require all parties engaged to collaborate seriously to develop and refine processes and measures to create and address it. All parties involved in the relief system would need to practice patience (not always a virtue in international politics) and be aware of building the capacities necessary both within the arena and at the organizational scale to test this orientation. Success, were it to come, would arrive only after years of sustained trial and error effort. Finally, prospects for humanitarian relief NGOs depend most vitally on the future of the international system. If the state system continues to dominate, a more effective relief structure will depend on state behavior, both as funders and as parties to relief scenarios. Their leaders’ cooperation, prudence, and courage might sustain the international law and norms necessary to allow effective humanitarian action. The record in this regard in recent years has been decidedly mixed. Samuel Beckett, quoted in the epigraph above, surely had it right. What may matter most to the future of humanitarianism and the NGO role within it is broad agreement among all of those involved that human dignity demands action in the face of calamity and that determining how best to provide such support is an inexact art. But those engaged must be strongly supported as they try and try again.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Brands and Branding ▶ CARE ▶ INGOs ▶ InterAction ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ Medecins Sans Frontieres ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Save the Children
References/Further Readings Cahill, K. (Ed.) (2007). The pulse of humanitarian assistance. New York: Fordham University Press. Dallaire, R. (2004). Shake hands with the devil: The failure of humanity in Rwanda. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. Duffield, M. (2001). Global governance and the new wars. London: Zed Books. Eade, D., & Vaux, T. (2007). Development and humanitarianism: Practical issues. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Ignatieff, M. (2003). Empire lite: Nation building in Bosnia, Kosovo and Afghanistan. London: Penguin Books.
NGOs and International Relations, UN Jordan, L., & van Tuijl, P. (2006). NGO accountability. London: Earthscan. Lindenberg, M., & Bryant, C. (2001). Going global: Transforming relief and development NGOs. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Smillie, I. (2001). Patronage or partnership: Local capacity building in humanitarian crises. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Smillie, I., & Minear, L. (2004). The charity of nations: Humanitarian action in a calculating world. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Stephenson, M. (2005). Making humanitarian relief networks more effective: operational coordination, trust and sense making. Disasters, 29(4), 337–350. Stephenson, M., & Schnitzer, M. (2009). Exploring the challenges and prospects for polycentricity in International Humanitarian Relief. American Behavioral Scientist, Democracy in an Age of Networked Governance, 52(6), 919–932. Stoddard, A., Harmer, A., & Hvaer, K. (2006). Providing aid in insecure environments: Trends in policy and operations. London: Overseas Development Institute. Weiss, T. G. (2007). Humanitarian intervention. Cambridge: Polity.
NGOs and International Relations, UN KERSTIN MARTENS University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany
Introduction Far-reaching political changes at the international level toward the end of the 1980s opened up new ways for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their activity in the international sphere. Their room for maneuvre was particularly expanded with the end of the Cold War and the related opening of the Iron Curtain. Moreover, the technical developments (especially in the realm of communication) of the past decades have enabled the growth and engagement of national and international NGOs to act on the international political stage even further. Most importantly, the development and spread of the World Wide Web and E-mail have provided for easy, inexpensive, and boundless exchange of information in previously unthinkable measures, which can be used not only by elites but reach wider parts of society. Since the 1990s, NGOs have become significant players on the international arena. NGOs and their impact on world politics have drawn much attention in particular during their participation in the series of world conferences in the first half of that decade. Today, NGOs are basically involved in all processes, performances, and policy fields of international relations. Human rights NGOs, for example, deliver valuable information about violations to UN commissions and committees, environmental
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NGOs provide expertise during negotiation processes of international environmental treaties, and humanitarian NGOs assist states and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) in implementing projects.
Definition The term ‘‘NGO’’ was coined by the United Nations in Article 71 of its Charter. This article provided for the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to have working relations with NGOs. It reads: The Economic and Social Council may make suitable arrangements for consultation with non-governmental organizations which are concerned with matters within its competence. Such arrangements may be made with international organizations and, where appropriate, with national organizations after consultations with the Members of the United Nations concerned. However, although this term was created by the UN, no specific criteria for NGOs have been set up by Charter articles or later resolutions; they rather regulate the relationship between NGOs and the UN. In fact, the term NGO has been criticized for its negative connotations and inaccuracy – especially as it was structured from the point of view of governments and defined in reference to them as ‘‘nongovernmental.’’ In some countries, as in China for example, the term NGO is even translated as ‘‘against the government.’’ The difficulty of characterizing the entire phenomenon is in large part due to the tremendous diversity found in the global NGO community. That diversity derives from differences in size, duration, range and scope of activities, ideologies, cultural background, organizational culture, and legal status. Not surprisingly, some scholars have already stated with resignation that there is simply no such thing as a ‘‘typical NGO’’ (see, e.g., Willetts, 1996: 9). Ideal typically, however, NGOs can be depicted as follows: NGOs are formal independent societal organizations whose primary aim is to promote common goals at the national or the international level (see Martens, 2002). In detail: The criterion ‘‘organization’’ distinguishes NGOs from spontaneous forces or movements. In particular, NGOs are distinct from other forms of collective action with less permanent organizational structure, such as public protests. The organizational attribute characterizes NGOs as having at least a basic organizational structure, such as permanent members, offices, or financial income. NGOs are, thus, formal institutions with self-governing constitutional arrangements. They are, therefore, not ad hoc entities, but they are marked by some durability. However, many NGOs have their roots in the social movement domain, as formerly unstable groups which have gradually
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developed permanent structures. On the international level, these organizations have been referred to as transnational social movement organizations which are – among other attributes – characterized by some formal structure (see also TSMOs). In general, NGOs are considered organizations which do not contain any state members, but rather, consist of individual persons and national groups (which again consist of individuals). They are, thus, societal organizations. NGOs recognize the political system and are active within its rules and conditions. They do not use violence or illegitimate means for their purposes. Therefore, criminal organizations, such as the Mafia, are not considered to be NGOs. Moreover, they should not accept financial support from governmental sources, but rather, be financed by their members or donations. NGOs are, thus, independent, because they do not depend on state funding. NGOs are very often referred to as nonprofit making entities. This attribute seeks to draw a line between NGOs and other non-state actors, such as multinational companies, whose primary aim is the pursuit of profit. NGOs seek societal support, which allows them to obtain influence on governmental policies, but they do not aspire to governmental power. They also seek to influence governmental actors, such as states or IGOs, or to implement policies in their field of concern. Unlike interest groups, they do not pursue direct politics of their clients or members; NGOs, instead, are interested in advancing their designated objectives, and thus, promote common goals at national and international levels, such as progressive change or universal rights. NGO activists combine their skills, means, and energies in the service of shared ideals. The money they make with publications, fund-raising, and selling is used to pay for staff and activities to support their aims and goals more effectively.
Historical Background Although NGOs have attracted considerable attention over the past decade, they are not a recent phenomenon. They have existed for more than two centuries now and have interacted internationally since the middle of the nineteenth century, when national societies joined together in umbrella organizations across borders. The following NGOs are examples for some of the first internationally operating NGOs: the British and Foreign AntiSlavery Society (1823), Evangelical Alliance (1846), the World Alliance of YMCAs (1855), International Association for Custom Reforms (1856), the International Committee of the Red Cross (1863), the International Workingmen’s Association (1864), the Universal Peace
Union (1866), the International Law Association (1973), the International Literary and Artistic Association (1878), as well as the Inter-Parliamentary Union (1889). NGOs have also been involved in international affairs long before their current intensive interaction with the UN system. In fact, NGO–IGO relations have a long tradition. Both types of organizations were already interlinked in several ways during the niniteenth century when they worked hand-in-hand on important issues during international congresses. NGOs interacted with the League of Nations and gave presentations before committees, submitted reports, and participated in discussions. They also worked together with the International Labour Organisation and were involved in the early phases of the UN because the US delegation invited 42 NGOs to send representatives as consultants to the founding conference in San Francisco (for historial details see Charnovitz, 1997).
Key Issues NGOs have grown not only in numbers but also in reach: many of them have become increasingly transnational as regards their scope of activity. Numerous organizations that had initially worked within the domestic sphere gradually expanded beyond national boundaries. Some NGOs founded new branches of their organization in several other states (e.g., Amnesty International, Greenpeace International, or CARE International). Others gradually became international by merging with similar-minded organizations and founded an international federative body to coordinate and develop common strategies or expanded their international scope by integrating other national organizations into the international federation (like the Fe´de´ration Internationale des Droits de l’Homme, Friends of the Earth International, or Oxfam International). What is particularly striking about NGOs is their enormous growth during the past decades. The Union of International Associations (UIA) in Brussels has recorded NGOs for 100 years now, considering the diverse fields of activities as well as the different levels. The UIA denotes a constant growth rate of international NGOs during the last century: in 1909, it registered barely 176 internationally active NGOs, toward the end of the 1930s, their number had grown to 581, at the beginning of the 1990s, there were already 4,646 NGOs registered and in 2006 even 7,306 (http://www.uia.be/en/stats). The growth of NGOs is particularly impressive at the end of the 1970s/beginning of the 1980s when their number doubled within 5 years. Today, NGOs work in a variety of issue-areas and promote a wide range of aims and goals. Most prominent
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NGO involvement occurs in the fields of human rights, environment, women’s rights, development assistance, humanitarian aid, peace, and family issues. However, NGOs are also active in politically volatile arenas such as disarmament and military surveillance. Moreover, they engage in what has often been called ‘‘nonpolitical matters’’ such as leisure activities, recreation clubs, and sports associations. NGOs areas are mainly located in the Western world. The majority of NGOs is founded or has its headquarters in Washington, New York, and Brussels, followed by other European capitals. Also, some countries are more attractive for NGOs than others: many internationally operating NGOs maintain their headquarters in Switzerland, and in particular, in Geneva because of the diversity of international governmental organizations located there. Even though many NGOs are founded in some Southern countries – for example, Bangladesh or Philippines – many of them can only gain political impact after having established a network within which they cooperate with Northern NGOs. Nowadays, many NGOs seek to shape the proceedings and outcomes of international negotiations. NGOs are most visibly active outside the venues in which governmental representatives meet and discuss international treaties and agreements. The anti-globalization protests, since Seattle in 1999, has attracted large numbers of nationally and internationally operating NGOs. These occasions clearly revealed their potential to affect international decision-making processes. In addition, the extent and the intensity of participation on the part of NGOs in these events showed their capacity for mobility and networking across borders (Smith & Johnston, 2002; van Rooy, 2004). However, NGOs are also often directly involved in designing programs and policies, and therefore, shape political processes from inside the official international arenas. In particular, NGOs contributed to the proceedings of the world conferences of the early 1990s not only as outside spectators but also as official participants. The Rio Earth Summit of 1992 is considered the first international event with impressive NGO participation and was a model case for subsequent conferences: 1,400 NGOs officially took part in the event, up to 150 nations had NGO representatives for the preparatory meetings or the actual conference on their governmental delegations, and the island state of Vanuatu even placed its delegation in the hands of an NGO. The growing involvement of NGOs on the global stage has been recognized by the social sciences in theoretical terms. International relations theory was extended to societal actors when scholars acknowledged
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nongovernmental activity by turning away from statecentric perspectives to society-dominated views on world politics. The ‘‘new transnationalists’’ examined the conditions under which NGOs gain influence on state institutions and intergovernmental organizations (RisseKappen, 1995). Others identified a ‘‘boomerang effect’’ by which advocacy networks, including NGOs, bypass state blockages (Keck & Sikkink, 1998). Still others translated NGO participation in transnational relations into the concept of ‘‘world culture’’ in which NGOs play the dominant role (Boli & Thomas, 1999). Moreover, conceptualizations of societal activism which had developed within the domestic sphere were lifted onto the international level. In particular, studies of societal actors and their relationship to the state were applied to internationally operating NGOs and their activities in international affairs. Scholars drew analogies from works on the national level for the study of the activities of ‘‘transnational’’ social movement organizations (Khagram et al., 2002; della Porta et al., 1999); others also considered the role and limits of the ‘‘global’’ civil society (Centre for the Study of Global Governance, 2004–today) or studied the ‘‘third sector’’ from an international comparative perspective (Anheier & Kendall, 2001).
International Perspectives Today, it is especially international NGOs which aim at working with intergovernmental organizations. Of these, the UN has become a major target. In the aftermath of the conference series of the early 1990s, many NGOs sought to become formally accredited to the UN and applied for consultative status in order to stabilize their relations. During the last decade, the range and intensity of these activities have broadened. In his Millennium report, former Secretary-General Kofi Annan reemphasized that strengthening the relations between the UN and private actors constitutes a priority of his mandate. New studies, like the so-called Cardoso report (named after the former Brazilian president), have been initiated to review existing practices that affect access and participation of civil society organizations in UN processes. Currently, Resolution 1996/31 governs the relationship between NGOs and the UN, which was introduced in 1996 after NGOs had participated unexpectedly intensely and in great numbers during the series of UN conferences to allow for more participation. The main difference to previous resolutions is that organizations operating in the national sphere only are also eligible to apply for accreditation to the UN now. The UN requires that NGOs have an organizational structure including an established headquarters, an executive organ and officer, a democratically adopted
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constitution (providing for the determination of policy by a representative body), an authority to speak for the members, and financial independence from governmental bodies. Moreover, associations which want to have contact with the UN need to be concerned with issues which fall under the competence of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) or its subsidiary bodies and they need to represent large sections of the population. The UN grants three different statuses to ‘‘NGOs’’: general consultative status, special consultative status, and roster status – each with different rights and duties for accredited NGOs. NGOs in general consultative status must represent major segments of society in a large number of countries of different regions of the world. In return, the rights and privileges pertaining to this status are the most far-reaching of the three categories. Organizations with this status have the right to attend meetings of the ECOSOC and its subsidiary bodies and speak and circulate statements. They are also allowed to make proposals to the provisional agenda of ECOSOC or its exercising bodies. For organizations with a smaller scope of activity special consultative status applies. It is similar to general consultative status, except that these organizations can neither submit proposals to the agenda nor speak at meetings of ECOSOC. Other organizations which do not fulfill the criteria for either general or special status are put on a ‘‘roster’’. Roster NGOs are limited to attend meetings only within their field of competence. The number of NGOs maintaining official relations with the UN has risen tremendously since the establishment of the ECOSOC accreditation scheme. When consultative status was introduced in the 1940s, 40 organizations were accredited. In the late 1960s, this number grew to 377 and by the early 1990s the figure of accredited organizations had gradually increased to 744. It was in the mid-1990s, however, that the number of accredited NGOs exploded. Whereas in 1996, 1,226 NGOs were enrolled on the consultative status, only 5 years later the number had almost doubled and by October 2007, 3,051 NGOs had official relations with the UN. Of these, 136 maintained general consultative status, 1,955 special consultative status, and 960 roster status. The large majority of them sees itself as working in human rights issues (28.5%), education (13%), and social issues (12%). One of the main aims of NGO engagement in the UN context is to influence the political debate by using the diverse channels of communication. These could include research reports, short oral statements, written comments, etc.. Moreover, recognition by the UN allows representatives of NGOs to enter UN buildings where they can meet with governmental representatives or UN
NGOs and International Relations, UN. Table 1 Fields of NGO activity in the UN context Field of activity
%
1
Development
7.83
2
Disarm/peace
2.19
3
Economic
6.13
4
Education
12.69
5
Environmental
3.29
6
Food
1.68
7
Health
6.67
8
Human rights
28.5
9
Human settlements
0.68
10
Humanitarian affairs
5.28
11
Population
0.79
12
Rights of the child
2.95
13
Rights of women
7.20
14
Social issues
15
Technical cooperation
12.15 1.99 100%
NGOs and International Relations, UN. Table 2 Number of NGOs with UN consultative status Year 1948
General 7
Specific 32
Roster 1
Total 40
1949
9
77
4
90
1968
12
143
222
377
1969
16
116
245
377
1983
31
239
422
692
1992
38
297
409
744
1994
40
334
410
784
1995
69
436
563
1,068
1996
81
499
646
1,226
1997
88
602
666
1,356
1998
100
742
663
1,505
1999
111
918
909
1,938
2000
122
1,048
880
2,050
2001
124
1,132
895
2,151
2002
131
1,197
906
2,234
2003
131
1,316
903
2,350
2004
134
1,474
923
2,531
2005
134
1,545
935
2,614
2006
137
1,780
952
2,869
2007
136
1,955
960
3,051
NGOs and International Relations, UN
personnel and lobby them for their issues of concern. In the human rights area, for example, NGOs have often contributed to the political debate at the UN level by providing reports on human rights violations in order to place a country with a particular bad record on the agenda of the Commission on Human Rights. NGOs also seek to advance new international standards through the UN system and promote according institutional backing to push them. A recent example of particular successful NGO activities in standard-setting is their effort to establish the International Criminal Court (ICC) which started to work in 2002. NGOs are also involved in UN processes and procedures as policy advisors and policy formulators. UN officials sometimes invite representatives to provide advice on a particular issue because they have the necessary legal expertise or the technical know-how needed. In the human rights sector, NGO representatives have, for example, participated in committees or working groups during the preparation of drafts (the so-called travaux pre´paratoires) which later became UN final documents. Since the Human Rights Conference in Vienna in 1993, NGOs in this field have become particularly valued for their expertise and their provision of technical assistance in the development of human rights standards. NGOs also work together with UN institutions in order to guarantee the implementation and monitoring of policies. In the field of humanitarian aid, for example, NGOs and the UN often coordinate their activities and divide up the tasks. NGOs frequently fulfill supplementary or complementary roles by taking over one of the duties such as the distribution of food or clothes. NGOs can also be subcontracted for specific purposes and implement UN programs under an agreement with the UN. Even the main organs take into account the opinions and contributions of NGOs. The so-called ‘‘Arria Formula’’ allows the Security Council to be briefed informally on international peace and security issues by nonCouncil members. Between 1997 and 2005, at least 34 meetings occurred in which representatives of civil society briefed Security Council members on issues of concern to them. Although Arria meetings are an informal mechanism of cooperation, they have become a recognized means of communication between NGOs and the Security Council of the UN: Meetings are announced by the Security Council’s president at the beginning of each month as part of the regular schedule and the UN Secretariat provides full language translation. CARE International, Me´decins sans Frontie`res, and Oxfam International were the first humanitarian NGOs to brief the Security Council on the Great Lakes Crisis; Amnesty
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International is often an invitee when human rights issues are discussed. There are, however, limits to what extent NGOs can contribute to the UN. As regards the General Assembly and the Security Council, thus the highest organs of the UN, NGOs find their boundaries: they have no formal access to them. At the General Assembly of the UN, representatives of NGOs can take a seat at the visitors’ stand but they are not allowed to officially intervene in the proceedings. At special sessions of the General Assembly, however, NGOs are allowed to participate, like the Copenhagen +5 session where they had the right to give oral statements as well. Also, NGOs have access to the recently established General Assembly subsidiary bodies of the Human Rights Council and of the Peacebuilding Commission through formalized procedures.
Future Directions Today, NGOs are vital participants in international politics and have multiple possibilities to interact with the UN: They are basically involved in all stages of the policy process – they shape the policy agenda and international standards developed at UN level, they participate as experts when new resolutions are drafted, and they support the UN system in fulfilling its mandate when implementing such policies at country level. Since the revision of the ECOSOC accreditation scheme in 1996, a greater number of NGOs have received access to the UN system. This status enables them to pursue activities with and within the UN system: Accreditation presents the entrance key which provides for physical access to UN buildings and gives the opportunity to meet with UN officials and attend meetings, a prerequisite for lobbying and information exchange. Moreover, NGOs on their part have invested in their representation at UN level in order to take advantage of the opportunities for interaction. However, many NGOs – especially those from the developing world – have very limited means at their disposal and are left with little influence as a consequence. Thus, increased opportunities for activities with the UN and the correlating greater participation of NGOs do not necessarily lead to a balanced representation of civil society in international affairs but may rather reproduce the North–South divide of the governmental world. First attempts to correct this imbalance have been made however: As a reaction to the Cardoso report, Kofi Annan aimed at installing a trustee fund to enable NGOs from the South to participate at UN conferences. However, as partners of states or IGOs, such as the UN, NGOs also have to confront themselves with the critical question whether they do justice to their
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name – nongovernmental organization. Can their actions still be considered government-independent if NGOs enter the field and become negotiators and advisors for state actors and international organizations instead of proclaiming their opinion on problems from an external point of view? Do they become (too) ‘‘incorporated’’ into structures of global governance when interacting intensely with state and intergovernmental actors?
van Rooy, A. (2004). The global legitimacy game: Civil society, globalization and protest. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Willetts, P. (1996). Introduction. In W. Peter (Ed.), The conscience of the world. The influence of non-governmental organisations in the UN system (pp. 1–14). London: Hurst.
NGOs and Socioeconomic Development
Cross-References
▶ Amnesty International ▶ CARE ▶ Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de L’Homme (FIDH) ▶ Friends of the Earth ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ GONGOs ▶ Greenpeace ▶ INGOs ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ Me´decins Sans Frontie´res ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Union of International Associations (UIA) ▶ United Nations ▶ YMCAs, World Alliance of
References/Further Readings Anheier, H., & Kendall, J. (Eds.) (2001). Third sector policy at the crossroads: An international nonprofit analysis. London: Routledge. Boli, J., & Thomas, G. M. (Eds.) (1999). Constructing world culture: INGOs since 1875. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Centre for the Study of Global Governance (2004–). Global civil society yearbook. London: Sage. Charnovitz, S. (1997). Two centuries of participation: NGOs and international governance. Michigan Journal of International Law, 18(2), 183–286. della Porta, D. (Eds.) (1999). Social movements in a globalizing world. Chippenham, UK: St. Martin’s. Keck, M. E., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Khagram, S. (Eds.) (2002). Restructuring world politics: The power of transnational social movements, networks and norms. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Martens, K. (2002). Mission impossible? Defining nongovernmental organisations. Voluntas, 13(3), 271–285. Martens, K. (2005). NGOs and the United Nations – Institutionalization, professionalization and adaptation. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Risse-Kappen, T. (Ed.) (1995). Bringing transnational relations back In: Non-state actors, domestic structures and international institutions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Salamon, L. M. (Eds.) (1999). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Baltimore, MD: Center for Civil Society Studies. Smith, J. (Eds.) (2002). Globalization and resistance: Transnational dimensions of social movements. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
RONELLE BURGER1, TRUDY OWENS2 Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2 University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
1
Introduction Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are acknowledged to be critical to socioeconomic development in developing countries where government capacity and revenues are often very limited. The last decade has been marked by a rapid growth of NGOs and an increased involvement of these organizations in the process of development (Werker and Ahmed, 2008; Anheier and Salamon, 2006). Not only have they become an important policy lobby, leading campaigns on development issues – such as debt relief, universal provision of primary education and HIV/AIDS awareness – but they have also increased their contribution to pro-poor service delivery. Aid to NGOs has increased dramatically according to commentators and observers. Estimates of aid routed via NGOs are hard to come by, but Riddell et al. (1995) ventured a ballpark figure. According to their calculations total development funds channeled via NGOs has increased from $0.9 billion in 1970 to $6.3 billion in 1993 (in 1970 dollars). Although statistics on the proportion of aid channeled to developing countries via NGOs is contentious and inexact, it has been calculated that the share may be as high as 15% (ODI, 1996; Werker and Ahmed, 2008).
Definition Socioeconomic development is generally viewed as improvements in the living standards of individuals and communities – or simply, as ‘‘the achievement of a better life’’ (Sen, 1988: 15). However, Sen (1988) recognizes the value-laden nature of the concept of development. What is regarded as development may often be contentious as it relies on an assessment on what is valuable to develop and such assessments often differ from person to person. As used in
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practice the concept presupposes that there is at least some basic consensus on what constitutes a good life. The concept of development was originally applied quite narrowly around measures of income and expenditure, but increasingly there has been an appreciation that money is usually sought not for its own sake, but as a means to achieving a better life. In line with such shifts, the term ‘‘socioeconomic development’’ is intended to have a wider denotation, including not only monetary measures, but also indicators such as life expectancy and literacy and sometimes psychological dimensions such as life satisfaction and self-esteem.
Historical Background While there may be disagreement about the origins of development and poverty alleviation – with some thinkers claiming that development thinking only came into being after the Second World War and others tracking its history as far back as 1750 – there is some consensus that in a previous era poverty, deprivation, and the associated social problems were regarded as an incurable condition and viewed merely as a regrettable feature of the socioeconomic landscape. Destitution and vulnerability were seen as natural phenomena and not attributed to unjust distortions or structural causes. Lipton and Ravallion (1995) attribute the transformation of thinking about poverty to changing economic conditions and the influence of thinkers such as Adam Smith and Hegel. Adam Smith noted that the modern economy’s division of labor may deskill the working poor and it is therefore vital that government provides education for this group. He argued that a society cannot flourish while most members of it are poor and miserable. Hegel was also in favor of government interventions on behalf of the poor, but offered an alternative motivation. He contended that the modern economy and its stronger civil society weakened traditional kinship ties and thus also the safety nets and informal insurance provided by such links. It has consequently become necessary for government to step in to provide such safety nets to vulnerable individuals and families. Charnowitz (1997) traces the emergence of the NGO sector back to the late eighteenth century, but argues that NGOs only started its ascension to prominence in the 1970s. In the developing world this phase of increased importance and growth is associated with peasant movements and thinkers such as Paulo Freire and Mahatma Gandhi. There is a reasonable amount of consensus among observers that the role of NGOs in socioeconomic development has strengthened in recent years – at the
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expense of government. This is attributed partly to an ideological shift to the right due to a growing impatience and frustration with what is perceived to be a failure of governmental development assistance to reach the poor. In the 1960s and 1970s government-led development efforts in developing countries were often implemented on a grand and fiscally unsustainable scale and without sufficient cognizance of the complex web of dynamic social and economic interlinkages. In the 1990s such efforts were increasingly viewed as ineffective and prone to corrupt and perverse influences. Examples of such corrupt or perverse influences include for instance the anti-agricultural and anti-rural bias of many African policies due to the dependence of rulers on the urban electorate. Despite initiatives to reform policy and improve governance structures and practices, the perception that NGOs are generally more effective than government seems to persist among many decision makers. Despite the lack of empirical evidence to validate such perceptions, many donors continue to fund NGOs to by pass corrupt or inefficient governments.
Key Issues A Fishing Rod or a Fish?
There is a debate in the literature and in practice on how to best accomplish socioeconomic development. Generally a distinction is made between welfare or relief projects distributing handouts to prevent suffering and preserve life, and empowerment projects that aim to overcome constraints or barriers to the socioeconomic mobility of individuals. The former has more of a short-term focus and is more reactive, while the latter has a longer term focus and tries to identify and address the origin of the cycle of suffering and deprivation. The aims of empowerment projects are more ambitious: ultimately the goal is to get individuals back on their feet and enable them to be self-reliant. Advocacy work is viewed as a third category. Efforts to promote certain causes, approaches, or policies on a macro-level are the most ambitious as it seeks to transform not only individual lives, but the policies and structures that shape the lives of the needy and the marginalized. David Korten (1990) has suggested that there may be a hierarchy or sequentiality associated with this categories. He proposed that NGOs evolve from focusing on relief and welfare services (first generation) to running community improvement projects intended to empower individuals and promote self-reliance (second generation) to
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combining project work with lobbying and advocacy activities (third generation) to becoming social movement devoted entirely to ideas and advocacy (fourth generation). However, the alluring intuitive appeal of this hierarchy may be deceptive as there is little known empirical or analytical basis for such a ranking or evolution. Contrary to Korten’s ranked categorization, Barr et al. (2005) report that more of their relatively young and inexperienced Ugandan NGO sample report involvement in advocacy and awareness raising activities than service delivery. They attribute the prevalence of ‘‘talking’’ to funding constraints, given that ‘‘doing’’ is often more costly and demanding, frequently requiring resources and skilled staff. Additional criticism is that there is little evidence that NGOs structure their thinking and their behavior according to these analytical categories (also see NGOs as service providers or advocates for change? below). The implicit valuation underpinning the hierarchy is also open to discussion. While there is widespread agreement on the desirability of removing indigent households and individuals from the circle of poverty and dependence that ensnares them, it has been argued that some individuals face too many constraints to make self-reliance a realistic option. It is therefore vital that programs of empowerment and training are combined with welfare projects offering direct day-to-day assistance. Similarly, it is contentious to argue that advocacy work is more valuable to society or associated with a higher moral awareness than other approaches to development. NGO as Facilitators of Socioeconomic Development
Do NGOs have a role in socioeconomic development and if so, what is their role? Authors such as Pearce (2000) are concerned that NGOs may crowd out government and emphasize that socioeconomic development should remain the responsibility of the government. Anheier and Salamon (2006) conclude that such fears are unfounded because there is little empirical evidence of governments being crowded out by NGOs. Furthermore, the concerns also appear somewhat misplaced given that the work of NGOs are usually viewed not as a replacement of government policies and programs, but rather as a supplement or a complement to government efforts. The view of NGOs as complementing or supplementing government services and products are in line with that presented in James (1987). She suggests that the role of NGOs is to satisfy demand for public goods that has not been met by government. She proposes that there are two reasons why government may fail to meet the demands of
its citizens: either because government aims to satisfy the median voter, leaving some residual demand unmet (excess demand theory) or otherwise because the heterogeneity of preferences is high and it is thus difficult for one service provider to meet such varied set of demands (differentiated demand theory). She has concluded that the excess demand explanation may be most plausible for developing countries. However, NGO’s role in socioeconomic development need not be understood in terms of the shortcomings of government. There are arguments that NGOs have a number of strengths that make them well-suited to such work. The general presumption is that NGOs operating in poor countries have an altruistic or philanthropic purpose that is shared by their members and promoters. The general sentiment is that civil servants running government schools and health centers are motivated by selfinterest, and this partly explains why they divert resources from the public (e.g., Reinikka and Svensson, 2003; Lindelow et al., 2003). NGOs, in contrast, are thought to be less selfish and thus less likely to divert funds and may for these reasons be more effective. Specifically, the higher altruism and pro-social motivations can also be a base to argue that using NGOs to deliver projects could lower monitoring costs. Furthermore, Anheier (1987) notes that local NGOs could often deliver services more effectively to communities because they are closer to the communities. This point echoes the perspective of Hayek (1945) with regards to the benefits of decentralized decision making. NGOs with deep local roots are expected to have superior knowledge of local conditions, institutions, role players, stakeholders, relationships, and needs. Based on this knowledge such NGOs may be in a better position to identify where individuals are falling through the cracks of the system, to implement projects, to enhance the sustainability of projects and to customise projects to suit the needs and preferences of the community. Lastly, NGOs are also perceived as being more flexible and innovative, because they are smaller and less constrained by bureaucracy and regulation, than other providers. Most of these arguments in favor of NGOs as development facilitators are analytical arguments, so it is important to ask whether they hold true in practice or whether they are merely widely-held fallacies. As Anheier (1987) observed, naı¨ve conceptions about developing country NGOs are abundant. For instance, a number of authors have voiced doubts about the presumption that the motives of NGO
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promoters in poor countries are first and foremost charitable (Edwards and Hulme, 1996, Platteau and Gaspart, 2003). Fafchamps and Owens (forthcoming) find that many local NGOs in Uganda seem to be created not with an altruistic motive in mind but for the purpose of obtaining grant funding. This interpretation is reinforced by the considerable share of briefcase NGOs that exist according to anecdotal sources and NGO surveys (Barr et al., 2005; Goodhand and Chamberlain, 2000; Howell and Pearce, 2000). Briefcase NGOs refer to opportunistic entrepreneurs who aim to secure grant funding with minimal upfront investment of their own funds, often leaving few physical traces when such grants expire. Due to their parsimonious investment strategy such NGOs are caricaturized as consisting of one individual and a briefcase. Additionally, while it is true in theory that some NGOs may be in an advantaged position to serve communities because they have better local information and can be more flexible and innovative; this is not necessarily always true in practice. When project funders retain most of the decision-making power and do not consult the NGO on project decisions, there will be little scope for such advantages to filter through (cf. NGOs as development contractors below). NGOs as Service Providers or Advocates for Change?
Most theoretical frameworks of NGOs characterize these organizations as either service providers or as advocates of change. The observed difficulty in embracing both roles within one framework highlights the underlying tension between these two NGO typologies. These tensions are apparent in the characterization of the NGO’s relationship to the status quo: advocates are depicted as being critical towards the status quo, while service providers are characterized as alleviating the ‘‘worst symptoms of unequal societies while keeping the sources of inequality intact’’ (Anheier and Salamon, 2006: 91). Parallel to this, is the portrayal of the NGO’s relationship to the government. Advocacy organizations often see themselves as government watchdogs, while service providers are traditionally viewed as partners of government. However, there is evidence that these theoretical conflicts may be overstated as many NGOs are able to combine these roles in practice. For instance, Barr, Fafhcamps, and Owens (2005) report that the bulk of their sample of Ugandan NGOs take a holistic approach to development, straddling both the service delivery and advocacy roles and describing their work broadly as ‘‘community development.’’ Edwards and Hulme (1996) noted that case studies show that there may be complementarities between the two roles on grassroots level.
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NGO as Development Contractors
There are indications that grant recipients tend to become dependent on grant funding, investing little effort in seeking funding from alternative revenue sources (Barr et al., 2005; Fafchamps and Owens, forthcoming). International grants can complicate the information feedback structure between the donor and the beneficiary. The donor contracts the NGO to deliver a specified service or good to a group of beneficiaries, but in most cases the donor will be from a developed country and may be far removed from the beneficiaries – both physically and culturally – making it difficult for the donor to assess progress and to ensure that funds are spent prudently and effectively. The traditional nonprofit model stands in stark contrast to this account: a considerable amount of overlap or at least physical and cultural proximity between donors and beneficiaries is often presumed – as would for instance be the case when opera enthusiasts make donations to an opera house in their vicinity. Additionally, there is a danger that a dependence on grant funding may distort the incentives of NGOs. When NGOs receive most of their funding from donors, it is plausible that they may prioritize donor requirements over the needs of beneficiaries. Wallace et al. (2006) warns that when a NGO is dependent on donors for most of its income, the organization becomes accountable and responsive to donors instead of beneficiaries. Case studies indicate that this happens in practice (Desai and Howes, 1996; Hashemi, 1996). Donor dependence is associated with a bureaucratization of development, which is criticized because such NGOs are allegedly better equipped at serving the needs of donors than the needs of beneficiaries. Fafchamps and Owens (forthcoming) provide some support for this view, concluding that grant recipients are a relatively select group of NGOs that are more educated, connected, and better skilled at writing grant applications, but not more effective than other organizations. Donor dependence can also reinforce the existing North–South power asymmetry to restrict the initiative and decision-making power of NGOs in projects, thus limiting the scope for bottom-up development or decentralized decision-making. Decentralized decision making is presumed to be preferable because it facilitates access to valuable local knowledge, which in the case of NGO projects would include information on local conditions, stakeholders and institutions, beneficiary needs and project experiences. Commins argues that in extreme cases NGOs can be reduced to ‘‘ladles in the global soup kitchen’’ (2000: 70) – stripped of their initiative and unable to follow their own agenda or conscience, thus becoming mere tools to donors.
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To avoid such scenarios, advocates of more equal partnerships between donors, NGOs, and beneficiaries are calling for more NGO capacity building and the empowerment of beneficiaries.
Future Directions Regulation and Accountability
With the surfacing of reports of abuses of NGO project funds, there has been a growing awareness of the human fallibility of NGOs and subsequently also calls for more accountability in the sector and more regulation of the sector. While most developed countries have relatively mature nonprofit sectors and established regulatory institutions, it is only recently that the nonprofit sectors of developing countries have grown to a reasonable size and these countries are just starting to consider and debate the regulation of the sector. Due to unique problems of the sector in developing countries, it is not deemed feasible to adapt developed country models of regulation. Despite the need for more research and learning about this emerging policy field, there have been few attempts to outline NGO efforts to become more accountable and government initiatives to regulate the sector. The compilations of Jordan and Van Tuijl’s (2006) and Edwards and Hulme (1996) are exceptions, offering a number of interesting country and NGO case studies. Jordan and Van Tuijl (2006) voice the fears of the international NGO community by warning that heavyhanded government regulation may threaten the independence of the nonprofit sector in developing countries and undermine the watchdog function of NGOs. Effectiveness and Monitoring
There has been increased pressure on NGOs to demonstrate their effectiveness and associated with this movement, also a greater emphasis on quantitative output and outcome measures. NGO resistance against these forces have been boosted by arguments that evaluating performance with a narrow set of measures of short-term outputs and outcomes are inappropriate and may have unwanted and unintended consequences for NGO projects. Despite the resistance, it is expected that NGOs will eventually have to comply with such demand – at least to some extent – and the field of monitoring and evaluation may therefore yield interesting compromises and innovations over the next decade. Supporting and Building Capacity of Local NGOs
Many researchers and practitioners have called for NGO capacity building and more support to NGOs, but there have been few successful examples of such interventions.
There is a potential for networks to play a role by enabling NGOs to share experiences, lessons, knowledge, and resources. Networks could also enhance coordination among NGOs and thus increase the voice and the influence of the sector. Networks could furthermore support NGOs by providing access to specialized and highly skilled human resources that small organizations may not be able to afford employing full-time, such as, accountants, lawyers, researchers, and grant-writers. While most developing countries have NGO umbrella organizations, few are effective at realizing these benefits and there thus appears to be scope for innovation and learning in this field. Theories of NGOs as Agents of Socioeconomic Development
Most theoretical models of the behavior of nonprofit organizations are based on assumptions that are not tenable in developing countries or fail to aptly capture the core contractual dilemmas between donors, NGOs, and beneficiaries due to simplifying assumptions regarding their motivations and the structure of their relationships with donors and beneficiaries. For instance, much of the established theoretical and empirical work on developed country NGOs are underpinned by assumptions of altruism and pro-social motivations. These frameworks are not deemed credible in a developing country context because of weak institutions, poor regulation and monitoring, and high unemployment. It is expected that more sophisticated models of NGO behavior in developing countries will emerge as more empirical data becomes available on the nonprofit sectors of developing countries and the profile of NGO research increases.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Advocacy ▶ Altruism ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Evaluation and Civil Society ▶ Freire, Paulo ▶ Government–Nonprofit sector relations ▶ Gandhi, Mohandas ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction ▶ Participation ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Salamon, Lester ▶ Transparency
NGOs and Sustainable Development
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K. (1987). Indigenous voluntary associations, nonprofits, and development in Africa. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (1998). The nonprofit sector in the developing world. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (2006). The nonprofit sector in comparative perspective. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Barr, A., Fafchamps, M., & Owens, T. (2005). The resources and governance of non-governmental organizations in Uganda. World Development, 33(4), 657–679. Charnovitz, S. (1997). Two centuries of participation: NGOs and international governance. Michigan Journal of International Law, 18(2), 183–286. Commins, S. (2000). NGOs: Ladles in the global soup kitchen? In D. Eade (Ed.), Development, NGOs, and civil society. Oxford: Oxfam GB. Desai, V., & Howes, M. (1996). Accountability and participation: A case study from Bombay. In M. Edwards & D. Hulme (Eds.), Beyond the magic bullet: NGO performance and accountability in the post-war cold war world. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Edwards, M., & Hulme, D. (Eds.) (1996). Beyond the magic bullet: NGO performance and accountability in the post-war cold war world. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Fafchamps, M., & Owens, T. (forthcoming). The determinants of funding to African NGOs. World Bank Economic Review. Goodhand, J., & Chamberlain, P. (2000). Dancing with the prince: NGOs’ survival strategies in the Afghan conflict. In D. Eade (Ed.), Development, NGOs, and civil society. Oxford: Oxfam GB. Hashemi, S. M. (1996). NGO accountability in Bangladesh: Beneficiaries, donors and the State. In M. Edwards & D. Hulme (Eds.), Beyond the magic bullet: NGO performance and accountability in the post-war cold war world. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Hayek, F. A. (1945). The use of knowledge in society. American Economic Review, XXXV, 519–530. Howell, J., & Pearce, J. (2000). Civil society: Technical instrument or social force for change? In D. Lewis & T. Wallace (Eds.), New roles and relevance: Development NGOs and the challenge of change. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. James, E. (1987). The nonprofit sector in comparative perspective. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Jordan, L., & Van Tuijl, P. (Eds.) (2006). NGO accountability: Politics, principles and innovations. London: Earthscan. Korten, D. (1990). Getting to the 21st century: Voluntary action and the global agenda. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Lewis, D. (2001). Management of non-governmental organizations. London: Routledge. Lindelow, M., Reinikka, R., & Swensson, J. (2003). Health care on the frontlines: Survey evidence on public and private providers in Uganda (African Region Human Development Working Paper). Washington, DC: The World Bank. Lipton, M., & Ravallion, M. (1995). Poverty and policy. In J. Behrman & T. N. Srinivasan (Eds.), Handbook of development economics (Vol. 3, Pt. 2, pp. 2551–2657). Amsterdam: Elsevier. ODI. (1996). The impact of NGO development projects (ODI Briefing Paper 1996 (2)). Pearce, J. (2000). Development, NGOs and civil society. In D. Eade (Ed.), Development, NGOs, and civil society. Oxford: Oxfam GB.
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Platteau, J.-P., & Gaspart, F. (2003) The risk of resource misappropriation in community-driven development. World Development, 31(10), 1687–1703. Reinikka, R., & Svensson, J. (2003). Working for God? Evaluating service delivery of religious not-for-profit health care providers in Uganda (Tech. Rep. Working Paper No. 3058). Washington, DC: World Bank. Riddell, R. C., Robinson, M., Coninck, J. D., Muir, A., & White, S. (1995). Non-governmental organizations and rural poverty alleviation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., & List, R. (2003). Global civil society: An overview. Baltimore: Center for Civil Society Studies, The Johns Hopkins University. Salamon, L. M. Sokolowski, S. W., et al. (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector, Vol. 2. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Sen, A. K. (1988). The concept of development. In H. Chenery & T. N. Srinivasan (Eds.), Handbook of development economics (Vol. 1, pp. 9–26). Smith, A. (1776). The wealth of nations. London: Nelson. Wallace, T., Bornstein, L., & Chapman, J. (2006). The aid chain: Coercion and commitment in development NGOs. Kampala: Fountain Publishers. Werker, E., & Ahmed, F. (2008). What do NGOs do? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22(2), 73–92.
NGOs and Sustainable Development RAUL PACHECO-VEGA University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Introduction The term sustainable development was coined around the mid-1980s, although the concept has been constantly evolving since its inception. More dynamic and ever-changing governance structures in the domestic and international arenas have encouraged increased participation of nonstate actors in policy design and implementation. Highly touted as ‘‘the new governance style,’’ participation by civil society at different scales has been increasingly accepted and encouraged by national governments and international umbrella institutions. Demands on citizen involvement in domestic and international environmental policy-making have grown. The number of nongovernmental organizations focused on environment and sustainability issues (ENGOs) has increased as well. Recent research suggests that civil society organizations, both on their own and as part of transnational citizen networks, are able to raise international awareness, shape global policy agendas, educate governments, citizens and industries and overall, strengthening environmental governance at the domestic and international levels.
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The very idea that citizens of all ethnicities, nationalities, and social strata can, indeed, effect changes in the way entire nations behave is quite appealing. The concept of ‘‘global citizenship’’ is beginning to take center stage in the literature (the notion of global citizenship is extensively examined in Edwards and Gaventa, 2001) and interest in sustainable development and environmental issues has grown to the point where some scholars believe we are witnessing an emerging ‘‘global environmental citizenship’’ (Jelin, 2000).
Definition and Historical Overview of the Concept of Sustainable Development While the very phrase ‘‘sustainable development’’ (SD) has been strongly criticized as having no real meaning and just being a ‘‘catch-all’’ phrase for all things that are related to the environment, it is important to trace NGO involvement in UN-sponsored SD conferences through the years. While some writers argue that the environmental movement began with Rachel Carson in 1962, one can trace two key cornerstone events after Carson’s book. First, the Club of Rome’s early works (Donella Meadows’ report on the Limits to Growth in early 1972) suggested that development couldn’t be sustainable simply because, with increased population growth, resources get depleted to the point of exhaustion. Many would interpret the Meadows et al. report as ‘‘no growth would be best,’’ but in reality, Meadows was trying to shift a reckless growth and consumptive paradigm towards a more rational use of resources. While it is true that many radical environmental activists champion this paradigm today and mobilize resources to advance this position, usually through lobbying, the concept has evolved enormously in the last 36 years. Second, the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) took place in Stockholm in 1972 (coinciding with the publication of the Club of Rome report). This was the first instance of an international gathering that really paid attention to the linkages between health, environment and society. It also emphasized the negative effects of environmental degradation (Pacheco-Vega et al., 2001). While there was a follow-up meeting in Nairobi in 1982 (Stockholm + 10), the most popular milestone is 1987, when the Bruntland report was published. The publication of the World Commission on Environment and Development’s report, Our Common Future (1987), led to a definition of sustainable development that includes environmental, social and economic elements. Admittedly, politicians are guilty of the charge of
misusing the concept of sustainable development. Everything ‘‘needs to be sustainable.’’ There are talks about ‘‘sustainable economic growth,’’ ‘‘sustainable agriculture,’’ ‘‘sustainable livelihood,’’ etc. While sustainable development has a multitude of definitions and meanings (some authors have counted up to 70 different definitions), for the purposes of this entry, the definition of sustainable development stated in the Bruntland report is used: "
Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable – to ensure that it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The concept of sustainable development does imply limits – not absolute limits but limitations imposed by the present state of technology and social organization on environmental resources and by the ability of the biosphere to absorb the effect of human activities. WCED, 1987: 8
The Bruntland report (Our Common Future) advanced the carrying capacity idea: ecosystems have a limited capacity to absorb the effect of human activity. However, it also implied that every ecosystem is able and capable of receiving a threshold level of stress, without suffering disruption, leading to the misconception that humans have an intrinsic right to impose such stress on the environment. This is perhaps one of the weaknesses of Our Common Future. Even with the above-mentioned flaws, Our Common Future is important because it stresses the concept of intergenerational equity. Future generations may depend on the limited amount of resources that current generations are expending (and wasting). Therefore, the notion of sustainable development implicitly speaks to the need to conserve and ensure a steady reserve of resources that may be available for future consumption. While it’s not clear whether NGOs had a relevant role in including language on intergenerational equity, it is one of the key elements of Our Common Future. The Rio de Janeiro summit (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, UNCED) saw over 165 chiefs of state negotiate around issues of sustainable development, and reaching consensus around Agenda 21, a document signed by all nations attending the Earth Summit. The document outlines an ‘‘agenda for the 21st century’’ (hence the name) that should lead to sustainability. Agenda 21 expresses in 27 principles general guidelines and objectives in relation to environmental and developmental problems. These principles tended to be expressed in a general manner and were rather nonbinding (as opposed to binding international environmental agreements). Nonetheless, Agenda 21
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does provide a general framework within which every country that signed the agreement would work to ensure environmental protection and economic growth with a view to sustainability. While it is hard to quantify how successful Rio, was one of the key achievements of the Earth Summit was that national governments have engaged in national implementation of domestic environmental policy based on the principles laid out in Agenda 21. Two additional key achievements included international environmental accords around forestry and climate change. Despite the fact that a follow-up meeting for UNCED took place in New York in 1997 (Rio + 5), the next environmental megaconference was in August of 2002. About 22,000 people (including nearly 100 chiefs of state) assembled in Johannesburg, South Africa, for the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). This megaconference aimed to discuss how much progress has been made since Rio 1992 and to plan further action. According to the UN reports, 10,000
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delegates, 8,000 representatives of major groups and 4,000 members of the media participated in WSSD. Despite the media attention attracted by Johannesburg 2002 and Rio de Janeiro 1992, it is hard to quantify or even qualitatively assess whether NGOs made much progress, in terms of both participation and outcomes. While distinction is made between Type I (negotiated between states) and Type II (including non-state stakeholders) outcomes, NGOs can only be said to have had an impact in the Type II (Partnership for Sustainable Development) outcomes, and even then, critics of the WSSD would argue that their impact has been pretty minor. Admittedly, the number of NGOs that were registered with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) increased exponentially. However, as shown in Fig. 1, this increase was primarily large, influential NGOS (in the dark shade) as opposed to small NGOs (in the light shade). From these data, it isn’t clear whether NGOs have really had much more of an impact in SD-related activities. However, growth in NGO accreditation to ECOSOC
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NGOs and Sustainable Development. Fig. 1 Growth in number of NGOs participating in the UN-ECOSOC (Constructed with data from Willetts, 2001). Please see Table 1 for nomenclature
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NGOs and Sustainable Development. Table 1 Changes in the names of the three categories of UN Consultative Status for NGOs Changes in the names of the three categories of UN consultative status for NGOs 1946–1950 1950–1968
1968–1996
1996–. . .
Type of NGO
Category A
Category A
Category I
General status
Global, large membership and work on many issues.
Category B
Category B
Category II
Special status
Regional and general or specialist and high status
Category C
Register
Roster
Roster
Small or highly specialist or work with UN agencies
Source: Reproduced from Willett (2001). With permission
could be considered as a proxy for interest in public participation in international environmental arenas.
The Role of NGOS in Advancing Sustainable Development The recent literature on international relations has begun to accept the idea that decision-making in the global arena is no longer just a responsibility and a prerogative of states. Traditional state-centric theories have been challenged and increasingly, researchers have gained an interest in the role of non-state actors in a new global governance system. The last 33 years of UN conferences have witnessed a shift in the nature of NGOs involved in the international arena. While initially many NGOs were international by nature, nowadays many of them are primarily national NGOs with a stake in international affairs (Alger, 2002). Non-state actors (civil society organizations or NGOs) can contribute to the sustainable development debate through one or more of the following pathways. First, NGOs can contribute to the drafting of specific resolutions, offering appropriate language that can further their own agenda (in this case, sustainable development) when participating in UNCSD steering or consultative committees (Wagner, 1999). Second, NGOs can attempt to influence nation-states and/or multilateral institutions through lobbying for a particular sustainable development-related cause (Pacheco-Vega, 2005). This particular trajectory is predicated under the assumption that NGOs can have an influence on international environmental negotiations (Betsill and Corell, 2008). Since no further large-scale, SD-related summits seem to be in the works, it is unlikely that any future impact of NGOs can be evaluated. However, the vast majority of WSSD assessments appear to point to Johannesburg 2002 as pretty much as a failure. However, it is extremely important that NGOs continue to work on sustainable development issues (Wapner, 2003).
NGO–States Relationships and NGO Participation in International Negotiations on Sustainable Development
The recent works on global governance and global civil society have offered new ways of examining the role of NGOs in the evolution of modes of governance at the international scale. Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark (2005) use the concept of ‘‘global civil society’’ as a homogeneous framework through which they examine the intricate and sometimes perplexing relationships between NGOs and governments. This examination takes place using three United Nations megaconferences as their testing laboratory: the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro, the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, and the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing. Friedman et al. examine how NGOs interact (both qualitatively and quantitatively) with states and the outcomes of such interactions. Their assessment looks at the patterns of engagement (interaction strategies) and the degree of compatibility between NGO beliefs (referenced in the sociological literature as a frame). [Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark use the framing literature (and the basic assumption that NGOs share beliefs) as an explanatory framework, much along the lines of their mentor Kathryn Sikkink. For an overview, see Keck and Sikkink (1998)] and combines them into a coherent framework that examines state-civil society relationships (Friedman et al., 2005). As indicated by Friedman et al., "
NGOs have not had standing equal to states in the UN conferences. But opportunities for issue influence and network building arose as official preparations for the conferences began. (Friedman et al., 2005: 27)
To researchers interested in NGO influence in international and domestic environmental policy, this is a key issue. It recognizes that NGO participation in
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preparatory, international, regional, and global meetings gives them propitious ground where they are able to interact (both formally and informally) with government officials influencing governmental agendas, highlighting key issues and providing input in official text. When provided with the right opportunity, time, and location, NGOs can actually have a closer interaction with states than within the confines of their national boundaries, allowing them to exert influence that they would otherwise not have been able to. Understanding how NGOs relate to (and influence) states opens an avenue for debates about changes in the long-held state-centric paradigm. Friedman, Hochstetler and Clark indicate that sovereignty is ‘‘one of the constitutive principles of modern statehood’’ (p. 163). Emerging global civil society appeared as a threat to states’ sovereignty. However, Friedman et al.’s assessment shows that some states might be open to reestablishing the boundaries of sovereignty domains and redefining what sovereignty means to them. This open attitude may allow NGOs to better interact with governments providing scientific advice, lobbying for environmental protection and influencing domestic and international environmental policy (in any issue area, including wildlife protection). While the UN organizes numerous conferences and meetings of the Parties to specific international environmental agreements, the 1992 UNCED and 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) are considered the two cornerstone conferences that further the sustainable development discourse. NGO participation in Rio de Janeiro was high, but it broke all records at WSSD. The emphasis on government-civil society partnerships was particularly noticeable in the language of WSSD resolutions, something that should be seen as a victory. However, as indicated in previous sections, some assessments of WSSD point out to more of a victory in regards to media coverage rather than meaningful NGO participation (Wapner, 2003). NGO Influence and Sustainable Development
It is difficult to assess how able NGOs have been in advancing the sustainable development discourse. One way to examine this problem is to study how influential NGOs are. By creating and implementing an analytical framework to assess NGO influence in international environmental negotiations, Betsill and Corell (2001a, 2001b, 2008) were able to assess the influence of NGOs on the UN Conventions on Desertification and Climate Change. The recent Betsill and Corell edited volume contributes to this debate by further testing and refining the NGO
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influence analytical framework they posed in 2001, by looking at NGO diplomats (actors) rather than at the NGOs themselves. In a recent study on international forests negotiations, Humphreys applies the Betsill and Corell framework to evaluate the degree to which NGOs have influenced textual outputs on international forest policy since the mid-1980s (Humphreys, 2004). Humphreys examines NGO influence in forest-related issues at the United Nations Commission for Environment and Development (UNCED), the World Commission on Forests and Sustainable Development, the Intergovernmental Panel on Forests, and the Intergovernmental Forum on Forests. He finds, among other things, that NGOs could be more influential when there is some degree of agreement on textual outputs that are favorable already to NGO agendas, and when they frame recommendations in language that is nonthreatening to powerful political and economic interests. Skodvin and Andresen used a multilevel approach to examine NGO influence around the International Whaling Commission from 1970 to 1990 (Skodvin and Andresen, 2003). They find that domestic channels of influence may be equally or even more important than international channels of influence linked to the international decision-making level. Their study attempts to include non-state influence on international policymaking that takes place via domestic channels (p. 65). This paper departs from Skodvin and Andresen’s analysis in that its focus is on transnational non-state actor influence on domestic policy-making. Finally, Gulbrandsen and Andresen build a framework that analyzes NGO influence in terms of access to international negotiations, goal-attainment, and ego and alter perceptions of NGO influence (Gulbrandsen and Andresen, 2004). Their approach resonates with that of Arts and Verschuren (1999). In Gulbrandsen and Andresen’s study of the design and implementation of rules for compliance, sinks and the flexibility mechanisms under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), they find that different NGOs use different strategies, target different actors, and seek to achieve different goals. They also found that NGOs generally speaking believed they had a larger degree of influence in the negotiations than other respondents did. However, there is one drawback: most of the work on influence has been done around specific international environmental negotiations, such as the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Cartagena Protocol on Biodiversity and the UN Convention on Desertification (Arts, 1998; Corell and Betsill, 2001).
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Very little examination of the role and influence of NGOs in the UN Commission on Sustainable Development, Rio 1992 or Johannesburg 2002 Summits has been undertaken so far. Therefore, it is hard to assess whether NGOs had much influence in environmental megaconferences, and in advancing the SD discourse. Further research in this area is warranted.
Conclusion In an era where notions of citizen participation and democracy are inextricably interwoven with the concept of sustainable development, the need to make the voices of concerned stakeholders heard is urgent. The rise of the concept ‘‘civil society’’ as a way of strengthening democracy has led to an increased interest in serious academic research on the subject. Global citizen action means ‘‘broadening of citizen action into the global sphere’’ (Edwards and Gaventa, 2001: 275) and recognizes that the number of actors involved in global governance should include many more players other than the ‘‘standard’’ stakeholders. Global environmental citizen action should thus start ‘‘from below’’ (at the local level), and then broaden its scope to encompass broader issues (at the global level). Otherwise ‘‘thinking locally, acting globally.’’ Global environmental citizen action takes place within issues whose scope transcends local boundaries and are of mutual concern. Sustainable development issues recognize no boundaries and touch upon many national societies. Finally, global environmental citizenship means moving from rhetoric to action. In effecting policy change, civil society organizations must adhere to a [proposed] set of ‘‘good practices,’’ addressing issues of legitimacy, accountability and representation (Pacheco-Vega, 2006). Many questions remain unanswered, however. How can nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) best achieve their aims in furthering the sustainable development agenda? What are the challenges facing NGOs in the sustainable development arena? And, more importantly, where is it that NGOs can best catalyze actions and influence change? No easy answers here, but there are already some steps in the path moving forward.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Advocacy ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Lobbying ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN
▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits
References/Further Readings Alger, C. (2002). The emerging roles of NGOs in the UN System: From Article 71 to a People’s Millenium Assembly. Global Governance, 8(1), 93–117. Arts, B. (1998). The political influence of global NGOS: Case studies on the climate and biodiversity conventions. Utrecht, The Netherlands: International. Betsill, M., & Corell, E. (Eds.) (2008). NGO diplomacy: The influence of Nongovernmental Organizations in international environmental negotiations. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Corell, E., & Betsill, M. M.(2001). A comparative look at NGO influence in international environmental negotiations: Desertification and climate change. Global Environmental Politics, 1(4), 86–107. Edwards, M., & Gaventa, J. (Eds.) (2001). Global citizen action. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Friedman, E. J., et al. (2005). Sovereignty, democracy and global civil society: State-society relations at UN World Conferences. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Gulbrandsen, L. H., & Andresen, S. (2004). NGO influence in the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol: Compliance, flexibility mechanisms and sinks. Global Environmental Politics, 4(4), 54–75. Humphreys, D. (2004). Redefining the issues: NGO influence on international forests negotiations. Global Environmental Politics, 4(2), 51–74. Jelin, E. (2000). Towards a global environmental citizenship. Citizenship Studies, 4(1), 47–63. Keck, M. E., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders: Advocacy networks in international politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Pacheco-Vega, R. (2005). Democracy by proxy: Environmental NGOs and policy change in Mexico. In A. Romero & S. West (Eds.), Environmental issues in Latin America and the Caribbean (pp. 231– 249). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. Pacheco-Vega, R. (2006). Accountability and transparency in international environmental policy: The experience of the North American Pollutant Release and Transfer Registries. International Studies Association Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA. Pacheco-Vega, R. et al. (2001). The challenge of sustainable development in Mexico. In P. N. Nemetz (Ed.), Bringing business on board: Sustainable development and the B-School curriculum (pp. 715–739). Vancouver, BC: JBA Press. Skodvin, T., & Andresen, S.(2003). Nonstate influence in the International Whaling Commission, 1970–1990. Global Environmental Politics, 3(4), 61–86. von Frantzius, I. (2004). World Summit on Sustainable Development Johannesburg 2002: A critical analysis and assessment of the outcomes. Environmental Politics, 13(2), 467–473. Wagner, L. M. (1999). Negotiations in the UN Commission on Sustainable Development: Coalitions, processes and outcomes. International Negotiation, 4(2), 107–131. Wapner, P. (2003). World Summit on Sustainable Development: Toward a post-Jo’Burg environmentalism. Global Environmental Politics, 3(1), 1–10. WCED. (1987). Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nippon Foundation
Nielsen, Waldemar A JAN SACHARKO
Basic Biographical Information Waldemar Nielsen was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania (USA) in 1917. He attended the University of Missouri, graduating with degrees in economics and business administration in 1939. The war in Europe prevented him from attending Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and so he remained in Missouri doing graduate work in political science. During the war he served in the Pacific before returning to work for the State Department as director of the European information program of the Marshall Plan. In this role he was responsible for disseminating information about the plan and its effects to American taxpayers and European beneficiaries. His next positions at the Ford Foundation and the African-American Institute would have him focus exclusively on the continent of Africa and countries’ struggles to escape the after effects of colonialism. In 1970 he opened his own consultancy firm that worked on corporate social responsibility. From there he would write The Big Foundations and other books that opened up the secretive world of foundations in America and made his name in philanthropy and accountability. He later served on the founding board of Independent Sector. He died in 2005 in New York.
Major Contributions Beginning with his work on the Marshall Plan, Nielsen’s life became about revealing information to the world and creating openness for governments and institutions. He directed programs for Africa while at the Ford Foundation becoming an expert on nations, culture, and the affect colonialism had and would continue to have. His tenure as president of the African-American Institute had him oversee a number of programs that included helping struggling Africans to afford secondary education, and cultural exchanges between government and nonprofit leaders in Africa and the United States. Based on his experience, he wrote three books on Africa including ‘‘The Great Powers and Africa’’ (1969) in which he argued against military intervention, encouraging aid to liberation movements. Pablo Eisenberg wrote that ‘‘it was as an analyst, critic, and writer on matters philanthropic that (Nielsen) reached the peak of his influence’’ by exposing ‘‘the soft, rotten underbelly of many of our largest foundations.’’ The Big Foundations, published in 1972, followed later
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by The Golden Donors in 1985, is a systematic look at the largest foundations of the day including the Ford, Kellogg, and Carnegie foundations. These books revealed missions, dollar figures, programs, and prominent names involved in these institutions which had never before received much scrutiny. While stating that philanthropy had a key role to play in civil society, he took these foundations to task for not functioning properly, or with accountability or innovation. He continued to write further on philanthropic issues through his consultancy firm and with both the Aspen Institute and the Council on Foreign Relations. Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute established the Waldemar A. Nielsen Chair in Philanthropy in 2000.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Independent Sector ▶ W.K. Kellogg Foundation
References/Further Readings Eisenberg, P. (2005). Philanthropy loses two of its giants: Waldemar Nielsen and Alan Pifer. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 18(4). Nielsen, W. (1972). The big foundations. New York: Columbia University Press. Nielsen, W. (1985). The golden donors: A new anatomy of the great foundations. New York: E.P. Dutton.
Nippon Foundation ANTJE GRONEBERG
Address of Organization The Nippon Zaidan Building 1-2-2 Akasaka Minato-ku Tokyo 107-8404 Japan www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/eng/
Introduction The Nippon Foundation supports philanthropic initiatives through international, maritime and domestic programs.
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Brief History The Nippon Foundation, established in 1962 as a nonprofit philanthropic organization, originally focused largely on the maritime and shipping fields. Over the years, it has expanded its activities to cover fields including education, social welfare and public health in Japan and abroad. Over time, the Nippon Foundation established more than 20 organizations as part of its local and international ‘‘family.’’
Mission According to its website, the Nippon Foundation’s mission is ‘‘the realization of a peaceful and prosperous global society, in which none need struggle to secure their basic human rights.’’ Therefore, the Foundation’s prime concern is to understand the nature of today’s problems and seek solutions.
Activities On the international front, the Nippon Foundation offers grants focusing on transnational issues, such as education, health and food security. In the education field, foundation-funded scholarships and fellowships, like the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund, are reaching all educational levels, and, in places with more basic needs, the Foundation reaches broader groups, for example, through the construction of hundreds of elementary schools. To improve the health conditions, the Nippon Foundation has supported, among others, efforts to eliminate leprosy and its concomitant stigma. To reduce hunger, the Foundation makes grants to teach farmers to produce surplus crops and, consequently, be able to raise their living standards and boost the local economy. The Nippon Foundation also supports domestic welfare programs to contribute to alleviating current social and economic problems, including aging, the rupture of the bubble economy, and rapid urbanization. The foundation seeks to revitalize Japan’s provincial areas, for example, through renovation projects or by offering more mobility for elderly and disabled people through the distribution of cars, vans, and busses. The Foundation continues to be active in maritime affairs, which respond to an increasing need for maritime safety and seek to establish a new, internationally accepted order of the seas. The building of 45 lighthouses and navigational aids are just two examples of the Foundation’s activities in this field.
Funding The Nippon Foundation receives its funding from the proceeds of Japanese motorboat racing, which is in Japan
a philanthropy-oriented industry. Through this funding system, called kyotei, the majority of the funds taken in are returned as winnings to those who lay the bets. Annual income generated through this system amounts to some 35 billion yen.
Structure and Governance The organizational chart of the foundation consists of the following departments: ‘‘General Affairs’’, ‘‘Management and Planning’’, ‘‘Public Relations’’, ‘‘Maritime Affairs’’, ‘‘Domestic Program’’, ‘‘International Program’’ and ‘‘Program Evaluation’’. The foundations chairman is Yohei Sasakawa, Takeju Ogata is the president, executive directors are Akira Maeda, Ichiro Miura, Masazumi Nagamitsu, Shuichi Ohno and Tatsuya Tanami. The foundations founder is Ryoichi Sasakawa (1899–1995).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Amongst other remarkable projects to improve the agricultural development or the promotion of public health care and aid for disabled people, the ‘‘Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund’’, which is a grant-in-aid program, furnished since its beginning in 1987 $1 million endowments to 68 universities in 44 countries all over the world.
Cross-References
▶ Sasakawa Peace Foundation
References/Further Readings Further informations are available at the website of the Nippon Foundation: http://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/eng/, further readings are open to the public at http://www.nippon-foundation.or.jp/eng/ Articles.html.
Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History DAVID LEWIS London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
Introduction Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now recognized as key third sector actors on the landscapes of development, human rights, humanitarian action, environment, and many other areas of public action, from the post-2004 tsunami reconstruction efforts in Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Sri Lanka, to the 2005 Make Poverty History campaign for aid and trade reform and developing country debt cancellation. As these two examples
Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History
illustrate, NGOs are best-known for two different, but often interrelated, types of activity – the delivery of services to people in need, and the organization of policy advocacy, and public campaigns in pursuit of social transformation. NGOs are also active in a wide range of other specialized roles such as democracy building, conflict resolution, human rights work, cultural preservation, environmental activism, policy analysis, research, and information provision. This chapter mainly confines itself to a discussion of NGOs in the international development context, but much of its argument also applies to NGOs more widely. NGOs have existed in various forms for centuries, but they rose to high prominence in international development and increased their numbers dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s. It is difficult to know precisely how many NGOs there are, because few comprehensive or reliable statistics are kept. Some estimates put the figure at a million organizations, if both formal and informal organizations are included, while the number of registered NGOs receiving international aid is probably closer to ‘‘a few hundred thousand.’’ The United Nations estimates that there were about 35,000 large established NGOs in 2000. Nor are there accurate figures available for the amount of resources that NGOs receive from aid, contracts and private donations. In 2004, it was estimated that NGOs were responsible for about $US23 billion of total aid money, or approximately one third of total ODA (Riddell, 2007: 53). Newsweek (5 September 2005) cited figures suggesting that official development assistance provided through NGOs had increased from 4.6% in 1995 to 13% in 2004, and that the total aid volume had increased from US$59 to US$78.6 billion in the same period. The world of NGOs contains a bewildering variety of labels. While the term ‘‘NGO’’ is widely used, there are also many other over-lapping terms used such as ‘‘nonprofit,’’ ‘‘voluntary,’’ and ‘‘civil society’’ organizations. In many cases, the use of different terms does not reflect descriptive or analytical rigour, but is instead a consequence of the different cultures and histories in which thinking about NGOs has emerged. For example, ‘‘nonprofit organization’’ is frequently used in the USA, where the market is dominant, and where citizen organizations are rewarded with fiscal benefits if they show that they are not commercial, profit-making entities and work for the public good. In the UK, ‘‘voluntary organization’’ or ‘‘charity’’ is commonly used, following a long tradition of volunteering and voluntary work that has been informed by Christian values and the development of charity law. But charitable status in the UK depends on an NGO being ‘‘non-political,’’ so that while Oxfam is allowed the
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formal status of a registered charity (with its associated tax benefits) because of its humanitarian focus, Amnesty International is not, because its work is seen by the Charity Commission as more directly ‘‘political.’’ Finally, the acronym ‘‘NGO’’ tends to be used in relation to international or ‘‘developing’’ country work, since its origin lies in the formation of the United Nations in 1945, when the designation ‘‘non-governmental organization’’ was awarded to certain international non-state organizations that were given consultative status in UN activities. The work undertaken by NGOs is wide-ranging but NGO roles can be usefully analyzed as having three main components: implementer, catalyst, and partner (Lewis, 2007). The implementer role is concerned with the mobilization of resources to provide goods and services to people who need them. Service delivery is carried out by NGOs across a wide range of fields such as healthcare, microfinance, agricultural extension, emergency relief, and human rights. This role has increased as NGOs have been increasingly ‘‘contracted’’ by governments and donors with governance reform and privatization policies to carry out specific tasks in return for payment; it has also become more prominent as NGOs are increasingly responding to man-made emergencies or natural disasters with humanitarian assistance. The catalyst role can be defined as an NGO’s ability to inspire, facilitate or contribute to improved thinking and action to promote social transformation. This effort may be directed towards individuals or groups in local communities, or among other actors in development such as government, business or donors. It may include grassroots organizing and group formation, gender and empowerment work, lobbying and advocacy work, and attempts to influence wider policy processes through innovation, and policy entrepreneurship. The role of partner reflects the growing trend for NGOs to work with government, donors and the private sector on joint activities, such as providing specific inputs within a broader multiagency program or project, or undertaking socially responsible business initiatives. It also includes activities that take place among NGOs and with communities such as ‘‘capacity building’’ work which seeks to develop and strengthen capabilities. The current policy rhetoric of ‘‘partnership’’ seeks to bring NGOs into mutually beneficial relationships with these other sectors.
Definition Precise definitions vary as to what constitutes an NGO, and the challenge of analyzing the phenomenon of NGOs remains surprisingly difficult. One reason for this is that NGOs are a diverse group of organizations that defy generalization, ranging from small informal groups to large
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formal agencies. NGOs play different roles and take different shapes within and across different societies. As a result, ‘‘NGO’’ as an analytical category remains complex and unclear. For example, despite the fact that NGOs are neither run by government, nor driven by the profit motive, there are nevertheless some NGOs that receive high levels of government funding, and others that seek to generate profits to plough back into their work. Boundaries are unclear, and as one might expect from a classification that emphasizes what they are not rather than what they are, NGOs therefore turn out to be quite difficult to pin down analytically. This has generated complex debates about what is and what is not an NGO, and about the most suitable approaches for analyzing their roles. In relation to structure, NGOs may be large or small, formal or informal, bureaucratic or flexible. In terms of funding, many are externally-funded, while others depend on locally mobilized resources. While there are many NGOs which receive funds from and form a part of the ‘‘development industry’’ (which consists of the world of bilateral and multilateral aid donors, the United Nations system and the Bretton Woods institutions), there are also NGOs which choose to work outside the world of aid as far as possible. One basic distinction common in the literature is that between ‘‘Northern NGO’’ (NNGO) which refers to organizations whose origins lie in the industrialized countries, while ‘‘Southern NGO’’ (SNGO) refers to organizations from the less developed areas of the world. Another key distinction is between membership forms of NGO, such as community-based organizations or people’s organizations, and intermediary forms of NGO that work from outside with communities, sometimes termed grassroots support organizations (GSOs). There are also numerous examples of bogus NGOs, such as those established as fronts by government (GONGOs – government-organized NGOs) or ‘‘briefcase’’ NGOs set up by individuals for purely personal gain. Some NGOs are well-resourced and affluent, while others lead a fragile ‘‘hand to mouth’’ existence, struggling to survive from 1 year to the next. There are NGOs with highly professionalized staff, while others rely heavily on volunteers and supporters. NGOs are driven by a range of motivations and values. There are both secular and ‘‘faithbased’’ organizations. Some NGOs may be charitable and paternalistic, while others seek to pursue radical or ‘‘empowerment’’-based approaches. Some NGOs aim to meet only people’s immediate needs, while others take a longer-term view and seek to develop alternative ideas and approaches to problems. A single NGO might combine several of these different elements at any one time. Morris-Suzuki (2000: 68) notes that ‘‘NGOs may pursue
change, but they can equally work to maintain existing social and political systems.’’ For example, for radicals who seek to explore alternative visions of development and change, NGOs may be seen as progressive vehicles for change. For conservative thinkers seeking private alternatives to the state, NGOs may be regarded as part of market-based solutions to policy problems. A key point to note here is that NGOs can be seen as a kind of tabula rasa, onto which a range of current ideas, expectations, and anxieties about social transformation are projected (Lewis, 2005). It is partly because of this high degree of flexibility of the NGO as an institutional form, and the wide spectrum of different values that NGOs may contain, that the rise to prominence of NGOs since the late 1980s has taken place against the back-drop of the ascendancy of neoliberal policy agendas. Salamon and Anheier (1992) argued that existing third sector organizational definitions had only limited usefulness because they were not holistic. They were either legal (focusing on the type of formal registration and status of organizations in different country contexts), economic (in terms of the source of the organization’s resources) or functional (based on the type of activities it undertakes). Finding such approaches incomplete and partial, they instead constructed a ‘‘structural/ operational’’ definition that was derived from a fuller analysis of an organization’s observable features. This definition proposed that a third sector organization had the following five key characteristics: it was formal, that is, the organization is institutionalized in that it has regular meetings, office bearers and some organizational permanence; it was private in that it is institutionally separate from government, though it may receive some support from government; it was nonprofit distributing, and if a financial surplus is generated it does not accrue to owners or directors (often termed the ‘‘nondistribution constraint’’); it was self-governing and therefore able to control and manage its own affairs; and finally it was voluntary, and even if it does not use volunteer staff as such, there is at least some degree of voluntary participation in the conduct or management of the organization, such as in the form of a voluntary board of directors. This approach helps to clarify what constitutes an NGO, normally understood as part of the subset of third sector organizations that are primarily engaged in development or humanitarian action at local, national, and international levels. A usefully concise definition is that used by Vakil (1997: 2060), who – drawing on elements of the structural-operational definition set out above – states that NGOs are ‘‘self-governing, private, not-for-profit organizations that are geared to improving the quality of
Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History
life for disadvantaged people.’’ One can therefore contrast NGOs with other types of ‘‘third sector’’ groups such as trade unions, organizations concerned with arts or sport, and professional associations.
Historical Background From the late 1980s, NGOs assumed a far greater role in development than previously. NGOs were first discovered and then celebrated by the international donor community as bringing fresh solutions to longstanding development problems characterized by inefficient government to government aid and ineffective development projects. Within the subsequent effort to liberalize economies and ‘‘roll back’’ the state as part of structural adjustment policies, NGOs came also to be seen as a cost-effective alternative to public sector service delivery. In the post-Cold War era the international donor community began to advocate a new policy agenda of ‘‘good governance’’ which saw development outcomes as emerging from a balanced relationship between government, market, and third sector. Within this paradigm, NGOs also came to be seen as part of an emerging ‘‘civil society’’ (Howell & Pearce, 2001). The new attention given to NGOs at this time brought large quantities of aid resources, efforts at building the capacity of NGOs to scale up their work, and led ultimately to important changes in mainstream development thinking and practice, including new ideas about participation, empowerment, gender, and a range of peoplecentered approaches to poverty reduction work. For example, Cernea (1988: 8) argued that NGOs embodied ‘‘a philosophy that recognizes the centrality of people in development policies,’’ and that this along with some other factors gave them ‘‘comparative advantages’’ over government. But too much was expected of NGOs, which came to be seen in some quarters as a ‘‘quick fix’’ for development problems. This had led to a backlash against NGOs by the end of the 1990s, when the evidence began to suggest that NGOs had only partially lived up to these unrealistically high expectations. A global shift also took place among development donors towards new ways of working with developing country governments, using mechanisms such as ‘‘budget support’’ and ‘‘sector-wide approaches’’ (Lewis, 2007). Yet NGOs have a far longer history than this recent resurgence and retreat suggests. Many of the world’s bestknown NGOs predate the emergence of the development industry. Save the Children Fund (SCF) was founded by Eglantyne Jebb in 1919 after the trauma of the First World War. Oxfam, which was originally known as the Oxford Committee against the Famine, was established in 1942 in order to provide famine relief to victims of the Greek Civil
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War. CARE began its life sending US food packages to Europe in 1946 after the Second World War. In fact, NGOs had been active at the international level since the eighteenth century in Western countries, when national level issue-based organizations focused on the abolition of the slave trade and movements for peace. By the start of the twentieth century, there were NGOs associations promoting their identities and agendas at national and international levels. For example, at the World Congress of International Associations in 1910, there were 132 international associations represented, dealing with issues as varied as transportation, intellectual property rights, narcotics control, public health issues, agriculture and the protection of nature, and NGOs became prominent during the League of Nations after the First World War, active on issues such as labor rights. But from 1935 onwards, the League became less active as growing political tensions in Europe led towards war and NGO participation in international affairs began to fade (Charnovitz, 1997). In 1945, Article 71 of the UN Charter formalized NGO involvement in UN processes and activities, and some NGOs even contributed to the drafting of the Charter itself. UNESCO and WHO both explicitly provided for NGO involvement in their charters. But NGOs again began to lose influence, hampered by Cold War tensions and by the institutional weakness of the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It was not until the 1970s when NGO roles again intensified and they played key roles within a succession of UN conferences from the Stockholm Environment Conference in 1972 to the Rio Environment and Development (UNCED) in 1992, where NGOs were active in both the preparation and the actual conference itself, which approved a series of policy statements relating to the role of NGOs within the UN system in policy and program design, implementation and evaluation.
Key Issues A first wave of academic literature on NGOs emerged in the 1990s (such as Clark, 1990, Korten, 1990, Fowler, 1997) that was normative and applied rather than primarily analytical in its focus. While such work presented a wide range of case studies of NGOs in action and began to raise important questions about NGO performance and accountability, it was not until the following decade that a second wave of more detailed, theoretically grounded research on NGOs began to become more common within the field of interdisciplinary field of development studies (e.g., Hilhorst, 2003; Igoe & Kelsall, 2005). As their name implies, NGOs also need to be viewed in the context of the government against which they seek to
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distinguish themselves. As ‘‘non-governmental’’ organizations, NGOs are conditioned by, and gain much of their legitimacy from, their relationships with government. Clark (1991) suggested that NGOs ‘‘can oppose, complement or reform the state but they cannot ignore it.’’ NGOs will always remain dependent for their ‘‘room for maneuver’’ on the type of government which they find themselves dealing with at international, national or local levels. Government attitudes to NGOs vary considerably from place to place, and tend to change with successive regimes. They range from active hostility, in which governments may seek to intervene in the affairs of NGOs, or even to dissolve them (with or without good reason) to periods of active courtship, ‘‘partnership,’’ (and sometimes ‘‘co-optation’’) as governments and donors may alternatively seek to incorporate NGOs into policy and intervention processes. NGOs have received fierce criticism in some quarters. One argument has been about the role NGOs have played in shifting attention away from state institutions towards more privatized – and potentially less accountable – forms of public sector reform (Tvedt, 1998). For these critics, NGOs helped facilitate neoliberal policy change either by participating in de facto privatization through the contracting-out of public services, or by taking responsibility for clearing up the mess left by neoliberal policies which disproportionately disadvantaged poor people. Another area of criticism has in relation to the shortcomings of NGO accountability. For example, Wood (1997) raised concerns about the creation of a ‘‘franchise state’’ in Bangladesh in which key public services were increasingly delegated to foreign-funded NGOs with weak accountability to local citizens. NGOs are also criticized for a tendency to become self-interested actors which impose their own agendas on the people in whose name they act. For example, some argue that NGOs sap the potential of radical groups, by drawing such activity into the safe professionalized and depoliticized world of development practice. For Kaldor (2003), some NGOs represent the end points of ‘‘domesticated’’ social movements that have lost their political edge. In the field of humanitarian action and response, there have also been strong criticisms of NGOs that have failed to live up to expectations in providing assistance in emergency situations, with their critics pointing to a institutional self-interest by individual NGOs, a lack of coordination leading to duplication of effort, limited understanding of local circumstances among international NGOs and a naive approach to the underlying causes of conflict and instability. Critiques of NGOs are not confined to the ‘‘developing’’ world, nor necessarily to those on the political left.
Many US neo-conservatives argued during the 2000s that NGOs were potentially harmful to US foreign policy and business interests. For example, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think-tank close to the Bush administration, made headlines in June 2003 set up an NGO ‘‘watchdog’’ web site which set out to highlight ‘‘issues of transparency and accountability in the operations of nongovernmental organizations,’’ seen as organizations that serve to restrict US room for maneuver in foreign policy. Such debates have continued to take place between NGO ‘‘supporters’’ and ‘‘critics’’ partly because of the diversity of cases and contexts, and partly because there is surprisingly little data available relating to the performance and effectiveness of NGOs.
International Perspectives There is now almost no country of the world where NGOs do not exist or operate, yet their form and values are often strongly rooted in specific contexts. As Carroll (1992: 38) has pointed out, ‘‘all NGOs operate within a contextual matrix derived from specific locational and historic circumstances that change over time.’’ The ebb and flow of international NGO activities in the contexts of Western Europe and North America is only part of the story. The diverse origins and influences on the third sector in different parts of the world also need to be considered. In Latin America, the tradition of peasant movements seeking improved rights to land, and the efforts of political radicals working towards more open democratic societies both fed into the emergence of local NGOs. NGOs were also influenced by the rise of ‘‘liberation theology’’ that signaled a renewed commitment to the poor among some sections of the Catholic Church. In Brazil, Paulo Freire’s radical ideas about ‘‘education for critical consciousness’’ and organized community action was influential and inspired many other NGOs around the third world. Alongside these radical influences there were also many highly professionalized careerist organizations in the Latin American NGO community with close relationships with donors and governments (Pearce, 1997). In Asia, a different set of distinctive factors has influenced the growth of NGOs, such as the influence of Christian missionaries, the growth of reformist middle classes and in India the influential ideas of Mahatma Gandhi, who placed a concept of voluntary action at the center of his vision of change, inspiring organizations such as the Association of Sarva Seva Farms (ASSEFA) seeking to build village level self-reliance. Other areas of NGO activity associated with South Asia, such as credit and savings, have been derived from local self-help traditions, such as rotating credit groups in which households pool resources into a
Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History
central fund and then take turns in borrowing and repaying. The rise of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh has been a home-grown solution to problems of poor people’s lack of access to credit, helping to spawn a global microfinance movement through its distinctive group-based approach to small-scale lending. A wealth of local associational third sector activity also underpins many African societies, such as the hometown associations common in countries such as Nigeria. These organizations mediate resources and relationships between local communities and global labor markets and educational opportunities. The well-documented ‘‘harambee’’ self-help movement in Kenya was a system based on kinship and neighborhood ties, and was incorporated by President Kenyatta as part of a modernization campaign to build a new infrastructure after Independence. In the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, there were dramatic increases in the numbers of NGOs as Western donors began what they termed democracy promotion and civil society development. For example, while Armenia had only 44 registered NGOs in 1994, by 2005 the number had increased to 4,500 organizations. In this context, what constituted an NGO quickly became bound up with these external donor agendas, and the opportunities these presented to local activists and entrepreneurs. This led to a local classification of organizations into three categories: ‘‘genuine’’ NGOs, ‘‘grant-eaters’’ (NGOs set up as a form of corruption that allow unscrupulous individuals to access grants), and ‘‘pocket NGOs,’’ front organizations that belong to the government (Ishkanian, 2006). While NGOs have ended up taking different forms across these many and varied contexts, there are basic common features that remain at the core of people’s efforts to organize in the third sector. On the one hand is the need to increase income, secure rights or demand services, and on the other, to avail of new opportunities that appear in the form of links with outside organizations and resources, exposure to new ideas, and political change which opens up new organizing spaces.
Future Directions The dominant view of NGOs as heroic organizations seeking to ‘‘do good’’ in difficult circumstances has rightly become tempered in the new millennium as their novelty has worn off. The idea of NGOs as a straightforward ‘‘magic bullet’’ that would solve longstanding development problems has also now passed (Hulme & Edwards, 1997). For Bebbington et al. (2008), the strength of development NGOs remains their potential role in constructing and demonstrating ‘‘alternatives’’ to the status quo, which remains a pressing need:
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In being ‘‘not governmental’’ they constitute vehicles for people to participate in development and social change in ways that would not be possible through government programmes. In being ‘‘not governmental’’ they constitute a ‘‘space’’ in which it is possible to think about development and social change in ways that would not be likely through government programmes.
The relationship of NGOs to social transformation therefore takes many forms. For some, NGOs are useful actors because they can provide cost-effective services in flexible ways, while for others they are campaigners fighting for change or generating new ideas and approaches to development problems. The fact that NGOs have now become the focus of criticism from many different political perspectives is both a reflection of the wide diversity of NGO types and roles that exist, and of their increasing power and importance in the twenty-first century. The large volume of resources that they receive combined with the fact that NGOs receive a higher level of public exposure and scrutiny than ever before, speaks to their continuing importance. Perhaps there is now a more realistic view among policy makers about what NGOs can and cannot achieve.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ American Enterprise Institute ▶ CARE ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Freire, Paulo ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ GONGOs ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Make Poverty History ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Lobbying ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Partnerships ▶ Save the Children
References/Further Readings Bebbington, A., Hickey, S., & Mitlin, D. (2008). Introduction: Can NGOs make a difference?: The challenge of development alternatives. In A. Bebbington, S. Hickey, & D. Mitlin (Eds.), Chap. 1 in Can NGOs make a difference?: The challenge of development alternatives (pp. 3–37). London: Zed Books. Cernea, M. M. (1988). Non-governmental organizations and local development, world bank discussion papers. Washington, DC: World Bank.
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Carroll, T. F. (1992). Intermediary NGOs: The supporting link in grassroots development. Hartford, CT: Kumarian. Charnovitz, S. (1997). Two centuries of participation: NGOs and international governance. Michigan Journal of International Law, 18(2), 183–286. Clark, J. (1991). Democratising development: The role of voluntary organizations. London: Earthscan. Fowler, A. (1997). Striking a balance: A guide to enhancing the effectiveness of NGOs in international development. London: Earthscan. Hilhorst, D. (2003). The real world of NGOs: Discourses, diversity and development. London: Zed Books. Howell, J., & Pearce, J. (2001). Civil society and development: A critical exploration. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Hulme, D., & Edwards, M. (Eds.) (1997). Too close for comfort? NGOs, states and donors, London: Macmillan. Igoe, J., & Kelsall, T. (Eds.) (2005). Between a rock and a hard place: African NGOs, donors and the state. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press. Ishkanian, A. (2006). From inclusion to exclusion: Armenian NGOs’ participation in the PRSP. Journal of International Development, 18(5), 729–740. Kaldor, M. (2003). Global civil society: An answer to war. Cambridge: Polity. Korten, D. (1990). Getting to the 21st century: Voluntary action and the global agenda. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian. Lewis, D. (2005). Actors, ideas and networks: trajectories of the nongovernmental in development studies. In U. Kothari (Ed.), A radical history of development studies. London: Zed Books. Lewis, D. (2007). The management of non-governmental development organizations (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Morris-Suzuki, T. (2000). For and against NGOs. New Left Review, March/April, 63–84. Pearce, J. (1997). Between co-option and irrelevance? Latin American NGOs in the 1990s. In D. Hulme & M. Edwards (Eds.), Too close for comfort? NGOs, states and donors. London: Macmillan. Riddell, R. (2007). Does foreign aid really work? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Salamon, L., & Anheier, H. (1992). In search of the non-profit sector: In search of definitions. Voluntas, 13(2), 125–52. Tvedt, T. (1998). Angels of mercy or development diplomats? NGOs and foreign aid. Oxford: James Currey. Vakil, A. (1997). ‘Confronting the classification problem: toward a taxonomy of NGOs’, World Development, 25, 12: 2057–71. Wood, G. D. (1997). States without citizens: The problem of the franchise state, In D. Hulme & M. Edwards (Eds.), Chap. 5 Too close for comfort? NGOs, states and donors. London: Macmillan.
Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) BARBARA A. METELSKY
Introduction The Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) is a nonprofit membership association comprised of academic centers, located at accredited colleges and universities, which focus on the study of nonprofit organizations, voluntarism and/or philanthropy. Membership is open to nonprofit academic centers located around the world. Current NACC member centers are located in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Australia.
Brief History In the late 1980s, a number of public and private universities across the United States developed nonprofit academic centers which were created to support the academic, research and professional development needs of the rapidly growing nonprofit sector. Recognizing the benefits that emanate from information sharing and collaborative efforts, the directors of these fledgling centers conducted informal gatherings over several years which led to the formal establishment of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council in 1991. NACC operated virtually under the direction of its governing board until 2003 when a part-time executive director was hired and an office was opened on the campus of Case Western Reserve University. NACC membership has grown significantly from 24 members in 1996, to 35 in 2001, to its current 45 member centers.
Mission The mission of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) is to support academic centers devoted to the study of the nonprofit/nongovernmental sector, philanthropy and voluntary action in order to advance education, research, and practice that increases the nonprofit sector’s ability to enhance civic engagement, democracy and human welfare.
Activities NACC provides member services that include: forums (for peer information exchange and sector and public visibility) and participation in field building initiatives. Annually, NACC awards the David Stevenson and William Diaz Faculty Fellowships to faculty members of color who teach and conduct research in the field. An emerging NACC activity is the convening of the next international conference on nonprofit management and philanthropic studies.
Address of Organization
Structure and Governance
10900 Euclid Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44106-7167 USA www.nacouncil.org
NACC is a 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization governed by a board of directors, which is comprised of six officers who are elected by its members. NACC has three membership categories: full, associate, and partnership.
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Funding Philanthropic funds to establish NACC and advance its mission have come from the Ford Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, Inc., the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Donated funds and in-kind support are provided by Case Western Reserve University and the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations, where NACC is housed. Membership dues support the organization’s operations.
Accomplishments Among its many achievements, NACC developed curricular guidelines for both graduate and undergraduate nonprofit academic programs. Standards of excellence for nonprofit academic centers have also been developed. These efforts, along with the shared learning and legitimacy conferred by NACC membership, help strengthen nonprofit academic programs and centers. In turn, these programs and centers build the intellectual and human capital of civil society.
Cross-References
▶ ARNOVA ▶ David and Lucile Packard Foundation ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Independent Sector ▶ Lilly Endowment ▶ W.K. Kellogg Foundation
References/Further Readings Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. (2006). In pursuit of excellence: Indicators of quality in nonprofit academic centers. Cleveland, OH: Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. (2007). Curricular guidelines: For graduate study in nonprofit leadership, the nonprofit sector and philanthropy (2nd ed.). Cleveland, OH: Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. Nonprofit Academic Centers Council. (2007). Curricular guidelines: For undergraduate study in nonprofit leadership, the nonprofit sector and philanthropy. Cleveland, OH: Nonprofit Academic Centers Council.
Nonprofit Management DAVID O. RENZ University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, MO, USA
Introduction Nonprofit management is the label generally applied to the process of organizing and directing the work of a
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nonprofit organization. In larger nonprofit organizations, this work usually is accomplished by executives and managers who are paid employees of the organization; in the smallest of nonprofit organizations this work is accomplished by governing board members and other volunteers who play these roles. Effective management, sometimes described as the art of getting things done through people, is integral to the sustainability and long-term effectiveness of a nonprofit organization operating in today’s complex and competitive world because it is the process by which the work of a valued organization gets done. Peter Drucker, the scholar often credited with being the father of modern management, explains that "
Management exists for the sake of the institution’s results. It has to start with the intended results and has to organize the resources of the institution to attain those results. It is the organ to make the institution(. . .)capable of producing results outside of it. (Drucker, 2008:81)
To succeed, nonprofit organizations (similar to all organizations) must make certain that there is a strong ongoing linkage between the work that they do and the needs and interests of the community that they serve. They must ensure that they provide the services and achieve the results that are valued by their clients, key stakeholders, and their community at large, and that they do so in ways that are consistent with the organization’s core values and principles. And then, as the nonprofit organization engages in its work, the management process involves gathering information about and evaluating how well or poorly the organization is doing, developing options and making choices about how it can do its work more effectively, and ultimately turning its preferred choices into action.
Definition Nonprofit management comprises the processes by which the nonprofit organization plans, organizes, and supervises its work activities to accomplish the results for which it exists. Fundamentally, the people who do the work of a nonprofit organization’s management (i.e., nonprofit managers) are responsible for enabling and ensuring the accomplishment of the results for which the organization exists. At its core, the work of nonprofit management is grounded in the expectation that an organization can cause desired results to occur by selecting appropriate courses of action and implementing them. This work begins with making informed organizational choices – choices about why the organization exists, the results it needs to accomplish, the best ways to organize and achieve those results, the resources that will be needed to
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engage in these activities and how best to secure them, and the most useful ways by which to evaluate whether the organization’s activities are indeed making the difference they are expected to make. The broadest and most strategic level of management (and therefore often labeled ‘‘strategic management’’) involves strategy – the process of identifying and selecting among competing courses of action (i.e., strategies) that could be undertaken by the organization, using the organization’s chosen goals and outcomes as the basis for selection among these options, and then ensuring the effective implementation of these strategies to achieve the intended results and outcomes. This work is so pivotal to the success of the organization that it usually involves both the organization’s governing board and the highest level of managers (i.e., ‘‘executives’’). The process involves gathering information and using it to inform the decision process, with the expectation that effective strategy decisions will result in organizational success. Unlike the for-profit business world, where these choices are focused largely on options for maximizing economic productivity and results, nonprofit strategic management focuses largely on maximizing socially valued results that advance the accomplishment of the organization’s mission and goals – and on making and implementing choices about how best to achieve these results (including but not limited to the problem of paying for this work). Management work is linked to and grows from the nonprofit organization’s processes of governance and strategic leadership; it ensures that these choices are transformed into organizational action and, ultimately, organizational results. The Tasks of Nonprofit Management
Management (whether in nonprofit or for-profit organizations) is the process of planning, organizing, and leading the implementation of the work of the organization to accomplish its intended results. Thus, nonprofit management includes: ● Clarifying and communicating the organization’s mission (i.e., purpose), vision, and intended results ● Determining the goals that will guide the work of the organization and provide a basis for assessing progress toward accomplishment of the mission ● Developing the strategies by which to accomplish the goals ● Securing and allocating the resources needed to accomplish the goals ● Organizing the work and leading workers (paid and volunteer) to accomplish the goals
● Assessing the degree to which the organization has accomplished its intended results ● Revising or refining the organization’s plans and strategies to more effectively accomplish the organization’s results in the organization’s next cycle of operations (including elimination of ineffective and unproductive programs and activities) Much of this explanation is developed from Drucker’s description of management, as presented in his classic management text (2008:158–159). Levels of Organizational Work
There are three basic levels of work in any organization: governance, management, and operations. While these overlap and blur in practice for essentially all organizations, each of these three is of discrete importance to the success and impact of a nonprofit organization. Governance comprises the strategic leadership work of the organization: taking information about the needs and values of the community and clients and using it to determine the purpose, values, and vision of the organization, setting out the strategic direction and goals of the organization, and then overseeing the implementation of the work. Governance always is the responsibility of the governing board, yet it is very common for top managers (i.e., executives) to work closely with the governing board on matters of governance. Unfortunately, it is not especially unusual to find organizations with governing boards that do relatively little to address their responsibility for governance. In such cases, it is common to find that the agency’s executives assume almost total responsibility for governance in addition to their management work. (Indeed, in some organizations, neither the board members nor the top managers understand the difference, and the result can be confusion and conflict.) Management work builds on and flows from the work of governance by taking the broad design developed in the governance process and designing and implementing the ways that it will be turned into actual action. The actual implementation of the work – the delivery of services or ‘‘operations’’ of the organization – constitutes yet another level of work. Operations work flows from and is planned, organized, led, supervised, and evaluated by those doing management. If the organization is large enough, the supervision of front-line staff and volunteer workers is handled by managers who usually are designated ‘‘supervisors.’’ It is essential to recognize that operations is separate from management – management is about making sure work gets done, while operations is comprised of actually doing the work. All three levels – governance,
Nonprofit Management
management, and operations – are essential to organizational success, and each adds value in a different way to the success of the organization. In the simplest and smallest of nonprofit organizations, the work of management usually blurs substantially with the provision of services to the organization’s clients or beneficiaries (i.e., the actual service delivery work of the organization). This is because the one or two people implementing operations work (whether paid staff or volunteers) rarely take the time to differentiate their work between operations and the work of management. Indeed, in the earliest days of a nonprofit’s life, it is common to find that a small group of people will come together and do all three levels of work. As an organization becomes larger (in terms of work activity, budget, or personnel), the amount of management work becomes extensive enough that it becomes necessary to formally designate one or more people to do this work. Thus, as they grow larger, nonprofits find it necessary to separate roles and designate specific people whose jobs are largely or entirely focused on the work of management – of managing the organization. It is these people – these ‘‘managers’’ – who become accountable for the performance and impact of the organization. ‘‘Executives’’ are those managers who are responsible for bringing the most strategic focus to their work. The ‘‘executive director’’ (sometimes known by other titles such as ‘‘chief executive officer’’ or ‘‘chief staff officer’’) is the highest ranking manager of the organization, and this person is accountable to the organization’s governing board for ensuring that the goals of the organization are accomplished as planned. This accountability includes being responsible for the effective performance of everyone working for the organization (paid and volunteer). The Functions of Nonprofit Management
Nonprofit management comprises the work of planning and organizing, staffing, and resourcing, leading and motivating, and coordinating, controlling, and evaluating. These functions overlap, yet each has a discrete focus, each involves a specific set of practices and activities, and each makes a unique contribution to the success and effectiveness of the overall organization. Planning and Organizing
Management generally begins with the process of planning and organizing the work of the organization to implement the strategic direction and accomplish the intended results. To quote Drucker, ‘‘management’s first job is to think through, set, and exemplify the objectives, values, and goals’’ of the organization (2008:24). This is
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planning, and includes determining how many work groups or functions should exist and how to pay for their costs, deciding what each will do and when, allocating the resources (e.g., people, money, equipment) that will be needed to do the work, and setting the standards by which to judge success in accomplishing their individual work. These standards are intermediate goals that, when completed as a set, lead to accomplishment of the overall goals. There are levels of planning, just as there are levels of organizational work. Planning at the organizational-wide level often is referred to as ‘‘strategic planning.’’ Planning of a smaller scale or more specialized nature usually is referred to by different labels. For example, planning for specific operations may be labeled ‘‘business planning’’ or ‘‘operations planning’’; planning for financial aspects of the organization will be labeled ‘‘financial planning.’’ There are many different labels that are used for these subordinate levels of planning, and the labels used in one organization will not necessarily be the same as those of another. Organizing involves determining the mix and flow of work activities that belong together, and how they are sequenced and linked to accomplish results in as efficient a manner as possible. Organizing grows directly from planning. It involves more specific decisions such as which positions will do specific work, how they are to link to other positions, how sets of positions are to be connected to accomplish some part of the total work of the organization, and how that work is to be supervised. Staffing and Resourcing
As the plans are developed, management must secure the resources that will be needed to put the plans into action. This involves acquiring the resources that were identified in the planning process and then allocating them to those doing the work. In a typical nonprofit, the most significant single type of resource that will be needed is people – people who have the capacity to actually do the jobs that have been planned. In some organizations, this is simply the matter of securing enough people to do the work. In other organizations, the people will need to have specialized knowledge, skills, and abilities (e.g., physicians and nurses with medical knowledge, social workers with social work knowledge). One of the ways that nonprofit management is unique is that the people who do the work of the organization are not necessarily paid employees. Indeed, some of the most important work of the nonprofit world is implemented by volunteers – people who do work without an expectation that they will receive compensation for their work.
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Of course, as important as they are, human time and talent are not the only resources that a nonprofit organization requires. Money, equipment, facilities, and supplies are needed, as well, and management includes the process of acquiring, allocating, and deploying all types of resources. Leading and Motivating
Effective management requires that the people associated with a nonprofit organization be mobilized to do the work that will enable the organization to accomplish its mission, vision, and goals. Integral to this process is effective leadership. The best plans in the world will not make a difference unless the people of the organization act to bring them to life, and the process by which this happens involves leadership and motivation. In practice, leadership and management are terms that often are equated or confused; many people use the words interchangeably. Nonetheless, while they overlap in practice, leadership and management are different. This discussion focuses on leadership that enables management success. Leadership is about people. Fundamentally, leadership entails setting direction (this is the mission and vision work of nonprofit governance as discussed earlier), aligning people with the organization’s aspirations, and motivating and inspiring people to do their work on behalf of the organization. Many leadership experts (e.g., Kotter, 2001; Bennis, 2003) teach that effective leadership involves communication that develops people’s understanding of the vision and direction for the organization. It focuses on helping people appreciate and become committed to helping accomplish them. Thus, nonprofit management includes the work of motivating people – encouraging them to invest their efforts toward accomplishment of the organization’s goals by appealing to their ‘‘needs, values, and emotions’’ (Kotter, 2001). Effective management includes creating the conditions that encourage and motivate the people of the organization, employees, and volunteers alike, to do their work and do it well. This means that managers must understand the needs and interests of those doing the work and help them see the connections between organizational success and these needs and interests. Different things motivate different people, and an effective management system will reward each individual’s performance with outcomes that they value. These rewards may be tangible, such as salary increases or other financial benefits, but people working for nonprofit organizations often will be motivated by other types of rewards as well – rewards such as increased job responsibilities, new opportunities for professional growth or accomplishment, and even explicit
recognition of the impact that their efforts make in the lives of clients. Motivation and leadership are not limited to the people within the organization. In fact, it is important that nonprofit managers provide leadership that inspires and motivates people outside the organization (e.g., donors, policy makers) to support and assist the organization. This support takes many forms, including contributions of money, time, and even political or social support. Coordinating, Controlling, and Evaluating
As the organization proceeds to implement its plans, the nonprofit management process must include actions to coordinate and control the work and performance of the people of the organization. Coordination grows directly out of the planning and organizing functions, when management is concerned with determining which positions will implement which specific work. The coordination aspect of management involves making certain that essential links are developed and maintained among various positions whose work success is affected by the work of others. Very few elements of nonprofit organization work stand entirely alone; the degree of task interdependence often is quite high. Thus, effective management includes ensuring that the interdependent actors understand the need to connect their work in ways that accomplish results, including providing the support and assistance that are necessary to enable these linkages. Such coordination is needed at multiple levels of the organization. Some must happen at the level of direct service delivery, but it is equally important that coordination between and among different work units of the organization (e.g., teams, departments, divisions) be enabled and facilitated. Another facet of coordination and control is the work to establish policies and procedures. Policies are general guides to the decision making of people in the organization, and effective policies provide guidance consistent with the mission, vision, values, and goals of the organization. Policies narrow the range of potential choices that could be made in a given decision situation to ensure consistency of practice across the entire organization and to increase the likelihood that an appropriate course of action (i.e., consistent with mission, vision, values, and goals) will be chosen. Procedures are more specific and directive than are policies; procedures typically prescribe the actions that are to be taken in a given situation. Management also is responsible for implementing the control function of the organization. This entails developing and operating an ongoing systematic process for monitoring and evaluating the performance and progress of the individuals and work units that are doing the work of the
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organization. The monitoring and evaluation process checks organizational performance against the goals and objectives that were established during the planning phases of management work and provides feedback on the level of success (and failure) to those implementing the work. It also includes monitoring and evaluation to determine whether policies and procedures are being implemented as specified. When performance is inadequate, the management process includes identification and diagnosis of the causes of problems (including failures to implement policies and procedures as adopted) and the development of corrective plans and actions by which workers will resolve or minimize the problems and improve future performance. Examples of such changes include the redesign of individual jobs or the workflow of a unit of the organization, changes in staffing, providing more or different resources to enhance workers’ potential for success, or even changing the goals and objectives themselves to reflect current circumstances. The purpose, of course, is to improve the potential that the organization and its people will achieve the goals that have been established and, in the long term, to accomplish the organization’s mission, vision, and goals.
Key Issues How Does Nonprofit Management Differ from For-Profit Management?
Some question whether there is any substantive difference between ‘‘nonprofit management’’ and management in other types of organizations. After all, every one of the nonprofit management functions that has been explained in this chapter is important to the effective management of every organization. And the tasks of management described in the definition are essential to the management of profitmaking organizations too. So is there a difference? At core, whether in nonprofit or for-profit organizations, the central work of management is the same. However, there are distinctive dimensions to nonprofit management that are important to acknowledge because they do have an impact on the effectiveness of those who do this work. The Unique Legal Context in Which Nonprofit Organizations Work
To state the obvious, the nonprofit sector in the United States and most other nations of the world is legally distinct from the other sectors. It is neither for-profit business nor government, even as it exemplifies many characteristics of each, and this difference in legal context is significant to the practice of management (most notably, it limits the range of strategic options available to the management
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team). In most nations, organizations that are qualified as ‘‘nonprofit’’ organizations receive this distinction because they have agreed to limit the nature and scope of their activities and, typically, to constrain their activities to those that address public or charitable purposes. They have secured special privileges, such as tax-exempt status (e.g., charitable nonprofits in the United States are exempt from many federal and other governmental taxes), yet the price of these privileges is that these nonprofit organizations must constrain their use of certain types of activities. Such distinctiveness applies to much of the nonprofit sector across the globe, yet it is essential to recognize that there is great variation in the laws of different nations with regard to permissible and impermissible nonprofit activity. Thus, it is essential that a nonprofit manager manage with respect to the legal context of each nation in which their organization operates. The Unique Ownership Structure of Nonprofit Organizations
One of the legal differences that becomes significant to management is that of organizational ownership. In the United States and many other nations, it is generally not possible to own (i.e., to have an equity stake such as stock) a nonprofit charitable organization. In practical terms, the typical United States charity is ‘‘owned’’ by the community or segment of the community that it exists to serve. Thus, its governing board and management must act as stewards of a special trust on behalf of the community, yet there is no singular and clear source of accountability or control over the affairs of the organization. Such diffusion of control and accountability creates both unique opportunities and complications for nonprofit management. The Unique Political Context in Which Nonprofit Organizations Operate
The aforementioned legal and ownership differences combine with the unique political context of the nonprofit sector to further complicate the work of nonprofit management. One result of the nonprofit’s diffuse and unclear accountability is that the typical organization has multiple significant stakeholders, and many think they are ‘‘in charge.’’ These stakeholders bring diverse and conflicting performance expectations to bear on the organization and, therefore, on its management team. In today’s environment of heightened concern for accountability and performance, the management team cannot afford to overtly ignore most such expectations, even when they are inconsistent. Thus, one of the most challenging tasks of nonprofit management is to select a course of action that strikes a reasonable balance among the
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multiple and shifting expectations and demands of the organization’s stakeholders. This calls for management that is politically sophisticated and uniquely attuned to its diffuse external environment. The Unique Financial and Capital Structure of Nonprofit Organizations
Further complicating the work of nonprofit management is the fact that the capital structure of a typical nonprofit organization is more complex than it is for a comparable for-profit business. The typical nonprofit has a complicated mix of clients and markets, and this results in the need to manage using a mix of diverse and inconsistent funding and financing models. The typical for-profit business secures financial support from a relatively simple set of sources. Increasingly, nonprofits find they must finance their operations through a mix of philanthropic activities complemented with earned income activities, all related to different sets of sources. Each source imposes its own expectations for operations, management performance, and organizational accountability. Among the most demanding are governmental sources; acceptance of funds from government entities typically intensifies the demands for procedural as well as performance accountability.
Cross-References
▶ Drucker, Peter ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Evaluation and Civil Society ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Nonprofit Organizational Behavior ▶ Leadership ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Results and Performance ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Strategic Planning ▶ Volunteer Management
References/Further Readings Bennis, W. (2003). On becoming a leader. New York: Basic Books. Drucker, P. (1990). Managing the nonprofit organization: Principles and practices. New York: HarperCollins. Drucker, P. (2008). Management. New York: Collins. Herman, R., & Associates. (2004). The Jossey-Bass handbook of nonprofit leadership and management. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kotter, J. (2001). What leaders really do. Harvard Business Review, December, 85–98. Ott, S. (2001). Understanding nonprofit organizations: Governance, leadership, and management. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Worth, M. (2008). Nonprofit management: Principles and practice. New York: Sage.
Future Directions Third sector organizations are playing increasingly significant and diverse roles in the development and maintenance of civil society throughout the world. Consistent with this trend, the demand for sophistication and skill in managing these organizations is growing. Leaders from across the globe are asking more and more of such nonprofit organizations – more with regard to creativity, more with regard to responsiveness, more with regard to impact and results. And pivotal to the future success of these organizations is their capacity for effective nonprofit management. A new generation of nonprofit managers is preparing to lead these important organizations – a generation that understands the increasingly complex nature of the work of nonprofit management. This new generation of nonprofit managers understands that, while passion and dedication are essential to the future of the nonprofit sector and continued development of global civil society, passion, and dedication alone are inadequate. It is through the effective practice of nonprofit management that the nonprofit organizations of the global third sector will continue to grow and develop in their capacity to successfully address the needs of a diverse and complicated world.
Nonprofit Mergers STEFAN TOEPLER, JAN SACHARKO George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
Introduction In contrast to the corporate world, mergers and corporate restructuring in the nonprofit sector have not yet captured much public attention. Yet, nonprofit mergers can be traced back to the 1980s and are not a new phenomenon. Moreover, nonprofit mergers have become significantly more frequent during the 1990s, as have attempts to analyze nonprofit mergers in the academic and practitioner-oriented literature. Beyond the considerable body of information and analysis available on conversions and for-profit/nonprofit mergers and acquisitions in the health care industry, much of the analytical attention has focused on the health and social service fields. To a degree, this is perhaps not too surprising, since health and social services are among those fields of nonprofit activity
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that are most clearly marked by a growing reliance on fee and earned income and for-profit competition. In more market-based environments, nonprofits are increasingly prone to adopt corporate consolidation strategies. Mergers and other forms of strategic alliances, such as joint ventures, partnerships, or the formation of limited liability companies, are the result.
Definition Golensky and DeRuiter (1999, 2002: 170) define a merger in the nonprofit context ‘‘as the result of a decision by two or more organizations to combine their operations in a permanent relationship.’’ Wernet and Jones (1992) differentiate between different types: horizontal mergers between organizations providing essentially similar services (e.g., two nursing homes); vertical mergers between organizations operating in different parts of a service delivery system (e.g., hospital and health maintenance organizations); and conglomerate mergers between organizations in different fields (e.g., homeless shelter and drug treatment program). Similar to Golensky and DeRuiter’s (1999, 2002) approach, Singer and Yankey’s (1991: 358) definition also focuses on the formation of ‘‘permanent relationships . . . that involve the combining of boards, staff, and physical facilities.’’ They differentiate, however, between mergers as ‘‘the complete absorption of one organization . . . by another,’’ and consolidations as involving the dissolution of all merging organizations and the formation of a new single entity. This distinction is useful, since not all nonprofit mergers are created equal. However, it contrasts with the more recent usage of terms in the corporate literature, in which the term merger typically refers to mergers of equalsized partners, whereas mergers between unequal firms (i. e., larger and smaller) are technically considered acquisitions. Acquisitions do take place in the nonprofit context when nonprofits are bought out by for-profit firms, as is currently the case in the US hospital and health insurance fields. Between nonprofits though, the term acquisition is somewhat of a misnomer, because there are typically no buy-outs with financial compensations. Accordingly, it may be more appropriate to distinguish between mergers (of equal partners) and takeovers in the nonprofit context, as McLaughlin (1998) does. In a takeover, the larger, dominant agency retains control of the process and essentially absorbs and assimilates the smaller agency into its own structure. In a more equallybalanced merger, control remains shared between the partners, but the merger requires greater management and structural adjustments. While control issues and restructuring needs differ, both mergers and takeovers
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require the formation of permanent relationships and resource combinations and both can be horizontal, vertical, or conglomerative in nature.
Key Issues Merger Alternatives
Organizational mergers are rarely among the first strategic options that nonprofit organizations consider when faced with environmental uncertainties. Mergers are rather the last resort after other strategic choices are exhausted. As Arsenault (1998) details thoroughly, mergers are at the top of the consolidation continuum pyramid with joint ventures, management service organizations, and parent corporations below. Each of the alternatives has their own strengths and retained levels of autonomy. Joint ventures are projects undertaken by two or more organizations for the execution of specific tasks. They are usually time limited to that task but can take on forms of varying structure and length. Possible joint ventures are: a contractual relationship, which is very time-specific and involves a written agreement outlining precise duties and responsibilities; a partnership or Limited Liability Company (LLC), a legal entity in which each partner owns part of the company and are protected from liability; and a corporation, a separate legal entity with its own governance structure that may be entirely owned or in part by the participating nonprofits. A management service organization (MSO) is formed to achieve efficiency in one or more management functions and contract its services to other organizations. By consolidating overhead costs, MSOs can reduce costs of services to individual clients. MSOs may be formed around any number of management functions including marketing, fundraising, contracts management, and facilities management. An MSO could be modeled after a partnership or LLC. A parent corporation is usually the next step up the consolidation pyramid from MSOs. In a parent corporation, several distinct organizations are grouped, usually to combine services that are somehow consumer related. Parent corporations may have nonprofits, MSOs, and for-profit subsidiaries under their umbrellas. Organizations combined in such a way often give up some of their autonomy, but gain access to other services more easily while retaining their local community ties. Merger Success Factors: Strategic and Organizational Fit
Broadly speaking, the goodness of the strategic and the organizational fit between organizations will determine the success of a merger. As discussed by Wernet and
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Jones (1992), strategic fit relates to efficiency or effectiveness gains to be realized through the merger; organizational fit relates to procedural issues during the merger. Strategic Fit and Merger Motivations
When it comes to serious merger considerations, for many organizations their basic survival is at stake. Beyond this though, organizations may also consider mergers because the organization’s leadership desires to maintain one or more of its activities; that leadership sees an opportunity to build dominance in a particular service arena; or that the organization needs additional resources to pursue an opportunity or increase a commitment to mission-driven programming. All of these reasons stem from a desire to serve the mission, or rather, a belief that the merged entity will be better able to advance the mission. However, few nonprofits would consider a merger or any kind of major change without economic pressures from the outside. Generally, the literature has identified two types of external pressures that might force nonprofit organizations to consider mergers: ● First, increased turbulence in the institutional funding environments – due to changing contracting regimes or reimbursement schemes – and increased competition between nonprofits and between nonprofits and for-profits in a given market ● Second, pressures exerted by a dominant funding source, typically aiming at economizing and streamlining service delivery and preventing struggles for available funds While environmental turbulence and pressures force organizations to consider a merger strategy, the choice of a merger over other options is typically understood to be based on a set of strategic considerations, such as improvements in organizational efficiency; more effective client services; improved funding base and less competition for resources; greater organizational stability through aligning weaker with stronger organizations; increased market potential; and enhanced community image. Taken together these considerations, or merger incentives, determine how much of a strategic fit there is between organizations. The ability to realize such incentives after the merger contributes to the perception of its successfulness. Organizational Fit: Stakeholders and Negotiations
According to Wernet and Jones (1992), the two elements that determine the goodness of the organization fit are stakeholders and the negotiation process.
Stakeholders: Typically, the staff of the organizations involved is considered the most crucial stakeholder group in merger negotiations. Apart from difficult power negotiations over which of the executive leadership of the old organizations will lead the new one, mergers frequently lead to anxieties over job loss, career opportunities, supervisory and authority relationships, and so on among executive and nonexecutive staff. Results of these uncertainties often include high turnover, low morale and other disruptions of the work routines. Abrupt departures and prolonged disagreements among the executives involved are a ready source for crises during the merger process. Open and frank communication about the process and regular reassurance will defuse most potentially explosive staff situations. Other organizational stakeholders, such as funders or clients, are rarely a source of significant problems. Nevertheless, the literature provides important markers in this respect. McLaughlin (1998), for example, describes three typical concerns of boards engaging in a merger: concern for the mission; loss of identity; and loss of services. Concern for the way a mission may change is a prime consideration, and this fear must be assuaged before the process can continue. Primarily an emotional issue, fear of identity loss stems from the unique history of an organization, the struggles it has overcome, and the place it has made for itself in its region. Loss of services is a real threat that can be dealt with by ‘‘governance structure, restricted fundraising, and premerger conversations with funding sources’’ (McLaughlin, 1998: 48). How stakeholder issues play out during the merger process will significantly depend on two key underlying factors: trust and organizational culture. A key element in all kinds of partnerships, trust may be strong within an organization due to personal history and working relationships. However due to limited knowledge, rumor, and past competition, trust may only exist at very low levels between organizations, even within a common field. Given the anxieties that a merger prospect sparks among staff and board members, trust-building measures are essential early in the process. Organizational culture is comprised of shared beliefs and norms. These norms are created over time with the addition of new employees, management, and externalities that affect the day-to-day operations of the organization. They are often unspoken and unwritten rules that are ‘‘the way we do things’’ (La Piana, 2000). Significant time must be invested in determining whether two organizations can work together in terms of their cultures, as unresolved cultural differences can undermine the development of mutual trust and thus affect the negotiation process.
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Negotiation Process: Negotiations between nonprofits must therefore be entered with honesty and openness in order to build trust and answer the concerns that all stakeholders will have. Often, initial merger discussions will be informal and between acquaintances who serve a nonprofit in some respect, either board or executive directors. These informal talks may become something more and will lead to board meetings to discuss formal negotiation proceedings. Negotiations will focus on three main aspects of the new organization: governance, leadership, and organizational structure. Governance relates to who will have the authority over the organization. Leadership may involve the executive director but also board roles and which partner in the participating merger appears to retain more representation and authority. Organizational structure refers to the postmerger staffing patterns. After a decision to conduct negotiations has been reached, the literature generally recommends the hiring of an external facilitator to conduct initial negotiation meetings. Facilitators may help the organizations look beyond themselves and develop a new vision of the postmerger entity that will keep the discussions focused on the mission and how the merged entity will be better able to serve its mission. A good faith agreement usually results from successful initial meetings. The due diligence process, which will help build the trust necessary to continue, is eased by the presence of such an agreement. A negotiations committee is then formed with various members of the board and staff members. This committee will discuss the structure of the merger itself with relation to the three aspects listed above. Extensive minutes should be kept as they will form the basis of the merger agreement. The minutes may then be cleaned up and organized into a formal merger agreement, or not. In either case, after a fixed period of time the committee must present its findings to the boards for discussion and vote; the negotiation committee itself has no power. It is at this point that the importance of merger as a strategic option comes into focus. Though all stakeholders’ opinions are valued and have been sought, the boards have the authority to assess and approve strategic options. Implementation and Integration
Upon completion of the negotiations and the agreement to merge, the next phase is implementation. Implementation is the legal process of bringing the organizations together. Depending on the type and complexity of the merger, this process can take a considerable time to complete. Integration, however, involves the merging of
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systems, staff, and governance. McLaughlin (1998) provides seven overlapping yet progressive steps as organizations merge: Mutual Learning, Planning Structure, Leadership Decisions, Entity Structure, Communication, Formalizing Agreement, and Implementation & Evaluation.
Future Directions Merger literature is still growing and attempting to define reasons for mergers. Golensky and DeRuiter’s (2002) model of merger motivations provides some direction. The model posits that merger motivations depend on the decision-making style of organizational leadership (anticipatory or reactive) and the extent of organizational resources (sufficient or limited). If organizational leaders anticipate changes in their environments, they may seek a merger to pursue their mission more effectively if resources are sufficient; or to seek stability if not. Leaders merely reacting to environmental change will consider mergers for practical or efficiency reasons if resources are sufficient or for fear of organizational decline and closure if not. La Piana (2000) noted that as more nonprofits have merged and survived, the strictly negative connotations of merger have been muted, and others are inspired to investigate this option for more than survival reasons. Several years later he continues that mergers between nonprofits are increasing – ‘‘spurred to a degree by the potential for increased organizational effectiveness and the ongoing financial pressures faced by nonprofit organizations’’ (La Piana & Hayes, 2005). Both Golensky and DeRuiter’s and La Piana and Hayes’ hypotheses seem particularly useful if used to juxtapose key organizational and motivational differences between merging organizations. Doing so brings into focus the underlying difficulties in establishing trust and cultural rapport. In all mergers however, be they for strategic reasons or for immediate financial woes, the driving force is always the mission. In the long run, a carefully constructed merger keeps the mission alive and the organization farther away from what all nonprofit stakeholders wish to avoid: organizational demise and dissolution.
Cross-References
▶ Boards ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Mission ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Nonprofit Organizational Behavior ▶ Partnerships ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Strategic Planning
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References/Further Readings Arsenault, J. (1998). Forging nonprofit alliances. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Golensky, M., & DeRuiter, G. (1999). Merger as a strategic response to government contracting pressures: A case study. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 10(2), 137–152. Golensky, M., & DeRuiter, G. (2002). The urge to merge: A multiple-case study. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 13(2), 169–186. Hiland, M. L. (2003). Nonprofit mergers. Consulting to Management, 14(4), 11–14. Kohm, A., La Piana, D., & Gowdy, H. (2000). Strategic restructuring: Findings from a study of integrations and alliances among nonprofit social service and cultural organizations in the United States. Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall Center for Children, University of Chicago. La Piana, D. (2000). The nonprofit mergers workbook. Saint Paul, MN: Amherst H. Wilder Foundation. La Piana, D., & Hayes, M. (2005). M & A in the nonprofit sector: Managing merger negotiations and integration. Strategy & Leadership, 33(2), 11–16. McCormick, D. H. (2001). Nonprofit mergers: The power of successful partnerships. MD: Aspen. McLaughlin, T. A. (1998). Nonprofit mergers and alliances: A strategic planning guide. New York: Wiley. Schmid, H. (1995). Merging nonprofit organizations: Analysis of a case study. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 5(4), 377–391. Singer, M. I., & Yankey, J. A. (1991). Organizational metamorphosis: A study of eighteen nonprofit mergers, acquisitions, and consolidations. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 1(4), 357–369. Wernet, S. P., & Jones, S. A. (1992). Merger and acquisition activity between nonprofit social service organizations: A case study. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 21(4), 367–380.
Nonprofit Organization PETER DOBKIN HALL Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA
Introduction Few commonly used terms are more difficult to define than ‘‘nonprofit organization.’’ Although sometimes used to universally describe charitable, philanthropic, voluntary, public benefit, and civil society organizations, the term, in fact, appears to have specific application primarily to U.S. entities and is derived from the characteristics of these organizations as classified in the national government’s Internal Revenue Code (IRC). Under United States law, nonprofit organizations are defined under the laws of federal (national) and state jurisdictions. With very few exceptions, nonprofits are chartered or established (in the case of trusts) under state laws that may vary from one another in significant respects. The
tax and regulatory treatment of nonprofits is determined by the national government under the provisions of the IRC. With very few exceptions, most states accept federal determinations of tax status and bases for treating nonprofits under state and municipal law. Thus, despite lack of legal and regulatory uniformity among non-federal jurisdictions, the characteristics of nonprofit organizations are drawn from federal, not state or municipal law. In common parlance in the United States, the phrase nonprofit organization generally refers to the charitable and civic organizations described in sections 501(c)(3) and (4) of the IRC. Often – but by no means always – supported by donations of money and volunteers’ time, they enjoy exemption from a variety of national, state, and local taxes; donations are often deductible, enabling donors to reduce their tax burdens. The charitable and civic entities in sections 501(c)3 and (4) are part of a larger universe of Section 501 organizations, many of which are considered to be nonprofits, which enjoy various kinds of tax exemption and, in some cases, tax benefits for donors (see Table 1) (Internal Revenue Service Subcodes 2008). In addition to the legally constituted corporations, associations, and trusts, the term may also include the unincorporated and informal associations referred to by David Horton Smith as the ‘‘dark matter of the nonprofit sector’’ (Smith, 2000). In the view of Robert Putnam and other scholars of civil society, these entities play as important a role in creating social capital as their more formal counterparts (Putnam, 2000).
History of the Term The phrase ‘‘nonprofit organization’’ entered American English as early as 1919, when the New York Times reported the chartering of the League for Motorists’ Protection, ‘‘a nonprofit organization, designed . . . to drive the Hun from the road so that our wives, mothers, and sisters may operate motor cars without the fear that road autocrats will bring them to grief ’’ (To Protect Motorists, 1919). It would not be commonly used for decades. For the entire decade of the 1920s, the Times only used the locution in fourteen articles. Though used in the popular press, the term had no currency in academic or legal discourse. Carl Zollmann’s magisterial 1924 treatise American Law of Charities contained not a single reference to nonprofit organizations, nor did the term begin to appear in law journals until the 1960s (Zollmann, 1924). The 1952 and 1954 congressional hearings ‘‘to investigate tax-exempt foundations and comparable organizations’’ did not use the term at all (U.S. House of Representatives, 1952, 1954). It would
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Nonprofit Organization. Table 1 501(c)(1)
Corporations Organized under Act of Congress (including Federal Credit Unions)
501(c)(2)
Title Holding Corporation for Exempt Organization
501(c)(3)
Religious, Educational, Charitable, Scientific, Literary, Testing for Public Safety, to Foster National or International Amateur Sports Competition, or Prevention of Cruelty to Children or Animals
501(c)(4)
Civic Leagues, Social Welfare Organizations, and Local Associations of Employees
501(c)(5)
Labor, Agricultural, and Horticultural
501(c)(6)
Business Leagues, Chambers of Commerce, Real Estate Boards, etc.
501(c)(7)
Social and Recreational
501(c)(8)
Fraternal Beneficiary Societies and Associations
501(c)(9)
Voluntary Employees Beneficiary
501(c)(10)
Domestic Fraternal Societies and
501(c)(11)
Teacher’s Retirement Fund Associations
501(c)(12)
Benevolent Life Insurance Associations, Mutual Ditch or Irrigation Companies, Mutual or Cooperative Telephone Companies, etc.
501(c)(13)
Cemetery Companies
501(c)(14)
State Chartered Credit Unions, Mutual Reserve Funds
501(c)(15)
Mutual Insurance Companies or Associations
501(c)(16)
Cooperative Organizations to Finance Crop Operations
501(c)(17)
Supplemental Unemployment Benefit
501(c)(18)
Employee Funded Pension Trust (created before June 25, 1959)
501(c)(19)
Post or Organization of Past or Present Members of the Armed Forces
501(c)(21)
Black Lung Benefit Trusts
501(c)(22)
Withdrawal Liability Payment Fund
501(c)(23)
Veterans Organizations (created before 1880)
501(c)(25)
Title Holding Corporations or Trusts with Multiple Parents
501(c)(26)
State-Sponsored Organization Providing Health Coverage for High-Risk Individuals
501(c)(27)11
State-Sponsored Workers’ Compensation Reinsurance Organization
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501(c)(28)12
National Railroad Retirement Investment Trust
501(d)
Religious and Apostolic Associations
501(e)
Cooperative Hospital Service Organizations
501(f)
Cooperative Service Organizations of Operating Educational Organizations
501(k)
Child Care Organizations
501(n)
Charitable Risk Pools
521(a)
Farmers’ Cooperative Associations
4947(a)(1)
Non-Exempt Charitable Trusts
4947(a)(2)
Split-Interest Trust
170(c)(1)
Government Entity
not appear in any book title before 1937 (U.S. Census Bureau, 1937) – or with any regularity before the 1980s. The term was used in a single doctoral dissertation title before 1960 – though by the 1990s, it would appear in the titles of nearly 300 dissertations (Hall, 1999).
Although Americans began to routinely speak of ‘‘nonprofit organizations’’ in the 1980s, where the use of the phrase was energetically promoted by charities trade associations and industry-funded scholars, outside the U.S., older terms like ‘‘charities’’ continued to be
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preferred in the United Kingdom. Another neologism, ‘‘nongovernmental organizations’’ (NGOs), was embraced everywhere else in the world in preference to ‘‘nonprofit organization.’’ The term emerged from the efforts of foundations and large organized charities to protect themselves from regulation. Following a series of congressional investigations in the 1950s and 1960s, which culminated in the Tax Reform Act of 1969 that imposed major restrictions on the activities of tax-exempt entities, foundation and charities leaders organized the Filer Commission (Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs), a privately funded project sponsored by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, to create an empirical basis for law and public policy towards ‘‘tax-exempt foundations and comparable organizations’’ (on this, see Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs, 1974, 1977; Hall, 1992; Brilliant, 2000). The Commission’s research efforts were continued through a variety of academic initiatives spearheaded by Yale’s Program on NonProfit Organizations (PONPO) – the first of many academic centers devoted to the study of these entities and related activities. The first compendium of PONPO’s work, which appeared in 1987 under the title The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, sparked controversy because of its embrace of the new terminologies of ‘‘nonprofit organization’’ and ‘‘sector’’ – which owed more to the jargon of law and economics than to traditional language of charity (Powell, 1987). Writing in the prestigious journal Science, policy historian Barry D. Karl harshly criticized the effort. ‘‘Philanthropy has increasingly needed advocates to defend it against its critics in and out of government,’’ Karl wrote. "
Part of that advocacy resides in the very term ‘‘nonprofit organization,’’ since it substitutes for the implication of charity that ‘‘philanthropy’’ carries an organizational conception modeled on business enterprise that is presumably efficient, subject to cost-accounting standards of performance and principles of effective management. The only difference between a profit-making agency and a non-profit thus becomes the profit. We assume, in a hidden pejorative, that by removing the profit we enhance either the public character of the benefit or its inefficiency. (Karl, 1978: 984)
‘‘Future researchers,’’ he continued, ‘‘may want to ask whether the attempt to treat in a unified manner such a broad range of enterprises as is covered by the phrase (nonprofit organization) is appropriate. For the concept encompasses many variations, from highly organized
foundations devoted to specific areas of involvement to the multitude of religious, medical, and social service groups that continue to dot this diverse and multi-service country. . . . A single rubric may fit only the less interesting and less significant aspects of the process (p. 985). ‘‘The language we use to discuss these organizations,’’ Karl concluded, ‘‘is of our own devising and not necessarily representative of reality.’’ In the years following the publication of PONPO’s Research Handbook, scholars and advocates for exempt organizations sought to more clearly delineate the meaning of the phrase ‘‘nonprofit organization.’’ Political scientist Lester M. Salamon abandoned the overly inclusive legal taxonomy to enumerate six ‘‘crucial’’ behavioral and structural characteristics of nonprofit entities. Nonprofits, he argued were formal, institutionalized organizations (usually corporations – with standing to make contracts); they were private (‘‘institutionally separate from government, even if they received significant financial support from the state); they were nonprofit distributing (‘‘not dedicated to generating profits for their owners’’); they were self-governing (with ‘‘their own internal procedures for governance and . . . not controlled by outside entities’’); they were voluntary (‘‘non-compulsory’’ and involving ‘‘some meaningful degree of voluntary participation’’); they served ‘‘some public purpose’’ and contributed to the public good (Salamon, 1999, 10–11). To be sure, some of these characteristics could be found in some nonprofit entities; but many nonprofits lacked all or most of them. Hoping to make language about nonprofits more precise, legal scholars and economists basing arguments on theories of ‘‘market failure’’ and ‘‘contract failure’’ to construct behavioral explanations for the existence of various types of nonprofit organizations. Asserting that nonprofits came into being to provide ‘‘public goods,’’ products or services which, by their inherent characteristics either precluded their provision by market organizations (which could not capture the profits they generated) or required constraints on providers to prevent them from taking unfair advantage of consumers (because of their inability to judge their quality) (on this, see Olson, 1971 and Hansmann, 1996). Other less sophisticated commentators took an essentialist approach, defining nonprofits as entities that were donatively supported, staffed by volunteers, providers of public benefit, and independent of both business and government. Like the Holy Roman Empire, which Voltaire dismissed as ‘‘an agglomeration’’ that was ‘‘neither holy,
Nonprofit Organization
nor Roman, nor an empire,’’ nonprofit organizations are not intrinsically voluntary (many are professionally staffed); donative (many are financed by commercial income or government funds); private (many do the work of government, often with government financing; some are controlled by government); self-governing (many are sub-units within larger federated structures); nonprofit distributing (many mutual benefit organizations and cooperatives distribute their surpluses; executive compensation remains a major issue for nonprofit regulators); or contributors to the public good (all the law requires of a nonprofit in the United States is that its purpose not be ‘‘illegal, impracticable, or impossible’’) (on this, see Brody, 2006). Market and contract failure notwithstanding, the ownership of enterprises within virtually every industry except religion is shared between government, business, and nonprofit entities – and the allocation of task among sectors has varied over time, depending on policy and market contingencies (on this, see Hall, 2006). Efforts to produce definitions of ‘‘nonprofit organizations’’ that were sufficiently inclusive to capture the vast range of activities carried out by enterprises organized as nonprofits and sufficiently refined to capture the huge range of variation among them, even within particular industries, have been largely futile. At best, as Barry Karl suggested, we have been able define ‘‘only the less interesting and less significant aspects’’ of these organizations, too often at the expense of obscuring their roles in more complex organizational systems or the processes by which they evolved and changed. Very likely, what is needed is a framework that takes account of the all major characteristics of every type of nonprofit and classifies particular organizations in terms of which each possesses (on this, see Muukkonen, 2000). This would accommodate both the diversity and complexity of nonprofit organizations and might serve as a basis for a more encompassing consideration of these entities that goes beyond legal, tax, and regulatory regimes of particular countries.
Cross-References
▶ Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (The Filer Commission) ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History
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▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Salamon, Lester ▶ Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the US ▶ Tax Exemptions, Justifications for ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic
References/Further Readings Brilliant, E. L. (2000). Private charity and public inquiry: A history of the Filer and Peterson Commissions. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Brody, E. (2006). The legal framework for nonprofit organizations. In W. W. Powell & R Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. (1974). Giving in America: Toward a stronger voluntary sector. Washington, DC: Department of the Treasury; Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs. (1977). Research Papers. 6 Vols. , Washington, DC: Department of the Treasury. Hall, P. D. (1992). Inventing the nonprofit sector and other essays on philanthropy, voluntarism, and nonprofit organizations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hall, P. D. (1999). The work of many hands: A response to Stanley N. Katz on the origins of the serious study of philanthropy. Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28, 522–534. Hall, P. D., & Burke, C. B. (2006). Nonprofit, voluntary, and religious entities. Historical Statistics of the United States – Millennial Edition (pp. 2–840). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hansmann, H. B. (1996). The ownership of enterprise. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Internal Revenue Service Subsection Codes for Tax-Exempt Organizations. (2008). From http://www.guidestar.org/help/501c_orgs.jsp (downloaded 5/15/08). Karl, B. D. (1987). Philanthropic Institutions. Science, 236(22 May), 984–985. Muukkonen, M. (2000). The familiar unknown: Introduction to third sector theories. Licentiate thesis, Department of Orthodox Theology and Western Theology, University of Joensuu, Finland. Olson, M. (1971). The logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Powell, W. W. (ed.). (1987). The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Salamon, L. M. (1999). America’s nonprofit sector: A primer (pp. 10–11). New York: Foundation Center. Smith, D. H. (2000). Grassroots associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. To Protect Motorists. (1919). New York Times (June 26). U.S. Census Bureau. (1937). Census of business: 1935 non-profit organization, office buildings, miscellaneous. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office. U.S. House of Representatives. (1952). Tax-exempt foundations: Hearings before the Select Committee to investigate tax-exempt foundations and comparable organizations. 82nd Congress, Second Session. U.S. House of Representatives.
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U.S. House of Representatives. (1954). Tax-exempt foundations: Report of the special committee to investigate tax-exempt foundations and comparable organizations. 83rd Congress, Second Session. U.S. House of Representatives. Zollmann, C. (1924). American Law of Charities. Milwaukee, WI: Bruce Publishing Company.
to some extent, interpenetrate one another. (Lately, an economic approach to organizations has developed and has proven useful for understanding nonprofit organizations.)
Key Issues The Sociological Approach
Nonprofit Organizational Behaviour: Sociological and Psychological Approaches JEFFREY LEITER1, CAMERON NEWTON2 North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA 2 Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
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Introduction The study of organizations goes to the roots of social science. Abundant theory provides the basis for explanations of diverse aspects of organizational structure and process. As a subset of organizations, nonprofit organizations can be studied with many of the same theoretical approaches used for studying other organizations. Still, nonprofit organizations have some special characteristics, such as a multiplicity of stakeholders and the use of volunteers; some theories of organizations can therefore be expected to be especially useful for studying nonprofit organizations and some other theories not to be very useful. In general, our approach is to apply relevant organizational theory to nonprofit organizations. As such, this essay is not a typical review of literature about nonprofit organizations. Instead, the purpose is to equip the reader with conceptual and theoretical tools for understanding nonprofits as organizations.
Definition The study of organizations has segmented in recent decades. The segments are sometimes called the intra versus the interorganizational, sometimes the micro versus the macro, sometimes the structural versus the interactional. This essay summarizes this segmentation in a disciplinary way as the psychological and the sociological parts of the study of organizations. This way of organizing the overall topic recognizes that psychologists have come in recent decades to focus on the intraorganizational, the micro, the interactional, while sociologists have focused on the interorganization, the macro, the structural. The psychological and sociological approaches complement and,
The Organizational Goal
The conventional way to think about an organization is to start with its goal. In fact, it is hard not to think about an organization in this way because the whole point of an organization is to accomplish its goal. After all, an organization is not a naturally occurring group like a family or a neighborhood, but rather it is artificially constructed. The creation of a new organization, we conventionally think, is set in motion by agreement on some goal. When, as often, the goal corresponds with widely held values, the organization is accorded legitimacy as serving the public interest. For nonprofit organizations, the goal is usually called the mission, but the terms mean the same thing. It is possible to tell how important the mission or goal is to the idea of nonprofit organizations from the worries being expressed that nonprofit organizations are losing sight of their missions in the effort to adopt more business-like structures and practices: what’s the point of having nonprofits, many ask, if they lose sight of their missions (Moore, 2000)? (See related discussion below under Organizational Culture and Values.) Thus, in conventional approaches to nonprofit organizations, the goal or mission is taken as a given rather than as something that must be analyzed in order to understand it. It is assumed that the person or people who form the organization share a common purpose, which is their reason for forming the organization; that the measure of the organization’s success is the degree of attainment of the goal; and that the problem an organization faces is the technical problem of mobilizing and using its resources effectively to pursue the goal. This technical issue of resource mobilization and use becomes the problem to understand. Studies of nonprofit organizations have typically followed this conventional approach (e.g., Forbes, 1998 shows the prevalence of the goal attainment approach in studies of nonprofit effectiveness). The common characteristic is that analytic attention is not directed at the goal or mission itself, but rather at the efforts and methods of trying to attain the goal. Recent attention to the importance of nonprofit boards of directors provides a good
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example: boards are challenged to keep a long run focus on the organization’s mission so as to avoid ‘‘mission drift’’ or the appropriation of the organization by the executive director for his or her own purposes (Drucker, 1990). Overall, a goal-centered approach to nonprofit organizations is very hard to escape; a highly sophisticated treatment of nonprofit effectiveness, complete with conceptualization of effectiveness as a ‘‘social construction,’’ is nonetheless built around the idea of organizational goals (Herman & Renz, 1999). As sociologists of organizations have been aware for over 50 years, however, the organization’s goal cannot be assumed and left unanalyzed. Treating the organization’s goal as an analytic problem is the start and the heart of a sociological approach to organizations. First, often times, an organization has multiple goals, profit and growth in a corporation, for instance. The multiplicity of nonprofit organizations’ stakeholders makes a multiplicity of goals quite likely in nonprofits. Multiple goals raise the difficult practical issues of prioritizing or sequencing the goals or even segmenting the organization around the various goals. For example, the American Red Cross’s blood services, education, and disaster relief divisions with their different goals and economic challenges compete for clients and donations according to quite different strategies (Chetkovich & Frumkin, 2003). Multiple goals also make very real the possibility of conflict over goals among internal and/or external stakeholders. This conflict signals us that organizations are more than artificially constructed vehicles for the pursuit of agreed upon goals. They are also bundles of resources, including skilled labor and capital, over which interest groups may struggle for control. Because organizations are conventionally thought of as serving the public interest, that is, as legitimate, organizational resource bundles have special value to interests that control them; hence, the struggle for control and the prevalence of goal conflict. Consider, for instance, nonprofit organizations set up initially by parents to care/give respite for their children who have a mental disability. The parents’ goal is to have the children cared for in an institution for purposes of safety and control. The children themselves may wish to be in independent living or shared living arrangements outside the institution. Governments fund such arrangements, but may prefer institutional care because of cost. The public may favor a ‘‘gated community’’ to avoid troublesome neighborhood impacts. In this example, we see multiple stakeholders all wanting to have care for a vulnerable group of people, but each with a vested interest in how the care is done (McGregor-Lowndes, 2008, personal communication).
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Organizational goals often change, which is another reason they should be the focus of our analytic attention (see the excellent review of the nonprofit case study literature on this topic in Powell & Friedkin, 1987 on which the following paragraphs draw). Sometimes the change is the mark of success. The organization accomplishes its goal and shifts to a new one. The classic example is the March of Dimes, which upon winning the battle against polio, redirected its efforts toward birth defects (Sills, 1957). As long as the same organizational methods work as well for the new goal as the old one, such goal succession seems like a good idea. Sometimes, however, the same methods are not the best choice, so that goal succession leads to an ineffective use of resources. Moreover, preserving the organization ties up resources that could be redeployed in other organizations and can block the development of new skills and methods. Goals also change as one goal is displaced by another. One way this happens is when goal conflict is played out over time. Interests pushing the new goal win out in the struggle for control over the interests that pushed the original goal. In this way, the 1960s social welfare agency Mobilization for Youth thoroughly altered its approach to juvenile delinquency to accord with the preferences of its governmental and foundation funders (Helfgot, 1974). The original goal can also be displaced by organizational security or survival seeking. If the organization’s environment is hostile to the organization’s goal and threatens to cut off key resources or if the environment simply shifts its preferences or needs, the choice facing the organization is to change the goal to a new one the environment finds acceptable or to abandon the organization. For stakeholders whose interests are closely tied to the organization, organizational survival may be the preferred choice. The Townsend Movement is a clear example: when its goal of old age pensions became US public policy through the advent of Social Security, it changed gradually into a retailer whose members’ purchases allowed organizational survival (Messinger, 1955). Because nonprofit organizations are very often dependent on others for key resources, these processes of goal displacement for the sake of survival can be expected to occur frequently. The other frequently remarked form of goal displacement elevates some aspect of the organization’s structure or method to the standing of a goal. The people who ‘‘live’’ in the organization day in and day out may become more devoted to their standard way of doing things than to the goal the organization is pursuing. Merton identified this displacement of ends by means in ‘‘the bureaucratic personality’’ (Merton, 1957). The very effort
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to treat all clients equally may open the door to such ruleboundedness. Nonprofit service organizations are, thus, ripe for this kind of goal displacement. While goal change is frequent, goals do not always change, even when some factors would lead us to expect them to. For example, services for the blind mid-century continued to focus on children and employable adults even though the needy population had shifted toward the elderly. A combination of institutionalized persistence and the greater fund raising value of the original clientele is the explanation (Scott, 1967). While not useful for the bulk of the blind population, this persistence was useful for the organization in obtaining resources. In contrast, the failure of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union to adapt its goals to shifting cultural views on alcohol came at the price of organizational survival (Gusfield, 1955). The gap between the original goal and the ‘‘real’’ goal is a final way in which to problematize organizational goals. The standard way to make this distinction is between the ‘‘announced goal’’ and the ‘‘operational goal.’’ This distinction gives us additional concepts for examining processes of goal conflict and goal displacement. In addition, the distinction alerts us to the real possibility that an organization is not doing what it says it is doing. This disjuncture can show itself in the ways an organization actually spends its money, in the activities to which key employees actually devote the bulk of their time, and in the problems the organization tries hardest to solve. Organizational Structure
Organizational structure refers to stable patterns of action and interaction in the organization. This is a very broad definition that includes language, ritual, communication, exchange, cooperation, hierarchy, specialization, standardization, and formalized (i.e., recorded) rules. The latter four of these elements are identified with the important idea of bureaucracy. Structure can be explained in many ways, including: ● ● ● ● ●
Coordinating large and complex organizations Controlling alienated labor Adapting the organization to its environment Assuring the availability of key resources Continuing patterns established at the founding of the organization ● Matching expectations of the environment in order to assure the organization’s legitimacy The first two of these explanations focus on internal organizational problems as the reasons behind structures and, in tandem, present particular problems for
nonprofit organizations. While small organizations with simple production technologies can be coordinated for the most part through face-to-face interaction, large organizations with complex technologies cannot. Large size and complexity would seem to require a bureaucratic structure. That is, the overall task must be broken down into specialized skills, functional departments (e.g., production, marketing, human resources), and product or regional divisions. Operating procedures cannot be ad hoc but must be standardized to allow parts of the process to articulate with one another. Rules must be formalized to increase predictability and prevent favoritism. And perhaps, most importantly, one or more people must take on the managerial work of coordinating the whole organization rather than concerning themselves only with one part of the task. Thus, many scholars have agreed with Max Weber that bureaucratic structures are necessary for the large scale, complex organizations of modern societies. But bureaucracy comes at the cost of imposing what Weber called an ‘‘iron cage,’’ which threatens creativity, spontaneity, commitment, and organizational identification. Mission-driven nonprofit organizations rely on just these qualities in their members and workers. Hence, nonprofit organizations are faced with the dilemma of the bureaucratic iron cage in even greater measure than other organizations (Rothschild & Whitt, 1986). Must nonprofits choose between mission and effective coordination? Can mission and the imperative of coordination in large, complex nonprofit bureaucracies be balanced? Bureaucratic structures can also be explained as a response to the alienation evoked in workers by capitalism. This Marxist explanation is quite different from the need for coordination that arises from large scale and complexity. Under capitalism, workers trade their time at work for a wage, with those who buy their time owning the product of the work. These workers, who do not own or control the product of their efforts, cannot be expected to cooperate voluntarily in the production process. Their alienation puts their motivation to work in question. Without motivation, they must be controlled. Bureaucratic structures are useful for controlling unmotivated workers. Production processes are standardized to remove the need for worker judgment or discretion, that is, worker skill. Jobs are fragmented into details that require little or no skill and that can be done repetitively; these detail workers are easily replaced and so have little bargaining power. Rules and procedures are formalized so that worker knowledge and experience are no longer important. And finally, managers conceive of and design the production process, leaving workers only to execute
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the design according to the direction and under the supervision of management. Mission-oriented nonprofit organizations are usually not expected to have alienated workers, but the habit of organizing bureaucratically may be so thoroughly ingrained as to push aside the chance to structure in ways that take advantage of worker motivations (see Harris, 1998 on the ambiguities and contentions surrounding paid staff in nonprofit associations). Reliance on bureaucratic structures may crush nonprofit worker motivations and produce alienated workers instead, or such structures may simply be used to deskill and cheapen nonprofit labor. In an extreme example, Canadian social service workers found themselves being forced by their nonprofit and government employers to supplement their reduced paid hours with unpaid volunteer hours, which the exploited worker/ volunteers construed as filling the ‘‘caring gap’’ created by neoliberal reforms (Baines, 2004). Other approaches to understanding organizational structure focus on the relations of organizations with their environments. In particular an organization faced with an environment that is in flux, that is complex by virtue of having many components, and/or that has powerful components must deal with considerable uncertainty or unpredictability. Such an organization often develops specialized functional units at its boundary with its environment to help it deal effectively with environmental uncertainty. For example, faced with uncertainty in the regulatory environment, organizations often develop government relations departments. Similarly, faced with uncertainty in the supply of raw materials or in demand for the product or service, organizations often develop specialized purchasing and marketing departments, respectively. People in such ‘‘boundary spanning’’ departments have special skill sets, but some of their greatest value to the organization often comes through development of longstanding personal relationships of trust with people in organizations that are sources of crucial uncertainty, for example, lobbyists with regulators and purchasing agents and salespeople with each other. These relationships may be sources of favorable treatment for the organization, but just as likely and helpful is timely information about emerging challenges these relationships make available. Environmental uncertainty about a resource that is critical for an organization presents a substantial threat and so often leads to structural elaboration beyond boundary spanning units. Such uncertainties can burden nonprofit organizations as much as for-profit ones (Galaskiewicz & Bielefeld, 1998). Organizations may attempt to mitigate such threats through co-optation,
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joint ventures, umbrella organizations, mergers, or buyouts. Uncertainty in the availability of crucial supplies of capital may lead to ‘‘coopting’’ the problem by inviting capital-rich organizations, such as banks, insurance companies, or foundations, to place a representative on the organization’s board of directors. Difficulties with the supply of crucial raw materials may lead to joint ventures with competitors for those raw materials. Competition for customers, clients, or donors may lead to cartel-like coordination by an umbrella organization (for a nonprofit example, see Pfeffer & Leong, 1977 on United Funds) or even to a merger (Kohm & La Piana, 2003). Failing these other steps as ways to deal with critical uncertainties in supply or demand can lead the organization to buy its supplier or its customer so as to bring the uncertainty inside where it ought to be more easily controlled or in order to capture additional revenue streams (on mergers in the hospital industry, both for-profit and nonprofit, see Parent, 1991). These explanations of organizational structure as ways to deal with critical environmental uncertainties assume that organizations are able to adapt their structures to emerging challenges in their environments. In many cases, however, this may not be true. Once they make substantial initial capital and personnel investments and establish routines to which people and groups become attached, organizations may lose the capacity to adapt; that is, they may become structurally inert. The environment may actually prefer such inertia, seeing it as valuable reliability. This preference for reliability may lead to selection pressures for structural inertia, over time diminishing capacity for structural adaptation in whole populations of organizations (e.g., automobile manufacturers, colleges). The consequence would be an inability to adapt to large shifts in their environments. The resulting prediction is large scale extinctions when the environment shifts. (Short of large environmental shifts to which nonprofits may not be able to adapt, these organizations appear to die more because of the liabilities associated with smallness and youth, because of the loss of key personnel, and because of diminished demand for their services [Hager et al., 1996].) An organization’s environment is not only a source of supply and demand. The environment also judges whether the organization is legitimate. Legitimacy means according with widely held values and, as such, serving a public interest. Organizations that are judged to be legitimate benefit from legal protections and the availability of resources. For legitimate nonprofit organizations, the tax benefits are substantial and the flow of volunteers can be essential. (For some organizations, of course, efficiency in
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production is more important than legitimacy.) Rather than investigate an organization’s actual societal value in deciding whether the organization is legitimate, the judgment is made on the basis of the organization’s conformity with environmental expectations for that kind of organization. The question is ‘‘Does this organization, which says it is a school, look like a school?’’ rather than ‘‘Does this organization, which says it is a school, produce outcomes that we want from a school?’’ (Meyer & Rowan, 1978). Similarly, people and organizations in the environment require a nonprofit organization to look like they expect nonprofit organizations to look. If it does, they tend not to look inside to see what the nonprofit is actually accomplishing; rather they take that on faith. The assessment of the match to expectations is made on the basis of the organization’s structure. A school that does not group students by chronological age and hire certified teachers may do a good job of educating children but will likely have a hard time finding acceptance as a legitimate school. Similarly, people expect nonprofits to be small, rely on volunteer labor and donations, and be independent of the state, expectations reflecting more Tocqueville’s early nineteenth century time than the current era (asserted, without data, by Carson, 2002). The result of legitimacy assessments based on conformity to environmental expectations should be structural similarity among organizations that claim to be of the same type or form, at least where the processes leading to similarity (called ‘‘isomorphism’’) are strong enough. These processes include coercion by the state or by other organizations that control key resources, copying of other organizations’ structures when goals or means to achieve the goals are uncertain, and the normative influence of professionals and other experts (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983). Nonprofit organizations can be expected to be subject to strong isomorphic forces because of their legal regulation, resource dependency, uncertainty about goals and means, and increasing immersion in networks of professionals and consultants. Actually, recent research suggests these processes have not (yet?) led to significant nonprofit isomorphism (Leiter, 2005) and, further, that public perceptions and understanding of the distinctiveness of nonprofits are mediocre at best (Schlesinger et al., 2004). Interorganizational Relationships
Nonprofit organizations are knitted together with one another and with government and for-profit organizations. These interorganizational relationships involve exchange of various sorts and cooperation to varying degrees. In exchange relationships, all sorts of resources can be exchanged, from capital to information, from
client referrals to the use of real estate. If one organization obtains from another resources it needs and cannot obtain elsewhere, the organization providing the resources will exert power over the organization obtaining the resource. This power can express itself in the deference of the organization receiving the resource to the organization providing the resource. If the exchange of resources does not result in a net imbalance of power derived in this way, the two organizations should be equal, neither dominating the other. Equality in exchange and in access to decision making can be required by an external body, often the funder that mandated the interorganizational network (Penner, 1995). In networks of organizations, an organization providing a unique connection between two other organizations involved in an exchange relationship can obtain special power by virtue of bridging between the two. The more missing connections in a network, the more such bridging power. The more redundant connections, that is, alternate paths between organizations, the less power inequality. Redundant connections, however, use network resources that could be applied to building linkages to organizations not yet in the network. Thus, power inequality and network efficiency must be balanced (see Taylor & Doerfel, 2003 for a sophisticated example from Croatia). Bridges between otherwise unconnected networks that are themselves thoroughly connected have special value (and potential for power) because of their role in communicating valuable information. Organizations in a highly connected network have reliable access to a common set of information because of redundant network pathways and because of the strong social controls among such organizations; the connections in such networks are often called ‘‘strong ties.’’ Access to new, that is, nonredundant information requires connecting to other networks, which among themselves have access to their own common sets of information. The bridges between such strong tie networks, which are often called ‘‘weak ties,’’ thus have special value by virtue of providing access to new information (see Smith, 2008 for a community development network example). Without the powerful social controls of strong tie networks, however, such new information is less reliable than the redundant information available through strong ties. Overall, organizations obtain the best total information package by a balanced combination of strong and weak ties. The same should be true for access to other resources besides information, although it is information that has been most often investigated. The value of a balance between strong tie clusters and weak tie bridges has been shown to integrate civil society in a polycentric structure without undue power concentration (Baldassarri & Diani, 2007).
Nonprofit Organizational Behaviour: Sociological and Psychological Approaches
A network of organizations is held together by a combination of individual organizational interests and a sense of shared interest and shared fate. A network can further individual organizational interests by an exchange of resources in the network that provides to each organization valuable resources it needs (at a cost it calculates it can afford). A sense of shared interest or shared fate arises from a common purpose (the goal idea again) or position and the calculation that the network of organizations can accomplish more toward this goal together than the organizations could accomplish separately (i.e., the whole is more than the sum of the parts). Even with such a calculation of the synergy, individual organizations may worry that other potential network partners will break ranks to the detriment of those who continue the joint effort (the classic ‘‘prisoner’s dilemma’’). Such concerns can block network cooperation. To overcome these concerns, either the organizations must build up trust in one another, typically by long-term experience with one another (Axelrod, 1984), or the institutional context must support cooperation, for example, by raising the costs of defection from cooperation (Cook et al., 2005). Nonprofit organizational networks have become important and common social actors, but their sustainability cannot be taken for granted. Their demise can be predicted when they, like organizational actors more generally fail to build legitimacy for their form (Human & Provan, 2000) or encounter damaging competition for key resources (Hannan & Carroll, 1992). The chances of sustaining such a collaborative network are greatest when purposes and expectations for the network are met and when individuals participating in the network on their organizations’ behalf fulfill their personal and professional needs (Mulroy & Shay, 1998). The composition of nonprofit networks presents difficult organizational problems. Specific issues arise with regard to nonprofit networks’ size (i.e., number of member organizations), heterogeneity (i.e., categorical differences among member organizations), and inequality (i.e., magnitude differences among members). Large networks with many members usually have advantages in resources, reach, clout, and in avoiding dependence on one or a few members. On the other hand, large networks tend to be hard to coordinate and move to action, suffer from free riding, and do not enjoy the benefits of face-toface interaction. Heterogeneous networks with members of diverse missions, structures, histories, and participant characteristics enjoy a greater range of skills and experiences to call upon, have access to more and less redundant information, experience less competition among members for resources they all need, and can more easily
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present themselves as acting in the public interest. On the other hand, heterogeneous networks are harder to coordinate and unify for action, can suffer from internal conflict over programs and directions, and often resist beneficial face-to-face interaction. Unequal networks with members of very different sizes and resources may be able to rely on their largest and best resourced members for what the network as a whole needs, allowing the smaller less well resourced members to free ride. On the other hand, unequal networks face the dependence of the smaller and poorer members on the larger and richer ones with attendant power imbalances, resentments, disagreements, and even shorter lives.
The Psychological Approach Organizational Identification and Identity
Nonprofit researchers are asking more and more who and what nonprofit members identify with. The identity and identification literature reveals two distinct fields of study. Social Identity Theory (SIT; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) proposes that a person has not one, ‘‘personal self,’’ but rather several selves that correspond to widening circles of group membership. Different social contexts may trigger an individual to think, feel, and act on the basis of a personal, family, or national ‘‘level of self.’’ These concepts have been applied to organizations resulting in the development of organizational identification, which is broadly defined as an organization member’s feeling of oneness with an organization. Individuals who identify strongly with their organization or an organizational group are more likely to act in accordance with the organization’s or group’s values and culture and contribute to the pursuit of its goals (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). Identification research generally demonstrates positive outcomes for employees (see Riketta, 2005 for a review). However, in the nonprofit sector, evidence has also suggested that leaders’ disagreement about what the organizational identity actually is can adversely influence organizational performance (Voss et al., 2006). Identification in the workplace, however, is not confined to an organizational level – one may identify with their particular work group or a social group comprised of employees drawn from different workgroups. As such, some types of identification within a workplace might be nested within other types of workplace identification. Nested identities can vary on three dimensions: inclusive/ exclusive, abstract/concrete, and distal/proximal (Ashforth & Johnson, 2001). Higher order identities (e.g., organizational identity) are generally more inclusive – including
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lower order identities (such as workgroup, department, and job). Lower order identities tend to be more exclusive as they do not include higher order identities and membership is restricted to those who meet certain criteria. Higher order identities are considered to be more abstract as they can potentially include many diverse lower order identities. On the other hand, lower order identities, (e.g., workgroup identity) are considered to be more concrete as they represent the local means or action levers by which higher order identities are put into play. Last, higher order identities are more distal as their impact on an individual tends to be more indirect and delayed whereas lower order identities are more proximal – their impact is more direct and immediate for individuals. The second field of identity study is termed role identity. Role identity theory purports that components of the self correspond to the roles we play in society where the number of identities is ‘‘limited only by the number of structured role relationships one is involved in’’ (Stryker, 1980: 60). The role-identity concept has been used to help understand a wide range of actions, including performance of work and family roles, ethnic role identity, and commitment to sports identities. Within a nonprofit context, a stronger identification with the role of a volunteer has significantly predicted both the number of hours worked as a volunteer as well as intentions to remain volunteering (Grube & Piliavin, 2000). The literature and theory related to identity and identification reveal several complexities. One such complexity is related to cross-cutting identities. Cross-cutting identities occur when an identity spans other identities (Ashforth & Johnson, 2001). Such identities as age, gender, and profession often ‘‘cut across’’ other social or role-based identities. This can be demonstrated in the context of nonprofit organizations particularly. Young (2001) highlights that hybrid and multiple identities can influence all levels of nonprofit organizations, imposing immense challenges for strategy and structure. More specifically, Golden-Biddle and Rao (1997) examine the dissonance between the vigilant role of the nonprofit director and the friendly supportive identity of the nonprofit organization overall. An understanding of the ‘‘group’’ that board members identify with (e.g., the organization, the board) and who board members identify as (e.g., the role of a director, an involved member of the public) may further inform a variety of board-related phenomena. The relative strengths of different identities can present challenges and complexities for nonprofit organizations and individuals operating within them. For example, nonprofit employees originate from a
variety of disciplines and professions. Individuals may identify more with their profession (e.g., as a psychologist or IT technician) than with a social identity such as the organization. From a similar perspective, nonprofit directors are drawn from a range of different organizations and cross sections from the community. As such, these individuals may possess identifications with other organizations that have the potential to compete with identifications in the nonprofit context. Take, for instance, nonprofit board members, who have strong identifications with their employing for-profit organizations. The strong identifications with the employing organization could potentially influence such directors’ attitudes, decisions, and recommendations in the nonprofit context? Additionally, exploration of identity and identification in nonprofits could be useful in terms of potential indirect effects on a variety of workplace relationships. For example, do identification and identity shape the relationships between such work characteristics as job demands and role ambiguity and a variety of individual employee and volunteer job-related attitudes and behaviors, and individual and organizational performance? Last, and certainly not least, one must also consider the time it takes for organizational identities and identification to develop. In the case of nonprofits, this is a particularly important question. For instance, many nonprofit organizations have limited lives in that they are set up to achieve a particular purpose. Once that purpose is achieved, the nonprofit may cease to exist. Research has yet to consider in depth, however, the time identities take to develop. If, for example, a strong identity takes considerable time to develop, then identification’s impact on nonprofits may be limited to those organizations that survive a long time. Nonprofit Organizational Culture and Values
Both for-profit and nonprofit organizations are structures that contain a web of systems and interactions between the individuals who work within the organization. In order to understand organizations and how they work, research usually focuses on either a social psychological, structural, or ecological level. The glue connecting these levels and influencing how these levels manifest is often identified as the organizational culture. There have been many attempts to define organizational culture including ‘‘a way of life,’’ an identity and an organizations personality (Faqua & Newman, 2002). In fact, Ott (1989) identified 73 definitions of organizational culture, demonstrating that this concept is still in the stages of refinement. In an attempt to summarize definitions of organizational culture, Schein (1985) defined
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culture as a tri-layered phenomenon composed of interrelated levels of meanings, ranging from those that are mostly invisible, to those that are observable. These levels include: ● Basic assumptions that people share (e.g., regarding human nature and social relationships), which develop from the process of resolving internal and external problems ● Values that represent enduring beliefs regarding a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence (e.g., creativity, stability, profitability, altruism) ● Artifacts (the physical evidence of an organization’s culture) such as the architecture, explicit communications (e.g., rituals and ceremonies), and the dress code of employees Organizational culture affects everyone in an organization and represents a pervasive and powerful phenomenon that influences how people interact and ultimately perform in their job. Overall, a number of different models of organizational culture have been identified throughout the organizational behavior literature. Broadly, these models are defined by their assessment of organizational values or norms. Values-orientated approaches to understanding organizational culture measure employees’ beliefs about what is ascribed importance in the organization (e.g., Quinn & Rohrbaugh, 1983). On the other hand, normsoriented approaches assess behavioral norms or styles that identify shared beliefs and expectations that guide the way organization members interact and approach their work (e.g., Cooke & Lafferty, 1989). While more understood within for-profit and public sector organizations, the issue of organizational culture is an increasingly salient area to explore within nonprofit organizations, particularly in light of criticisms that nonprofits should become more ‘‘business-like.’’ This has a direct implication for managing and often changing an organization’s culture. Frumkin and Andre-Clark (2000) suggest that nonprofits have a distinctive set of values that animate nonprofit activity. The authors refer to a valueexpressive culture consisting of complex value-driven dimensions that provide people with an opportunity to meet their desire to be part of their community. Similarly, Marais (1998) found that in the for-profit sector a resultsoriented culture is considered the most successful; yet nonprofit organizations rarely talked about values in terms of results. Rather, nonprofit organizations mentioned values more associated with a process-orientation culture such as ethical and spiritual values, quality improvement and commitment to quality.
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Several complexities relating to organizational culture are of importance to nonprofits especially. The first complexity relates to culture change. As managers can rarely change the basic resource dependencies their organizations face, it is vital for organizational survival for an organization to make incremental and sometimes transformational changes to its culture to ensure a match with its objectives (see Pfeffer, 1981). However, organizational cultures are also inherently difficult to change and to this end, efforts to do so require great depth of planning and contingency management. There is an emphasis on being more accountable for results, yet people still need to be able to demonstrate a commitment to social ends and values. In the past few years there are a number of factors that have put pressure on nonprofit organizations to have an increased focus on public accountability and organizational effectiveness. These factors include a regulated workforce, job descriptions, technology, and union activity, competitive tendering, compliance, and legal requirements, and the need for improved marketing and campaigning to win donor confidence. Along with the increase in professionally educated staff running nonprofits, all these factors have created a tension between holding on to traditional nonprofit values while being able to also adapt and respond to the changing environment in which nonprofits operate. This may mean that some organizations need a culture shift, creating more supportive and caring environments to respect the personal values and motivations of people who want to care for their community but also creating new empowered organizational cultures that demonstrate accountable business-like practices (Faqua & Newman, 2002). This may present a problematic situation for nonprofits focused on helping the community as such organizations have not typically embraced business-like values and principles because they compete with the altruistic mission. As such, resistance to culture change can represent a very real issue for such nonprofits. Another area of complexity surrounding nonprofit organizational culture is the extent that members’ values are congruent with the values ascribed importance in the organizational culture. In the general literature, congruence of values between the employee and the organization has been associated with higher levels of satisfaction, individual performance, and intentions to stay working at the organization. As nonprofit organizations undergo culture change, say to integrate more results-focused values, they need to be aware of, and manage, the potential threat to many organizational members’ fit with the culture. This is an increasingly salient area to explore within nonprofit organizations, particularly in light of the prominence of altruistic behaviors in the nonprofit workforces.
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Of particular importance to the nonprofit sector is the issue of subcultures. Subcultures can exist at all levels of organizations, highlighting the fact that there are multiple cultures or value combinations usually evident in any one organization that can complement but also compete with the overall organizational culture. For instance, as a nonprofit organization navigates change to increase the importance of results/business-like values, it is very possible that a competing subculture (such as that of a workgroup/ program, volunteers, or particular hierarchical level) will resist change out of its competing values. Employee and Volunteer Motivation
Most motivation-related nonprofit research concentrates on existing and well-documented motivation theories stemming from the for-profit sector. Schepers et al. (2005) recently reviewed motivation theories in the nonprofit context and the following discussion will call on this research considerably. Overall, three motivation theories are generally used in nonprofit motivation research. Content theories focus on what causes behavior and what its intended purpose is (e.g., the two-factor theory and the job characteristics model). A process theory of motivation emphasizes how a person comes to act in a certain way (e.g., expectancy-valence motivation theory). In general, the results of nonprofit research using these theories have suggested the applicability of these profit-oriented theories to nonprofit environments. These studies, though, are generally based on the assumption that workers are motivated by the same motives in any sector. Thus, doubts may arise as to whether the classic motivation approaches accurately represent employees’ motivation in the nonprofit sector where the situation and the employees differ from the for-profit sector. A number of reasons can be cited as to why nonprofit employee motivations might differ from those assessed in the three theories above. First, nonprofit organizations differ from for-profit organizations in that they are nondistributing (profits are not returned to owners but are generally reinvested in the mission), self-governing, and consist of a voluntary component. Second, from a socioeconomic perspective nonprofit organizations face the challenge of finding financial resources, respond to different economic pressures and have a different competitive place in the market compared to for-profits (Herman & Heimovics, 1991). Third, employees in the for-profit and nonprofit sectors differ in personality, values, and behaviors. For instance, nonprofit employees have been shown to be more people-oriented and care more about serving the public needs than about extrinsic rewards like a sizable
income. Moreover, nonprofits create a different work situation for employees, requiring a different work attitude and motivation (e.g., Wittmer, 1991). These findings support the call for examining nonprofit motivation in greater detail. Indeed, research conducted by Schepers et al. (2005) reveals several motivations for nonprofit employees that do not readily map onto the factors of the content and process theories of motivation: preferences for working with and for people, altruism, personal growth, social contacts, opportunities to learn versus more ambition, and intrinsic rewards versus extrinsic rewards like income and money. Affiliation and altruism are particularly neglected in motivation theories coming from the for-profit sector. Volunteer motivations are better understood than are the motivations of nonprofit employees. They have primarily been examined from a functional approach. According to this approach, the decision to volunteer is viewed as rational, whereby people volunteer to fulfill one or more individualistic needs. Clary et al. (1998) posited that individuals will volunteer if they perceive volunteering to fulfill one or more of six motivational functions, namely: ● Values function (volunteering to express altruistic values) ● Understanding function (volunteering to understand the population being helped) ● Career function (volunteering to gain career-related benefits) ● Social function (volunteering reflects the normative influence of friends, family, or a social group) ● Protective function (volunteering to facilitate guilt reduction associated with being more fortunate than others) ● Esteem function (volunteering for ego-growth and development) The authors propose that an individual’s motivations should be matched to the opportunities afforded by the environment. The motivations approach to understanding volunteer behavior is useful in determining the potentially positive outcomes associated with volunteering. It can be noted, however, that this approach ignores other decision-making determinants such as behavioral costs and control factors. Other theories and models that have been employed to begin examining volunteer motivations and decision making, incorporating a broader range of behavioral determinants, include the theory of planned behavior (TPB: Ajzen, 1991) and the theory of reasoned action (TRA: Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980). There is some support for the application of these theories in understanding volunteering
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intentions and behavior. Further, Harrison (1995) applied decision-making theory, TPB, TRA, and the episodic volunteer motivation theory (emphasizing subjective expected utility of anticipated rewards) and found that a sense of moral obligation is important in predicting male episodic volunteers’ motivations and attendance. Stress and Well-being
The provision of services by nonprofit employees and volunteers can be stressful, particularly if providing services to disadvantaged members of the community. The outcomes of potential stressors in nonprofit environments can be harmful. Employees and volunteers alike can experience lower satisfaction with their jobs, think more about leaving their organization, and experience poorer psychological health and more pronounced physiological symptoms (including burnout and depression). A widely used theoretical framework for examining stress defines stress as the result of an interaction between the person and the environment with association to physiological, psychological, attitudinal, and behavioral outcomes. Lazarus and Folkman (1984) proposed such an interactive model of stress in which a person’s appraisal of the event in terms of risk to well-being and the ability to cope with the situation mediates the impact of the stressor on adjustment. This fundamental relationship between the person and the situation underlies many work stress theories. Not only ought these process and transactional theories of stress apply to nonprofit organizations, but nonprofits may present their employees and volunteers with additional stressors. For instance, employees are often underpaid, must make challenging decisions concerning human welfare, and often work long hours in a tightly funded environment. From another perspective, volunteers commit their energy and time for no monetary reward, engage in activity that can cause conflict with other commitments in their lives, and often operate in a tightly resourced environment with little training. Furthermore, all members can experience the negative effects of employee-volunteer conflict. On the other hand, the nonprofit environment also affords access to potential moderators or buffers of the potential negative effects of stressors on well-being that might not be as evident in other sectors’ organizations. For instance, passion for the mission or cause represents a significant potential buffer to both nonprofit employee and volunteer experiences of stress. These unique aspects of the nonprofit environment with respect to work stress require investigation to uncover potential ‘‘in-built’’ sources of stress relief and inform stress-related interventions for nonprofit employees and volunteers.
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Decision Making
People in organizations are constantly making decisions despite limitations in their ability to process information and a pervasive uncertainty in organizational environments. Nonprofit organizations, especially given their multiple stakeholders and insecure funding, face particularly uncertain environments that present serious challenges to decision making. There are many decision-making theories with fundamentally different underlying approaches. Rational theories prescribe the methods that can be used to make optimal decisions on how to attain goals. The bounded rationality approach (see March & Simon, 1958), which has displaced the idea of rational decision making in the mainstream of organizational theory, describes the limits on rationality in the ways actual decisions are made in organizations. Rationality is not possible because goals are ambiguous (see section on Organizational Goals above), effects of decisions on goals are unknown, or all possible decisions cannot be considered. According to this approach, we settle for what we judge to be a satisfactory decision rather than consuming the resources to try (and fail) to reach an optimal decision. Bounded rationality is related to organizational structure because organizational structure is a way to bring under control the overwhelming amount and diversity of information that bombards organizations from their environments and makes optimal decisions impossible. As such, organizational structures are filters that direct attention to some information and make other information invisible. With respect to decision-making theory, structure is, in this way, an underpinning for bounded rationality (see March & Simon, 1958, Chapter 6). Indeed, Perrow (1986) noted that managers can, if they will, structure decision making – control it really, but in a completely unobtrusive way – by structural designs. This especially applies to communication patterns, language, and the sort of work done at the organizational boundary (where uncertainty absorption, in March and Simon’s language, takes place). Another group of theories consider how a decision might be biased. Kahneman and Tversky (1972) highlighted that people rely on simplifying strategies and rules of thumb to make decisions and that these lead to systematic biases that can affect judgment. Individuals rely on a number of heuristics, such as assessing something as likely based on the extent that similar occurrences are available to memory (availability heuristic). Additionally, a decision might be based on the similarity of the event to what might be stereotypically expected (representativeness heuristic). As many nonprofit organizations are engaged with minority
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communities about which stereotypes are prevalent, there is a need for managers and leaders especially to be aware of the potential impact these biases could have on optimal or even satisfactory decision making. As such, the problem of rational decision making gets cut down to what human beings in organizations can actually carry out. Therefore, bias arises, but as a side effect of simplification that people and organizations cannot do without. Group decision-making processes are vital to understand in nonprofits as groups are prone to a variety of biases. For instance, ‘‘risky shift’’ occurs when individuals in groups tend to make riskier decisions than they would have on their own. From another perspective, ‘‘group think’’ occurs when groups, together for a period of time, produce poorer decisions via social pressures and conflict avoidance. These aspects are particularly relevant to nonprofit board decision making, for example, where boards are often characterized by long serving members. Additionally (and with particular reference to nonprofit boards), group decision making can also be impacted by different group dynamics or processes. One example is the domination of decision making by particularly influential group members. Sometimes, one member has greater status or wealth that leads others to defer. The result may be a failure to consider ideas from others, leading to deviation from rational decision making.
Future Directions The discussion above has highlighted a number of salient areas regarding nonprofit organizational behavior for researchers to explore. From the sociological perspective these include: ● The functions and dysfunctions of nonprofit goal succession and displacement ● Long-term threats to nonprofit legitimacy when nonprofit organizations are, in fact, devoted to pursuit of private agendas rather than the public interest ● The extent and consequences of alienation among nonprofit wage and salary employees ● The adaptability, and alternately the structural inertia, of nonprofit organizations ● Balancing the trade-offs identified above regarding the composition of nonprofit networks. From a psychological perspective, areas for future research include: ● The extent that different identities and levels of identification influence a variety of nonprofit relationships including volunteer board member performance and relationships
● The effects of nonprofit organizational cultures and subcultures on employee and volunteer attitudes and performance, particularly in light of corporate-like shifts in nonprofit cultures ● Identification of the potential moderators of work stressors of employee and volunteer strain to enable the development of appropriate interventions ● The impact of group biases in nonprofit decision making, particularly in management and board contexts.
Conclusion This review has attempted to highlight the most important aspects of nonprofit organizational behavior from both sociological and psychological perspectives. What becomes very clear from this essay is the many areas of organizational theory that are yet to be explored adequately in the nonprofit sector. This review, hopefully, will suggest to readers the potential relevance of fundamental organizational theories and concepts explored here to nonprofit organizations. Organizational theory and research will be enriched by exploration of characteristics and processes that especially typify nonprofit organizations.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Altruism ▶ Boards ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Identity ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Mission ▶ Nonprofit Mergers ▶ Olson, Mancur ▶ Social Trust ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organizations, Economic ▶ Umbrella Organizations ▶ Values ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211. Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Ashforth, B. E., & Johnson, S. A. (2001). Which hat to wear? The relative salience of multiple identities in organizational contexts. In M. A. Hogg. & D. J. Terry (Eds.), Social identity processes in organizational contexts (pp. 31–48). Philadelphia, PA: Psychology Press. Ashforth, B. E., & Mael, F. (1989). Social identity theory and the organization. Academy of Management Review, 14, 20–39.
Nonprofit Organizational Behaviour: Sociological and Psychological Approaches Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books. Baines, D. (2004). Caring for nothing: Work organization and unwaged labour in social services. Work, Employment & Society, 18(2), 267–295. Baldassarri, D., & Diani, M. (2007). The integrative power of civic networks. American Journal of Sociology, 113(3), 735–780. Carson, E. D. (2002). Public expectations and nonprofit sector realities: A growing divide with disastrous consequences. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 31 (3), 429–436. Chetkovich, C., & Frumkin, P. (2003). Balancing margin and mission: Nonprofit competition in charitable versus fee-based programs. Administration and Society, 35(5), 564–596. Clary, E. G., Ridge, R. D., Stukas, A. A., Snyder, M., Copeland, J., Haugen, J., et al. (1998). Understanding and assessing the motivations of volunteers: A functional approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1516–1530. Cook, K. S., Hardin, R., & Levi, M. (2005). Cooperation without Trust? New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Cooke, R. A., & Lafferty, J. C. (1989). Organizational culture inventory. Plymouth: Human Synergistics International. DiMaggio, P. J., & Powell, W. W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147–160. Drucker, P. F. (1990). Managing the non-profit organization: Practices and principles. New York: HarperCollins. Faqua, D. R., & Newman, J. L. (2002). Creating caring organizations. Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 54, 131–140. Forbes, D. P. (1998). Measuring the unmeasurable: Empirical studies of nonprofit organization effectiveness from 1977 to 1997. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 27(2), 183–202. Frumkin, P., & Andre-Clark, A. (2000). When missions, markets, and politics collide: Values and strategy in the nonprofit human services. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29, 141–163. Galaskiewicz, J., & Bielefeld, W. (1998). Nonprofit organizations in an age of uncertainty: A study of organizational change. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Golden-Biddle, K., & Rao, H. (1997). Breaches in the boardroom: Organizational identity and conflicts of commitment in a nonprofit organization. Organization Science, 8(6), 593–611. Grube, J. A., & Piliavin, J. A. (2000). Role identity, organizational experiences, and volunteer performance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 26(9), 1108–1119. Gusfield, J. R. (1955). Social structure and moral reform: A study of the women’s christian temperance union. American Journal of Sociology, 61, 221–232. Hager, M. et al. (1996). Tales from the grave: Organizations’ accounts of their own demise. American Behavioral Scientist, 39(8), 975–994. Hannan, M. T., & Carroll, G. R. (1992). Dynamics of organizational populations: Density, legitimation, and competition. New York: Oxford University Press. Harris, M. (1998). Doing it their way: Organizational challenges for voluntary associations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 27(2), 144–158. Harrison, D. A. (1995). Volunteer motivation and attendance decisions: Competitive theory testing in multiple samples from a homeless shelter. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80(3), 371–385. Helfgot, J. H. (1974). Professional reform organizations and the symbolic representation of the poor. American Sociological Review, 39(4), 475–491. Herman, R. D., & Heimovics, D. R. (1991). Executive leadership in nonprofit organizations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
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Herman, R. D., & Renz, D. O. (1999). Thesis on nonprofit organizational effectiveness. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28 (2), 107–126. Human, S. E., & Provan, K. G. (2000). Legitimacy building in the evolution of small-firm multilateral networks: A comparative study of success and demise. Administrative Science Quarterly, 45(2), 327–365. Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1972). Subjective probability: A judgment of representativeness. Cognitive Psychology, 3, 430–454. Kohm, A., & La Piana, D. (2003). Strategic restructuring for nonprofit organizations: Mergers, integrations, and alliances. Westport, CT: Praeger. Lazarus, R. S., & Folkman, S. (1984). Stress, appraisal, and coping. New York: Springer. Leiter, J. (2005). Structural isomorphism in Australian nonprofit organizations. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 16(1), 1–31. Marais, L. (1998). The relationship between organizational culture and the practice of program evaluation in human service organizations. Kalamazoo, MI.: Western Michigan University. March, J. G., & Simon, H. A. (1958). Organizations. New York: Wiley. Merton, R. K. (1957). Social theory and social structure. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Messinger, S. (1955). Organizational transformation: A case study of a declining social movement. American Sociological Review, 20(1), 3–10. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1978). The structure of educational organizations. In M. Meyer & Associates (Eds.), Environments and organizations (pp. 78–109). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-bass. Moore, M. H. (2000). Managing for value: Organizational strategy in forprofit, nonprofit, and governmental organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(1), 183–204. Mulroy, E. A., & Shay, S. (1998). Motivation and reward in nonprofit interorganizational collaboration in low-income neighborhoods. Administration in Social Work, 22(4), 1–17. Ott, J. S. (1989). The Organizational Culture Perspective. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole. Parent, F. D. (1991). Vertical integration and diversification among multihospital systems: A for-profit, nonprofit comparison. Sociological Spectrum, 11(1), 81–91. Penner, S. (1995). A study of coalitions among HIV/AIDS service organizations. Sociological Perspectives, 38(2), 217–239. Perrow, C. (1986). Complex organizations: A critical essay. New York: Random House. Pfeffer, J., & Leong, A. (1977). Resource allocations in United Funds: Examination of power and dependence. Social Forces, 55(3), 775–790. Pfeffer, J. (1981). Management as symbolic action: The creation and maintenance of organizational paradigms. In B. M. & Staw L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 3). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. Powell, W. W., & Friedkin, R. (1987). Organizational change in nonprofit organizations. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 180–192). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Quinn, R. E., & Rohrbaugh, J. (1983). A spatial model of effectiveness criteria: Towards a Competing Values approach to organizational analysis. Management Science, 29(3), 363–377. Riketta, M. (2005). Organizational identification: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66(2), 358–384. Rothschild, J., & Whitt, J. A. (1986). The cooperative workplace: Potentials and dilemmas of organizational democracy and participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Schein, E. H. (1985). Organizational culture and leadership: A dynamic view. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Schepers, C., Gieter, S. D., Pepermans, R., Du Bois, C., Caers, R., & Jegers, M. (2005). How are employees of the nonprofit sector motivated? A research need. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 16(2), 191–208. Schlesinger, M., Mitchell, S., & Gray, B. H. (2004). Restoring public legitimacy to the nonprofit sector: A survey experiment using descriptions of nonprofit ownership. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 33(4), 673–710. Scott, R. A. (1967). The selection of clients by social welfare agencies: The case of the blind. Social Problems, 14(3), 248–257. Sills, D. L. (1957). The volunteers: Means and ends in a national organization. Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Smith, B. C. (2008). The sources and uses of funds for community development financial institutions: The role of the nonprofit intermediary. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 37(1), 19–38. Stryker, S. (1980). Symbolic interactionism: A social structural version. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin/Cummings. Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of inter-group behavior. In S. & Worchel L. W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall. Taylor, M., & Doerfel, M. L. (2003). Building interorganizational relationships that build nations. Human Communication Research, 29 (2), 153–181. Voss, Z. G., Cable, D. M., & Voss, G. B. (2006). Organizational identity and firm performance: What happens when leaders disagree about ‘‘who we are’’?Organization Science, 17(6), 741–772. Wittmer, D. (1991). Serving the people or serving for pay: Reward preferences among government, hybrid sector and business managers. Public Productivity and Management Review, 14(4), 369. Young, D. R. (2001). Organizational identity in nonprofit organizations: Strategic and structural implications. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 12(2), 139–157.
Nonprofit Organizations in the System of National Accounts HELEN STONE TICE Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Introduction The 1993 System of National Accounts (1993 SNA) (Commission of the European Communities et al., 1993) is the international standard for national accounts compilation. In this comprehensive framework, accounts for the actors in the economy – households, government bodies, corporations and other businesses, and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) – are brought together, reconciled, and integrated into a comprehensive picture of the economy. The most commonly used feature of national accounts is the set of macroeconomic indicators derived from
them, especially the gross domestic product (GDP), an unduplicated measure of all the production carried out during a given period by the country’s corporations, government bodies, nonprofit organizations, and households. The national accounts can show, for example, the contribution of a country’s nonprofit organizations to its GDP. A second useful feature of national accounts is the set of sector accounts that add detail to the accounts for the whole economy. These accounts can show, for example, the interactions between nonprofit organizations and households, government bodies, and for-profit businesses.
Definition In the 1993 SNA, nonprofit organizations – called nonprofit institutions in the SNA – are defined as ‘‘legal or social entities created for the purpose of producing goods and services whose status does not permit them to be a source of income, profit, or other financial gain for the units that establish, control, or finance them.’’ (Commission of the European Communities et al., 1993, para 4.54). The 1993 SNA goes on to point out that NPOs are not precluded from receiving a market price for some of their services or from making a surplus on their operations. What is crucial for defining an NPO is the so-called non-distribution requirement, which means that any surplus must be retained by the NPO for its mission and not be distributed to those that establish, control, or finance it.
Key Issues Although the 1993 SNA definition of an NPO would seem consistent with most understandings of a nonprofit organization, NPOs turn out not to be very prominent in the national accounts actually compiled under these guidelines. Lack of visibility
The 1993 SNA sectoring rules do not put all the NPOs qualifying under the definition in a single sector. Instead, they assign many of these organizations to the corporations and government sectors. ● The NPOs assigned to the corporations sectors are market producers that sell a substantial part of their output at an ‘‘economically significant price,’’ that is, a price large enough to affect the amounts that producers are willing to supply and the amounts that purchasers are willing to buy.
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● All other NPOs are nonmarket producers. – The NPOs assigned to the government sector are nonmarket producers financed and substantially controlled by government. – The remaining nonmarket NPOs are assigned to the sector ‘‘nonprofit institutions serving households’’ and are financed primarily by private donations. The NPOs assigned to the corporations and government sectors under this sectoring scheme are often large and important, including most prominently hospitals and universities. As a consequence, the only sector bearing the name ‘‘nonprofit institutions’’ – the sector called ‘‘nonprofit institutions serving households’’ – potentially understates the true size of the nonprofit sector. Definitional ambiguity
In addition, several of the rules for this sectoring are ambiguous. In the case of NPOs classified as part of corporations, selling at an ‘‘economically significant price’’ is too vague to be helpful in practical applications. Consequently, rules based upon the relationship between sales and costs have been devised. An example is the convention followed in the European Union, which treats as market NPOs assigned to the corporations sectors those that cover 50% of their costs from sales. Such measures are also sensitive to how certain government payments are treated. In the case of NPOs classified as a part of the government sector, the criterion ‘‘financed and mainly controlled by government’’ has ambiguities, especially with respect to control. Many countries took the existence of substantial public financing as evidence of control. Others noted the similarities between the health, educational, and social services provided by NPOs and those provided by government, and assigned these NPOs to the government sector. Distinctive features
Another difficulty in treating certain NPOs as corporations or government is the existence of sources of revenue unique to NPOs as well as tax advantages and other special features of their legal status. NPOs have sources of income – donations – that are not typically available to for-profit corporations or government units. Those market NPOs assigned to one of the corporations sectors can cover an operating loss with donations; for-profit corporations in the same circumstances are likely to draw down financial assets or borrow. Unlike other government units, NPOs can use private donations to
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supplement the tax revenues that finance their programs. If NPOs constitute a substantial share of the corporations and government sectors, then the homogeneity of these sectors is weakened and the premise of sectoring – to group together units that are similar in their economic objectives, functions, and behavior – is compromised. In addition, because the sector in which an NPO is classified determines how its output is measured, NPOs that, although classified as corporations, finance a significant fraction of their costs from donations, have, in addition to their market output, a nonmarket output that is not captured under 1993 SNA conventions. Classification
The major classification scheme used in the 1993 SNA to disaggregate by field of activity, ISIC, Rev. 3, is less well developed in services than in manufacturing and other goods-producing industries. Since most NPOs concentrate on such service industries as health, education, social services, culture, and recreation, the lack of detail in these areas makes it difficult to draw the distinctions within the NPO sector, which scholars and practitioners in the field find useful and important. Production boundary
In the 1993 SNA, the production boundary – the set of transactions considered in scope for the measurement of a country’s output – includes all production of goods and services destined for the market and the nonmarket production of goods and services by government and NPOs serving households. It does not, however, include the value of the unpaid labor services provided by volunteers, an important resource for many NPOs. This exclusion means that their labor cost is understated, and, in the case of nonprofit institutions serving households, their output is understated as well. It also means that contributions of time are not included in NPOs income in the national accounts. Other issues
The 1993 SNA rules for grouping transactions, when applied to NPOs, yield categorizations and a framework that are unfamiliar to many students of nonprofit organizations. ● Government payments to NPOs for the health, education, and social services they provide to households in the 1993 SNA are treated as social benefits paid to households, which use them to buy services from NPOs. The SNA treatment obscures the role of social policy in the financing of the nonprofit sector.
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● Membership dues paid by members of trade or professional associations are treated as sales in the 1993 SNA, but those paid by households to clubs and similar organizations are treated as donations.
International Perspectives These problems with the 1993 SNA treatment of NPOs were soon apparent. NPOs with substantial market receipts were merged with for-profit businesses in the nonfinancial corporations and financial corporations sectors. NPOs with substantial government funding were merged with government units in the general government sector. Many countries chose to leave their nonprofit institutions serving households in the household sector rather than showing them separately. Countries that engaged in systematic efforts to implement the nonprofit institutions serving households sector by adding various registries of NPOs to existing statistical registers found themselves excluding most of the NPOs so identified and assigning them to other sectors. Yet the work of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, summarized in Salamon et al. (1999), demonstrated that the true size and scope of the aggregate NPO sector was much larger than that indicated by the data available on the sector ‘‘nonprofit institutions serving households’’ in the national accounts. In response, in a collaborative venture, the United Nations Statistics Division and the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, aided by an international group of experts, undertook the development of the Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts (United Nations, 2003), which calls on countries to develop statistics on the full NPO sector in a ‘‘satellite account.’’ This account first looks at the full NPO sector using SNA conventions and then adds data on the contribution of volunteer labor and the nonmarket output of those NPOs classified to the corporations sectors. In addition to its discussion of the conceptual basis for identifying and classifying NPOs, the Handbook also provides practical guidance on how to identify NPOs and capture them statistically. A number of countries tested the Handbook’s implementation guidelines during their development. Several of these countries have gone on to issue official statistical reports on their aggregate NPO sectors, with some of these reports repeated annually. Empirical results from these efforts, reported in Tice et al. (2002) and Salamon et al. (2007), confirm that the national accounts’ ‘‘nonprofit institutions serving households’’ sector sill understated the size of the full NPO sector; that NPOs allocated to the corporations and
government sectors exhibit production and financing patterns that differ from those elsewhere in those sectors; and that volunteer labor is a significant contributor to the NPO sector’s production and revenue. To date, 30 countries have either produced such statistics or committed to doing so. Information on these developments can be found at Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies (2008).
Future Directions In February 2008, the United Nations Statistical Commission approved the first volume of 2008 SNA. Documentation can be found at United Nations (2008). Although primarily concerned with other aspects of the 1993 SNA – the treatment of various types of assets, consistency with balance of payments and public sector statistics, etc. – this revision also includes several important changes with implications for NPOs. Recognizing the increasing interest in considering the full set of NPOs, the 2008 SNA explicitly recommends that NPO subsectors be defined in the corporations and government sectors to facilitate the derivation of supplementary tables summarizing all NPO activities (para 4.35). This means that countries following this suggestion will provide users with ability to construct data for the full NPO sectors even if they do not choose to develop the satellite account recommended by the Handbook. With regard to NPOs controlled by government and allocated to the government sector, the 2008 SNA recommends that they retain their identity as NPOs in statistical records. It defines government control of an NPO as the ability to determine its general policy and program and provides five indicators to be used in making the determination of government control ● The appointment of officers: Does the NPO’s enabling instrument give government the right to appoint the officers managing the NPO? ● Other provisions of enabling instrument: Do other provisions of the NPO’s enabling instrument allow the government effective control? ● Contractual agreements: Are there contractual agreements that allow government to determine key aspects beyond those required under general regulation? ● Degree of financing: Is the NPO able to exercise independence of action despite its financial dependence on government? ● Risk exposure: Has government allowed itself to be exposed to substantially all of the financial risks associated with the NPO’s activities?
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The 2008 SNA uses ISIC, Rev. 4, as its industry classification. ISIC, Rev. 4 has considerably more details on services and especially on social services and membership organizations than did ISIC, Rev. 3. Recommended additional detail within two categories – other social work activities without accommodations and other membership organizations – will make it easier to identify such important NPO activities as child and youth services, emergency and relief activities; vocational rehabilitation and habilitation services; grantmaking and giving services; human rights organizations; environmental, conservation, and wildlife organizations; and cultural or recreational associations. The 2008 SNA makes no change in the production boundary, however. Thus the contribution of volunteer labor both to labor input and to philanthropy continues to be excluded from the accounts.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Indicators and Indexes ▶ Civil Society, Definitions of and Approaches ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relationships ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (2000). Non-profit institutions and the household sector. In United Nations, Handbook of national accounting: Household accounting experience in concepts and compilation (Vol. 1), Household sector accounts. United Nations Publication, Sales No. E.00.XVII.16 (vol.1). Commission of the European Communities, International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, United Nations and World Bank (1993). System of national accounts, 1993. Brussels/Luxembourg, New York, Paris, Washington, DC United Nations publication, Sales No. E.94.XVII.4. Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies (2008). The UN Nonprofit Handbook Project, from http://www.jhu.edu/ccss/unhandbook/ 03/10/2008 Lequiller, F., & Blades, D. (2006). Understanding national accounts. Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Salamon, L. M., Anheier, H. K., List, R., Toepler, S., Sokolowski, S. W. (1999). Global civil society: Dimensions of the non-profit sector. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. Salamon, L. M., Megan, A. H., Sokolowski, S. W., & Tice, H. S. (2007). Measuring civil society and volunteering: Initial findings from implementation of the UN handbook on nonprofit institutions. Working Paper No. 23. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. Tice, H. S. (1994). The non-profit sector in a national accounts framework. Voluntas, 4(4), 444–464. Tice, H. S., & Members of the Handbook Test Group (2002). Portraying the nonprofit sector in official statistics: Early findings from NPI satellite accounts. Paper presented at the 27th General Conference of the International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, Djurhamn, Sweden, 18–24 August 2002.
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United Nations (2003). Handbook of national accounting: Handbook on non-profit institutions in the system of national accounts. United Nations Publication, Sales No. E.030XVII.9. United Nations (2008). Towards SNA, from http://unstats.un.org/unsd/ sna1993/snarev1.asp 03/10/2008
Nonprofit Organizations, Comparative Perspectives ARMINE ISHKANIAN London School of Economics, London, UK
Introduction Since the late 1980s there has been phenomenal growth in the number and type of civil society organizations across the globe. This growth was due to a number of developments including the collapse of the socialist regimes and the end of the Cold War; the growing disillusion of Western governments and donors with state-led development in the newly independent postcolonial states; the ascendancy of the neoliberal paradigm of New Public Management which supported the rollback of the state and the privatization of state social service delivery; the growing emphasis on democracy promotion and civil society strengthening in US foreign policy which advocated greater civic participation and good governance. In this context civil society promotion became a new mantra in both aid and diplomatic circles (Ottaway & Carothers, 2000: 6). Lester Salamon and Helmut Anheier refer to unprecedented growth in the number and type of civil society organizations worldwide as the ‘‘global associational revolution’’ (Salamon et al., 1999). This chapter will examine the differences between nonprofit organizations and sector types internationally. It will explain how differences are in part influenced by the historical development of civil society in a given context as well as the prevailing political, economic, and social factors.
Definition A variety of terms are used to describe civil society organizations and sectors. These include nonprofit organizations, nongovernmental organizations, voluntary organizations, charities, grassroots organizations, community based organizations, faith based organizations, and many others. The use of different terminologies with reference to civil society organizations is not always analytically rigorous. Hence the terms used vary from country to
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country, but in general the term nongovernmental organization (NGO) is used to refer to civil society associations in developing and transition countries whereas the terms nonprofit organization and voluntary organization are used in the United States and United Kingdom respectively. The terms third sector, nonprofit sector or voluntary sector are most commonly used to refer to the sectors comprised of civil society organizations. There is much debate about the actual definition of what constitutes a NGO or nonprofit organization (NPO). Salamon and Anheier (1992) show that most definitions of NGOs or NPOs are legal (i.e., focusing aspects such as the type of registration or status); economic (i.e., nonprofit) or functional (i.e., type of activity they engage in). Attempting to develop a broader definition, they propose a ‘‘structural/operational’’ definition for the sector that defines NPOs or NGOs as those organizations which possess the following five characteristics. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Formal Private Nonprofit distributing Self-governing Voluntary
While needing to possess these five characteristics in order to be described as NGOs and NPOs, it is important to remember that such organizations also vary in size; level of organizational development, institutionalization, and professionalization; and whether or not they are membership based. Moreover, as Lewis argues, these organizations are generally geared to improving the quality of life for disadvantaged people or providing opportunities for individuals to share in common interests and pursuits (e.g., leisure activities) (Lewis, 2001: 36). As such, NGOs and NPOs address a wide variety of issues ranging from human rights, environmental protection, education, health care to sports and cultural interests.
Historical Background Although the civil society organizations, whether we call them NGOs, NPOs, or charities, have been recognized as a distinct group or sector only in recent years, such organizations have existed for many decades. As Anheier argues, they have been an ‘‘integral part of the social, economic, and political developments in many countries’’ (Anheier, 2005: 11). Charnovitz (1997) contends that NGOs have existed for over 200 years and considers the ‘‘emergence’’ phase of NGOs to be the period from 1775 to 1918. Key issues addressed by these early NGOs were the abolition of the slave trade and peace movements (Lewis, 2001: 40). NGO involvement in public health, labor rights, and
other issues expanded in the early twentieth century when NGOs began to bring issues to international organizations such as the League of Nations or the International Labour Organization. Yet it was only after World War II and the establishment of the United Nations (UN) that NGO activities with relation to international organizations was formalized. Article 71 of the UN Charter made provisions for NGO participation in UN activities. Indeed NGOs were involved in the drafting of the UN Charter as well. Although there were formal provisions for NGO participation at the United Nation, generally there was very little active lobbying or campaigning by NGOs from the late 1940s until the end of the Cold War. Only with the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s did NGOs begin to genuinely and ardently begin to participate in UN conferences and other meetings. The UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) or the Earth Summit, as it is commonly known, was held in Rio, Brazil in June 1992. There were nearly 2500 NGO representatives, and 17,000 people attended the parallel NGO Forum. It was the first instance when NGOs began to play an active role internationally. Since then NGOs have been actively engaged not only at UN conferences (e.g., 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, etc.) but also at other global fora including the World Trade Organization meetings and summits of G-8 countries. With the end of the Cold War and the growing disillusion with state-led development, donors began to actively support the growth of NGOs in developing and transition countries. In developing and transition countries, throughout the 1990s international development donor agencies focused on strengthening civil society which led to a focus on developing the NGO or third sector as it was variously called. Donor agencies established special civil society units, creating civil society liaison positions, and establishing programs to strengthen civil society (Howell & Pearce, 2002). Although donors defined civil society to include a larger array of organizations than just NGOs (e.g., trades unions, professional associations, faith-based groups, etc.), in practice however, they continued to work mainly with NGOs. Since 1989 very large sums of money have been spent by international development agencies on ‘‘strengthening,’’ ‘‘building,’’ ‘‘nurturing,’’ and ‘‘supporting’’ the institutions of civil society, training civil society activists, and funding their projects as a means of promoting democracy (Ishkanian, 2007). In the former socialist countries, the aims of democracy promotion and civil society strengthening programs have been to assist the countries make the transition from socialism as well as to support good governance, free and fair elections, human rights, and
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the rule of law. In developing countries, in addition to these aims, it was hoped that democracy promotion and civil society strengthening would also enhance aid effectiveness and support poverty reduction efforts.
Key Issues The nonprofit or NGO sectors throughout the world have developed at different times and paces. The nonprofit sectors in some countries, such as the United States or United Kingdom, have developed over a long period of time and in conjunction with socioeconomic and political developments in those countries. In many developing and transition countries meanwhile, NGO sectors have grown only following the influx of foreign aid with the explicit aim of strengthening NGOs and NGO sectors (Ishkanian, 2007). Anthropologists working in various parts of the world have problematized the export of civil society by pointing out that it is not a purely theoretical or politically neutral idea and that it is an ideal of social organization that seems to bear little relation to the current realities of the exporting countries. It is also an ideal, they contend, that developed in historical conditions that cannot be replicated in any other part of the world today (Alvarez et al., 1998; Gal & Kligman, 2000; Hann & Dunn, 1996). Despite these differences, nonprofit organizations and NGOs in developed as well as developing or transition countries face a number of similar difficulties. These include: (1) remaining sustainable and viable over the medium and long term; (2) dealing with the challenges posed by multiple accountability demands; and (3) maintaining their legitimacy to speak on behalf of their beneficiaries and constituents.
International Perspectives Africa
There are many local associations in African countries and since the 1990s, there have been concerted efforts at building up NGOs and the third sector as well. With the influx of foreign funding, the third sector grew dramatically as the number of NGOs ‘‘mushroomed’’ across Africa in an effort to tap into the funding (Obadare, 2004: 159). NGOs operating in the third sector throughout Africa address issues concerning health care, including HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention; education as well as capacity building and skills development. Alongside the bevy of formal NGOs, there are also many other types of organizations ranging in degrees of formality and institutionalization. These include rural migrants’ hometown associations in urban areas and different types of self-help groups including burial societies. The latter are a dominant form of
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indigenous voluntary associations that assist members to bury their dead. Asia
Since the 1970s NGOs in a number of Asian countries have been actively engaged in promoting development, fighting poverty, and providing opportunities for vulnerable populations. Bangladesh and India have two of the largest NGO sectors in the world with millions of organizations ranging from highly professionalized NGOs to small grassroots organizations. NGOs such as the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and the Indian Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) are very large NGOs, with thousands of staff members, which since their creation have provided assistance to tens of thousands of beneficiaries. The development of micro-credit and savings is associated with the Bangladeshi Grameen Bank. Since the 1970s Grameen Bank has provided small loans to the rural poor in order to support opportunities for self-employment and to reverse, what the organization calls, the vicious circle of ‘‘low income, low saving & low investment.’’ This model of micro-lending has been deemed a success and has now spread to many countries across the globe. Eastern Europe/Commonwealth of Independent States
Following the velvet revolutions of the 1980s and the collapse of the socialist regimes, international donor agencies began to support the transitions to democracy and a market economy in the countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. This led to the exponential growth of NGO sectors in these countries. For example, in Armenia in 1991 there were only forty four registered NGOs. Following the influx of foreign aid for civil society strengthening, that number increased to 1,500 in a matter of 2 years (Ishkanian, 2007). While acknowledging thatcivil society strengthening in Eastern European countries led to the dramatic growth in the number of NGOs and the vibrancy of the third sector, it is important to also recognize that the increased number of organizations has not necessarily been translated into greater citizen engagement or participation (Celichowski, 2004: 77) or led to greater benefits for various social groups (Hann, 2004: 46). In some former socialist countries, such as in the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, civil society actors differentiate between the donor-supported ‘‘neoliberal’’ versus the ‘‘communal’’ civil societies which have developed since the early 1990s (Freizer, 2004). As Sabine Freizer points out, there is a lack of grassroots support or recognition for the ‘‘neoliberal’’ organizations.
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Latin America
In Latin America the growth of civil society and the third sector has been influenced by the Catholic Church, primarily the growth of ‘‘liberation theology,’’ as well as the philosophy of Brazilian educator Paolo Freire and his ideas about critical consciousness and community action. Following the collapse of dictatorships in a number of Latin American countries, civil society became the space from which to promote political and social transformations (Pearce, 2004: 61). In the 1990s however, with the increased flow of foreign aid, a more professionalized NGOs began to emerge as donors supported the development of the third sector. The civil society strengthening programs however, Pearce maintains, were donor oriented and have led to divisions between those organizations which consider themselves ‘‘builders’’ versus ‘‘critics’’ of civil society and democracy promotion programs. The ‘‘critics’’ (i.e., social organizations) not only view the ‘‘builders’’ (i.e., professionalized NGOs) as having been coopted by the state, but also consider them as advocates of the neoliberal economic agenda (Pearce, 2004: 63). Despite these divisions, NGOs in Latin American countries remain very actively engaged in a whole range of activities including service delivery, rights campaigning, education, etc. Middle East
The third sector in the Middle East is still in the early stages of development. In addition to those NGOs either that receive funding from international donor agencies, there are also Islamic NGOs and in some countries, such as Jordan, there are also NGOs that are supported by the royal family. Given the repressive political context in a number of Middle Eastern countries, many NGOs tend to be rather apolitical and prefer to focus on issues such as healthcare, education, orphan support and vocational training. United States
Following his travels in the United States during the early nineteenth century, French political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville wrote Democracy in America (1835) in which he discussed the importance of associations and participation for democracy. Americans have a high regard for associationalism, civic participation and philanthropy Although the concept of civil society is not commonly used, the United States has one of the most active nonprofit sectors in the world (Anheier, 2005). In the late twentieth century, de Tocqueville’s work became quite popular among certain American scholars including Robert Putnam, Francis Fukuyama, and Larry Diamond. The neo-Toquevillian
position is that democracy is strengthened, not weakened, when it faces a vigorous civil society (Putnam, 1994). Civic participation is linked not only to the survival of the community but also to the health and vibrancy of American democracy. Ever since Ronald Reagan two terms as president in the 1980s, successive administration’s have supported increased social service delivery by NPOs. For this reason, the sector remains well-funded and very actively engaged not only in the provision of social services but also in advocacy and campaigning. Western Europe
The formalization and secularization of philanthropy began in the United Kingdom with the 1601 Elizabethan Statue of Charitable Uses (Anheier, 2005: 29). As part of the Poor Laws, this provided relief to the poor and vulnerable segments of the population including the elderly, orphans, etc. Since then the voluntary sector, as it is called in the United Kingdom, has grown and developed. In recent years the government has supported increasing social welfare provision by voluntary organizations. The Charity Commission, which oversees voluntary organizations and charities, remains a model for other countries. In other Western European countries however, such as France and Germany, the development of the nonprofit sector is tied closely to the state such that major ‘‘components of the sector are in a subsidiary relationship to the state’’ (Anheier, 2005: 35).
Future Directions While the euphoria that characterized the policies of supporting the development of civil society and the third sector has waned and there are growing concerns about the accountability, legitimacy, probity, and representativeness of NGOs, it is clear that they will continue to play important roles in developed and developing countries. They continue to be actively engaged in development programs and interventions in developing countries as well as social welfare programs in developed countries, but they are no longer seen as a ‘‘magic bullet’’ or panacea.
Cross References
▶ BRAC ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Freire, Paulo ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development
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▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Nonprofit Organization ▶ SEWA ▶ Third Sector
References/Further Readings Alvarez, S. E., Dagnino, E., & Escobar, A. (1998). Culture of politics/politics of cultures. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Anheier, H. K. (2005). Nonprofit organizations: Theory, management, policy. London: Routledge. Celichowski, J. (2004). Civil society in Eastern Europe: Growth without engagement. In M. Glasius, D. Lewis, & H. Seckinelgin (Eds.), Exploring civil society: Political and cultural contexts. London: Routledge. Charnovitz, S. (1997). Two centuries of participation: NGOs and international governance. Michigan Journal of International Law, 18(2), 183–286. Freizer, S. (2004). Central Asian fragmented civil society: Communal and neoliberal forms in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In M. Glasius, D. Lewis, & H. Seckinelgin (Eds.), Exploring civil society: Political and cultural contexts (pp. 130–137). London: Routledge. Gal, S., & Kligman, G. (2000). Politics of gender after socialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Glasius, M., Lewis, D., & Seckinelgin, H. (2004). Exploring civil society internationally. In M. Glasius, D. Lewis, & H. Seckinelgin (Eds.), Exploring civil society: Political and cultural contexts (pp. 3–14). London: Routledge. Hann, C., & Dunn, E. (1996). Civil society: Challenging western models. London: Routledge. Hann, C. (2004). In the church of civil society. In M. Glasius, D. Lewis, & H. Seckinelgin (Eds.), Exploring civil society: Political and cultural contexts. London: Routledge. Howell, J., & Pearce, J. (2002). Civil society and development. A critical interrogation. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Ishkanian, A. (2007). Democracy promotion and civil society. In M. Albrow, H. Anheier, M. E. Price, & M. Kaldor (Eds.), Global civil society yearbook 2006/7 (pp. 58–85). London: Sage. Lewis, D. (2001). The management of non-governmental development organizations. London: Routledge. Obadare, E. (2004). Civil society in West Africa: Between discourse and reality. In M. Glasius, D. Lewis, & H. Seckinelgin (Eds.), Exploring civil society: Political and cultural contexts (pp. 154–162). London: Routledge. Ottaway, M., & Carothers, T. (2000). Funding virtue: Civil society aid and democracy promotion. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Pearce, J. (2004). Collective action or public participation? Civil society and the public sphere in post-transition Latin America. In M. Glasius, D. Lewis, & H. Seckinelgin (Eds.), Exploring civil society: Political and cultural contexts (pp. 61–70). London: Routledge. Putnam, R. (1994). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Salamon, L. and Anheier, H. K. (1992). ‘In search of the non-profit sector: in search of definitions’. Voluntas 13(2), 125–152. Salamon, L. M., Anheier, H. K., List, R., Toepler, S., Wojciech Sokolowski, S., & Associates (1999). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project.
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Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of MARK A. HAGER Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA
Introduction This chapter considers the role that nonprofit organizations play in the United States. Civil society operates in different ways in different places, so the integrated functions presented here might be seen as a case study of how the nonprofit sector operates more generally. However, historical and cultural forces are always at play, and the nonprofit sector in the United States is clearly a product of its unique history and cultural mix. The functions of nonprofit organizations in the United States is the subject of a 2002 book by sector scholar Peter Frumkin titled On Being Nonprofit. This entry summarizes the functions of nonprofit organizations presented by Frumkin, condensing his 200-page volume into the essential dimensions and functions at the heart of his book.
Definition The function of nonprofit organizations should not be confused with the various industries that nonprofit organizations operate in. Clearly, nonprofit organizations in the United States are involved in such familiar arenas as social services, health care, education, and the arts, but these kinds of activities are not the functions described in this chapter. Rather, the term function is used consistently with the sociological tradition that bears its name, the functionalist tradition of Durkheim and Parsons. In the latter part of the twentieth century, functionalism, or functional analysis, dominated efforts to describe the workings of society. Frumkin’s functional analysis is consistent with this tradition. He conceives of society as a system, with conflicts between nonprofit, business, and government, that strives toward both an internal balance among functions and a harmonious balance among sectors. Collectively, nonprofit organizations play a role in this system by carrying out a variety of important roles that are essential to the healthy function of the society.
Key Issues So, what are these functions? In short, Frumkin outlines four: civic and political engagement, service delivery, expression of values and faith, and social entrepreneurship. However, several concepts are important to
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understanding how these functions are differentiated from and related to each other. The first contrasts whether our organizations primarily help us to carry out tasks or give us a means to communicate and live our values, what David Mason (1996) has outlined as the instrumental versus expressive dimensions of nonprofit organizations. The instrumental dimension focuses on organizations as tools for completing tasks with concrete outcomes, usually with social purposes. A community hospital is a typical example of a nonprofit organization with an instrumental orientation. In contrast, some nonprofits are founded with association and other psychic needs in mind. A historical society that helps its members feel more connected to their community is an example of an organization with a primarily expressive orientation. Although all might be categorized as primarily instrumental or expressive, most nonprofits have both some task orientation and an expressive dimension that helps tie its staff, board, or volunteers to its public purpose. The second contrast considers the question of why the nonprofit organization was founded. One force is demand, which concentrates on the needs and interests of a community and the desire for people to create organizations to meet those needs and interests. A homeless shelter is an example of a nonprofit organization that is typically founded due directly to the social demands of the community. In contrast, supply recognizes that some movements and organizations are founded from the impulses and ideas of individuals or collaborative in a community. For example, a theater troupe may grow from the creativity of one or several individuals rather than from the demands of a community for a particular kind of cultural expression. This supply orientation recognizes the agency of individuals to create and influence the social structure of civil society. As with the task orientation of organizations, the demand and supply orientation rarely evolves from a pure type. Although they might be sorted as springing primarily from demand or supply, most nonprofits can point to elements of both. Frumkin crosses his two dimensions to suggest four primary functions of nonprofit organizations in US civil society. The four dimensions both derive from and require a balance of instrumentality and expression, while meeting both the demands of communities and the supply of social action that reflects entrepreneurial spirit. Civic and Political Engagement
A primary, although sometimes overlooked, function of nonprofit organizations is facilitation of democracy through grassroots social action. Many nonprofit organizations, most of them small, are founded by communities
or specific interests to give people an opportunity to express themselves and act on behalf of their collective interest. As such, they are primarily expressive in nature, giving community members the opportunity to ‘‘transform their commitment into concrete collective action’’ (Frumkin, 2002, p. 29). They also represent the demandside orientation of US civil society, with civic and political organizations created to help carry out the responsibilities of democracy. The civic and political engagement function has a long philosophical tradition in the United States. The relationship between democracy and associational life had already been part of the discussions of such philosophers as Mills, Locke, and Hobbes. Madison and Washington both voiced concern that private associations might undermine formal government and its common purpose. However, French observer Alexis de Tocqueville (1835, 1840) famously observed that the United States was building democracy independent of the state through associational life. Since the founding of the United States, the nonprofit and voluntary sector has both served to strengthen and provide an alternative to government. Frumkin lists six ways that voluntary associations link individuals to political life, which might be thought of as sub-functions to the function of civic and political engagements. First, associations build social capital in communities by allowing people to meet and build relationships that can lead to social action. Second, they provide an avenue for collective expression, around which social movements might coalesce. Third, they provide an avenue for direct political action, such as demonstrations or voter registration drives. Fourth, they provide a means for advocacy on important issues, like when voluntary associations urge greater support of funding for arts and culture. Similarly, and fifth, they provide an avenue for lobbying on specific legislation, such as the passage of laws that require the state to publicize the domiciles of sex offenders. Sixth, they participate directly in the organization of the electoral system, including the organization of political parties and the creation of political action committees. Service Delivery
Whereas civic and political participation may be the way that nonprofit organizations are most embedded in the lives of Americans, nonprofit organizations are best known for their service delivery function. In Frumkin’s theoretical formulation, they clearly spring from community demands and are built to carry out instrumental tasks necessary to meet those demands. Examples include mentoring and tutoring programs, job training, and health care delivery. When society presents a need, or a community exhibits a
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particular problem, nonprofit organizations are one means by which the community can organize to address that need. The function of nonprofits as service providers immediately confronts the conceptual question of government and business as service providers. Why nonprofits? They are considered demand-driven to the extent that they take on ‘‘unsatisfied demand’’ that is not addressed by government or business. Government is characterized as catering to the median voter rather than the needs of special interests. Nonprofits provide the additional or alternative services that government is unable or unwilling to provide. Businesses do not typically pursue these kinds of services because they tend to be collective goods that do not generate fees. When services are fee based, they may not be profitable enough to justify the business model. In an influential article, Henry Hansmann (1980) suggested that a nonprofit’s inability to distribute profits to owners or shareholders made it more socially responsible, which creates trustworthiness that takes the place of contracts. However, theoretical efforts to distinguish nonprofit service delivery from government and business has barely been able to keep pace with the developing role of nonprofits’ delivery of government-funded services (‘‘third-party government’’) and inroads that innovative businesses have made in delivering social services. Nonprofit organizations may maintain their distinction from government- and commercially-delivered services to the extent that they tap into supply-side innovations. That is, delivery of services tends to be reactive to the demands of a community. This is particularly true for governments, which tend to operate bureaucratically, and business, which will only tend to enter fields with some proof of profit potential. Nonprofit organizations, on the other hand, can act as tools for innovative entrepreneurs to proactively define how social problems might be addressed in a more holistic manner, including mobilization of community discussion, volunteerism, advocacy, lobbying, donation of seed capital, and new ideas for dealing with both new and intractable social issues. Expression of Values and Faith
Opposite the instrumental demand side of service delivery sit nonprofit and voluntary sector organizations that are founded as a means or venue to express values and religious faith. They are expressive to the extent that they are founded as an expression of values, and they are supplyside driven because of their grassroots and member-focused nature. Most charitable giving in the United States goes to churches and other religious bodies. Frumkin
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terms the expression of values and faith as the ‘‘moral dimension of the sector’’ (97), and a way that people can enact their values through work, prayer, philanthropy, and volunteerism. In this way, these kinds of nonprofit and voluntary organizations are an extension of our private and community lives, separate from commerce and governance. More than just serving as a means of expressing personal values, however, nonprofit and voluntary associations function as an intermediary between private individuals and ‘‘impersonal’’ institutions, such as the state and the corporation. In 1977, Berger and Neuhaus appropriated the concept of the ‘‘mediating structure’’ to describe how community and membership organizations can help engage such ‘‘megastructures.’’ While such nonprofits as the academy and trade unions were implicated as such megastructures, other associations, such as the church and the community, are described as central in assisting individuals in engaging powerful interests that dictate the structure of their society. Further reflecting the supply-side nature of the values and faith function of nonprofit and voluntary organizations, Frumkin notes that organized philanthropy is an expression of personal interests and values. Many private foundations are founded from the fortunes and values of wealthy individuals and families. Rather than giving explicitly to meet the demands of specific community needs, many wealthy donors build their philanthropy around their own interests and philosophies. When they conflict, laws have tended to place the intentions of donors above the objective needs of the community, thereby ensuring that donors’ values are respected. Social Entrepreneurship
As noted in the discussion of service delivery, not all efforts to address social problems are reactive, driven by the demands of the community. On the supply side, but still addressing instrumental task needs, are social entrepreneurs. Common usage of the term ‘‘social entrepreneurship’’ includes all manner of innovation in nonprofit and voluntary action, as evidenced by the Enterprising Nonprofits toolkit published by Dees et al. (2001). However, in Frumkin’s formulation, social entrepreneurship is seen as a function of nonprofit organizations that primarily strive to address new social problems or to address old social problems in new ways. Seen this way, social entrepreneurship reflects the entrepreneurship more commonly found in the forprofit sector. Despite the fact that US businesses cannot compete with the low cost of labor in China, Mexico, and
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other rapidly developing countries, the United States preserves its standing in the world economy by maintaining its leadership in the development of new products, processes, and other intellectual property. Innovative leaders are different from the managers and administrators that most people associate with the daily operations of both businesses and nonprofits. Entrepreneurs traffic ideas and resources, sometimes developing many different businesses at once and moving on to new fledgling interests once an operation takes hold. Social entrepreneurs proactively address community needs and organize people in resources in innovative ways. Rather than managers or ‘‘owners,’’ social entrepreneurs might steer social enterprises as board members, volunteers, major donors, or as representatives of a community or private grant-making foundation. A shortcoming of supply-side nonprofit organizations is that the interests of the supplier, be it a major donor or social entrepreneur, may not match with the demand-side needs of the community. Frumkin suggests that one way that social entrepreneurs deal with this issue is to experiment with fee strategies and other market features. One way to know whether a social service, health care product, or cultural amenity has a market is to offer it for a fee and see how the market reacts. Social entrepreneurs also experiment with businesses and services unrelated to the charitable mission that are nonetheless geared toward generating money to support that mission. In all cases, their main function is to generate innovative services and products that best match an ever-changing market.
Conclusion Central to Frumkin’s conception of the functions of nonprofit organizations in the United States is the functionalist contention that the system operates best when the functions are optimally aligned and balanced. If civic and political engagement is overemphasized, the nonprofit sector might polarize interests into narrow factions rather than integrate community life. If service delivery is overemphasized, then nonprofit organizations run the risk of becoming indistinguishable from government or business, and perhaps even become an agent of government. If the expression of values and faith become the dominant function, then the sector runs the risk of becoming an amalgamation of exclusive clubs that discriminate against those who do not share certain organizational or community values. If social entrepreneurship receives too much emphasis, then the sector may fall prey to crass commercialism, resulting in programs and services that are judged by
market forces rather than whether they meet community needs or not. Balance of functions, then, is itself an important function of the nonprofit sector in the United States. This conception is a healthy corrective for observers of all stripes who tend to see the sector from the point of view of their personal political and social ideals. Conservatives tend to focus on the primacy of community values and downplay the merits of social services. Progressives tend to focus on equity, which often comes with a disregard for individual values. The function of balance asserts that the sector can meet the needs of all, and functions best when it is organized to do so.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the U.S. ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Hansmann, Henry ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Intermediary Organization and Field ▶ Lobbying ▶ Locke, John ▶ Madison, James ▶ Mill, J.S. ▶ Political Organizations ▶ Public Values ▶ Social Capital, Definition ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Third-Party Government ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Berger, P. L., & Neuhaus, R. J. (1977). To empower people: The role of mediating structures in public policy. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Dees, J. G., Emerson, J., & Economy, P. (Eds.) (2001). Enterprising nonprofits: A toolkit for social entrepreneurs. New York: Wiley. Frumkin, P. (2002). On being nonprofit: A conceptual and policy primer. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Hansmann, H. B. (1980). The role of nonprofit enterprise. Yale Law Journal, 89(5), 835–901. Mason, D. E. (1996). Leading and managing the expressive dimension: Harnessing the hidden power source of the nonprofit sector. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Tocqueville, de. A. (1835, 1840). De la de´mocratie en Amerique (A. Goldhammer, Trans. [2004]). In O. Zunz (Ed.), Democracy in America. New York: The Library of America.
Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction
Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction ARMINE ISHKANIAN London School of Economics, London, UK
Introduction Beginning in the 1980s international development agencies began to shift their focus away from state centered development and to focus on the role of non-state actors in promoting development. Their enthusiasm for civil society organizations in particular was due to a combination of factors. These included the growing disillusion of Western governments and donors with state-led development in the newly independent post-colonial states as well as the ascendancy of the neoliberal paradigm of New Public Management, which supported the rollback of the state and the privatization of social service delivery. Today, civil society organizations are engaged in poverty reduction through their service delivery and advocacy work. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) now provide a variety of social services for their beneficiaries including primary health care, education, and housing. In addition, civil society organizations, including NGOs, trade unions, faith-based groups, and others, are engaged in advocacy at the local, national, and global levels in an effort to fight poverty. Although there is a lack of agreement as to what is poverty, there is somewhat more consensus regarding poverty reduction. In recent years international development agencies and international financial institutions (e.g., World Bank, International Monetary Fund) have begun to focus on supporting poverty reduction. Eradicating ‘‘extreme poverty and hunger’’ is the central objective of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The countries at the Millennium Summit agreed to (a) reduce by half the proportion of people living on less than a dollar a day; (b) achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people; and (c) reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from hunger states that poverty should be halved worldwide by 2015 (UN web).
Definition Poverty is a highly contested and political term. Countries sometimes hide existence of poverty as it can make them look underdeveloped or be taken as evidence of the failure of social policies (Ortiz, 2007: 1). There are numerous definitions of poverty, which use different
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measurement criteria. These criteria in turn imply different approaches and remedies to relieving poverty (Townsend, 2002). The different approaches used to measure poverty include the (1) monetary, (2) capabilities, (3) social exclusion, and (4) participatory approaches. They not only focus on different measurement criteria, but in practice they also lead to the identification of different groups as ‘‘poor’’ or ‘‘very poor.’’ Apart from these different measurement approaches, there has also been much debate about the ‘‘absolute’’ versus ‘‘relative’’ definitions of poverty, which was primarily due to the difficulties involved in comparing poverty in industrialized countries with that in developing countries (Gordon, 2002: 59). These debates were partially resolved at the 1995 UN World Summit on Social Development where 117 governments agreed to two definitions of poverty: absolute and overall. This more comprehensive definition embraced the view that poverty is not only a matter of lack of income or resources, but that it is also comprised of a lack of access to basic services (e.g., education, housing, etc.), increased morbidity and mortality from illness, social exclusion, lack of participation in decision making, etc. Poverty worldwide is measured by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the International Fund for Agricultural Development and the World Bank. These organizations use government statistics on health, education, income, food security, water supply as well as social surveys to calculate levels of poverty.
Historical Background Poverty reduction in the early twentieth century was largely state led. In industrialized countries, in Western Europe for instance, poverty reduction was achieved through the establishment of the welfare state. Western European anti-poverty policies included employment creation programs, creation of universal social insurance and public social services, progressive taxation and redistribution (Gordon, 2002: 54–55). In developing countries however, particularly following decolonization, the conventional wisdom was that poverty could be diminished automatically through market-led economic growth (Townsend, 2002: 3). This so-called ‘‘trickle down’’ theory held that free trade, economic growth, low taxes, plus greater investments would lead to the benefits accrued by the wealthy to eventually trickle down to the rest of society. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, there was increasing support for the New Public Management (NPM) in industrialized countries. NPM refers to a series of public sector reforms, which brought a greater market orientation in the public sector. This is also often referred
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to as the privatization of the public sector. The logic driving the reforms was that they would lead to greater cost-efficiency for governments, without having negative side effects on other objectives and considerations. The international development agencies and international financial institutions (IFIs) also embraced NPM approach and began to not only focus on supporting economic growth and free trade in those countries, but also promoting the implementation of structural adjustment policies (SAPs). SAPs implemented in developing countries included the privatization of state enterprises, cuts to public spending on basic services including primary education and health care, the implementation of safety net programs, trade liberalization, etc. The tendency towards privatization in developing countries signaled a shift away from state sponsored poverty reduction. Instead, non-state actors, including NGOs, faith-based organizations, and other groups, began to play a greater role in development and poverty reduction programs. Although civil society organizations had been working towards poverty reduction for many years, they became more active in the 1980s because of the growing funding available for non-state actors working toward development and poverty reduction. Many civil society organizations engaged in poverty reduction began to actively support community led and participatory approaches that emphasized empowerment, good governance, and ownership. Focusing on pro-poor policies and issues of social justice, they began to criticize the policies of donors and arguing that economic growth and free trade were not the solution. On the contrary, many civil society organizations demonstrated that instead of leading to poverty reduction, at times these policies were exacerbating poverty in developing countries by creating and maintaining unfair trading relations and debt. They emphasized that poverty reduction is not and should not be viewed as charity; they argued that it is a matter of justice. By the late 1990s, many NGOs and civil society campaigners engaged in poverty reduction efforts were working to both provide services for their beneficiaries and stakeholders as well as lobbying for policy reform at the local, national, and global levels. NGOs and civil society organizations were campaigning for employment generating growth, debt cancellation, trade justice, greater support for and spending on basic needs (e.g., primary school, health care), etc. Following broad-based civil society protests against the structural adjustment and debt policies, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) introduced the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSP) in 1999 as a new means of addressing
poverty which would be based on the principles of the Comprehensive Development Framework. The Comprehensive Development Framework is an approach employed by the World Bank which emphasizes the interdependence of all elements of development – social, structural, human, governance, environmental, economic, and financial. Within the context of the CDF countries are supposed to ‘‘own’’ their development agendas (World Bank web site ‘‘a’’). This would allow for the implementing countries to become the leaders and owners of their own development policies (World Bank website ‘‘b’’).
Key Issues The Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers and Civil Society
Nearly a decade on, academics and civil society activists alike are skeptical about the impact of PRSPs on poverty reduction and many have been critical of the process and content of the PRSPs (Brown, 2004; Cooke, 2004; Christian Aid, 2001; Dijkstra, 2005; Ishkanian, 2006; Oxfam, 2004; Sanchez & Cash, 2003; Stewart & Wang, 2003). Currently, most countries with PRSPs are in the second stage (i.e., implementation) of development. Given the early emphasis on civil society participation, partnership, and national ownership, questions arise about what role civil society organizations played in the design process and what roles are now playing in the implementation stage. Certain policies and approaches espoused by the international financial institutions, such as trade and capital market liberalization, were non-negotiable (Stewart & Wang, 2003: 19) which led to the production of PRSPs that were homogenous in content and which continued to promote top-down, economic growth models. Perhaps there was recognition of the insufficiency of growth policies for poverty reduction in theory, but as the studies conducted by Northern NGOs (I use the commonly applied phrase ‘‘Northern NGO’’ to refer to those organizations that are based in the developed countries of Western Europe or the United States.) such as Oxfam (2004), Christian Aid (2001) Action Aid (website) and the Bretton Woods Project (2003) on the PRSPs demonstrate, in PRSP processes worldwide there continues to be a lack of national ownership and participation in both the PRSP process and content which has led to homogeneous growth-driven policy recommendations that strongly resemble the SAPs and which ignore any alternative policies (Dijkstra, 2005; Sanchez & Cash, 2003; Stewart & Wang, 2003).
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Christian Aid (2001) cites the Bolivian case where 1,000 Bolivian civil society organizations stated their dissatisfaction with the policy content of the final PRSP and appealed to the Executive Directors of the IFIs in May 2001 to not approve it. Despite the plea, the Bolivian PRSP was endorsed by the IFIs. Similarly in Armenia, although there was debate among civil society actors surrounding the macroeconomic policies, those policies and ideas that did not strictly comply with and adhere to the frameworks advanced by the IFIs were omitted (Ishkanian, 2006). As Dijkstra (2005) argues, although donors hoped that PRSPs would enhance ownership and promote partnership, in practice PRSPs were often written in the manner donors wanted them to be written with limited domestic ownership of strategies and a tendency to engage in ‘‘business as usual’’ policies. Civil Society Campaigns Against Poverty Jubilee 2000
Jubilee 2000 was a civil society campaign that called for cancellation of debt owed by developing countries by the year 2000. It was based on the Biblical notion of Jubilee year, which according to Leviticus, was the year when those who were enslaved because of debts were to be freed. The Jubilee 2000 campaign aimed to wipe out a large proportion of the billions of dollars in debt owed by poor countries. Debt cancellation, the campaigners argued, would assist these countries in their struggle against poverty. After 2001, the coalition dissolved and separate Jubilee organizations were created around the world. These organizations continue to coordinate their work through a loose knit global network. Make Poverty History
Make Poverty History (MPH) was a UK based civil society campaign against poverty that began in January 2005. Its aims were to campaign for trade justice, debt cancellation, and ‘‘more and better’’ aid. Trade justice included attempting to end export subsides and creating laws that would stop large corporations from profiting at the expense of poor people and the environment. MPH campaigners demanded that donors provide at least US$50 billion more in aid and to set a binding timetable for spending 0.7% of their national income on aid. For UK campaigners, 2005 presented a series of exceptional opportunities including the G8 summit that took place in Scotland as well as the UK Presidency of the European Union. The campaign consisted of over 500 different types of civil society organizations including trade unions, faith-based organizations, development
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organizations, grassroots groups, etc. The campaigners argued that through the mobilization of mass public support, ‘‘it would be possible to bring about a fundamental rethink of the rules of the relationship between the poor and the rich world.’’ Although the goals of MPH were hardly new or unique, what made this campaign significantly different were the size, scale, and the use of celebrities in the campaign. MPH used a large number of celebrities to help drum up public interest and support. The symbol of the campaign was the white band or ‘‘awareness bracelet’’ which supporters were encouraged to wear. The campaign’s most active period was in July 2005 when over 200,000 protestors gathered in Edinburgh to promote the campaign’s demands to the gathered world leaders at the G8 summit. At the same time, a series of global Live 8 concerts were staged which were aimed at attracting younger people to the campaign and encouraging greater civic and political activism and debate. The coalition was formally disbanded a year later in January 2006 when the majority of the members, particularly the large NGOs, decided the campaign should have a limited lifespan. Global Call to Action Against Poverty
The different Make Poverty History campaigns (e.g., the UK MPH campaign, the US One campaign, etc.) came together under the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) coalition following the dissolution of MPH in 2006. GCAP is a global alliance of civil society groups committed to continuing the fight against poverty and for demanding that world leaders live up to their promises. GCAP continues the use of the white band from the MPH campaign and builds on the demands of MPH including trade justice, more and better aid, and debt cancellation. In addition, however, GCAP is also calling for greater public accountability, just governance, the fulfillment of human rights and a focus on gender equality in the fight against poverty. The Impact of Civil Society Campaigns
These civil society campaigns have met with some success. For instance, the MPH campaigners were successful in getting world leaders gathered at the G8 Summit to agree to drop the debt for twenty-two countries. They were also successful in attracting a great deal of media attention to their causes through the use of high profile celebrities in their advertising campaigns and promotional materials. Progress on other issues, such as trade justice, has been more difficult. For instance, although the MPH campaigners attended the World Trade Organization
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ministerial meeting in Hong Kong (13–18 December 2005) where they actively lobbied ministers, they failed to deliver the trade justice deal, as countries were reluctant to embrace a number of the fair trade policies. According to the campaign website, ‘‘[the WTO ministerial meeting] could have been a turning point in making poverty history. But the potential for justice for the world’s poorest people was squandered. . .The responsibility for the WTO failing the world’s poor rests with rich countries whose governments, despite all our campaigning, did not show willingness to deliver trade justice. The agreement reached is far from just for the poor of the world’’ (Make Poverty History, 2005). Moreover, following the end of the campaign, it became clear that even when a goal appears to have been achieved, it is important for civil society organizations to remain vigilant. For example, while civil society campaigners have been successful in achieving debt cancellation for many developing countries, often the cancellation is not the end of the story. Recently, it has come to light that debt owed by developing countries is being bought by private firms, so-called ‘‘vulture funds.’’ Vulture funds, as defined by the IMF, are companies that cheaply buy the debt owed by poor nations when the debt is about to be written off and then take those countries to court demanding the payment of the entire debt plus interest. The most high profile example of this practice is the case of Zambia. In 1979, Zambia was given credit of $15 million by Romania to purchase agricultural machinery. Twenty years later as Zambia was negotiating with Romania to clear the debt, the US company Donegal International, bought up the debt which was then valued at around $30 million. Although Donegal only paid $3.3 million for the debt, it turned around and sued Zambia for the full amount of the debt, plus compound interest, which raised the value of the debt to $55 million. The judge overseeing the case limited Donegal’s claim to $15.5 m and cut its award of costs because of the firm’s ‘‘dishonesty’’ (Jubilee web). Such activities, while perverse and cynical, are not illegal NGOs and civil society campaigners have condemned the activities of so-called vulture funds and they continue to fight against them.
International Perspectives Southern Versus Northern Civil Society on Poverty Reduction
Although organizations in both the global North and South are involved in poverty reduction, there have been some differences in their approaches to poverty reduction. While Southern NGOs have been advocating for a more rights based approach to poverty reduction that
would include a focus on economic and social rights, a focus on economic and social rights in the North is more recent (Glasius, 2007). This division between the North and South has its roots in the Cold War period when the West was widely perceived as the champion of civil and political rights whereas the Communist bloc that of economic and social rights (Freeman, 1999: 32). Economicsocial and cultural rights (ESCR) include the right to work, the right to an adequate standard of living, including food, clothing, and housing, the right to physical and mental health, the right to social security, the right to a healthy environment, and the right to education. Organizations that promote a rights based approach to poverty reduction tend to focus on and integrate the norms, standards, and principles of the international human rights system into the plans, policies, and processes of development. Oxfam for instance has embraced a rights based approach to poverty reduction and embraces a definition of poverty goes beyond the purely economic to encompass capabilities, powerlessness, and inequity. Indeed, growing numbers of international NGOs, including ActionAid, Save the Children and others, are embracing a rights based approach to poverty reduction that includes a focus on rights, empowerment, participation, non-discrimination, and attention to vulnerable groups. One of the key unresolved issues concerning ESCR are the nature of obligations exacted by economic and social rights (Glasius, 2007: 83).
Future Developments In spite of the enthusiasm for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and various global civil society campaigns against poverty, much remains to be done. 2007 marked the halfway point to the MDGs and at this rate; there is a danger that many of the goals, including that of halving poverty, will not be met by 2015. Poverty worldwide is not decreasing. On the contrary, global economic trends, including high oil prices and the credit crunch, are making life difficult for greater numbers of people both in the global North and the global South. Civil society organizations in the North and South are continuing to address poverty by both providing services for the poor as well as campaigning for broader policy changes.
Cross-References
▶ ActionAid ▶ Advocacy ▶ Civil Society and Economy ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality
Nuffield Foundation
▶ Civil Society and the Media ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Geldof, Bob ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Jubilee 2000 ▶ Make Poverty History ▶ New Public Management ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Oxfam ▶ Save the Children ▶ Social Justice ▶ World Bank
References/Further Readings Bretton Woods Project (2003). Poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs): A rough guide. London: Bretton Woods Project. Brown, D. (2004). Participation in poverty reduction strategies: Democracy strengthened or democracy undermined? In S. Hickey & G. Mohan (Eds.), Participation: from tyranny to transformation: Exploring new approaches to participation in development (pp 237–251). London/New York: Zed Books. Christian Aid. (2001). ‘‘Ignoring the experts: Poor people’s exclusion from poverty reduction strategies’’ available at http://www.christian-aid. org.uk/indepth/0110prsp.htm last accessed on 4 April 2005. Cooke, B. (2004). Rules of thumb for participatory change agents. In S. Hickey & G. Mohan (Eds.), Participation: from tyranny to transformation: Exploring new approaches to participation in development (pp. 42–56). London/New York: Zed Books. Dijkstra, G. (2005). The PRSP approach and the illusion of improved aid effectiveness: Lessons from Bolivia, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Development Policy Review, 23(4), 443–464. Freeman, M. (1999). ‘‘Fifty Years of Development of the Concept and Contents of Human Rights’’. In Peter Baehr, Cees Flinterman and Mignon Senders, (ed.), Innovation and Inspiration: Fifty Years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Amsterdam: Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences. Glasius, M. (2007). Pipe dream or panacea? Global civil society and economic and social rights. In M. Kaldor, M. Albrow, H. Anheier, & M. Glasius (Eds.), Global civil society 2006/7 (pp. 62–93). London: Sage. Gordon, D. (2002). The international measurement of poverty and antipoverty policies. In P. Townsend & D. Gordon (Eds.), World poverty: new policies to defeat an old enemy (pp. 53–80). Bristol: Policy Press. Ishkanian, A. (2006). From inclusion to exclusion: Armenian NGOs participation in the PRSP. Journal of International Development, 18(5), 729–740. Jubilee Debt Campaign, from http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk/ Case20study3A20Zambia + 2968.twl Accessed on 20 June 2008. Make Poverty History ‘‘What We Want’’, from http://www.makepoverty history.org/whatwewant/index.shtml Last accessed 20 June 2008. Make Poverty History. (2005). Make Poverty History and the Trade Justice Movement statement on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong (18 December 2005), from http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/docs/MPH-wtoresponse. doc Last accessed 20 June 2008.
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Ortiz, I. (2007). Poverty reduction. Initiative for Policy Dialogue, from http://www2.gsb.columbia.edu/ipd/j_poverty.html Last accessed 21 June 2008. Oxfam (2004). From ‘‘Donorship’’ to ownership? Moving towards PRSP round two, Oxfam briefing paper no. 51. Oxford: Oxfam GB. Sanchez, D., & Cash, K. (2003). Reducing poverty or repeating mistakes? A civil society critique of poverty reduction strategy papers. Sweden: Church of Sweden Aid, Diakonia, Save the Children Sweden and the Swedish Jubilee Network. Stewart, F., & Wang, M. (2003). Do PRSPs empower poor countries and disempower the world bank, or is it the other way round? QEH working paper no. 108. Oxford: Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. Townsend, P. (2002). Poverty, social exclusion and social polarization: The need to construct an international welfare state. In P. Townsend & D. Gordon (Eds.), World poverty: new policies to defeat an old enemy (pp. 3–24). Bristol: Policy Press. UN web UN Millennium Development Goals, from http://www.un.org/ millenniumgoals/index.html Last accessed 16 June 2008. World Bank website ‘‘a’’, from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/ EXTERNAL/PROJECTS/STRATEGIES/CDF/0,,pagePK:60447the SitePK:140576,00.html Last accessed 9 June 2005. World Bank website ‘‘b’’, from http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/ EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/EXTPRS/0.,menuPK:384207 pagePK:149018piPK:149093theSitePK:384201,00.html Last accessed on 9 June 2004.
Nuffield Foundation EKKEHARD THUEMLER
Address of Organization 28 Bedford Square London WC1B 3JS UK www.nuffieldfoundation.org
Introduction The Nuffield Foundation is an independent British charitable trust. It mainly supports scientific research aimed at understanding and influencing social issues and runs in-house projects targeted at evaluation and advancing social change. It also runs programs supporting scientists and social scientists at the early stages of their careers.
Brief History The Nuffield Foundation was established in 1943 by William Morris (Lord Nuffield), the founder of Morris Motors. Endowed with £10 m of shares in the company, the Foundation is the largest of various Nuffield organizations that support a wide range of different issues such as
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academic research, education, health, farming, and the Armed Forces.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The Foundation’s work is informed by enlightenment values, that is a belief that human progress should be underpinned by knowledge and understanding. The Foundation’s website states that its mission is to ‘‘Advance social well-being, particularly through research and practical experiment. It aims to achieve this by supporting work founded on careful reflection and informed by objective and reliable evidence which will bring about improvements in society.’’ According to the Foundation’s website, the focus is on work ‘‘that has wide significance, beyond the local or routine. The Foundation looks to support projects that are imaginative and innovative, take a thoughtful and rigorous approach to problems and have the potential to influence policy or practice’’ instead of advancing scholarship and knowledge only. The Foundation often provides funding in areas where government cannot, will not or should not do so, namely in cases where it is a stakeholder in the problems or part of what is being studied. Their fields of action are mainly education, science, social sciences, and social policy.
Activities The Foundation’s activities currently include 12 grant programs. Some have a thematic focus (e.g., Children and Family or Adolescent Mental Health). Others support the careers of young people in science and social science. The Foundation also develops its own projects, programs, and major publications. Grant-giving has five fields of focus: Social Research and Innovation (£2.6 m in 2007), Science (£3.8 m), Education (£2 m), Open Door (applications for grants beyond the key areas of support, but within Trustees’ areas of interest) (£1.4 m), Other activities (£1.2 m). Most grants support scientific or social science research, some of them support young scientists.
Own current projects include the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Nuffield Curriculum Centre, and the Nuffield Adolescent Mental Health Initiative. The Foundation regards itself as being a convenor – not a grant maker only. This may be illustrated by the fact that in 2007 it organized 400 meetings involving some 7,000 participants. Furthermore the Foundation sees its strength in bringing outcomes of research ‘‘to the attention of the right people.’’
Structure and Governance The Nuffield Foundation has around 40 staff, headed by the Director Anthony Tomei. The Foundation is led by seven Trustees, mostly with an academic background. They are advised by an Investment Committee, an Audit Committee and a Remuneration Committee.
Funding The current value of the Foundation’s endowment is about £250 m, the average annual expenditure is £8 m to £9 m a year. In 2007 it was £12.3 m. The Foundation does not fundraise but several of its programs are cofunded, from a variety of sources. The majority of the income is spent on support of research and issues of practical innovation and development. The Foundation makes grants up to £650,000.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Over the course of its history the Foundation has initiated and supported many major programs. At present it is perhaps best known internationally for its pioneering work in the field of science education and for the highly respected and influential reports of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. Within the United Kingdom it is well known for its work with children and families, in civil law and in education.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Functions of ▶ Foundations, Operating
O O’Connell, Brian DAVID HORTON SMITH
Basic Biographical Information Brian O’Connell was born January 23, 1930, in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, and is thus an American citizen. He received a B. A. degree with a major in English from Tufts College (now University), Medford, Massachusetts, in 1953. For the next year he did postgraduate work at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Administration, Syracuse University. O’Connell was the Founding President and is now President Emeritus of INDEPENDENT SECTOR, the American national coalition for philanthropy, voluntary action, and civil society. He served as President and Chief Executive Officer of INDEPENDENT SECTOR from 1980 to 1995. O’Connell was more recently the initiator and a cofounder of the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University (USA). He served at Tufts as a Professor of Citizenship and Public Service from 1995 to 2006, and is now retired. Previously, he served as President of the National Council of Philanthropy and as Executive Director of the Coalition of National Voluntary Organizations. For 12 years he was Executive Director of the National Mental Health Association. During that time he was an organizer and the first Chairman of the National Committee on Patients’ Rights. For the prior dozen years he was with the American Heart Association, finishing as Director of its California state affiliate.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions O’Connell’s most important accomplishments are his work in cofounding and then for many years leading Independent Sector, as well as his cofounding the Tisch College at Tufts University, as noted above. O’Connell also made major contributions in his serving as Chairman of the Organizing Committee for CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, and as the author of ‘‘First Lights: Recollections of the
Beginnings and First Years of CIVICUS.’’ Other international assignments included work with the Yoshida and Asia foundations as the 1992 Yoshida Fellow, when he devoted his effort to comparisons of private philanthropy and the voluntary sector in Japan and United States. He was the Chairman of the 1989 Salzberg Seminar on ‘‘The Role of Nonprofit Organizations: Comparison of Functions, Operations and Trends.’’ O’Connell has served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, The National Academy of Public Administration, Tufts University, Points of Light Foundation, Hogg Foundation, and the National Assembly of Health and Social Welfare Organizations. He is an elected Fellow of the American Public Health Association and the National Academy of Public Administration. He has received several honorary degrees from universities.
Cross-References
▶ CIVICUS ▶ Independent Sector ▶ Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
References/Further Readings O’Connell, B. (1983). America’s voluntary spirit. New York: The Foundation Center. O’Connell, B. (1997). Powered by coalition: The story of INDEPENDENT SECTOR. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. O’Connell, B. (1999). Civil society: The underpinnings of American democracy. Hanover, NH: Tufts University/University Press of New England. O’Connell, B. (2005). Fifty years in public causes: Stories from a road less traveled. Hanover, NH: Tufts University/University Press of New England.
Olson, Mancur THORNTON MATHESON
Basic Biographical Information Mancur Lloyd Olson, born on January 22, 1932, to a farming family in Grand Forks, North Dakota, was an
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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academic economist, best known for his work on social and political organization. After earning a B.S. from North Dakota State University in 1954, he became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, where he earned an M.A. in 1960. He earned a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard in 1963. His doctoral dissertation was published in 1965 as the Logic of Collective Action, his seminal work on the incentives and disincentives for organizing interest groups. Olson taught at Princeton from 1960 to 1967, after which he served for 2 years as a Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare under the Lyndon Johnson administration. He then joined the economics faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park, where he taught for almost 3 decades. In 1990, he founded the Center for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS), a research institute focusing on promoting economic prosperity in emerging market countries through public sector reform and civil society development. Mancur Olson died of a heart attack on February 19, 1998, in College Park, Maryland.
Major Contributions Olson’s work focused on the economics of interest group formation and the effect of interest groups, income redistribution, and form of government on macroeconomic performance. The Logic of Collective Action (1971) developed an understanding of public and club goods, and free ridership by demonstrating that incentives for provision of such goods are inversely related to the size of the group that would benefit from them. Small groups are, therefore, more likely to form active coalitions, as well as to succeed in appropriating resources from the broader population, since the benefit to individual group members will greatly outweigh the cost to individual members of the public. Olson’s second major work, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation and Social Rigidities (1982), examines the effect that interest group formation and the resultant income redistribution have on macroeconomic performance over time. The deceleration of growth observed in Western industrialized countries over the postwar period is attributed to special interest groups and their securing regulations and subsidies that undermine the functioning of the market economy. Olson’s last major work, Power and Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist and Capitalist Dictatorships, published posthumously in 2000, shows how different forms of government face differing incentives to redistribute income and promote economic growth. Stable dictatorships are more likely to promote private investment and production than anarchies, but democracies have the best incentives to protect property rights and refrain from excessive income
redistribution. Mancur Olson’s ideas influenced not only the field of economics, but they impacted the fields of political science and sociology, as well.
Cross-References
▶ Collective Action ▶ Goods and Services, Types of ▶ Informal Sector ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups
References/Further Readings Olson, M. (1971). Logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Olson, M. (1982). Rise and decline of nations: Economic growth, stagflation and social rigidities. New Haven/London: Yale University Press. Olson, M. (2000). Power and prosperity: Outgrowing communist and capitalist dictatorships. New York: Basic Books.
Omidyar Network OLIVIER CHAVAREN
Address of Organization 1991 Broadway, Suite 200 Redwood City, CA 94063-1958 USA www.omidyar.net
Introduction A billionaire before the age of 40, the French-born founder of eBay Pierre Omidyar epitomizes well the new venture philanthropists’ mindset breaking new grounds through the development of a ‘‘hybrid philanthropy.’’
Brief History Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm established by Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay, and his wife Pam. Omidyar Network supports nonprofit and for-profit efforts that enable people around the world to improve their lives and advance their communities. Since its creation in 2004, Omidyar Network has funded more than 50 firms in areas such as micro-finance, social media, and government transparency. Micro-finance is central to the Omidyar Network’s philosophy of philanthropy. The Omidyar Network makes loans as small as $40 to entrepreneurs in developing countries. Inspired by the social impact of eBay, the Omidyar Network considers that business can generate remarkable opportunity and value, and that market-based approaches can breed substantial social returns. Omidyar’s greatest
Omidyar Network
accomplishment behind his democratic vision was giving rise to a level playing field by linking people with people, rather than establishing a brick-and-mortar retail giant with thousands of customers. As a social entrepreneur, Pierre Omidyar applies business approaches to solving social problems.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The Omidyar Network focuses on two major objectives. First, it aims at fostering access to capital (to fund online activities) through support of micro-finance, small-tomedium enterprises, emerging market ventures (investing in start-ups that offer low-priced products and services to underserved populations) and property rights. Second, it wishes to advance transparency in the markets and media (through online programs). The Network focuses on social media (encouraging people to express themselves, share their common interests, and act upon what is important to them), marketplaces, government transparency and trust, reputation and identity.
Activities The Omidyar Network funds several organizations within the micro-finance domain such as Ashoka (which provides social entrepreneurs with funding and a global network of relationships, knowledge, and resources), the Grameen Foundation (whose 2006 Nobel Peace Prize holder Muhammad Yunus sits on the Board of Directors), the Unitus Equity Fund (which is the largest global microfinance equity fund financed solely with private capital), Mix Market or Micro-finance Information Exchange (which is a nonprofit web-based platform that collects financial reporting and provides benchmarks) and Kiva (which is a micro-lending web site which connects US micro-finance funders with social entrepreneurs in developing countries). The Network also supports several Internet start-ups such as Digg.com (a social news aggregation platform), Linden Lab (the creator of Second Life), Wikia, Inc. (a web site, launched by Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, which enables groups to share information, news, stories, media and opinions), and Seesmic.com (an online video conversation platform). Last but not least, the Omidyar Network provides funds to Guidestar, one of the largest information sources on U.S. nonprofit organizations and private foundations.
Structure and Governance The current staff is 30 people and the plan is to double the organization’s employees. Omidyar Network is structured to work across the social, business, and government
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sectors, operating both a 501(c)(3) and a Limited Liability Company (LLC). Like a traditional foundation, grants are made through a 501(c)(3) entity. The investments in forprofit entities are carried out through a LLC. As a result, the semantic has changed. Active philanthropists such as Pierre Omidyar refer to donors as investors, and they talk of social return, performance metrics and scalability.
Funding The Omidyar Network derives its funding from the founder of eBay, Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam. In 2007, the network has committed $52 million of a $200 million pool for profit-making investments and has $284 million available to make grants to non profits.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Omidyar Network has redefined the lines between for-profit and nonprofit more than most grantmakers. Omidyar’s task is to help people ‘‘make life better for themselves’’ and in that spirit, it has invested in companies such as Linden Lab (creator of Second Life) and Meetup.com, while also making grants to the Grameen Foundation. Like Serge Brin or Larry Page (Google), Pierre Omidyar is considered a ‘‘philanthropreneur’’ as a person who believes in active philanthropy as opposed to check book philanthropy. They expect accrued transparency and accountability, ask to be involved in the spending of their donations, and demand measurable results. These venture philanthropists prefer to give away money earlier as opposed to a foundation custom to give through bequests. The number of foundations set up by the living has risen dramatically. New philanthropists have adopted ‘‘the sooner the better’’ approach to their giving since they believe it enables them to actively shape a personal legacy during their existence and see the added-value of their contributions.
Cross-References
▶ Ashoka ▶ Civil Society and the Media ▶ Dotcauses ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ Guidestar ▶ Information Technology, Internet ▶ Social Entrepreneurs ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Social Investment ▶ Transparency ▶ Venture Philanthropy ▶ Yunus, Muhammad
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References/Further Readings Cohen, A. (2002). The perfect store: Inside Ebay. London: Little, Brown & Company. Lewis, E. (2008). The Ebay phenomenon: How one brand taught millions of strangers to trust one another. London: Marshall Cavendish.
One-Percent Provision E´VA KUTI Budapest School of Management, Budapest, Hungary
Introduction Simultaneously raising state support and keeping the government at arm’s length from civil society organizations are the major challenges faced by the voluntary sector in the transition countries of Eastern and Central Europe. Since the level of government funding is much lower than in Western Europe (while the nonprofit organizations are supposed to play similar social and economic roles), a significant increase in public support is generally considered inevitable. However, it is extremely difficult to simultaneously strengthen civil society, help its institutionalization, and support the everyday operation of nonprofit organizations without gaining control over them and endangering their independence. This dilemma is well known in countries with a strong democratic tradition, as well, but it is especially important in the emerging democracies. The efforts to meet this challenge resulted in the establishment of the 1% system in Hungary in 1997 (Bo´di, 2007). Since then, this solution of the indirect public support has become a model; similar supporting schemes have been developed in Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia (To¨ro¨k, 2005), and even in a municipality in Japan (Chano, 2008).
Definition The actual forms and techniques of the 1% scheme vary in different countries, but the core of the supporting system is the same everywhere: The government cedes some part of its redistribution power to taxpayers. It permits the transfer of some minor part (1% or 2%) of tax payments to nonprofit organizations. Taxpayers are authorized to choose the civil society organizations to which they want their funds allocated. Though it is connected to the tax system, the 1% provision is not a classical form of tax advantage. When
taxpayers designate the recipient organization, they do not make any sacrifice; they decide on the use of pure public money. Since the government has no voice in the distribution of this special support targeted to voluntary organizations, the latter can get some support from the state budget without becoming dependent on government authorities.
Key Issues The Availability of Public Funds
The delegation of the distribution decision to taxpayers significantly widens the availability of public funds. While grant-making government authorities tend to favor the large organizations working close to the decision-making centers, citizens are much closer to grassroots organizations; thus, they are generally more supportive toward the local voluntary groups. Even the small nonprofit organizations, unable to find their way in the labyrinth of state redistribution, have their chance of persuading the taxpayers to select them as the recipient of their 1% contribution. Consequently, the 1% support is available for a large number of nonprofit organizations which are not familiar with the rules, procedures, and acts of the state redistribution process. In fact, the 1% scheme more than doubled the number of civil organizations supported from the central budget in the year of its introduction in Hungary (Vajda & Kuti, 2000), and this number has continuously increased since then. The structure of the 1% revenues is dramatically different from that of the public support provided through other grant-making mechanisms; it reflects the preferences of private citizens (Gerencse´r & Oprics, 2007; Lampl, 2007). This means that (1) the regional distribution of the 1% revenues is more even than that of the other government funding; (2) the major recipients are organizations engaged in child care, health, education, social care, and animal protection. There are several less popular but equally important segments of the voluntary sector (e.g., human rights, crime prevention, etc.) which are not likely to receive much 1% support. Similarly, the institutional and infrastructural development of the organized civil society (e.g., international relations, advocacy, support centers, etc.) can hardly attract enough support through the 1% scheme. Organizational Development and Sustainability
The income from the 1% designations is not just an additional element of revenues; it also has another virtue. Unlike the overwhelming majority of central government
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support, it is a discretionary grant of money; it is not necessarily related to concrete projects, it can also serve development purposes (e.g., hiring new employees, improving infrastructure, etc.). This nonrestricted type of support is rarely available from other sources. Neither project funding nor service contracts include all elements of the overhead costs, not to mention the funds which would be necessary for the organizational development of the relatively young and weakly institutionalized civil society organizations of the transition countries. Nonprofit organizations deeply embedded in their local community and/or engaged in popular activities can permanently rely on 1% support. If they manage to develop stable, trust-based relationships with taxpayers, the 1% designations are likely to contribute to their sustainable development. Nonprofit organizations which are keen on gaining the 1% support are well aware of the fact that the true value of the 1% designations is higher than their economic value. When taxpayers select the supported voluntary organizations, their designation decisions also express their commitment and appreciation. This moral support results in growing prestige and legitimacy, which are not any less important as elements of viability than financial assets. The Impact on Private Donations
The 1% income accounts for only a minor share of the nonprofit sector revenues. However, its emergence has been a net gain to the charities as a group, the 1% provision has not produced a ‘‘crowding out’’ effect, and private donations have continued to grow. Around the introduction of the 1% system, there was some fear that private donations would fall. Several experts predicted that taxpayers would interpret their 1% designation as a sufficient philanthropic act; thus, they would decline other kinds of solicitations. As a matter of fact, this ‘‘crowding out’’ effect did not occur. There is a considerable amount of overlap between the pool of designating taxpayers and those giving from their own pockets (Czike & Kuti, 2005). The taxpayers who have strong social ties and a sense of responsibility for others are likely to make both private donations and tax designations. The Democratization Effect
Besides the role it plays in financing the nonprofit sector, the 1% provision is also a new mechanism for the decentralization and democratization of decision-making in the field of supporting civil society organizations. Decisions made by taxpayers when they exercise the right to designate the recipient of 1% of their personal income tax
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are obviously very similar to private donors’ decisions. The only difference is that ‘‘1% donors’’ do not need to consider whether they can afford supporting voluntary organizations, thus their behavior is not directly influenced by their income level. Presumably, taxpayers’ decision on the allocation of the 1% is a type of ‘‘voting’’ (Vajda & Kuti, 2002). The selection of supported organizations reflects the citizens’ opinion on the importance of different types, functions, and activities of voluntary organizations. One of the major merits of the 1% scheme is that it offers the taxpayers an opportunity to think and behave as citizens, to consider social challenges, to build a priority of public purposes, and to make a decision of their own. Although a large part of taxpayers remain outside the range of 1% appeals and do not exercise their designation option, the democratization effect of the 1% scheme is still significant. It perfectly fits in with the aims of social participation, sharing responsibility, and developing partnership. Its introduction is a modest step toward the implementation of the new governance and the arm’slength principle (Kuti, 2006).
International Perspectives Although the development of all national 1% schemes was inspired by the Hungarian example, the actual solutions are quite different in different countries (To¨ro¨k & Moss, 2004). Their major characteristics are discussed below. Hungary
Individual taxpayers have the right to designate a lay voluntary organization as the recipient of 1% of their personal income tax. (Another 1% can be given to a church.) The 1% designation is part of the tax declaration. The financial transfer itself is made by the tax authority. The taxpayers are allowed to designate only one beneficiary. The overwhelming majority of the registered nonprofit organizations are eligible for 1% designations if they meet some simple requirements (public benefit activities, independence from political parties, no arrears of tax and duties). The whole tax remains part of the central budget if the designated beneficiary organization is not eligible; it does not accept the 1% support (mainly because the sum is negligible); the taxpayer does not name a recipient organization or he/she makes some formal mistake when preparing the designation declaration. Japan, Ichikawa City
Individual taxpayers are entitled to designate the recipient of 1% of their residential tax. They make their choice on
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the basis of planned activities of the local voluntary organizations. The 1% designation is a separate act; it is not part of the tax declaration. The financial transfer is made by the municipality. Locally based, nonreligious, nonpolitical voluntary organizations can become eligible for 1% designations through an open application system. They are supposed to propose some project directly serving the local community. The proposed projects are evaluated by a screening committee, and only voluntary organizations with an approved project are allowed to ask for 1% designations. If the taxpayers do not submit a designation declaration, their whole tax remains part of the local budget. If a recipient organization receives more 1% designations than it needs for the implementation of its proposed project, the surplus is transferred to the Civil Fund established and managed by Ichikawa city. Lithuania
For upto 2% of their personal income tax, individual taxpayers are allowed to designate several beneficiaries. They only have to indicate the percentage of their tax liability to be transferred to each recipient. The designation application must be submitted to the tax authority together with the tax declaration. The transfer is made by the tax authority. Registered nonprofit organizations, churches, trade unions and all public institutions are eligible for the ‘‘percentage designations’’ if they are also entitled to receive tax-deductible donations under the Charity and Sponsorship Law. The non-designated part of the personal income tax remains in the central budget, but technical mistakes do not have the same consequences. The tax authority has to notify those taxpayers whose designation declaration proved to be invalid; thus, they may resubmit their application. Poland
Individuals subject to income tax under the Personal Income Tax Act or the Lump Sum Income Tax Act are allowed to transfer upto 1% of their tax liability to a public benefit organization. They can select only one beneficiary. The designation is made at the time of filing the tax return. Beneficiaries can only be organizations with a public benefit status; namely foundations, voluntary associations, service-providing church institutions, and unions of local authorities which are registered as of public benefit and their names published in the Official Journal of Poland (Monitor Polski).
If taxpayers neglect to prepare a proper declaration, the amount of their 1% is lost for the potential recipients in the given year. Romania
All individuals subject to income tax under the Fiscal Code are entitled to designate the recipient of 2% of their personal income tax. Every taxpayer can choose only one beneficiary organization. The designation statement is part of the tax declaration. The financial transfer is implemented by the tax authority. All registered nonprofit organizations are eligible for receiving the 2% support without any restriction. The Fiscal Code simply mentions ‘‘nonprofit entities’’ without specifying the types or characteristics of eligible organizations. If the taxpayer’s designation declaration is correct, the financial transfer is automatic; the beneficiaries can collect the amount from their bank accounts without providing the tax authority with any kind of additional information. The tax authority is not obliged to warn the taxpayers if the transfer is not made due to some formal mistake in the designation declaration. However, taxpayers have their right to get follow-up information on their 2% contribution. They can inquire about it by a written request. Slovakia
Both private individuals and business firms are entitled to designate the recipients of 2% of their respective personal income tax and corporate income tax. Individual taxpayers are allowed to designate only one beneficiary while corporations may designate several. The designation is part of the tax declaration. The transfer is made by the tax authority. The eligibility for the 2% support depends on the decision of public authorities. Only those nonprofit organizations and church institutions are entitled to receive the designations that are included in the central register of potential beneficiaries. Voluntary organizations engaged in an activity listed in the tax law and not having public debt may approach any public notary office if they wish to obtain registration. Not only is the non-designated sum lost for the nonprofit sector but recipients also have to return the 2% support to the state budget if they do not manage to use it for those activities enumerated in the law until the end of the year.
Future Directions The limited participation of the taxpayers is a general problem of the operation of all national 1% systems
Open Society Institute
(To¨ro¨k & Moss, 2004). This is a challenge for both researchers and practitioners. There is an obvious need for research projects (especially comparative ones) on the 1% experiences and on the motivation of taxpayers’ decisions. Research results could help and orientate practitioners. It is researchers’ responsibility to significantly facilitate practitioners’ access to the most important and most useful scientific findings that can help their work. In much the same way, the government can be helpful, too. The efficiency of the 1% system largely depends on the relevant laws and regulations (Bo´di, 2007; Marcˇek, 2007). There is a lot to do in order to simplify the procedures and make the system better known and more popular among taxpayers. All government measures that promote and encourage organizational improvement in the nonprofit sector can almost automatically contribute to the improvement of the 1% campaigns, as well. Nevertheless, the key of the success is held by the nonprofit organizations themselves. After having made the easiest and most obvious steps in order to gain the taxpayers’ support, there is still a vast, unexplored ‘‘market’’ for nonprofit organizations which are ready and able to identify their potential supporters and to use more innovative and more sophisticated solicitation methods. Much more conscious, well-thought-out efforts and increased professionalism are absolutely necessary for the success. This professional improvement should mean not only the use of more efficient solicitation techniques but also the task of building solid relationships between citizens and voluntary organizations. In the long run, this may also result in more visibility of the sector and more citizens’ participation.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe ▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ Fundraising ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Participation ▶ Tax Policy
References/Further Readings Bo´di, Gy. (2007). The system of 1% designation and other forms of support for NGOs in Hungary, from http://www.onepercent.hu/ Dokumentumok/BODI2007web.pdf; 28/05/2008. Chano, J. (2008). 1% – japa´n mo´dra. Az 1%-os felaja´nla´sok rendszere´nek mu˝ko¨de´se Ichikawa va´rosa´ban. Civil Szemle, 5(3), 106–118. Czike, K., & Kuti, E´. (2005). Citizens’ donations and voluntary activities. Flash report on the findings of the 2004 survey, From http://www. nonprofitkutatas.hu/letoltendo/citizens.pdf; 28/05/2008.
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Gerencse´r, B., & Oprics, J. (2007). The role of percentage designation in creating a culture of giving. Budapest: Nonprofit Information and Training Centre (NIOK) Foundation. Kuti, E´. (2006). Arm’s length funding for civil society. Public Management Review, 8(2), 351–365. Lampl, Zs. (2007). Percentage designation in Slovakia: A review of the statistical data and empirical research, from http://www.onepercent. hu/Dokumentumok/LAMPL2007web.pdf; 28/05/2008 Marcˇek, E. (2007). Percentage mechanism in Slovakia, From http://www. onepercent.hu/Dokumentumok/MARCEK2007web.pdf; 28/05/2008. To¨ro¨k, M. (2005). A sza´zale´kos klub. Civil Szemle, 2(2), 107–115. To¨ro¨k, M., & Moss, D. (Eds.) (2004). Percentage philanthropy, from http://www.onepercent.hu/Dokumentumok/Contents.pdf; 28/05/2008 Vajda, A´., & Kuti, E´. (Eds.) (2000). 1%. ‘Forint votes’ for civil society organizations. Budapest: Nonprofit Kutato´csoport. Vajda, A´., & Kuti, E´. (2002). Citizens’ votes for nonprofit activities in Hungary. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute.
Open Society Institute JAN SACHARKO
Address of Organization 400 West 59th Street New York, NY 10019 USA www.opensocietyinstitute.org
Introduction George Soros named the Open Society Institute (OSI) in recognition of Karl Poppers’s 1945 work Open Society and its Enemies, and set as its goal to ‘‘build vibrant and tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to its citizens.’’ In conjunction with the Soros foundations network, they operate on local levels in over 60 countries, while also working to cross international borders to effect change on issues such as corruption and human rights abuses.
Brief History George Soros began OSI in 1993 to help fund and administer his foundations in central and Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union. Since 1984, these foundations and their network have worked within countries making the transition from communism. Though little information has been published about the foundations prior to 1993, Soros (1997) has said that his first foundation in Hungary supported subversive alternative activities which challenged Communist dogma. He believed Communism would collapse when exposed to these alternatives. OSI
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has since expanded its activities to include other parts of the world (Africa in particular) where they feel the ‘‘transition to democracy is of particular concern,’’ and where civil society institutions are lacking but needed to hold government accountable to the principles of democracy.
Mission The Open Society Institute ‘‘aims to shape public policy to promote democratic governance, human, rights, and economic, legal and social reform.’’ Operating within countries, OSI funds programs that ‘‘support the rule of law, education, public health, and independent media.’’ (OSI website).
expenditures, while the New York OSI office reported approximately $74 million in giving in 2006.)
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe ▶ Popper, Sir Karl ▶ Soros, George
References/Further Readings Palley, T. I. (2003). The Open Society Institute and global social policy in editor’s introduction: Global social policy forum and policy brief. Global Social Policy, 3(1), 17–19. Soros, G. (1997). The capitalist threat. Atlantic Monthly, 279(2), 45–58.
Activities OSI funds a range of programs (initiatives) including ‘‘grantmaking to strengthen civil society; economic reform; education at all levels; human rights; legal reform and public administration; media and communications; public health; and arts and culture.’’ Many of the initiatives are operated in conjunction with Soros foundations located in those specific countries and regions. The local foundations create lists of priorities and strategic maps toward achieving initiatives’ goals. A number of these initiatives have been spun off into independent organizations. OSI also funds a number of grants, scholarships, and fellowships.
Structure and Governance OSI-New York is based in New York City, is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, and the main headquarters for OSI as well as the main hub for all US-related OSI initiatives. OSI-Budapest in Hungary is the central office for OSI initiatives outside the United States. Together, these two offices provide administrative, technical, and financial support to the Soros foundations. Other offices are located in Baltimore, MD; Washington, DC; Brussels, Belgium; London, England; and Paris, France. The Soros foundations are autonomous institutions in over 29 countries with activities decided by local boards of directors in consultation with George Soros and OSI. George Soros is the chairman of OSI’s board of trustees.
Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) GABRIEL AMITSIS
Address of Organization OECD Secretariat 2, rue Andre´ Pascal F-75775 Paris Cedex 16 France www.oecd.org
Introduction The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an International Organization established in 1960 as the successor of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. It includes 30 member countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States).
Funding
Brief History
George Soros is the primary source of funds for the Open Society Institute and the Soros foundations network. Philanthropic trusts established by other members of the Soros family are also sources of funding. OSI and the Soros foundation networks estimate current expenditures to be at an average of $400–$500 million annually. (Their 2006 annual report lists $148 million in
OECD was formally established on 14.12.1960, when the founding Convention was signed by 20 countries. It continues under the same legal personality the work of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC). OEEC was formed in 1947 to administer American and Canadian aid under the Marshall Plan for the reconstruction of Europe after World War II. In May
Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)
2007, OECD countries agreed to invite Chile, Estonia, Israel, Russia, and Slovenia to open discussions for membership of the Organization and offered enhanced engagement, with a view to possible membership, to Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, and South Africa.
Mission OECD’s mandate is focused on supporting member countries to foster prosperity and fight poverty through economic growth and financial stability, taking into account environmental implications of economic and social development. According to the founding Convention, ‘‘the aims of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development shall be to promote policies designed to: (a) Achieve the highest sustainable economic growth and employment and a rising standard of living in Member countries, while maintaining financial stability, and thus to contribute to the development of the world economy; (b) Contribute to sound economic expansion in Member as well as non-member countries in the process of economic development; and (c) Contribute to the expansion of world trade on a multilateral, non-discriminatory basis in accordance with international obligations.’’
Activities To pursue its mission, OECD promotes continued monitoring of events in member countries as well as outside the OECD area, combined with regular projections of short and medium-term economic developments. The OECD Secretariat collects and analyses data, after which committees discuss policy regarding this information. The Council makes decisions, and then governments implement recommendations. It also holds mutual examination by governments, multilateral surveillance, and a peer review process through which the performance of individual countries is monitored by their peers, all carried out at committee-level. Discussions at OECD committee-level sometimes evolve into negotiations where OECD countries agree on rules of the framework for international co-operation. They can culminate in formal agreements by countries, may produce standards and models for future action or recommendations. They may also result in guidelines, for example, on corporate governance or environmental practices. OECD’s activities are presented through regular outlooks, annual overviews, and comparative statistics.
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The OECD has co-operated with civil society since its creation. For many years this co-operation took place principally through the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC) and the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD (TUAC), promoted by the Labour/Management Programme (LMP). In the past decade the OECD has extended these activities to a broader range of stakeholders, notably other international civil society organizations. During the 2000s, the OECD pursues informal relationships with representatives from many sectors of civil society. A number of OECD Committees consult regularly with these Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), as well as with BIAC and TUAC. In some areas, CSOs have played an important role in the actual drafting and implementation of OECD instruments, such as the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, which were revised in 2000. Online consultation allows civil society stakeholders to comment on draft OECD guidelines in many areas including investment policy, government administration, pensions, the Internet and many other issues. Despite the fact that the OECD has no system of formal accreditation for civil society organizations (particularly NGOs and self help groups), some CSOs have formed ‘‘umbrella’’ organizations to facilitate dialogue with the OECD. This is the case for environment, where the European Environmental Bureau based in Brussels acts as a clearing house for dialogue with the OECD, and funnels information to and from its members. Similarly, OECD Watch, a group of more than 60 CSOs, follows the work of the OECD Investment Committee in a coordinated way. The OECD stages a number of forums, many of them in non-member countries, where the participation of civil society is welcome. The annual OECD Forum is designed to allow business and labour leaders, ministers, academics and civil society representatives access to ministers to debate issues at the heart of OECD activity. The Forum immediately precedes the annual OECD ministerial meeting so that debates at the Forum inform the ministers’ discussions. The OECD stages many regional workshops and seminars organised by individual OECD directorates, for example, in the areas of corporate governance, bribery and corruption, the environment, development, Internet and communication in order to engage with civil society at the grass roots.
Structure and Governance As an International Organization, OECD is governed by a Council composed of all the Members, acting as the body from which all acts of the Organization derive. The
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Council meets in sessions of Ministers or of Permanent Representatives and designates each year a Chairman and two Vice-Chairmen. It also establishes an Executive Committee and relevant subsidiary bodies. A Secretary-General responsible to the Council is appointed by the Council for a term of 5 years. Everyday activities are performed by the OECD Secretariat, organized in Directorates. The Public Affairs Division is the OECD’s focal point for co-operation with business, labour, civil society, and the general public. It exploits a wide range of communications channels, from both traditional and new media.
possiblemultilateral agreement on investment. Washington: Washington University School of Law. Douma, S., & Engelen F. (Eds.) (2008). The legal status of the OECD commentaries: Vol. 1 – Conflict of norms in international tax law series. Amsterdam: International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation.
Organization of the Islamic Conference CHRISTOPHER S. BIGGERS
Funding OECD is funded by its 30 member countries through regular contributions based on a formula which takes account of the size of each member’s economy. The largest contributor is the United States, which provides nearly 25% of the budget, followed by Japan. With the approval of the Council, countries may also make voluntary contributions to special programs or outputs not funded from the main budget. The budget for 2007 was €341.8 million, and the budget for 2008 is €342.9 million.
Major Accomplishments Among other areas, the OECD has taken a leading role in co-ordinating international action on corruption and bribery, creating the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention, which came into effect in February 1999 and is ratified by thirty-seven countries. As far as civil society activities are concerned, the OECD promotes transnational cooperations, particularly through the LEED Programme that identifies, analyses, and disseminates innovative ideas for local development, governance and the social economy. Governments from OECD member and non-member economies look to LEED and work through it to generate innovative guidance on policies to support employment creation and economic development through locally based initiatives.
Address of Organization P.O. Box 178 Jeddah-21411 Kingdom of Saudi Arabia www.oic-oci.org/
Introduction The OIC is the second largest intergovernmental organization whose membership has expanded to 57 Islamic member states at the time of publication. While the OIC meets to discuss a wide range of issues facing the Islamic world, the promotion of cooperation in areas of social, cultural, scientific, as well as the political and economic fields remains the highest priority.
Brief History The OIC has its origins as a joint response from Muslim states to the arson attack against Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem August 21, 1969. By September 25 later that year, the OIC was established at a summit by 24 Muslim heads of state in Rabat, Morocco. In March 1972, the OIC received its inaugural charter at the Jeddah foreign ministers meeting which emphasized intergovernmental cooperation as well as support for Palestinian liberation. Subsequently, the OIC has evolved to incorporate a more solidarist position with international society by updating definitions and revising the charter.
Cross-References ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ INGOs ▶ Social Economy
References/Further Readings Addo, M. K. (Ed.) (1999). Human rights standards and the responsibility of transnational corporations. Kluwer Law International.The Hague: Caliskan, Y. (2002). The development of international investment law: Lessons from the OECD MAI negotiations and their application to a
Mission The mission and objectives presented in the 2008 OIC Charter coincide largely with conventions of international law, human rights law, and the UN Charter. The main purpose for the OIC has been to enhance the solidarity among Muslim member states in the attempts to create a single unified position reducing competing voices that may have problematic legitimacies (e.g., terrorist).
Organizational Forms and Development
Furthermore, the Charter seeks to strengthen intra-Islamic economic and trade cooperation which stresses the eventual establishment of an Islamic Common Market.
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Islamic Development Bank, a subsidiary of the OIC, and the Asian Development Bank.
Cross-References Activities In the attempts to foster consideration and understanding of Islam, the OIC supports the conditions where dialogue can occur through educative endeavors, support of international fora, and the furthering of conflict resolution mechanisms. In recent years the OIC has pushed to further institutional assistance and philanthropic activities to aid victims of humanitarian disasters as well as initiatives supporting international law. Additionally, the OIC has tried to reach out to countries outside the Islamic world, specifically the United States, Great Britain and France, to develop new channels of communication to further cooperation.
Structure and Governance The OIC consists of 11 organs layered hierarchically with the decision making organs, the Islamic Summit and the Council of Foreign Ministers, at the head – meeting at 3 and 1 year intervals respectively. Described as the ‘‘supreme authority,’’ the Islamic Summit decides OIC policy and provides direction on issues relating to member states and the Ummah. Furthermore, the governing structure includes a General Secretariat responsible for carrying out the decisions of the other executive bodies as well as overseeing that Charters rules are upheld.
Funding The OIC receives funding and resources from its member states. At present there is no compulsory or percentage based requirements for members but some countries with vested interests in the organization have authorized international financial contributions within their national budgets. Despite having members whose resources include 70% of the world crude oil reserves as well as 50% of the natural gas reserves, the OIC is often run on an insufficient budget.
Accomplishments Most notable accomplishments include the recent revision of the 1972 Charter as well as the OIC’s work regarding food security. In 2007 the OIC won a United Nations Development Program award for making progress on South-South cooperation. The OIC has engaged support from a wide range of countries focusing on new programs and cooperative projects between the
▶ Philanthropy and Religon, Islam ▶ Solidarity
References/Further Readings Eickelman, D., & Anderson, J. (2003). New media in the Muslim world: The emerging public sphere. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Eickelman, D., & Piscatori, J. (2004). Muslim politics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Organizational Forms and Development BERND HELMIG, KATHARINA SPRAUL, SILKE MICHALSKI University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany
Introduction Much has been written about the diversity of the nonprofit sector and the challenge to identify typical structures and behavior for all given kinds of organizational forms. This holds especially true in today’s dynamic environment in which the importance of public-private partnerships has been rising steadily and a lot of new organizational forms labeled as, for example ‘‘value network organizations’’ or ‘‘knowledge based organizations’’ were implemented (Helmig et al., 2006). Today, organizational forms are seen more and more as a strategic factor of organizations, not only in the nonprofit sector (Daft & Lewin, 1993). Tucker et al. (1990) differentiated between three research traditions relevant to the topic of organizational forms: first, studies of business administration, especially entrepreneurship because an entrepreneur usually starts from scratch when a new organization is created (Borzaga & Defourny, 2001), second, research from new institutional economics which argues that market failure leads to the creation of new organizational forms, and third, scholars from organizational ecology (OE) – a sociological theory – mostly linked to the evolution of a large variety of industries (Hannan & Freemann, 1989; Carroll & Hannan, 2000; Ruef, 2000). In line with the last mentioned research tradition Aldrich and Ruef (2006) presented a theoretical approach of organizational forms
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differentiating between the following: blueprints, resource niches, organizational identities, and cultural codes (Aldrich & Ruef, 2006: 115). As yet, however, only a few crossover studies (Van Wittelloostuin & Boone, 2006) and no accepted theoretical approach for the nonprofit sector exist. Therefore, the aim of this substantive entry is twofold: First, a short overview is provided regarding the most relevant organizational forms discussed in the nonprofit sector. Secondly, some typical developments, i.e., stages of nonprofit organizations in their life cycle, are described and explained theoretically.
Definition The term organizational form can be defined broadly as distinct characteristics of an organization which enable third parties to identify the organization, respectively to classify the organization as a member of a group of similar organizations (Romanelli, 1991; Aldrich & Ruef, 2006; Palmer et al., 2007; Romanelli & Fiol, 2008). With this definition in mind, a distinction is made between two dimensions in order to systemize organizational forms in the nonprofit sector (see Table 1). The vertical dimension considers the level of analysis with a differentiation between the sector, industry, and organizational level. The horizontal dimension considers the extent to which organizational forms are seen as static, and more or less stable over time, or as dynamic entities. Combining the two dimensions, four general approaches of organizational forms can be differentiated.
by its elected representatives. They are acting under strict budget and legal parameters in the public sector. The nonprofit sector, however, is defined as the collection of private (not state owned) entities acting not with profit orientation, but with the goal to increase social value for society (Powell & Steinberg, 2006). This sector-specific approach to classify organizational forms helps an individual organization to identify itself as a member of a certain sector. However, there are no rigid frontiers between the three sectors and many NPOs are explicitly trying to cooperate across the sectors (in the sense of public-private partnerships) (Fig. 1). ICNPO Approach
Another, more industry-oriented approach with regard to classifying existing nonprofit organizations is the International Classification of Nonprofit Organizations (ICNPO) recommended in the UN Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts (http:// unstats.un.org). The ICNPO approach groups nonprofit organizations into 12 major activity groups: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
Culture and recreation Education and research Health Social services Environment Development and housing Law, advocacy, and politics Philanthropic intermediaries and voluntarism promotion
Third Sector Approach
Most leading nonprofit researchers adopted Etzioni’s (1973) concept of a trichonomy of sectors in which the government, the for-profit, and the nonprofit sector are clearly distinguished. For-profit firms in the private sector provide services or products for customers to achieve profit in the long run. Government agencies are owned
Organizational Forms and Development. Table 1 Theoretical classification of organizational forms in the nonprofit sector Level of analysis of an organizational form
Possibility of change of an organizational form over time Static
Dynamic
Sector level
Third sector approach
Valuenetwork approach
Industry level
ICNPO approach
Organizational level
Legal approach
Organizational Forms and Development. Fig. 1 Third sector approach
Organizational Forms and Development
9. 10. 11. 12.
International Religion Business and professional associations, unions Not elsewhere classified.
These 12 groups are further divided into 24 subgroups and different organizational forms. The ICNPO 3 ‘‘health’’ comprises for example: hospitals, organizations responsible for rehabilitation, nursing homes, psychiatric hospitals, centers for mental health treatments, organizations responsible for crisis intervention, and others. Legal Approach
There is a variety of legal forms given in the nonprofit sector such as voluntary associations, foundations, and cooperatives (Freise & Paja, 2004). An association can be formed for any legal purpose and is therefore an appropriate instrument for many NPOs, especially those with member character. A foundation is the most static organizational form, because the purpose of the foundation can not be changed; otherwise the foundation will be terminated by official state agencies. Here, it is possible to identify two major types of foundations: grantmaking foundations and operating foundations (Anheier & Daly, 2006). Cooperatives are associations in which the members of the NPO pursue personal rights, and they usually aim to improve the economics practiced by their members. Unlike in Europe, where the tradition of associations is strong, in the United States the most popular legal form for nonprofit organizations by far is the corporation. The advantages of a corporation may be summarised as follows: a corporation can have a limited existence (compared to a foundation with unlimited existence), has its own name and therefore organizational identity, and can own or control other corporations. Value Network Approach
As mentioned before, an increasing number of nonprofit organizations realize cooperations or other forms of partnerships across sectors, industries, or between organizations in order to achieve their organizational goals (to raise funds for example, jointly with for-profit firms). Based on this trend, it is argued that the classification and systematization of organizational forms is not obsolete, but is becoming less important for future strategic nonprofit management. Future constellations will look more like the value network approach (Stabell & Fjeldstad, 1998), in which the NPO interacts and cooperates with multiple stakeholders to generate social values. In the value network approach many different organizational forms, industries, and sectors are linked to achieve
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individual and also societal goals and value. A value network of NPOs is dynamic in nature with incoming and outgoing new partners or supporters of the network. Therefore, agreement is found with Te’eni and Young (2003: 397), who argue that ‘‘the network economy also offers nonprofits special opportunities, including a role as trusted intermediaries to help people cope with deluge of complex information.’’
Key Issues Many different approaches from sociology, organization theory, and economics have described and analyzed the development of organizations and their organizational forms both theoretically and empirically. Accordingly, there are many ways of classifying them. This chapter first describes the approach of sociology and second the approach of business administration. Carroll (1984: 72) distinguishes the field of organizational ecology corresponding to the levels of analysis into: (1) A macroevolutionary approach called community ecology, which focuses on the emergence and disappearance of organizational forms. (2) The so called selection approach of population ecology with populations of organizations as the dominant level of analysis. (3) The organizational demography as a developmental approach towards individual organizations. The approaches of the theory of organizational evolution have in common that they apply Darwinist ideas such as the variation-selection-retention model on social systems. Aldrich (1999: 21) extends this model towards evolutionary processes of variation, selection, retention, and struggle that produce change in evolving systems. Community Ecology Approach
Romanelli (1991: 79) groups the various perspectives belonging to this topic as follows: a. An organizational genetics view that emphasizes random variation b. An environmental conditioning view where variation is contextually constrained c. An emergent social systems view of variations in organizational forms as the products of embedded social-organizational interactions Romanelli and Fiol (2008) try to integrate these different research traditions. In doing so, they draw a metaphor of the emergence of new organizational forms similar to a ‘‘primal soup’’ of organizational variation and experimentation. This stage of experimentation may lead to a process of identity granting by external audiences, in
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addition as well as a community of enthusiasts can build organizational identity. Population Ecology Approach
Hannan and Freeman (1984) and Carroll (1984) established this research tradition, which is one of the most influential schools, whose key insight is the analysis of changes in organizational forms through the selective elimination of certain organizations and the survival of others. This approach shifts the focus to the population level, moves from a static to a dynamic approach, examines change in diverse but internally homogeneous organizational populations, and recognizes the strong limits and the organizational adaption to rapidly changing environments – what Hannan and Freeman (1984: 151) call ‘‘structural inertia’’ (Hannan & Freeman, 1989: 331). From an empirical point of view, studies focus on this mechanism of organizational selection, rather than adaptation by analyzing birth and death rates of populations of organizations. In doing so, population ecologists negate a strong influence of organization’s management on its organizational form. Up until now, a distinct theory of the evolution of nonprofit organizations does not exist. The resource mobilization approach is able to give insight into the appearance of nonprofit organizations evolving from social movements (Zald & Ash, 1987: 124). But some of the studies mentioned above applied theoretical concepts to the third sector and also analyzed some nonprofit organizations with respect to evolutionary aspects. Tucker et al. (1988) for instance, analyzed birth and death rates of voluntary social service organizations as a result of a changed government funding program. Powell and DiMaggio (1991) apply neo-institutionalism to the analysis of organizational forms, a theory that postulates that organizational actions are formed and shaped by institutions. They state that – as organizations in a particular organizational field are exposed to the same institutional expectations and constraints – they will tend to become homogeneous in structure, culture, and output over time (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991: 64). This process, called isomorphism, is the result of three mechanisms. First, coercive isomorphism stems from political influence and the problem of legitimacy towards other organizations on which they depend and by cultural expectations in the society (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991: 67). Second, mimetic isomorphism results from standard responses to uncertainty in forms such as ambiguous goals and can be pushed implicitly through staff fluctuation and explicitly through consulting firms. Third, normative isomorphism is associated with professionalization in terms of the
collective struggle of members of an occupation to define the conditions and methods of their work (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991: 70). This mechanism stems from two sources, universities, and professional training institutions on the one hand and professional networks that span organizations on the other hand. Anheier (2005) applies these three mechanisms that homogenize organizations to the nonprofit sector. Coercive isomorphism appears when government and funders push nonprofits to change ‘‘from informal, voluntaristic, and amateuristic groups to increasingly bureaucratic and professionalized organizations through the coerced adoption of accounting, monitoring, performance, and certification requirements’’ (Anheier, 2005: 147). This development can be stated in countries where most revenue comes from the public sector due to a tradition of subsidiarity as is the case in Western European countries, e.g., Germany, France, United Kingdom (Salamon & Anheier, 1999: 26). In an era of growing technological or environmental uncertainty, nonprofit organizations imitate others that are perceived as successful and try to implement business techniques and profitmaking activities (Anheier, 2005: 147) which results into mimetic isomorphism. A growing nonprofit consulting sector even advances this homogeneity. As normative isomorphism is strongly linked to professionals in nonprofit organizations, this mechanism occurs dominantly in organizations of a single branch. The work of medical professionals is guided by different norms and standards than the work of educational professionals. However, facing an expanding nonprofit management education in business schools, normative isomorphism might expand the whole nonprofit sector. The description of these mechanisms might give nonprofit managers a first hint for managerial implications of organizational analysis. Even closer to managerial endorsed organizational development is the approach of organizational demography. Organizational Demography Approach
In keeping with the application of Darwinist evolution theory on organizations, the approach of organizational demography develops organizational lifecycle models which adapt the human life cycle of birth, youth, maturity, and death to the individual organization as the level of analysis in terms of a ‘‘embryological metaphor’’ (Carroll, 1984: 73). Developmental theorists assume the organizations to be highly adaptive to internal and external stimuli. The comprehensive review of Phelps et al. (2007) counts 33 studies with different postulations concerning number and characteristics of the stages, while regarding age and size as the factors which determine these stages.
Organizational Forms and Development
For instance, Greiner (1972: 37) postulated that growing organizations move through five distinguishable phases of development, whereby an appropriate management action exists for each phase that is able to turn the occurring crisis into an opportunity for future growth. As a result, they may be used as a timetable for the organization’s management. Bailey and Groucheau (1993) analyzed nonprofit organizations and state that in the following four stages, critical life cycle transition points can be identified: (1) entrepreneurial stage, (2) team-building stage, (3) bureaucratic, and (4) stagnation, death, or renewal. Several nonprofit subsectors, such as human service organizations, social movement organizations and associations have been analyzed concerning their organizational life cycles in a theoretical and/or empirical manner. For instance, in the special case of social movement organizations, Zald and Ash (1987) suppose that the three types of change, goal transformation, organizational maintenance, and oligarchization, do not necessarily have to occur. Instead, social movement organizations follow the ‘‘ebb and flow of sentiments and incentives’’ (Zald & Ash, 1987: 138). This entry now focuses on nonprofit organizations in general and use the following four stages to highlight the managerial challenges with respect to organizational form, internal and external relations, processes, and services. Heimerl and Meyer (2007: 233) adapt Lievegoed’s (1993: 45) life cycle model on nonprofit organizations
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and propose four stages, beginning with the pioneer stage, followed by the differentiation, the integration and the association stage. These four stages are illustrated in Fig. 2; the sequential process may either have a linear, curvilinear (dashed line) or a cyclical form (dotted line). The first stage can be defined as an entrepreneurial or pioneer phase in which the nonprofit organization is founded. Analog to the wide range of organizational forms and of nonprofit goals, this stage can occur in many different ways. Social movement organizations constitute themselves in response to a certain social problem they tend to solve, starting with a loose form that is not legally fixed. In this first stage, nonprofit organizations are very flexible and unite only a few members who are clearly committed to the organization’s goals which are synonyms for the founders’ individual vision. In this stage, internal relations between founders and members are familiar and nonhierarchical, except for charismatic founders who lead without explicitly leading. Processes are characterized as flexible, goal-oriented services which aim to serve the external clients as the central stakeholder group. As a result of growth and maturation, nonprofits in this stage ultimately face the challenges of shrinking motivation, overload, power struggle and clients’ complaints which lead to the second stage. In this stage, nonprofit organizations search for a manageable structure which allows standardization as well as coordination. In doing so, some nonprofits choose an organizational form that matches their goals. For instance,
Organizational Forms and Development. Fig. 2 Nonprofit life cycles
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grassroots or social movement organizations are able to keep their informal character longer than foundations under public law which need a legal procedure to obtain their organizational form. Internal relations may be standardized by introducing functional pillars, clear responsibilities and job descriptions and a distinction between professionals, board members and volunteers. External relations may broaden their horizon towards other stakeholder groups than clients only. Processes in this stage are getting standardized to guarantee a certain quality level of the resulting services, as well as to integrate new members easily. As a result of the professionalization occurred in the second stage, the nonprofit organization reaches the third stage of the life cycle. Corresponding to a lack of flexibility, the organizational form may be changed towards a decentralized structure, sometimes coming along with the founding of national or regional subsections and the institution of an international bureau. This organizational change requires an effective communication and a clear governance structure and thus affects internal relations dramatically. Even more, the organization in decentralized entities may complicate the nonprofit organization’s external relations to diverse stakeholders. In this stage, processes and services should be strategically directed at clearly defined target groups. As a result, the most critical issue is to keep the linkage with the founding vision of the nonprofit organization or to adapt it explicitly according to changes occurring in the societal environment. For instance, international nonprofit organizations, such as Greenpeace or Me´decins sans Frontie`res (Doctors without Borders) were founded in the early 1970s and have gained importance through internationalization. Up until now, they have succeeded in communicating a clear vision in the spirit of their founding history. The fourth and last stage is primarily characterized by hybridization, respectively association. The organizational form tends to lose importance because of emerging relations to other nonprofit organizations in the form of networks. Long-lasting internal and external relationships along the nonprofit organization’s value chain amount to, become key resources, a trend that is reflected in relationship fundraising. Processes and services are created by means of coproduction with other nonprofit organizations, in public-private partnerships or in cross-subsidization from (even commercial) market activities. Bearing in mind the isomorphism mentioned above, the nonprofit sector as a whole is shifting towards this last stage and tends to enlarge the gray areas between the nonprofit sector, the market, and the state
(Helmig & Michalski, 2007; Spraul, 2007; Helmig & Michalski, 2008).
