Who are the active and central actors in the ‘rising civil society’ in Mexico?

The debate about the rise of civil society in Mexico suggests that the processes of political and economic liberalization are multiple and uneven and, thus, have different and contradictory effects on different social groups. This study takes such arguments into account and examines the nature of collective identities and social networks that are more likely to be mobilized in the rising civil society. Who, with what types of social networks and identities, are the active actors in this rising civil society in Mexico? This study also attempts to identify the central actors who take an active part in multi-sector coalitions. As such a broad coalition often leaves profound effects on politics and society, it is vital to ask which actors are likely to take an important step toward multi-sector coalition making. Using a catalog of 1797 protest campaigns collected from three Mexican newspapers between 1964 and 2000, event frequency analysis is employed to find active actors and social network analysis – blockmodel method and degree centrality measure – is applied to uncover central actors. The analyses reveal that while workers, peasants, or students continue to be very active, the centrality of these actors in contentious networks and coalitions has not increased. New central actors in the rising civil society turn out to be civic associations and NGOs formed around single issues, such as environment, retirement, and human rights. When a multi-sector coalition occurs in contemporary Mexico, NGOs and civic associations are likely to play a crucial role in it.     

Civil society,social capital and the Twelve Step group

This article examines the nature of community and family by using the concept of civil society through a Twelve Step group called Al-Anon. Al-Anon is related to Alcoholics Anonymous and is a support group for families of alcoholics. The concept of civil society is addressed by looking at its development in political philosophy and sociology. The work of Putnam, in particular, is used to understand how civil society and the associations which make it up develop social capital [Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy, Princeton University Press (1993); Journal of Democracy, 6(1), 65–78 (1995); The Responsive Community, 5(2), 18–33 (1995)]. Social capital is understood to be norms and values such as trust and reciprocity that enable sociability or social connectedness. Community, then, embodies these norms of trust and reciprocity through their development in Al-Anon. Al-Anon is studied as an example of an association in civil society. The data come from an ethnographic study in Australia and five European countries as well as in-depth interviews with women members in Australia. The article reviews the similarities and differences between the various countries as well as the form that social capital takes for individual members.     

The Genesis and Proliferation of Civil Society in Democracy and Monarchy: A Historical Comparison of America and Prussia in the Nineteenth Century

The notion that civil society and democracy go hand in hand has been a cornerstone of modernization theory. The formation of civil society, so the argument went, contributed to the democratization of society and provided the backbone of democracy. If one follows such an interpretation of modernization and of modern society, monarchic systems should be void of civil society. And yet, the case of Germany shows that civil society developed and even flourished within a monarchic society. The Kingdom of Prussia in 1865 was the home to an extensive network of civil society organizations that included associations, endowments, and foundations. These organizations provided services in the fields of education, social welfare, and supported all kinds of cultural institutions. These organizations were essential for the functioning of Prussia’s public institutions. Donors who created these institutions had a voice in the shaping of monarchic society, and the visions of donors often coincided with the visions put forward by monarchical rulers. The number of Prussians involved in giving, the number of organizations created, and the amount of money given were truly astonishing. Between 2 and 3% of Prussia’s population was involved in civil society organizations. The funds provided by these organizations accounted for 20–30% of public-school funding. And the number of organizations created a tight network that spanned across the entire country. Nineteenth-century monarchic Prussia was not void of civil society as it should have been if American social scientists are correct. Instead, Prussia provided the home to a vibrant civil society. Civil society emerges when societies move from an agrarian and organized system of social hierarchies to an industrial, and traditional social hierarchies destroying system. The destruction of established social hierarchies, the creation and accumulation of wealth, and the emergence of social inequality provided powerful incentives for the formation of civil society. Since this economic modernization and transformation occurred not only within democratic societies such as the USA but also within monarchic societies such as Prussia, civil society developed in both types of political system

     

Civil Society or the State?: Recent Approaches to the History of Voluntary Welfare

Since the 1970s a drift away from state corporatist solutions to social welfare problems has had its parallel in an academic rediscovery of the voluntary sector. Revived confidence in non–statutory approaches often assumes two things. Firstly, that voluntary action is a vital component in civil society and that civil society itself is an attribute of liberal democracy. These ideas are central to the perceived 'crisis of the welfare state'. They are also related to debates about political culture and the future of democracy with the institutions of civil society cast positively as 'schools of citizenship'. Secondly, it is frequently assumed that there is an opposition in principle between the voluntary and the statutory and in some quarters an assumption (reversing an earlier presumption about the rationality of state welfare) that voluntary action is the superior mechanism (at least morally). The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, I want to reflect on the revival of interest in the role of the institutions of civil society in the history of welfare provision. Second, I will survey some recent approaches to voluntary action and 'civil society'. Third, in the process of this survey I discuss the relevance of these approaches to the study of past states of welfare.     