Future Directions The field of organizational forms and development is of great relevance, both to the scientific community and the practitioner’s world of civil society. Two research gaps can be identified as future directions. First, empirical research should underpin the developmental stages of NPOs using valid longitudinal data, preferably on an international level. Furthermore, the hybridization of organizational forms should be taken into account in order to understand and thus design organizational development in times of emerging networks relating to the nonprofit sector, the public sector, and the market. Secondly, further research should focus on the particularities of nonprofit subsectors in order to deepen the understanding of these branches according to the ICNPO approach and the insights of the nonprofit isomorphism.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society–Business Relations ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Greenpeace ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Lifecycles, NGO ▶ Me´decins Sans Frontie`res ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Partnerships ▶ Social Movements ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Political ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Sociological ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic ▶ Third Sector ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Aldrich, H. (1999). Organizations evolving. London/Thousand Oaks, CA/ New Delhi: Sage. Aldrich, H. E., & Ruef, M. (2006). Organizations evolving. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Anheier, H. K. (2005). Nonprofit organizations: Theory, management, policy. London: Routledge. Anheier, H. K., & Daly, S. (Eds.) (2006). Politics of foundations: A comparative analysis. New York/London: Routledge.
Owen, Robert Bailey, D., & Groucheau, K. E. (1993). Aligning leadership needs to the organizational stage of development: Applying management theory to nonprofit organizations. Administration in social work, 17(1), 23–45. Borzaga, C., & Defourny, J. (Eds.) (2001). The emergence of social enterprise. London: Routledge. Carroll, G. R. (1984). Organizational ecology. Annual Review of Sociology, 10, 71–93. Carroll, G. R., & Hannan, M. T. (2000). The demography of corporations and industries. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Daft, R. L., & Lewin, A. Y. (1993). Where are the theories for the ‘‘New’’ organizational forms? An editorial essay. Organization Science, 4(4), I–VI. Etzioni, A. (1973). The third sector and domestic missions. Public Administration Review, 33(4), 314–323. Freise, M., & Paja, P. (2004). Organizational and legal forms of nonprofit organizations in Central Europe. In A. Zimmer & E. Priller (Eds.), Future of civil society (pp. 129–146). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fu¨r Sozialwissenschaften. Greiner, L. E. (1972). Evolution and revolution as organizations grow. Harvard Business Review, 50, 37–46. Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1984). Structural inertia and organizational change. American Sociological Review, 49(2), 149–164. Hannan, M. T., & Freeman, J. (1989). Organizational ecology. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Heimerl, P., & Meyer, M. (2007). Organisation and NPOs. In C. Badelt, M. Meyer, & R. Simsa (Eds.), Handbuch der Nonprofit Organisation (pp. 231–257). Stuttgart: Scha¨ffer Poeschel. Helmig, B., & Michalski, S. (2007). Wie viel Markt braucht eine Nonprofit-Organisation? Die Unternehmung, 61(4), 309–324. Helmig, B., & Michalski, S. (2008). Stellenwert und Schwerpunkte der Nonprofit-Forschung in der allgemeinen Betriebswirtschaftslehre: Ein Vergleich deutscher und US-amerikanischer Forschungsbeitra¨ge. Zeitschrift fu¨r Betriebswirtschaft, 78(3), 23–55. Helmig, B., Hyndmann, N., Jegers, M., & Lapsley, I. (2006). On the challenges of managing the third sector. Zeitschrift fu¨r o¨ffentliche und gemeinwirtschaftliche Unternehmen – Journal of Public and Nonprofit Services, 35(Special Issue ), 5–7. Lievegoed, B. (1993). Entwicklungsphasen eines Unternehmens. In F. Glasl & B. C. J. Lievegoed (Eds.), Dynamische Unternehmens Entwicklung: Wie Pionierbetriebe und Bu¨rokratien zu schlanken Unternehmen werden (pp. 31–96). Stuttgart: Verlag Freies Geistesleben. Palmer, I., Benveniste, J., & Dunford, R. (2007). New organizational forms: Towards a generative dialogue preview. Organization Studies, 28(12), 1829–1847. Phelps, R., Adams, R., & Bessaut, J. (2007). Life cycles of growing organizations: A review with implications for knowledge and learning. International Journal of Management Reviews, 9(1), 1–30. Powell, W. W., & DiMaggio, P. J. (1991). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. In W. W. Powell & P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis (pp. 63–82). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Powell, W., & Steinberg, R. (2006). The non-profit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press. Romanelli, E. (1991). The evolution of new organizational forms. Annual Review of Sociology, 17, 79–103. Romanelli, E., & Fiol, M. (2008). Before identity. The emergence and objection of new organizational forms. Academy of Management Proceedings, 1–6.
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Ruef, M. (2000). The emergence of organizational forms: A community ecology approach. The American Journal of Sociology, 106(3), 658–714. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1999). Civil society in comparative perspective. In L. M. Salamon et al. (Eds.), Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (pp. 3–38). Baltimore: Center for Civil Society Studies. Spraul, K. (2007). Marktorientierung in Nonprofit-Unternehmen, Nonprofit-Vereinigungen und Nonprofit-Haushaltungen. Die Unternehmung, 61(4), 341–349. Stabell, C. B., & Fjeldstad, O. D. (1998). Configuring value for competitive advantage: On chains, shops, and networks. Strategic Management Journal, 19(5), 413–437. Te’eni, D., & Young, D. (2003). The changing role of nonprofits in the network economy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32(3), 397–414. Tucker, D., Singh, J., & Meinhard, A. (1990). Organizational form, population dynamics, and institutional change: The founding patterns of voluntary organizations. Academy of Management Journal, 33(1), 151–178. Tucker, D. J., Singh, J. V., Meinhard, A. G., & House, R. J. (1988). Ecological and institutional sources of change in organizational populations. In G. R. Carroll (Ed.), Ecological models of organizations (pp. 127–151). Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger. UN Handbook on Non-Profit Institutions in the System of National Accounts. (2008). ICNPO Classification online, from http://unstats. un.org/unsd/publication/SeriesF/SeriesF_91E.pdf; 09/24/2008. Van Witteloostuijn, A., & Boone, C. (2006). A resource-based theory of market structure and organizational form. Academy of Management Review, 31(2), 409–426. Zald, M. N., & Ash, R. (1987). Social movement organizations: Growth, decay and change. In M. N. Zald & J. D. McCarthy (Eds.), Social movements in an organizational society (pp. 121–143). New Brunswick, NJ/Oxford: Transaction Books.
Owen, Robert WIM VAN OPSTAL
Basic Biographical Information Robert Owen was born in 1771 as the son of a modest saddler and ironmonger in Newtown, Wales. After leaving school at age nine, he started a remarkable career, first as a worker, enduring the miserable working and living conditions of that time, but soon thereafter as a small scale businessman. At the age of 21, he was already the manager of a textile mill employing 500 people. In 1799, he and his partners managed to purchase the New Lanark Mills in Scotland from his (later) father-in-law, being the starting point of his social experiments. He died in 1858 in his hometown at the age of 87.
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Major Accomplishments/Contributions Owen was a successful industrialist, an important social reformer and inspired the cooperative and the trade union movements. He modernized the New Lanark Mills, the largest cotton mill in the country, and turned it into a model factory and a ‘‘community.’’ Owen significantly improved the working and living conditions of its workers, including a reduction in the hours of work, a prohibition of child labor for children younger than 10, cheap housing, and schooling. He established a savings bank for his workers and set up a cooperative company store that invested its profits in the community. While all this resulted in a productivity increase, Owen was not spared the criticism and had to convince investors to be satisfied with a limited return on investment. Owen left New Lanark in 1825 to experiment with new cooperative communities, first in New Harmony (USA) and later at Queenwood (UK). However, neither experiment in utopian communal village life was successful, leaving his fortune largely depleted. Like Cabet, Godin, Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Proudhon, Robert Owen published about ideal and equal societies and utopian community-building. With his ideas on equality and the view that labor is the source of all wealth, Owen can be considered as one of the pioneers of socialism. Owen contributed to the development of the first British trade unions as well. He was also responsible for the first wave of British cooperatives during the 1830s. These first cooperatives did not survive for a long time but inspired the Rochdale Pioneers to establish their successful cooperative in 1844. Despite the failures of his experiments, Owen’s ideas inspired entrepreneurs (and governments) all over the world to combine humane working conditions with capitalism. Therefore, Robert Owen can also be considered as one of the fathers of corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers
Oxfam International CARLOS CORDOURIER REAL
Address of Organization Suite 20 266 Banbury Road Oxford, OX2 7DL UK www.oxfam.org
Introduction Oxfam is an international confederation of 13 organizations that work together to alleviate global poverty and promote social justice and social rights. Oxfam International was formally constituted in 1995 by a group of nongovernmental organizations to tackle poverty globally through advocacy campaigns and development programs. To date this international confederation works with over 3,000 local partner organizations in more than 100 countries.
Brief History Oxfam originated in England in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, whose aim was to deliver humanitarian aid to Nazi-occupied Greece through the Allied sea blockade. After World War II, the Oxford Committee continued to work on famine relief issues by funding its programs through a chain of charity shops. The first shop opened in 1948 in Oxford, England. By the 1960s the Oxford Committee had proven to be internationally successful in advocating poverty relief indicated by the opening of its first branch in Canada in 1963. Two years later the Oxford Committee changed its name to its telegraph address: OXFAM. In 1994, the seven existing country-based Oxfams came together in Hong Kong to form an alliance to tackle global poverty through an international confederation, which was formalized a year later. At present the confederation is comprised by 13 members with the prospect of new members in India, Japan, and Mexico.
Mission/Focus Areas References/Further Readings Lambert, P. (1963). Studies in the social philosophy of co-operation. Manchester: Co-operative Union. Melnyk, G. (1985). The search for community. From Utopia to a co-operative society. Montre´al, QC: Black Rose Books. Thompson, D. (1994). Weavers of dreams. Founders of the Modern Co-operative Movement. Davis, CA: Center for Cooperatives, University of California.
Over the years Oxfam International has developed a rights-based approach to the problem of poverty. In addition to the provision of food and water in humanitarian crises, it advocates for long lasting solutions to the causes of poverty at the global level. This approach has led the confederation to focus on changing the international trade regime, increasing overseas development and
Oxfam International
humanitarian aid, improving gender equality, advocating debt cancellation and tackling climate change. Oxfam International works globally to advance the following rights: the right to a sustainable livelihood, the right to basic social services, the right to life and security, the right to be heard and the right to an identity.
Activities The Oxfam International confederation is one of the most influential international nongovernmental organizations across the world. In addition to its well-known work on emergency response, this is represented by the global impact of its campaigns in relation to fair trade, the Millennium Development Goals and the prevention of arms trade. The organization has been an outspoken critic of the governments of wealthy nations, notably in response to the outcomes of G8 Summits which were deemed to have failed to sufficiently coordinate action on the causes of global poverty. Similarly, Oxfam has extensively lobbied the World Trade Organization and the European Union to halt agricultural subsidies within developed countries as they undermine developing countries’ ability to effectively compete in international markets. To convince publics and governments of the need for action on these issues, Oxfam International conducts policy relevant research.
Structure and Governance The Oxfam International confederation’s board comprises the chairs and directors of each affiliate. Member organizations of the Oxfam International confederation are based in the following locations: Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Honk Kong, Ireland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Quebec, Spain, and the United States. The Oxfam International secretariat is based in Oxford, and it holds advocacy offices in Brussels, Geneva, Washington, DC, and New York.
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Funding Oxfam’s programs are mainly financed by revenues from its affiliate members’ charity shops, individual sponsors (via regular financial contributions), and fundraising events, such as rock concerts. According to the Oxfam International Annual Report 2007, the confederation reported a total program expenditure of US$704.53 million for the period 2006/2007.
Major Accomplishments Oxfam International has a long standing experience in the field of emergency work specializing in disaster risk reduction. Particularly, it has a global reputation for the creation of an efficient system to provide safe drinking water to people struck by natural or man-made disasters. The largest emergency response program conducted by the confederation has been the Oxfam International Tsunami Fund, which received US$294 million in donations. According to Oxfam estimates (December 2008), the program assisted 2.5 million people in seven countries over the 4 years that the program lasted.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Social justice
References/Further Readings Black, M. (1992). A cause for our times: Oxfam – The first fifty years. Oxford: Oxfam. Clayton, E. (1998). Oxfam (Taking action). Oxford: Heinemann Library. Dalton, D. (1995). Rights now!: World poverty and the Oxfam campaign. Oxford: Oxfam.
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Basic Biographical Information David Packard was born in Pueblo, Colorado in 1912. Showing an early interest in science and engineering, he went on to pursue his passion while getting his bachelor’s degree at Stanford University in California. In addition to meeting his future wife, Lucile, at Stanford Packard also met William R. Hewlett – with whom he would later found the immensely successful electronics firm Hewlett-Packard. Packard moved to New York in 1936 to work as an engineer for the General Electric Company, but returned to Palo Alto, California in 1938 to pursue a master’s degree in electrical engineering at Stanford. A year later, he cofounded the Hewlett-Packard Company and served as a partner in the company until it was officially incorporated in 1947. From 1947 to 1964, Packard served as president before being elected chairman of the board and chief executive officer. In 1969, Packard left HP to become US Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Richard Nixon. In 1971, he left the Nixon administration and was reelected chairman of the board of HP. Packard retired from HP in 1993, having helped to turn what was a fledgling start-up company into a multinational corporation with over 100,000 employees and revenues in excess of $30 billion. Packard died in 1996 in Stanford, California.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Along with his wife Lucile, Packard founded the David and Lucile Packard Foundation in 1964 to support universities, national institutions, community groups, youth agencies, family planning centers, hospitals, and the like. He served as president and chairman of the foundation until his death.
In 1978, Packard and his wife created the Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation, and they eventually donated $55 million through the Packard Foundation to build the new Monterey Bay Aquarium, which opened in 1984. In 1986, the Packard Foundation donated $40 million toward building the Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. In 1987, the Packard Foundation gave $13 million to create the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, and continues to provide close to 90% of the Institute’s operating budget. The Foundation’s core grantmaking programs include conservation and science, population studies, and children, families, and communities. The Foundation also has a local grantmaking program to benefit local community organizations, an organizational effectiveness and philanthropy fund (which seeks to improve organizational effectiveness of grantee organizations), and a programrelated investment (PRI) program. In addition to his commitments to the Foundation, Packard also made time for other service commitments. In 1983 he was vice chairman of the California Nature Conservancy, and from 1983 to 1989 he served as a director of the Wolf Trap Foundation, Vienna, VA, an organization devoted to the performing arts. In 1985, Packard was appointed to chair the Blue Ribbon Commission on Defense Management by then President Reagan, and he continued to serve as a Presidential advisor into the 1990s.
Cross-References
▶ David and Lucile Packard Foundation ▶ Grantmaking Foundations ▶ Hewlett, William
References/Further Readings Malone, M. (2007). Bill & Dave: How Hewlett and Packard built the world’s greatest company. New York: Portfolio. Packard, D. (1995). The HP way: How Bill Hewlett and i built our company. New York: HarperBusiness. Packard, D. (1987). Management of America’s national defense. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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Parita¨tischer Wohlfahrtsverband (Parity)
Parita¨tischer Wohlfahrtsverband (Parity) EVA DIDION
Address of Organization Oranienburger Str. 13-14 10178 Berlin Germany www.paritaet.org www.der-paritaetische.de
Introduction The Parita¨tische Gesamtverband (Parita¨tische or Parity) is one of six central voluntary welfare associations in Germany. It is an umbrella association of almost 10,000 legally independent organizations which provide social welfare work assisting others or in self-help groups. The Parita¨tische is a service provider for its members, representing their interests as well as those of the people they assist towards politics and the general public.
Brief History After the First World War, nondenominational, private voluntary welfare organizations were increasingly under pressure. Problems of political legitimization and economic worries endangered the existence of institutions and services. This was especially true for residential care and kindergartens. Cooperation between the very different independent organizations in this sector seemed to be essential. What was founded as a union of private charitable hospitals and nursing homes in 1919 became a national umbrella organization which changed its name to ‘‘Fu¨nfter Wohlfahrtsverband’’ (fifth welfare association in the German League for Non-Statutory Welfare) in 1924 and to Parita¨tischer Wohlfahrtsverband (known also as the Parita¨tische) in 1930. In 1933, the National Socialists broke up the Parita¨tische and incorporated its institutions into the newly founded Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People’s Welfare). In 1945, the reconstitution of the Parita¨tische began within the different occupation zones. Under the name Deutscher Parita¨tischer Wohlfahrtsverband (now Gesamtverband), the national association started working on a federal level in 1949.
Mission The Parita¨tische is an umbrella association of independent organizations and institutions offering social welfare
services for others or in the form of self-help. In this context, ‘‘parity’’ means equality in terms of esteem and possibilities. Based on the principles of tolerance, openness and diversity, the Parita¨tische wants to be mediator between generations, convictions and methods in the area of social welfare work. Social justice, understood as everyone’s right to equal chances of fulfilling his or her life in dignity, is a main idea underlying the association. The Parita¨tische stands up for the right of people to social assistance in emergencies. It follows a policy geared towards eliminating the causes of social hardship and social discrimination and the right to initiative of free welfare associations. The Parita¨tische defends the precedence of citizens’ commitment and self-help activities over government measures.
Activities The Parita¨tische is a service association, giving technical and legal advice as well as helping in questions of financing and organizing. The association also offers a wide range of education and training programs for professionals and volunteers. Its activities include the monitoring of planned laws, position papers on welfare, youth and health policies, participation in the social planning process, public relations and lobbying.
Structure and Governance The national association is based in Frankfurt am Main. It links together approximately 150 national member organizations and 15 Parita¨tische associations in the La¨nder with approximately 9,500 member organizations active regionally. The federal conference is the main decision-making body of the organization. The delegates meet at least every 2 years, elect the association council (Verbandsrat) and decide about membership fees and changes in the constitution. The association council determines the positions in the sociopolitical context and the principles for the association. It also elects the board members and takes financial decisions.
Funding The general meeting decides on the fees all member organizations of the national association have to pay.
Major Contributions The Parita¨tische plays a major role in the German social welfare system by supporting almost 10,000 member organizations, which engage 280,000 professionals and about 1.1 million volunteers.
Participation
Cross-References
▶ Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) ▶ Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen ▶ Diakonisches Werk der EKD ▶ Social Justice ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings Boessenecker, K.-H. (1995). Spitzenverba¨nde der freien Wohlfahrtspflege in der BRD: eine Einfu¨hrung in Organisationsstrukturen und Handlungsfelder. Mu¨nster, Germany: Votum-Verlag. Merchel, J. (1989). Der Deutsche Parita¨tische Wohlfahrtsverband. Seine Funktion im korporatistisch gefu¨gten System sozialer Arbeit. Weinheim, Germany: Dt. Studien-Verlag.
Parity ▶ Parita¨tischer Wohlfahrtsverband (Parity)
Parsons, Ralph Monroe DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Ralph M. Parsons was born in 1896 in Springs, Long Island, New York and would go on to create one of the world’s largest engineering-construction firms. When Parsons was 13, he helped his older brother open a machine shop in Amagansett, Long Island, New York. And instead of finishing high school, he earned a 2 year degree in machine design from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York before joining the Navy for training and experience in aeronautical engineering. In 1931, Parsons went into business for himself and in 1944, Parsons founded the Ralph M. Parsons Company. Under Parsons’ direction, the once eight-man engineering business would go on to construct some of the world’s largest and most sophisticated petroleum refineries, chemical plants, and mining plants. His company, based in Pasadena, California, also helped pioneer missile and space launch facilities and nuclear plants when almost nothing was known about these technologies. At the time of Parsons’ death, his company had built dozens of major projects in more than 30 countries, including oil and natural gas facilities, shipyards, power plants, irrigation, and water development projects, metal, and mineral mines and processing plants, airports,
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subway, and rail lines, sewerage systems, NASA facilities and more. Today, Parsons is one of the world’s largest engineering and construction organizations specializing in infrastructure, transportation, planning, environmental, water, telecommunications, and more. The company’s revenues exceeded $3.8 billion and employed 11,500 people in 2008. Parsons died in 1974 at his home San Marino, California.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In 1961, Parsons founded the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation as the charitable giving arm of his company. Upon his death, he left the Foundation 600,000 shares of Parsons Company stock and $4 million in cash. In 1968, Parsons was elected a trustee of Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California and in 1970, the Hydrodynamics Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was renamed the Ralph M. Parsons Laboratory. In 1976, 2 years after he died, the foundation became fully independent of the company, with which it now shares only Mr. Parsons’ name. In 2007, the foundation – a leading funder in Southern California – had assets of over $450 million and total giving for the year exceeded $22 million. Today, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation continues to strive to support and facilitate the work of Southern California’s best nonprofit organizations, recognizing that many of those in need today will go on to the shape the future of region. The foundation focuses on four main areas: social impact, civic and cultural programs, health and higher education.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ Grantmaking Foundations
Participation RANJITA MOHANTY1,2, RAJESH TANDON3 Independent Consultant, New Delhi, India 2 Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), New Delhi, India 3 ORIA, New Delhi, India
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Introduction and Definition Participation is the inclusion of knowledge, identities, and voice of the marginalized in the social, economic, and
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political affairs that affect them. Participation and civil society work in close conjunction. Participation is intrinsic to civil society because as the autonomous space for social action, civil society fosters inclusion, generates public debate, checks authoritarianism and deepens democracy. Participation covers a wide range: large scale mobilization for nationalist struggle against colonialism, for civil liberties and for the restoration of democracy in the authoritarian regimes; it also manifests in protests against modernization, development, and globalization; participation is also about localized everyday activities to counter social exclusion, corruption, poverty, and gender inequality. Civil society in various forms such as social movements, community groups, philanthropic organizations, development support organizations and advocacy networks facilitates participation in diverse ways. Civil society provides the space in which participation is practiced; participation in turn by building solidarity among people strengthens the sphere of civil society.
Historical Background Historically, the roots of participation can be traced to the anticolonial movements in many parts of the world. The nationalist struggles sowed the seeds of engagement and the desire for freedom among ordinary people. The desire to be treated as equal, get inclusion in the wider society and polity marked the civil rights movement against racial injustice in the United States in the early 1960s and the antiapartheid movement in South Africa in the 1970 and 1980s. The claims for racial justice gradually spread to include gender justice, justice for ecologically vulnerable, for indigenous people, and people with vulnerable diseases and disabilities such as HIV-AIDS. In the ex-colonies another stream of participation manifested against the modernizing drives of the independent states. First articulated as reaction against the growth and efficiency orientation of development that was lacking in redistributive aspects to eradicate poverty, participation, however, could not proceed beyond mere identifying the basic need of people. In those popular days of development, the faith on it was so absolute that redistribution was thought possible by identifying people’s basic need through their participation in development. As a modernizing process, development was still looked at as value neutral, rational, conflict free and efficient. The hegemonizing dimension of development was still to be unraveled; its non-egalitarian tendencies were still to be questioned. When that happened, participation began to be associated with the issues of ‘‘power.’’ The dominance of knowledge, interests, and relations that development generates and serves, and the exclusion of the poor, their knowledge,
interests, and their community relations generated much debate on who controls development. Grassroots movements and activists in many Third World countries began articulating the disappointments and violence of development and advocated for development to be inclusive and participatory (Rehnema & Bawtree, 1997). In the 1970s and 1980s participation manifested in the wave of democracy that swept through the hegemonic regimes, both orthodox Marxist and military, in the countries of East-Central Europe, Latin America and Africa thus reflecting the incongruence between the state and society on desirable political conditions under which people would like to live. The fall of communism and military dictatorship mirrored the aspirations of ordinary people to carve out an autonomous space for collective action to act as a counter to state power. These aspirations drove home two messages: they affirmed the desire and competency of ordinary people to define both political and social good and their terms of engagement with the state; and second, they affirmed the strength of collective action in achieving their desired political and social goals. Thus participation, which began with carving out a space away from the prying eyes of the state, where people could discuss the essence of freedom, autonomy, and dignity of human existence, in due course of time became a politically volatile force to bring down the most authoritation regimes (Tandon & Mohanty, 2003). The contexts, both national and global changed significantly with the end of the Cold War. With the emergence of the Washington Consensus, structural adjustment in the Third World countries, and advent of globalization and neoliberalism, development began to be associated with governance and democracy, and participation with citizenship. The recent upsurge of interest in citizenship and participation has its root in the emergence of these new models of development and governance. Along with the changed and minimized role of the state and increased intervention of the market, we also witness in recent times an increased emphasis on the role of citizens in making governance transparent and accountable. The discourses on development and democracy now appear to be intricately woven around the role of citizens in influencing the forces that govern their lives. Whether it is the political processes of democracy or the socioeconomic processes of development, citizen participation is considered as the key. Their participation is considered important in making development humane and governance inclusive. This represents a shift in the way people are seen vis-a`-vis governance. That is, from the state centric governance where people were considered as beneficiaries and recipients of state policies, and from
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the market driven affairs where people are treated as mere consumers, we have arrived at a juncture where finally people are recognized as ‘‘citizens’’ with rights to engage and participate in the processes and institutions of development and governance (Cornwall, 2000). There are two strands of thought that make the ‘‘citizen’’ an important agent in the new framework of governance. Along one strand, derived from the rights-based approach, there is now emphasis on the rights of citizens to make claims, demand engagement, define priorities and hold the state accountable. Along the other, derived from the associations of people as a countervailing force to the state, citizens are seen as watchdogs in democracy performing the important function of keeping the state under surveillance and holding it accountable.
Key Issues Participation as Inclusion
Inclusion is the basic premise on which participation rests. There are three critical ways in which inclusion of the marginalized is valued: inclusion of their knowledge; inclusion of their identities; and inclusion of their voice. The early protagonists of popular knowledge first challenged the premise that knowledge was the monopoly of experts and professionally trained personnel. This challenge was posed on the basis of evidence from everyday life of struggles and achievements of poor people. Uncovering the dynamics of power in the pursuits and promotion of knowledge was seen as a necessary condition for the promotion of participation by ordinary people (Tandon, 2008). People’s knowledge and agency in bringing about changes in their lived situation was practiced and popularized by Paulo Freire and Myles Horton. Freire’s work on adult education in Brazil centered around conscientization which aimed at uncovering the power of popular knowledge. Freire called this process ‘‘liberating.’’ Likewise, the work of Myles Horton in Southern USA around labor and civil rights focused on people’s knowledge in shaping their agency for transformatory action. Participatory research captures this transformatory perspective of people’s knowledge, and articulates alternative, peoplecentric conceptions of knowledge, education, and action (Tandon, 2002). Along with the inclusion of marginalized knowledge, inclusion of marginalized identities and voices is required to level the playing fields for them to live with equality and dignity. Creating these conditions, however, is not easy as those who bear the vulnerable identities of poor, ethnic minorities, racially subjugated, indigenous, and women have been historically subjugated. Inclusion in
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this context is not about creating new identities, but giving ‘‘recognition’’ to identities that have lived under oppression. Democratic states try to equalize the privileged and powerless by conferring universal citizenship identity and status. That, however, hides their tenuous relationship, as citizenship experiences, as different from the formal identity and status, is contingent on the particular context in which the marginalized live (Mohanty & Tandon, 2006). Hence, recognition of differences and deprivation is critical for creating inclusive citizenship. Identity mobilizations in many parts of the world have strived not to negate, but to reassert the oppressed identities to make claims on the state and on the wider society in which people live. Much like marginalized identities, marginalized voice can be subjugated, neglected, and bypassed by those in power. Hence, for the inclusion of marginalized voice in the affairs of development and governance as well as in everyday affairs of society, their voices need to be enabled, mobilized, and amplified. If the identities and voices of racially subjugated Blacks have manifested as civil liberties movements in the United States and as antiapartheid movement in South Africa, the feminist movement has universal appeal all over the world in bringing about gender justice. As evident from the above discussion, participation as inclusion is essentially about giving power to the powerless. These empowering processes take place in a variety of spaces created both by the state and civil society. The spaces, however, are not neutral and what shape participation takes within these spaces depends on who creates the spaces, who rules, who is accepted and who is not (Cornwall, 2002). The state-created institutions, created through state policies and regulated by state norms, create spaces into which people are called upon to participate. These new participatory institutions set up by the states in the last decade in many Southern countries are expected to engage people in decentralized local governance. These statutory spaces, referred to as ‘‘invited spaces’’ have opened up possibilities for grassroots participation in decision-making about local development and governance, but as state-created and regulated spaces they also suffer many limitations and their potential to encourage substantive participation of the marginalized groups often comes under severe scrutiny (Cornwall & Coelho, 2007). Civil society, which is not bounded by the state laws and functions as the autonomous space for social action, offers spaces which are very different from the statecreated invited spaces. Spaces for participation that occupy the civil society sphere are accommodative of interests and demands of the marginalized. Such spaces act as
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enabler, voice-giver, facilitator, and mediator. Such spaces may get created organically and spontaneously by people whose interests are at threat and who want to raise the issue; they may also get created by civil society organizations who help collectivize and mobilize people to address issues. However, there is nothing inherently virtuous about civil society that automatically safeguards these spaces from being captured by dominant interests. Only when poor and powerless keep a vigil and animate the sphere of civil society that it resonates with their inclusion (Chandhoke, 1995). We elaborate below participation as it takes place in various civil society spaces. Civil Society and Participation
The rise of the idea of civil society in contemporary times owes it to the popular movements that led to the collapse of authoritarian states and installation of democracy in many parts of the world. The conceptualizations of civil society that vest it with the task of democratization are rooted in two traditions. The revolutionary imagery of civil society makes it a site for contestation, where people counterpoise them against state power and either replace or reform it (Keane, 1998, 1988a, b; Chandhoke, 1995). A second stream of conceptualization, which links civil society to the state, is the Tocquevillean interpretation of civic associations performing the role of watchdogs in a democracy (Tocqueville, 1990). This linkage of civic associations with democracy is further supported by Putnam (1993), who, drawing on his experience in North Italy, advocates strong civic associations for establishing a strong democratic tradition. A conceptualization that completely divorces civil society from the state is provided by Walzer (1992), who refers to it as the uncoerced realm of society where social affairs are conducted without any reference to or interference by the state or market. Voluntary groups who serve the poor and the needy fall into this Walzarian conceptualization of civil society. The spread of liberalization of the economy has furthered the conceptualization of civil society as a separate ‘‘sector,’’ different from the state and the market (Cohen & Arato, 1992). The conceptualization of civil society as a third sector – the state being the first and market, the second – has been effected in recent times by clubbing together various actors such as NGOs, community-based organizations, social movements and charitable trusts under the umbrella of third sector. Tandon and Mohanty (2002) take the view that civil society is characterized by the notion of public good as seen from the vantage point of the poor and marginalized. Here we invoke the idea of ‘‘space’’ to describe what civil society offers to the marginalized, how different
spaces hold the promise for participation to be practiced in different forms, and thus contribute to the larger agenda of inclusion and empowerment. Civil society fosters inclusion in three significant ways: creating and expanding the ‘‘public space’’ where issues are voiced, debated, and democratized; creating ‘‘other spaces’’ for mobilizing people to claim their rights and demand accountability; and connecting the marginalized voices with those in decision-making authority by occupying the ‘‘mediating spaces.’’ ‘‘Public space’’ is conceptualized as a space which is accommodative of plurality and diversity and where people can gather to deliberate as equals and create and influence a public will or consensus (Habermas, 1989). The public, as opposed to the private sphere of the family or the private sphere of specific parochial alliances, is a sphere where social and culturally ascribed differences as well as differences of achieved materiality are put aside and interaction and deliberation takes place among individuals as equals. Equality is thus the defining criteria of public space and that makes it the site for nurturing and flourishing of democratic aspirations for inclusion. An expanded public sphere where diverse identities come together to participate as equals is the sine qua non of inclusive citizenship. Civil society is instrumental in creating and expanding the public space to accommodate the knowledge, identities, and voice of the marginalized (Mohanty, 2006). Social movements, public hearings, advocacy campaigns, discussion forums all are examples of how public space for the marginalized is created, expanded, and protected. Despite all the conceptualizations of public sphere as a site for freedom and equality, in reality public space can also be a site for perpetuation of exclusion, a site for suppressing voices and a site for exercising dominance. That is, public sphere can not be treated as virtuous or normative, though we can treat it as a normatively desirable sphere. Public sphere also can not be treated simply as a given. That is, those who are more susceptible than others to get excluded, must constantly guard the public space to make it an equalizing site. The private relationships of family and the social relationships of race, caste, or culture or for that matter class can play their discriminating roles in the public sphere. Thus women can be restricted by the patriarchal family and social relationships, low castes in India and Blacks in South Africa can be restricted by the inequalities of the social and cultural structure, indigenous people can be restricted by their cultural isolation from the mainstream living, poor can be excluded by the rich. Hence, those seeking inclusion and striving to raise their voice have to struggle against
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odds to expand both the boundary and content of the public sphere to make it inclusive. The ‘‘other spaces’’ (Mohanty, 2004, 2007, forthcoming) where the powerless are protected from both the state and social power are spaces where people learn the arts and skills of mobilization. As such mobilization offers multiple learning to people who inhabit these spaces. People learn to identify problems, engage in collective reflection and analysis; they also learn to build collectives and networks that offer solidarity and support to the cause. These other spaces, as evident from social movements, may arise spontaneously; such spaces are also planned and designed by organizations working for the marginalized. Other spaces raise their consciousness about rights; make people trust their skills; enable them to capture the public space; equip them with information about the motive of the rulers and ways to deal with them; and impart them the skills of articulation and communication. Mobilization offers people what they would not have done on their own due to their lack of material resources, or resources of language and articulation, or organizational resources. Besides the strategic value of other spaces, these spaces are also important for the solidarity, warmth, and oneness of purpose they offer. The other spaces, therefore, connect between what Lefebvre (1991) terms as representational spaces that are social and live spaces, and the representations of structured, planned, and controlled spaces of institutions. The ‘‘mediating space’’ (Mohanty, forthcoming) works as the middle space between the interests of the powerless and those who occupy seats of authority. The existence of the middle space that is created from below is crucial for democracy as it is in this space that representation and negotiations of interests take place. Civil society occupies and offers the middle space from where it mediates between the interests of the powerless with those who wield social and political power on the one hand, and on the other, between powerless and those in seats of authority in the governance institutions. The middle space has been considerably reinvented by neoliberalism in the partnership model it popularized in which the state and civil society are viewed as partners in governance. As the state outsources to civil society not only delivery of services but also the agenda of building democracy in state sponsored projects and institutions, which at least theoretically was part of state agenda, the state and civil society actors are now willing to sit together for deliberation. The role civil society plays in the partnership framework expects civil society to do what the government finds unable to: for instance, dissemination of information in popular
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language, awareness building and capacity building through training. It is the absence of the state that civil society fills in when it occupies the middle space and negotiates the interests of the marginalized with the state There are many forms in which civil society manifests in the spaces mentioned above to foster inclusion and empowerment of the marginalized. The dominant and near universal forms of civil society are mentioned below. This list, however, is not exhaustive and the typologies are not mutually exclusive; they only help in understanding various civil society formations in contemporary times. Social Movements
Social movements are mass based mobilizations that often arise as forms of protest. The issues that movements address relate to the needs and interests of the poor and marginalized. Social movements cover a wide range. Some examples include: rights and entitlements for women, for African-Americans in the United States and for first nation people in Canada; resource distribution for the poor; ecological safeguard; and fallouts of globalization in the developing countries. Community Based Organization
Community based organizations draw membership from the specific community and serve its interest. Such organizations serving cultural, economic, or even recreational purposes may get formed spontaneously such as youth organizations, or they are formed as part of developmental interventions such as education committees or forest committees as is evident in Indian villages. Community based groups help share resources, enable mutual aid and support, and build collective strength. A recent form of self-help is the small micro-credit groups that have surfaced in many Third World countries through development programs. Initially formed as saving and credit groups, these collectives in many contexts have mobilized to address many other issues facing their communities. Intermediary
This category of civil society organizations includes those organizations that mobilize people to address issues of concern as well as those who mediate between the interests of the marginalized with those in positions of power in society, polity, and in the sphere of economy. An important function of intermediary civil society is to enable and facilitate community based groups, mobilization organizations and other intermediary organizations. Support functions often include research and information sharing, capacity building and networking activities.
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Examples include: PRIA (Society for Participatory Research in Asia) in India, MWENGO (Mwelekeo wa NGO – which means direction & vision of NGOs) in Eastern and Southern Africa, and IDARSA (Institute for Democracy in South Africa) in South Africa. Philanthropic
Philanthropic civil society is based on the principles and spirit of charity and covers such services for the poor as: shelter, education, health care, food security etc. Many philanthropic organizations have their roots in religious organization such as church or temples. Individual donations also help support philanthropic work. Several corporate houses have philanthropy programs like the Tata Trusts in India and the Gates Foundation in the United States. Philanthropic organizations such as Charities Aid Foundation in the United Kingdom help in mobilizing resources from other sources for charitable purpose. Advocacy
Advocacy civil society organizations have been set up with the explicit purpose of advocating on a specific cause. Environment, gender, human rights are some of the critical issues that advocacy organizations have taken up in many parts of the world. Greenpeace, Amnesty International, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative are some illustrations of advocacy manifestations of civil society. Network
Network organizations are associations of other organizations and act as a collective to extend their voice and strength. Some networks are focused on a specific theme, such as CIVICUS that aims at promotion of citizen alliance. Networks are also formed to help and serve the interests of their member organizations – for example, Voluntary Action Network India (VANI) which function as a network of pan-Indian civil society organizations.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Amnesty International ▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Charities Aid Foundation ▶ CIVICUS ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato ▶ Civil Society Theory: Keane ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville
▶ Civil Society Theory: Walzer ▶ Collective Action ▶ Freire, Paulo ▶ Good Governance ▶ Horton, Myles ▶ Identity ▶ Intermediary Organizations and Field ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Self-help Groups ▶ Social Justice ▶ Social Movements ▶ Solidarity ▶ Tata Trusts
References/Further Readings Chandhoke, N. (1995). State and civil society: Explorations in political theory. New Delhi: Sage. Cohen L. J., & Arato A. (1992). Civil society and political theory. England: The MIT Press. Cohen, J., & Andrew, A. (1992). Political theory and civil society. Cambridge: MIT Press. Cornwall, A., & Coelho S. V. (2007). Spaces for change ?. London: Zed books. Cornwall, A. (2000). Beneficiary, consumer, citizen: Perspectives on participation for poverty reduction. Sida Studies No. 2, Stockholm: Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency. Cornwall, A. (2002). Making spaces, changing places: Situating participation in development. UK: IDS, Sussex. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Cambridge: Polity press. Keane, J. (1998). Civil society: Old images, new visions. Cambridge: Polity Press. Keane, J. (1988a). Democracy and civil society. London: Verso. Keane, J. (1988b). Civil society and the state. London: Verso. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell. Mohanty, R. (forthcoming). Infinite agenda of social justice: Dalit mobilization in the institutions of local governance. In V. S. Coelho & B. V. Liere (Eds.), Mobilizing for democracy. London: Zed books. Mohanty, R. (2004). Institutional dynamics and participatory spaces: The making and unmaking of participation in local forest management in India. IDS Bulletin, 35, 26–32. Mohanty, R. (2006). Citizen participation in development: Issues of identity, inclusion and voice. In R. Mohanty & R. Tandon (Eds.), Participatory citizenship: Identity, exclusion, inclusion. New Delhi: Sage. Mohanty, R. (2007). Gendered subjects, the state and participatory spaces: The politics of domesticating participation. In A. Cornwall & V. S. Coelho (Eds.), Spaces for change? The politics of participation in new democratic arenas. London: Zed Books. Mohanty, R., & Tandon, R. (2006). Participatory citizenship: Identity, exclusion, inclusion. New Delhi: Sage. Putnam, R. D. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rahnema, M., & Bwetree, V. (1997). The post-development reader. London: Zed Books.
Partnership for Philanthropic Planning Tandon, R. (2002). Knowledge as power: Participatory research as the alternative. In R. Tandon (Ed.), Participatory research: Revisiting the roots. New Delhi: Mosaic. Tandon, R. (2008). Wither participatory methodologies? Participation and Governance, 1(2), 108–111. Tandon, R., & Mohanty, R. (2002). Civil society and governance. Delhi: Samskriti. Tandon, R., & Mohanty, R. (2003). Does civil society matter? Governance in contemporary India. New Delhi: Sage. Tocqueville, A. (1990). Democracy in America (H. Keene, Trans., Vols. 1 & 2). New York: Colonial Press. Walzer, M. (1992). The civil society argument. In C. Mauffe (Ed.), Dimensions of radical democracy. London: Verso.
Partnership for Philanthropic Planning RICHARD D. WATERS
Address of Organization 233 McCrea Street, Suite 400 Indianapolis, IN 46225 USA www.pppnet.org
Introduction Originally created in 1988 as the National Committee on Planned Giving, the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning (PPP) seeks to help people and organizations create charitable giving experiences that are the most meaningful in achieving both charitable mission and the philanthropic, financial, family, and personal goals of the donor. Each year, the PPP engages in research, education programs, and advocacy to examine the best practices in philanthropic planning and develop the standards for planned giving and major gift officers to follow in their daily activities. PPP strives to engage all constituents in the charitable gift planning process: planned giving and major gifts professionals, nonprofit managers and trustees, financial, and estate planners, trust managers and administrators. By bringing these groups together, the PPP helps maximize the value of charitable giving by helping fundraisers provide the most meaningful charitable giving experience for donors; helping financial planning professionals provide their clients with excellent advice on charitable giving and estate planning; and helping nonprofit managers and trustees better accomplish the missions of their organizations through philanthropic planning.
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Brief History In 1969, Congress passed the Tax Reform Act changing the way Americans could make charitable contributions. This was the major impetus for the creation of the field of planned giving. During the 1970s the planned giving profession was in its infancy, but by the end of the decade many organizations were beginning to see its vast potential. In the early 1980s, groups of professionals involved in gift planning began to have meetings to discuss the feasibility of a national organization to act as a coordinator and facilitator for networking the various professionals and organizations involved in planned giving. After a meeting in Chicago in October, 1985, those in attendance felt there was a significant need for a national organization to provide services and training for planned giving officers. They felt that the mission of this organization would be twofold: to provide quality educational opportunities for gift planning professionals and to unite the growing number of local planned giving groups already forming in larger metropolitan areas. Three years later in January, 1988, the National Committee on Planned Giving opened its office in Indianapolis, Indiana to facilitate, coordinate, and encourage the education and training of the planned giving community, and to facilitate effective communication among the many different professionals in this community. The organization functioned for the first 10 years as a federation of planned giving councils, and then added a membership category for individuals in 2001. In 2009, NCPG changed its name to the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning.
Mission The organization was created to facilitate, coordinate, and encourage the education and training of the planned giving community, and to facilitate effective communication among the many different professionals in this community. Despite the organization changes experienced in 2009, the organization continues with a mission to help people and organizations create mutually-beneficial giving experiences. Organizational leaders feel the mission can be met by focusing on four priorities: (1) engaging all of the constituencies critical to the philanthropic planning process, (2) providing unique programs and services, (3) implementing successful models of collaboration and partnership, and (4) creating brand awareness and support.
Activities To achieve its mission, the organization is involved in a variety of education and information sharing activities.
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Through its website, the organization offers workshops and virtual seminars on topics ranging from how to talk with prospects and implementing stewardship into your fundraising efforts to marketing and evaluating your planned giving efforts. The organization also runs a speakers bureau that provides contact information for individuals qualified to speak on topics pertaining to fundraising and planned giving. Information can also be obtained through a variety of additional resources, such as online videos, a quarterly Journal of Gift Planning magazine, and the Syllabus for Gift Planners, a study guide for people involved in gift planning. Finally, the organization regularly funds and conducts studies on planned giving and the best practices throughout the nonprofit sector.
Structure Headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States, the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning is a registered 501(c) (3) nonprofit organization in the United States. Currently, its 13-member staff team works to carry out the organization’s mission under the guidance of its 21-member Board of Directors, which consists of leading scholars and practitioners from the nonprofit and for profit sectors. The organization is supported by 128 local councils and over 10,000 individual and council members. In 2009, individual dues for the organization were $160 (United States). A group of individuals could apply for council status with a $100 application fee and a minimum number of three members. Upon acceptance, a council can be given a provisional status for 1 year. At the end of the year, the council must have at least 15 members to maintain its council status.
Funding In 2007, the organization reported having expenses totaling $2.08 million. To cover the expenses, the organization has a diversified revenue stream that generated $2 million, which came from fees generated from revenue from programs and services (65%), membership dues (32%) as well as contributions from individuals (3%). TPI’s net assets are close to $1.2 million.
Major Accomplishments In addition to furthering the conversation on planned giving throughout the nonprofit sector, the PPP has had many successes with its programs and services. Due to their annual research studies on giving, the organization is recognized by the media and government as a leader in planned giving. This leadership has led to successful lobbying efforts to the United States Congress for expanding the charitable distributions from individual retirement
accounts. Additionally, the organization has created the model standards of practice for the charitable gift planner, a voluntary code of professional conduct for gift planners and donor advisors, which has been widely accepted by many nonprofit organizations. Finally, the organization has had huge success with its ‘‘Leave a Legacy’’ program, a community-based effort that encourages people from all walks of life to make gifts from their estates to the nonprofit organizations. The program encourages prospective donors to work with development officers of the charities they already support to establish a charitable bequest or other planned gift.
Cross-References
▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ Philanthropy and Professional Advisors ▶ Planned Giving
References/Further Readings Dove, K. E., Spears, A. M., & Herbert, T. W. (2002). Conducting a successful major gifts and planned giving program: A comprehensive guide and resource. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. National Committee on Planned Giving Conference Proceedings. Annually printed by Planned Giving Design Center and made available on the NCPG web site. White, D. (1998). The art of planned giving: Understanding donors and the culture of giving. New York: Wiley.
Partnerships JENNIFER M. BRINKERHOFF George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction Partnership is a logical response to resource scarcity, problem complexity, and drive for democratic practice. Through partnership, actors work across sectors and organizations to maximize available skills, expertise, resources, and representativeness based on respective comparative advantages. Specifically, individual actors choose to partner for one or more of the following four reasons (Brinkerhoff, 2002c: 6): 1. To enhance efficiency and effectiveness through a reliance on comparative advantages and a rational division of labor. This entails incremental (though possibly dramatic) improvements in the delivery of public goods and services.
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2. To provide the multi-actor, integrated solutions required by the scope and nature of the problems being addressed. Without this approach, the effort would be impossible. 3. To move from a no-win situation among multiple actors to a compromise and potential win-win situation (i.e., in response to collective action problems or the need for conflict resolution). It may be possible to operate without partnership, but stakeholders would remain dissatisfied and continue to incur losses. 4. To open decision-making processes to promote a broader operationalization of the public good. The normative dimension seeks to maximize representation and democratic processes; the pragmatic perspective views this as a means to ensure sustainability. These efforts are often consistent with the principle of subsidiarity, whereby responsibility for meeting individuals’ needs should be vested in the social units closest to the individual (e.g., the family, parish, community, and nonprofit organizations), and larger/higher units should only intervene when meeting the need exceeds the capacity of those lower levels. Public–private partnerships can also be viewed as fulfilling a range of purposes, including policy design and planning, policy coordination, policy monitoring, policy evaluation, policy implementation and service delivery, resource mobilization, and resource management (Bovaird, 2004). The term partnership is used to describe interorganization relationships both within and between sectors. A common term and practice is PPPs, or public–private partnerships. These typically refer to partnerships between government agencies and the private, commercial sector for the purpose of delivering public goods and services. There is a broad technical literature on public–private partnerships, much of which is sector- or service-specific (e.g., sanitation delivery, infrastructure, environmental conservation, health, and education). Partnerships can also occur between NGOs and CSOs and government agencies, businesses (often, though not exclusively, as part of corporate social responsibility agendas), and donors. Domestically, donor refers to foundations; in the international arena, NGOs/CSOs may partner with multilateral and bilateral aid agencies, international intergovernmental organizations, or foundations.
Definition ‘‘Partnership’’ suffers from a disconnect between rhetoric and practice due, in part, to ambitious assumptions of common understandings about partnership generally, and among partners. Most will assert that they know
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partnership when they see it, but few can delineate exactly what defines it or, if they can, it is unlikely that their definition will concur with others’. In the public–private partnership literature, it has been defined as ‘‘working arrangements based on a mutual commitment (over and above that implied in any contract) between a public sector organization with any organization outside the public sector’’ (Bovaird, 2004: 200). Indeed, the term partnership connotes more than a simple contractual relationship. Many scholars and practitioners identify partnership principles that represent the values and intentions that should underlie partnership practice. Summarizing these normative perspectives, the ideal-type partnership can be defined as follows: ‘‘Partnership is a dynamic relationship among diverse actors, based on mutually agreed objectives, pursued through a shared understanding of the most rational division of labor based on the respective comparative advantages of each partner. This relationship results in mutual influence, with a careful balance between synergy and respective autonomy, which incorporates mutual respect, equal participation in decisionmaking, mutual accountability, and transparency’’ (Brinkerhoff, 2002c: 14). Because this ideal type is unattainable, one approach is to consider partnership a relative practice. To that end, Brinkerhoff (2002b) identifies two defining features and uses these to distinguish partnership from other interorganization and inter-sector relationship types. The principles are organization identity and mutuality. Organization identity refers to those unique characteristics of an organization that are sought through partnership; and mutuality, or the opportunity to participate and influence roughly equally, means that each actor can more easily protect its organization identity, and hence the efficiency, effectiveness, and synergistic rewards of the partnership. Mutuality affords partner organizations the opportunity to consider and explain implications of proposed practice in the partnership for their organization identities and potentially defend their distinctive advantages, skills, and legitimacy. Mutuality also provides opportunities for partner organizations to contribute their skills and other advantages as needed, and to more easily raise new ideas and propose more effective solutions. Mutuality enables partners to contribute to the partnership with fewer constraints (e.g., approvals, scrutiny, regulation, and other forms of interference) and greater legitimacy. In addition, mutuality can help ensure acceptance of the partnership’s policy and procedures, and ease their implementation, when each actor has agreed to them and feels a sense of ownership.
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These defining dimensions can be used to distinguish partnership practice from other forms of interorganizational cooperation. High degrees of mutuality and separate and sustained organization identity represent partnership. Three other relationship types can be identified based on the degree of these dimensions. First, contracting occurs when there is high organization identity, with relatively low levels of mutuality; in essence one organization ‘‘purchases’’ the skills and capacity of another for a determined purpose. Second, extension occurs when one organization directs and the other organization(s) has little independent identity; this often occurs with mergers, though more subtle forms are common. Third, co-optation and gradual absorption occur when organizations appear to mutually agree on ends and means, and/or an organization is convinced that it is in its interest to follow the dominant organization’s lead. By entering the relationship, the ‘‘partner’’ organization may be seriously compromising its organization identity, perhaps exchanging its service to its constituencies for the benefits of serving the dominant partner. This may be a conscious choice or a more subtle evolution. Partnership is a subjective term and practice. Most references to partnership, in reality, describe other types of interorganization cooperation, most commonly contracting. Since by definition co-optation and gradual absorption may occur over time, it is difficult to delineate these from partnership practice. This also signals the need to continuously assess compliance with partnership dimensions if partnership is the intended outcome.
Historical Background Driven by political and economic imperatives, partnership has been widespread in public administration and good governance practice for some time. The latter decades of the twentieth century marked a notable trend toward the privatization of public service delivery. This began as a response to what some perceived as the excessive growth of the welfare state, necessitating a third-party government solution. It was then extended to recognize a need to increase responsiveness and results orientation alongside efficiency, the intended benefits of the New Public Management. Regardless of the precise rationale, there was a popular consensus that the private sector – commercial and nonprofit – is generally more efficient and effective than government, and that government should steer, or at least facilitate, and the private sector should row. The trend became global, as evidenced by re-engineering in the USA; the concepts of pluralism, partnership, and mutualism in the United Kingdom; the prominence of the
New Zealand model; the importation of similar models into donor policy and programs for developing countries; and the international donor community’s ‘‘New Policy Agenda,’’ where donors looked to NGOs as implementers of donor-driven development policy, bypassing government and co-opting NGOs. Privatization evolved with increasingly ambitious objectives. Criticisms of NPM, particularly those related to equating citizens with consumers, led to the promotion or expectation of citizen involvement, either directly or indirectly, in defining service needs and holding deliverers accountable. This placed the nonprofit sector more prominently on the privatization agenda and led to expanded experimentation with interorganization cooperation models, moving beyond standard contracting practice. During the late 1990s, the rhetoric of partnership was in full bloom with new efforts to study examples both domestically and in international work. The rhetoric of partnership is now well integrated into the lexicon of government (e.g., the US Partnership for Public Service), corporations (partnership is a common theme in corporate social responsibility agendas), nonprofits (many nonprofits maintain a specific practice area for corporate partnerships), and international development (e.g., the eighth Millennium Development Goal, to develop a global partnership for development). Partnership practice is occurring at all levels of public service delivery, policy making, and advocacy (community, city, state, country, region, and international). Historically, two streams dominated the literature on partnership. First, the normative perspective is primarily promoted by NGO advocates. It critiques government, business, and donor practices, advocating a larger role for NGOs and civil society, and views partnership as an end in itself. It posits that partnerships should seek to maximize equity and inclusiveness. In a democratic fashion, they should mobilize, legitimate, and engage all parties potentially affected by or potentially contributing to a particular public service delivery effort. The second stream emerged in response to the normative one. This reactive perspective is illustrated in government, business, and donor agency materials, including mission statements, annual reports, strategic planning efforts, special reports, and special project/program documentation. It typically describes an organization’s partnership work in glowing terms, in an attempt to counter criticism of the past, whether or not this criticism is explicitly acknowledged, and to promote better public relations. Today, this latter stream has diminished somewhat, being replaced by a relatively more critical assessment of practice and results, with a less defensive orientation; and
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a third stream has further developed. The third stream consists of a range of related threads that are more analytic and practice oriented. It typically views partnership as instrumental and consists of a practitioner-oriented how-to literature, the expanding business alliance literature, and the more analytic streams of network theory, political economy, and the new governance models literature. More sophisticated analyses of partnership practice and formation now exist, from relatively more academic treatments, to the ongoing efforts of practitioner-oriented think tanks and consulting operations (e.g., International Business Leaders Forum, and Business Partners for Development [BPD] Water and Sanitation, both of which do extensive analytic work on how best to design and implement partnership).
Key Issues Conceptual challenges and faddism have contributed to several key issues and challenges concerning partnership which remain unresolved. These include the overuse of partnership rhetoric and practice when other relationship types may be more appropriate or are already in play, partner accountability, governance implications, and evaluation. Power imbalances among partners can be the cause or at least a contributing factor to each of these challenges. While perceived or hoped-for cost savings are attractive, partnership may not always be the most appropriate solution to public service challenges. The governance implications, discussed below, outline some of the reasons why partnership may not always be in citizens’ best interests. In addition to these, there are also concerns about the assumed transfer of public trust to private sector providers without clear accountability measures for social outcomes. Furthermore, as contracting out and other forms of third-party government, including partnership, have expanded, some fear that the government has been left with little more to do than to manage contracts, and staff are less and less capable of effectively doing so when technical expertise is so frequently outsourced and these positions become increasingly unattractive to newly trained experts. As noted above, the rhetoric of partnership is so ensconced in organization practice that it is not likely to diminish, despite its misapplication and inconclusive results. Some scholars and practitioners have argued against partnership rhetoric, let alone attempts to pursue partnership approaches. Power can be exercised to shape the needs of others, influencing them to pursue behavior in the interests of the power-holder. Thus, consensus may imply a deeply ingrained power play. So ‘‘adopting
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partnership as a dominant concept may be doing more harm than good in improving system credibility and performance’’ (Fowler, 2000: 1). Brinkerhoff (2002c) argues that partnership rhetoric can be an important vehicle for potentially weaker players to enter relationships and promote improvement and accountability. The emergence, evolution, and successes of transnational civil society confirm an effective path of lobbying for improved policy and rhetoric, which then become the basis for accountability and improvements. Partnership’s defining dimensions identify essential targets for accountability and analysis when evaluating the authenticity of partnership rhetoric. Accountability of partners to each other remains a thorny challenge. In theory, partners are mutually dependent – neither could accomplish effectively the task without the other. However, in practice, there are significant power imbalances, and oftentimes, the ‘‘weaker’’ partner does not recognize the power it possesses. Ebrahim (2003) demonstrates how NGOs, the presumptive weaker partners, recognize donor dependence on them and can, in fact, exercise their power to resist funder requirements. Partner accountability represents a typical collective action problem: given information asymmetries, each partner can never know for certain whether the other complies with partnership agreements. Partnership among diverse actors is a mainstay of governance approaches across technical sectors and policy issues, yet it has not yet been sufficiently conceptually situated in broader frameworks of good governance, nor have the implications of such contextualization for partnership effectiveness sufficiently been explored. The relational dimensions of partnership can lend themselves to or against legitimacy, and to managing competing interests and conflict (Brinkerhoff, 2007). The good governance paradigm seemed to assume partnership approaches would result in expanded participation which would automatically yield increased accountability. Instead, experience has shown that, ironically, partnership can be the source of legitimacy challenges. Indeed, auditors general have raised concerns about accountability, transparency, and the public interest with regard to new governance mechanisms (Gray et al., 2003). Deliberative critics argue that new governance models bring public decision making into expanded technocratic spheres, where participation is limited to selected, unelected technical experts who are not accountable to the general public (Wa¨lti et al., 2004). Participatory critics believe that the new governance models may limit the breadth of citizen participation and thus, inhibit community organization and solidarity (ibid.).
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Both the accountability and governance challenges highlight the need for more effective and comprehensive partnership evaluation. Too often, evaluation in the context of partnerships remains centered on program evaluation, rather than seeking to assess partnership’s value-added (e.g., as derived from its defining dimensions), partnership accountability, and governance implications. While some attempts to promote relational and process-oriented partnership evaluation (e.g., Brinkerhoff, 2002a) have been embraced by selected CSOs and nonprofits, like evaluation more generally, investments in learning and associated accountability remain minimal. The perceived touchyfeely nature of partner relations along with conflict aversion, has further stymied concerted efforts to evaluate partnership effectiveness.
Future Directions The nature and scale of public service challenges are impossible to address in isolation. Their complexity and intransigence require multiple actors and resources to solve. With the increasing interdependence of the globalized world, facilitated by and resulting from information and communication technologies, partnership will be essential. At the interorganization level, the rhetoric is likely to continue, perhaps without partnership value-added. However, inter-organization systems are on the rise and particular challenges will increasingly demand international and inter-governmental responses as well. It is particularly in this arena that one is likely to see an increased emphasis on moving beyond rhetoric to acknowledging and capitalizing on mutual dependencies. Research is often behind practice, though there is increasing attention to global governance, global public goods, and non-state actors. In particular, the participation of non-state actors in the provision of global public goods and in de facto global governance will likely coincide with expanded partnership approaches. In other words, partnership practice is likely to expand in both breadth and depth, and related collaborative processes will become so endemic that clarification of partnership as a concept and resolution of the above-mentioned issues is essential.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Civil Society–Business relations ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Good Governance ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ New Public Management ▶ Participation ▶ QUANGOs
▶ Social Trust ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ Third Party Government
References/Further Readings Austin, J. E. (2000). The collaborative challenge: How nonprofits and business succeed through strategic alliances. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Bovaird, T. (2004). Public–private partnerships: From contested concepts to prevalent practice. International Review of Administrative Sciences, 70(2), 199–216. Brinkerhoff, J. M. (2002a). Assessing and improving partnership relationships and outcomes: A proposed framework. Evaluation & Program Planning, 25(3), 215–251. Brinkerhoff, J. M. (2002b). Government–nonprofit partnership: A defining framework. Public Administration & Development, 22(1), 19–30. Brinkerhoff, J. M. (2002c). Partnership for international development: Rhetoric or results? Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Brinkerhoff, J. M. (2007). Partnership as a means to good governance: Toward an evaluation framework. In P. Glasbergen, F. Biermann, & A. Mol, (Eds.), Partnerships, governance and sustainable development: Reflections on theory and practice Amsterdam: Edward Elgar Publishers.(pp. 68–89). Chisholm, D. (1989). Coordination without hierarchy: Informal structures in multiorganizational systems. Berkeley/Los Angeles/Oxford: University of California Press. Ebrahim, A. (2003). NGOs and organizational change: Discourse, reporting, and learning. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Fowler, A. F. (2000). Introduction – Beyond partnership: Getting real about NGO relationships in the aid system. In A. F. Fowler (Ed.), Questioning partnership: The reality of aid and NGO relations. IDS Bulletin, 31, 1–13. Glasbergen, P., Biermann, F., & Mol, A. P. J. (Eds.) (2007). Partnerships, governance and sustainable development. Amsterdam: Edward Elgar. Gray, A., Jenkins, B., Leeuw, F., & Mayne, J. (Eds.) (2003). Collaboration in public services; the challenge for evaluation. New Brunswick/ London: Transaction Publishers. Gray, B. (1989). Collaborating: Finding common ground for multiparty problems. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kernaghan, K. (Ed.) (2004). Public–private partnerships revisited. Special journal issue of International Review of Administrative Sciences, 70(2), 195–306. Huxham, C., & Vangen, S. (2005). Managing to collaborate: The theory and practice of collaborative advantage. Oxon: Routledge. Huxham, C., Cropper, S., Evers, M., & Ring, P. S. (Eds.) (2007). Handbook of interorganizational relations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mandell, M. P. (Ed.) (2001). Getting results through collaboration: Networks and network structures for public policy and management. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Wa¨lti, S., Ku¨bler, D. Z., & Popodopoulos, Y. (2004). How democratic is ‘‘governance’’? Lessons from Swiss drug policy. Governance, 17(1), 83–113.
Pasteur, Louis ▶ Institut Pasteur
Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations
Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations MARIA RAQUEL FREIRE, PAULA DUARTE LOPES Centro de Estudos Sociais, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal
Introduction Despite the long history of peace and war, it was only in the nineteenth century that peace and conflict organizations in different formats emerged in the international scenario. The first of these organizations emerged in national contexts, and some evolved into interdisciplinary and transnational organizations spreading to other countries. The main goals of these organizations were to prevent war and/or promote peace. Peace and conflict resolution efforts were mainly a state prerogative. A good example, generally referred to as the precursor of the notion of collective security, is the Concert of Europe, which resulted from the 1815 Congress of Vienna. Although not an organization, its meetings set the conditions for the discussion of joint conflict prevention and settlement. The materialization of these ideas crystallized with the establishment of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 1899, headquartered in The Hague, The Netherlands. This Court constitutes the first institutionalized global mechanism for the settlement of disputes among states, but it only has the limited goal of settling disputes. The first good example of a collective effort to prevent war and/or promote peace is the League of Nations (coming into effect in 1920). Besides these state-led initiatives, nongovernmental efforts towards preventing war and/or promoting peace can also be found in the nineteenth century. At this time, nongovernmental groups interested in debating peace and conflict resolution were essentially restricted to intellectual elites. The first of such initiatives was the New York Peace Society (1815), followed by the Society for the Promotion of Permanent and Universal Peace (London, 1816). In 1828, the American Peace Society was established, merging several state and local organizations, including the New York Peace Society. These nongovernmental initiatives kept evolving in parallel to the intergovernmental ones, but it is only after the Second World War that they become more institutionalized, in the sense of having growing bureaucracies, standard operational procedures and international delegations. Also after the Second World War there is a general tendency in the international system for the proliferation of nongovernmental institutions that ends up affecting the field of peace and conflict resolution.
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Definition The term ‘‘Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations’’ (P/CROs) encompasses several different types of organizations and although it does not say anything about the public-private nature of these organizations, the fact is that this term has come to mean essentially nongovernmental organizations. Hasenfled and Gidron (2005) classify P/CROs within the broad category of third sector organizations, which are characterized as being both nongovernmental and nonprofit. Although the term is currently used as a holistic category, the fact is that one can find conflict resolution organizations, peace organizations and P/CROs. Conflict resolution organizations have essentially pursued the ending of specific armed conflicts (negative peace). Although the pursuit of this goal certainly contributes to overall peace, these organizations aim just at settling and containing physical violence. Peace organizations have historically been characterized by their overall goal of promoting peace by pursuing a holistic path that goes beyond the absence of armed conflict. These organizations seek to create structural conditions for peace that include development, rule of law, and education for peace (positive peace), among other, through peaceful means (Galtung, 1969). P/CROs attempt to combine both approaches, by intervening in armed conflicts with the settlement and containment rationale, and also working beyond that logic to create the conditions for a sustainable and holistic peace. Therefore, P/CROs are nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations dedicated to avoiding armed conflict and promoting peace, by transforming the conditions underlying the conflict under analysis. These organizations have different trajectories concerning their creation and development. Some originated from nonprofit organizations, such as think tanks and research centers. Others are a result of social movements triggered by a reaction to a regime or governmental policies that eventually feel the need to institutionalize their oppositional demands, such as feminist or antinuclear movements. There are still other P/CROs that derive from advocacy networks and volunteer-run associations, including religious organizations or conflict-specific associations. These are usually characterized by citizen participation and horizontal relations. This variety of backgrounds implies a very diverse set of actors, including activists, practitioners, trainers and educators, researchers, policy analysts, informed concerned citizens and general volunteers. These categories are not mutually exclusive and one can find different combinations of paths and members in several P/CROs.
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Key Issues The different origins of P/CROs have influenced their internal structure, the resources available to them, and their intervention strategies. In addition, this influence is also visible in terms of where, when, and how they are able to make a difference. It should be noted that most of the issues and goals pursued by P/CROs are also shared by other nongovernmental organizations. However, due to the specificity of P/CROs, these issues are crucial for their capability to act and be recognized as a legitimate and authoritative actor in the field of peace and conflict resolution. Internal Structure
Armed conflict situations or conflicts on the verge of becoming violent are extremely volatile contexts, highly dependent on perceptions of the actors directly involved. A flexible, adjustable, creative, and innovative kind of organization tends to be able to respond in a more adequate and timely manner to these constantly evolving conditions. P/CROs derived from social movements and/or advocacy networks are usually better fitted to this task, due to their intrinsic nature. However, hierarchy and consistency are also essential regarding agenda-setting and confidence building with the actors involved. P/CROs created as nongovernmental organizations from the beginning tend to be more hierarchical, more bureaucratic and also more stable and consistent. They work a fine thread in an attempt to balance the different dimensions of their activities with the inherited structure that characterizes them, in an effort to build and maintain their legitimacy and reputation. Resources
As all nonprofit organizations, P/CROs are extremely dependent on external resources for funding and maintaining their activities. Their resources include donations, fees for their services, income from publications, projects’, and events’ funding from international organizations, foundations, governmental agencies and companies, and the work of volunteers. The problem resides essentially with donations and the projects’ and events’ funding as well as with the resort to volunteer personnel. Too often, donors influence the agenda-setting and the spectrum of instruments that might be used. Also, depending on the nature of the financing entity, projects, and events can cover or exclude topics and people due to the conditionality imposed. This dynamics frequently has a direct influence on the P/CRO’s neutrality and legitimacy, compromising its ability to act. As for human resources, the dependence on volunteers by some of these P/CROs is much appreciated, not only concerning costs, but also regarding the involvement of a wider civil society support basis.
However, the fluctuation and rotation of personnel creates structural instability and may constrain the P/CRO’s ability to fulfill its commitments. Intervention Strategies
Depending on the P/CRO, intervention strategies will differ. However, it is possible to aggregate them in three broad categories, which are often interrelated and in some instances overlap, but which can also be developed autonomously. These categories of intervention strategies include education and training, activism, and direct intervention in the actual armed conflict. Education and training range from workshops, conferences, and courses to community development projects, including intergroup contacts. In addition, these activities are complemented by research work and policy recommendations. There is a reinforcing relation between these strategies. In some cases, these strategies aim at facilitating the creation of epistemic communities, and thus further strengthening these organizations’ lobbying capabilities. On the other hand, a disadvantage of this interrelation arises from the risk of biased information entering the process, jeopardizing its results. Strategies aimed at raising public awareness, influencing governmental and international organizations’ decision-making processes and shaming different players to act fall into a more activist arena. A clear advantage of these strategies is that they help bring to the forefront situations that otherwise would be neglected by the powers that be. Nevertheless, these strategies are sometimes perceived as being biased, manipulated, and alarmist, undermining the P/CRO’s final goals. Mediation and reconciliation imply a more direct involvement with the conflicting parties. These strategies presuppose not only a comprehensive knowledge of the situation but also an acceptance from the conflicting parties of the P/CROs mediating or promoting the reconciliation. Interventions by these organizations are usually low profile and sometimes, as in the case of second track mediation, secretive. Second track mediation is pursued outside the formal state-led negotiations, in an informal setting and a neutral environment. Many times, the developments at this level inform and influence the high level negotiations. Due to this informality, however, second track attempts are often not made public. This means that despite their level of success, P/CROs are seldom able to capitalize from their results. Legitimacy and Reputation
P/CROs main objectives require that their legitimacy and reputation are recognized by other players. Their
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influence depends primarily on these aspects, although their internal structure, the resources they have available and their intervention strategies, as discussed above, play a structural role. Besides these elements, their legitimacy and reputation derive from their historical record of action, their background and the perceptions others have of them and their work. The field of peace and conflict resolution is frail, in the sense that reputations can be easily compromised and, once that happens, they are hardly recovered. This frailty results from the issues at stake, the dynamics of suspicion involving the conflictual context, the nature of the actors and the complexities of peace processes. In the same line of reasoning, once a P/CRO reputation and legitimacy are widely recognized, their intervention is not only welcomed but actively sought. Independence
The reputation and legitimacy of P/CROs is also associated with the constant tension between their independence as nongovernmental organizations and their close relationship with states which remain fundamental actors in contexts of violence and peace. P/CROs strategies may develop as alternative to state-led activities or as a complement. The management of this tension becomes harder in the latter. Although this partnership may contribute to the transformation of the conflictual situation, P/CROs may also be co-opted and instrumentalized by states. This might consist on using P/CROs reach and legitimacy to promote state goals, undermining these organizations’ reputation and independence, with the consequences discussed above.
Future Directions The holistic intervention approach underlying P/CROs points to an increased involvement of these organizations in peace and conflict resolution processes. This results from growing awareness that current conflicting scenarios require more encompassing responses in terms of going beyond the absence of physical violence to include positive peace. In this way, even more restricted interventions may become embedded in a culture of peace, where ‘‘values, attitudes, modes of behavior and ways of life reject violence and prevent [it] by tackling their root causes to solve problems through dialog and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations’’ (United Nations, 1998a, 1998b). P/CROs create the possibility to overcome the traditional sequential conflict-narrative (conflict prevention; conflict management; conflict resolution; post-conflict reconstruction), by integrating positive and negative peace within a culture of peace. This implies that intervention strategies will take into account the consequences of each
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specific objective towards the overall goal of peace, as well as adopt instruments consistent with a culture of peace. Finally, the combination of P/CROs increasing role and breadth of action may enhance their articulation with states and other players. These may perceive their activities as a challenge to the status quo, whether in a positive or negative way. Consequently, this articulation will depend fundamentally on these perceptions and the way they are acted upon. A challenge that remains for the future.
Cross-References ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Social Movements ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Burton, J., & Dukes, F. (Eds.) (1990). Readings in management and resolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Cochrane, F., & Dunn, S. (2002). People power: The role of the voluntary and community sector in the Northern Ireland conflict. Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press. Galtung, J. (1969). Violence, peace and peace research. Journal of Peace Research, 6(3), 167–191. Gidron, B., Katz, S., & Hasenfeld, Y. (2002). Mobilizing for peace: Conflict resolution in Northern Ireland, Israel/Palestine, and South Africa. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Goodhand, J. (2006). Aiding peace?: The role of NGOs in armed conflict. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Hasenfeld, Y., & Gidron, B. (2005). Understanding multi-purpose hybrid voluntary organizations: The contributions of theories on civil society, social movements and non-profit organizations. Journal of Civil Society, 1(2), 97–112. Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders: Advocacy networks in international politic. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Richmond, O., & Carey, H. (2005). Subcontracting peace: The challenges of NGO peacebuilding. Aldershot: Ashgate. United Nations. (1998a). Resolution A/RES/52/13: Culture of peace. United Nations Resolutions, from http://www3.unesco.org/iycp/uk/ uk_sum_cp.htm; 02/24/2008 United Nations. (1998b). Resolution A/RES/53/243: Declaration and programme of action on a culture of peace. United Nations Resolutions, from http://www3.unesco.org/iycp/uk/uk_sum_cp.htm; 02/24/2008
Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations MARC EDELMAN Hunter College, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA
Introduction/Definition Peasants and farmers – and their organizations, formal and informal – manifest great diversity across time and space.
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Smallholders, pastoralists, tenant farmers, sharecroppers, squatters, fisherfolk, landless laborers, large landowners, and agroindustrial entrepreneurs are among the groups that have sought to defend their interests through organized campaigns and struggles. Conflicts and coalitions between these sectors, as well as with urban groups and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), mark the shifting terrain of rural politics. Increasingly, in the late twentieth century, peasant and farmer organizations in different countries have formed transnational alliances in order to engage contentious issues such as trade policy, genetically modified (GM) crops, agrarian reform, environmental crises, and the human rights of activists and the rural poor.
Historical Background The first peasant organizations are surely as ancient as state society itself, that is, approximately 10,000 years old. The centrality of complex irrigation systems in the first civilizations was accompanied by diverse forms of farmer organization, typically involving labor exchanges and the administration of access to water and land for cultivation. While often state-directed and sometimes coerced, these early organizational forms occasionally served as vehicles for peasant protests and revolts against taxation, landlord exactions or famine conditions. Few, if any, of the ancient, medieval, or early modern peasant rebellions, however, succeeded in implementing lasting social transformations. By the early twentieth century peasant insurgencies against elites and colonial powers sometimes attracted thousands or even millions of supporters. The Mexican and Chinese revolutions and, in the post-World War II era, the Vietnam War and anticolonial struggles in Africa brought massive social upheavals and reshaped global geopolitics. The agrarian dimension and peasant social base of these movements led to wide-ranging land reforms. In countries where violence did not occur or was minimal, peasant activists and some sectors of the dominant groups shared the perception that timely rural reforms could avert major conflicts or revolutions and also worked to organize and implement change. Peasant and farmer cooperatives have existed in Europe and the Americas at least since the late nineteenth century, often with the backing of leftist, populist, or mainstream political parties. Most were organized around the production and marketing of particular commodities, but many also involved savings and credit, input purchasing, transport and postharvest processing and storage, machinery services, and retail sales. In most countries, cooperatives are barred from political advocacy activities, but many national- and international-level
cooperative federations attempt to defend their members’ interests in government and multilateral institutions.
Key Issues Peasant and farmer organizations that lobby or employ pressure tactics are found virtually everywhere, including in developed countries where only a small portion of the economically active population works in agriculture. Farmers’ unions in France, the United States and Canada, for example, have substantial political influence. In less developed countries, such as Ecuador and Bolivia, peasant and indigenous movements helped to topple national governments in the early twenty-first century. Even under highly repressive regimes, such as China and Burma, peasants have managed to organize at the local and sometimes the regional level. While the Chinese government actively suppresses independent peasant movements, rural unrest and ‘‘rightful resistance’’ are widespread, with ‘‘runaway villages’’ sometimes taking up arms against corrupt officials. These and similar conflicts have brought major administrative reforms, including reductions in the taxes agriculturalists pay to local governments. In Burma, peasant insurgencies among ethnic minorities constitute one of the more significant challenges to the military regime. Activists and scholars have long debated the role of outsiders in creating peasant organizations. While rural people have frequently had better access to education in recent decades, through government programs or NGOs, a broad consensus exists that effective peasant associations usually require some outside leadership, at least in the initial stages. Given the growing complexity of rural livelihoods and the prevailing pattern in many places of mixing off-farm employment with agriculture, the boundary between ‘‘insider’’ and ‘‘outsider’’ is often unclear and may be a subject of debate within nascent peasant organizations. It is now widely recognized that many rural people are increasingly cosmopolitan, with experience in urban areas and abroad that equips them for organizing and leading peasant movements. In the 1960s and 1970s social scientists commonly distinguished between farmers, who were commercially oriented and employed wage labor and advanced technology, and peasants, who were said to be subsistenceoriented and who used family labor and rudimentary technology. These ideal types have proven problematical as the rural poor adopt modern technology, as agriculturalists in developed and less developed countries collaborate around issues of common concern, as rural people migrate to cities (and sometimes back to the countryside), and as peasants and farmers themselves stress their commonalities and minimize their differences. In many
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languages the terms equivalent to ‘‘peasant’’ – the Spanish campesino or the French paysan, for example, are more inclusive, signifying simply ‘‘country people’’ and including many farmers. By the 1980s and 1990s many scholars who had earlier romanticized peasant revolutionaries became disillusioned as peasants in Africa, Latin America, Asia, and elsewhere became shock troops for warlords in predatory resource or drug wars or contributed to perpetrating genocides, as in Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Balkans.
International Perspectives Transnational peasant and farmer organizations have existed since the turn of the twentieth century. The Farmers Institutes extension program originated in Canada in the 1890s and spread soon after to the United States and Britain. In the aftermath of World War I, agrarian political parties came to power in Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and had major influence in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Rumania, Hungary, Austria, and the Netherlands. In the early 1920s, several of these parties created an alliance known as the ‘‘Green International’’ or International Agrarian Bureau, which was headquartered in Prague. At its height, in 1929, it included seventeen member parties in central and Eastern Europe, but it declined rapidly during the world economic crisis of the 1930s, as fascist parties came to power and decimated several of the key the agrarian parties. In 1923, partly in response to the rising profile of the agrarian parties, the Moscow-based Communist International set up a ‘‘Red Peasant International’’ or ‘‘Krestintern’’ (a conjunction of the Russian ‘‘Krest’yianskii Internatsional’’ or Peasant International). The Krestintern sought alliances with the agrarian parties, as well as with China’s Kuomintang, but enjoyed little success. By the end of the decade, as Stalin consolidated his hold on the Soviet Union and increasingly turned against the peasantry, the Krestintern was essentially moribund. The Associated Country Women of the World (ACWW) was founded in 1933 and today claims a membership of nine million in 365 participating organizations in 70 countries. ACWW emphasizes empowering rural women through education, skills training and income generation and disaster relief projects. It generally eschews political advocacy and draws members mainly from Anglophone countries or the English-speaking middle classes elsewhere. The International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) formed in 1946 and includes many national associations of large agriculturalists and some peasant and small farmer organizations. IFAP has worked closely throughout its history with the United Nations Food and
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Agriculture Organization (FAO). While it long emphasized technical and policy measures to boost productivity, in recent years it has begun to focus on issues of long-term sustainability and the role that farmers might play in resolving the crises of environmental degradation, rising commodity prices (since 2006), and global climate change. The global farm crisis of the 1980s, characterized by plummeting commodity prices and skyrocketing prices for fossil fuel-based fertilizers and pesticides, spurred a new wave of cross-border organizing by farmers and peasants. In Europe the European Farmers Coordination (usually abbreviated CPE for its name in French, Coordination Paysanne Europe´enne), founded in 1986, united organizations in over a dozen countries that sought to reform the European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy and to keep agriculture out of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (which became the World Trade Organization or WTO in 1995). In Central America, similarly, peasant organizations joined forces to participate in the regional integration process initiated in the early 1990s, following the conclusion of the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua. In the rest of Latin America, peasant, indigenous and Afrodescendant movements that staged protests against the 1992 Columbian Quincentenary celebrations contributed to forming the Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC, Latin American Coordination of Peasant Organizations). In 1993, representatives of the national organizations in these regional coalitions, together with groups from Canada, the Philippines, India, and elsewhere, founded a transnational movement called Vı´a Campesina. The name means ‘‘Peasant Road,’’ invoking an aspiration for a peasant-centered development model, though the organization is always referred to by its Spanish name. Vı´a Campesina currently links over one hundred organizations of small- and medium-sized agricultural producers, landless, rural women, indigenous people, and agricultural workers in almost 60 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The membership is diverse and includes landless peasants in Brazil, small dairy farmers in Europe, well-off farmers in South India, wheat producers in Canada, and land-poor peasants in Mexico. The main issues of concern to Vı´a Campesina include global trade rules, intellectual property and genetically modified organisms, the survival of family farms, sustainable alternatives to corporate-controlled industrial agriculture, agrarian reform, the human rights of peasant activists, and ‘‘food sovereignty,’’ which it defines as the right to protect national production and to shield domestic markets from the dumping of low-priced agricultural imports. Vı´a Campesina and its component subnational, national,
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and regional organizations have participated in numerous militant and theatrical protest actions against the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), summit meetings of G-8 governments, and large agribusiness corporations such as Monsanto, Cargill, and Syngenta. The movement has also been a prominent participant in global civil society gatherings, such as the World Social Forums. For its first 3 years, Vı´a Campesina’s structure was based on an International Coordinating Committee (ICC), with representatives of organizations from different regions, each of which was responsible for overseeing activities in their respective areas of the world. Many communications activities were initially centered in the offices of the Canadian National Farmers Union in Saskatoon and the European Farmers Coordination in Brussels. In 1996, an International Operational Secretariat was established to oversee the entire network and complement the work of the ICC. Because of the Central Americans’ extensive experience in cross-border organizing, responsibility for the Secretariat was entrusted to the Honduran member coalition and its coordinator Rafael Alegrı´a. In 2004 the headquarters moved to the office of the Federation of Indonesian Peasants and Henry Saragih became Vı´a Campesina coordinator. Much of the Vı´a Campesina’s organizing is carried out by its constituent groups, often with funds from European and Canadian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The Vı´a Campesina itself has a tiny staff and a small budget. Despite its reliance for funding on developed-country NGOs, Vı´a Campesina has frequently criticized the claims of some NGOs to represent or to advocate on behalf of the rural poor and has argued that this type of advocacy is best carried out by the peasant organizations themselves. Vı´a Campesina has, however, formed strategic alliances with organizations such as the International Planning Committee for Food Sovereignty, the German-based Food First Information and Action Network (FIAN) and the Land Research Action Network (LRAN), an international team of activist researchers sponsored by research centers based in Brazil, Mexico, the United States, and Thailand. These alliances have permitted Vı´a Campesina access to state-of-the-art information and analysis on issues such as global trade negotiations, the World Bank’s market-oriented land reform program and the implications of genetically modified crops. Although Vı´a Campesina claims to be a ‘‘global’’ or ‘‘world’’ movement, its geographical coverage is uneven. Probably the largest single member movement is the Brazilian Landless Movement (MST, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra). Vı´a Campesina supporters
typically sport green kerchiefs and baseball caps at public events, a practice adopted from the MST, whose members often wear matching caps and red T-shirts. Many other member movements, however, are quite small and in several countries, including France and the United States, the largest peasant and farmer organizations are affiliated with the more conservative International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP) and not with Vı´a Campesina. Vı´a Campesina has no presence in China or in a number of other countries, such as Burma and most of the former Soviet republics, where repressive regimes have blocked peasants from organizing. It has a large number of member organizations in Latin America and Europe and only a handful in Africa and the Middle East. In Francophone Africa many peasant organizations are affiliated with ROPPA (Re´seau des Organisations Paysannes et de Producteurs de l’Afrique de l’Ouest, Network of Peasants’ and Producers’ Organizations of West Africa), an alliance with similar aims to Vı´a Campesina but which has remained outside it. A number of other transnational coalitions, such as MIJARC (International Movement of Catholic Agricultural and Rural Youth), have warm relations with Vı´a Campesina but also remain outside it. Most of the Asian Vı´a Campesina members have only joined since 2004. The Korean Peasant League has demonstrated a capacity for mobilizing thousands of supporters for international protests, as occurred at the 2005 WTO Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong, when hundreds of Korean protestors donned orange life vests and plunged into the harbor in an effort to bypass a police cordon and swim to the meeting. Many Korean rural activists also participated in the 2003 anti-WTO demonstrations in Cancu´n, Mexico, and one, Lee Kyang Hae, who was holding a sign that said ‘‘WTO kills farmers,’’ stabbed himself to death as a protest during a large march. Even though Lee belonged a non-Vı´a Campesina organization (the Korean Advanced Farmers Federation), Vı´a Campesina commemorates September 10, the anniversary of Lee’s death, as an ‘‘international day of struggle against the WTO.’’ Member organizations of Vı´a Campesina also frequently stage protests on April 17, ‘‘the international day of peasant struggle,’’ which commemorates the 1996 massacre by hired gunmen of 19 peasants involved in a land occupation in Eldorado dos Caraja´s, Brazil. The killing occurred while a Vı´a Campesina international conference was taking place in Tlaxcala, Mexico, which contributed to giving the event immediate international resonance. Subsequent Vı´a Campesina conferences have been held in 2000 in Bangalore, India, in 2004 in Sa˜o Paulo, Brazil, and in 2008 in Mozambique.
Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations
Future Directions Vı´a Campesina has come to have a high profile in global civil society. The actions it has taken, along with its allies, have arguably contributed to slowing global trade negotiations. It has helped to return agrarian reform to the international development agenda. It has forged significant ties between peasant and farmer movements in diverse world regions as well as with a range of sympathetic action research, advocacy, and funding organizations. Some of its constituent organizations participate in the civil society consultative bodies of United Nations (UN) agencies, such as the Food and Agriculture Organization and the International Fund for Agricultural Development. Increasingly, Vı´a Campesina has sought to call attention to violations of peasants’ rights in different world regions, issuing annual reports that tally abuses in the parts of the world where its members are active. In its 2002 ‘‘Draft International Convention on the Rights of the Peasant,’’ which it hopes to have ratified by the United Nation, Vı´a Campesina includes the rights ‘‘to a proper living standard,’’ to agrarian resources, to seeds, to information and technology, to biological diversity and environmental preservation, and to freedom of association. The very success of transnational coalitions such as Vı´a Campesina has, however, also entailed growing internal tensions, as the number and diversity of participating movements has grown. These include differences between organizations that represent affluent farmers and poor agricultural laborers or the landless, as well as conflicts over alliances, funding sources, vetting new members, and strategies and tactics. Some organizations that joined Vı´a Campesina in its early days have blocked other groups in their regions that they perceive as rivals from joining. In a few cases, national organizations have withdrawn from international work in order to rededicate themselves to national-level lobbying and pressure campaigns. The world food crisis since 2006, marked by rising prices for petroleum-based products and agricultural commodities, presented peasant and farmer organizations with new and difficult challenges. Accustomed for decades to declining prices for the main internationally traded agricultural commodities, peasant, and farmer organizations in many countries had centered their actions around demands for stopping developed-country dumping of subsidized grain, implementing supply management mechanisms and securing market access for poor farmers. The sudden post-2006 price rises, which provoked food riots in dozens of countries, did not usually result in a bonanza for agricultural producers, since input costs also rose drastically and, in many
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countries, the public sector extension agencies that served small farmers and the state commodities boards that purchased crops had been undermined or abolished as part of pro-market reforms in the 1980s and 1990s. The new situation of rising prices negatively impacted peasants who were net consumers of food and also often pitted rural producers against urban residents and national governments that sought to tax or otherwise limit exports in an effort to keep food costs low for consumers. In developed countries and in the larger exporting countries in the Global South farmers had to devote more of their energy to understanding and investing in complex markets for agricultural futures and options, leaving them less time for actual production-related tasks. In some cases, notably Argentina, these new conditions fostered previously unthinkable alliances between wealthy and poor agriculturalists’ organizations. In many places, however, highly volatile agricultural markets and rising production costs led to new waves of farm foreclosures and heightened processes of rural-urban migration.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Attac ▶ Bread for the World ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Brazil ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Latin America ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Mexico and Central America ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in South America ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in South Asia ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in South East Asia ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the United States ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in West Africa ▶ Civil Society and the European Union ▶ Civil Society History VII: Late 20th and 21st Century ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Human Rights ▶ InterAction ▶ Lutheran World Relief ▶ MST ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Social Justice ▶ Social Movements ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits ▶ World Social Forum
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References/Further Readings Adams, J. (Ed.) (2003). Fighting for the farm: Rural America transformed. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Akram-Lodhi, H. et al. (Eds.) (2007). Land, poverty and livelihoods in an era of globalization. London: Routledge. Barros, F. et al. (Eds.) (2003). The negative impacts of world bank marketbased land reform. Brasilia: Rede Brasil. Bell, J. D. (1977). Peasants in power: Alexander Stamboliski and the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union, 1899–1923. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Borras, S. M., Jr. (2004). La Via Campesina: An evolving transnational social movement. TNI briefing series no. 2004/6. Amsterdam: Transnational Institute. Borras, S. M., et al. (Eds.) Jr. (2008). Transnational agrarian movements confronting globalization. London: Wiley-Blackwell. Bryceson, D. et al. (Eds.) (2000). Disappearing peasantries? Rural labour in Africa, Asia and Latin America. London: Intermediate Technology Publications. Cooper, F., Mallon, F. E., Stern, S. J. et al. (1993). Confronting historical paradigms: peasants, labor, and the capitalist world system in Africa and Latin America. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press. Desmarais, A. A. (2007). La via campesina: Globalization and the power of peasants. London: Pluto. Edelman, M. (2003). Transnational peasant and farmer movements and networks. In M. Kaldor, H. Anheier, & M. Glasius (Eds.), Global civil society (pp. 185–220). London: Oxford University Press. Fernandes, B. M. (2000). A formaca˜o do MST no Brasil. Petro´polis: Editora Vozes. Fitting, E. (2006). The political uses of culture: Maize production and the GM corn debates in Mexico. Focaal – European Journal of Anthropology, 48, 17–34. Gupta, A. (1998). Postcolonial developments: Agriculture in the making of modern India. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Heller, C. (2007). Techne versus technoscience: Divergent (and ambiguous) notions of food ‘‘Quality’’ in the French debate over GM crops. American Anthropologist, 190(4), 603–615. Holt-Gime´nez, E. (2006). Campesino a campesino: Voices from Latin America’s farmer to farmer movement for sustainable agriculture. Oakland, CA: Food First Books. Mazoyer, M. et al. (Eds.) (2002). Vı´a Campesina: Une Alternative Paysanne a la Mondialisation Ne´olibe´rale. Geneva: Centre Europe-Tier Monde. McKeon, N., Watts, M., & Wolford, W. (2004). Peasant associations in theory and practice. Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development. Mooney, P. H., & Majka, T. J. (1995). Farmers’ and farm workers’ movements: Social protest in American agriculture. New York: Twayne. Moyo, S. et al. (Eds.) (2005). Reclaiming the land: The resurgence of rural movements in Africa, Asia and Latin America (pp. 383–410). London: Zed Books. Mu¨ller, B. (2006). Introduction: GMOs – global objects of contention. Focaal – European Journal of Anthropology, 48, 3–16. O’Brien, K., & Li, L. (2006). Rightful resistance in China. Cambridge University Press. Patel, R. (2006). International agrarian restructuring and the practical ethics of peasant movement solidarity. Journal of Asian and African Studies, 41(1&2), 71–93. Petras, J., & Veltmeyer, H. (2003). The peasantry and the state in Latin America: A troubled past, an uncertain future. In T. Brass (Ed.), Latin American peasants (pp. 41–82). London: Frank Cass.
Rosset, P. et al. (Eds.) (2006). Promised land: Competing visions of agrarian reform. Oakland, CA: Food First Books. Wolf, E. R. (1969). Peasant wars of the twentieth century. New York: Harper & Row.
People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy SANG PEEL PARK
Address of Organization 132 Tongin-dong, Jongro-gu 110-043 Seoul South Korea www.peoplepower21.org
Introduction/Brief History People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) was founded in 1994 with more than 200 members, the majority of which were attorneys, scholars, clergymen, etc. The key founder of PSPD was Wonsun Park, a human rights lawyer. PSPD is a civil organization dedicated to promoting justice and human rights in Korea through the participation of citizens. Korea’s democracy was developing rapidly after the historic June Struggle of Citizens in 1987. But the remnants of the dictatorial government of the pre-1987 era were prevalent in the public arena. As a progressive civic group, PSPD watched closely the abuse of power to enhance justice in Korea. Today, it is the most famous civic advocacy organization in Korea.
Mission/Objectives PSDP’s mission is to serve as a watchdog against the abuse of power to bring justice and democracy to many areas of Korean society. PSDP evokes public awareness through campaigns, questioning social and political activities, filing administrative and public litigations, and petitioning legislation.
Activities Its major activities are judiciary watch, national assembly watch, government administration watch, peace and disarmament, tax reform, economic democracy, social welfare, fair labor, international solidarity, etc. It publishes the monthly Participatory Society, written in Korean.
Performance and Impact
Structure and Governance The PSPD structure comprises the general assembly as the highest legislative organ, co-representative, steering committee, executive committee, and secretary general. Under the secretary general, there are 11 departments, which are composed of executive committee members. PSPD has regarded independence and consistency as the most important principles of being a watchdog of systemic power. It lays stress on democratic principles in operating the organization.
Funding As of December 2008, PSPD has approximately 9,800 members and 50 full-time paid staff members. Membership dues cover 60–70% of the total budget. Other funds are made up by donations, research projects, bazaar, and so on. The annual budget of the year 2008 is US$1 million. It owns a building worth US$1 million.
Major Accomplishments The Civil Actions for 2000 General Election (the CAGE) and the Minority Shareholders’ Campaign might be said to be the most successful activities. PSPD has developed and coordinated a wide range of activities to bring about a systematic reform and to suggest counterproposals to various government policies and agendas.
Cross-References ▶ Advocacy ▶ Human Rights
References/Further Readings Park, S. (2005). The introduction to NGO studies. Seoul: Arche (Korean).
Performance and Impact CRISTINA PUGA National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
Introduction Because there is an expected connection between good performance and good results, performance becomes an important issue for civil society when it refers to different forms of associational life. In recent years, evaluation of voluntary or non-profit associations and of some other forms of collective action such as foundations,
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community councils, governance networks or social movement organizations (SMO) has established performance as a point of departure. However, there is little agreement about what performance means and how it can be measured.
Definition In a general way, performance has been considered from two different perspectives both important to associations: from cultural pragmatics as a mise en sce`ne, and from organizational theory as the way that organizations structure and carry on their purposes and strategies. Performance as a mise en sce`ne
Within this perspective, performance refers to the enacting of a social process whose importance depends on how it is received by an audience. To Jeffrey Alexander who has brought back and reelaborated the concept as an analytical tool to contemporary sociology, social actions are ‘‘performative’’ insofar as they communicate meaning to an audience. Performance, in this sense, requires of a ‘‘script’’ and of an audience. Its success will depend on how it is enacted and acknowledged by the public (Alexander, 2001, 2007). Bad performance, which includes a meaningless script or an erroneous appreciation of the audience, may result in failure. The emphasis here is clearly communicative, discursive, pragmatic, and actorcentered. Charisma, skills, imagination, good-timing, and understanding of the others, as well as an adequate use of those significant objects, songs, or maybe words to which Alexander refers to as ‘‘means of symbolic action,’’ can be very important performance elements to produce the expected outcomes whether the performance is individual or collective. Performance, from this point of view has a historical dimension because the meaning communicated through collective performance is related to former cultural experiences and society background, and, in turn, becomes collective memory. When this perspective is related to civil society, we find that, more than associations, social movements have historically been related to performance. Before Alexander, authors such as Tilly (1978, 2004), Tarrow (1994), or Mellucci (2003) have used terms such as ‘‘performance,’’ ‘‘representation,’’ ‘‘publics,’’ ‘‘scene’’ and ‘‘repertoire’’ to speak about the strategies of social movements to win and keep people’s attention and support. Although Alexander has mainly referred performance to the exercise of power and its legitimation (2007) the concept can be easily extended to many different ways of relation and communication among social actors. If social movements’
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performance is crucial for the outcome of their actions, there is no doubt that a good grasp of the ‘‘performative’’ may be extremely useful for civil society associations to promote good causes, to get extra funds or to invite new volunteers to join them. Performance as Organizational Behavior
This second perspective, the one which evaluation mostly appeals to, refers directly to everyday actions, organizational features, use of resources and achievements. In this case, performance has a multidimensional meaning. It has been understood as goal-reaching, as good use of resources, as financial success, as satisfaction of stakeholders expectations and/or as adequate organizational structure (Lusthaus et al., 2000). Is has been directly related with the concept of ‘‘effectiveness’’ (Kanter & Brinkerhoff, 1981) with strategy (Ghobadian et al., 2004) and with the use of adequate ways of action such as communication or good leadership (Social Enterprise Knowledge Network, 2006). Moreover, the possibility of evaluation implies that performance may be graded: that is, performance, in this second meaning, may be good, bad, or average, to say the least. Drawing from organization theory, different authors see performance as a ‘‘social construction’’ built from the particular needs of the different participants in an organization or program (Lusthaus et al., 2000; Scott, 2003). That leads to the multiple aspects which can be considered as good performance and the difficult task of making a complete assessment of them all. In a business firm, for instance, performance may be measured by the production increase and the changes in investment, sales, or profits, but also, as has been frequently noted, performance may also refer to the good labor conditions, the absence of internal conflict, the good administrative structure, or the financial visibility. Associational performance, however, poses new problems to be considered, both because it refers mostly to non-profit organizations which do not predominantly follow economic criteria, and because the associational world is extremely wide and diverse.
Key Issues Associational Diversity
Performance can have a different meaning according to the type of association it refers to: what is a suitable performance for a small, well-cohesioned association may not be the best possible performance for a large and complex one with a very diverse membership or with very long-term objectives and abstract or imprecise goals such
as freedom or nature preservation. Associations are social arrangements that even when reproducing other existent organizational forms (Powell & DiMaggio, 1991) differ about their goals, their political interests, their structures and strategies and their ethical perceptions, which provides an exceptionally difficult universe for performance assessment processes. Their voluntary origins, their dependence from members cooperation and external solidarity; their unstable financial sources, their different ways of relation to the social environment, and a general lack of precision in objectives and goals produce, as a result, a large field of civil society organizations (CSO) of different size, internal structure and organizational design. Because of this diversity, associations have been classified from different points of view, such as their political intentions and forms of action (Olvera, 2003), their activity sectors (Stolle & Rochon, 2001), their relation to social spheres, vested interests and desired goods (Warren, 2001), and their level of complexity (Luna & Velasco, 2008). Any of those different typologies are indicative of all the different factors involved with associational life which should be considered to evaluate performance. Simple elements such as size, time of foundation, and income sources may be as important as organizational features such as type of membership, goal-planning, leadership, and decision-making processes. Relation of each association with social and political environment, whether it concerns laws, public solidarity, government decisions, or adverse situations, may be also helpful, together with the elements mentioned above, to a more elaborate classification and to a more accurate approach to what good performance means. Effectiveness
A second problem to define performance comes from the frequent use of effectiveness as the equivalent of good performance, which adds conceptual imprecision because effectiveness is also a contested concept. Specialized literature has often considered evaluation as the search for effectiveness in programs or organizations (Rossi et al., 2004) but there are important differences in what it means. Both ‘‘effectiveness’’ and ‘‘efficacy,’’ used generally with the same purpose, refer in most cases to the coincidence between goals and results or to the relation between goals, costs, and results. However, effectiveness is also linked directly with client’s satisfaction and strategy as in the so-called ‘‘balanced scorecard’’ method (Niven, 2008). In many evaluations, efficacy is also related with efficiency, this last generally referred to production costs when it concerns business and to good use of different kind of
Performance and Impact
resources when it refers to another type of organizations. However, public administration generally links efficiency with prompt and good service (Harmon & Mayer, 1986). Scott (2003:351) has acutely observed that effectiveness – or if we assimilate both concepts, performance, has a different meaning when it refers to the rational character of the organization (goal achievement, mainly) than when it refers to its survival (then depending on members’ satisfaction or compromise) or to its relation with the environment (where effectiveness lies on flexibility or in negotiation capacity). He adds that elements such as the stage of the organization’s life cycle or level in the analysis (organizative structure, type of participants) can produce variations on the meaning of effectiveness according to the interests on stake and that the great variety of stakeholders generates a diversity of opinions about effectiveness, many of them contradictory which often results in unbalanced and controversial evaluations. Stakeholders
A third problem arises from the different points of view of multiple stakeholders who are somehow related to a program or organization and who have different perceptions about its performance. A business organization involves board members, stockholders, managers, employees, suppliers, and clients, all of whom demand different types of goods and services to the organization and who have diverse and even opposite opinions and/or expectations about questions such as financial situation, organizational climate, trade, and production systems or product quality. When it concerns associations, stakeholders are regular members, fund-giving people and institutions, directors, hired and voluntary personnel, sympathizers, and beneficiaries of all kinds. All of those groups have a different kind of significant relation with the association and they will probably read its results from a different lens. Financial criteria required by funding agencies may be opposed to welfare expansion criteria demanded by a community; efficacy criteria may be not compatible with the participatory enthusiasm of volunteers with little or no training for certain tasks. Opinions of beneficiaries may vary because of their direct experience with requisites, delays, funding shortages or distribution of benefits. Performance Assessment
The dependence of most associations on external financial sources and the need of legitimacy with other sectors of civil society have increased the need to assess their general organizational structure as well as the results of their actions and the good use of their financial resources. At the same time, a new international trend towards
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transparency and accountability includes evaluation as a regular task of important associations. Evaluation, thus, has become a demand from financing agencies, from governments, from citizens, and from civil society organizations themselves when they are interested to know if things are going the way they should, to show their results to society in order to increase legitimacy and credibility, and to provide feedback to volunteers and stakeholders. However, although an abundant literature on performance assessment related to different types of organizations provides a wide spectrum of evaluation methods, most of them are related to business firms, government agencies, and more recently, education in all levels. Very few serious ones refer to CSOs and take into account the specific problems and ways of coping with everyday life of voluntary associations and other similar forms of associational life. Many authors and association members complain of the partiality, lack of reality, excessive standardization and/ or inaccuracy of evaluation methods and surveys (Stone & Gernsfeld, 2001; Murphy, 2006; Young et al., 2007; Mistry 2007). Evaluation in many cases seems to reduce performance to a mere producing of economic data without paying attention to the collective dynamics and survival efforts of each organization. Most methodologies feed on numerical and statistical reports which should be supposedly produced by the organizations, although this does not always happen because CSO’s frequently do not have the management and staff resources to keep their information to date. Additionally some authors have pointed out the little if any use that evaluating agencies make of the evaluations once they have them (Hall et al., 2003) and even the misuse when the evaluations serve to identify troublemakers or to cut out incoming resources (Jordan, 2006). An undesired consequence of evaluations has been the need of associations to adapt their goals and outcomes to the requirements of the financing agencies (Howell & Pearce, 2001), so shifting from their real intentions and desired impacts. Nevertheless, there are already some current methodologies and recommended procedures to assess and somehow measure performance of civil society organizations, some of them widely used and abused by advisory firms, non-profit supporting groups and internet sites. Key elements in most of them are goal achievement, impacts, strategy, and client’s satisfaction. McNamara’s (2007) guide for nonprofits, many times reproduced under different names and through different organizations, relies on outcome measurement as the main indicator of performance. However, as its author’s definition implies (outcome meaning ‘‘impacts/benefits/
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changes for participants during or after your program’’) the focus is in achievements and impacts of specific programs and not precisely on the way the association works towards its objectives. Some authors have noticed that programs are often produced by coordinated efforts of diverse agencies (government, CSOs, private firms) and suggest a network analysis to evaluate them (Davies, 2005) which again does not focus on associational behavior. Something similar happens to Drucker’s guide for nonprofits (2002) inspired in his own Management by Objective theory and based on five questions (‘‘Which is our mission? Who is our client? What is important for our client? Which are our results? Which is our plan?’’). This one gives importance to client’s satisfaction and strategy but again pays little or none attention to the way things are done by the organization and of all the intervening factors which could help or modify results. A more comprehensive performance account is that of Kaplan and Norton’s ‘‘balanced scorecard’’ which has been very popular among business firms because it adds customer, learning, and internal process perspectives to the dominant financial focus of most organizational evaluations. It provides a four-sided scheme to be analyzed and worked upon by members of the organization and even suggests that nonprofits should place the customer at the top of the performance evaluation scheme instead of the financial aspects, as recommended for business (Niven, 2008). However, more than a performance guide, the scorecard is a way to devise and follow up a strategic plan, and, as some authors have pointed out, it does not have a causal approach (Uusykila & Valovirta, 2007), so the four elements remain separated which leads to a rather simplistic evaluation. Some associations find more comprehensive the system to measure nonprofits performance developed in 2000 by Kendall and Platt (Production of Welfare Framework ‘‘POW’’) which pays attention to eight elements: economy (concerning resources and expenditures), effectiveness (related to goals achieved and client’s satisfaction), efficiency (cost relationship between inputs and outputs), choice (internal plurality), participation (members), advocacy, innovation, and equity (welfare contribution). Although the emphasis is set on the program and outputs and not on the association’s inner mechanisms, the large number of elements considered and a differentiation among macro and meso levels allows a more contextual approach which looks into a variety of factors both inside and outside the organization. An interesting evaluation design is that developed by a research group at the Center for International Development in Ottawa (Lusthaus et al., 2002) which adds efficiency, relevance, and financial viability to the basic criteria of
effectiveness considered as a prerequisite to goal achievement in any kind of organization. That is: an organization is not ‘‘effective’’ because it achieves goals; it achieves goals because its general performance is effective. Thus, the challenge to study a certain type of organizations – associations in this case – is to find out when and why a process or an action is effective and which elements explain the capacity of the organization to carry on its projects. That has been the aim of a recent project where four dimensions: effectiveness, efficiency, legitimacy, and relevance have been explored with the idea of finding significant relations between them and the type of organization (basically between high and low complexity associations) on one hand and some other elements such as decision-making processes and internal governance mechanisms on the other (Puga & Matilde, 2008). Here performance is not necessarily associated with final outcomes but with day-to-day functioning of the organization, which includes transparent and member-approved internal procedures, continuous flow of financial resources, good use of financial, human, and symbolic resources, identity building, society’s recognition and associational prestige.
Future Directions So far, the performance measurement and evaluation schemes related to different types of civil society organizations seem to pay little if any attention to their internal processes, their regulating mechanisms and their relation to the social and political environment. Is performance just another name for the results and impact of CSO programs? Can it be measured by summing-up performances in different dominions? Is it related exclusively to the goals achieved and the impacts produced or is it a way to refer to desired forms of coordinated action which add to a more democratic and equalitarian society? Are performance as ‘‘mise en sce`ne’’ and as organizational behavior two completely different things? Should performance measurement rely exclusively on the relationship between inputs and outputs, on client’s satisfaction (whether client is the target community or the financial donor) or on a wise use of scarce resources? To answer all those questions, further research should be done to develop organizational standards for CSOs based on hypotheses about the best way for them to work and achieve results. Effectiveness or efficacy and efficiency could be redefined from explanations that go beyond the mechanic relation between goals and results and which drive to a more precise differentiation among the three concepts and to appreciate them from different angles, related to the various different elements of the organization
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and its relation to the social environment. Performance then, could be seen as ‘‘effective’’ when there are certain characteristics present, such as fair distribution of tasks and responsibilities, learning capacity or network creation, which have proved their positive role in similar cases – not overseeing, of course, the results and impacts reached. Further research should also be done on the significance of such intangible elements as cohesion, identity, compromise, or membership approval not only for good performance results in terms of effectiveness or efficiency, but also in terms of citizenship, social capital and community-building. CSOs differ from other organizations not only in their different relation to profit and their commitment to welfare. Their members behave differently from the hired staff of a business firm or a government agency and that creates new problems and leads to different organizational paths. The balance between members and public-benefit goals, or between voluntary and paid staff (Harris, 1998) can be as important as good use of resources or goal definition. Society needs CSOs as providers of welfare, education, culture, and entertainment but demands of them more strict moral codes and behavior that those demanded from other kind of organizations. Fairness, justice, and accountability as well as internal democracy add up to public approval and legitimacy (McCambridge, 2004). An assessment of good or bad performance should then consider their general impact on society, which makes of good internal governance a crucial aspect of the organizations’ ‘‘mise en sce`ne.’’ Performance, at least in the case of civil society organizations, is a concept to be developed and widened to include many still unexplored aspects.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Evaluation and Civil Society ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Nonprofit Organizational Behavior ▶ Results and Performance ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Social Cohesion
References/Further Readings Alexander, J. (2001). Performance and power. In S. Steven & J. Alexander (Eds.), The new social theory reader (pp. 179–186). Oxon, NY: Routledge. Alexander, J. (2007). Power and performance. The war on terror. Between the sacred and the profane. Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies Distinguished Lecture, from http://www.eui.eu/RSCAS/WPTexts/200711-DL_Alexander.pdf.
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Davies, R. (2005). Moving from logical to network frameworks Draft. Sevilla: European Evaluation Society. Drucker, P. (2002). Strategic planning/self-assessment tool. To be consulted at Leader to Leader Institute, from http://www.leadertoleader.org/ Ghobadian, A., O’Regan, N., Gallear, D., & Vinney, H. (2004). Strategy and performance. Achieving competitive advantages in the marketplace. Hampshire: Palgrave. Hall, M. H., Phillips, S. D., Meittat, C., & Pickering, D. (2003). Assessing performance. evaluation practices & perspectives in Canada’s voluntary sector. Canadian Centre for Philantropy/ VSERP/Center for Voluntary Sector Research. Harmon, M., & Mayer, R. T. (1986). Organization theory for public administration. Boston, MA: Little, Brown. Harris, M. (1998). Doing it their way. Organizational challenges for voluntary associations. Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 27(2), 144–158. Howell, J., & Pearce, J. (2001). Civil society and development. A critical exploration. London: Lynn Rienner. Jordan, L. (2006). Nuevas formas de abordar la rendicio´n de cuentas: derechos y contexto. In Ernesto Isunza Vera y Alberto J. Olvera (Eds.), Democratizacio´n, rendicio´n de cuentas y sociedad civil. CIESAS/Universidad Veracruzana/ Miguel Angel Porru´a. Kanter, R. M., & Brinkerhoff, D. (1981). Organizational performance: Recent developments in measurement. Annual Review of Sociology, 7, 321–349. Luna, M., & Velasco, J. L. (2008). Mecanismos de toma de decisiones y desempen˜o en sistemas asociativos complejos. In Luna y Puga (coords), Nuevas perspectivas para el estudio de las asociaciones (UNAM, on print). Lusthaus, C., Adrien, M.-H., Anderson, G., Carden, F., & Montalban, G. P. (2002). Organizational assessment. A framework for improving performance. Otawa: Center for International Development. McCambridge, R. (2004). Underestimating the power of nonprofit governance. Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, June, 33(2). McNamara, C. (2007). Basic guide to outcomes-based evaluation for nonprofit organizations with very limited resources. Free Management Library, from http://www.managementhelp.org/evaluatn/fnl_eval. htm (April 2007). Mellucci, A. (2002). Accio´n colectiva, vida cotidiana y democracia. Me´xico: El Colegio de Me´xico. Mistry, S. (2007). How does one voluntary organisation engage with multiple stakeholder views of effectiveness? Centre for Civil Society (Working Paper, No. 7). London School of Economics and Political Science. Murphy, T. (2006). Evaluation in organisations: evaluating some practices? Paper. Centre for Nonprofit Management, School of Business, University of Dublin. Niven, P. R. (2008). Balanced scorecard. Step-by-step for government and nonprofit agencies. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Olvera, A. (2003). Las tendencias generales de desarrollo de la sociedad civil en Me´xico. In A. J. Olvera (coord.), Sociedad civil, esfera pu´blica y democratizacio´n en Ame´rica Latina. Me´xico: Me´xico, Universidad Veracruzana, FCE. Powell, W., & Di Maggio, P. (Eds.) (1991). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Puga, C., & Luna, M. (coords. 2008). Accio´n colectiva y organizacio´n: estudios sobre desempen˜o asociativo. Me´xico: Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, UNAM. Rossi, P. H., Lipsey, M. W., & Freeman, H. E. (2004). Evaluation. systematic approach. (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA/Londres/Nueva Delhi: Sage. Scott, W. R. (2003). Organizations rational, natural and open systems. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo) (2006). Gestio´n efectiva de emprendimientos sociales. Lecciones extraı´das de empresas y organizaciones de la sociedad civil en Latinoame´rica. Me´xico: BID/Planeta. Stolle, D., & Rochan, T. R. (2001). Are all associations alike? Member diversity, associational type and the creation of social capital. In B. Edwards, M. Foley, & M. Diani (Eds.), Beyond Tocqueville: Civil society and the social capital debate in comparative perspective. Tufts University/Hanover/New Hampshire: University Press of New England. Stone, M. M., & Gernsfeld, S. C. (2001). Challenges in measuring performance in non-profit organizations. In P. Flynn & V. A. Hodkinson (Eds.), Measuring the impact of the non-profit sector (pp. 33–57). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Tarrow, S. (1994). Power in movement. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tilly, C. (1978). From mobilization to revolution. Reading, MA: AddisonWesley. Tilly, C. (2004). Social Movements, 1768–2004. Boulder, CO: Paradigm. Uusikyla¨, P., & Valovirta, V. (2007). Three spheres of performance governance. Spanning the boundaries from single-organization focus towards a partnership network. Evaluation, 13(4), 399–419. Warren, M. E. (2001). Democracy and association. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. Young, P., Shanahan Y., & Lord, B. (2007). Performance measurement: The balanced scorecard in non-profit organisations. 6th Workshop on the Challenges of Managing the Third Sector. Venice, Italy: Venice International University.
Pew Charitable Trusts A. JOSEPH BORRELL
Address of Organization 2005 Market Street, Suite 1700 Philadelphia, PA 19103-7077 USA www.pewtrusts.org
Introduction The Pew Charitable Trusts (PCT) is a nonprofit organization based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and endowed by family members of Joseph and Mary Pew. As the result of numerous projects spread across two offices, a higher public profile and many years of sustained charitable activity courtesy of a first-class endowment, the Pew Charitable Trusts remains one of the most influential nonprofit organizations in the country.
Brief History Pew was founded in 1948 and was originally structured as a series of seven related trusts. In the early days of
charitable operations, the Pew philanthropies operated in near secrecy. Family members used a related private bank, The Glenmede Trust, to screen grant recipients and discourage public scrutiny. Early grantmaking of the Pew Trusts focused on educational efforts and civic life in Philadelphia. Philanthropy was nearly anonymous, but sometimes reflected the conservative political beliefs of the founding family members. The low public profile of the early work of the Pew Charitable Trusts is ascribed by family members as originating in the family’s Presbyterian religious heritage and a belief that charity should be a private matter. In 1979, Dr. Thomas Langfitt, a neurosurgeon and nonfamily member, joined the board and 8 years later became the chief executive officer of Pew. He revolutionized Pew. Hallmarks of his tenure were a professionalization of the staff, a peeling away of the culture of anonymity that had enveloped operations and the beginning of Pew’s emphasis on public policy work. Langfitt, a native of West Virginia, took personal interest in the development of programs that served minority and poor communities. As Pew’s assets increased, charitable work expanded beyond the Philadelphia area and became more nationally focused. Rebecca Rimel, a former nurse, succeeded Langford as CEO of Pew in 1994.
Mission Pew’s current programmatic efforts center around three areas: improving public policy, providing the public with information and encouraging civic life.
Activities While Pew continues to be involved with many cultural institutions in the Philadelphia area, Washington, D.C. has increasingly became a hub for Pew’s work and is the home of several related Pew Research Centers. Pewsponsored efforts based included the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press (formerly the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press). This Pew Center is widely known for its nonpartisan polling on matters of public opinion, and the results of this research are widely quoted in the mainstream media. The Pew Social & Demographic Trends project studies how Americans are changing in such areas as family composition, location, values, and occupation. The Pew Global Attitudes Project has conducted public opinion surveys in over 50 countries on a variety of personal and political subjects. Additional notable projects currently conducted in the Washington Pew office are the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
Philanthropic Initiative
Structure and Governance In 2003, the trusts received governmental approvals to change from a confederation of trusts to a public charity, a move Pew officers said would decrease administrative expenses. For many years, the trusts were treated as if they were a private foundation. Under that charitable status, the trusts were considered among the top handful of foundations in the country as measured by asset size. Among the advantages cited in support of the conversion of the trusts to public charity status was the ability of Pew to operate directly some of its charitable efforts instead of giving grants to intermediary organizations. In addition, the PCT is able to engage in limited lobbying on relevant public policy issues. Pew family members, whose wealth originated from the founding and development of the Sun Oil Company (now Sunoco, Inc.), continue to serve on the board of directors.
Funding As of June 2007, Pew reported total assets of nearly $5.9 billion and total annual charitable efforts of over $220 million a year.
Contributions Pew’s recent and higher profile public work has not been without criticism. Pew’s ability to channel its large resources into selected causes has slighted other smaller nonprofits involved in those areas. The Pew Center on Climate Change and related environmental projects have been viewed as ironic choices for charitable giving for Pew, given the family’s oil baron roots. In fact, political conservatives have labeled Pew’s current charitable efforts as being at odds with the clear intent and expressed leanings of the trusts’ founders. In addition, the entry of Pew into selected policy debates and advocacy has been seen as having the potential to muddle the public perception of Pew as a sponsor of nonpartisan analytical research reports.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity
References/Further Readings Gardner, J., & Radin, S. (2001). Sustaining the legacy: A history of the Pew Charitable Trusts, from http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Static_Pages/About_Us/History.pdf, 12/20/ 2008
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Philanthropic Initiative RICHARD D. WATERS
Address of Organization 160 Federal Street, Floor 8 Boston, MA 02110 USA www.tpi.org
Introduction The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc. (TPI) is a nonprofit advisory team that designs, carries out and evaluates philanthropic programs for individual donors, families, foundations, and corporations. Since it was founded in 1989, TPI’s goal has been to help clients to invest in their own values, communities and societies for maximum impact.
Brief History TPI was founded in June of 1989 by Peter Karoff, a Boston businessman and civic activist, who sought to provide sound solutions to the nonprofit organizations that would help them advance their missions. Despite market research that forecasted failure, Karoff proceeded to establish TPI under several guiding principles. The staff would be assembled from high-level executives from a wide range of experiences (business, community work, government, academia, philanthropy) so that services could meet the needs of the diverse nonprofit sector. TPI would consult on a fee for service basis and work only for donors and philanthropies. The organization would succeed because of its consulting efforts and not compete with other nonprofit organizations for grant dollars. Finally, the organization would work with other consultants and philanthropic organizations to expand the knowledge of the nonprofit sector and strengthen philanthropy. Since its founding, TPI has followed these principles in its work with numerous individual donors, families, foundations, corporations, and financial institutions, including AOL, Ford Foundation, W. K. Kellogg Foundation, Time Warner, and the Walt Disney Company.
Mission TPI seeks to increase the impact of philanthropy in society by working with donors to make their giving more strategic and effective and also by creating new approaches to solve social issues through new partnerships and leveraged resources in communities. Additionally, the organization hopes to inspire individuals, families, and organizations to
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become more involved in philanthropy. Guiding the TPI are several core beliefs, which include the belief that successful philanthropic endeavors aim for long-term positive impact rather than short term gains and that effective partnerships between donors and recipients respect the experience and ideas of all parties involved.
Activities TPI is currently involved in a variety of consulting and advisory activities. TPI has researched, designed and implemented philanthropic initiatives targeting a wide range of social issues, including education, health, issues affecting youth and families, hunger and nutrition, housing and homelessness, community and economic development, civic engagement, environmental issues and the arts. The starting point for all of TPI’s consulting activities rests with the needs of the parties involved. Their services begin with research and analysis of social issues to understand root causes, best practices, effective models and promising approaches; design of creative philanthropic strategies that target specific needs and opportunities to make a difference; and implementation and evaluation of these strategies. Strategy, combined with the values and passionate concerns of donors, brings about giving that makes a difference. Strategic philanthropy can move donors toward a deeper understanding of the issues they care about and guide them through the demanding process of creating meaningful change. TPI offers advisory services in five distinct areas: strategic planning and facilitation, programmatic services and grant administration, philanthropy promotion, donor seminars and training workshops, and strengthening global philanthropy.
Structure and Governance
and organizations. Its success has fueled the growth of the nonprofit consulting industry. But perhaps most importantly, its work has influenced the thinking and actions of thousands regarding the role of philanthropy in making society more equitable, more just and in improving the quality of life in communities around the globe. Based on its work, TPI concludes that philanthropy is fundamentally an expression of donors’ and nonprofit organizations’ values. Focusing on an area that a donor cares about passionately can increase both the meaning of the gift and the impact of the funding. When donors and nonprofits work together, the relationship becomes much more productive over time. Finally, TPI stresses that taking risks can lead to great breakthroughs in solving community problems.
Cross-References
▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ W. K. Kellogg Foundation ▶ Philanthropy and Professional Advisers ▶ Strategic Philanthropy
References/Further Readings Clift, E. (2005). Women, philanthropy, and social change: Visions for a just society. Lebanon, NH: Tufts University Press. Martel, J. (2006). The dilemmas of family wealth: Insights on succession, cohesion, and legacy. New York: Bloomberg Press. Remmer, E. (1997). Promoting philanthropy: The experience and potential of collaborative efforts. Boston, MA: Philanthropic Initiative.
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TPI was founded by H. Peter Karoff, who remains the Chairman of the organization. TPI employs 22 individuals, who bring experiences from government, nonprofit management, research, business, communications, and academia to the advancement of philanthropy. The organization is guided by a six-member board of directors.
KYM MADDEN Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Funding
Introduction
In 2006, TPI reported having expenses totaling $5.5 million. To cover the expenses, the organization has a diversified revenue stream that generated $5.7 million, which came from fees generated from its consulting services (58%) as well as contributions from individuals and foundations (42%). TPI’s net assets are close to $1.3 million.
Major Accomplishments To date, TPI has guided and informed the giving of more than $1.5 billion from individuals, foundations,
Engaging in philanthropy involves a far larger number of decisions than just ‘‘to whom do I write the cheque?’’ Key decisions surround the individual’s capacity to engage in philanthropy and how to best ‘‘structure’’ one’s giving given a growing range of options, each with legal and taxation ramifications. A string of other questions arise: the level of resources to allocate within a given period as well as the level of individual gifts, the number of causes to support and, specifically to whom to give and for what.
Philanthropy and Professional Advisors
Once giving is underway, more issues arise: expectations to have, one’s level of involvement, and the extent to which family members get involved. Indeed, how do family considerations change philanthropic activity and, in turn, what impact does philanthropy have on the family? The budding philanthropist must decide how to manage these issues to reap the greatest benefit for the family. Then, after organizations or programs have been funded, decisions arise with evaluating their engagement. Could more have been achieved? What lessons have been learnt? How much more funding to give a project? Eventually, long term philanthropy begs questions like when to change one’s approach and how, and how to find peers for joint projects? Given the richness of the philanthropic journey and the complexity of individual giving decisions, many wealthier individuals – who are better placed to make substantial gifts than those with lesser means – turn to intermediaries for advice. Assistance is important for those contemplating philanthropy for the first time, as well as those whose philanthropic vision is still evolving. It is also vital for seasoned donors wanting to ‘‘do philanthropy’’ well. Schervish (2005, 2006, 2007) highlights the strong drives of philanthropists to be effective and to have control. It is not just the expert in philanthropy or the nonprofit sector who can inform their activity: key intermediaries are financial and legal advisors already counseling wealthier individuals about their affairs. Unlike the former who are relatively few in number and may be difficult to locate, the latter are immediately accessible, in every region. Moreover, such professional advisors are in a position to appreciate their clients’ overall circumstances, drawing upon financial, taxation, or legal expertise. They are uniquely placed to assess a client’s philanthropic needs and interests within the context of their overall capacity and larger personal and financial objectives. They can implement decisions made and integrate philanthropic giving into a client’s larger financial strategy. Such integration is a crucial, from a tax planning point of view. Various situations can trigger onerous tax obligations, such as selling or transferring a business, or death, and provide clear opportunities for the giving of larger gifts. Advisors are also uniquely placed to assist their clients with philanthropy because a level of trust already exists between them. Firms and their advisory staff work to build client relationships because profitability is linked to their becoming a trusted source of advice to clients over time and changing needs. The importance of professional advisors to philanthropy is difficult to overstate. They are amongst the most credible sources of information for individuals and
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their families, with the potential to guide their clients through planning and implementation of a philanthropic program, referring to specialists as needed and creating opportunities for peer networking. Conversely, they also have the potential to moderate if not dampen their clients’ enthusiasm for philanthropy by their treatment of it in overseeing their financial and legal affairs. Taking a long lens, the availability of well informed advice about engaging in philanthropy shapes the scope and effectiveness of philanthropy in society. While other sources of information exist, the role of professional advisors is increasingly recognized by the nonprofit sector and governments globally (Madden & Scaife, 2008; The Giving Campaign, 2004). Ultimately, if the questions surrounding philanthropy are resolved satisfactorily for individuals and their families, the philanthropic experience is likely to be rewarding, encouraging fuller engagement and inspiring others; if not, interest in philanthropy can wane. For this reason, professional advisors and their potential to find customized solutions within trusted relationships are relevant to philanthropy.
Definition ‘‘Professional advisors’’ (spelled ‘‘advisers’’ in a range of countries outside the North America) is a general descriptor that embraces a diverse range of authorized consultants who draw income from advising individuals on their private affairs, based upon formal financial, accounting and/or legal qualifications, certification, and experience. They provide a mix of strategic and technical assistance regarding wealth accumulation and protection, financial, and legal structures, taxation, and legal obligations, and succession and estate issues. Those who assist clients with philanthropy may identify with a traditional profession such as an accountant or attorney (lawyer or solicitor) including those with specialties within these fields such as a taxation, trust, estate, or succession specialists. Alternatively, they may use titles such as financial advisors, financial planners, private bankers, or wealth managers. In the United Kingdom, for example, all of the above terms are used, as well as financial services industry (FSI) and City professionals. These advisors commonly work with, but are different from, investment advisors, stockbrokers, and others who assist in the day to day selection of equities, management of funds, or with issues concerning specialist financial instruments. The role of the advisor assisting with philanthropy is based around planning, involving an assessment of a client’s mid or longer term personal and family needs and the determination of optimal strategies by which they may be fulfilled, backed up by technical advice and
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implementation services to facilitate outcomes and manage risk. Across all countries, they are expected to provide informed, prudent advice that is in the client’s best interests, being bound by their profession’s code of ethics in doing so. Ideally they are paid by hourly fees and/or retainers, not commission which naturally lends itself to advice-bias. In reality, however, they may draw income, at least to some extent, from the products or approaches they recommend to clients. In Australia, for example, many advisors – especially those serving less wealthy clients – are tied to a larger system where commissions historically apply and advisors do benefit. Calls for change have come from many quarters, including from clients, and increasing disclosure requirements in such countries mean change is occurring, helping increase client trust where it may have been lacking. Not all advisors face these concerns: some are employed directly by the wealthy as high level staff or they offer services through boutique firms and family offices that tailor their services around the needs of a select group of clients. Family offices seek to provide overarching care to members of one or more wealthy families, assisting with intergenerational succession issues as well as meeting the needs of individual family members. While boutique firms and family offices are increasing in number in many countries, however, many advisors to the wealthy are associated with large firms that utilize superior international research capacities and networks of expertise to benefit clients. Philanthropy services vary but include: an assessment of a client’s values and philanthropic interests, goals, and objectives; family needs and issues; the development or refinement of philanthropic mission and strategies; the setting up of a foundation and/or the provision of ongoing support and investment services; technical advice to ensure giving is tax-effective and legally sound; assistance with grant-making and evaluation, family issues, donor education, and peer support, networking, and collaboration opportunities; and estate planning and charitable bequests.
Historical Background Professional assistance with one’s philanthropic endeavors is not a new phenomenon, reaching back to leading nineteenth century philanthropists such as Andrew Carnegie and John Rockefeller in the United States. Since the industrial revolution – which heralded massive self-made fortunes for a small band of industrialists – ultra-rich individuals and their families have had access to paid advisers devoted to meeting the full gamut of their financial, legal, and personal needs. Philanthropy has been part of this suite of services to society’s richest delivered by
financial advisors within elite private banks, boutique advisory firms and Family Offices. Trust and estate attorneys (lawyers or solicitors) also have been at hand, providing legal advice to the very wealthy in their giving, both during their lifetime – ‘‘inter vivos’’ – as well as upon their passing. What is relatively new is that philanthropic planning advice has become far more widespread, as more individuals around the world lay claim to the mantle of great wealth (Merrill Lynch & Capgemini, 2007). This trend for a larger segment to be very rich has exacerbated demand for advice. In addition, there is a growing ‘‘democratization’’ of philanthropy whereby philanthropy is coming within the reach of those merely wealthy, rather than being limited to those at the pinnacle of wealth. Increasingly, philanthropy is discussed as an option for the high-net-worth (HNW) segment. As at 2007, there were an estimated 9.5 million HNW individuals globally, with assets outside their principal residence exceeding the equivalent of US$1 million (Merrill Lynch & Capgemini, 2007). Appealing to this large and fast growing HNW segment is the expansion of giving options, especially more affordable ones. Governments have become increasingly motivated to encourage private support for the third sector, broadening the avenues by which individuals may give substantial gifts. While measures vary widely from country to country, there has been a global shift in recent years towards the availability of charity tax products. Advisors have stepped into this space, promoting smart philanthropy for the HNW segment: giving that achieves social good while it also alleviates a tax burden. Indeed, in the United States, avoiding estate duty is part of retirement planning and the charitable remainder trust is a standard tax planning device. Elsewhere, too, advisors are recommending new types of giving to match clients’ needs (The Giving Campaign, 2003). These can include spreading a gift over several tax periods, drawing income from a gift during one’s lifetime, and claiming a tax deduction for the current value of a donated asset that has appreciated significantly in value. This growth in charity ‘‘products’’ has opened up the potential for philanthropy on a limited scale, such as through personalized ‘‘accounts’’ in donor-advised funds that pool and manage philanthropic monies from many individuals. The required entry level gift for such accounts varies depending on the country but can be as low as the equivalent of US$10,000, paving the way for individuals and families with lesser means to plan their gifts, as well as to give in perpetuity. Some even argue that philanthropy is possible for the mass affluent with above-average wealth
Philanthropy and Professional Advisors
but far removed than the ultra-wealthy, and representing a much larger segment globally than the HNW. Indeed, the ‘‘wealth market’’ today consists of multiple tiers, and services are increasingly being tailored by professional advisers to meet the specific needs and interests of each. Philanthropy is one of these service areas, with interest cascading down from the wealthiest, who have enormous capacity, to those who with some capacity for becoming philanthropically engaged. Contributing to a wider embrace of philanthropy is expanded media coverage of the subject, giving voice to diverse opinions and experiences relating to it, and blurring traditional views of what philanthropy is, who engages in it and why, how much one needs to give and what philanthropy can achieve. For a growing number of writers and academics, philanthropy is to be distinguished from charitable giving in that it is intentional or consciously planned rather than spontaneous and reactive. It also commonly involves the giving of both tangible and intangible personal resources – money (still important) but also one’s time, expertise, contacts, and in-kind contributions – in a combination that suits individual circumstances and preferences. Philanthropy today is multi-layered in terms of the nature of the gift, deeper involvement in how this gift is used, and with what outcomes. While writing cheques for huge sums traditionally has equated to philanthropy, in the new millennium it is increasingly likely to also mean meaningful engagement of the donor as well as a financial investment. This new breed of philanthropist expects more from philanthropy. While the number and type of intermediaries helping the high-net-worth with philanthropy are expanding, the availability of high quality advice in the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe, Canada, the Asia-Pacific and elsewhere is variable. Those with the greatest wealth best catered for, probably because profitability of doing so is most assured. Two main types of advisor exist: philanthropy or nonprofit consultants (with a background in this sector) and professional advisers who already guide their clients on their personal financial and legal issues. It is the latter group to which the term ‘‘professional advisers’’ largely refers The financial and legal services sector – which traditionally offered philanthropic planning services only to the very rich – has changed dramatically over the past 25 years. There has been an explosion of firms of all sizes and specialties working within and across national borders to meet the needs of a fast growing HNW population, with competition becoming more intense. Despite the sector becoming increasingly fragmented (with Mverlapping areas of expertise), advisory firms have shared the
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desire to attract and retain profitable HNW clients. Collectively, they have accelerated efforts to become client-focused in the services they offer – services defined more by client needs and client demand rather than merely delivering services as they prefer. In doing so, they are responding to the rise of the consumer in the economy more generally, a trend cutting a swathe across countries: clients with better education, vastly improved access to information, higher expectations and a willingness to take their business elsewhere (or at least use more than one firm). Rising client expectations have encouraged the advisory sector to better understand the needs of specific market segments, providing as much choice and customization as possible, without sacrificing scale and profitability. At the same time, in their drive for sustainability, there has been a push amongst firms to expand their services to clients and so win a larger share of their wallet. In the financial services sector in particular, wealth management has become a key concept driving product and service delivery innovation. This approach extends the emphasis on wealth creation to meet client needs and goals after wealth has been attained. As a corollary to this, it offers assistance to clients in meeting their life goals beyond financial ones. Within this context, professional advisors are increasingly offering services relating to philanthropy.
Key Issues Research in the field is in its early stages and much remains unexplored, particularly differences between countries. However, two key issues that are central to the scope and quality of assistance provided by professional advisers to individuals interested in philanthropy are client demand and advisor constraints. Both of these are tied to wider environmental considerations such as the attitudes and practices of influencer groups. Client Demand
Research indicates that individuals do not necessarily seek philanthropic planning advice from their professional advisors, either because of an information gap or attitudes to advisors. They may not be aware of the philanthropic options that exist or they may not realize their professional advisors can assist with their philanthropic decision-making, so they do not ask. Even when they do know advisers offer such services, they may choose not to ask possibly because of their attitude to their advisors offering this service. For example, one study of wealthy individuals in the United States found that almost all used professional advisers yet as many as a third did not consider getting philanthropic advice from them (Fidelity
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Charitable Services, 2004). In practice, fewer than 10% of all wealthy respondents, including the richest, had discussed philanthropy with their advisors. This study also shows the differences that exist within wealth bands: fewer than half of households with assets of between $1 and $5 million considered charitable giving to be part of their overall wealth management strategy, while nearly twothirds of those in wealthier households did so. A separate study of wealthy Californian donors suggests that advisor experiences can be mixed, with implications for demand (The National Center for Family Philanthropy, 2004). Advisor Constraints
Secondly, research shows that professional advisors can be slow to raise the topic of philanthropy with their clients and limit the assistance they give (Johnson, 2000). Advisors, like their clients, may lack information about philanthropic options and other aspects of engaging in philanthropy (Madden, 2006). As Backer and Friedland (2008) suggest, without a psychologically-based understanding of donor intent and behavior, and knowledge and experience the nonprofit sector and the community, it is difficult to advise well. It is not surprising, perhaps, that advisors who are only partially informed can avoid discussing philanthropic interest in any depth, if they raise the topic at all. Advisors commonly limit themselves to technical aspects or a preferred giving ‘‘vehicles’’ (The Giving Campaign, 2001). Studies to date suggest that philanthropy can be seen by professional advisors as a separate field of knowledge, with education time-consuming and not necessarily worth it. Client demand, and remuneration, may be seen as too low. Also, advisors may regard charitable giving as a personal matter and the provision of advice about it outside their professional role. A paradigm underpinning the advisory sector is making and preserving assets for clients, and giving these away can feel strange, particularly if the advisor is not philanthropic themselves. Beliefs also can constrain the provision of advice, for example, a belief in the importance of leaving an inheritance. If an advisor lacks faith in the solutions they are proposing to clients, it is natural, perhaps, for them to steer clients past philanthropy to more familiar ground. Environmental Factors
Intertwined with client demand and advisor constraints are environmental factors such as community attitudes to philanthropy, role models, and perceived peer behavior, the visibility of social need, and nonprofit activities. Impacting on advisor behavior, in particular, are the norms and attitudes of professional groups, the leadership
of peak bodies that serve these groups and the resources and support they provide, the attitudes and behavior of opinion leaders, and the priorities of regulatory bodies that govern services. The business model underpinning the advisory firm also plays a role in shaping both client and advisor behavior. Advisory firms that do not include philanthropic planning services in their business model – or do so marginally by only responding to specific client requests for assistance – make it difficult for conversations about philanthropy to occur. Advisors are unlikely to be encouraged by the firm to develop neither expertise nor time advising clients; similarly, if philanthropic planning services are invisible in the firm’s communications and marketing, if service innovation around philanthropy is low, and if few philanthropy-related activities are offered to add value for clients, client interest is unlikely to be strong.
International Perspectives Global advisory firms help to break down differences in advice markets but research to date points to differences between countries. The United States leads in the provision of philanthropy services by professional advisors, matching its lead in the philanthropic stakes. Here it is common for questions around philanthropy to be asked of wealthier clients and for strategies to be developed. However, as Johnson (2000, 2004) points out, these conversations may be superficial, with advisors reticent to engage in deep questioning or to raise the subject again at a later date, when needs and interests may have changed. Moreover, advisors commonly neglect discussing their client’s values and philanthropic mission. An even larger advice gap appears to exist in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, Canada, and Australia (Madden, 2006). However, cross-country comparisons are limited with little research available in Canada, parts of Europe, Africa, South America, and Asia. Research by the UK’s Giving Campaign highlighted (2001, 2004) the tendency for advisors to wait for clients themselves to raise the subject, then offer limited advice around philanthropy except for those at the pinnacle of wealth. Some argue that a cultural shift in the financial services sector is needed for philanthropy assistance to come of age in that country (John et al, 2007). While similar concerns appear elsewhere, there are signs of change, mainly driven by the market which sees a fast growing capacity for clients to engage in philanthropy (Merrill Lynch & Capgemini, 2007). As firms jostle for competitive advantage and differentiation, the advice landscape is expected to continue to change (see historical background). In the United Kingdom and Europe,
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cross-sector efforts are being undertaken to increase awareness of advisor-client needs and develop resources that enable a more proactive advisory approach.
Future Directions How best to empower individuals inclined towards philanthropy is an area of only patchy knowledge although interest is escalating. A better understanding is needed of client expectations of professional advisors and perceived constraints in seeking assistance in fulfilling their philanthropic interests. What are their motivations for seeking assistance, and likely trigger points? To what extent have advisors helped them? Much more also needs to be known, from the advisor’s perspective. To what extent do advisors provide philanthropy services across countries, what kind of advice do they give, and what attitudes and experiences explain this practice? Existing data is mainly drawn from the United States and Europe, with little known about advisors elsewhere particularly in maturing economies with fast growing HNW populations. Finally, the environmental factors that shape the quality of advice given by advisors also warrant more attention by researchers. What is the influence of firms, professional and certification bodies, cross-sector linkages, and government policies? What opportunities exist to facilitate the provision of quality advice? Many angles are open for exploration.
Cross-References
▶ Carnegie, Andrew ▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ Foundations ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Planned Giving ▶ Rockefeller, John D., Sr. ▶ Strategic Philanthropy ▶ Venture Philanthropy
References/Further Readings Backer, T., & Friedland, L. (2008). Donoradvisors and philanthropic strategy. Encino, CA: Human Interaction Research Institute. Fidelity Charitable Services. (2004). Charitable giving behavior: Results from the 2004 wealth and advice study, USA. John, R., Davies, R., & Mitchell, L. (2007). Give and let give: Building a culture of philanthropy in the financial services industry. London: The Policy Exchange. Johnson, S. (2000). Advancing philanthropy: Tapping the potential of legal and financial advisors. Trust & Estates (Summer Suppl.). Johnson, S. (2004). Doing well by doing good in California – Improving client service, increasing philanthropic capital: The legal and financial advisor’s role. Boston, MA: The Philanthropic Initiative. Madden, K. (2006). Is the tide turning? Attitudes and behaviour of Australian financial advisers to assisting with philanthropy. Brisbane: Centre
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of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology. Madden, K., & Scaife, W. (2008). Good times and philanthropy: Giving by Australia’s affluent. Brisbane: The Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, Queensland University of Technology. Merrill Lynch & Capgemini. (2007). The World Wealth Report, 11th Annual Report. Merrill Lynch & Co and Capgemini Global Financial Services. Schervish, P. (2005). Major donors, major motives: The people and purposes behind major gifts. New Directions of Philanthropic Fundraising, 47, 59–87. Schervish, P. (2006). The moral biography of wealth: Philosophical reflections on the foundation of philanthropy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(3), 477–492. Schervish, P. G. (2007). Is philanthropy failing beneficiaries? Always a risk but not for the most part. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 36(2), 373–379. The Giving Campaign (2001). Lack of information stopping financial advisers making the most of philanthropic giving. London: The Giving Campaign. The Giving Campaign (2003). Charity financial products: A new approach to giving. London.: The Giving Campaign. The Giving Campaign (2004). Giving good advice. London: The Giving Campaign. The National Center for Family Philanthropy (2004). What california donors want: In their own voices. Washington, DC: The National Center for Family Philanthropy.
Philanthropy and Religion, Buddhism GLORIA S. H. DENOON Wycombe, PA, USA
Buddhism and Philanthropy Introduction There is a curious paradox in classic and contemporary Buddhism: although the religion is built on pacifist concepts and the importance of compassion, the followers of Buddhism have not, typically, been leaders in the creation of charitable organizations. This can be explained by the Buddhist emphasis on the purity of thought over action and the stress on generalized ‘‘compassion toward others’’ in all aspects of life, rather than on charitable giving per se. The discussion below will provide a definition of Buddhist ‘‘compassion’’ and explain differing views of a Buddhist’s obligations to other individuals and social groups. It is also noted that most states in Asia, where Buddhism is widely practiced, do not actively encourage the development of private, charitable organizations. However, after World War II, as civil society gradually
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expanded in Asia, a range of private, Buddhist charitable organizations has developed. Buddhism is the world’s second oldest religion, having existed for approximately 2,500 years, and its central tenets are the cultivation of compassion for others. Buddhism has a distinguished record at encouraging reflection, contemplation, and the avoidance of violence. However, there is an interesting paradox. It is only recently that Buddhists have set up large, structured organizations to care for the less fortunate without encouragement by governments. Why is this so? There are two principal explanations for this: 1. Buddhist teachings place their primary emphasis on self-improvement and the reduction of negative thought and action toward others. According to the Buddhism, karma, i.e., the natural law of cause and effect governs the universe in all respects. Each individual’s life is determined by what he or she has done in the past, and each individual’s words and acts will have effects on his or her future life. Therefore, each individual is responsible for his or her life. 2. Buddhism developed mainly in authoritarian kingdoms and states where governments, typically, controlled charitable giving and there was little leeway for the growth of privately-run charitable organizations. In many cases, Buddhism is fused with local religions or philosophies and becomes embedded in indigenous culture. For instance, Wright (1959/1971: 96–99) described how Confucian scholars and Taoist folk religions appropriated various Buddhist ideas into their belief systems. Therefore, though Buddhist thoughts play a role in enhancing individuals’ benevolent behaviors, it is almost impossible draw a causal relation between the Buddhist belief and charitable activities (Smith, 1998: 149–150). In the post-World War II period in Asia, a number of large, private, Buddhist charitable institutions have developed. Some of these are sponsored by monasteries, some by political activist groups (like the Sokka Gokkai in Japan), and some by individuals. The discussion here will provide the historical background on these issues and then attempt a brief summary of the different patterns in current Buddhist philanthropy.
Definition For the purposes of this essay, the key elements of Buddhist compassion that are relevant to charitable giving are summarized. Buddhist compassion is a central element of the religion and is based on several interrelated assumptions: the ability of one person to feel the suffering of
another, the belief that all living beings (young/old, poor/ wealthy) warrant nondiscriminatory understanding, and that empathy toward others is critical to the development of the soul and full enlightenment (Lampert, 2005: 73). With such a sweeping commitment to universality and the belief that even animals warrant compassion, Buddhists might be immobilized by their obligations to respect life. This is where ‘‘detachment’’ becomes important and why the view of charity is different from Western conceptions. Since Buddhists favor compassion toward all sentient beings, many believe it would be unjust to prioritize certain groups. Also, the Buddhist belief in karma, where everything is connected to everything else, makes it difficult to decide what effect a charitable act may have. So, to a Buddhist, since all life is sacred, and, in reality, it is not possible for anyone to spend their entire time empathizing with other living beings, it is important to preserve some detachment. This tendency is reinforced by the Buddhists stress on ‘‘thought’’ being as important as ‘‘action’’ and that one can lead an admirable life in contemplation and reflection. A devout Buddhist does not need, as in the Protestant Ethic, to demonstrate his ‘‘goodness’’ by actions seen by the rest of the world.
Historical Background It is unclear exactly when Siddhatta Gotama, the founder of Buddhism, lived. Yet, by the time of King Asoka, in the Maura state in northern India (269–232 BC), there was an active practice of Buddhist principles – distinct from Hinduism. Since that time, there has developed a vast and complex literature on Buddhist teaching (which is discussed in the section of Buddhism, elsewhere in this encyclopedia). The major doctrinal split within Buddhism is between those who follow the Mahayana and Theravada traditions. Around the first century BC, Mahayana groups developed, emphasizing: (a) the potential for enlightenment in all sentient beings, and (b) efforts to include a broader range of lay people in pursuing good works. This led to a major division within Buddhism, with two geographical trajectories. Followers of the Mahayana tradition predominated in Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea. Whereas followers of Theravada principles became dominant in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Indo-China, and peninsular Southeast Asia. As a result, the charitable traditions began to diverge. In China, Japan, and Korea, where there were strong states, government took the lead in organizing the response to famines and natural disasters. Buddhist monasteries were asked to help in providing shelter, food, and minimal health care to suffering populations. For example, by the time of the Tang Dynasty, Empress Wu
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(eighth century AD) went even farther and had government officials overseeing how monasteries provided care for orphans, the indigent and infirm (Gernet, 1995: 221– 222). Another case of a Buddhist/government link was during the Kamakura Period (AD 1185–1333) in Japan where monks solicited funds from the public and then provided care to the needy along with infrastructure projects like roads, bridges, and irrigation systems (Goodwin, 1994: 1–2, 127–131). In the post-World War II period there has been a dramatic increase in organized efforts of Buddhist philanthropy outside the direct control of government. The Dalai Lama, leader of Tibetan Buddhism, is probably the single most prominent international Buddhist figure. Despite his concern with non-violence and religious principles, his main efforts are devoted to achieving greater autonomy for Tibetans and advocating Buddhism, not philanthropy per se. On a global stage, the best-known example of Buddhist philanthropy is the Sokka Gokkai, based in Japan. With millions of supporters, Sokka Gokkai has become one of the most prominent civil society groups in East Asia. Its power and influence come from a massive contributor base plus its formation of a political party to promote the views of its members. As a pacifist organization with branches in all major constituencies in Japan, its members’ views are taken into consideration by both its political allies and opponents. In addition, Sokka Gokkai has legitimized the public discussion of Buddhist views as part of the public dialogue in Japan. The second-largest Buddhist civil society group, Tzu Chi, is based on Taiwan and has philanthropy as its central purpose. It was started in 1966 by a Buddhist nun who first initiated relief funds for low-income people and those affected by natural disasters. Tzu Chi then expanded its purview to include hospitals and mobile clinics for free health care. They also have medical schools, nursing schools and a widely dispersed elementary school system. Roughly 4 million Taiwanese contribute to Tzu Chi on a regular basis and the organization has now expanded to include branches in over 30 countries. (There are over 60 branches of Tzu Chi in the United States alone.) In certain ways, Tzu Chi has modeled itself on the International Red Cross, seeking to operate as a neutral source of succor. An example of its success at being nonpolitical and nonintrusive is the willingness of the People’s Republic of China to have Tzu Chi projects on the mainland, despite the ongoing differences between Beijing and Taipei. Moreover, Tzu Chi has as one of its key objectives the creation of an autonomous ‘‘third way’’ separate from government and the private sector, which can provide a public illustration of Buddhist principles.
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Key Issues Virtually all Buddhists agree on the overarching goals of the religion. There is no debate about the intention to promote world peace. In addition, there is consensus on the three principal ways to make ‘‘merit’’ and improve one’s karma: (1) charitable giving, (2) improving one’s moral behavior, and (3) meditation. There are important distinctions, however, between Buddhist groups regarding the means of achieving these goals. "
Tibetan and Zen Buddhists place most of their emphasis on meditation and the achievement of individual enlightenment. This means that they are often ambivalent about how best to engage the secular world. Yet, followers of Sokka Gokkai and Tzu Chi both agree that active engagement in the secular world is necessary for the salvation of individuals and important to the propagation of Buddhist values. Tzu Chi’s strategy for international expansion has global ambitions and is tailored to differing local characteristics (Denoon, 2006).
Members of Sokka Gokkai are the most politicallyactive of all Buddhists and have concluded that the formation of a political party in Japan is the best way to achieve their objectives. Because the party has become large and influential, the gain that members see from political activism is that the rest of society must consider a Buddhist perspective whenever major political decisions are being made. The costs are large, however. The party has to make compromises its members dislike, and fundraising and candidate promotion often involve ethical dilemmas. Tzu Chi favors full engagement with the secular world but stresses complete political neutrality and puts all of its emphasis on charitable giving. This allows Tzu Chi to operate in hostile surroundings and widely varying regimes see its work as nonintrusive. This has allowed Tzu Chi to rapidly increase its international visibility and to function effectively in many cultures where Buddhism has only a small minority of adherents. Sokka Gokkai and Tzu Chi also have an important difference in their respective recruitment techniques. Sokka Gokkai is a proselytizing organization that actively tries to recruit members from other religions. Moreover, it uses chanting and Buddhist culture as part of its allure in attempting to gain adherents. Tzu Chi presents itself as a universal organization that is based on Buddhist principles, but its leadership is content to recruit members who support its charitable enterprise without formally converting to Buddhism.
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International Perspectives Several other examples, in Asia and the United States, of recent Buddhist philanthropy will illustrate the growing diversity in current Buddhist charity. In Thailand, K.K. Wichiencharoen, a Buddhist nun, founded the Emergency Home for Women and Children in Distress in Bangkok, which has provided assistance for over 40,000 people. In addition, Wichiencharoen, a former lawyer who passed away in 2002, helped launch the Thai Association for the Promotion of the Status of Women and saw civic action as a means of putting Buddhist principles into everyday activities. In Sri Lanka, A.T, Ariyaratne launched the Sarvodaya Shrmadana Movement in 1958, which has encouraged young people to go into poor areas and help with village improvement. Somewhat like the United States Peace Corps, Ariyaratne’s efforts have been designed to improve the lives of low-income, rural families while, at the same time, familiarizing middle class people with the living conditions of the less fortunate. A Vietnamese immigrant to France, Nhat Hanh, has played a key role in the Buddhist Peace Fellowship that has taken on a variety of charitable activities. They have supported refugee programs in Bangladesh, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, and India. Also, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship has operated a clinic for the homeless in San Francisco (Seager, 1999: 204–208).
Future Directions Buddhism started as a reform variant of Hinduism and its central tenets emphasized pacifism and self-improvement through meditation and charitable giving. However, until World War II, it functioned primarily in authoritarian states so it had to accommodate itself to government preferences. That meant that monasteries and orders had limited autonomy. Only in the past few decades have Buddhist groups had promising opportunities to function more openly and internationally in civil society. Its two principal mass civil society organizations are Sokka Gokkai and Tzu Chi and they have been termed ‘‘socially-engaged Buddhism.’’ Sokka Gokkai has chosen to be directly active in politics, while Tzu Chi has puts its emphasis on charitable giving. Presumably, in coming decades, there will be a widening array of Buddhist civil society groups as democracy spreads around the globe and different advocates of Buddhist principles see opportunities for alternative ways to express their beliefs.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Religion
▶ Compassion ▶ Dalai Lama ▶ Philanthropy in Southeast Asia ▶ Religious Orders
References/Further Readings Bond, G. D. (1996). A. T. Ariyaratne and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka. In C. S. Queen & S. B. King (Eds.), Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. New York: State University of New York Press. Denoon, Gloria S. H. (May 2006). Tzu Chi: The practice of non-self and its unintended consequences. Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the New York University Department of Sociology. Ellwood, R. (2008). Introducing Japanese religion. New York: Routledge. Gernet, J. (1995). Buddhism in Chinese society: An economic history from the fifth to the tenth century (F. Verellen, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. Goodwin, J. R. (1994). Alms and vagabonds: Buddhist temples and popular patronage in medieval Japan. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press. Guruge, A. W. P., & Bond, G. D. (1998). Generosity and service in Theravada Buddhism. In W. F. Ilchman, S. N. Katz & E. L. Queen II (Eds.), Philanthropy in the world’s traditions (pp. 79–96). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Kawamura, L. S. (1998). The Mahayana Buddhist Foundation for philanthropic practices. In W. F. Ilchman, S. N. Katz & E. L. Queen II (Eds.), Philanthropy in the world’s traditions (pp. 97–106). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Lampert, K. (2005). Traditions of compassion: From religious duty to social activism. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. Pongsapich, A. (1997). Defining the non-profit sector in developing societies: Thailand. In L. M. Salamon & H. K. Anheier (Eds.), Defining the nonprofit sector: A cross-national analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Seager, R. H. (1999). Buddhism in America. New York: Columbia University Press. Smith, J. F. (1998). Chinese philanthropy as seen through a case of famine relief in the 1640s. In W. F. Ilchman, S. N. Katz & E. L. Queen II (Eds.), Philanthropy in the world’s traditions (pp. 133–168). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Williams, P. (2008). Mahayana Buddhism: The doctrinal foundations (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Wright, A. F. (1971). Buddhism in Chinese history. Stanford, CA: Stanford University.
Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity WOODS BOWMAN DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA
Introduction Philanthropy and charity are similar but in common use charity places a greater emphasis on helping the poor. The Christian perspective on charity requires self-sacrifice. Anglo-American common law does not recognize
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philanthropy, only charity, but the legal definition is broader than helping the poor and, while gift-giving figures into it, self-sacrifice does not. This section attempts to sort out the various threads of meaning that run through philanthropy and charity from a Christian perspective.
Definitions Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines philanthropy as ‘‘goodwill to fellowmen; especially: active effort to promote human welfare’’ and charity as ‘‘benevolent goodwill toward or love of humanity; generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering . . . public provision for the relief of the needy.’’ A synonym of charity is mercy. Charity is a much older concept with biblical roots, whereas etymologists recognize the first use of philanthropy as recently as 1608. These distinctions represent two distinct traditions that even today drive disputes over public policy. Pre-Christian Roman philanthropy is a civic duty and the rich give freely for their cities’ needs (Rostovtzeff, 1957: 141), endowing cities and collegia, i.e., self-governing funerary associations, religious groups, and professional guilds (Kloppenborg, 1996: 17). The Christian model of charity is based on the teachings of Jesus: the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10), the Widow’s Mite (Mark 12), and the Rich Young Man (Matthew 19). Jesus’ concept of charity requires personal sacrifice. The Good Samaritan is too well known to require summary. In the Widow’s Mite Jesus favorably contrasts a poor woman who gives one small coin with rich persons who give large sums out of much larger surpluses. In the story of the Rich Young Man, a pious man asks what he must do to gain eternal life and Jesus instructs him (to his dismay) to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. Although dictionary definitions do not agree that self-sacrifice is a necessary concomitant of charity, the Christian tradition and common usage suggests otherwise. Jesus was quite specific about the kinds of acts that qualify as charity: feed the hungry, refresh the thirsty, clothe the naked, comfort the sick, receive travelers, and visit prisoners. ‘‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me’’ (Matthew 25, NIV). Burying the dead, though omitted from the canonical list of six, is generally considered an act of Christian charity as paintings by Caravaggio and an anonymous Dutch master attest (both titled the Seven Acts of Mercy). This addition is reminiscent of Joseph of Arimathea arranging Jesus’ burial in his personal tomb. Anglo-American law recognizes charity, but Black’s Law Dictionary makes no mention of philanthropy. The legal concept of charity derives from a hybrid Elizabethan
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model. The preamble to the Statute of Charitable Uses of 1,601 enumerates activities regarded as acceptable charitable activities. They fall into two categories: public works in the modern sense of building roads and bridges (Roman philanthropy), and poor relief (Christian charity). Parallel laws applied to religious organizations, universities, and hospitals and are thus omitted from the preamble. Common law charity today includes ‘‘relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency’’ (U.S. Internal Revenue Service, n.d.). This definition is closer to the broad Roman model of philanthropy than the more focused, self-sacrificial Christian model of charity. This article uses philanthropy in its most general sense of gift-giving, whether or not a donor receives incidental benefit (as in giving to one’s church) and whether or not personal sacrifice is involved (which is difficult to assess objectively). But, it is impossible to tell the story of philanthropy and Christianity without reference to charity in its more poor-focused, self-sacrificial sense.
Historical Background Christian scripture contains no injunction to tithe (regular giving of 10% of one’s income), but it has several references to giving. The story of the early Christian community in the Book of Acts recounts ‘‘All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need’’ (Acts 2, NIV). Following Jewish tradition, they distributed food to widows daily (Acts 6). Paul sets the example of Christian philanthropy more than once: ‘‘Now about the collection for God’s people, do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you [Corinthians] should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made’’ (1 Cor., NIV). Under Constantine I (imperium: 306–324), Christianity goes from being a persecuted sect to the State religion. In 325 a Church council directs every bishop to construct a hospital in his cathedral town (likely the First Council of Nicea). At this time, the word hospital applies indiscriminately to hospices, hostels, orphanages, almshouses, as well as institutions that care for the sick. By the third century the Christian Church is ‘‘the most important patron of charitable works’’ (Risse, 1999: 80).
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Sometime before the ninth century the Christian Church adopts tithing widely and in 802 Charlemagne orders parish tithes to be divided into three equal parts: one for support of the church, one for the use of the poor, and one for the priest himself. By the eleventh century centralized and specialized charity provided by religious orders largely replaces the parish system. In the Middle Ages guilds and Christian confraternities blend mutual aid with helping the poor. Especially prominent in Italy, confraternities are ‘‘clubs of ordinary citizens who joined together to accomplish pious and charitable works satisfying their need for immediate, personal enactments of neighborly Christian virtues’’ (Robbins, 2006: 23). ‘‘Medieval fraternities had offered some welfare help to members of the fraternity, and close relatives’’ (Black, 2001: 159). At the dawn of the Protestant Reformation, ‘‘To give alms to all who were in need . . . were duties incumbent on every Christian, not wholly, and perhaps not even mainly, for the sake of those who were relieved, but for the salvation of the charitable’’ (Webb and Webb, 1927: 1). This was to change as a result of Martin Luther’s emphasis on achieving salvation through God’s grace. By this time in England ‘‘monastic zeal and monastic charity had ‘grown cold’ and some of the wealthiest of these establishments made a very scanty show of almsgiving in proportion to their income’’ (Ibid.: 17). Christian philanthropy shifted from almsgiving to institution founding. ‘‘Universally, religious groups are the major founders of nonprofit service institutions. We see this in the origin of many private schools and voluntary hospitals in the United States and England, Catholic schools in France and Latin America, missionary activity in developing countries’’ (James, 1987: 404). In the seventeenth century established churches of British North America cause colonial governments to take an interest in seeing pulpits filled with educated men, so they founded colonial colleges as quasi-governmental corporations and governed by boards of selfperpetuating trustees, fellows, and overseers including ex officio public officials and clergy (Hall, 2006: 33). The Free African Society (FAS) organizes in 1787 as one of the first African-American voluntary associations in the new United States (US). It provides an interesting example of philanthropy spawning churches instead of the reverse, as is more typical. The FAS was dedicated to ‘‘charity, self-help, and individual probity among its members. . . . Begun as a mutual aid society, the FAS subsequently served as the cradle of Philadelphia’s first black independent congregations’’ (McCarthy, 2003: 99).
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Two features distinguish benevolence in the early republic from its colonial antecedents. The first was the leading part played by religious groups and, in particular, the evangelicals; the second, closely connected, was the active participation of women. (Gross, 2003: 40; see also McCarthy, 2003)
Much of the capital needed by for-profit businesses comes from endowments of charitable, educational, and religious institutions in the North (McCarthy, 2003: 78, 93–95; Hall, 2006: 36). McCarthy (2003: 49) credits Protestantism, especially evangelical Protestantism, with being ‘‘the single most important factor in the growth and elaboration of American philanthropy during the early national period.’’ In 1844 a decision by the US Supreme Court (Vidal et al. v. The Mayor, Aldermen, and Citizens of Philadelphia) finally secures for testators the right under federal law to establish charitable trusts. The result is a ‘‘proliferation of denominationally controlled private colleges’’ (McGrave, 2003: 103). Christian philanthropy has fueled social movements. Abolition divided Christian churches, drawing strength from philanthropy in the North, but it took force of arms to eventually bring success. The temperance movement had broad support from Christian churches and philanthropists, North and South. However, its success in the early twentieth century was fleeting, with prohibition lasting only from 1920 to 1933. In 2006 total private giving in the United States was $295 billion (Wing, et al., 2008). Religious causes were the most popular, accounting for one-third. Education was a distant second, accounting for one-seventh. Since gifts by living individuals totaled $223 billion, it is reasonable to suppose that gifts to Christian causes in the United States by living individuals totaled somewhat less than one-third, or approximately $60 billion ($200 per capita). Anglicans give an average of $1,573 with 45% going to secular causes; Lutherans give an average of $1,230 with 38% going to secular causes; Roman Catholics give an average of $1,083 with 49% going to secular causes (Center on Philanthropy, 2008: 94).
Key Issues Scholarship is belatedly taking a close look at the economics of religion and its relationship to philanthropy. There is significant regional variation in average household giving to Catholic parishes. It ranges from $177 in the Pacific region to $621 in the Midwest. Further, it is inversely related to the average number of households per parish (Center on Philanthropy, 2008: 96–98). Is this
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a free rider effect, or is it the result of new immigrants from Catholic countries inflating parish populations and simultaneously engaging in alternative giving such as sending money to relatives in their home countries? McCleary (2007) finds that adherents to religions stressing salvation through deeds tend to direct their gifts to family and other known individuals, whereas universal charity involving strangers is more common in religions that stress salvation through grace or election by God. Are these differences the result of different faith systems or other cultural differences highly correlated with religious faith? How do religious beliefs interact with political beliefs and social values? Brooks (2006) finds that religious conservatives are more generous than secular liberals in giving to all causes, after controlling for income, but is this phenomenon the result of theology or social values that are expressed in religious and philanthropic dimensions simultaneously? More research is needed to sort out cause-and-effect on some issues. For example, high net worth individuals are particularly likely to give to religion (Center on Philanthropy, 2006), but exposure to religious teachings at an early age is a good predictor of various factors that influence wealth accumulation (Keister, 2003). Another example: general attendance at religious services is the strongest indicator for religious giving (Center on Philanthropy, 2008: 91). But this view is challenged by Jonathan Gruber (2004) who estimates that a 1.0% increase in individual giving is associated with a 1.1% decrease in attendance at religious services.
International Perspectives Much of this article has focused on developments in the United States which has limited decentralized government and no state religion. The combination of these factors appears to have stimulated philanthropic interest in religion which has spilled over into private education and various social movements with moral overtones. European nations, on the other hand, are more-or-less centralized welfare states, often with state religions. The most common Christian state religions are Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican. Every country has reached an accommodation with organized religion in its own way with implications for private philanthropy. In Germany the principle of subsidiarity, originally a Catholic social doctrine, gives priority to private nonprofit service provision, allowing selfgovernance while guaranteeing government financial support. The Netherlands follows a variant of subsidiarity but, without a state religion, ‘‘the segmentation of society along
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religious and political lines (called pillarization) led to the creation of large numbers of religiously or ideologically affiliated nonprofit organizations’’ (Burger et al., 1999: 152). In France the symbiotic principle is laı¨cite´ (secularism) which establishes separate spheres of activity for church and state – except that churches built before it enacted the current law in 1905 receive government support. In Italy, the Roman Catholic Church casts a long shadow but the 1980s saw the rise of ‘‘new forms of civil society organizations: volunteer-based associations that refused to be represented by the Church hierarchy and a variety of ‘social cooperatives’’’ reminiscent of ancient of confraternities (Barbetta et al., 2004: 251).
Future Directions The rise of civil society in Eastern Europe and the weakening of centralized governments in Western Europe promises to expand the social space occupied by private philanthropy throughout the Continent. Whether new philanthropy will adopt the Christian or Roman model remains to be seen. A defining moment is also taking place in the United States as various states reconsider their property tax exemption for nonprofit hospitals. At issue is whether they provide enough ‘‘charity care’’ to justify their tax exempt status as a charitable institution (and research suggests they may come up short). The outcome will either solidify the current legal concept of charity as generalized helping behavior or it will begin a process of narrowing the definition of charity to be more poor-centered. Meanwhile, research on the interaction between religion and philanthropy is just beginning.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Charity, History of ▶ Charity Law ▶ Philanthropy, Definition
References/Further Readings Barbetta, G. P., Cima, S., Zamaro, N., Sokolowski, S. W., & Salamon, L. M. (2004). Italy. In L. M. Salamon, S. W. Sokolowski, et al. (Eds.), Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (Vol. 2, pp. 245–260). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Black, C. (2001). Early modern Italy: A social history. London/New York: Routledge. Brooks, A. C. (2006). Who really cares: The surprising truth about compassionate conservatism. New York: Basic Books. Burger, A., Dekker, P., Toepler, S., Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (1999). Netherlands. In L. M. Salamon, H. K. Anheier, R. List, S. Toepler, S. W. Sokolowski, et al. (Eds.), Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (Vol. 1, pp. 145–162). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies.
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Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. (2006). The Bank of America study of high net-worth philanthropy. Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University. (2008). Giving USA. New York: American Association of Fundraising Counsel. Gross, R. A. (2003). Giving in America: From charity to philanthropy. In L. J. Friedman & M. D. McGarvie (Eds.), Charity, philanthropy, and civility in American history (pp. 23–48). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gruber, J. (2004). Pay or pray? The impact of charitable subsidies on religious attendance (NBER Working Paper No. 10374). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research. Hall, P. D. (2006). A historical overview of philanthropy, voluntary associations, and nonprofit organizations in the United States, 1600–2000. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 32–65). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. James, E. (1987). The nonprofit sector in comparative perspective. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 398–415). New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press. Keister, L. (2003). Religion and wealth: The role of religious affiliation and participation in early adult asset accumulation. Social Forces, 82(1), 175–207. Kloppenborg, J. S. (1996). Collegia and Thiasoil issues in function, taxonomy and membership. In J. S. Kloppenborg & S. G. Wilson (Eds.), Voluntary associations in the Greco-Roman world (pp. 16–30). London/New York: Routledge. McCarthy, K. D. (2003). American creed: Philanthropy and the rise of civil society, 1700–1865. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McCleary, R. (2007). Salvation, damnation, and economic incentives. Journal of Contemporary Religion, 22(1), 49–74. McGrave, F. (2003). Charity, philanthropy, and civility in American history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Risse, G. B. (1999). Mending bodies, saving souls: A history of hospitals. New York: Oxford University Press. Robbins, K. C. (2006). The nonprofit sector in historical perspective: Traditions of philanthropy in the West. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 13–31). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Rostovtzeff, M. I. (1957). The social and economic history of the Roman empire. Oxford: Clarendon. U.S. Internal Revenue Service (2009). Exempt Purposes - Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3), at http://www.irs.gov/charities/ charitable/article/0’’id=175418,00.html. Accessed June 25, 2009. Webb, S., & Webb, B. (1927). English poor law history, Part 1: The old poor law. London: Longman Green. (New impression in 1963. Hamden, CT: Archon Books.) Wing, K., Thomas P., & Amy B. (2008). The nonprofit Almanac. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
Philanthropy and Religion, Hinduism P. ISHWARA BHAT, SHANTHI GOPALAN, YASHAVANTHA DONGRE University of Mysore, Mysore, India
Introduction Ethics of altruism constitutes an essential component in the path of righteous conduct for many religions.
Hinduism, one of the oldest religions of the world, is no exception in evolving and effectuating this approach of compassion to all living beings. Giving a suitable gift with religious intention to the deserving ones at the right time and place has philosophic vision of humanism, social dimension of welfare and economic benevolence in result, in addition to producing the satisfaction of spiritual gain. Rooted in metaphysical values, traditional beliefs and variety of practices rather than in a single founder, a sacred book and a central religious organization, Hinduism has built a normative framework for philanthropy with supportive measure of flexibility that tells with typical coolness, ‘‘give if you can.’’ With the march of time for more than four millennia, the value and action of giving could keep the Hindu religious society intact and dynamic by balancing between change and continuity. The spheres of dignified subsistence, education, health, culture, and public good in general got a sensible succor, as will be seen in this discourse. The present paper will survey the textual basis for, and theoretical and practical approach of Hinduism towards philanthropic and charitable acts, and will examine: whether the policy has been compelling systematic action by all; what factors motivate religious giving; what the requirements to be satisfied are; how the scheme to be put into action, and for what purpose; and what are the measures for their good governance to ensure compliance with basic religious ideologies and social benefit. The trend of developments, adjustability with modernization’s imperatives, cultural implications and the sociolegal responses in the context of the welfare state will be examined.
Definition Hinduism, Property and Philanthropy
According to Bal Gangadhar Tilak: ‘‘Acceptance of the Vedas with reverence; recognition of the fact that the means or ways to salvation are diverse; and realization of the truth that the number of gods to be worshipped is large, that indeed is the distinguishing feature of Hindu religion.’’ Cognitive pursuit of God through metaphysical knowledge (jnana), emotionally toned approach of devotion (bhakti) and practical-minded effort to realize through performance of duty (karma) and social service are the three principal avenues for salvation recognized in one of the basic texts of Hinduism, viz Bhagavadgita. Religious practices range from meditation and correct conduct to idol worship, discourse, and other social acts. Varieties of activities coming under these categories,
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myriad rituals and festivals at the family and social levels and numerous pilgrimage centers in various parts of India necessitated contribution by the families and collective bodies like guilds in addition to royal patronage. Establishing and running of temples and monasteries that offer multitude of religious and social services also require funding. This calls for people’s participation. Further, the trivarga principle which stands central to Hinduism states that human desires (kama) and economic activity or property (artha) shall be subordinate to the cause of highest good (dharma) in order to attain salvation (moksha). It was believed that since all material things are held at the behest of almighty, only work and sacrifice through distribution gave entitlement or justification to enjoy them and that wealth of others shall never be aspired for (Isavasyopanishad). Thus property’s use for promotion of social benevolence and for avoidance of undeserved misery and unjust enrichment, in addition to its application for variety of religious purposes, was greatly emphasized. Hinduism’s approach to religious philanthropy can be found in the concepts of daana, dakshina, and bhiksha. Daana involves nonreciprocal giving without the motive for immediate self-interest. Performing of sacred rites (Ishta) and consecration of pools and gardens (Purtha) constitute special types of daanas. Dakshina connotes gift given to priest in exchange for ritual service rendered or for honoring his erudition, whereas Bhiksha reflects offering of food to ascetic people or the people accompanying them. Three types of gifts are described in Bhagavadgita. (a) That gift which is made to one who can make no return, with the feeling that it is one’s duty to give, and which is given at the right place and time and to a worthy person, that gift is Sattvika (xvii. 20). (b) That gift which is given with a view to receive in return, or looking for the fruit, or again grudgingly, is accounted as Rajasika (xvii. 21). (c) The gift that is given at wrong place or time to unworthy persons, without respect or with insult that is declared to be Tamasika (xvii. 22). The first category is regarded as ideal since it is associated with piety and aims to fulfill the social purpose. The rest of them cause indignity or violate public interest.
Historical Background Philanthropy in Social Practice in the Past
Daana was not mere theoretical discourse but actual social practice followed for centuries by Hindus in an extensive manner touching upon various aspects of life. There are historical evidences establishing the practice of religious philanthropy by rulers, local chiefs, merchants, wealthy people, guilds, and collective bodies of devotees.
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Construction of temples and running of them as social institutions were great achievements of religious philanthropy noticeable from the period of Asoka. The rock-cut temples, cave temples, viharas, and roofed temples with attractive art and architecture were constructed in various parts of India by using religious philanthropy. Donation of sculpted cave and stone gateways of Vidisha and Sanchi to Buddhists by guilds of corn dealers and ivory workers and prolific gifts by guilds of gold- and silversmiths to a temple at Nasik point out communitarian contribution to religion (200 BC to AD 300, Romilla Thapar 111). The Nasik inscription makes a detailed reference to large sum of money invested in various guilds and different purposes (food, clothing, and dwelling) for which the interest earned had to be utilized. Devotees of Jainism patronized Mathura school of freestanding temple construction in AD 200. The donation of land and resources to Hindu temple by Shatvahana and Kadamba rulers in AD 150 and 450 has been recorded in inscriptions. Along with growing popularity of devotion cult in Hinduism, temple construction became socially broadbased. Ordinary persons like Ajjama (AD 1124), Ayeeka (AD 1128), Habbaya (AD 1186) got temples constructed after revelation by God in their dreams or after realization of superiority of punya over other wealth, by spending their own money or by collecting donations. Sometimes the principal donor’s name got attached with the name of God (Chidanand Murthy). The faith and concern to construct temples reflected in the vows (veera vratas) sworn by such donors. Constructions of temples by Lingashivji by collecting money through begging (AD 962), by pot maker Bammana through receiving donation (AD 1126), by cooks and priests of temples (AD 1078) and by local chief (AD 1070) point out the wide prevalence of philanthropic outlook amidst various sections of society. Construction of temples to pantheon of Hindu gods reflected both diversity and collectivity and satisfaction of all. With the ascendance of various royal dynasties (Pallava, Chola, Pandya, Satvahana, Chalukya, Hoysala, Gupta, Vardhana, Vijayanagara etc.) patronage to Hindu temples grew enormously, and made great contribution to culture (KR Srinivasan). During the Chola regime merchant guild was rich enough to buy an entire village and donate it to a temple (Romla Thapar 209). The practice of Construction and renovation of temples by people through collective effort has been continued, and is prevalent even during modern times. For effective functioning of temples, giving of huge donations by various guilds, villages, and king became an established practice. Devabhoga or temple property also grew with donations given by the devotees. The inscriptions suggest the specific purposes of religion-oriented
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activities for which the fund or property could be spent: providing of perfuming smoke (dhupa), lamp (dipa), offering of food to God (naivedya), song, dance, feeding of devotees, repair works of building, assistance to monks, students, and pilgrims, and accommodation benefiting various persons. It was the responsibility of the chief priest to collect the promised annual contribution of the devotees for keeping the lamps lit. The Balligave inscription refers to entire town’s participation with active interest in the renovation of Someswara temple; long list of donations made and annually payable by persons, officers, and guilds; promises of various village heads to donate five panas each; commitment of cloth and other merchants and toll collectors to contribute one part of their income (one tenth); gift of flowers, oil, and betel leaves by the concerned producers; and contribution by cloth washers, street cleaners and hunters according to their economic position (AD 1054). Such practices were traceable in other temples also. The fund and things collected were to be honestly managed by responsible trustees called as Dharmadarshi. It was believed that persons who did not neglect their duties were the real donors (Chidananda Murthy). Temples served as important social institutions, abodes of learning, centers of art and sources of employment. Being big enterprise with huge flow of donations and contributions, many temples acted as local banks to support the poor. Because of mass feeding, varieties of offerings and gathering of large number of devotees or pilgrims, the temples were big consumers too. Thus community life and activities centered around temples. Giving of food (anna daana), both at the individual and institutional level, operated as a social and religious duty. Every hungry being deserves food. It was believed that persons who give food with devotion attain heaven even without performing any other religious worship or sacrifice (Subhashita). Earning through rightful means (kayaka) and the practice of distributing food to all (dasoha), in quantities fixed according to one’s need, became prominent features of shiva cult of Karnataka from twelfth century. Devotee had the duty to work and give. Socialization of wealth through piety and compassion was making way for social solidarity (Siddayya Puranik). In all prominent temples food gifting has practiced as established through inscriptions. The gurukula system (residential school) of education relied on religious philanthropy to a very great extent. Every household of a scholar was also an educational institution where many students lived as members of family. For maintenance of the household school students used to visit the residences of rich persons asking for alms (Kunhan Raja, CHI, I. 219). Temples and Mathas
were prominent centers of learning and training as they funded study, preaching and propagation of religion and growth of art, sculpture, and music (V Raghavan, CHI, IV. 506–509). Royal patronage also assisted their activities. Transformation of sangharama into temples of learning by the Buddhists heralded the golden era of universities at Nalanda, Vikramashila, Valabhi, and other places (HD Sankalia, 26–29). Buddha regarded giving of viharas to sanghas as the best gift (Cullavagga, VI, 3, 4). The religiously motivated royal patronage to Nalanda University by various dynasties contributed to its success as an international institution. King Dhamapaladeva’s grant of five villages towards the income for maintenance of Bhikkus and for upkeep of the monastery was followed by similar donations by the kings from far off islands of Java and Sumatra (HD Sankalia, 67). According to Jainism, a branch emanated from Hindu religion, the vows of aparigraha (nonattachment to wealth) and nonviolence were to support the moral discipline of right knowledge (samyak charitra) in order to attain salvation (Sukhlal Sanghvi, CHI, I. 430–432). Charity to human beings by giving food, medicine, books, and assurance against fear have been contemplated at the individual, family, and institutional levels. Abstinence from violence to animals meant duty to protect them from cruelty and hunger. The tradition of giving is well-developed amidst the followers of Jainism. Guru Nanak and his followers believed in doctrine of karma (doing good work) and rebirth. Nanak’s statement that ‘‘Help the suffering even at the cost of your life’’ has motivated the mindset of giving (S. Radhakrishnan, 189). Free distribution of food in gurudwaras is an organized act of philanthropy. The practice of excavating tanks and wells, establishing of bathing ghats and rest houses, and donating of gardens to religious purposes continued as special acts of philanthropy making their own social contribution. Although economic development was not the motivating factor they inspired the developmental and ameliorative activities. The legal literature makes reference to the continuation of religious philanthropy during the medieval and modern period. The guarantee of religious freedom under the Constitution (Articles 25 to 28) has contemplated both individual and collective activities of charity subject to safeguards against abuses and compliance with social justice objectives like equal access to temples. The continuation of the tradition in various religious centers such as Tirupati, Dharmasthala, and Kashi with a new orientation towards social welfare, emergence, and functioning of various religion-based philanthropic institutions and their socially benevolent activities have provided a new dimension to religious philanthropy.
Philanthropy and Religion, Hinduism
Contemporary Developments and Emerging Trends
Assisting the continuity of religious traditions and practices and reorienting the religious philanthropy to usher in social good is the feature of Hindu religious philanthropy in modern times. How religious charity could go beyond mere protection from misery and be a means of empowerment and source of society’s equitable development has been proved in some of the instances as can be seen from a brief survey of the functioning of some religious-philanthropic institutions. Religious charity in Tirumala-Tirupati in state of Andhra Pradesh has a history of more than ten centuries wherein rulers, aristocratic/common devotees and officials donated land, villages, gold, cash, and jewels and varieties of materials. Records point out that feeding house for the poor, flower gardens, water sheds and tanks being established, and streets being laid out by charitably-inclined devotees (Pushpa Sundar, 44). Donations were made for offering of consecrated food to the deity and the donors were entitled to prasadam. Even during the pre-British times the surplus of collection or revenue was utilized for the developing of irrigation potential of the region in order to support agriculture. A collegiate body called Sthanattar or temple committee consisting 12 eminent men, seven of whom were laymen and five were religious functionaries, managed the affairs of the temple. After the assumption of reins of power by the British efforts were made to systematize the accrual of income and avoidance of pilferage. Legislations were enacted from time to time (1932, 1951, 1966, 1979, and 1987) to streamline the management, bring accountability and guide the purposes for which the money could be spent. Tirumala-Tirupati is India’s richest temple, attracting average 60,000 people per day for darshan. In 2007–2008 its revenue was Rs. 1,216 crores, out of which the contribution to hundi by the devotees was Rs. 425 crores, donations Rs. 487 crores, interest on investment Rs. 363 crores and human hair fetched Rs. 102 crores (Lalita Iyer, 38). The fund is utilized for the purposes of administration and maintenance, rituals, and worship, propagation of Hindu dharma, aid to educational institutions including universities, water conservation schemes, afforestation, and facilities to devotees. Srikshetra Dharmasthala in Karnataka is another temple which made a big name in religious charity. Being recognized as private temple, but open to all sections of Hindus, it is supported substantially by the devotees who throng on the temple in large numbers who make monetary and nonmonetary donations (Krishna Kothai). There is also income from lands, buildings, and other investments. Significance of the institution consists in
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philanthropic activities carried on by the institution itself to benefit varieties of persons, bodies, and activities, in addition to routine system of temple worship. The victims of natural calamities, the poor, marginal farmers, agricultural labor, tribal people, children who are not able to afford educational expenses, patients, and devotees have been the beneficiaries of several schemes. Charity to renovate temples, promote folk culture, classical art and architecture have contributed to culture. Daily mass feeding of devotees, holding of annual mass marriages, grand festivals with giving of cloth to hundreds of poor women and free hostels for poor children are the activities that mix charity with social mass. Rural development is a planned scheme launched by the institution motivated with the purpose of capacity building and self dependence on the part of the rural poor. The activist approach and vision of sole Dharmadhikari, Sri Veerendra Heggade, and systematic activities of various trusts for different purposes have greatly contributed to make charity a way of life. The Kashi Vishwanatha and Sankat Vimochan temples at Varanasi have, in addition to providing religious service, have involved in giving of food, promotion of classical music and mitigating of Ganga pollution (Pushpa Sundar). Sri Sharada Peetam at Sringeri has schemes of fund utilization for religious activities, mass feeding and mass marriages, for assisting the poor and the patients, and promotion of rural development (Krishna Kothai). Guruvayoor Sri Krishna temple has also multiple schemes of charity. Mathas have been rendering yeomen service to the cause of religious learning and modern education. Religion-based institutions like Ramakrishna Mission, Mata Amritanandamayi Trust, Sathya Sai Seva Trust have been rendering great help to the cause of quality education at various levels and different centers. The effort of Ramachandrapur Math in Karnataka towards conservation of indigenous cow progeny is a great contribution to environmental protection. Daily mass feeding of school going children (about 9 lakhs in total and 4 lakh children in Bangalore alone) by ISKCON temple by utilizing the huge fund collected as donation from devotees is an example of social capital’s finest use.
Key Issues The Ingredients of Religious Philanthropy
In order to constitute valid daana six distinct elements are to be satisfied. First, daata (donor) should have competence (yathan shakti) to give the property in gift. Only a small portion of property (ranging from 1/11 to 1/6) could be dedicated for purposes like excavation of tank, construction of temple or offering of sacrifices or
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performance of religious rituals to bring spiritual benefit to the family or to its deceased member. Arbitrary acts of donating a substantial portion, having the effect of putting the family members into serious disadvantage have been disfavored in Hindu law and social policy. Second, pratigrahita (recipient) should have necessary qualifications to receive it, and should actually accept it. Manu Smriti and Yajnavalkya Smriti have elaborately listed the fit (satpatra) and unfit (apatra) persons for receiving daana (Yajnavalkya, 203). By excluding the sinners, thieves, cheaters, gamblers, usurious money lenders, the irreligious, the nonbelievers in veda, supporters or dependents of evil acts, and the persons who neglect in looking after their parents, from receiving of gifts it has been aimed to avoid support to evil acts and to canalize the wealth exclusively for good social cause. On the other hand, the learned and skilled persons with strong moral profile and the unlearned and poor who are not evil-minded are eligible for receiving daana. According to Shankaracharya daana means right distribution of resources owned (daanam sam vibhagah). This implies identification of a deserving beneficiary and giving suitably. Thirdly, the attitude in giving should be benevolence, devotion, humbleness, and whole hearted good wish. Taittiriya Upanishad ordains ‘‘Give. Give with faith. Do not give without faith. Give with sensitivity. Give with a feeling of abundance. Give with shyness about its adequacy. Give with right understanding.’’ Truth shall guide the giving, and there shall not be repentance for either giving or not giving (Shrangadhara). Giving with adamancy, belittling of the recipient and deriving pride in giving are seriously objected as the mother earth shelters innumerable precious things and living beings, and no individual action could be glorified. Gift shall be associated with pleasant words (daanam priya vak sahitam). Sattvik daana is to be preferred to Rajasik and Tamasik daana. Let not the left hand know what the right hand gifts, is the injunction. Fourthly, appropriateness of gift shall be ensured while giving. The cow given in gift shall be milk yielding one, land fertile and productive or any other object given should be useful to the recipient. Food to the hungry, medicine to the ill-ridden, shelter to the homeless, knowledge to the unlearned and assurance to the fearing one are the gifts befitting the need, as laid down in Yajnavalkya Smriti. Gifts become appropriate from the angle of specific benefits believed to be derived from the gift of particular objects. For example, getting heavenly bliss from giving of food, begetting of children from giving of gingerly, long life from giving of ghee, good vision by giving
of lamps etc. have been contemplated by the sages. Appropriateness has the dimension of right means through which the gifted object is earned by the donor. According to Basaveshwara sinner’s wealth is no good for righteous utilization but fit only for penalty. Appropriateness refers to suitable quantity also. Giving too little or too much is also not reasonable just like either the niggard show of oil to the lamp or flooding of it by barrel of oil do not serve the purpose (Sarvajna). Fifthly, the place of giving gift should be suitable to use by the recipient. Donation of land for excavation of tank near a temple for use by all devotees and living beings is regarded as appropriate. Construction of shelter houses, temples, goshalas (cowsheds), buildings for education and treatment of the diseases required choice of suitable places. Sixthly, choice of suitable time for giving gift has the influence of religious belief and practical necessity. Gifts given at auspicious occasions and times have been considered as conferring distinct advantages. Gifts received in right time and place assist the recipient in realizing its benefit just like pearl occurs by receiving the swati rain (Sayana). The demand for basic necessaries can hardly wait. Daanas involving dedication of constructed works to society require, in addition to compliance with the above requisites, public announcement of the dedication by holding suitable ceremony (utsurga). Such dedication statements (sankalpa) recognize equal right of access to its use by all living beings (Raghunandana). Motives for Giving
The most important philosophic motive for religious philanthropy is expectation of spiritual benefit (punya), humanist sense of duty towards the weak, approach of hospitality and mutual help in case of difficulty. There are verses in praise of gift giving. According to Rig Veda, the person who gives food to the poor food seeker gets the fruits of sacrifice to God and friendship of even enemies. Persons who decline to give food or assist friends in financial difficulty get neither sympathizers nor friends. Ramayana guides that giving with faith to a deserving recipient brings all advantages to the giver and receiver. Mahabharata points out that since man becomes lazy because of receiving of gifts, he should not ordinarily seek, but only give gifts. By giving fertile land, milchy cows, food, clothing, lamp, oil, ghee, rest house and tilling animals in gift, a person gets respected in the other world after his death (Yajnavaikya, 210). Persons who give food during drought, gold during prosperity and courage during threat or fear will be greatly respected in heaven
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(Sayana). Gifting knowledge brings greatest reward like long stay in heaven (Yajnavalkya, 202). Same is assured for gifting of cows also (Yajnavalkya, 205). Religious philanthropy is also greatly motivated by the inclinations for rendering repentance (prayaschita) or compensation by the sinner or person affected by ill fate. Non-accumulation of wealth and compassion for the poor and the needy are other important motives for giving. There are three avenues in which money is spent: gift, enjoyment/consumption, and destruction. The money neither given nor enjoyed is liable to be destroyed (Bhartruhari). Since personal enjoyment has limits, daana is preferable to destruction of wealth. Since it brings peace and happiness by eradicating poverty, daana is the greatest jewel in the world (Vyasa subhashita). Daana done by a poor man is as great as mercy of the king or silence of the sages (Sukti Muktavali). The daana-punya reciprocity supported growth of religion and established gift-exchange economy rather than market economy (Romila Thapar). Hinduism’s approach to property is oriented towards distributive justice and nonaccumulation of wealth. Holding of property beyond one’s need is regarded as theft. Daana operates as medium to ensure non-accumulation of wealth and promotion of people’s welfare. As stated in Panchatantra in times of prosperity or comfort there shall be giving or enjoying; but never there shall be accumulation lest it be knocked off like the honey collected by the bees. The purta daanas where wells, tanks, gardens, and land were donated had special significance of assisting the agricultural economy (Thapar). Gift of land (bhu dan) was not momentary episode but an investment for the good future of the receiver and his family (Thapar). Is There a Duty to Give?
The duty to give can be gathered from the general approach of Hinduism and specific directions in some verses. The general injunction to have compassion to all living beings, to comply with the trivarga principle and to feed the hungry mold a general duty of giving since noncompliance is attended by harmful consequence. There are specific duties also. In Bhagavata it is stated that one fifth of the income shall be invested for religion and philanthropy, and the rest for success, economic acts, fulfillment of desires and for subsistence (Bhagavata eighth skanda). Apastambha dharmasutra prescribes, ‘‘The husband and wife of the house should not turn away any one who comes at eating time and asks for food. If food is not available, a place to rest, water for refreshing one’s self, a reed mat to lay one’s self on, and pleasing words entertaining the guest – these at least never fail in the houses of the good’’ (8.2). According to Buddha,
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‘‘If beings knew, as I know, the results of giving and sharing, they would not eat without having given, nor would the stain of selfishness overcome their minds. Even if it were their last bite, their last mouthful, they would not eat without having shared, if there were someone to receive their gift’’ (Itivuttaka Sutra). Performance of rituals after death by giving various types of gifts is ordained in Jainism. Distribution of food, medicine, books, and assurance of confidence are the gifts practiced according to the ability of the givers. Making numerous copies of books of shastras for gifting them involved concerted efforts to serve the knowledge society. Involvement of the society in the collective act of copying and distributing of the books points out social participation in promotion of knowledge by using religious philanthropy.
Future Directions Law of Endowment and Legal Regulation
Since the legislative power on regulation of charitable and religious endowments or institutions comes under Concurrent List (Entry 28), there is diversity of laws and methods of regulation depending upon demands in each state. Broad uniformity can be found in the policy of facilitating charity, ensuring of proper administration, people’s participation, avoidance of fund abuse, recognition of equal rights and transparency. In addition to the general law, the conditions imposed in the trust deed try to ensure purpose compliance. Tax incentives and scope for foreign contribution have helped in the fund raising task. Demand for state’s least restrictive measures towards the religious endowments/institutions has been frequently and widely put forward by the institutions whereas the state and society insist on financial discipline and social accountability. Orientation towards social reform and human rights principles is visible in the legal policies aspiring to withstand globalization. Present day Religious Philanthropy in India has also extensively influenced and is being influenced by religious identifications and polarization. This dimension could be a very interesting area for research.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Community Philanthropy ▶ Compassion ▶ Endowment, Definition and Management ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Human Rights
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▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Buddhism ▶ Philanthropy, Definition ▶ Planned Giving ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Religious Organizations ▶ Trusteeship ▶ Values
References/Further Readings (1962 [2002>]). The cultural heritage of India (2nd ed., Vols. I & II). Calcutta, India: The Ramakrishna Institute of Culture. Achhappa, H. S. (1983). A book of Sanskrit proverbs and quotations. Mysore, India: H.S. Achappa. Derret, J. D. M. (1968). Religion, law and the State. London: Faber & Faber. Kapur, R., & Sharma, A. K. (2000). Religious philanthropy and organised social development. New Delhi, India: Indian Centre for Philanthropy. Mukherjea, B. K. (2003). The Hindu law of religious and charitable trusts (15th ed.). Kolkata, India: Eastern Law House. Murthy, C. (1966). A cultural study of Kannada inscriptions. Mysore, India: Kannada Sasanagala Samskritika Adhyayana, University of Mysore. Puranik, S. (1997). Human values in Vachana literature. Bangalore, India: Gandhi Centre, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Radhakrishnan, S. (1979 [1992]). Indian religions. New Delhi, India: Orient Paperbacks. Sankalia, H. D. (1972). The university of Nalanda. Delhi, India: Oriental Publishers. Sundar, P. (2002). For God’s sake. New Delhi, India: Indian Centre for Philanthropy. Thapar, R. (1966 [1981]). A history of India (Vol. I). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Thapar, R. (1978 [1996]). Ancient Indian social history: Some interpretations. Hyderabad, India: Orient Longman. Yajnavalkya Smriti (tr) NR Kulkarni (Dharwad, India: Samaja Pustakalaya).
Philanthropy and Religion, Islam SAMIUL HASAN United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
Introduction Everything on earth is subservient to human kind (Al Qur’an 22: 65), but human beings are the trustees, not absolute owners (Naqvi, 1981: 87). By reminding of this fundamental notion, the Qur’an advises property owners to make property grow for their own sustenance and giving to less privileged people. A property owner’s right
to property is limited by the community good, and can be removed if the person is incapable of understanding this limitation (Ali, 1938, note. 510). People of virtue, piety, and good conduct need to use in humility and moderation all bounties from Allah including physical gifts (e.g., food, clothing, or health), intangible gifts (e.g., influence, power, or talent), and spiritual gifts (e.g., insight into good and evil, or capacity for love) for the well-being of others (Ali, 1938, note 27). Practicing of regular charity, one of the five pillars of Islam, is meant to show gratitude to God for not being placed in the takers side; and solidarity with the underprivileged people in their struggle for coming out of poverty. Individuals are at the core of Islam, and the Qur’an (the divine Scripture of Islam), and the Hadith (words, acts, and consents of Prophet Mohammad) outline the purposes and objectives of human life and human beings’ interrelationships, and relationship to God. Islam does not provide any role of mediators, thus individuals themselves may define social and economic relationships, within the fundamental frame, being responsible directly to God. Urf or Local custom (not contradicting to the fundamental Belief – the unity of God) is also an accepted source of Islamic tenet. The coexistence of many schools of jurisprudence in Islam (discussed below) and the continuation of indigenous pre-Islamic practices of many communities underline diversity in Islam. Islamic concept of philanthropy can be correctly appreciated considering only the diversity in Islam.
Definition There are three major instruments of charity in Islam, zakat, waqf (endowment), and sadaqa (voluntary giving). All the instruments encourage philanthropy because charity in Islam is a source of social security, and cannot be purposeless (Ali, 1938, note 322). The first type of zakat is zakat-ul-mal (on property) or paying in charity 2.5% of the wealth annually beyond the nisab (threshold) level of 85 g of gold or 595 g of silver or equivalent amount of money or trading stock on top of the family expenses (see Zakat). Zakat-ul-mal signifies alms-tax that might ‘‘purify and sanctify’’ wealth. The recipients, likewise, are purified from jealousy and hatred of the well-off, and because of the holistic nature of the religion without its observance the efficacy of prayer is negated (Benthall, 1999). The other type of zakat is zakat-ul-fitr or the payment of 2.75 kg of the staple food or equivalent amount of money before the Eid-ul-fitr prayer celebrating the end of monthlong fasting (Hasan, 2007). All individuals who can afford the amount are required to pay (See Zakat).
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The concept of waqf (religious endowments) promotes endowing of productive resources to be spent for public benefit (see Waqf ). Muslims are also encouraged to pay sadaqa or spontaneous voluntary charity (beyond zakat) in many different forms as an expression of sincere devotion to the religion and gratitude to God (see Sadaqa). The intention to share to show gratitude to God, and not the size of giving, is important to God, and is rewarded irrespective of its successful fulfillment and results (Bukhari, 8:76:498). Everybody, rich or poor, can show gratitude according to his/her ability by spending while in prosperity, or in adversity (Al Qur’an, 3:134) because it will be seen as a beautiful loan (karzehasana) to God and a big investment that will be increased manifold, rewarded, and used to grant forgiveness (Al Qur’an, 57:11, 18; 64:17; 73:20; 2:245). The Believers are advised to be proactive in philanthropy by identifying people in need, and to give to the parents, relatives, orphans, poor, and the wayfarers to receive God’s rewards (Al Qur’an, 2:215). The givers may earn rewards for giving, relieving the recipients from the pain of poverty, helping to raise the recipients’ taqwah (remembrance of God; and thus the commitment to religious duties), and enhancing peace in the community (by raising the recipients’ trust in society). In neoclassical economics, the only binding constraint on the consumer is the consumer’s budget. A Muslim as an ‘‘individual-in-community’’ is subject to binding constraints of internalizing community preferences, and must sacrifice part of his income for charity and avoid conspicuous consumption (e.g., luxury and extravagance) through self-restraint to acquire virtue. Similarly, producers and traders, as ‘‘individuals-in-community’’ are enjoined to produce community approved goods and avoid profiteering and other unfair trade practices (Based on Imam Ghazali’s concepts in Mehmet, 1997: 1206). Philanthropy in Islam is not confined to formal giving, but is entwined with everyday individual, community, and commercial activities internalizing community preferences.
Historical Background Zakat-ul-mal became a formal and compulsory transfer system in 622CE (Ali, 1938, note 5353), and is meant to advance distributive justice, not by coercion, but through the acceptance of moral principles (Dean and Khan, 1997). Zakat-ul-fitr corresponds to the introduction of fasting, and is a tool for equity (offering food to the poor people), a vehicle for showing gratitude to God (for remaining healthy during the month of Ramadhan), and an opportunity for making good any mistakes in fasting
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(may have been made by not correctly following the Code, for example) (see Zakat). The first waqf (religious endowments) created by Umar bin Al-Khattab in around 625CE because of the Prophet Mohammad’s advice for endowing productive resources that cannot be sold, given as a present, or bequeathed but the fruits of which are to be spent for ‘‘Allah’s cause, for the emancipation of slaves, for the poor, for guests, for travelers, and for kinsmen’’ (Bukhari, 1971: 4:51:26, 33–34, 38). The juridical form of waqf took shape around 755CE. Sadaqa or spontaneous voluntary charity can take different tangible and intangible forms and has been with the religion since its inception. Reducing the debt amount or extending the repayment time, maintaining good human relations, forgiving others faults, judging justly between two persons, helping a man riding his animal, lifting a person’s luggage, saying good words, taking steps in performing compulsory prayer (in the mosque) or removing a harmful thing from the street all are regarded as sadaqa (Bukhari, 4:52:232; 3:49:870, 873; 41.9.28).
Key Issues
Appreciable but ineffective reform: Many Muslims believe that giving, especially zakat-ul-mal must go to the ‘‘eight groups’’ of people or programs (the poor, the needy, zakat administrators, new converts to Islam, those in bondage, those in debt; any thing in the cause of God; and the wayfarer) suggested in the Qur’an (9:60). Malaysia recently has modified all the categories to address the modern world’s needs. For example, ignorance, oppressive condition, and prostitution have been included under ‘‘bondage.’’ Since there is no compulsion, no coordination among Islamic councils or interests in the Islamic international fora in the above matters the ‘‘reform’’ measures are never accepted widely and ineffective giving continues. Secrecy or confidentiality in giving: God’s protection is available to those who practice charity so secretly that nobody, even the left hand does not know how much or what is given by the right hand (Bukhari, 2:24:504). Imam Ghazzali, a highly regarded eleventh century CE Islamic scholar, advises to give openly just to encourage others, guarding oneself from hypocritical motives or offending a poor person’s dignity (Hasan, 2007). Secrecy in giving, however, promotes double-dipping by some and marginalizes others (the silent genuine needy). Private needs versus public good: In the absence of any formal social safety net the children (and extended family members with a better financial ability) are still the ‘‘social safety net’’ for the parents and the ‘‘not so
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fortunate’’ in the family or the community. The children (especially the sons) and other family members do care for the elderly and needy in the family. This social obligation greatly reduces or, in certain cases, destroys the givers’ ability to ‘‘give’’ for public good. Further, many givers tend to give to known people to seek so-called ‘‘psychic utility’’ (witnessing direct benefit of the giving) or for sustaining a patron-client relationship with the recipient. Social obligations as well as these ulterior needs retard institutional collection and distribution of giving for public benefit. Poor organizational governance: Often governments have endeavored in vain in reforming philanthropy for public benefit maximization through organizations because of the givers’ low level of trust in the organizations’ integrity, accounting procedures, and use of funds for the ‘‘correct’’ purpose. Nevertheless, occasional success is achieved due to better organizational governance with people of high integrity and religious scholarship. Due to diversity in levels of comprehension, prejudice, and (intra and inter) religious tolerance finding appropriate people has become increasingly difficult.
International Perspectives Major differences in the practice of philanthropy among countries rest on the divisions between the Sunnis and Shi’ites and the respective ‘‘schools’’ within. For example, there are four different schools of jurisprudence (fiqh) in Sunni Islam: the Hanafi School (Abu Hanifa, 699–767 CE); Maliki School (Malik-ibn Anas, 715–795 CE); Shafii School (Muhammad Ibn Idris al-Shafii, 767– 820 CE), and Hanbali School (Ahmad Ibn Hanbal, 780–855 CE). The Hanafi School is the most liberal of the four Sunni Schools, and emphasizes analogical reasoning (qiyas) and equity (istihsan) in the interpretation of relationships among people, between people and other creations, and between human beings and God. The Hanafi School is popular with most Muslims in South Asia, Central Asia including China, most part of West Asia, and in East Africa. The Maliki School ‘‘gives equal importance to public interest (masalahatal mursalah), analogy (qiyas), and equity (istihsan)’’ (Hasan, 2007), and is followed, mainly in northern Africa (e.g., Egypt, Libya), in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, and in the Gulf (Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia). But then public interest is analyzed from different social, economic, philosophical, and theological perspectives and become diverse. The Shafii School strikes a balance between reason and authority and combines dogmatism with practical requirements. Muslims in parts of Egypt, Indonesia,
Malaysia, and the Philippines adhere to the Shafii School. The Hanbali School emphasizes puritanical aspects of Islam and adheres to orthodoxy and rejects aql (reasoning). Muslims in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen follow the Hanbali School, in particular Wahhabism– an offshoot. Wahhabism (also known as salafis – ‘‘pious ancestors’’; since the mid eighteenth century CE) adheres strictly to the extreme interpretation of the Scripture (Esposito, 2002) rejecting analogical reasoning (qiyas) or equity (istihsan). The dawa movement (the oralists; commonly known as Tablig Jamat started by a teacher in the Deoband seminary, India in the early twentieth century to confront the modernizing force in Islam) promoting strict adherence to the Qur’an and Hadith with oral transfer of the ‘‘message’’ (not writing because the majority of Muslims in the area were not literate) has gained some popularity in the recent past in South Asia. Most Muslims (90%) adhere to Sunni Islam, the rest to Shi’ism. Shi’ism allows only qualified scholars to interpret religious issues restricting the individual’s choice. Shi’ism became state religion of Persia (Iran) in the sixteenth century, and has continued since. Some neighboring areas like Pakistan, Iraq, and Turkey also have some followers of Shi’ism. There is also the mystic Islam, the Sufis, emphasizing inner self and philosophical reckoning in comprehending God by subjugating and praying to Him through minds as opposed to ritualistic prayers. Practices of philanthropy differ among communities because of their loyalty to a particular School. The differences are mainly about definition of philanthropy, collection and distribution of philanthropic funds, use of organizations in philanthropic activities, and access (benefit sharing as well as contributing) of non-Muslims to Muslim philanthropy. Muslims in general have a liberal inclusive view on human relations and philanthropy, but tend not to be upfront because the proponents of exclusivity tend to use force.
Future Directions Productive Use of Funds
Many people, expecting advocacy in Heaven from pious people give money to the latters’ shrines. Millions of dollars earned by the shrine-committees are never spent for constructive purposes or for public good. These givers’ expectation of ‘‘heavenly rewards’’ precludes their giving to organizations. There are, however, evidences that modification of charity codes by governments targeting human and social development, within the basic framework of the Islamic tenets, is possible and appreciated by
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the givers. Governments with sincerity and good leadership may affect tangible changes in the character and management of philanthropy in all countries ensuring productive use of the funds. Micro Measures
In the absence of a national or international model of philanthropic use of giving, micro level measures, because of easiness in implementation, are in the increase all over the world. In the recent past business entities worldwide are becoming more and more interested in social responsibility in the form of corporate philanthropy, often times creating alliance with nonprofit organizations. In the Muslim communities, business firms might consider setting up their in-house philanthropy funds, or equivalent, to cover social costs not met by the state funds (Gambling and Karim, 1986). Corporate Citizenship
Business entities cannot give full attention to all social problems, but can write-off or reduce debts, or give more time to pay, transferring the related liabilities to a philanthropy fund. Similarly, loans and other assistance to employees and suppliers could be charged through it. Payments to alleviate the effects of pollution and other so-called ‘‘externalities’’ could be met from this Fund (Gambling and Karim, 1986). The Centrality of the Individuals and Independent Analysis
Islamic tenets have no meaning without the involvement of individuals, because the individuals are at the center of the tenets and are allowed authority to take care of their own affairs because there is no intermediary. Islam promotes istihad or independent analysis (as opposed to blind following – taqleed). Individual istihad had never been negated and is likely to be a source of decision making, especially in the modern world where individuals are faced with unique problems. Through consciousness raising and cooperation Muslims as individuals can claim the practice of istihad and advance the features and outcome of Muslim philanthropy.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Endowment, Definition and Management ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Sadaqa ▶ Wakfs ▶ Zakat
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References/Further Readings Ali, A. Y. (1938). The Holy Qur’an: Text, translation and commentary. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Al Arabia. Ali, S. A. (1964). The spirit of Islam: A history of the evolution and ideals of Islam. London: Chatto and Windus. Benthall, J. (1999). Financial worship: The Quranic injunction to almsgiving. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 5(1), 27. Bukhari, M. Ibn Ismail. (1971). The translation of the meanings of alBukhari by M. M. Khan (pp. 810–870). Medina: Al-Munawwara Islamic University. Dean, H., & Khan, Z. (1997). Muslim perspectives on welfare. Journal of Social Policy, 26(2), 193–209. Esposito, J. (2002). What everyone needs to know about Islam. New York: Oxford University Press. Gambling, T. E., & Karim, R. A. A. (1986). Islam and ‘social accounting’. Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 13(1), 39–50. Hasan, S. (2007). Philanthropy and social justice in Islam: Principles, potentials, and practices. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: A.S. Noordeen. Kahf, M. (2003). Discussants comments on a paper by Zafree, M. K. and Amin, M. R. (2003). Administering Zakah: State of the art and looking beyond. In S. A. Hannan et al. (Eds.), Zakat and poverty alleviation (pp. 91–92). Dhaka: Islamic Economics Research Bureau. Khan, M. W. (2003). Concept of charity in Islam. International Journal of Civil Society Law, 11, 93–97. Mehmet, O. (1997). Al Ghazzali on social justice: Guidelines for a new world order from an early medieval scholar. International Journal of Social Economics, 24, 1203–1218. Naqvi, S. N. H. (1981). Ethics and economics: An Islamic perspective. London: The Islamic Foundation.
Philanthropy and Religion, Judaism PAULA KABALO Ben Gurion University, Sede Boker, Israel
Introduction Values and patterns of giving and volunteering for the advancement of the public good are mentioned in the most ancient Jewish sources. Some are phrased as binding commencements; others have become norms or familiar and widespread social patterns in Jewish communities around the world over the years. The concept of ‘‘philanthropy’’ has never been translated into Hebrew. Since the beginning of the Modern Era and upon the awakening of the Jewish national movement, philanthropy actually carried a negative connotation because the champions of the national movement considered it emblematic of the weakness of Jewish existence in the Diaspora, which led to an economic and political dependency on ‘‘others’’ that it wished to do away with. David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, expressed his objection to philanthropy ‘‘as a system, as an
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attempt to solve the Jewish problem.’’ He was referring to the habit of collecting funds in order to assist suffering Jews instead of seeking a fundamental solution to their distress (minutes, Jewish Agency, May 16, 1941). The most familiar and accepted concepts in the Jewish sources that relate to donating to and helping the poor and the weak are tsedaqa, hesed, and gemilut hasadim, which translate into English as ‘‘charity’’ or ‘‘benevolence.’’ The central concept, tsedaqa, traces to the Hebrew root tsedeq (denoting justice or proper conduct) and suggests an additional connotation: that giving to the weak is a correct and warranted act of justice or the correction of an injustice. The survey that follows relates to the concept of philanthropy in view of Robert Payton’s expansive definition: ‘‘voluntary action for the public good’’ (Payton, 1988). According to this definition, the philanthropic act includes both material giving and volunteer activity that may be performed both individually and within the framework of an association or group. The most problematic element of Payton’s definition when one wishes to apply it to Jewish culture and history is the concept of ‘‘volunteering,’’ which assumes that the act of giving is the outcome of the individual’s free choice. This criterion is very hard to assess in the context of a society that operates on the basis of rules and norms originating in religious faith and when the individuals at issue act within a community that is motivated by a scale of values and norms that subject them to social pressure. Despite this constraint, the survey that follows traces the development of the idea of philanthropy as a value and a frame of action throughout Jewish history. It assumes that the patterns that developed in ancient times on the basis of binding regulations and commandments have undergone reworking, adjustment, and development due to changes in the wishes and needs of community members and not only due to their obligation to obey the rules of their faith and respond to community pressure. The element of voluntarism in the philanthropic act transcends that of obligation especially in the Modern Era, a time when the community framework has been disintegrating and the social settings were reestablished atop voluntary foundations. Jewish communities throughout history expressed philanthropic values and actions in two main ways. The first was reflected in religious commandments that obliged individuals to donate to a charity fund or to set aside part of their wealth for the indigent by dint of their being part of a group and a community. The second included voluntary associative settings that promoted patterns of mutual responsibility, assistance for the weak,
representation of subgroups in the community, or the encouragement of varied services and new ideas. In almost all cases, the concepts used to describe these actions are based on concepts that appear in the ancient Jewish sources: the Bible, the Mishna, and the Talmud. Their use in contexts that correspond to today’s definition of philanthropy first became evident in the Talmudic and rabbinical literature of the second century CE.
Definition The Torah lists several ways of fulfilling the commandment of giving to the poor: leqet (the injunction against gleaning after the harvest), pe’a (leaving a corner of the field unharvested), peret (the injunction against gathering fallen fruit), ‘olelot (the injunction against ‘‘picking the vineyard bare’’) (Lev. 19: 9–10), shikheha (leaving produce forgotten in the field for the indigent) (Deut. 24: 19), and the tithe for the poor (Deut. 12–13). All of these are part of the comprehensive system of agricultural taxation on behalf of the priests, the Levites, and the poor. These requirements were augmented by the commandment of personal charity (Deut. 15: 7–11), which stresses the duty of lending to the poor in advance of the sabbatical year, and another set of commandments that assure the protection of the poor from exploitation and abuse (Hebrew Encyclopaedia, s.v. ‘‘Tsedaqa u-filantropia’’). Although the idea of tsedaqa and generosity toward the indigent appears in various places in the Bible, it is not captured in any single explicit concept. The Talmudic sages (second century CE) adopted the concept of tsedaqa; accordingly, this is the main concept that the rabbinic literature uses to denote unrequited aid for the indigent. Generally speaking, it came to mean the kind of charity that suggests acts of justice (Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. ‘‘Zedakah’’). The corresponding concept, hesed (kindness/loving kindness), often appears in the Bible and has come to denote physical aid or interest-free lending. Although tsedaqa draws on the sense of shared fate and mutual responsibility, its moral manifestation is juridical. Therefore, it is not only an act of voluntarism but also an effort to do justice. As such, it is a duty that every member on the community must discharge personally. The upshot of this is it may be attained by coercion (Luz, 1980). The fact that the word stems from the Hebrew root tsedeq (justice) positions the giver as the performer of an obligation and turns the conventional hierarchical relationship between benefactor and benefactee upside down. Thus, it is the benefactee, the poor, who gives the benefactor, the rich, the gift of allowing h/her to obey a commandment that is believed to hasten the redemption and assure the benefactor and h/her offspring
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an auspicious future (Japhet, 1952). Since the act of tsedaqa is considered a commandment, the conditions and requirements for its performance had to be spelled out. Accordingly, Maimonides, in his legal code Mishne Torah (Maimonides, 1949 [1177–1180]), gathered the assorted rules of tsedaqa under ‘‘Hilkhot matnot ‘ani’im’’ (Laws of gifts to the poor). The third major concept that the Jewish sources use in the context of philanthropy is gemilut hasadim, which Encyclopedia Judaica translates as ‘‘[the] bestowal of loving kindness [. . .] the most comprehensive and fundamental of all Jewish social virtues, which encompasses the whole range of the duties of sympathetic consideration towards one’s fellow man’’ (Encyclopedia Judaica, s.v. ‘‘Gemilut Hasadim’’). The Talmud, the collection of discussions on which Jewish law is founded, mentions gemilut hasadim as one of the three fundamentals of Judaism, along with the Torah and the Temple service. The Mishnaic tractate Avot (1:2) teaches, ‘‘The world stands on three things: the Torah, the [Temple] service, and gemilut hasadim.’’ Gemilut hasadim is differentiated from tsedaqa in that it expresses personal service, unlike tsedaqa, which relates to material giving. One performs gemilut hasadim by providing a personal service such as visiting the ill, contributing to a dowry, caring for the dead, and arranging a funeral, to name only a few (Encyclopedia Judaica, ibid.).
Historical Background and Key Issues Over the years, tsedaqa and gemilut hasadim became ‘‘a central institution that exhibits regular patterns of action’’ (Hebrew Encyclopaedia, s.v. ‘‘Tsedaqa u-filantropia’’). The frameworks and instruments that were used to apply these principles operated within the Jewish community from roughly the second century BCE onward. They were centralized in the synagogue, an institution that by the first century CE had become a religious, social, and public center (Safrai, 1984). During the Mishna and Talmud period (70–350 CE), the organized Jewish community was officially recognized and undertook to provide a variety of services, including welfare and education services that were funded by community taxes, general fundraising, and private donations, usually for specific purposes (Safrai, 2001). An important vehicle of organized tsedaqa was the ‘‘regional fund,’’ by which money was raised from members of the community. Different funds were established for special purposes, such as ransoming of prisoners, collections for dowries, public kitchens for the poor, and, at later times, social goals such as the encouragement
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of Torah study or the meeting of festival needs. Communities appointed administrators for the apportionment of the proceeds and established regulations for the transfer of proceeds from one fund to another and the setting of priorities among funds (Hebrew Encyclopaedia, s.v. ‘‘Tsedaqa u-filantropia’’). Organizational structures that made acts of gemilut hasadim possible appeared from the sixth century on and included hostels for the poor. In the centuries that followed, they expanded, developed, and gathered intensity throughout the Diaspora and especially in Jewish centers in Europe. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, new settings began to appear, organized intra-community structures that dealt with specific issues on the basis of detailed statutes. It was then that the first burial societies and societies for the observance of commandments, the raising of dowries, and organized hospitality came into being. It is conventional today to assume that the establishment and development of these societies was influenced by Christian society. Their purviews and their focus on affairs relating directly to the requisites of Jewish life, however, strengthen Jacob Katz’ premise that the various Jewish associative initiatives came about largely in response to the Jews’ religious and cultural disapproval of surrounding society and were meant to compensate for the characteristic Jewish traits of ‘‘foreignness’’ and ‘‘insularity’’ (Katz, 1961). In the sixteenth century, these communal organization patterns spread to the new Jewish diasporas in Eastern Europe and various parts of the Ottoman Empire. In his studies on the East European Jewish community in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Katz describes the societies as settings that were established to facilitate social activities that communities and families could not address. Within the communities, subgroups took shape that sometimes formalized their frames of action by enacting statutes, appointing officers, and regulating relations among group members (Katz, 1961). In the Ottoman Empire, such subgroups formed in response to the economic crisis that battered the area in the late sixteenth century, impoverishing many Jewish merchants and artisans and causing the circle of those in need of economic relief to widen steadily (Ben-Naeh, 1998). These subgroups usually focused on specific kinds of philanthropy such as visiting the ill, marrying off orphans, and meeting the needs of the deceased. The society considered interaction among its members a matter of central importance. As time passed, it also consolidated its relations with the community authorities, gained recognition as a subgroup, received assistance in funding its activities, and was allowed to co-opt its leaders into the making of
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decisions affecting the public at large. In various cases, tension came about within the official community framework between this secondary level of association and the community leaders (Ben-Naeh, 1998; Dinur, 1955). In the late eighteenth century, following the emergence of the Absolutist regimes in Europe, the status of the Jewish community was undermined. In various places, the autonomous qahal (community administration) was dismantled and Jews began to remit their taxes directly to the state authorities. The qahal and all of its institutions, including the charity funds and gemilut hasadim societies, began to disintegrate. In countries that introduced the separation of religion and state, a new entity appeared: the ‘‘religious Edah (congregation),’’ a voluntary organization (Baron, 1945). Another response to the disintegration of the community structure was the advent of new organizations that reflected the Jews’ collective singularity at the religious, cultural, social, or civil-political level, and alongside them the strengthening of the traditional Jewish societies. Now, with the evisceration and weakening of the community organization, these entities began to proliferate and take on steadily expanding duties (Elazar, 1981). These years also marked the onset of the Jews’ struggle for civil and national emancipation – a struggle spearheaded by legal Jewish public organizations and, along with them, political parties, some of which began to operate clandestinely (Mintz, 1998). The patterns of Jewish voluntary associative activity now branched into a new domain, advocacy, in which the volunteer entities acted vis-a`-vis governments in order to improve the Jews’ civil status or obtain recognition of their national rights. From the last third of the nineteenth century to World War I, a set of international philanthropic organizations came into being in order to promote the Jews’ status all over the world and, particularly, in areas where Jews had fallen into distress of legal or economic nature. The French Alliance Israelite Universelle, the Anglo-Jewish Association, HIAS (Hebrew Immigrants Aid Society) in the United States, and the German Society Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden (Esra) all reflected the processes of change and adjustment of the Jewish associative settings to the modern reality, in which the role of the community administration and the communal societies was being supplanted gradually by organizations that combined actions for the improvement of Jewish civil and legal status with assistance and support for Jews in distress. The operating principles of the Alliance Israelite Universelle served as a basis for the operations of the other organizations, which formed international networks and combined diplomatic activity (as a surrogate for
leadership or representation) with educational and philanthropic activity (Friesel, 1990; Troen, 1988). The second avenue of philanthropic activity, fundraising on the basis of local charitable initiatives, also changed during the nineteenth century. In 1809, an institution called the Pekidim and Amarkalim (Clerks and Officers) of Amsterdam was established to provide central management of donations collected in Western Europe for the Jews in Palestine. In 1824 and 1832 similar organizations of donors and fundraisers for Palestine were established in Britain, and the United States. These extensive organizational initiatives responded to the disintegration of the qahal and its by-product, the draining if not the emptying of local charity funds that had relied on donations from community members (Eliav, 1978). In 1901, at the fifth conference of the Zionist Organization (est. 1897), it was resolved to establish a national fund for the purchase of land in Palestine. The Jewish National Fund (Hebrew: Keren Kayemet le-Yisrael) launched fundraising operations and set up branches throughout the Jewish world. Immediately after it was formed, the JNF embraced the idea of the charity box, an accepted vehicle in the Jewish world, as a way of raising donations. Boxes bearing the JNF inscription were distributed in Jewish communities worldwide and became hallmarks of the new national enterprise (Shilony, 1997). Twenty years later, the Zionist Organization established Keren Hayesod (the Foundation Fund) as a financial instrument for the construction of the Jewish national home. Coinciding with the appearance of the international philanthropic and national funds, a process of institutionalization and centralization of Jewish philanthropic activity in the United States began. The great distress that befell many Jewish communities in World War I and the acute global crisis that impeded the transfer of aid from family members and community organizations encouraged the establishment of umbrella organization, the most conspicuous of which is the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). ‘‘The Joint,’’ as it is known, began to operate in World War I and gradually became the most important and effective Jewish international relief agency of its time. In 1924, a conference of delegates from American Jewish federations resolved to coordinate fundraising activities among the various organizations and communities. Gradually, then, the federations stopped raising money on their own and enlisted for common action. They also expanded their purview beyond welfare services by branching into the encouragement of a common Jewish culture (Lourie, 1961). The growing strength of the American Jewish mainstream and its dominance in the distribution of
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philanthropic funds to Jews abroad, especially in Palestine, gave rise to the establishment of united appeals. The United Palestine Appeal (UPA) was founded in 1925 to coordinate the activities of the main organizations that raised funds for the Zionist enterprise. In the 1930s, in view the worsening plight of German Jewry and the rise of the Nazis to power, the United Jewish Appeal was set up in order coordinate the activities of all American Jewish organizations that raised relief funds for Jews worldwide (Stock, 1988). These two fundraising organizations continued to operate after the State of Israel came into being and undertook a task that became central on the world Jewish agenda in the years following World War II: to extricate Jews in distress from various countries and bring them to Israel (Kaufman, 1996). Thus, the patterns of Jewish philanthropy went through a process of adjustment to changing realities. The charity boxes that used to be stationed in local synagogues were replaced by international organizations that conducted extensive fundraising drives and sent the proceeds to all parts of the Jewish world. The society that operated within the explicit boundaries of the Medieval Jewish community was replaced by a world-spanning Jewish education system or a socialist revolutionary organization whose members aimed to fix the world. These seemingly radical changes were by-products of the Jewish geographic dispersion, the disintegration of the community framework, and the secularization and modernization processes that accompanied them. The national awakening that fostered the idea of the New Jew – independent, strong, and resilient – diminished the value of philanthropy, which ostensibly perpetuated the disempowerment of the Jew and his dependence on the ‘‘other,’’ be it a non-Jewish ruler or a wealthy benefactor. In fact, however, one may see that the basic concepts and their underlying religious values have been preserved over the years. Institutions such as the charity box, the free-loan fund, the dowry collection, organized hospitality, and the burial society remain intact to this day. Also intact are the Jewish recognition of the importance of giving as an expression of mutual responsibility and emphasis on the status of the benefactee as the recipient of an entitlement and not the object of a kindness. During the time of the national struggle, the traditional lexicon of concepts was augmented by new values such as volunteering and pioneering. Today, it has acquired additional new concepts such as civil society, social justice, and civil struggle. Ultimately, however, all of them preserve the basic patterns of tsedaqa and gemilut hasadim – patterns that meet the broad definition of philanthropy as voluntary action for the public good and are perceived today, as in the past, as a material
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existential foundation and a criterion for the definition of Jewish identity and membership in the Jewish collective.
Future Directions An anthology of Jewish philanthropy as an all-embracing phenomenon, has not as yet been written. However, the actions and institutions through which Jewish Zedakah and Gemilut Hassadim were implemented have been covered by various scholars of Jewish studies, especially the scholarly work on the Jewish community throughout history. The major studies on the Jewish community regard it first and foremost as a political phenomena and thus conceptualize its functions and institutions mostly in political terms (Baron, 1945; Elazar, 1985). The inner social currents, however, the ones that led to the evolution of ‘‘voluntary action for the public good,’’ have been somewhat neglected in the broad discussions. Nevertheless, studies on particular communities in distinct time periods do point out the existence of social associations and institutions and emphasize their bottom-up contribution to the social mosaic of the community. A typical example for such approach is Jacob Katz’s Tradition and Crisis, where he sheds light on Jewish Societies active in the seventeenth to eighteenth century communities of Poland, Lithuania, and Germany, as a reflection of generational identities and inter generational tensions (Katz, 1961). A similar approach is revealed in Horowitz’s work on Jewish confraternities in Venice and youth associations in early modern Italy (Horowitz, 1985, 2001), and Ben-Naeh’s studies on the guilds and confraternities in the Jewish communities of the Ottoman Empire (Ben-Naeh, 1998, 2004). These studies, although revealing the inner social dynamics, are still centered, by and large, in the history of the community and its overall characteristics. The same pattern appears in studies of earlier periods. For instance, the works of Shmuel and Ze’ev Safrai on the Jewish ‘‘town’’ (Ir) in the land of Israel during the Roman period describe the political structures of these communities and refer, inter alia, to the charitable systems and educational institutions, two different aspects of ‘‘giving for the public good’’ in Jewish ancient time (Safrai, 1984, 2001). Works of this type provide valuable data on Jewish philanthropy throughout history, but don’t link it with a broader theoretical discussion on philanthropy as a whole. The philanthropic actions are discussed in these works as one of many aspects of Jewish life and consequently, their particular impact is neglected. Scholarly interest in philanthropic enterprises becomes more prominent in the historiography covering the
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nineteenth to twentieth century Jewish world. Studies on particular philanthropic enterprises such as the history of major foundations, educational institutions, frameworks for assisting Jews in distress and an array of health and welfare organizations, are more commonly addressed. Some of the more famous case studies are Alliance Israelite, the Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), Hadassah, United Jewish Appeal (UJA), and the Jewish National Fund (JNF), just to mention a few. Yet again, these studies are anchored in the historical context of these organizations: their activities, their specific goals and their short or long term results. Thus studies on Hadassah, the Women’s Zionist Organization of America, refer to it as an example of gender oriented social action (McCune, 2005) or in the context of the evolution of health care and human services in Israel (Schwartz, 1998); studies on the JNF are usually part of the history of Zionism and the state of Israel (Shilony, 1998); studies on the United Jewish Appeal are considered as a contribution to the broader understanding of American Jewish history and sociology (Stock, 1987); Alliance Israelite serves as a case study of the social and cultural history of the Mediterranean Jews (Schwarzfuchs, 1987). The conclusion that can be drived from this overview is that, generally speaking, Jewish historiography and social sciences have not ignored philanthropy as such. The various studies, however, have not been incorporated into a comprehensive theoretical framework and are usually discussed within the confines of a time period or regarded as part of socio/political structures of a particular community. Accordingly, the research findings are not analyzed through the lens of third sector/civil society studies, and the conceptualization of this new field that has been occurring in the last few decades is not embraced by most scholars. We can thus conclude that, just like in Molie`re’s famous play, The Bourgeois Gentleman, most scholars will be surprised to learn that they have been ‘‘speaking prose’’ all their life without even knowing it. . .
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Philanthropy, Ancient ▶ Philanthropy, Definition
References/Further Readings Baron, S. W. (1945). The Jewish community. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America. Ben-Naeh, Y. (1998). Jewish confraternities in the Ottoman empire in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Zion LXIII, 3, 277–318 (Hebrew). Ben-Naeh, Y. (2004). Poverty, paupers and poor relief in Ottoman Jewish society. Revue des Etudes Juives, 163(1–2), 151–192.
Dinur, B. (1955). Historical writings (Vol. 1) Jerusalem: Bialik Institute. Elazar, D. J. (1981). The Kehilllah: From its beginnings to the ends of the modern epoch. In S. N. Lehman-Wilzig & B. Susser (Eds.), Comparative Jewish politics: Public life in Israel and the diaspora. Ramat-Gan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press. Elazar, D. J., & Cohen, S. (1985). The Jewish polity: Jewish political organization from Biblical times to the present. IN: Indiana University Press. Eliav, M. (1978). Eretz Israel and its Yishuv in the 19th century 1777–1917. Jerusalem: Keter (Hebrew). Encyclopedia Hebraica. (1977). Entry: Zedakah and philanthropy. Jerusalem: Encyclopedia Publishers Com (Hebrew). Encyclopedia Judaica. (1972). Entry: Zedakah; Gemilut Hasadim. Jerusalem: Keter. Friesel, E. (1990). Atlas of modern Jewish history. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Horowitz, E. S. (1985). A Jewish youth confraternity in 17th-century Italy [‘‘Havurat Zeirizim’’]. Italia, 5(1/2), 36–97. Horowitz, E. S. (2001). Processions, piety, and Jewish confraternities. In R. C. Davis & B. Ravid (Eds.), The Jews of early modern Venice (pp. 231–247). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Japhet, H. (1952). Be’Ohalei Shem (In the tents of Shem): Charity and social work in Israel through the Middle Ages, an anthology. Jerusalem: Zayit (Hebrew). Katz, J. (1961). Tradition and crisis: Jewish society at the end of the Middle Ages. New York: The Free Press of Glencoe. Kaufman, M. (1996). Envisaging Israel: The case of the united Jewish appeal. In A. Gal (Ed.), Envisioning Israel: The changing ideals and images of North American Jews. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Lurie, H. L. (1961). The Jewish Federation Movement in America – a heritage affirmed. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. Luz, E. (1980). The ideological foundations of the Jewish community. Shdemot, 76, 83–90 (Hebrew). Maimonides Moses. (1949 [1177–1180]). Mishne Torah: The code of Maimonides. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, Book 7: the book of agriculture. McCune, M. (2005). The whole wide world, without limits: International relief, gender politics, and American Jewish women, 1893–1930. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. Mintz, M. (1998). The place of the Jewish Worker’s Movement in the politicization of the Jewish people. Iyunim Bitkumat Israel, 8, 253–265 (Hebrew). Payton, R. L. (1988). Voluntary action for the public good. New York: Macmillan. Safrai, S. (Ed.) (1984). The popular education and its religious and social meaning during the Talmud era. In Eretz Israel and its sages during the Mishna and Talmudic era. Jerusalem: Hakibbutz Hameuhad. Safrai, Z. (2001). The local Jewish community in the period of the Mishna and Talmud. In I. Gafni (Ed.), Kehal Yisrael: Jewish selfrule through the ages. Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History. Schwarzfuchs, S. (Eds.) (1987). L’ Alliance Dans les Communautes du Bassin Mediterraneen a la Fin du 19eme Siecle et son Influence sur la Situation Sociale et Culturelle (Hebrew, French and English). Jerusalem: Misgav. Shilony, Z. (1997). Ideology and settlement: The Jewish national fund 1897–1914. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Shilony, Z. (1998). Ideology and settlement. Jerusalem: Magnes Press. Shvartz, S. (1998). Women’s federation on behalf of mothers. Social Security, 51, 57–81.
Philanthropy and the Media Stock, E. (1987). Partners & pursestrings: A history of the united Israel appeal. Lanham, MD: University Press of America. Stock, E. (1988). Chosen instrument: The Jewish agency in the first decade of the state of Israel. New York, NY: Herzl Press in Association with Hassifriya Haziyonit. Troen, I. S. (1988). Organizing the rescue of Jews in the modern period. In B. Pinkus & I. Troen (Eds.), National Jewish solidarity in the modern period (pp. 3–18). Beer Sheva, Israel: Ben Gurion University of the Negev Press (Hebrew).
Philanthropy and the Media TAMAKI ONISHI Indiana University, Indianapolis, IN, USA
Introduction Media – either print, television, radio, or the Internet – affect the development of the civil society and philanthropy to a significant degree. As the nature of today’s media has been dramatically changing, the impact that media is having on nonprofit organizations and philanthropy is unprecedentedly critical. As communication and fundraising tools, media provide nonprofit organizations with effective and sophisticated techniques and enable them to reach wide audience and donors with a wide range of demographic profiles, giving interests, and geographical areas. Cases such as pledge drive campaigns by Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) inform us that applications of media outlets to practices of philanthropic fundraising is far from new. Fundraising via new media such as so-called e-Philanthropy offers new ways to reach the public sometimes internationally as well as domestically with the speed and the decreased cost. Dynamic changes in the media also lead to affecting a relationship between media and those who are involved in philanthropy such as foundation and corporate officers, individual donors and nonprofit and nongovernmental practitioners. New media outlets are being created and philanthropy is becoming a target of increased attention from these media. Not only newspapers and televisions, but also general print media such as popular magazines report philanthropic activities by entrepreneurs and celebrities coupled with their engaged and very visible modes of giving. While such extensive media coverage may help increase the public awareness of an important social cause that nonprofits pursue, the relationship between media and philanthropy is at times even adversarial
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as different parties are still lacking trust and understanding of one another (The Center on Philanthropy and the School of Journalism, Indiana University, 2005).
Definition The term media/medium itself covers a wide range of concepts. Oxford English Dictionary (2008) defines media as ‘‘(t)he main means of mass communication, esp. newspapers, radio, and television, regarded collectively; the reporters, journalists, etc., working for organizations engaged in such communication.’’ Also, recent years have seen an emergence of ‘‘new media,’’ which are defined as ‘‘new means of mass communication considered collectively; spec. electronic means such as the Internet, CD-ROMs, etc.’’ (Oxford English Dictionary, 2008). As the relationship between media and philanthropy is ever complex and critical for each other, the concepts of media appear in a variety of contexts of philanthropy, including fundraising and communication practices, marketing and strategic philanthropy, and popular targets of media coverage. Nonetheless, there has been still very little scholarly research done about media and philanthropy (Grosenick, 2005; Hale, 2007). As a result, there appear to be no succinct and comprehensive definition about media in the philanthropy-related context and their relationships as well. Some relevant practices and campaigns, however, have been conceptualized by prior studies. For instance, a fundraising technique via Internet, called ‘‘e-Philanthropy,’’ is defined as ‘‘the use of the Internet to foster charitable aid or donations that promote human welfare’’ (Hart, 2004: 138). ‘‘Celebrity endorsement’’ for philanthropic fundraising is often discussed as a way that mass media promote both celebrities and philanthropy. Examples include ‘‘celebrity telethons to raise money for disaster relief, Live 8 concerts for African debt relief ’’ (Nickel & Eikenberry, 2006: 15). Responsibility of media and quality of their overage about philanthropy were primary topics drawing fervent discussions at the past major conferences on media and philanthropy (The Center on Philanthropy and the School of Journalism, Indiana University, 2005; Silha, 1988). Deacon (1999) characterizes of nonprofit media coverage as a ‘‘combination of indulgence and neglect’’ (p. 59). This characterization indicates that there are both the positive aspects of nonprofits in the media and the negative one such as ‘‘the exclusion of depth and context about nonprofits in the media’’ (Hale, 2007: 471). Speaking to effects of media coverage in the context of philanthropy, Brown & Minty (2006) conceptualize ‘‘media coverage’’ as a means to ‘‘influence charitable giving’’ (p. 2). On the
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other hand, research on corporate philanthropy regards ‘‘positive media coverage’’ as a result of corporations’ ‘‘strategic philanthropy programs’’ (Marx, 1999: 196). These various characterizations suggest that a meaning of media can vary depending on the contexts, goals and nature of specific philanthropic activities.
Key Issues Media Coverage of Philanthropy
Media coverage is an important factor for individuals and organizations engaged in philanthropic activities. Both nonprofits and media have a responsibility to enlighten the public about different viewpoints in important debates over issues such as societal and economic challenges, organizational operation and accountability issues like executive compensation and overhead costs, and appropriate methods to measure effectiveness and outcomes of grantmaking programs. In reality, however, the complexity of philanthropy makes tasks of journalists, who may not know much about its unique tradition, laws, and nature, extremely difficult and complicating. Besides, the relationships between journalists and reported organizations can affect content and quality of coverage. A conference report by Indiana University (2005) reveals considerable tensions existing in the relationship between these two parties because of a lack of mutual trust, understanding, and knowledge of each other. Given this, there is a growing concern among nonprofit practitioners and researchers that media coverage may not accurately portray activities and missions of nonprofits, foundations, corporations, and individual donors. This gap can damage public trust in philanthropy and nonprofits. Journalists, on the other hand, face difficulty in obtaining complete information from nonprofit professionals. Gould, Lewis, Zamora, and Cesarano (2003) identify a dramatic decrease in positive coverage of philanthropy, in particular topics about individual donors or fundraising campaigns, between comparable 6-months periods in 1997–1998 and 2002–2003. On the contrary, most recent empirical study by Hale (2007), which addresses the communication theories of agenda setting and media framing, suggests that media coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits is overall benign. Despite the obvious dissatisfaction with media coverage of nonprofit and philanthropy leaders (The Center on Philanthropy and the School of Journalism, Indiana University, 2005; Silha, 1988), Hale (2007) found the media actually tell the audience that nonprofits are a good thing. However, at the same time, there are some subtle nuances in content of philanthropy-related media coverage.
Media often portray philanthropy out of the spotlight altogether and nonprofits and philanthropy are also more likely to be negatively characterized than when they play the starring role of primary media object (Hale, 2007). Major Philanthropy-Related Topics of Media Coverage
Media cover a wide range of topics about philanthropy in different sections and contexts. Some largest national newspapers have a reporter/s dedicating full- or part-time to the philanthropy beat, while many other media cover only sporadically. Whereas local newspapers tend to provide primarily routine stories on individual organizations, large media sometimes report issues of the sector as a whole (The Center on Philanthropy and the School of Journalism, Indiana University, 2005). Resultantly, there is great disparity in terms of content and topics of reporting among different media outlets. Gould et al. (2003) classify types of coverage by a total of 24 major media outlets including newspapers, national news magazines, broadcast programs and Internet news source. Philanthropy appears in a wide range of sections like Metro/Local (26%), Business (24%), National (11%), Editorial/Op-ed (7%), Lifestyles/Arts (7%) and Sports (1%). Today, philanthropy and nonprofit stories are published as international stories as well as local and state matters (Hale, 2007). Frequent part of news about philanthropy include individual contributions and donors, fundraising campaigns, disaster relief efforts, trends in charitable giving, giving advice, fraud, faith-based funds, corporate philanthropy, and public policies (Gould et al., 2003; Hale, 2007; Nickel and Eikenberry, 2006). Popular topics of coverage vary in different economic and societal climates. For instance, the number of news items about corporate philanthropy and major donors has declined from 1997–1998 to 2002–2003 probably due to the sluggish economy (Gould, et al., 2003). Instead, affected by corporate scandals such as Enron’s case, scandals of major organizations such as the Red Cross and United Way became increasingly major targets of news coverage. More recently, philanthropic activities by wealthy entrepreneurs and celebrities, such as Bill Gates, Bono, Angelina Jolie, and Oprah Winfrey, are drawing considerable media attentions (‘‘philanthrocapitalist,’’ ‘‘celanthropist’’ in Bishop and Green, 2008). Time magazine (Poniewozik, 2005/2006) claims a year of 2005 as the year of ‘‘charitainment,’’ i.e., activities such as celebrity telethons to raise money for disaster relief and Live 8 concerts for African debt relief. Influence of Media Coverage upon Donor Behavior
Media coverage can make the causal impact on charitable giving. Hale’s (2007) finding about positive media
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coverage of nonprofits implies that such positive news is probably more likely than negative one to lead to increased donations and greater trust in nonprofits. Media also tell us to think about nonprofits as local organizations that hold fundraising events (Hale, 2007). Some nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations are savvy enough to make the best use of such media coverage for their efforts to seek funding by encouraging media to keep their work in the news so as that the public become aware of a need to support their causes. To date, most research appears to investigate how media coverage influences upon allocations of foreign aid, rather than giving behaviors of individual donors. The findings of prior studies on foreign aid (Kim, 2005; Potter & Van Belle, 2004) suggest that higher levels of news coverage are likely to lead to higher aid commitments and amount and also have direct implications for the cost effectiveness of media relations activities by organizations seeking support. On the other hand, Brown and Minty (2006) identify the empirical relationship between media coverage of humanitarian crises and private donations to relief agencies, in particular focusing on the case of the 2004 Tsunami reported by news programs and prints such as ABC World News Tonight, NBC Nightly News and the New York Times on Internet donations. Among the major findings is a different effect by different types of media. They found that television coverage increased donations while newspaper coverage decreased donations for one agency, suggesting that the form of media coverage may also impact Internet donations for some charitable organizations. Media Coverage and Strategic Philanthropy
Positive media coverage of philanthropic giving leads to good corporate reputation, and thus is critical for corporations and corporate foundations, especially today as more customers become aware of corporate responsibility for social and environmental issues. Many companies create a department dedicated to link their philanthropy with marketing strategies and seek visibility from media coverage. Positive media coverage is used as a strategy to expand existing markets and develop new ones. But, the degree of emphasis on use of media coverage as strategic philanthropy may differ by industries. Marx (1999) found that a significantly higher percentage of service companies (89.8%) than manufacturing firms (73.1%) rated positive media coverage as ‘‘important’’ or ‘‘extremely important,’’ because service industries tend to be dependent on good customer relations and healthy local markets for their business success. Media coverage is even more critical for corporations if they are suffering from negative image or scandals.
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Companies address corporate philanthropy as a strategic tool to remedy negative portrayals of their social responsibility in the media. Based on an analysis of grants made by 163 corporate foundations, Werbel and Wortman (2000) found that a total annual giving of philanthropy and allocations to educational programs tend to increase following negative media exposure of the company. New Media as Communication and Fundraising Tools
As nonprofit organizations began to recognize cost- and time-effectiveness of application of Internet-based services to their practices, they began to integrate the new methods with their own communication and fundraising techniques. Many e-Philanthropy techniques and tools have been developed for a wide range of philanthropy activities, including cultivation and stewardship of donor relationships, invitations to advocate on behalf of a charitable cause, and the solicitation of contributions online. Hart (2004) lists the following as main activities categorized under e-Philanthropy: (1) Communication, education, and stewardship; (2) online donations and membership; (3) event registrations and management; (4) prospect research; (5) volunteer recruitment and management; and (6) relationship building and advocacy. Internet and Fundraising
Since the late 1990s, a growing number of nonprofit organizations have been turning to the Internet to find new efficiencies and opportunities in their fundraising efforts (Hart, 2004). An Internet-based platform is applied to the reception of online giving of cash or in-kind, as well as the sales of products or services to earn incomes to support mission-based work or the storage of electronic data about donors. Yet, as a percentage and gift amount of online donors are relatively small, Internet fundraising is not considered as effective as traditional fundraising techniques such as major gift solicitation or direct mail campaigns. Nonetheless, recent studies suggest a growing effect of the Internet on philanthropy. A study by Target Analysis Group found that the number of online givers had increased by 101% during years from 2003 to 2006, compared with 6% growth in the number of direct mail donors of the studied organizations (Flannery & Harris, 2007). The trend is the most significant among relief and animal welfare organizations, which have received a substantial amount and number of Internet gifts after Tsunami and hurricane disasters. Other studies reach the similar conclusions (Bhagat et al., 2007; DiJulio et al., 2008; Smith et al., 2006). For instance, 2006 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study reports a 40% growth in average amount raised from the year 2003–2004 to the year 2004–2005, while
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Bhagat et al. (2007) found a growth rate of 27% in median dollars raised from 2005 to 2006. Internet fundraising is often used as a technique to cultivate first time donors. While direct mail is still the most dominant acquisition channel, the Internet ranks as the second-most dominant identifiable channel (Flannery & Harris, 2007). Another issue about Internet fundraising is a lower renewal rate of online donors than that of donors who came through in person, face-to-face solicitations. However, a study by Flannery and Harris (2007) suggests that when online donors renew, online donors give substantially more revenue per donor and have much higher cumulative lifetime revenue over the long term than donors who do not give online. Nonetheless, setting up the e-Philanthropy sites and e-mail campaigns does not guarantee revenue streams from online donors. Sargeant, West, and Jay (2007) suggest that in order to improve performance of the Internet fundraising, nonprofits should focus on enhancing relational determinants of fundraising effectiveness, such as accessibility of the site, articulated case for support, donor communication with respect, accountability, and active interaction with and education for current and prospective donors. Geographic and Demographic Expansions of Giving
Due to its power of connectivity, the Internet is viewed as an ideal platform to reach, inform, and engage potential donors, many of whom may be beyond the radar of normal fundraising channels. Recent studies (Bhagat et al., 2007; DiJulio et al., 2008; Flannery & Harris, 2007) identify some significant advantages of Internet fundraising, such as rapid responses from and to donors and a capability of handling large donor pools with greater effectiveness and significantly lower costs than mass mail campaigns. Internet also allows donors choices of organizations and causes they support without a feeling of pressure. Available giving data stress that the use of the Internet for philanthropic purposes transcends the geographical or demographic boundaries that have traditionally circumscribed a nonprofit organization’s reach. Such advantages best equip Internet fundraising for emergency and disaster relief efforts. In the 2 months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, more than 1.3 million contributors donated over $128 million online (Hart, 2004). An estimated 13 million Americans made online gifts to disaster relief efforts for the Gulf Coast hurricanes and seven million American set up their own hurricane relief efforts using the Internet (Giving USA Foundation, 2007). In addition, corporations linked their homepages to the sites of nongovernmental organizations, which
became another outlets that facilitated disaster relief efforts (Greer & Moreland, 2007). Recent reports (Flannery & Harris, 2007; Network for Good, 2006) also discover online donors are much younger, have higher household incomes and give a larger amount even when they had the same income than nononline donors. According to Target Analysis Group survey (Flannery & Harris, 2007), the median gift amount online is $57, compared with median of $33 for gifts from all other channels. An emergence of new networking features of the Internet sites contributes to advancing the trend of Internet giving among young adults, who were fueled by their desire to give voice to and support relief efforts beyond financial gifts. The power of the Internet resulted in creating a new type of donor, ‘‘the citizen philanthropist’’ (Network for Good, 2006). They connect each other via the social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, and LiveJournal, blogs and their own individual sites to create voluntary associations and raise funds for charitable causes (Giving USA Foundation, 2008). New Regulatory for Internet Philanthropy
Internet brings not only efficacy to philanthropy but also new challenges to the jurisdictional authority in regulating Internet fundraising efforts. While fear of fraud does not appear to be harming the growth of online giving, especially among the younger demographic that donates and conducts much of their personal business online (Network for Good, 2006), traditional regulatory measures are often not adequate for dealing with the Internet fundraising and communication activities. Among the major initiatives to meet this gap is the publication of a document by National Association of Attorneys General & National Association of State Charity Officials, known as the Charleston Principles. The document in general requires that ‘‘(a)n entity that is domiciled within a state and uses the Internet to conduct charitable solicitations in that state must register in that state’’ (National Association of Attorneys General & National Association of State Charity Officials, 2001: 3).
Future Directions Hale (2007) point out that the study of media and nonprofits in the United States is still in its infancy. Relevant studies tend to focus analysis on a single newspaper, extremely restrictive search terms, or a limited number of issues. Yet, considering the magnitude of influence by media upon nonprofits, the public and donors and growing complexity of the relationship between media and philanthropy, research on media and philanthropy is ever critical today.
Philanthropy and the Media
Discussions among professionals from media and philanthropic communities at the past conferences stress a significant importance of the roles that the news media and philanthropy play in affecting each other’s responsibilities as well as the society at large (The Center on Philanthropy and the School of Journalism, Indiana University, 2005; Silha, 1988). What are the appropriate uses of the media to raise philanthropic funding? Where should the line be drawn between entertainment and philanthropic causes? To what degree, can media play the watchdog role in maintaining the accountability for the public by reporting news of operations of foundations, nonprofit organizations, and corporate philanthropic programs? On the other hand, what role can the philanthropic sector play in helping journalists understand and support their efforts? Although a number of descriptive studies about ePhilanthropy are rapidly increasing, scholarly inquiries still appear to be limited except some efforts (cf., Sargeant et al., 2007). Since not all e-Philanthropy efforts are successful and rather can constrain nonprofits financially, further studies that identify success tips would be an indispensable help for practitioners in the philanthropy community such as nonprofit managers, foundation and corporate officers, as well as individual donors. Furthermore, Internet fundraising changes the nature of interactions between organizations and donors, which by traditional methods of solicitations were predominantly on in person and face-to-face. This new condition requires more efforts to maintain accountability.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and the Media ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Dotcauses ▶ Fundraising ▶ Information Technology/Internet ▶ Strategic Philanthropy
References/Further Readings Bhagat, V., Hauf, B., & Donovan, Q. (2007). The Online Marketing (eCRM) Nonprofit Benchmark Index™ Study. Austin, TX: CONVIO. Bishop, M., & Green, M. (2008). Philanthrocapitalism: How the rich can save the world. New York: Bloomsbury. Bollier, D. (2000). Asserting the public interest in digital media: The challenge for philanthropies. New York: New York University Law School. Brown, P. H., & Minty, J. (2006). Media coverage and charitable giving after the 2004 Tsunami. William Davidson Institute Working Paper No. 855, University of Michigan Stephen M. Ross Business School. Deacon, D. (1999). Charitableimages: The construction of voluntary sector news. In B. Franklin (Ed.), Social policy, the media and misrepresentation London: Routledge.(pp. 51–68).
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DiJulio, S., Matheson, K., Bosanko, J., Ewald, M., & Simon, B. (2008). 2008 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study. Seattle, WA: M þ R Strategic Services and the Nonprofit Technology Network. Flannery, H., & Harris, R. (2007). Internet giving benchmarking analysis. Charleston, SC: Target Analysis Group. Giving USA Foundation. (2007). Giving USA 2007. Glenview, IL: Giving USA Foundation. Giving USA Foundation. (2008). Giving USA 2008. Glenview, IL: Giving USA Foundation. Gould, D., Lewis, S., Zamora, I., & Cesarano, J. (2003). Truth on the sidelines: Philanthropy and foundations in the media. Retrieved from http://www.douglasgould.com/resources/Truth%20on%20the %20Sidelines%20FINAL.pdf Greer, C. F., & Moreland, K. D. (2007). How Fortune 500 Companies used the web for philanthropic and crisis communication following hurricane Katrina. Public Relations Review, 33, 214–216. Grosenick, G. (2005, November). Media discourse surrounding volunteerism: How the media frames (Mis) represented volunteerism in selection of Canadian local and national print media. Paper presented at the 2005 ARNOVA Conference, Washington, DC. Hale, M. (2007). Superficial friends: A content analysis of nonprofit and philanthropy coverage in nine major newspapers. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 36(3), 465–486. Hart, T. (2004). E-philanthropy. In D. Burlingame (Ed.), Philanthropy in America: A comprehensive historical encyclopedia Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.(pp. 138–140). Kim, J. (2005). Media coverage and foreign assistance: The effects of US media coverage on the distribution of US Official Development Assistance (ODA) to recipient countries. Georgetown Public Policy Institute. Retrieved from http://www.jha.ac/articles/a176.pdf Marx, J. D. (1999). Corporate philanthropy: What is the strategy? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28(2), 185–198. Media. (2008). Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved October 18, 2008, from http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00304459?query_type = word&queryword = media&first = 1&max_to_show = 10&sort_type = alpha&result_place = 2&search_id = mGYt-vybp1I-5097&hilite = 00304459 Myatt, A. (2008) Philanthropy & media summit. Retrieved October 18, 2008, from http://www.cof.org/files/images/Summit/Philanthropy and Media.pdf National Association of Attorneys General & National Association of State Charity Officials. (2001). The Charleston principles: guidelines on charitable solicitations using the Internet. Retrieved from http:// www.nasconet.org/Charleston%20Principles,%20Final.pdf Network for Good. (2006). Impulse on the internet: How crisis compels donors to give online. A network for good study of disaster giving. Retrieved October 18, 2008, from http://www.guidestar.org/news/ features/disaster_white_paper.pdf New Media. (2008). Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved October 18, 2008, from http://dictionary.oed.com/cgi/entry/00323961?single = 1&query_type = word&queryword = new þ media&first = 1&max_ to_show = 10 Nickel, P. M., & Eikenberry, A. M. (2006). The discourse of marketized philanthropy in fast capitalism. Retrieved from http://www.ipg.vt. edu/Papers/The%20Discourse%20of%20Philanthropy%20EikenberryNickel072 Poniewozik, J. (2005/2006). The year of charitainment. Time, 166(26), 93–94. Potter, D., & Van Belle, D. (2004). News media coverage influence on Japan’s foreign aid allocations. Japanese Journal of Political Science, 5(1), 113–135.
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Sargeant, A., West, D. G., & Jay, E. (2007). The relational determinants of nonprofit web site fundraising effectiveness: An exploratory study. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 18(2), 141–156. Silha, S. (1988). The media & philanthropy: Report from the symposium. Seattle, WA: Craig Smith and Stephan Silha. Smith, B., Matheson, K., & DiJulio, S. (2006). eNonprofit Benchmark Study. Seattle, WA: M þ R Strategic Services and the Advocacy Institute. The Center on Philanthropy and the School of Journalism, Indiana University. (2005). Philanthropy and the media: A summary of the 2005 Philanthropy Summit. Retrieved October 18, 2008, from http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/News/2005/MediaSummit ReportFinal.pdf Werbel, J. D., & Wortman, M. S. (2000). Strategic philanthropy: Responding to negative portrayals of corporate social responsibility. Corporate Reputation Review, 3(2), 124–136.
Philanthropy Australia MYLES MCGREGOR-LOWNDES
Address of Organization Level 10, 530 Collins Street Melbourne, VIC 3000 Australia www.philanthropy.org.au
Introduction Philanthropy Australia is the Australian peak body for philanthropy and is a nonprofit membership organization. It has over 350 members, including trusts and foundations, families, and individuals who wish to make a difference through their own philanthropy and to encourage others to become philanthropists. Philanthropy Australia offers representation, networking, information, and other services to members and others in the nonprofit sector.
Brief History Philanthropy Australia was founded as the Australian Association of Philanthropy in 1977 following a series of seminars sponsored by The Myer Foundation and The Ian Potter Foundation. The organization established a parttime secretariat in 1988, which became full-time in 1996. In 1997 the organization was renamed Philanthropy Australia.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Philanthropy Australia’s mission is to represent, grow, and inspire an effective and robust philanthropic sector for the community.
It accordingly focuses on representing the interests of trusts and foundations to all levels of government and the community; promoting a stronger philanthropic sector through training, education, advocacy, and leadership; improving practices in the philanthropic sector to boost performance and confidence in the philanthropic sector; and encouraging strong and transparent governance of philanthropic organizations.
Activities Philanthropy Australia supports the philanthropic efforts of members through the provision of information, resources, and networking opportunities, including training workshops for grantmakers, Affinity Groups and seminars. Members have access to research and information through the Knowledge Centre and receive publications including Philanthropy Review (a monthly e-newsletter) and Pressing Matters (a weekly media roundup) and Australian Philanthropy journal. The organization also represents the philanthropic sector to all levels of government, and promotes the contribution of philanthropy by growing the understanding of the community, business, and government. New, existing, and emerging philanthropists are supported by free online resources such as A Guide to Giving for Australians and the Trustee Handbook. A comprehensive range of online services includes a website with extensive information on philanthropy in Australia; the PhilanthropyOz Blog at blog.philanthropy. org.au for timely updates; and the PhilanthropyWiki, an online encyclopedia of philanthropy which is constantly evolving. Services for those seeking funds from philanthropic trusts include The Australian Directory of Philanthropy and Grantseeker Workshops as well as online resources. Philanthropy Australia also provides information to those seeking to understand, access, or partner the philanthropic sector.
Structure and Governance Philanthropy Australia is an incorporated nonprofit association with charitable status. Its national office is located in Melbourne, with an office also in Sydney. The organization has ten staff and is governed by a board of representatives from the philanthropic sector.
Funding Philanthropy Australia is an independent organization which receives no government funding. The organization’s budget is approximately AU$900,000 per annum. Approximately 68% of income results from membership fees; approximately 23% comes from publication sales,
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subscriptions, and workshop fees; and less than 10% of income comes from grants.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Philanthropy Australia’s major contribution is to promote a culture of giving in Australia through representation to government, business, media, and the public, and through the provision of information free to the community via online resources such as A Guide to Giving for Australians and the PhilanthropyWiki, which make Philanthropy Australia’s website the first port of call for those seeking information on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. A further achievement is the promotion of effective and transparent governance for foundations through projects such as the Trustee Handbook. Some of the legislative changes Philanthropy Australia has been involved with include the introduction of the Prescribed Private Fund structure and the refund of excess imputation credits for charitable organizations.
Cross-References
▶ Philanthropy in Australia ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings WingsWeb – www.wingsweb.org/network/profiles_view.cfm?id¼102 PhilanthropyWiki – www.philanthropywiki.org.au Amy, L., & Pearce, M. (2008). The good giving guide. Camberwell, Australia: Penguin Books. Leat, D. (2004). The development of community foundations in Australia: Recreating the American dream. Brisbane, Australia: Queensland University of Technology.
Philanthropy in Africa BHEKINKOSI MOYO TrustAfrica, Dakar-Fann, Senegal
Introduction The term ‘‘philanthropy’’ is not generally understood nor is it preferred in Africa – simply because it is not inclusive both in its scope and reach. The classical definition and indeed the very historical trajectory of philanthropy from the American and perhaps European understanding are not fully encompassing of the nature and character of what in Africa can be likened to ‘‘philanthropy.’’ Because of this, it must be noted that in this entry, the term ‘‘philanthropy’’ is used cautiously. It is used to capture
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two dimensions of what exists in Africa and is understood to refer to philanthropy. Many have preferred rather to refer to this phenomenon as African philanthropy; while others have opted to describe the same phenomenon as philanthropy with African features. Both ways, there is something that can be called ‘‘philanthropy’’ in Africa; and it takes primarily two dimensions: indigenous – usually informal; and institutional. This includes international philanthropic institutions such as foundations, both traditional and new entrants; local institutions and indigenous mechanisms through which communities assist each other and develop their societies. However unlike in other regions of the world, where there is abundant information regarding both the scope and size of philanthropic institutions, in Africa, there is serious paucity of information regarding philanthropy. In Africa, philanthropy is an area that is heavily understudied and lacking resinous research. There are very few centers in universities that are dedicated exclusively to philanthropy. In addition, there has not been a continental or even regional scientific study of the size and scope of philanthropy. There are however local and national studies that have been undertaken especially supported by such foundations as the Ford, Mott, Kellogg, and Atlantic Philanthropies. These studies include those in South Africa (Everatt and Solanki, 2005; Friedman et al., 2005; Habib and Maharaj, 2008; Mahomed, 2009), Southern Africa (Wilkinson-Maposa et al., 2006; Moyo, 2004), North Africa (Daly, 2007) and East Africa (NgondiHoughton, 2004, 2008). The dearth and paucity of data and specific information on philanthropy in Africa makes any discussion on philanthropy very anecdotal. In a bid to fill this information gap, TrustAfrica – a Pan-African foundation based in Dakar has embarked on an annual publication that will seek to measure the state of philanthropy in Africa. Through this project, TrustAfrica hopes to gather all necessary data, both quantitative and qualitative in order to locate the philanthropic discourse in proper context. This project will also move the discourse away from anecdotes to facts. This study will also track philanthropic flows to Africa: currently no study has been done to track how much is going to Africa, the source of philanthropic flows, how the money is used and whether or not it reaches the targets. Without these figures, it is difficult to make comparisons with government funding and other forms of income. The general trend however is that the nonprofit sector, which philanthropy forms a part of, is a major force to reckon with. For example, a study by Swilling and Russell (2002) on the size and scope of the nonprofit sector in South Africa concluded that the sector was a
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major force in the economy of the country. It estimated the sector expenditures to be R9.3 billion (representing 1.2% of the 1998 Gross Domestic Product). The sector is also a major employer, with volunteers contributing more than R5.1 billion (2002: 15–17). Almost similar findings were established in Kenya and other countries where studies on the nonprofit sector were conducted. Certainly it can be argued that philanthropic flows to most countries in Africa fill the gaps that are created by government and the private sector. In some cases, governments have also abdicated their responsibilities and philanthropy has taken over. This is not strategic however as it gives governments room to abdicate their responsibilities towards the citizenry. Perhaps this is also due to the fact that nowhere has there been greater lack of cooperation than exists between governments and philanthropy. The question still remains whether philanthropy will move from ameliorating the symptoms of the problems that face countries and transform power structures and relations. Currently, philanthropy in general has shied away from engaging in a transformative agenda. There are very few philanthropic institutions that direct their support to social justice questions.
So What Exists? The philanthropic landscape in Africa in general is characterized by what some researchers have called both horizontal and vertical philanthropy. Because the term ‘‘philanthropy’’ is not popular with the people in the continent, and neither is it useful in capturing what exists, the emerging body of literature on philanthropy in Africa prefers to define philanthropy as ‘‘help’’ or ‘‘giving’’ (Wilkinson-Maposa et al., 2006). In the informal realm, philanthropy manifests itself in what Wilkinson-Maposa et al. (2006) have called the philanthropy of community. In this realm, philanthropy refers to giving by the poor to other poor individuals of the community. More often this form of philanthropy has both cultural and linguistic underpinnings – hence it normally takes on indigenous expressions such as cooperatives, rotation and savings clubs, normally called stokvels, communal collective efforts and burial societies. In the formal realm, philanthropy takes forms such as private foundations, trusts, corporate foundations, family trusts, community chests and more recently community foundations. This institutionalized form of philanthropy is understood as vertical in nature referring to giving or helping of the poor by the rich. This is however a disempowering presentation of philanthropy especially for the poor, as this places them under the mercy of the rich philanthropists. This interpretation of philanthropy also
takes away the poor’s agency and the very fact that the poor are philanthropists in their own right. And yet, research is increasingly showing that giving is not an exclusive domain of the wealthy (Everatt and Solanki, 2005; Wilkinson-Maposa et al., 2006). In other words being philanthropic is part of the daily experiences of Africans; and yet there is very little evidence of intersections between horizontal and vertical philanthropy. And where there is an encounter, institutional philanthropy normally thrives. More often, Africans give to local causes and very few give to international causes. This might be due to the fact that many developmental challenges are right in their faces, for example the HIV-AIDS pandemic, wars and conflicts; unemployment particularly for the youth, and the general levels of poverty. More often, these philanthropic behaviors are motivated by what in Southern Africa is called ‘‘ubuntu’’ – literally referring to humanity or humaneness. There are also significant numbers of people who help and give both financially and in kind because of their religion. In return, these people expect spiritual blessings. But there is a group of people that give and help because they think that their philanthropic activities are geared towards tackling poverty and development related matters. An interesting feature of philanthropy in Africa is that there is a thin line between short term and long term philanthropic actions in many societies. Charity is not just charity: it is very much linked to giving that is developmental in orientation. The thin line is to be found also in Diaspora remittances that are fast becoming critical levers of development in the continent. Existing research on remittances seems to conflate contributions made to families with philanthropy. Are remittances philanthropy? This is a question that needs unpacking in the African context where many have left the continent to settle elsewhere outside of their home countries and outside Africa, but still maintain links with those they left behind either physically or through remittances. There is no doubt that the Diaspora phenomenon is an emerging and interesting development in philanthropy, particularly in Africa. It is estimated that there are more than 35 million citizens of African descent in the United States alone whose collective purchasing power amounts to about $450 billion per annum (Bridgewater, 2003). According to the World Bank’s 2007 report, remittances to Africa amounted to $4 billion for Sub-Saharan Africa. This figure is higher than the official development aid. The ever-increasing literature on the Diaspora indicates that remittances and other forms of philanthropy from
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the Diaspora are likely to play major roles in Africa’s development initiatives.
Individual Giving There is not much research that has been conducted in Africa on individual giving. However, there is considerable amount of resources that come from individuals either to other individuals or to formal institutions. So far, only in South Africa has a national study been conducted on individual giving. The study by the Centre for Civil Society at the University of KwaZulu Natal is instructive of what is generally believed to be the case across Africa. Everatt and Solanki (2005) concluded that South Africa is a nation of givers. Over half of the people who were surveyed gave money to charities or other causes, a third gave food or other goods to charities or other causes, while almost a fifth volunteered time for charity or other causes. The study adds that slightly less than half of the respondents gave money or goods directly to the poor while the majority preferred to give to formal structures rather than to individuals (Everatt and Solanki, 2005: 2). Although no hard data exists as yet elsewhere in the continent, anecdotal information shows similar trends. According to the South African study, white people were inclined to giving money rather than goods and other resources. They were followed by Indians and then the rest. Most importantly, however, this study showed that poverty is not necessarily a hindrance to giving. These findings are complemented by those of Susan WilkinsonMaposa et al. (2006) which also showed the extent to which poor people help each other. Many individuals are motivated by religion when they give either money or in kind. Most religions require the poor be taken care of. However, another motivating factor for individual donors is the need to tackle poverty. As such individual giving is not an exclusive domain of the rich: the poor also give. Because of this realization, emerging institutions such as community foundations are finding that they can also raise resources from local communities. Such was the experience of community foundations in Tanzania when they were launched in 2008 in Morogoro, Mwanza, Kinendoni, and Arusha. The same was true of the Community Foundation of Greater Rustenburg whose research showed that nine out of ten people of mid and high income gave to charity. Three-quarters gave randomly to institutions rather than to individuals and in most cases people gave to causes that they were emotionally attached to (Theunissen, 2003). Individuals also give time. According to the study of the nonprofit sector in South Africa (Swilling and Russell, 2002), the sector has the highest number of volunteers. In
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1999, more than 1.5 million volunteers contributed their time to the sector. Their contribution was equivalent to the work done in 316,991 full time jobs and accounted for almost 49% of the nonprofit sector’s work force (Russell and Swilling, 2002: 18). Volunteers were active in culture and recreation, religious institutions and politics/advocacy. There were 70,740 volunteers in the culture and recreation sector, 64,457 in the politics and advocacy sector, 52,743 in the religion sector and 50,450 in social services (Russell and Swilling, 2002: 19). Black people volunteered considerably more time (over two thirds) than whites (Everatt and Solanki, 2005). Africa could have more individual givers had the tax environment been enabling. In most countries, the tax environment does not provide incentives for voluntary giving in the public interest (SAGA, 2004). If tax laws were reformed, it would serve as a significant step forward in encouraging private individuals to donate parts of their estates to philanthropic activities. An enabling tax environment would lead to the creation of more new foundations by Africans.
Foundations Till recently, foundations were mainly those of an international nature, primarily American. Most focused on grant-making mainly to civil society and the private sector around such areas as development, governance, human rights, community development, HIV-AIDS, and peace and security among others. There has however been an emergence of African foundations right across the continent such as TrustAfrica, African Women Development Fund, Mo Ibrahim, Nelson Mandela, Dakota, Solomon Muna and Yossou N’Dor among many others. Some of these foundations have been created and supported by international foundations such as the Ford Foundation. Others have been formed by former heads of States. Others like the Mo Ibrahim and the Dakota foundations are created by rich Africans who made their money mostly from the private sector and are now giving back to the communities. Sports and other personalities have also created their own foundations right across the continent, and these focus on issues that are dear to them. Foundations are the biggest constituents of institutional philanthropy in Africa. The highest concentration of foundations is still in Anglophone countries mainly in Southern Africa (South Africa mainly), East Africa (Kenya) and parts of West Africa (Nigeria and Ghana). North Africa particularly Egypt has also developed a number of foundations. In these countries, there is a growing development of family trusts, about which very little is known.
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In South Africa alone in 2002, there were 3,891 nonprofit organizations that were registered as trusts or foundations, representing 4% of the nonprofit sector overall. For a subsector about which relatively little information exists, the number of trusts and foundations would appear to be quite high. And research conducted into a sample of family foundations in South Africa showed that they are all very diverse in terms of the projects that they support and their overall modes of operation (Moyo, 2006). Although foundations appear to work in many different areas, the majority work in education, welfare and health. Equally, very few family foundations are in areas that could be described as transformative, such as social justice, democracy, rule of law, gender and civil rights etc., and much of their work would seems to focus on ameliorating the effects of poverty, for example, rather than addressing its causes. This tendency towards ‘‘charity’’ among family foundations is not only true of family foundations in South Africa, but is a common feature of much institutional philanthropy across the world (Chen, 2002). Most family foundations surveyed worked with grassroots communities, often giving in kind or running their own programs, rather than making grants to local organizations to administer projects themselves (Moyo, 2006). Over the last 10 years, there has been an increasing interest and growth in the number of community foundations. In 1998, there were only two such foundations across Africa: today there are more than 15 such institutions in Africa (Global Status Report, 2008). The highest concentration is in South Africa. Others are found in Kenya, Tanzania, Egypt, Malawi, Uganda, Mozambique, Lesotho, and Zimbabwe. There are other community-like institutions in Africa and these have not been studied. The growth in community foundations is an illustration of the importance of such community-based institutions for development purposes. Communities feel that they own their own development agenda through community foundations. The Kenya Community Development Foundation is a classic case illustrating how communities can rally around a particular development imperative and pull their resources together (Mutuku, 2006). Despite the interest in community foundations (even the World Bank has been developing community foundations across the world: the four community foundations in Tanzania were developed through a World Bank project), a number of challenges still abound around the community foundation-concept. These include the very understanding of the term ‘‘community’’ which if not properly defined might lead to exclusion rather than inclusion. The other challenge has been that community foundations have tended to bypass their communities and
depended mainly on international sources of funding. The exclusive focus on building endowments has also been a huge task for community foundations especially given the immediate needs on the ground and the desire to save for the future. In the current global financial meltdown, community foundations are increasingly being challenged to think creatively around investments. Endowment building is no longer the most ideal. As alluded to above, both private foundations and community foundations have generally not formalized working and cooperative relations with states. More often, foundations operate independently of the state and its national program of action. Normally, foundations work with and through civil society to fill the gaps created by the state’s lack of capacity to deliver services to the people. Only in Francophone countries are there foundations that are created by states (Sy and Hathie, 2009). This is not common in other parts of the continent. However a working relation between philanthropy and the state ought to be encouraged.
Corporations The focus here will mainly be on South Africa for the simple reason that the country has a vibrant corporate presence. Other countries that have also developed corporate philanthropy include Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, and Senegal among other good performing economies. Again, there is paucity of information regarding corporate philanthropy. A few studies that exist, for example, in South Africa, show that corporate philanthropy, and corporate social investments (CSI), play a significant role in supporting the nonprofit sector. According to Swilling and Russell’s study, private sector funding accounts for a quarter of all non profit income in South Africa, and a number of corporations have also made contributions through community foundations and through community chests. For example, in 1998, the private sector contributed about R3 billion to the sector. And according to the Corporate Social Investment handbook, the total giving from the corporate sector in 2003 was R2.35 billion, a 6.8% increase over 2002 and up from R980 million in 1987 (CSI Handbook, 2004). In South Africa, it was Meyer Feldberg, a professor at the University of Cape Town, who first raised the question of corporate social responsibility or investment in 1972. He argued that companies in South Africa needed to model themselves on what their counterparts did in the United States by getting involved in the communities where they sold their products and where their employees lived. Consequently in 1973, the Anglo American and De Beers Chairman Fund were established. This was followed
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by the Urban Foundation in 1976, which was created to respond to urban development issues across the country. However there was no public demand for corporate social investments at the time and as a result, such programs used to be ad hoc. However, CSI got a new meaning in South Africa in 1977 with the creation of Sullivan Principles, which required US companies to disclose their social investments or close down their operations. US companies were also prohibited from supporting the military and from giving government loans. This meant that companies had to develop CSI programs in a more proactive manner than before: as a result, many South African companies formed charitable foundations or trusts in the 1980s, many of which supported institutions of tertiary education. In the 1990s, with political reforms in place and the transition to democracy inevitable, companies began to change the way they did business. Liberty Life Foundation, for example, in 1990, invited other companies to join in a national Educare initiative. The foundation pledged R100 million for Educare investment. Similarly, in 1991, about 15 companies came together and established the Joint Education Trust (JET) which was one of the first corporate initiatives to address social problems in South Africa by upgrading the quality of teachers, advancing literacy and numeracy among adults and improving educational and job prospects for young people (Alperson, 1995: 6). In the years following the end of apartheid the CSI programs of most companies became increasingly visible as they proved their democratic credentials in the new South Africa. There also was a lot of coverage of CSI in the mainstream media and through conferences and workshops, and the government’s own Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP) also linked CSI to the overall development agenda. Increasingly, companies decentralized their CSI programs from the Chairman’s offices to other departments, although to what effect it is hard to say. Steven Friedman and associates argue in their paper called Like Cheese, Like Chalk: Professionalism and whim in corporate giving at Anglogold Ashanti and Pick’ N’ Pay (2005) that there is no evidence that such companies that have professionalized or moved their CSI programs from the chairman’s desk, have yielded superior development outcomes to the more whimsical and ad hoc variety of corporate giving. Before its closure in 2006, the Southern African Grant-Makers Association (SAGA) coordinated much of the CSI in South Africa, although with mixed success as many companies may well have preferred to have implemented and run their CSI programs. This was particularly the case when it came to companies managing their own public relations interests: these often serve as the driving
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force behind any philanthropic endeavors rather than the needs of individual communities. In the South African context, corporate philanthropy has involved the channeling of large sums of money (R3 billion) to the nonprofit sector but it certainly has not played a role that can be said to be transformational when it comes to changing the structural relations of power or addressing the root causes of poverty. Corporate philanthropy’s support of community foundations for example, has arguably contributed to them sidelining the very communities in whose name they exist. In the same way, Kuljian has argued that the majority of companies remain reluctant to work with the marginalized, to promote their voice and support advocacy campaigns (Kuljian, 2005: 20). With more research being conducted on corporate philanthropy in Africa, the picture is likely to be enlightened particularly across the continent. The Trust Africa state of philanthropy initiative is likely to shed light into this area from a continental perspective-beyond South Africa.
Concluding Assessment Philanthropy in Africa takes many forms, chief of which are indigenous mechanisms, foundations (private and public), community foundations, corporate philanthropy and individual giving. As highlighted in the entry, giving is not a preserve of the few rich people, but it is a domain that includes the poor as well. The poor are also taking an interest in their affairs. Hence a significant number of individual givers include the poor who give to a number of causes that include addressing poverty, charity and also driven by their religious beliefs. There is a significant number of foundations that include international ones like Mott, Ford, Kellogg, and other new entrants. There has been a very important development in the continent that has seen African foundations sprouting up everywhere with increased speed. This development is very important for it has the potential to reverse power relations that exist between the North and South. Also, there is a possibility that these new foundations can break the dependency cycle that currently characterizes relations between the nonprofit sector and international foundations. Lastly, it is possible that the new foundations can relate at an equal footing with their counterparts from the north. But equally important is to caution that the same African foundations can recreate the same imbalances that currently define relations between the north and the south (Moyo, 2008). Africa still needs more research and studies to track the philanthropic flows and assess their impact on development and transforming societal structures. More importantly will be the alignment of corporate philanthropy
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with national priorities as well as with the activities and processes of traditional philanthropy. More often there is no working relation between traditional philanthropy, corporate philanthropy and the state. New studies in the continent such as the focus on Diaspora philanthropy, the focus on indigenous philanthropy as well as optimizing institutional philanthropy are going to be useful in defining the philanthropic terrain in Africa within the next 5–10 years. Currently, philanthropy in Africa is still very underresearched, but with more philanthropic institutions emerging and more research being conducted continentally, the philanthropic map is slowly being drawn.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in East Africa ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in North Africa ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in West Africa ▶ Community Development Organizations ▶ Community Philanthropy ▶ Cooperatives ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ CS & SC in Central and Sourthern Africa ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Philanthropy, Definition and History ▶ Self-Help Groups ▶ WK Kellogg Foundation ▶ World Bank
References/Further Readings Alperson, M. (1995). Foundations for a new democracy: Corporate social investment in South Africa. Johannesburg, South Africa: Ravan Press. Bridgewater, P. (2003, March 28). The African diaspora and its influence on African development. Remarks at Kentucky State University, Frankfort, KY. Chen, L. (2002). Philanthropy and social change in Latin America: Strategies and lessons. Workshop presentation, The David Rockefeller Centre for Latin American Studies and The Hauser Centre for Non Profit Organizations, Harvard University. Daly, M. (2007). Philanthropy in Egypt: A comprehensive study on local philanthropy in Egypt and potentials of directing giving and volunteering towards development. Cairo, Egypt: Center for Development Services. Everatt, D., & Solanki, G. (2005). A nation of givers? Social giving among South Africans. Durban, South Africa: Centre for Civil Society. Friedman, S., Hudson, J., & Mackay, S. (2005). Like cheese, like chalk? ‘Professionalism’ and ‘Whim’ in corporate giving at Anglogold Ashanti and Pick’ N’ Pay. Durban, South Africa: Centre for Civil Society. Global Status Report (2008). 2008 Community foundations global status report; www.wingsweb.org/Information/publications_Commun ity_2008_Main.cfm.
Habib, A., & Maharaj, B. (2008). Giving and solidarity: Resource flows for poverty alleviation and development in South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press. Kuljian, C. (2005). Philanthropy and equity: The case of South Africa. Cambridge, MA: Global Equity Initiative, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Mahomed, H. (2009). Conceptual frameworks influencing social justice philanthropy: A study of independent funders in South Africa. In The state of philanthropy in Africa. Senegal, Dakar: TrustAfrica. Wilkinson-Maposa, S., Fowler, A., Oliver-Evans, C., & Mulenga, C. F. N. (2006). The poor philanthropist: How and why the poor help and give each other. Cape Town, South Africa: Compress. Moyo, B. (2004). Dimensions of philanthropy in Southern Africa. Paper prepared for the Ford Foundation Retreat, Ford Foundation, Jinja, Uganda. Moyo, B. (2006). Family foundations in South Africa. Paper prepared for the State of Social Giving in South Africa Report Series, Centre for Civil Society, Durban, South Africa. Moyo, B. (2008, September). Can the new African foundations break the dependence syndrome? Alliance Magazine, pp. 40–41. Mutuku, M. (2006). Process makes perfect. In Katharine Pearson (Ed.), Donors ourselves: Rural development philanthropy from East Tennessee to East Africa and beyond (pp. 31–43). Whitesburg, KY: The Center for Rural Strategies. Ngondi-Houghton, C. (2004). Philanthropy in East Africa: Challenges and opportunities. Paper prepared for the Ford Foundation Retreat, Ford Foundation, Jinja, Uganda. Ngondi-Houghton, C. (2008). Promoting philanthropy in Kenya: The case for tax law reform. Farnham, UK: Allavida. Rockey, V. (Ed.) (2004). CSI handbook (7th ed.). South Africa: Trialogue. SAGA. (2004). South Africa philanthropy and the Fiscus: A SAGA position paper. Johannesburg, South Africa: SAGA. Swilling, M., & Russell, B. (2002). The size and scope of the non profit sector in South Africa. Durban, South Africa: Centre for Civil Society. Sy, M., & Hathie, I. (2009). Institutional forms of philanthropy in West Africa. In Bhelankos, Moyo and Paul O Mensah (Eds.),. The state of philanthropy in Africa. Senegal, Dakar: TrustAfrica. Theunissen, C. (2003). How do people in Rustenburg give? Survey Report. Greater Rustenburg, South Africa: Greater Rustenburg Community Foundation. World Bank. (2007). Concept note: Mobilising the African diaspora for development. Capacity Development Management Action Plan Unit, World Bank.
Philanthropy in Australia KYM MADDEN, WENDY SCAIFE Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Introduction Philanthropy in Australia has developed according to cultural and historical circumstance. Traditionally, Australia does not have a strong culture of philanthropy, in part
Philanthropy in Australia
because of a deep-seated reliance on government for basic services. Its charity law and political traditions are drawn from the United Kingdom and it remains highly Westernized, although less so than in the past, as its Asia-Pacific location and regional migration slowly blurs this distinction. Vibrant indigenous populations also feature in Australia, each unique in their history and traditions. As in other countries, these first people tend to be less advantaged than the remainder population and philanthropy in Australia has tried to improve this situation. Philanthropy in Australia continues to develop, as Australian individuals are increasingly making generous gifts to community causes, and policy and taxation incentives are further developed to facilitate this. Background
Up until World War II, assistance to the disadvantaged was largely provided by charities, especially religious organizations, with charitable giving low-level and informal. A few late nineteenth and early twentieth century figures such as by Dr. William Wyatt, Alfred Felton, and Sidney Myer stood out for their generosity but, by and large, philanthropic activity was subdued. Partly this was due to Australia’s colonial history as a penal outpost, with a strong layer of authority, and a cultural disposition towards privacy, both in the use of one’s wealth and personal convictions (Liffman, 2008). The end of the war saw the Australian government carve a stronger role as provider of social services. Over the ensuing years, Australians came to rely upon government funding for basic services, mainly through subsidies of existing organizations at a regional and state level. Post-World War II, with better education and a growing economy, there has been a gradual increase in the number of philanthropists and philanthropic trusts. More recently, widespread access to University education, microeconomic reform and globalization have helped to create unprecedented levels of prosperity and accelerated philanthropic activity. Other factors have also encouraged giving to rise. For example, in more recent decades, Australians have witnessed a string of national, and international disasters, as well as wars. Technology has allowed media to show the impact of such tragedies as never before – in their living rooms – and opened up the capacity for individuals to find and share information online. Media also gave attention to inequalities in Australia, pushed along by social movements to address human rights that have also swept other countries. At the same time, the Australian Government began signaling its limitations in meeting social needs and introduced policies that changed its funding practices for the sector.
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A watershed came in the late 1990s when the Australian Government established The Prime Minister’s Community Business Partnership to promote a sense of ‘‘mutual obligation’’ and create a policy platform to increase the level of philanthropy and volunteering in that country. A concentrated suite of taxation incentives were introduced in 2001, adding to the 100% tax deduction that Australians already could claim for all donations to approved not-for-profit organizations. Australia restricts more tightly than some other countries those organizations that can offer tax deductions to donors (see Section ‘‘Definitions’’) and as yet does not offer structures as charitable remainder trusts nor does it have estate taxes that encourage end-of-life gifts. In 2004, the Australian Government undertook Giving Australia, the most comprehensive measure of giving in the country to date, estimating the value of private giving at 0.68% of Gross Domestic Product. Other smaller studies – mainly by Universities, peak bodies and the Australian Bureau of Statistics – continue to be undertaken to benchmark changes in philanthropic giving in Australia. With the change of the Federal Government in 2007 to the Australian Labor Party, a Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion was introduced with the goal of a Social Compact with the nonprofit sector and legislative reform for greater transparency and accountability of not-for-profit organizations. Giving by Individuals
Individual donations, estimated at AU$7.7b in 2004, including AU$2b for gambling-related donations, overwhelmingly dominate business and foundation in this country. The total amount given by individuals has been rising over the past 2 decades, fuelled by rising private wealth levels, a growing population and slowly increasing average gifts. Overall, individual giving is characterized by high participation but of relatively low amounts. According to Giving Australia, over 87% of Australia’s 13.4 million adult Australians reported at least one donation in 2004, the year of the Asian Tsunami, with an average yearly gift of AU$424 and a median of AU$130 (including religious giving). The Australian Bureau of Statistics estimates that in 2006, 77% reported donating at least once. In terms of level of giving, Giving Australia research suggests that fewer than one in ten Australians give more than AU$1,100 per year and, despite some generous exceptions, high income Australians give only slightly more than the average. Longitudinal research undertaken annually by the Australian Centre of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies supports the trend to increased total giving, as well as relatively small giving
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amounts by individuals: Australians who make and claim donations (38.4% of the adult population) gave 0.33% of their taxable incomes in 2005, donors with taxable incomes over AU$100,000 gave just 0.45%. Bequest giving figures are scarce but suggest that between 5% and 8% of Australians are likely to leave a gift to charity in their wills. While donors are drawn to various cause areas, community and welfare organizations are the most widely supported, followed by health and medical research. The proportion of Australians giving to religious causes is relatively low at around 30% but the average donation tends to be high, thus religious giving accounts for more than one-third of all giving. Giving patterns also show the importance of planning giving as well as affiliation with an organization for higher gift levels. Giving Australia spotlighted the key donor motivations as identifying with a mission or cause, reciprocation or expectation of need, and respect and trust for a community organization. Foundation Giving
Foundation activity in Australia has existed since 1881 but can only be estimated as no reporting system exists. More than 2,000 entities are believed to operate, across the gamut of family, corporate and community foundations, distributing an estimated AU$1b per annum. Taxation reform in recent years saw the creation of a new type of foundation: Prescribed Private Funds or PPFs (See Section ‘‘Definitions’’). Since 2001, more than 800 PPFs have been established by individuals and businesses (many of whom were not previously engaged in philanthropy) and combined assets stand at an estimated AU $1b. Donations into PPFs were AU$471.7m in 2007, an increase of 74% from 2006, and distributions were AU $117m, an increase of 58% from 2006 (CPNS, 2008). Support is commonly directed into cultural and welfare organizations, with a common goal to meet otherwise unmet needs, to fund innovatively, as well as to fund ‘‘strategically’’ to address root causes of social problems to achieve systemic change. Giving by Corporations
Giving Australia charted corporate giving at AU$3b in 2004, suggesting a strong increase in giving to community causes over the previous decade. (Like-for-like comparisons are not possible due to different methods of collecting data.) In 2004, two out of three Australian businesses surveyed reported donations, preferring cash (estimated a AU$2.2b nationally) or goods and services (AU$1b). Typically, Australian business will support community causes for a variety of reasons in a variety of ways. Marketing and
employee relations benefits have been increasingly sought, however, as well as making a genuine difference to the cause supported. Multidimensional partnerships with community organizations, involving long-term cooperation and employee volunteering, are on the rise, often replacing sponsorship. Interest in giving by business is, for many, part of corporate citizenship and corporate social responsibility which have been increasingly discussed in the past decade. More companies, especially larger ones, are instigating a CSR manager role and various CSR benchmark tools exist. Australia is a signatory to the UN Compact and, while not mandatory, an Australian CSR Standard has existed since 2003 (ASA 8003). More companies are creating infrastructure for their community engagement, including budgets, lines of reporting and qualified staff, with foundations especially PPFS gaining in favor (see Section ‘‘Definitions’’). Most recently, with the environment looming large on the public agenda, businesses have turned their attention to the environmental responsibilities of business, and the impact of this on their investment in community engagement – and giving to not-for-profit organizations – is not yet known. Volunteering
According to ABS Voluntary Work, Australia, some 34% of Australian adults volunteered 713 million h in 2006, with the highest number of people in the 35–44 age range. Median weekly volunteering was 1.1 h with an annual median of 56 h. A slight bias toward more female volunteers is evident (36–32%) as is a higher participation rate of 38% outside capital cities compared with 32% in these cities. Volunteers worked most commonly for sports/ physical recreation, education/training, community/welfare and religious organizations. Their prime activity was fundraising (48%), food preparation and serving (31%), teaching/information provision (28%) and administration (26%). The primary motivation for volunteering was ‘‘Helping others or the community’’ (57%), followed by ‘‘personal satisfaction’’ at 44%. Volunteers are also more likely to make a monetary donation than nonvolunteers (85% compared with 72%). A recent growth area is corporate volunteering.
Definitions The terms ‘‘giving’’ and ‘‘charitable giving’’ have been more widely used in Australia and New Zealand than the term ‘‘philanthropy’’ and loosely refer to all types of freely given donations or gifts to formal organizations in the community sector, especially money, but including inkind gifts and volunteering as gifts of time. The term
Philanthropy in Australia
‘‘philanthropy’’ has come into more common usage in recent times and its meaning is still evolving. The national peak body for philanthropy, Philanthropy Australia, has embraced a wide notion of contribution to guide its efforts. It defines philanthropy as ‘‘the planned and structured giving of money, time, information, goods and services, voice and influence to improve the wellbeing of humanity and the community’’ (Philanthropy Australia, 2008a). Such a definition has potential to inspire donors in the type of gift they are best equipped to make to the community. It does, however, create methodological challenges for taking a holistic measure of philanthropic behavior. A specific term used in Australia is ‘‘Prescribed Private Fund’’ or ‘‘PPF.’’ This refers to a new type of trust, similar to the US family foundation, that was one of several measures taken by the Australian Government in 2001 to increase philanthropic giving in that country. PPFs allow individuals, families and businesses to make 100% tax-deductible donations in the form of cash or property (without any onus to raise public funds), to build capital in the fund over several years, and to distribute to approved not-for-profit organizations in a variety of ways, as agreed with the Australian Taxation Office. Not-for-profit organizations approved to receive donations from PPFs are called ‘‘Deductible Gift Recipient’’ organizations (‘‘DGRs’’). DGRs form the basis of Australia’s system of tax-deductible giving, with individuals alone claiming tax-deductible donations of AU$1.47b in 2005 and some 20,000 in existence. The largest category of organizations with DGR status are Public Benevolent Institutions (or ‘‘PBIs’’) whose primary purpose is the direct relief of poverty, sickness, destitution, suffering, or misfortune and for the benefit of the community.
Key Issues Lack of Data
Just as, historically, funding for the sector has been managed by government in a localized and piecemeal way so, too, has legislation for the nonprofit sector developed, making reporting highly variable. Today, donors are seeking more information from the sector yet its history makes access to meaningful information difficult. The issue has been recognized by the Federal Government, which is looking towards a national data register and a standard chart of accounts. The capacity of the sector to gather key information for government, as well as for funders, must be considered, however, and necessary supports put in place. Also, the distinctive nature of ‘‘performance’’ for not-for-profit organizations must also be
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taken into account when performance indicators are identified. In addition, Australia’s does not regularly conduct national giving statistics as do other countries, although some types of data are collected such as volunteering. Without a benchmark by which to regularly gauge the extent of philanthropic activity, policymaking and the strategies of intermediary organizations are less informed. Cultural Factors Affecting Philanthropy
The Giving Australia study highlighted several strongly held beliefs that limit philanthropy. One is that paying taxes is enforced philanthropy – the government is addressing social needs by taxes raised – and that additional giving is not needed. Another is that the best notfor-profit organizations spend all, or nearly all, of their income on their mission and that infrastructure spending should be as close to zero as possible, with volunteer not paid staff and negligible money spent on marketing and fundraising. Thirdly, the term ‘‘philanthropy’’ does not hold much resonance for many Australians: they are unsure what it actually means and do not aspire to be philanthropic. Yet, Australians have exhibited a remarkable spirit of generosity, with the public donating over AU $360m to the 2004 Asian Tsunami relief efforts, a sum far exceeding expectations (Downer, 2006), suggesting opportunities exist to further develop philanthropic understanding and practice in this country. The Affluent
Australia has ranked as one of the countries with the fastest growing level of millionaires but this good fortune has not readily translated to increased giving. The largest cohort of wealthy Australians have taxable incomes of $100k–$500k but only claim donations of 0.45% of their income, per average donor. Those with taxable incomes over $1m give 0.98% of incomes again lagging well behind high net worth giving trends in other nations. Some four out of ten with taxable incomes between $100,000 and $1 million did not claim any tax-deductible donations. As such, with the exception of substantive but isolated pockets of philanthropy in Australia, charitable giving is significantly less for the wealthy than in the United States (0.68% of GDP compared to 1.6%) (Giving Australia, 2005).
Future Directions Australia has long been the ‘‘land of plenty’’ – abundant resources, space, and relative political and economic stability. This standing positions the nation to be a sturdier part of global philanthropy than it currently is. As Australia evolves into an Asia-Pacific player from its traditional British Commonwealth identity, increased giving may be
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directed to need in neighboring nations. Partnership with growing philanthropic powerhouses such as Asia may also blossom. At the same time, 10% of Australians live below the poverty line according to the ACOSS Australia Fair Report of 2007 and many other local issues will continue to propel more giving across cause areas from the environment to indigenous issues. This scenario is likely to continue to drive philanthropic growth, which has been steadily lifting since its measurement began 3 decades ago. New approaches seen elsewhere are becoming evident in Australia – giving circles, venture philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and corporate community investment can all be noted. The forces of ethical investing, global economic crises, climate change, corporate social responsibility and intergenerational change/wealth transfer are shaping the nature, amount and direction of giving in Australia as they are elsewhere. Specific transformation is likely to derive from current government and sector policy explorations such as: the proposed creation of a National Compact between government and the Third Sector; more stringent and standardized disclosure regimes for nonprofit organizations, including the new Prescribed Private Funds; easier giving and charitable set up through harmonized fundraising legislation across all states; the possibility of a regulator/facilitator such as a Charity Commission and further proposed taxation reform. This latter possibility alone is unlikely to unlock the giving potential in Australia’s high net worth population. Given the more rigorous scrutiny of the sector by academics, governments and sector peaks, it is possible that more muscle will go into promoting giving in a bid to unleash the power of these philanthropic dollars and the civic benefits of volunteering and community participation. Increasing sophistication is another emergent focus, both on the part of nonprofit organizations delivering programs and the individual and institutional donors funding them. The growth in professional courses for foundation and nonprofit leaders is one indicator of this progress. Issues that mar potential progress include a shortage of nonprofit leaders, both paid and volunteer, and the related concern of limited financial and other recognition of nonprofit careers. The Third Sector in Australia is relatively new to acting and thinking together as a sector and its identity is evolving. In summary, economic, political, legal, social, and sectoral change will all impact the future of philanthropy.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Foundations, Family
▶ Philanthropy Australia ▶ Tax Policy
References/Further Readings ABS. (2002). Australian national accounts: Non-profit institutions satellite account, 1999–2000. Cat No 5256.0 Retrieved 13 October 2008, from http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Lookup/ 5256.0Main + Features11999–2000?OpenDocument. ACOSS (Australian Council of Social Service). (2007). A fair go or all Australians: International comparisons, 2007, 10 essentials. Strawberry Hills, NSW. Australian Bureau of Statistics. (2007). National Volunteer Survey 2006, Canberra, Australia: Australian Bureau of Statistics. CPNS. (2008). Prescribed private funds. CPNS Current Issues Sheet 2008/1 Retrieved 13 October 2008, from http://www.bus.qut.edu. au/research/cpns/documents/2008_1_PPFs.pdf. Downer, A. (2006, 30 March). ACFID Tsunami Report Launch. Retrieved 2008, 6 October, from http://www.ausaid.gov.au/media/release.cfm? BC ¼ Speech&ID ¼ 9695_7437_9158_3584_2407. FaHCSIA. (2008). A national compact. Retrieved 13 October 2008, from http://www.facs.gov.au/internet/facsinternet.nsf/communities/austra lian_compact.htm. Giving Australia. (2005). Giving Australia: Research on philanthropy in Australia (No. FaCS2086.0510). Canberra, Australia: Prime Minister’s Business Community Partnership, Department of Family and Community Services, Australian Government. Leat, D. (2004). The development of community foundations in Australia: Recreating the American dream. Brisbane, Australia: Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, QUT. Liffman, M. (2008). The cultural and social history of philanthropy in Australia. Australian Philanthropy, (67), 4–5. Madden, K. (2006). Growing national philanthropy: Australia steps forward. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing, 11(3), 155–163. McGregor- Lowndes, M., & Newton, C. (2008). An examination of tax deductible donations made by individual Australian taxpayers in 2005–06. Brisbane, Australia: Australian Centre for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies, QUT. Philanthropy Australia. (2008a). Philanthropy Australia. Retrieved 6 October 2008, from http://www.philanthropy.org.au. Philanthropy Australia. (2008b). Timeline of Australian Philanthropy. Retrieved 6 October 2008, from http://philanthropywiki.org.au/ index.php/Timeline_of_Australian_Philanthropy. Senate Standing Committee on Economics. (2008). Disclosure regimes for charities and not-for-profit organisations. Canberra, Australia: Australian Government.
Philanthropy in Europe VOLKER THEN, KONSTANTIN KEHL Universita¨t Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
Introduction Philanthropy in Europe is on the increase. This impression can at least be developed when looking at organized
Philanthropy in Europe
philanthropy (foundations) in many EU countries. Recent data estimate the number of foundations in Europe at about 110,000, total foundation assets in the European Union at above €350 billion and more likely close to 1,000 billion, and annual spending at approximately €83 billion. These figures are roughly estimated based on survey materials (for lack of any more reliable direct documentation), (Survey data of the research network of the European Foundation Centre as well as a CSI survey conducted for the Feasibility Study on a European Foundation Statute; see European Commission (2009)). However, they are clearly higher than their US counterparts. In addition, they do not fully reflect recent dynamics in the sector and substantial growth rates in countries like Germany, where more than half of all existing foundations were created in the last 10 years. Generally, the total contribution of philanthropy to nonprofit sector financing is not available in an updated current version for all European countries, but JohnsHopkins data (Salamon et al., 1999: 480) suggest, that it ranges between 3.4% (Germany) and 18.8% in Spain (top country in Western Europe, Eastern European average 20.5%) and reaches a Western European average of 7.2%. Europe includes both strong state (welfare state) and liberal public policy environments and therefore shows a variety of nonprofit funding characteristics, depending on the individual countries. In general, the boundaries between the sectors as well as the division of labor between the public and nonprofit sectors are under review. Only extended data coverage currently not available yet could tell what degree of structural change has already affected the nonprofit sector as a whole and philanthropy in particular. At the same time, the roles of foundations have come under review and philanthropy is increasingly challenged for its effectiveness and its creativity both from within and without the sector. As a result an increasing professional debate focuses on impact measurement, evaluation or even bold approaches such as a social return on investment analysis of foundation programs. Corporate philanthropy still seems to differ substantially between the Anglo-Saxon and the continental European worlds. While a number of corporate foundations exist in continental European countries, their role is quite different from that in the United Kingdom or the United States.
Individual Giving On total private giving no overall European data exist, and even for single countries, only scarce information can be made available.
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Individual giving by private donors in the United Kingdom was at £10.6 (€11.83 billion) for the year 2007/ 2008, in Austria at roughly €0.41 billion for the year 2006, while German total giving can be estimated at €16.6 billion (2006/2007) including voluntary ‘‘church tax,’’ which is being collected by public authorities on behalf of the churches, but only applies when citizens are members of any church, or at 4.0 billion (2004) when only considering cash donations according to tax returns. This only gives a very superficial impression of European private giving, which however most likely lags behind US giving (while the foundation sector exceeds that of the United States). The percentage of donors who give to charity reveals a distinct heterogeneity in Europe: As Priller and Sommerfeld (2005) pointed out, the share of all citizens ranks from only 6% in Hungary to more than 40% in countries like Sweden, Norway, and the Netherlands, while the latter cases captivate a high degree of female giving. In France, Luxemburg and the Netherlands donating seems to be a phenomenon of the elderly. Apart from that, particularly in Germany age, higher education, a better economic situation and a strong religious commitment are factors that positively affect the willingness to donate. Hence, it is not very surprising that the total capacity of giving remains static during the last years, because foremost church membership rates in Germany declined rapidly since the 1970s. Recent data (NCVO, 2008) suggest that giving variation depends on both gender and marital status in the United Kingdom (single men: 43.9%, married women: 62.3%).
Foundations A closer look at the European foundation landscape identifies the enormous degree of variation as the key characteristics of foundations in Europe. While all European countries know some legal form of public benefit foundation, which is usually also the predominant form, only some countries also accept foundations for other purposes like private benefit activities or as legal form to organize business corporations. The exceptions from this rule are the Netherlands, Latvia and Estonia. However, the scope of what counts as public benefit and the mechanisms by which these purposes are identified or accepted by public policy differ substantially. European foundations can be distinguished from their US counterparts by their variety of operating styles, too. European philanthropy includes a strong share of operating foundations, foundations for private benefit purposes, foundations defined as quasi-public institutions (public law foundations) as well as a choice of legal
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forms to organize what are equivalent functions in different countries. In many European countries, the traditional operating foundations which still continue traditions originating from the Christian roots of European philanthropy are still very numerous and at the same time provide for some of the largest philanthropic institutions in Europe (e.g., the von Bodelschwinghsche Anstalten Bethel in Bielefeld, Germany, which employ some 15,000 staff and account for an annual operating budget in medical care, care for senior and disabled people etc. of €810 m). These types of operating foundations running institutions are numerous in countries such as Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and elsewhere – frequently still as faith based institutions related to either the catholic or protestant churches. In Denmark, a special legal form provides for the socalled corporate foundations, which both operate forprofit enterprises and public benefit activities in one legal entity. As Steen Thomsen calculated (European Commission, 2009), they account for a very substantial part of the Danish foundation sector. The Danish commercial foundations have a share of 12% of the Danish foundations sector by their number and of 19% of the equity of all companies in Denmark. Commercial foundations related to the number of all companies in Denmark only have a share of 0.75% which means that commercial foundations control rather larger Danish companies and represent highly concentrated investments. If the comparison is only made to limited companies, the number of commercial foundations is equivalent to 3.16% of all Danish limited companies. The sector of commercial foundations is itself highly concentrated with the 76 largest commercial foundations amounting to more than two thirds of the equity of all commercial foundations. In absolute terms, the total equity of Danish commercial foundations ranges at €34.6 billion, that of the 76 largest ones still at almost €24.6 billion, while the total equity of all companies in Denmark as of 2005 was approximating €183 billion. (Exchange rate as of May 28, 2008: 1 Kr. = €0.13405.) The total equity of commercial foundations is equivalent to 16.6% of GDP (2005, current prices; Statistics Denmark, 2007). The number of employees employed by companies controlled by those 76 largest commercial foundations totals at 294,367 employees, which is a share of 25.8% of all employees. However, the employees actually working in all foundations directly only amount to 2.15% of the total workforce. This type of foundation structures which owns the majority of equity on large corporations also exists
in Germany, Sweden, Austria, and the Netherlands. However, in those countries, foundation-controlled corporations do not reach a similar share of the overall economy. Private purpose foundations are most prominent in Austria: 2,843 private benefit foundations are documented, (Data produced by the Research Institute on Nonprofit Organization, Wirtschaftsuniversita¨t Wien, Vienna. By courtesy of Prof. Michael Meyer, to whom we are grateful for allowing us to use the research data of the Institute. Arnold (2008: 5) refers to 3,145 private benefit foundations, but may be including a number of dissolved foundations.) of which almost 90% were created since the Private Purpose Foundation Law passed in 1994, as Chancellor Gusenbauer reported in the newspaper Der Standard (2007). Their total asset base is estimated to be €40 billion by TV station ORF (2008), while other sources (e.g., Die Presse, 2007) even refer to a total asset base of €60 billion (which could potentially be explained by different valuations depending on the accounting approach applied). According to recent research, a number of Austrian private purpose foundations are hybrid organizations in that they pursue public benefit purposes as well (369 foundations, 13%) or were even established for public benefit purposes only (217 foundations, 7.6%). The predominant issues are culture, sports and leisure issues, education and research purposes, health, and social purposes. Almost half of all private purpose foundations in Austria were created in Vienna. (Calculations by Research Institute for Nonprofit Organizations, Wirtschaftsuniversita¨t Wien, Vienna, by courtesy of Prof. Michael Meyer.) The overall economic relevance of the private purposes foundations in Austria is difficult to assess because we do not have information on the breakdown of their assets. Scattered information points out that in 79 of the 100 largest Austrian corporations, private purpose foundations hold significant equity (Forum Privatstiftungen, 2008). However, such estimates may be too high as private purpose foundations hold a majority of equity in 23 of the top 200 Austrian corporations – which still amounts to a substantial share of equity capitalization. The total turnover of these corporations is €19.1 billion, the total no. of employees 119,000 (calculations by CSI Heidelberg). (Note that Austrian Chancellor Gusenbauer claims in Der Standard (2007) that ca. 500,000 employees work in companies which are at least partly owned by private purpose foundations.) Related to the Austrian economy (total GDP of €268.74 billion; see BMWA, 2008), the total assets of Austrian private purpose foundations represent approx. 15%, and the turnover of the top 200
Philanthropy in Europe
corporations controlled by private purpose foundations (equity majority) accounts for 7% of GDP. Public law foundations are too scattered and systematic research is missing to assess their relevance, but in continental civil law countries they play a major role in allowing public bodies to organize public functions such as cultural, cultural heritage, research, or educational institutions. On a different level, the grant-making foundation does not constitute the ‘‘natural’’ modus operandi of European foundations. While in the Anglo-Saxon foundation sector grant-making foundations are almost totally predominant, the European continent is characterized by combinations of grant-making, hybrid (both operating and grant-making) and operating foundations. In Germany, their respective shares are 60%, 20% and 20% (Bundesverband Dt. Stiftungen, 2008: 108), while ISTAT (2001) suggests that self-operating foundations’ share can be estimated to be much higher in Italy, because here selfoperated programs account for more than 64% of total yearly expenditure. In total, foundation sectors in a number of countries have grown to very substantial size and number more than 10,000 foundations each. Countries with such large foundation sectors are Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Spain, and Sweden. Poland and the United Kingdom follow next and their foundation sectors have grown to 6,000 and 8,800 institutions respectively. Outside the European Union, Switzerland is also characterized by a very large foundation sector (more than 8,000 foundations, including corporate foundations as well as family and church foundations, showing highest activity in the fields of education/research and social services). A totally exceptional country is the Netherlands which has a sector of more than 150,000 foundations, of which the vast majority are nonprofit organizations without any asset base which use the legal form of the Dutch stichting, because it is much easier to set up than an association. If the criterion of an asset based institution following a nonprofit purpose mission is applied, as done in a Report to the European Commission (2009: 18), the number of foundations (which can be seen as functional equivalents of similar types in other EU countries) is closer to 1,000. European Foundation Centre data allow for an estimate of a total asset base of EU foundation the range of €350 billion, based on survey data from 16 countries and extrapolated for the rest. If however data of a recent survey conducted by the CSI of Heidelberg University are used (ibid: 19–26), we can estimate substantially higher totals which suggest that the European foundation sector has a total asset base of close to €1,000 billion. European
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foundations account for a total expenditure of estimated €83 billion which is substantially more than the US counterpart of $43 (2007, €33, exchange rate of December 10, 2008). Not surprisingly, in many European countries the foundation sector is highly concentrated and the top 15 concentration ratios are between 30% and 98% of annual sector expenditures (top 15 understood as the share of the top 15 foundations in the country). In countries with a large sector, the ratio ranks between 40% and 60% in France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom, and at 30% in Hungary. European Union foundations employ approximately 1.4 m FTE staff, and in addition the foundations mobilize volunteer contributions of time to the amount of another 1.5 m FTE. Employment of substantial numbers of staff is concentrated in very few countries, with strong employment in the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain (two thirds of all foundation employment in the EU), with most of the remaining employees working in Poland and Hungary, as well as France, Denmark and Italy. A general picture of the areas of activities is difficult to draw because a considerable degree of variation can be identified among European foundations. However, with very few exceptions, foundations are active in four major areas: Education and research, health, social services and arts and culture. In eight European countries (Austria, Belgium, Britain, Finland, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Switzerland), education and research is the foremost purpose which foundations serve. In France and the Netherlands, the key area of interest is health, in Spain it is arts and culture, in Portugal and Norway social services, and by way of exception housing/development in Ireland. It is interesting to note that three out of the four key areas of activities (with the exception of arts and culture) are also the key areas of the nonprofit sector as a whole (Schlu¨ter et al., 2001: 57–58). For the relations between foundations and the state, both their scale and their position relative to the state are crucial. Anheier and Daly (2007: 17–18) identify six different models to describe the relations on a very basic level: 1. The social democratic model: foundations exist in a highly developed welfare state and in a well coordinated relationship with the state, in which ‘‘operating foundations complement or supplement state activities.’’ 2. The state-controlled model: In this model, foundations are ‘‘subservient to the state’’ and subject to extensive oversight and tight control. 3. The corporatist model: Here, foundations exist in some form of subsidiarity relation with the state.
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They ‘‘are part of the welfare or educational system, and many combine grant-making and operative dimensions.’’ 4. The liberal model: ‘‘Foundations form a largely parallel system next to government, frequently seeing themselves as alternatives to the mainstream, and as safeguards of non-majoritarian preferences.’’ 5. The peripheral model: Foundations play an insignificant role. 6. The business model: Foundations are frequently used as ‘‘instruments of corporate citizenship.’’ This overview of role models of foundations in societies was developed by combining two lines of argument: The third sector regime types as suggested by Salamon and Anheier (1998), based on Esping-Andersen’s (1990) influential welfare state regimes, which in turn combine public sector welfare spending with the economic size of the sector. The models were identified based on the profiling of foundations in foundation research in Europe (and beyond), which suggests seven different roles which foundation strategies can play (Anheier and Daly, 2007: 13–14): 1. Complementarity – serving otherwise undersupplied groups under conditions of demand heterogeneity and public budget constraints 2. Substitution – for roles otherwise played by the state 3. Redistribution – of economic resources in favor of lower-income groups 4. Innovation – promoting innovation of different levels, be it perception, values, or social relationships 5. Social and policy change – working in favor of social justice and inclusion by promoting structural change 6. Preservation of traditions and cultures – opposing change and supporting existing cultural pattern against major driving forces for social change 7. Promotion of pluralism – working in favor of diversity and experimentation The liberal model is represented by the United States and the United Kingdom, the social democratic model by Sweden, the corporatist model by Germany, the statist model by most of French foundation history except the last few years, and foundations have been peripheral in countries like Ireland and Greece.
Corporations According to the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP, 2007), the level of corporate philanthropy is difficult to assess for Europe as a whole. For the United States, data are available and according to the
Corporate Giving Standard, total corporate giving of the 136 corporations surveyed rose to $11.2 billion, while total giving by corporate foundations reached $4.4 billion. The two predominant causes to which corporate giving contributed were health and social services at 31% and education at 25%, while environmental issues were the least funded cause at 3%. Total 2006 giving of those companies ranked at 0.14% of total revenue and at between 0.86% (companies with increased giving against previous year) and 1.24% (companies with decreased giving against previous year; Foundation Center, 2008: 3–21). Any similar data cannot be identified for Europe as a whole or for single countries, but there is evidence which supports the assumption that corporate giving is looking up in Europe: According to a PwC (2007) study, the top 500 German corporations donated €553,000 on average in 2007, while 78% of all companies maintained their total amount of giving and 13% increased their expenditure (compared to 2006). Even if the surveyed companies were extremely cautious about giving detailed information (which seems to be a widespread phenomenon regarding corporate giving in Europe), companies will obviously increase their social engagement by employing new instruments as part of their CSR-strategies, in particular cooperations with organizations and private initiatives complementing or superseding financial contributions. In the United Kingdom, where data are comparatively reliable, total corporate giving of the 495 companies regarded by Smyth and Lillya (2007) amounts to £734 m (€820), including total cash donations to the tune of £367 m (€410) and further £367 m for other forms of in-kind support. Interestingly, almost half of all donations were made by top 25 companies, with a minimum contribution of £4.4 m (€4.9 m). All in all, UK companies’ corporate giving rose by 26% between 2003/ 2004 and 2005/2006.
Conclusion Philanthropy in Europe in characterized by steady and accelerated growth over the last 8–10 years resulting in the best of all cases in about half of all existing foundations having come into existence in the last 10 years. As a result, the sector is estimated to be larger than its US counterpart both in its asset base and its total annual expenditures. Particularly the latter can be explained by a substantial share of European foundations being operating institutions which generated income from fees for services. It is also typical for European philanthropy that a large variety of different forms including those for private benefit purposes or for running corporate enterprises have emerged. Foundation sectors tend to be highly concentrated in many of the European countries with the top 15
Philanthropy in Latin America
institutions accounting for very substantial shares of the sector. The relationship between foundations and the public sector is based on seven different roles, which foundations may serve – sometimes in combinations, and which lead to distinct models of a cooperative, competitive or peripheral relationship between foundations and the state. For European corporate philanthropy, no comparative data are available, but it can be assumed that companies’ giving will increase within the next years, whereas individual giving seems to remain stable.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Economy ▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition ▶ Civil Society and the European Union ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ European Foundation Centre (EFC) ▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Functions of ▶ Foundations, Grant-Seeking ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Independent ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Foundations, Political ▶ Foundations, Public Law or Government ▶ Philanthropy, Definition of ▶ Social Investment ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Daly, S. (2007). The politics of foundations, a comparative analysis. New York/London: Routledge. Anheier, H. K., & Leat, D. (2006). Creative philanthropy. New York/ London: Routledge. Arnold, N. (2008). Rechtliche Grundlagen der Privatstiftung, from http:// www.forum-privatstiftung.at/pdf_recht/recht_gesamt_v09_2008.pdf BMWA. (2008). Aktuelle Wirtschaftsdaten, from www.bmwa.gv.at/ BMWA/Wirtschaftsdaten Bundesverband Dt. Stiftungen (2008). Verzeichnis Deutscher Stiftungen Bd. 1: Zahlen, Daten, Fakten. Berlin, Germany: Bundesverband Dt. Stiftungen. CECP. (2007). Giving in numbers – 2007 edition, from www.corporatephilanthropy.org/research/pubs/GivinginNumbers2007.pdf Der Standard. (2007). 12.12.2007. www.derStandard.at/Investor/ Wirtschaft/Steuern
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Die Presse. (2007). Steuerreform fu¨r Stiftungen spaltet die Regierung, from http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/economist/350486/index.do Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. European Commission. (2009). Feasibility study on a European Foundation Statute. Final Report to the European Commission, DG Internal Market. http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/company/docs/eufoun dation/feasibilitystudy_en.pdf Forum Privatstiftungen. (2008). www.forum-privatstiftung.at Foundation Center. (2008). Foundation growth and giving estimates – 2008 edition. New York: Foundation Center. ISTAT. (2001). Istituzioni nonprofit in Italia – Anno 1999. Roma: Servizio Statistiche censuarie sulle unita economiche. NCVO. (2008). The UK civil society almanac 2008. London: National Council for Voluntary Organisations. ORF. (2008). www.orf.at Priller, E., & Sommerfeld, J. (2005). Wer spendet in Deutschland. Eine sozialstrukturelle Analyse. WZB Discussion Paper SP I 2005 – 202, from http://skylla.wzb.eu/pdf/2005/i05–202.pdf PwC. (2007). Unternehmen als Spender Eine Befragung unter den 500 gro¨ßten Aktiengesellschaften in Deutschland zu ihrem Spendenverhalten und ihren Kriterien fu¨r die Spendenvergabe. Frankfurt, Germany: PwC. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1998). Social origins of civil society: explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Voluntas, 9(3): 213–248. Salamon, L. M., Anheier, H. K., List, R., Toepler, S., & Sokolowski, S. W. (1999). Global civil society. Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. Schlu¨ter, A., Then, V., & Walkenhorst, P. (2001). Foundations in Europe, society, management, and law. London: Directory of Social Change. Smyth, J., & Lillya, D. (2007). The guide to UK company giving 2007/08. London: Directory of Social Change. Statistics Denmark. (2007). Denmark in figures. Copenhagen, Denmark: Statistics Denmark.
Philanthropy in Latin America MICHAEL D. LAYTON Instituto Tecnologico Autonomo de Mexico (ITAM), Mexico City, Mexico
Introduction Although the words philanthropy and foundation have direct translations into Spanish, filantropı´a and fundacio´n, respectively, their linguistic similarity masks significant legal and historical differences between the manner in which these terms are used in this volume and how they are understood in Latin America. In this region filantropı´a has connotations of traditional Christian charity, and fundacio´n can mean any sort of not-for-profit, not only a grantmaking institution.
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Although there is great wealth in Latin America, there seems to be relatively little philanthropy. Latin America is often cited as the most unequal region in the world. The region has the highest Gini coefficient, a measure of income inequality, at 0.53, compared with an average among developed nations of about 0.30. In 2006 36.5% of the population lived in poverty and 13.4% in extreme poverty (ECLAC, 2009). At the same time the population of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWIs) grew fastest here, and made the greatest gains in their wealth relative to any other region (Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, 2008). As discussed below, the wealthy of Latin America have shown far less commitment than their peers to philanthropy. The region includes a diverse group of more than 20 nations, from the smallest and poorest (such as Bolivia and Guatemala) to some of the largest emerging economies in the world (Brazil and Mexico). Although all the nations share a history of colonization by Spain and Portugal and an inheritance of their language and culture, the region is far from homogeneous and each country has a unique trajectory (Albert, 1996: 329). The practice of philanthropy is largely underdeveloped throughout the region, although the growing influence of corporate philanthropy holds the great promise. A central challenge of this essay is to identify key commonalities while recognizing the great diversity within the region.
Philanthropy in Latin America. Table 1 Sector sources of support (excluding volunteers): Latin America Sector sources of support (by percentage) Country
Fees Govt Phil
The most authoritative source of comparative data on civil society is the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, which includes the five largest Latin American nations (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru). Although the information dates from the mid1990s, it provides a perspective on where Latin America stands in relation to the rest of the world in terms of philanthropy (Table 1). Compared to other regions, Latin America’s third sector demonstrates the greatest reliance on fees, with nearly three-fourths of the sector’s financing being selfgenerated, and by far the lowest level of support from government, at just 15%. Philanthropy provides about 10% of its funds, which is just slightly below the sample’s average of 12%. The region’s average percentage of GDP dedicated to philanthropy, 0.23%, well below the 0.38 average of the 34 nations in the study (Table 2). Historical Traditions of Private Giving
There are at least four significant traditions of philanthropy in Latin America.
GDP %
Rank (34 countries)
Argentina
73
19
7
0.38
13
Brazil
74
15
11
0.17
27
Colombia
70
15
15
0.32
17
Mexico
85
9
6
0.04
34
Peru
70
18
12
0.26
22
Latin America
74
15
10
0.23
NA
Sources: Table A 4. Civil society sector sources of support, with and without volunteers, 34 countries, and Table A5. Sources of civil society sector support in relation to GDP, 34 countries (Adapted from Salamon et al., 2004: 299–300)
Philanthropy in Latin America. Table 2 Sector sources of support: regional comparison Sector sources of support (by percentage) Region
General Extent of Philanthropy, Particularly vis-a`-vis Government Financial Support and Prevalence of Fees and Other Forms of Earned Income
Philanthropy
Fees
Govt
Phil
Latin America
74
15
10
Asian industrialized
62
35
3
Nordic
59
33
7
Anglo-Saxon
55
36
9
African
55
21
24
Central & Eastern European
49
31
20
Welfare partnership
35
58
7 17
Developing/transitional
61
22
Developed
44
48
7
All countries
53
35
12
Source: Adapted from Salamon et al. (2004: 3–60)
First, indigenous peoples have practiced, and continue to practice, a variety of forms of self-help (Thompson and Landhim, 1998: 356). Although the tradition goes by a number of names – tequio, fajina, fatiga – it is a form of mutual self-help in which a community undertakes a social improvement project (Bonfil Batalla, 1996: 31). Second, the Spanish conquistadors and the Brazilian colonizers brought with them their Catholic faith and their philanthropic traditions. This tradition is far from monolithic: on the one hand the Church’s colonial practices
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‘‘combined the provision of social assistance to the needy with the control and exploitation of the indigenous people,’’ but on the other, the work of many religious ‘‘remain powerful symbols of the values of humanism and charity as well as of solidarity with the indigenous ‘underclass’’’ (Thompson and Landhim, 1998: 358–359). These same tensions persist today, between mainstream charities and the struggle for social justice of liberation theology. Third, with Independence many governments sought to wrest control of poor relief from the Church, and this was a ‘‘central component of creating nation-states’’ (Thompson and Landhim, 1998: 361). Through most of the twentieth century Latin American was characterized by either populist or authoritarian regimes, both of which inhibited the development of private philanthropy as ‘‘the state defined itself as the source and arbiter of all social goods’’ (Thompson and Landhim, 1998: 364). Mexico’s Nobel Laureate, Octavio Paz, termed this form of the state the ‘‘philanthropic ogre.’’ Fourth, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century waves of immigrants from Europe and Asia brought with them to Latin America traditions and organizational forms of self-help: these were often expressed via professional associations and trade unions (Thompson and Landhim, 1998: 362). The most recent trend is the emergence of corporations as major philanthropists. An array of multilateral actors has taken up the banner of promoting corporate social responsibility. Although globalization has played a key role, it is only part of the story as discussed at greater length below. Cultural Factors Affecting Philanthropy
Aside from the region’s Catholic faith, the other most important cultural factor affecting philanthropy is the general lack of civic engagement. Due to a history of political corruption and crony capitalism ‘‘the public sector is profoundly mistrusted and the notion of the common good is very weak’’ (Montaner, 2000: 59). The corruption of political leaders has two important impacts: talk of a public good is viewed with distrust, and a vicious circle of corruption, impunity, and indifference is propagated. While there are pronounced differences between nations, Latin American countries suffer from relatively low levels of social trust and a high incidence of incivismo, anti-civic, uncooperative behavior (Power and Clark, 2001). Thus it is often difficult to promote participation. Legal and Fiscal Framework
In a sense the most formal expression of a culture can be found in its laws. Throughout Latin America informality
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and tax evasion are common. This not only impedes governmental capacity to undertake social spending but also undermines fiscal incentives in two ways: first, the state is disinclined to cede income; second, the impact of fiscal incentives is vitiated. Tax structures tend to be overly complex and do not insure clarity for either donors or recipients nor transparency for the public (USIG). In almost any document about the effort to strengthen philanthropy some mention is made of the need to improve tax incentives, especially the imposition of an estate tax as a mechanism to encourage the creation of endowments. The desirability and efficacy of such a measure is subject to heated dispute, but as Irarra´zaval and Guzma´n (2005: 300) assert, ‘‘Tax incentives are not ‘the’ basic or fundamental strategy for promoting philanthropy.’’ Nevertheless simplifying the fiscal framework for grantmakers and grantees is a legitimate element of an overall strategy to strengthen philanthropy and civil society (Ablanedo et al., 2007; Sridhar, 2007).
Individual Giving Throughout the region there is little data available on donations, either from governmental sources or from academic studies. In addition transparency has been embraced very slowly. The data discussed below come from four national public opinion surveys done over the last 10 years. The countries studied (year of survey) include: Brazil (1998) (Landim, 2005); Chile (2008) (Fundacio´n Trascender and Collect GFK, 2008); Mexico (2005) (Ablanedo et al., 2008); and, Peru (2001) (Portocarrero, 2005). Despite different questionnaires and emphases, the results reveal a fairly consistent pattern in terms of individual donations, in which small amounts are given to more traditional charities or needy individuals. Extent and Direction (e.g., Which Fields of Nonprofit Activity Receive the Most Individual Donations)
Reflecting the relatively low incomes of most Latin Americans, individuals tend to donate modest sums of cash or goods. For example 41% of Brazilians reported giving less than 20 reals (US$17) a year, and 57% of Colombians less than 2,000 Chilean pesos (US$38). In Mexico 83% report the amount of their last donation as less than 50 Mexican pesos (US$5), and less than 5% gave more than 500 Mexican pesos (US$50). Donating is widespread and is often to individuals. More than half of Peruvians reported contributing, with one half of their contributions going to organizations and the other to individuals. In Brazil of the 80% who report giving, 21% donate money to institutions, 29% donate goods, and 30% give directly to the needy. A remarkable
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90% of Chileans give, with 65% giving to those who ask for money on the street. Including all forms of giving, 97% of Mexicans report making contributions. One of the more interesting results was to a question in the Mexican survey: ‘‘How do you prefer to give?’’ A remarkable 79% prefer to give directly to a needy individual and only 13% prefer to give to institutions. Donations to individuals, however, ‘‘hardly promote larger or stronger social networks, formation of shared values, or a sense of belonging to a community’’ (Portocarrero, 2005: 77). Giving alms to the poor is at least partly rooted in the region’s strong Catholic tradition, and it comes as no surprise that giving in mass and donations to religious organizations are the most common. A remarkable 83% of Mexicans report giving to their church or a religious organization, while half of Brazilians and Peruvians give to churches. Traditional charities receive the bulk of contributions, with causes such as human rights and the environment being less popular. These surveys tend not to reveal much about donor motivations, although religious values tend to be cited most often and are consistent with the pattern of support for churches. What, if Anything, Is Known About Donor Characteristics/Demographics?
In the case of Brazil giving is positively correlated with education, age, church attendance, and income – although the poor give proportionally more of their income, as they do in Peru. In the case of Mexico income is also positively correlated with giving, but the link with age is not linear. Those between 35 and 44 years of age have the greatest tendency to give to civil society organizations (83%), while they virtually tie with their elders (over 55) in terms of their likelihood to give to the church (85%). In Mexico as well the tendency to give increases with higher levels of education up until high school (80%), but then tails off slightly with university (76%). Another key issue in individual philanthropy in Latin America is that of collective remittances (Merz, 2005). While the bulk of remittances are sent by immigrants to their family members there is a small but unspecified portion that is designated for social projects. These are generally in the form of collective remittances sent by hometown associations, which are groups of immigrants who create organizations to help their communities in their countries of birth. Mexico has been a leader in developing the 3 1 Program that matches these remittances with federal, state, and local government funds, although these efforts have run into serious obstacles, including the corruption and inefficiency of government, lack of civil society capacity in sender
communities, and the inherent challenge of promoting development in marginalized communities. The Wealthy
Given the extraordinary level of inequality in Latin America, it is critical to consider the philanthropic activities of the wealthy. In a special edition of their World Wealth Report (2007), Capgemini and Merrill Lynch looked at trends in philanthropic giving among High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI), defined as individuals who have US$1 million in financial assets. They found that only 3% of HNWI in Latin America made special allocations for philanthropy in their portfolios, and their contributions amounted to about 3% of their portfolios. Worldwide about 11% of HNWI made contributions of 7% of their portfolios, ranking Latin America’s wealthy last among the regions of the world (Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, 2008). The rise of Mexican businessman Carlos Slim to the top three of the Forbes list of the worlds’ wealthiest individuals, at the same time that the then number two, Warren Buffett, pledged US$35 billion to the foundation of number one-ranked Bill Gates, highlighted questions about Slim’s philanthropy. In an interview in the spring of 2007 Slim commented, ‘‘Our concept is more to accomplish and solve things, rather than giving; that is, not going around like Santa Claus. . . . Poverty isn’t solved with donations’’ (cited in Layton, 2007). Despite raising his profile as a philanthropist Slim expressed a commonly held attitude about the limitations of philanthropy: that it is perhaps an important gesture, but not much more. The magnitude of his donations, including a US$100 million commitment to the Clinton Foundation in 2007 and a US $110 million donation to Fundacio´n ALAS (discussed below), is certainly substantial in absolute terms, but pales in comparison to the size and strategic ambition of the philanthropy of Gates and Buffett. With the provocative title, ‘‘Fame as Currency: How Celebrities and Moguls Trade Success for Global Change,’’ a number of Latin America’s rich and famous gathered to discuss their philanthropic activities at an event in March of 2008, ‘‘PODER Philanthropy Forum’’ (PODER, 2008). While Ricky Martin is best known for singing about ‘‘Livin’ La Vida Loca,’’ he has established the Ricky Martin Foundation that seeks ‘‘to support the international framework for the elimination of child trafficking, and to influence policy makers in the war against the exploitation of minors.’’ He is one of a number of Latin celebrities (including Shakira, Alejandro Sanz, Juan Luis Guerra, Juanes, and others), who have formed Fundacio´n ALAS, which means wings in Spanish, dedicated to early childhood development issues.
Philanthropy in Latin America
Foundations Extent and Direction of Foundation Philanthropy (e.g., Which Fields of Nonprofit Activity Receive the Most Grants)
For lack of a uniform definition of what a donor institution is and for lack of data, it is difficult to establish the number of donor institutions in Latin America, much less their activities. Two of the leading experts in the field, Sanborn and Portocarrero (2003: 14–18), pooled together a mix of national studies and estimated that in six nations of Latin America there were nearly 300 donor institutions and cited a growing trend toward the creation of these entities. Among the foundations studied education and health are universally supported, with art/culture and training also very common. Brazilian grantmakers are alone in supporting civic engagement and human rights, areas that are much more controversial (Table 3). Nature of the Foundation Community (e.g., Grantmaking Versus Operating Foundations, Importance of Community Foundations)
Like most of the world, Latin America conforms to the observation by Anheier and Toepler (1999: 9–13) that the most common organizational form is that of the operating foundation rather than that of the grantmaking institution. This lack of specialization might be due to the general underdevelopment of organized civil society, i.e., without an adequate pool of potential grantees
Philanthropy in Latin America. Table 3 Number of donor institutions by country and areas of interest Country
Number
Principal areas
Argentina
66
Education, training, health, art, and culture
Brazil
49
Education, art and culture, civic engagement, human rights
Chile
38
Education, training, health, art, and culture
Colombia
16
Education, environment, development, art and culture, health,
Ecuador
21
Education, community development, health
Mexico
74
Education and training, community development, health
Total
264
Source: Table 1 ‘‘Latin America Foundations-Preliminary Data,’’ from Sanborn and Portocarrero (2003: 15)
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philanthropic individuals might be more inclined to begin their own operating foundations to address their goals. Turitz and Winder (2005) of the Synergos Institute offer a series of observations based on a study of three nations (Brazil, Ecuador, and Mexico) that might be generalized across the region. The creation of donor institutions is a relatively new and growing phenomenon. They have been created by a diverse set of actors, but clearly business people are taking a leading role. They suffer from low visibility combined with limited transparency, from disclosing financial information to divulging funding guidelines. In general there is no real consciousness of grantmakers as a distinct sector, and most institutions identify themselves with their field of endeavor rather than as a donor. Likewise governments have not recognized their importance by establishing fiscal incentives to promote giving. There have been important efforts to promote two models of philanthropy that originated in the United States, community foundations and the United Way model of payroll deduction. The community foundation model has had limited success in Latin America, despite important support from a number of international donors and support organizations. In the 2008 Community Foundation Global Status Report, prepared by Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support (Sacks, 2008), lists only the region’s two largest and wealthiest nations, Brazil and Mexico. Brazil counts two community foundations and a small group of ‘‘community philanthropy organizations,’’ which seek to act as a catalyst for the mobilization of resources to address social problems. Mexico has 17 community foundations with endowments at the end of 2007 totaling about US$25 million: it is very revealing that more than four fifths of that amount (nearly US$21 million) is in the hands of a single institution, the Chihuahua Business Foundation (FECHAC or Fundacio´n del Empresariado Chihuahuense, A.C.). FECHAC has a unique funding mechanism promoted by the business community, a small surcharge placed on a payroll tax that all employers pay to the state government. This has guaranteed a sustained flow of funds to the foundation facilitated by the state government and based upon a broad consensus among business leaders, but it also means that this innovative and successful model – a la Mexicana – does not correspond precisely to the community foundation model based on voluntary donations. The United Way model offers businesses a channel for their philanthropic commitment and offers their employees a way to give not only donations but their time to local organizations. United Way International
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(UWI) has affiliates in a majority of the nations of Latin America, including: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, and Venezuela, with plans for expansion into three Central American nations: Honduras, El Salvador and Panama (de Ferrigni, 2008). This reflects a major expansion into the region beginning the late 1990s and embodied by the opening of a regional office in Venezuela in 2001. In 2002, 735 companies and 186,710 workers were participating in the payroll deduction program, and by 2007 there were 1,032 companies and 235,040 workers involved, representing increases of 60% and nearly 75% respectively. In that same year UWI mobilized nearly US$170 million, the bulk of that through in-kind donations (US$139 million), followed by $23 million in payroll deduction contributions and US$7 million in corporate cash donations. Relations Between Foundations and the State (i.e., Do Foundations Cooperate with, Fill Gaps or Operate Independently of Government and Government Programs)
The relationship between philanthropy and the state in Latin America varies between tension, ignorance, and cooptation, often depending on the role of various actors in promoting that transition. Sanborn argues that political democratization and economic liberalization in the region, combined with support from foreign donors, all encouraged greater philanthropy in the region (2005: 23). Nevertheless more often than not the state is reluctant to cede control or share responsibility for social programs. The relationship between philanthropic institutions and the state varies between tension, cooptation, ignorance, and occasionally fruitful collaboration, often depending on the role of various actors in promoting the nation’s transition.
Corporations The discussion in this section reflects the results of assessments of social responsibility programs in four countries. In the case of Brazil researchers undertook a survey which identified an initial sample of more than 2,000 companies and which generated 400 responses (20% response rate) (Fischer, 2005: 145). In Peru, researchers focused on the nation’s ten largest corporate conglomerates (Durand, 2005: 191). In Colombia there was a general survey of activities (Rojas and Morales, 2005). In Mexico 69 businesses participated in telephone interviews or an online survey (Carrillo Collard et al., 2008). It is appropriate to add a note of caution regarding the interpretation of the findings discussed, grounded in the experience of conducting surveys of corporate philanthropy. One must take into account the limitations of the research methods
before drawing overbroad conclusions. Such surveys are likely to have a bias either in the sample of businesses invited to participate or a response-bias in the self-selection of partcipants: in both cases those who are more enthusiastic about corporate philanthropy are more likely to answer the questionnaire, with the net result that the tendencies of corporate philanthropy are likely to be exaggerated. There is a danger that the exception can be mistaken for the norm. Motivations for Giving; Level of Discussion and Awareness of Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship
It is clear the corporate philanthropy has a leading role in the region. As Sanborn observes, ‘‘Over the last decade, the largest amount of resources for organized philanthropy in Latin America came from the business world’’ (2005: 13). She bases this observation upon surveys conducted in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Peru that found that between 80% and 95% of the largest companies engage in philanthropic activities (donations, volunteer programs, operating social programs), and upon studies in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru that revealed that business people and their companies are the primary force behind the creation of new donor institutions. It is as always important to bear in mind a number of contextual considerations. First, the transition to democracy and market liberalization over the last decades and raised expectations for businesses and introduced new models of corporate social responsibility. Second, these transitions have not improved the distribution of wealth; in fact, inequality has increased throughout the region. Thus public opinion and social movements often press for corporate commitments (Sanborn, 2005: 13). Third, the nations of Latin America have their own traditions of corporate philanthropy predating these globalizing influences, which are often rooted in the religious values of the business owners, a key consideration in a context where even the largest companies are often family held rather than publicly traded. Brazil is clearly a leader in placing a priority not only upon philanthropy but on an expanded sense of corporate citizenship. Large corporations there have made corporate social responsibility one of their core strategies. That said, these efforts are often poorly coordinated and often do not enjoy the same strategic perspective as other areas. The Ethos Institute serves as an umbrella organization for CSR in Brazil and has over 900 members. The survey of Mexican programs found the most frequently mentioned motivations were the desire to give
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back to society, to be good corporate citizens, to follow the traditions of the founders of the business, or to address the needs of the community where the business operates. But again, these activities almost always lack a strategic perspective.
failure, as the corporations failed to take into account the social and cultural context of the community and assumed they had all the answers, and secondly the corporations saw people primarily as beneficiaries and not as citizens.
Extent and Direction of Corporate Philanthropy
Use of Corporate Foundations
In Brazil the main fields for donations are the following: education (64%), environment (43%), local development (42%), art and culture (41%), and health (40%). The most common ways of support are: donations (75%), supporting specific projects (60%), sponsorship (55%), and volunteering (49%). This emphasis on sponsorships, unique in Latin America, is linked to the fiscal incentives provided by the Brazilian government. In Mexico roughly three-quarters of businesses support education and children, about half support health, environment, disaster relief, the elderly, and culture, while only one in four support indigenous’ and women’s rights, rural development, and addictions, while fewer than one in five support HIV/AIDS, micro-credit, human rights, and science and technology (Carrillo Collard et al., 2008). A similar pattern holds true in Peru, where youth and the elderly are the two most important sectors while support for gender and racial equality is rarer. As Carrillo Collard et al. (2008) point out, few corporate donors seek to promote democracy and human rights, and controversial themes like HIV/AIDS also tend to be avoided. These preferences reflect the generally conservative religious values and political views of business leaders, as well as a cautious regard for public opinion.
The use of a separate legal entity to undertake corporate philanthropy represents not only the level of a company’s commitment but also a response to the legal, historical, social, and political context. Colombia is a leader in this field, consistent with a long tradition in which the private sector has been a major provider of social services to employees and local communities. As 1997 the country had nearly on 100 corporate foundations with nearly US $1 billion in assets, representing 1% of Colombia’s GDP. Nearly 98% of these assets are in the hands of only ten foundations, most of which were founded before the 1980s. Brazil is also a leader here, with GIFE (Group of Institutes, Foundations, and Enterprises) as a key umbrella organization for grantmakers. GIFE focuses on improving philanthropic practice and strategy (Agu¨ero, 2005: 110–114). GIFE was founded in 1995 with 26 members, and in 2008 it had 112. Peru is at the other extreme, in that there are very few corporate foundations and there is a tendency for philanthropic activities to be handled via family foundations. In Mexico about a third of companies participating in the survey had legally constituted foundations, and most of these had been established after the year 2000.
Concluding Assessment Traditional Philanthropy Versus Support Tied to Business Purposes
The most important trend in the evolution of corporate giving in Latin America is the movement from traditional philanthropy toward the concept of social investment (Agu¨ero, 2005). The roots of traditional philanthropy are found in the Catholic church, where many donors seek to follow the Biblical injunction that when giving to the poor one should not let the left hand know what the right hand is doing. While this might be done with a sense of humility it often leads not only to a lack of transparency and accountability but also to a lack of critical reflection and debate concerning the impact of philanthropy. One example of an effort to improve corporate philanthropy occurred in the 1990s in Argentina, where businesses sought to adopt a ‘‘modern approach,’’ emphasizing capacity building (‘‘teaching how to fish’’) and greater volunteerism. This strategy was regarded as a
The picture that emerges from these pages is one of a region whose philanthropic institutions are relatively weak and underdeveloped. The history of Latin America, expressed in its dominant philanthropic culture, continues to favor traditional charitable giving. The fiscal framework tends to be rather complicated and onerous for an underdeveloped sector. Despite their increased assets, the wealthy of the region trail their peers around the world in their commitment to philanthropy. This is reflected in the paucity of donor institutions in Latin America. The most promising innovations and initiatives have come from the corporate sector (Austin et al., 2004). The pending challenge for the region is how to strengthen the practice and institutions of philanthropy domestically. A number of foreign donors have supported efforts to promote philanthropy in the region, often linked to a broader agenda of corporate social responsibility. At present there are a number of multilateral and bilateral institutions working toward this aim, including the
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Inter-American Development Bank and the Inter-American Foundation. In addition the US-based Council on Foundations’ International Programs Department has initiated new projects related to transnational communities in the United States and Latin America. The limited success of past efforts highlights the need for more innovative and integrated approaches, which better take into account the unique history and culture of the nations of the region.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Community Philanthropy ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ GIFE ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Self-Help Groups ▶ Social Trust ▶ United Way
References/Further Readings Ablanedo, I., Layton, M., Garcia Olson, L., & Sergio Garcia. (2007). Definicio´n de una Agenda Fiscal para el desarrollo de la sociedad civil en Me´xico. (Defining a fiscal agenda for the development of civil society organizations in Mexico.) Incide Social. Mexico, D.F. Retrieved November 1, 2008, from http://www.agendafiscalsociedadcivil.org/ files/FiscalAgenda.pdf. Ablanedo, I., Layton, M., & Alejandro Moreno. (2008). Encuesta Nacional sobre Filantropı´a y Sociedad Civil (ENAFI): Donaciones en Me´xico. Documento de Trabajo No. 18 publicado por el Centro de Estudios y Programas Interamericanos (CEPI), Departamento de Estudios Internacionales, Instituto Tecnolo´gico Auto´nomo de Me´xico (ITAM). Retrieved November 1, 2008, from http://interamericanos. itam.mx/working_papers/Layton_donaciones.pdf. Agu¨ero, F. (2005). The promotion of corporate social responsibility in Latin America. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero (Eds.), Philanthropy and social change in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Albert, R. D. (1996). A framework and model for understanding Latin American and Latino/Hispanic cultural patterns. In D. Landis & R. Bhagat (Eds.), Handbook of intercultural training (2nd ed., pp. 327–348). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Anheier, K., & Toepler, S. (Eds.) (1999). Philanthropic foundations, an international perspective. In Private funds, public purposes. Philanthropic foundations in international perspective (pp. 3–23). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Austin, J. et al. (Eds.) (2004). Social partnering in Latin America, lessons drawn from collaborations of business and civil society organizations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bonfil Batalla, G. (1996). Me´xico profundo: Reclaiming a civilization (Philip A. Dennis, Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Capgemini & Merrill Lynch (2007). World Wealth Report 2007. Retrieved November 1, 2008, from http://www.ml.com/media/79882.pdf;11/5/ 2008. Capgemini & Merrill Lynch. (2008). World Wealth Report 2008. Retrieved November 1, 2008, from http://www.ml.com/media/ 100472.pdf;11/5/2008. Carillo Collard, P. C., Layton & M. D., & Tapia A´lvarez, M. (2008). Filantropı´a corporativa a la mexicana. Foreign Affairs en Espan˜ol, 8(2), 183–194, abril-junio 2008. De Ferrigni, I. V. (2008). United Way International en Ame´rica Latina. PowerPoint Presentation by Regional Director, United Way International, Latin America. Durand, F. (2005). Business and corporate social responsibility: The Peruvian case. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero (Eds.), Philanthropy and social change in Latin America (pp. 191–222). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ECLAC (Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Poverty in Latin America). (2009). Latin America and the Caribbean statistics. Retrieved January 5, 2009, from http://websie.eclac.cl/ sisgen/ConsultaIntegrada.asp?idAplicacion = 6&idTema = 144 &idioma = i Fischer, R. M. (2005). Intersectoral alliances and the reduction of social exclusion. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero (Eds.) Philanthropy and social change in Latin America (pp. 135–162). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fundacio´n Trascender and Collect GFK, Estudio Nacional de Voluntariado (2008). Fundacio´n Trascender, pp. 1–31. Retrieved December 15, 2008, from http://www.fundaciontrascender.cl/home/doc/ EstudioNacionalVoluntariado_2008.pdf. Irarra´zaval, I., & Guzma´n, J. (2005). Too much or too little? The role of tax incentives in promoting philanthropy. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero (Eds.) Philanthropy and social change in Latin America (pp. 285–306). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Landim, L. (2005). A ‘‘New Volunteering’’ in the Brazilian context. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero (Eds.), Philanthropy and social change in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Layton, M. D. (2007). Flat taxes, Santa Claus, and charity: The need to strengthen civil society in Mexico. The International Journal of Notfor-Profit Law, 9(4), August. Retrieved March 5, 2008, from http:// www.icnl.org/knowledge/ijnl/vol9iss4/art_1.htm. Merz, B. (2005). New patterns for Mexico, observations on remittances, philanthropic giving, and equitable development. Cambridge, MA/ England: Harvard University Press. Montaner, C. (2000). Culture and the behavior of Elites in Latin America. In L. Harrison & S. Huntington (Eds.), Culture matters: How values shape human progress (pp. 57–77). New York: Basic Books. PODER (2008, March 12). PODER Philanthropy Forum. Miami, Florida. Retrieved January 10, 2009, from http://www.poder360.com/events/ phil_event_phil_forum.php. Portocarrero, F. (2005). Volunteers and donors: Patterns of civic engagement in contemporary Peru. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero (Eds.), Philanthropy and social change in Latin America (pp. 63–86). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Power, T., & Clark, M. (2001). Does trust matter? Interpersonal trust and democratic values in Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico. In R. Ai Camp (Eds.), Citizen views of democracy in Latin America (pp. 51– 70). Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. Rojas, C., & Morales, G. (2005). Private contributions to the public sphere: Corporate foundations in Colombia. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero Philanthropy and social change in Latin America (pp. 163–189). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Philanthropy in North America Sacks, E. W. (2008). 2008 Community Foundation Global Status Report. Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support (WINGS). Retrieved January 15, 2009, from http://www.wingsweb.org/information/ publications_community.cfm. Salomon, L., (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector, Volume Two. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Sanborn, C. (2005). Philanthropy in Latin America: Historical traditions and current trends. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero (Eds.), Philanthropy and social change in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sanborn, C., & Portocarrero, F. (2003, 17–20 November). La filantropı´a ‘‘realmente existente’’ en Ame´rica Latina. Paper presented at the International Seminar, ‘‘La filantropı´a en Ame´rica Latina: los desafı´os de las fundaciones donantes en la construccio´n de capital humano y justicia social.’’ Fundacio´n PROhumana and the Ford Foundation. Santiago de Chile, Chile. Sanborn, C., & Portocarrero, F. (Eds.) (2005). Philanthropy and social change in Latin America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Sridhar, A. (2007). Tax reform and promoting a culture of philanthropy: Guatemala’s ‘‘Third Sector’’ in an era of peace. Fordham International Law Journal, 31(1), 2 (Indiana Legal Studies Research Paper No. 99). Retrieved January 16, 2009, from http://ssrn.com/ abstract = 1079976. Thompson, A., & Landhim, L. (1998). Civil society and philanthropy in Latin America: From religious charity to the search for citizenship. In W. Ilchman, S. Katz, & E. Queen (Eds.), Philanthropy in the world’s traditions (pp. 355–370). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Turitz, S., & Winder D. (2005). Private resources for public ends: Grantmakers in Brazil, Ecuador and Mexico. In C. Sanborn & F. Portocarrero (Eds.), Philanthropy and social change in Latin America (pp. 255–283). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. USIG (2008). United States International Grantmakers, Retrieved January 10, 2009, from http://www.usig.org/.
Philanthropy in North America STEFAN TOEPLER1, MICHAEL HALL2 George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA 2 Imagine Canada, Toronto, ON, Canada
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Introduction Although a reawakening of philanthropy and civil society has taken place all around the globe since the 1980s, North America has remained the model for private philanthropy anywhere else. It was, for example, the extent of private giving in the United States that sparked the envy of European policy makers and launched attempts over the last 3 decades in several countries to improve the legal and tax frameworks for individual, corporate and foundation giving. As European welfare states entered an era of fiscal retrenchment, the ‘‘American model’’ promised greater
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private initiative – particularly in the form of donations for public purposes – and fewer demands on, and lesser expectations of, the public purse. But American-style philanthropy is in demand in most parts of the world and not only in Europe, as the widespread export of philanthropic institutions and inventions, such as community foundations, attests. The roots of the American engagement with charity lie with the early republicanism and individualism that favored private initiative over government provision, on the one hand, and religion, on the other. Christian charity fueled much of the private giving until the beginning of the twentieth century, when a new paradigm of giving began to take shape. Rather than just seeking an amelioration of social ills (as traditional charity had done), in the spirit of the progressive era and the belief in the power of science, the emerging modern philanthropy sought to understand and tackle the underlying causes of social problems (Karl and Katz, 1981, 1987). Coupled with the availability of until then unprecedented industrial wealth, the new American philanthropy quickly assumed a dominant position and some of its stellar institutions, such as the Carnegie Corporation, the Rockefeller Foundation and somewhat later the Ford Foundation, became its internationally known symbols. Perhaps the most visible of emanations of American philanthropy, private foundations nevertheless constitute only a relatively minor share of the total giving in the United States. Having just grown past the quarter of a trillion mark in the mid-2000s, total private giving amounted to more than $300 billion in 2007, of which foundation grants accounted for less than $40 billion, or 12–13% of the total (Giving USA 2008). By contrast, inter vivos giving by individual donors constitutes a full three-quarters of all giving and individual bequests constitute another 8% or so. With around 5%, corporate giving accounts for the remainder. Although subject to annual fluctuations, this breakdown of overall private giving is relative stable. The approach to philanthropy in Canada followed a different pattern than in the United States. Canada’s political culture is not as liberal or individualist as the United States; but, has a more collectivist orientation (Horowitz, 1966). As Hall et al. (2005a) observe, Canada has a long history of using the state to achieve collective goals in areas such as education, health, and welfare beginning with the provision of subsidies to churches to deliver education, health and social services. By the end of the twentieth century, Canada had created a welfare state that relied heavily on nonprofit and voluntary organizations to deliver state-funded services. Charitable giving has historically lagged that of the United States, partly,
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because of the reliance of charities on funding from the state, but also because tax incentives for giving in Canada were less favourable than they were in the United States. However, as Canadian governments retrenched in the 1990s, tax incentives for giving were improved to the point where they are now roughly comparable to those in the United States. In Canada, the volume of giving is naturally less in absolute numbers, but it is still significant. According to the most recent data available, private giving from individuals, foundations and corporations totaled $12.3 billion in 2003 (Hall et al., 2005b). Of this, foundation grants contributed 9.2% while individuals donated 68%. Corporate gifts and sponsorships accounted for 22.8% of total giving. Given the absolute volume of gifts, grants and donations, the sheer magnitude of American generosity is hard to match. This is also true when viewed in relative terms, such as measured against national wealth or economic value creation. According to the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (http://www. jhu.edu/~cnp/PDF/comptable5_dec05.pdf retrieved February 15, 2009), private giving in the United States amounted to 1.85% of GDP as of the late 1990s and 1.17% in Canada. With few exceptions such as Israel (1.34%) and Argentina (1.09%), no other developed, much less developing, countries come close to match the relative size of private giving. Closest come countries such as Spain, the United Kingdom and Ireland (0.87–0.84%), whereas the respective shares other industrialized nations, such as France (0.36%), Germany (0.13%) and Italy (0.11%), fall far behind. This is not to say though that private giving is the be all and end all of nonprofit sector financing that it is sometimes believed to be. In contrast, while private giving in the United States is large and growing, it is far from being sufficient to sustain the overall growth rate of the sector nor has it ever been in the recent past. According to Johns Hopkins data (http://www.jhu.edu/~cnp/PDF/ table401.pdf; accessed 9 Feb 2009), private philanthropy accounts for only 13% of total nonprofit sector revenues, compared to government funding with 30% and fees and other earned income with 57%. In Canada, the share is 11% compared to 49% for government funding and 35% in fees and other earned income (Hall et al., 2005b).
Individual Giving According to Giving USA 2008, individual lifetime, or inter vivos, giving amounted to some $230 billion in 2007, continuing a long-term growth trend. In fact, the amount of individual giving in inflation-adjusted terms had about tripled since the mid-1960s. A large portion of
this growth occurred during the economic boom of the mid-1990s to mid-2000s, when the current dollar value of individual donations essentially doubled. This boom also increased the average share of giving on personal income from about 1.6% in the mid-1990s to above 2% 10 years later – reversing a long-term decline from the 2% levels last seen in the 1960s. It should be noted though that much of these increases came from very large gifts from so-called high net worth individuals. Nevertheless, the incidence of charitable giving is widely spread as about 90% of all households in the United States give to charity annually (Havens et al., 2006). Specific breakdowns of individual inter vivos giving are not readily available. Giving USA provides only estimates of total private giving (to include bequests, foundation and corporate support). However, since individual giving constitutes three-quarters of the total, it provides rough approximation. The largest recipient field of total giving by far is religion with about one-third of all charitable dollars. The next largest recipients are educational institutions (ca. 15%), human services and foundations for endowment gifts (each 10%). As institutional donors tend to be less likely to contribute to religious purposes per se, the share of religion among individual giving is likely much larger, accounting for perhaps as much as half of individual donations if not more. In fact, a panel study of household giving put the share of religious giving at 59%, followed by helping the needy and mixed purposes (10% each) and education at 5% (Center on Philanthropy, 2008). As this study excludes very high income households that are likely to contribute relatively more to causes such education or have the means to establish family foundations, the proper breakdown of individual giving lies somewhere in between. Individual giving through bequests equals about 10% of inter vivos giving and roughly 8% of total private giving. The testamentary distribution of individual giving differs markedly from inter vivos giving. Specifically, half of all charitable bequest dollars go to financial intermediaries, such as private, family foundations, community foundation funds or the United Way and other federated campaigns. The other half goes directly to the human services (14%), education (13%), health and the arts (6% each) and religion (5%) among others (Joulfaian, cited in Giving USA 2007, pp. 74–75). In Canada, donors claimed over $8.9 billion in donations in 2007 on tax returns (Statistics Canada, 2008). There has been substantial growth in charitable giving over the past 20 year. The pattern of growth has had three distinct phases (Lasby, 2007). From 1984 to 1990, total donations claimed grew by 30% in real terms (i.e., adjusting for inflation) with annual growth of 5.0%. From
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1991 to 1994, during a period of economic recession, donations increased by only 2% with annual growth of 0.6%. Finally, there was a dramatic 79% growth from 1995 to 2005 with annualized growth of 7.2%. There are, however, some signs that charitable giving in Canada may be vulnerable to decline. Growth in giving has not been accompanied by a similar growth in the number of donors; but, rather is the result of existing donors increasing the amounts they contribute. Indeed, the most recent available tax data revealed that there was a 1.4% decline in the number of donors in 2006 (Statistics Canada, 2007 – http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/071101/ dq071101c-eng.htm; last accessed Feb 15 2009) and a further 0.9% decline in 2007 (Statistics Canada, 2008 – http:// www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/081104/dq081104beng.htm: last accessed Feb 15 2009). Virtually all (85%) of Canadians (aged 15 and older) make a donation to charities or nonprofit organization over the course of a year according to a 2004 Statistics Canada survey (Hall et al., 2006). Similar to their US counterparts, Canadians direct a plurality (45%) of their donations to religion. Health and hospitals, which receive 19% of all donations are supported more strongly by Canadians; while social services receive a similar percentage of donations (10%) as human services do in the United States. In contrast, education and research organizations receive a smaller share of donations (3%) in Canada than they do in the United States (ibid.). Donor characteristics do not differ significantly between both countries. The Canadian survey found giving to increase with age, income, level of education, employment, marital status, and religious attendance with few clear gender differences (Hall et al., 2006). Much the same holds true in American giving research, which additionally points out positive correlations between giving and volunteering with volunteers making larger financial donations than non-volunteers (Havens et al., 2006).
Foundations Based on the industrial wealth accumulated during the gilded age, the early twentieth Century saw the first golden age of philanthropy with the emergence of new, very large, and activist foundations that soon became the beacons of American philanthropy. The Russell Sage (1907), Carnegie (1911) and Rockefeller (1913) foundations provided a mould that other donors soon appropriated and set off a constant growth in the number and assets of foundations that continued through much of the twentieth Century. While the early foundations were able to claim important successes, such as the reform of medical education and the eradication of hook worm in
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the American South to name but two, the political establishment in the United States remained ambivalent about the potential ability of powerful private institutions to influence the public agenda. This resulted in a setback for the foundation field at the end of the 1960s, when new regulations introduced minimum spending requirements as well as an assortment of other restrictions. During the 1980s, the growth of the foundation field began to pick up again, but it was the 1990s that saw beginnings of a potential second golden age, as new postindustrial wealth began to pour into the foundation field. Several stock transfers by Bill and Melinda Gates soon turned the Gates Foundation into the largest philanthropy by far. Other computer industry wealth (most notably the Packard and Hewlett Foundations) and media fortunes (Ted Turner’s UN Foundation) created very large and highly visible new foundations. In addition, the stock market boom swelled foundation assets throughout, funneling significant new resources into the field. According to the New York-based Foundation Center, the assets of the more than 72,000 grantmaking foundations in the United States had grown past $600 billion by 2006 generating some $40 billion in grants and other outlays. Foundation funding patterns differ markedly from individual giving: religious giving is near insignificant (2% of grant amounts), while education and health with 23% each draw the largest amount of foundation dollars, followed by human services (15%) and the arts (11%). It should be noted though that US foundation figures include independent, corporate, and community foundations, but only those operating foundations that also have grantmaking programs. Much less is known about Canadian foundations in general. According to Imagine Canada, active grantmaking foundations numbered some 2,400 as of the mid-2000s, with some CAN$14 billion in assets and CAN$1.2 billion in grants (http:// nonprofitscan.imaginecanada.ca/en/tir_top_ten_foundations; last accessed 15 Feb 2009).
Corporations Corporate philanthropy appears at many different levels and takes many different forms, ranging from local businesses supporting youth sports teams to multinational corporations partnering with international NGOs on environmental development projects. Corporate involvement began to take off during the 1970s when, in the wake of the consumerism and environmental movements, corporations were increasingly forced to respond to the demands of wider stakeholder groups and acknowledge the need to demonstrate better ‘‘corporate social responsibility’’ and ‘‘good citizenship.’’ Responsiveness to
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stakeholder demands is thus among the key motivating factors of corporate philanthropy. But philanthropy is also undertaken for marketing purposes (through product promotions, e.g.), as PR to improve the reputation of the company in general, or to help motivate employees and increase employee satisfaction and productivity. Traditionally, local business cultures and elite networking also encouraged corporate giving as does peer pressure locally or within certain industries. Corporations have manifold options to pursue their giving objectives. At the most basic levels, corporations can have formal or informal giving programs to make decisions on the dispersal of financial or in-kind (products or materials) resources. In addition to giving programs, some corporations also maintain corporate foundations, which typically serve as the main conduit for a company’s annual giving. Corporate foundations tend to have permanent endowments that allow the corporation to maintain some level of giving out of endowment income, when overall profitability requires cutbacks in the regular philanthropic budgets. The most strategic form of corporate support is cause-related marketing, which denotes arrangements between corporations and nonprofit organizations, in which the corporation markets its products or services in conjunction with the nonprofit’s mission or specific causes or issues. First introduced by American Express in the early 1980s, cause-related marketing has increasingly become the dominant form of philanthropic involvement by larger corporations. Corporations also engage nonprofits in sponsorship arrangements, which, under US tax law, do not result in charitable contributions, but are counted as regular business expenses (just like regular marketing and advertising outlays). Technically, sponsorships require a quid pro quo in form of specific advertising benefits for the company. As such, sponsorships are not typically included in corporate philanthropy estimates, but might amount to as much as $1.5 billion per year (IEG study, cited in Giving USA 2008, p. 82). Overall corporate philanthropy (without sponsorships) in the United States is estimated by Giving USA 2008 to account for about 5% of all private giving, or $15.7 billion in 2007. This represents an average of around 1% of pretax profits. Corporate foundations distributed about $4.4 billion of the total, of which roughly one-quarter went to education, one-fifth each to human services and general public benefit purposes, 13% each to health and arts and culture. As the destination of non-foundation philanthropic dollars is not know, this represents the best indication of general corporate philanthropic interests. In Canada, total corporate financial contributions to charities and nonprofit organizations (including
donations, sponsorship, and cause marketing) was estimated at $2.8 billion in 2003 (Hall et al., 2005b). A recent survey of large Canadian businesses (revenues of $25 million and over) showed that sponsorship accounts for 16% of the value of all contributions of money, goods and services while cause marketing accounts for another 3% (Hall et al., 2008). Total contributions from all businesses amounted to 1% of pretax profits. Three-quarters of the value of all money, goods and services, and sponsorships and cause marketing went to four types of organizations: Social Services/United Way (28%), Health (17%), Universities and Colleges (15%), and Arts and Culture (13%).
Concluding Assessment The prospects for continued growth of private philanthropy over the long-term remain good, but a sustained recession in the aftermaths of the 2007 financial crises will likely put a damper on the unusual growth rates of the 1990s and early 2000s. Corporate philanthropy will likely see reductions, and the significant loss of endowment value will invariably lead to reduced spending levels of foundations. Individual giving is also likely to be affected, but there is more uncertainty around that. For example, Canadian giving did not decline during the economic recession in the early 1990s. A good counter prospect has been the hypothesized intergenerational transfer of wealth – originally estimated to be as much as $10 trillion – that American charities have been hoping for since the mid-1990s. Later estimates put it at as much as $41 trillion over the next 5 decades (Havens and Schervish, 2003). Should this wealth transfer indeed happen within these magnitudes, a good portion of it might find its way into the nonprofit sector in form of bequests, new foundations and endowments, and potentially further raise the overall share and importance of private philanthropy for the sector. Whether this transfer will materialize has already been called into question and a prolonged economic downturn will likely reduce some of its size. Recent evidence of a small 2 year decline in the numbers of Canadian claiming donations also should raise a warning flag about the long-term prospects for philanthropy in Canada. On the other hand, new innovations – whether the emergence of localized giving circles or the growing adoption of e-philanthropy by new generations of givers – suggest that American and Canadian philanthropy will retain its vitality.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking
Philanthropy in Russia and Central Asia
▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Giving Circles ▶ Philanthropy, Definitions ▶ Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the US
References/Further Readings Austin, J. E. (2000). The collaboration challenge: How nonprofits and businesses succeed through strategic alliances. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Center on Philanthropy. (2008). Key findings: Center on Philanthropy Panel Study, from http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu/Research/Key %20Findings%20January%202008.pdf. Clotfelter, C., & Ehrlich, T. (Eds.) (1999). Philanthropy and the nonprofit sector in a changing America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Foundation Center. (multiple years). Foundation Yearbook: Facts and figures on private and community foundations. New York: Foundation Center. Giving USA (multiple years). Giving USA. The Annual Report on philanthropy. Glenview, IL: Giving USA Foundation. Hall, M. H., Ayer, S., et al. (2008) Corporate community investment practices, motivations and challenges. Toronto, ON: Imagine Canada. Hall, M. H., Barr, C., et al. (2005a). The Canadian nonprofit and voluntary sector in comparative perspective. Toronto, ON: Imagine Canada. Hall, M. H., Easwaramoorthy, M., & Sandler, W. (2007). Business contributions to Canadian communities: Findings from a qualitative study of current practices. Toronto, ON: Imagine Canada. Hall, M. H., Evers, T., et al. (2005b). Cornerstones of community: Highlights of the National Survey of Nonprofit and Voluntary Organizations. Catalogue no. 61-533-XPE. Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada, 2004. Hall, M. H., Lasby, D., et al. (2006). Caring Canadians, involved Canadians: Highlights from the 2004 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating. Ottawa, ON: Statistics Canada. Havens, J., & Schervish, P. (2003). Why the $41 trillion wealth transfer is still valid: A review of challenges and questions. Journal of Gift Planning, 7(1), 11–15, 47–50. Havens, J., O’Herlihy, M., & Schervish, P. (2006). Charitable giving: How much, by whom, to what, and how? In W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., pp. 542– 567). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Horowitz, G. (1996). Conservation, liberalism, and socialism in Canada: An interpretation. Canadian Journal of Ecnomic and Political Science, 32, 143–171. Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. (n.d.). Private philanthropy across the world, from http://www.jhu.edu/~cnp/PDF/ comptable5_dec05.pdf (last accessed 9 Feb 2009) Karl, B. D., & Katz, S. N. (1981). The American private philanthropic foundation and the public sphere 1890–1930. Minerva, 19(2), 236–270. Karl, B. D., & Katz. S. N. (1987). Foundations and ruling class elites. Daedauls, 116(1), 1–40. Lasby, D. (2007). Trends in individual donations: 1984–2005. Research Bulletin, 14(1). Levy, R. (1999). Give and take: A candid account of corporate philanthropy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press. Magat, R. (Ed.) (1989). Philanthropic giving: Studies in varieties & goals. New York: Oxford University Press. Sagawa, S., Segal, E., & Kanter, R. M. (1999). Common interest, common good: Creating value though business and social sectors partnerships. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
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Salamon, L. M. (Ed.) (2001). The state of nonprofit America. Washington, DC: Brookings. Statistics Canada (2007, November 1). Charitable donors. The daily. Ottawa, ON: Author, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quoti dien/071101/dq071101c-eng.htm; last accessed February 15, 2009. Statistic Canada (2008, November 4). Charitable donors. The daily. Ottawa, ON: Author, from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quoti dien/081104/dq081104b-eng.htm: last accessed Feb 15 2009.
Philanthropy in Russia and Central Asia OLGA ALEXEEVA Charities Aid Foundation, London, UK
Introduction Philanthropy in Russia and Central Asia is a comparatively new phenomenon and is yet to be fully researched. The modern period in the history of philanthropy in this part of the world started only in 1987, the year when the then General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR Michael Gorbachev sanctioned an opening of two charitable foundations: the Soviet Culture Foundation and the Children’s Foundation, thus ending an era of socialist belief that charity and philanthropy are not needed in a socialist state. Since 1989, the charitable and philanthropic sectors grew exponentially in Russia, and somewhat slower but still consistently in Central Asia. Comprehensive and accurate data on the amount of total giving by different types of donors (individuals, companies, foundations) and correct mapping of sources of income of Russian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are not available due to shortage of research data in this area. But various estimates (research data of the Russian Donors Forum; the Report on the State of Civil Society in Russia, Public Chamber, 2007) suggest that philanthropic contributions from companies constitute over 60% of income of social welfare and education charities in Russia, while government contributions occupy approximately 30% of income, and income generating activities bring charities another 10% of income. An impact of foreign funding on social welfare and education charities that represent the absolute majority (over 80%) of the charitable sector in Russia is minimal and was minimal even in the 1990s when international aid agencies and foundations were most active in Russia. However, human rights organizations, environmental charities and other groups that focus on changing policy or develop civil society have always received up to 100% of their funding from foreign donors.
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It is also estimated that the Russian corporate sector spends over $3 billion a year on community programs where $2.5 billion comes from the top 100 companies. Wealthy private donors and private foundations add another $200 million a year to the overall number of donations. Unfortunately, even estimates for the middle class giving in Russia are not available. Regrettably, philanthropy does not appear to be catching on in the rest of the Newly Independent States (NIS) the way it is in Russia. With smaller economic bases and often more closed political environments, the countries of the Western NIS, the Caucasus and Central Asia do not appear to be ripe for the growth of philanthropy. In Central Asia, the combination of widespread poverty, regional instability and closed political environments makes the emergence of any significant forms of philanthropy unlikely in the foreseeable future. According to Rich Remias, an attorney with McGuire Woods in Almaty and a leading expert on NGO law in Central Asia, ‘‘Philanthropy has yet to become a localized tradition in the countries of Central Asia. . . judging by the current amount of attention given to the notion of charity or philanthropy in these states, it may be quite some time before it is recognized and accepted by those in a position to sponsor charitable activities’’ (SEAL – Social Economy and Law magazine, Stephen Schmida, 2002 Autumn). Considerably lower level of development of philanthropy in Central Asia also explains practical absence of statistics of who, where and how charity takes place in this region. It is also important to note that significant differences also exist in philanthropic development within the region of Central Asia that includes five post Communist countries of the former Soviet Union: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are undoubtedly leaders of the region both in economic development and in philanthropy. Charitable giving is much less developed, especially beyond religious giving, in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan and it is practically absent in Turkmenistan. History of Philanthropy in Russia and Central Asia
Historically, traditions of private giving run deep in Russia and in Central Asia infused in both cases by strong religious incentives: Orthodox Christian in the majority of Russia, and Muslim in Central Asia and some parts of Russia with predominantly Muslim population. Four distinctive periods could be identified in the history of philanthropy in Russia. 1. Nobility philanthropy: organized and ‘‘officially sanctioned’’ giving that was only exercised by
aristocracy in Russia till 1860s. Merchants and common people also gave regular donations at that time but their giving was organized, managed, and channeled by the Orthodox Church. Until 1860s Russia did not have any charitable institutions independent from either church or the Royalty. 2. Economic and political reforms in 1860s created a strong and powerful merchants class in Russia that began to be actively involved in philanthropy. Period from 1861 till 1929 is widely seen as a ‘‘boom’’ of Russian philanthropy and as a period of ‘‘merchants giving.’’ Famous merchant donors such as Savva Morosov or Pavel Tretyakov gave millions of rubles to build hospitals, public art galleries and schools in Russia. Philanthropy also became visibly less religiously motivated and separated from the church. However, organized philanthropy in the form of private foundations did not exist. After the Bolshevik revolution major donor philanthropy ceased to exist but ordinary people continued to make donations and charities existed, even supported by the Bolshevik government. The era of relatively independent philanthropy ended in 1928–1929 when Josef Stalin finally absorbed full power in the Soviet Union and destroyed any independent, nongovernmental activity, whether in the form of small enterprises, individual farms or charities. 3. Soviet period from 1929 till 1987 saw a near absence of voluntary giving and total absence of charities; charities simply were not allowed to exist. Even the church was not allowed to collect donations for anything except direct religious services. However, so called ‘‘forced’’ giving and volunteering were wide spread, such as collection of donations to ‘‘friendly’’ countries in Africa or Latin America or volunteering as part of communist upbringing in Soviet pioneer and Communist Youth League organizations. The public saw such giving and volunteering largely as a price to pay to be left alone or as a burden, especially in 1960s and 1970s when romantic feelings about communism were all but gone. 4. Modern philanthropy started in Russia in 1987 with the creation of two huge semigovernmental foundations: the Soviet Culture Foundation and the Children’s Foundation. Both foundations, and especially the Children’s Foundation received a massive flow of voluntary private donations from ordinary people but quickly lost their favor with the public due to reporting and management issues. In 1989 the first law ‘‘On public associations’’ was adopted by the then Soviet parliament and it opened a new period of history of independent NGOs and charities in Russia that despite
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restrictions of 2007–2008 continues today. In parallel, the very first cooperatives and private enterprises that sprang up to life at the same time started giving donations to charity from their very first profits and thus a new era of philanthropic giving in Russia started. In Central Asia the history of philanthropy is closely intertwined with the history of Islam and its profound influence on customs and traditions of peoples of the region. In traditionally Muslim countries of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, for example, philanthropic traditions are closely connected with the concept of ‘‘zakat’’: a requirement by Islam to donate 10% of one’s wealth to help those who are worse of. In Tajikistan and Uzbekistan up until the beginning of 1930s philanthropic giving was channeled almost exclusively through mosques and was motivated by religious beliefs and obligations. In both countries there also exist deep traditions of community self help, for example, the Uzbek tradition of hashar that has been one of the integral parts of the Uzbek culture. Hashar is a voluntary work of a group of people to help a poor or needy person where community comes together to solve a problem of one of its members. The Soviet period saw a near extinction of religious giving and decrease in community support. Similar to the Orthodox Church in Russia, mosques were not allowed to collect donations for charitable purposes, only to support religious services. Forcible de-islamisation of Central Asia created similar disintegration of ordinary people from traditions of the past, however, such disintegration was not as dramatic as in Russia. In Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, however, an influence of Islam was never so profound and was always mixed with ancient cults and local religions such as shamanism that are still strong even today. Philanthropy in the past was mostly expressed through local community support, and it did not have any specific institutionalized forms. It is also important to note that Kazakhstan in particular saw a significant influx of Russian population in 1950s and 1960s with the start of agricultural use of ‘‘tselina’’ – empty steppes lands in Northern Kazakhstan. Arrival of thousands of Russians brought Russian traditions and customs to Kazakhstan and despite Soviet propaganda helped to spread Orthodox Christianity in the country. Cultural Context for Philanthropy in Russia and Central Asia
Unlike in prerevolution period, modern philanthropy in Russia is not motivated by faith and not connected with the church. Religious giving exists and is growing but the majority of philanthropic initiatives are not driven by
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religious motivation. The most significant cultural factor that affects philanthropy in Russia is distrust to any organized institutions, and specifically nongovernmental organizations or charities. Such distrust is firstly the result of 80 years of total state control over all aspects of life in the Soviet Union to the extent that anything ‘‘nongovernmental’’ is considered equal to ‘‘criminal’’ activities, but it also has its roots in the major betrayal of public trust in 1987–1990 by some semigovernmental foundations. Such strong was that early shock that even 20 years after those events most of individual donors in Russia prefer to give donations directly to individuals in need or to state institutions such as hospitals or orphanages rather than to registered charities. In Central Asia, however, religion remains to be a powerful motivator for giving, especially after the rise of influence of Islam in several countries of Central Asia. With an exception of tiny local intelligentsia and decreasing ethnic Russian population, on a community level general public in Central Asia returns back to old traditions of community self help and religious giving. However, in corporate giving and philanthropy of High Net Worth (HNW) individuals in all Central Asian countries charitable activities are closely connected monitored and even led by authorities.
Individual Giving While analyzing private giving in Russia, it is important to differentiate between giving by ultra wealthy Russians and the rest of the population. Directions, patterns, motivations, and forms of giving by ultra rich are distinctively different of that by ordinary middle class or even other wealthy people. In Russia the ‘‘ultra wealthy’’ category usually applied to individuals included in the Russian Forbes list where in 2008 one needed to amass over $400 million personal wealth to be listed there. More generally High Net Worth (HNW), however, may mean a wide range of wealth levels from $100,000/year family income in province to up to $300–$400 million of personal assets in Moscow or St. Petersburg. From the initial surge in private giving in 1987–1988 and until 2004–2005 individual giving by ordinary people, including small and medium business owners, middle class and the poor practically did not exist. Donations by small and medium size enterprises indeed included funds of owners of those enterprises, sometimes such ‘‘hidden’’ donations comprising up to 50% of the total annual giving by a company. But by and large most of Russian population rather threw coins to beggars than gave to charities. In 2004–2005 the situation started to change very rapidly: from less than 5% of population considering to
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give to charity in 2001 (CAF Russia research on individual giving, 2001) to over 56% stating that they consider giving as an important ‘‘duty’’ of every person, and 40% willing to support charitable causes regularly in 2006 (VTSIOM [ВЦИОМ] – Russian Center of Sociological Research and Public Opinion Survey, 2006). Most of people who began to give regularly to charitable causes, responded on fund raising campaigns or got connect with charities, reflecting the rise of more professional and proactive charitable sector in Russia. Among reasons for the recent rapid growth of individual giving are: 1. General increase of wealth and well-being of Russian people. 2. Greater number of successful young people among middle class and HNW individuals who grew up after the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus were not affected by the Soviet ideology. 3. Appearance of more professional charities who invested in proper fund raising campaigns and what was even more important received support from the media, which at best ignored the charitable sector before. Consistent efforts of several philanthropy development organizations, including the Charities Aid Foundation to encourage private giving also played an important role in boosting individual giving in Russia. Key motivations for giving among the general public in Russia include: 1. Compassion for others not well off. 2. Sense of personal duty and/or responsibility. 3. Curiosity: this particular motivation is very new and reflects an interest of usually young middle class in large cities to charities and charitable activity as something new and challenging, this interest was significantly increased through such successful initiatives as introduction of employee giving in Russia by the Charities Aid Foundation. However, we can also identify ‘‘de-motivating’’ factors that slow the growth of private giving in Russia. Apart from considerable distrust of the Russian public to any organized institutions, let alone ‘‘nongovernmental’’ organizations, there are some other factors that impact the growth of individual giving by the general public in Russia: 1. Lack of tax benefits for individuals: there are few options of some tax benefits an individual donor can receive but only if he or she gives to a government institution such as an orphanage or a school or a
hospital, and the procedure for obtaining such benefits is very complicated. 2. Russians do not have cheque books and direct debit system: in order to make a donation to a charity, one should go through a tedious procedure of a bank wire transfer. 3. The overall majority of Russian charities are not yet active in raising funds from the general public. Motivations and patterns of giving by ultra wealthy, however, are somewhat different that of the general public. While many ultra wealthy people in Russia enter the philanthropic field being moved by compassion similarly to the middle class donors, such almost ‘‘accidental’’ giving quickly gives way to philanthropy driven by clearly defined personal or corporate interests. ‘‘Interests based’’ giving is the key driving force of ultra HNW philanthropy in Russia. Interests of ultra wealthy could include the need to promote a corporate brand of a privately owned company, or expand business to a new territory or a country, or simply to buy loyalty of politicians especially when donations are given to charities under patronage of such politicians. For a number of Russian ultra wealthy donors interests may also include their wish to improve their image abroad, especially in the United States and Western Europe. In recent years, since Vladimir Putin became the President and then Prime Minister of Russia and significantly reduced options for open policy dialog and political contest, philanthropy for some ultra wealthy donors also became an instrument of policy influence and an alternative to direct involvement in politics. If one draws a progression pattern of ultra wealthy donor motivation in Russia, it would start with an ‘‘accident’’ – an ad hoc giving, an emotional reaction to an event or facing a person in need; it will then continue with giving based largely on short term interests; and for some finally transforms into giving based on newly formulated or discovered values. In case of ultra wealthy in Russia such motivation change is often very pronounced and evident and expressed in all aspects of private giving: what donors support, how they do that, whom they invite to run their philanthropic projects, and whom to advice on it, and of course how if ever they talk about their giving. Unfortunately, no credible research data exists on individual giving in Central Asia. With regard to patterns of giving, choice of priorities, ways of giving, Kazakhstan is probably most closely related to the situation in Russia, followed by Kyrgyzstan. Existence of vibrant and growing private business sector, fast generation of wealth created the basis for the growth of philanthropy. However,
Philanthropy in Russia and Central Asia
tendency of the majority of HNW private donors in Kazakhstan to give to state supported or endorsed institutions is very clear. Philanthropy in Kazakhstan is even more an instrument of influence, expression of political loyalty or an informal ‘‘tax’’ in exchange of new premises or access to resources, than in Russia. Giving by ordinary people in Central Asia is inspired and channeled largely through mosques as it was before the Soviet regime. Even in Kazakhstan mosques and Muslim charities lead local community efforts in helping the poor, homeless, or disabled. National governments in all Central Asian countries try to put tight control over such community giving and largely succeed but community level philanthropy in Central Asia, while not structured or institutionalized, still mostly independent and gets most trust from ordinary people.
Foundations Foundations are even more recent phenomenon in Russia and Central Asia than philanthropy in general. It is important, however, to differentiate between a legal form of a ‘‘foundation’’ in this region and a true meaning a foundation would have in the United States or in Europe. In Russia, as well as in countries of Central Asia a ‘‘foundation’’ is one of legal forms in which charities can register. There are generally very few specific requirements for foundations in comparison to other legal forms of charities, among those are in Russia, for example, the requirement to have a Board of Directors and an Advisory Board and to have some minimum initial assets but the minimum requirement for the asset size is so small, that in reality anyone can register a foundation. As a result of a very ‘‘loose’’ legislation in relation to foundations, there are over 35,000 foundations registered in Russia alone but only a handful of those foundations could be defined as foundations according to US or UK standards. The Russian Donors Forum (RDF), a voluntary association of donors in Russia, estimates that there are over 100 private foundations in Russia, 40 corporate foundations and 30 community foundations in Russia, so approximately 170 foundations which would be considered ‘‘foundations’’ by US or European standards, meaning these are institutions that have assets, independent governance and generally act as funding institutions providing resources to other charities or implementing projects they fund themselves. The RDF recent (2008) analysis of activities of 20 private and corporate foundations shows that: 1. Ten percent of foundations surveyed by RDF are grant-making foundations.
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2. Eighty percent are operating foundations meaning that they implement charitable programs themselves instead of giving grants to other charities or some of them combine grant-making and operating programs. 3. In 10% of cases it was not clear what foundations actually do or they were still in the early planning stage. Main priority areas of foundation giving in Russia in order of importance are: 1. 2. 3. 4.
Children welfare – 12 foundations out of 20 surveyed Education Science Culture
Such priority areas as environment protection, human rights, health (except paying directly for medical treatment of children or people in need), or more ‘‘sensitive’’ subjects of social welfare or health such as mental health, HIV/ AIDS, human trafficking, abuse (including drug or alcohol abuse) are absent from agendas of private and corporate foundations in Russia. Poverty alleviation as a specific topic is also not addressed by private foundations, donors prefer to pay attention to some specific groups of the needy such as orphaned children without going to discussion of poverty as a problem. Various models of encouraging economic activities by the poor, micro credit, social entrepreneurship recently (2008) started to gain some interest but such interest is still very remote and Russian donors either do not know how to implement such initiatives in Russia or in most of cases are afraid of political consequences of moving towards the ‘‘poverty agenda.’’ Community foundations occupy a very specific place in Russia where they play a role of a bridge between local donors and local charities, both sides inexperienced, not trusting each other, non-transparent. Community foundations through donor advised funds, specific grant programs and a range of campaigns and education activities try to teach both donors and charities locally to act more efficient and transparent and to look beyond their individual short term interests towards real community needs. Community foundations in Russia are small in comparison with foundations in the United States or Western Europe; the largest endowment of the largest community foundation in Russia – the Togliatti Foundation – is less than $2 million. But in comparison with other countries beyond Western Europe where community foundations only started developing in 1990s, Russian community foundations probably have the highest local sustainability rate with over 90% of funds coming from local communities where foundations operate.
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Relations between foundations and the state in Russia vary significantly depending on the nature of their founders, source of funds, even geographical location. In general, foundations created by companies tend to build more close ties with the government either on the national (if a company is a major national corporation) or local level. Private foundations, even ones created by individuals openly loyal to Kremlin, tend to distance themselves from the government and sometimes opening a private foundation becomes the only opportunity for a particular ultra wealthy individual to retain some form of independence in philanthropy, when in corporate giving such independence becomes more and more of a problem. Community foundations in Russia through long and painful early development stage developed a particular formula of relations with local authorities that help them to balance interests of local donors (mostly local companies and their owners), local authorities and the community at large. This formula is called ‘‘One–third principle’’ which means that a Board of a community foundation includes in equal representation three key sectors of Russian society: business sector, state sector and community at large. Private and corporate foundations exist in several countries of Central Asia but the size of the foundation sector there is not even comparable to Russia. One of key patterns of foundation development across all countries of Central Asia is the creation of semigovernmental foundations, endorsed or directly led by politicians and/or members of families of national political leaders. A ‘‘classic’’ example of such foundation is the Public Charitable Fund created by the President of Tajikistan Imomali Rahmon. The foundation is managed by officials appointed by the President and all companies, local or international, working in the country, and private individuals are strongly ‘‘encouraged’’ to make donations to the foundation. As a rule, such foundations are very non-transparent and support populist projects such as building huge Palaces of Culture or Sport, or organizing festivals. It is also common for such semi governmental foundations to engage in commercial activities, which in time become the main preoccupation of foundation managers.
Corporations Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Philanthropy
Corporate philanthropy in modern Russia and Central Asia started practically same time as first independent cooperatives and private companies were permitted to open in 1986–1987. That philanthropy was mostly ad hoc, reactive,
and mostly included small donations and in kind gifts to local schools, hospitals, directly to people in desperate need (e.g., in need to cover expensive medical costs or victims of disaster). It remains the same for thousands of small and medium size enterprises in Russia and even to the majority of large companies in Central Asia. However, giving priorities and patterns of large national companies in Russia and some in Central Asia differ significantly from small and medium size enterprises. It is possible to identify at least three types of philanthropic behavior of nationwide companies in Russia: 1. ‘‘State’’ oriented industrial companies and banks: These are either companies where the state is a majority shareholder or companies that have close connection with the government or particular officials. These companies tend to align their philanthropy with priorities of Kremlin and/or local authorities in regions where they operate and very often give money directly to the government or through government agencies. Examples: Gasprom, Vnesheconombank. 2. Independent industrial companies and non-retail banks/financial companies: Tend to be most proactive in corporate giving, implement major corporate community programs, create corporate foundations; aspire to model their corporate philanthropy on best international standards. Examples: BP/TNK, Russian Aluminium, Evraz group. 3. Retail companies: Corporate giving is closely connected to business interests: brand promotion, sales, advertising, customer retention and loyalty; prefer to engage customers in giving, tend to focus mostly on cause related marketing options. However, Russian retail companies are much less proactive and experienced in cause related marketing. International retail brands active in Russia such as Avon are current leaders in cause related marketing field in Russia. Examples of Russian retail companies with corporate giving that involves customers: ‘‘Perekrestok’’ supermarket chain, Alfa bank. There are also some specific issues of Soviet corporate welfare legacy that Russian companies have to deal with in their corporate giving. In the Soviet Union enterprises historically subsidized significant part of the social welfare, housing, health, and recreation provision in Russian regions, especially in less accessible regions of Siberia, Russian North and the Far East. After privatization of 1993–2000 new owners of industrial enterprises faced growing demand to sustain the basic social safety net in so called ‘‘one company towns’’: towns where their enterprises were the main employer, tax payer and provider. Sustaining local welfare which government could not finance became the
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main item in corporate philanthropy agendas of all industrial companies in Russia. Some companies just continued to fund ailing social infrastructure in their towns; others tried to deter from this responsibility by transferring social assets to balance sheets of local authorities (mostly without much success). Some independent private companies spent considerable resources to restructure and modernize social infrastructure and involve local communities, small businesses in supporting social welfare, education, health, and other issues in their areas. The rise and success of community foundations in Russia, for example, could be substantially attributed to an interest of several major Russian industrial giants to use community foundations as one of solutions in achieving more professional management of community needs and resources and in diversifying their responsibility for community welfare. While corporate philanthropy is wide spread, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is still very much a debated concept in Russia. Majority of large national companies took an interest in CSR only in 2001–2002. CSR conferences attract hundreds of corporate representatives, a dialog about the nature of corporate responsibility in Russia exists on different levels but in reality only a handful of private nationwide companies make an effort to implement best practice in CSR, report on CSR and even understand CSR beyond pure corporate giving. Corporate Foundations
Corporate foundations exist in Russia mostly in name – as a framework for managing corporate giving programs. Other aspects of corporate foundations such as setting up designated endowments, having more flexibility in what foundations can support in comparison with funds directly from the corporation – are not utilized. Most of Russian companies are not yet familiar with the concept of a corporate foundation and consider such structures as unnecessary.
Concluding Assessment Philanthropic field in Russia experienced significant growth in a relatively short period of time. It also became much more diversified: from solely corporate giving in the 1990s to the emergency of ultra HNW philanthropy in 2000–2001 and then the dawn of middle class giving. It is diverse in quality as well as in approach: the majority of Russian donors prefer to give cash donations to individuals in need or to state institutions and do not trust the charitable sector. However, you can find modern giving practices and innovative foundations, and the community foundation field is probably the most sustainable and developed in Central and Eastern Europe.
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Russian philanthropy survives in increasingly complicated legal and fiscal framework. Corporate donors have no tax benefits for their giving, individual donors may apply for tax deductions but only if they give to state institutions. However, hardly anyone of private donors, including even very wealthy ones, applies for tax benefit. There are also clear differences in approaches, choice of priorities, ways, and forms of giving between giving of the general public and ultra wealthy; and between giving of small and medium size enterprises and large national or multi national companies. However, what unites all donors in Russia is their extreme sensitivity towards any issues or causes that may attract political risk and/or public outrage. As a result, by and large Russian donors avoid controversial topics such as human rights or even environment protection. In comparison with countries of Central Asia and despite political changes of 2001–2008, Russian philanthropy is surprisingly relatively independent from government control or pressure. Companies face such pressure more significantly but private donors much less, however, all donors apply significant ‘‘self censorship’’ in their giving. Undoubtedly, Russian philanthropy has enormous potential for growth in quantity and quality. The financial crisis of 2008 may slow down but would not stop philanthropic development in Russia, and it may be that even Russian government may not be able to do it either. The situation in Central Asia, however, is quite different. Community based philanthropy is largely driven by religious motives and channeled through mosques or expressed in a form of traditional community self – help, while giving by major companies and wealthy individuals is based on narrowly understood commercial or political interests and closely connected with the government.
Cross-References
▶ Charities Aid Foundation ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central Asia ▶ Compassion ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Russia ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Law, Foundations ▶ Mosques ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam
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▶ Philanthropy and the Media ▶ Social Trust ▶ QUANGOs ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Alekseeva, O. (2007). History of trust in distrustful times (История доверия в недоверительные времена). Moscow: Eksmo Publishing (In Russian language). Gambrell, J. (2004). Philanthropy in Russia: New money under pressure. Carnegie Reporter, 3(1), 20–31. Livshin, A., & Weiz, R. (May 2006). Civil society and philanthropy under Putin. The International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, 8(3). Kaminarskaya, N. (2006). New donors philanthropy in Russia: How to make it work? Russian Donors Forum. Public Chamber of the Russian Federation. (2007). Report on the state of civil society in Russia. Moscow: Public Chamber of the Russian Federation (In English and Russian). Russian Donors Forum, Survey of 20 Russian private and corporate foundations, August 2008. ‘‘Charity in Russia’’ («Благотворительность в России»), Т. 1–3. St. Petersburg, 1907 (in Russian). ‘‘Charitable institutions in Russia’’ («Благотворительные учреждения России»), St. Petersburg, 1912 (in Russian). ‘‘Money and Charity’’ magazine, June issue, 2001, CAF, Moscow. ‘‘SEAL – Social Econamy and Law’’ magazine, Stephen Schmida Autumn issue, 2002, Publish in Belgium. Vlasov, P. V. (2001). Charity and mercy in Russia («Благотворительность и милосердие в России»), Moscow. VTSIOM All Russia Survey of Public Opinion (26–27 August 2006) г, 1600 respondents in 153 communities in 46 regions of Russia, VTSIOM Press release N 564, Moscow, 30 October 2006. Valentin Komaev (2001). Philanthropy in Kazakhstan. Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 23 June 2001.
Philanthropy in South East Asia MA. OLIVA Z. DOMINGO University of the Philippines, Quezon City, Philippines
Information on the size and scope of philanthropic activity in Southeast Asian countries is limited. Religion, however, provides a strong foundation for a glimpse into the giving tradition in these societies. Buddhism, Islam, or Christianity, all of which have teachings on giving and sharing – strongly influence the life and cultures of Southeast Asian nations vis-a`-vis their practice of philanthropy. Table 1 shows that where Islam, Buddhism, or Christianity is not the religion of the majority, it is one of the minority religions in the country. Among Buddhists the practice of thambun, or giving for religious purposes to gain merit, and thamtaan, the practice of giving to those in need, are major motivating forces for philanthropy. Buddhists in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam, or wherever they may be, are bound by thana (dana), the thread of generosity, selflessness, and compassion, which are basic principles of Buddhism. Muslims believe that one has to give before one can come closer to God. Just like other Islamic communities, philanthropy in Brunei, Indonesia, and Malaysia, takes the form of zakat, sadaqah, infaq, and waqaf. Zakat (or zakah/zaqah), literally meaning purification and growth obliges Muslims to give a specific amount for the benefit of the al-mustahiqqin, or the less fortunate members of the Muslim community. Each Muslim calculates his or her own zakat-al-maal (zakat-ul-maal/zakat mal), which is 2.5% of total wealth and properties, not just on income, that are in excess of a threshold called nisab. If the amount of one’s wealth is less than the nisab,
Philanthropy in South East Asia. Table 1 Religions of Southeast Asians Southeast Asian country
Majority religion
Minority religion(s)
Brunei
65% Islam
Introduction
Cambodia
95% Buddhism Islam
Buddhism; Christianity
The term ‘‘philanthropy’’ is often associated with the wealthy, the elite, and the west. With the exception of oil-rich Brunei, however, which has the third highest per capita income in the Third World, or Singapore, one of the so-called Asian tigers, the other countries in Southeast Asia – Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam – are, in general, labeled as Third World or ‘‘developing’’ economies with a sizable portion of their population considered as ‘‘poor.’’ Could philanthropy then exist in Southeast Asia under these circumstances?
Indonesia
86% Islam
Christianity; Hinduism
Laos
67% Buddhism Christianity; others
Malaysia
60% Islam
Myanmar
80% Buddhism Christianity; Islam
Philippines
92% Christian
Singapore
42% Buddhism Islam; Christianity, Hinduism
Thailand
94% Buddhism Islam; Christianity
Vietnam
85% Buddhism Christianity; Cao Dai; Hinduism
Buddhism; Christianity Islam; Buddhism
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which is the equivalent of 85 g of pure gold, the zakat is not obligatory. The zakat-al-fitr (zakat-ul-fitr/zakat fitrah), on the other hand, is levied not on wealth but on the person. All Muslim men and women, young and old, except the absolutely destitute, pay the zakat-al-fitr during the period of Ramadan towards the celebration of Eidil-Fitr. The zakat-al-maal varies depending on a person’s wealth, while the zakat-al-fitr is a flat fee of about 2 kg of grain or its monetary equivalent used to help feed the needy during the Eid-il-Fitr celebration. Giving the zakat is considered an act of worship and thanksgiving for the material wealth one has acquired. It purifies not only the assets of the giver (or muzakki) who set aside some for those in need, but the heart of the muzakki as well, from selfishness and greed, and the heart of the recipient (or mustahiq) from hatred and envy. Besides the obligatory zakat, Muslims also practice the sadaqah (shadaqah/sedekah/sadaqa), which involves voluntary almsgiving done secretly and without expectation of gratitude, or doing a good deed, even simple acts as meeting others with a cheerful face or speaking nicely. Cash, food, clothes, and other short-term consumer goods can be given as sadaqah directly to people for their daily need. According to Fauzia (2007), very few goods have been distributed through formal organizations in Indonesia. Muslims also practice infaq (infak), the practice of spending wealth for a specific purpose. Zakat and infaq are always in the form of wealth or properties while sadaqah can be in the form of goods and good deeds. Waqaf (or waqf ), another form of philanthropy, is the giving of land or buildings for religious or community use. Waqaf is an Arabic word that literally means ‘‘to stop,’’ refers to the prevention of the disposal of donated property. Rather, the property is used to generate profit or for investment so that beneficiaries can derive benefits in perpetuity. Even non-Muslims can benefit from the waqaf. Majeed (2001) reports that the waqaf is one of the most important forms of philanthropy in Malaysia, whether in the form of real estate such as land or infrastructure like mosques, hospitals, schools, orphanages, which beneficiaries can use, or marketable goods and services to be sold to generate income that could be distributed to beneficiaries. Each state in Malaysia has a State Islamic Council with the power to hold waqaf properties in trust and administer them to ensure a sustainable income from the properties. Some states have been creative in developing waqaf properties, such as setting up dialysis service centers or disease research institutes, which sponsors help to sustain. Ariff (1991: 2) states that the zakat is a means to redistribute wealth, but many argue that the economic
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impact of the zakat depends on how it is administered, in terms of how it is collected and distributed. The management of the zakat is not supposed to be a burden to the budget of the state because those who collect and distribute are paid from the zakat proceeds. In effect, collectors of the zakat-al-mal are also beneficiaries. The zakat is a religious obligation imposed on the state. Indonesia, however, is not an Islamic state thus it experiences difficulties in managing the zakat. According to Alfitri (2006), President Soeharto established a nationwide structure for collecting the zakat in 1968, through semiautonomous government collection boards called Badan Amil Zakat, Infak dan Sedekah (or BAZIS). Each provincial BAZIS has three levels: regency (kotamadya or kabupaten); district (kecamatan); and village (kelurahan). Side by side these state-sanctioned zakat agencies are the voluntary Islamic social and educational organizations, which also collect and distribute the zakat. Registered foundations, banks, and institutions funded by multinational corporations may also function as zakat collectors in Indonesia, with state approval and supervision. Muslims in Indonesia also use traditional channels for their zakat, such as mosques, orphanages, community zakat committees, or directly to the poor. Community zakat committees distribute funds or goods to the needy, especially the zakat-al-fitr. They are found in every mosque, Islamic school, and residential area and number in the hundreds of thousands. According to Fauzia (2007), many Indonesians still give their zakat to mosque officials, many of whom are not professional administrators of philanthropy and do not practice transparency and accountability. The self-organized, voluntary, and community organizations engaged in zakat collection are referred to as the Lembaga Amil Zakat, Infak, Sedekah, or LAZIS. Around 182 BAZIS and LAZIS are members of an umbrella organization called Forum Zakat (FOZ). In 1999, Indonesian President Habibie, promulgated a law, which does not make the payment of zakat obligatory but lets the individual Muslim Indonesian decide whether to pay the zakat or not. The 1999 law, however, regulates the institutions that manage the zakat by requiring independent audits and annual reports to enhance accountability and transparency. In 2001, a Presidential Decision created the National Zakat Collector Body or BAZNAS, the highest body in the organizational structure of the semigovernment zakat collectors in Indonesia. It is, however, distracted from performing its policy making function and regulation of the BAZIS and LAZIS, because it is also engaged in collecting and distributing zakat. Collection of the zakat in Malaysia is done by a private professional organization supervised by the Islamic
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Council, while distribution to beneficiaries is done by a government agency. The essence of Christianity can be summed up in two major teachings: loving God and loving your neighbor as yourself. This love for others is manifested through mutual help, especially for the needy. While tithing is not compulsory for all Christian denominations, one of the important principles of Christianity is that all things belong to God and that human beings are merely stewards or trustees of all that they own. Thus, giving to God, through the church, is a common practice. Some Christian denominations require tithing equivalent to 10% of one’s income, perhaps because they are unsure of the power of moral suasion. Catholics in the Philippines give voluntary cash contributions during church services. They also make donations in cash or in kind whenever there is a solicitation for typhoon victims, the poor, the repair of the church, or some other special project. Through the example of their parents, children learn to practice giving not only to the church but to those in need. The practice of giving in Southeast Asian societies has its roots in religion and indigenous practices and traditions strengthen this philanthropic spirit. Strong kinship ties and communal solidarity characterize Southeast Asian societies and helping family members and neighbors is common. The Malaysian word for philanthropy is ‘‘sukarela,’’ a combination of ‘‘suka’’ meaning liking/loving, and ‘‘rela’’ meaning sacrifice. Philanthropy is thus to sacrifice out of love. Malaysians manifest this sacrifice in their daily lives by giving cash, goods, or time to help others regardless of religious background. Gotong royong, the formation of ad hoc groups to perform tasks together for the welfare of the community, and tolong menolong, the tradition of helping each other, are old Malaysian traditions that are still practiced today. They are seen in village patrols, preparations for weddings, funerals, religious celebrations, special neighborhood events, or during disasters. The tradition of gotong royong makes sure that the needy and helpless are not abandoned. There may be no precise translation for the term ‘‘philanthropy’’ in Indonesia but the practice has existed for centuries. Indonesians also have the gotong royong system of mutual responsibility and reciprocal exchange where groups, or even a whole community, contribute labor, money, or facilities to assist a family or the community to complete a project, such as planting, harvesting, road repair, canal cleaning, or disaster relief, with the expectation of receiving a favor in return. Sometimes neighboring communities help each other. In the past, each member of the community was expected to render
five full days of labor toward a project, and expect the same in return. Today, Indonesians are willing to give only 2 days of labor with the excuse that they have not received any return during the year or they did not need what they received. Gotong royong is practiced largely in Java but similar practices exist elsewhere: parelek in Western Java, julo-julo in West Sumatra, or arisan tenaga in South Sulawesi. These are still considered strong social obligations in Indonesian villages although on the decline, especially in urban areas. Similar to gotong royong is the concept of bayanihan in the Philippines. This value of reciprocity holds a community together through mutual help. The image of people carrying a house on their shoulders to transfer it to its new location commonly symbolizes the bayanihan spirit. Filipinos empathize with and feel responsible for the plight of their family, friends, and neighbors and try to make things better through their tulong (or help) by sharing their material or human resources. This emanates from the inherently Filipino trait of ‘‘kapwa,’’ meaning ‘‘shared identity/humanity,’’ which describes the unity between the self and others, and the core value of ‘‘pakikipagkapwa,’’ which means treating others well as human beings. Thus, Filipinos are ready to help each other and to share what little they have. No word approximates the meaning of ‘‘philanthropy’’ in the Thai language but this is well-ingrained in Thai culture and behavior. Ganjanapan (1998) states that Thais practice philanthropy daily for merit making and to help the poor. They believe that if everyone is welloff, prosperity is secured for all. The locus of philanthropy is the temple. It receives large donations and provides social services to the community – to the poor, aged, or handicapped. For instance, the traditional Tan Khao Lon Barr, or filling up of the rice bowl of the monks for gaining merit, not only ensures that there is rice for use in temple affairs but also for the needy. Today, temples have lost much of their social welfare function and are unable to respond to social needs but Thais continue to donate large amounts to temples. Temple donations are usually spent on buildings where the names of donors are engraved, thus many businessmen and politicians donate money to famous monks to be known rather than for merit making. The ritual of Tan Tod, which is not performed through the temple, involves leaving alms for the daily needs of the poor. Donors hide but make a lot of noise before they leave to signal the poor to gather the alms. Thais also throw coins to the poor during funerals or give alms during birthdays. The practice of giving to the poor by those who could afford, however, could develop into the Pau Liang or patronage system, where the
Philanthropy in South East Asia
recipients feel grateful, become totally dependent on the giver, and feel obligated to repay the patron by providing labor when needed. Donations for charity through the Royal family have developed into a popular tradition because it is a good indicator of the status of the donor. Thais trust and admire their king and supporting the king’s projects enhances one’s prestige, especially since photographs with the royal family are usually taken during presentation of donations.
Individual Giving Effective 2003, the zakat-al maal paid to BAZIS or LAZIS in Indonesia can be deducted from the net income of the individual taxpayer up to 2.5%, but only on the income that is subject to zakat and income tax, not on wealth. A survey in 2000 by the Public Interest Research and Advocacy Center or PIRAC (2002) revealed that 96% of Indonesian respondents had given either to their relatives, friends, beggars, or victims of calamities or violence. Donors from the socioeconomic Class A gave more (double than those from Class B and three times more than Class C), but all Classes gave to beggars. Indonesians consider it a shame for a rich family member not to help less fortunate relatives. Emotional ties also influence giving to relatives. Religious teaching and the discomfort of having a beggar around make Indonesians give to beggars out of habit. The survey found that the average giving to relatives was US$39 a year, US$20 to friends, and US$5 to beggars. Even the lowest income earners were able to give to family and friends. Most Indonesians (84%) gave to religious organizations or activities an average of US$30 a year, and 77% gave to social service and human welfare organizations an average of US$24 a year. Patterns of individual giving differed among socioeconomic classes: the higher the class, the higher the tendency to donate to organizations. The survey found consensus in three priority factors for giving – compassion, sense of solidarity, and religious teachings. There was no consensus for the other reasons – trust in the organization, coercion, or private interest in solicitation, and custom or tradition. Mistrust and lack of financial capacity were the major reasons for not giving. Door-to-door fundraising was the most common method, followed by the charity box, and face-to-face solicitation in the work place. Direct mail, special discounts, fundraising through the banks or by telephone, and advertisements were not popular. The Malaysian government encourages philanthropy through the grant of tax rebates on zakat payments, both the zakat-al-maal and zakat-al-fitr, provided these are paid to the authorized private collection organization.
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Donations made to nonprofit organizations like hospitals or schools are also tax exempt. These organizations may further request tax exemption for fundraising proceeds, which are granted on a case-to-case basis. In 1997, the zakat-al-maal collection amounted to US$55.5 million while the zakat-al-fitr was US$8.6 million, or a total of US$63.1 million. Total collection ballooned to US$83.6 in 2002, and reached US$109.6 million in 2003. Fernan (2002) reports that even in the midst of an economic slowdown, unemployment, and where half of the population consider themselves poor, a 1999–2000 survey revealed that Filipinos demonstrated a higher household giving rate than the 75% norm in the United States. Even households with incomes of US$300 or less, had the same 80% rate of giving to charity as higher income households. Eighty-six percent gave to institutions and 74% gave directly to persons. Churches were the preferred institutional beneficiaries: 73% gave to churches. Only 29% gave to social service organizations (for education and research, health, and housing); 24% to culture and recreation groups, and 10% to environment and other organizations. The estimated amount of giving in 1998 was US$631 million, equivalent to 18% of total government expenditures on social services and 1.2% of the gross domestic product (GDP). Giving in the United States in 2000 was 2.1% of GDP; it was from 0.66% to 0.77% of the GDP in the United Kingdom. Of the total giving, 42% went to organizations and 58% directly to persons. The average giving was US$41 per year, US$24 directly to persons and US$17 to organizations. Perhaps because borrowing money is common due to widespread poverty, survey respondents also considered lending money without interest to someone in need as a form of charity. Giving among Filipinos is primarily directed at family members and friends, and, to a certain extent, to the community. Although mendicancy is legally prohibited, Filipinos give alms to the poor to express their pakikipagkapwa. Personal networks facilitate fundraising. Filipinos overseas have been giving back to their country as well to support social development projects through what is alternatively referred to as migrant philanthropy, diaspora giving, or patriotic philanthropy. Donations may be just a few dollars or thousands of dollars pooled together to support projects in the Philippines. In 2003, a total of US$218 million cash donations passed through the banks, greater than the taxes paid by the top four Philippine corporations in 4 years. This excludes cash or kind donations sent through other channels. Donors are mainly organizations of Filipinos coming from the same hometown in the Philippines, those living in the same community abroad, cultural or church-based groups, and
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association of professionals or alumni. These organizations usually weave philanthropy into their activities. Filipino Diasporas raise funds for various projects to be implemented by a local partner in the Philippines. Churches, local governments, schools, hospitals, nonprofit organizations, or individuals are recipients of this ‘‘quite foreign aid.’’ Individual giving in Singapore dramatically increased from US$236 million in 2006, to US$512 million in 2007, and US$656 million in 2008. Cash donations to institutions of public character (hospitals, schools, relief, and other such institutions) qualify for tax deductions. Donations in kind do not qualify for deduction. The National Volunteer & Philanthropy Center (NPVC, 2008) survey revealed an increase in donor participation from 89% in 2006 to 91% in 2008. Singaporeans volunteer and donate when they personally believe in the cause, or have been approached by someone involved in the cause or whom they know. The survey found a strong link between volunteerism and philanthropy: 98% of volunteers donate and give four times more than non-volunteers who donate. On the average, volunteerdonors give US$456 a year compared to only US$112 for non-volunteers. A large portion of giving in Thailand is by individuals. They sympathize with the needy and vulnerable and donate for social services when asked. Giving quietly is preferred because displaying wealth is frowned upon, risky, and dilutes the philanthropic spirit. Villagers are generous even to strangers, and provide water, food, or lodging. Fundraising for charity in Thailand is best done through personal networks and social connections because Thai society values personal relationships. Mark Sidel (2007) reports that the Vietnamese diaspora in 2005 was 3 million, 1.3 million of them living in the United States. Official figures indicate that they remitted US$2.2 billion in 2002, US$2.6 billion in 2003, and US$3.2 billion in 2004 through banks. These figures exclude remittances in cash and kind sent directly to families through other channels. Disasters, improvements in policies and procedures, and the increase in domestic charitable groups provided the impetus for the increase in quantity and quality of Vietnamese diaspora giving.
Foundations Rich philanthropists in Southeast Asia are starting to create their foundations. Endowment funds have been operating in Indonesia for decades. They primarily give to children’s programs or ‘‘safe’’ causes that do not question the status quo. In the 1970s, rich businessmen in Malaysia established private grant making foundations
for education, social services, or sports. The grants were used also for relief aid overseas during natural disasters or conflicts. Patterned after the Dividendo Voluntario para la Comunidad in Valenzuela, leaders of Philippine corporations set up the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) in 1970 where 50 member companies committed to give 1% of their pretax profits. Initially, 60% of this was intended to fund PBSP development projects on behalf of the member companies and the companies retained 40% for their own programs. Since 1989, the new formula is that companies contribute 20% of 1% net income before taxes and retain the 80% for their own programs. PBSP has almost 200 members today and is the largest grant making organization in the country. Tolentino (2005), citing the results of a study conducted by the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium, reports that in the Philippines donors prefer to use family foundations, trusts, or corporate foundations as mechanisms for their giving. Respondents did not mention community foundations or other kinds of intermediaries. There are numerous small foundations in Thailand, some of which are not professionally managed. Most are family foundations with limited resources and focus only on giving scholarships and awards.
Corporations The concept of corporate citizenship provides the rationale for corporations to engage in philanthropy. Indonesian corporations use six main strategies for their philanthropy: (1) getting directly involved in the social activity; (2) setting up corporate foundations; (3) partnering with other corporations, nonprofit organizations, government agencies, academic institutions, the media; (4) providing support to organizations or social activities; (5) encouraging employee volunteerism; and (6) consolidating the philanthropic initiatives of sister companies through a multipurpose foundation. The Public Interest Research and Advocacy Center (PIRAC) surveyed 226 corporations in ten big cities across Indonesia in 2002 and found that 93% engaged in philanthropy in the past 3 years but only 18% had written policies on donations and only 13% had specific units assigned to handle these. Only 21% set aside a specific amount for giving at the end of the year; 62% said they had no such target. Sixty percent admitted that their donations were incidental, not strategic. Corporations either give recipients full authority to manage a cash grant, give cash grants for specific programs, or provide noncash items like office equipment, used goods, skills, experience, or volunteers.
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Malaysian corporations translate their traditional gotong royong into corporate social responsibility or corporate citizenship and seek opportunities to help the disadvantaged in communities where they operate. The gift is not always monetary but can take the form of consciousness raising or leveraging relationships with the media to generate greater response for causes they advocate. The Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium (Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium, 2008) cites the study of Rashim of 200 top Malaysian corporations, which found that between July 2003 to December 2004, 65 companies donated around US$23.4 million to various charities, orphanages, and the poor. Of the total, 80% were from the top ten corporations. Thai corporations also donate to charitable causes and most have to address their philanthropy in a strategic and systematic way. Some cooperate with nonprofit organizations to improve the lives of villagers but are not concerned with sustainable funding.
Concluding Assessment There is a rich tradition of philanthropy in Southeast Asia and the incidence of giving compares favorably with the west. While traditions are strong, however, formal expressions of philanthropy are not yet fully institutionalized. Southeast Asian philanthropy is personal rather than strategic, mainly directed at family and friends. Compassion, kinship ties, community solidarity, a sense of social and moral responsibility, cultural values, customs, indigenous philanthropic traditions, and religious beliefs move individuals, corporations, religious organizations, and diasporas to share cash, goods, and time to help improve the lives of those most in need. Tax deductibility of donations is not a sufficient motivation for giving. Southeast Asians prefer to give to large organizations perhaps because they have greater ability to leverage funds and better implementation capabilities. Southeast Asians responded generously to disaster relief operations for the 2004 tsunami victims indicating that philanthropy is not only growing but can be tapped massively when the situation calls for it. Improving the enabling environment, enhancing accountability and transparency, tapping diaspora giving, and developing alternative mechanisms for solicitation could expand the potential of philanthropy to address social development issues in Southeast Asia.
Cross-References
▶ Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium ▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Community Philanthropy ▶ Corporate Giving
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▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ Fund Raising ▶ One Percent Provision ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Buddhism ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Philanthropy, Definition ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Sadaqa (non-obligatory alms) ▶ Strategic Philanthropy ▶ Tax Exemption, Justification for ▶ Wakfs ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Alfitri. (2006). The law of Zakat management and non-governmental Zakat collectors in Indonesia. The International Journal of Not-forProfit Law, 8(2), 1–12. Anheir, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (1998). The nonprofit sector in the developing world: A comparative analysis. Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press. Ariff, M. (Ed.) (1991). Islam and the economic development of Southeast Asia: The Muslim private sector in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Series title: Social issues in Southeast Asia. Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium. (2001). Investing in ourselves: Giving and fundraising in the Philippines. Pasig City, Philippines: Venture for Fundraising Foundation. Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium. (2002). Giving and fundraising in Asia. Metro Manila, Philippines: Asian Development Bank. Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium (2008) Webpage from http://www. asiapacificphilanthropy.org/node/60, 11/20/2008 Fauzia, A. (2007). No money, no worry! Jakarta, Indonesia: Inside Indonesia. Fernan, R. III. (Ed.) (2004). Beyond the household: Giving and volunteering in six areas in the Philippines. Quezon City, Philippines: Center for Leadership, Citizenship and Democracy, National College of Public Administration and Governance, University of the Philippines. Fernan, R. L. III. (2002). Giving and volunteering among Filipinos. Public Policy, VI(2), 29–45. Fernandez, J. M., & Rahman Ibrahim. (Eds.) (2002). A giving society: The state of philanthropy in Malaysia. Penang, Malaysia: Universiti Sains Malaysia. Ganjanapan, A. (1998). Philanthropy: Raising capital for society. TDRI Quarterly Review, 13(3), 7–18. Garchitorena, V. P. (2007, May). Diaspora philanthropy: The Philippine experience. Prepared for The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc. and The Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University with support from The William and flora Hewlett Foundation. Kahf, M. (2005). The principle of socio-economic justice in the contemporary Fiqh of Zakah, from http://monzer.kahf.com/papers/English/ socioeconomic20%justice.pdf: 11/12/2008 Majeed, Abu Bakar Abdul. (22 September 2001). The Waqf way to infinite charity. Malaysia: New Strait Times, from http://www.ikim.gov.my/ v5/index.php?lg=2&opt=com_article&grp=2&sec=&key=346&cmd= resetall, 11/12/2008 National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre Media Release. (9 September 2008).
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Opiniano, J. M. (2006, November). ‘‘Global brownies’’ as pawns for a promising Filipino future. Presented during the Roundtable on Diaspora Philanthropy: Giving Back to the Homeland. University of San Francisco-Center for the Pacific Rim. Public Interest Research and Advocacy Center. (2002). Investing in ourselves: Giving and fundraising in Indonesia. Manila, Philippines: Asian Development Bank, with support from The Asia Foundation, Nippon Foundation, and the United States Agency for International Development. Sidel, M. (2007). Vietnamese-American diaspora philanthropy in Vietnam. Prepared for The Philanthropic Initiative, Inc. and The Global Equity Initiative, Harvard University with support from The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Silk, T. (Ed.) (1999). Philanthropy and law in Asia. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. A publication of the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium. Soebagjo, N., & Witoelar, E. (2005). Philanthropic leadership and development: Perspectives from Indonesia. In Philanthropic leadership and development: Perspectives from six Asian countries. Monograph. Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium. Taufik, A. (1991). Zakat collection and distribution in Indonesia. In M. Ariff (Ed.), Islam and the economic development of Southeast Asia: The Muslim private sector in Southeast Asia (pp. 50–84). Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. Tolentino, A. F. (2005). Private and corporate philanthropy in Asia: Trends and opportunities. Lecture as Heloise Wailitz Fellow at the Asia Pacific Centre for Philanthropy, Melbourne, Australia. Tolentino, A. F., & Johnson, P. (2005). Regional overview. Philanthropic leadership and development: Perspectives from six Asian countries. Monograph. Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium.
Philanthropy in the Middle East BARBARA LETHEM IBRAHIM1, EMMA PLAYFAIR2 1 American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt 2 Ford Foundation, London, UK
Introduction The countries of North Africa, West Asia and the oil-rich Arabian Gulf have deep traditions of individual and collective philanthropy. This region today encompasses mainly Arabic-speaking countries with Muslim majority populations, as well as Turkey and Iran. As birthplace of the world’s three major monotheistic religions, the region spawned a number of important philanthropic ideas such as the endowed charitable trust (Waqf) and regular giving of a percent of personal income (Muslim zakat and Christian tithe or ushur). Philanthropy in the form of charitable giving is still deep-rooted in the cultures of the Middle East. While data is often lacking, studies indicate that over 95% of Muslim adults report some charitable giving in
countries like Egypt (Daly, 2007). Smaller Christian and Jewish communities display very similar giving patterns, suggesting the importance of shared history and social practices. Contemporary philanthropy is deeply influenced by religious traditions linking spiritual obligation with material support for those in need. These traditions have persisted – and sometimes grown – throughout periods of modernizing state ideologies that gave priority to secular institutions and discouraged private initiative (Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia). The recent revival in Islamic discourse and practice is in part a response to these stalled secular projects. Along with the Islamic revival has come renewed interest in religious forms of giving. A closely-related movement calls for economic systems that are more socially responsible, through sharing financial risk and protecting the weaker party in banking transactions. One of the main drivers of philanthropic activity today is the vast accumulation of wealth generated by oil and gas exports, as well as the construction, transport, and financial service sectors stimulated by this income. During the first oil boom of the 1970s it was mainly producer countries that benefited. In the more recent era, others such as Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon have emerging economies that are also creating wealth for individuals and locally-held corporations. Global mobility is creating larger numbers of affluent diaspora communities and increasing flows of philanthropic funds back into the region. Recent disasters such as the Asian tsunami and earthquakes also highlighted the humanitarian assistance that flows from the Gulf region to other locations with pressing needs. Another major explanation for the increase in private local philanthropy is the scale of social problems within the region. Poverty, youth unemployment and civil strife threaten stability; governments are unable to achieve their modernizing mission without help from the private sector and citizen groups. In poorer countries, the reliance on foreign donor assistance is significant (Lebanon, Palestine, Egypt, and Jordan), but creates feelings of dependency. Newer nations of the Arabian Gulf have more resources to put toward social welfare, but they also encourage homegrown philanthropy as a way of improving conditions throughout the region. Iran presents a special case, where following an era of secular pro-western government, a mass-based revolution installed a strictly Islamic state. Philanthropy there is influenced by strong roots in community selfhelp, but constrained by politics and Iran’s lack of integration into world markets.
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Given the wide economic and political diversity among these nations, any discussion of contemporary philanthropy must distinguish among the differing paths taken in the late twentieth century. At the risk of overgeneralizing, some broad characteristics and trends can be identified, as well as challenges to the future of private philanthropy.
Individual Giving In Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, charitable giving is taken for granted as an aspect of daily life. Boxes to collect donations are ubiquitous, and giving can take the form of distribution of water, food, or scent on street corners. Payment of zakat, a percentage of accumulated annual wealth, is one of the five pillars of Islam; a similar obligation for Christians is known as ‘Ushur or tithe. The Quran specifies categories of acceptable zakat giving, including relatives in need, widows, orphans, wayfarers, those in bondage, and those who work in the way of God. The available evidence suggests that individuals in fact give zakat and ‘ushur regardless of their economic position or place of residence (Gerhart Center, 2008; Daly, 2007). Men and women differ only slightly in their giving patterns, with women more likely to give in kind, and men reporting somewhat higher levels of monetary giving. Zakat funds are often collected and distributed by mosques or special bodies established for that purpose. The study of individual giving conducted in 2007 in Egypt revealed a widespread distrust of these channels and a preference for face to face giving directly to beneficiaries (Daly, 2007). Daly, Ibrahim, and Sherif, and others have noted the overwhelmingly charitable nature of individual acts of giving. Most are channelled into food, clothing, medicine, or school supplies for the needy. A popular form of zakat giving in Arab countries is to sponsor a poor child through school, or cover an orphan’s expenses. Sadaqa in Islam comprises all other voluntary charitable giving by individuals (even offering a smile or comfort can be an act of sadaqa). Perpetual Sadaqa includes the important institution of Waqf. Waqf (in Arabic) and Vakif (in Turkish) is a form of endowment through which private property is dedicated in perpetuity to a public cause. Common examples are mosques, hospitals, schools, and fountains, including some of the greatest works of Islamic architecture. Any privately-owned building or field could be placed in a waqf, with its income dedicated to a specified cause. Zakat and Sadaka continue to play a critical role in providing for the poor and marginalised, often preventing deep poverty in harsh economic conditions. The practice of Waqf, however, fell into disuse in much of the region through the erosion of centuries,
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mismanagement by overseers, or the actions of modern states wanting to exercise control over these rich endowments. All waqf property in Egypt was nationalized in the 1960s and new ones prohibited. In places like Turkey, however, a revamping of the laws governing such properties in 1981 led to a proliferation of new public institutions. Most private universities in Turkey today operate as nonprofit vakif endowments. A healthy debate is ongoing there, as well as in Gulf countries where waqf is common, over legitimate uses of property, effective management of waqf, and how to reenergize and update these forms of religious giving. Most governments of the region do not offer tax incentives for individual philanthropic contributions. Some Gulf countries do not tax their citizens at all, and in Egypt, where there is an exemption for up to 10% of income, few individuals are aware or take advantage of it. An argument is made by some Muslim religious leaders that offering a material incentive for giving would reduce the spiritual benefit received by the giver.
Foundations Increasingly, people in the Middle East are recognizing an advantage to making their giving more systematic and cumulative. The western foundation model has existed for decades in small numbers, but foundations have proliferated since 2000. Many take the form of family foundations commemorating a parent or creating a legacy for the founder. It is more common for these foundations to operate their own programs than to grant money to other organizations, but both types and hybrid forms exist. Laws governing civil society organizations typically contain separate provisions for asset-bearing foundations (mo’asasat in Arabic). Several sizeable foundations have been established recently in the Gulf states, such as the Emirates Foundation in Abu Dhabi, an innovative public-private partnership. Another hybrid form is a private foundation established by a ruler or a family member in their personal capacity, such as the $10 billion Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation in Dubai. The Qatar Foundation in Doha works extensively on education and development; it was established by the ruler’s wife based on the ongoing proceeds from a natural gas well. These high-profile examples act as role models to encourage others to invest their wealth for public purposes. The Welfare Association, established by Palestinian businessmen to support sustainable development in Palestine, represents another model where individuals combine forces to establish an effective long-term means of giving
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jointly; the newer Khayrazad Foundation in Egypt, stimulated by the desire to respond more effectively to multiple requests for support of medical treatment, is another. Efforts to develop community foundations are relatively new in the region, although informal self-help groups based on village residence or ethnicity were quite common a century ago. Newer examples include Dalia Foundation in Palestine, which is experimenting with community-based decision-making about grants. In Egypt, beduin communities are organizing a Community Foundation in South Sinai, while a traditionally middle-class but now more diverse neighborhood of Cairo has formed Waqfiyat Maadi Foundation. Dubai Cares raises millions of dollars for causes both inside and beyond the United Arab Emirates. Another trend in the Arab region is the establishment of funds targeting a specific thematic issue, drawing upon specialized expertise among staff and board members. The Arab Women’s Fund, the Arab Human Rights Fund, the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, The Arab Democracy Foundation, and the Naseej Community Youth Development Fund are recent examples. These funds are explicitly regional in focus and tend to have followed careful strategic planning processes at start-up. Philanthropy is increasingly global in its connections and impact. Recent initiatives are linking grant-makers in Europe and the Arab region. Some foundations working exclusively in the Middle East choose to register and bank their funds in Europe or North America in order to avoid official intervention at home. Other foundations are exploring links with diaspora communities around the world, building on those experiences and resources in addressing issues at home. A foundation in Qatar, Reach Out to Asia, channels support to less advantaged parts of the continent. Rapid growth of the philanthropic sector brings both opportunities for collaboration and risks of duplication and lack of coordination. As the sector gathers momentum, an infrastructure is growing alongside to provide resources, service, and strengthen foundations and philanthropic initiatives. The John D. Gerhart Center at the American University in Cairo, the first university-based program on philanthropy in the Arab region, responds to some of the needs, including dissemination of information, hosting debate, conducting research, offering technical expertise and professional development. The Arab Foundations Forum, a growing network of philanthropies hosted by the Welfare Association, provides a space for sharing experience, an opportunity to work collectively on strategic issues such as legislation, and the potential to develop principles and best practices. The Center for Development Studies in Cairo operates an informative
website and resource library (http://www.neareast.org/ phil/en/index.asp). Other intermediary structures are under formation in the Gulf region. The philanthropic sector is probably most developed in Turkey. This may be attributed to the positive role played by reform of legislation and close ties to European philanthropic experience, most especially in Germany. Family foundations of Sabanci and Koc¸, as well as ¨ SEV, an umbrella foundation, work on developing TU the sector as a whole. The European Foundation Center, Wings, and other networks provide valuable connections to the wider sector, including in the global south.
Corporations Business leaders in the Middle East are actively engaging in philanthropy to an extent not seen for many decades. They do so as individuals and through the formation of private foundations. Increasingly, they are also establishing mechanisms within their businesses to engage in philanthropic giving, social investing, and other forms of social responsibility. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is gaining traction as a term to describe governance, social, and environmental practices within a firm that contribute to sustainable development. However, on close examination, many companies are engaged in discreet local projects of limited scope. Often these are directly related to the marketing of their product or service. This kind of philanthropy may have short-term benefits, but cannot be said to contribute lasting social benefit. In some cases, firms making charitable grants or sponsoring events are simultaneously polluting the immediate environment or violating international norms for fair labor practices. These labor issues are particularly widespread in the Gulf countries, where guest workers are used extensively in the construction and oil industries. UNDP and other agencies work to raise awareness about authentic CSR and to identify good role models. A few large firms are emerging from within the region as models of good practice. They are able to utilize access to powerful elites to leverage services and attention to the needs of poor communities. A few companies are experimenting with large-scale employee volunteer programs. As elsewhere, when successful business leaders become involved in social causes they bring a level of organization and focus on results that can invigorate the civil society sector. However, there is a parallel tendency toward quick fixes and impatience with community processes. The business and civil society sectors have much to teach each other and few ways to interface with ease. Intermediaries are needed to assist each side to come together in successful partnerships, learn from the other, and build trust and
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transparency. The recent momentum in corporate giving may be tempered by the global economic downturn. Alternatively, companies may be stimulated to do more to alleviate the growing burdens of hunger and unemployment in their communities and beyond.
Concluding Assessment While the growth of philanthropy offers great promise, there are significant limitations on its ability to bring about change that the region sorely needs. Giving that is primarily charitable in nature can ease hardship and save lives, but it does little to address the underlying causes of inequity and want. A new generation of younger philanthropists seem determined to become more strategic and impactful in their giving. A common feature in the region is that giving tends to be parochial, with a strong preference for person to person interaction within one community, sect, or neighborhood. Given the size of the problems to be addressed, solutions that are scalable, universal, and easily adapted to multiple settings must be a priority. Recent research pointed to the clustering of attention and resources on a small number of fields: children/orphans, education, health, and to some extent, employment. Important areas remain underfunded, including human rights, environment, ethnic relations, governance, culture, and the arts. While there are clear differences among countries, these patterns emerged in a recent mapping of philanthropy in eight Arab countries (Ibrahim and Sherif, 2008; John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement, 2008). Another problem area is the blurred line in some instances between giving for social causes and giving to win support for a political objective. Islamic parties excluded from the political process and militant groups frequently collect and distribute donations to disadvantaged communities as a recruitment tactic reports from the poorest neighborhoods of Cairo note that competing private mosques offer residents cash and food in exchange for spending long hours in religious indoctrination. Poor women come to see this as a time-consuming but necessary way of earning a livelihood. In some countries like Lebanon, where political parties are largely sectarian, elections are a time of elevated philanthropic activity by all competing parties. Knowing this, communities may barter their votes to obtain needed public improvements. Public scrutiny and legislation to curtail these practices will be difficult to put in place as long as ruling regimes use similar tactics. Efforts to enhance philanthropy in Muslim societies will be strengthened by scholarly analysis of the legal tenets and the practice of giving within an Islamic context.
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One such exploration is the rights-based approach to philanthropy in Islamic societies recently proposed by the Sudanese scholars Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im and Asma Abdel Halim (2006). An-Na’im argues more broadly for a healthy rapprochement of secularism and faith in contemporary Muslim societies. Philanthropy may be one of the fields of action in which his ideas can be tested. Other approaches include the revival and reinvisioning of waqf (vakif ) in Turkey and its use as the basis for new foundations in some Gulf states. Fear of repercussions to personal or business interests may deter some from supporting controversial causes or taking on the underlying social, economic, and political causes of poverty, inequality, or exclusion. Autocratic practices on the part of some governments are a reality that must be faced and overcome. Such efforts are beginning, spearheaded by courageous bloggers, human rights activists and artists, in many cases young people. Collaboration among multiple donors can mitigate the risks, while the specialised funds mentioned above offer simple channels for giving to support sensitive issues. Bureaucratic obstacles and restrictive laws pose another serious impediment to the growth of the sector, where the legislative and financial environment is designed more for control than to empower civil society. An enabling legal and fiscal environment is needed to encourage confidence for the creation of endowments, establishment of philanthropic institutions, and transfer of funds. Advocacy for improved legislation and regulations is essential for the health of both philanthropy and civil society more broadly. Finally, lack of public confidence in civil society institutions that solicit funds limits their use as vehicles for individual giving. Daly’s study (2007) found widespread scepticism that funds given to such organizations would be used for the purposes intended, which led many to prefer personal or parochial giving. Greater transparency, accountability, and good governance in the sector is essential to address these concerns. Despite these shortcomings, examples of effective philanthropy are growing throughout the region. One encouraging sign is the proliferation of public-private partnerships between a government agency, private sector actors and nonprofit groups. In some countries ruling elites encourage greater civic engagement and contribute time as well as resources to major social causes. There is unquestionably a new vibrancy to philanthropy in a region which is currently facing many challenges. Some of the immediate needs are well-addressed by existing initiatives. Others, including eliminating deep poverty, responses to conflict, welfare of marginalized communities and respect for human rights need greater attention.
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The potential of the philanthropic sector is in its growing diversity – from mosque and church based charities to community foundations, from family foundations to corporate social responsibility programs – and in efforts to forge more strategic collaboration for lasting social change.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the Middle East ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Maktoum-al Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid ▶ Islamic Relief ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Sadaqa ¨ SEV ▶ TU ▶ Wakfs ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Abdullahi Ahmed An-Na’im and Asma Abdel Halim. (2006). Rightsbased approach to philanthropy for social justice in Islamic societies. Voices on Arab Philanthropy and Civic Engagement (Working paper No. 2). Cairo, Egypt: John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement, American University in Cairo. Bellion-Jourdan, J., & Benthall, J. (2009). The charitable crescent: Politics of aid in the Muslim world. Macmillan. Center for Development Studies, from http://www.neareast.org/phil/en/ index.asp. Ibrahim, B. L., & Sherif, D. H. (Eds.) (2008). From charity to social change. Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo Press. John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement. (2008). From charity to change: Trends in Arab philanthropy. Cairo, Egypt: American University in Cairo. Marwa El Daly. (2007). Philanthropy in Egypt. Cairo, Egypt: Center for Development Studies. Sparre, S. L., & Petersen, M. J. (2007). Islam and civil society: Case studies of Jordan and Egypt. Copenhagen, Denmark: Danish Institute for International Studies. United Nations Development Program, Egypt (2007). Business solutions.
Philanthropy, Ancient MARTTI MUUKKONEN University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu, Finland
Introduction The modern concept of philanthropy traces its roots to ancient societies.
Definition The term comes from the Greek word philanthropia (philia, friendship, love + anthropos, human) and means ‘‘humanity, benevolence, kind-heartedness, humane feeling, kindliness, courtesy’’ or gods’ love for humans (Liddell & Scott, 1940, s.w. philia; philanthropia). According to Ulrich Beck (1984: 107) the concept "
is found from the 5th cent. B.C and hence does not occur in Hom. and other epic poets. Originally it has the comprehensive sense of a friendly relation. If in the first instance it is used for the approach or help of the gods to men, Aristoph. Pax, 392f., it can also be extended to the relation of kings and other outstanding persons to those beneath them, Isoc. Or., 9, 43. Finally it spans the whole field of relations between men, with a continuing sense of benevolent condescension. . . The meaning ranges from ‘‘hospitality’’ in Polyb., 33, 18, 2 (cf. Diod. S., 13, 17, 1) to ‘‘mildness’’ in punishment and ‘‘help’’ in time of need, Jul. Ep., 89b, 289a-c. Related to institutions, things and animals it means what is ‘‘useful’’ to man.
The concept came in wider use in Byzantium where it replaced the New Testament concept of agape (brotherly love) and its Latin equivalence, caritas (Constantelos, 1991: 31). In this, Byzantium merged two traditions together – the Oriental idea of gods as benevolent parents and the Greek idea of philia (friendship) relations.
Key Developments Oriental Idea of Aid
In Oriental societies the basic unit of community was the household (Hebr. bet, Gr. oikos). It was the duty of the lord of the house to ‘‘clothe and feed’’ members of the household (spouse, children, elders, suppliants). In order to be able to do this, he had full authority over the family members. Most of the social care was organized along this basic system of the household. The idea of philanthropy, as stated above, occurred in the very meaning of the word, gods’ benevolence to men. The family god or goddess granted the welfare of the family and the paterfamilia was basically a sort of vizier of this family-divinity, executed her/his orders and was responsible for his actions to her/him. The root metaphor of household was extended to other institutions of the society as well. Thus, palace was the king’s household and temple was the household of the respective divinity. Schoolmaster and artisan were the ‘‘fathers’’ of their pupils and appreciates. Inhabitants of a city or members of a clan were ‘‘children’’ of the patron divinity of the city/clan/tribe.
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According to Thorkild Jacobsen (1976) the frame of gods as parents of their people emerged during the second millennium BC and since then, gods were seen as benevolent caretakers of their respective people. As a repayment of this divine kindness, both individuals and communities submitted themselves under the leadership of their god. The Biblical concept of sedek, righteousness, has a strong connotation to this bond or covenant. The Babylonian creation epic Enuma elish (‘‘When on high’’) tells how humankind was created as slaves in order to free gods from such menial tasks as digging canals. Like earthly kings, gods were not necessarily interested in the fate of every individual in their possession but required that their officials took care of the everyday business of their household. This included the support of their subjects. Like earthly kings, gods punished severely their officials if they did not fulfill their duties. Fear of this gods’ wrath was reality in every Mesopotamian city. The story of Jonah (Ch. 3) preaching condemnation over the city of Nineveh is a good example of the general pattern: the people of Nineveh – from king to slave – repented. As far as they were concerned, they had enough examples of cases where gods had punished cities and wiped them away. This fear of gods had a significant impact on Mesopotamian social care. While the primary responsibility of care was on family, ‘‘flesh and blood,’’ to be more exact, the idea of subsidiarity principle can be attested already in the Code of Hammurabi (}32) in the case of ransoms of prisoners of war. If the family was unable to give support, the responsibility was on the wealthier relatives because, basically, all property of the clan belonged to the god of the forefathers. If the clan divinity had helped someone, it was his duty to deliver this support to other members of the clan. If he did not do it, there was always a possibility that the divinity would withdraw her/his support and drop the hard-hearted one into misery (Van der Toorn, 1996: 108f.) Temple became responsible if the family or clan was unable to give aid. According to I. J. Gelb (1972: 10f.) "
[t]he temple apparently served as a collecting center for all these poor, unwanted and rejected people, who could join the temple of their own free will if they were independent, or could be offered to the temple by individuals on whom they were dependent, socially or economically.
The temple aid was mostly given in the form of employment in the fields, pastures, or temple workshops but the temple could also give interest free loans to poor sick that should be paid only if the divinity was favorable to the debtor and blessed his actions (Bromberg, 1942: 81f., 84f.). Alongside this charity to the community, the temple took
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care of its own staff like any other household and granted pensions to those who were unable to work. State responsibility for social care was rather limited. The main role of the state, however, seems to be in creation of such legislation that minimised the need. Almost every Mesopotamian king claims that he ‘‘brought justice to his people.’’ With justice kings ensured that ‘‘[t]he strong should not harm the weak’’ as the prologue of Code of Hammurabi states. Special emphasis was laid on the task ‘‘to protect the widows and orphans’’ as the Epilogue of the code states. The task of the state was to implement such rules under which people could take care of their own welfare. It was only in the extreme cases when the state was forced to intervene. This was done, first by the right to appeal to the king (Parpola, 1987: 21) and, second, through the royal edicts which, from time to time, canceled all the debts, freed the debt slaves and, thus, stabilised the over heated economy. Private philanthropy was also known in Mesopotamia. The conclusion of the Old Babylonian poem Man and his God states: "
As for you, do not tarry to anoint the parched one, Feed the hungry one, give the thirsty one water to drink; may he who sits down with feverish eyes see your food, suckle, receive it and be pleased with you. (Quoted in Van der Toorn, 1994: 107)
As the humankind was made to free gods from menial tasks, taking care of one’s neighbor was one part of this service for gods. Van der Toorn (1996: 104, 106– 109, 112–115) argues that this was especially the duty of the upper classes since they have benefited from the benevolence of their divine patrons. However, if the rich did not use these blessings for the benefit of others, they were not immune to divine punishment ‘‘since also the ‘small ones’ enjoy divine protection’’ (idem. 109). Along this, action without payment in a public office and practising philanthropy added honor to wealth. It was a society where ‘‘noblisse oblige’’ was an ideal. Under the patron divinity, the king was seen as a ‘‘good shepherd’’ who ensured the prosperity and welfare for his people. Rich were required to use their wealth to lighten the burden of their more unlucky kin people and their neighbors. In return, they got respect and obedience. Basically, the same ideals were prevalent in Egypt and Israel as well (see Von den Driesch, 1959; Hanson, 1994; Loewenberg, 1994, 1995). Greek Reciprocal Relations
In Greece, there existed this old Oriental idea of oikos as the basis for welfare. However, the difference to the Orient
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was, as Ferdinand To¨nnies’ famous distinction states that a Hellene polis was (at least in classical era) a Gesellschaft (association, alliance, society based on locality) instead of Gemeinschaft (community, society based on kinship). Thus, the Greek philanthropy was based on the idea of communal union, koinonia. Those who shared this unity were philoi (sg. philos: friend, beloved; philia: friendship). The Greek city-state, polis, was basically a network of free citizens – or better – band of warriors, who have committed to share their destiny together. Koinonia politikhe (civil society) means basically ‘‘fate unity of the town.’’ The philoi were those who were in arms and their families. This unity between philoi was maintained with the system of reciprocity or gift-giving (Hands, 1968: 26–48). In the absence of central authority, the gift-giving between philoi is a powerful mechanism in maintaining communal relationships. As Marcell Mauss (1967), Arthur R. Hands (1968), Marshall Sahlins (1969, 1972), Ian Morris (1986) and writers in Reciprocity in Ancient Greece (1998) have argued, gifts create bonds between givers and the receivers. Already Aristotle (Aristot.Nic. Eth. 8.1.4) noted that ‘‘friendship appears to be the bond of the state.’’ Elizabeth Belfiore (1998, 143–147) lists four types of philia relations. First, there are those that are kin. According to her ‘‘the Greek concept of kinship (ankhisteia) includes relatives to the degree of children of cousins’’ (p. 143). Second, ‘‘[w]hile spouses are not blood relatives, they are an integral part of the household (oỉkı´a) (p. 144)’’ and ‘‘[o]f the three reciprocal relationships, marriage is closest to blood kinship’’ (p. 145). These two Belfiore’s types are not different to those in the Orient. It was the duty of the kyrios (master, lord) to take care of the members of his oikos. There are two other types of philia that are interesting from the philanthropy perspective. One is xenia (guest friendship) and the other is hikete (suppliant). While all philia relationships require reciprocity there is one significant difference between the two first and the two last ones. Belfiore notes that ‘‘kin may fail to keep their obligations and still remain kin, but xenoi must engage in reciprocical benefits if they are to become and remain’’ xenoi (p. 145). The same is valid in the case of hiketes as well (p. 146). The difference is that while a xenos usually has means to repay the guest friendship in kind, hiketes have only their loyalty and obedience to give in return. Thus, the first one is a special case of reciprocity between equals when the latter is a case of hierarchical relationships. Philanthropic relationship between equals can be bilateral where one individual or household gives something and receives something else. It can be exchange of gifts,
favors, or even family members (in cases when fathers arrange the marriage of their children). The mechanism was that gifts required repayment – not in the moment but in the future. When the repayment often was higher than the original gift, after a while nobody could say who was in debt to whom. The end result is a bond between families that can be inherited from father to son. Hans van Wees (1998: 21f.) has noted that there are three other forms of this equal type of reciprocity. First, referring to Malinowski and Le´vi-Strauss, he speaks of general gift giving. This occurs when a group member ‘‘in excess of what he can actually consume on the spot would be expected to give it away.’’ This happens, for example in the case of smoking in a group. Another form of balanced reciprocity is circular: A helps B, B helps C,. . . N helps A. A third form of reciprocity is a net, ‘‘which is ‘group-focused’ when members take turns to benefit the group, as in the pub-goers’ custom of buying rounds, and ‘individual-focused’ when the group benefits each of its members in turn, as in cooperative harvesting arrangements.’’ In ancient Greece and Rome, city administration was one part of this mutual gift-giving system among equals. Wealthy persons donated gifts to public purposes (ranging from building town walls or ships for the navy to maintaining gymnasiums and from supporting gladiator shows to distribution of corn and oil) and took care of the administration. In turn, they received honor and respect – and sometimes even amnesty for their illegal acts (Millet, 1998). Hands (1968: 62–65, 74) argues that there was a certain hierarchy in supportive gift giving. The basic principle required that only the ‘‘worthy’’ (idonei) should be supported. This thinking was evident in distinction between a poor person and a beggar. A poor person was not actually a poor person, but a person who had to work for his living. It was commonly seen as a synonym for Greek demos and Latin populus. In other words, a poor person was the one who was not a member of the elite. A beggar (Gr. aergos, Lat. iners) was someone who did not have anything. Basic meaning of both words is revealing: they suppose, ‘‘not the lack of opportunity, but the lack of will to work’’ (p. 65). Consequently, contrary to Jewish practice, the attitude towards beggars was pitiless and harsh. Hands also notes that Homer saw beggars as pandemios, plague. Hiketes-relationship, in turn, is an example of hierarchical reciprocity. In the case of those who could not pay back the benevolence of a donor, there emerged a status of dependency until the gift or favor was repaid. Hands (1968: 28) notes that, for example, Latin word damnatus refers to this kind of dependent condition. Thus, the English word ‘‘to be damned’’ actually means ‘‘to lose
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one’s liberty.’’ Hiketes, or Latin clientus were those who were under the protection of some wealthy and/or influential citizen. Kyrios or patron gave protection and often financial help and suppliants gave their loyalty and obedience. Freed slaves were automatically in hiketes/clientus – relationship with their former kyrios/ patron. In archaic Greece and in imperial Rome kings and emperors extended this master – servant relationship to the whole population. According to Aristotle (Aristot.Nic. Eth. 8.11.1) "
Under each of these forms of government we find friendship existing between ruler and ruled, to the same extent as justice. The friendship of a king for his subjects is one of superiority in beneficence; for a king does good to his subjects, inasmuch as being good he studies to promote their welfare, as a shepherd studies the welfare of his sheep; hence Homer called Agamemnon ‘‘shepherd of the people.’’
Hands (1968: 35f, 54ff.) argues that the king (and later in Rome, the emperor), as the highest among equals had a task to show his friendship towards all other citizens of the town. Thus, he had to be the most generous in his gifts. This is the background of the famous panem et circences practice in Rome. The reciprocal act of his subjects was loyalty and honor. The extreme honor that was offered was the recognition of the act as divine and the philanthropist’s elevation into a god. Thus, there were basically two frames of philia relations in Greco-Roman world. The first one was gifts and assistance given to peers. This was required to be repaid in kind. The other type was between a superior and suppliants who could not repay the gift in kind. In these cases they gave their loyalty and obedience. The legacy of these practices are submitted to later eras via Christianity and, especially, via Byzantion. Early Christian Charity
The Christian Church adopted both Oriental and Greek traditions and combined them to systematic philanthropy. A special character in Christian philanthropy was that it was question of imitatio Christi (identification with Christ). It was the responsibility of a Christian to follow the example of his Lord who defined his mission as follows: "
[T]he Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed. (Luk 4: 18)
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Basically, Christ’s declaration was the same that was announced in the Code of Hammurabi’s Prologue and in several enthronement declarations of Oriental kings. Along with imitatio Christi, there was also the idea of identifying Christ to the poor as the parable of the Last Judgement states: "
Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me. . . . The King will reply, ‘‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me’’ (Matt 25: 34ff., 40).
While these texts show that Christianity adopted much of the Oriental ethos, there is one significant difference. While Oriental texts restricted the covenant to the relation between the city/state and its respective divinity, Christianity expanded it to the whole humankind. Consequently, Christians gave aid to non-Christians as well – as the parable of the Good Samaritan taught them (Luk 10: 25–37). This aid to non-Christians was done in so large volume that emperor Julian (361–363 AD) wrote to Arsacius, a Greek High Priest of Galatia, that "
[w]hy then do we . . . not observe how the kindness of Christians to strangers, their care for the burial of their dead, and the sobriety of their lifestyle has done the most to advance their cause? . . .For it is disgraceful when no Jew is a beggar and the impious Galileans support our poor in addition to their own; everyone is able to see that our coreligionists are in want of aid from us. (quoted in Stark, 1996: 73–77)
Julian claimed that Christians did this for egoistic reasons. Egoistic or altruistic, charity has been one of the means of a mission strategy for the Christian Church from the beginning. Rodney Stark (1996: 73–77) has argued that especially during diseases, mortality among Christians was lower than among pagan population. This was due to the basic care that Christians directed to each other. Adequate nutrition and basic nursing reduced mortality in a degree that seemed as a miracle among other segments of population. Emergence of Welfare Institutions in Byzantium
Demetrios Constantelos (1991: 25–32) notes that the word philanthropy – God’s love to man – suited better to the idea of imitatio Christi than the New Testament
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concept of agape. ‘‘The ideal Christ is the Pantocrator Philanthropos [men loving ruler of the world] or the Eleemon [reliever], depicted as the prototype whose philanthropy men are expected to imitate’’ (31). In Byzantine thought concepts of eros, agape, and philanthropia overlap and came to mean both God’s love and Christian charity. Like Oriental kings, this philanthropy was expected from the emperor. Constantelos (1991: 33–42, 89–103) argues that since the emperor received his power from God, he should be ‘‘the projection of the archetype, God the Universal King’’ (34). Like God was the source of good, so the emperor was expected to be a source of light and blessed acts. The emperor should show philanthropy in his attitudes, in practical deeds and in legislation like the ancient Oriental kings. When the emperor was a philanthropist by duty, this led the court to practice charity as well. Along with almsgiving and supporting philanthropic institutions, ‘‘it was customary for Byzantines of all classes to designate the poor, orphans, or charitable institutions as beneficiaries in their wills (107).’’ One of the first European welfare reforms occurred in Byzantium where the state canceled the panem et circences-type subsidies based on citizenship and adopted the Oriental model of giving the aid to the very poor – irrespective of citizenship. Constantelos argues that although mysticism was the major tone in Eastern Christianity, philanthropy became a major practice along with prayer in monasteries. He (1991: 52) tells that this practical aspect led to the tradition where monasteries were not founded only in remote regions but in cities as well. Basilio’s philanthropic institutions "
included a hospital, an orphanage, an old-age-home, a hospice for poor travelers and visitors, a hospital for infectious diseases, and an institution for indigents. Collectively, Basil’s institutions became known as the Basileias, which was located on the outskirts of Caesarea. The staff was composed of both laymen and clergymen.
The legacy of the Byzantion for the rest of Europe is in the ways of philanthropic thinking and in organisational models. In Basilio’s institutions, we see the basic types of philanthropic institutions that have been models for the rest of Europe during last two millennia.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Charity and religion ▶ Charity, history of ▶ Civil Society Theory: Aristotle ▶ Civil Society History I: Antiquity ▶ Clubs and Clans
▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Judaism ▶ Philanthropy, Definition of ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Religious organizations ▶ Social justice ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ To¨nnies, Ferdinand
References/Further Readings Note on primary sources: Biblical quotations are from the New International Version of the Bible (NIV) and classical Greek texts from The Perseus Project URL: http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ Beck, U. (1984). jilanropoa, jilanrώpoς. In G. Friedrich & G. W. Bromley (Eds.), Theological dictionary of the New Testament (Vol. IX, F–O, pp. 107–112). Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Belfiore, E. (1998). Harming friends: Problematic reciprocity in Greek tragedy. In C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite, & R. Seaford (Eds.), Reciprocity in ancient Greece (pp. 139–158). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bromberg, B. (1942). The origin of banking: Religious finance in Babylon. The Journal of Economic History, 2(1), 77–88. Constantelos, D. J. (1991). Byzantine philantrophy & social welfare (2nd Rev. ed.). New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas. Gelb, I. J. (1972). The Arua institution. Revue d’Assyriologie et d’Arche´ologie Orientale, 66, 1–32. Gill, C., Postlethwaite, N., & Seaford, R. (Eds.) (1988). Reciprocity in ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hands, A. R. (1968). Charities and social aid in Greece and Rome. London: Thames and Hudson. Hanson, P. (1994). The ancient near Eastern roots of social welfare. In E. A. Hanawalt & C. Lindberg (Eds.), Through the eye of the needle. Judeo-Christian roots of social welfare (pp. 7–28). Kirksville: The Thomas Jefferson University Press at Northeast Missouri State University. Jacobsen, T. (1976). The treasures of darkness. A history of Mesopotamian religion. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Liddell, H. G., & Scott, R. (1940). A Greek-English lexicon. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Loewenberg, F. M. (1994). On the development of philanthropic institutions in ancient Judaism: Provisions for poor travellers. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 23(3), 193–207. Loewenberg, F. M. (1995). Financing philanthropic institutions in Biblical and Talmudic times. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 24(4), 307–320. Mauss, M. (1967). The gift. Forms and functions of exchange in archaic societies. New York: Norton. Millet, P. (1998). The rhetoric of reciprocity in classical Athens. In C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite, & R. Seaford (Eds.), Reciprocity in ancient Greece (pp. 227–253). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Morris, I. (1986). Gift and commodity in archaic Greece. Man, New Series, 21(1), 1–17. Parpola, S. (1987). The correspondence of sargon II. Part I. Letters from Assyria and the West. (State Archives of Assyria. Vol. I). Helsinki: Helsinki University Press. Sahlins, M. D. (1969). On the sociology of primitive exchange. In M. Banton (Ed.), The relevance of models for social Anthropology. London: Tavistock.
Philanthropy, Definition Of Sahlins, M. D. (1972). Stone age economics. Chicago: Aldine-Atherton. Stark, R. (1996). Rise of christianity. A sociologist reconsiders history. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. The Code of Hammurabi (s.d.) (L.W. King, Trans.). The Avalon Project of Yale Law School, from http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/ medieval/hamframe.htm [2008-06-24] Van der Toorn, K. (1994). From her cradle to her grave. The role of religion in the Life of the Israelite and the Babylonian woman. Scheffield: JSOT. Van der Toorn, K. (1996). Family religion in Babylonia, Syria and Israel. Continuity and change in the forms of religious life (Studies in the history and culture of the ancient Near East, Vol. 7). Leiden: Brill. van Wees, H. (1998). The law of gratitude. Reciprocity in anthropological theory. In C. Gill, N. Postlethwaite, & R. Seaford (Eds.), Reciprocity in ancient Greece (pp. 13–49). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Von Den Driesch, J. (1959). Geschichte der woltatigkeit. Band I. Die ¨ gypten. Paderborn: Verlag Ferdinand wohlta¨tigkeit im alten A Scho¨ningh.
Philanthropy, Definition Of DAVID C. HAMMACK Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA
Introduction and Definition ‘‘Philanthropy’’ is a complex term that has to do with voluntarily doing good – ‘‘loving humankind’’ – on a large scale. But this is not a satisfactory definition. There are many ideas, and much disagreement, about what is ‘‘good.’’ Different uses of the term embrace different notions of the doer of good works: is a ruler who uses the wealth that comes by virtue of his office ‘‘philanthropic’’? A conqueror who turns his booty to good works in the conquered territory? In his home capital? Are members of a nobility ‘‘obliged’’ by rank to act magnanimously, and are their magnanimous actions ‘‘philanthropic’’? ‘‘Philanthropy’’ can refer to the acts of those who command very large resources, but it can also refer to the work of humble individuals who, if they join with many others, can accomplish great things: so a great philanthropist might be rich, but might alternatively be a teacher or a health worker. ‘‘Scale’’ is a relative term, not easy to pin down in particular cases or in general – and good works can have many dimensions, some of them not susceptible to measurement. Must an act help the poor to be philanthropic? Must it advance a sacred value – a commitment to religion, to truth, to beauty? Must it be popular? Is it ‘‘philanthropic’’ to act in a way that encourages a polity to tax itself to provide new services?
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By some definitions, it is philanthropic to contribute to a particular community (for example, religious or ethnic, or members of a family); by others, only giving designed to benefit all members or all residents of a political entity counts as philanthropic. But is it truly ‘‘philanthropic’’ to seek to convert a foreigner to one’s own religion or culture? The fact that there are many ideas and much disagreement about cause and effect in human affairs leads to disagreements about how to value the implications of any action. For many, the disposition and intent of the doer is an essential element of philanthropy. To be philanthropic may be to give freely, but the act of giving cannot be complete until someone receives; does the receiver thereby fall under obligations to the giver? One tradition, brilliantly expressed by Aristotle, insists on honor, self-esteem, and reputation; counter traditions in Judaism, Christianity, and Buddhism prefer meekness, self-abnegation, and anonymity. More recent analysts insist that gifts are always relational, and that those who receive gifts must always give something in exchange. Also central, for many, is how the philanthropist acquires the means to act. To say that someone is ‘‘philanthropic’’ is to praise that person: we want to praise acts that have good consequences, that are significant and effective, that are done with wealth or power honorably earned or through teaching that is honest and sincere (and in many contexts, that is in accord with religious beliefs), that flow from appropriate motives, that are in accord with honored beliefs, that grant due regard to the preferences of the other. In some notable contexts, philanthropy is a term applied to those who acquire great wealth through business affairs and who use their wealth in ways that will win them honor or praise under religious or community values that hold themselves to be anterior and superior to the values of the marketplace. Critics have always expressed reservations about such praise, arguing that philanthropic gifts are simply another form of market transaction.
Historical Background Social and cultural context provides definitions of goodness. It is possible to find philanthropy in the gifts of property and funds (derived from landed inheritance, from the workings of rural estates, from student fees) to the academies of ancient Greece – to do so requires accepting the labor relations that prevailed on those estates and the value of the academies’ lessons. The practice, in ancient Greece and Rome, of paying for festivals, feasts, and even public works as a way of demonstrating fitness for public office, can be described as philanthropic, if one approves of the source of the wealth and sees the office-seekers as concerned for the general public good.
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The giving of wealth acquired in war or through rents or trade to religious establishments (temples, churches, mosques, schools, libraries, orphanages, seminaries, soup kitchens) in ancient China, India, Persia, medieval Europe and the Ottoman Empire and other Muslim nations may have met definitions of philanthropy in those societies, but in those contexts might more likely have been described as reflecting love of God or honoring the state. The existence of multiple communities, of diverse religious and cultural traditions, in most places throughout history greatly complicates efforts to define ‘‘philanthropy.’’ In twelfth century North Africa, the philosopher Moses Maimonides, who worked from Jewish and Aristotelian and apparently also from Muslim traditions, wrote about ways to do good in very general terms, but with particular attention to the situation of Jewish communities that lived within and under Muslim states. He argued that the highest virtue went to those who gave anonymously, in such a way that they did not know who benefited from their gift and that their beneficiaries lost no self-respect and did not know the name of their benefactor. The classic device for such giving is the scholarship fund, controlled not by the donor but by the faculty of a school. Whether such a device – or any other approach to philanthropy – is available to any given would-be philanthropist depends on the character of the prevailing regimes of government and the legal systems they maintain. The economic and social circumstances of Europe and North America in the past two or three centuries encouraged both mass-movement and great-entrepreneur philanthropy. Every great religious tradition has produced movements to purify belief or to benefit humanity in general; by early in the nineteenth century cheap printing and effective postal and banking systems made it possible for many individuals to propose or to join mass movements for philanthropic purposes. Moralists such as William Ellery Channing and Charles Dickens cautioned that such ‘‘philanthropic’’ movements encouraged people of modest means to ignore real and immediate obligations to family and community in order to give time and treasure to poorly conceived missions to unknown people who lived far away. In the past two centuries, the term ‘‘philanthropy’’ has more often been applied to very large individual gifts by exceedingly wealthy individuals. Remarkable numbers of German businessmen made notable gifts as Germany raced to create a modern state in the second half of the nineteenth century, playing crucial roles in building the great universities, institutes of scientific research, museums, musical institutions, in many cities, and striving also to encourage public education and to improve
public health, housing, and living conditions in general. In many cases, historians argue that German businessmen who lacked noble origins or membership in local elites were largely seeking social acceptance. No doubt the American financier George Peabody was also seeking acceptance, or offering thanks to a generous host nation, when he made an enormous gift to a model housing project in London. The Scottish financier John S. Kennedy clearly had the same motives when in 1892 he gave the massive United Charities Building in New York City. Celebrated American examples include Benjamin Franklin’s renewable investment funds for Philadelphia and Boston, very large gifts from the Lawrence, Abbott, Lowell, and other prosperous textile families to Harvard, Yale, and other colleges and universities, the creation of a foundation for southern education and large gifts to the arts by financier George Peabody; the founding and very substantial initial endowment of entire universities by Johns Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and others; the sponsorship of a national system of locally-financed public libraries and the creation of several foundations by Andrew Carnegie; the creation of the University of Chicago, of Rockefeller University, and of multiple foundations by John D. Rockefeller; the donors of such other foundations as Rosenwald, the several Guggenheim, the Commonwealth Fund, and many others; Andrew W. Mellon’s gift to the United States of the National Gallery of Art. More generally, American philanthropy claims much of the credit for creating modern American research universities, medical centers, libraries, arts centers, and national parks. The claim has considerable basis in reality, though numerous small gifts, government subsidies, and consumer fees covered large shares of the costs, shares that rose rapidly after World War II. Each major philanthropic gift attracted controversy related to the purposes (and definitions of ‘‘good’’) involved, the origin of the wealth, the donor’s effort to persuade or force beneficiaries to act in certain ways, and the donor’s perceived engagement with the action, bravado or modesty, and other elements of his way of making the gift. Less celebrated are those who gave to narrow or outdated purposes, or whose gifts seemed too small relative to their wealth. Stephen Girard, for example, limited his great Philadelphia orphanage to white boys and who made no effort to address the larger conditions that produced orphans; Russell Sage made a great fortune but had nothing to do with the creation of the important foundation or the college that bear his name (his widow, Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, was the philanthropist, and she largely left the direction of her works to others).
Philanthropy, Definition Of
Key Issues Recent discussions of philanthropy have emphasized the importance of ‘‘effectiveness,’’ of ‘‘impact,’’ of ‘‘engagement,’’ of recognizing the limited wealth even of the largest philanthropies and hence the importance of a venturing spirit if philanthropy is to accomplish anything more than a ritual gesture of desire to do good. Bill Gates is understandably seeking to bring to his philanthropy the added value he apparently contributed to the fabulous success of the Microsoft corporation. Other recently successful entrepreneurs hope to do the same. What is not yet clear is what these discussions add to earlier efforts to multiply the good done by large gifts – many of which used deep, extended, sophisticated engagement to exert leverage through self-sustaining private institutions or through changes in government institutions, policy, or law. And like their predecessors, today’s philanthropists seek impact in social settings where their fortunes, values, and motives will receive continuing public scrutiny.
International Perspectives The observations on the importance of context to thinking about definitions of philanthropy discussed above should make it clear that efforts to extend philanthropic activity across borders are always difficult and fraught with possibilities for misunderstanding and conflict. At the same time, precisely because philanthropy always involves relationships, those who ‘‘receive’’ philanthropic gifts and initiatives are always able to exert their own pressure on the donor. And in every context, there are likely to be multiple perspectives, some favorable to external philanthropy, some resistant to it, some ready to transform it to their own purposes, some determined to reject it out of hand.
Future Directions Current studies of philanthropy indicate particular concern for effectiveness, for the relation between philanthropy (however defined) and civil society, and for the relation between philanthropy and globalization.
Cross-References
▶ Carnegie, Andrew ▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Charity, History Of ▶ Civil Society Theory: Aristotle ▶ Gates, William H. ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Guggenheim, Solomon ▶ Mellon, Andrew
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▶ Philanthropy and Professional Advisors ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Buddhism ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Hinduism ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Judaism ▶ Philanthropy in Africa ▶ Philanthropy in Australia and New Zealand ▶ Philanthropy in Europe ▶ Philanthropy in Latin America ▶ Philanthropy in North America ▶ Philanthropy in Russia and Central Asia ▶ Philanthropy in South East Asia ▶ Philanthropy in the Far East ▶ Philanthropy in the Middle East ▶ Philanthropy, Ancient ▶ Rockefeller, John D., Sr. ▶ Rosenwald, Julius ▶ Sage, Olivia ▶ Strategic Philanthropy ▶ Venture Philanthropy ▶ W.K. Kellogg Foundation ▶ Wakfs
References/Further Readings Adam, T., (Ed.) (2004). Philanthropy, patronage, and civil society: Experiences from Germany, Great Britain, and North America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Anderson, E. A., & Moss, A. A. Jr. (1999). Dangerous donations: Northern philanthropy and southern black education, 1902–1930. Columbia/ London: University of Missouri Press. Arnove, R. F. (1980). Philanthropy and cultural imperialism: The foundations at home and abroad. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Bremner, R. (1960). American philanthropy (2nd ed). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 1988. Carson, E. D. (1993). A hand up: Black philanthropy and self-help in America. Washington, DC: Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies Press. Checkland, O. (1980). Philanthropy in Victorian Scotland: Social welfare and the voluntary principle. Edinburgh: J. Donald Publishers. Curti, M. (1965). American philanthropy abroad. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Curti, M., & Nash, R. (1965). Philanthropy in the shaping of American higher education. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Friedman, L. J., & McGarvie, M. D. (2003). Philanthropy, and civility in American history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ginzberg, L. (1990). Women and the work of benevolence: Morality, politics, and class in the nineteenth-century United States. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Griffin, C. S. (1960). Their brothers’ keepers: Moral stewardship in the United States, 1800–1850. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Hammack, D. C. (1998). Making the nonprofit sector in the United States: A reader. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Hammack, D. C., & Heydemann, S. (Eds.) (2009). Globalization, philanthropy, and civil society: projecting institutional logics abroad. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
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Horowitz, H. L. (1976). Culture and the city: Cultural philanthropy in Chicago from the 1880s to 1917. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Ilchman, W. F., Katz, S., & Queen, E. L. II (Eds.) (1998). Philanthropy in the world’s traditions. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Jones, J. (1992). Soldiers of light and love: Northern teachers and Georgia blacks, 1865–1873. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Jordan, W. (1959). Philanthropy in England, 1480–1660: A study of the changing patterns of English social aspirations. London: G. Allen & Unwin. Kosmin, B. A., & Ritterband, P. (Eds.) (1991). Contemporary Jewish philanthropy in America. Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Kraemer, J. L. (2008). Maimonides: The life and world of one of civilization’s greatest minds. New York: Doubleday. Lazare, L. Rescue as resistance. New York: Columbia University Press. Mauss, M.. (199). The gift: The form and reason for exchange ,in archaic societies (W. D. Halls, Trans., with a forward by Mary Douglas). New York: WW Norton. McCarthy, K. D. (1982). Noblesse oblige: Charity & cultural philanthropy in Chicago, 1849–1929. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McCarthy, K. D. (2003). American creed: Philanthropy and the rise of civil society, 1700–1865. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McPherson, J. (1975). The abolitionist legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press. Nelson, S. (2001). Say little, do much: Nurses, nuns and hospitals in the nineteenth century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Oates, M. J. (1995). The catholic philanthropic tradition in America. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press. Owen, D. (1964). English philanthropy, 1660–1960. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Prochaska, F. K. (1990). Philanthropy. In The Cambridge social history of Britain, 1750–1950. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schneewind, J. B. (Ed.) (1996). Giving: Western ideas of philanthropy. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Slack, P. (1988). Poverty & policy in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Longman. Tuennerman-Kaplan, L. (2001). Helping others, helping ourselves: Power, giving, and community identity in Cleveland, Ohio, 1880–1930. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. Veyne, P. (1990). Bread and circuses: Historical sociology and political pluralism (O. Murray, Trans.). London: Penguin. Wheatley, S. (1988). The politics of philanthropy: Abraham Flexner and medical education. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press.
Pierre, Abbe´ (Henry Groue`s) ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Basic Biographical Information Henry Antoine Groue`s, who later became known as Abbe´ Pierre, was born in Lyon, France in 1912 to a large, wealthy Catholic family. In 1928, at the age of 16, he decided to join the religious order of Capuchin (Kapuziner Orden). Due to illness he left the monastery after eight years, but was finally ordained a priest in Grenoble.
When World War II broke out in 1939, Groue`s was mobilized as a noncommissioned officer and was active in the French Resistance, transporting escaping Jews to Switzerland, creating a refugee camp for resisters, and founding the clandestine newspaper L’Union patriotique inde´pendante. Like other members of the Resistance, he was awarded with the Croix de guerre (1939–1945) and the Me´daille de la Re´sistance. While active with the Resistance, Groue`s took the name Abbe´ Pierre as a code name and kept it. Abbe´ Pierre’s position as a priest did not keep him from pursuing a political career. First he was elected deputy for the Meurthe-et-Moselle department in both National Constituent Assemblies in 1945–1946. Later in 1947, Abbe´ Pierre became vice president of the Confe´de´ration mondiale, a universal federalist movement. He ended his political career in 1951 to focus his energies on the Emmaus charity movement he initiated in 1949. He remained active until his death in Paris in 2007.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Abbe´ Pierre is best known in France for founding the Emmaus movement, which is now present throughout the globe as Emmaus International. In 1949, using the modest salary he received as a member of the French Parliament, he purchased and renovated a run-down house in a wealthy Paris neighborhood and converted it into a shelter for the homeless and unemployed, the first base of the Emmaus movement. Once Abbe´ Pierre withdrew from his political positions, financial resources were scarce. Emmaus community members decided to finance their activities by collecting and selling discarded clothing and waste products, thereby earning Pierre the nickname ‘‘rag-picker’s saint.’’ Abbe´ Pierre roused his fellow French citizens to action in the cold winter of 1954. Numerous people, including a woman who had been evicted from her home and a baby, had frozen to death. In response to Abbe´ Pierre’s dramatic open letter to newspapers and appeal over the radio, the French public responded en masse with monetary and in-kind support. The now-famous call for help ended up raising an entirely unexpected 500 million French francs in donations. For his selflessness and outspokenness, Abbe´ Pierre was consistently voted one of the most popular personalities in France.
Cross-References ▶ Fundraising ▶ Social Justice
Planned Giving
References/Further Readings Pierre, A. & Lenoir, F. (2007). Why, oh why, my god? Meditations on Christian faith and the meaning of life. Geneva: WCC.
Pithart, Petr MIROSLAV POSPI´SˇIL
Basic Biographical Information Petr Pithart was born in 1941 in Kladno to a prominent communist family. He himself joined the communist party as a 19-year-old student of law at Charles University in Prague. After graduation, he began teaching law at his university and publishing essays in various political and literary journals that started appearing during the political thaw in Czechoslovakia in the 1960s. During 1966– 1968 he was a member of the interdisciplinary team that was preparing the political and economic reforms of the Prague Spring. After the Soviet army crushed the Czechoslovak reforms in 1968, Pithart left the communist party to become one of the most prominent dissidents against the regime established by the Soviets in occupied Czechoslovakia. He was among the first signatories of Charta 77. Making a living at menial jobs, he organised clandestine seminars in private apartments, organised the smuggling of forbidden literature into Czechoslovakia and the publication of samizdat books, and started writing essays and books that had profound influence on the political debate in the dissident circles. In 1989, he was one of the leaders of the Civic Forum, which negotiated the peaceful transfer of power from the communist government to the interim government of national unity and to the presidency of Va´clav Havel. He was the first post-1989 Czech Prime Minister (1990–1992) and has sat in the Senate of the Czech Republic since 1996, serving as its Speaker two times (1996–1998 and 2000–2004). He became a member of the Christian and Democratic Union – Czechoslovak People’s Party in 1999.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions As a young communist, Petr Pithart was soon aware of the defects, and the crimes, of the Soviet-style regime but he believed they could be remedied through reforms. After this belief was frustrated by the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia, Pithart directed his intellect to the study of Czech history and the causes of the post-World War II development of his country. He wrote, among many others, a brilliant analysis of the Prague Spring,
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essays on key events in recent Czech history, and a convincing apologia of politics in a situation when many believed that western-style politics was dead. At the same time, through both his study and personal experience, he became a strong believer in citizen action and the contribution of civil society to healthy democracy. This led him, after 1989, to exert strong influence on the Czech government’s policy towards civil society and the nonprofit sector. He contributed to many legislative measures in support of the development of civil society organisations, notably the landmark decision about the establishment of the Foundation Investment Fund, an instrument though which the government donated 1% of the proceeds from the second stage of privatisation of state-owned enterprises into the endowments of Czech foundations.
Cross-References
▶ Charta 77 Foundation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Havel, Va´clav
References/Further Readings Petr Pithart – his official website (in Czech only), from http://www. pithart.cz; 12/12/2008 Havel, V., Klaus, V., & Pithart, P. (1996). Rival visions. Journal of Democracy, 7(1), 12–23.
Planned Giving CATHERINA PHAROAH Cass Business School, London, UK
Introduction ‘‘Planned giving’’ has grown rapidly in the United States over the last few decades, generally referring to types of charitable donating which involve individual donors in more considered approaches both to long-term philanthropic aims and most effective choice of giving mechanisms, particularly in the light of modern charitable giving tax-breaks. Planned giving generally, though not exclusively, provides vehicles for major giving, and has emerged alongside the huge increases in personal wealth which have resulted from the growth of global markets. Its development is closely linked to the increasing professionalization of fundraising and the emergence of a ‘‘sub-specialty’’ of planned giving advisors who
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combine expertise in individual wealth management, the complex and ever-changing tax law surrounding the use of charitable tax-reliefs, and the charitable environment.
Definition There is no single definition of planned giving. It refers variously to particular mechanisms for giving or giving ‘‘products,’’ particular cultures of giving, and particular types of fundraising. Use of the term has become specifically associated with a cluster of ways, mechanisms, or financial products, through which individuals can make charitable gifts of money and other valuable assets. These include legacies and other formal giving vehicles for making long-term lifetime gifts, or ‘‘lifetime legacies,’’ which confer the right to charitable tax-reliefs and are ‘‘tax-efficient’’ (see ‘‘Planned giving products’’ below). However, an important strand of thinking within modern planned giving theory and practice places much less emphasis on giving products and techniques, and focuses much more on the process of developing longterm relationships with donors, and on understanding and nurturing the cultures and motivations underlying long-term, regular, committed giving. Such approaches are sometimes linked to the notion of donor ‘‘stewardship’’ (Burnett, 1992), albeit as another element of the fundraising toolkit (see ‘‘Key Issues’’ below).
Historical Background Planned giving is consequently often seen as a relatively modern fundraising concept, but as a term it was in common parlance well before the fundraising of recent decades. (Published references to it, for example, can be found in charities’ annual reports from early nineteenth century.) Moreover, philanthropy throughout different eras and cultures has always encompassed both spontaneous, immediate and ‘‘cash’’ giving, and more planned and considered types of charitable giving, often embedded in particular social networks (Ostrower, 1997), longer-term individual financial planning and legal mechanisms. Examples of both spontaneous and planned types of giving can be seen, for example, in the collecting-boxes in temples or mediaeval charitable hospitals (Mollat, 1986), and the early private legal endowments of Islam ‘‘for pious purposes’’ (Said Amir Arjomand, 1998). Voluntary tithing, the payment of one-tenth of income or wealth, usually to support a religious organization, represents an ancient form of planned giving still practiced by some people today. One form of this is the church tax levied on members of Christian churches in some European countries, notably Germany. In the United Kingdom, the
Deed of Covenant, a legal agreement for a long-term gift from a donor’s private income on which the charity could reclaim the tax paid to government on the amount of the gift, was an important forerunner of its current system of tax-reliefs. The system of planned giving in existence today has evolved in a continuous way from long and ancient traditions of major philanthropic commitment. The development of planned giving as a fundraising specialism culminated in the establishment of the US National Committee on Planned Giving in 1988 as a result of growing professional activity in the field of planned giving, and the number of local groups of planned giving advisors which were emerging. Planned giving advice and consultancy is now well-established within the mainstream of US fundraising, and often regarded as its progressive edge because of its focus on developing long-term donor-charity (or cause) relationships in which the donor’s financial and personal commitments create a more sustainable basis for the achievement of future social benefit. The planned giving profession has played, and continues to play, a key role in lobbying for fiscal change and shaping the development of the field of planned giving. Use of the term and concept of planned giving is gradually spreading out from the United States and a number of planned giving initiatives have emerged in other countries, although none has the extensive range of specific individually-tailored planned giving products and intermediary services seen in the United States.
Key Issues Planned Giving Products
One defining strand of the concept of planned giving in the United States is the use of giving mechanisms and products which enable charitable tax-reliefs on personal income to be claimed. Charitable bequests are the oldest, largest, and simplest category of planned giving. The principle of ‘‘life income’’ gifts was established in 1927 when the Committee on Gift Annuities was set up (renamed the American Council on Gift Annuities, ACGA, in 1994). A Gift Annuity (also referred to as ‘‘Charitable Gift Annuity,’’ CGA) is a contract under which a charity, in return for a transfer of cash, marketable securities or other assets, pays out a fixed annual amount to one or two individuals for their lifetime. The donor receives a taxdeduction on the initial gift. The ACGA publishes suggested and well-respected charitable gift annuity rates for use by charities and their donors, based on actuarial advice relating to life expectancies and related matters. The 1969 Tax Reform Act in the United States, which increased the deduction limit for charitable contributions
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to 50% of a taxpayer’s adjusted gross income and detailed limits for noncash gifts, also paved the way for the development of a further set of sophisticated tax-efficient ‘‘split-interest’’ trust products designed to give both charity and donor an income. They include ‘‘charitable remainder unitrusts (CRUT),’’ ‘‘charitable remainder annuity trusts (CRAT),’’ ‘‘charitable lead unitrusts (CLUT)’’ and ‘‘charitable lead annuity trusts (CLAT).’’ CRUT (and CRAT) involve a donor in transferring assets to a charitable trust which then makes annual payment throughout the donor’s lifetime (or for a set period), while also providing an income to the charity. The donor attracts charitable taxrelief on the value of the asset placed in the trust. Assets placed in the trust are removed from the estate of the donor thus additionally avoiding estate tax and probate costs. CLUT (and CLAT) are the opposite of CRUT. They involve the donor in making an annual trust payment to a charity for a period of time at the end of which the assets return to the donor, but the annual distributions to the charity are immediately tax-deductible for the donor. Another type of lifetime planned giving product is ‘‘retained life-estate gifts,’’ which involve a donor in transferring property to a charity in return for a retained lifeestate contract stipulating that the donor should remain in residence for life, with the charity gaining total control of the property on death. An immediate donor taxdeduction can be claimed if the property is a personal residence. Other lifetime planned gifts which can be made include life insurance policies, retirement plans, trust savings accounts. One of the most dramatic successes of more recent planned giving development in the United States is the ‘‘pooled income fund.’’ Following the success of the first Fidelity Investment Charitable Gift Fund, set up in 1992 by Fidelity Investments, many other major investment organizations have marketed similar funds. The funds involve multiple donors investing in a pooled charitable investment fund, from which they receive an annual payment for life, depending on the performance of the investments. Donors can be actively involved in fund management and choose the beneficiaries. Charitable donations from the fund are eligible for a tax-deduction. Making best use of most of such products can involve complex personal financial planning related to personal income and other circumstances. Many countries have some system of tax-reliefs for charitable bequests and individual giving, subject to the maintenance of an audit trail linking the gift to the donor, and to levels and conditions which vary widely from country to country. The United States and the United Kingdom are generally regarded as having particularly generous and
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wide systems, but comparative international information on the relative values of donor tax-reliefs within the various fiscal regimes and rules is sparse, particularly after taking into account the impact of charitable tax-reliefs on marginal personal income tax-rates. Other sources of international variation in the treatment of charitable taxreliefs include the criteria for organizations eligible to receive tax-deductible donations, tax treatment of domestic donations to foreign organizations or domestic organizations operating internationally, and upper and lower limits on deductibility. Looking at Europe, for example, in the Netherlands donations of between 1–10% of income are eligible for a tax-deduction from gross personal income, in Ireland there is a minimum gift threshold of €250 for taxdeductibility, but no upper limit, in Germany up to 5% of annual taxable income may be eligible for a tax-deduction, rising to 10% if the donation is for the furtherance of science, benevolence, or culture. Looking beyond Western Europe and the United States, in New Zealand, for example, donors are entitled to reclaim one-third of the value of their annual giving as a tax-rebate up to a value of $630, while in Australia all donations over AUS$2 are fully eligible for tax-deduction. In South Africa donors can claim a taxdeduction for donations up to the value of 5% of their income. Japan introduced a tax-deduction for individuals in 1962 for donations in excess of approximately €75, with an upper limit equal to 30% of total income eligible for relief and for which only a small set of organizations are eligible (Goto et al., 2007). 2005 saw the first carefully controlled introduction of personal income tax-reliefs on charitable giving in China, initially to a small number of foundations but slowly being extended to include, for example, local donations to the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. Systems of administration of tax-reliefs also vary. While some countries such as the United States and Australia simply require receipts from the beneficiary organization as proof of a gift, the United Kingdom has a system called Gift Aid, which requires a donor declaration of willingness for tax to be reclaimed and that sufficient tax has been paid to cover the reclaim. This is because within the UK system, tax-relief on individual gifts is largely repaid to beneficiary charities, not donors. Only higher-rate taxpayers can claim a tax-deduction for themselves under Gift Aid. Donations made through payroll giving schemes in the United Kingdom, however, are deducted from gross salary before tax liability is calculated, and so directly benefit the donor. Impact of Planned and Tax-Efficient Giving
The varying systems of tax-reliefs in existence in different countries, with their individual complexities and impact
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on donor and charity income, mean that personal income planning and expert information and advice, the key elements of the planned giving concept, can play a significant role in uptake in many places. There is evidence of poor knowledge of charitable giving tax-reliefs in several countries, including those where they have been available for some time (see e.g., Australian Government, 2005; Smeaton, 2004; Wang and He, 2004). A key justification for the transaction costs of planned giving incurred by governments and donors lies in the potential for tax-reliefs to act as an incentive to give and to motivate higher levels of giving. Although historically charitable tax-relief legislation has not always been framed as a tax incentive to give, but to clarify the boundaries of taxable income (Schuster and Davidson, 1989), nonetheless the provision of a personal income tax-deduction today is generally and often explicitly intended to stimulate giving, particularly in countries where it has been relatively recently introduced. Taxincentive effects have been extensively researched in the United States, and very little elsewhere. While US studies such as those of Auten (Auten, 2002), Joulfaian, focusing on bequests (Joulfaian, 2000), Bakija, looking at bequests and other charitable giving (Bakija, 2003, 2008), indicate positive effects, others such as Barrett (Barrett,1997) have found that taxes determine the timing and term of donations, but have questioned whether tax-deductions for charitable giving are efficient, and a UK study (Jones and Posnett, 1991) found no evidence of a tax-price effect. Planned Giving Cultures
Development of the capacity to solicit donations through more sophisticated and planned giving products can be regarded as a demonstration that an organization is ‘‘maturing’’ (Jordan and Quynn, 2002). However, it has also been strongly argued that such perspectives result from identifying planned giving principally as part of the fundraiser’s toolkit, rather than as part of the wider giving cultures of a society and donor motivation. An important debate has emerged amongst practitioners and commentators about the true meaning of the planned giving concept and its role in engaging donors in higher and more committed levels of giving today. The dichotomy is well illustrated in comments such as the following. ‘‘So many people talk about planned giving, but its meaning seems to differ in every conversation. To some it means a highly technical field. . . . . to others planned giving conjures up visions of an elderly donor making a life-statement. . .. . .. There are two complementary ways of characterizing planned giving – the first
emphasizes the attributes of planned gifts, the second describes planned giving as a process. . .’’ (Barret and Ware, 2002). In a polemic against the modern and more ‘‘technical’’ view of planned giving as a set of tax-related giving products, for example, it has been argued that ‘‘If we claim the right to ask for money we need to understand the ancient and honorable instinct of charitable giving in the context of a modern world, whose philanthropic sector finds itself questioning donative intent, tax incentives and the purpose of many charities, all at once. Planned giving provides such a forum precisely because it embodies the ambiguities inherent in asking for gifts in return for a life income and other benefits’’ (White, 1995).
International Perspectives Current planned giving activity in countries other than the United States is aimed principally at educating fundraisers and donors more generally on tax-effective giving, and much less on the provision of individualized donor advice services. Main examples include the United Kingdom, which has a two-stranded system of charitable tax-reliefs, involving both donor and charity tax reclaim. Tax paid at the standard rate by the donor on gifts can be reclaimed by recipient charities, deriving from an ancient principle that an individual should not be liable for tax on income given away or ‘‘alienated’’ to a third party, while a portion of tax paid at higher rates can be reclaimed by the donor; and Canada which, like the United States, provides taxpaying donors with a personal income tax-break on charitable gifts which increases with size of gift up to a certain level, as an incentive to give. Australia has introduced several donor tax-breaks on charitable giving since 1999, but tends to regard planned giving as regular and long-term giving (Australian Government, 2005). The Canadian Association of Gift Planners was established in 1993, and the European Association for Planned Giving (EAPG) was established in 1998, under the auspices of former US financial and giving advisors, and with a particular remit to support transferability of domestic tax-breaks to cross-border giving. Personal giving advice is available to wealthy major donors in other countries principally through a number of different and separate professional channels, such as private banking and investment, financial advisors, accountants, and solicitors, although a number of dedicated intermediary services have been emerging in Europe, particularly linked to private banking and family business finance services (Pharoah, 2007, 2008). In addition to this, some dedicated fundraising organizations and consultants operating outside the United States (though often with US links) are offering planned
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giving services which focus on fundraising strategies for major donors, or bequest giving (e.g., Shambhala, www. shambhala.org/giving/planned.php, www.brakeley.com/ pages/services/annual.html). The full scope for the development of more sophisticated and individual planned giving products internationally is currently unknown, although in the United Kingdom, for example, interest is growing rapidly and the UK Institute of Fundraising has recently developed a strategic alliance with the EAPG to promote planned giving.
Future Directions Governments across the globe are increasingly interested in the potential for the charitable, voluntary, or ‘‘third’’ sector to address social inequalities, engage citizens in social well-being and build social cohesion. One result of this is the rise of interest in providing individuals with a tax-deduction for charitable giving, and the creation of a sustainable funding base for charitable organizations. Within this context there is great scope for donors, charities, and fundraisers to think imaginatively and strategically about how to give, and to ensure that full use is made use of fiscal opportunities to maximize the value of gifts. A system of planned giving which is dependent principally on the vagaries of the government tax preferences and policies of the day, however, may be vulnerable. Like the giving of the past, the committed and planned charitable giving of the future will derive its strength from the cultures, beliefs, and motivations within which it is embedded.
Cross-References
▶ European Association for Planned Giving ▶ European Foundation Centre ▶ Fundraising ▶ Gift, Giving ▶ One-Percent Provision ▶ Philanthropy and Professional Advisers ▶ Tax Policy ▶ Wakfs ▶ Zakat
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Bakija, J., et al. (2003). Charitable bequests and taxes on inheritances and estates. Aggregate evidence from across states and time. The American Economic Review, 93(2), 366–370. Barrett, K. S., et al. (1997). Further evidence on the dynamic impact of taxes on charitable giving. National Tax Journal, 50(2), 321–334. Barrett, R. D., & Ware, M. E. (2002). Planned giving essentials. Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen Fund Raising Series, Aspen Publishers. Burnett, K. (1992). Relationship fundraising: A donor-based approach to the business of raising money (2nd ed. 2002). London/San Francisco, CA: White Lion in association with the International Fund Raising Group/Jossey-Bass. Goto, K., & Hemels, S. (2007). Charitable giving and tax incentives. Tax Notes International, 48(3), 311–318. Jones, A. M., & Posnett, J. W. (1991). The impact of tax deductibility on charitable giving by covenant in the UK. Economic Journal, 101, 1117–1129. Jordan, R. R., & Quynn, K. L. (2002). Planned giving for small non-profits. New York: Wiley. Joulfaian, D. (2000). Estate taxes and charitable bequests by the wealthy. National Tax Journal, 53(3), 743–764. Mollat, M. (1986). The poor in the Middle Ages. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Ostrower, F. (1997). Why the wealthy give. The culture of elite philanthropy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pharoah, C. (2007, March). The stellar rise of the new philanthropic intermediary. Alliance, 12(1), from www.alliancemagazine.org Pharoah, C. (2008). Family foundation philanthropy. London: Centre for Charity Effectiveness, Cass Business School. Said Amir Arjomand. (1998). Philanthropy, the law, and public policy in the Islamic world before the modern era. In W. F. Ilchman, S. N. Katz & E. L. Queen II (Eds.), Philanthropy in the world’s traditions. Bloomington/Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press. Schuster, J., & Davidson, M. (1989). The British deed of covenant as a tax incentive for charitable donations: Vestige or viable alternative? In E. James (Ed.), The non-profit sector in international perspective. Yale Studies in Non-Profit Organisations. New York: Oxford University Press. Smeaton, D., et al. (2004). Individuals’ donations to charity and their use of tax reliefs. London: Report for HMRC, Policy Studies Institute, from www.hmrc.gov.uk/research/rep9-main.pdf Wang, Y., & He, G. (2004). Charitable giving by individuals: Empirical study of urban China. Paper presented at the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA. White, D. E. (1995). The art of planned giving. New York: Wiley. www.shambhala.org/giving/planned.php, www.brakeley.com/pages/services/ annual.html
References/Further Readings Australian Government. (2005). Giving Australia. Canberra, Australia: Department of Family and Community Services. Auten, G., & Rudney, G. (1990). The variability of individual charitable giving in the US. Voluntas, 1(2), 80–97. Auten, G., et al. (1992). The effects of tax reform on charitable contributions. National Tax Journal, 45(3), 267–290. Bakija, J., & Heim, B. (2008). How does charitable giving respond to incentives and income? Dynamic panel estimates accounting for predictable change in taxation (NBER Working Paper No. 14237). Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.
Polanyi, Karl MARTTI MUUKKONEN
Basic Biographical Information Karl Polanyi was born in Vienna in 1886 to the family of wealthy Hungarian Jews. Later the family, except the
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father, converted to Calvinism. His life can be roughly divided into three periods. Up to the age of 47 he lived and influenced in Hungary and Austria. During this period he got his education, developed many of his main ideas and worked as a journalist in Vienna. In 1934 he flew to England where he worked as a teacher. The contrast between the poor conditions of the workers in the rich England and relatively good life-quality of those in poor Vienna gave a spark to his interest in the mechanisms of market society. In 1944 he published his only monograph The Great Transformation in the United States. After the war Polanyi was employed as a visiting professor of economic history in Columbia University. Because of his Marxist youth he was not able to move to the United States and, thus, Polanyi and his wife Ilona moved to Pickering near Toronto where he lived until his death. He died in 1964.
Major Contributions Polanyi’s late entry into the academic world occurred in relatively old age and this might be a reason why he did not publish but few articles along with his only monograph. In his lifetime, he coedited two anthologies into which he also wrote articles: Christianity and the Social Revolution (1935) and Trade and Market in the Early Empires (1957). The other publications, Primitive, Archaic and Modern Economies (1968) and The Livelihood of Man (1977) are collections of his previously unpublished papers that his students edited into books. Karl Polanyi’s influence was in its peak in the 1950s and 1960s. He was known mainly as a founder of the substantivist school in economic anthropology. Theoretically, Polanyi has roughly three themes with which he frames the world. The first is how he defined the economy (human’s interaction with physical nature). The second is his thesis of three possible integration forms of societies: redistribution (how the state taxes people and redistributes this wealth back to citizens), reciprocity (economy based on gift exchange), and market (exchange without social bonds). The third is the concept of double movement (how enforced capitalism awakens counter movements) that he uses to interpret the collapse of the nineteenth century liberal market economy up to 1930s. In the case of civil society, Polanyi’s theory of reciprocity explains donordonee relationships. The concept of double movement, in turn, explains antiglobalization protests.
Cross-References ▶ Mauss, Marcel ▶ Reciprocity
References/Further Readings Ron Stanfield, J. (1986). The economic thought of Karl Polanyi. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Polanyi-Levitt, K. (Ed.) (1990). The life and work of Karl Polanyi. Montreal: Rose Books.
Political Organizations ROUMEN DIMITROV University of Western Sydney, Penrith South DC, NSW, Australia
Introduction Political organizations are systemic mediators between the society and the political process (Wilson, 1995). Most of them, including parties, are nonprofit organizations. As agencies of the civil society, their role in relation to members, leaders, and mission is in flux. They face challenges that redefine the idea of political organization. State interests prove more self-referential than initially thought. Professionalization fuses governing with campaigning. Globalization creates political vacuum that nation-states cannot fill. New social movement organizations step up to complement and even replace parties without being necessarily more representative, legitimate, or accountable. How do political organizations cope with such challenges? How do their structures and systems change in result? Which organizational types are in decline and which on the rise? How do the boundaries of the polity pulse and move? Where does the fine line between issue advocacy and partisan electioneering lie? Is online activism one of their movers? Does professional communication affect political campaigns? How will all that impact on the future of political organizations?
Definition Many theoretical approaches use political organization as an operational term, but few build on it as a central idea. Most literature narrows down the definition of political organization to various nonprofits, including parties, which, in one way or another, take part in the political process. They range from political parties and committees that run candidates for elections to antiestablishment and movement groups that question the status quo of the political system. Among them are advocacy organizations that campaign for one or against another cause, special interest groups that lobby politicians and top public
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servants, and think tanks that produce policy alternatives. They vary from spontaneous local grassroots groups to hierarchical (national and international) peak bodies (umbrellas) and loose coalitions (networks of networks). The latter advocate and lobby for other nonprofits, which may be political (environmental and human rights, for example) or not (such as services, clubs, and self-help groups).
Historic Background Party Transformation
Parties and party systems undergo changes. So does their theoretical modeling (Broughton & Donovan, 1999; Mair, 1997). Which models of successive transformation are the most significant ones? And how do such changes affect the role of parties as political agents of the civil society? In liberal democratic polities parties are associations that compete in periodic elections to obtain popular support, control government power and pursue certain policies (Neumann, 1956). Ideal types of parties try to catch the diversity of their sets and systems (Ware, 1996). Typologies either build on binary juxtapositions such as elite-based and mass-based, tolerant (democratic) and hegemonic, and dominant and multiple parties. Or research develops multidimensional models to better reflect historically and geographically unique and hardly classifiable political formations. Mass Party
The mass party from the first half of the twentieth century is a classic example of political organization that represents the interests of large and well-defined social groups. Those may be based, for example, on class (social democratic) or denomination (Christian democratic) (Duverger, 1954). As (old) movement organizations, mass parties help their members to take part in the political life. Members’ identity is closely knit into the fabric of the organization. Mass parties provide support and services for their members in exchange for financial contribution and voluntary work. Extensive membership, party unity, discipline, and loyalty are preconditions for successful election campaigns. Electoral mobilization is no different from members’ activism. Once in control of the state, party officials act on behalf of the groups they represent – sometimes against political elites and state bureaucracy perceived as hostile.
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arguably emerged in the 1960s – in parallel to dramatic technological, social, and cultural changes in the Western societies. This type coincided with the emergence of new social movements that revolve not around socioeconomic classes but rather sociocultural identities. Party elites liaised further with state bureaucrats. Citizen participation and member recruitment gave way to the function of advancing candidates aspiring to political office. Politics became more complex and exclusive. Politicians selfnecessitated through on-the-job professionalization and costly expertise that only the state through the taxpayer money rather than party donations and membership fees could secure. To capture new groups of voters and compensate for the lessening loyalty of the traditional ones, parties deideologised their platforms, moving from issue-driven to personal, image-centered politics. Mediatization, especially TV-tailored campaigns led to the rise of the political consultant – pollster and professional communicator – often to detriment of party democracy. The validity and universality of the catch-all model remain controversial (Puhle, 2002). Cartel Party
Borrowing from the idea of cartel in the political economy, some analysts propose the model of cartel party to explain recent developments (Blyth & Katz, 2005). It shows the next stage of dialectical transformation of the catch-all party. Coalescing with the state, major parties – more often in bipartisan systems – conspire to monopolize office. They no longer represent the interests of the civil society before and within the political authority. The opposite is true. Parties gradually become the mouthpiece of selfreferential state interests. ‘‘Democracy lies in the currying favor by elites, rather than public involvement in policymaking. Voters should be concerned with results rather than policy, which is domain of the professional’’ (Katz & Mair, 1995: 22). Parties learn to run without members. In the chase of increasingly volatile voters, parties further transform into electional machines. The power of the (unelected) professional consultants removes the difference between campaigning and governing (Newman, 1999). Governing transforms into a permanent campaign (Blumenthal, 1982). Inter-party collusion arguably leads to policy conversion with neoliberal undertones – an assumption, which is not undisputed (Goot, 2004).
Key Issues
Catch-all Party
Decline of Political Parties?
The ‘‘catch-all’’ (Kirchheimer, 1966) or ‘‘electoralprofessional party’’ (LaPalombara & Weiner, 1966)
Katz and Mair insist that their idea of the cartel party does not support the theory of ‘‘party decline.’’ They warn others
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not to use the early model of mass party as a universal measure for any further development. For example, fewer members do not necessarily mean less party (Katz & Mair, 1995). Nevertheless, empirical data confirm the trend of falling party membership and dealignment of party voters in postmaterialist democratic societies (Dalton, 1984; Inglehart, 1977). Voters have become more apartisan, less loyal, better educated and more self-sufficient. Because the citizens’ expectations about the state are remaining high, realignment from political parties to social movement organizations is taking place (Pharr & Putnam, 2000). Also the role of political (nonparty) partisan and nonpartisan groups is on the rise. The political weight and public resonance of the most influential advocacy and lobbying groups are so strong that they often split parties internally. Issue Advocacy and Partisan Electioneering
How far nonprofit organizations can go politically? In all liberal democracies there are legal restrictions to the political activities of certain civil organizations, especially those who are tax-exempt, able to give donor status, and receivers of government funding. With the rise of advocacy and lobbying organizations those boundaries are becoming ever more blurred and contested. In the United Kingdom, for example, the New Labour government imposed limits on voluntary organizations to campaign for a party and support a candidate. This ban works as enabling negative law: anything goes except partisan electioneering. In contrast, the Australian common law prohibits tax-exempt organizations from engaging in any political work, unless it is incidental and directly related to their philanthropic cause (Lyons & Passey, 2006). This is the constraining principle of positive law: anything that is not explicitly allowed is forbidden. It is more suitable for public administration rather than civil organizations. The US federal law also bars tax-exempt organizations to give money to a political party or endorse a candidate (Hopkins, 2007). A 527 group, for example, is created under the Section 527 of the US tax code. 527 groups such as the Swift Vets and POWs for Truth and National Rifle Association are run by interest groups that rise ‘‘soft money’’ for issue-advocacy purposes and do not electioneer directly. Otherwise, they have to register as political action groups (PAGs) that can campaign for the election or defeat of a candidate for political office, but are subjected to tougher financial control. The Federal Election Campaign Act distinguishes between advocacy (sections 501(c)3 and 501(c)4) and lobbying groups (501(c)4s). Both are allowed to press on issues and policies without direct engagement in the
electional process, provided this is not most of their work. To be more flexible in this complex legal environment, MoveOn.org has split in two separate entities. MoveOn. org Civil Actions is a 501(c)4 issue-campaign organization (they are more outspoken than the 501(c)3s). And MoveOn.org Political Action is a 257 group, registered as a PAC, which in 2007 contributed $9 million for political candidates and campaigns. In the same year billionaire Sheldon Adelson created the 501(c)4 Freedom Watch to spend $15 million on an ad blitz in support of the troop surge in Iraq (Wasserman, 2008). Thanks to the Internet, political organizations are pushing the fine line between issue advocacy and partisan electioneering further than ever before. Their impact on public opinion and election results is growing. For example, they mount get-out-the vote or anti-vote-fraud campaigns and vigorously support if not candidates so candidates’ causes. In the 2008 campaign Rock the Vote signed up over one and half million new, mostly young voters. It did not take political side, but it was obvious for whom those voters will vote in bulk. Money and campaign efficiency prove, again, to be in direct correlation. Online participation and fund-raising offer new possibilities for issue advocacy. Yet old socioeconomic and political inequalities also reemerge on the web.
International Perspectives Existing typologies largely derive from the origins and dynamics of the Western European Parties (LaPalombara & Weiner, 1966). They have limited validity for non-Western societies. For example, the Fatherland Front in communist Bulgaria transformed from an antifascist movement during World War II into a satellite nonpartisan ‘‘people’s movement’’ mobilizing the ‘‘partyless’’ for the goals of the communist party (Brunnbauer, 2008). In Indonesia (in the 1970s and 1980s) Suharto’s Golkar was a federation of nonprofit organizations that transformed into an ‘‘apolitical’’ and ‘‘nonideological’’ political organization. Not being officially a ‘‘party’’ it used to beat the two smaller ‘‘registered’’ parties during elections (Suryadinata, 2007). Being aware of the contradiction between genesis and trans-contextuality, researchers enlarge the sample of their cases, adding more non-European parties to the European ones. Yet recent more comprehensive comparisons, country by country (Webb et al., 2002), or thematically (Dalton & Wattenberg, 2000), inevitably run the risk to blunt the definition of parties and slide into a mere descriptivism at the expense of a deeper analysis. Nevertheless, in today’s globalizing world, it is hard to interpret the almost pervasive trend of setting up multiple party systems in Latin America (Mainwaring & Scully, 1995), Africa (Carbone,
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2007), Asia and the Pacific (Reilly, 2007) other than as Western-type democratization.
of party and candidate campaigns as a step away from the active civil society and toward the cartel party state?
Future Directions
Cross-References
Both partisan and apartisan political organizations are experiencing decline in membership. This relates to the process of professionalization. For example, in most advanced liberal democracies not only membership but also volunteering is showing a similar pattern. Although it is still increasing as a whole (in people and hours), there is a fundamental shift from giving time to donating money (Anheier & Salamon, 1999). Welfare improvement and growing pressure to keep up with the profession are just two of many factors that bear on the rise of the ‘‘nonprofit professional’’ whose major function becomes managing ‘‘checkbook participation’’ (Verba et al., 1995). Hence, two are the most significant trends to watch: First, does online activism increase participation in the political process? Or, as ‘‘rational prospectors,’’ do the activists only mobilize other activists who are already in the politics? And, second, because of all resources that facilitate political involvement money is the most stratified one, how can the ever-rising influence of the ‘‘big end of town’’ be curbed? In times of the Internet, financing of political campaigns has occupied the center stage of democracy concerns. In the 2008 US presidential elections, the then Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama ‘‘flipflopped’’ on a previous agreement with his rival, Republican Senator John McCain to restrict their campaign funding to a publicly financed cap. He beat all records by raising about 750 million dollars (most online). Small donors carried this stunning achievement that cemented Obama’s victory: of 6.5 million donations, 6 million were in increments of $100 or less. The average online donation was $80 (Vargas, 2008). The campaign used its record-breaking fund-raising to open more than 700 offices in more than a dozen battleground states, pay several thousand organizers and manage tens of thousands more volunteers (MacGillis, 2008). Giving and volunteering, virtual and real organizing built an entity. This effectively spells the end of public financing of presidential campaigns in the United States for some years ahead. It also provokes interpretations either way. Was the rejection of public financing a win not only for Obama’s ‘‘movement-campaign’’ but also for the powerful interest and lobbying groups that despite – or because of – the movement rallied behind him? Or does the highly efficient online and groundwork mobilization of donors and voters present an unexpected rediscovery of the political potential of individuals and civil society groups? Was it an – even though opportunistic – rebuke of public financing
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▶ Advocacy ▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Collective Action ▶ Foundations, Political ▶ Information Technology/Internet ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ Interest Politics ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Lobbying ▶ MoveOn.org ▶ Political society ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (1999). Volunteering in cross-national perspective. Law and Contemporary Problems, 62(4), 43–65. Blumenthal, S. (1982). The permanent campaign (2nd ed.). New York: Touchstone Books. Blyth, M., & Katz, R. S. (2005). From catch-all politics to cartelisation: The political economy of the cartel party. West European Politics, 21(1), 30–66. Broughton, D., & Donovan, M. (Eds.) (1999). Changing party systems in Western Europe. London: Pinter. Brunnbauer, U. (2008). Making Bulgarians socialist: The fatherland front in communist Bulgaria, 1944–1989. East European Politics and Societies, 22(1), 44–79. Carbone, G. M. (2007). Political parties and party systems in Africa: Themes and research perspectives. World Political Science Review, 3(3), 1–29. Dalton, R. J. (1984). Cognitive mobilization and partisan dealignment in advanced industrial democracies. The Journal of Politics, 46(1), 264–284. Dalton, R. J., & Wattenberg, M. P. (Eds.) (2000). Parties without partisans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Duverger, M. (1954). Political parties: Their organization and activities in the modern state. London: Methuen. Goot, M. (2004). Party conversion reconsidered. Australian Journal of Political Science, 39(1), 49–75. Hopkins, B. R. (2007). The law of tax-exempt organizations (9th ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Inglehart, R. (1977). The silent revolution: Changing values and political styles among Western publics. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Katz, R. S., & Mair, P. (1995). Changing models of party organization and party democracy. Party Politics, 1(1), 5–28. Kirchheimer, O. (1966). The transformation of the Western European parties. In J. LaPalombara & M. Weiner (Eds.), Political parties and political development (pp. 177–200). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. LaPalombara, J., & Weiner, M. (1966). The origin and development of political parties. In J. LaPalombara & M. Weiner (Eds.), Political parties and political development (pp. 3–42). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
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Lyons, M., & Passey, A. (2006). Need public policy ignore the third sector? Government policy in Australia and the United Kingdom. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 65(3), 90–102. MacGillis, A. (12 October, 2008). Obama camp relying heavily on ground effort. Washington post, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/11/AR2008101102119_pf.html Mainwaring, S., & Scully, T. R. (Eds.) (1995). Building democratic institutions: Party systems in Latin America. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Mair, P. (1997). Party system change: Approaches and interpretations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Neumann, S. (1956). Toward a comparative study of political parties. In S. Neumann (Ed.), Modern political parties (pp. 395–421). Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Newman, B. W. (1999). The mass marketing of politics. Democracy in an age of manufactured images. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pharr, S. J., & Putnam, R. D. (Eds.). (2000). Disaffected democracies: What’s troubling the trilateral countries? Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Puhle, H. -J. (2002). Still the age of catch-allism? Volksparteien and Parteienstaat in crisis and reequilibration. In R. Gunther, J. R. Montero, & J. J. Linz (Eds.), Political parties: Old concepts and new challenges (pp. 58–84). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Reilly, B. (2007). Democratization and electoral reform in the Asia-Pacific region: Is there an ‘‘Asian model’’ of democracy? Comparative Political Studies, 40(11), 1350–1371. Suryadinata, L. (2007). Interpreting Indonesian politics. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish International. Vargas, A. (20 November, 2008). Obama raised half a billion online. Washington post, from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/ 2008/11/20/Obama_raised_half_a_billion_on.html Verba, S., Scholzman, L., & Brady, H. E. (1995). Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Ware, A. (1996). Political parties and party systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Wasserman, E. (2008). Charitable groups pushing the envelope with issue advocacy. Contribute Magazine, 25 July [msnbc.com/id/25838144; 08/08/2008]. Wilson, J. Q. (1995). Political organization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Political Society TED G. GOERTZEL Rutgers University, Camden, NJ, USA
Introduction The phrase political society is used in different ways, generally revolving around the process by which the interests and values of civil society are articulated and aggregated for action by government. A large variety of groups and organizations take part in this process including political
parties, lobbies, advisory councils, social movements, citizen and consultative assemblies, participatory budgeting meetings, Bolivarian circles and neighborhood and community councils. More is known about each of these kinds of groups and organizations than about how they function collectively to aggregate and articulate the interests and values of a society as a whole.
Definition The phrase political society can be traced to the political philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) who used it synonymously with civil society, but with a broader meaning than that term usually has today. A political society, for Locke, was one that men entered voluntary through a social contract, as contrasted to governments established by monarchs who claimed a divine right to govern or by autocrats who governed through dictatorial power. Today the phrase democratic governance is more often used to refer to the sociopolitical processes that Locke advocated. The Constitution of the United States was largely inspired by Locke’s philosophy.
Key Issues The American Constitution specified the structure of government and protected the rights of civil society, but it made no provision for groups or organizations designed to bridge the gap between civil society and government. The political parties which soon emerged to fill this void were not anticipated by the founders. The American founding fathers did not have a concept for political society in the sense of groups and organizations that articulate societal interests for political action. Research on political society in this broad sense is often conducted by political sociologists. It examines how political life is rooted in broad societal organization. Three major theoretical models are often used in this research (Goertzel, 1976): 1. Social class models rooted in Marxism and neoMarxism 2. Elite models focusing on the top decision-makers in a country, and 3. Pluralist models of the balance of influence from pressure groups The social class models find the locus of political society in economic and social links between people with similar relationships to the means of production, especially the owners and managers of corporate enterprise and their adversaries in the labor unions and workers’ organizations. Elite models study the circulation of top decision-makers
Political Society
in both the private and the public sector, and focus on how these elites dominate and manipulate larger publics. The pluralist model is more diverse, including both economic interest groups and those defined by other interests or inclinations. It posits that political society, in the sense of nongovernmental interest groups, is the primary force driving public policy. In its comparative international research on the development of sociopolitical processes in developing countries, the Overseas Development Institute (Hyden et al., 2003) defines political society as a specific element of the broader sociopolitical process. It distinguishes between: 1. Civil Society, or the way citizens become aware of and raise political issues 2. Political Society, or the way societal interests are aggregated in politics 3. Executive, or the rules for stewardship of the system as a whole 4. Bureaucracy, or the rules guiding how policies are implemented 5. Economic Society, or how state-market relations are structured; and 6. Judiciary, or the rules for how disputes are settled These are processes, not groups. The same group may be carrying out a civil society process when it raises consciousness of issues and a political society process when it joins with other groups in lobbying for legislation. A legislative committee may function as part of the political society when it holds hearings and works with interest groups, then as part of the executive when it passes formal legislation. Avritzer (2002) distinguishes between democracy as form of political organization that guarantees formal rights, which he calls a political public space, and democracy as an organized political competition between nongovernmental groups and state administration, which he calls political society. The concept of political society, in this sense, focuses attention on the group interactions that make democratic life a reality. This component of democracy is sometimes overlooked by those who focus on formal legal rules and constitutional doctrines. While Locke used political society and civil society as synonyms, libertarian Edward Crane (1997) uses them as opposites. For Crane, civil society is the realm of voluntary, private interaction while political society is the realm of governmental mandates and authority. For libertarians such as Crane, political society is something from which society needs to be liberated, whereas for Locke it was a liberating alternative to monarchical and authoritarian forms of government.
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There is no consensus in the literature on the definition of the phrase political society. Nor is the phrase widely used or its meaning often contested. It seems unlikely that a useful debate about its meaning will emerge. Research on the process by which the interests and perspectives of civil society are articulated and aggregated for governmental action is very much needed. But it may better be served with less ambiguous concepts such as interest articulation and aggregation.
Future Directions A number of historical and contemporary cases raise important issues about the future of research on political society. A good deal of information about each of these cases can be found in this encyclopedia and elsewhere. The New Left in the 1960s and 1970s developed the concept of participatory democracy as an alternative to representative democracy. The New Left in the United States, Europe, and Latin America had little opportunity to put these ideas into practice, but they were implemented on a societal scale in the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Similar ideas are advocated today on an international level by the World Social Forum under the theme ‘‘another world is possible.’’ These ideas are being implemented in Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, an experiment that has not yet been fully studied. An older Latin American effort in this direction was the participatory budgeting movement advocated by Brazil’s Workers Party before it came to power. Both of these movements look to political society for an alternative to representative democracy’s perceived conservatism and elitism. The Economic and Social Councils movement (Monat and Beaupain, 2003), coordinated by the International Association of Economic and Social Councils and Related Institutions, is an important effort to institutionalize the role of political society. Economic and Social Councils are composed of representatives of civil society groups that are selected and appointed by government and asked to play an advisory role linking civil society to government. These councils go back as far as 1925 in France, and play an important role in many European countries.
Cross-References
▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ Lobbying ▶ Locke, John ▶ Public Sphere
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▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Political ▶ World Social Forum
References/Further Readings Avritser, L. (2002). Democracy and the public space in Latin America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Crane, E. (1997). Civil society vs. political society: China at a crossroads. Washington, DC: The Cato Institute, from http://www.cato.org/ events/china/papers/crane.html. 11/8/2008. Goertzel, T. (1976). Political society. Chicago: Rand McNally. Hyden, G., Court, J., & Mease, K. (2003). Political society and governance in 16 developing countries. Overseas Development Institute, World Governance Survey Discussion Paper 5, from http://www.odi.org.uk/ projects/00–07-world-governance-assessment/Docs/WGS_5_Political_ Society.pdf; 11/8/2008 Locke, J. (1690 [2002]). Second treatise of government and a letter concerning toleration. Mineola, NY: Dover. Monat, J., & Beaupain T. (2003). The role of economic and social councils in social dialogue. In M. Gold (Ed.), New frontiers of democratic participation at work (pp. 73-99). Hampshire: Ashgate.
Popper, Sir Karl HANS-CHRISTIAN CRUEGER
To his philosophy of science Popper developed a corresponding political theory. The core idea is that history is not to be seen as a lawful and intelligible process. Instead, Popper advocates an application of his scientific method of falsification to the social and political realm. This claim leads Popper to a passionate defense of liberal democracy. Only within an open society is a free exchange of views possible. The open competition of opinions is regarded by Popper as the sole appropriate political form of falsification. Therefore the chance to switch governments in a peaceful and legal way is crucial to any society’s well-being. Popper’s political considerations have to be seen as a vital contribution to civil society. In the wake of Nazi totalitarianism and in the face of its Soviet counterpart, he made a strong – and scientifically grounded – argument for Liberalism. Ha has probably delivered one of the most read vindications of civil freedom in the twentieth century, if not the most read one.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century ▶ Soros, George
References/Further Readings Basic Biographical Information Sir Karl Popper was born in Vienna (Austria) in 1902. While attending the University of Vienna during the 1920s Popper became acquainted with the ‘‘Wiener Kreis’’ (Vienna Circle), a group of academics, which was mainly concerned with problems of the philosophy of science. The threat of Nazism forced him to emigrate to New Zealand in 1937. It was there where he wrote The Open Society and Its Enemies, his most famous political work. From 1946 to 1969 he held a professorship at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Even after retirement, Popper did substantial research and published widely. He died in 1994 in London (England).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Sir Karl Popper is surely one of the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century. In order to describe his own position he coined the term critical rationalism. This school of thought claims that any scientific theory needs to specify the conditions under which it can be falsified. For around 50 years now critical rationalism has had a huge impact on methodological debates in the social sciences.
Corvi, R. (1996). An introduction to the thought of Karl Popper. London: Routledge. Keuth, H. (2004). The philosophy of Karl Popper. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
PRIA ▶ Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)
Professional Associations RAQUEL REGO, MARTA VARANDA SOCIUS-ISEG, Lisbon, Portugal
Introduction There are few references on professional associations, particularly in civil society literature. This paucity of references was already noted in the 1930s by Carr-Saunders and Wilson (1933). The research that does exist is analyzed
Professional Associations
under the general framework of sociology of professions/ professional groups where the main focus is professions and professionalization of occupations. Professional associations receive only indirect attention.
Definition A professional association is a body of a knowledge-based group, whose main concern is the promotion of technical standards (Torstendahl, 1990). Anglo-American sociology of professions usually refers to professional associations as a sign of the maturity of a professional project (Carr-Saunders and Wilson, 1933; Wilensky, 1964; Larson, 1979). Classic references from the sociology of professions identify the existence of stages of professionalization. Professional associations may thus be conceived as a stage of professionalization among others, like the creation of specific training, the existence of a licence law and of an ethical code (Wilensky, 1964). Professional associations can also be understood as a strategy of an occupational group to strengthen its status, reducing conflicts among professionals and mobilizing resources (Selander, 1990). This strategy usually tends to closure (Torstendahl, 1990). In this sense, professional associations test the ability of members before they are admitted to practice, which involves an indirect control of their training, and, after their admission, they monitor standards by imposing the respect of an ethical code. Professional associations thus play several roles, namely: 1. The promotion of professional status and image, constructing the cultural identity of the professional group 2. The certification of members training/education 3. The monitoring of deontology, playing a disciplinary function 4. The promotion of innovation by sponsoring knowledge-sharing and diffusion, through holding annual meetings, publishing a journal, giving opportunities for informal networking, etc. (Galaskiewicz, 1985) While public interest seems to be guaranteed by professional associations and can even be recognized by the state through a special statute, the monopoly of peer controls may turn these organizations into self-interest organizations. Autonomy and self-regulation can also be understood as a means to render professional services scarce, and services more expensive in consequence (Marshall, 1939). In this sense, professional associations may be seen as corporative, and the authority of professional
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associations can conflict with administrative authority (Freidson, 1994). Debate exists in the literature regarding this self-interest versus public interest. It is often difficult to separate public from self-interest in professional associations as they act both altruistically and self interestedly. Professional associations may share strategies and pursue goals similar to other civil society associations, such as trade unions. Indeed, both professional associations and unions contribute to integration in a professional community and to the improvement of a profession’s status (Hovekamp, 1997). However, at least since Carr-Saunders and Wilson (1933), the literature has stressed an incompatibility between professional associations and trade unions. There is a ‘‘principled rejection’’ of unions by white-collar employees (Larson, 1979), because unions contribute to decrease rather than elevate professionals’ social status (CarrSaunders and Wilson, 1933), and because unions base their action in the conflict between people and institutions, while professional associations aim to integrate them (Hovekamp, 1997). Professional associations and trade unions also differ in that one purpose of professional associations is to cross class-boundaries, controlling a field of work or a body of knowledge (diplomas, credentials, etc.), while the main purpose of trade unions is to negotiate wages and other working conditions for their members (Selander, 1990). Consequently the reasons for joining are also distinct: in professional associations, individuals look for the recognition of their expertise and autonomy of status while in unions they mainly seek individual benefits (Hovekamp, 1997). Nevertheless, there are similarities. Professional associations protect the economic interests of their members, albeit indirectly, when they attempt to improve the image of the profession. Unions also stand for the profession’s image, namely by negotiating beyond bread-and-butter issues (Hovekamp, 1997). In the modern labour market, the purposes of professional associations and unions may become mixed in ‘‘hybrid organizations’’ (Wilensky, 1964). There is also some evidence that professional associations are using trade union strategies (Torstendahl, 1990). Due to the long-standing interaction between them, it seems they have influenced each other (Alexander, 1980).
Historical Background According to Durkheim (1973), the first signs of professional associations can be found in the occupational corporations of Ancient Rome. These corporations were grounded in religion and did not engage in public action.
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Administrative integration in the state led to their disappearance with the decline of Roman Empire in the fifth century. Some centuries later, occupational corporations emerged again with craft guilds. Guilds did not develop in all regions in Europe, but they became the main way of organizing work in many cities in Europe between the twelfth and the fifteenth centuries (Krause, 1996). The Middle Ages were the ‘‘golden age of corporations’’ (Dubar, 1991) because membership in an occupational corporation was a socially distinctive attribute. For Durkheim (1973), the reappearance of corporations demonstrates that they answer deep-seated and lasting moral needs: the subordination of individual to collective interests. It is generally considered that the medieval guilds are the predecessors to professional associations since they played a role in the community and established an occupational monopoly in order to protect members from the threats of markets. Unlike professional associations, guilds were religion-based and hierarchical in nature, access was dependent on hereditary criteria and they played a military role (Carr-Saunders and Wilson, 1933; Kieser, 1989). The decline of medieval guilds in Europe around the end of fifteenth century was essentially caused by their inability to adapt to functional specialization as well as the separation of individual motives from institutional goals (Kieser, 1989). According to Freidson (1994), the most important difference between the modern professions and the crafts and earlier guilds lies in the way professions control innovation through education system. Innovation and profit were against the guild spirit, which restricted their adaptability at a time when other organizations were following the principle of profit maximization with increasing rationality, e.g., factories were getting support from political power (Durkheim, 1973; Kieser, 1989). Even if there is an underlying association strategy in both medieval guilds and professional associations, they differ because occupations are not necessarily of the same nature. So, professional associations as known today are of recent creation. The first professional associations were created in the mid nineteenth century in western societies. The oldest professional association known was founded in 1825 in England. Within the span of two generations the main professional associations had emerged, and, at least in England and the United States, they emerged within a period of about 50 years (Larson, 1979). Professional associations developed with the rise of industrial capitalism, often in a spontaneous and informal way (e.g., in the form of dining-clubs), in response to the deeply-felt need by professionals for discussion
(Carr-Saunders and Wilson, 1933). In the expenditure markets, professional sectors sought to improve their position in the emergent stratification system (Larson, 1979). As Chapoulie (1973) observes, the evolution of the social division of labour in professional groups led to the creation of new associations by professions that had become more specialized and required a distinct education. At the same time, more highly qualified professions allowed other occupations within the same field to perform less qualified or complex tasks. The Agricultural and the Industrial Revolution brought demographic and urban structural changes: professional work became a full-time occupation and the number of professionals increased. In the ideal-typical passage from community-oriented to market-oriented society (Larson, 1979), the growth of a middle-class clientele was an important factor for the development of professions and their associations.
Key Issues Regulation
Professional regulation varies according to the national political system. There are three main ideal-types of regulation systems: (a) independent self-regulation, which is common on the continent of Europe where professional associations have the monopoly of regulation; (b) state sanctioned self-regulation, which can be found more often in the United States and United Kingdom, and can be considered a consequence of the collapse of traditional independent self-regulation; and (c) state administered regulation, which is mostly restricted to the bureaucratic control of professions, such as when the state grants a licence for professional practice (Moran and Wood, 1993). Empirical studies have neglected the role of professional bodies in regulation. In existing studies professional associations are typically portrayed as important regulatory mechanisms as they legitimate and regulate professionals’ behaviours. Prevailing accounts focus upon the essentially conservative role of professional associations, such as the control of education and admission to the profession, and the monitoring and disciplining of behaviour. However at moments of institutional change, professional associations can take on a reformist role through the legitimation of change (Greenwood et al., 2002). The increasing awareness of consumer rights and the consequent growth in litigation, are contributing to the diminishing of professional control by professionals, as witnessed in the medical profession (Moran and Wood, 1993). Autonomy and self-regulation are also being challenged by the increasing number of professionals in
Professional Associations
organizations (Moran and Wood, 1993), and by the increase in international administrative authority (Evetts, 1995, 2002). As a result, new forms of monitoring are arising, such as the monitoring of continuing education, auditing, or acquitting specialist registers with substantial admission requirements. As Evetts (2002) argues, these aspects can no longer be referred to as ‘‘self regulation,’’ the term ‘‘acquired regulation’’ more appropriately describes the necessary balance of responsibilities between professionals and states. Moreover, it can incorporate international as well as state forms of authority and regulatory institutions. In this sense, Krause (1996) maintains that since the 1980s some established professions have started to lose their ‘‘guild power.’’ According to this author, guild power (a concept that is equally applicable to modern occupations as to medieval ones) includes control over the association, the workplace, the market, and the relation to the state. Guild power is increasingly being replaced by the power of capitalists or the state (or both) to control the nature and quality of the professional association.
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Professional associations have at their disposal a disciplinary power for professional behaviour based on their ethical code. In professional associations where membership is compulsory, the strongest sanction leads to the expulsion of members and prohibition of practice thereafter (Chapoulie, 1973). But, as some authors demonstrate, in reality professional associations have a limited disciplinary activity (Moran and Wood, 1993). It is easier to select, govern, and control admission to an occupation than to keep performance under surveillance (Moore, 1976). Moreover, the collective assertion of autonomy bears a dubious relation to an individual’s autonomy.
the profession with those of the leadership of the professional association. A professional association board that is noninclusive and non-compositionally representative may have positive benefits for the functioning of the association due to the increased probability of homogeneity of opinions and the pursuit of long term strategies. However, unrepresentative elites may limit the effectiveness of the association’s actions, particularly when the effectiveness depends on the support of representative bodies and regional resources (Carr-Saunders and Wilson, 1933; Halliday and Cappel, 1979). An unrepresentative elite may also alienate segments of the membership and turn resources away form the general good of either the profession or the public toward the interest of small and unrepresentative segments of professionals. Dominance by a single homogeneous elite can be avoided by elite pluralism. However such an organizational structure, even through open and competitive elections, would not necessarily guarantee the emergence of democracy (Halliday and Cappel, 1979). In such a case leadership may be reluctant to grant decision making autonomy to constituent units of the organization in order to avoid conflicts among committees, which would give a public image of lack of consensus within the association. This presents a paradox in the government of professional associations: as the association becomes more representative and inclusive in its composition, there will be a strain toward less democracy in its government. This is how inclusiveness may bring not more but less democracy. The critical challenge for a democratic management of a professional association lies in the skill with which it can obtain benefits from size and heterogeneity through processes that neutralize internal conflict, and create at least an appearance of professional consensus on issues of major importance to the profession or its current elite (Halliday and Cappel, 1979).
Elites and Democracy
Knowledge Diffusion and Innovation
Professional associations face a political structure problem common to other associations: the tension between democracy and oligarchy. Like other associations, professional associations are democratic in form and oligarchic in operation (Moore, 1976). For some authors, professional associations provide a significant case to test Robert Michels’ oligarchy law as they have characteristics that mitigate the tendency toward oligarchy, such as leadership tenure and elite pluralism. An important part of the literature about democracy in professional associations concerns leadership. These accounts compare the characteristics of the members of
Professional associations play an important role in the innovation process. On the one hand they influence the innovation process directly by disseminating a particular body of knowledge via their members; and, on the other hand they indirectly encourage innovation diffusion through the establishment of weak ties that help foster a climate of trust among members from different organizations. This is particularly important for small, decentralized firms that may not have the knowledge and resources needed to develop innovation on their own (Swan, 1995). One of the functions of professional associations is to bring together in committees, panels, task forces, and
Disciplinary Power
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study groups, people who, based on their background characteristics, might not otherwise be attracted to one another. As Galaskiewicz (1985) explains, the particular resource that professional associations control is specialized knowledge, and it has been widely assumed that informal networks among professionals are the means whereby information is filtered throughout the professional community. Professional associations have been able to mitigate the effect of uncertainty, essentially by eliminating status as an explanatory factor of proximity in the network. Membership in a professional association constitutes a big advantage for semiprofessionals, for it increases their chance of establishing network contact with full-time professionals and breaks down an important set of barriers. Professional associations have the potential to act as technological gatekeepers. In fact they can have a profound influence in promoting particular visions of innovative solutions both within and across societies. Although little research has focussed on professional associations as agents in the diffusion of technological innovation, the associations see the dissemination of knowledge among practitioners, as a crucial aspect of their role. Nonetheless, the enactment of this role is limited by the extent to which there is active involvement in these networks by practitioners in the industry (Swan, 1995).
International Perspectives There are studies comparing professions in different countries (Krause, 1996; Moran and Wood, 1993), but there is no research comparing specific professional associations across countries. Most of the literature on professions in the English language identifies a dominant model of professional associations, such as medicine or law, which is based on a narrow definition of profession, i.e., the ‘‘established professions’’ (Carr-Saunders and Wilson, 1933; Wilensky, 1964). According to this model, professional associations are voluntary associations. Other literature conveys that, in western societies, there are at least two ideal-types of professional associations: the Anglo-American (United Kingdom and the United States) and the continental European (France, Germany, Portugal, etc.). The main difference between them lies in the regulatory role of the state. In the continental European model, unlike in the Anglo-American one, the state plays a crucial knowledge control function (Burrage and Torstendahl, 1990), because it is a centralized state (Krause, 1996). In this case, professional associations usually take on a semipublic status and membership is compulsory. They may be called ‘‘professional orders,’’ as in France and Portugal.
In any case, organization functioning and action can be quite different from one professional association to another in the same country. These differences are due to differences in the professional institutionalization process, but they may also depend on the prestige/status of the profession, and the proximity between the profession and the political power (Gosnell and Shmidt, 1935). New occupations and old professions tend to generate different professional associations, although older associations act as models for the new ones.
Future Directions Professionalization of Semi-professions
The development of a knowledge society and valuation of professionalism will continue to push some occupations towards a professional status. ‘‘Semi-professions,’’ ‘‘less established’’ or ‘‘emerging professions’’ (Alexander, 1980) are less lucrative and demand fewer qualifications than medicine or law, but they may be of more importance in the future. In addition, the increase in professionals has been stressed by several authors (Freidson, 1994; Putnam, 2000) since Durkheim (1973) underlined the growth in labour division. According to Putnam (2000), professional associations seem to be an exception to a general trend showing a decline in membership over recent decades. Membership to professional associations has increased because the number of professionals has grown, as has the engagement of women in the public sphere. International Regulation
As Evetts (1995) explains, the number of international professional associations, interprofessional associations and groups of specialists made up of representatives from national professional bodies is growing, as is their influence on the reregulation processes for service providers. In Europe, in particular, changes to certification and accreditation systems are being based on international professional associations’ proposals and agreements. Europe seeks the harmonization of its professional services, and in order to maintain their influence in this process, national professional associations are increasing their legitimacy in international bodies. The inability of European institutions to attend to detail and to do so quickly is also contributing to the strengthening of international professional associations. At the same time, international professional associations are considered to have more legitimacy and authority to standardize working practices. Despite wielding power that is only consultative, international professional associations may constitute
Professional Associations
new arenas for the self-regulation of professions because they are already underpinned by a code of professional conduct (Evetts, 1995). Political Influence
Although some authors, like Carr-Saunders and Wilson (1933), maintain that professional associations should abstain from taking a position on nontechnical issues, as Halliday (1987) observes, evidence suggests that the influence of professions may be more fundamental at the levels at which it has escaped notice. The political influence of professional associations, namely their formal and informal lobbying role, seems to be an important issue since these organizations can become more influential than nation state governments. Crises of governability may lead the state to delegate some of its functions to empowered professions. As a result professional associations are often represented on public councils, taking advantage of a special relation to the state. However, in order to exercise influence, professions need to have expert authority, a ‘‘knowledge mandate’’ (legitimacy, substance, efficacy, etc.) and ‘‘political mobilization’’ capacity (being able to speak on behalf of the corporate). These attributes vary with professions (Halliday, 1987). As Halliday (1987) explains, most, but not all, professions need to be organized in associations in order to be able to exert influence. In fact, it is their representativeness that gives professional associations’ political authority. In order to attain representativeness, associations need to be able to mobilize and draw coalitions. This need leaves associations, with few exceptions, with a dilemma: the more representative they are, the less able they are to mobilize effectively. Moreover, since professions have different epistemological characteristics, these conditions are not assured in the same way. Finally, influence will also be diverse according to different levels of government (Halliday, 1987).
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Boards ▶ Business and Employers’ Associations ▶ Codes of Ethics and Code of Practice ▶ Corporatism ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ Labor Unions/Labor Movements ▶ Leadership ▶ Lobbying ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Putnam, Robert D.
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References/Further Readings Alexander, L. B. (1980). Professionalization and unionization: Compatible after all? Social Work, 25(6), 476–482. Burrage, M., & Torstendahl, R. (Eds.) (1990). Professions in theory and history –rethinking the study of the professions. London: Sage. Candler, G. G. (2000). The professions and public policy: Expanding the third sector. International Political Science Review, 21(1), 43–58. Carr-Saunders, A. M., & Wilson P. A. (1933). The professions. Oxford: Clarendon. Chapoulie, J.-M. (1973). Sur l’analyse sociologique des groupes professionnels. Revue Franc¸aise de Sociologie, 14(1), 86–114. Dubar, C. (1991). La socialisation – construction des identite´s sociales et professionnelles. Paris: Armand Colin. Durkheim, E´. (Ed.) (1973). Pre´face de la seconde edition. In De la division du travail social (pp. I–XXXVI). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Evetts, J. (1995). International professional associations: The new context for professional projects. Work Employment Society, 9(4), 763–772. Evetts, J. (2002). New directions in state and international professional occupations: Discretionary decision-making and acquired regulation. Work Employment Society, 16(2), 341–353. Freidson, E. (1994). Professionalism reborn –theory, prophecy and policy. Cambridge: Polity Press. Galaskiewicz, J. (1985). Professional networks and the institutionalization of a single mind set. American Sociological Review, 50(5), 639–658. Gosnell, H. F., & Schmidt, M. J. (1935). Professional associations. Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, 179, 25–33. Greenwood, R., (2002). Theorizing change: The role of professional associations in the transformation of institutionalized fields. Academy of Management Journal, 1(45), 58–80. Halliday, T. C. (1987). Beyond monopoly –lawyers, State crisis and professional empowerment. Chicago: The University Chicago Press. Halliday, T. C., & Cappell, C. L. (1979). Indicators of democracy in professional associations: Elite recruitment, turnover, and decision making in a metropolitan bar association. American Bar Foundation Research Journal, 4(4), 697–767. Hovekamp, T. M. (1997). Professional associations or unions? A comparative look – the role of professional associations. Library Trends, 46 (2), 232–244. Kieser, A. (1989). Organizational, institutional, and societal evolution: Medieval craft guilds and the genesis of formal organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly, 34(4), 540–564. Krause, E. A. (1996). Death of the guilds –professions, States, and the advance of capitalism, 1930 to the present. New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press. Larson, M. S. (1979). The rise of professionalism –a sociological analysis. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. MacDonald, K. (1995). The sociology of the professions. London: Sage. Marshall, T. H. (1939). The recent history of professionalism in relation to social structure and social policy. The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, 5(3), 325–340. Michels, R. (1962). Political parties: A sociological study of the oligarchical tendencies of modern democracy. New York: Free Press. Moore, W. E. (1976). The professions: Roles and rules. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Moran, M., & Wood, B. (1993). States, regulation and the medical profession. Buckingham: Open University Press. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone –the collapse and revival of American community. New York: Touchstone.
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Selander, S. (1990). Associative strategies in the process of professionalization: Professional strategies and scientification of occupations. In M. Burrage & R. Torstendahl (Eds.), Professions in theory and history –rethinking the study of the professions (pp. 139–150). London: Sage. Swan, J. A. (1995). The role of professional associations in technology diffusion. Organization Studies, 16(5), 847–874. Torstendahl, R. (1990). Essential properties, strategic aims and historical development: three approaches to theories of professionalism. In M. Burrage & R. Torstendahl (Eds.), Professions in theory and history – rethinking the study of the professions (pp. 44–61). London: Sage. Wilensky, H. L. (1964). The professionalization of everyone? American Journal of Sociology, 70(2), 137–158.
and organizes national conferences. Latest issues of lobbying were legislative procedures for corporate revision act and value added tax act. Besides, proFonds was member of the working group for the Swiss NPO Code.
Structure and Governance proFonds is an association under Swiss law. It is governed by a board which’s members are elected by the members. The operative responsibility has a CEO who leads the general secretariat.
Funding proFonds’ work is financed through member contributions.
proFonds GEORG VON SCHNURBEIN
Address of Organization Dachverband gemeinnu¨tziger Stiftungen der Schweiz Dufourstrasse 49 4052 Basel Switzerland www.profonds.org
Major Accomplishments/Contributions proFonds was awarded as ‘‘elite of foundation experts in German speaking area’’ by the German newspaper ‘‘Die Welt’’ in 2006.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grant-Making ▶ Foundations, Grant-Seeking ▶ Lobbying ▶ Umbrella Organizations
Introduction
References/Further Readings
proFonds is the umbrella organization of charitable foundations and associations in Switzerland and lobbies for good general conditions for its members. proFonds unites all kinds of charitable and grant-making foundations and serves as a platform for the third sector in Switzerland.
Degen, C. (2009). Gemeinnu¨tzige Stiftungen und Steuern: Steuerbefreiung, Spendenabzug und MWST. Basel: proFonds.
Brief History Founded in 1990 as a community for charitable foundations, the association developed its capacities in lobbying and networking over the years. With the new name, proFonds, the association positioned itself as an umbrella organization. Among its 350 members are most of the major charitable organizations in Switzerland.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas proFonds’ focus lies on lobbying and mobilizing for charitable organizations in Switzerland. Legal issues concerning governance, tax, foundation law and organization are of special interest. Additionally, it facilitates exchange and knowledge transfer among its members.
Activities To pursue its mission, proFonds is involved in policy making and public relations, offers a series of publications
Proudhon, Pierre Joseph ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Basic Biographical Information Pierre Joseph Proudhon, influential printer and author, was born in 1809 in Besanc¸on, France to a family of modest means. Educated at home by his mother, he eventually chose to learn the printing trade and ultimately attended college on scholarship. His supervision of the printing of Charles Fourier’s classic Le Nouveau monde industriel et socie´taire (1829) made a great impression on him. Proudhon moved to Paris in 1838 and began writing himself, publishing the book, Qu’est-ce que la proprie´te´? (What is Property?) in 1840. Following the publication of a fairly radical newspaper in 1848, he was imprisoned for
Public Benefit and Public Good
3 years and, after his release, fled to Belgium. He died in 1865, just 3 years after his return to France.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Proudhon’s writings inspired mutual societies, the workers’ movement and other collective endeavors in Europe, especially during the nineteenth century. In What is Property?, originally printed in 1840, he observed that property rights were destroying equality. His assertion that ‘‘property is theft’’ created a tremendous sensation, even though his focus was on the need for each person to control the means of production he or she uses rather than a call to remove wealth from those that have it. In his correspondence with Marx, he consistently argues against authoritarian forms and against the use of force to impose any system. In his theory of mutualism, Proudhon contends that a just order for a society relies on a network of free contracts, or a social contract, in which small and loosely federated groups would trade and work together in a framework based on a consensus regarding fundamental principles. He advocated worker self-management, political federalism, and decentralization. Proudhon’s influence remains visible in many facets of today’s social economy.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Mutual Organizations/Mutual societies
References/Further Readings Proudhon, P. J. (1966). Qu’est-ce que la proprie´te´? Ou recherches sur le principe du droit et du gouvernement. Paris: Garnier-Flammarion. Proudhon, P. J., Kelley, D. R., & Smith, B. G. (2002). What is property? Reprint. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (Cambridge texts in the history of political thought). Woodcock, G. (1987). Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. A Biography (3rd ed.). Montre´al: Black Rose Books.
Public Benefit and Public Good KARLA SIMON Catholic University of America, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction In the civil law (as opposed to the criminal law or the fiscal law) in both common law and civil law jurisdictions, organizations that meet the requirement of benefiting the
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public receive certain privileges. For example, the ‘‘public benefit’’ requirement is one that must be met by ‘‘charities’’ at common law in order for them to qualify for charitable status. In some civil law countries certain legal forms must be for the benefit of the public, e.g., foundations in Poland and public benefit corporations in Japan under the old legal regime. In some countries, such as Brazil, France, and Italy, special regimes apply to public benefit organizations, permitting them to access, for example, public funds for their projects in a legal environment that is less complex and burdensome than the environment for public procurement from non-public benefit entities. The need for an organization to benefit the public is also one that is an inherent part of the tax (or fiscal) law in most countries, whether they are common law or civil law jurisdictions. It is generally true, as will be discussed below, that in order to qualify for the tax benefits available for donations to charities (tax deductions or credits) organizations must prove that they are public benefit organizations. It is important to suggest at the outset of this entry that there is no reason to limit qualification for public benefit or charitable status to one form of organization (e.g., foundations as opposed to associations in civil law jurisdictions or trusts as opposed to societies in common law jurisdictions). Modern practice suggests that both membership and non-membership organizations can have public benefit purposes. This entry discusses two essential aspects of ‘‘public benefit’’ – the meaning of the term (for both civil law and fiscal law purposes) and the issue of who makes the decision whether an organization is or is not a public benefit organization. The latter discussion centers generally on whether there is an independent or quasiindependent ‘‘commission’’ set up to make the determination or whether that power resides with a government entity. If the latter, the most common government entity making the distinction is the fiscal authority, although other government agencies (e.g., the social welfare ministry) may also be involved. This entry focuses first on the question of what ‘‘public benefit’’ means and then on the question of who the decision-maker is.
Definition In general an organization must have public benefit purposes (see below) and carry out public benefit activities (see below). The extent to which certain non-public benefit activities (e.g., unrelated business activities aimed at raising revenues for support) are permitted varies from country to country. The final requirement is that the organization must be subject to the non-distribution constraint, meaning that it may not distribute profits as they are earned
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nor upon dissolution (nor merger or amalgamation, etc.) Thus, once assets go into an organization that is a public benefit organization, they will remain dedicated to public benefit in perpetuity. Other terms that are used in the context of public benefit include public utility (France); social utility (Que´bec); eleemosynary; philanthropic; and benevolent. It should be noted that certain jurisdictions (e.g., England and Wales) limit the definition of charity so that it does not include ‘‘philanthropic’’ purposes, holding the latter to be too broad for the requirement that an organization must be ‘‘charitable.’’
Historical Background As indicated below, the first reference to the term ‘‘charity’’ in a ‘‘modern’’ statute was in the 1601 Statute of Charitable Uses. Nevertheless, it is clear that the idea of charity or public benefit was well-developed even prior to this enactment. All religions have recognized the importance for alms giving, not so much to enhance social order but more as a component of personal moral and spiritual development (Ierley, 2004). In addition, it is important to note that concepts inherent in the Muslim public wakf had dealt with religious, pious, and charitable purposes from the earliest times.
Key Issues The Meaning of Public Benefit: Common Law
The historical literature with regard to the concept of public benefit is much better developed in the common law than in the civil law. Indeed, civil law countries frequently have adopted the concept of ‘‘charity’’ or a ‘‘charity’’ commission for defining public benefit or determining public benefit status. That has been the case, for example, in Moldova, China, and Japan. Looking to the common law countries themselves, the original development of the concept was in England, whence it has been adopted variously in other countries using the common law system. The first appearance of any law relating to the subject of charity was in 1601, in the Preamble to the Statute of Charitable Uses, which reads (in modern English) as follows: "
The relief of the aged, impotent and poor people; the maintenance of sick and maimed soldiers and mariners, schools of learning, free schools and scholars in universities; the repair of bridges, ports, havens, causeways, churches, sea-banks and highways; the education and preferment of orphans; the relief, stock or maintenance of houses of correction; the marriages of poor maids, the
support[ation], aid and help of young tradesmen, handicraftsmen and persons decayed; the relief or redemption of prisoners or captives; and the aid or ease of any poor inhabitants concerning payment of fifteens, setting out of soldiers and other taxes.
Although one finds within the listing many types of purposes that we now regard as charitable, others are left out. Scholarship suggests that the Preamble’s heavy emphasis on both poverty relief and assistance to the state is rooted in troubles of that time in Tudor England. The Statute of Charitable Uses was adopted by Parliament in 1601, at the time that the second of the two Elizabethan Poor Laws was also enacted, and the relationship between the poor laws and the statute has been demonstrated by many scholars (Fishman, 2008). It was not until two centuries later, in Commissioners for Special Purposes of Income Tax v. Pemsel, that the meaning of ‘‘charity’’ received a more modern definition in common law England (albeit in a revenue case). Lord Macnaghten, in his opinion in the case stated what the law commonly considers to be the four ‘‘heads’’ of charity: "
‘‘Charity’’ in its legal sense comprises four principal divisions: trusts for the relief of poverty; trusts for the advancement of education; trusts for the advancement of religion; and trusts for other purposes beneficial to the community, not falling under any of the preceding heads. The trusts last referred to are not the less charitable in the eye of the law, because incidentally they benefit the rich as well as the poor, as indeed, every charity that deserves the name must do either directly or indirectly.
While courts had been reasoning by analogy from the purposes stated in the Preamble in order to decide whether an organization was ‘‘charitable,’’ Lord Macnaghten also pointed out that the principal reason for the Statute of Elizabeth had been to set out a new structural remedy for abuses of charitable trusts by donors and others. At common law, an organization will be determined to be charitable only if it meets two fundamental requirements: ● The organization’s purposes must be exclusively and legally charitable (in other words, falling within the four heads listed above and/or within the ‘‘spirit and intendment of the Preamble’’). ● It must be established for the benefit of the public or a sufficient segment of the public. Some jurisdictions, such as Canada, follow the common law rule to this day, while others, such as England and Wales, now have statutory definitions of public
Public Benefit and Public Good
benefit. Some, like New Zealand, have simply adopted the Pemsel language. The common law definition makes an important and fundamental statement – that the purposes of the organization must be charitable. It does not say that all of the activities of the organization must be charitable. This means that an organization may have some activities (e.g., fund-raising activities) that are not related to the organization’s purposes. The extent to which this is permissible is the matter of some debate in legal circles. So, for example, the extent to which a public benefit organization may engage in business or trading activities is limited in all jurisdictions, but how much is ‘‘too’’ much varies. In England and Wales, what is called ‘‘non primary purpose trading’’ is permitted ‘‘in order to raise funds, provided that the trading involves no significant risk to the assets of the charity.’’ The ‘‘significant risk’’ to be avoided here is that the turnover is insufficient to meet the costs of carrying on the trade, and the difference has to be financed out of the assets of the charity. In Canada the test is more strict – a charity may be engaged in an activity that is ‘‘unrelated to the charity’s purpose(s) [only if it is] run substantially (90%) by volunteers (for example, weekly bingos).’’ Rules such as these have the effect of requiring charities to establish subsidiaries to carry out unrelated business activities, even if those activities are intended to raise funds to carry out the purposes of the charity. In South Africa and the United States, on the other hand, there is no necessity that a subsidiary be established to carry out unrelated business activities. In each case the test is much more lenient than the tests in England/Wales and Canada. Another context in which the purposes/activities distinction is important is advocacy activities. At common law charities were restricted from engaging in advocacy if they wanted to be regarded as charitable. The rationale for this restriction is stated in a 1917 case as follows: ‘‘the court has no means of judging whether a proposed change in the law will or will not be for the public benefit, and therefore cannot say that a gift to secure the change is a charitable gift’’ (Bowman v. Secular Society). The Meaning of Public Benefit: Civil Law Examples
In France, associations and foundations obtain recognition of ‘‘public benefit’’ (utilite´ publique) status by the Conseil d’Etat (France’s Highest Administrative Court). Nothing in the law specifically says that a ‘‘public benefit organization’’ may not engage in political activities, but a decision by the Conseil d’Etat, (sect. Interior 18–12–1979 no 326214) clarifies that organizations with a primarily political
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purpose, such as engaging primarily in political advocacy, cannot be recognized as public benefit organizations. In Germany the situation is more complex when one compares it with common law jurisdictions, because the general tax (fiscal) law (Abgabenordnung or AO) refers to ‘‘charitable’’ (mildtaetige), ‘‘public benefit’’ (gemeinnuetzige), and ‘‘religious’’ (kirchliche) purposes, and defines each of them with a list of permitted purposes. While the term ‘‘charitable’’ in AO } 53 permits a fairly limited group of purposes, e.g., organizations that care for the sick, the handicapped, the homeless, etc., the ‘‘public benefit’’ term used in AO } 52 more nearly encompasses the broader range of purposes referred to as the fourth head of charity in the common law system. In the civil law context the issue of political activities is also relevant to the question of whether an organization is one that is qualified as a public benefit organization. Most civil law countries do not allow purely political entities to be considered to be public benefit organizations contributions to which are tax deductible.
International Perspectives: Who Makes the Decision? One of the most important issues with respect to public benefit is the question of who makes the decision. (O’Halloran et al., 2008) In most countries, because the question is so closely linked to tax benefits, the agency tends to be the tax authority. This is true, for example in the Canada, Germany, and the United States. One could call these countries ones in which the decision as to public benefit status is ‘‘revenue-driven.’’ Nonetheless, this does not mean that the revenue authorities necessarily seek to limit the number of organizations obtaining the highest level of tax exempt status as public benefit organizations. It only means that the revenue authorities are the ones that oversee the determination questions in each case. In general, in such countries most if not all not-forprofit organizations are exempt from tax on gifts, grants, membership fees, etc. While they may be subject to tax on their income from ‘‘unrelated’’ business activities (if any), they will not be eligible to receive tax deductible contributions from individuals or companies. The same will be true in a system, such as that in Canada or Hungary, where the tax benefit for donations is sometimes made available through a tax credit. The tax benefit for donations is only accorded donors to public benefit organizations. Other countries have followed the lead of England and Wales, which has the longest existing ‘‘Charity Commission.’’ This model of decision-making as to public benefit status is one that relies on an independent group of experts (some of whom may be lawyers and accountants)
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to look at the application of an organization for charity status and make a determination as to whether the organization qualifies as a ‘‘charity’’ or ‘‘public benefit’’ organization. For many years the charity commission model was limited to England and Wales, but it has (with variations as to the amount of independence the commission has from government and the roles it plays) now been picked up in Ireland, Japan, and New Zealand.
Future Directions The most interesting question that remains for countries to consider is whether or not to adopt the ‘‘commission’’ model of decision-making with regard to public benefit organizations. In some countries, the entrenched power of the revenue authorities and aspects of federalism make it seem impossible to move in that direction (e.g., Australia, Canada, Germany, and the United States). Nevertheless, the Japanese model, which is brand new, makes a concession to federalism, by having each prefecture apply rules set out by the national commission (Simon, 2009). It is welcome news that the proposed ‘‘charity law’’ in China may well reflect this development. Nevertheless, the experiment in Japan must be tried out for a few years before other federal countries would be willing to adopt it. Devolving power to local authorities does not seem to be something that powerful national agencies would be willing to do. There are also questions of greater bureaucratization if more than one jurisdiction is involved in decisionmaking, even if the issue of forum-shopping could be overcome by national standard setting. Thus, as the question of who should make the decision is raised in other jurisdictions (as it was in Canada in the 1990s), it seems doubtful that much change in approach can be predicted. The other major question in common law countries is the extent to which they will follow the lead of England and Wales (and now Ireland) and move away from the common law definition of ‘‘charity’’ in favor of one that is statutory. While some countries (e.g., Australia) have had problems with courts taking an overly narrow view of what a statutory term means (public benefit institutions), the new law applicable to England/Wales is as yet untested in courts (O’Halloran et al., 2008). If the new statutory test proves to work well, it is entirely possible that other jurisdictions will follow the lead of the country that ‘‘gave’’ us the first definition in 1601!
Cross-References
▶ Charity Law ▶ Civil Law and Civil Society ▶ Common Law and Civil Society ▶ Law, nonprofit organizations ▶ One-Percent Provision
▶ Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the US ▶ Tax Exemption, Justifications for ▶ Tax Policy ▶ Wakfs
References/Further Readings Fishman, J. J. (2008). The political use of private benevolence: The statute of charitable uses, from http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/ cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1486&context=lawfaculty and authorities cited therein. Ierley, M. (1984). With charity for all: Welfare and society ancient times to the present. New York: Praeger. O’Halloran, K., McGregor-Lowndes, M., & Simon, K. W. (2008). Charity law and social policy. New York: Springer. Simon, K. W. (2009). Enabling civil society in Japan, reform of the legal and regulatory framework for public benefit organizations, ZJapanR. Journal of Japanese Law, 27. Cases Commissioners for Special Purposes of Income Tax v. Pemsel (1891) A.C. 531. Bowman v. Secular Society Ltd. (1917) A.C. 406, 442
Public Benefit Companies E´VA KUTI Budapest School of Management, Budapest, Hungary
Introduction The term ‘‘public benefit companies’’ is rather a common label for a particular kind of nonprofit institutions than an exact name for this organizational type. In fact, the actual name (e.g., charitable company, social purpose company, community interest company, public utility company, nonprofit company, etc.) varies from country to country and even from time to time within some national nonprofit sectors. However, the social, economic, and institutional challenges behind the emergence of organizations of this type, and the key issues of their operation are similar throughout the national nonprofit sectors.
Definition Public benefit companies (whatever their name be) are private firms established by individuals, private organizations, or government agencies in order to produce public goods and to meet public needs. They are entitled to the public benefit status because they serve the community as a whole and their occasional profit cannot be distributed among their owners, managers, or employees; it must be used to pursue their public purposes. Apart from the nondistribution constraint, the basic legal and economic regulation of the ordinary private firms applies to them.
Public Benefit Companies
This legal form best fits the nonprofit service providers, which cannot reasonably be organized as either foundations or voluntary associations. In some sense, the public benefit companies are quite similar to the proliferating hybrid organizations, which exist in the grey zone between the nonprofit, the forprofit, and the government sectors (Evers & Laville, 2004; Gidron et al., 1992; Kramer et al., 1993). They also have something in common with social enterprises (Borzaga & Defourny, 2001; Kerlin, 2006; Nyssens, 2006; Osborne, 2008). However, there is a major difference as well. Where a separate legal form of the public benefit companies has been developed and included in the laws and regulations, it was done with the aim of creating companies of a special type within the borders of the nonprofit sector. The public purposes and the nondistribution constraint are crucially important elements of the definition of the public benefit companies and are strictly necessary conditions of such companies’ eligibility for the public benefit status and all kinds of preferential treatment linked to it. By contrast, one of the major characteristics of the hybrid forms and social enterprises is the evaporating nondistribution constraint, that is, a point of similarity with the private for-profit corporations. Successful or not, the creation of the legal form of public benefit companies is an attempt to keep the borderlines relatively clear: to minimize the number of borderline cases, and to reduce the size of grey zones where there are no institutional guarantees against abuse.
Key Issues The emergence of the public benefit company has its origins in the recent challenges frequently interpreted as the ‘‘commercialization’’ of nonprofit activities. Its symptoms are well known all over the world. More and more nonprofit organizations are engaged in activities such as the provision of welfare services, the job creation through the production and sales of industrial and agricultural products, the business counseling, the complex rehabilitation projects including several elements of business ventures, etc. In most cases, this does not mean that they would be able or willing to operate like and compete with for-profit companies. Their purpose is not the success of the business activities per se, but the social impact (e.g., rehabilitation of the disabled and unemployed, rural development, protection of the environment, etc.) they can achieve through these activities. However, if nonprofit producers and service providers want to survive in the market place, their business operations and marketing must be more or less similar to the practice of their for-profit counterparts. They need to purchase, own, and sell property in their own name;
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they have to enter into contracts, might need a loan to expand business, and must be liable in tort; otherwise, they are not accepted as equal partners by other business actors. All these capacities are not guaranteed either in the case of the unincorporated associations not having legal personality or in the case of nonprofit organizations registered as voluntary associations or foundations that are not bound by regulations relating to the duties and obligations of corporations. (They are also denied the limitations on the personal liability of officers and directors that the status of an incorporated company confers.) This is why the need for and the idea of a ‘‘companylike’’ nonprofit service provider have appeared and led to the creation of a new legal form in several countries. This legal form is commonly conceived as nonmembership, nonprofit-distributing, publicly supervised provider of services in common interest. The organizations taking this legal form are independent in their economic activities, legally liable, and self-governed, but are bound by incorporation articles and statutes to serve public interest, and are kept accountable both by their founders and by public authorities. This close scrutiny of the public benefit companies’ activities is all the more important because these companies are regularly attacked for unfair competition by their for-profit competitors. In fact, nowadays the nonprofit organizations produce much more marketable goods and services for the population at large than they did it before. In many cases, these activities are not regarded as unrelated business any more because their aim is to reintegrate mentally or physically handicapped, unemployed, drugaddict, etc. persons into the production process (simultaneously providing the necessary care and attention to their specific needs). Thus, the tax exemption and even the direct public subsidies seem to be well deserved, but it is still true that these privileges may create competitive advantages that allow nonprofit service providers to unfairly undercut for-profit competition. The representatives of the business sector argue that nonprofit companies should be deprived of any tax privileges in order to avoid this unfair competition and preserve equal legal treatment under the tax laws. These challenges are unmistakably growing as the nonprofit organizations take the legal form of companies and broaden their involvement in business activities. Sharp conflicts and delicate questions are especially likely to appear at a local level if the tax-exempt public benefit companies begin to compete with local small businesses. In principle, both central and local governments are supposed to enforce quality and availability considerations when they decide on purchasing or contracting out welfare services, but in practice, there are a lot of arbitrary
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elements in these decisions. Though government agencies must carefully consider the offers of the possible suppliers, it still can happen that they prefer the nonprofit service providers, especially if these are public benefit companies established by or with the assistance of public authorities. This relatively easy access to government funding is a bit of a mixed blessing. Care must be taken to avoid undue government control over the management, activities, and strategy of public benefit organizations as a consequence of these partnership arrangements. Although government has a right to expect accountability from the nonprofit service providers in return of public funding, it should not infringe unreasonably on their independence.
International Perspectives Both the legal forms available for nonprofit service providers and the challenges they have to face are very different in various parts of the world. A systematic overview of some edited volumes (Anheier & Kendall, 2001; Salamon, 1997, Zimmer & Priller, 2004) consisting of country studies reveals that there is a clear dividing line between the ‘‘common law’’ and the ‘‘civil law’’ countries in this respect. In the ‘‘common law’’ countries (United Kingdom, USA, Australia, etc.), most of the incorporated nonprofit organizations take some company form. If they decide to get legal personality, the majority of the associations and foundations take the form of the company limited by guarantee. Another option is the company limited by share, but it is much less popular. The companies limited by share may be proprietary companies (their number of shareholders is limited, and the shares must not be publicly traded) and public companies (closely regulated and publicly accountable ones; their shares are publicly traded and they may raise capital by further share issue). The companies limited by guarantee have no share capital; thus they are unable to limit their liability to the value of their shares. Instead, their members guarantee to pay a certain (generally very small) sum if the assets of the companies are insufficient to discharge their debts upon dissolution. This ‘‘company status’’ has nothing to do with the nonprofit companies discussed here since it remains a pure legal form, which does not change either the structure or the operating mechanisms of the voluntary association and foundations, not to mention their charitable status. (This latter is available for the unincorporated associations as well.) By contrast, the recent introduction of a new legal entity, that of the ‘‘community interest company’’ in the United Kingdom, is a development that can prove to be an important first step toward a more specific use of the company form and, consequently,
an important sign of some rapprochement between the Anglo-Saxon and the continental legal concepts. Nevertheless, the emergence of the company form in the third sector is much more meaningful in the ‘‘civil law’’ countries where the legal forms available for nonprofit organizations are explicitly identified (usually in the Civil Code), and the use of the company form is traditionally reserved for business firms. This tradition is still alive in France where the voluntary associations are expected to carry out their business activities separately, by a ‘‘filiale’’ (subsidiary). A filiale is an ordinary company, but the profits earned by it and transferred to the association are only subject to a residual tax. Similarly, the types of organizations provided by commercial law (corporate law) have only relatively recently been recognized as an option for carrying out nonprofit activities in Germany. Both limited liability companies and public stock corporations can be set up for nonprofit purposes, but only the limited liability company has proved to be a useful legal form for nonprofit activities. Similar developments can be detected in Norway, where public authorities originally regarded the foundation form as a suitable tool for decoupling formerly statecontrolled activities, but they were heavily criticized for not respecting the autonomy of these foundations by controlling both their incomes and activities. As a reaction, the form of limited company was chosen as an ownership form of these ‘‘privatized’’ service providing activities. In Sweden, too, limited companies are allowed to engage exclusively in nonprofit activities, provided that their articles explicitly state so. Belgium has introduced legislation for a ‘‘social purpose company’’ with the goal of promoting the development of social enterprises. This act is rather unusual: in other countries, the promotion of social entrepreneurship mainly happens through the creation of various new legal forms for cooperatives. Some examples of them are the ‘‘social cooperatives’’ in Italy, the ‘‘social solidarity cooperative’’ in Portugal, the ‘‘social cooperative with limited liability’’ in Greece, or the ‘‘cooperative society of collective interest’’ in France (Kerlin, 2006; Osborne, 2008). The limitation imposed on the distribution of profit is usually much less strict in these cooperative forms than in the case of the public benefit companies. On the other hand, the cooperative model includes specific governance principles concerning the involvement of stakeholders and the implementation of democratic decision making, which are not necessarily a part of the public benefit company model. Organizations formed for purposes other than the profit of their members can be incorporated as nonprofit
Public Choice
companies under company law in Israel. Of the various types of corporate entities permitted, nonprofit companies typically assume the form of company limited by guarantee. If nonprofit companies (1) are formed for the promotion of commerce, art, science, religion, charity, or any other beneficial purpose; (2) use their income solely for the promotion of these objectives; and (3) do not pay dividends to their members, they are designated as ‘‘public utility companies’’ and can delete the word ‘‘limited’’ from their names, thus improving their external image. Another example is the ‘‘charitable company,’’ which is one of the available legal forms for nonprofit organizations in India. Charitable companies can hold property for charitable purposes if they get the nonprofit status. This can be granted by the central government. A company may obtain nonprofit status if its founding document expressly declares its not-for-profit character; its income is exclusively used for the promotion of charitable objectives, and it does not pay any dividends. The dividing line between the classical legal forms and the company form of the nonprofit organizations is somewhat sharper in the transition countries of Eastern and Central Europe than in other parts of the world. This is mainly explained by the fact that these countries had to reconstruct their nonprofit sectors after the decades of state socialism; thus, the selection of the legal forms allowed for different nonprofit activities and their legal definitions are an outcome of some, more or less thoughtful, considerations. The ‘‘public benefit corporations’’ in the Czech Republic, the ‘‘public benefit companies’’ in Hungary, or the ‘‘not-for-profit organizations providing public benefit services’’ in Slovakia (Zimmer & Priller, 2004) are nonmembership, nonprofit-distributing service providers that take the legal form of companies and still serve common interests.
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comparison would also be necessary in order to map the legal forms taken by nonprofit service providers all over the world, and to understand the implications of institutional choice in the nonprofit provision of welfare services.
Cross-References
▶ Commercialization and For-Profits in Disguise ▶ Community Interest Companies ▶ Contracts and Contract Regimes ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Subsidiarity
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Kendall, J. (Eds.) (2001). Third sector policy at the crossroads. An international nonprofit analysis. London/New York: Routledge. Borzaga, C., & Defourny, J. (Eds.) (2001). The emergence of social enterprise. London/New York: Routledge. Evers, A., & Laville, J. L. (Eds.) (2004). The third sector in Europe. Cheltenham: Northampton: Edward Elgar. Gidron, B., Kramer, R. M., & Salamon, L. M., (Eds.) (1992). Government and the third sector. Emerging relationships in welfare states. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Kerlin, J. A. (2006). Social enterprise in the United States and Europe: Understanding and learning from the differences. Voluntas, 17(3), 247–263. Kramer, R. M. (1993). Privatization in four European countries. Comparative studies in government-third sector relationships. Armonk/London: M. E. Sharpe. Nyssens, M. (2006). Social enterprises at the crossroads of market, public policies and civil society. London/New York: Routledge. Osborne, S. P. (Ed.) (2008). The third sector in Europe. Prospects and challenges. London/New York: Routledge. Salamon, L. M. (Ed.) (1997). The international guide to nonprofit law. New York/Chichester/Weinheim/Brisbane/Singapore/Toronto: Wiley. Zimmer, A., & Priller, E. (Eds.) (2004). Future of civil society. Making Central European nonprofit organizations work. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag fu¨r Sozialwissenshaften.
Future Directions It is to be seen whether the ‘‘company-like’’ nonprofit service providers prove viable in the longer run, how large their economic importance will be, and how they will position themselves in a growing set of organizations referred to as social enterprises, nonprofit ventures, and social purpose businesses. The creation of a separate legal form for the service-providing nonprofit companies may or may not turn out to be an impasse. The evaluation of the achievements of these kinds of organizations is obviously an important challenge for the nonprofit research. The secondary analysis of the literature on nonprofit enterprise and hybrid forms can be the first step in meeting this challenge. In addition, a systematic, empirically grounded analysis and a comprehensive international
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Public Choice JOHN SACCO, LEVI A. WHITE George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
Introduction The foundation of public choice is that people, regardless of the type of organization for which they work, are driven by self-interest; that is, they seek, as in rational choice theory, to maximize their goals. As a result, employees within government or nonprofit entities act
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in their self-interest just as self employed persons do. Some of these roles, such as a stockholder, would seem to be driven by self-interest, while self-interest on the part a volunteer in a nonprofit organization may seem illogical and contrary to the traditional notion of altruism and serving public interest. Proponents of public choice propose that the answer to the self-interest puzzle is that organizations, society, and the economy are better off with self-interest at the core since the individual is best able to decide what is appropriate for him self or her self. Simply, people work harder when driven by self-interest. For example, a volunteer in a nonprofit organization pursues an idea that is his or hers but is at variance with the programs supported by the board because he or she hopes to be recognized as volunteer of the month for expanding a daycare center. The nonprofit organization may very well be better off with his or her idea. No guarantee of this exists, but it is the interplay of selfinterest that pushes society to better plateaus. As a result, proponents contend that public choice is easily applied to politics. In fact its driving force lies in its name – “public choice,” choice about public decisions. It provides logic for building frameworks for politics and analyzing politics. While self-interest is critical to understanding public choice, the ideas embedded in public choice come from Locke’s (1993) notion that private property is not at the heart of conflict, but rather that lack of rule of law is. That individuals and nation states have fought over the importance of protecting property by the rule of law attests that Locke’s idea is constantly challenged. The opposite is collectivism, often in the form of socialism and communism. Collectivism rejects Locke and views radical privatization as a root of injustice. A pendulum effect helps understand who wins. The laissez faire that evolved from Locke’s notion of private property and rule of law took Locke’s theme to its extreme, such as in the 1800s during the Progressive Era in the United States, prior to the attempt to reign in laissez faire. However the damage of laissez faire was too great for progressive movements to forestall. Thus, the middle of the twentieth century witnessed a significant resurgence of collectivism. When these collectivist models turned to be largely unfulfilling, a movement back to Locke emerged. Appropriately, it was called neoliberalism to reflect its ties to classical liberalism. The birth and status of public choice, then, is not only attributable to scholars like James Buchanan, but also to the lackluster performance of collectivism and the ensuing search for alternatives. Given the considerable history of classical liberalism and the tenacity of scholars to protect individual rights and private property with the
rule of law, neoliberalism was ready to take the stage. The stubbornness of scholars such as those in the Austrian school, including their physical escape from Fascism, held up the traditions of Locke. Notwithstanding Nobel Prizes to Friedman, Buchanan, Hayek, and Schelling, the time was right for the return of Locke.
Definitions Focus on Individuals
With the self-interest basis of public choice comes the importance of individuals. Individuals are the critical actors, not units higher than the individual such as organizations. Organizations do not act; rather, individuals act within organizations and create organizational goals that are challenged by other individuals. Since individuals in government and nonprofits are driven by self-interest and price is not the main arbitrator, public choice views government and nonprofit entities as inefficiently allocating or wasting scarce resources. Thus, public choice contends that these entities should only deal with public goods like public safety and enforcement of contracts. Nonprofit organizations, in order to be efficient, must compete and essentially receive no favoritism from government other than minimal tax breaks. Microeconomic Premise
Public choice finds its logic in microeconomics as applied to politics. As with people in the market, government decision makers understand the means to an end and rank their preferences for choice. Such an approach is called instrumentalism because it defines all behavior as preference-driven or, more precisely, as a means for maximizing preference and satisfaction. Merits of Formal Modeling
Public choice has provided a formal model for examining complex political issues. As with formal models, public choice offers a few related tenets. These can be tested empirically. For example do right-to-work states realize better economic growth than heavily unionized states? Do states of cities with a large portion of the work force employed by government discourage civic participation? Savas (1977) asks whether competition, contracting out, and privatization lead to better services at lower prices. Public choice would hypothesize, yes. The volume of empirical studies resulting from public choice is vast. In addition, public choice and its emphasis on freedom, competition, and rule of law encourage debates about good society. Public choice made issues out of previously held truths. School choice is one. Friedman (1955) asks
Public Choice
whether schools and pupils would be better off if parents had a choice and schools had to compete. Would trading pollution rights reduce pollution without heavy and detailed government regulation? Public choice, as it pushed itself into the nature of government functions, forced government to rethink financing, delivery of services and size of government.
History The Theorists
While James Buchanan received the Nobel Prize in economics for his work on public choice, the idea of selfinterest as central to understanding economics and politics dates back to John Locke, David Hume, Adam Smith, and James Madison. Irrespective of whose views are cited, self-interest and rule of law are the core ideas in classical liberal theory. In a public choice article by Shughart and Tollison (2005), some of the more recent historical background, going back to 1948, is provided in this quote: “In a burst of creative activity that spanned the 2 decades beginning circa 1950, the discipline’s acknowledged founders, Black (1948a, b, [1958] 1987), Arrow ([1951] 1963), Downs (1957), Buchanan and Tullock (1962), Riker (1962), Olson (1965) and Niskanen (1971), launched a revolution in the study of Homo politicus.” Further in the same article: “They [the scholars in the above quote] did so by applying the rational-actor model of economics to problems of collective decision-making by voters, legislatures, and bureaucracies. Orthodox faith in the benevolence of political man (and woman) was displaced by hardnosed analyses of how the behavior of self-interested individuals adapts to changes in incentives and constraints as they move from the realm of ordinary markets to the realm of politics.” Ties to Rational Choice
Public choice is tightly intertwined with the tenets of rational choice. According to Monroe (2005: 152), “[r] ational actor theory originated in the classical microeconomics of Adam Smith. In its purest form, it refers to behavior by an individual actor – a person, a firm, or a political entity – designed to further the actor’s perceived self-interest, subject to information and opportunity costs.” The genius of Smith’s invention – the market mechanism, regulated by an invisible hand – solved a problem that had troubled philosophers since Hobbes made his famous argument that there was one basic human nature and that this nature was self-centered: How can a society of selfish citizens produce collective
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welfare without authoritarian government? Smith’s answer provided a venue through which the pursuit of individual welfare could result in collective well being. Public Choice and Austrian Economics
Public choice and the Austrian school share much in common, except that public choice uses quantitative methods, while Austrian economics assumes that humans by nature are rational and that empirical research cannot test this assumption. The Austrians have, historically, argued that central planning is doomed, in that no central planner has sufficient information to know the past or present, much less the future. In fact, the Austrians see information as a scarce resource. They argue that all individuals can be entrepreneurial, searching for information that makes venture profitable and worthwhile. The institutions of rule of law (enforcing contacts for instance), protection of private property, and norms to support rule of law are essential for profit making. Even in these circumstances, however, failure is more common than success. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom (1944) is a classic on the problems that information scarcity causes for central planners. For Hayek, the result of central planning is queues or lines of people waiting for public services because of the lack of efficient allocation of scarce resources. Public choice takes a similarly skeptical view of central planning.
Key Issues Paradigm Shift
Those in economics as well as the public choice writers have identified the issues public choice must confront in order to limit Thomas Kuhn’s (1962) paradigm shift. When a thesis can no longer handle or explain a phenomenon, the model produces false and misleading results while those supporting the model make Band-Aid solutions and fail to give up on the model. Some of the issues facing public choice as it attempts to avoid giving into Kuhn’s paradigm shift are discussed below. Formal Modeling Versus Political Reality
Critics contend that public choice theorists overstate the stability of actor preferences, thereby neglecting that politics is not simply defined by exchange, but also by persuasion. This critique stems from public choice’s connection with rational choice and its tendency to reduce individual motivations to strict, short-term economic calculations. Thus, critics see public choice as too rigid. Sen (1977) argues that humans are social and that their choices are not bound solely by preferences. Additionally, Mitchell
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(2001) argues that much of the public choice ignores the intricacies of real world politics because its formal models lose many of the social and culture factors that influence choice. The remainder of this section discusses the socalled realities of politics (so-called because the notion of reality ignores subjective views of the world), some of which public choice theorists argue against. Information Asymmetry
Notwithstanding Smith’s solution to Hobbes’ (1985) negative view of human kind, a host of issues plague self-interest. Many revolve around information asymmetry, as formulated by George Akerlof (1970). While the individual is the core of public and rational choice, individuals work in groups where power and information are distributed unequally. Two problems result. One is adverse selection, when an individual knows more about his or her situation than another, an employer for example. The employee portrays himself as more skilled than he actually is. As a result, that employee may attempt to take more than deserved. This is called moral hazard, the second problem that arises.
apart. Moreover, critics posit that public choice holds deficient ability to account for altruism and other-oriented behavior – behavior not motivated by self-interest. Some public choice advocates counter that integrating public virtue or culture seems reasonable, but makes the rational choice model overly complex. In face of this dilemma, rational choice has become split between a thin and a thick model. The thin model remains close to microeconomics, while the thick model attempts to account for civic virtue and culture. According to Zafirovski (2001: 672): “Some soft [thick] versions of public choice allow that political actors can also seek no-pecuniary values, such as power and social prestige than only rent and wealth.” In addition to the thick model, the Downs dilemma can be breached by looking at Hobbes’ Leviathan not as a problem of escape from nature, where death is the consequence, but as a state of nature as a way to concede protection rights to the state. If a person driven by selfinterest can cede rights to the state, that person can cooperate on other matters such as the scope of government. Such an argument is given by Neal (1988). Income Inequality
Market Failures
Market cycles and failures are another issue for public choice. Those in the public choice camp see failure as emanating far more from government intervention than from individuals. Public choice theorists, as with those from the Progressive Era such as Hays (1959), attempt to achieve efficiency in the face of the vagaries of democracy. Critics of public choice, however, claim that its proponents uncritically cling to a new gospel of efficiency and that public choice is overly positive about self-interest and overly negative about government intervention. Rent Seeking
Another challenge to public choice in a free enterprise system is the view that lobbyists, for example, search for barriers to keep competition low for their business. The idea has a long history going back to Herrington’s (1936) work on pressure groups and Truman’s (1971) notion that American politics is group politics. In rebuttal, Dahl (1961) argues that while groups are powerful, they overlap to the extent that no one group has a center and sole interest. Groups have participants with different interests and thus cannot ignore those multiple interests. Participation
According to Downs (1957), not voting is rational in that one vote will not make a difference. However, people vote without getting paid. As a result Downs’ argument falls
Notwithstanding Rawls’ (1971) effort to salvage classical liberalism from its production rather than its distribution emphasis, classical liberalism is still an economic production thesis. One critic, Abbott (1976: 341) argues: “The liberal man may be freed from the tyrannies of the mind, of which Jefferson spoke so eloquently and free to pursue any vision that excites his imagination, but he is a lonely man bereft of the class solidarity or comradeship that Marxism and democracy offers its citizens.” Many of the criticisms of Rawls (1971), Galbraith (1958), and Lund’s (2007) formulation of the Third Way are criticisms of liberalism as a logic derived from production and colonialism. As a result, the classical liberalism upon which public choice rests, acknowledging that its colonial pedigree is a negative, positions itself as a relatively superior model that finds power in the failure of alternative models, particularly collectivism. Anarchy and Violence
By focusing on individual preferences, public choice opens itself to these preferences turning violent. Harking back to Hobbes and the violence of the state of nature, many of those in public choice, especially Buchanan (1975), look to constitutions as a contract between the state and citizens, with the citizens foregoing some freedoms to protect themselves against rampant violence. Missing in this contractual approach are the social and community norms against violence. North and colleagues
Public Choice
(2007: i) show how even basic norms and institutions can limit violence: “A common feature of limited access orders is that political elites divide up control of the economy, each getting some share of the rents. Since outbreaks of violence reduce the rents, the elite factions have incentives to be peaceable most of the time.” An indirect approach to the issue of public choice and violence is to examine the foundation of public choice, i.e., classical liberalism. Skeptics see the destructive elements of classical liberalism. According to Geuss (2002: 321): "
It [classical liberalism] fits all too comfortably with some of the more ignoble aspects of commercial society. What contribution could liberalism conceivably make to thinking about the general degradation of the planetary environment? Liberal ideals like individualism, toleration, or limitation of state power, seem either shortsightedly confused or mere covers for hegemonic designs.… Older criticisms of liberalism have also lost none of their power and plausibility: that it has no clear remedy for poverty, for reprehensible forms of inequality of power, of conditions of life, and so on. To the extent to which liberalism is committed to the principles of individual initiative and the defence of private property, it is hard to avoid the suspicion that it is rather part of the problem than part of the solution.
Public Choice as Ideology
Among the more severe critiques of public choice is that it is in fact an ideology and applies only to limited, Lockean government. Since public choice is drawn from classical economics, the notion of a Keynesian state is assumed to be wrong but open to testing. Public choice deduces hypotheses from its own logic. The testing, however, is inconclusive. For instance, some find that school choice improves quality, while others do not. Log Rolling
A strict constitution, if one could ever be adopted, is still open to log rolling. For example, multiple infrastructure projects, with none economically efficient (costs exceed benefit), can be passed under majority rule if decision makers pass others’ projects in return. Democratic theory does not abide by protection of private property alone, a theme of public choice.
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the assumptions of public choice’s emphasis on self-interest. The retort of public choice is that self-interest cuts across all entities. Competition
David L. Prychitko and Peter Boettke (2002) have been among the most vocal about nonprofits attaining special status like first choice in government funding. Like others in the public choice and Austrian camp, Prychitko and Boettke contend that all entities draw from the same scarce capital. If one entity, such as nonprofits, however, has special tax standing, they may overdraw from the bundle of scarce capital. At the opposite side is Lester Salamon (1987), the target of Prychitko and Boettke, who thinks that the social benefits of nonprofits will improve if they are given special tax status and preference in government grants.
International Perspectives Neoliberalism
One area on which public choice manifests in the international and global realm is with neoliberalism. With the dwindling of socialism and the rise of neoliberalism, the United States, particularly under W. Clinton’s administration, pushed for neoliberal programs such as structural adjustment programs (SAP). These were austerity programs that governments must accept to gain loans and loan readjustments from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, whose previous lines of credit were wrapped in the aura of social welfare. The rise of neoliberalism, particularly in the form of SAPs, has been critiqued by observers like Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz (2002) for being shortsighted, reducing the delivery of necessary services and the equity of that delivery, worsening debt crises, and allowing the continuance of bad government through the continuation of credit. With the reemergence of global capital markets and the vast swings in currencies, austerity programs became more onerous. If a currency in a country attempting to follow the austere requirement of SAP weakened, they lost purchasing power for goods and services from other countries and sometimes tried to return to self sufficiency programs of the 1950s and 1960s. Realism
Nonprofits and Public Choice Mission
As nonprofits are mission-driven, not profit-driven, some observers assert that they may fall outside the purview of
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In international relations, realists like Hans Morgenthau (1978) see the nation state as the only important entity. It seeks, according to the realists, survival in an environment of anarchy. Public choice has little to say about this nonindividual approach with the nation state in survival
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mode and concedes that the sovereign has power to protect citizens, but does little to confront realism where microeconomic principles have rarely been applied. Morgenthauian realism, like other contemporary critics of public choice, argues that structures of authority like government are essential to order in public life and views economics and politics (as well as law and morality) as separate spheres of human interaction that operate by separate logics. Thus, one should only use logics appropriate to that sphere. While realism eschews public choice’s emphasis on individuals in favor of a state-centric approach, it does proffer instrumentalist decision-making models. Thus, as Morgenthau argues, states as unitary actors pursue power defined as national interest and seek to maximize their benefits. In this sense, the state behaves similarly to a rational individual because it defines a problem, sets its preferences, determines available policy options, and then performs cost-benefit analysis so as to arrive at the choice that provides the best outcome for least (political, not economic) cost. An apropos application of public choice to international relations is Thomas Schelling’s work on game theory. According to Lebow (2006: 429): “Thomas Schelling’s two influential books, The Strategy of Conflict and Arms and Influence, remain foundational works for that thriving branch of realism that explores strategic bargaining. They [Schelling’s books] illustrate the pitfalls of deduction in a political, cultural and ethical vacuum. In the real world, signals and reference points are only recognized and understood in context, and that context is a function of the history, culture and the prior experience of actors with one other.”
Future Directions Public choice is more than aware that individualism can move in many directions and is now more cognizant of corporate fraud, terrorism and the tendency of all entities trying to reduce risk by securitizing loans (the sub-prime mortgage crisis) or governments buying insurance to back their loans. The rush to offset risk encounters supply and demand problems. When the demand goes up for offsetting risk, the cost goes up. A vicious cycle of pushing loans to less capitalized entities results in the credit market drying up.
Cross-References
▶ Buchanan, James ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition ▶ Civil Society Theory: Smith
▶ Communitarianism ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Hume, David ▶ Locke, John ▶ Madison, James ▶ Participation ▶ Public Sphere ▶ De Soto, Hernando
References/Further Readings Abbott, P. (1976). The shotgun behind the door: Liberalism and the problem of political obligation. Athens: University of Georgia Press. Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The market for “Lemons”: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), 488–500. Arrow, K. J. ([1951] 1963). Social choice and individual values (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley. Black, D. (1948a). On the rationale of group decision making. Journal of Political Economy, 56(1), 23–34. Black, D. (1948b). The decisions of a committee using a special majority. Econometrica, 16(3), 245–261. Black, D. ([1958] 1987). The theory of committees and elections. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Buchanan, J. (1975). The limits of liberty: Between anarchy and leviathan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Buchanan, J. M., & Tullock G. (1962). The calculus of consent: Logical foundations of constitutional democracy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Dahl, R. A. (1961). Who governs? Democracy and power in an American city. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Downs, A. (1957). An economic theory of democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers. Friedman, M. (1955). The role of government in education. In R. A. Solo (Ed.), Economics and the public interest. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Galbraith, J. K. (1958). The affluent society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Guess, R. (2002). Liberalism and its discontents. Political Theory, 30(3), 320–338. Hayek, F. (1944). The road to serfdom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hays, S. P. (1959). Conservation and the gospel of efficiency: The progressive conservation movement 1890–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Herrington, E. P. (1936). Public administration and the public interest (1st ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. Hobbes, T. (1985). Leviathan, edited with an introduction by C. B. MacPherson. New York: Penguin Books. Kuhn, T. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions (1st ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lebow, R. N. (2006). Reason divorced from reality: Thomas Schelling and strategic bargaining. International Politics, 43(4), 429–452. Locke, J. (1993). Second treatise on government. In D. Wooten (Ed.), Political Writings. New York: Mentor. Lund, B. (2007). Major, Blair and the third way in social policy. Social Policy and Administration, 42(1), 43–58. Mitchell, W. C. (2001). The old and new public choice: Chicago versus Virginia. In W. F. Shughart & L. Razzolini (Eds.), The Elgar companion to public choice. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Public Sphere Monroe, K. R. (Ed.) (2005). Perestroika! The raucous rebellion in political science. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Morgenthau, H. J. (1978). Politics among nations: The struggle for power and peace (5th ed.). New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Neal, P. (1988). Hobbes and rational choice theory. Political Research Quarterly, 41, 635–652. Niskanen, W. (1971). Bureaucracy and representative government. Chicago: Aldine. North, D. C., Wallis, J. J., Webb, S. B., & Weingast, B. R. (2007). Limited access orders in the developing world: A new approach to the problems of development. Policy Research Working Paper 4359. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action: Public goods and the theory of groups. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Prychitko, D. L., & Boettke, P. (2002). The new theory of governmentnonprofit partnership: A Hayekian critique of the Salamon paradigm – Working Paper 1. The Philanthropic Enterprise. Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Riker, W. (1962). The theory of political coalitions. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Salamon, L. M. (1987). Of market failure, voluntary failure, and thirdparty government: Toward a theory of government-nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 16(1–2), 29–49. Savas, E. S. (1977). An empirical study of competition in municipal service delivery. Public Administration Review, 37, 717–724. Sen, A. K. (1977). Rational fools: A critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 6(4), 317–344. Shughart, W. II, & Tollison, R. (2005). Public choice in the new century. Public Choice, 124, 1–18. Stiglitz, J. (2002). Globalization and its discontents. New York: Norton. Truman, D. B. (1971). The governmental process: Political interests and public opinion. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Zafirovski, M. (2001). Administration and society: Beyond public choice? Public Administration, 79(3), 665–688.
Public Sphere ANDREAS KOLLER Social Science Research Council, New York, NY, USA
Introduction The stakes of the public sphere for modern societies appear already in Kant’s famous notion of the public use of reason. ‘‘That a public [Publikum] should enlighten itself [. . .] is nearly inevitable, if only it is granted freedom,’’ that is, ‘‘the freedom to make a public use of one’s reason in all matters. [. . .] The public use of reason must at all times be free, and it alone can bring about enlightenment among men.’’ Despite its central relevance for the members of modern societies for determining the course of history
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through reasoned debate and public choice, the study of the public sphere is not an integrated research field. Since Ju¨rgen Habermas’ work on ‘‘The structural transformation of the public sphere’’ in 1962 (Habermas, 1989), there has been no major attempt for a synthesis. What such an integrative approach means is best expressed by later Habermas who recalls ‘‘that the original study emerged from the synthesis of contributions based in several disciplines, whose number even at that time almost exceeded what one author could hope to master’’ (Habermas, 1992b: 421). Such a broad interdisciplinary approach is a big, but necessary challenge since the ‘‘complexity’’ of the object of the public sphere ‘‘precludes exclusive reliance on the specialized methods of a single discipline. [. . .] When considered within the boundaries of a particular social-scientific discipline, this object disintegrates’’ (Habermas, 1989: xvii). The following article seeks to provide an overview of key issues and an integrative framework which enables to cut through a number of discussions that are spread out over many disciplines and often proceed in multiple disciplinary terminologies.
Definition
¨ ffentlichkeit’’ has the double meanThe German term ‘‘O ing of a social (communication) sphere and of a collective. In English, this double meaning is split into the separate terms ‘‘public sphere’’ on one side and ‘‘the public’’ on the other (Peters, 2008: 134). The latter refers to a public of speaker(s) and audience which organizes itself and determines its own future by the force of the better argument. Nevertheless, despite the existence of two separate terms, scholarly discussions related to the ‘‘public sphere’’ often oscillate between the two meanings or enmesh them, suffering from the lack of this crucial conceptual distinction. A feasible definition for research has to distinguish carefully between the public sphere as the sphere and institutional setting of communication open to strangers and its capacity for reasoned public choice. Public communication is open to all laypeople (Peters, 2008: 76). There are no formal restrictions or formal requirements for active participation in public communication. The central conceptual feature of the public sphere is its openness to strangers (Warner, 2002: 74ff.; Calhoun, 2003). As opposed to private communication, public communication emerges wherever a speaker cannot control the boundaries of his or her audience (Neidhardt, 1994: 10). Public communication is communication to an anonymous audience, potentially engaging everyone. Constituted by an ongoing process of communication open to strangers, it is not a reified entity.
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The public sphere is the frontstage, distinguished from the private and institutional backstage. As already early Habermas mentioned, public communication is in principle unclosed (Habermas, 1989: 37) and mediates between the private sphere and the sphere of public authority (Habermas, 1989: 30ff.). Accordingly, everyday language distinguishes between communication ‘‘in public’’ and communication ‘‘behind the scenes.’’ The same is implied in the notion of the public sphere as an ‘‘arena’’ or ‘‘forum.’’ This basic element of the definition of the public sphere corresponds with the network-theoretical definition of publics that emerged from the small group of network analysts that has theorized publics. In that terminology, the public sphere is an ‘‘interstitial space’’ (Mische and White, 1998). Conceptually different from this definition of the public sphere is the question of its deliberative and decision-making capacity. While there is no purely domination-free deliberation and action, there are nonetheless variations in the extent to which domination affects agreements and actions (Calhoun, 1993: 273). The ‘‘stakes’’ of this notion, as expressed by classic figures like Dewey, Mills or Habermas, refer to the possibility that the basic character of social life may be more or less consciously chosen and not merely inherited, shaped by external determination, or dictated by mere necessity. It means that public communication can be something different than the mirror of mere power politics, mere expression of personal experience, or mere reproduction of cultural traditions (Calhoun, forthcoming). For empirical research, the notion of an unlimited capacity of reasoned public choice serves as a methodological fiction in order to detect variations in the extent of this capacity (see the Section ‘‘Key Issues’’ below). Without this conceptual distinction between the public sphere as the sphere and institutional setting of communication open to strangers on one side and its capacity for reasoned public choice in terms of a methodological fiction on the other side, the existence of the public sphere is empirically always easily challenged. If the related concept of civil society does not make a similar distinction and simply implies a high capacity of reasoned public choice (social self-organization), it would run into anlogue empirical problems when confronted with certain social movements or other non-state actors that evidently seek to decrease reasoned debate and public choice, rather than increasing it. As a result of such definitional implications, certain authors talk about ‘‘real civil societies’’ as a distinct term. The concept of reasoned public choice has the conceptual advantage that it treats as an open empirical question to what extent certain actors contribute to social self-organization. Furthermore, concepts of civil
society often focus on the interpersonal level and much less on the large-scale level of public communication (see ‘‘Scale of Public Communication’’ in the Section ‘‘Key Issues’’ below).