Civicness: From Civil Society to Civic Services?

Activities in civil society, seen as the sphere of society in which voluntary associations are dominant, are considered an important source of civility in modern society. By interacting and finding solutions for common problems, members of associations turn into citizens with a broader perspective and interest in the common good. The evidence for these positive roles is at best mixed, however. Not voluntarily associating in a separate sphere of civil society, but combining associational with public and commercial modes of social coordination, appears to offer a more promising option for civilizing modern society. Examples of hybridity are discussed. The paper concludes with a plea for a clearer recognition in social research of civicness as a normative perspective.

The Ideological Convergence of Civil Society Organizations and Newspapers in Turkey

This study investigates the extent to which newspapers are polarized in representing civil society organizations in Turkey. In examining the news in 15 printed newspapers and 2 online newspapers in 2017, we found that (1) 1499 associations and 499 foundations were mentioned but not equally distributed across the newspapers, (2) Turkish newspapers’ coverage of associations/foundations was affected by the type of association/foundation (religious/conservative vs. secular) and newspaper (pro-government vs. anti-government), (3) when news about an association/foundation appeared in pro-government newspapers, it did not appear in anti-government newspapers, and vice versa, and (4) secular associations/foundations were covered more often by anti-government newspapers than by pro-government newspapers. We therefore argue that in countries such as Turkey, where civil society organizations have historically been closely allied with state or political ideologies, newspapers’ political stances affect the media coverage of civil society organizations.

     

State and Civil Society in the Political Philosophy of Alexis de Tocqueville

Alexis de Tocqueville discusses extensively the phenomenon of civil society. He distinguishes between the competence of the state on the one hand and the proper competences of free associations on the other. Therefore, the competence of the state should be a limited one. However, since free associations can cause social struggle, the government should also have the ability to limit self-regulation of free associations. Moreover, each government needs a social basis that gives support to this policy of intervention. The central question of this article reads as follows: What method of research is Tocqueville employing to discover this social basis. The conclusion is that his method is to discover what mores form the basis needed by a democratic government to pursue its policy of intervention.     

Robert Nisbet and the Problem of Community

The article traces the importance and development of the concept of ‘community’ in Robert Nisbet’s sociological theory. Community and voluntary associations were key components of his view of civil society, because they stood between the individual and the state as bastions of personal liberty against authoritarianism. This idea was taken from Alexis de Tocqueville’s analysis of America democracy and developed by Nisbet as a critique of modern America. The article examines the conservative underpinnings of Nisbet’s sociology and compares his perspective on civil society with the idea of civil religion in J-J Rousseau and Robert Bellah. Nisbet’s perspective is criticised because not all voluntary associations have beneficial effects on civil society. The article considers how far his views on authority and community are still relevant and concludes by making a distinction between ‘sticky societies’ that are hard to join and difficult to leave and ‘elastic societies’ that are easy to join and cost-free to leave, and asks whether community is possible when the Internet has transformed sticky relationships into elastic, thin and dispersed relationships.     

Civil Society and Democracy: The Israeli Experience

Civil society has been considered pivotal to democracy, but the causes of its performance have remained controversial. According to one view the political context is a critical factor in shaping the contours of civil society. Another suggests that whether democracy prevails is contingent on society itself and the associations comprising it. In a test of these views it was assumed that if society prevails associations would vary by type. If the state is more important, then associations would be expected to score similarly on the democratic scale. It was also expected that variation among the types of performance would cut across group categories, reflecting general attributes of the polity. Data were derived from a survey conducted among voluntary associations in Israel (n = 360). Findings showed that (a) associations scored similarly on the democratic scale, (b) the scores for the democratic performance were not influenced by group category, and (c) the least performed function was integration.     