Historical Background Significant conceptual histories of the German term ¨ ffentlichkeit’’ and the related English terms were writ‘‘O ten by Ho¨lscher (Ho¨lscher, 1979) and Hohendahl (Hohendahl, 2000), tracing the changed meanings of the adjective ‘‘o¨ffentlich’’ (‘‘public’’) back to their Greek and Roman roots. However, ‘‘sociologically, that is to say by reference to institutional criteria, a public sphere in the sense of a separate realm distinguished from the private sphere cannot be shown to have existed in the feudal society of the High Middle Ages.’’ The publicity of feudal power representation ‘‘was not constituted as a social realm, that is, as a public sphere; rather, it was something like a status attribute’’ (Habermas, 1989: 7). Historically, the public sphere emerged in the national contexts of the European Enlightenment and the founding era of the United States. The emerging public sphere in the eighteenth century as a ‘‘common space’’ represents a ‘‘mutation of the social imaginary, one crucial to the development of modern society’’ (Taylor, 2004: 85).
Key Issues The study of the public sphere is not an integrated research field. The following section provides an overview of key issues. Their investigation and discussion are spread out over many disciplines and often proceed in multiple disciplinary terminologies. The attempt below seeks to provide an integrative framework. As we will see, the study of the first key issues, the external boundaries and the internal divisions (differentiations) of the public sphere, allows for making inferences on the capacity for reasoned public choice. Boundaries of the Public Sphere
The boundaries refer to the ‘‘other’’ of the public sphere – spheres and processes that are not open to strangers and restrict public communication. Secrecy: Interpersonal Power Networks
Even though C. Wright Mills’ underlying historical framework of the decline of the deliberative public sphere and the correlative rise of arcane power networks cannot be supported by the current state of comparative-historical research, his The Power Elite (1956), beside Floyd Hunter’s Community Power Structure (1953), fostered a line of research which takes the power networks of the arcane sphere, the backrooms of power, into account. However
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concentrated (Mills, 2000; Hunter, 1953, 1959) or rather dispersed and therefore plurally structured these networks are supposed to be, these interconnections of key actors, operating in the sphere of secrecy, are of central importance. This research line provided catchphrases for these networks like ‘‘Power Elite’’ for the national level and the ‘‘Growth Machine’’ or ‘‘Growth Coalition’’ (Molotch, 1976) for the local level (for an overview of this research field since Mills and Hunter see Domhoff [2006]). Another research tradition, applying network analysis to comparative-historical research, has tracked down interpersonal connections and demonstrated that their configurations are indeed ‘‘power networks,’’ significantly affecting the operations of societal organizations and institutions, though it is always hard to reconstruct the full set of connections (for a selection of this research tradition see Tilly [2005: 45]).
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(Young, 2000) or the general repression of certain issues (e.g., sexuality) from public discourse, while the latter refers to privacy issues. Private Economy: Boundaries of the State and the Public Good
The public sphere is further bounded by the frames of understanding which define what counts as a public matter (res publica) and what counts as private. This touches questions of the scope of the welfare state, public service and the proportions between public institutions, private institutions and nonprofit institutions (Powell and Clemens, 1998; Powell and Steinberg, 2006). Research in this area diagnosed significant boundary shifts in the era of neoliberalism, including tendencies to a privatization of risk (Calhoun, 2005). Differentiation of the Public Sphere
Censorship and Repression: Legal Restriction of Public Communication
Like Dahl’s definition of democracy in terms of granting public contestation (Dahl, 1971: 4), the public sphere relies on the principles of freedom of speech, freedom of association and freedom of the press and on the ongoing legitimation pressure on political representatives and institutions. Research on the legal restriction of public communication through censorship and repression focuses on the simulated, acclamatory public sphere (Ludes, 1993; Taylor, 1999: 169) in totalitarian or authoritarian settings (Arendt, 1973) and on periods of actual or quasi-emergency government (Stone, 2005). Private Sphere: Family and Intimacy
The boundaries between the public sphere and the private sphere are not fixed, but, as later Habermas points out, defined relationally in terms of the different conditions of communication; that is, the conditions of intimacy and the conditions of publicity: ‘‘The threshold separating the private sphere from the public is not marked by a fixed set of issues or relationships but by different conditions of communication. Certainly these conditions lead to differences in the accessibility of the two spheres, safeguarding the intimacy of the one sphere and the publicity of the other. However, they do not seal off the private from the public but only channel the flow of topics from the one sphere into the other’’ (Habermas, 1996: 366). The history of private sphere (Aries, 1989; Chartier, 1989) and its relationship to the public sphere has raised two sets of boundary issues: sealed boundaries and categorical inequality on one side and the problem of blurred boundaries on the other side. The former refers to the longstanding gendered nature of the public sphere
The internal divisions of the Public Sphere can be analyzed along three dimensions of differentation: the differentiation of societal fields, segmentary differentiation and stratificatory differeniation. The first refers to the extent to which certain societal fields are involved or not involved in the production structures of public communication. The second and third dimension refer to the social segmentation and stratification that underpin public communication. Production Structures
Using Max Weber’s widely deployed distinction of spheres (Weber, 1958), complemented by the media field, the public sphere appears as an intermediary sphere between the various institutional fields of society; the political field, including the state; the economic field; the media field; the academic field; the religious field; and the art field. As later Habermas put it: ‘‘The public sphere consists of an intermediary structure between the political system, on the one hand, and the private sectors of the lifeworld and functional systems, on the other hand’’ (Habermas, 1996: 373). Most of these relationships – the extent to which certain institutional fields are involved or not involved in the production structures of public communication – are understudied. Among the better studied relationships are the overlap of the media field with the political field on one hand (party press) or with the economic field on the other hand (commercialization) and how this affects the production of public communication. The broad literature on agenda-setting is a response to these issues. Avoiding some of these overlaps and dependencies, public broadcasting (Curran, 2000: 140ff.), not to confuse with state broadcasting, represents an approximate model of
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equidistance of the media field to other institutional fields (on the history of the concept of public service broadcasting see Scannell [1990]). Synthesizing studies with longterm historical perspectives on the relationship of the economic sphere to the public sphere, in times of economic growth or in times of economic crisis, are largely absent. This also applies to the relationship of the arts field (literary public sphere, poetry, architecture, performative arts, visual arts) to the public sphere. Most recently, there has been a certain increase of work on religion and the public sphere (Habermas, 2006b) and some new work on the relationship between academia and the public sphere, as evident in the discussions about public social social science or public sociology (Burawoy, 2005) or about the changed importance of public intellectuals (Fleck et al., 2009). Influential in the literature is the distinction between the center and the periphery of political and economic power. Such studies investigate the question how much or how little actors from the periphery (‘‘civil society’’ actors in form of social movements, NGO’s, etc.) can shape the production of public communication. With respect to legislative influence, a relevant distinction for analyzing the production structure of the public sphere, as stressed by Habermas in his recent work on religion and the public sphere, is the distinction between the formal (largely faceto-face) public sphere of representative institutions (like the parliament), shaped by particular legal procedures on one hand and the informal (relatively ‘‘wild,’’ ‘‘anarchic’’) public sphere of the media on the other hand. Segmentation
Among the various concepts used in the literature to grasp the segmentation of the public sphere is the distinction between issue publics, which are only bound together by single issues, on one hand and camps on the other hand. The latter refers to deep party-political cleavages with respect to whole sets of issues and opinions. In the cases of the deepest cleavages between the traditional political milieus in Western Europe, this segmentation has also been studied under the heading of ‘‘pillarization.’’ A special form of segmentation is expressed by the existence of diaspora public spheres, divided from the main domestic public sphere by (among other things) the language in which public communication is conducted, often including foreign-language media. Stratification
The literature that analyzes stratificatory divisions investigates how the opportunities of the citizens for participation in public communication are affected by education,
that is, phenomenons like literacy divide, digital divide, etc. (Fuhrman and Lazerson, 2005), by contributions of the welfare state (Goodin et al., 1999; Lindert, 2005) and the related question of the privatization or by communication rights. Furthermore, the literature on the scaleshift from face-to-face public spheres to media-mediated large-scale public spheres (see the key issue ‘‘Scale of Public Communication’’ below) stress the increasing division between speaker and audience roles or active versus passive participation in the public sphere. Counterpublics
The concept of counterpublics indicates an extreme from of the three differentiations discussed above: an extreme segmentary division (segregation), often with an overlapping stratificatory division, and with a production structure separate from the dominant public sphere. Much of the literature focuses on the hegemony that the dominant public sphere maintains over counterpublics as dissident networks of communication. The concept of counterpublics was formulated by Negt and Kluge and later by Fraser (Negt and Kluge, 1993; Fraser, 1992), in response to the idealization of the bourgeois public sphere in the early work of Habermas which underestimated the exclusion built into it. A special setting with highly hegemonic discourse, as discussed in a separate literature, are colonial public spheres. Capacity of the Public Sphere: Methodological Fiction of Unlimited Reasoned Public Choice
The external boundaries and internal divisions, discussed above, allow for making inferences on the capacity of the public sphere. If such inferences are not made carefully, neglecting relevant dimensions of external boundaries and internal divisions, this can lead to empirically objectionable claims of a decline (or advancement) of the public sphere. This is precisely what happened with the decline thesis in Habermas’ early work, neglecting the excluded counterpublics. More generally, most of the decline theses or the depictions of the public sphere as a ‘‘phantom’’ or ‘‘utopia’’ indicate a lack of conceptual gradualism, assuming an either/or, rather than a continuum of the capacity of the public sphere for reasoned debate and public choice. Drawing on Bernhard Peters, later Habermas formulates the notion unlimited reasoned public choice as a ‘‘methodological fiction.’’ This is precisely not utopian in the narrower sense, but a methodological translation of Kant’s notion of the regulative idea. The methodological fiction serves to detect empirical variations – variations in the extent to which public communication and the direction of the social process can be something different than
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the mirror of mere power politics, mere expression of personal experience, or mere reproduction of cultural traditions. Later Habermas also calls this ‘‘self-correctiveness’’ (Habermas, 1992a: 479) or ‘‘epistemic dimension’’ (Habermas, 2006a) of the public sphere. This methodological fiction is a matter of approximation. Not a matter of approximation and thus conceptually different and a separate key issue are the pragmatic presuppositions of the ‘‘as if ’’ practices that come along with the practice of reasoned debate and public choice. As presuppositions they are facts in themselves and can have certain democratizing effects. In the limited space available here, Mills formulation must suffice to hint at this separate key issue: by acting as if we were in a fully democratic society, we are attempting to remove the ‘‘as if.’’ These communicative practices with the presupposition of the ‘‘as if ’’ can, according to Mills, help build a democratic polity (Koller, 2009). Democratization and De-democratization and the Legitimation of Power
The classic authors on the stakes of the public sphere define and measure democratization and democratization precisely as discussed in the previous key issue: as variations in the capacity for reasoned public choice. Although the democratic majority rule is seen as a legitimate way to come to decisions under pressures of time for addressing a certain social problem, the ultimate measurement of democracy rests on how a majority became a majority. The focus is on the deliberative processes preceding elections and votes. More specifically, for the classic authors, the extent of reasoned debate and collective choice, that is, the extent of democratization, depends on their historically specific structural setting.
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997ff.), calling the ephemeral micropublic ‘‘Goffman public’’ as well. Another approach grasps face-to-face public communication as ‘‘tiny publics’’ (Fine and Harrington, 2004). The literature studying these scales of public communication particularly deals with the question of a scaleshift from the face-to-face level to the media-mediated level and the related question of an increasing division between speaker and audience roles or active versus passive participation in the public sphere. Effects of Technological Innovation
It is a recurrent phenomenon that whenever a major technological innovation takes place (e.g., broadcasting; Internet), a considerable literature emerges, inferring either a decline or improvement of the capacity of the public sphere. Such diagnoses are often empirically weak since they often neglect or underestimate some of the relevant external boundaries or internal divisions of the public sphere, as discussed in the key issues above. To the extent that they underestimate these relevant processes, they argue based on what is called technological determinism. Social Solidarity, Integration and Nationalism: The Public Sphere as a Mechanism for Solidarity
Nationalism played a major role both in the formation of the Enlightenment public sphere and in its subsequent structural transformation in terms of the massive extension of the public (Deutsch, 1966; Anderson, 1991; Eley, 1992). This role was largely neglected in Habermas’ early work. The public sphere is not only a mechanism for debate and choice, but also a form of and a process for forming solidarity. The growing literature on ‘‘social imaginaries’’ (Castoriadis, Taylor) emphasizes this key issue as well. More recently, this has also helped to explain why transnational public spheres are so weak.
Scale of Public Communication
Constituted by communication open to strangers, the public sphere contains three analytical levels: the level of the media-mediated public sphere and two levels of face-toface public sphere, encounters and organized gatherings (Gerhards and Neidhardt, 1991). The distinction between encounters and organized gatherings, however, is not a dichotomy, but a continuum of the extent of organization and the relative randomness or spontaneity. The microlevel of the public sphere consists of more or less accidental ‘‘encounters’’ (Goffman, 1961) of strangers, that is, communication on the sidewalk, on the train, while standing in line, etc. The meso-level consists of organized gatherings and the macro-level of media-mediated communication. Network theorists developed an analog threefold distinction (Mische et al., 1998; Ikegami, 2000:
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Political Scale: National Versus Transnational Public Spheres
With the relative shift of political and economic power to transnational institutions, the question of transnational public sphere became an issue. Particularly, there is an extensive literature about the (largely missing) European public sphere. A central focus is on the obstacles to the formation of transnational public spheres, with Europe as a paradigmatic case. This research diagnoses the lack of a shared transnational identity or transnational ‘‘social imaginiary’’ (see previous key issue). Public Deliberation and Public Culture at Large
A large body of literature has grown that deals with ‘‘deliberation.’’ At least three criticisms have emerged
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with respect to this research tradition. Firstly, if underpinned by highly unequal access to education, deliberation can serve as a mask for domination. If a high complexity of discourse in the public sphere coincides with a high educational divide (see ‘‘Stratification’’ above), the discourse will temporarily have exclusionary effects, even if its potential is inclusive. This contradiction is at the root of studies (Polletta and Lee, 2006; Polletta, 2006) which look into questions of whether the allegedly low-quality expressive storytelling in the public sphere can under certain conditions improve deliberation because it increases accessibility. Secondly, if not conceptualized appropriately, the focus on deliberation alone misses the question of its outcome, its actual translation into public choice. That is why the term reasoned public choice captures the ‘‘stakes’’ better. It better grasps the stakes of who makes history and the role that reason plays in human affairs, as Mills formulated it. Thirdly, many deliberation studies focus mainly on the decision process regarding immediate political questions and the ‘‘deliberative difference’’ in the course of this short-term process. The stakes of reasoned public choice, however, have a much larger meaning. It includes the identification of problems in the first place and the public search for new solutions (Peters, 2008). In this sense, the identification of the public good is a social and cultural project (Calhoun, 1998), not merely a debate about immediate political questions. This requires studying public culture at large, capturing both processes of cultural reproduction and innovation and learning processes. Key examples for such longterm transformation of public culture are the various national discussions about so-called ‘‘coming to terms with the past’’ (e.g., Germany with its Nazi past; or the United States with its past of slavery and racial segregation). Of relevance are also the study of entertainment, popular culture and public rituals, including cultural changes that are not easily reducible to advances or setbacks in the capacity of reasoned public choice. History of the Public Sphere Formation and Transformation of the Public Sphere
All the key issues listed above require a comparative and historical approach. The historically and comparatively most comprehensive study, covering several of the key issues formulated above and comparing France, England and Germany, was published in 1962 by Ju¨rgen Habermas. The discussion and criticism of ‘‘The structural transformation of the public sphere’’ since its German publication in 1962 and its English translation in 1989 (Habermas, 1989) has been focused on the formation of the
Enlightenment public sphere from the representative publicity of the ancient regime on one side and on the decline framework of its structural transformation on the other side. This wide discussion and criticism, synthesized in a conference volume edited by Craig Calhoun (1992), has prompted Habermas to a wide range of revisions, acknowledging most elements of criticism and largely, if not completely, discarding the former framework of decline (Habermas, 1992b). There is a considerable amount of new work since Habermas’ original study about the formation of the public sphere in the eighteenth century in Western societies. More recently, there is also increased research on emergent public spheres in non-Western societies (Eisenstadt, 2002) as well as studies on the transnationalization of public spheres. In addition, there are some studies available with insights into premodern forms of public conversation, particularly in city-states. In contrast, there is little new synthesizing work on the transformation of the public sphere. At the beginning of the 1980s, Habermas intended to conduct a new study on the structural transformation of the public sphere (Habermas, 1985: 208), providing a new synthesis of the fragmented literature. However, he did not realize his intention. Periods of Crisis
Significant changes of public communication in periods of crisis (as opposed to more ‘‘normal’’ periods), revealing and disseminating increased uncertainty about the future, has been noted by many authors. American pragmatism already captured this with the doubt-belief-cycle (Peirce, 1986), disseminating through public communication (Cooley, 1966: 378ff., 1983: 121ff.). However, there is little systematic research on these dramatic shifts in public communication in times of social and economic crisis. Nevertheless, literature dealing with the contested nature of the public sphere gives insights into this central phenomenon in the social process. Some of the literature on contentious politics and social movements, scandals, construction of social problems and moral entrepreneurs can shed light on the periods of crisis communication and increased uncertainty in the public sphere.
International Perspectives The broader reception of Habermas’ early work on the public sphere began in the United States only at the turn to the 1990s when the first English translation of his work on the Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962) appeared. Since then, Habermas has been the dominant point of reference for the American scholarship on the public sphere. However, American thought and
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research have had their own engagements with public sphere analysis. These traditions have been largely forgotten in intellectual history. Also, Hannah Arendt’s contributions to public sphere analysis (Arendt, 1968, 1998; Benhabib, 1992) were underrecognized on both sides of the Atlantic until the 1990s (Calhoun and McGowan, 1997; Dewey, 1954). Only in his later work, Habermas has realized that John Dewey’s The Public and its Problems from 1927 (Lippmann, 1960, 1993) could have been an important source for his early work on the public sphere. Dewey’s book on the public sphere itself emerged as an answer to what he took as a challenge set up by Walter Lippmann, particularly Public Opinion (1922) and The Phantom Public (1925) (Mills, 1958, 2000, 2001, 2002), and by other so-called democratic realists or elite-centered democratic theorists. However, Dewey’s contribution, triggered by Lippmann, was by no means the only one. There have been more American contributions to public sphere analysis which preceded the first English translation of Habermas’ early book in 1989 or even preceded the original German publication in 1962. The latter applies, in addition to Dewey’s work, to American pragmatism more generally and to the work of C. Wright Mills. All these and other contributions have yet to be fully rediscovered, revealing multiple traditions of public sphere analysis in intellectual history. Furthermore, as already mentioned above, while there were some cross-national comparisons of the formation of the public sphere by historians following Habermas’ comparison of France, England and Germany, and while there is increased research on emergent public spheres in non-Western countries and studies of the transnationalization of the public sphere, there is little synthesis work available on the comparative history of the transformations of the public sphere.
Future Directions Given the fragmentation of the study of the public sphere, all key issues discussed above require increased attention. On many of the key issues discussed above, considerable progress in knowledge about their historical changes is possible by synthetic empirical discussions of dispersed literatures from various disciplines. This will help foster additional primary research, addressing and reducing the large deficit in the comparative-historical research on the public sphere (Koller, forthcoming).
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society, Theory: Dewey ▶ Civil Society, Theory: Habermas
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▶ Intermediary Organizations and Field ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Public Choice ▶ Weber, Max
References/Further Readings Anderson, B. (1991). Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso. Arendt, H. (1968). The origins of totalitarianism. San Diego, CA: Harvest Books. Arendt, H. (1973). The origins of totalitarianism. Fort Washington, PA: Harvest Books. Arendt, H. 1998. The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Aries, P. (1989). Introduction. In R. Chartier (Ed.), Passions of the renaissance: A history of private life (Vol. 3, pp. 1–12). Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Benhabib, S. (1992). Models of public space: Hannah Arendt, the liberal tradition, and Ju¨rgen Habermas. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 73–98). Series: Studies in contemporary German social thought. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press. Burawoy, M. (2005). 2004 Presidential address: For public sociology. American Sociological Review, 70, 4–28. Calhoun, C. (Eds.) (1992). Habermas and the public sphere. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press. Calhoun, C. (1993). Civil society and the public sphere. Public Culture, 10, 267–280. Calhoun, C. (1998). The public good as a social and cultural project. In W. W. Powell & E. C. Clemens (Eds.), Private action and the public good (pp. 20–35). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Calhoun, C. (2003). The democratic integration of Europe: Interests, identity, and the public sphere. In M. Berezin & M. Schain (Eds.), Europe without borders: Re-mapping territory, citizenship and identity in a transnational age (pp. 243–274). Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Calhoun, C. (2005). The privatization of risk. Public Culture, 18(2). Calhoun, C. (forthcoming). The public sphere as immediate opportunity and distant ideal. Social science history, Special Issue on ‘‘The public sphere and comparative-historical research’’. Calhoun, C., & McGowan, J. (Eds.) (1997). Hannah Arendt and the meaning of politics. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Chartier, R. (Eds.) (1989). Passions of the renaissance: A history of private life (Vol. 3). Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Cooley, C. H. (1966). Social process. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Cooley, C. H. (1983). Social organization: A study of the larger mind. New Brunswick, NJ/London: Transaction Publishers. Curran, J. (2000). Rethinking media and democracy. In J. Curran & M. Gurevitch (Eds.), Mass media and society (pp. 120–154). London/ New York: Arnold/Oxford University Press. Dahl, R. A. (1971). Polyarchy: Participation and opposition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Deutsch, K. W. (1966). Nationalism and social communication: Inquiry into the foundations of nationality. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Dewey, J. (1954). The public and its problems. Chicago: Swallow Press. Domhoff, W. (2006). Who rules America?: Power, politics, and social change. New York: McGraw-Hill. Eisenstadt, S. N. (2002). Concluding remarks: Public sphere, civil society, and political dynamics in Islamic societies. In M. Hoexter, S. N.
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Eisenstadt & N. Levtzion (Eds.), The public sphere in Muslim societies (pp. 139–161). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Eley, G. (1992). Nations, publics, and political cultures: Placing Habermas in the nineteenth century. In C. Calhoun (Eds.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 289–339). Series: Studies in contemporary German social thought. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press. Fine, G. A., & Harrington, B. (2004). Tiny publics: Small groups and civil society. Sociological Theory, 22, 341–356. Fleck, C., Hess, A., & Lyon S. E. (Eds.) (2009). Intellectuals and their publics: Perspectives from the social sciences. Aldershot: Ashgate. Fraser, N. (1992). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 109–142). Series: Studies in contemporary German social thought. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press. Fuhrman, S., & Lazerson, M. (Eds.) (2005). The institutions of American democracy: The public schools. New York: Oxford University Press. Gerhards, J., & Neidhardt, F. (1991). Strukturen und Funktionen ¨ ffentlichkeit: Fragestellungen und Ansa¨tze. In moderner O ¨ ffentlichkeit, KulS. Mu¨ller-Doohm & K. Neumann-Braun (Eds.), O tur, Massenkommunikation: Beitra¨ge zur Medien- und Kommunikationssoziologie (pp. 31–89). Oldenburg, Germany: BIS. Goffman, E. (1961). Encounters: Two studies in the sociology of interaction. Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. Goodin, R. E., Headey, B., Muffels, R., & Dirven, H.-J. (1999). The real worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Habermas, J. (1985). Dialektik der Rationalisierung. In Die Neue Unu¨bersichtlichkeit (pp. 167–208). Series: Kleine Politische Schriften. Frankfurt am Main, Germany: Suhrkamp. Habermas, J. (1989). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Series: Studies incontemporary German social thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1992a). Concluding remarks. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 462–479). Series: Studies in contemporary German social thought. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1992b). Further reflections on the public sphere. In C. Calhoun (Ed.), Habermas and the public sphere (pp. 421–461). Series: Studies in contemporary German social thought. Cambridge, MA/London: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1996). Civil society and the political public sphere. In Between facts and norms: Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy (pp. 329–387). Series: Studies in contemporary German social thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (2006a). Political communication in media society: Does democracy still enjoy an epistemic dimension? The Impact of Normative Theory on Empirical Research. 16, 411–428. Habermas, J. (2006b). Religion in the public sphere. European Journal of Philosophy, 14, 1–25. ¨ ffentlichkeit: Geschichte eines kritischen Hohendahl, P. U. (Eds.) (2000). O Begriffs. Stuttgart, Germany: Metzler. ¨ ffentlichkeit und Geheimnis: Eine begriffsgeschichHo¨lscher, L. (1979). O ¨ ffentlichkeit in der fru¨hen tliche Untersuchung zur Entstehung der O Neuzeit. Series: Sprache und Geschichte (Vol. 4) R. Koselleck & K. Stierle (Eds.). Stuttgart, Germany: Klett-Cotta. Hunter, F. (1953). Community power structure: A study of decision makers. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Hunter, F. (1959). Top leadership, U.S.A.: A study of decision makers. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press. Ikegami, E. (2000). A sociological theory of publics: Identity and culture as emergent properties in networks. Social Research, 67, 989–1029.
Koller, A. (2009). Kontrafaktische Voraussetzungen. In H. Brunkhorst, R. Kreide & C. Lafont (Eds.), Habermas-Handbuch: Leben – Werk – Wirkung. Stuttgart, Germany: Metzler. Koller, A. (Eds.) (forthcoming). The public sphere and comparativehistorical research. Special Issue of Social Science History, with contributions by Andrew Abbott, Craig Calhoun, Elisabeth Clemens, and Charles Tilly. Lindert, P. H. (2005). Growing public: Social spending and economic growth since the eighteenth century. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lippmann, W. (1960). Public opinion. New York: Macmillan. Lippmann, W. (1993). The Phantom public. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Ludes, P. (1993). Scheino¨ffentlichkeiten: Medienwissenschaftliche Aufk¨ ffentlichkeit: la¨rungsversuche. In W. Faulstich (Ed.), Konzepte von O 3. Lu¨neburger Symposium zur Medienwissenschaft (pp. 58–82). Series: IfAM-Arbeitsberichte. Bardowick, Germany: Wissenschaftler-Verlag Faulstich. Mills, C. W. (1958). The causes of World War Three. New York: Simon & Schuster. Mills, C. W. (2000). The power elite. New York: Oxford University Press. Mills, C. W. (2001). The new men of power: America’s labor leaders. Urbana, IL/Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Mills, C. W. (2002). White collar: The American middle classes. New York: Oxford University Press. Mische, A., & White, H. C. (1998). Between conversation and situation: Public switching dynamics across network domains. Social Research, 65, 695–724. Molotch, H. (1976). The city as a growth machine. American Journal of Sociology, 82, 309–330. Negt, O., & Kluge, A. (1993). Public sphere and experience: Toward an analysis of the bourgeois and proletarian public sphere. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. ¨ ffentlichkeit, o¨ffentliche Meinung, soziale BeweNeidhardt, F. (1994). O ¨ ffentlichkeit, o¨ffentliche Meinung, soziale Bewegungen. gungen. In O Ko¨lner Zeitschrift fu¨r Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Sonderheft 34 (pp. 7–41). Opladen, Germany: Westdeutscher Verlag. Peirce, C. S. (1986). The fixation of belief. In Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A chronological edition (Vol. 3: 1872–1878, pp. 242–256). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Peters, B. (2008). Public deliberation and public culture: The writings of Bernhard Peters, 1993–2005. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Polletta, F. (2006). It was like a fever: Storytelling in protest and politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Polletta, F., & Lee, J. (2006). Is telling stories good for democracy?: Rhetoric in public deliberation after 9/11. American Sociological Review, 71, 699–723. Powell, W. W., & Clemens, E. C. (Eds.) (1998). Private action and the public good. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Powell, W. W., & Steinberg, R. (Eds.) (2006). The nonprofit sector: A Research Handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Scannell, P. (1990). Public service broadcasting: The history of a concept. In A. Goodwin & G. Whannel (Eds.), Understanding television (pp. 11–29). London: Routledge. Stone, G. R. (2005). Perilous times: Free speech in wartime. From the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism. New York: Norton. Taylor, C. (1999). Two theories of modernity. Public Culture, 11, 153–174. Taylor, C. (2004). Modern social imaginaries. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Tilly, C. (2005). Trust and rule. New York: Cambridge University Press. Warner, M. (2002). Publics and counterpublics. New York: Zone Books.
Public Value Weber, M. (1958). Religious rejections of the world and their directions. In H. Gerth & C. W. Mills (Eds.), From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (pp. 77–128). New York: Oxford University Press. Young, I. M. (2000). Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Public Value TIMO MEYNHARDT University of St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
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provide an essential public value?’’ (2002: 150). According to Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman public value ‘‘is not governmental’’ (2007: 373). Thus, PV can be interpreted as a perspective on relationships between individual and society, focusing on ‘‘creating’’ experiences of ‘‘Gemeinschaft’’ (community) and ‘‘Gesellschaft’’ (society). The emerging theory of public value spans different sectors and calls for reconciling narrower and broader notions of value creation. This integrative view may explain its attractiveness to scholars interested in the contribution of for-profit and public (nonprofit and governmental) organizations to (the civil) society.
Historical Background Introduction Public Value is value for and from the public. The new look associated with Public Value (PV) is viewing impacts on values in society as value creation. This perspective puts concurrent ideas of ‘‘public interest,’’ ‘‘common good’’ or ‘‘common welfare’’ into a more managerial and entrepreneurial perspective. The felt need for a public value management or entrepreneurship can be traced to several discourses reconsidering issues of responsibility and accountability of public and private organizations in society (e.g., on public reforms, accountability of NGOs or social responsibility of private enterprises). In a larger context it creates a challenge of rational choice concepts and reflects the recent renaissance of public interest ideas (e.g., Selznick, 1992; Mu¨nkler et al., 2001, 2002; Bozeman, 2007). Organizations cannot not influence public values. Therefore, a balanced view on value creation for and in society is much needed in a globalized economy with a number of challenges in creating wealth while securing social integration and cohesion. Neither pure economic or financial focus nor pure appealing to political or moral values is sufficient to derive accountability and a ‘‘license to operate’’ for any organization embedded in society. The broadened concept of ‘‘value creation’’ reflects the search for balanced measures to evaluate organizations beyond financial or economic performance. Public value thinking is not simply about compensating for state failure or market failure and its negative ‘‘externalities.’’ Bozeman argues that public value destruction (in his words ‘‘public-value failure’’) ‘‘occurs when neither the market nor the public sector provides goods and services required to achieve core public values. . . . and market failure tells us little about whether government should intervene. . . . the key policy question becomes, if the market is efficient, is there nonetheless a failure to
The very construct ‘‘public value’’ came into focus of attention for a wider audience by the book ‘‘Creating Public Value. Strategic Management in Government’’ from Mark Moore (1995). He initially wished to ‘‘develop a normative (rather than positive) theory of managerial (rather than organizational) behaviour’’ for the context of American government (ibid. 2). The subtle and complex relationship between means and ends in the public sector (implementation and execution of law in public administration on the one hand and public policy making on the other) was an essential challenge for him. As a solution for pressing problems in real life, Moore developed the role of a public manager as an ‘‘explorer’’ searching for opportunities to create public value. Such an understanding includes a ‘‘strategic’’ element far beyond mere execution of law, in which entrepreneurial spirit is bound by and directed to PV. Crabtree (2004) reconstructed the rise of public value in public sector as a ‘‘revolution that started in a library.’’ After years of almost becoming a flop, Moore’s book was almost accidentally discovered in United Kingdom. The more integrative view on the purpose and legitimacy of public institutions as something different or more than a compensation for market-failure inspired in United Kingdom not only the BBC’s Charter renewal submission but also the Cabinet Office’ strategy unit and a number of other organizations. In reviewing UK developments, for Talbot PV ‘‘is clearly becoming somewhat fashionable amongst at least some think-tankers and policy-makers’’ (2006: 3). In countries like United Kingdom, New Zealand or Australia with intense public reforms inspired by new public management concepts, the notion of public value resonated a lot (O’Flynn, 2007). In Germany, the ideas are also welcomed as potential next lens in public reforms to reconcile traditional notions of public administration and management principles imported from the private sector (Hill, 2007; Meynhardt, 2008; Meynhardt & Metelmann,
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2008). For Stoker (2006) PV could even serve as ‘‘emerging paradigm’’ for networked governance. Next to the governmental realm the ideas of public value were also introduced to nonprofit organizations. PV appears to be an attractive idea, since value produced here also lies in the achievement of social purposes. It has been argued for an integrated view on public value creation, sources of legitimization and operational capacities (Moore, 2000; Brown & Moore, 2001). The research stream of PV only emerged recently. It is too early to distinguish different schools or competing ideas. The general idea is perhaps best summarized by O’Flynn who interprets the PV discourse as ‘‘a way of thinking which is post-bureaucratic and post-competitive allowing us to move beyond the narrow market versus government failure approaches’’ (2007: 353).
Towards a Systematic Interdisciplinary Approach Starting Points
Moore initially started off by arguing for public value as an equivalent to the idea of shareholder value in the private sector: ‘‘The definition that remains equates managerial success in the public sector with initiating and reshaping public sector enterprises in ways that increase their value to the public in both the short and the long run’’ (1995: 10). The similarity to the notion of shareholder value obviously is only justified in the ultimate significance of direction setting. Coats and Passmore relate PV to ‘‘responsiveness to refined public preferences’’ (2008: 8). And this is where the controversy lies: PV ultimately is ‘‘created’’ in the eye of the beholder and not to be reduced to figures and facts. Rather, it builds on subjective evaluations. As an extreme, one may argue: ‘‘Public value is what the public values.’’ This broad notion of public value following Moore’s original contribution is subjected to critique: ‘‘In what was to become a defining characteristic of PV literature, Moore appears sometimes to be talking about public goods; services which are nonrivalrous and nonexcludable such as defence or street lighting; and at other times to be talking about the public interest or the even the public domain. All of these terms have their problems ’’(Oakley et al., 2006: 3). Rhodes and Wanna put it this way: ‘‘(. . .) Moore is unclear whether he offers a theoretical framework, a concept, a heuristic device, or an operational tool of management. (. . .) Various proponents argue that public value should be seen as a paradigm (. . .) as a concept (. . .) a model (. . .) a heuristic device or even a story. (. . .) Perhaps the ambiguous nature of public value and its
various applications fuels its popularity – it is all things to all people’’ (2007: 408). Common to the different lines of thought is the notion of incorporating a more complex view on human nature for legitimizing organizational action (Talbot, 2006). Taken together, much of the doubt whether the notion of PV is a theory at all is due to ‘‘more general problems in studying values’’ (Beck Jørgensen & Bozeman, 2007: 354) and subsequently value creation. Basic Value Dimensions
Talbot rightly criticizes the public value discourse ‘‘like most modern social science’’ as it ‘‘shies away from examining the assumptions it implies about human nature’’ (2006: 3f). Moore himself avoids a more explicit position on ‘‘things that are individually desired,’’ except for references to fairness and justice (1995: 52). To fill these ‘‘lacunae’’ Talbot rightly calls for ‘‘a grounding of Public Value in our evolved and contradictory human nature’’ (Talbot, 2006: 3f). Public value would be an empty, formal construct, if one did not reflect on what people need and wish for. This is not to prescribe what would be desirable, but managerial action requires a basic idea of what to strive for: one cannot purposefully create public value without explicit reference to human nature. ‘‘Value’’ refers in general to the desirable and to preferences. It is subjective since it is bound to individuals. If certain value experiences are shared, a ‘‘value’’ becomes objective in this specific sense. Values become only relevant for action if they ‘‘translate’’ into psychological states (e.g., motivation, attitude or opinion) in processes of evaluation. As basis for evaluation basic human needs are identified as references for subjective comparisons between an actual and desired or preferred states (Meynhardt, 2004; 2009). Needs concern deficits, i.e., felt discrepancies between an actual and desired psychological state that result in a motivation to act. Needs serve as actual or hypothetical reference points for evaluation; they function as the whats of the shoulds. Satisfied needs may lead to pleasant feelings, positive emotion and well-being, unsatisfied may be followed by anger, discomfort, frustration, or anxiety. Psychological theories account for those processes in great detail and with a lot of sophisticated and subtle arguments (Lewis et al., 2008). One of the most coherent approaches to structuring the field has been provided by Seymour Epstein in his cognitive-experiential self-theory (e.g., 2003). In his brilliant analysis of existing theories on human driving forces he compares the ideas of famous thinkers like Freud, James, Adler, Rogers, Kohut, Horney, Erikson, Bowlby, Kelly, or Allport. Most of the theories present a dominant
Public Value
motive (e.g., sexual desire, attachment, growth, or power). Epstein makes a convincing case that once developed all basic needs or motives ‘‘are equally important’’ (Epstein, 1993: 321). Epstein himself related those functions or needs to values by arguing that people at least ‘‘implicitly value’’ (1989: 16) when fulfilling their needs. A ‘‘value’’ then would be an experience based on evaluation of any object against basic needs. They provide a minimal and robust starting point for the development of basic value dimensions. The abstract philosophical notion of the ‘‘desirability’’ is traced to a concept of human needs. In this view, those are basic as they are essential (not for ‘‘its own sake’’): they are about fundamental structures of personality, functionally most relevant. ‘‘Invalidating’’ them would destabilize the ‘‘entire conceptual system’’ (Epstein, 1993: 322). In his cognitive-experiential self-theory on how ‘‘all individuals automatically construct an implicit theory of reality’’ (ibid., 321), Epstein synthesizes the different stands dividing them into four basic functions or ‘‘needs’’ (interchangeable use with motive and value) without a normative statement of supervenience. ‘‘Which function, if any, is dominant varies among individuals and within individuals over time’’ (Epstein, 1989: 8). Potential conflicts cannot be reconciled by reference to a natural hierarchy. Table 1 relates basic needs, psychological ‘‘translations’’ and basic value dimensions. For example, an evaluation on how some public service impacts on individuals’ self-worth and positive selfregard can be interpreted as moral-ethical valuation (Meynhardt, 2009). This reasoning however is not necessarily applicable the other way around, i.e., not every
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complex moral-ethical issue can be traced back to selfworth effects alone. However, the notion of self-worthiness is an essential dimension of every moral-ethical evaluation. In the same way, the three other evaluations of needs’ fulfillment can be translated into motivations (as an example for psychological constructs of ‘‘forces’’) and viewed as basic value dimensions. Classifying Public Value
Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman argue that ‘‘if there is any single item for a public value research agenda, it is developing approaches to sorting out values and making sense of their relationships’’ (2007: 377). This may include the whole range of empirical research but also developing heuristics and classification schemes. Public values can be classified as combinations of the four basic value dimensions outlined above. If one combines the four dimensions with each other, 16 cells emerge. In Fig. 1 for illustration the eight ‘‘nodal values’’ identified by Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman in their public value inventory are used here (ibid., 371). Their PVs are in italics, the other cells were completed. There is clearly no undisputed interpretation of any value subscription (which of course is due to the very subjective nature of value). In line with basic needs theory there is no hierarchical order in the first place. For practical purposes, the ‘‘size’’ of the landscape may of course be enlarged accordingly. However, the basic dimensions serve as ‘‘yardsticks’’ in a public value landscape. They navigate the search as to where to look for PVs in concrete relationships and help to identify ‘‘blind spots’’ in empirical work. Interestingly, the entire realm of hedonistic-aesthetical
Public Value. Table 1 Relation between basic needs and basis value dimensions Basic need for . . . . . . positive self-evaluation
Translation into a motivation for. . . . (examples) ● . . .positive self-concept and self-worth
Basic value dimension Moral-ethical
● . . .consistent relationship between self and environment ● . . .feeling of high self-esteem (in social comparison) . . . maximising pleasure and avoiding pain
● . . .positive emotions and avoidance of negative feelings
Hedonistic-aesthetical
● . . .flow-experience ● . . .experience of self-efficacy due to action
. . . gaining control and coherence over one’s concep-tional system . . . positive relationships
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● . . .understanding and controlling environment ● . . .predictability of cause and effect relationships
Utilitarianinstrumental
● . . .ability to control expectations to cause desired outcomes ● . . . relatedness and belongingness ● . . . attachment, group identity ● . . . optimal balance between intimacy and distance
Political-social
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Public Value. Fig. 1 Public value landscape
public values has not been part in Beck Jørgensen and Bozeman’s universe. It is to say, that even though those categories do not emerge from empirical investigation, one would need to consider them to capture the full roundedness of human nature. Public Value and Its Creation
The term ‘‘public value’’ is about valuing ‘‘the public,’’ and more precisely: valuing relationships between a subject (individual, group), and an unknowable social entity as ‘‘generalized other.’’ ‘‘The public’’ is an indispensable operational fiction – necessary for action and orientation in a complex environment. In this functional perspective it is not a tautology to argue: Public is what an individual or group regards as public – it is not to be reduced to the sum of analytical insights. Public value is anything people put value to with regard to the public. Public value is what impacts on values about the ‘‘public.’’ Impact not only implies positive appreciation, but in the first place something – positive or negative – that matters to peoples’ values about their perceived relationship to ‘‘the public.’’ In this view public value is not restricted to a certain value system (any religious system, or a constitution, human rights, democracy, etc.). In the same direction, Talbot states ‘‘Public Value then is the combined view of the public about what they regard as valuable’’ (2006: 7). Clearly, this can be very different from some notions detailed in a constitution, written down in human rights charters or any other form of declaration. Whereas the public value idea counterbalances overly simplistic views on human nature using
rational or public choice ideas of economic maximization of utility and service (O’Flynn, 2007), public value is not restricted to implicit values of democratic procedures or aspects of fairness or trust either. PV is created in every societal context. It is about the values held about the relationship between an individual and a social entity (constructs like group, community, state, nation) that characterize the quality of this relationship. In other words, public value is by definition not restricted to values expressing high regard of the ‘‘collective’’ or the ‘‘Gemeinschaft.’’ Clearly, values like experienced solidarity or trust may substantiate the construct public value. Likewise, in other contexts values like extreme individualism or even mistrust should be viewed as public values if they are describing how individuals perceive ‘‘the public.’’ Any value defining the qualities of relationships between the individual and the public (diversity, social integration, pluralism, but also greed or egoism etc.) and ultimately impacting on how individuals or groups fulfill their basic needs shall be regarded as ‘‘public value.’’ Public value is about values characterizing the relationship between an individual and ‘‘society,’’ defining the quality of this relationship. Public value creation is a process which is measured against psychological evaluation on individual and group level. In this broad notion producing ‘‘facts’’ is not necessarily correlated to value creation. If a value is not in peoples’ minds, it is not ‘‘real.’’ PV as value for the public is a result of evaluations about how basic needs of individuals, groups, and the society as a whole are influenced in relationships involving the ‘‘public.’’ In this sense, it is also
Public Value
value from the public, i.e., value that is derived from the experience of the ‘‘generalized other.’’ Any impact on shared experience about the quality of the relationship between the individual and ‘‘society’’ can be described as public value creation. Public value creation then is situated in relationships between the individual and ‘‘society,’’ founded in individuals, constituted by subjective evaluations against basic needs, activated by and realized in emotional-motivational states, and produced and reproduced in experience-intense practices.
Key Issues Public Value has a short history, but a long tradition. It only appeared in the 1990s, but points to long lasting issues of value creation in economics and the role of institutions in society. Whether or not PV research will contribute to explain and understand how to develop and sustain civil society will depend on its capacity to disentangle normative (‘‘should’’) and descriptive (‘‘is’’) inquiries. The key issue is to explain and understand value dynamics in civil society, linking individual and collective levels.
Future Directions To advance public value research at least five areas of inquiry are to be addressed: Measurement: PV discourse looks for value creation, which is defined not only by facts and figures but also by subjective evaluation. This view on a multidimensional impact on society calls for measures and instruments to describe public value creation. First versions of public value scorecards (Moore, 2003; Talbot, 2006) have been suggested and are yet to be implemented. Existing PVtests (e.g., developed by the BBC, see Collins, 2007) still need to justify its usefulness (Oakley et al., 2006). Operationalization of PV remains a major challenge both in academia and for practical purposes. Managerial behaviour: Research has just started inquiry into antecedents, moderating, and mediating variables, which enforce or hinder public value-oriented entrepreneurship (see for example, Meynhardt & Metelmann, 2009). Managing for public value is tough practical challenge. It requires a style of integrative leadership, i.e., of balancing different value perspectives. Moore provided a perspective on individual prerequisites to perform for public value creation, but less so for challenges to promote relevant competencies. Intercultural differences: The notion of PV was originally developed for the constitutional setting of the United States. In the meantime it has been applied to other contexts (United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Germany). The influence of different law systems and
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cultures on creating public value is however still underresearched. To put it frankly, PV is not necessarily equivalent to constitutional values of Western Democracies or some image of the common good. Instead it is bound to culture and cannot be universalized. Cross-sector collaboration: Understanding the synergetic interplay between institutions and across sectors will be a key challenge. Starting with the question what public value should be created would determine who should be involved. This line of thinking is different from dichotomies like state vs. market vs. civil society. In times of blurred boundaries the quest for public value becomes most important. Current research on integrative leadership (see for a framework: Crosby & Bryson, 2005) did not focus on processes related to specific public value dimensions. Individual experience: Even more challenging is the question for the psychological experience of the actual public value. Public value starts and ends within the individual. Thus, modelling the process of internalizing values on the individual level and ‘‘implementing’’ them on a collective level becomes the eye of needle of the public value research.
Cross-References
▶ Communitarianism ▶ Drucker, Peter ▶ Goods and Services, Types of ▶ New Public Management ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ To¨nnies, Ferdinand ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Beck Jørgensen, T., & Bozeman, B. (2007). Public values. An inventory. Administration and Society, 39(3), 354–381. Bozeman, B. (2002, March/April). Public-value failure. When efficient markets may not do. Public Administration Review, 62(2), 145–161. Bozeman, B. (2007). Public value and public interest. Counterbalancing economic individualism. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Brown, L. D., & Moore, M. H. (2001). Accountability, strategy, and international nongovernmental organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 30, 569–587. Coats, D., & Passmore, E. (2008). Public value: The next steps in public service reform. London: The Work Foundation. Collins, R. (2007). Public value and the BBC. A report prepared for The Work Foundation’s public value consortium. London: The Work Foundation, from http://www.theworkfoundation.com/ products/publications/azpublications/publicvalueandthebbc.aspx, accessed 13 February 2008. Crabtree, J. (2004, September). The revolution that started in a library. New Statesman, 27. Crosby, B. C., & Bryson J. M. (2005). A leadership framework for crosssector collaboration. Public Management Review, 7(2), 178–201.
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Epstein, S. (1989). Values from the perspective of cognitive-experiential self-theory. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), Social and moral values (Vol. 8, pp. 3–22). Erlbaum: Hillsdale. Epstein, S. (1993). Emotion and self-theory. In M. Lewis & J. M. Haviland-Jones (Eds.), Handbook of emotions (pp. 313–326). New York: Guilford. Epstein, S. (2003). Cognitive-experiential self theory of personality. In Th. Millon, M. L. Lerner, & I. B. Weiner (Eds), Handbook of psychology. Personality and social psychology (Vol. 5, pp. 159–184). New York: Wiley. Hill, H. (2007). Public value management. In M. Bru¨ggemeier, R. Schauer, & K. Schedler (Eds.), Controlling und performance management im offentlichen sektor (pp. 373–381). Bern: Haupt Verlag S. Lewis, M., Haviland-Jones, J. M., & Feldmann Barrett, L. (2008). Handbook of emotions (3rd ed.). New York: Guilford. Meynhardt, T. (2004). Wertwissen: Was Organisationen wirklich bewegt. Mu¨nster: Waxmann. Meynhardt, T. (2008). Public value – oder: was heißt Wertscho¨pfung zum Gemeinwohl?, der moderne staat – Zeitschrift fu¨r Public Policy, Recht und Management, Heft 2/2008, S. 457–468. Meynhardt, T. (2009). Public value inside: What is public value creation?, International Journal for Public Administration, 32(3–4), 192–219. Meynhardt, T., & Metelmann, J. (2008). Public Value – ein Kompass fu¨r die Fu¨hrung in der o¨ffentlichen Verwaltung. In Verwaltung und Management, 14. Jg., Heft 5, S. 246–251. Meynhardt, T., & Metelmann, J. (2009). Pushing the envelope: Creating public value in the labour market. An empirical study on the role of middle managers, International Journal for Public Administration, 32(3–4), 274–312. Moore, M. H. (1995). Creating public value. Strategic management in government. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Moore, M. H. (2000). Managing for value: Organizational strategy in forprofit, nonprofit, and governmental organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29, 183–204. Moore, M. H. (2003). The public value scorecard: A rejoinder and an alternative to ‘‘Strategic performance measurement and management in non-profit organizations’’ by Robert Kaplan (Working Paper #18). The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, The Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Mu¨nkler, H., Bluhm, H., & Fischer, K. (Eds.) (2001/2002). Gemeinwohl und Gemeinsinn. Forschungsberichte der interdisziplina¨ren Arbeitsgruppe ‘‘Gemeinwohl und Gemeinsinn’’ der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in vier Ba¨nden. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Oakley, K., Naylor, R., & Lee, D. (2006). Giving them what they want: The construction of the public in ‘public value.’ Paper presented at ‘‘Media and Social Change,’’ conference organised by the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change. O’Flynn, J. (2007). From new public management to public value: Paradigmatic change and managerial implications. The Australian Journal of Public Administration, 66(3), 353–366. Rhodes, R. W. A., & Wanna, J. (2007). The limits to public value, or rescuing responsible government from the platonic guardians. The Australian Journal of Public Administration, 66(4), 406–421. Selznick, Ph. (1992). The moral commonwealth: Social theory and the promise of community. Berkeley/Los Angeles/California: University of California Press. Stoker, G. (2006). Public value management: A narrative for networked governance? American Review of Public Administration, 36(1), 41–57. Talbot, C. (2006). Paradoxes and prospects of ‘Public Value’. Paper presented at Tenth International Research Symposium on Public Management, Glasgow.
Putnam, Robert ZEYNEP ATALAY
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1941 in Port Clinton, Ohio (USA), Robert D. Putnam is an eminent political scientist and the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University. He received his bachelor’s degree from Swarthmore College, won a Fulbright Fellowship to study at Oxford University, and earned his master’s and doctorate degrees from Yale University. Prof. Putnam taught at the University of Michigan, and joined the Harvard faculty in 1979, serving as chairman of Harvard’s Department of Government, Director of the Center for International Affairs, and Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. In 2001–2002 Putnam served as President of the American Political Science Association. He is also Visiting Professor and Director of the Manchester Graduate Summer Program in Social Change, University of Manchester in the United Kingdom.
Major Contributions Putnam has authored or coauthored ten books and more than 30 scholarly works in the fields of comparative politics, international relations, and American politics. Putnam’s early work examines the relationship between traditions of elite interaction and patterns of governance in different countries. Later, Putnam developed what is known as the two-level game theory, which explores international conflict resolution between liberal democracies. Despite his accomplishments in his early career, Putnam is best known for his work on civic engagement and social capital. In Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, Putnam pointed to the deterioration of membership in traditional civic organizations in the United States, using the decline in en masse bowling leagues as an example. Drawing on extensive data, Putnam argued that political and civic engagement in the United States in the forms of voting, political trust, and grassroots activism have been in decline. Moreover, informal social ties, tolerance, and trust among individuals have been eroding as well. Putnam lists several factors to explain the decreasing social connectedness: Changes in family structure, suburban sprawl, and electronic entertainment. However, the most significant factor, according to Putnam, is generational change. Putnam contends that while the generation born in the first third of the twentieth century remains politically active, philanthropic,
Putnam, Robert
socially engaged, and community oriented, younger generations (born in the mid-1960s and after) are politically and socially disengaged, and alienated. Even though his use of data, methodology, and interpretations have been subjected to widespread criticism, Putnam’s ideas remain influential in political circles as well as academia.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Participation ▶ Membership and Membership Associations
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▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Trust
References/Further Readings Putnam, R. D. (1993). Making democracy work. Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Putnam, R. D. (Ed.) (2002). Democracies in flux: The evolution of social capital in contemporary society. New York: Oxford University Press.
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Q Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) EVELYNE SCHMID
Address of Organization Friends World Committee for Consultation World Office 173 Euston Road London NW1 2AX UK www.fwccworld.org
Introduction The Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers, was founded in England in the seventeenth century as a Christian religious denomination striking for a nonviolent and more just and equitable world. The Society of Friends is counted among the historic peace churches. While the Quaker movement is rooted in Christianity, individual Quakers may develop individual religious beliefs arising from their personal conscience and inner revelations. Quakerism has spread to other countries. There are an estimated 350,000 society members worldwide, with the majority in Africa and the Americas.
Brief History The Quaker movement began in England in the 1650s. Historians generally credit George Fox with being the most important early figure of the Society. The nonconformist breakaway movement from English Puritanism quickly faced opposition. Friends were persecuted in the United Kingdom and Ireland but also in the British colonies. William Penn, a leading figure of the English Quakers, founded the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as a safe place for Friends to live and practice their faith. Despite persecution, the movement grew steadily.
Mission The movement is committed to nonviolence in thought, word, and deed. As a movement, the Quakers have a
continuously evolving list of testimonies. Peace, equality, integrity, and simplicity are the most common. Quakers believe that violence is wrong. They thus support conscientious objectors, advocates of nonviolence and antiwar activists. Since all people embody the same divine spark, Quakers consider that all people deserve equal treatment. They were leaders in the antislavery movement, and were among the first to campaign for women’s rights and for humane treatment for prisoners and individuals with mental disorders.
Activities Quakers have founded numerous organizations for causes they felt are in keeping with their faith. Within the last century there have been some 100 organizations founded by either individual Friends, groups of Friends or Friends working with others. Among these are human rights groups, humanitarian organizations, ecological groups and many educational institutions. As part of its worldwide religious witness, the Quakers maintain two offices at the United Nations in Geneva and in New York.
Structure and Governance The Religious Society of Friends has tended away from hierarchical structure and abolished the meeting of ministers in the mid nineteenth century. Decision-making among the Quakers is based on consensus with the aim that all decisions are reached so that they are consistent with the guidance of the Spirit. Friends have founded organizations to help maintain communication within the Society. The Friends World Committee for Consultation is the international Quaker organization which loosely unifies the diverse groups of Friends.
Funding The work of the Quakers organizations and offices is financed through funds received from nongovernmental and governmental sources. The 2007 annual report of the American Friends Service Committee, the largest Quaker association in North America, reported revenues of approximately US$42,000,000 provided by bequests, individual donors and some government grants.
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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Definition
In 1947, Quakerism was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which was accepted by the American Friends Service Committee and British Peace & Social Witness on behalf of all Friends.
In seeking a definition, it needs to be noted that there are some variations the definition of ‘‘QUANGO.’’ For instance, some of the literature speaks of ‘‘quasi-independent NGOs’’ or of ‘‘quasi-autonomous NGOs,’’ and there is no good reason why these terms would not be appropriate, save, perhaps, for a degree of redundancy. For the most part, authorities use the simpler form of ‘‘quasi-nongovernmental organizations.’’ The following paper uses this descriptor. A ‘‘QUANGO’’ is, by form and function, a nongovernmental organization whose purity has been somehow limited, qualified, diluted, or reduced. Many would argue, of course, that a definition posited in terms of what something is not, rather than what is, is inherently a weak definition. Indeed a positive definition is always much to be preferred. It also suggests a more secure selfconcept. By contrast, negative definition arrives at what it intends to say by elimination rather than by assertion. That having been said, if one understands the purpose of an NGO is to do what governments cannot do, will not do or ought not to do, it becomes clearer that an NGO may have a positive and worthwhile raison d’etre. Any diminishment, restriction or qualification of its ‘‘non-ness’’ thereby undermines or brings into some question its capacity to initiate and carry out the worthwhile work which it aspires to do. What appears, on the surface, to be negative or self-deprecating, may, in fact, be more assertive than it seems. By common definition, a QUANGO derives the substantial portion of its revenue from official sources rather than as voluntary contributions from private sources. However, as a few prominent examples will attest, some nuance is required in this discussion. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which many cite as the most famous QUANGO, receives the bulk of its funds from public coffers, though many of its national members are also able to generate very substantial support from public donations, especially in situations of natural or human induced disaster. Clearly, the long and distinguished history of the Red Cross, its iconic name and sterling reputation together with the great pains to which it goes to maintain its neutrality all combine to give it a considerable autonomy when action is called for. Governments, arguably, need the Red Cross more than it needs them. It is also fairly well known that many western European, Nordic, Canadian and other northern NGO development and relief organizations receive the bulk of their revenue from government and intergovernmental sources. Citing the terms and conditions of funding, their boards and
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations
References/Further Readings Dandelion, P. (2008). The Quakers: A very short introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hirst, M. (1972). The Quakers in peace and war: An account of their peace principles and practice. New York: Garland Publishing. Penn, W. (1682). Some fruits of solitude in reflections and maxims. London: Thomas Northcott. Post Abbott, M. (2006). The A to Z of the Friends (Quakers). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press.
QUANGOs LAWRENCE S. CUMMING Independent Consultant in International Development and Civil Society, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Introduction Over the past few decades, great interest in the phenomenon of ‘‘non-governmental’’ action and organizational forms has grown up around the world. This is, in large measure, the result of a shift from states to private and voluntary sectors as the locus of action for social policy and the development enterprise. This fascination has been reflected at the domestic, international and global levels. It has taken root in concrete programs and activities and has also attracted the attention of researchers seeking to understand and describe the phenomenon. Both practices and results of activity have become richly diverse and command attention. An undifferentiated term like ‘‘non-governmental organization’’ (NGO) may be sufficient on its own for a short period, but then shades and hues become evident. A need for subcategories emerges. Indeed, it becomes clear that there are degrees of nongovernmental-ness. There may be both relatively pure examples and more muddied cases to be found in real life. It is in this latter area that we situate this discussion.
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staff will generally argue that it is possible to accept large sums of money from governments without compromising their autonomy, provided that there are no strings attached. (See Weiss and Gordenker, 2007: 21, among other sources on this question.) It is worth noting that government and intergovernmental funding comes in a variety of forms. In some cases, the funding is a kind of historic entitlement to established NGOs doing good work and enjoying favourable reputations. This notion has been under assault in recent times, though patterns persist. A newer development that has accelerated over the past couple of decades is aptly termed ‘‘public service contracting.’’ (See Korten, 1990; Smillie, 1995 among others.) Parenthetically, there are those who argue that international development NGOs really constitute a nonprofit subsector of the private sector rather than ‘‘third sector’’ or ‘‘voluntary sector’’ (Uphoff, 1996). The same might be said for many domestic NGOs. There is legitimate debate but no general agreement on the intrinsic merits of the case, though the argument carries weight in the case of a QUANGO which engages in public service contracting, sometimes in competition or collaboration with profitmaking private sector businesses. Notwithstanding the case for accepting substantial public funding to scale up programs and enhance both reach and effectiveness, the question of financial independence assumes a greater salience now than it did 2–3 decades ago. The danger of reliance on the public purse is that an NGO becomes subject to the vagaries of public policy shifts or even lurches from one funding fashion to another. The removal of a government and its replacement by a new one (through election or other means) can destabilize or even undermine the continued viability of organizations. Financial support hitherto provided for certain purposes or to be expended in certain places may be reduced or simply no longer be available. The receiving organization is then faced with painful, sometimes lifethreatening choices as to changing is program style, priorities and activities to conform with the donor’s demands or somehow managing without the expected revenue. Some would suggest that the QUANGO is a phenomenon of northern industrialized countries (Vakil, 1997). Whilst this may be largely true, these can be found most anywhere in the world. How an organization becomes a QUANGO is probably not the most significant of its characteristics. An organization can be brought into being deliberately, without any pretence of its being anything other than a QUANGO. However, there are more routes than one to this point on the map. A bona fide NGO can become a QUANGO either abruptly or over
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time, sometimes consciously and deliberately and other times unintentionally, gradually and imperceptibly. In the latter case, it may take a funding crisis, a change in donor policy or perhaps a crise de conscience to alert the organization to what it has become. Finally, a balanced assessment of QUANGOs and the other categories of organizations with qualified, compromised or diminished autonomy would suggest a need to acknowledge that there may be particular circumstances in which a QUANGO can make sense and pose little or no danger to the public good. While noting the dangers of unfair competitive advantage and the possibility of inappropriate benefits accruing, an Open Society Institute paper allows that ‘‘there are many appropriate roles in society for (QUANGOs) and (GONGOs)’’ and continues by mentioning such examples as museums, research institutes, special lending or credit programs (Guidelines, p. 91). Indeed, if laws and regulations are clear and fairly and consistently enforced, it suggests that such hybrid organizations can function effectively, with integrity and for public benefit.
Historical Background As noted elsewhere, the term NGO arose originally as an attempt to ascribe some identity and status to nonofficial entities that were not part of any state but were seen as having mutually beneficial relationships with departments or agencies of the United Nations. (Article 71 of the UN Charter provides the framework.) As early as 1948, those NGOs having consultative status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) were formally defined and listed. With the passage of time, however, the number, variety and location of NGOs proliferated around the globe, in the north, south, east, and west, and it is very clear that any practical definition of ‘‘NGO’’ has burst out of its original jacket. A vastly greater number of NGOs now do not have formal relations with agencies of the United Nations than those which do. Of course, the number of those without consultative status represents a multiple of thousands, compared with those which do. Another shift that has occurred around the world is a more widespread use of the use of term ‘‘NGO’’ to describe organizations engaged in purely domestic activities within particular nations and with no involvement beyond their borders. A major exception would be the United States where the term Private Voluntary Organization (PVO) persists. Clearly, ‘‘PVO’’ has an intrinsically more positive character, emphasizing the value of privateness (in a political culture where this is especially valued) and the voluntary nature of the action in which one
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is engaged. That having been said, the term ‘‘NGO’’ dominates the field. There is no doubt that the visibility and popularity of NGOs has increased over time. As the reputation of the state declined in official thinking, most particularly during the 1990s, relative to the private sector and civil society, NGOs grew and increased their positions as actors on the international level and the national and domestic levels alike. An instrumental view of the NGO came to prevail. NGOs became valued because of their supposed advantages of creativity, efficiency, effectiveness, transparency, and accountability over governments which were thought to be relatively sluggish, inefficient and, at their worst, corrupt and unreliable. All this notwithstanding, there is no certainty that the popularity of NGOs will continue to rise. Indeed, as experience is gained and mistakes become more apparent, the likelihood is that questions and doubts will grow and challenges be raised on issues such as accountability, effectiveness and efficiency. The foregoing is prologue, in recognition that QUANGOs are to be found somewhere on the NGO terrain. The phenomenon is a stage of an historical evolution. Clearly, QUANGOs are not official state entities. Their forms, functions and governing arrangements are likely, in most cases, not easily distinguishable from other NGOs with better claims to independence, being more rooted in civil society. They enjoy the all of he legal rights and privileges which their more authentic counterparts enjoy. In fact, in good times, they may derive greater benefits. In distilled form, this is perhaps the only way of explanating why they have become of choose to become ‘‘QUANGOs.’’
Key Issues The following issues are, it should be emphasized, of considerable importance to all NGOs. They are, however, most pressing for those whose independence is most limited, those which can be understood to have crossed a visible or even invisible line somewhere and at some time and have, in fact, become quasi-nongovernmental.
Corporate Cosiness
The closeness of some NGOs to government is not only a function of dependence on government funding, though that remains the central defining characteristic of being a QUANGO. Often, there are other aspects of a relationship that undermine any ability to maintain a critical distance. The revolving door of executive exchanges, official representation on boards of directors and other measures may go hand-in-hand with privileged funding relations and are likely to diminish further an organization’s ability to chart its own course, to adopt a practice that does not conform with official standards and priorities and to offer criticism and propose policy alternatives – in short, to bite the hand that feeds it. Conflicts of Interest
Because of this very closeness and a consequent fuzziness in understanding whose interests are being represented, there are obvious dangers of conflicts of interest, selfdealing and even improper personal enrichment, all taking place under official protection but with no watchful eye exercising necessary oversight. Such dangers are magnified in QUANGOs and other organizational forms characterized by diminished non-ness. Legitimacy
This issue is closely related to autonomy and independence. On whose behalf does the organization speak? Who or what gives it the right to do what it does, to draw conclusions from its experience and to pronounce on issues arising from that experience, especially as regards their application to public policy? Credibility
Deriving from the issue of legitimacy, is the question of credibility. Autonomy or independence, as abstractions, may be very appealing to many but have little intrinsic value to everyone. To the extent that they confer legitimacy and, hence, credibility, however, they begin to take on a more embodied meaning. Sacrificed Advantages
Independence and Autonomy
Without dwelling on the shades of meaning between these two words, there is an important issue that goes to the heart of the ‘‘non-ness,’’ or more affirmatively, the capacity for self-determined policy formulation and programmatic action. However one thinks about the prospects, or even the desirability of full independence in the real world of choices and action, that capacity itself remains a matter of great moment.
NGOs are thought to enjoy such advantages as capacity to innovate, flexibility, responsiveness, efficiency, costeffectiveness, and participation, as compared and contrasted with official agencies. Whether this is true in all instances is another question, but there is a certain amount of evidence to support the general contention. A QUANGO runs a serious risk of sacrificing these advantages in its pursuit of resources, its mimicking of official norms, practices, standards, and requirements.
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Accountability
The question of accountability is one with which all NGOs have been obliged to wrestle, and it is a topic too complex to explore in this short Encyclopaedia entry. Suffice it to say, this is an issue more pressing for QUANGOs than those which are more legitimately constructed and grounded in civil society. Accountability is likely to be almost entirely upward, and there may be little sense of internal accountability or accountability to partners. Consistency and Continuity
This is a twin set of issues which need to be considered together. A relatively independent NGO has a greater chance of being able to chart its own course, devise its own strategy and maintain a higher degree of consistency of practice over time than one whose autonomy is compromised and is more dependent on outside sustenance, especially when the organization’s financial base is very narrow. Funding Base and Sustainability
Another key issue is terms and conditions of funding. As a general rule, the broader an organization’s funding base, the greater will be its financial security and hence its independence. An organization which is narrowly dependent on one or a very small number of supporters is more subject to the vicissitudes of official corporate funding policies. When those policies change, the organization becomes vulnerable and comes under great pressure to conform. The vagaries of public policy and funding preferences raise an obvious problem of sustainability. An organization which has either lost its independence of action, if it ever enjoyed such a happy state, and which chooses to change with the shifting of the wind in order to survive runs the risk of losing its principles, values and scope for autonomous decision-making. If the compromises it feels obliged to make are fundamental to its character, ethos and modus operandi, it effectively becomes, at some point, a QUANGO. Sociopolitical and Economic Context
The general socioeconomic conditions in which NGOs exist substantially influence what kinds are likely to flourish. It is admittedly very difficult in societies where local financial resources are limited to achieve a happy condition of independence from foreign donors, almost all of whom have terms and conditions of some degree of stringency. Finally, none of this discussion can be divorced from political context. A tighter, more controlling regime is likely to limit the scope of independent action in the
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interest of exerting its own social control. By contrast, more democratic governments committed to the notion of pluralism and encouraging a vibrant NGO sector are more likely to avoid imposing unreasonable restrictions on freedom of association and action.
International Perspectives QUANGOs can be found in most parts of the world. They exist within countries, throughout broader regions and internationally. The phenomenon is international, indeed global in its manifestations. One authority has captured the problem well: ‘‘the successful few NGOs have pumped up expectations of the many, in turn opening the way for new NGOs to be formed. A large number of these have entered the picture for less than honest reasons, and the NGO field is now strewn with somewhat suspicious newcomers’’ (Dichter, 1999). The ‘‘suspicious newcomers’’ include a host of QUANGOs as well as assorted GONGOs, BONGOs, DONGOs, BRINGOs, and MONGOs, and they are ubiquitous. No consideration of a subject like this can ignore the question of ‘‘globalization.’’ Though too large a topic for extensive discussion in an entry of this length, global dimensions cannot be escaped. Notwithstanding the absence of a universally agreed-upon definition of ‘‘globalization,’’ there are certainly some aspects which do belong in this exploration. These include the communications, cultural and governance dimensions. Moreover, powerful institutions of global governance do reach to all corners of the earth and profoundly influence local social, economic and political realities. It is possible, with little difficulty, to identify and describe the ideological framework within which agencies like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund operate. The tendency to denigrate the state and to elevate the ‘‘private’’ domain, which reached its apogee around the beginning of the 1990s, though arguably pursued with less vigour at the moment of writing, has unboundedly encouraged and shaped the development of quasi-nongovernmental forms of organization. This development emphasizes instrumental values. It is no accident, then, that the ‘‘privatization’’ policy has been advanced in the north, south, east, and west. To be sure, it has played itself out differently from place to place, but the characteristics are readily recognizable wherever they occur.
Future Directions The phenomenon of the QUANGO is unlikely to disappear, though some shifts in practice may occur in light of accumulating experience. There may well be a shift back to a new equilibrium, already underway as the NGO looses some of its lustre
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and as the implications of an unregulated private sector become clearer. Though one should not confuse private profit-making and nonprofit making organizations, it is apparent that official and public thinking about the role of the state, hence what happens outside the state, is currently undergoing a very significant shift. The value of the ‘‘private,’’ in both its positive and its negative aspects, may well come to be seen in a more realistic light. Hence, a more balanced view of the values and strengths of a vibrant NGO sector will likely emerge side-by-side with a review of the private sector and its regulatory regime. The case of China is undoubtedly an important current example of a political dispensation in which conflicting tendencies play themselves out. On the one hand, there appears to be some openness to external associations but also a degree of reluctance to allow too much independence. It is no exaggeration to say that all eyes are on China, given its spectacular economic growth over the past couple of decades, its increasing military might within the Asia region and its expanding cultural connections around the world. China provides a notable current example of a political dispensation with some openness to external associations but also reluctant to allow too much freedom. Trends in the development of civil society be no less important than in other fields of life, and how China handles NGOs will be carefully watched, as one model. One recent book notes that China has over 300 environmental nongovernmental organizations (ENGOs) alone (McBeath and Rosenberg, 2006: 60–62). Undoubtedly, this number reflects a real and growing concern about environmental conditions, and thus a growing awareness on the part of civil society. It also suggests an official willingness to seek external support from INGO as well as official channels in addressing these issues. Whether particular Chinese ENGOs (as well as other specialist NGOs) should be categorized as QUANGOs or GONGOs, would require a study of their individual characteristics. Another phenomenon which the world is likely to continue to experience is what another author has termed ‘‘managed pluralism.’’ "
Managed pluralism entails both encouraging and constraining civil society . . . . the managed pluralist regime seeks both to orchestrate and to arbitrarily limit that activity. The emphasis on ‘‘seeks’’ is important. The leadership in a managed pluralist regime is sophisticated enough to realize that stifling all independent expression and political diversity is neither possible nor desirable (Balzer, 2003: 191).
As his example, he offers an insightful analysis of Russia under President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin. One dimension of this managed pluralism is to be found in the Government’s treatment of civil society (2003: 207–209). A ‘‘managed pluralist’’ regime, unlike a fully authoritarian, and much more a totalitarian regime is sensitive to domestic and international pressures to allow some degree of third sector activity. How regimes will respond depends on a number of circumstances. However, there are likely to be many variants on the Russian model. Contrasting with these examples of NGO development in authoritarian contexts, there will almost certainly continue to be more permissive environments in which an authentic NGO movement will thrive. By the same token, the tendency towards QUANGOism will undoubtedly persist as long as governments favour instrumentalism and public service contracting of programs to NGOs as well as to profit-making private sector firms. We live in interesting times!
Cross-References
▶ GONGOs ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History
References/Further Readings Agazzi, I. (2006). Les ONG dans le system ONUsien: Vers un partenariat multi-acteurs. Conference des ONG ayant des relations avec les Nations Unies (CONGO), Grenoble, le 14 fevrier. Baehr, P. R. (2007). Foreign policy actors and human rights. In I. Boefefijn & J. Goldschmidt (Eds.), Human rights in the polder: Human rights and security in the public and private spheres (pp. 139–159). Antwerp, Belgium: Intersentia. Balzer, H. (2003, July–September). Managed pluralism: Vladimir Putin’s emerging regime. Post-Soviet Affairs, 19(3), 189–227. Brown, L. D., & Covey, J. G. (1986). Organizational development in social change organizations: Some implications for practice. Boston: Institute for Development Research. Chaulia, S. (2006, January 19). Democratization, NGOs and colour revolutions. Open Democracy, from http:/www.opendemocracy.net/ globalization-institutions_government/colour_revolutions. Curtin, D. (n.d.). Non-governmental representation vs. civil society deliberation: A contemporary EU governance dilemma. Paper presented to ARENA Annual Conference, Oslo, 2–3 March 2002. Draft. Dichter, T. W. (1999). Globalization and its effects on NGOs: Efflorescence or a blurring of roles and relevance? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28(Suppl. 4), 38–58. Drainville, A. C. (2001). Thinking beyond cosmopolitan ghosts: On the relevance of the avant-garde. Telos, 120, 49–72. Fisher, W. F. (1997). Doing good? The politics and antipolitics of NGO practices. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26, 439–464. Florini, A. (2006). International NGOs. In R. A. W. Rhodes, S. A. Binder & B. A. Rockman (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of political institutions (pp. 673–690). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Quasi Nongovernmental Organizations QUANGOs Global Policy Forum. (1986–2007). Defining NGOs: Articles and documents, from www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/intro/defining/index.htm Hirsch, J. (2003). The State’s new clothes: NGOs and the internationalization of states. Rethinking Marxism: A Journal of Economics, Culture & Society, 15(2), 237–262. Hulme, D., & Edwards, M. (Eds.) (1997). NGOs, States and donors: Too close for comfort? New York: St. Martin’s Press in association with Save the Children. Irish, L. E., Kushen, R., & Simon, K. W. (n.d.). Guidelines for laws affecting civic organization (pp. 91–93). New York: Open Society Institute in co-operation with the International Centre for Not-for-Profit Law. Iriyama, A. (2005). Government-nonprofit relations: A Japanese case. Tokyo, Rikkyu Journal of Social Design Studies, from http://www. rikkyo.ne.jp/web/z2000368/journalsd/no4_thesis03.html Korten, D. (1990). Getting to the 21st. century: Voluntary action and the global agenda. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Lee, S.-C., & Wang, Y. (2005). A study on the establishment and transformations of Chinese type QUANGOs. International Review of Public Administration, 10(1), 45–58. Lindblom, A.-K. (2005). Non-governmental organizations in international law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McBeath, J., & Rosenberg, J. (2006). Comparative environmental politics. Amsterdam: Springer. NationMaster.com, from www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/NonGoverment-Organization. Saxby, J. (1996). Who owns the private aid agencies? In D. Sogge (Ed.) Compassion and calculation: The business of private foreign aid. London: Pluto Press. Serbin, A. (1997, March 13). Globalization, civil society and democratic deficit in the integration process, Caracas. Venezuela Analytica, Electronic Magazine Bilingual. Smillie, I. (1995). The Alms Bazaar: Altruism under fire – non-profit organizations and international development. Ottawa, Canada: International Development Research Centre/Intermediate Technology Publications. Steinberg, N. (2001, December). Background paper on GONGOs and QUANGOs and wild NGOs. Mimeo, New York: World Federalist Movement.
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Stephenson, C. (2005, January). Nongovernmental Organizations (NGOs), from www.beyondintractability.org/essay/role_ngo/ Strazisar, B. (2007, March). Legislative powers and (X) NGOs. Munich, Germany: Munich Personal RePEc Archive, Munich University Library, from http://mpra.ub.uni-meunchen:de/3767 Uphoff, N. (1996). Why NGOs are not a third sector: A sectoral analysis with some thoughts on accountability, sustainability and evaluation. In M. Edwards & D. Hulme (Eds.), Beyond the magic bullet: NGO performance and accountability in the post-cold war world. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press. Vakil, A. C. (1997). Confronting the classification problem: Toward a taxonomy of NGOs. World Development, 25(12), 2057–2070. Wedel, J. R. (2002, August). Blurring the boundaries of the state-private divide: Implications for corruption. Paper presented at the European Association of Social Anthropologists Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, from www.anthrobase.com/Txt/W/Wedel_J_01.htm Weiss, T. G., & Gordenker, L. (Eds.) (2007). NGOs, the UN and global governance. Boulder, CO: Lynne Reinner. Whiting, S. H. (1991, November). The politics of NGO development in China. Voluntas, 2(2), 16–48. Wikipedia, NGOs – Non Governmental Organizations, from www.nonprofitexpert.com/ngo.htm. Yaworsky, W. R. (2005). At the whim of the State: Neoliberalism and nongovernmental organizations in Guerrero, Mexico. Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, 21(2), 403–427.
Quasi Nongovernmental Organizations QUANGOs ▶ QUANGOs
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R Raiffeisen Banks CAMILLO VON MUELLER
Introduction Raiffeisen banks are cooperative banks that are owned and controlled by their members. As not-for-profit institutions the primary goal of Raiffeisen banks is to provide credit and other financial services to promote their member’s economic development and well-being. Although cooperative banks exist around the globe, the term ‘‘Raiffeisen’’ is only present in a limited number of countries such as Austria, Germany, Italy, Luxemburg, and Switzerland.
History The idea of Raiffeisen banks dates back to the names of Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen and Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch who established the first credit cooperatives in nineteenth century Germany, viewing underdeveloped credit markets as significant causes of poverty. Raiffeisen, who founded the first rural credit cooperatives in 1864, actively promoted the idea of self-help and a strong cooperative spirit. Due to the cooperative structures implied by Raiffeisen, information asymmetries and conflicts of interests between creditors and debtors were largely diminished. By basing credit cooperatives on the concept of unlimited liability, unsatisfied external creditors could sue any individual cooperative member up to the full amount owed to the creditors in case the cooperatives failed. Banerjee et al. (1994) argue that the principle of unlimited liability induced cooperative members to mutually monitor their economic activities. As a consequence, the information costs of assessing the credit risk of borrowers were significantly lower for cooperatives than they would have been for commercial banks. Raiffeisen’s idea to extend credit opportunities to otherwise excluded parts of society by decreasing information costs and overcoming principle-agent problems through cooperative mechanisms was an important factor in the economic progress of many
industrialized economies and plays a vital role in the context of development banking.
Mission and Activities Since credit cooperatives exist in different contexts all around the world they vary significantly in terms of activities, structure, assets, and average institutional size. Having originally been founded as promoters of financial and economic development in rural areas, Raiffeisen banks and other cooperative banks in industrialized economies are nowadays fully-fledged banks that offer depository and credit services similar to commercial banks. In many developing economies, credit cooperatives still operate like nineteenth century Raiffeisen banks providing a gateway to financial markets for people who have no access to alternative funding opportunities. As financial intermediaries that mobilize local capital in order to grant credits, these cooperatives help their members to start small businesses, build family homes and finance education.
Structure, Governance and Funding Credit cooperatives worldwide are founded on the ideas of local independence and self-ownership. Most of them are funded through their members’ investments as well as reinvested profits that stem from banking and other commercial activities. Traditionally, members elect their boards of directors in a democratic one-person-one-vote system that is independent of the amount of money that has been invested into the cooperative by the single member. Raiffeisen banks and other cooperative banks often form networks in order to better serve the interests of their members.
Accomplishments What started as local projects in nineteenth century Germany has become a decisive part of the international financial system. According to the European Association of Cooperative Banks, cooperative banks served more than 140 million customers in the European Union in 2007. For the same year, the World Council of Credit
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Unions estimated some 46,000 nonbank cooperatives that provided financial services in more than 95 countries and oversaw more than US$1 trillion.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Credit Unions ▶ Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies ▶ Raiffeisen, Friedrich Wilhelm ▶ Schulze-Delitzsch, Franz Hermann
References/Further Readings Banerjee, A. V. et al. (1994). Thy neighbour’s keeper. The design of a credit cooperative with theory and a test. The Quarterly Journal of Economics May, 491–515. European Association of Co-operative Banks. Fromhttp://www.eurocoop banks.coop/; 08/01/2008. Guinnane, T. W. (2002, March 15). Deligated monitors, large and small: Germany’s banking system, 1800–1914. Journal of Economic Literature, 40(1), 73–124. Raiffeisen, F. W. (1988). Die Darlehenskassen-Vereine als Mittel zur Abhilfe der Noth der la¨ndlichen Bevo¨lkerung sowie auch der sta¨dtischen Handwerker und Arbeiter, unaltered facsimile-print of the edition of 1866, Wiesbaden: Dt. Genossenschaftsverlag World Council of Credit Unions. From http://www.woccu.org/member serv/intlcusystem; 08/01/200
Raiffeisen, Friedrich Wilhelm WIM VAN OPSTAL
Basic Biographical Information Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen, one of the founding fathers of the cooperative movement, was born in 1818 in Hamm an der Sieg (Germany). He was the son of Gottfried Friedrich Raiffeisen, a farmer and a mayor. After a brief career in the military, Friedrich Raiffeisen became mayor himself at the early age of 27, an office he would carry out for the next 20 years in several municipalities in the Rhineland region, back then one of the poorest regions in Germany. During his life, Raiffeisen himself was not spared by distress as three of his seven children died very young and his wife passed away at the age of 36. Due to an eye illness, he had to retire at the age of 47, urging him to run a small cigar factory and a wine shop. Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen died in 1888 in Heddesdorf at the age of 69.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Raiffeisen is known as a cooperative leader who reinvented microfinance by creating rural savings and credit cooperatives. While his contemporary Hermann SchulzeDelitzsch introduced similar initiatives in urban areas, Raiffeisen addressed problems in rural areas. It was the great famine of 1846/47 that inspired him to establish a rural charity association, importing grain from nonaffected areas to distribute bread to the poorest. Later on, he founded a loan society (Flammersfelder Hu¨lfsverein) in order to stimulate savings and to provide credit to farmers, allowing them to buy cattle and equipment. These initiatives, however, rested heavily on philanthropy, rendering its viability uncertain. In the 1860s, Raiffeisen followed the example of Schulze-Delitzsch by introducing the concept of cooperative self-help in what would become the first rural savings and credit cooperative (Darlehnskassen-Verein) in Germany. Until his dead, Friedrich Raiffeisen put considerable effort in the propagation of this type of cooperative. In 1866 he wrote a handbook on the establishment and governance of Darlehnskassen. In 1872, the first rural cooperative bank (later known as Raiffeisenbank) was set up, as a structure to strengthen the financial position of the Darhlenskassen. Additionally, rural producer cooperatives were set up for the storage, marketing, and distribution of agricultural produce and joint purchase on agricultural factor markets. The innovations of Raiffeisen laid the foundation of a cooperative movement and provided a prototype for rural credit associations in more than 100 countries, resulting today in hundreds of thousands of cooperatives and affecting the lives of more than 150 million people through the concept of cooperative self-help.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Credit Unions ▶ Schulze-Delitzsch, Franz Hermann
References/Further Readings Guinnane, T. W. (1997). Regional organizations in the German cooperative banking system in the late 19th century. Research in Economics, 51(3), 251–274. Raiffeisen, F. W. (1951). Die Darlehnskasse-Vereine (7th ed. [1st ed. in 1886]). Neuwied: Verlag der Raiffeisendruckerei. Seibel, H. D. (2003). History matters in microfinance. Small Enterprise Development, An International Journal of Microfinance and Business Development, 14(2), 10–12.
RAND Corporation
RAND Corporation CHRISTOPHER S. BIGGERS
Address of Organization 1200 South Hayes Street Arlington, VA 22202-5050 USA www.rand.org
Introduction The RAND Corporation is a nonprofit institution that seeks to support policy and decision making by providing expert research and analysis. Acquiring its name for the contraction of ‘‘Research and Development,’’ RAND has become an influential think tank whose subject matter touches social and economic issues as well as national security.
Brief History With the financial support of the Ford Foundation, RAND emerged out of World War II when a small group of experts broke away from the Douglas Aircraft Corporation to form the one of the United States’ first contract research ‘‘think tanks.’’ Although the term ‘‘think tank’’ was coined in Britain during the 1940s, it was first imported into the United States to describe RAND’s mission. In the early years, RAND was housed in Santa Monica, California, but has further expanded to include facilities in other US metropolitans like Arlington and Pittsburgh along with international branches in Europe and the Middle East. RAND currently employs over 800 researchers, three times as many as 1948s sum of 200, and has become a leader by setting new standards in methodological research.
Mission RAND’s primary goal is to provide objective analysis and effective solutions that address the challenges facing the public and private sectors around the world. While RAND’s mission was first conceptualized around military decision makers, its distinct methodological approach has proved invaluable to the private sector by providing researchers and social policy planners a firm base to tackle issues such as poverty, health care, education as well as issues affecting municipal services.
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Activities RAND is actively involved in various research outlets which include a Military Fellows Program, a Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, as well as a Graduate Summer Associate Program. Additionally, RAND has maintained its own graduate school since 1970 which has received noteworthy acclaim in the area of public policy analysis. The school was renamed the Pardee RAND Graduate School in 2003 when alumnus Frederick Pardee pledged $10 million in support. Lastly, RAND operates its own Journal of Economics in conjunction with Blackwell Publishing covering diverse research topics from industrial organization and law to economic regulation.
Structure and Governance RAND is structured hierarchically with an executive office at the head comprised of the CEO/President, Vice President, and a Special Assistant. There are nine additionally offices that manage the daily affairs and another 11 active research units. The research agenda is guided by the leadership of a volunteer advisory board comprised of members from both the public and private sector whose experience and commitment to nonpartisan politics is considered ‘‘essential.’’
Funding RAND’s resources are derived from various sources. Like other think tanks and universities, RAND competes for contracts from government agencies around the world. Additionally, RAND still maintains many of its initial institutes and centers working solely on US national security concerns and is annually supported by the US Department of Defense. The Corporation also receives private philanthropic support for the organizations own projects.
Accomplishments Among RAND’s notable accomplishments includes research in consultation with the US Air Force that led to E-mail and the Internet (e.g. packet switching) in addition to its initial studies advancing US space exploration. RAND’s free thinking environment has contributed to the expertise of over 31 Nobel Laureates whose work has played an important role in the public interest.
Cross-References
▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Nonprofit Organizations ▶ Think Tanks
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References/Further Readings Campbell, V. (2004). How RAND invented the post-war world. Invention and Technology, 20(1). Hounshell, D. (1998). The Cold War, RAND, and the generation of knowledge, 1946–1962. Santa Monica, CA: RAND, RAND Research Projects.
Reciprocity ANDRAS KELEN Budapest College of Management, Budapest, Hungary
Introduction Reciprocity is a time-honored concept of cultural anthropology that has found its way first into sociology and, recently, into the study of the informal economy, third sector research, and social entrepreneurship, too.
Definition As Merriam-Webster defines it, this notion is: 1. The quality or state of being reciprocal: mutual dependence, action, or influence 2. A mutual exchange of privileges; specifically: recognition by one of two countries or institutions of the validity of licenses or privileges granted by the other. In his ‘‘Dictionnaire de l’autre economie’’ entry Laurent Gardin (2005) also stresses the interdisciplinary character of this concept pointing out that reciprocity’s usefulness lies in its ability to illuminate economic transactions other than market-coordinated ones. Mention must be made of significant examples of indirect reciprocity when the timeline for requiting really extends.
Historical Background The predecessor of the reciprocity concept is Max Weber. Among scattered apercus, he devotes an unusually long exposition for Bittarbeit (neighborly help) in his seminal Economy and Society (p. 198 according to the standardized pagination) in the train of thought on household economies. The detailed analysis is due to the fact that this rich category of mutual aid gives Weber the opportunity to characteristically link this type of voluntary labor to his elaborated forms of domination. For him, Bittarbeit is swinging between a genuine support between community members and involuntary, often coerced and essentially
unreciprocated services (requited in form of ‘‘protection’’) giving rise to servitude and serfdom. Weber also refers to mutuum, the Roman law name of interest-free loans as a financial tool related to a living community or rather family while outside such a close-knit circle coercion in granting such a loan cannot be excluded. Another forerunner is Bronislaw Malinowski (1885– 1942), a Polish-born ethnologist, a disciple of Karl Bu¨cher’s from Leipzig who – when doing his famous years-long field work in the Trobriand Islands of the Pacific – discovered and described the kula commerce. Underlying kula, as a sophisticated system of commercially exploitable exchange in form of the circulation of donated objects, he sees an omnipresent gift giving and gift reciprocating (Malinowski, 1950). This reciprocity never regards the value of the exchanged objects, even the use-value is often disregarded. Instead, the focus is at the communitygenerating component that opens the possibility of later contacts, perhaps commerce. Neither the occasional donation of free gifts, nor the propensity to utilitarian barter, but equilibrium in social behavior dominates. As a result, however, this gainless economy of protracted and complicated transactions has turned into one of the most elaborate trading system known to man. As an incentive, it is not only gain but reciprocity, too that is capable of eliciting serious economic performance and work. As Malinowski put it: ‘‘Most, if not all economic acts are found to belong to some chain of reciprocal gifts and counter gifts, which in the long run balance, benefiting both sides equally. . . . The man who would persistently disobey the rulings of law in his economic dealings would soon find himself outside the social and economic order’’ (Malinowski, Crime and Custom in Savage Society, 1926, pp. 40–41). As to further precursors, mention must be made finally of Karl Bu¨cher himself. As Karl Polanyi’s entry on Bu¨cher in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences states (Polanyi 1968), Bu¨cher’s attention has been drawn on economic exchanges without a market. For him, nonmarket exchanges accounted for a large part of the economy in its premodern phase of economic history. As nonmarket behavior he exemplifies the gift relationship, borrowing, and lending of goods and services, and labor provided in exchange for future help. These kinds of nonmarket exchange are characterized by a give-and-take relationship and should therefore be distinguished from actions born out of sheer altruism. Bu¨cher’s main oeuvre from the year 1922 is ‘‘Die Enstehung der Volkswirtschaft’’ (The Emergence of the National Economy). Later on, Mises (1881–1963) espoused this approach when designing the praxeologic concept of ‘‘catallaxy,’’ the science
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of exchange with profit (Human Action, 1949). For liberals ever since, the desired state of society encompasses only such market-coordinated economic transactions caused by symmetrical and mutual adjustment alone without planned ends from above.
Key Issues The founding father of this concept is Karl Polanyi, a Hungarian-born scholar of economic sociology (1886– 1957). When designing his four underlying principles of economic activity (The Great Transformation, 1944), he distinguishes between the sociological arrangements of reciprocity (symmetry), oikos self-reliance (household autarchy), redistribution (centrality) and exchange (selfregulating markets). With the unfolding of these patterns and theorizing on institutional history of the economy, he discerns the oikos, reciprocity, redistribution, and the selfregulating and price-regulating market as patterns of integration, which have played a dominant role in society over the course of time. According to Polanyi, drawing on To¨nnies’ dichotomy between status/Gemeinschaft and contractus/Gesellschaft, a society based on contractus possesses an institutionally separate economic sphere of exchange, whereas status corresponds to an earlier stage. This earlier condition goes with reciprocity (or redistribution) and the components of the economy remain embedded in noneconomic institutions such as kinship, marriage, agegroups, secret societies, ceremonial exchanges and public solemnities – or simply politics. The strongest criticism of The Great Transformation has been directed at the passages where the author argues that reciprocate (and redistributive) forms of integration have been much more common in human history than self-regulating market systems. Anthropologists faulted Polanyi saying that he asked the right question, but gave a romanticist answer in claiming that markets played no important role in earlier human societies. The dubious rationale behind this argument is that anthropologists always insist that the primitive and peasant peoples whom they study were as rational as any westerners. In relation to separated actions of give-and-take on the long run, Polanyi also speaks of compensation as a civic virtue. Exactly this is the point where recent interpretations – that go fairly beyond cultural anthropology and comparative economic systems – can connect. An intriguing modern application of reciprocity is to be found in the ongoing discussion on the Commons. This discussion is centering on the fact that the Commons is, as all know it, out for grab and remains at the same time one of the few remnants of common-pool resources in the world. As Lam (1998) put it, protecting a
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common-pool resource from overuse requires that users themselves or some external authority create rules that can regulate its exploitation. Devising such rules requires the joint effort of a large proportion of the concerned users. Given that it is costly and that all resource holders will benefit from new rules protecting the resource, creating such rules requires the users overcome known collective-action dilemmas. Groups with longer tradition of mutual trust and supportive communities that enable resource users to reciprocate in behavior are more likely than other groups to succeed in devising and sustaining efficient institutions. This is the spontaneous solidarity, which can emerge in small communities with a shared feeling of fairness toward each other. The situation changes when communities grow, with long chains of division of labor and other sorts of interdependencies that render interactions increasingly impersonal. Reciprocity on the microlevel can easily survive in many forms, some of its essential features may also appear on the community level. However, macrolevel solidarity in the form of unwritten societal contracts is already a different story that has nothing to do with reciprocity. On community level, when it comes to overcoming collective-action dilemmas, the most widely recommended recipe is to draw on social capital – if available. That is communities with enhanced social capital are juxtaposed to disintegrating ones that are defenseless against what is called the tragedy of Commons (overuse of common-pool resources in absence of cooperation). Further on, there is the concept of indirect reciprocity. ‘‘Give and you shall receive.’’ This is built on either cohesive community ties (where members do not forget) or on accumulation of reputation (where goodwill accrues to those who can keep on giving). In case of celebrities then a well-known imbalance evolves, too. Limited to these special cases, indirect reciprocity can also sustain a high level of cooperation, as shown by game theorists and students of social capital alike. There is an intriguing new recurrence of the old notion of reciprocity in the form of time banks (there are many simultaneous terms for this institution just like for the third sector in general). Here the mutual obligation – an inherent component of reciprocity together with mutual trust – is operationalized to a level where multilateral obligations can be accounted for. Reciprocal volunteering within the framework of a time bank is a vital social innovation that has emerged in the last decades of the last century in America and has now come of age in Europe. Pilot projects of a reciprocal economy have exceeded expectations and there is a palpable interest among social entrepreneurs in further exploring the
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potential of such local initiatives to reward citizen participation, redefine volunteering and rebuild community. Occasionally they reveal some antiglobalization features and grow into a political or religious counterculture, especially when it comes to building community not only for the sake of consumption of locally produced goods but also for attaining cultural values. The promotion of emerging local economic ties however, can be smoothly reconciled with existing global business connections in a complementary manner. No city plaza will even perceive it if some hometown money of a solidarity-based economy evolves in its neighborhood. One of the very early mentioning of ‘‘social money’’ is at Gesell (1916). His ideologically imbued ideas, against all the frequent citations, carry mostly philological significance. Time banks are clearinghouses of social credit where a multitude of members (not necessarily personally known to each other but connected by some loose social bond or community tie) perform voluntary labor as an individual contribution to the overall welfare and gain eligibility to an equal level of provision or care by others, not necessarily by those who has made the first input. In these virtual warehouses storing ‘‘petrified toil’’ on behalf of their customers; reciprocity is ensured both at the individual as the regional level – just like in kula. Local initiatives, like a community time bank can help rebuild the core economy of family, neighbors, and friends – amounting to a sort of ‘‘social economy’’ on which the national and global economies ought to rely in order to function properly. Managers of numerous local employment initiatives across the European Union are now poised at a point where newfangled models of traditional self-help can demonstrate positive welfare-producing effects for participants and thus add a new dimension of civil society in communities and across European regions. There exist more and more time banks: in Britain alone there are dozens of them; in Germany it has already a culture of its own (Wohngemeinschaften), even in CentralEastern Europe pilot projects are in full gear. Facilitators follow suit and try their entrepreneurial spirit in setting up and running a time bank scheme. Grant makers, familiar with this unfolding phenomenon appreciate (1) the welfare effect (as far as supplementary ‘‘income’’ can be derived) and, additionally (2) the employment impact (as far as some crowding-out or spillover consequences vis-a`-vis the SME sector do not occur).
International Perspectives In modern praxeology, where sociology, psychology, and economics are hardly to distinguish in modeling rational
action, strong reciprocity (Fehr et al., 2002) means a regime – other than conventional social norms – where cooperation is coerced and defectors are all punished irrespective of cost. Cooperators are seen as producers of second-degree collective goods (norm adhesion) and defectors are considered to be second-degree free riders (taking the free lunch in respect of norm maintenance). In Central-Eastern Europe an anthropological pattern of reciprocity with its rich social, ethical, and affective contents has long survived into the decades of state socialism and well beyond. As Lengyel (1995) claims, husbands in younger couples often help each other in house building where professionals carry out the few structural building but the lions’ share remains for laics in order to spare on expenses. Family men, having received such a help always requite it in turn when a commensurable need arises by former donors. The state as an employer has endorsed this practice by allowing a year-long unpaid leave of absence for self-help house builders. Certainly, the economic kernel of this kind of reciprocity is deep enmeshed in social bonds. Professor Ferge often draws on this concept, too. For her (Ferge, 2000), the ongoing contraction and crisis of the welfare state brings about the reconsideration of the underlying social contracts. Her typology of eligibilitybestowing contract-types other then the widespread welfarist redistribution looks as follows: 1. One-sided giving without the expectation of anything in return – that is charity or almsgiving. 2. Reciprocity – that is donation with the expectation of something in return, although equivalence is not calculated. 3. Citizens’ rights – rights to ‘‘social inheritance’’ implying a modicum of welfare, decent working conditions, education, health services, etc. 4. Exchange based on the market principle. This principle is shaped by supply and demand, with prices ultimately defined by the opportunity costs of the partners. Substantively it is economic activity based on freedom of property ownership and freedom of contract in the context of unlimited ‘‘free’’ competition and profit maximization.
Future Directions Time bank volunteering is tantamount to an exchange of virtual currency. What is more, with the extension of the timeline within which requiting matures, social credit is also generated. The extension of this timeline – the equivalent of ‘‘interest’’ – leads over to indirect reciprocity (the time span within which requiting is due). In this context
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of the social economy, time is not money. Volunteering time invested into some helping job amount to building trust in the community. This virtual currency, sort of a complementary currency, is ‘‘producer-identified money’’ as opposed to ‘‘fiat money,’’ such as legal tenders are. Its acceptance cannot be made mandatory; it is only the demander’s revealed preference which can have it accepted. As to the pragmatics of such an institutionalized reciprocity (Kelen 2001), it is enough pinning down that the acquisition of their certificates proceeds with the provision of ‘‘priced’’ services listed by them as a clearinghouse. The issued amount of paramonetary device (entitling the bearer to receive proportional pro bono services if some matching supply is found) constitutes a liability (in accounting terms) and should be properly accounted for on the debit side of the clearinghouse’s ledger. National currencies may suffer under chronic overspending, but excessive creation of this liquidity would merely mean that reciprocity yields to donation in the worst case. Reciprocity proper, unlike charitable donation, is however, a peer-to-peer transaction of equals, and functionally it serves to preserve this equality or symmetry. If time banks can draw further interest and attract talent for volunteering then at a point of critical mass this project amounts to no less than the successful issuance of local currencies that can complementarily help prevail the national $ or the federated € as global currencies. If economic communication between smaller networks – the indigenous language of informal household help – can be accentuated, casual, and fragile helping networks become stable. This is a prerequisite to making financial regimes more and more stringent. If complementary trading partners – previously unknown to each other – and much needed, pent-up services find each other, thereby augmenting and completing imperfect links within the organically developed networks – this is a precondition, too. Informal neighborly help – peer-to-peer communication – intensifying to such an extent that it enables the underemployed finding an outlet for their capacity outside the economy proper – this is again something where economic liberalism can be built on as a precondition. Enhanced local exchange provides additional security (next to welfare provisions) alike for those who participate only loosely in formal employment structures. This is again something where the selective, nonuniversal social services can be built on in a never discriminatory way. The nurturing of complementary local exchanges – promoted by regional paramonetary device – in parallel with advancing globalization is appealing because it offers people a sense of identity that is less hostile to others,
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while being denominationally selective or otherwise exclusive. Local networks in society and parochialism in general are often associated with narrow access, uneven, or inequitable services, and exclusions. This necessarily applies also to local paramonetary devices. However if statutory institutions are parallel and ubiquitous – like the note bank’s state certified money – then the equality of chances is not harmed. This new phenomenon opens a fresh outlook to how finances are to be changed under a monetary regime where alternative segmented local currencies are allowed to circulate. Until now only speculations stood at disposal, even if these speculations originate in the writings of Nobel-laureate Professor Hayek (1899–1992): he had developed a full theory of competing nonnational commercial monies. Due to the widening movement of time banks, the practice in denationalized and even defederated monies is available, too (Blanc 2000). Having briefly charted the economic consequences of time banks as a business model of reciprocal volunteering, this issue is now cursorily treated from a sociological point of view, too. An important train of thought is the sociological literature on the informal economy taking its beginning with the research of a leading Austrian scholar (Badelt, 1985). The rendering of informal economic activities into focus (Giarini and Liedtke, 1996) has helped arrive at a better understanding of what creates welfare in society. The observer can also draw on what has been amply said on Roszak’s counter culture and counter public forums (Habermas, 1981). ‘‘Counter’’ public spheres exist where the owner and user of the means of production are not detached (as is the case with modern production), and where, instead of the exclusivity of professional expertise, one can apply, occasionally make do with lay skills. The existing literature on antiproductionist alternative lifestyles regards self-reliance as a revolution against ‘‘reckless’’ consumption for the sake of a more sustainable societal system. The revolutionary edge of these initiatives has gone with the wind. The ‘‘social credit’’ of time banks together with their enthronization of the ancient pattern of reciprocity is ripe now to be mainstreamed within social policymaking. The emphasis is now on practical issues (the equivalent of poisoned credits here is a presumed social bond that in fact does not restrain to cooperation) as locally thinking counter-spheres with their producer-identified monies multiply and get inserted into everyday life without endangering the macroeconomic stability and financial equilibrium of a region. This is the vantage point where local self-contained social economies – submarket circuits of exchange
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between consumers and producers – can start scattering and flourishing.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Commons ▶ Community, Types of ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Giving Circles ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Informal Sector ▶ Polanyi, Karl ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Social Economy ▶ Time Banking UK ▶ Volunteers ▶ Weber, Max
References/Further Readings ¨ konomie der freiwilligen Arbeit. Frankfurt, Badelt, Ch. (1985). Politische O NY: Campus Verlag. Blanc, J. (2000). Les monnaies paralleles (p. 351) Paris: L’Harmattan. Fehr, E., Fischbacher, U., & Ga¨chter, S. (2002). Strong reciprocity, human cooperation and the enforcement of social norm. Human Nature, 13, 1–25. Ferge, Zs. (2000). In defence of messy or multi-principle contracts. European Journal of Social Security, 2(1), 7–33. Gardin, L. (2005). Reciprocite´. entry in Dictionnaire de l’autre economie. Brouwer: Paris Gesell, S. (1916). Die natu¨rliche Wirtschaftsordnung durch Frieland und Friegeld. Gauke Verlag: Hamburg. Giarini, O., & Liedtke, P. M. (1996). The employment dilemma and the future of work. A Report to The Club of Rome (p. 140). The geneva Association, Geneva. Habermas, J. (1981). Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns. Frankfurt a. M.: Suhrkamp Verlag. Hayek, Friedrich, A. (1978). Denationalisation of Money, 2nd ed. London: Institute of Economic Affairs. Kelen, A. (2001). The gratis economy (p. 307). Budapest: Central European University Press. Lam, W. F. (1998). Governing irrigation systems in Nepal. Oakland, CA: ICS Press. Lengyel, Gy. (1995). Economic sociology in East-Central Europe: Trends and challenges. Paper for the 2nd Conference of European Sociologists, Budapest. Malinowski, B. (1950). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge/ Kegan Paul. Mises, L. (1949). Human Action, Yale University Press. Polanyi, C. (1944). The great transformation. Boston, MA: Beacon. Polanyi, C. (1968). Bu¨cher, Karl. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 163–165. To¨nnies, F. (1887, 2005). Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftlich. Weber, M. (Studienausgabe 1972).Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Tu¨bingen: J.C.B.Mohr.
Red Cross ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement
Religious Orders BRYAN T. FROEHLE St. Thomas University, Miami Gardens, FL, USA
Introduction
Religious orders have a strong but understudied relationship to civil society. They provide a model for understanding the development of civil society theory and practice. While the beginning of religious orders per se is tied to monasticism in Eastern and Western Christianity, theorists have long drawn analogies between ‘‘religious orders’’ and similar phenomena within other world religious traditions. One may speak still more broadly of forms of civil life and organization that have colonized the social space once more or less preponderantly occupied by religious orders.
Definition Religious orders are not ‘‘religions in themselves’’ but rather distinct ‘‘orderings of religion.’’ In this sense Rappaport (1999: 169) refers to a variety of such orderings, including those of persons: ‘‘religious orders.’’ ‘‘Religion’’ itself can be understood in its older sense as referring to a form of discipline, a specific ‘‘way of life.’’ Thus the phrase to ‘‘enter religion’’ or ‘‘be a religious’’ historically referred to the taking on a particular discipline represented by the ordering of life found within a Catholic religious order. Using the concept of the religious virtuoso first enunciated by Weber (1921/1968: 538), Wittberg (1994) offers a social theoretical conceptual base for the study of the Catholic religious order, a term she extends by analogy to a number of organizational forms across Christianity in European history and in the United States (Wittberg, 2006: 4–9). As such, the concept of religious order has considerable application to the role of religion in civil society and the dynamics of civil society more generally. Religious orders are then critical mediating institutions; this mediating role, so critical to the history of religious orders, is central to understanding contemporary civil society development and theory. Given the long and distinctive history of religious orders within Roman Catholicism, it may be helpful to
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turn to the definition offered by the various formulations found within ecclesiastical law. There are two Codes of Canon Law within the Catholic Church: one for the Western or Latin Rite Church and another for the Eastern Churches. On the subject of religious orders, ecclesiastical law for the Eastern Churches is more historical in nature, envisioning monastic life as the core form of religious life (Beal et al., 2000: 742). The Latin (Western) code is more conceptual and freer, taking a stance informed by the notion of subsidiarity. That is, the individual manifestations of religious life are expected to create and follow their own models, assuming that they generally correlate to the ecclesial self-understanding expressed in the Code (Beal et al., 2000: 741). The code recognizes (Canon 577) the diversity of religious institutes (that is, ‘‘religious orders’’) to which those in consecrated life may belong, and the variety of spiritual gifts and forms of life they may follow (Beal et al., 2000: 746). In the Eastern Churches, religious orders tend to be limited to monastic orders, as they tend to be within world religions more generally. Interestingly the Catholic Code of Canon Law no longer uses the term ‘‘religious orders,’’ a term once applied to groups such as the ‘‘Order of St. Benedict’’ or the ‘‘Order of Preachers’’ but by no means to all the organizational forms and traditions of Catholic religious life. Today, Catholic ecclesiastical law (Canon 573 in the Western Code) recognizes two principal concepts: religious institutes and consecrated life (Beal et al., 2000: 743). The former encompasses those entities formerly called ‘‘religious orders’’ as well as ‘‘religious congregations.’’ The latter term includes members of religious institutes and all others (consecrated virgins and hermits, for example) who have been formally set apart – consecrated – to the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience (McBrien, 1995: 1097). A religious order is by definition: ● Part of a larger religious whole, and therefore concerned with relationships within that whole; ● Configured relatively more horizontally than vertically, and thus critically important for the horizontal networks they shape and the mediations they offer within social and ecclesial hierarchies; ● Semi-independent, and thus enjoying a certain legitimate freedom of action, which provides open space for entrepreneurial experimentation and independent action; ● A resource provider, both for its members and the larger tradition and society of which it is part. This theoretical understanding positions ‘‘religious orders’’ as critical mediators in the relationship between religion and civil society. In this generic, definitional
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sense, religious orders cannot be isolated to Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy. Indeed, forms of Christianity derived from the Reformation era, particularly certain denomination structures or parachurch organizations, might be seen as containing analogous traits to religious orders with respect to civil society. Certain traditions within Islam, perhaps particularly within its Sh’ia and Sufi forms, but also including the Muslim Brotherhood, might be seen as analogous as well (Beyer, 2006: 169). There are also considerable monastic and religious order-like traditions within Asian religious traditions, Hindu, Buddhist, and otherwise (Beyer, 2006: 201, 219, 243, 258). Precisely because such ‘‘religious orders’’ are parts of larger wholes, linked horizontally, semi-independent, and resource providing, there is something about these forms of religion that critically relate to civil society. Such forms of social organization tilled the ground on which today may be found social movements of all kinds (Zald & McCarthy, 1987: 87).
Historical Background As noted, the concept of the ‘‘religious order’’ has complex historical and societal lineages. There are two historical trajectories that most bear examination: religious orders in the history of the Catholic Church and developments within civil society more broadly understood. Within the Catholic Church
Religious orders evolved during the years after the Constantinian settlement that recognized religious toleration and gave Catholic Christianity legal recognition via the Edict of Constantine promulgated in 313. The trajectory moved from recognition to preeminent, even monopoly status: by the end of the fourth century, other religions had become discouraged and legally disadvantaged (Irvin & Sunquist, 2003: 181–183). Originally, the Christian way had been overwhelmingly followed for spiritual reasons. By the end of the fourth century, the Christian way was arguably followed for numerous other reasons. Those anxious to pursue a spiritual lifestyle began to follow the path of those who had been Christian hermits and spiritual seekers in the Egyptian desert and elsewhere. They increasingly came together in communities, establishing themselves as separate societies in search of spiritual perfection just as the larger society was both Christianizing and seemingly collapsing around them. With the major exception only of those Christian communities that had separated from the wider Catholic tradition at the time of Chalcedon (451), the monastic communities of both East and West at this time were part
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of a single Catholic, apostolic tradition. As a result of the mutual separation of Eastern Christianity and Western Christianity in 1054, together with the isolation caused by military loses to rising Islamic powers, the ‘‘religious orders’’ of Eastern Christianity remained monastic in nature, focused on the traditions of stable communities of religious pursuing spiritual disciples and practices in places set apart from the larger society. In the West, monasticism continued to flourish but other developments and new directions unfolded as well. Certain comparisons between monasticism in the East and in the West may be drawn, reflecting the similar position that ‘‘religious orders’’ occupy in civil society; that is, within the voluntary sector between official state power and, at this time until relatively recently, ecclesiastical or formal religious power (Taylor, 2007). This is in spite of the growing cultural and theological gaps between East and West that increased markedly over the centuries. Germanic and Celtic tribes of Northern Europe, for example, were largely Christianized by the presence of monks and monasteries among them. The monasteries build cultural and civil relationships within the political and ecclesiastical environment and created new forms of local social space. Not surprisingly, the marketplace and local bodies of self-government grew up around monasteries, and eventually whole cities as well. In the East, monasticism began when the desert hermits began to live together in the Egyptian desert. But by the time of the Christianization of the Roman Empire, particularly with the Emperor ruling in the East from Constantinople, monastic ‘‘religious orders’’ took on a mediating role within religious and larger social life. By the time of the Arab conquest, the role of the monasteries within the Christian communities of the East became particularly important as a base within civil society for the preservation and projection of Christian towns and villages within the wider territories that fell under the Islamic empire (Irvin & Sunquist, 2001: 273–277, 298). In the West, the development of towns and related economic and legal systems had created by 1200 a fertile opportunity for a new sort of religious order, one with a greater affinity with the then-emerging social reality. This led to the Dominicans (1216) and Franciscans (1221), among others. In contrast to the Benedictines who had depended on working their landholdings and related enterprises for sustenance, these new religious orders depended on the gifts they received from the townspeople, which allowed them to carry on their life and work of preaching and teaching. This emphasis on mendicancy, or begging, grew from their focus on simplicity of lifestyle. Previous monastic orders grew into vast complexes and the
communities were naturally oriented towards administration. The new mendicant orders were more flexible and took on a role within the much more complex, growing urban environment, in the midst of political and ecclesiastical power (McBrien, 1995: 1099). While women’s voices had been present from the beginnings of the monastic movement, these new orders and movements similar to them gave new social space to women who would speak with the authority of their religious experience (Hilkert, 2001: 56). As towns grew to cities, increasing complexity, learning and social specialization, not to mention a world-encompassing development of trade routes, farflung empires and an accompanying missionary presence, new forms of religious orders emerged. The Society of Jesus (1540) was the most notable in a long post-reformation line of relatively more mobile missionary religious orders whose members and institutions became specialized to meet particular needs within the larger society, above all, but by no means exclusively, education (Beyer, 2006: 123, 130). In the nineteenth century the trend continued as numerous new active, or ‘‘apostolic,’’ religious orders (termed ‘‘congregations’’ or ‘‘societies’’) came to be specifically created for such tasks (Hostie, 1983). Women’s communities grew especially quickly, developing into a social space where women could act with greater freedom and creativity than elsewhere in church or society (Puzon, 1996). Fueled in part by this social reality and the institutional space it created, numbers of religious throughout the Catholic world grew rapidly through the middle of the twentieth century. Joining religious orders in the Catholic Church took its place among the other modern occupations to which upwardly mobile Catholics might aspire (Fichter, 1961: 8–27). The sorts of institutions – schools from elementary to higher education, hospitals, and a variety of social service agencies – were ones that were effectively not provided by the state, whether due to a liberal economic outlook that opposed welfare organizations or sheer bigotry and discrimination vis-a`-vis Catholics and Catholics’ social needs from education to social services. Over the centuries in many countries in the Americas and Europe, the state increasingly assumed the role of education and social service provider, sometimes through bitter conflicts with the Catholic Church and its religious orders, and sometimes not. Beginning in the latter half of the twentieth century, precisely as Catholicism became a truly global religious organization, the overall context of religious orders began to again shift (Froehle & Gautier, 2003: 41–42). Membership figures began a period of profound decline through Europe, North America and
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Oceania (Ebaugh, 1993). Around the same time, impelled by the Second Vatican Council, which called members of religious orders to renewal, many religious (especially women) began to transition toward a new conversation about their identity and purpose (Neal, 1984; Nygren & Ukeritis, 1993; Schneiders, 2000). These developments, as with much of post-Vatican II Catholicism, were built on a solid foundation laid in the preceding decades (Kraemer, 2000). Thus, just as religious orders in these parts of the world began to face a steep decline in their numbers, they began to bring considerable energy to focus on ‘‘refounding’’ (Arbuckle, 1988: 88) and how they and their religious orders might see themselves as prophetic (Crosby, 2005: 21). Religious orders pioneered forms of dialogue, along with other new approaches to organizational development, within the church and society as a whole (Hinze, 2006: 130–157; Solfield & Juliano, 2000: 87, 164–165). They also created new organizations specifically for collaboration and mutual resourcing, ones that further developed these models of dialogue while deepening them (Johnson, 2006). In the early decades of the twenty-first century, the situation within Christianity as a whole is more complex than ever. The ‘‘emerging church’’ movement, primarily one within Christian traditions that trace their origins to the time of the Reformation, points to new groups who live as contemporary analogues of the ‘‘religious order’’ (the ‘‘new monastics,’’ the ‘‘new friars’’). These represent efforts to retrieve ways of inculturated (‘‘incarnational’’), prayerful, communal living, complete with a focus on simple lifestyle, a strong sense of mission and a certain marginality. Such expressions of ‘‘emerging Christianity’’ see themselves as the heirs of ‘‘religious orders’’ in a line some trace even to ancient Israel (Bessenecker, 2006: 18). Similar trends may be found among emerging religious communities within Catholicism in the United States (Bendyna, 2006), and this larger reality is part of the same set of contemporary ‘‘new movements’’ within global Catholicism (Hayes, 2005: 2–6). Arguably twentieth century ecumenical European developments such as Taize may be seen as part of these developments as well. Contemporary developments show that the impulse toward creating communities of spiritual virtuosi continues to reach well beyond the historically recognized religious orders within Catholicism. If anything, this is more true today than ever, precisely as civil society and the voluntary sector as a whole has grown. This is also a result of a secularization that has seen religious institutions take their place within contemporary civil society as part of the voluntary sector rather than an ‘‘official’’ ecclesiastical power. ‘‘Religious orders’’ can thus be seen as a
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regularly recurring feature of civil society, one growing out of the human drive to develop, and live communally committed lives within, systems of ultimate meaning. Within Civil Society
Religious orders are intrinsically related to the development of civil society. Well before the emergence of the public sphere during the early modern period (Taylor, 2004: 86, 2007: 93–95) religious orders provided a model for how people could develop strong horizontal relationships and create flourishing spaces between official society, whether political or ecclesiastic, or both. The medieval space occupied by religious orders became part of civil society itself in the modern era. The relative autonomy of the orders vis-a`-vis the state and the Church now emerges into the relative autonomy of civil society per se. Protected by law, constitution, and common cultural practice, those organizations that today might be called ‘‘non-governmental organizations’’ look and act in similar ways to religious orders. That is, they see themselves as part of a larger whole, linked to their members and other organizations in fundamentally horizontal ways, semiindependent and as resource providers. With religious disestablishment in the United States through the separation of Church and state established in the first amendment of the US Constitution, as well as broad sociohistorical developments, religion itself entered civil society. Eventually, as the practical denominationalization of Christianity took place in Europe and elsewhere, Christianity itself moved into the space ‘‘religious orders’’ had pioneered. As a result of secularization forces on the one hand and the widespread acceptance of religious freedom on the other, religion is now part of civil society. It had not always been so, however, even though today the dislocation of religion from ‘‘official society’’ seems nearly complete and entirely natural. Perhaps one reason why this process advanced so quickly is because religious orders had first paved the way, acting in that space between state and ecclesiastical power. At a certain level, the role of civil society in the United States is a classic case, reflecting this genealogy, harkening back to the medieval notion of separation of powers, or even the concept of subsidiarity. The idea that no decision should be made beyond the lowest level in society appropriate to taking the decision can be found at the heart of notions surrounding federalism, local control, no less than the role of advocacy, service, and nonprofit groups in general (McBrien, 1995: 1227). Such ‘‘non-profit’’ groups opt to place themselves outside bourgeois society insofar as that society is built on profit-making, and at the same time outside of the reach of the state, expressed in the United
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States by their tax-exempt status analogous to that of religious groups.
Key Issues The relationship between religious orders and civil society offers a number of specific questions for further analysis. ● Relationship with virtuosi. How much do religious orders depend on religious virtuosi? That is, how much does vitality of religious orders, and by extension of civil society organizations, depend on ‘‘true believers’’ as compared to ‘‘bureaucrats’’ or functionaries? To what degree is commitment and internal solidarity around issues of shared meaning central to the flourishing of civil society – or of the religious orders that provide a pattern for so much of contemporary civil society? ● Organizational forms or communal relationships. To what degree do religious orders, and by extension civil society organizations in general, flourish when certain stable structures or features of organizational life are present? Alternatively, how much do these organizations depend on communal sensibilities, charismatic leadership, and other aspects consistent not with a structural form but with the quality and kind of human relationships in themselves? ● Cultural framework. How much do religious orders, and analogous civil society entities, rely on a wider cultural framework, including a legal-juridical context as well as a set of practices and self-understandings broadly held? Are certain forms of religious life or certain forms of civil society only able to be sustained in certain sociocultural moments? ● Mission and maintenance. Is mission, core outward purpose, really what requires the central focus of religious orders and more secular nonprofit or nongovernmental organizations? Or should they pay more attention to the needs of their members, including their needs to recruit new members? Does the mission of the organization flow from the maintenance of the membership – or does the membership come from effectiveness around the mission? Such questions as these raise the critical issues of culture, on the one hand, but also of the legal environment. Religious orders require a certain legal space, such as that provided ecclesiastically through canon law. Non-profit or nongovernmental organizations need space provided by civil law and internationally recognized political bodies. The importance of power, including the conceptual power of naming a legitimate space in which to operate,
is critical, but so is culture. Values embedded in religious and societal self-understanding have been central in creating and developing social space for the organizations of civil society. Overall, the implications for the organizational patterns pioneered by religious orders and today found throughout civil society are critical for the functioning of democratic regimes, as they are threatening to more authoritarian ones. Global civil society depends on the continued transfer of the forms and practices cultivated within space first colonized by religious orders. The same is true within any critical review of existing social orders: the relative presence of bridging and bonding social capital is inextricably tied up in the inheritance from religious orders.
International Perspectives Religious orders originated in a diversity of contexts well before the nation-state emerged. Today, religious orders play a significant role in an enormous diversity of nations and international settings. Variation by Nation
The different perspectives and understandings regarding religious orders, as well as the relationship between religious orders and civil society, and between analogues of religious orders and civil society, depend on the legalinstitutional context of each national or international reality. In this regard, it might be helpful to consider specifically Catholic examples in different international settings: the United States, Latin America, and Europe. Of course, numerous other examples could be cited as well. In the United States, patterns of religious organization, including denominations, congregations, and the separation of church and state led to a unique pattern for religious life and civil society as a whole. While analogues today exist on a worldwide basis, the US pattern remains distinctive at many levels, including for its sheer religious vitality. This is true for religious orders in the United States as well. Given their organizational structure, type of leadership, and sheer opportunities, Catholic religious orders underwrote a remarkable institutional drive within Catholicism during the late nineteenth and through the mid-twentieth century. This includes the dramatic growth in Catholic educational organizations (Schaub, 2000: 73); higher education (Wittberg, 2003); hospitals and health care (Cochran, 2004); and even parishes, including pioneering new ways of staffing parishes and managing them (Byrne, 1989; DeLambo, 2005). Today, religious are found in these ministries in much reduced numbers, but they were the ones who tilled the soil.
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Perhaps this explosive growth was due to the freeing of civil society organizational and entrepreneurial energy in the United States, where the end of the Constantinian arrangement with the state – Christendom – came early and definitively. Such growth in civil society, if not religious groups, can be seen in Europe since World War II, often as a kind of transferring of energy that would in previous generations, perhaps, have been spent on religious orders themselves or in related sorts of endeavors. Similarly, the growth and democratization in Latin America over the last few decades of the twentieth century, came at a time when as a new space in civil society was claimed by Catholic and other religious groups, including countless evangelical and Pentecostal congregations. This included new forms of living for the old religious orders and new ways of being Catholic, from the charismatic movement to Christian base communities (Beyer, 2006: 140, 201; Steigenga and Cleary 2008). Variation by Religious Tradition
The presence of religious orders within civil society varies enormously based on the different tradition in which they are found, or the way that tradition is expressed in a particular national or regional setting. In this regard it may be useful to contrast several different sorts of religious traditions or analogues of religious traditions in various contemporary expressions worldwide: from Asian religions such as Buddhism (Zen, Tibetan, and other forms), Hinduism and other forms to Abrahamic traditions ranging from Judaism and forms of Islam to the forms of Christianity already mentioned. Each has particular ways that its ‘‘religious orders’’ or groups of devotees or virtuosi follow their spiritual paths and live out their social commitments. All this is mediated within the context of the larger religious tradition and the larger sociocultural context they help create, and which creates them. A consideration of the various religious traditions suggests the need to draw international comparisons across civil society, with reference to similar formations in other social ecclesial religious traditions. All of these religious traditions create and develop social space. Analogues to religious orders seem central in every case. In turn, this creates and reinforces a sense of public space, from monks in contemporary Burma (Myanmar) to Jesuits in seventeenth century Paraguay, and indeed innumerable other instances in other times and places. In all this, the role might be one that cultivates a consciousness or awareness, or a prophetic insight, or a kind of integration or adaption to a changed situation or crisis. The social space that results might allow for organizing or simply provide an escape value of some kind; it could model community or provide a school for leadership.
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The model offered by religious orders through history has taken on a new role over the past few centuries as civil society has developed worldwide, particularly since the middle of the twentieth century. They continue in their role, within their respective religious traditions, while at the same time all the ‘‘orders’’ and organizations within civil society increasingly offer their own forms of ultimate meaning that inspire new possibilities and build solidarity. In a world of suffering and religious pluralism, the possibilities of religious orders and the models that they offer are more critical than ever. Theoreticians of civil society simply cannot afford to be inattentive to this remarkable institution, its analogues, and its world-historical development.
Future Directions As Wittberg (2006) suggests, much progress can be made by considering formally defined religious orders together with their analogues in a diversity of religious traditions and social contexts. Up to now, this has been the exception. Much research has naturally focused on the renewal of Catholic religious life after the Second Vatican Council, including changes in existing religious orders and emerging forms of religious life (including entirely new ‘‘religious orders’’). It also examines of the precipitous decline in membership of existing religious orders over the past 40 years within the global north. For example, in the United States during the mid-1960s there were nearly 175,000 women religious; by the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century the number had declined to less than 60,000, mostly well beyond retirement age. Although never as numerous during the twentieth century, men religious in the United States had over the same period diminished in numbers to fewer than half of what they were in the 1960s, including both religious brothers (about 13,000 at that time) and religious priests (about 22,000), and their members are also heavily concentrated at retirement ages (Froehle & Gautier, 2000: 128). Such dramatic declines have served as a kind of natural experiment to test ideas about religious structures and commitment. They have also provided opportunities for battles over understandings about the nature and legacy of recent reform in the Catholic Church, something in which voices ranging from individual scholars to the Vatican itself have studied and discussed, from one perspective or another, on a continuing basis. Future directions in research on religious orders will have learned from these sorts of studies on largely internal church life and issues, ones that have added considerably to broader knowledge and theorizing about religious
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orders. The contemporary theoretical question for civil society, however, is not so much about the specific trajectory of religious orders within the Catholic Church (or any other specific religious tradition or social movement per se), but rather the larger relationship between ‘‘religious orders’’ – the mediations of specific groupings of agents/subjects of meaning (that is, ‘‘virtuosi’’), highly committed and highly networked – to the challenges faced by contemporary global civil society. Future directions for research, whether of secular or religious social movements, whether of civil society in ‘‘strongly’’ or ‘‘weakly’’ religious cultures, must take ‘‘religious orders’’ seriously. Such organizational formations are an extraordinarily fruitful clue to the development and dynamics of civil society. Religious orders’ underlying structures of commitments, networks, and institutionbuilding offer a way to understand myriad forms and possibilities for civil society. The possibilities for well-constructed historicalcomparative work that could inform contemporary conversations are very strong. Historically, specific religious orders, no less than ‘‘religious orders’’ as a general concept, have been sources for democratic practices and for models of organizational design, leadership, and legitimacy that have critically shaped contemporary civil society. This needs to be understood and further researched in order to produce fuller, more robust interpretations of contemporary social forms, including the development and dynamics of civil society. These are by no means the only critical new directions for future research. It is time to apply the findings from contemporary intra-church studies on religious orders, including ‘‘theological’’ theories explaining these developments. Available data and interpretive framings regarding religious orders offer as yet untapped possibilities for developing new, innovative ways to understand present developments and future possibilities within civil society. Future research on civil society will move to new levels of interpretation not by going around religion, but by being in dialogue with religion. Religious orders and their analogues are an especially promising point from which to begin.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society History II: Medieval Period ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Weber, Max
References/Further Readings Arbuckle, G. (1988). Out of chaos: Refounding religious congregations. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Beal, J., Coriden, J., & Green, T. (2000). New commentary on the code of canon law (Study Edition). Mahwah, NJ: Paulist. Bendyna, M. (Ed.) (2006). Emerging communities of consecrated life in the United States. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. Bessenecker, S. (2006). The new friars: The emerging movement serving the world’s poor. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press. Beyer, P. (2006). Religions in global society. New York: Routledge. Byrne, P. (1989). In the Parish but not of it: Sisters. In J. Dolan et al. (Ed.), Transforming Parish Ministry: The changing roles of catholic clergy, laity, and women religious (pp. 109–207). New York: Crossroad. Cochran, C. (2004). Catholic health care and the challenge of civic society. In M. Steinfels (Ed.), American catholics and civic engagement: A distinctive voice (pp. 126–144). Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Crosby, M. (2005). Can religious life be prophetic? New York: Crossroad. DeLambo, D. (2005). Lay Parish ministers: A study of emerging leadership. New York: National Pastoral Life Center. Ebaugh, H. (1993). Women in the vanishing cloister: Organizational decline in catholic religious orders in the United States. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Fichter, S. J. (1961). Religion as an occupation. South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press. Froehle, B., & Gautier, M. (2000). Catholicism USA: A portrait of catholic church in the United States. Maryknoll: Orbis. Froehle, B., & Gautier, M. (2003). Global catholicism: Portrait of a world church. Maryknoll: Orbis. Hayes, M. (Ed.) (2005). New religious movements in the catholic church. London: Burns & Oates. Hilkert, M. (2001). Speaking with authority: Catherine of Siena and the voices of women today. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press. Hinze, B. (2006). Practices of dialogue in the Roman catholic church: Aims and obstacles, lessons and laments. New York: Continuum. Hostie, R. (1983). The life and death of religious orders: A psycho-sociological approach. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. Irvin, D., & Sundquist, S. (2001). History of the World Christian Movement. Volume I: Earliest Christianity to 1453. Maryknoll: Orbis. Johnson, M. (2006). Collective identity and distinctiveness: The case of US conferences of apostolic women and men religious. In T. Kennedy (Ed.), Inculturation and the church in North America (pp. 179–197). New York: Crossroad. Kraemer, B. (2000). Sisters and brothers: An evolved and evolving religious life. In J. Deedy (Ed.), The catholic church in the twentieth century (pp. 37-55). Collegeville, PA/Minnesota: Liturgical Press. McBrien, R. (Ed.) (1995). HarperCollins encyclopedia of catholicism. San Franscisco: Harper San Francisco. Neal, M. (1984). Catholic sisters in transition: From the 1960s to the 1980s. Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier. Nygren, D., & Ukeritis, M. (1993). The future of religious orders in the United States: Transformation and commitment. Westport, CT: Praeger. Puzon, B. (Ed.) (1996). Women religious and the intellectual life: The North American achievement. San Francisco: International Scholars Publications. Rappaport, R. (1999). Ritual and religion in the making of humanity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schaub, M. (2000). A faculty at a crossroads: A profile of American catholic school teachers. In J. Youniss & J. Convey (Eds.), Catholic schools at the crossroads (pp. 72–86). New York: Teachers College Press. Schneiders, S. (2000). Finding the treasure: Locating catholic religious life in a new ecclesial and cultural context. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press.
Religious Organizations Sofield, L., & Juliano, C. (2000). Collaboration: Uniting our gifts in ministry. Notre Dame/Indiana: Ave Maria Press. Steigenga, T., & Cleary, E. (Eds.) (2008). Conversion of a continent: Contemporary religious change in Latin America. Rutgers, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Taylor, C. (2004). Modern social imaginaries. Durham/NC: Duke University Press. Taylor, C. (2007). A secular age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weber, M. (1921/1968). Economy and Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Wilson, J. (1998). Living faithfully in a fragmented world. Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International. Wittberg, P. (1994). The rise and fall of catholic religious orders: A social movement perspective. Albany, NY: SUNY. Wittberg, P. (2003). Religious orders and higher education. In T. Hunt et al. (Eds.), Handbook of research on catholic higher education (pp. 263–289). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing. Wittberg, P. (2006). From piety to professionalism and back? Transformations of organized religious virtuosity. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Zald, M., & McCarthy, J. (1987). Religious groups as crucibles of social movements. In M. Zald & J. McCarthy (Eds.), Social movements in an organizational society: Collected essays (pp. 67–95). New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Religious Organizations SUE CRAWFORD Creighton University, Omaha, NE, USA
Introduction
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institutionalized system of symbols, beliefs, values, and practices focused on questions of ultimate meaning’’ (p. 4). They go on to clarify that religion assumes that answers to those questions involve supernatural beings or forces. Religious organizations, then, could be defined as groups that institutionalize symbols, beliefs, and values and practice behaviors that assume the ultimate significance of supernatural beings or forces. Religious organizations differ from secular or humanist organizations in that their goals and/or practices are rooted in an understanding of ultimate meaning that assumes the existence and importance of the supernatural. A key debate in the sociological study of religious organizations has been the development of theoretical definitions for the terms church, sect, and cult. Furseth and Repstad, 2006; Niebuhr, 1975/1921; Stark and Bainbridge, 1985; Troeltsch, 1960/1912. Although the specific definitions differ, generally the term ‘‘church’’ is used for religious organizations that are more adaptive and inclusive. These organizations seek to provide access to ultimate meaning for all comers and many individuals come into the church by birth. Sects, on the other hand, are defined as organizations that assume that access to ultimate meaning is much more exclusive, limited to with a narrower group who specifically choose to join and set themselves apart. Becker (1932) and Wallis (1976) stress the eclectic and individualistic characteristics that identify some religious groups as cults. Wallis (1976) classifies a religious organization as a cult if it is seen by others as deviant but has a sense of multiple possible truths. The emphasis on pluralistic paths to ultimate meaning in these two classical definitions of cults would mean that the definition does not fit well for a fundamentalist separatist group that lives together and practices behaviors seen by outsiders as deviant (such as coerced marriage or polygamy) since this type of organization clearly has a sense of a single unique truth. Many studies of sects and cults now use the term ‘‘new religious movements’’ instead of sect or cult. New religious movements are religious movements in high tension with their environment and often in conflict with the nation-state. These include minority religions such as the Unification church and sects within major world religions (such as a Christian or Islamic sect).
Religious organizations comprise a core component of civil society in most nation-states. It is difficult to identify any other single type of nonprofit, nongovernmental organization that involves so many citizens in so many different parts of the world. In addition to their impressive reach of populations, religious organizations also are significant because of the variety of roles that they play in civil society. Religious organizations facilitate socialization and interpersonal social networks. They mobilize collective efforts of individuals for common nongovernmental projects. At times religious organizations mobilize individuals to challenge a government or mobilize individuals to support an existing regime. Similarly, religious organizations are found to operate in civil society at many different levels, from mentoring for a single family to neighborhood projects and citywide organizing, to national movements and international advocacy.
Key Issues
Definition
Organizational Structures and Roles
Glock and Stark (1965) combine elements of various well known definitions of religion to define religion as: ‘‘an
Several specific kinds of religious organizations tend to dominate as religious elements of civil society. The most
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prominent, in terms of sheer numbers of organizations and in terms of the numbers of citizens who directly participate, is the local congregation. The congregation is a local organization of fellow believers who meet regularly for worship. Generally these organizations also provide religious education and often provide a variety of other programs. These local organizations have various names in different religious traditions (parish, mosque, temple, synagogue). However, comparative studies of these local religious organizations tend to use the general term, congregation. Although congregations differ greatly in their organizational structures and programming, all share a core civil society function of value socialization. For most individuals in society, the congregation is the religious organization that develops and reinforces their understanding of ultimate meaning and key social norms. Wald et al. (1988) demonstrate that in the US congregations also play an important role in political socialization, a finding that has been reinforced by many studies of the political influence of clergy cues and congregational social networks. In addition to shaping social norms and political views, participation in congregations also increases levels of political participation and volunteer activity, even volunteer activity outside of church activities (Smidt et al., 2008). Congregations also provide a mechanism for individuals to develop social networks that facilitate individuals in helping one another and in being helped themselves in times of crisis (Cnaan and DiIullo, 2002). Since congregations are so widespread and have already developed social networks and have accumulated staff and material resources, they can serve as building blocks for community organizing or social movements. In some communities congregations remain as one of the few social institutions remaining, increasing their importance as potential sources of community mobilization. Organizers seek to mobilize the social networks, value legitimacy and material resources available through congregations. Although some congregations are independent organizations, most congregations affiliate in some way with a broader religious organization. The most common form of this larger organization is a larger polity that provides accountability and support for the congregation as well as mechanisms for shared projects with other congregations who also belong. This larger organization is often called a denomination. However, since the term denomination comes largely out of the Christian Protestant tradition, scholars sometimes use the term ‘‘religious tradition’’ instead of ‘‘religious denomination.’’ Jewish organizations of this type in the United States, for example, call themselves ‘‘movements’’ (the Reform Judaism movement and
the Conservative Judaism movement). Denominations or traditions that exist as religious organizations have some formal structure that connects the congregations and generally have a tradition that distinguishes them in some way from other religious groups in the same broader religious faith. This differs from a shared religious perspective for which there is no formal organizational structure that ties the local congregations who share that perspective together. Sedgwik (2004) notes that in Islam one finds followers who share a similar interpretation of the sharia, a madhhab, but these madhhabs, particularly the Sunni ones, do not have the broader coordinated organizational structure of a typical Christian denomination. The polity of a religious tradition is the form of the organizational structure to which the congregations belong. Some traditions, like the Roman Catholic Church, have hierarchical polities, while others, like the American Baptist Churches, stress strong congregational autonomy. Still others, like United Methodists, have federated structures that lie between those two poles. Some denominations are transnational while others are regional or national. Some national religious tradition organizations associate with broader transnational organizations The Union for Reform Judaism in the United States, for example, affiliates with the World Union for Progressive Judaism and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship in the United States affiliates with Baptist World Alliance. Even more broadly, several Christian Protestant denominations in various nation-states affiliate with the World Council of Churches creating an international and interdenominational alliance. Many religious tradition organizations include a rich array of other types of organizations. In addition to congregations and the polity structures that tie the congregations together, many include institutions such as schools, seminaries, health care systems, community centers, and social service agencies as well as international relief and mission organizations. These denominational social service institutions contribute to the array of nongovernmental options for social services in civil society. The denominational connections between the rich array of social institutions also facilitates coalition building. Leaders from these various social institutions and congregations see one another at denominational local, regional, and national gatherings. Health care systems and educational institutions cultivate social networking and organizational ties with congregations and other community partners. Congregations provide a source of giving and volunteer support for many of the denominational organizations.
Religious Organizations
Denominational structures also often include an advocacy arm of some kind that provides information about political issues and encourages members of the denomination to get involved in political action. Many denominations in the United States have offices in Washington DC that coordinate this advocacy activity. These religious organizations operate as interest groups or advocacy groups (Olson, 2002). Denominational organizations with advocacy agencies often form coalitions with each other to develop shared statements on major policies. Denominational organizations also form coalitions with secular interest groups and social movements to engage in advocacy and social change. Religious organizations have advocacy aims both because of their value orientations and because public policy, particularly government regulations and funding decisions, affect religious organizations. At the local level, one finds congregations, denominational social service and advocacy institutions, and sometimes parachurch organizations engaged in community organizing coalitions and in community development projects, particularly in urban areas. Wuthnow and Evans (2002) and Djupe and Olson (2007) contain a wide variety of studies that illustrate different ways in which congregational and denominational organizations mobilize advocacy and service efforts in the United States. A large group of religious organizations perform civil society functions similar to those of denominational social service agencies and denominational advocacy organizations, but are not linked into a denominational structure. These groups, called parachurch organizations, have an explicitly religious focus, but operate independently of denominational structures. Samaritan’s Purse, for example, engages in world relief efforts but is not a part of any specific denomination. It recruits support from individual believers and individual congregations from multiple denominations (and nondenominational congregations). The Family Research Council, a conservative Christian advocacy organization in the United States, also operates as a parachurch organization. Among the Christian traditions, parachurch organizations appear more frequently as an organizational form for Evangelical service and advocacy organizations, while service and advocacy organizations in Catholic and other Protestant traditions tend to be more strongly rooted in denominationally tied organizations. Some congregations belong to associations, which involve looser connections between congregations than denominations. The association tends to be for the purpose of providing training for a particular congregational style or an avenue for congregations to work together on
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projects that cannot be done by a single congregation. The association does not necessarily imply a shared sense of doctrine or accountability in the same way that a denomination generally does. Willow Creek is perhaps one of the largest, most well known of such associations in the United States. The Islamic Society of North America also seems to fit this form. It provides training and resources for Islamic congregations and organizations in North America. Religious belief also finds organizational expression in civil society in the form of political parties and social movements. Generally, an organization is considered a political party if it exists for the purpose of winning government positions. This differs from an interest group or social movement in that an interest group or social movement seeks to influence public policy by influencing those who have government power whereas a party seeks to put their members in power. A religious political party would be seeking seats with a strategy or an agenda grounded in explicit religious beliefs. Islamist political parties that seek to institutionalize Muslim law would be one example. The term political movement or sect is sometimes also applied to these kinds of religious political organizations, especially in cases in which the organizations operate illegally. In some cases these might be violent illegal movements, in other cases it may be a nonviolent religious movement. Religious organizations have also played key roles in the mobilization of broader political movements where the goal is religiously motivated, but is not the establishment of religious power per se. For example, religious organizations have been major players in movements to reduce the burden of debts in developing countries, to eliminate slavery and sex trafficking, to improve national and international human rights, and to outlaw abortions. Separatist religious organization seek to establish their own law and order for, their own members rather than shaping nation-state policies via political parties or social movements. Clergy Leadership
Clergy are well situated to exert social and political leadership. In addition to the moral legitimacy and organizational resources that come from their leadership of religious organizations, most are relatively well educated. Clergy who lead congregational organizations are in a position to also lead social programming and to provide social and political cues. Ample evidence exists that those who attend congregations hear these cues and that the cues have some affect (Crawford and Olson, 2001; Wald, Owen and Hill, 1988). These clergy are also in a position to be recruited by government and nonprofit organizations seeking to build locally based coalitions. These clergy also serve
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as a key connector between denominational advocacy and service organizations and the local congregations. The clergy profession remains heavily male dominated (Chaves, 1997; Zikmund, Lummis and Chang, 1998). Mainline Protestant and Jewish traditions and some Pentecostal traditions have been more open to women clergy, but women are still a clear minority. In spite of, or perhaps because of, their professional struggles, women clergy in Mainline Protestant and Jewish traditions regularly speak out on discrimination issues at higher rates than their male colleagues (Olson Crawford, Deckman, 2005). In the face of racism and exclusion in mainstream institutions, minority churches have provided vital alternative institutions and necessary community leadership opportunities for racial minorities. For example, the central role of African American clergy in the American Civil Rights movement illustrates the importance of clergy leadership in the Black church in the United States (Lincoln and Mamiya, 1990). Congregational clergy decisions of when or how to engage in broader social and political leadership relate back to core organizational imperatives. Concerns about driving members away or keeping members from hearing core religious teachings because of political disagreements can reduce involvement while confidence that community engagement strengthens the organization through greater visibility and opportunities for members can increase involvement. However, other factors such as political interest, a sense of the need for political leadership, and attitudes towards the acceptability of clergy political leadership usually exert stronger direct influences on clergy civic engagement than these organizational pressures (Crawford and Olson, 2001; Djupe and Gilbert, 2003; Guth et al., 1997; Olson, Crawford and Deckman, 2005; Smidt 2004). In addition to congregational clergy, clergy in denominational and parachurch organizations exert influence in civil society. Catholic bishops, for example, make statements about social and political issues that seek to influence governments and citizens. While some of the statements are transnational, bishops within a particular nation-state also take leadership roles through political statements and educational efforts like the Faithful Citizenship initiative by the US Catholic Bishops. The development of 24 hour television news channels opens even more opportunities for clergy in parachurch organizations to reach audiences through secular television while cable television and radio also provide direct religious media outlets. The internet provides even more opportunities for parachurch and denominational clergy to educate and mobilize others towards political
action through websites, electronic petitions, ready-tosend letters to elected officials, and email alerts to supporters. Religious Organizations and Environmental Tension
A key focus of studies of religious organizations has been the extent of tension between religious organizations and their social environments and the implications of this tension. Tension here means the extent to which the religious organization clearly sets its own beliefs and practices in contrast to the norms and practices of others in society. Much attention has been given to typologies that establish levels and types of tensions between religious organizations and their surrounding environment. These typologies provide theoretical tools to distinguish between organizations that are in lower tension from those in higher tension and to analyze the different types of tensions in different religious traditions and social environments. A whole subfield of study of religious organizations now exists to study religious organizations that exist in particularly high tension with their environment (New Religious Movements) (Lucas and Robbins, 2004; Sedgwick, 2004). One of the key questions related to environmental tension is whether tension with the environment is helpful or harmful for religious organization growth. One argument is that religious organizations in high tension need to lower tension to attract and keep members. This perspective emphasizes the importance of religion in social integration and the importance of shared senses of ultimate meaning so that religious organizations maintain legitimacy (a shared canopy) (Berger, 1967). Globalization and increased religious diversity create a more pluralistic canopy, but the emphasis from this perspective remains one of how religious organizations adapt and integrate (Jelen, 2002). In terms of the broader implications of tension, this perspective stresses the positive role that religious organizations play in helping members integrate while retaining core cultural and religious values and the challenges to civil society when religious organizations, or government regulations of religious organizations, leave members in high tension (Almond, Abbeby and Sivan, 2003; Furseth and Repstad, 2006; Jelen and Wilcox, 2002). Market perspectives on religious organizations stress that high tension and organizational distinctiveness increase membership commitment and consequently increase the value of belonging to these religious organizations. This increased value, in turn, allows these religious organizations to grow. Prescriptions from this perspective
Religious Organizations
stress the importance of maintaining tension despite the common organizational trajectory in which religious organizations in high tension over time tend to reduce their tension with the environment. These studies often talk about strict churches, by which they mean religious organizations that establish high tension and require high commitment. This strictness is generally discussed as religious organizations holding more conservative practices and beliefs than others around them. The overall conclusion is that strictness helps religious organizations grow and that is why more conservative religious organizations have grown in the past decades (Finke and Stark, 1992; Glock and Stark, 1965; Iannaccone, 1994). Proponents of this perspective have developed formal decision models and empirical analysis of trends in congregational and denominational organizational growth to support their thesis. Detractors, such as Greeley and Hout (2006), argue that trends in conservative church growth, particularly in Christian religious organizations in the United States, are better explained by shifts in demographics and that empirical analysis of actual congregational switches and selections do not support the strictness thesis.
International Perspectives The relationship between religious organizations and governments differs from nation-state to nation-state (Jelen and Wilcox, 2002; Furseth and Repstad, 2006). Some nation-states have an established religion, which has a special relationship with the state. The state may collect tithes or church taxes for the church and employ clergy in the established church. In Western European nation-states governments allow religious organizations to exist that are not part of the established religion. China is often cited as a state that heavily regulates religious organizations and cracks down hard on religions that are not certified by the state. The United States, on the other hand, has constitutional protections against the establishment of a religion and religious-oriented regulations on religion. The separation between religious organizations and the state is further maintained by tax codes that restrict explicit political activity by religious organizations. The interplay of religion and politics also differs in states due to the relationship between religious organizations and political parties and ethnic groups. Reinforcing cleavages exist when religious affiliation boundaries coincide with political party or ethnic group boundaries. These reinforcing cleavages strengthen the role of religious organizations in politics. Cross-cutting cleavages, on the other hand, tend to dampen the politicization of religious organizations.
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Future Directions Progressive Strictness
Studies of strictness in religious organizations generally assume that strictness is a conservative principle (Finke and Stark, 1992; Iannaccone, 1994). They assume that the religious organizations with higher tension hold conservative principles and practices that set them apart and place demands on their members. However, religious organizations with progressive practices and beliefs could be in high tension and place high demand on their members as well. Strictness does not necessarily need to only apply to conservative tension, it could also apply to progressive tension. A religious organization that calls its members to protest a popular war or eschew materialism and choose simplicity espouses principles and practices that place its members in high tension with their environment. Clearly, religious organizations that have called members to nonviolently protest racial injustices and colonial rule were calling their members to be in high tension with society. Currently some religious organizations exist in high tension with their surrounding culture and their own denominations because of their stance on affirming homosexual unions or leadership. Future research could examine the formal and empirical implications of progressive strictness. Sexual Orientation
Religious organizations of all kinds currently are being called upon to develop statements, policies, and practices to address questions about sexual orientation. Studies of attitudes towards homosexuality that examine religion and studies of individual experiences of homosexuals in religious organizations abound. However, much remains to be studied concerning organizational dynamics as religious organizations navigate decisions about how to deal with state regulations and divisions within their own organizations concerning the status of homosexuals and homosexual unions within religious organizations (Djupe and Olson, 2006).
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Berger, Peter Ludwig ▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Churches and Congregations ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Civic Action ▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society and Religion
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▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ Missionary Societies ▶ Mosques ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Buddhism ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Hinduism ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Judaism ▶ Religious Orders ▶ Social Justice ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Sociological ▶ World Council of Churches
References/Further Readings Almond, G. A., Abbleby, R. S., & Sivan, E. (2003). Strong religion: The rise of fundamentalisms around the world. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Becker, H. (1932). Systematic sociology on the basis of the Beziehungslehre and Gebildelehre of Leopol van Weise. New York: Wiley. Berger, P. L. (1967). The sacred canopy: Elements of a sociological theory of religion. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Chaves, M. (1997). Ordaining women: Culture and conflict in religious organizations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cnaan, R., & DiIullo, J. (2002). The Invisible Caring Hand: American Congregations and the Provision of Welfare: New York, NY: NYU Press. Crawford, S. E. S., & Olson, L. R. (Eds.) (2001). Christian clergy in American politics. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Djupe, P. A., Gilbert. C. P. (2003). The Prophetic Pulpit: Clergy. Churches, and Communities in American Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Djupe, P. A., & Olson, L. R. (2006). Whether to adopt statements on homosexuality in two denominations: A research note. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 45(4), 609–621. Djupe, P. A., & Olson, L. R. (Eds.) (2007). Religious interest in conflict: Beyond the culture wars. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Finke, R., & Stark, R. (1992). The churching of America 1776–1990. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Furseth, I., & Repstad, P. (2006). An introduction to the sociology of religion: Classical and contemporary perspectives. Aldershot: Ashgate. Glock, C. Y., & Stark, R. (1965). Religion and society in tension. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally. Greeley, A., & Hout, M. (2006). Conservative christians in American politics. The Truth about conservative Christians: What they think and what they believe. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Guth, J. L., Green, J. C., Smidt, C. E., Kellstedt, L. A., & Poloma, M. M. (1997). The bully pulpit: The politics of protestant clergy. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press. Iannaccone, L. K. (1994). Why strict churches are strong. American Journal of Sociology, 99(5), 1180–1211. Jelen, T. G., & Wilcox, C. (Eds.) (2002). Religion and politics in comparative perspective: The one, the few, and the many. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jelen, T. G. (Ed.) (2002). Sacred markets, sacred canopies: Essays on religious markets and religious pluralism. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
Lincoln, C. E., & Mamiya, L. H. (1990). The black church in the African American experience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Niebuhr, H. R. (1975/1929). The social sources of denominationalism. New York: Meridian. Olson, L. R. (2002). Mainline Protestant Washington Offices and the Political Lives of Clergy. In, R. Wuthnow & J. H. Evans (Eds.), The Quiet Hand of God: Faith-Based Activism and the Public Role of Mainline Protestantism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Olson, L. R., Crawford, S. E. S., & Deckman, M. M. (2005). Women with a mission: Religion gender, and the politics of women clergy. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press. Lucas, P. C., & Robbins, T. (Eds) (2004). New religious movements in the 21st century: Legal, political, and social challenges in global perspective. New York: Routledge. Sedgwick, M. (2004). Establishments and sects in the islamic world. In P. C. Lucas & T. Robbins (Eds.), New religious movements in the 21st century: Legal, political, and social challenges in global perspective. New York: Routledge. Smidt, C. E. (2004). Pulpit and Politics: Clergy in American Politics at the Advent of the Millennium Waco TX: Baylor University Press. Smidt, C. E., den Dulk, K. R., Penning, J. M., Monsma, S. V., Koopman, D. L. (2008). Pews, Prayers, and Participation: Religion and Civic Responsibility in America Georgetown University Press. Stark, R., & Bainbridge, W. S. (1985). The future of religion: Secularization, revival and cult formation. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Troeltsch, E. (1960/1912). The social teachings of the christian churches (Vols. I–II). New York: Harper & Row. Wald, K. D., Owen, D. E., & Hill, S. S. (1988). Churches as political communities. American Political Science Review, 82(2), 531–548. Wallis, R. (1976). The road to total freedom: A sociological analysis of scientology. London: Heinemann. Wuthnow, R., & Evans, J. H. (Eds.) (2002). The quiet hand of God: Faith based activism and the public role of mainline protestantism. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Zikmund, B. B., Lummis, A. T., & Chang, P. M. Y. (1998). Clergy women: An uphill calling. Louisville, KY: Westminister John Knox.
Religious Society of Friends ▶ Quakers (Religious Society of Friends)
Replicability and Scaling Up SABINA SCHNELL, DERICK BRINKERHOFF The George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction Many of the often perceived advantages of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that populate civil society, such as their closeness to the local level and the grassroots, and
Replicability and Scaling Up
their capacity to innovate and to adapt to beneficiaries’ or members’ needs, are linked to the advantages of being small. However, the flipside of ‘‘small is beautiful’’ for NGOs is that small can also be insufficient, insignificant, and idiosyncratic. Thus these advantages can become weaknesses when compared to the magnitude of the needs NGOs seek to address, the impacts they aim to achieve, and the innovations they intend to disseminate. In response to these dilemmas, NGOs and their partners (governments, international donor agencies, private sector firms) have been concerned with replicability and scaling up. The drive – motivated by NGOs themselves and those who work with them – is to maintain the advantages that derive from small size and community links while extending the benefits of local innovations to reach larger populations and sustain broader impact. Strategies, tools, and approaches for scaling-up that can achieve expanded reach and impact are important considerations for NGOs and for government policy-makers. Because replicating successful interventions has become one of the main options that NGOs choose to create synergy between solving problems and promoting empowerment at the grassroots and fostering broad-based social change, the question of replicability is often raised. The interest in scaling up and replicability derives from both top-down and bottom-up sources. The push from the top comes from the state’s increased reliance on NGOs for service delivery. Public-sector reforms in both the industrialized and developing worlds have contributed to the retrenchment of the state, which has meant a withdrawal from direct service provision in favor of contracting out. This move toward so-called third-party government has led to increased funding for NGOs and the private sector. As a result the number of NGOs in many countries has grown substantially. From the bottom, the interest in scaling-up derives from NGOs themselves. The grassroots orientation of many NGOs fosters an incremental, experimental approach to social change, where learning emerges from the diffusion of successful innovations from the local to the national to the international level. This bottom-up perspective sees replicability and scaling-up as essential elements of strategies for NGOs to achieve their missions and address the persistent problems of poverty, inequality, and exclusion.
Definition Replicability refers to the capacity of an intervention to be transferred to, and implemented in, a different context from where it originated. Determining replicability
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concerns, first and foremost, defining what it is that is being replicated and scaled up. The implicit notion embedded within replication is based upon: (a) the medical model of a discrete treatment that can be administered across a population with a consistent, predetermined outcome; and (b) the social science model of the diffusion and adoption of technological innovation (Rogers and Shoemaker, 1971). The treatment model is explicit in pilot projects where the aim is to identify and test solutions to problems, and in demonstration projects that apply an existing solution and raise awareness of its broader applicability. The composition of the solutions to be replicated commonly consists of a combination of technical, process, and organizational components (Cooley and Kohl, 2005). Scaling-up is closely related to replication and replicability, and has a broad array of meanings that are intertwined with strategies. The simplest definition of scalingup refers to increasing the scale or expanding the reach of an intervention or project. A more detailed and ambitious definition, for example, sees scaling-up as bringing ‘‘more quality benefits to more people over a wider geographical area more quickly, more equitably and more lastingly’’ (Carter and Currie-Alder, 2006: 129). This definition combines both geographical expansion of coverage (‘‘horizontal scaling up’’) and broader or ‘‘higher’’ institutional adoption of the program through governments, donors or other NGOs (‘‘vertical scaling up’’), while at the same time improving the quality and sustainability of program benefits (Menter et al., 2004; Gu¨ndel et al., 2001; IIRR, 2000). Adding to the complexity of defining scaling-up is the general agreement that there is no single approach to doing it. Some authors see scaling-up mainly in terms of organizational growth, and replication as the adoption and duplication of an innovation (e.g., Josiah, 2001), the latter also termed ‘‘scaling out’’ by some authors (e.g., Carter and Currie-Alder, 2006). Most agree that both are part of broader strategies to increase impact, which the literature expands upon extensively (e.g., Edwards and Hulme, 1992; Wils, 1996; Uvin and Miller, 1996). For example, Uvin et al. (2000) adopt the expanded-impact definition of scaling-up and then differentiate four types: 1. Expanding coverage and size (quantitative scaling up) by growing the individual NGO and increasing the number of beneficiaries reached by projects and programs. 2. Diversifying activities (functional scaling up), either through horizontal integration (new types of activities at the same intervention level) or through vertical integration (upstream or downstream activities), either independently or in partnership with other NGOs.
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3. Broadening indirect impact, either through directly empowering beneficiaries to demand their rights or through affecting the behavior of other stakeholders so that the initial impact of the NGO’s intervention is strengthened. The latter can include strategies such as NGO programs being adopted by governments or private enterprises (integration) or carried out by them in collaboration with the NGO (joint ventures), as well as spreading the approach through training and knowledge creation in other actors (diffusion). Lobbying and advocacy and secondment of staff to other agencies also help to improve the context for the intervention, thus increasing the sustainability of impact and paving the way for adoption of a NGO’s program. These strategies can be termed mainstreaming, as they seek to affect the behavior of other actors. To the degree to which they aim to influence government behavior, they can also be termed political scaling up. Other indirect strategies aim at multiplication, through spinning off successful programs, thus creating new NGOs, or through deconcentration and delegation of tasks to the local level, also called ‘‘scaling in’’ (Carter and CurrieAdler, 2006). 4. Finally, enhancing organizational sustainability goes hand in hand with quantitative expansion, allowing the NGO to maintain and expand its programs and impacts over time. Numerous other typologies exist as well. Wils (1996), for instance, differentiates between access strategies, which empower the poor to demand their rights and access new resources, and mainstreaming strategies, where NGOs seek to convert their small-scale programs into accepted policy frameworks. Edwards and Hulme (1992) distinguish between additive (increasing size), multiplicative (influencing others) and diffusive (informal, spontaneous spread) types of scaling up. Often, these different strategies complement each other. For example, a larger organization with a proven track record has more leverage to influence other actors and thus promote the adoption of its approaches (Uvin et al., 2000). However, there can also be trade-offs: for example, when a rapid expansion of coverage (quantitative scaling up) necessitates simplification and standardization of the intervention, which can be detrimental to promoting more holistic interventions that address complex social problems (functional scaling-up), or when rapid expansion overtaxes resources and thus threatens sustainability. DeJong (2001), for example, notes this latter risk for scaling-up HIV/AIDS interventions.
Key Issues The key questions NGOs have to answer with regard to scaling-up and replicability are when and how to pursue a scaling-up strategy. The answers depend largely on: (a) the characteristics of the intervention or innovation, (b) the organizational strengths and weaknesses of the NGO or NGOs involved, and (c) the nature of the NGO’s operating environment where it aims to achieve impact. The answers to these strategic questions are interrelated and need to be considered in conjunction with each other. For example, trying to replicate poverty interventions in geographically hard-to-reach regions can increase costs significantly, lower the cost-benefit ratio as compared to the initial intervention, and strain NGO organizational capacity. Key issues related to each of these elements are discussed below.
The Intervention
The first criterion to be met for scaling-up is developing a successful intervention. Given the comparative advantages of NGOs, they are expected to intervene primarily in the case of both market and government failures (Devarajan and Kanbur, 2005; Wils, 1996; Josiah, 2001). This requires an identification of the primary source of failure: whether the constraints are on the demand or on supply side (Hartmann and Linn, 2007), whether it is a problem of inadequate resources, lack of information or knowledge, unfavorable institutional incentives, or – often – a combination of all of them. While widespread poverty in many poor countries can create a large demand for any intervention that channels resources to the disadvantaged, NGO interventions are most suitable for scaling-up when they find new and better solutions to existing problems. These can range from technological innovation (e.g., new seed varieties); new concepts or practices (e.g., group-based micro-finance, community management of natural resources); or new institutional arrangements that create collaborative relations between actors, such as partnerships, policy networks, and so on (Carter and Currie-Adler, 2006). Ideally, the process of developing a successful intervention includes testing and refining so as to identify the core features of the intervention that contribute to success. Because most NGO interventions involve what are called social technologies, separating the essential elements of the intervention from its socially and culturally embedded context can be problematic. Whether or not the core of social technologies can be extracted from their environments is a question that fuels debate on replicability.
Replicability and Scaling Up
For any innovation, prospects for successful scaling up are higher if the process is planned for from the beginning and actively managed (e.g., Cooley and Kohl, 2005; Gu¨ndel et al., 2001; Simmons et al., 2002). Planning and management require, among other things, designing and setting up an adequate, and ideally participatory, monitoring and evaluation system from the start, with a view to rigorous impact assessment that can document the success of the intervention (Menter et al., 2004; Hancock, 2003). They also require developing a communication strategy early on, which can range from ‘‘classic’’ dissemination activities (Gu¨ndel et al., 2001), such as publications, seminars, or demonstrations, to building links with key actors and potential ‘‘multipliers,’’ up to multi-actor planning to secure buy-in and commitment from the beginning (Wils, 1996). The strategy for scaling up will likely differ depending on the nature of the intervention. Alvord et al. (2002) differentiate between capacity-building initiatives that strengthen local self-help initiatives, provide ‘‘packages’’ needed to solve specific problems, or create local movements to deal with more powerful actors. For example, programs that build local capacities to solve problems or empower local stakeholders to demand their rights put emphasis on transforming power relations and building alliances across actors. While the processes and tools developed for achieving this can be standardized to a certain degree, the nature of such approaches demands more flexible and opportunistic strategies to deal with a multitude of interests and contexts. NGOs that develop a successful technology for resource management or service delivery that is based more on standardized interventions can focus more on dissemination and low-cost replications through their own organizations or through like-minded partners. The nature of the intervention also affects its potential to achieve economies of scale, and thus achieve increased efficiency over a larger intervention area or number of beneficiaries. Again, this depends on the ease of standardization. Additionally, if the success of an intervention depends on high-cost inputs that can be spread over a large number of units, a scaling-up strategy through organizational growth makes sense (e.g., Wils, 1996). In practice, most successful scaling-up strategies will combine different features. Even when starting with ‘‘simple’’ technological innovations, scaling-up can be driven by the realization that replication of the initial intervention alone will not solve the problem. It needs complementary activities to address the problem in more systemic ways (functional scaling up), or it needs to be supported by changes in the policy environment (indirect scaling up). As an example for the former, as the success of
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natural resource management interventions has been shown to depend not only on technological innovations, but also on economic, social and cultural conditions, scaling-up has moved towards a more systemic and knowledge-based approach (Menter et al., 2004). Similarly, scaling-up HIV/AIDS interventions needs to address not just the medical aspects of the disease, but also the cultural dimensions and changes in behavior, which require a more integrated approach (DeJong, 2001). Thus, different strategies tend to converge and reinforce each other, and the ability to pursue multi-stakeholder approaches and to take into account systemic factors greatly increases the probability of adoption and dissemination of innovative, locally successful technologies (Brinkerhoff, 1991; Noordin et al., 2001; DeJong, 2001). Regardless of the type of intervention and the strategy pursued, scaling-up always contains some (more or less strong) element of replication. This factor is desirable as it promotes learning, economies of scale and the identification of the essential features of a given intervention, but it also opens up a tension between standardized solutions and the necessity of adaptation to context. This tension is reflected in the differentiation between universalist and contextualist approaches to scaling-up. The former aim at ‘‘pure’’ replication; the latter rely upon ‘‘inspiration,’’ i.e., modifying an intervention to fit it to different local contexts and demands (Hancock, 2003). While, again, in practice, the middle road is more likely to be taken, determination of replicability needs to take into consideration the risks of committing an ecological fallacy (assuming that what works on one level/scale might work on another) or a composition fallacy (assuming what works for one person or social group will work equally well for another) (Menter et al., 2004). Replicability and prospects for scaling-up of interventions will be enhanced to the extent that the level of innovation in the interventions matches the capacity of their environments to accept, pursue, and value the changes those interventions seek to promote (Brinkerhoff, 1991). The Organization
The impetus for scaling-up often starts within the NGO, driven by the mission or vision of the organization or its founder, members’ dissatisfaction with limited results, and/or realization that objectives cannot be achieved without some type of expansion. Scaling-up puts pressure on NGOs’ resources and staff (DeJong, 2001; Hodson, 1992). As Korten (1980) points out, NGOs seeking to increase their impact go through a learning process that starts with achieving the desired result (learning to be effective), minimizing cost per output (learning to be
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efficient) and scaling-up or out by reaching a wider audience (learning to expand). Managing these three core tasks can be demanding. Success depends on skilled technical staff, political savvy, alliance-building, and community relations. These combine to establish the proven track record needed to achieve the necessary ‘‘clout’’ to promote successful interventions (Wils, 1996; Uvin et al., 2000). Successfully navigating an organizational growth trajectory is thus a key challenge for any NGO wishing to scale up. Most NGOs start out small, driven by a strong sense of staff ownership, participatory decision-making structures and a distrust of hierarchy. In the process of growth, as the staff profile changes and the NGO increases in size, tensions build up. Internal relationships based on loyalty, solidarity and personal development compete and at times conflict with those based on specialization and expertise, position, and economic cost-benefit considerations (Hodson, 1992; Hartmann and Linn, 2007). The challenge is to manage the transition to a professional (quasi-)bureaucratic organization, while maintaining staff support and buy-in. The process of organizational growth confronts NGOs with maintaining the advantages and avoiding disadvantages of both small and large organizations (Josiah, 2001). If they remain too small, their impact will be limited; if they become too large, they risk becoming too bureaucratic and removed from their beneficiaries (Uvin et al., 2000), thus losing one of their main comparative advantages. Choosing the right balance between centralization and decentralization can be part of the solution, delegating authority to lower-level units within the NGO itself (Wils, 1996; Uvin et al., 2000). Beyond growing the individual NGO, other solutions include: forming NGO networks and partnerships; spinning off units to create new, independent NGOs; devolving the intervention to self-help groups (Uvin et al., 2000), or ‘‘franchising’’ an intervention model to quasi-autonomous subunits. Examples of this latter approach include the country chapter model of Transparency International, or the multiunit affiliate model of BRAC (Hartmann and Linn, 2007). A final organizational issue related to scaling-up is the locus of accountability. To the extent that scaling-up strategies lead NGOs to mobilize outside resources through networks, partnerships, and alliances, there is a risk that the lines of accountability will be diffuse and blurred. Especially when scaling-up is based on resources from donors and or/governments, the NGO(s) may be less focused on the needs of the beneficiaries and more on the needs of donors, or may be co-opted by the government (Edwards and Hulme, 1992; Dichter, 1999; DeJong, 2001). Dealing with this issue will require a careful balancing of scaling-up strategies to maintain the NGOs’
independence and integrity while assuring some degree of performance accountability. The Context
Even when an intervention is successful at the local level and the NGO has the requisite organizational capacities for scaling-up, contextual factors can strongly influence the choice of strategy and the prospects for scaling-up. Hartmann and Linn (2007) identify a number of interrelated contextual factors (‘‘spaces’’) that need to be in place to allow an intervention to grow: fiscal space (financial resources), political support, sufficient demand (economic space), organizational capacities of key actors, cultural acceptability, long-term partnerships and spaces for learning. One key element among these factors is the availability of resources to support the replication and expansion of the intervention over an extended period (Uvin et al., 2000). Without sufficient resources, promising innovations cannot be scaled up. Funding can come from external donors, in which case resource availability will be largely influenced by trends and priorities of the international aid community. Another source is from country governments; in this case, availability will depend on macroeconomic constraints and fiscal revenues and the degree of ongoing political support, or from market sources in the cases where the intervention aims to strengthen the capacities of poor people to participate in commercial ventures. Often, a favorable policy environment, including the requisite political support, needs to be created, especially for interventions that have a redistributive component, as do many poverty-reduction projects (e.g., Brinkerhoff, 2007; Desai, 2007). Country governments may tolerate small pilot projects, but if scaled-up versions challenge existing policies and vested interests, NGOs may face opposition. Lobbying and advocacy activities to promote the adoption or support of a program need to be sensitive to the political cycle, aiming to influence agenda setting, identify windows of opportunity and forge supporting coalitions (Simmons et al., 2002). In many cases, there is also a delicate balance between lobbying and advocacy and collaboration with government to secure program success and uptake. This balance is easier to manage in relatively nonsensitive sectors and/ or relatively democratic countries (Wils, 1996). Where a restrictive political environment precludes lobbying and advocacy, or where the relations between NGOs and government are strained, more subtle strategies are necessary, such as offering technical assistance to local-level initiatives, grassroots associations, or smaller NGOs (DeJong, 2001).
Replicability and Scaling Up
Even where relations with government are positive and political actors are willing to support the NGO’s model, constraints of the public sector bureaucracy, such as lack of trained staff or of financial resources, reluctance or difficulties in connecting with the grassroots or inadequate institutional incentives might make successful diffusion and mainstreaming of NGO programs into the public sector difficult, as Hanson et al. (2003) document in scaling-up health programs. Finally, where scaling-up is underwritten to a large degree directly by donors there is also a risk that NGOs might end up substituting for the state in essential service provision (Edwards and Hulme, 1992; DeJong, 2001). This situation can create tensions or blur the role between government and NGOs, thus undermining the capacity and weakening the incentives for the government to take responsibility for those services in the longer term. An essential element of scaling-up is bridging and facilitating learning between the local, regional and national level, as well as between different actors (Carter and Currie-Adler, 2006). This means that scaling-up strategies need to take into consideration the capacities of local communities, potential partners and multipliers, and include targeted strengthening measures (Menter et al., 2004). Interventions that aim at politically empowering local-level communities have to also take into account and fit into existing governance structures, which are hard to change rapidly. If participatory approaches are to be maintained in the process of scaling-up in collaboration with government, adequate decentralized structures and official spaces for participation need to be in place (Annis, 1987; Gillespie, 2004). While finding such space can be challenging, scaling-up with government is nonetheless possible. One example comes from Morocco where innovations in rural infrastructure that a migrant-founded NGO developed were subsequently adopted on a national scale by the government (Iskander, 2008).
Future Directions Replicability and scaling-up have been of concern to NGOs, governments, donor agencies, and international development policy-makers for a long time. They get at the heart of the modalities employed to bring about change, and how the links connecting small-scale innovations to broader impact function, and how they can be improved. For the immediate future, the salience of questions about replicability and scaling-up has intensified. One driver is the increasing international attention to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), where the countdown to 2015 has already begun, and some deadlines have already been missed. A second driver is the
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reemergence in international policy dialogue and practice of ‘‘big bang’’ approaches to development, which focus on massive infusions of resources. Jeffrey Sachs has been an important proponent (see Sachs, 2005). This policy has already been implemented in the health sector, where dedicated funding mechanisms, such as PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief) or GFATM (the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria) among other, have pumped enormous flows of resources into developing country health systems. A third driver is the influence of the Gates Foundation, which not only has contributed to large increases in aid, but has also focused strongly on scientific innovation and diffusion of technology. These three forces will keep replication and scaling-up at the forefront into the future. The issues discussed above remain topics of debate, analysis, and reflection. Many of them involve trade-offs that can be difficult to reconcile, and definitive answers to the dilemmas created await further research. Particularly intransigent questions to be addressed relate to: successful intervention design for social technologies, distillation of critical components that can be standardized for replication, the facilitating contextual conditions that enhance replicability and scaling-up, the determinants of effective multi-organizational learning and collaboration, and the resource thresholds for moving from small- to largescale efforts.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relationships ▶ Lifecycle, NGO ▶ Lobbying ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development ▶ Participation ▶ Partnerships ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Social Franchising ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Strategic Planning ▶ Third-Party Government ▶ Third Sector
References/Further Readings Alvord, S. H., Brown, L. D., & Letts, C. D. (2002, November). Social entrepreneurship and social transformation: An exploratory study (Working Paper No. 15). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.
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Annis, S. (1987). Can small-scale development be a large-scale policy? The case of Latin America. World Development, 15(Suppl.), 129–135. Brinkerhoff, D. W. (2007). The enabling environment for implementing the millennium development goals: Government actions to support NGOs. In J. Brinkerhoff, H. Teegen, & S. Smith (Eds.), NGOs and the millennium development goals: Citizen action to reduce poverty (pp. 83–103). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Brinkerhoff, D. W. (1991). Improving development program performance: Guidelines for managers. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Carter, S. E., & Currie-Alder, B. (2006). Scaling-up natural resource management: Insights from research in Latin America. Development in Practice, 16(2), 128–140. Cooley, L., & Kohl, R. (2005, December). Scaling up – from vision to largescale change: A management framework for practitioners. Washington, DC: Management Systems International. DeJong, J. (2001). A question of scale? The challenge of expanding the impact of non-governmental organisations’ HIV/AIDS efforts in developing countries. Washington, DC: The Population Council. Retrieved online from http://www.popcouncil.org/pdfs/horizons/qstnofscl.pdf Desai, R. (2007, November). The political economy of poverty reduction. Scaling up anti-poverty programs in the developing world (Working Paper No. 2). Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, Wolfensohn Center for Development. Retrieved from http://www. brookings.edu/papers/2007/11_poverty_desai.aspx Devarajan, S., & Kanbur, R. (2005, August). A framework for scaling up poverty reduction, with illustrations from South Asia. Washington, DC: World Bank, South Asia Region. Retrieved online from http:// www.arts.cornell.edu/poverty/kanbur/DevarajanKanburAug05.pdf Dichter, T. W. (1999). Globalization and its effects on NGOs: Efflorescence or a blurring of roles and relevance? Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 28(4), 38–58. Edwards, M., & Hulme, D. (1992). Scaling up NGO impact on development: Learning from experience. Development in Practice, 2(2), 77–91. Retrieved from http://www.developmentinpractice.org/readers/NGOs/DevNGO%20Edwards.pdf Gillespie, S. (2004, June). Scaling up community driven development: A synthesis of experience (Discussion Paper No. 181). Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. Food Consumption and Nutrition Division (FCND). Retrieved from http://www. expandnet.net/PDFs/Gillespie.pdf Gu¨ndel, S., Hancock, J., & Anderson, S. (2001). Scaling-up strategies for research in natural resources management: A comparative review. Chatham: Natural Resources Institute. Retrieved from http://www. nrsp.org.uk/database/documents/195.pdf Hancock, J. (2003, June). Scaling up the impact of good practices in rural development: A working paper to support implementation of the World Bank’s rural development strategy (Report No. 26031). Washington, DC: World Bank. Retrieved from http://www-wds.worldbank.org/ servlet/main?menuPK=64187510&pagePK=64193027&piPK=64187 937&theSitePK=523679&entityID=000160016_20040130163125 Hanson, K., Ranson, M. K., Oliveira-Cruz, V., & Mills, A. (2003). Expanding access to priority health interventions: A framework for understanding the constraints to scaling-up. Journal of International Development, 15(1), 1–14. Hartmann, A., & Linn, J. F. (2007, October). Scaling up. A path to effective development. 2020 Focus Brief on the World’s Poor and Hungry People. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. Retrieved from http://www.ifpri.org/2020Chinaconference/ pdf/beijingbrief_linn.pdf Hodson, R. (1992). Small, medium or large? The rocky road to NGO growth. In M. Edwards & D. Hulme (Eds.), Making a difference:
NGOs and development in a changing world (pp. 127–137). London: Earthscan. IIRR (International Institute of Rural Reconstruction). (2000). Going to scale: Can we bring more benefits to more people more quickly? Silang, Cavite Philippines: IIRR. Retrieved from www.fao.org/docs/eims/ upload/207909/gfar0086.PDF Iskander, N. (2008). Diaspora networks for creating national infrastructure: Rural Morocco, 1985–2005. In J. M. Brinkerhoff (Ed.), Diasporas and development: Exploring the potential (pp. 163–185). Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner. Josiah, S. J. (2001). Approaches to expand NGO natural resource conservation program outreach. Society & Natural Resources, 14(7), 609–618. Korten, D. C. (1980). Community organization and rural development: A learning process approach. Public Administration Review, 40(5), 480–511. Menter, H., Kaaria, S., Johnson, N., & Ashby, J. (2004). Scaling up. In D. H. Pachico & S. Fujisaka (Eds.), Scaling up and out: Achieving widespread impact through agricultural research (CIAT Publication No. 340, pp. 11–23). Cali, Colombia: Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/url? sa=U&start=3&q=http://ciat-library.ciat.cgiar.org/Articulos_Ciat/ scaling_up_chapter_1.pdf&usg=AFQjCNHOq_auvgAFCCcGOtQH Dov7ap5vPQ Noordin, Q., Niang, A., Jama, B., & Nyasimi, M. (2001). Scaling up adoption and impact of agroforestry technologies: Experiences from western Kenya. Development in Practice, 11(4), 509–523. Rogers, E. M., & Shoemaker, F. F. (1971). Communication of innovations: A cross-cultural approach. New York: The Free Press. Sachs, J. D. (2005). The end of poverty: Economic possibilities for our time. New York: Penguin Press. Simmons, R., Brown, J., & Dı´az, M. (2002). Facilitating large-scale transitions to quality of care: An idea whose time has come. Studies in Family Planning, 33(1), 61–75. Uvin, P., & Miller, D. (1996). Paths to scaling-up: Alternative strategies for local nongovernmental organizations. Human Organization, 55(3), 344–354. Uvin, P., Jain, P. S., & Brown, D. L. (2000). Think large and act small: Toward a new paradigm for NGO scaling up. World Development, 28(8), 1409–1419. Wils, F. (1996). Scaling up, mainstreaming, and accountability: The challenge to NGOs. In M. Edwards & D. Hulme (Eds.), Beyond the magic bullet: NGO performance and accountability in the post-Cold War world (pp. 67–79). West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press.
Results and Performance INGO BODE Universita¨t Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
Introduction Across the social sciences, civil society has long not been subject to concerns over (good or bad) performance – perhaps with the exception of historical studies on weak democracies turning into dictatorship. Only more recently
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some strands of the economic sciences and of political sociology have discovered their interest in this topic. In particular, the issue has been tackled by investigating achievements of civil society at societal (national or even international) level, on the one hand, and at what nonprofit agencies operating in particular organizational fields were delivering if compared to alternative mechanisms of providing welfare (generally speaking), on the other. This new interest in what can be termed the results of collective civic action is in some way astonishing. Regarding mainstream theories of social development, societal modernization was long believed to dwell on the evolution of two sole institutional spheres: markets and states. Whereas competition- and profit-driven markets were deemed to guarantee economic progress, the welfare state was expected to embed these markets in a broader institutional order and to correct some of their social drawbacks. In this reading, civic action had a place only with respect to the election of governments and maybe pressure group campaigning or bargaining. What remained from the nineteenth century tradition of nonprofits (charities, mutuals, associations) providing services to diverse clienteles was often viewed as a residualistic, if not outmoded, pattern of collective human action. The latter was often referred to as organized dilettantism (Seibel, 1990), stemming from amateuristic management, strenuous intra-organizational consensus-seeking, and endemic cost-inefficiency due to the influence of ideology or to governance patterns flawed by numerous internal veto-points. However, the rediscovery of civil society in the social sciences, from the 1980s onwards, brought a sea change. Civic action in non-state and nonmarket organizational settings has now become viewed as not only enriching democracy but also creating, or preserving, social bonds and therefore as enhancing the welfare of wide sections of the population (Putnam, 2002). While this sometimes enthusiastic reappraisal of associational activities in modern society has not always corresponded to what constitutes the major strongholds of the nonprofit sector of many (Western) nation states, it implies that, in many instances, organized civic action is performing better than its institutional alternatives (state bureaucracy or private business). At least, civic activities, and nonprofits governing them, have been discovered as efficacious means to empower societal minorities, to invent new practices in community or social work and to (re-)instill moral virtues into the citizenry. It is, above all, the societal performance of the nonprofit sector which is at stake here. At the intersection of both the afore-sketched modern perspective on societal development on the one hand, and civil society enthusiasm, on the other, the two or three
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past decades have also seen debate on the relative performance of service-providing nonprofits. This theme is dealt with in socioeconomics and in institutional choice theory, but a driving force behind its career has been a changing approach to public management throughout the Western world. The so-called New Public Management (NPM), invented as a managerial technology to enhance the efficiency of public service provision, has affected both the governance of the relations between state and (organized) civil society and the management of nonprofit undertakings themselves. One crucial issue here is the relative economic advantages of nonprofit, as opposed to forprofit or public, delivery of public services, mainly in the health and social care sectors. Concerning the idea of entrusting nonprofits with the delivery of (more) public services, the interest in measuring their performance has markedly grown, first on the side of public sector managers and, consequently, within nonprofits themselves. Following the emergence of what has been referred to quasi- or welfare markets, the attention of both public managers and academics has turned to the capacity of nonprofits of generating distinctive results in terms of resource allocation or social policy goals. While this ‘‘performance agenda’’ (Paton, 2003: 6) has helped raise the scientific awareness of the particular role civic action and the nonprofit sector are playing in contemporary society, it has also posed some problems to the everyday life of many organizations across the sector.
Definition As already noted, the growing interest in the results of civic action in part revolves around global performance materializing in social-well being, social integration, or contributions to the realization of shared values (democracy, social equity, equality of opportunity etc.). One can refer to this as societal outcomes of collective civic action. In particular, the latter has become seen as potentially beneficial where ‘‘free market outcomes may be both inefficient and inequitable’’ (Kendall and Knapp, 2000: 108–109). That said, it is widely acknowledged that the contribution of civil society (or the nonprofit sector) to societal well-being is hard to measure as the architecture of the sector’s interplay with further levels of society remains largely opaque at macro level. At meso-level, the bulk of the relevant scientific literature focuses on the results delivered by ‘‘production units,’’ in terms of measurable, mostly short-term, organizational outputs. These outputs can be multiple and longer-term, but they are generally expected to materialize in hard data to make a given collective action comparable to the one of (institutional) competitors or over different
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stages of organizational development (Paton, 2003). As shown in greater detail below, however, organizations rooted in civil society have often settled in fields where organizational performance (e.g., social empowerment) is only partially tangible in kind, or ambiguous since different objectives and time frames overlap within one and the same project. Again, the very impact of what is undertaken can be difficult to retrace as to who, or what, has eventually generated it. The results of collective civic action, then, are particular in kind, open to interpretation and subject to political debate, more so than the performance of market enterprises or public bureaucracies.
Historical Background Across Western nations, a major trigger of the interest in the performance of civil society certainly was the velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe, giving momentum to the concept of civil society as a societal sphere located outside the state. A further driving force was scepticism about the achievements of public administration, proliferating among wider sections of the societal elites from the late 1970s onwards. Also, in the light of increasing societal disintegration, often attributed to growing individualism or the tendency towards an ever more unleashed capitalistic economy, academics and politicians have become aware of nonprofits cultivating and developing social ties among the citizenry. Major Western countries have indeed seen growing debate on social cohesiveness and the factors endorsing it, often referred to as ‘‘social capital’’ (Putnam et al., 2002, Saxton and Benson, 2005; Knorringa and Staveren, 2007). The production and maintenance of social capital has become viewed as being critical to democracy and sound social integration – and as a fundamental contribution civil society organizations make to societal wellbeing. Meanwhile, many scholars have undertaken efforts to measure this contribution by ‘‘proxies’’ such as the density of memberships, the volume of volunteering, the rate of organizational foundings or feelings of trust expressed by those actively involved in a given community. Often, associations have been found between a high prevalence of these items and indicators of societal wellbeing, even though it remains difficult to provide unequivocal evidence about the extent to which existing patterns of collective civic action are actually containing current tendencies towards greater social disintegration. In some countries, societal and political elites have been taking initiatives to safeguard or enhance social capital throughout the wider society such as the promotion of volunteer centres – although the same actors may
sometimes have contributed to the erosion of it otherwise, for instance through the curtailment of social welfare provision, the fostering of working-poor labor markets, or the weakening of rules protecting traditional nonprofits such as trade unions or charities. Moreover, the interest in output measurement and performance management as originating in the above-mentioned NPM-agenda has put strain on many nonprofits, increasingly expected to ‘‘deliver’’ – although proponents of this agenda have argued that it will eventually enhance their overall productive capacities. Be it as it may, these proponents were not the only stakeholders claiming greater accountability from the nonprofit sector. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, selfhelp or user movements grew into important players in the public sphere and made the very quality of (public and) nonprofit action a matter of concern (Bode and Evers, 2004, for the case of Germany). A major issue were the relations between organizational ‘‘stewards’’ on the one hand, and users, donors, volunteers and members, on the other. The expectations on performance featuring in this debate, though in some respects consonant with the NPM-agenda, had distinctive implications. While the NPM-agenda centred widely on economic issues such as cost-efficiency and ‘‘value for money,’’ the aforementioned movements focused on democratic governance and the respect of basic values in the day-to-day action of nonprofit executives and professionals. Through these voices, enriching associational life and ensuring mission development were given preference over the perspective of the nonprofit sector delivering (more) countable outputs.
Key Issues When discussing results and performance with respect to the nonprofit sector today, many scholars and stakeholders are dealing with the actual ‘‘value-added’’ of collective civic action and the measurement of the latter. One should however consider what is meant by performance in this particular societal sphere, and why there nowadays is this widespread belief that purposeful performance management is indispensable to achieve good results in collective civic action. Influential approaches to the assessment of the distinctive performance of the nonprofit sector refer to its comparative institutional advantage over existing alternatives (for a summary, see Dollery and Wallis, 2003). In particular, they evoke the possibility of ‘‘state failure’’ as, regarding a pluralistic society, governments may be unable to respond to differentiated needs and preferences whereas nonprofits change the overall societal resource
Results and Performance
allocation through actions centring on social minorities, for instance. A second issue raised in this debate is ‘‘market failure,’’ that is, the fact that markets may deliver poor results when trust in service providers is essential – especially in case organizational outputs remain widely opaque, for instance in fields such as foreign aid or human service delivery. Since agencies rooted in civic society do not distribute profits, it is assumed they basically conform to their very mission (Hansman, 1986). From the perspective of public management, a further asset of such agencies is seen in what is referred to as nonprofit-generation advantage (which is resulting from the non-distribution-constraint imposed on them). Nonprofits which state authorities entrust with the provision of public services are supposed to leverage stakeholder investments with informal input from donors or volunteers (Bryce, 2005: 101–102). Moreover, public and other stakeholders often expect that executive compensation is ‘‘reasonable,’’ that is, ‘‘lower than found in for-profits’’ (Steinberg, 1993: 17). In the eyes of public bodies choosing between for-profit or nonprofit agencies as contract partners, the latter are likely to appear as more trustworthy because there is a rough convergence of interest between purchasers and providers, and because such partnerships imply low transaction costs through the influence of what Bryce (2005: 39–41) terms ‘‘cognitive social capital,’’ that is, shared knowledge about a nonprofit’s ‘‘goodwill’’ (particularly in case the partner is a value- and faith-based group). All this, however, is largely premised on these groups being ‘‘‘cushioned’ from competition,’’ as it is these cushions which eventually ‘‘allow nonprofits to become ‘trustworthy’’’ (Steinberg, 1993: 21) and to perform well in fields where performance is hard to measure (ibid: 23). The drawback of such cushions is, at least according to mainstream economic thinking, the risk of cost-inefficiency associated with organizations being exempted from a market check and balance (Kendall and Knapp, 2000: 106). This check and balance may be impossible to establish, though. A large variety of collective civic action adopts a public good character which makes ‘‘it inherently difficult to measure outputs, since the impacts are felt widely’’ (ibid: 109). Indeed, there are numerous difficulties in defining and grasping performance in the nonprofit sector. Results in this sector frequently materialize in the delivery of human services, but these ‘‘are notoriously intangible,’’ hence ‘‘outcomes . . . may be inherently unknowable’’ (Kanter and Summers, 1987: 154). Moreover, civic groups and nonprofits often pursue multiple goals (Hasenfeld and Gidron, 2005). In many cases, they engage with service provision and political advocacy; they have various
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stakeholders (public bodies, users, members, all with potentially different preferences); pursue both social values and vested interests; and are very context-dependent (see below). Transaction costs, which institutional economics argue are the key reason of why a particular institutional arrangement (market coordination or hierarchical organization) persists or changes in a given domain, prove extremely complex in the nonprofit sector as there are difficulties in finding both reliable information on actual outcomes including long-term effects and consistent, unequivocal criteria for assessing the value of these outcomes. Importantly, the definition of performance is always a political issue, and this especially holds for mission-driven organizations as various constituencies may be interested not only in particular goals, but also in specific approaches to measuring results (Kanter and Summers, 1987: 158). One should also keep in mind that civil society organizations are capable of producing ‘‘process-quality’’ in a democratic order as well as social change materializing in more equity or more equal opportunities. Related performance criteria, however, are highly controversial within modern society. After all, what nonprofits, their stakeholders and also scientific reasoning are left with is what Paton (2003: 43) refers to as ‘‘the social construction of performance.’’ Indeed, to understand the background and the implications of how society is dealing with performance in the nonprofit sector, it makes sense to embark on a cultural analysis. In the social sciences concerned with nonprofits, this perspective has been adopted by neoinstitutionalist approaches to organizational sociology. Drawing on the observation that symbolic references matter largely in the nonprofit sector, these approaches stress the influence of cognitive frameworks gaining prominence at a given stage of societal development. Normative expectations prevail over actual outcomes, and there may be gap between organizational discourse (including on performance or on performance management) and organizational practice (Meyer and Rowan, 1977, Dart, 2004). Precisely because results are so hard to measure in the sector, legitimacy renewal turns out to be a crucial success criterion. Environmental acknowledgment precedes practical utility, even as the association between the two is blurred. By the same token, stakeholder support may be based on promises rather than results. Conversely, attempts to make results measurable exposes the sector to ‘‘dilemmas of nonprofit performance management,’’ e.g., to the challenge of concealing organizational goal ambiguity and insulating ‘‘funders from deliverers’’ (Kanter and Summers, 1987: 163).
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Furthermore, according to neoinstitutionalist thinking, nonprofits resorting to fashionable management toolkits respond to institutional pressure rather than to functional necessities. One example is pay-for-performance plans currently proliferating in the nonprofit sector internationally. These plans are fashionable although the rationale behind them is often not consistent with a nonprofit’s inner structure. This is because what institutional economics label the principal-agent-problem is less salient in this sector; rather than merely pursuing personal (in stead of corporate) interests within the day-to-day life of a given organization, many mission-driven managers and employees tend to exploit themselves for the sake of organizational success and forego career opportunities in the for-profit economy. Pay-for-performance plans even incur a risk of ‘‘misdirecting individual behaviour’’ as they may foster extrinsic motivation while devaluing risk-taking through intrinsic, civic-minded, initiative (Theuvsen, 2004: 120–122). In many respects, the social construction of performance management is unavoidable. Throughout major organizational fields, nonprofits are dependent on environments they can hardly control. Even if it made sense economically, mission-driven organizations cannot easily change their programmes, due to their ‘‘inert’’ social constituency, their long-term values and powerful institutional stakeholders preventing them from influencing institutional environments more proactively (e.g., through political action which in many countries is forbidden to charities). Similarly, there is recent research suggesting that the innovative capacity of nonprofits is heavily conditioned by government funding rather than their intrinsic qualities (Osborne et al., 2008). More generally, civil society organizations have a limited influence on ‘‘non-resource inputs’’ (Kendall and Knapp 2000: 115) stemming from the social worlds they are embedded in. Poor outcomes may reside in ‘‘organizational bottlenecks’’ out of their own control (Kanter and Summers, 1987: 157). Under these conditions, many results of collective civic action are anything but self-generated. Having said this, organizational performance does matter in a practical sense. Today’s nonprofit managers, pressurized by stakeholders and funders, have an interest in increasing cost-efficiency and in making sure that clear-cut outputs are delivered. Hence there are various attempts in the sector to embark on performance measurement and improvement internationally (see the compilation provided by Paton, 2003). Numerous nonprofits take steps to establish cost-efficiency measurement and best practice benchmarking, others use kitemarks and quality labels, and many are keen to employ symbolic
management instruments such as (adapted) balanced scorecards. From a management perspective, nonprofits are certainly capable of improving their technical operations, for instance concerning the volume of raised funds, the number of users served, or the frequency of media reports on their campaigning activities. However, as data on this kind of results is only partially indicative of a nonprofit’s performance in terms of actual social outcomes, anything but a prudent use of the aforementioned management tools would be mistaken. Nonprofits incur considerable risks if they try to economize on everything that cannot be counted or appears, at a first glance, as a waste of time and money, for instance sound internal deliberation or fair consensus-seeking. Such intangible performance is often fundamental to the capacity of producing more tangible outputs. While it certainly makes sense to build a sector-sensitive ‘‘framework for performance measurement’’ (Kendall and Knapp, 2000: 113–128), including the measurement of ‘‘intermediate outputs’’ (goods and services delivered), of the degree to which opportunities of choice concerning these outputs are created, or of indicators on equity in resource allocation, it remains hazardous to mechanically infer from scores on these items the very performance (or nonperformance) of those who manage a nonprofit undertaking. This danger is particularly apparent with contemporary public policies interested in reshaping their relations with nonprofits in the context of contracting-out and competitive non-statutory service delivery. A managerialistic ‘‘performance agenda’’ stressing benchmarking, microeconomic accountability and value for money easily tends to overlook both the noneconomic foundations of collective civic action and the importance of intangible outcomes generated through this action (Carmel and Harlock, 2008:, Aiken and Bode, 2009). In a similar vein, radical devolution policies sidestep the possibility of ‘‘voluntary failure’’ (Salamon, 1987); compared with public sector agencies, civil society (organizations) may indeed provide poor results where civic initiative is shortsighted, particularistic or amateuristic, and where undemocratic paternalism and elitism prevails over a social right-oriented approach to welfare provision.
Future Directions The current challenge to both academics and practitioners from the field consists of both better assessing the distinctive potential of collective civic (or nonprofit) action and avoiding a ‘‘totalitarian’’ approach to performance management which risks squeezing out this potential through managerialistic policies at governmental and
Rhodes Trust
organizational level. On the one hand, much has still to be done to conceptualize and operationalize organizational performance in the nonprofit sector within the confines of what is possible and what is desired by all stakeholders. This also may provide a rationale for arguing that forprofit methods of ensuring superior results and performance are not working in nonprofit sector settings, and possibly that these methods long-term are counterproductive in for-profit settings as well. On the other hand, those eager to protect the nonprofit sector from the measurement ‘‘mania’’ proliferating these days internationally are not exempted from providing (further) convincing evidence concerning the critical importance of the difficult-to-measure outcomes produced by collective civic (nonprofit) action, particularly when it comes to questions about ways to ensure a socially (more) cohesive and (more) equitable society.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Economy ▶ Contracts and Contract Regimes ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Evaluation and Civil Society ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ New Public Management ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Social Audits ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Political ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Sociological
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structure and policy (pp. 57–84). Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press. Hasenfeld, Y., & Gidron, B. (2005). Understanding multi-purpose hybrid voluntary organizations: The contributions of theories on civil society, social movements and non-profit organizations. Journal of Civil Society, 1(2), 97–112. Kanter, R. M., & Summers, D. V. (1987). Doing well by doing good: Dilemmas of performance measurement in nonprofit organizations. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Kendall, J., & Knapp, M. (2000). Measuring the performance of voluntary organizations. Public Management, 2(1), 105–132. Knorringa, P., & Staveren, I. van (2007). Beyond social capital: A critical approach. Review of Social Economy, 65(1), 2–9. Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structures as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83 (2), 340–363. Osborne, S. P., Chew, C., & McLaughlin, K. (2008). The once and future pioneers? The innovative capacity of voluntary organisations and the provision of public services: A longitudinal approach. Public Management Review, 10(1), 51–70. Paton, R. (2003). Managing and measuring social enterprises. London: Sage. Putnam, R. E. (Ed.) (2002). Democracies in flux. The evolution of social capital in contemporary society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Salamon, L. M. (1987). Of Market Failure, Voluntary Failure, and thirdparty government: Toward a theory of government-nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 16(1/2), 29–49. Saxton, G. D., & Benson, M. A. (2005). Social capital and the growth of the nonproft sector. Social Science Quarterly, 86, 16–35. Seibel, W. (1990). Organizational behavior and organizational function. Toward a micro-macro-theory of the third sector. In H. K. Anheier & W. Seibel (Eds.), The third sector. Comparative studies of nonprofit organizations (pp. 107–121). Berlin, Germany/New York: De Gruyter. Steinberg, R. (1993). Public policy and the performance of nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 22(1), 13–32. Theuvsen, L. (2004). Doing better while doing good: Motivational aspects of pay-for-performance effectiveness in nonprofit organizations. Voluntas, 15(2), 117–136.
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References/Further Readings Aiken, M., & Bode, I. (2009). Killing the Golden Goose? Third Sector Organizations and Back-to-Work Programmes in Germany and the UK. Social Policy & Administration 43(3), 209–225. Bode, I., & Evers, A. (2004). From institutional fixation to entrepreneurial mobility? The German third sector and its contemporary challenges. In A. Evers & J.-L. Laville (Eds.), The third sector in Europe (pp. 101–121). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Bryce, H. J. (2005). Players in the public policy process: Nonprofits as social capital and agents. New York: Palgrave/Macmillan. Carmel, E., & Harlock, J. (2008). Instituting the ‘Third Sector’ as a governable terrain: partnership, procurement and performance in the UK. Policy & Politics, 36(2), 155–171. Dart, R. (2004). The legitimacy of social enterprise. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 14(4), 411–424. Dollery, B. E., & Wallis, J. L. (2003). The political economy of the voluntary sector. A reappraisal of the comparative institutional advantage of voluntary organisations. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Hansman, H. B. (1986). The role of nonprofit enterprise. In S. RoseAckerman (Ed.), The economics of nonprofit institutions. Studies in
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Rhodes Trust MARTIN HO¨LZ
Address of Organization South Parks Road Oxford OX1 3RG UK www.rhodestrust.org
Introduction The Rhodes Trust is a UK-based educational charity that sponsors the renowned Rhodes scholarship to enable
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young scholars to study at Oxford University. Since the Trust’s founding, more than 7,000 people, including many world leaders in politics, the social and natural sciences, and business, have become ‘‘Rhodes scholars.’’
Brief History Cecil John Rhodes was a British businessman operating in Southern Africa, who made his fortune with the foundation of the De Beers diamond company. He was also prime minister (1890–1896) at the former colony of the Cape of Good Hope and was responsible for establishing control over the area that became Rhodesia (today the states of Zambia and Zimbabwe). Upon the death of Cecil John Rhodes in 1902, the Trust was established to educate future elites at Oxford, which he had attended off and on over the course of his career. In 2003 to mark its centenary, the Rhodes Trust made a founding donation of 10 million British pounds and partnered with the Nelson Mandela Foundation to create the Mandela Rhodes Foundation. The Mandela Rhodes scholarships for young African citizens aim to build leadership capacity in Africa.
including setting eligibility criteria, which vary from area to area, and nominating the selection committees.
Major Contributions/Accomplishments Rhodes hoped that those who benefited from his scholarships would go on to impact society and work toward maintaining peace. Among past Rhodes scholars are numerous Nobel Prize winners, world leaders such as former US president Clinton and current President Obama’s ambassador to the UN, as well as economist Mancur Olson. Even if the founder’s politics might not be considered appropriate today, the ideas behind his initiative to foster international education for the betterment of humanity and the search for peace cannot be disputed.
Cross-References ▶ Olson, Mancur
References/Further Readings Kenny, A. (Ed.) (2001). The History of the Rhodes Trust: 1902–1999. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ziegler, P. (2008). Legacy: Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes trust and Rhodes scholarships. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Mission/Objectives The overall mission of the Rhodes Trust, as written in the will of Cecil Rhodes, is to promote peace, progress and prosperity by educating young people – primarily from developed countries. According to the Trust’s website, Rhodes laid down that the selection of scholars be based on ‘‘academic ability; sporting activity; qualities of personal rectitude, strength and compassion; and sense of the public good.’’
Activities The Trust’s principal activity is the administration of the Rhodes scholarships. The scholarships are available to men and women from 14 countries/regions including the US, Germany, and UK commonwealth countries. Selection of scholars is the responsibility of individual secretariats based in each of the 14 areas. The scholarship itself covers study fees at Oxford and a stipend for living expenses, typically for 2 years, but also for as little as one and a maximum of three. The Trust also administers the Rhodes House, which provides space for Rhodes Scholars’ and other events.
Structure and Governance The Trust is governed by a board of trustees and administered by a warden, which also runs the Rhodes House. Secretaries in each of the 14 designated areas oversee the application and selection process in their respective areas,
Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization Postfach 10 06 28 D-70005 Stuttgart Germany www.bosch-stiftung.de
Introduction The Robert Bosch Stiftung (Robert Bosch Foundation) is one of the major German foundations associated with a private company, and it has managed the philanthropic endeavors of company founder Robert Bosch for more than 40 years. Since its founding, the Robert Bosch Foundation has provided grants worth €840 million. The foundation’s headquarters are at the founder’s former home in Stuttgart, and there are additional offices in Berlin and New York City.
Brief History The Bosch Group, which is currently comprised of Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 300 subsidiary companies
Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH
in over 50 countries, was created in Stuttgart in 1886 by Robert Bosch (1861–1942) as a ‘‘Werksta¨tte fu¨r Feinmechanik und Elektrotechnik’’ (Workshop for Precision Mechanics and Electrical Engineering). Throughout his lifetime, Bosch made significant gifts to various social causes and organizations. From 1920 onwards, Robert Bosch also offered a range of social benefits for Bosch employees and their families. Upon drawing up his will in 1921, he created the Vermo¨gensverwaltung Bosch GmbH (VVB), which was to receive his shares in his company after his death. The directors of VVB were personally appointed by Bosch to decide within 30 years whether, and if so when, the 86% of shares that devolved to his heirs after his death in 1942 should be transferred to VVB. In 1964, the Bosch family’s inherited shares in the company Robert Bosch GmbH were transferred to VVB, and it was subsequently renamed Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH (Robert Bosch Foundation) in 1969.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area
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international junior-level executives. A large portion of scholarship funding is directed towards university graduates and postgraduates from the United States and Europe. The foundation also operates three facilities for health and research in Stuttgart: the Robert Bosch Hospital (Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus), the Dr. Margarete Fischer-Bosch Institute for Clinical Pharmacology, and the Institute for the History of Medicine. In addition, the foundation also supports four dependent foundations within the Robert Bosch Stiftung. The Otto und Edith Mu¨hlschlegel Stiftung focuses on aging and the Hans-Walz-Stiftung supports naturopathic treatment. The Rochus und Beatrice Mummert Stiftung awards stipends to students from Central and Eastern Europe to earn a diploma or a master’s degree in economics or engineering at a German university, and the DVA-Stiftung supports activities in German-French relations.
Structure and Governance
In accordance with Bosch’s philanthropic vision to support ‘‘health, education, training, support for gifted children, international reconciliation and the like,’’ the foundation promotes public welfare and the development of civil society, tackles social challenges, and fosters understanding between different nations and cultures through exchanges and cooperation. In addition to the foundation’s grant-making, its research and knowledge dissemination aims to change people’s attitudes and behavior. The foundation supports competitions and collaborates with knowledge disseminators such as journalists, teachers, and educators to bring the foundation’s projects and impact to a larger audience.
The foundation’s charitable activities are determined by its Board of Trustees, which has eight members who are also partners of the foundation. These partner-members act as trustees and must step down at the age of 70. As directed by Robert Bosch, the Board of Trustees is made up of members of his family, as well as entrepreneurs and professionals from the general public. Dr. Kurt W. Liedtke is the current Chairman of the Board of Trustees, and Dieter Berg serves as the Chairman of the Board of Management (Gescha¨ftsfu¨hrung). Heinrich Gro¨ner is the Head of Department (Bereichsleiter, which oversees Finances, Human Resources, Organization, IT, and Institutes) and he serves as a Deputy Member of the Board of Management.
Activities
Funding
The Robert Bosch Stiftung both initiates its own projects and offers grants to support external projects including small initiatives, associations, and universities. Approximately 90 employees manage an average of 800 internal and external projects each year. The foundation’s work falls into the areas of Science and Research, Health and Humanitarian Aid, International Relations, Education and Society, and Society and Culture, and approximately €58.9 million was spent to support the foundation’s programming work in 2007. Also, the foundation also offers funding for projects through scholarships, programs for journalists, competitions, and prizes. Scholarships are offered in Science, Health, International Relations, Education, and Society to support the training and continuing education of
Funding for the foundation is derived from its holdings in its share capital of Robert Bosch GmbH. In 2007, the foundation still held 92% of Robert Bosch GmbH’s capital stock of €1.2 billion.
Accomplishments In 1984, the foundation created the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship Program to familiarize selected fellows with Germany’s political, economic, and social situation. Through this fellowship program, the foundation aims to contribute to the long-term stabilization and growth of German-American relations. Each year, 20 accomplished American professionals are offered the opportunity to complete a high-level professional development program in Germany. Over the program’s 25-year history,
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many Bosch Alumni have become leaders in their professional fields (typically business, economics, journalism, law, and public affairs), and they have dedicated their careers to the long-term stabilization and growth of transatlantic relations. Fully funded by the foundation, the fellowship program continues to demonstrate the foundation’s commitment to enhancing a greater transatlantic understanding.
cooperatives, and to federate the cooperative movement, made Rochdale the leader by example, and triggered the development of a cooperative movement. Nowadays, the Cooperative Group can be considered as the descendant of the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers.
Mission
▶ Bosch, Robert ▶ German Marshall Fund ▶ Philanthropy and the Media ▶ Social Entrepreneurs ▶ Work & Employment in the Nonprofit Sector
The Rochdale Pioneers’ mission combined economic pragmatism with an utopian goal. While striving for an enhanced financial, political, and moral position of their members, they used a step-by-step approach, starting with a store, accumulating capital to establish other cooperatives for housing, employment, agriculture, education, and finally a self-supporting ‘‘home colony.’’ When they became successful, the ‘‘home colony’’ idea dissolved, however.
References/Further Readings
Activities
Heuss, T., Gillespie, S., & Kapczynski, J. (1994). Robert Bosch: His life and achievements. New York: Henry Holt. MacDonald, N., & Tayart de Borms, L. (Eds.) (2008). Philanthropy in Europe: A rich past, a promising future. London: Alliance Publishing Trust. Szwed, R. (Ed.) (2004). Building a new transatlantic generation: 20 years of the Robert Bosch Foundation Fellowship Program 1984–2004 – Essays by Bosch Alumni. Stuttgart, Germany: Robert Bosch Stiftung.
The 1844 grocery shop of the Rochdale Society included no more than a selection of butter, sugar, flour, oatmeal, and some tallow candles. Soon, this selection was augmented with other products like tobacco and tea. In accordance with their mission, the Rochdale Society subsequently diversified its activities, setting up branch stores, and investing with other cooperatives in second tier cooperatives. This way, the Rochdale Society got involved in social care, burial, manufacturing, housing, and insurance activities. An important step forward was the founding of the Cooperative Wholesale Society (CWS) in 1863. The CWS gave its members, local Rochdale-style cooperatives, a significant economic leverage, and accelerated the dissemination of cooperative societies in the United Kingdom. Next to their commercial activities, the Rochdale Society paid specific attention to education of its members, installing a newsroom, a library, and lecture series.
Cross-References
Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers WIM VAN OPSTAL
Introduction The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers was founded in Rochdale, England, in 1844 and soon became a prototype for cooperatives worldwide. Its governance structure, known as the Rochdale Principles, is still a key guideline for the design of cooperatives.
Brief History The social dislocations of the Industrial Revolution inspired workers and enlightened entrepreneurs to establish cooperative societies since the beginning of the nineteenth century. In 1844, the Rochdale Pioneers, 28 weavers and other artisans, set up their own cooperative society, collected a capital of £1 sterling per member and started a grocery shop. By 1850, membership had risen to 600, making the Rochdale Society the first successful cooperative that survived for more than a few years. This inspired others in neighboring cities to start a cooperative according to the Rochdale model. Efforts to establish new cooperatives, to educate cooperators, to lobby for a better legislation for
Structure and Governance The structure and governance of the Rochdale Society were key to their success. Its statutes were drawn up very concisely and included a mixture of principles and rules from earlier cooperative experiences. Combined with their pragmatic approach and a long-term social purpose, this resulted in what is called upon now as the Rochdale Principles. These included open and voluntary membership, the distribution of a portion of profits on the basis of patronage, democratic member control, a limited return on share capital, cash trading, selling pure and unadulterated goods, cooperative education, religious and political neutrality, and cooperation among cooperatives.
Funding Just like their (later) German counterparts SchulzeDelitzsch and Raiffeisen, the Rochdale Pioneers opted
Rockefeller Brothers Fund
for a mutual self-help organization. Therefore, their capital structure did not rely on charitable gifts, but was based on members’ share contributions and retained profits.
Accomplishments The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers provided not only a successful blueprint for cooperatives worldwide, but has been pivotal in the early development of the cooperative movement as well. In the United Kingdom, this resulted in the establishment of the Cooperative Union in 1869, nowadays named Cooperatives UK. As the Rochdale model became copied all over the world, an international cooperative movement developed, resulting in 1895 in the formation of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA). Within the ICA, Rochdale has always been an important symbol. As pointed out by Fairbairn (1994) ‘‘the meaning of Rochdale is constructed by each generation to meet its own needs.’’ This way, those 28 Rochdale Pioneers initiated and inspired a worldwide cooperative movement that now includes about 800 million people.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives, History and Theories of ▶ International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) ▶ Raiffeisen, Friedrich ▶ Schulze-Delitzsch, Franz Hermann
References/Further Readings Fairbairn, B. (1994). The meaning of Rochdale: The Rochdale pioneers and the co-operative principles. Occasional Paper Series. Centre for the Study of Co-operatives. University of Saskatchewan. Lambert, P. (1963). Studies in the social philosophy of co-operation. Manchester: Co-operative Union. Melnyk, G. (1985). The search for community. From Utopia to a cooperative society. Montre´al/New York: Black Rose Books. Thompson, D. (1994). Weavers of dreams. Founders of the modern cooperative movement. Davis, CA: Center for Cooperatives, University of California.
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Introduction The Rockefeller family is an American icon of entrepreneurship and philanthropy. In 1870, John D. Rockefeller founded the Standard Oil Company, one of the world’s first and largest multinational companies. The financial success of that enterprise was translated into charitable work that shaped American health, education, culture, the arts and well-being guided by strong family values and a sense of duty. John D. Rockefeller, Jr., brought his children together to create the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and so continue the family’s philanthropic legacy.
Brief History In 1940, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (JDR Jr.) made a gift establishing the initial endowment of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund founded by his five sons. (His daughter joined later.) In the 2 decades before his death in 1960, JDR Jr. sought, through the Fund, to encourage his children’s philanthropic activities by working together, sharing their knowledge, and tapping research and other sources to strengthen their grant-making activities. Through the 1950s the Fund’s board expanded to include additional trustees as well as family members who had been governing the Fund for three generations. In 1999, the Charles E. Culpeper Foundation merged with the Fund.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The Rockefeller Brothers Fund states its mission as: ‘‘Helping to build a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world.’’ The Fund dedicates its grant-making through three thematic areas: Democratic Practice, Sustainable Development, and Peace and Security, with a special focus on in enhancing the quality of relationships between Muslim and Western societies. The work of the Fund is focused on four primary geographical areas: New York City, South Africa, Western Balkans, and Southern China. A crossprogram focus on sustainable energy was added in 2006.
Activities
Rockefeller Brothers Fund ELIZABETH LEVI
Address of Organization 437 Madison Avenue, 37th floor New York, NY 10022 USA www.rbf.org
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The primary activity of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund is grant-making, with grants awarded in the United States and abroad to charitable projects that are characterized, in the Fund’s words, by their commitment to ‘‘expand knowledge, clarify values and critical choices, nurture creative expression, and shape public policy.’’ Fund documents describe that over 340 grants were made in 2007. The Fund’s emphasis on synergy, taking initiative and engagement involves the Fund, and often other funding partners, in the development of initiatives and capacity building to strengthen the nonprofit organizations and public charities the Fund supports. The Fund also
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convenes and encourages collaboration among leaders from governments, the private sector and NGOs, at its Conference Center in New York, and in other locations.
Structure and Governance The governing body of The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is composed of a 16-member Board of Trustees and six Trustees who serve in an advisory capacity. The Board is chaired by Richard Rockefeller, EdM, MD, a physician and businessman, who is the grandson of the Fund’s founder. Half of the Board is made up of members of the Rockefeller family, extending the unique legacy of this group that now includes the fifth generation of the family. Over 40 staff members work at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, led by Stephen B. Heintz, Fund President.
Funding The Fund’s original endowment was established through a major gift in 1951 from John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and was expanded through a major bequest from his estate after his death. In 1999, with the merger with the Culpeper Foundation, the Fund’s assets grew to over $650 million. Total program spending as published in the 2007 Statistical Review of Operations was over $41.6 million (USD). The overwhelming majority of these expenditures take the form of grant-making and program related expenses. In 2007, the Fund’s assets were assessed at year end to be over $958.5 million (USD).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Rockefeller Brothers Fund is a leading American philanthropy that continues its founding vision of learning and utilizing research to conduct high impact grant-making. During the 2008 US Presidential election, in the sphere of Democratic Practice, the Fund supported a range of social media initiatives to promote voter turnout, self-advocacy and fair elections. The Fund’s work in Sustainable Development is realized through support of organizations like The Common Assets Defense Fund, whose founder, Peter Barnes, has been heralded for his progressive work on global warming. A notable project in the Peace and Security sphere was the Fund-supported study at the University of Cairo of Arab journalists and their role in shaping public information. The groundbreaking study which was the first of its kind is publicly available, and findings were widely covered in the international press.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking
▶ Rockefeller, John D., Jr. ▶ Rockefeller, John D., Sr.
References/Further Readings Nelson, J. M. (1998). Poverty, inequality and conflict in developing countries. New York: Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Rockefeller Brothers Fund. (1958). The pursuit of excellence: Education and the future of America, Panel Report V of the Special Studies Project. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Siegel, D., & Yancy, J. (1992). The rebirth of civil society: The development of the nonprofit sector in East Central Europe and the role of Western assistance. New York: Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
Rockefeller Foundation ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization 420 5th Ave. New York, NY 10018-2702 USA www.rockfound.org
Introduction Based in New York City, the Rockefeller Foundation operates both within the United States and around the world. As one of the first foundations to attack problems at their roots, the Rockefeller Foundation helped spur the transition from individual to institutional giving and from charity to focused organizational funding – helping to develop modern institutional philanthropy. The Foundation’s international breakthrough work includes the creation of public health systems, the eradication of yellow fever, revolutionary advances in Latin American, Asian, and Indian agriculture, and the establishment of public–private partnerships to develop promising new vaccines. In the United States, the Rockefeller Foundation funded early research that led to the creation of the Social Security system, expanded education to thousands of African Americans excluded from academic opportunities, and organized the largest urban development foundation partnership (Living Cities) in US history.
Brief History John D. Rockefeller, Sr., who was born into a family of modest circumstances, established the Rockefeller Foundation in 1913 with gifts totaling $35 million. Successful
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in refining and distributing American petroleum through the Standard Oil Company, he contributed an additional $65 million the next year. As an owner of 30% of the company’s shares, Rockefeller had an annual income totaling approximately $4–$5 million. With no property or income tax system in place at the time, a large portion of his personal earnings were invested in the American economy, including major railroads, financial institutions, real estate, and other lucrative industries. Upon its organizational beginnings, the focus of the Rockefeller Foundation was primarily on medical education, public health, and labor relations in the United States. The Foundation’s first grant of $100,000 was directed to the American Red Cross to purchase property for its headquarters in Washington, DC, and for ‘‘a memorial to commemorate the services of the women of the United States in caring for the sick and wounded of the Civil War.’’ John D. Rockefeller, Jr., was elected the Foundation’s first President at age 39, and from 1915 to 1930, he expanded much of its programming.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area The Rockefeller Foundation now works around the world to ensure that more poor or vulnerable individuals, communities, and institutions can tap into growth and opportunity while developing stronger resistance to risks and challenges.
Activities Since 2005, the Rockefeller Foundation has launched major efforts to bolster local resilience to the global climate crisis, mobilize an agricultural revolution in Africa, help New Orleans recover from Hurricane Katrina, and shape more sustainable transportation policies in the United States. In 2008, the Foundation began a $70 million Campaign for American Workers to develop new policy proposals and financial products that promote and protect savings, access to health care, and secure retirements. In addition to its international work, the foundation also focuses its programming on New York City through three initiatives: NYC Cultural Innovation Fund, the Jane Jacobs Medal (a $200,000 award administered by the foundation), and Opportunity NYC.
Structure and Governance The activities and decisions of the Foundation’s 15-member Board of Trustees are guided by the Foundation’s Charter, Bylaws, and Code of Conduct, all available to the public.
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The 2008 Board Chair is James F. Orr III (President and Chief Executive Officer, Landing Point Capital), and Judith Rodin serves as the Rockefeller Foundation President.
Funding The Rockefeller Foundation generates its income through investment returns on its endowment. The original corpus, which was fully funded by 1929, was worth $3 billion in 2007 dollars.
Accomplishments Historically one of the most influential NGOs in the world, the Rockefeller Foundation has had a major impact on various sectors, including public health (by, for example, eradicating yellow fever), agriculture (sparking, in large part, the Green Revolution – the transformation of agriculture in Latin America, India, and Asia), the social sciences (through urban revitalization), and the arts (by supporting Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and other landmark cultural institutions). In 1951, Max Theiler, who had joined the staff of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation in 1930, won the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the Yellow Fever Vaccine. The 1970 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to agronomist and humanitarian Norman Borlaug (known as ‘‘the father of the Green Revolution’’), whose work combating hunger (mostly funded by the Rockefeller Foundation) has saved millions of lives around the world. In 1991, the Foundation brought together a group of foundations, federal government officials, and financial institutions to help rebuild US inner cities. This collaboration, initially known as the National Community Development Initiative and now Living Cities, contributed to the revitalization of distressed inner-city communities across the United States.
Cross-References
▶ Philanthropy in North America ▶ Red Cross ▶ Rockefeller, John D., Jr. ▶ Rockefeller, John D., Sr.
References/Further Readings Fosdick, R. B. (1989). The story of the Rockefeller Foundation. New York: Transaction Publishers, Reprint. Hardin, L. S. (2008). Bellagio 1969: The green revolution. Nature, 455 (25), 470–471. Kay, L. (1993). The molecular vision of life: Caltech, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the rise of the new biology. New York: Oxford University Press. Rodin, J. (2008). The new social contract. Time, July 17, from http://www. time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1824100,00.html;12/29/2008.
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Rockefeller, John D., Jr. ALICIA SCHORTGEN
Basic Biographical Information John Davidson Rockefeller, Jr. (JDR Jr.), was a wellrespected businessman and philanthropist during one of civil society’s most formative periods in American history. The only son of John D. Rockefeller, founder of the Standard Oil Company, JDR Jr. was born in Cleveland, Ohio on January 29, 1874. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was educated in his home until the age of 10 and adhered to the Rockefeller family’s strict values of discipline and duty. Junior received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Brown University in 1897 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He married Abby Greene Aldrich on October 9, 1901. The couple had six children: one daughter, Abby, and five sons, John D. III, Nelson, Laurance, Winthrop, and David. Rockefeller worked alongside his father at Standard Oil until 1910 when he resigned to focus on philanthropic interests. Abby Aldrich Rockefeller died in 1948, and in 1951 JDR Jr. married the widow of a close friend from Brown University, Martha Baird Allen. He died in Tucson, Arizona in 1960. It is estimated that John D. Rockefeller, Jr. contributed $537 million to charitable endeavors during his lifetime.
and collaborated with his father in 1901 to create the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University), one of the nation’s first medical research facilities. A year later, in 1927, Rockefeller established the General Board of Education, an organization dedicated to improving the education system in the southern states. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. expressed particular interest in conservation efforts and donated thousands of acres to Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming and Acadia National Park in Maine.
Cross-References
▶ Rockefeller Brothers Fund ▶ Rockefeller Foundation ▶ Rockefeller, John D., Sr. ▶ United Nations
References/Further Readings Ernst, J. W. (1994). Dear father, dear son: Correspondence of John D. Rockefeller and Jr. New York: Fordham University Press. Schenkel, A. F. (1995). The rich man and the kingdom: John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Protestant establishment. Minneapolis: Fortress.
Rockefeller, John D., Sr. ALICIA SCHORTGEN
Major Contributions
Basic Biographical Information
John D. Rockefeller, Jr. and his family left a lasting philanthropic legacy in two important ways. First, the Rockefellers’ wealth significantly impacted a variety of service areas. The first two Rockefeller generations alone gave an estimated $1 billion in charitable contributions between 1860 and 1960. JDR Jr.’s sons established a foundation in 1940 to which Junior gave nearly $58 million during his lifetime. Upon his death, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. bequeathed half of his estate to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. In addition to JDR Jr.’s monetary impact, his philanthropic values shaped modern civil society. Rockefeller is credited with quipping, ‘‘Think of giving not as a duty but as a privilege,’’ and he believed that his immense wealth should be used for public good. Rockefeller participated heavily with all projects in which he invested. In December 1946, JDR Jr. gave an $8.5 million gift for the purchase of land for the United Nations in New York. Junior gave nearly $56 million for use in the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg, evidence of his passion for preserving historical records for modern appreciation. JDR Jr. gave generously to arts and education organizations,
John Davidson Rockefeller (JDR) was an ardent entrepreneur and savvy philanthropist who strongly influenced civil society in America. Rockefeller was born on a small family farm in Richford, New York on July 8, 1839. One of William A. and Eliza Davidson Rockefeller’s six children, JDR, and his family lived modestly in their rural, upstate New York community until they moved to Strongsville, Ohio in 1853. Rockefeller left Cleveland’s Central High School in 1855 to take a business course at Folsom Mercantile College. He completed the 6 months training in 10 weeks and went on to work as a bookkeeper for Hewitt & Tuttle. Rockefeller married Laura C. Spelman in Cleveland on September 8, 1864. The couple had four daughters and one son; Bessie, Alice, Alta, Edith, and John Jr. In 1859, with $1,000 of his own savings and $1,000 he borrowed from his father, JDR formed a commission merchant partnership with Maurice B. Clark. Interested in embarking upon oil refining, Rockefeller bought out his partners in 1865 and began his efforts to revolutionize the petroleum industry. In 1870, Rockefeller and five others created the Standard Oil Company of Ohio, and by 1872
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Standard controlled nearly all of Cleveland’s oil refining firms. In 1911 the US Supreme Court ruled that the Standard Oil Trust of New Jersey violated antitrust laws and ordered the company to dissolve. At 57 Rockefeller left the day-to-day responsibilities of Standard Oil Company to focus primarily on his philanthropic interests.
Major Contributions John D. Rockefeller’s immense wealth and keen interest in philanthropy provided him the opportunity to greatly influence the evolution of civil society and charitable giving in America. JDR believed strongly in Christian notions of charity, and ventured to give away the bulk of his fortune through deliberate efforts to do the most good with his eleemosynary gifts. Rockefeller began tithing generously to his church at a young age and supporting religious institutions remained a primary philanthropic interest throughout his life. In 1889 Rockefeller pioneered the challenge-gift concept with his agreement to provide the first $600,000 of the $1 million endowment to establish the University of Chicago, provided that the remaining $400,000 was raised within 90 days. JDR sought the advice of experts to assist his giving decisions and first appointed Reverend Frederick T. Gates to help guide his interests. JDR’s son, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. joined Gates in 1897 to help oversee Rockefeller’s charitable activity. In 1901 JDR collaborated with his son to create the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research (now Rockefeller University). Rockefeller’s interest in the American South and public health issues propelled him to create the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission for the Eradication of Hookworm Disease in 1909. The commission’s efforts were largely responsible for eradicating the disease by 1927. In 1913 JDR established the Rockefeller Foundation with the general purpose of promoting the well being of mankind throughout the world. By 1929 Rockefeller had transferred more than $230 million of his personal fortune to the foundation. The Rockefeller family’s giving legacy rests firmly upon the shoulders of John D. Rockefeller’s careful approach to philanthropic endeavors.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Rockefeller Foundation ▶ Rockefeller, John D., Jr.
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Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung MATTHIAS FREISE
Address of Organization Franz-Mehring-Platz 1 D-10243 Berlin Germany www.rosalux.de
Introduction The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (RLS) is a German political foundation. It is closely affiliated to the party Die Linke (The Left) and serves as a socialist think tank by providing expertise and political education in Germany and development cooperation abroad.
Brief History RLS evolved out of the ‘‘Association for Social Analysis and Political Education’’ which was founded by a group of left-wing politicians in Berlin in 1990. In 1992, the organization was renamed after Rosa Luxemburg, the most well-known representative of left-wing socialist and antimilitaristic positions in the German Social Democratic Party before 1918. In 1996, RLS was recognized by the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), the predecessor of Die Linke, as a foundation related to the Party. This meant that from then on the foundation qualified for government funding. RLS is the youngest German political foundation. In 2008, the establishment of RLS academies for civic education in Germany and regional offices for development cooperation abroad was not yet completed. RLS will likely expand its activities in the upcoming years.
Mission RLS is committed to promoting, and supporting political education by providing a venue for critical analysis and programmatic discussion of contemporary democratic socialism. A further aim is to establish a forum for dialog between left-wing socialist forces, social movements and organizations, left-wing intellectuals, and NGOs, for critical analysis of modern capitalism in all its forms.
Activities To pursue its mission, RLS is active in four fields:
References/Further Readings Nevins, A. (1953). The study of power, John D. Rockefeller, industrialist and philanthropist. Michigan: Scribner. Rockefeller, J. D. (1913). Random reminisces of men and events. New York: Doubleday.
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1. The Berlin headquarters serves as a socialist think tank by its practice-oriented research and consulting activities. It provides a large number of publications and has institutionalized some influential discussion circles.
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2. RLS organizes and supports a broad spectrum of civic education activities. As of 2007, the Foundation has held about 1,500 political educational events in Germany with 45,000 participants. 3. Since 1999, RLS has been able to grant scholarships for graduate and postgraduate students on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Science. From 2009 on the number of grants will rise to over 300. 4. Abroad, RLS maintains its own representations in Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe. From 2009 on the foundation will expand its international cooperative work in more than 30 countries. A typical instrument of the RLS is the support of political discussion and discourse among alternative social and political forces and the strengthening of disadvantaged civil society groups.
Structure and Governance RLS is a registered voluntary association. It is headed by an executive board and a management board. It has a total staff of approximately 80 employees and hundreds of volunteer activists.
Funding RLS is almost fully funded through grants from the federal budget and the German states. Donations and fees contribute just an insignificant part of the budget which amounted to about €14 million in 2006.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Civic Education ▶ Foundations, Political ▶ Think Tanks
References/Further Readings Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung (2007). The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Origins, Aims, Partners, Projects. Berlin: Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.
Rosenwald, Julius MARGARET F. SLOAN
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1862 to a family of German immigrants, Julius Rosenwald grew to become one of the greatest businessmen of his time. After his early years in Springfield, Illinois, Rosenwald began moderately successful clothing businesses in Chicago. In 1895, Rosenwald made a significant investment in Sears, Roebuck and Co., and 1 year
later began working for the company as head of the mail order department. Twelve years later, Rosenwald was president of Sears, Roebuck, a position he held until his retirement in 1924. Rosenwald remained chairman of the board there until his death in 1932. He and his wife, Gussie, had five children.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Rosenwald’s genius for business was matched, and perhaps surpassed by, his dedication to philanthropy. Over his lifetime, he donated millions of dollars to a variety of causes including education, civil rights, Jewish charities and agricultural development. Early philanthropic endeavors concentrated on assisting the farming community which provided a large portion of Sears, Roebuck’s revenues as well as organizations which supported Jewish outreach such as the Associated Jewish Charities. Rosenwald felt that the Jewish community shared common ground with the black population in America because of the prejudices both faced, a sentiment which led to his becoming one of the foremost benefactors of black education and civil rights. Beginning in 1911, Rosenwald spearheaded a program to construct YMCAs for black men in several cities, was active in the creation and financial sustenance of the NAACP and Urban League of Chicago, served on the board of Tuskegee Institute, and supported the building of over 5,000 schools for black schoolchildren across the Southern United States from 1913 to 1932. Later, he provided significant support to the University of Chicago and was the visionary leader for the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry, donating over $11 million to that project. Not only was Rosenwald an active, involved donor for many causes, but he also served as a dynamic fundraiser, encouraging other associates to give. Rosenwald’s preferred method of donating was a challenge gift to reinforce self-reliance and project ownership in those served. He protested endowments and set up his Julius Rosenwald Fund under the provision that all assets would be dispersed within 25 years of his death. Under his leadership, Sears, Roebuck fostered corporate social responsibility by establishing one of the first corporate foundations in America and instigating a profit sharing plan for employees. In addition, Rosenwald rescued Sears, Roebuck with a $5 million stock gift in 1921 as well as secured $7 million in loans for employees during the Depression.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Corporate ▶ YMCAs, World Alliance of
Rowntree, Joseph
References/Further Readings Ascoli, P. M. (2006). Julius Rosenwald: The man who built sears, Roebuck and advanced the cause of black education in the American South. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Embree, E. R., & Waxman, J. (1949). Investment in people: The story of the Julius Rosenwald fund. New York: Harper. Werner, M. R. (1939). Julius Rosenwald: The life of a practical humanitarian. New York: Harper and Brothers.
Rothschild Family JAN SACHARKO
Basic Biographical Information The famous Rothschild family grew out of a back street in Frankfurt, Germany in the late eighteenth century when the founder of the family, Mayer Amschel, took the surname from the German word for the ‘‘red shield’’ which he hung over his coin shop. Using his political connections, he grew from a dealer in rare coins to being the banker of Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse. This became even more lucrative when Wilhelm used his friend Mayer to keep his fortune hidden during the Napoleonic Wars, and Mayer would use this money to fund other ventures and reap interest. Mayer’s five sons would be sent to major capitals in Europe, including London, Paris, Vienna, and Naples, and one remaining in Frankfurt, to set up banks and communication systems to enable them to work together. Part of their business plan was to always work together as a family, and to keep each business or bank in the family. After Mayer’s death in 1812, the Austrian emperor ennobled him and his sons. The family would continue to use their communication networks and political ties to enhance their fortunes, spread their influence across the globe, and be involved in many major undertakings of the 19th and 20th centuries. Though events would transpire to close some of their major banks over the years, the current LCF Rothschild Group, specializing in asset management and advisory business, has over 40 branches spread across Europe and the rest of the world.
Major Contributions One of the grandsons of Mayer of the French branch of the family, Baron Edmond de Rothschild (1845–1934), would become the earliest and possibly best known of the philanthropists in the family. He helped to create a foundation for scientific research, which in turn led to the creation of the Institut de Biologie Physico-Chimique for pure and applied research in 1927. He is also given credit
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for contributing to the founding of the Institut Henri Poincare in Paris in 1928. His collection of engravings, drawings, and illustrated books (totaling over 40,000 pieces) was offered to the Louvre in the 1930s and occupies an exhibition room. Baron Rothschild would become known as ‘‘HaNadiv HaYadu’a’’ (Hebrew for ‘‘The Known Benefactor’’) for his land purchases and donations that helped to found settlements for Jews in Palestine as early as 1882. His son James would donate the money to build the Knesset building, the Israeli Parliament, in memory of his father’s work toward building a Jewish homeland. A listing of the current foundations begun by Baron Edmond and his descendants include: The Caesarea Edmond Benjamin de Rothschild Foundation in Israel; The Edmond de Rothschild Foundation in New York; the Fondation Edmond de Rothschild, the Fondation Maurice & Noe´mie de Rothschild, and the Memorial A. de Rothschild in Geneva; the Fondation Ophtalmologique Adolphe de Rothschild and the Oeuvre de Protection des Enfants Juifs in Paris, the Institut des Sciences du Vivant in Lyon; and the Fundacion Ariane de Rothschild in Madrid. The UK branch of the family foundations, the Hanadiv Charitable Foundation, focuses its giving on strengthening Jewish life in Europe.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Family
References/Further Readings Ferguson, N. (1999). The house of Rothschild: The world’s banker. New York: Viking. Ferguson, N. (2000). The house of Rothschild: Money’s prophets. New York: Viking.
R Rowntree, Joseph REGINA LIST
Basic Biographical Information The son of a grocer, Joseph Rowntree was born in 1836 into a Quaker family in York, England. He began his career as an apprentice in his father’s business, taking over its operations along with his brother John after his father’s death. In 1869, he left the grocer business to join his brother Henry in the running of a small cocoa factory and remained as sole owner after his brother’s death in 1883. Under Rowntree’s leadership the company expanded into other confectionary products, and it eventually grew from 30 to over 4,000 employees. Rowntree was married twice, first to Julia Seebohm in 1862 who
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died a year later, and then to her cousin Emma Seebohm, with whom he had six children. Joseph Rowntree died in York in 1925 and is buried there in the Quaker cemetery.
Major Contributions/Accomplishments Joseph Rowntree brought his Quaker values into both his business and his philanthropic endeavors. He was also said to have been influenced deeply by the research and writings on poverty undertaken by his son, Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree. On the business side, he believed in ensuring that his workers enjoyed a satisfying quality of life, providing them a library, free education, medical care, and, among the first of its kind, a pension fund. In addition to his involvement in civic activities, including providing leadership in the establishment of the York Public Library, Rowntree put his considerable wealth to work with the purchase in the early 1900s of land at New Earswick, north of York, to build low-income housing. It was in 1904 that he made his most lasting philanthropic act by giving about half of his wealth to the charitable trusts he created: the Joseph Rowntree Social Service Trust (now the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd.), the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, and the Joseph Rowntree Village Trust (now the Joseph Rowntree Foundation). In the founding memorandum indicating his thoughts in creating the three trusts, Rowntree expressed his feeling that ‘‘much of the current philanthropic effort is directed to remedying the more superficial manifestations of weakness or evil, while little thought or effort is directed to search out their underlying causes’’ (The Rowntree Trusts, 2004: 75). Ingeniously, Rowntree set up the three separate trusts in order to approach the challenge of searching out and remedying the underlying causes from different angles. While the Charitable Trust was to focus on purposes that were charitable in the legal sense, the Social Service Trust was set up as a limited company to free it to pursue activities, such as lobbying, that did not fall under the legal definition of charitable. Under the assumption that social problems would be solved with the wise direction of philanthropic resources, both of these Trusts were to have been wound up by 1939, but ultimately they were not, as the job was not completed. The Village Trust, on the other hand, was to be permanent. In the case of all three trusts, Rowntree gave trustees very broad powers to adapt to modern circumstances and urged them to strengthen ‘‘the hands of those who do.’’
Cross-References
▶ Charity Law ▶ Joseph Rowntree Foundation ▶ Quakers
References/Further Readings The Rowntree Trusts. (2004). The Joseph Rowntree inheritance. York, PA: Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd. Vernon, A. (1987). A Quaker businessman: Biography of Joseph Rowntree (1836–1925). York, PA: Sessions of York.
Russell Sage Foundation KARUN K. SINGH
Address of Organization 112 East 64th Street New York, NY 10065 USA www.russellsage.org
Introduction The Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) is a private operating foundation of modest size headquartered in New York City. As an operating foundation, it uses its resources primarily to conduct, support, and disseminate high quality social science research. Grants issued by the Foundation directly sustain its various programmatic activities.
Brief History In 1907 RSF was created with a generous endowment gift of $10 million from Margaret Olivia Sage (1828–1918), the widow of a wealthy railroad magnate and financier from New York, Russell Sage (1816–1906). During its early years, the Foundation ameliorated the challenges encountered by vulnerable people who were poor, elderly, incarcerated, or receiving improper treatment in hospitals. Moreover, it helped to develop social work as a profession based on the methods of social science inquiry. Additionally, RSF assisted in accomplishing early reforms in such diverse areas as health care, city planning, consumer credit, labor laws, social security programming, and the training of nurses. After World War II, RSF underwent a philosophical and structural reorganization. The Foundation shifted its attention from enhancing social service practice to improving social policy by engaging in strategic philanthropy. It focused on strengthening the social sciences as an essential vehicle for attaining a more informed as well as rational social policy that was intended to be less susceptible to the vagaries of legislative politics. To support this change, a new central staff of professional personnel was created in
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1948, which has been used ever since to coordinate and evaluate the Foundation’s business.
Mission RSF is one of America’s oldest foundations, established for ‘‘the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States.’’ Since its inception, the Foundation has remained true to this original mission. With its latter emphasis on using research to advance social policy, RSF has designated certain core areas of research as critical to fulfilling its mission. Current areas of investigation include the future of work, immigration, cultural contact, social inequality, and other miscellaneous concerns ranging from belief learning, good citizenship, and minority car-ownership rates to gender differences in pay, laissez-faire racism, and the impact of social movements. Also, the scope of research has been expanded in recent years to include cross-national comparisons of data and research results from other countries.
Activities To perform its core mission as well as to improve the effectiveness of social science research in general, RSF implements a diverse range of activities. Every year, it invites a number of scholars through its Visiting Scholars Program to work individually and collaboratively to study topics related to the social and behavioral sciences. While these scholars usually participate in projects associated with the Foundation’s current programs, a few scholars whose research falls outside its active programs also make contributions. Further, RSF leverages its impact by providing grant support for scholars at other institutions such as universities and research centers to involve themselves in research projects that help move its research agenda forward. Additionally, it makes special efforts to sponsor seminars and working groups designed to search for and develop important new topics of social science interest (for instance, the Behavioral Economics Roundtable and the September 11th Initiative). Unlike many other foundations, RSF directly influences the planning of each study or program as an active partner. Moreover, it has an extremely active publishing program that publishes much of the findings of the scholars it supports in the form of books and working papers.
Structure and Governance RSF is incorporated as a private nonprofit foundation under Section 501(c)3 of the Internal Revenue Service tax code. Presently, it is governed by a 14-member Board of Trustees living and working for prestigious public and private institutions across the United States. The trustees
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meet for Board meetings thrice annually in November, February, and June, and also periodically for various committee meetings. The Foundation is managed on a daily basis by a permanent administrative staff of 11 employees.
Funding The work of RSF is financed via a funding portfolio that includes the following sources of private income: Interest on savings and temporary cash investments, dividends and interest from securities, sale of assets, oil and gas lease rights and royalties, and book publishing income. For the year ending August 31, 2006, the Foundation reported that the net value of its noncharitable-use assets was $226,344,574 and that the amount of qualifying distributions it made directly for the active conduct of exempt activities was $11,722,631.
Accomplishments Among its early practice-based achievements, RSF was instrumental in providing the startup financing for a young, disabled social worker, attorney, and prominent youth advocate from Washington, DC, James West, to lead the Boy Scouts of America as its first Chief Scout Executive. Subsequent research-related accomplishments include the formation of an internationally-renowned research center that provides financial, housing, and administrative support for visiting scholars to pursue their writing and research, and that also disburses grants for funding scholars at other institutions to carry out social science studies of interest to the Foundation. In addition to the relatively large number of visiting and external scholars that it has assisted to date, RSF has published many of the products of their investigations itself. It has done so by making their scholarly work available online in the form of working papers and also by disseminating seminal findings offline as books providing valuable information to social scientists, policymakers, and the general public. Further accomplishments include recently completed projects such as a special initiative on the analysis of the 2000 Census, a program on the role of trust in shaping social relations, as well as a multicity analysis of urban inequality.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Functions of ▶ Foundations, Independent ▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Strategic Philanthropy
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References/Further Readings O’Connor, A. (2007). Social science for what? Philanthropy and the social question in a world turned rightside up. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Petterchak, J. A. (2003). Lone Scout: W.D. Boyce and American boy scouting. Rochester, IL: Legacy Press, from http://books.google.com/
books?id=AVAV4tsPtPAC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=boyce+paper+ mill+fire&source=bl&ots=sfvKLFe5JO&sig=8GUWzBZ9i8PrGbV4lk RwWhtTed0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result# PPP1,M1 Russell Sage Foundation. (2008). Russell Sage Foundation Publications, from https://www.russellsage.org/publications
S Sadaqa SAMIUL HASAN United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
Introduction The tawhidic (unity of God) paradigm in Islam implies that human capability (intellect or financial) and natural resources are God given bounty (nikmah) as a trust (amanah) to the mankind. Human beings are thus answerable to God and should be mindful of God’s pleasure (taqwah) that may make every human action an ibadah (worship) – in the form of sadaqa. Sadaqa is a catchall phrase to incorporate many forms of non-obligatory charity beyond zakat-ul-mal, and is important for every stage and action of human life.
Definition The term sadaqa, derived from the root word ‘‘sidq’’ (or sincerity), refers to forms of benevolence not categorically mentioned in the Qur’an (e.g., zakat-ul-mal). Unlike zakat-ul-mal, sadaqa is a spontaneous voluntary charity, and has an extensive meaning signifying righteousness, speaking the truth, being true, etc. Sadaqa is thus a reflection of the giver’s sincere devotion to the religious beliefs (Khan, 2003), and purifies the giver (Imam Malik, 58:3:15). While sadaqa is to be given as an expression of sincerity and trust, sadaqa takers should also be trusted for their expressed need ‘‘even if he comes on a horse’’ (Imam Malik, 58:1:4) because a rich ‘‘wayfarer,’’ in trouble, is eligible for charity, any way. The most attractive type of giving is sadaqa jariya (continuous) or giving in ventures that earn Heavenly rewards even after the giver’s death (e.g., the establishment of schools or hospitals). Sadaqa can be given in many forms, shapes, and sizes ranging from monetary or manual labour contribution for the establishment of a mosque to spending on charity for one’s children, or helping or giving gifts to the neighbours (Bukhari, 2: 24: 546; 3:47: 767). The Qur’an provides a very broad category of
neighbors and advises the Believers to do good deeds, among others, to these ‘‘neighbours’’ of blood ties, matrimony, journey, or space (Hasan, 2007). Sadaqa comprises many types of activities and beneficiaries tantamount to whole humanity irrespective of color, creed, ethnicity, and gender. Prophet Mohammad encouraged the Believers to create and maintain good human relationships even by forgiving others bad deeds and, in the process, earn benefits of sadaqa (Imam Malik, 41.9.28). Muslims practise sadaqa primarily for four different reasons or occasions: as a part of religious rituals, as a life cycle ritual, as a kaffara (for making good wrong actions or for expiation for missing obligatory rituals), and any time as a gratitude to God. During the Eid ul Azha festival, Muslims, who can afford to, are supposed to sacrifice cattle in the name of God (commemorating Prophet Abraham and his son’s willingness to make a supreme sacrifice) and distribute the major portion (two thirds) of the meat among relatives, friends, poor, and the needy as sadaqa (because of Prophet Mohammad’s advice to the sacrificer for not eating or storing it beyond the 3 days’ of celebration) (Imam Malik, 23.4). Sacrificed cattle’s hides, which must be given to charity, are a major source of funds of a large number of Muslim charitable organizations (e.g., orphanages or madrasas– educational institutions emphasizing religious education) all over the world. No reliable data are available, but estimates even from a poor country like Bangladesh suggest that in the 1990s different charity organizations used to earn at least 500 million taka ($10 million; equivalent to the annual salary of 14,000 madrasa-teachers) annually through this source (Ahmad & Jahan, 2002). The Eid ul Azha festival coincides with the Hajj (annual pilgrimage to Mecca). Many people performing the Hajj offer sacrifice. Most meat from 500,000 sheep and 5,000 camels and cows are canned and distributed to poor people in many Asian and African countries that may earn rewards for sadaqa for the sacrificers as well as the organizers, and the distributors. Four major life cycle rituals in most Muslim societies include new born babys’ aqiqa, boys’ circumcision, marriage, and death. During aqiqa an animal is sacrificed for the newborn; the meat is eaten (in a feast) and/or
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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distributed as sadaqa (Imam Malik, 26.2). The other part of this ritual is giving silver equivalent to the weight of the hair of a newborn child as sadaqa (as practised by Prophet Mohammad’s daughter) (Imam Malik, 26.1.3). Sadaqa is also suggested as expiation (kaffara) to rectify slackness in the observance of religious activities. For example, if a person cannot fast during the month of Ramadhan (dawn to dusk abstention from eating, drinking, and sexual acts of any kind for a lunar month every year), he/she may pay sadaqa by feeding an indigent person as a compensation (Al Qur’an, 2:184). If any Believer cannot perform a ritual related to the Hajj due to an ailment (e.g., saving of the head), the person may compensate either by fasting or feeding the poor or offering a sacrifice to distribute the meat as sadaqa (Al Qur’an, 2:196). In case people deliberately fail to keep promises they can feed ten indigent persons (Al Qur’an, 5:89). The Believers are also advised to be sincere in feeding offering the average quality of the giver’s family. This advice shows that Islam does not want people to do anything insincerely; even if it is just for sadaqa (and must avoid showing-off). Feeding is an important form of charity in Islam and people are encouraged to feed at different levels for varied reasons, to earn the promised rewards. Giving foodstuff in charity instead of throwing away is encouraged as a high-value charity work that earns God’s rewards for the wife (the giver), her husband (the earner), and the food seller (Bukhari, 2:24: 506, 518, 520, 521). Many Believers offer sadaqa all round the year to show gratitude to God (mostly distributing meats from sacrificed cattle) for recovering from illness, escaping injuries (physical, financial, or social), succeeding in tests (good academic results or getting jobs), receiving economic benefits, etc. Sadaqa given to family members, including the parents and children (Imam Malik, 36.36) earns significant rewards, and cannot be reclaimed or left to waste. Thus if a parent die after receiving sadaqa from a child, the latter is allowed to take back the sadaqa as ‘‘inheritance’’ without jeopardising the rewards received for the sadaqa (Imam Malik, 36.41.53) because a sincere intention (for charity) earns benefit irrespective of the outcome.
Historical Background Sadaqa, in different forms, has been with the religion since its inception. In the early days of Islam, though most Muslims did not have, or strive to have, much wealth, the Qur’an suggested that some parts of one’s property are due to the indigent Muhajirs (i.e., the Muslims forced to leave Mecca due to religious persecution) (Al Qur’an, 59:8). By recognizing many simple acts of kindness, good neighbourly behaviors, compassion for people as sadaqa
and promising rewards for those, God made it easier even for the poor people to get some of those rewards. Islam (literally meaning peace), requires the Believers to identify, understand, and practise such simple acts of sadaqa to establish a just and peaceful society. In their acts of charity, people are also advised to remember family obligations, and must not give away more than one third of one’s property as sadaqa because Prophet Mohammad noted that ‘‘leaving the heirs rich is better than leaving them poor’’ (Imam Malik, 22.9.16; 37.3). Further, charity must not follow annoyance or injury to the recipients–by the boasting of the charity giver, for example (Ali, 1938: note 309). Sadaqa must be a true self-sacrifice and Prophet Mohammad showed ultimate examples of self-sacrifice by living on the most ordinary food (dates and camel milk), and even offering most part of his meals to hungrier people – whenever one arrived at his door. Feeding the poor by depriving the ‘‘self’’ is a rare and very high form of charity and could be beyond the reach of an average human being, but at least people can appreciate this virtue and kindness in others, and endeavor to be altruist within their limits. Islam supports and promotes charity, but it must be a true self-sacrifice. Due to its flexibility (form, size, and character), and potential social and economic benefits to society and Heavenly rewards for the giver, sadaqa has been a popular tool of giving since the early days of Islam.
Key Issues Misplaced Magnanimity
In the Islamic system of charity simple things like feeding the poor and the indigent have great importance and do earn Heavenly rewards for the actors. The Believers should feed the indigent, the orphan, and the captive only for the love of God (Al Qur’an, 76:8) expecting no rewards or thanks from the recipient (Al Qur’an, 76:9). One should also entertain one’s guests generously offering them the best possible high quality meals on the first day (Bukhari, 8:76:483). The guests are advised to mind the additional burden of their presence on the hosts and not to extend their stay beyond three days. The hosts are not likely to turn away the guests if the latter do not leave. This concept of sadaqa reinforced by tribal systems in different parts of the world provides protection to the ‘‘guests’’ irrespective of their political actions that is creating some major problems in the world in the early twenty-first century CE. Congregation Collections and Accountability
A very significant amount of sadaqa is collected at religious festivals and congregations in all Muslim
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communities. Friday congregations collect sadaqa for the maintenance and management of mosques, graveyards, adjacent religious schools, etc. Congregations also pay sadaqa for good causes at the two annual festivals: Eid ul fitr to celebrate the end of the fasting month (when the Believers tend to give in charity to rectify flaws that may have been left in their fasting rituals); and Eid ul Azha that corresponds to the annual Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. In most cases no mechanism accounts for these funds. Showing-Off and Wastage
Often people misreading the dictum organise feasts, instead of feeding the indigent, during many life cycle rituals (e.g., newborn baby’s aqiqa, boy’s circumcision, marriage, death). These feasts are so much a showing-off of prosperity (or social status; or often showing of a community’s social status imposed on the individual concerned) instead of the expression of sidq (sincerity) that even in some poor countries like Bangladesh or Pakistan the government has enacted laws restricting the number of invitees in such feasts. The Believers, due to social ego, tend to ignore the religious dictum that ‘giving’ to please their own fancy, not in the cause of Allah, will contribute to such giver’s own destruction (Ali, 1938: no. 211). Another problem associated with sadaqa is wastage that occurs during the month of fasting. Offering of healthy and quality-food to mosques as breaking the fast meal (al futr) is seen by many Muslims as a good form of sadaqa. People also organize breaking the fast (al futr) parties outside mosques. While food sent to the mosques are shared by the congregation of the evening prayer, often a large quantity of food offered at the parties, due to high volume and richness (too greasy to consume in high quantity) is thrown away. Social or legal restrictions targeting wastage may free resources for genuine public benefit.
International Perspectives Muslims have established many mosques even in Australia, Europe, and North America. For example, there are about 1,500 mosques in the United Kingdom. In all the above cases most expenses related to the establishment and maintenance of the mosques and supporting of the imam (the prayer leader) are borne mostly from people’s sadaqa. Due to a negligent regulatory system and lack of accountability, even in the Western world, these activities in the recent past have raised questions of misuse and misappropriation of sadaqa (i.e., the people’s sincerity) because of some mosque-related individuals’ relationship to antisocial activities. Further, in Muslim communities ‘‘feeding’’ the imams is seen as a simple but important good act of sadaqa. The
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people of the neighborhood of most mosques, especially those involved in the management, through material and financial contribution, participate in offering provisions to the imam. Evidences show that in most countries (including Australia, Europe, and United States) where mosque management is not regulated (unlike the Gulf countries, for example), individuals and groups by dint of their financial contribution in the ‘‘imam provision coffer’’ tend to influence the imam’s actions and ‘‘words.’’ The problem often is, though most Muslims prefer a middle-path, the extremists’ intimidation crowds out the former.
Future Directions Islam appreciates simple deeds of charity by the Believers – rich and poor. There are many nonmaterial acts of sadaqa that show the extent and simple forms of charity appreciated in Islam. For example, carrying out of the master’s (management or the Board’s) order in delivering fully (materials or money) in correct amount (honesty) to the correct person (integrity) is regarded as sadaqa (Bukhari, 2:24:519; 3:38:512). Some other nonmaterial charitable measures recommended by the Qur’an can be undertaken by the Believers with a noble character and gracious mind, irrespective of, again, size of their income and/or wealth. For example, a wronged person’s remitting of retaliation (instead of the ordained ‘‘life for life, eye for eye, nose for nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal’’) ‘‘by way of charity’’ will be rewarded (Al Qur’an, 5:45). Even in the case of wrongdoing God advises the Believers to practise charity by not retaliating, but rationally judging for a just retribution and then forgiving the wrongdoer as sadaqa. Forgiving the perpetrators as an act of charity, in Islam, is much appreciated (because nobody is aware of the intention behind the wrong-doer; a true repentance is to earn the wrong-doer God’s mercy which the wronged person cannot be aware of; and forgiveness shows the greatness of the wronged person and is likely to transform the wrongdoer promoting peace in society) (Hasan, 2007). Rewards for benevolence are not for exclusive enjoyment of wealthy people. Islamic tenets encourage people with less access to power and resources to undertake simple good deeds like abstention from causing harm to others (even for valid reasons) or sincerely performing assignments to show gratitude to God and earn Heavenly rewards. Many Muslims, however, ignore the highly recommended nonmaterial sadaqa focusing instead on material sadaqa that may have comparatively insignificant effects. In the process they fail to contribute in ensuring peace in or outside the communities with their actions. Further, though offering food and shelter to the guests is
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an act of sadaqa, people need to be aware of the guests’ motives. The offering of shelter and food to the guests as sadaqa, irrespective of their deeds, cannot be justified, not to mention, at the expense of public good.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Madrassa ▶ Mosques ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Waqf ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Ahmad, M. & Jahan, R. (2002). Investing in ourselves: Giving and fund raising in Bangladesh. Manila: Asian Development Bank. Ali, A. Y. (1938). The holy Qur’an: Text, translation and commentary. Beirut: Dar Al Arabia. Bukhari, M. I. I. (1971). The translation of the meanings of al-Bukhari by M. M.Khan (pp. 810–870). Medina: Al-Munawwara Islamic University. Hasan, S. (2007). Philanthropy and social justice in Islam: Principles, potentials, and practices. Kuala Lumpur: A. S. Noordeen. Imam Malik ibn Anas’ Al-Muwatta Translated by Aisha A. Bewley (1997). Kuala Lumpur: Madinah Press, Granada, and IBT. Khan, M. W. (2003). Concept of charity in Islam. International Journal of Civil Society Law, 11, 93–7.
Sage, Margaret Olivia RUTH CROCKER
Basic Biographical Information Born in Syracuse, New York in 1828 to Joseph and Margaret Pierson Jermain Slocum, Olivia (she never used ‘‘Margaret’’) attended the prestigious Troy Female Seminary of Emma Willard and, after a series of unsatisfactory teaching jobs made necessary by her father’s business failures, married the recently widowed Russell Sage, partner to Jay Gould and one of America’s wealthiest men. The couple moved to New York where her husband accumulated a fortune on Wall Street. Between 1869 and 1906, Sage pursued a public quasi-career in the voluntary sphere of New York hospitals and charities. Russell Sage’s death at 89 made her sole heir to a fortune of $75 million. From 1906 to 1918, Olivia Sage carried on an astounding private philanthropy. She also set up the Russell Sage Foundation ‘‘for the improvement of social and living conditions in the United States.’’
Major Contributions Olivia Sage was a major philanthropist and among America’s greatest female philanthropists, but her significance has been overlooked in part because many of her gifts were made (ironically or sentimentally, it is hard to tell) in the name of her husband or other relatives, and because she spread her wealth among many recipients. In old age, beset with petitioners and swamped with begging correspondence, she struggled to organize her gifts to the causes she had long espoused, especially institutions of higher education, religious missions, and women’s organizations. The Russell Sage College of Practical Arts which she founded in Troy, NY, for example, at the age of 88, was an expression of her passionate belief that modern women needed well-paying careers. She died in November 1918, leaving generous legacies to scores of institutions. Her most significant gift was $15 million to endow the Russell Sage Foundation, a general purpose foundation that underwrote important social-science-based reform initiatives in early twentieth century America, including the Pittsburgh Survey. Sage’s career is also significant because of her activism in late nineteenth century nonprofit and reform organizations. Socially prominent but without discretionary funds, Sage played the role of benevolent Victorian matron in a number of New York voluntary associations such as the New York Woman’s Hospital. With her husband’s death in 1906, Olivia Sage at the age of 78 dedicated herself to giving away her fortune - the couple had no children. Over the next eleven years until her own death in 1918, she spent approximately $45 million in gifts and donations to hundreds of causes and institutions.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ Donor Donor Intent ▶ Foundation, Definition and History ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Philanthropy, Definition of ▶ Russell Sage Foundation ▶ YMCAs, World Alliance of ▶ YWCA
References/Further Readings Crocker, R. (2006). Mrs. Russell Sage: Women’s activism and philanthropy in gilded age and progressive era America. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Sage, M. O. (Mrs. Russell Sage). (1905). Opportunities and responsibilities of leisured women. North American Review, 181, 712–721. Wyllie, I. G. (1971). Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage. In: E. T. James, J. W. James, & P. S. Boyer (Eds.), Notable American Women (Vol. 3, pp. 222–223). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy (Comte de)
Sage, Russell ▶ Russell Sage Foundation
SANGOCO ▶ South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO)
Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy (Comte de) DAMIEN ROUSSELIERE
Basic Biographical Information Claude-Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon was born in Paris, October 17, 1760. A philosopher and social reformer belonging to a French aristocratic family, he is a distant cousin of Louis de Rouvroy, Duc de Saint-Simon, famous for his memoirs on the reign of Louis XIV. Between 1779 and 1783, he served with Lafayette in the American Revolution. Imprisoned by British forces, he was commended for bravery by the American government. After his release, he pursued an unsuccessful canalization project in Panama, then came back to France and studied engineering and hydraulics at the Ecole de Me´zie`res. He drew out important schemes for the economic improvement of Spain. During the French Revolution, Saint-Simon renounced his nobility and took the name Citoyen Bonhomme. After making a fortune by speculating on confiscated lands, and then wasting it in costly experiments, he devoted his time to the study of philosophy while spending the latter years of his life in poverty. The elaboration of a theory of industrial society remained Saint-Simon’s chief concern during the last decade of his life, when he was assisted by Augustin Thierry and Auguste Comte (during a 6-year-working relationship) and supported by Olinde Rodrigues who assured him his daily bread. He died in Paris, May 19, 1825.
Major Contributions Saint-Simon conceptualized a science of social organization, which he called ‘‘social physiology’’: human society was seen as an organic entity whose development was governed by natural laws which the social physiologist must attempt to uncover. Du syste`me industriel (in collaboration with Auguste Comte) described the society
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as an immense factory, with central planning of production and a distribution system based on the principle that remuneration should be linked to productivity. The antagonism was between ‘‘industrial forces’’ (defined as manufacturers, merchants, and bankers, as well as wage-workers) and ‘‘idlers’’ (defined as the old aristocracy who took no part in production or distribution). Characterized by a representative government, social order would only be established when society had eliminated the nonproductive classes. The new industrial society could not be fully established in isolation from other societies: in De la re´organisation de la socie´te´ europe´enne, Saint-Simon proposed that a new European Parliament should replace present national bodies. In Le Nouveau Christianisme, Saint-Simon sought to combine a secular morality with a regenerated form of Christianity, claiming that the main goals were to eradicate poverty and to ensure everyone’s access to education and employment. The scientists, artists, and industrialists, as the ‘‘managers’’ of the human race, should head a new church, the ‘‘religion of Newton.’’ Saint-Simon’s legacy resists summary. His social theory deeply influenced key figures in the development of social sciences and socialism. Called by Durkheim ‘‘the founder of positivism and sociology,’’ Saint-Simon is a precursor of the positive philosophy of Auguste Comte. His belief in classes as the primary categories of analysis, and his emphasis on the possibility of providing a scientific understanding of historical development, were lauded by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. After the Russian Revolution, his name was inscribed on a memorial obelisk in Moscow as one of ‘‘the great socialist thinkers and revolutionaries.’’ The Saint-Simonian movement fractured into many currents. Immediately after his death, communities were established by Saint-Amand Bazard and Barthe´le´my-Prosper Enfantin. The left wing greatly influenced the French cooperative-based socialism (with Philippe Buchez and Pierre Leroux) and took part in the French revolution of 1848. The right wing, a group of engineers, economists, and bankers, headed by Michel Chevalier, created important industrial companies (like the Suez Canal Company, the Paris-Lyon-Me´diterrane´e railway and the Cre´dit mobilier.) The Saint-Simonian emphasis on industrialism and administrative efficiency as the key to progress and social justice had a great influence in many other countries.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Comte, Auguste ▶ Durkheim, Emile
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References/Further Readings Pilbeam, P. (2000). French socialists before Marx. Montreal: McGill University Press. Musso, P. (2006). La religion du monde industriel, Analyse de la pense´e de Saint-Simon. La Tour d’Aigues: Editions de l’Aube. Saint-Simon, C. H. (1975). Selected writings on science, industrial and social organization. In K. Taylor (Ed.). New York: Taylor & Francis. Saint-Simon, C. H. (forthcoming). Oeuvres Comple`tes. In P. Musso (Ed.) (4 Vol.). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Salamon, Lester GEORGETTE DUMONT
Basic Biographical Information Dr. Salamon was born in 1943. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Economics and Policy Studies from Princeton University in New Jersey and earned a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. Salamon is a professor at The Johns Hopkins University and director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at the Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies. He previously served as director of the Center for Governance and Management Research at the Urban Institute in Washington, DC, and as deputy associate director of the US Office of Management and Budget.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Dr. Salamon was a pioneer in the empirical study of the nonprofit sector in the United States and throughout the world. Salamon has written or edited over 20 books. He is considered by many experts in his field to be a leading specialist on alternative tools of government action and on the nonprofit sector in the United States and around the world. In 1982, Salamon published his book, The Federal Budget and the Nonprofit Sector, which was among the first to state the scale of the American nonprofit sector and talk about the extent of government support for it. Salamon later completed an empirical assessment of international nonprofits, and went on to publish his observations in several books. He is well known for writing America’s Nonprofit Sector: A Primer, a book used commonly as a college textbook. In 1996 Salamon won the ARNOVA Award for Outstanding Book in Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Research, writing Partners in Public Service: GovernmentNonprofit Relations in the Modern Welfare State. Another book of his, Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the
Nonprofit Sector, which was produced in association with a team of colleagues from around the world, won the Virginia A. Hodgkinson Award for best publication in the nonprofit field in 2001. Salamon has been exploring the important role that private, nonprofit organizations have come to play in the operation of public programs and the solution of public problems both in the United States and elsewhere in the world. He has pioneered the empirical study of the nonprofit sector in the United States and led an international comparative study of the nonprofit sector in 30 countries around the world. Among many other topics, Salamon has written extensively on nonprofit/government relationships and, in particular, has focused on what he terms ‘‘third party government’’: the provision of services that are funded directly or indirectly by federal, state, and local governments, but that are delivered by nongovernmental, nonprofit organizations.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Indicators and Indexes ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Comparative Perspectives ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Social Origins Theory ▶ Third-Party Government
References/Further Readings Salamon, L. (2002). The tools of government: A guide to the new governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Salamon, L. (2003). The resilient sector: The state of nonprofit America. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Salamon, L. (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press.
Salvation Army SHARILYN HALE
Address of Organization 101 Queen Victoria St London EC4V 4EH UK www.salvationarmy.org
Introduction The Salvation Army is a worldwide evangelical Christian Church, and one of the largest humanitarian relief organizations in the world. Active in 117 countries,
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army meets the physical and spiritual needs of millions of people each year.
Brief History In 1865 in the East End of London, Methodist minister and evangelist William Booth (1829–1912) and his wife Catherine (1829–1890) founded the Christian Revival Society, later renamed the Christian Mission, to bring salvation to the most needy and destitute. In 1878 the name was changed again to The Salvation Army, drawing on a quasi-military theme and command structure. This both alluded to the perceived battle against evil and allowed the organization to expand efficiently and quickly. Strongly reflective of the holiness and social gospel movements of the day, the goal of The Salvation Army was both personal and social salvation. A slogan attributed to William Booth ‘‘soup, soap and salvation,’’ indicated a driving commitment to address the immediate needs of people in order for them to be receptive to the gospel and be saved from their sins. His approach was outlined in his bestselling social manifesto of 1890 ‘‘In Darkest England and the Way Out.’’ The Salvation Army was a pioneer in organized social services, establishing the first food depots, day nurseries and missionary hospitals. During World War I, Salvation Army Doughnut Girls brought sustenance and compassion to the soldiers with simple homemade donuts distributed through mobile canteens. Later, in World War II, Salvationists operated 3,000 service units for the armed forces, which later led to the formation of the United Service Organizations (USO).
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Salvation Army congregations, known as corps, also provide a range of programs including church services, Sunday School and bible studies, and music training. Signature Salvation Army programs such as the League of Mercy and Home League, were established in the 1890s and continue today to engage Salvationists (soldiers) in Christian ministry. Its main publication, the War Cry, was first published in 1879 and continues to be published in regions and languages around the world.
Structure and Governance A network of more than 3.4 million officers, employees, and volunteers sustain Salvation Army programs, services, and churches. The General oversees the worldwide mission of The Salvation Army from the International Headquarters in London England. He or she is selected by the High Council which meets every 5 years and is comprised of the most senior international leaders of The Salvation Army. Leadership is based on a hierarchical structure with military ranks, mostly filled by Commissioned Officers who are ordained ministers and have made a life time commitment to service. Salvationists (or soldiers) are individual church members who provide leadership at the local level, and express their commitment to The Salvation Army and its doctrines by signing the Articles of War. They are joined by volunteers who serve on community advisory boards and assist with program delivery.
Funding
Motivated by faith in God, The Salvation Army’s mission is to advance Christianity, by relieving the suffering of others. With an acute social conscience and a reputation for poverty relief, health care, addiction rehabilitation and emergency response, The Salvation Army is also a church with more than 15,000 congregations worldwide.
Consolidated international financials for The Salvation Army were not available, but in the United States alone the total annual budget exceeds US$2 billion. Private and public fundraising (including the well known Red Shield and Christmas Kettle appeals), and income earning ventures such as thrift/charity shops generate a significant portion of organizational revenue. As a faith-based organization, government support for the delivery of social services depends on the regulation and policies of each jurisdiction.
Activities
Major Accomplishments/Contributions
The Salvation Army responds to what are the unique needs in each community. The breadth of services provided include social welfare programs (emergency shelters and food banks/kitchens, homes for children, the disabled and elderly, childcare, and services to prisoners and victims of crime); health programs (addiction dependence, hospitals, community health centers and mobile clinics); emergency disaster response and refugee services; and education (schools for children, colleges and universities, and vocational/technical programs).
From the earliest days of The Salvation Army, and thanks to the insistence of Catherine Booth, women have enjoyed greater leadership opportunities than have been available to them in other religious movements and institutions. While the notion of complete equality for women within The Salvation Army has been questioned, women are ordained, preach, and have held the highest office of General. The Salvation Army is also internationally renowned for its Family Tracing or Missing Persons Service.
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Established in 1885, the service restores family relationships where contact has been lost. Thousands of families are reconnected each year, and in 1988 a world record was set when a brother and sister were reunited after 81 years.
Cross-References
▶ Faith-Based Organization ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Nonprofit Organizations and Poverty Reduction ▶ Religious Organizations
References/Further Readings Brook, S. (1999). God’s army: The story of the Salvation Army. Philadelphia, PA: Trans-Atlantic Publications. Eason, A. M. (2003). Women in God’s army: Gender and equality in the early Salvation Army. Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Hattersley, Roy. Blood & Fire (1999). William and Catherine Booth and their Salvation Army. London: Abacus. The Salvation Army International Heritage Centre, from http://www1. salvationarmy.org.uk/history Social Christianity, Christian Socialism, and the Social Gospel. American Decades. The Gale Group, Inc. (2001). Retrieved December 14, 2008 from Encyclopedia.com: www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1G2– 3468300252.html Watson, B. (1968). A hundred years’ war: The Salvation Army 1865–1965. London: Hodder & Stoughton.
Sasakawa Peace Foundation HARI SRINIVAS
Address of Organization The Nippon Foundation Bldg., 4th Fl. 1-2-2, Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo Japan www.spf.org
Introduction The Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) is a private nonprofit organization that conducts international activities to foster world peace. It seeks to contribute to the welfare of humanity and the sound development of the international community, and thus to world peace, through activities that foster international interaction and cooperation. It provides grants for, or itself implements, projects that are intended to help resolve common challenges facing the international community and challenges facing Japan in its relations with other countries.
Brief History SPF was set up on September 1, 1986. Since its establishment, it has strived to tackle international problems through activities for the public good under the leadership of former chairman Setsuya Tabuchi. The founding charter of SPF, which was developed amid increasing internationalization and a growing need for multilateral responses and solutions to a diverse array of problems in the 1980s, reflects an awareness of the need for Japan to play an active role in the international community. SPF’s first Honorary Chairman was Mr. Ryoichi Sasakawa, and Mr. Saburo Kawai was the foundation’s first president.
Mission The Foundation’s main mission is to contribute to the welfare of humankind and the sound development of the international community, and thus to world peace, by conducting activities fostering international understanding, exchange, and cooperation, as well as efforts to promote these activities.
Activities Activities of the Foundation revolve around projects that undertake surveys and research, develop human resources, invite and dispatch personnel, organize international conferences and other forums. Its projects (implemented by itself or those it funds) conduct activities that essentially foster international understanding, exchange, and cooperation, as well as collect and disseminate information. SPF’s activities fall under three programs that aim (1) to ensure peace and security in the international community, including peace building and security issues, and nontraditional security issues; (2) to address positive and negative aspects of globalization, including market and disparities issues, issues involving demographic changes and population movement, interface issues between science and technology and society; and (3) to promote mutual understanding between priority regions and Japan.
Structure and Governance A Board of Trustees and a Board of Counselors oversee the activities of SPF. The day-to-day management of SPF is carried out by its Chairman and President, aided by the Funds Steering Committee and the Assets Management Committee. The following chart provides an overview of the organizational structure of SPF.
Funding SPF was established with endowments from The Nippon Foundation and the Japanese motorboat racing industry. Total assets of SPF in 2008 was JPY 50 billion in
Save the Children
endowments and JPY 29.5 billion in special funds. Its operational expenses for the financial year of 2007 was about JPY 1.2 billion.
Accomplishments In addition to undertaking projects on its own, SPF has identified partners in Japan that possess relevant expertise, and carried out or supported projects in which these partners collaborate with counterparts overseas to solve problems. SPF has strived to identify and help resolve common challenges facing the international community, and promoted the formulation of policy recommendations through practical investigation, research, and experimentation. SPF has designated priority regions (including, for example, China, the Asia Pacific region, and Central Europe) and has promoted interaction and cooperative relations with the countries in those regions.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Operating ▶ Nippon Foundation
References/Further Readings SPF Annual Reports and Newsletters
Save the Children MARK HAMILTON
Address of Organization Second Floor, Cambridge House 100 Cambridge Grove London W6 0LE UK www.savethechildren.net
Introduction Save the Children (STC) is the world’s largest independent organization that specifically targets children’s rights in relief and development interventions. The International Alliance includes 27 member organizations operating in 120 countries.
Brief History STC was founded in 1919 by two sisters in London responding to crises following World War I and the Russian
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Revolution. They raised money and heightened awareness for children’s welfare through their skills of persuasion and the efficiency and effectiveness of early relief campaigns. In time, the STC mission broadened to encompass longer-term projects and global child rights campaigns. An International Union of member organizations was launched in 1920, but only since 1997 has STC sought more formal coordination of its member efforts around the world.
Mission STC focuses on securing children’s rights, seeking to deliver ‘‘immediate and lasting improvements to children’s lives worldwide.’’
Activities A dual emphasis on child participation and child protection define STC interventions in areas of food security, poverty reduction, health care, education, and the prevention of domestic abuse. ‘‘Rewrite the Future’’ is the first global campaign involving all 27 members of the Alliance. STC is calling on governments and international donors to prioritize quality education for all children.
Structure and Governance Since early STC expansion, member organizations have maintained a large degree of autonomy and a loose coalition relationship. Only since 1997 has the International STC Alliance sought increased coordination of member activities under a common vision. Unified programs are now operating in several countries, and the Alliance seeks full coordination by the year 2020. The International Board meets three times per year to help facilitate the Alliance Global Strategy.
Funding From its early years, STC was innovative in its massmarketing campaigns, utilizing images of child starvation to raise citizen awareness and spark fundraising. This strategy was repeated during the Vietnam War and Biafra secession in Nigeria. More recently, member organizations have diversified funding sources. In 2007, the Alliance combined receipts of just over $1 billion dollars from individuals (38%), governments (40%), foundations (3%), businesses (12%), and other sources (7%). Program services comprise about 90% of STC expenditures.
Accomplishments STC was the first organization to advocate worldwide safeguards for children and it remains the largest global NGO focused around this mission. Founder Eglantyne
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Jebb prepared groundwork for more contemporary global regimes of child protection. Her ‘‘Declaration of the Rights of the Child’’ was adopted by the League of Nations in 1924 and inspired the Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the United Nations in 1989.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and mid 20th century ▶ Civil Society History VII: Late 20th and 21st century ▶ Compassion ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance ▶ Transparency
References/Further Readings Fuchs, E. (2007). Children’s rights and global civil society. Comparative Education, 43(3), 393–412. International Save the Children Alliance. (2006). Rewrite the future: Education for children in conflict-affected countries. London: International Save the Children Alliance, from http://www.savethechildren. org/publications/reports/RewritetheFuture-PolicyReport.pdf Save the Children Australia. (2008). Lessons in leadership from a Spinster in a Brown Cardigan, from http://lessonsinleadership.com.au/ Watson, A. (2006). Saving more than the children: The role of childfocused NGOs in the creation of southern security norms. Third World Quarterly, 27(2), 227–237.
Savings and Loan Associations SUNIL KUMAR London School of Economics and Political Science, London, UK
Introduction Despite the proliferation of commercial and nonmutual credit sources, savings, and loan associations continue to remain important credit institutions for its members in industrialized and industrializing countries, in particular. The origins and principles of savings and loans associations are not that dissimilar in both industrialized and industrializing countries, namely, small membership based thrift societies (similar to mutual savings banks and credit unions) where members saved and then borrowed on predetermined financial terms. In the United Kingdom and the United States, savings and loan associations were set up primarily to provide credit for house construction or improvement. In industrializing or developing countries, savings and loan associations continue to be structured on these lines – small groups saving and borrowing – but not
necessarily limited to house construction or improvement. While savings and loan associations are now formally registered entities in the United Kingdom, United States and Europe (and some of them have demutualised) they are largely informal and unregulated in some developing countries whereas in others, for example, ‘‘chit funds’’ of India are registered and regulated. This chapter has a focus on developing countries but draws attention to issues in developed countries where appropriate.
Definition In the United Kingdom, savings and loan thrift associations take the form of either building societies or credit unions, where members saved and borrowed primarily for the purpose of house construction, improvement, or the purchase of existing property (Cleary, 1965). According to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopaedia (2007), savings and loan associations in the United States are a ‘‘type of financial institution that was originally created to accept savings from private investors and to provide home mortgage services for the public.’’ In the 1980s, most savings and loan associations had a mutual form of ownership where the depositors were the owners or the share holders (Carron, 1982). In developing countries, an early definition of savings and loan associations, called ‘‘rotating credit associations’’ was provided by Geertz (1962: 243) who noted that ‘‘the basic principle upon which the rotating credit association is founded is everywhere the same: a lump sum fund composed of fixed contribution from each member of the association is distributed at fixed intervals and as a whole, to each member in turn.’’ Ardener (1964: 201) views this definition as too restrictive as the sum is not always fixed, members do not always receive the full amount and contributions can be made partly or wholly in kind as with some Japanese and Chinese associations. She suggests a wider definition of ‘‘an association formed upon a core of participants who agree to make regular contributions to a fund which is given, in whole or in part, to each contributor in rotation’’ (Ardener, 1964: 201). So far, the emphasis has been on the credit side. Bouman (1977) was one of the first to suggest that the importance of associations to generate savings as much as to provide credit. He (1995) distinguishes between rotating savings and credit associations’ (ROSCAs) and ‘‘accumulating savings and credit associations’’ (ASCRAs) and a hybrid that provides emergency funds like the ROSCAs. ROSCAs and ASCRAs share similar features: they are voluntary and autonomous; have their own objectives, rules, and organizational pattern; are set up for and by the poor and nonpoor alike; are self-sufficient, self-regulating, and have their own control mechanisms – the greatest difference
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between them is what happens to the fund. In the former, savings are rotated among its members whereas in the latter they are allowed to accumulate and then used to provide credit. Allocation of credit to the members of a ROSCA is based on either a random allocation or through a bidding process (Bouman, 1995: 374).
Historical Background According to Cleary (1965), the origin of building societies in the United Kingdom (a version of the building and loan associations of the United States) most probably emerged from the ‘‘friendly societies’’ of the late seventeenth century and ‘‘money clubs,’’ both of which provided migrant workers help in times of illness and unemployment. The contributions required for building societies were only affordable to higher paid workers, making small traders and manufacturers key early players. The earliest known building society was formed in Birmingham, United Kingdom, around 1775. Compared to the legal recognition granted to friendly societies by the Friendly Societies Act of 1793, building societies only received such recognition through the Building Societies Act of 1836. McKillop and Ferguson (1993) provide a more up to date account of the structure, performance, and change of UK building societies (also see Ferguson & McKillop, 1997, for the development of credit unions). US savings and loan associations originated from the United Kingdom – the first, the Oxford Provident Building Association was organized in 1831 in Frankford, Pennsylvania (for a history see, Kendall, 1962). US savings and loan associations normally consisted of groups of workmen who financed the building of their homes by paying fixed sums of money at regular intervals to the societies – a practice not dissimilar to ROSCAs in developing countries (see, for example, Besley et al., 1993). When all members had homes, the societies disbanded. They were overseen by the Federal Home Loan Bank System created in 1832 and deposits to be insured by the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation (FSLIC). Since the 1980s, US savings and loan associations underwent many changes (such as entering into commercial and nonmortgage lending) as a result of deregulation instituted by the federal government. Deposit insurance was raised from $40,000 to $100,000 (the Depository Institutions Deregulation and Monetary Control Act of 1980) and savings and loan associations were permitted to make both secured and unsecured loans to a wider market as well as make changes in the ownership of these associations. All of these resulted in savings and loan associations becoming engaged in highly riskier loans with more than 500 being forced to close at a cost
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of more than $500 billion to the tax payers over 30 years (Colombia Electronic Encyclopaedia, 2007). In developing countries, the lack of access to formal credit markets make ROSCAs an important source of credit for all socioeconomic classes. Anthropologists and sociologists were some of the earliest to study ROSCAs (see, for example, Geertz, 1962; Ardener, 1964, 1995). The main thrust of Geertz’s study of ROSCAs, or ‘‘arisans,’’ as they were called in Java, was that they were an intermediary form of savings that would disappear with progress in development. He alludes to this argument by drawing attention to the largely social function of the ‘‘arisans’’ in rural areas compared with its business like functions in urban areas. The first detailed review of ROSCAs in developing countries is provided by Ardener (1964) who explores their geographical distribution and structural and other variables such as membership, organization, contributions, the size of the fund, deductions, and sanctions. This still remains a seminal paper although a recent attempt has been made to update the literature on ROSCAs (see, for instance, Low, 1995).
Key Issues Key issues differ for industrialized and industrializing countries. For the former, some of them are: first, the deregulation of savings and loan institutions in the United States in the 1980s, that allowed them to enter into commercial lending, trust services and nonmortgage consumer lending. Deregulation of UK building societies took place at the same time but for other reasons – namely to increase competition. Barnes and Ward (1999) explore the differential outcomes of deregulation in the United States and United Kingdom while Glasberg and Skidmore (1998) explore how state policy of deregulation can give rise to conditions for white collar crime or ‘‘collective embezzlement.’’ In relation to developing countries, Low (1995) in a bibliographical survey of ROSCAs summarizes several issues such as, whether lessons can be learnt from ROSCAs to alleviate growth constraints of small enterprises and the wider question of the lessons to be learnt from them for rural credit and savings mobilization. In urban areas in the developing world, ROSCAs are a key source of saving and credit not only for housing but also for investment in small business. Some of the key questions raised here are the extent to which ROSCAs do or do not exclude the poorest and transient populations such as tenants (Smets, 2000).
International Perspectives As noted earlier, much of the work on ROSCAs in industrializing countries was initially instigated by
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anthropologists and sociologists. Two points of disagreement emerge from these early studies and reviews. First, Geertz (1962: 260) portrayed ROSCAs as ‘‘middle-rung’’ institutions and as a product of a ‘‘shift from a traditionalistic agrarian society to an increasingly fluid commercial one,’’ a point that Ardener (1964: 221) is not convinced of. He suggests that these associations were not a product of that shift but may have been, to some extent, ‘‘causative’’ because they have not developed in some societies such as the Azande in Sudan. Secondly, Geertz, drawing upon his study of associations called ‘‘arisan’’ of Java, presents them as a continuum ranging from ‘‘traditional associations based on ritualistic solidarity’’ in rural areas to a ‘‘rational orientation’’ in urban areas, the latter encompassing concerns with the financial probity of its members, legal enforcement of obligations, increasingly complex organization and commercial viability. Ardener is also not convinced of this and cites the cases of the informal urban associations of Bantu speakers in South Africa as well as the comparatively regulated and business like associations of Vietnam where social functions are required and present. In comparison, economists have only relatively recently begun to assess the economic viability of ROSCAs. In a seminal paper, Besley et al. (1993) studied two types of ROSCAs: the ‘‘random’’ type (where members contribute a fixed sum for the life of the ROSCA and the resulting pot is randomly allocated to one of its members, this member being excluded from the next draw) and the ‘‘bidding’’ type (where a member who bids more than another receives the pot – the bidding amount is forgone and the winning member continues to make the agreed fixed contribution for the life of the ROSCA). Although they find that both types of ROSCAs allow members without access to credit markets to make welfare gains, random ROSCAs are preferred when members have identical tastes but not necessarily so if they are heterogeneous. They also note that the sustainability of ROSCAs are maintained because they are not anonymous institutions but are based on preexisting social relationships that overcome problems of imperfect information and enforceability. Similar conclusions are reached by Kovsted and Lyk-Jensen (1999) who argue that while both types are welfare enhancing, the bidding ROSCA is preferred to the random ROSCA except when credit from other sources is costly and types of ROSCA members are not widely dispersed. The literature in developing countries also focuses on the role that women play in ROSCAs and the impact on women of being members of a ROSCA. A recent collection of articles is presented in a volume edited by Shirley Ardener and Sandra Burman (1995). The chapters include countries in Africa (South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, and Ethiopian women in Addis Ababa and Eritrean women
in Oxford, United Kingdom, Ghana); Asia (Indonesia, Japan, and India) and a section on diasporas (south Asians in Oxford, United Kingdom; Northern Somali women in the United Kingdom; Korean business households in Los Angeles, United States and Turks in northern Cyprus). This book also highlights the limits of the informal-formal divide and draws attention to how formal institutions are seeking to emulate the mechanisms upon which the ROSCAs operate.
Future Directions The nature and the impact of the deregulation and concomitant government policy in the United States continue to be of concern for the future. Attention is rightly placed on the challenges of a changing and volatile market environment and the inability of savings and loan associations to respond to these changes as a result of government policy. Emphasis is placed on how the tax payer can be better protected though a more transparent measurement of all assets and liabilities of savings and loan associations and the level of their capitalization (Barth, 1991). In developing countries, the lack of collateral combined with low and intermittent wages, especially among poorer groups, will make ROSCAs a continuing and important source of credit. Future directions will have to address issues of exclusion. In addition and perhaps more significantly, ROSCAs in the form of women’s savings groups have become an important vehicle to demonstrate the capacity of the poor to save and to be able to use these savings groups as collateral to leverage capital from other sources, including the private sector.
Cross-References
▶ Credit Unions ▶ Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies ▶ Self-Help Groups ▶ Solidarity
References/Further Readings Ardener, S. (1964). The comparative study of rotating credit associations. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, XCIV, 201–29. Ardener, S. (1995). Women making money go around: Roscas revisited. In S. Ardener & S. Burman (Eds.), Money-go-rounds: The importance of rotating savings and credit associations for women (pp. 1–21). Oxford/Washington, DC: Berg. Ardener, S., & Burman, S. (Eds.) (1995). Money-go-rounds: The importance of rotating savings and credit associations for women. Oxford/ Washington, DC: Berg. Barnes, P., & Ward, M. (1999). The consequences of deregulation: A comparison of the experiences of UK building societies with those of US savings and loan associations. Crime, Law and Social Change, 31, 209–244. Barth, J. R. (1991). The great savings and loan debacle. Washington, DC: AEI Press.
Schervish, Paul G. Besley, T., Coate, S., & Loury, G. (1993). The economics of rotating savings and credit associations. The American Economic Review, 83(4), 792–810. Bouman, F. J. A. (1977). Indigenous savings and credit societies in the third world: a message. Savings and Development, 1(4), 181–219. Bouman, F. J. A. (1995). Rotating and accumulating savings and credit associations: A development perspective. World Development, 23(3), 371–384. Carron, A. S. (1982). The plight of the thrift institutions. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Cleary, E. J. (1965). The building society movement. London: Elek Books. Colombia Electronic Encyclopedia. (2007). Savings and loan associations. Available at http://www.bartleby.com/65/sa/savingsN.html Ferguson, C. E., & McKillop, D. G. (1997). The strategic development of credit unions. Chichester/NewYork: Wiley. Geertz, C. (1962). The rotating credit association: A ‘‘middle rung’’ in development. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 10(3), 241–263. Glasberg, D. S., & Skidmore, D. (1998). The dialectics of white-collar crime: The anatomy of the savings and loan crisis and the case of Silverado banking, savings, and loan association. American Journal of Economics & Sociology, 57(4), 423–449. Kendall, L. T. (1962). The savings and loan business: Its purposes, functions, and economic justification. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall. Kovsted, J., & Lyk-Jensen, P. (1999). Rotating savings and credit associations: The choice between random and bidding allocation of funds. Journal of Development Economics, 60(1), 143–172. Low, A. M. (1995). A bibliographical survey of rotating savings and credit associations. Oxford: Oxfam Centre for Cross-Cultural Research on Women. McKillop, D. G., & Ferguson, C. E. (1993). Building societies: Structure, performance, and Change. London: Graham & Trotman. Smets, P. (2000). ROSCAs as a source of housing finance for the urban poor: An analysis of self-help practices from Hyderabad, India. Community Development Journal, 35(1), 16–30.
Schervish, Paul G. CHARLES MACLEAN
Basic Biographical Information Paul G. Schervish (1946–) was born in Detroit, Michigan. He received an A.B. in literature from the University of Detroit Mercy; an MA in sociology from Northwestern University; an M.Div. from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley; and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Schervish is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College. He was Fulbright Professor at University College, Cork, Ireland. He has been named five times to the NonProfit Times ‘‘Power and Influence Top 50’’ and received the
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2008 Scott Fithian Leadership Award from the International Association of Advisors in Philanthropy. He credits his collaborator, John J. Havens, as indispensable to his contributions.
Major Contributions/Accomplishments Schervish, who explores the spiritual aspects of charitable giving, may be thought of as a Thomas Aquinas of philanthropy research. ‘‘Never before,’’ he says, ‘‘have so many people, with so much wealth, with so much energy, and with so much entrepreneurial instinct allocated their time and money for the care of others.’’ The key question is ‘‘how to use wealth as a tool for deeper purposes when acquiring more wealth or a higher standard of living is no longer of high importance.’’ His contributions to the field of philanthropy relate to the following topics: ● Intergenerational Transfer of Wealth: Havens and Schervish project that at least $41 trillion (1998 dollars) will be transferred through estates from 1998 to 2052 to be divided among heirs, estate taxes, and philanthropy. ● Philia: Greek for friendship love or mutual nourishment. Philia flourishes in all daily relationships of material and personal assistance. It is not limited to formally defined giving and volunteering. Friendship love is not the absence of self but the presence of a deeply connected self. ● Philanthropy: A social relationship of mutual nourishment by which one responds directly to the needs of another simply because the other is in need. ● Philanthropic Motivations: Motivations include identification with the fate of others, gratitude for blessing, and the predilection to help others simply because they are in need. ● Moral Biography: Putting one’s capacities in motion according to one’s moral purposes, values, and aspirations. ● The New Physics of Philanthropy: The contemporary donor- or supply-side orientations of today’s givers that incline them to seek out rather than resist philanthropic involvement. ● Hyperagency: The capacity, especially of wealth holders, to be a founder or producer of economic, social, political, and philanthropic institutions. ● Discernment: The process of self-reflective deliberation by which individuals decide how to carry out care in their daily life. ● Doable Knowledge: translating knowledge into published works and retreats to guide wealth holders toward a more spiritual and wiser allocation of wealth.
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Cross-References
▶ Donor/Donor Intent ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Philanthropy, Definition Of ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Schervish, P. (2005). The sense and sensibility of philanthropy as a moral citizenship of care. In D. Smith (Ed.), Good intentions: Moral obstacles and opportunities (pp. 149–165). Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Schervish, P. (2006). The moral biography of wealth: Philosophical reflections on the foundation of philanthropy. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(3), 477–492. Schervish, P. (2008). Receiving and giving as spiritual exercise: The spirituality of care in soul, relationship, and society. Indianapolis, IN: The Lake Family Center on Faith & Giving. Schervish, P., & Whitaker, K. (2009). Wealth and the will of God: The use of riches in the services of ultimate purpose. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Schmitt, Carl HARRY BAUER
Basic Biographical Information Carl Schmitt was a conservative German jurist, essayist, and political theorist, who became (in)famous for his adroit and polemic work attacking the dominant liberal political order of the interwar era – epitomized by the Weimar Constitution, the League of Nations, and the Peace Treaty of Versailles. Like many German intellectuals of this period, Schmitt’s thinking lies beyond conventional categories, combining nationalist, etatist, anticapitalist, catholic, decisionist, and aestheticist elements. Schmitt’s thought has undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent years; his critique of liberalism and analyses of the changing nature of statehood and international affairs, especially, have found renewed attention. Born in Plettenberg (Germany) in 1888, Schmitt studied law and became a professor at various German business schools and universities, such as Munich, Cologne, and notably Berlin, where he held a permanent position from 1933 to 1945. Schmitt’s writings during the Weimar Republic tried to unveil the inconsistencies and hypocrisy of liberalism and its political and economic institutions; most famous became his 1932 Concept of the Political,
Political Theology and Constitutional Theory. As a prominent constitutional expert, he became involved in politics and finally Nazism. After Hitler seized power in 1933, Schmitt played a role in the legal transition to a totalitarian regime, justified political murder and racist legislation. Following a scandal, Schmitt lost most of his official positions and, subsequently, turned to international law. After the war, Schmitt found a way back into neither academic nor public life. He returned to his birthplace, continued to comment and work on legal and political affairs from the sidelines, still exerting a marked presence on legal and political debate in Germany and beyond. Schmitt died in 1985 in Plettenberg.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The main thrust of Schmitt’s thinking, the deconstruction of the central tenets of liberalism, made him a determined critic of civil society, civil society actors, and political pluralism. This stance derived from the view that the modern state and modern politics underwent a phase of crisis and fundamental transformation. In the current stage of the process, liberalism and pluralism deprive the state of its monopoly on politics and turn it into a toothless neutral entity, unwilling and unable to come to substantial decisions. In a typically Schmittian turn, politics, here, is famously understood as the distinction between the public friend and enemy, and not as a way to come to collectively binding decisions. All matters could become political that can lead to a friend/enemy distinction and therefore ultimately to war. Such an approach not only turns on its head the conventional view that war is a failure of politics, but it also allocates politics to the prephase of civil or interstate war and lends no significance to societal solidarity or civility. Although Schmitt’s work has influenced the conceptualization of civil society only indirectly, his thoughts affect the debate on civil society – just take considerations about politics, war, violence, humanitarian intervention, but also concepts like Ch. Mouffe’s antagonistic democracy.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society Theory: Shils
References/Further Readings Balakrishnan, G. (2000). The enemy: An intellectual portrait of Carl Schmitt. London: Verso. McCormick, J. P. (1997). Carl Schmitt’s critique of liberalism: Against politics as technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mu¨ller, J. -W. (2003). A dangerous mind: Carl Schmitt in post-war European thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Schumpeter, Joseph Alois
Schulze-Delitzsch, Franz Hermann
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WIM VAN OPSTAL
CAMILLO VON MUELLER
Basic Biographical Information
Basic Biographical Information
Franz Hermann Schulze, one of the founding fathers of the cooperative movement, was born in 1808 in Delitzsch (Prussian Saxony). A few years after graduating, he became a cantonal judge serving several districts in his home region. This brought him into contact with the problems of smaller tradesmen and artisans, who faced severe competitive pressures due to a flourishing industrialization. In 1848, he became a member of the Prussian parliament, where he was active in the commissions for industry, crafts, and trade. Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch died in 1883 in Potsdam.