Women and philanthropy in Argentina: from the society of beneficence to Eva Perón

This article focuses on the history of voluntary associations in Argentina over the past 200 years. Argentine voluntary associations have their roots in the alliance of the Catholic church, the state and the country's elites, in which women played major roles. The charitable stage can be divided into two phases: the first (1600–1899) was encouraged mainely by the church, in particular through the Sisters of Charity; the second (1820–1940) took shape under state patronage in a period of centralisation and secularisation. TheSociety of Beneficence, a quasi-public institution run by wealthy women, emerged as the most important institution for public assistance until the formation of the Eva Perón Foundation, which became the paradigmatic form of social assistance in the 1940s. Nevertheless, the approach adopted by the Foundation differed very little from those of its precursors. Within this framework the current social development model attempts to reconfigure the relationships between the public institutions and civil society. Anahí Viladrich is currently a consultant at the Center for the Study of Philanthropy for the International Research ProjectWomen and Philanthropy.     

Contingent Pathways from Joiner to Activist: The Indirect Effect of Participation in Voluntary Associations on Civic Engagement1

Many analysts of civil society argue that the path from activity in voluntary associations to political participation is largely mediated—membership leads to unintentional political socialization through discussion and/or cognitive engagement, which then leads to participation. Others, however, have noted that groups are often effective in the direct mobilization of their members. This article tests these competing claims, while also considering the extent to which the mediation process relies on negative social capital (targeted requests for activity). Employing a series of structural equation models, I find strong support for the mediation argument, as well as for the perspective that negative social capital is a significant mediator in the pathway from social joiner to political activist.     

Blurring the Lines Between Civil Society,Volunteering and Social Movements. A Reflection on Redrawing Boundaries Inspired by the Spanish Case

Citizen participation is manifested through various concepts, such as activism, social movements, volunteering or civil society. The different ways of understanding popular engagement are often separated by delimitations that define them, particularly volunteering and civic action, as two highly differentiated forms of participation in the distinct academic disciplines: political science, volunteering studies, social movement studies or civil society theory. This article considers whether this basic theoretical differentiation can be problematised in the Spanish political context by exploring four paradigmatic cases of popular engagement, using qualitative case study methodology, specifically, a historic case from the 1990s and three more recent cases. It is hoped that the results of the study—which differentiates between organisational hybridity and fuzziness—will encourage reflection on the traditional boundaries between different forms of popular engagement.     

Does Gender Equality Influence Volunteerism? A Cross-National Analysis of Women’s Volunteering Habits and Gender Equality

Research regarding the roles of women in society and in political and social organizations is large, with scholars focusing on the likelihood of political and social engagement. However, few of these studies examine the influence of gender on participation in voluntary organizations by utilizing cross-national data. This study intends to analyze the influence of gender on the type of organization that an individual volunteers and on whether these volunteering habits are influenced by the gender equality in a country. Is there segregation in the type of organizations men and women volunteer? Do women in more gender equal societies have similar volunteering patterns as men, or does the difference continue in volunteering? For this study, we use the World Values Survey from 1999 to 2002, to identify the differences in the types of organizations that men and women volunteer and discuss the impact gender equality has on these volunteering patterns.     

Membership Matters: Why Members Engage with Professional Associations

Professional associations face the challenge of member engagement. This study examined the effects of members’ need fulfillment and perceived organizational support on their attitude toward the professional association and engagement with the association with a survey of 13,229 members from 18 associations. More specifically, this analysis focused on members’ perceptions of need fulfillment and organizational support as motivations of member engagement. Our results suggested that member perception of need fulfillment and organizational support positively influenced their attitude toward their association, which was positively related to their engagement with the association in volunteering and donating funds. In addition, members’ perceived support from the association was found to motivate their engagement with the association. Moreover, we identified gaps in members’ volunteering behavior between junior and senior members: career status significantly moderated the relationship between attitude toward and volunteering for the association, with junior members showing a stronger effect. The theoretical and practical implications of this study were discussed.     

Participation in Bridging and Bonding Associations and Civic Attitudes: Evidence from Flanders

Current scientific research and recent policy initiatives reveal an intense interest in the effect of social capital on a broad range of socioeconomic outcomes both at the individual level (e.g., civic attitudes) and the societal level (e.g., democratic or economic performance). Despite persistent argumentation in this debate that voluntary associations are of crucial importance in this process, empirical research usually reveals but a weak relation between membership and democratic (or civic) attitudes. In this paper, we follow recent arguments that various types of associations may play different roles. Specifically, we empirically distinguish between bridging and bonding associations based on the socioeconomic diversity within an association. Using a dataset on association membership in Flanders, we find empirical support for the view that individuals’ values and attitudes indeed differ across members in (predominantly) bridging or bonding associations.