Born in 1883 in Triesch, Bohemia (today’s Trest, Czech Republic), Joseph Alois Schumpeter went on to become one of the leading economists of the twentieth century. Schumpeter studied law and economics at the University of Vienna from 1901 to 1906 under teachers like Friedrich von Wieser and Eugen von Bo¨hm-Bawerk. Schumpeter assumed a professorship in Czernowitz in Galicia in 1909 that he left for a position at the University of Graz in 1911. In 1913–1914 he spent a year as a visiting professor at Columbia University, New York. After the First World War, Schumpeter briefly served as a member of the Socialization Commission of the German socialist government and as Austrian Minister of Finance. From 1921 to 1924 he worked for a Viennese private bank but returned to academia in 1925 when he assumed a professorship at the University of Bonn in Germany. The years in Bonn were overshadowed by the deaths of Schumpeter’s mother, his wife, and newborn son in the summer of 1926. Having spent two terms as a visiting professor at Harvard University in 1927 and 1930 Schumpeter moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, for good in 1932. During his 18 years at Harvard, Schumpeter worked with scholars such as Paul Samuelson, Robert Solow, and John Kenneth Galbraith thus directly influencing the discipline and practice of economics well beyond his death. Schumpeter died in Taconic, Connecticut, in 1950.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Inspired by the socioeconomic problems rising from the 1846/47 famine, Schulze-Delitzsch concluded that cooperation among smaller trades-people was necessary to achieve countervailing power against the excrescences of pure capitalism. This led to the foundation of a purchasing cooperative for shoemakers in 1849. One year later, SchulzeDelitzsch established the first urban credit cooperative in Germany. By 1858, the number of these cooperatives had risen to 25, all based on the principle of self-help, stressing the importance of being autonomous from charity. During the rest of his life, Schulze-Delitzsch put effort in consolidating these innovations in economic cooperation. This resulted in the foundation of a federation of cooperative societies (1864) and the establishment of the German Cooperative Bank (1865). As a writer and as a member of parliament he subsequently contributed to the conception of legislation on cooperatives, at first in Prussia and later on in the German Empire. This legislative work became a prototype for cooperative laws all over the world.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Credit Unions ▶ Raiffeisen, Friedrich Wilhelm ▶ Savings and Loan Associations
References/Further Readings Guinnane, T. W. (1997). Regional organizations in the German cooperative banking system in the late 19th century. Research in Economics, 51(3), 251–274. Seibel, H. D. (2003). History matters in microfinance. Small Enterprise Development, An International Journal of Microfinance and Business Development, 14(2), 10–12.
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Major Contributions Schumpeter is probably best known to the public for the concept of ‘‘creative destruction,’’ a notion that had been used before by the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin as well as by Friedrich Nietzsche and Werner Sombart. Yet it was Schumpeter who referred to the idea of creative destruction as an essential part of entrepreneurship and growth (cf. Schumpeter, 1934, 1942). According to Schumpeter pioneering entrepreneurs drive the process of growth in capitalist societies in their aim to bring new products and technologies to the markets. As a side effect, they eliminate the established businesses and institutions, which themselves had been built upon earlier successful innovations. Consequently, disturbances brought by new entrepreneurs who are entering the markets are in fact essential prerequisites for the success of capitalist societies. Schumpeter called this death-and-birth-process of capitalist
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evolution ‘‘creative destruction.’’ In this context, he also recognized a functioning financial system through which entrepreneurs can raise capital in order to finance innovations as essential prerequisite of economic growth. Schumpeter also made major contributions to the intellectual history of economics, especially through his seminal work on the history of economic analysis (cf. Schumpeter, 1954). As the cofounder (1930) of the Econometric Society, Schumpeter also played an important role in the introduction and establishment of quantitative models in the discipline of economics.
Forum) in 1971 as a community of global leaders who were dedicated to improving the world’s state of affairs. Following the success of this foundation, Klaus and his wife Hilde Schwab cofounded the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in 1998 to serve as a complement to the World Economic Forum. Although the two foundations are separate entities, they work synergistically. The Schwab Foundation focuses on solving the world’s major problems through promoting social entrepreneurs with groundbreaking, entrepreneurial solutions that have an impact at the grassroots level.
Cross-References
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas
▶ Social Entrepreneurship
References/Further Readings McCraw, T. (2007). Prophet of innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and creative destruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schumpeter, J. A. (1934). The theory of economic development: An inquiry into profits, capital, credit, interest and the business cycle. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schumpeter, J. A. (1942). Capitalism, socialism and democracy. New York: Harper & Brothers. Schumpeter, J. A. (1954). History of economic analysis. London/New York: Oxford University Press.
Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship ROBBIE WATERS ROBICHAU
Address of Organization 91-93 route de la Capite CH – 1223 Cologny/Geneva Switzerland www.schwabfound.org
Introduction The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship has a network of over 150 social entrepreneurs from around the world. The Foundation functions as a broker between the business community and the most innovative social entrepreneurs. Instead of providing its entrepreneurs with grants, the Foundation empowers innovators by offering them access to other entrepreneurs, world leaders, and capital.
Brief History Klaus Schwab started the World Economic Forum Foundation (originally called the European Management
The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship not only identifies the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, but it also works to build a community among these individuals and generate solutions through partnerships. The organization’s mission is to provide ‘‘unparalleled platforms at the national, regional, and global levels for leading social innovators that highlight social entrepreneurship as a key element to address social and ecological problems in an innovative, sustainable and effective way.’’ Additionally, the Schwab Foundation states in their impact analysis that they strive to be the ‘‘preferred partner for companies and social investors seeking to support social entrepreneurs around the world.’’
Activities, Including Projects, Programs, and Major Publications Each year the Schwab Foundation chooses its ‘‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’’ for membership into the Foundation’s network. After a rigorous due diligence process that includes onsite visits and outside expert reviews, social entrepreneurs are selected on the criteria of innovation, sustainability, direct social impact, reach, and scope, and replicability. The Foundation then provides financial support for these individuals to attend the World Economic Forum and the Social Entrepreneurs’ Summit where they are given access to global decision-makers. The Schwab Foundation has also partnered with the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE) business school at the University of Navarra in Spain to publish a co-branded series of case studies specifically focusing on the challenges faced by social entrepreneurs in their network.
Structure and Governance The Schwab Foundation is operated and housed by the World Economic Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. The Foundation’s board is separate from that of the World Economic Forum. On average, the board meets twice a year and its members are elected to serve a 3-year term.
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Brief History
The Schwab Foundation’s initial endowment came from Klaus and Hilde Schwab. The Foundation receives additional funding through a combination of grants and fees for the services it provides to companies, foundations, and individuals. It works closely with corporate and other foundations in order to finance certain events and activities.
Founded in 1810 by the physician Johann Caspar Hirzel in Zurich, the purpose of the SGG is based on the ideas of Enlightenment, humanism and liberal principles. In the following years such societies for public utility were established in nearly all Swiss cantons to mobilize for better social conditions. Three of the five founding members of the International Committee of the Red Cross were members of such a society. Among the organizations founded by the SGG are in 1912 Pro Jeventute (childrens relief), in 1918 Pro Senectute (elderly relief), in 1934 ZEWO Stiftung (certification of fundraising), and in 1934 Schweizer Berghilfe (relief for mountain farmers).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Schwab Foundations has been incorporating 20–30 global social entrepreneurs into its network each year. The impact of the young organization is limitless. Their social entrepreneurs are affecting the world with innovative solutions on a local level.
Cross-References
▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ World Economic Forum
References/Further Readings The Schwab Foundation. (2002). The Schwab Foundation for social entrepreneurship. Retrieved December 12, 2008 from http://schwabfound.weforum.org/sf/ Publications/Cases/index.htm Seelos, C., & Mair, J. (2005, October). Sustainable development: How social entrepreneurs make it happen (IESE Business School Working Paper No. 611). Retrieved December 12, 2008 from http://ssrn.com/abstract=876404
Schweizerische Gemeinnu¨tzige Gesellschaft GEORG VON SCHNURBEIN
Address of Organization Schaffhauserstrasse 7 8042 Zu¨rich Switzerland www.sgg-ssup.ch
Introduction The Schweizerische Gemeinnu¨tzige Gesellschaft (SGG Swiss Society for Public Utility) is one of the oldest organizations for public purpose in Switzerland and has been the starting point of many social innovations and organizations in the country.
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Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The basic idea of the SGG is to promote the moral and material welfare of the people. Today, since the social welfare state has occupied most of the welfare-related activities, the SGG focuses on strengthening volunteering through advocacy, organizing, research, and direct support. Other fields of activity are integration and corporate volunteering.
Activities The SGG has successfully initiated, a program to promote volunteering. In addition to supporting research projects on the topic, it has accomplished a general survey on volunteering in Switzerland. Other recent projects focus on integration of migrants. A special task of the SGG is responsibility for the Ru¨tli, the Swiss national symbol and the annual ceremony on national holiday situated on this legendary foundation place of the Swiss confederation.
Structure and Governance The SGG is a Swiss association with 3,000 members. The cantonal subdivisions are legally independent and each of them is represented in the board of trustees. The association is governed by a board of directors with 11 members.
Funding The annual expenses of CHF 3 million reported for 2007 are covered by yield of assets and member contributions. The SGG does not receive state funding.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Besides the historical social achievements mentioned above, SGG has had an influence on the history of the food economy. In the nineteenth century SGG commissioned Julius Maggi to develop an easily prepared nourishing and tasty food – the starting point of convenience food. The SGG also founded insurance companies in the nineteenth century.
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Cross-References
▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Rickenbach, W. (1960). Geschichte der SGG 1810–1960. Zurich: SGG. SGG. (Ed.) (2005). Die Schweizerische Gemeinnu¨tzige Gesellschaft und ihre Geschichte. Zurich: SGG.
Secours Catholique EDITH ARCHAMBAULT
Address of Organization 106 rue du Bac 75341, Cedex 07 Paris France www.secours-catholique.org
Introduction Secours Catholique is the French organization of Caritas Internationalis and a confederation of Catholic relief, development, and social service organizations operating in France and in developing countries.
Brief History Secours Catholique was founded in 1946 as a declared association by a priest, Jean Rhodain, who was struck by the great poverty in France after World War II. Secours Catholique was dedicated to the alleviation of poverty and operated mainly by volunteers. In 1950, it joined the newly created confederation, Caritas Internationalis and in 1962, it was acknowledged as a public utility association. Its international action expanded in the 1970s and 1980s.
Mission According to the bylaws, the mission of Secours Catholique is to expand Christian charity in France and in the world without any national or sectarian particularism and to afford relief, material, and moral help to the poor. Its key values are justice, solidarity, fraternity, and respect for human dignity.
Activities The activities are shared between France (2/3) and the Third World (1/3).
The main program is to help the poor in France by providing financial assistance to children and families. Secours Catholique runs social facilities and services to welcome the homeless and immigrants night and day. It also helps the unemployed to create their own enterprises. It affords emergency relief during times of natural disaster or social crisis, either alone or in partnership with public agencies. Every year about 1,500,000 persons are benefited by the organization. The international activities of Secours Catholique are mainly located in Africa and Asia, besides East Europe and Latin America. Emergency relief and assistance to refugees camps are operated with an aim of achieving sustainable development. The development programs are run through local organizations; they give priority to education and women empowerment. The major publication is the 600,000 edited copies of the monthly Messages.
Structure and Governance Secours Catholique is a confederation of 103 departmental organizations grouping 4,000 local teams. Volunteers are its main human resource: 65,000 volunteers work inside the local teams; however, 975 salaried employees are also included in the paid staff. The governance at the upper level is the responsibility of a board of 16 persons.
Funding
The annual budget was €132 million in 2007 (plus the money value of volunteering: €196 million). The main financial resource through bequests and gifts comes to about 75% of the annual budget; public funding is less than 10%. The net assets are €140 million.
Major Contributions Secours Catholique is among the most popular charitable organizations and a masterpiece of the Catholic Church in France. Every year, it reports on extreme poverty in France and its evolution. This report gives interesting information to the media, the public at large, and even to the government. Through Caritas Europa, Caritas Internationalis, and other networks, its contribution to the alleviation and the knowledge of poverty and social inequality is decisive.
Cross-References
▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Secours Catholique Rapport statistique 2007.
Secret Societies
Secret Societies HELMUT K. ANHEIER1,2 1 University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany 2 Hertie School of Governance , Berlin, Germany
Introduction The phenomenon of secrecy is known to all societies. Likewise, secret societies and similar social group formations seem common to most human societies, and have been reported throughout history. They are diverse in form and structure, ranging from tightly controlled hierarchical groups with formal organizations to loosely knit, clandestine networks among individuals. Equally diverse in their purpose, secret societies include political groups aimed at influencing, toppling, or taking over government; religious fraternities rejecting the world and longing for community with god; organized crime units seeking profits from racketeering and smuggling; and networks among wealthy individuals protecting their social status and furthering their influence. Prominent examples of secret societies include the Freemasons, a syncretic religious organization with an expansive international system of lodges (meeting places); the Iluminati, a clandestine group of European intellectuals in the 18th century seeking to deepen the impact of the Enlightenment on Europe’s often autocratic, aristocratic governments at that time; the Bilderberg Group, a network of influential representatives of Western governments and business, founded in 1954, and meeting annually to discuss pressing policy issues in the allegedly free atmosphere only secrecy can provide; The Order of Skull and Bones at Yale University, one of the oldest student secret societies in the United States; the Ogboni secret society among the Yoruba of Nigeria that combine religious purpose with political and social advancement; Chinese secret societies operating in South Asia that, based on ethnic identity, pursue primarily economic goals; or various Mafia-like crime networks in Russia, Italy, or the United States. In some cases, the very existence of secret societies is contested among experts, and often denied by alleged members. Conspiracy theories of many kinds rank around the issue of existence or nonexistence, and feed however well-founded into popular imagination. Some secret societies turn out as hoaxes (such as the Order of Sion following the widely popular book and then movie The Da Vinci Code); others portrayed as secret organizations, such as Catholic Opore Pie, may be less
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transparent than some would prefer, but they are not secret organizations. Others are front organizations set up to conceal their true purpose such as money laundering giving protection to clandestine activities of many kinds. Yet for most secret societies, information about their activities, members, finances, and impact is as uncertain as it is incomplete. Some of the confusion stems from the very ambiguity inherent in the term: is the society or organization in and of itself secret in the sense that only members know about its existence but few outsiders do (which would apply to some extent to the Bilderberg Group)? Or is the society widely known to the public but its members are not, as would be the case for Yale’s Skull and Bones in recent decades)? Or is the society known, its members at least knowable, but knowledge of its activities kept from the uninitiated (Freemasons)? We also have to distinguish between groups that elect to become secret societies voluntarily from those that are forced to do so by becoming clandestine organizations, either because of political circumstances that demand secrecy to protect members from persecution or some other cause. Information about secret societies is itself shrouded in secrecy, and easily based on, or supporting, some sort of ‘‘conspiracy theory,’’ as mentioned above. It should, therefore, be no surprise that we do not know how many secret societies there are today or there were in the past, of what purpose, of which size and with what impact, if any, they achieved. Nonetheless, there is a long tradition of conceptual and empirical work on secret societies (most prominently in sociology, e.g., Hazelrigg, 1969; Erickson, 1981) and numerous case studies of secret societies in many parts of the world (e.g., Fong, 1981 on Chinese secret societies; Miller, 2000 on Cuba), and for different historical periods (e.g., Ownby, 2001). Conceptually, these works build on the seminal work by German sociologist Georg Simmel and his 1906 essay on secrecy and secret societies. Indeed, the very fact that we had little empirical information about secret societies then, and have little today, underlines the essence of Simmel’s core insight: any secret society is about the control of information and knowledge, and irrespective of how factually true or false the information and how useful or useless the knowledge might be. Secrecy requires norms about the control of information and knowledge. This can involve limiting access to knowledge, destroying information, prohibiting information gathering or allowing only some knowledge from being created, stored, and disseminated. Such norms can apply to different kinds and levels of social
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interaction, from information individuals withhold from others in interpersonal or family relations, to secret rites of passage among age groups in premodern societies, to trade secrets held by businesses, to secrets kept between priest and confessor, physician and patient, or lawyer and client, let alone aspects of national security. What distinguishes secret societies for many other forms and contexts in which secrecy plays a role, is that it becomes the constituting sociological element. In other words, families are families with and without secrets, physicians heal patients irrespective of whatever secrets, if any, might be involved, and much of national security involves no secrets at all. By contrast, without a secret or what members regard as secret, secret societies would not exist.
Definition Simmel defines a secret society as a social group in which relations among members are governed by secrecy. The secret defines and structures the group, and becomes the invisible border between the in-group and the out-group. For Simmel, secrecy is not only the defining relationships among group members, it also includes obligations and rights, in particular in relation to the secret itself: members entrust information to each other, they withhold information from others, and their leaders, however legitimatized to do so, may grant privileged access to some but not others. Secret societies prevent or restrict communication, and distribute information and knowledge in ways that create nuanced structures of knowing and notknowing, of awareness and ignorance. Each secret society has some form of admission process and a ranking system often referred to as circles ranging from the outer to the inner, which represent the level members can communicate in and how much information is available to them. However, most secret organizations are inclined to democratic discourse. This general pattern has many variations. Some secret societies use different membership categories, usually arranged in hierarchical form, and incentive systems to express various layers of inclusion and exclusion. Others operate more in informal social network terms whereby specific patterns of relationships link members directly or indirectly through secret activities, values, sentiments, or objectives. The social structure of secret societies varies and may consist of loose ties or rigid hierarchies (see Erickson, 1981); it may be a rational, deliberate, and planned construction in which secrecy forms the most important condition that all other aspects must conform to (e.g., the selection of members); or it can be based on traditions, conventions, and rituals whose
precise or original meaning members may no longer fathom or wish to question, as in some secret syncretic cults.
Historical Background Modern secret societies are largely a product of the eighteenth century onward, and find their origins in the upheavals and transformations taking place in Europe as well as the Americas at that time. In the West, and certainly since the Enlightenment, secret societies can be seen, in general terms, as responses to uncertainties created by religious, social, political, and economic changes when two conditions are present: first, significant barriers exist to the pursuit of specific interests because of political, religious, ethnic, or some other forms of repression; and second, generally low levels of interpersonal and institutional trust prevail among groups whose economic well-being and social status requires otherwise. In such cases, secrecy acts as a protective shield from some form of prosecution however severe, on the one side, or, on the other, serves as some kind of insurance policy among exchange partners (and implying lower transaction costs in social and economic dealings with strangers). While the former includes examples such as secret societies in Nazi concentration camps (see Erickson, 1981) or Eastern European dissident groups in the 1980s as extreme cases, the latter would include many mundane examples of people joining secret societies to further their social status by joining an exclusive network of influential individuals. Looking back, the Reformation period of the sixteenth and seventeenth century and the complex system of Christian denominations and syncretic churches it spun invited many searches for certainty in the form of eternal truths or wisdom that was held to stand above contemporary struggles and conflicts. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century, the economic and political uncertainties of an expanding capitalism and a dying aristocratic order may have encouraged some that started as self-help groups among craftsmen to develop political aspirations and become more exclusive and ritualistic organizations (Freemasons). In sum, higher frequencies of secret societies seem associated with times of uncertainty and distress rather than certainty and stability. The modern term ‘‘secret society’’ came into existence only during the final quarter of the eighteenth century, and did so in the context of conspiracy theories during the French Revolution when clubs and associations of many kinds flourished. However, the concept soon became incompatible with the ideas of modern democracy at the time, in particular the Jacobin ideology and the notion of
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Republicanism as a direct and open relationship between citizens and elected government. The early history of the United States shows more secret societies than in Europe, in part also because of the greater openness and rapid change of early US society that revealed many tensions and uncertainties. It is likely that the Freemasons, an import from Europe, constituted the first secret society in the United States. Other groups such as the Ancient Order of Druids and the Ancient Order of Foresters followed soon after. Not all secret societies were clandestine. The Freemasons were rather public in their actions though less in terms of recruitment. Having originated from the Scottish and English masons, they became an official society in 1717. Because membership was expensive they recruited wealthy individuals primarily and became a vehicle for social advancement. Later, and frequently, the society was the target of many conflicts with established religions, in particular the Catholic Church, as well as governments of various kinds. Secret societies tend to form when the beliefs, values, and sentiments of a certain interest group are threatened or oppressed politically. The more likely the tendency of society at large to rely on centralized control of information, the more violent the reaction to secret societies will be forcing the latter into certain constraints. Often subcultures prevented from other forms of participation form clandestine interest groups, some of which are represented best in terms of rebellion and revolution or crime and deviance. Being thus sensitive to their environment, a secret society’s social structure often imitates the organization of society at large. For example, after desegregation but while the effects of the system were still prevalent, many African-American students formed their own fraternities because they were unable to join Greek life at most colleges. External conditions play a large part in classifying a secret society in terms of ‘‘risk’’ or ‘‘safety.’’ Secret societies under risk must maximize security in order to remain covert, forcing them to require higher levels of trust between members often leading to centralized control and a hierarchical structure. In this manner, a secret organization that is part of a society dependent upon centralized politics will also centralize its power to remain undisclosed, therefore mirroring outside society. Typically, secret societies are tightly knit and rely heavily on trust and strong ties among members. In some cases such as the Lupollo crime ‘‘family’’ studied by Erickson (1981), member connections and recruitment relies almost entirely on kinship. While such networks are viewed as criminal by authorities, they possess a legitimizing ideology and justify their actions in terms of their own
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respective social norms. In such cases centralized control promotes a hierarchy within the secret society. As Simmel suggests, reciprocal relations between members are governed by the protective foundation of secrecy. The goal of each secret society therefore remains the protection of ideas, objectives, actions, and values. In order to do so, secret societies may either keep their very existence clandestine or limit information about their goals, membership, and goals activities.
Key Issues There are two main issues about secret societies in modern democracies. The first relates to the question of how much secrecy and openness modern societies need and refers to governance, accountability, and transparency. Indeed, secrecy and openness may well reflect conflicting values within the population, and efforts to control information and limit knowledge can occur in different contexts. Therefore, legal and other norms that relate to the concealment of information, limitations on access to knowledge, and restrictions on communication are in tension with their opposites, i.e., norms mandating the revelation of information, requiring access to knowledge and protecting the freedom of communication. Examples of such norms range from the United States’ Freedom of Information Act and similar laws in other countries, especially Europe, ‘a bank’s refusal to reveal account information in the absence of a warrant,’ or consumer information corporations voluntarily provide on product labels. The general trend in recent decades has been to demand more transparency and accountability from governments and corporations alike, which at least in tendency delegitimizes secret societies as a tool to seek influence and advantage. The second issue relates to civil society itself. Regardless of what definitions see as constitutive elements of civil society, most if not all authors would agree that the exclusionary character of secret societies is incompatible with the openness and very ‘‘public-ness’’ the modern use of the term civil society implies. Of course, most definitions of civil society would include secret societies (as groups and associations however constituted) but, depending on the case in question, challenge their commitment to nonviolence, democracy, and the public good. What is more, most scholars of civil society would be hard pressed to make a conceptual case why modern civil societies need organized secrecy in one form or another. In a way, the culture of formal equality, openness, and democratic participation notions of modern civil society espouse runs counter to the seemingly archaic character of secret societies. Could it be that such social formations, despite the fact that they are
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largely a product of modernity, are ultimately remnants of premodern forms of organizing? Or could it be that the prevalence of secret societies in modern societies indicates deficiencies in modernity, in particular the democratic constitution of society?
Future Directions These are important questions, to be sure. However, we cannot fully answer them as our knowledge of secret society suffers from two shortcomings. First, there is a systematic lack of reliable empirical information on the scale and scope of secret societies in modern societies. Such information would be needed to assess if and to what extent what kinds of secret societies emerge, what their contributions, if any, are and what private and public purposes they serve. Such data would also inform any policy action that might be required. Second, little comparative research on secret societies has been carried out both historically as well as crossnationally. What are the social, political, economic, and cultural conditions that lead to the emergence or demise of secret societies? While we have some answers to this set of questions, research may well take a more systematic look and build on the foundations Georg Simmel laid so long ago.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment ▶ Freemasons ▶ Transparency
References/Further Readings Erickson, B. (1981). Secret societies and social structure. Social Forces, 60(1), 188–210. Fong, M. L. (1981). The Sociology of secret societies: A study of Chinese secret societies in Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia. Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press. Hazelrigg, L. (1969). A reexamination of Simmel’s The Secret and the Secret Society: Nine Propositions. Social Forces, 47(3), 323–330. Miller, I. (2000). A secret society goes public: The relationship between Abakua´ and Cuban popular culture. African Studies Review, 43(1) 161–188. Ownby, D. (2001). Recent Chinese scholarship on the history of Chinese secret societies. Late Imperial China, 22(1), 139–158. Simmel, G. (1906). The sociology of secrecy and of secret societies. The American Journal of Sociology, 11(4), 441–498.
Seidel, Hanns ▶ Hanns Seidel Stiftung
SEKN ▶ Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN)
Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) MAITRAYEE MUKERJI
Address of Organization Opp. Victoria Garden, Bhadra Ahmedabad – 380001 India www.sewa.org
Introduction Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) is a trade union of self-employed poor women. The members are women workers in the unorganized sector who have no fixed employee-employer relationship and earn their living through their own labor and/or small business. As of 2008, the all India membership of SEWA consisting of hawkers, vendors, home-based workers, manual labors and service providers was around 950,000 women.
Brief History SEWA as an organization has evolved from the culmination of three different movements: labor, cooperative and women. It began in 1971 when the head of women’s wing of the Textile Labor Union Ahmadabad, Ela Bhatt successfully campaigned for the rights of migrant women cart pullers and garment dealers in the Ahmadabad Cloth market; and a need for an association was articulated by women who had gathered for a public meeting to discuss the common issues of the unorganized. However, as the self-employed had no history of organizing, it took time to convince the labor department that the union was for unity of the workers and not for struggle against any fixed recognized employer. SEWA was formally registered as a trade union in 1972. Gandhian principles of satya (truth), ahimsa (non-violence), sarvadharma (integrating all faiths, all people) and khadi (propagation of local employment and self reliance) guide SEWA in all its endeavors.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Organizing women for full employment and self-reliance are the two stated goals of SEWA. Full employment refers
Self-help Groups
to employment whereby workers obtain work security, income security, food security and social security (at least health care, child care, and shelter); whereas selfreliance means that women should be autonomous and self-reliant, individually and collectively, both economically and in terms of their decision-making ability.
Activities SEWA facilitates setting up of primary economic organizations (like cooperatives, rural producer groups, social security organizations, savings and credit groups) and higher economic structures (like federations, trade facilitation centers, training centers). These organizations, some catering to specific types of need such as housing, savings and credit, health, livelihood support or marketing, while others serve a multiplicity of needs, enable women workers to achieve full employment and self-reliance through the strategy of struggle and development. The struggle is against the many constraints and limitations imposed on them by society and the economy, while development activities strengthen women’s bargaining power and offer them new alternatives. To organize women and support them in building their own workers’ organizations, SEWA also undertakes mass mobilization campaigns.
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Major Accomplishments/Contributions SEWA first gained widespread recognition in 1977, when her founder Ela Bhatt was awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award. More recently, she has been awarded with the French Legion of Honour by the government of France and the Human Rights Award by AFL-CIO (the largest American Labour Federation). SEWA’s experience in organizing women for empowerment has influenced policies related to self-employed women workers, both at national and international level. The organization’s work has spread to countries like South Africa, Turkey, Yemen, Ghana and Afghanistan.
Cross-References
▶ Bhatt, Ela ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Gandhi, Mahatma Mohandas ▶ Informal Sector
References/Further Readings Bhatt, E. R. (1998). Empowering the poor through micro-finance: The SEWA bank. In M. L. Dantwala et al. (Eds), Social change through voluntary Action. New Delhi: Sage Rose, K. (1992). Where women are leader: The SEWA movement in India. New Delhi: Vistaar.
Structure and Governance SEWA is registered as a trade union under the Indian Trade Unions Act of 1926 and its membership is open to self-employed women workers all over India. The union is governed by a two-tier level of elected representation. The members of each trade elect their representatives in the ratio of 1 representative per 100 members. These representatives then form the Trade Council. Every three years the Trade Council elects an Executive Committee of 25 members. The representation on the Executive Committee reflects the proportion of the membership. The officebearers of the trade union are elected from among the Executive members. The president is usually selected from the trade with the largest membership.
Funding Sources of funding for SEWA and her sister organizations include grants, loans and individual donations. Major funders are the central and state governments, institutional donors like Ford Foundation, German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), and Women’s World Banking (WWB), and nationalized banks like National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI). A part of the funds are also generated internally.
Self-help Groups THOMASINA BORKMAN George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA
Introduction By the dawn of the twenty-first century, self-help/mutual aid had created an alternative paradigm of support, ‘‘service,’’ and identity to that practiced by professionals and government. Egalitarian peer relationships transform seekers simultaneously into givers who both provide and consume services (prosumers) (Toffler, 1980); instead of thousands who seek services, there are thousands of helpers who also use services. Participants share their experiences of living with the common issue in the self-help group (SHG) context; experiential knowledge becomes collectively accumulated and vetted; new identities and agendas for advocacy can emerge (Borkman, 1999). Peerbased support is qualitatively different than support provided by family, friends, or coworkers who lack experiential understanding of the issue. The resulting
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identities, experiential knowledge and advocacy agendas are usually complementary, not radically different from, mainstream professional perspectives and services. Selfhelpers often have innovative and expansive ideas for new research and services which have been frequently co-opted or imitated by professionals or online entrepreneurs who profit monetarily while providing less-empowering forms of support than the original SHG (Madera, 2008). Self-help groups are not to be confused with do-it-byyourself self-help tapes, books, or videos, as is frequently done by ‘‘cultural pundits’’ who offer superficial analysis of ideas, symbols, and other cultural phenomena without reference to the structures in which they are embedded, thereby, distorting them. One such cultural pundit, Micky McGee recently stated that in the last 30 years [in the United States] ‘‘self-help – once synonymous with mutual aid – has come to be understood not only as distinct from collective action but actually as its opposite’’ (McGee, 2005: 19). The number of these informal groups is difficult to determine as they are very local, have small memberships, high turnover, and are so informal that they are not on tax rolls or other records from which they could be counted. Estimates are often made by extrapolating from representative surveys of the adult population or from data bases that self-help clearinghouses maintain. Usually, SHGs are single issue groups: in industrialized Western democracies, thousands of SHGs have been initiated for physical and mental illnesses, all chronic diseases, disabilities, genetic disorders, life transitions (e.g., bereavement, divorce, motherhood, adoption), disasters (e.g., relatives of victims of plane crashes), for parents of children with various diseases, cancers, mental illnesses, and for various stigmatized social issues (e.g., parents of gay adult children). The hundreds of thousands of informal SHGs collectively make a huge impact. Unfortunately, they are overlooked and invisible to most researchers, professionals, and policy makers. David Horton Smith (2000) has referred to them as the most prevalent part of the invisible dark matter of the Third Sector universe. The informal SHGs, at no cost, extend mutual aid and support to their participants but they thrive with help from self-help clearinghouses (in Germany advice centers) that provide organizational training and member recruitment. Self-help organizations (SHOs) which are more formalized SHGs – having nonprofit forms of organization – require money in order to maintain a regular address and facility, to hire staff and to regularize their self-help/mutual aid services. All of these structures need funding to maintain facilities and to provide services to the public and to SHGs.
Definition SHGs or self-help/mutual aid groups are defined as intentional, voluntary, informal groups of people affected by a common health, social, or economic issue who organize to deal with the issue partly through internal resources of social and emotional support. ‘‘Self-help’’ refers to reliance on the internal resources of the individual participants while ‘‘mutual aid’’ refers to their supportive collective efforts. Though SHGs often utilize professional expertise in selected ways (e.g., to give a lecture on new treatments), as significantly autonomous groups which are member owned and run, they are in sharp contrast with support groups or therapy groups run and controlled by professionals. ‘‘Self-help groups’’ are a familiar term in the Third Sector literature (Smith, 2000; O’Neill, 2004; Wuthnow, 1994), but the term is contested and increasingly supplanted with various synonyms, e.g., support groups, mutual help groups, self-help/mutual aid groups, 12-step groups. As Third Sector organizations, SHGs are forms of Grassroots Associations (GAs) (Smith, 2004) and are often categorized as Mutual Benefit Organizations (O’Neill, 2004). A grassroots association is a ‘‘local, nonprofit, volunteer group using the associational form of organization, which typically involves a set of volunteer members and one or more elected volunteer leaders pursuing the group goal’’ (Smith, 2004: 211). Their internal structures, in comparison with more formalized paidstaff nonprofits, tend to follow an informal group style, be democratically run, have member-benefit goals, are likely to be linked to a supralocal federation or umbrella group, and run with minimal economic resources (Smith, 2004: 213).
Historical Background Mutual aid is a ubiquitous part of human evolution along with competition (Kropotkin, 1972 [1902]). Historically, much mutual aid was found within one’s kith and kin, village, town, or community whenever people grouped together to give and receive help to improve survival. Mutual aid in developing countries coalesces around material and economic survival; millions of small scale groups of friends and neighbors form as microcredit groups known by various names (e.g., ROSCAs, selfhelp groups, on-lending groups) in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. Forerunners of SHGs in industrialized societies were the Friendly Societies, consumer and producer cooperatives, and the fraternal organizations that ethnic immigrant groups developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Europe or in the United States. These mutual aid groups provided
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needed services such as burial insurance, sickness insurance before the governmental programs of the modern Welfare State were in place. As governmental programs began providing health and unemployment insurance, mutual aid changed to embrace areas of illness and stigma where emotional and social support were needed. International Perspectives
The beginning of contemporary SHGs is usually dated to the development of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in the United States in 1935. Now, internationally, four traditions of research on contemporary SHGs can be easily distinguished (Borkman, 2008), primarily, by their insularity and failure to know, reference, or build upon the concepts and findings of the other branches. All four traditions are interdisciplinary so a disciplinary focus cannot account for the insularity. Some questions are common to all of the traditions; however, each has distinctive foci. For brevity, the traditions will be referred to as Addictions’ Treatment, North American Psychosocial, European Psychosocial, and Economic Development. The Addictions’ Treatment and 12-step SHGs actually consist of two separate but related branches of research. First are the positivistically oriented clinical trials of treatment effectiveness funded with large grants and contracts (US$1 million +) by the National Institutes of Health in the United States. The large multisite MATCH trial which randomly assigned substance abusers to three forms of treatment (one of which was Twelve-Step Facilitation which prepared clients to attend AA/NA) is a paradigmatic example of this tradition (Pagano et al., 2004). The second branch is the qualitative and quantitative studies of 12-step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous or other SHGs for addictions such as Women for Sobriety (see Kaskutas, 1992). Favored topics have been identity change in AA, commitment processes in AA, the 12-steps as a recovery process (e.g., see Denzin, 1993), and user’s preferences for AA or alternative groups. Researchers are primarily in the fields of public health, epidemiology, psychology, sociology, and medicine. Ironically, hundreds of books and articles have been published about AA and other addiction SHGs that contain a rich knowledge base about organizational dynamics and individual change processes of which researchers in the North American and European psychosocial traditions are unaware. The North American Psychosocial tradition emphasizes the psychological level of individual analysis because many researchers were community psychologists, social workers, and nurses. Early studies tended to be case studies of individual SHGs or participants in SHGs in the United States or Canada. Online groups have been of
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more recent interest. Of frequent concern is the question of how various professional groups or students training to become professionals (i.e., psychologists, social workers) evaluate SHGs and the SHGs’ effectiveness. Studies have found that SHG participants are less likely to be rehospitalized (mental illness), use medical care more judiciously, are more likely to combine conventional medical care and SHG approaches, and perceive extensive informational and support benefits from their participation in a SHG (Kyrouz et al., 2002). Consistently ignored by this tradition are the 12-step groups such as AA, organizational aspects of SHGs and SHOs and the broader issues of the impact of SHGs on social capital or civil society. The European Psychosocial perspective, while asking similar questions about the impact of participation in SHGs on the individual, was likely to go beyond the individual to ask about the impact on the family and the community (e.g., see Humble & Unell, 1989). Moreover, SHGs’ contribution to social capital and civil society are occasionally raised. In contrast to the North American concern about what professionals think about SHGs, the European perspective is more likely to delineate ways in which professionals can helpfully behave toward SHGs. This is exemplified in Judy Wilson’s (1995) How to Work with Self-Help Groups: Guidelines for Professionals. Researchers are primarily from the fields of psychology, social work, and sociology. The fourth, much more recent and much more disparate tradition, Economic Development features development specialists, anthropologists, and economists studying developing countries with large, very poor populations. Microfinance as a tool to alleviate poverty in developing countries has developed since the 1970s. The United Nations declared 2005 as the Year of Microcredit; and, Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded in 1983 were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. A microfinance expert stated that since 2005 microcredit is no longer viewed as a $10 loan to help a woman buy a goat, and poor people are now being seen as tremendously entrepreneurial and masterful business people. One type of microcredit group in India is actually named ‘‘self-help groups’’ which are defined as: ‘‘a small voluntary association of poor people, preferably from the same socio-economic background. They come together for the purpose of solving their common problems through self-help and mutual help’’ (Krishnamurthi & Suresh, 2007: 49). These SHGs seem to be essentially like the ones studied in the other three traditions other than the focus being on economic and material aid rather than psychosocial support.
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SHGs in India are a small part of the large microfinance industry worldwide. Going by many names in various countries these small savings, credit, and loan programs for the poor are valuable means of lifting very poor people out of poverty. Many microfinance groups are dependent on NGOs, governments, or other external institutions for their operations. Increasingly, women are preferred for SHGs as they are more likely to contribute their earnings to their children’s education, family nutrition or the family (Tesoriero, 2006). Studies question whether the poorest of the poor are reached to any extent by microcredit (as they are the least likely to join or to drop out prematurely) and about how broad the empowerment of women really is (e.g., see Harper et al., 1998). A few studies (Harper et al., 1998; Tesoriero, 2006; Krishnamurthi & Suresh, 2007) examining the larger community impact of established SHGs find that in some cases the participants become active in village politics as members of village councils or mobilize campaigns such as improving village water supplies or dealing with abusive alcoholic husbands. Emergence of SHGs in Various International Contexts
Ed Madara, Director of the American Self-Help Mutual Aid Clearinghouse, points out a very distinctive aspect of a SHG: Anyone [in the United States] can start a self-help group! But is this true internationally? As the research into SHGs broadens and deepens, we begin to understand certain commonalities and conditions which encourage or inhibit the development of SHGs. The political, economic, and social context must be conducive to citizens’ initiating informal SHGs. Especially important is a society that has a viable Third Sector of civic organizations and space for initiating new ventures. Ideally there are Third Sector intermediary organizations such as self-help clearinghouses (North America and Europe) or Self-Help Advice Centers (Germany) to provide technical assistance, resources, and support especially to new SHGs. In developed industrialized Western democracies with vibrant Third Sectors, SHGs have been frequently initiated since the 1970s. The majority of adults may have enough understanding of mutual help and know enough about their informal group format to launch a self-help group. In many Asian industrialized countries values regarding the family and self-disclosure plus reverence toward medical professionals deters the initiation of SHGs (Lavoie et al., 1994). In communist, authoritarian, and postcommunist countries lacking a viable Third Sector, barriers to forming informal SHGs deter many from developing. In postcommunist countries in the early 1990s, attempts to
bring mutual help to suffering populations was met with disbelief – citizens thought that the government was supposed to continue to resolve their health and economic issues (Lavoie et al., 1994). Today, while there is still lack of knowledge, there is less resistance to taking the initiative of voluntary action to solve personal and community problems in postcommunist countries (see Dill & Coury 2008). In developing countries it appears that many indigenous forms of economic SHGs such as ROSCAs (rotating saving and credit associations) spontaneously appear in the grassroots that are member-owned and run. But among the very poor in some developing countries, microcredit SHGs need to be introduced by external agents who assist in initiating such groups and helping them achieve some independence (Ardener & Burman, 1995). Cultural attitudes toward family, professionals, government are crucial factors in the type and scope of the SHGs that are developed. The style of interaction and other features of SHG (e.g., the relationship to professionals) differ from country to country and are affected by values such as willingness to self-disclose personal experiences even in closed-public space (versus open-public space like Oprah Winfrey TV show) or if expressing private experience may be regarded as an affront to one’s family (Lavoie et al., 1994).
Key Issues The role of government and the relationship between government and SHGs is critical in furthering the development and operation of SHGs and SHOs. The economic value of the SHGs’ freely provided services to society is extremely desirable, and while difficult to calculate has not been recognized by governments or policy makers. In Western industrialized societies with viable Third Sectors, SHGs benefit by government support; but, in the developing and post communist societies, government assistance can be a critical determinant in nurturing their development. Government funding of grassroots community-based efforts does not necessarily strengthen innovative and alternative approaches (Smith & Lipsky, 1993) because governments tend to favor professional and bureaucratic approaches to problem solving. Therefore, what are the economic, social, cultural, and policy conditions under which governments play a positive role in furthering the development and operation of SHGs and SHOs? Or, under what societal, cultural, economic, and social conditions are SHOs financially viable and able to maintain their distinctive self-help/mutual aid ethos and approach? Professionals have in-depth knowledge and could play a positive role in nurturing SHGs/SHOs to utilize their
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distinctive benefits as complements or adjuncts to mainstream professional care. How can a model suggested by Europeans (Wilson, 1995) that shields SHGs/SHOs from professional co-optation and exploitation be developed and promulgated? Or, under what social, cultural, and policy conditions are professionals respectful of the experiential knowledge collectively developed within SHGs/ SHOs rather than exploitative of it for their own purposes? Self-help/mutual aid provides distinctive and unique support unavailable from family or friends or from professionals. SHGs operate with few resources but they need external assistance fromintermediaries for legitimization, member recruitment, and connection to the public and professionals. Self-help clearinghouses (North America and the United Kingdom) or self-help advice centers (Germany) can be effective intermediaries to SHGS/ SHOs. Only Germany has invested in a countrywide system of self-help advice centers that are statutorily funded from health insurance monies (Matzat, 2001–2002). How can the German society-wide model of self-help advice centers be accepted and promulgated in other industrialized societies? Economic needs are the motivating force in developing countries (as it was originally in the West) but many of the poorest need to be introduced to the concepts by external agents. What models of intermediaries and support of NGOs are effective in developing countries? The four traditions of research on self-help/mutual aid described earlier suggests an insularity and parochial perspective of many researchers who are often unaware not only of similar research being done within their own countries but of cross-cultural and international aspects of self-help/mutual aid. A major lesson of the history of mutual aid efforts is that the entire societal economic, social, and cultural context needs to be taken into account in order to understand the distinctive form and expression SHGs take. Cultural attitudes toward family, professionals, government are crucial factors in the type and scope of SHGs. The experiential perspectives of self-helpers can be integrated into the research through participatory methodological approaches. Researchers can develop cross-cultural understandings of the relevant context such as the substantive area (e.g., health care) and the Third Sector. Clarity of definitions in relation to international understandings of words and concepts needs to be made.
Future Directions 1. SHOs for the addictions, mental illness, and the physical disabilities which have developed as alternative paradigms of service to professional ones are likely to increase and spread to more countries and contexts.
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2. The value and importance of the alternative paradigm of self-help/mutual aid as well as the need to support intermediaries such as self-help clearinghouses or advice centers needs to be advertised to increase their visibility among professionals, governments, and foundations. 3. A synthesis of knowledge gained from the research in the four traditions needs to be undertaken. Hopefully future research will draw on the concepts, theories, and methods of the four traditions in order to merge the best of all of them.
Cross-References
▶ Collective Action ▶ Commons ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Volunteers ▶ Yunus, Muhammad
References/Further Readings Ardener, S., & Burman, S. (Eds.) (1995). Money-go-rounds: The importance of rotating savings and credit associations for women. Oxford: Berg. Borkman, T. (1999). Understanding self-help/mutual aid: Experiential learning in the commons. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Borkman, T. (2008). If only researchers would talk to each other! Four unconnected traditions of self-help group research. Paper adapted from presentation at OISE/University of Toronto, December 1, 2008, Toronto, Canada. Denzin, N. (1993). The alcoholic society: Addiction and recovery of the self. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Dill, A., & Coury, J. (2008). Forging a new commons: Self help associations in Slovenia and Croatia.’’ In S. Chambre S. & M. Goldner (Eds.) Patients, Consumers and Civil Society: US and International Perspectives (Vol. 10, pp. 247–271). Advances in Medical Sociology. Bingley, UK: Emerlad Group Publishing. Harper, M., Esipisu, E., Mohanty, A. K., & Rao, D. S. K. (1998). The new middlewomen: Profitable banking through on-lending groups. London: Intermediate Technology Publications. Humble, S., & Unell, J. (Eds.) (1989). Self help in health and social welfare: England and West Germany. London: Routledge. Kaskutas, L. A. (1992). Beliefs on the source of sobriety: Interactions of membership in women for sobriety and alcoholics anonymous. Contemporary Drug Problems, Winter, 31–648. Krishnamurthi, N. A., & Suresh, K. M. (2007). Role of self-help groups in women empowerment. In V. S. Ganesamurthy (Ed.), India: Economic empowerment of women (pp. 48–54). New Delhi, India: New Century Publications. Kropotkin, P. (1972 [1902]). Mutual aid: A factor in evolution. New York: New York University Press. Kyrouz, E. M., Humphreys, K., & Loomis, C. (2002). A review of research on the effectiveness of self-help mutual aid groups. In J. B. White &
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E. Madara (Eds.), The self-help group sourcebook: Your guide to community and online support groups (7th ed., pp. 71–85). Denville, NJ: Saint Clare’s Health Services. Lavoie, F., Borkman, T., & Gidron, B. (Eds.) (1994). Self-help and mutual aid groups: International and multicultural perspectives. Binghamton, NY: Haworth Press. Madera (Ed.) (2008). Personal communication by email, May 13. Matzat, J. (2001–2002). The development of self-help groups and support for them in Germany. International Journal of Self Help & Self Care, 1(4), 307–322. McGee, M. (2005). Self-Help, Inc.: Markeover culture in American life. New York: Oxford University Press. O’Neill, M. (2004). Mutual benefit organizations. In D. F. Burlingame (Ed.), Philanthropy in America: A comprehensive historical encyclopedia (Vol. 2, pp. 324–329). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC_Clio. Pagano, M. E., Friend, K. B., Tonigan, J. S., & Stout, R. L. (2004). Helping other alcoholics in alcoholics anonymous and drinking outcomes: Findings from project MATCH. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, November, 766–773. Smith, D. H. (2000). Grassroots associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Smith, D. H. (2004). Grassroots Associations. In D. F. Burlingame (Ed.), Philanthropy in America: A comprehensive historical encyclopedia (Vol. 1, pp. 211–215). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC_Clio. Smith, S. R., & Lipsky, M. (1993). Nonprofits for hire: The welfare state in an age of contracting. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press. Tesoriero, F. (2006). Strengthening communities through women’s self help groups in south India. Community Development Journal, 41(3), 321–333. Toffler, A. (1980). The third wave. New York: Morrow. Wilson, J. (1995). How to work with self help groups: Guidelines for professionals. Hants, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Wuthnow, R. (1994). Sharing the journey: Support groups and America’s new quest for community. New York: Free Press.
Self-organization RU¨DIGER H. JUNG Fachhochschule Koblenz, University of Applied Sciences, Remagen, Germany
Introduction Self-organization has become a ubiquitous term. There are contributions to a theory of self-organization in natural, social, and formal sciences. Fluid flow, bacterial colonies, shoals of fish, flocks of birds, the human brain, profit and nonprofit organizations, and digital information platforms are some of the many systems described as self-organizing. Self-organization is a general concept to explain order. This article attempts to reveal some of the lines of development the term takes, to characterize it and to demonstrate the significance of the concept in understanding how structures form and develop in social systems.
Definition When, in our perception of the world, we recognise repetition, regularity, or patterns, when we can have expectations and make predictions, we talk about order. As it relates to recognizing and anticipating, order contributes to the basic human need for security. The term organization is used for both the activity or process of creating order (also known as organizing) and the result of this activity, experiencing the condition of order. Often, the term organization goes hand in hand with certain expectations: organization is consciously planned order. It can be associated with the concept of an omnipresent, external regulatory power – a concept that for a long time was commonplace in everyday thinking as well as among scientists. The order of a system (an entity consisting of a set of elements and their relations) is the result of conscious, planned structuring by an external authority that rules the system. This is the concept of organization by an external organizer. The term self-organization grew out of an interest in system-inherent forces that create and develop order – order created without an external regulatory power. It has become a conceptual term throughout scientific disciplines and is a central concept for describing and explaining system-inherent order processes in animate and inanimate life and in the whole field of human interaction. The multitude of disciplinal peculiarities (which will not be discussed here), make self-organization more a multidisciplinary than an interdisciplinary concept. Disciplinal peculiarities notwithstanding, Haken’s (2000: 11) general understanding is, ‘‘that a system is self-organizing if it acquires a spatial, temporal, or functional structure without specific interference from outside.’’ Similarly, Probst (1992: 2255) defines self-organization as, ‘‘processes that develop themselves within a system, and from this ‘self ’ allow order to develop, improve, or persist’’ (translated by the author). Emphasizing the aspect of development, Imada (2008: 1) sees self-organization as, ‘‘a generic term which means the characteristics of systems to change their structure by themselves (. . .) relying entirely on its own mechanisms.’’ In social systems, where self-organization develops out of the interaction of individuals, two forms of selforganization can be described: on the one hand, order emerging as a result of interaction that happens without the intent to create order, as emergent accomplishments, and on the other hand order that results from conscious acts by the systems’ members to create a system of order for their own actions. Usually, self-organization refers to the first of these two forms – the natural, spontaneous creation of order that evolves from undirected (‘‘blind’’)
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dynamics, but it is empirically almost impossible to draw a line between the two.
Historical Background Discussions on order and organizing forces are probably as old as mankind itself. Philosophers have long speculated on the order of the nature inherent in things (for example Lucretius, and later Immanuel Kant and Adam Smith). The contemporary understanding of selforganization dates back to the mid twentieth century. Two works that predate specific work on self-organization must be mentioned here: Bertalanffy’s (1945, 1968) work on general system theory and Wiener’s (1948) work on cybernetics. The thought patterns they describe gave various disciplines access to a collective, or at least similar, scientific object: self-organizing systems. The approaches of the various disciplines led to a growing realization that, in all areas of nature and culture, systems achieve an ordered, coherent behavior through a mechanism inherent to internal processes, and that this inherent mechanism allows the system to reproduce and adapt and thus survive. Generally speaking, we are talking about understanding the potential for order inherent in nature and the processes and process qualities that effect this potential. Groundbreaking work in this context includes: von Foerster’s (1962) application of the cybernetic approach on the description of the – analytically indeterminable and unpredictable – functioning of so-called ‘‘non-trivial machines’’; Glansdorff and Prigogine’s (1971) description of formation of a new order in physical systems, if, in a state of non equilibrium the amplification of fluctuations creates the emergence of a structure that is stabilized by energy dissipation into the system’s environment (‘‘theory of dissipative structures’’); a similar description of what initially seems to be random and spontaneous bundling of electrons to light waves to create coherent light, that became Haken’s (1976) foundations of ‘‘synergetics’’; Eigen’s (1971) theory of the ‘‘autocatalytic hypercycle,’’ derived from molecular biological experiments of selective adaptation processes through the concurrence of incidental individual results and natural metabolism processes; and, also based on biological systems, Maturana and Varela’s (1972, 1980) concept of ‘‘autopoiesis’’: it explains the self-reproduction of living systems as a dynamic recursive interaction of organisms and the network of processes (circular relations) that results from this interaction. Riedl’s (1975) seminal work on the dynamic mutual dependency of developing patterns of order in all form of life follows in the tradition of biological works on evolutionary principles. In the area of society
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and economy, von Hayek (1942/1944) worked on the purposive character of spontaneous social formations as unintended results of actions of many men and the limits of deliberate design. Imada (2008) defines two separate phases in the history of interest in the phenomenon of self-organization: (1) the view of ‘‘cybernetic self-organization’’ that still adheres to the logic of system and cybernetic control (‘‘self-organization by system control,’’ ‘‘control schema’’), and (2) the view of ‘‘synergetic self-organization,’’ based on the mechanisms by which a new order is created when a system changes to a state of unstable non equilibrium through the amplification of fluctuations (‘‘selforganization by elements synergy,’’ ‘‘fluctuation schema’’). For Imada, the economic upheavals in the developed world following the prosperity of the 1960s led to an interest in the fluctuation schema with its inherent creative factor.
Key Issues Characteristics of Self-organizing Systems
The key characteristic of self-organization is self-reference. A system is self-referential when the elements or components that build it constitute themselves as functional units, in other words, when they operate in reference to a systemic interrelationship. Every system has its own logic and dynamics with a potential for order. Order evolves from a complex of interactions, which are what differentiates the system from its environment in the first place (systemenvironment differentiation, boundary-generation), and it is with these system-forming operations that the system elements, in a recursive process, constitute and stabilize themselves as components of the system, and – depending on the type of system and its elements – continue to develop. The key characteristic of self-reference appears in many definitions of self-organization, for example when Kelso (2001: 13845) says, ‘‘self-organization refers to the spontaneous formation of pattern and pattern change in complex systems whose elements adapt to the very patterns of behavior they create.’’ As indicated in the reference to system-environment differentiation, autonomy is characterized as an operational or systemic closure of self-organizing systems. Systems that are open to the environment for the purpose of exchanging material, energy, or information, have closed order-forming operations. The environment can provide impulses for processes within the system and cause activity in the system. But it cannot from the outside determine the self-referring, order-creating cause and effect process. Order is created by the inner dynamics of the system.
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Indetermination, and with it the inability to predict which operations will become organizing, points to another characteristic of self-organizing systems: redundancy. In retrospect, the operating or activity potential of self-organizing systems exceeds the ‘‘theoretically necessary’’ potential. But without this excess of possibilities the system would have a different history. It may not even have survived. Self-reference, operational closure and redundancy are the reasons why system-inherent processes are in themselves cause and effect, and why this dynamic, not quite predictable reciprocity generates order as a new quality in the system. This appearance of a new system quality, attributable not to the elements of the system but to its interaction, is described as emergence. Individual and Social Entities as Self-organizing Systems
Human individuals can be described as self-organizing systems. Individuals are affected by their own actions through the reflective egocentrism of being ‘‘in the world.’’ Our actions give us identity and distinguish us from our environment. Our characteristics and skills develop and change as a result of the self-reflective, systemic interaction we create and that reflects back on us, in and through which we exist. The environment can have a strong influence on the processes of creating order in an individual’s ‘‘self ’’ – especially through creating insecurity. An individual, however, does not react in a predictable way like a ‘‘trivial machine,’’ but as an autonomic being. The processes that occur in the human organism, up to a condition that can be described as adopting orientation and behavior patterns, can be described as operationally closed. These processes draw from a superfluity of thought and behavior patterns (redundancy). In psychological writing, the concept of ‘‘self-organization’’ is usually interpreted in a strict natural scientific sense. ‘‘Self-organization’’ (the unconscious, spontaneous creation of structure out of the abundance of thoughts and behavior) is seen as a complementary organizing principle alongside human ‘‘self-regulation’’ (conscious, intentional behavior). Spontaneous creation of order in a cognitive system like human memory or attitudes in human populations has been proved in numerous experiments and computer simulations, as demonstrated, for example, by Troitzsch (1991). Social entities formed from individuals’ interaction can also be described as self-organizing systems. As (partly) autonomic, complex systems and from self-reflecting, operationally closed processes, groups, organizations, and whole societies develop order (communication patterns, habits, mores) that makes them recognizable as social
entities, distinguishable from the environment, and that provides their members with enough security (mutual expectation) for communal actions. A social system represents a reality construction of a more or less large group of individuals. This reality construction results from the interaction of individuals. With the quality of an organizer it is also, recursively, the frame of reference for an individual’s actions and affiliation within a social entity. The fundamental difference between humans and electrons, bacteria, or other undirected and similar system elements makes it difficult to interpret social systems using Maturana and Varela’s (1980) principle of autopoiese (endless turnover of system components in the process of continuous reproduction of the organization). Luhmann (1984), therefore, in his concept for social systems, uses decisions made by humans, not humans themselves as system elements. Humans adopt the role of system environment. Hejl (1984) uses the concept of ‘‘syn-reference’’ to account for the specificity of social systems. Syn-reference allows individuals to develop and stabilize mutual reality constructions, which they together allow to grow into the components of a social system. One difference to natural systems is that humans look beyond system borders into other systems, and they can make decisions to join or remain in a system. The specificity of syn-reference allows membership in various social systems. Loss of syn-reference means individuals cease interaction and leave a social system; for social systems, the loss of syn-reference is an impulse to change. Self-organization and Networks
Networks are created when a number of individuals or social entities join together to form a loosely coupled community. The network-building process can certainly be seen as a process of self-organization: in social systems, the sense of security induced by the environment can break down. This happens when, because of the intensity of environmental dynamics, self-referencing dynamics can no longer systematically restructure. They thus fail to provide a sufficiently stable order. In such cases, new organizational patterns with more potential for reducing environmental complexity form. As systems of systems, networks are, on a higher level, emerging products of selforganizing processes in low-level social systems. On the one hand, the social systems that joined together to form the network no longer represent the same level of environment that they did before the network was formed. On the other hand, compared to the individual social systems forming the network, the network as a whole possesses a higher redundancy in terms of its potential to react to environmental demands. In this double sense, networks
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are (environmental) complexity-reducing communities. From the viewpoint of leadership and power theory, the polycentric distribution of power in networks is the equivalent of the redundancy argument as seen from a system theoretic, cybernetic viewpoint. Network organizations have significant influence in many societies. Because they can take advantage of economies of scale (influencing power, activity spectrum, cost distribution, power of integration), whilst retaining the (relative) autonomy of their members, networks are currently the organizational form under most scrutiny. Faced with an increasingly complex environment, order created through the intelligent plans of a few quickly reaches the limits of its functionality. The linked self-organizing competency of many is becoming increasingly important. Empirical research has shown that networks are, nevertheless, not free from hierarchical structures. Developing Order in Social Systems Within the Interaction of Spontaneous (Process-Inherent) and Planned, Self- and External Organization
So much as self-organization can be seen as a ubiquitous phenomenon of all life, so little would we do justice to the nature of social systems if we restricted a description of the order and development of social systems to a spontaneous, unplanned creation of order. Unevenly distributed knowledge, material goods and power create different organizer qualities, organizer interests and consequently: organizer activities. Interpreting these solely within the concept of self-organization can all too easily obstruct the view of the important implications of these differences. Organizing processes are subject to purpose and concepts of efficiency, which interfere with ‘‘natural,’’ process-inherent structure-building to speed it up or slow it down, order is declared binding or it is abruptly terminated. And within all these processes, autonomy and the noetic dimension of human existence, so powerfully described by Frankl (1992) as the will and search for meaning, give every social structure a natural power, sui generis, for development as well as stabilization processes, with the implications of freedom and responsibility. This fact leads to a sophisticated examination of organizational processes and forces. At the level of the individual, Carver and Scheier (2003: 202) note, ‘‘There do appear to be times and circumstances in which forces converge – unplanned – and induce things to happen that were not intended beforehand. However, there also seem to be clear instances of intentionality in behavior and its management.’’ On the supra-individual level of social systems, where interacting relationships and
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self-referencing interacting individuals with different interests and concepts of order converge, system differentiation occurs. Within and between social systems, hierarchical asymmetries develop, with varying chances to declare particular concepts of order for valid. When system borders and hierarchies become institutionalized, organizers exist who – from the observer’s viewpoint – influence the order of a system from the outside. From the standpoint of a reference system (a self-help group within an association, a department within a company, a city authority within a state), organization processes can be seen as internally, or self-controlled, or externally controlled. Hierarchy can, of course, be coherently interpreted as an emerging phenomenon of self-organizing processes. And, as a consequence, it is possible to view organizations and societies from an anti-hierarchical viewpoint, as fully self-organizing, thus, as Luhmann (1984: 27) expected, ‘‘demystifying’’ the structural peculiarities developing in the course of system differentiation. The knowledge gained through such a rigorous approach to explain how order is created in social systems is debatable. Riedl (1975) defined the fourfold order of norm, hierarchy, interdependence, and tradition as basic to all forms of life, without challenging the original basic principle of selforganization (called ‘‘self-design’’ by Riedl). Taking a conceptual view of system borders and hierarchy helps us bear in the mind, on the different levels of politics, economy, law, etc., the conflicting fields of power-based external regulatory authorities and individual autonomy based on meaning, and the development of social systems evolving from this balancing act. In the field of social systems a twofold differentiation, such as that put forward by Go¨bel (1998) lends itself to observing order-creating processes: Order and its development evolve from the interaction of external and self-organization, whereby a distinction is made between autonomic self-organization (conscious, self-determined regulation), and autogenic self-organization (unconscious, spontaneous organization deriving from individual and interactive action). Of course, the factual creation of order always occurs on the process level by the formation of patterns through system members. In relation to this, external regulations (external expectations) and autonomic self-organization (self expectations) are always only order expectations on a meta level with varying chance of implementation through the people acting on the process level. This differentiation, and understanding the importance of self-organization, sheds new light on a topic that will not be discussed here, the topic of leadership: it is not obsolete, on the contrary, it is becoming more challenging.
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Self-organization and Civil Society
In the context of political, economic, and social acts, selforganization always has the additional facet of being a contrary concept to the classical idea of order as an activity purposefully planned by the authorities (state, owners) and their representatives (politicians, executives). The more complex system control and decision-making become, the stronger the interest in self-organization as an organizing principle. There is a noteworthy parallel to the concept of civil society here, one that can also be observed in connection with the growing problems and deficits of political and economic leadership in communities and societies. Anheier (2007: 5) defines civil society as ‘‘the sphere of ideas, values, institutions, organizations, networks, and individuals located between family, the state, and the market.’’ Self-organization plays the role of midwife in forming the manifold forms of commitment in civil society. This becomes particularly clear where unplanned coherent sense (meaning), or a collective frame of reference, evolves, so that syn-referentially causes and stabilizes the continuation of interaction. This is the constituent principle of order behind the multitude of neighborhood and other support groups, project initiatives, grassroots associations and the like. They may – but do not have to – develop into forms of hierarchy or other organizing principles. Badelt (1980) describes these forms of civil society commitment as ‘‘self-organizations’’ in an institutionalized sense. Self-organization is also the organizing principle that acts as a ‘‘natural’’ innovation leader in existing structures of civil society. Individuals reflect the meaning of the structures within which they act. Recursive confirmation and the stabilization of communal actions can evolve from this process, but so can confusion, dissolution, and reorientation. In his model of society developing in a spiral movement, Imada (2008: 103) points out that ‘‘meaningreflexion is inspired by the occurrence of unintended consequences of actions and social problems or changes in the values of generations.’’ This vitalizes self-organizing powers, leading to the creation of new orders, which, not surprisingly, in the prevailing maelstrom of disturbed frames of reference and interactions with the potential to discover (new) meaning, have not yet taken on any concrete form. The self-organizing forces described here are an expression of the social capital of a community and, at the same time, it’s potential to increase. By reducing communication costs and speeding up interaction processes over long distances, internet-based ‘‘social media’’ has facilitated the emergence of world wide civil society networks. Clark and Themudo (2006: 52) talk of ‘‘dotcauses’’ as ‘‘the civil society equivalent of the ‘dotcom’ organization in the business world.’’ For example,
after natural disasters or human rights violations, worldwide aid or protest actions are set up within the shortest possible time as self-organized systems. In these cases, a typical characteristic of spontaneous creation of order is that it is impossible to predict which ‘‘blogs’’ and ‘‘klicks’’ will bring forth the first global frames of reference. Fuchs (2006) describes the emergence and development of social movements as self-organizing processes. On the whole, however, the development dynamics of civil society seem to be characterized by hybridization, as Anheier and Themudo (2002: 208f.) point out in their overview of the various forms of organization in civil society. And the interaction of self-organization and external organization described above can also be observed in the formation of hybrid order patterns of civil society, which can encompass and be developed by a whole scope of existing grassroots, nongovernmental organizations, nonprofit organizations and even profit organizations.
Future Directions The understanding of the dynamic processes involved in creating order in social systems gained an important impulse with the reception of a concept of ‘‘self-organization’’ influenced by natural science. Faced with an enormous dynamic of change, and with systems that are growing ever more complicated, the time was ripe to broaden our perspective away from the prevailing opinion that perfectly planning changes in organizational structures is a feasible option. The significance of the concept of ‘‘self-organization’’ for the humanities is widely accepted, as is the need to develop the concept further regarding the characteristics of social systems. From the wealth of open questions, three complexes, which can all be interconnected, should be mentioned. 1. Are there acceptable framework conditions for self-organization that comply with the principle of self-organization? Human interaction is inseparable from demands for efficiency (time, costs, ethical norms, etc.), which inevitably puts different aspects of this interaction in relation with each other. This does not necessarily result in hierarchical external organization (organization by an external authority). Our knowledge of democratic, participating order processes allows us, also under the aspect of efficiency, to facilitate self-organization processes on the level of a reference system (principle of subsidiarity). But what, then, is the best way for the various organizers to work together? Haken (2000: 11) concedes that, ‘‘humans may construct systems in such a way that by building in adequate constraints the system will be enabled to find
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its specific function in a self-organized fashion.’’ The subsequent reference is a technical example, which is not untypical for the current status of research. In highly complex social systems, what can an order framework be like that allows self-organizing forces to unfold themselves, whilst at the same time protecting and supporting them, and also taking possible efficiency expectations into account? Or is a relationship of this kind per se antinomic? 2. Is self-organization the principle of order most suited to postmodern humankind? Imada (2008: 167ff.) expects that in postmodern society the hierarchical control mechanism will remain significant, but that, on the front stage of society a ‘‘support-based social system’’ will establish itself and its processes of self-organization. He bases his claim on the fact that the concern of people has shifted from ‘‘having’’ to ‘‘being’’ and that a ‘‘caring spirit’’ prevails. This raises the question of the development continuum of human maturity, socio-cultural climate and principles of order. Given that the social powers primarily interested in binding people to the sphere of ‘‘having’’ are not likely to disappear from postmodern society overnight, this question also points to another specific field of tension. 3. How much stability does the individual need in his or her own action structures, or: when does fluid hyperreality become overwhelming? The result, the concrete form reached through the creation of order emerging from self-referenced interaction dynamics, always remains an open process. In a social complex, this is always an ‘‘attack’’ on humans’ need to foresee what will happen, which is where the phylogenetic ‘‘engine’’ of the self-organizing creation of order lies. In the face of a development to increased dynamism and a permanent loss and reconstruction of frames of reference in fluid hyperreality, the existential question poses itself of whether individuals’ tolerance of ambiguity can keep pace with the speed with which the self-organizing dynamic is developing on the system level. Qualified answers to these final questions can only be expected if anthropological research becomes more involved in the subject of ‘‘self-organization’’ than has been the case so far.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Kant ▶ Civil Society Theory: Smith ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Collective Action ▶ Cyber-Communities
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▶ Dotcauses ▶ Faith-Based Organization ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Hybridity/Hybridization ▶ Leadership ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Self-help Groups ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Movements ▶ Subsidiarity
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K. (2007). Reflections on the concept and measurement of global civil society. Voluntas, 18, 1–15. Anheier, H., & Themudo, N. (2002). Organisational forms of global civil society: Implications of going global. In M. Glasius, M. Kaldor, & H. Anheier (Eds.), Global civil society (pp. 191–216). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Badelt, Ch. (1980). Sozioo¨konomie der Selbstorganisation. Beispiele zur Bu¨rgerselbsthilfe und ihre wirtschaftliche Bedeutung. Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus. von Bertalanffy, L. (1968). General system theory. Foundation, development, application. New York: Braziller (first 1945: Zu einer allgemeinen Systemlehre. Deutsche Zeitschrift fu¨r Philosophie, 18). Carver, Ch. S., & Scheier, M. F. (2003). Self-regulatory perspectives on personality. In Th. Millon & M. J. Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of psychology. Personality and social psychology (Vol. 5, pp. 185–208). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Clark, J. D., & Themudo, N. S. (2006). Linking the web and the street: Internet-based ‘‘Dotcauses’’ and the ‘‘Anti-Globalization’’ movement. World Development, 34(1), 50–74. Eigen, M. (1971). Selforganization of matter and the evolution of biological macromolecules. Die Naturwissenschaften, 58, 465–523. Foerster, H. von, & Zopf, G. (Eds.) (1962). Principles of self-organization. Oxford: Pergamon. Frankl, V. (1992). Man’s search for meaning. An introduction to logotherapy. New York: Simon & Schuster. Fuchs, Ch. (2006). The self-organization of social movements. Systemic Practice and Action Research, 19(1), 101–137. Glansdorff, P., & Prigogine, I. (1971). Thermodynamic theory of structure, stability and fluctuations. London/New York: Wiley. Go¨bel, E. (1998). Theorie und Gestaltung der Selbstorganisation. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot. Haken, H. (1976). Synergetics. An introduction, nonequilibrium phase transitions and self-organization in physics, chemistry and biology. Berlin: Springer. Haken, H. (2000). Information and self-organization. A macroscopic approach to complex systems (2nd enlarged ed.). Berlin/Heidelberg: Springer. von Hayek, F. (1942/1944). Scientism and the study of society. Part I, II, III. Economia, 9(35), 267–291; 10(37), 34–63; 11(41), 27–39. Hejl, P. M. (1984). Towards a theory of social systems: Self-organization and self-maintenance, self-reference and syn-reference. In H. Ulrich & G. J. B. Probst (Eds.), Self-organization and management of social systems, insights, promises, doubts, and questions (pp. 60–78). Berlin: Springer. Imada, T. (2008). Self-organization and society. Tokyo: Springer. Kelso, J. A. S. (2001). Self-organizing dynamical systems. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences (pp. 13844–13850). Oxford: Elsevier.
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Ku¨ppers, G. (Ed.) (1996). Chaos und Ordnung. Formen der Selbstorganisation in Natur und Gesellschaft Stuttgart: Reclam, 122–148. Luhmann, N. (1984). Soziale Systeme. Grundriß einer allgemeinen Theorie. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Maturana, H. R., & Varela, F. J. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition. The realization of living. Dordrecht: Reidel (originally published in Chile, 1972). Probst, G. J. B. (1992). Selbstorganisation. In E. Frese (Ed.), Handwo¨rterbuch der Organisation (3rd ed., pp. 2255–2269). Stuttgart: Poeschel. Riedl, R. (1975). Die Ordnung des Lebendigen. Systembedingungen der Evolution. Hamburg/Berlin: Parey. Troitzsch, K. G. (1991). A comparison of some models of processes of self-organization. In W. Ebeling, M. Peschel, & W. Weidlich (Eds.), Models of self-organization in complex systems (pp. 106–116). Berlin: Akademie. Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics. Or control and communication in the animal and the machine. New York: Wiley/Paris: Hermann.
representing 11 countries. Federations from India, South Africa, and Thailand were among the prominent founding members.
Mission SDI’s mission is to empower the urban poor, particularly poor women, by helping them gain full citizenship rights as city-dwellers. It strives for active participation by the poor in urban planning processes and in shaping propoor policies. SDI’s initial mission to strengthen horizontal grassroots associations has now expanded to advising and collaborating with governments, and international donors and multilateral institutions concerned with urban poverty, shelter, and management issues.
Activities
SEWA ▶ Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA)
Shack/Slum Dwellers International ASHOK DAS
Address of Organization P.O. Box 14038 Mowbray 7705, Cape Town South Africa www.sdinet.org www.sdinet.co.za
Introduction Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) is an international network of country-level ‘‘federations’’ of grassroots organizations representing the urban poor, the homeless, and squatters from over 30 developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. An advocate of pro-poor urban policies, SDI today is an internationally respected voice in urban poverty-alleviation and development.
Brief History The Asian Coalition for Housing Rights (AHCR) initiated cross-country exchanges involving grassroots organizations, poor urban communities, and NGOs in the late 1980s laid the foundations for SDI. SDI was formed in 1996 in South Africa as a network of federations
Advocacy, low-cost construction, financing, research, and publishing, and policy advice in various areas of urban development constitute SDI’s activities. Community-led mapping of squatter settlements and their enumeration; organizing poor women for community leadership; building low-cost houses and toilets; providing water supply and sanitation; generating household savings and community finances; leveraging external finance; and campaigning for security of tenure are among its main activities. SDI facilitates the exchange of knowledge and experience in these activity areas across countries. Through partnerships with governments, international development agencies, academic institutions and other development actors, it attempts to reorient their roles, responsibilities, and relationships for the benefit of the urban poor.
Structure and Governance Rising donor interest in SDI’s activities led to the establishment of its secretariat and its registration as a legal entity in South Africa in 1999. The individual federations are quite autonomous in their governance and engagement with their respective governments. A group comprised of two to three persons from the founding member federations guides SDI’s operations, with Jockin Arputham of India as its President.
Funding Funding for SDI has mainly come from northern NGOs, development agencies, and private foundations. Some long-standing donors are the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), Homeless International, UK’s DFID, Cordaid, Misereor, Selavip, and the Ford and Rockefeller foundations. In 2007 the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (United States) donated $10 million to SDI.
Sierra Club
Accomplishments SDI has been able to improve the lives of thousands of poor people, and bring about changes in state policy for the urban poor. Now international institutions seek its advice and expertise for improving global urban policy. For instance, SDI works with Voices of the Poor (World Bank); the Global Campaign for Secure Tenure (UNHabitat); and the Cities Alliance. Jockin Arputham, SDI’s president, received the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2000.
Cross-References
▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Rockefeller Foundation
References/Further Readings Patel, S., Burra, S., & D’Cruz, C. (2001). Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI) – foundations to treetops. Environment & Urbanization, 13(2), 45–59. Satterthwaite, D. (2001). From professionally driven to people-driven poverty reduction: Reflections on the role of Slum/Shack Dwellers International. Environment & Urbanization, 132, 135–138. Sisilu, L. (2006). Partnerships between government and slum/shack dwellers’ federations. Environment & Urbanization, 18(2), 401–405.
Sierra Club CHRIS GOVEKAR
Address of Organization 85 Second Street, 2d Floor San Francisco, CA 95105-3441 USA www.sierraclub.org
Introduction The Sierra Club is the United States’ oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization. Since 1892, it has been working for the preservation and protection of natural resources throughout the United States and around the world.
Brief History Founded by the noted US conservationist John Muir (whose image appears on the back of the California Memorial State Quarter) in 1892 to fight a proposed
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boundary reduction in the size of Yosemite State Park, the Sierra Club has grown to become the largest and most active environmental organization in the United States. Throughout the late nineteenth century, the club became the voice for the nation’s wilderness areas and led efforts in the conservation and preservation of these areas for future generations. Through the influence of Muir and other noted members such as Ansel Adams, Edward Taylor and Marion Randall Parsons, the club was able to affect US federal environmental, parks and National Forest policy and is largely responsible for the current state of National Forests and Parks. One of the greatest environmentalist Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt attended an early Sierra Club outing in Yosemite and reconfirmed his commitment to the preservation of wilderness areas in the United States as a result. Throughout its more than 110 year history, the club has spoken up for the protection of wilderness areas and has enjoyed great success in protecting and enlarging these areas.
Mission The mission of the Sierra Club is to explore and protect the wild places of the United States and other countries. In addition, the group seeks to promote the responsible use of the Earth and its resources through the education of individuals and motivation of these same individuals to participate in the renovation and protection of these areas.
Activities The efforts of the Sierra Club are carried out through its chapters and field offices, which are responsible for and committed to local action. These chapters and field offices work for the protection of the environment through educational programs, local advocacy and a series of ‘‘outings.’’ Through these Sierra Club outings, individuals and groups are able to come face to face with the wild places of the country and are educated regarding the need to preserve, protect and defend these areas. In addition, the Sierra Club Foundation provides financial support to the club and other organizations engaged in projects focused on the environment. These grants are offered in three different areas – public education, litigation, and training. The directors of the foundation seek out individuals and organizations engaged in activities consistent with the overall mission of the club and, through the foundation, provide financial support to those efforts. The foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals.
Structure and Governance The club is made up of more than 1.3 million individual members across the United States and Canada who are
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organized into local chapters. In addition, the club has a number of affiliate organizations who work together with the club to advance the mission of the organization. The club and foundation are administered by separate boards of directors, who are responsible for ensuring that the actions of the organization and foundation are in agreement with the overall purpose for which the organization was founded.
Funding
assistant to the General Counsel at the Office of the Secretary of the Army and thereafter practiced law in New York until 1962. Returning to the faculty of Yale Law School, he concentrated on the nonprofit sector, philanthropy, and education, both in his research and teachings. Currently he is Augustus Lines Professor Emeritus of Law and Professorial Lecturer at Yale Law School.
Activities/Major Contributions
The Sierra Club claims to have played a significant role in the protection and preservation of most of the National Parks System as it currently exists, as well as many National Forests and Federal and State wilderness areas. Most recently, the club was instrumental in the Clinton Administration’s decision to newly protect more than 60 million acres of wilderness areas as well as the 2002 protection of more than 500,000 acres of Mojave Desert and the addition of 57,000 acres of additional wilderness in central California. The organization was also instrumental in blocking the opening of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil.
From early on, Simon paid special attention to the implications of institutional investments, particularly their economic, legal, and ethical dimensions. This interest led to his coauthorship of The Ethical Investor, published in 1972. Considered by many to be one of the founders of the study of nonprofit law, Simon was founding director of the interdisciplinary Program on Nonprofit Organizations (PONPO) at Yale University, a position he held from 1978 to 1982. In 2008, in recognition of Simon’s contributions and PONPO’s 30th anniversary, PONPO announced the John G. Simon – PONPO Award for research on nonprofit organizations. Simon also held the posts of Deputy Dean (1985–1990) and Acting Dean (1991) at the Yale Law School. Outside the university, Simon was also active in promoting the study of and strengthening of the nonprofit sector. He has been a trustee of the Open Society Institute, the Council on Foundations and the Foundation Center. In recognition of his contributions to scholarship in philanthropy, Simon received an honorary doctor of laws degree from Indiana University in 1989.
Cross-References
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Clubs and Clans ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development
▶ Council on Foundations ▶ Foundation Center ▶ Open Society Institute
References/Further Readings
References/Further Readings
Cohen, M. P. (1988). The history of the Sierra Club: 1892–1970. San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books.
Simon, J. G. (1986). Charity and dynasty under the federal tax system. In S. Rose-Ackerman (Ed.), The economics of nonprofit institutions: Studies in structure & policy. New York: Oxford University Press. Simon, J. G., Chisolm, L. B., & Dale, H. P. (2006). The federal tax treatment of charitable organizations. In W. Walter, W. W. Powell, & P. Steinberg (Eds.), The non-profit sector: A research handbook. New Haven: Yale University Press. Simon, J. G., Gunnemann, J., & Powers, C. (1972). The ethical investor. New Haven: Yale University Press.
The work of the Sierra Club is supported directly by the dues and donations of its more than 1.3 million members, as well as corporate donations to the Sierra Club Foundation. Affiliate organizations such as the Sierra Club Store and the Sierra Club credit card program also provide support to the organization and the foundation.
Major Accomplishments
Simon, John G. MARTIN HO¨LZ, REGINA LIST
Biographical Information Born in 1928, John G. Simon graduated from Harvard College in 1950 and went on to complete his law degree at Yale Law School in 1953. From 1953 to 1958, he was
SIPRI ▶ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
Skoll Foundation
Skocpol, Theda MICHAEL BISESI
Basic Biographical Information Theda Skocpol was born on May 4, 1947 in Detroit, Michigan (USA). She earned a Bachelor of Arts (1969 – top Honors College graduate) from Michigan State University, followed by a Master of Arts (1972) and a Doctor of Philosophy (1975) from Harvard University. Since 1998, she has held the Victor S. Thomas Professorship in Government and Sociology at Harvard University. Her professional experience includes faculty appointments at the University of Chicago and at Harvard. She also served as Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (2005–2007).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Theda Skocpol has written definitive works on the key role of the voluntary (nonprofit) sector in the development of social policy in the United States. Policies ranging from child labor laws and women’s suffrage to Social Security and Medicare trace their origins to voluntary associations or nonprofit organizations. Scholars and nonprofit practitioners, particularly those from either group who have minimal historical perspective,would benefit immensely from reading her 1992 award-winning Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States. Skocpol traces the key roles played by the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal organization of Union veterans of the Civil War. The GAR evolved and became a powerful lobbying and advocacy group that eventually persuaded Congress to develop a national-level pension plan. Skocpol also traces the origins of child labor and prenatal health care to the National Congress of Mothers (which eventually became the PTA) and to the General Federation of Women’s Clubs. Considering women’s right to vote was not part of the Constitution until 1920, these policy initiatives were seen as a natural extension of women’s good government ‘‘municipal housekeeping’’ efforts in the latter nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Skocpol has been recognized as one of the ten most frequently cited scholars (among nearly 1,600) in political science and related areas of study. She is the recipient of numerous academic awards, including: election to the National Academy of Sciences (2008); the Johan Skytte Prize in Political Science from the Skytte Foundation (University of Uppsala, Sweden, 2007); J. David Greenstone
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Award for Best Book in Politics and History for Diminished Democracy: From Membership to Management in American Civic Life (2004); and the Woodrow Wilson Foundation Award (for the best book published in the United States on government politics or international affairs) for Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Political Origins of Social Policy in the United States (1993).
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relationships ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organizations, Political ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organizations, Sociological
References/Further Readings Skocpol, T. (1992). Protecting soldiers and mothers: The political origins of social policy in the United States. Cambridge, MA: Belknap/Harvard. Skocpol, T. (1993). Social policy in the United States: Future possibilities in historical perspective. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Skocpol, T. (2000). The missing middle: Working families and the future of American social policy. New York: W.W. Norton. Skocpol, T. (2003). Diminished democracy: From membership to management in American civic life. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. Skocpol, T., & Fiorina, M. P. (Ed.) (1999). Civic engagement in American democracy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press/Russell Sage Foundation.
Skoll Foundation KATE RUFF
Address of Organization 250 University Avenue, Suite 200 Palo Alto, CA 94301 USA www.skollfoundation.org
Introduction The Skoll Foundation is a grantmaking organization dedicated to expanding the impact of successful social innovations by empowering the social entrepreneurs behind them.
Brief History The Skoll Foundation was created by Jeff Skoll in 1999. Jeff Skoll was the first President of eBay.
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Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas
References/Further Readings
The Skoll Foundation’s mission is ‘‘to advance systemic change to benefit communities around the world by investing in, connecting and celebrating social entrepreneurs.’’ The Skoll Foundation seeks to extend the impact of people and programs already bringing positive changes to communities throughout the world.
Martin, R. L., & Osberg, S. (2007). Social entrepreneurship: The case for definition. Stanford Social Innovation Review, 5(2), 29–39. Nicholls, A. (Ed.) (2006). Social entrepreneurship: New models for sustainable social change. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Activities The Skoll Foundation has three primary activities: ● Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship is a $1M grant paid out over 3 years awarded to organizations led by a social entrepreneur with an innovative, replicable program that addresses critical global issues and has demonstrated measurable success for at least 3 years. ● Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship is held each March in Oxford England in partnership with the Saı¨d Business School, University of Oxford. For 3 days, social entrepreneurs, academics, and other prominent figures from around the world collaborate to accelerate, innovate, and scale solutions to pressing social issues. ● Social Edge is an online community for Social Entrepreneurs founded in 2003. Blogs, a wiki and discussion forums enable civil society members to network, learn, inspire, and share resources.
Structure and Governance The Skoll Foundation is two separate corporations: a private foundation, The Skoll Foundation, and a public charity, The Skoll Fund. Each is governed by its own board of directors. The two entities share grantmaking, program, and administrative resources.
Funding For the year ending June 30, 2008 the Skoll Foundation paid 44 M in grants and had net ending assets of 499 M. The Skoll Fund had net ending assets of 322 M on December 31, 2008.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Skoll Foundation has been a key player in bringing attention to the important role that Social Entrepreneurs play, defining what it means to be a social entrepreneur, and finding ways to help these individuals broaden their impact.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Social Entrepreneurship
Sloan, Alfred Pritchard, Jr. DAVID B. HOWARD
Basic Biographical Information Alfred P. Sloan Jr. was born in New Haven, Connecticut, to Methodist parents – Alfred P. Sloan Sr. and Katherine Mead Sloan – in 1875. The first of five children, Sloan excelled in school and studied electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After graduating as the youngest member of his class at MIT, Sloan’s first job was as a draftsman at the Hyatt Roller Bearing Company in New Jersey. At age 24, he became the president of Hyatt, and oversaw the entire company’s operations. Under Sloan’s leadership, Hyatt became a successful manufacturer of bearings for the automobile industry, and in 1916 the company merged with United Motors Corporation. Sloan became president of United Motors and 2 years later the company became part of the General Motors Corporation. Sloan was elected Vice President of Operations of General Motors in 1920, President in 1923, and served as Chief Executive Officer until 1946. He was elected Chairman of the Board of GM in 1937, and retained that post until 1956. While at the helm of GM, Sloan became well known for his innovative management techniques, financial wisdom and pricing strategies, and the company became one of the most successful and profitable corporations in the world. Under Sloan’s direction, GM increased its market share from 12% in 1920 to 52% in 1956. Sloan died in 1966 in New York City at the age of 90.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions In 1930, while president of GM, Sloan helped create the MIT Sloan Fellows Program to help train engineers in management. Nearly 80 years later, the program continues to thrive at MIT, with a long list of distinguished alumni. In 1934, Sloan established the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation with an initial endowment of $10 million. One of the foundation’s first large grants was $2.6 million to establish the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research in New York. In 1950, a Sloan Foundation grant of $5.3 million established the Alfred P. Sloan School of Management at
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MIT. The foundation would continue to award large grants to MIT to support research initiatives and other programs. By 1966, the value of Sloan’s gifts to the Foundation totaled $305 million. Currently, the Foundation has six program areas: basic research, science education, public understanding of science and technology, economic performance and quality of life, select national issues and civic initiatives. The foundation also awards 118 Sloan Research Fellowships each year, offering 2 years of funding for early-career scientists. In 2006, the Sloan Foundation ranked 33rd in the US in total assets ($1.8 billion) and total giving was more than $66 million.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking
References/Further Readings Farber, D. (2002). Sloan rules: Alfred P. Sloan and the triumph of general motors. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Freeman, A. (2005). The leadership genius of Alfred P. Sloan: Invaluable lessons on business, management, and leadership for today’s manager. New York: McGraw-Hill. Sloan, A. (1964). My years with general motors. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
Smith, David Horton RAM CNAAN
Basic Biographical Information David Horton Smith was born in Los Angeles, California, on May 2, 1939, as an American citizen. He was an honor student at the California Institute of Technology/Caltech (1956–1957), then he transferred to the University of Southern California/USC (1958–1960). He graduated from USC magna cum laude with an A. B. degree in three full major fields (Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology), reflecting his broad interdisciplinary interests. Smith earned his A. M. (1962) and Ph.D. (1965) in Sociology at Harvard University in the interdisciplinary Department of Social Relations. He spent most of his academic career as a Professor of Sociology at the university called Boston College (1968–2004) in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. He is presently retired from the active faculty there, but is a Professor Emeritus and actively engaged in research, writing, and organizing in the nonprofit sector/civil society field (as a Research Professor of Sociology).
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Major Accomplishments/Contributions Smith was one of the founders of the organized field of Nonprofit Sector/Civil Society Studies. He began by founding and serving as the first President of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action/ARNOVA (1971–1973; Executive Officer 1973–1975), the first and largest international association of civil society researchers. As part of this effort, Smith founded and was the first Editor of the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly/NVSQ, the world’s first academic journal in the field. Because of the largely North American membership of ARNOVA initially, Smith founded and served as the Secretary General (CEO) of the second (now defunct) international nonprofit sector/civil society studies researcher association – the International Voluntary Action and Voluntary Associations Research Organization/IVAR-VOIR, based in Brussels, Belgium (1978–1983). He has also counseled the founders of some national civil society/ nonprofit sector researcher associations in different nations. There now exist more than 20 such national associations in the world in addition to other, more recent, international research associations in the field. Smith was the Director of Research at the Center for a Voluntary Society/CVS (1970–1974), the world’s first research and education center focused principally on nonprofit sector/civil society issues, based in Washington, DC. CVS supported financially the formation of ARNOVA (originally having a different name). Smith was a consultant to and researcher for the influential Filer Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (1974–1975). Working with the Donee Group of that Commission, he helped to found the National Center for Responsive Philanthropy/NCRP (1976–present). Smith received the ARNOVA Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Contribution to Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Research in 1993, the first year it was awarded. The author or editor of many books and articles, he has made several major contributions to the field, including the delineation of the voluntary/nonprofit sector concept (in the early 1970s), the distinction between the volunteer-run and paid-staff organization subsectors of the nonprofit sector that function very differently, the comprehensive interdisciplinary ISSTAL Model for explaining individual volunteer participation, the demonstration of the large aggregate magnitude and societal importance of grassroots (local, volunteer-run) associations in America and worldwide as previously ignored ‘‘dark matter’’ of civil society, and most recently the demonstration of the neglect by civil society/nonprofit sector researchers of deviance and incivility in and by nonprofit groups.
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Cross-References
▶ ARNOVA ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy ▶ The Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (The Filer Commission) ▶ Uncivil Society ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Smith, D. H. (2000). Grassroots associations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Smith, D. H. (2009). The dark side of goodness: Deviance and incivility in the angelic nonprofit sector. Bradenton, FL: David Horton Smith International. Smith, D. H., Macaulay, J., & Associates. (1980). Participation in social and political activities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Smith, D. H., Stebbins, R. A. & Dover, M. (2006). A dictionary of nonprofit terms and concepts. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Smith, D. H., & Til, J. V. (Eds.) (1983). International perspectives on voluntary action research. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
Sociability JENNIFER PREECE University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA
Introduction This chapter focuses on sociability via social media. In this context sociability describes how people interact with each other via social media such as: discussion boards, blogs, microblogs, social networking environments (e.g., Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin), and user-contributed content sites (e.g., Flickr, Youtube, Wikipedia), and many others. Sociability is influenced: (1) by the characteristics of people; (2) the purpose of the interaction; (3) the norms and policies that govern online behavior; (4) the design of the software environment that supports the interactions (Preece, 2000), and sometimes by (5) the physical environment in which people interact either together or separately. Both the functionality (i.e., what the software is designed to do) and usability (i.e., how it is designed to do it) impact sociability. For example, software that is cumbersome and annoying to use is likely to have a negative effect on sociability, whereas software that is easy and enjoyable to use will have a positive impact on sociability. Consequently, usability and sociability are closely related.
Definition Sociability is defined by Miriam Webster Dictionary as ‘‘the quality or state of being sociable; the act or an instance of being sociable’’ and by Chambers Dictionary as ‘‘fond of the company of others.’’ Characteristics associated with sociability include: sociableness, openness, gregariousness, chumminess, camaraderie, companionability, conviviality, joviality.
Key Issues Influences of Sociability
There are five significant influences on sociability: people, purposes, policies and norms, software environment, and physical environment. People
A central tenet of human-computer interaction is that people’s psychological and physiological characteristics and their life-experiences and expertise influence their success and attitudes when using computers and other devices. These same factors also influence sociability. The sociability that an observer sees when viewing a group is the collective product of the impact of the people in the community and the way they interact. People’s online identities can be particularly influential. Sometimes an online identity closely resembles a face-to-face identity, but sometimes it is different. For example, in the early days of studying online behavior Turkle (1995) described how adolescents typically adopted different identities in order to explore dating relationships online. Some people became emboldened and outward going. Others described their physical appearance in terms that they thought would be particularly attractive to others. Purposes
The purpose of an interaction influences sociability. Individuals, groups and communities have purposes. For example, in a patient support community an individual’s purpose may be to find out more about child diabetes. At the community level the purpose may be to provide and exchange information and support for those suffering from diabetes and for their families, friends, and carers. The purpose could be even broader, for example, to provide information about health in general. In harmonious communities the individuals’ purposes match closely with the community’s. When there is not a good match and different group members want different things, then friction tends to occur. Sociability also varies between one kind of community and another depending on the types of expectations
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associated with the communities. For example, patient support communities tend to exhibit different sociability from technical support communities (Preece, 1999; MaloneyKrichmar and Preece, 2005), which are different from professionally-based communities of practice (Wenger, 1999), and children’s book communities (Komlodi et al., 2007). The reason why people decide to engage in a particular activity strongly impacts how they approach others and the sociability associated with the interaction. Policies and Norms
Typically when a group of people interacts they develop ‘‘norms’’ that determine acceptable ways of behaving (Postmes et al., 2008). These norms are determined by culture; both national and local cultures have an impact. American culture is different from Chinese culture. A Chinese friend tells me that saying please when requesting a family member to pass a plate of food at the dinner table is thought to be distancing because family shouldn’t have to adopt formal gestures. To Americans saying please is good manners and children are brought up to accept this norm. Abbreviations and shortcuts are acceptable when using many types of digital social technologies, particularly when texting via cell phones where speed and brevity is valued. Furthermore, in some countries short messages are less expensive to transmit than long messages. This does not necessarily mean that sociability will be viewed as pleasant by everyone. It may not be. Different groups have different norms and what may be acceptable in one may not be in another. When norms are understood and adhered to by a community, the sociability of the group is predictable and tends not to vary widely. However, breaking norms can disturb the community and can lead to people feeling tense about what is expected, or even leaving the group. For this reason, formal policies are developed by many groups. These include everything from the protocol for joining the group to how complaints and breaches in etiquette are handled. For rules to be upheld there is often an explicit governance structure, which may involve some form of hierarchy. For example, contributors to Wikipedia have different roles, which are upheld by a combination of norms and formal rules. Admins are a trusted group of people with more control than contributors, who can only submit and edit articles. Software Environment
The design of the supporting software shapes sociability by influencing how participants interact online, what they do and how they do it. In this respect, sociability is
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closely related to usability (Preece, 2000). For example, Patientslikeme.com displays pictures of community members that enable community participants and newcomers to identify with others in the community. These pictures also help to set the tone and expectations of the community. In Youtube.com communication is mostly by posting videos. Direct spoken communication takes place via other media. In Facebook.com the messages and pictures that are posted on participants’ walls contribute strongly to the sociability in Facebook. At a more fine-grained level it is possible to see differences in sociability within different parts of Facebook. Small differences in design and usability can also have a noticeable impact on sociability because they force interaction between participants to occur in a particular way. For example, if one social system constrains members to enter personal information in a template and another allows for some free-form expression that includes photographs and narrative, the impression on readers may be quite different, which in turn influences sociability. More obvious ways of influencing sociability include software that is designed to directly impact sociability. For example, software that traps obscene and blasphemous comments, and software agents representing human guides. Physical Environment
Mobile devices are used in a variety of different physical environments. Cell phones, for example, may be used in the metro, on a bus, while walking, in the home, in a hospital, school, store, or in many other environments. The physical environment may vary considerably; it might be hot and humid, raining, snowy, windy, or calm and a pleasant 70 C. Work by Matt Jones and Gary Marsden describes how unreliable sources of electricity in South African villages and the economic need to share devices impact sociability (Jones and Marsden, 2005). When families and groups have to work out a way to share and manage access to a single cell phone there is a strong impact on sociability. All of these five criteria impact sociability online, in the face-to-face environment, and how digital and physical worlds together impact sociability.
Sociability Social Capital and Partcipation Sociability is an umbrella concept. Within each of the five categories other important factors can be identified. Two particularly important ones are social capital and participation. Social capital is a term used by sociologists and others to describe the human capital that binds communities. It became particularly potent with the publication of
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Harvard sociologist, Robert Putnam’s book, Bowling Alone (Putnam, 2000). Like economic capital, social capital is a resource. Social capital refers to resources that make a community work but do not have financial value and may even be difficult to identify. Neighborhoods in which people take care of each other, their environments and their possessions through, for example, neighborhood watches, cleanup days, or stopping outsiders from throwing trash in the street are examples of good social capital. Putnam’s book gives many others and chronicles the decrease in social capital in American Society dating back to the mid 1960s when women’s independence as wage earners grew, resulting in them contributing less to their neighborhoods. At the same time there was a trend to living in suburbia and commuting to work, so people spent less time in their communities. Two types of social capital are identified: bonding social capital encourages mutual ties between members of a single community, and bridging social capital encourages ties across communities. Examples of bonding social capital include the willingness of community members to contribute to local events such as fetes, cleanups, and auctions to support charities. Examples of bridging social capital include ‘‘twinning relationships’’ between towns in different countries, and the willingness of one community to send relief workers to help in disasters affecting another community. Digital devices can support social capital by facilitating communication. Many factors influence user participation in digital environments including all of those mentioned above and more. Participation also influences sociability. If users do not participate in a social space it ceases to be social and there is no sociability. Early studies about the reasons why people do not participate in discussion board communities identified: poor usability, poor sociability, not knowing what was expected, needing time to learn about the community, and fear of aggressive comments (Nonnecke and Preece, 2000; Preece et al., 2004). Recent research is examining participants’ motivation for reading messages, contributing user-generated content, collaborating, and taking on leadership roles (Preece and Shneiderman, 2009). Ways of encouraging, supporting and recognizing users’ contributions are important for motivating participation. For many people the ability to stand out from the crowd, be recognized and build a reputation are powerful motivators that indirectly contribute to sociability.
Encouraging Sociability Designers and managers of technical environments that support community and social interaction can help to encourage sociability through the design and management
strategies that they employ. The two short case studies that follow are chosen to illustrate this point. The first, Bob’s ACL Board illustrates how a threaded bulletin board has supported a vibrant community of knee injured participants for 13 years – quite an achievement in an age when sites come and go daily! The second, another patient support community, Patientslikeme, illustrates some important sociability features in a quite different, web-based software environment. Together they demonstrate how sociability is influenced by users’ social interaction and the design of the software environment in which they interact. Bob’s ACL WWWBoard (http://factotem.org/cgi-bin/ kneebbs.pl) was created in January 1996 by Bob Wilmot, who suffered a skiing accident and tore the anterior cruciate ligaments in both of his knees. Bob underwent arthroscopic reconstruction surgery which, though successful, was followed by an uncomfortable period of recovery. Having computer skills Bob decided to tell his story on the World Wide Web and also create a discussion board so that others could share their stories. Thirteen years later this community discussion site is still thriving. The basic threaded structure of the site remains the same but the associated website of resources and FAQs has grown. The site is now owned and managed by Factotem and there is a modest amount of advertising. Several detailed studies of communication and community behavior (Preece, 1999; Maloney-Krichamar and Preece, 2005) describe the strong positive sociability that users experience on the discussion board. During most of the 8 years that we studied this site, the empathic and supportive way that participants interacted was a distinguishing feature of the site. In addition to the outstanding longevity of this discussion board, the other outstanding feature is how rudimentary the software support is by today’s standards. The threaded discussions offer few embellishments, suggesting that the positive sociability experienced by participants derives strongly from their interpersonal interactions. Patientslikeme (http://www.patientslikeme.com/) is a general health website that invites users to find patients like themselves, share their experiences and learn from others. These goals are the same as for Bob’s ACL WWWBoard except that in Patientslikeme they are explicitly stated and they invite discussion on a range of topics. The site also looks modern and contains graphics and photographs. An interesting sociability feature is the display of pictures at the bottom of the screen which helps to convince users that there are patients like them and that they can find and link up with easily. Whether you are a young person, an older person, a mother, a child, there are photographs of people with whom you can identify. We do not know if this produces better
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sociability than in Bob’s ACL WWWBoard, but it is an interesting design tactic.
Future Directions Sociability is an umbrella concept that describes social ambiance. In this context it is used to describe users’ interactions in digital environments or digitally mediated environments. When used to describe interaction via digital devices it is influenced by both human social behavior and the way the design of technology impacts that behavior. Furthermore, increasingly this sociability is felt both in the digital environment and in the face-to-face environment. Separating out the different influences that impact sociability is complex. This chapter serves to introduce some of the key influences and to point out the complexity of their interaction. The important take-away message from this chapter is that technology alone will never produce good sociability; the human influences that impact human interactions via the technology will always play a significant part. While sociologists, human-computer interaction specialists and talented technical designers can draw on expertise and best practices to encourage good sociability, they cannot predict sociability with absolute certainty because they cannot predict exactly how humans will behave and interact with absolute certainty. This is both one of the challenges and one of the charms of working in this field! There is considerable scope for future research on sociability online. Two big topics are how does social capital (bonding and bridging) occur in these environments and what can designers and community leaders do to encourage it. How does social capital development differ across different types of communities; for example, is it the same in patient support communities and gaming communities and hobby communities? Another big area concerns motivation for encouraging participation online. Others include how are empathy and trust developed, and what can developers do to encourage them. How do norms and governance structures develop? For all of these topics, some of the most interesting research lies in the sociotechnical area in which social interaction is influenced by technology design.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civility ▶ Community, Types of ▶ Cyber Communities ▶ Information Technology, Internet ▶ Participation ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of
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References/Further Readings Jones, M., & Marsden, G. (2005). Mobile interaction design. Chichester: Wiley. Komlodi, A., Ho, W., Preece, J., Druin, A., Golub, E., Alburo, J. (2007). Evaluating a cross-cultural children’s online book community: Lessons learned for sociability, usability, and cultural exchange. Interacting with Computers, 19, 494–511. Maloney-Krichmar, D., & Preece, J. (2005). A multilevel analysis of sociability, usability and community dynamics in an online health community. Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction (TOCHI), 12(2), 1–32. Nonnecke, B., & Preece, J. (2000). Lurker demographics: Counting the silent. Paper presented at the ACM CHI 2000 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, The Hague, The Netherlands. Postmes, T., Spears, R., & Lea, M. (2008). The formation of group norms in computer-mediated communication. Human Communication Research, 26(3), 341–371. (Published online 10 January, 2006) Preece, J. (1999). Empathic communities: Balancing emotional and factual communication. Interacting with Computers, The Interdisciplinary Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 12(1), 63–77. Preece, J. (2000). Online communities: Designing usability, supporting sociability. Chichester: Wiley. Preece, J., & Shneiderman, B. (2009). The reader-to-leader framework: Motivating technology-mediated social participation. AIS Transactions on Human-Computer Interaction, 1(1). Preece, J., Nonnecke, B., & Andrews, D. (2004). The top five reasons for lurking: Improving community experiences for everyone. Computers in Human Behavior, 20(2), 201–223. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. New York: Simon & Schuster. Wenger, E. (1999). Communities of practice. Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Social Accountability International CHRISTOPHER KAAN
Address of Organization 15 West 44th Street, 6th Floor New York, NY 10036 USA www.sa-intl.org
Introduction Social Accountability International (SAI) is a private organization promoting human rights of workers around the world. Its major output is the SA8000 standard, a voluntary code which allows companies to be audited on their social performance. Today, over 1,700 factories are certified for the SA8000 standard.
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Brief History
Accomplishments
SAI emerged from a multi-stakeholder process which the Council for Economic Priorities, an US-NGO led by Alice Tepper Marlin, initiated in 1998. The aim of the process was to find solutions to the child labor problem in cooperation with companies. Many participants realized that they gained from this cooperation and would need further support and guidance. This resulted in the creation of the SA8000 standard as a social compliance system and SAI as the organization managing it. To increase external accountability, in 2007 SAI delegated its accreditation activities for the standard to the Social Accountability Accreditation Services (SAAS). SAI now concentrates on training, capacity-building, and awareness-raising for worker rights.
Today, 1,779 factories with about one million workers in 67 countries are certified for compliance with the SA 8000 standard.
Mission The mission of SAI is the global promotion of worker rights in cooperation with profit and nonprofit actors. Thereby SAI focuses on the implementation of human rights which form part of the international legislation or ILO conventions. Examples are the prohibition of child labor, freedom of association, or health and safety standards.
Activities SAI mainly performs two tasks. First, it fosters capacitybuilding and awareness-raising measures for the SA8000 standard. Second, SAI is in charge for the development and improvement of the standard. Beside that, SAI is not involved in implementation of the standard anymore. To obtain a SA8000 certificate, a factory has to employ one of the SAAS accredited certifying agencies which will then perform an audit. If the factory is in compliance with the standard, a certificate is issued by the auditing company.
Structure and Governance SAI has a Secretariat in New York which is headed by SAI founder and president Alice Tepper Marlin. Major decisions are taken by the Board of Directors, while general recommendations are delivered by SAI Advisory Council. The Advisory Council contains representatives from multinational companies like GAP Inc. and Chiquita, international unions like Union Network International, and NGOs like the Rainforest Alliance and CARE International.
Funding The work of SAI is financed by earned revenues and grants from government agencies like USAID and the EU Commission, and from foundations like the Ford Foundation or the Rockefeller Foundation.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ CARE ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Human Rights ▶ Social Audits
References/Further Readings Courville, S. (2003). Social accountability audits: Challenging or defending democratic governance? Law & Policy, 25(3), 269–297. Leipziger, D. (2001). SA8000: The definitive guide to the new social standard. London: Financial Times/Prentice Hall. O’Rourke, D. (2003). Outsourcing regulation: Analyzing nongovernmental systems of labor standards and monitoring. Policy Studies Journal, 31, 1–29.
Social Accounting for Social Economy Organizations LAURIE MOOK, JACK QUARTER University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Introduction Social accounting was born from a concern about the limitations of conventional financial accounting. Not only does conventional accounting fail to include environmental and social costs, but through a peculiar logic, it may even treat such costs as income-generating activities, as for example, when certain firms earn money by cleaning up oil spills. Similarly, when a large corporation lays off employees, there are social costs in income support programs (unemployment insurance, social assistance) and retraining, as well as increased health care bills. In financial accounting terms, these social costs are externalities, and except for insurance and severance costs, they do not appear in the corporation’s financial statement. American singer, Tom Lehrer, satirized this frame of mind in his 1970s ballad on Werner von Braun, the US rocket scientist. One verse summarizes the limitations of ignoring broader social impacts: ‘‘Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department, says Werner von Braun.’’ Social accounting starts from the premise that ‘‘where the rockets come down’’ is partly the responsibility of the
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people who made the rockets and should be reflected in the accounting of rocket makers. By the same token, those who carry out work that improves human or environmental health and well-being should be able to include those benefits on the plus side of their ledgers. However, putting this idea into practice has proved challenging. For the most part, social accounting remains a critique of financial accounting. Alternative financial formats need time to be developed. Existing approaches face a fundamental challenge – calculating a comparative market value for organizational inputs and social impacts that are not exchanged on the market. For social economy organizations such as nonprofits and cooperatives, assessing their social impact is critical because they are set up for a social purpose. Simply focusing on their financial transactions, as conventional accounting does, misses an important part of the story. Developing a fuller picture requires an alternative method of tracking costs and benefits. The conventional financial statements typically prepared by nonprofit accountants are adapted from those for a profit-oriented business. Income statements show the categories of revenue and the breakdown of expenses. The balance sheet, or Statement of Financial Position, indicates changes in net assets. The information in these statements indicates whether organizations are living within their means and have assets to fall back upon if there is a decrease in their revenues. However, the statements are one-sided in that they focus on how organizations spend their money, but are silent on the contribution they make to their community. A balance sheet indicates the value or equity of a business after the liabilities are subtracted from the assets. This information is important to owners of a business, because they can determine the value of their holding on paper. But it does not tell the complete story of its value, because it omits intangible items such as intellectual capital. By contrast, a social accounting statement such as the Expanded Value-Added Statement (EVAS) would indicate the expanded value added that an organization generates for every dollar spent on external goods and services. Although this information may be far from complete, it nevertheless attempts to account for the social impact of nonprofit services. Therefore, to tell the full nonprofit performance story, an additional form of accounting – social accounting – is needed.
Definition The following definition of social accounting applied in this text emphasizes the organization–community interaction and focuses on the stakeholders who contribute to an organization:
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Social accounting is a systematic analysis of the effects of an organization on its communities of interest or stakeholders, with stakeholder input as part of the data that is analyzed for the accounting statement. (Mook et al., 2007, p. 2)
Social accounting (also referred to as Social and Environmental Accounting) is both a critique of conventional accounting and a form of accounting practice. The critique is extensive and includes some creative and thoughtprovoking analysis (e.g., Belkaoui, 1984; Estes, 1972, 1976; Gray et al., 1996, 1997; Linowes, 1972; Mathews, 1997). Some of these researchers have also produced alternative accounting formats that use information from audited financial statements, and include unpaid labor estimates and estimates of non-monetized social outputs not normally found in conventional accounting statements. Some examples of items included in previous research by the authors are the value of volunteer services, the value of social labor (unpaid contributions by members), out-ofpocket expenses absorbed by volunteers, pro bono consultation services, personal growth and development of volunteers and members, the value of intellectual capital, and the environmental impact of compensating employees for choosing public transport or car pooling to come to work. This entry demonstrates how to prepare one such format, an Expanded Value-Added Statement for the Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre.
Key Issues What is Value Added?
‘‘Value added’’ measures the wealth that an organization, typically a business, creates by ‘‘adding value’’ to raw materials, products, and services using labor and capital. For example, a company that manufactures furniture purchases raw materials such as wood and upholstery fabric. It transforms those materials into furniture through the labor of its workers and the capital of its equipment. The value added is the difference between the revenue that flows back into the company from the sale of the finished furniture and the costs of raw materials. Unlike profit, which is the wealth created for one group – owners or shareholders – value added represents the wealth created for a larger group of stakeholders. Thus, the Value-Added Statement focuses on the wider implications of an organization’s activities beyond profits or losses or, in the case of nonprofit organizations, beyond surpluses or deficits. Value-Added Statements used in the profit-making sector emphasize that the organization employs people, contributes to society through taxes, rewards investors and creditors for
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risking their funds, and sets aside funds to maintain its viability. The Expanded Value-Added Statement, designed by Laurie Mook, also emphasizes the role of the organization to society in providing benefits that are generally ignored in financial statements because they do not involve monetized transactions. In a conventional Value-Added Statement, the only labor considered is that of paid employees. However, volunteers constitute a major portion of the workforce of a nonprofit organization, and it seems absurd to ignore their impact on the organization’s value added simply because their services do not involve a monetary transaction. Therefore, it is important to address this inequity by measuring the contributions given and received by volunteers and by including this value in the Expanded ValueAdded Statement. Measuring Volunteer Contributions
In general, the accounting profession values volunteer work only when volunteers replace paid labor. In USA, accounting standards guiding the recognition of volunteer contributions are outlined in Financial Accounting Standards Boards (FASB) Statement No. 116 (issued 6/93), which allows the recognition of volunteer contributions only if they create or enhance nonfinancial assets, or if they require specialized skills that would need to be purchases if not donated. This is similar to the regulations in Canada, as found in the Handbook of the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA), April 1997: "
4410.16: An organization may choose to recognize contributions of materials and services, but should do so only when a fair value can be reasonable estimated and when the materials and services are used in the normal course of the organization’s operations and would otherwise have been purchased.
Previous research by the authors found that only 3% of nonprofits includes a value for volunteer contributions in their financial statements, normally in supplementary notes to the statement (Mook & Quarter, 2004). This is an important issue for nonprofits, as volunteers represent a significant portion of their workforce – at minimum, the board of directors, and often an important supplement to the workforce on other tasks. Therefore, it is important to estimate a ‘‘fair value’’ for volunteer contributions and to include these within the Expanded Value-Added Statement. To place a value on these hours, comparative market rates are obtained from national statistics agencies, which provide hourly and salaried wage rates organized according to occupation or business activity.
One such classification system, the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), combines all the tasks for a subsector such as social services (including executive and administrative) and puts forward an average wage rate for all levels of occupation in that category. The technique may vary in different countries, but the objective is to make a fair comparison of similar forms of paid work. In cases where information for a fair market comparison is not readily available, an alternative procedure is to simply ask the volunteer board members what their contribution is worth, albeit such estimates should not be accepted uncritically. In making market comparisons, one decision to be taken is whether to do it by each task or to do it in general for the organization. It is simpler to do this for the organization as a whole, but this would work only if there is a limited degree of variation within an organization’s tasks. If an organization has a broad range of volunteer roles, then rather than using only one criterion, it may be prudent to subcategorize, for example, using skill level and responsibility as criteria. Another consideration in making these comparisons is whether to include fringe benefits on top of the hourly rate. The Expanded Value-Added Statement
The Value-Added Statement has two parts: 1. The calculation of value added by an organization 2. Its distribution to the stakeholders For an Expanded Value-Added Statement, the value added is broadened from financial transactions to take into account non-monetized social contributions. Table 1 presents an example of an Expanded Value-Added Statement. For an organization that exchanges its services on the market, its outputs would be its revenues. However, for a nonprofit social service agency that does not, Social Accounting for Social Economy Organizations. Table 1 Expanded Value-Added Statement (EVAS) (partial), Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre, for the 9 months ended December 31, 2000 Value added
Financial
Social
Combined
Outputs Primary Secondary
$866,641 $324,077 $1,190,718 1,746
10,403
12,149
Total
$868,387 $334,480 $1,202,867
Purchases of external goods and services
$127,549
Value added
$740,838 $334,480 $1,075,318
$127,549
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primary outputs are estimated from the amounts spent on its goods and services. This does not include volunteer contributions, and these are estimated and included in the social column. Secondary outputs are those that are not directly related to an organization’s mission, but nonetheless of importance. Secondary benefits to volunteers can be found through surveying and include items such as the development of new skills, the strengthening of existing skills, social interaction, improvement in well-being, and opportunities to try new things. Volunteers generally perceive themselves as receiving strong positive benefits through helping others and that this aspect of volunteering can be included in the Expanded Value-Added Statement. For those volunteers who report skills development related to their volunteering role, a surrogate value is assigned as an estimate of market worth. The surrogate value selected was the average cost of a community college course for personal growth and development. This amount is calculated for all of the volunteers who reported benefits and entered into the social column under secondary outputs. While nonprofit organizations and the broader society derive a benefit from the skill development of volunteers, organizations also incur a cost for training volunteers – the cost also being a secondary output, but in this case, it appears in the financial column as it is derived from the organizations’ financial statements. Recall that the value added compares the organization’s total outputs in relation to the goods and services purchased externally, as taken from the organization’s financial statement. Therefore, this amount was subtracted from the total outputs. If this calculation had been based only on the financial statements, without considering the value generated by volunteers and the value of their skills developed, it would be much less if only the financial value added was considered. In other words, by expanding the value added to include secondary outputs, and combining those with the financial outputs, the amount of total outputs increases, and generally this increase is substantial. Distribution of Value Added
The second part of a Value-Added Statement is the distribution of value added to stakeholders (rather than shareholders, as in an income statement). The value added created by the organization is distributed in its entirety to its primary stakeholders, for example, employees, volunteers, society (recipients of its services), and the organization itself. Table 2 presents the distribution of value added for these four stakeholders and lists the items associated with each stakeholder.
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Social Accounting for Social Economy Organizations. Table 2 Expanded Value-Added Statement (EVAS) (partial) – distribution of value added, Jane/Finch Community and Family Centre, for the 9 months ended December 31, 2000 Distribution of value added
Financial
Social
Combined
Employees Wages and benefits
$724,583
$724,583
Volunteers Personal growth and development Recognition and awards
$1,749
$12,149
77,510
$77,510
$87,913
$93,713
$229,240
$229,240
4,054
Tenant association Total volunteers
$10,403
$5,800
$4,054
Society Recipients (from volunteer hours) Organization Amortization of capital assets
$10,455
Programs (from volunteer hours) Total organization Value added
$10,455
$10,455 $17,327
$17,327
$17,327
$27,782
$740,838 $334,480 $1,075,318
For employees, value added is received in the form of wages and benefits. For the volunteers as a stakeholder group, the value added is distributed based on what they receive from the experience (the value of their personal growth and the development from the volunteer experience). The value added associated with volunteer hours generally is distributed back to other stakeholders – primarily, society, as volunteering generally is a contribution to the broader society. In a nonprofit mutual association, volunteers may be perceived as contributing to the organization, though that form of contribution tends to be viewed as social labor, to differentiate it from volunteering. Nevertheless, the stakeholder ‘‘organization’’ may benefit from volunteer contributions, for example, those that were specifically administrative and board of directors activities. In addition, as shown in Table 2, the stakeholder organization also received value added from the amortization of its capital assets. The Expanded Value-Added Statement (Tables 1 and 2) indicates that by including the contribution from volunteers, the reported amount of
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value added created by the organization increases as compared to the amount calculated using financial information alone. Thus, the EVAS shows that the financial information without the social misses part of the organization’s performance. The significance of volunteers to a nonprofit is confirmed by examining the proportion of human resources that volunteers contribute to the overall human resource base of the organization. For many nonprofits, this contribution is substantial. Furthermore, when considering the financial and in-kind resources of the organization, the imputed value of volunteer hours accounts for a substantial percent of the total. Therefore, volunteer contributions provide the organization with a significant resource that should be counted in its overall performance.
Future Directions The Expanded Value-Added Statement shows how conventional accounting statements can be adapted to create social accounting statements. Why has the field of social accounting faced challenges in pursuing this objective? In part, the problem is political – major accounting organizations have resisted the adaptations to accounting statements that would be needed for social accounting. Social economy organizations – nonprofits and voluntary organizations – provide a more fertile ground for such procedures because these are organizations with a social mission. The essence of social accounting is to broaden the domain of information that is considered and to broaden the range of stakeholders. For many organizations, opting for a social accounting statement may seem forbidding. However, social accounting is not only a procedure for producing accounting statements, but also a mechanism for understanding the dynamics of an organization. Assembling such statements can create insights for stakeholders, a better understanding of what has been accomplished and where improvements can be achieved. By synthesizing financial data with social and environmental inputs and outputs, social accounting can enhance the importance of the social items and give them meaning within the context of the organization’s finances.
Cross-References
▶ Blended Value ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Nonprofit Organizations ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Results and Performance ▶ Social Audits
▶ Social Economy ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Volunteer Management ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Belkaoui, A. (1984). Socio-economic accounting. Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Estes, R. (1972). Socio-economic accounting and external diseconomies. The Accounting Review, April, 284–290. Estes, R. (1976). Corporate social accounting. New York: Wiley. Gray, R, Owen, D., & Adams, C. (1996). Accounting and accountability: Changes and challenges in corporate social and environmental reporting. London: Prentice-Hall. Gray, R, Owen, D., & Adams, C. (1997). Struggling with the praxis of social accounting: Stakeholders, accountability, audits and procedures. Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 10(3), 325–364. Linowes, D. (1972). An approach to socio-economic accounting. Conference Board Record, 9(11), 58–61. Mathews, M. R. (1997). Twenty-five years of social and environmental accounting research: Is there a silver jubilee to celebrate? Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, 10(4), 481–531. Mook, L., & Quarter, J. (2004). Estimating and reporting the value of volunteer contributions: Results of a survey of Canadian nonprofit organizations. Toronto: Canadian Centre for Philanthropy. Mook, L., Quarter, J., & Richmond, B. J. (2007). What counts: Social accounting for nonprofits and cooperatives, second edition. London: Sigel Press.
Social Audits JOSEPH CHAN, ELAINE CHAN The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
Introduction The need for social auditing is prompted by the nature of the nonprofit sector, which is an arena outside of the market and the government where individual and social efforts meet to address public concerns. Despite the vast diversity of non governmental organizations (NGO) operating in the nonprofit sector, they share several common characteristics: voluntary participation, non distribution of profits to stakeholders, and the absence of clearly defined ownership and accountability (Frumkin, 2002: 3). The last feature is of special relevance to the subject of social auditing. On the one hand, unlike democratic political institutions, NGOs do not have constituencies to whom they are responsible through elections. On the other, unlike commercial enterprises owned by shareholders, NGOs have no
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shareholders who can hold them accountable through the exercise of ownership rights. Nevertheless, today NGOs fulfill important social purposes; they receive considerable amount of donations and other forms of support from individuals and organizations in society and in turn make contributions to the growth of the economy. But most importantly, NGOs present themselves as an important and indispensable partner in public governance. The obscurity of NGOs’ accountability and legitimacy, therefore, ill befits their increasingly important functions, impacts, and status in society today. This perhaps explains why there have been frequent discussions at international and domestic levels about the need for ensuring NGOs accountability and trustworthiness. The fact that there have been a few well-publicized scandals in the nonprofit sectors has further strengthened the call for accountability. A few examples in the United States in the 1990s suffice to illustrate the scale of potential problems: the conviction of the president of the United Way of America for embezzlement (Arenson, 1995); the sentence of leaders of the Episcopal (Washington Post, March 16, 1999) and Baptist (Fletcher, 1999) churches for theft; and the discovery that huge fees were being paid to the trustees of Bishop Estate, the largest charity in Hawaii (Dunford, 1997; Purdam, 1999). Apparently these incidents dealt a serious blow to the credibility of NGOs in the eyes of the public in the United States. Of course, similar scandals have been reported in many other countries. In view of these problems, there was greater and more urgent demand to address the issue of governance by means of increasing transparency and accountability to the public and to the stakeholders. In this milieu, social auditing has emerged as one important kind of mechanism to achieve accountability and credibility. If successful, social auditing not only helps NGOs build accountability and credibility, it also greatly benefits their fundraising. This is especially important to small NGOs that are otherwise little known to the public. It is usually the case that fundraising is particularly difficult for small NGOs. Large and established NGOs have strong social networks, and they produce annual reviews and make public their financial status, which work to garner trust from their supporters and donors. Small NGOs, however, may not have the social and economic resources to follow suit. Social auditing in the form of external accreditation of an NGO enhances its public reputation and consequently helps in its fundraising. It also allows the public to have easier access to accurate information about an NGO, resulting in greater public confidence in charitable donation. An external social audit system may be especially helpful to small and medium NGOs that are
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not receiving funding from the government or major institutional private donors. In sum, social auditing is a useful tool of accountability and fundraising.
Definition Social auditing refers to a process through which an NGO reports, assesses and improves upon its social performance and ethical behavior. It is a complex process that integrates elements of many different accountability mechanisms. Various organizations may have different audit models, but they all emphasize five key elements of the audit process: stakeholder identification, stakeholder dialogue, use of accreditation or benchmarks, continuous improvements, and public disclosure (http://socialaccountability.net/sa.htm; 12/8/2008; http://www.locallivelihoods.com/SASocialAuditCycle.htm; 12/8/2008). A social audit may be carried out by an impartial third party. The NGO and the third party begin the process by identifying key stakeholders of the NGO; this may include the NGO’s management, frontline workers, service recipients, and people in the neighborhood. The stakeholders come together to set the objectives of the audit, agree on the criteria of evaluation, the indictors to be used, and the methods of evaluation. After gathering the necessary data, a report on the NGO’s performance and impact is compiled. The report will be available to the stakeholders as well as the public. The NGO will try to improve on the basis of the report. The term social accounting bears affinity to social audit. Social accounting is defined ‘‘in terms of the communication of information about conduct and performance relevant to the purposes of the program or organization that is served by the accounting relationship’’ (Cutt, 2000: 2). It involves communicating information about shared expectations, and shared criteria of assessment. It does seem that social audit encompasses the communication of information that characterizes social accounting, but it additionally involves stakeholder dialogue that may not be prevalent in social accounting. For example, the Standards for Charity Accountability adopted by BBB Wise Giving do not include stakeholder dialogue. However, sometimes the two concepts are used together. Organizations such as the Community Business Scotland Network (http://www.cbsnetwork.org.uk/socialacc.htm; 12/8/2008) and the Social Audit Network (http://www.socialauditnetwork.org.uk; 12/8/2008) link the two concepts and discuss them as ‘‘social accounting and audit.’’ Furthermore, social accounting for NGOs is to be differentiated from social accounting for businesses. In the latter case the emphasis
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is placed on the social and environmental impacts of the business on society and is often part of the concept of corporate social responsibility.
Key Issues The most significant challenge facing an NGO attempting to adopt social audit as an accountability tool is the cost involved. The social audit process requires substantial time and financial commitment, which is especially lacking in small NGOs. An additional concern is the inherent uncertainty of the process. With the involvement of various stakeholders in the audit process, the NGO management has less control over the outcome of the assessments and benchmarking, as well as the amount and type of information made available to the public. Lastly, the lack of uniform externally verifiable standards for auditing may pose an additional challenge. For a social auditing mechanism to achieve the desired benefits, it is important to properly define its scope, form and objective. In addition, any social auditing mechanism should preferably be implemented on a voluntary basis through a combination of self regulation effort within the NGO sector and the installation of an external accreditation system. Hence, in places where a social audit system is yet to develop, it may be wise for implementation to progress in stages. 1. Voluntary Information Disclosure At a start, a common set of standards for accountability should be agreed upon. The standards should include certain guidelines on voluntary information disclosure by NGOs. Such disclosure should aim to provide essential information for the individual public donor to make an informed donation decision. However, the standards cannot be too complicated; otherwise the administrative cost involved will be prohibitive to many smaller NGOs which could benefit the most. An easy way is to make the financial statement of NGOs available to the public. The US based website GuideStar, for example, uploaded the images of financial forms (Forms 990, 990 E-Z, and 990 P-F) that NGOs file with the US government’s Inland Revenue Service. The goals, accomplishment and programs of NGOs are available either from some of the IRS forms or they are obtained directly from the NGO. GuideStar claims to have collected information of 1.7 million NGOs (http://www.guidestar.org; 12/8/2008). In addition, a donor survey may be carried out to gauge the views of major funding organizations/trusts, donating corporations and individual donors on what they think are important accountability standards for NGOs. Once the standards for accountability is set and
published, the next step is to invite interested NGOs to pledge to comply with the standards. 2. Self-assessment and Self-certification In the second stage, the NGOs could be invited to conduct self assessment and self certification. Once an NGO self certifies to have complied with the standards, it can apply to become a member of the system. Results of the assessment and certification can be published in a standard format with wide public availability, through publication or website. Investigation can be made if there are complaints about non compliance. 3. External Accreditation Finally, after the NGOs and the public have developed confidence and trust in the system, an external accreditation element can be added under which an NGO’s compliance and performance will be assessed either through a desk review or professional on site inspection. A qualitymark like accreditation tool similar to the National Charity Seal in the United States can be introduced. Such accreditation system must not be too complicated or too costly to comply. The emphasis of the system should be to build the ‘‘brand and image’’ of the participating organizations, especially small and medium size NGOs. An example of external accreditation that causes minimum additional work to NGOs is the US based website Charity Navigator. It evaluates the financial health of charities based in their tax returns (Form 990). Charities are evaluated on seven categories in the areas of organizational efficiency and capacity. They are then assigned a place on a four-star rating scale (http://www.charitynavigator.org; 12/8/2008). The site was apparently so helpful that it was named one of the top 50 websites of the year in 2006 by the Time magazine (Buechner, 2006).
International Perspectives Broadly speaking, there are four types of social auditing mechanisms. They vary from one that is set up by the government to one that is developed by NGOs. 1. Charities Commission One option to enhance social auditing of NGOs is through the establishment of a statutory, semipublic charities commission. Such a commission is an independent regulator and registrar of charitable NGOs, ensuring that registered charities are operating for the public benefit. The Charity Commission for England and Wales is such an example (http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk; 12/8/2008). It was established by law and has the responsibilities of regulating charities in order to increase charities’ efficiency and effectiveness and public confidence and trust
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in them. The Commission’s principal roles include registration, oversight, public information and facilitation. The advantage of a charities commission that is backed by a statute is its all encompassing nature – covering important accountability areas, such as registration, oversight, and public disclosure. The commission can be an effective social auditing mechanism, protecting rights of the donating public, the service recipients and the government. For NGOs, registration with the commission and compliance with its reporting requirements help build up their credibility and in turn assist in fundraising. This may be especially important for medium and small NGOs that do not have a consistent source of funding and have to rely on public donations. The oversight function of a charities commission will also force the NGOs to improve internal management and governance to avoid intervention by the commission. 2. Government-led Social Auditing Efforts In places where the government is the major funding provider and the primary regulator of fundraising activities, it has the potential of imposing some consistent accountability requirements on the NGOs. The benefit of government-led social auditing efforts is universal applicability and likelihood of compliance. When the government is the biggest funding provider, NGOs have much incentive to comply with the requirements. 3. NGO Self-Regulation NGOs could develop a set of self-regulatory accountability system. A good example in this regard is the Credibility Alliance in India (http://www.credibilityalliance.org; 12/ 8/2008). The Credibility Alliance is a consortium of voluntary organizations and networks, which has come together to enhance good governance and further the sector’s public credibility. The aim of the Credibility Alliance is to devise a self-regulatory mechanism that enhances the accountability and transparency of the NGO sector in India based upon the principle of voluntary disclosure. Specifically, it developed two accountability tools: the Norms, for voluntary disclosure of information; and an Accreditation System, based on verification of NGO performance against the Credibility Alliance’s standards of good governance. To become a member of the Credibility Alliance, an NGO must meet the minimum norms, which is basically a process of self certification and involves only a desk review of documents by a Credibility Alliance team. If an NGO wants to receive accreditation from Credibility Alliance, it will be assessed by an accreditation agency on the basis of Credibility Alliance’s norms of good governance. The hope is that the standards set by the Credibility Alliance will gain growing public trust among the NGOs in India.
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The advantage of a sector wide self-regulatory system is its voluntary and participatory nature. NGOs are more likely to accept a system that emerges from within the sector rather than in the form of compulsory regulation. With NGO participation, it is easier to achieve consensus as to the appropriate standards to be adopted. The biggest obstacle probably lies in the initial creation of the selfregulatory mechanism and the need to obtain a critical mass of support from the NGOs to make it a feasible long term endeavor. 4. External Accreditation External accreditation has been adopted in many countries. An example is the accreditation system adopted by the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance (here after referred to as the ‘‘BBB Alliance’’) in the United States. The BBB Alliance launched an accreditation system using a Charity Seal (http://us.bbb.org/WWWRoot/SitePage.aspx?site = 113&id = 6a21a739-e081–4e1a-9e51a6983b8a4587; 12/8/2008). The objective of the program is to offer a highly visible accountability tool that will help inform donors, assist charities in establishing their commitment to ethical practices, and encourage greater confidence in giving. Participation by NGO is entirely voluntary. To qualify for use of the Charity Seal, a national charity must be found by the BBB Alliance to meet its Standards for Charity Accountability, sign a licensing agreement and pay an annual fee. The Standards consists of 20 separate requirements in the areas of governance and oversight, measuring effectiveness, finances, and fundraising and informational materials. Participating national charities are required to submit a variety of support documents and related information for the BBB Alliance to evaluate its compliance with the Standards. In addition, the BBB Alliance collects and distributes information on hundreds of NGOs through the Charity Reports system which is available online. The goal of the charity report is to serve donors’ information needs and also help donors to make their own decisions regarding charitable giving. Some of the major problems of adopting external accreditation are that its implementation is costly in terms of time and financial requirements. Finding a right host organization to implement such system is also challenging. Furthermore, the development of a set of widely acceptable charity accountability standards requires extensive consultation within the NGO sector.
Future Directions Social auditing may grow in the future as more and more donors demand accountability and openness
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from NGO management. This is not to say that all NGOs welcome the procedure. NGOs may resist the idea because they may perceive such a process as questioning their good and noble intention; and the process is likely to impose additional workload to their busy schedule. However, the absence of clearly defined ownership and accountability in many NGOs exposes the gullibility of good intention donors to potential fraud. There is therefore growing demand for social auditing. As discussed above, there are different models of social audits; some are less demanding and onerous. Thus NGOs are able to choose the kind of social audit model that fits their work and the scale of their organization. Furthermore, when the aim of social auditing is to enhance NGOs’ credibility and the process is also a means for self-improvement, the practice of social auditing will become more common.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Fundraising ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Guide Star ▶ Legitimacy ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Performance and Impact ▶ Social Accountability International ▶ Social Accounting ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Transparency ▶ United Way
References/Further Readings Arenson, K. (1995, April 4). Former United Way chief guilty in theft of more than $600,000. New York Times, pp. A1, A22. Buechner, M. (2006, August 03). 50 coolest websites 2006: New and information, from http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599, 1222574,00.html#charitynavigator Cutt, J. (2000). Accountability and effectiveness evaluation in non-profit organizations. London: Routledge. Dawson, E. (1988). The relevance of social audit for Oxfam GB. Journal of Business Ethics, 17, 1457–1469. Dunford, B. (1997, September 28). Trustees’ of Hawaii’s Bishop Estate come under increasing fire. Los Angeles Times, from http://articles. latimes.com/1997/sep/28/local/me-37033 Fletcher, M. (1999, March 16). Baptist group President to resign. The Washington Post, p. A2. Frumkin, P. (2002). On being nonprofit: A conceptual and policy primer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Purdam, T. S. (1999, May 15). For six billion Hawaii legacy, a new day. New York Times, from http://www.lava.net/cslater/$6Billion.htm Episcopal church ex-treasurer gets five years for embezzlement. (1996, July 11). The Washington Post.
Social Capital, Definition of KAI BRAUER Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Introduction A lively discussion about the chances of social capital and the goals and values connected with it has been carried out in in the last two decades. Social capital thus became an aspiration for those political classes that wanted to strengthen neither the market nor the state, but rather something in between, the civil society. Though at first it was less a matter of volunteering in the strictest sense, but a broader view of the effects of social networks. The social capital debate met with enormous interest, as ‘‘discovering’’ and describing a new resource arouses desires. It appeared as if a source for systematically unburdening public budgets had been found. Theoretically, however, a minimum of social capital should be a guarantee for democratic and economic development. It was Robert D. Putnam who first held this position and he gave reasons for it in the book, Making Democracy Work, that he wrote together with Robert Leonardi and Rafaela Y. Nanetti. The decisive impulse for this debate was, however, given by an essay in the Journal of Democracy (Putnam, 1995; Paxton, 1999: 89). Though the positions of Making Democracy Work and Bowling Together soon turned out to be not without contradiction. The definitional specification and measurement of social capital-relevant phenomena remains problematic. Even though the current usage of the concept of social capital was shaped by Putnam, it remains unclear if it is not differentiated using earlier definitions.
Definition Putnam had already introduced the definition for the concept of social capital, which is central for the argumentation, in the studies of the development of democracy based on the example of Italy (Putnam, 1993). This analysis is often seen as a milestone of democracy research (Tarrow, 1996), because Putnam succeeded in combining historical, cultural, and institutional research to create an independent new approach for explaining democratic stability and economic prosperity through civic engagement. Thus it was Putnam’s definition (and not the later definitions proposed by Bourdieu, Coleman, or Loury) that was subsequently used (Paxton, 1999). What is the difference between the definitions? Pierre Bourdieu differentiated between three types of capital. In addition to economic capital, according to
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Marx the ‘‘actual’’ capital, he recognized cultural and social capital as being responsible for the structure of inequality in a society (Bourdieu, 1986). The allocation of cultural capital is determined above all by family origin; it refers to the access and the practicing of class and stratum-specific knowledge components and skills (e.g., performing music and learning classical languages are mentioned specifically), as well as style and taste. Children from underclass milieus thus lack not only economic, but also cultural, capital. In addition they also lack the necessary social capital for breaking out of their status. According to Bourdieu social capital consists primarily of the social networks of family and relationships. The necessary contacts and connections are generally more important for achieving a rewarding position in society than economic and cultural capital. In contrast, Putnam’s definition starts at a different level: ‘‘By analogy with notions of physical capital and human capital. . . ‘social capital’ refers to features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit’’ (Putnam, 1995: 67). While social capital is assigned to a person (or family) by Bourdieu, Putnam locates it in the public sphere: ‘‘Social capital . . . is . . . ordinarily a public good, unlike conventional capital, which is ordinarily a private good’’ (Putnam, 1993: 170). According to Putnam, Bourdieu’s three forms of capital (including his definition of social capital) can therefore all be assigned to human capital (material values and the ‘‘infrastructure’’ belong to physical capital). Even if it is separated from the attribution to persons, Putnam’s concept of social capital is hardly compatible with Coleman’s definition. In the late 1980s Coleman worked on the operational requirements for social capital, whereby he picked up on earlier work by Loury (1977) on education and income. In regard to social advancement, Loury paid special attention to the social embedding in addition to individual capabilities and established this as a new field of research. ‘‘It may thus be useful to employ a concept of social capital to represent the consequences of social position in facilitating acquisition of the standard human capital characteristics’’ (Loury, 1977: 176). Coleman leaves out this task by connecting different analysis levels and describes social capital in domination and trust relationships and as a phenomenon of collective action (free rider problem etc.). In doing so, social capital becomes a good which, in terms of general economic exchange theory, is explainable according to the standards of rational choice models. Social capital is thereby both a result and a resource in exchange relations, thus an individual characteristic and a good that varies according to
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the social situation: ‘‘Social capital is defined by its function. It is not a single entity, but a variety of different entities having two characteristics in common: They all consist of some aspect of social structure, and they facilitate certain actions of individuals who are within the structure. Like other forms of capital, social capital is productive, making possible the achievement of certain ends that would not be attainable in its absence’’ (Coleman, 1990: 302). Any kind of structural determination should explain the operational requirements for social capital that in the end, however, remains tied to individual persons. The network approaches of Ronald Burt (Burt, 1984, 1987, 1992) and Nan Lin (1982, see also: Lin et al., 2001) have a similar point of origin. Social capital arises here from relationships between (at least) two persons (‘‘knots’’ in a network) and is conceived through the variables information and control, which can only arise through the relationship between the knots. One could now ask to which extent certain forms of networks offer more or less social capital for the individual. This also ties up with the approach of Mark social capital Granovetter (1973), who drew attention to a peculiarity of networks in his much acclaimed article ‘‘The Strength of Weak Ties.’’ Many loose contacts appear to be more favorable for the structure of a network than a few close relationships. At the same time it also dealt with the use of networks at the individual level. He looked at what positions in networks and types of relationships are especially advantageous, e.g., when looking for a job (Granovetter, 1974). None of these approaches and definitions touched off such a strong public interest in the concept of social capital as did Putnam’s definition. For Putnam, neither the sociology of inequality implications (as by Bourdieu), personal advantage (as by Burt and Lin), the action theory problems at the level of the participants (as by Coleman), nor the use for the network itself (as by Granovetter) is relevant. For Putnam it is the environment of the networks, as far as possible the society, that possesses social capital For this purpose Putnam starts with concrete, localizable places, as Jane Jacobs (1961) and Lydia J. Hanifan (1920) did before him. Typical, culturally anchored social relationship structures are sought there. We are thus dealing with a space-related approach that differs from personal approaches. It is Putnam’s spacerelated approach that has formed the actual and general definition of social capital more strongly that the participant-based approaches. This appears, e.g., in the official definitions of the World Bank and the OECD. For the World Bank, any kind of sources and conditions for economic development are interesting. The concept of the World Bank understands social capital to
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be – in an obvious allusion to Putnam’s definition – the social coherence of societies, especially basic normative principles of trust: ‘‘Social capital refers to the norms and networks that enable collective action. Increasing evidence shows that social cohesion ‘social capital’ is critical for poverty alleviation and sustainable human and economic development’’ (The World Bank, 1998). Informal, intermediary, and formal organizations are not differentiated here. According to the World Bank definition, social capital consists of all institutions, relationships, and norms that develop an influence on the quality and quantity of social interaction. The goal of the World Bank is to use the potential for an increase in social and economic growth that is attributed to social capital and the definition turns out to be correspondingly broad. The OECD pursues a similar concept, especially for developmental aid and advice. In the concept of social capital used there, the social environment in which economic growth should take place is allowed for. The inclusion of different organizational forms in the definition of social capital (from national, regional, and local organizations to NGOs and small neighborhood mutual aid associations) is intended to facilitate the cooperation between and in different groups. A loss of social capital must be counteracted by the OECD because otherwise no endogenous development would be possible and permanent aid and (exogenous) administrative interventions would remain permanently necessary.
Key Issues A central point of conflict in the social capital debate is over the types of relationships and trust that were intended and should actually contribute to the development of civic society. Quite obviously, we can neither treat every form of relationship (marriage, friendship, exchange relationship, slavery) nor every form of association (club, company, cooperative, army, religious community, administrative bureaucracy, Mafia) equally. With regard to social capital we always think of voluntary forms of relationships and groups that in some way operate positively. How can we conceive of them, however, and logically or structurally assign them to social capital, without resorting to a normative predefinition? These kinds of ambiguities in the social capital theory make for misunderstandings. The question of which organizations can be reckoned to social capital appears at first glance to be easy. Without question it is the nonprofit organizations, the nonprofit sector, that is at the focus of interest (Anheier and Salamon, 1999). It becomes more difficult when we attempt to draw boundaries, to ask which organizations, networks, and actions tend to
support or not support social capital and whether this corresponds to the development of modern societies. Modernity of Social Capital
To begin with, Putnam (1993, 1995) starts not with organizations, but ‘‘dense networks’’ und ‘‘networks of organized reciprocity,’’ which make possible and stabilize economic growth and democratic development: ‘‘In fact, historical analysis suggested that. . . networks of organized reciprocity and civic solidarity, far from being an epiphenomenon of socioeconomic modernization, were a precondition for it’’ (Putnam, 1995: 67). Which forms of networks and relationships this could refer to would have to be really clarified. For the United States, Putnam (1995) documented a decline in these forms. Besides others, he makes four factors responsible for this: the increased employment of women, the increased mobility, the generational change and the increased spread of technology in leisure time (increased television consumption). These four developments disrupt face-to-face contacts in the communities and lead to more individual or isolated activities being carried out. The negative effects on emotional closeness, contact frequencies and involvement in intermediary organizations have, however, been theoretically challenged and to a great extent empirically refuted. Employment has, e.g., a positive effect on civic commitment (Wuthnow, 2001: 691); mobility does not automatically lead to breaking off social contacts and less participation in organizations (Wuthnow, 2001: 970). The complex effects of mass communication technologies have already been extensively dealt with in the wake of Postman (1985) and should definitely be considered ambivalent. In his argument about the change in generations Putnam does not take into account the experiences with civil disobedience and does not use them to determine the accordant relationship forms. Putnam takes an antimodernist view in his reasons for a reduction in social capital. Putnam finds it problematic that women who are employed have less time for holding dinner parties and would thus invest less time in direct contacts within their living environment and asserts that: ‘‘The level of social engagement is higher among affluent housewives than among other woman – they spend more time visiting friends, entertaining at home, attending club meetings and so on’’ (Putnam, 2000: 202). Close, long-lasting ties and direct interaction in the living environment are seen as central for establishing trust and become the decisive characteristic of the relationships in which social capital is generated. We are dealing with the direct contact in the neighborhood, independent from the quality of the relationships. It is
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assumed across the board that permanence and proximity are decisive. This also becomes clear in his observations about mobility. ‘‘Numerous studies of organizational involvement have shown that residential stability and such related phenomena as home ownership are clearly associated with greater civic engagement. Mobility, like frequent repotting of plants, tends to disrupt root systems, and it takes time for an uprooted individual to put down new roots. It seems plausible that the automobile, suburbanization, and the movement to the Sun Belt have reduced the social rootedness of the average American . . .’’ (Putnam, 1995: 75). If we follow this biologistic reporting-analogy increased mobility would always lead to an erosion of social capital. As a whole in ‘‘Bowling Alone’’ he laments the decrease of the bonding social capital. These forms of relationships are similar to the Gemeinschaft (in terms of To¨nnies) formed around the ‘‘essential, organic, or natural will’’ (To¨nnies: ‘‘Wesenswillen’’) of the participants. This contradicts the findings of network theory which tended to see loose ties, heterogenic, and nonredundant groups to be more successful for the bridging social capital. This would tend to correspond more to the arbitrary-will (Ku¨rwillen) that To¨nnies ascribed to the relationships in modern societies (Gesellschaften). Thus a considerable doubt arises about the traditionalistic understanding of social capital and the thus predicted decline through flexibilization and individualization. The way in which network structures that produce bridging social capital can develop in modernly structured civil societies must be empirically clarified. The Measurement of Social Capital
Club memberships, commitment, and trust are generally used as indicators for social capital. In a comprehensive overview of the standard quantitative research on social capital up to now, Tristan Claridge (only available on the Internet: www.gnudung.com) shows that most studies refer both to individual aspects and to several aspects of the definition of social capital. Thus, for example, Cox, and Caldwell (2000), Glaeser et al. (2000) and Newton (2001) suggest using the variable trust to show social capital O’Connell (2003), Price (2002), Warde et al. (2003) and Wollebaek and Selle (2003) measure on the other hand above all memberships in formal organizations. Lappe et al. (1997), Lochner et al. (2003) and Veenstra (2002) use both variables. Isham et al. (2002), Skrabski et al. (2003) and Staveren (2003) suggest a mix of these variables plus reciprocity norms. Zhao (2002), on the other hand, only operationalizes social capital as network contacts. Grootaert (2001) finds a whole palette of indicators and index values (including the unemployment,
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criminality, and suicide rates and the percentage of illegitimate children) that are included, with differing weighting, in the measurement. Putnam himself applied the social capital index (SCI), an instrument made up of 14 variables which measure five groups of characteristics (Putnam, 2000: 291): (1) community organizational life (five variables: percent of the population who served on committees or served as officers in local organizations, civic, and social organizations per 1,000 inhabitants, average number of club meetings attended last year, average number of group memberships), (2) engagement in public affairs (two variables: turnout in presidential elections, attendance of local public meetings), (3) community volunteerism (three variables: nonprofit organizations per 1,000 inhabitants, average work on community projects, average number of times volunteer work was performed), (4) informal stability (two variables) and, finally, two variables for social trust. The main focus of the variables regarding community benefits and contacts in the SCI correspond to the conceptual linkage of the term social capital to the community: ‘‘In other words, these 14 indicators measure related but distinct facets of community-based social capital, and we have combined them into a single social capital Index’’ (Putnam, 2000: 291). The variables are, however, not analyzed for the community or personal level, but are attributed to larger units (states), whereby the southern states exhibit lower SCI values than the northern states. The explanation of the longue duree´ political cultures that Putnam offers for social capital can be interpreted as indications of the modernity of social capital as higher SCI values go along with an accelerated increase in options through a clear detraditionalization as well as greater social and regional mobility. Furthermore, the following elementary aspects of the theory are not included in the measurement: (1) the effects of ‘‘dense networks’’ (which are not shown in the number of members in large organizations); (2) the difference between bonding and bridging social capital; (3) the reduction in ties from primary to secondary and tertiary organizations. In addition (4) the distinction between the positive effects of vertical ties and the negative effects of horizontal networks (patronage), which was so important in the first form of the theory (Putnam, 1993: 175), is abandoned. These questions can hardly be depicted quantitatively. Thus measurement in the area of third sector research will lead to simpler and better comparisons of social capital. However, for a test of the assumptions of Putnam (1993), qualitative case studies in which a structural correlation between concrete local developments and the form of ‘‘dense networks’’ would be described would be more enlightening.
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Some qualitative studies of this topic are already available, especially some very interesting community studies. For example, in the Colombo study Susan Eckstein (2001) sharply criticizes the middle-class orientation of the research on civic participation. With the depiction of the Colombo Christmas Association (CCA) and the networks that form around it, she shows the extent to which ties which are declared to be ‘‘collective roots’’ can be develop in a poorer region. In contrast Michael Schulman und Cynthia Anderson (1999) show the decline of a paternalistic structure in which no social capital could develop on the basis of traditional ties using the example of the development of the housing development Kannapolis. On the other hand, in Ivanhoe, an impoverished former mining town in southern Appalachians, a local voluntary organization was formed that, in direct confrontation with the administrations responsible, averted an abandonment of the location and initiated a revitalization of the local economy (Hinsdale et al., 1995). A similar development could be demonstrated in Clanton, a rural community in the American Midwest (Brauer, 2005). In the study, a dialectic relationship between competition and cooperation emerged as a central driving force of the social organization and was responsible for the fact that the community studied was prosperous while in neighboring communities (with similar conditions) a negative economic development and a shrinking infrastructure could be observed. Ethnographic analyses of local structures, as well as the case studies which Putnam assembled (2002), can increase the understanding of the principles and the chances of social capital. Negative Social Capital?
Even though hopes are pinned on the effects of social capital, we have to take warnings about possible negative effects seriously. Each time a group is formed a distinction is made between insiders and outsiders (Elias), thus some people (nonmembers) will be excluded. Many of the socially involved groups are primarily middle-class constructions. Donations from rich persons can undermine the governmental distribution according to need through respective tax deficits. Does a society that is based on strong local social capital develop into a civil society or, due to its dependence on benevolent patronages, rather into a feudal (aristocratic) society? Can the same hopes be pinned on social capital in emerging countries that Putnam does for Italy and the United States? Should collective actions that are carried out in local communities always be described as social capital? In the contexts of villages in developing countries social capital is not advantageous for all members of the community. A network
without a democratic culture would thus not automatically result in effective economic solutions and a suddenly democratic decision-making process. Similar arguments can be found in Schulman and Anderson for the rural United States also. On the other hand, this criticism is hardly aimed at social capital in itself, but rather at traditional network relationships. These can very well be antidemocratic, exclusionary, and negative for economic development. Social capital itself does not act as an obstacle for democratic and economic development provided that accordant factors are included. These are reflected, e.g., in the SCI: voter turnout, generalized trust, participation in local and regional organizations. The critical question which still remains is which organizations exhibit the decisive characteristics that are laid out in the concept of social capital. The answer to this question is a task for the future. Relationship to the State
Here there are three views. According to a strict liberal view, any kind of governmental support for social capital must be rejected. In fact, many of the exemplary networks arose in conflict with the state and its institutions, namely with a clear emancipatory concern, against governmental arbitrariness and for more decision-making powers for individual citizens. Opposed to this are authoritarian approaches. They accept social capital only in ‘‘orderly’’ forms: the communists’ system of councils (Sowjets, Ra¨te) or the National Socialists’ uncivil forms of engagement (in the concept of ‘‘Folgschaft’’). For the one side tightly organized networks serve only to ‘‘overcome’’ the free market society, for the other they serve the destruction of democracy. Both result in the absolute power of the form of government dictatorship, which is the opposite of the civil society and thus does not need social capital in terms of Putnam’s theory. Here that type of ‘‘compliance’’ is required that was used, e.g., by the ‘‘Subbotniks’’ (‘‘voluntary’’ unpaid work on Sunday in the USSR) or the ‘‘Reichsarbeitsdienst’’ in fascist Germany. Both could be counted as social capital, but this would be virtually absurd in the background of a clear social capital definition. The measurement of social capital in those uncivilian contexts would be bring eventually low scores of social capital by using the SCI. The third, corporatist approaches represent a middle course between liberal and authoritarian definitions of social capital Here it is possible that social capital can be promoted, in its structure (e.g., through corresponding legal protection of associations), indirectly (through tax breaks) and directly (through governmental subsidies). In comparisons of societies we see again and again that there
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is no contradiction between a high level of engagement for the civil society and a high level of social welfare transfers. Even in the United States many forms of civic engagement are directly and indirectly promoted by local government, states, and federal agencies.
Future Directions The current development in the direction of the ‘‘Longevity Society’’ (Butler, 2008) represents the greatest potential for the social capital. The increasing share of healthy and fit elderly, to the extent that they no longer have to provide for their own livelihood and thus have more time for those relationships that Putnam localizes in the ‘‘dense networks,’’ can provide for the strengthening of social capital in a society (cf. the entry ‘‘Civil society and the elderly’’). This is only rewarding, however, when the premises for social capital are observed. If nothing else, since the World Bank and the OECD consider social capital to be important for development, the strengthening of respective infrastructures and networks will remain in the discussion and practical recommendations will be sought. It is self-evident that any kind of economic and democratic developments are dependent on the sociocultural context conditions that are connected with social capital. The strengthening of social capital in the communities is necessary to facilitate an independent and self-supporting (endogenous) development in local areas that extricates itself from dependence on subsidies and from bureaucratic paternalism (through regional rulers, governmental ministries as well as the World Bank and the OECD themselves, see Woolcock and Naravan, 2000). For the future it is important to consider which aspects of the variables that have been used to measure social capital up to now increase and decrease, which of them will need to be supported, which are less relevant for the future development, and which would tend to be detrimental. Since this discussion is just starting, we can only suggest a few reference points here. On the one hand, we can tie on to the work of Robert Wuthnow, who contrasted the decline in memberships in some large organizations with a less noticed but enormous upsurge (a quiet revolution) of small local groups. In the measurement concepts and in our assessments it will be more these smaller and more transitory groups (in the sense of grassroots movements) that will be counted on in the future than older and more established large organizations like the PTA or the AARP. The findings of Wuthnow (1994) show vividly that the (religious) support groups that he investigated do not bring about an uncontrolled development or even undermine the society, but lead rather to a vital civil society. The participation in
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temporary actions focused on a goal is increasing in general (Wuthnow, 2001). The engagement exercised in the course of this adapts to the requirements of individualization: ‘‘These efforts generally do not take the same forms as they had in the past because of the increased diversity, fluidity, interdependence, and specialization of contemporary life’’ (Wuthnow, 1998: 202). Others have also alluded to these particular aspects of the American type of association. Thus Theda Skocpol (2002) showed what concrete features the American associations have that can be separated from ‘‘romantic’’ conceptions of a ‘‘nation of joiners’’ based on de Toqueville. The increase in social capital – measured by the engagement for the society – has grown in more recent history. The participation in groups that oppose discrimination increased six to seven times between 1955 and 1985; a multitude of interest groups (public interest groups, advocacy groups) emerged that represent and enforce public interest (child protection, environmental protection). Their influence on certain lobby groups, that court and maintain contacts to the established parties for them (and not only for economic associations), has increased. Skocpol warns against giving up certain basic elements in the transition from old to new forms of civil society in the United States. Among these are social inclusion through face-to-face contacts in socially heterogeneous associations that are successively being replaced by socially stratified interest representations. On the one hand, the organizational type ‘‘socially homogeneous dignitaries association’’ is experiencing a revival. Furthermore younger active people are finding enough commitment in groups that are very limited, fluctuating, and oriented toward self-interest, and they have a sufficiently good conscience of doing something good for the community after impersonally donating money to national and international organizations. Thus small local initiatives have to be strengthened in which differing social groups pursue a goal together which they accomplish jointly through personal commitment. If we regard the theoretical considerations together with the quantitative and qualitative findings and ask which characteristics informal groups, formal organizations or networks should have if on the one hand they should strengthen the social capital in their region and, on the other hand, be attractive and interesting enough to bind individualized actors, there are four structural characteristics that can be discussed for the future definition of social capital: 1. Heterogeneity or diversity. This provides for the characteristic of bridging. Without the representation of
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different social groups in the engagement, only bonding capital would be created. Structures with a homogeneous status hardly provide the participants with contact and recognition in their community. Necessary for this are rules like ‘‘one man one vote’’ in order to equalize the internal power imbalances to accomplish group goals. In traditional contexts activities are often initiated by Gemeinschaften that are organized with a homogeneous status (according to castes or classes) and thus do not necessarily form productive social capital. Bourdieu’s analysis started here: his differentiating social capital used exclusive networks and thus tended to function in an exclusionary manner. Networks only form social capital as a common good for the civil society when through heterogeneous groups and direct – personal – contacts the existing networks (families, organizations) are made accessible for the neighborhood. Furthermore, according to the findings of network research, heterogeneous groups are more successful as a system because they are less redundant. 2. Optionality: Without a free choice, group memberships remain compulsory communities. We can only refer to social capital when a range of engagement possibilities is discernible. If there is no choice between different types of engagement there are fewer possibilities for decisionmaking and the incentive for commitment sinks. Exclusive access, ‘‘lifelong’’ membership, a threat of sanctions against members who leave the group and loyalty to directives are the opposite of optionality and narrow the scope for decision-making. They lead to the principle of Folgschaft which is typical for traditionalistic sects or uncivil governmentally organized services (especially for national defense). Social capital does not evolve as well when the commitment invested is not perceived as a personal choice. 3. Status potential: social capital does not emerge without societal recognition for voluntary involvement. The intensity of the participation in nonprofit actions must lead to an improvement of a person’s position in the status framework in the community. This quasibenefit represents on the one hand an individually attributable value of social capital that cannot be replaced by wage or wage compensation benefits at present. If involvement in nonprofit activities is compensated by a wage-like low payment, this can have negative effects on the status potential and on the social capital. On the other hand, the symbolic ‘‘profit’’ has to be incorporated in the societal recognition, as it is by no means self-evident as is the case with altruistic motives (e.g., the mother-child-relationship). When actions that serve the group are presupposed as
understood (like in traditional societies), then the element of status potential is lacking. 4. Transparency: The conspiracy of the Mafia, secret societies and intelligence services form the typological antipode to transparency, which is necessary for the development of civic involvement and thus of social capital. Groups of actors and nonprofit companies that cultivate few personal relationships with their environment, where there is a lack of clarity about their policies, jurisdictions, and the disposition of their funds will hardly achieve a democratizing effect and not produce any social capital. Activities that are relevant for social capital thus require openness ‘‘from the beginning’’ as a matter of principle. Differing contexts will affect the social capital in each society and each community. A promotion of groups or structures that are not transparent, do not offer status potential, present themselves as without alternatives for the addressees and allow little scope for making decisions (no optionality), and are closed for other ethnic groups, castes, classes, age groups, as well as political and religious persuasions (little heterogeneity) will not lead to the development of economic and political contexts and contradict the concept of social capital.
Cross-References
▶ AARP ▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ Civil Society and the Elderly ▶ Coleman, James ▶ Collective Action ▶ Elias, Norbert ▶ Grassroots Assocications ▶ OECD ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Skocpol, Theda ▶ Social capital, Definition of ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Social Trust ▶ To¨ennies, Ferdinand ▶ Volunteers ▶ World Bank
References/Further Readings Anheier, H., & Kendall, J. (2002). Interpersonal trust and voluntary associations. British Journal of Sociology, 53, 343–362. Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (1999). Civil society in comparative perspective. In L. M. Salamon et al. (Eds.), Global civil society. Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (pp. 3–40). Baltimore: John Hopkins University Institute for Policy Studies.
Social Capital, Definition of Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic Books. ¨ konomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kapital, soziales Bourdieu, P. (1986). O Kapital. In R. Kreckel (Hg.) Soziale Ungleichheiten, Go¨ttingen, Soziale Welt Sonderband 2 (pp. 183–198). Brauer, K. (2005). Bowling Together. Clan, Clique und Community und die Strukturprinzipien des Sozialkapitals. Wiesbaden, Germany: VS Verlag. Burt, R. (1984). Network items and the general social survey. Social Networks, 6, 293–339. Burt, R. (1987). A note on strangers, friends and happiness. Social Networks, 9, 311–331. Burt, R. (1992). Structural holes: The social structure of competition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Butler, R. N. (2008). The longevity revolution. The benefits and challenges of living a long live. New York: Public Affairs. Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94(Suppl.), 95–S120. Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cox, E., & Caldwell, P. (2000). Making policy social. In I. Winter (Ed.), Social capital and public policy in Australia (pp. 43–73). Melbourne, Australia: National Library of Australia. Eckstein, S. (2001). Community as gift-giving: Collective roots of volunteerism. American Sociological Review, 66, 829–851. Elias, N., & Scotson, J. L. (1965). The established and the outsiders. A sociological enquiry into community problems. London: Frank Cass. Glaeser, Edward L., Laibson, David I., Scheinkman, Jose A., & Soutter, Christine L. (2000). Measuring Trust. Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2000, 115(3), 811–846. Glaeser, E. L., Laibson, D., & Sacerdote, B. (2002). An economic approach to social capital. The Economic Journal, 112, 437–458. Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1360–1380. Granovetter, M. (1974). Getting a job. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Granovetter, M. (1982). The strength of weak ties. A network theory revisited. In P. V. Marsden & N. Lin (Eds.), Social structure and network analysis (pp. 105–130). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Grootaert, C. (2001). Social capital: The missing link. In E. M. Uslaner (Ed.), Social capital and participation in everyday life (pp. 9–29). London: Routledge. Hanifan, L. J. (1920). The communty center. Boston: Silver Budett. Hinsdale, M. A., Lewis, H. M., & Waller, M. S. (1995). It comes from the people. Community development and local theology. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Isham, J., Kelley, T., & Ramaswamy, S. (2002). Social capital and wellbeing in developing countries. In S. Ramaswamy (Ed.), Social capital and economic development: Well-being in developing countries. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Jacobs, J. (1961). Tod und Leben großer amerikanischer Sta¨dte, Frankfurt/ M, Germany. (Engl. version suchen xxx). Lappe, F. M., & Du Bois, P. M. (1997). Building social capital without looking backward. National Civic Review, 86(2), 119. Lin, N. (1982). Social resources and instrumental action. In P. V. Marsden & N. Lin (Eds.), Social structure and network analysis (pp. 131–145). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Lin, N., Cook, K. S., & Burton, R. S. (Eds.) (2001). Social capital: Theory and research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Lochner, K. A., Kawachi, I., & Brennan, R. T. (2003). Social capital and neighborhood mortality rates in Chicago. Social Science & Medicine, 56, 1797–1805.
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Loury, G. (1977). A dynamic theory of racial income differences. In P. Wallace & A. La Mond (Ed.), Women, minorities, and employment discrimination. Lexington, MA: Heath. Newton, K. (1997). Social capital and democracy. American Behavioral Scientist, 40, 575–586. Newton, K. (2001). Trust, social capital, civil society, and democracy. International Political Science Review, 22, 201–214. O’Connell, M. (2003). Anti ‘‘Social Capital.’’ Civic values versus economic equality in the EU. European Sociological Review, 19, 241. Paxton, P. (1999). Is social capital declining in the United States? A multiple indicator assesment. American Journal of Sociology, 105, 88–127. Postman, Neil. (1985). Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. Penguin. Price, B. (2002). Social capital and factors affecting civic engagement as reported by leaders of voluntary associations. Social Science Journal, 39, 119–127. Putnam, R. D. (1993) (in collab. with Leonardi, R., & Nanetti, R. Y.). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. D. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6, 65–78. Putnam, R. D. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and the revival of American community. New York: Simon & Schuster. Putnam, R. D. (Ed.) (2002). Democracies in flux: The evolution of social capital in contemporary society. New York: Oxford University Press. Schulman, M. D., & Anderson, C. (1999). The dark side of the force: A case study of restructuring and social capital. Rural Sociology, 64, 351–372. Skocpol, T. (2002). From membership to advocacy. In R. D. Putnam (Ed.), Democracies in flux (pp. 103–137). New York: Oxford University Press. Skocpol, T., & Morris, F. (Ed.) (1999). Making sense of the civic engagement debate. In Civic engagement in American democracy. Washington, DC: Brookings/Russell Sage. Skrabski, A., Kopp, M., & Kawachi, I. (2003). Social capital in a changing society: Cross sectional associations with middle aged female and male mortality rates. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 57, 114. Staveren, I. V. (2003). Beyond social capital in poverty research. Journal of Economic Issues, 37, 415–424. Tarrow, S. (1996). Making Social Science work across space and time: A critical reflection on Robert Putnam’s making democracy work. American Political Science Review, 90, 389–397. The World Bank. (1998). The Initiative on defining, monitoring and measuring social capital. Overview and program description, social capital initiative working paper no. 1, The World Bank, Washington, DC, iii. Veenstra, G. (2002). Explicating social capital: Trust and participation in the civil. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 27, 547–574. Warde, A., et al. (2003). Trends in social capital: Membership of associations in Great Britain, 1991–1998. British Journal of Political Science, 33, 515. Wollebaek, D., & Selle, P. (2003). Participation and social capital formation: Norway in a comparative perspective. Scandinavian Political Studies, 26, 67–91. Woolcock, M. (2001). Microenterprise and social capital: A framework for theory, research, and policy. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 30, 193–198. Woolcock, M. (2002). Social capital in theory and practice: Where do we stand? In S. Ramaswamy (Ed.), Social capital and economic development: Well-being in developing countries. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
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Woolcock, M., & Narayan, D. (2000). Social capital: Implications for development theory, research, and policy. The World Bank Research Observer, 15, 225–249. Woolcock, M. (1998). Social capital and economic development: Towards a theoretical synthesis and policy framework. Theory and Society, 27, 151–208. Wuthnow, R. (1994). Sharing the journey: Support groups and America’s new quest for community. New York: Free Press. Wuthnow, R. (1998). Loose connections: Joining together in America’s fragmented communities. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wuthnow, R. (2001). Bridging the privileged and the marginalized? In R. D. Putnam (Ed.), Democracies in flux (pp. 59–102). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zhao, Y. (2002). Measuring the social capital of laid-off Chinese workers. Current Sociology, 50, 555–571.
Social Change Organizations SUSAN A. OSTRANDER Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
Introduction The term ‘‘social change,’’ or more often just ‘‘change,’’ is frequently heard in today’s popular and political discourse, often as a positive referent. Yet the meaning and content of this ‘‘change’’ are most often unspecified, and people across the ideological spectrum sometimes use the term. For social scientists and others for whom social change is a focus of studied attention, what defines and constitutes social change is more widely agreed yet still complex and contested. The place of organizations in bringing about and sustaining social change is likewise debated though increasingly there is agreement that stable and well-resourced change-oriented organizations, preferably with paid staff, are necessary – or at least desirable – for significant and lasting change. Yet, some still argue that establishing formal organizations weakens social change efforts. This school of thought – largely outside the purview of this entry – prefers protest activity that is less reliant on paid professional staff and less dependent on resources required to support them. Earlier thinking (at least in the United States before the 1960s) understood people coming together to press for change to be relatively rare, transitory, and brought about by spontaneous mass behavior precipitated by some unusual event. Newer thinking (in the United States beginning in the 1970s through the 1990s) located social change activity in relation to resources made available to do the
work of change. This emphasis on resources led to a body of research and theorizing about social change/social justice funding, some urging charitable foundations to offer more grants to social change organizations while at the same time cautioning these organizations from being co-opted by foundation support (Faber & McCarthy, 2005). Most recently, social scientists have framed change activity in relation to political opportunity. Both of these theories since the 1970s accept the continuous presence of issues to be addressed and constituencies ready to mobilize for change if the resources and the opportunities arise.
Definition A social change organization is most often defined as one that addresses systemic, root causes of social (political, cultural, and economic) inequalities in an effort to alleviate not only those inequalities but also the underlying conditions and circumstances that bring them about. This is in contrast to change that provides increased opportunities, resources, or services to individuals without addressing the underlying conditions in the society that cause people to need those enhanced opportunities, resources, or services. A social change perspective emphasizes that, while individuals are to some extent agents of their own lives, individual agency occurs within an established set of social structures and patterns. It is those structures and patterns that are the focus for change. Social change, then, is ‘‘structural,’’ meaning that it alters in some way the established institutional arrangements and organized processes through which distribution of valued resources such as wealth, power, and status occurs. Successful social change transforms major institutions in society, altering their meaning and significance as well as their governance and system of rewards. Social change organizations often identify as social movement organizations. Social movements are large mass mobilizations that typically work outside the formal political process though their work may ultimately culminate in efforts to shape that process and the public policies that result from it. Well-known social movements include those for labor, racial and ethnic equality, women, the environment, peace and justice, human rights, and gay and lesbian rights. Social change is, by definition, most often aimed (as are social movements) at members of social groups who have been historically marginalized or excluded from political power, economic resources, and/or cultural forms of recognition and respect. These constituencies have tended in most societies to include low-income and low-wealth classes, people of color and/or other racial-ethnic and
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nationality categories, women, gays and lesbians, and people suffering from religious persecution. Subject to debate is whether (or when) members of these constituencies should be themselves the main agents of change or whether (or when) representation by paid advocates and lobbyists who work on their behalf results in more effective and lasting social change. Most would consider professional advocacy organizations, often focused on changing public policy in a particular issue area, as a key aspect of social change. Some would place special importance instead on grassroots organizing activities led and run by marginalized constituents themselves, perhaps with advice and assistance from professional organizers and advocates.
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Given the large number of issues and constituencies involved in social change organizations internationally, it is not possible to consider more than a few. Based on a scan of readily available social science literature published primarily in peer-reviewed journals, this entry will briefly consider the following areas of (overlapping) attention by social change organizations today: (a) civil society and democracy; (b) human rights; (c) community and economic development; and (d) women.
Current knowledge suggests that a strong civil society enhances democratic governance and an effective state, particularly in terms of civil liberties, political freedoms, political stability, and effective service delivery (Tusalem, 2007). These contributions are important although they may not necessarily increase participation or influence of marginalized groups or address the underlying structural conditions (economic, political, or cultural) in society that cause those groups to be excluded from political participation and access to valued resources. Earlier enthusiasm about civil society organizations’ capacity to bring about social change sufficient to solve major world problems has now tempered. Some claim that global south NGOs, now often favored conduits instead of governments for funds from international donor-lender institutions like the World Bank, have become over-professionalized and bureaucratized and lost touch with the local grassroots social change organizations depending on them for support. One common view today is that while civil society organizations can play a role in developing an organizational infrastructure that can then be used for social change – such as local, national, and transnational networks – these organizations may or may not bring about change directly (Brown et al., 2008; Smith, 1998).
Building Civil Society and Democracy
Advancing Human Rights
This represents perhaps the largest and most broadly defined group of organizations with the potential for engaging in activities defined as social change. Many of the other organizations discussed here could fall into this category. Civil society refers to that segment of public life – including community life – that is open, voluntary, and distinct from the state (though perhaps seeking to influence political or state activity). Disagreement exists about whether to include explicitly political organizations, including social movement organizations, as part of civil society or whether to limit civil society to apolitical groups that bridge social and political differences instead of offering a form for their expression (Foley & Edwards, 1996). Civil society organizations most often function as nongovernmental nonprofits or NGOs (local, national, regional, and transnational) and those considered social change organizations typically advocate for and/or organize marginalized groups to address structural changes. Organizations in this broad category include community organizations, voluntary associations, grassroots social justice organizations, religious groups, advocacy and lobby groups, funding organizations, and civic and political organizations of all kinds.
Nongovernmental nonprofit (NGO) international human rights organizations have historically been mostly involved in education about human rights, setting international standards, and monitoring and enforcing national and local compliance with those standards (Smith et al., 1998). Examples include Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Physicians for Human Rights. Historically they have concerned themselves largely with political and civil rights (e.g., free speech). The 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights was given legal standing in a 1976 international covenant. Current debates center on a call for social, economic, and cultural rights which is becoming more prominent (Nelson & Dorsey, 2007). This broader definition of human rights includes rights to food, health, housing, and education. Rights to water and land are now being urged as well. Some have cautioned against the two extremes of the United Nations’ over-promising of rights versus a tendency to deny the existence of human rights beyond civil and political such as does the current United States government. While most human rights organizations have been based in North America and Western Europe, the
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approximately one third based in the Global South seem most closely defined as social change organizations since they prioritize strengthening citizens’ organizing capacities and transforming national institutions (Smith et al, 1998). Most human rights organizations operate as professional advocacy organizations and do not as a rule play a substantial role in increasing civic or political participation of marginalized (or any other) groups, though they do seek to fundamentally change the policy and practices of governments and other key institutions. Human rights organizations rely heavily on strategies requiring access to formal political institutions consistent with their common focus on legal strategies to guarantee and enforce human rights. This is in contrast to the social movement organizations and grassroots and national human rights organizations that focus more on organizing. While the target of human rights organizations is often government, these organizations also aim to change international nongovernmental financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, or transnational corporations (Nelson & Dorsey, 2007). An example of the latter is the challenge by human rights NGOs (e.g., Oxfam) to pharmaceutical companies’ charging high costs for the drugs used to treat HIV/AIDS (Nelson & Dorsey, 2007). Some have called also for the need to create a human rights culture where individuals are engaged at the grassroots level in developing respect for human dignity, not simply through the state or other large institutions but also grounded in local schools and community. What some see as the erosion of international standards of civil and political rights since the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center in New York City has caused human rights activists and NGOs for a time to reengage their attention with those more traditional standards. Now many are calling again for more focus on a broader definition of economic, social, and cultural rights intended by the 1948 Declaration (Robinson, 2004). Growing extreme world poverty and the HIV/AIDS pandemic are among the most pressing issues that some see as in need of address through a broad notion of human rights centrally defined as the affirmative obligation of states to meet basic needs. Amnesty International is one organization that has extended its mandate to include advocacy for economic, social, and cultural rights. Some human rights leaders also call for an expansion of strategies beyond the ‘‘naming and shaming’’ approach most often used by human rights NGOs where governments are held publicly accountable for adhering to standards to which they have officially
agreed (Robinson, 2004). These strategies would include lobbying and advocacy for resources, and closer collaboration with human rights activists, approaches perhaps most in line with the definition of social change organizations used here. Community and Economic Development
Social change perspectives on community and economic development organizations working internationally, especially in relation to global south countries, often center on critiques of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and their structural adjustment policies, along with their (problematic) role in restraining government expenditures in favor of privatization and markets with little attention to issues such as poverty and equality (Ajakaiy et al., 2008). The need for international and national social change organizations to oppose these policies and offer more just and equitable alternatives is urgently expressed. Attention is also given to discussions of ‘‘economies,’’ governmental policies intended to strengthen those economies, and the role of nongovernmental nonprofits in influencing those policies. Environmental protection as part of economic development especially in countries like China, India, and Russia is of growing concern. Community and economic development encompasses issues such as income and job growth; economic productivity (including ethnic enterprises); and initiatives to avoid and alleviate concentrations of poverty, unemployment, and racial segregation and isolation (Thomas & Darnton, 2006). Since the decline of manufacturing economies, social capital, human capital, and (in regard to metropolitan development) urban amenities such as schools, parks, cultural attractions, etc., have been added to earlier emphases on land, labor, and capital. Those who argue that social capital provides a basis for economic development emphasize the need for a strong sense of social connection and community. Human capital advocates attend to factors such as quality of the workforce urging, in current models, the value of educated and talented and creative people and the ability to attract and retain them. The importance of physical versus human capital development has been a matter for some debate in this field. In the US context, Community Development Corporations (CDCs) have been important, though not uncontested, organizations focusing on urban neighborhood revitalization since the 1960s. CDCs develop affordable housing, commercial property, and local business job opportunities, often in cooperation with banks and other lending institutions, business associations, community foundations, and politicians and government agencies. As with civil society NGOs and human rights
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organizations, some argue that increased professionalization has weakened CDCs’ original commitment to a broad social change mission, to citizen participation, and to grassroots social change community organizing with a close connection to local constituents. Current trends in community development include emphasis on local assets (in contrast to earlier approaches that focused on what community lacked), on the development of social capital, the use of micro-enterprises, and on faith-based community development (Frisch & Servon, 2006). Empowering Women
Both internationally and nationally around the world grassroots women’s organizations can be important forces for social change. While some focus largely on meeting basic needs, many are involved in neighborhood organizing and other forms of collective action for new public policies and political approaches to issues like urban poverty, community and economic development, women’s participation in public decision making, human rights abuses including various forms of political and domestic violence including rape, economic and labor exploitation, and sexual and reproductive rights. Transnational women’s networks formed at events like the United Nations and NGO conferences in Mexico in 1975, Nairobi in 1985, and Beijing in 1995. Examples of organizations include Women, Environment, and Development Organization (WEDO) and Development Alternative with Women for a New Era (DAWN). The United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) has provided a catalyst for women organizing globally (Chow, 2003). Issues of class, race, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, and other differences among women have been important in building women’s organizations and movements for social change. Building alliances across these differences and the intersections among them to create a political vision for change, compared to an earlier emphasis on a shared identity as women as a basis for social change organizing, continues to be a challenge. Women of color and Global South women have been critical of what they see as white Western middle class feminists’ tendency to universalize women’s experience and ignore critical differences and inequalities among women. Women’s social change organizations often operate according to structures and norms intended to reflect in their own practice the kinds of changes they seek to bring about in the larger society. Examples include models of participatory leadership and democratic decision making, awareness of interpersonal interaction and group dynamics so as to ensure the group’s inclusiveness, and
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attending to personal and family issues in the workplace to minimize conflict between women’s work and family and personal lives. Maintaining these commitments is often a challenge since funding organizations and various regulatory bodies may require more familiar and traditional ways of being. Many women’s organizations describe their work as having to do with women’s empowerment. What ‘‘empowerment’’ means and how it relates to social versus individual change is a matter of some debate (Fried, 1994). Some organizations define empowerment in political terms referring to a historically marginalized or excluded social group gaining power. These groups may also aim for a transformational kind of power articulated as ‘‘power with’’ like-minded others to accomplish shared goals as opposed to more traditional forms of ‘‘power over’’ where one group gains power at the expense of another group that loses it. In contrast, other women’s organizations define ‘‘empowerment’’ as empowering individual women by strengthening their capacity to control their own lives and change their own life circumstances so as to no longer be ‘‘victims.’’ It is this latter activity that raises a question about a connection to structural social change. Added to this tension is the well-known hesitance of funding institutions to support social change organizing and a preference for advocacy and forms of individual empowerment which social change organizations may adopt as a strategy for organizational survival (Faber & McCarthy, 2005).
Future Directions Social change organizations are a huge and diverse category. A few of the many issue areas in which these organizations work that are not discussed here include health, war and peace, the environment, and youth. Still it seems possible to identify some of the common challenges that social change organizations around the world often face: ● Obtaining funding when donor organizations often favor relatively conservative methods of social change; ● Establishing and maintaining connections to grassroots constituencies in the face of institutional pressures to become more professional and bureaucratic, and to emphasize advocacy over organizing; ● Focusing on changing underlying structural causes when the suffering of large numbers of individuals is so immediate and life-threatening; ● Making connections between local community issues and constituencies and larger-scale regional, national, and transnational ones; ● Determining when or if collaboration with the state is useful to accomplishing social change;
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● Defining the role of developing an organizational infrastructure for change that may support change but may not be itself social change, such as local and global networks and other forms of social capital; ● Moving beyond educating about the need for change to actually mobilizing people to act collectively to create change.
Smith, J., Pagnucco, R., Lopez, G. A. (1998). Globalizing human rights: The work of transnational human rights NGOs in the 1990’s. Human Rights Quarterly, 20(2), 379–412. Thomas, J. M., & Darnton, J. (2006). Social diversity and economic development in the metropolis. Journal of Planning Literature, 21(2) (November), 153–168. Tusalem, R. F. (2007). A Boon or a bane? The role of civil society in third and fourth-wave democracies. International Political Science Review, 28(3), 361–386.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Amnesty International ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Human Rights ▶ Human Rights Watch ▶ Oxfam International ▶ Political Organizations ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Ajakaiye, O., Drazen, A., & Karugia, J. (2008). Political economy and economic development in Africa: An overview. Journal of African Economies, 17(1), i3–i17. Brown, D. S., Brown, J. C., & Desposato, S. W. (2008). Who gives, who receives, and who wins? Transforming capital into political change through nongovernmental organizations. Comparative Political Studies, 41(1), 24–47. Chetkovich, C., & Kunreuther, F. (2006). From the ground up: Grassroots organizations making social change. Ithaca and London: ILR/Cornell University Press. Chow, E. N. (2003). Gender matters: Studying globalization and social change in the 21st century. International Sociology, 18(3), 443–460. Faber, D. R., & McCarthy, D. (Eds.) (2005). Foundations for social change: Critical perspectives on philanthropy and popular movements. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Foley, M., & Edwards, B. (1996). The paradox of civil society. Journal of Democracy, 7(3), 38–52. Fried, A. (1994). It’s hard to change what we want to change: Rape Crisis centers as organizations. Gender & Society, 8(4) 362–383. Frisch, M., & Servon, L. J. (2006). CDC’s and the changing context for Urban community development: Review of the field and the environment. Community Development: Journal of the Community Development Society, 31(4) (Winter), 88–108. Lind, A. (1997). Gender, development and urban social change: Women’s community action in global cities. World Development, 25(8), 1205–1223. Nelson, P., & Dorsey, E. (2007). New rights advocacy in a global public domain. European Journal of International Relations, 13(2), 187–216. Robinson, M. (2004). Advancing economic, social, and cultural rights: The way forward. Human Rights Quarterly, 26, 866–872. Scott, E. K. (1998). Creating partnerships for change: Alliances and betrayals in the racial politics of two feminist organizations. Gender & Society, 12(4) (August), 400–423. Smith, J. (1998). Global civil society? Transnational social movement organizations and social capital. American Behavioral Scientist, 42(1) 93–107.
Social Cohesion JANE JENSON Universite´ de Montre´al, Montreal, QC, Canada
Introduction The notion of social cohesion is widely used within civil society as well as by public authorities. In the mid1990s, social cohesion reemerged as a concept deployed in policy analysis and by civil society organizations in order to address the challenges they faced. For example, in its 1997 report Societal Cohesion and the Globalising Economy, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) argued that technological change and structural adjustment policies placed ‘‘growing strains on the fabric of OECD societies’’ (1997: 7). This assertion can be seen as the beginning of a ‘‘social’’ inflexion of the OECD’s analysis of globalization and a move towards a social investment perspective for social policy in which ‘‘social expenditures [should] be focused on areas where returns are maximised in the form of social cohesion and active participation in society and in the labour market’’ (quoted in Dobrowolsky & Jenson, 2005). In the same year, Barcelona City Council announced its Accent on Culture plan to ensure a position as a revitalized and global city. To do so, the second of six objectives was to ‘‘make culture a key element of social cohesion,’’ because ‘‘today the main cause of inequalities is not the accessibility of information, but the capacity of converting an overabundance of information into useful knowledge for social practice. Cultural services and facilities. . . serve as instruments for the redistribution of knowledge, and are therefore indispensable to the maintenance of social cohesion’’ (Pascual i Ruiz, 2002: 173). These two examples illustrate only two of the wide range of ways social cohesion is invoked.
Social Cohesion
Definition The concept is more used than defined. As the Council of Europe’s Strategy for Social Cohesion states: ‘‘it does not define social cohesion as such but seeks to identify some of the factors in social cohesion’’ (2001: 15). Literature reviews confirm this lack of definitional work. For example: ‘‘The first and most counter-intuitive finding of this review of social cohesion in the European Union, the OECD and the Council of Europe is that none of the three has an explicit or even widely accepted working definition of the term ‘social cohesion’’’ (Jeannotte, 2000: 5). Nonetheless it is possible identify four frequently invoked characteristics (Jenson, 1998, 2002, 2009; Beauvais & Jenson, 2002). First, social cohesion is a process rather than end state. Second, creating and maintaining social cohesion requires attention to social bonds of solidarity, involving a definition of who is ‘‘in’’ and to whom members of society owe solidarity. Third, social cohesion is considered to grow from shared values, although threats can come from unequal patterns and structures of income and resource distribution as well as ethno-cultural diversity. The fourth characteristic of this literature is that it tends to devote very little attention to the conflicts which are inherent in any pluralist society and the mechanisms for their resolution, particularly democratic ones. This is especially disconcerting because the declining legitimacy of democratic institutions is often invoked as an indicator of problems of social cohesion. A final definitional point meriting attention is that the concepts of social cohesion and social capital are often seen as interconnected. A study for Britain’s Joseph Rowntree Foundation illustrates this use: ‘‘social capital. . . is perceived as a key resource to ensure ‘system stability’ defined in terms of social cohesion. With its notions of consensus and harmonious interaction by different groups, social capital is in some senses the practical tool to achieve social cohesion’’ (Zetter et al., 2006: 22).
Historical Background Like John Milton’s Paradise Lost, social cohesion is most often lamented for its absence, a lost condition of supposed social harmony (Pahl, 1991: 354; Jenson, 1998). But social cohesion is often also invoked as an aspiration for less social exclusion or more social inclusion. Now is not the first time that economic and social turbulence and structural adjustment have promoted attention to social cohesion and concerns about social order. Cohesion was the central concept of one of the ‘‘fathers’’ of sociology, E´mile Durkheim, usually identified as the first to popularise the concept. He wrote at the end of the nineteenth century, in a Europe shaken by rapid social change provoked by
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industrialization, urbanization, and massive population movements across the Continent. For Durkheim, a cohesive society depended on shared loyalties, among citizens bound by ties of interdependency (Jenson, 2002: 145). Durkheim was ultimately optimistic about social diversity and that institutions could foster cohesion, but the next wave of fundamental social change and political crisis, the worldwide Depression of the 1930s, generated pessimism. American sociologist Talcott Parsons, whose work still shapes debates in the social sciences, was sensitive to what he described as the dangers of excessive liberal values, which he viewed as having contributed to the political tragedies of Europe before 1945 (Pahl, 1991: 358). In Parsonian functionalism, conflict was ‘‘dysfunctional,’’ deviant and pathological and he sought mechanisms fostering cohesion. Examination of the concept in the thought of these two theorists writing of multiplying diversity and economic uncertainty leads to three observations. First, historically the concept of social cohesion has been associated with moments of rapid social change. It is not surprising, then, that in this era of globalization attention has turned again to issues of order, stability, and cohesion. Second, adherence to the concept of social cohesion tended to shift attention to values, with theoretical downplaying of mechanisms for resolving conflict. Third, there has never been complete agreement that social cohesion should be privileged over other values or other ways of creating social order. Durkheim and Parsons’ positions were never embraced by all social and political theorists.
Key Issues Three Alternative Uses of the Concept
The lack of a clear definition and consensus about its meaning is in part due to the varied ways social cohesion is used (Jenson, 1998; Beauvais & Jenson, 2002; Peace et al., 2005: 3–6). In the mid-1990s in Europe and the broader OECD world, the concept of social cohesion made a dramatic comeback. It appeared simultaneously in several key organizations, albeit in different versions and with some applications being broader than others (for overviews see Hulse & Stone, 2007; Chan et al., 2006). More recently there has been an upsurge of attention to it in Latin America (e.g., ECLAC, 2007). In this recent attention, there are three main perspectives, two of which are identified by Berger-Schmitt (2002: 404–405) and to which a third is added (Jenson, 2009). Social Cohesion as Social Inclusion
One of the first institutions to revive social cohesion was the OECD, as noted above. France was also precocious in
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the use of the concept. By 1997 one of the few careful definitions of social cohesion had been developed by the Commissariat ge´ne´ral du Plan: ‘‘social cohesion is a set of social processes that help instil in individuals the sense of belonging to the same community and the feeling that they are recognised as members of that community’’ (quoted in Jenson, 1998: 4). The social processes considered by the French government over the last decade have been primarily those usually treated under the heading of social exclusion, poverty, and inequality and enhancing social cohesion involves social policies and programs. Thus, the French governments 2004 Plan de cohe´sion sociale [social cohesion policy] contained 20 programs grouped under three headings: (1) employment, (2) housing, and (3) equal opportunities, particularly for children, women, and immigrants (described in Jenson, 2009). The European Union also identifies the economic and social cohesion of Europe as a main policy goal. In the EU, as well for the OECD and the French government, social cohesion is something to strive towards, to be created via ‘‘modernised’’ social policies, regional redistribution, and new forms of governance involving both more active citizenship and mechanisms for identifying best practices (European Comission, 2004, e.g.). More recently, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) described social cohesion ‘‘as the dialectical relationship between mechanisms of social inclusion/exclusion and people’s reactions, perceptions, and attitudes to the ways in which these mechanisms operate in producing a sense of belonging to society’’ (Tokman, 2007: 82). The Council of Europe launched what has become one of the most important efforts to use the concept to organise its work with civil society and its organizations: "
Social cohesion, as defined by the Directorate General of Social Cohesion of the Council of Europe, is a concept that includes values and principles which aim to ensure that all citizens, without discrimination and on an equal footing, have access to fundamental social and economic rights. Social cohesion is a flagship concept which constantly reminds us of the need to be collectively attentive to, and aware of, any kind of discrimination, inequality, marginality or exclusion (2001: 5).
The primary focus was on overcoming social exclusion with an analysis very close to that of the OECD about the dangers to social cohesion of insufficient attention to social policy. This spotlight on employment and social rights was widely shared by other agencies in Europe and Latin America (Tokman, 2007: 105–06).
When the Council of Europe produced a revised Strategy for Social Cohesion, the perspective shifted slightly, however (2004). Ethnic and/or religious diversity were stressed as potential threats, and democracy identified as a method for achieving social cohesion: "
As understood by the Council of Europe, social cohesion is the capacity of a society to ensure the welfare of all its members, minimizing disparities and avoiding polarization. A cohesive society is a mutually supportive community of free individuals pursuing these common goals by democratic means. All societies have to live with the strains and stresses caused by divisions and potential divisions. For example, there are in all societies disparities of wealth between richer and poorer people; when these disparities are excessive, or tending to increase, cohesion is put at risk. Again, no society is without ethnic and cultural diversity; the question is how to manage diversity so that it becomes a source of mutual enrichment rather than a factor of division and conflict. A cohesive society is one which has developed satisfactory ways of coping with these and other strains in an open and democratic manner (2004: 3)
Awareness of the challenges of managing diversity had been one of the pillars of the Government of Canada’s approach to social cohesion (Hulse & Stone, 2007: 110–12). Attention to links between social cohesion and diversity has emerged even more strongly in some countries. For example, following the outbreak of civil disturbances in Northern England in 2001, British policy discourse identified ‘‘insufficient’’ social (often termed community) cohesion as the danger (Hulse & Stone, 2007: 114). A number of government reports coalesced around the notion that there was a need to build a ‘‘successfully integrated society’’ and increase ‘‘community cohesion.’’ Strategies ranged from teaching citizenship in schools to English-language training and new immigration laws. There are fears that immigration has produced a society too diverse to cohere and that it is undermining ‘‘the common values that hold British society together’’ (Cheong et al., 2007: 28). In similar ways, social cohesion and immigration are tightly linked in New Zealand’s policy discourse (Hulse & Stone, 2007; Peace et al., 2005); good immigration policies and effective integration are thought to generate social cohesion. The Netherlands, shaken by violent incidents in its multiethnic cities, has shifted its policy perspective from one of social citizenship to policy efforts to foster, in contrast, a strong sense of Dutch identity (Ossewaarde, 2007).
Social Cohesion
Many studies focus on cities and local communities. Ade Kearns and Ray Forrest (2000: 1013) present a good overview of this literature as well as emphasizing the inherent dangers in putting too much emphasis on maximizing social cohesion: "
A city can consist of socially cohesive but increasingly divided neighbourhoods. The stronger the ties which bind local communities, the greater may be the social, racial or religious conflict between them. The point is that social cohesion at the neighbourhood level is by no means unambiguously a good thing. . . . Similarly, a nation of highly cohesive cities with strong and distinct images could be one in which shared values and norms are relatively parochial and with wide intercity inequalities of lifestyles and living standards. Thus, the need for a simultaneous, multilevel perspective on social cohesion.
Social Cohesion as Social Capital
Immediately after social capital was (re)introduced by Robert Putnam in his work on Italy and the United States, the two concepts began to appear together, particularly in policy analysis (Cheong et al., 2007). When approaches are classified according to the status of social cohesion as a result (dependent variable) or an input (independent variable), the second category displays an increasing tendency to define social cohesion as social capital, or to use the two as synonyms. If an analysis seeks to treat social cohesion as capable of ‘‘doing’’ something, it will often ‘‘treat social capital and social networks as the constitutive element’’ (Beauvais & Jenson, 2002: 14). The bulk of the actual policy experiments to promote social capital involve efforts to improve outcomes in poor or disadvantaged neighborhoods or localities, viewed as being the result not only of individual characteristics but also of neighborhood dynamics (Flint & Kearns, 2006). Immigrant communities have been a particular focus. For example, in a report from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the authors examine the interaction between immigrants’ social relationships in their community (their social capital) and the development of a stable society (social cohesion) at the local level. They conclude: "
In the end, the extent to which social cohesion characterises migrant communities depends less on the strength and variety of their social capital than on the prevailing immigration policy discourse, the backwash of hostility to asylum seekers and refugees and how this impacts on the migrant groups’ perceptions of belonging, and the instrumentality of social cohesion policies implemented in the
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simplistic form of inclusive citizenship. From this perspective we suggest that the concept of social capital, premised on a notion of social cohesion and consensualism, is at best only partially relevant to the more contested political landscape and host community responses at the present time. (Zetter et al., 2006: 25).
Social Cohesion, Institutions, and Governance
A third stream in the social cohesion literature is focused on institutions and governance. A much-cited study of social cohesion and development emerged from the World Bank (Easterly et al., 2006). The authors make a two-step argument. First, development outcomes (economic growth) depend on effective institutions. Second, effective institutions are those with ‘‘room to manoeuvre,’’ which depends on a level of social cohesion that allows politicians to realize their development projects without being threatened by competing elites or popular mobilization. The authors define social cohesion as the nature and extent of social and economic divisions within society (Easterly et al., 2006: 105) and conclude their two-stage hypothesis is confirmed: ‘‘more social cohesion leads to better institutions, and that better institutions in turn lead to higher growth’’ (Easterly et al., 2006: 113) and ‘‘together, these suggestive empirical results show that building social cohesion – through the construction and maintenance of high-quality institutions pursuing the common good, and through the lowering of economic (and other) divisions – has been, and remains, a vital task for countries wrestling with development’’ (Easterly et al., 2006: 111). Addressing the policy implications, the authors point to the importance of education and that the state ‘‘. . . can, in some cases, also actively help to create social cohesion by ensuring that public services are provided fairly and efficiently (i.e., treating all citizens equally), and by actively redressing overt forms of discrimination and other social barriers’’ (Easterly et al., 2006: 117). Such recommendations resemble those of the Council of Europe for fostering social cohesion by social inclusion.
Future Directions The OECD has become a locale for promoting the link between institutions, governance, and social cohesion (Flint & Kearns, 2006; Bradford, 2008). This approach to social cohesion is found in work by the Territorial Development Policy Committee (part of the OECD’s Public Governance and Territorial Development Directorate)
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which is a major source (although by no means the only one) for the ‘‘new conventional wisdom.’’ Sometimes termed the competitiveness-cohesion-governance problematic, this stance is also visible in policy perspectives of the European Union at least since 2000: that economic performance depends on good social policy, including policies promoting territorial, social, and economic cohesion (Beauvais & Jenson, 2002: 21; Turok, 2006: 353). Identifying threats due to market volatility and segmentation as well as rising individualism and declining civility, there has been a turn toward the key idea ‘‘that social cohesion improves economic performance. This is a more positive way of saying that social division and fragmentation undermine long-term economic success’’ (Turok, 2006: 355). In addition, a good deal of attention has gone to the negative effects of crime, both for attracting talent and on business performance. Therefore, the capacities of local institutions that control, limit, and discourage crime are important. Yet once again, as we have already seen, there is scepticism about the effects of social cohesion and the direction of causation. One typical warning comes in this quotation. "
The notion of ‘‘social cohesion’’ – as a shorthand way of indicating all the various respects in which social relations within particular places can (increasingly) make a difference to their economic performance – may be more of an obstacle than a help. . . There is a real temptation (within a new conventional wisdom about policy for cities) to see this as actually representing some single kind of quality which places can develop in order to simultaneously remedy the shortcomings of markets in terms of both social outcomes and economic performance.
Concluding Remarks
With these warnings in hand, what might we conclude from the last decade of explicit attention to social cohesion? In this significant body of policy literature, social cohesion is a property of a society (whether defined as a city, country, or region). It is not an individual characteristic. Second, social cohesion is something to be ‘‘encouraged,’’ ‘‘fostered,’’ or ‘‘protected,’’ by public authorities as well as civil society. Threats to social cohesion come as much from bad policy as from social fragmentation. Nonetheless, the interventions prescribed vary widely. There is as little consensus about social cohesion now as there was when E´mile Durkheim or Talcott Parsons wrote of it.
Cross-References
▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Joseph Rowntree Foundation ▶ OECD ▶ Social Capital, Definitions of ▶ Solidarity
References/Further Readings Beauvais, C., & Jenson, J. (2002). Social cohesion: Updating the state of the research (Discussion Paper No.F/22. CPRN). Ottawa, from http:// www.cprn.org/doc.cfm?doc=167&l=en;12–31–2008 Berger-Schmitt, R. (2002). Considering social cohesion in quality of life assessments: Concepts and measurement. Social Indicators Research, 58(3), 403–428. Bradford, N. (2002). Why cities matter: Policy research perspectives for Canada (Discussion Paper F/23. CPRN). Ottawa, from http://www. cprn.org/doc.cfm?doc=168&l=en;12-31-2008. Bradford, N. (2008). The OECD’s Local Turn: ‘‘Innovative Liberalism’’ for the Cities? In Mohan, R., & McBride, S. (Eds.), The OECD and Transnational Governance. Buck, N., Gordon, I., Harding A., & Turok, I. (Eds.), (2005). Changing Cities: Rethinking Urban Competitiveness, Cohesion and Governance. London: Palgrave. Chan, J., To, H., & Chan, E. (2006). Reconsidering social cohesion: Developing a definition and analytical framework for empirical research. Social Indicators Research, 75(2), 273–302. Cheong, P. H., Edwards, R., Goulbourne, H., & Solomos, J. (2007). Immigration, social cohesion and social capital: A critical review. Critical Social Policy, 27(1), 24–49. Council of Europe. (2001). Promoting the policy debate on social exclusion from a comparative perspective. Strasbourg: Trends in Social Cohesion, no. 1. Council of Europe. (2004). Revised strategy for social cohesion. Strasbourg: European Committee for Social Cohesion. Dobrowolsky, A., & Jenson, J. (2005). Social Investment perspectives and practices: a decade in British politics. In M. Powell, L. Bauld, & K. Clarke (Eds), Social policy Review #17 (pp. 203–230), Bristol, UK: The Policy Press. Easterly, W., Ritzen, J., & Woolcock, M. (2006). Social cohesion, institutions and growth. Economics and Politics, 18(2), 103–120. Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC). (2007). Social cohesion. Inclusion and a sense of belonging in Latin America and the Caribbean. New York: United Nations. European Commission. (2004). A new partnership for cohesion, convergence, competitiveness, and cooperation. (Third Report on Economic and Social Cohesion). Brussels: European Commission. Flint, J., & Kearns, A. (2006). Housing, neighbourhood renewal and social capital: The case of registered social landlords in Scotland. European Journal of Housing Policy, 6(1), 31–54. Hulse, K., & Stone, W. (2007). Social cohesion, social capital and social exclusion. Policy Studies, 28(2), 109–128. Jeannotte, S. (2000). Social cohesion around the world. An international comparison of definitions and issues. Prepared for the Strategic Research and Analysis Directorate, Department of Canadian Heritage. Jenson, J. (1998). Mapping social cohesion: The state of Canadian research. CPRN Study No F/03, from http://www.cprn.org/doc.cfm? doc=180&l=en;12-30-2008
Social Economy Jenson, J. (2002). Identifying the links: Social cohesion and culture. Canadian Journal of Communication, 27(2), 141–51. Jenson, J. (2009). Social cohesion as a tool for designing social policies that promote social development. Literature and indicators. London/ Geneva: Commonwealth Secretariat and UNRSID. Kearns, A., & Forrest, R. (2000). Social cohesion and multi-cultural urban governance. Urban Studies, 37(5–6), 995–1017. OECD – Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. (1997). Societal cohesion and the globalising economy: What does the Future Hold ? Paris: OECD. Ossewaarde, M. R. R. (2007). The new social contract and the struggle for sovereignty in the Netherlands. Government and Opposition, 42(4), 491–512. Pahl, R. E. (1991). The search for social cohesion: From Durkheim to the European commission. Archives of European Sociology, XXXII, 345–360. Pascual i Ruiz, J. (2002). Culture, connectness, and social cohesion in Spain. Canadian Journal of Communication, 27(2), 167–177. Peace, R., Spoonley, P., Butcher, A., & O’Neill, D. (2005). Immigration and social cohesion: Developing an indicator framework for measuring the impact of settlement policies in New Zealand (Working Paper 01/05). Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Social Development. Tokman, V. E. (2007). The informal economy, insecurity, and social cohesion in Latin America. International Labour Review, 146(1–2), 81–107. Turok, I. (2006). The connection between social cohesion and city competitiveness. In OECD, Competitive Cities in the Global Economy. Paris: OECD Territorial Reviews, OECD. Zetter, R., Griffiths, D., Sigona, N., Flynn, D., Tauhid, P., & Beynon, R. (2006). Immigration, social cohesion, and social capital: What are the links? London: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Social Economy ERIC BIDET University of Maine, LeMans, France
Introduction Social economy is an almost 200-year-old concept deeply rooted in the social, political, and economic history of Western European countries. However, probably due to its polysemy and its ups and downs during this long history, the concept of social economy has not gained a solid and univocal recognition in the academic circles until it reemerged in the 1980s in France and then in most European countries before it spread elsewhere in Latin and North America and in Asia. With the growing interest for a ‘‘third way’’ resulting from the collapse of state-controlled economies and the rising discontent toward an all liberal and capitalist model, the social economy has aroused great attention from scholars and policy
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makers for some 20 years. It surely represents an interesting approach for the advocates of the welfare mix and all those who are convinced of the plurality of economy as well as for scholars who stress the need for interdisciplinarity in the social sciences.
Definition After its resurgence in the 1980s, social economy tended to design a set of economic organizations sharing in common a few specific features that represent an original form of entrepreneurship: a voluntary participation, an autonomy of decision, a formal existence through a legal identity, an orientation toward an economic activity, a democratic governance, a nonprofit orientation, and a distribution of profits that is not directly linked to the capital. These features shape a part of the economy that aims ‘‘to serve the man rather than the capital ’’ and distinguishes the social economy organizations from both public agencies that form the public sector and capitalist firms that form the capitalist (or private) sector, and then often leads to the use of the term ‘‘third sector’’ as a synonym of the social economy, although this term has more often been used in the United States and some Asian countries as a synonym of the nonprofit sector, which does not coincide exactly with the area covered by the social economy. They also make social economy a part of civil society but distinguish it from other components of civil society that do not have any economic orientation or any formalized identity: the social economy can be seen as the formally organized and economically oriented part of civil society. Originally, the social economy hinged on three main families of organizations: cooperatives, mutual societies, and associations. More recently, these three original families have been joined by a fourth one, foundations, although it is questionable whether they share all the core features, namely a democratic governance, an orientation toward an economic activity, and a voluntary participation. The nonprofit nature of cooperatives has been questioned as well by the advocates of the nonprofit approach, but those of the social economy consider that the limited distribution of profit by cooperatives and their obligation to allocate a part of their surpluses to collective reserves make them nonprofit organizations in nature and undoubtedly organizations closer to nonprofits than to for-profits. The scope and characteristics of the social economy vary according to each national context, but these organizations are generally engaged in, and play a prominent role in, market-oriented activities such as agriculture,
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credit and banking, insurance or commerce, as well as predominantly non-market-oriented activities that have been proved socially useful but not profitable, such as the provision of health and social services, education, and more generally all merit goods as defined by Musgrave as the goods that should be made available to the entire population because of their positive externalities for the society but would be underprovided by the market, which does not take into account these external benefits. According to the latest data available, the social economy represents some 6.5% of total employment and 7% of wage-earning employment in the EU-15 countries, and the Johns Hopkins comparative study of the nonprofit sector in 35 countries estimates its scale at 4.4% of economically active population and 5.1% of combined GDP. The International Co-operative Alliance claims that over 800 million people are members of cooperatives around the world.
Historical Background The historical background of social economy takes place in Europe. The terminology itself is generally acknowledged to have first occurred in 1830, when French liberal economist Charles Dunoyer published a Treatise of social economy (Traite´ d’e´conomie sociale), but is also often mentioned to be inspired by the works of Swiss economist Sismondi, who in his New principles of political economy (Nouveaux principes d’e´conomie politique) published in 1819 insisted that the true object of economics should be man rather than wealth. In the first half of the nineteenth century, most European countries witnessed the rise of diverse experiences initiated to bring an answer to the deteriorating living conditions of the most vulnerable groups in an era of rapid expansion of industrial capitalism. Many of them were initiatives launched by the working class – peasants or workers – which marked a break with the more traditional charity mostly initiated by the elites and the wealthy to help the poor with, as stressed by Castel (1995), a risk of selecting the recipients according to religious, moral, or political criterion and rejecting the other. These initiatives, among which those of Rochdale or Owen in England, Raiffeisen in Germany, Fourier or Buchez in France have remained the most wellknown, put the basis for the buildup of the modern social economy concept. In the second half of the nineteenth century, Fre´de´ric Le Play made a significant contribution for the recognition and promotion of the social economy by founding in 1856 an International society for applied studies on social economy (Socie´te´ internationale des ´etudes pratiques
d’e´conomie sociale) and a journal entitled The social economy (L’e´conomie sociale), and then introducing the social economy to the 1867 World Fair where it was presented several times thereafter. But he also oriented it toward a somewhat different direction: moralization of individual behavior and social peace (Azam, 2003). This emerging social economy of the nineteenth century aimed at providing an answer to social issues and harmonizing moral values and economic activity in order to raise the conditions of existence of underprivileged groups of citizens and/or to ensure a better contribution of workers. It gave rise to critics from mainstream economists, who considered it a rival to the political economy, and therefore found its academic acknowledgment in other disciplines such as sociology (a chair of sociology, social economy, and political systems studies was created in 1886 at the University of Geneva) or law (a chair of social economy was introduced at the Paris Faculty of Law in 1889). The first sophisticated economic formalization of the social economy arose at the very end of the nineteenth century when French economist Le´on Walras published in 1896 Studies in social economy: theory of the distribution of social wealth (Etudes d’e´conomie sociale: the´orie de la repartition de la richesse sociale), which was taken up and well-publicized in a report by another French economist – Charles Gide – for the 1900 World Fair. This report entitled The social economy: The institutions for social progress (L’e´conomie sociale: les institutions de progre`s social) was updated and reprinted several times until the death of Gide in 1932. With Walras, the social economy becomes a part of the whole economic science which he divides into three complementary ‘‘realms’’: the political economy or ‘‘realm of what is true’’ that serves the goal to elaborate the definitions and natural laws; the applied economy or ‘‘realm of what is useful’’ that refers to the production and to the study of the most appropriate means to apply these natural laws; and the social economy or ‘‘realm of what is fair’’ which focuses on repartition and aims at a moral appreciation of those applications. Within this social economy, Walras introduces the idea that the traditional logic of interest should be supplemented by a logic of justice that will serve to organize the redistribution of wealth. In introducing social justice into the economic rationale, Walras’ contribution marks a break with the classical economic approach that only focused on the economic outcome but neglected the social problems resulting from the economic activity. However, in his subsequent works, Walras did not bring much more to his reflection on social economy and concentrated most
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of his efforts to elaborate his theory of general equilibrium that put the basis to the neoclassical economy. Today, his contribution on the social economy probably remains the most ignored part of Walras’ works as mentioned by French economist and Nobel Laureate Maurice Allais. Gide’s conception of the social economy was much broader than Walras’ one, which mainly included the state interventions that he considered necessary to correct market failures and realize social justice. In Gide’s view, the social economy includes three main groups of institutions for their contribution to social progress: the voluntary groups (association libre) which basically refers to the idea of emancipation and all voluntary self-help initiatives in which are rooted cooperatives, mutual benefits societies, and associations; the ‘‘patronage’’ which refers to the idea of charity and all efforts of the employers, elites, and wealthy persons to help the less advantaged; the central and local governments (pouvoirs publics) which refers to the idea of public intervention, especially the social programs set up by the public sector. If Gide agreed with Walras on the distinction between political, social, and applied economies, he opposed him regarding the role conferred to the cooperatives: While Walras considered the cooperatives as the concern of applied economy for their contribution to the production, Gide endowed them with the main role of social transformation through its (although never realized) program of cooperative republic. Max Weber as well used the ‘‘social economy’’ (Sozialo¨komie) terminology in 1909 to name the new series in which he then published in 1922 his masterwork ‘‘Economy and society.’’ For Weber, the social economy encompassed economic theory (the study of economic phenomena), economic history (the observation of the concrete economic facts), and economic sociology (the analysis of the cultural meanings of the observed facts). Weber’s approach of social economy, which relies upon the core idea of social embeddedness of economy, has a fundamental divergence from the one by Walras and Gide that aims to integrate the social question – ‘‘social justice’’ for Walras or ‘‘social progress’’ for Gide – in the economic rationale and forms, consequently, a broader set. However, these approaches have an important motive in common: They all seek to question the mainstream approach in economy and to introduce the consideration for noneconomic dimensions – social, cultural, religious, moral, etc. – into the economic analysis. Today Weber’s approach is well-known to have inspired many social scientists and generated new academic currents in social sciences like the new economic sociology or the socioeconomy. His legacy is as well perceptible in the Association for Social
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Economics established in the United States in 1941 by the Jesuit economist Thomas Divine with the purpose ‘‘to explore the ethical foundations and implications of economic analysis, along with the individual and social dimensions of economic problems.’’ Contributions by Mark Lutz or Severyn Bruyn are among the most significant in this line. In The social economy published in 1977, Bruyn proposed the following definition of social economy: ‘‘Social economy is a field of study about how people produce, distribute, exchange, and use material resources to meet human needs, and in this process, generate a culture.’’ Neglected at the turn of the twentieth century by Walras, and rapidly as well by Gide who as early as in 1911 mentioned that the term had become ‘‘too vague’’ and concentrated most of his efforts to the promotion of cooperatives, the social economy terminology almost disappeared in Europe until the 1980s or had minor and sometimes confusing occurrences like in Gustav Cassel’s Theory of social economy (1918), where it had nothing in common with any previous conception of social economy but with Walras’ theory of general equilibrium. The resurgence of the social economy in France in the 1980s is in line with this long history rooted in the nineteenth century, but it marks as well a break with these original contributions. The emerging social economy of the 1980s does not seek anymore to be a disciplinary approach of economy or to bring a solution to the social question, but it pretends to propose an original form of entrepreneurship and to form on this basis a sector apart of the economy. This resurgence has been the result of an impulsion that has come initially from the organizations themselves – French cooperatives and mutual benefit societies, then joined by associations – and then has been taken over by scholars (sociologist Henri Desroche and economist Claude Vienney played a prominent role) and politicians (French socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard or former president of the European Commission Jacques Delors).
Key Issues Articulation Between Public and Capitalist Sectors and Other Parts of Civil Society
Involved both in market and non-market activities but pretending to operate differently from the capitalist firm and the public agency, the social economy generally relies upon a resource-mix combining public support as well as market resources besides its more specific ability to generate nonmonetary resources (volunteer work) and private monetary non-market resources (gift). Due to this dual involvement in market activity and in public policy,
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the social economy is endangered by a risk of isomorphism that has become sharper with the overall spreading and domination of the liberal model. The more it is engaged in a market activity or involved in public policies and schemes, the more the social economy is exposed to a risk of isomorphism that weakens its identity and values as well as the coherence and pertinence of its project raising numerous debates opposing ‘‘old social economy’’ and ‘‘new social economy,’’ ‘‘old cooperatives’’ and ‘‘new cooperatives,’’ ‘‘true associations’’ and ‘‘false associations.’’ In ex-communist countries as well as in some Asian NPIs, this challenge has a specific feature as the most powerful cooperative and associative movements have to escape a long history as state agencies and affirm their identity without falling into the functioning of capitalist firms. Regarding other parts of civil society, one of the greatest challenges for the social economy is certainly to define and strengthen its links with trade unions and other representatives groups of employees and reinforce its contribution to social dialogue. Originally initiated by and focused on workers, the social economy has then adopted the point of view of consumers and associates as its main reference. What resulted from that change is a disinvolvement with workers’ problems and the working condition issue that sometimes led to conflicting relations with trade unions. Harmonization with Rival Concepts
The existence or emergence of similar and rival concepts is another issue and explains the lack of knowledge about the social economy and its limited acknowledgment in countries where these other concepts have gained a better recognition for fiscal, cultural, or political reasons. This is typically the case of the concept of nonprofit sector which plays a prominent role in the United States whereas the social economy remains very little known. But this question of rivalry occurred as well in Western European countries where the social economy has its longest history and firmest acknowledgment as shown with the coexistence of traditional alternative concepts such as the voluntary sector or the nonprofit sector and above all the recent rise of new concepts such as the solidaristic economy or the social enterprise. Coming generally from academic works and then earning an institutional and/or political recognition, these concepts have found their legitimacy in the growing phenomenon of isomorphism evoked before, that took away certain organizations of the social economy from the main contemporary social issues and disadvantaged groups of citizens. Social enterprise and solidaristic economy flourished in relation with these new social issues
such as the provision of social care, services to unemployed, elderly care or child care. Such new concepts contribute to define a new equilibrium between the political, social, and economic dimensions of the social economy and represent therefore an incitation for a renewal and an enlargement of the social economy. With their nonprofit orientation toward the provision of social services and their cooperative legal form and identity, the Italian social cooperatives, which served as a model to build up the recent concept of social enterprise, has contributed to reduce the antagonism between the nonprofit and the social economy approaches and led as well to a renewal of the traditional cooperative model that was not adapted for multi-stakeholder cooperatives.
International Perspective Originated from the French experience, the social economy concept has successfully spread to other European countries that basically share many common historical, cultural, and political features. On that point the recent report by the CIRIEC offers the latest global view of this sector, its success, and the main trends and challenges it is facing in Europe (Chaves & Monzon, 2007). Interestingly, this report shows that the concept of the social economy as a sector gathering cooperatives, associations, mutual benefits, and foundations, is now very well or wellacknowledged in academic, political, and institutional circles in most of the European countries in EU-15 with the exception of a few countries that favor rival concepts such as Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, and to a smaller extent Austria and Denmark. But the social economy remains largely underconsidered in new EU members from Central and Eastern Europe. The enlargement of the Europe Union surely makes more difficult a full European recognition of the social economy and the enactment of European legal status for its different components as it represents a greater diversity of situations with sometimes opposite backgrounds, especially regarding the cooperatives which, in many new members in Central and Eastern Europe, are considered a vestige of the old regime. Built up in close reference with specific features of the Western European socioeconomic and political history and context, the social economy has to gain a recognition outside Europe as well. This recognition is unquestionable in a few countries like Canada where the concept encountered an official full acknowledgment with, for example, the creation of a Canadian Social Economy Hub. But with a few exceptions, the social economy has not yet encountered outside Europe a full recognition in the academic, political, and institutional worlds. Especially, as
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mentioned above, in certain new EU members from Central and Eastern Europe, the very idea of the social economy can even be perceived in certain cases as a heresy as it pretends to gather very progressive organizations that struggled for democracy and social progress and very conservative ones which have been historically initiated by the state and enrolled to serve public interests. This is typically the case, for example, in South Korea where most of the cooperative movements have been installed by the state and controlled by it until quite recently. However, one can argue that more and more countries, even with very different socioeconomic and political backgrounds from the European one such as Japan or Australia, are showing an interest in the social economy concept. If the concept itself has not yet encountered worldwide recognition, the reality of the values and principles of the social economy can actually be found in almost any country in the North as well as in the South where decentralized financial systems (micro-credit, tontine systems, savings, and credit cooperatives, and other types of mutual-aid forms of savings credit), associative and community movements, health and mutual-aid societies, and other forms of grassroots economic initiatives play a prominent socioeconomic role (Defourny et al., 2000).
Future Directions The social economy has proved in many countries its capacity to reveal new needs that neither the market nor the public sector can address, and its ability for social innovation and job creation in bringing an appropriate and outstanding answer to these needs. It has shown as well its social utility in restoring the social link, strengthening the social cohesion, producing social capital, and educating the ideals of democracy and in some cases alerting to and limiting the bad effects of economic development. However, it still remains largely undervaluated and not well-known in the views of many public opinions and leaders. Moreover, its image is tarnished in some contexts due to political and historical reasons. With the growing interest for the welfare mix and more generally for the plural economy, the social economy has a prominent role to play besides the capitalist and public sectors and besides the domestic production by the family sphere. It clearly represents a partial but interesting alternative to capitalism more and more oriented toward liberalism and to a shrinking public sector. In relation with social welfare and social services, the social economy has great potential in countries (mostly European) which are in a phase of withdrawal of public welfare as well as in countries (Asian or Latin American) where the welfare system is younger and/or limited and where new social
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needs are emerging or will emerge in relation with sociodemographic trends. However, the issue for the social economy, that has been already perceptible in some cases, will be here not to only serve as a fragile and ephemeral to public schemes in a context of reduction of public spending.
Cross-References
▶ ADDES ▶ Bloch-Laine´, Franc¸ois ▶ CIRIEC ▶ Cooperatives and Employee-ownership ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Desroche, Henri ▶ EMES ▶ Fourier, Charles ▶ Gide, Charles ▶ International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) ▶ Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies ▶ Owen, Robert ▶ Proudhon, Pierre ▶ Raiffeisen, Friedrich ▶ Self-Help Groups ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Solidarity ▶ Solidarity Economy ▶ Third Sector ▶ UNIOPSS ▶ Walras, Le´on ▶ Weber, Max
References/Further Readings Annals of Public and Co-operative Economy. Lie`ge, Belgium, from http:// www2.ulg.ac.be/ciriec/en/pages/5_0revue_scientifique.htm Azam, G. (2003). E´conomie sociale, tiers secteur, e´conomie solidaire: Quelles frontie`res? Revue du MAUSS. Paris: La De´couverte. Bidet, E. (1997). L’e´conomie sociale. Paris: Le Monde. Bidet, E. (2003). L’insoutenable grand e´cart de l’e´conomie sociale: Isomorphisme institutionnel et e´conomie solidaire . Revue du MAUSS. Paris: La De´couverte. Bruyn, S. (1977). The social economy. New York: Wiley. Castel, R. (1995). La me´tamorphose de la question sociale. Paris: Fayard (English translation: The metamorphosis of the social question, Konstanz: University Publishers at Konstanz 2002). Chaves, R., & Monzon, J. L. (2007). The social economy in the European Union. Report for the European Economic and Social Committee. Lie`ge: Ciriec. Defourny, J., Develtere, P., & Fonteneau, B. (2000). Social economy North and South. Leuven-Lie`ge: HIVA-Centre d’e´conomie sociale. Demoustier, D. (2001). L’e´conomie sociale et solidaire. Paris: Syros. Demoustier, D. (2007). Pre´sentation du volume. In C. Gide (Ed.), Les institutions de progre`s social. Paris: L’Harmattan.
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Desroche, H. (1983). Pour un traite´ d’e´conomie sociale. Paris: CIEM. Gide, C. (1905). Les institutions de progre`s social (new edition with introduction and notes by D. Demoustier, 2007, Paris: L’Harmattan). Gueslin, A. (1987). L’invention de l’e´conomie sociale. Paris: Economica. RECMA. Paris, France, from http://www.recma.org/ Vienney, C. (1994). L’e´conomie sociale. Paris: La De´couverte. Walras, L. (1896). Etudes d’e´conomie sociale (new edition with introduction and notes by P. Dockes, 1990, Paris: Economica).
Social Enterprise ALEX MURDOCK London South Bank University, London, UK
Introduction This entry should be read with reference of the entry on social entrepreneurship which it seeks to complement. The source material for this entry is substantially different but the two concepts are in some respects rather like two sides of the same coin – or maybe two views of a similar landscape. Perspective is critical and in some respects understanding social entrepreneurship and social enterprise lies in the differences in the European and USA perspective. The United Kingdom perhaps is where the two perspectives cohabit, though sometimes in an uneasy and perhaps messy fashion. The focus of this entry will be on UK and European perceptions of social enterprise. Bartlett (2004) states in a footnote that ‘‘social entrepreneur refers to a person; social enterprise refers to a project in or through which the social entrepreneur works . . . and social entrepreneurship refers to the state of being or practicing in or through a social enterprise.’’
Definition There are many definitions of social enterprise and indeed in a key study of the sector (Peattie & Morley, 2007) this was a significant observation. Social enterprise was described as a ‘‘definitional minefield’’ rife with controversy. Writing in a UK context Pearce (2003) offered a depiction of three sectors of the economy to illustrate the relative location of social enterprise. These sectors are shaped by different values. However perhaps significantly he draws on the French concept of the ‘‘social economy’’ as opposed to transatlantic sources of ‘‘social entrepreneurship’’ referred to in the Encyclopedia entry by that name (Fig. 1). Pearce usefully provides some dichotomies and in particular the distinction between trading and non-trading. Social enterprise is regarded as falling into the trading
category and this concept of an organization which trades is generally viewed as central to the concept of social enterprise. So what makes it different to other trading entities? Here the ‘‘social’’ aspect comes into play. The UK government definition (2001) sets out a social enterprise as ‘‘a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximize profit for shareholders and owners.’’ UK Department of Trade and Industry (2001). The social enterprise construct is not associated with individuals but rather refers to the nature of the organization or entity. In Pearce’s typology it is also distinguished from voluntary organizations or of charities which trade in order to raise funds. Leo Bartlett, a well regarded authority of Social enterprise, writing in a wider setting suggests that generally social enterprises are ‘‘initiatives that operate on a business model (that is, aim to make profit from activities) but where the profit is used to provide community or social services, in pursuit of social aims’’ Bartlett, 2004. Barlett also draws on the OECD definition which states that ‘‘social enterprises straddle the border between the public and the private and breaks new ground in the allocation and management of economic resources. They integrate disadvantaged groups into the labor market while providing goods and services. Social enterprises are an entrepreneurial approach and draw upon the local environment to enhance their economic and social performance’’ (OECD 1999). The OECD definition adds a concept of innovation which is also found in the American formulation. The American definition offered by Kim Alter demonstrates this wider construct: ‘‘A social enterprise is any non-profit owned, revenue generating venture created for the purpose of contributing to a social cause while operating with the discipline, innovation, and determination of a for-profit business.’’ In Fig. 2 the location of social enterprise is shown along a spectrum from traditional non-profit to traditional for-profit.
Historical Background Social enterprise as a concept reaches back well beyond the coining of the formal definition. In the United Kingdom the early activities of the Salvation Army would certainly have fulfilled the definitional criteria. The Salvation Army operated commercial enterprises for a social purpose and, significantly, once the social purpose was achieved then did not continue to operate them on purely commercial grounds. Similarly Alter cites the co-operative movement
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Social Enterprise. Fig. 1 Three systems of the economy (Source: Pearce, 2003: 25)
was very much in keeping with the precepts of social enterprise (Alter, 2004). Pearce also draws attention to the co-operative movement so offering a common agreement on source (Pearce, 2003).
In terms of the use of formal definition it has been tracked back in the USA to the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative in 1993. In Europe Defourny and Nyssens identify the emergence of the concept around
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Social Enterprise. Fig. 2 The location of social enterprise (Alter, 2004; www.virtueventures.com)
Social Enterprise. Fig. 3 Social enterprise hybrid spectrum (Dees, 1998)
that time in Italy and see it as having associations with the co-operative movement (Nyssens, 2006). Italy was also an early developer of a co-operative law which recognized this new form of trading entity (Nyssens, 2006). In the USA the identification of social enterprise was associated with academic developments in a number of key universities. Key authors such as Austin, Young, Dees, and Bornstein have substantially framed the field in the USA context. In the United Kingdom Nicholls, Haugh, and Spear have all contributed to the development of the field (see sources and references). In Europe the interest in researching and analyzing the phenomena led to the creation of the EMES network in1996 (see separate Encyclopedia entry). The EMES network has generated a wide range of publications covering most countries of the European Union. In the United Kingdom there have been specific research initiatives including an annual UK Social Enterprise Research Conference which commenced in 2003.
The academic initiatives have also led to the creation of journals specific to social enterprise such as the Social Enterprise Journal. In the United Kingdom there has also been the emergence of a large number of sector organizations such as the Social Enterprise Coalition and Social Enterprise London.
Key Issues Peattie and Morley (2008) described social enterprises as ‘‘paradoxical hybrids’’ and this highlights a number of the key issues which pertain to them and potentially serve to guides research and influence policy. They share characteristics of both private (for profit) and public (for social benefit) organizations. This creates challenges in terms of motives and values. Dees depicted these as a Hybrid spectrum shown below in Fig. 3. The need to balance the creation of social value whilst also adhering to a model derived from business practices has to be a major issue for social enterprise. There is a
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tradition in the USA of wealth being turned to philanthropic ends as shown by the many foundations (Ford, Carnegie, etc.). However the generation of the wealth preceded the decision as to deployment. In social enterprise models, the creation of surplus is explicitly based on a social value model. A second issue is that surrounding the notion of innovation found in both the OECD and other definitions. This innovation is often linked to the ‘‘social entrepreneurial’’ dimension. Peattie and Morley point out that actual technical innovation is often limited and the innovation is often social (as opposed to business) in nature. The adoption of business methods presumed by the social enterprise model can also pose a key issue. Some social enterprises are focused in part on enabling the employment of marginal or disadvantaged individuals. Yet such employees may not be the most conducive to business efficiency – thus reducing the actual return available for social re-investment. On the other hand the adoption of commercial methods can serve to detract from the social goals professed by the organization. Similarly social enterprise values do not encourage the reward systems for managers and employees (such as high salaries and bonuses) and the ownership and legal structures do not easily permit share (stock) options. Social enterprises often seek to function in a marketplace setting whilst also deriving the benefits which accrue to voluntary and charitable organizations (such as donations, public funding and advantages in taxation and regulation). Indeed in the United Kingdom a high proportion of organizations describing themselves as social enterprises have also registered charity status. The is therefore an issue of ‘‘not being seen as too successful’’ in business terms in order not to jeopardize the benefits of voluntary and grant income and favorable policy and regulatory regimes.
International Perspectives The differing constructs of social enterprise in Europe and in the USA have been highlighted and are very real. The American notion of social enterprise as a non-profit focused on social good (whilst accepting the capitalist economy) does not sit well with the model of social enterprise (or social economy) in Europe which encompasses a desire to ‘‘change the system.’’ Possibly a number of the European social enterprises would be defined by some American observers as ‘‘communist’’ in nature. Some of the European social enterprise commentators could equally regard some American social enterprises as simply reinforcing capitalism since they fail to challenge and
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change it. Such commentators would view their activities as in effect undermining the potential for social change. One key difference between the ‘‘European’’ and United States concept of social enterprise is the perception of the ‘‘owners’’ of the undertaking. In the European context the social economy value system is tolerant of ‘‘owners’’ deriving a direct financial benefit and indeed in many social enterprise co-operative structures that is the significant essence. In the United States concept the social enterprise does not exist primarily (or even substantially) to financially reward the ‘‘owners’’ but rather to address other objectives. The United Kingdom represents somewhat of a hybrid in that the legal structures of both charities and ‘‘community interest’’ companies stand against the owners deriving pecuniary advantage. The co-operative structure, however, offers a mechanism by which the ‘‘owners’’ of the organization do derive such benefits. In the United Kingdom all three legal forms (charity, Community Interest Company and co-operative) can be seen in the social enterprise construct though the community interest company is regarded as a form specifically devised for social enterprise. In the United Kingdom this is defined as below. Community Interest Companies (CICS) are limited companies, with special additional features, created for the use of people who want to conduct a business or other activity for community benefit, and not purely for private advantage. This is achieved by a ‘‘community interest test’’ and ‘‘asset lock,’’ which ensures that the CIC is established for community purposes and the assets and profits, are dedicated to these purposes. Registration of a company as a CIC has to be approved by the Regulator who also has a continuing monitoring and enforcement role. (http:// www.cicregulator.gov.uk/ (Source Regulator of Community Interest Companies, UK)).
Future Directions The rather messy definitional landscape of social enterprise, social entrepreneur and social entrepreneurship is likely to continue as such. This is in part due to the varying national and cultural landscapes which sometimes are found in the same country. Canada is an interesting case here where the French social economy model operates together with the Anglo Saxon charitable and social enterprise forms. Kerlin’s forthcoming book is a bold attempt to try and gain a global perspective but the search for a unifying model is likely to be both a challenging and possibly fruitless one. Peattie and Morley set out (in a UK context) the research challenges and the reader is encouraged to look
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at their work. The brief points which are seen as critical and potentially shaping future research agendas are set out below (drawn from their work): ● Governance, particularly in terms of competing ‘‘stewardship’’ and ‘‘stakeholder’’ based approaches; ● Financing, particularly the challenges social enterprises face in accessing funding and their need for new forms of ‘‘patient’’ capital; ● Factors associated with social enterprise success or acting as barriers to it; ● Relationships with the public sector. This is especially the case in the United Kingdom and in some European countries where the policy focus has moved towards contracting out public services to third sector organizations; ● External business support services for social enterprise; ● Marketing, particularly some of the difficulties social enterprises tend to have in marketing relating to their understanding of pricing dynamics and the need to be competitive in packaging and labeling quality and information provision for customers; ● Human resource management, particularly the challenge of managing organizations typically staffed by a blend of volunteers and paid workers.
Kasturi Rangan, V., Leonard, H. B., & McDonald, S. (2008). The future of social enterprise. Harvard Business School Working Paper. Kerlin, J. (2006). Social enterprise in the United States and Europe: Understanding and learning from the differences. Voluntas, 17(3), 247–263. Nicholls, A. (Ed.) (2006). Social entrepreneurship. New models of sustainable change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nyssens, M. (2006). Social enterprise. At the crossroads of market, public policies and civil society. London/New York: Routledge. OECD. (1999). Social enterprises. Paris: OECD. Pearce, J. (2003). Social enterprise in Anytown. London: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Peattie, K., & Morley, A. (2008). Social enterprises: Diversity and Dynamics, Contexts and contributions. Cardiff: BRASS. Young, D. (1983). If not for profit, for what? Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Young, D. (1985). Casebook of management for nonprofit organizations: Entrepreneurship and organizational change in the human services. New York: Haworth. Young, D. (2008). A unified theory of social enterprise. In G. Shockley, P. Frank, & R. Stough (Eds.), Non-market entrepreneurship: Interdisciplinary perspectives. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN) GEORGETTE DUMONT
Cross-References
▶ EMES ▶ Community Interest Companies ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Salvation Army ▶ Social Entrepreneurship
References/Further Readings Alter, K. (2006), Social enterprise typology (Rev. ed.).Washington, DC: Virtue Ventures. Austin, J. et al. (Eds.) (2006). Effective management of social enterprises: Lessons from businesses and civil society organizations in Iberoamerica. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bartlett, L. (2005). An exploration of contemporary meanings of social enterprise. The Australasian Institute for Social Entrepreneurship. Bornstein, D. (2004). How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Borzaga, C., & Defourny, J. (2001). Conclusions: Social enterprises in Europe: A diversity of initiatives and prospects. In C. Borzaga & J. Defourny (Eds.), The emergence of social enterprise (pp. 350–370). London/New York: Routledge. Dees, J. (2001). The Meaning of ‘‘Social Entrepreneurship.’’ Revised, from http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/centers/case/documents/dees_SE.pdf; 6/25/2008 Defourny, J. (2006). Introduction. In M. Nyssens (Ed.), Social enterprise – At the crossroads of market, public and civil society. London: Routledge.
Address of Organization www.sekn.org
Introduction The Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN) is a collaboration of leading Latin American business schools and the Harvard Business School (HBS) in partnership with the AVINA Foundation. It was formed to address the need for generating social enterprise intellectual capital development in Ibero-America.
Brief History SEKN was founded in 2001 on three essential pillars: research, education, and networking. The initiative emerged from HBS, and was based on the understanding that the challenges facing organizations in the social sector could be addressed through management education. The management education is based on case studies and social enterprise research, which is developed by SEKN members.
Mission SEKN’s mission is to advance the frontiers of knowledge and practice in social enterprise in Ibero-America through
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collaborative research, shared learning, participant-centered teaching, and the strengthening of management education institutions’ capabilities to serve their communities.
Activities To accomplish its mission, SEKN provides training and performs research in each Ibero-American country to examine in depth situations of social enterprise practices in a chosen topic area. The topic area is chosen through a collaboration of SEKN members, as well as common research questions. This research culminates in a paper for each country reaching conclusions related to the specific research question. Because the topic area and research questions are the same in all the studies, a cross-country analysis can be done from these individual analytical reports to identify and understand commonalities and differences between countries.
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SEKN members serve more than 7,300 students through over 270 social enterprise courses in their degree programs. In addition, SEKN schools have reached more than 10,000 executives through their 126 executive education programs.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Economy ▶ Social Enterprise
References/Further Readings Austin, J., et al. (Ed.) (2006). Effective management of social enterprises lessons from businesses and civil society organizations in Iberoamerica. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies. Austin, J. (Ed.) (2003). Social partnering in Latin America. Washington, DC: David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies.
Structure and Governance The network has created a Leadership Council, which consists of the SEKN leaders from each of the member schools, to serve as the final decision-making body for SEKN. The full Leadership Council has responsibility for establishing SEKN’s strategy, evaluating the performance of the network and its members, and determining its membership. The management of the Network utilizes a distributed leadership approach in which the responsibility for the four key functions of the Network (Network Coordination, Knowledge Generation, Knowledge Dissemination, and Teaching) is assigned to specific leaders. This distributed leadership model deviates from the model commonly used in networks that concentrates responsibility and power in a secretariat.
Funding SEKN is funded by AVINA Foundation, SEKN’s Circle of Corporate Partners, and contributions to each member school from local supporters. The AVINA foundation, with its headquarters in Panama, contributes funding to organizations and alliances working towards sustainable development in Latin America. While AVINA is an important contributor, the relationship between AVINA and SEKN is viewed more as a partnership than a funderrecipient relationship.
Major Accomplishments SEKN has produced more than 40 case studies as well as two books published by Harvard University Press and reprinted in English and Portuguese by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Social Entrepreneurship DENNIS R. YOUNG, JANELLE A. KERLIN Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA
Introduction Entrepreneurship is a term traditionally associated with commercial business, and entrepreneurs are commonly understood as the people who undertake new business ventures. As the global economy has grown and become more competitive, entrepreneurs have come to be seen as the key to worldwide economic growth. However, entrepreneurship is by no means confined to the business sector and scholars have long recognized entrepreneurship as a generic process required to catalyze change and create new forms of activity in all parts of the economy (Dees & Anderson, 2006; Hisrich et al., 1997; Young, 1983). Thus, various literatures reference nonprofit sector entrepreneurs (Skloot, 1987; Young, 1985) and political and public sector entrepreneurs (Niskanen, 1998), recognizing that while the process, methods, and motivations of entrepreneurship may differ from sector to sector, the undertaking of growth and change generally require a catalytic element in the form of entrepreneurship. The rapid growth of the nonprofit sector in recent decades has been taken as evidence that entrepreneurial activity is especially vibrant in that sector (Brooks, 2008). ‘‘Social entrepreneurship’’ is a term attributed to Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, an organization that
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encourages entrepreneurship, especially in less developed countries, as a means to improve the well-being of disadvantaged populations and to fight poverty (www.ashoka. org). The concept of social entrepreneurship crosses sector lines and indeed often involves partnerships and transactions among nonprofits, business, and government. The unifying theme behind social entrepreneurship is that it is an initiative undertaken with social purposes in mind. Indeed, Dees and Anderson (2006) argue that the concept of social entrepreneurship represents a confluence of two schools of thought: the idea of generating earned (market) income in support of social purposes (e.g., through commercial activity by nonprofit organizations) and the undertaking of innovation for social change. Mair, Robinson, and Hockerts (2006: 1) provide examples of social entrepreneurship that fit with this broad view, including ‘‘enterprising individuals devoted to making a difference; social purpose business ventures dedicated to adding for-profit motivations to the nonprofit sector; new types of philanthropists supporting venture capital-like ‘investment’ portfolios; and nonprofit organizations that are reinventing themselves by drawing on lessons learned from the business world.’’ While many of the different types of social entrepreneurship have been in existence for some time, it is only within the last three decades that the term has emerged and been applied to old and new activities in the social sphere. Social entrepreneurship is now recognized as a subject of serious scholarly attention in its own right (Light, 2008). In addition to a growing literature, several major universities, including New York University, Harvard, Columbia, and Oxford, offer courses in this field and a number of major charitable foundations including Skoll, Kaufmann, Surdna, Schwab, and others have promoted the concept as an innovative and effective approach to addressing social problems. Ashoka sponsors a university council to promote education and research in social entrepreneurship internationally.
Definition Recent commentators such as Light (2008) and Brooks (2008) have not settled on a single definition of social entrepreneurship. Most definitions are consistent with Schumpeter’s (1934) original generic definition of entrepreneurship as the bringing about of ‘‘new combinations of means of production.’’ Schumpeter’s emphasis was on innovation, translating into new kinds of economic goods, new ways of producing them, opening of new markets, development of new sources of raw materials, or creation of new organizational structures. Young (1983) and later Brinckerhoff (2000) adapted these
manifestations of entrepreneurship specifically to nonprofits and social entrepreneurship, respectively. Light (2006) sorted through a substantial literature on nonprofit and social entrepreneurship, leading to the following definition which maintains the spirit of Schumpeter’s original emphasis on innovation, though it focuses on individuals, structures, and ideas more than process: "
A social entrepreneur is an individual, group, network, organization, or alliance of organizations that seek sustainable large-scale change through pattern-breaking ideas in what governments, nonprofits, and businesses do to address significant social problems (p. 30).
Alternatively, Brooks’s (2008) recent conceptualization emphasizes purpose, motivation, and process: social entrepreneurship addresses social problems or needs unmet by the government or the private marketplace; it is motivated primarily by social (rather than purely private) benefit; and it is a process that works with rather than against market forces. Others favor a more narrow definition of social entrepreneurship. Dees (2001) focuses on the role of social entrepreneurs as ‘‘change agents in the social sector’’ who are characterized by their bold commitment to continuous innovation in the pursuit of opportunities to create accountable social value. Moreover, many of the aforementioned foundations have developed definitions in line with this sharper definition of social entrepreneur with the intent to better target and therefore better support individuals with specific characteristics that make them exceptional leaders of social change. For example, Sally Osberg, president and CEO of the Skoll Foundation, understands the social entrepreneur as someone who targets an unfortunate but stable equilibrium that causes the neglect, marginalization, or suffering of a segment of humanity; who brings to bear on this situation his or her inspiration, direct action, creativity, courage, and fortitude; and who aims for and ultimately affects the establishment of a new stable equilibrium that secures permanent benefit for the targeted group and society at large (Martin & Osberg, 2007: 39). Despite their differences, these recent definitions affirm that social entrepreneurship is a process to create change in order to solve social problems, that it involves innovation in the methods of providing service, and that it engages motivations other than, or in addition to, pure private gain.
Historical Background Acknowledgment of the importance of entrepreneurship outside the business sector is a relatively recent
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development, and the distinctions and commonalities between business entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship remain poorly understood. Indeed the entire history of entrepreneurship scholarship is a spotty one. Classical economic theory hardly recognizes that entrepreneurs exist and play an important role even in the business economy and it has only been within the past few decades that entrepreneurship programs have attained prominence and legitimacy in institutions of higher education. Entrepreneurship has played a similarly secondary role in the study of the public and nonprofit sectors of the economy. In the former, some studies of public bureaucracy such as Anthony Downs’s Inside Bureaucracy (1967) have identified the importance of different varieties of internal actors, some of whom could be considered entrepreneurial, whose initiatives influence bureaucratic behavior and policy outcomes; and certainly there are numerous studies of political leaders by historians and political scientists, although few of these studies conceptualize leaders as entrepreneurs given their roles in bringing about change. In the nonprofit sector, the picture is more mixed. Initial theories of the existence and behavior of nonprofits in a market economy and democracy favored ‘‘demandside’’ explanations (Hansmann, 1987; Weisbrod, 1975), identifying varieties of public and private goods that experienced market or government ‘‘failure,’’ i.e., could not be produced in sufficient quantities by government or business, and hence would create demand for nonprofit provision. However, these theories were necessarily incomplete because one could not assume, as in the theory of the business economy, that a profit motive would be sufficient to create supply in response to that demand. A broader understanding of entrepreneurial motivations responsive to demands for nonprofit sector goods and services has thus been recognized as a key component of a complete theory of the nonprofit sector (Young, 2008; Steinberg, 2006).
Key Issues The search for a universal definition suggests a number of research and practical issues associated with the understanding and practice of social entrepreneurship. These include the motivations of people who engage in social entrepreneurship; how social entrepreneurship works and the processes through which it comes about; the choice of sector venues in which social entrepreneurship takes place; and the role of individuals versus teams, organizations, and networks in that process. Related issues include the role of risk and the impact of cultural and structural factors that differ across international boundaries, in social entrepreneurship.
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Motivation
Entrepreneurs are driven by a variety of motivations, even in the business sector. Young (1983) summarized a spectrum of such motivations ranging from income and power motives, to pursuit of strong beliefs, desires to express ideas, to solve problems, or to explore personal career opportunities. Light’s (2006) review of the literature generalized this spectrum of possibilities into a list of sources or determinants of entrepreneurial intent, which include life experiences, demographic differences, cognitive biases, and ideas. Young’s notion was that motivations mattered because they would cause different kinds of entrepreneurial energies and behaviors to be sorted into alternative sectoral venues, leading to different behaviors and outcomes. Light’s idea was that understanding the source of intent is a precursor to influencing the level and type of social entrepreneurship through policy changes. Indeed, Mair and Noboa (2006) map out intention formation and identify such variables as empathy and moral judgment as well as self-efficacy and social support as important antecedents to socially entrepreneurial behavior. Finally, Brooks (2008) sees entrepreneurial personality traits, education, and experience as just some of the factors that lead to social entrepreneurship activity. The motivation of social entrepreneurs is an important practical issue if one is interested in influencing the direction and volume of social entrepreneurship. How can one identify and select potential social entrepreneurs, encourage their work, create appropriate venues for their energies, and teach them what to do? All this depends on understanding who social entrepreneurs are, how rare or common they may be, how they can be identified and channeled into productive social ventures, and how their work is best rewarded. Venue
According to different perspectives, social entrepreneurship can occur within or across the nonprofit, business, and government sectors. The choice of venue presumably depends on the opportunities that present themselves and the resources made available in particular instances. In this view, social entrepreneurship represents a match between the motivations of certain varieties of entrepreneurs and the social and material goals associated with particular ventures. For example, an entrepreneur seeking to make both a good living and a contribution to society may prefer a venue that offers both, perhaps a small business or a corporate foundation. A long-standing question in the generic entrepreneurship and economics literatures is whether nonmaterial motives are dominated
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by profit-seeking motives, a question that is magnified for social entrepreneurship. Rosabeth Kanter (1983) coined the phrase ‘‘intrapreneurship’’ to recognize that entrepreneurs operate inside organizations as well as in the open marketplace. Indeed, many of the best examples of nonprofit entrepreneurship are found within organizational boundaries and involve individuals who want to change the directions of their organizations in important ways (Young, 1985). This idea can be generalized to social entrepreneurship which can take place within large corporations, nonprofit organizations or government agencies, as well as directly in the open marketplace where new organizations are created. In Europe, new social entrepreneurial energies have been stoked by government policies, stimulating individuals and groups to set up new nonprofit organizations and those within existing charities to develop new contract offerings in response to governmental incentives. In the United States, social entrepreneurship has found new pockets of demand among individual consumers responsive to socially responsible products and services, among philanthropic funders intrigued with creative market solutions to social issues, and among large corporations anxious to associate themselves with socially worthy organizations and ventures in cause-related marketing initiatives. Process
What exactly do social entrepreneurs do and what processes are involved in bringing about the changes they seek? Young (1985) identified a number key elements in the chemistry of success: there must be a pressing problem to solve or an extant opportunity to address; a motivated entrepreneur; a supportive organizational environment; a new idea for addressing the problem or opportunity; a willingness to take risks and be persistent; and a focus on goals and outcomes. Brooks (2008) schematizes the process as a sequence of opportunity recognition, concept development, resource determination and acquisition, launch and venture growth, and goal attainment. His overall view is that there must be a match of internal forces (entrepreneurial traits, entrepreneurial preparation in terms of education and experience) and external forces (social, political, economic factors), resource availability, and some ‘‘perturbation’’ in the environment that stimulates people to action, before the social entrepreneurship process can begin. In fact, knowledge of how the social entrepreneurship process works remains elusive. Key questions include the role of risk and who bears it and the importance of individuals versus groups and teams. What kinds of risks must social entrepreneurs bear themselves (social,
financial, professional, etc.) and what kinds of risks can be shared with other stakeholders (e.g., financial, political)? And to what extent does successful social entrepreneurship revolve around a few entrepreneurial leaders or ‘‘heroes,’’ and how much is really done by entrepreneurial teams where the work of social entrepreneurship and even the motivation and intellectual leadership is widely shared? To date, most writers have focused on individual social entrepreneurs and have been vague about the nature of risks they face, while in fact, teams may be quite important and both financial and social sacrifices may underlie significant accomplishments in social entrepreneurship.
International Perspectives International scholarship on social entrepreneurship reveals interesting similarities and differences in use of the term across countries and world regions. While the broad concept of social entrepreneurship as defined by Light (2008) and Brooks (2008) appears similar, important distinctions can arise in focus, structure, and support. Kerlin (2006) finds that differences between the United States and Europe include a greater focus in Europe on the use of social enterprise for employmentcreating initiatives often through social cooperatives. In Europe there is also more emphasis on the governance of social enterprises with greater expectations for multistakeholder participation (see Nyssens, 2006). Social entrepreneurship in Europe also receives more support from government entities than in the United States, where foundations and the private sector are more likely to provide this assistance. Borzaga and Defourny (2001) show how the institutionalization of social enterprise varies across countries in the European Union, both in degree and type. Countries vary not only in the number of social enterprises in operation, but also in the range of services provided by them, with some only narrowly focused on employment-creating initiatives. Also, while a few countries have instituted new legal forms specifically for social enterprise organizations and have the active support of local and national government, others exhibit less government interest. Other authors who discuss social entrepreneurship from an international perspective approach it with a sufficiently broad definition to allow consistency across boundaries. Most recently, Nicholls (2006) brought together leading social entrepreneurship scholars, policy makers, and field practitioners from a number of different countries to discuss aspects of social entrepreneurship including its practice, theory, and models. And Austin
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and colleagues (2006) demonstrated effective management strategies for social enterprises based on case studies and research in Latin America.
Future Directions Brooks’s (2008) general theory of social entrepreneurship helps synthesize the various determinants of social entrepreneurship activity, but his work also raises questions for future inquiry and continued theory development. In brief, Brooks’s theory is that social entrepreneurs, who reflect certain special personality characteristics, recognize new opportunities to create social value. These individuals then develop a new concept, gather the necessary information, analyze alternatives and develop plans, acquire the resources and support they need, launch ventures, assess the achievement of their goals, and then expand or change course as they learn what works and what does not. Thus, Brooks sketches a very linear and rational theory and one that could be the basis for teaching individuals to become social entrepreneurs. However, the questions this conceptualization raises are just as profound: 1. Is social entrepreneurship really a rational, linear process or is it more serendipitous? 2. Do circumstances bring out the social entrepreneur in some people, on a transient basis, or are some people natural, long-term career social entrepreneurs? 3. Does it make sense to train people as social entrepreneurs and how well can this be done? How does one screen for appropriate candidates? 4. To what extent does social entrepreneurship take place in teams rather than dominated by individuals? Is social entrepreneurship more or less of a team sport than business entrepreneurship? 5. Is social entrepreneurship a cultural phenomenon? Does it vary internationally by culture and political system or is it a universal capacity? If the latter, what public policies can encourage social entrepreneurship and direct its energies toward solving important social problems? 6. To what extent is social entrepreneurship best accommodated in a particular sector? What are the different incentives and constraints that encourage or inhibit social entrepreneurship in nonprofits versus large and small business corporations versus governmental organizations? The study of social entrepreneurship has broadened the horizons of scholars, policy makers, and nonprofit and business leaders in a number of ways. Scholars now understand the universality of entrepreneurship and its role across the whole economy. Policy makers and advocates of social change now recognize that social purpose activity is
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not narrowly confined to the nonprofit sector and government, and that engaging the energies of individuals and teams that seek to innovate and break away from traditional ways of doing things can be an effective approach to solving social problems. The future challenge is to find effective ways of encouraging, focusing, and harnessing this energy on a scale large enough to make a significant impact on current major social, environmental, and economic problems.
Cross-References
▶ Ashoka ▶ Blended Value ▶ CIRIEC ▶ EMES ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ Hybridity/Hybridization ▶ Omidyar Network ▶ Schumpeter, Joseph ▶ Skoll Foundation ▶ Social Enterprise Knowledge Network ▶ Social Franchising ▶ Social Investment ▶ Yunus, Muhammad
References/Further Readings Austin, J. (2006). Effective management of social enterprises: Lessons from businesses and civil society organizations in Iberoamerica. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bornstein, D. (2004). How to change the world: Social entrepreneurs and the power of new ideas. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Borzaga, C., & Defourny, J. (2001). Conclusions: Social enterprises in Europe: A diversity of initiatives and prospects. In C. Borzaga & J. Defourny (Eds.), The emergence of social enterprise (pp. 350–370). London/New York: Routledge. Brinckerhoff, P. (2000). Social entrepreneurship: The art of mission-based venture development. New York: Wiley. Brooks, A. (2008). Social entrepreneurship: A modern approach to social value creation. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Dees, J. (2001). The meaning of social entrepreneurship (Rev.), from http://www.fuqua.duke.edu/centers/case/documents/dees_SE.pdf; 6/25/2008 Dees, J., & Anderson, B. (2006). Framing a theory of social entrepreneurship: Building on two schools of practice and thought. In R. Mosher-Williams (Ed.), Research on social entrepreneurship (pp. 39–66, Vol. 1, No. 3). ARNOVA Occasional Paper Series. Downs, A. (1967). Inside bureaucracy. Boston, MA: Little, Brown & Company. Hansmann, H. (1987). Economic theories of nonprofit organization, In W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 27–42). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hisrich, R., et al. (1997). Entrepreneurship in the not-for-profit sector: The state of the art. In W. Raymond, R. Smilor, & D. Sexton (Eds.), Entrepreneurship 2000. Upstart Publishing Co. Kanter, R. (1983). The change masters: Innovation and entrepreneurship in the American corporation. New York: Simon & Schuster.
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Kerlin, J. (2006). Social enterprise in the United States and Europe: Understanding and learning from the differences. Voluntas, 17: 3, 247–263. Light, P. (2006). Searching for social entrepreneurs: Who they might be, Where they might be found, What they do. In R. Mosher-Williams (Ed.), Research on social entrepreneurship (pp. 13–37, Vol. 1, No. 3). ARNOVA Occasional Paper Series. Light, P. (2008). The search for social entrepreneurship. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Mair, J., & Noboa, E. (2006). Social entrepreneurship: How intentions to create a social venture are formed. In J. Mair, J. Robinson, & K. Hockerts (Eds.), Social entrepreneurship (pp. 121–135). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan. Mair, J., Robinson, J., & Hockerts, K. (Eds.). Social entrepreneurship. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan. Martin, R., & Osberg, S. (2007). Social entrepreneurship: The case for definition. Stanford Social Innovation Review, Spring, 29–39. Nicholls, A. (Ed.) (2006). Social entrepreneurship. New models of sustainable change. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Niskanen, W. A. (1998). The opportunities for political entrepreneurship. In W. Niskanen (Ed.), Policy Analysis and Public Choice (321–328). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Nyssens, M. (2006). Social enterprise. At the crossroads of market, public policies and civil society. London/New York: Routledge. Schumpeter, J. (1934). Capitalism, socialism and democracy. New York: Harper & Row. Skloot, E. (1987). Enterprise and commerce in nonprofit organizations. In W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 380–393). New Haven, CT: Yale University. Steinberg, R. (2006). Economic theories of nonprofit organizations. In W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook 2nd ed (pp. 117–139). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Wei-Skillern, J. (2007). Entrepreneurship in the social sector. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Weisbrod, B. (1975). Toward a theory of the voluntary, non-profit sector in a three sector economy. In E. Phelps (Ed.), Altruism, morality and economic Theory (pp. 171–195) New York: Russell Sage. Young, D. (1983). If not for profit, for what? Lexington, MA: Lexington Books. Young, D. (1985). Casebook of management for nonprofit organizations: Entrepreneurship and organizational change in the human services. New York: Haworth Press. Young, D. (2008). A unified theory of social enterprise. In G. Shockley, P. Frank, & R. Stough (Eds.), Non-market entrepreneurship: Interdisciplinary approaches. (pp. 175–191) Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Social Franchising DIETER AHLERT, HAI VAN DUONG DINH Westfa¨lische Wilhelms-Universita¨t Muenster, Muenster, Germany
Introduction Over the past centuries, society has gathered sufficient experience and knowledge of best practices to address
most of the common social challenges in the world. However, many projects have been maintained at a regional level. Considering that for many people in need, existing projects are still not available or accessible, it is of equal importance to systematically copy and implement best practices at other geographical locations in order to provide greater availability and enable more recipients to benefit from the projects. Especially in this age of escalating social problems, scarce financial resources and tough competition between social projects, nonprofit organizations have to meet the combined challenges of increasing efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. As this commercial logic also becomes essential in the social sector, organizations increasingly become aware of the need for growth and turn to franchising as an appropriate strategy for achieving this. The concept of social franchising, i.e., franchising of nonprofit projects, has attracted much attention in the nonprofit sector. There are various examples of nonprofit organizations that have successfully implemented elements of franchising as a means of growth and organization. However, the concept has not been fully accepted and elaborated. To date, most nonprofit organizations know as little about franchising as franchise organizations know about the nonprofit sector. Hence, in order to tap the full potential of franchising in the nonprofit sector, a substantial transfer of know-how and experience remains necessary.
Definition The literature currently lacks a common definition of social franchising. In the social economy, the term social franchising is generally used to describe a wide range of strategies for replicating social businesses, including franchising itself, but also licensing or cooperative networks that are built around a proven project. At a workshop held by the German Foundation for World Population (2000: 6), the following definition was formulated: ‘‘Social franchising is a process by which the developer of a successfully tested social concept, the franchisor, in order to scale up the coverage of target groups and the quality of products (services), enables others, the franchisees, to replicate the model, using the tested system, using the brand name, in return for social results, system development, information on impact.’’ Accordingly, social franchising is a replication model which can be used to rapidly scale up the impact of a project. However, because the relationship between social franchisor and franchisees extends well beyond an arms-length transaction – as is common in many replication models – the scope of social franchising is much wider than merely providing for growth.
Social Franchising
Axel Schuhen (2004: 156–157) suggests a more functional definition: ‘‘Social Franchising is the nonprofit form of vertical or horizontal cooperation with the aim of replicating social programs and services as well as governing and linking social organizations.’’ Consequently, social franchising must also be considered a form of cooperation between equal partners. As such, social franchising is also a matter of cultivating a partnership, joining forces and benefitting from cooperative organizations. Many definitions refer to social franchising as franchising with social, rather than commercial goals. Montagu (2002: 129) defines it as a system that is ‘‘usually run by a non-governmental organization which uses the structure of a commercial franchise to achieve social goals’’. Similarly, Smith (2002: 8) classifies social franchising as ‘‘a development approach that applies modern commercial franchising techniques to achieve social rather than commercial goals.’’ In contrast to commercial franchising, social franchise systems do not aim at maximizing profits, but rather have a double bottom line. The crux of the matter is to maximize social impact while simultaneously earning surplus revenues. This means operating in a manner that is business-like, such as by charging beneficiaries when they are able to pay for the services, working efficiently or generating fund surpluses. Social franchise systems are profit-making, but only profit-taking within defied limits. Revenues are not distributed to owners, but rather used to cover costs, reinvest in the community or develop the franchise system further. As such, social franchising is considerably different from mere philanthropy. Instead of spending funds on a social endeavour for which there are no returns in the conventional sense, social franchising aims at making surplus revenues and strives towards self-sustainability. Ideally, social franchise systems can earn sufficient profits to remain self-sustaining and independent from external funding. In other respects, when beneficiaries are not able to compensate franchisees for their services, social franchising at least aims at using funds efficiently. Social franchising is closely related to social entrepreneurship. The concepts differ only in scope. Social franchising consists of individual social entrepreneurs who work on their own behalf and account, but who are organized within a franchise network. From the perspective of a social entrepreneur, social franchising can therefore be regarded as an option for setting up one’s own social enterprise. Correspondingly, Waites and Choudhury (2006: 17) define social franchising as ‘‘the process by which social enterprises replicate their successful business formulas via the franchise route thus enabling other people and/or organizations to start-up and run them elsewhere.’’
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Social franchising as defined here needs to be differentiated from nonprofit-owned franchise businesses that are often referred to as ‘‘social franchises’’. These are commercial franchises (businesses) that are run by nonprofit organizations besides their projects in order to generate revenue and finance social projects.
Key Issues The Design of Social Franchising
Social franchising is based on a share of work between the franchisor and his franchisees. On the one hand, there is the franchisor who has three main tasks. First, he offers a form of turnkey concept for starting and running a nonprofit project and commits to continually developing the concept. This includes the product/service itself, an umbrella brand as well as a catalogue of services for the on-going support of franchisees – including e.g., training or marketing. Second, the franchisor coordinates the coexistence of franchisees in the network. Because all franchisees act under one common brand and can thus affect fellow franchisees, it is important to ensure that all are compliant to the system requirements and agreement. Accordingly, the franchisor needs to coordinate the franchisees and prevent opportunistic behavior. Third, the franchisor needs to ensure an appropriate atmosphere in which franchisees can and will exchange their experiences and thus promote mutual learning. The franchisees, on the other hand, acquire a license to use the concept and implement it on-site. They act on their own behalf and account, but commit to compliance with the franchisor’s principles and guidelines. The result is a network of autonomous entities, which implement the same social program under a common brand name, join forces in order to achieve more, and are supported by a central institution. For the allocation of roles in social franchise systems, see Fig. 1. In commercial franchising, the franchisor receives a regular fee from its franchisees for providing the concept and supporting services. However, in social franchising, it is rather difficult to raise fees. Because it is often people in need rather than customers who are served, it cannot always be expected that franchisees will be compensated fully for their services. Without an income, franchisees are unable to pay fees. Furthermore, the question remains as to whether fees are appropriate at all, as franchisees already ‘‘pay back’’ franchisors by implementing the social program and making a social impact, which is the ultimate goal of social franchisors. These considerations result in alternate cash flow arrangements in social franchising:
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Social Franchising
Social Franchising. Fig. 1 Role of social franchisor, social franchisees and recipients
● In the first model, there are no monetary flows between franchisor and franchisees. Each has an independent financing process and needs to raise its own funds. This grants both parties flexibility. Conversely though, this arrangement might result in competition over funds. Because all franchisees basically pursue the same objective, they might ultimately solicit funds from more or less the same donor pool. The efforts of one franchisee then affect the efforts of others and thus increase the system-wide costs of fundraising (see Case 1 in Fig. 2). ● In the second model, the franchisor pays an income to its franchisees. This model is particularly relevant if it is difficult for franchisees to finance themselves, either because recipients are unable to pay for the services or because it is difficult to raise funds. In this case, the franchisor should use its established reputation to raise funds so as to finance the franchise system. However, in order to ensure appropriate performance, the payment to franchisees should be performance-oriented, i.e., allocated according to the achievement of specific objectives (see Case 2 in Fig. 2). ● If the franchisees are financially self-sustaining, be it due to funds or a sufficient payment by recipients, it is possible to raise franchise fees. Fees aid in covering the franchisor’s operational costs – ultimately, the
franchisor is paid for its services and for the further development of the concept. This enables the franchise system to capitalize on all functions of franchise fees. For example, fees are a bonding mechanism between the franchisor and franchisees, creating a sense of commitment and emphasizing the contractual agreement. Furthermore, because franchise fees are a payment for the franchisor’s services, they increase their perceived value. Fees are also a self-screening mechanism. Knowing that fees need to be paid, only those franchisees will apply who are motivated and able to manage a franchise. Consequently, in order to add value to the franchise system, franchisors should request franchise fees whenever it is possible, even if these are relatively low amounts (see Case 3 in Fig. 2). At least in the starting phase, a social franchise system is dependent on financial support from donors. Hence, in contrast to commercial franchising, the donor is an additional player who needs to be taken into account. However, the crux of this matter is that donors most likely have their own policies and programs which might not be compatible with those of the franchisor and franchisees. Potential conflicts between the parties must therefore be avoided through a careful selection of partners and thorough relationship management. However, social franchise systems
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Social Franchising. Fig. 2 Flow of money within social franchise systems
can also capitalize on a tight integration of donors in the network, as the concept of high-engagement funding demonstrates. Regular personal contact promotes trust and an open partnership, whereas donor experiences with social projects and their extensive social networks can be used for the benefit of the system. In order to ensure the transferability of a project, franchising is based on standards. This means defining and describing elements of the project in blueprint processes so as to enable the project to be replicated at any location. However, this does not imply that social franchising is a cookie-cutter process. Moreover, standardization focuses on core elements that are essential for reproducing the results of the initial program. All other elements are variable, enabling an adaptation to local peculiarities. In social franchising, there are generally two areas that can be standardized. First, there are the elements of the project that can be standardized. However, service standardization is challenging in the nonprofit sector, because critical knowledge is often tacit. On the other hand, there are management processes within a franchise unit, which can be standardized, e.g., marketing or logistics. Standardizing these processes is particularly beneficial, as in the majority of cases social franchisees will not have any experience in managing an organization, but rather have their core competence in areas of implementing the nonprofit service.
for social franchising can be put forward. Originally, franchising evolved as an efficient and effective vertical distribution system. Accordingly, social franchising was initially considered as a strategy for disseminating social programs by means of replication. The aim is to achieve wide coverage in order to reach as many beneficiaries as possible. Franchising provides a stable basis for successful expansion by promoting a strong brand, setting quality standards and offering on-going support to franchisees. This perspective of franchising is similar to a ‘‘greenfield strategy,’’ rolling out a franchise system from one successful project. However, over time, with the rise of cooperative approaches, franchising has developed into a form of cooperation between independent entities. Existing businesses join forces and build a network that adopts franchising (or at least elements of it) in order to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of each participant. Correspondingly, social franchising has also proven its worth as a means of integrating existing individual players in a system. Because the nonprofit sector is driven by collectivism, such cooperation has proven to be enormously valuable for the third sector. This view is likewise a so-called ‘‘brownfield strategy’’, i.e., taking established organizations and integrating them into one network by implementing franchise elements. These main driving forces of social franchising today are summarized in Fig. 3.
The Role of Social Franchising in the Third Sector
Benefits for the Third Sector
Social franchising has various options in terms of design, approaches and applications. Therefore, several rationales
Social franchising enables a fast, effective and efficient replication of nonprofit programs. The reuse of a
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Social Franchising. Fig. 3 Phenomenology of social franchising
developed and proven concept leverages existing resources, and experience as well as available data prevent mistakes from being made over and over again. This reduces initial start-up risks. The transfer of on-site responsibility to franchisees facilitates the establishment of a large number of outlets within a relatively short period of time. The franchisor seldom has the capacity and time to achieve this independently. The problem of a ‘‘civil servant attitude’’ and system abuse is less likely in social franchise systems, as a franchise contract clearly defines roles and spells out expectations, rights, and obligations of the parties. Moreover, because franchisees can run their units autonomously, they are more motivated to make an effort and minimize costs. With the standardization of project elements, franchising ensures a certain minimum level of quality that is consistent among franchisees. This facilitates quality management as it leads to an easier measurement and monitoring of quality. In addition, standardization implies a documentation of best practices and experiences which is generally rather inefficient in the social
sector. Particularly the standardization of management processes is beneficial in the nonprofit sector. By applying standards and guidelines of how to manage units, franchisees can focus on providing the service. The integration into one network creates commitment and trust among franchisees, which provides a good basis for mutual learning. Social franchisees are encouraged to exchange their know-how and experiences openly, thus advancing each other and leading to become more effective operations. This is thereby complemented by a systematic learning through the franchisor, who continually seeks to advance the concept and regularly offers extensive training and consulting. Franchising can thus tap the full innovative potential. Eventually, the concept and franchise system advance much faster than in individual attempts. In social franchising, the work is divided between franchisor and franchisees according to their competences. The different parties can complement each other and thus fully exploit the network synergies. The social franchisor assumes all functions that can be developed and provided more efficiently if done centrally
Social Franchising
(generation of economies of scale and scope). He can bundle the demands of franchisees and offer them access to resources and expertise that are probably not affordable for single units. This, for example, includes national marketing, legal services, or training. The local franchisee takes over all operative functions, as he has local knowledge and is on-site. He can thus provide the services more efficiently, while still respecting local characteristics. This corresponds to experiences which consistently demonstrate that social projects must be locally owned in order to take root and become sustainable. In this manner, social franchising combines the advantages of large organizations (power) with those of small ones (flexibility). For example, when assigning fundraising within the system, the franchisor, as a representative of a large franchise system, can more easily raise funds from national authorities and large corporate donors. The local franchisees, by contrast, are better able to tap local resources, as they often have established community relations. It is reasonable that donors wish to ensure that their funds are being used appropriately. Accordingly, the more transparent and better prepared a project, the more likely the continued support of donors. Moreover, donors increasingly demand that organizations look beyond the pilot phase of a project, so as to increase the range of use of their funds. Therefore, they often request a dissemination plan when agreeing to fund a specific project. Given that social franchising entails a transparent and well-elaborated concept, a brand name that creates trust, and includes a dissemination plan, it has a vantage point which can ensure long-term financial support by donors. Social franchise systems can more easily attract attention, because their franchisees have a consistent appearance and an umbrella brand. In the nonprofit sector, reputation is an important strategic asset. The brand, representing the essence of what all franchisees stand for, therefore plays an important role in social franchising. The brand aims at creating awareness and attention among recipients, donors and the public. This applies particularly to merit goods and services, i.e. those with insufficient receptivity and valuation by beneficiaries such as precautionary services, e.g., inoculation.
Future Directions Research on Social Franchising
To date, little is known about the application of commercial franchising to social enterprises. The academic literature and research on social franchising is still very scarce. The
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existing literature thus focuses mainly on issues of practical implementation, such as key managerial challenges. Further research should initially consider the extent to which existing conceptual research on commercial franchising can provide a framework for understanding social franchising. As a first attempt, Tracey and Jarvis (2007) develop an approach towards a theory of social franchising, but much research is still needed. In particular, there is the issue of motivating and bonding franchisees. In commercial franchising, franchisees are motivated and bonded to the system by granting them residual claims. Furthermore, the franchisees bear an investment risk: they provide the start-up capital which results in a fear of financial loss and failure. This, in turn, creates an incentive to comply with the rules of the franchise system and to make an effort. However, this is not always the case in social franchising. If the social franchisee has his own funding resources or can expect an income, he is able to take over parts of the required investment. Because this is generally not the case, the franchisor or donor will be forced to provide the investment. Consequently, there is a lack of financial incentives, potentially resulting in low franchisee motivation to comply with the system and thus difficulties in franchisee governance. Moreover, this situation can cause high franchisee turnover. However, social franchisees are granted extensive managerial responsibilities and autonomy which might also serve as an incentive to make an effort to raise funds and manage costs. Bradach (2003: 19) refers to this as ‘‘psychic income’’. Likewise, there is a stipulation of disenfranchisement if the franchisee fails to comply with the system. Eventually, each franchisor needs to evaluate to what extent this ensures effort and system compliance and how the incentive system must be designed in order to motivate and bond franchisees. Experience has shown that it is of great importance to develop incentive structures that align the interests of the franchisor and franchisees. The Acceptance of Social Franchising
The past few years have shown a boom in cooperation within the social sector. Franchise elements, in particular, are increasingly being applied, suggesting a favorable trend for social franchising. However, a real breakthrough has not yet been achieved. Due to uncertainty and misconceptions as to what the replication of a project actually entails, social franchising is considered as a ‘‘one-size-fitsall’’ replication of a concept with standardized procedures. This, in turn, is generally regarded as inappropriate in the social sector, because the success of a nonprofit program is often based on tacit knowledge and an adaptation to local peculiarities. However, replication and social franchising
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do not necessarily have to be cookie-cutter processes. Because standardization extends solely to key elements that are mandatory for the replication of a project’s success, there remains sufficient autonomy. Furthermore, establishing a network conjures up perceptions of bureaucracy and centralized control, whereas maintaining autonomy is an important issue in the social sector. Consequently, many organizations are reluctant to implement the projects of others or to let others implement theirs. Another barrier is the general perception that profit and social benefit are incompatible. However, many social enterprises have proven this perception to be quite wrong. Profitability and efficiency must be accepted in the social sector as a means of achieving sustainability. Regardless of the increasing support of projects for which systematic dissemination is planned a priori, a prevailing bias among donors to support new and innovative concepts remains. Furthermore, the habit of donors to grant small, short-term, project-focused funds prevents the building up of a large strong network. Few donors are willing to fund a network of sites and nonprogrammatic activities that are not directly spent for project implementation. Accordingly, it remains difficult to raise funds for developing a social franchise system and financing the franchisor. Despite of all efforts to improve sustainability in the nonprofit sector, the fact remains that a more proactive approach must be taken in order secure the financial future of nonprofit organizations. The choices within the control of nonprofit organizations are limited, and social franchising promises to be a viable and potent option for the social sector to become more effective and efficient in solving problems and meeting global challenges. The concept of social franchising needs to be further promoted in order to encourage growth and to disseminate best practice. Most notably, there is a demand for a paradigm shift from actors in traditional nonprofit organizations in terms of accepting profit-making in the social sector. As van Oudenhoven and Wazir (1997: 3) put it, the third sector must consider improving the ‘‘state-ofpractice’’ via social franchising, instead of improving only the ‘‘state-of-the-art.’’
Cross-References
▶ Ashoka ▶ Brands and Branding ▶ Effectiveness and Efficiency ▶ Evaluation ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Marketing ▶ Replicability and Scaling Up
▶ Social Economy ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Social Entreprise ▶ Social Marketing ▶ Strategic Philantropy ▶ Sustainability ▶ Transparency ▶ Venture Philantropy ▶ YMCA
References/Further Readings Ahlert, D. (2001). Wertorientiertes Management von F&C-Netzwerken Ein neues Paradfigma fu¨r die Theorie des Netzwerkmanagements?. In Ahlert, D. (Ed.), Handbuch Franchising&Cooperation. Neuwied: Luchterhand Verlag. Association of German Foundations and International Centre for Franchising & Cooperation. (2008). Social Franchising - A way of Systematic Replication to Increase Social Impact. Bradach, J. (2003). Going to scale: The challenge of replicating social programs. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Spring 2003, 19–25. Dees, J. G., Anderson, B. B., & Wei-Skillern, J. (2004). Scaling social impact. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Spring 2004, 24–32. German Foundation for World Population (2000). Social franchising – a worthwhile alternative for development co-operation. Report on the workshop held by German Foundation for World Population (DSW). Berlin. LaVake, S. D. (2003). Applying social franchising techniques to youth reproductive health/HIV services. Family Health International Youth Issues Paper No. 2. McBride, J., & Ahmed, R. (2001). Social franchising as a strategy for expanding access to reproductive health services. Commercial Market Strategies Technical Paper Series No. 1. Montagu, D. (2002). Franchising of health services in developing countries. Health Policy and Planning. 17(2), 121–130. Oster, S. M. (1996). Nonprofit organizations and their local affiliates: A study in organizational forms. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. 30(1): 83–95. Schuhen, A. (2004). Franchising – ein Modell fu¨r den NonprofitSektor. In: Ko¨tz, H. et al. (Eds.), Nonprofit Law Yearbook 2003 (pp. 151166). Ko¨ln: Carl Heymanns. Smith, E. (2002). Social franchising reproductive health services; Can it work? A review of the experience. Marie Stopes International Working Papers. Tracey, P., & Jarvis, O. (2007). Toward a theory of Social Venture Franchising. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. 31(5), 667 – 685. Van Oudenhoven, N., & Wazir, R. (1997). Replicating social programmes: Approaches, strategies, and conceptual issues. Management of Social Transformations (MOST) Program Discussion Paper Series – No. 18. UNESCO. Waites, J., & Choudhury, M. (2006). Franchising into the LEGI communities. http://www.durham.gov.uk/cdsp/usp.nsf/Lookup/Franchising %20into%20the%20LEGI%20Communities/$file/Franchising+into +the+LEGI+Communities.pdf; 10/9/ 2008. Wei-Skillern, J., & Battle Anderson, B. (2003). Nonprofit geographic expansion: branches, affiliates, or both. Center of the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship Working Paper Series No. 4.
Social Investment
Social Investment HELMUT K. ANHEIER1,2 1 University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany 2 Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany
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Introduction Social investments are private contributions to public benefit. Two aspects are central here: first, the statement makes the implicit distinction that these contributions are investments rather than current expenditures intended for consumptive purposes. In this respect, the notion of social investment is identical to what investments are in the conventional economic sense: they are expenditures for the purchase by an investor or the provision by a donor of a financial product or other item of value with an expectation of favorable future returns; or they are expenditures for the purchase by a producer or the provision by a donor of a physical good, service, or resource with a use value beyond that current fiscal year. Second, the statement also emphasizes the social aspect of such investments: first, in the sense that such private actions benefit a wider community, however defined, and of which the investor may or may not be a part; and second, in the sense that not only monetary but also contributions in-kind count as investments. The latter would include voluntary work (e.g., investing time and knowledge to teach students, transferring skills), civic engagement (investing time, land, materials, and skills for developing a community park), even generating social capital (investing time and existing social relations for building advocacy networks or citizen action groups). Thus, the major difference between social and conventional economic investing is that investments are to yield intended returns beyond those benefiting the investor or donor, and that both investments and expected yields involve more than monetary transactions and transfers as well as pecuniary expectations generally. In recent years, the term social investment has gained currency over alternatives for several reasons; among them are (see Anheier et al., 2006): 1. The desire to have a positive definition rather than a negative one on the range of private institutions, organizations, and actions that provide public benefits; despite their wide use and utility terms like nonprofit or nongovernmental nonetheless suggest what
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they are not rather than the core of their raison d’eˆtre; in the same vein, the term wants to signal its substantive meaning more clearly than technical terms such as third sector; The need for a term that includes the individual level (e.g., civic engagement, volunteering, donations), the organization level (nonprofit organizations, voluntary associations, social movements) and the institutional level (philanthropy, charity); The need to have a modern umbrella term for activities which seeks to produce both financial and social value and returns in situations where concepts like charity or philanthropy may be too limiting; The need for a neutral term to enhance comparisons across countries and fields, as existing concepts such as tax exempt entities in the United States, charity and voluntary sector (United Kingdom), public benefit sector (Germany), social economy (France), or Japanese or Italian conceptions are too closely tied to particular national experiences and circumstances; The motivation to link the current research, teaching and policy agenda on nonprofits, philanthropy and civic engagement to mainstream concerns of academia, in particular in the social sciences, legal studies, and management; and, finally; The aspiration to shift the debate about public benefit and responsibilities from an emphasis on fiscal expenditures and revenues to social investments, asset creation, societal problem-solving capacity and, ultimately, sustainability. For example, in public policy, educational expenditures are typically classified as current costs or expense in annual budget but not as investments; similarly, allocation for the restoration of environmentally depredated areas are seen as expenditure rather than investments.
Definition Social investment can be understood in both a narrow and a more comprehensive sense. A Narrow Definition
The narrow understanding corresponds to the provision and management of capital assets to social enterprises, i.e., businesses such as cooperatives, mutuals, and some employee-owned firms that seek to combine social and economic returns. While they are profit-oriented, they either produce significant positive communal externalities or have a communal-distribution requirement written into their articles of incorporation. In some European countries, this notion of social investment is close to
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cooperative economics and the notions of economie sociale (France, Belgium, Spain) or Gemeinwirtschaft (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland). These approaches, historically linked to the cooperative movement and mutualism, emphasize the behavior and contributions of producers or consumers in market-like situations who engage in collective action to improve their market position, typically in terms of forward and backward integration. The narrow term also refers to the activities of grantmaking foundations and nonprofit organizations. For example, the Charity Commission in the United Kingdom offers a definition that puts social investments close to financial activities that are focused on, or are part of, a particular program carried out by a charity. Accordingly, social investments are described as investments which ‘‘may generate a financial return, but the charity’s main objective in making them is to help its beneficiaries. . . Social investment is not ‘investment’ in the conventional sense of a financial investment. Conventional investments involve the acquisition of an asset with the sole aim of financial return which will be applied to the charity’s objects. Social investments, by contrast, are made directly in pursuit of the organisation’s charitable purposes. Although they can generate some financial return, the primary motivation for making them is not financial but the actual furtherance of the charity’s objects’’ (http://www.charity-commission. gov.uk/supportingcharities/casi.asp). Social investments refer to the changing relation between market-driven investments and social (public benefit) investments. Examples are public benefit contributions
Social Investment. Fig. 1 Investment typology
based on concessionary reduction of interest rates or return on investment expectations below market rates. Rather than thinking in categories of ‘‘investment’’ in market situations and ‘‘gifts’’ in public benefit contexts, this thinking suggests looking into the gradual transformation of the one into the other, as is the case in the fields of microfinance and micro-insurance. Both started initially as philanthropic endeavors in response to market failures but are now beginning to draw market capital. Emerson (2002) makes a similar point for grantmaking foundations when he writes that their purpose is not simply to engage in grant-making, but rather to invest in the creation of social value, i.e., a value other than monetary gains. A philanthropic investment is therefore a grant invested in a nonprofit organization with no expectation of return of principal, but expectation of social return on investment. These investments are typically below market rate and made on a concessionary basis. He goes on to argue that available foundation assets for supporting this process of social value creation should be part of an overall investment strategy for both core assets and philanthropic investments. In this sense, foundations maximize their social impact if input and output strategies are oriented towards creating social value. The wide range of financial investment options is available to foundations and nonprofit organizations, and their applicability and potential depends on national tax laws and financial regulations. The Esmee Fairbairn Foundation (2005) suggested a classification scheme for investment options, as shown in Fig. 1. It ranges from mainstream
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investments intended to yield some desired external effects other than shareholder returns, and program-related investments, to grants, with two investment forms, recoverable grants and ‘‘investment plus,’’ in between: 1. Recoverable grants involve some financial return to the donor, albeit below market rate; an example would be a grant to a nonprofit housing agency given with the expectation that 20% of the grant would be paid back over time. 2. ‘‘Investment Plus’’ refers to investments located between program-related and conventional investments. It allows for market rate returns on investment and advances the charitable purpose of the organization. An example of this kind of financial investment would be capital advanced at market rate to a nonprofit organization managing old growth forests on a sustainable basis and selling harvested wood at market prices. Loans would be repaid from the surplus achieved through the sale of wood. The key distinction between programme related investment (PRI) and Investment Plus, according to Bolton (2005), is the motivation for the investment as such: was it primarily made to advance the purposes of the foundation and to generate revenue secondarily; or was it made primarily to generate revenue for the foundation, and to support the public benefit purpose second? Based on this thinking, Bolton (2005) has offered the most refined classification and differentiates between: 1. Programme related investments (PRI). These are investments that can originate either from income (sales, fees, charges, interests earned) or capital (either internal or externally financed), with the primary aim of advancing the foundation’s or nonprofit organization’s purpose. PRIs are typically below market rates, and vary greatly in interest levels (i.e., how close to market rates or the extent to which concessionary loan elements lower rates), treatment (i.e., length of loan period, possibility of moratoriums, early repay option, ranking of the loan relative to other creditors and lenders etc.). 2. Socially responsible investment (SRI). These are capital investments made with the primary aim of producing revenue. This sets SRI apart from PRI; and what separates SRI from conventional investments are the positive or negative screens investors use to help select appropriate investment opportunities and vehicles. (a) Negative screening is to avoid socially harmful ways of achieving market or above market
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returns on investment; for example, a foundation would decide not to invest in corporations that engage in corrupt practices overseas to maintain plants with unsafe working conditions. (b) Positive screening is to identify investment opportunities that support socially beneficial ways of market or above market rates of investment; for example, a foundation can buy stock in corporations that have sound environmental policies or carry out extensive social responsibility programs. SRI also includes shareholder action to encourage more responsible business practice. In this case, the foundation itself could try to influence corporate board accordingly. Bolton (2005) notes that this form of SRI is sometimes referred to as ‘‘Investment Plus2’’ or mission related investment. 3. Grants as a form of investment rather than specific programmatic activities include a range of options and instruments: they can build up reserves for nonprofit organizations; they can also serve core funding to help organizations secure additional resources for variable costs; they can ease external borrowing and help reduce interest rates by enhancing the organization’s financial rating; they can insure against high risk but potentially high social return ventures; help explore new methods of raising funds and revenue generation etc. Couch and Kramer (2007) offer a similar typology and differentiate between conventional investments, based on financial objectives exclusively and grants, based on charitable objectives, and with program-related investments located in between these two extremes. The latter are grouped into two subtypes: market rate mission investments and below market rate mission investments. In a different contribution, Kramer and Cooch (2006) introduce the term proactive social investments or PSIs. Such investment activities provide direct financing to create or expand enterprises that deliver social or environmental benefits in furtherance of the investor’s programmatic goals. ‘‘In economically distressed regions, any enterprise that creates jobs, increases income and wealth, or improves the standard of living can be considered socially beneficial. In mature markets, this category is typically limited to new products or services with specific social or environmental benefits, such as workforce development or solar energy installations’’ (2006: 12). PSI goes beyond both SRI and PRI in that it is essentially a policy-driven approach to supporting social
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enterprises devised by a diverse group of investors that can include venture philanthropists, foundations, individual donors, local government and conventional investors as well. Kramer and Cooch (2006: 16) suggest four PSI categories: 1. Private Equity and Venture Capital that can support start-up organizations, either for-profit or nonprofit through debt or equity investments. 2. Loans and Mezzanine Capital that offer loans to nonprofit organizations, loans with or without equity participation to privately held for-profit companies, and (typically) micro-finance loans to individuals; mezzanine forms of capital combine external capital without voting rights with own assets. 3. Loan guarantees that secure loans or bond issues and lower the cost of capital to be borrowed by either for profit or nonprofit corporations; they can also increase access to capital markets; and. 4. Bonds and Deposits, including mortgage-backed securities, community development bond offerings, and (in the United States) certificates of deposit at community development financial institutions. There is an ongoing debate among experts and fund managers as to the degree to which financial value must be generated from the types of investments that fall under PSI. Some argue for a discount to the market in order to allow for greater consideration of social and environmental value, while others favour market rates of return irrespective of the extent to which social value has been generated. A Broader understanding
Next to the primarily finance-oriented approaches introduced above is a more comprehensive understanding of the term that sees social investment less tied to specific types of economic firms but to a broader range of institutions generally, including individual behavior. The broader definition of social investment incorporates insights of economic theory (e.g., theories of public goods and market failure), political theory (e.g., theory of governance failure), organizational theory (e.g., organizational behavior of nonmarket firms), social theory (e.g., social capital approaches), philosophy (e.g., categorical constraint theory), ethics as well as law (e.g., tax law of public benefit contributions) and constitutional law. Against this background, Anheier et al. (2006) propose to define social investment using five characteristics: 1. Autonomy 2. Voluntary, discretionary nature 3. Non-distribution constraint
4. Positive externalities and 5. Normative value base Specifically, whatever contributions in-kind (time, skills, knowledge, expertise, real estate, goods and services) and financial assets individuals or organizations make to public benefit, they make primarily on a voluntary basis. While many factors flow into such voluntary decisions, Anheier et al. (2006) suggest that finding utility in the discretion of private autonomy is a salient aspect. Social investment understood in this sense is closely related to the democratic constitution of modern societies, respecting the autonomy of the private citizen and therefore based on fundamental rights laid out in either the constitution or civil code of a country. The non-distribution constraint safeguards assets devoted to public benefit goals as well as organizations from being misused by reprivatizing them. This governance principle (which in most legal systems is codified in the tax code) protects assets provided by one citizen exercising his autonomy from being reverted to private control of other citizens or organizations. It is therefore a principle essential to public benefit organizations that usually do not have owners or cannot be controlled by voters, but may however have members, donors, volunteers, etc. who contribute on the assumption that the organization serves first and foremost its mission and not any particular private interest. In whatever form contributions to the public benefit are made, they produce externalities beyond the immediate goals to which they are applied. They help to build social connectedness and create trust relationships in society. The term social capital describes the social effects of connectedness in modern society, and resonates in key concepts like civic engagement. However, connectedness can help transmit different norms and values and therefore, the externalities that social investment helps to generate are linked to value systems and shared values in normative communities. The broader understanding of social investment allows for the assessment of both recent trends in how institutions contribute to public benefit, and their relationships with the other sectors, in particular the market and public policy. These processes have gained momentum as a result of a reappraisal of the role of the state and of the governance failures of public policy. The state tries to find a new balance between its legal guarantees to its citizens and the actual delivery of the goods, services and relationships implied by them. After a predominantly efficiency-driven ‘‘new public management’’ period that emphasized cost considerations, longer-term views around effectiveness
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and quality-of-life issues are emerging and generate a growing debate about investment strategies rather than current expenditures. This debate also refers to the balance between the basic legal compliance of corporations as profit-making entities and their wider social responsibility to society. Clearly, the concept of corporate social responsibility goes beyond what is required by law – either for reasons of self-interest or as a result of some voluntary choice. In this context, the notions of the ‘‘triple bottom line’’ and ‘‘blended value’’ (Emerson, 2004; Emerson et al., 2003) are terms that characterize the debate about economic success and ecological and social considerations. While positivist legalistic positions might argue that social investment deals with entities that meet the legal criteria for public benefit, as stipulated in the relevant tax codes, the interdisciplinary approach to social investment allows for further developments of regulatory frameworks themselves. Indeed, the notions of public benefit and social investment can be examined independently of given legal forms and systems. Especially in the context of organizational innovation and emergent, often hybrid forms of social investment, a functional definition of social investment seems more appropriate for understanding the interplay of private interests and public benefit than a legal approach as such.
Future Directions Current work on social investment is still primarily about finance: the forms social investments can take, the instruments that can be used, by whom and for what purposes. The rapid development of financial products and instruments in recent years, and leading up to the financial crisis of 2008–2009, saw parallel activities in the fields of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, with a hitherto unknown emphasis on forms of capitalization, asset and risk management and types of community investments. Future work on social investment will most likely test the sustainability of these instruments, and thereby advance the distinction between social investments and conventional financial investments; the types of activities seen as investment rather than some other form of activity; the measurement of investment performance and yield, particularly around measure of return of social investment; and the role of the investors and the types of investor coalitions themselves.
Cross-References
▶ Blended Value ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking
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▶ Nonprofit Organizations ▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Social Capital, Definition ▶ Social Economy ▶ Social Enterprise
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., Then, V., Schroer, A., & von Hippel, T. (2006). Social investment. A programmatic statement. Heidelberg, Germany: University of Heidelberg, Centre for Social Investment and Innovation. Bolton, M. (2006). Foundations and social investment in Europe. Survey report. Report sponsored by European Foundation Center – Social Investment Group, from http://www.efc.be/ftp/public/PIP/2006/ Roundtables/SI_report.pdf Charity Commission. (2004). CC14 – investment of charitable funds: basic principles. London: Charity Commission - p. 16, from http://www. charity-commission.gov.uk/Library/publications/pdfs/cc14text.pdf or http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/supportingcharities/ cc14.asp Cooch, S., & Kramer, M. R. (2007). Investing for impact - Managing and measuring proactive social investments. Boston: Foundation Strategy Group. Prepared for The Shell Foundation, from http://www.fsgimpact.org/ideas/item/287 Emerson, J. (2002). A capital idea: Total foundation asset management and the unified investment strategy, from http://www.blendedvalue.org/ media/pdf-capital-idea.pdf - 38 p. (Research Paper Series). Emerson, J. (2004). The blended value map. www.blendedvalue.org Emerson, J., Bonini, S., & Bonini, K. (2003). The blended value map: Tracking the intersects and opportunities of economic, social and environmental value creation, from http://www.hewlett.org/NR/ rdonlyres/B0D3738F-DC05–436E-8F9A- 22825703C02D/0/Blended ValueMapFinal.pdf Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. (2005). Foundations and social investment: Making money work harder in order to achieve more. London: Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. Kramer, M. R., & Cooch, S. (2006). Investing for impact: Managing and measuring proactive social investment. London: Shell Foundation, Foundation Strategy Group - p. 60, from http://www. foundationstrategy.com/perspectives/default.asp Zadek, S., Merme, M., & Samans, R. (2005) Mainstreaming responsible investment. Geneva: World Economic Forum, from http://www. weforum.org/pdf/mri.pdf
Social Justice SUSHMA RAMAN Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Introduction The last century has witnessed individuals and associations coming together on a large scale to demand social justice for low-income and disenfranchised communities.
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From the struggles for freedom from colonial rule in the early part of the twentieth century to the fight for equal rights for women in the latter half; from the localized efforts of peasants protesting eviction from their land by large-scale development projects, to the global organizing efforts of the World Social Forum, the demand for social justice is at the root of much civil society and individual mobilization around the world.
Definition Although the concept of justice has been written about for centuries, John Rawls (1921–2002) has emerged in the last century as one of the seminal theorists on social justice. He has also been perceived as a theorist and philosopher who attempted to reconcile the conflict between individual freedom and fair distribution of goods. Rawls (1971) viewed justice as fairness and as the primary virtue of social institutions and defined justice within the context of a social contract. Rawls and other theorists regard social justice as similar to distributive justice. Rawls’ first principle – which he called the Principle of Greatest Equal Liberty – required individuals to have equal rights and access to the same system of basic liberties (including such freedoms as political participation, speech, personal property, etc.). Rawls’s second principle – entitled the Difference Principle – required that socioeconomic inequity be arranged so as to benefit the most disadvantaged. Rawls utilized the term primary goods to denote basic rights and liberties, powers, income, and wealth. According to Rawls, if justice is concerned with the basic structure of society, social justice principles must articulate how such basic structures will distribute primary goods. Rawls’ general conception of justice required the equal distribution of such primary goods, unless inequity in distribution was to the advantage of the most disadvantaged. Social justice principles should also facilitate the development of laws and the rectification of injustice in such basic structures. Miller (1999) identifies three assumptions when discussing the development and implementation of social justice principles: a finite society with a fixed membership, a defined set of institutions, and an agency capable of changing institutional structures in order to obtain justice. The theories and writings of Rawls have met with criticism from the left and right. According to Kelly (1998), Michael Walzer argues that the distributive paradigm laid forth by Rawls may not always be relevant: all political issues may not be distributive in nature; the goods in question and their value may not be entirely without controversy; and he questions the need for a
distributive agency to oversee this function. Kelly (1998) also describes the critique of Rawls by feminist difference theorist Marion Young, who argues that the distributive paradigm attempts to homogenize communities with diverse identities by combining them under a single egalitarian norm. In particular, Young focuses not on the issues of equal distribution, but rather on political representation of marginalized groups. Civil society organizations and social movements have defined and interpreted social justice both in terms of distribution and representation. Civil society practitioners and activists typically define social justice as a concept that enables all members of a society – irrespective of race, gender, religion, caste, sexual orientation, age, class, or disability – to have equal access to educational and employment opportunities, political representation, and resources such as income and assets. In addition, many social movements and grassroots organizations examine the issue of representation of marginalized groups in the leadership of public and private institutions. Meanwhile, on a global level, social justice has focused on reducing disparities between the global North and South.
Key Issues Given that social justice is an ambitious and broad concept and tool, there are a number of issues related to its conceptualization and implementation at the national and global levels. Civil society organizations have increasingly seen social justice as a unifying philosophy to right historical wrongs and ensure current and future access and opportunity for marginalized communities. Global Versus National
Despite the growth of global civil society organizations and social movements, many theorists (including Rawls) place the concept of social justice within the context of societies that are self-contained or national in scope. The notion of an interconnected world with a uniform social contract is contested. If justice is perceived within the context of members of a society, the implications of globalization, communications, and mass migration must be taken into consideration when framing social justice. Additionally, the distribution of and access to primary goods across countries can be inequitable, raising questions of the applicability and enforcement of social justice principles on a global scale. Finally, there is contestation between notions of universal rights frameworks on the one hand and local laws, norms, and practices on the other. Despite these contradictions and challenges with respect to securing global justice, social justice organizations
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and movements are working within and across regions to build synergies and opportunities for social change, overcoming differences in language, political regimes, and socioeconomic contexts. The European Roma Rights Centre, for example, works throughout Europe in both EU countries and former communist countries on issues of discrimination facing Roma and aims to give Roma the tools necessary to combat discrimination and win equal access to government, education, employment, health care, housing, and public services. Fahamu seeks to strengthen social justice movements throughout the African continent by building a strong, diverse, and connected public sphere. Diversity in Focus
Social justice activists utilize different areas of focus for their efforts. Some concentrate just on distributive outcomes, while others aim to draw attention to the processes that lead to unequal outcomes. Some have focused on political representation of marginalized groups, while others have advocated for equal access to public education in efforts to improve the educational and employment opportunities for marginalized communities. Some have focused on changing state policies, while others emphasize changing public attitudes and behaviors. For example, in Brazil, Terra de Direitos fights to give land to the landless and put pressure on the government to implement land reform, while CRIOLA helps Afro-Brazilian women and girls address issues of racism and gender discrimination and builds the voices and capabilities of Afro-Brazilian women within the broader society. Civil Society Legitimacy in Pursuing Social Justice
While civil society organizations have often served as the champions of social justice – whether through professional nongovernmental organizations’ advocacy programs or the mass mobilization of social movements – their legitimacy has often been challenged by governments and markets on two counts. The first is that these organizations being unelected are not accountable to any electorate, unlike democratically-elected governments, or even companies that are accountable to shareholders. Secondly, many Northern nongovernmental organizations are accused of promoting a ‘‘Western’’ agenda when they advance human rights and social justice causes. An added concern for civil society organizations in the global South is the perceived unfair advantage of Northern NGO’s when it comes to accessing resources or coordinating advocacy on their behalf. It appears that despite efforts to promote social justice, civil society is itself often affected by the very inequities and challenges it seeks to redress.
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State Versus Non-state Actors
The government of India has a Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, a testament to the original framework of the constitution and its commitment to social justice principles. However, in other countries with divergent historical experiences, there is an increased role and relevance for non-state actors – such as social movements and nongovernmental advocacy groups – in securing social justice. The role of non-state actors in advocating for social justice is particularly relevant within the context of failed states, where basic institutions are not in place or where there is not agreement on the principles of justice. Additionally, the growing influence of multinational corporations, multilateral lending institutions, and global aid organizations has resulted in an increased focus by social justice activists on a range of non-state actors. For example, the Chadian Association for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights’ work on the Chad-Cameroon Oil Pipeline Project has involved pressure on a range of institutions, including oil companies and the World Bank, to ensure that oil revenues are allocated to social development, not military expenditures.
Future Directions The increase in size, voice, and scope of civil society organizations around the world; the growth of global networks advocating for social, environmental, and economic justice; and the increased use of communications and media as a mechanism to influence publics, all indicate a growing interest in social justice principles and a commitment to activism on behalf of marginalized communities. Agent of Change
Although writings on social justice reference the state as the primary institution contributing to social justice or injustice, the influential role of civil society and the global impact of markets will affect future perspectives on the role of the state versus non-state actors in pursuing and securing social justice for marginalized communities. This is particularly applicable in the context of failed states. Social Media
The explosion of social media as a tool to mobilize people to advocate for social change will surely have an effect on future efforts to secure social justice. The MoveOn family of organizations has mobilized millions of individuals to donate and voice their views on a range of issues from campaign finance reform to the Iraq war with only about a dozen staff members. Such mobilization to secure social and economic justice and political accountability would
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not have been possible without the innovative use of social media tools. The next generation of activists, believing in causes more than institutions, will deepen the use of social media to spread messages and advocate for social justice.
access to goods, services, and opportunities. Global economic challenges, democratic deficits in nation states, and the lingering effects of historical inequities all point to the growing relevance of social justice in the coming decades.
Cross-References Social Justice Philanthropy
While philanthropy in the United States has largely emerged from wealthy individuals taking a leadership role in financing social issues, there are models around the world where philanthropy for social justice has developed in community settings. Such innovative models focus on mobilization of small amounts of funds from large number of individuals affiliated with their social movement in order to support social justice initiatives. Such philanthropies have been effective in building their legitimacy and accountability, particularly in the context of governments who question Western financing of civil society organizations. These social justice philanthropies – such as TEWA Women’s Fund in Nepal or the Dalit Foundation in India – have leadership representative of the groups on whose behalf they advocate; grantmaking practices that address the root causes of discrimination and injustice; and resource mobilization policies that balance large grants with small but influential levels of community support. It is anticipated that the influence and resources of such social justice philanthropy efforts will grow in the future. Budget Accountability
The past decade has witnessed the emergence of a network of budget accountability groups around the world that utilize budget analysis as a tool to mobilize social movements and communities to demand social justice. Nongovernmental organizations such as DISHA in Gujarat, India, and POLIS in Brazil work closely with a range of civil society actors to ensure that budget transparency and accountability are utilized to ensure the delivery of public services for low-income communities. As communities struggle to ensure equitable distribution of resources and access to opportunity, budget accountability will increasingly be utilized as a tool to secure social and distributive justice outcomes.
Conclusion The concept of civil society has reemerged as important and fashionable amongst both academics and practitioners in the last 20 years. Similarly, social justice is fast becoming a concept and tool utilized across the globe by individual activists, nongovernmental organizations, social movements, and international aid organizations, to ensure that all individuals and communities have equal
▶ Accountability ▶ Advocacy ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Ethnicity ▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Civil Society Theory: Walzer ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Human Rights ▶ MoreOn.org ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Social Movements ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Political ▶ World Social Forum
References/Further Readings Barry, B. (2005). Why social justice matters. Cambridge: Polity. Blocker, G. et al. (1980). John Rawls’ theory of social justice: An introduction. Athens: Ohio University Press. Boucher, D. et al. (1998). Social justice: From Hume to Walzer. London: Routledge. Clayton, M. et al. (2004). Social justice. London: Blackwell. Friman, H. R. (Ed.) (2007). Challenges and paths to global justice. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Miller, D. (1999). Principles of social justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (1971). A theory of justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Rawls, J. (2005). Justice as fairness: A restatement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Walzer, M. (1984). Spheres of justice: A defense of pluralism and equality. New York: Basic Books. Willoughby, W. (1900). Social justice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Young, I. M. (1990). Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Social Marketing HERIBERT MEFFERT, MARTIN HOLZBERG Westphalian Wilhelms-University Mu¨nster, Germany
Introduction In both academic literature and nonprofit practice, the application of the fundamental idea of marketing and its instruments on the transaction processes between
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individuals, groups, and nonprofit organizations have increasingly gained attention. The growing relevance of this approach, referred to as the social marketing concept, originates from major challenges that nonprofit organizations nowadays have to face and which largely affect their scope of action. Firstly, given the fact of a yet growing complexity of social issues, such as climate change, for example, nonprofit organizations have to seek opportunities that allow for a more effective and efficient application of their resources in order to fulfill their desired mission (Lefebvre & Flora, 1988). Secondly, nonprofit organizations have come under increasing pressure to legitimize their actions to several stakeholder groups. Due to a series of donation scandals within the last decade, the common public and donors, in particular, expect nonprofit organizations to use the entrusted resources in a responsible manner. Hence, nonprofit organizations are challenged to consider both effectiveness and efficiency variables when planning and implementing their activities. Thirdly, the nonprofit sector is characterized by an increasing competition for donations, volunteers, public awareness, and ideas between the corresponding actors. In this context, the application of commercial marketing instruments facilitates the acquisition of crucial resources that secure a nonprofit organization’s long-term capacity. A fourth factor refers to the changing role of governments within western societies. Due to public budget deficits, states continuously limit their provision of social services. Therefore, the civic sector is challenged to take on an increasing amount of social responsibility and to widen its range of products and services. Against this background, it appears obvious that by applying the concept of Social Marketing, nonprofit organizations that often understand their mission as being agents of social change gain the potential to effectively and efficiently reach their goals by creating attention, interest, and involvement for social issues as well as in regards to changing public or individual behavior.
Definition Despite the fact that several definitions are widely used, most of them appear to be rather similar. Kotler and Zaltman (1971), for example, define Social Marketing as ‘‘the design, implementation, and control of programs calculated to influence the acceptability of social ideas and involving considerations of product planning, pricing, communication, distribution and marketing research.’’ Andreasen (1995) understands Social Marketing as being ‘‘the application of commercial marketing technologies to the analysis, planning, execution, and evaluation of programs designed to influence the voluntary
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behavior of target audiences in order to improve their personal welfare and that of their society.’’ Kotler and Lee (2007) interpret Social Marketing as a ‘‘process that applies marketing principles and techniques to create, communicate, and deliver value in order to influence target audience behaviors that benefit society (public health, safety, the environment, and communities) as well as the target audience.’’ Meffert (2000) defines Social Marketing as ‘‘the planning, organization, implementation and control of marketing strategies and activities of nonprofit organizations that directly or indirectly address the solution of social issues.’’ Against the background of these definitions, the characteristics of Social Marketing become obvious: Social Marketing is a systematic planning and implementation process. Based on specific goals, social marketing strategies are planned, implemented, and controlled. By applying a range of different marketing instruments, an integrated marketing approach can be realized. Furthermore, Social Marketing addresses potential solutions to social issues. Thereby, socially accepted and formulated goals, such as health care improvement, as well as highly debated social issues form the main focus of Social Marketing activities. In addition, Social Marketing refers to nonprofit organization’s multifaceted forms of appearance that, for example, can be divided by their fields of operation as followed (Table 1).
Historical Background In 1952, the roots of Social Marketing were laid when Wiebe raised the famous question ‘‘Why can’t you sell brotherhood like you sell soap?’’ In a study of four social campaigns, he had found that the higher the similarity to a commercial product campaign the higher the Social Marketing. Table 1 Systematization of nonprofit organizations based on the field of operation Field of operation
Nonprofit organization
Health care
Foundations, welfare organizations, associations, and more
Development assistance
Foundations, churches, welfare organizations, associations, and more
Education
Universities, foundations, associations, and more
Culture
Foundations, museums, theaters, and more
Environmental protection
Foundations, associations, citizens’ initiatives, and more
Free time creation
Churches, welfare organizations, youth clubs, and more
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effectiveness of the social campaign (Wiebe, 1952). By publishing their widely noticed article ‘‘Broadening the Concept of Marketing’’ in the Journal of Marketing in 1969, Kotler and Levy provided an early concept about the application of commercial marketing activities within the nonprofit sector. Two years later, Kotler and Zaltman solidified this approach in the groundbreaking article ‘‘Social Marketing: An approach to planned social change.’’ By introducing the term and concept of Social Marketing, they not only pointed out that commercial marketing activities represented adequate instruments to solve social issues, such as safe driving, family planning, or environmental pollution more efficiently but also set the starting point for the ever increasing academic debate on Social Marketing. In the following years, academic research concentrated on the planning and implementation of social campaigns with regard to the questions of which marketing techniques and methods were appropriate to solve certain social issues. Hence, the academic work almost exclusively focused on the transaction processes between a nonprofit organization and its recipients. Within recent years there have been two major shifts in the academic debate: (1) from a transaction-based to a more relationshipbased marketing approach; (2) from a problem-oriented perspective to an institutional point of view. Both of these shifts led to the fact that the term Social Marketing is increasingly replaced by the term Nonprofit Marketing (Bruhn, 2005; Meffert, 2008).
Key Issues Social Marketing Planning Process
Social Marketing is a systematic planning and decision process. Based on a situation analysis, the conceptual fundamentals are set in the Social Marketing strategy. The applications of the Social Marketing instruments have to be planned and the implementation of the marketing concept within both the organization and the market will take place (Fig. 1). Within the situation analysis phase, a comprehensive environmental and market analysis takes place in order to derive the actual and future situation. This information helps nonprofit organizations to accurately estimate the market situation, the availability of resources and their mission. As part of the Social Marketing strategy planning process, Social Marketing goals have to be defined. Two different types of goals can be identified. Factual goals represent the effectiveness dimension of goals, i.e., what goals are achieved (‘‘doing the right things’’). Formal
goals, in contrast, represent the efficiency dimension of goals, i.e., how goals are achieved (‘‘doing things right’’). By applying the basic idea of strategic marketing onto the nonprofit sector, the following strategic decisions have to be made when planning the Social Marketing process: 1. Definition of target markets: What kind of social tasks should be offered to which target group? 2. Defining the type of target market treatment: Should the social tasks be realized by a differentiated or undifferentiated treatment of the target group? 3. Defining the type of competition relationship: Should the organization seek their social goals in competition to or in cooperation with similar nonprofit organizations? 4. Defining the type of intermediary relationship: How closely should the organization work with intermediaries, such as politicians or the media? 5. Defining the application of the marketing mix instruments: Which marketing instruments are of particular importance for realizing the organizations’ social goals? Given these strategic decisions, the precise application of the marketing instruments can be defined within the operative planning phase. Particularities of the Social Marketing Mix
In the Social Marketing context, decisions regarding the product policy can refer to all tangible and intangible products and services that seem appropriate to fulfill social needs. This includes, for example, informational material, such as books and magazines as well as healthcare services or intellectual and moral values. With regard to the marketing mix of nonprofit organizations, the communication policy is of vital importance. Communications represent the central instruments for transmitting ideas, information, and announcements. Furthermore, communicative activities are an important means for building trust and for influencing individual mental processes and, hence, such activities are indispensable prerequisites to fulfilling social goals. Commonly used communication activities are social advertising, public relations, direct marketing, and online services. Social advertising represents an effective instrument with potentially high media penetration that is primarily used to generate public awareness for a certain social issue. However, the application of social advertising requires a high degree of awareness as ethical demands against campaigns tend to be higher than in the profit sector (see ethics).
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Social Marketing. Fig. 1 Strategic social marketing planing process
With public relations, a highly effective communication can be secured with a relatively small operating effort. Furthermore, the general public perceives press articles that appear neutral to be more truthful than organizations’ classic advertising efforts. In recent years, nonprofit organizations have started to increasingly apply direct marketing techniques in order to systematically diffuse their ideas, to collect donations or to communicate with their target groups. Due to the fact that collecting donations face-to-face is getting seemingly more difficult for nonprofit organizations, direct mail activities have become an important supplement to the classic communication activities. New information technologies such as online service platforms allow for continuous dialog and an intensifying relationship with donors and other stakeholders. These proceedings and achievements of a specific campaign can be easily made observable in real time. Furthermore, online-marketing facilitates the provision of information about an organization’s work and the causes it supports. Thus, the acquisition of vital resources, such as volunteers, can be enhanced and the effectiveness of a certain campaign can be furthered. In addition, the application of
new technologies facilitates the establishment of interorganizational networks and platforms, and thereby enhances nonprofit organizations cooperation efforts. The pricing policy of Social Marketing organizations is often referred to as quid-pro-quo policy. Within the nonprofit sector, the term quid-pro-quo policy seems more appropriate as both monetary and nonmonetary fees have to be considered in exchange for the offered social product or service. Regarding the nonmonetary fees, aspects such as expenditure of time, discomfort, psychological stress, and additional efforts, such as changing one’s common behavior, can be differed (Rothschild, 1983). Regarding the distribution policy of nonprofit organizations, decisions have to be made that induce and facilitate the exchange processes between an organization and its recipients. In particular, social products and services have to be in the right condition, in the right amount, and in the right place at the right time. Implementation and Success Control
In order to implement developed Social Marketing programs, organizational, and personnel requirements have
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to be addressed. In addition, a control system needs to be developed and established. Within the Social Marketing context, the organizational structure is generally characterized by various problems (Bloom & Novelli, 1981). Due to the structural particularities of the nonprofit sector, such as a significant number of volunteers combined with a low level of division of labor and missing written agreements, marketing is often ill-incorporated to the nonprofits’ organizational structure. In Social Marketing organizations, professional staff and volunteers who take on marketing functions need to have both a profound and extensive marketing knowledge and a high awareness of sensibility. Furthermore, due to the multitude of tasks, special characteristics such as openness, the ability to handle conflicts and flexibility are necessary. For evaluating specific Social Marketing activities, both the development and the establishment of a formal control system are of high importance in the Social Marketing context in order to evaluate the effectiveness of specific marketing activities. The marketing control allows for a systematic, critical, and unbiased evaluation of the Social Marketing goals, the Social Marketing policy, the Social Marketing organization, the Social Marketing methods, and the organization’s personnel. Alongside the consideration of market-like quantifiable variables, a complete Social Marketing planning system also needs to capture the measurement of intangible variables with regard to the effectiveness of a Social Marketing campaign. Additionally, a complete control system should also provide insights into the internal, organizationspecific benefits of a certain project. Internal benefits may arise by interdependencies between factor input, such as the amount of spendable donations, or the provided social product or service, such as supporting health care in third world countries, on one side, and the benefits to organizational members on the other. Branding
In almost every product and service sector, brands have become important anchors of trust and quality. Strong brands signal high quality and, hence, facilitate selection processes. Furthermore, strong brands enhance the recruitment of potential employees and the mobilization of required capital. A brand’s strength manifests itself as a distinctive image in the heads of the relevant target or stakeholder group. However, due to the often intangible character of Social Marketing products and services, the limited measurability of efficiency and success and the resulting limited transparency of a nonprofit organization’s method of operation, a stakeholder’s ability to build trust towards a specific Social Marketing
organization is limited. Combining this aspect with the growing competition for resources in the nonprofit sector, branding has become an important issue within the Social Marketing context. The Red Cross, the World Wildlife Fund or Greenpeace, for example, have managed to generate high degrees of public awareness and to establish themselves as some of the leading nonprofit brands. The basic requirement for creating a certain brand image within the heads of relevant stakeholder groups is to build up a brand’s specific awareness. Brand awareness measures a person’s ability to remember a certain brand name or logo and to assign that knowledge to a certain field of action. As many nonprofit organizations are still characterized by their low level of brand awareness, generating public awareness is becoming an increasingly important aspect of nonprofit brand management. If a brand is known by relevant stakeholder groups, it carries out a set of different functions. By creating trust, security, and consistency, for example, the perceived risk of stakeholders towards the nonprofit organization decreases. In addition, the brand facilitates the processing of information by permitting stakeholders a quick orientation. Additionally, brands also offer an ideal benefit by providing prestige or group membership (Fig. 2). Ethics
The marketing of social products and services often affects sensitive areas of life, such as sexual behavior, and requires special forms of education. Against this background, the concept and implementation of Social Marketing bears various potential ethical conflicts (Andreasen, 2001). Using donations and other entrusted resources for primarily creating brand awareness by cost-intensive advertising, for example, could be interpreted as a violation of charitable purity. Here, the question arises whether it is ethical that a nonprofit organization does not allocate all of its given resources directly to a specific cause. In this sense, using resources to create a certain brand image and to compete with other nonprofit organizations may also appear to be unethical (Spruill, 2001). Further ethical conflicts often result from a nonprofit organization’s decision which behavior is to be changed and how to design the corresponding campaign. Given the fact that Social Marketing organizations decide autonomously which social behavior seems to be desirable, the question arises whether nonprofit organizations should be allowed to use education methods without being democratically legitimized. Due to the configuration of a social campaign and the use of marketing instruments, ethical problems become even more obvious. In the case of a polio immunization campaign, for example, Social Marketing organizations have to decide whether the target
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Social Marketing. Fig. 2 Functions of a nonprofit brand
group should be completely informed about the accompanying small risk of infection although this might limit the effectiveness of the campaign. Regarding the use of communication instruments, ethical conflicts arise when the communications violate the common moral standards of society. The animal protection organization PETA, for example, uses pictures of skinned animals in order to create awareness for their cause. Although highly successful, the question arises whether this is an ethical tactic in order to further the cause of animal protection.
International Perspectives Although the Social Marketing concept and its application have gained much attention in both the American and European marketing area within the last 30 years, central differences can be found. Based on the American free market system, all organizations, whether profit or nonprofit orientated, are forced to effectively position themselves and their products within their corresponding markets. Hence, Social Marketing has become an important concept within the American nonprofit sector at a fairly early stage. Furthermore, Social Marketing in the United States is characterized by its high degree of professionalism. Social campaigns are planned and implemented by applying and adjusting all marketing instruments. These integrated approaches have led to highly effective changes in behavior, such as giving up smoking. Within the European nonprofit sector, Social Marketing was of less importance for several years. Due to the concept of a social market economy that exists in most continental European countries, public institutions were
perceived to be responsible for identifying social drawbacks and for offering corresponding solutions. Only with the beginning crisis of the welfare state and the retrenchment of public institutions from former spheres of competence, the Social Marketing concept has gained importance. However, Social Marketing approaches in Europe still seem to be in their infancy. Comparing the funding structure of Social Marketing organizations within the United States and Europe (Germany), the John Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project points out that the US nonprofit sector is predominantly funded by earned income. The European (German) sector, in contrast, is resourced directly or indirectly by public funding. Thus, it does not seem surprising that many social campaigns are almost exclusively based on communication efforts. Compared to the United States, integrated Social Marketing approaches are still rare sights. In addition, while the American public has widely accepted the application of commercial marketing instruments within the nonprofit sector, the European public is still skeptical.
Future Directions Social Marketing has continuously gained importance during the last 40 years in both science and practice. As the concept keeps evolving, further factors that support the goal of a more effective and efficient application of social marketing resources will dominate the academic and practical discussion. Being part of these factors, cooperation within (intrasectoral cooperation) and between the private and public sectors (intersectoral cooperation), and the development of methods and approaches to
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measure and evaluate the impact of social marketing activities seem to be the most important aspects for further academic research as well as for practical application. Intra- and Intersectoral Cooperation
In recent years, profound changes in environmental- and society-related conditions have led to intensifying efforts of profit and nonprofit organizations alike to build up intra- and intersectoral cooperation arrangements Holzberg (2009). From a Social Marketing perspective, the social franchising approach as a form of intrasectoral cooperation seems to be an important means to further the effectiveness and efficiency of a certain social campaign. Social Franchising
Most practitioners, policy-makers, researchers, and donors would agree that there is sufficient knowledge and experience available to address most social challenges. However, a main barrier to solving certain social issues is that many nonprofit organizations succeed in implementing individual projects on a local or regional level, but fail to scale them up successfully. Therefore, successful initiatives remain underdeveloped while other organizations spent large amounts of resources in order to plan and implement campaigns that might address just the same social issue. In order to avoid the ‘‘reinvention of the wheel,’’ the replication of successful Social Marketing projects is becoming an important form of cooperation within the nonprofit sector. Social Franchising is basically a contract-based cooperation between decentralized nonprofit oriented units and a central support unit. A pilot project that has been successfully developed and implemented by a franchisor is replicated by a number of franchisees subject to defined guidelines regarding the quality and uniformity of the project. Social Franchising benefits from network synergies and the franchisees’ saved resources (Meffert, Holzberg 2009a). Cause-Related Marketing
In recent years, cooperation agreements between nonprofit organizations, businesses, and public institutions have grown at a tremendous rate (Austin, 2000). Thereby, cooperation between profit and nonprofit organizations, in particular, represent an emerging phenomenon as businesses have to increasingly prove their social engagement to the public and nonprofit organizations continue to struggle for resources. Although there exist a large variety of forms to cooperate, cause-related marketing cooperation is becoming increasingly important for both business and nonprofit
organizations. Varadarajan and Menon (1988) define cause-related Marketing as ‘‘the process of formulating and implementing marketing activities that are characterized by an offer from the firm to contribute a specified amount to a designated cause when customers engage in revenue-providing exchanges that satisfy organizational and individual objectives.’’ Following this definition it becomes obvious that cause-related marketing cooperation represents the gateway between commercial and Social Marketing. Businesses benefit from the combination of direct bottom line contribution and enhanced image, while nonprofit organizations can build up their brand, increase awareness, and generate additional funds. Given its practical relevance and the small amount of empirical work regarding the success factors of such arrangements, cause-related marketing constellations, in particular, and intersectoral cooperation, in general, will be of future interest for Social Marketing researchers and practitioners (Meffert, Holzberg 2009b). Evaluating Social Marketing Success
Measuring the success of Social Marketing campaigns is still an underdeveloped yet highly important issue. Due to the often intangible character of Social Marketing products and services, broad target groups and the ‘‘quid-pro-quo’’ transaction processes that do not necessarily include monetary fees, evaluation approaches within the Social Marketing field need to consider a larger timeframe than their commercial counterparts and are particularly challenging. However, given stakeholders’ growing demand for transparency and the growing importance of Social Franchising agreements, Social Marketers need to develop at least heuristic models that allow not only for measuring the effectiveness of the entire campaign but also provide an insight into the effectiveness of the different Social Marketing instruments.
Cross-References
▶ Brands and Branding ▶ Code of Ethics and Code of Practice ▶ Fundraising ▶ Greenpeace ▶ International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement ▶ Marketing ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Partnerships ▶ Strategic Planning ▶ Social Franchising ▶ WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature
Social Movements
References/Further Readings Andreasen, A. R. (1995). Marketing social change: Changing behavior to promote health, social development, and the environment. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Andreasen, A. R. (2001). Ethics in social marketing. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Austin, J. E. (2000). The collaboration challenge. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Bloom, P. N., & Novelli, W. D. (1981). Problems and challenges in social marketing. Journal of Marketing, 45(2), 79–88. Bruhn, M. (2005). Marketing fu¨r nonprofit-organisationen. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. Holzberg, M. (2009). Erfolgsfaktoren sektoru¨bergreifender kooperation – Ein empirischer Beitrag zur Zusammenarbeit zwischen staatlichen, wirtschaftlichen und zivilgesellschaftlichen Institution unter besonderer Beru¨cksichtigung von Stiftungen. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag. Kotler, P., & Lee, N. R. (2007). Social marketing: Influencing behaviors for good. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Kotler, P., & Levy, S. J. (1969). Broadening the concept of marketing. Journal of Marketing, 33(1), 10–15. Kotler, P., & Zaltman, G. (1971). Social marketing: An approach to planned social change. Journal of Marketing, 35(3), 3–12. Lefebvre, R. C., & Flora, J. A. (1988). Social marketing and public health intervention. Health Education Quarterly, 15(3), 299–315. Meffert, H. (2000, 2008). Marketing – Grundlagen marktorientierter Unternehmensfu¨hrung. Wiesbaden: Gabler Verlag. Meffert, H., & Holzberg, M. (2009a). Intra- und Intersektorale kooperationen – Ein Beitrag zur Erfolgsforschung von Netzwerken im Profit- und Nonprofit-Sektor. In H. Evanschitzky, P. Kenning, P. Olbrich, R., & H. Schro¨der (Eds.), Distribution und Handel in Theorie und Praxis (pp. 23–24), Wiesbanden. Meffert, H., & Holzberg, M. (2009b). Cause-related Marketing – Ein scheinheiliges kooperationskonzept? Marketing Review St. Gallen, 28(2), 47–53. Rothschild, M. L. (1983). Marketing communications in nonbusiness situations or why it’s so hard to sell brotherhood like soap. In P. Kotler, O. C. Ferell, & C. Lamb (Eds.), Cases and readings for marketing for nonprofit organizations (pp. 178–189). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. Spruill, V. (2001). Build brand identity for causes, not groups. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, 13(17), 1–4. Varadarajan, P. R., & Menon, A. (1988). Cause-related marketing: A coalignment of marketing strategy and corporate philanthropy. Journal of Marketing, 52(3), 58–74. Wiebe, G. D. (1952). Merchandising commodities and citizenship on television. Public Opinion Quarterly, 15(4), 679–691.
Social Movements DIETER RUCHT Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Introduction Social movements are fuzzy phenomena with unclear boundaries. They may relatively quickly expand or shrink,
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and change their structure and strategy. This makes it difficult to identify, let alone empirically study social movements. Besides political parties and formal pressure groups, social movements can be seen as a major form of collective will formation and interest representation in modern societies. They usually signal structural strains in a given society and tend to challenge the established power holders by various means of protest. While many social movements failed to reach their aims, others had partial and few even had full success. In exceptional moments of history, social movements were able to bring about a new social and/or political order.
Definition The term social movement refers to a specific kind of collective actor, namely a network of individuals, groups, and organizations who, based on a sense of collective identity, aim at changing society (or to resisting such a change) mainly by means of public and collective protest (della Porta & Diani, 1999; Rucht & Neidhardt, 2002). Each of these definitional components calls for further explanation: First, in structural terms, a social movement is a loosely coupled conglomerate of different components. Contrary to specific social movement organizations which may have formal statutes, a rigid division of labor, and a clearly defined membership, social movements are networks which, by definition, are mainly horizontally and informally coordinated. Such a network can include one or several core groups. Yet there is no central body which would be able to control and dominate the movement as a whole. In terms of degrees of involvement of individuals, a social movement can be conceived as a set of concentric circles ranging from highly committed activists in the core section to the periphery of mere sympathizers who only occasionally express their support to the movement. Second, in terms of its aims, a social movement seeks to fundamentally change society (or to resist such changes). Ultimately, it targets the prevailing social order including its power structure and basic values. Because a power structure also crystallizes in political institutions and processes, a social movement is necessarily involved in political struggles. Still, it makes sense to distinguish a broadly conceived social movement from more narrowly defined collective actors who primarily focus on political, cultural, or religious matters and could be termed as political, cultural, or religious movements, respectively. Moreover, the aims of these latter kinds of collective enterprises can be very specific so that one should speak of campaigns (e.g., to replace a political leader or to modify a law) rather than movements. However the boundaries
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between various kinds of movements are drawn, the concept of social movement should not be bound to a particular ideology or orientation. A movement can be progressive or reactionary, modern or anti-modern, left or right, civil or uncivil, etc. Third, regarding its means of cohesion, a social movement rests on a sense of collective identity, i.e., a wefeeling based on shared worldviews, values, claims, and practices that allow to separate the movement as an (imagined) entity from mere bystanders and, above all, from the movement’s opponents. Collective identity is not a pre-existing and stable property based on a selfdefinition only. Rather, it emerges and develops in interaction with the movement’s environment which, to some extent, also shapes the movement’s identity. Fourth, social movements strongly rely on the commitment of their constituents who, from time to time, are mobilized in protest activities. These are the major tool to make the movement seen and heard beyond its own ranks. It depends on structural and situational factors whether or not a social movement mainly engages in direct confrontation with an adversary or, especially in democratic systems, tries to influence its opponents indirectly by attracting public attention and, hopefully, support. The strategies and, even more so, the specific forms of protest may vary greatly within and across movements. Some movements tend towards a reformist, others towards a revolutionary strategy. But as many historical examples demonstrate, the same movement may include a moderate and a radical tendency. Accordingly, the specific protest actions range from friendly (e.g., collection of signatures) to confrontational (e.g., blockades) to violent means (physical aggression and destruction). Whether or not terrorism should be included in the concept of social movements is disputed. Based on the broad definition proposed here, there would be no reason to set terrorism completely apart, though very few movements systematically resort to extreme violence. While protest actions are rightly classified as a constitutive element of social movements, they are not the only movement activity. In addition to other outward-directed activities such as public education or lobbying, social movements also engage in internal activities such as socializing in small groups, informing and motivating adherents, forging organizations and alliances, carrying out disputes over ideological, organizational and tactical issues, and planning and assessing protest campaigns. Most of these activities are invisible to the wider public so that, for better or worse, a social movement’s image is mainly constructed on the basis of its manifest protest activities.
Historical Background Some social scientists argue that social movements existed already in pre-modern societies, pointing, for example, to slavery revolts in Roman Empire. These kinds of upheavals, however, should not be conceived as social movements in the strict sense of the term. They were attempts to restore a ‘‘natural’’ or ‘‘divine’’ social order which, in the eyes of the insurgents, had been violated by the power holders. It was not the order as such but deviation from it which came under attack. Only with the era of the Enlightenment the idea was expressed that human beings have the potential to create a new social order according to their own will, that is to really ‘‘make’’ society. This was, and still is, a precondition for the emergence of genuine social movements. From the eighteenth century to the present, several major movements came into existence in the western world, calling not just for a sectoral or gradual change but for a fundamentally new kind of society. This applies most clearly to two large-scale ‘‘progressive’’ movements: first, the liberal forces who rejected feudalism and promoted capitalism and representative democracy; second, the socialist movement opposing capitalism and struggling for the societal appropriation of the means of production and some kind of a council democracy. There are suggestions to add to these key movements another and more recent type, the so-called new social movements that emerged in the 1960s. Mainly recruited from the middle classes, these movements focused on human, civic and social rights, peace, environmental protection, Third World issues, etc. (Turner, 1969; Raschke, 1985; Kriesi et al., 1995). The newness of these movements is debatable because they have forerunners dating back to the nineteenth century at least. But there is little doubt that the new social movements aspire for a more moderate societal change when compared to the earlier liberal and socialist movements. Scholars have identified a broad range of other movements which may be akin, opposed to or completely detached from the three kinds of movements mentioned before, for example, the antislavery movement, the women’s suffrage movement, the abolitionist movement, the temperance movement, the life-reform movement, nationalist movements, fascist movements, populist movements, and indigenous movements. All these groupings tend to vary greatly not only in their ideological orientation, dominant theme, social basis, organization, and action repertoire but also with regard to their aspired degree and scope of societal change. Consider just two examples. While the prohibition of producing and consuming alcohol as the basic aim of temperance movement
Social Movements
is a relatively narrow claim, the fascist movements were far from being single issue-oriented. Moreover, unlike the temperance movement, fascist movements were striving for a radically different type of society.
Key Issues Along with political parties and public interest groups, social movements act as intermediaries between the citizenry on the one hand and the established political institutions on the other. To a large extent, these intermediaries operate in the public sphere so that their activities, mainly via the mass media, can be observed, assessed, and commented by both the citizenry and the state authorities. Parts of their activities, however, are not or only partially visible to the public, either because these groups meet in private or semiprivate circles, for instance, in the backroom of a pub, or in secluded political and administrative settings, for example, in advisory boards or sites for lobbying. Compared to established political parties and many interest groups, the location of social movements usually differs insofar as the latter hardly have access to the political office-holders. Instead, they are closer to the everyday life of their adherents whose commitment is the crucial, and sometimes only, resource of social movements. This commitment can be expressed in various ways, for example: the low-threshold mobilization of masses of people providing a signature, joining a march or donating money; the staging of innovative and creative forms of protest; and the high-risk activity of generally low numbers of true believers who, sometimes, even resort to violence. For the most part, these activities are carefully chosen and crafted. It would be generally wrong to describe them as irrational mass behavior based on some sort of psychological contagion. The outward-directed movement activities only become politically relevant to the extent that they are seen, and possibly supported, by a large audience. Accordingly, social movements tend to address the public and engage in a publicly visible struggle. At least in democratic societies based on a relatively free flow of information and expression of will, the attitudes and reactions of the public play a decisive role. Only to the extent that the movement’s aims and claims are acknowledged by considerable parts, if not the majority of the public, the activists can hope to make an ultimate impact on the power-holders. Therefore, apart from some exceptional situations, it would be wrong to conceive of struggles involving a social movement as a bilateral game of just two clear-cut conflict parties in a given setting. First, the public is a constitutive element of that game. While some parts of the public may be
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disinterested in the conflict, other parts attentively watch what is going on and, depending on many factors, may take a stance in favor of one conflict party. Besides the public of which large segments tend to assume a rather passive role or remain mere spectators, a social movement struggle may also involve genuine third parties with institutionally assigned roles as regulating, peace-keeping or arbiter agents, e.g., the police, appointed brokers, and the judiciary. Second, it is also important to note that both social movements and their adversaries are rarely unified actors. Rather, they represent complex conglomerates whose components and degree of unity varies across issues and time. Even state authorities do not necessarily form a compact bloc. Finally, the struggles involving social movements are not necessarily bound to a specific arena. Depending on the issue, strategy and phase of conflict, the struggle can shift, for example, from the streets to the parliaments to the courts and back to the streets, as the conflicts over abortion or nuclear power have shown in quite a number of countries. From these observations it follows that social movements can only be understood in their context, especially with regard to their structural location, and their relations and interactions with major reference groups. Among these are, or can be, political institutions and control agencies, bystander publics, mass media, informal and formal brokers and arbiters, and counter movements. Given the complexity of such an interplay, it also becomes plausible why it is so hard to explain, let alone to predict, the outcome of social movement activities. Further, the very notion of outcome needs to be qualified. Usually, the success or failure of a social movement is measured in terms of its declared aims such as or bringing down an authoritarian regime, introducing women’s suffrage, or phasing out nuclear power. In some cases, including the ones cited here, the yardstick seems to be crystal clear. But one has also to consider partial successes and failures, impacts in other dimensions, and indirect consequences. Even a lost battle may have positive consequences from the perspective of the movement. For example, despite the fact that a struggle against the use of nuclear power failed in a given country, the security standards may have been tightened thanks to the warnings of the antinuclear activists. Another outcome may be that major parts of the citizenry make efforts to reduce their energy consumption. Also, strategic errors of the movement in a given country may teach an important lesson to activists elsewhere so that these eventually do better than their counterparts. Finally, the time dimension has to be
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considered. What appears as a failure in the short run to be an advantage in the long run, and vice versa. Causal attribution of movement successes and failures remains a difficult task. This is all the more true because social movements rarely come closer to their goals based on their own strength only. In most cases, they need a favorable opportunity structure, for example, a situation of a perceived political or economic crisis, a reluctant or internally divided opponent, and/or an important ally (Tarrow, 1998). Regardless of their successes and failures in particular domains, one has to acknowledge that democratically oriented social movements, along with a broad range of non-movement related voluntary associations, are a constitutive element of a vibrant civil society. This view, expressed by Alexis de Tocqueville already, became prominent again in the second half of the twentieth century in many parts of the globe. Especially in Central and Eastern Europe and in some Latin American countries, civil society actors were perceived and celebrated as a liberating force that could bring down authoritarian or even dictatorial regimes. In this context, dissident social movements played a crucial role. The contemporary concept of civil society was also adopted, though sometimes by dissident minorities only, in a number of contemporary Asian, African, and Arab societies. More generally, with the increasing functional differentiation of modern societies, the liberal notion of civil society mainly based on economic actors has faded away. Rather, the unleashed forces of market capitalism are perceived as a threat to civil society – a tendency which corporations try to counter by stressing Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Citizenship. Distrusting these mainly symbolic efforts of reintegrating the economy in the realm of civil society, progressive social movements have begun to forge a political alliance against neoliberal globalization and in favor of a global civil society (Walzer, 1995) that controls rather than incorporates the (capitalist) economy. This applies especially to the so-called global justice movements that took shape during the 1990s (Smith et al., 2007; della Porta, 2008). Probably with the exception of their most radical leftist tendencies, they embrace the values that are usually attached to the contemporary meaning of civil society, especially nonviolence, self-governance, and mutual respect and recognition. To this aim, these and other social movements are ready to ally with those governments and international institutions that value the principles of civil society. On the other hand, one should not forget that there are also antidemocratic, fundamentalist, and xenophobic movements that work in the opposite direction.
International Perspectives The analysis of historical and contemporary social movements is very much centered on western societies. Social movements on the southern part of the globe are understudied and, for the most part, not conceptually reflected. And if they are studied at all, attention is primarily given to those movements which are perceived as a mere extension of liberal western movements (e.g., civil rights movements in Africa, Asia, and Latin America) or their total negation (e.g., Islamist movements), while other and more ambivalent types of movements tend to be neglected. The recent surge of neoliberal globalization as a basically economically driven process spurred three kinds of contemporary social movements: (1) xenophobic and antiglobal right-wing movements of which some openly embrace fascist ideas; (2) fundamentalist religious movements opposing secularism, liberalism, and hedonism; (3) global justice movements attacking neoliberalism but promoting democracy, solidarity, and social, economic and ecological sustainability at the global scale. This third type of movements that took shape during the 1990s is of particular interest not only for its high appreciation of the idea of (global) civil society but also for its global presence and interlinkages. While the global justice movements initially entered the public arena with mass protests in the context of summits of international institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, the G8 and the EU, more recently they also have developed a durable infrastructure including their own meetings, especially the social forums, and self-organized means of communication.
Future Directions In the last few decades, the study of social movements became increasingly detached from that of other forms of collective action (e.g., revolutions, terrorism, fads, and cults) and a research area in its own right (see, e.g., Snow et al., 2004). Also, scholars took a more analytical perspective on movements in applying systematic and sophisticated research methods, thereby avoiding both the prejudices of early mass psychology and close identification of researchers with their objects of study. A number of middle range concepts were developed to study particular aspects of social movements, for example resource mobilization, opportunity structures, collective identity, and framing strategies. While no totally new approaches, let alone new paradigms, are in the making, there is need and room to elaborate and refine the existing approaches, and further their integration in order to get a fuller understanding of the conditions, structures, mechanisms, activities, and impacts of social movements.
Social Origins Theory
In particular the study of the effects of social movements is still in its infancy and requires more systematic and comparative research across types of movements, countries, and time.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Action ▶ Collective Action ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Identity ▶ Labor Movements/Labor Unions ▶ Social Change Organizations ▶ World Social Forum
References/Further Readings della Porta, D. (Ed.) (2008). The global justice movement: Crossnational and transnational perspectives. Boulder/London: Paradigm Publishers. della Porta, D., & Diani, M. (1999). Social movements. An introduction. Oxford: Blackwell. Kriesi, H., Koopmans, R., Duyvendak, J. W., & Guigni, M. G. (1995). New social movements in Western Europe: A comparative analysis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Raschke, J. (1985). Soziale Bewegungen. Ein historisch-systematischer Grundriß. Frankfurt/M.: Campus. Rucht, D., & Neidhardt, F. (2002). Towards a‘Movement Society’? On the possibilities of institutionalizing social movements. Social Movement Studies, 1(1), 7–30. Smith, J. et al. (2007). Social Movements for Global Democracy. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Snow, D. A., Soule, S. A., & Kriesi, H. (Eds.) (2004). The Blackwell companion to social movements. Malden/Oxford/Carlton: Blackwell. Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in movement. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press. Turner, R. H. (1969). The theme of contemporary social movements. The British Journal of Sociology, 20 (December), 390–405. Walzer, M. (1995). Toward a global civil society. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
Social Origins Theory HELMUT K. ANHEIER1,2 1 University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany 2 Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany
Introduction This comparative-historical theory was first introduced by Salamon and Anheier (1998), and further developed by Anheier and Salamon (2006), and Anheier (2003, 2009).
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Salamon and Anheier initially proposed the theory in response to conceptual limitations of economic approaches on the one hand, and the state-centeredness of conventional welfare state literature on the other. Prevailing economic theories, they argued, tend to account for economic dimension of the nonprofit sector such as employment and expenditures only, and pay little attention to social participation measures such as membership and volunteering. They criticize welfare state approaches for having either largely ignored the nonprofit sector altogether or relegated it to some premodern form of welfare service delivery (Quadagno, 1987). Salamon and Anheier (1998) suggest that the nonprofit sector across countries has different historical ‘‘moorings,’’ reveals different social and economic ‘‘shapes,’’ and occupies different institutional positions in society relative to those of the state and the market. It consequently performs different functions, with an emphasis on service provision, civic engagement or both. The aim of the theory is to explain variations in a broader set of nonprofit sector characteristics cross-nationally: economic size, revenue structure, field, and form composition, and medium to long-term developmental trajectories. To do so, the theory identifies those social factors that help explain variations in nonprofit sectors over time.
Definition In terms of its methodological approach, the theory is based largely on the notion of path-dependent development, and rooted in the tradition of Barrington Moore’s The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (1966). Conceptually, Salamon and Anheier begin by bringing together two strands of theorizing: a modification of Esping-Andersen’s analysis of the welfare state (1990; see also Huber et al., 1993) by incorporating the nonprofit sector; and the important explanatory role of government spending, as suggested by economic theories (e.g., Weisbrod, 1988). The result of this juxtaposition of different theories is the identification of four more or less distinct models of nonprofit development, four types of ‘‘nonprofit regimes’’ (Table 1). Each of these types is characterized not only by distinct combinations of nonprofit sector characteristics and a particular position of the third sector in society, but also by a particular state role and constellation of other institutions and social groupings. The theory suggests that nonprofit regime types as well as the policies and the policy-making style associated with them help account for cross-national differences in nonprofit sector characteristics. Table 1 differentiates these regime types in terms of two key dimensions – first, the extent of government social
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Social Origins Theory. Table 1 Nonprofit regime types Government social spending
Economic nonprofit Sector Size Low
High
Low
Statist (Japan, most developing countries)
Liberal (United States, United Kingdom)
High
Social democratic (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland)
Corporatist (France, Germany, Italy)
welfare spending (taken from economic theory); and second, the scale of the nonprofit sector. Table 2 offers a synopsis of key indicators associated with each type (this section draws in part on Salamon and Anheier, 1998). Thus, in the liberal model, represented by the United States and the United Kingdom, a lower level of government social welfare spending is associated with a relatively large nonprofit sector. This outcome is most likely where middle class elements are clearly in the ascendance, and where opposition from either traditional landed elites or strong working class movements has either never existed or been effectively held at bay. This leads to significant ideological and political hostility to the extension of government social welfare protections and a decided preference for voluntary approaches instead. The upshot is a relatively limited level of government social welfare spending and a sizeable nonprofit sector. The social democratic model is very much located at the opposite extreme. In this model, exemplified by Sweden, state-sponsored, and state-delivered social welfare protections are extensive and the room left for service-providing nonprofit organizations quite constrained. Historically, this type of model emerged most likely where working class elements were able to exert effective political power, albeit typically in alliance with other social classes. This is particularly true in the case of Sweden, where working class political parties were able to push for extensive social welfare benefits as a matter of right in a context of a weakened, state-dominated Church and a limited monarchy. While the upshot is a limited service-providing nonprofit sector, however, it is not necessarily a limited nonprofit sector overall. Rather, the nonprofit sector performs a different function in social democratic regimes – an advocacy and personal expression, rather than a service-providing, role. In Sweden, a very substantial network of volunteer-based advocacy, recreational, and hobby organizations turns out to exist alongside a highly developed welfare state (Wijkstro¨m & Lundstro¨m, 1998).
In between these two models are two additional ones, both of which are characterized by strong states. However, in one, the corporatist model present in France and Germany, the state has either been forced or induced to make common cause with nonprofit institutions, so that nonprofit organizations function as one of the several ‘‘premodern’’ mechanisms that are deliberately preserved by the state in its efforts to retain the support of key social elites while preempting more radical demands for social welfare protections. This was the pattern, for example, in late nineteenth century Germany, when the state, confronting radical demands from below, began to forge alliances with the major churches and the landed elites to create a system of state-sponsored welfare provision that over time included a substantial role for nonprofit groups, many of them religiously affiliated (Anheier & Seibel, 2001). The statist model is the fourth possible model. In this model, the state retains the upper hand in a wide range of social policies, but not as the instrument of an organized working class, as in the social democratic regimes. Rather it exercises power on its own behalf, or on behalf of business and economic elites, but with a fair degree of autonomy sustained by long traditions of deference and a much more pliant religious order. In such settings, in this case Japan, limited government social welfare protection does not translate into high levels of nonprofit action, as in the liberal regimes. Rather, both government social welfare protection and nonprofit activity remain highly constrained. According to the social origins theory, there should be relative correspondence in scale and revenue structure for countries that fall within the same regime type. Indeed, France (see Archambault, 1996) and Germany (see Anheier & Seibel, 2001), both corporatist regimes, are similar in scale and revenue structure. In both, the state has either been forced or induced to make common cause with nonprofit organizations, albeit for different historical reasons. In Germany, the state, backed by powerful landed elements and in cooperation with a relatively weak urban middle class, worked out an agreement with the major churches beginning in the latter nineteenth century to create a state-dominated social welfare system that nevertheless maintained a sizeable religious presence. This agreement was ultimately embodied in the concept of ‘‘subsidiarity’’ as the guiding principle of social policy. The upshot has been a close working relationship between the state and voluntary organizations – both secular and religious – and the resulting coexistence of extensive government social welfare spending and a sizeable nonprofit sector.
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Social Origins Theory. Table 2 Indicators of nonprofit regime types Social groupings/historical patterns
Type of nonprofit regime
Corporatist Aristocracy and/or elites remain strong and survive into modern era
Large nonprofit sector in economic terms
New upper class allied with old regime
Large state apparatus, high social spending
Urban middle class weak, dependent
Social-service oriented
Working class incipient, divided
Large share of public funding of nonprofit sector
Rural masses under control of landed elite
Intensive cooperation and consultation with state
State bureaucracy well developed
Civic engagement lower
Churches occupy prominent political position Blurred division between church and state Liberal Aristocracy, landed elites loose influence; are replaced
Large nonprofit sector, economically as well as socially
New upper class replaces old elite
Small state; low government social spending
Urban middle class strong, independent
Social-service oriented
Working class weak
Small share of public funding
Rural masses weak
Ad hoc cooperation and consultation with state
State bureaucracy remains small Churches occupy prominent social position, but with clear separation of church and state Social democratic Aristocracy, landed elites decline gradually in their influence
Small nonprofit sector in service provision
New upper class allied with old regime
Large state apparatus, high government social spending
Urban middle class weak, allied with working class
Advocacy oriented
Working class strong
Medium share of public funding
Rural masses pacified
Intensive cooperation and consultation with state
State bureaucracy well developed Churches politically neutral
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Statist Aristocracy, landed elites remain strong and Survive into modern era
Small nonprofit sector
New upper class limited
Small state apparatus
Urban middle class weak, dependent
Social service oriented
Working class incipient, divided
Small share of public funding
Rural masses under control of landed elite
Potential of state control, state tutelage
State bureaucracy well developed, controlling Churches/religion allied with state
In France, a rather different sequence led to a similar result. Following the French Revolution, France effectively broke the back of Church-created voluntary institutions and set a course toward state-sponsored social welfare.
However, political compromises made in the face of popular opposition helped preserve the prominent role of Catholic schools in primary and secondary education. At the same time, a strong sentiment of solidarity
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sustained a network of friendly societies and associations through which cultural and recreational interests were pursued, as in the social democratic model described above. In the early 1980s, however, a Socialist government, confronting severe resistance to the further extension of the classical social democratic welfare state, found itself obliged to reach out to the associational world for help, extending financial assistance to associations in the process. The result has been the forging of a partnership between the state and the nonprofit sector that bears marked resemblance to that in the more traditional corporatist regimes. Of course, differences exist among them, most notably in terms of membership, yet together they differ markedly from the United Kingdom (see Kendall & Knapp, 1997) and the United States, which are exemplars of the liberal nonprofit regime. In the United Kingdom and the United States, government social welfare spending is relatively low and the size of the nonprofit sector relatively large. In both, moreover, the social conditions thought to be associated with this pattern are very much in evidence – namely a sizable urban middle class that effectively disrupted (or, in the case of the United States never really confronted) a landed upper class while holding urban working class elements at bay. The American middle class was much more successful at this than its British counterparts, however, in part because it never really had an entrenched landed elite to unseat, and in part because ethnic and racial diversity kept the working classes more highly splintered. Political support for a state-centered welfare system was therefore far more muted in the American setting than in the British, where a postwar surge of working class support led to the establishment of certain key features of a classic social democratic model, particularly in the field of health. The United States is thus a purer form of the liberal model whereas the United Kingdom is more a mixture of the liberal and the social democratic. The United States and the United Kingdom, in turn, are set apart from Hungary (see Kuti, 1996) and Sweden (see Wijkstro¨m & Lundstro¨m, 1998). The latter two countries share similar revenue structures and some similarity in dimension because of the social democratic model of state welfare provision, but otherwise they differ dramatically in their overall scale due to Hungary’s socialist legacy. Finally, Italy (see Barbetta, 1997) and Japan (see Yamamoto, 1998), while sharing a small overall size of the nonprofit sector seem fairly unique in other aspects. The latter shows the characteristics of a statist regime, with limited public sector funding and small share of giving; whereas Italy shows a statist revenue structure, its
dimensions a mixture of all other types. Italy’s complex historical course with pronounced statist, corporatist, and social democratic elements makes it a mixed type that seems difficult to locate. With Church-dominated social welfare institutions placed firmly under state control beginning in the mid-nineteenth century as part of the effort to achieve national unification, the Fascist regime was able to move in the 1920s to establish a state-centered system of social welfare protections that was then extended by the democratic governments of the postwar era. The upshot was a strong tradition of state-provided welfare assistance with little room for an independent, nonprofit sector. Japan fits the statist model, with low levels of government social welfare spending accompanied by a relatively small nonprofit sector. This reflects a tradition of state dominance established during the Meiji Restoration of 1868 that, in the absence of effective urban middle class or working class movements, has allowed the state apparatus to retain considerable autonomous power. Combined with extensive corporate welfare, the result has been a relatively low level of government social welfare protection without a corresponding growth of independent nonprofit activity.
Key Issues The social origins theory suggests that the nonprofit sector may have different ‘‘moorings,’’ being rooted in longstanding patterns of nonprofit-government and nonprofitsociety relations. Are current policy debates likely to step outside, at least partially, these long-established patterns? Moreover, in the language of the analysis above, are we likely to witness a redrawing of nonprofit maps over the next few years? Of course, a full answer to these questions would require a more in-depth analysis of the current policy environment in each of the countries considered here. Nonetheless, the social origins theory suggests some general trends that seem to vary by regime type: In the liberal regime, where nonprofit organizations rely less on public sector payments, the pressures to seek additional and alternative revenue through earned income are strongest (see Salamon, 1995). Observers point to the commercialization of the nonprofit sector, a trend that is particularly acute in the United States, as the health care industry is changed by the increased presence of for-profit health providers. At the same time, popular political programs such as the 1997 Welfare Reform emphasize the importance of private charity in solving the social problems of a rapidly changing society. While private giving, as we have seen above, contributes a significant share toward the financing of nonprofit activities, actual giving levels have stagnated in recent years and are unlikely to
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off-set any reductions in government funding. As a result, competition for donation dollars is likely to intensify. The situation in the United Kingdom is similar when it comes to commercialization, but it differs in terms of the ‘‘moving force’’ behind it. Unlike the United States, however, it is less the for-profit sector moving into nonprofit domains like health and education, and also less the internalization of market-like ideologies among nonprofit managers. Rather, what seems to have happened in recent years is a more-or-less conscious but highly centralized government attempt to enlist the nonprofit or ‘‘voluntary’’ sector in social service delivery while reducing public sector provision. One result of this policy is the emergence of competitive contract schemes and engineered quasi-markets, which will lead to an expansion of the UK nonprofit sector via larger flows of both public sector funds and commercial income. The situation in social democratic countries is very different. A broad public consensus continues to support state provision of basic health care, social services and education. The role of nonprofit organizations in service provision, while likely to increase, will happen at the margins, and typically in close cooperation with government, leading to the emergence of public-private partnerships and innovative organizational models to reduce the burden of the welfare state. These expansions into service delivery, however, are likely to push the sector away from public sector funding, encouraging nonprofit organizations to seek commercial forms of income, assuming that giving is already fairly high with 14%. For the other parts of the Swedish nonprofit sector, any significant expansion seems unlikely. With the great majority of all Swedes already member of some of the country’s very numerous associations, and with a revenue structure that relies to 74% on fee income, Swedish civil society is more likely to restructure rather than expand in its organizational underpinning. Specifically, the country is undergoing a significant secularization trend that is likely to lead to a reduction of church-related organizations, and an expansion of cultural and recreational activities. How do corporatist regimes compare? Over the last decade, the French government has been channeling massive sums of public sector funds to the nonprofit sector to help reduce youth unemployment, while keeping some of the same restrictive laws in place that make it difficult for nonprofit organizations to operate more independently from government finances. In Germany, too, the nonprofit sector continues to be a close tool of government policies, not only in the area of unemployment policies but also more generally in the process of unification. Yet given increased strains on public budgets, unification is
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resulting in greater flexibility in how the subsidiarity principle is applied. In policy terms, these developments are shifting the focus of subsidiarity away from the provider of the service and more toward the concerns of the individual as a consumer, thereby introducing market elements in an otherwise still rigid corporatist system. There are now first moves into this direction, and it is likely that the German nonprofit sector will rely more on private fees and charges in the future. In contrast, growth in volunteering and private giving will remain modest. Finally, in statist countries like Japan there may be first signs of change in the government’s posture toward the nonprofit sector. Today, the Japanese government speaks more favorably about the role nonprofit organizations can play in policy formulations. The state grudgingly acknowledges the nonprofit sector’s abilities in addressing emerging issues which confront Japan, such as the influx of foreign labor, an aging society and environmental problems. In general, if the state shares a common interest with a particular nonprofit, it will provide financial and other support, but also continue to expect some level of control over nonprofit organizations.
Future Developments Whereas the initial formulation of the theory emphasized the economic size and revenue structure, further developments address (i) the relationship between the nonprofit sector and civil society; and (ii) the composition of the sector in terms of civil society and advocacy components vs. service delivery components. Specifically, the theory tries to account for systematic variations in the relative share of these two components across nonprofit regimes: a service-delivery function that is largely shaped in relation to the role of the state, and a civil society component of advocacy, interest mediation, and cultural and other expressive activities. A first extension of the theory was to relate economic measures of size to the overall importance of volunteering by regime type. This is shown in Table 3. Liberal nonprofit regimes have both a relatively large nonprofit sector and relatively high levels of volunteering; corporate regimes lower levels of volunteering combined with larger scale; social democratic regimes show the opposite characteristics; and, finally, statist regimes have relatively lower levels of both. When membership and volunteering, as indicators of civic engagement are related to the economic size of the nonprofit sector, we arrive at the typology presented in Table 4. Table 4 suggests that the composition of the sector in terms of civil society and advocacy components vs. service delivery components should vary by regime type. One
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way to express this duality of nonprofit sectors is to collapse the fields of health, social services and education into one, and contrast this group to the balance of the sector’s scale and revenue structure (see Anheier, 2003). This, then, indicates to what extent the sector serves traditional service fields that are tied to potential welfare state provision. This service component ranges from a low of 42% of total nonprofit employment in Sweden, a social democratic regime, to a high of 87% in statist Japan, with the other countries around the 80% mark. This distinction between a more economic social service component and a civil society component amplifies the differences among regime types and their correspondence between nonprofit sector scale and revenue structure. These findings are presented in Figs. 1 and 2. Whereas Fig. 1 shows the structure of revenue for education, health, and social services combined (EHSS), Fig. 2 shows the same for all other parts of the nonprofit sector (The other parts of the nonprofit sector outside the fields of education, health, and social services include: culture, recreation, environment, development, advocacy, international, and philanthropy). The liberal regime, represented by the United States, shows two very different shapes for the structure of nonprofit revenue depending on the EHSS on the one hand, and what could be called the civil society component on the other. For the former we see that significant flows from a plurality of sources support nonprofit activities in the fields of education,
Social Origins Theory. Table 3 Nonprofit regime type, economic scale and volunteering Nonprofit sector type
Size of paid labor
Volunteer input
Liberal
High
High
Corporatist
High
Low
Social democratic
Low
High
Statist
Low
Low
Social Origins Theory. Table 4 Nonprofit sector models and emphasis
Importance of economic size
Importance of civic engagement Lower
Higher
Lower
Statist
Social democratic
Higher
Corporatist Liberal
health, and social services. In the other parts of the nonprofit sector, however, public sector payments play a very limited role, providing only 14% of the funds. This part of the liberal nonprofit sector seems largely financed by either private giving (48%) or fees and charges (38%). Thus, the United States nonprofit sector contains two rather distinct revenue structures. This conclusion that two separate revenue structures exist in the nonprofit sector applies also to the social democratic case – yet with opposite implications. In Sweden, the EHSS component is in fact predominantly financed by public sector money, with private charges playing a secondary role (35%). The civil society part, in contrast, is largely financed not by private giving, but by private fees and payments (74%), reflecting the importance of membership dues in Sweden’s vast network of associations. Germany offers a different scenario yet. Here, in accordance with the country’s corporatist pattern, public sector payments dominate the fields of education, health, and social services (81%), and they are also important in other parts of the nonprofit sector (46%), as Fig. 2 shows. Importantly, private fees and charges are of limited significance for the EHSS component, yet important for fields like culture, recreation, and advocacy. They rely to a much greater extent on private income than in EHSS, though the share of private giving remains limited throughout. Finally, Japan, with a statist nonprofit sector, shows a very flat structure for the EHSS group, with almost equal shares being contributed by public sector payments and private fees and charges. The role of private giving remains insignificant. This latter finding also holds for other parts of the nonprofit sector (Fig. 2). Here we find a very limited role of public sector payments, with 14% (equal to that of the US case), and a dominance of private fees and charges. In summary, regime types seem to correspond to distinct shapes of nonprofit sector scale and revenue structure that in the aggregate account for characteristic ‘‘maps.’’ These maps, according to path dependency arguments, result from past social constellations and policymaking. Yet what are the implications for the nonprofit sector today? What can we learn from these maps and regime type classifications in term of current policy developments? Conclusion
The social origins theory represents an important step in the broader development of the field of nonprofit studies. It serves as a complement to economic theories and helps specify the conditions under which some theories apply
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Social Origins Theory. Fig. 1 Dimensions of the nonprofit sector: Revenue structure for education, health and social services combined (as % of total revenues)
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Social Origins Theory. Fig. 2 Dimensions of the nonprofit sector, revenue structure for other parts of nonprofit sector activity (as % of total revenues)
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and when not. Yet because of the complexity and relative amorphousness of the factors it identifies as important, the social origins theory is difficult to test empirically, and perhaps even more so than other theories in the field, in particular the microeconomic theories. It lacks the parsimony of economic theories and calls for difficult qualitative judgments about the relative power of broad social groupings such as the commercial middle class or landed elites. Even then the resulting consequences establish only ‘‘propensities’’ and ‘‘likelihoods’’ rather than fully determined results (Steinberg & Young, 1998; Ragin, 1998). What is more, the four regime types identified by this theory are really archetypical simplifications of complex realities, and many of the actual cases may be hybrids that encompass features from more than one pattern.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Indicators and Indexes ▶ Commercialization and For-Profits in Disguise ▶ Esping-Andersen, Gøsta ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Comparative Perspectives ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic ▶ Volunteering ▶ Weisbrod, Burton
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K. (2003). Dimensions of the nonprofit sector: Comparative perspectives on structure and change. In H. K. Anheier & A. BenNer (Eds.), The study of nonprofit enterprise: Theories and approaches (pp. 247–276). New York: Plenum/Kluwer. Anheier, H. K. (2009). Varieties of capitalism, Welfare state regimes and the social origins theory (Working Paper Series). Centre for Social Investment, University of Heidelberg. Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (2006). The nonprofit sector in comparative perspective. In R. Steinberg & W. W. Powell (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven/ London: Yale University Press. Anheier, H. K., & Seibel, W. (2001). The nonprofit sector in Germany: Between state, economy, and society. New York: Palgrave. Archambault, E. (1996). The nonprofit sector in France. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Barbetta, G. P. (1997). The nonprofit sector in Italy. In H. K. Anheier & L. M. Salamon (Eds.), The Johns Hopkins nonprofit series. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Huber, E., Ragin, C., & Stephens, J. D. (1993). Social democracy, Christian democracy, constitutional structures, and the welfare state. American Journal of Sociology, 99(3). 711–749. Kendall, J., & Knapp, M. (1997). The nonprofit sector in the United Kingdom. In H. K. Anheier & L. M. Salamon (Eds.), The Johns Hopkins nonprofit series. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Kuti, E. (1996). The nonprofit sector in Hungary. In H. K. Anheier & L. M. Salamon (Eds.), The Johns Hopkins nonprofit series. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Moore, B., Jr. (1967). Social origins of dictatorship and democracy: Lord and peasant in the making of the modern world. Boston: Beacon Press. Quadagno, J. (1987). Theories of the welfare state. Annual Review of Sociology, 13, 109–128. Ragin, C. (1998). Comments on ‘Social Origins of Civil Society.’ Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 9(3), 261–270. Salamon, L. M. (1995). Partners in public service: Government-nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1998). Social origins of civil society: Explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 9(3), 213–247. Steinberg, R., & Young, D. (1998). A comments on Salamon and Anheier’s ‘Social Origins of Civil Society.’ Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 9(3), 247–260. Weisbrod, B. (1988). The non-profit economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wijkstroem, F., & Lunstroem, T. (1998). The nonprofit sector in Sweden. In H. K. Anheier & L. M. Salamon (Eds.), The Johns Hopkins nonprofit series. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Yamamoto, T. (Ed.) (1998). The nonprofit sector in Japan. In H. K. Anheier & L. M. Salamon (Eds.), The Johns Hopkins nonprofit series. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Social Science Research Council (SSRC) JESSICA MOORE
Address of Organization One Pierrepont Plaza, 15th Floor Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA www.ssrc.org
Introduction The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) is an independent, not for profit research organization located in New York City. The SSRC advocates for professional researchers, policy makers, activists, and experts from private and public sectors to make innovative advances on issues of social importance. The organization is committed to the idea that social scientists can produce knowledge necessary for citizens to understand their societies and for policy makers to use when making critical decisions.
Social Trust
Brief History The SSRC was organized in 1923 to serve as a catalyst for research and funding opportunities in the social sciences. From revolutionary efforts on business cycles in the 1920s to the emergence of security studies in the 1980s and 1990s, the SSRC has had an effect on several fields of social import. The SSRC currently has four dominant foci: Global Security and Cooperation, Knowledge Institutions, Migration, and The Public Sphere. The SSRC continues to develop initiatives on issues of public concern.
Mission The SSRC Council leads innovation, builds interdisciplinary as well as international networks, and focuses research on important public issues. SSRC’s mission is underscored by five core commitments: fostering innovation, investing in the future, working internationally and democratically, combining urgency with patience, and keeping standards high. The SSRC is guided by the belief that justice, prosperity, and democracy all require better understanding of complex cultural, economic, political, and social processes.
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and public institutions. The approximately annual operating budget of the SSRC is $20 million.
Accomplishments One of the SSRC’s first efforts was to urge the US Congress to appropriate funds to the Library of Congress for the publication of an annual index of state laws. SSRC initiatives have played a principal role in educating and training generations of social researchers by providing over 10,000 fellowships to national and international graduate students and talented researchers.
Cross-References ▶ Public Sphere
References/Further Readings Calhoun, C. (2002). Dictionary of the social sciences. New York: Oxford University Press. Hammack, D. C., & Heydemann, S. (2000). Globalization, philanthropy, and civil society: Projecting institutional logics abroad. Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press. Karaganis, J. (2007). Structures of participation in digital culture. New York: Columbia University Press.
Activities The mission of the SSRC is fulfilled through workshops and conferences, research consortia and scholarly exchanges, summer training institutes, fellowships, grants, and publications. The SSRC also offers exposure to real world social issues in real time via their blogs as well as their podcast, Societas; both may be accessed through the SSRC homepage. The SSRC has also developed a comparative and cross-regional enterprise on ‘‘Belonging, the Crisis of Citizenship and the Nation-State’’ that seeks to advance innovative research and debate in the social sciences on: the landscapes of belonging and exclusion, transformations of the nation-state, and political and territorial identities across a number of the world’s regions and civil societies.
Structure and Governance The SSRC is governed by a board of directors comprised of social scientists and practitioners from an extensive range of disciplines and organizations. The board elects the SSRC president. An executive branch of the board oversees all financial and operational aspects of the organization. There are approximately 80 staff members working for the SSRC.
Funding Financial backing for the SSRC is provided by grants from numerous national and international private foundations
Social Trust SUSAN VERDUCCI1, ANDREAS SCHRO¨ER2 1 San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, USA 2 University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany
Introduction In the past two decades, social trust has been explored through the lenses of economics, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, and history. The primary questions asked of social trust include: what is its nature; what conditions motivate, sustain, and strengthen it; when is it (un)warranted; and what erodes and destroys it A strong body of literature is developing on these questions. What is less empirically understood is how to measure social trust (and its prevalence in various societies), how (and why) it is related to certain political systems, and the differences in social trust across nations.
Definition An exact definition of social trust is elusive. There is, however, loose consensus surrounding the (rather vague) idea that it is the expectation that another (person, group of persons, organization, institution, government, and so
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on) will behave in a particular way; that is, A trusts B to do (or with respect to) X. Jordan Boslego (2005) writes that, ‘‘social trust can entail perceived honesty, objectivity, consistency, competence and fairness, all of which foster relationships between individuals that must be maintained by the sustained fulfillment of these standards’’ (1). Most agree on a few other essential characteristics. First, trust is a response to the inherent uncertainties in social life. Agents come to trust others in order to navigate that which they cannot control. They trust the government to provide certain rights and protections; they trust schools to educate their children; they trust mechanics to service and repair their cars; and they trust spouses to look after their interests. A modern life without interpersonal trust is nearly unimaginable, and living without social trust, while imaginable, is certainly undesirable. Second, trust is related to risk. Given an uncertain future, trusting others (and institutions, etc.) with regard to something that we need or care about (our rights, our children, our cars, our interests) requires that we relinquish or accept the fact that the trusted may disappoint, betray, or harm us. The act of trusting leaves us open to negative impact; thus, trusting creates what Annette Baier (1994) calls a ‘‘special sort of vulnerability’’ for the truster (104). In addition to uncertainty and risk, social trust is future oriented. It is about expected actions, not realized actions or actions by a force beyond human control (e.g., Mother Nature). Uncertainty, risk, and future orientation are the ground from which social (dis)trust emerges. It is, in a sense, a response to these conditions. Finally, trust is not, qua trust, a social good. Unwarranted ‘‘trust can be an invitation for exploitation,’’ particularly in situations of power difference (Baier, 1994: 98). Many forms of institutionalized distrust, such as the separation of the powers and term limits in American democracy, freedom of speech, etc., developed to address the corrupting influence of power on trust. They can be seen as a source of social trust.
Key Issues Benefits of Social Trust
Trust produces many individual and public goods. Trust catalyzes social interaction and enterprise; it has been argued that it is a precondition for both. Baier (1994) suggests that trust serves ‘‘to oil the wheels of our societywide joint ventures’’ (154). This echoes Niklas Luhmann’s (1979) often cited description of trust as a social lubricant that ‘‘liberates and mobilizes human agency, [and] releases creative, uninhibited, innovative, entrepreneurial activism toward other people’’ (8). It does this by encouraging
spontaneous sociability and engagement with others in formal and informal associations. Piotr Sztompka (1999) suggests that trust, ‘‘enriches the network of interpersonal ties, enlarges the field of interactions, and allows for greater intimacy of interpersonal contacts’’ (105). Social trust is seen as a generator of social capital (Putnam, 1995) and is positively related to economic prosperity (Fukuyama, 1995). It lowers transaction costs (because it does not require costly activities such as monitoring the behavior of others) and fosters cooperation and reciprocity. Further, it catalyzes knowledge sharing and open communication, and cultivates tolerance and autonomy. The social benefits of trust are also linked with individual goods, such as personal well-being and improved interpersonal relationships. Not only is trust a precondition of social interaction and enterprise, it is also the byproduct of trusting interactions. Thus, a healthy society both relies on social trust and produces it. The Relationship Between Interpersonal Trust and Social Trust
A contended issue in the literature pertains to whether the nature of trust changes when it is applied beyond interpersonal relationships to social associations, organizations, institutions, governments, and systems. Does trust extend from the interpersonal to social objects (roles, groups, institutions, procedures, and technological and social systems) or is social trust always between persons? Some theorists, such as Earle and Cvetkovich (1995), see trust solely as an interpersonal phenomenon. Others explore trust’s extension to social objects. Passey and Tonkis (2000) and Baier (1994) articulate a difference between trusting an individual and trusting the institution that the individual represents, but they argue the difference lies in trust’s form. Guido Mo¨llering (2005) sees trust extending to institutions, and specifies that ‘‘trust between actors can be based on institutions, trust can be institutionalized, and institutions themselves can only be effective if they are trusted’’ (17). In this view, organizations and institutions act as trust bases, carriers, and objects. Barber (1983) and Giddens (1990) assert that a form of trust can also exist between systems, not just between persons and systems. Sztompka (1999) proposes ‘‘gradual, expanding, concentric circles of trust . . . from the most concrete interpersonal relations, toward more abstract orientation toward social objects’’ (42). He also, however, asserts that there are persons behind all social and institutional objects of trust and ‘‘it is the people whom we ultimately endow with trust’’ (41).
Social Trust
Motivations to Trust
There are four distinct themes in view of motivations to trust that are important. The first is that trust is a belief grounded in rational and utilitarian processes; people trust because it is smart to do so. In an increasingly global, specialized, and uncertain world, social trust has become necessary and thus wise. This view can be found in Russell Hardin’s (2006) idea of trust as ‘‘encapsulated interests.’’ He proposes that trust happens when an agent has reasons to believe that the trusted has taken the truster’s interests as (partly) her own; the trusted has ‘‘encapsulated’’ the truster’s interests in service of maintaining their relationship. Rationalist views depend upon the availability of information about the motives of the potentially trusted, and Carolyn McLeod (2006) calls such views of trust the ‘‘risk assessment view.’’ Sztompka (1999) captures this gamble in his definition of trust as ‘‘a bet about the future contingent actions of others’’ (25). The rationalist view is a popular one, which is one reason much of the empirical literature on interpersonal trust consists of analysis of responses to different versions of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. A second line of thinking conceives of trust as tied to communities and culture. This view does not assume the individualism of the rationalist perspective and instead focuses on people as part of communities and systems. People trust because their culture provides opportunities to do so (or constraints to refrain from doing so). Fukuyama (1995) describes trust as ‘‘the expectation that arises within a community of regular, honest, cooperative behavior, based on commonly shared norms, on the part of other members of that community’’ (26). Trust takes place in the context of cultural norms related to it and these norms influence whether and how trust is enacted. Thus, social trust manifests differently across cultures. Many researchers explore the dimensions of this in terms of a ‘‘culture’’ or ‘‘climate’’ of trust and some question whether trust is generalizable from one object to another (see below). This cultural line of thinking on trust supports the work on organizations, institutions, governments, and systems as bases and carriers of trust. It also has relevance for discussions of social trust in international contexts. A third view sees trust as a psychological or dispositional characteristic of persons. Here, being trustworthy is a virtuous disposition that people possess; others trust them precisely because they are the sort of person who will behave trustworthily. There is slender evidence that this disposition might extend to nonprofit organizations (Hansmann, 1996).
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A fourth view explores the moral nature of motivations to trust. Baier (1994) defines trust as, ‘‘to let another [person, firm, nation, etc.] think about and take [discretionary] action to protect and advance something the truster cares about, to let the trusted care for what one cares about’’ (138). The introduction of ‘‘care’’ moves intentions to the moral domain. Views of social trust vary along these four lines of reasons to trust: it is rational to trust, cultural conditions motivate trust, dispositional characteristics of the trusted determine trust and, finally, the act of trusting (or being trustworthy) is moral. These themes are not mutually exclusive. It is reasonable to assume that all four are present in social trust. A Culture of Trust
Related to the issue of the social extensibility of trust is the issue of a ‘‘culture’’ or ‘‘climate’’ of trust. Sztompka (1999) defines trust culture as ‘‘a system of rules – norms and values – regulating granting trust and meeting, returning, and reciprocating trust; in short, rules about trust and trustworthiness’’ (99). These rules are the result of accumulated historical experiences of trust and distrust embedded in organizational, institutional, political, or social culture. Halfpenny (2000) articulates how a culture of (dis)trust might develop; ‘‘successful experience confirms one’s subjective probability estimates, and so the more often one calls upon one’s trust in a particular agent and has it confirmed, the more that agent warrants one’s trust for future transactions. In contrast, one disconfirming experience is likely to be fatal to an agent’s trust’’ (141). Thus, trust begets more trust, and distrust begets more distrust. Sztompka (1999) delineates certain macro circumstances that fuel a culture of trust: the normative ordering of social life (law, morality, and custom); stability of the social order; transparency of the social organization; presence of a familiar environment; and accountability mechanisms (122–125). These provide incentives and insurances for interpersonal and social trust. Likewise, their opposites provide incentives for the development of a culture of distrust. The Role of Trust in Civil Society
Social trust has become a widely discussed issue in the discourse on civil society. Two major questions are addressed: Is social trust the precondition of a ‘‘strong civil society’’? Can trust in civil society organizations counterbalance the decrease in trust in democratic institutions?
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Social capital is considered an important lubricant for social interaction. Social capital inheres in interpersonal interactions, which comprise shared sets of values that are associated with these relationships. Bourdieu (1984) defines social capital as ‘‘aggregate of the actual or potential resources which are linked to possession of a durable network’’ (248). Bourdieu (1984) and Coleman (1988) emphasize individual and organizational social ties as predictors for individual advancement and collective action. By contrast, Putnam construes social capital as a basis for social integration and well-being and defines it as ‘‘features of social organization, such as trust, norms, and networks, that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated actions’’ (Putnam, 1995: 167), and later as ‘‘connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them’’ (Putnam & Goss, 2002: 19). Accordingly trust is regarded as an essential element of the norms that arise from social networks. For Lin, Cook & Burt (2001), and Nahapiet and Ghoshal (1998) social capital is an attribute of and embedded in social networks. In sum these researchers argue that trust is a source of social capital. Some authors claim the strength of civil society depends upon a specific form of trust. Here, a distinction is made between thick, particularized trust and thin, generalized trust. The former is based on personal, firsthand knowledge, the latter on more abstract, general information. In this latter context Granovetter (1973) argues that we trust people who are not like us not because we know them personally, but because we have first hand knowledge about how society works in general. This thin trust is related to weak ties in broader social networks. The ‘‘strengths of weak ties’’ become more important since as societies grow, they become bigger, mobile, and more impersonal. Thin trust is created within weak ties across and in-between various networks of voluntary associations. It is these ties that create long-lasting social relationships that contribute to social cohesion and develop norms and rules of reciprocity. A line of economic argument also supports the view that trust is an important precondition of a strong civil society. Trust is directly related to market transactions, as trusting is an act of rational choice in a situation of information asymmetry. Hansmann (1996) argues that in a situation of information asymmetry, a nonprofit organization is more trusted by potential clients than a for-profit organization due to the nonprofit distribution constraint. This means that people are more likely to trust nonprofits when they don’t have much information because they, by definition, cannot make a profit.
The importance of trust in civil society is heightened because of concerns mature democracies have over the decrease in trust in government and formal institutions (Putnam et al., 2002; World Value Survey). Public confidence in political institutions is particularly low among the young. Against the background of this decrease, civil society becomes an alternative sphere of public trust. But can an expansion of civil society and voluntary organizations compensate the declining trust in democratic institutions? Even protagonists of social capital like Putnam agree that trust based relationships in voluntary associations do not need to be inclusive or democratic. In order to secure democratic functions, it would be necessary to specify forms and norms of civil society, which are based on more than just enlightened selfinterest (Fenton, 2000). Critics also question Putnam’s claim regarding the relationship between civic involvement and trust. Uslaner (2002) finds fault in the idea that trust is linked to the breadth of an individual’s social network. Although voluntary involvement may be correlated with trust, there are many other mechanisms that may be more important in determining the formation and maintenance of generalized trust, such as parental nurturing, measures of optimism, expectations for the future as well as race, education and age (98). Dekker (2003) questions the methodology of social trust research. Most of empirical research (European Value Studies, World Value Studies) on social capital and social trust is based on answers to the survey question: ‘‘Generally speaking, would you say that people can be trusted or that you can’t be too careful in dealing with people?’’ Dekker argues that answers to this question might give more indication for personality strength, efficacy, and self-esteem than on the degree of social trust or social capital. Other criticism is concerned with a ‘rather circular’ definition of social capital and the lack of theoretical precision by incorporating the concept of trust particularly in Putnam’s work (Misztal 2000: 121). Finally, Fenton (2000) argues that contemporary Western societies are characterized by developments (marketization, individualization, and globalization) that create tensions to trust relationships and the norms and values of civil society: ‘‘accountability replaces responsibility [. . .] social contract replaces social contact, resulting in the displacement of trust by confidence’’ (170). Trust is often conceived as a precondition of a strong civil society. The specific nature of the relation between trust, social capital and civil society however needs some clarification, since both concepts of trust and civil society
Social Trust
are not only subject to theoretical speculation, but have different connotations, depending on their social, political, and economic context. Interdependency and Risk
Global risks are the expression of a new form of global interdependence, which cannot be adequately addressed by way of national politics, nor by the available forms of international co-operation. Key institutions of modernity, such as science, business, or politics, which are supposed to manage risk have become sources of risk (Beck, 1992). Risk is therefore not just a matter of individual action, but can collectively affect large masses of individuals (ecological disaster, nuclear war). One paradox of reflexive modernity is that people need to trust expert systems (faceless commitments) for lack of alternatives, knowing that their outcome might be contingent and science can fail. Under the contemporary conditions of reflexivity of modern social life, all social practices are constantly examined and reformed given new incoming information about those practices (including the practice of reflection itself). Knowledge, including expert knowledge is decoupled from security and stability, however abstract expert systems remain an important environment of trust (Giddens, 1990).
International Perspectives Cross-national surveys show that the highest levels of social trust are in the homogeneous, social-democratic, well-todo countries of Scandinavia, while the lowest levels of trust tend to be found in South America, Africa, and parts of Asia. In these multi-national comparative surveys, the US population ranks in the upper middle range of trust despite its cultural diversity (Delhey & Newton, 2005; Rothstein & Ulsaner, 2005). One question for international comparison is whether some countries do better than others when they promote social trust among their citizens (Boslego, 2005). It is hypothesized that such states tend to be more democratic than ones with less social trust, since citizens must trust in fair elections, officials that are not corrupt, and a government which represents their interests. It is also posited that open (and cross-cultural) communication can mitigate the lack cultural homogeneity within countries. However institutionalized distrust like investigative journalism or monitoring mechanisms might be as important for democracies to function. A comparison of the richness, development, and class distribution of social capital in different OECD countries has found an overall trend toward narrower forms of social participation, mounting distrust in political institutions, and evidence that welfare states have sustained
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rather than eroded social capital. Social capital remains unequally distributed: it is fading among less educated, less affluent social groups. Further, the younger generation appears uninterested in politics, distrustful of politicians and others in general, cynical about public affairs, and less inclined to participate in enduring social organizations (Putnam, 2004). An increasing number of papers are devoted to the role of social trust and social capital in the fight against poverty and inequalities in developing countries (Collier, 1998). This work examines the ability of social interactions to mitigate the effects of income inequalities, to improve the capabilities and the quality of life of the poor, to foster productivity and innovation in rural areas, and to support the development of microcredit programs (Larance, 2001).
Future Directions The theoretical literature on interpersonal trust is rich and instructive, and work on organizational and institutional trust is growing. It is clear how we might come to make trust judgments with people that we know intimately or have direct interactions with. What is more difficult to understand is how we come to trust those who are ‘‘faceless’’ to us – strangers, institutions, and systems with which we do not directly interact. Further, no specific measure of social trust exists. The development of such a measure is a necessary first step for development in the field. It follows that research on comparisons of social trust between nations is needed as well. As noted, comparative international research has been drawn primarily from a single question on the highly limited World Values Survey. And, although there are a number of hypotheses about social trust’s relationship to democracy, the empirical evidence is not convincing. A related direction for further study is the contextual examination of social (dis)trust during times of radical change. Sztompka’s (1999) study of Poland’s political change from pre-1989 to 1993 provides an excellent model. Finally, our understanding of the effects of market and democratic globalization on trust is in its incipient stages and needs further investigation.
Cross-References
▶ Bourdieu, Pierre ▶ Coleman, James ▶ Hansmann, Henry ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic
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References/Further Readings Baier, A. C. (1994). Moral prejudices. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Barber, B. (1983). The logic and limits of trust. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. New Delhi: Sage. Boslego, J. (2005). Engineering social trust: What can communities and institutions do? Harvard International Review. Retrieved May 18, 2008 from http://www.harvardir.org/articles/1319 Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. Boston, MA: Harvard University Press. Coleman, J. S. (1988). Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology, 94(Suppl.), S95–S120. Collier, P. (1998). Social capital and poverty. The World Bank Social Capital Initiative Working Papers, 4, Washington, DC: The World Bank. Dekker, P. (2003). A tale of two cities: local patterns of Social Captial. In Marc Hooqhe & Dietland Stolle (Eds) Generating Social Capitals Civil Society and institutions in comparative perspective. New York: Palgrave 153–169. Delhey, J., & Newton, K. (2005). Predicting cross-national levels of social trust: Global pattern or nordic exceptionalism? European Sociological Review, 21(4), 311–327. Earle, T., & Cvetkovich, G. T. (1995). Social trust: Toward a cosmopolitan society. New York: Preager. Fenton, N. (2000). Critical perspectives on trust and civil Society. In F. Tonkiss, A. Passey, N. Fenton and L.C. Herns (Eds) Trust and civil Society. London: Macmillan. Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. New York: Free Press Paperbacks (Simon & Schuster). Giddens, A. (1990). The consequences of modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Granovetter, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78(6), 1360–1380. Halfpenny, P. (2000). Trust, charity and civil society. In F. Tonkiss, A. Passey, N. Fenton, & L. C. Hems (Eds.), Trust and civil society. London: Macmillan. Hansmann, H. (1996). The ownership of enterprise. Cambridge, MA: Belknap. Hardin, R. (2006). Trust. Cambridge: Polity Press. Larance, L. Y. (2001). Fostering social capital through NGO design: Grameen bank membership in Bangladesh. International Social Work, 44(1), 7–18. Lin, N., Cook, K., & Burt, R. (2001). Social capital: Theory and research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Luhmann, N. (1979). Power and trust. New York: Wiley. Nahapiet, J., & Ghoshal, S. (1998). Social capital, intellectual capital; and the organizational advantage. Academy of Management Review, 23(2), 242–266. McLeod, C. (2006). Trust. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved May 19, 2008, from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trust/ Mo¨llering, G. (2005). Understanding trust from the perspective of sociological neoinstitutionalism: The interplay of institutions and agency. Cologne: Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Passey, A., & Tonkiss, F. (2000). Trust, voluntary association and civil society. In F. Tonkiss, A. Passey, N. Fenton, & L. C. Herns (Eds.), Trust and civil society. London: Macmillan. Putnam, R. D. (1995). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. D. (Ed.) (2002). Democracies in flux: The evolution of social capital in contemporary society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Putnam, R. D., & Goss, K.A (2002). Introduction Democracies in flux: The evolution of social capital in contemporary society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rothstein, B., & Uslaner, E. M. (2005). All for all: Equality, corruption, and social trust. World Politics, 58, 41–72. Sztompka, P. (1999). Trust: A sociological theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Uslander, E. M. (2002). The Moral Foundations of Trust. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Social Watch GEORGETTE DUMONT
Address of Organization Third World Institute Jackson 1136 Montevideo 11200 Uruguay www.socialwatch.org
Introduction Social Watch (SW) is an international network of nongovernmental organizations in more than 70 countries. This network provides a means for local NGOs to provide feedback to international forums on their nation’s progress on eradicating poverty and gender equality. The information provided by the local NGOs is compiled into an annual report on social development throughout the world.
Brief History Social Watch arose from the UN World Summit for Social Development (WSSD, also referred to as the Social Summit) that was held in Copenhagen in 1995, and the fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995. The Social Summit brought together 117 heads of State to create a consensus on how best to eradicate poverty. The result was the adoption of the Declaration and Program of Adoption which included social, political, and economic measurements to assess progress towards poverty eradication. To evaluate each nation’s progress toward eradicating poverty, ITeM (the Instituto Tercer Mundo), Eurostep (European Solidarity Towards Equal Participation of People), and Novib (now Oxfam Novib), a Dutch development NGO fighting poverty, worked together and formed Social Watch. Its premise was that analysis performed by local NGOs would provide the information that was needed to better inform on the national progress of meeting the goals
Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)
of WSSD at the international level. Due to new communication technologies, especially the internet, NGOs regardless of their size and resources were able to obtain information about the WSSD and provide information to the network, becoming active members in the process.
Mission and Objectives Social Watch is an international network of citizens’ organizations working to eradicate poverty and the causes of poverty, to ensure an equitable distribution of wealth, and to realize human rights for all people. It is committed to social, economic, and gender justice, and emphasizes the right of all people not to be poor.
Activities Through national statistics and the reporting from local NGO Social Watch affiliates, SW publishes an annual report on the progress and setbacks on gender equality and eradicating poverty for each nation. This information is then used for policy advocacy, mobilization of grassroots organizations, and to inform social movements and provide strategies for change. In addition to its annual report, in many countries SW has also produced national forums where grassroots NGOs can exchange information with each other, as well as the National SW organization on social development concerns, policy issues, and advocacy strategies.
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national coalitions. National SW coalitions rely on their own funding sources.
Major Accomplishments or Contributions Social Watch produces an annual report on more than 60 countries’ progress towards meeting the internationally agreed upon goals from the WSSD. This report on social development and gender equality at the national level is used internationally as a monitoring tool.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Gender ▶ Civil Society Indicators and Indexes ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction ▶ Oxfam International
References/Further Readings Bissio, R. (Ed.) (2005). Roars and whispers gender and poverty: Promises vs. action. Uruguay: Instituto del Tercer Mundo. Social Watch. (1999). Exercising social watch: Monitoring the copenhagen summit and the Beijing conference. Montevideo: Instituto del Tercer Mundo.
Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA)
Structure and Governance Social Watch has diverse organizing initiatives at the national level used to strengthen civil society and NGO capacity to monitor and hold governments accountable. No single model of organizing exists, rather groups have developed multiple approaches to using Social Watch to engender positive change. Early in its conception, SW was a reference group of partner organizations. Over time, SW has become an international network comprised of national Social Watch coalitions that report on their nation’s progress towards gender equality and eradicating poverty. At the center of the SW network is a coordinating committee, an editorial team, and a secretariat. The national coalitions report to the SW secretariat, but are not accountable to it. Instead, the secretariat is accountable to the national coalitions.
Funding The Social Watch international network receives most of its funding from Novib. Other funds come from the Ford Foundation and other sources. All these funding sources fund the international SW network, the secretariat, and the costs associated with the annual report, not SW’s
ANAEL LABIGNE
Address of Organization PRIA 42, Tughlakabad Institutional Area New Delhi – 110062 India www.pria.org
Introduction The Indian nonprofit organization Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) was founded in 1982 and is based in New Delhi. It aims to strengthen popular knowledge and to support grassroots activities across India. PRIA supports local level initiatives through programs, events, and publications in order to mobilize the community to participate in different aspects of their own development. The organization’s slogan is: Knowledge is Power.
Brief History Dr. Rajesh Tandon, a founding member of CIVICUS and its Chairperson from 1997–1999, is the key person in the
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founding process of PRIA. As one of the pioneers of participatory research, he has given new meaning to academic research by redefining the relationship between researcher and subjects and turned his knowledge to cofound PRIA in 1982. PRIA emerged out of the belief that governments could not alone deliver the development programs needed at the local level and that there was a need to raise awareness and mobilize communities to participate in their own development. At the beginning of PRIA’s work, grassroots groups were encouraged and voluntary development organizations were trained in participatory methodologies. Later PRIA supported women-oriented activities and literacybased activities as well as campaigns on dust-related lung diseases, and the emergence of the Voluntary Action Network India (VANI). All this shows that over the years a structure was created and institutionalized.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas PRIA’s overall aim is to empower the marginalized poor and oppressed people of India. PRIA seeks to defend a vision of a world populated with informed, empowered citizens who actively participate in deepening democracy and show tolerance to its larger numbers and diversity. Its main focus areas are capacity building, knowledge building and policy advocacy. Within these areas, PRIA concentrates on themes such as women’s education and their livelihood, tribal rights, workers’ education, and the reform of governance institutions to promote citizen participation.
Activities As well as implementing projects based in communities, such as birth registration in small and medium towns, and others with broader scope, such as the international women’s day, the organization formed two suborganizations. PRIA Continuing Education was created to transfer its experience, knowledge, and learning of over 25 years to interested students, and PRIA Consultants was established with a view to providing social and development solutions as well as advisory support to the government, civil society, and businesses. In 1998 PRIA launched CASH, the Committee Against Sexual Harassment, which provides – as in the other focus areas – information, workshops, and other learning possibilities. PRIA is also active in other developing countries, in the Asian region more broadly, and in international forums.
President, Dr. Rajesh Tandon. All over India more than 120 people are employed at the different PRIA offices.
Funding PRIA’s revenues amounted to over 175 million Indian rupees (more than US$ 3.5 million). Sources include grants and contracts from a number of bilateral and multilateral aid agencies, as well as from international NGOs such as Catholic Relief Services and foundations such as the Ford Foundation.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Over its more than a quarter of a century history, PRIA has touched many lives through its projects and programs at the grassroots level, but also through the scaling up of its initiatives and through its advocacy for policy change. PRIA considers itself instrumental, for example, in the launching in 2002 of the central government’s nationwide program for universal elementary education to promote girl child education after an amendment in the constitution made education a fundamental right for all. In addition, it played a role in the establishment of India’s Right to Information policy, which took effect in October 2005.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ CIVICUS ▶ Catholic Relief Services ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Participation ▶ NGOs and Socio-economic Development ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development
References/Further Readings PRIA. (2006). Annual Report 2006–2007. The silver jubilee edition. New Delhi: PRIA. Tandon, R. (2002). Participatory research – Revisiting the roots. New Delhi: Mosaic Books.
Solidarity AAFKE KOMTER University College Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Structure and Governance
Introduction
PRIA’s structure includes an 11-member governing board and an operational management board, led by PRIA’s
The notion of solidarity is often used in an ideological or normative sense, for instance in humanitarian
Solidarity
organizations, political debates, or religious discourses; also in the socialist or communist jargon, solidarity has been a core concept and an important ideal to strive after.
Definition By contrast to its normative use in everyday life, the social scientific use of solidarity is descriptive and analytical in character. Originally, the word solidarity derives from the Latin solidare – to make firm, to combine parts to form a strong whole. This element can be recognized in two main types of definition of the concept of solidarity, the first one referring to the individual level, and the second one pertaining to the collective or communal level. The first type of definition conceives of solidarity as a feeling of togetherness or identification with another person or group, and the willingness to take the consequences of that. A recent theoretical analysis of solidarity by Arnsperger and Varoufakis (2003), for instance, stresses its character as a predisposition of a person; they consider solidarity as a generous propensity to sacrifice something on behalf of a group which suffers from an adverse condition. The second way to conceive of solidarity has its roots in classical sociology, and emphasizes the ties that bind people together in the society; the term solidarity is referring to the degree or type of social integration resulting from these ties, and is often used as a synonym of the social order or social cohesion existing in the society (cf. Durkheim, 1964 [1893]; Hechter, 1988).
Historical Background Classical Theory Affective and Instrumental Bases of Solidarity
In order to describe the transformation in the nature of solidarity in the nineteenth century the sociologist Durkheim (1964 [1893]) made a distinction between ‘‘mechanical’’ and ‘‘organic’’ solidarity, and argued that the first solidarity type is more characteristic of premodern or tribal societies, whereas the second type refers to the solidarity as known in more modern societies. Mechanical solidarity (Durkheim uses the term ‘‘mechanical’’ as an analogy to the cohesion which unites the molecules of an inanimate body) is based on the small-scale units of the family, the church, the neighborhood or the community, and is characterized by a shared identity, similarity of beliefs and convictions, and a concrete and specific morality. While the social ties within the units may be rather strong, the bonds between the various units are relatively weak in a society based on mechanical solidarity. The
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organic solidarity of the more advanced societies springs from the differentiation and specialization of societal tasks and functions, and is in this sense comparable to the different functions of the bodily organs. There is more differentiation in identities and beliefs, a more abstract and general morality which is embedded in the law, an increased complexity of the social units in the society (e.g., markets, institutions, cities), and a stronger interdependency of these various social units due to shared needs and interests; for instance, a factory worker producing the various component parts of a computer allowing other factory workers to assemble computers, which in their turn enable millions of people to do their daily work. Another classical sociologist, Max Weber (1947 [1922]), distinguishes between communal and associative social relationships. When people’s action – either individual or collective – is based on the subjective feeling of togetherness, Weber speaks of communal relationships. This feeling may stem from affection or from tradition, but it is essential that more than the mere feeling of togetherness in involved; the feeling should lead to a mutual orientation in behavior and to a social relationship. Examples are religious fraternities, erotic relationships, personal loyalty, or the esprit de corps within the military. The most typical communal relationship is the family, according to Weber. Associative relationships are at issue when the orientation of action springs from a rationally motivated correspondence between interests. This rationality may be inspired either by certain absolute values or by instrumental and utilitarian considerations. An example is market exchange, consisting of a compromise between opposed but complementary interests. Another example is the purely voluntary association between individuals on the basis of their self-interests; or the voluntary association of individuals sharing certain values. Durkheim’s and Weber’s theoretical concepts echo the distinction made by one of their predecessors, Ferdinand To¨nnies (1922), who had analyzed the transition from premodern society – Gemeinschaft – to modern, industrialized society – Gesellschaft. Whereas To¨nnies conceived of the transition as irreversible and seemed to think of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft as separate and distinct stages in the societal development, both Durkheim and Weber emphasized that the types of solidarity or the types of social relationship are ‘‘ideal types’’; the distinction is analytical in kind: in reality mechanical and organic solidarity or communal and associative relationships may exist in the same society. The family, prototypical for mechanical solidarity, exists alongside the labor market or complex institutions, which can be considered as loci of organic solidarity. Most social relationships possess an affective component but are
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at the same time determined by associational factors. Personal relationships may be tainted by utilitarian considerations, and reversely, utilitarian relationships, for instance on the market, may gradually adopt some affective meaning for the parties involved. Reciprocity and Morality as Bases of Solidarity
In his book Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), classical anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski analyzed the Kula-ritual – the pattern of ceremonial gift exchange among the population of the Trobriand archipelago. The continuous gift exchange taking place between the inhabitants of these islands, followed a fixed pattern with articles of two kinds constantly traveling in opposite directions and constantly being exchanged. The issue was not the durable possession of certain articles but the principle of exchange itself. The ever continuing movement of the objects from one (temporary) owner to the next was crucial in the process of acquiring a personal and social identity, status, and prestige and of creating social ties and solidarity. Malinowski proposed a continuum of motives involved in gift giving. ‘‘Pure gifts,’’ altruistic gifts for which nothing is expected in return, and gifts that can be characterized as barter, forms of exchange where personal profit is the dominant motive, are the exceptions. Most typical are motives that lie in-between these extremes. More or less equivalent reciprocity, or titfor-tat, attended by clear expectations of returns is the general rule underlying gift exchange. According to Malinowski this economical dimension of gift giving corresponds with the sociological dimension of kinship: gifts to kin and partners are more often given disinterestedly, whereas more or less direct expectations of returns and elements of barter are more characteristic of gifts given to persons farther away in the kinship hierarchy. Marcel Mauss radicalized Malinowski’s insights by stating that do ut des – I give so that you give in return – is the principal rule in all gift giving, a viewpoint that Malinowski later adopted himself (see Komter, 2005). In Mauss’s view, there are no free gifts: ‘‘Generosity and selfinterest are linked in giving.’’ (1990 [1923]: 68) He considered gift exchange as a subtle mixture of altruism and selfishness. By means of giving mutually it becomes possible to communicate with other people, to help them and to develop solidarity. Gift exchange is at the basis of a system of mutual obligations and, as such, lays the foundation for social order and solidarity, according to Mauss. Some decades later, these insights were developed further by Claude Le´vi-Strauss (1961 [1949]) and Marshall Sahlins (1972). Whereas Le´vi-Strauss emphasized the
structural and universal character of the principle of reciprocity as a means to create solidarity, Sahlins resumed Malinowski’s distinction between various motives underlying solidarity, ranging from disinterested ‘‘generalized’’ exchange through ‘‘balanced’’ and’’negative’’ reciprocity; balanced reciprocity resembles Malinowski’s equivalent reciprocity, whereas negative reciprocity is the unsociable extreme, indicating the attempt to get something for nothing. Like Malinowski, Sahlins considers exchange within the circle of near kin and loved ones an example of disinterested, ‘‘generalized exchange.’’ Feelings of altruism and solidarity supposedly accompany this type of exchange. Balanced reciprocity is less personal and refers to direct and equivalent exchange without much delay. It is more likely in relationships that are emotionally distant than in closer relationships. Feelings of mutual obligation go together with balanced reciprocity. Also Alvin Gouldner (1973 [1969]) explored the ‘‘norm of reciprocity’’ as a mechanism to start social relationships. Although equivalence and mutuality can be powerful motives to exchange gifts, Gouldner pointed to the fact that reciprocity does not necessarily mean equivalence and argued that power can play a complicating role in reciprocity relations. In addition to the norm of reciprocity, Gouldner distinguished the ‘‘norm of beneficence’’ (Malinowski’s pure gift): the expression of real altruism. Despite clear-cut differences in approach, Malinowski, Mauss, Le´vi-Strauss, Gouldner, and Sahlins all seem to stress the same point: reciprocity in exchange relationships is the moral cement of culture and society, and as such a cornerstone of social order and solidarity. Although power may complicate the principle of reciprocity, the primordial meaning of gift exchange is to start or to stabilize social relationships. An interesting parallel with the ideas of Durkheim and Weber, who did not so much oppose but rather juxtapose communal and instrumental relationship types, is that self-interest and the creation of social order and solidarity are not regarded as contradictory. Generosity and self-interest go hand in hand in gift exchange, and it is exactly this combination that fosters the development of social order and solidarity. In more modern conceptualizations of solidarity, two approaches have come into existence, the first one stressing instrumental and utilitarian motives, the second one considering norms, values, and emotions as the bases of solidarity. This separation between motives underlying solidarity was not yet present in the work of the classical sociologists and anthropologists who left room for a variety of motives and for mixtures between motives, depending on the nature of the relationship (Komter, 2005).
Solidarity
Key Issues Modern Approaches to Solidarity Solidarity and Rational Choice Theory
A well-known theory departing from a rational choice perspective is Michael Hechter’s theory of group solidarity (1987). Hechter starts from a rational choice perspective and assumes that individuals are ‘‘bearers of sets of given, discrete, nonambiguous, and transitive preferences’’ (1987: 30). In a situation where they can choose, they will always choose that alternative that presumably brings them the greatest profit. As profit maximizers, rational individuals are supposed to behave coherently and to be goal-oriented: they are, in brief, ‘‘rational egoists.’’ Institutions play a regulating role, because they keep control of individual behavior by means of the rules they have developed. An important factor explaining the extent to which people feel tied to a group is their dependency on the group for the satisfaction of their needs. In its turn, dependency is influenced by the availability of alternative resources for need satisfaction, the available information about these resources, the costs involved in leaving the group, and the strength of the personal ties among group members. The greater the dependency of the members, the stronger the group ties and obligations felt towards the group. The strength of group ties, however, is not enough to explain solidary behavior. Solidarity presupposes that people are in fact committing themselves to the group’s ends, and do not become ‘‘free riders.’’ Compliance requires formal controls, the means of a group to counteract free riding. The group must have sufficient resources in order to be able to effectively punish or reward its members, depending on their contribution to the group. A similar perspective is found in the work of Coleman (1986). How can individual interests be reconciled with collective rationality? Coleman and Fararo (1992: xi–xii) describe as the principal aim of rational choice theory ‘‘(. . .) to understand how actions that are reasonable or rational for actors can combine to produce social outcomes, sometimes intended by actors, sometimes unintended, sometimes socially optimal, sometimes non-optimal.’’
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he calls ‘‘systems of solidarity.’’ An example is the family. Its function is ‘‘encouraging, stabilising, and regulating patterns of attraction, repulsion, loyalty, and identity within a population’’ (1971: 68). But solidarity is not restricted to kinship systems. People feel solidary with all sorts of communities, ethnic groups, groups of colleagues, religious groupings, or even nations. Mayhew distinguishes between four forms of solidarity. First, the primary ties of affection between people, or attraction. When a group member not only feels attracted to the group but also cares for the unity of the group and the group ends, loyalty is involved. The other two forms of solidarity are not so much based on direct emotional attachment to others but rather on a feeling of belonging to the group, or identification. Identification with a group often surpasses attraction or loyalty; for instance, people may identify with homosexuals, blacks, or people of higher education, as a group. The fourth form of solidarity is association; this solidarity transcends established group identities and distinctions. The latter two forms of solidarity correspond to Durkheim’s organic solidarity, while the more direct attraction among individuals resembles his mechanical solidarity. A related perspective can be found in Etzioni’s work. In accordance with the communitarian tradition in American philosophy and social science, Etzioni (1988) pleads for the revaluation of ‘‘the moral dimension.’’ He criticizes what he calls the neo-classical paradigm because it rests upon a rationalistic, utilitarian, and individualistic picture of human nature. This picture is wrong, says Etzioni. People do feel commitment towards the community; they do have a sense of shared identity and shared moral values. Choices that people make are often inspired by affective and normative motives. Moreover, individuals have only limited intellectual and cognitive capacities, which prevents them from surveying all possible consequences of their actions. Most choices are therefore not rational at all, or only to a limited degree. In short: people are not merely striving at their own pleasure or profits, but act also on the basis of internalized values and shared norms.
Future Directions Norms, Values, and Emotions as Bases of Solidarity
A very different approach of solidarity states that people come to feel committed to each other because they experience mutual attraction, want to identify with others and act loyally towards them. Solidarity starts with feelings of mutual connectedness. This view can be found in the work of Mayhew (1971). According to him solidary behavior is often organized in certain institutions, which
A core issue in scientific debates on solidarity is the question how processes of individualization and globalization affect solidarity. On the one hand, they are seen as positive attainments of the modern world. Individualization has increased the freedom to make one’s own choices and has lessened the previous constraints of old-fashioned traditions. Similarly, globalization, the growing interconnectedness of the
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world, is assumed to have increased possibilities of human cooperation on a much wider scale than in the past. On the other hand these developments are considered potential threats to the social cohesion and the solidarity in the society. So far theoretical and conceptual approaches of solidarity have dominated the field, whereas empirical research testing the assumptions described here, is still scarce. Important areas for future research are: the balance between the formal solidarity of the welfare state and the solidarity of informal care and help; the willingness of modern citizens to subscribe state policies affecting solidarity (e.g., tax paying, state support for the elderly or health care expenditures); the willingness of citizens to spend time, care, or money (volunteer work, providing informal care, or donating to charitable goals); and finally, solidarity in the context of changing family relationships (divorce, nontraditional living arrangements).
Malinowski, B. (1950 [1922]). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. London: Routledge/Kegan Paul. Mauss, M. (1990 [1923]). The gift: The form and reason for exchange in archaic societies. London: Routledge. Mayhew, L. (1971). Society: Institutions and activity. New York: Columbia University Press. Sahlins, M. (1972). Stone age economics. London: Tavistock. To¨nnies, F. (1987 [1922]). Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft [Community and Society]. Leipzig: Reisland. Weber, M. (1947 [1922]). The theory of social and economic organization (A. M. Henderson & Parsons, Trans.). New York: Free Press.
Cross-References
Introduction
▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civic Society and Culture ▶ Coleman, James ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Etzioni, Amitai ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Mauss, Marcel ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Social Trust ▶ To¨nnies, Ferdinand ▶ Weber, Max
Solidarity Economy JEAN-LOUIS LAVILLE Cnam University, Paris, France
Solidarity economy is a recent descriptive and comprehensive approach developed for understanding the peculiarities of new waves of associations and cooperatives. It is worth noting that these waves are more a resurgence than an emergence because they evoke an associationism which began in the nineteenth century and focused on collective actions based on mutual help and participation of socially committed citizens different from charity. Consequently, the conceptual framework of solidarity economy is complementary to third sector and social economy because it considers these associations and cooperatives not only as organizations but as institutions of civil society with both an economic and a political dimension.
References/Further Readings
Definition
Arnsperger, C., & Varoufakis, Y. (2003). Toward a theory of solidarity. Erkenntnis, 59, 157–188. Coleman, J. (1986). Individual interests and collective action. New York: Cambridge University Press. Coleman, J., & Fararo, T. (Eds.) (1992). Rational choice: advocacy and critique. London: Sage. Durkheim, E. (1964 [1893]). The division of labor in society. New York: Free Press. Etzioni, A. (1988). The moral dimension: Toward a new economics. New York: Free Press. Gouldner, A. W. (Ed.) (1973). For sociology: Renewal and critique in sociology today. London: Allen Lane. Hechter, M. (1987). The principles of group solidarity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Komter, A. E. (2005). Social solidarity and the gift. New York: Cambridge University Press. Le´vi-Strauss, C. (1961 [1949]). The elementary structures of kinship (R. Needham, Trans.). Boston, MA: Beacon.
For the definition of solidarity economy, let us examine first the economic dimension, then the political one. Economic Dimension
A thinker like K. Polanyi (1957, 1968, 1977) in an economic anthropology perspective quoted two different meanings of economy, the first is the formal meaning linked to the process of economizing in situation of scare resources, the second is the substantive meaning referred to the satisfaction of needs through social interactions between human beings and environmental actions with nature. Many anthropologists avoid ‘‘the economistic fallacy’’ (Polanyi, 1977) which consisted, according to Polanyi, of a confusion between market and economy favored by the formal meaning; these anthropologists
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keeping a substantive approach of economy identify three economic principles: ● The market principle allows supply of and demand for goods and services to meet; exchange happens on the basis of the setting of prices. The relation between the supplier and the demander is established on a contractual basis, based upon a calculation of interest. The market principle does not suppose an immersion in social relations considered today by western cultures as being distinct from institutions thought of as economic. It is not necessarily produced by the social system, unlike the other economic principles described below. ● Redistribution is the principle according to which production is delegated to a central authority responsible for allocating it, which supposes the existence of a procedure defining the rules of levy and of their use. A relation establishes itself over time between the central authority which imposes an obligation and the agents who are submitted hereto. ● Reciprocity corresponds to the relation established among groups or persons thanks to actions which only make sense insofar as they express a will to demonstrate a social link among the stakeholders. The cycle of reciprocity contrasts with the market exchange, because the former is unseparable from the human relations which involve desires for recognition and power; reciprocity also differs from redistribution, insofar as it is not imposed by a central authority. It is true that the repartition among the three economic principles – market, redistribution, and reciprocity – greatly varied throughout history, and each of these principles was profoundly affected by the rise of modern democracy; however, the latter did not mean the diffusion of only the market principle. In fact, the market was made largely autonomous and ‘‘disembedded’’ from social relations, but a real democratic and solidarity-based invention also took form: public redistribution saw its rules enacted through representative democracy, and reciprocity could unfold on the basis of the voluntary commitments, in the public space, of free and equal citizens. The recognition of individual rights made possible the development of a solidarity which was the expression of a social esteem to which the egalitarian reciprocity bears witness. This egalitarian reciprocity, in turn, fed a demand for an abstract solidarity which also contributes to the widening of the scope of social rights on which modalities of public redistribution are indexed, allowing to escape the traditional dependencies. In a market context, democratic solidarity thus defined itself through the combination of an egalitarian reciprocity and a public
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redistribution. The three economic principles thus endure, even though their respective weight and form vary. The solidarity economy approach stresses the mix of these three principles. In this perspective, it is through combining the resources from these three principles according to project logics that social economy organizations are able to protect themselves against the phenomena of institutional isomorphism or marginalization. But what remains to be explained then are the possible motivations of an initiative aiming at hybridization, which implies to link the economic dimension to the political dimension. Political Dimension
Another contribution of the solidarity economy approach is indeed linked to the political dimension. In the nineteenth century, the extension of market generated reactions on the part of society, among which the setting up of associations, followed by the construction of a protecting Welfare State. Associations were indeed ‘‘the first line of defense’’ (Lewis, 1997: 166) elaborated by society before being relayed by the State. These civil society initiatives have not only been collective enterprises but they have been integrated in the public space of modern democratic societies. The relations between these initiatives and public authorities are then determinant because they are linked to both problematics of politics: that which stresses the potential for action of the members of the political community as a whole, and that which is more centered on the exercise of power. Associations concern these two dimensions of politics: on the one hand, the non-institutional politics, centered on the potential for action of citizens and which supposes that the latter make use in practice of the positive freedom to which they are formally entitled, and, on the other hand, the institutional politics, centered on the exercise of power. Political scientists have advanced the hypothesis that the associations and cooperatives have been part of the public sphere of modern democratic societies within civil society as a whole (Evers, 1995). Concretely, the public sphere is not a homogeneous whole; in fact, there is a plurality of public spheres. Some of them have been penetrated by the power structure and are highly organized, and others are emerging as independent forums for free debate and discussion. Associations and cooperatives take a role in civil society because around them ‘‘autonomous public spheres can take shape’’ (Habermas, 1992: 186) in which political expression is consolidated by economic activities. But once they are formed, their development is contingent on the recognition granted by the public authorities.
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So, if we develop the concept of embeddedness introduced by Polanyi, the type of embeddedness to be found prevailing in historical development is a political one, defined as the set of interactions between public authorities and civil society initiatives which cause effects on both side; their intensity and character may vary considerably over time. The purpose of the concept of political embeddedness is to highlight the complex totality of the relations between public policy and initiatives. While the components of the initiatives cannot be understood without conducting an analysis of the public regulations governing them, at the same time the forms they take cannot be entirely determined by state authorities. They cannot be seen just as a mere product of state regulation. It is the outcome of interactions between a variety of different initiatives and public policies varying in stability over time.
Historical Background Once modern democracy emerged, new associations started to emerge. Associationism was initially viewed as being both citizenship-related and fundamentally sociopolitical in two different senses philanthropy and solidarity. The concept of philanthropy emerged as a social principle, an essential component of democratic society that helped to regulate it through the establishment of moral objectives and altruistic voluntary commitment. The objective was to provide a framework of rules and directives to enable society to manage itself to a large extent. As a result, associations and their activities were not funded by the government, but run with a high degree of autonomy, and at the same time they forged links with the authorities responsible for legislation on poverty. In addition, a large portion of the social protection was financed and managed locally, with limited central government assistance, giving rise to a host of ‘‘institutions that acted as intermediaries’’ between State and citizens while being at the same time ‘‘an integral part of the State fabric’’ (Lewis, 1997: 169). On the other hand, while part of the associations arose from a philanthropic desire for social peace, another philosophy was a republican egalitarianism reflected in a broad-based appeal to the multifaceted concept of solidarity. Referring for instance to the francophone debate, in the nineteenth century, two popular solidarity theories emerged: solidarity as a social-democratic link, as proposed by P. Leroux, and solidarity as a debt to society, as proposed by the solidarity theorists like E. Durkheim. Leroux (1851) explained the solidarity concept as follows: ‘‘Nature did not create a single being for itself. . . . It
created all beings for each other and gave them a relationship of reciprocal solidarity.’’ In order to avoid competitive individualism and authoritarian statism, he believed in the value of solidarity networks on the work of associations as means of ensuring that the public spirit essential to democracy was kept alive. The solidarity concept, supported by politicians, legal experts and sociologists such as C. Bougle´, L. Bourgeois, L. Duguit, and E. Durkheim, took on another meaning at the end of the nineteenth century. Going beyond Leroux’s theory of collective involvement in human activity, the solidarity supporters spoke of a debt that generations owed to one another, a debt that would take the form of a contract or a legal form of the twofold debt to society expressed in a commitment toward our fellow men and our descendants. The concept of solidarity laid the philosophical foundations of social law and legitimized the first compulsory social insurance schemes of the twentieth century and it has been reinterpreted by the notion of sustainable development. From the second half of the nineteenth century onwards to the twentieth century, a different set of organizations knows as social economy (nonprofit organizations, cooperatives, mutuals) were given a legal framework, in counterpart compartmentalization and forms of economic integration contributed to the multiplication and fragmentation of subdivisions among the different components of this social economy loosing gradually the search for unity of the pioneering associationism. The identity of the social economy organizations was consequently affected by the differences in the paths taken by the various components, differences that were accentuated by the strong synergy between State and market during the post war expansion period. But since the onset of the subsequent period of transformation, several factors have served to redefine the socio-political and economic dimensions of the civil society initiatives. First of all, the shift in forms of commitment in the public sphere must be considered. On the one hand, general-interest activism associated with a concept for social change, involving long-term action and strong delegations of authority within federative structures, lost steam, as illustrated by the weakening of trade unions and ideological affiliations. On the other hand, the crisis in voluntarism evident in some of the most institutionalized associations was paralleled by short-term, concrete commitments by associations focusing on providing quick solutions to specific problems. The question raised here is concerning the interrelation between voluntary work and political participation. After the increasing professionalization of social services, from the 1960s
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onwards, people began to question a perspective, which suggested to equate the citizen to a consumer or a taxpayer. Groups started to take action outside the traditional social movements, combining co-operation, mutual aid and protest. The civil society’s role from this point of view is not just the delivery of services and jobs; it encompasses the search for forms of involvement other than occupational or political participation, and it is related to the issue of social cohesion and active society. Moreover, the productive structure of economics is going through profound changes. Two major categories with contrasting orientations can be distinguished. Standardizable industries and services covering logistical services (large-scale distribution, etc.) and administrative services (banks, insurance companies, etc.), which moved toward mass-production activities. Dealing primarily with material goods, technical systems and the processing of coded information, these services were changed by new information technologies. Thus their development has been similar to that of industrial activities, which have been characterized by two trends: their job creation capacity is less than it was during period of prosperity from 1945 to 1975, and there is a demand for workers with higher qualifications. On the other hand, relational services, as pointed out by W.J. Baumol (1987), give service relationships a pivotal role because the activity is based on direct interaction between supplier and customer. The available figures show that these services are at the center of job creation. Overall, in the member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), trade, services to business, the hotel-restaurant industry, personal and domestic services, education, health care, social action and public administration account for most jobs and their share is steadily increasing. Some subsets such as education, health care and social action, social and personal community services and domestic services show a significant increase in employment, supported by strong sociodemographic trends (Borzaga, 1998). In this context, innovative ideas were developed in civil society networks, for the most part taking the form of associations and co-operatives. They adjusted to the changes in public action in different ways in accordance, depending on the welfare state system in their particular country. Setting aside national differences, two decisive factors relating to the new forms of co-operatives and associations have to highlighted. The civil society experiments have created original ways of fostering the trust required for certain activities to succeed. Building trust often depends on the commitment of
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the stakeholders (Ben Ner & Van Hoomissen, 1991), a commitment facilitated by structures that limit the opportunities for increasing personal wealth. Within this ‘‘multi-stakeholder’’ dynamic (Borzaga & Mittone, 1997; Pestoff, 1997), mutual trust is built through the development of reciprocity-based spheres of activity in which strategic, instrumental and utilitarian factors are secondary and where there is room for collective reflection. These spheres can be described as ‘‘micro-public spaces’’ (Laville, 2007) which means, that issues are submitted to a debate with a view to defining the common good for users and professionals. Mutual trust is reinforced by establishing a frame of reference in the sense used by E. Goffman, expressed, for example, in a charter. Of course, any form of service delivery can be defined as a form of co-production since consumer participation is required. But the experience of social co-operatives in Italy, of child-care co-operatives in Sweden, of community-care associations in the United Kingdom, and of ‘‘proximity services’’ (Laville & Nyssens, 2000) go far beyond co-production. What is taking shape here, is a joint development of supply and demand for services for the purpose not only of soliciting individual users as consumers within a private functional framework but also of integrating them as citizens in the political arena and as community and family members in an informal environment (Evers, 1997: 55). The basis for such new forms of institutionalizing services have been kinds of open spaces reserved for experimentation and discussion, formed with no interest in getting a return on investment or imposing administrative regulations, and in some cases built in reaction against such barriers. The services were developed on the basis of the experiences of users and professionals and by their joint uptaking of an issue that had not been resolved by the private or public sector. This joint development does not mean that different stakeholders are equally involved. Sometimes professionals, critical of their traditional methods will dominate; but it may also be individuals who, for personal reasons, are familiar with the issues or potential uses of the service; in other cases it may administrators, seeking to bring about change in their institutions may take the leading role. Thus there is no equal representation of the various players in the service; instead, a mixed, pluralistic model involving a variety of stakeholders (professionals, volunteers, users, institutions, etc.) has taken shape. By establishing an intermediary third sphere, this pluralistic model, in varying combinations, makes it possible to counteract ‘‘informational uncertainty’’ – something which goes beyond the well known topic of ‘‘informational asymmetry’’ as it is used in the economic debates on markets and
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services. We can speak of informational uncertainty when both users and providers are unable to conceptualize the exact features of the service to be adopted before they meet. In such ‘‘relational services,’’ which involve close contact with the users, there is not simply informational asymmetry but a lack of definition of tasks and concepts, something, that is even more disturbing to the stakeholders. The emergence of these civil society innovations based on reciprocity and multistakeholders has been recognized in different national laws about social and solidarity cooperatives, social enterprises, community interest companies. But if they sick to avoid a paternalistic behavior from the State, their collective aspects call for public support at a time when governments funding have been weakened by drastic reductions in the resources available from the Welfare State. So, solidarity economy which is a new theoretical approach of solidarity and public action, is in the meantime confronted with empirical obstacles.
Key Issues The solidarity economy insists on the principle of solidarity and on the close relations between associative action and public authorities. Contrasting with the hypothetico-deductive approaches which are characteristic of the neo-classical economy, a significant number of research works adopt more comprehensive methodologies. The main finding of this research relates to a relativization of the notion of sector and to a mobilization of the concept of solidarity to explain various social practices which can be grouped under the generic term of civic associationism. Although they are not exclusively European, since quite similar orientations permeate the production of other continents, as evidenced by South-American literature (Razetto, 1998, 1993; Coraggio, 1995; Singer, 2002; Cattani et al., 2009), it is nevertheless worth noticing that European contributions to the analysis of associations are largely represented in this trend of research. In Europe, as a matter of fact, the recognition of human and civic rights destabilized the former social order without eliminating the differences of conditions inherited from traditional societies. With the apparition of the social question, as soon as the nineteenth century, the compatibility between citizenship and economic development consequently generated heated debates in the context of which associationist emergences happened. The second originality consists in linking associationism and public action, since they have their roots in the resistance to the utopia of a market society and are deeply intertwined, whereas the diverse variants of theories of
institutional choice considered associations as organizations intervening in case of market or state failures. A more historical analysis highlights the fact that associative organizations ‘‘are not only producers of goods and services but important factors of political and social coordination’’ (Seibel, 1990: 46). As a matter of fact, a strictly sector-based vision fails to take into account the intermediary dimension of associations, which can be envisaged as spaces ensuring the passage from the private sphere to the public sphere. Associative action, born from the encounter among persons, opens up to the public space, i.e., it gives these persons the possibility to contribute to the construction of a common world which is necessary for democracy, through a voluntary commitment respecting the plurality of opinions, the conflictuality of interests and the difference of perspectives. The mediation between private and public space, which happens in many different ways, and the mix of resources and logics of action to which it refers, are poorly translated by representations which suppose well-separated sectors, with clear-cut boundaries. The analysis of the genesis and institutionalization of associations underlines the scope of the interdependencies between associative action and public action. If, following Cohen and Arato (1992), we define civil society as a sphere that is distinct from the State and the market, associations belong to an organized civil society, because they influence the configuration of the public space through innovations and dissensions that they manage to express in this public space, including for their socio-economic production. However, as rightly expressed by Barthe´lemy (2000: 15–17), ‘‘the activities of the civil society cannot be dissociated from the political society’’ and associations are not only the expression of civil society, they are also implied in relations of power because they ‘‘publicize ideological conflicts of the global society, contribute to the formation of elites and to the structuration of local power and participate in the definition of public policies while legitimizing the political and administrative sphere.’’ In sum, as Walzer (2000) notes, civil society, if it recognizes interpersonal links, is marked by inequalities. As far as the state is concerned, since it results from universalist orientations, it guarantees social rights while establishing general rules and standardized procedures which correct inequalities but also neglect the contribution of social relations of proximity. The real question does thus not concern the substitution of the State with civil society, nor the dissolution of civil society in the market, but the mutual reinforcement between democratization of civil society and democratization of public institutions.
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References/Further Readings
The potential importance of solidarity economy can be summarized in four points.
Barthe´le´my, M. (2000). Associations: Un nouvel aˆge de la participation?. Paris: Presses de Sciences Po. Baumol, W. J. (1987). Microeconomics of unbalanced growth: The anatomy of the urban crisis. American Economic Review, 57(June), 415–426. Ben Ner, A., & Van Hoomissen, T. (1991). Non profit organisations in the mixed economy. Annals of Public and Co-operative Economy, 62(4), 519–550. Borzaga, C. (1998). The economics of the third sector in Europe: The Italian experience. Trento: Department of Economics, University of Trento. Borzaga, C., & Mittone, L. (1997). The multistakeholders versus the nonprofit organization. Universita` degli Studi di Trento, draft paper n 7. Cattani, A. D. (org.) (2003). Outra economia. Porto Alegre: Veraz Editores. Cattani, A. D., Laville, J. L., Gaiger, L. I., & Hespanha, P. (2009). Dicionario internacional de Outra Economia. Edic¸oes Almedina, Sao Paulo-Coimbra. Coraggio, J. L. (1995). Desarrollo Humano, Economı´a Popular y Educacio´n, Editorial AIQUE-IDEAS, Buenos Aires. Cohen, J. L., & Arato, A. (1994). Civil society and political theory. Cambridge, MA/London/England: MIT Press. Evers, A. (1995). Part of the welfare mix: The third sector as an intermediate area. Voluntas, 6(2), 159–182. Evers, A. (1997). Le tiers secteur au regard d’une conception pluraliste de la protection sociale. In Produire les solidarite´s. La part des associations. Paris: Mire with the co-operation of the Fondation de France. Gui, B. (1992) Fondement e´conomique du tiers secteur. Revue des E´tudes Coope´ratives Mutualistes et Associatives. n 44–45, 4e trimestre. Habermas, J. (1988) Vingt apre`s, la culture politique et les institutions en RFA, Le De´bat, septembre-octobre. Paris: Gallimard, p. 354. Habermas, J. (1990). E´crits politiques. Paris: Le Cerf. Habermas, J. (1992). L’espace public, 30 ans apre`s, Quaderni, n 18, Autumn. Laville, J. L. (Ed.) (2007). L’e´conomie solidaire. Paris: HachetteLitte´ratures. Laville, J. L., & Nyssens, M. (2000) Solidarity-based third sector organizations in the ‘‘proximity services’’ field: A European francophone perspective. Voluntas, 11(1), 67–84. Leroux, P. (1992). Aux philosophes. Paris, 1851, p. 170, cited by A. Le Bras Chopard, ‘‘Me´tamorphoses d’une notion: la solidarite´ chez Pierre Leroux.’’ In La solidarite´: un sentiment re´publicain ? Centre universitaire de recherches administratives et politiques de Picardie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Lewis, J. (1997). Le secteur associatif dans l’e´conomie mixte de la protection sociale, in MIRE-Rencontres et Recherches avec la collaboration de la Fondation de France. Paris: Produire les solidarite´s – La part des associations. Pestoff, V. (1997). Social enterprises and civil democracy in Sweden. Enriching work Environment and empowering citizens as co-producers. Stockholm: School of Business. Polanyi, K. (1944). The great transformation. The political and economic origins of our time. Boston: Beacon. Polanyi, K. (1977). The livelihood of man. New York/San Franciso/ London: Academic. Razetto Migliaro, L. (1988). Economia de solidaridad y mercado democratico, Libro tercero, Fundamentos de una teoria economica compensiva. Programa de Economia del Trabajo, Santiago du Chili.
● Solidarity economy can alter household consumption patterns, promoting greater use of highly laborintensive services, using local labor, since the new dynamic accentuates its use in relational services. ● Solidarity economy can draw upon and generate social capital, that is, forms of mutual trust and civic commitment, which support the objective of the common good and the public good through collective action. This contribution to the pursuit and maintenance of the values of democratic society is important for the European model of society, which is threatened as much by lack of purpose and negative individualism as by unemployment and exclusion. ● Solidarity economy helps reconcile the economic and the social spheres, by coupling the spirit of entrepreneurship with social purposes. In this way it combats the culture of passivity in social welfare; and can create a situation in which public resources for services are supplemented by market and voluntary resources. ● Solidarity economy consolidates local economies by introducing and forming durable activities, collective elements with a legal status which assures for a not-forprofit orientation. This feature protects funds allocated by government from private reappropriation. However, solidarity economy’s contribution cannot be maximized unless a renewal of public action gives it means that are more appropriate. This question of the political embeddedness of solidarity economy emerges once more as a central issue in present societies.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ Community Interest Companies ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Hybridity/Hybridization ▶ Polanyi, Karl ▶ Public Sphere ▶ Reciprocity ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Social Economy ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Solidarity
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Razetto Migliaro, L. (1993). Los caminos de la economia solidaria. Santiago: Vivarium. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier H. (1995). Defining the nonprofit sector. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Singer, P. (2002). Introduc¸ao a economia solidaria. Sa˜o Paulo: Editora Fundac¸a˜o Perseu Abramo. Walzer, M. (2000). Sauver la socie´te´ civile ?. In Mouvements, n 8, La De´couverte.
Soros, George BALAZS SZABO
Basic Biographical Information George Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1930. He survived the Nazi occupation of Budapest and left communist Hungary in 1947 for England. He graduated from the London School of Economics in 1952. As a student he became familiar with the work of the philosopher Karl Popper who had a profound influence on his thinking and later on his philanthropic activities. In 1956 he moved to New York City. First he worked as an arbitrage trader, later as an analyst with Wertheim and Company. In 1967 he helped establish an offshore investment fund; and in 1973 he set up a private investment firm that eventually evolved into the Quantum Fund, one of the first hedge funds, through which he accumulated a vast fortune.
Major Contributions He established his first foundation, the Open Society Fund, in New York in 1979. First project of the foundation was to promote that black students attend the University of Cape Town in 1980. The major aim was to help the University to become a multicultural institution. Soros claimed this attempt unsuccessful. During the 1980s he began granting scholarships to students from Central and Eastern Europe and funding dissident movements (Solidarnosc, Charta 77) in order to facilitate the democratization in Central and Eastern Europe. His first foundation in the communist bloc was established in Hungary in 1984. It was followed by other national Soros Foundations (e.g., Stefan Batory Foundation in Poland) in the late 1980s and 1990s. Based primarily in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, these foundations are dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society. In 1993 he founded the
Open Society Institute which has expanded the activities of the Soros Foundations network to other areas of the world where the transition to democracy is of particular concern. Soros founded the Central European University, with its primary campus in Budapest. He is the president and chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, and the Open Society Institute and the founder of a network of philanthropic organizations that are active in more than 60 countries. The Soros foundations network supports projects in education, public health, civil society development, and many other areas. Soros is the author of nine books, including Underwriting Democracy (1991), The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered (1998), Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2001) and The Age of Fallibility: Consequences of The War on Terror (2006). His articles and essays on politics, society, and economics regularly appear in major newspapers and magazines around the world.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society in Central and Eastern Europe ▶ Foundation, Grantmaking ▶ Open Society Institute ▶ Philanthropy in Europe ▶ Popper, Sir Karl
References/Further Readings Soros, G., Wien, B., Krisztina, K. (1995). Soros on Soros: Staying ahead of the curve. New York: Wiley. Kaufman, M. T. (2002). Soros: The life and times of a messianic billionaire. New York: Knopf.
de Soto, Hernando MARTIN HO¨LZ
Biographical Information The economist and theorist Hernando de Soto was born in 1941 in Arequipa, Peru into a diplomat family that left Peru in 1947. De Soto went on to study economics at the Institut Universitaire des Hautes E´tudes Internationales in Geneva. After graduating, he worked for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and later was the
South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO)
president of the Executive Committee of the Intergovernmental Council of Copper Exporting Countries (CIPEC). Beginning in 1973, de Soto was director of the Suisse Bank Corporation Consultant Group. On his return to Peru in 1979, he first worked as manager of a small group of mining companies. It was based on this frustrating experience that de Soto and his team examined the time and money it took to work through Peru’s legal and administrative apparatus, and, in 1980, founded the Instituto Libertad y Democracia (Institute for Liberty and Democracy) to seek to change it.
Major Contributions De Soto’s breakthrough came with the publication in 1986 of Elotro sendero (The Other Path: The Invisible Revolution in the Third World, 1989). In it, de Soto observed that Peru’s poor majority earned their livelihood for the most part though the illegal informal economy, which emerged because layers of bureaucracy and corruption presented barriers for entry into the ‘‘formal’’ market. He went on to propose legalizing the informal economy and, most significantly, guaranteeing property rights for all, including the poor, who despite their poverty often possess or occupy some land or housing. This legally held property could be used as collateral for obtaining credit or loans and rising up from poverty. Thus, de Soto saw administrative reform and support for participants in the informal economy as the ‘‘other path,’’ an alternative to the ‘‘shining path’’ offered as the solution by the Sendero Luminoso revolutionaries in Peru. (Notably the subtitle of the paperback edition published by Basic Books in 2002 was ‘‘The Economic Answer to Terrorism’’.) In his later book, The Mystery of Capital (2000), de Soto asked why capitalism seems to function in the ‘‘West,’’ but not elsewhere. He posits that legal property gave the West the tools to produce surplus value. Since developing and former communist nations have not yet created unified formal property systems, they cannot benefit from the positive fruits of capitalism. De Soto and the ILD have indeed had a visible impact on the reform of administrative law and structures in Peru and have been consulted by numerous other national governments and international agencies. For example, De Soto cochaired the UN’s Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, whose recommendations will be considered by the General Assembly as part of the strategy to eradicate world poverty. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004, and The Economist bestowed on him the 2006 Innovation Award for the promotion of property rights and economic development.
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Cross-References ▶ Informal Sector
References/Further Readings Bass, H. H., & Wauschkuhn, M. (2000). Hernando de Soto – die Legalisierung des Faktischen. E + Z Entwicklung und Zusammenarbeit, 1, 15–18. Bromley, R. (1990). A new path to development? The significance and impact of Hernando de Soto’s ideas of underdevelopment, production and reproduction. Economic Geography, 66(4), 328–348. De Soto, H. (1989). The other path: The invisible revolution in the third world. New York: HarperCollins. (Since with new subtitle: 2002 paperback by Basic Books). De Soto, H. (2000). The mystery of capital. Why capitalism triumphs in the west and fails everywhere else. New York: Basic Books. De Soto, H., & Cheneval, F. (2006). Realizing property rights. Swiss Human Rights Book (Vol. 1). Zurich: Ru¨ffer & Rub.
South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) DEBORAH SIMPSON
Address of Organization P.O. Box 31471 Braamfontein Gauteng Province South Africa 2017 www.sangoco.org.za
Introduction The South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) was established in 1995 to coordinate NGO input into government policy and to ensure that the rich traditions of civil society, forged in the antiapartheid struggle, continued to serve the people of South Africa. SANGOCO is the largest umbrella body of NGOs in the Southern African region with member organizations throughout the country working on a wide variety of issues affecting South Africa’s development, including land, health, urban, and rural development.
Brief History SANGOCO was formed in August 1995 to coordinate NGO input into the South African Government’s Reconstruction and Development Program, a key component of the ANC’s election platform in the first nonracial democratic elections held in 1994. In 1996, the government introduced the Growth, Employment, and Redistribution
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Program which largely replaced the RDP and has been viewed by critics as a shift from a redistributive approach to a neoliberal approach to economics and development. As a result of this change in the government’s policy orientation and approach, SANGOCO has been drawn into a debate that affects the South African NGO sector as a whole: whether its main role is as service delivery partners of the state or as advocacy and lobbying agents which engage critically with the state.
Mission SANGOCO’s mission is to promote civil society by uniting and strengthening the NGO sector to enable it to influence development policy and advocate for programs that meet the needs of the poor in the best possible way and at the least possible cost.
Activities To achieve its mission SANGOCO and its members have developed six national program areas: (1) Promoting pro-poor social, economic, and development policy; (2) Developing an enabling legislative and institutional environment; (3) Promoting the financial sustainability of the NGO sector; (4) Consolidating the Coalition and the NGO sector; (5) Building the human resources of the sector; and (6) Facilitating information dissemination.
Structure and Governance SANGOCO is a democratically constituted organization comprised of full members who must be indigenous NGOs and associate members who may be international NGOs with programs in South Africa or indigenous NGOs who for some reason choose not to be full members. Full members are eligible to forward people to stand for office on the National Executive Committee and vote in the Coalition’s forums. The highest decision-making structure of the Coalition is the National Assembly which takes place during the biannual NGO Week. The National Assembly reviews the Coalition’s progress, adopts resolutions, and elects a National Executive Committee (NEC). The NEC serves as the Coalition’s Board and governs its programs, campaigns, and resources with the support of the Executive Director and a secretariat based in Johannesburg. Similar provincial Assemblies, Councils, and Executive Committees exist in most of South Africa’s provinces with the aim to coordinate the Coalition’s work at a regional and local level.
though this is a fairly small amount. SANGOCO does not operate as an intermediary organization in distributing funds from donors to individual NGOs and instead encourages donors to contribute directly to its member organizations.
Major Accomplishments SANGOCO’s main accomplishment has been to create a space for discussion and collaboration by a range of South African NGOs. This has been particularly important given the dramatic change the NGO sector has gone through first as a result of South Africa’s transition to nonracial democracy and subsequently in response to changes in both domestic government policy and programs and international funding priorities following the transition. SANGOCO has also played a leading role in several large national initiatives and campaigns arising out of this change in the South African context. For example, in 1998 SANGOCO cooperated with a number of governmental and nongovernmental bodies to organize the ‘‘Speak Out On Poverty Hearings.’’ These hearings drew 10,000 participants and heard evidence from nearly 600 people across South Africa who spoke about the hardships of living in poverty. SANGOCO also played a leading role in followup hearings held in 2008 to assess what progress had been made in addressing poverty. SANGOCO has also worked with the South African Council of Churches and the Congress of South African Trade Unions to produce annual People’s Budgets which assess the funding priorities of each annual government budget and outline alternative policies and programs that might better address issues of poverty and inequality.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Southern Africa ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings Habib, A., & Taylor, R. (1999). South Africa: Anti-apartheid NGOs in Transition. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 10(1), 73–82. Heinrich, V. F. (2001). The role of NGOs in strengthening the foundations of South African democracy. Voluntus: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 12(1), 1–15.
Funding Since its inception SANGOCO has been funded by a range of donors, including bilateral donors, foundations (both South African and Northern), and Northern NGOs. It also receives some resources through membership fees,
SSRC ▶ Social Science Research Council (SSRC)
Stakeholder Society
Stakeholder Society ANNE ALSTOTT Harvard Law School, Cambridge, MA, USA
Introduction In The Stakeholder Society a book published in the United States in 1999, American academics Bruce Ackerman and Anne Alstott propose that the United States government should provide an unrestricted grant or ‘‘stake’’ of $80,000 to every US citizen at the age of 21. Ackerman and Alstott argued that stakeholding would promote social and economic equality and strengthen citizenship ties. The Ackerman-Alstott $80,000 proposal represents one variant of stakeholder grants, sometimes called capital grants for young people. While proposals vary, they typically would draw on public funds to provide individuals with a significant financial grant in the form of a lump sum or payments over time. Some proposals would offer unrestricted grants, while others would require funds to be used for prescribed purposes, such as education and home purchases. Proposals for public grants for individuals date from the eighteenth century but took on renewed vigor in the United States, the United Kingdom, and other industrialized countries in the 1990s and 2000s, as academics and politicians attempted to address disparities in the distribution of wealth and economic opportunity. Often framed as a social inheritance, capital grants for young people have been promoted in various forms in recent years by Julian Le Grand and David Nissan, Ted Halstead and Michael Lind, Robert Haveman, and Roberto Unger and Cornel West, among others. British discussions of capital grants for young people led to the adoption of the Child Trust Fund, a UK initiative that provides a universal grant plus a means-tested supplemental payment to every child born in Britain since 2002. Academics and politicians worldwide have debated the merits of capital grants and related initiatives including individual development accounts, associated with US academic Michael Sherraden (among others), and basic income, associated with Belgian academic Philippe Van Parijs (among others).
Definition A ‘‘stakeholder’’ is a person with a personal or ownership stake in an enterprise. In the corporate context, the term acknowledges the range of interests affected by corporate decisions (shareholders, creditors, workers, customers,
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and so on). In the mid-1990s, UK Labour Party leader and later Prime Minister Tony Blair used the phrase ‘‘stakeholder society’’ to denote a ‘‘New Labour’’ program that aimed to initiate an economy in which everyone would have a chance to participate and to succeed. Proposals for capital grants extend the ‘‘stakeholder’’ metaphor to the context of civil society, where the term carries a connotation of egalitarianism: the idea is that every citizen ought to be a stakeholder in the growth and success of society. Stakeholder proposals tend to invoke one or more of several ideals, which Keith Dowding, Jurgen De Wispelaere, and Stuart White usefully classify as entitlement, individual freedom, equality of opportunity, democratic participation, and efficiency. Ackerman and Alstott argue, for example, that stakeholding could promote equal opportunity, reinvigorate citizenship in the United States, and permit young people greater freedom of choice in crafting their lives. Van Parijs’ book Real Freedom for All famously argues that an egalitarian commitment to real (as opposed to nominal) freedom requires a basic income. While proposals for capital grants and basic income typically take a universalist approach, providing the same financial stake to each citizen, individual development accounts focus on the situation of the poor. Michael Sherraden’s 1990 book, Assets for the Poor, for example, deploys the stakeholder metaphor to argue that assetbuilding programs could increase savings, investment, and well-being compared to traditional welfare programs that simply redistribute income. This entry focuses on capital grants for young people, drawing occasional comparisons with basic income or individual development accounts to illustrate important similarities or differences.
Historical Background In 1787, Thomas Paine’s pamphlet Agrarian Justice proposed that every nation should establish a fund to pay to every 21-year-old a lump sum of ₤15. Notably, Paine proposed to offer the grant to women as well as to men ‘‘to enable him or her to begin the World!’’ Paine also proposed a basic income (an annuity of ₤10) for every person aged 50 or older ‘‘to enable them to live in Old Age without Wretchedness, and go decently out of the World!’’ Paine’s proposal responded to the economic inequality he observed in France, Britain, and other countries he termed ‘‘civilized.’’ He justified the grant by invoking the loss, in landowning societies, of universal access to common lands, and he posited that a portion of all private inheritance should be paid to the state in order to
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fund public grants to individuals. In Paine’s view, such grants followed from each person’s claim to share in the ownership of the earth. He emphasized: ‘‘It is not charity but a right – not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for.’’ A handful of nineteenth century egalitarians advocated similar plans. In 1829, Thomas Skidmore criticized inequality of wealth, asserted a natural right to common ownership of property, and called for legal reforms to confiscate private property and to divide it equally among adults (with confiscation and redistribution operating anew when citizens die). Writing in 1840, Orestes Brownson responded to the ‘‘deplorable’’ condition of the working classes with a proposal to abolish private inheritance and dispose of it in some equitable fashion for the benefit of the next generation. Present-day stakeholding proposals also evoke other historical antecedents. Homestead land grants in the nineteenth century United States, for example, promised a stake to settlers willing to persevere on the American frontier. Henry George’s proposal for a land tax (the ‘‘single tax’’) rested on ideals of common ownership of natural resources. And in the United States, the G.I. Bill provided large numbers of World War II veterans with funds to buy homes and attend college.
Key Issues Discussions of stakeholder grants identify four major issues in policy design: misuse, immigration, taxation, and coordination with existing programs. Misuse
The most frequent objection to stakeholding is that young people will squander their funds on drugs, parties, cars, or other forms of short-term consumption. The worry is that ‘‘stakeblowers,’’ as Ackerman and Alstott call them, will fail to improve their opportunities and thus waste public funds that could be used more productively elsewhere. Advocates of stakeholding have spent considerable effort addressing the issue since, as Le Grand and Nissan put it, ‘‘a few well-publicised cases of young people blowing their grants on cocaine or wild holidays’’ could discredit the entire initiative. On closer examination, the misuse objection reflects three distinct concerns. One is that stakeholders will make impulsive or immature choices, spending tens of thousands of dollars on a birthday party, a Las Vegas gambling spree, or a flashy sports car, gaining short-term pleasure but long-term regrets. The second form of the misuse concern is different: here, the worry is that all choices are risky, and that capital grants leave individuals to bear too
great a degree of risk. On this view, even stakeholders who make prudent choices may find that their choices do not pan out, leaving them with little to show for their investment. A young person in the 1980s, for instance, might reasonably have spent her stake on training for a computer career, only to find herself unemployed after the dot-com bust at the turn of the century. Should such a person be permitted to turn to the state for income support or retraining? Or should she properly reap both the upside and the downside of her initial choices? A third version of the misuse concern is that preferences and values may change over the life cycle, leading older stakeholders to regret the sincere choices their younger selves made. The young person who pursues a career as a musician in her twenties may regret her choice when she confronts economic insecurity in middle age, even if her choices reflected her values and aspirations at the time. Myopia may come into play in this scenario; perhaps the 21-year-old cannot really imagine what it might be like to be tired and cynical at 40. But pure changes in values may also arise, as religious, social, and cultural commitments evolve over one’s lifetime. Responses to the misuse objection also take various forms. One response draws on the ideal of entitlement to address all three versions of the misuse concern. According to this view, stakes should be understood as a public inheritance, which are – like private inheritance – fully the property of the stakeholder and should be available for unfettered use without paternalistic judgments by the state. Taken to its limit, this argument would suggest that none of the forms of misuse should be addressed: people should be free to act on impulse, take risks, and commit themselves to value-laden projects with their stakes just as they can with their own money. For some advocates of the entitlement view, it follows that stakeholders should bear responsibility for the use of their funds. For instance, Ackerman and Alstott tend toward that view when they suggest that stakeblowers should not be permitted to claim additional state funds if they dissipate their assets on frivolous purchases and find themselves facing hardship. Instead, they say, such people should be eligible only for minimal state programs that alleviate distress. But virtually no one, including Ackerman and Alstott, rejects the misuse objection entirely. Instead, proponents of stakeholder grants offer four strategies intended, in part, to address the misuse concern. First, many proposals restrict eligibility to those likely to make prudent use of their funds. Age thresholds are common, with the minimum age most often 18 or 21. Some proposals also restrict full payment of the stake to those who have
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completed high school or a GED. Some proposals also limit or deny payments to convicted criminals. Ackerman and Alstott endorse this approach, although they emphasize that restrictions should apply only in the case of serious crimes, and they encourage the provision of a second chance via rehabilitation. A second response to the misuse problem involves limitations on the use of the public grant. A common suggestion is to restrict stakeholders to a list of constructive purposes, such as higher education, homebuying, entrepreneurship, and savings. For instance, Le Grand and Nissan propose in their 2000 monograph A Capital Idea that grants should be subject to the supervision of a trustee, who would approve spending plans for higher education, housing purchases, and small business startups. Opponents of use restrictions contend that they are arbitrary and difficult to enforce. The program would need rules to define authorized educational purchases (would a cooking course be eligible?), housing purchases (would time-shares count?), authorized business start-ups (could one invest in equipment to become a street musician?), and so on. Some opponents of use restrictions add that they would infringe on individual choice and privilege market activity over nonmarket activity, such as care work, religious study or travel, and cultural enrichment. Defenders of unconditional grants also point out that the task of verifying that millions of stakeholders have spent their money on prescribed purposes would represent a significant burden for the government. They worry about fraudulent ‘‘schools’’ and ‘‘business’’ schemes that could permit criminals to skim off a little (or a lot) of the stake in return for (fraudulent but superficially plausible) certification that the stakeholder had spent the money on prescribed items. A third response to the misuse objection focuses on formal and informal mechanisms for educating stakeholders about their options. This response points out that schools might offer courses in money management, investment strategies, and other topics. Stakeholders might have a new incentive to study these topics, which today are largely irrelevant, since young adults typically have little or no wealth. In addition to formal courses, stakeholder proposals emphasize the evolution of informal channels for education and discussion. Ackerman and Alstott, for example, anticipate that parents, religious and community leaders, and teenagers themselves would engage in continual discussion and evaluation of stakeholders’ choices. As a fourth response to misuse, stakeholder proponents point out that the timing and structure of
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the stakeholder program matters. For instance, delaying the introduction of a stakeholder program relative to the date of its enactment would increase the time for stakeholders, their families, and community institutions to put formal and informal educational mechanisms in place. Alternatively, the government might fund stakes well before the age of maturity, as the Child Trust Fund does. This so-called ‘‘baby bond’’ approach funds each child’s account at birth (and again at age seven). The family receives a periodic statement showing the growth of funds, but the child may not withdraw amounts until she turns 18. The idea, at least in part, is to encourage children and their parents to internalize the stake as their own, thus increasing risk aversion and creating incentives to undertake financial education. As another example, Ackerman and Alstott suggest paying the stake in several installments rather than in a single lump sum to give each stakeholder a built-in second chance should she ‘‘blow’’ the first installment. Transferring an investment portfolio, similarly, may encourage reflective behavior – compared to transferring an ATM card or a sackful of cash. At the limit, the stake might be restructured as an annuity, a level lump sum each year for life. Proposals for basic income, for example, would pay a flat annual payment to each person, beginning at young adulthood and extending until death. Associated in recent years with the work of Philippe Van Parijs and others, basic income overlaps in its aims and justifications with capital grants for young people. Still, basic income differs in important respects from a capital grant: in one sense, it represents a stakeholder grant converted, on a mandatory basis, into an annuity. Proponents suggest that the basic income approach would address all three sources of the misuse objection: immature stakeholders could only waste 1 year’s payment at a time, and risky choices likewise could absorb only a fraction of one’s lifetime entitlement. Basic income would also address changing values over time, since the 40-year-old stakeholder would control each year’s payment – rather than being ‘‘held hostage’’ to her younger self ’s use of a capital grant. In this way, basic income implements an ideal of opportunity over the life cycle, according to which each person should, each year, have renewed resources, and should be unable to mortgage her future financial resources to fund earlier projects. Some proponents of capital grants for young people acknowledge these lifecycle issues. Notably, Ackerman’s and Alstott’s 1999 proposal includes, in addition to the stakeholder grant, a
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universal annuity beginning at age 65. The authors offer youthful myopia as one justification for the paternalism inherent in the arrangement, which they suggest would ensure a dignified retirement for each citizen. Citizenship and Immigration
Proponents of stakeholder grants differ on whether noncitizens should be eligible. Those who emphasize entitlement and equality of opportunity tend to downplay the citizenship qualification. To the extent that the stake expresses human equality, excluding noncitizens appears discriminatory. However, proposals that emphasize the stake as a means of deepening democratic participation find a citizenship restriction more congenial. If the stake is a badge of citizenship and part of a reciprocal contract among people united by some kind of geographic or political unit, then a membership requirement follows fairly naturally. The Ackerman-Alstott proposal, for example, requires both citizenship (either by birthright or by naturalization) and also 11 years’ residency in the United States. That is, they would grant stakes only to those who meet both citizenship and long-term residency criteria. Taxation
Critics of stakeholder grants worry that such transfers could require high levels of taxation that would undermine political support for redistribution or depress economic activity. Proponents offer three types of responses. First, a number of proposals rely on capital taxation that would primarily burden the wealthy. This pattern of taxation is asserted to be a normative as well as a political advantage. Equality of opportunity is one explicit rationale: Ackerman and Alstott argue, for instance, that the injustice of present wealth distributions helps justify a 2% tax on wealth that would provide medium term financing for their $80,000 grant. (They propose a variant of inheritance taxation, described below, for long-term financing.) Van Parijs proposes an income tax, which would tax those who hold scarce social resources (jobs). Proponents claim that taxes focused on the rich may also have political benefits, although successful attacks of inheritance taxation in the United States (documented by Michael Graetz and Ian Shapiro) may undermine that prediction. Second, several proposals include forms of taxation that are linked in principle and in practice with the stakeholder grant. Le Grand and Nissan propose to fund a capital grant through a reformed inheritance tax, and they suggest that earmarking tax revenues to fund grants
could improve the popularity of a ‘‘much-despised’’ tax. Ackerman and Alstott also propose a dedicated tax mechanism: they suggest that stakeholders should pay back their stake, with interest, at the end of their lives. Their plan amounts to an estate tax on those who received stakes, since those who die with insufficient funds would owe nothing. These tax plans also invoke themes of entitlement, equality of opportunity, and democratic participation. Proponents suggest that inheritance taxes would link limitations on private inheritance for a few to the ideal of a public inheritance for all. They argue that the combination could foster a sense of communal reciprocity, as those who have benefited from stakes internalize an obligation to help fund grants for the next generation. And a dedicated tax fund would draw on the model of payroll tax financing for social insurance, creating a high-visibility program with built-in, permanent funding. Third, some advocates of stakeholder grants suggest that even if redistributive taxation would reduce economic growth, the ideal of equality should prevail over the ideal of maximizing aggregate wealth. Ackerman and Alstott, for instance, argue that slower growth, even zero growth, would suffice to meet ideals of intergenerational justice if population is stable, while stakeholding would advance ideals of entitlement, equal opportunity, and democratic participation. Effect on Poverty and Coordination with Welfare State
Because stakeholder grants would represent a major new governmental expenditure, analysts have asked how the new program would affect existing welfare state programs. A related question is the extent to which stakeholder programs would address the problem of poverty – as distinct from the problem of inequality. At the outer limits, the possibilities for welfare state coordination are essentially two: stakeholder grants might replace existing programs, or they might not. Charles Murray’s 2006 book, In Our Hands, represents one extreme. Murray advocates replacing most US welfare and social insurance programs with a basic income of $10,000 per year payable to every adult. A primary rationale is libertarian: he views the government as unable to design and administer complex antipoverty programs and views the US welfare state as a failure. Ackerman and Alstott propose to convert Social Security into a universal annuity program but otherwise anticipate few changes in the configuration of existing programs. They anticipate that stakeblowers would be eligible only for minimal, subsistence level welfare but
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note that the US welfare state provides little more than this to anyone. At the same time, they note that stakeholding should serve as a citizenship program rather than an antipoverty program and so cannot address causes and effects of poverty like poor health, limited education, and so on. That is, they conceptualize stakeholding as helpful to efforts to combat poverty but not centrally motivated by that problem. By contrast, individual development accounts focus squarely on the problem of poverty, specifically asset poverty, and aim to supplement existing welfare programs. Michael Sherraden’s work links asset-building efforts explicitly to the antipoverty cause. He suggests that wealth-building strategies can build habits of thrift, reward planning, and provide capital that can help the poor gain mobility and access to better jobs.
International Perspectives In 2001, UK Prime Minister Tony Blair made plans for a capital grant for young people a centerpiece of his reelection plan. Blair’s plan followed the publication of the Ackerman-Alstott book in the United States and, in Britain, influential monographs published in 2000 by David Nissan and Julian Le Grand, proposing ₤10,000 capital grants, and in the same year by Gavin Kelly and Rachel Lissauer, proposing ₤1,000 ‘‘baby bonds.’’ The Blair proposal, which now exists as the UK Child Trust Fund, provides a grant of ₤250 for every child, with an additional ₤250 for children born into low-income families. Every child receives another minimum grant plus a top-up payment at age 7. Parents may – but are not required to – make additional deposits into the fund. Children may not withdraw funds until they reach age 18; nor can their parents. The Child Trust Fund has similarities both to stakeholder grants and to individual development accounts. The official website lists the purposes of the program as ensuring savings for all, encouraging the habit of saving, and teaching children about saving and finance. Like capital grants for young people, there is a governmentfunded, universal payment made available to each individual at the age of majority without use restrictions. Like individual development accounts (and other asset-building programs), there is a means-testing element (the topup), and the program encourages supplementary private contributions. The Child Trust Fund also contains an element of financial education: parents may choose from structured investment options. Families receive periodic statements showing the accumulated funds, and children may begin making investment choices at age 16.
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Future Directions Proposals for capital grants for young people remain under discussion in political circles and in the academy. In the United States, congressional proposals include the ASPIRE Act introduced in 2007, which would track the Child Trust Fund in providing every child with an initial grant (doubled for poorer children) but would diverge from the British model by restricting the use of the funds to education, home purchases, and retirement savings. Stakeholder grant proposals have also been considered in other countries. In related initiatives, basic income has a foothold in the United States via the Alaska Permanent Fund, which pays an annual dividend of about $1,700 to each resident of Alaska. A number of demonstration projects for individual development accounts have been undertaken across the United States, and numerous studies of their effects are underway. In the academy, a number of scholars have considered the case for and against capital grants, basic income, and individual development accounts. Recently, academics have considered the extension of the stakeholder model to other purposes, for instance capital grants for parents or for workers to enable them to take periodic sabbatical leaves. Academics have also begun to conduct empirical studies of attitudes toward the Child Trust Fund and the inheritance tax as a means of funding it.
Cross-References
▶ Child Trust Fund ▶ Civil Society Theory: Paine ▶ Stakeholders
References/Further Readings Ackerman, B., & Alstott, A. (1999). The stakeholder society. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Brownson, O. (1840). The laboring classes (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Benjamin. H. Greene. The Child Trust Fund, from http://www.childtrustfund.gov.uk/ Corporation for Enterprise Development, from http://www.cfed.org/ home.m Dowding, K., Wispelaere, J. de., & White, S. (2003). Stakeholding – a new paradigm? In K. Dowding, J. de Wispelaere, & S. White (Eds.), The ethics of stakeholding. Houndmills/Basingstoke/Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Graetz, M., & Shapiro, I. (2005). Death by a thousand cuts. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Halstead, T., & Lind, M. (2001). The radical center: The future of American politics. New York: Doubleday. Haveman, R. (1988). Starting even: An equal opportunity program to combat the nation’s new poverty. New York: Simon & Schuster. Kelly, G., & Lissauer, R. (2000). Ownership for all. London: Institute for Public Policy Research.
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Le Grand, J., & Nissan, D. (2000). A capital idea: Start-up grants for young people. London: Fabian Society. Murray, C. (2006). In our hands. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Paine, T. (1797) Agrarian justice. In P. Mark (Ed.), Reprinted in Thomas Paine: Rights of Man, Common Sense and Other Political Writings (pp. 409–433). Oxford: Oxford University Press (1995). Paxton, W., White, S., & Maxwell, D. (2006). The citizen’s stake: Exploring the future of universal asset policies. Bristol: Policy Press. Prabhakar, R. (2008). The assets agenda. Houndmills/Basingstoke/ Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan. Sherraden, M. (1990). Assets for the poor. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. See also Center for Social Development, from http://gwbweb.wustl.edu/ csd/index.htm Skidmore, T. (1829). The rights of man to property. New York: Alexander Ming. Unger, R. M., & West, C. (1998). The future of American progressivisim: An initiative for political and economic reform. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Van Parijs, P. (1995). Real freedom for all. New York: Oxford University Press. White, S. (2006). The citizen’s stake and paternalism. In E. O. Wright (Ed.), Redesigning distribution. London: Verso. Wright, E. O. (Ed.) (2006). Redesigning distribution. London: Verso.
Stakeholders ALEX MURDOCK London South Bank University, London, UK
However the power/interest mapping is a fairly basic way to analyze stakeholders and more sophisticated categorisation is usually undertaken. Friedman and Miles (2006) offer suggestions in their book for other ways to analyze stakeholders. Murdock (2004) provides some examples of alternative formats in a downloadable article based on research into stakeholders in the health sector. An obvious division is between internal and external stakeholders. Other writers have offered useful ways of categorising stakeholder such as those who are ‘‘voluntary’’ (in that they can chose whether to be involved or not) as opposed to those who are ‘‘involuntary.’’ Stakeholders can be seen as important in terms of a range of considerations such as: ● Motivation (what drives them?) ● Beliefs (which they either possess or are ‘‘seen’’ as possessing) ● Resources (material, symbolic, information, skill, etc.) ● Knowledge (which they may possess) ● Commitments (a legal requirement to involve them) ● Relationships to other stakeholders. Stakeholders can also be mapped as an archery target with closeness to the center to show how central the stakeholder is to the issue (or organization). An example is shown in Fig. 2. A more sophisticated figure may seek to divide the archery target into segments in order to show more information as in Fig. 3 (which is drawn on the National Health Service in the United Kingdom).
Introduction The use of a stakeholder approach is well established especially in the context of organization or management analysis. It is primarily seen as a ‘‘tool’’ to be taught to enable people to make sense of a complex or potentially challenging environment or problem. Business and management textbooks (especially in Strategic Management) make use of it (Johnson et al., 2007). Typically the method used in managerial and educational contexts is structured to first identify relevant stakeholders for an organisation or for an issue (often in respect of both). This is done by listing the stakeholders and identifying why they are important for the organisation (or issue). A simple mapping exercise of stakeholders using two variables is usually undertaken using power and interest. This is shown in Fig. 1. The stakeholders identified are mapped onto a table using the criteria shown and those who have high interest (in the organisation or issue) and also a high power (in respect of the organisation or issue) are, for example, deemed to be key players.
Definition There is a plethora of stakeholder definitions, and Friedman and Miles (2006) identified some 55 in their comprehensive survey of the literature. It is interesting that these were all definitions focussed on stakeholders as applied to organisations or corporations. If the broader concept of stakeholding in society at large is considered then the definitional possibilities become more far ranging. For example it raises the question as to whether stakeholders have to have a consciousness or even a tangible form. Can rocks and plants be seen as stakeholders in society? For ecologists the answer would be quite straightforward. However a refusal to entertain a definition raises questions about the very nature of a concept and so some definitions will be explored. A key element in the definition is its actual breadth. In 1983 Freeman and Reed suggested there was a broad and narrow stakeholder definition. The narrow one is derived from that of the Stanford Research Institute. The broad
Stakeholders
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Stakeholders. Fig. 1 Stakeholder mapping
one included all who ‘‘can effect or is affected by the achievement of the organization’s objectives’’ (Freeman & Reed, 1983). Both broad and narrow definitions did not refer to legitimacy (however that might be defined). Are bank robbers stakeholders in the Bank, for example? Even under the narrow definition it could be argued that the existence of banks is owed in part at least to the presence of those seeking to rob people of their cash. If no one was concerned at all about being robbed then at least some of the justification for banks may be removed. This question of legitimacy is particularly important when stakeholding is examined in the context of civil society as opposed to more narrowly defined organisations. Many civil society organisations or groups engage in campaigning or advocacy activities and view that as making them legitimate stakeholders in a large number of organisations. These might be organisations which would not, in return, regard the civil society organisation or group as a legitimate stakeholder. For example governments (including both the Chinese Government and the UK Government) have shown their reluctance to accept a broad definition of stakeholders in terms of the right to protest. Friedman and Miles (2006) suggest that definitions often pertain to the nature of the relationship between stakeholder and organisation drawing attention to the use of the term affecting. Secondly the definition might include a term which qualifies or restricts the application. Friedman and Miles (2006) propose that this can occur in two ways. One is the strategic dimension which accepts a continuum ranging for those critical to organisational success (narrow definition) or stakeholders with a recognised right (broader definition). Alternatively a more normative approach could be used based on a perception of the legitimacy of the stakeholder. On a narrow definition this would include only those owed significant responsibility (for example those directly affected by an organisation’s activities). The broader construct would open it up to all perceived to be directly or indirectly affected (including
Stakeholders. Fig. 2 Stakeholder mapping using distance: ‘‘the archery target’’
nonhuman entities such as rocks and plants). (See and compare entries on Bread for the World and Campaign to Ban Land Mines in this respect.)
Historical Background The origin of ‘‘stakeholder’’ in society, organisational theory and management is subject of some debate. There is some consensus in terms of the organisational aspects that the origin can be found in internal memoranda by the Stanford Research Institute during the 1960s. Here a definition was proposed of stakeholders as ‘‘those groups without whose support the organization would cease to exist’’ (Friedman & Miles, 2006: 5). However the broader ‘‘societal’’ concept of stakeholder can arguably be traced far further back as in this form it represents a fundamental philosophical view as to how relationships between individuals should be determined. In this form it resonates with the long standing debate
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Stakeholders
Stakeholders. Fig. 3 Stakeholder environment for local health care
as to the nature of civil society itself. The concepts of the social contract, the consent of the governed and obligations of the ruler towards subjects can all be seen to furnish the underpinnings for later stakeholder thinking though actual acknowledgement in the stakeholder literature of this is often wanting. The economic stakeholder dimension found in much of the literature (i.e., the suggestion that there are interests other than those of owners or workers in enterprises) has led to Adam Smith being invoked as furnishing some of the underpinnings for stakeholder approaches. The suggestion here is that Adam Smith’s ‘‘invisible hand’’ of competition benefits those not immediately profiting from economic (and self interested) decisions by individuals (Smith, 1776). The term ‘‘stakeholder’’ has been widely used (and overused). However, in the organisational context, it was a means by which the rights of those other than the owners of capital were asserted. Stakeholders represent a broader group of interested parties than those who manage or own an enterprise. How wide the definition of stakeholder reaches is the subject of ongoing debate. (See entry on Voluntary Sector Compacts.)
Key Issues There are a number of key issues in both the development and use of stakeholder approaches. These have been the subject of a great deal of debate in the academic literature and to a large extent derive from differing basic assumptions about stakeholder approaches. A landmark article in 1995 by Donaldson and Preston has formed the basis of much of the subsequent debate. They suggested that stakeholder theory had been supported on the basis of description, instrumental impact, and its normative validity. The authors advanced four views of stakeholder theory based on this: 1. 2. 3. 4.
As Descriptive As Instrumental As Normative As Managerial
These bring with them different sets of issues which will be discussed with particular attention to the context of civil society. A descriptive basis for stakeholder theory derives from the perceived ability of the approach to illuminate
Stakeholders
characteristics of organisations in an empirical fashion. The describing of stakeholders and their behavior contributes to greater understanding and is undertaken in a judgement-free fashion. All stakeholders are assumed to possess value and are not excluded because, for example, they are seen as illegitimate. An instrumental view seeks to establish cause and effect relationships. It tests hypotheses as to whether, in stakeholder terms, A causes B (or if A is associated with B). It aims to show that if an organisation works with stakeholders in a particular way, then the organisation is more successful. A number of writers have advanced views as to ‘‘what works.’’ Mitroff (1985) has identified a number of such ‘‘instrumental strategies’’: ● Convert strategy (via command, persuasion, negotiation, bargaining exchange) ● Fight (use resources, coalitions, etc.) ● Co-option ● Avoid or ignore ● Appease ● Surrender ● Form an emotional bond ● Merge with the stakeholder A normative approach takes a moral stance on stakeholder theory. It looks for an ethical (or philosophical) justification for a particular approach to stakeholders. As such questions of legitimacy of stakeholders are highly appropriate. Also ‘‘doing things because they are right rather than just because they work’’ are relevant. The norms adopted may not be such as to advocate a broad and inclusive view of stakeholders. Milton Friedman (1970) advocated the primacy of the interests of owners of capital, for example. Will Hutton (1995), writing from a very different normative perspective, advocates a much greater inclusiveness. These are both normative perspectives advocating what ‘‘ought’’ to be the level of stakeholder inclusiveness. The managerial focus of stakeholder work is implicit (if not explicit) in the focus of much of the work published. Academic journals which have picked up on stakeholder concepts tend to be business or managerially focussed. The main books in the area often have titles which set this out, such as ‘‘Managing for Stakeholders’’ (Freeman, 2007).
International Perspectives The general direction and focus of the stakeholder literature has been on, in the first instance, the business organisation. However it has moved clearly towards both public and non profit contexts and a significant literature is growing on the stakeholder aspects of NGO’s. For an example of an
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international stakeholder website see the Stakeholder Forum site – http://www.stakeholderforum.org/ The stakeholder literature in Europe is well developed with several influential books published (Juha Nasi’s compilation (1994) stands out). The general European stakeholder literature focus tends to be Northern European – especially Scandinavian. There is an obvious application to the international domain. In the context of concerns about global issues such as climate change and ‘‘the war on terror’’ the value of stakeholder approaches to defining problems, identifying, and implementing possible solutions is self evident. The growth of electronic media enables interest groups to have an impact in ways that would not have been hitherto possible.
Future Directions The increasing interest in ‘‘Civil Society’’ fits with a view of stakeholding which implies a broader inclusiveness. There is a growing proliferation of groups (both legal and less so) which assert a right to be heard. In effect they view themselves as stakeholders not just in society but also in a range of organisations which impact on society. The decline of formal political participation in a number of democracies such as the United Kingdom and United States places more reliance upon other civil society groups and organisations. Some writers have made links between stakeholder theory and the public governance literature (Bingham L. B. et al., 2005). The corporate sector use of social and environmental audit and corporate social responsibility together with the growing importance of social return on investment measures in the third sector might also suggest a greater recourse to stakeholder theory and stakeholder measures. This may lead to the use of broader definitions of legitimate stakeholders – for example, that plants and ‘‘nonlife’’ entities such as mountains are stakeholders and must be accorded rights through proxy representatives such as conservation organizations. One caveat over the use of stakeholder theory is advanced by leading writers setting out what stakeholder theory ‘‘is not’’ (Philips et al., 2003). They suggest that the term means different things to different people and hence is subject to a breadth of interpretation. They draw attention to both critical distortions and to ‘‘friendly misinterpretations.’’ The article is well worth reading for those who seek to develop a more sophisticated understanding.
Cross-References
▶ Bread for the World ▶ Civil Law and Civil Society
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Stedile, Joa˜o Pedro
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Government – Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Interest and Pressure Groups ▶ International Campaign to Ban Land Mines ▶ Legitimacy ▶ New Public Management ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Social Audit ▶ Stakeholder Society ▶ UN Global Compact ▶ Values ▶ Voluntary Sector Compacts
References/Further Readings Bingham, L. B. et al. (2005). The new governance: Practices and processes for stakeholder and citizen participation in the work of government. Public Administration Review, 65(5). Donaldson, T., & Preston, L. (1995). The stakeholder theory of the corporation: Concepts, evidence and implication. Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 65–91. Freeman, R. E. et al. (2007). Managing for stakeholders. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Freeman, R. E., & Reed, D. L. (1983). Stockholders and stakeholders: A new perspective on corporate governance. California Management Review, 25(3), 91. Friedman, A., & Miles, S. (2006). Stakeholders theory and practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Friedman, M. (1970). The social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. The New York Time Magazine, 13. Hutton, W. (1995). The state we are in. London: Random House. Johnson, G., Scholes, K., & Whittington, R. (2007). Exploring corporate strategy. London: Prentice–Hall. Mitroff, I. (1985). Stakeholders of the organisational mind. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Murdock, A. (2004). Stakeholder theory, partnerships and alliances in the health care sector of the UK and Scotland International Public Management Review, 5(1), from http://www.idt.unisg.ch/org/idt/ipmr.nsf. Nasi, J. (Ed.) (1994). Understanding stakeholder thinking. Helsinki, Finland: LSR Publications. Philips, R., Freeman, R. E., & Wickes, A. (2003). What stakeholder theory is not. Business Ethics Quarterly, 13(4). Smith, A. (1776). The wealth of nations book IV. Scotland: Glasgow University.
Stedile, Joa˜o Pedro JENNY ELMACO
Basic Biographical Information Joa˜o Pedro Stedile was born on December 25, 1953 in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. He came from a family of farmers,
starting from his grandfather who came to Brazil in 1899. His mother’s family originated from Veneto and his father’s came from what is known today as the Italian Tyrol. Although he stayed in his parents’ farm until he was 18, he attributes his schooling to his uncle, a Capuchin, who made way for him to get a spot at the Catholic grammar school. It was this love for learning that drove him to walk 10 km every day to get his education. On the other hand, it was his love for the land that later urged him to pursue a job with Rio Grande do Sul’s State Agriculture Department. It was through this occupation that he nurtured his passion for social activism. In 1976, he won a study grant in Mexico where he not only pursued higher studies, he was also able to interact and learn from Latin American intellectuals and exiled scholars from the Brazilian left most notably Francisco Julia˜o of the PSB (Brazilian Socialist Party). Stedile is a member of Grassroots International’s Resource Rights Advisory Group – a human rights and international development organization that aids community-led sustainable development projects.
Major Contributions Stedile earned recognition as a champion for international peasant struggle through his work with the Brazilian Rural Landless Workers Movement (MST), better known as the Moviemiento Sem Terra. It was in January 1984, inspired by the pastoral work of the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), when leaders of the land struggle in 16 Brazilian states came together in Cascavel to form a collective movement against poverty and inequality. Of significant note to this mass movement was the decision of the leaders to be autonomous from political parties and the Catholic Church. In particular, Stedile and his companions aimed to take back the land and give it to the people. The means to achieve their goals were revolutionary and reflect grassroots societal organization from its core. Land occupation was the main means of the MST, whose mantra was to break the concentration of land ownership known as latifundium. The nonhierarchical movement gathered membership through the encampment operations and maintains a presence in 23 Brazilian states. With its successful resettlement program and extensive grassroots power, Stedile’s leadership in the MST is a model of civil society’s success through collective action. An advocate, agriculturist, social critic and writer, Stedile regularly contributes his views on food sovereignty, the struggle against water privatization and land rights to various media. His opinions and outlook on issues especially those that affect the common people are vital and critical to the concept of social capital and social networks.
Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileumsfond
Cross-References
▶ Collective Action ▶ MST ▶ Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations
References/Further Readings Guevara, A., & Stedile, J. P. (2009). MST: Simiente de la vida y la esperanza en. Brazil: Ocean Press. Peters, C., & Podur, J. (2002, May/June). ‘‘They can walk with their heads up’’: An interview with Joao Pedro Stedile, National Board member, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra. (Brief Article) Dollars & Sense.
Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileumsfond EKKEHARD THUEMLER
Address of Organization Kungstra¨dga˚rdsg. 18 SE-114 86 Stockholm Sweden www.rj.se
Introduction Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (Bank of Sweden Tercentenary Foundation, in English) is a Swedish independent foundation. It supports scientific research by providing grants to individual scientists or research groups.
Brief History
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long-term research projects and the promotion of contacts with international researchers.
Activities In 2007, the Foundation supported 41 project funds (number of applications: 753) and four programs (applications: 26) and provided infrastructural support for 12 grantees (18 applications). Further grants support initiation of research and international collaboration. Examples include: the Bank of Sweden Fund, which supports research on social, cultural, political, economic, and technical change with grants mainly awarded to researchers in the humanities, social sciences, theology, and law; the Humanities and Social Sciences Fund, which focuses on research in the humanities and social sciences, including theology and law, with grants mainly given to long-term programs (6–8 years) each amounting to circa 35–40 million SEK; scholarships, such as the Nils-Eric Svensson Scholarship Fund, which promotes mobility among young researchers in Sweden to work in outstanding European research environments, and the Erik Ro¨nnberg Donation, which supports scientific studies by young researchers into ageing and age-related illnesses; and international commitments, which include the Swedish-German Research Awards for Scientific Cooperation in partnership with the Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, and the Collegium Budapest, Hungary, an international research centre and meeting place. The Foundation is a member of the European Foundation Centre (EFC) and regularly supports jointly funded research programs together with other European foundations.
Structure and Governance
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond was established in 1962 by the Swedish Parliament Riksdag as a part of the Bank of Sweden’s celebration of its 300th anniversary (1968). The Riksdag then provided the Foundation with its first endowment; first grants were awarded in 1965. Other large donations followed in the 1990s: The Swedish Parliament contributed the Humanities and Social Sciences Donation. The Foundation further benefited from two donations by Erik Ro¨nnberg and the Nils-Eric Svensson’s Fund.
Riksbankens Jubileumsfond has 17 staff, headed by a managing director and two directors for research and finances. The Foundation is led by a Board of Trustees that includes representatives of universities, all parties of the Swedish Parliament, and financial management. Seven screening committees review the applications for research grants; additional national and international experts are included if their expertise is needed. Special sector committees focus on new areas of research or areas of high importance.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas
Funding
The Foundation supports scientific research, primarily in the humanities and social sciences. They invest in research areas, ‘‘where the requirement of funds is not adequately met in another manner,’’ as well as in new fields of research requiring rapid investments. Focus is on major and
The assets of the Foundation are highly diversified. To date they amount to SEK 9.5 billion. Total spending of Riksbankens Jubileumsfond up to now is approx. SEK 5 billion. The annual budget ranges from SEK 250 to 500 million with an average of about SEK 350 million.
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Stifterverband fu¨r die Deutsche Wissenschaft
In 2007 the Foundation had expenditures of SEK 352 million with a total of grant expenditures of SEK 254 million. Major sources of income are revenues from the Bank of Sweden Donation (SEK 6.6 billion), the Humanities and Social Sciences Donation (SEK 2.9 billion) and Erik Ro¨nnberg’s Donation (SEK 29 million.).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions
It was initially established as a rescue initiative for preserving the interests of the German science system in a time of political uncertainty in the early Weimar Republic by a group of leading scientists and industrialists, such as Fritz Haber, C.F. von Siemens and Carl Duisberg.
Mission
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Philanthropy in Europe
The Stifterverband regards its main role as innovator and initiator of reforms in the German higher education system. Through analyzing the shortcomings of Germany’s research structures and by encouraging scientists’ potential to innovate, the Stifterverband seeks to form interdisciplinary and interinstitutional networks and is continually lobbying for the creation of independent universities within a competitive international environment, but also tries to foster dialog between science and society. Thus, the Stifterverband’s goal is to help improving the quality of the German science system.
References/Further Readings
Activities
Ha¨rnqvist, K. (1990). Swedish research in a changing society: The bank of Sweden tercentenary foundation1965–1990. Hedemora: Gidlunds Bokfo¨rlag.
The Stifterverband depicts itself as functioning as a ‘‘catalyst for structural change’’ as well as to work as ‘‘an engine for a pro-innovation environment.’’ In order to do so, it mainly provides a public platform for advising political decision-makers but also serves as service provider for carrying out funding programs. It runs best-practice competitions, provides start-up financing for model projects, commissions international rankings and benchmarking studies, and formulates action plans for universities and research institutions.
Since the 1960’s the Foundation is a major funder of research in the humanities and social sciences at Swedish universities. It has initiated research in areas like cultural policy studies, international security, civil society and value studies, and started new types of targeted Ph.D. schools.
Cross-References
Stifterverband fu¨r die Deutsche Wissenschaft CHRISTOPH GOLBECK
Structure and Governance Address of Organization Barkhovenallee 1 45239 Essen Germany www.stifterverband.de
Introduction The ‘‘Stifterverband fu¨r die Deutsche Wissenschaft’’ (Founders Association for the German Science System) sees itself as the ‘‘business community’s innovation agency for the German science system.’’ It actively promotes the sciences, research, and education. Thus the Stifterverband represents approximately 3,000 companies, business associations, foundations, and also individuals.
Brief History Founded in 1920, the Stifterverband has a longstanding history in the promotion of research and higher education.
The Stifterverband represents approximately 3,000 members in total, among them mainly companies and business associations but also individuals. Important donors are Deutsche Bank, Daimler, and Bosch. Furthermore almost all major companies and middle-sized enterprises are represented. The Stifterverband is a nonprofit organization with the legal status of a registered association (eingetragener Verein, e.V.). Since 1998 its president is Dr. Arend Oetker. Furthermore, the Stifterverband is trustee to more than 400 foundations mainly active in the field of science promotion.
Funding The Stifterverband’s source of funding is a mix of charitable giving, membership fees and returns from investment income, but it also acquires additional financing through program-related partnerships. As of 2007, it reported an overall budget of more than €31.5 million, thereof alone €7.1 million to finance ‘‘Stiftungsprofessuren’’ (endowed chairs).
Stiftung ZEWO
Accomplishments In cooperation with major science organizations, such as the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Stifterverband awards different prizes to outstanding scientists and research institutions. One of the most well-known awards is the ‘‘German Future Prize – The Federal President’s Award for Technology and Innovation.’’
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Independent
References/Further Readings Stifterverband. (2006). Striving for excellence in research and higher education. Essen. Schulze, W. (1995). Der Stifterverband fu¨r die Deutsche Wissenschaft 1920– 1995. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
Stiftung ZEWO GEORG VON SCHNURBEIN
Address of Organization La¨gernstrasse 27 8037 Zu¨rich Switzerland www.zewo.ch
Introduction The ZEWO Foundation is the Swiss monitoring agency for charitable fundraising organizations. It certifies the conscientious use of donated means and sets up rules and guidelines for fundraising activities. Actually, about 500 Swiss organizations are labeled by the ZEWO.
Brief History The ZEWO Association was created in 1934 as an information office for donators. Some years later, it introduced a quality seal that was awarded to organizations meeting certain standards. Since 2001, ZEWO has been an independent foundation. The seal of approval has, to date, been a unique proof of quality for charitable fundraising organizations.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Stiftung ZEWO promotes transparency and integrity in the handling of donations. It examines organizations of
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public benefit to ensure the proper handling of donated funds and awards them its seal of approval when its requirements are met. It also provides information on important and current aspects relating to donating.
Activities The major activity of ZEWO is the certification of charitable organizations. Its seal of approval distinguishes organizations for their proper handling of the funds entrusted to them. It certifies the appropriate, economic, and effective use of donations and promotes transparent trustworthy organizations that comply with corporate governance standards and ethical standards for fundraising and communication. In addition, the ZEWO Foundation provides information on noncertified fundraising organizations and warns from doubtful and intransparent fundraising organizations. ZEWO further informs on topics related to donating and coordinates the schedule of the national fundraising campaigns of organizations with the ZEWO seal of approval, producing the annual Swiss collection calendar for this purpose.
Structure and Governance Stiftung ZEWO is a charitable foundation. It is governed by a board of trustees and the general secretariat is led by a CEO. The certification process is carried out in cooperation with a certification committee consisting of independent financial auditors.
Funding The original assets of Stiftung ZEWO were donated by the Swiss Society for Public Utility (SGG) and the Swiss cantons. The annual expenses of CHF 1 million reported for 2007 are covered by contributions of certified organizations, service fees, contributions to projects for the further development of standards, financial income and donations.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Stiftung ZEWO has defined standards for fundraising activities in Switzerland and by that highly improved the transparency and professionalism of charitable organizations.
Cross-References
▶ Fundraising ▶ International Committee on Fundraising Organizations (ICFO) ▶ Schweizerische Gemeinnutizge Gesellschaft (SGG) ▶ Transparency
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Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)
References/Further Readings
Activities
ZEWO (Ed.) (2009). Kostenstruktur and Fundraising-Effizienz gemeinnu¨tziger Organisationen, Zu¨rich: ZEWO.
SIPRI’s most important activity over the years has been the publication of the SIPRI Yearbook (since 1969), which provides data on security developments, military expenditures and arms control. Presently, SIPRI’s ‘‘flagship’’ is also published in Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, and Ukrainian. Moreover, SIPRI publishes a variety of books and reports and maintains several extensive databases on issues related to armament. SIPRI also organizes workshops, conferences, seminars, and lectures in order to exchange views with outside experts on the subjects studied at the Institute. SIPRI cooperates with several international and regional organizations, among them various organizations belonging to the UN system, OSCE, NATO, EU, and AU.
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) NORBERT GO¨TZ
Address of Organization Signalistgatan 9 169 70 Solna Sweden www.sipri.org
Structure and Governance
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is an institute for research into (dis)armament and arms control. SIPRI is one of the most important providers of military statistics in the world, from a perspective that emphasizes the hazards of armament rather than its possible security-enhancing effect.
SIPRI’s staff of about 50 (half of them researchers) is internationally recruited on a temporary project basis. The institute never had a Swedish Director and can be regarded as autonomous despite its background and funding structure. The Research Staff Collegium advises the Director on research matters. The Institute has a consultative Advisory Committee and a Governing Board. The later takes decisions on principle matters related to the research agenda, activities, organization, and financial administration.
Brief History
Funding
In his main speech celebrating Sweden’s 150th anniversary of peace in 1964, Swedish Prime Minister Tage Erlander announced that his government would set up a committee considering the establishment of an international institute for peace and conflict research. The committee under the chairmanship of Ambassador and later Nobel Peace Price Laureate Alva Myrdal proposed to establish an international institute concentrating on armaments, their limitation and reduction, and arms control. In 1966, SIPRI was established by an act of Swedish parliament.
SIPRI is mainly financed by the Swedish tax payer. For the fiscal year 2007, SIPRI received a state grant of 27 million Swedish kroner (SEK). Other sources of income amounted to 6.2 million SEK; they included international foundations and foreign governments. From 2008 the state appropriation has been cut down to 22 million SEK.
Introduction
Mission According to SIPRI, ‘‘The Institute has forged its profile by concentrating on present-day realities, providing unbiased facts to states and individuals.’’ SIPRI’s specific profile within the field of peace research has been the conduct of ‘‘hard boiled’’ positivist data collection and research on arms developments. Noticeably, the institute’s basic orientation is quantitative, and it employs comparatively many natural scientists. Another aspect of SIPRI’s mission is its globalist agenda, a belief in the danger of armament and a staff coming from different parts of the world.
Major Accomplishments SIPRI has an excellent reputation as provider of armament statistics; the SIPRI Yearbook is highly considered among practitioners, academics, and security experts in media. According to a study released by the Philadelphiabased Foreign Policy Research Institute, SIPRI belongs to the top 30 global think tanks in public policy research based outside the United States (2007). Among various awards received by SIPRI is the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education (1982).
Cross-References
▶ Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations ▶ Think Tanks
Strategic Philanthropy
References/Further Readings Blackaby, F. (1996). SIPRI: Continuity and change 1966–1996. Stockholm: SIPRI.
Strategic Philanthropy DIANA LEAT Cass Business School, London, UK
Introduction The term strategic philanthropy, said to have begun in the corporate world, was taken up in the last decades of the twentieth century by various foundations, and then became a buzz word/phrase applied to almost all foundation activities (Kramer, 2001). As a result of its widespread, loose, and changing usage it is difficult to provide a definitive statement of its meaning.
Definition In its loosest usage the addition of ‘‘strategic’’ seemed to signal that the grant/activity had some relatively clear purpose and was considered rather than purely reactive or random. More narrowly, Paul Brest, President of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, defined strategic philanthropy as: "
[T]he application by foundations of the same concepts of strategy that underlie successful projects by businesses and governments or, for that matter, individuals and armies. While there is no single definition of the term, a strategic approach entails:
● Setting clear goals or objectives; ● Developing an empirically sound plan designed to ●
●
achieve those goals; Considering the costs, risks, and benefits of the plan to judge its effectiveness compared with other ways of achieving the goals; and assessing whether, in light of the opportunity costs, implementing the plan is a good use of the organization’s resources; Monitoring whether one is on track toward achieving one’s goals, and making reasonable efforts to know if one has succeeded. (Brest, 2005: 132; see also Porter & Kramer, 1999; Lake et al., 2000).
Historical Background Although the term ‘‘strategic’’ only became a major adjective in the foundation lexicon in the last decades
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of the twentieth century, some would argue there was nothing very new about the approach. Long before, for example, Soros and Gates engaged in self-consciously ‘‘strategic’’ initiatives, the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, among others, had adopted the practice of setting goals and seeking specified outcomes, via plans and monitoring. The rise of ‘‘strategic philanthropy’’ as a self-styled approach has to be seen in the context of perceptions of prevailing, dominant approaches and concerns within the foundation world. At the time (broadly the 1980s) much philanthropy was seen as dominated by the notion of charitable giving. Foundations gave grants for ‘‘good’’ causes to ‘‘good’’ organizations, and individuals; ‘‘doing good’’ was the object of the exercise and little consideration was, allegedly, given to the outcome of the grant. Good intentions were, by and large, good enough (Leat, 1992; Anheier & Leat, 2002; Brest, 2005). Although the practice of strategic grant making has various origins, one powerful impetus was growing dissatisfaction with the results of conventional foundation approaches. Huge total sums of had been spent on, for example, housing and family poverty, but the problems were still as great as ever. There were also comparisons with the success of the Conservative foundations, credited with moving the entire public policy agenda, via the use of ‘‘strategic philanthropy’’ (NCRP, 1997). In addition, questions were being asked about the real added value of foundations (Porter & Kramer, 1999). A strategic approach was seen as a way of adding value and having greater sustainable impact: ‘‘A handful of writers have suggested that philanthropists might do well to look to the world of business, where the concept of strategic management is well developed and is generally thought to conduce to success’’ (Brest, 2005). One foundation summed up the difference between strategic and conventional as moving ‘‘beyond our traditional, relatively passive role as grant givers to become catalysts, brokers, information resources and civic entrepreneurs through strategic investments. The trusts have begun to think more like venture capitalists, seeking to derive the greatest benefit from every strategic investment of capital, time, and talent – except . . . the return on investment is measured not in profits but in longlasting, positive and powerful benefits to the public’’ (Pew Charitable Trusts; see also Emerson, 1996; Letts et al., 1997). This type of thinking and writing created a close relationship, and some elision, between the notion of strategic philanthropy and terms such as venture philanthropy, social investment and social return on investment (SROI).
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Key Issues While the adjective ‘‘strategic’’ was soon widely applied by foundations describing their own work, the approach was probably more talked about than seriously practiced. Critics of the approach also emerged (see, for example, Sievers, 2004; Collins, 2004). Criticisms of Strategic Philanthropy
Criticisms of strategic approaches had various elements. Philanthropy and Business are different
Proponents of strategy in philanthropy drew close parallels with business, suggesting in effect that the former had much to learn from the latter – that philanthropy should become more like business. Critics pointed to the limitations of business models and, what they saw as, the fundamental differences between philanthropy and business. Business, as they saw it, was about profit, efficiency, and outcomes; philanthropy was about values, missions, and less easily measured, and complex, matters (see, for example, Sievers, 2004). Poetry and Passion, not Models and Metrics
More specifically, critics argued that the rationalism and cost-benefit calculations of a strategic approach could not adequately capture the importance of passion, justice, artistic expression, freedom of thought and action, concern for future generations, and preservation of cultural and environmental legacies that are the motivators, and end goals of philanthropic endeavor. Profit may be measured by metrics, but poetry may better capture the aspirations of philanthropy. Critics also pointed to the fact that major changes in society brought about in part by philanthropy – for example, the rise of environmental concerns, changes in attitudes to women and to gay and lesbian issues, the rise of the conservative agenda – cannot be usefully measured in terms of any simple cost-benefit analysis or social return on investment (Sievers, 2004). The Limits of Rational Planning
As noted above, a strategic approach attaches considerable significance to having a goal, an outcome and a plan of how to get from goal to outcome. Attention is focused on what the organization proposes to do, the organization’s internal management capacity to deliver and the costs of that. The grant-making process as a whole, and the particular questions asked, assume that a ‘‘plan’’ (a costed proposal) can be made in advance and that success will be achieved to the extent that the plan (the objectives defined at the outset) is adhered to. Ability to achieve the plan
appears largely to hang on having the ‘‘right’’ internal organizational structures and processes, the ‘‘right’’ financial management and so on. One criticism of this approach is that, in an important sense, the organization and its plan are abstracted from any wider social and political context. Either external factors are assumed not to matter or, equally implausible, they are considered both foreseeable and controllable. Furthermore, there are few, if any, questions about likely changes, risks, threats, and so on; the organization appears to exist in a time warp in which what is true today will, broadly speaking, still be true tomorrow. For this rational model of planning and implementation to work it would have to be assumed that: circumstances external to the intervention agency do not impose significant constraints on implementation; the intervention program has sufficient time and resources and that the required combination of resources are actually available; the proposed project is based on a valid theory of cause and effect; the relationship between cause and effect is direct with few, if any, intervening links; dependency relationships are minimal; and there is perfect communication, co-ordination, and compliance (Hogwood & Gunn, 1984). The Reply
Proponents of a strategic approach replied to these criticisms in a variety of ways best summarized by Brest (2005). Critics of the approach, Brest argued, confused ends and means, failing to understand that ‘‘[i] is love or passion that leads the philanthropist to determine a mission and set ambitious goals. But once he or she has determined these goals, then mind and muscle come in to design and implement a strategy to achieve them. A strategy comprises the unromantic, nitty-gritty working out of the means to accomplish one’s goals. It is never an end in itself, but only a tool to aid an organization in achieving its mission’’ (135). In response to criticisms around measurement, Brest defends a strategic approach by accepting that grant making entails unknowns, but ‘‘program officers must make choices, and the investment metaphor reflects the reality that a grant dollar spent on a poorly designed strategy or a low-performing organization is a lost opportunity to support a more effective one. With or without attempting to quantify social returns, the investment metaphor embodies an attitude that presses foundation staff to use their donors’ resources as effectively as possible’’ (135). A somewhat different perspective on the argument came from Mark R. Kramer in an article entitled Strategic Confusion published in 2001 (Kramer, 2001). This article
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took up a number of themes in a previous, influential article published in 1999 (Porter & Kramer, 1999). Rather than suggesting that a strategic approach is inappropriate, Kramer argued that its weakness lies in the fact that its meaning and practice has been misunderstood. For all the talk, ‘‘strategy’’ remained a confusing and ill-defined word, enabling foundations to avoid confronting their ambivalence about power and control. Kramer’s starting point is that foundations want outcomes and are increasingly concerned with evaluation but evaluation without realistic goals and a fully developed strategy is ‘‘nonsensical’’ (40). But the term strategy has been applied in at least three rather different ways: strategic philanthropy, strategic planning, and strategic grant making. Strategic philanthropy has four core principles: addressing root causes; establishing a theory of change; deciding on a focus; and measuring outcomes. All four principles are ‘‘good nuggets of advice. But even taken together, these principles fall short of a fully developed strategy’’ (42). Strategic philanthropy is a misnomer, and might be better termed ‘‘social change philanthropy’’ ‘‘for it takes social change as its objective, although it doesn’t give clear guidance on how to bring it about’’ (43). Strategic planning has two consistent aspects: values clarification and creation of a mission statement or vision. Again Kramer argues that this is useful and necessary but still falls short of a fully developed strategy. Finally, Kramer distinguishes ‘‘grant-making strategy.’’ This usually entails a needs assessment and filling unmet needs then becomes the strategy. Yet again, this is a useful tool in strategy development but still falls short of a real strategy. According to Kramer, it is only by undertaking strategic philanthropy, strategic planning, and a grant-making strategy simultaneously that a fully developed strategy, capable of evaluation, can be achieved. ‘‘A fully developed strategy enables a foundation to determine where it can make its greatest contribution by creating value over and beyond the purchasing power of its grant dollars. It means making a unique set of internally consistent and mutually reinforcing choices that zeroes in on where and how each foundation can make its greatest impact. To be effective such a strategy must accurately assess both the foundation’s internal capabilities and the external opportunities for impact in the field’’ (44). Only by assessing both internal and external constraints, and realistically considering its unique capacities and opportunities can the foundation develop goals realistic enough to be measurable. The key question for foundations thus becomes not ‘‘what is the most important problem’’ but
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rather ‘‘what is the most important problem this foundation can most effectively address?’’
International Perspectives The ‘‘strategic’’ approach became popular throughout much of the Anglophone philanthropic world in countries as far apart as the UK and Australia, in part as a result of articles published in international journals and on the Internet. Its adoption in wider Europe and other non-English speaking countries is less well documented.
Future Directions In many respects the key insights of strategic philanthropy are already well-embedded in mainstream foundation thinking. Foundations today talk in terms of goals, outcomes, plans, capacities, and evaluation – even if the practice falls somewhat short of the presentation. The demand for demonstrable outcomes – some sort of ‘‘return on investment’’ – and evaluation seem unlikely to go away at least in the near future. Demand is likely to be stoked by the aspirations and mind-sets of new philanthropists coming out of the world of business and of venture capital; as well as by the demands of the regulatory environment and wider questioning of the real added value of foundations. At the same time, other approaches are vying for attention including, for example, venture philanthropy with its emphasis on building organizational capacity and creative philanthropy with its emphasis on the unique capacities of endowed foundations for innovation, risk taking and creative conversation and debate (Anheier & Leat, 2007). Such approaches are not antithetical to a strategic approach but rather incorporate and move beyond, in different ways, its key insights. Future directions are likely to depend on at least two factors. First, much will depend on the way in which the debate around the real added value of foundations develops. Insofar as that debate stresses foundations’ unique freedom to challenge conventional wisdoms and ways of doing things, cost-benefit calculations may take second place to foundations’ roles as risk takers, innovators, and entrepreneurs of knowledge through ‘‘failure’’ (as well as success). Second, the future direction and development of foundation strategy is likely to depend on the disciplines to which foundations look for guidance. For a number of decades now the foundation world has been involved in a close relationship – some might say infatuation – with ideas and models from the world of business. If in the future the foundation world looked to political philosophers and scientists for its tools of analysis and models,
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strategy might take on a very different meaning both in terms of its practice and its role. The challenge ahead, some would argue, is to move away from a model that tends to diminish philanthropy’s role in forging a public agenda and to develop strategies and mechanisms that both encourage active philanthropy and limit the fragmentation that undermines – or undervalues – common purposes (Ferris & Mintrom, 2002).
Letts, C. W., Ryan, W., & Grossman, A. (1997). Virtuous capital: What foundations can learn from venture capitalists. Harvard Business Review, 37. Porter, M. E., & Kramer, M. R. (1999). Philanthropy’s new agenda: Creating value. Harvard Business Review, November–December, 121–130. Sievers, B. (1997). If pigs had wings. Foundation News and Commentary, Fall. Sievers, B. (2004). Philanthropy’s blindspots. In P. Karoff (Ed.), Just money: A critique of contemporary American philanthropy (pp. 131–33).
Cross-References
▶ Evaluation and Civil Society ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Foundations, Functions of ▶ Gates, William ▶ Pew Charitable Trusts ▶ Results and Performance ▶ Rockefeller Foundation ▶ Social Change Organizations ▶ Social Investment ▶ Soros, George ▶ Strategic Planning ▶ Venture Philanthropy
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Leat, D. (2002). From charity to creativity philanthropic foundations in the 21st century. London: Comedia. Anheier, H. K., & Leat, D. (2007). Creative philanthropy. London: Routledge. Brest, P. (2005). In defense of strategic philanthropy. Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 149(2), 132–140. Collins, D. (2004). The art of philanthropy. In P. Karoff (Ed.), Just money: A critique of contemporary American philanthropy. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Emerson, J. (1996). The funder’s perspective: Grantmaking as an investment strategy, from New Social Entrepreneurs. Roberts Enterprise Development Fund. Ferris, J. M., & Mintrom, M. (2002). Foundations and public policy making: A conceptual framework, RP-10, May, from www.usc.edu/ philanthropy. Hogwood, B., & Gunn, L. (1997). Why ‘‘perfect implementation’’ is unattainable. In M. Hill (Ed.), The policy process: A reader (2nd ed., pp. 217–225). London: Prentice Hall/Harvester Wheatsheaf. Kramer, M. R. (2001). Strategic confusion. Foundation News and Commentary, May–June, 40–44. Krehely, J., House, M., & Kernan, E. (March 2004). Axis of ideology: Conservative foundations and public policy. Washington, DC: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. Lake, K. E., Reis, T. K., & Spann, J. (2000). From grant-making to changemaking: How the W.K. Kellogg foundation’s impact services model evolved to enhance the management and social effects of large initiatives. Non-Profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly Supplement: New Directions in Non-profit Strategy, 29(1), 41–68. Leat, D. (1992). Grantmaking trusts: A guide to policy making. New York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
Strategic Planning ALFRED VERNIS Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain
Introduction Ever since Alfred Chandler (1962) defined strategy as the determination of long-term goals and objectives, as well as the adoption of courses of action and the associated allocation of resources to achieve those goals, many other definitions have followed. Henry Mintzberg (1994; Mintzberg et al., 1998) has tried to sort through several schools of thought ranging from more analytical stances, like those of Porter (1980) and other authors, to scholars who describe strategy as more of an emerging phenomenon (e.g., Quinn, 1980). For nonprofit organizations, the pioneering works by Nutt (1984), Espy (1986), and Bryson (1988) enabled the swift adoption of lessons learned by and from their for-profit counterparts. Many authors have recognized that most practitioners – whether in businesses, public agencies or nonprofits – find it hard to formulate and manage strategies. In all likelihood, this derives from a difficulty to distinguish strategic management from other managerial aspects. In their daily activities, managers are expected to solve many executive problems associated with their organizations’ business-asusual operations and specific area or department functions that require swift decisions and do not involve significant resource pledges. This constitutes operation management. Strategic management differs from operation management because it is a managerial task that focuses on an organization’s future, trying to determine the boundaries of its business based on predictable environmental change (see Table 1). Practitioners are challenged, as they need to make strategic decisions that involve significant
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Strategic Planning. Table 1 Strategic Management versus Operation Management Strategic management Long-term view
Operation management Short-term view
Global vision of the company Limited focus – function or division Environment-oriented
Company-oriented
Significant changes
Small-scale changes
Overall business definition
Specific definitions
Complex task
Routine task
Source: Elaborated by the writer, based on Chandler (1962), Johnson & Scholes (1996).
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efforts on a pre-determined group – such as children or women – or may try to reach out to entire communities; it may focus on a single country or expand its programs across national borders; it may also specialize on targeted projects, such as farming development or large-city slums or diversify its endeavors. This NGO will also need to determine its financial and human resources strategies, deciding, for example, whether to deploy its own staff in the field or outsourcing its agents, training them or seeking outside training, etc. In short, all organizations face myriad possible options – strategies that they will need to analyze and weigh, taking into account their resources and skills.
Key Issues changes requiring substantial resource investments with limited information and precedents. Strategic Management versus Operation Management
The importance and complexity of strategic management for organizations call for conceptual frameworks that enable managers to tackle this crucial task more efficiently and effectively.
Strategic Planning Stages
For starters, strategic planning should be viewed as a discipline – meaning instruction, learning, and education – ultimately intended to promote strategic thinking and actions. In general terms, a strategic planning process involves three salient phases (see Bryson, 1989, 1995). Phase one: Who are we? What do we do?
Definition In management terms, strategies may be viewed as an organization’s means to relate to its environment and to ensure its survival, feasibility, and growth (Ansoff, 1965). Strategies are neither fixed principles nor mandatory laws. On the contrary, they are explicit, consciously developed guidelines. In other words, strategies are a set of actions that are consistent with an organization’s mindset and provide a framework for daily decisions, establishing the organization’s position as regards its surrounding environment. Thus, if adequately formulated, strategies should address the following questions:
– – – –
What audiences are we targeting? What services do we provide? How do we provide them? What makes us different from other similar organizations?
Development nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), for instance, may pursue their core goal – contributing to southern nations’ sustainable development – in many different ways, depending on their individual strategies of choice. Any one such NGO may choose to operate on site, managing projects, or providing financial and technical support to more experienced organizations; it may concentrate its
The first phase – Who are we? What do we do? – explores the need for an initial agreement, prior to actually initiating the process itself. It focuses on a key notion in any strategic planning process – the mission statement – and unfolds in two stages: process initiation and mission formulation. Strategic planning process initiation
At nonprofits, the need to rely on strategic planning may emerge in many ways. What really matters is that, when this need does surface, an agreement is forged on the overall approach to the entire process. This agreement calls for a previous consideration of the following issues: ● What is the ultimate goal of this strategic planning process? ● Who will lead this process? ● How long should it take? ● What resources will be allocated to it? ● Who, inside and outside the organization, will be involved in this process? Who will serve in the planning team? What will be their roles, and when will they come into action? ● How will working sessions be organized? ● How will the process be communicated and to whom?
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Early on in this phase, it is necessary to clarify the limitations and hurdles that may come up throughout the strategic planning process.
● Its current strategy – both across the entire organization and in each department or area); ● Its overall performance, measured both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Mission statement
Every organization – be it for-profit or nonprofit, public, or private – has a mission. In fact, any organization is but a group of people joining their efforts to pursue a goal with limited resources. An organization’s mission reflects its raison d’etre, its social justification, so that, based on its definition, anyone inside or outside the organization can answer the question, ‘‘what is this organization’s ultimate goal?’’ Phase Two: Where are we? Where do we want to go?
The second phase – Where are we? Where do we want to go? – explores the need to first analyze the environment and to build an internal diagnosis. It concludes with an account of strategic priorities. Environmental analysis: identifying threats and opportunities
Once the mission has been outlined, the planning team should survey the environment where the organization is embedded. Analyzing outer developments involves focusing on phenomena, trends, and events on which the organization can exert only a limited control, at most. This analysis should seek to identify the threats and opportunities that will affect the organization in one way or another. After spotting threats and opportunities, the team should proceed to assess the impact of these phenomena and the organization’s ability to respond to them. Internal diagnosis: identifying strengths and weaknesses
The next step is to determine the strengths and weaknesses that will condition the organization’s response to its environment – specifically, to the threats and opportunities detected earlier. The same notion that applied to the environmental analysis holds true for this assessment: an internal diagnosis does not involve an exhaustive, detailed list of all possibilities and limitations embedded in the organization. Rather, it intends to reveal the strengths and weaknesses that will influence the organization’s operations. As a result, it is crucial to explore: ● The organization’s distinctive competencies – that is, what the organization can do particularly well in pursuit of its mission; ● Its available resources (human, financial and material resources);
Identifying strategic priorities
The iterative and circular nature of strategic planning processes – highlighted earlier in this section – becomes more evident than ever at this time, when a large share of the information collected in former stages is incorporated into the discussion once again. At this point, however, it takes the shape of strategic priorities – that is to say, core issues or challenges facing the organization both in global and specific terms (users, funding policies, etc.). By definition, strategic priorities hinge on conflicts that hinder the relationship of the organization with its environment and its inner dynamics. The planning team, therefore, should be able to pinpoint them, taking into account their origin and foreseeable outcomes, to organize them later, depending on the kind of intervention they call for. Some strategic priorities may demand immediate action, while others may turn out to be less urgent. Phase Three: How do we get there?
The third phase in the process – How do we get there? – describes the results of a strategic planning process – specifically, the significance of strategy formulation and strategic plan elaboration. Strategy formulation
Once strategic priorities have been established, the planning team should focus on designing a roadmap that will enable the organization to conquer its future challenges. To map out this path, it is necessary, first, to translate strategic priorities into measurable goals, and, second, to outline major action guidelines. The planning team is presented with a large range of options and possibilities that will have to be assessed in light not only of the organization’s ultimate goals and available resources and skills, but also its underlying mission and values. Strategic plan elaboration
As shown by the experience of many organizations that are committed to strategic planning, it is crucial to document the outcomes of this reflective and creative effort in a final report, known as Strategic Plan. For small organizations, this document zeroes in on their mission and core action guidelines on both overall and specific levels. As organizations grow larger and more complex, their Strategic Plans
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include a detailed description of the whole strategic planning process as well as several dedicated chapters:
● Contributing to build teams that feature responsible and accountable members.
● An introduction, featuring a statement of purpose; ● A mission statement and an analysis of demands; ● An environmental analysis, with conclusions depicted in terms of threats and opportunities; ● An internal diagnosis, with findings pointing to the organization’s strengths and weaknesses; ● Strategic priorities; ● An overall course of action, with strategies broken down for each area or department, services and/or products, and functions; ● The organization’s vision for the future; ● Financial and human resources budgets (for both staff and volunteers); ● Specific action plans: execution, follow-up and contingency plans for each area or department in the organization.
However, these are all potential benefits: strategic planning may provide these benefits to organizations, but there are no guarantees. As it turns out, it all comes down to people – not procedures or techniques – because, as Brysson (1995) points out, ‘‘The process will only work if there is a sufficient number of planners and decision-makers who actively support it and are able to adapt it to their specific situation, with common sense and sensitivity.’’
Difficulties and Advantages of Strategic Planning for Nonprofits
Nonetheless, strategic planning is not the answer to all problems and dilemmas faced by organizations. Neither should it be viewed as a miracle potion or a substitute for leadership. Indeed, it may even be safe to argue that strategic planning is not always advisable. This is a complex process that requires a significant investment of both time and resources – neither readily available at all times. Sometimes, organizations face very urgent challenges that demand their undivided attention and efforts, or they do not have the key individuals required to lead and manage a process of this magnitude, or, vice versa, they rely on their charismatic leaders’ intuition and vision rather than on formal planning processes (Espy, 1986; Allison & Kaye, 2005). As any other iterative organizational learning process, strategic planning entails a great challenge and poses some difficulties that should never be viewed as insurmountable. While it certainly involves a significant investment of time and resources, a strategic planning process enables organizations to embark on a path of continued learning. Some key benefits to be afforded to organizations that commit to a strategic planning philosophy include: ● Paving the way for organizations to embrace strategic thinking and actions; ● Helping organizations to confront change processes and to overcome traumatic experiences; ● Improving decision-making – especially in phases that involve option analysis and priority setting – and communicating decisions across the organization;
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Future Directions Strategic planning literature is constantly growing, and some books have been very successful indeed (Brysson, 1988; Allison & Kaye, 2005). The term strategic management has become more popular than strategic planning (Johnson & Scholes, 2001), emphasizing the notion that strategies should be continuously revised and fine-tuned. More recently, Moore (2000) has stressed the idea of the ‘‘strategic triangle,’’ indicating that nonprofits require a value proposition that relies on organizations with organizational capability and legitimacy in their setting. A recent study conducted by SEKN (2006) and based on a sample of 20 Ibero-American nonprofits has revealed several findings that may be useful for future strategic management developments: ● Social organizations should safeguard their strategic focus, preventing their financial needs from guiding their actions. ● Strategic management efforts should engage beneficiaries. ● Strategic management may contribute to building sustainable competitive advantages. ● Strategic management may help social organizations to concentrate their efforts. ● The social organizations with greater impact are those that feature a long-term focus.
Cross-References
▶ Mission ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Social Change Organizations ▶ Social Enterprise Knowledge Network ▶ Strategic Philanthropy
References/Further Readings Allison, M., & Kaye, J. (2005). Strategic planning for nonprofit organizations. 2nd ed. New Jersey: Wiley. Ansoff, H. I. (1965). Corporate strategy. New York: McGraw-Hill.
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Bryson, J. (1988). Strategic planning for public and nonprofit organizations: A guide to strengthening and sustaining organizational achievement. Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Chandler, A. D. (1962). Strategy and structure. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Espy, S. (1986). Handbook of strategic planning for nonprofit organizations. New York: Praeger Publishers. Johnson, G., & Scholes, K. (1996). Direccio´n estrate´gica. Madrid: Prentice Hall. Mintzberg, H. (1994). The rise and fall of strategic planning. New York: Free Press. Mintzberg, H., Ahlstrand, B., & Lampel, J. (1998). Strategy safari: A guided tour through the wilds of strategic management. New York: Free Press. Moore, M. (2000). Managing for value: Organizational strategy in forprofit, nonprofit, and governmental organizations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(1), 183–204. Nutt, P. C. (1984). A strategic planning network for nonprofit organizations. Strategic Management Journal, 5, 57–75. Quinn, J. B. (1980). Strategies for change. Homewood, IL: Irwin. SEKN. (2006). Effective management of social enterprises. Boston: The David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies, Harvard University. Stone, M., & Crittenden, W. (1994). A guide to strategic management literature on nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 4(2), 193–213.
Subsidiarity HOLGER BACKHAUS-MAUL Martin-Luther-Universitaet Halle-Wittenberg, Halle (Saale), Germany
Introduction Subsidiarity is more an idea and a principle than a concept. It is focusing on the political question how to organize a society ‘‘bottom up’’ in a meaningful and effective way. The idea of subsidiarity has a rich and long tradition, going back at least to debates in the Catholic Church during the nineteenth century. The meaning of subsidiarity is that citizens and their associations should take first responsibility – if they are able to – for neighborhoods, communities, and society. Only if they are not able to do so, the state and its organizations should take over. Actually when the wall between East and West was torn down, subsidiarity became one of the prominent metaphors to describe a positive view of society – beside pure capitalism and failed communism – with a strong position of citizens and civil society.
Definition Subsidiarity is the idea, of how to organize and distribute rights and responsibilities on the different levels of society, while the state has to guarantee the best framework for a developing civil society. The idea of subsidiarity is grounded in the belief that a social problem should be solved on the lowest but most effective level possible in society. In a normative perspective, for example, the local level has priority before the regional, the federal and the central level of society. The idea of subsidiarity pointed to the specific resources and abilities of citizens, private households, families, associations, and nonprofit organizations in societies and their specific needs of support by the state. In this sense the idea of subsidiarity has a traditional understanding of society as a hierarchical institution, and not as a differentiated, complex, and polyarchical one.
Historical Background The idea of subsidiarity dated back to the Catholic Church and its religious movement in the nineteenth century (Nell-Breuning, 1984; Sachße, 1995, 1994). At that time the Catholic movement initiated in Germany on the local level numerous philanthropic associations and a nationwide political party. This social and political development included a process of decentralization inside the Catholic Church. This all together meant a transformation of the Catholic Church into a powerful political player in the German Kaiserreich. This was also the beginning of the separation of church and state and the cultural conflict between state and the Catholic Church in Germany. During this period the idea of subsidiarity was created to describe the goals and the shifts in the relationship between society and the Catholic Church on one side and the state on the other side. The Encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891) defined the different roles of the Catholic Church and the state in society, but it took 40 years until the Encyclical Quadragesimo anno (1931) presented subsidiarity as the key word. Subsidiarity gives citizens, private households, families, associations, and nonprofit organizations – including the Catholic Church and their charities – a prior position in society. The state is just ‘‘framing’’ their activities and is not in the center of society anymore. At the end of the nineteenth century subsidiarity was the idea to empower the Catholic movement in Germany. After World War I and during the Republic of Weimar (1919–1933) the idea of subsidiarity turned into a political and powerful strategy. At that time the Catholic Church and the state were separated, but the welfare state accepted
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the idea of subsidiarity as a legal rule to organize society. That means that the welfare state has to guarantee social rights and has to pay for public goods, but the Catholic and the Protestant Church and their welfare organizations like Caritas and Diakonie are given priority in public social service delivery. In the Republic of Weimar the idea of subsidiarity to empower people turned into a principle of priority-setting for nonprofit organizations, mainly the Catholic and the Protestant Church and their charity organizations. During the dictatorship of the Nazi Regime in Germany (1933–1945) any kind of civil society, including the idea of subsidiarity, was forbidden, controlled, or at least under pressure by the regime. The idea of subsidiarity survived the horrible Nazi Regime and was reestablished by the Catholic Church and the party of the Christian Democrats in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Under the political regime in Eastern Germany (GDR) civil society activities were repressed and they existed only in niches like the Protestant Church and maybe the private sphere (Pollack, 1993). In West Germany (FRG) the idea of subsidiarity continued in the tradition of the Republic of Weimer as a political priority for nonprofit organization as a deliverer of public social services. But there was still a strong and vibrant conflict between Social Democrats, which demanded public social services delivered by the (local) state, and Christian Democrats, who argued that Churches and their charities should be the main deliverers of public social services. In 1961/1962 the German Supreme Court (‘‘Bundesverfassungsgericht’’) decided that the (local) state and nonprofit organizations should work together as ‘‘partners’’ by producing public social services (Bundesverfassungsgericht, 1962). But if nonprofit organizations are willing and able to produce social services they should be preferred by the government. This kind of preference for nonprofit organizations as producers of public social service was formulated at different times and in different ways in the legal system. But in general in this perspective subsidiarity means a division of labor between (local) state and nonprofit organizations:
(‘‘Bundessozialhilfegesetz’’) and the law for children (‘‘Kinder- und Jugendhilfegesetz’’) until the German unification in 1990 (Backhaus-Maul & Olk, 1995; Mu¨nder & Kreft, 1990). Beside this well established rule of subsidiarity the original idea of subsidiarity was still vital, but now without religious ties. As a result of the so called student movement in the late 1960 subsidiarity was seen as an idea to empower people. The so called self-help initiatives and new social movements created the word ‘‘new subsidiarity’’ (Boll & Olk, 1987) as a clear difference to the established arrangements between state and nonprofit organizations (‘‘corporatism’’). New subsidiarity means to empower people to be ‘‘experts’’ in their own activities and interests. From a political and social perspective new subsidiarity creates society in a bottom up perspective and stimulates less formalized ways of organizing like self-help groups, neighborhood initiatives and social movements. At the end of 1980 different ideas, debates, and strategies of subsidiarity existed in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG): (1) the incorporation of nonprofit organizations in the welfare regime and (2) the self empowerment of citizens. But in general, the idea of subsidiarity lost influence and its specific meaning in the process of German unification and globalization. The main reason for this ‘‘negative’’ trend is the lack of influence of the Catholic Church in East Germany and in the global society. At the end of 1990 the ‘‘catholic meaning’’ of subsidiarity in Germany is nearly gone. But subsidiarity is still in use as a social-technical term to describe the distribution of rights and responsibilities between groups of citizens, nonprofit organizations and the state on the local, federal, and European level. With the rich tradition of subsidiarity in mind but without using the word anymore, the German debate is focusing on (1) regulations by contracts between nonprofit organizations and the state on one side (Backhaus-Maul & Olk, 1995; Merchel, 2003) and (2) civil society and the empowerment of citizens on the other side (EnqueteKommission, 2003):
● The state has to guarantee the legal rights of citizens and is responsible for financing their legal demands. ● A pluralistic variety of nonprofit organizations is producing public social services and is incorporated in the official process of policy making.
1. The meaning of regulation by contract is that welfare states and nonprofit organizations are bargaining about prices, amount, and quality of public social services delivered by nonprofit organizations and guaranteed and financed by the state. From a legal perspective the state is still responsible and has the power to decide, but nonprofit organizations are developing with their resources and expertise a strong bargaining position (Backhaus-Maul & Groß, 2008).
This kind of ‘‘partnership’’ between state and privileged nonprofit organizations was codified in main parts of the German Social Law, especially in the welfare law
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2. The German society sees itself as a successful economy and a strong state but also newly as a civil society. The old and the new social movements are changing the idea of the German society and state since the eighteenth century. In a traditional German perspective citizens are serving the state and not the other way around. The vision to empower people or citizens instead of establishing a powerful state was in the Federal Republic of German not accepted until the late 1960s. And under the GDR-Regime the repression of citizens was a political goal (Meuschel, 1991). It is not surprising that the debate about civil society (Bu¨rgergesellschaft) is still not in the center of political debates in Germany but it is receiving more and more attention in the public German debate since unification (Dettling, 1995; Evers & Olk, 1996; Nolte, 2006).
Key Issues The Catholic idea of subsidiarity turned into a formal rule how to organize and distribute rights and responsibilities between citizens, nonprofit organizations and the state. The key issues of subsidiarity are: (1) Can nonprofit organizations be autonomous when they are incorporated into welfare politics and (2) is there a chance to empower citizens to establish a civil society. In a state-oriented society like Germany it will take time to establish a civil society, but the German unification and globalization are pushing the German society in this direction.
International Perspective The word subsidiarity is not very popular in a global society; but the idea of subsidiarity without the traditional religious background is giving priority to civil societies, nonprofit organizations and citizens and is nowadays a common perspective in the leading western countries. In this sense the idea of subsidiarity was a guideline for Eastern European countries after the wall was torn down and it is still a political metaphor for the integration and autonomy of nations, societies, and regions in the European Union (Ettwig, 1999). The idea of subsidiarity pointed – beside states and economies – to the enormous social capital, political, human, and economic resources and abilities of civil societies (Bellah, 1985; Skocpol & Fiorina, 1999; Walzer, 1993; Wuthnow, 1991).
Future Directions The dominant position of the welfare state in Europe is eroding. In the perspective of welfare pluralism the social productivity of the civil society as a third sector – beside state and market economy – is getting more and more attention (Anheier & Seibel, 1990; Zimmer & Priller,
2004). As a third sector of social welfare the civil society is surrounded by state and market economy. The idea of subsidiarity is too simple to explain and to organize a complex, multilevel, and multistakeholder society. But subsidiarity is still a meaningful and simple metaphor to distribute rights and responsibilities between citizens and organizations, civil society and state or the nonprofit-world and the market economy in a simple hierarchical way. But the global and dynamic change of societies makes clear that we are talking about new roles and functions of citizens, organizations, and sectors in societies. A simple traditional idea like subsidiarity is indeed too simple to describe future trends in complex societies.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition ▶ Civil Society and the European Union ▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century ▶ Contracts and Contract Regimes ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Seibel, W. (Eds.) (1990). The third sector: Comparative studies of nonprofit organizations. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Backhaus-Maul, H., & Groß, T. (2008). Treuhandvertra¨ge in der Freien Wohlfahrtspflege des Landes Berlin. Berlin: Parita¨tischer Wohlfahrtsverband. Backhaus-Maul, H., & Olk, T. (1995). Von Subsidiarita¨t zu ‘‘outcontracting.’’ In W. Streeck (Ed.), Staat und Verba¨nde (pp. 100–135). Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Bellah, R. et al. (1985). Habits of the heart. Individualism and commitment in American life. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press. Boll, F., & Olk, T. (Eds.) (1987). Selbsthilfe und Wohlfahrtsverba¨nde. Freiburg: Lambertus. Bundesverfassungsgericht. (1962). BVerfGE, 22, 180. Dettling, W. (1995). Politik und Lebenswelt. Vom Wohlfahrtsstaat zur Wohlfahrtsgesellschaft. Gu¨tersloh: Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung. Enquete-Kommission ‘‘Zukunft des Bu¨rgerschaftlichen Engagements’’ des Deutschen Bundestages (Eds.) (2003). Bu¨rgerschaftliches Engagement: Auf dem Weg in eine zukunftstra¨chtige Bu¨rgergesellschaft. Bericht/Opladen: Leske und Budrich. Ettwig, S. (1999). Subsidiarita¨t und Demokratisierung der Europa¨ischen Union. Frankfurt: Deutscher Verein fu¨r o¨ffentliche und private Fu¨rsorge. Evers, A., & Olk, T. (Eds.) (1996). Wohlfahrtspluralismus. Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag. Honneth, A. (Ed.) (1993). Kommunitarismus. Eine Debatte u¨ber die moralischen Grundlagen moderner Gesellschaften. Frankfurt: Campus.
Surdna Foundation Merchel, J. (2003). Tra¨gerstrukturen in der Sozialen Arbeit. Mu¨nchen: Juventa. Meuschel, S. (1991). Legitimation und Parteiherrschaft in der DDR. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Mu¨nder, J., & Kreft, J. (Eds.) (1990). Subsidiarita¨t heute. Mu¨nster: Votum. Nell-Breuning, O. v. (1984). Subsidiarita¨t und Solidarita¨t. In Deutscher Caritasverband (Ed.), Der Sozialstaat in der Krise (pp. 88–95). Freiburg: Lambertus. Nolte, P. (2006). Riskante Moderne. Die Deutschen und der neue Kapitalismus. Mu¨nchen: Beck. Pollack, D. (1993). Religion und gesellschaftlicher Wandel. Zur Rolle der evangelischen Kirche im Prozess des gesellschaftlichen Umbruchs in der DDR. In H. Joas & M. Kohli (Eds.), Der Zusammenbruch der DDR. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Pope Leo XIII (1891). Encyclical Rerum Novarum, from http://www. vatican.va/holy_father/leo_xiii/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_ 15051891_rerum-novarum_en.html Pope Pius XI (1931). Encyclical Quadragesimo anno, from http://www. vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_ 19310515_quadragesimo-anno_en.html Sachße, C. (1994). Subsidiarita¨t: Zur Karriere eines sozialpolitischen Ordnungsbegriffs. Zeitschrift fu¨r Sozialreform, 40(11), 717–738. Sachße, C. (1995). Verein, Verband und Wohlfahrtsstaat: Entstehung und Entwicklung der dualen Wohlfahrtspflege (pp. 123–149). Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Skocpol, T., & Fiorina, M. P. (1999). Civic engagement in American democracy. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institute. Walzer, M. (1993). Die kommunistische Kritik am Liberalismus. In A. Honneth (Ed.), Kommunitarismus. Eine Debatte u¨ber die moralischen Grundlagen moderner Gesellschaften (pp. 157–180). Frankfurt: Campus. Wuthnow, R. (1991). Acts of compassion. Caring for others and helping ourselves. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Zimmer, A., & Priller, E. (2004). Gemeinnu¨tzige Organisationen im gesellschaftlichen Wandel. Ergebnisse der Dritte-Sektor-Forschung. Wiesbaden: Verlag fu¨r Sozialwissenschaften.
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Brief History The Surdna Foundation was established in 1917 by John Emory Andrus (1841–1934) to pursue a range of philanthropic purposes. His primary operating business, the Arlington Chemical Company, manufactured typical medicines of the late 1800s and distributed them worldwide. His holdings included several buildings and land in Minneapolis, Minnesota, large timber tracts in California, mineralrich acres in New Mexico as well as significant land holdings in Florida, New Jersey and Alaska. At the time one of the wealthiest men in America, Andrus’ wealth was estimated at between $100 million and $800 million in the late 1920s. Known for his modest lifestyle, Andrus discouraged publicity and recognition for his charitable work, and he named the foundation Surdna, which was the reversed spelling of his last name.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area The Surdna Foundation makes grants in the areas of the environment, community revitalization, effective citizenry, the arts, and the nonprofit sector.
Activities The Surdna Foundation is a leading funder of organizations working in the areas of environment and land use, biodiversity, and energy, community revitalization, effective citizenry, organizational capacity building and the arts. The Foundation pursues this work through grantmaking, convening and facilitating, educational and training activities, and building regional and collaborative approaches.
Structure and Governance
Surdna Foundation ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization 330 Madison Avenue, 30th Floor New York, NY 10017 USA www.surdna.org
Introduction The Surdna Foundation, founded in 1917 and based in New York City, is a family foundation with $859 million assets under management. The foundation focuses on environment, community revitalization, effective citizenry, arts, and organizational capacity building grants.
Family involvement and stewardship of Surdna has been guided by Mr. Andrus’ values: thrift, practicality, modesty, loyalty, excellence, and an appreciation for direct service to those in need. In 1989, the third and fourth generations of the Andrus family that served on the Surdna board established programs in Environment and Community Revitalization. Also, family members were involved in making the decision to expand the foundation staff and broaden the Foundation’s effectiveness. In 1994, programs in Effective Citizenry and the Arts were added, and three years later, the Nonprofit Sector Support Program to address various issues affecting civil society.
Funding The founder created with foundation in 1917 and later willed it 45% of his personal assets. At the end of fiscal
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year 2008, the foundation managed total assets of $915,730,690, and its total giving amounted to $38,509,138.
Accomplishments While Surdna’s programmatic work in the Environment and the Arts is notable, the foundation’s accomplishments in civic engagement are also quite remarkable. In the United States, the foundation has supported local land trusts that arrange for conservation easements, or the outright acquisition of property, for the public good. There are now more than 1,500 of them. The total acreage conserved by land trusts has more than doubled in the last 5 years to 9.4 million acres (in 2003), about double the size of New Jersey. In 1992, Surdna created a 7-year-long, comprehensive community revitalization program that was run by five community development corporations (CDCs) and covered a large section of the South Bronx in New York state. Surdna collaborated with 21 funders, banks, and the city government to provide more than $12 million and assisted the CDCs in raising about $44 million more. Numerous health, employment, and economic development programs were set up, and this collaborative model has spread to other cities like Chicago and Kansas City. Other notable impact that the foundation has demonstrated include its $2,450,000 grant to Indiana University made in 2008 to establish the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP). This projected included an annual online survey, data management, and analysis system to document the impact of arts-school education. In addition, Surdna made a $1,000,000 grant in 2008 to the Greater New Orleans Foundation to operate a $25 million fund for affordable housing and community revitalization activities in New Orleans in partnership with a group of local and national foundations.
Cross-References
▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Social Capital in the United States ▶ Community Development Organizations ▶ Foundations, Family ▶ Partnerships
References/Further Readings Ellsworth, F., & Lumarda, J. (Eds.) (2003). From grantmaker to leader: Emerging strategies for 21st century foundations. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Hogberg, D. (Sept. 2007) The Surdna Foundation and the rejection of a donor’s intent. Foundation Watch, 1–5
Morrill, G. (1971). The multimillionaire straphanger: The life of John Emory Andrus. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Skloot, E. Philanthropy’s role in building an effective citizenry, from http://www.surdna.org/usr_doc/PACE_-_Civic_Engagement.pdf; 1/12/2009
Sustainability RICHARD HOLLOWAY Aga Khan Foundation, Geneva, Switzerland
Introduction A civil society organization (henceforward CSO) is formed when a group of people decide that they would like to associate around something which they care about. In some cases their decision is made for them as, for instance, the members of an age group in many African countries, or a person being born a Jew or a Muslim, but in many cases, probably most, a CSO is formed from people who voluntarily decide to associate together for some purpose which is important to all of them. In the jargon, this is their ‘‘Mission’’: it may be to listen to music, it may be to play football, it may be to join a cooperative, it may be to support a charity, it may be to lobby for changes in the law. The CSO which they have joined or which they are supporting has a mission which is not likely to be achieved quickly, and therefore the CSO which has this mission needs to be sustained. Sustainability of CSOs is the subject of this entry.
Definition A CSO’s sustainability may be defined as a feature of its public support (lots of people believe in it and want it to continue), of its resources (enough people are prepared to put time, energy, cash, or kind into supporting it), of its governance (someone takes responsibility for making sure of its continued legal existence), of its management (someone makes sure that it is doing what it wants to do effectively) or of its impact (someone makes sure that it is getting the results that were originally expected). This entry deals with sustainability from the perspective of resources, which frequently, but not exclusively, means financial resources. Some important, particularly faith- or tradition-based, CSOs, can exist and be sustained
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on donations of time and energy, but nearly all the other aspects of sustainability (governance, management, impact) will require financial resources.
Historical Background If a definition of CSOs that includes traditional and religious organizations is accepted, then sustainability historically has been a function of membership, of the payment of dues, and, as such organizations became more formalized, of the collection of money and its investment in land, property, buildings, and business. The formal foundations went that route, and were able, once an endowment had been successfully created, to forget the need to persuade people to fund the organization – and simply to manage their investments. Most CSOs, however, have always needed to persuade sympathetic people to fund their work, and this has involved fund-raising from both rich and poor, depending on the cause being promoted. In some cases CSOs were able to seek subventions from their own governments, or to build their own businesses. From the 1950s onwards, however, a new set of players came into existence: these were the aid organizations – either bilateral, multilateral, or international NGOs. As such organizations evolved, however, they moved from supporting the work of CSOs per se, to contracting CSOs to implement work on behalf of the aid organization. Experience has taught that such assistance definitely did not build sustainability: at best it created the conditions for serial dependency on a succession of aid organizations.
Key Issues Because CSOs are so amazingly diverse, ranging from a Kenyan chama (or womens’ savings and credit club), through an Ethiopian eder (or burial society) on the one extreme to the Ford Foundation or the Gates Foundation on the other, what they require to sustain themselves is also amazingly diverse. There are, however, some common characteristics: ● The first requirement is good activities – by which is meant that the activities of the CSO are rated highly by the members and supporters. If it does not do anything that gets its stakeholders’ approval, it will not be sustained. If it does, however, and if its members and stakeholders are enthused by its work and the results it engenders, there is no reason why it should not continue, evolving as it does. ● The second requirement is good management – by which is meant that the activities are carried out to the satisfaction of the members and supporters.
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If the CSO is a mess, it is unlikely that anyone will care to sustain it. If it is well managed, it will attract supporters. ● The third requirement is a commitment to sustainability. If the members and supporters do not care whether the CSO continues or not, it is unlikely to continue. If people feel, however, that the ‘‘mission’’ continues to be of importance, they will want to make sure that it does not die, but continues to do the valuable work that was the preoccupation of the founders. ● The fourth requirement is the financial resources to support the good programs, the good management and the sustainability mentioned above. While there are CSOs than can be sustained simply by time and energy of members and supporters, the majority needs finances – which can come from a very wide spectrum of sources, dealt with later in this paper. ● The fifth and last requirement is local support. This includes a supportive political, legal, and fiscal environment in which CSOs can flourish, a good reputation built up on the creditability that they have acquired from their good programs, a wide range of supporters, and specifically well placed champions who can defend them when they are under attack. However good the cause, however important the mission, a CSO can be brought down for lack of local support. Sociologists and academics will argue about the scope of CSOs – debating whether the classification should include associations of people who come together for a publicly harmful, though privately compelling purpose (like religious or political extremists), or whether the classification should be reserved for those acting for mutual or public benefit. Unless a CSO breaks the law and is proscribed (as has happened with extremist Islamic organizations in many countries, and as happens regularly with autocratic regimes like Zimbabwe or Burma) – its sustainability will be based on the enthusiasm and commitment of its members and supporters. Its sustainability will not depend on whether it fits any particular philosophy, morality, or ethic. There are many causes (and CSOs to support them) on which moral opinion is divided – like birth control or abortions, sex education or gun control. Both sides can well sustain CSOs sympathetic to their point of view.
International Perspectives It cannot be denied that financial resources are a very important feature of sustainability for a CSO, but all of the other features that do not involve finance should not be forgotten. In the case of membership organizations, there
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are huge numbers of CSOs that depend on time, energy, and sometimes small donations from their members and which are likely to be sustainable so long as members continue to need and enjoy their services. This includes the vast number of recreational associations, an equally vast number of faith based associations, and substantial numbers of CSOs based on a common culture or cultural tradition. Someone who joins a football club to play (or to cheer), a choir to sing, a religious group to pray, or a tribal group to dance are acting out their interests and their passions in a way that is satisfying to them, and which is likely to continue, with them or without them, so long as it responds to the interests of people like them and their communities. Even when the interest is altruistic rather than personal – witness the large number of home based care associations for those with HIV/AIDS in Africa, or those who manage playgrounds for children in Europe, finance is not necessarily something fundamental to vibrant and satisfying CSOs.
Sustainability. Fig. 1 From Striking a Balance by Alan Fowler.
Many CSOs, however, do depend on money, and the variety of ways that they can acquire it is a fascinating field of interest. The Fig. 1 from Alan Fowler’ book, ‘‘Striking a Balance’’ illustrates the range of different revenue sources that financial sustainability can be attempted. Financial sustainability for a CSO can come through income from The Gift Economy, from the Market, from Governments in different permutations depending on whether your CSO is from the North and West or South and East, and from Northern NGOs if your CSO is from the South. A CSO intent on financial sustainability is advised to look at the range of possible financial sources and consider them in the light of the nature of its organization, and the kind of people or organizations that are likely to be attracted to it. The range of components in Alan Fowler’s diagram which follows are very instructive: Sustainability is unlikely to come from only one source. There is much merit in the argument that a CSO seeking financial sustainability should seek support from
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many different sources, each one of which may be important to it at different times. A large grant from a foreign donor may deliver substantial funds, but the organization will not prosper if it is seen as the pawn of a foreign power. Local public support, business support, and government support are all likely to be part of a sustainability strategy for the CSO, and may support the CSO at different times, hopefully balancing its different needs. A CSO is vulnerable if it relies on only one source of funds, particularly when it cannot control the decisions that are made about where and to whom those funds are given. Look, however, at the options. The Gift Economy
This is probably the oldest way in which CSOs have become sustainable – from asking the public to make a gift to support the work of the CSO. So long as the topic is attractive, the management is good, the law is supportive, and, importantly, so long as the CSO knows how to ask persuasively, and can balance income against expenditure, this is an important source of sustainability. CSOs have, unsurprisingly, found a variety of ways to persuade people to make a gift to their organization, not all of which require an identification with the CSO’s mission. There are all sorts of fund-raising devices which combine having a good time with raising money for a good cause. There is also institutionalized giving through different faiths – the most famous perhaps being zakat, one of the five pillars of Islam which requires all Muslims to give a proportion of their income to charity. A specific kind of personal giving is the professional philanthropist or philanthropic foundation. Businesses or personal fortunes which have been invested to create sustainable income for themselves so that such money can be given away, can also be a source of income for CSOs.
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is true, but usually success comes from a business which involves the ownership of assets like land or buildings which can be rented out without the need for complicated business acumen. Most CSOs have a social mission, not a profit making one, and few CSOs have been successful at trying to achieve the two sets of objectives simultaneously. There is also the danger than the desire to make money, ostensibly to support the social mission of the organization, can, over time, become the dominant aspect of the CSO. The one exception is that particular aspect of the market which consists in managing the interest from invested money – particularly through an endowment. Many successful large foundations and CSOs have obtained financial sustainability through investing substantial assets in money markets and living from the income. It should be noted, however, that this is not a panacea – money management requires expensive human resources, and the return on investments is not always positive. Another way for CSOs to seek financial sustainability is through attracting support from the business sector – usually by persuading a business that linking their name to that of the CSO is likely to be profitable for it. It may also be that the business is simply philanthropic without a concomitant desire for increased income. Tax-Based Income from the Government
Although CSOs by definition are nongovernment organizations, a very possible way for them to carry out their work can come from income that they may attract from their government. This can either be grants from governments which respect and applaud the work that a CSO is doing, or, more frequently, contracts which a government enters into with a CSO for the CSO to carry out work that the government would like to be implemented. Some times a government allows a CSO to have a source of income from licenses or a levy which it agrees to ‘‘donate’’ to a CSO.
The Market
This is perhaps the newest way that CSOs have for chasing sustainability – either raising money themselves through a variety of different kinds of businesses or fund-raising from the business world. In the North and West, many CSOs have found a third kind of sustainable income from a hybrid between the Gift Economy and the Market – asking people to donate goods free which are then sold to other people as a source of revenue for the organization. Some CSOs are attracted by the idea that they can run a commercial business as a way of attaining financial sustainability. They consider that a wholly owned and profitable business will meet their needs. In theory this
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This, together with direct aid from northern CSOs or from bilateral and multilateral aid organizations, has become a very common source of funds for CSOs in the South and East, and dates from the huge growth in foreign aid in the 1960s. Many CSOs have sustained themselves from foreign donor assistance, but there are problems associated with this way of operating. Firstly, nearly all foreign aid to CSOs comes in the form of ‘‘projects,’’ which means the attainment of very specific objectives in a period of time set according to administrative
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convenience, with a fixed budget. Real life, and the life of organizations, does not fit easily into a project, and yet few foreign aid organizations admit of any other way of working. The result of this is that CSOs operate in a boom and bust mentality, looking for project finance, serially, in order to find a way to sustain the CSO.
Future Directions A significant problem for CSOs which depend on foreign assistance is that those who provide it decide themselves on their priorities, and these may change by country, by sector or by theme, whether this fits the local CSOs sustainable needs or not. There are great dangers in serial dependence on foreign donor funding: clever juggling can sustain the CSO from this source, and there are many examples where this has been achieved, but equally there are many instances where the CSO becomes a contractor for whatever the donor wants to be funded, forgetting its original mission, in the desire for the organization to be sustained. Sadly many CSOs which have become dependent on foreign assistance are caught in this trap. There is one kind of CSO for which sustainability is not such an important issue. This is the CSO with a limited objective, often operating through a campaign. If the CSO achieves its objective, such as stopping the cutting down of a national forest, or the passing of a particular bill, it can go out of business, and does not need to seek ways of sustaining itself. An example of this was the campaign to end Third World Debt connected to the Jubilee of 2000. It was connected to the millennium, and stopped once the millennium was reached. In many cases, however, the spirit engendered by such a campaign seeks other causes or issues, and then evolves into an organization that, in turn, needs to be sustained. There is considerable room, however, for CSOs, particularly in the field of development, to become more sustainable through mobilizing local resources. It is only since the 1950s that the option of foreign funding became a possibility: greater reliance on local fundraising – from the public, the government, and the business sector, and greater use of self-financing through entrepreneurial enterprises, all have the potential to allow CSOs to persuade others of their good work, and thus receive from them the resources to enable them to be sustainable.
Cross-References
▶ Aga Khan Foundation ▶ Altruism ▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Charity and Religion
▶ Charity, History of ▶ Civil Society–Business Relations ▶ Civil Society and Cultural Organizations ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Ford Foundation ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Fundraising ▶ Gates, William ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Jubilee 2000 ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Mission ▶ Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations ▶ Savings & Loan Associations ▶ Self-help Groups ▶ Sustainability ▶ Venture Philanthropy ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Bennet, J., & Gibbs, S. (1997). NGOs funding strategies. Oxford: INTRAC. Campbell, P., & Vincent, F. (1989). Towards greater financial autonomy – a guide for voluntary organizations and community groups. Geneva: IRED. Fowler, A. (1997). Striking a balance – Enhancing the effectiveness of Non-Governmental Organisations in a guide to International Development. London: Earthscan. Fowler, A. (2000). The virtuous circle – a guide to sustainability for NGOs in international development. London: Earthscan. Fox, L. M., & Schearer, S. B. (Eds.) (1997). Sustaining civil society – strategies for resource mobilisation. Washington, DC: CIVICUS. Holloway, R. (1997). The unit of development is the organisation, not the project. Washington, DC: John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Holloway, R. (1999). Towards financial self-reliance. London: Earthscan. (Also the Training Version of the book freely downloadable from www.akdn.org/civilsociety) Ledvinova, J. (1997). Money, money everywhere. Baltimore: John Hopkins University. Manuel de Recherche de Financement et de Gestion Financie`re des ONG et organisations de Developpement du Sud: Fernand Vincent. (2003). Geneva: ITRED. Norton, M. (1996). The world wide fundraisers handbook – a guide for southern NGOs and voluntary organisations. London: Directory of Social Change in collaboration with the International Fund-Raising Group. Ortiz, A. (2001). Core costs and NGO sustainaibility. Washington, DC: PACT. PROFIT. (1993). Endowments as a tool for financial sustainability – a manual for NGOs. Washington, DC. Quebral, M. (2002). The fund-raisers guide to fund-raising – seven success seeds for growing your nonprofit organization. Manila: Venture for Fundraising. Steckel, R. (2000). Filthy rich – how to turn your non-profit fantasies into cold hard cash. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press.
Swiss Foundations Steckel, R. (1999). Making money while making a difference – how to profit with a nonprofit partner. Homewood, IL: High Tide press. Steckel, R. (2004). Cold cash for warm hearts – 101 best social marketing initiatives. Homewood, IL: High tide press. Wilson-Grau, R. (1994). Alternative sources of income for Novib partners. NOVIB.
Swiss Foundations GEORG VON SCHNURBEIN
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foundations sector. It supported international comparative research projects and other surveys on foundations. Additionally, it started a book series called Foundations Governance with one volume each year on topics of foundation management and law. The major contribution of Swiss Foundations is the development and dissemination of the Swiss Foundation Code with recommendations and guidelines for good foundation governance. For its members, the association offers additional services for networking and knowledge exchange. Besides, it participates as lobbying organization in the political process.
Address of Organization Heinrichstrasse 267d 8005 Zurich Switzerland www.swissfoundations.ch
Introduction Swiss Foundations is the association of grant-making foundations in Switzerland. Its aims are to mobilize in favor of transparency, professionalism, and effective use of foundation means and to build up a national network.
Brief History Swiss Foundations was initiated by 11 major Swiss grantmaking foundations and founded in 2001. The main motive for its establishment was the common will to improve the image and the development possibilities of grant-making foundations in Switzerland.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas Swiss Foundations has both an institutional and an instrumental focus on the Swiss foundation sector. Institutionally, it serves as a platform to grant-making foundations in Switzerland through the promotion of the establishment of new grant-making foundations and the support for cooperation among foundations. From an instrumental perspective, the association aims to pass on know-how on the contemporary management of grantmaking foundations and to foster the liberal basic conditions in Switzerland.
Activities Although a young association, Swiss Foundations has had a distinctive influence on the development of the Swiss
Structure and Governance Swiss Foundations is an association under Swiss law. It is governed by a board which’s members are elected for 2 years. The operative responsibility has a CEO who leads the general secretariat. Funding Swiss Foundations’ work is financed through member contributions. Additionally to regular member fees some foundations give supplemental means for special projects. The annual expenditure reported for 2007 was CHF 320,000.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Swiss Foundations has given a voice to the Swiss foundation sector and has initiated a debate on contemporary foundation management, amongst others by launching one of the first Good Governance Code for grant-making foundations in Europe as well as by initiating Switzerland’s first Centre for Philanthropy Studies (CEPS) at the University of Basel. Swiss Foundations is founding member of The Donors and Foundations’ Networks in Europe (DAFNE).
Cross-References
▶ Codes of Ethics and Codes of Practice ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Philanthropy in Europe ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings Sprecher, Th., Egger, Ph., & Janssen, M. (2008). Swiss Foundations code 2009. Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn.
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T Tata Trusts FRANCISCO MARTI´NEZ
Address of Organization Bombay House 24, Homi Mody Street Mumbai 400 001 India www.dorabjitatatrust.org www.srtt.org
Introduction The Tata Trusts consist of several trusts which provide financial support for NGOs, institutions and individuals on a wide varieties of issues. With more than a century of continuous work and a strong commitment to social development, the Tata Trusts have come to stand out as a remarkably successful philanthropic initiative.
History In year 1868 Jamsetji Tata founded a trade company that would later become the Tata Group, the most important business group from India. Driven by a strong commitment to his nation, Jamsetji Tata pioneered several industries vital to the country’s development and initiated a long tradition of philanthropic trusts. He established in 1892 the JN Endowment, which helped Indian students continue their studies at higher education programs; since its foundation more than 3,500 scholars have been supported. After Jamsetji Tata’s death in 1904, his efforts toward national development were further continued by his two sons: Sir Dorab Tata and Sir Ratan Tata. The younger son Sir Ratan gave funding to several causes, most notably a grant to support Mahatma Gandhi and another for Gopal Krishna Gokhale; funding for the first archaeological excavation at Pataliputra; and a donation to found the Sir Ratan Tata Foundation in the London School of Economics for research into causes of destitution and poverty. In accordance with his will, after
his death in 1918, the Sir Ratan Tata Trust was founded. Sir Dorab followed the same path in 1932, bequeathing most of his personal wealth to the newly formed Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. Other smaller trusts with specific mandates were also registered and currently operate in alliance with the main trusts.
Mission According to the Trusts’ website, the financial support granted by the Tata Trusts is intended to promote in India ‘‘the advancement of Education, Learning and Industry in all its branches, including education in economy, sanitary sciences and art, or for the relief of human suffering or for other works of public utility.’’ This mission is then pursued through different programs, which constitute the focus areas of each trust.
Activities The Sir Ratan Tata Trust supports NGOs and institutions mainly in five areas: rural livelihoods; health; education; arts and culture; and civil society and governance. On the other side, the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust’s allocations focus mainly on management of natural resources, health, social development initiatives, education and livelihoods. Both trusts also provide allocations for individuals in the form of medical grants or education scholarships.
Structure and Funding The two main trusts have independent Boards of Trustees with around seven members each. In 2009, both of them were chaired by Mr. Ratan N. Tata, who is also chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group. The smaller allied Trusts are administered by the Sir Dorabji Tata Trust. Initially funded by the personal assets of the different members of the Tata family, the continuity of the Trusts has been secured by mean of share participation in the holding company. The trusts have come to control 65.8% of the shares of Tata Sons, creating a peculiar and successful arrangement of for-profit and not-for-profit interests that has been referred to by scholars as a new form of corporate citizenship.
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Gandhi, Mohandas ▶ Philanthropy in South Asia
References/Further Readings Sundar, P. (2000). Beyond business: From merchant charity to corporate citizenship. Indian business philanthropy through the ages. Mumbai, India: Tata-McGraw Hill.
Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the United States GERALD AUTEN, DAVID JOULFAIAN US Department of the Treasury, Washington, DC, USA
Introduction As in many other countries, charitable contributions are deductible in determining the tax liability of donors in the United States. More specifically, the US federal individual income, corporate income and estate tax laws allow such deductions and include a number of provisions that regulate the treatment gifts to charities. In addition, charitable organizations are generally exempt from taxation, including sales taxes, property taxes, and taxes on their net income. Tax deductions and similar tax relief for charitable contributions allow donors to reduce their taxable income (or assets) by the amount of the contribution, subject to certain limitations. The tax savings from these deductions benefit donors and reduce the effective price of donations below the price of other consumption, thereby increasing the incentive for giving.
Historical Background Individual Income Tax
A tax deduction for charitable contributions has been part of the US income tax code since 1917. Initially only high income individuals were subject to the income tax and the deduction was limited to 15% of income. The percentage limitation was increased several times and reached its current level of 50% in 1970. Contributions in excess of the percentage limitations may be carried forward for up to 5 years. Although the income tax was expanded to include most households during World War II, the introduction of the standard deduction in 1944 limited the charitable deduction to those households who itemized deductions (Aprill, 2001). Currently, slightly over one third of taxpayers itemize deductions, and well over 80% of these claim a charitable deduction. Historically, households who itemized deductions have contributed an average of about 2–3% of income. In recent years, about one fourth of charitable deductions were for donations of property. While most property donations of the top 1% of taxpayers are corporate stock (over 60%) and real estate (20%), over 60% of donations of middle-income households consist of clothing and household items (Ackerman & Auten, 2009). Corporate Income Tax
Corporations were not allowed a corporate income tax deduction until 1936, and even then, only to a more limited extent. Prior to 1981, the deduction was limited to 5% of net income. The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 (ERTA81) increased the limit to 10% of net income. Thus, under current law, charitable deductions of corporations are limited to 10% of taxable income computed before the charitable deduction, any net operating or capital gain loss carrybacks from future years to the current taxable year, and certain deductions (primarily the dividends received deduction). Contributions in excess of the limit can be carried forward for up to 5 years.
Definition
Estate Tax
Under US tax laws, contributions of cash and property to qualified charitable organizations are deductible. The recipient organizations must be operated for religious, charitable, scientific, literary, or educational purposes. Contributions to domestic government entities, organizations that prevent cruelty to children or animals, and several other types of socially beneficial organizations are also eligible for the deduction. Organizations must be operated in a nonprofit form and are subject to other restrictions.
Charitable contributions are also deductible in computing estate and gift taxes. The estate tax was enacted in 1916 and the charitable deduction was introduced by the 1918 Act. Over the years, the tax underwent numerous changes, especially in 1969, 1976, 1981, and 2001. The 1969 Tax Reform Act tightened the rules governing bequests to foundations, especially those engaged in dealings with the heirs. ERTA81 law phased in a reduction in the maximum rate from 70% to 55% (the final reduction to 50% was not implemented). Legislation enacted in 2001 would
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phase out the estate tax by 2010, but these provisions expire in 2011. As of 2009, the estate tax applies to taxable estates in excess of $3.5 million with a maximum tax rate of 45%. Since charitable deductions are also deductible under the income tax, however, the tax benefits are greater for lifetime contributions which benefit from the income tax deduction as well as avoiding any estate tax. Estate taxes in the United States have generally applied to 1% or 2% of decedents, so that the charitable deduction is relevant only for the wealthiest decedents. Charitable bequests made up about 10% of total wealth reported on estate tax returns filed in 2007.
Key Features of Current Law Under current law, individuals that itemize deductions may claim a deduction for contributions of cash or property made to qualified charities on their income tax return. Non-itemizers receive no tax benefit for their charitable contributions. Charitable deductions must be documented with the documentation requirements becoming more stringent as the value of the donation increases. For small donations of cash under $250 each, taxpayers must be able to document contributions with a bank statement, cancelled check, or a receipt from the charity showing the name of the charity and the date and amount of the contribution. For donations of $250 or more, taxpayers must have a receipt from the charitable organization (but need not attach it to the return). Donors of noncash gifts aggregating more than $500 must submit additional information on an additional form. A qualified appraisal is required for donations of property valued at $5,000 or more and must be submitted to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) if the deduction claimed exceeds $500,000. The rules regarding the allowable deduction for donations of property and the valuation of such property are complex. While donors are generally entitled to a deduction of the lesser of fair market value (FMV) and basis, there are a number of exceptions to this rule. First, a deduction of FMV is always permitted for donations of stock (including closely held stock) and real estate. In these cases, the appreciation escapes taxation. Second, a deduction of FMV is also permitted for noncash donations that will be used in a manner consistent with the exempt purpose of the charity. For example, a donor may deduct the FMV of a painting that is donated to a museum, but may only deduct basis if the same painting is donated to a charity auction raising money for a charitable purpose. Vehicles, intellectual property, and certain inventory property are subject to additional rules. Because
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of previous abuses in overstating the fair market values, deductions for donated vehicles are now limited to the proceeds from the charity’s resale of the auto in most cases and deductions for donated patents and certain other intellectual property are limited to declining percentages of income received by the charity. While donations of inventory property are generally limited to cost, certain business donors may be able to deduct as much as twice basis for donations to charities aiding the needy. Individual deductions for charitable contributions in a given year are limited as a percent of the taxpayer’s adjusted gross income (AGI). The total deduction for charitable contributions is limited to 50% of AGI. The deduction for contributions of appreciated property is limited to 30% of AGI, thereby limiting the value of the nontaxation of capital gains. Deductions of contributions to certain private foundations, where the donor may retain some control over the disbursement of the donated assets, are also limited to 30% of AGI. A 20% limit applies to deductions for donations of appreciated property to certain private foundations. Taxpayers who exceed these limits in a given year may carry forward unused contributions of each type for up to 5 years. In recent years, Congress has temporarily increased the 50% of AGI limit to 100% for short periods following major disasters such as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. While the percentage limitations on corporate charitable deductions are stricter than those on contributions by individuals, some provisions are more generous for corporations than for individuals and noncorporate businesses. First, corporations on an accrual basis can elect to treat contributions authorized during the taxable year, but paid after the end of the taxable year and before the 15th of the third month following the close of the taxable year, as paid during the taxable year. This provision allows corporations additional time to determine their corporate income for computing the limit on contribution deductions. Second, firms subject to the corporate income tax are allowed enhanced deductions for charitable donations of certain kinds of property. Since 1969, deductions for contributions of property out of inventory (ordinary income property) have generally been limited to the lesser of the company’s cost basis or fair market value. For certain eligible donations, however, corporations are allowed to claim an enhanced deduction equal to the taxpayer’s basis in the property plus one half of the difference between basis and market value. The enhanced deduction is limited to twice the taxpayer’s basis in the donated property, which means that the maximum subsidy rate is 70% of the taxpayer’s cost (0.70 b = 0.35 * 2 * b, where b is the
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taxpayer’s cost basis). This enhanced deduction is available only for certain types of contributions: (1) property used by the charity solely for the care of the ill, the needy, or infants; (2) scientific property to be used by educational or scientific research organizations for research or experimentation or research training in the physical or biological sciences; (3) computer technology and equipment for elementary and secondary school educational purposes, and libraries. Additional requirements must be met under each of these provisions. The enhanced deduction provides an incentive for charitable donations as the tax savings are greater than if the corporation simply trashed and wrote off the cost of the items as a loss. In addition, other recent temporary (but generally extended) provisions extending the enhanced deduction to donations of food inventory to all businesses and book donations to schools to corporations. In addition, corporations as well as other businesses can deduct the salaries of employees whose time has been donated for volunteer work benefiting charitable causes. These can include organizing United Way Campaigns or work performed for charitable organizations. This is not a special deduction for charitable activities, however, since employee salaries are generally deductible.
Key Issues Does the Charitable Deduction Increase Philanthropy?
By reducing the cost or price of giving (relative to own consumption), the tax deduction for contributions is likely to lead to an increase in giving. In addition, by reducing the amount of tax owed, the deduction creates an income or wealth effect that may lead to a further increase in contributions. Whether and by how much contributions are increased has been the subject of many studies and is at the core of many tax reform proposals. Do Individuals Give More Because of the Tax Deduction?
An extensive body of the literature has addressed the role of the income tax deduction on individual contributions, and reports a wide range of estimated behavioral responses. Earlier findings suggest a high degree of responsiveness to the deduction. The literature generally estimates the price elasticity of giving: the percentage change in giving divided by the percentage change in the after-tax price of giving. A price elasticity of 0.5, for example, implies that a 10% reduction in the price of giving would increase contributions by 5%. A price elasticity greater than 1.0, in absolute value, implies that the increase in contributions exceeds the loss of tax revenues. Using single
year cross-section datasets, seminal studies by Feldstein and Clotfelter (1976) and Feldstein and Taylor (1976) estimated elasticities averaging about 1.2 for contributions with respect to the tax price. Later findings relied on panel data attempted to distinguish between transitory and permanent responses. Randolph (1995) estimated a large transitory response and a small permanent response with an elasticity of about 0.5. In contrast, Auten et al. (2002) estimated a persistent price elasticity of 0.8– 1.2 and 0.4– 0.6 for transitory price changes. The latter finding is largely supported by Bakija and Heim (2008) who report a persistent elasticity of 0.7. A related issue is whether government programs may discourage private charitable donations. Some recent studies have estimated that government programs may produce ‘‘crowding out’’ effects of 40% 70% of private donations (Payne, 2009). This suggests that the greater amount of philanthropic activity in the United States. relative to European countries may partly result from differences in the activities conducted through government programs as well as differences in tax benefits for charity. Does the Charitable Deduction Increase Corporate Philanthropy?
The empirical evidence on corporate philanthropy is much less extensive than that on giving by individuals. Using aggregate corporate tax return data for 1936–1980, Clotfelter (1985) found a relatively small response with price elasticities of –0.16 to 0.4. Using pooled data by industry, however, Clotfelter estimated elasticities ranging from –0.2 to 1.8. His preferred estimate of the price elasticity is 0.4. Clotfelter also highlighted differences in permanent and transitory price elasticities, and the implication of errors in measuring tax rates. Using surveys of several hundred corporations, Navarro (1998) concluded that deductions for charitable contributions do not stimulate corporate giving. Carroll and Joulfaian (2005) employed a 1991 crosssection of tax returns of firms subject to the corporate income tax and firms that are exempt from this tax (S corporations). They found an elasticity of –0.9 with respect to the combined effects of charitable deductions on corporate and shareholder level taxes. However, this was reduced to –0.4 when the effects of individual income taxes were excluded consistent with the approach employed in the literature. This brief review suggests that estimates of the effects of the corporate income tax on corporate philanthropy vary widely, but most are smaller than the estimates of tax effects on individual charitable contributions.
Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the United States
Are Charitable Bequests Larger Because of the Estate Tax Deduction?
Most of the studies of the charitable deduction in the estate tax have found large tax price elasticities suggesting that the deduction is a significant stimulant to charitable bequests. Recent examples of these findings include Bakija et al. (2003) and Joulfaian (2000, 2005). Price elasticity estimates are generally in excess of one suggesting that the deduction induces more charitable bequests than the revenue loss incurred by the government. Nevertheless, it may be difficult to disentangle the effects of wealth separately from those of high tax rates on giving in cross sectional data. Large donors, for instance, are likely to be very wealthy and may also face high tax rates by virtue of the progressive tax rate schedule. To the extent that individuals may make contributions during life as well as at death, it may be appropriate to model their behavior in the presence of both estate and income taxes. Using estate and inheritance tax returns linked to income tax returns prior to death, Auten and Joulfaian (1996) and Joulfaian (2001) found evidence suggesting that lifetime contributions may also respond to estate taxation. Higher estate tax rates were found to be associated with higher lifetime contributions. Should Corporations Make Charitable Contributions?
It has long been debated whether corporations should be allowed to deduct charitable contributions (Sinclair & Galaskiewicz, 1997, and other papers in the New York Law School Review 1997 Symposium Issue on Corporate Philanthropy: Law, Culture, Education, and Politics). For example, President Franklin Roosevelt argued that corporations should not be able to purchase goodwill, and that charitable contributions were properly the domain of the shareholders. Some economists, such as Milton Friedman (1962), have argued that corporations should not make charitable gifts because the social responsibility of business is to earn income for its shareholders. Among tax professionals, there is a concern that allowing unlimited charitable deductions would provide the opportunity and incentive for charities to run forprofit businesses with competitive advantages over other businesses. They would avoid many of the strict rules governing activities of nonprofit organizations, and also avoid the corporate income tax by donating all their profits to the charity. A primary argument favoring charitable deductions by business is the long tradition of corporate social responsibility, which includes making charitable contributions, especially in the business’s home community. Moreover, the goodwill created by charitable activities may contribute to sales and profits
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and, thus, benefit shareholders over the long run. Corporate contributions may also increase profits in the long-run to the extent they serve as a substitute for advertising, or build employee loyalty through the matching of employee gifts. The current limits on deductions for charitable contributions represent a compromise between these two views. Current law provides a tax incentive for corporate philanthropy, but the deduction limits are much lower for corporate charitable giving than for individuals. Treatment of Noncash Gifts
The deduction for charitable donations of property presents additional issues not raised by cash donations. Taxpayers can deduct the value of assets such as stocks, real estate, paintings, and other assets that may have appreciated over time. As with gifts of cash, the deduction of such transfers reduces the tax liability of the donor and reduces the tax price of giving. But unlike gifts of cash, the transfer of appreciated assets also allows the taxpayer to avoid capital gains tax on accrued but unrealized gains, providing a greater incentive to make gifts of appreciated assets than gifts of cash. An additional difficult issue is determining appropriate values for donated property, particularly when the assets are not publicly traded. Because of perceived valuation problems and abuses, deductions for donations of business inventory has generally been limited to the lesser of cost basis or fair market value since 1969 (with the exception of the enhanced deductions discussed above). Problems with claimed deductions for donations of paintings and other fine art resulted in the establishment of an IRS art panel to review the values claimed by taxpayers. More recently, problems with claimed deductions for donations of patents and other intellectual property resulted in legislation limiting the deduction to declining percentages of any royalty income received by the charity. Problems with valuations of donated vehicles led to new rules limiting the deduction of vehicles to the amount received by the charity from selling the vehicle except in cases where the vehicle was used directly for charitable purposes. Deductions for donations of clothing have been limited to items in ‘‘good’’ or better condition. While these examples illustrate the types of problems associated with valuing donations of property, it is important to note that the donation of such property often provides a valuable charitable function such as aiding low income individuals or making unique or valuable art objects available to the public in museums. As a result, devising appropriate policies to balance these considerations is often difficult.
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International Perspectives In addition to the United States a number of other countries also provide tax incentives for charitable giving. Some of these take the form of tax credits instead of deductions. The tax relief is also limited with restrictions that vary from among countries. The following is a brief summary of the tax treatment in a number of counties. Note that specific details of the provisions may change from time to time (United States International Grantmaking website). Australia. Contributions by individuals and corporations are fully deductible. Gifts of property are deductible if they exceed AUD5000 in value. Canada. Individuals may claim a tax credit of 17% on the first C$200 in contributions and 29% of the gifts in excess of this threshold. The amount eligible for credit is limited to 75% of net income. No similar provision is available for corporations. Denmark. Individuals may deduct contributions valued at a minimum of 500 DKK and a maximum of 5,000 DKK per year. Similar rules apply to corporations except that certain firms may deduct up to 15% of profit or DKK 15,000. Finland. No deduction is available for individuals. Businesses may deduct a minimum of €850 to charities supporting the Finnish cultural heritage, and from €850 to €25,000 to association with scientific or artistic purposes. France. In general, individuals may deduct up to 66% of the value of qualified contributions. This deduction is capped at 20% of taxable income. Corporations may deduct up to 60% of the value of contributions, with the deduction capped at 0.5% of annual sales. Germany. In general, individuals and corporations may deduct contributions up to 20% of income. Ireland. Individual contributions in excess of €250 are deductible Ireland. The deduction is grossed-up to reflect the tax benefit which is given directly to the receiving charity. Corporations are allowed to deduct contributions as ordinary business expense. Japan. Individual contributions in excess of 5,000 yens, up to 25% of income, are deductible. Corporate contributions are deductible as ordinary expenses with a cap equal to the sum of 1.25% of a firm’s income and 0.125% of the paid-in capital. However, no ceiling applies to gifts to institutions designated by the Ministry of Finance as ‘‘Public Welfare Organizations.’’ Netherlands. In general, individual contributions may be deducted from income if they exceed a minimum of 1% of income and €60. Deductions are capped at 10%
of income. Business deductions are limited to a minimum contributions of €277 up to 10. Sweden. No deductions allowed for individuals and businesses. United Kingdom. Individuals may make tax deductible contributions if they are made through ‘‘Gift Aid’’ or payroll giving schemes. The contribution is grossed-up to reflect the tax benefit which is given directly to the receiving charity. Corporations may deduct all of their contributions if made for purposes of trade. In addition to differences in the tax incentives summarized above, the definition of the type of activities that qualify as nonprofit also varies.
Future Directions Should There Be a Floor Under the Deduction?
Some economists and professors of tax law have proposed using a floor under deductions for charitable contributions as a way to increase the efficiency of the charitable deduction: the marginal incentive effect of the charitable deduction would be maintained at a much lower revenue cost because the marginal subsidy rate would be unchanged for those above the floor. Indeed, a number of countries already allow deductions for gifts in excess of some threshold. The additional revenues could then be used to reduce marginal tax rates or for other purposes. A floor would also provide simplification as the value of the deduction for taxpayers who contribute relatively small amounts would be subsumed in the standard deduction. This idea is not new in the United States. Weithorn (1967) proposed changing the charitable deduction to an above-the-line deduction with a floor of 2% of income to limit the deduction to those making extraordinary contributions and protect it from tax reforms aimed at limiting itemized deductions. In 1972 Boris Bittker proposed a modest floor to exclude 10% or 20% of currently itemizing taxpayers, arguing that the charitable deduction was better reserved for the ‘‘taxpayer who goes an extra mile than the one who stops at the end of the first lap.’’ Floors were again discussed in Treasury’s 1984 tax reform plan (Department of the Treasury, 1984), which included a proposal to limit deductions for charitable contributions to those in excess of 2% of income. The Treasury analysis questioned whether allowing a deduction for all charitable contributions was an efficient way to provide the desired stimulus to charitable giving. The report argued that little incentive is provided by a
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deduction for the first few dollars of contributions since these are likely to be made in any case. More recently, a bipartisan panel on tax reform proposed allowing all taxpayers to deduct contributions in excess of 1% of income (President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform, 2005). Should the Deduction Be Extended to Non-itemizers?
A charitable deduction for non-itemizers was first enacted in 1981 and phased in between 1982 and 1985. In 1982 through 1984, non-itemizers could deduct up to 25% of contributions up to a cap ($25 in 1982 and 1983; $75 in 1984). In 1985, non-itemizers could deduct up to 50% of contributions and did not face a cap. A full 100% uncapped deduction was in effect in 1986, but was not extended in the 1986 Tax Reform Act. Failure to extend the provision clearly did not end the debate, however, as there have been frequent proposals to reestablish a nonitemizer deduction. Bills to restore a non-itemizer deduction have been introduced in Congress nearly every year since the 1990s. The Administration presented proposals in 2000 and 2002 through 2005. While either a non-itemizer deduction or floor under charitable deductions could be implemented separately, several studies analyzed combining these two ideas. For example, Steuerle (2000, 2005) argued that a common floor under the contributions of both itemizers and non-itemizers would reduce revenue costs, reduce compliance problems, and be simpler for both taxpayers and the IRS. Simulations by Ackerman and Auten (2006) suggested that extending the deduction to non-itemizers while imposing either a modest fixed dollar floor or a 1% floor could modestly increase contributions while increasing the tax efficiency of the charitable deduction. Should Deductions for Noncash Donations Be Restricted?
Because of concerns about taxpayer abuses with respect to valuations of clothing and household items, various proposals have been offered to restrict such deductions by imposing a maximum for such deductions or imposing a floor under the deduction. A ceiling, however, could discourage donations of more valuable items while encouraging more taxpayers to claim the maximum amount regardless of their actual donations because of the low likelihood of being subject to audit (Ackerman & Auten, 2009). Others have proposed tightening rules for qualified appraisals. Another type of proposal would limit the allowable deduction for donations of appreciated property. For
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example, Halperin (2002) proposed treating the gift of appreciated property as a taxable event so that the capital gains tax would be paid, but then allowing deduction for full fair market. The Joint Committee on Taxation proposed limiting deductions to the lesser of fair market value or basis for nearly all noncash donations, with exceptions for publicly traded securities and possibly certain other cases. Clotfelter (1990), however, found that when the Tax Reform Act of 1986 greatly limited the advantage of donating appreciated property, donations of appreciated property to universities and works of art to museums declined sharply. Auten et al. (1992) also found that noncash donations of the highest-income taxpayers declined substantially. The President’s Tax Reform Panel (2005) suggested allowing owners of appreciated property to sell the property and claim the full sale proceeds as a deduction without being taxed on the capital gain if the proceeds were transferred to the charity within a relatively short period. With appropriate safeguards to ensure arms’ length transactions, such proposal could largely eliminate valuation issues while preserving the incentive for contributions. The authors are economists in the Office of Tax Analysis, U.S. Department of the Treasury. The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
Cross-References
▶ Charity Law ▶ Corporate Giving ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Gift/Giving ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ One-Percent Provision ▶ Philanthropy in North America ▶ Tax Policy ▶ Tax Exemption, Justifications for
References/Further Readings Ackerman, D., & Auten, G. (2006, September). Floors, ceilings and opening the door for a non-itemizer deduction. National Tax Journal, LIX 3, 509–529. Ackerman, D., & Auten, G. (2009). Tax expenditures for noncash charitable contributions. National Tax Journal, forthcoming. Aprill, E. (2001). Churches, politics, and the charitable contribution deduction (Legal Studies Paper No 2006–13). Los Angeles, CA: Loyola Law School. Auten, G., Cilke, J., & Randolph, W. (1992, September) The effects of tax reform on charitable contributions. National Tax Journal, 45(3), 267–290.
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Auten, G., Clotfelter, C., & Schmalbeck, R. (2000). Taxes and philanthropy among the wealthy. In J. Slemrod (Eds.), Does atlas shrug? The economic consequences of taxing the rich (pp. 392–424). Cambridge, MA/New York: Harvard University Press/Russell Sage Foundation. Auten, G., & Joulfaian, D. (1996, January). Charitable contributions and intergenerational transfers. Journal of Public Economics, 59(1), 55–68. Auten, G., Sieg, H., & Clotfelter, C. (2002, March). Charitable giving, income and taxes: An analysis of panel data. American Economic Review, 92(1), 371–382. Bakija, J., & Heim, B. (2008). How does charitable giving respond to incentives and income? dynamic panel estimates accounting for predictable changes in taxation (NBER Working Paper 14237), Cambridge, MA. Bakija, J., Gale, W., & Slemrod, J. (2003, May). Charitable bequests and taxes on inheritance and estates: Aggregate evidence from across states and time. American Economic Review, 93(2), 366–370. Bittker, B. (1972). The propriety and vitality of a federal income tax deduction for private philanthropy. Tax Impacts on Philanthropy (pp. 145–170). Princeton, NJ: Tax Institute of America. Carroll, R., & Joulfaian, D. (2005, May). Taxes and corporate giving to charity. Public Finance Review, 33(3), 300–317. Clotfelter, C. (1985). Federal tax policy and charitable giving. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Clotfelter, C. (1990). The impact of tax reform on charitable giving: A 1989 perspective. In J. Slemrod (Ed.), Do taxes matter? The impact of the tax reform act of 1986 (pp. 203–235). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Department of the Treasury, Office of the Secretary. (1984, November). Tax reform for fairness, simplicity, and economic growth: The treasury department report to the president. Washington, DC. Feldstein, M., & Clotfelter, C. (1976, February). Tax incentives and charitable contributions in the United Sates: A microeconometric Analysis. Journal of Public Economics, 5(1–2), 1–26. Feldstein, M., & Taylor, A. (1976, November). The income tax and charitable contributions. Econometrica, 44(6), 1201–1222. Friedman, M. (1962). Capitalism and freedom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Halperin, D. (2002). A charitable contribution of appreciated property and the realization of built-in gains. Tax Law Review, 56, 1–34. Joulfaian, D. (2000, September). Estate taxes and charitable bequests by the wealthy. National Tax Journal, 53(3) (Part 2), 743–763. Joulfaian, D. (2001). Charitable giving in life and at death. In W. G. Gale, J. R. Hines, & J. Slemrod (Eds.), Rethinking estate and gift taxation (pp. 350–374). Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution Press. Joulfaian, D. (2005, March). Estate taxes and charitable bequests: Evidence from two tax regimes (OTA Paper 92), U.S. Department of the Treasury. Navarro, P. (1988). Why do corporations give to charity? Journal of Business, 61(1), 65–93. Payne, A. A. (2009). Does government funding change behavior? An empirical analysis of crowd out. Tax Policy and the Economy, 23. President’s Advisory Panel on Federal Tax Reform. (2005, November). Simple, fair, and pro-growth: Proposals to fix America’s tax system. Washington, DC. Randolph, W. C. (1995, August). Dynamic income, progressive taxes, and the timing of charitable contributions. Journal of Political Economy, 103(4), 709–738. Sinclair, M., & Galaskiewicz, J. (1997). Corporate-nonprofit partnerships: Varieties and covariates. New York Law School Review, 41, 244–289.
Steuerle, C. E. (2000, February 28). The right way to extend charitable deductions to nonitemizers. Tax Notes, 86, 1297–1298. Steuerle, C. E. (2005, September 13). Charities on the frontline and making the best use of tax policy to help them. Testimony before the subcommittee on social security and family policy of the senate finance committee, United States Senate. United States International Grantmaking. Council on Foundations, from http://www.usig.org/countryinfo.asp Weithorn, S. (1967, October). Tax simplification – grave threat to the charitable contribution deduction: The problem and a proposed solution. Duke Law Journal, 5, 943–955.
Tax Exemption, Justifications for EVELYN BRODY Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, IL, USA
Introduction The title of this entry raises the threshold question of whether the charity tax exemption has been justified (by policy makers) or can be justified (and hence should continue). It will be more fruitful to focus on the latter. Despite the persistence of tax exemption for charity throughout the history, policy makers generally did not consciously decide to grant exemption. While inertia and stability clearly explain the current arrangement, the fact that exemption could be repealed or modified makes it fair to examine what rationales policy makers would offer to design a tax system from scratch. The nonprofit sector in USA contains two basic types of nonprofit organizations, charities and mutual-benefit organizations. Under the property and sales tax systems (features of state-level public finance), exemption typically extends only to property owned or purchased by charitable nonprofits. All types of nonprofits enjoy income tax exemption, but only charities (federally exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code) offer tax deductibility to their donors and can issue taxexempt bonds. Tax exemption is not absolute – tax regimes contain significant qualifications (with additional restrictions, not discussed here, on that subset of charities classified as ‘‘private foundations’’). Most importantly, the nonprofit must be both organized and operated for the exempt purpose, and private benefit may be only incidental. In addition, generally neither income-tax nor property-tax exemption is extended to unrelated business activities even if the profits are used to support charitable purposes.
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More than insubstantial legislative lobbying (and any political campaign activity) causes loss of the federal income-tax exemption for charities. Congress assigns advocacy organizations to section 501(c)(4) rather than to the coveted section 501(c)(3). The question of why charities are tax exempt has been discussed in general theoretical terms of whether the exemption is, on the one hand, a subsidy or, on the other, an acknowledgment that charitable activity falls outside the proper tax base. Consider other tax exemptions. Legislatures from time to time grant tax-favored treatment to spur economic investment or other desired expenditures. By contrast, household production goes untaxed because it has never occurred to legislatures to impose tax on the imputed income for cleaning one’s house or caring for one’s children. Uniquely, exemption for charitable activity has been justified on both subsidy and base-defining grounds. Each of the models justifying exemption, however, appears oversimplified and unable to explain at least some aspects of the current law. For example, if exemption is a subsidy for providing charitable activity, why should tax be imposed on unrelated business income destined to be spent for charitable purposes? What explains the lobbying limits and the ban on political activity by charities? – after all, legislative or even political change might most efficiently accomplish a charity’s purpose. Finally, even when justifiable, direct government grants might be more efficient and effective than tax exemption. Brody (1998) supplied a perspective over these theories of exemption that she dubbed the ‘‘sovereignty view’’ of the nonprofit sector. The most thorough analysis of the very complicated US tax treatment of charities can be found in Simon, Dale, and Chisolm (2006). These authors group a variety of policy goals under four headings: the support function (subsidy), the equity function (notably redistribution), the regulatory function (constraints on managerial behavior), and the border patrol function (i.e., between charities and both the business and public sectors).
Historical Background Whether couched in terms of tribute, feudal dues, property tax, or corporate income tax – as appropriate to the prevailing economic system – public finance schemes have always had to take account of a nontaxable sector. In USA, the oldest tax system is the property tax, and historically exemption (for anyone) was not the focus. As Diamond (2002) explains, the question rather was the reverse: What property belonged on the tax rolls? Property-tax exemption for religious, educational, and charitable institutions,
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observed Gabler and Shannon (1977: 2536), ‘‘has existed from ‘time out of mind.’’’ The treatment of churches clearly explains this long-standing American tax exemption. Similarly, Hall (1992) found that other early American charities traditionally arose from religious activities or impulses; educational institutions, such as Harvard and Yale, originated as divinity schools. Beyond charities, from colonial times, states have also granted property-tax exemptions to infant business industries, a practice enjoying resurgence as states deliberately choose the tool of property-tax exemption to entice business relocation. Householders too – particularly the aged and veterans – have been extended preferential treatment. Similarly, the much-younger corporate income tax contains many benefits for businesses that are of no use to income tax-exempt organizations. It can be difficult to articulate a rational tax base, much less a rationale for exemptions.
Key Issues Quantifying the Value of Tax Exemptions
However justified, tax exemption for charities results in lost tax revenue. Nevertheless, while the ‘‘tax expenditure budget’’ prepared by the US Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation (2008) calculates the forgone taxes from the charitable-contribution deduction and from tax-exempt bonds issued by nonprofit hospitals and educational institutions, it views the income-tax exemption of charities as part of the properly determined base. Thus, current federal tax policy for charitable activity combines subsidy and base-defining approaches. The exclusion of nonprofit income-tax exemption from the normative tax base has been criticized, notably by Surrey and McDaniel (1985), who cite the very commercial example of nonprofit hospitals. In estimating forgone revenue, however, one cannot simply apply the corporate tax rates to a charity’s surplus, because no rational income-tax system would tax a charity on donations it receives. Moreover, repealing income-tax exemption would induce at least some behavioral changes by charities, such as reducing fees charged or increasing staff salaries, as described by the US Congressional Budget Office (2005). Brody and Cordes (2006) found that if only income from investments, rentals, and sales were taxed ‘‘at a combined federal and state rate of 40%, tax exemption is estimated to increase the resources of charitable nonprofit organizations by roughly [U.S.] $10 billion in the aggregate.’’ At the state level, estimating the amount of forgone property-tax revenue cannot be achieved with any
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precision – not only because of the myriad tax rates that apply at the municipal level throughout the country, but also because few jurisdictions bother appraising property excluded from the tax base. Cordes, Gantz, and Pollak (2002) arrived at a rough ‘‘order of magnitude’’ of between US$8 and US$13 billion nationally for the annual value of property-tax exemption owned by secular charities, plus an additional one-third for real estate owned by churches. Base-Defining Theories
Theoretical support for excluding charitable activity from the tax base is of surprisingly recent origin and seems easy to challenge. Bittker and Rahdert (1976: 307–314) asserted that the income of charities cannot be measured in profit-seeking terms, although, as just described, a base-defining rule could easily calculate the tax on commercial (and even investing) charities. Heller (1979) described a normative theory of the charitable property-tax exemption, although, by definition, charities that own property have property in their base. If charities are to be exempted because they do not engage in business, then how to account for the fact that householders form the backbone of any property-tax scheme? If instead charities are to be exempted because they do not benefit from certain expenditures funded by the property tax (such as schools), then why should business owners pay property tax? Separately, Bittker and Rahdert (1976: 314–316) shifted the focus from the charity’s ‘‘ability to pay’’ taxes to the beneficiaries’. To the extent a charity serves lowincome persons, any tax rate other than zero could be viewed as the wrong rate. However, the few studies of the distributional effects of charity – notably, those collected in Clotfelter (1992) – suggest that most charities do not focus their services on the poor. A disjunction between burdens and benefits is particularly salient in the property tax, because exemptions are granted at the state level, but taxing jurisdictions can be more strictly bounded than the reach of the services provided by nonprofits (notably, cultural institutions, hospitals, and universities). Heller commented (1979: 211): ‘‘Since the bulk of charitable property is located in urban centers, the overpaying group is likely to be relatively poorer than the proper donor class which benefits from charitable activities.’’ Subsidy Theories
Viewed as subsidies, property- and income-tax exemptions function quite differently. Property-tax exemption (like the exemption from sales tax on purchases) is an
input subsidy: It makes it cheaper to conduct charitable activity. The property-tax exemption has the most value to the most real-estate-rich charities, but is of no help to charities that rent their space (see Gallagher, 2002). Income-tax exemption is an output subsidy: It allows the charity to keep more of the surplus from its activities, and so has increasing value the more the charity earns and saves its profits. Subsidies delivered through exemptions lack the public finance virtues of visibility and adjustability. Exemptions do have the administrative advantage of providing a subsidy at a minimal transaction cost, although this virtue is undercut when municipalities (as they occasionally do) engage in individualized negotiations with charities for payments in lieu of taxes. Interestingly, no court following a quid-pro-quo rationale for exemption – notably the US Supreme Court in Walz v. Tax Commission, 397 US 664, 676 (1970) – has quantified whether the public gain equals or exceeds the forgone tax revenue. Scholars have identified a variety of activities or behaviors that the state might be subsidizing by granting exemption. Some charity proponents have developed a broad theory of the ‘‘quo’’ based on organizational form – that the mere existence of independent charitable institutions provides a community benefit worthy of tax exemption. Notably, Belknap (1954: 2033–2034) declared: ‘‘the only principle that affords a complete justification covering the entire field of exemptions . . . is that government relieves from the tax burden religious, educational, and charitable activities because it wishes to encourage them as representing the highest and noblest achievements of mankind.’’ More narrowly, Hansmann (1981) argues for a capitalsubsidy theory justifiable on efficiency grounds that the corporate income-tax exemption compensates nonprofits for their inability to access the capital markets by issuing stock. (Hansmann [1989] explains that the tax on unrelated business income recognizes that no subsidy is needed or desired to induce nonprofits to engage in activities that for-profit businesses can do.) See also Crimm (1998)’s view of tax exemption as a subsidy to risk assumption. Focusing instead on the signal of donor support, Hall and Colombo (1995) proposed that tax exemption be limited to organizations receiving at least one-third (or even one-half, for property-tax exemption) of their ongoing support in the form of donations from members of the public. (But see Grimm [2002], who found that few Indianapolis charities would qualify for property-tax exemption under their approach.) Conditions on tax exemption can be used to induce charities to undertake specific activities or to engage in
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behavior a certain way. Under the narrowest conception of the quid-pro-quo approach, the state bestows exemption because charities lessen the burdens of government. But such a rationale fails to cover some important types of exempt entities, including churches (engaged in activity constitutionally prohibited to government) and many associational organizations. Nevertheless, state propertytax regimes, as catalog d in Brody (2007), increasingly require an exempt charity to reduce the burdens of government as well as to provide some (unspecified) level of benefits to those who cannot afford the charity’s fees. In whatever form, the subsidy theory places charities in a position subordinate to the state, which can decide the parameters of its burdens. A recent decision by the US Supreme Court suggested that to the extent the state is unhappy with – or simply uninterested in subsidizing – certain activities, the state can fine-tune the property-tax exemption (Camps Newfound/Owatonna, Inc. v. Town of Harrison, 520 US 564, 598–600 (Scalia, J., dissenting)). A Sovereignty Perspective
Brody (1998) argues that without applying a sovereignty perspective, neither the subsidy theory nor the base-defining theory can fully explain the current tax-exemption scheme for charities. Of course, the nonprofit sector does not enjoy true co-sovereignty with the public sector, because today even churches lack the compulsory powers that inhere in a sovereign. However, compare the tax treatment of charities with that of governments. The federal income tax excludes from gross income ‘‘income derived from any public utility or the exercise of any essential governmental function and accruing to a state or any political subdivision thereof’’; states and municipalities may generally issue tax-exempt bonds; payments of state and local taxes are generally deductible (although user fees paid to governments, such as tuition paid to a state university, are not); and states (and their subdivisions) tax neither federal property nor their own property. Accordingly, under the base-defining approach, the public sector treats the charitable sector almost with comity: Charities seem to go untaxed because Caesar should not tax God (or the modern secular equivalent). Peter Swords (1981) defends the property-tax exemption by emphasizing ‘‘the advantages of pluralism that flow from having a voluntary sector of charitable organizations operating parallel to the governmental system, a sector able to discover new needs and experiment in providing ways of meeting them in a manner that simply is not possible for government agencies.’’ Compare US Supreme Court justice Lewis Powell’s rejection of the notion that tax exemption requires charities to act in harmony with
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public policy, describing ‘‘the important role played by tax exemptions in encouraging diverse, indeed often sharply conflicting, activities and viewpoints’’ (Bob Jones University v. United States, 461 US 576 (1983) (Powell, J., concurring and dissenting)). Rob Atkinson’s (1990) theory of the ‘‘metabenefit of altruistic production’’ conducted in ‘‘communities’’ of charity comes closest to identifying a sovereignty perspective on exemption. A sovereignty perspective also explains why a desired subsidy would take the form of tax exemption rather than the more logical form of direct grants: For all its imprecision, tax exemption keeps government out of the charities’ day-to-day business, and keeps charity out of the business of petitioning government for subvention. A zero tax rate differs qualitatively, not just quantitatively, from a 1% rate. In 1874, while defending Harvard’s property-tax exemption before the Massachusetts legislature, university president Charles Eliot (quoted in Belknap [1954: 2038]) described how exemption removes charities from the political arena: ‘‘The exemption method is comprehensive, simple and automatic; the grant method, as it has been exhibited in this country, requires special legislation of a peculiarly dangerous sort, a legislation which inflames religious quarrels, gives occasion for acrimonious debates, and tempts to jobbery.’’ Moreover, as Brody (1997) described, rival sovereigns rarely feel comfortable letting the others grow too powerful, and, thus, a sovereignty perspective also illuminates those rules in the tax scheme that operate to curtail, rather than enhance, the economic strength of the charitable sector. For centuries England imposed mortmain proscriptions on the ability of charities to hold land, to prevent them from growing into too strong an economic force. Diamond (2002) explains that similar attempts were urged in this country (see also Youngman, 2002), and acreage and valuation limits can be found in some state exemption laws (see Gallagher, 2002). Compare Simon, Dale, and Chisolm (2006)’s use of the term ‘‘border patrol’’ in describing the statutory provisions that limit charities’ political and lobbying activities and that tax income from commercial activities. Recent congressional calls for university endowments to increase their payout rate (see below) are clearly motivated by the billions of dollars held by the largest schools – Harvard cannot hide a US$28 billion endowment.
International Perspectives The degree to which the public finance system treats charities like government obviously depends on the relative size and scope of the two sectors and the extent to which their services are substitutable. USA has a highly
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developed regime for tax-exempt activity for two reasons. First, as described by Simon, Dale, and Chisolm (2006: 267): ‘‘Charity seems destined to be enmeshed in tax policy debate not only because that is the fate in America of so much human activity, but also because, over the years, the public has come to entrust to the tax system a central role in the nourishment and regulation of the charitable sector.’’ Second, those authors credit this ‘‘salience of taxation in American public policy’’ with producing an ‘‘extraordinary – and probably unique – centrality of the nonprofit sector in American social and economic life.’’ Prewitt (2006: 359) observes that ‘‘European countries, with their much smaller foundation sectors, have preserved a strong and redistributive welfare state funded by higher personal and estate taxes than Americans will tolerate.’’
charities) remain vulnerable to tax reforms. Congress might repeal exemption for nonprofit hospitals (as it did for Blue Cross/Blue Shield and commercial HMOs in 1986), leaving universities as the next most vulnerable. Continuing the proliferation of ‘‘demand-side’’ tax subsidies that benefit nonprofits in various industries – such as the education tax credits – could transform the sectors by attracting for-profit providers that smell profit potential. More generally, while Congress will not ‘‘tear the income tax up by its roots,’’ reducing marginal tax rates reduces the value of the charitable-contribution deduction; reducing corporate income-tax rates reduces the value of tax exemption; and taxing consumption rather than saving would eliminate the relative value of issuing tax-exempt bonds.
Future Directions
Cross-References
In the short run, policy makers hear increasing demands for charities – notably the two largest nonprofit subsectors, hospitals and higher education – to provide greater distributional equity. Prompted by financial pressures on public finance systems, at both the state and federal level, politicians concerned about the health needs of the uninsured are tempted to define ‘‘charity’’ as ‘‘charity care’’ as a condition of exemption for nonprofit hospitals. Similarly, congressional calls for universities to increase the draws from their endowments in order to reduce tuition effectively would mandate exempt organizations to meet consumer needs. More broadly, in a front-page story in the New York Times, Strom (2007) criticizes the philanthropic focus on (presumably elitist) arts and higher education. In England and Wales, the Charity Commission (2008: 28 (sec.F11)) construes the Charities Act 2006 to require that ‘‘[p]eople in poverty must not be excluded from the opportunity to benefit’’ from the activities of a charity. However, one can argue that an antipoverty requirement for exemption has the normative policy backwards: that charity should complement not supplement government. After all, government is good (and individual philanthropy is bad) at income redistribution in a fair and cost-effective way – compare the costs of taxation with the costs of fund raising through appeals. At the same time, charity is good at the particularized things that get individual people excited in a diverse, pluralistic society. (Compare Weisbrod’s [1988] explanation that government responds to the median voter, and private philanthropy remedies this government failure.) Regardless of the chosen rationale for tax exemption, Brody (1999) describes how nonprofits (particularly
▶ Association, Freedom of ▶ Charity, Defined ▶ Commercialization and For-profits in Disguise ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Hansmann, Henry ▶ Philanthropy, Definition and History ▶ Simon, John G. ▶ Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the US ▶ Tax Policy ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Theories of the Nonprofit Sector, Political ▶ Weisbrod, Burton A. ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Atkinson, R. (1990). Altruism in nonprofit organizations. Boston College Law Review, 31, 501–639. Belknap, C. (1954 [1977]). The federal income tax exemption of charitable organizations: Its history and underlying policy. Reprinted as Appendix to Persons, J. P., Osborne, Jr., J. J., & Feldman, C. F., Criteria for exemption under section 501(c)(3). In Research papers sponsored by the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs [Filer Commission] (IV, pp. 2025–2043). Washington, DC: US Treasury Department. Bittker, B. I., & Rahdert, G. K. (1976). The exemption of nonprofit organizations from federal income tax. Yale Law Journal, 85(1), 299–358. Brody, E. (1997). Charitable endowments and the democratization of dynasty. Arizona Law Review, 39, 873–948. Brody, E. (1998). Of sovereignty and subsidy: Conceptualizing the charity tax exemption. Journal of Corporation Law, 23(4), 585–629. Brody, E. (1999). Charities in tax reform: Threats to subsidies overt and covert. Tennessee Law Review, 66, 687–763. Brody, E. (2007). The states’ growing use of a quid-pro-quo rationale for the charity property tax exemption. Exempt Organization Tax Review, 56(June), 269–288.
Tax Policy Brody, E., & Cordes, J. (2006). Tax treatment of nonprofit organizations: A two-edged sword? In E. Boris, & C. E. Steuerle (Eds.), Nonprofits and government (2nd ed., pp. 141–180). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Charity Commission for England and Wales (January 2008). Charities and public benefit, from http://http://www.charitycommission.gov. uk/Library/publicbenefit/pdfs/publicbenefittext.pdf; 5/4/2009. Clotfelter, C. T. (Ed.) (1992). Who benefits from the nonprofit sector? Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Cordes, J. J., Gantz, M., & Pollak, T. (2002). What is the property-tax exemption worth? In E. Brody (Ed.), Property-tax exemption for charities: Mapping the battlefield (pp. 81–112). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Crimm, N. J. (1998). An explanation of the federal income tax exemption for charitable organizations: A theory of risk compensation. Florida Law Review, 50, 419–462. Diamond, S. (2002). Efficiency and benevolence: Philanthropic tax exemptions in 19th-century America. In E. Brody (Ed.), Property tax exemption for charities: Mapping the battlefield (pp. 115–144). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Gabler, L. R., & Shannon, J. F. (1977). The exemption of religious, educational, and charitable institutions from property tax exemption. In Research papers sponsored by the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs [Filer Commission] (IV, pp. 2535–2572). Washington, DC: US Treasury Department. Gallagher, J. G. (2002). The legal structure of property-tax exemption. In E. Brody (Ed.), Property tax exemption for charities: Mapping the battlefield (pp. 3–22). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Grimm, Jr., R. T. (2002). Targeting the charitable property-tax exemption to collective goods. In E. Brody (Ed.), Property tax exemption for charities: Mapping the battlefield (pp. 321–349). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Hall, P. D. (1992). Inventing the nonprofit sector. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. Hall, M. A., & Colombo, J. D. (1995). The charitable tax exemption. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Hansmann, H. (1981). The rationale for exempting nonprofit organizations from corporate income taxation. Yale Law Journal, 91, 54–100. Hansmann, H. (1989). Unfair competition and the unrelated business income tax. Virginia Law Review, 75, 605–635. Heller, T. C. (1979). Is the charitable exemption from property taxation an easy case? General concerns about legal economics and jurisprudence. In D. Rubinfeld (Ed.), Law and economics of local governments (pp. 183–251). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Prewitt, K. (2006). Foundations. In W. Powell, & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., pp. 355–377). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Simon, J., Dale, H., & Chisolm, L. (2006). The federal tax treatment of charitable organizations. In W. Powell, & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., pp. 267–306). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Strom, S. (2007). Big gifts, tax breaks and a debate on charity. New York Times, September 6, at A1. Surrey, S. S., & McDaniel, P. R. (1985). Tax expenditures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Swords, P. (1981). Charitable real property tax exemptions in New York state – menace or measure of social progress? New York: Association of the Bar of the City of New York and Columbia University Press.