Religious Involvement and Participation in Volunteering: Types,Domains and Aggregate

Prior research on investigating the religion–volunteering relationship has tended to commonly treat religious involvement as single-item measures, e.g., frequency of church attendance, and has defined volunteering as a simple dummy variable (1 = volunteers, 0 = otherwise). The present study attempted to look at the above relationship by measuring religious involvement as a multifaceted and multi-item measure and volunteering as engaging in different types of voluntary activity, and specific domains and overall aggregate of volunteering. The results based on a statewide representative sample from the Survey of Texas Adults 2004 showed that religious involvement was generally and significantly related to higher volunteering across voluntary types, domains, and aggregate count of volunteering, but varied in magnitude contingent on the types and domains being examined. In addition, the religious effects were held even adjusting for a variety of pertinent socio-demographic and denominational characteristics, in which these background characteristics are more dynamic in relation to volunteering than we knew. Implications of the findings related to social services and policy making are discussed.     

Interpersonal trust and voluntary associations: examining three approaches

The relationship between interpersonal trust and membership in voluntary associations is a persistent research finding in sociology. What is more, the notion of trust has become a central issue in current social science theorizing covering such diverse approaches as transaction costs economics or cognitive sociology. In different ways and for different purposes, these approaches address the role of voluntary organizations, although, as this paper argues, much of this thinking remains sketchy and underdeveloped. Against an empirical portrait of this relationship, the purpose of this paper is to assess such theorizing. We first set out to explicate major approaches to trust in economics, sociology and political science, using the non-profit or voluntary organization as a focal point. We then examine the various approaches in terms of their strengths and weaknesses, and, finally, identify key areas for theoretical development. In particular, we point to the social movement literature, the social psychology of trust, and recent thinking about civil society.     

Organizations and Alienation: The Mediation Hypothesis Revisited*

It is a widely accepted premise of mass society theory that voluntary associations play an important integrating role in modern society by mediating between the individual and the remote influences on life, work, and politics. There are two major variants of the mediation hypothesis: (1) purely social interaction within organizations lessens alienation in immediate relationships; (2) interaction accompanied by political exposures reduces alienation in the political domain. Controlling for social class, activity in instrumental, political groups is associated with significantly lower levels of political alienation. Activity in nonpolitical, social organizations is found to have more general attitudinal consequences—both for levels of social alienation and for estrangement from political processes. These patterns suggest that, despite the consistent effects of SES on nonalienative beliefs, voluntary associations provide independent settings of social and political integration.     

Occupational inequalities in volunteering participation: Using detailed data on jobs to explore the influence of habits and circumstances

In this paper we present empirical results that show that detailed occupations have distinctive patterns of association with voluntary participation. We draw upon data from four secondary survey datasets from the UK (coverage 1972–2012). Occupations are shown to link to volunteering in a wide range of scenarios and in individual, household, and longitudinal contexts. We argue that these linkages provide insight into social inequalities in volunteering, and that they can help us to understand the relative influence of “circumstance” and “habits” in enabling or inhibiting voluntary participation.     

Unsettling connections: transnational networks,development and African home associations

With the transnational turn in the social sciences attention has now turned to ‘global civil society’, ‘transnational civil society’, ‘transnational networks’ and, most recently, ‘migrant’ or ‘diasporic civil society’. Claims are being made about the developmental potential of these new configurations of civil society, and the global connections forged by migrant and diaspora associational life have been reified into things called ‘networks’ for the purpose of enrolling them into development policy. In this article, we challenge the network model through an analysis of transnational Cameroonian and Tanzanian home associations. The idea of a network suggests an overly robust and ordered set of linkages for what are in effect often loose and transient connections. African home associations draw attention to the historically‐embedded and mundane ways in which forms of associational life can be ‘transnational’ outside the formalized structures and Eurocentric development hierarchies created by international NGOs and other development institutions. Although they form largely invisible connections operating outside these hierarchies, African home associations unsettle assumptions about the geography of civil society and its relationship with development. Close attention to the histories and geographies of African home associations reveals that power and agency more often lie with migrants and elites within Africa than with the transnational diaspora.