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US Congress, Congressional Budget Office (July 2005). Background paper: Taxing the untaxed business sector, from http://www.cbo. gov/ftpdocs/65xx/doc6567/07-21-UntaxedBus.pdf; 5/4/2009 US Congress, Joint Committee on Taxation (2008). Estimates of federal tax expenditures for fiscal years 2008–2012. JCS-2–08, October 31, from http://www.jct.gov/publications.html?func=start down&id=1192; 5/4/2009 Weisbrod, B. (1988). The nonprofit economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Youngman, J. M. (2002). The politics of the property-tax debate. In E. Brody (Ed.), Property tax exemption for charities: Mapping the battlefield (pp. 23–46). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
Tax Policy WOODS BOWMAN DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA
Introduction Tax policy in relation to nonprofit organizations is particularly complex in the United States (US) for two reasons. Its governmental structure is highly fragmented with every state having its own policy toward nonprofit organizations and taxation. Even the definition of ‘‘charitable’’ as applied to taxation is not standard across states because it largely derives from common law as interpreted by 50 different state courts. Also, unlike many countries, the US government has no bureaucracy to regulate nonprofits, so it uses tax policy as a substitute regulatory tool. This sketch of the US system provides international scholars a veritable smorgasbord of tax policies to study.
Definition An object of taxation, as it is measured and quantified, constitutes a tax base. A tax on general economic activity can be measured and quantified in different ways, for example value added, gross receipts, net income. These are examples of broad-based taxes, which tax many different things under the same rubric. A tax on a single thing, like electricity, fuel, or cigarettes is an excise tax. Nonprofits tend to receive favorable tax treatment with respect to broad-based taxes (income, sales, property), but not excise taxes or fees and charges. The amount of tax the law imposes on each unit of the base is the statutory tax rate, or simply the tax rate. However, laws usually adjust a tax base with deductions and exemptions before a tax bill is computed. Both deductions and exemptions are reductions on the base on which a tax is imposed. Credits are a dollar-for-dollar
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reduction in a taxpayer’s liability. The effective tax rate, which is the tax paid divided by a taxpayer’s unadjusted tax base, is a better metric of the economic impact of a tax. Deductions are usually based on actions taken by the taxpayer and are created to encourage certain behavior or to foster equity. For example, contributions made to a qualifying charity are deductible from income for federal tax purposes. (See Tax Deduction for Charitable Contributions in the United States in this volume.) Exemptions, on the other hand, are generally based on objectively defined characteristics of the taxpayer and are used to adjust relative tax burdens on different classes of taxpayers without reference to any particular activity on their part. Exemptions may be total or partial. Examples of partial exemptions, which exempt a fixed amount from the tax base, are the personal exemption to the income tax and the homeowner’s exemption to the property tax. The charitable exemption to the property tax is an example of total exemption. In the US property taxation is controlled by state law with the result that eligibility rubrics vary from state-to-state. (The notion of exemption being unrelated to specific performance is under attack in the United States; see Justifications for Tax Exemption in this volume.) Absence of taxation is a necessary but not sufficient condition for exemption. Exemption is an exception to a rule of taxation. Originally the property tax was an indirect way of taxing personal wealth, so charitable property was not taxed. Neither was it considered exempt because it was not an exception to the rubric under which property was then taxed. By the middle of the nineteenth century, however, property taxation was conceived as a tax on the thing itself imposed according to the principles of universality (all property included) and uniformity (all owners bear a proportional burden). It became necessary for tax policy to make certain exceptions. From the beginning every state has extended eligibility for property tax exemption to houses of worship, schools, and universities, and other charitable property but ownership is not sufficient. In order to actually receive exemption a parcel must be used for an exempt purpose. The idea that an exemption for charitable institutions is an indirect subsidy dates to the early twentieth century. A subsidy is a payment by government to suppliers designed to keep their prices below their cost of production which tends to increase production. The International Association of Assessing Officials’ (1997) defines property tax exemptions as ‘‘subsidies to certain owners or for certain uses of property, to encourage publicly desired objectives.’’ Equating exemption with subsidy logically leads to the concept of tax expenditure, a term introduced in the
1960s, which refers to the loss to the public treasury implied by a tax exemption. This concept is often erroneously applied to property taxation in the United States, and other countries where the property tax rate of each taxing body is adjusted every year to raise a specified amount. Therefore an exemption from the property tax does not automatically reduce collections. Unless a rate ceiling is binding, the immediate effect is to raise the tax rate and increase the tax burden on owners of fully taxed property. Because effective rates are capitalized into property values, owners of fully taxable property are not disadvantaged over the long run (Bowman, 2001). Nevertheless, charitable property tax exemptions become a political issue in communities where the tax rate is high, or property taxing governments are struggling financially, or exempt institutions (usually hospitals and universities) own considerable wealth.
Key Issues This section explores the relationship between incorporation and tax exemption, functions of tax policy, distinctions among different types of nonprofits, and state and local policies and concludes by highlighting selected contemporary issues. Incorporation and Tax Exemption
Incorporation as a nonprofit is conferred at the state level. It is neither necessary nor sufficient for tax-exemption at the federal level. Nonprofit organizations must seek exemption from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), which ‘‘recognizes’’ their exempt status, provided they are organized for an exempt purpose (the organization test) and their espoused purpose actually guides their operations (the operations test). However, the IRS does not require religious congregations or nonprofit organizations with less than $5,000 in annual revenue to formally request recognition. Grønbjerg et al. (2008), using Indiana as a test case, find that only one third of nonsectarian nonprofits is both incorporated and recognized by the IRS as tax-exempt, one third is incorporated without being federally tax exempt, and approximately one fourth is federally tax exempt without being incorporated. The remainder consists of religious congregations which enjoy the benefit of incorporation and tax exemption but relieved of the onus of making formal application for either. Functions of Tax Policy
John Simon (1987) identifies four functions of tax policy towards nonprofits.
Tax Policy
1. The support function which justifies the subsidy implicit in tax exemption and deductibility of charitable contributions. As mentioned above, the purpose of subsidy to nonprofits is to increase output by lowering production cost. The purpose of deductibility of charitable donations is to lower the price of giving to encourage such behavior. The impact of exemption on charitable property is the subject of debate. (See Justifications for Tax Exemption in this volume.) 2. The equity function refers to providing benefits to persons who cannot afford to pay full price and to the allocation of the power to control exempt organizations. One of the enduring debates in the area of tax policy is whether tax benefits should be contingent upon the amount of benefit given to the poor and whether support and equity are independent considerations. Tax law defines the degree of control that donors are legally able to exercise over the organizations they support. 3. The police function refers to regulatory issues such as excessive compensation. For foundations regulatory issues also include self-dealing, minimum payout, excess business holdings, and jeopardizing investments. The IRS uses its regulatory power to enforce transparency by requiring annual public disclosure (Form 990). 4. The ‘‘border patrol’’ function prevents charitable nonprofits from encroaching on government through limitations on political action, lobbying, and advocacy and it discourages tax exempt nonprofits from encroaching on for-profit businesses by taxing their unrelated business activity.
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Public charities (a) consists of schools, churches, hospitals, and organizations that receive a substantial part of their income from the general public or from the government or meets one of three alternative tests as a ‘‘supporting organization.’’ Supporting organizations typically manage endowments or real estate. Private foundations (b) are further subdivided into (i) operating foundations which devote at least 85% of their income to their own charitable activities rather than grant-making and (ii) nonoperating foundations which derive most of their income from investments and make grants to other organizations. Certain aspects of tax law apply to all groups, but other aspects are unique to a group. Taken as a whole, the law is most restrictive with respect to private nonoperating foundations. It is less restrictive with private operating foundations and public charities and least restrictive with noncharitable organizations. Some examples: (1) All nonsectarian exempt entities with over $25,000 in annual income must publicly disclose on IRS Form 990 every year. (2) No public charity or foundation may engage in political activity. (3) However, noncharitable exempt entities may lobby unfettered, public charities may lobby within certain limits, and no foundation may lobby except to protect its legal status. (4) Tax policy imposes restrictions on the investment and spending activities of private foundations alone. (5) Private foundations alone must pay a tax on net investments. The law pertaining to private gain (intermediate sanctions), which applies only to operating public charities and public benefit organizations (i.e., so-called c3 and c4 organizations), is an important exception to the pattern of there being fewer restrictions on public charities than foundations.
Distinctions Among Nonprofits
US tax law divides the tax-exempt universe into (1) charitable and (2) noncharitable. Charitable organizations are defined in section 501(c) (3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Charitable purposes include: ‘‘relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency’’ (IRS website, 2008). Gifts to recognized charitable organizations, and in general to them only, are tax deductible to the donor. Charitable organizations (1 above) are subdivided into: (a) public charities and (b) private foundations.
State and Local Policies
Every state exempts charitable nonprofits from the property tax. All of the 45 states with a corporate income tax exempt charitable nonprofits. Most states with a sales tax exempt either the purchases or sales by charities. The definition of charity varies among the states and in some states it varies by type of exemption. Every state exempts property owned by a nonprofit organization and used for a charitable purpose – even those without a constitutional mandate (Bowman & Fremont-Smith, 2006). Mere ownership by an organization belonging to an exempt category is not sufficient; every state requires a parcel of property to be used for exempt purposes. The property-tax exemption is disproportionately important to churches, private schools and colleges, nonprofit housing corporations, and arts
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organizations. In at least 27 states, organizations that are primarily social cannot qualify as charities for property tax purposes, even if they perform charitable acts. Several others restrict the ability of charities to serve alcohol as an indirect way of limiting social activity. According to Gallagher (1999) 24 of the 45 states with a general sales tax do not tax purchases by charitable organizations: 10 states use common law definition of charity, 14 either cross-reference section 501(c) (3) of the federal Internal Revenue Code, or enact a nearly identical description in state law, and 16 additional states have a limited exemption from the sales tax for purchases by specific categories of charitable organizations. An additional 14 states explicitly exempt purchases by nonprofit educational institutions and another nine exempt purchases by ‘‘schools, colleges and universities.’’ And, nine states exempt only certain cultural institutions; 18 states explicitly exempt purchases by houses of worship and/or religious organizations. Of the 45 states that tax corporate net income, 32 have a flat rate, while the others use graduated rates (Bowman & Fremont-Smith, 2006). States define taxable income differently and use various methods for allocating net income to a particular state for corporations doing business in multiple states and/or foreign countries.
● Spending rate of operating public charities. Regulations pertaining to endowments of operating public charities are more lax than regulations regarding investment portfolios of private foundations. The public disclosure form (IRS Form 990) provides virtually no information on charitable endowments. ● Efficiency of income tax deductions. Donor advised funds represent a substantial and growing pot of money with no payout requirement (unlike foundations). Donors receive a tax deduction when payment is made into a charitable fund held by a third-party but remaining under their control. Although they can not withdraw money for personal use, the tax system provides no incentive to spend money already contributed. Requiring a minimum payout would increase the flow of resources to charity without a loss to the federal treasury. ● Hybrid organizational forms. New joint ventures between for-profit corporations and nonprofits raise questions about the use of charitable assets for private benefit, particularly regarding proprietary research financed by for-profit corporations for their exclusive benefit being conducted under the auspices of nonprofit hospitals and universities and on their premises using their staff.
Other Issues
International Perspectives
● Price elasticity of giving. Research continues to refine measurements of the price elasticity of giving. This parameter is critical to our understanding of the macro-impact of tax policy. Most of the key issues are of a policy nature, however. ● Quid pro quo. In the US growing public pressure to provide health care to uninsured persons (10%–15% of the population) has heightened interest in linking tax exemption of each nonprofit hospital to the charity care it provides. ● Foundation payout. The law requires private foundations to spend at least 5% of their assets each year. Most do not exceed the minimum and critics propose increasing the minimum or, at least, disallow operating expenses from the statutory spending requirement. ● Foundation investment tax. Private foundations are subject to a 2% excise tax on net investment income, which is reduced to 1% in any year a foundation’s distribution exceeds its average percentage distributions over the preceding 5 years. This two-tier arrangement creates a perverse incentive to refrain from increasing distributions for disaster relief because it will raise the 5 year average.
This section is based on a study of 27 countries by Dehne et al. (2008) that finds different legal traditions quite evident in current tax treatment. Nearly all countries with ‘‘a broad definition of the nonprofit character’’ exempt nonprofits from the corporate income tax. Belgium, France, and Portugal only grant exemption to specially recognized or separately registered nonprofits. These countries also tax certain sources of income. France and Belgium, for example, tax land rents and capital gains (the stock of domestic corporations excepted) of nonprofits. In most countries income from commercial activities unrelated to mission is taxable. Membership dues and fees are generally not deductible from individual income before computing tax due. On the other hand, there is considerable variety in the tax treatment of charitable donations and bequests. Large countries including the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, and a few smaller ones, allow deductions on charitable donations to a broad class of qualified nonprofits, although some impose limits. Many countries including France, the Iberian nations, most of the Baltic States, and most of the Low Countries require that recipient organizations ‘‘be active in specific
Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic
welfare fields or hold a special status in the sense that they are particularly recognized and/or registered.’’ (Ibid., 2008) Nearly every country restricts deductions for contributions to foreign charities. Laws regarding bequests to charitable organizations are treated in similar fashion.
Future Directions
● Price elasticity of giving. Future research likely will lead to more precise estimates of price elasticity of giving. ● Quid pro quo. Pending lawsuits may force the issue of whether tax relief for certain nonprofits (e.g., hospitals) should be contingent upon their providing service below cost to poor persons. If any of these lawsuits succeed, the justification for a general charitable exemption could be called into question. ● Foundation payout. If a global recession suppresses rates of return, the 5% minimum could exceed the return on most foundation portfolios and forestall legislative action on raising the minimum payout and excluding expenses from the minimum payout requirement. The pro-cyclical tendency of foundation payouts will be more likely to attract the attention of policy makers who will be looking for new resources to meet social needs. ● Foundation investment tax. There is growing political pressure in favor of single rate tax. It is easy to construct a revenue neutral policy and foundations are likely to support the change, so a change in this direction is likely to succeed in the near future. The tax is intended to finance IRS supervision of the tax-exempt sector, but only a small fraction is spent for this purpose, which contributes to inadequate government oversight of the sector. Barring a series of major scandals in rapid succession, it is hard to see new resources being made available to increase oversight. ● Spending rate of operating public charities. Critics are calling for a new ‘‘commensurate test’’ whereby a public charity must demonstrate that it is carrying on a charitable program commensurate with its financial resources. Affected organizations are against any change in this direction. The future of this proposal is uncertain at best. ● Efficiency of income tax deductions. Requiring a minimum payout from Donor Advised Funds would increase the flow of resources to charity without a loss to the federal treasury. It would seem to be an easy policy choice but the future of this proposal is somewhat uncertain. ● Hybrid organizational forms. No consensus has yet emerged on how to frame the issue.
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Cross-References
▶ Charity Law ▶ Nonprofit Organization ▶ Simon, John ▶ Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the U.S. ▶ Tax Exemption, Justifications for
References/Further Readings Bowman, W. (2001). The property tax exemption as an exit tax on capital. Proceedings of the 93rd Annual Conference on Taxation, National Tax Association, Santa Fe, NM, 180–184 (November 9–11, 2000). Bowman, W., & Fremont-Smith M. R. (2006). Nonprofits and state and local governments. In E. T. Boris & C. E. Steuerle (Eds.), Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Cconflict (2nd ed., pp. 181–217). Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Dehne, A., Friedrich, P., Nam, C. W., & Parsche, R. (2008). Taxation of nonprofit associations in an international comparison. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 37(4), 709–729. Gallagher, J. G. (1999). Sales tax exemptions for charitable, educational, and religious nonprofit organizations. Washington, DC: National Council of Nonprofit Associations. Grønbjerg, K., Liu, H., & Pollak, T. (2008, August 10–13). Incorporated but not IRS-Registered: Exploring the Grey Fringes of the Nonprofit Universe. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Anaheim, CA. IRS Website. (2008). http://www.irs.gov/publications/p557/ch03.html# d0e4197 Simon, J. (1987). Tax treatment of nonprofit organizations. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The Nnonprofit Ssector: A Rresearch Hhandbook (pp. 67–98). New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press. Simon, J., Dale, H., & Chisolm, L. (2006). The federal tax treatment of charitable organizations. In W. W. Powell & R. Stenberg (Eds.), The Nnonprofit Ssector: A Rresearch Hhandbook (2nd ed., pp. 267–306). New Haven, CT/London: Yale University Press.
Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ANDREAS ORTMANN1, BRHLIKOVA PETRA2 1 The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW, Australia 2 University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK
Introduction A key insight of the emerging economics literature on the internal organization and dynamics of nonprofit organizations is that the black box called nonprofit organization can be usefully unpacked with the game-theoretic tools that also have been used to unpack the internal organization and dynamics of for-profit firms. The key problem
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for both ownership types is the strategic interaction between so-called principals and agents. This ‘‘agency problem’’ may be found on various levels of the organization and in various guises but typically involves what is known as asymmetric information problem: a principal – typically positioned higher in the hierarchy – might want an agent to perform some task but might not, or only at prohibitively high costs, be able to assert the agent’s ability or effort, or the task specifics, or both. This situation of incomplete information opens the door for an agent’s ‘‘opportunistic’’ behavior. (Economists use the term ‘‘opportunistic’’ as synonym for the term ‘‘selfinterested.’’) The strategic interaction between a board and the top manager, for example, is likely to be an agency problem in that the board [the principal] has the options to (not) trust the manager [the agent] who might (not) have an incentive to pursue activities that are aligned with the mission of the nonprofit. Contract failure occurs when a board trusts a manager who turns out not to be trustworthy because he or she is opportunistic. Theories of how to align the interests of principal and agent, and hence to overcome contract failure, are at the heart of modern theories of for-profit firms. This essay argues that they are also the key for an understanding the internal organization and dynamics of nonprofit firms, notwithstanding that nonprofit organizations have functions other than service delivery (see Frumkin, 2002). This essay follows the suggestion of the editors of this encyclopedia of calling the objects of this investigation ‘‘nonprofits.’’ In his entry on Nonprofit Organization for this encyclopedia, Hall presents the definition and history of the term, which, as he points out, has been not uncontested and which, in addition, is factually wrong in that nonprofit organizations can make profit.
Definitions While economic theories of nonprofit organization are of fairly recent origin, one deservedly prominent economic theory of nonprofit organizations foreshadowed the game-theoretic approach to internal organization and dynamics: Hansmann (1980) formulated the important insight that the ‘‘non-distribution constraint’’ (NDC) nonprofits are subjected to almost by definition, together with the ‘‘fair compensation constraint’’ (FCC), could be ‘‘a crude but effective consumer protection device’’ (Hansmann, 1994: 2) and thus rationalize (the emergence of) nonprofit organizations (see also Malani et al., 2003; Ortmann & Schlesinger, 2003; Hansmann, 2003). Hansmann’s idea was inspired by the famous lemons problem which a young assistant professor at Berkeley pondered in 1966–1967 (Akerlof, 2003). (Irony has it
that his article brought him initially three rejections at top journals . . . and a Nobel prize more than three decades later.) In his article, Akerlof (1970) explained why it was possible that the quality uncertainty characteristic for so-called experience goods such as cars, car repairs, organic fruit, education, health, day, and elder care (and obviously any other good and service where the buyer can not ex ante be completely sure about what he or she ends up buying) could lead to market failure: opportunistic sellers (whether nonprofit, or for-profit) might want to exploit the trust of buyers. Consumers, anticipating this rationally, might choose not to buy highprice products and consequently only low quality products will be traded. Building on Akerlof’s work (and also on that of Arrow, 1963, and that of Nelson & Krahinsky, 1973; see Hansmann, 2003), Hansmann (1980) added the intriguing suggestion that because, at least conceptually, nonprofits cannot distribute profits to shareholders, they have no incentives to opportunistically sell experience goods of inferior quality, or otherwise to shortchange consumers and/or donors. In turn, consumers and/or donors would have an incentive to trust sellers of experience goods. This argument is now known as the ‘‘trust hypothesis’’ or ‘‘trustworthiness hypothesis’’ (e.g., Ortmann & Schlesinger, 2003; Hansmann, 2003; see also Malani et al., 2003 who call it the ‘‘noncontractible quality model’’). As Ortmann (1996) pointed out, the temptation that might lead an opportunistic seller to exploit the trust of consumers or donors is in essence the same that might lead an opportunistic manager to exploit the trust of the board. In other words, the external agency problem (which might lead to market failure) is structurally similar to the various internal agency problems (which might lead to contract failures). While the trust hypothesis thus foreshadowed the game-theoretic approach to internal organization and dynamics (Hansmann, 1980, 1994), it played up the importance of NDC and FCC for the external agency problem but downplayed the importance of the various internal agency problems that do afflict nonprofit organizations. Internal agency problems that afflict nonprofit organizations are more difficult to conceptualize due to the variety of nonprofit institutions, the variety of stakeholders in these institutions, and the potentially more complex motivations. Glaeser (2003) builds, by necessity, a simplistic yet very useful model of the agency problems that afflict nonprofit organizations by focusing on the strategic interaction of a manager (‘‘meant to represent the CEO and the board,’’ p. 2), workers, and donors/ customers. These three types of actors have diverging
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preferences and the manager has the task to accommodate, on the one hand, her workers and, on the other hand, the donors (which are of particular importance for organizations that finance themselves heavily through donations, or so-called donative nonprofits) and customers (which are of particular importance to organizations which finance themselves through the sale of their products, so-called commercial nonprofits). This balancing act is often complicated by the fact that CEO and board do have conflicting interests.
Historical Background Like economic theories of for-profit firms (e.g., Tirole, 2006), economic theories of the internal organization of nonprofit organizations are of fairly recent origin (e.g., Ortmann, 1996; Glaeser, 2003; see also Steinberg, forthcoming). This development is probably due to the fact that the game-theoretic tools that are typically used to unpack the internal organization of nonprofit organizations are of fairly recent origin themselves (prominently, Tirole, 1988).
Key Issues What do Customers know about Ownership?
For the trust hypothesis to have bite, donors, and customers need to know, and care, about ownership status. That seems so obvious an assumption to make for donors that no hard evidence seems necessary (and indeed does not seem to exist). However, it is much less clear that customers know, and care, about ownership type and would take ownership type as a signal that an organization can, or cannot, be trusted. Ortmann and Schlesinger (2003; see also Hansmann, 2003) review the evidence to investigate this issue for health care, education, day care institutions, and nursing homes, and – lamenting that the question has received little attention – conclude that ‘‘consumers have some awareness of ownership, but that their impressions are not always reliable.’’ (pp. 98). The support for the trust hypothesis thus seems not persuasive but is stronger in some areas (e.g., day care institutions and nursing homes) than others (e.g., education and health care institutions). Are there Alternative Means of Solving the External, and Internal, Agency Problems?
Heal (1976) argued that markets are quite able to take care of the lemons problem, and that a number of mechanisms such as reputation, or warranties, could make sure that bad goods and services would not drive out the good ones. His argument was essentially built on
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the well-established game-theoretic insight (e.g., Kreps, 1990) that frequent repetition and reasonable information flows might constrain even unscrupulous profitmaximizers enough for opportunism not to be a serious problem. By way of example, if indeed the lemons problem would be so pervasive and recalcitrant, should then experience goods such as computers and airplanes not also be produced by nonprofits? But that is not what is seen and most are quite comfortable to travel in products that were made by capitalist enterprises and to rely, while traveling, on complicated machines that allow one to finish articles for handbooks such as this. One might even rely on word processing programs produced by a ruthless monopolist. Of course, reputation does not work on all markets and as frequency of purchase and information flows become less, as experience goods take on more credence characteristics, and as goods and services become more idiosyncratic, reputations might not do the job as well, and agency problems might raise their ugly head (Ortmann & Schlesinger, 2003). Car repairs, organic fruit, education, health, day, and elder care, are all examples where such problems could indeed arise (but do not have to) although it is probably no coincidence that organic fruit, education, health, day, and elder care are areas industries where nonprofits and for-profits coexist and – increasingly – compete (Hansmann, 1994; Ortmann & Schlesinger, 2003). What does it Take for NDC and FCC to Solve External Agency Problems if Reputation Fails?
For NDC and FCC to provide protection against opportunism when reputation and other market mechanisms do not work properly, it is imperative that internal agency problems are indeed constrained by them. Conceptually, this seems to require that the motivations of those who manage, oversee, or work in nonprofits are different – somehow more ‘‘altruistic’’ or ‘‘public-spirited,’’ or at least ideological (e.g., Rose-Ackerman, 1996) – than the motivations of those managing, overseeing, or working in profit-maximizing firms (e.g., Tirole, 2006). This is not a priori an abstruse proposition. As Frumkin (2002; see Hager this encyclopedia), for example, has argued, many nonprofits are formed to facilitate civic and political engagement, or social entrepreneurship, and they might well attract, or be founded by, actors with motivations other than self-interest. Indeed, already Young noted that the dominant rationales for nonprofits in economic theories of nonprofit organizations (e.g., Hansmann, 1980 but see also Weisbrod, 1980) have ‘‘a self-less, publicspirited quality to them’’ (Young, 1986: 161). Implicit is the assumption, also to be found in textbooks that those working for nonprofits have more altruistic motivations
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and in any case are united by their belief in the common good (e.g., Oster, 1995: 7; Young & Steinberg, 1995: 34–35). Clearly, this is also the cherished self-image of many who manage, oversee, or work in nonprofits. The problem is that direct empirical evidence for this proposition is thin (e.g., Rawls et al., 1975; see Ortmann & Schlesinger, 2003 for a review). Indirect empirical evidence is provided by studies of compensation differentials between for-profits and nonprofits. In support of the ‘‘donative labor hypothesis’’ which suggests that employees of nonprofit firms accept lower wages when they receive nonpecuniary benefits from their work (Hansmann, 1980; Preston, 1989; Rose-Ackerman, 1996), Leete (2001) found lower nonprofit wages in legal services, elementary and secondary schools, broadcasting, and publishing services. Higher nonprofit wages, however, were estimated for hospitals (but see the important work by Weisbrod and his colleagues for a somewhat more differentiated view; (Roomkin & Weisbrod, 1999; Erus & Weisbrod, 2003), nursing and personal care facilities, and colleges and universities (Leete, 2001). These results might reflect inefficiently high wages in nonprofits or differences in the quality of services. The empirical evidence on the differences in quality in these industries is strong for some of these industries and weak for others (see Weisbrod, 1997; Malani et al., 2003; Ortmann & Schlesinger, 2003; Ortmann, 2006) but does not persuasively refute the conjecture that ‘‘the generally weak governance of nonprofit organizations means that if the organizations get wealthier over time, they will almost invariably become oriented toward the interests of their elite workers’’ (Glaeser, 2003: 4). The sum total of the evidence suggests strongly, as do numerous scandals involving nonprofits (see Ortmann & Schlesinger, 2003; Gibelman & Gelman, 2004) that alignment of incentives in nonprofits might be difficult to attain and that it is reasonable to think through internal agency problems in nonprofits along the lines it is being done in corporate finance. Better cautious than sorry! Aligning Preferences/Interests in Nonprofits
To recall, the agency problem can be found on various levels of the organization and in various guises but typically involves what is known as asymmetric information problem. This situation opens the door for an agent’s ‘‘opportunistic’’ behavior. Ortmann and Squire (2000) conceptualized traditional colleges and universities as cascades of such internal agency games and showed how the sum total of, even a few, internal agency games gone wrong would cause such organizations to drift into inefficiency. In order to do so, these authors had to identify the
motivations of the various constituencies that populate colleges and universities and assess their alignment with the mission of these educational institutions. Ortmann (2001) suggested, by tracking the emergence of a new breed of for-profit competitors for traditional colleges and universities, that these inefficiencies are considerable. Ortmann (1996) discusses how to conceptualize other nonprofit settings in a likewise manner. Glaeser’s (2003) intriguing model illustrates why it might be difficult to align incentives in nonprofit organization(s). To recall, managers, workers, and donors/ customers are assumed to pursue diverging preferences and the manager has the task to accommodate, on the one hand, her workers and, on the other hand, donors, and customers. The author lumps board and CEO together in the manager category, realizing that this interaction is very likely also an internal agency problem, and that in any case, ‘‘given the murky mission of many nonprofits, their managers are inherently harder to incentivize. A forprofit manager’s income can be tied to the stock price of his firm, but no similar benchmarks exist for most nonprofits. . . . The result of these factors is that the managers of nonprofit organizations . . . have an almost unmatched degree of autonomy’’ (p. 2). This, he then argues, almost guarantees that workers tend to subvert – increasingly, as nonprofits grow richer – the mission of nonprofits for their own opportunistic purposes. As a matter of fact, ‘‘the most surprising thing to me about these organizations is that they function as well as they do’’ (p. 2). Glaeser (2003) attributes this impression to competition in the markets for donors, customers, and workers. While Glaeser (2003) lumps board and CEO together in the manager category, Ostrower and Stone (2006) provide an insightful discussion of nonprofit boards and the conflicts that they might face. Specifically, they discuss board composition (and related issues of gender, race, and ethnicity, and class) and board size (nonprofits tend to be twice as large as those of for-profits) as well as what they call ‘‘board-staff relations’’ (p. 617), the related issue of board versus CEO dominance, and the determinants and consequences of board effectiveness. Not surprisingly, given the murky mission of many nonprofits and the diversity of the nonprofit and voluntary sector, they find it difficult to come to simple conclusions: ‘‘If there is one generalization that emerges from our review of the literature, it is that boards are heterogeneous entities that defy easy generalizations. The overwhelming evidence from the literature underscores the inadequacy of any ‘one size fits all’ model of boards’’ (p. 623). Similar discussions have taken place in corporate finance where, for example, the evidence on the
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importance of independent directors as guarantors of board effectiveness has a long-standing tradition (see Tirole, 2006; Boone et al., 2007) but where a consensus seems to emerge, last but not least through experimental work (e.g., Gillette et al., 2003, 2008), that independent directors, and the way they communicate with each other, are of utter importance for the alignment of incentives and board effectiveness and, ultimately, the effectiveness of organizations. Ostrower and Stone (2006) point out correctly that the effectiveness between competing actors such as boards and managers is a function of an undisputed mission and the context in which that mission is accomplished. Agreement exists that the incentive alignment in nonprofits is more difficult (and therefore a real theoretical challenge) but it is believed to be necessary. Developments in the United States illustrate this claim. Hansmann (1980) argued that ‘‘in most states neither the office of the attorney general nor any other office of the state government devote any appreciable amount of resources to the oversight of nonprofit firms’’ (p. 873). In other words, the enforcement of NDC and FCC tends to be weak. This lack of enforcement had predictable and deplorable consequences: Two reports by the General Accounting Office (1995, 2002), for example, found that nonprofit compensations were questionable and that the documentation of the use of donations that poured in after the WTC attack on 11 September 2001, were inadequate and of questionable quality, thus precluding proper public oversight of these organizations. In response to these concerns and a number of highprofile scandals (Ortmann & Schlesinger, 2003), the Independent Sector [www.independentsector.org], acknowledging the importance of preserving the trust in the sector, convened a Panel on the Nonprofit Sector [www. nonprofitpanel.org], which has formulated ‘‘Principles for Good Governance and Ethical Practice’’ (Nonprofit Panel, 2006). The 33 principles – in spirit similar to various guidelines proposed for for-profit firms (Tirole, 2006) – address legal compliance and public disclosure, effective governance, strong financial oversight, and responsible financing, and demonstrate clearly the importance of incentive-compatible solutions. The section on effective governance contains detailed recommendations on the size and composition of boards postulating that a clear majority (typically, at least two thirds) of members ought to be independent. This self-regulatory process aims to enhance transparency and accountability of the nonprofit sector but it is noteworthy that it was initiated only after regulatory review was threatened, as theory would predict (e.g., De Marzo et al., 2005). It will be interesting to see whether
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the self-regulatory process will indeed work. It is highly questionable from this point of view since the guidelines are just that.
International Perspectives Good Governance and Ethical Practice guidelines, as important a tool for transparency and accountability as they are, do not exist everywhere and even to the extent that they might exist, they may have little bite because of lack of enforcement. The external and internal regulation of nonprofit institutions varies across countries and indeed, most of the countries seem to have to a certain extent, problems with the enforcement of NDC and FCC. In Central Europe (or, more specifically in the new member states of the European Union), for example, enforcement essentially does not exist (e.g., Pospisil, 2006) which is likely to affect the trustworthiness of the nonprofit sector. What is true for Central Europe is also true for other parts of Europe. Interestingly, in the older member states of the European Union alternative mechanisms have evolved (e.g., certification; see Ortmann & Svitkova, 2007).
Future Directions While a rapidly expanding literature is now concerned with the internal organization and dynamics of nonprofit organizations, even elementary issues such as the effects of board size, composition, communication, and effectiveness, remain underresearched. For example, the boards of nonprofits tend to be twice as large as those of for-profits. While reasonable conjectures exist to explain why that is (a quidpro-quo for large donors), there is no research that investigates the consequences of board size on effectiveness. Likewise, the question of who enters the nonprofit sector and the motivations of those working in nonprofits are in dispute. This essay has stressed why it is important to get the behavioral assumption right. Ultimately, whether one builds on unrealistic assumptions of ‘‘altruism’’ and ‘‘public-spiritedness’’ has important consequences for the design, implementation, and functioning of nonprofit organizations. A related issue is to what extent competition for donors, customers, and in the labor market really constrains opportunism in nonprofits. Is Glaeser right? There are certainly other opinions on that matter (Bradley et al., 2003). Finally, an interesting question is that of alternative market mechanisms. This is a relatively new area of research. The comparative advantages of self-regulation and certification, for example, are self-regulation and certification, for example, are poorly understood. As already mentioned, while the hope is that this view is wrong, it is unlikely that self-regulatory processes like the one
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initiated by the Independent Sector in the United States are incentive-compatible and likely to succeed.
Cross-References
▶ Codes of Ethics and Codes of Practice ▶ Commercialization and For-profits in Disguise ▶ Contracts and Contract Regimes ▶ Good Governance ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Hansmann, Henry ▶ Independent Sector ▶ Nonprofit organizations ▶ Nonprofit organizations, functions of ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Theories of nonprofit organization, Economic I (public goods, entrepreneurship, stakeholder control) ▶ Transparency
References/Further Readings Akerlof, G. A. (1970). The market for lemons: Quality, uncertainty and the market mechanism. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), 488–500. Akerlof, G. A. (2003). Writing the ‘‘The Market for ‘Lemons’’’: A personal and interpretive essay, from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ economics/articles/akerlof/index.html; 09/17/2008 Arrow, K. (1963). Uncertainty and the welfare economics of medical care. American Economic Review, 54(4), 941–973. Boone, A. L., Field, L. C., Karpoff, J. M., & Raheja, C. G. (2007). The determinants of corporate board size and composition: An empirical analysis. Journal of Financial Economics, 85(1), 66–101. Bradley, B., Jansen, P., & Silverman, L. (2003). The nonprofit sector’s $100 billion opportunity. Harvard Business Review, 81(5), 94–103. De Marzo, P. M. (2005). Self-regulation and government oversight. Review of Economic Studies, 72(3), 687–706. Erus, B., & Weisbrod, B. A. (2003). Objective functions and compensation structures in nonprofit and for-profit organizations: Evidence from the ‘‘Mixed’’ hospital industry. In E. L. Glaeser (Ed.), The governance of not-for-profit organizations (pp. 117–142). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Frumkin, P. (2002). On being nonprofit: A conceptual and policy primer. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. General Accounting Office. (1995, 28 February). Tax-exempt organizations: Information on selected types of organizations (Briefing Report No. GGD-95-84BR). Washington, DC. General Accounting Office. (2002, 30 April). Tax-exempt organizations: Improvements possible in public, IRS, and state oversight of charities (GAO-02-526). Washington, DC. Gibelman, M., & Gelman, S. R. (2004). A loss of credibility: Patterns of wrongdoing among nongovernmental organizations. Voluntas, 15(5), 355–381. Gillette, A. B., Noe, T. H., & Rebello, M. J. (2003). Corporate board composition, protocols, and voting behavior: Experimental evidence. The Journal of Finance, 58(5), 1997–2031. Gillette, A. B., Noe, T. H., & Rebello, M. J. (2008). Board structures around the world: An experimental investigation. Review of Finance, 12(1), 93–140.
Glaeser, E. L. (2003). The governance of not-for-profit organizations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Hansmann, H. (1980). The role of nonprofit enterprise. Yale Law Journal, 89(5), 835–901. Hansmann, H. (1994). Organization of production in the human services. PONPO Working Paper No. 200 and ISPS Working Paper No. 2200. Hansmann, H. (2003). The role of trust in nonprofit enterprise. In H. Anheier & A. Ben-Ner (Eds.), The study of nonprofit enterprise: Theories and approaches (pp. 115–22). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Heal, G. (1976). Do bad products drive out good? Quarterly Journal of Economics, 90(3), 499–503. Kreps, M. (1990). Corporate culture and economic theory. In J. Alt & K. Shepsle (Eds.), Perspectives on positive political economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Leete, L. (2001). Whither the nonprofit wage differential? Estimates from the 1990 census. Journal of Labor Economics, 19(1), 136–170. Malani, A. (2003). Theories of firm behavior in the non-profit sector: A synthesis and empirical evaluation. In E. L. Glaeser (Ed.), The governance of not-for-profit organizations (pp. 181–233). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Nelson, R., & Krashinsky, M. (1973). Two major issues of public policy: Public policy and the organization of supply. In R. Nelson & D. Young (Eds.), Public subsidy for day care of young children. Lexington, MA: DC Heath. Nonprofit Panel. (2006). Principles for good governance and ethical practice, from http://www.nonprofitpanel.org; 09/17/2008 Ortmann, A. (1996). Modem economic theory and the study of nonprofit organizations: Why the Twain shall meet. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 25, 470–484. Ortmann, A. (2001). Capital romance: Why Wall Street fell in love with higher education. Education Economics, 9(2), 293–311. Ortmann, A. (2006). Capital romance: Why Wall Street fell in love with higher education. In Breneman (Eds.), Earnings from learning. The rise of for-profit universities (pp. 145–166). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Ortmann, A., & Schlesinger, M. (2003). Trust, repute, and the role of nonprofit enterprise. In H. Anheier & A. Ben-Ner (Eds.), The study of nonprofit enterprise: Theories and approaches (pp. 77–114). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Ortmann, A., & Squire, R. (2000). A game-theoretic explanation of the administrative lattice in institutions of higher learning. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, 43, 377–91. Ortmann, A., & Svitkova, K. (2007). Certification as a viable quality assurance mechanism in transition countries: Evidence, theory, and open questions. Prague Economic Papers, 16, 99–115. Oster, S. (1995). Strategic management of nonprofit organizations. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ostrower, F., & Stone, M. M. (2006). Governance: Research trends, gaps, and future prospects. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The non-profit sector. A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Pospisil, M. (2006). Mapping the czech nonprofit sector. Civil Review, 3(3–4), 233–244. Preston, A. E. (1989). The nonprofit worker in a for-profit world. Journal of Labor Economics, 7, 438–463. Rawls, J. (1975). A comparison of managers entering or reentering the profit and nonprofit sectors. Academy of Management Journal, 18(3), 616–623.
Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic Roomkin, M., & Weisbrod, B. A. (1999). Managerial compensation in incentives in for-profit and nonprofit hospitals. Journal of Law, Economics and Organizations, 15(3), 750–781. Rose-Ackerman, S. (1996). Altruism, nonprofits, and economic theory. Journal of Economic Literature, 34, 701–728. Steinberg, R. (forthcoming). Principal-agent theory and nonprofit accountability. Manuscript. Tirole, J. (1988). The theory of industrial organization. Cambridge: MIT Press. Tirole, J. (2006). The theory of corporate finance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Young, D. R. (1986). Entrepreneurship and the behavior of nonprofit organizations: Elements of a theory. In S. Rose-Ackerman (Ed.), The economics of nonprofit institutions: Studies in structure and policy (pp. 161–184). New York: Oxford University Press. Young, D. R., & Steinberg, R. (1995). Economics of nonprofit managers. New York: The Foundation Center Press. Weisbrod, B. (1980). The nonprofit economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Weisbrod, B. (1997). The future of the nonprofit sector: Its entwining with private enterprise and government. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 16(4), 541–555.
Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic STEFAN TOEPLER1, HELMUT K. ANHEIER2,3 1 George Mason University, Arlington, VA, USA 2 University of Heidelberg, Heidelberg, Germany 3 Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany
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competitive advantage in situations of asymmetrical information between purchasers and providers of certain services; Estelle James, who focused attention on the issue of moral entrepreneurship as an important supply side condition, and the early general work on nonprofit entrepreneurship by Young; and Avner Ben-Ner, who considered the role of stakeholder control in nonprofits of a mutual or cooperative nature. This entry will provide an overview of these core theories that primarily aim at developing a rationale for the existence of nonprofits. A companion entry focuses on economic theory of the firm (see Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic).
Definitions The main strands of economic theorizing can be divided into theories that focus on the demand side (Weisbrod, Hansmann) and theories that focus on the supply side (James, Ben-Ner). Demand side, in this context, means that a theory tries to explain why purchasers (or clients or donors) might prefer to patronize nonprofits in seeking to fulfill their demands for certain goods and services rather than business firms or government agencies. Supply side theories, by contrast, seek to illuminate the motivations behind the establishment of nonprofits, since it is not necessarily clear why, in the absence of a profit motive, one person’s demand for a nonprofit service would result in another person’s willingness to supply such service. Demand and supply side theories are therefore not mutually exclusive, but largely complementary.
Introduction Why do nonprofit organizations exist between the state and the market? What determines the prevalence of nonprofits, public agencies, and business firms in certain industries? Why are there differences in the size and scope of the nonprofit sector among different countries and regions of the world? These are some of the foundational questions that have guided nonprofit research since its inception in the 1970s. Economists have proposed a set of different conceptual rationales to provide answers and some of these theories have been highly influential in shaping our basic understanding of the nonprofit sector. Of particular import has been the work of Burton Weisbrod, who carved a conceptual role for nonprofits out of the public choice diagnosis of the twin failures of the market and government in heterogeneous societies; Henry Hansmann, who argued that the non-distribution constraint instills trust in nonprofits which provides a
Demand Side
Among the first attempts at fitting nonprofits into the neoclassical economic model was Burton Weisbrod’s (1975) seminal theory, which is variously referred to as public goods or heterogeneity theory. Weisbrod’s theory of nonprofit organizations is an extension of the public choice theories where public good problems are resolved by the collective action of the individuals affected. Similarly, the public goods theory of nonprofit organizations provides an economic rationale for the formation of nonprofit organizations to provide public or collective goods. The starting point is the assumption of market failure, that is an inability of the market to supply certain goods or services in response to existing demand. A main source for market failure is the so-called free rider problem that Mancur Olson (1965) analyzed in his work on collective action. This problem leads to an undersupply of public
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goods (or over-demand on common-pool goods) because it is not economically rational for individuals to voluntarily contribute to the good’s provision if the individual’s contribution is not easily discernible. The standard remedy for this market failure is government intervention (that is, public provision of the good in question), which in and by itself does not leave room for nonprofit provision. Hence a further argument is needed to establish a government failure to supply the said good, and the twin failures of government and the market then provide a rationale for the nonprofit sector. The Weisbrod model explains the existence of nonprofit organizations with the help of two basic concepts: demand heterogeneity for the provision of public goods and the median voter. Demand heterogeneity refers to the demand for collective goods, and the extent to which this demand is broadly speaking similar across the population (demand homogeneity) or if different population groups have divergent demands for such goods in both quality and quantity (demand heterogeneity). The median voter represents that largest segment of the demand for collective goods within the electorate. Another way to define the median voter is to think of the statistically average person and the demands she would make on governmental spending policies. In a competitive liberal democracy, government officials, in seeking to maximize their chances of reelection, will strive to provide a given good at the level demanded by the median voter (as this will ensure a statistical majority). This strategy of public goods provision, by which the government satisfies the demand of the median voter, leaves some demands unmet. This would be demand by consumers who require the public good at quantitative and qualitative levels higher than expressed by the median voter. This unfilled demand for the public good is satisfied by nonprofit organizations, which are established and financed by the voluntary contributions of citizens who want to increase the output or quality of the public good. In other words, nonprofit organizations are gap-fillers; they exist as a result of private demands for public goods not offered by the public sector. By implication, due to market failure, the public good would unlikely be supplied by for-profit organizations. The basic model of nonprofit organizations considers the production of a single public good in situations of demand heterogeneity. In reality, of course, the situation is more complex, as quasi-public goods vary in quality and come in different versions or models. For example, there is not one health care or education service, but many different kinds. But the important point Weisbrod identifies applies to the basic as well as the more elaborate models
of public good provision: in a heterogeneous society, one would expect more nonprofit organizations than in homogeneous societies where the median voter segment of the demand curve for public goods would be much wider. Thus, the number of nonprofit organizations is positively related to the increase in the diversity of a population. Diversity not just in terms of ethnicity, language, or religion, but also in age, lifestyle preferences, occupational and professional background, wealth, or income. Proponents of this theory point to the United States as a ‘‘living example’’ of Weisbrod’s theory (Kingma, 2003). The vast array of nonprofit organizations in existence in the US can be attributed to its mixture of religious, political, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. James (1993), Feigenbaum (1980), and Chang and Tuckman (1996) show that the heterogeneity in a population is related to an increase in the size of the nonprofit sector in terms of number of organizations. Salamon and Anheier (1998) provide cross-national evidence for the theory for some countries but not for others. They found that there is a general tendency for the size of the nonprofit sector to increase with the religious heterogeneity of countries. At the same time, there are important exceptions, e.g., Ireland, Belgium, Israel, and the Czech Republic, a limited cross-national applicability of the heterogeneity. Weisbrod’s theory can also be read to draw inferences for the financing of nonprofit organizations. Specifically, it suggests that nonprofit organizations provide public goods through donative support, which otherwise would have been provided by the government. Following this reasoning, donor support should change if the government begins either begins to supply the good itself or fund nonprofit organizations for its provision. In other words, government spending will ‘‘crowd-out’’ donor contributions. However, studies by Bergstrom, Blume, and Varian (1986) reveal that the ‘‘crowd-out’’ may not be dollar for dollar but influenced by other incentives such as tax considerations, inertia as well as information asymmetries. The important point to keep in mind is that the crowdout effect, however partial, rests on some notion of a trade-off relation between public sector and nonprofit provision: an increase in government services to nonmedian voter demand will affect the scale of private nonprofit activities. Weisbrod himself has extended this model to create a ‘‘collectiveness index’’ for measuring the degree of ‘‘publicness’’ in the demand for a public good. The index takes account of how much revenue nonprofit organizations receive from voluntary donations as opposed to private fee income and public subsidies. The greater the revenue
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from donations, the higher the index score will be. Weisbrod argues that the index is a good measure of public demand for a specific public good not provided by government. Donors ‘‘vote’’ with their financial support and express their preferences for public goods not demanded by the median voter. Other major extensions of Weisbrod’s model concentrate on the output or the goods produced by the nonprofit sector. These models incorporate the preferences of stakeholders other than donors, such as managers, volunteers, and employees. They also allow for more than one type of good produced. The result of adding other stakeholders and other goods into the model is an explanation of why certain nonprofit goods and services differ from those of government-provided goods and services. Indeed, the power of Weisbrod’s model derives, in part, from its ability to offer a basis for other theorists to build upon. Among those is Henry Hansmann (1987), who argued that Weisbrod’s theory works best when applied to near public goods, for example, the services provided by the American Heart Association or the National Trust in the United Kingdom. In such situations, nonprofit provision is substitutional to government provision under conditions of demand heterogeneity for the public good in question. But how would the theory deal with the many nonprofit services that are quasi-public goods and allow for exclusion and rivalry? For Hansmann (1987: 29), the critical weakness in Weisbrod’s theory when applied to quasi-public goods is that it ‘‘stops short of explaining why nonprofit, rather than forprofit, firms arise to fill unsatisfied demand for public goods.’’ Following earlier work on health and social services (Nelson & Krashinsky, 1973) and known as contract failure or trust theory, Hansmann’s own theoretical contribution picks up on this point. In contrast to public goods, the starting point is a different market failure, namely information asymmetry. Information asymmetry becomes problematic in principal-agent relationships. Generally, agents (such as managers) have much better information than the principal (such as owners or trustees) because the principal is less directly involved in the day to day administration of an organization. The agent has thus insider information that can be manipulated to the agent’s rather than the principal’s advantage. In other words, agents can use this information differential (asymmetry) to cheat the principal. In the case of nonprofit organizations, Hansmann’s argument considers donors, users, or purchasers of services as principals, and the executives and directors of nonprofis as agents. The principals have usually less
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information than the organization offering the services, and, as a result, the agents could try to cheat in order to increase profits by providing lesser quality or quantity than promised. In such situations, the nonprofit form (esp. the non-distribution constraint) signals the absence of incentives to cheat and thus trustworthiness, because the constraint prevents the agents from personally benefiting from an exploitation of any information asymmetries. This is one important reason why trust and maintaining the trust of donors, clients, and other stakeholders is crucial for nonprofits. Hansmann specifies four different cases or scenarios where this line of argument would favor nonprofits over for-profits and where we would accordingly expect a strong nonprofit presence, because people would not trust commercial providers. To get these four scenarios, he distinguishes between donative and commercial nonprofits. The former ones are nonprofits who rely heavily on gifts, grants, and donations for revenue, whereas commercial nonprofits are those to primarily rely on fees for service. Donative Nonprofits then have a competitive advantages in situations where: (1) the purchaser (i.e., donor) is not the recipient of the service, and thus unable to monitor quantity or quality (e.g., foreign aid); and where (2) the goods produced are of a magnitude that the increment purchased by the donor cannot be determined (e.g., public radio programming). Commercial Nonprofits have a competitive advantages where (3) goods or services are extremely complex and/or difficult to evaluate (such as brain surgery); and where (4) the purchaser is not the consumer and the consumer cannot provide adequate feedback on the quality or quantity of the service (e.g., child care, nursing homes). In any of these four situations, donors, or purchasers might be concerned about being taken advantage of by commercial firms (i.e., less aid provided abroad than promised; substituting nursing care with cheaper medications) and will there prefer to patronize more trustworthy nonprofits. Hansmann’s theory is also not without limitations (see also Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic). One issue is how well the four scenarios cover the wide range of different services provided within the nonprofits. As some studies have shown that many clients have no clear notion of the auspices of the services providers they are using, questions have been raised about the empirical relevance of the argument. In addition, like Weisbrod’s argument, it focuses on the demand side and the question of why people would have demand for goods or services provided by nonprofits. But it does not address the issue of why people would want to supply goods or services in the nonprofit form.
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Supply Side
In contrast to the heterogeneity and trust-related theories, which emphasize aspects of the demand for services, entrepreneurship theories try to explain the existence of nonprofit organizations from a supply-side perspective. An entrepreneur is defined as an individual with a specific attitude towards change and whose function is to ‘‘carry out new combinations.’’ According to Joseph Schumpeter (1934), the Austrian-American economist, entrepreneurs are the innovative force in capitalist economies. They are part of the ‘‘creative destruction’’ that drives the capitalist system: they innovate by introducing new ways of seeing and doing things, and thereby displace old ones. Thus, if entrepreneurs drive missions and objective functions, their inputs and outputs, one would expect to see not only innovations in goods and service delivery arise from nonprofit organizations, but also competition between alternatives. Even though entrepreneurship approaches to understanding economic behavior and developments have a long history in the social sciences, with frequent reference made to Schumpeter and also to the economist Leibenstein, the most influential supply-side theorists in the nonprofit field have been Estelle James (1987), Susan Rose-Ackerman (1996), and Dennis Young (1983). In a series of papers in the 1980s and 1990s, they laid out the basic argument for what became known as the entrepreneurship theory of nonprofit organizations. To appreciate entrepreneurship approaches, one has to consider that they take a very different starting point from the demand-side theories. The emphasis placed on demand for collective goods and the role of the constraint on profit distribution, while important, arguably misses two critical points from an entrepreneurship perspective: first, nonprofit organizations may not be interested in profits in the first place; in fact, their objective function may lay elsewhere and assume nonmonetary forms. Second, the provision of services may not at all be the real, underlying reason for the organization’s existence, and these activities may serve only as the means for achieving some other goal as the ultimate objective. According to James (1987), nonprofits try to maximize nonmonetary returns such as faith, believers, adherents, or members; they are primarily interested in some form of immaterial value maximization, and the non-distribution constraints of monetary profits is only secondary to their organizational behavior. This reasoning points to the importance of religion and other value bases and ideologies. Indeed, James suggests that ‘‘moral entrepreneurs,’’ or ideologues in Rose-Ackerman’s terms, populate nonprofit fields eager to maximize nonmonetary returns.
The various types of entrepreneurs drive the mission, goals, and outputs of the organization. The motives of the entrepreneur play an important role in the organization’s development, outputs, and mission. This role is most pronounced in the field of religion, as James writes (1987: 404), ‘‘Universally, religious groups are the major founders of nonprofit service institutions. We see this in the origins of many private schools and voluntary hospitals in the United States and England, Catholic schools in France and Austria, missionary activities in developing countries, services provided by Muslim wacfs (religious trusts) and so on.’’ Indeed, James points out that nonprofits are strategically located throughout the life course in areas of taste formation: in primary socialization (daycare, nurseries, schools), but also in critical life situations (hospitals, hospices, homes for the elderly) and situations of special need (disability, divorce, and other major life events). Entrepreneurship theories argue that during such phases and situations, we are more open to questions relating to religion than we would be under ‘‘normal’’ circumstances. Hence, nonprofit entrepreneurs seek out such opportunities and combine service delivery with religious or otherwise ideologically colored ‘‘messages’’ in an effort to garner adherents, believers, or recruits. Whether nonprofit entrepreneurs try to maximize quantifiable aspects such as members or abstract concepts such as ‘‘salvation’’ or some ideology is irrelevant; what matters is that they often seek to combine such maximization efforts with service delivery. In this sense, many value-based nonprofits bundle products, or are product bundlers: one product that is the true and preferred output (e.g., salvation) and the other the necessary or auxiliary co-product, a means rather than the ultimate objective. Rose-Ackerman (1996) suggests that the valuebased or ideology-based nonprofits tend to develop into multiple product firms, and Weisbrod (1998) argues that the product bundling is a key aspect of the revenue behavior of many nonprofit organizations. In a sense, entrepreneurship approaches complete demand-side theories because nonprofits always need an actor or a group of actors to create the organization. Yet it is often difficult to differentiate between entrepreneurship and nonprofit management. This has consequences when trying to test the validity of the theory and may cause confusion with terminology. Moreover, it may be difficult to tell if the cause of innovations is from the entrepreneurship or from other factors. The problem with the innovation argument is that it can be applied and observed in entrepreneurs in almost all other types of organizations – a critique picked up by the stakeholder theory reviewed below.
Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic
As Badelt (2003) noted, original entrepreneurship theories tried to explain the existence of nonprofits; modern theories of organizational development try to extend this approach by describing and explaining the process of institutional change, in particular product bundling, thus ending up with a theory of behavior of organizations. In other words, entrepreneurs create and react to demand heterogeneity, and thus become a critical element of the institutional dynamics of modern society. While entrepreneurship theories form one major strand of supply side arguments, stakeholder control theories form the other. This latter type of theory, associated primarily with the work of Avner Ben-Ner, is rooted in organizational economics and economic theories of institutions. Ben-Ner and van Hoomissen (1991) acknowledge the importance of entrepreneurship and recognize that nonprofits are created by social entrepreneurs, religious leaders, and other actors who are not motivated by profit primarily. They refer to these and all other interested parties on both the demand side and the supply side as ‘‘stakeholders.’’ The theory Ben-Ner and van Hoomissen developed is built upon the interests and behaviors of stakeholders in the provision of trustrelated goods. The stakeholder theory begins with Hansmann’s reasoning: the trade of trust-related goods typically entails a conflict of interest between seller and buyer. The buyer wants the lowest possible price at the best quality, while the seller wants the highest possible price at the lowest quality in order to maximize profits. In a perfect market with perfect information flows, the buyer knows how much it costs to produce the product and other relevant information, and firms know consumer preferences, therefore both parties maximize their utility and transactions occur at the most efficient price. Unfortunately, under conditions of information asymmetry, consumers are at a disadvantage and subject to profiteering by profitseeking firms. Because of the non-distribution constraint, nonprofits can resolve this conflict, because they are not motivated by profit and therefore are less likely to degrade their products to maximize profits. Importantly though, the non-distribution constraint may be a necessary, but not a sufficient condition, as it will not necessarily prevent a hidden profit distribution in form of excessive salaries, perks, and other benefits for managers. Therefore, nonprofit managers may still retain an incentive to lower quantity or quality of services to the detriment of consumers. Ben-Ner argues that nonprofits are created by consumers and other demand-side stakeholders in order to ‘‘maximize control over output in the face of informational asymmetries.’’
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The key demand-side stakeholders are those who feel so strongly about the quality of the service provided and protection from moral hazard that they decide to exercise control over the delivery of service themselves. They thus become demand- and supply-side stakeholders at the same time. For example, parents may decide to start a daycare center for their children to achieve greater control over daycare services. The situation for stakeholder control applies to nonrival goods primarily, as providers cannot selectively downgrade the services provided. BenNer suggests that the combination of information asymmetry, nonrivalry, and stakeholder control sends much stronger signals of trustworthiness. In this sense, BenNer’s argument is a stricter theory than the trust-related theory and describes a narrower range of demand- and supply-side conditions under which nonprofits emerge.
Key Issues Although the core lines of economic theorizing were largely developed during the 1970s and 1980s, they have escaped major revisions since and remained useful and necessary conceptual anchors of our understanding of the nonprofit sector. Perhaps this is the reason for dearth of new theory seeking other rationales for the sector’s existence that has, with few exceptions (such as social origins theory), been notable since the 1990s. This does not mean, however, that the theoretical framework is either complete or not in need of further elaboration (Steinberg, 2006). To the contrary, existing theories remain fragmented and provide only partial answers to the question of why nonprofits exist. This is particularly noticeable in the case of stakeholder theories, because there are only relatively few types of nonprofit organizations which are truly typically controlled by their stakeholders. Of course, member-based associations fit the theoretical bill, but the vast majority of service providing nonprofits in the Anglo-Saxon world are controlled by self-perpetuating boards rather than members; and with the conversion of associations into limited companies for liability reasons elsewhere, this is also increasingly true in many Continental European countries. Trust theories likewise tend to cover only certain types of industries (or sub-industries) that are particularly vulnerable to contracting problems. While the theory covers child and nursing care and international relief well, the existence of similar information asymmetries in fields like environmental protection or community development might be less easily diagnosed. In addition, the theory by itself does not really illuminate the question of why nonprofits would be preferable to governmental provision. Entrepreneurship theory has its limits in explaining the
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recruitment of ‘‘moral’’ entrepreneurs outside the traditional religious and ideological camps. The emergence of entrepreneurship in less value-driven areas remains less well covered. Nevertheless, in combination with each other, the set of economic explanations cover a considerable conceptual ground. One central limitation, however, is that the explanatory focus of both supply and demand theories is on service provision. While this covers the economic core of the sector, it fails to capture its social and expressive dimensions. Among the important parts of the sector that are outside the range of economic explanation are member-based voluntary associations, foundations, social movements and all other organizations that do not engage in service provision or where service provision has at best ancillary character. As such, economic theories do not mesh very well with the more associational neoToquevillean approaches a la Putnam and broad civil society theory in general.
Future Directions Despite the relative shortcomings of the existing theories, the question why nonprofits exist can be considered as principally settled from an economic perspective. However, as nonprofits continue to adapt to changing market and policy environments, some of the core theoretical tenets are being challenged and remain in need of more policy-specific elaboration. The recent interest in social entrepreneurship has reinvigorated the supply-side argument but with a much greater focus on social value creation. The growing privatization of governmental responsibilities, the marketization of many nonprofit service fields and the resulting commercialization of large parts of the sector (Weisbrod, 1998) raise important issues about the role of nonprofits in collective good provision as well as the validity of old demarcation lines between the proper roles of the public, nonprofit, and business sectors. Likewise, the fundamentality of trust between nonprofits and their clients, donors, and other stakeholders remains reflected in current debates about accountability as much as impacts, outcomes, and performance measurement. As such, the economic rationales have become a backdrop to the arguably more pressing need to explain economic behavior and managerial choices in fast-changing policy environments (see Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic).
Cross-References
▶ Collective Action ▶ Commercialization and For-Profits in Disguise ▶ Goods and Services, Types of
▶ Hansmann, Henry ▶ James, Estelle ▶ Olson, Mancur ▶ Public Choice ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Social Origins Theory ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic ▶ Third-Party Government ▶ Weisbrod, Burton
References/Further Readings Badelt, C. (2003). Entrepreneurship in nonprofit organizations: Its role in theory and in the real world nonprofit sector. In H. K. Anheier, & A. Ben-Ner (Eds.), The study of the nonprofit enterprise theories and approaches. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Ben-Ner, A., & Van Hoomissen, T. (1991). Nonprofit organizations in the mixed economy: A demand and supply analysis. In A. Ben-Ner, & B. Gui (Eds.), The nonprofit sector in the mixed economy. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. Bergstrom, T., Blume, L., & Varian, H. (1986). On the private provision of public goods. Journal of Public Economics, 29(1), 25–49. Chang, C., & Tuckman, H. (1996). The goods produced by nonprofit organizations. Public Financial Quarterly, 24(1), 25–43. Dees, J. G., Emerson, J., & Economy, P. (2001). Enterprising nonprofits. New York: Wiley. Feigenbaum, S. (1980). The case of income redistribution: A theory of government and private provision of public goods. Public Finance Quarterly, 8(1), 3–22. Hansmann, H. (1987). Economic theories of non-profit organizations. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. James, E. (1987). The non-profit sector in comparative perspective. In W. W. Powell (Ed.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. James, E. (1993). Why do different countries choose a different publicprivate mix of educational services? The Journal of Human Resources, 28(3), 571–592. Kingma, B. R. (2003). Public good theories of the nonprofit sector: Weisbrod revisited. In H. K. Anheier, & A. Ben-Ner (Eds.), The study of the nonprofit enterprise: Theories and approaches. New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Nelson, R. R., & Krashinsky, M. (1973). Public control and organization of day care for young children. Public Policy, 22(1), 53–75. Olson, M. (1965). The logic of collective action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Rose-Ackerman, S. (1996). Altruism, nonprofits and economic theory. Journal of Economic Literature, 34, 701–728. Salamon, L., & Anheier, H. (1998). Social origins of civil society: Explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 9(3), 213–247. Schumpeter, J. (1934). The theory of economic development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Steinberg, R. (2006). Economic theories of nonprofit organizations. In W. W. Powell, & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed., pp. 117–139). New York: Yale University Press. Weisbrod, B. A. (1975). Toward a theory of the voluntary nonprofit sector in a three-sector economy. In E. Phelps (Ed.), Altruism, morality, and economic theory (pp. 171–195). New York: Russell Sage.
Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Political Weisbrod, B. A. (Ed.) (1998). To profit or not to profit: The commercial transformation of the nonprofit sector. New York: Cambridge University Press. Young, D. (1983). If not for profit, then for what? A behavioral theory of the nonprofit sector based on entrepreneurship. Lexington, KY: Lexington Books.
Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Political WOLFGANG SEIBEL University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany
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of 1789 had conquered state power in a combat against the ruling class of civil society itself, the aristocrats. This is why one of the early revolutionary measures was a law – the Loi le Chapelier of June 17, 1791 – that abolished intermediary associations standing between the individual citizen and the republic. Associations were considered legacies of the Old Regime of estates (cf. Seibel, 1990). It was only in 1901 that voluntary associations gained full legal recognition in France where Tocqueville, an aristocrat himself, has always been suspected to be rather a nostalgic adherent of the Old Regime than an advocate of democracy.
Key Issues Introduction In his classic account on Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville (2000 [1835]) characterized American voluntary associations as a crucial ingredient of civic life, buttressing and, at the same time, counterbalancing the institutions of the democratic state. Tocqueville’s idealized interpretation of associational life in what was then an embryonic variant of modern democracy entailed both normative and descriptive components that still provide a valuable basis for the conceptualization of state–civil society relations today.
Definition In a normative perspective, a rich and active civil society is generally considered to be a prerequisite of sound and durable democratic state structures. Thus, the notion of state–civil society relations is implicitly based on the assumption of a productive mutual reinforcement of civil society and a specific type of state which is democracy. There is, indeed, ample empirical evidence in support of the assumption that the quality of democracy and the structural richness and political activity of civil society are positively interrelated (cf. Putnam et al., 1993; Freitag, 2006, as typical representatives of this broad strand of literature). On the other hand, while portraying state–civil society relations in a particular foreign country, Tocqueville indirectly contrasted the American pattern of societal and political development to its French counterpart. This was a comparative descriptive view. Early democratization of statehood had obviously taken different trajectories in those two nations. Americans had experienced statehood in the form of colonial power against which societal elites had been mobilized for the sake of both liberty and economic interest. By contrast, the societal movement that forged the French Revolution
Thus, the way state–society relations are defined depends on the purpose of the definition itself. Tocqueville’s classic account carries a double message. In a normative perspective, organized civil society is a vital ingredient of sound and stable democracy indeed but it does not enhance political participation and democratic stability per se. Rather, robust and active civil society organizations may compete with the democratic institutional order of the state thus weakening the mechanisms of equal representation, transparency of decision making and public accountability. It is, ultimately, the strength of the constitutional order itself and the strength of political parties committed to the normative framework of democracy that guarantee the effective involvement of civil society organizations in the democratic political process and polity. A comparative perspective on state–civil society relationships, however, has to take into account the very national trajectories of societal and political development that were shaping the actual role of civil society organizations in modern industrial societies. The formative phase of state–civil society relations in today’s democracies was the emergence of the industrial state during the nineteenth century. It was then that an independent institutional sector within civil society developed whose institutional basis was closely linked to associational life which, in many European countries, had been a truly political movement in the first place. Throughout the eighteenth century, voluntary associations were the focal points of bourgeois political opposition and, thus, subject to state suppression. In Western and Central Europe, Germany, and Austria in particular, this pattern changed in the nineteenth century when industrialization and the rapid growth of the cities not only widened and strengthened the nonaristocratic social fabric but also created new needs of education, social welfare and health care. Voluntary associations along with church-related
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organizations and foundations as well as cooperatives and not-for-profit, tax-exempted firms became the infrastructure of non-state service provision in the realm of health care, education, social services, culture, and recreation. State–civil society relations can, thus, be conceptualized in accordance with both the political and the servicerelated dimension of civil society development. This is reflected in current theories and available empirical evidence of state–civil society relations that are either normative or descriptive-analytic in nature, or both. Prominent normative theories on state–civil society relations focus on the impact of social capital mobilization to civil society organizations on democratic statehood. These theories appear in a positive and a negative version. Positive theories of social capital mobilization emphasize the contribution of organized civil society to trustbuilding and the human capability to cooperate as crucial virtues of a democratic political culture. Robert D. Putnam et al. in their seminal book Making Democracy Work (1993) analyzed the mutual reinforcement of civil society involvement and administrative decentralization in Italy from the 1970s on, concluding that democratic stability even in an era of intensified political polarization can be enhanced through sound and lively civic cooperation at the grassroots-level. A complementary view is presented by Markus Freitag who, in a comparison of the 24 Swiss cantons, shows that the institutional rules and characteristics of the state itself have a significant impact on the formation and activity of associational life at the local and regional level. The more differentiated and the more intensified typical ingredients of the Swiss polity such as civic initiatives and referendums, a consensus-oriented style of political interaction and local autonomy of municipalities, the stronger and livelier civil society in terms of voluntary activity (Freitag, 2006). By contrast, negative theories of state–civil society relations put the emphasis on the tension between the formal institutional order of democracy and its integrative capacity on the one hand and the potential of civil society organizations to create para-constitutional, thus opaque and uncontrolled, spheres of political power that undermine standards of democratic transparency and accountability. Berman (1997), Hagtvet (1980) and Anheier and Seibel (2001: 57–65) point to the destructive role of antidemocratic voluntary associations during the agony of the Weimar Republic in Germany and the richly differentiated associational substructure of the Nazi-Party before and after Hitler’s seizure of power in 1933. Wolfgang Vortkamp (2008), in a diligent account of the social and political integrative capacity of voluntary associations in a midsized East German city (Dessau), shows that
involvement in associational life in a postcommunist society does not necessarily enhance civil support of democratic institutions and values. Rather, voluntary associations that emerged out of party-controlled quasiassociational life of the communist era, while fostering social integration at the local level, may stabilize indifference or even hostility towards western democratic institutions and values. To the extent to which civil society organizations serve as institutional pillar of service provision, state–civil society relations are usually being conceptualized in terms of comparative advantages. Microeconomic theories of nonprofit institutions (cf. Hansmann, 1980; Rose-Ackerman, 1986; James, 1990; Weisbrod, 1988) present both demand-side and supply-side variants of the general assumption according to which the nonprofit, civil society related form of service provision originates from comparative advantages vis-a`-vis services provided by governmental agencies. A demand driven factor, according to this strand of literature, is the median voter’s preference for services of average quality which, by the same token, may create a niche for private nonprofit organizations responding to marginal – e.g., minority-related – preferences. Religious schools or day care institutions, high-end health care facilities or specialized cultural institutions might be cases and point. A supply-side factor is the comparative advantage of civil society organizations in terms of political legitimization. Governmental agencies may delegate service provision to civil society organizations in an attempt to respond to minority preferences without violating the logic of majority rule when it comes to public spending for social services or health care. In this perspective, civil society organizations act as the service-related infrastructure of societal pluralism thus enhancing the basis of political legitimization and integration. Finally, civil society organizations may also serve as placebo institutions in charge of risky tasks and unsolvable problems whose professional but inconclusive handling by state agencies might weaken the legitimization of democratic government (Seibel, 1989, 1996). A comparative approach to the analysis of state–civil society relations and related theoretical generalizations are presented by Anheier and Seibel (2001) in an attempt to interpret statistical patterns of civil society organizations in eight countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States) based on data of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project (cf. Salamon & Anheier, 1998). The authors identify more and less important civil society sectors relative to both the government and the market sector. For example, in 1990 the service delivering civil society sector in the United States represented roughly 7% of the national work force while the percentage was 3.7 in Germany and
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4.0 in the United Kingdom and just 1.3 in Italy. Involvement of volunteers is particularly strong in the United Kingdom, the United States and Sweden and relatively weak in Germany and Japan. Most indicative, however, is the relative share of public, i.e., state-sponsored, funding of nonprofit or civil society activity. In all the industrialized countries governmental agencies at various levels subsidize civil society organizations to a substantial degree. However, it is only in Sweden and the United States that the relationship between governmental funding and funding through private donations, fees, and charges corroborates the conventional image of civil society as an independent institutional real vis-a`-vis the state with 73% (Sweden) and 70% (United States) of the total revenue coming from private sources (private giving, program fees). In Germany and France, by contrast, the percentage of independent private funding of civil society organizations in 1990 was as low as 32% (Germany) and 40% (France) while public funding accounted for no less than 68% (Germany) and 60% (France). These figures alone demonstrate that the civil society sector in a given country may be more or less state-centered. Moreover, Anheier and Seibel, in accordance with Salamon and Anheier (1998), propose a series of nonprofit sector/civil society models in which state–civil society relations play a crucial role. These models combine the degree of public sector social welfare spending in general and the respective size of the civil society sector in terms of employment and voluntary workforce and the importance of the social service component within a given civil society sector, on the one hand, and the importance of the civil society component in a given service industry, on the other hand, leading to various configurations of dimensions or ‘‘regimes’’: The combination of a relatively unimportant civil society sector and a high degree of public sector social welfare spending represents a social democratic model of state–civil society regime, while a combination of a large civil society sector and low public sector social welfare spending represents a liberal model. The combination of both a large civil society sector and high public sector social welfare spending, by contrast, represents a corporatist regime while the combination of a small civil society sector and low public sector social welfare spending represents a statist regime (Table 1). This classification of regime-types, largely based on Esping-Andersen’s (1990) typology of welfare capitalism, provides a scheme that allows for an overall characterization of state–civil society relations in crucial Western democracies. By and large, the United States fits the liberal model (large civil society sector, low public sector social welfare spending) while Germany fits the corporatist
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Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Political. Table 1 State–civil society regime types Public sector social welfare spending
Third sector size
Low
Statist (Japan)
High
Social-democratic Corporatist (Sweden) (Germany)
Small
Large Liberal (USA)
Source: Anheier and Seibel (2001), Salamon and Anheier (1998)
model (large civil society sector, high public sector social welfare spending). Not surprisingly, Sweden fits the social democratic model (small civil society sector, high public sector social welfare spending) while Japan fits the statist model (small civil society sector, low public sector social welfare spending). Each of these specific regime types can be explained by the particular societal and political circumstances under which the respective civil society sector emerged historically and each of them is characterized by a peculiar style of state–civil society interaction. The liberal regime type is based on a middle class oriented society without opposition either from traditional landed elites or strong working class movements which, indeed, applies to a country like the Unites States. The social democratic regime type, by contrast, emerged in societies with strong bourgeoisie versus working class tensions that were mitigated by extensive social welfare benefits accompanied by a weakened, state-dominated church. This applies to a country like Sweden which is, in fact, the epitome of the classic social democratic welfare state. In Sweden, however, the civil society sector is strong in terms of advocacy and personal expression rather than in service provision since social services are primarily provided by the state itself. The corporatist regime type, characterized by a large civil society sector and a high degree of public sector social welfare spending, is typically the result of a compromise mitigating a twofold cleavage between the state and a strong working class movement on the one hand and institutionally strong Christian churches. This applies, indeed, to Germany where the authoritarian state of the nineteenth century was challenged by a strong working class movement with a well organized political party at its core and two equally strong Christian churches traditionally in charge of helping the disabled and the needy and of large portions of health care infrastructure, especially hospitals. The statist regime type, finally, is characterized by historically unchallenged state power in the absence of groups and parties requiring compensation for the lack of political influence. This applies to Japan
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where, indeed, neither the state nor the civil society sector is particularly strong in social service provision. The liberal regime type is characterized by a competitive style of interaction between state and civil society organizations (which is why most of the microeconomic normative theories on civil society organizations originated in, and are typically applicable to, the institutional reality in the United States). Whether or not civil society organizations and nonprofit institutions are in charge of service provision and advocacy functions is a matter of relative effectiveness and the resulting institutional choice. The corporatist regime type is characterized by a consensusoriented and cooperative style of interaction between state and civil society organizations. Division of labor between the state and civil society is a matter of strategic bargaining and consociational arrangements, based on traditional principles (such as ‘‘subsidiarity’’). Germany is the typical example, indeed. By contrast, both the social democratic and the statist regime-type are characterized by a more or less hierarchical style of interaction between state and civil society organizations. In principle, the dominance of the state remains undisputed. Civil society organizations may be strong (e.g., Sweden) but primarily so as political advocates rather than as providers on the service market, while the truly statist culture (e.g., Japan) makes civil society organizations more or less marginal as both political and service providing actors.
Future Directions State–civil society relations can be conceptualized in a normative and a descriptive-analytical perspective. In a normative perspective, the emphasis is put on either the political (integrative, disintegrative) effects of state–civil society relations or on the comparative advantage of either state or civil society service provision. In a descriptive-analytical perspective, the emphasis is laid on the taxonomy of state–civil society relations in an attempt to identify regime types – social democratic, corporatist, liberal, statist – applicable to patterns of division of labor and styles of interaction in modern industrial democracies. The two alternative views mentioned above, however, may not suffice to grasp future challenges and trajectories of state–civil society relations. The categorization of state– civil society relations focusing mainly on service provision in single nation-states neglects both the advocacy role of civil society organizations and the increasing transnational character of their activity. Civil society organizations do play an important role in promoting democratic values transnationally. Autocratic regimes around the world suppress civil society organizations precisely because they combine domestic democratization with
international support. Local chapters of human rights organizations, for instance, disseminate norms and values through their simultaneous existence in both democratic and nondemocratic states. The irony is that, as long as research on state–civil society relations remains nationstate centered, learning about the mechanisms of democratic norm diffusion in nondemocratic nation states will be limited. We do not know very much either why even in fullfledged democracies some democratic values are being promoted vigorously by civil society organizations while others remain marginal, and what this implies in terms of state–civil society relations. German civil society organizations, while being rather indulgent with respect to international human rights issues, are very active when it comes to domestic civil rights issues such as privacy protection. By contrast, US civil society organizations are actively promoting human rights issues transnationally while treating domestic civil rights rather as an antiquated issue. One might hypothesize that these differences reflect different attitudes toward democratic statehood. However, if and how this is the case, only comparative historical and quantitative research can reveal.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society: Early and mid twentieth Century ▶ Civil Society: Late 20th and 21st Century ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Esping-Andersen, Gøsta ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Hansmann, Henry ▶ Human Rights ▶ James, Estelle ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Comparative Perspectives ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Definition and History of ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Salamon, Lester ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Social Origins Theory ▶ Social Trust ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Sociological ▶ Weisbrod, Burton A.
Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Sociological
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Seibel, W. (2001). The nonprofit sector in Germany. Between state, economy, and society. Manchester, NY: Manchester University Press. Berman, S. (1997). Civil society and the collapse of the Weimar republic. World Politics, 49, 401–429. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Freitag, M. (2006). Bowling the state back-in. Political institutions and the creation of social capital. European Journal of Political Research, 45, 123–152. Hagtvet, B. (1980). The fear of mass society and the collapse of the Weimar republic: A re-examination. In S. Larsen, B. Hagtvet, & J. P. Myklebust (Eds.), Who were the fascists? Social routes of European fascism (pp. 66–117). Berger: Universitetsvorlaget. Hansmann, H. B. (1980). The role of nonprofit enterprise. Yale Law Journal, 89, 835–901. James, E. (1990). Economic theories of the nonprofit-sector. In H. K. Anheier & W. Seibel (Eds.), The third sector. Comparative studies of nonprofit organizations (pp. 21–30). Berlin, NY: De Gruyter. Putnam, R. D., Leopardi, R., & Nanetti, R. Y. (1993). Making democracy work. Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Rose-Ackerman (Ed.) (1986). The economics of nonprofit institutions. Studies in structure and policy. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Salamon, L. M., & Helmut, K. A. (1998). The social origins of civil society: Explaining the nonprofit sector cross-nationally. Voluntas, 9, 213–248. Seibel, W. (1989). The function of mellow weakness. Nonprofit organizations as problem noncolvers. In E. James (Ed.), The nonprofit sector in international perspective (pp. 177–192). New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seibel, W. (1990). Government third sector relationship in a comparative perspective: The cases of France and West-Germany. Voluntas, 1, 42–60. Seibel, W. (1996). Successful failure. An alternative view on organizational coping. American Behavioral Scientist, 39, 1011–1024. Tocqueville, A. de. (2000). Democracy in America (French original 1835). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Vortkamp, W. (2008). Integration durch Teilhabe. Das zivilgesellschaftliche Potenzial von Vereinen. Frankfurt a.M./New York: Campus. Weisbrod, B. A. (1988). The nonprofit economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Sociological REBECCA SAGER Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA, USA
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2004 there were over 1.6 million nonprofit organizations operating in the United States, an increase of nearly 30% from 1996 (Boris & Steuerle, 2006). These organizations, which include unions, civic leagues, hospitals, and schools, represented over $800 billion in revenue in the year 2000. Religious congregations, not required to disclose revenue, bring this total even higher. Even though there is considerable debate on how and why the nonprofit sector has expanded so rapidly in the United States and abroad, it is clear that the sector is growing, evolving, and becoming involved in nearly every facet of social life, including hospitals, schools, arts organizations, and political groups. Given its increasing importance in public life, it is imperative for sociologists to understand how and why this sector is growing, the differences in its organizational forms, and how individuals and the nonprofit sector interact.
Definition While there is much disagreement about what the nonprofit sector is, there is general consensus on what it is not; the nonprofit sector is made up of organizations that are not part of either the government or the private sector (Frumkin, 2002; Hall, 2006). Frumkin defines the nonprofit sector by focusing on three main characteristics which define the nonprofit sector: (1) It does not coerce participation, (2) it operates without distributing profits to stakeholders, and (3) it exists without simple or clear lines of ownership and accountability (Frumkin, 2002; Rathgeb Smith & Gjronberg, 2006). In spite of the fact that these defining characteristics are readily agreed upon, there are often evolving boundaries as the nonprofit sector no longer necessarily fits into any of these simple definitions. Instead, Frumkin argues nonprofit organizations blur these boundaries by being more aggressive in raising capital and distributing this capital in large sums to managers and CEOs (2002). This has brought disapproval for allowing boards and trustees to gain owner-like power, he also finds nonprofits take coercive actions by requiring community service or volunteerism (Frumkin, 2002: 6–7). They also take on roles that had previously been the province of governments, such as running hospitals and schools. These complications have meant that this third sector inhabits a murky world that sociologists see as growing in both size and importance, creating the need for a more thorough theoretical understanding of this sector, its organizations, and the individual interactions within it (Steinberg & Powell, 2006).
Introduction
Historical Background
Sociologists, for good reason, have long been interested in the nonprofit sector. According to Boris and Steuerle, in
In a defining volume on the sociology of the nonprofit sector, Steinberg and Powell assert that like other
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disciplines, sociology has its own theories about the nonprofit sector (2006). However, the history of the sociology of the nonprofit sector is in many ways a reaction against the economic models of nonprofit sector growth. Sociologists generally argue that these economic models have focused largely on individual actors making rational economic choices to engage in the nonprofit sector, which pay particular attention to the social institutions and cultures encompassing individual nonprofits. Sociologists argued these economic theories were inadequate for understanding the complex and multifaceted universe of the nonprofit sector. Instead, sociologists have developed the theoretical perspective that situates the nonprofit sector within its social context, enriching our theoretical understandings of how this sector varies over time and space. In 1990, DiMaggio and Anheier (1990) outlined the state of sociological research on the nonprofit sector and found that the sociological perspective differed from that of other disciplines in that it focused on context and interaction. They concluded that while important research had been done on mapping the sector and focusing on noneconomic explanations for growth, sociology should move forward by examining institutional explanations for the expansion of the sector, the role of faithbased nonprofits, organizational behavior, and normative arguments about social cohesion being created throughout the sector. Since the Dimaggio/Anheier article, sociologists have expanded sociological research on the subject to include such topics as neo-institutional theories about nonprofit sector expansion, sociological theories explaining nonprofit organizational behavior, and finally, theories of social capital and participation in the nonprofit sector (Steinberg & Powell, 2006). This work includes a diverse field of study, but has yet to yield a synthesized sociological theory of the nonprofit sector; rather, there is a distinct way sociologists understand the nonprofit sector which takes seriously the social world within which the nonprofit sector, its organizations, and its individual actors are embedded.
Key Issues History of the Nonprofit Sector
Importantly, sociologists have pointed to how the nonprofit sector has existed to pursue the public good for much of American history. In his work on the historical development of the sector, Hall notes that beginning in the early nineteenth century, networks of voluntary associations were instituted around a variety of issues
including evangelical associations and teachers’ institutions (Hall, 2006). These organizations mixed with public institutions and became the root of the Union war movement creating a historical legacy of government and nonprofit sector involvement, one which still exists today. Lester Salamon argues that, after the New Deal, the relationship between government and nonprofit institutions became the ‘‘backbone of this country’s human service delivery system’’ (Salamon, 1995:34). Salamon posits that for a long time these connections were ignored because the theoretical lenses of welfare state theory and theories of the voluntary sector blinded researchers to the new realities of growing cooperation between the two sectors. Salamon found that when one abandons these theoretical lenses, it is easy to understand why these two sectors are so intertwined. In essence, government funds programs through the nonprofit sector, but it does not run them. Salamon argues this pattern of action is motivated by the pluralistic political structure, the flexible economy, and the general desire for government assistance that is not facilitated by the government (Salamon, 1995: 42). Thus, nonprofits become the natural third party and create a sense of shared responsibility between public and private. While his final conclusion has been questioned, the general premise of the growth of engagement between the public and nonprofit sector due to political culture and institutional connections is a crucial insight. Normative Role of Nonprofits
Sociological research on the nonprofit sector has for many years been centered on two competing theoretical frames. One sees these groups in a largely benevolent fashion, while the other sees the sector as largely working for the wealthy and undermining government. These researchers also propose juxtaposed views of the nonprofit sector, either describing a benevolent sector that embodies the interpersonal and caring nature of human beings, or highlighting use of these organizations by the wealthy to wield undemocratic and unaccountable power. First, some sociologists such as Wuthnow and Cadge argue that the nonprofit sector and reliance on nongovernmental solutions to various societal needs is good for social capital and community strength (Wuthnow & Cadge, 2006). In this viewpoint, nonprofits represent underserved populations and therefore advance the public interest (Jenkins & Halci, 1999). Critics of this viewpoint argue this de Tocquevillian notion of the nonprofit sector and voluntary work as a great community builder is too predisposed to a favorable perspective of states relying on these largely unaccountable actors
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(Odendahl, 1990). This second group of scholars argues that the control of nonprofit groups by the wealthy distorts giving itself, with the top 5% of nonprofits controlling 75–80% of all revenues, assets, and spending. According to this perspective, nonprofits do not really build community or serve the needy, but instead only reinforce social control by those at the top. Of course, the reality of the role of nonprofits is probably somewhere in between, with the nonprofit sector helping to build community in some instances, while not necessarily being responsive or representative at other times. Neo-institutional Theories
Clemens states that in one of the most important contributions to nonprofit sector theory, sociologists revisited the subject of institutions (2006). Moving away from a straight market model, sociological theory argued for examining the way nonprofits are imbedded in institutional structures and the roles they play in producing social cohesion (Jenkins & Halci, 1999), as well as unrest (Skocpol & Fiorina, 1999). Unlike economic theories of nonprofit sector expansion, sociological research began examining the sector in relation to the larger social context. Instead of an economic model, which argued that the nonprofit sector emerged to supply particular goods and services (Weisbrod, 1988), sociological theory examined how the social context primarily helped to create this burgeoning sector. Sociological critics of economic models argue that they are flawed in at least two respects. First, consumers do not make decisions in a void. Instead they make decisions based on institutional contexts depending on the society in which they are embedded. Second, organizations do not emerge based solely on consumer preferences, but are built and formed based on these institutional contexts. Specifically, while these models may explain which industries may have some nonprofit organizations at a given point in time, they do not explain variation in organizations across different nations and over time. Instead of looking for answers in economic models, these neo-institutional models emphasize the role of the political, legal, and institutional environment in the prevalence and vitality of nonprofit organizations (Clemens, 2006; Rathgeb Smith & Grønbjerg, 2006). For example, neo-institutional models argue that in the United States the increasing reliance of government on the nonprofit sector was due in large part to the legal and political structures which shaped the positive growth of the sector and what organizational forms it would take. Neo-institutional theories emphasize how government support has
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created a nonprofit sector that offers a scale and scope of services and activities that is actually more important and comprehensive than government run programs (Smith & Grønbjerg, 2006). Organizational Forms and Behaviors
In addition to understanding the nonprofit sector in terms of the institutions within which it is embedded, sociological theory also examines the behavior of nonprofit organizations. While there are certain legal guidelines nonprofits must follow, Hannsman posits that the flexibility of these statutes permits nonprofit organizations to take on many forms (1980). These organizational structures vary depending on two main factors: the type financing (donations, membership fees, selling services, etc.) and the controlling structure of the organization (i.e., governing boards or membership voting). As James explains, ‘‘Nonprofit organizations are, in a sense a hybrid of business enterprise and government, and different from both. . . . The net effect is to produce a pattern of behavior in the nonprofit organization that differs from the behavior of the other two’’ (James, 1986: 35). In a manner similar to initial sociological nonprofit sector theories early theories of nonprofit organizational behavior also largely relied on economic models, with individuals choosing the organization that best suited their needs from among a variety of options. According to these theories, nonprofits would only have an advantage when their nondistributive elements outweighed the potential benefits of other organizations. However, sociologists argue that understanding when and under which circumstances these various organizational forms arise requires more than looking at theories of choice and profit seeking. In these economic models, the nonprofit organizational form is generally considered unique, and often thought of as being inherently beneficial to society and individuals. Jenkins and Halci argued that nonprofits would behave to maximize the public good and would inherently be less likely to behave in a way that would cause harm (1999). Additionally, they would also be more likely to provide for the underprivileged because they were not seeking a profit (Jenkins & Halci, 1999). These economic theories, however, were soon questioned by sociologists who saw these groups as having ‘‘a set of unique advantages that positioned them to perform important societal functions neither government nor the market is able to match’’ (Frumkin, 2002: 3) and pointed out that these advantages did not necessarily mean a better benefit for the public (Galaskiewicz & Bielefeld, 2003). The unique features of
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nonprofits, such as nondistribution and nonownership, add to their strengths, but also mean that they have some inherent vulnerability. Because of these elements nonprofit organizations are vulnerable to multiple ownership claims and diverse stakeholders. This multitude of organizational imperatives leads to a wide variety of organizational forms, internal dynamics, and behaviors. There are two main sociological theories of nonprofit organizational form and behavior: new institutional perspectives and niche theory (Galaskiewicz & Bielefeld, 2003). While these theories do not offer a complete explanation for all organizational behavior, they do provide important insights into why nonprofit organizations behave the way they do. First, in new institutional theory, government institutions promote certain behaviors because they are legitimating such as filling out extensive grant proposals or instituting a government approved watchdog, nonprofit organizations follow these rules and guidelines because if they do not, then they are not perceived as legitimate actors and risk being denied government funding. However, once these guidelines or social norms of organizational behavior are established, it is difficult to gain this legitimacy without mimicking the same overarching organization structure of the government providing the funding. In time nonprofit organizations submit to institutional inertia. This benefits the government because they do not have to provide the service, instead they can fund diverse activities and not be responsible for maintaining the organizations. On the other hand, instead of focusing on the surrounding institutional structure or the individual decision making of managers, niche theory argues that how an organization will act, whether it may operate more like a for-profit, depends on the niche in which it is embedded (Galaskiewicz & Bielefeld, 2003). If the niche is populated by a large number of for-profits and these for-profits create greater competition, there is more of a chance the nonprofit will take on characteristics such as high wages to managers and CEOs. Finally, while not a sociological theory, sociologists do engage agency theory which argues that new institutional theory largely ignores the way that individual decision making and strategizing shape nonprofit organizational behavior. These researchers argue that a complete understanding of nonprofits needs to take into account how and why managers and nonprofit boards may make decisions based on maximizing profits. Galaskiewicz and Bielefeld state that these managers can take advantage of the general lack of regulation of the nonprofit sector maximizing profits for themselves (2003). Thus, the success of
a nonprofit organization depends on a variety of factors including its corporate governance structure, funding capacity, and niche. Values and Faith-Based Nonprofits
Faith-based nonprofit groups have received considerable attention recently. The faith and value component of these nonprofits is critical to understanding their unique character, a character that attracts donors, volunteers, and social entrepreneurs alike. While overlooked for some time, research on faith-based nonprofits in sociology has increased greatly (Frumkin, 2002). Faith-based nonprofits include groups that have their historical roots in religion, such as Catholic Charities and the Salvation Army, faithintegrated services such as Chuck Colson’s Prison Ministries, and individual churches or congregations and have had a long history of social service involvement (Chaves, 2004). Fifty-seven percent of churches do some sort of social service activity (Chaves, 2004) and they account for over 40% of membership-based nonprofits. Faith-based groups also serve a social integration function. Individuals involved in religious groups are more likely to volunteer and be active in their communities (Putnam, 1995). To understand this important and growing sector of nonprofit activity, sociologists have conducted research on the types of work faith-based nonprofits do, the capacities of churches and congregations to do more social service activity, and the relationships between these groups and the government (Cadge & Wuthnow, 2006). While there is no agreement on what the relationship between these faith-based groups and the government should be, research by Minnow argues that, if managed correctly, both groups can benefit from their interactions (Minnow, 2002). However, Chaves’ work on the faith-based nonprofits points to data that suggests congregations will not be able to take up the burden of providing services where the government has left off like the faith-based initiative, a government policy supported by the Bush administration, proposes (Chaves, 2004). Additionally, others are concerned that these interactions will inhibit faith-based organizations’ prophetic voice or their ability to speak out about social issues or against the government. In recent work on prophetic voice, Galaskiewicz, Chaves, and Stephens (2004) found that government partnerships do not limit nonprofits’ ability to speak out about social issues (2006). This is important because, as mentioned earlier, the value component, or their role in serving the underprivileged and ability to advocate for those in need, of nonprofits is widely regarded as one of their main functions. If nonprofits,
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especially faith-based nonprofits, cannot achieve their faith and values vision, their work can be compromised. Social Cohesion
Some social scientists argue that participation in membership organizations and volunteering helps create social cohesion and social capital (Putnam, 1995). This perspective, emphasizes the role of nonprofits in creating solidarity between individuals by calling attention to the importance of collective action and creating community (Putnam, 1995). In his famous book Bowling Alone: America’s Declining Social Capital (1999), Robert Putman argues that we live in a world of declining social capital because of declining participation in organizations and nonprofit groups. Expanding on this work McPherson, Smith-Lovin, and Brashears find that there have also been declining levels of interpersonal engagement in community groups and other nonprofit organizations (2006). The researchers argue that these trends limit connections and social cohesion, in the end threatening democracy. Some sociologists disagree with the perspective that nonprofits are important in creating social capital and social cohesion, and argue that nonprofit groups are not well-positioned to enhance social capital as they do not generally promote volunteerism (Skocpol & Fiorina, 1999). Even so, the role of volunteers in nonprofit organizations has garnered considerable attention from sociologists. Research on why people do or do not volunteer usually falls into one of two spectrums: individual factors or contextual ones. Researchers have found that individual participation varies depending on race, with blacks being less likely to volunteer, while church attendance and being female are correlated with higher levels of volunteering and early participation can impact later volunteering (Wilson, 2000). Contrary to most explanations of individuals joining voluntary associations, some have found that the role of the state may influence volunteering, with states that offer greater support creating incentives to participate (Andersen et al., 2006). Schoufer and Fourcade-Gourinchas (2001) examine the historical political context and how it influences participation. Using data from the World Values Survey they find that contrary to much previous research, which focused on the economic conditions of a country or individual characteristics, the political context is more likely to influence whether or not someone volunteers, as well as what types of groups they volunteer for (2001). This research points to how important cross-cultural examinations are to providing a theoretically relevant understanding of the nonprofit sector.
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International Perspectives The Schofer and Fourcade-Gourinchas (2001) work points to the need for more cross-cultural research, and to that end there is a growing body of literature on international nonprofit organizations. Research on international nonprofit sector development has concluded that states fall along a continuum of nonprofit sector service delivery depending on political and legal conditions. For example, countries which provide a great deal of social service, such as Sweden, do not rely at all on this sector to deliver services even though membership organizations are strong. Others, such as the Netherlands, have such intertwining government-nonprofit relationships that it is difficult to tell one from the other (Boli, 2006). Besides the need to understand the nonprofit sector within individual countries, there has also been an emphasis on looking at the nonprofit sector in global terms (Boli, 2006; Anheier & Katz, 2006). This increasingly powerful and interconnected ‘‘global third sector’’ includes international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs), international governmental organizations (IGOs), voluntary associations and committees that organize on a transnational basis (Boli, 2006). As Katz and Anheier note, individuals are ‘‘creating transnational networks of many kinds’’ (Katz & Anheier, 2006:240). This research on the global nonprofit sector has largely focused on the role of INGOs and IGOs. These include groups providing services and relief, as well as human rights groups and environmental organizations. Boli argues that like nonprofits in other areas, the role of INGOs and IGOs has been understudied while they have gained greater importance, with the total number of INGOs increasing from 9,937 in 1981 to over 25,000 in 2000 (Boli, 2006:334). However, unlike most other nonprofits, INGOs operate in many states and have to create organizational forms and rules based on multiple government interactions. In spite of INGOs increasing importance on the global sociopolitical landscape, there is still little systematic evidence of their efficiency, how well they counterbalance government and private sector forces in favor of individual welfare, or how effective they are in service provision (Katz & Anheier, 2006). Still, scholars in this area have argued that without these groups, it would have been more difficult for states to have taken on new responsibilities such as safety standards and status of women without NGO involvement (Boli, 2006:345). In the end the major impact of INGOs and IGOs may be their role as facilitators of ‘‘world culture’’ through their networks and their level of interconnectedness, which creates ‘‘greater involvement and awareness of the global dimensions of everyday life’’ (Boli, 2006: 345).
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Future Directions While there have been significant contributions by sociologists to our understanding of the nonprofit sector, there is still much to be done. For example, Frumkin (2002) argues that instead of viewing nonprofits as responsive to consumers and meeting the needs of their demands, we should focus attention on supply side theories of the nonprofit sector which see the sector as being grown by social entrepreneurs. Additionally, work by Healy (2006) on the social organization of altruism points to the necessity of understanding the organizational and cultural contexts behind people’s motivations to donate. He finds that donors’ altruistic motives are less of a factor in determining organ donation, than the structure and practices of organizations handling donations. Finally, work on how the nonprofit sector actually changes social norms, demands, and perceptions shows promising new avenues of discovery by encouraging thought on not just how social institutions influence the nonprofit sector, but how the sector also impacts larger institutional structures and culture (Scott et al., 2006).
Cross-References
▶ Catholic Charities ▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Churches and Congregations ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Commercialization and For Profits in Disguise ▶ Faith-based Organizations ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Government Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Law and Nonprofit Organizations ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ NGOs Definitions and History ▶ Nonprofit Organizational Behavior ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Putnam, Robert ▶ Religious Organizations ▶ Salvation Army ▶ Social Capital ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic ▶ Third-Party Government
References/Further Readings Andersen, R., Curtis, J., & Grabb, E. (2006). Trends in civic association activity in four democracies: The special case of women in the United States. American Sociological Review, 71, 376–400. Anheier, H., & Katz, H. (2006). Global connectedness: The structure of transnational NGO networks. In M. Glasius, M. Kaldor, & H. Anheier (Eds.), Global civil society, 2005/6. London: Sage.
Boli, J. (2006). International nongovernmental organizations. In W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Boris, E., & Steuerle, E. (2006). In R. Steinberg & W. Powell (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Cadge, W., & Wuthnow, R., (2006). In R. Steinberg & W. Powell (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Chaves, M. (2004). Congregations in America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Chaves, M., Stephens, L., & Joe Galaskiewicz, J. (2004). Does governmental funding suppress nonprofits’ political activity? American Sociological Review, 69, 292–316. Clemens, L. (2006). The constitution of citizens. In R. Steinberg & W. Powell (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. DiMaggio, P., & Anheier, H. (1990). The sociology of nonprofit organizations and sectors. American Sociological Review, 48, 147–160. Frumkin, P. (2002). On being nonprofit. A conceptual and policy primer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Galaskiewicz, J., & Bielefeld, W., (2003). The behavior of organizations. In H. Anheier & A. Ben-Ner (Eds.), The study of nonprofit enterprise: Theories and approaches (pp. 205–237). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Hall, P. (2006). A historical overview of philanthropy, voluntary associations, and nonprofit organizations in the US. In R. Steinberg & W. Powell (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Hannsman, H. (1980). The role non-profit enterprise. Yale Law Journal, 89, 835–901. Healy, K. (2006). Last best gifts: Altruism and the market for human blood and organs. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. James, E. (1986). How nonprofits grow: A model. In S. Rose-Ackerman (Ed.), The economics of nonprofit institutions: Studies in structure and policy. New York: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, C., & Halci, A. (1999). Grassrooting the system? The development and impact of social movement philanthropy, 1953–1990. In E. Lagemann (Ed.), Philanthropic foundations: New scholarship, new possibilities. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Brashears, M. (2006). Social isolation in America: Changes in core discussion network over two decades. American Sociological Review, 71, 353–375. Minnow, M. (2002). Partners, not rivals: Privatization and the public good. Boston, MA: Beacon. Odendahl, T. (1990). Charity begins at home: Generosity and self-interest among the philanthropic elite. New York: Basic Books. Putnam, R. (1995). Bowling alone: America’s declining social capital. Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78. Salamon, L. (1995). Of market failure, voluntary failure, and third party government: Toward a theory of government-nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state. In S. Lester (Ed.), Partners in public service: Government-nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Schofer, E., & Fourcade-Gourinchas, M. (2001). The structural contexts of civic engagement: voluntary association membership in comparative perspective. American Sociological Review, 66, 806–828. Scott, R. W., Deschenes, S., Hopkins, K., Newman, A., & McLaughlin, M. (2006). Advocacy organizations and the field of youth services: Ongoing efforts to restructure a field. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35, 691–714.
Think Tanks Skocpol, T., & Fiorina, M. P. (1999). Civic engagement in American democracy. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Smith, S. R., & Grønbjerg, K. (2006). In R. Steinberg & W. Powell (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Steinberg, R., & Powell, W. (2006). The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (2nd ed.). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Weisbrod, B. (1988). The nonprofit economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wilson, J. (2000). Volunteering. Annual Review of Sociology, 26, 215–240.
Think Tanks ANDREW RICH City College of New York, New York, NY, USA
Introduction For more than a century, policy experts have been understood as neutral, credible, and above the fray of the rough and tumble of policymaking. Progressive reformers early in the twentieth century turned to the burgeoning social sciences for salvation. Reformers believed that the new ranks of policy experts trained at universities would be capable of usurping patronage politics; experts would develop real solutions to the social and economic instabilities that stemmed from the Industrial Revolution. American politics and American society would be better informed and much improved thanks to their efforts. In the decades that followed, the training of new policy experts became a central focus of reformers, with the creation of schools for policy analysts at leading universities and of agencies within government departments that produced research and evaluations for decision-makers. These developments were observed by twentieth century scholars of the policymaking process and contribute to what remains the prevailing understanding of experts in American policymaking, as important background voices that bring rational, reasoned analysis to long-term policy discourse based on the best evidence available (Kingdon, 1995; Lasswell, 1951; Merriam, 1970). For much of the last century, this assessment was basically accurate; experts fulfilled these mandates. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, the ranks of real-life policy experts scarcely conformed to
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the promise of making policy choices clearer and more rigorous and decisions necessarily more rational. These experts were based at a growing number of think tanks in Washington and in state capitals across the country, and it was as common for these think tanks to reflect clear ideologies and values as commitments to objectivity or neutrality. Think tanks have contributed to a transformation in the role of experts in American policymaking. Many experts now behave like advocates. They are not just visible but highly contentious as well. They more actively market their work than conventional views suggest; their work, in turn, often represents preformed points of view rather than even attempts at neutral, rational analysis. These developments apply particularly to a group of identifiably ideological and mostly conservative think tanks that have emerged since the 1970s. Assessed from just about any angle, conservative ideology appears to have substantial influence over the direction of the US policy agenda. Even at a time when Republicans seem to be losing strength and Democrats have regained control of Congress, ideas about limited government, unfettered free markets, and strong families remain pervasive and influential in debates over everything from tax policy and business regulation to education reform and civil rights. In the United States, conservative ideology has been advanced by conservative politicians but, even more, by a conservative infrastructure of nonprofit organizations led by think tanks.
Definition Think tanks are independent, nonprofit, policy research organizations – producing research and ideas relevant to policymaking. During the past 3 decades, explicitly ideological and particularly conservative think tanks have exploded in number. These conservative think tanks have been a principal engine for conservative ideology, and they have transformed the role of experts in US decision-making along the way.
Historical Background The Early National Think Tanks
The first think tanks embodied the promise of neutral expertise. They formed as the social science disciplines of economics, sociology, and political science became established fields of inquiry and as confidence grew in the uses of expertise as means for correcting social problems. Through the first half of the century, new
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think tanks largely sought to identify government solutions to public problems through the detached analysis of experts. Think tank scholars wrote on topics relevant to policymakers but typically maintained a distance from the political bargaining in the final stages of the policymaking process. This analytic detachment was a behavior to which researchers held fast and that fostered an effective relationship between experts and policymakers. Between 1910 and 1960, think tank experts often influenced how government operated. The Brookings Institution informed the creation of the Bureau of the Budget at the beginning of the century. The RAND Corporation developed applications of systems analysis for the Department of Defense at mid-century. In these cases, the influence of think tanks was significant, and their research served political purposes. But the policy process did not typically compel experts to become directly involved in high profile partisan battles. Experts were mobilized by policymakers to prescribe possibilities for change. Through much of the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, while think tanks at times produced politically contentious and conflicting research, think tank expertise was sought and generally respected by policymakers. Although think tanks were not the only source of this expertise, they were one of its most prominent, consistent, and visible providers. In particular, academically trained economists became sought-after advisors by virtually anyone seeking to affect political outcomes. Through the 1950s and 1960s, the ideas and expertise produced by think tanks generally reflected the near consensus that developed among elites around the appropriateness of government management of social and economic problems. Even when new think tanks were established by policy entrepreneurs of a conservative bent, they usually followed prevailing norms about think tank organization, hiring academically trained staff and avoiding any appearance of having links to a single political party. The Ascendence of Conservative Ideology
By the end of the 1960s, as government grew larger, the desirability and possibility of achieving social change through government programs began to be challenged. Some of the problems themselves – notably the effort for civil rights for African-Americans and the Vietnam conflict – were highly divisive. Increasingly vocal critics described the government as ineffective and overextended at home and abroad. Combined inflation and unemployment in the 1970s – stagflation – contributed further to the decline of confidence in ‘‘expertly-devised’’ government programs as well as to growing doubts about Keynesian principles generally.
Growth in government fueled organization among those who disapproved of it. Although there was much upon which they did not agree, political conservatives were by the 1970s united by strong opposition toward communism and a shared belief that government resources were better channeled toward the nation’s defense and the fight to overcome communism than to what were viewed as bloated and ineffective domestic welfare programs. A group of relatively small, politically conservative foundations and wealthy individuals were among those that took interest in providing support for these principles in public affairs. More than a dozen conservative foundations and individuals formed a nucleus of support for all varieties of conservative organizations that emerged through the 1970s and 1980s, think tanks prominent among them. The explicit intent of these efforts was to destabilize the statist, ‘‘progovernment’’ convictions that had dominated American politics up to this point. Avowedly ideological, contentious, and politicized ideas and expertise became tools in these endeavors. The formation of the Heritage Foundation in 1973 was a turning point. Heritage was the first of a new vintage of think tanks that combined ‘‘a strong policy, partisan, or ideological bent with aggressive salesmanship and an effort to influence current policy debates’’ (Weaver, 1989: 567). The group of political entrepreneurs who started the Heritage Foundation sought to create a highly responsive policy apparatus that could react quickly to ideologically hostile proposals in Congress. By the late 1970s, ‘‘an increasingly confident Heritage Foundation set an ambitious goal: to establish itself as a significant force in the policymaking process and to help build a new conservative coalition that would replace the New Deal coalition which had dominated American politics and policy for half a century’’ (Edwards, 1997: 32). Through the 1970s and 1980s, ideological, overtly advocacy-oriented think tanks modeled after the Heritage Foundation proliferated. Most were politically conservative organizations, but liberal and centrist organizations emerged as well. The staffs of these organizations tended to be ideologically homogeneous, and the leadership of these new organizations used each of their research products as vehicles to advance their underlying ideologies.
Key Issues The Influence of Think Tanks
By 2007, well more than 300 think tanks were active in national and state policymaking. The greatest and fastest growing number were identifiably ideological
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institutions. Yet for all of their numbers, the nature and extent of the influence of think tanks was still in question. Although think tanks have certain advantages for making their work influential among the ranks of experts, in practice, think tanks all too often squander that advantage by focusing resources and efforts on producing commentary about immediately pending policy decisions rather than on substantive interventions at the earliest stages of policymaking (Rich, 2005). Ideological think tanks often pursue an interest in making their points of view known among policymakers and the general public. They hold public meetings or release policy briefs rating pending legislation. When issues are under final deliberation, think tanks can draw the attention of policymakers and journalists. The attention the work receives at these moments serves an organizational maintenance role for think tanks as well; the attention validates the investments patrons make in a think tank’s work. However, think tank commentary in these moments most often serves as little more than ammunition for policymakers who need public justification for their already preferred policy choices. This form of mediafriendly research is not the most substantively useful product that think tanks can produce. Rather, specific estimates of the financial costs of new initiatives or the program benefits of legislation are much more often substantively influential during the final stages of policy debates. Research that explores the foundational features of a growing problem and possibilities for addressing it with public policy is also often important, creating a substantive context for future policy change. Experts can have a meaningful impact on how new problems are defined. What seems odd on first blush is that the newer, ideological think tanks seem to devote themselves disproportionately to producing the kind of work that does not favor the ranks of experts. These efforts do not yield the substantive influence that other work by think tanks and experts can, when it is successful. Even when commentary is well-timed, well-tailored, and well-received by policymakers, the role it plays is typically nonsubstantive, and the role of the researcher at this point is nonsubstantive as well. Moreover, commentary from think tanks often serves as little match for the commentary and contributions of interest groups and others who are heavily invested in the outcomes of legislative debates. The focus by think tanks on producing commentary has not enhanced their immediate policy influence, and it has had another consequence: It has damaged the collective reputation of think tanks and policy experts generally among some policymaking audiences. Policy research
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today is frequently evaluated by decision-makers more in terms of its ideological content and accessibility to audiences than by the quality of its content. So why do ideological think tanks engage in politicized commentary and vigorous high profile policy debates? The War of Ideas
The answer is that the goals of these institutions have far less to do with the features of and prospects for policy experts and far more to do with those of ideological warriors. Conservatives, in particular, begin their thinking about the role and value of think tanks from the perspective that ideas and values motivate – rather than result from – research. In their view, all research is ideological insofar as ideas or ideology at least inform the questions that the so-called ‘‘neutral’’ researcher asks. There is no such thing as disinterested expertise or the disinterested expert. Instead, there are ‘‘permanent truths, transcending human experience, [that] must guide our political life’’ (Smith, 1989: 192). These truths motivate research, and research is a means to a more important end: realizing the ideas that are a reflection of this core truth. The staff of ideological think tanks acts as agents of ideologies rather than as independent analysts; they fight for a particular vision of public policy, rather than exist to inform policy debates with research. Conservatives believe at a fundamental level that ideas have power. Ideas inform preferences and behavior far more than research. And ideas not only are – but should be – more powerful than expertise. One engages in (or supports) policy research for the same reasons one supports political advocacy: because both contribute to the larger causes of shifting the terms of debate in American policymaking and to amplifying the power of conservative ideas. For conservatives, a ‘‘war of ideas’’ provides the rationale for creating think tanks. Think tanks are the engine for conservative ideas. Understood this way, conservative think tanks, in particular, can be influential not just with discrete research projects but even more by promoting bold visions for a different future. Conservative think tanks have pursued this quite aggressively with respect to Social Security reform, for example, where they began advancing what seemed like a radical agenda to privatize social security in the 1970s and promoted it relentlessly for 25 years so that it was on the ‘‘mainstream’’ policy agenda of the president by 2004.
Future Directions In 2007, conservative think tanks outnumbered liberal think tanks by two to one. Research-based think tanks of no
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identifiable ideology – many of them the older institutions like Brookings – still reflected the greatest number of think tanks, but the ranks of ideological think tanks were growing the fastest. The aggressive advocacy of the new organizations has had effects on think tanks of all stripes. Most think tanks – old and new, ideological and not – have increased their investments in communications and public affairs in the past 2 decades. Many have switched from producing books and longer studies to producing far more short policy briefs, the types of products that are more easily and quickly digested by decision-makers and journalists. As we look ahead, there are signs that the race between conservative and liberal think tanks is tightening. In the wake of the 2004 election, foundations and individual donors have demonstrated a fresh interest in supporting new liberal think tanks. Since that election, the Center for American Progress has become a sizable force in Washington and other, smaller think tanks have emerged on the left. The frame for the investment in new think tanks is on their role in fighting a ‘‘war of ideas’’ rather than participating in a ‘‘struggle for truth,’’ the way we might have described think tanks in an earlier era. This shift in focus for think tanks is still relatively new for many in the field, and many think tank leaders and policy researchers strongly resist pressure to become more marketing-oriented and ideological. In the years ahead, observers should track both the competition among ideological think tanks and the struggle between ideological think tanks and their seemingly nonideological brethren.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Brookings Institution ▶ Center for American Progress ▶ Heritage Foundation ▶ RAND Corporation
References/Further Readings Edwards, L. (1997). The power of ideas. Ottawa, IL: Jameson Books. Kingdon, J. W. (1995). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies (2nd ed.). New York: Harper Collins College Publishers. Lasswell, H. D. (1951). The policy orientation. In D. Lerner & H. D. Lasswell (Eds.), The policy sciences (pp. 3–15). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Merriam, C. E. (1970). New aspects of politics. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Rich, A. (2005). Think tanks, public policy, and the politics of expertise. New York: Cambridge University Press. Smith, J. A. (1989). Think tanks and the politics of ideas. In C. C. David & A. W. Coats (Eds.), The spread of economic ideas. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Third-Party Government LESTER M. SALAMON John Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA
Introduction A veritable revolution has taken place in the operation of the public sector over the past 50 years or more in the United States and, increasingly, in other parts of the world. The heart of this revolution has been a fundamental transformation not just in the scope and scale of government action, but also in its basic forms – in the tools of public action, the instruments or means used to address public problems. Where government activity used to be restricted largely to the direct delivery of goods or services by government bureaucracies, increasingly it has come to embrace a dizzying array of additional tools – loans, loan guarantees, grants, contracts, social regulation, economic regulation, insurance, tax expenditures, vouchers, and many more. Each of these tools has its own operating procedures, its own skill requirements, its own delivery mechanism, indeed its own ‘‘political economy.’’ Each therefore imparts its own ‘‘twist’’ to the operation of the programs that embody it. Loan guarantees, for example, rely on commercial banks to extend assisted credit to qualified borrowers. In the process, commercial lending officers become the implementing agents of government lending programs. Since private bankers have their own worldview, their own decision rules, and their own priorities, left to their own devices they will likely produce programs that differ markedly from those that would result from direct government lending, not to mention outright government grants. Perhaps most importantly, like loan guarantees, many of the most rapidly expanding tools turn out to share a common feature: they are highly indirect ; they rely on a wide assortment of ‘‘third parties’’ – commercial banks, private hospitals, social service agencies, industrial corporations, universities, day care centers, other levels of government, financiers, construction firms, and many more – to deliver publicly financed services and pursue publicly authorized purposes. What is involved here, moreover, is not simply the routine purchase of clearly specified items (e.g., No. 2 pencils or yellow legal tablets) for government’s own use. That is a long-standing feature of government operations stretching back for generations. What is distinctive about many of the newer tools of public action is that they involve the sharing with third-party actors of a far more
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basic governmental function: the exercise of discretion over the use of public authority and the spending of public funds. Indeed, because of the scale and complexity of current government operations, and the information asymmetries that, ‘‘principal-agent theory’’ reminds us, always leave the agents in such relationships with far more knowledge about what is going on than is possessed by the principal, a major share – in many cases the major share – of the discretion over the operation of public programs routinely comes to rest not with the responsible governmental agencies but with the third-party actors that actually carry them out.
Definition The result is an elaborate pattern of what has been termed ‘‘third-party government,’’ of government reliance on a host of third parties to deliver governmentally authorized and financed services (Salamon, 1981). Other terms for this phenomenon include the ‘‘hollow state,’’ ‘‘indirect government,’’ ‘‘networked government,’’ and ‘‘the new governance.’’ ‘‘Third-party government’’ seems preferable, however, because it emphasizes the existence of a ‘‘third party’’ between government and the citizens it is attempting to serve, and because it emphasizes the considerable discretion that these third parties inevitably come to exercise in the operation of publicly financed programs.
Historical Background Third-party government so defined is hardly an entirely new phenomenon. Rather, it has been a central feature of the American approach to public problems for decades. This is how the United States built its railroads and canals, supplied its troops in wars, established many of its colleges, built many of its cultural institutions, revolutionized its agriculture, promoted homeownership, and dealt with the influx of immigrants into its cities. We tend to forget, for example, that behind the potent myth of voluntarism through which we now view nineteenth century America lies a solid reality of extensive collaboration between local governments and private nonprofit groups. As of 1898, for example, 60% of the funds the City of New York was spending on the care of paupers and prisoners went to private benevolent institutions, and similar practices were evident in all but four American states (Fetter, 1901, 1902: 376, 360). The very first social service program at the federal level also took the form of a grant-in-aid to a nonprofit social service organization, and a sectarian one at that – the Little Sisters of the Poor in Washington, DC, and this program was enacted in 1874 (Salamon, 1995).
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While such collaborations have long characterized the American approach to public problems, however, they have grown massively in scope and scale in recent decades. Instead of the centralized hierarchical agencies delivering standardized services that is caricatured in much of the current reform literature and most of our political rhetoric, what exists in most spheres of policy is a dense mosaic of policy tools, many of them placing public agencies in complex, interdependent relationships with a host of third-party partners. Almost none of the US Federal Government’s more than $300 billion annual involvement in the housing field, for example, bears much resemblance to the classic picture of bureaucrats providing services to citizens. Rather, nearly $190 billion takes the form of loan guarantees to underwrite mortgage credit extended by private commercial banks; another $114 billion takes the form of tax subsidies that flow to homeowners through the income tax system; and more than $20 billion takes the form of housing vouchers administered by semiautonomous local housing authorities to finance housing provided by private landlords (Salamon, 2002: 4). More generally, the direct provision of goods or services by government bureaucrats now accounts for only 5% of the activity of the US Federal Government. Even with income transfers, direct loans, and interest payments counted as ‘‘direct government’’ the direct activities of the federal government amount to only 28% of its activities. Far larger in scale are the more indirect instruments of public action – contracting, grants-in-aid, vouchers, tax expenditures, loan guarantees, insurance, and regulation, to name just a few. The total monetary value of these activities was in the neighborhood of $2.5 trillion as of Fiscal Year 1999, two-and-a-half times higher than the roughly $1 trillion in direct activities in which the Federal Government was engaged, and one-and-a-half times higher than the total amounts recorded as outlays in the Federal budget that year, underlining the fact that many of the indirect forms of action are also invisible in the budget (Salamon, 2002: 5). While it is true that more direct activities are carried out at the state and local level, third-party government is a familiar and growing practice at these other levels as well (Goldsmith & Egger, 2005; Agranoff & McGuire, 2003). The ‘‘marble cake’’ metaphor that political scientist Morton Grodzins (1966) conjured up in 1966 to describe the interplay of federal, state, and local government roles in the actual operation of American federalism, thus now applies more generally to the relations not only among levels of government but also among the different sectors. As former Independent Sector President Brian O’Connell
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once put it, we are increasingly making a ‘‘mesh’’ of things in field after field of public action, combining public and private action in ever more imaginative, and more complicated, ways. No doubt the scope of this development in the American setting reflects distinctive features of American political life. Given our fragmented political system and general hostility to government, in order to move forward with government action in any policy sphere, it is typically necessary to cut the key interests involved into a piece of the action – so private hospitals gain a major role in the implementation of our basic medical program for the elderly, private banks in the implementation of the federal government’s principal housing program, and now private insurance companies in the operation of the new Medicare drug benefit. But more than the peculiarities of the American political system account for the increasingly indirect character of governmental action. There are broader explanations for this development as well related to the complexity of the problems that government is increasingly being called on to resolve and the need to engage multiple actors to gain meaningful traction on them. It has become clear, for example, that going after complex nonpoint sources of pollution requires the mobilization not only of governmental capacities, but broader citizen capacities as well. The result has been the promotion of a new ‘‘civic environmentalism’’ that takes the form of complex partnerships among government agencies at various levels and diverse citizen groups organized into watershed alliances, land trusts, stream teams, and many more (Sirianni & Friedland, 2001: 18–19, 90–91).
International Perspectives Reflecting this, third-party government is hardly restricted to the American scene. To the contrary, it is widely evident in countries throughout the world. Thus, for example, the much-vaunted European ‘‘welfare state’’ turns out on closer inspection to be a widespread ‘‘welfare partnership’’ between government and the nonprofit sector. Research carried out by teams of scholars working under the auspices of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project thus found that many European countries, such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Ireland, and Germany, had nonprofit sectors that approached or exceeded that in the United States in proportional size and that received upwards of 60% or 70% of their funding from government through a variety of third-party arrangements (Salamon et al., 2004; see also: Gidron et al., 1992; Ringling, 2002; Eliadis et al., 2005).
Key Issues Third-party Government vs. Privatization and New Public Management
It is important to recognize, however, that third-party government as a concept is different from both ‘‘privatization’’ and ‘‘new public management,’’ two somewhat similar characterizations of contemporary public sector operations. Privatization at its core involves the transfer of governmental functions to private hands. While some advocates of privatization include contracting out as a form of privatization, the concept itself paints with a broad brush and does not distinguish clearly among the possible forms of involvement of third-party actors in essentially public functions. What is more, it tends to downplay or ignore the critical role that the public sector plays in the operation of third-party arrangements (Gerald Garvey, 1993; Savas, 1987). Third-party government, by contrast, emphasizes the collaborative nature of public problem solving and explicitly acknowledges the variations in operation of the different tools or instruments through which third-party arrangements are structured. It thus explicitly alters the focus of analysis from public sector institutions or program to the specific tools or instruments through which public action proceeds. What is more, this ‘‘tools approach’’ (Salamon, 1989, 2002) takes issue with the presumed simplicity of indirect government portrayed in much of the privatization literature. To the contrary, it argues that third-party government poses even more significant challenges than direct government, requiring continued, active public sector involvement, but of a different sort. The third-party government concept also diverges from the new public management. New public management essentially focuses on the direct operations of the public sector and recommends the introduction of business-type incentives and metrics into the operation of government agencies. What is more, beginning from the premise that the public sector is characterized by tight hierarchical organizations, the new public management recommends the outsourcing of governmental functions as a solution to government’s problems, conveniently overlooking the enormous extent to which third-party government is already in place around the world (Osborne et al., 1992; Tullock, 1965; Moe, 1984; Williamson, 1975).
Future Directions What this suggests is that the third-party government concept offers a more relevant explanation of the challenge we face in improving government performance than
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either privatization or new public management. That challenge is not how to reshape and reinvent government bureaucracies in order to improve their performance as these other theories suggest. Rather, third-party government argues that the central challenge is learning how to comprehend, and to manage, the reinvented government that we have created, to prepare people to design and manage the immensely complex collaborations and networks that we are increasingly using, and probably necessarily using, to address our public problems. Far from the panacea that the new public management advertised, these indirect forms of action turn out to create enormous problems – problems of management, problems of accountability, and problems of legitimacy. The Management Challenge. Instead of a single form of action, those involved in public problem-solving must master a host of different ‘‘tools’’ of public action, each with its own decision rules, its own rhythms, its own agents, and its own challenges. The more indirect tools in particular pose considerable management challenges. With power dispersed and numerous semi-autonomous entities involved in the operation of public programs, matters that could be dealt with internally on an ad hoc basis in direct government have to be anticipated far in advance through legally binding contracts under ‘‘thirdparty government.’’ Similarly, incentives have to be devised sufficient to induce desired behavior but not so substantial as to yield windfall gains; concurrence has to be secured at numerous points in complex decision chains; and disparate organizations have to be forged into effective networks capable of integrated action. Each of these tasks requires not only extensive programmatic knowledge but also considerable diplomatic skill, detailed knowledge of the operational parameters of the different tools and the internal dynamics of the entities that the tool engages, and a sophisticated appreciation of the context in which the tool is being deployed. The Accountability Challenge. Side-by-side with this management challenge is the accountability challenge that ‘‘third-party government’’ poses. As noted, many of the newer tools of public action vest substantial discretionary authority in entities other than those with ultimate responsibility for the results, and often entities with their own autonomous sources of authority that allow them to operate with considerable independence: they are sovereign state and local governments, private commercial banks, independent nonprofit organizations, profitseeking companies, universities, and hospitals with powerful governing boards, and many more. Each of these enters its relationship with governmental authorities on
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its own terms, with its own expectations, objectives, and bottom line. What is more, the choice of the instrument that structures these relationships is often dictated as much by political considerations as by the appropriateness of the instrument for the purpose at hand. Under these circumstances, the traditional notions of accountability embodied in administrative law, with their emphasis on controlling the discretion exercised by governmental agencies, do not quite suffice. This is so for the obvious reason that governmental agencies are no longer in control of the programs they administer. Instead of trying to control discretion by making its exercise transparent within administrative agencies, third-party government splinters the discretion and parcels it out to the variety of third-party partners who come to share with government administrators the authority to shape program operations. The Legitimacy Challenge. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, for all its political appeal third-party government may ultimately pose even more serious challenges for democratic theory, and potentially for popular support of government. In a sense, third-party government substitutes the indirect tools of public action for the traditional mechanisms of democratic control posited in classical public administration. Those mechanisms presumed that elected officials, acting in accord with the will of the people, set policy directions and then hold administrators to account through the hierarchic controls of administrative agencies. Indirect tools of government, by contrast, shred those hierarchic controls, leaving agency administrators, and the elected officials who lean on them, ill-equipped to ensure the results they want. In the process, the link between the taxes citizens pay and the services they receive is attenuated since third parties end up delivering many of the services that government finances. Third-party government may thus delegitimize government in the very act of enabling it to operate in new ways. Needed a New Governance. To deal with these challenges, nothing less than a new governance theory, a new understanding of public problem-solving, is needed. Such a ‘‘new governance’’ must involve a shift in the focus of analysis from agencies and programs to the ‘‘tools’’ of public action, from an understanding of hierarchical agencies to an understanding of ‘‘networks,’’ from a concept of public vs. private to an appreciation of the advantages of public plus private, from an emphasis on command and control as the central mechanism of public action to a sensitivity to the role of negotiation and persuasion, and from a focus on management skills to
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an emphasis on ‘‘enablement’’ skills instead (Salamon, 2004). In this way the third-party government concept can lead to an improvement in the way societies approach public problems.
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Contracts and Contract Regimes ▶ Good Governance ▶ Government-Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Legitimacy ▶ New Public Management ▶ O‘Connell, Brian ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Argranoff, R., & McGuire, M. (2003). Collaborative public management: New strategies for local governnments. Washington, DC: Washington University Press. Eliadis, P., Hill, M. & Howlett, M. (2005). Designing government: From instruments to governance. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Fetter, F. (1901/1902). The subsidizing of private charities. American Journal of Sociology, 359–85. Gerald Garvey, G. (1993). Facing the bureaucracy (pp. 25–35). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Gidron, B., Kramer, R., & Salamon, L. M. (1992). Government and the third sector in comparative perspective: Experience in modern welfare states. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Goldsmith, S., & Eggers, W. D. (2004). Governing by network: The new shape of the public sector. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Grodzins, M. (1966). The American system: A new view of government in the United States. Chicago: Rand McNally. Kettl, D. (1988). Government by proxy: (Mis?)Managing federal programs. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press. Moe, T. (1984, November). The new economics of organization. American Journal of Political Science, 28 739–777. Osborne, D., & Gaebler, T. (1992). Reinventing government: How the entrepreneurial spirit is transforming the public sector. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Ringling, A. B. (2002). E´uropean experience with tools of government. In L. M. Salamon (pp. 585–599). Salamon, L. M. (1981). Rethinking public management: Third-party government and the tools of government action. Public Policy, 29, 255–275. Salamon, L. M. (1989). Beyond privatization: The tools of government action. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press. Salamon, L. M. (1995). Partners in public service: Government-nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Salamon, L. M. (Ed.) (2002). The tools of government: A guide to the new governance. New York: Oxford University Press. Salamon, L. M. (2005). Training professional citizens: Getting beyond the right answers to the wrong questions in public affairs education. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 11(1), 7–19. Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, W., & Associates (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Greenwood, CT: Kumarian Press.
Savas, E. S. (1987). Privatization: The key to effective government. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House. Siriani, C., & Friedland, L. (2001). Civic innovation in America: Community empowerment, public policy, and the movement for civic renewal. Berkeley: University of California Press. Tullock, G. (1965). The politics of bureaucracy. Washington, DC: Public Affairs Press. Williamson, O. (1975). Markets and hierarchies. New York: Free Press.
Third Sector BENJAMIN GIDRON Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva, Israel
Introduction For the stranger to the field, the term ‘‘Third Sector’’ is very confusing. It is often confused with the ‘‘Third World’’ or the ‘‘Third Age’’ or the ‘‘Third Way’’ (in the United Kingdom). It actually denotes the sector of organizations that are neither public, nor business, which means that it entails private organizations that are notfor-profit. While the other two sectors are called by a name that characterizes their activity (‘‘Public,’’ ‘‘Business’’), ‘‘Third’’ is a neutral term, which actually depicts the fact that it is difficult to characterize its activities within a simple and concise term. Indeed, an analysis of the organizations that comprise that ‘‘Sector’’ suggests that this group of organizations is very diverse and heterogeneous, which often calls into question the very idea of a ‘‘Sector’’ when dealing with them. The term ‘‘Third Sector’’ also serves as a neutral concept in international forums or organizations (such as the International Society for Third-Sector Research – ISTR), where it is used to bridge various cultural traditions regarding that sector of organizations, such as ‘‘Nonprofit’’ (United States), ‘‘Voluntary’’ (United Kingdom), ‘‘Non-Governmental,’’ ‘‘Economie Sociale,’’ etc.
Definition The initial idea of a ‘‘third’’ sector is residual – it is a sector of organizations that is defined by what it is not; it is composed of organizations that are neither public, namely organizations formed by laws or regulations on the national, regional, or local level, nor business, namely organizations that are set for commercial purposes and are allowed to derive profits from their activities.
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All countries have organizations that meet this residual definition, but have different traditions defining them and formulating ways to relate to them. In democratic countries there are laws permitting their formation within the concept of ‘‘freedom of association’’ and regulating their activities, but this fact does not in and of itself create a ‘‘Sector’’ of these organizations. The idea of a ‘‘Third Sector’’ is rather new and came onto the public awareness in the early 1990s, with the tremendous development of this category of organizations all over the world. Against the background of globalization and its derivatives and policies of privatization of public services, there was a significant growth in the number of such organizations, their volume of activities and consequently, in their importance for society. This brought about the need for knowledge and data on that category of organizations, both nationally and comparatively. This in turn started the project of mapping the nonprofit sector in a large number of countries (The Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project). The study started with the need to find a common definition in an area where significant cultural differences exist. A residual type of definition was not acceptable, especially in light of the fact that in different countries, different organizations comprise the domain which is neither public nor business. To overcome this, Salamon and Anheier (1997) developed a positive approach. Their definition is based on conditions an organization has to meet in order to be included in the Third Sector. This later became the basis for an international definition of the kinds of organizations that comprise the third sector. According to their definition an organization belongs to the Third/ Nonprofit Sector if it meets the following five conditions: The organization must (1) be formal, institutional to some extent, it has to have some degree of internal organizational structure, relative persistence of goals and meaningful organizational boundaries. Purely ad hoc or temporary gatherings of people are excluded; (2) be private, institutionally separated from and not a part of the apparatus of government; (3) not allowed to distribute profits, namely, not returning profits generated to their owners or directors. The organization may accumulate profits, but those must be invested in the basic mission of the organization, not distributed to members, founders, or the board; (4) be self-governing, namely equipped to control their own activities, have independent governing mechanisms, such as an independent board, which makes decisions on vital issues; and (5) be noncompulsory, which means both that (a) participation is
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not coercive – based on free choice and not be mandated by law or accident of birth, and (b) that at least part of its work must be based on philanthropic resources, e.g., donations, volunteers (see also Salamon et al., 2004). This definition entails a very large and heterogeneous group of organizations which have diverse functions (service provision, advocacy, funding), have different sources of income (public funding, donations, and self-generated income), engage in a wide range of substantive areas (welfare, the environment, education, health, housing, community development, etc.), and come from a wide variety of traditions (charity, political activism, voluntarism, fraternal organizations, etc.). The definition has a clear legal base and its major function is to separate organizations in the Third Sector from other organizations, which are either public or business, so as to enable the study of that sector and its roles in society.
Historical Background According to Van Til (1988) the first one to use the term ‘‘Third Sector’’ in an official academic publication was Theodore Levitt (1973) in his book: The Third Sector: New Tactics for a Responsive Society. Two years later Public Administration Review devoted about half of an issue to a Symposium on Third Sector Management (Public Administration Review, 1975), practically laying the foundations for that endeavor as a unique form of management, and specifically using the term ‘‘Third Sector’’ throughout.
Key Issues Some of the issues surrounding the Third Sector have to do with its very existence: Does a Third Sector exist in society or is it conceptually wrong to think along these lines? Also, how are Third Sector organizations different from other types of organizations? Do organizations belonging to this category share some common organizational characteristics? The theoretical literature on the Third Sector is primarily economic. Economic demand-side theories maintain that the failure of either the government or the market to meet the demand for needed services among specific populations gives rise to the nonprofit organizational form. Supply-side theories argue that ideological entrepreneurs interested in attracting adherents to their ranks form nonprofit organizations that offer welfare or educational services at below market prices together with an ideological indoctrination (Steinberg, 2006).
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Other theories explaining the existence of the Sector are welfare state and the interdependence theories (Salamon & Anheier, 1998), which focus on the relationship between the state and the third sector in the context of welfare service provision. The former explains nonprofit organizations as a residual category, a remnant of the pre-welfare state era. As soon as a society moves into public service provision, these organizations are replaced by public agencies. The latter is based on the notion of voluntary failure and the need to replace voluntary organizations with public agencies. It focuses on modes of cooperation and collaboration between nonprofit organizations and the government as indicators of how government can counter such deficiencies in voluntary organizations. Finally, the theory of social origins of the nonprofit sector (Salamon & Anheier, 1998) suggests that the existence, the size, and the specific characteristics of the nonprofit sector in a given country are a function of that country’s history. The complex relationships and power struggles that evolve between the landed elites, labor unions, and organized religion result in a specific pattern of welfare service provision. The idea of a Third Sector is put into question on two counts: ● Is there just one ‘‘Sector’’? Is it justified to cramp together within the same ‘‘Sector’’ such a wide range of organizations, which, on the surface have often little in common with each other? Marshall (1996) argues that this population of organizations does not comprise one but several sectors. He calls for a differentiation between the religious, philanthropic, communal, and informal (sub-)sectors, suggesting in effect that such a division creates much more homogeneous sectors, in terms of their mission, goals, and operational principles. The institutional theorists Dimaggio and Powell (1991) are dividing the world of organizations by substantive domains rather than by legal form of incorporation. For them a ‘‘sector’’ is a group of organizations within a specific domain (mental health, environmental protection, etc.) that interact with each other around issues of resources, legitimacy, coordination, and regulation. ● Boundaries. Constant changes in social and cultural definitions of ‘‘private’’ and ‘‘public,’’ ‘‘commercial’’ and ‘‘non-commercial’’ increase the blurring of the boundaries between the sectors and pose significant difficulties in defining the boundaries of the Third Sector. On the one hand, the Third Sector contracts with government and thus creates close proximity of
the Third Sector to the Public Sector. On the other hand processes of commercialization of nonprofit organizations and the close links between philanthropy and business (in cases of corporate philanthropy and corporate social responsibility), blur the boundaries between the Third Sector and the Business Sector. Thus, clear-cut definitions of the Third Sector are detrimental to the understanding of social and organizational processes that take place in the boundary areas between sectors. According to Kramer (2000), the actual differences between different types of organizations are few and they too wither away in light of managerial fads, intersectorial collaborations, the culture of contracts, privatization, etc. Intersectorial organizational networks are much more characteristic of the welfare arena than a clear distinction between sectors. Wagner (2000) also criticizes the idea of a unique category of a Third Sector and its distinction from government, and bases himself primarily on the European reality. From the organizational perspective there is a question regarding the unique organizational characteristics. The issue of the uniqueness of the Third Sector is discussed from a different angle by Frumkin (2002). He claims that such a sector is a contested arena between the state and the market ‘‘where public and private concerns meet and where individual and social efforts are united’’ (p. 1). Yet he suggests that third sector organizations have at least three unique features that connect those divergent entities, and separate them from organizations in the other sectors. These are: (1) they do not coerce participation; (2) they operate without distributing profits to shareholders; and (3) they exist without simple and clear lines of ownership and accountability. He goes on to suggest that while these features seem to make third sector organizations weak and inefficient – the opposite is true: These very features give those organizations an advantage and put them in a position to perform important societal functions, which neither government nor the market can perform. The idea, then, that Third Sector organizations share common organizational characteristics, exactly as business and/or public organizations do, strengthens the notion that society needs to deal with these organizations as a unique sector, if it wants to preserve and promote the qualities these organizations uphold. Obviously, such a notion has major policy and practice implications, namely – formulating policy around them, developing research and training institutions around them, etc. In light of policy initiatives
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around that concept as well as the existence of research and training centers in universities around the world, it seems that the idea of a Third Sector is catching.
International Perspectives The major research effort to create a comparative system of data on the Third Sector internationally is undoubtedly the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, conducted in some 40 countries since the early 1990s at the Institute for Policy Studies (later at the Center for Civil Society Studies) in that university (‘‘The Hopkins Project’’). It is characterized ‘‘as a systematic effort to analyze the scope, structure, financing, and role of the private nonprofit sector in a cross section of countries around the world in order to improve our knowledge and enrich our theoretical understanding of this sector, and to provide a sounder basis for both public and private action towards it’’ (http://www.jhu. edu/~cnp/). The project, which uses a common definition (see above) focuses on the size and structure of the Sector in the countries involved and measures primarily economic indicators. Thus it is able to compare the size of the Sector based on the size of its workforce (with and without volunteers), its composition by fields of activity, by volunteer input, by revenue composition, etc. Based on these data the authors are attempting to put into test the various nonprofit sector theories and conclude that ‘‘progress has been achieved on the ‘data front’ in the struggle to comprehend the nonprofit sector cross-nationally’’ (Anheier & Salamon, 2006, 103). In a related development and on the basis of the ‘‘Hopkins Project,’’ a UN Nonprofit Handbook Project has been launched. The Project ‘‘seeks to improve the treatment of nonprofit or civil society organizations in national economic statistics. A major barrier to improved understanding of the nonprofit sector is the lack of basic statistics on the scope, structure, financing, and activities of this set of organizations. This lack of information reflects, in part, the way nonprofits are treated in the System of National Accounts (SNA) – the set of international guidelines for compiling national economic statistics’’ (see: http://www.jhu.edu/ccss/unhandbook/). The idea is to systematically collect data on this sector of organizations in all countries and include those data in the System of National Accounts as a separate account, treating it the way the other two sectors are treated.
Future Directions Issues regarding the unique roles of the Third Sector in society, and the organizational attributes to enable it to
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fill those will need attention of research. Other issues that future research will focus on will be the complex forms of relationships the sector establishes with the other sectors. Finally, future researchers will undoubtedly focus on the contributions of the Third Sector to society not just in terms of service delivery but also in the domain of advocacy and policy making, and will try to link those to specific traditions and political regimes.
Cross-References
▶ International Society for Third-Sector Research ▶ Nonprofit Organization ▶ Nonprofit Organizations in the System of National Accounts ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Comparative Perspectives ▶ Social Economy ▶ Social Origins Theory ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic
References/Further Readings Anheier, H. K., & Salamon, L. M. (2006). The nonprofit sector in comparative perspective. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 89–116). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. DiMaggio, P., & Powell, W. W. (1991). The iron cage revisited: Institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. In W. W. Powell & P. DiMaggio (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis (pp. 147–160). Chicago, IL: Chicago University Press. Frumkin, P. (2002). On being nonprofit. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kramer, R. M. (2000). A third sector in the third millennium? Voluntas, 11(1), 1–23. Levitt, T. (1973). The third sector: New tactics for a responsive society. New York: Amacom. Marshall, T. (1996). Can we define the voluntary sector? In D. Billis & M. Harris (Eds.), Voluntary agencies: Challenges of organization and management (pp. 45–60). Basingstoke/Hampshire: Macmillan. Public Administration Review (1975). Symposium on management in the third sector. 35(5), 433–477. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1997). Defining the nonprofit sector: A cross national analysis. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1998). Social origins of civil society. Voluntas, 9(3), 213–248. Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, W., & Associates (2004). Global civil society: Dimensions of the nonprofit sector. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian. Steinberg, R. (2006). Economic theories of nonprofit organizations. In W. W. Powell & R. Steinberg (Eds.), The nonprofit sector: A research handbook (pp. 117–139). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Van Til, J. (1988). Mapping the nonprofit sector. New York: Foundation Center. Wagner, A. (2000). Reframing ‘social origins theory’: The structural transformation of the public sphere. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 29(4), 541–553.
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Third Sector Foundation of Turkey ¨ c¸u¨nc¸u¨ Sekto¨r Vakfi (TU ¨ SEV) ▶ Tu¨rkiye U
Third Way FRED POWELL National University of Ireland-Cork, Cork, UK
Introduction Social democrats have sought to incorporate civil society into a project of political renewal, which has involved adapting to neoliberalism in a postsocialist world order. As the socialist imaginary, that underpinned the Enlightenment ideal of human progress, has dimmed, social democrats have sought to reinvent themselves. It has not proven to be an easy task. Essentially, there are three current political models, which offer distinctive political solutions: Neoliberalism (model 1); ‘‘old’’ Social Democracy (model 2); and the Third Way (model 3). The Third Way seeks to reconcile Social Democracy with Neoliberalism through a modernization project, based upon economic progress. According to the Third Way model, ‘‘progress’’ is the constant expansion of economic growth underpinned by rising production, consumerism, and market dominance. In this postmodern reality, neoTocquevillean social theorists, notably Etzioni (1993), Fukuyama (1995) and Putnam (1993, 2000), have claimed there is a positive correlation between modernization and civil society. They argue the former promotes cooperation, prosperity, and trust simultaneously leading to higher levels of social solidarity and economic prosperity. It is called ‘‘social capital,’’ i.e., a sense of human interconnectedness or community between people based upon the construction and fostering of social networks. They conclude this represents progress within a liberal democratic framework. On the face of it, social capital is twoworld theory where the economic sphere is characterized by utilitarian values and the cold logic of instrumental rationality, and a social world defined by neo-Tocquevillean solidarity, stripped of contagious modernist revolutionary influences and of antagonistic politics of social change, advocated by Tom Paine and Karl Marx. According to this view, there is no longer society in the modernist sense of the welfare state or a public sphere, only individual and social enterprise, self-reliance, and charity. Politically, the Third Way is defined by the slogan ‘‘neither
Right nor Left.’’ This implies life in a postpartisan age in which the historic ideological conflict between capitalism and socialism has been resolved in favor of the former – what Francis Fukuyama (1992) calls ‘‘the end of history.’’
Definition Anthony Giddens, in Beyond Left and Right (1994), seeks to tackle the problems of social democracy in postmodernity by addressing the changed solidarities that are reshaping the relationship between the individual and collectivity, through the concept of modernization. In terms of forging a new political and social grammar, Giddens’ work is impressive. Building active citizenship through participation in the decision-making process and community regeneration are all part of this Third Way strategy, in which a triangular relationship between state, market, and civil society is integral to the process of building a partnership society that eschews the partisan politics of the past. Giddens has produced the definitive text on the Third Way project entitled, The Third Way: the Renewal of Social Democracy (1998). In this book, Giddens advocates his project as not just a possibility but a necessity in a globalized world dominated by neoliberalism. While ‘‘Third Way’’ politics or ‘‘New Progressivism’’ is particularly associated with Tony Blair’s New Labour government in Britain and Bill Clinton’s 1990 Democratic administration in the United States, Giddens presents it as a universal model. It was to prove influential in Western Europe, where a series of Centre Left governments, including the Schro¨der administration in Germany, the Jospin administration in France and the Prodi administration in Italy, adopted the central strategic policy thrust of the Third Way by resituating towards the market and introducing (in varying degrees) elements of welfare reform. President Barack Obama’s postpartisan politics is also evocative of Third Way politics. But it may be different to its predecessors and more reminiscent of ‘‘old’’ social democracy, which is called New Deal liberalism in America.
Historical Background The idea of a Third Way between capitalism and socialism is at least one hundred years old. For a start, social democracy itself is essentially a third way between capitalism and communism. But there are several other historical variations shaped by antimodern responses to change. Guild Socialism
In Britain, the philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) in Roads to Freedom (1918) advocated Guild Socialism
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as a Third Way. Russell’s idea was taken up by the distinguished historian of the working-class movement, G. D. H. Cole (1889–1959). In his Guild Socialism Restated (1920), Cole theorized Guild Socialism as a decentralized form of association, informed by participatory democratic principles and based upon the work place and community, rather than the labyrinthine structure of a centralized state. He believed that this pluralistic system of power would redefine the relationship between civil society and the state, in favor of the former, in a ‘‘bottom-up’’ form of governance. The problem with the idea of Guild Socialism, as a third way, was that it was inspired by the medieval concept of craft guilds. Industrial production had fundamentally changed under the influences of new technologies and Taylorism (scientific management and work, efficiency), reshaping the capitalist economy into a dynamic and reflexive system. Guild Socialism had an intrinsic problem with modern industrial systems and constituted an essentially anachronistic response to economic change. Consequently, it failed as a political project because of its antimodern orientation towards change. It was followed by other antimodern responses to change. Subsidiarity and Social Catholicism
The principle of subsidiarity became influential during the 1930s, being enshrined in a papal encyclical Quadragesimo Anno (40 Years). It was promulgated by Pope Pius XI in 1931 and argued that the state should intervene only as a last resort. Proponents of the principle of subsidiarity grounded its message in an appeal to public opinion based upon fear of the potentially totalitarian powers of the state. Writers, like Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953), who wrote The Servile State (1912) advocating a return to premodern social forms, popularized Catholic social teaching. Others sought to formulate a Catholic social perspective that addressed modernity. Social Catholicism became that voice. It articulated a conservative ‘‘third way’’ resistant to economic and social change. Nonetheless, Social Catholicism sought to protect workers from the worst excesses of market capitalism. It looked backwards to preindustrial society, where a tradition of charity and feudal obligation prevailed but made a genuine contribution to relieving poverty and distress in modern society. In Europe, the postwar Christian democratic movement was heavily inspired by Social Catholicism. The ideas empowered by Social Catholicism have deep roots in European social thought, personified by Leon Harmel in France and Franz Brandts in Germany. Behind Social Catholicism was the concept of organic community. Catholic concerns with poverty have been
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very real, arising out of a strong sense of mutual obligation that goes to the heart of a Christian community, where rich and poor are organically linked by social bonds. However, Social Catholicism parts company with the egalitarian principal promoted by modernist political movements, most notably socialism – but especially Marxism. The modernist preoccupation with social revolution is anathema to the conservative Catholic social vision that emphasizes continuity with the past and the seigneurial presence of God as the ultimate arbiter of justice. Social Catholicism openly competed with socialism for the hearts and minds of the public during the twentieth century. It was essentially a conservative movement that found a political voice in Christian Democracy, linking it to the emergence of mass democracy and the Welfare State. Social Catholicism sought to maintain a strong link between the Welfare Sate and civil society. Its view was that the moral dimension of social obligation could only be found in religious virtue as a third way. Corporatism
The concept of subsidiarity also reflected the influence of corporatist ideology in 1930s Europe. It sought to undermine the class appeal of socialism through an alternative system of vocational organization. As a third way, corporatism was presented as an alternative to liberalism and Marxism. The corporate state achieved its strongest endorsement in fascist regimes, notably Italy and Germany. But it was also highly influential in authoritarian conservative Catholic countries including: Spain, Portugal, and France (under the Vichy regime) and, to a lesser extent, Ireland. Like Guild Socialism, corporatism was essentially antimodern and perished upon its own internal contradictions that proved incompatible with democracy. Albeit, it was to reappear in postwar society in the form of neocorporatism that was to become a basic premise of governance in Catholic countries, such as Austria and Ireland. But it has gained a wider provenance through the concept of social partnership that has proven to be influential in the western world and is a core feature of the Third Way.
Key Issues Giddens (1998) notes that the alternative political narratives have either sought to expand the state (Social Democracy) or shrink it (Neoliberalism). He wants the Third Way to restructure the state through ‘‘democratizing democracy.’’ This strategy envisages ‘‘a movement of double democratization’’ that mitigates the top-down decision-making pressures of globalization with bottomup decision-making through decentralization. Essentially, Giddens is arguing the case for broadening the base of
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elite representative democracy through a greater emphasis on participatory democracy in a revived public sphere. He views ‘‘constitutional modernization’’ as an essential aspect of ‘‘democratizing democracy.’’ The New Labour government in Britain, which was elected in 1997 under the leadership of Tony Blair, successfully devolved power by establishing local parliaments in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. New Labour also reformed the House of Lords, ending the hereditary rights of the aristocracy to a seat in parliament. These reforming measures were important in terms of broadening the base of British democracy. But they were essentially changes in the structure of representative democracy. A core aspect of Giddens’ (1998) prescription for ‘‘democratizing democracy’’ envisaged more participation at local level. The ‘‘renewal of civil society’’ was an essential part of Giddens’ strategy for participation. He advocated that the state and civil society should act in partnership with each other. Social partnership envisaged a reinvention of the apparatus of governance at local level. The community was to be a new site of governance. The New Labour government viewed partnership with the voluntary and community sector as a key component in its ‘‘third way’’ strategy to forge a new social model for a new century. In its compact with the voluntary and community sector, the new Labour Government describes its core philosophy in terms of ‘‘voluntary and community activity’’ being fundamental to the development of a democratic, socially-inclusive society’ Home Office, 1998: para. 5). The New Labour government promised ‘‘to recognise and support the independence of the [voluntary and community] sector, including its right within the law, to campaign, to comment on government policy, and to challenge that policy, irrespective of any funding relationship that might exist, and to determine and manage its own affairs’’ (para. 9.1). New Labour has promised to move away from the centralized command and control system of the 1970s and the focus on markets of the 1990s, towards a more democratic and equal partnership. The UK Department of Health in its document Modernizing Social Services, published in 1998, acknowledges the importance of partnership in promoting a mixed economy of welfare. At the heart of New Labour’s ‘‘third way’’ philosophy is an espousal of communitarianism. In his preface to the Compact on Relations between Government and the Voluntary and Community Sector, Tony Blair commented on the value of the contribution citizens make to the development of their own communities. By doing so, they promote citizenship, help to reestablish a sense of community
and make a crucial contribution to the shared aim of a just and inclusive society (Home Office, 1998: 1). The communitarian philosophy that informs the ‘‘third way’’ is predicated upon the notion of increased civic participation and engagement in social life. Communitarians are concerned about the damaging effects of market individualism on community life. Civil society is viewed as an essential ally of the state in mitigating the worst effects of market dominance in the Third Way strategy for governance. The scale of civil society in Britain underlines its democratic importance. There are 190,000 voluntary organizations in England and Wales. Across the United Kingdom, there are 400,000 community groups, a reminder of the embeddedness of civil society in democratic practice. Approximately 6,000,000 volunteers form the bedrock of the British third sector, supported by 600,000 paid employees. Civil society accounts for approximately 10% of British G.D.P. However, its budget of £27 billion (40% of which comes from the state) is modest compared with public expenditure of over £400 billion per annum. Nonetheless, the impact of 6,000,000 active citizens on the social fabric of Britain is unquantifiable in monetary terms. Active citizenship plays a vital social role in maintaining the quality of British democracy. But its political role is relatively marginal. Manifestly, substantial progress is being made in the development of civic equality. The paradox is that this progress takes place against the social inequality built into the project of globalized market capitalism. The challenge that Third Way politics, epitomized by New Labour, has to set itself is to achieve social reform through a triangular partnership between the state, civil society and the market. The evidence is that the gap between rich and poor is widening. This is the fundamental flaw in the communitarian approach of the New Labour government. The new deal for communities in Britain, Sure Start, directed at preschool children, health action zones and 16–18 year olds who have dropped out of school, is not uniformly based across the country. Moreover, the emphasis is upon extending opportunity rather than promoting social equality. The positive contribution offered by communitarianism is that it reframes the relationship between the users of social services and the providers in a democratic and empowering market. In this regard, it has profound implications for the way civil society will define its role and task in the new millennium. But increasingly left-wing critics of the Third Way view it as a project concerned with deepening governance rather than democraticizing democracy.
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International Perspectives
Future Directions
The German sociologist, Ulrich Beck (1997) has offered an alternative vision of the Third Way that proposes a rupture with traditional representative democracy based upon political parties and the ‘‘reinvention of politics.’’ Beck (1997) advocates ‘‘sub politics,’’ meaning social arrangements from below’’ in a ‘‘sub politicized society.’’ He concludes that whilst mass political parties may have taken on the appearance of ‘‘dinosaurs from a fading industrial age,’’ they still retain power. Albeit, the referenda in France and Holland on the EU Constitution in 2005 and on the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland during 2008 have questioned their legitimacy. The central challenge, according to Beck, is to reinvent politics through citizen participation in the decision-making process. Beck’s Third Way bears little relationship towards Giddens’ Third Way, which seeks to adapt social democracy to neoliberalism. For theorists of radical democracy, socialism was a necessary historic moment in the evolution of democracy because it demanded an end to the conditions of social and economic inequality. But socialism failed to achieve a coherent and sustainable model for human liberation. Its politics of redistributive justice represents a vital element in the evolution of democracy. But the imperative of recognition based upon identity politics has introduced an alternative site for the narrative of human liberation. The idea of radical democratization, according to Santos (2007), has become fundamental to a new social and political grammar that is at the heart of the reinvention of politics. In a postmodern world, the pursuit of a strong and reflexive democracy has become the compass for a social change process that seeks to radicalize politics. The emergence of new social movements concerned with women’s rights, environmental protection, ethnic rights, peace, and neutrality, etc., embody the spirit of this reflexive democracy in a globalized world. Grassroots social movements have given the excluded a collective voice through which they can interrogate both state and market regarding their democratic and social intent. This, arguably, presents postmodern society with transformative possibilities. Within this context the sub-politics of active citizenship has given impetus to the pursuit of a strong and radical democratic realignment with civil society at its heart – a ‘‘project of projects’’ in which participatory democracy complements representative democracy. It would seem that the idea of a Third Way is one of the more perdurable aspects of postmodern politics.
The financial crisis of 2008 has engulfed the global economic system. It is the greatest economic downturn since the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The long-term outcome of this crisis is unclear. However, what is clear is that the global dominance of Neoliberalism over the past two decades is at an end. The regulation of markets by government is now at the center of the political agenda. These are considerable implications for Third Way politics. In a period of economic turbulence, it is likely that the ideal of postpartisan politics will come under strain. Serious political questions will be asked about Neoliberalism as a form of unregulated capitalism that allowed social divisions widen in the pursuit of prosperity. Since 2000, Latin America has rejected Neoliberalism in favor of its own third way, called ‘‘the New Bolivarianism’’ – a potent mixture of regional nationalism and neosocialist economics. The question is ‘‘whither the Western World?’’ Will there be a new third way? What will its political complexion be? Historical precedent suggests a variety of third way solutions will emerge during the twenty-first century. However, apart from the Latin American model, it is too early to guess at their shape and form. One is left to ponder the old Confucian curse, ‘‘may you live in interesting times’’!
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Cross-References
▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Communitarianism ▶ Corporatism ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Social Capital, Definition of ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ Voluntary Sector Compacts
References/Further Readings Beck, U. (1997). The reinvention of politics. Cambridge: Polity. Etzioni, A. (1993). The spirit of community. New York: Touchstone. Fukuyama, F. (1992). The end of history and the last man. New York: Free Press. Fukuyama, F. (1995). Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity. London: Hamish Hamilton. Giddens, A. (1994). Beyond left and right. Cambridge: Polity. Giddens, A. (1998). The third way: The renewal of social democracy. Cambridge: Polity. Home Office. (1998). Compact between the voluntary and community sector and the state. London: HMSO. Putnam, R. (1993). Making democracy work: Civic traditions in modern Italy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Putnam, R. (2000). Bowling alone: The collapse and revival of American community. New York: Simon and Schuster. Santos, B. (2007). Democratizing Democracy, London: Verso.
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Time Banking UK
Time Banking UK MARTIN FARRELL
Address of Organization The Exchange Brick Row Stroud, Gloucestershire GL5 1DF UK www.timebanking.org
Introduction Time Banking UK is a national umbrella organization for a new kind of money that uses time as a medium of exchange, a social innovation called time banking, which is making a major contribution to putting mutuality back into the DNA of society. Time banking provides a self-generating force for social renewal that works from the bottom up. This new form of currency values co-operation, compassion, and care just as automatically as conventional money can reward exploitation and greed. It offers incentives for people to take a risk, to reach out to others and get involved, and to use their time and skills for the common good.
Brief History Dr. Edgar Cahn, a civil rights lawyer and community activist, devised the time banking system during a year long sabbatical at the London School of Economics in London in the early 1980s. His idea was simple: ● ● ● ●
You give an hour of help and earn one time credit. The person receiving your help owes one time credit. They pay back by helping someone else. Everyone’s skills are valued equally.
In this way, a new time-based ‘‘currency’’ is put into local circulation that becomes every bit as real as the cash in people’s pockets. The time credits become the basic building blocks for a healthy community and inspire everexpanding circles of giving, receiving, and reciprocating. The simple rule that ‘‘one hour equals one time credit’’ becomes a revolutionary tool. David Boyle and Martin Simon brought timebanking to the UK in 1998. "
Working on the simple premise of reciprocity, time banks aim to place value on community action, promote productivity and build social networks by engaging local people in the giving and receiving of services. It allows people to
amass time credits by participating in or providing a service that benefits the wider community. These credits are then deposited in a time bank and can be spent on a whole range of skills and services on offer from other members of the bank. (Society Guardian on World Mental Health Day 10/10/07)
Mission The mission of Time Banking UK is to cultivate an environment where timebanking can flourish. Time Banking UK’s vision is of a world in which people may have all they need for their own well being by contributing what they can to building communities, caring for the marginalized, bringing up healthy children and working for social justice.
Activities Time Banking UK helps individuals, organizations, and communities to set up and run their own time banks by providing resources, including handbooks, information packs, DVD’s, e-bulletins, and its website; training in time banking, co-production, and Time Online software; mentoring, e.g., advice and mutual support; partnering with voluntary, statutory, and corporate sectors; quality by disseminating best practices and quality standards; awareness raising through media campaigns, networking, and promotions; policy advocacy on issues that affect time banking and co-production. It also is developing a robust evidence base for the efficacy of timebanking.
Structure and Governance Time Banking UK is a charitable trust and is governed by a Board of Trustees. The organization maintains a small core staff team of four people.
Funding The main funders of Time Banking UK’s annual budget of £380,000 (2007/8) are the UK Cabinet Office, Department of Health, Ministry of Justice, and various charitable foundations.
Major Accomplishments Among its major accomplishments, Time Banking UK has brought a new social movement to the UK, engaged with hard-to-reach communities, and changed mainstream practice. Time Banking UK is now building a creative, interdependent, and purposeful network of time banks, time banking initiatives and other like-minded organizations that are committed to community empowerment and coproduction.
Titmuss, Richard Morris
Cross-References ▶ Compassion ▶ Reciprocity
References/Further Readings Becker, L. (1990). Reciprocity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Boyle, D. (1999). Funny money: In search of alternative cash. London: Harper Collins. Cahn, E. S. (2004). No more throw-away people. Washington, DC: Essential Books. Simon, M. (2003). A fair share of health care. London: NHS & TBUK.
Titmuss, Richard Morris ELEANOR BRILLIANT
Brief Biographical Information Richard Titmuss was born in 1907 to a modest-income farming family in England, and without formal academic training went on to become an influential teacher at the London School of Economics, a major theorist of social policy, and sometimes controversial advisor to the British government on health and welfare. Titmuss left school at 14, and after doing office work, he took a position in a large insurance company. He worked there 16 years, rose to the rank of inspector, and developed a critical view of the social impact and power held by insurance companies. In 1937 Titmuss married Kay Miller, a social worker, who after his death helped to edit and republish several collections of his lectures and essays. After marriage, and while working for the insurance company, he pursued demographic studies and statistics relating to social problems, writing books concerned with poverty, ill-health, and family problems that drew the attention of important social reformers like Sidney and Beatrice Webb. His daughter Ann Oakley (born 1944), Professor of Sociology, feminist, and well-known writer, has authored a book about her parents’ early years. When Titmuss was treated for cancer in the National Health Service, he discussed his favorable, firsthand impressions of this public health system in a prologue to his last lecture series. He died on April 6, 1973 and this personal prologue became postscript in the book of lectures published posthumously, Social Policy: An Introduction (1974).
Major Contributions During the second World War Richard Titmuss wrote a volume of the official war history, Problems of Social
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Policy, (1950), which was widely acclaimed and secured him the position of Chair in Social Administration at the LSE. While there, from 1950 to his death, he reorganized the teaching of social work and transformed the concept of social administration, establishing social policy as an academic discipline. He was a popular lecturer; two of the seven books published during his lifetime are collections of essays, largely based on public lectures or lectures delivered at the LSE. Titmuss consistently presented a value-driven approach to the allocation of resources for social welfare, raising provocative questions and illuminating philosophical issues he considered fundamental to the analysis of social policy and social services. Titmuss defined social services as including cash benefits (social insurance and cash assistance for the poor) and benefits-in-kind, such as health services, and he eschewed an easy dichotomy between universally provided services and selective services, arguing that a framework of universalism was essential for avoiding the stigma of mean-tested programs. His moral view of social policy embodied collective aims for society as well as individual benefits that necessitated complex choices. It was Titmuss who first categorized three streams of welfare – social, occupational, and fiscal – with their diverse consequences for individuals in an industrial society, and he recognized emerging issues for women in home and workplace. In the 1960s he participated actively in government committees such as the Community Relations Commission and the Supplementary Benefits Commission (also as Deputy Chair). Although known for his focus on English welfare policies, Titmuss’s ideas have influenced social policy analysis in the United States and elsewhere, and he himself recognized the need for comparative social welfare studies. In his last book, The Gift Relationship (1970) he examined blood provision in different countries (primarily the United Kingdom and the United States), concluding that nonmarket giving of blood from altruistic motives was more efficient and produced better quality blood. An identified socialist, Titmuss’ s views went beyond the construct of a highly formalized welfare state to the vision of a welfare society embodying an integrated community. Questions he raised about social justice and the functioning of welfare institutions remain an important aspect of the Titmuss legacy for today.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Beveridge, Lord William Henry ▶ Gift Relationship
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▶ Public Benefit and Public Good ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Oakley, A., & Barker, J. (Eds.) (2004). Private complaints and public health: Richard Titmuss and the national health service. Bristol: Policy Press. Reisman, D. (2001). Richard Titmuss: Welfare and society (2nd ed.). Basingbroke: Palgrave. Titmuss, R. M. (1962). Income distribution and social change: A study in criticism. London: Allen & Unwin. Titmuss, R. M. (1968). Commitment to welfare. Great Britain/New York: Allen & Unwin and Pantheon Books. Titmuss, R. M. (1987). Social welfare and the art of giving. In B. AbelSmith & K. Titmuss (Eds.), The philosophy of welfare. London: Allen & Unwin.
Tompkins, James John JIM LOTZ
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1870 in the Margaree Valley in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, James John ‘‘Father Jimmy’’ Tompkins attended St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish and Urban College in Rome. A small, frail-looking man, Tompkins returned home in 1902 to be ordained and join the staff of St. Francis Xavier University. Inspired by ventures in adult education in Europe, Tompkins urged the university to serve the learning needs of ordinary people rather than educating an elite group of students. He forwarded his ideas on doing this with a People’s School on the campus in 1921 and the publication of a pamphlet, Knowledge for the People in the following year. In 1922, his bishop exiled Tompkins to Canso for supporting a proposal to amalgamate the universities in the Maritimes. In this remote part of Novia Scotia, Tompkins organized poor fishermen to build their own lobster-packing plant, brought goats to the community to provide the children with milk, and urged his flock to better their lives through working together. In 1935, the priest moved to Reserve Mines in Industrial Cape Breton, and turned his glebe house into a community library. He also helped 11 miners to build their own houses through a cooperative scheme: they named their community Tompkinsville. Tompkins’ mind began to fail in the mid-1940s, and he resigned his duties in 1948. He entered the hospital in Antigonish in 1952, dying there in May 1953.
Major Contributions Tompkins was the spiritual father and eminence gris of the Antigonish Movement which was led by Father Moses Michael Coady, his double cousin. This adult education movement spread throughout Atlantic Canada in the 1930s. Banished from St. Francis Xavier University in 1922, Tompkins put arms and legs on his ideas of adult education in a small rural fishing village in Eastern Nova Scotia and a mining community in Cape Breton. The priest encouraged poor people to organize – to better their conditions through cooperative action. He lured Roy Bergengren, a pioneer of credit unions in the United States, to Nova Scotia to help communities to set them up there. Tompkins urged poor fishermen in Canso to take political action in 1927 by organizing a meeting and demanding a royal commission to study their industry. Tompkins believed: ‘‘The man who reads is the man who leads.’’ He bombarded everyone he met with books, pamphlets, and newspaper clippings, so they could understand what was happening in the world. Tompkins educated a group of men and women through informal means to organize credit unions and housing cooperatives. By 1953, the year of his death, 35 housing coops in Nova Scotia had built 4,000 homes based on the Tompkinsville model.
Cross-References
▶ Coady, Moses Michael, Rev. Dr ▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Credit Unions
References/Further Readings Alexander, A. (1997). The Antigonish movement: Moses Coady and adult education today. Toronto: Thompson Educational Publishing. Lotz, J., & Welton, M. (1997). Father Jimmy: The life and times of Jimmy Tompkins. Wreck Cove: Breton Books.
To¨nnies, Ferdinand CAMILLO VON MUELLER
Basic Biographical Information Born in 1855 in the Northern German region of Eiderstedt (then under Danish rule) to a farmer’s family, Ferdinand To¨nnies went on to become one of the pioneers of modern sociology. After the completion of his Abitur in Husum in 1871 To¨nnies studied classics, philosophy, theology, ecclesiastical history, archeology, and history of arts at the universities of Strasbourg, Jena,
Touraine, Alain
Leipzig, Bonn, Kiel, and Tu¨bingen receiving a Ph.D. in classics from the University of Tu¨bingen in 1877. After years of private studies in Germany and England and a temporary membership at the Ko¨nigliche Preussische Statistische Bu¨ro, the royal statistical office in Berlin, To¨nnies received his post-doc-habilitation from the University of Kiel in 1881. From 1881 to 1916, To¨nnies worked at the University of Kiel where he first taught as a private lecturer before being awarded a chair in political economy in 1913. In 1909 To¨nnies cofounded the Deutsche Gesellschaft fu¨r Soziologie (the German Society for Sociology) serving as the Society’s president from 1922 to 1933. In 1921, To¨nnies returned to the University of Kiel as a lecturer. Because of his decisive critique against the National Socialistic movement as well as his membership at the German Social Democratic Party and the German League for Human Rights, To¨nnies was forced to leave office after Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. To¨nnies spent his last years withdrawn from society in Kiel where he died in 1936.
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order to analyze the different forces and processes that determine social life.
Cross-References
▶ Communitarianism ▶ Community, Types of ▶ Cyber-Communities ▶ Hobbes, Thomas ▶ Solidarity
References/Further Readings Clausen, L. et al. (Eds.) (1998–2005). Ferdinand To¨nnies Gesamtausgabe (TG): Im Auftrag von der Ferdinand-To¨nnies-Gesellschaft e.V. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. Merz-Benz, P. (1995). Tiefsinn und Scharfsinn: Ferdinand To¨nnies’ begriffliche Konstitution der Sozialwelt. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. Plessner, H. (1999). Limits of community. A critique of social radicalism. Sterling, VA: Kumarian Press. To¨nnies, F. (1957). Community and society. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press.
Major Contributions Having also contributed to the fields of statistics and demography, To¨nnies is probably best known for his sociological study ‘‘Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft,’’ that was first published in 1887. Analyzing the forces and motives that constitute social groupings, To¨nnies based his investigation onto the conceptual differentiation between organic forms of social organizations such as families and clans that he supposed to be an end in themselves, and deliberately instituted forms of social bodies exemplifiable by joint-stock companies or capitalist societies that he claimed – like Thomas Hobbes before him – to be merely instrumental for their members’ individual interests. To¨nnies referred to both types of organization by creating the antonym of Community and Society. In spite of To¨nnies’ pioneering role for the discipline of sociology, his work has caused ambivalent reactions. The philosopher Helmut Plessner (1999) argued that To¨nnies’ antagonism of organic forms of Community and rationally founded Society allowed for antiliberal interpretations. Plessner related the organic ideal of community to National Socialist and Bolshevistic ideologies like those he had witnessed in 1920s Germany. A different standpoint take contemporary sociologists like Peter-Ulrich Merz-Benz (1995) who hold that To¨nnies focused his research on individual and psychological moments that determine the functioning of social entities. According to their interpretations To¨nnies has identified a core question in social philosophy when he looked at the individual and its psychological predisposition within historic and cultural contexts in
Touraine, Alain ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Basic Biographical Information Born in Hermanville-sur-Mer in 1925, Alain Touraine went on to become one of France’s key sociological theorists. Having studied history and philosophy at the E´cole Normale Supe´rieure, he went to Harvard in the 1950s and had been a visiting professor at a number of US universities even before he earned his doctorate in 1965. In the 1970s and 1980s, Touraine wrote a series of studies on various social movements, such as the movements and protests of 1968, the workers’ movements, including Poland’s Solidarity, and the peace movement. During this period, he produced his most theoretical elaboration of social movements and social change in The Voice and the Eye (1981). In 1970, he also founded the Centre d’e´tude des mouvements sociaux (Center for the Study of Social Movements) located in Paris.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Touraine argues that the postindustrial economic transformation and the rise of the welfare state are responsible for the shift from the capital-labor configuration described by Marx to a new type of conflict and a new type of society, i.e., the programmed society, which is characterized by specific organizational units and experts for different
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fields. The increasing complexity of modern society evokes new tensions, which lead to the formation of movements. Within the programmed society, social movements would occupy the central position held by the workers’ movement in the industrial society. According to Touraine, ‘‘Democracy cannot exist unless it is representative; and the freedom of the ruled to choose their rulers would be meaningless if the latter were not able to express their demands, reactions, or protests that take shape in ‘civil society’’’ (1997: 51). He then considers the conditions under which political actors represent the interests of social actors. He goes on to claim that social movements are ‘‘civil’’ and constitute an ‘‘affirmation’’ rather than a critique or negation. Thus, as Touraine’s studies have shown, social movements like the antinuclear, environmental, or feminist movements are more likely to inspire reflection, discussion, and real change over the long run.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Social Movements
References/Further Readings Touraine, A. (1977). The self-production of society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Touraine, A. (1982). Mouvements sociaux d’aujourd’hui. Acteurs et analystes: Colloque de Cerisy-la-Salle 1979. Paris: Les Editions Ouvrie`res. Touraine, A. (1981). The voice and the eye: An analysis of social movements. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Touraine, A., & Macey, D. (1997). What is democracy? Boulder, CO: Westview.
TPI ▶ Philanthropic Initiative
Transnational Forums and Summits FEDERICO SILVA CIVICUS, Johannesburg, South Africa
Introduction The globalization process to which the literature has lavished considerable attention in the 1990s and at the turn
of the century has been primarily identified with states and international institutions, multinational firms, and international market players. However, looking back we cannot but affirm the equal importance of citizens and civil society organizations. In this period, global civil society events have increasingly come into the limelight. Starting in the 1980s with protests outside the closed doors of intergovernmental decision-making on global issues, these events have grown both in mass participation and in their ability to challenge official policies and propose alternatives. The fragmented social activism that is associated with the first experiences of transnational campaigns by civil society grew into full-fledged global social movements in the late 1990s. Transnational events organized by civil society organizations have characterized these waves of protest and have been the channeling voice demands a greater accountability and legitimacy of inter–governmental organizations (IGOs), appeals for a change in their major policies, and fights for economic justice, international democracy, and peace. Such movements have increasingly met throughout the past in World Social Forums and other self-organized events with mass participation, which has led to the sharing of political cultures, building collective identities and developing policy alternatives to the neoliberal globalization they were criticizing (Pianta et al., 2004).
Definition Civil society transnational summits and forums can be defined as events organized by civil society independently of the activities of states and firms in order to address, discuss, reject, and propose alternative solutions and visions to problems and challenges created by the mounting globalization processes. These events have often taken place in coincidence with or in relation to official summits of international institutions or supranational bodies (Pianta, 2001; Pianta and Silva, 2003). Civil society’s forums and summits are considered to be ‘‘transnational’’ in three ways. (1) It is usually argued that, following the transformation and reallocation of nation state sovereignty, the main target of civil society has come to be the transnational layer, in particular global public institutions (WTO, IMF, and WB) and supranational bodies (EU). (2) These events are characterized by a transnational convergence. They witness an international participation and networks and campaigns covering several countries. Furthermore, many participating CSOs with offices in multiple countries have a de facto transnational nature. (3) The issues faced are transboundary in character. Climate changes, multilateral agreements on
Transnational Forums and Summits
investments, OGM, and intellectual property rights are all global issues in that any decision taken on any of them brings about transnational effects.
Historical Background In January 2002 the second World Social Forum engaged in 5 days of talks with the participation of 60,000 people from 123 countries and featured more than 500 events amongst plenaries, seminars, and workshops. The Porto Alegre series of World Social Forums are just one of the most symbolical type of events organized by civil society in recent years. This tremendous capacity of mobilization did not appear out of the blue. It was the fruit of years of ‘‘hidden’’ work often provided by small vanguard civil society networks promoting similar activities, but not gifted with the same media visibility as the World Forums. There are two central strains of activism that have contributed to the rise of civil society events in the twenty-first century: civil society organization’s activities around the UN; and events organized to face other global bodies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The UN-NGO Forums
The UN-civil society relationships are long standing (Charnovitz, 1997), probably because the UN is traditionally perceived by civil society as one of the only international decision-making loci with some democratic legitimacy. Civil society’s trust in the UN was somehow reciprocated by the UN system: in 1946 some civil society organizations were given the possibility to get closer to the UN policy-making through the ECOSOC. However, despite major traceable and regular cases of civil society meetings in the bosom of the UN conferences, only a few cases of civil society input during the 1970s and 1980s have resulted in concrete political influence on UN deliberations. Civil society participation was also often limited to a small number of New York-based professionalized INGOs that, due to their location and resources, were capable of attending these events regularly. A major change to this situation occurred along with the changing global context: the geopolitical reconfiguration of the 1990s with the increasing emergence of a transnational sphere led the UN to plan a series of thematic conferences on some of the most pressing global issues. Accredited INGOs were formally invited to participate in the main events. INGO’s activities were not, however, limited to this. Civil society organizations often paralleled the official conference with a NGO forum preceding the official debates. The rationale behind these NGO forums, which were sometimes
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co-organized by the UN itself or at least formally recognized by it, was twofold: (i) to foster networking amongst civil society organizations working with similar issues; (ii) to develop common civil society positions to be endorsed during lobbying and advocacy, and/or as the basis of an alternative declaration of intent. Differently than from the past, these events were able to attract a wide variety of civil society organizations. Scholars and practitioners alike point back to the Rio conference of 1992 as a key turning point in this process (Van Rooy, 1997) in that the NGO forum obtained an unprecedented impact in terms of visibility and participation. It was one of the first times that an international event was used on such a large scale by civil society organizations and in this regard came to play a role as legitimate international actors and interlocutor in global public policy making. The subsequent UN events – 1993 in Vienna on Human Rights; 1994 in Cairo on Population and Development; 1995 Copenhagen on Social Development; 1995 in Beijing On Women; 1996 Istanbul on Human Settlements – were also all paralleled by NGO forums with an increased participation of civil society organizations consolidating their importance and experience. The Parallel Summits Against the Monetary Financial and Commercial System
Nevertheless, civil society activities in the 1980s were not solely restricted to the UN system. Other global bodies also soon became a target. Many of these activities have passed unnoticed within the mainstream media, but they clearly forerun and built ground for their most popular equivalents of recent years. The rallies and parallel events of the 1990s against the World Bank and the IMF’s annual meeting in Washington had historical resemblance to the 80,000 people that had demonstrated in West Berlin against the same institutions in 1988. Similarly, the G8 counter summit in Genoa, which involved 200,000 people, was rooted in the ‘‘The Other Economic Summit’’ (TOES) organized by civil society in London in concomitance of the G7 summit of 1984. These forums differed from the UN forums as they usually had a more confrontational character. Their main point of departure was resisting the decisions of illegitimate and arbitrary powers in the name of higher values or broader social interests. Contacts with the official summit were almost inexistent. Further, street actions were considered equally important in obtaining resonance and drawing attention to the issues. However, as with the UN NGO forums, these events featured workshops and seminars for learning and networking. Finally, another
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similar characteristic that these events shared with the UN NGO forums was the proximity in terms of time and space with the official summits.
Key Issues The Climax of the ‘‘Parallel’’ Model
Civil society parallel summits and forums encountered their major moment of popularity at the turn of the new century in concomitance with the growing mass mobilization against contemporary neoliberal forms of globalization. According to the latest data available for these types of events, more than 100 summits and forums were recorded between 2000 and 2005, one third of which counted more than 10,000 participants each (Pianta et al., 2004). These are impressive numbers, especially when compared to the average figure of five events per year during the 1990s. None of the pillars of the global architecture was spared civil society organizations’ focus and criticism. The monetary (WB), financial (IMF) and commercial (WTO) meetings were all shadowed by civil society events taking place along with the official summit. With an immense effort in terms of resources, civil society organizations also followed other popular ramifications of global powers from the annual World Economic Forum to regional structures and partnerships such as the EU. Some of these events, such as parallel summits for the WTO Millennium Round in Seattle in November 1999 and the G8 Summit in Genoa 2001 were so strong, dramatic, and profiled by the media in such a way that they have easily been planted in the collective memory and have had important repercussion on future policies. For instance, the WTO following Seattle decided to hold the next Ministerial Conference in Doha to mitigate chances for public dissent. Many of these events, as the above-mentioned Genoa and Seattle parallel summits, were characterized by a strong strategy of protest. Indeed, people tend better to recall the highly participated demonstration (achieving in some cases over 200,000 activists) than the other activities scheduled. However, the street actions were preceded by a series of seminars and workshops and also cultural and media type of events lasting a couple of days. In these events networking, reflection, and debating a common critical perspective on the official summit were the most important reasons for participation. In the literature these type of events are labelled parallel summits. Their nature of being ‘‘parallel’’ are
measured along three lines. These are: (i) having temporal and spatial proximity with the official summits, whereby workshops, seminars, demonstrations, and other events occur few days before or during the major summit and on the same location; (ii) having a critical and often confrontational attitude with few or no contacts with the delegates of the official summits. Usually this is because, generally, there has been a sort of shared reluctance among many civil society organizations to ‘‘get their hands dirty’’ by going into dialogue with IGOs deemed unaccountable and unrepresentative; and (iii) having a similar agenda to the one of the official summit but, of course, with alternative critical perspectives and visions to the global issues debated. The Decline of the ‘‘Parallel’’ Model and Its ‘‘Social’’ Reinvention
While protest was the main activity of the parallel summits in the past, which translated into mobilization and influences on the public opinion, some civil society organizations began realizing it was also time for the phase of criticism to be complemented by a phase of planning in which alternative proposals to the current forms of globalization were to be put forward. The World Social Forums have taken place regularly since 2001 with a total number of participants ranging from 50,000 to 100,000. Since its first world edition in Porto Alegre, the social forum ‘‘formula’’ rapidly spread, giving rise to a series of hundreds of spin offs at the regional, national, and local level, and on different thematic agendas. Social forums differ from the above-discussed parallel summits in two important ways. First, there was the need to break with the ‘‘rhythm’’ of the global policy-making agenda they were opposing. The genesis of the first World Social Forums tells us that it was planned by some of the organizations involved in the parallel summit in Davos (the anti-Davos) against the annual meeting of the WEF with the idea of reallocating the event in a completely different place somewhere in the southern hemisphere. The move certainly stemmed from the difficulty to convoy a significant number of activists to the Swiss city but it was also charged with other, and more important, symbolisms. There was the need finally to detach the civil society agenda from the ‘‘need’’ to shadow neoliberal events in order to make it grow into a full fledged and separate alternative project. The choice of the city, Porto Alegre, where experimental forms of economic practises, such as participatory budgeting, had been launched in previous years, and the contraposition of the adjective
Transnational Forums and Summits
‘‘social’’ to the ‘‘economic,’’ marked the final separation of destinies. Second, there was a strong need to confront the current global architecture with alternative proposals, visions, and new ideas. While the parallel summit model focussed on the comprehension and criticism of the global processes and on counter protest, the social forum was developed as the laboratory for thinking how a ‘‘new world’’ was possible, as its most famous motto recites. The term ‘‘forum’’ rather than ‘‘summit’’ was used to stress that forms of participatory democracy were characterizing these types of events vis-a`-vis the unaccountable, nontransparent, and hierarchical structure of the global system. Due to the participatory and consensus-based idea of democracy animating them, these types of events have proved useful in accommodating visionary pluralism and fostering civic engagement, especially at the local level where many experiments of participatory budgeting have proved successful.
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populated by sovereignty-free actors such as multinational corporations or INGOs. In this perspective, the demise of the WTO ministerial conference in Seattle has often been emphasized as the moment where national politics was finally forced into the corner (see for instance O’Brien et al., 2000). Civil society protests became targeted directly at the appropriate level of resolution of transnational issues, i.e., the international governmental institutions. Domestic structures have indeed experienced a loss of power to the transnational level but they have also maintained a relevant degree of power, and a more state-centric view has clearly regained its importance in recent years, also in relation to civil society strategies. As recent actions show, civil society events and organizations have again become more targeted on national delegations, permanent missions, or ministries more than official summits.
Cross-References Future Directions The Exhaustion of the Mobilizations and the Return of the National Level
Despite the advent of the innovative social forum model, the total number of global events and participation figures has de facto declined in most recent years. This is clearly intrinsic to the nature of every movement that enjoys different peaks of mobilization (and visibility) at different points in time (Tarrow, 2001). However, some additional factors can also be found in the changed political circumstances. The spiral of events that followed the 11th of September 2001, the advent of the new US administration, and the following wars were all part of a new paradigm strikingly in contrast with the multilateral global governance buzzwords of the 1990s. Similarly to some global institutions, most notably the UN, civil society was left in need of reframing their criticisms, changing their strategies, and reinventing themselves to fit into new forms of politics in the light of the changed political circumstances, all adaptation processes that require time. Finally, the crisis of the ‘‘global events model’’ is also partly due to the rediscovery of the national level, which can be a crucial leverage for civil society to access to the realm of the global polity. With the crisis of the IR realist approach under the process of globalization, nation-states were thought of as increasingly losing power on behalf of a multilayered and decentralized transnational system
▶ Global Civil Society ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN ▶ World Bank ▶ World Economic Forum ▶ World Social Forum ▶ World Trade Organization
References/Further Readings Anheier, H., Glasius, M., & Kaldor, M. (Eds.). (2001). Global civil society 2001. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Anheier, H., Glasius, M., & Kaldor, M. (Eds.). (2003). Global civil society 2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Charnovitz, S. (1997). Two centuries of participation: NGOs and international governance. Michigan Journal of International Law, 18/2, 183–286. Della Porta, D., & Tarrow, S. (Eds.). (2005). Transnational protest and global activism. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield. Krut, R. (1997). Globalization and civil society: NGO influence in international decision making. Geneva: UNRISD. Pianta, M. (2001). Parallel summits of global civil society. In H. Anheier, M. Glasius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.). Pianta, M. (2005). UN world summit and civil society. Geneva: UNRISD. Pianta, M., & Silva, F. (2003). Parallel Summits of Global Civil Society: An Update. In H. Anheier, M. Glasius, & M. Kaldor (Eds.). Pianta, M., Silva, F., & Zola, D. (2004). Parallel civil society events. Global Civil Society 2004/05, www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/Yearbook. Tarrow, S. (1998). Power in movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Van Rooy, A. (1997). The Frontiers of Influence: NGO Lobbying at the 1974 World Food Conference, the 1992 Earth Summit and Beyond. World Development, 25/1, 93–114.
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Transparency
Transparency MIKLOS MARSCHALL Transparency International, Berlin, Germany
Introduction Transparency, be it as a term, concept, and value or as a norm is omnipresent nowadays in most of the areas of life: in international and domestic politics as well as in the economic and legal fields, civil society, but also in communications, arts, and ethics. In this entry transparency would be analyzed from an instrumental perspective, with wider implications for ‘‘good governance,’’ as a means that allows the ‘‘principal’’ – voter, shareholder, consumer, civil society, etc. – to hold the ‘‘agent’’ – government, management, producer, etc. – accountable. In that sense, transparency serves accountability: a key feature of modern democracies and market economies. We behave differently – more responsibly – if we know whatever we do will be subjected to scrutiny by forces beyond our own control. The word ‘‘transparency’’ derives from two Latin terms: trans – through, and parere – to appear (Brodbeck, 2004), the English equivalent being ‘‘transparent – frank, open, candid, ingenuous, easily seen through, recognized, understood, or detected’’ (Oxford English Dictionary). Similar terms or terms used with the same connotation include: openness (The Nolan Committee, 1995 and Birkinshaw, 2006 in Heald, 2006), accountability (Florini, 1999), publicity (in the works of Kant and Bentham), disclosure (in the field of accounting), honesty (Kornai, 2003).
Definition There are numerous definitions of transparency, each serving a specific purpose or being subject to a specific context. In his ‘‘Essay on Political Tactics,’’ Jeremy Bentham (1791, Bentham in Marquardt, 2006) meant transparency when he wrote: ‘‘Publicity is necessary to prevent the abuse of power by government officials.’’ ‘‘Publicity enables closer relations between the state and its public by securing the confidence of the governed in the legislature, by facilitating communication between the state and the public, and by creating a more informed electorate.’’ In Bentham’s classic definition, we can identify the key elements of transparency as a desirable norm and practice in any principal/agent relationship. Transparency is after all ● Confidence and trust building ● Through disclosure of information ● Between two parties in a relationship
The relationship can be of all sorts: between governments; governments and citizens; producers and consumers; firms and clients; sellers and buyers; associations and their members; grantors and grantees; and the list could go on. In essence, transparency gives us – voters, customers, stakeholders, etc. – the insight we need to trust the other party or partner in a relationship. In that sense, transparency is one of the guiding norms of modern capitalism and liberal democracies. It provides us with the best ‘‘insurance policy’’ democracies can have: it is part of what we call ‘‘checks and balances,’’ it enables us to monitor, assess, and ultimately control institutions – governments, corporations, associations, etc. – which we are otherwise dependent on. From the perspective of a global financial institution, ‘‘Transparency refers to an environment in which the objectives of policy, its legal, institutional, and economic framework, policy decisions and their rationale, data, and information related to monetary and financial policies, and the terms of agencies’ accountability, are provided to the public in a comprehensible, accessible, and timely manner.’’ Code of Good Practices on Transparency in Monetary and Financial Policies, Part 1, Introduction, approved by the IMF Executive Board on 24.07.2000. Through such ‘‘insights,’’ the public is enabled to monitor and evaluate the policies and performance of the IMF. Maybe the shortest but most encompassing definition comes from Florini (1999): ‘‘Thus, transparency can be defined as the release of information by institutions that is relevant to evaluating those institutions.’’ Overall, transparency has a positive connotation, since its opposite terms are ‘‘secrecy, opacity, darkness, and inscrutability.’’ Even in colloquial conversations, we often refer to ‘‘modern time transparency’’ as opposed to ‘‘medieval secrecy.’’ Also in esthetics – e.g., in music – transparency is an often used term: we love Mozart’s music because of its ‘‘cleanness,’’ ‘‘lightness,’’ and ‘‘transparency.’’ In other art forms – e.g., in architecture – we also appreciate transparency as an expression of artistic clarity and honesty. Ideally, transparency is always welcoming, inviting, encouraging, and empowering as opposed to ‘‘secrecy.’’ The latter is disempowering; it wants to keep us away from something by hiding or blurring it.
Historical Background Counter to widespread assumption, transparency as a term is not an invention of the twenty-first century. It was already used in the days of Rousseau, Bentham, and the French revolutionaries. The idea of ‘‘transparency’’ can be met in Immanuel Kant’s 1795 essay ‘‘Perpetual
Transparency
Peace: A Philosophical Sketch,’’ taking the form of protest against secrecy in making treaties. It also appeared in the words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, where he advocates for the benefits of a transparent society. As Marquardt notes in his article, the ‘‘Enlightenment champions of transparency’’ are Immanuel Kant and Jeremy Bentham (Marquardt, 2006; Hood and Heald, 2006) whereas most of the ‘‘transparency literature’’ attributes the modern governance-related meaning to the latter. According to Hood, Jeremy Bentham appears to be ‘‘the first to use transparency in its modern governance-related sense in English’’ in 1790 (Hood and Heald, 2006:9). Its gaining on political weight and becoming a core concept for good governance is attributed to the enactment of Access to Information laws in various countries. The first Freedom of the Press Act was adopted in Sweden in 1766. In this sense, transparency was equal with ‘‘openness’’ and its advocates ‘‘argued that the public’s right to know is not just a moral imperative; it is also an indispensable tool for thwarting corruption, waste, and poor governance’’ (Blanton, 2002). From the 1980s we have witnessed what we can call a ‘‘transparency revolution.’’ The widespread reference to transparency has been driven by several factors: ● End of the ‘‘Cold War’’ and the collapse of the ‘‘bipolar’’ world has given a strong push to further globalization: free and fast flow of people, capital, and commodities undermined the rationale for mutual secrecy. ● Information-revolution/digitalization has made information-sharing inexpensive/cost-effective and therefore affordable. ● Rise of electoral democracies and ‘‘open societies’’ with much higher standards of accountability as opposed to authoritarian states with secretive regimes has raised the demand for transparency. ● Changes in global governance, the rise of international conventions promoting new behavioral standards have also created increased demand for transparency. ● Higher environment, health, and safety standards, vigorous competition, stronger consumer-protection have forced entire industries to operate in a much more transparent way. ● New actors on the global and local ‘‘stages’’: intergovernmental agencies, civil society organizations, advocacy groups have started monitoring compliance with certain standards of governments and businesses. Regular ‘‘reporting’’ on a variety of issues of interest to the public has become a standard practice not only in the public sector but also in the corporate world
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(Fung et al., 2004). Monitoring & evaluations, country and sector indices, league-table rankings, certifications, accreditations have created an entire global industry. These ‘‘rankings’’ play a key role in ‘‘brand and reputation management’’ in the global economy. ● Last but not least, fighting against corruption, illicit trade, money laundering, organized crime, and terrorism has increased the need for cross-border information-sharing, easy-to-access data bases, debarment systems, and led to revisiting some secrecy rules in international business. No surprise, in 2003, the word ‘‘transparency’’ was nominated by Webster’s New World College Dictionary as its word of the year! Even earlier, in 1993, a new global NGO was born: Transparency International (TI). With a mission to fight corruption by promoting integrity and transparency (www.transparency.org).
Key Issues Transparency is used across issue areas: in politics, public administration, consumer protection, safety regulations, risk, and conflict management, to name but a few. If we focus on transparency as a norm for good governance or integrity systems, we can highlight the following applications of transparency: ● As a fundamental Principle of Democracy: meaning an informed citizenry and a responsive/accessible/ open government ● As a Human Right that implies the right of citizens to access to information enacted by Freedom of Information (FoI) laws ● As a Performance Standard for sectors, professions, institutions that enhances their accountability, acceptance, and ultimately their legitimacy in the eyes of the public. Those performance or behavioral standards are usually spelled out in sector-wide, profession-, or institution-specific code of conducts, which in turn can be voluntary or compulsory. In each of the respective applications, transparency can bring substantial benefits. It can increase public trust in government and international relations, it can lead to detect and correct errors in the operation of any kind of institutions, it can mitigate risks of uncertainty and suspicion generated by incomplete information, and most importantly, it can empower citizens. For instance, timely and honest sharing of information can save lives by alerting people about natural catastrophes, epidemics, emergency situations. Sadly, we have too often seen the
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devastating consequences of lack of transparency from Chernobyl to tsunami. As we all know, information is power: Transparency is about distribution of information, consequently, any transparency system – who gives how much information to whom at what speed – is a manifestation of power relationship (Finel and Lord, 2002). However, transparency has its limits as well. As we all know, too much information can be counter-productive. One ‘‘smart way’’ of hiding relevant information is to bury it in a flood of irrelevant information. More transparency is not necessarily better. Complete transparency (meaning complete openness of information) could be both costly and create unintended impediments for the state and the public. There are legitimate limits to transparency when it comes to competition, innovation, intellectual property, etc. (Brodbeck, 2004). Transparency must have its standards as well: It would need to meet (at least) two conditions: on the one side the relevant actors should be willing to make the information public (but also accurate, timely, and clear to all). On the other side, the recipients should be in the position to understand and use the information accordingly (Florini, 1999:6). Some taboo areas for transparency are: individual privacy, medical privacy, national security and defense, fiscal, and taxation matters, law enforcement investigations, etc. All that being said, whether it is a right, a democratic principle or a performance standard, transparency alone or singled out would not lead to the successes all hope it could achieve. As with other rights and principles, transparency fosters good governance, ensures accountability and curbs corruption only in the context of other necessary conditions (such as freedom of speech, fair, and free elections). The assumption that just implementing more transparency would be a magic recipe for all existing malfunctioning is wrong. Transparency in the Perspective of Civil Society
Generalized, it could be said that civil society is using the principle of transparency for holding the governments and corporations accountable. Its role in the spread and appliance of transparency is both, that of a monitoring actor and that of an agent of change. At the same time it should not be assumed that transparency functions only one way. The media, the nongovernmental actors and agencies asking for more transparency, should themselves put into practice what they preach. Moreover, civil society organizations face an ‘‘accountability deficit’’ compared to governments and corporations.
In principle, governments are accountable to their electorate, companies to their owners or shareholders. For civil society organizations, such a direct accountability does not exist. (Marschall, 1999). This ‘‘accountability minus’’ must be compensated by a ‘‘transparency plus.’’ Most of the legitimacy of civil society organizations (CSOs) comes from full transparency and high standards of performance. Therefore, transparency – ‘‘who we are, what we do and where our money comes from’’ – is absolutely fundamental for the legitimacy of CSOs.
International Perspectives Transparency has indeed become one of the key norms of the emerging new global arena populated by states, intergovernmental organizations, multi-national corporations, myriads of civil society groups, transnational policy networks, advocacy NGOs, and various global fora. We call this new system ‘‘global governance.’’ Planetary concerns from climate change to environmental degradation are being addressed and global collective actions are being called for. Global policies are being shaped by a dramatically increased number of actors in horizontal power structures. Policies and norms are being translated into international conventions with the aim to enforce new global behavioral standards for governments, corporations, and civil society organizations. This development is driven by a growing sense of global interdependence, shared responsibility and mutual accountability. It is the commitment to transparency by all parties that is the foundation of this new global governance. In other words, global governance as described above cannot function without transparency. Transparency is the ‘‘oxygen’’ for good global governance. There is no way one can do justice to the many international transparency initiatives. It is not an exaggeration to say that almost every international agreement and convention from the ‘‘Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty’’ to the ‘‘Kyoto Protocol’’ is about increasing transparency: disclosing information to ensure compliance with certain agreed-upon norms and standards and build trust through verification. Transparency as a means to improve the quality of governance has gained relevance across geographic boundaries, sectors, industries ranging from global conventions such as the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) to industry-specific initiatives such as the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). UNCAC and other intergovernmental conventions such as the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention are signed by governments but require partnership with civil society and the private sector.
Transparency
While UNCAC focuses on the public sector: ‘‘States must endeavor to ensure that their public services are subject to safeguards that promote efficiency, transparency and recruitment based on merit.’’ (www.unodc.org) / accessed 16.05.08), it adds that ‘‘(. . .) preventing public corruption also requires an effort from all members of society at large. For these reasons, the Convention calls on countries to promote actively the involvement of nongovernmental and community-based organizations, as well as other elements of civil society, and to raise public awareness of corruption and what can be done about it’’ (www.unodc.org/ accessed 16.05.08). The OECD Convention that aims at reducing corruption by encouraging sanctions against bribery in international business transactions carried out by companies based in the Convention member countries also relies on monitoring. The OECD performs its monitoring function in a two-phased examination process that involves civil society. Phase I consists of a review of legislation implementing the conventions in the member country with the goal of evaluating the adequacy of the laws. Phase 2 assesses the effectiveness with which the legislation is applied (www.oecd.org/ accessed 16.05.08). The UN Global Compact is a framework for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment, and anticorruption. Reporting back on performance in those key areas is a key element of the Compact. Currently, 3,300 company progress reports are available on the Compact’s web site (www.unglobalcompact.org/ accessed 16.05.08). The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a multistakeholder initiative with a vision that reporting on economic, environmental, and social performance by all organizations – public agencies, private companies, and NGOs – ‘‘is as routine and comparable as financial reporting’’ (www.globalreporting.org /accessed 16.05.08). The Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) aims to strengthen governance by improving transparency and accountability in the extractives sector. The EITI sets a global standard for companies to publish what they pay and for governments to disclose what they receive (www.eitransparency.org /accessed 16.05.08). A similar sectoral initiative is the Water Integrity Network (WIN) aiming at promoting higher governance standards in water management (www.waterintegritynetwork.net). There are many initiatives to ‘‘guard the guardians,’’ where civil society organizations (CSOs) commit themselves to standards they promote, namely excellence, transparency, and accountability. One of them is the INGO
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Accountability Charter to which quite a number of prominent international NGOs have joined. The list includes Action Aid, Amnesty International, CIVICUS, Consumers International, Greenpeace, Save the Children, Oxfam, and Transparency International and others (www.ingoaccountabilitycharter.org/accessed 16.05.08). Initiatives can come from supranational structures such as the European Union (EU). Faced by growing skepticism in the population about the benefits of the EU, the quasi ‘‘government’’ of the EU, the European Commission (EC) has launched the European Transparency Initiative (ETI) to create more openness in EU decision making and transparency in its structural and agricultural funds. Publication of data on beneficiaries of EU Funds – especially in agriculture – is a major break-through in the process of making the EU more transparent and accountable (www. ec.europa.eu/transparency/eti/accessed 16.05.08).
Future Directions While we have reasons to celebrate increased transparency in the way governments, businesses, transnational organizations, and other institutions operate, which makes our life easier, we should remind ourselves that the tangible benefits of increased transparency are out of reach for many: the world’s poorest have no access to anything where more transparency matters. For them, information revolution, digital government, consumer protection, and shareholders rights don’t seem too relevant. On the other hand, the ambitious objectives spelled out in the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – helping the world’s poorest – will not be achieved unless governance standards at every levels and sectors will be radically enhanced. As a closing remark, one can reiterate the key instrumental role of transparency in ensuring good governance (www.un.org/millenniumgoals).
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Article 19 ▶ Brands and Branding ▶ CIVICUS ▶ Civil Society and the Media ▶ Civil Society Theory: Kant ▶ Civil Society Theory: Rousseau ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Global Reporting Initiative ▶ Global Witness ▶ Good Governance ▶ Guide Star ▶ INGOs ▶ Legitimacy
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▶ NGOs ▶ Social Accountability International ▶ Transparency International ▶ UN Global Compact
References/Further Readings Birkinshaw, P. (2006). Transparency as a human right. In C. Hood & D. Heald (Eds.), Transparency: the key to better governance? (pp. 47–57). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blanton, T. (2002). The world’s right to know. Foreign Policy, 50. Brodbeck, K. H. (2004). Warum ist Transparenz der einzig richtige Weg zum Erfolg? Vortrag auf dem 2. Finance and Ethics Kongress Diex, 15 p. Finel, B. I., & Lord, K. M. (Eds.) (2002). Power and Conflict in the Age of Transparency. MacMillan: Palgrave. Heald, D. (2006). Varieties of transparency. In C. Hood, & D. Heald (Eds.), Transparency: The key to better governance? (pp. 25–43). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hood, C., & Heald, D. (Eds.) (2006). Transparency: The key to better governance? (p. 231). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Florini, A. M. (1999). Does the invisible hand need a transparent glove? The politics of transparency (p. 42). Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, from http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/pdf/ florini.pdf, 8.2.2008. Fung, A., (2004). The political economy of transparency: What makes disclosure policies effective? (p. 48). Cambridge MA: Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Kornai, J. (2003). Honesty and trust in the light of the post-socialist transition. Collegium Budapest, from www.Colbud.hu/honesty-trust. Marquardt, J. J. (2006). Kant and Bentham on Publicity: Implications for transparency and the liberal democratic peace. Prepared for delivery at the 102nd Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, PA, p. 17. Marschall, M. (1999). From states to people. In Civil society at the millennium. West Hartford, CT: CIVICUS, Kumarian Press. Nolan, L. (1995). First report of the committee on standards in public life (Cm 2850-I). London: HMSO.
Transparency International BERTHOLD KUHN
Address of Organization Alt Moabit 96 10559 Berlin Germany www.transparency.org
Brief History Transparency International (TI) was founded and incorporated as an association under German law in 1993. It was established by a group of professionals
including TI’s founding chairman Peter Eigen. The group felt that existing regulations and arrangements were far from sufficient to effectively tackle corruption, especially in the field of international cooperation. International cooperation reached new levels after the end of the Cold War, and NGOs managed to get more and more involved in dialog and cooperation with international organizations, governments, and multinational firms. Thus, the overall environment was conducive to the launch of an advocacy-oriented international NGO in the early 1990s. TI has since developed into an organization with more than 90 locally established national chapters and chapters-in-formation. The organization has grown so rapidly because its agenda and working style appealed to many well-networked people, including business executives, and its publications attracted media attention around the globe.
Mission and Objectives The mission of Transparency International is to create change towards a world free of corruption by reporting on corruption and engaging in a series of activities meant to tackle corruptive practices in government, business, and society. TI defines corruption as the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. TI does not investigate alleged cases of corruption, but instead focuses on the assessment of corruption prevalence and the development of preventive anticorruption measures.
Activities TI’s activities consist of awareness-raising activities, reporting on corruption, publishing index reports and carrying out projects. The most well-known publication of TI is the Corruption Perceptions Index, which is published yearly. It was first published in 1995. The CPI now ranks more than 180 countries by their perceived levels of corruption, based on scores determined by expert assessments and opinion surveys. Other recurring projects include the Global Corruption Report, which has a different thematic focus each year, the Bribe Payers Index, the Revenue Transparency Report and Progress Reports on convention enforcements, a series of working papers and policy positions. A widely recognised tool of TI is the Integrity Pact (IP) aimed at preventing corruption in public contracting.
Structure and Governance TI is a global anticorruption coalition, uniting many locally governed national chapters (NCs) and a number
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of individual members. Overall trends in fighting corruption and strategic concerns are discussed at the annual membership meeting that brings staff from national chapters around the world together. The International Secretariat is based in Berlin. It provides support, coordination services and advice to the growing number of TI national chapters and leads the organization’s international agenda. The Board of Directors is elected by the Membership Meeting. The Board is responsible for determining the strategy and policy of Transparency International as well as supervising its activities. The Advisory Council comprises a group of individuals with extensive experience. It musters political support and funding from elites around the world.
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References/Further Readings Galtung, F. (2000). A global network to curb corruption: The experience of transparency international. In A. M. Florini (Ed.), The third force. The rise of transnational civil society (pp. 17–48). Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kuhn, B. (2005/2009). Entwicklungspolitik zwischen Markt und Staat. Mo¨glichkeiten und Grenzen zivilgesellschaftlicher Organisationen. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus Publishers; Beijing: Renmin University Press. Eigen, P./Transparency International. (2003). Wie eine weltweite Bewegung gegen Bestechung ka¨mpft. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus Publishers.
Trusteeship Funding TI’s income comes mainly from government development agency budgets and foundations. Other sources of income include project funds from international organizations, donations from private sector companies and income from honoraria and publications. The total funding raised by the TI Secretariat amounted to €9.438 million in 2007. In addition, national chapters mobilise funds for their own purposes. TI has recorded a relatively steady growth of budget over the past years. In 2008, Transparency International (TI) has managed to secure a grant of $6.9 million by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in support of its work to promote government transparency and accountability in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions TI’s main accomplishment is that it has successfully advocated for putting the fight against corruption on the political agenda in many countries. It has made clear that corruption is a problem in developing and developed countries alike. TI has influenced the policies and programs of many key actors in international development, including UN organizations, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Commission, bilateral aid agencies and global financial institutions. TI has set new standards in fighting corruption and has managed to generate political pressure for substantive reforms around the globe.
Cross-References
▶ Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ▶ Eigen, Peter ▶ Transparency
DARWIN H. STAPLETON Rockefeller Archive Center, Ossining, NY, USA (retired)
Introduction Trusteeship is a modern concept that derives primarily from Anglo-American traditions of nonprofit organizational form. The development of the concept of trusteeship, and its general acceptance as a standard of governance, is critical to the development of modern nonprofits as they contend with existing authority structures and the broader public for legitimization (Ridings, 1999). Nonetheless, the study of trusteeship has been meager in comparison with studies of nonprofit organizational structure and behavior.
Definitions and Historical Background Trusteeship is associated historically with corporate legal structures, requiring legal management by a board of trustees (who alternatively may be called directors, managers, governors, overseers, etc.). These structures arose in the context of free-market economies that favored private rather than government control of wealth. At the core of the trusteeship concept are two conditions, one legal and one idealistic. First is the trustee’s participation in legal ownership of and responsibility for a nonprofit entity, while not seeking or receiving significant personal benefit from that participation. This condition is legally enforceable, while the second condition, the public’s expectation and belief that a trustee will be completely loyal to the purposes of the organization, is not. Instead there is an unenforceable investment of public trust in the goodwill and good intentions of the trustee. Trustees of nonprofit organizations are one of the more visible elements of what has come to be known as social capital (Newton, 2001).
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Any theoretical consideration of modern trusteeship has to take into account the ideas of the German scholar Max Weber, who believed that a concept of trusteeship was rooted in the form of capitalism that has shaped the economy and society of the Western world. For Weber a key to capitalism was the concept, immanent in the Protestant Christianity that emerged in Europe in the sixteenth century, that humans are only trustees, not owners, of their possessions and the wealth that they create. According to a recent translation, Weber states that ‘‘the idea of a person’s duty to maintain possessions entrusted to him . . . lies upon his life with chilling seriousness.’’ This duty extends to all areas of an individual’s life, personal, vocational, and public, and sets the tone for service to organizations (Weber, 2009).
Key Issues Nonprofit organizations may create boards of trustees as a matter of rational governance, or may be required to do so in order to obtain legal status. (Without legal status nonprofits may not be able to receive funds and provide services.) Trustees typically have specified responsibilities for establishing the organization’s mission: for fiscal oversight, including ensuring that the organizations has sufficient resources to carry out its mission; for hiring, reviewing, and terminating staff; for meeting legal obligations; and for otherwise managing the assets of the organization (O’Connell, 2008; Ward, 2008). The degree to which trustees are actively involved in day-to-day operations of an organization typically depends upon the size and resources of the organization: a history of American nonprofit boards in the 1995 found an inverse relationship between the professionalization of an organization’s staff and the direct involvement of trustees in operations (Stuart, 1995). The concept of trusteeship goes beyond such specific responsibilities, however. As the concept has developed over the last 200 years in Anglo-American law and practice, trusteeship requires loyalty and commitment to the organization beyond simply fulfilling the duties of the office. They must understand and accept the organization’s mission, whether established by the original donor (as in the case of many foundations), or by the organization’s charter (Board Source, 2008). Trustees are expected to exercise their talents, judgment, and even forwardthinking abilities, in order to anticipate and provide for the needs of the organization so that it continues to meet its mission over time and under changing conditions (Ullberg & Ullberg, 1981). Trustees are expected to act not on the basis of personal interests, but in the interests
of the organization they are serving, even if it is potentially contrary to their personal interests (Redgwell, 1999). Embedded in modern Anglo-American law is the theory of the ‘‘prudent man,’’ requiring that the trustee of a nonprofit organization cannot merely act as the custodian of its assets but must act in accord with prevailing wisdom regarding sound investments and other financial decisions. In a landmark case, the state court of Massachusetts ruled in 1830 that trustees must ‘‘observe how men of prudence . . . manage their own affairs,’’ when investing and managing the assets of a nonprofit corporation. The standard of prudence has changed as investment philosophies have evolved in the nearly two centuries following that ruling, but nonetheless trustees continue to be held to that ideal (Emerson & Little, 2005). According to most contemporary conceptions of trusteeship, trustees must act with prudence not only in financial matters, but also in all aspects of a nonprofit’s organization and activities. If a trustee is not already knowledgeable regarding the mission of the organization, he/she must learn about it and that organization’s place in the nonprofit sphere. A trustee should take account of social, economic, and legal trends that may affect the ability of the organization to carry out its programs in the future. A trustee should utilize the full range of his/her knowledge, talents, experience, and training to benefit the organization. This obligation may at times put trustees in the position of acting ‘‘on his or her own independent judgment of the best interest of constituents irrespective of their best wishes’’ (Guo & Musso, 2006). Depending on the nature of an organization’s resources, proper stewardship by a trustee may require thinking broadly about the disposition of those resources in service to the organization’s mission. One study of investment decision-making by foundations concludes that, as a legal matter, ‘‘considerable freedom remains for foundation directors and trustees to use the foundation’s assets for a wide variety of mission investments’’ (Kramer & Stetson, 2008). Trustees might regard effective stewardship to include such socially-responsible policies as having offices in environmentally-conscious facilities or intentionally employing handicapped staff. Many trustees will derive a sense of trusteeship from religious and ethical considerations (Jeavons, 1995). The doctrines of the historic major religions of the world call for service to others beyond simple acts of charity, and their traditions have included the establishment of permanent institutions for the needy, often with endowments provided by wealth individuals or families. Those institutions, such as the waqf in Islamic tradition, had to have
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continuing oversight in order to flourish, but oversight was provided by religious authorities rather than by independent trustees. In Christian Europe since the medieval period, the well-established tradition of charitable endowments associated with the church was transformed and secularized by adopting the corporate model increasingly used for business, including the institution of self-governing and self-perpetuating boards that were given legal and financial responsibility for nonprofit organizations. An often-cited example of this trend is the Statute of Charitable Uses passed by the British parliament in 1601 which included in its provisions the proper management of institutions created for charitable purposes. United States: Cases and Criticisms
Trusteeship has not been an historically static concept. Hall (1992) examined the rise of trusteeship in the United States from its founding. He found that trusteeship in the United States is a socially-mediated construction that included regional variations. He summarized those types by referring to the intents of the creators as follows: "
The civil privatist seeks to optimize the interests and identity of his social class; the dynast, the interests and identity of himself and his family; the midwestern federationist, the identity and interest of the community as a whole; the grassroots leader, the interests and identity of his neighborhood, ethnic group, or special cause. And these orientations to trusteeship hardly exhaust the possibilities. (Hall, 1992)
This range is suggestive of the reasons why trusteeship has encountered criticism, particularly as the nonprofit form has become prominent in the twentieth century. There is debate regarding what society, writ large, can expect of trustees, who are charged with contributing to the welfare of not only of particular communities but also of an increasingly globalized society. One concern is that nonprofit trustees, as a group, consist of representatives of social elites, particularly the business elites. In the United States it is clear that nonprofit trustees have a strong tendency to be white, male, college-educated, and business professionals, and that the public views nonprofit trustees as having the elevated social status that goes with those attributes (Baughman, 1987; Abzug & Galaskiewicz, 2001). It is less clear how such backgrounds affect trustees’ views of trusteeship, but from the beginning of the twentieth century concerns have been expressed regarding whom the trustees represent. The plan for a Congressional charter for the
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Rockefeller Foundation in 1910 was defeated in large part because it was viewed as creating a personal philanthropic instrument for John D. Rockefeller, even though the proposed board of trustees included such presumably independent persons as the president of the United States, the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, and the presidents of Columbia, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Yale universities, and the University of Chicago (Hall, 1992; Harr & Johnson, 1988). It is the belief that actions of trusteeship are inevitably influenced by social class, education, knowledge of the community to be served, and other experience, that has led to pressure on nonprofits to select trustees that are representative at least of the constituencies to be served, if not society as a whole. In theory, ‘‘an organization is legitimate if it represents the interests or identities of different constituencies in the community’’ (Abzug & Galaskiewicz, 2001). While some studies suggest that seeking diversity in a board of trustees brings a range of experiences that beneficially broadens a board’s sense of trusteeship, how to ensure that trustees actually represent the diversity of the served population is a difficult and unresolved matter (Guo & Musso, 2006). Certainly, whether such composition results in more effectively meeting the mission of the organization, or more effectively meeting the ideals of trusteeship, is also undetermined (Abzug & Simonoff, 2004). However, it is clear that elite leadership can be problematic. In 1957 neighboring nonprofit institutions in Cleveland, Ohio, banded together in to create a collaborative nonprofit organization that could deal with pressing problems of urban planning and interinstitutional coordination. In this case trusteeship was construed as a matter of leadership by the three most powerful institutions, which enabled clear and rapid decision-making, such that the nonprofit’s essential goals were met within 10 years. But this process virtually ignored other constituencies, including the communities adjacent to the institutions, whose resistance exposed the problem of highly-centralized leadership and eventually stymied long-range planning and led to the demise of the collaborative nonprofit only 12 years after its founding (Stapleton, 1995). Another issue is that nonprofit leaders often regard elite attributes as strengths because elite trustees are more likely to contribute financially to the organization or to have access to sources of funds, to have political connections, and to understand the details of operations and fiscal management (Kearns, 1995). Yet, ‘‘the very qualities that make board members good [financial] supporters
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are often qualities that limit their ability to carry out their governance responsibilities’’ (Masaoka & Allison, 1995). If a trustee’s understanding of trusteeship is framed in management and financial terms, he/she is unlikely to contribute to program evaluation, strategic planning and other mission-related responsibilities. A final concern related to elite trusteeship may loosely be characterized as an aversion to accountability to the public. Elites, particularly business elites, are used to environments in which information relating to finances, on the one hand, and to strategic goals, on the other, is a restricted, and therefore, highly valuable, commodity. However, nonprofit organizations are created to serve the public good: global trends toward the development of a civil society valuing egalitarianism and powersharing have increased public expectations of transparency and access that are nearly the mirror-images of the business environments (Anheier & Daly, 2005). When such matters as publishing annual reports, opening board meetings to the public, inviting coverage by the media, and fully reporting to democratically chosen governments are increasingly regarded as measures of nonprofit legitimacy and effectiveness, elite values of consensus-seeking, individual anonymity, and privatist political views are likely to be in conflict with the evolving ideal of trusteeship. Yet for the most part only rigorous personal selfexamination will alter elite behaviors, because legal regulation of nonprofits is limited or nonexistent. As former foundation executive Joel Fleishmann has commented in regard to charitable foundations, a major nonprofit form in the United States: ‘‘A major cause of the various sins committed by foundations – arrogance, discourtesy, inaccessibility, and the others – is their lack of accountability’’ (Fleishmann, 2007).
International Perspectives and Future Directions As the number of nonprofits grows on a global basis, and the corporate model of nonprofit organizations spreads with it, the concept of trusteeship will undergo development and adaptation. Australia has drawn heavily on the Anglo-American tradition, but regulates the roles and responsibilities of trustees more than in the United States (Ward, 2008). In Japan the 1998 ‘‘Law to Promote Specified Nonprofit Activities’’ allowed the corporate form to be adopted by small organizations, bringing with it a ‘‘reimagination of Japanese civil society,’’ that seems likely to create an understanding of trusteeship that is a hybrid of Western experience and Japanese cultural understanding (Bestor, 2002).
Trusteeship as a concept is integral to the growth of nonprofits as institutions worthy of public and philanthropic support, and will spread and evolve as nonprofits continue to be critical elements of globalization. Along with the subject of nonprofit governance generally, it needs to be more extensively studied and better understood (Stone & Ostrower, 2007).
Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Boards ▶ Charity and religion ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Governance, Organizational ▶ Law, Nonprofit Associations ▶ Mission ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Rockefeller Foundation ▶ Stakeholders ▶ Waqf ▶ Weber, Max
References/Further Readings Abzug, R., & Galaskiewicz, J. (2001). Nonprofit boards: Crucibles of expertise or symbols of local identities? Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Quarterly, 30, 51–73. Abzug, R., & Simonoff, J. (2004). Nonprofit trusteeship in different contexts. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. Anheier, H., & Daly, S. (2005). Foundations in Europe: Roles and policy scenarios in an age of globalization. In S. Hewa & D. Stapleton (Eds.), Globalization, philanthropy, and civil society: Toward a new political culture in the twenty-first century. New York: Springer. Baughman, J. (1987). Trustees, trusteeship and the public good: Issues of accountability for hospitals, museums, universities, and libraries. New York: Quorum Books. Bestor, V. (2002). Toward a cultural biography of civil society in Japan. In R. Goodman (Ed.), Family and social policy in Japan: Anthropological approaches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Board Source. (2008). Ten essential responsibilities of foundation board chairs. Washington, DC: Board Source. Emerson, J., & Little, T. (2005). The prudent trustee: The evolution of the long-term investor. Washington, DC: Generation Foundation. Fleishmann, J. (2007). The foundation, a great American secret: How private wealth is changing the world. New York: Public Affairs. Guo, C., & Musso, J. (2006). Representation in nonproft and voluntary organizations: A conceptual framework. Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Quarterly, 35, 1–19. Hall, P. (1992). Inventing the nonprofit sector and other essays on philanthropy, voluntarism, and nonprofit organizations. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Harr, J., & Johnson, P. (1988). The rockefeller century: Three generations of America’s greatest family. New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons. Jeavons, T. (1995). Trustees as stewards: Secular insights from a sacred concept. In R. Turner (Ed.), Taking trusteeship seriously: Essays on the history, dynamics, and practice of trusteeship. Indianapolis, IN: Center on Philanthropy, IUPUI.
Tu¨rkiye U¨c¸u¨nc¸u¨ Sekto¨r Vakfi (TU¨SEV) Kearns, K. (1995). Effective nonprofit board members as seen by executives and board chairs. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 5, 337–358. Kramer, M., & Stetson, A. (2008). A brief guide to the law of mission investing for U.S. foundations. Boston: FSG Social Impact Advisors. Masaoka, J., & Allison, M. (1995). Why boards don’t govern. In R. Turner (Ed.), Taking trusteeship seriously: Essays on the history, dynamics, and practice of trusteeship. Indianapolis, IN: Center on Philanthropy, IUPUI. Newton, K. (2001). Social capital and democracy. In B. Edwards, M. Foley, & M. Diani (Eds.), Beyond Tocqueville: Civil society and the social capital debate in comparative perspective. Medford, MA: Tufts University Press. O’Connell, B. (2008). The board member’s book: Making a difference in voluntary organizations (3rd ed.). New York: Foundation Center. Redgwell, C. (1999). Intergenerational trusts and environmental protection. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Ridings, D. (1999). The legitimation of foundation work. In Bertelsmann Foundation (Ed.), The future of foundations in an open society. Gu˝tersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation. Stapleton, D. (1995). Pursuit of mission: The rise and fall of elite nonprofit leadership. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 5, 393–409. Stone, M., & Ostrower, F. (2007). Acting in the public interest? Another look at research on nonprofit governance. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 36, 416–438. Stuart, P. (1995). Trusteeship in difficult times: Settlement house leaders during the great depression. In R. Turner (Ed.), Taking trusteeship seriously: Essays on the history, dyamics, and practice of trusteeship. Indianapolis, IN: Center on Philanthropy, IUPUI. Ullberg, A., & Ullberg, P. (1981). Museum trusteeship. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums. Ward, D. (2008). Trustee handbook: Roles and duties of trustees of charitable trusts and foundations in Australia. Melbourne, Australia: Philanthropy Australia Inc, from http://philanthropywiki.org.au/index. php/Trustee_Handbook, 11/17/2008 Weber, M. (2009). The protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, with other writings on the rise of the west (S. Kalberg, Trans. and Intro, 4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Tu¨rkiye U¨c¸u¨nc¸u¨ Sekto¨r Vakfi (TU¨SEV) ZEYNEP ATALAY
Address of Organization Bankalar Caddesi Minerva Han No: 2 Kat:5 34420 Karako¨y/I˙stanbul Turkey www.tusev.org.tr
Introduction
¨ SEV) is a civil The Third Sector Foundation of Turkey (TU service network that aims to strengthen the legal, fiscal, and operational infrastructure of the nonprofit sector in Turkey.
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In addition to facilitating the operation of and collaboration ¨ SEV serves as a reamong civil society organizations, TU search institution on the third sector in Turkey.
Brief History
¨ SEV was established in 1993 by Turkey’s leading civil TU society organizations, and has now grown to a network of over 100 associations and foundations. Activity areas of ¨ SEV’s members are as diverse as social services, health, TU entrepreneurship, legal reform, culture, professional solidarity, family planning, agriculture, human rights, and development.
Mission
¨ SEV declares its mission as providing a supportive TU legal and fiscal infrastructure for nonprofit organizations; encouraging effective resource transfers to the organizations; facilitating partnerships across the public, private, and third sectors; promoting collaborations between the international community and Turkish third sector; and conducting research on the sector’s role, needs, and dynamics.
Activities ‘‘Civil Society Law Reform’’ has been the principal activity ¨ SEV since its establishment. In order to proarea of TU mote an enabling legal framework for civil society orga¨ SEV provides information and updates on nizations, TU legal and fiscal issues, promotes CSO participation in the policy making process and CSO – government cooperation, monitors the reform implementation, and supports capacity building for CSOs and governments in adapting to new legislation and processes. ¨ SEV is ‘‘Social InvestSecond major activity area of TU ¨ SEV ment.’’ Through conferences and publications, TU informs stakeholders about strategic and effective practices, advises new donors and foundations on creating effective giving strategies, and develops new mechanisms that enable resource transfer to civil service organizations.
Structure and Governance
¨ SEV is based on the The organizational model of TU ¨ SEV European Foundation Center based in Belgium. TU is structured as a foundation which has over 100 trustees and is directed by an executive board of academics and heads of member civil service organizations. ¨ SEV cooperates with various international organiTU zations, namely European Foundation Center, CIVICUS, the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, European Center for Not-for-Profit Law, Charities Aid Foundation and the Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support.
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Accomplishments
Cross-References
Given that third sector is largely understudied in Turkey, ¨ SEV fills a major gap by undertaking research initiaTU tives on the sector’s strengths and challenges and by generating data and reports to inform practitioners and stakeholders. Among its numerous research publications, CIVICUS Civil Society Index Project and Philanthropy in Turkey: Citizens, Foundations and the Pursuit of Social Justice provide the most comprehensive database on the state of civil society and philanthropy in Turkey.
References/Further Readings
▶ CIVICUS ▶ European Foundation Center ▶ Social Investment
TUSEV. (2006). Civil society in Turkey: An era of transition (2006) CIVICUS civil society index country report for Turkey. Istanbul: TUSEV. TUSEV. (2006). The landscape of philanthropy and civil society in Turkey. Istanbul: TUSEV.
U UIA ▶ Union of International Associations (UIA)
Umbrella Organizations ROSE MELVILLE School of Social Work and Human Services, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Introduction In contrast to other forms of civil society organizations umbrella organizations have not received adequate research attention from third sector scholars. Umbrella organizations are predominantly ‘‘member-benefit or memberserving organizations,’’ which sets them apart from other civil society organizations. Umbrella organizations exist in business, industry, commerce, politics, and the professions, as well as many areas of civil society. But the ones that are examined here are those found in the social and welfare fields of civil society. There is no accurate estimate of the number of umbrella organizations in the world, and very little knowledge about their history. During the 1990s, a renewed interest in literature and research on umbrella organizations has emerged. The main reason for this has been the controversy surrounding their role in the political sphere undertaking cause or advocacy related activities. Many are funded by fees or subscriptions from their own member organizations but some are directly funded by governments. In recent years, with the rise of neoliberal and market ideologies and welfare state retrenchment there has been increasing disquiet from governments about the cause or advocacy related activities of umbrella organizations. The survival and existence of umbrella organizations has been under serious threat with many of them losing government funding. However, in some countries, governments have attempted to protect the advocacy function of umbrella organizations by developing government – sector wide formal compacts or partnerships with varying degrees of success.
Definition Young (2001: 290) defines umbrella organizations as ‘‘nonprofit associations whose members are themselves nonprofit organizations.’’ This definition excludes trade unions, professional bodies, and other informal groups whose main purpose is to provide benefits to their own individual members. Salamon and Anheier (1997: 299) made the distinction between member-serving organizations and public-serving ones in the international comparative study of nonprofits. Member-serving organizations included business and professional organizations, social, and fraternal organizations; mutual benefit and cooperative organizations and miscellaneous. Public-serving organizations included funding intermediaries, churches, service providers and social welfare organizations. This simple definition needs further expansion. Umbrella organizations include a very broad range of organizations, and so various terms are used to describe them. The most common terms used to describe umbrella organizations are intermediaries, federations, advocacy coalitions, loose associations, ad hoc coalitions and resource organizations. In the Australian context, the term ‘‘peak body or peak council’’ is commonly used to describe an umbrella organization. The Industry Commission Inquiry into Charitable Organizations (1995) provided a detailed definition of a peak body (umbrella organization). The defining characteristics of a peak body include: A peak council is a representative organization that provides information dissemination services, [organizational] membership support, coordination, and advocacy and representation, and research and policy development services for its members and other interested parties (p. 181). They excluded those umbrella organizations that provide direct services in the social welfare sector in their definition.
Historical Background There is little documentation about the historical background on umbrella organizations. What literature that does exist tends to be individual case studies of organizations or coalitions of organizations operating in the same field. Some historical accounts indicate they have been active since the early 1900s, but most likely they
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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have been in existence prior to that time. For example the Baptist World Alliance formed in 1905 in London, United Kingdom, but subsequently moved their headquarters to the United States in 1940 during World War II. It is still located there. Some countries fund umbrella organizations to act as intermediaries between the nonprofit sector and government. The first peak council to receive government funding for its work was the Australian Pre-School Association in the 1930s (Melville, 1999).
Key Issues An important feature of umbrella organizations is the variety of organizational structures they adopt. Both Young (2001) and Selsky (1998) note that umbrella organizations consist of a wide range of formal and informal organizational structures, types and identities. The type of organizational structure adopted by umbrella organizations depends on numerous factors. One factor relates to whether the relationship is perceived as permanent or temporary. Another factor concerns the perceived power of the individual organizations that are intending to form an alliance or federation, differences in resource sharing capacity, and existing presence in an issue domain. According to Provan (1983) and Fleisher (1991), umbrella organizations that form loose coalitions are seen to preserve greater autonomy over their activities and resources. Member organizations that voluntarily join umbrella organizations are more likely to retain considerable power in this new coalition than organizations who feel compelled (for whatever circumstances) to join together. As Selsky (1998) and Young (2001) note, the new umbrella organization (whether it be a loose coalition or federation) faces considerable internal management and external organizational challenges during the early stages of development. A much stronger organization will emerge if these are dealt with successfully. If these internal tensions are not resolved, then it is much less likely that the umbrella organization will survive into maturity. Not all members of umbrella organizations are preexisting organizations or legal nonprofit entities. So, in some cases, the umbrella organization might act as a ‘‘donor’’ of a sponsoring body, in the sense that it assumes total or partial responsibility for setting up a smaller organization. There are some specialist umbrella organizations that do this type of work, known as financial intermediaries (Liou & Stroh, 1998). Exemplars of these organizations exist in public housing.
International Perspectives There is considerably more literature about umbrella organizations in the global north than in the global
south, however, where possible comparative analyses are made in the discussion below. Size, Scope of Organizations
There is no accurate estimate of the number of umbrella organizations operating in the world. Gugerty (n.d.) writes that over ‘‘80 countries around the world currently have national NGO umbrella associations, though these vary widely in size, capacity and scope; at least 20 of these national associations are in sub-Saharan Africa.’’ At best there are some country level estimates. In the United States Hodgkinson et al. (1993) have estimated that one fifth of nonprofit organizations belong to an umbrella organization. No doubt this differs from country to country. The size of umbrella organizations varies considerably. There are single issue umbrella organizations with less than a dozen organizational members and those that represent an entire field of the third sector (social service organizations, sport, arts, education, overseas aid, disaster relief, refugees, and religion). Umbrella organizations operate at local, national, and international levels. There is an increase in the number of networks and interest groups that are being formed around global third sector issues, such as sustainable development and environmental issues. An example of a very large and successful international umbrella coalition is the Third World Network based in Malaysia. They are concerned with issues such as free trade, global poverty, intellectual property, health, and security as well as the resourcing and accountability of nongovernment organizations. Tasks and Roles of Umbrella Organizations
The National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) in the United Kingdom has outlined a list of tasks undertaken by umbrella organizations for their member organizations. These include: ● Sharing of resources (financial and in-kind, expertise, knowledge, and skills) ● Management and organizational support (training, ICT, and technological infrastructure) ● Maximizing financial advantage in the public and private fund raising environment ● Working on advocacy campaigns at local, national, or international levels ● Being able to influence policy development impacting on nonprofit organizations ● Acting as a conduit for information flow between government and policy makers ● To voice the collective views of members ● An increased brand and public awareness
Umbrella Organizations
These tasks vary according to the kind of relationship member organizations have with the parent (umbrella body), and the legal nature of the structure they enter into with them. For example, the NCVO states that its services to members include ‘‘advice, information and capacity building.’’ One distinctive characteristic of the largest umbrella organization in Australia (Australian Council of Social Services) is the emphasis they place on playing an active role in developing government policy and not just policy implementation. This involves advocacy and cause related political activities to achieve these ends. According to the Heritage Community Foundation website, Alberta (Canada) voluntary umbrella organizations ‘‘build the sector’s capacity to advocate and address issues that have an impact on not-for-profit organizations.’’ Many umbrella organizations claim that they are involved in the development of social and public policy. For example, the main objectives of BSNGON (Black Sea Nongovernmental Organization’s Network) in the central and Eastern Europe and the CIS are threefold: ● To consolidate the efforts of NGOs ● To improve the collaboration among NGOs and between NGOs and respective governmental institutions and organizations and ● To influence social policy in the region (2005) Similarly, Mujawayezu (2008: 3) writes that umbrella organizations in the African context focus on ‘‘capacity building with individual member organizations as well as providing input into state policy about NGOs and other social issues.’’ Advocacy Role of Nonprofits
One of the main distinctions amongst umbrella organizations is whether or not they see part of their mission to undertake a campaigning or advocacy role on behalf of their organizational members. Some also see their role as an advocate of those receiving the services provided by member organizations. In the Australian context, the largest umbrella organization – the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) clearly states one of its main roles is to advocate on behalf of disadvantaged individuals or groups in society served by their member organizations, and not simply the organizational and management capacity of its member organizations. Lyons (2001) claims the dual roles adopted by ACOSS are somewhat atypical of most umbrella organizations around the world. A major thesis within the literature is that nonprofits which receive government funding or enter into close relationships with government lose their autonomy, which reduces their level of political activism.
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Welfare State Retrenchment: The Contract Culture and Privatized Environment
One of the major issues facing umbrella organizations has been major reforms to western welfare states. This is referred to as welfare state retrenchment, or welfare state restructuring, which has led to major changes in the relationships between nonprofits and the state. The causes reputed to have triggered these welfare reforms are complex. It is claimed that one impetus for the reform agendas arose out of the processes of economic globalization (Mishra, 1999). A second impetus involved significant ideological shifts in the way ‘‘government’’ provided social welfare services. This was driven by a strong blend of neoclassical liberal ideologies, which reclaimed the ‘‘market’’ as the superior sphere of social welfare provision instead of the state. The form of welfare state retrenchment amongst Anglophone welfare state societies has differed, with some rolling back service provision much more than others. What is common in all countries was the propagation of a mixture of neoclassical economic ideologies, such as economic rationalism, corporate managerialism, and New Public Management. These ideologies were used to justify funding reductions to both public and nonprofit service providers and to pursue managerial reforms in the public sector. The outcomes of these managerial reforms included privatization of public services and the introduction of competitive tendering and contracting regimes in the nonprofit sectors (Bernstein, 2001). They were also accompanied by new and more intensive forms of monitoring the effectiveness and efficiency of nonprofit organizations. This included a shift to output rather than input based funding and a greater degree of financial accountability for state funding. Organizations began to be paid for each individual person (a set amount) and no funding for overhead costs, such as renting premises and other business related costs. In some countries and in fields of social welfare service delivery the funding cuts to the nonprofit sector were so severe many organizations ceased to exist. What is central to this discussion is how nonprofit umbrella organizations responded to the new funding and policy environment. In this discussion two major issues will be examined. First, what impact these changes had on the organizations themselves, in terms of structural responses, and second, an examination of the political and strategic responses around the advocacy and cause related activities of umbrella organizations. Organizational Responses
Increased competition between service providers produced a mixed response amongst the nonprofit sector (Kramer, 1994). In the early period (Thatcher in Britain
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and Reagan, in United States), in some instances the state attempted to restructure organizations through forced mergers and amalgamations in larger organizational units which were seen as more efficient due to economies of scale. Writing about the Reagan era (United States), Selsky (1998: 286) notes that funding cutbacks promoted a larger number of federations or associations to form to maximize ‘‘economic and political clout, to exploit opportunities, to reduce uncertainty in their task environment, and to respond to external pressures.’’ In terms of organizational responses, Selsky (1998: 286) writes, ‘‘some social service organizations form umbrellas organizations because they are pushed by the state to respond to various policy issues, or they join voluntarily to strengthen their position with regard to the state, or to provide more efficient provision of services over a larger geographic area.’’ In contrast to other countries, the empirical research undertaken by Grønbjerg (1987) at this time found increased collaboration between nonprofits in the competitive contracting regime in the United States. It has been suggested that this is in part due to the size and power of the nonprofit sector in the United States in comparison to other countries. In Britain and Australia it led to increasing competition and fragmentation of the nonprofit sector (Lyons, 1997; Gann, 2001). There was considerable resistance to forced mergers and acquisitions of individual organizations by larger organizations and few attempts to form alliances and coalitions amongst smaller ones (QCOSS, 1996). Larger church and charitable organizations were able to compete more effectively for tenders and funding contrasts due to size and scale of operation. They did not see the need to join with nonprofit umbrella organizations to resist these new policies or respond politically to these changes. It is important to point out that there have been successive waves of welfare reform over this time. A second wave of welfare reform (1990–2007) which occurred in many western welfare state countries involved welfare to work reforms. Essentially this led to the linking of welfare payments to the willingness of welfare recipients to undertake job retraining and any form of work. It has been referred to as the rise of the Schumpeterian workfare state. Austin (2003: 103) suggests that this second period was ‘‘characterized by a more mature and balanced community-partnership approach between the state public agencies and nonprofits, rather than the negative principal-agent dimensions of earlier forms of privatization.’’ As a result there was more willingness by nonprofits to work in closer collaboration with local government agencies, as well as form mergers, colocate services and collaborate with other nonprofits.
Challenges to Democratic Representation of Umbrella Organizations
This section examines the challenges to the legitimacy of the advocacy role of umbrella organizations that has occurred in western liberal democratic nations. In this neoliberal environment a new form of conservative liberal politics emerged which has challenged the role of umbrella organizations to advocate on behalf of their member organizations or those with whom they work. Interestingly, Salamon (1995) predicted that a threat to the advocacy roles of nonprofits would emerge in the United States, although there is less information about it. Literature suggests that the state adopted the position that umbrella organizations did not have the right or the legitimacy to engage in lobbying and political advocacy work whilst in receipt of government funding. This position became more extreme in Australia during the Howard government era (1996–2007). Most of the policy ideas about advocacy and nonprofit umbrella organizations espoused by the Howard Government were derived from ideas promulgated by public choice theorists. The Howard government argued that umbrella organizations did not represent a ‘‘broad consistency of member views.’’ In other words, they have not been elected to ‘‘represent their members views,’’ unlike politicians who were part of representative democratic processes. And second, they were part of the rent seeking welfare lobby and so most of their advocacy claims were based on vested self interest. Various government ministers, departments, and conservative think tanks joined forces to discredit the advocacy work of umbrella organizations (Melville, 1999). This was done in numerous ways. In practical terms, a range of strategies were adopted around funding agreements and contracts that included specific clauses in them, which limited if not prohibited public comment on government policies (Melville & Melville, 2003). Organizations that were quite vocal on policy issues lost government funding or were threatened with losing it. Hamilton and Maddison (2007) coined the term silencing dissent to describe the processes that were taking place. The nonprofit umbrella sector was not very well prepared to deal with these new challenges to their advocacy role. The size of the sector is large, the organizations within it are very diverse (ranging from conservative churches and charities to new organizations birthed out of social movements) and the sector is quite fragmented (Melville, 2008). Umbrella organizations’ claim to legitimacy to ‘‘represent’’ disadvantaged groups was derived from a ‘‘moral commitment to social justice,’’ rather than any form of institutional representative processes or structures. Many
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umbrella organizations do not have contested elections or include management committee members who are drawn from service recipients. They had relied on an implicit bipartisan agreement between political parties, which had recognized the value of extra-parliamentary input into policy making. So, when government-nonprofit sector advisory committees and policy input processes were radically altered during this time, umbrella organizations and the sector as a whole had very little ability to strategically deal with this new environment. It brought into sharp focus the need to develop some set of institutional arrangements that would regularize the governmentnonprofit sector relationship. Attempts at doing this during the Howard era failed but there are signs that the Rudd government (2007+) intends to develop a compact or formal agreement with the nonprofit sector in Australia, following a trend across the world. Compacts and Partnerships
In recent years, some countries have developed written agreements, or protocols to regularize the relationships between government and nonprofit organizations. Various countries have made attempts to develop these, some more successful than others. The Blair Government (Home Office, 1998) introduced a Compact with the nonprofit sector, whereas after a long and protracted period of negotiation with the Canadian government to develop an accord it finally collapsed (White, 2007). They represent an explicit attempt to acknowledge the role and contribution of the nonprofit sector to the social, political, and economic well being of a nation. Various terms such as ‘‘accord, agreement, charter, concordant, cooperation program, and framework, partnership and strategy, and industry plan’’ are used to describe these arrangements (Casey et al., 2008: 4). Transnational institutions, such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have also been promoting closer ties – ‘‘partnerships’’ between governments, business, and citizens since the later 1990s. Interestingly, a study of 740 Hungarian nonprofits did not find evidence that working more closely with the state led to reduced autonomy or political activism (Bruszt & Vedres, 2008). Umbrella Organizations and Global Issues
At a global or international level, major institutions (World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization) have also embraced neoliberal ideologies. This had led to increased scrutiny of the advocacy role of indigenous and nonindigenous aid organizations and demands for increased financial accountability and efficiency. Gugerty (n.d.) argues that NGOs in Africa are
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turning to national umbrella organizations to learn how to deal with the demands of external donor organizations and transnational institutions. National umbrella organizations also provide protection for individual organizations who voice concerns about democratic and governance issues with the state. For example, the Pakistan government is more hostile to advocacy organizations that deal with ‘‘sensitive social, religious and political issues than those that deliver traditional social services’’ (Pasha & Iqbal, 2002, cited in Iqbal, 2006:9).
Future Directions The literature on umbrella organizations is modest at present but is likely to attract increasing attention from nonprofit scholars. Increasing numbers of umbrella organizations are likely to be formed in the future for a number of reasons. First, there is a need for nonprofit organizations to work more efficiently with diminishing state and private donor resources in western welfare states and the global south. A second reason relates to the imperative to gain some strategic political traction in their dealings with (national and international) government agencies and private donor organizations. A third reason relates to challenges in dealing with increased transparency and accountability issues. Given the global economic downturn (2008), and predictions of rising unemployment and poverty especially in countries of the global south, there is increasing urgency for nonprofits to form umbrella organizations to secure more overseas aid and a greater share of world trade as well as other issues. Consequently, umbrella organizations will continue to play a key role for nonprofits.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Coalitions and Networks ▶ Contracts and Contract Regimes ▶ Federations, Nonprofit ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Intermediary Organizations and Field ▶ Membership and Member Associations ▶ National Council for Voluntary Organisations ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Voluntary Sector Compacts
References/Further Readings Austin, M. (2003). The changing relationship between nonprofit organizations and public social service agencies in the era of welfare reform. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32, 97–114. Bernstein, S. (2001). The game of contracted services. In S. J. Ott (Ed.), Understanding nonprofit organizations (pp. 267–275). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
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Black Sea Non-Governmental Organization’s Network (BSNGON). (2005). The challenges faced in emerging democracies in establishing national umbrella organizations. BSDGON, from www.bsngon.com/ aboutus/documents/2005/Network%20Strategy%20lobbying%20group %2019.12.05.doc; 08/09/2008 Bruszt, L., & Vedres, B. (2008). The politics of civic combinations. Voluntas, 19, 140–160. Casey, J., Dalton, B., Onyx, J., & Melville, R. (2008, February). Advocacy in the age of compacts: Regulating government – Community sector relations: International experiences (Working Paper Series No 76). Centre for Australian Community Management. Fleisher, C. (1991). An agency-based approach to analyze collaborative federated interorganizational relationships. Journal of Applied Behavioural Sciences, 27(1), 116–130. Gann, N. (2001). Towards a contract culture. In S. J. Ott (Ed.), Understanding nonprofit organizations (pp. 247–255). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Grønbjerg, K. (1987). Patterns of institutional relations in the welfare state. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 16(1), 64–80. Gugerty, M. K. (n.d.). Collection action in nonprofit umbrella associations in Africa, from http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/polisci/wgape/papers/ 6_Gugerty.doc; 6/09/2008. Hamilton, C., & Maddison, S. (2007). Silencing dissent: How the Australian government is controlling public opinion and stifling debate. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Hodgkingson, V. A., Weitzman, M. S., Noga, S. M., & Gorski, H. A. (1993). A portrait of the independent sector. Washington, DC: Independent Sector. Home Office. (1998). Compact on relations between government and the voluntary and community sector in England, from http:// compact.live.poptech.coop/CB2/document_tree/ViewACategory/asp? CategoryID = 49 > 10/04/2007 Industry Commission. (1995). Charitable organizations in Australia (Rep. No. 45). Melbourne: Australian Government Publishing Service. Iqbal, M. A. (2006). The ideological divide of the nonprofit sector in Pakistan. Paper presented at the International Society for Third Sector Research, Bangkok, July 9–12, from www.istr.org/conferences/bangkok/WPVolume/Iqbal.MuhammadAsif.pdf; 19/08/2008 Kramer, R. M. (1994). Voluntary agencies and the contract culture: Dream or nightmare. Social Service Review, March, 33–60. Liou, Y. T., & Stroh, R. C. (1998). Community development intermediaries systems in the United States: Origins, evolution, and functions. Housing Policy Debate, 9(3), 575–594. Lyons, M. (2001). The third sector. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Melville, R. (1999). The state and community sector peak bodies: Theoretical and policy challenges. Third Sector Review, 5(2), 25–41. Melville, R. (2008). ‘Token participation to engaged participations’: Lessons learnt and challenges ahead for Australian not-for-profits. In J. Barraket (Ed.), Strategic issues for the not-for-profit sector (pp. 103–124). Sydney: UNSW Press. Melville, R., & Perkins, R. (2003). Changing roles of community sector peak bodies in a neoliberal policy role in Australia, An ARC funded study (2000–2002), from www.uow.edu.au/arts/archives/iscci/publications/peakstudy.pdf;5/09/2008. Mishra, R. (1999). Globalization and the welfare state. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. Mujawayezu, P. (2008). Presentation by CCOAIB: An umbrella organization for the Rwandan NGOS for development at the grass roots level in Rwanda, from http://209.85.173.104/search?q = cache:j4ivneuKSh4J: www.idasa.org.za/gbOutputFiles.asp%3FWriteContent%3DY%26RID
%3D1135 + Presentation + by + CCOAIB&hl = en&ct = clnk&cd = 1&gl = au, 8/09/2008. Pasha, A. G., & Iqbal, M. A. (2002). Nonprofit sector in Pakistan: Government policy and future issues. Pakistan Development Review, 14(4). Provan, K. (1993). The federation as an interorganizational linkage network. Academy of Management Review, 8(1), 79–89. Queensland Council of Social Services (QCOSS). (1996). Managing the reform process. Brisbane: Kelvin Grove. Salmon, L. M. (1995). Partners in public service: Government-nonprofit relations in the modern welfare state. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Salamon, L. M., & Anheier, H. K. (1997). Defining the nonprofit sector. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Selsky, J. W. (1998). Developmental dynamics in nonprofit – Sector federalism. Voluntas, 9(3), 283–303. White, D. (2007). State-third sector partnership frameworks: From administration to participation. In P. Henman & M. Fenger (Eds.), Administering welfare reform (pp. 45–72). Bristol: Policy Press. Young, D. (2001). Organizational identity and the structure of nonprofit umbrella organizations. Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 11(3), 289–304.
UN Global Compact SARAH JASTRAM
Address of Organization United Nations New York, NY 10017 USA www.unglobalcompact.org
Introduction The UN Global Compact (UNGC) describes itself as a voluntary ‘‘strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labor, the environment, and anticorruption.’’ The ten principles are: 1. Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights, and 2. Make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses; 3. Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining. 4. The elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labor,
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5. The effective abolition of child labor, and 6. The elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. 7. Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges, 8. Undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility, and 9. Encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies. 10. Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.
Brief History The UN Global Compact began operations in 2000, after Kofi Annan, at that time Secretary General of the United Nations, had called businesses to become engaged in sustainability and responsible business practices at the World Economic Forum in Davos in 1999.
Mission The UNGC describes its mission in the following way: ‘‘The Global Compact strives to be the world’s most inclusive voluntary initiative to promote responsible corporate citizenship.’’ Its aims to pursue its mission by following two objectives: (a) to mainstream ten principles on human rights, labor, environment, and anticorruption in business activities around the world and (b) to catalyze actions in support of broader UN goals, including the Millennium Development Goals.
Activities To promote and establish its ten principles, the Global Compact pursues an approach based on the idea of learning and dialogue fostered through various multistakeholder-events on the international, national and local level, as well as through publications. Businesses that join the Global Compact comply with its principles on a voluntary basis and the UNGC does not undertake any active monitoring; it does, however, ask participating companies to submit an annual report entitled ‘‘Communication on Progress,’’ covering their activities with regard to the implementation of the ten principles.
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from all other governance entities. The Global Compact Office in New York carries out all administrative and coordinative tasks.
Funding The Global Compact receives almost no regular funding from the United Nations. The operational costs of the UN Global Compact Office are paid out of a trust fund to which governments make voluntary contributions. A nonprofit foundation raises additional funds from the private sector to finance the Global Compact’s increasing number of noncore activities such as events, issue campaigns, and publications.
Accomplishments Today, the Global Compact is one of the most prominent initiatives in the field of Corporate Social Responsibility, with nearly 5,000 participants and stakeholders from over 130 countries.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Human Rights ▶ Stakeholders ▶ World Economic Forum ▶ UN
References/Further Readings Kell, G. (2003). The global compact. Origins, operations, progress, challenges. Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 11(Autumn), 35–49. Ruggie, J. G. (2002). The theory and practice of learning networks. Corporate social responsibility and the global compact. Journal of Corporate Citizenship, 5(Spring), 27–36.
Uncivil Society MARLIES GLASIUS University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Structure and Governance
Introduction
The UN GC is structured by a multicentric governance framework, within which governance functions are shared by six entities, each with its own specific remit: a Leaders Summit, a Multi-Stakeholder Board, Local Networks, an annual Local Networks Forum, the Global Compact Office, and an Inter-Agency Team. Strategic decisions are made by the Board and are based on the input
Uncivil society (or the ungainly ‘‘uncivil civil society,’’ the terms are used interchangeably) is a surprisingly undertheorized concept. The academic uses of the term will be elaborated below, but it must also be noted that it is freely used on the Internet by actors on different points of the political spectrum to describe manifestations of civil society with values different from their own. Thus,
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for instance, an enthusiast for market-led technological advances writing for the Cato Institute attacks civil society groups opposing big dams and genetic modification in an article titled ‘‘The Uncivil Civil Society.’’ Conservative pundit Henry Lamb uses the term in a WorldNet Daily article to criticize gay rights activists for shouting down a Christian demonstration against gay marriage in San Francisco. Conversely, a few global social justice activists have adopted the term as a badge of pride, arguing that uncivil society encompasses ‘‘any group that threatens the status quo’’(see Kopecky & Mudde, 2003, 10). Most often, both in academic literature and in general use, the term has come to be used for manifestations of civil society that challenge liberal democratic values. Violence is most often singled out as its characteristic, but as discussed below, exclusivist or dogmatic ideologies, predatory practices, and general rule-breaking are also mentioned. Academic debates are centered on whether the use of the category itself is unacceptably westerncentric and on whether uncivil society should be considered as part of a wider category of civil society, or as conceptually distinct, as its evil twin. Those who argue that the distinction is difficult or impossible to make go on to critique the mutually beneficial relation between civil society and democracy as discerned by Putnam. Less crystallized in the literature, but also apparent here and there, are reflections on the ‘‘uncivil’’ aspect of civil society in relation to capitalism. Finally, a few authors discern a (complex) relation between globalization and the emergence of transnational forms of uncivil society. The use of the term uncivil society is not confined to any particular region. Scholarly articles apply the term to civil society manifestations in Africa (Fatton, 1995); Eastern Europe (Kopecky & Mudde, 2003); Western Europe (Pedahzur & Weinberg, 2001); the Arab world (Abdel Rahman, 2002); Latin America (Avritzer, 2004), as well as globally (Kaldor & Muro, 2003).
Definition Those authors who give attention to definitional matters are remarkably hesitant to give a definition of ‘‘uncivil society.’’ Rumford defines uncivil society as ‘‘a catch-all term for a wide range of disruptive, unwelcome, and threatening elements deemed to have emerged in the spaces between the individual and the state’’ (2001), but he does so precisely in order to argue that the term is overly simplistic and unhelpful, for instance in explaining the motivations of the 9/11 bombers.
Kopecky and Mudde (2003), while giving their edited book the title ‘‘uncivil society,’’ refuse to give a definition, arguing that for a number of reasons (see below) the distinction between the civil and the uncivil is unhelpful. Kaldor and Muro focus their attention on ‘‘extreme’’ religious and nationalist groups, which are violent and/or exclusivist and/or fundamentalist, but echo Kopecky and Mudde in not making ‘‘an arbitrary distinction between the civil and the uncivil’’ (2003, 151–152). Pedahzur and Weinberg list similar characteristics, but they are less hesitant to apply the label ‘‘uncivil society’’ to the extreme right groups they have studied: ‘‘we can define right-wing ‘uncivil society’ almost as extreme right-wing parties are defined – by their ideological concerns – i.e., nationalism, racism, antidemocracy, xenophobia, and the belief in the need for a strong state’’ (2001, 61–62).
Historical Background In Enlightenment thought, civilization was understood as a gradual process through which interpersonal relations within society became less violent and more polite. Most European societies were considered to be civil societies, whereas barbarous or despotic societies, closer to the state of nature, lay beyond (Keane, 1998, 115–120). As various authors have pointed out, this internal civilization process had a necessary corollary in war, or at least the threat of war, with others (Keane, 1998; Kaldor & Muro, 2003, 151). From Napoleonic times onwards, colonial projects were increasingly justified in terms of ‘‘civilizing’’ the natives, even as the methods of subjugation were allowed to be uncivil because the population in question was not yet within the ‘‘civil’’ realm of those who can be expected to understand and respect the modern rule of law (Mamdani, 1996; Turner, 1999). Although it is difficult to trace its first use, the term ‘‘uncivil society’’ appears to have entered the political lexicon a few years after the enthusiastic acclamation of ‘‘civil society’’ associated with the democratic revolutions of Latin American and Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Stewart (1997) uses the term as a title for an article deploring the NGO-isation of Africa, while Kofi Annan (1998) warns, in a speech extolling the cooperative potential between the United Nations and NGOs, against the forces of uncivil society exemplified by ‘‘drug-traffickers, gun-runners, money-launderers, and exploiters of young people for prostitution.’’ What these very different accounts have in common is that they both consider uncivil society as a transnational phenomenon somehow connected to globalization. While Stewart uses the term in
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relation to NGO-isation as a part of the neoliberal consensus on pruning back the state, after 9/11 the term has been used increasingly (but without much in-depth analysis) to denote ‘‘illiberal’’ reactions to neoliberal globalization, such as the Al-Qaeda network (see Rumford, 2001; Kaldor & Muro, 2003).
Key Issues Euro-Centricity
The historical baggage described above makes any reflection on the meaning of the ‘‘civil’’ in ‘‘civil society,’’ and hence also on what might constitute uncivility, politically loaded. Some authors, such as Chabal and Daloz (1999), who are skeptical of civil society as a concept anyway, reject any substantive use of ‘‘civil’’ as having racist connotations: ‘‘Does it connote a certain idea of ‘civility’, an identifiable arrangement of social activities that make for a more ordered society? If that is the case, might it not imply a given type of societal evolution, which would come dangerously close to an argument about the comparative merits of more ‘advanced’ societies where there is indeed a ‘civic’ civil society?’’ (1999, 19). Similarly, Turner (1999) calls attention to the ‘‘uncivil basis of settler society’’ in New Zealand, with an argument that could equally well be applied to many other postcolonial societies. According to him, the historical construct of a ‘‘civil’’ society being brought to ‘‘savage’’ Maori stands in the way of white New Zealanders understanding historical violence and current disruptive (‘‘uncivil’’) behavior on the part of Maori as collective responses to the brutal imposition of early capitalist modernity, which robbed them of their land and transgressed against their customs. A Totality or a Part of the Whole
When not rejected, the term ‘‘uncivil society’’ is used in two ways. The first, as for instance in the quote from Keane in the next section, applies to a society that is, in its totality, ‘‘uncivil,’’ juxtaposed to a society that is, in its totality, civil. These entire societies are then taken as being coterminous with state boundaries. The second meaning applies to those groups, values, etc. within a wider society that are by some measure uncivil. The first use usually comes with the article: ‘‘an uncivil society,’’ whereas the second does not, it is just ‘‘uncivil society.’’ Characteristics of Uncivil Society
The most frequently mentioned characteristic of uncivil society is the use of violence. While not all forms of violence are necessarily considered uncivil, there is a
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general presumption on the part of most authors that violent means are a hallmark of uncivil society. However, Pedahzur and Weinberg (2001) as well as Kaldor and Muro (2003) emphasize that there are elements other than violence that render groups and movements potentially uncivil. Kaldor and Muro mention exclusivism, particularly of an ethnic or religious nature, and fundamentalism: an attempt to impose inflexible doctrines not only on those who willingly adhere to them but on a wider group (2003, 152). The first element, ethnic or religious exclusivism, chimes with the extreme right groups studied by Pedahzur and Weinberg (2001) and many of the movements discussed in Kopecky and Mudde (2003). It also figures largely in the literature on African civil society, which emphasizes the pervasiveness of ethnic divisions (see for instance, Fatton, 1995, 73). The element of inflexible doctrines does not appear to be widely shared, although as discussed below, Whitehead (1997) and Shils (1992) insist on the association of civility with tolerance, and would thus seem to imply that uncivility equates with intolerance, which might relate both to exclusivism and to inflexibility. More than the exclusivist element, a dogmatic element of uncivil society begs the question who decides what constitutes inflexibility. Kaldor and Muro (2003) write that it could apply not just to religion and nationalism, but also to ‘‘secular ideologies like Stalinism or extreme forms of neoliberalism.’’ They do not, however, give examples of groups which ought to be considered uncivil on this basis. Abdel Rahman on the other hand does include secularmodern groups in her indictment of Egyptian civil society as uncivil, precisely on this basis of wanting to impose inflexible doctrines on others (Abdel Rahman, 2002, 29–30). Fatton discusses the uncivil manipulation of premodern traditions (1995, 73–76), and Kaldor and Muro make a wider point about the antimodernism of many religious and nationalist militant groups (2003, 165–166). However, although both note that this often goes hand in hand with misogyny, neither wants to suggest that antimodernism is in itself uncivil. Fatton also includes the tendency to perpetuate social inequality, ‘‘to privilege the privileged and marginalize the marginalized’’ in his discussion of the uncivil characteristics of civil society. As discussed above, loose allusions to the mafia apart, other authors have focused less on the economic aspect of uncivil society. A final, problematic, aspect of uncivil society is that of ‘‘not abiding by the rules’’ (see Whitehead, 1997, 100). As Kopecky has pointed out, if these rules are to be taken to
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refer to national legal rules, then the relation to civility is often tenuous and sometimes antithetical. International legal rules, particularly adherence to human rights, might be a better guide. A characterization of uncivil society as violating human rights might make sense, but has as yet no basis in the literature. One problem with it is that human rights norms were originally devised for states; another that they relate to policies and activities rather than ideologies, which are precisely the realm of civil and uncivil society. Whitehead (1997) has tried to take the requirement of ‘‘rules’’ beyond the legal realm by trying to define a norm of civility. Such a norm would take the discussion back to the issues of exclusivism and inflexibility, and problems of subjectivity, the lack of a common global normative framework, and indeed the contested desirability of such a framework. Uncivil Society as Part of Civil Society?
The main academic argument in relation to ‘‘uncivil society’’ turns not on whether the use of the concept is historically problematic, or whether it describes society as a whole, but on whether uncivil society should be included in or excluded from the definition of ‘‘civil society.’’ John Keane has argued that ‘‘all known forms of civil society are plagued by endogenous sources of incivility,’’ but nonetheless distinguishes between a civil and an uncivil society, differentiated by a tipping point in the use of violence: ‘‘a highly developed civil society can and normally does contain within itself violent tendencies, that is, patterns of incivility or behavior prone to violence that can and do threaten to accumulate synergetically to the point where the occasional violence of some against some within a civil society degenerates into the constant violence of all against all of an uncivil society’’ (Keane, 1998, 135–136; 140–141). Philippe Schmitter too formulates a definition that excludes the uncivil: the final of his four conditions for groups to be considered as part of civil society is that they ‘‘do agree to act within preestablished rules of a ‘civil’ or legal nature’’ (quoted in Whitehead, 1997, 100). Whitehead insists that in addition, there must be an element of respect for others to meet the requirement of civility (Whitehead, 1997, 100–101). Shils is even more demanding in his definition of the ‘‘civility’’ that must characterize civil society: ‘‘Civility is an attitude and a mode of action which attempts to strike a balance between conflicting demands and conflicting interests’’ (Shils, 1992, 6). A majority of the literature takes the opposite view, however, insisting on an empirical definition of civil
society that includes ‘‘uncivil society’’ as a tendency within it (Abdel Rahman, 2002; Berman, 1997; Fatton, 1995; Kaldor & Muro, 2003; Kopecky & Mudde, 2003). Kopecky (2003, 12–13) gives the most extensive attention to this issue, adducing no less than five interrelated arguments for eschewing the exclusion of uncivil society from civil society. In summary: 1. To some extent, all civil society manifestations are exclusivist in that they claim the moral high ground for their own position in opposition to all others. 2. Civility towards the ‘‘uncivil’’ has historically been limited and hypocritical (see above). 3. Adherence to liberal democratic goals does not necessarily equate with internal democracy, or vice versa. Uncivil movements may have civil outcomes and vice versa. 4. Adherence to legal or even societal norms is far from desirable in nondemocratic societies and proscribes challenges to the status quo even in democratic ones. 5. Finally, narrow conceptions of civil society screen off potentially vital ingredients of associational life and democratic politics. Inclusion is therefore necessary to progress in empirical knowledge. Uncivil Society and Democracy
Much of the literature that argues against the distinction is devoted to critiques of the idea so dominant in policy making in the 1990s, that strengthening civil society contributes to democratization. This idea, partly considered to have come out of the ‘‘1989 experience’’ in Eastern Europe, and partly attributed to Robert Putnam’s influential work on Italy, requires civil society to be imbued with both democratic and liberal values, and for it to be easily distinguishable from ‘‘uncivil society’’ which lacks these values. The critiques of the ‘‘mutual strengthening theory,’’ based on empirical studies from a variety of regions, make three counter-points: 1. Having a vibrant civil society is not to be conflated with having a ‘‘civil’’ civil society. This argument is most persuasively pursued in a historical article by Berman, which shows that Germans in the Weimar Republic, having lost confidence in the state, were ‘‘addicted to associating’’ in much the same way as Tocqueville observed of early Americans, but that these dense associational networks were rapidly and successfully infiltrated and captured by Nazi organizers, accelerating and buttressing the Nazi seizure of power ‘‘from below’’ (Berman, 1997).
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2. Religious or nationalist movements often have a democratic base, and sometimes seek the overthrow of a nondemocratic government, but their values are not necessarily democratic and certainly not liberal. Segments of civil society imbued with liberal, ‘‘western’’ values on the other hand do not necessarily have democratic legitimacy in the form of a grassroots base (Abdel Rahman, 2002; this argument also comes up in the literature on civil society in Africa). 3. The civility of civil society and the civility of the state and market are interdependent. Hence, civil society can only be as civil as the circumstances allow. Leonardo Avritzer (2004), for instance, develops ‘‘uncivil society,’’ as the prototype of civil society most likely to emerge when (1) the state is too weak to guarantee either physical or material security, (2) the market economy exists only in clientelist form, and (3) political society is nonexistent or fragmented to the point of destruction. He cites Peru and Colombia as Latin American prototypes of this situation, whilst acknowledging that elements of it can be found in all Latin American countries. The challenge in these situations is ‘‘whether civil society can produce civility in spite of the state and the market.’’ Similarly, Whitehead theorizes the ‘‘social locations where civil society is weak or absent’’ by reversing the four conditions Schmitter requires for recognition as civil society: (1) encroachments on dual autonomy from the state and the market; (2) which subvert civil society’s capacity for deliberation; (3) which may encourage usurpation of the state or the market; and (4) and incivility within, i.e., lack of respect for the rules and for others within civil society. He stresses that each society contains its own unique combination of these factors, and hence there is a great variety of uncivil societies, but he concludes, similarly to Avritzer, that civil society in the narrow, normative sense is ‘‘fragile and under siege from all sides,’’ even in nominal democracies (1997, 110). Abdel Rahman (2002) offers a rich illustration of these tendencies in her discussion of ‘‘uncivil’’ society in Egypt. She argues that both secularist and Islamist groups have been uncivil in their lack of tolerance for each other. Moreover, they have both been prepared to collude with the state against the other. Uncivil Society and Capitalism
The classical theorists, it is well-known, made no distinction between civil society and the market. For Locke, the civility of civil society consisted precisely in providing sufficient physical security for the individual so that he
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could through his industry and ingenuity amass property. Hegel on the other hand has described particularly vividly the dynamic nature of what he called civil society – what would nowadays be called the capitalist system – but he did not at all believe it to be civil. Without checks and balances provided by the state, it neglects or exploits the poor who cannot help themselves. Similarly Marx thought of civil society as bourgeois society, a necessary stage in history, but inherently exploitative. Since then, through the detour of Gramsci’s insistence on dividing material base from cultural superstructure, civil society has come to mean the ‘‘non-state, nonmarket’’ realm of society. Yet while the distinction is made by most authors (but see Fatton, who emphatically includes the informal economy in his not so civil society in Africa), capitalism is now generally accepted as the global ‘‘background setting’’ in which civil society operates. This may be, as Edward Shils (1992) put it, because the alternative has proven even more uncivil, or it may just be because empirically, this is the background setting found in most parts of the world. Recent work has begun to take into account the problematic relationship between uncivil society and global capitalism, but this relation is as yet much less theorized than that between uncivil society and democracy. Meanwhile it is interesting to note that the distinction between for-profit and nonprofit motives pertaining to most definitions of civil society is often left behind when discussing uncivil society, as for instance in Kofi Annan’s quote above, which includes only uncivil forprofit activities. The mafia is, along with Al-Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan, one of the most-cited examples of uncivil society. But while disentangling market from nonmarket activities may in practice be even more difficult in the ‘‘uncivil’’ realm then in the civil, conceptual clarity still demands a distinction between ideologically motivated incivility, such as terrorism or hate-speech, and profit-oriented criminality.
International Perspectives Uncivil Society and Globalization
Pedahzur and Weinberg discuss the surprising ‘‘internationalism’’ of extreme rightwing groups, with skinheads active in 33 countries across all continents for instance (2001, 63). Kaldor and Muro take the transnational character of the religious and nationalist militants they investigate as their point of departure, and elaborate on the ambiguous relationship they have with both economic and cultural globalization: the insecurities generated by globalization are an important factor in the growth of these movements; they use the new media and
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international funding networks; yet their ostensible aim is (often through the capture of state power) to roll back globalization in favor of religious or ethnic self-rule (2003, 182–183). Thus, one of the most common forms of uncivil society in the twenty-first century may be based on what Castells has called a ‘‘resistance identity,’’ based more on what it is against than what it is for.
Turner, S. (1999). A legacy of colonialism: The uncivil society of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Cultural Studies, 13(3), 408–422. Whitehead, L. (1997). Bowling in the bronx: The uncivil interstices between civil and political society. Democratization, 4(1), 94–114.
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Cross-References
▶ Civility ▶ Civil Society and Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Social Inequality ▶ Civil Society Theory: Hegel ▶ Civil Society Theory: Gramsci ▶ Civil Society Theory: Marx ▶ Civil Society Theory: Shils ▶ Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches ▶ Civil Society, Violence and War ▶ Locke, John ▶ Putnam, Robert
References/Further Readings Abdel Rahman, M. (2002). The politics of ‘‘uncivil’’ society in Egypt. Review of African Political Economy, 91, 21–36. Annan, K. (Dec. 1997/Jan. 1998). Guest Editorial. Go between no. 67, from http://www.globalpolicy.org/ngos/docs97/annan.htm Avritzer, L. (2004). Civil society in Latin America: Uncivil, liberal and participatory models. In M. Glasius, D. Lewis, & H. Seckinelgin (Eds.), Exploring civil society: Political and cultural contexts (pp. 53–60). London: Routledge. Berman, S. (1997). Civil society and the collapse of the Weimar republic. World Politics, 49(3), 401–429. Chabal, P., & Daloz, J.-P. (1999). Africa works: Disorder as political instrument. Oxford: International African Institute. Fatton, R. (1995). Africa in the age of democratization: The civic limitations of civil society. African Studies Review, 38(2), 67–99. Kaldor, M., & Muro, D. (2003). Religious and nationalist militant groups. In M. Kaldor, H. Anheier, & M. Glasius (Eds.), Global civil society 2003. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Keane, J. (1998). Civil society: Old images, new visions. Cambridge: Polity. Kopecky, P., & Mudde, C. (Eds.) (2003). Uncivil society? Contentious politics in post-communist Europe. London: Routledge. Mamdani, M. (1996). Citizen and subject: Contemporary Africa and the legacy of late colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pedahzur, A., & Weinberg, L. (2001). Modern European democracy and its enemies: The threat of the extreme right. Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 2(2), 52–72. Rumford, C. (2001). Confronting ‘‘uncivil society’’ and the ‘‘dark side of globalization’’: are sociological concepts up to the task? from http:// www.socresonline.org.uk/6/3/rumford.html Shils, E. (1992). Civility and civil society. In E. C. Banfield (Ed.), Civility and citizenship in liberal democratic societies (pp. 1–15). New York: Paragon House. Stewart, S. (1997). Happy ever after in the marketplace: Non-government organizations and uncivil society. Review of African Political Economy, 24(71), 11–34.
DIANA DIGOL
Address of Organization 3 United Nations Plaza New York, NY 10017 USA www.unicef.org
Introduction United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) defines itself as a ‘‘driving force that helps build a world where the rights of every child are realized.’’ UNICEF is a unique organization among those working with the young: it has global authority and world wide representation. UNICEF is active in more than 190 countries. Its headquarters is in New York.
Brief History UNICEF was established on 11 December 1946 by the United Nations as a temporary agency. In 1953, the UNICEF’s mandate was extended indefinitely. On that occasion its original name ‘‘United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund’’ was shortened to the ‘‘United Nations Children’s Fund’’; the acronym remained the same.
Mission UNICEF’s original mission was to provide food, clothing, and health care to the European children facing famine and disease in the aftermath of the World War II. Over time, UNICEF’s mission has extended significantly in geographical scope and objectives. UNICEF’s mission statement provides that UNICEF advocates protection of children’s rights, assists meeting children’s basic needs and facilitates expanding their opportunities to reach their full potential.
Activities To pursue its mission, UNICEF adopts a macro as well as micro approach. It helps countries, in particular developing countries, to build their capacity to design and implement appropriate policies for children and their families. UNICEF provides its unique facilities to its partners for
Union of International Associations (UIA)
rapid response in emergencies to relieve the suffering of children and those who provide their care. UNICEF in particular focuses its attention on the most vulnerable groups of children: children with disabilities, victims of war, all forms of violence and exploitation, disasters, and extreme poverty. UNICEF combines in its work research and publications, field work and public awareness information campaigns. The International Child Development Centre, also known as UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence, Italy contributes towards strengthening the research capability of UNICEF and supporting its advocacy for children worldwide. From time to time UNICEF comes under attack for various reasons. The most recent example (2009) includes a perceived failure to prevent the killing of children and the practice of child slavery in Sudan.
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UNICEF’s major achievement has been and remains helping to save the lives of millions of children which otherwise might have been lost. For its merits, UNICEF was awarded the 1965 Nobel Peace Prize ‘‘for the promotion of brotherhood among nations.’’
Cross-References ▶ Charity, History of ▶ United Nations
References/Further Readings UNICEF. (2008). 2007 Annual report. Available free of charge at UNICEF home page. UNICEF. (2007a). The state of the world’s children 2008: Child survival. New York: UNICEF UNICEF. (2007b). Protecting the world’s children: Iimpact of the convention on the rights of the child in diverse legal systems. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.
Structure and Governance UNICEF is a part of the United Nations family of organizations. UNICEF’s monitoring body is a 36-member Executive Board elected for a 3-year term by the United Nations Economic and Social Council. Management and administration of the organization is performed from the headquarters in New York. Fund raising is additionally assisted through the offices in Japan and Brussels. The majority of industrialized countries host a National Committee for UNICEF; each of them functions as an independent local nongovernmental organization. There are seven UNICEF Regional Offices: in Panama, Switzerland, Thailand, Kenya, Jordan, Nepal, and Senegal.
Funding The UNICEF’s budget is based entirely on voluntary contributions. Two thirds of UNICEF’s annual budget come from the governments of the member states. One third are contributions from various intergovernmental organizations, private groups and individuals; most of it comes through the fund raising efforts of the National Committees for UNICEF and sale of greeting cards and products. UNICEF’s total budget in 2007 was $3,013 million.
Major Accomplishments Stopping wars, eradicating polio, ending female genital mutilation, providing clean water and improving sanitation are all among numerous UNICEF achievements. The Declaration of the Rights of the Child, adopted in 1959, institutionalized the rights of children, including a right to protection, education, health care, shelter, and good nutrition. The Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted in 1989 legally enhanced and enriched the protected rights of children.
Union of International Associations (UIA) DAVID HORTON SMITH, CARINNE FAVEERE
Address of Organization Rue Washington 40 B-1050 Brussels Belgium www.uia.org/
Introduction The Union of International Associations (UIA) is a very special, independent, nonprofit, scientific documentation center. For 102 years it has focused on a topic of increasing relevance: the nature and evolution of international civil society. INGOs (international nongovernmental organizations) and IGOs (intergovernmental organizations) play a role in every facet of twenty-first century life in all parts of the world. The UIA documents this development, recording information about organizations, their concerns, their philosophies, and their goals.
Brief History The UIA was founded in Brussels in 1907, became a federation under its present name in 1910, and was later registered under the Belgian law of October 25, 1919, as an international association with scientific aims. Its early work contributed to the creation of the League of Nations and the International Institute of Intellectual Cooperation
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(the predecessor of UNESCO). In 1951 a special ECOSOC resolution established cooperation between the United Nations and the UIA for the preparation of the Yearbook of International Organizations.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The UIA’s objectives are to: ● Facilitate the evolution of the worldwide network of nonprofit organizations. ● Promote understanding of how such bodies represent valid interests in every field of human activity – scientific, religious, artistic, educational, trade, labor. ● Collect and disseminate information on these bodies and their interrelationships. ● Present such information in experimental ways, as a catalyst for the emergence of innovative bodies. ● Promote research on the legal, administrative, and other problems common to these bodies.
Activities The UIA has a century of expertise in discovering the emergence of new organizations and of new organizational forms. Its database includes descriptions of over 60,000 international associations, representing every field of human endeavor in both the past and the present, and 300,000 of their international meetings (from 1980 to 2022, with, for example, 13,000 for 2006 alone). The UIA approach is scientific; the result is quality. The information presented by the UIA is structured, comprehensive, and concise. A standard framework makes comparison possible. In its year-round work to keep the database upto-date, the UIA gives priority to information received from the organizations themselves. Then it checks this information against other sources to present a reliable static picture of a dynamic situation. The UIA complements this information with a bibliography, statistical reports, descriptions of problems perceived and strategies adopted by international associations as well as values and approaches that animate them. Navigating this rich set of data is facilitated by over 500,000 hyperlinks. Ways of visualizing these links are also explored. Operating as the census taker of the international community, the UIA helps present new organizations to the world and serves as a permanent record of their existence. The UIA currently publishes its work online, on CD-ROM, and as books.
Structure and Governance The UIA is a nonprofit, a-political, independent, nongovernmental body. Its work is carried out by a SecretariatGeneral with the advice of a Council of its Full Members.
People who have demonstrated by sustained activity their concern for international civil society may be invited to become Full Members. Organizations and businesses with an interest in promoting and applying UIA’s work may become Associate Members.
Funding The UIA is self-financed through the sale of publications and membership subscriptions. The annual budget is approximately €740,000.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The databases of the UIA document 100 years of international civil society life in a structured, consistent format that allows comparisons and statistical analyses.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definitions and History of ▶ INGOs ▶ Membership and Membership Associations ▶ Non-Governmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ United Nations
References/Further Readings Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential (online) – Profiling and linking world problems, frameworks of human development and human values, interrelated strategies and solutions. Historical International Organization Documents (pdf) – Original sources on the development of civil society. International Congress Calendar (online, pdf) – quarterly, since 1960 – Gives details of locations, dates, subjects and contact addresses for over 12,000 future meetings. Yearbook of International Organizations – Guide to Global Civil Society Networks (online, book and CD-ROM) – 45th ed. 2008/2009 – Covering 60,000 international governmental and non-governmental organizations.
UNIOPSS ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization 15 rue Albert CS 21306 75214 Paris Cedex 13 France www.uniopss.asso.fr
UNIOPSS
Introduction Uniopss, the acronym for Union nationale interfe´de´rale des oeuvres et organismes prive´s sanitaires et sociaux National Union of Federations of Private Health and Social Groups and Organizations is the principal umbrella organization of private social welfare and healthcare associations in France and based as a not for profit organization on the French law of 1901. It represents about 25,000 organizations, organized into 23 Uriopss (regional umbrellas), and 110 national federations and unions. It does not adhere to a particular political party or religious orientation.
Brief History By 1945 following World War II, France had undertaken sweeping reforms to establish a comprehensive social security system, covering all aspects including health and social services. At this juncture, Catholic Church activists, alert businesses, and the Grandes Ecoles (the French elite schools) came together to defend private initiatives and social structures from statist intrusion. Charles Blondel, who was at the time a high-ranking civil servant as well as president of the Union Nationale des Secre´tariats Sociaux (National Union of Social Offices), developed a unifying concept. In October 1945, he called upon Jean Renaudin, an influential and socially interested industrialist, and Serge Oberlin, a physician who was, along with Blondel, a member of the National Healthcare Congress, to consider the issue of joining the forces of private health and social welfare nonprofit organizations. The initiative was pursued throughout late 1946 and into 1947, with the founding meeting of Uniopss held in April 1947 in Paris. The first congress in 1951 regrouped 12,000 associations in 87 department unions and 17 regional umbrellas.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The Union’s objectives are to organize and represent the interests of nonprofit organizations working for people in need, like the elderly, handicapped, youth, and poor; to enhance the solidarity of the sector in France and in Europe and contribute to its modernization; and to mediate between the state, regional public authorities, and nonprofit associations. As an umbrella organization, it focuses on supporting the work of the regional and local associations.
Activities The point of departure for all Uniopss activities is the enhancement of social welfare protection and services by uniting and strengthening private nonprofit action. Uniopss does so by promoting research within its thematic groups to identify priorities and propose action; by seeking the advice
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of researchers and scholars to develop forward-looking proposals; by sharing knowledge and providing technical support through guidebooks, multimedia tools, and its journal Union Sociale; by organizing thematic workshops and its general congress to encourage reflection on the development of public and social policies; and by representing and advocating for the values and opinions of its members through direct lobbying as well as participating in various national and European working groups.
Structure and Governance Like other umbrella organizations, Uniopss is governed by a Board of Directors (Conseil d’Administration), whose members, including leaders of regional umbrella organizations, are elected by the General Assembly. The Board selects the members of the Executive Committee (Bureau), including a president, two vice presidents, a treasurer, and a secretary, who oversee day-to-day operations. Uniopss is very aware of practicing the subsidiarity principle when it comes to the structure of the network. From early on, respect for the diversity in approach and methods of the departmental and regional actors was a focus and the main distinction compared to more centralized French state structures. Nevertheless, Uniopss was always convinced that coordination and regrouping strengthens the network and is important for forming a powerful voice when it comes to defending private nonprofit services.
Funding Public sector funding accounts for two-thirds of the revenue, which means a significant partnership with the state’s social welfare system. This partnership has two components: firstly, nonprofit organizations provide health and social services, financed by the government according to the subsidiarity principle; and secondly, nonprofit organizations are also involved by formulating and implementing public policies against poverty or in favor of the disabled, the elderly and the socially vulnerable.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Uniopss’s contribution to institutionalized civil society is the creation of a structured network, existing in France for more than half a century. Implementing this network of associations without confessional or ideological bias created the base for a dialog between public and private actors in the French social and healthcare sector. Uniopss’s position is heard in debates at the Assemble´e Nationale and the Senat (the two French national assemblies) several times a year.
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Cross-References
▶ Bloch-Laine, Franc¸ois ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ Partnership ▶ Subsidiarity ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings UNIOPSS. (2001). Actions de re´insertion. Mettre en place de nouveaux services, Culture et lutte contre l’exclusion. Paris: ESF. UNIOPSS. (2008). Cahier de l’Uniopss n 17: Le projet associatif. Un projet de socie´te´. Paris: Uniopss.
United Nations GABRIEL AMITSIS
Address of Organization 760 United Nations Plaza New York, NY 10017 USA www.un.org
Introduction The United Nations (UN) is an international organization committed to preserving peace and global prosperity through international cooperation and collective security. In 2008 membership totals 192 countries. When States become Members of the United Nations, they agree to accept the obligations of the UN Charter, an international treaty that sets out basic principles of international relations. The United Nations develops and monitors instruments of international public law in many thematic areas, including human rights, conflict resolution, humanitarian aid and economic progress. Its activities focus on both developed and developing countries across the world.
Brief History The forerunner of the United Nations was the League of Nations, an organization conceived in similar circumstances during the First World War, established in 1919 under the Treaty of Versailles ‘‘to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and security.’’ The League of Nations ceased its activities after failing to prevent the Second World War.
The United Nations officially came into existence on 24 October 1945, when the United Nations Charter had been ratified by China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, the United States and a majority of other signatories. United Nations Day is celebrated on 24 October each year.
Mission The UN’s mission is promoted based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members. According to the founding Charter, the purposes of the United Nations are: (a) to maintain international peace and security; (b) to develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace; (c) to achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion. In November 1997, the UN General Assembly passed a Resolution (cosponsored by 123 countries) declaring 2001 the International Year of Volunteers, designated the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme as the focal point. The objectives of the Year were increased promotion, recognition, facilitation, and networking of voluntary action worldwide. In September 2000, building upon a decade of major conferences and summits, world leaders came together at United Nations Headquarters in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration, committing their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme poverty and setting out a series of time-bound targets – with a deadline of 2015 – that have become known as the Millennium Development Goals.
Activities To pursue its mission, the United Nations promotes global activities on peace, development, and human rights’ protection. It provides a framework for the peaceful settlement of disputes, while during international crises, serves as a focal point for easing tensions and beginning negotiations. The United Nations also promotes peace through its development of a growing body of international law, as well as through development assistance. On the other hand, the United Nations advances human rights in many ways, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Human Rights Council (established on 15 March 2006 to replace the former UN Commission on Human Rights). Under
United Nations
certain UN human rights treaties, individuals can appeal against States for alleged violations of their rights, subject to the fulfillment of certain preconditions, including the exhaustion of all domestic remedies. The United Nations system has rather significant informal and formal arrangements with civil society organizations (particularly NGOs). NGOs are consulted on UN policies and programs, while they play a key role at major United Nations Conferences and as indispensable partners for UN efforts at the country level. At the same time, the United Nation is helping to promote the emergence of Civil Society Organizations in the developing countries. Nongovernmental organizations have been partners of the Department of Public Information (DPI) since its establishment in 1947. Official relationships between DPI and NGOs date back to 1968. The Economic and Social Council in its Resolution 1297 called on DPI to associate NGOs with effective information programs in place and thus disseminate information about issues on the UN’s agenda and the work of the Organization. Through associated NGOs DPI seeks to reach people around the world and help them better understand the work and aims of the United Nations. The DPI/NGO Section is part of the department’s Outreach Division and acts as its liaison between the United Nations and NGOs and other civil society organizations. It oversees partnerships with associated NGOs and provides a wide range of information services to them. These include weekly NGO briefings, communication workshops, an annual NGO conference and an annual orientation program for newly associated NGOs. In 2008 there were 1664 NGOs with strong information programs associated with DPI out of which 668 are also associated with ECOSOC. While consultative status with ECOSOC may be obtained by NGOs whose work covers issues on the agenda of ECOSOC, association with DPI also requires having effective information programs in place and the ability and means to disseminate information about the work of the United Nations. Moreover, the United Nations promotes volunteerism principles through the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) Programme, which was adopted by the General Assembly in 1970 with the aim to recruit, place, and administer the services of qualified volunteers, who provided professional support to UN agencies in various program countries. UNV’s mandate was further expanded by GA resolution 56/38 to include the role of focal point in the United Nations to raise awareness of volunteerism and provide technical cooperation to developing countries in the field of volunteerism to fully exploit its potential as a
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resource for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Based in Bonn, Germany, UNV is active in 140 countries. It is represented worldwide through the offices of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and mobilizes more than 7,500 UNV volunteers every year at national and international level. UNV also operates the Online Volunteering service, which connects development organizations directly with thousands of online volunteers who can provide services and advice over the internet.
Structure and Governance The UN family of organizations consists of: (a) The United Nations as such, made up of six main organs namely the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice and the Secretariat. All are based at UN Headquarters in New York, except for the Court, which is at The Hague, in the Netherlands. (b) The UN programmes and funds – such as the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Food Programme (WFP), working for development, humanitarian assistance and human rights. (c) The UN specialized agencies and analogous bodies, working in such diverse areas as health, agriculture, international aviation and meteorology. Related to the United Nations through special agreements, the specialized agencies coordinate their work with the United Nations but are separate, autonomous organizations. They include, among others, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), International Labor Organization (ILO), United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), The World Bank Group, and World Health Organization (WHO).
Funding United Nations is funded by its member countries through regular contributions based on a formula which takes account of the size of each member’s economy. The regular budget of the United Nations is nearly $1.9 billion per year. It pays for UN activities, staff, and basic infrastructure but not peacekeeping operations, which have a separate budget. The UN system spends some $15 billion a year, taking into account the United Nations, UN peacekeeping operations, the programs and funds, and the specialized
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agencies, but excluding the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Around half of this amount comes from voluntary contributions from Member States, the rest from mandatory assessments on those States. Apart from internal revenues, United Nations is supported by external resources promoted by international NGOs and charities, such as the UN Foundation, which was created in 1998 with entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s $1 billion pledge to support UN causes and activities. The UN Foundation is a platform for the corporate community to work with the United Nations on a broad range of global issues, such as Children’s Health, Climate & Energy, Sustainable Development, Technology, Women & Population and assisting other UN efforts worldwide.
Major Accomplishments Since 1945, the United Nations and its family of organizations, leaders, visionaries, and supporters have received at least 16 Nobel Peace Prizes in recognition of their unique contribution to world peace in its various aspects. Nobel Peace Prize laureates have included the Office of The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) (1954); The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) (1965); The International Labour Organization (ILO) (1969); The United Nations and its Secretary-General, Kofi Annan (prize shared, 2001) and The International Atomic Energy (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei of Egypt (prize shared, 2005).
Cross-References
▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Human Rights ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN ▶ UN Foundation ▶ UN Global Compact ▶ UNICEF ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Amerasinghe, C. F. (2005). Principles of the Institutional Law of International Organizations (2nd ed., Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law No. 36). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Baehr, P. R., & Gordenker, L. (1994). The United Nations in the 1990s (2nd ed.). Basingstoke: Macmillan. United Nations. (2008). The United Nations today. New York: Department of Public Information.
United Nations Foundation DIRK GROWE
Address of Organization 1800 Massachusetts Avenue, NW Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20036 USA www.unfoundation.org
Introduction The United Nations Foundation (UNF) and its smaller sister organization the Better World Fund (BWF) are notfor-profit corporations and are taxed as not-for-profit 501 (c) (3) public charities. The UNF is a grant-making charitable organization towards the United Nations (UN) which at the same time runs its own global campaigns and initiatives, while the BWF is informing mainly in the United States about the work of the UN. Both organizations are closely linked and share partly the same staff. Also the members of the board of directors are the same.
Brief History The United Nations Association of the United States of America (UNA-USA) honoured Robert Edward (Ted) Turner on the 18th of September 1997 with an award for his many years of support of the UN. During his acceptance speech, Turner surprised his audience with the announcement to donate US$1 billion to the UN over the next 10 years. The CNN founder, America’s Cup winner and at that time the biggest individual shareholder of the Time Warner Corporation established in 1998 the UNF and the BWF to make the money available for the intergovernmental organization, which went, at that time, through another climax of financial crises.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The UNF is supporting the UN through grant-making, by building public-private partnerships and in campaigning to increase the public awareness and support for the UN. The funds of the UNF are only intended to supplement programs, agencies, and funds of the UN and have to refer to the UN agenda. The specific areas of focus are at the moment ‘‘children’s health,’’ ‘‘climate & energy,’’ ‘‘sustainable development,’’ ‘‘technology,’’ ‘‘woman & population,’’ and ‘‘the United Nations.’’
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)
Activities The UNF established more than 300 partnerships, funded projects of over 40 UN agencies and worked with more than 100 governments worldwide. The UNF priorities have been funded up to the following percentages since its inception: Children’s health (50%); Environment (17%); Women & population (13%); Peace, security, & human rights (8%); and UN Strengthening (12%) (UNF, 2007: 2). The main recipients of project funding have been in the last years among others the WHO, UNICEF, and UNDP. Specific projects topics are at the moment eliminating malaria, reducing measles mortality, eradicating polio or disaster relief communications. Besides these newer projects which started in the last few years, the UNF has always run public awareness and partnership campaigns. At the moment the foundation has nine own campaigns and financially supports seven other ones.
Structure and Governance The board of directors of the UNF, which meets twice a year, consists of 14 high-ranking individuals from the fields of politics, academia, and civil society. Besides Turner, who is chairman of the board, other members are for example: Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, Kofi Annan, Muhammed Yunus and Thimothy E. Wirth, who is also President of the UNF and the BWF. The process of choosing suitable UN projects for UNF funding is closely linked to its strategic partner, the United Nations Fund for International Partnerships (UNFIP).
Funding Until June 2008 the UNF received over USD 692 million from Turner and forwarded USD 700 million from other resources towards UN causes (Preston, 2008: 1–2). The original idea was to close the UNF after 10 years but in 2007 Turner and Wirth announced that the UNF would become a regular endowment which will try to raise another billion for the work of the United Nations in the next 8 years. One reason other than to carry on the work of the foundation, was that Turner’s wealth fell from about US$10 billion in 2000 to US$2.3 billion in 2008. While Turner intend to keep his promise to donate US$1 billion to the UN/UNF now until 2015, the foundation will use about US$170 million of the outstanding US$300 million to start the endowment. Therefore the UNF needs additional donations to keep operating with an annual budget of US$100 million (Preston, 2008: 2).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Turner’s donation, at that time the biggest ever made to a single organization, stirred up the discussion about
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philanthropy. The UN and also global issues were not undisputable as recipients of philanthropic contributions in the United States of America. Also public-private partnerships became a very important topic for the UN and other intergovernmental organization. The UNF itself funded a number of additional projects of UN agencies/ funds, campaigned for different UN causes and started new initiatives linked to the work of the organization. According to the foundation’s own statements especially the partnership initiatives to eradicate polio and to reduce measles mortality are very successful. In the United States the foundation put pressure on political representatives to fulfill their obligations towards the UN and to strengthen the support of its work.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Foundations, Grant-Seeking ▶ Partnerships ▶ Planned Giving ▶ UNICEF ▶ United Nations ▶ Yunus, Muhammed
References/Further Readings Firoz, N. M., & Wrightman, G. (2002). How to start a non-profit charitable trust – the case of ted turners contribution to the United Nations. Competitiveness Review, 12(2), 102–112. Growe, D. (2008). Zivilgesellschaft: Zehn Jahre United Nation Foundation. Vereinte Nationen, 56(2), pp. 84–85. Growe, D. (1999). Eine hu¨bsche runde Summe’: Zivilgesellschaft:,HanoiJane‘und,UN-Ted’– Turners Schenkung an die Vereinten Nationen – Wirkung und Umsetzung – Philanthropie und Politik in den USA. Vereinte Nationen, 47(1), 23–26. Preston, C. (2008). Ten years later, Turner’s U.N. fund continues to evolve. The Chronicle of Philanthropy, XX(17), 1–2, from http://www.globalproblems-globalsolutions-files.org/pdf/articles/cp_6122008.pdf; 12/12/2008 Toepler, S., & Mard, N. (2007). The role of philanthropy within the United Nations system: The case of the United Nations foundation. In H. K. Anheier, A. Simmons, & D. Winder (Eds.), The innovation in strategic philanthropy local and global perspectives (pp. 167–182). New York: Springer. UNF. (2007). Fact sheet: $1 Billion for UN causes, from http://www. unfoundation.org/newsroom/press-kit.asp; 03/01/2007.
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) ▶ UNICEF
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United Way
United Way DOROTHY NORRIS-TIRRELL
Address of Organization 701 N Fairfax St Alexandria, VA 22314 USA www.liveunited.org
Introduction United Way organizations around the world raise funds and mobilize volunteers to create sustainable solutions to community problems. Evolving from the Charity Organization Society and Community Chest movements, the United Way is now a global network of more than 3,000 local nonprofit organizations operating in 46 countries and territories (http://uwint.org/devfinal/).
Brief History The roots of today’s United Way are found in the Charity Organization Society. Created by religious leaders in Denver, Colorado, in 1887, the Charity Organization Society coordinated service referrals and conducted the first ‘‘federated’’ fundraising campaign for 22 community agencies. Formalizing the strategy of community fundraising and allocations, the first Community Chest started in 1913 in Cleveland, Ohio. As the number of Community Chest organizations increased, the American Association for Community Organizations (AACO) was formed in 1918 as an umbrella organization. By 1963, after several association name changes, the term ‘‘United Way’’ was adopted. In 1974, United Way International, with a staff speaking eight languages, was created to serve the growing number of member organizations outside of the United States, including Canada, South Africa and Australia. In the early 1990s, the ‘‘Aramony Crisis’’ resulted in the President of the United Way’s resignation and conviction over the misuse of donor funds leading to strict internal financial controls and a revised governance structure.
Mission The United Way of America’s mission is ‘‘to improve people’s lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities.’’ Current focus areas include improving the health of Americans, lowering high school dropout rates, and fighting poverty among low wage workers with families. The mission of United Way International is ‘‘to grow and strengthen the global network of United Way organizations.’’
Activities The central focus of the United Way of America and United Way International is providing leadership and services to strengthen the capacity of the over 3,000 local United Ways around the world. Membership support services include training related to community needs assessment priority development and program outcome measurement, national brand advertising and research related to philanthropy, the nonprofit sector, and social and economic trends.
Structure and Governance A volunteer board consisting of 26 senior corporate leaders, organized labor, and other stakeholders governs United Way of America. Leadership accountability is managed through committees including Finance, Audit, and Compliance. The United Way of America has 1,287 member organizations that raise and allocate funds in their local communities. United Way International’s 23 volunteer board members come from seven countries and territories representing multinational corporations, smaller entrepreneurial businesses and the United States Government.
Funding The United Way of America’s work is financed primarily from membership support payments from local United Ways. Local United Ways receive their funding largely from workplace giving campaigns. Additional revenue is generated from the sale of promotional materials, program service fees, investment activity, and conferences. For the year ending 2007, revenue for the United Way of America was $78,463,000 (http:// www.liveunited.org). United Way International’s revenues for the year 2007 were $34,800,602 with over 90% from individual and corporate contributions (http://uwint.org/devfinal/).
Major Accomplishments Throughout its history, the United Way has been an innovative philanthropic organization. One of these innovations was the introduction of the workplace giving campaign in 1943 as a means for coordinated community fundraising, minimizing the disruption of multiple solicitations in the work setting and reducing the cost of fundraising for local nonprofit agencies. Recent achievement is evidenced in, among others, the creation of the United Way Financial Stability Partnership to strengthen communities by tackling the underlying causes of the financial hardship facing today’s families and continued growth in partnerships with corporate America and the
United Way
National Football League. Success for United Way International is seen in building the philanthropic sector around the world including fundraising, volunteer recruitment and nonprofit organization accountability in China, the creation of new United Ways in India, and the distribution of more than 900 grants in local communities in 85 countries and territories. The newest United Ways are in Argentina, St. Kitts, France, and India. In recent years, long term disaster relief has become a focus for both United Way of America and United Way International, assisting communities in the aftermath of hurricanes, tsunamis, and earthquakes.
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Cross-References
▶ Charity, History of ▶ Fundraising ▶ Umbrella Organizations
References/Further Readings Barman, E. (2006). Contesting communities: The transformation of workplace charity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Brilliant, E. (1990). The United Way: Dilemmas of organized charity. New York: Columbia University Press. Glaser, J. S. (1993). The united way scandal: An insider’s account of what went wrong and why. New York: Wiley.
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V Values LOEK HALMAN Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands
Introduction In everyday life people value the worth, desirability, utility, quality of things, goods, and actions using certain principles and standards often called values. Values are even considered to be crucial factors in everyday life according to the social sciences. All of them study values using a distinctive theoretical perspective. In economics the value of products, goods, and services are studied in terms of their utility. The economic theory of value is usually equated with the theory of price. In psychology, values are regarded the motivations for behaviors. In sociology values are considered to be social standards or criteria that can serve as selection principles to determine a choice between alternative ways of social action. Sociologists are interested in values as far as they are inherent to social systems, i.e., are culturally or structurally determined, or influence the orientation of collectivities. The interest in values is not only growing in social science, but also booming in contemporary fast changing societies. For example, in public and political discourses about a (dis)united Europe and its future development, the issue of values has come to the fore. The map of Europe is not only set by its geographical borders, but is more and more defined in the minds of its people. The discussions about Turkey’s accession to the European Union center around the assumed differences in fundamental values, while many people fear that a further European unification will gradually dissolve national identity and nationally unique value patterns. Similar questions play at the other side of the Atlantic where the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was established in 1994. Values are considered to have played a key role in this integration process, because ‘‘mass values have shaped the politics of continental integration in significant ways and. . . . Value change among the American, Canadian, and Mexican publics helps to explain why political leaders pursued NAFTA when they
did’’ (Inglehart et al., 1996: 3). At a global scale, there is an intensification of worldwide social relations, international trade and flows of information, which, according to some, will lead to an increasing cosmopolitan outlook and ultimately to a homogenization of cultures and consequently the end of clear distinctive national identities and the gradual disappearance of cross-national differences in fundamental values. The debates about values is further fuelled by the growing concern about the vanishing of certain traditional values and the waning of civic virtuous and community life that are at the core of the ‘‘good’’ society. Many people fear that a growing number of citizens is indifferent about society, and will become too narrowly focused on pure self-interest, being selfish, egoistic, irresponsible, political apathetic and morally obtrusive. For some it is therefore about time that the old ‘‘good’’ virtues and values are restored so that people become ‘‘decent’’ and responsible again, and that institutions and the sense of community are revitalized (Bellah et al., 1986, 1992; Fukuyama, 2000; Etzioni, 1996, 2001). Values, such as justice, freedom, equality, patriotism, and loyalty, determine what is considered normal and abnormal, decent and indecent, rational and irrational, desirable and undesirable, good and bad or right and wrong. They set goals and define priorities and as such they shape a society’s political, social, and economic performance and determine the direction in which these societies are moving (see Harrison & Huntington, 2000). This is not to say that values are the only determining factors or that values cannot be shaped by economic factors, and political and social conditions. Culture, politics, society, and economy are interlinked and changes in one will affect and work back on the other.
Definition The importance and significance of values may be widely recognized and accepted, less agreement exists on the meaning and reference of the term value. There is no consensual definition of values (Hechter, 1993) and little validated theory has developed on values thus far (Dietz & Stern, 1995: 264; Hechter, 1992, 1993). Values are hard to define properly and the sociological and psychological literature on the subject reveals a real terminological jungle. Lautmann’s (1971) inventory of numerous books and
H. Anheier, S. Toepler (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, DOI 10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4, # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
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articles yielded no less than 180 different value definitions. To a large extent, this conceptual confusion is grounded not so much in the nature of values as in the fact that social science studies values as immanent and not, as philosophy and theology do, as transcendent phenomena. One obvious problem in social research is that the values that people hold can only be postulated or inferred, because these values are mental constructs, and therefore are not visible or measurable directly. As Hechter (1993: 3) noted, ‘‘values can take many forms, but all of these are unobservable.’’ As a consequence, a value is a more or less open concept. Lacking an empirically grounded theory of values, many efforts have been made to distinguish values from closelyrelated concepts like attitudes, beliefs, opinions, and so on, which are also of a theoretical nature (Kluckhohn, 1959; Rokeach, 1973; Van Deth & Scarbrough, 1995). There is, however, a common understanding that values are somehow more basic or more existential than its related concepts. Attitudes, for example, are considered to refer to a more restricted complex of objects and/or behaviors than values. This type of theoretical argument assumes a more or less hierarchical structure in which values are more basic than attitudes. ‘‘A value is seen to be a disposition of a person just like an attitude, but more basic than an attitude, often underlying it’’ (Rokeach, 1968: 124). The same applies to the relations between values and theoretical concepts such as norms, beliefs, opinions, and so on. Most social scientists agree, however, that values are deeply rooted motivations, principles, or orientations guiding, steering, channeling, or explaining certain attitudes, norms, opinions, convictions, and desires which, in turn, direct human action or at least part of it. Values justify, motivate and legitimate human behavior, but they are of a more general nature. Values ‘‘define the main directions of action without reference to specific goals or more detailed situations or structures,’’ Parsons claims (1960: 171; see also Kluckhohn, 1959: 395; Rokeach, 1968: 160; 1973: 5). Adhering to a specific value constitutes a disposition, or a propensity to act in a certain way (Halman, 1991: 27; Van Deth & Scarbrough, 1995). Such a definition of values is a functional one and although it is more a description of what values do rather than what they actually are, it enables one to measure values as latent constructs, that can be observed indirectly, that is, in the way in which people evaluate states, activities, or outcomes.
Historical Background Although the term ‘‘values’’ is rather recently introduced, what nowadays are identified as values can be recognized in the virtues prevalent in ancient Greek philosophy.
Plato’s ‘‘ideas’’ and the ‘‘virtues’’ Aristotle distinguished and Stoicism pursued to ultimately achieve happiness defined for a long time in history the good moral life and offered the moral principles to discriminate between right and wrong actions, and good and bad behavior. These ideas were incorporated into Christian moral theology and used in moral philosophy to define and decide on the standards of right and wrong behavior. Virtues had a normative connotation, whereas the term ‘‘value’’ was mainly used in economics to denote utility or preferences and to evaluate the performance of an economy. Nietzche’s Umwertung aller Werte and Weber’s sociology and his idea of ‘‘value-freedom’’ were a kind of starting point for using the term ‘‘values’’ instead of virtue. Their ideas put public morality, and especially Christian morality, into perspective because moral judgments and convictions were considered private matters that could not be justified rationally. Whereas virtues refer to habits or traits that are basically good for you and society, values are intrinsically neither good nor bad. They are neutral in the sense that not necessarily lead to a better or life, decency, or happiness. Values are, however, considered prime motivators of behavior, a characteristic that appears in the works of early sociologists. Weber’s intriguing work on the protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism boosted the awareness that value orientations of mass publics do matter for and in society. Durkeim argued that without consensus or agreement on fundamental values, social solidarity would be threatened, society would become disintegrated and individuals vulnerable to anomie. Earlier Comte and Tocqueville noted that a society or democracy cannot survive if its citizens lack consensus about certain fundamental ideas and beliefs. The concept of values was further elaborated by scholars like Parsons who regarded values as ‘‘modes of normative orientation of action in a social system which define the main directions of action without reference to specific goals or more detailed situations or structures’’ (Parsons, 1960: 171). Values were attributed significant powers in social life and assumed to be determining and distinguishing factors for human actions. Several attempts were made to measure values empirically, but they were not undisputed, because most of these appeared to be highly selective in the sense that ‘‘the researcher knows what to look for beforehand and imposes certain categories of response upon the empirical situation (. . .). Observable reality is forced into accord with a preconceived model. Thus it is little wonder that functionalist research often finds ‘‘evidence’’ for its concepts: such evidence is never given a chance not to appear’’ (Spates, 1983: 34). Measuring values thus became a major issue and several
Values
refinements and new attempts were made to tap them, e.g., by applying content analysis but increasingly also by using survey research. Major contributions were made by Melvin Kohn (1969) and his study of values focusing on self-direction and conformity, and Milton Rokeach (1973) who distinguished expressive from instrumental values. Despite their efforts, a compelling substantive systematic theory in which values have a place did not develop. The existence of values in people’s minds can only be hypothesized, but compelling empirical evidence that they really exist above and beyond people’s beliefs, attitudes etc. is still lacking. Also the genesis of values and the process that generates them remain unclear and appear hard to prove empirically. Nevertheless the importance of values for human behaviors is not disputed, but exactly how and to what degree values determine behavior is still ambiguous. Because of this lack of sophisticated theory and decisive empirical support, the little guidance for understanding how values shape human actions, the high level of abstraction, and the problems of measuring them, the interest in values declined for some time (Hechter, 1993; Spates, 1983). Following the logic of economics, social phenomena became increasingly explained as the result of the rational calculations made by self-interested individuals who aim at maximizing their own individual utility. It was assumed that values only as relative prices and not as moral dispositions play an important role in that decision making process. In more recent years, however, interest in the cultural factor and thus values rose again, not in the last place because rational choice models could not explain all or even most of individual behaviors. Apparently people are not always only driven by a narrowly conceived selfinterest and thus are not always sheer rationally calculating and maximizing their own interests, but act also morally, or on the basis of normative considerations and values. Culture in general and values in particular were once again regarded important sources in human life and treated as a powerful active agent. As Hechter (1992: 227– 228) argues, ‘‘It is hard to disagree with the sentiment that values deserve a prominent place in the contemporary social scientist’s lexicon. Doing without them would challenge many cherished institutions and beliefs.’’
Key Issues One of the key issues to be solved in order to achieve progress in the genesis and efficacy of values is the problem of measuring values (see Hechter, 1992: 215). Numerous attempts have been made to achieve that. In the early days,
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the idea was to simply ask people to describe their own values, or to ask people what their values are, but as Rokeach (1973: 26–27) pointed out ‘‘a person might not be willing or able to tell us about them, or he might be highly selective in what he chooses to tell us.’’ Many people will find it extremely difficult to describe their values, even if they know what their values are. Therefore Kluckhohn (1959: 408) suggested focusing on the choices people make, while Dodd (1951) suggested to infer values from asking what people want. Others suggested a more indirect way of measuring values. According to them values are reflected in the media, thus in written documents, biographies, articles in magazines and newspapers, letters, speeches, and states of the union. Others have applied content analyses for analyzing values in this way (for example, refer to Spates 1983; Namenwirth & Weber, 1987). Since the 1950s, the survey instrument became increasingly popular to investigate values among populations.
International Perspectives The breakthrough of value research came when social and political scientists decided to investigate value differences not only among but also across populations. Almond and Verba’s pioneering work on Civic Culture examines political values in five countries and is one of the first empirical studies using the recently developed research technology of random sample surveys. They demonstrated convincingly that a particular pattern of orientations to political actions had major implications for the ‘‘way the political system operates – to its stability, effectiveness and so forth’’ (Almond & Verba, 1965: 74). Rokeach (1973) developed a measurement instrument consisting of 36 items that reflect 18 ultimate and 18 existential values. Respondents were asked to rank order these and these rankings appear to vary among different groups of people in different cultures. Hofstede’s (1980,1991,2001) international study among IBM employees resulted in five basic dimensions of culture which he considers values. Cultures differ in the degree to which they accept authority and inequality; differ in being individualistic or collectivistic, masculine or feminine; emphasize security and avoid uncertainties, and differ in being more focused on the future or the present. Each nation takes up a distinct position on the scale represented by each dimension (Hofstede, 2001: 29). Shalom Schwartz defines values as the ‘‘criteria people use to select and justify actions and to evaluate people (including the self) and events’’ (Schwartz, 1992: 1). Starting point for Schwartz is a list of ten value types that are recognized by all people across all cultures. These are ‘‘power,’’ ‘‘achievement,’’ ‘‘hedonism,’’
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‘‘stimulation,’’ ‘‘self-direction,’’ ‘‘universalism,’’ ‘‘benevolence,’’ ‘‘tradition,’’ ‘‘conformity,’’ and ‘‘security.’’ These ‘‘value types’’ can be confined to two basic orientations: openness to change versus conservation and self-enhancement versus self-transcendence (Schwartz, 1994: 239– 243). At the higher level, the level of countries, these ten values can be confined to seven higher order or culture value types. Harry Triandis, another psychologist and pioneer in investigating people’s basic values emphasizes the dimension of individualism versus collectivism. ‘‘Whether or not cultures are more individualistic or more collectivistic depends on two specific cultural syndromes,’’ according to Triandis (1995: 52), being: ‘‘cultural tightness versus looseness, and cultural complexity versus simplicity. The tighter and simpler a culture, the more collectivist it is’’ (Vinken et al., 2004: 10). A new step forward was taken when cross-national, repeated collaborative value surveys were fielded from the 1980s on. Especially important are the European Values Study (four waves till now: 1981, 1990, 1999, 2008) and its daughter the World Values Survey (see Halman, 2001; Arts et al., 2003; Arts & Halman, 2004; Halman et al., 2005; Halman et al., 2008; further see www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu). These surveys make it possible to study not only cross-national value differences, but also value changes. Based on the survey data from the European Values Study and/or the World Values Survey, Inglehart (1997) and Hagenaars et al. (2003) distinguish two basic value orientations that reflect two fundamental dimensions of change: the Traditional/Secular-Rational dimension reflecting the contrast between the relatively religious and traditional values that generally prevail in agrarian societies, and the relatively secular, bureaucratic, and rational values that prevail in urban, industrialized societies. The other dimension, Survival/Self-expression, also captures a wide range of beliefs and values, reflecting an intergenerational shift from an emphasis on economic and physical security above all, towards increasing emphasis on concerns of self-expression, subjective well-being, and quality of life. These dimensions appear to be robust aspects of cross-cultural variation, and they enable to locate any society on a two-dimensional map that reflects the societies’ relative positions at any given time. Although major changes are occurring along these dimensions, the relative positions of given countries are very stable.
Future Directions The above mentioned empirical studies provide interesting data, but the different methods employed and different conceptions of values used do not allow, at least for the time being, to compare the dimensions that are
distinguished by different social researchers. Although these dimensions appear correlated at the aggregate level, the extent to which they overlap and exactly why they overlap is less clear. Because they are theoretically differently underpinned one of the future directions of value research should be to construct a synthetic theory of value dimensions. Another future direction would be the solution of measurement problems in survey research. Spates (1983: 41) concluded that because surveys produce mainly descriptive data ‘‘they are of limited usefulness to the sociology of values as a field of research,’’ whereas Hechter (1992: 221) argues that questions in a survey are unreliable because ‘‘survey instruments generally do not provide the hard choices that are necessary to reveal our immanent choices.’’ They tend to overexeggerate. If values are conceived of as deeply rooted motivations or orientations guiding human action, surveys can be applied. Understood in this way, values may be detected through exploring underlying basic principles guiding a wide variety of behavioral and attitudinal items in a survey. Following Ajzen and Fishbein, one can argue that the number of children in a completed family, the use of birth control pills, visits to a family planning clinic, signing a petition for (or against) legalized abortion, etc., can be explained by a positive or a negative attitude towards family planning (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980: 88). In turn, this attitude may be explained by a more basic value, i.e., a modern or traditional orientation in the domain of family, marriage, and sexuality. So, two different steps can be distinguished in explaining behavior. First, different attitudes explaining several behavioral acts may be found. For instance, one attitude may explain behavior concerning euthanasia, another attitude premarital or extramarital behavior, again another behavior concerning homosexuality and so on. Then, the argument can be taken one step further arguing that all these different attitudes may be explained by a more general underlying guiding principle with a much wider scope. These more general guiding principles can be called values, although it must be admitted that the dividing line between attitudes and values in such an approach cannot always be clearly drawn. To elucidate this point could be another future direction. As argued, values understood in this way may be inferred from a wide variety of behavioral and attitudinal items. Although this presumes that the content of the theoretical construct value is sufficiently determined by the behavioral and attitudinal items included in a questionnaire, it justifies to trace what responses have in common, and to regard this common dimension a value (Halman & De Moor, 1994). In terms of analysis, this
Values
approach demands a search for latent variables or factors. Numerous statistical techniques are available and widely used to trace underlying factors or orientations, well known under the name of latent structure models. All these techniques have in common the detection of a latent variable explaining the correlations between different behavioral acts, attitudes, opinions, and so on. Put simply: these techniques can be used to detect the underlying orientations in the answers people gave to the questions asked. Apart from this measurement problem a main issue remains of course that a really convincing and validated theory of values has not been developed yet and that the definition of values is not agreed on. The terminological jungle remains, allowing for different interpretations and appraisals and thus different approaches to investigate them. So this is still another future direction of value research.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civil Society and Culture ▶ Civil Society and Religion ▶ Durkheim, Emile ▶ Etzioni, Amitai ▶ Identity ▶ Public Value ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Weber, Max
References/Further Readings Ajzen, I., & Fishbein, M. (1980). Understanding attitudes and predicting social behavior. Englewood-Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Almond, G. A., & Verba, S. (1965). The civic culture. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. Arts, W., & Halman, L. (Eds.) (2004). European values at the end of the millennium. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Arts, W., Hagenaars, J., & Halman, L. (Eds.) (2003). The cultural diversity of European unity: Findings, explanations and reflections from the European values study. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1986). Habits of the heart. Individualism and commitment in American life. New York: Harper & Row. Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton, S. M. (1992). The good society. New York: Vintage Books. Dietz, T., & Stern, P. C. (1995). Toward a theory of choice: Socially embedded preference construction. The Journal of Socio-Economics, 24, 261–279. Dodd, S. C. (1951). On classifying human values: A step in the prediction of human values. American Sociological Review, 16, 645–654.
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Etzioni, A. (1996). The new golden rule. Community and morality in a democratic society. New York: Basic Books. Etzioni, A. (2001). The monochrome society. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Fukuyama, F. (2000). The great disruption. New York: Touchstone. Hagenaars, J., Halman, L., & Moors, G. (2003). Exploring Europe’s basic values map. In W. Arts, J. Hagenaars, & L. Halman (Eds.), The cultural diversity of European unity: Findings, explanations and reflections from the European values study (pp. 23–58). Leiden/ Boston: Brill. Halman, L. (1991). Waarden in de Westerse wereld (values in the Western world). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Halman, L. (2001). The European values study. A third wave. Tilburg: EVS, WORC, Tilburg University. Halman, L., & De Moor, R. (1994). Comparative research on values. In P. Ester, L. Halman, & R. De Moor (Eds.), The individualizing society (pp. 21–36). Tilburg: Tilburg University Press. Halman, L., Luijkx, R., & Van Zundert, M. (2005). The atlas of European values. Leiden: Brill. Halman, L., Inglehart, R., Dı´ez-Medrano, J., Luijkx, R., Moreno, A., & Basa´n˜ez, M. (2008). Changing values and beliefs in 85 countries. Leiden/Boston: Brill. Harrison, L. E., & Huntington, S. P. (Eds.) (2000). Culture matters. How values shame human progress. New York: Basic Books. Hechter, M. (1992). Should values be written out of the social scientist’s lexicon?. Sociological Theory, 10, 214–230. Hechter, M. (1993). Values research in the social and behavioral sciences. In M. Hechter, L. Nadel, & R. E. Michod (Eds.), The origin of values (pp. 1–28). New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s consequences. International differences in workrelated values. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Hofstede, G. (1991). Cultures and organization. Software of the mind. London: McGraw-Hill. Hofstede, G. (2001) Cultures consequences. Comparing values, behaviors, institutions across nations. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Inglehart, R. (1997). Modernization and postmodernization. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Inglehart, R., Nevitte, N., & Basan˜ez, M. (1996). The North American trajectory. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. Kluckhohn, C. (1959). Values and value-orientations in the theory of action: An exploration in definition and classification. In T. Parsons & E. A. Shils (Eds.), Toward a general theory of action (pp. 388–433). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kohn, M. (1969). Class and conformity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lautmann, R. (1971). Wert und Norm: Begriffsanalysen fu¨r die Soziologie. Opladen: Westdeutsche Verlag. Namenwirth, J. Z., & Weber, R. P. (1987). Dynamics of culture. Boston: Allen & Unwin. Parsons, T. (1960). Structure and process in modern societies. Glencoe: Free Press. Rokeach, M. (1968). Beliefs, attitudes and values. San Francisco: JosseyBass. Rokeach, M. (1973). The nature of human values. New York: Free Press. Schwartz, S. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values. Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. In M. Zanna (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (pp. 1–66). New York: Academic 239– 243. Schwarz, S. (1994). Studying human values. In A. M. Bouvy, F. van de Vijver, M. Boski, & P. Schmitz (Eds.), Journeys into Cross-Cultural Psychology (pp. 239–254). Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger.
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Spates, J. L. (1983). The sociology of values. Annual Review of Sociology, 9, 27–49. Triandis, H. (1995). Individualism and collectivism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Van Deth, J. W., & Scarbrough, E. (1995). The concept of values. In J. W. van Deth & E. Scarbrough (Eds.), The impact of values (pp. 21–47). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vinken, H., Soeters, J., & Ester, P. (2004). Cultures and dimensions. Classic perspectives and new opportunities in ‘Dimensionalists’ cross-cultural studies. In H. Vinken, J. Soeters, & P. Ester (Eds.), Comparing cultures. Dimensions of culture in a comparative perspective (pp. 5–27). Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Venture Philanthropy GIULIANA GEMELLI Universita di Bologna, Bologna, Italy
Introduction After the 1990s, the new economy – generated by hightech and Internet business companies – produced enormous wealth in the US. The main difference vis-a`-vis the previous generation of business leaders was related to the fact that the new generation was much younger and determined to leave an impact on society beyond the boundaries of business. The interest of the common business people in giving practices was concentrated on generating social impact rather than on simply defining grant-making programs. When they became involved in philanthropy, new rich entrepreneurs came up with new ideas and jargon, using terms such as social venture, highengagement philanthropy, strategic philanthropy, scientific philanthropy, effective philanthropy, and philanthropic investments; they used acronyms such as SROI (social return on investment) and revealed a special taste for measurement (Council of Foundations, 2001; John, 2006). Actually, these terms were not totally new and in some cases had long-term historical roots. What was really new was rather the context in which these concepts ‘‘reemerged’’ and were applied to philanthropy.
Definition From the 1990s onward there were several attempts to define venture philanthropy, but there seems to be evidence that a universal understanding about the concept doesn’t exist. Usually, the concept refers to the application of venture capital practices in order to strengthen the role of philanthropy actors both on the side of the
donors as well as on the side of the recipients. The most relevant aspect of the dissemination of venture philanthropy practices is the strengthening of the relationship between actors who were originally ‘‘distant’’ or even ‘‘separated’’ in the framework of the traditional practice of grant-making, which mainly characterized the modus operandi of American style foundations. It is a matter of fact that tradition and innovation are not separated in the context of venture philanthropy: some historical case studies – not only in the US but also in Europe – reveal that the issues of taking risk and generating reciprocity between the donors and the receiver were at work since the late nineteenth century. Moreover if we analyze some religious traditions we can stress the fact that the practice of empowering society and individuals rather than simply ‘‘giving through charitable acts’’ is a recurrent aspect of philanthropic traditions. In order to situate the present debate it is important to set up some definitions (See Table 1). These definitions despite their different characterization have a common background: venture philanthropy has grown out of the desire of individuals and foundations to use a venture capital model to strengthen the capacity of charitable organizations. Jed Emerson, the inspirer of the Blended Value proposition (www.blendevalues.org) has characterized traditional philanthropy as ‘‘Transactional Philanthropy,’’ a philosophy of giving that distributes available resources as widely as possible. The usual foundation policy is a plethora of one-year grants and a primarily program-oriented giving focus that neglects building up organizational infrastructure. Venture philanthropy reflects the needs of a new emerging goal of philanthropy – capacity building. It looks at a new generation of entrepreneurs who want to make their capabilities effective at the social level. Venture philanthropy focuses on building up organizational capacity using multiyear grants and strengthening technical assistance. Its donors look for entrepreneurial skills and opportunities within the organizations and aim to increase their organizational sustainability. Venture philanthropy looks at long-term investment instead of short-term granting policies. Table 2 summarizes the key distinctions between older giving patterns and the newer patterns of venture philanthropy. One of the first examples of how venture philanthropy works can be retraced in the experience of the Roberts Foundation of San Francisco (http://redf.org), which uses the venture capital model to directly support a portfolio of entrepreneurial nonprofit social enterprises. The Foundation provides technical assistance, specifically designed for each project, and mobilizes groups of volunteers,
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Venture Philanthropy. Table 1 Selected Definitions Source
Definition
John, R. EVPA (2006)
‘‘Venture Philanthropy is defined primarily by the relatively high level of engagement of the founder in the organisation being supported, over an extended time period, injecting skills or services in addition to finance.’’
Cleaves, P. (2005)
‘‘It is an investment and relationship strategy that combines practices of venture capital models of the for-profit sector with the principles and publicbenefit missions of the non-profit sector.’’
Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors www.rockpa.org
‘‘An outcomes-driven mode of giving that seeks to increase the capacity of the grantees to deliver superior results’’
Ashoka – Innovators for the Public www.ashoka.org
‘‘It is defined as philanthropy which uses some of the best practices of the venture capital world, measuring the value of the donor dollar in terms of the social return of investment, to effectively build the capacity of citizen-sector organizations’’.
European Venture Philanthropy Association www.evpa.eu.com
‘‘It is an Approach to charitable giving that applies venture capital principles – such as long-term investment and hands-on support – to the citizen sector.’’
Morino Institute www.morino.org
‘‘It is the process of adapting strategic investment management practices to the non-profit sector to build organisations able to generate high social rates of return on their investments. Strategic management assistance is provided to leverage and augment the financial investment made. This approach is modelled after the high end of venture capital investors – the relatively few who work to build great organisations instead of just providing capital.’’
Social Venture Partners www.svpi.org
‘‘Venture Philanthropy takes some of the principles of venture capitalism and applies them to philanthropy. Venture Philanthropy is the process whereby, (usually wealthy) individuals invest time and money in voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Venture Philanthropy means funding organizations with not only financial resources, but also management and technical support. This support is focused on enabling nonprofits to build greater organizational capacity and infrastructure via long term, engaged relationships with investees.’’
business advisors, MBA interns, and Roberts business staff. In the last ten years the followers of this models proliferate not only in the US but also in Europe and Latin America. They agree on some specific issues and practices such as:
– Identifying social entrepreneurs who demonstrate commitment and creativity
– Selecting organizations through rigorous due diligence – Investing resources for organizational capacity building – Providing strategic advisorship for sustainability strategy
– Focusing on ‘‘social return’’ and accountability to the investors
– Planning exit strategies. The paradox of venture philanthropy is that is represented as a total innovation, but if one looks deeply into
the oldest traditions of philanthropy, it is quite evident that its main principles and patterns are deeply rooted in the past. A relevant example, among others, is the Maimonides principles of Jewish philanthropy, which were defined in the Middle Age. The ideal stage of philanthropy, according to Maimonides, is to enter into a partnership with those who receive the gift. You must place yourself on equal dialogue with the recipient and work together toward to the same aim. And Maimonides says the aim of the highest pattern of philanthropic action is not giving but generating social justice through action. The focus is on what happens to the giver and what happens to the relationships among human beings when a gift is given. While attending to a material need these patterns also are directed toward a spiritual transformation, which implies above all the profound commitment to the human spirit of mutual support.
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Venture Philanthropy. Table 2 Patterns of Giving: Traditional vs. Venture Philanthropy Old patterns of giving
Seeds of Change
Giving by compassion and subsidiary Giving primarily later in life
Giving ‘‘by design,’’ creativity and responsibility Giving throughout life
Foundations as the key institutions form
Foundations as one form among other (individuals, venture funds)
Social benefit equals the non profit sector
Social benefit can come from any other sector
Philanthropy corrects for the market because the market Philanthropy connects to the market because the market can is part of the problem produce a part of the solution Donors focus on their local communities
Donors focus both at local level as well in a global dimension of social problems
Donors make grants
Donors make investments through grants
Money is the resource and the only tool
Money is just one tool. Competence and influence are the resource. Knowledge is an asset
Donors keep grantees at army’s length
Donors highly engaged in developing partnerships
Donors give independently
Donors give independently and give together. Philanthropy mutual funds
Project based – not core funding
Funds general operations rather than projects
Short-term up to 3 years as a standard policy
Long-term investment
No exit strategy-opaque performance criteria
Promote financial self-sufficiency as ‘‘exit strategy’’
Routine management and administration of application and evaluation methods to select recipients
Leadership capable of responding and managing organizational change, development strategies, cooperation systems, devising, and monitoring performances
By-out of already consolidated external projects and avoid Spread risks across a collection of diverse investment, considering risk the full spectrum of assets they have available Uneven relations-division of labor between the donor who gives and the recipient who does
Equal partnership in achieving a variety of financial and social goals
Historical Background The term Venture Philanthropy appears for the first time around 1969, in the speech of John D. Rockefeller III to the American House of Representatives, in the period during which Tax Reform Act was under discussion: "
Private foundations often are established to engage in what has been described as ‘venture philanthropy,’ or the imaginative pursuit of less conventional charitable purposes than those normally undertaken by established public charitable organizations’’. (Rockefeller, 1969. Quoted in D. Carrington, 2003 ACF Conference)
At that time, Rockefeller used the term ‘‘venture’’ to underline the role of private foundations and their capacity to act as risk taking organizations. In 1984, the annual report of the Peninsula Community Foundation (which later on merged into the Silicon Valley Community Foundation) mentioned ‘‘venture philanthropy’’ with a focus on ‘‘high-engaged approach’’ based on five key issues:
1. Investment in the long term (3–6 year business plans) 2. Strong partnership between the donor and the nonprofit organization 3. Accountability-for-results process 4. Provision of grants and expertise 5. Exit Strategy. In 1997 a seminal article by Letts, Ryan, and Grossman, ‘‘Virtuous Capital: What Foundations Can Learn from Venture Capitalists,’’ originally published in the Harvard Business Review gave the concept of venture philanthropy an academic legitimacy and marked the starting point of an increasingly large-scale debate which combined practical and theoretical issues. This article inspired some foundations in the US to change their approach towards a more engaged system of practices and generated debate about the use of profit-like tools in the nonprofit sector. One of the first organizations to develop the practice of the theoretical orientation framed by Letts and colleagues was again the
Venture Philanthropy
Peninsula Community Foundation. It is a matter of fact that in the US, venture philanthropists were frequently also founders of community foundations. At the beginning of the new millennium this problematical approach crossed the Atlantic and became a framework of debate also in Europe. In 2006 the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) was created. In few years the association grew rapidly in membership and impact.
Key Issues One of the most relevant aspects of venture philanthropy seen from a critical perspective is its close link with business models. The main risk is an effect of mesmerization of the inputs given by the venture philanthropy approach to innovation practices in the traditional field of business practices and models. This risk has been emphasized by the increasing interlink between venture philanthropy and social entrepreneurship. This process implies an innovation effect in terms of implementing social and intellectual capital of social entrepreneurship, as is the case of some leading social venture philanthropy organizations. However, it also entails the risk that this model is monopolized by the business schools that are able to reproduce the pattern in the framework of the mental map of business practices. Considered in itself, venture philanthropy is neither a panacea for the main issues that concern the changing patterns of philanthropy in the present nor a set of practices that just enhance the narcissistic behaviour of the new philanthropists eager to perceive the effect of their action in changing the world. It is rather the symptom of the necessity of bypassing the old categories that we received for the last century and to shape these patterns in order to meet the new issues. The main goals are to create a new capital market for philanthropy and to generate the consciousness that the wealthiest people in the world should work to combine the impetus for the application of wealth with the need to support the development of effective responses to social needs. There is nothing really new in this if we recall the famous dictum from Karl Polanyi that stresses a simple fact: no ruling class can be really dominant if it contemplates only its own interest and does not conceive any kind of concern and support to the needs of the other non-ruling classes and social groups. From this point of view venture philanthropy recalls an old issue with a new concern: the necessity to bypass the standardized classification between sectors and the mythology of the existence of a third sector separated from the other. The discussion is open. As in the old tradition of Alvin Johnson (the editor of the Encyclopaedia of the Social
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Sciences) and Lucien Febvre (the editor of the Encyclopedie Franc¸aise) who are both the modern brokers of ideas for the new encyclopaedic enterprises of the last century, this is still a challenge to be met in the new millennium, particularly in the frame of an international encyclopaedia of civil society.
Future Directions Over the past few decades, the boundaries between the public (government), private (business), and social (nonprofit/nongovernmental) sectors have been blurring while a new class of organization has been emerging. It has produced what can be denominated the fourth dimension of philanthropy, which is driven by social forces, is socially, ethically, and environmentally responsible, but at the same time is economically self-sustaining. Like a nonprofit, this new dimension of philanthropy can sustain a large variety of social purposes and missions. Like a for-profit it can generate a large range of products and services, improving educational programs, creating new jobs and new products, maximizing the benefits for stakeholder, while investing in social purpose and developing patterns of responsible, accountable behavior among partners from different institutional, social, and economic backgrounds, as well as from different disciplines and expertise frameworks. We can eventually call this emerging framework ‘‘For-Benefits.’’ It represents a new paradigm in organizational design. At all levels, they aim to link two concepts, that are held as a false dichotomy in other models: private interest and public benefit, which also represent the oldest historical roots of philanthropy in many different cultural and religious traditions. Whether in response to intrinsic values, stakeholder pressures, or market opportunities, pioneering organizations across all sectors and disciplines have been transforming themselves and adopting new models and approaches that challenge traditional paradigms. Some of these models and innovations include among others: ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
Base of the Pyramid Strategies Civic Enterprises Community Development Corporations (CDC) Community Development Financial Institutions Corporate-Nonprofit Partnerships Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Double- or Triple-Bottom Line Accounting Employee Ownership.
Venture Philanthropy could be a relevant element in all of these models, but it is not the panacea that assures their effectiveness.
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Cross-References
▶ Accountability ▶ Blended Value ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Judaism ▶ Polanyi, Karl ▶ Social Accounting for Social Economy Organizations ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Social Enterprise ▶ Social Investment ▶ Strategic Philanthropy
Morino Institute. (2000). Venture philanthropy: Landscape and expectations. Produced for the Morino Institute Youth Social Ventures by Community Wealth Ventures, Inc. Price, W. (2007). Introduction to venture capital. 2007. Presentazione alla Stanford University. Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, Marzo 2007. Schervish, P., O’herlihy, M., & Havens, J. (2001). Agent-animated wealth and philanthropy: The dynamics of accumulation and allocation among high-tech donors. Social Welfare Research Institute, Boston College. University Of Pennsylvania. (2004). Does venture philanthropy work? Wharton School, May 8, 2004. In: http://news.com.com/20301030_3-5206330.html. Venture Philanthropy Partners. (2003). High –engagement Grantmaker Survey Results and profiles. VPP report 2002. In: http://vppartners. org/learning/reports/report2002/profiles.pdf.
References/Further Readings Alexeeva, O. (2007). Philanthrocapitalism: Myth or reality? New philanthropy: A micro-world of busy youngsters. Articolo pubblicato nella Alliance Magazine, March 2007. In: http://www.allavida.org/alliance/ mar07e.html Baxter, CI. (1997). A basic guide to program-related investments. The Grantsmanship Center Magazine. Edizione di Autunno 1997. Bishop, M. (2006). The birth of philanthrocapitalism. The Economist survey of wealth and philanthropy. The Economist Newspaper Limited, London, February 23rd. Cardis, J., Kirschner, S., Richelson, S., Kirschner, J., Richelson, H. (2001). Venture capital: The definitive guide for entrepreneurs, investors, and practitioners. New York, Wiley. Carrington, D. (2003). Venture philanthropy: A new concept or an old idea re-wrapped? Presentazione alla conferenza della ACF - Association of Charitable Foundations. Nottingham, UK in aprile 2003. http:// www.davidcarrington.net/articles/docs/acf_venture.doc. Cleaves, P. (2005). Venture philanthropy: Origins & experiences. Meeting of the Association of Fund Raising Professionals, Austin, Texas. July 2005. In: http://www.afpaustin.org/site/DocServer/Microsoft_ PowerPoint_-_Venture_Philanthropy_July_05_AFP_.pdf?docID = 881. Council of Foundations. (2001). Venture philanthropy: A model of innovation vs. A model of intrusion. Board Briefing: Venture Philanthropy, February 2001. In: http://www.cof.org/files/Documents/Governing_ Boards/bb2venturephil.pdf. Edwards Michael, Just another emperor. The myth and realities of philanthrocapitalism. In http://www.justanotheremperor.org/ Gemelli, G (a cura di) (2004). Filantropia di Ventura. Rischio, responsabilita`, riflessivita` nell’agire filantropico. Legacy of MISP. Baskerville Unipress, Bologna, Italia. Grenier, P. Something ventured? The emergence of venture philanthropy in Europe, Paper n. PA061312 http://arnova.omnibooksonline.com/ 2006/data/papers/PA061312.pdf. Grenier, P., Venture philanthropy in Europe: Obstacles and opportunities EVPA, January 2006, http://www.evpa.eu.com/downloads/EVPA_ Research_Report_January_2006_Summary.pdf. John, R. (2006). Venture philanthropy: The evolution of high engagement philanthropy in Europe. Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. Working Paper. Oxford University Press. Kramer, M., & Porter, M. (1999). Philanthropy’s new agenda: Creating value.Harvard Business Review, November/December 1999. Available at: http://www.ncbf.org/Philanthropys_New_Agenda.pdf. Letts, C., Ryan, W., Grossman, A. (1997). Virtuous capital: What foundations can learn from venture capitalists. Harvard Business Review, March/April 1997.
Volkswagen Stiftung ALEXIA DUTEN
Address of Organization Kastanienallee 35 30519 Hannover Germany www.volkswagenstiftung.de
Introduction The Volkswagen Stiftung (hereafter also: Volkswagen Foundation) is the largest private foundation supporting research in Germany. It is an independent and autonomous foundation and no subsidiary of the automobile giant VW.
Brief History After the Second World War, investigations started concerning the ownership of Volkswagen, for a handful of reasons. ‘‘Volkswagen’’ was, before it became its own brand, a type of car (literally ‘‘the people’s car’’) considered to be low budget cars accessible to the broad public. Employed by Hitler in his campaign for mass motorisation, it drew its capital from the confiscation of trade unions’ budgets and the collection of saving for the alleged ‘‘people’s car.’’ Production never really started in the factory (‘‘Volkswagenwerk’’) located in Wolfsburg in Lower Saxony. After World War II, the Volkswagenwerk was placed in the hands of the British. Ambiguous regulations led to a decade-long ownership battle. Final ownership was settled (although ownership doubts never really dissolved) by the Federal Republic of Germany, and the state
Voluntary Sector Compacts
of Lower Saxony. The two parties agreed on putting 60% of the company’s shares onto the stock market and to launch a science foundation from its benefits. The foundation was officially created in 1961 and started its funding activities the following year. First called ‘‘Stiftung Volkswagenwerk,’’ the foundation was renamed Volkswagen Stiftung in 1989.
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Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Independent
References/Further Readings Nicolaysen, R. (2002). Der Lange Weg zur VolkswagenStiftung. Go¨ttingen, Germany: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Mission The ‘‘foundation of knowledge,’’ as the Volkswagen Stiftung likes to qualify itself, focuses on ‘‘forward-looking fields of research’’ in all disciplines and is particularly fond of providing grants for projects with intercultural or interdisciplinary approaches.
Voluntary Sector Compacts MARILYN TAYLOR University of the West of England, Bristol, UK
Activities Since the foundation is not dependent on the benefits of the company but of its own investments and capital, it is autonomous and independent in its funding choices. The Volkswagen Stiftung concentrates on a limited number of projects, especially within social sciences and humanities and makes sure they become core references by the time their grant ends. It made a point of honor in funding initiatives enriching the education and research structures in Germany.
Structure and Governance The Volkswagen Foundation statute of a nonprofit foundation under German private law also guarantees its independence from the Volkswagen Company. The executive committee is a ‘‘Kuratorium,’’ consisting of 14 members, half of them appointed by the Land of Lower Saxony, the other half by the German Federal Government.
Funding The Volkswagen Stiftung was designed for funding science and research in Germany. The foundation’s capital amounted to €2.4 billion in 2008. Returns on investments of that sum constitute the available funding volume. More than 90 employees work towards allocating and multiplying the most important private budget dedicated to research every year. Indeed, the Volkswagen Stiftung is announcing a total grant volume of over €100 million per annum.
Accomplishments In 46 years of existence, the Volkswagen Foundation has funded nearly 30,000 projects representing a funding volume of over €3.35 billion. It is the largest nonprofit foundation funding science projects under private law in Germany and a reference in the academic world.
Introduction The idea of a Compact – as a framework of the principles governing relations between government and the voluntary and community sector (VCS) – first took root in the United Kingdom in the late 1990s and has come to be understood as an agreement between the sectors with guidelines on how the two sectors should work together. Taken up with enthusiasm in 1997 by the New Labour government there, it was an idea that attracted interest from a number of other countries, some of whom – such as Canada – had already been thinking along similar lines. For advocates of the idea, the Compact represents an important recognition by the state of the contribution that the sector makes to society. It has the potential to increase understanding between the two sectors, as well as protecting the independence of voluntary and community organizations (VCOs) at a time when they are becoming increasingly central to market-style welfare reforms. But critics see it as marking the co-option of the sector into government agendas and the privatization of welfare or, alternatively, as a symbolic gesture with no real teeth. This entry will focus largely on the English Compact as the earliest and most comprehensive example of a Compact, but draw on experience elsewhere to illustrate what has been learnt so far about their relevance, implementation, and effectiveness.
Definition The English Compact (Home Office, 1998) has been defined by government as an agreement between government and the voluntary and community sector (VCS) to improve their relationship for mutual advantage and community gain. It underlines government’s commitment to the sector, recognizes its ‘‘fundamental’’ contribution to a democratic, socially inclusive society and sets
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out guidelines for how both parties should work together. Launched in 1998, with parallel agreements in the other UK countries, it consists of a framework of principles with five codes of practice: on funding and procurement; consultation and policy appraisal; volunteering; Black and minority ethnic voluntary and community organizations (VCOs); and community organizations. The Compact contains undertakings from both government and the VCS, and on government’s side, applies to all central government departments as well as nondepartmental public bodies that have a relationship with the VCS. In addition, by April 2008, all but 11 local authority areas in England were covered by a Local Compact, typically with all public bodies signed up through the Local Strategic Partnership – a multi-agency nonstatutory partnership that exists in each English local authority area. Compacts were being developed in the remaining areas. The national Compact is reviewed at an annual Ministerial meeting which reports to Parliament. A Commission for the Compact oversees the Compact and its codes of practice, in partnership with government’s Office of the Third Sector, which represents the interests of government departments, and Compact Voice, which represents the interests of the VCS. A Compact Advocacy Program takes up cases of noncompliance and uses its casework to campaign for long-term change. The Compact idea has been taken up in a number of countries beyond the United Kingdom. The English Compact website reports that 25 countries showed interest when the Compact was first launched and, although there is no comprehensive list, there appear to be Compact-like provisions in Canada, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, France, New Zealand and Poland. Drafts are in place in Hungary, Slovenia, and Sweden, while a change of government in 2007 has brought the Compact onto the agenda in Australia. The nature of these agreements varies considerably in terms of length and coverage. Some are better described as government policies or general statements of intention (e.g., New Zealand); others consist largely of government commitments towards the VCS (e.g., the Welsh Voluntary Sector Scheme). There is also interest in a compact-style agreement at supranational level in the European Union. The position regarding local Compacts is less clear. It is likely that the countries of the United Kingdom are the most advanced in this regard, with the idea of regional Compacts also under discussion in England, but Compact style agreements are also in place in some Canadian states. In the absence of a federal initiative, all Australian states have developed some kind of agreement, although these are rarely comprehensive.
Historical Background The proposal for an English Compact was first made by an independently funded Commission on the Future of the Voluntary Sector, commonly known – after its Chair – as the Deakin Commission. One of the main recommendations of this Commission was for a ‘‘concordat’’ between government and the VCS to lay down basic principles for future relations. While this proposal was rejected by the Conservative government of the day, it was picked up with enthusiasm by the main opposition party – New Labour – which committed itself to a ‘‘compact’’ in its preelection statement in 1997. On coming to power later that year, it set up a Ministerial Taskforce to progress the idea. At the same time, an independent VCS Working Party on Government Relations was set up, chaired by an influential excivil servant, Sir Kenneth Stowe, and this, with its wider reference group of some 100 VCOs, became the primary channel for negotiations with government. After a multilayered consultation exercise which is said to have involved some 25,000 organizations, the national Compact was published in the autumn of 1998. Four of the five national codes of practice followed in 2000 and 2001, with the fifth – on Community Groups – published 2 years later in 2003. Parallel compacts and codes of practice were also developed in the other UK administrations. For many VCOs, the principal contact with government is at local level and the idea of Local Compacts was gaining ground even before the National Compact was signed. A survey in 1998 indicated that a growing number of local authorities had or were developing some kind of agreement with the local VCS at that time, while the first local Compact as such in England was published by Dorset County Council in 1999. Local Compact development was strongly encouraged by national government and Local Compact Guidelines were published in 2000. Again, this process was mirrored in the other UK countries. Despite the high profile given to the Compact, early evaluations reported disappointing progress, nationally and locally. In 2002, therefore, a Treasury-led review reaffirmed government’s commitment to the Compact. Champions were appointed at a senior level in each government department and government regional offices. The annual meeting with Ministers, meanwhile, set deadlines for local authorities to have a published Local Compact and a Compact Advocacy Program was introduced in 2003. However, reviews continued to report slow progress and low levels of awareness and, in 2007, the Commission for the Compact was launched as a Nondepartmental Public Body – at arm’s length from government – to oversee Compact implementation. The VCS Working Party on Government Relations was meanwhile
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relaunched in 2006 as Compact Voice – a Local Compact Voice network had been established in 2004.
Key Issues Much of the research evidence on Compacts to date comes from the UK countries and Canada, so the following discussion is based largely on experience in these countries. Hard research evidence on their impact is difficult to find. Compacts have generally been part of a wider policy process and any change in relationships or in government practice would be hard to attribute solely to their influence. While there are positive stories to tell, however, the evidence still suggests that there is a sizeable gap between the intentions of the Compact and practice on the ground (Plowden, 2003). In 2003, 5 years after the launch of the English Compact, a review suggested there were few concrete outcomes, while more recent research continues to report patchy implementation (Craig et al., 2005). Continuing evidence of a widespread lack of awareness of its existence or implications, or its low priority in relation to other policy imperatives, indicates the scale of the challenges still being faced. Issues like full cost recovery, length of contract, adequate time for consultation and prompt payment, which feature in the English codes of practice, are still subjects for concern in the VCS – more honored in the breach than the observance according to a recent Green Paper by the Conservative party. In one recent study by Compact Voice, only 30% of respondents viewed the Compact as ‘‘important’’ or ‘‘very important’’; a quarter felt it was completely ineffectual or irrelevant. The Canadian Accord meanwhile is said to have produced disappointing results so far. Nonetheless, there are many Compact advocates. In areas where relationships between the sectors are good, research suggests that it can help to cement and spread good practice. Successive studies attest to the value of the process of agreeing a Compact for establishing trust and understanding between the sectors, as well as awareness on the government side of the value of the VCS contribution. The publicity attached to such agreements raises the profile of the VCS and even in Canada where commentators report disappointing progress on the Accord, Kathy Brock (2008) suggests that there have been important shifts in attitudes and in the nature of the debate, which may bear fruit in the future. This may well be the case elsewhere. The key issues which are raised by research so far can be divided into three: substantive debates about the nature of the Compact; challenges and persistent barriers to effectiveness; and lessons from the ground on the factors that help to make a Compact work.
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Substantive Debates
Probably the two major substantive issues raised by the Compact as a policy instrument relate to its legal status and its impact on VCS independence. Legal Status
In most of the countries that have Compact-style agreements (Poland is the main exception), the agreement is not enshrined in law. This is an issue that has prompted considerable debate. Many point to the slow progress on Compact agreement and implementation as evidence that legal status is essential along with the sanctions it entails if the Compact is to become more than a piece of paper, especially given the many competing priorities that all partners face. Indeed, both main political parties in England have called for measures to improve enforcement and its legal status is now under review. However, others endorse the looser, more flexible status of most Compacts albeit with robust systems for review and mediation. Thus, in Wales, whose Voluntary Sector Scheme contains a range of government commitments towards the sector, commentators have argued that it is the intensive contact between the sectors that is designed into the Scheme that is the best guarantor of success, meaning that issues can be dealt with informally before they become major problems. Here legislation has created a Voluntary Sector Partnership Council which meets four times a year with Welsh Assembly Members and Ministers and in addition each Minister is expected to meet twice a year with relevant VCS networks in their field. In England, too, there are systems to address compliance, including the Annual Ministerial Meeting and Report to Parliament, with its Action Plan against which the following year’s progress can be assessed, and the Compact Advocacy Program. The latter can claim some notable successes in changing practice at national and local level, having handled over 100 cases and saved over £40 million for the sector. However, attendance at the annual Ministerial Meeting is reported to be variable, while a proposed kite-marking scheme has not yet been implemented. On the other hand, in principle at least, the existence or otherwise of a working Compact is taken into account in dealings between central and local government, providing a useful benchmark in relation to assessments of local authority performance or allocation of funds. Co-option
Another key debate in relation to the Compact relates to independence. In 2001, an influential commentator, Ralf Dahrendorf, counselled firmly against ‘‘the embrace of the state,’’ warning that the ‘‘independence that is the oxygen
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of charity’’ would be ‘‘stifled by the flirtation with political power.’’ A number of academic articles argued a similar case: a recent discussion paper for the Australian Institute doubted whether a Compact would provide long-term solutions to the relationship predicament between government and the nongovernmental sector there (Edgar, 2008). In a contract culture, some saw the Compact as a way in which the state was creating a ‘‘manageable terrain of governance,’’ drawing on Foucauldian ideas about the persistence of state power and state agendas in new forms of governance (Morison, 2000; Carmel and Harlock, 2008). On the other hand, a commitment to the independence of the VCS has been at the heart of the English Compact, which recognizes the right of VCOs to criticize government policy even when in receipt of government funding. Research suggests that the Compact has been welcomed by many VCOs at local level as a way of increasing the local state’s understanding of the nature and potential of VCS activity and also of the need for independence. The point has also been made that, although the English Compact contains undertakings from both government and the VCS, many agreements focus solely on government commitments, with little emphasis on what the VCS should do in return. Even in the English Compact, the commitments from government outweigh those from the VCS. Challenges and Barriers
Even with the high-level commitment to the national Compact in England and the shared values that underpinned its negotiation, progress there has been slow. But sustaining commitment to the Compact process over time is a major challenge. A change in government can act as a spur to Compact development: in England, the Compact only became possible with the advent of the New Labour government and the same applies to the Rudd government in Australia. But a change of government can also cause the Compact to fall off the agenda. The French Charter lost momentum with the change of government in 2002, while, in New South Wales, a change of leader, even with the same party in power, meant the Compact was no longer a priority there. In the United Kingdom, local government reorganization and redrawn boundaries often triggered Compact development, but Craig et al., 2002, 2005 also found cases where momentum had been lost with a change in political administration. They suggested that the relationship between key players was pivotal – Compact development was often disrupted when a key player moved on. Their research also showed that despite the national commitment to the Compact, the pace of policy change under New Labour meant that Local Compact development was often put on the back
burner as more urgent demands came from central government. Compacts were competing for attention in a very crowded policy environment. A second challenge is reach: a common finding in many evaluations has been that awareness of the Compact does not reach far enough beyond the key players on either side. The need to improve communication is a perennial feature on Compact Action Plans and the difficulties of reaching smaller and BME organizations were recognized in the English Compact by the negotiation of additional codes of practice for these two parts of the sector. Related to this is the issue of mainstreaming. Compact practice needs to be institutionalized within the working of every public body and policy if it is not to be dependent on political whim or the competence and interest of individual officers. A third challenge relates to culture change. If the Compact is to be effective and to respect the independence of the third sector, then public sector cultures need to change. The evidence so far is that it is very difficult to transform relations where there is a legacy of mistrust – there is an argument that the Compact is most successful where it is least needed. Recent studies underline the need for training and for policies and structures within the state to be Compact-proofed (Craig et al., 2005). Problems may also arise if the process is seen to be too onesided. There are examples where state actors have drafted Compacts without consulting with the VCS. These are unlikely to gain much confidence. But seeing Compacts solely in terms of their impact on state attitudes and operations is also unlikely to be satisfactory and could be seen as contrary to the spirit of the Compact – despite the difficulties of securing compliance in a diverse VCS. The disappointing trajectory of developments that many Canadian commentators observe has been attributed to the fact that government and the VCS there were working to different agendas. Finally, the complexity of the endeavor needs to be acknowledged. If progress has been slow, this is in no small part due to the complexity of both sectors and the relationship between them. Success Factors
The research so far identifies a number of factors as necessary to the successful development and implementation of Compacts. These include: Communication
Implementation and the confidence of both sectors depends on individuals beyond the key players being aware of the provisions of the Compact and being willing to refer to the Compact when things go wrong. Case
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studies of successful mediation and Compact ‘‘wins’’ also increase confidence and give it teeth. Monitoring and review
Compact momentum can flag once an agreement is signed. Regular review is essential both to keep the agreement alive and to address noncompliance. Resources
Effective communication and review require resources, especially if Compact awareness is to reach all parts of both sectors – particularly important are resources for the VCS infrastructure to raise awareness of the Compact in all parts of the sector and ensure that it is both used and effectively monitored. Champions
At the same time, commitment to the Compact needs to be championed in government – research has suggested that leadership at a high level makes a difference as well as the appointment of champions with the status, responsibility and resources to promote Compact awareness and compliance. Embedding within mainstream structures and processes Compact compliance cannot depend on individual awareness – structures and policies need to be Compact proofed. Conversely, the Compact needs to be integrated with government structures and processes, including commissioning and procurement, if it is to become part of government’s core business. Political support
Cross-party support is essential if the Compact is not to be derailed by a change of government. It is also important to ensure that national and local politicians understand and support the Compact. A multilevel approach
If Compact compliance it to be mainstreamed it needs compliance at all levels and in all parts of government. Otherwise good practice in one part of government will easily be cancelled out by competing demands elsewhere. Both comprehensive and focused
Broad principles need to be translated into firm commitments if the Compact is to make a difference – the devil is likely to be in the detail. But focusing purely on some aspects of the relationship or particular policy fields can limit its usefulness. Some Compacts have focussed mainly on funding. While this is important, it can also reinforce a narrow interpretation of the Compact as being mainly
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about service delivery or state-funded organizations. A positive understanding of the role of the sector in the democratic process is equally important if the sector is to thrive. Similarly while it is useful to look at how the Compact can be applied to particular policy fields, specialist agreements need to be based in an overall framework that can cut across specialisms. A holistic approach is needed, especially for the many VCOs which work across policy fields and the boundaries of government departments. A long-term view
The slow progress of the Compact even in England suggests that Compact development and implementation is a long-term endeavor. It helps to build quick practical wins into Compact development – they can build support for the Compact – but a long-term commitment is essential. Relevance to the local context
The UK national Compacts have often been used as templates in other countries and for Local Compacts. But experience suggests that simply transferring the words from one policy context to another is not enough. It short circuits the process of mutual understanding and debate that is a crucial feature of the Compact and may fail to address key local issues and legacies.
Future Directions There are still mixed views as to the value of the Compact. Depending on the context within which it operates, it can act as a thermometer against which to assess the health of the relationship, a lever for change where this is necessary, a rallying point, and a longstop or a ‘‘life-belt’’ if all else fails. Research suggests that history is important. Compacts have been most successful in localities and policy areas where good relationships between the sectors have built up over time. But does this mean that Compacts most likely to be successful where they are least needed? There are doubts as to how far a Compact on its own can turn around a relationship that is not working. On the other hand it is essential to take a long-term view. It is possible to argue that the success of the Compact will only become apparent when it is not needed any more. Until then, the importance of smaller incremental changes and changes in understanding for those who benefit from them should not be underestimated.
Cross-References
▶ Dahrendorf, Ralf ▶ Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations ▶ National Council for Voluntary Organizations ▶ Third Way
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References/Further Readings Brock, K. (2008, June). Policy windows and policy failures: Using kingdon to explain the later life cycle of the voluntary sector initiative. Paper presented to the annual Canadian Political Science Association meeting, Univeristy of British Columbia. Burloux, J. (2008). Un Accord Europeen avec la Societe Civile: Pour un Union Europeenne moins distante, from www.ecas-citizens.eu, accessed 11/11/2008. Carmel, E., & Harlock J. (2008). Constituting the third sector as a governable terrain: Partnership, procurement and performance. Policy and Politics, 36(2), 155–171. Carrington, D. (2002) The compact – the challenge of implementation. London: The Home Office. Casey, J. et al. (2008). Advocacy in the age of compacts: Regulating government-community sector relations – international experiences (Working Paper No. 76). Centre for Australian Community Organisations and Management (CACOM), University of Technology, Sydney, from http://www.business.uts.edu.au/cacom/publications/ WP76.pdf. Compact Working Group and the Home Office. (2000). Consultation and policy appraisal: Compact code of good practice. London, from www. thecompact.org.uk, 11/7/2008. Compact Working Group and the Home Office. (2001). Black and minority ethnic voluntary and community organisations: Compact code of good practice. London, from www.thecompact.org.uk, 11/7/ 2008. Compact Working Group and the Home Office. (2003). Community groups: Compact code of good practice. London, from www.thecompact.org.uk, 11/7/2008. Compact Working Group and the Home Office. (2005a). Funding and procurement: Compact code of good practice. London, from www. thecompact.org.uk, 11/7/2008. Compact Working Group and the Home Office. (2005b). Volunteering: compact code of good practice. London, from www.thecompact.org. uk, 11/7/2008. Craig, G., Taylor, M., Bloor, K., & Wilkinson, M. (2002). Contract or trust: The role of compacts in local governance. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Craig, G., Taylor, M. et al. (2005). The paradox of compacts: Monitoring the implementation of compacts (Online Report 02/05). London: Home Office. Edgar, G. (2008). Agreeing to disagree: Maintaining dissent in the NGO sector (Discussion Paper No. 100). Manaku, ACT: The Australia Institute. Government of Canada. (2001). An accord between the government of Canada and the voluntary sector, from www.vsi-isbe/eng/relationship/pdf/the_accord_doc.pdf, 11/11/2008. Home Office. (1998). Getting it right together: The compact on relations between government and the voluntary and community sector in England. London: Home Office. Institute for Voluntary Action Research. (2008) Success factors for the implementation of local compacts. Birmingham: Commission for the Compact. Kendall, J. (2003). The voluntary sector. London: Routledge. Lewis, J. (2005). New labour’s approach to the voluntary sector: Independence and the meaning of partnership. Social Policy & Society, 4(2), 121–131. Morison, J. (2000). The government-voluntary sector compacts: Governance, governmentality and civil society. Journal of Law and Society, 27(1), 98–132.
NSW Department of Community Services and the Forum of NonGovernment Agencies. (2008). Working together for NSW: An agreement between the NSW government and NSW non-government human services organisations, from www.communitybuilders.nsw. gov.au/site/govinfo/150.html, 11/11/2008. Osborne, S., & McLaughlin, K. (2002). Trends and issues in the implementation of ‘voluntary sector Compacts’ in England. Public Money and Management, January-March. Phillips, S. (2003). In accordance: Canada’s voluntary sector accord from idea to implementation. In K. L. Brock (Ed.), Delicate dances: Public policy and the non-profit sector (pp. 17–61). Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Plowden, W. (2003). The compact: Attempts to regulate relationships between government and the voluntary sector in England. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32(3), 415–432. (See also Commentary by M. Taylor, pp. 432–6.) Simanowitz, S. (2008). Dancing to our own tune: The compact – strengthening voluntary sector independence. London: Compact Voice. The Scottish Government. (2003). Scottish compact baseline review, from openscotland.gov.uk/Publications/2003/08/17485/22802, 10/ 29/2008.
Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN) GARETH G. MORGAN
Address of Organization AUA Room B.010 The University of Manchester Oxford Road Manchester M13 9PL UK www.vssn.org.uk
Introduction The Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN) is the principal body linking academic researchers and others interested in the study of the voluntary and third sectors in the United Kingdom. Its membership (133 in 2008) is fundamentally multidisciplinary, comprising sociologists, management scientists, accountants, historians, political scientists and others. Beyond the formal membership, VSSN also operates an e-mail discussion list for questions and debates on research issues – this had 387 participants in 2008.
Brief History VSSN originated from a seminar series funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which was
Volunteer Management
hosted at the London School of Economics in the period 1993–1995. On conclusion of the seminar series, participants agreed to form a collegial network, in which members would take turns to host seminars. The first meeting of the network under the VSSN umbrella took place on 6 March 1996 at the University of Manchester.
Mission The objects of VSSN are for education and research concerning the third sector in the United Kingdom by promoting diffusion of knowledge, publication of research, and networking amongst researchers.
Activities VSSN’s activity is focused on its twice-yearly day seminars, held at various UK universities, typically providing in depth presentations of four or five papers. Jointly with the National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), VSSN also organizes an annual residential ‘‘Researching the Voluntary Sector Conference’’ which is the UK’s largest event in third sector research. The conference also includes a major session to support new researchers in the field. Since 2002 a directory of members’ research interests has been published every 2–3 years and from 2004 a website was established. In addition, much activity takes place through the e-mail discussion list.
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largely from subscriptions and seminar fees (the funds for the annual conference are handled entirely by NCVO so do not appear in the VSSN accounts). However, in 2008, VSSN won its first external grant to support the development of a UK-based academic journal Voluntary Sector Review: publication is expected to start from 2010.
Accomplishments VSSN is active in lobbying for the importance of UK research concerning the third sector, and was formally involved in the consultations leading to the ESRC and the UK Government’s Office of the Third Sector jointly commissioning a £10 Million Third Sector Research Centre in 2008.
Cross-References
▶ National Council of Voluntary Organisations (NCVO)
References/Further Readings Halfpenny, P., Harris, M., & Scott, D. (2005). History of the Voluntary Sector Studies Network, from www.vssn.org.uk/about/history.htm. NCVO & VSSN. (2008). Researching the Voluntary Sector Conference (booklet of abstracts). London: NCVO. VSSN Annual Reports and Accounts. (2003–2008), from www.vsssn.org. uk/about.
Structure and Governance Initially VSSN had no formal organizational structure: finances were handled through the institution hosting the relevant seminar, with contact lists passed on from one organizer to the next. However, by 2002 it was agreed in principle that the network should become formalized and the first VSSN constitution was adopted on 21 May 2003, enabling officers to be appointed and a bank account established. Professor Peter Halfpenny of the University of Manchester was elected as the first Chair (an office he has held continuously until 2009). In 2006 VSSN became a registered charity, but until 2007 the network continued to be run on an entirely voluntary basis by an elected Steering Group.
Funding Initially members supported VSSN purely by donations, but subscriptions were introduced in 2006 and from 2007 this enabled the network to appoint a part-time Executive Officer. VSSN remains extremely small in financial terms compared to the scale of its activity: for the year ending 31 July 2008, the total income was just under £10,000
Volunteer Management LUCAS MEIJS Erasmus University, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Introduction Volunteers are important assets of and resources for almost any civil society organization. Volunteers and the volunteer energy they produce must be managed in an efficient and effective way. Good volunteer management not only is beneficial to the services provided, but also for legitimizing the mission of the organization and the long time survival of the civil society itself. As American volunteer management consultant Ellis (1994) explained ‘‘To waste a volunteer’s time-ever’’ is one of the deadly sins of managing volunteers. But, as will be shown in this chapter, there is no best way of managing volunteers. Just as with paid- staff organizations a contingency approach is needed taking into account difference in mission, paid staff – volunteer relations and national volunteering
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cultures. These differences can be translated into two basic approaches to volunteer management. One approach can be characterized as membership management which is volunteer-centered, team-managed, less hierarchical, less structured, and less formalized. The other approach can be characterized as program management which is activitycentered, one manager, more hierarchical, structured, and formalized. Both approached have specific pros and cons (for an elaborated version see Meijs and Ten Hoorn, 2008).
Volunteer Management? Basically the definitions of volunteer management are similar to the definitions of management in general. In many cases management is based upon clear relations between someone who is the manager and others who are managed, although there is also the concept of selfmanaged teams. The process of management, whether if is done by an individual or a team, can be divided in a set of activities that need to be performed to make certain that the organizations works. In volunteer management there (sometimes) is a volunteer administrator/manager while the process is build upon steps like (1) Needs Assessment & Program Planning, (2) Job Development & Design, (3) Recruitment, (4) Interviewing & Matching, (5) Orientation & Training, (6) Supervision & Motivation, (7) Recognition, and (8) Evaluation (McCurley & Lynch, 2006, p. 22). This needs to be complemented with more external staff involvement, management support and community involvement. This is the approach that is most common in the literature on volunteer management and administration. Since its emergence in the late 1980 this whole professionalizing of the management of volunteers has helped to move organizations that work with volunteers and the civil society forward. Good organizing and managing of volunteer energy prevents the waste of it (Brudney & Meijs, in print): volunteers become a valuable asset that must be used, instead of ‘‘old furniture’’ that you only keep because sometimes it is convenient. The point that needs to be made is that this approach in its extreme, rigid form is not working in all contexts where volunteering can be found. Although in this article the focus still is on volunteering in an organizational setting, and not just community participation, there are some contingencies that need to be considered. In this article we look at three: the paid staff – volunteer factor, the mission factor and the cultural factor. At the end it leads to a different coloring of the separate steps of the traditional and useful process model. Another essential part of defining volunteer management is the question where volunteers differ from paid staff. According to Pearce (1993), based upon a research
comparing all-volunteer versus all-paid-employee organizations, the organisational behavior of volunteers differs because their relation with the organization displays more role uncertainties. Volunteers are not as easy to ‘‘control’’ as paid workers, because in the end there is no real ‘‘hierarchy,’’ sanction or differentiation in reward. Pearce (1993) makes clear that organizational control of volunteers is largely based upon (1) personal relationships, instead of functional, hierarchic relations, (2) engaging volunteers in more rewarding and less demanding tasks and domains, and (3) appeals to shared values. As Paull (2002: 22) states it: ‘‘The manager must therefore find a balance between providing guidance and organizing the work so that the organizational outcomes are achieved, and treating the volunteer in a manner appropriate to their volunteer status.’’ From a management perspective it serves better to assume that volunteers all ‘‘use’’ their activities to their own advantage (Cnaan & GoldbergGlen, 1991). But, if a volunteer manager can make use of the three elements of organizational control and can prevent demotivation, volunteers can be a powerful and trustful part of the nonprofit workforce.
Key Issues: A Contingency Approach The Paid Staff-Volunteer Factor
A first distinction is based upon the relation between paid staff and volunteers. On the one extreme of the continuum there are organizations were the only volunteers are the board members. Although these volunteers also need to be recruited, trained, supported, and guided, they are not considered to be the goal of volunteer management. On the other side of the continuum the (small) all-volunteer organization without a connection to paid staff can be found. In these organizations there is a big need for leadership and organizing capacity but a lot of resistance to the big word ‘‘management.’’ In between we can find grassroots organizations/volunteer-run (dominated by volunteers) and volunteer-supported organizations (dominated by paid staff). In these two types, volunteer management plays a role. Smith (2000: 80) distinguishes two kinds of grassroots associations, monomorphic, and polymorphic organizations. Monomorphic grassroots are not vertically affiliated with an (other) organization. This kind of organization is autonomous, but can be tied to a foundation or government agency. Polymorphic organizations are part of a national organization resulting in limitations on decision-making because there is some centralized governance and management. According to Smith (2000: 13) ‘‘Grassroots associations (GA) tend not to be interested in the
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nonprofit management profession, the volunteer administration profession, or complicated GA (grassroots associations) leadership tactics’’ although also grassroots have ‘‘management’’ systems based upon sociability, purposive, service, informational, developmental, utilitarian, charismatic, lobbying, and prestige incentives (2000: 95–102). But management in essence must be less hierarchical and less formal because, volunteer/run organizations will come to a halt when volunteers stop and leave the organization. In volunteer-supported organizations paid staff performs the primary processes and a volunteer administrator runs a (kind of ‘‘separate’’) volunteer program. Volunteers are used to carry out specific tasks. This is the classical organizational setting for the volunteer administrator. Volunteer-supported organizations will continue to operate even when there are no volunteers present. In this case the quality of service may become less, but the organizations themselves will not be in danger. This makes possible a more demanding approach to managing volunteers. In these organizations, the metaphor of the workplace is and can, in many cases, be used (Liao-Troth, 2005). The Mission Factor
According to Handy (1988) organizational practice differs between three basic types of voluntary organizations: ‘‘service delivery,’’ ‘‘campaigning,’’ and ‘‘mutual support.’’ Service delivery organizations aim to provide a ‘‘good’’ service to an actual customer or client outside the organization. As a consequence volunteers are prepared to submit to be selected (refused) and being managed (told what to do). In service-delivery organizations it seems logical to develop a volunteer management model based upon the workplace metaphor (see Carroll & Harris, 1999). The basic volunteer management processes as described by Brudney (1990), Ellis (1996) and McCurley and Lynch (2006) are predominantly oriented to this type of organization, especially when they are paid-staff dominated. Selection of volunteers depends on their perceived competence to perform the job. The campaigning organization, or advocacy/social movement organization aims to convince or take on the entire world. Selecting new volunteers is based upon testing their true ‘‘believe’’ in the good cause instead of their capabilities per se. Management in a campaigning context is double faced. The process of protesting itself is mostly well planned and organized to be open for all kind of volunteers (the more the better). Organizing is the word. But, the process of formulating the ‘‘opinion’’ is less structured and limited to only core volunteers. Management seems not to be the issue here, it is much more ‘‘democracy’’ or ‘‘leadership.’’
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There is also the issue that the work itself in campaigning organizations is less structured than that of a service-delivery organization. In campaigning organizations, the work never stops and it sometimes becomes an integral part of a volunteer’s life (Carroll & Harris, 1999: 14). The workplace model simply does not work (Carroll & Harris, 1999: 16). The recommendation is to proceed from the enthusiasm and commitment that exists among the volunteers trying not to ‘‘kill’’ that by too much management. The mutual support organization exists because a group of people come together around an issue that binds them: an illness, sport, or shared interest. Mutual support organizations are, in many cases, grass roots organizations. As most grassroots organizations, mutual support organizations tend toward informal organization and more internal democracy, are more likely to be a ‘‘member benefit group’’ than a ‘‘nonmember benefit group,’’ are often polymorphic, have substantial sociodemographic homogeneity and have few economic resources (Smith, 2000: 107–123). Solidarity and camaraderie are the most important qualities. There is very limited acceptance for a manager, unless the ‘‘hierarchy’’ is based upon authority earned by being the best soccer player or having collected the most stamps. There is almost always a clear personal relationship between volunteers and members (clients) in mutual support organizations. Within mutual support organizations members work together to organize all. The foremost important selection criterion for a volunteer is being a member and a sense of belonging. In theory, this should make volunteer recruitment easier because the potential volunteers are all known to the organization. But being limited to only members also creates a potential misfit between organizational capabilities and ambitions (Hoogendam & Meijs, 1998) because what the organization can achieve is limited by the competencies of the members/volunteers. Therefore, mutual support organizations can be weak if they lack enough resources and diversity in their membership, but they are strong if resources are available and the culture is strong. They are indestructible like weeds if they form a group of ‘‘last-heroes’’ who decide that they will survive. The Cultural Factor
Based upon an analysis of the words for volunteering in different countries Dekker (2002) differentiates between unpaid work, active membership and active citizenship as three approaches to volunteering. This is backed up by research into cross-national perceptions of volunteering suggesting that individuals in different countries do not consider the same activities to be volunteer work (Handy et al., 2000). In the setting of unpaid labor management
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can be quite similar to the (hierarchical) management of the workplace. In an active membership context management is much more about involving ‘‘peers’’ in your organization and agenda. Management becomes less hierarchical and much more a team effort. In the environment of the active citizen the impression is that management is even more complicated if the active citizen perceives itself as an independent and autonomous person who, especially in volunteering, acts totally out of his/her free will. Different Styles of Volunteer Management
The previous paragraphs have made clear that volunteer management is not the same in all organizations and organizational contexts. In the following we will present two different styles of volunteer management and compare them on issues of (1) Needs Assessment & Program Planning, (2) Job Development & Design, (3) Recruitment, (4) Interviewing & Matching, (5) Orientation & Training, (6) Supervision & Motivation, (7) Recognition, and (8) Evaluation (McCurley & Lynch, 2006: 22). Of course several authors have addressed the need for a more diverse conceptualization of volunteer management. Rochester (1999: 9–15) observes that ‘‘many voluntary agencies have adopted a bureaucratic approach to the organization of volunteering’’ but that this ‘‘one size’’ workplace model does not fit all organizations, especially what he calls ‘‘member/activist’’ and ‘‘coworker’’ organizations (1999:15). Next Rochester gives four models of volunteer involvement in small voluntary organizations: service delivery, support role, member/activist, and coworker. In the service-delivery model volunteers do the operational work in, again, a workplace metaphor. In the support role the volunteers do perform less primary and crucial activities. The general idea is that volunteers can be managed less strict in this model. In the membership/activist model volunteers perform all roles, functions, and activities. These seem to be constantly renegotiable. Training is not connected to the needs of the job but much more to personal needs of the volunteers. In the coworker model there are almost no differences between paid staff and volunteers. Seen from the management perspective this is quit similar to the membership/activist model. Meijs and Hoogstad (2001) (see also Meijs & Karr, 2004) have developed two styles of management of volunteers. In their typology, management systems most often focus either on the volunteers themselves (membership management) or on specific operational tasks (program management). Membership management starts with the possibilities and needs of the volunteers. The idea of membership management is to start with the preferences
of the volunteers by asking each member what he or she wants to do. The decision on what is done and by who is made by the people themselves. As can be understood this means that the distance between the management, if there is a management at all, and the volunteers is small. In many organizations there will be very strong personal links (e.g., they are all related). This of course leads to a strong organizational culture with shared norms and values which are very important to establish organizational control (Pearce, 1993). On the other hand, maintaining quality in the eyes of external clients is difficult because the volunteer motivation is highly socially oriented, and volunteer status is internally oriented and decided. This typically is not a management system in which expectations of volunteers are explicitly formulated or where volunteers are ‘‘fired’’ if they do not perform. Recognition comes from peers, not from external forces. Looking from the perspective of organizational change and adaptation membership managed organizations are difficult to change but also need less to adapt, because as long as some volunteers feel they like each other and like what they are doing the organization will exist! According to Meijs and Karr (2004: 178) the strong point of membership management is its capability ‘‘of generating broad, multifaceted involvement of volunteers, leading perhaps to a greater overall satisfaction with the volunteer experience.’’ Program management, which is much like the workplace model of volunteer management, starts with needs assessment and specifying tasks for volunteers to do. Because tasks and activities are the central point it becomes easy to dispose of volunteers which do not function or need to change their working habits because the organization needs to adapt to changing circumstances. Program management in this way creates specific, time-limited tasks that a volunteer can perform without problems and in many cases without any other volunteer. On the other hand, program management probably will not develop loyalty on the part of volunteers (see Meijs & Hoogstad, 2001).
Future Directions: The Link Between Management Styles and Organizational Context Basically there seem to be two different volunteer management styles (See Table 1). The first formal style (traditional process approach, program management, workplace model) has a more rigid management based upon hierarchy and a clear volunteer manager. The second informal style (grass roots, membership management, coworker model) is less based upon formal hierarchy and the position of a volunteer manager.
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Volunteer Management. Table 1 Two Volunteer Management Styles ● Service delivery
● Mutual support
● Campaigning (protesting) ● Volunteer supported
● Campaigning (formulate mission)
● Unpaid labor
● Volunteer-run ● Active membership ● Active citizenship
Rigid/formal
Non rigid/informal
Needs assessment & program planning
Research into the needs of the community and what other organizations are (not) doing
Sitting around the table with a group of willing volunteers and discuss what they want to do
Job development & design
Organizational design to create a structure and job descriptions that can be done by anyone
Starting with the competencies of volunteers jobs are created that a specific volunteer can do and these are combined into some kind of (temporary) structure
Recruitment
A broad appeal on the whole community
If needed an appeal on close friends and relatives will be made
Interviewing & matching
Finding out if the people who have reacted on the broad appeal have the competencies and availability to perform the assigned tasks
Almost no need for because people that are recruited will get something to do
Orientation & training
Based upon solving the deficiencies volunteers may have to perform the tasks
Based upon what volunteers want to learn; this can be nothing, what is needed for the job or (totally) unrelated
Supervision & motivation
Done by one manager and based upon achievement
Done by the group and based upon fitting in
Recognition
Concrete achievement
Long acceptance within group
Evaluation
How do clients feel?
How do volunteers feel?
Formal volunteer management is probably better suited for most paid-staff dominated nonprofits, especially if these are service deliveries. Also for most volunteer-run service-delivery organizations a more formal management approach is advisable. Moving to campaigning organizations the picture becomes blurry. For the process of making decisions on the mission (in many cases done by a limited elite who sets strict but ‘‘unclear’’ selection criteria) most organizations probably want to use more informal approaches, while for realization (the actual protesting) sometime more rigid management approaches are used to ascertain that as many people as possible can participate. Especially if the intention is to have episodic participation of citizens good organizing becomes important. Next of course are mutual support organizations. It must be clear that in these organizations informal management systems should be used because the basic idea of sharing a common feature blocks the idea of someone being a hierarchical manager. Also we can probably safely say that the more a organizations is run by
volunteers (and less by paid staff), the more informal management should become. Looking at emotions and cultures on volunteering it seems obvious that perceiving volunteering as unpaid labor opens the door for more rigid management approaches, while active citizenship and naturally active membership ask for much more informal and less rigid management. The next step is to link the both the rigid/formal and the non rigid/informal approaches to the eight steps in the traditional process approach of McCurley and Lynch (2006). The art of volunteer management is adapting general management knowledge and skills into an environment in which there is by definition less hierarchy, less control and less possibility of (differentiating in) reward and punishment. Second to that, there are certain volunteer involving organizations in which the idea that volunteers are ‘‘just’’ unpaid workers and they should be managed they same way as in the general workplace should be abolished. In these organizational contexts a much more
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informal, people oriented way of management is needed. Much alike the new management styles that are being developed to run professional firms.
Cross-References
▶ Grassroots Associations ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Volunteers ▶ Work and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector
References/Further Readings Brudney, J. L. (1990). Fostering volunteer programs in the public sector, planning, initiating, and managing voluntary activities. San Francisco, CA/Oxford: Jossey-Bass. Brudney, J. L., & Meijs, L. C. P. M. (in print). It ain’t natural: toward a new (natural) resource conceptualization for volunteer management. Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly. Carroll, M., & Harris, M. (1999). Voluntary action in a campaigning context: An exploratory study of greenpeace. Voluntary Action, 2(1), 9–18. Cnaan, R., & Goldberg-Glen, R. S. (1991). Measuring motivation to volunteer in human services. Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences, 27, 269–284. Dekker, P. (2002). On the prospects of volunteering in civil society. Voluntary Action, 2(1), 31–48. Ellis, S. J. (1994). The seven deadly sins of directing volunteers. The Non Profit Times, November. Ellis, S. J. (1996). From the top down; the executive role in volunteer program success (Rev. ed.). Philadelphia, PA: Energize Associates. Handy, C. (1988). Understanding voluntary organizations, how to make them function effectively (p. 180). London: Penguin. Handy, F., Cnaan, Ram, A.,. Brudney, J. L. Ascoli, U., Meijs, L. C. P. M., and Ranade, S. (2000). Public perception of ‘‘Who is a volunteer?’’: An examination of the net-cost approach from a cross- cultural perspective. In Voluntas, International Journal of voluntary and Nonprofit organizations. 11(1), 45–65. Hoogendam, A. C. J., & Meijs, L. C. P. M. (1998). Vrijwilligers in de sportvereniging: organiseren van betrokkenheid. [Volunteers in sport associations: Organizing commitment.] (p. 64). NOV: Utrecht. Liao-Troth, M. A. (2005). Are they here for the long haul? The effects of functional motives and personality factors on the psychological contracts of volunteers. Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 34, 510–530. McCurley, S., & Lynch, R. (2006). Volunteer management: Mobilizing all the resources of the community (2nd ed., p. 269). Johnstone Training and Consultation, from http://www.energizeinc.com/store/5-224-E-1 Meijs, L. C. P. M., & Hoogstad, E. (2001). New ways of managing volunteers: Combining membership management and program management. Voluntary action, 3(3), 41–61. Meijs, L. C. P. M., & Karr, L. B. (2004). Managing volunteers in different settings: Membership and program management. In R. A. Stebbins & M. Grahem. (Eds.), Volunteering as leisure/leisure as volunteering (pp. 177–193). Oxfordshire: CABI. Meijs, L. C. P. M. & Ten Hoorn, E. M. (2008). No One best Volunteer Administrator. In Liao-Troth, M. (Ed.) Challenges in Volunteer Management. A Volume in Research in Public Management (pp 29–50). Information Age Publishing Inc.
Paull, M. (2002). Reframing volunteer management. A view from the West. Australian Journal on Volunteering, 7(1), 21–27. Pearce, J. L. (1993). Volunteers: The organizational behavior of unpaid workers (p. 223). London: Routledge. Rochester, C. (1999). One size does not fit all. Four models of involving volunteers in voluntary organizations. Voluntary Action, 1(2), 7–20. Smith, D. H. (2000). Grassroots Associations (p. 342). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Volunteers JEFFREY L. BRUDNEY Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH, USA
Introduction Volunteers are a cornerstone of research and practice in civil society and in the nonprofit sector more generally. Although consensus has yet to emerge on the meaning of ‘‘civil society’’ (e.g., Anheier & Salmon, 2006: 90–92) the construct can be generally understood as the realm of citizens’ organizations and civic engagement, i.e., as ‘‘collective citizen action, outside the confines of the family, market, and state’’ (Heinrich, 2007: xxi). The CIVICUS Global Survey of the State of Civil Society includes in its definition of civil society activities such as volunteering and participation in organizations, social movements, faithbased organizations, groups, clubs, community associations, and the like (Heinrich, 2007: xxi–xxvii). Virginia A. Hodgkinson (2003: 35–36) is more expansive in identifying civil society as the ‘‘public space. . .between government and the market where citizens could debate ideas, serve various causes, research, engage in political and social action, advocate, and or protest, sing in choirs, associate in diverse kinds of organizations, serve others in need, educate, recreate, and generally participate and contribute to the life of their communities.’’ Given these broad conceptualizations of civil society, volunteers, and volunteerism – the topic of this chapter – must play a prominent role. In a review article on ‘‘Voluntarism’’ published in the International Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration scarcely a decade ago, Jeffrey L. Brudney (1998) lamented that little firm knowledge seemed to exist on the topic cross-nationally, and urged the need for more international research on volunteering. Although much more remains to be discovered and learned in this arena, the comparative study of volunteerism is ‘‘now flourishing’’
Volunteers
(Musick & Wilson, 2008: 368), with new international surveys and literature. This chapter takes advantage of the international interest and research to discuss volunteers in civil society. It addresses four basic questions in this core domain: (1) Definition: Who is a volunteer? (2) International perspectives: How much volunteering occurs? (3) Key issues: What factors affect volunteering in civil society? (4) Future directions: What are some of the major research questions awaiting further inquiry on volunteers and volunteering in civil society? Before turning to those questions, the chapter briefly considers the historical context of this essay.
Definition Despite the roots of civil society, civic engagement, and the nonprofit sector in voluntary activity, the meaning and use of the term ‘‘volunteer’’ is not uniform across researchers, participants, or the public. As Ram A. Cnaan et al. (1996: 365) observe, ‘‘Although researchers currently use the term volunteer across a wide range of settings to denote nonsalaried service, the term has no clear and coherent definition.’’ In their comprehensive volume, Volunteers: A Social Profile, Marc A. Musick and John Wilson (2008) devote an entire chapter to defining volunteers and volunteering, distinguishing these terms from related concepts such as membership, social activism, and caring. They conclude, ‘‘Deciding what should count as volunteer work turns out to be much more difficult than it might at first appear’’ (p. 25). The lack of consensus regarding meaning and use confounds even the most basic scientific activities to measure, classify, and compare volunteering across different studies, contexts, and countries. Although work is underway to clarify the international context – the Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University (2007) is involved in a major effort with the International Labour Organization and the United Nations to reconcile and standardize data collection and reporting on volunteers cross-nationally through measuring volunteer work in official national labor force surveys throughout the world – confusion persists. That confusion spills over to respondents in survey research, who while providing answers to questions asking if they volunteer, must wonder what the term encompasses, and whether their activity falls under the definition. Meijs et al. (2003: 19) remark, ‘‘People presented with seemingly similar examples of volunteering perceive them differently as volunteering, for unknown reasons. The same people may perceive volunteer activities differently depending on their own context or reference. Especially for international comparative studies, a better understanding of the definition and even more important
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perception of volunteering is needed’’ (compare Musick & Wilson, 2008: 25). Based on a comprehensive review of definitions of volunteer found in the literature, Cnaan and Laura Amrofell (1994) identified ten facets of volunteering: who is the volunteer, what is being volunteered, the level of formality versus informality of the volunteer work, the frequency of volunteering, the amount of time devoted to each volunteer episode, the relationship of the volunteer to the beneficiaries of the activity, the characteristics of those beneficiaries, who manages the volunteers, volunteer management activities, and rewards to the volunteer. Using a mapping sentence approach, Cnaan and Amrofell (1994: 349) insist that to understand and compare findings of studies on ‘‘volunteers’’ correctly, the ten facets (the full sentence) must be explicated: ‘‘It is our contention that only the combination of all facets forms a volunteer profile that is distinctive enough to warrant generalizations.’’ Cnaan et al. (1996) found that all definitions of volunteer can be distilled into four common dimensions, and that these dimensions establish a criterion for assessing and comparing all definitions and situations of who is a volunteer. Based on a review of more than 300 articles and reports, these dimensions (and their gradations) consist of: the degree of voluntariness of the activity (from free will, to relatively uncoerced, to obligation to volunteer); the nature of the reward received by the volunteer (none, none expected, expenses reimbursed, stipend/low pay); the context or auspices or structure in which the volunteer activity takes place (formal, i.e., in an organizational setting, versus informal); and the beneficiaries of the voluntary activity (from an act that benefits/helps other people or strangers, to one that benefits/helps friends or relatives, to one that benefits the volunteer as well as other people). Cnaan et al. (1996) maintain that all definitions of volunteer can be subsumed under these four dimensions, with the definitions of volunteer ranging from the most restrictive or ‘‘pure’’ (characterized by free will, no reward to the volunteer, undertaken in a formal structure, with other people/strangers as beneficiaries) to the most inclusive or ‘‘broad’’ (characterized by an obligation to volunteer, stipend/low pay to the volunteer, undertaken informally, with the volunteer as a beneficiary), and ‘‘moderate’’ or mixed conceptions falling in-between. Although no single conception of volunteer can be considered ‘‘the’’ correct one, how the public (and researchers) define and measure the term has implications for public policy, academic studies, and cross-national comparison. Cnaan et al. (1996) propose that the public
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at large defines volunteering according to the more restrictive definitions, and conclude that people who incur a high ‘‘net cost’’ in volunteering (broadly defined as the costs minus the benefits to the volunteer) are likely to be viewed as a more of a volunteer than someone whose net cost is low. Costs to the volunteer include such items as the time spent volunteering, effort, and income and social pleasures forgone. Benefits include not only tangible (monetary) benefits but also enhanced social status and opportunities, the probability of future tangible rewards such as business contacts, work experience, and skills acquisition (p. 373). The researchers examined this characterization of perceptions of volunteering based on a sample of 514 respondents in the United States (in the states of Pennsylvania and Delaware) and found that the concept of net cost best accounted for the judgments of who is considered a volunteer (p. 375). The higher the net cost and the ‘‘purer’’ the volunteer act, the higher the person was ranked as a volunteer (p. 381). Building on this research, Handy et al. (2000) and Meijs et al. (2003) show that the net-cost conception of volunteering holds internationally. They find that the more altruistic the activity, the higher the net cost, and the more likely the person is to be perceived as a volunteer by the public. In a cross-national study based on data from large samples (450 adults or more) in Canada, India, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States (in the states of Georgia and Philadelphia), ‘‘The data strongly support the theory of net cost in explaining public perceptions of who is ‘more’ a volunteer. . .[T]he data show that the higher the perceived net cost to the volunteer of a certain volunteer activity the higher the individual is ranked as a volunteer’’ (p. 64). This trend is prevalent in each of the cultures examined: Across all four dimensions of volunteering identified by Cnaan et al. (1996), the more altruistic the person, the higher the net cost and the more likely the person is to be perceived as a volunteer. Although no uniform or ‘‘standard’’ definition of volunteer fits all contexts and circumstances, this research demonstrates that volunteering can be understood along four dimensions: voluntariness of the activity, the nature of the reward received by the volunteer, the auspices or structure in which the volunteer activity takes place, and the beneficiaries of the voluntary activity. These four dimensions offer a continuum from the most pure or restricted conception of volunteering to the most broad and encompassing. The implication is that it is not the activity itself that undergirds popular conceptions and definitions of who is a volunteer or what is volunteering, but the context of the activity. In general, based on
evidence across several nations, the more restrictive the conception, the more likely the public is to regard those instances as volunteering. Musick and Wilson (2008: 26) concur that ‘‘what is normally considered volunteer work is formal, public, and unpaid.’’ Survey research, which undergirds much of the knowledge of volunteering – and virtually all of its measurement – is likely to reflect this perspective (Hodgkinson, 2003).
Historical Background This chapter aims to contribute to the knowledge of volunteerism in civil society based on the results of the rich empirical inquiry that has been undertaken on the topic. Although volunteers and volunteering have a long history in civil society, very little systematic empirical information on volunteerism exists dating back more than two decades, especially from an international perspective. Even in the United States, where empirical research on volunteerism has the longest legacy, data pertaining to volunteering are rare prior to the last decade of the twentieth century. An empirically-based ‘‘history’’ of volunteer involvement in civil society cross-nationally would more likely tap mounting interest in this phenomenon and sophistication in its measurement than any reliable trends or developments. Systematic empirical research on volunteerism is growing across the globe. This chapter draws on this emerging body of knowledge to synthesize and present vital information regarding volunteers and volunteering in civil society.
Key Issues What factors affect volunteering in civil society? This key issue has long attracted the attention of students of volunteerism. Several scholars have prepared insightful reviews attempting to summarize the voluminous literature devoted to explaining who volunteers and the factors that affect this behavior (Wymer et al, 1996; Smith, 1994; Berger, 1991). Gazley and Dignam (2008) offer a very recent review, focused primarily on volunteering in the United States. Based on a 1990 national survey of giving and volunteering behavior in the United States, Berger (1991) concluded that the strongest factor leading one to volunteer is to have been the target of recruitment efforts, a finding corroborated in many other surveys (e.g., Independent Sector, 2002; Kirsch et al., 2000). From an analysis of a pooled data-set compiled from a series of surveys on giving and volunteering in the United States undertaken by the Independent Sector in the 1990s (1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, and 1999), Musick and Wilson (2008: 290) find, ‘‘Regardless of socio-demographic differences
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and differences in church attendance, people were more likely to volunteer if they were asked. Only 15% of those who had not been recruited last year had done any volunteer work during that time, compared to three-quarters of those who had been.’’ Moreover, people who have been recruited contribute many more hours; the ratio of volunteers to hours donated among those recruited is five times higher than for people who have not been recruited. Berger finds that making philanthropic contributions is closely associated with volunteering to organizations, although the direction of the relationship (does donating time lead to donating money, or the reverse?) and the source (are giving time and money the product of some other factor, such as family upbringing?) are unclear. The level of formal education attained is the individual characteristic with the strongest impact on volunteering. In cross-national studies, too, the more education people have, the more likely they are to volunteer (Musick & Wilson, 2008: 365). Smith (1994) concurs with these findings, and identifies other variables important to volunteering, such as higher socioeconomic status and participation in other forms of social activity. Frequent churchgoers are more likely to volunteer than those who never go to church; ‘‘in virtually all countries for which there are reliable data, frequency of church attendance is positively related to volunteering’’ (Musick & Wilson, 2008: 359). In the United States, Gazley and Dignam (2008: 7) observe that ‘‘the demographic profile of the American volunteer is fairly stable,’’ with women volunteering slightly more than men, married people substantially more than those who are single, parents with children under age 18 more than those without, and employed people more than the unemployed (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2008). Cross-nationally, employed people are more likely to volunteer than those not in the labor force. However, women are less likely to be involved in volunteering, especially in more traditional cultures and societies (Musick & Wilson, 2008: 365–366). Age bears a more complicated relationship to volunteering in the United States, Gazley and Dignam (2008: 8) describe it as an ‘‘s-curve’’: Teenagers are more likely to volunteer than adults in their twenties, but individuals aged 35–44 are most likely to volunteer, followed by older age groups (p. 8). In general, with the exception of teenagers, individuals are more likely to volunteer at midlife than at younger or older ages. Cross-nationally, age manifests highly contingent effects on the rate of volunteering according to the individual country (Musick & Wilson, 2008: 367–368). Finally, socioeconomic status and education are the strongest predictors of formal
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volunteering to an organization, although less so for informal volunteering in the United States. ‘‘Volunteerism is also strongly linked to other kinds of civic engagement. Volunteers are more likely to vote, engage in political organizing, and make charitable gifts when compared to non-volunteers’’ (Gazley & Dignam, 2008: 7; Wing et al., 2008). All of the research reviews agree on the complexity of volunteer behavior and offer explanatory frameworks encompassing multiple dimensions and many variables. Smith (1994) establishes that a complete explanation of volunteering must take into account the context or environment of the individual (for example, size of community); her or his social background (for example, gender); personality (for example, sense of efficacy); attitudes (for example, liking volunteer work); situation (for example, receiving services from the organization); and social participation (for example, neighborhood interaction). Similarly, Wymer et al. (1996) propose a model of the ‘‘Determinants of Volunteerism’’ which includes variables related to: the person (personality, values, attitudes), social interactions (previous, current, anticipated), efficacy (skill utilization, skill development), and context (time, money, psychological). In their book Musick and Wilson (2008) elaborate a more exhaustive inventory of explanatory factors (chapters) encompassing: subjective dispositions (personality; motives; values, norms, and attitudes); individual resources (socioeconomic resources, time and health, gender, race); and the social context of volunteering (life course: early stages; life course: later stages; social resources; volunteer recruitment; schools and congregations; community, neighborhood, city, and region). Adding to this complexity are country- or nationallevel differences in volunteering. ‘‘Volunteer characteristics vary considerably from country to country, along with the extent of research efforts to understand voluntary activity’’ (Gazley & Dignam, 2008: 6–7). Citing research by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies noted above, Hodgkinson (2003: 39–41) summarizes, ‘‘One can theorize that the wide variation in volunteer rates has to do with culture, national history, religious background, or economic situation, but the data are uneven. The volunteer rates of various nations cannot be fully explained by any one of these variables with much consistency. . . . Across nations, however, there is no single predictor of volunteering that stands out.’’ Musick and Wilson (2008: 342–369) make clear that a full explanation of volunteering from the international perspective must embrace both national-level variations in volunteering, i.e., structural features such as type of
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government, size of the welfare state, income, class structure, and size of the nonprofit sector, and individual-level variations (variables) or ‘‘correlates’’ pertaining to the people living in those countries. Based on the 1999–2001 World Values Survey data, they classify volunteering into three clusters, service, advocacy, and religious, and use appropriate multilevel modeling techniques to estimate the effects of both country- and individual-level variables on participation in the different types. The results of the Musick-Wislson (2008: 364–365) multilevel analysis show that service volunteers were more likely to be male, single, working part-time, highly educated, affluent, and frequent churchgoers. They explain that this international portrait of the typical volunteer differs from that of the American volunteer (described by Gazley & Digan, 2008) in being male and single (perhaps because youth and sports volunteering are included in the classification of service volunteering). Advocacy volunteers were more likely to be male, middle aged, employed, well educated, affluent, and frequent churchgoers. This profile is quite similar to the American volunteer with the exception of being male rather than female, probably a consequence of the inclusion of work-related associations in the advocacy category. Finally, religious volunteers tended to be older, married, better educated, paid higher salaries, part-time workers, and frequent churchgoers. This profile is also quite similar to that of the American volunteer, with the exception that the WVS religious volunteer is no more likely to be male than female. In sum, Musick and Wilson (2008: 365) find that the socioeconomic profile of the volunteer in different countries is quite similar – with the exception of the effect of gender – but that the mix of volunteer activities across countries leads to some differences in who volunteers.
International Perspectives Volunteering is a significant social – and economic – force in civil society across nations. In the United States, the first nationally representative study of volunteer involvement in nonprofit organizations determined that four out of five public charities with $25,000 in annual gross receipts utilized volunteers (Urban Institute, 2004). Hundreds of thousands more nonprofit groups and associations with fewer budgetary resources, including the legions of all volunteer organizations, enlist volunteers. One in three religious congregations in the United States manages volunteers in social service outreach programs (Urban Institute, 2004). According to surveys conducted by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics for the Corporation for National and Community Service, in the United States about 6.5% of the population volunteers on an average
day, or more than 15 million volunteers per day in 2006. They donated about 12.9 billion hours in 2006, the equivalent of 7.6 million full-time employees. Were these volunteers compensated monetarily at the average private nonfarm hourly wage rate, the equivalent dollar value of their contribution would reach a staggering $215.6 billion (Wing et al., 2008: 70; US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2008; compare Independent Sector, 2001). Evidence has begun to accumulate cross-nationally regarding the scope of volunteering. Very recently, the capability to capture this type of information has improved across the globe. Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, in December 2008, the eighteenth International Conference of Labour Statisticians representing a cross-section of the world’s official statistical agencies adopted standard guidelines developed by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civil Society Studies to measure the amount and characteristics of the work of volunteers using labor force and other household surveys in every country. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins University Center have taken an active role in defining and measuring ‘‘Global Civil Society’’ (Salamon et al., 2003). Using a common research methodology applied across eight highly diverse countries and cultures (Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, France, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States), these researchers establish that nonprofit institutions are a ‘‘significant economic force’’ (Salamon et al., 2007: 4). Including the value added by volunteers, these institutions account for an average of 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the eight countries for which comparable data are available (p. 4). Even when estimated conservatively, volunteer time accounts for more than a quarter of the contribution of nonprofit institutions to GDP (seven-country average) compared to other factors (i.e., employee compensation, consumption of fixed capital, net taxes on production, and operating surplus) (p. 9). Of the sources of nonprofit revenue from philanthropy, moreover, gifts of time surpass gifts of money by a ratio of almost 1.5: 1, and in some countries by ratio of 3:1 (seven-country average, p. 10). In earlier research Salamon and Sokolowski (2001, 2003) examined volunteering in 24 countries across 12 different areas of nonprofit activity (culture; education and research; health; social services; environment; development; civic and advocacy; philanthropy; international; religious congregations; business, professional, and unions; and ‘‘other’’). They found that the volunteer work contributed to these organizations is equivalent to 11 million full-time-equivalent (FTE) jobs (p. 3). In a larger study of 35 nations, researchers found that over 40% of full-time equivalent nonprofit jobs were volunteers, the equivalent of
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16.8 million full-time workers (Anheier & Salamon, 2006, 98). As in the more recent Center for Civil Society Studies report described above (Salamon et al., 2007), volunteer work was shown to provide a much greater share of private philanthropy than money, on average exceeding private monetary donations by a ratio of 2:1. The authors conclude, ‘‘Therefore, volunteering adds an important dimension to the picture of the nonprofit sector drawn by economic indicators – it gives social salience to nonprofit operations. It stands to reason that a relatively high volume of volunteer input contributed to nonprofit entities reflects a relatively high level of importance attributed to the work of these entities by society at large’’ (p. 4). Expressed as a proportion of total nonagricultural employment to control for differences in the size of national economies, the volume of volunteer activity across the 24 countries ranged from a low of 0.2% of nonagricultural employment in Mexico to a high of 8.0% in Sweden; the average across the 24 countries was 2.5% (Salamon & Sokolowski, 2001, 2003). With respect to fields of volunteer activity, social services and culture and recreation combined absorbed nearly 60% of all volunteer input in the 23 countries with available data. The remaining 40% of volunteer effort was distributed among eight fields, most prominently, health, community, and economic development, education, unions, and professional associations, and civic and advocacy activity. Although most volunteer input concentrates in the areas of social services and culture and recreation, substantial differences arise among countries in the distribution of this activity. In sum, not only does the amount of volunteer activity vary substantially cross-nationally, but also so does its composition (Salamon & Sokolowski, 2001, 2003; Anheier & Salamon, 2006). Using different sources of data Hodgkinson (2003) has also explored ‘‘Volunteering in Global Perspective.’’ Based on data from the European Values Surveys (EVS) and the World Values Surveys (WVS), which built upon the EVS, she presents results on volunteering from those 47 countries whose data collection had been completed in the 1999–2002 EVS/WVS surveys (p. 37). The findings from Hodgkinson’s (2003) analysis show enormous, and sometimes anomalous, variation in the rate of reported volunteering by global region and nation (see also Musick & Wilson, 2008: 343). Helmut K. Anheier and Lester M. Salamon (2006: 98) caution, ‘‘Systematic information and knowledge about volunteering in nonWestern countries is still sketchy.’’ As expected, the United States, long known for its history as a nation of ‘‘joiners’’ and volunteers (Ellis & Campbell, 2005), has an impressive reported volunteer rate of two-thirds (66%) of its adult population. Yet, China recorded the highest rate of any
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country in the 1999–2002 EVS/WVS surveys, with over three-fourths (77%) of the adult population classified as ‘‘volunteers’’; Hodgkinson (2003, 39) explains, ‘‘but this is because the population is expected to volunteer by the government.’’ Similarly, in some Eastern European countries and Russia, where the transition to democracy has been difficult, volunteer rates were much lower, 7% in Russia (the lowest rate of any of the 47 countries and the only one in single digits) and 10% in Serbia, perhaps because ‘‘volunteering is associated with required volunteering under communism’’ (p. 39). Hodgkinson (2003) also finds great variation across countries with respect to the fields in which volunteers are involved, social welfare, religion, environment, and sports, a finding echoed by Musick and Wilson (2008; see below). In sum, volunteering is a significant social and economic force cross-nationally. By the end of the twentieth century a trend toward the ‘‘globalization of volunteering’’ was evident, acknowledged by the United Nations in a resolution declaring 2001 the ‘‘International Year of Volunteers’’ (Musick & Wilson, 2008: 533). Although the trend may be sweeping, based on the studies undertaken, the explanation of volunteering cross-nationally, and even within a single country, is expected to be complex and contingent.
Future Directions This chapter has provided crucial background information on volunteers and volunteering in civil society. It has addressed the topics of definition, international perspectives, and key issues. The chapter concludes by proposing major research questions awaiting further inquiry on volunteers and volunteering in civil society. A first question concerns the characteristics of the voluntary activity itself. Considerable literature and commentary suggest sharp growth in ‘‘episodic volunteers,’’ a substantial group whose psychological and time commitment to any one organization is highly tenuous (Macduff, 2005; Hustinx & Lammertyn, 2003; Brudney & Gazley, 2006; Fixler, Eichberg & Lorenz, 2008). Although the traditional conception of service volunteering, especially in the United States, depicts participants contributing time to an organization on a fairly regular, ongoing basis, episodic volunteers may donate time just once or sporadically or perhaps for a short period or specific project. In the US episodic volunteers may account for as much as 40% or more of volunteers (Kirsch et al., 2000: 5). Steve McCurley and Susan Ellis (2003: 1) conclude, ‘‘You can find similar data in Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, and practically every other country that’s done even a casual survey of volunteer attitudes.’’
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The roots of episodic volunteering warrant further study. Equally important is the question of how episodic volunteering affects programs, organizations, missions, and causes that depend on sustained volunteer labor. How will host organizations and groups adapt to an apparently large and growing number of volunteers who prefer to give their time in a manner that although consistent with their own attitudes and motivations may be less helpful to the needs and interests of organizations for continuing involvement? This concern with the role of the organization in regard to (episodic) volunteering raises a second issue: What part does volunteer management play in stimulating, maintaining, and enhancing volunteer engagement? Research is needed on such questions as, how do nonprofit and voluntary organizations, businesses, and corporations with employeebased and other volunteer programs, and even government organizations – which enlist perhaps one-quarter of all volunteer activity in the United States (Brudney, 1990) – affect who volunteers, how much they volunteer, the effects of the contribution of time for the individual and the organization and its voluntary mission, and the prospects for future volunteering. To take but one example, the Corporation for National and Community Service (2007) in the United States reports that one in three Americans dropped out of volunteering between 2005 and 2006, and McCurley and Lynch (2005) document challenges in retaining volunteers cross-nationally. At least some of the blame for the fall-off must be placed at the door of host organizations and their volunteer programs and managers. Related questions concern whether different types of volunteer programs, for example, those organized around service delivery, mutual support, campaigning, membership, advocacy, emergency response, etc., require different models of volunteer management to achieve greater participation and effectiveness, and how ‘‘success’’ might be defined and measured across such substantial differences in program structure and context. A final, broad question builds on this foundation. If a goal of volunteer involvement is to strengthen and expand civil society, what are the most efficacious means to increase volunteerism? At the societal level governments would seem to possess a variety of policy tools, such as statements of volunteer policy, exhortations by elected and appointed leaders, volunteer service programs, and provisions in the tax code. An array of more specific means are available at the community level, such as voluntary action centers (or volunteer centers) to sort and match people’s interests in volunteering with suitable placements, service-learning, and other volunteer
opportunities required or recommended in the schools, faith-based volunteer initiatives organized and supported by religious institutions, and business investment of contributed time and money in civic projects and goals. Surveys of volunteer participation and behavior alone, such as those examined and referenced in this essay, have limited ability to address the future directions for research anticipated in this chapter. To provide a more complete understanding, companion studies are needed on volunteer-involving organizations and their volunteer programs, including the approaches, means and personnel used to engage, motivate, retain, and manage these vital human resources. Supplementing the surveys on volunteerism with this research would greatly contribute to the knowledge of volunteers and volunteering in civil society.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Citizenship ▶ Civic Action ▶ Civic Participation ▶ Corporation for National and Community Service ▶ United Nations ▶ Volunteer Management
References/Further Readings Anheier, H., & Salamon, L. (2006). The nonprofit sector in comparative perspective. In W. Powell, & R. Steinberg, (Eds.), The non-profit sector: A research handbook (pp. 89–117). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Berger, G. (1991). Factors explaining volunteering for organizations in general, and social welfare organizations in particular. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Waltham, MA: Heller School of Social Welfare, Brandeis University. Brudney, J. (1990). Fostering volunteer programs in the public sector: Planning, initiating, and managing voluntary activities. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Brudney, J. (1998). Voluntarism. In J. Sharfitz (Ed.), International encyclopedia of public policy and administration (pp. 2343–2349). Boulder, CO: Westview Press. (Reprinted from Understanding nonprofit organizations, pp. 320–323, by J. Ott, Ed., 2001, Boulder, CO: Westview Press). Brudney, J., & Gazley, B. (2006). Moving ahead or falling behind? Volunteer promotion and data collection. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 16(3), 259–276. Cnaan, R., & Amrofell, L. (1994). Mapping volunteer activity. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 23(4), 335–351. Cnaan, R., Handy, F., & Wadsworth, M. (1996). Defining who is a volunteer: Conceptual and empirical considerations. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 25(1), 364–383. Corporation for National and Community Service (2007). New federal report shows volunteering strong in America, but 1 in 3 volunteers dropped out in 2006, from http://www.nationalservice.org/about/ newsroom/releases_detail.asp?tbl_pr_id = 682; 11/01/2007.
VSSN Ellis, S., & Campbell, K. (2005). By the people: A history of Americans as volunteers, new century edition. Philadelphia: Energize. Fixler, J., Eichberg, S., & Lorenz, G. (2008). Boomer volunteer engagement: Collaborate today, thrive tomorrow. Bloomington, IN: AurthorHouse. Gazley, B., & Dignam, M. (2008). The decision to volunteer: Why people give their time and how you can engage them. Washington, DC: ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership. Handy, F. et al. (2000). Public perception of ‘‘Who is a Volunteer’’: An examination of the net-cost approach from a cross-cultural perspective. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organization, 11(1), 45–65. Heinrich, V. (Ed.) (2007). Civicus global survey of the state of civil society, Volume 1, Country Profiles. Bloomfield, NJ: Kumarian Press. Hodgkinson, V. (2003). Volunteering in global perspective. In D. Paul & H. Loek (Eds.), The values of volunteering: Cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 35–53). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Hustinx, L., & Lammertyn, F. (2003). Collective and reflexive styles of volunteering: A sociological modernization perspective. Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 14(2), 167–187. Independent Sector. (2002). Giving and volunteering in the United States 2001, from http://www.independentsector.org/programs/research/ gv01main.html; 07/17/2008. Johns Hopkins University. (2007). Putting volunteer work on the economic map of the world: Johns Hopkins, international labour organization, and United Nations join forces, from http://www.jhu.edu/ccss/News %20Release%20JHU%20ILO%20agreement%20FINAL.pdf; 07/17/ 2008. Kirsch, A., Hume, K., & Jalandoni, N. (2000). Giving and volunteering in the United States: Findings from a national survey (1999 ed.). Washington, DC: Independent Sector. Macduff, N. (2005). Societal changes and the rise of the episodic volunteer. In J. Brudney (Ed.), Emerging areas of volunteering (pp. 49–62). ARNOVA Occasional Paper Series, 1(2). McCurley, S., & Ellis, S. (2003). Thinking the unthinkable: Are we using the wrong model for volunteer work? E-Volunterism, 3(1), from http://e-volunteerism.com/; 08/05/2008. McCurley, S., & Lynch, R. (2005). Keeping volunteers: A guide to retention. Philadelphia: Energize. Meijs, L. et al. (2003). All in the eyes of the beholder? Perceptions of volunteering across eight countries. In P. Dekker & L. Halman (Eds.),
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The values of volunteering: cross-cultural perspectives (pp. 19–34). New York: Kluwer/Plenum. Musick, M., & Wilson, J. (2008). Volunteers: A social profile. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Salamon, L. (2007). Measuring civil society and volunteering: Initial findings from implementation of the UN handbook on nonprofit institutions Working Paper No. 23. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. Salamon, L., & Sokolowski, S. (2001). Volunteering in cross-national perspective: Evidence from 24 countries, from http://www.jhu.edu/ ccss/publications/pdf/cnpwp401.pdf; 07/17/2008. Salamon, L., & Sokolowski, S. (2003). Institutional roots of volunteering: Towards a macro-structural theory of individual voluntary action. In P. Dekker & L. Halman (Eds.), The values of volunteering: Crosscultural perspectives (pp. 71–90). New York: Kluwer /Plenum. Salamon, L., Sokolowski, S., & List, R. (2003). Global civil society: An overview. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. Smith, D. (1994). Determinants of voluntary association participation and volunteering: A literature review. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 23(3), 243–263. Urban Institute. (2004). Volunteer management capacity in America’s charities and congregations: A briefing report, from http://www.urban. org/UploadedPDF/410963_VolunteerManagment.pdf; 07/17/2008. US Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2008). Volunteering in the United States, 2007 from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/volun.nr0.htm; 08/05/ 2008. Wing, K., Pollak, T., & Blackwood, A. (2008). The nonprofit almanac: 2008. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. Riecken, W., Ugur, G., & Wymer, Y. (1996). Determinants of volunteerism: A cross-disciplinary review and research agenda. Journal of Nonprofit and Public Sector Marketing, 4(4), 3–26.
VSSN ▶ Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN)
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W W.K. Kellogg Foundation ANTHONY FILIPOVITCH
Address of Organization One Michigan Avenue East Battle Creek, MI 49017-4012 USA www.wkkf.org
Introduction The W.K. Kellogg Foundation is one of the largest philanthropies in the United States. It is active both in domestic and international affairs, frequently in areas involving health or children and families.
Brief History The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was formed in 1930 by the breakfast cereal pioneer, Will Keith Kellogg. Originally named the W.K. Kellogg Child Welfare Foundation, over his lifetime W.K. Kellogg endowed it with more than $66 million, mostly through stock in the Kellogg Company. Initially, the Foundation operated its own programs, but after World War II shifted to providing grants to other nonprofits.
Mission As part of its 75th anniversary, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation revisited its mission and returned to its original focus on the welfare of children. The mission now is to ‘‘support children, families, and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society.’’
Activities Throughout its history, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has focused on issues of health, especially public health. The Foundation has also been heavily involved in youth and education issues (covering the range from early childhood through adult distance education), rural communities (especially agricultural and food issues), and community
leadership and volunteerism. It has supported communitybased approaches to whatever problems it addresses. While the Foundation has supported activities on almost every continent, it has focused particularly on Latin/ Caribbean America and the nations of southern Africa. The new mission has also led to a restatement of areas of interest for Foundation activities. In 2008, the focuses of activity were redefined as family assets and income; community assets; education and learning; food, health, and well-being; and philanthropy and civic engagement.
Structure and Governance Although he W.K. Kellogg Foundation has a long history of alliance with the Kellogg Company, it is a private foundation controlled by an independent board of 11 trustees and managed by an executive staff of nine (President, four Vice Presidents for Programming, Vice President for Finance, Chief Investment Officer, Corporate Secretary, and Corporate Counsel).
Funding The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has grown its initial endowment of $66 million so that it held over $8.4 billion in assets at the end of 2007. The Foundation’s rate of return on investments was 17%. In 2007, the Foundation used those resources to authorize almost 2,700 grants worth $358 million.
Major Accomplishments The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has a history of outstanding accomplishments. Its first major project, the Michigan Community Health Project in the 1930s, was a pioneer in community public health. As the world was moving into war, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation created a fellowship program for physicians from Canada and Latin America. In 1951, it was one of the first private foundations to publish and widely distribute its annual report. In the 1960s, it became heavily involved in the community college movement and, in 1965, established the Salzburg Seminars to support global understanding among emerging leaders. In 1967 the W.K. Kellogg Foundation reorganized itself, shifting to multidisciplinary pursuits of ‘‘problems of the people,’’ rather than focusing by professional specialization.
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In the 1980s the Foundation developed a National Leadership Program and then an International Leadership Program. With the end of apartheid in South Africa, in 1995 the Foundation opened a regional office in Pretoria, staffed by Africans, to complement its regional offices in Brazil and Mexico.
Cross-References
▶ Foundations, Definition and History ▶ Foundations, Grantmaking ▶ Kellogg, William Keith ▶ Philanthropy in Africa ▶ Philanthropy in Latin America
References/Further Readings Corey, J. (1986). For the people of latin America: The W.K. Kellogg foundation and its partnership with the people of Latin America for the improvement of human well-being. Battle Creek, MI: W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Kellogg Foundation. (1980). The first half of the century 1930–1980: Private approaches to public needs. Battle Creek, MI: W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Lynaugh, J. E. et al. (2007). The W.K. Kellogg foundation and the nursing profession: Shared values, shared legacy. Indianaopolis, IN: Sigma Theta Tau International.
Wakfs (Waqfs) SAMIUL HASAN United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
been a major tool of property growth, management, protection, and of philanthropy.
Definition Waqf (pl. awqaf), literally meaning forbidding movement, transport, or exchange (Kahf, 1999; Raissouni, 2001), is a dedicated property usufruct of which is to be used for some charitable ends for the duration of the property’s existence. A private (ahli; family or khas; private or posterity) waqf allows the named beneficiaries (including the founder) and their descendants an income until the line of inheritance breaks (McChesney, 1995; Kahf, 1999) when the waqf becomes public. A public (khayri; pious; or a’m) waqf is created to serve the interests of society, e.g., awqaf for mosques, schools, scientific research, the needy, travelers, etc. Public awqaf may also be established with state funds. The formation of waqf requires a productive resource (with a detailed description and proof of ownership), a list of the beneficiaries, and a mutawalli (a trustee; the founder can be one). A waqf is vested in God and thus becomes perpetual. The trustees (mutawallis) cannot change the intention and objectives of the waqf, though the ultimate objective of a waqf is public benefit (even for a private waqf ). ‘Cash waqf ’ is available to people who do not have much property to make a reasonable endowment, but can save to gradually form a good size waqf. The basic condition for cash waqf has been the same – the ‘property’ must produce an ‘income’ to support the intended beneficiary(ies).
Introduction
Historical Background
A property owner’s right to property in Islam is subject to community good because everything belongs to God. Thus individuals blessed with property are required to make resources grow and offer charity to the dependents, probable inheritors, and in the ‘‘cause of Allah.’’ A dead person earns Heavenly rewards from benefits emanating from his/her giving (Muslim, 1631 see Ozalp, 2004: 238–9). There are also the principles of property inheritance (Ali, 1938, Note 516) that do not allow bequeathing of more than one third of one’s property unless endowed for charity. The Islamic dictum for the establishment of endowments (waqf) provides the property owners opportunities to make the resources yield, spend in public good, side track the law of inheritance (if they so wish to favor one inheritor over others), and keep on receiving Heavenly rewards after death. Further, being irrevocable, waqf provided better protection to property. Thus throughout history, especially in the early days of Islam, waqf had
The concept of waqf, regarded as one of the oldest forms of charitable foundations (McChesney, 1995), is traced to Prophet Abraham who spent his wealth in acts of charity, including the construction of the foremost altar in Arabia, the Ka’ba. Prophet Mohammad’s advice to Umar bin al Khattab (later the second Caliph of the Sunni Muslims), to endow a productive parcel of land (owned by the latter) with condition that ‘‘the land and trees will neither be sold nor be given as a present, nor be bequeathed, but the fruits are to be spent’’ for ‘‘Allah’s cause, for the emancipation of slaves, for the poor, for guests, for travelers, and for kinsmen’’ (Bukhari, 1971: 4:51:26, 33–4, 38) lent awqaf the present character and function. The concept received a legal entity in the eighth century CE (i.e., in the second Islamic century), with scopes for suing and being sued (Kuran, 2001). In the early twentieth century (CE) 75%, 13%, and 12% of Turkey’s, Egypt’s, and Iran’s arable land, respectively, was
Wakfs (Waqfs)
under waqf arrangement (Hasan, 2007). Waqf system used to control a vast array of urban assets as well (Kuran, 2001). For example, in Yemen in the mid-twentieth century (CE) awqaf assets included as much as 25% of the farmland and 50% of all urban properties (Carapico, 1998). Awqaf in the Muslim society made women equal to men creating economically active and socially conscious women (Hoexter, 1998: 481–2). The Islamic law guarantees women exclusive right to own property (independent of the husband). The waqf, regulated by the Islamic court, provided additional protection to women’s property, and was created by women from all walks of life (constituting between 20% and 50% of the endower population at different ages and in different regions) (Fay, 1997). Awqaf did fall in disrepute for corruption, misuse of funds, or disuse of the endowment during the medieval period, and degenerated further in the colonial period. In the postcolonial era, awqaf laws were enacted in almost all Muslim countries (or Muslim communities in countries like India) establishing a branch of government to manage awqaf properties the same way other branches of the public sector are managed (Kahf, 1999). These laws brought all awqaf property under state control for public benefit or for distributing through land reforms (and other methods) abolishing private awqaf in countries like Egypt, Libya, Syria, Tunisia, and the UAE. Since the early time, especially for the Hanafi scholars, endowment of moveable assets belonging to an endowed real estate, such as oxen or sheep, was permitted (Cizakca, 1995: 314). By inference the cash waqf has legitimacy, and thus it emerged as early as in the eighth century (CE). Though not approved by all, cash awqaf, over the years have served varied needs like the provision of education, food, water, and other social and urban services (e.g., repair of roads, public baths) (cited in Hasan, 2007).
Key Issues Private Waqf and Women
Awqaf were meant to be vehicles of earning Heavenly rewards by offering public goods in perpetuity (Kuran, 2001) but were created for five main motives: immortalization of a social status (by naming the enterprise after themselves), political gain (seeking loyalty of the beneficiaries and thus influencing public opinion), spreading an ideology (through the establishment of a particular educational institution), economic benefit (asset laundering), and property protection (from family predators or expropriation for funding state expenses) (cf. Kuran, 2001). For this last reason a large number of waqf founders have been women. By creating a waqf, women were able to safeguard their property from predatory relatives, benefit
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from its income during their lifetimes, ensure their right to manage it, and pass it on to their designated heirs (Fay, 1997). The axing of private waqf in many countries has reduced misuse of assets, but has destroyed a tool of property protection by women. Wealth Protection and Circumventing Inheritance Law
Many people established private waqf to circumvent the Islamic inheritance law. The establishment of a waqf gives the property owner flexibility of disinheriting or favoring heirs of his/her choosing. Further, the estate can be saved from fragmentation among the heirs (Kuran, 2001). The self-supporting motive of some creators defeated the public benefit purpose of the waqf and enraged many governments against the institution. Use of Waqf Property for Un-Islamic Purposes
The limits to which the use of a waqf property may be stretched have raised complex theological and social questions. A much debated issue has been the use of waqf resources for purposes not allowed for Muslims; for example, the construction of a night club on a waqf property legally rented by a hotel (Hasan, 2007). Misappropriation of Waqf Property
Misappropriation of waqf property by social and political elite as well as by government departments (e.g., in India) is also a major contested issue. In Malaysia, waqf resources have been appropriated by the elite, including some members of the governing party (Nagata, 2002). In India about one third of around 300,000 awqaf registered with state waqf boards do not serve the purposes (Hasan, 2007). State Intervention in Waqf Management
The right of the state to supervise (through the judiciary) the administration of waqf was explicit from the beginning (see Kuran, 2001). But the recent legislations in many countries have placed vast power in the waqf administrators which are hard to be implemented and have been ineffective. Perpetuity of the Endowment
The waqf, being vested in God, meant to be perpetual. Several Muslim countries have modified the perpetuity clause of private awqaf limiting it to two generations (e.g., Kuwait, Lebanon) or a century (Morocco) (Raissouni, 2001). Only the jurists belonging to the Sunni Maliki School (not the other three) accept temporality in waqf except for a mosque (Kahf, 1999). That is why in South and Southeast Asia (where most Muslims belong to the Sunni Hanafi School of jurisprudence) waqf is still seen to have a perpetual life.
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The matter leads to the contentious issue of selling waqf property. The judiciary in Bangladesh disallows sale of a waqf property, while the Federal Shari’a Court of Pakistan opines that the sale of waqf land is justified as long as the main purpose of the waqf is served. Waqf Property by and for the Non-Muslims
The existence of non-Muslims who have interests in creating perpetual instruments of public benefit like a waqf, and who expect benefits from such instruments raises the question of the creation of awqaf by or for providing benefits from a waqf to non-Muslims. Hanafi and Maliki (Sunni School) jurists approve the creation of waqf by non-Muslims but require that the object must be valid both according to the Islamic law as well as the waqf creator’s creed. But the Shafii and Hanbali jurists require the object to be valid only according to the Islamic Law (for more, please see Religion and Philanthropy: Islam). A colonial law in India disallowed non-Muslims from creating awqaf, but Lahore, Madras, and Nagpur high courts upheld Hindu dedication to Muslim awqaf (Rashid, 2002). Non-Muslims in Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Malaysia have formed awqaf. There was no legal barrier to making the non-Muslims beneficiaries of a waqf along with the Muslims, and many awqaf in the past transferred income from the politically and militarily dominant Muslims to the followers of other religions (Kuran, 2001) and some still do, for example, in Egypt or India. All communities are yet to accept it.
International Perspectives Historically educational institutions (often attached to orphanages) had been major beneficiaries of awqaf properties. There were hundreds of high schools and universities in the early Muslim cities like Baghdad, Cairo, Damascus, or Jerusalem receiving infrastructure, teaching materials, books, operational expenses, and stipends for students from awqaf. One of the oldest awqaf supporting a major seat of Islamic research and higher education is the Al Azhar University of Egypt. Many schools, universities, and almost all madrasas (schools emphasizing religious education) in south and southeast Asia are established, furnished, and operated by awqaf. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the pondoks (boarding schools) are established and operated by awqaf funds (Hasan, 2007). There are allegations that because of their presumed ‘‘pious’’ source of funding these institutions are less regulated and may have now become training grounds for Muslim extremists. Some modern waqf (for example, the SAR Charitable Institution in the United States) have been using modern instruments of economic growth by investing in
food and agriculture industry, real estate and land development, construction, advanced technology, textiles, pharmaceuticals, trade, and so forth. Many awqaf are also moving to support high impact social activities like the operation of ideological centers, creation of student loan and education scholarship fund; sponsoring and supporting persecuted Muslim minorities; and cooperating with other charitable institutions in philanthropic activities. The Direct Aid Association, an NGO, use multidimensional cash waqf similar to company bonds, and has achieved much success in social development, education and training, infrastructure and construction, hygiene improvement, and health development (Raissouni, 2001). India allows an extended use of cash waqf, but not in a productive way like the above. For example, since the dargah (shrine) funds are ‘‘statutorily regarded as waqf ’’ the daily collection (irrespective of the donors’ religion) by implication, becomes waqf – cash waqf for that matter (Rashid, 2002), but never used for social benefit.
Future Directions Many social and economic problems can be and are solved by waqf earnings in many Muslim communities. The communities need to take measures to divert waqf funds to productive use from the present use for ‘‘pious’’ cause. In order to achieve such goals, many countries have introduced waqf law and a ministry of waqf. In some countries a unified position of waqf administrator is created with much regulatory and supervisory authority to streamline waqf management and arrest misappropriation of waqf properties. These administrators can function well only if enough resources (funds and personnel) are made available. Misappropriation, mismanagement, and waste of waqf properties are caused due to the secrecy and sacredness surrounding waqf management. A transparent system need to be introduced to ensure a better accountability and use of waqf earnings for philanthropy. Cash awqaf serve valuable social functions, and are attractive because people can keep on building, if they so wish, with small cash. Further, cash awqaf are placed within a guaranteed financial institution, are easier to handle (than other property), and are not solely dependent on the intelligence, expertise, and sincerity of a mutawalli, thus less prone to mismanagement and misappropriation. Cash awqaf needs to be promoted with state supports. There could be other possible situations and ways of creating waqf for public as well as private benefits. For example, intellectual property can be an important source of waqf. Awqaf may be created with products of film companies, educational software programs, and many other intangible properties. Many authors of popular
Walras, Le´on
Islamic books have already created family awqaf with copy rights of their books (Sadeq, 2002; 2002a). All such rights and objects need to be covered in the awqaf instrument (Kahf, 1999).
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Wallenberg Stifelse ▶ Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Endowment, Definition and Management of ▶ Foundation, Definition and History ▶ Madrassa ▶ Mosques ▶ Philanthropy and Religion, Islam ▶ Sadaqa ▶ Zakat
References/Further Readings Ali, A. Y. (1938). The holy Qur’an: Text, translation and commentary. Beirut: Dar Al Arabia. Bukhari, M. I. I. (1971). The translation of the meanings of al-Bukhari by M. M. Khan (pp. 810–870). Medina: Al-Munawwara Islamic University. Carapico, S. (1998). Civil society in Yemen: The political economy of activism in modern Arabia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cizakca, M. (1995). Cash Waqfs on Bursa. Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient, 38, 313–354. Fay, M. A. (1997). Women and Waqf: Toward a reconstruction of women’s place in the Mamluk household. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 29, 33–51. Hasan, S. (2007). Philanthropy and social justice in Islam: Principles, potentials, and practices. Kuala Lumpur: A. S. Noordeen. Hoexter, M. (1998). Waqf studies in the twentieth century: The state of the art. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, 41, 476–495. Kahf, M. (1999). Towards the revival of Awqaf: A few Fiqhi issues to reconsider. Harvard Forum on Islamic Finance and Economics, 1 October, Harvard University, USA. Kuran, T. (2001). The provision of public goods under Islamic law: Origins, impact, and implications of the Waqf system. Law and Society Review, 35(4), 841–897. McChesney, R. D. (1995). Charity and philanthropy in Islam: Institutionalising the call to do good. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Centre for Philanthropy. Nagata, J. (2002). The changing perceptions of Waqf, as social, cultural and symbolic capital in Penang. The Penang Story – International Conference 2002, 18– 21. April. Ozalp, M. (2004). 101 questions you asked about Islam. Sydney: Brandl & Schlesinger. Raissouni, A. (2001). Islamic ‘‘Waqf Endowment’’: Scope and implications (A. Benhallam, Trans.). Rabat: Islamic Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organistion, ISESCO; www edition. Rashid, S. K. (2002). Awqaf legislation in South Asia: A comparative study. In S. K. Rashid (Ed.), Awqaf experiences in South Asia (pp. 63–111). New Delhi: Insitutute of Objective Research. Sadeq, A. M. (2002). Waqf, perpetual charity and poverty alleviation. International Journal of Social Economics, 29, 135–151. Sadeq, A. M. (2002a). Awqaf in Bangladesh. In S. K. Rashid, (Ed.), Awqaf experiences in South Asia (pp. 159–171). New Delhi: Institute of Objective Research.
Walras, Le´on DAMIEN ROUSSELIERE
Basic Biographical Information Born December 16, 1834, in Evreux, France, Marie Esprit Le´on Walras was the son of an economist, Auguste Walras. He graduated as a Bachelor of Arts in 1851 and of science in 1853 (Lyce´e of Douai) and entered the Ecole des Mines in Paris one year later. He dropped his engineering degree and then tried literature and art criticism unsuccessfully. His father suggested he should set up a career as a publicist on socioeconomic matters. After several jobs, notably as assistant editor in economic journals, Walras became the founder and managing director of a bank for cooperatives (Caisse d’escompte des associations populaires), created in 1865 according to the principles of SchulzeDelitzsch, and published a monthly journal on cooperatives (Le travail) in 1866. Both projects failed within two years. With the support of Jules Ferry, Walras was appointed to the newly created chair of political economy at the Academy of Lausanne, Switzerland in 1870, where he remained until 1892. His successor was his disciple, Vilfredo Pareto. After his retirement, on the basis of his previous works and a memorandum ‘‘Peace through Social Justice and Free Exchange,’’ he unsuccessfully competed for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 and 1907. He died in Clarens, Switzerland, January 5, 1910.
Major Contributions Hailed by Joseph Schumpeter in his ‘‘History of Economic Analysis’’ as ‘‘the greatest of all economists,’’ Walras is known for his ‘‘Elements of Pure Economics,’’ which became a foundation of ‘‘mainstream’’ economics. But for the architect of the general equilibrium, the study of political economy involved three related but distinct problems: values in exchange relationships, the creation of social wealth, and the distribution of social wealth. These problems are studied respectively by pure economics (according to the criterion of the ‘‘true’’), applied economics (criterion of the ‘‘useful’’), and social economics (criterion of ‘‘justice’’).
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The cooperatives participating in the production of wealth figure in ‘‘Applied Economics’’ as a means to attain the ideal of ‘‘Pure economics,’’ with the particularity of allowing those who brought in work, consumers, or small investors, to become capitalists. Walras argues, pace Charles Gide, that the association movement does not at all respond to the problem of social justice: it must be considered according to the ‘‘principles of political economy’’ as a form of free and voluntary association of individuals distinct from the Government. Dealing with the conditions for a just distribution of social wealth, ‘‘Social Economics’’ consists of two components: property and taxation. Because taxation is to be considered as unjust, since it runs against the ideal of giving each economic agent what is rightfully his, Walras advocated the abolition of taxes and the nationalization of land and natural resources to generate revenue for the government. Since all people have equal rights to pursue their goals, they should all profit equally from the resources offered by Nature. Land will therefore belong to the community.
Cross-References
▶ Cooperatives and Employee Ownership ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Gide, Charles ▶ Schulze-Delitzsch, Hermann ▶ Social Economy
References/Further Readings Walras, L. (1965). Correspondence of Le´on Walras and related papers (Vol. 3) William Jaffe´ (Ed.). Amsterdam: North Holland. Walras, L. (2005). Studies in applied economics (Vols. 2, J. van Daal, Trans.). London: Routledge. Wood, J. C. (Ed.) (1993). Le´on Walras, critical assessments. London: Routledge.
Washington, George KLODJAN SEFERAJ
Basic Biographical Information George Washington was born on February 22, 1732, near Pope’s Creek, Virginia (USA). He was the first son of Augustine Washington and his second wife, Mary Ball Washington. When he was 22, Washington joined the Virginia Militia. In June 1775 he received command of the Continental Army leading it to victory over the Kingdom of Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War
(1775–1783). In 1787 he presided over the Philadelphia Convention that drafted the United States Constitution and in 1788 was unanimously elected president by the newly formed House of Representatives. Washington served as president for 8 years, from 1789 to 1797, establishing the National Bank and wisely avoiding war with European powers. Washington is seen as a symbol of the United States and republicanism in practice. His devotion to civic virtue made him an exemplary figure among early American politicians. Washington has been consistently ranked by scholars as one of the greatest US Presidents.
Major Contributions Washington is seen as a symbol of the United States and republicanism in practice. His devotion to civic virtue made him an exemplary figure among early American politicians, ranking him as one of the greatest US Presidents. Congressman Henry Lee, a Revolutionary War comrade and father of the Civil War general Robert E. Lee, eulogized Washington as ‘‘first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.’’ One important aspect is that George Washington saw danger in groups devoted to shared interests and warned against ‘‘all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the Constituted authorities,’’ in his ‘‘Farewell Address.’’ He believed that associations were likely to ‘‘become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, and to usurp for themselves the reins of Government; destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted to unjust dominion’’ (Frumkin, 2005: 34). He was a peacemaker. When two rival political parties formed, he made sure that he had representatives of both in his Cabinet. Avoiding bitter factionalism was one of his strongest concerns. He constantly wrote letters to quarreling politicians in whom he recited the virtues of trust, patience, and forgiveness. He was a war hero who hated war and harbored no romantic illusions about soldiering. Therefore, he established a foreign policy based on strict neutrality and, despite considerable pressures, kept his administration free from ‘‘entangling alliances’’ with other nations. Washington’s refusal to accept a third term was an extraordinary historical event. That a ruler voluntarily would hand over the reins of government to another was almost unthinkable; it rarely had happened in human history. By giving his awesome political power back to the people who had entrusted it to him, he gained something far greater than the power any king ever possessed:
WaterAid
He became the father not just of a country, but of the greatest experiment in freedom the world has ever known. He showed the tremendous power of one individual. He created not only a model for the chief executive, but a model for every citizen.
Cross-References
▶ Associations, Definition and History ▶ Associative Democracy ▶ Civil Society and Democracy
References/Further Readings Boaz, D. (2006, February 20). The man who would not be King. Retrieved on August 17, 2008. Ellis, J. J. (2004). His excellency: George Washington. New York: Random House. Frumkin, P. (2005). On being nonprofit: A conceptual and policy primer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Garrity, P. (1996). Warnings of a parting friend (US Foreign Policy envisioned by George Washington in his farewell address). The National Interest, No. 45. Retrieved on October 6, 2007. George Washington: Making of a military leader. American Memory. Library of Congress. Retrieved on May 17, 2007. Henry Lee’s eulogy to George Washington, December 26, 1799. Safire, William (2004). Lend me your ears: Great speeches in history (pp. 185–186). New York: W. W. Norton. Stazesky, R. C. (2000, February 22). George Washington, genius in leadership. The papers of George Washington. Charlottesville, VA: Alderman Library, University of Virginia.
WaterAid SABINE CAMPE
Address of Organization 47-49 Durham Street London SE11 5JD UK www.wateraid.org
Introduction
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industry could contribute to the UN Decade of Drinking Water and Sanitation 1981–1991, WaterAid started its activities with a budget of 25,000 GBP and its first director was David Collett. In 1991, Prince Charles of Wales became the first president of WaterAid. WaterAid’s headquarters are based in London.
Mission and Activities The mandate of WaterAid is ‘‘to overcome poverty by enabling the world’s poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education.’’ (http:// www.wateraid.org/uk/about_us/default.asp, retrieved 11 December 2008.) WaterAid’s activities concentrate on two objectives. The first one is ‘‘to support our partners to deliver water, sanitation and hygiene education services to the world’s poorest people.’’ To further this aim, WaterAid implements projects in several countries in Africa, Asia and the Pacific region. WaterAid’s projects always aim to enable local stakeholders to manage their projects independently. While the initial emphasis was on providing low-tech water supplies such as hand-dug wells to poor communities, today WaterAid applies a more integrated approach to ensure that ‘‘access is gained to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education through equitable, integrated and sustainable services working in partnership with various organisations.’’ (http://www.wateraid.org/uk/ what_we_do/how_we_work/our_programme_approach/ default.asp, retrieved 30 January 2008.) In sanitation services, WaterAid focuses on low-cost technologies such as pit latrines that can be built and maintained independently by the communities. WaterAid’s second aim is ‘‘to influence policy to ensure affordable and sustainable services reach more of the people who need them most.’’ To achieve this aim, WaterAid campaigns and lobbies at international conferences and meetings for water and sanitation provision to become a top priority of poverty reduction plans and strategies.
Structure and Governance
WaterAid describes itself as an international NGO dedicated to the provision of safe domestic water, sanitation, and hygiene education to the poor.
WaterAid is an international NGO, which is registered as a charity in England and Wales. WaterAid is governed by a board of currently twelve trustees which are selected through an open application process.
Brief History
Funding
WaterAid was founded as a charitable fund on 21st July 1981 at the Thirsty Third World Conference, which was organized by the UK Government’s National Water Council. In response to the question how the UK water
WaterAid’s annual budget amounted to 31 million GBP in 2006/2007. More than half of the budget stems from donations and gifts, roughly 20% are restricted grants, mainly from UK’s Department for International
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Develoment (DfID). The rest of the budget is derived trough legacies, fund raising events, and voluntary grants.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions WaterAid has retained its character of being an independent non-governmental organization, which concentrates on water and hygiene provision and poverty alleviation and can arguably be called the most recognized independent international NGO in water policy. Among other recognitions, it was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize in 1995.
Cross-References
▶ Advocacy ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Socioeconomic Development ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development
References/Further Readings Coles, A., & Wallace, T. (2005). Gender, water and development. Oxford/ New York: Berg Publishers. Hanchett, S., (2003). Water, sanitation and hygiene in Bangladeshi slums: An evaluation of the WaterAid-Bangladesh Urban Programme. Environment and Urbanization, 15, 43–56.
WCC ▶ World Council of Churches (WCC)
Webb, Beatrice Potter DAMIEN ROUSSELIERE
Basic Biographical Information Born at Standish, Gloucestershire (England), January 22, 1858, Martha Beatrice Webb (ne´e Potter) was a daughter of Richard Potter, a prosperous businessman. Largely selfeducated, Beatrice, through the mentorship of the philosopher Herbert Spencer, a friend of her parents, became interested in social problems. Assisting Charles Booth in his social research, she went as an undercover investigator in working-class communities and sweatshops in London. She declared to be a socialist in 1889 as her sympathy in cooperatives rose, and undertook her first independent study on this topic.
In July 1892, after a year of secret engagement, she married Sidney Webb, a political essayist and a rising star of the socialist movement. It was the beginning of their intellectual and personal ‘‘partnership.’’ They largely owed their financial independence to Beatrice’s inheritance. The couple undertook research and published major books on issues such as socialism, trade unionism and local government. As the leaders of the Fabian society, they also lobbied on the causes of social reform and education, and played a major role in the British Labour Party, which they joined in 1914. A member of the Commission on the Poor Law and Unemployment (1905–1909), and of the Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry (1918–1919), Beatrice produced minority reports in favor of a wider welfare state and equal pay. When her husband was created Baron in 1929, Beatrice became Lady Passfield but declined to use her title. Three years later the couple visited USSR, where they were much impressed by the socialist state. Beatrice died in Liphook, Hampshire (England), April 30, 1943, and was buried at Westminster Abbey.
Major Contributions Beatrice’s independent works include The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain (1891), My Apprenticeship (1926), and Our Partnership (1948). While the former was one of the first major studies published on cooperatives in England, her diaries are regarded as important social and political documents. Beatrice considered that she had four children with Sidney: the Minority Report on the Poor Law (1909), the writing of Soviet Communism, the founding of the LSE (London School of Economics and Political Science), and the launching of the New Statesman. Each was an integral part of their joint work. While the thoroughness of empirical investigations depended largely on the fieldworks of Beatrice, their sociological theory derived from a common knowledge of Spencer. Saint-Simon and Comte inspired their ideas of a socialism headed by enlightened experts who would disinterestedly administer society for the common good. Based on a key role attributed to cooperatives and trade unions, their gradualist socialism (developed in A Constitution for a Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain) was step-by-step abandoned. Soviet Communism (1934) was more a normative vision of the Soviet system, as the new social order within their aims of planned production, efficiency, and social equality would be achieved, than a positive description of the USSR. In 1895, with the support of George Bernard Shaw and Graham Wallas, they founded the LSE, which was greatly financed through a bequest by Henry Hutchinson,
Weber, Max
a solicitor who left £20,000 for the propaganda of the collectivist movement. Created in order to ‘‘train experts in the task of reforming society,’’ the LSE was recognised in 1898 as a faculty of economics in the University of London. With Shaw and members of the Fabian society, the New Statesman was created in 1913 with the aim of influencing the educated classes with socialist ideas. The journal merged with the Nation and Athenaeum in 1931 and was chaired by Keynes (to the end of his life).
Cross-References
▶ Comte, Auguste ▶ Cooperatives, History and Theory of ▶ Saint-Simon, Claude Henry de Rouvroy (Comte de)
References/Further Readings Webb, B. (2001). The diaries of Beatrice Webb. Norman & Jeanne Mackenzie (Eds.). Boston: Northeastern University Press. Webb, B., & Webb, S. (1978). The letters of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, (Vol. 3). Norman Mackenzie (Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seymour-Jones, C. (1992). Beatrice Webb: A life. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee. Potter, B. (1895). The Co-operative movement in Great Britain. London: Sonnenschein. (This book and other major works of the Webbs are available online www.archive.org.)
Weber, Max HARRY BAUER
Basic Biographical Information Karl Emil Maximilian Weber is arguably one of the most eminent social theorists of the twentieth century. He is widely seen as a transformative figure both in the founding phase of the modern social sciences and in the transition from the authoritarian Wilhelmine Germany to the Weimar Republic. His multifarious work remains a significant reference point and inspiration for political thought and for the analysis of modern society alike. Born into the liberal Bu¨rgertum of Erfurt (Germany) in 1864, Weber became a lawyer by training and moved on to pursue a university career. After a brief interlude in Freiburg (Germany), he served his most prolific intellectual time as professor of (political) economics at the University of Heidelberg (Germany). Showing the true breadth of a polymath in his research, Weber gained wide prominence by working on the philosophy of the social sciences, the economic and social development of
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modernity as well as by comparing world religions; his renowned works include the path-breaking The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism and the posthumously published Economy and Society, his opus magnum. Increasingly, he also assumed the role of a public intellectual. Initially an emphatic supporter of the First World War, Weber became critical of the German war efforts and campaigned for wide-ranging constitutional reform. He played a part in the negotiations of the Versailles Treaty and the Weimar Constitution, although an attempt to enter politics had failed. Disappointed, he returned to university life and accepted a professorship in Munich, where he died unexpectedly of pneumonia in 1920.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Given the depth and breadth of Weber’s thinking, he has influenced the conceptualization and analysis of civil society in a number of ways. The central theme of Weber’s work has been the trajectory of rationalism and rationalization in different societies, especially the West. Triggered by material as well as ideational factors, rational behaviour starts to dominate all areas of life, such as politics, culture and law, culminating in a complete loss of individual freedom and the change of all values – the (in) famous ‘‘iron cage’’ of modernity. This process is thought to be uneven as different fields of activity follow different rational logics, leaving the modern world with an inherent tension caused by the interplay of formal-procedural and value rationality. Weber’s point is an early variant of the presumption that the development of capitalist modern society undermines its very foundations. Echoing Tocqueville, he argues that the associational life of society is of particular significance as a counterweight to such aberrations. As his stance throughout the democratic transformation of Germany indicates, Weber was wary of the value of associational life in general; he assumed ‘‘bad civil society’’ to be possible. This approach attributes civil society a specific normative function, but it also allows, for instance, to analyze its professionalization, inherent tensions between formal-procedural and value rationality and value generation. There is no doubt that Weber’s work foreshadows the current trend in social research to integrate material as well as ideational factors, micro as well as macro aspects of behavior; wide parts of his thought wait therefore to be reread and re-discovered yet again. Weber remains a ‘‘giant on whose shoulders we stand.’’
Cross-References
▶ Civic Culture ▶ Civil Society and Religion
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▶ Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century ▶ Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville ▶ Organizational Forms and Development ▶ Political Organizations ▶ Uncivil Society
References/Further Readings Kim, S. H. (2004). Max Weber’s politics of civil society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Radkau, J. (2009). Max Weber: A biography. Cambridge: Polity. Schluchter, W. (1981). The rise of western rationalism: Max Weber’s developmental history (G. Roth, Trans./Intro.). Berkeley: University of California Press. Swedberg, R. (1998). Max Weber and the idea of economic sociology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Weber, M. (1984ff.). Max-Weber-Gesamtausgabe (Collected Works), 41 vols., Tu¨bingen: Mohr-Siebeck. Weber, M. (1994). Political Writings, ed. and trans. P. Lassman and R. Speirs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Weisbrod, Burton A. SUSAN K. FEIGENBAUM
Basic Biographical Information Born in Chicago during the Great Depression, Burton Weisbrod received his Ph.D. in Economics from Northwestern University in 1958. At age 24, while completing his Ph.D. work, he made his first foray outside of his hometown to accept an Instructorship at Carleton College. With doctorate in hand, he continued on to the faculties of a number of illustrious research institutions: Washington University in St. Louis, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and, finally, Northwestern University, with visiting appointments at Brandeis, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Australian National University, and the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. He also served as Senior Staff Economist on the US Council of Economic Advisors and as Director of Northwestern’s Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research (now the Institute for Policy Research). Weisbrod is the author of nearly 200 articles and author or editor of 16 books.
Major Contributions Weisbrod has been motivated throughout his professional life by the promise of improving social well-being through the advancement of economic research and its dissemination beyond academic audiences. Early in his career he began to challenge the notion that economies are comprised of two distinct sectors – for-profit private
enterprise and government. He preferred to think about economic institutions as a continuum of entities that differ in the constraints they confront and, as a result, the incentives they face in making economic decisions. In a major contribution to the economics literature, Weisbrod pursued the question of how the private nonprofit sector – an economic sector experiencing rapid growth throughout the world – could be integrated into the traditional two-sector perspective. Since that time, he has continued to expand the realm of economics by exploring and contrasting nonprofit, government, and for-profit suppliers that appear, on the surface, to provide the same goods and services – for example, in the hospital and educational markets. Weisbrod’s publications are rarely complete without theoretical modeling, empirical evidence brought to bear on the resulting hypotheses, and public policy recommendations. He has demonstrated through his theoretical and empirical research that nonprofit organizations often arise in response to market failure created by the presence of high-cost, asymmetric information. A consistent and important finding is that nonprofit revenue sources vary considerably from exchange prices, which are essential to free market enterprise. This result has turned Weisbrod into a ‘‘forensic detective’’ of sorts, leading him into a more recent research agenda that focuses on the interrelationship between not-for-profit institutions’ official missions, revenue sources and their ultimate provision of goods and services. By directing many dozens of Ph.D. dissertations and coauthoring with many of his former students, Weisbrod has single-handedly nurtured a large cadre of economists who have pursued and expanded upon his research agenda by focusing on the behavior of government, forprofit, and nonprofit suppliers in such industries as higher education, hospitals, and nursing homes, day care, water delivery, charity, and medical research. As such, Weisbrod has earned distinction as a founding father of the ‘‘economics of nonprofits’’ literature.
Cross-References
▶ Goods and Services, Types of ▶ Hansmann, Henry ▶ James, Estelle ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Theories of the Nonprofit Sector, Economic ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic
References/Further Readings To Profit or Not to Profit: The Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1998, editor, and author or co-author of eight of the 15 chapters. Translated into Chinese, 2004.
Welfare State Weisbrod, B. A. (1975). Toward a theory of the voluntary nonprofit sector in a three-sector economy. In E. Phelps (Ed.), Altruism, Morality, and Economic Theory (pp. 171–195). New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Weisbrod, B. A. (1988).The nonprofit economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Weisbrod, B. A., Ballou, J., & Asch, E. (2008). Mission and money: Understanding the university. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Welfare State STEIN KUHNLE, ANNE SANDER Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, Germany
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policy measures, e.g., concerning housing, public health and labor markets, gradually developed and spread in various forms. A persistent growth of the welfare state took place after 1945, leading up to the so-called ‘‘golden age of the welfare state’’ in the 1970s. The welfare state has since then to a greater extent been exposed to challenges of demographic change, such as aging of populations and low birth rates in most economically developed countries, of high levels of unemployment, of globalization and increased international economic competition. As a result, many observers have commented on the perceived demise of the national welfare state and the perceived crisis of the modern welfare state. The notion of crisis appears often in the discussion about the premises for the transformation and survival of the welfare state.
Introduction
Definition
The concept of the welfare state has particularly after World War II gained considerable recognition worldwide. While nowadays welfare state arrangements can be found in all OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, and more and more in emerging and developing economies, the scale of provisions differs immensely. The conception of welfare states is based on principles of equality of opportunity, public responsibility, social security and equitable distribution of wealth which naturally covers a broad variety of modes of economic and social organization. In its comprehensive form the welfare state is supposed to guarantee state aid to individual citizens from ‘‘the cradle to the grave,’’ as sometimes exemplified by the Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands. Historically, the development of the welfare state has been intrinsically linked to the development of nation states. The concept of the welfare state refers to the idea of a state playing a key role in the protection and promotion of the social and economic well-being of its citizens. The description of the welfare state is controversial, however, and there is not a single norm of social justice that is referred to. The debate on the welfare state also reflects this observation. As the concept of the passive state was gradually abandoned in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, almost all states have sought to implement some measures of social security associated with the welfare state. National social insurance legislation can be traced to the latter half of the nineteenth century, and in particular to the extensive legislation initiated in Germany in the 1880s was an important agendasetting event for developments across Europe (Flora & Heidenheimer, 1981). Social insurance and other social
In its broadest sense the term ‘‘welfare state’’ describes a state which takes active measures to sustain and increase the well-being of its citizens. Welfare states vary as to how comprehensive and generous their welfare provisions are. The welfare state refers to a state that accepts the principle that it should intervene to ensure that all its citizens or inhabitants enjoy at least minimal standards of living, health, and protection against major contingencies, e.g., unemployment, sickness, old age (Budge et al., 1997). It represents an attempt to deal with a number of social risks to which citizens at various stages in their life are exposed to. It can thus be said to represent a kind of organized or institutionalized solidarity. The concept of the welfare state is rooted in the norm of social justice. In the early post World War II period a British scholar, Titmuss (1974) applied a philosophy of altruism to social and health policy and was especially concerned with this dimension and issues of social justice in the provision of welfare. The ‘‘welfare state’’ is often used as an equivalent to the ‘‘social state’’ (derived from the German word Sozialstaat). In German, the older term ‘‘Wohlfahrtstaat’’ carries a negative connotation, just as the term ‘‘welfare’’ in an American context. The term ‘‘welfare state’’ has in general a positive connotation in European settings, much less so in the United States and in the economically rapidly developing East Asian states, which have also entered a phase of substantial social policy expansion.
Historical Background The term welfare state was listed for the first time in the New York Times Index in 1949 and was included in the 1955 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
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The archbishop of York Sir William Temple is assumed to have been the first to use the concept in English in a book in 1941 where he described democratic welfare-oriented states as opposed to totalitarian power states. The beginning of the welfare state, if not the term, can meaningfully be traced back to the origins of comprehensive social insurance launched by Bismarck in Germany during the 1880s. This marked a new era of government responsibility for social security and welfare in industrializing countries. Directly and indirectly the German example inspired legislative activities on social policies throughout Europe. The modern welfare state ideology grew out of the experiences of World War II. Lord William Beveridge’s plan (1942) for a postwar ‘‘social service state’’ in Britain and the ILO Philadelphia resolutions (1944) are basic documents concerning the legitimation of social security and other social policies. Welfare state institutions and programs expanded rapidly and widely after the War, and from the 1950s onwards in particular. The historically different application of principles of population coverage, compulsion, organization, redistribution, and financing have led to what some have conceptualized as institutional ‘‘path-dependencies’’ (Pierson, 1996) in the development towards different institutional types of welfare states, or different welfare ‘‘models’’ or ‘‘regimes’’ (EspingAndersen, 1990). The development of the welfare state in the twentieth century was characterized by a gradual expansion of competencies and configuration of welfare measures. An increasing number of people (workers, employees, freelancers) were included, with provisions protecting against an increasing number of risks and with a gradual increase in benefit-levels. Since the 1970s, referred to as the end of the golden age of the welfare state, ‘‘crisis’’ (OECD, 1981), ‘‘breakdown’’ and ‘‘dismantlement’’ have become the catchphrases used to describe the condition of particularly the pioneering European welfare states. But whether these concepts fairly describe the status of European welfare states is contested (Kuhnle, 2000).
century to at least the 1970s, but also beyond in terms of, e.g., family allowances and paid parental leave schemes. Social and health insurance have in the course of this development become compulsory in European countries, and beyond, and the population coverage has been steadily widened. The Scandinavian countries are generally the prime examples for comprehensive, ‘‘institutionalized,’’ and universal welfare provision, but most European states have, in some contrast to for example the United States, implemented universal or near-universal health provision and various kinds of minimum income measures. Both the ‘‘Scandinavian’’ or ‘‘Nordic welfare model’’ and a ‘‘European social model’’ are conceptual examples of the variety of welfare states to be found in the present world. Provisions
Social care or social welfare is one of the provisions guaranteed by a welfare state. Welfare in this context refers both to emergency assistance offered to those in immediate need of help and to government responsibility for those who are unable to avail themselves of the minimum provisions for a good life. Another fundamental feature of the welfare state is preventive measures which take the form of compulsory social insurance or pension and health care funds. Such provisions, but in various organizational and financial shapes, can be found in most advanced industrial countries. Welfare states – particularly in their more comprehensive Western European form – also normally provide for at least basic public education, health services for all and public housing at low cost. Finally, legal claims for provisions constitute a further significant feature of the modern welfare state. These claims refer to certain categories of people, for instance families, farmers, citizens, or war veterans, who due to their status, are eligible for specific benefits or subsidies. In its most radical form the legal claims discussion is reflected in the debate about a basic income which can at present for instance be observed in Germany.
Key Issues
Modes of Intervention
Key elements of the modern welfare state concept include a legal basis which provides for income maintenance and other kinds of support for either individuals or families in case of unemployment, occupational accidents or diseases, sickness, old age, or childbirths. The boundaries of the welfare state – particularly in Europe – have been continuously extended from the late nineteenth
Welfare states maintain, regulate, or change their provisions through their social policy. There are three modes of intervention, which take the form of: regulative, redistributive, or activating welfare policy. Regulative intervention refers to legislation which aims at improving the living conditions of private actors, for example concerning minimum wages or job protection. Redistributive
Welfare State
intervention seeks to redistribute capital or income from one group to another, mostly through a combination of social insurance, social security and tax policies. Finally, activating policies try to create positive or negative incentives in order to govern the behavior of actors for instance through labor market intervention or stricter eligibility rules for disability pensions. Typologies and Classification
An influential and widely acknowledged – and criticized, also self-criticized – typology of welfare states was provided by Esping-Andersen (1990) who, building among others on Titmuss (1974), distinguishes between three different welfare state regimes according to characteristics of relations between state and market and the effects of social policy on power distribution within society. EspingAndersen‘s typology divides welfare states into liberal regimes (e.g., the United States, Canada, Switzerland, and Japan), conservative regimes (e.g., France, Italy, Germany, Austria), and social democratic regimes (e.g., Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands). Following EspingAndersen‘s classification the social democratic, or, preferably, the less ideological term ‘‘Nordic,’’ welfare state regime is perceived as an ideal type of welfare distribution. More recent approaches amend Esping-Andersen‘s typology by, for example, additional regimes such as a Mediterranean (Portugal, Italy, Spain, Greece) welfare regime; a postsocialist (e.g., Poland); and an East Asian welfare model (Goodman et al., 1998). A quite comprehensive overview of typologies and variations in labeling can be found in Arts and Gelissen (2002). These political, ideological, or geographical labels can of course be questioned, given welfare state growth in most European countries under governments with varying party-political characteristics, and growth in other parts of the world with a different cultural heritage (e.g., Korea, Taiwan), and different political configurations. Typologies and conceptualizations are contested. Also, recent welfare state reforms in many ‘‘advanced’’ welfare states raise questions as to the accuracy of such typologies, since most welfare states tend to develop a mix of policies and principles which make clearcut categorization of welfare states into ideal-type models or regimes difficult. Another classical typology of welfare states is the division by different methods of financing. The so-called Beveridge system is mainly paid for and regulated by taxation and providing flat-rate cash benefits, whereas the Bismarckian system is characterized by compulsory contributions to social insurance and benefits related to contributions. Many modern welfare states apply a mixture of these principles.
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Critique of the Modern Welfare State
Criticism of the welfare state comes from all political directions. The welfare state has induced criticism related to its fundamental normative foundation, rooted as it is in the ideas of social justice, solidarity, public, and collective responsibility for achieving goals of social equality and security Liberal Critics have – as for example, Hayek (1960) – stated that if the belief in social justice guides politics this will eventually result in a totalitarian system, as the state is forced to exercise control and try to assimilate different social groups in order to accomplish its aim to achieve social justice. Others contemplate an imbalance between welfare provision and the economy. The social budget that codifies social benefits is contrasted by a market that is no longer able to produce the required profit to pay for these provisions. Weaver (1986) has added a behavioral dimension to the criticism of welfare states. According to him political parties avoid being blamed for economic or political problems because they seek reelection (‘‘blame avoidance’’). Thus, all policy – including social policy – is always directed at the presumed electorate of the political party in power. Left-wing criticism describes the welfare state as patronising and dominating its citizens. This refers in particular to the amount of control institutionalized welfare exercises over beneficiaries. Habermas (1981), for example, regards the modern welfare state as an attempt of capitalist societies to pacify conflicting class-interests. The authoritarian structures which lie behind this, however, prevent citizens from emancipation. Referring to the class-dimension Offe (1972) contemplates that the welfare state is increasingly taking over economic responsibility, becomes itself part of the conflict between different classes.
International Perspectives A notion of a crisis of the welfare state is nothing new in its history, but perceptions of various kinds of crises (economic, social, political) have become more pronounced during the last three decades. Increasing and long-term unemployment and new forms of exclusion and poverty have contributed to this perception. The debate on the welfare state and its presumed crisis has taken on a more global dimension due to economic globalization processes, and expressed fear – or predictions of – a ‘‘race to the bottom.’’ European welfare states are affected by a ‘‘europeanization’’ of the economy and politics, especially in the field of labor market policy. The welfare state as such is constantly under severe pressure
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Welfare State
due to demographic imbalance (currently caused by low fertility rates combined with longer life expectancy), globalization, decreasing, or unstable economic growth and declining confidence in the public sector. Most welfare states face similar problems on the international level. First, all welfare states are exposed to economic internationalization and the pressures on their social protection frame that derive from it. Second, endogenous domestic factors such as an aging population and changes in the family structure are at play, and third, factors which derive from the development of the social security and welfare systems themselves account for problems of financing and service delivery. Pierson (1996) gives a similar evaluation of the modern welfare state and the international challenges it is confronted with. The twentieth century expansion of social programs has been a remarkable feature of advanced industrial societies. In all of these countries the entire construction of the welfare state can be seen as a core institution. However, developments since the 1970s have led to a widely spread acknowledgment of the limits to welfare state growth (Flora, 1986) and the prospect for extended austerity evident in a number of welfare state reforms worldwide. But what is possible, and what constitutes problems and crises, are also politically contested issues. A further general problem concerning the modern welfare state is rooted in the administration of the welfare state and the question how to maintain the balance between welfare needs, productivity, and financing capabilities.
Future Directions Deriving from a perceived or politically defined crisis of the modern welfare state the present debate about the welfare state concept can be classified into several approaches. Most recent approaches deal with the question of globalization and focus on the capacity of welfare regimes to adapt to the processes of economic internationalization. In Europe in particular this discussion is shaped by the ongoing europeanization process and linked to the question whether a comprehensive European Social Model or rather a European welfare state can and will be constructed. So far little is known about the effects of these processes and there is limited research on how globalization will in the long run affect national welfare state regimes. It is assumed, however, that as – or if – state control over welfare and social policy gradually declines, private actors are likely to take over specific fields of welfare. It remains an open question and will be subject to further investigation to what extent this will make up for the (presumed) state retreat, and what such a development eventually will mean in terms of new citizen
expectations towards the welfare responsibility of the state, and in terms of new social divisions of welfare, or social segmentation of welfare states. Most likely there will be a new focus on the role of civil society in the overall provision of welfare, and on possible new arrangements in the ‘‘welfare triangle’’ of the state, the market and the civil society. Expectedly, there will also be a greater focus on international governmental and nongovernmental organizations and their role in the global social policy discourse. The reform of the modern welfare state and its future shape and survival are the most fundamental foundations of current comparative welfare state analysis (Leibfried and Mau, 2008). This has resulted in rethinking the state role as the provider of welfare and the ideological and normative foundations of the concept. Accumulated in the debate about a so-called activating welfare state is the notion that it is no longer just supposed to provide its citizens with social protection and care, but rather is ascribed the responsibility to activate its citizens to participate in the labor market. This implies an accentuation of the dutydimension in addition to the social rights ascribed to citizens as the beneficiaries of welfare state provisions.
Cross-References
▶ Altruism ▶ Beveridge, Lord William Henry ▶ Bismarck, Otto von ▶ Citizenship ▶ Gift Relationship ▶ Labor Unions/Labor Movement ▶ OECD ▶ Participation ▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Social Economy ▶ Social Origins Theory ▶ Social Trust ▶ Solidarity ▶ Sustainability ▶ Tax Policy ▶ Titmuss, Richard ▶ Values
References/Further Readings Arts, W., & Gelissen, J. (2002). Three worlds of welfare capitalism or more? A state-of-the-art report. Journal of European Social Policy, 12(2), 137–158. Beveridge, W. (1942). Social insurance and allied services. London: His Majesty’s Stationary Office. Budge, I. (1997). The politics of New Europe. London/New York: Longman. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Wellcome Trust Flora, P. (Ed.) (1986). Growth to limits. The Western European welfare states since world war II (Vols. 1–2). Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter. Flora, P., & Heidenheimer, A. (Eds.) (1981). The development of welfare states in Europe and America. New Brunswick, NJ/London: Transaction Books. Goodman, R., White, G., & Kwon, H -j. (Eds.) (1998). The East Asian welfare model. London: Routledge. Habermas, J. (1981). The theory of communicative action. London: Beacon. Hayek, F. A. (1960). The constitution of liberty. London: Routledge. ILO (1944). The declaration of Philadelphia. Declaration from the 26th session of the General Conference of the International Labour Organization. Philadelphia, PA. Kuhnle, S. (Ed.) (2000). Survival of the European welfare state. London/ New York: Routledge. Leibfried, S., & Mau, S. (Eds.) (2008). Welfare states: Construction, deconstruction, reconstruction. Cheltenham: Elgar. OECD. (1981). The welfare state in crisis. Paris: OECD. Offe, C. (1972). Advanced capitalism and the welfare state. Politics and Society, 2(Summer), 479–498. Pierson, P. (1996). The New Politics of Welfare. World Politics, 48(2), 143–179. Titmuss, R. (1974). Social policy. London: Allen & Unwin. Weaver, K. R. (1986). The politics of blame avoidance. Journal of Public Policy, 6(4), 371–398.
Wellcome Trust MARTIN HO¨LZ
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of medical research and to an understanding of its history. In the area of biomedical and veterinary science, research is supported by fellowships, Ph.D. Programs, and undergraduate programs. In the area of biomedical ethics and the history of medicine, the Trust offers fellowships, research support, seminars and dissemination grants, providing financial support for the conduct of workshops, conferences and symposia. The Trust also serves as a connecting link between research and application by supporting a broad range of projects concerning technology transfer. The Wellcome Collection offers space to permanent and temporary exhibitions, as Sir Henry Wellcome was a keen collector of medical artifacts as well as original artworks. The Wellcome Library, housed in the same building as the Collection, holds over 750,000 books and journals and an extensive collection of manuscripts, archives and films.
Structure and Governance The 10-member Board of Governors oversees the Trust’s activities, while an Executive Board, consisting of the director and senior managers from its seven divisions, manages the day-to-day activities. Six strategy committees, corresponding to its major funding areas, advise the Trust on its grantmaking portfolio. Since 2001, the Trust’s constitution has superseded the will of Sir Henry Wellcome as governing document.
Address of Organization
Funding
Gibbs Building 215 Euston Road London NW1 2BE UK www.wellcome.ac.uk
Estimates of the size of the Wellcome Trust’s endowment range between 12 and 15 billion British pounds. According to its annual report, the Trust’s income on the endowments investment and other revenue sources totaled some 305 million British pounds, whereas expenditures amounted to 790 million British pounds.
Introduction Established in 1936, the Wellcome Trust is the largest nongovernmental fund for biomedical research in the UK, spending some 600 million British pounds annually to improve human and animal health.
Brief History The Wellcome Trust is the legacy of Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome, a pharmaceutical engineer who co-founded Bourroughs Wellcome & Company and brought many inventions and innovations to the pharmaceutical industry.
Mission and Activities In his will establishing the Trust, Sir Henry Wellcome dedicated the capital to two purposes: to the advancement
Major Accomplishments The Wellcome Trust is nationally and internationally acknowledged for its research in human and animal medicine. Its support has contributed to major achievements relating to the treatment of malaria, saving premature infants, and identification of a gene for skin cancer.
Cross-References
▶ Endowment, Definition and Management of
References/Further Readings Hall, A. R., & Bembridge, B. A. (1987). Physic and philanthropy: A history of the Wellcome Trust, 1936–1986. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univeristy Press.
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Wichern, Johann Hinrich
Wichern, Johann Hinrich JU¨RGEN SCHMIDT
Basic Biographical Information Wichern was born on 21 April 1808 in Hamburg as son of a lower middle class family. After the death of his father (1823) Wichern had to leave school and work as substitute teacher. Friends of his family which were members of the pietistic revivalism enabled him to study theology in Go¨ttingen and Berlin. After his return to Hamburg, Wichern became in 1832 teacher in a Sunday school in a proletarian suburb. A year later he bought with the support of Hamburg elites and senators the ‘‘Rauhe Haus,’’ a ‘‘rescue house’’ (Rettungshaus) for orphaned and/or neglected children. Since the mid of the 1840s Wichern had contact to the Prussian king and government. In 1857 he was appointed high civil servant in the Prussian Ministry for Interior and responsible for reforming the prison system. Wichern was one of the founding fathers of the ‘‘Innere Mission,’’ a movement within the Protestant church to bring back people to faith and church in an age of secularism by means of Christian agitation, education, work, and social support. Wichern died in Hamburg on 7 April 1881.
Major Contributions Wichern played an important role in opening the Protestant church to the social question in the first half of the nineteenth century. One result of this engagement was the founding of the ‘‘Rauhe Haus,’’ where at the end of 1836 55 children and in 1845 93 children lived. During this period 117 children were placed in foster families. Wichern’s socio-pedagogical concept was inspired by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and guided by the principles of freedom and family. The purpose was to educate ‘‘free children in a free family.’’ But forms of disciplinary actions became in the education at the ‘‘Rauhe Haus’’ obvious too. The concept of the ‘‘Innere Mission’’ concentrated on the social question, too, and a network to help migrant workers, pauper, etc. was built – financed by donations, collections and contributions. A forward-looking aspect in Wichern’s ‘‘memorandum’’ about ‘‘Innere Mission’’ of 1849 was the idea to create a ‘‘Christian association of those who need help by themselves’’ (‘‘christliche Assoziation der Hilfsbedu¨rftigen selbst’’), in its last consequence a way to autonomous self-help. But especially after the revolution of 1848, in which Wichern saw the anti-Christ, the movement of the ‘‘Innere Mission’’ was more and more
integrated into the Prussian reaction and antimodernistic currents. Finally, despite Wichern’s civic engagement in nonstate associations, his reflections about the relation between state, church and civil engagement were ambivalent. On the one side, he emphasized the importance of the voluntary, free and autonomous actions of the ‘‘Innere Mission’’ against the institutional church and expected from the state that he grants the right to assemble in free associations. On the other hand, he saw the state as main responsible for solving the social question. Finally, Wichern turned more and more in a supporter of the syndicate of ‘‘crown and altar.’’
Cross-References
▶ Diakonisches Werk der EKD
References/Further Readings Brakelmann, G. (1966). Die evangelisch-soziale und die katholisch-soziale Bewegung (pp. 15–37). Witten, Germany: Luther-Verlag. Hitzer, B. (2006). Im Netz der Liebe. Die protestantische Kirche und ihre Zuwanderer in der Metropole Berlin (1849–1914). Ko¨ln, Germany: Bo¨hlau. Raupp, W. (1999). Johann Hinrich Wichern. In Biographischbibliographisches Kirchenlexikon. Hamm, Germany: Bautz, col. 1473–1503 (available as web-resource, too). Schambach, S. (2008). Johann Hinrich Wichern. Hamburg, Germany: Ellert & Richter. Sturm, S. (2007). Sozialstaat und christlich-sozialer Gedanke. Johann Hinrich Wicherns Sozialtheologie und ihre neuere Rezeption in systemtheoretischer Perspektive. Stuttgart, Germany: Kohlhammer.
WINGS ALLYSON REAVES
Address of Organization c/o Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium (APPC) 2nd floor, Lexington Condominium 65 Xavierville Avenue, Loyola Heights Quezon City 1108 The Philippines www.wingsweb.org
Introduction Worldwide Initiatives for Grantmaker Support (WINGS) is a global network of more than 140 membership associations serving grantmakers and support organizations
WINGS
in philanthropy. From 2007 to 2010 the WINGS Secretariat is being hosted by the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium.
Brief History WINGS evolved from a series of meetings beginning in the 1990s among associations of grantmakers which had discovered they carried out similar tasks. Their work included monitoring legal and regulatory frameworks for philanthropy and nonprofit organizations, providing services to strengthen foundations, and promoting best practices and accountability in grantmaking. WINGS was formally established in January 2000. From 2000 to 2002 WINGS was hosted by the Council on Foundations (United States) and WINGS-CF was hosted by Community Foundations of Canada. From 2003 to 2006, the two initiatives were serviced by one Secretariat hosted by the European Foundation Centre in Brussels, Belgium. Since 2007 the Secretariat has been hosted by the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium in the Philippines.
Mission/Objective/Focus Area The WINGS mission identifies it as a worldwide network that seeks to strengthen philanthropy and a culture of giving through mutual learning and support, knowledge sharing and professional development among its participants. WINGS also strives to give voice and visibility to philanthropy at a global level.
Activities The WINGS network involves the contributions of 144 participating foundations, membership associations, and institutions, and it serves as a meeting place for those engaged in building the institutional infrastructure to support philanthropy globally. The WINGS regional representation comprises 60 European members, 37 in North America, eight in Asia/Pacific, 17 member organizations in Latin America, and an additional seven participants in Africa and three participants in North Africa/Middle East. The core activities of WINGS are divided into two primary areas: WINGS-CF (community foundations) and WINGS-CI (corporate initiative). WINGS-CF includes organizations supporting the development and work of community foundations. The WINGS-CF Advisory Committee provides advice and guidance to the WINGS Secretariat in the planning, implementation, and maintenance of WINGS-CF’s policies and activities, and links with the WINGS Coordinating Committee.
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WINGS-CI, a group in development, will convene organizations supporting the work of corporate grantmakers. With a similar structure to the WINGS-CF counterpart, there is also a WINGS-CI Advisory Committee that reports to the WINGS Coordinating Committee.
Structure and Governance The leadership and direction of WINGS is the responsibility of the multinational WINGS Coordinating Committee, made up of senior executives from network participants. The chair is Fernando Rossetti, secretary-general of GIFE – Group of Institutes, Foundations, and Enterprises, and Marissa Camacho-Reyes serves as the WINGS Executive Director.
Funding The core activities and operations of WINGS are supported by the Ford Foundation and the C. S. Mott Foundation. Support is also received from other foundations and corporate donors for specific activities such as the WINGS Forum, a global meeting of the network’s participants held every 4 years. WINGS does not receive funding support from government sources. Additional funding is secured through grant proposals submitted to various private sources.
Accomplishments One of the signature contributions of WINGS is the ongoing Global Status Report on Community Foundations. The 2008 Community Foundation Global Status Report shows that the community foundation movement globally is robust and continues to expand not only in numbers but in the ways that they make a difference in the communities they serve. This report is the fifth in a series that WINGS first published in 2000 to track the growth and development of community foundations around the world.
Cross-References
▶ Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium (APPC) ▶ Community Foundations of Canada ▶ Council on Foundations ▶ European Foundation Centre ▶ Foundations, Community ▶ Networks
References/Further Readings Leat, D. (2002). Case studies of organizations supporting community foundations. Arlington/Ottowa: Council on Foundations/Community Foundations of Canada.
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Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom THOMAS DAVIES
Address of Organization International Secretariat 1 rue de Varembe´ Case Postale 28 1211 Geneva 20 Switzerland www.wilpf.int.ch
Introduction The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) is an international nongovernmental organization that aims to bring together ‘‘women from around the world who are united in working for peace by nonviolent means, promoting political, economic and social justice for all.’’ One of the oldest and most influential women’s peace organizations, WILPF currently boasts thirty-four national sections, covering all continents.
Brief History An outgrowth of the women’s suffrage movement, WILPF developed from an International Congress of Women that was held in the Hague in April–May 1915 under the presidency of Jane Addams of Hull House, Chicago. The conference was initiated by Aletta Jacobs of the Dutch Suffrage Society when the International Suffrage Alliance cancelled a planned conference because of the First World War. An ‘‘International Committee of Women for Permanent Peace’’ was created, which was succeeded by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom at a conference in Zurich in 1919.
Mission Having long advocated objectives including work towards world peace, repudiation of violence as a means of dispute resolution, disarmament, and women’s empowerment, WILPF’s agenda has expanded over time to include such objectives as strengthening the United Nations system and environmentally sustainable development. WILPF also aims ‘‘to further by non-violent means the social transformation that enables the inauguration of systems under which social and political equality and economic justice for all can be attained’’ and ‘‘sees as its ultimate goal the establishment of an international economic order founded on the principles of meeting the needs of all people and not those of profit and privilege.’’
Activities WILPF promotes its agenda through work at the international, national, and local levels, including lobbying governments, participating in, monitoring and networking with international organizations and movements, and creating educational and activist resources disseminated through meetings, websites, and publications. Two of its main New York-based projects are Reaching Critical Will (www.reachingcriticalwill.org), which aims to boost civil society involvement in international fora on disarmament, and Peace Women (www.peacewomen.org), which aims to ‘‘monitor and work toward rapid and full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.’’
Structure and Governance An international nongovernmental organization with national sections in thirty-four countries, WILPF’s organs also include its international congress (the ‘‘final authority in all matters concerning the organization’’), an international secretariat, an executive committee, and an international board representing each country section; decisions are reached by consensus.
Funding WILPF lists its funding sources as membership and section fees, donations, and grants. The annual budget of the Geneva and New York international offices is just over one million Swiss Francs.
Accomplishments WILPF’s historical achievements include claimed influence over Woodrow Wilson’s plans for the post-World War One settlement, one of the largest international petitions ever to have been circulated (for disarmament in the early 1930s), and the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to two of its founding members, Jane Addams and Emily Greene Balch, in 1931 and 1946 respectively.
Cross-References
▶ Addams, Jane ▶ INGOs ▶ Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations
References/Further Readings Bussey, G., & Tims, M. (1980). Pioneers for Peace: Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1915–1965. London: WILPF British Section. Foster, C. (1989). Women for All Seasons: The Story of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press.
Work and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector
Work and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector EVA MORE-HOLLERWEGER, MICHAEL MEYER Vienna University of Economics and Business, Vienna, Austria
Introduction As far as work and employment is concerned, the third sector plays an interesting role for several reasons. First of all there is the high share of volunteers which is absolutely indispensable for many organizations. Second, the nonprofit sector is among the growing sectors of the economy especially in terms of employment. In many countries nonprofit organizations mainly operate in labor-intensive fields such as health and care services which are gaining importance due to demographic and socioeconomic developments (Salamon & Sokolowski, 2005: 20). The nonprofit sector is therefore often considered as a ‘‘job machine’’ capable of creating additional jobs in the future (Priller, 2005: 36; Dathe & Kistler, 2005: 65; Betzelt & Bauer, 2000: 7). In the face of economic developments causing job reductions in many other sectors the nonprofit sector seems to be one of the most promising sectors. On the other hand critics warn that the growth in employment is mainly the result of an increase of atypical work and comes therefore at the risks and expenses of the employees – more than in other sectors. The crucial issue is whether employees and volunteers are sufficiently provided with social security either by their jobs or by some other source of income. Last but not least some nonprofit organizations are actively involved in labor market policy and therefore in shaping labor market characteristics, either in terms of interest representation such as trade unions or in terms of provision of jobs for people who have difficulties to find paid jobs in other sectors such as sheltered workshops. Beyond doubt the nonprofit sector provides multifaceted opportunities of work. Nevertheless empirical research lags behind in drawing a clear picture of employment and volunteering in the nonprofit sector in most of the countries mainly due to a lack of data. This article intends to summarize the state of the art and give a brief overview over the major issues discussed.
Definition Unlike organizations in the business and public sector, nonprofit organizations comprise a broader spectrum of labor relations and contracts with individuals. It is not only the ‘‘typical’’ labor contract – though under the light
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of recent developments it becomes questionable to talk about typical forms – it is in a much wider range atypical contracts, forms of new self-employment and labor relations, such as volunteering, which are almost a singular characteristic of the nonprofit sector.
Paid Work Typical Forms
Forms of work and employment are strongly determined by the respective legal regulations in different countries concerning labor law as well as social security systems. Usually these regulations refer to some kind of reference model which defines ‘‘typical work.’’ Typical work is usually defined as socially secure, full-time work of unlimited duration with regulated working hours, guaranteeing a regular income and securing pension payments and protection against ill-health and unemployment via social security system (Ta´los, 1999: 417; European industrial relations dictionary, 2008). Atypical Forms
Working conditions that deviate from this standard model are termed atypical work or atypical employment (cf. Brown, 2005; Guest, 2004; Marsden, 2004; OECD, 2004). The divergence might occur in various dimensions, i.e., in terms of working time (e.g., part-time jobs), duration of the contract (e.g., fixed term contract), work location (e.g., home working), job detachment (e.g., self employed, employed by agencies) as well as social security standards and fringe benefits. In economic theory, the occurrence of atypical work is explained either by demand side or by supply side factors. On the employer’s side (1) low capital resources, (2) insecurity of the future financial situation due to short-term contracts with the government or (3) dependence on private giving as well as (4) a high demand for flexibility due to variations in capacity utilization are reasons often related to nonprofit organizations. Employers prefer atypical work due to time preferences, the reconciliation of work and family life or aims of work-life balance (Trukeschitz, 2005: 83ff; Anheier et al., 2003: 12). Part-time Work
There is no generally agreed definition of part-time work. According to the European Framework Agreement on part-time work, the term ‘‘part-time worker’’ refers to ‘‘an employee whose normal hours of work, calculated on a weekly basis or on average over a period of employment of up to 1 year, are less than the normal hours of work of a comparable full-time worker’’ (Activities of the
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European Union. Summaries of Legislation, 2008). Norms defining full-time work vary across countries, mostly between 30 and 40 h per week. Temporary Work
Temporary work occurs in various forms e.g., direct fixedterm, occasional or seasonal contracts, and temporary employment through specialized agencies. Motivations for temporary contracts are to be sought on the demandside rather than on the employees’ side (Anheier et al., 2003: 12). Self-employment
Self-employment very generally refers to the status of individuals who choose to go into business for themselves rather than concluding a work contract with an employer. There is a different type of contract which couples supplier and demander of labor: It is not a contract of employment, but a contract of service or delivery. Object of the contract is not only the potential to work, but a more or less well defined result. While self-employment is often associated with a higher degree of autonomy, it can also result in uncertain levels of income, long working hours and isolation. Also social insurance is in large part left to the own initiative of the self-employed in most countries. Manifold reasons lead individuals to becoming selfemployed. Some persons prefer to work without supervision, some are unable to find other employment, some want to work at home in order to care for children etc. In some countries the actual employment in the nonprofit sector exceeds the number of employees found in official statistics, as many who work in nonprofit organizations have the status of self-employee in order to reduce social security costs (Anheier et al., 2003: 13). Sheltered and Supported Employment
Many nonprofit organizations play active roles in labor market policies, often as agents for public authorities. These organizations sometimes provide so-called ‘‘sheltered employment.’’ Individuals who have difficulties to find jobs in other sectors (because of various reasons, e.g., disabilities or long-term unemployment) work in special (mostly nonprofit) organizations that were established for the purpose to provide them with an opportunity within an supportive environment. These nonprofit organizations accept responsibility for a large part of this second labor market which exists outside the regular (first) labor market (Anheier et al., 2003: 13). Second and Multiple Jobs
According to European data, multiple job holding is an increasingly occurring phenomenon in some contexts
(Anheier et al., 2003: 13). The decision to hold more than one job can have quite diverse motivations. It might be made out of financial reasons in order to increase the current or future income in terms of wages, social security or career plans. On the other hand, persons with a sufficient financial security might wish to seek opportunities in other ventures, including the nonprofit sector which often provides meaningful activities (Anheier et al., 2003: 13).
Volunteer Work The framing and shaping of voluntary work has taken place in quite diverse historical, cultural, and institutional contexts across different countries. According to the respective cultural background, the notion of volunteering is either stronger associated with a self-organizing society outside the confine of the state (e.g., United Kingdom), a vital expression of democracy (e.g., United States) or more with communal services to the public good (e.g., Germany) (Anheier et al., 2003: 15). The different notions of volunteers and voluntary work can be seen as one reason why no generally accepted definition of these terms exists. Various definitions operationalize voluntary work by emphasizing different aspects, e.g., contribution that individuals make as nonprofit, nonwage, and noncareer action for the well being for their neighbors, and society at large (United Nation, 1999); to help others for no monetary pay (Hodgkinson, 1996 for the Giving and Volunteering Survey in the United States); time, given freely and without pay to any organization, which has the aim of benefiting people or a particular cause (Gaskin & Davis Smith, 1997: 27 for the first comparative study of volunteering in Europe). In order to differentiate voluntary work from other work forms three distinctions seem to be crucial (Badelt & More-Hollerweger, 2007: 503f.; Anheier et al., 2003: 14ff.): ● Absence of monetary pay: Volunteers don’t get any compensation for the time they spend for their volunteer activities. They might get other expenditures (e.g., travel, and phone costs) reimbursed. ● Absence of (legal) obligation: As expressed by its name voluntary work is carried out without obligation and should therefore be distinguished from work forms such as compulsory internships and civilian service (see below). ● Work done for a beneficiary outside the own household/family: This characteristic contains two aspects. First voluntary work is distinguished from sole
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consumptive activities like jogging, practicing an instrument etc. which are carried out for one’s own benefit only. Second household and family work is – although unpaid – also not considered to be voluntary work since it relates to other (also important) issues and should therefore be treated separately. Some definitions consider only formal volunteering referring to activities provided for an organization rather than informal volunteering which is defined as voluntary work provided outside of an organizational context such as neighborhood aid (Anheier et al., 2003: 18). Volunteers can be found across the whole spectrum of nonprofit organizations and they fulfill a wide range of different activities at every organizational level. The activities might require a high qualification or a specific training or they might be quite simple to fulfill. Unlike paid work no ‘‘typical’’ form of volunteering exists in terms of the time spent, neither by legal definition nor by practice. Usually volunteers spend less time than typical paid workers but in certain cases the time spent by a volunteer might even exceed 40 h per week. Varieties also occur in terms of duration of the commitment and frequency (e.g., weekly, or just once in a while) (Anheier et al., 2003: 18f.).
Mixed Forms of Paid and Unpaid Work Unpaid Overtime/Long Hours
Hardly any quantitative empirical evidence exists on the occurrence of unpaid overtime in the nonprofit sector (Anheier et al., 2003: 19; Almond & Kendall, 2000). Long hours can be analyzed from various perspectives, e.g., from the organizational or the individual angle. In many organizations working long hours is a strong but latent norm within organizational culture, thus negatively affecting women’s careers (Simpson, 1998). It has been shown that unpaid overtime contributes significantly to career success in terms of income and advancement (Meyer et al., 2005). Corporate Volunteering
As an expression of Corporate Social Responsibility some profit-oriented companies provide their personnel with the opportunity to work for other – mostly nonprofit – organizations within their paid working time. From the perspective of the person providing the work it is therefore not a volunteer according to the applied definition unless the activity does not exceed the paid working time. The nonprofit organizations on the other hand may consider the work as volunteering since they need not pay for it (Anheier et al., 2003: 19).
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Internship
An internship is a temporary job by which the person interning intends to gain work experience. It might be unpaid or paid, voluntary, or compulsory (e.g., for completion of a degree or for the payment of unemployment benefit). Civilian Service/Compulsory Community Service
Some countries (e.g., Germany, Austria) offer the possibility to do some kind of civilian service as an alternative to the mandatory military service. This compulsory community service is usually provided in nonprofit or governmental organizations. The duration, working hours and remuneration are legally defined. In some nonprofit organizations the community servants account for a considerable proportion of the labor force (e.g., the Austrian Red Cross employed 48,460 volunteers, 5,497 employees, and 3,384 community servants in the year 2007) (http://www.oerk.at/meta/organisieren/ organisation/wer-wir-sind/taetigkeitsbericht [09/21/2008]).
Key Issues New Forms of Employment Beyond Traditional Categories
Not only in the nonprofit sector, rapidly changing employment systems lead to different forms of work, including an erosion of standard forms of employment and careers. Major characteristics of professional careers such as vertical advancement and employment security are partly replaced by flexible performance demands and interfirm mobility characteristics for the twenty-first-century employment (Martin, 2002; Craig & Hall, 2005: 115). Change drivers such as globalization, virtualization, demographic developments or value changes result in new forms of organizations, organizing, and private and occupational life concepts of individuals (e.g., Sennett, 1998; Ruigrok et al., 1999). Due to various reasons, especially with regard to values and the mission, the lack of financial resources, the high share of small and medium sized NPOs and social comparison processes between different workforms, NPOs have always been pioneers in implementing these new forms. Theoretically grounded concepts for categorizing and analyzing these various forms of work are needed to keep up with these dynamics. Labor relations might be differentiated in three dimensions: (1) compensation (monetary vs. non monetary), (2) coupling (tight vs. loose, Orton & Weick, 1990; Staehle, 1991; Weick, 1969, 1976), and (3) stability (stable vs. unstable).
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Careers in the Third Sector
The nonprofit sector presents a specific mix of forms of organizing. It combines both traditional organizations with strong hierarchies (e.g., Red Cross, hospitals) and project-based employment (e.g., cultural projects or relief organizations). A common and crucial feature throughout the sector, though, is that funding limits employment contracts – even in traditional organizations. From an individual point of view, the nonprofit sector thus constitutes a career field in which many jobs have an ‘‘expiry date.’’ A career field with such characteristics is interesting for two reasons: (1) In the future career fields are unlikely to present the either-or of project careers vs. organizational ones (e.g., the film industry as opposed to public administration; Jones, 1996). Rather, it is likely that in the majority of cases permanent and temporary forms of organizing will coexist. The nonprofit sector can be studied as a testing ground of such ways of organizing society. (2) With around 10% of the average Western economy’s work force employed in the nonprofit sector, this sector already constitutes a career field of considerable economic importance and academic interest. Nevertheless careers in the nonprofit sector have not been systematically researched so far, and career management is very seldom a major issue in NPOs.
consciously. Aspects of increasing their employability might play an important role in certain periods of life of volunteers (Beher et al., 2000: 13). Wages in the Nonprofit Sector
Intrinsic and altruistic motivation is also one of the explanations of potential lower wages in the nonprofit sector as compared to the profit and public sector. The labor donation hypothesis states that nonprofit workers donate part of their income by accepting lower wages because they do a socially desirable job (Haider & Schneider, 2007: 2; Hansmann, 1980). They are motivated by mission rather than money (Salamon, 2002: 61). On the other hand some researchers suggest that the wages in the nonprofit sector might be even higher than in comparable profit-oriented organizations due to the nondistribution constraint in NPOs. Managers have little incentive to keep wages low since they do not gain from the costreduction (Anheier et al., 2003: 30). Empirical research on wage disparities still remains scarce and is often limited to a certain industry (Salamon, 2002: 61). Haider and Schneider (2007) found for Austria that the presence of volunteers in nonprofit organizations has a negative impact on the wage level. In organizations where volunteers work paid workers are also willing to donate part of their income.
Achievement Motivation and Career Aspirations
Recent developments in motivation research strongly stress the importance of intrinsic motivation and the even negative effects of external, especially monetary rewards on overall work motivation (Frey, 2001; Frey & Osterloh, 2002), following a well established strand of sociopsychological research (Deci et al., 1999). Obviously these findings especially hold for NPOs, which most probably provide their staff with a wider variety of intrinsic motivators (e.g., calling, impact on society, helping people, solving social problems). This can be also shown in nonprofit managers career aspirations (Steinbereithner, 2004). Though these results do in no case indicate that sufficient monetary compensation is needless for nonprofit-workers, purepay-for performance systems have to be scrutinized in a nonprofit context. In terms of volunteering research suggests that career aspects become increasingly important. Through the erosion of clearly predetermined career paths individuals are required to design their own paths. Volunteering is considered as a design element which is chosen according to the respective needs in a certain phase of life. Hence volunteers are less willing to agree on long-term commitments for an organization but select voluntary work more
Social Barriers to Volunteering
In the last few decades, the importance of citizens’ engagement in civil society has found growing attention in public policies as well as in social and political science. This is also true for volunteering as a very important form of engagement. However, involvement in civil society is not only a result of personal motivation but also of individual resources and life situation. Previous studies have investigated determinants that have to be taken into account in order to support social justice as the general basis for citizen’s participation. Hitherto unpublished research shows that willingness of individuals to volunteer for NPOs is strongly influenced by social status, social origin and biography: The higher educated and better earning they are, the more likely they volunteer (Bixa et al., 2007). It is important for further research to better analyze these social barriers, and it is essential for NPOs to overcome them in order to foster social inclusion and to broaden the pool of potential participation.
International Perspectives The structure and character of the nonprofit sector is strongly determined by the respective country’s broader
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social, political, and cultural history (Salamon et al., 2004: 29). Different historical backgrounds mainly result in different functions and contributions of the third sector to society. In theory the existence of the nonprofit sector is often explained by market or state failure (e.g., Badelt, 2007: 105). In reality the size, structure, and character is the result of a complex interplay of various institutions. For instance, in countries with a strong Roman Catholic tradition organizations coupled with the Catholic Church still play an important role and often imply specific forms of employment (e.g., orders). The relative strength of the third sector in terms of employment is strongly related to the type of welfare state (Esping-Andersen, 1990, 2006) and the role nonprofit organizations play in social services provision. Moreover, very different traditions of private charity can be found. The size of the nonprofit sector in terms of paid and volunteer employment varies considerably in different countries. Valuable insight has been provided by the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, which now includes data from 41 countries on all continents. Comparative data on employment are available for 36 countries (Salamon et al., 2004). The share of paid employment (expressed in full time equivalents, FTE) in the nonprofit sector amounts between 0.3% (Mexico) and 9.2% (The Netherlands) of the economically active population. By adding volunteers (converted into FTE), the share increases up to 0.4% in Mexico and 14.4% in the Netherlands (Salamon et al., 2004: 89) (see Fig. 1). On average, volunteers account for 38.4% of the nonprofit organization workforce (Fig. 2), although the share differs between 2.8% in Egypt and more than 75% in Sweden and Tanzania. Systematic empirical evidence on the share and structure of atypical work is rather scarce in most countries. Beyond doubt the percentage of atypical is above average in the nonprofit sector as well as the number of women filling paid jobs (e.g., Anheier et al., 2003; Betzelt & Bauer, 2000; Trukeschitz, 2005). While the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project considers both paid employment and volunteering, a few cross national surveys provide information on volunteering only (e.g., Gaskin & Davis Smith, 1995; European Social Survey, 2002; World Value Survey, 1999–2000). Due to different approaches in terms of definition and applied methodology, the results of these surveys are quite diverse. Some countries have developed sophisticated quantitative instruments in order to investigate volunteering (e.g., Germany,
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(BMFSFJ, 2005)), Austria (Statistik Austria, 2007) which are hard to compare with other countries due to the same reasons.
Future Directions Growing Sector
The work provided by the nonprofit sector is still not sufficiently reflected in the economic statistics in most countries. Especially nonmarket activities like volunteering and private giving are not covered by the System of National Accounts which is the base for many political decisions. During recent years the awareness of the economic impact of nonmarket activities has increased since they often provide an essential foundation for a functioning society (including its economy). In the case of the nonprofit sector the growing notion has resulted in a handbook which provides guidance in creating a satellite account for nonprofit institutions. So far only few countries have implemented a satellite account (e.g., Canada, Australia). An extensive application is desirable not only in terms of cross country comparison but also in terms of observation of long term developments (assuming that the satellite account is regularly updated). Most likely the variety of employment and work forms will further increase in future, which is hardly reflected in current surveys. In order to fulfill its role as testing ground for research a better database has to be established for the nonprofit sector which considers categories beyond traditional differentiations. Blurring Boundaries Between Sectors
The well established concept of three clearly distinguishable economic sectors – private/market, public, and nonprofit – is beginning tottering. Developments like social entrepreneurship or corporate social responsibility seem to be more than fads. Fulfilling nonprofit objectives is not exclusively restricted to classical nonprofit organizations. Besides many other opportunities and threats, this might also endanger NPOs’ position in labor markets. Hitherto, nonprofits offered a quite unique organizational socialization and alternative career paths. They almost exclusively offered job opportunities for specific professions (e.g., psychotherapists, trainers in sports, social workers) though there are differences between national third sectors. Moreover, they offered and still offer ‘‘to do good’’ as part of the psychological contract which allows them to target specific groups. Obviously, this position is eroding. In many countries the nonprofit sector is not even perceived as an interesting labor market by major target groups (e.g.,
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Work and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector
Work and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector. Fig. 1 Nonprofit organization workforce as share of the economically active population, by country Source: Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, Salamon et al. (2004): 19, based on full-time equivalents
Work and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector
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Work and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector. Fig. 2 Volunteer share of nonprofit organization workforce, by country Source: Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project, Salamon et al. (2004): 21
business school graduates, Nickson et al., 2008). As a consequence, endeavors and competencies in Human resource management have to be further strengthened in order to stay successful in finding the best people for the jobs which need to be done.
Cross-References
▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ Hansmann, Henry
▶ Hodgkinson, Virginia ▶ Nonprofit Management ▶ Nonprofit Organization ▶ Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of ▶ Nonprofit Organizations in the System of National Accounts ▶ OECD ▶ Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic
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▶ Third Sector ▶ Volunteer Management ▶ Volunteers
References/Further Readings Activities of the European Union. (2008). Summaries of Legislation, from http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/cha/c10416.htm; 09/21/2008 Almond, S., & Kendall, J. (2000). Low pay in the United Kingdom: The case for a three sector comparative approach. Annals of Public and Co-operative Economics, 72(1), 45–76. Anheier, H. K., Hollerweger, E., Kendall, J., & Badett, C. (2003). Work in the non-profit sector: Forms, patterns and methodologies. Genveva: International Labour Office. Badelt, C. (2007). Zwischen Marktversagen und Staatsversagen? Nonprofit Organisationen aus sozioo¨konomischer Sicht. In C. Badelt, M. Meyer, & R. Simsa (Eds.), Handbuch der Nonprofit Organisation. Strukturen und Management (4th ed., pp. 98–119). Stuttgart: Scha¨ffer Poeschel Verlag. Badelt, C., & More-Hollerweger, E. (2007). Ehrenamtliche Arbeit im Nonprofit Sektor. In C. Badelt, M. Meyer, & R. Simsa (Eds.), Handbuch der Nonprofit Organisation. Strukturen und Management (4th ed., pp. 503–531). Stuttgart: Scha¨ffer Poeschel Verlag. Beher, K., Liebig, R., & Rauschenbach, T. (2000). Strukturwandel des Ehrenamts. Gemeinwohlorientierung im Modernisierungsprozeß. Weinheim/Mu¨nchen: Juventa Verlag. Betzelt, S., & Bauer, R. (2000). Nonprofit Organisationen als Arbeitgeber. Opladen: Leske Budrich Verlag. Bixa, S., Heitzmann, K., Hofabauer, J., & Strunk, G. (2007). What makes the difference? Civic participation and social inequality, CINEFOGO WP11 Conference. Vienna. BMFSFJ. (2005). Freiwilliges engagement in Deutschland: 1999–2004. Berlin: Bundesministerium fu¨r Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend, from http://www.bmfsfj.de/Kategorien/Forschungsnetz/ forschungsberichte,did=73430.html, 09/21/2008 Brown, W. S. (2005). The new employment contract and the ‘‘At Risk’’ worker. Journal of Business Ethics, 58, 195–201. Craig, E. F., & Hall, D. T. (2005). The new organizational career. Too important to be left to HR? In R. J. Burke & C. L. Copper (Eds.), Reinventing human resource management: Challenges and new directions (pp. 115–132). London: Routledge. Dathe, D., & Kistler, E. (2005). Arbeit(en) im Dritten Sektor. In S. Kotlenga (Eds.), Arbeiten im Dritten Sektor. Europa¨ische Perspektiven (pp. 54–66). Mo¨ssingen-Talheim: Talheimer Verlag. Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627–668. Esping-Andersen, G. (1990). The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Esping-Anderson, G. (2006). Three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. European industrial relations dictionary of the Eurofound, the European foundation for the improvement of living and working conditions, from http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/areas/industrialrelations/ dictionary/definitions/atypicalwork.htm; 09/21/2008 Frey, B. (2001). Motivation crowding out. Journal of Economic Surveys, 15(5), 589–699. Frey, B. S., & Osterloh, M. (Eds.) (2002). Managing motivation: wie Sie die neue Motivationsforschung fu¨r Ihr Unternehmen nutzen ko¨nnen. Wiesbaden: Gabler. Gaskin, K., & Davis Smith, J. (1995). A new civic Europe? London: The Volunteer Centre.
Guest, D. (2004). Flexible employment contracts, the psychological contract and employee outcomes: An analysis and review of the evidence. International Journal of Management Reviews, 5/6(1), 1–19. Haider, A., & Schneider, U. (2007). The influence of volunteers, donations and public subsidies on the wage level of nonprofit workers (Working Paper 03/2007). Institut fu¨r Sozialpolitik: Wirtschaftsuniversita¨t Wien, from http://www.wu-wien.ac.at/sozialpolitik/pub/wp-0307; 09/21/2008 Hansmann, H. B. (1980). The role of nonprofit enterprise. The Yale Law Journal, 89(5), 835–901. Hodgkinson, V. (1992). The nonprofit Almanac. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Jones, C. (1996). Career in Project Networks: The Case of the Film Industry. In M. B. Arthur & D. M. Rousseau (Eds.), The Boundaryless Career. New York: Oxford University Press. Marsden, D. (2004). The ‘Network Economy’ and models of the employment contract. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 42(4), 659–684. Martin, A. (2002). Funktionsbeschreibungen der Neuen Bescha¨ftigungsverha¨ltnisse – Eine Verhaltenswissenschaftliche Analyse. Zeitschrift fu¨r Personalforschung, 16(4), 490–509. Meyer, M., Dunkel, A., & Praschak, S. (2005). Job oder Leben – ist das die Frage? In W. Mayrhofer, M. Meyer, & J. Steyrer (Eds.), Macht? Erfolg? Reich? Glu¨cklich? Einflussfaktoren auf Karrieren (pp. 183–210). Wien: Linde. Nickson, D., Warhurst, C., Dutton, E., & Hurrell, S. (2008). A job to believe in: Recruitment in the Scottish voluntary sector. Human Resource Management Journal, 18(1), 20–35. OECD. (2004). Employment Outlook. Orton, J. D., & Weick, K. E. (1990). Loosely coupled systems: A reconceptualisation. Academy of Management Review, 15(2), 203–223. Priller, E. (2005). Die Bescha¨ftigungswirkungen des Dritten Sektors in europa¨ischer Perspektive. In S. Kotlenga (Eds.), Arbeiten im Dritten Sektor. Europa¨ische Perspektiven (pp. 36–53). Mo¨ssingen-Talheim: Talheimer Verlag. Ruigrok, W., Pettigrew, A., Peck, S. I., & Whittington, R. (1999). Corporate restructuring and new forms of organizing: Evidence from Europe. Management International Review, [Special Issue (2)], 41–64. Salamon, L. M. (2002). What nonprofit wage deficit?. Nonprofit Quarterly, winter, 61–62 from http://www.jhu.edu/ccss/research/pdf/What_Nonprofit_Wage_Deficit.pdf, 09/21/2008 Salamon, L. M., & Sokolowski, S. W. (2005, September). Nonprofit organizations: New insights form QCEW data. Monthly Labor Review, 19–26, from http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2005/09/art3full. pdf; 09/21/2008 Salamon, L. M., Sokolowski, S. W., & Associates (2004). Global civil society. Dimensions of the nonprofit sector (Vol. 2). Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press. Sennett, R. (1998). The corrosion of characters. New York: Norton. Simpson, R. (1998). Presenteeism, power and organizational change: Long hours as a career barrier and the impact on the working lives of women managers. British Journal of Management, 9(1), 37–50. Staehle, W. H. (1991). Redundanz, Slack und Lose Kopplung in Organisationen: Eine Verschwendung von Ressourcen? In W. H. Staehle & J. Sydow (Eds.), Managementforschung 1 (pp. 313–345). Berlin: De Gruyter. Statistik Austria. (2007). Struktur und Volumen der Freiwilligenarbeit in ¨ sterreich. Wien, from http://www.statistik.at/dynamic/wcmsprod/ O groups/b/documents/webobj/029573.pdf, 09/21/2008 Steinbereithner, M. (2004). Career success in not for profit organizations. Dissertation. Wirtschaftsuniversita¨t, Wien. Ta´los, E. (1999). Atypische Bescha¨ftigung: Verbreitung – Konsequenzen – sozialstaatliche Regelungen. Ein vergleichendes Resu¨mee.In E. Ta´los (Ed.), Atypische Bescha¨ftigung: Internationale Trends und sozialstaatliche Regelungen (pp. 417–468). Wien: Manz.
World Bank Trukeschitz, B. (2005). Typisch atypisch? Bescha¨ftigungsverha¨ltnisse im Dritten Sektor. In S. Kotlenga et al. (Eds.), Arbeiten im Dritten Sektor. Europa¨ische Perspektiven (pp. 76–97). Mo¨ssingen-Talheim: Talheimer Verlag. Weick, K. E. (1969). Social psychology of organizing. Reading: AddisonWesley. Weick, K. E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems. Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 1–19.
World Bank ELIZABETH LEVI
Address of Organization 1818 H Street NW Washington, DC 20433 USA www.worldbank.org
Introduction The World Bank is the international financial organization that brings together 185 member countries, representing an overwhelming majority of the world’s 193 nation-states recognized by the United Nations. The World Bank is dedicated to providing development assistance to alleviate poverty through its two lead funding institutions, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA). The World Bank describes the aims of the IBRD and IDA as playing a ‘‘collaborative role to advance the vision of an inclusive and sustainable globalization,’’ through low-interest loans, interest-free credits and grants. In addition to the IBRD and the IDA, the World Bank Group includes three fiscal management affiliates: the International Finance Corporation (IFC); the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA); and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
Brief History In 1944, 44 country representatives attended the Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire, USA, and established the World Bank to help rebuild Europe after World War II. The World Bank’s International Bank for Reconstruction and Development was the first arm of the Bank when it began formal operations in 1946, with initial authorized capital of US$12 billion. The initial loans made to European countries in 1947 were to assist with post-World War II reconstruction, followed shortly by a loan for development activities to Chile for a power and
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irrigation project. Over many decades of funding, the World Bank grew in membership, assets and influence. By the 1980s, the Bank began to engender growing criticism of its debt rescheduling practices and questions about quality of projects and the nature of its partnerships with developing countries. The World Bank undertook self-study leading to reforms in the 1990s to strengthen its transparency, internal efficiency and external effectiveness. In 2005, the World Bank established a Bank-wide steering group to strengthen relations with civil society through a strategic priorities framework designed to increase study of and engagement with civil society organizations, governments, donors, and other key actors.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The World Bank Group’s primary mission is to ‘‘help the poorest people of the world, regardless of the political system in a country,’’ focusing on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. In 2008, the President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, articulated six strategic themes to guide the Bank’s work, prioritizing: 1. The Poorest Countries, especially Africa 2. Post-Conflict and Fragile States, and those seeking to avoid the breakdown of the state 3. Middle Income Countries in need of development solutions and financial assistance 4. Global Public Goods, including transnational issues of climate change, infectious diseases, and trade 5. Strengthening Development and Opportunity in the Arab World; and 6. Knowledge and Learning, modeling the World Bank Group as a learning organization.
Activities The primary activities of the World Bank are to provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries with the aim of reducing poverty. In 2008, over 430 active World Bank-funded projects included loans and grants to support education, health, infrastructure development, communications, and government reforms. To monitor quality and impact, the Bank maintains an Inspection Panel. The Bank convenes an Independent Evaluation Group that reports directly to the Board of Executive Directors, providing continuous assessment of funded project management and outcomes. The Bank also collects and maintains extensive data and research resources, and produces publications on its lending and project activities, which are widely disseminated in the financial and policy spheres, and are accessible to the public. In the mid-1990s, the World Bank brought a greater focus on working more closely with civil society organizations
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(CSOs) through dedicated programs that invite nongovernmental organizations to apply directly for local project funding. Consultation and facilitation services make World Bank staff expertise available to convene local CSOs and other actors to enhance civil society and participatory development efforts.
Structure and Governance Membership in the World Bank is conditional upon prior membership in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an independently chartered economic surveillance and financial lending agency of the United Nations. Of the 185 member countries in the World Bank Group, all are members of its International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD). Membership in the four remaining World Bank Group institutions is conditional on membership in the IBRD. In 2008, the World Bank Group membership in each affiliate institution was: International Development Association (IDA), 168 members; International Finance Corporation (IFC), 181 members; Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, 173 members; and, the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes with 143 members. The World Bank’s Board of Governors is made up of 185 government finance leaders from each of the member countries. The Board of Governors meets annually and oversees the President and Board Chair, currently Robert Zoellick of the United States, and the 24-member Board of Executive Directors who monitor general operations of the bank. The World Bank Group organizations are staffed by 10,000 professionals with expertise in economics; finance, engineering, and social science; public policy and sectoral experts. Over 60% of the staff whom work in Washington, DC, and the remainder are based in 100 offices located in member countries.
Funding The World Bank Group raises funds to support its primary activity of providing low- and no-interest loans to developing and poor countries. The World Bank raises US$20–US$30 billion annually in international capital markets by selling AAA-rated bonds. The Bank maintains capital reserves established over time from funds paid in by members. Shareholder support provides capital backing for the World Bank. The World Bank has maintained operating income in excess of US$1 billion annually for over 15 years. Funds for relending are also generated through debt repayments on loan principals. Among the World Bank’s special initiatives is the Civil Society Fund, a small grants program in 70 different countries that encourages civic engagement through locally developed activities. The modest grants (averaging US$4,000) are
intended to foster the development of social capital while informing the World Bank’s knowledge of contextualized approaches that are effective at the local level.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The World Bank reports that annual recent international lending totaled just under US$25 billion, including grants and no-interest loans, or credits, to the world’s poorest countries, through the IBRD and IDA, which specifically target poverty reduction. The World Bank considers several critical achievements to demonstrate its impact in the developing world by: 1. Increasing life expectancy by 20 years within 4 decades 2. Reducing adult illiteracy by one-fourth within 3 decades 3. Achieving an historical first time reduction of people living on less than US$1 per day, even as world population has expanded by over 1.5 billion, within 2 decades, and 4. Supporting rapid economic growth and job creation in the developing world, outpacing developed nations, within the most recent decade.
Cross-References
▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and International Relations, UN ▶ Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction
References/Further Readings Kapur, D., Lewis, J. P., & Webb, R. (1997). The World Bank. Its first half century. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Pincus, J. R., & Winters, J. A. (Eds.) (2002). Reinventing the World Bank. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. World Bank Publications. (2007). A guide to the World Bank, Second Edition. Washington, DC: World Bank.
World Business Council on Social Development MELANIE ZIMMER
Address of Organization 4, chemin de Conches 1231 Conches-Geneva Switzerland www.wbcsd.org
Introduction The World Business Council on Sustainable Development (WBCSD) is a CEO-driven business initiative of 200 member companies from many industry sectors (as of
World Business Council on Social Development
January 2009). It explores and promotes the concept of sustainable development within the business community and advocates business positions in global debates on sustainable development.
Brief History In 1995 the Business Council for Sustainable Development (BCSD) and the World Industry Council for the Environment (an initiative of the International Chamber of Commerce) merged and formed the WBCSD. Swiss businessman Stephan Schmidheiny initiated BCSD in 1991 in the run up to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Rio Earth Summit) in 1992. The original group of 48 business leaders contributed a business perspective, as summarized in the book ‘‘Changing Course’’ (1992), to the summit.
Mission The organization’s mission is to provide business leadership on sustainable development. The focus of the organization’s work has broadened from the environmental aspects of sustainability in the beginning to the social aspect of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility which has lately received growing attention. This includes work on the business role in reducing poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. The WBCSD pursues two broad objectives: First, it advocates the concept of sustainable development within the business community; it offers a forum for exchange and learning for companies and works on demonstrating the business case for sustainable development. Second, it aims to contribute to and advance global public policy debates by articulating a business perspective and cooperating with nongovernmental organizations and governments.
Activities The WBCSD structures its work around four focus areas: Energy and Climate, Development, Ecosystems, and the Role of Business in Society. Additionally, sector specific and thematic projects and initiatives are pursued. Examples of this are ‘‘Mining, Minerals, and Sustainable Development’’ and the ‘‘Cement Sustainability Initiative’’. The WBCSD commissions independent research, issues reports, case studies, and publications, convenes conferences, and initiates stakeholder dialogues with governments and nongovernmental organizations. It promotes a partnership approach and works with international organizations, research institutes, foundations, and NGOs. The WBCSD organized a business response to and engaged in public debates on environmental issues in the run up to and
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during world conferences such as the Johannesburg Summit in 2002. The organization has advocated for clear and greater governmental action on climate change, hosted informal meetings before the Kyoto conference in 1997 and initiated a business day during the Bali conference in 2007. WBCSD publications are considered milestones in the debates on sustainable development, corporate social responsibility and the role of business. In its annual review the WBCSD documents its recent work and lays out its strategy.
Structure and Governance Membership is by invitation from the Executive Committee and is open to companies ‘‘committed to sustainable development and to promoting the role of eco-efficiency, innovation and corporate social responsibility’’ (www. wbcsd.org). Some of the most prominent members are Deutsche Bank, Coca-Cola, Royal Dutch Shell and Volkswagen. Membership is concentrated in the OECD world. Members meet once a year and elect an Executive Committee which is headed by a chairman and three vicechairmen. The WBCSD also has a Regional Network of 57 national and regional Business Councils for Sustainable Development and other independent organizations, many of whom are also based in developing countries (as of January 2009). The secretariat is based in Geneva and there is a branch office in Washington, DC.
Funding Companies pay an annual membership fee of CHF 75.000 to finance the WBCSD’s work. Additional project-related funding comes from member companies and, sometimes, other project partners.
Major Accomplishments The organization played a pivotal role in advocating the concept of sustainable development within the business community and invented the concept of eco-efficiency. The WBCSD has brought a business voice into global discussions about sustainable development and the environment. Stakeholders recognize its expertise; the organization is regarded as one of the most important players on issues of sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. However, the WBCSD has been criticized as being an attempt at corporate green washing.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society–Business Relations ▶ Corporate Social Responsibility ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development
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References/Further Readings Schmidheiny, S. (1992). Changing course: A global business perspective on development and the environment. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Holliday, C. O. (2002). Walking the talk: The business case for sustainable development. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing. World Business Council for Sustainable Development. (2006). Catalyzing change. A short history of the WBCSD. Geneva: World Business Council on Sustainable Development, from www.wbcsd.org, 1/10/ 2009. World Business Council for Sustainable Development. (2008). The times they are changin’. Annual Review 2007. Geneva: World Business Council on Sustainable Development, from www.wbcsd.org, 1/10/ 2009.
After 1948, the assemblies have been held in Evanston (1954), New Delhi (1961), Uppsala (1968), Nairobi (1975), Vancouver (1983), Canberra (1991), Harare (1998), and Porto Alegre (2006). The organization’s emphasis on global political issues like causes of poverty, racism, women’s rights, etc. instead of focusing purely on doctrinal issues has sometimes raised criticism, and this has led to the withdrawal of some churches from the WCC. In general, however, the slogan ‘‘Doctrine divides, service unites’’ has been true. Practical cooperation has kept the churches together while in doctrinal issues the results have remained in understanding where the differences are.
Mission
World Council of Churches (WCC) MARTTI MUUKKONEN
In its Amsterdam assembly the WCC adopted a modified form of the YMCA Paris Basis as ‘‘less than a confession but much more than a mere formula of agreement.’’ In the New Delhi Assembly in 1961 the Basis was revised to its present form: "
Address of Organization 150 route de Ferney P.O. Box 2100 CH-1211 Geneva 2 Switzerland www.oikoumene.org
Introduction The World Council of Churches (WCC) is the Koinonia ton Ekklesion (league of churches) that unites most Christian churches and denominations for ecumenical cooperation. It is not a ‘‘super-church’’ but an organ of common discussion and action. Most major churches, except the Roman Catholic Church and almost the whole family of Pentecostal churches, are members of the WCC.
Brief History The roots of the WCC are in three ecumenical movements, namely the International Missionary Council, Life and Work Movement, and Faith and Order Movement. However, the three lay ecumenical movements (YMCA, YWCA, and Student Christian Movement) influenced greatly the first two and supplied the WCC its early leaders. One of the leading figures in these organizations was the GS of the North American YMCA, John R. Mott. In the First General Assembly in Amsterdam in 1948, probably four fifths of the delegates had roots in those three lay organizations.
The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Saviour according to Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Activities The WCC focuses in three core areas. The first field of action concerns doctrinal negotiations between churches and the goal is ‘‘visible unity in one faith and one eucharistic fellowship.’’ The second field of action is to ‘‘promote common witness in work for mission and evangelism,’’ and the third is to ‘‘engage in Christian service by meeting human need, breaking down barriers between people, seeking justice and peace, and upholding the integrity of creation,’’ which practically means Christian diaconia work and preservation of nature. During the seven-year period starting from 2006, these aims will be promoted by six prior programs: ‘‘The WCC and the ecumenical movement in the 21st century,’’ ‘‘Unity, mission, evangelism and spirituality,’’ ‘‘Public witness: addressing power, affirming peace,’’ ‘‘Justice, diakonia and responsibility for creation,’’ ‘‘Education and ecumenical formation,’’ and ‘‘Inter-religious dialogue and cooperation.’’ In addition to these programs, WCC offers scholarships for students and has a publishing division that releases a significant number of books and other materials every year. These include ‘‘study guides and other resources, interpretive books on major ecumenical concerns, biblical, historical, theological, ethical and reference works, preparatory
World Economic Forum
materials for and official documents of WCC meetings, audio-visual resources and general periodicals.’’
Structure and Governance The legislative body of the WCC is the Assembly which meets every seventh year. Under it is the Central Committee, which is the governing body of the WCC and meets every 12–18 months between the assemblies. The Assembly also elects the president but the Central Committee elects the Executive Committee. The GS of the WCC acts ex officio as the secretary of both committees. Along the governing bodies there are five Consultative Commissions (Mission and Evangelism, Churches and International Affairs, Education and Ecumenical Formation, Youth in the Ecumenical Movement, as well as Faith and Order, which also includes nonmember churches) and three joint bodies with Catholic Church and other Ecumenical organizations.
Funding The WCC has been in economic trouble for a long time. During the last inter-Assembly period of 1999–2006 the yearly income decreased 30% from CHF 61.2 million to CHF 42.2 million. Of this decrease, 65% is in the category of multilateral sharing contributions, 75% of the income is restricted to defined special projects, and only 25% is free to be determined by the WCC. During the same period (especially during 2001/2) the funds of the WCC decreased from CHF 61 million to CHF 38 million. The yearly expenditures during 1999–2006 ranged from CHF 45.5 million (2003) to CHF 58.6 million (2001). Of this, Institutional Costs form some 15% average while the rest are program costs.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The WCC’s major contribution has been in promoting ecumenical and interfaith dialogue, which in turn promotes understanding between different religious groups. This, hopefully, will reduce the creation of enemy views based on religious doctrines. In addition to the search for doctrinal agreements, Assemblies have been influential initiators of discussion, especially in the field of Christian social ethics. For example, WCC’s program ‘‘Justice, Peace, and Integrity of Creation’’ between Canberra (1983) and Vancouver (1991) Assemblies contributed greatly to the churches’ commitment to social and environmental issues.
Cross-References
▶ Charity and Religion ▶ Churches and Congregations
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▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ Missionary Societies ▶ Mott, John A. ▶ Religious Organizations ▶ YMCAs, World Alliance of ▶ YWCA
References/Further Readings Briggs, J., Oduyoye, M. A., & Tsetsis, G. (2004). A history of the ecumenical movement Vol. 3, 1968–2000. Geneva: World Council of Churches. Fey, H. E. (1986). A history of the ecumenical movement Vol. 2, 1947–1968: The ecumenical advance. Geneva: World Council of Churches. Lossky, N. et al. (Eds.) (1991). The dictionary of the ecumenical movement (1991). Geneva: WCC Publications. Rouse, R., & Neill, S. C. (1954). A history of the ecumenical movement Vol. 1, 1517–1948. London: SPCK.
World Economic Forum ANAEL LABIGNE, REGINA LIST
Address of Organization 91-93 route de la Capite 1223 Cologny-Geneva Switzerland www.weforum.org
Introduction The World Economic Forum (WEF) is a high-profile international nongovernmental organization, with its members representing some of the largest and most influential businesses and its annual meetings attracting leaders from all sectors – as well as demonstrators. As stated on its website, WEF’s motto is ‘‘entrepreneurship in the global public interest.’’
Brief History Today’s World Economic Forum started off in 1971 with the convening of a group of European business leaders by Klaus Schwab to meet in Davos, Switzerland under the patronage of the European Commission and European industrial associations. The success of the model led Schwab to establish the European Management Forum as a nonprofit foundation. Initially, the annual meetings focused on how European firms could catch up with US management practices. Events such as the Arab-Israeli War and the collapse of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange
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rate mechanism led the Forum to expand its focus from management to economic and social issues and to begin inviting political and other leaders to its annual meetings. In 1987 the organization changed its name to the World Economic Forum.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The World Economic Forum’s seemingly simple goal is to improve the state of the world. It seeks to do so by engaging world leaders to shape economic and social agendas and by providing a platform for business and political leaders to develop solutions and resolve conflicts. According to its website, the Forum aims to be the ‘‘integrator, manager, and disseminator of the best knowledge available in the world.’’ Though the Forum’s original focus was on management practices, it now addresses – in addition to economic growth and specific industries – broader topics such as climate change, water supply, humanitarian relief, corruption, and interfaith dialog. The WEF believes that solving global problems is best achieved through partnership. Inspired by Schwab’s theories, the WEF has promoted the ‘‘stakeholder’’ management approach, which bases success on whether managers take account of all interests: not merely those of shareholders and customers, but also employees and the communities within which they operate.
Activities WEF’s centerpiece activity is its invitation-only meeting of global leaders held annually in January in Davos, Switzerland. The meetings draw business executives, political leaders, media, academics, celebrities, and even NGO leaders to discuss issues the WEF considers critical to ‘‘the state of the world.’’ The annual Davos gathering is complemented by similar high-level meetings held in various regions throughout the year. Since 2003, the WEF also holds an Open Forum concurrently with the Annual Forum to allow those not invited to the Annual Forum to also discuss critical issues on the global social and economic agenda. The Forum also hosts ‘‘communities’’ of members and partner companies to allow for smaller, more informal opportunities for interaction. The communities are organized around specific interests, including, among others, Foundation Leaders, Social Entrepreneurs (operating in close association with the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship), Faith Communities, and Nongovernmental Organizations. In addition, the Forum promotes partnerships, acting as a sort of broker for the involvement of individuals and
organizations from business, government, and civil society in specific project initiatives, including the Humanitarian Relief Initiative and the Disaster Resource Network. WEF also conducts collaborative research and publishes a variety of reports including global risk reports. Beginning in November 2008, the Forum added a new gathering to its event series, i.e., the Summit on the Global Agenda, which brings together influential thinkers and leaders from academia, business, government, and other sectors of society to develop solutions to critical challenges.
Structure and Governance The Forum is a not-for-profit foundation. Its three main governing bodies include the Foundation Board, responsible for the organization’s long-term direction and objectives; the International Business Council, acting as an advisory board; and the Management Board, responsible for day-to-day operations.
Funding WEF’s funding is derived from regular membership fees, partnership fees (from leading members and from partners/sponsors in the Forum’s events), and participation fees for the Forum’s events.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The Forum’s annual meeting at Davos tends to be used as a platform for world leaders to propose challenges and announce initiatives. It was at the 1999 meeting that then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan announced the UN Global Compact. More recently at the 2008 meeting, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced plans to provide some US$306 million in agricultural development grants. With its high profile, the WEF and its meetings have been a magnet for criticism and protest, especially from segments of global civil society, including groups such as Attac, opposing the current trend towards economic globalization. In certain measure to counteract criticism against the closed nature of its annual meetings, the Forum has made some efforts to extend openings for civil society involvement: by inviting members of leading INGOs such as Oxfam and Ashoka to attend the meetings, by creating an NGO advisory board, and by engaging NGOs in many of its initiatives and communities. Such efforts do little, however, to address criticism of the Forum’s neoliberal agenda.
Cross-References ▶ Attac ▶ INGO
World Social Forum
▶ Partnership ▶ Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship ▶ Stakeholder ▶ UN Global Compact
References/Further Readings Kellerman, B. (1999). Reinventing leadership: Making the connection between politics and business. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Pigman, G. A. (2007). The World Economic Forum. A multi-stakeholder approach to global governance. London: Taylor & Francis/Routledge. Lundberg, K. (2004). Convener or player? The World Economic Forum and Davos. A Kennedy School of Government Case Program Document. Cambridge, MA: KSG.
World Social Forum ZEYNEP ATALAY
Address of Organization Rua General Jardim, 660 Sao Paulo – SP Brazil 01223-010 www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/
Introduction The World Social Forum is a political platform which brings together civil society organizations and social movements opposed to neoliberal globalization and capitalist economic policies from all over the world. The World Social Forum has been providing an ‘‘open space’’ for activists to form networks and alliances, exchange ideas, share experiences, and formulate effective action.
Brief History The roots of the World Social Forum lie in the growing international anticorporate globalization movement which attained greater visibility since the Seattle meeting of the World Trade Organization in November, 1999. After the Seattle meetings, several demonstrations and meetings against the G8, the IMF and the World Bank, mainly the ones in Washington DC, Genoa, and Prague, among others, helped raise interest and join forces to form an antiliberal movement around the globe. In 2001, the WSF was organized through the leadership of two Brazilian leaders of political movements, Chico Whitaker and Oded Grajew, in order to provide an alternative to the World Economic Forum in Davos,
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Switzerland, where corporate leaders, international bankers and politicians gather annually.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas The World Social Forum declares its mission as providing ‘‘an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neoliberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism.’’ While the first two meetings of the WSF were dominated by antiglobalization perspectives, since 2003 the emphasis of the meetings shifted towards developing alternatives to neoliberal globalization, challenging Margaret Thatcher’s famous slogan, ‘‘There is no alternative.’’ The WSF’s efforts to develop alternative programs for global economic and political systems have been epitomized by its slogan, ‘‘Another World is Possible!’’
Activities The World Social Forum works as a political platform that combines mass protest and intellectual analysis of global processes through annual meetings. The first meeting of the WSF as held in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in January 2001. It was organized as an antiDavos protest simultaneously with the World Economic Forum meetings in Davos, Switzerland and brought together approximately 20,000 activists from all over the world. The second (2002) and third (2003) meetings of the WSF were also held in Porto Alegre, attracting 70,000 and 100,000 participants respectively. The fourth edition of the WSF, which was held in Mumbai, India in 2004, expanded the scope of discussion to include imperialism, racism, and environment, violence against children and women, indigenous struggles, homelessness, alternative sexualities and human rights. In 2006 the WSF was planned to held simultaneously in Bamako, Mali; Karachi, Pakistan; and in Caracas, Venezuela. The Karachi meeting had to be postponed until March as the organizers of the meeting and numerous civil society groups were involved in post-earthquake relief and rehabilitation programs following the Kashmir earthquake in October 2005. In 2008, the WSF was not a centralized event which was held in on or more locations, as it had in previous years. Instead, it was composed by thousands of actions around the world, organized by the participants themselves. Also known as the Global Call for Action,
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demonstrations and workshops were held in Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, and Ocenia.
Structure and Governance Activities during the World Social Forum meetings are self-organized by community based organizations, social movements and nongovernmental organizations. While the WSF Secretariat, which is based in Sao Paolo, Brazil, does not mandate most activities, it provides help with coordination, venue, facilities, and information to the public. An International Council of 129 member organizations works through five Commissions, namely Methodology, Expansion, Strategies, Resources, and Communication. The links between International Council members and its Commissions are established through a Liaison Groups, formed by 16 representatives of organizations from all over the world.
Funding Funding and sponsorship of the World Social Forum meetings has been subjected to much criticism. The meetings of the WSF are financed mainly through donations from foundations and NGOs. Since 2001, WSF’s many funder’s include Oxfam, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Ford Foundation, and Heinrich Boll Foundation.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The World Social Forum in Porto Alegre has inspired many national and regional social forums which are not organized by the WSF Secretariat or the International Council. Since 2002, numerous social forums are held in many countries, including but not limited to Uruguay, Spain, Belgium, Norway, Cameroon, Hungary, Switzerland, Mallorca, and Senegal. Regional forums, such as the Transatlantic Social Forum, Pan-Amazon Social Forum, Southern African Social Forum, European Social Forum, have taken place.
Cross-References
▶ Global Call for Action Against Poverty ▶ Global Civil Society ▶ Social Movements ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits ▶ World Economic Forum
References/Further Readings Correa Leite, J. (2005). The World Social Forum: Strategies of resistance. Chicago: Haymarket Books. De Sousa Santos, B. (2006). The rise of the global left: The World Social Forum and beyond. London: Zed Books. Sen, J., & Waterman, P. (2007). World Social Forum: Challenging empires. Montreal, Canada: Black Rose Books.
World Trade Organization (WTO) ANNA VAN SANTEN
Address of Organization Rue de Lausanne 154 CH-1211 Gene`ve 21 Switzerland www.wto.org
Introduction The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the main international organization dealing with the rules of international trade. The WTO describes its main goal as insuring that trade flows as freely as possible. Its main task is to negotiate between countries in trade disputes and to offer a forum for trade negotiations.
Brief History The World Trade Organization was founded in 1995. However, its predecessor the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) had existed since the end of World War II. When the WTO came into being, most of GATT’s rules for organizing the multilateral trading system were adopted into the new organization. Since the WTO’s founding there have been two trade rounds – The Uruguay Round and the Doha Development Round. While the former successfully ended with an agreement on liberalizing trade with telecommunications services, the latter round on agriculture, services, and developing countries is still being negotiated.
Mission The WTO describes its main objective as ‘‘helping trade to flow smoothly, freely, fairly, and predictably.’’ In 1997 this original goal was expanded to helping developing and least-developed countries to increase their ability to trade and gain market access.
Activities In order to pursue this mission the WTO undertakes a great number of activities. Among them are administering trade agreements, settling trade disputes through its dispute settlement process, organizing trade negotiation rounds, reviewing national trade policy, and assisting developing countries in trade issues by providing technical assistance and training programs. While the WTO puts great effort into helping developing countries, the organization’s richer member states
World Vision
have been strongly criticized by numerous civil society groups for failing to pass fair trade rules that benefit poor countries significantly, as well as for promoting globalization, which benefits rich countries. In order to give these groups better means of influencing WTO policies, the WTO has introduced a framework for cooperation with NGOs that includes regular public forums, the participation of NGOs at ministerial conferences, as well as the WTO publishing NGO position papers. Besides these main tasks, the WTO does research on a wide range of trade-related and more general economic issues and publishes a variety of research reports, discussion papers, and statistics. Its annual publications include ‘‘WTO Annual Report,’’ ‘‘World Trade Report,’’ ‘‘International Trade Statistics,’’ ‘‘World Tariff Profiles,’’ and ‘‘Trade Profiles.’’
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powerful country. The dispute settlement process has been used over 400 times since the organization’s founding and has very often helped developing countries.
Cross-References
▶ INGOs ▶ Transnational Forums and Summits
References/Further Readings Taniguchi, Y., Bohanes, J., & Yanovich, A (Eds.) (2007). The WTO in the twenty-first century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. World Trade Organization. (2007). Understanding the WTO. Geneva, from http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e/understanding_ e.pdf World Trade Organization. (2008). The WTO in brief. Geneva, from http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/doload_e/inbr_e.pdf
Structure and Governance The WTO has 153 member states; about 30 more are negotiating for membership at the moment. The WTO’s top-level decision making body is the Ministerial Conference which meets at least once a year. Below that is the General Council including ambassadors and heads of delegations in Geneva. It meets several times a year and is also part of the Trade Policy Review Body and the Dispute Settlement Body. The Goods Council, Services Council, and Intellectual Property Council report to the General Council, while numerous working groups deal with individual issues and report to the other bodies. Within these bodies decisions are made by the entire membership, typically by consensus, though a majority vote can also be used. The WTO Secretariat is based in Geneva. Unlike in other organizations, it does not have any decision-making role, but coordinates the other bodies’ tasks and provides resources and assistance to member governments.
Funding The WTO is funded by member contributions. A state’s contribution is calculated on the basis of shares in the total trade conducted by that country. The WTO’s budget for 2008 was 185 million Swiss francs and is usually over 160 million Swiss francs.
Major Accomplishments Including the time of the GATT, which still provides the basis for the WTO’s work today, international trade has grown by a factor of 22 since 1950. Besides liberalizing trade, one of the major accomplishments of the WTO was the establishment of a rules-based dispute settlement process, in which smaller, less-developed countries have a chance of winning a dispute case against a rich and
World Vision ELIZABETH LEVI
Address of Organization 800 West Chestnut Avenue Monrovia, CA 91016-3198 USA www.wvi.org
Introduction World Vision is an international nonprofit organization with a budget of close to US$1 billion funding its operations in over 100 countries and regions, worldwide, bringing a Christian commitment to poverty alleviation to its extensive activities. World Vision describes itself as a ‘‘Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice’’ and provides its services to all people regardless of their race, ethnicity or gender.
Brief History Reverend Bob Pierce founded World Vision in 1950, building on his personal mission and experience of helping Asian children living in extreme poverty. In 1953, Dr. Pierce introduced World Vision’s first child sponsorship program, enabling donors to support identified children who were orphaned during the Korean War. By the end of that decade, World Vision expanded its child sponsorship model to reach children in Asia, Latin America,
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Africa, Eastern Europe and the Middle East. In the following decade, World Vision launched its large scale inkind donation activities to deliver food, clothing, medical, and other essential supplies to disaster victims, world wide. By the 1980s, World Vision expanded activities again to engage in clean water provision and broader community development activities and advocacy to promote justice and well-being of children and families living in poverty.
Mission/Objectives/Focus Areas World Vision International articulates six core values shared among its regional partnership offices that are ‘‘central to its identity and what it aspires to be.’’ These core values, quoted from organizational materials include: "
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We are Christian – our faith in Christ is central to our identity and our motivation to serve. We are committed to the poor – we work alongside the poor and oppressed, empowering them in a quest for justice, peace, reconciliation and healing in a broken world. We value people – we respect the dignity, uniqueness, and intrinsic worth of every person and prioritise people before money, structures and systems. We are stewards – the resources entrusted to us are not our own, so we set high standards of professionalism and accountability for ourselves. We are partners – we partner with communities, donors, churches and other organisations because we believe that by working together we can increase our impact. We are responsive – we respond with urgency to need in the world.
Activities World Vision’s emphasis on engaging donors to sponsor children has evolved over time to refocus on investment of donor contributions into a sustainable development model focused on children as the future of families and communities. The organization works in two primary areas: short-term food, shelter, and medical relief for victims of emergencies and disasters; and long-term community development in health, education, water, and sanitation and economic development activities. World Vision activities are conducted by the regional partners who work directly with the communities they serve, in coordination with the organization’s global offices. World Vision offices also engage in advocacy at the national and international level, including and maintain a presence in
the media to highlight urgent needs and emerging issues in the fields of relief and development. World Vision also maintains a press, which publishes inspirational, Christian-themed materials and books. The ‘‘World Vision Report’’ is an award-winning radio program in the United States that is broadcast on local stations and over the internet.
Structure and Governance World Vision maintains international offices in New York and California (USA), Belgium, and Switzerland; regional offices serve Africa (in Kenya), Asia-Pacific (Thailand), Middle East and Eastern Europe (Cyprus), and Latin America and the Caribbean (Costa Rica). World Vision is governed by 24 men and women from 19 countries who sit on the international board. ‘‘Partnership’’ offices in six of the above locations (excluding New York and Belgium) have their own boards or advisory councils, working with the global offices and one another. The partnership offices also serve to coordinate the activities of World Vision’s established offices in 26 countries. The chief executive, Dean Hirsch, carries the title of International President, and has been with World Vision since 1976.
Funding World Vision attributes the majority of its financial support to foundation, corporate, individual financial and in-kind contributions (over 40% in cash; over 30% gifts in-kind), with more than one fifth of its revenue from government grants. Leading funders in the United States include The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, Cardinal Health, and the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as individuals, families, church, and other groups through child sponsorship. The operational budget is documented at $977,000,000 in World Vision’s 2007 annual report. World Vision reports in 2007 that 86% of its revenue is expended programs, with the remaining 14% dedicated to fundraising (9%) and management/general expenses (5%).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions The scale of World Vision’s work places it among the major international NGOs in the field of international relief works. The impact of World Vision’s work is broad, as thousands of employees on the ground in the world’s most vulnerable regions endeavor to carry out the transformational development, emergency relief and advocacy efforts to which their Christian mission is dedicated.
World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union
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Cross-References
▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance
WWCTU currently describes its purpose as the promotion of ‘‘a drug-free lifestyle and Christian values for the home and community.’’
References/Further Readings
Activities
Bornstein, E. (2001). Child sponsorship, evangelism, and belonging in the work of World Vision Zimbabwe. American Ethnologist, 28(3), 595–622. Brandt, D. P. (1997). Relief as development, but development as relief? The Journal of Humanitarian Assistance. Retrievable from http://jha. ac/1997/07/04/relief-as-development-but-development-as-relief/ Graham, F., & Lockerbie, J. (1983). Bob Pierce: This one thing I do. Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group.
The WWCTU claims to carry out projects under six Departments: Christian Outreach, Education, Home Protection, Social Service, Children, and Youth. It produces the quarterly White Ribbon Bulletin and promotes annual observances such as World No Tobacco Day and World No Alcohol Day.
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World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union THOMAS DAVIES
Address of Organization Rygjehaugvn. 13 4265 Haavik Terrasse Karmøy Norway www.wwctu.com
Introduction One of the oldest international women’s organizations, the World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WWCTU) has played an important historical role in the promotion of wider objectives such as peace and women’s suffrage in addition to temperance. It currently boasts ‘‘approximately forty’’ national branches, and its peak dues-paying membership was 766,000 in 1927.
Brief History The WWCTU was conceived in 1883 by Frances Willard, president of the national Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in the United States, which (having been founded in 1874) describes itself as ‘‘the oldest continuing nonsectarian woman’s organization in the world.’’ The world organization was designed to confront what was perceived as a transnational problem of alcohol and other drug use, and its first world convention took place in Boston in 1891.
Mission Having previously defined its objective as ‘‘the promotion of total abstinence from all alcoholic beverages,’’ the
‘‘Approximately forty’’ national unions participate in the World’s Union, which describes its governance as follows: eight world officers, each elected for terms of 3 years, are responsible for the decision-making between triennial world conventions at which officers are elected and the constitution and bylaws are amended; an official board comprising national presidents, world field workers, world department directors and world officers approves the appointments and budget and provides ‘‘for the other interests of the work.’’
Funding The WWCTU has an approximate annual budget of $50,000 and describes its main source of funding as investments. Historically the WWCTU has depended on dues from national unions, donations, and special appeals.
Accomplishments The peak period of the WWCTU’s influence was during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when it was important in promoting ‘‘women’s right to vote for world peace’’ as well as abstinence from alcohol and other drugs. The WCTU played a critical role in developing the suffrage movement in Australia and New Zealand, and in contributing towards the Eighteenth Amendment in the United States.
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society History V: 19th Century ▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ INGOs
References/Further Readings Staunton, D. (1956). Our goodly heritage: A historical review of the world’s woman’s christian temperance union, 1883–1956. London: Walthamstow Press. Tyrrell, I. (1991). Woman’s world/woman’s empire: The woman’s christian temperance union in international perspective, 1880–1930. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
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WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature KRISTIAN KRIEGER
Address of Organization International Secretariat Avenue du Mont-Blanc 27 1196 Gland Switzerland www.panda.org
Introduction WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature describes itself as ‘‘one of the world’s largest and most experienced independent conservation organizations.’’ Founded in 1961, it has pursued its conservation and environmental goals with the assistance of almost 5 million supporters and a global network active in more than 100 countries.
Brief History The establishment of the WWF in 1961 is a result of the engagement of a small number of British individuals: The biologist Julian Huxley published a series of articles in the British newspaper The Observer, highlighting the threat to wildlife in East Africa. The businessman Victor Stolan, alerted by the articles, suggested setting up an international organization to raise funds for wildlife conservation. Taking up this idea, a group of scientists and public relations experts established the WWF. Initial fund raising was undertaken through the so-called ‘‘National Appeals’’ offices which later became the WWF’s National Organizations. In 1986, reflecting its expanding range of activities, WWF changed its international name from the original World Wildlife Fund to World Wide Fund for Nature.
Mission WWF states as its mission to ‘‘stop natural degradation and build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.’’ Whilst the organization initially focused on protecting endangered species and preventing habitat destruction, this relatively narrow specialisation on wildlife and individual species was gradually replaced by a wider remit, formalised in a new strategy from 1990. In this
strategy, WWF identifies three areas of action for the pursuit of its mission, namely the conservation of the world’s biological diversity, the sustainable use of renewable natural resources, and the promotion of the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.
Activities WWF’s original activities revolved around the public appeals for donations, thereby creating awareness for conservation issues and acquiring funding for individual conservation projects that WWF supported. From the 1980s onwards, WWF has gradually introduced a more strategic and integrated portfolio of activities. This is exemplified by WWF’s recent work on the Global 200 Ecoregions of special ecological and evolutionary importance. Its activities in these regions encompass a bundle of activities, including the establishment of protected areas, environmental education, capacity building, and advocacy for policy change. From the organization’s beginnings, WWF activities have always characterized by the generation and use of scientific knowledge (e.g., WWF’s scientists identified and ranked the Global 200 Ecoregions) and have often been undertaken in partnership with other organizations, such as governments (e.g., establishing protected areas), other NGOs (e.g., running joint advocacy campaigns) and corporations (e.g., instigating certification schemes such as the Marine Stewardship Council with corporate partners such as Unilever).
Structure and Governance As an independent foundation, WWF is governed by a Board of Trustees under an International President. The Switzerland-based international secretariat coordinates the global network of WWF offices through generating policies and determining priorities, promoting global partnerships and managing international campaigns. There are three types of national WWF offices; those that can raise funds and carry out their work autonomously; others that work under the secretariat’s directions; and specialist advocacy offices in Brussels and Washington DC.
Funding The total income of the WWF network (across the entire network of offices) stood at CHF 817 million in 2007. The operating income of WWF International in the same year added up to CHF 165 million. More than half of WWF International’s income originates from the contributions by the autonomous, fund-raising national WWF offices (54%). With 27%, governments and public aid agencies accounted for the second largest
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proportion of WWF International’s income, followed by corporate contributions of 8%. Individual donations only account for 2% of WWF International’s operating income but 53% of the annual income across the entire WWF network.
Accomplishments Apart from preventing the extinction from numerous endangered species, most notably the panda, and advocacy campaign successes such as the long-standing Tropical Rain Forest Campaign, WWF made major contributions to research on the loss of biodiversity. Among WWF’s scientific contributions is the Living Planet Index, a composite of data from 3,600 species populations, published since 1998 and developed jointly with the World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The index
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is, for instance, used by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) to measure progress towards its biodiversity goals.
Cross-References
▶ INGOs ▶ NGOs and Sustainable Development
References/Further Readings Constance, D. H., & Bonnano, A. (2000). Regulating the global fisheries: The World Wildlife Fund, Unilever, and the Marine Stewardship Council. Agriculture and Human Values, 17(2), 125–139. Jakobeit, C. (1996). Nonstate actors leading the way: Debt-for-nature swaps. In R. O. Keohane & M. A. Levy (Eds.), Institutions for environmental aid – pitfalls and promise (pp. 127166). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Pearce, F. (2004). Treading lightly: The origins and evolution of WWF. Cambridge: Banson.
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The Paris Basis became the bond for the international movement and later it was a model for other ecumenical organisations (YWCA, Student Christian Movement, World Council of Churches) as well.
Address of Organization
Activities
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12, Clos-Belmont CH-1208 Geneva Switzerland www.ymca.int
Introduction The Young Men’s Christian Association is one of the oldest international nongovernmental organisations in the world. Today, the World Alliance of YMCAs reports having 45 million members and 14,000 local associations in 122 countries.
Brief History The YMCA emerged in the first half of the nineteenth century as a fruit of the Evangelical revival. Although the London YMCA from 1844 is normally regarded as the first YMCA, the older German Ju¨nglingsvereine formed up to the WW II another stream in the YMCA family that in many respects differed from the British model. When there were similar associations in Belgium, France, Netherlands, North America and Switzerland they began in correspondence and decided to meet during the Evangelical Alliance conference in Paris during the World Exhibition in August 1855. In that first YMCA World’s Conference the movement founded its international body, World Alliance of YMCAs and adopted its Paris Basis.
Mission/Objectives The Fundamental Principle of that original Paris Basis reads as follows: "
The Young Men’s Christian Associations seek to unite those young men who, regarding Jesus Christ as their God and saviour according to the Holy Scriptures, desire to be His disciples in their faith and in their life, and to associate their efforts for the extension of His Kingdom amongst young men.
The YMCA is primarily a youth organisation. It has been a pioneer in the development of organisational practices, youth work (clubs, camps, festivals, conferences), education (especially physical education), ecumenism and interfaith dialog, military canteens, services for refugees and migrants, and development cooperation.
Structure and Governance/Funding In the Preamble of the Basis it is stated that while YMCAs ‘‘are one in principle and in operation’’ all local associations preserve their ‘‘complete independence as to their particular organization and modes of action.’’ This clause has several consequences. First, the emphasis of the movement is at the grassroots level. The World Alliance has significantly small international staff and budget in the light of the size of the movement. Most international YMCA projects are bilateral between either local or national associations. Due to this, nobody knows the total yearly income and expenditure of the whole YMCA movement. Second, the World Alliance has no power over the national movements or local associations. Third, local freedom has enabled the YMCAs to respond to the local needs and adapt to different cultures of the world.
Major Accomplishments/Contributions During its history, the YMCA has diffused to all continents, developed organisational models and created new activities. Facing new challenges, the YMCA had to modify the interpretation of its mission to fit the needs of various niches but at the same time it has kept the Paris Basis untouched.
Cross-References
▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ INGOs
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▶ Mott, John Raleigh ▶ Non-Governmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ World Council of Churches ▶ YWCA
References/Further Readings Muukkonen, M. (2002). Ecumenism of the laity. Continuity and change in the mission view of the world’s alliance of Young Men’s Christian Associations, 1855–1955. Joensuu, Finland: University of Joensuu Publications in Theology 7. Binfield C. (1991). This has been tomorrow. The World Alliance of YMCAs Since 1955. Geneva: World Alliance of YMCAs. Shedd, C. P. et al. (1955). History of the world’s alliance of YMCA’s. London: SPCK.
Young, Michael GUNNAR GLA¨NZEL
Basic Biographical Information Michael Young (August 9, 1915 – January 14, 2002), awarded life peerage as ‘‘Baron Young of Dartington’’ in 1978, was a British sociologist, reformer, government advisor, and social entrepreneur. After spending his childhood in Australia he attended several authoritarian schools in Britain before he finally entered Dartington Hall School at the age of 14. The progressive and pragmatic education offered there helped him to develop the egalitarian perspective he promoted throughout his later life. He studied at the London School of Economics (BSc, 1938; Ph.D., 1955), was called to the bar in 1939, became Labour Party’s director of research in 1945 and well-known for drafting Labour’s 1945 manifesto ‘‘Let Us Face The Future.’’ His 1958 bestselling satire ‘‘The Rise of the Meritocracy’’ earned him widespread international popularity. Among other academic positions, he was lecturer in sociology (1961–3) and fellow of Churchill College (1961–6) at Cambridge University; the first chairman of the Social Science Research Council (1965–8; today the Economic and Social Research Council); trustee of Dartington Hall (1942–92); honorary fellow of the London School of Economics (from 1978) and Churchill College, Cambridge (from 1995); and President of Birkbeck College, London (1989–92).
Major Accomplishments/Contributions Both as a social scientist and as a practitioner, Young contributed significantly to civil society and Britain’s
welfare state. In sociology he earned recognition coauthoring the study ‘‘Families and Kinship in East London’’ (1957) that grew out of his work at the Institute of Community Studies, a think tank founded by Young in 1951 to research housing, poverty, and family life. Besides earning the issue of social justice widespread popular attention, his coining of the term ‘‘meritocracy’’ contributed to make Labour alter its social and educational policy. In his later academic life, he became increasingly interested in the relation between the elderly and society at large: In order to enhance the contact between generations, he co-founded the University of the Third Age (1982). Young is credited with the creation of over 60 organizations, the most well-known, influential, and successful of which including: The Consumers’ Association (1957); the Advisory Centre for Education (1960); the National Consumer Council (1975); the Open College of the Arts (1987); the National Association for the Education of Sick Children (1993); and the School for Social Entrepreneurs (1997). He also had major influence on the foundation of Britain’s Open University (1969) by the Labour Party.
Cross-References
▶ Social Cohesion ▶ Social Entrepreneurs ▶ Think Tanks ▶ Welfare State
References/Further Readings Briggs, A. (2001). Michael Young: Social entrepreneur. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Yunus, Muhammad FILIP ZIELINSKI
Basic Biographical Information Muhammad Yunus, was born on June 28, 1940 in a village near Chittagong, Bangladesh. His father was Muhammad Dula Mia, a jeweller and devout Muslim. After having studied economics at the Dhaka University, Yunus went to the United States to study at the Vanderbilt University (USA) on a Fulbright scholarship in 1966. He obtained a Ph.D. in economics and worked as an Assistant Professor at the Middle Tennessee State University.
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In 1972, after the Bangladesh Liberation War was over, he went back to Bangladesh to work at the Planning Commission of the General Economics Division of the government. After a few months, he decided to join Chittagong University where he was appointed to a professorship in Economics. During his stay in the United States, Yunus met his first wife, Vera Forostenko, who went back to New Jersey after the birth of their daughter Monica in 1977. Since 1980 Yunus is married to Afroji Yunus, a physics professor and mother of Yunus’s second daughter.
Major Contributions Yunus’ social-entrepreneurial activity, particularly the Grameen Bank, originates in his insight in the entrepreneurial potential of the poor, especially in rural areas of Bangladesh. Deeply disturbed by the famine that struck Bangladesh in 1974, Yunus questioned the use of traditional economic, academic and development aid approaches for those in need. The Grameen Bank, as well as Yunus’ other initiatives, seek to combine economic profitability with social improvement through alternative approaches that often question well-established structures and traditions that hinder available individual capabilities. Whereas Yunus is well-known as the ‘‘banker to the poor’’ for establishing and propagating microcredit loans in Bangladesh as well as other countries around the globe, he encouraged other projects as well, that function as Grameen Bank-funded projects or independent nonprofits or companies. Their activities include seed trade and production in cooperation with small and medium farmers, provision of risk capital to small and medium enterprises, support of fisheries, livestocks and dairies, development and popularization of solar energy and biogas plants, provision of phones to rural areas, overcoming of the digital divide through access to the internet, healthcare and health insurance, encouragement of IT development and training, production and trade of local fabrics and garments, education and granting of scholarships, merchant banking, promotion of social business, setting up of affordable eyecare hospitals as well as provision of low priced nutritious yoghurt. Since the 1980s Yunus worked in various governmental committees in the areas of economy, population policy, agriculture, education, and disaster prevention. In 2007, when Bangladesh faced persistent political conflicts and uncertainty, Yunus planned to form a political party (Nagarik Shakti – ‘‘citizen’s power’’) but gave up the plan shortly after. Yunus holds more than 25 honorary doctorates and numerous awards, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize
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2006. He is engaged in various international Organizations, e.g., Ashoka, World Health Organization, UNESCO, and World Bank, in areas such as women’s health, sustainable economic development, environment protection and social entrepreneurship.
Cross-References
▶ Ashoka ▶ Grameen Bank ▶ Social Entrepreneurship
References/Further Readings Yunus, M. (2006). Banker to the poor. The autobiography of Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank. London: Aurum Press. Yunus, M. (2007). Creating a world without poverty. Social business and the future of capitalism. New York: Public Affairs.
YWCA MARTTI MUUKKONEN
Address of Organization 16 Ancienne Route CH-1218 Grand Saconnex Geneva Switzerland www.worldywca.info/
Introduction Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) is, along with the YMCA and Student Christian Movement (SCM), one of the three great lay organizations that pioneered the ecumenical movement. All three have more similarities than differences between them. The speciality of the YWCA is its focus on women. It can be defined as a Christian women’s empowerment organization. In 2007, the YWCA worked in 122 countries and had 100,000 volunteers serving 25 million women and girls around the world. The actual number of members is not given due to differing membership criteria of national organizations.
History The origins of the YWCA are, on the one hand, in the prayer meetings of the mid-nineteenth century and, on the other hand, in the network of women’s homes first established in London in 1855. In 1877, these movements
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merged and took the name YWCA. Most of the founding mothers of YWCAs were relatives of the YMCA leaders. Similar associations were already established in the European Continent, France claiming to have the oldest YWCA. After the spread of the movement, the World YWCA was founded in 1894. Along with the Social Gospel movement, the emphasis of the YWCA work focused more and more on the empowerment of labor-class women. The history of the YWCA is much in par with the YMCA and SCM. All these organizations have partly overlapping membership, and many programs (student work, work for victims of war, international youth conferences, etc.) are organized jointly.
Mission In 1894, the YWCA adopted the modified YMCA Paris Basis (see Young Men’s Christian Association) as its basis but in 1914, following the example of the SCM, it changed it to express the Trinitarian Christology: ‘‘The World YWCA is founded on and inspired by the Christian faith.’’ There is a division inside the movement concerning the emphasis on the ‘‘C’’: some national movements have practically dropped it, some refer to the Judeo-Christian principles, and some are more or less devoted religious organizations. It is probable that, like in other Christian organizations, the more the movement gets members from the Third World, the more religious issues will come forward in the agenda.
Activities Traditionally, the YWCA has been a youth organization with a wide range of youth work. While this is still true, the activities vary from country to country. In some parts of the world, the YWCA is clearly a membership organization while in some other parts of the globe it is more a service provider. On a global level, the emphasis of the World YWCA is on women’s health and HIV/AIDS, human rights of women and children, world peace with justice, and sustainable development (including women’s economic justice and the environment).
Structure and Governance The YWCA is a federal organization in that local associations are members of national movements and thus, in turn, members of the World YWCA. The highest decisive body of the World YWCA is the World Council that meets
every fourth year. Between the councils, the World Board (including elected officials) carries the business of the organization in accordance to the decisions of the World Council. Along with the World YWCA, there exist eight regional organizations. Like in many international federal organizations, the composition of boards and the nationality of elected officials are highly political issues. There are informal rules concerning the rotation of offices from continent to continent and agreements to ensure the interests of the largest movements.
Funding Because of the federal structure of the YWCA, the total amount of money involved in the YWCA movement is not known. The quadrennial incomes and expenditures of the World YWCA for 2003–2007 is about CHF10 million. Major incomes are voluntary contributions (4.5 million), affiliation fees (2.7 million), program transfers (1.6 million), and investment incomes (1.2 million). In comparison, the yearly income of the US YWCA 2006–2007 was USD 9.7 million and the incomes of the YWCA of England and Wales was GBP 5 million in 2008. Moreover, when many national movements (Scandinavian, Canadian) are merged with the YMCA, there is no clear organizational boundary.
Major Accomplishments The YWCA has been one of the pioneer organizations in youth work, refugee work, and development cooperation. Much of this work has been done in cooperation with the YMCA and other organizations; thus, the YWCA is also a pioneer of interorganizational cooperation.
Cross-References
▶ Faith-Based Organizations ▶ INGOs ▶ Non-Governmental Organizations, Definition and History ▶ Religious Organizations ▶ World Council of Churches ▶ YMCAs, World Alliance of
References/Further Readings Rice, A. V. (1947). A history of the World’s Young Women’s Christian Association. New York: Woman’s Press. Seymour-Jones, C. (1994). Journey of faith. The history of the World YWCA, 1945–1994. London: Allison & Busby.
Z Zakat SAMIUL HASAN United Arab Emirates University, Al Ain, United Arab Emirates
Introduction Islam is a holistic religion and prescribes a regulatory framework encompassing all aspects of human life: spiritual, social, economic, and political. In order to ensure a society supporting economic relationships so that property may not merely ‘‘make a circuit between the wealthy among you,’’ the Qur’an commands the Believers to practice regular charity (zakat). Thus zakat has a special place in Islamic principle, and is a major tool for ensuring distributive justice in Islam.
Definition Zakat, derived from the root word zaka (literally meaning increase and purification, see Ali, 1938: note 6172), signifies alms-tax that might ‘‘purify and sanctify’’ wealth (Al Qur’an, 9:103). The term is used with two suffixes zakat on wealth (al mal) and zakat for breaking the fast (al fitr) (detailed below). Muslims are divided into two economic groups: zakat-ul-mal payers and zakat-ul-mal takers differentiated by the ownership (at least for a lunar year) of the nisab (threshold) – 85 g of gold or 595 g of silver or equivalent amount of money or trading stock on top of the family expenses. Zakat-ul-mal amount varies, being 2.5% for the Sunni Muslims and 5% for the Shiite Muslims. Zakat-ulmal payable on agriculture produce is higher and called ushr (literally meaning 1/10th), imposed at the rate of one tenth in nonirrigated lands or one twentieth (i.e., a half ushr or nishful ushr) on the produce from irrigated lands (Bukhari, 1971: 2:24:560). Zakat-ul-mal is called obligatory wealth tax, but unlike tax it applies to assets and savings, and does not attract any penalty for the defaulters. Further, in the tax system, the collectors either assess or verify the assessment, but the payer’s freedom in assessment makes zakatul-mal more a voluntary initiative than a compulsory
tax. Tax can be used for any purpose defined by the ‘‘collectors,’’ but zakat-ul-mal collection can be used only for certain prescribed purposes (please, see below). Zakat-ul-fitr, at the rate of 2.75 kg of the staple food (or equivalent amount of money) per person payable during the Eid (literally meaning ‘‘happy’’) ul fitr festival marking the end of the month of Ramadhan (dawn to dusk fasting), is compulsory for all who can afford (for the self and for the nonearning family members) (Bukhari, 1971: 2:25:579–584, 586, and 588).
Historical Background Zakat-ul-mal became a formal and compulsory transfer system in 622CE (Ali, 1938, note 5353). The Qur’an promises mercy for the Believers who establish regular prayer and practice regular charity (zakat-ul-mal) (Al Qur’an, 7:156; 9:71; 22:78; 24:56 and many more). So paying of zakat-ul-mal is next to prayer, and ensures distributive justice, not by coercion, but through the acceptance of moral principles (Dean & Khan, 1997). The recipients, likewise, are purified from jealousy and hatred of the well-off. Thus it is a type of ‘‘financial worship’’ and because of the holistic nature of the religion without its observance the efficacy of prayer is negated (Benthall, 1999: 2). Zakat-ul-fitr corresponds to the introduction of fasting, and is a tool for equity (offering food to the poor people), a vehicle for showing gratitude to God (for remaining healthy during the month of Ramadhan), and an opportunity for making good any mistakes in fasting (may have been made by not correctly following the Code). Prophet Mohammad established a tradition of collecting zakat-ul-fitr employing official collectors for an equitable and efficient distribution of the fund among the needy (Siddique, 1988).
Key Issues Items Zakat-ul-Mal is Payable on
According to the classical literature zakat-ul-mal is payable on savings or assets. According to later Sunni faqih (experts in Islamic jurisprudence), zakat-ul-mal is to be paid on earnings from all forms of primary, manufacturing, and service concerns. For trade zakat-ul-mal is
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levied both on the net worth, and on the net profit at the rate of 2.5%, and for industry and income from investments at the rate of 10% on the net profit (Gambling & Karim, 1986). According to the Shi’ite faqih (jurisprudence), zakat-ul-mal is obligatory on nine items only: on gold and silver coins; on camels, cows, and sheep; on wheat, barley, dates, and raisins. A more contentious issue is giving zakat-ul-mal on nonproductive assets such as dwelling houses, consumer durables, jewels, and gems – not included in the original list. Some scholars are in favor of paying zakat-ul-mal voluntarily on these items in excess of what is considered essential (e.g., a home in Europe cannot be equated with a hut in the seventh century Arabia, or a diamond ring with silver jewellery used in the seventh century) otherwise it may be tantamount to hoarding (Jafree & Amin, 2003: 45). The issue fuels the ongoing debate of zakat-ul-mal liability of a person with a home loan, while the best option seems to be zakat-ul-mal payment on the equity. There is also the debate of ushr on nonrenewable resources since crop producers have to pay ushr on their crop (or a half or nishful ushr even after bearing the cost of implements). Though many scholars argue that income from nonrenewable resources (e.g., petroleum) should be subject to similar nishful ushr, the issue is yet to be resolved. Vertical Assessment of ‘‘Nisab’’
Modifying the classical view, many recent Muslim economists suggest a ‘‘vertical’’ rather than ‘‘horizontal’’ assessment of nisab both at intra and inter-categories of wealth (Mannan, 1986). For example, if gold and silver or other stock do not come up to the required threshold level separately but their combined value does, the payment of zakat-ul-mal becomes obligatory (Jafree & Amin, 2003). Many traditionalists contend the argument by suggesting if that were the case the matter would have been in the classical literature. Automatic Zakat-ul-Mal Deduction at Source
In some countries, for example, Pakistan the major tool of the government’s zakat-ul-mal collection program is the usual deduction of 2.5% from all deposits in financial institutions (zakat deducting Agencies like banks, postal savings) except the current accounts (meant for business transactions) above the threshold (nisab) level (fixed at Rs.1,000 or about $15 in 1980). In some other countries, for example Bangladesh, financial institutions are reluctant to practice such method citing the absence of information about the account holders’ liabilities. It is more of a strategic than a theological issue because in the absence
of an initiative in the public sector, even the private Islamic banks do not want to take such an unpopular move and lose clients. Private financial institutions do not deduct shareholders’ zakat-ul-mal either showing the same reason. Nisab for Ushr Payment
According to the classical literature as long as a landowner or sharecropper’s share of all agriculture production reaches the nisab (948 kg) level, the producer becomes liable for ushr payment. The 948 kg nisab was for the main agriculture produce of Arabia (dates), so the cotton, pistachio, or saffron producer can either use a threshold level equivalent to the price of 948 kg of dates or take a moral responsibility of paying ushr as deemed fit by the producer. An item-based threshold calculation by a small commercial farmer producing many items may be manipulative and a device to evade ushr. Thus, commercial producers are advised to be mindful about that, but may also take a moral choice (available to the family farms). Absolute Ownership of or Service Benefit from Zakat-ul-Mal
Philanthropy funds can run further if pooled together and managed by an organisation instead of being given to individuals – mostly for unproductive activities. One of the problems often cited by people as a reason for not giving to organisations involved in development activities is that programs supported by zakat funds may benefit zakat-ul-mal payers – a religious taboo. There is also the question of tamlique (i.e., the zakat-ul-mal payer has to make a recipient owner of the ‘‘zakat’’). Thus some scholars argue that building of infrastructure with zakat funds is problematic because the targeted beneficiaries are to be made owners of zakat (not service beneficiaries), while others reject it arguing that the transfer to organization fulfills the condition of tamlique (Hasan, 2007). Social and Cultural Issues in Zakat-ul-Mal Management
Due to many social and cultural dynamics, zakat funds cannot be used in the best possible way. For example, there always has been family responsibility, an urge for seeing the direct outcome of giving, empathy towards the known individuals, or even needs for maintaining patronclient relationships, or the desire for maintaining the status quo. These factors constrict people, even if they are willing, from giving zakat-ul-mal outside the extended family resulting in a very low long term economic benefit of zakat, if at all.
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International Perspectives Entwining Zakat-ul-Mal and the Tax System
Muslims, subject to a threshold level, are required to give zakat-ul-mal on assets. Nevertheless, many countries, for example Malaysia, indirectly encourage salary earners, to pay zakat-ul-mal on annual income by organizing a payroll deduction and applicable tax exemption. Some other countries (e.g., Bangladesh, Pakistan) also have entwined zakat-ul-mal and the income tax streamlining and augmenting zakat collection. Standardization of and Professionalism in Zakat Collection
In the early days of Muslim era, zakat-ul-mal administration was a responsibility of the government following the tradition of Prophet Mohammad (Bukhari, 1971: 2:24:576). The system discontinued during the medieval period, and completely disappeared during the colonial era giving rise to a mosque based group of individuals collecting and using zakat-ul-mal. There are different recent examples of zakat administration in Muslim nations. For example, in Pakistan zakat-ul-mal is deducted at the source from eleven assets including savings and fixed deposit accounts, government bonds and securities. Similar public agencies are also responsible for zakat-ul-mal collection and distribution in countries like Indonesia or Sudan (Benthall, 1999). In some other countries, for example Jordan, ‘‘zakat committees’’ are formed all over the country with exclusive responsibility of supervising the collection and distribution of zakat-ul-mal. This system ensures benefit maximization through community participation in needs assessment and distribution planning, and financial recording and auditing (Hasan, 2007). In Malaysia private companies are now responsible for a motivational program and collection of zakat-ul-mal making it ‘‘an easy ibadah (prayer).’’ This professional and standardized zakat collection system have been very successful (a fourfold increase in zakat collection in the first 10 years), and cost effective (the cost is restricted to 12.5% of the total funds since collection is one of the eight categories eligible to receive zakat-ul-mal; Hasan, 2007). Zakat Fund ‘‘Management’’ to Suit the Contemporary Needs
The Zakat Board in Pakistan supervises the distribution of zakat to suit the local development needs, and invests the fund until disbursed. Some scholars are against the creation of an organization to deal exclusively with zakat
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because zakat funds may accumulate and eventually a huge public sector may emerge to corrupt the system (Hasan, 2007). Distribution and Use of Zakat-ul-Mal
While zakat-ul-mal is meant to purify wealth it is also meant to be distributed to reduce inequity. In the recent past, many countries have improved zakat-ul-mal distribution system. For example, the Islamic Council of Malaysia has expanded the ‘‘eight groups,’’ eligible to receive zakat, to suit the purpose of the present world. The category under ‘‘those in bondage or to free slave’’ thus has been expanded to incorporate: to free Muslims from ignorance; to free a Muslim community from a very oppressive condition; and to free those trapped in prostitution (Hasan, 2007). In Jordan zakat-ul-mal is used to support educational and income generating projects, old people’s homes, rehabilitation projects for handicapped people, soup kitchens and the like. In Egypt zakat funds are used to establish health clinics or to support unemployed people (Benthall, 1999). The zakat supported health clinics in Egypt offer services to the needy irrespective of religious background (with non-Muslims accounting for about 35% of the patients, see Clark, 1995). There are diverse new uses of zakat funds. Zakat-ul-Fitr
In order to make an effective and significant use of zakatul-fitr, many countries have developed an organized system of zakat-ul-fitr collection and use. For example, in Malaysia Zakat-ul-fitr is collected largely by the government appointed private collection agencies. As a result, every year more than 80% of the Muslims in Malaysia pay zakat-ul-fitr. The collected amount is distributed to people with identified needs.
Future Directions Zakat for Poverty Alleviation
An efficient use of zakat is so important that many scholars, referring to the advice of Caliph Umar bin Al-Khattab, recommend giving zakat in chunks to alleviate the recipients’ poverty. Since Islam encourages purposive philanthropy, Muslims in the present world, inhabited by millions of poor people, may supply productive inputs and training as zakat-ul-mal, and thus help the beneficiaries defeat poverty, achieve dignity, and improved takwa (remembrance of God), and in the process boost local economy.
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ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius
Equating Nonrenewable Natural Resources with Renewable Primary Produce
Since crop producers have to give zakat-ul-mal (ushr) on their crop (even after bearing the cost of implements), many Muslim scholars argue that income from nonrenewable resources (e.g., petroleum) should be subject to the same code. There have been unheeded recommendations like the creation of an international zakat system, whereby the richer Muslim states would help poorer Muslims (because the oil-producing Muslim nations may not have many poor people to receive such a huge volume of zakat-ul-mal) (Hasan, 2007). This zakat-ul-mal transfer to the resource poor countries is highly likely to reduce political tensions resulting from economic injustice and related frustration witnessed in the world. Reforms Through Legal Tools
Zakat-ul-mal introduced the first system of social security in the world, but has received a marginal position in the institutional form of Muslim countries; no Muslim state has a system of automatic redistribution (Benthall, 1999). Idle zakat funds, leakage of funds, inadequate coverage of zakat providers, and lack of proper accounting, monitoring, and evaluation are associated with zakat-ul-mal management in many countries (Khan, 1991), while evidences show, if used judiciously, zakat-ul-mal can solve many problems of the modern world. Zakat-ul-fitr distribution is still unorganized, and primarily an individual affair. Even if only 50% Muslims (as opposed to 80% in Malaysia) pay zakat-ul-fitr (between $0.50 to $5 per person, depending on the country, equivalent to 2.75 kg of food), about $1 billion is likely to change hands on the day of Eid ul fitr every year. No information about the use of this fund is available. An organized system may augment economic benefits and protect the zakat funds from misuse (some times by antisocial elements). The government and religious scholars in each country need to devise an efficient and effective zakat collection and distribution system to suit the country needs. Governments in most Muslim countries lack a popular base and tend to stay away from these contentious issues fearing backlash from the largely informal religious groups (aggrandizing power due to a weak government).
Cross-References
▶ Civil Society & Religion ▶ Religion and Philanthropy, Islam ▶ Sadaqa ▶ Waqf
References/Further Readings Ali, A. Y. (1938). The Holy Qur’an: Text, Translation and Commentary. Beirut: Dar Al Arabia. Benthall, J. (1999). Financial worship: the Quranic injunction to almsgiving. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 5, 22–29. Bukhari, M. I. I. (1971). The translation of the meanings of al-Bukhari by M. M. Khan (pp. 810–870). Medina: Al-Munawwara Islamic University. Clark, Janine A. (1995). ‘Islamic Social Welfare Organisations in Cairo: Islamization From Below?’, Arab Studies Quarterly 17(4), 11–17. Dean, H., & Khan, Z. (1997). Muslim perspectives on welfare. Journal of Social Policy, 26, 193–209. Gambling, T. E., & Karim, R. A. A. (1986). Islam and ‘‘social accounting.’’ Journal of Business Finance and Accounting, 13, 39–50. Hasan, S. (2007). Philanthropy and social justice in Islam: Principles, potentials, and practices. Kuala Lumpur: A. S. Noordeen. Jafree, M. K., & Amin, M. R. (2003). Administering Zakah: State of the art and looking beyond. In S. A. Hannan et al. (Eds.), Zakat and poverty alleviation (pp. 80–88). Dhaka: Islamic Economics Research Bureau. Khan, M. A. (1991). The future of Islamic economics. Futures, 23, 61. Mannan, M. A. (1986). Islamic economics: Theory and practice. London: Hodder & Stoughton. Siddique, M. (1988). Organisation of government under the holy prophet. Lahore: Islamic Publications.
ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius ANNA VAN SANTEN
Address of Organization Feldbrunnenstraße 56 20148 Hamburg Germany www.zeit-stiftung.de
Introduction The Hamburg-based ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius (ZEIT-Stiftung) is one of the most active private foundations in Germany. This independent charitable foundation is involved in research and scholarship, arts and culture, as well as training and education.
Brief History The ZEIT-Stiftung’s history is closely related to its founder’s background. Gerd Bucerius, a lawyer, with a Jewish wife suffered under the Nazi regime, and upon the end of the war in 1945 decided to actively contribute to founding a new German democracy and civil society. Gerd Bucerius did so by holding office in the German parliament,
ZEWO Foundation
publishing the newspaper DIE ZEIT and the magazine Stern as well as by supporting students with scholarships. In 1971 Gerd and his second wife Ebelin founded the ZEIT-Stiftung and bequeathed their fortune to the foundation in the 1990s.
Funding
Mission
Major Accomplishments
The ZEIT-Stiftung’s main goal is to strengthen civil society. It promotes private engagement that benefits society and focuses on active citizenship and independent social initiatives. It does so by stimulating new developments in research and scholarship, arts and culture, and education and training; by encouraging creativity; and by enriching and preserving Europe’s cultural heritage.
Activities In order to pursue this mission the ZEIT-Stiftung is involved in a large number of activities. The foundation’s flagship is the Bucerius Law School, the first private law school in Germany. Other projects are the Bucerius Kunst Forum (an art gallery), the educational initiative Bucerius LERN-WERK, and several scholarship programs. The ZEIT Stiftung is also engaged in international activities which focus mainly on Central and Eastern Europe, the United States, and Israel. The foundation’s major publications include a series on famous people from Hamburg – ‘‘Hamburger Ko¨pfe,’’ the ‘‘Non Profit Law Yearbook,’’ as well as the annual foundation report and several brochures.
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The ZEIT-Stiftung is funded primarily by the founder’s estate. In 2006, its endowment was valued at €765 million. As of August 2007, the foundation has provided grants and funding totaling €166.5 million.
One of the most important accomplishments of the ZEITStiftung was the founding of the Bucerius Law School, one of the first private universities in Germany. The ZEITStiftung’s involvement in education and research has contributed strongly to the recent reform spirit in German higher education. Other achievements are the foundation’s numerous successful programs in education, art, and culture that promote social engagement and international cultural exchange, such as the Bucerius Institute for Research of Contemporary German History and Society at the University of Haifa, the Transatlantic Academy in Washington DC, and the German Historical Institute in Moscow.
Cross-References
▶ Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen ▶ Foundations, Family
References/Further Readings The Ebelin and Gerd Bucerius ZEIT-Stiftung. (2007). An overview, Hamburg, from http://www.zeit-stiftung.de/ufile/3_548_6.pdf Dahrendorf, R. (2000). Liberal und unabha¨ngig. Gerd Bucerius und seine Zeit. Mu¨nchen, Germany: C.H. Beck.
Structure and Governance The ZEIT-Stiftung is governed by a board of four directors and a board of trustees. Its board of trustees has 13 members who come from the fields of politics, scholarship, journalism, and business. In addition, the foundation has about 40 staff members and several volunteers.
ZEWO Foundation ▶ Stiftung ZEWO
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Berger, Peter Ludwig Bernard van Leer Foundation Bertelsmann Foundation Beveridge, Lord William Henry Bhatt, Ela R. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Bismarck, Otto von Blended Value Bloch-Laine´, Franc¸ois Boards Bodelschwingh, Friedrich von Bo¨ll, Heinrich Bosch, Robert Boulding, Kenneth Ewart Bourdieu, Pierre Boy Scouts BRAC Brands and Branding Bread for the World Bremner, Robert Hamlett Brookings Institution Buchanan, James McGill Buffett, Warren Edward Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen Business and Employers’ Associations CAF Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation CARE Caritas Internationalis Carnegie, Andrew Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Catholic Charities USA Catholic Relief Services CDRA CEDAG CEMEFI Center for American Progress Center for Women’s Global Leadership Centre Franc¸ais des Fondations Centro Mexicano para la Filantropia, AC (CEMEFI) Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) Charity and Religion Charity Bank Charity, History of Charity Law Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
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Charta 77 Foundation Child Trust Fund Child Welfare League of America Churches and Denominations CIRIEC Citizens Coalition for Economic Justice Citizenship Civic Action Civic Agency Civic Culture Civic Participation CIVICUS Civil Law and Civil Society Civil Society and Civic Education Civil Society and Cultural Organizations Civil Society and Culture Civil Society and Democracy Civil Society and Economy Civil Society and Ethnicity Civil Society and Gender Civil Society and Religion Civil Society and Social Capital in Australia and New Zealand Civil Society and Social Capital in Brazil Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Eastern Europe Civil Society and Social Capital in Central and Southern Africa Civil Society and Social Capital in Central Asia Civil Society and Social Capital in China Civil Society and Social Capital in East Africa Civil Society and Social Capital in Japan Civil Society and Social Capital in Korea Civil Society and Social Capital in Mexico and Central America Civil Society and Social Capital in North Africa Civil Society and Social Capital in Russia Civil Society and Social Capital in Scandinavia Civil Society and Social Capital in South America Civil Society and Social Capital in South Asia Civil Society and Social Capital in Southeast Asia Civil Society and Social Capital in the European Tradition Civil Society and Social Capital in the Middle East Civil Society and Social Capital in the United States Civil Society and Social Capital in West Africa Civil Society and Social Inequality Civil Society and the Elderly Civil Society and the European Union Civil Society and the Media Civil Society History I: Antiquity
Civil Society History II: Medieval Period Civil Society History III: Renaissance Civil Society History IV: Enlightenment Civil Society History V: 19th Century Civil Society History VI: Early and Mid 20th Century Civil Society History VII: Late 20th and 21st Century Civil Society in Post-Conflict Scenarios Civil Society Indicators and Indexes Civil Society Theory: Aristotle Civil Society Theory: Cohen and Arato Civil Society Theory: Dahrendorf Civil Society Theory: Dewey Civil Society Theory: Ferguson Civil Society Theory: Gellner Civil Society Theory: Gramsci Civil Society Theory: Habermas Civil Society Theory: Hegel Civil Society Theory: Kant Civil Society Theory: Keane Civil Society Theory: Marx Civil Society Theory: Montesquieu Civil Society Theory: Paine Civil Society Theory: Rousseau Civil Society Theory: Shils Civil Society Theory: Smith Civil Society Theory: de Tocqueville Civil Society Theory: Walzer Civil Society, Definitions and Approaches Civil Society, Violence and War Civil Society–Business Relations Civility Cleveland Foundation Climate Action Network Clubs and Clans Coady, Moses Michael Coalitions and Networks Codes of Ethics and Codes of Practice Coleman, James Samuel Collective Action Coluche Comite´ europe´en des associations d’inte´reˆt ge´ne´ral Commercialization and For-Profits in Disguise Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (The Filer Commission) Common Law and Civil Society Commons Communitarianism Community Chest of Korea Community Development Organizations Community Development Resource Association (CDRA)
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Community Foundations of Canada/Fondations Communautaires du Canada Community Interest Companies Community Philanthropy Community, Types of Compagnia di San Paolo Compassion Comte, Auguste Consumers International Contracts and Contract Regimes Cooperatives and Employee Ownership Cooperatives, History and Theories of Corporate Giving Corporate Social Responsibility Corporation for National and Community Service Corporatism Cosmopolitanism Council on Foundations Credit Unions Cyber-Communities Dalai Lama David and Lucile Packard Foundation DECA, Equipo Pueblo Desroche, Henri Diakonie Diakonisches Werk der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland Digital Divide Ditchley Foundation Doctors without Borders Donor/Donor Intent Dotcauses Drucker, Peter Ferdinand Dunant, Jean-Henri (Henry) Durkheim, E´mile EAPG Ebadi, Shirin Ebert, Friedrich ECF EFC Effectiveness and Efficiency Eigen, Peter Elias, Norbert EMES – European Research Network Endowment, Definition and Management of Equipo Pueblo Esmee Fairbairn Foundation Esping-Andersen, Gøsta Ethos Institute Etzioni, Amitai European Association for Planned Giving (EAPG)
European Cultural Foundation (ECF) European Foundation Centre (EFC) European Research Network Evaluation and Civil Society Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation Fairbairn, Esmee and Ian Faith-Based Organizations Fanon, Frantz Fa¯ra¯bi-al, Abu¯ Nas.r Muh.ammad ibn al-Farakh Fe´de´ration Internationale des Ligues des Droits de L’Homme (FIDH) Federation of Egyptian Youth NGOs Federations, Nonprofit Feeney, Charles (Chuck) Francis Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund FIDH Filer Commission Filer, John H. Flexner, Abraham Fondation de France Fondazione Cariplo Ford Foundation Ford, Henry Foundation Center Foundations, Community Foundations, Corporate Foundations, Definition and History Foundations, Family Foundations, Functions of Foundations, Grantmaking Foundations, Grant-Seeking Foundations, Independent Foundations, Operating Foundations, Political Foundations, Public Law or Government Fourier, Charles Freedom House Freedom of Association Freemasons Freire, Paulo Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Friedrich Naumann Stiftung fu¨r die Freiheit Friends of the Earth Fugger, Jakob Fundacio´n ONCE Fundraising Gandhi, Mohandas K (Mahatma) Gardner, John W. Gates, William H. III GCAP Geldof, Bob
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German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) Getty, J. Paul Giddens, Anthony Gide, Charles GIFE Gift/Giving Gift Relationship Girl Scouts Giving Circles Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) Global Civil Society Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Global Reporting Initiative Global Witness Ltd. GMF Goff, Frederick Harris GONGOs Good Governance and Civil Society Goods and Services, Types of Governance, Organizational Government Organized Nongovernmental Organizations (GONGOs) Government–Nonprofit Sector Relations Gram Vikas Grameen Bank Grassroots Associations Greenpeace Grupo de Institutos, Fundaco˜es e Empresas (GIFE) Guggenheim, Peggy Guggenheim, Solomon Robert GuideStar Gulbenkian, Calouste Sarkis Habitat for Humanity Ha´jek, Jirˇ´ı Hammer, Armand Hanns Seidel Stiftung Hansmann, Henry Harmonious Society Havel, Va´clav Heinrich Bo¨ll Stiftung Heritage Foundation Hewlett, William Reddington Hill, Octavia Hla´vka, Josef Hobbes, Thomas Hodgkinson, Virginia Ann Horton, Myles Human Rights Human Rights Watch Hume, David Hybridity/Hybridization
IANGO Workshop IBFAN IBLF Ibn Khaldun ICA ICBL ICNL ICVA Identity Illich, Ivan Imagine Canada Independent Sector Informal Sector Information Technology/Internet INGOs Institut Pasteur Instituto Ethos de Empresas e Responsabilidade Social InterAction Interest and Pressure Groups Interest Politics Intermediary Organizations and Field International Advocacy NGO Workshop International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) International Business Leaders Forum (IBLF) International Campaign to Ban Landmines International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL) International Committee on Fundraising Organizations International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) International NGO Training and Research Centre International Organization for Standardization (ISO) International Planned Parenthood Federation International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) International Trade Union Confederation INTRAC Islamic Relief ISO ISTR Jacobs, Klaus Johann James, Estelle JANPORA Japan Center for International Exchange Japan Foundation Japan NPO Research Association (JANPORA) JCIE John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Johnson, Robert Wood II Joseph Rowntree Foundation Jubilee 2000 Kaiser, Henry John
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Kauffman, Ewing Marion Kellogg, William Keith Khaldun, Ibn King Baudouin Foundation King, Martin Luther, Jr. Klein, Naomi Klon/Jawor Association Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse Koning Boudewijn-Stichting/Fondation Roi Baudouin Konrad Adenauer Stifung Ko¨rber, Kurt A. Kouchner, Bernard La Ligue de l’Enseignement Labor Movements/Labor Unions Law, Foundations Law, Nonprofit Associations Leadership Legitimacy Lifecycle, NGOs Lilly Endowment Lilly, Eli Lobbying Locke, John Lutheran Social Services/Lutheran Services in America Lutheran World Relief Luxemburg, Rosa Maathai, Wangari Muta MacArthur, John Donald MADD Madison, James Madrassa (Madrasah) Make Poverty History Maktoum-al, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Mamdani, Mahmood March of Dimes Marketing Marshall, Thomas Humphrey Mauss, Marcel Me´decins Sans Frontie`res Medici Family Mellon, Andrew Membership and Membership Associations Michnik, Adam Mill, John Stuart Mission Missionary Societies Mohn, Reinhard Mosques Mother Teresa Mothers Against Drunk Driving Mott, Charles Stewart
Mott, John Raleigh MoveOn.org Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) MST Musgrave, Richard Able Mutual Organizations/Mutual Societies MYRADA National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) National Committee on Planned Giving National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO) National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) Nature Conservancy NCRP NCVO Nell-Breuning, Oswald von NEPAD New Economics Foundation New Partnership for Africa’s Development New Public Management NGOs NGOs and Humanitarian Assistance NGOs and International Relations, UN NGOs and Socioeconomic Development NGOs and Sustainable Development Nielsen, Waldemar A Nippon Foundation Nongovernmental Organizations, Definition and History Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) Nonprofit Management Nonprofit Mergers Nonprofit Organization Nonprofit Organizational Behaviour: Sociological and Psychological Approaches Nonprofit Organizations in the System of National Accounts Nonprofit Organizations, Comparative Perspectives Nonprofit Organizations, Functions of Nonprofit Sector and Poverty Reduction Nuffield Foundation O’Connell, Brian Olson, Mancur Omidyar Network One-Percent Provision Open Society Institute Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Organization of the Islamic Conference Organizational Forms and Development
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Owen, Robert Oxfam International Packard, David Parita¨tischer Wohlfahrtsverband (Parity) Parity Parsons, Ralph Monroe Participation Partnership for Philanthropic Planning Partnerships Pasteur, Louis Peace and Conflict Resolution Organizations Peasant and Farmers’ Organizations People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy Performance and Impact Pew Charitable Trusts Philanthropic Initiative Philanthropy and Professional Advisors Philanthropy and Religion, Buddhism Philanthropy and Religion, Christianity Philanthropy and Religion, Hinduism Philanthropy and Religion, Islam Philanthropy and Religion, Judaism Philanthropy and the Media Philanthropy Australia Philanthropy in Africa Philanthropy in Australia Philanthropy in Europe Philanthropy in Latin America Philanthropy in North America Philanthropy in Russia and Central Asia Philanthropy in South East Asia Philanthropy in the Middle East Philanthropy, Ancient Philanthropy, Definition Of Pierre, Abbe´ (Henry Groue`s) Pithart, Petr Planned Giving Polanyi, Karl Political Organizations Political Society Popper, Sir Karl PRIA Professional Associations proFonds Proudhon, Pierre Joseph Public Benefit and Public Good Public Benefit Companies Public Choice Public Sphere Public Value Putnam, Robert
Quakers (Religious Society of Friends) QUANGOs Quasi Nongovernmental Organizations QUANGOs Raiffeisen Banks Raiffeisen, Friedrich Wilhelm RAND Corporation Reciprocity Red Cross Religious Orders Religious Organizations Religious Society of Friends Replicability and Scaling Up Results and Performance Rhodes Trust Robert Bosch Stiftung GmbH Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers Rockefeller Brothers Fund Rockefeller Foundation Rockefeller, John D., Jr. Rockefeller, John D., Sr. Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Rosenwald, Julius Rothschild Family Rowntree, Joseph Russell Sage Foundation Sadaqa Sage, Margaret Olivia Sage, Russell SANGOCO Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy (Comte de) Salamon, Lester Salvation Army Sasakawa Peace Foundation Save the Children Savings and Loan Associations Schervish, Paul G. Schmitt, Carl Schulze-Delitzsch, Franz Hermann Schumpeter, Joseph Alois Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship Schweizerische Gemeinnu¨tzige Gesellschaft Secours Catholique Secret Societies Seidel, Hanns SEKN Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) Self-help Groups Self-organization SEWA Shack/Slum Dwellers International Sierra Club
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Simon, John G. SIPRI Skocpol, Theda Skoll Foundation Sloan, Alfred Pritchard, Jr. Smith, David Horton Sociability Social Accountability International Social Accounting for Social Economy Organizations Social Audits Social Capital, Definition of Social Change Organizations Social Cohesion Social Economy Social Enterprise Social Enterprise Knowledge Network (SEKN) Social Entrepreneurship Social Franchising Social Investment Social Justice Social Marketing Social Movements Social Origins Theory Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Social Trust Social Watch Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA) Solidarity Solidarity Economy Soros, George de Soto, Hernando South African National NGO Coalition (SANGOCO) SSRC Stakeholder Society Stakeholders Stedile, Joa˜o Pedro Stiftelsen Riksbankens Jubileumsfond Stifterverband fu¨r die Deutsche Wissenschaft Stiftung ZEWO Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Strategic Philanthropy Strategic Planning Subsidiarity Surdna Foundation Sustainability Swiss Foundations Tata Trusts Tax Deductions for Charitable Contributions in the United States Tax Exemption, Justifications for
Tax Policy Theories of Nonprofit Organization, Economic Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Economic Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Political Theories of Nonprofit Sector, Sociological Think Tanks Third-Party Government Third Sector Third Sector Foundation of Turkey Third Way Time Banking UK Titmuss, Richard Morris Tompkins, James John To¨nnies, Ferdinand Touraine, Alain TPI Transnational Forums and Summits Transparency Transparency International Trusteeship Tu¨rkiye U¨c¸u¨nc¸u¨ Sekto¨r Vakfi (TU¨SEV) UIA Umbrella Organizations UN Global Compact Uncivil Society UNICEF Union of International Associations (UIA) UNIOPSS United Nations United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) United Nations Foundation United Way Values Venture Philanthropy Volkswagen Stiftung Voluntary Sector Compacts Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN) Volunteer Management Volunteers VSSN W.K. Kellogg Foundation Wakfs (Waqfs) Wallenberg Stifelse Walras, Le´on Washington, George WaterAid WCC Webb, Beatrice Potter Weber, Max Weisbrod, Burton A.
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Welfare State Wellcome Trust Wichern, Johann Hinrich WINGS Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom Work and Employment in the Nonprofit Sector World Bank World Business Council on Social Development World Council of Churches (WCC) World Economic Forum World Social Forum World Trade Organization (WTO)
World Vision World’s Woman’s Christian Temperance Union WTO WWF-World Wide Fund for Nature YMCAs, World Alliance of Young, Michael Yunus, Muhammad YWCA Zakat ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius ZEWO Foundation
